Shakespeare isn't Jim's forte. But it was Welles's forte and when one is so passionate about a subject and so immensely talented when it comes to conveying it, then some of that passion and appreciation is going to translate no matter what.

Buried somewhere within The Stranger is a great film. Unfortunately, due to the meddling of editor Ernest J. Nims we'll only ever get to see this pretty good version of The Stranger. Still, "pretty good" Orson Welles leaves gives us a lot to admire and appreciate, like how so many long takes actually adds value and importance to editing.

Tyler Smith rejoins IDMB to discuss the films of Orson Welles, who was actually quite a famous filmmaker (Citizen Kane, Touch Evil) before he voiced Unicron and was parodied on The Critic. Tyler makes the case for why Welles is and was an essential and path-paving filmmaker, hypothesizes why studio interference makes it difficult to define what "an Orson Welles film" means, and explains why he's not recommending either Kane or Touch of Evil before recommending The Stranger (1946), Chimes at Midnight (1965), and F for Fake (1973).

So, Starship Troopers is a satire, right? But what if it wasn't meant to be? What if Verhoeven tried to make a serious movie but what he gave us was satire instead? How much does the intent matter vs. the interpretation? Can I fit one more question into this summary?

On one hand, Basic Instinct is a morally bankrupt film that has no illusions about being anything more than a trashy, titillating murder mystery attempting to flaunt sex during a time of repression and conservatism. On the other hand, I understand a lot of the jokes in National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 now.

Katie Tippel - Verhoeven's only Dutch film of this month - may be a little too conveniently coincidental of a narrative, but it does lay down the 3 themes on which Jim will be keeping an eye as the month goes along: the separation and clash between social classes, the usage of sex as an exploration of power dynamics, and (sigh) an inability to direct actors very well.

Mat Bradley-Tschirgi Part 2: Verhoeven Buggaloo. Yes, Mat returns to IDMB after the relaunch of Sequelcast to discuss the sexy, violent, and quite often satirical films of Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven. In addition, the boys also explore what it would look like if Verhoeven had directed Man on of Steel before moving on to the recommendations: Katie Tippel (1975), Basic Instinct (1992), and Starship Troopers (1997).

After Jim has a mini-existentialist criss of the film criticism kind, he manages to (maybe) say a few coherent things here and there about Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...And Spring. But only a few.