Jason and the Movienauts

The world of film fandom erupted into a small controversy recently when Criterion announced they'd be releasing a 40th anniversary boxset with 40 movies they selected. That got Jason, Bryant and Michelle talking: What would they include in their 40 movies in their boxset?

So the group decided to get together and debate their selections, and slowly but surely build a collection which we believe is pretty dang interesting.

Hear the results in the longest - but we think most fun - episode of Jason and the Movienauts episode so far!

Blaize is back with Jason to continue their look at the films of Paul Schrader, this time with perhaps Schrader's oddest career killing move.

In 2014 Schrader was contracted to deliver a "geezer teaser" action thriller with Nicolas Cage called Dying of the Light. But the film was taken away from Schrader and edited without his consent. So Schrader created his own take on Dying and posted it to torrent sites as Dark.

Are either of these films any good, or is this another example of the eternal oddball Schrader sabotaging his old career. Can the old man learn new tricks?

Answer: well, it's complicated!

Eric is back to talk Masahiro Shinoda again with Jason, this time chatting about three of the master's movies centered around love: One Way Ticket to Love, Epitaph to My Love and Love, New and Old. These are early Shinodas, which means they're less experimental - but even in these early films, a lot of the genius of Shinoda shines through and makes these films well worth watching. Join us and find out why!

Now Eric and Jason come to an odd point in their look at the films of the great Masahiro Shinoda. Shinoda made one unabashedly commercial film, his look at the 1972 Sapporo Winter Olympics. So they had to look at that movie, but what to pair it with? They ended up deciding to look at perhaps the most critically acclaimed Olympics documentary ever made, Kon Ichikawa, 1965 Tokyo Olympiad.

The films are almost in dialog with each other. Both take similar concepts and do different things with them, so what emerges from a watch of both is an intriguing compare and contrast: about these films, about the portrayal of sports on celluloid, and even about tthe way Japanese society changed in one short decade.

It's a fun listen, and we'd love to hear your take on the same ideas.

This week, Paul and Shawn join Jason as the trio discuss a pair of outlier films in the careers of two of their favorite directors: first, Fast Company, directed by David Cronenberg, divided the crew. Fast Company is a fairly by-the-numbers look at drag racing in western Canada in the late 1970s. Paul felt like the film didn't use its talent well enough, while Shawn and Jason fell into the film's vibe.

Then they discuss The Straight Story, David Lynch's most experimental film (according to Mr Lynch). This time Paul disliked its meandering pace and pat insight into human nature while Shawn and Jason both liked the dark mysteries at the center of the film's lead characters.

Disagreements make for good listening and we think you will enjoy this episode.

This time in our look at the films of Paul Schrader, Blaize and Jason get obscure and controversial.

First they look at Schrader's decidedly different Adam Interrupted, which stars Jeff Goldblum as a former popular German entertainer who is sent to a Nazi concentration camp - and the trauma that camp visits upon him. It's a very Goldblum type of performance, as the guys discuss.

Then they get to the notorious The Canyons, a kickstarter-funded LA noir starring rehabbing Lindsay Lohan and abusive porn star James Deen. It's an odd film for all those reasons, and many more which the guys argue and debate about in detail - this is one of the episodes in which the guys disagree the most.

We think this is a very interesting 100 minute (!) chat and well worth your time!

This week Carl Smith of Becoming Valiant: A Valiant Comics Podcast joins Jason to talk about one of the more oddball intriguing stories of comics-to-film.

You might never have heard of Valiant Comics, but it's possible that if COVID had never happened, Valiant would be a household name these days. See, their big-screen debut, Bloodshot, hit just as Coronavirus shutdowns hit the world. That means nobody ended up seeing the film and that caused the Valiant Cinematic Universe to die before it was ever born.

Carl and Jason talk Bloodshot along with a fan-produced Valiant film, and try to decide which one is better: the ultra-cheap YouTube vid or the longform, expensive Vin Diesel film from Sony.

Umm, we might have telegraphed the answer to that question, but we think you'll enjoy this episode.

Shawn and Paul join Jason once again to discuss the biggie of all the David Lynch films: Mulholland Drive. Ofte called one of the best - if not the best - film of the century - the guys attempt to examine why the film is so well loved, what the heck it's all about, and just who was lying dead in that bed anyway?

Shawn and Paul are back once again to help Jason make sense of David Lynch's most massive and often overwhelming film: Inland Empire. Just what is it about this film that resists analysis and compels a myriad of YouTube users to create hour long breakdowns of this film? And why is does the film still compel us to stare into the abyss and try to add a rational plot to a fundamentally irrational story? Listen as the guys try to puzzle it all out.