Jason and the Movienauts

Michelle is back for our continuing discussion of Billy Wilder films. At this point we've watched and discussed 18 Wilder films which span the gamut of his career. There always comes a moment when doing a director durvey when we hit a few more minor obscure films in their filmography and that time is now for the great Wilder.

So this time we discuss a few notable films you might be less familiar with: The Emperor Waltz, The Spirit of St. Louis and The Major and the Minor.

All are relatively deep cuts, but all represent interesting moments in Wilder's career and are totally deserving of in-depth discussions diving deep into common themes and approaches. We hope you enjoy this pod as we begin to wrap up the great director's career.

Eric is back so it's time for him and Jason to dig into obscure masterpieces. Today the guys take on two brilliantly intense fils by British master Peter Watkins: Edvard Munch and The War Game.

Eric fills Jason in on Watkins's long and well documented history of making avant-garde films, then the guys dig deep into two of the most highly serious but emotionally satisfying movies of their experience. The Munch film in particular has so much complexity and integrity to it that the film sets a standard for biopics that may never be reached again.

I saw 93 movies released in 2026 so I feel like that's enough to give you a top 10, along with some honorable mentions and a few bottom feeders. Let me know what you think of the list!

Jacques Tati directed some of the most wonderfully humorous and charming comedies of all time. Eric Hoffman joins Jason to discuss Tati's short filmography and delight in Tati's meticulous attention to detail, his clashes between urbanism and tradition, and his deep influences on other filmmaking greats. This was Jason's first time watching a Tati film and he was blown away by the experience. It's an hour of great discussion we're sure you'll enjoy.

Michelle is back to continue Billy Wilder-Cast, this time with maybe one of the darknes movies ever committed to film, Ace in the Hole, and one of the most fun (but still kind of dark), Witness for the Prosecution. Do Jason and Michelle git whiplast from discussing these very different movies or do they find some intriguing common ground? (Spoiler: there is some common ground)

Shōhei Imamura's 1968 epic Profound Desires of the Gods is a brilliant, dizzying, extremely complex drama/satire focusing on a Japanese island in transition. The film focuses on one family on the island, a group of highly inbred people, and how the whole island reacts when post-WWI modernity starts to come to the island.

In other words, Profound Desires is just the kind of strange, heady and often surreal movie Eric and Jason love to talk about for this podcast. And talk they do, with 75 minutes of attempts to wrangle this unwieldy masterpiece into some kind of shape...

Eric is back this week, and the guys dive deep into Japanese film as they often do. This week, a look at two classic, contrasting takes on a Japanese legend, The Ballad of Narayama. Keisuke Kinoshita's 1958 version is sylized Kabuki brilliance, while Shōhei Imamura's 1983 take on the same material is deliberately strange: alienating, surreal and often brilliant in its own way.

Eric and Jason compare and contrast these two versions and find some interesting insights into the way art can illuminate history.

Shawn and Paul are back, which means it's time for the guys to wrap up their look at the Alien and Predator franchises with a review of Alien: Romulus and Predator: Badlands. Will the guys like the kids of Romulus and the family dynamics of Badlands ior will they demand the return of Sigourney and Arnold?

Michelle is back, so that means it's time again for our series looking at the films of the great Billy Wilder. This time: two of Wilder's silliest and most edgy movies -- at least, edgy for the 1960s -- Irma La Douce and Kill Me, Stupid!. Both films have a broad, wacky comedy sensibility, both involve some bed-hopping and other sexual transgressions, and both are very worthy of discussion on this week's show!

When Paul Moyer joins Jason to talk movies, that means it's '70s dystopia times. This time: two different sci-fi visions of the future from the mid-1970s. Rollerball seems prophetic in some ways, a deeply intriguing tale of future sports that imagines a future similar to the one we're living in now. Logan's Run, on the other hand, seems a little half-baked and poorly thought through, a clever idea contained in a movie that can't quite carry it. The discussion makes for an hour of interesting listening we hope you'll enjoy.

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