Le Film

In the countryside just north of Tokyo, the Haruno family experiences change, growth, passion, and quiet strangeness through a series of episodic vignettes. We follow a young girl who’s haunted by a giant version of herself, her brother who’s trying to get over his love woes, a mother trying to get back into the swing of animation, a father fulfilling his role as a hypnotherapist, a grandfather absorbed in the final phase of living, and an uncle who’s taking a breather from city life.

While moving to another town, a young girl, Chihiro, and her family take a shortcut and stop near a tunnel that leads to a forgotten resort. While there, they become bound to a strange world that comes alive at night. Chihiro's parents are mysteriously transformed, leaving her to discover whether she can free herself and her family and reclaim the lives they once had.

A young boy, Calogero, grows up in the 1960s Bronx torn between two father figures: his hardworking bus driver father and Sonny, a local crime boss who offers the allure of easy money and respect through violence.

A monumental traffic jam serves as the backdrop for the lives of the inhabitants of a Swedish city.

Deep in the heart of Salt Lake City, Utah, two teens, Stevo and Heroin Bob, spearhead what it means to be a punk in the decline of an empire, where chaos and order are at odds with one another. Follow the adventures and day-to-day lives of Stevo and Heroin Bob as they grapple with posers, rednecks, and all sorts of other characters that make up the status quo.

Danielle, a college student, fights from spiraling out of control during a shiva where her friends, family, and sugar daddy are all in attendance.

A photo manager at Life magazine must find a missing image to use as the magazine’s final cover. Walter Mitty, a timid worker who lives in daydreams, wishes for a more fulfilling life filled with travel, adventure, and love. Walter must choose whether to remain a passenger in his own life or to take the path he has always dreamed of.

Imprisoned by a sorcerer who fears she will rob him of eternal life, guileless young Princess Arete befriends a villager who helps her plan an escape. Let's all watch a relaxing, beautiful, and colorful film together this week. 

As always, thank you all for listening and we hope you enjoy the discussion. 

Where to watch:

(Amazon Prime, Netflix in regions outside of the US.)

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Deep in the desert of Djibouti, the French Foreign Legion trains their bodies to become living weapons. This tight-knit squad of highly specialized individuals are prepping for a conflict that never finds them, where individuality is ground down into dust, and all that’s left is the collective militaristic identity. The salted flats and arid landscape make for an operatic backdrop of Claire Denis’ 1999 feature, Beau Travail, where bodies become the only means for outward expression, and creeping thoughts tear at the soul.

In this episode, we discuss the deeply suburban and highly neurotic dark dramedy American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes. We follow Lester Burnham, an everyday executive, as he experiences a midlife crisis that tears at his familial bonds, while he falls deeper into his twisted obsession with his daughter's friend. Meanwhile, his materialistic wife Carolyn and alienated daughter Jane both grapple with their own suburban dysfunction. This middle-class tale from the turn of the millennium explores how warped self-fulfillment, rampant materialism, and spiritual imprisonment create a darkly hilarious combination in the form of a loneliness epidemic that breeds negativity beneath picture-perfect facades.