Lost in Criterion

Gus van Zant adapts an “autobiographical work” by Portland poet Walt Curtis, though also on the DVD is a documentary on Curtis by Bill Plympton which, to be honest, we’d probably rather talk about.

It’s another Criterion curveball as we get a short inside-the-studio documentary on pioneering dancer Martha Graham and then two recordings of her pieces, all produced for PBS by Nathan Kroll.

The argument of The Threepenny Opera is that under capitalism crime and legitimate business are indistinguishable in their exploitation.

I think probably the most important thing I can share with you before going into this episode is that on the Criterion dvd is a Criterion-produced music video in which one of the films co-stars sings the plot synopsis.

Ana Torrent is back playing a weird little girl named Ana whose family is dealing with Francoist Spain in Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos, a film that maybe pales in comparison to Spirit of the Beehive but also maybe stands on its own.

This week Pat and Adam get very lost in Luis Buñuel's The Milky Way (1969), wondering mostly who Buñuel was making the film for, as its philosophical elements are so esoteric as to be off-putting. The sword fight is pretty neat, though.

Jim Jarmusch explores humanity through the connections of taxi drivers and riders and emulating the film history of various places on "earth", which is to say New York, LA, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki.

Friend of the show and theme song composer Jonathan Hape joins us to celebrate Spine 400! Someday we may finish this!

The plot of David Mamet's House of Games is right up our alleys, even if Pat thinks it would be more appropriate to a USA channel original program. But there are certainly problems here.

Jean-Pierre Melville adapts a novel written by fellow French director Jean Cocteau, and Melville believes Cocteau, who was on set everyday, was trying to undermine him at every turn. Melville's all but disowned the film, which makes this possibly the first time our opinion on a Melville film matches the director's.