Damien Chazelle's Babylon has been called a love letter to movies and a suicide note to Hollywood. For this wide-ranging discussion, I'm joined by filmmaker and programmer Sébastien Simon to discuss the film, the evolution of Chazelle's filmmaking, the wild history of the silent film days, Kenneth Anger, Hollywood's working class roots, the rise of institutionalized filmmaking with the emergence of sound, and much, more more.

The ceremony for the 95th edition of the Academy Awards is tomorrow, and once again I'm joined by Jim Batcho of the Movies About podcast for an in-depth discussion of this year's nominees.

In this episode we focus mainly on the 10 Best Picture nominees. Consider this like 10 different reviews / analyses of each of the nominees. We also discussed some of the other categories of interest, gave our thoughts on who would and should win, and I gave my list of what I thought were the ten best films of 2022.

Be sure to check out Now It's Dark on YouTube for visual essays and more @nowitsdarkmovie. Also, for access to full episodes and our entire back catalogue, head on over to our patreon.com/nowitsdark.

Jim and Cece's podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, and other platforms. You can find Movies About on YouTube @moviesabout and Instagram @moviesaboutpodcast.

Jim's recently launched Creative Philosophy YouTube channel can be found here: @creativephilo.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/movies-about/id1587809806?i=1000600534679

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNkOdAbgp1I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XuSXFwbi8k

With the 95th Academy Awards right around the corner, I had the great pleasure to be joined by Jim Batcho, in his second appearance on Now It's Dark. Jim is an academic, writer, friend, and co-host with his wife Cece Kim of the Movies About podcast. Jim also recently launched a great new YouTube channel applying philosophical concepts to film. I'll post links below.

What I originally expected would be one hour of us praising the greatness of Tar turned into a wide-ranging, 4-hour discussion about the Academy, social media, risk aversion in the film industry, the Andrew Riseborough controversy, globalization, and much more.

As a result, we've decided to break this into two parts. Part 1 is focused on the Academy itself, and how it has reinvented itself after #OscarsSoWhite and #MeToo. Part 2, which we plan to drop before the Oscars ceremony, will be focused on this year's nominees, mostly the Best Picture nominees along with a few of the other categories, and what we thought were the best films of 2022.

Be sure to check out Now It's Dark on YouTube for visual essays and more @nowitsdarkmovie. Also, for access to full episodes and our entire back catalogue, head on over to our patreon.com/nowitsdark.

Jim and Cece's podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, and other platforms. You can find Movies About on YouTube @moviesabout and Instagram @moviesaboutpodcast.

Jim's recently launched Creative Philosophy YouTube channel can be found here: @creativephilo.

In the wake of its 11 Oscar nominations, I’m joined by film producer Eric Plese to discuss - and debate - the merits of the Daniel’s Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Be sure to head on over to patreon.com/nowitsdark to hear the full 1 hour and 28 minute version of this episode.

In this special holiday episode, we're joined by Stanley Kubrick super fan, Mike Ventola, to try to unravel the many mysteries of this often misunderstood film. Be sure to head on over to patreon.com/nowitsdark to hear the full 3-hour-plus version of this episode.

Over the course of our discussion we talked about:

- The making of what would turn out to be the longest continuous shoot in movie history.

- Kubrick's original conception for the film as a sex comedy and how it evolved into the film we see today.

- How the film subverts Tom Cruise's on-screen persona.

- How the film is full of autobiographical details and memories of Kubrick's life growing up in New York City.

- How the film uses the backdrop of Christmas to foreground long-standing concerns of Kubrick's about domesticity and family.

- Our thoughts on whether the film actually represents Kubrick's final cut.

- And much, much, more.

As this will be our final episode of 2022 we want to thank you for your support, and wish you a very happy New Year.

For our 28th episode, Mike and Tim are once again joined by John W. Gunnison, an entertainment industry veteran, as well as co-host and co-founder of the Politics + Media 101 podcast. This episode was originally recorded in the spring of 2022.

Note that this is an edited version of the full podcast, available at www.patreon.com/nowitsdark.

In second part of our two-part interview, we discuss what the future of movie-going might look like. We talk about the battle between streaming giants Netflix, Disney+, and Discovery, the disappearance of the "adult movie", the declining influence of youth culture, and the shortened window for what counts as nostalgia. We also run through our favourite movies of 2021, including Licorice Pizza, West Side Story, Vortex, Pig, Red Rocket, and more.

To hear more of John's work, be sure to check out: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/politics-media-101/id1585080352

In this episode, Mike and Tim are joined by John W. Gunnison, an entertainment industry veteran, as well as co-host and co-founder of the Politics + Media 101 podcast.

The first part of our two-part interview centres around a piece by Ross Douthat, in which he claims that waning interest in the Oscars signals the end of movies as "the central American popular art form". We discuss a wide-range of issues impacting the health and future of the movie industry, from the 2021 Oscars, declining box office numbers, the impact of COVID, globalization, social media, and more.

(This episode was originally recorded in the spring of 2022.)

Note that this is an edited version of the full podcast, available at www.patreon.com/nowitsdark.

To hear more of John's work, be sure to check out: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/politics-media-101/id1585080352

You can read Ross Douthat's piece for the Times here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/opinion/oscars-movies-end.html

We're very happy to be back with the first in a new series of episodes. For our 26th episode, I was joined by my friend and fellow film enthusiast Darragh Walsh to review the 2022 Busan International Film Festival, the largest film festival in Asia.

Note that this is an edited version of the full podcast available at https://www.patreon.com/nowitsdark.

Mike Cannon joins the podcast to discuss Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 film Children of Men.

You can listen to Mike's podcast Red Star Over Asia here:

https://redstaroverasia.podbean.com/

Support Now it's Dark on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/join/nowitsdark

An excerpt from our Patreon-exclusive podcast "What is a Critic?". Check out the full podcast to hear the full episode, including our thoughts on Minari, Godzilla vs. Kong, Even Dwarves Started Small, and more.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/nowitsdark