Random Acts of Cinema

Paul Newman plays a literary baseball player who is the reluctant friend of a dying catcher. And he doesn't like paying taxes. And it's in a live made for tv movie from the 50s that was collected and presented by a PBS affiliate in the 80s before it was given the Criterion treatment. And it's named after a line in a country song.

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Miloš Firemen's The Fireman's Ball (1967).

Pedro Almodóvar returns to the podcast for his final (for now?) directorial entree (that we've reviewed) to the Criterion Collection. Is his foray into psycho-thriller a welcome maneuver away from his female cast-led, queer-gaze, sexy, soapy, campy, farcical roots? Or… did he somehow just manage to do it all at once! How can all of these even work? (That's a trick question. Of course it works. It's Almodóvar)

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Daniel Petrie's Bang the Drum Slowly - The Golden Age of TV (1956).

A sumptuous period piece directed by David Lean and featuring noted star of stage and screen Alec Guinness? That must mean... Dickens? This is, apparently, one of the most beloved British films ever made. Well, let us be the judge!

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Pedro Almodóvar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990).

Her beauty brought powerful men down to their knees. Her freedom brought down nations. But how long can a woman flaunt the proprieties of Victorian Europe before she herself becomes a morality tale for the age? Max Ophüls' lavish biopic of legendary dancer, mistress, and all-together provocative personality struggles with these very ideals... in gorgeous Cinemascope!

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing David Lean's Great Expectations (1946).

Ben Franklin. Rocky. Gritty. Tracy Lord. C.K. Dexter Haven. Macaulay Conner.

Sounds like this story is set in Pittsburgh.

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Max Ophüls' Lola Montès (1955).

Two. White. Guys. Break. Down. Spike. Lee's. Do. The. Right. Thing. In. 2026.

Did we just nail it?

No. But we try our best.

Oh, and we forgot to mention that Radio Raheem's LOVE/HATE monologue is an adaptation of Robert Mitchum's serial killer preacher sermon from Night of the Hunter. We're pathetic.

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing George Cukor's The Philadelphia Story (1940).

Orson is back! But this time it's with a notorious film in which he struggled with the studio to realize his true vision… you know what? Let's just say it's an Orson Welles' film. A group of filmmakers and film historians gave themselves the task to dissect the various edits and versions of the film to attempt a construction of Welles' original vision. Is it a long lost masterpiece? Or is nothing quite as it seems…?

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989).

This week we are joined by Mark Covino, co-director of A Band Called Death (2012), to discuss Cornel Wilde's surprising independent Most Dangerous Game riff, pitting a group of Africa. Hunters in 19th-century South Africa against a colonial game hunter.

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Orson Welles' The Complete Mr. Arkadin (1955).

Ah, young summer love. So passionate. So naive. Never to last. Never has this been more poignantly explored than in Ingmar Bergman's "Summer" films. And perhaps this story of Monika and Harry running away from their lives to beaches and islands of Sweden does this at his most direct.

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1965).

Imagine a movie directed/edited/starring Orson Welles as himself commenting on the making of this very movie while he wears big hats and capes, smokes giant cigars, DOMINATES heaping plates of raw oysters, does some magic tricks, constantly shows off his gorgeous girlfriend, and monologues about the nature of art and immortality… and all the while the whole movie is about someone else. Sounds fake, right?

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If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika (1953).