Random Acts of Cinema

If you throw everything at the wall (romance, screwball comedy, noir thriller, globe-trotting action) you will ALMOST predict one of the great disasters of the twentieth century.  This coincidence is inevitably repeated a ton on the IMDb trivia page. But spare yourself from being spoiled and just watch Frank Borzage’s charming tale of star-crossed lovers set against a backdrop of 1930s Hollywood glamour.

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Norman Jewison’s Moonstruck (1987).

Get ready for another action-packed…Yasuhiro Ozu movie?  Well, at least compared to his other masterpieces.  Buckle up for this bracingly gentle study of a middle-aged married couple as they lightly bicker and tell harmless lies to one another all in service of slowly coming to understand and maybe even love each other.  Hope you survive the experience!

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Frank Borzage’s History is Made at Night (1937).

Two unlikely kindred souls find purpose and companionship as they wander through the cross-continental 1970s in search of a sense of… just a little stability. Wim Wenders sets the tone for his career as a quiet student of humanity with a big ol heart.

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Yasuhiro Ozu's The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952).

Is this the one where Keanu takes a bunch of future drugs?  I mean that DOES sound kind of like a Cronenberg movie…. No wait!  It’s the head exploding one.  Except that maybe, just maybe, this early 80s psychic thriller offers a whole lot more than just exploding heads.  But don’t worry: if you really like exploding heads, this film still has you covered.

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Wim Wenders Alice in the Cities (1974).

Soviet cinema at its most… spiritual?  Iconoclast director Sergei Parajanov’s deeply personal exploration of the cultural echoes found in the life of 18th-century Armenian troubadour/monk Sayat-Nova uses manuscript-inspired tableaux vivants, exquisite staging, and a profoundly rich symbolic vocabulary to sneak this one past the censors.  Sort of.

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing David Cronenberg’s Scanners (1981).

Content warning: this film contains depictions of suicide.

Come check out Mike and Charlie realizing exactly what they’ve gotten themself into AFTER watching this movie and getting about halfway through our discussion about it.  Yukio Mishima and Domoto Masaki’s rich confrontation of Noh-style staging with richly visualized sensuality propels a short film about a married couple’s suicided following a failed coup-d’etat in 1936 Japan.

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomogranates(1969).

Kansas.  The Great Salt Lake.  Peaches Christ.  Michael Varrati.  Abandoned carnival.  Am I listing the components of an unlikely-to-happen but likely-to-be-wild road trip?  Or is it the perfect formula for a really fun episode where two of our favorite guests return to discuss the weirdly atmospheric ultimate-indie horror film?  

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Yukio Mishima and Domoto Masaki’s Patriotism or The Right of Love and Death (1966).

Directing duo Arie and Chula Esiri tell two separate stories of would-be Nigerian emigrants navigating through a dehumanizing world that uses poverty and debt to perpetuate a cycle of exploitation that cares little for dignity and decency.  Beautifully shot on film on location in Lagos, Mofe and Rosa each strain towards a better life.

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (1962).

Look: if for some reason you DON’T want to watch Richard E. Grant rant about the entrenched conspiracy between the wretchedly corrupt spheres of big business and government in the form of consumer advertising, then I guess this isn’t the movie and podcast episode for you.  And if you still aren’t interested once you learn that it’s a HandMade Films production reuniting Grant with director Bruce Robinson?  What if I were to say that there’s a mustachioed boil growing out of the side of Grant’s neck spouting late-stage capitalist drivel?  No?  Then there’s not hope for you.  Not that there’s any hope for any of us.  But you won’t be able to see a fun movie.

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Arie & Chuko Esiri‘s Eyimofe: This Is My Desire (2020).

Balancing on the razor-thin edge between the pedantic “what would REALLY happen if a guy kept slowly shrinking?” with “sure nerd, but let’s still make it a fun story”, Jack Arnold directs a domestic drama, a survivalist story, and everything in between as he questions foundational questions of existing in his classic science fiction tale.  Perceptions of safety, masculinity, and the infinite shift and fade in this allegory of manhood in the modern age.

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If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Bruce Robinson’s How To Get Ahead in Advertising (1988).