Note: This episode’s discussion and the film we are discussing, explicitly recounts the brutal methods, unimaginable suffering, and lingering trauma of the Holocaust.  Sensitive listeners may want to skip this one and join us next week.

The hosts of Random Acts of Cinema shy away neither from films of exceptional length nor films with difficult subject matter.  But the double impact of both in Claude Lanzmann’s Holocaust documentary Shoah would seem to really put our constitutions to the test.  But what we found was a confident and meticulously paced film, whose use of interview-based testimonies of survivors, witnesses, and perpetrators, uncompromising interview tactics, and bleak photography of derelict death camp sites at Chelmno, Treblinka, and Auschwitz made for an engrossing, uniquely informative exploration of the decidedly devastating topic.

If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Steven Soderbergh’s King of the Hill (1993).

Dissatisfied youth, repressed sexuality, and nihilism running rampant in the dysfunctional Italian family unit is the theme of the week on Random Acts of Cinema. Director Marco Bellocchio’s cruel, bitter little film about Alessandro (played by Lou Castel) thinning out the ranks of his crumbling family through self-obsessed cruelty and murder is punctuated by brilliant photography, powerful acting, and a frantic score by Ennio Morricone.

If you would like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985).

With his nearly 30-years-in-the-making thematic trilogy, director/poet Jean Cocteau uses innovative film techniques and diverse strategies steeped in personal and classical mythology to consider the needs, methods, obstacles, and curse of the creative mind and the creative life.  First with his groundbreaking The Blood of a Poet (1930), non-narrative sequencing and "not surrealist" (but totally surrealist) imagery presents a groundbreaking experimental film.  Orpheus (1950) is a dreamy retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in a kind of poet-crazed pre-teenybopper contemporary France.  Many of the characters and themes return in The Testament of Orpheus (1959), the final installment but with Cocteau now playing himself as he wanders through time defending his existence as a creative force.

So, you know, listen in to hear us talk about poetry with far less respect than Cocteau demands.

If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Marco Bellocchio's Fist in The Pocket (1965).

We are joined by Michael Patrick Jann, film and television writer/director and member of The State to discuss his personal pick: Wong Kar-wai’s frenetic romantic masterpiece Chungking Express.  Two stories, each with a lovesick cop (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung) and a self-possessed woman (Brigitte Lin and Faye Wong) navigating Hong Kong and exploring themes of love, heartbreak, street food, and obsession.  Funny, adorable, charming, tender, and sexy - our protagonists pursue meaningful if momentary connections in the alienating modern world.  But, like, in a gorgeous and experimentally shot kind of way.

Check out Michael’s awesome new podcast Michael Patrick Jann Can’t Direct Traffic: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/michael-patrick-jann-cant-direct-traffic/id1507058852

If you would like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing the three (!) films of Jean Cocteau’s decades-spanning “Orphic Trilogy”: The Blood of a Poet (1930), Orpheus (1950), and Testament of Orpheus (1960).

Alfonso Cuarón's drama-behind-the-drama has all of the trappings of a semi-autobiographical period piece.  Meticulously recreated clothing, cars, furniture, street settings, and contemporaneous political turmoil are set largely in the eponymous neighborhood as a failing marriage takes its toll on a family.  But of course the real protagonist is one of the maids, Cleo (played by Yalitza Aparicio) who faces her own obstacles of poverty, abandonment, unwanted pregnancy, and murderous rioters.  Her unassuming strength allows her to persevere while simultaneously serving as caretaker, savior, and backbone of her household.

If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express (1994) with special guest Michael Patrick Jann of The State.

In the promotional material for Lo Wei’s The Big Boss (also known by a few other film titles) break-out star Bruce Lee is seen flying through the air, shirt half-torn from his body, contorted into a now-iconic running jump kick, certain to be delivered to the face of some punk to glorious effect.  But does the movie pay-off with this acrobatic feat of violence, as promised on the poster?  Yeah: it does.  Because Bruce Lee is a movie star.

If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (2018).

It's a miracle I even made it out of Longwood alive.  This town full of men with big mouths and no guts.  I mean if you can just picture it: Wim Wenders made a nearly 5 hour long, globetrotting movie in 1991 predicting the technology, geopolitical concerns, and digital addictions of the 21st century with remarkable foresight.  Solveig Dommartin heads up a luminous cast, redressed in 90s future noir, that makes use of gorgeous settings and beautiful photography to explore a magnetic woman's nihilistic race to find meaning and purpose in a forever-changing world.

If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Lo Wei's The Big Boss (1971).

As mentioned in the episode, take a look at Jamie Peck's classic article on "The History of the Fedora" https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/785ag4/the-history-of-the-fedora

Director Kon Ichikawa's The Makioka Sisters, based on the book by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, catalogs the domestic dramas of the eponymous four women and their family circle in 1930s Japan.  Matchmaking, marriage, and the juggling of suitors for the youngest two siblings become complicated by stubborn personalities, dwindling status in society, and the shame of past scandals.  The demanding pressure of modernity and a changing Japan beleaguer the family into choices to either compromise or even abandoning the mores of traditional culture.

If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991).

Content Disclaimer: This episode examines a film with extremely challenging subject matter.  Exceptionally graphic depictions of violence, murder, racism, and brutal sexual assault are both celebrated and trivialized in Remy Belvaux's Man Bites Dog.  Listeners who are sensitive to such content and the frank discussion of it are strongly encouraged not to listen to this episode.  The hosts disliked the film and disliked talking about the film.

Nevertheless, Man Bites Dog is a documentary-style film wherein the director and crew follow - and are slowly drawn into the world of - serial killer Ben (played by Benoit Poelvoorde.)  Realist film techniques amplify the alternating fantastic and all-to-real sequences that attempt to use humor and brutality to offer commentary on film-viewers' and movie-makers' complicity in violent entertainment.  We are joined this week by filmmaker Scott Sawitz.

If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Kon Ichikawa's The Makioka Sisters (1983).

After months of campaigning and hype, constant drama and re-selection of the hosts, and hours of red carpet interviews, it’s finally happening.  Looking back of the year of randomly chosen (and a few guest-selected) films we select and discuss the best of the arbitrary best.  Who goes home with their hearts and career-hopes crushed?  And who walks away with the most coveted award for excellence for their work in a film? The Randy Award.

If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Rémy Belvaux’s Man Bites Dog (1992).  All jokes aside: don’t watch Man Bites Dog.  And maybe don’t listen to our episode about it.