This week we take a look at the first widely distributed film directed by a Black woman. As part of their efforts to highlight Black filmmakers, the Criterion Channel has released Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust—among other films—for free to non-subscribers. So there’s no reason not to go watch this impressive tale of family, values, and the non-linearity of experience.

What’s more fun than a road trip with family? Well, a road trip with family to determine if your partner is having an affair. Wacky hijinks ensue in The Daytrippers.

Someday we’ll be through the thick of this and get to our lives. After we have a home. And a family. And after a murder or two. Maria’s living a life deferred in the hopes of an idyllic romance. She becomes too focused on the destination and lets the journey slip by in The Marriage of Maria Braun.

We’re returning to the oeuvre of Aki Kaurismaki this week and the middle segment of his Proletariat Trilogy (having unintentionally skipped the first part) with Ariel.

In this episode, the dead really do speak. Well, the sort of dead. Okay, the temporarily bodily misplaced, if we’re being accurate. Join us for some supernatural hijinks in Here Comes Mr. Jordan.

The Dead Speak! Calamity strikes as four episodes of the Criterion Collection were unceremoniously lost due to poor file management. Authorities are on the hunt for one Dr. Bellini Zed for gross negligence relating to failure to appropriately back up files before updating software. As a result, this week, Ed and Dr. Zurich Bed will team up to discuss Federico Fellini’s movie about movies: 8 1/2

After a long lockdown hiatus, we’re back with an episode recorded back in the rosy days of early February. Except, it isn’t exactly a rosy film. No, we’re headed into the heart of modern disillusionment and life on the fringe with Mike Leigh’s Naked.

Did you ever wish that you could roam among the high society elites? Go to cocktail parties every night? Have deep (and not-so-deep) philosophical conversations? All while you’re still barely an adult? Well, fear not, because you can live vicariously through Metropolitan.

The adventures of a legendary executioner father and his toddler protege continue in the second adventure of Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx.

Greetings listeners, and please forgive us the disruption as we hold between two parts of Lone Wolf and Cub. While we handle some off-cast logistics, please enjoy a revisit to one of our earlier episodes, a classic of the genre, Seven Samurai.