The Frances Farmer Show

This week, on the annual Veteran's Day War Movie episode, Mike and Sean watch a pair of 1965 films from a pair of great directors, both of which just happen to star Richard Harris. First is Sam Peckinpah's Civil War-era Major Dundee, with Charlton Heston, then Anthony Mann's The Heroes of Telemark with Kirk Douglas leading a band of Norwegians against the Nazis. They also talk about Peckinpah's career in general and pick their Essential Resistance Films.

For the annual Halloween episode, Mike and Sean take a look at a couple low budget films from the mid 1960s, Maria Bava's AIP co-production Planet of the Vampires and Hajime Sato's Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell. Both films feature inventive special effects, zombification, questionable acting and a whole lot of dread. They also talk about the career of the late Maureen O'Hara, lament the demise of Grantland, pick their Essential Cinematic Vampires and see what's playing around the multiplexes.

This week Mike and Sean take a look at an early work by the late director Chantal Akerman, her feature debut Je tu il elle, along with a 1965 film by director Agnès Varda, Le bonheur. They also put a cap on their discussions of the 2015 Vancouver International Film festival, with some thoughts on Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart, Corneliu Porumboiu's The Treasure, Sylvia Chang's Murmur of the Hearts, Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days and, yet again, Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Assassin.

Mike and Sean are still at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and are joined for this second dispatch by fellow Seattle Screen Scene critic Melissa Tamminga. They discuss new films from Hong Sangsoo (Right Now, Wrong Then), Hou Hsiao-hsien (The Assassin), Miguel Gomes (Arabian Nights), Lee Kwangkuk (A Matter of Interpretation), Jafar Panahi (Taxi) and more.

Mike and Sean check-in with a first look at some of the films they've been seeing at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival. Discussed in this episode are new movies from star auteurs Guy Maddin, Thom Andersen, and Miguel Gomes, as well as ones from up-and-coming directors such as Lee Kwangkuk, Luo Li, Kim Gwangtae and Philip Yung.

In what is quickly becoming an annual tradition, Mike and Sean ventured out their local AMC theatre to record an episode on-location at the Seattle premiere of the new Johnnie To film. This year it's Office, a musical drama set in a financial firm in the midst of the 2008 collapse starring Chow Yun-fat, Tang Wei, Eason Chan and Sylvia Chang (who also adapted the screenplay from her own play, Design for Living). Chang as well has a film she's directed playing at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival, as does Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu, whose 2009 film Police, Adjective they also discuss this week. In addition they talk about the work of Johnnie To in general and pick some under-the-radar films they're looking forward to seeing during at next week's trip to VIFF.

On this very special episode, Sean and Mike make their fourth annual Top Ten Films of All-Time selections. Films noirs, Great Actresses, Silent Comedies, Hong Kong movies, terrible pronunciation of French words and much much more!

This week, for a long and unimportant series of reasons, Mike and Sean take a look at Robert Flaherty's 1934 film Man of Aran and the 1987 anime anthology Neo Tokyo, directed by Rintaro, Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Katsuhiro Ōtomo. They also talk about realism in documentaries and danger in children's cartoons, make their picks for Essential Pseudo-Documentary and discuss a Mystery Person of the Week.

This week Mike and Sean talk about The Look of Silence, the latest film from director Joshua Oppenheimer, a companion piece to his acclaimed 2012 documentary on Indonesian genocide The Act of Killing. And they continue their quest through the films of 1965 with that year's Oscar winner for Best Picture, The Sound of Music. They take a look at the career of that film's director, Robert Wise, and make their picks for the Essential 1960s Musical Blockbuster.

Sean and Mike celebrate the Seattle release of the restored version of Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy in the most natural way possible: with Eric Rohmer's 1986 film The Green Ray and Roger Corman's 1963 X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes. They also talk about Corman in general, pick their Essential Non-Noir B-Movies and check-in on What Mike's Watching (hint: there's a Ray involved).