The Gauntlet

The Scarlet Empress (1934) / City of Lost Souls (1983)

This week we’re pitching a big tent as we rise to power with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg’s hallucinatory historical pageant and try to make it in Berlin in Rosa von Praunheim’s trans new wave musical

Hitokiri aka Tenchu! (1969) / Demons (1971)

This week we’re bucking the bushido code with a pair of disreputable ronin as we go on a killing spree with Hideo Gosha and go to hell with Toshio Matsumoto

Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972) / Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

This week we’re feeling restored as we move to NYC with Holly Woodlawn’s lost and found star vehicle and say goodbye to the old West(ern) with Sam Peckinpah’s contested cuts

The Story of a Cheat (1936) / InterVista (1987)

This week we’re embracing the powers of the false as we cheat our way through life with Sacha Guitry and get lost in layers of lies in Federico Fellini’s Cinecittà

Woman Basketball Player No. 5 (1957) / Edge of America (2004)

This week we’re hitting the hardwood as we dunk on the past and look to the future with Xie Jin while Chris Eyre teaches us how to run-and-gun on the reservation

A Canterbury Tale (1944) / Three the Hard Way (1974)

This week we’re talking threesomes as we make a propaganda pilgrimage with Powell & Pressburger and try to stop a genocidal plot with Gordon Parks Jr.’s action supergroup

Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998) / The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

This week we’re not feeling so good as we try to survive the doctor’s plot with Aleksei German and go from bellyache to the grave with Cristi Puiu

Message from Space (1978) / Vegas in Space (1991)

This week we’re floating through the cosmos as we’re conscripted into Kinji Fukasaku’s star war and take a much needed vacation at Phillip Ford and Doris Fish’s Vegas in Space

Mighty Peking Man (1977) / Pulgasari (1985)

This week it’s go big or go home as Alyssa Heflin joins us as to track down a giant ape in the jungle and battle imperialists with a mythical metal-eating monster

Phenomena (1985) / The Decay of Fiction (2002)

This week we’re dozing off into a deep dark slumber as we sleepwalk through the Swiss Alps with Dario Argento and haunt the Ambassador Hotel with Pat O’Neill