There's Sometimes a Buggy

In our first MGM 1931 episode, we look at two very different fallen woman movies, POSSESSED (dir. Clarence Brown), starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, and SUSAN LENOX (HER FALL AND RISE) (dir. Robert Z. Leonard), with Gable supporting (in the technical sense only) Greta Garbo. POSSESSED, taking cognizance of the Depression, leans as far left as MGM will ever get, while SUSAN LENOX shows us how patriarchy can be worse for men than it is for women—and sister, is it ever bad for women. Then we talk Scorsese, historical accuracy, and why Jordan Belfort did nothing wrong, covering BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, GANGS OF NEW YORK, THE AVIATOR, and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: Possessed (dir. Clarence Brown)

0h 52m 59s: Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise (dir. Robert Z. Leonard)

1h 26m 55s: Holiday Cinemagoing – Scorsese and History

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

In the first There's Sometimes a Buggy Christmas episode, we discuss two studio-era Hollywood movies that you never knew were Christmas movies: Michael Curtiz's FOUR DAUGHTERS (1938) and Preston Sturges's THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (1944). Hear us explain how Four Daughters anticipates both Casablanca and Blue Velvet, and learn why Christianity is the ultimate comedy.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: Four Daughters (1938; dir. Michael Curtiz)

0h 46m 55s: Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944; dir. Preston Sturges)

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

In our 2nd episode devoted to a TIFF retrospective, we cover News From Home: The Films of Chantal Akerman and share with you our excitement about a new favourite director. Topics that come up in the course of discussing Akerman's obsessional-yet-variegated filmography include Freud, mothers, the historico-geographic basis of identity, the nature of desire, passivity, projection, politics, Hitchcock, comedy, ghosts, gender. Films discussed in depth include NO HOME MOVIE, JEANNE DIELMAN, LA CAPTIVE, JE TU IL ELLE, LES RENDEZ-VOUS D'ANNA, A COUCH IN NEW YORK, and the US-Mexico border documentary FROM THE OTHER SIDE. Then, in our Recently-Viewed section, we discuss two more Scorseses, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, and two movies viewed in one day on either side of NO HOME MOVIE (like the two crucified thieves), William Wellman's 1937 A STAR IS BORN (the best version, in our opinion), and Michael Mann's epic cops-and-robbers movie HEAT, wherein an outrageous Pacino tenderly yet relentlessly pursues a Stoic De Niro.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: Episode outline

0h 02m 59s: Chantal Akerman

1h 58m 22s: Fall Cinemagoing Update

2h 42m 38s: Winter 2020 TIFF Cinematheque notes

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

On to 1931 and back to Paramount for a Sylvia Sidney double feature: a genre exercise from Mamoulian (CITY STREETS) and a finger exercise from Sternberg (AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY). We debate whether Sternberg's version serves or travesties Dreiser's novel, and whether it matters. Then, the return of Scorsese Corner to discuss TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, and (Dave's favourite Scorsese movie) NEW YORK, NEW YORK. Start spreading the news.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: City Streets (dir. Rouben Mamoulian)

0h 28m 44s: An American Tragedy (dir. Josef von Sternberg)

0h 56M 36s:

Fall Cinemagoing Update – Paradise Cinema Opens! (Trouble in Paradise - 1932) + Scorsese Corner: Taxi Driver (1976); New York, New York (1977); and Raging Bull (1980)

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

Jennifer Jones exhibits a new level of craft in two very different roles in two 1949 movies, WE WERE STRANGERS (dir. John Huston) and MADAME BOVARY (dir. Vincente Minnelli). Elise and Dave ponder how these movies, respectively daring for their revolutionary politics and gender politics, ever got made. Dave identifies the greatest scene in any movie ever. Elise tries to explain Flaubert's relationship to Romanticism, realism, aestheticism, and all other relevant isms.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: We Were Strangers (1949; dir: John Huston)

0h 31m 20s: Madame Bovary (1949; dir. Vincente Minnelli)

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* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

Our first Universal 1930 episode veers from racial insanity, courtesy of John Murray Anderson's two-strip Technicolor musical KING OF JAZZ (spoiler: the King is a White Man), to grisly Christian sentimentality, via William Wyler's HELL'S HEROES (aka Several Corpses and a Baby), which also makes this an accidental Christmas episode. If that's not enough, we also bring Big Discussion of Scorsese and Akerman!

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: King of Jazz (dir. John Murray Anderson)

0h 30m 42s: Hell's Heroes (dir. William Wyler)

1h 00m 39s: Fall Cinemagoing Update – Akerman (Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles) and Scorsese (Who's That Knocking at My Door & Boxcar Bertha)

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

We have a conversion experience with DUEL IN THE SUN (King Vidor, 1946) and return to PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (William Dieterle, 1948). Are these the two definitive Jennifer Jones movies? The best movies she made? The best movies that Selznick produced? We consider these questions as we continue to ponder the unfolding of Jones's persona. We also set up our Scorsese Corner and begin our floating discussion of the current TIFF retrospective with our first-impression reading of THE IRISHMAN. Elise opines that the lead actors look neither the right age nor even particularly human, but both agree that Pacino, especially, is marvellous. But does Scorsese go down too easy to be a major filmmaker?

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: Duel in the Sun (dir. King Vidor et al)

0h 49m 43s: Portrait of Jennie (dir. William Dieterle)

1h 30m 20s: Fall Cinemagoing Update: Chantal Akerman continues and The Irishman (2019)

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* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

We look at the first three films of Li Yu, FISH AND ELEPHANT (2001), DAM STREET (2005), and LOST IN BEIJING (2007), the latter seen by us at the TIFF Cinematheque retrospective Seeing the Unseen: Re-Encountering Chinese Cinema, which focused on films by Sixth Generation directors that had trouble with government censorship in China. It's not difficult to see how the Verhoeven-meets-Renoir-esque LOST IN BEIJING got into this category. Trigger warnings for extensive discussion of violence against women and fish. We also touch on some of our other favourites from the retrospective, such as Jia Zhangke's A TOUCH OF SIN and Joan Chen's XIU XIU: THE SENT-DOWN GIRL.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: Brief overview of the retrospective – Seeing the Unseen: Re- Encountering Chinese Cinema (October 2019)

0h 29m 58s: Fish and Elephant

0h 45m 06s: Dam Street

1h 04m 49s: Lost in Beijing

1h 28m 01s: Scorsese v. Marvel

1h 41m 22s: Fall Cinemagoing Update – Chantal Akerman continues

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

This week sees Elise fully convert to the studi-auteur theory, thanks to two more-or-less randomly chosen RKO features from 1930 by a couple of Georges, MIDNIGHT MYSTERY (B. Seitz, later of Andy Hardy movie fame) and THE SILVER HORDE (Archainbaud, who went on to direct the other Some Like It Hot... with Bob Hope), which illustrates the expanded romantic plot possibilities of the Pre-Code era. Also some discussion of Jean Arthur's struggle, in an early appearance, to portray a supercilious socialite. It's super silly! And the reappearance of our Correspondent from Reality, Todd Murry.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: Midnight Mystery (dir. George B. Seitz)

0h 42m 22s: The Silver Horde (dir. George Archainbaud)

1h 11m 10s: Fall Cinemagoing Update – Chantal Akerman & The Paradise Theatre

1h 16m 19s: Listener mail with Todd Murry

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre

Our first Halloween special looks at a monster for whom familiarity has bred unjustified contempt. Looking at Tod Browning's 1931 DRACULA and Francis Ford Coppola's misleadingly-titled BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA from 1992, we discuss the Cursed Count as a romantic and a sympathetic figure; the two films' departures from Bram Stoker's novel; xenophobia and monstrousness; their very different takes on Van Helsing; their problematic fascination with female sexuality; and Dwight Frye's unforgettable Renfield. And as a Bonus: our brief takes on two Halloween art movies we saw at rep theatres this season, James Whale's THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and Charles Laughton's NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. We conclude that the universe posited in all four films is godless at best, or, at worst, illustrates Calvin's thesis that God hates us, every one. Spoilers!

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: Dracula (dir. Tod Browning)

0h 36m 32s: Bram Stoker's Dracula (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

1h 07m 23s: Fall Cinemagoing Update – Night of the Hunter at The Royal & Bride of Frankenstein at The Revue

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* Find Elise's latest published film piece – "Elaine May's Male Gaze" – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room*

*And Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

Theme Music:

"What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" – Le Tigre