Trylove

DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS is a movie about the path to power, the systematized utility of racial identity, the people wielding it in postwar Los Angeles, and the color of everyone’s skin. When Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins gets caught up in a white man’s business of “favors for friends,” he finds himself a pawn in sordid political race politics, a tool of the colonizing class, and a weapon to be wielded by those in power. It’s structurally noir but far more stylistically natural, lending it a certain feeling of veracity that’s hard to come by in this genre.

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "West Side Baby” by T-Bone Walker from the DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 156: DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (1995)

4:21 - The podcast actually starts

5:52 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

7:39 - Jason’s thoughts

14:43 - Harry’s thoughts

20:21 - Aaron’s thoughts

26:43 - The false relationships of DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS

33:54 - Daphne’s complicated position at the center of the plot

38:41 - Walter Mosley’s original novel

39:59 - The guy who keeps trying to cut down Easy’s trees

42:17 - Mouse, masculinity, power, and humanity

53:26 - The oddly positive ending

56:38 - #LittleFreakWatch2022

Here’s a special bonus episode for y’all – a wonderfully frank discussion with Jonathan Hertzberg, founder of boutique repertory film label Fun City Editions (and its self-proclaimed one-man-show). Two of the films he helped re-release were screened at the Trylon in January 2022: WALKING THE EDGE (1983) and RADIO ON (1979).

With Jonathan, we dive into the freedom of running his own label after working in Kino Lorber’s theatrical distribution, what it takes to sell a movie nobody’s ever heard of, and the comfort of knowing there’s always an audience for something.

- Pre-order Fun City Editions’s January 2022 release, a 2K Blu-ray restoration of Lynn Ramsay’s MORVERN CALLAR (2002), here: https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage-partner-labels/products/morvern-callar-fun-city-editions

- Learn more about Fun City Editions and browse the catalog on their website: https://www.funcityeditions.com/

- Shop Fun City Editions releases and merch through Vinegar Syndrome: https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/fun-city-editions

- Follow Fun City Editions on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FunCityEdition

Special thanks to John Moret, film programmer at the Trylon Cinema, for connecting us with Jonathan.

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Opening Credits Music” from the WALKING THE EDGE soundtrack by Jay Chattaway.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 155: Building a Boutique Film Label with Jonathan Hertzberg of Fun City Editions

4:56 - Fun City’s connections to the Trylon

6:20 - The learning curve from Kino to one-man show

8:53 - How you build film distribution relationships

11:10 - Bringing MORVERN CALLAR (2002) back to life

16:54 - The freedom of having your own niche

20:08 - How do you know a Fun City Editions film?

26:34 - Fun City’s white whale

31:50 - The right pace of releases for Fun City

35:53 - Finding an audience for older, lesser-known films

41:13 - Building branding & loyalty

47:48 - Sourcing new art for disc packaging

51:10 - How to reach younger audiences

57:46 - A little bit about WALKING THE EDGE (1985)

1:00:35 - Plugs & goodbyes

Released the same year as the better-remembered DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), LAURA is an evocative noir that both plays in and interrogates the femme fatale trope so crucial to the genre.

In death, Laura Hunt is remembered by the people in her life as kind, beautiful, generous, powerful – just about everything a lover (or a friend, a fraud, or a cop) could ask for. But when the truth comes out, the audience is left to determine how much of the myth is really true, and what elements of Laura’s life are being hijacked to serve someone else’s narrative.

In this episode, we discuss LAURA’s focus on possession and ownership of identity, its rhetoric for the end of the American dream as World War II came to a close, and how the film’s queer undertones complicate its central, brutal conflict.

Check out the other movies in the Trylon’s “Murder, She Wrote” series: https://www.trylon.org/films/category/murder-she-wrote/

Listen to Harry’s appearance on Film Trace discussing THE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021) and THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (2001): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-french-dispatch-2021-and-the-royal-tenenbaums-2001/id1518610057?i=1000547290152

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Main Theme” from the LAURA soundtrack by David Raksin.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 154: LAURA (1944)

3:19 - A quick round of applause for women

3:48 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

6:46 - Jason’s thoughts

13:24 - Cody’s thoughts

18:36 - Harry’s thoughts

25:16 - Aaron’s thoughts

29:30 - What makes Laura a different kind of femme fatale

41:14 - McPherson’s internal class tensions

45:05 - Lydecker’s struggle to perform traditional masculinity

51:18 - Vincent Price’s Shelby Carpenter, the ‘kept man’

56:31 - What Laura and McPherson represent to each other

59:14 - LAURA’s warning to noir audiences

1:05:29 - Final thoughts

1:10:47 - Cody’s Noteys – Trylove Wordle (not really wordle)

Content warning: Discussions of domestic and sexual violence, miscarriage, and self-harm.

Featuring special guest and Game Informer senior associate editor Blake Hester (https://twitter.com/metallicaisrad)!

“Cursed”; “uncomfortable”; “bizarre”; “hopeful”? POSSESSION has been furrowing brows for more than 40 years with its intimately surreal depiction of a dissolving marriage. In the process, it’s garnered a reputation all its own, incomparably strange and off-putting. In this episode, we talk about seeing this movie on 35mm and try to go a bit further than the “WTF” reactions this movie has received over the years. Join us as we suss out what makes this film, once deemed inappropriate for distribution, such a classic, including its real-life inspirations, the sociopolitical context of its creation, and why both directly literal and totally symbolic readings miss the whole point of the movie.

Find Blake and his writing at the following links:

- https://twitter.com/metallicaisrad

- https://www.gameinformer.com/user/blake-hester

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Main Theme" from the POSSESSION soundtrack by Andrzej Korzynski.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 153: POSSESSION (1981) with Blake Hester

3:51 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

7:41 - Blake’s thoughts

9:54 - Jason’s thoughts

14:05 - Cody’s thoughts

18:31 - Harry’s thoughts

24:08 - Aaron’s thoughts

29:57 - What makes Anna a hopeful character in a movie full of despicable people

37:52 - The movie’s point of view

44:09 - How Heinrich pushed Anna closer to the Creature

52:46 - The dark comedy of POSSESSION

55:37 - Who is East Germany and which is West Berlin?

1:00:06 - The humanly grotesque scenes

1:12:38 - Isabelle Adjani’s scream in the tunnel

1:13:25 - Skip to after the scary scream

1:14:43 - Final thoughts (parenting, Bob, Jason simps for Isabelle Adjani)

1:21:01 - Cody’s Noteys (2022 movie resolutions)

It’s the most highly anticipated event in podcasting.

The most prestigious ceremony in the history of film.

The most sought-after award by creators and contributors alike.

The 𝒢𝑜𝓁𝒹𝑒𝓃 𝐵𝒶𝓇𝓇𝓎.

Enjoy our sometimes enlightening, sometimes bloody, sometimes annoying, always fun discourse as we recap the movies, makers, planners, back-row back-chat, and on-mic discussions from The Year That Was 2021 At The Trylon! No, we can’t just talk about them, because we have to pretend everything is a contest. It’s just the vibe.

Seriously, if you sit all the way through this, you deserve something cool. Maybe DM us at @trylovepodcast?

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters.

Timestamps

3:36 - 2021 at the Trylon

10:25 - Our 2022 Trylon wishlist

17:21 - Our personal favorite Trylon films of 2021

36:50 - The Best Trylon Dry Run (movies first seen at the Trylon)

51:50 - The Rashomonies (movies unnecessarily longer than RASHOMON (1950) )

1:09:09 - The Best Film Series at the Trylon

1:20:04 - Best Non-Series Film (one-offs, volunteer picks, etc.)

1:26:14 - The Movie We're Saddest About Not Recording On

1:35:05 - The Movie That We Definitely, Totally Understand

1:37:23 - Best Director

1:43:23 - Best Restaurant Scene or Sequence in a Movie

1:53:45 - Best Trylove Guest

2:00:12 - Best Cody’s Notey

2:08:02 - The Simp of the Year

2:29:39 - King of the Trylon

2:46:14 - Best Picture

3:31:23 - Just skip to the winners

3:34:51 - Next year's brand-new Barrys category

Happy holidays and 𝙈𝙀𝙊𝙒, everyone! 🐈🦇🐧🎄 Batmaniacs Logan Lafferty and Seth Zarate step in the iron maiden and slide down to the cave for a festive episode on a Christmastime classic.

By being an absolutely nutso movie about freaky people, BATMAN RETURNS is still probably the greatest example of what a superhero movie can really be. Underneath the neo-gothic aesthetic, there’s the sexy antics of the title weirdo and his new antiheroes. And underneath THAT, there’s a power struggle for the electric heart of Gotham. It’s bursting at the seams with so many weird bits and baubles that it’s astonishing it ever got made, let alone that it makes them all work so well.

In this episode, we discuss the movie’s brash queerness, pick apart the ways it uses its aesthetic to highlight the class struggle at its heart, and compare this movie to the uneven cinematic tidal wave that superhero movies have become in the 29 years since its release.

Find Logan at the following links:

- https://twitter.com/mrleviathan

- https://letterboxd.com/leviathan/

Find Seth online at

- https://twitter.com/snzarate

- https://letterboxd.com/snzarate/

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: I don’t wanna get sued so just use context clues and take your best guess.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 151: BATMAN RETURNS (1992) and Noglove drink chat

3:17 - The episode actually starts

5:44 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

7:29 - Logan’s thoughts & his lifelong love for the Caped Crusader

8:50 - Seth’s thoughts

10:57 - The indelible imagery of BATMAN RETURNS

12:16 - The whiplash of such zany comic elements

17:37 - A list of reasons this movie is absolutely insane

24:40 - Our favorite quotes & moments

32:16 - Satire & this movie in conversation with modern superhero cinema

37:54 - Is Michael Gough the best Alfred Pennyworth?

44:59 - Power & class politics in Tim Burton’s Gotham

52:30 - Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman

56:58 - The downright artful composition of BATMAN RETURNS

1:04:29 - Final thoughts (penguin sea burials, treasure heists & more)

1:11:21 - Cody’s Noteys: Riddle Me This (Batman actor trivia)

A series on Éric Rohmer’s films of the 1980s closes with THE GREEN RAY (1986), winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and one of the best-known films in his Comedies and Proverbs series.

When her fiance calls off their summer vacation, Delphine is left adrift, bouncing from apartment to summer home to atelier in the hope she can quell her loneliness. Her baggage makes her feel like a burden to friends and strangers. At the same time, she feels most vulnerable in solitude, leaving her stranded between her desire to be loved and her self-persecution – until she learns of the green ray, a solar phenomenon that could help her reveal her true emotions to herself (and maybe the person she’s meant to love).

In this discussion, we pick apart the film’s slow build, unrelenting sympathy, myopic scope, and how it differs from the other films in the Trylon’s Rohmer series.

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: Credits music from THE GREEN RAY soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 150: THE GREEN RAY (1986)

1:27 - The episode starts

3:23 - A note on French vacation culture

10:29 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

11:24 - Jason’s thoughts

18:49 - Cody’s thoughts

23:25 - Harry’s thoughts

33:37 - Aaron’s thoughts

38:28 - How a smaller scope highlights the distances between people

44:48 - Delphine’s sense of self-persecution

49:58 - What history misunderstands about THE GREEN RAY

55:13 - Why THE GREEN RAY works as an empathy piece

58:25 - What the green ray means to the superstitious Delphine

1:06:16 - Final thoughts

1:11:15 - Cody’s Noteys – Trylibs: Rohmerian Grab Bag (themed madlibs)

Episode two of Éric Rohmer’s 1980s at the Trylon takes us to suburban Paris with a small cohort of young lovers who change each other little by little, chipping away at their self-image like sculptors looking in the mirror.

Parisian twentysomethings Lea and Blanche are almost complementary in their romantic desires. Lea is a creature of whimsy, testing her boyfriend with little “games” to see if he’ll stand up for himself; Blanche is less frivolous, less experienced, and less sure of what she wants. When the brooding, agreeable Fabien (Lea’s boyfriend) and the dashing womanizer Alexandre enter Blanche’s life at the same time, she finds herself caught between her desires, her friendship with Lea, and her very idea of herself.

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters.

Resources

Éric Rohmer’s 1980s at the Trylon https://www.trylon.org/films/category/eric-rohmers-1980s/

“Fashion Style in Rohmer‘s Movie ‘L'Ami de mon amie’” on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiG7aiSm9BA

Timestamps (Google Docs crashed so I only have some of them, sorry)

0:00 - Episode 149: BOYFRIENDS AND GIRLFRIENDS (1987)

3:00 - The episode actually starts

4:25 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

7:50 - Jason’s thoughts

14:11 - Cody’s thoughts

19:21 - Harry’s thoughts

26:56 - Aaron’s thoughts

30:38 - Subjectivity, interiority, and where Adrienne fits in the movie

1:03:40 - Cody’s Noteys: Rohmer’s Riddles (various trivia incl. Rohmer)

Our first episode of Éric Rohmer’s 1980s at the Trylon kicks off with a newly-created 35mm print of THE AVIATOR’S WIFE!

François thinks his girlfriend Anne is cheating on him (she kind of is… but she’s kind of also not his girlfriend? It’s very French), so he follows the other man, Christian, around Paris to catch him in the act. He crosses paths with Lucie, a student, whose curiosity convinces her to play along with François’s little game. What François and Lucie learn about Christian and Anne isn’t nearly as interesting as what they learn about each other as, conversation by conversation, they carve out images of one another as complex and unpredictable as the magically charming locales in which they have them.

In our discussion of this humorous, dramatic, gut-wrenching paean to young love, naïveté, and Protagonist Syndrome, we discuss how the methodical movement of characters through the city and through the day helps build them in the way your own environment shapes you – externalities creating interiority.

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “Paris m'a séduit” performed by Arielle Dombasle with Jean-Louis Valéro from the THE AVIATOR’S WIFE soundtrack.

Resources

Éric Rohmer’s 1980s at the Trylon https://www.trylon.org/films/category/eric-rohmers-1980s/

“In the Moment: Marie Rivière in The Aviator’s Wife” by Matías Piñeiro for Film Comment https://www.filmcomment.com/article/in-the-moment-marie-riviere-in-the-aviators-wife/

“The Aviator’s Wife” review by Janet Maslin for The New York Times (Oct. 7, 1981) https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/07/movies/avaitor-s-wife-of-rohmer.html

0:00 - Episode 148: THE AVIATOR’S WIFE (1981)

5:00 - The episode actually starts

6:07 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary and thoughts on Rohmer from Trylon film programmer John Moret

9:32 - Thoughts on the print, paris in the 80s, & ‘anthropological’ films

15:17 - Transit as development

17:30 - Movement and pacing in a film all about dialogue

21:15 - The diner scene & slice of life vibes

25:10 - Comparisons to Wong Kar-wai, Richard Linklater, & more

30:29 - Naïveté, young love, and stages of maturity

35:25 - François and main character syndrome

43:35 - The invisible coercive forces that guide these dialogues

48:55 - How much gravity François gives his relationships

53:35 - The ending

58:37 - Final thoughts

A man raised in isolation is dumped in Nuremberg in 1828, where he’s abused, abandoned, denigrated, show-ponied, and forgotten before being murdered. From the true story of Kaspar Hauser, Herzog coaxes larger statements about the validity of the basic human experience outside the constructs of ‘civilization’ and ‘society,’ as well as the myriad ways the world fails people on the margins.

In the final episode of our series on early Herzog, we talk about the sympathy with which the film views its subject, the secret to the movie’s title, the cultural implications of its treatment of language, and the real-life tragic figure who portrayed Kaspar. Then we pull the ripcord on one of the most unhinged editions of Cody’s Noteys yet. Aaron may factually [FICTIONALLY] kill [CHIDE] Cody [PARODY].

Resources

“Bruno S., Street Musician Turned Lead Actor in Herzog Classics, Dies at 78” at The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/arts/music/15bruno.html

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/.

Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: “Agnus Dei” by Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh from THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER.

0:00 - Episode 147: THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER (1974)

2:00 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

5:40 - A discussion of the film’s two titles

9:20 - Jason's thoughts (incl. universal struggles & where God is during all this)

13:25 - Cody's thoughts (incl. projection & self-actualization)

18:33 - Harry’s thoughts (incl. language, context & Derrida)

29:21 - Aaron’s thoughts (incl. which villagers he’d punch first)

33:05 - Is the movie looking for pity? Sympathy? Humor? Ire?

38:00 - The labels the world puts on Kaspar

46:54 - What Kaspar's dreams might mean

55:28 - Final thoughts

56:53 - Cody’s Noteys (Trylove Feud)