Trylove

Absurd, theatrical, and meandering, THE TRIAL is an almost faithful adaptation of Kafka’s literary critique of legal bureaucracy. In this episode, we talk about the movie’s lack of narrative pull, its garish monochrome palette and impressive set design, and what it says that Orson Welles changed the lens of Kafka’s novel to focus on the individual – and then cast himself as the villain.

Watch THE TRIAL on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/the-trial-1962

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: "Adagio Prologue" by Jean Ledrut from the THE TRIAL soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 224: THE TRIAL (1962)

2:43 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

4:25 - Orson Welles’s Advocate and differences from the book

17:43 - Red Scare anger and an ego-fueled daydream

23:41 - An abstruse bureaucracy designed to prey on public guilt

34:30 - Impossible spaces

45:24 - The Junk Drawer

54:01 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

58:11 - Cody’s Noteys: With Franz Like These

EMPEROR OF THE NORTH rides (haha) a thin line between two distinct tracks (lmao): “Mythological self-seriousness with a sort of ironic bent” and “formulaic and cheesy early thriller fare”. Lee Marvin’s A No. 1 and Keith Carradine’s Cigaret face off against a cartoonishly evil Ernest Borgnine as Shack, the psychotically disgruntled company man with a hatchet (or hammer) for hobos. It’s all a bit MAD MAX (1979), but not quite as fantastical or sincerely angry. It’s more of a spectacle than a statement, but there’s a good bit of value in that, and we try to get that engine going in this episode!

Watch EMPEROR OF THE NORTH on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/1973emperorofthenorth

Get tickets to BROUGHT TO LIFE BY ERNEST BORGNINE (April 2023): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/brought-to-life-by-ernest-borgnine/

Get tickets to “BLOODY SAM” PECKINPAH (May at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/bloody-sam-peckinpah/

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: "A Man and A Train" written by Frank DeVol and Hal David and performed by Marty Robbins from the EMPEROR OF THE NORTH soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 223: EMPEROR OF THE NORTH (1973)

5:09 - The episode actually starts (it's all kind of #GamesPod up until this point)

9:06 - What worked and didn’t

16:21 - Physicality in EMPEROR OF THE NORTH

23:40 - Finding meaning beyond “survival”

36:05 - The joyful absurdity of EMPEROR OF THE NORTH

38:58 - Ironic mythologizing or cloying preachiness?

45:28 - The Junk Drawer

55:37 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

59:12 - Jason's Hobo Vernacular Game

It turns out there’s no fence-sitting at the end of the Wild West.

You wouldn’t call THE WILD BUNCH particularly swashbuckling, but there’s a sort of uncomfortable excitement to its bandolier antics. A band of outlaws eyes one last prize near the US/Mexico border in 1913. The sociopolitical tumult of the place, and the rapid advance of the punitive system of capital at the time, threaten to derail their plans until a Mexican general hires them to steal guns from a moving train. No matter which side of the border they’re on, the Wild Bunch feel their God-given right to subvert systems of power slipping with each gold piece snatched and each bullet dodged.

Listen in for our thoughts on the movie that made Sam Peckinpah’s career and changed how people thought of violence in movies!

Subscribe to Region Free, AJ Moser and Blake Hester’s podcast Jason guested on the week this episode came out: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/region-free/id1669819287

Get tickets to BROUGHT TO LIFE BY ERNEST BORGNINE (April 2023): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/brought-to-life-by-ernest-borgnine/

Get tickets to “BLOODY SAM” PECKINPAH (May at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/bloody-sam-peckinpah/

“The Wild Bunch: Between Companionship and Despair” by Rowan A. Smith for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/04/02/the-wild-bunch-between-companionship-and-despair/

“The Wild Bugs” by Brogan Earney for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/04/02/the-wild-bugs/

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: "End Credits (La Golondrina)" by Jerry Fielding from the THE WILD BUNCH soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 222: THE WILD BUNCH (1969)

4:10 - The episode actually starts

6:18 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

9:18 - Uncomfortable, not swashbuckling

15:51 - Individual responsibility vs. larger systems at work

21:17 - The bunch, Angel, and the end of ourselves

40:36 - The meta response to violence in THE WILD BUNCH

49:42 - Deke and survival and hope

58:19 - The Junk Drawer

1:12:38 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

1:17:15 - Cody’s Noteys: Crazy Gang

In RATCATCHER, everything is someone’s fault, but not everyone suffers for it.

“Ratcatcher: Death, Garbage, and Glimpses of Beauty in 1970s Glasgow” by Dan Howard for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/03/26/ratcatcher-death-garbage-and-glimpses-of-beauty-in-1970s-glasgow/

“The Eyes of Morton Are Upon You: Morvern Callar and the Art of Expression” by Natalie Marlin for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/03/24/the-eyes-of-morton-are-upon-you-morvern-callar-and-the-art-of-expression/

Check out our episode partially about Lynne Ramsay’s MORVERN CALLAR with Fun City Editions founder Jonathan Hertzberg: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-155-building-a-boutique-film-label-with/id1449848155?i=1000547883839

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: Gassenhauer by Carl Orff.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 221: RATCATCHER (1999)

4:37 - The episode actually starts

7:20 - Ramsay’s style

17:29 - Humanizing, sympathizing, and wallowing in our own filth

31:38 - Snowball going to the moon

45:31 - Power hierarchies and targeted neglect

49:27 - The ending

54:59 - The Junk Drawer

1:00:14 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

1:05:57 - Cody’s Noteys: Ratlove (rat-themed movie trivia)

Special guest Emma Youndtsmith joins Trylove for the first time to discuss a classic of ‘70s animated adaptations!

WATERSHIP DOWN has a reputation for ruining childhoods, with gruesome imagery and dark implications about the systems of power in the natural world. You could read it as a post-WWII allegory, as a broader indictment of fascist hegemony, or just as a journey of self-discovery. But with Emma, we tried to go further than the striking violence for which it’s remembered to pull out some new insights: Why the book might be sadder than the movie, what it’s saying about the nature of nature, and what makes Kehaar an all-time G.

Find Emma:

On Twitter at https://twitter.com/Etuni

On Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/quiltedquads/

Volunteering at the Trylon every other Friday

“The Rabbits of Tomorrow: Watership Down and the Evolution of Animation” by Daniel McCabe on Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/03/17/the-rabbits-of-tomorrow-watership-down-and-the-evolution-of-animation/

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: "Kehaar's Theme" composed by Angela Morley and performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from the WATERSHIP DOWN soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 220: WATERSHIP DOWN (1978) with Emma Youndtsmith

4:00 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

5:54 - Comparisons to the book

12:37 - WATERSHIP DOWN in context of personified animal animation

18:09 - The traumatizing provenance of WATERSHIP DOWN

24:46 - The Black Rabbit

31:54 - Cowslip’s warren

36:14 - Woundwort’s warren and hegemony

39:39 - The worldbuilding

43:03 - Ya boi Kehaar

55:37 - The Junk Drawer

1:00:35 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

1:07:50 - Cody’s Noteys: Animal Kingdom

In YI YI, the sudden illness of the matriarch in a three-generation household sends the lives of its inhabitants spiraling. In the emotional chaos, NJ, his wife Min Min, his daughter Ting Ting, and his son Yang Yang find themselves reckoning with the end of a generation and at the crossroads of many versions of themselves.

In our discussion of director Edward Yang’s final film, we discuss the big ideas he hints at in everyday scenes: generational baggage and a struggle to move forward; the struggle to maintain identity amid changing circumstances; and the inability to control the world’s perceptions of you while you figure out who you want to be.

- Get tickets to EDWARD YANG, GIANT OF TAIWANESE CINEMA (March 2023 at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/edward-yang-giant-of-taiwanese-cinema/

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 is another that might get me in trouble so idk, Google it or something.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 219: YI YI (2000)

5:01 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

7:48 - Da best Yang yet?

22:21 - The unifying ideas of YI YI

28:53 - Distance & alienation

34:42 - Tying setting and scene to theme

40:21 - Yang Yang & a changing world

46:48 - Grandma & generational tension

1:00:35 - Little moments where theme is expressed in form

1:09:50 - Readings of the ending

1:15:22 - The Junk Drawer

1:28:16 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

1:36:53 - Cody’s Noteys: Trylove Feud – The Most Popular Movies on Letterboxd from the 2000s

TAIPEI STORY dives again into Edward Yang’s musings on the modern Taiwanese experience, juxtaposing the past with the future against a concrete-and-glass background of 1980s economic disparities. Childhood sweethearts Chin and Lung meet again later in life, when neither of them is quite ready to make anything happen. Debts, missed opportunities, and baseball fill the space between them – and as their relationship enters its quiet death throes, they find themselves helpless to prevent the entropy that drives them apart.

- Get tickets to EDWARD YANG, GIANT OF TAIWANESE CINEMA (March 2023 at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/edward-yang-giant-of-taiwanese-cinema/

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 is a song I think might get me in trouble (even though it appears in the song), so just take a listen for yourself.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 218: TAIPEI STORY (1985)

2:38 - The episode actually starts

4:29 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises, LLC)

7:02 - Baseball

17:12 - Gwan, exposition & pity instead of love

20:50 - Putting characters in meaningful context

27:58 - A dichotomy between future and past

32:08 - Who Chin is to Lung and the other men in her life

37:36 - Embodying the future/past dichotomy through characters

49:49 - The precarity of modern living

1:00:41 - The Aaron Grossman Edward Yang Filmed Apartment Quality Index (AGEYFAQI)

1:02:59 - The Junk Drawer

1:08:29 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

1:14:04 - Cody’s Noteys: Frank White Story (baseball trivia)

Si’r and the other rebel youths of 1959 Taipei aren’t misguided – they just aren’t guided. In A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, Taiwanese director Edward Yang investigates the broadly social and intensely personal conditions that might’ve led to a teenage murder that occurred during his youth. Si’r and his friends (and his enemies) exist in the vacuum of identity between nations and generations, between warring street gangs, between seasons – searching always for themselves, or something they can call it.

- Get tickets to EDWARD YANG, GIANT OF TAIWANESE CINEMA (March 2023 at the Trylon): https://www.trylon.org/films/category/edward-yang-giant-of-taiwanese-cinema/

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 ambience from A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 217: A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY (1991)

2:58 - The episode actually starts

3:45 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises, Ltd.)

6:19 - Investigating what leads youth like Si’r to violence

23:21 - Honey, hauntology & Western idealism

34:04 - Nighttime as a place where anything can happen

42:30 - Misheard lyrics, our memories, our selves

49:21 - Lighting, staging & the pain of the teenage experience

58:06 - Stewing in people’s problems

1:10:37 - The Junk Drawer

1:13:21 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

1:18:42 - Cody’s Noteys: Our Four Hours (four hours-themed trivia)

Jo and Steve need their $4,000 back from their cab licensing go-between. What they get instead is a tour through San Francisco’s Chinatown, with stops at some of its most charismatic and enigmatic Chinese-American residents. Each person they meet holds up a kaleidoscope to the Chinese-American experience, muddying their picture of Chan and of their very culture.

- “Chan is Missing: Reflecting on an Unsolved Mystery” by Andrea Bruiser on Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/02/17/chan-is-missing-reflecting-on-an-unsolved-mystery/

- EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: WAYNE WANG (Oct. 2008) on Jesther Entertainment: http://jestherent.blogspot.com/2008/10/interview-wayne-wang.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: "忍" by Sam Hui from the CHAN IS MISSING soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 216: CHAN IS MISSING (1982)

7:42 - A complex picture of disjointed identity

16:57 - Unique characters & their forced assimilation

26:03 - San Francisco as a haven and a prison

29:02 - Describing, not prescribing, the Chinese American experience

32:36 - Bullshit “accept the mystery” takes about this movie

39:21 - How CHAN IS MISSING uses noir tropes

58:18 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

1:02:44 - Where is the Trylove/Where’s the Trylove (missing persons movie trivia)

The Man Hunos Bruno, our resident Bruce Willis authority, Seth Zarate (https://twitter.com/snzarate) is back and talking to his younger self on Trylove!

LOOPER put Rian Johnson on the big-budget map and earned him the director’s seat on a fuckin’ STAR WARS movie. It’s the movie that tried to convince us Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt could feasibly look like the same person with varying degrees of success. It’s also packed to the gills with moral inquiries into the mutability of self, musings on the origin of male pain, the responsibility of men to correct their own mistakes, some really cool shotguns called blunderbusses, and Paul Dano making one specific, pitifully funny noise.

Find Seth…

- On Twitter at https://twitter.com/snzarate

- On Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/snzarate

- On Trylove episodes about IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934), THE CONVERSATION (1974), TOKYO GODFATHERS (2003), BATMAN RETURNS (1992), Horrorthon V: Son of Horrorthon (2021), RUMBLE IN THE BRONX (1995), THE SACRIFICE (1986), THE FACULTY (1998), TIME BANDITS (1981), A GOOFY MOVIE (1995) Table Read, TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. (1985), 12 MONKEYS (1995), and THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)

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: “"Powerful Love" by Chuck and Mac from the LOOPER soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 212: LOOPER (2012) with Seth Zarate

2:34 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

4:14 - Going back to LOOPER

11:44 - The movie’s multitude of ideas

26:09 - The slow-burn second half

31:03 - Johnson’s ‘gotta put a twist on it’

36:06 - Sara and the movie’s gender politics

52:25 - If Rian Johnson could direct a straight genre movie

1:00:26 - The Junk Drawer

1:08:38 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF!

1:15:49 - Cody’s Noteys: Timelove (time travel movie trivia)