Happy 2026, Vintage Sand fans! Thank you for taking time away from looking for real estate opportunities in Greenland to join us for Episodes 65 and 66, our first of 2026. Herein, Team Vintage Sand returns one last time to the source of some of our most popular episodes: Danny Peary’s hard-to-find 1993 classic "Alternate Oscars". In the past, we have used Peary’s model to approach the Best Picture Academy Awards from every decade going back to the 1930’s. Collect them all! For this episode, we wrap up this series with the most recent complete decade, the 2010’s.

First, a caveat: we began this podcast eight years ago, in the spring of 2018, which means that we have already discussed many of today’s films in a number of different contexts already. We did our Best of the Teens in early 2020, and recently did our Top 10 of the Century so far, wherein many of the films we’re talking about today are contained. Add in that we did episodes on the best of 2018 and 2019, respectively, in those years, and you get the sense that we have already covered this ground several times. But like all good film fans, we’re completists, so we conclude this series of episodes with these two, which will focus on 2010 to 2014 and 2015 to 2019 respectively. Mercifully, perhaps, these episodes are shorter than most others we’ve done, simply because, as mentioned, this is terrain we have already covered several times.

The teens were clearly a transitional time for film, especially in Hollywood. The foreign market came to dominate, as did the teen market, which led to a kind of lowest common denominator for American film in these years. Throw in the uncertainties created by the rise of streaming and the changes in where and how people watch film, and you have…well, it’s still a little too early to tell what the 2010’s will look like to film historians, if there are indeed any film historians left.

That being said, it’s clear that the decade featured some of the greatest films ever made, ones that will stand the test of time and will continue to be watched long into the future. In many ways, the Mexican New Wavers dominated the decade, winning half of the Best Director Oscars for the whole decade: Del Toro for "Shape of Water", Cuarón for "Gravity" and "Roma", and Iñárritu for "Birdman" and "The Revenant". And of course, the stunning triumph of "Parasite" ended a decade in film that many were ready to write off (and got rid of the bad taste left behind by "Green Book" the previous year).

It was also a decade that saw the arrival of some wildly innovative and talented filmmakers, among them Chloe Zhao, Ryan Coogler, Ava Duvernay, Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig, Steve McQueen, and Damien Chazelle, plus amazing directors who transcended often marginalized genres like Ari Aster, Alex Garland, Robert Eggers and Denis Villeneuve.

We also saw some great works from directors who came of age in the 90’s and early 00’s like David Fincher, the Coens, Spike Lee, Christopher Nolan, Todd Haynes and the Andersons, both Wes and PTA divisions. And for the icing on the cake, we got some brilliant work from the old guard Hollywood New Wavers like Martin Scorsese (who just seemed to pick up steam as the decade went on), Steven Spielberg, (at least with" Lincoln"), Terrence Malick and, most surprisingly, Paul Schrader.

So make yourselves comfortable, have yourselves one of those lovely pastries from Mendl’s, and join us for our final foray into the world of Best Picture Alternate Oscars!

For the fifth time in the history of the podcast, Team Vintage Sand returns to one of its most popular formats: the Hidden Gems episode. As we did in episodes 11, 30, 40, and 53, Michael, John and I each choose one film to discuss that we feel has been underappreciated and overlooked by the madding crowd yearning to see anything besides a prequel, sequel, spinoff, or reboot. And while the episode features three films that could not be more different from one another, the one thing that they do have in common is that they are definitely movies made for grown-up sensibilities. Michael kicks things off by taking us back three decades to Nobody’s Fool, a film written and directed by the great Robert Benton and featuring one of Paul Newman’s best performances, which is saying something. Benton’s script, as well as a ridiculously good cast featuring Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, a young Philip Seymour Hoffman and, in her final performance, the matchless Jessica Tandy, remind us of how unfortunate it was that this film, while not exactly overlooked, got lost in the Oscar tsunami that was Forrest Gump. I once again focus on an imperfect but powerful and prescient film, in this case Cary Joji Fukunaga’s low-budget debut from 2009 Sin Nombre. Fukunaga tells the story of a young man from Chiapas and a young woman traveling with her uncle and father from Honduras who meet on the treacherous and often terrifying train ride through Mexico to the American border. A decade and a half before the dehumanization of people like Willy and Sayra became government policy, Fukunaga spares us nothing in showing us the humanity, resilience, strength, and decency of these people and why they feel compelled to make this almost suicidal journey just in the remote hope of finding a better life. Finally, John shines the spotlight on City Island, a sweet and gentle comedy from 2009 featuring Andy Garcia and Juliana Margulies as the parents of a family living in the titular unique and lovely section of the Bronx. The father, Vince, played by a charmingly understated Garcia, is a corrections officer with dreams of becoming the next Marlon Brando, and is taking an acting class (and eventually going to an audition) without telling anyone. But that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the secrets this family is keeping from one another. Featuring supporting performances by old pros like Alan Arkin (as Vince’s acting teacher who hates pauses) and Emily Mortimer as a friend he makes in the class who may have secrets of her own, the film is a lovely slice of life that contrasts its uniquely placid setting with the universally complicated dynamics of family and of wrestling with both one’s past and one’s dreams. So please enjoy, go see the many great films that are playing in theaters as the year comes to a close, and have a peaceful and restful holiday!

Happiest of Thanksgivings, Vintage Sand fans, and welcome to Episode 63, our tribute to the incomparable and quietly brilliant Robert Redford. Consider this. If all the Sundance Kid had given us was a series of memorable and subtly complex performances as an actor in a career spanning half a century, that would have been enough to make him a critically important figure in Hollywood, particularly in that mini-Golden Age of the American New Wave of the 1970’s. Had the only thing he given us was two masterpieces ("Ordinary People" and "Quiz Show") and his other often beautiful work as a director, that alone would make him a legend. Had the only thing he done was pave the way for the arrival of nearly every single great American film director of the last four decades through his work as the founder and inspiration behind the Sundance Film Festival, that would make him one of the towering figures in the history of American film. And had he focused his seemingly boundless energies exclusively on the best of social causes, such as climate issues and indigenous rights, in the quiet and unassuming way he did, that would be a cause for a celebration of his greatness. The fact that Robert Redford managed to do all of this and more during his lifetime, and with such an unerring sense of grace, cements his place as a foundational figure of modern American cinema. Team Vintage Sand takes the last line from one of his greatest performances, in 1972’s "The Candidate", and uses it as the title of our tribute to him as we ponder the what American film will look like without him: What do we do now?

And…we’re back! Did you miss us? You can say so—it’s OK. Yes, it’s the return of Vintage Sand, your film history podcast, with our first episode since May. It was a frantic and wonderful summer, but now the leaves are falling and it’s time for us to get back to what we love to do, with a double episode no less than 25 years in the making. That’s right, fellow film fanatics; it’s Vintage Sand’s Top Ten Films of the 21st Century (So Far). And once again, a major cultural institution has stolen our ideas! When last we three met in May, we had decided to do these episodes. But fate intervened and delayed us, and, sure enough, when we opened up the “New York Times” in mid-July, there was their best of the century list so far. This has happened to us far too often to be coincidence—anyone know any good intellectual property lawyers out there?

And that “Times” list was truly interesting in several ways. First of all, we much preferred the fan’s list of the Top 100 (to my great pleasure it included “La La Land”, “Blade Runner 2049”, “Sinners” and “Midsommar”). But, in what was perhaps a bit of quiet backlash to the 2022 “Sight & Sound” Poll, there were only a handful of directors of color, and fewer female directors than one might have expected. On the other hand, the clear “winner” of the Times poll was Christopher Nolan, the only director with five films on the list (the Coens, PTA, Alfonso Cuarón each had four). Nolan is the Hitchcock of our times, in the sense that he is one of those rare directors who both receives critical acclaim and puts asses in the seats. Now if he would only put those blaring soundtracks a little lower in the audio mix so that older, cranky audience members such as us have a shot at hearing the dialogue…

Ultimately, the work we put into creating these lists revealed a surprising and heartening result. From long before the time we started Vintage Sand back in 2018, all we’ve heard is doom and gloom about the state of cinema this century. “Film is dead” because folks are watching on their phones, or because of the algorithm, or because of streaming, or because of the emphasis on the global film marketplace over the domestic, or because our attention spans have vaporized, and on and on. Not that those are not real issues, but the death of film has been continuously reported since sound arrived roughly a century ago. And let me tell you, dear and faithful listeners: we had an incredibly difficult time narrowing down our respective lists to 25, let alone 10. We were overwhelmed with the number of creative, innovative, and moving films we had to choose from, films that will stand the test of time as well as any you could mention from the imagined “Golden Ages” of film. So our message, in the end, is one of optimism. Film is still a vital and glorious art form, and while you may have to dig around a bit more than you used to to find the greatness, it is clearly there. Enjoy these two episodes, and join us in facing the future of film with anticipation, excitement and joy.

And…we’re back! Did you miss us? You can say so—it’s OK. Yes, it’s the return of Vintage Sand, your film history podcast, with our first episode since May. It was a frantic and wonderful summer, but now the leaves are falling and it’s time for us to get back to what we love to do, with a double episode no less than 25 years in the making. That’s right, fellow film fanatics; it’s Vintage Sand’s Top Ten Films of the 21st Century (So Far). And once again, a major cultural institution has stolen our ideas! When last we three met in May, we had decided to do these episodes. But fate intervened and delayed us, and, sure enough, when we opened up the “New York Times” in mid-July, there was their best of the century list so far. This has happened to us far too often to be coincidence—anyone know any good intellectual property lawyers out there?

And that “Times” list was truly interesting in several ways. First of all, we much preferred the fan’s list of the Top 100 (to my great pleasure it included “La La Land”, “Blade Runner 2049”, “Sinners” and “Midsommar”). But, in what was perhaps a bit of quiet backlash to the 2022 “Sight & Sound” Poll, there were only a handful of directors of color, and fewer female directors than one might have expected. On the other hand, the clear “winner” of the Times poll was Christopher Nolan, the only director with five films on the list (the Coens, PTA, Alfonso Cuarón each had four). Nolan is the Hitchcock of our times, in the sense that he is one of those rare directors who both receives critical acclaim and puts asses in the seats. Now if he would only put those blaring soundtracks a little lower in the audio mix so that older, cranky audience members such as us have a shot at hearing the dialogue…

Ultimately, the work we put into creating these lists revealed a surprising and heartening result. From long before the time we started Vintage Sand back in 2018, all we’ve heard is doom and gloom about the state of cinema this century. “Film is dead” because folks are watching on their phones, or because of the algorithm, or because of streaming, or because of the emphasis on the global film marketplace over the domestic, or because our attention spans have vaporized, and on and on. Not that those are not real issues, but the death of film has been continuously reported since sound arrived roughly a century ago. And let me tell you, dear and faithful listeners: we had an incredibly difficult time narrowing down our respective lists to 25, let alone 10. We were overwhelmed with the number of creative, innovative, and moving films we had to choose from, films that will stand the test of time as well as any you could mention from the imagined “Golden Ages” of film. So our message, in the end, is one of optimism. Film is still a vital and glorious art form, and while you may have to dig around a bit more than you used to to find the greatness, it is clearly there. Enjoy these two episodes, and join us in facing the future of film with anticipation, excitement and joy.

I can tell you the exact date and place: October 16, 1986, at the Fine Arts Theater in downtown Chicago. I got to come of age as a moviegoer in the corporate dominated, era of the late 70’s and early 80’s. I was a child of "Jaws", "Star Wars", Indy and "Back to the Future". With occasional exceptions like "Stranger than Paradise" and "Blade Runner", American film in the early and mid 80’s felt corporate and soulless. And then I saw "Blue Velvet", and my moviegoing life was saved. Skip now to nearly four years later, to those glorious two months in the spring of 1990 when "Twin Peaks" changed everything that television was and could be. For these moments, and so many more, we use Episode 60 to pay a last tribute to Hollywood’s favorite Eagle Scout, the irreplaceable David Lynch.

What separates Lynch from almost every other filmmaker, was that whereas most great directors were filmmakers who evolved into artists, Lynch was an artist (a celebrated painter, composer) who happened to choose filmmaking as his major means of expression. And when the filmmaking money dried up after "Inland Empire"’s failure, he simply turned to other art forms to express what he wanted to say. Lynch was most certainly a surrealist, every bit as much as Dali, Magritte or De Chirico were, but he was, as one critic termed him, a “populist surrealist”. In his films, the line between dream and reality (or between reality and film in his later works) is blurred. This makes sense, since surrealism is founded on dreams and dreamlike juxtapositions. Lynch, like those great painters he so admired and emulated, was an artist of the unconscious and the uncanny. But for all the serious artistic ambition, everything he created was leavened with that art-school sense of humor, off-center and dry as a bone.

For all of his unsettling imagery and the deep questions his work raised about the nature of identity, he seemed, at least from the outside, to have led the happiest of lives. Raised mainly in Missoula, Montana, Lynch often paid tribute to the simple quotidian beauties of life in small-town America (think Twin Peaks, Lumberton, the Iowa and Wisconsin towns we see in "The Straight Story") while also, as in the opening of "Blue Velvet", reminding us of the darkness that often lies just beneath those finely-manicured lawns. For all of his artistic sophistication, he never even came close to an artsy sense of condescending irony; it’s perfect that he spent the last years of his life sending in daily weather reports to the LA public radio station for broadcast. No winks, no air quotes—just the desire to share a genuine excitement about the miracles of nature.

And for an artist who was such a unique stylist that he was one of the last to become an adjective (we all know “Lynchian” filmmaking when we see it), he was at the same time constantly paying tribute to film history; consider the endless "Wizard of Oz" references in "Wild at Heart", or casting just about all of the hot new movie stars of 1961 in the original "Twin Peaks" series. How perfectly fitting it was, then, to watch him, in his final and uncredited big screen appearance, playing a cranky John Ford in Spielberg’s "The Fablemans".

For our tribute to Lynch (which is more than they did for him at this year’s Oscars), we eschewed our usual formula and chose not to do a chronological reckoning of Lynch’s work and its impact from "Eraserhead" to "Inland Empire". This episode, like the director’s work itself, is more associative and non-linear. In the end, we conclude that David Lynch, that Man from Another Place, is someone whose absence makes the world that much poorer a spot to live in. To quote the repeated incantation from "Blue Velvet", now it’s dark.

Now that Adrien Brody has finally wrapped up his acceptance speech, we can bring you Episode 59 of Vintage Sand. And since it’s March, and the Oscars just passed, we’re right on time with our annual year-end review, which we call 2024: The Year of the Brutal.

As seems to be the case over the last few years, we came away from the year in film with mixed feelings. The interesting thing is that we did not seem to agree on any of the major films of the year. Mike and I liked "Anora" a lot, and John did not. We also both liked "Emilia Pérez", which John actively disliked. John and I liked Garland’s "Civil War", which Mike didn’t like at all. John liked "The Brutalist", and Mike and I were underwhelmed. I was alone in loving both "Nosferatu" and "The Substance". Mike and John liked "Conclave" and "A Complete Unknown", both of which I found kind of conventional despite outstanding performances. And so on. It makes it difficult to come to a consensus on the year, but it makes, as you will hear, for an excellent episode; after all, what could be more boring than when the three of us agree?

As for the Oscars themselves, we were pleasantly surprised at how good Conan was, and pleasantly not surprised how good the opening number from "Wicked" was. We were relieved at the absence of Malala vs. Cocaine Bear audience schtick (minus Adam Sandler), surprised at the politics-free nature of the evening, appalled at the James Bond “tribute”, amazed at how young Mick Jagger looks, and, as ever, disappointed in the In Memoriam section. And while we appreciated the Gene Hackman and Quincy Jones tributes, we were shocked that nothing special was done for David Lynch (something we plan to remedy in our next episode). Good on Sean Baker for winning four statuettes for "Anora", yet continuing puzzlement as to why Denis Villeneuve, among the greatest world-builders currently directing, can’t seem to get nominated for films that all seem to get nominated for Best Picture.

In considering our eternal question of which of these films will be watched by anyone in 25 years, let alone show up the Sight and Sound poll in 2032, I can only imagine that "Anora" and "Nosferatu", in the contexts of their respective directors’ careers, might make the cut. It seems slightly possible that the Dylan film, "Conclave" and "The Brutalist" might have some legs as well, but it’s less likely. For me, 2024 will always stand out as the year featuring women in films that were social commentaries in the context of the horror genre ("The Substance", "Maxxxine", and "Blink Twice" being among the best examples). It suggests that a kind of brutality, often directed at women though not exclusively, has crept into American film, as it seems to have done in American life itself. So we urge you, intrepid listeners, to support the arts and humanities, go to movies in theaters, and keep fighting the good fight.

Please see the description in Episode 57, our previous episode, as a guide for this, the latest in our Alternate Oscars series. This one focused on the films of the 1940's. Only decade left to cover is the 2010's so don't touch that dial!

Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America and all ships at sea, and welcome to Episode 57 of Vintage Sand, our first of 2025. In this episode and the next one we return, for the penultimate time, to the source of some of our most popular episodes: Danny Peary’s hard-to-find 1993 classic "Alternative Oscars". In the past, we have used Peary’s model to approach every full decade in which the Academy has handed out Oscars except two: the 2010’s, and the topic for this two-part episode, Alternate Oscars: The 1940’s Edition.

It's interesting that the 40’s are considered to be the peak of Hollywood’s Golden Age, yet many films that were beloved and honored back then have not well withstood the passage of time. The early part of the decade’s most important development was the rise of the writer/director in Hollywood. Preston Sturges was the first, with his incredible run of films from 1940-1945, and he was followed quickly by the Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett team and, of course, that clever young fellow from the Mercury Theater. The 40’s also marked the arrival of Hitchcock to these shores, and the rise to prominence of new directorial voices like Huston, Preminger, Zinnemann and Nicholas Ray. There were also many high points in the decade for well-established directors like Ford, Capra, Hawks, Lubitsch and Wyler. We have the incredible run of films between 1942 and 1946 made by Val Lewton’s brilliant B-movie unit at RKO, and, of course, the birth of film noir, overseen predominantly by expats like Wilder, Lang, Preminger, Ulmer, Lewis and Siodmak.

The latter half of the decade, which we will cover in Episode 58 in February, saw two major developments. The end of the war saw the return to strength of many European film industries as well as studio filmmaking in Japan. In France, in the wake of 1945’s miraculous "Les Enfants du Paradis", directors as different as Cocteau, Clouzot and Bresson began or restarted their careers. This explosion of creativity was matched in the UK, with the arrival of Lean, Reed, and especially with the flowering of the Powell-Pressburger Archers team. Clearly, though, the most important such event was the rise of what today is called Italian Neo-Realism, as directors like Rossellini, De Sica, and to a lesser extent Visconti, created a brand new way to tell stories on film that is still influencing directors today. The second big change of the late 40’s was really two changes in one: the landmark Paramount court case in 1948 that ended the vertical monopoly the studios had long held as owners of theater chains as well, and the mass arrival of television. Between 1948 and 1952, Hollywood lost nearly half of its audience, bringing down the curtain on that so-called “Golden Age” of Hollywood.

In terms of the Oscars, the Academy made solid choices for Best Picture--they certainly picked better films than they did in the 1930’s! These included enduring works like "The Best Years of Our Lives", "All the King’s Men" and especially, "Casablanca". Who could argue with that? (Hint: us.) But there were plenty of head scratchers as well. Prestige choices like "How Green Was My Valley", "Mrs. Miniver" and Olivier’s "Hamlet" look a little creaky these days. Hell, we might argue that "Rebecca" was not even Hitchcock’s best film of 1940! And the less said about "Going My Way" and "Gentlemen’s Agreement", the better. So kick back, round up the usual suspects, and help us make this podcast more important than the gas in that light…

No deep insight or analysis here, Vintage Sand fans. Just a list of our favorite Christmas and Christmas-adjacent films as the season approaches. (Not counting blazingly obvious choices like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Christmas Story”). May your days be merry and bright, may your heart grow three sizes that day, as they say in Whoville, and, may your favorite holiday films always be streaming.