Category: 1970

Reel 64: Same Title, Different Movie (redux)

Yowza, my friend. Welcome to the land of weird issues with this episode.

Just to peel back the curtain a little bit, Sean and I record an episode, then later on I do some editing, I put in the music and Alex’s bits, then I package everything and run it through some software called Auphonic to make sure everything’s evened out and compressed a little for your consumption, plus I make up the artwork and write these bits.  And usually the editing is the easy part. This time around, however, it was the hard part. There were some odd glitches on his side that I didn’t hear during recording, so I had to make some peculiar repairs to the sound, and that meant using some of the backup audio that we record. Then on the run through Auphonic, I bumped into the software inserting huge silent gaps  in the show, which needed to be cut out again as seamlessly as possible.

On top of all that, Sean and I do have day jobs, ya know. Neither of us make a dime on the show; it’s a labor of love, baby.

Okay, enough whining, because this episode deals with a couple of great films that really should be getting more attention, and coincidentally they both have the same title despite being about very different subjects.

The title for this episode’s films is Loving, and the first version is from 1970, directed by Irvin Kershner. It stars George Segal and Eva Marie Saint as a couple whose relationship is unwinding just at the point where Segal’s character is just starting to get his career back on track. It’s a serious story with a comic overlay on it, and while some of it may be a little dated, it’s a compelling story regardless.

In part 2, the “Loving” in the film is in the form of Mildred and Richard Loving, a real-life couple who decided to take their relationship and make a Federal case out of it. Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton play the lead roles in this 2016 film directed by Jeff Nichols. It’s worth noting that most of the events of this film took place during our lifetimes—okay, MY life; Sean was born the year after the Loving decision was handed down by the Supreme Court. The bottom line is, attitudes about such things were quite different not very long ago.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

In our next two episodes, we take a look at remakes which managed to surpass the original version. We start with The Man Who Knew Too Much, a 1956 film starring James Stewart. From there we jump to 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a film that I’m still not 100% clear the studio knew how to market.

Reel 54: Les Crimes Français

We continue our trip Around the World in Twenty Films with a stopover in France, and a look at a couple of crime dramas, told largely from the criminals’ point of view.

In Part One we’re reviewing Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (Ă€ bout de souffle). This 1960 film stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. Belmondo is a petty criminal who’s graduated to cold-blooded murder. Seberg is his old girlfriend, in whose apartment he’s hiding. The ending to the film is something that’s been debated for years. Do we solve the mystery? Of course not; who are we? However, we do provide some additional information that either seals the deal…or it further muddies the water. We’ll leave that part to you.

From Breathless we make a ten-year jump to 1970’s Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle). No, we don’t know why most people refer to one film by its English title and the other by its French title. Just go with it. This epic-length film, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, stars Alain Delon. He and a host of other big-name French actors carry us through a complicated caper to steal jewelry.

Now, in Breathless the ending was (in our opinion) inevitable, but if you haven’t seen Le Cercle Rouge, it’s probably fair to say that you will be on the edge of your seat up until the ending, because everyone’s motivations are suspect. Also, you should see it before listening to the episode, because by now you should know that we are all about the spoilers.


COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

We reach the halfway mark with our world tour as we go to Germany. The films we’re screening show different ways that the Germans confront their past. First up is The Lives of Others, a 2006 drama that takes place on the other side of the Berlin wall. Then we move forward two years to review The Baader Meinhof Complex. You may have heard of the Baader Meinhof Phenomenon, which oddly enough is only loosely related to this film.

Reel 53: Only Disconnect

Sean and I individually thought for a long time about what a good title for this episode might be. We’d informally called it “Personalities,” but that was too bland. We kicked around “Mind F**ks” but we like being family-friendly, mostly. There were a few others, and as publication time approached, I was afraid we weren’t going to come up with anything we liked.

I don’t know if I like “Only Disconnect,” to be honest, but it was simultaneously a little bit clever and tied in well with an upcoming episode, which is titled “Only Connect”. And I think it does work with this episode’s films.

We have a couple of films this time around wherein characters’ personalities change in surprising ways. And the way they ultimately behave as a result of those changes comes as a surprise (we think) in both films.

First, we examine Ingmar Bergman’s Persona from 1966. Persona stars Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann as a nurse and her patient. They find themselves isolated at a beach house for several weeks. It’s meant to be therapeutic, but what that means becomes murkier as the film progresses.

From there we go to 1970 and Performance, written by Donald Cammell and directed by Cammell and Nicolas Roeg. It stars James Fox and Mick Jagger in his film debut (though Ned Kelly was released first), along with Anita Pallenberg and Michèle Breton as a foursome who find themselves in a world of drugs and sex and shattered minds. I guarantee that you will not see the last 15 minutes of this film coming, so even more than usual we should warn you to see this one before listening to the episode, but beware: it’s not for the squeamish. And we should note that while we don’t use explicit language during this episode, we do discuss some rather mature themes throughout.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

In Episode 54 we go to France and review two movies that have crime at their center. From 1960, it’s Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, followed by Le Cercle Rouge, from 1970 and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. We spend perhaps more time than necessary musing on the ending to Breathless. Come join us in the confusion.

Reel 19: War is Absurd

Sean went to Boston to visit family. I went to Nashville for a podcasting conference. He and I have had a hectic couple of weeks. But we’re back and better than ever, baby, as we take on a pair of comedies that outline just how insane war can be.

Our first entry is 1933’s Duck Soup, directed by Leo McCarey and starring The Marx Brothers. This was the last film in which Zeppo appeared, and also their last for Paramount Pictures. It not only pokes fun at various forms of nationalism, but the relatively small things that can lead a country into war.

From there we move on to 1970 and Mike Nichols’ Catch-22, starring Alan Arkin and a huge cast of (mostly) newcomers. The viewpoint here is just how out-of-control things can get once you’re in the thick of it, to the point of American planes bombing their own airbase because that’s how the deal went down.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Our next two films take place during the Great Depression, but fortunately they’re not designed to drag you down into a depression of your own. We’re looking at 1941’s Sullivan’s Travels, directed by Preston Sturges. It’s a comedy that takes a weird turn early on. We’re also checking out O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the 2000 entry by the Coen Brothers. It may or may not be a lift from Homer’s Odyssey. (Spoiler: it is.)