Reel 2: Malcolm X, Selma

In today’s episode, Sean and Claude take a look at two films about civil rights leaders of the 1960s: Malcolm X (1992), directed by Spike Lee, and Selma (2014), directed by Ava DuVernay.

In general, people have very different images of these two icons in their heads: Martin Luther King as the nonviolent, peaceful “passive resistance” guy and Malcolm X as a radical out to get what he wants “By Any Means Necessary”. And for many, that painted him as a violent person.

But Malcolm X’s tactics were steeped in defense, not offense. And unfortunately his break from the Nation of Islam crowd came just a little too late. However, in reviewing these films we discover that there were many more things these men had in common than not.

Your podcatcher may or may not have this show available (the show as a whole is still worming its way into directories), but you can always download or listen to it here:

Reel 1: 1968 Science Fiction

That this didn’t appear sooner is totally on me (Claude). I promise, the workflow on this show is improving.

For our first show, we have to go back to the start, of course. Specifically, Sean’s start. We go back to the year of his birth and check out a couple of science fiction movies that were both released in 1968, but which have very different outlooks on what the future is going to be like. Sit back and enjoy as we discuss Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the original Planet of the Apes, directed by Franklin Schaffner.

This being our first “real” episode, we do hope you’ll forgive a couple of weird technical glitches that we’ve been working on, and focus instead on the great conversation we had. 

Reel 1 Preview

In our honest-to-goodness first episode, Sean and Claude take a look at two science fiction films which were both released in 1968, but which couldn’t have more different views with regard to how things turn out in the future.

Tune in on August 24th when we look at 2001: A Space Odyssey and the original Planet of the Apes.

Viewing options for these films (via JustWatch.com):

Welcome to the Show!

It’s the first episode of Words and Movies! In the inaugural show, Sean Gallagher and Claude Call introduce themselves to you and talk about what makes them so smart (hint: one of us is SMART, the other is S-M-R-T), plus what sort of stuff we’ll be talking about, the overall approach we’ll be taking to the films we discuss, and a preview of our first three episodes.