A historical-psycho-erotic surrealist film exploring themes of womanhood, Christianity, and Freudian-infused takedowns of family and cultural identity?  Plus vampires?!  Hey Criterion Collection: Get out of my head!  Director Jaromil Jireš serves up a whimsically horrifying dreamscape in this seminal Czech New Wave classic. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be reviewing and discussing Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979) with Briana and Maddy of the Chapter One: Take Two podcast.

Random Acts of Cinema

761 - Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

This movie has some killer credits: Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift star in a Vittorio de Sica directed, David Selznick produced, Christian Dior costumed, Truman Capote dialogued romance set during a single night in the main train station in Rome.  But does can a movie with these credits possibly live up to such lofty expectations? If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970).

202 - Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953) and Terminal Station (1953)

It’s always a special, if troubling, time on this podcast when another David Lynch film is randomly selected.  And this week we have his hotly-debated rejected-pilot-turned-feature film journey into the seductively decadent and disturbingly nightmarish world of Hollywood moviemaking. We even offer up our own - possibly original - interpretation of what the film is actually about.  And that’s how you know we’ve officially fallen off the deep end. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Vittorio de Sica’s Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953) and Terminal Station (1953).

779 - Mulholland Drive (2001)

Look: will we talk about the use of split screen?  Of course we will.  Will we talk about this early breakout supporting role for John Travolta?  Yep.  Will we talk about how these and more contribute to the manner of director Brian de Palma?  You bet.  But mostly Mike and I have been desperate to talk about Stephen King on the podcast.  So get ready for lots of that.  And lots of pig’s blood. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001).

LD141- Carrie (1976)

This week we revel in the lo-octane ease of 90’s independent filmmaking with Richard Linklater’s love letter to love and travel, and discussions about love and travel.  Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke 90’s it up even more in a single evening long meet-cute set in Vienna, killing time until their departure in the morning.  We discuss Linklater’s proclivity to long-term film projects, and whether or not this film anticipates its eventual decades-spanning trilogy. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976).

857 - Before Sunrise (1995)

Sorry this episode is posting a little late this week, but we wanted to add a little extra no-dialogue silence to our discussion of Kaneto Shindo’s similarly dialogue-free year-in-the-life of a family struggling to farm on a small isolated island.  It’s a quiet film, to be sure, but full of nuance, rich humanity, and humble beauty. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995).

811 - The Naked Island (1960)

This is a movie that sells itself.  Director Agnieszka Smoczyńska‘s musical is about flesh-eating mermaids working in a sleazy cabaret/strip club in 1980s Poland. That deranged mash-up of a premise provokes just as varied of a series of responses: thrilling, unsettling, sexy, repulsive, funny, and despairing.  With a kind of magical realism/urban fantasy/rock opera aesthetic, the director plays with feminine fears and desires in the face of a timidly repressive patriarchal society. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Kaneto Shindō’s The Naked Island (1960).

906 - The Lure (2015)

It’s first episode for one of our theme song directors!  And one of your hosts went a little overboard getting up to speed with the works of Rainer Werner Fassbender.  Honestly, a lot of the typical second-half of the twentieth century European auteur themes come up in this film except now we have a decade spanning domestic drama exploring of postwar…femininity. Hanna Schygulla plays the eponymous heroine, navigating the obstacles of survival in post World War II Germany as she fiercely waits and prepares for the return of her husband and then his release from prison. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Agnieszka Smoczynska’s The Lure (2015).

204 - The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978)

Boy oh boy, we really crack the nut of red scare allegories this time! Or we don’t.  Hard to say which.  But we have a great time talking about rural Southern California, divorce, imposters, whatever happens to the eponymous bodies, losing family and friends to right wing hysteria, Morticia Addams, and the Twilight Zone. Fun stuff! If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Rainer Werner Fassbender’s Marriage of Maria Braun (1978).

LD08 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

The word “game” has two meanings.  So that means that the title of director Ernest B. Schoedsack’s The Most Dangerous Game can also mean…wait…oh no…oh god…run!  RUN!!  Anyway, it seems like we spend about as much time talking about Hard Target (1993) and Surviving the Game (1994) as we do the film in question.  So get ready for a wild ride. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be reviewing and discussing Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

46 - The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

“All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces.” You know what rhymes with “faces”?  “Places”.  Know what rhymes with “places”?  “Faces”.  If you like this kind of clever word play, except with more mother-in-law jokes, then have we got a mad cap flick for you!  Director Stanley Kramer brings us an all-star (of sorts) comedic ensemble cast with his oft-parodied cross country race to unearth THOUSANDS of dollars.  If only my gosh darn mother-in-law would get off of my back and let us review it! If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Ernest B. Schoedsack’s The Most Dangerous Game (1932).

692 - It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

Why not just jumpstart the sub-genre of body horror by inventing a whole new pseudoscience called psychoplasmic therapy that allows for the fears of divorce, children, and past mental traumas to literally manifest themselves in growths, tumors, little blonde goblin killers, and a mounting body count? And if on top of all that, you happen to be legendary director David Cronenberg, why not make all of those things simultaneously beautiful, familiar, and disturbingly disgusting? If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be watching Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

777 - The Brood (1979)

It’s that time of the…decade again. And we’ve got international amateur athletic competition fever! In honor of the return of the Olympic Games to Japan, we’re watching one of the great documentaries on the subject: director Kon Ichikawa’s lyrical vision of the 1964 Tokyo games.   If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing David Cronenberg’s The Brood(1979).

155 - Tokyo Olympiad (1965)

We’re dipping back into the Henry James-adaptation pool with William Wyler’s Olivia de Havilland vehicle The Heiress, based on Washington Square.  Making this a period piece featuring a kind of funhouse love triangle where neither the dashing if penniless Morris (Montgomery Cliff) nor her father Dr. Sloper (Ralph Richardson) seem to love Catherine (de Havilland’s titular heiress) who must suffer as stubborn men and fate conspire to leave her lonely and heartbroken. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be ACTUALLY be watching Kon Ichikawa’sTokyo Olympiad(1965), no matter what Randy says this episode.

974 - The Heiress (1949)

We’re back with directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (AKA “The Archers”) for one of their all-time biggest pictures.  This time they rework and update a Hans Christian Andersen folk tale into a romance chronicling the ascending fame of a celebrated ballerina and the men competing for her love and success.  And, as promised, the shoes are REALLY red. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing William Wyler’s The Heiress (1949).

44 - The Red Shoes (1948)

Each week Mike (an independent filmmaker) and Charlie (a professor of art history) have Randy (the random number generator) select a film for them to watch from the Criterion Collection. Then they discuss and review it for your listening pleasure. It’s a podcast about the love of film, expanding horizons, painstakingly cataloging the duration of every long take, and friendship.

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Random Acts of Cinema

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