In the waning months of the 20th century, a remarkable little film from a pair of unknown filmmakers arrived in US cinemas, and it became a bona fide sensation. That was BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999), written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze, starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and of course, John Malkovich. It was a formative film experience for your hosts, and twenty years later Bill and Renan revisit it for you today. Among the topics discussed: the film's reception at the time and how it looks now that the novelty has worn off; was 1999 the greatest year in cinema history, and what happened to indie films after?; how great art becomes problematic faves; what comes after after postmodern irony?; how it compares to Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine, and other Kaufman-Jonze work; plus, Bill's very much not good Orson Bean story and the BJM / Get Out fan theory that might yet prove to be true.
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How has this show never done a Christopher Nolan film before? Today your hosts rectify that and discuss his 2010 film INCEPTION, a $800 million-grossing summer blockbuster with no pre-established IP, unless being the next film by the guy who made The Dark Knight somehow counts. In this episode, Renan and Bill discuss: whether this and other Nolan features are truly mindfucks or mere puzzle films; whether they work on a second time viewing; how Nolan uses time, editing, and music to achieve his ends; defending Nolan from the haters on film Twitter; whether it's OK for the dialogue to be pretty much all exposition; whether Mal is actually a villain and if Dom should be considered one—in fact, isn't Dom a little bit like Red Dead's Dutch van der Linde?
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