For the final installment of the seventh season, Bill and Renan welcome back third season guest Ray Patnaude to discuss ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. Chances are good you not only have heard of it, but it's very possibly a favorite film of almost everyone you know. In this finale episode, the trio discuss how they felt about it on release and upon revisiting; the techniques director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman deploy to make it both emotionally effective as well as dream-like and disorienting; Gondry's music videos and the film careers of his fellow video directors; plus, what else belongs in the list of best films of the century so far?
Eternal Sunshine links:
Show links:
Which FUNNY GAMES is your favorite? Is it the Michael Haneke film about a bourgeois couple subjected to home invasion by a pair of sadistic killers from 1997, or the Michael Haneke film about a bourgeois couple subjected to home invasion by a pair of sadistic killers from 2007? Is either of these films your favorite telling of this particular story? In today's episode, Renan and Bill compare the two versions, try to understand what Haneke was trying to say with them, explore what is compelling about them in spite of the subject matter, make unexpected comparisons to the filmography of James O. Incandenza, and discuss other close remakes.
Funny Games links:
Show links:
Today we're talking about arguably 2017's most controversial film, and one of the most controversial on this podcast: Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER! (technically, mother!) starring JLaw, JBard, Ed Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Plus, joining us to bring a skeptical point of view is Vulture's movies editor, Rachel Handler! In this episode: mother! as Biblical allegory and environmental parable; or, is the movie actually all about being a demanding artist?; the religious concept of eternal return vs. scientific concept of the oscillating universe; plus: what's that yellow substance, and how obvious is it he wrote it in five days?
mother! links:
Show links:
Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 WEEKEND (or WEEK-END, if you prefer) is a scathing political satire if you understand what's going on, or a long strange trip if you don't. Your hosts have been on both sides of this divide, and today they come together to talk about seeing the film as a clueless undergrad; Tarantino and Wheatley as JLG fans and other films it influenced; the automobile and capitalist society; anti-colonialist speeches with sandwiches; a digression on the legacies of Hunter S. Thompson and Jann Wenner; Black Mirror, Get Out and other contemporary satires; and the puzzles of Lewis Carroll.
Weekend links:
Show links:
To discuss Ben Wheatley's 2015 dystopian drama HIGH-RISE—based on the J.G. Ballard novel of the same name, adapted for the screen by Amy Jump, and starring Tom Hiddleston and Jeremy Irons—we welcome to the show Simon Owens, a past colleague of Bill and Renan's and a journalist based in DC. The film looks and sounds amazing, the source material is first-rate, and the acting is all around superb. So why does this movie actually make less sense than some of the crazier movies we've talked about this season? Debate ensues.
High-Rise links:
Show links: