This time around Bob and Mark lean right into the pretentiousness and discuss the French cinema they enjoy. (For the title we decided to go for the middle choice of "films;" seems midway between "cinema" and "movies.") We do less spoiling than usual, but you should still beware. The dreaded SPOILER may rear its head at any moment in our podcast.

00:10 Intro

03:45 Le Samourai

07:01 Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai

11:26 Disorder (Maryland)

18:39 Au Revoir, Les Enfants

24:28 My Dinner With Andre

26:59 Three Colors: White

33:41 L'Argent

39:04 Wasabi

43:15 Le Cercle Rouge

46:50 Army of Shadows

51:43 Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot

55:21 Odds and Ends

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), The Count of Monte Cristo (2024), Gankutsuou, The Count of Monte Cristo (Depardieu), Amélie, The Red Turtle, A Prophet

1:02:12 Wrapping up

This episode we catch up to 1985 and evaluate the 5 films from 1984 nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. It's been a while since the last episode, but to make up for it, it's a bit longer than usual? Anyway, this will be the last decade in series that we look at for now since we've already done an episode on the Best Picture nominees from 1995, 2005, and 2015. As always, beware of the fearsome spoiler that lurks throughout, and enjoy!

00:10 Introduction

04:27 A Soldier's Story

18:25 Places in the Heart

27:40 A Passage to India

45:39 The Killing Fields

54:26 Interlude about ranking nominees by vote totals (Bob was right in his gut reaction: voting results are not made publicly available)

55:51 Amadeus

01:09:45 Films from this year featured in other episodes of our podcast: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Star Trek III, The Terminator, Dune, Blood Simple

01:14:40 Random odds and ends to conclude

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: ⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

So...there were some challenges with this one. We do apologize for the slow release pace, but in this case the audio required a lot of work to tune up. We're talking Best Picture for the 47th Academy Awards (films from 1974). SPOILERS abound, as always.

00:10 Intro

00:57 A good year?

03:21 The Conversation

12:25 Gene Hackman interlude

13:35 (Yes, yes; we were thinking of A Few Good Men)

18:14 The Godfather Part II

34:53 Chinatown

48:53 Lenny

55:07 The Towering Inferno

1:02:34 Digression about film rights and availability of old films

1:08:00 Quick review of other notable films from 1974

1:12:40 Our picks for Best Picture

1:14:13 (We are moving ahead a decade)

It's been a little while, but we've jumped another 10 years closer to the present with an episode on the best films of 1964. Unfortunately for filmgoers it was a bit of a fallow year, but it does make for some good conversation. We mostly talk about the 5 Best Picture nominees, but a few more films come in for a mention in passing.

As ever, we SPOIL the endings, middles...everything really about these movies without regard for what you might not have seen, so be warned. Watch the films first if you don't want to know how they end.

00:10 Intro to the podcast/topic

00:56 (Absolutely we did not get caught up to the current year)

03:34 Mary Poppins

18:03 Becket

29:55 My Fair Lady

31:12 Bob remembers correctly about Shaw and the Greek origin!

38:15 The superior original ending

43:53 Dr. Strangelove

45:51 The prior episode where we talked about Dr. Strangelove

46:25 Bob might be misremembering Hayden's late-life problems

52:00 Zorba the Greek

57:21 Bob gets on his high horse a bit

01:01:57 Picking our winner

01:05:18 Next episode plans and conclusion

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Bob finally gets busy and edits this episode wrapping up the past calendar year. It's a bit out of date, but then most of the episodes are too since we're almost always looking at films from years earlier. Not too many spoilers this time round, but be wary; one never knows when they may strike!

00:10 Intro

04:53 Favorites watched for the podcast

07:27 Movies from 2024

17:53 Bob and Indian cinema

20:25 Rowdy. Rowdy Rathore. (trailer)

21:57 How Bob sees films; film volume

25:09 First time watches not from 2024

34:48 Bob and Mark argue a bit about Free Solo

39:58 It's over!

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

00:10 Intro

02:04 The White Parade, copyright, and availability

09:02 Which ones did we watch?

10:45 It Happened One Night

11:53 It was the Valentine's Day episode about rom-coms in 2022

15:10 Bob's a little off; Miami was 110,000 in 1930, up from less than 30,000 in 1920

20:05 Bob did! See above.

20:57 The end of the Pre-Code era

23:23 Cleopatra

28:13 Imitation of Life

33:18 Flirtation Walk

38:05 The Gay Divorcee

45:06 The Thin Man

49:25 Drunks on film

53:37 Of Human Bondage

59:06 And the Winner Should Have Been...

01:03:45 Upcoming episodes

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

This week we talk about the films of Ralph Fiennes. We haven't seen all his movies, but we have seen a goodly number. If you're afraid of the sneaky and nefarious SPOILER, you probably ought to be cautious since we fear it not.

00:10 Intro and the topic

02:40 Fiennes and the theater (theatre?)

06:11 Bob attempts to categorize Fiennes' films

07:05 Bob's very wrong about Macbeth being on streaming

08:00 The bulk of Fiennes' movies

13:37 Fiennes as villain

16:03 The Avengers (1998) Bob will be wrong a few seconds later about Fiennes being the villain (it's Sean Connery); not only that, Fiennes plays the hero, which would have been a good thing to have looked up before having the rest of this conversation. Do your homework, kids!

16:51 Our discussion of The English Patient

19:18 "Never" the hero? Didn't you guys just say he was the hero of The King's Man? Tells you how forgettable that film was.

20:13 Fiennes is an actor not a star?

26:31 Work in children's films

31:46 Odds and ends

37:19 Getting off topic and talking about physical media

43:27 Favorite Ralph Fiennes film

47:25 Digression about commentaries, food, other nonsense

51:24 Least favorite Ralph Fiennes film

54:51 Winding down; upcoming episode

56:45 Quick mention of two upcoming films

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Bob jumps straight into the topic this episode with SPOILERS from the very start. This episode we assume that you have at least a familiarity with the basic plot of the Terminator films even if, like Mark, you've never seen them. We discuss the first three films and ignore the latter three (which neither Bob nor Mark has seen). Enjoy!

00:10 Intro

00:45 Mark had not seen The Terminator; cultural significance and Schwarzenegger

05:37 Evolution from conclusive to open-ended

08:42 The Terminator

12:30 Does James Cameron care more about technical filmmaking than the story elements?

20:04 Masking the antagonist in Terminator 2

23:10 Linda Hamilton/Sarah Connor

25:41 Which is best and supporting cast

27:43 Terminator 3 is a real step down

31:12 Schwarzenegger is inextricably linked with the Terminator

34:05 Rough story moments in the second filmmaking

35:21 Edward Furlong - American History X

36:25 Robert Patrick

37:10 Kristanna Loken

40:25 Time travel and its problems

44:07 Special effects

48:35 Mild spoilers(?) for Reacher season 2

49:27 Prosthetic effects in The Terminator

52:08 Actor miscellany

56:35 Winding down

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode