For the second part of our Delphine Seyrig Acteurist Spotlight we disregarded chronology to discuss two intensely experimental Marguerite Duras films, India Song (1975) and Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977). We enumerate Duras' peculiarities as a writer and filmmaker and their effects in these studies of sexual and existential crisis, set against the backdrop of European colonialism and the second-wave feminist movement, respectively; and consider the range of qualities Seyrig brings to them, from ghoulish abstraction to salutary warmth. Then in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, the TIFF Lightbox Naruse continues with two starkly different family melodramas, the raw and electric Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953) and the lush and star-studded Daughters, Wives and a Mother (1960), in which a vacuum cleaner brings out a new side of Setsuko Hara; and Elise realizes she was wrong about Bill Murray in Lost in Translation.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: INDIA SONG (1975) [dir. Marguerite Duras]

0h 32m 39s: BAXTER, VERA BAXTER (1977) [dir. Marguerite Duras]

0h 51m 04s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Mikio Naruse's Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953) and Daughters, Wives and a Mother (1960) at TIFF Lightbox; Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003) at The Carleton Cinema

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

* Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

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Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

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In this episode we revisit three Technicolor melodramas made by British cinema's great auteur duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, bursting with vibrant emotions and sensuality that exercise a dangerous allure over their protagonists: Clive Candy, the upper-class colonialist twerp played by Roger Livesey in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) who discovers the poetry in his soul thanks to the influence of three in-Kerr-nations of Deborah Kerr and the friendship of Anton Walbrook; Sister Clodagh (Kerr again) in Black Narcissus (1947), futilely pitting the Protestant work ethic against the infinite; and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) in The Red Shoes (1948), torn between the demands of art and mere humanity. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, more Naruse: Flowing (1956), a study of a declining geisha house through the perspective of Kinuyo Tanaka's kindly but powerless servant, and The Stranger Within a Woman (1966), a film noir about being consumed by guilt while the world just wants you to move on.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: Brief Intro - Powell and Pressburger

0h 07m 11s: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943) [dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger]

0h 29m 14s: BLACK NARCISSSUS (1947) [dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger]

0h 46m 41s: THE RED SHOES (1948) [dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger]

1h 06m 35s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Mikio Naruse's Flowing (1956) and The Stranger Within a Woman (1966) at TIFF Lightbox

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

* Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

This week's 1933 Fox Film Studios Year by Year episode paradoxically digs into the Hollywood beginnings of a couple of Paramount powerhouses via William Dieterle's Adorable, a musical based on a German operetta co-written by Billy Wilder (who'd be writing for Fox directly by 1934), and William K. Howard's The Power and the Glory, with an innovative screenplay by Hollywood newcomer Preston Sturges. Important early 30s Fox stars Janet Gaynor (permitted to play against type as a saucy princess who wants to play with the plebs) and Spencer Tracy (as a self-made - with a little help from his wife - tycoon) supply the charisma for the respective proceedings. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, the TIFF Lightbox Naruse retrospective continues with Hideko the Bus Conductress, The Whole Family Works, and Sudden Rain (starring Setsuko Hara), and we see a new restoration of Erich von Stroheim's famously unfinished, visually lavish, absolutely unhinged censor-baiting silent melodrama Queen Kelly. Join us as we bat the ball around – but try to keep your knickers on!

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: 1933 and Fox

0h 06m 00s: ADORABLE (1933) [dir. William Dieterle]

0h 19m 39s: THE POWER AND THE GLORY (1933) [dir. William K. Howard]

0h 39m 17s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Naruse Retrospective at TIFF Lightbox (3 films) The Whole Family Works (1939), Hideko the Bus Conductress (1941) and Sudden Rain (1956) and Reconstruction of Queen Kelly, directed by Erich von Stroheim

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Fox Film Corporation: 1915-1935 by Aubrey Solomon

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

1933 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!