Episode 48 - Metropolis

Two parts today, firstly Joakim and special guest Aaron Balick will be taking a look at Metropolis and then in part two myself (Tom) will be joining for Joakim for a chat about the various version of Metropolis that have been released over the years. Enjoy!

From Masters of Cinema:

One of the biggest film events of the century, a “Holy Grail” among film finds, Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi epic can finally be seen — for the first time in 83 years — as the director originally intended and as seen by German cinema-goers in 1927.

Shortly after that 1927 release, an entire quarter of Lang’s original version was cut by Paramount for the US release, and by Ufa in Germany, an act of butchery very much against the director’s wishes. The excised footage was believed lost, irretrievably so — that is, until one of the most remarkable finds in all of cinema history, as several dusty reels were discovered in a small museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2008. Since then, an expert team of film archivists has been working at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung in Germany to painstakingly reconstruct and restore Lang’s film.

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Episode 47 - Ruggles of Red Gap

 
Joining us today is Tina Hassannia to discuss Leo McCareys’ Ruggles of Red Gap which comes with a hearty recommendation to watch immediately!

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Episode 46 - The Offence

Nothing like a comedy to chase away those winter blues....which is why under no circumstances watch The Offence as it will chill you to your very soul.

James Marsh joins us for a trip to Depressionville.

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Ron Benson, founder and Director of Eureka Entertainment sadly passed away on the 19th October 2015. In his memory Eureka Entertainment has started a “Just Giving” page in support of the “Teenage Cancer Trust” https://www.justgiving.com/RonBenson/

Episode Forty Five - Ugetsu Monogatari

This week Joakim and Trevor Barrett from the Eclipse Viewer podcast discuss Ugetsu Monogatari.

From the Criterion Collection:

“Quite simply one of the greatest of filmmakers,” said Jean-Luc Godard of Kenji Mizoguchi. And Ugetsu, a ghost story like no other, is surely the Japanese director’s supreme achievement. Derived from stories by Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, this haunting tale of love and loss—with its exquisite blending of the otherworldly and the real—is one of the most beautiful films ever made.

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Episode Forty Four - Park Row

This week Craig Skinner joins us to talk about Samuel Fullers Park Row.

From Masters of Cinema:

Iconic American filmmaker Samuel Fuller began his career as a tabloid reporter, and thrillingly drew on those skills and experiences in his extraordinary labour-of-love Park Row. An exhilarating tribute to the ideals of the free press and noble popular journalism, this two-fisted tale of battles on and off the printed page in 1880s New York is a major American rediscovery.

When Phineas Mitchell (Gene Evans), a visionary newspaperman, launches his own title The Globe, his eye-catching headlines and approach quickly ignite with the New York readership. But less impressed is Charity Hackett (Mary Welch), proprietor of long-established rival The Star, and attempts to undercut The Globe soon escalate into all-out war.

Packing more dynamite into eight reels than most directors unleash over a career, Fuller’s self-financed Park Row is a passionate, idiosyncratic work of gritty myth-making.

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Episode Forty Three - Repo Man

The podcast returns with Joakim being joined by Ian Schultz to discuss Alex Cox's Repo Man,

From Masters of Cinema:

Arguably the defining cult film of the Reagan era, the feature debut of Alex Cox (Sid & Nancy, Walker, Straight to Hell) is a genre-busting mash-up of atomic-age science fiction, post-punk anarchism, and conspiracy paranoia, all shot through with heavy doses of deadpan humour and offbeat philosophy.

After quitting his dead-end supermarket job, young punk Otto (Emilio Estevez) is initiated as a “repo man” after a chance encounter with automobile repossessor Bud (Harry Dean Stanton). An illicit, high-voltage life follows, including an adrenalised search for a mysterious ‘64 Chevy Malibu loaded with radioactive – and extragalactic – cargo… With an iconic soundtrack (Iggy Pop, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies), stunning Robby Müller cinematography, and iconoclastic direction, Repo Man remains one of the great debuts of the 1980s.

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Episode Forty Two - The Lost Weekend

We've all had them; but I dare say not many like this as Joakim and Sam Hutchinson from Cinema Etc talk about Billy Wilders The Lost Weekend.

From Masters of Cinema:

''Directed by Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot), this gut-wrenching adaptation of Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend horrified its studio, was rejected by test audiences, and was lobbied by temperance groups, yet went on to huge success and became the awards sensation of its year.

Ray Milland stars as Don Birnam, a New York author struggling with years of alcoholism and writer’s block. Trying to keep him on the path to rehabilitation are his straight-laced brother Wick (Philip Terry) and devoted long-time girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman). When Don absconds from a country excursion, he embarks on a four-day binge, spiralling towards rock bottom.

Winner of the Grand Prix at the first ever Cannes Film Festival, as well as Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Screenplay, this brutal noir provided one of cinema’s first in-depth studies of addiction. Crackling with rapier dialogue, vivid performances, and Wilder’s superlative direction'

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Episode Forty One - Two for the Road

Its summer time so why not go on a road trip? Well that is of course if you want to spend the whole time bickering and trying to work out why your relationship slowly unraveling; Two for the Road is this weeks film as well as an in-depth look at why relationships fail.

From Masters of Cinema:

One of the great fims by Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain, Charade) after the studio era had come to a close, Two for the Road was a break-off with the old system, one which allowed Donen to further stretch his art, aided by screenwriter Frederic Raphael (Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut), in this tale of a couple voluntarily stretching themselves through the long period of their relationship.

Portrayed in fragments that span the couple's time together in marriage, Two for the Road runs the course of a relationship (between Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney) that finds a circumstantial come-together escalate into newlywed-status and, through a series of travails, into the serious situation of bearing a daughter. The disturbance of marriage, and/or life, is chronicled from here on.

After so many studio-system smash-hits, Two for the Road marked a reckoning for director Donen — which went on to influence directors like Jacques Rivette for its portrayal of a couple in interaction and its keen sense of duration across the length of their time together.

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Episode Forty - Le Silence de la mer

Its time to take a look at where a master began and in this case its Jean Pierre Melville and his debut Le Silence de la mer. Enjoy!

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Episode Thirty Nine - The Gospel According to St. Matthew

We return with a look at The Gospel According to St Matthew and are joined with regular
guest Hunter Duesing from The Midnight Movie Cowboys. Enjoy!

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Comments are henceforth turned off

We love communicating with listeners of the show, but we hate spam. Seeing as we're getting quite the number of non-sensical thai comments, we've decided to shut down the comments section on the blog, but, please, we encourage you to get in contact with us either trough email, Facebook or twitter!

Regards

Tom and Joakim

Episode Thirty Eight - Hands Over the City

We return with Joakim sharing his experiences on India, a catch up on what we have been watching before a look at Francesco Rosi's Hands Over the City.

Enjoy

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Episode 37 - Conversation with Craig Keller

In special episode we are joined by Masters of Cinemas very own Craig Keller for a chat about all things Masters of Cinema and film in general.

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Episode Thirty Six - Le Amiche

The podcast returns with a look at Michelangelo Antonioni's Le Amiche with special guest Fredrik Gustafsson.

From Masters of Cinema:

''A key film of Antonioni’s middle-period, Le amiche [The Girlfriends] finds the Italian master expanding his palette in the realm of traditional narrative cinema by way of his powerhouse direction of an ensemble cast, while entrenching his devotion to expressing the emotional makeup of the modern woman. Clelia (Eleonora Rossi-Drago) embarks from Rome to set up a fashion-salon in Torino. Shortly after arrival, she finds herself caught up in the (melo)dramas of a bourgeoise circle of acquaintances (including the iconic Valentina Cortese), and their attendant attempts at suicide, their class prejudices, and the romantic alliances that threaten to transform the social clique into an emotional tar-pit. Le amiche represents the epitome of Antonioni’s ’50s period, and although it lays the groundwork for such ’60s breakthroughs as L’avventura and La notte, it proves itself no less brilliant than those later works.''

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Episode Thirty Five - A Time to Love and a Time to Die

This week we take a look at Dounglas Sirks, A Time to Love and A Time to Die. Enjoy!

From Masters of Cinema:

''Douglas Sirk — the master of the Hollywood melodrama — turns back to his native Germany at the time of the Second World War for the film that would stand as his penultimate American feature: A Time to Love and a Time to Die. A CinemaScope production staged on a grand scale, Sirk’s picture nevertheless pulsates with an intimacy that has known longing for too long, and seethes with the repression of emotions poised to explode like bombs.

John Gavin plays Ernst Gräber, a soldier on the Russian-German Front in 1944 venturing home to Hamburg on a rare furlough. Upon arrival, he discovers a city that bears little resemblance to the one he left behind — and so, through the rubble of the air-raids, he searches desperately for fragments of his family’s shattered lives. But amid the shards, he falls in love with Elisabeth (Liselotte Pulver), the charming daughter of his parents’ doctor, and thus activates a magnetism that compels both individuals toward one another in love, even as it hurtles them headlong into epochal death.''

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Episode Thirty Four - Red River

First show of the new year and its cracker, Melissa Johnson joins Joakim for a discussion on Howard Hawks' Red River.

You can find Melissa at johnsonmel16@gmail.com

From Masters of Cinema:

''One of Hollywood’s most iconic westerns, Howard Hawks’s Red River launches cinema’s grandest cattle drive, and one of the screen’s most powerful father-son dramas. One of John Wayne’s most intense roles inspired one of his finest performances, and in his debut leading role, Montgomery Clift instantly leapt to the forefront of Hollywood’s young actors.

After the Civil War, ranch owner Thomas Dunson (Wayne) leads a drive of ten thousand cattle out of an impoverished Texas to the richer markets of Missouri, alongside his adopted son Matthew Garth (Clift) and a team of ranch hands. As the conditions worsen, and Dunson’s control over his cattlemen gets ever more merciless, a rebellion begins to grow within the travelling party.''

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