Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics

“Kafkaesque” is the word usually used to describe After Hours, Martin Scorsese’s 1985 comedy—a fair point, since there’s a scene in the film that dramatizes Kafka’s “Before the Law.” But the writer whose imagination this film really taps is Lewis Carroll: as in Alice in Wonderland, a naïve but likable young person chases a white rabbit to a different part of town, is threatened by an angry woman who wants to chop off his head, and learns, “We’re all mad here.” Join us for an appreciation of this terrific film we’ve used to test other people’s sense of humor.
If you haven’t read Lewis Carroll in a while, you can get a copy of all the Alice books here.
Follow us on X and Letterboxd–and let us know what you’d like us to watch! Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Also check out the new Substack site, Pages and Frames, for more film-related material.
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What is the proper—or most effective—response to a barrage of horror and pain? The closest that screenwriter Paul Schrader ever came to a comedy (albeit a very dark one), Bringing Out the Dead (1999) is low on special effects depicting medical emergencies but high on drama. Join us for a conversation about one of Scorsese’s sleepers, a movie about a man who wants to find something like religious faith in a world with no spiritual oasis. It also dramatizes the incredible cost paid a moment of peace.
The film is based on Joe Connolly’s 1988 novel, which was a minor sensation when published.
Follow us on X and Letterboxd–and let us know what you’d like us to watch! Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Also check out the new Substack site, Pages and Frames, for more film-related material.
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An Academy darling that has faded into the background, Broadcast News (1987) still holds up as Network’s little brother. They don’t make ’em like this anymore: light comedy about adults with adult problems. Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about how the film offers something more novel than a love triangle: a talent triangle. They also talk about how the film dramatizes the challenge of people who have friends for too long and therefore can’t becoming romantically involved. When was the last time you saw that in a movie?
Brian McNair’s Journalists in Film explores how journalists have been portrayed in film, and what these images tell us about the role of the journalist in liberal democratic societies.
Follow us on X and Letterboxd–and let us know what you’d like us to watch! Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Also check out the new Substack site, Pages and Frames, for more film-related material.
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If you’ve seen Hearts of Darkness, you can better appreciate what Coppola endured while making Apocalypse Now; if you’ve seen River of Dreams, you can watch in wonder as Herzog talks about the shooting Fitzcaraldo and really moving that boat through the jungle. American Movie (1999) aims to do the same thing for Mark Borchardt’s low-budget independent horror film Coven. How you respond to American Movie depends on how you respond to Borchardt: is he simply a pretentious jerk who thinks he’s the next George A. Romero? Or is he what Thomas Gray would call “some mute inglorious Milton,” whose work deserves a wider audience?
In this episode, the guys mention the work of English poet Thomas Gray, whose famous
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is applied to Mark Borchardt.
Follow us on X and Letterboxd–and let us know what you’d like us to watch! Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Also check out the new Substack site, Pages and Frames, for more film-related material.
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Goodnight Mommy (2014) is a perfect “office movie”: one difficult to recommend to others and better when watched alone. It’s strong stuff. Young boys can be violent and ingenious, which is why the film feels like a cross between What to Expect When You’re Expecting and Lord of the Flies. Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about how the film literalizes some of the metaphors we use to describe the parent / child relationship and whether or not its ending cheapens the horrors we’ve watched before approaching it. Is it better for a viewer to be held at a low boil without wholly understanding the stakes or to let the viewer in on a secret that explains everything?
The film dramatizes several ideas proposed by Sigmund Freud: here’s a robust, one-volume anthology of his most important works.
Follow us on X and Letterboxd–and let us know what you’d like us to watch! Incredible bumper music by John Deley.
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When looking for love, we don’t attract what we want--we attract what we are. That’s one of the many ideas dramatized in Modern Romance (1991), our third Albert Brooks film and another fanatic favorite. The story of a film editor who can’t fix the rough cut of his own life, Modern Romance uses “the Albert Brooks character” to look at how we all put on different performances to fool other people and ourselves. We also talk about the difference between “the Albert Brooks character” and “the Larry David character” and why the films of Albert Brooks push the envelope in a way that Curb only gestures at doing. So buy those sneakers from Super Dave and listen to this as you take that first lap—although, as the film shows us, you can’t outrun social rejection.
If you’re a fan of Albert Brooks, check out this terrific collection of interviews. You can also hear Dan interview the collection’s editor on the New Books Network.
Follow us on X or Letterboxd–and let us know what you’d like us to watch! Incredible bumper music by John Deley.
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