The B-Side: A Film Stage Podcast The Film Stage

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we speak to Nancy Savoca, the great filmmaker whose sophomore feature Dogfight is now available via Criterion. The digitally-restored, director-approved Blu-Ray includes new commentary from Savoca and producer Richard Guay, a new interview with Savoca and actor Lili Taylor conducted by filmmaker Mary Harron, and a great essay by film critic Christina Newland, among other features.

We speak with Savoca about Missing Movies, her mentors John Sayles and Maggie Renzi, her first film True Love, directing singular performers like River Phoenix and Lili Taylor, and the HBO creativity boom of the mid-to-late ‘90s (including Carl Franklin’s Laurel Avenue and Cher and Savoca’s If These Walls Could Talk), and lesser-seen gems of Savoca’s that she hopes viewers will be able to see soon (including Dirt from the early 2000s an the recently restored and released Household Saints from 1993).

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook at @TFSBSide. Also enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we talk about the movie star. The person who if you looked up “movie star” in the dictionary there would be a picture of him. Robert Redford! 

Today we talk the esteemed career of the quintessential movie star. Our B-Sides include: The Hot Rock, The Great Waldo Pepper, Havana, and The Last Castle. Our guest today is Blake Howard, podcast producer, host, and really good guy. Check out One Heat Minute Productions for everything new and relevant in Blake’s world. 

We discuss a million things, from why The Hot Rock is so hard to find, to the airplane stunts in The Great Waldo Pepper, to why Havana doesn’t work. There’s an investigation into the politics of The Last Castle, a brief celebration of Lena Olin, and a quick rave for Jordan Harper’s searing short story “My Savage Year.”

Additional topics include that upcoming City of Hope release, why Peter Yates is “slow vibes central,” why great screenwriter William Goldman knew why The Great Waldo Pepper underwhelmed at the box office (from his book Adventures in the Screen Trade), and how exactly the A-Side The Natural literally looks like nostalgia.

Finally, we mention why Raul Julia didn’t take a credit on Havana, we reference that superb Scott Frank New Yorker profile, proclaim ourselves defenders of Hollywood Homicide, and discuss the end of Redford’s career.

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook at @TFSBSide. Also enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor. 

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we talk to an independent film legend. Some have called him the “East Coast Roger Corman,” though that’s short-changing Larry Fessenden a bit. Though his production company Glass Eye Pix has been around since the mid-80s, Fessenden made a name for himself with the mid-90s indie horror classic Habit, in which he wrote, directed, and starred as an alcoholic New Yorker who starts dating a vampire. Or so he thinks.

Fessenden’s new movie Blackout - available digitally April 12th - connects to both Habit and his 2019 film Depraved. We talk about this with Fessenden, as well as his love for the classic Universal Monster Films, the evolving challenges of funding and producing independent cinema, and his work with Kelly Reichardt and Martin Scorsese over the years. Additional B-Sides include The Last Winter, Wendigo, and Beneath.

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook at @TFSBSide. Also enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we have a conversation about what it means to be underappreciated. Not underrated necessarily. But underappreciated. And boy is Don Cheadle underappreciated. The Oscar-nominated actor has been elevating films in supporting roles since the late ‘80s.
Our guest today is Mitchell Beaupre, senior editor at Letterboxd.

Our B-Sides today include: The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Traitor, The Guard, and No Sudden Move. There is also a brief-but-worthwhile tangent on the Scott Caan-directed (!) indie The Dog Problem. Also the Sundance darling Manic from the early 2000s.

We discuss Cheadle’s incredible ability to listen as an actor. There may not be a better active listener working today. We offer some context into legend Steve Martin (who has a story credit on Traitor) and all of the different things he’s done over his illustrious career (and how BIG he was in the ‘70s).

There’s also the under-usage of Cheadle in The Assassination of Richard Nixon, that half-baked Bourne Identity-inspired score in Traitor, the unfortunate lack of chemistry between Brendan Gleeson and Cheadle in The Guard, and how No Sudden Move is basically perfect and the culmination of so much of what makes Don Cheadle great.

And finally, we definitely mention those hysterical Captain Planet bits and how exactly they shot No Sudden Move to get that extreme anamorphic look that makes out the main aesthetic of the film.
Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook at @TFSBSide. Also enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we usually talk about movie stars and not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones they made in between. Today, however, we talk about Oscar movies (!), or better yet, movies that remind us of Oscar movies!

Conor and I welcome back the lovely Joe Reid & Chris Feil of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. In today’s episode, we each choose a movie that reminds us of a current Best Picture Oscar nominee.

The movies include Born to be Blue, The Ant Bully, The Ritz, and Frankenstein Created Woman. We also take a good few minutes to dish on legend Barbra Streisand’s incredible autobiography My Name Is Barbra.

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at @TFSBSide. Also enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor. We are also now on Spotify and Stitcher. Enjoy!

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we chat about the action heroine: Sigourney Weaver! But what were the films she made in between Alien and Aliens? Other than A-sides The Year of Living Dangerously and Ghostbusters, there was Eyewitness, Deal of the Century, One Woman or Two (a French film!), and Half Moon Street.

Our guest is the incomparable Joe Reid, co-host of the essential podcast This Had Oscar Buzz. Be sure to check them out as Oscar season races to an exciting conclusion over the next few weeks. 

Topics in this episode include: When exactly did the horse stables in midtown Manhattan shut down? What exactly was an early ‘80s film set like with both WIlliam Hurt and James Woods on it? Where exactly is Half Moon Street and what is the movie trying to say? Did anybody involved in the making of Deal of the Century like it at any point? And how old do you suppose Dr. Ruth (co-star of One Woman or Two) is?

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook at @TFSBSide. Also enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor.