Beer and a Movie Joe Hilliard, David Gurney, & Carlos Cooper

After numerous delays, the 4th chapter of the John Wick series has finally arrived on the screens of our multiplexes, and we offer our thoughts on this latest installment and the franchise overall. Our second film is the one currently sitting in the 10th spot of the 2022 Sight & Sound poll, the classical Hollywood musical, Singin' in the Rain. It's a week of glorious cinematography, rain-drenched sets, stunning choreography, and, of course, some (hopefully) delicious beers, this week on Beer and a Movie!

This week finds us delving back into the singularly visionary mind of David Lynch as we approach Mulholland Drive, a film that wasn't initially intended to be a film but that nonetheless is now ranked as the 8th best of all time in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll, and we pair it with an earlier film that also had its origins in televisual storytelling. Playing with tropes of soap opera, police procedurals, and horror, these  aren't always the easiest for casual viewers to digest, but your intrepid hosts - along with returning guest Harold Ramos - do their best to parse through these thorny and often cryptic films tinged with sly humor and indelible sights and sounds.

Claire Denis had wowed us back in episode 45 when we reviewed her then-new-release, High Life, but it has taken our Sight & Sound catch-up journey to get us back to the writer/director's unique cinematic perspectives. To pair with her 1999 film Beau Travail (#7 on the 2022 poll), we look at one(!) of her two features from 2022, Both Sides of the Blade, starring BaaM faves Juliette Binoche (High Life) and Vincent Lindon (Titane) as well as Gregoire Colin, who also appears in Beau Travail. Its all about grown-up drama and cinematic style this week on BaaM, but you may want to put on your dancing shoes, just to be safe.

With the streaming arrival of 2022 critical favorite EO, we took the opportunity to look at this rather unorthodox Polish film which provides glimpses of the range of human behavior, especially as pertains to treatment of animals, through the eyes of the titular donkey at its center. As our companion film, we review our fifth overall from the top ten of the 2022 Sight and Sound critics poll, Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story from 1953, a classic of Japanese cinema that offers a methodical and patient peek at a dispersed family, tapping into some very relatable themes of generational drift and disconnect. Helping Dave and Joe wade through all this are returning guest Kyle Ferguson, our first proper Czech beer (sorry, Poland!), and a return visit to Hitachino Nest to see if can overcome the spoiled offering we had tried waaaaaay back in episode 5. It's a packed episode. Do it up! 

Forget Wong Kar-Wai's whip pans, this episode may cause some whiplash with its shifting between its A- and B-pictures. First up is the horror comedy of Cocaine Bear, currently burning up the box office during a relative lull in new releases. We follow it with our first review in a series that has us playing catch-up with the top ten films of the newest iteration of the Sight & Sound critics' list that we had not already addressed on past episodes. That has us looking at Wong's In the Mood for Love, a romantic drama that has impressed critics and (niche) audiences alike since its initial arrival in the year 2000 (yes, read that in LaBamba's voice). All this with beers from a new-to-us brewery, Family Business Brewing, and our returning guest, Anthony Zoccolillo. Cheers!

It's that time of year again! Your hosts have done their level best to take in as many films released in 2022 as they possibly could and to look back at the beers they had reviewed in that year as well. They are now ready to share their personal preferences and other assorted thoughts on the year, along with some fun diversions. It's a jam-packed episode with none other than BaaM's former producer/host Carlos returning for all the fun!