Watching Film with TT and Dan Watching Film

Chatting about the new Todd Haynes film on Netflix.

We're back.

(0:00) The Watching Film podcast has a theme song!

(8:29) Radiohead as a phase of early life

(10:50) RED ALERT (is Manohla Dargis a Trekkie?!!)  

(13:50) "Your ego must die to hear the sounds you can't yet play or play again."

(18:30) How THE DISCIPLE reminds us of hot streaks in the NBA (i.e. Lou Dort and Jeremy Lin)

(39:15) “To want a guru is just a search for someone to disembody.”  

(41:10) How the fact of the teacher's body enters the experience of learning in different models of universities  

(1:11:00) The categorical difference between a film and a movie (spoiler: one of them stars Tom Hanks)

(1:00) Anna finally gets the WATCHING FILM shout-out she deserves ... from herself

(3:16) MINARI wins the Golden Globe for "Best Movie That Involves Reading"

(7:12) The movie's gender dynamics, both chicken and human

(14:33) Anna's backstory, in which Y2K panic plays a prominent role

(24:45) The trope of worried parents and zany grandparents

(29:07) Movies about children's experiences have to negotiate between what a child can't know about their world and what the adult film viewer necessarily knows

(45:20) On the film's depiction of rural Southern Pentecostalism: "If Asianness isn't going to be the other category in this film, there has to be another category that everyone can understand as exotic"

(53:33) Reproduction in this family happens through the son, not the daughter

(57:42) What it would mean to see yourself in the movies as a minoritized subject

(1:06:09) Sean Baker's THE FLORIDA PROJECT as a version of MINARI that takes risks

(1:10:54) The different vibes of American Asian films and Korean Asian films (both involving Steve Yeun)

(1:15:32) A trifecta of haikus

TT and Dan talk about Disney & Pixar's newest movie, SOUL (2020), and what it says about race (often without seeming to be aware that it's saying anything). They also talk about the evolution of Pixar and what's changed about the fantasies in its movies.

(0:00) TT attempts to tell Dan a joke

(2:28) Our affective check-ins w/ one another, 12 months into the pandemic

(17:30) TT's haiku: "If a Black man fell / without a white soul inside, / would it make a sound?"

(22:23) Strange moments in SOUL that seem obviously to be about race, except the movie doesn't seem to realize it

(37:50) How to think about the film's message that Black death is not permanent

(40:00) SOUL is a remake of TITANIC (shout-out to Žižek)

(52:18) Dan really wants to talk to TT about flowy aesthetics

(1:03:00) Dan's haiku: "SOUL is made / for kids. But too bad there are / no kids left."

(1:05:40) The increasing preachiness of Pixar since WALL-E

(1:11:20) In TOY STORY, the toys' separate existence from the child is a metaphor for the child's parents

 

Note: This podcast is not sponsored by the Utah Tourism Board

(9:15) What TT learned from standing in lines at the Sundance Film Festival

(11:50) On Napoleon Dynamite & Mormon fashion

(33:10) "For our academic, non-basketball-viewing listeners, Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls was like the Jacques Derrida of the NBA. Undefeated." 

(36:30) Steph Curry & the dilemma of whether or not to play "hero ball"

(49:00) The problem w/ learning about basketball from NBA highlight reels: "They only show you the makes, not the misses."

(55:00) Local Cleveland man, circa 2016: "First the Republican National Convention & now the Cavaliers! Things are really looking up for Cleveland!"

(1:17:00) Dan + TT ask: Who are the worst teams in the East & West that could still make it to the Championships this year?

(1:20:00) What it takes to win a Championship & what it takes to finish writing a dissertation