A Very Good Year
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Extra Credit Reading for 1922
$ · October 6, 2023
First things first: here’s all three parts of the Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow documentary that we discuss in both the main show and the bonus...
Bonus Episode: 1922 After Show
$ · October 5, 2023
Seriously, we’ll take any excuse to talk about Buster Keaton, and how we found him, and why we love him. Plus more on this year’s top five, and some thoughts...
Headlines for 1922
$ · October 4, 2023
Jan 11 is the first successful treatment of diabetes with insulin, which my pops has needed three times a day for more than 50 years, so that is literally...
Episode 47: 1922 with Monica Castillo
October 1, 2023
Writer, film critic, programmer, and curator Monica Castillo gave herself a challenge for this week’s show: she picked, by a good stretch, the earliest year...
Extra Credit Reading for 1992
$ · September 30, 2023
If you liked hearing Kristy talk about her Top Five on this week’s show, good news: you can read her epic piece on Death Becomes Her for Vanity Fair here and...
Documentary Corner: 1992's 'Lessons of Darkness'
$ · September 29, 2023
I was born in 1976, so I grew up in the age of spanking. It was not applied liberally. In fact my sisters were never spanked, not because of a gender...
1992 after show
$ · September 28, 2023
On this week’s after show, Jason and Mike talk about Jason’s first video store year, Glengarry and Reservoir Dogs, Malcolm X, Midori, Baraka, a memory of...
Headlines for 1992
$ · September 27, 2023
In January Yugoslavia started breaking up, with Slovenia and Croatia gaining independence as the former Soviet Bloc continued to fall apart. Serbia and...
Episode 46: 1992 with Kristy Puchko
September 24, 2023
Kristy Puchko — film critic, entertainment reporter, and the film editor at Mashable — was nine years old in 1992, and was probably entirely too young to see...
Extra Credit Reading for 2005
$ · September 21, 2023
If you liked hearing Alissa’s Top Five this week, good news: she’s written about both Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and The Death of Mr....
Bonus Episode: 2005 After Show
$ · September 20, 2023
On this week’s bonus show, we go deeper into the movies of 2005, Mike tells his War of the Worlds story, we complain more about the 2005 Oscars and dirty...
Headlines for 2005
$ · September 19, 2023
2005 started annoyingly when George W Bush was sworn in for his second term and promised to send a bunch more people to Iraq to kill and die! He was awful,...
Episode 45: 2005 with Alissa Wilkinson
September 17, 2023
Alissa Wilkinson - senior correspondent and critic at Vox - was just out of college in 2005 and, when the year began, she had not yet decided to devote her...
First Thoughts on 'In the Mouth of Madness'
$ · September 15, 2023
In the Mouth of Madness came at a weird moment for John Carpenter. His most recent feature, 1992’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man, had been an unsuccessful...
1994 After Show
$ · September 14, 2023
In this week’s bonus episode, Jason and Mike talk about where they were at in 1994 (in college, kinda-sorta making a movie), the considerable impact of Pulp...
Headlines for 1994
$ · September 13, 2023
January 1st - the NAFTA agreement comes online and the Zapatista movement starts in Mexico in protest - let’s fkn go. Also in January Bill Clinton and Boris...
Episode 44: 1994 with Scott Wampler
September 9, 2023
Scott Wampler had his 13-year-old brain entirely re-arranged by a movie he saw in 1994, so he joins us to talk about how that happened, and what else he saw...
Documentary Corner: 1986's 'Big Fun in the Big Town'
$ · September 8, 2023
One thing has been clear for almost 40 years - LL Cool J is a star. “I don’t rap about problems, you know. I don’t rap about the ghetto or nothing like...
Bonus Episode: 1986 After Show
$ · September 7, 2023
On this week’s bonus episode, Jason and Mike go long on some of their favorite HBO (and VHS) standbys of 1986—including Color of Money, Nothing in Common,...
Headlines for 1986
$ · September 6, 2023
January marked a defining moment for kids raised on Space Camp pamphlets - the Challenger shuttle exploded after takeoff killing all seven people on board....
Episode 43: 1986 with Ty Burr
September 2, 2023
Ty Burr was the film critic for the Boston Globe for two decades, before departing that post to start up the must-read Substack newsletter Ty Burr’s...
First Thoughts on "The Old Dark House"
$ · September 1, 2023
There’s a reason James Whale is the most revered of the Universal Horror directors, and those reasons are on full display in The Old Dark House, one of Sarah...
Bonus Episode: 1932 After Show
$ · August 31, 2023
This week’s bonus episode includes a nice, long discussion - cut from the main show purely for time - in which our guest Sarah Bea Milner breaks down the...
Headlines for 1932
$ · August 30, 2023
On January 4 the Brits arrested Vallabhbhai Patel and Mahatma Gandhi for being uppity essentially, so they never had to deal with that guy again On January...
Episode 42: 1932 with Sarah Bea Milner
August 26, 2023
This week, we’re joined by Sarah Bea Milner, our first writer/editor/folk musician! She is currently the editor at Kidscreen, and she has bylines at Polygon,...
First Thoughts on "Clueless"
$ · August 25, 2023
I didn’t see Clueless when it came out because I didn’t care about Amy Heckerling or reimagining Jane Austen or getting a jump on the career of Paul Rudd....
First Thoughts on "Billy Madison"
$ · August 24, 2023
Okay, first of all, yes, gasp, I’d never watched Billy Madison. There’s a very simple explanation for this: I’m a fucking snob. Well, in fairness to myself,...
Bonus Episode: 1995 After Show
$ · August 23, 2023
On this week’s bonus episode, Jason and Mike delve into a decades-long conflict: Casino or Goodfellas? Plus, some thoughts on our evolving feelings on one...
Headlines for 1995
$ · August 23, 2023
In January Valeri Polyakov completed 366 days aboard the Mir space station, the longest anyone had lived off the earth to that point. He would go home in...
Episode 41: 1995 with Sammi Cohen
August 20, 2023
This week, we’re pleased to welcome director, writer, and comedian Sammi Cohen, whose queer high school love triangle rom-com Crush (which is WONDERFUL)...
Documentary Corner - 1953's "Statues Also Die"
$ · August 19, 2023
I mentioned this fantastic documentary in the episode as my favorite movie of 1953, so I thought I’d make it easy on everyone and link it in the Substack. I...
First Thoughts on "The Wild One"
$ · August 18, 2023
I’ve mentioned it on the show (perhaps too often!) but the overuse of the word “iconic” is one of my primary current Discourse pet peeves. People drop it for...
Bonus Episode: 1953 After Show
$ · August 16, 2023
Sheila O’Malley brought us all first-time watches for this week’s show, so we talk about that a bit more on the after show. Plus, thoughts on some additional...
Headlines for 1953
$ · August 16, 2023
January 14: Marshall Tito becomes the head of the government of Yugoslavia, a position he would more or less hold for 30 years (not a great guy - not exactly...
Episode 40: 1953 with Sheila O'Malley
August 13, 2023
Sheila O’Malley is a classic film buff who joins the esteemed ranks of our “the 1950s were AWESOME, actually” guests, looking back at the equally compelling...
First Thoughts on "Laura"
$ · August 10, 2023
When we talk about the Citizen Kane influence, we’re usually talking about technique rather than structure. (Usually.) So when I was watching Laura for the...
Bonus Episode: 1944 After Show
$ · August 9, 2023
On this week’s bonus show, the guys go a bit longer on the legend of Preston Sturges, on their own affection for film noir, and the joys of working with an...
Headlines for 1944
$ · August 8, 2023
1944 is all about being on the other side of WWII. Everyone but Hitler knew the Germans were going to lose by this point and the Japanese were quickly...
Episode 39: 1944 with Justin Chang
August 6, 2023
Justin Chang is one of the genuine greats of contemporary film criticism - chief critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR’s “Fresh Air,” a title he...
Read This!: Looking Back at the Fall of 1997
$ · August 4, 2023
As we mention in the bonus episode (I think? We recorded it a while ago), back in 2017, I did a whole series of columns for VICE revisiting the movies of the...
Bonus Episode: 1997 After Show
$ · August 2, 2023
In this week’s bonus episode, we rip through some more of the lightning round, discuss seeing Good Will Hunting and Jackie Brown when they first came out,...
Headlines for 1997
$ · August 2, 2023
On January 20 Bill Clinton was sworn in for his second term of office, and three days later Madeleine Albright became the first female Secretary of State in...
Episode 38: 1997 with Craig D. Lindsey
July 29, 2023
Craig D. Lindsey was a working critic in 1997, so he has a lot of pleasant moviegoing (and reviewing) memories from that year; he also made a top ten list at...
Documentary Corner: 1957's "The Day Called X"
$ · July 28, 2023
"Oh Lord, don't let them drop that atomic bomb on me" - Charles Mingus 1957 looks relatively calm on the timeline of the 20th century, but some very smart...
First Thoughts (Sorta) on "The Seventh Seal"
$ · July 27, 2023
As in 1988, I’m breaking the “First Thoughts” rules here, but with good reason. No, this was not the first time I’d seen The Seventh Seal. But I consider it...
Bonus Episode: 1957 After Show
$ · July 26, 2023
On this week’s bonus after show, we fire up the mics to praise James Urbaniak, say a few more words on Sweet Smell of Success and A Face in the Crowd, touch...
Headlines for 1957
$ · July 25, 2023
In January Kansas-kid made good Dwight Eisenhower was sworn in for his second term as US President. In February the shitty Brits executed Mau Mau leader...
Episode 37: 1957 with James Urbaniak
July 22, 2023
Character actor, cartoon doctor, and general bon vivant James Urbaniak joins us to walk through the cinema de 1957 - a year of foreign triumphs and domestic...
Documentary Corner: 1939's "The City"
$ · July 21, 2023
Let’s talk docs! Mike here, producer and co-host. I make documentaries, and I watch a lot of them, some out of professional diligence but mostly because I...
First Thoughts on "In Name Only"
$ · July 20, 2023
The first thing that makes you sit upright and take notice in John Cromwell’s In Name Only—the reason we’re there, really—is Carole Lombard and Cary Grant’s...
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