Episode #74 - Ryland Walker Knight (The Awful Truth)

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"I'm always seduced by language and curious how the word and image interact"

Can movies think? Or how could we think through the movies? Highly influenced by the work of Stanley Cavell, Ryland Walker Knight has explored the possibilities of thinking and language in cinema, whether it be a work from a beloved art house master or a brash and loud Hollywood blockbuster. Ryland discusses his childhood raised on double features, his critical work, his recent short film, Inside Voices, and his latest project, a video essay series exploring some of the imagery and hidden narratives in the work of Michael Mann (with a little help from Beach House). Finally, the two turn to The Awful Truth, and discuss how Le McCarey's attention to how voices sound and bodies move create some of its most indelible humor, and intelligent insights.

0:00-2:22 Opening

2:56-12:16  Establishing Shots - A War and 13 Hours
13:02-50:52 Deep Focus - Ryland Walker Knight

51:10-53:21 Sponsorship Section
54:04-1:04:18 Double Exposure - The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey)

1:04:22-1:06:00 Close

Check out Ryland's Posts on MUBI Notebook and The House Next Door, as well as his website. Watch his shorts Inside Voices and Headlands. View the Mann Sparks project.

Episode #73 - Eddie Muller (Gun Crazy)

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"The more people who are involved in this, they'll open the film cans."

If one were to imagine the cinema of the 1940s, the likely images would be of lonely streets, men in trenchcoats, and slender blondes lighting cigarettes while drenched in shadow. The French coined a term for it: film noir, and since then it has been a gateway drug for many cinephiles interested in classical Hollywood's most lurid pictures. Eddie Muller has been called the Czar of Noir, and he deserves the title: he heads programming for Noir City, a San Francisco based film festival that presents the city with the best of noir movies, and then heads the Film Noir Foundation to discover those lost works that no one even knows. Eddie talks about his entrance into the world of film in SF's many rep screenings and his tutelage under avant-garde artists George Kuchar, before turning to writing about the world of grindhouse movies and this lost genre. Finally, Peter and Eddie look at one of the canonical films of this era, Gun Crazy, and explore the strange production story behind one of the most violent-obsessed movies ever made.

0:00-2:36 Opening

3:52-10:40  Establishing Shots - Lewis Klahr's Sixty Six / Garrel Giveaway Winners
11:25-55:06 Deep Focus - Eddie Muller

55:35-59:24 Sponsorship Section
1:00:27-1:22:36 Double Exposure - Gun Crazy (Joseph H Lewis)

1:22:41-1:24:36 Close / Outtake

Check out Eddie Muller's personal website, as well as the site for the Film Noir Foundation and Noir City.
Eddie's books include Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of Adults Only Cinema, Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, The Art of Noir, and Gun Crazy: The Origin of American Outlaw Cinema.

2015 Favorites With Keith Uhlich (Part 2)

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If you took cinema at its essence, it's simply recorded bits of the present. This includes bits of physical reality, personal psychology, formal techniques through technologies, and projections of possibility. And thus by putting a capstone on the year with this countdwon, Peter and guest Keith Uhlich hope to investigate just a bit of those bits that become the history of film, as well as history itself. Their final picks travel from New York City to 9th Century China to Southern Plantations and the Planet of Arkanar. They emphasize stories of small people in the large waves around them—each one trying to craft their own little spot within their universe. And whether the world goes into the digital ad infinitum or will become covered in shit, it is the human at the center of these films: the joys, the sorrows, all wrapped in one. These are our favorite works of 2015.

Listen to Part 1 Here

0:00-2:32 Opening
3:56-26:41 Choices for #5
28:07-42:29 Choices for #4
44:33-1:04:56 Choices for #3

1:05:46-1:09:21 Mubi Sponsorship and Garrel Giveaway
1:10:28-1:30:18 Choices for #2
1:30:18-1:52:18 Choices for #1

1:52:18-1:55:16 Closing Thoughts / Credits / Outtakes

Read Keith Uhlich at The Hollywood Reporter and Mubi. 

2015 Favorites With Keith Uhlich (Part 1)

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Another year of movies, another countdown. In this 2015 iteration of The Cinephiliacs countdown, Keith Uhlich once again joins Peter on a cinematic odyssey from big screens and small ones, as well as streaming services even beyond the States. A diverse group of films define this year's crop: things that push the boundaries of digital cinema to the absolute mainstream of Hollywood, new spins on old hat genres, and and new tales from around the world finally given voices. But as it turns out, whatever the story, it's the technique that centers these films: shot-reverse shot, breathtaking long takes, smartly composed compositions, and a deep commitment to humanity. Part II will be up Friday, January 8th.

0:00-7:20 Opening
7:20-33:15 Choices for #10
33:15-47:40 Choices for #9
47:40-1:05:25 Choices for #8

1:067:14-1:09:36 Mubi Sponsorship and Garrel Giveaway
1:10:14-1:29:54 Choices for #7
1:29:54-1:43:40 Choices for #6
1:52:52-2:08:32 Favorite Discoveries of the Year

2:08:35-2:09:56 Close

Read Keith Uhlich at The Hollywood Reporter and Mubi.