"The Flagship Film Podcast"
“The flagship film podcast” featuring in-depth reviews, top 5 lists and interviews.
I was expecting insane, rocket-fueled spectacle. I was not expecting an insane, rocket-fueled THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP with Ram Charan as Anton Walbrook – those sharp mustaches! those piercing eyes! those fierce smiles! - and N. T. Rama Rao Jr. as Roger Livesey.
Can't decide: is “Naatu Naatu” the best music scene of the year, the best scene of the year, or the best scene ever? -ABK
Eli Timoner gave us a manual for how to live; documenting her father’s life and death, Ondi gives us a manual for how to say goodbye. -ABK
"Times have changed."
It's an elemental Wes Anderson lament. Max can't stay at Rushmore forever. Being a Tenenbaum doesn't mean what it used to. Steve can't keep cranking out adventure pics with Esteban. The Grand Budapest can't remain a sacred temple of order and gentility in a merciless, chaotic world. And I'm now at war with 2014 me. (I'm also at war with 2020 me because, while still clinging to "Tenenbaums" as my favorite Anderson movie, I have no idea how to order "Rushmore," "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Budapest.")
Truthfully though, re-reading my original Letterboxd notes, I can't be too hard on myself. I hear what I'm saying. When the story within a story within a story structure – I think my math is right? – folds even more inward and flashes back to Zero's courtship with Agatha, and M. Gustave goes to jail and the murdered widow / evil children / scary henchman / missing butler / inheritance dispute comes to the fore, the train doesn't hit a complete checkpoint halt but does ever so slightly lose steam. Why? Well, it occurs to me that, like Anderson's protagonists, I don't want to move on either. I just want to co-exist with these special people in their special places forever.
"Rushmore," for me, is still most thrilling before Max is expelled and the conflict with Herman erupts. As much as "Aquatic" – my lone Anderson outlier – may be a slice-of-life film, Zissou is on a mission to avenge the loss of his best friend and find, not kill, the jaguar shark. How do you neatly describe the plots of "Tenenbaums" and "Moonrise" to someone? Even acknowledging the 'find Sam and Suzy' / 'let's help them run off together' aspects of "Moonrise," Anderson so effectively layers the orchestral arrangement that you never isolate on an individual section or melody.
In 2014 I contrasted "Budapest" with Powell & Pressburger's "Colonel Blimp" – the influence of which is undeniable and explicit: "...the latter expertly blends artifice with absurd comedy and drama without ever sacrificing the underlying humanity, while the former only fleetingly pulls off the same trick."
"Budapest" may or may not be the achievement "Blimp" is, but both the humor and the pathos resonated this time. I never lost sight of the underlying humanity. In the desire for connection across decades and the always-in-flux-but-never-really-changing sweep of history that's implicit in the young student reading the Author's story, who was re-telling the story Zero imparted to him. In the way the older Zero stops at, "But we won't discuss Agatha," and Anderson lingers on a shot of Ronan for a few extra beats, the same way Zero is surely lingering on the bygone visage in his mind before restarting his story. In the bittersweetness of trying to co-exist forever with special people in your special places. –ABK
Stunningly animated and expertly voiced, Wes Anderson's latest is his most political - and the film of the year (so far).
A Sacred Cow review of Wes Anderson's "Rushmore," the 2017 Filmspotting Madness champ and Adam's conversation with doc filmmaker Charlie Siskel.
Adam, Josh, and Sam consider how THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS holds up 15 years after its release.
Somehow "Left Behind" didn't make the cut in Pt. 1 of Filmspotting's Top 10 Films of 2014. But there are five picks remaining and four critics – including Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune) and Scott Tobias (The Dissolve).
Josh and Michael Phillips stroll the grounds of Rushmore, walk the halls of the Tenenbaum mansion, and go five fathoms deep in Steve Zissou's sub to come up with their TOP 5 WES ANDERSON SCENES. Plus, a review of the director's latest, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL.
Adam sits down with the film's co-writer/director Wes Anderson and co-writer/star Jason Schwartzman.
"Peter Weir's film makes much noise about poetry, and there are brief quotations from Tennyson, Herrick, Whitman and even Vachel Lindsay, as well as a brave excursion into prose that takes us as far as Thoreau's Walden. None of these writers are studied, however, in a spirit that would lend respect to their language; they're simply plundered for slogans to exhort the students toward more personal freedom."
Roger Ebert's "Dead Poet's Society takedown," which crushed me as an O-Captain-My-Captain-desk-standing-aspiring teenager, is acutely applicable here. "Girl" purports to be about the transformative power of words and music – rock and rock criticism, specifically – but doesn't exhibit even a rudimentary interest in either. -ABK
In the doc that precedes the 40th anniversary release, director Denis Villeneuve suggests the movie is a personal one for Spielberg beyond his obvious fascination with the material. He says the movie is about movie-making too, which struck me as a little trite - and cliche - in the moment. I mean, how many directors and their films has this been / could it be said about?
And yet, watching this time, I was struck by Roy Neary's journey from blue collar electric lineman to obsessed artist, chasing the perfect representation of his vision regardless of how it alienates him from his family, friends and co-workers - all of society really. I never gave it a second thought before, but it's notable that Roy - already a bit of a dreamer in his model train world, and who early labors unsuccessfully to convince his children that "Pinocchio" is "magic" and a preferable experience to Goofy Golf - successfully navigates around the mountain because he knows the layout better than his two companions. They comment that they never drew more than the front, and he replies something to the effect that, "You should have tried sculpturing!" Many have had the same vision as Roy, and all were inspired to create something that reflected that vision; only Roy was so passionate and persistent that he sought the proper tools to recreate it.
"This is important. This means something," is everyman's declaration, a reassuring cry to the cosmos that your life matters, *you* matter. But it's also the artist's creed - you may suffer, but your work matters, *art* matters. In the end, it does. Shepherded by another sensitive soul, who spans the globe seeking his own tools of expression and 'blocks' all the people and machinery necessary to communicate, light and sound ultimately combine to bridge a gap between worlds, revealing a higher truth. More than a cinephile's wink, of course that gentle guide - that influence - is played by Francois Truffaut. –ABK
Spielberg aces his musical directing debut and the latest from Sean Baker (“The Florida Project”).
Tarantino, Spike Lee and Pixar all make appearances on this week's Top 5. Plus, Spielberg's fun, flawed new creation.
Josh and guest host Tricia Bobeda from WBEZ's Nerdette Podcast review Spielberg's THE BFG and share their Top 5 Children's Book Adaptations.
Josh and guest host Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune) are visited by the 'Ghost of Fights over Guillermo del Toro Movies Past' for their divisive review of CRIMSON PEAK. Plus, their takes on Steven Spielberg's BRIDGE OF SPIES and the Top 5 Cold War Movies.
Michael Phillips drops by to select the Top 5 Spielberg Scenes and review the director's latest, "Lincoln." Plus, cook up those mashed potatoes for a Sacred Cow discussion of 1977’s "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune) plays the role of Belloq for this 'Sacred Cow' discussion of Steven Spielberg's action-adventure classic "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
Guest hosts Matt Singer and Alison Willmore debate whether it's more appropriate to yell "barracuda" or "shark" as they reveal their Top 5 Steven Spielberg Scenes, and discuss Spielberg's holiday double feature, "War Horse" and "The Adventures of Tintin."
