Our Family Freak-Outs series continues to go from strength to strength as we examine Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind (1956) and Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea (2016), a couple of masterpieces of American cinema in radically different modes: Technicolor melodrama and micro-realism. We discuss the curious myth of America in Written on the Wind, as embodied in the Hadley family's tortured relationship with Rock Hudson, and the enormous pressure of trauma on the quotidian surface of Manchester by the Sea, and, of course, the key freak-out moments within the family freak-outs.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956) [dir. Douglas Sirk]

0h 33m 28s: MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2016) [dir. Keneth Lonergan]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

* Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

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