For the first episode of our Acteurist Spotlight on Jennifer Jason Leigh, we watched Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Paul Verhoeven's Flesh + Blood (1985). We explore the possibility of Heckerling's portrait of a young woman's existential journey through the good, the bad, and the ugly of sexual discovery influencing an early draft of the Verhoeven heroine, and the young JJL's unique combination of vulnerability and poise. Then we turn to an extra-long Fear and Moviegoing dealing with a 10-movie retrospective of radical leftist independent filmmaker John Sayles' career at the TIFF Lightbox Cinematheque, attended by Sayles and his producer/ life partner, Maggie Renzi.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 20s: Very brief intro to Jennifer Jason Leigh

0h 03m 46s: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982) [dir. Amy Heckerling]

0h 30m 11s: FLESH + BLOOD (1986) [dir. Paul Verhoeven]

1h 02m 05s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Declarations of Independence: The Cinema of John Sayles at TIFF Lightbox. Programmed and hosted by Adam Nayman. John Sayles' Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979), Baby It's You (1983), The Brother From Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), City of Hope (1991), Lone Star (1996), Men With Guns (1997), Silver City (2004). Also: The Howling (1981), directed by Joe Dante and scripted by Sayles and Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), directed by Jimmy T. Murakami and scripted by Sayles.

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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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Our Special Subject for June is Wong Kar-wai's so-called "Love Trilogy": Days of Being Wild (1990), In the Mood for Love (2000), and 2046 (2004). Our discussion walks a tightrope of abstraction as we consider the philosophical implications of Wong's treatment of the theme of love: whether it can be consummated and how time, secrets, androids, and epistemology are involved. Proust, Tarkovsky, and of course FOTP Henry James get their due mentions.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: DAYS OF BEING WILD (1990) [dir. Wong Kar Wai]

0h 29m 47s: IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000) [dir. Wong Kar Wai]

0h 46m 55s: 2046 (2004) [dir. Wong Kar Wai]

1h 05m 06s: So This Is Sarris (The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris) – Garson Kanin

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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!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

In this Universal 1934 Studios Year by Year episode, we discuss the original There's Always Tomorrow, starring Frank Morgan and Binnie Barnes (remade by Douglas Sirk in the 50s with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck) and the bizarre Claude Rains vehicle The Man Who Reclaimed His Head. The middle-class American nuclear families of the 30s and 50s curiously converge, and future Hollywood Ten screenwriter Samuel Ornitz tries to reclaim his mind from the studio heads (or so we irresponsibly conjecture). And in Fear and Moviegoing, we briefly discuss Bitter Rice, a feminist/Marxist/crime/erotic/neorealist melodrama directed by Giuseppe De Santis.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: 1934 & Universal

0h 03m 19s: THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW [dir. Edward A. Sloman]

0h 27m 01s: THE MAN WHO RECLAIMED HIS HEAD [dir. Edward Ludwig]

0h 41 m 35s: FEAR AND MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO – Bitter Rice (1949) by Giuseppe DeSantis at TIFF Lightbox

0h 47m 03s: So This Is Sarris (The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris) – Mitchell Leisen

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

1934 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

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* 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 latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new 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!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

For the final episode of our Isabelle Huppert Spotlight, we watched two movies with a colonial setting: Rithy Panh's The Sea Wall (2008), based on the novel by Marguerite Duras, and Claire Denis' White Material (2009). Disturbing eroticism as a lens on colonial class and racial dynamics is something the films share, as well as white colonial failure, while Huppert in White Material emerges as an AU Scarlett O'Hara whose indomitable capitalist will has become delusional monomania. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss a couple of indie movies, current release Mile End Kicks (set in 2011) and Big Night from the mid-90s (set in the 1950s).

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: UN BARRAGE CONTRE LE PACIFIQUE (2008) [dir. Rithy Panh]

0h 21m 13s: WHITE MATERIAL (2009) [dir. Claire Denis]

0h 40m 23s: FEAR AND MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO – Chandler Levack's Mile End Kicks (2025) and Stanley Tucci & Campbell Scott's Big Night (1996)

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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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Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

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Our text for this 1934 RKO Studios Year by Year episode is a William A. Seiter double feature distinguished by ultra-manipulative heroines and a simultaneous fascination with and unsubtle criticism of the rich: the comedy We're Rich Again, which earns a comparison to Preston Sturges for its innovative use of comedy tropes (particularly the high-concept heroine, brilliantly embodied by Marian Nixon), and the comedy-melodrama The Richest Girl in the World, with a demented Jamesian plot courtesy of noted screenwriter Norman Krasna and Miriam Hopkins in the title role. If Marian Nixon is playing six-dimensional chess with her wealthy relatives, Miriam Hopkins is moving her friends and love interest around like chess pieces. If that's not enough, we're also introducing a new segment in this episode: So This Is Sarris! (Dave's title; Elise wanted "Sarris It Ain't So!") In this Letterman-inspired segment, we use AI to randomly pick an entry from Andrew Sarris's The American Cinema and then riff on his opinion of the director. Who's our first director? Listen and find out! (If you look at the time stamps, that's cheating!)

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: 1934 & RKO

0h 06m 31s: WE'RE RICH AGAIN [dir. William A. Seiter]

0h 29m 01s: THE RICHEST GIRL IN THE WORLD [dir. William A. Seiter]

0h 51m 31s: So This Is Sarris (The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris) - Frank Borzage

Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

1934 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

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* 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 latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

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!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

For our second Isabelle Huppert Acteurist Spotlight we have another first encounter with an auteur, Claude Chabrol, with the unfortunately translated Story of Women (1988), and take on Huppert's iconic performance in the also inaccurately translated The Piano Teacher (2001). Be prepared for harrowing subject matter and enigmatic behaviour as we discuss the inescapability of moral complicity, sexual aberration, and anti-romance. Then things get slightly lighter in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto with our discussion of a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks' comedy masterpiece His Girl Friday.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: UNE AFFAIRE DE FEMME aka STORY OF WOMEN (1988) [dir. Claude Chabrol]

0h 27m 11s: LA PIANISTE (2001) aka THE PIANO TEACHER [dir. Michael Haneke]

0h 56m 19s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940) at The Revue Cinema (Designing the Movies series)

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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!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

For this round of Fox Studios 1934 we watched Change of Heart (directed by John G. Blystone), Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell's final pairing, co-starring with James Dunn and a brink-of-stardom Ginger Rogers as college friends in unrequited love configurations; and Marie Galante (directed by Henry King), from source material by Jacques Duval best known as the basis for Kurt Weill's songs for the stage musical version, with young French actress Ketti Gallian paired with a visibly perplexed Spencer Tracy. The latter lacks atmosphere and the former lacks story, but we find lots to like/talk about in the performances.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: 1934 & Fox Film Corporation

0h 03m 46s: CHANGE OF HEART [dir. John G. Blystone]

0h 24m 36s: MARIE GALANTE [dir. Henry King]

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Fox Film Corporation: 1915-1935 by Aubrey Solomon

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

1934 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

Also referenced: Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry by Mel Watkins

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* 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 latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new 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!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!