Podcast recommendations

[Alex Banwell]

Don't know if anyone listens to any podcasts, but one I've been enjoying recently in tandem with some of the films shown at Film Club is 'The Next Picture Show'

An interesting premise where they take a new release film and pair it over two episodes with a classic film of a similar theme. They do an episode on the classic film then the next week they do an episode on the new release and then look for the common themes.

They recently paired The Tragedy of Macbeth with Akira Kurosawa's 'Throne of Blood' 

Dune with Lawrence of Arabia.

They've also just done a pairing of this Mondays film 'Belle' with the animated Beauty and the Beast.

Also, as an aside, I've just finished my own project of watching every single one of the 93 Academy Award Best Picture winners. I did it whilst listening to the 'Best Pick' podcast where they watched them all (in a random order)

It's a great way to experience watching a lot of classic films as they spend the first half of the podcast discussing that years awards themselves, the year in film and then the making of the film itself before going off and watching the film to come back and discuss their impressions in the second half of the podcast.

Can't recommend the podcast highly enough. Even if you aren't planning to watch the films they are filled with great information and insight into some classic films (and some not so classic films!)

Alex

[John Harvey]

HI Alex,

thanks for the podcast suggestions. Good call on watching the 93 Academy Award winning films too. What was your favourite (and least favourite?)?

Anyone remember Alison who used to attend a lot of the Monday films maybe 8, 9, possibly 10 years ago? She bought one of the 500 Films You Must Watch books and managed to watch every single one of them. 

John 

[Alex Banwell]

Hi John,

Because of the person I am, I've obviously scored them all out of 5. My mind changes constantly though. I just looked at my list again and thought 'how on earth did I not give All About Eve five stars?!

My biggest take aways were:

1. How good the award winners usually are. Yes they sometimes get it wrong, but the films are usually still good. How Green Was My Valley may have beaten Citizen Kane, but it's still a great film I'd recommend to anyone. I scored 49 of them at 4* or better and only 14 as 2* or worse.

2. Most have aged really well. I was blown away by how good the first winner, Wings was, and I was dreading a 30s war film, but All Quiet on the Western Front was not only a remarkable achievement in film making but was a really great, nuanced look at war. In some ways some of the films that have aged the worst are the 80s melodramas, Chariots of Fire, Out of Africa and Kramer v Kramer none of which did a lot for me. (I remember loving Chariots as a kid but boy has it aged poorly.)

3. They are really, really long. So many were pushing 3 hours. We complain films today are too long, but I challenge anyone complaining about length of films today to sit through three hours of The Great Ziegfeld or Patton.

As to favourite? I think Parasite may well be my favourite when all is said and done. But all of my five star ratings: It Happened One Night, Casablanca, The Apartment, In the Heat of the Night, Godfather part II, Silence of the Lambs, Moonlight, Parasite, Lawrence of Arabia.

Worst was probably Patton or Around the World in Eighty Days.

Alex

[John Harvey]

Hi Alex,

what formats did you watch the films on? Were they all easy obtainable?? Every New Year I set myself the target of watching one film every day. I usually make it to around the 8th of January though....

I remember watching All Quiet on the Western Front way back in the 70s. For some reason (I was young at the time) I thought it would be a bit like The Dirty Dozen or some such rip-roaring tale of adventure. It was bleak. And very upsetting. Job done!

Good call on the 5 star classics. We're looking at getting In The Heat of the Night later in the year. Having watched it recently for the first time in years I was shocked at Tibbs' introduction. I always liked Sidney Poitier in the film and amazed he wasn't even nominated for a Best Actor award at the Oscars.

Ordinary People was a perplexing win, even back in 1980. It beat Raging Bull and The Elephant Man. And Kramer vs Kramer beat Apocalypse Now!

John

[Brian Matthews]

Nothing beats Apocalypse Now no matter what so called experts say. 

Brian Matthews

http://oldage-travellers.blogspot.co.uk

Sent from my iPhone

On 5 Mar 2022, at 21:12, John Harvey <rbcfilm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Apocalypse Now!

[Alex Banwell]

Some aren't on any streaming service or on DVD/Blu Ray anywhere so I had to find versions on youtube.

Some I had in my collection already, some that I thought I'd really like I bought on Blu-Ray.

Quite a few I just rented from Amazon or some other streaming service. It wasn't the cheapest project!

I think that Poitier omission might be the worst in the history of the Oscars.

That run from 79: Kramer v Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Out of Africa feels like a real snapshot of the eighties.

I think you could make arguments for Amadeus and Gandhi (Though I'd have gone with ET over Gandhi) but the others - they are perfectly good films for the most part, but I'm not sure any of them should have even been nominated.

Re: Kramer v Kramer and Apocalypse Now: You've clearly forgotten that was the year The Muppet Movie was released!

[John Harvey]

Ha, ha, The Muppet Movie, of course!!!!