Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics

Dog Day Afternoon

A comedy of frustration and a look at how the media takes and then takes back one’s fifteen minutes of fame, Dog Day Afternoon (1975) is on of Sidney Lumet’s best films w

Tár

Tod Field’s Tár (2022) is one of the best ghost stories we’ve discussed on the show. The story of a troiubled genius, the film is also a wonderfully ambiguous portrat of

Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The War of the Worlds

In light of the dismal Disclosure Day (2026), we return to two films that show Spielberg tackling alien visitation (or invasion) stories while at the height of his powers

Grizzly Man

Tennyson called nature “red in tooth and claw,” but that warning didn’t keep Timothy Treadwell from living among the grizzlies of Alaska for thirteen summers–until one of

Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen has called A Streetcar Named Desire the most well-directed film ever made and its influence on Blue Jasmine (2013) is unmistakable. Both concern a woman whose

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

In 1828, a seventeen-year-old boy was found wandering the streets of Nuremberg, holding two letters and unable to say more than a few words. The locals adopted him as a k

Chinatown

“Forget it, Jake—it’s Chinatown.” This piece of advice is as famous as it is useless: Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) will never be able to forget what he’s seen. Chinatown 

Get Shorty

Hollywood loves making movies about itself: on this show alone, we’ve done Sunset Boulevard, Sullivan’s Travels, and Singin’ in the Rain. Get Shorty (1995) is Elmore Leon

A Star Is Born (1937)

A Star Is Born has been filmed four times, but the first version is the best: a combination of Singin’ in the Rain and Death of a Salesman, David O. Selznick’s productio

Boiling Point

Every other movie seems to be touted as a “tour de force”--but Philip Barantini’s 2021 look at ninety minutes in the life of a chef and everyone around him really earns t

His Girl Friday

The average estimated words-per-minute in a feature film is 90; His Girl Friday (1940) clocks in at 240. And yet the fast dialogue is only one of its many fascinations.

Twentieth Century

Twentieth Century (1934) is a screwball comedy that moves like a runaway train and we are delightfully tied to the tracks. John Barrymore’s audacious performance as direc

The Dead

“Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland.”  That line from James Joyce’s story is heard at the end of John Huston’s 1987 adaptation, a true fami

Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire (1987) is a film that stays with the viewer; part of how it works is to flood the viewer’s mind with images that seem, at first, disconnected but which al

The Purple Rose of Cairo

Something film fanatics often say is that a particular director’s work is really “about the movies.” Sometimes that’s true and sometimes it isn’t–but there’s no doubt tha

The Beast

Have you ever felt that you keep making the same mistakes or that you have fallen into a pattern that could be Exhibit A as proof of reincarnation? The Beast (2023) uses

The Trip

My Dinner with Andre (1981) is a film that uses the simple premise of two men sharing a meal as a vehicle for exploration of how we should live our lives. It asks fundame

Miami Vice

Many movies tell us how to watch them. Whether it’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, Casablanca, or Rear Window, movies steer the viewers to certain reactions anticipated by thei

History Is Made at Night

Every so often, you encounter The Perfect Movie: something with a screenplay, cast, and direction that combine in a way that reminds you of what happens when everyone wor

The Straight Story

Everybody was shocked when, in 1999, David Lynch released a G-rated film with a Norman Rockwell setting that didn’t have a dark underbelly or wild reveal; if you have a D