Alternate Sides

We close out Season Four with Joshua Oppenheimer’s surreal and disturbing documentary The Act of Killing.

Plus: the difficulties of dealing with mice, and a potential new car for Sam.

LINKS:

Trailer for The Act of Killing

Trailer for Digger

Christopher Hitchens's moral challenge

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This episode we explore Kenneth Lonergan’s underseen coming-of-age drama Margaret, starring Anna Paquin, J. Smith-Cameron, and Mark Ruffalo.

Plus: a heat wave, the power of art, and the lingering specter of 9/11.

LINKS:

Trailer for Margaret

“Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The music of Richard Strauss in Wild at Heart

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This week we tune up our ukuleles to sing the praises of Derek Cianfrance’s romantic drama Blue Valentine, starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling.

Plus: the magic of theater, the return of the World Cup, and James takes his car to the shop.

LINKS:

Trailer for Blue Valentine

Rosamund Pike speaks out about texting during performances

Michael Haneke on Spielberg

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This week we we travel back to 1914 for Michael Haneke’s austere period drama The White Ribbon.

Plus: the devaluing ubiquity of music, the less pleasant aspects of parenthood, and James's return to urban living.

LINKS:

Trailer for The White Ribbon

“Forbidden Friendship” from How to Train Your Dragon

“The Parable of the Old Man and the Young” by Wilfred Owen

“The Tale of the Three Brothers”, from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One

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This week we’re stepping into the ring to confront Darren Aronofsky's washed-up-tough-guy drama The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei.

Plus: Primordial Soup, the end of The Bad Plus, and James’s retirement from film-scoring.

LINKS:

Trailer for The Wrestler

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The Bad Plus (original lineup) plays "Prehensile Dream"

[it is worth your patience; let it develop]

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The "Married Life" montage from Up

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This week we saddle up for Andrew Dominik’s 2007 revisionist western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck.

Plus: an Oscar-winning case of temp love, the evolution of John Wayne’s characters, and James’s new cold-plunge pod.

LINKS:

Trailer for The Assassination of Jesse James...

Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight"

Martin Scorsese on the evolution of John Wayne's characters

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This week we investigate the spies, bureaucrats, artists and lovers of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Cold War thriller The Lives of Others, starring Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, and Martina Gedeck.

Plus: government protests, Star-Wars-themed cruises, and the question of whether people can ever really change.

LINKS:

Trailer for The Lives of Others

The Star Wars "Galactic Starcruiser"

Anton Ego's flashback in Ratatouille

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This week we push our stroller through the post-industrial Belgian streets of the Dardenne Brothers’ moral thriller The Child, starring Jérémie Renier and Déborah François.

Plus: Sam takes on a new role at work, considers hiring a new mechanic, and we mourn the passing of three legends.

LINKS:

Trailer for The Child

Trailer for Mr Scorsese

Wikipedia entry for production designer Stuart Craig

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This week we wend our way through Richard Linklater’s decades-spanning Before trilogy, starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke.

Plus: Sam gets a taste of empty-nesterdom, and James walks into a glass door.

LINKS:

Trailers for the three Before movies

Ethan Hawke's first novel, The Hottest State

“Dawn”, from the Pride and Prejudice score, by Dario Marianelli

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This episode we hammer our way through Park Chan-wook’s action-thriller Oldboy, starring Choi Min-sik.

Plus: the time Sam met Bruce Willis, and the event that almost ended our friendship.

LINKS:

Trailer for Oldboy

“Prologue” from Alexander Desplat's score for Birth

The Return of Bruno

Eternal Sunshine.... waltz, by Jon Brion

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We close out season three with Steven Spielberg’s dystopian thriller Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton and Max von Sydow.

Plus: the seeming immortality of Tom Cruise, Sam’s first feature, and yet another award nomination – but this time, it’s not for Sam.

LINKS:

Trailer for Minority Report

Will Ferrell takes one in the jugular in OId School

Tom Cruise as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder

"Fly Like an Eagle," by Steve Miller Band

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This week we take a slow, spiraling ride down Mulholland Dr, David Lynch’s puzzle-box fever dream starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, and Justin Theroux.

Plus: Transcendental Meditation, Adolescence, and the time James was up against Angelo Badalamenti for a film-scoring job.

LINKS:

Trailer for Mulhallond Dr

Bob climbs over the sofa in Twin Peaks

Jeff Goldblum forgot his mantra

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This week we slash our way through Mary Harron’s satirical horror-thriller American Psycho, starring Christian Bale, Chloe Sevigny, and Willem Dafoe.

Plus: The Picard Maneuver! And Sam gets stalked by his auto mechanic.

LINKS:

Trailer for American Psycho

The Picard Manoeuver

Tom Cruise as inspiration for Patrick Bateman

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This week we explore Abbas Kiarostami’s meditative drama The Wind Will Carry Us, starring Behzad Dorani.

Plus: Iranian hospitality, Marjie’s Broadway debut, and the movie that led to Sam and James meeting each other.

LINKS:

Trailer for The Wind Will Carry Us

Trailer for Joe Gould's Secret

Nick Cave on cold-water swimming

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A double-bill! Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo ‘66, starring Gallo and Christina Ricci; and Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen, or The Celebration, starring Ulrich Thomsen, Paprika Steen and Thomas Bo Larsen. One of them became an instant classic for James.

Plus: Dogme 95 and the “vow of chastity.”

LINKS:

Trailer for Buffalo '66

Trailer (a terrible and misleading one) for The Celebration

The Dogme 95 movement’s “Vow of Chastity”

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This week we get into Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 kaleidoscopic end-of-an-era drama Boogie Nights, starring Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, and Burt Reynolds.

Plus: James’s psilocybin adventure!

LINKS:

Trailer for Boogie Nights

Ben Affleck on teaching miners to be astronauts

The final scene of Big Night

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This week we explore John Sayles’s 1996 bordertown drama Lone Star, starring Chris Cooper, Matthew McConaughey, and Kris Kristofferson.

Plus: Sam goes to the Emmys!

LINKS:

Trailer for Lone Star

A Scene from Taste of Cherry

Doogh

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This week we explore Todd Haynes’s prescient 1995 environmental-illness drama Safe, starring Julianne Moore.

Plus: Emmy nominations, James’s upcoming psilocybin journey, and how bad Sam is at running.

LINKS:

Trailer for Safe

Kripalu

Sam's Emmy nominations

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This week we dig up Danny Boyle’s suitcase-full-of-cash thriller Shallow Grave, starring Ewan McGregor, Kerry Fox, and Christopher Eccleston.

Plus: Ripley, the frustrations of tourism, and the European Cup.

LINKS:

Trailer for Shallow Grave

Trailer for Ripley

Trailer for Cry Funny Happy

Deadline.com announcement of Sam’s football project

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We kick off Season Three of the podcast with Brian De Palma’s crime drama Carlito’s Way, starring Al Pacino, Penelope Ann Miller, and Sean Penn.

Plus: offensive accents, an update on Sam’s car, and the time we almost paid someone $10,000 to read a script.

LINKS:

Trailer for Carlito's Way

The Globe and Shakespeare’s “anti-literalism”

Trailer for Bonnie, a documentary about casting director Bonnie Timmermann

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