Vintage Sand Episode 40: Hidden Gems, Volume III`

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Exile

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Episode 10: From Refugee to Radical 44:09

منذ 2 years44:09

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قوائم

إعجاب

احب

44:09

When a young Eva Kollisch arrives as a refugee in New York in 1940, she finds a community among socialists who share her values and idealism. She soon discovers ‘the cause’ isn’t as idyllic as it seems. Little does she know this is the beginning of a lifelong commitment to activism and her determination to create radical change in ways that include belonging, love and one's full self. In addition to Eva Kollisch’s memoirs Girl in Movement (2000) and The Ground Under My Feet (2014), LBI’s collections include an oral history interview with Eva conducted in 2014 and the papers of Eva’s mother, poet Margarete Kolllisch, which document Eva’s childhood experience on the Kindertransport. Learn more at www.lbi.org/kollisch . Exile is a production of the Leo Baeck Institute , New York | Berlin and Antica Productions . It’s narrated by Mandy Patinkin. Executive Producers include Katrina Onstad, Stuart Coxe, and Bernie Blum. Senior Producer is Debbie Pacheco. Associate Producers are Hailey Choi and Emily Morantz. Research and translation by Isabella Kempf. Sound design and audio mix by Philip Wilson, with help from Cameron McIver. Theme music by Oliver Wickham. Voice acting by Natalia Bushnik. Special thanks to the Kollisch family for the use of Eva’s two memoirs, “Girl in Movement” and “The Ground Under My Feet”, the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College and their “Voices of Feminism Oral History Project”, and Soundtrack New York.…

منذ عامين 1:21:00

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Don’t call it a comeback! After a long (for us)summer break estivating in all the world’s glamour spots, Team Vintage Sand returns with Episode 40, the third in our Hidden Gems series. Those of you playing along at home will recall that in Episodes 11 and 30, we each chose one film to discuss that we thought had been unjustly overlooked by time and the madding crowd. We promised/threatened to go down this path yet again and take you, loyal listeners, into some more dark and obscure corners of film history. So enjoy Episode 40, Hidden Gems Volume III, where John, Michael and Josh take a closer look at three very different films: a broad screwball heist film from the early 70's that should have been a huge hit; a quietly powerful and engrossing tale of a year in the life of a group of middle-aged friends, created by the man who is perhaps the greatest living director of actors; and a one-of-a kind, zero-budget film created by blacklisted creatives at the height of McCarthyism that is not only the greatest film ever made about the labor movement, but is also decades ahead of its time in its approach to both feminist issues and immigrant rights. And remember, the code phrase is Afghanistan Banana Stand…

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Vintage Sand Episode 40: Hidden Gems, Volume III`

Vintage Sand

published منذ عامين

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#Vintage Sand #Arts

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1
Vintage Sand Episode 58: Alternative Oscars: The 1940's Edition Part 2 1:24:58

منذ 21 يومًا1:24:58

1:24:58

Please see the description in Episode 57, our previous episode, as a guide for this, the latest in our Alternate Oscars series. This one focused on the films of the 1940's. Only decade left to cover is the 2010's so don't touch that dial!

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Vintage Sand Episode 57: Alternative Oscars: 1940's Edition, Part I 1:28:40

منذ 7 weeks1:28:40

1:28:40

Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America and all ships at sea, and welcome to Episode 57 of Vintage Sand, our first of 2025. In this episode and the next one we return, for the penultimate time, to the source of some of our most popular episodes: Danny Peary’s hard-to-find 1993 classic "Alternative Oscars". In the past, we have used Peary’s model to approach every full decade in which the Academy has handed out Oscars except two: the 2010’s, and the topic for this two-part episode, Alternate Oscars: The 1940’s Edition. It's interesting that the 40’s are considered to be the peak of Hollywood’s Golden Age, yet many films that were beloved and honored back then have not well withstood the passage of time. The early part of the decade’s most important development was the rise of the writer/director in Hollywood. Preston Sturges was the first, with his incredible run of films from 1940-1945, and he was followed quickly by the Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett team and, of course, that clever young fellow from the Mercury Theater. The 40’s also marked the arrival of Hitchcock to these shores, and the rise to prominence of new directorial voices like Huston, Preminger, Zinnemann and Nicholas Ray. There were also many high points in the decade for well-established directors like Ford, Capra, Hawks, Lubitsch and Wyler. We have the incredible run of films between 1942 and 1946 made by Val Lewton’s brilliant B-movie unit at RKO, and, of course, the birth of film noir, overseen predominantly by expats like Wilder, Lang, Preminger, Ulmer, Lewis and Siodmak. The latter half of the decade, which we will cover in Episode 58 in February, saw two major developments. The end of the war saw the return to strength of many European film industries as well as studio filmmaking in Japan. In France, in the wake of 1945’s miraculous "Les Enfants du Paradis", directors as different as Cocteau, Clouzot and Bresson began or restarted their careers. This explosion of creativity was matched in the UK, with the arrival of Lean, Reed, and especially with the flowering of the Powell-Pressburger Archers team. Clearly, though, the most important such event was the rise of what today is called Italian Neo-Realism, as directors like Rossellini, De Sica, and to a lesser extent Visconti, created a brand new way to tell stories on film that is still influencing directors today. The second big change of the late 40’s was really two changes in one: the landmark Paramount court case in 1948 that ended the vertical monopoly the studios had long held as owners of theater chains as well, and the mass arrival of television. Between 1948 and 1952, Hollywood lost nearly half of its audience, bringing down the curtain on that so-called “Golden Age” of Hollywood. In terms of the Oscars, the Academy made solid choices for Best Picture--they certainly picked better films than they did in the 1930’s! These included enduring works like "The Best Years of Our Lives", "All the King’s Men" and especially, "Casablanca". Who could argue with that? (Hint: us.) But there were plenty of head scratchers as well. Prestige choices like "How Green Was My Valley", "Mrs. Miniver" and Olivier’s "Hamlet" look a little creaky these days. Hell, we might argue that "Rebecca" was not even Hitchcock’s best film of 1940! And the less said about "Going My Way" and "Gentlemen’s Agreement", the better. So kick back, round up the usual suspects, and help us make this podcast more important than the gas in that light……

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Vintage Sand Episode 56: "He's Making a List:" Team Vintage Sand's Favorite Christmas Movies 1:34:45

منذ 12 weeks1:34:45

1:34:45

No deep insight or analysis here, Vintage Sand fans. Just a list of our favorite Christmas and Christmas-adjacent films as the season approaches. (Not counting blazingly obvious choices like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Christmas Story”). May your days be merry and bright, may your heart grow three sizes that day, as they say in Whoville, and, may your favorite holiday films always be streaming.…

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Vintage Sand Episode 55: Megalopolis and Necropolis 1:29:41

منذ 15 weeks1:29:41

1:29:41

Vintage Sand listeners this month will get something of a twofer, a BOGO episode. Since we really have not had the chance to do a full necrology since July, Michael takes the time to relate the accomplishments of some very bright lights in the film business that have gone out over the past four months. These include artists who leave behind a great legacy and holes that can never really be filled, including people like Dame Maggie Smith, James Earl Jones and Alain Delon. Before we get to that point, though, we begin with a very different kind of eulogy: our reflections on Francis Ford Coppola’s summa, the egregious "Megalopolis". We felt, as we did for Scorsese in our episodes on both "The Irishman" and "Killers of the Flower Moon", that a sprawling work by one of our greatest filmmakers, in this case a film that had a gestation period of nearly fifty years, deserved to be examined both in its own right as a work of art and in context as part of its creator’s career. In hindsight, it’s risible to think that at the end of the 70’s, film fans were heatedly debating who among the heroes of the American New Wave would end up with the greater career: Scorsese or Coppola? (Let’s not even talk about some of the others around the periphery of that conversation at the time, like De Palma, Bogdanovich, Friedkin, Rafelson, Cimino, Lucas and yes, perhaps even Spielberg—although, surprisingly, Paul Schrader has been coming up with a few late-period masterpieces). Megalopolis ends that debate, and stands, as I referred to "Eyes Wide Shut" relative to Kubrick’s career in our episode devoted to that film, as a cardboard tombstone to the career of a gifted filmmaker. While the members of Team Vintage Sand, whose bottomless intrepidity was confirmed by each of us successfully wading through (a la Andy Dufresne) the 2 ½ hours of dreck that is "Megalopolis", did find the occasional positive to light on, for the most part it was an example of a work of incredible consistency, in that just about every choice Coppola makes as writer and director was the wrong one. Perhaps the comparison with Scorsese is unfair, and certainly nothing could ever erase the impact of Coppola’s four films of the 1970’s, or even the smaller delights of his later work (Mike’s a fan of "The Cotton Club", and I’ve always thought that "Tucker" was a much better film than its reputation dictates). But for us, the truth is that between the gratuitous literary and high culture references, the sophomoric philosophizing that would make any actual 10th grader cringe, the derivative film tributes sprinkled throughout (including, unbelievably, a moment where the film appears to physically burn up in the projector—a brilliant idea had Bergman not done it 60 years ago in "Persona"), and a script that even good actors like Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito can’t save, "Megalopolis" was, quite unintentionally, the funniest film of the year—and given how much we love and admire its creator, the most painful. Once can only hope that this is not Coppola’s final statement, and that in future efforts he will trust his audience, not try so hard to impress us with his erudition, and remember what made him so great in the first place…

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Vintage Sand Episode 54: Director's Cut: Joseph Losey 1:30:46

منذ 19 weeks1:30:46

1:30:46

Elegant. That was the adjective used by Team Vintage Sand’s own Michael Edmund to describe why the films of Joseph Losey are so important to him, and why he has been such a huge fan of Losey’s for nearly all of his film-going life. Losey’s was a name that seemed to keep popping up in a wide variety of contexts over the course of the podcast, so, after many delays, we are proud to present Episode 54—Director’s Cut: Joseph Losey. Losey’s is a unique career in the sense that it really was two distinct careers. After growing up in a life of privilege in Wisconsin (where he was a high school classmate of another pretty good director, Nicholas Ray) and an education at Harvard and Dartmouth, Losey made his way to Hollywood and directed a couple of interesting, low-budget films. Among these were the stilted but prescient "The Boy with Green Hair" (1948), and the rather senseless remake of Lang’s "M" (1951), the latter replete with awful soundtrack music and LA sunshine. One possible reason that Losey might have gotten involved with this misguided effort might have been to give actors (Luther Adler, Martin Gabel) and other creatives (screenwriter Waldo Salt), who had been or were about to be blacklisted, a shot at getting some work. Losey himself, an unapologetic member of the Communist Party and an important creative associate of Bertolt Brecht, knew that when Brecht was called before HUAC, it was only a matter of time before he would meet the same fate. So before he could be summoned, he fled to London, and never again worked in the United States for the remaining three decades of his life. He began his English period with some low budget films, some of which, like 1954’s "The Sleeping Tiger", still hold some interest. It was during this period, however, that he met two men who were going to help him create the reputation that he still carries to this day, that of a director of great style whose films, not surprisingly given his own life experience, were always political without ever dealing directly with politics: the actor Dirk Bogarde, and the legendary playwright Harold Pinter. Their first work together, 1963’s "The Servant", is generally regarded as Losey’s masterpiece. It is an absolute evisceration of a rotting class system that has yet to realize its time has passed and that the empire on which it was founded has disintegrated. The complex, ever-changing relationship between upper class twit Tony (the wonderful James Fox) and Barrett, the manservant Tony hires (Bogarde), is cold, chilling and surprising right to the very end. Losey continued his obsession with social class in the World War I drama "King and Country" (1964), a film with a setup similar to "Paths of Glory" that in some ways is an even more powerful anti-war statement than Kubrick’s film. Losey teamed up again, somewhat less successfully, with Pinter and Bogarde for 1967’s "Accident", and with Pinter for one more masterpiece, 1971’s "The Go-Between", a gorgeous period piece featuring pitch-perfect performances by Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, newcomer Dominic Guard as the titular young man, and especially by the never-more-luminous Julie Christie. There are no easy answers when it comes to Losey, but two things come to mind. As John notes in the episode, had Losey not fled persecution and stayed in America, he probably would have been nothing more than a more-talented-than-average studio hack. Exile turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to him, and it may be a direct result of his outsider status that Losey was able to cast an even sharper eye on the follies and perils of the dying English class system more effectively even than the great native British directors of the 1960’s. Whatever your thoughts on his work, in the end, it is that aforementioned elegance and intelligence that make Losey’s best films worth watching today.…

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Vintage Sand Episode 53: Hidden Gems, Volume IV 1:22:19

منذ 34 weeks1:22:19

1:22:19

For the fourth time in the history of the podcast, Team Vintage Sand returns to one of its most popular formats, the Hidden Gems episode. As we did previously in episodes 11, 30, and 40, Michael, John and I each choose one film to discuss that we feel has been unjustly neglected and overlooked by the huddled masses yearning to see anything besides a prequel, sequel, spinoff or reboot. So please enjoy Episode 53, which features three films that could not be more different from one another. Michael takes us back to the 70’s and to a John Cassavetes film that was ignored and even despised upon its (very limited) initial release but has only gained in reputation and influence across the years. I focus on a very imperfect genre film, Neill Blomkamp’s second feature, 2013’s "Elysium" that, perhaps even more powerfully and viscerally than acknowledged masterworks like "The Social Network" and "Her", predicted a desperate future that we appear to be headed for much sooner than the filmmaker anticipated. Finally, John shines the spotlight on Alice Wu, a unique filmmaker and storyteller. Her second film, The Half of It, a lovely variation on the "Cyrano de Bergerac" formula, had the misfortune of being premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival…that never took place, because it was 2020. It ended up in the undifferentiated mass of content that is Netflix, from which John will hopefully save it. Enjoy, stay cool in the heat, see great movies, and Thank You for Listening, Citizen!…

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Vintage Sand Episode 52: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Films of 1974 1:26:11

منذ 39 weeks1:26:11

1:26:11

The end of 1974 saw the implosion of the Director’s Company, founded just a year earlier by three of Hollywood’s hottest directors: Francis Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, and William Friedkin. Funded by Paramount, the idea was that within a certain budget, these directors would make whatever they wanted, have final cut on their work, and split the profits on each other’s films. Its rapid collapse, amid artistic failure and hubris and egged on by corporate intrigue, signaled the beginning of the end of what later came to be known as the Hollywood New Wave. A year later, the phenomenon that was "Jaws" recentered the narrative so that blockbuster weekend box office was everyone’s sole and explicit goal. This in turn led to the return of the money people to power, and they have barely relinquished any of that power in the ensuing half-century. It's not a coincidence that 1974 also saw "Hearts and Minds", one of the great antiwar films ever made in this country, win the Oscar for Best Feature-Length Documentary. The film was also a milestone in that it was the last film ever released by BBS, the renegade company founded by Bert Schneider, Bob Rafelson and Steve Blauner in 1969. Buoyed by the money they had made from the success of the Monkees, BBS disrupted an already-crumbling industry by releasing "Easy Rider", which grossed $60 million on a budget of $400K. The next few years saw releases from BBS like Rafelson’s "Five Easy Pieces" and "The King of Marvin Gardens", Jack Nicholson’s directorial debut in "Drive, He Said", Jaglom’s "A Safe Place" and Bogdanovich’s mainstream breakthrough, "The Last Picture Show". By the middle of the decade, however, BBS had been swallowed up by Columbia, and the writing was on the wall for the days of the creative freedom that came with this iteration of American independent film. So while few realized it at the time, 1974 would mark the end of something unique and the beginning of something else. Come, then, and join our intrepid Team Vintage Sand as we step into the Way-Back Machine to say goodbye to Tricky Dick Nixon, spend weekend days waiting on line for gasoline, and explore that sui generis year in film. It was, of course, the year of young Vito Corleone, Jake Gittes and Harry Caul, but also a time when even many low-budget genre films ended up as classics. In the end, you very well might end up agreeing with our own John Meyer, who back in Episode 5 called 1974 the greatest year in film history.…

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Vintage Sand Episode 51B: Alternate Oscars: The 1960's Edition 1:22:06

منذ 43 weeks1:22:06

1:22:06

Our Alternate Oscars episodes, based on Danny Peary’s fantastic 1992 book of the same name, have always been among our most popular. Over the course of the podcast, we’ve covered the 1930’s, 1950’s, 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s, and the 2000’s. Comparing what films actually won Best Picture to what we believe should have won is always a fun challenge, and it has given us a chance over the years to open or reopen some doors for our listeners to movies that are overlooked and forgotten. When we came to the 1950’s episode, in an (eerily prophetic) split decision, we chose to include only English-language works, since the sheer volume of brilliant films from around the world in that decade would overwhelm both us and you, dear listeners. As we approached the 1960’s for this episode, however, we reasoned that the relative lack of great American films from the decade suggested that this time around, we should open our tent to the entire world. We could not stand idly by, for instance while "A Man for All Seasons", lovely though it is, walked away with Best Picture in the year of films like "Persona", "Masculin/Feminin" and "Blow-Up". Our worries about the length of the episode, however, turned out to be justified and then some; therefore, we needed to split the episode into two parts. So with that, we are thrilled to present our first episode(s) since our triumphant, celebratory live recording of Episode 50 in March: thus Episodes 51A (1960-1964) and 51B (1965-1969), Alternate Oscars: The 1960’s Edition. There were a couple of things that really hit us as we were creating this entry in the Vintage Sand catalogue. The first is that an unexpectedly high number of our choices were, in fact, American films, suggesting that while common wisdom avers that Hollywood suffered a creative decline in the 60’s, there were a lot of great things happening just below the surface that were, unwittingly perhaps, paving the way for the revolution of the American New Wave that would come in the early 1970’s. And the deeper we dove into the cinema of the 60’s, we came to really understand the fundamental difference between those works and film today. Simply put, it was a time when directors really seemed to trust their audience’s intelligence and imagination. This is most obvious in structurally elliptical puzzle films like Resnais’ "Last Year at Marienbad", Buñuel’s "The Exterminating Angel", Antonioni’s "L’Avventura" and "Blow-Up", Bergman’s "Persona" and even Kubrick’s "2001: A Space Odyssey". But in ways big and small, and in terms both of performance and filmmaking technique, there is in 60’s film a refreshing absence of rat-on-the-balcony-rail-at-the-end-of-"Departed" heavy-handedness that seems to be a common thread in the work of even our greatest directors today. So with all this in mind, strap in and join us for our odyssey through 60’s cinema. It promises to be highly irregular, Dave……

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Vintage Sand Episode 51A: Alternate Oscars: 1960's Edition, Volume I 56:37

منذ 44 weeks56:37

56:37

Our Alternate Oscars episodes, based on Danny Peary’s fantastic 1992 book of the same name, have always been among our most popular. Over the course of the podcast, we’ve covered the 1930’s, 1950’s, 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s, and the 2000’s. Comparing what films actually won Best Picture to what we believe should have won is always a fun challenge, and it has given us a chance over the years to open or reopen some doors for our listeners to movies that are overlooked and forgotten. When we came to the 1950’s episode, in an (eerily prophetic) split decision, we chose to include only English-language works, since the sheer volume of brilliant films from around the world in that decade would overwhelm both us and you, dear listeners. As we approached the 1960’s for this episode, however, we reasoned that the relative lack of great American films from the decade suggested that this time around, we should open our tent to the entire world. We could not stand idly by, for instance while A Man for All Seasons, lovely though it is, walked away with Best Picture in the year of films like Persona, Masculin/Feminin and Blow-Up. Our worries about the length of the episode, however, turned out to be justified and then some; therefore, we needed to split the episode into two parts. So with that, we are thrilled to present our first episode(s) since our triumphant, celebratory live recording of Episode 50 in March: thus Episodes 51A (1960-1964) and 51B (1965-1969), Alternate Oscars: The 1960’s Edition. There were a couple of things that really hit us as we were creating this entry in the Vintage Sand catalogue. The first is that an unexpectedly high number of our choices were, in fact, American films, suggesting that while common wisdom avers that Hollywood suffered a creative decline in the 60’s, there were a lot of great things happening just below the surface that were, unwittingly perhaps, paving the way for the revolution of the American New Wave that would come in the early 1970’s. And the deeper we dove into the cinema of the 60’s, we came to really understand the fundamental difference between those works and film today. Simply put, it was a time when directors really seemed to trust their audience’s intelligence and imagination. This is most obvious in structurally elliptical puzzle films like Resnais’ Last Year in Marienbad, Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel, Antonioni’s L’Avventura and Blow-Up, Bergman’s Persona and even Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But in ways big and small, and in terms both of performance and filmmaking technique, there is in 60’s film a refreshing absence of rat-on-the-balcony-rail-at-the-end-of-Departed heavy-handedness that seems to be a common thread in the work of even our greatest directors today. So with all this in mind, strap in and join us for our odyssey through 60’s cinema. It promises to be highly irregular, Dave……

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Vintage Sand Episode 50: Of Bombs and Bombshells - 2023 in Film 1:28:40

منذ 50 weeks1:28:40

1:28:40

It began six years ago, in the before time, with three film nerds who have been friends for four decades. Through the years, whenever we hung out together, we would inevitably end up talking for hours about film. So, we wondered aloud, why not make it official? Thus was born, in the spring of 2018, Vintage Sand, your film history podcast. One pandemic, one insurrection, a few erasures and rewritings of the film business and several hundred loyal listeners later, we thought it might be appropriate to commemorate our 50th episode by inviting friends and recording said episode live at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan. As you will hear, around 30 people came to support us, to hurl the occasional metaphorical tomato, and to remind us why we love doing this so much, as we recorded our roundup of 2023 in film in an episode we call “Of Bombs and Bombshells”. As with the last few years, this one was difficult to read. We applied our usual measure, wondering which of this year’s films, beyond “Barbie”, “Oppenheimer” and Scorsese's epic will folks will still be watching 25 or 50 years from now. Hard to say, but at least it was a year where, with the exception of Aster’s “Beau Is Afraid”, we were able to avoid a repeat of 2022, where some of our most interesting filmmakers (Russell, Aronofsky, Chazelle, Iñárritu, Luhrmann, Garland, et al.) released films that were not just bad but disastrous on an epic scale. 2023 was marked by labor strife in Hollywood, huge existential questions about the business as it has been run for over a century, and anxiety over the implications of technologies like AI and streaming. But it was also a year that welcomed a solid return to form of Vintage Sand favorites like Todd Haynes and Alexander Payne, gave us Wes Anderson’s first Oscar for his reunion with Roald Dahl, and brought forth astonishing new voices in works as varied as Celine Song’s “Past Lives”, Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction”, and Emma Seligman’s follow-up to “Shiva Baby”, the wonderful “Bottoms”. It also gave us perhaps the most ambitious American film of the century, Ava Duvernay’s stunning imagining of Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste”, in her epic “Origin”, an underseen gem that may in time prove to be the year’s greatest film. To top that off, there was the gently surprising return to classic form of the Oscars, featuring first wins for the aforementioned Wes, Christopher Nolan, and Robert Downey, Jr. Emma Stone won for her incredibly complex performance in “Poor Things”, but this Oscars may be remembered as the year Lily Gladstone was robbed for a performance that was much less showy than Stone’s but in our opinion, much more powerful. And as for the show itself, Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” may have been the greatest dance number the Oscars has seen in recent memory, though it only served to remind us how intensely the genius and talent behind “Barbie” were ignored by the Academy. Writing in the “New York Times”, Mark Harris, perhaps our favorite working film writer today, posited that film as the central force in American popular culture may be dying out. But like Harris, we don’t necessarily mourn the change; after all, the “death of cinema” has been a hot topic of discussion ever since the talkies arrived 95 years ago. In fact, we agree with Harris that 2024 may be another 1970, a year when out of the rubble of the collapse of the familiar emerged a revolution of unprecedented creativity and innovation. We have no idea what the future of film will bring, but whatever it is, we hope to be there to share our thoughts with you, not as frustrated film critics or experts in any way but as passionate film lovers who want to open as many doors as possible to new films and to new lenses through which to view old ones. To Billie Eilish’s eternal question, what were we made for? Hopefully another 50 episodes—at least!…

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Vintage Sand Episode 49: "Killers of the Flower Moon": It's Just the Way This Is Going 1:31:04

منذ 1 year1:31:04

1:31:04

When a director of Martin Scorsese’s stature releases a new movie, it’s time to drop everything else and discuss. When last we did this, with "The irishman", our thoughts on that film were mixed; it was a summation of some of the themes and ideas that have characterized Scorsese’s work, and it also contained certain thematic elements of his “spiritual” trilogy of "Last Temptation of Christ", "Kundun" and "Silence". Michael summed it up best when he characterized "The Irishman", and not in a disparaging way, as the film of an old man, an elegy for a passing time. And here we are, once again, with the director in his early 80’s, releasing a very different kind of 3 ½ hour epic that, in our view, not only feels like it could have been made by someone in his 30’s, but encompasses an ambition (both emotional and temporal/spatial) that Scorsese has never attempted before. So we present Episode 49, "Killers of the Flower Moon: It’s Just the Way This Is Going.” As we did with our study of "The Irishman", we divide this episode into two parts. In the first, we discuss the film on its own terms. Here, we disagree somewhat (which always makes for an interesting discussion) on the overall impact of the film; Michael sees it as an unalloyed masterpiece, while John and I, while recognizing its brilliance, express some reservations. We all agreed, for example, that the film’s extended running time was actually insufficient to tell this story, and that it might have been better done as a mini-series or some longer format. Another thing we all agree on is the acting which, down to the smallest roles, is pitch-perfect. This is especially true of the three leads, and of the stunning performance by Lily Gladstone as Mollie in particular. And we all love the opening and the ending of the film, and how brilliantly Scorsese uses the music of Robbie Robertson (who acts as almost a presiding spirit over the film) to underscore the themes and the mood of the piece. We also appreciate how Scorsese, in adapting David Grann’s brilliant book for the screen, shifts Grann’s emphasis on how the Osage murders helped put the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover on the map and puts his focus up, until nearly the very end, on the human side of these horrific crimes, centered around the extraordinarily complex relationship between DiCaprio’s Ernest and Gladstone’s Mollie. Then, as we did with "Irishman", we try to place the film in the context of Scorsese’s body of work, and this is where things get really interesting. While his films often focus on violence, and often depict this violence through elaborate set pieces, Scorsese’s approach is very different here. For one, with the possible exception of the misbegotten "Gangs of New York", Scorsese has never attempted to show organized violence perpetrated over such a long period of time and on such an epic scale. Paradoxically, though, while this film contains countless acts of brutal violence, Scorsese chooses to show them in the most blunt, matter-of-fact way. It’s as though he felt that calling attention to his own craft would only distract from the horrific story he is trying to tell. And this raises the stakes for the director in an unprecedented way. Rather than focusing on the violence between rival gangs, or internecine strife within a gang, Scorsese seems to be saying that the whole of American history is at least in part a kind of gang war, with profit and gain for some happening only with the suffering, exploitation and murder of "othered" peoples across the centuries. It is an exploration of the darkest corners of the American Dream, and we think you will find our conclusions about where it fits in the Scorsese canon to be interesting. "Killers of the Flower Moon" is a film of tremendous resonance, depth and contradiction as seen through the eyes of someone who, as an artist, has always been one of the sharpest observers of the complexities of who we are as a people.…

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Vintage Sand Episode 48: "The Union Forever!" 1:34:56

منذ 1 year1:34:56

1:34:56

As of our taping of this episode, Hollywood is still under the shadow of the labor problems which have arisen periodically since the beginnings of the industry. After all, remember that the formation of the Academy and the establishment of the Oscars were in many ways the studio moguls’ attempts to crush the burgeoning union movements. Periodically, since the unions were established, they have engaged in strikes, most memorably in 1960 when both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA struck to create a fair distribution of revenue from the then relatively-new medium of television. And every time in the ensuing years when the modes of distribution changed, from syndication to video tapes to DVD’s, these issues of equity have led to labor tensions across the board. With the double whammy of streaming and the technological possibilities of AI upon us, both the writers and the actors went on strike again earlier this year. The writers have settled, but the actors are still on the picket lines, and seem far away from a settlement. Some casual observers see this as a case of millionaires fighting with billionaires. So Team Vintage Sand wades into the fray by beginning this latest episode with Michael, who is a longtime and proud member of SAG-AFTRA, discussing the issue from the lived perspective of the 95%+ of his fellow union members who cannot make a living as actors. Simply put, what’s at stake is the ability of talented, hard-working people without whom the industry could not exist to put food on their table and make this month’s rent. From there, it was a logical pivot to focus the episode on films that deal with labor movements, workers’ rights and unionization. We each chose three movies, and naturally, you will find well-known films like "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Norma Rae" in the mix. But the real revelation of the episode for us is that in spite of the powerful human drama that is inherent in the struggles of labor, Hollywood has produced almost no films that touch on the subject beyond a well-known handful. We suppose this should not be a huge surprise given the industry’s deep-rooted animosity towards organized labor, but the fact is that of our nine films on the issue, three are from England, one is from France, and one was rejected by the studios and produced and distributed independently. Our hope, as always, is that the episode will open some doors to films you’ve never seen or haven’t seen in a long time. In the end, we make no claims to objectivity here; to quote 8-year-old Charlie Kane (in a completely different context), “The Union Forever!”…

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Vintage Sand Episode 47: "Dead Reckoning" 1:28:59

منذ 2 years1:28:59

1:28:59

Combine the fact that we are preparing for the run of episodes in the fall that will culminate in our 50th episode in November and that summer has kept the old gang apart for a couple of months, we could not in good conscience let go the passing of some figures both major and minor figures in the history of film whom we have lost since last we convened in May. Therefore, as kind of a bridge to what is to come, Episode 47 will function as an extended necrology, though we do begin with a detour into some of our favorite film moments of the summer. And an interesting summer it was! Let’s put it this way--it was more than Kenough. We will explore the lives of towering figures like Glenda Jackson and Alan Arkin, controversial figures like William Friedkin, and the less well-known as well. Come catch up with us, and for goodness’ sake, at least see "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" on a big screen before the summer is over……

منذ 2 years1:21:00

1:21:00

Vintage Sand

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Vintage Sand Episode 39: Director's Cut: Chloe Zhao 1:09:27

منذ 3 years1:09:27

1:09:27

Episode 39 finds your intrepid Team Vintage Sand doing a deep dive into the work of one of our most promising young filmmakers, 2020 Best Director Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao. Although she has only done four feature films to this point, she has already established a distinctive painterly and brilliant visual style, and, as no less an authority than Frances McDormand put it, has shown herself able to successfully walk the line between sentiment and sentimentality. We take an auteurist approach to Zhao’s work by dividing her young career into two distinct parts. She began with two very low-budget films, Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider, using non-actors essentially playing themselves. Notably, both were set in the unique and wonderful landscape of the Pine Ridge Reservation in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a location that is becoming to Zhao what Monument Valley was to John Ford. Her Oscar winner, Nomadland, was a transitional work, featuring old pros McDormand and David Strathairn mixed in with non-actors. This unexpected success then led to her chance to be part of the MCU with Eternals, a huge-budget film that many connoisseurs of the genre consider to be the worst of the Marvel films. So our fundamental question is simple: how do the visual and thematic elements that made her first two films so uniquely personal and intimate carry over into the second pair of films, done on a much different scale? As frequently happens, there is some dissent within Team Vintage Sand. Michael, and to a lesser extent John argue, as do many, that Zhao’s films suffer from her insistence on non-actors, and that Songs and The Rider would have been better had Zhao populated her film with professional actors. I’m not bothered as much by it, but I see where they’re coming from, especially since they are both trained actors. That being said, there is no doubt that Zhao has a phenomenal eye and that she is an artist to be closely watched; for us, she is one of the few young directors who has earned a lifetime ticket, which simply means that if she’s directing a film, we’ll be there opening weekend. So sit back, enjoy, and we’ll see you all down the road.…

Vintage Sand

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Vintage Sand Episode 38: 2021 and the "End of Movies" 1:26:04

منذ 3 years1:26:04

1:26:04

In a “New York Times” article published last month, Ross Douthat expounded on the provocative idea that the movies, as in studio films produced in Hollywood, were “over.” He was not arguing that Hollywood would ever stop producing movies for the big screen, nor that the notion of seeing a movie in a dark theater with strangers all around would ever completely disappear. Instead, he was saying that The Movies, the heart of American popular culture for over a century, has now become just another source of content in a world of seemingly endless content. He attributes this to the rise of streaming and the improved quality of what we can see on our screens at home, to a globalized market that rewards the exploitation of familiar properties over anything that might be truly innovative, and, to be fair, the expense and sheer unpleasantness of taking one’s family to see a movie in an actual theater. And since most of what was on offer in the big theaters was Marvel/DC multiverse epics, other tentpole/franchise films or anything with a Roman numeral on the end of the title, is this such a big loss? Viewed through this lens, Team Vintage Sand was kind of split on the legacy of 2021 in film. Michael thought the year was one of the best in recent memory, whereas John and I were a bit more ambivalent. Of course, it my not be coincidental that Mike, as a card-carrying member of the union, got to see nearly everything this year in a real theater at SAG screenings. John and I saw a handful of films on the big screen, but most via streaming. (If this is not a coincidence, it argues strongly in favor of the primacy of the theater experience). And as you’ll hear in the episode, we could not even agree on whether any 2021 films met our highest standard: that they will still be watched 25 or 50 years from now. The most likely possibility is “Drive My Car”, although John expressed some sensible reservations. What else? Spielberg’s shockingly good “West Side Story” update? Maybe “Power of the Dog”, although Michael pointed out what I’m sure many felt: that the film was beautiful and technically perfect, but was so cold that very few will feel compelled to watch it again. Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World” has an outside shot, but I objected that, to paraphrase Mike’s oft-quoted mantra, I could not in the end love a film where I did not care about the central character (brilliant performance though it was). And “CODA”? A film that no one could dislike, with some tremendous performances, but an Afterschool Special script that, like “Green Book” or “Crash”, allowed Hollywood to pat itself on the back for being sensitive to the voices of an outsider group without really saying anything. As we did at this time last year, we frame the year in film in terms of the Oscar ceremony, which was well on its way to being one of the worst ever before you-know-what happened. We discuss the glaring omissions (Villeneuve not being nominated for “Dune”; “Passing”, which in some ways was the best film of the year, not getting nominated for anything; Hans Zimmer over Jonny Greenwood, etc.) and the occasions where they actually got it right (Hello, Ariana De Bose!). Not the greatest year, but to return to Douthat’s article, he concludes with an important plea: that it is more necessary than ever to teach the history and technique of classic film as an art form, as the chance that younger generations will be exposed to these works grows smaller and smaller. I felt a sense of validation personally, as I have been doing just that with high school students for a quarter of a century. But we also felt that this highlighted why we put together Vintage Sand in the first place: our mission to open some doors and some new perspectives for our listeners. So kick back, enjoy, and hope along with us that film in 2022 will be less of the proverbial slap in the face than in the year just passed.…

Vintage Sand

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Vintage Sand Episode 37: A Pocket History of the Hollywood Musical 1:29:42

منذ 3 years1:29:42

1:29:42

In a first for the ever-intrepid Team Vintage Sand, we devote an entire episode to the exploration of the history of a single genre. Thus we present Episode 37: A Pocket History of the Hollywood Musical. From its clunky beginnings at the dawn of sound through the unexpected brilliance of Spielberg’s "West Side Story" remake last year, we take a deep dive into this most deliberately artificial (and therefore most polarizing) of all film genres. Rather than going decade by decade, we divided this history into six “movements” that provide a lens to view the rise, steep decline and startling rebirth of the musical over the last century. After a brief mention of such important early works as the Best Picture-winning "Broadway Melody of 1929" and King Vidor’s first foray into sound, the daring and dazzling (if problematic for contemporary audiences) "Hallelujah!"(1929), the movements we lay out are as follows: I. The Warner Brothers musicals of the pre-Code 1930’s, which confronted head-on the difficulties of life during the Great Depression and gave the world its first glimpse of the lunatic genius of Busby Berkeley II. The RKO musicals of the mid and late 1930’s, featuring Astaire and Rogers, silly escapist story lines and music by some of the greatest composers of American popular song III. The Golden Age, a quarter century dominated though not exclusively limited to MGM, which is bookended by "The Wizard of Oz" in 1939 and "The Sound of Music" in 1956. This is the age of Vincente Minnelli and the Kelly/Donen team, of "Singin’ in the Rain" and "The Band Wagon", of larger budgets and production values and, at its height, a rapidly increasing artistic ambition IV. The decline, which starts in the late 1960’s with horrors like "Doctor Doolittle" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie". With the notable exception of "Grease" and the uniquely odd success of "Rocky Horror", the live action musical is essentially moribund from the 70’s through the end of the century. However… V. …we argue that the traditional Hollywood musical is kept alive by whoever it was at Disney that had the vision, after having seen "Little Shop of Horrors", to hire Menken and Ashman to revive their animated musical division. The run of successes that Disney had from "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast" through Ashman’s untimely death halfway through "Aladdin", and up through 1997’s "Mulan" showed that the Musical hadn’t died; it had just morphed into cartoon form for a while VI. The unlikely revival of Musicals in this century, sparked out of nowhere by a most unlikely film: Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 "Moulin Rouge". The genre’s return was cemented by the choice of "Chicago" for Best Picture the next year, and it has been going strong ever since As a final note, we also posit our Grand Unification Theory of the Hollywood Musical—that the greatest among these films were ones originally created for the screen rather than adaptations of Broadway shows. Yes, there are exceptions, but for every "West Side Story" (particularly the 2021), there are a few dozen films like "South Pacific", "Camelot", "A Little Night Music", "Rent", "Cats" and "Dear Evan Hansen". So come and meet those dancing feet as we take you on a whirlwind tour of a century of supreme artistry and epic fails, with stops at just about every point in between.…

Vintage Sand

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Vintage Sand Episode 36: We Shall Not Look Upon Their Like Again 56:13

منذ 3 years56:13

56:13

As we are preparing for our first attempt at a genre episode (that would be Episode 37, our brief guide to the Hollywood musical coming in February) we could not let go the passing of some major and minor figures of film history since our last recording session in early December. Therefore, our shorter-than-usual Episode 36 will function as an extended necrology, a (hopefully) cathartic exploration and celebration of the life and work of both towering figures like Sidney Poitier and Peter Bogdanovich and lesser figures as well. (After all, we did lose Truly Scrumptious this month) As the title of the episode suggests, in a straight steal from "Hamlet", we shall not look upon their like again.…

Vintage Sand

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Vintage Sand Episode 35: Alternate Oscars: 1930's Edition 1:29:35

منذ 3 years1:29:35

1:29:35

In Episode 35, Team Vintage Sand returns to the source of some of our most popular episodes: Danny Peary’s hard-to-find 1993 classic "Alternate Oscars". In the past, we have approached the Academy Awards from the 1950’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and the 2000’s. For this episode, we use the Way-Back Machine to explore the first full decade in which the awards were given: the 1930’s. In exploring a period that featured some truly abysmal Best Picture choices ("Cimarron", anyone? Not to mention what is possibly the worst film ever chosen, 1933’s "Cavalcade"?), we learned a couple of things. The least surprising of these is that Jean Renoir completely owned the decade; his films might have won Best Picture nearly every year. Another is that there really are two 1930’s for film: the period before the imposition of the Production Code in 1934 and the years that followed. What made this episode fun for us is that, perhaps more so that any of our other Alternate Oscar shows, this one features a ton of movies that our listeners may have not seen or even heard of. And why are we doing this? Well, like the fella once said, everyone has their reasons……

Vintage Sand

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Vintage Sand Episode 34B: No Small Parts II 1:04:31

منذ 3 years1:04:31

1:04:31

As promised, we finish this round of our study of great screen performances with this two-part episode that highlights what are, in our opinion, the best overlooked and underloved performances by supporting actresses over the years. Recall that in our last episode, we put down our usual auteurist lens in favor of a focus on actors, perhaps a filmmaker's most crucial collaborators. This is a natural move for us, considering that both Michael and John are trained actors and bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to our enterprise. So join us, Vintage Sand fans, as we follow a slightly different path and focus on our favorite underloved and overlooked performances in film by supporting actresses. And as we learned last time out, when you get John and Mike talking about acting, there’s no stopping them; thus another two-parter (Episode 34 B will be appearing in a couple of weeks). As for me, the non-actor in the group, I would say that I learned more from these episode than any one we’ve ever done; our hope is that this will open the same kind of doors for you as well.…

Vintage Sand

منذ 4 years1:09:53

1:09:53

We know what you’re thinking. How can those Vintage Sand guys be so durned knowledgeable about film and yet still maintain their humility? Well, of course the three of us have seen way too many films over the years, but the truth is that so much of what has shaped our lives as filmgoers has come from reading some of the great books written about film by filmmakers, great critics, and film historians. At Vintage Sand, we’ve never claimed any expertise in film as such. We have tried simply to share our enthusiasm in the hope of opening doors for our listeners regarding our favorite films and perhaps some different and useful ways to watch them. So, instead of trying to take you to school this time, we’re taking you to the library. The titles we discuss in this episode, as mentioned above, do what film studies does best – open new doors. You’ll find that the books on our list are pretty much free of jargon (the use of the word “liminality” is expressly forbidden), as well as tell-all gossip. For the sake of time and sanity, we’ve omitted fictional works about Hollywood and the process of making movies; West’s The Day of the Locust, Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon, and Terry Southern’s Blue Movie, are some examples that are worth your time along those lines. So dig up your library cards, clean your glasses and come along with us to see why names like David Thomson and Donald Spoto are as important to our lives as film fanatics as names like Kubrick or Hitchcock.…

مرحبًا بك في مشغل أف ام!

يقوم برنامج مشغل أف أم بمسح الويب للحصول على بودكاست عالية الجودة لتستمتع بها الآن. إنه أفضل تطبيق بودكاست ويعمل على أجهزة اندرويد والأيفون والويب. قم بالتسجيل لمزامنة الاشتراكات عبر الأجهزة.