Desperation Moves, Playboy Sisters

00:00 - 10:01 - INTROS and we go into an un-planned on section on George Lucas, his career, his charity work, his fans, and Tucker's utter disinterest in Star Wars. One correction - it was Irvin Kirshner who directed Empire Strikes Back, not Irwin Winkler, who produced Goodfellas. Although both of them are pretty interesting guys you should look at beyond those two movies, and it was Richard Marquand who directed Return of the Jedi. Also mentioned David Cronenberg (whose long-running dp Peter Suschitzky also shot Empire and Cronenberg's suggestion), David Lynch (who told Lucas he didn't "get" Wookies), David Fincher (who figured out the speeder chase effect on his own before he was hired to work on Jedi),  Joe Johnston (who did elephant rotoscoping for the AT-ATs in Empire), and Tommy Lee Jones' Forrest Gump impression in Captain America.

10:02 - 32:26 - HOMEWORK - Sean's homework was to watch The Grey (2012), directed by Joe Carnahan, starring Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, James Badge Dale, and Dermot Mulroney. We talk Carnahan's other films, and Tucker brings up 24 as has become traditional for the podcast (as is Sean mentioning The Thing and Richard Gere), this time to discuss James Badge Dale (whose show we mention but can't remember the title of is Rubicon).

32:27 - 44:40 - HOMEWORK - Tucker's homework was The Tenant (1976), directed/co-written by/starring Roman Polanski, co-written by Gerard Brach, starring Isabel Adjani and Shelly Winters. Also mentioned in this section - a few David Lynch films including Eraserhead (more Lynch further in the podcast), Possession, Herzog's Nosferatu, and Polanski's Ghost Writer (which Sean doesn't mention, but he should have - Kim Catrall is the unsung hero of that movie).

44:41 - 53:20 - Sean watched Lost Highway (1997), directed and written by David Lynch, starring Bill Pullman, Robert Blake, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Gary Busey, Robert Loggia, and Richard Pryor, with a soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Angelo Badalamenti. Mentioned in this section - David Foster Wallace's essay about David Lynch, feminist theory on Mulholland Drive.

53:21 - 1:02:32 - Tucker watched Darkman (1990), directed by Sam Raimi, starring Liam Neeson, Francis McDormand, Larry Drake, and of course getting murdered in a spectacular way Ted Raimi. Tucker talks about The Shadow as a character, and The Shadow movie directed by Russel Mulcahy. Sean is completely wrong about mentioning Scott Spiegel who didn't work on Die Darkman Die at all, for crap's sake. We also talk about John Woo's Hard Boiled and the emo Spidey section of Spider-Man 3. 

1:02:33 - 1:10:52 - Sean watched The Man With The Iron Fists (2012), directed by the Rza, co-written by Rza and Eli Roth, starring Rza, Lucy Liu, Russel Crowe, Rick Yune, David Bautista, Gordon Liu, Cung Le, Byron Mann. Sean keeps saying "Chinese" like it's a language, because he's sleep deprived when they recorded it and wasn't sure if it was Cantonese or Mandarin. This is no excuse, and it's fucking shameful. 

1:10:53  - 1:15:42  - Tucker watched Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), directed by Tony Scott, starring Eddie Murphy, Paul Reiser, Bridgitte Neilsen, Judge Reinhold, and Jurgen Pronchow. We rep Reiser hard on this podcast. Reiser for life. More talk of Hard Boiled, too, and Sean goes on a barely coherent tear about the Paranormal Activity movies being ugly boring shit, and chooses Shivers, a David Cronenberg sexual revolution panic movie that is barely indefensible at best, to make his point.

1:15:43 - 1:20:43 - Sean watched Le Noveau Monde from the omnibus film RoGoPaG (1963) directed by Jean-Luc Godard (along with Rosselini, Pasolini, Gregoretti). Which is entirely available on youtube in two parts here and here. Sean talks about the use of real locations in science fiction movies, and mentions The Trial, Alphaville, THX-1138, Play Time, and once again Universal Soldier Regeneration. He doesn't mention Stalker or La Jetee, which would have been a better example for his point.

1:20:44 - 1:30:51 - And finally (shut up already, Francis) Sean watched Little Murders (1971), directed by Alan Arkin, shot by Gordon Willis, written by Jules Feiffer, starring Elliot Gould, Marcia Rodd, Doris Roberts, Donald Sutherland, and Alan Arkin. The other narrative movie directed by Alan Arkin is Fire Sale. Also mentioned - Carnal Knowledge, also written by Feiffer, Alan Arkin on the Kevin Pollak Chat Show, and the first mention I ever saw of the movie was not on This Recording, but it was from Molly Lambert.
Here's Jean fucking Renoir on Little Murders, in a letter to Arkin, found on the internet somewhere. Apparently Arkin reads it on the movie commentary. 

"Dear Alan Arkin,

Your picture will never be forgotten. It is not only a good picture, but what is more important it is a record of a stage of the destruction of our world. You manage to do what pleases me the most in the art of directing movies. I mean that there is a camera - we are the unseeing witnesses of a terrible drama in which your heroes are involved but also all our contemporaries. It is a terrifying film treated as lightly as a Broadway Comedy. Thank you for having shown to me this modern version of a Greek Tragedy.
- Jean Renoir."

!!!!!!
- - -
NEXT WEEK - Homework assignments are Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (aka Knocking on Heaven's Door) and The Blind Side.

Download Desperation Moves

Comments

[Bob Temuka]

This is my favourite podcast in the world right now. I gotta see that Alan Arkin film...

[Jon Burr]

I second Mssr. Temuka! Saved up a couple of these for a 10 hour drive tomorrow!