Episodes
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A House Divided: 2024 Films We Love, Films We Hate
In this special episode, Dan and Chris delve into the films that split them down the middle—where one of us loved a movie, and the other couldn't stand it. It's our version of cinematic crossfire, complete with slightly heated debates and a dash of common ground by the end.
Episode Highlights:
--Intro: House Divided Origins--
Trap & Longlegs--The Divide--
I Saw the TV GlowA Quiet Place: Day OneHit ManMaxxxineLove Lies BleedingThe SubstanceCivil WarRebel Ridge--Dan vs. Chris: To Watch Lists--
For Chris:Dan Hates: Strange DarlingDan Loves: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Speak No EvilFor Dan:Chris Loves: Conclave, Furiosa, PavementsChris Likes: A Real Pain, The Wild Robot, Kinds of Kindness, Will & Harper, Dear SantaChris OKs: Anora, Heretic, Cuckoo, My Old Ass, Transformers One, Woman of the HourChris Hates: Nutcrackers, Moana 2--Conclusion: Where We Agree--
Both Hated IT: Twisters, Deadpool & Wolverine, Alien: Romulus, Abigail, Blink TwiceBoth Love: ChallengersBoth Like Sort Of: The Fall Guy
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In the season finale of our Manhunt series, we trace the trajectory of Fritz Lang's exceptional beginnings with M (1931) to his wilting end in While the City Sleeps (1956).
Fritz Lang had already created two masterpieces, Metropolis (1927) and M (1931), by the time he reached middle age. He went on to direct twenty-three more films throughout his long career. While some of these subsequent films were great, it would be difficult to argue that any of them reached the heights of his early work. There is a clear reason for this. Lang, a vehement anti-Nazi, was forced into exile when the NSDAP took over Germany in the 1930s. Lang found work in the Hollywood system, which he persistently despised. This acrimonious relationship eventually soured beyond repair, and While the City Sleeps is a cynical swan song to the business side of filmmaking that Lang loathed.
M and While the City Sleeps serve as excellent bookends to Lang's career, as well as to our season of Manhunt. While M delves deeply into the underbelly of Berlin and the moral abyss of the protagonist, While the City Sleeps gingerly skips along a similarly dark story with overly light interiors and day drunk actors. Lang transformed from an experimental and deeply probing artist into one who seemed more interested in cashing-in checks endorsed by the era's big movie stars. M represents a high point in the true crime, thriller, and manhunt genres. While the City Sleeps, on the other hand, exemplifies the erosion of originality we often see in this popular genre. The farther the story gets from the minds of the hunter and hunted, the less thrilling it all becomes.
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Missing episodes?
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In episode seven of our Manhunt series, we traverse a gritty and rebellious San Francisco in Bullitt (1968) alongside an oddly sleek and barren Paris in Le Samouraï (1967).
Bullitt is famous for two reasons: Steve McQueen and the car chase. Like most famous films, its celluloid holds many more layers than its reputation claims. Bullitt was a leap forward for crime thrillers. Its naturalism, meticulousness, and postmodern plot made it a harbinger for the decades to come. There is no Chinatown without Bullit nor Heat. That alone makes it a remarkable and important film. The car chase is maybe the best ever put on screen, so that doesn’t hurt it.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï takes us into the calculated, Zen-like existence of a contract killer, played with masterful restraint by Alain Delon. Unlike the exposed id of Bullitt, Le Samouraï draws its power from a detached coolness, which deepens as the films reaches its crescendo. The film's manhunt is quietly relentless. The glitz and glamor of Paris and a life of crime are ruthlessly stripped away scene after scene until the isolated hero makes a final existential leap.
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In episode six of our Manhunt series, we face the masterpiece that is Apocalypse Now (1978) alongside the much lesser Logan's Run (1976)
Special Guest: the great Mike Field, Co-host of the Forgotten Cinema podcast
Any film critic or scholar who dares traverse the muddy waters up river within Apocalypse Now feels doomed to be bereft of insight about such a well-established pure cinema magnum opus. But alas, here we are swimming upstream in one of the many backwater tributaries that make up the cultural cache of the definitive 1970s New Hollywood film. Yes, Apocalypse Now is a manhunt movie at its core, but that plot is a thin veneer overlaying a philosophic treatise on violence and madness. Any attempt at trying to decipher it often renders us stupefied. Coppola would probably find the same is true for him. It is the best type of film, an untouchable mystery.
Logan's Run (1976) has been held in somewhat high regard for decades, but it looks quite poor in direct comparison to Apocalypse. Perhaps it is unfair to pair it against one of the best films ever made, but I think this juxtaposition only highlights the flaws that were already there. What was probably a very interesting and unique film for its time, Logan's Run now feels sluggish, stilted, and all together boring. There are some interesting ideas in the script, but those are stuffed into the first 30 minutes. By the time the chase really begins, no emotional foundation has been built for Logan, and we are left filling out a plot box score as the film diddles along to a flaccid conclusion.
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In episode five of our Manhunt series, we discuss two films very rooted in the 1980s Aesthetic. First up is Michael Mann's neon blue serial killer thriller, Manhunter from 1986 followed by the bombastic and preposterous Schwarzenegger action movie, The Running Man from 1987.
Special Guest: Friend of the show and co-host of the Screen Time: A Quarantine Family Podcast. Brigitte
Manhunter failed to make its money back at the box office when it was released in mid August 1986 on a dumping ground weekend. In the forty years since its release, the film has gained a rather prestigious reputation. The film of course established Hannibal Lecter as a film character. It was also one of the first serial killer movies where the subject matter was treated seriously as opposed to the more ghoulishly depictions often seen in b-movies. The FBI profiler, played by CSI skipper William Petersen, is shown to be slightly depraved, fully troubled, and mostly cold-blooded. Graham was an anti-hero before the term has much cache. Mann's flashy style has aged the best here along with the intertwined psychology of the hunter and hunted. It takes one to know one.
The Running Man (1987) feels like the concept of an action movie. Cearly helmed by a seasoned tv director, the difference between the boob tube and pure cinema may never be more clear than this overly stuffed, rompous, and absurd action thriller. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Dawson are at the Ponderosa Steakhouse eating up every scene in sight. That alone is worth watching. The rest, not so much. The source material, of course a Stephen King novel, is put in the shredder and out comes pastel and neon confetti that lights on fire the moment you touch it. It is a direct ancestor to the Schumacher Batman series, for better or worse.
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In episode four of our Manhunt series, we explore two films that veer off the beaten path of their genre linenage. From Japan, Cure (1997), an atmospheric and fatalist horror film that helped launched J-Horror and the concept of elevated horror. From the United States, One False Move (1992), a raw and politically charged on-the-run film that still feels edgy and uncomfortable thirty years after its release.
Special Guest: Good friend of the show, and our resident Japan expert, Harry Brammer
Everyone loves a good villain, especially in a horror film. We might even root for them, see Jason Takes Manhattan. But every so often a horror antagonist comes along that we would like to forget. Mamiya is one of those bad guys. Cure plunges us into the existential dread of modern existence: dull grey concrete mixed with blinding fluorescence, devoid of all natural light and warmth. The film ties together a series of seemingly unrelated murders into one terrifying thread: a unknown force compelling ordinary people to commit unthinkable acts. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa crafts an oppressive world out of everyday urban life. The conjuring of Mamiya seems so simple and casual until a shock of violence erupts. The film's realism anchors the fantasy to make it believable, and then Kurosawa has us in his hands.
One False Move doesn't have good guys or bad guys. The film opens with unspeakable acts of violence and cruelty committed by our supposed protagonists. In this sense, the film is defiantly postmodern as it brackets out any notion of morality or propriety. Directed by Carl Franklin, it weaves a suspenseful and oddly poignant story of feckless fugitives on the run, crossing paths with a small-town sheriff who yearns for excitement. Here, the manhunt is not just a chase but an exploration of racial tension, broken dreams, and the suffocating weight of the past. The chase builds to a showdown that erupts with a flurry of gunfire, and the finale comes quick. But no answers are given, just lives squandered and lost.
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In episode three of our Manhunt series, we delve into two films that helped redefine and revive the genre of pursuit. From South Korea, Memories of Murder (2003), a haunting and postmodern crime drama. From the United States, The Bourne Identity (2002), an adrenaline-fueled yet grounded spy thriller.
Special Guest: the talented John Brooks from the great 1999 Podcast which covers all the films from that seminal year of film.
Crime stories hinge on a denouement of justice. When that justice is denied, the audience is often left in suspended emotional agitation. We want to believe that violent crimes are always solved, and the villainous perpetrators are caught. That order is restored. Yet, reality dictates a much less clear cut finale to crime stories. Memories of Murder explores this ambiguity in its depiction of a real-life serial killer case, where answers are elusive, and the moral certainties dissolve in a haze of bureaucratic stagnation, intellectual flaccidity, and craven dispositions. Director Bong Joon-Ho crafts a deeply unsettling vibe where the boundary between good and evil fades, exposing the futility of the hunt and the flawed nature of those involved.
In contrast, The Bourne Identity is sleek, fast-paced, and decidedly straightforward. This chase movie skips across Europe with the hunter and hunted dichotomy awhirl. Director Doug Liman invokes the stacco precision of a spy thriller but interweaves melodrama with Jason Bourne's fractured psyche. In many ways, Bourne is more indebted to the dutch-angled noir tradition than its most obvious predecessor, James Bond. With its relentless action and tightly wound narrative, the film strips away the nuance of morality found in Memories of Murder while delivering a linear yet captivating tale of survival, deception, and revenge.
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In episode two of our Manhunt series, we explore two international films. From South Korea, New World (2013), a topsy-turvy crime drama. From New Zealand, the playful and whimsical, Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016).
Crime dramas have been a staple of cinema since its inception. We find comfort in categorizing characters as good or evil. It provides order in a convoluted world. Actual morality is often murky and challenging to decipher. New World offers a crystal clear reflection of how the world truly operates, rather than a saccharine imagined one. Deep Loyalty and petty betrayal are commonplace, and the lines between good and evil blur, like a spinning merry-go-round.
Taika Waititi's distinctive style is evident throughout Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). This is both a pleasure and a frustration. While the story of two unlikely companions going on the run in the Kiwi woods is delightful, the narrative often seems to lose its way despite the simplicity of the story. The plot path is clearly laid out, but Waititi can't resist taking detours down every zany spur, leaving little room for emotional resistance and refinement. Nevertheless, it remains an entertaining joy ride with a quaint conclusion.
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We kick off a new season of Film Trace exploring Manhunt Movies with Longlegs and Trap.
In this season of Film Trace, we will dive into movies about being hunted or being the hunter. While these hunted vs hunter films span a wide breadth of genres, we start with the most tried and true model, the serial killer thriller.
Longlegs made a huge splash this summer. A true indie made for under 10 million, Longlegs has broken the 100 million dollar mark at the worldwide box office to become the highest-grossing independent film release of the year. This is particularly bizarre for few reasons. One, the marketing campaign budget was tiny. It was a throw back to the Blair Witch Project campaign from 1999: guerrilla, less is more, driven by word of mouth. Two, Oz Perkins is not a huge director, mostly genre and more experimental fare. Three, while elevated horror has a big profile, it tends to not bring home the bacon. Longlegs starts a new chapter for Neon as studio-distributors and the horror genre at large.
Trap had a huge marketing campaign and a big name behind it, M Night Shyamalan. The trailer seemed everywhere in 2024. The release spot was not great, but it still counts as a summer release. So the hopes were high for fans and the studio. It turns out to be a pretty standard M Night movie: fun, odd, and very polarizing. Josh Hartnett makes a major return in this arena thriller with a conspicuous Hitchcockian flair. Where as a Longlegs tries to get by on mostly just vibes, Trap drives forward with a mousetrap plot that feels compellingly contrived. Neither seems to hit the bullseye, but both are well-made and engaging films that provoke discourse.
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We conclude our Camp Cinema season with our eighth episode covering Johnny Guitar (1954) and Imitation of Life (1959).
In our finale, we delve into the origins of Camp Cinema in the 1950s, spotlighting Nicholas Ray's flamboyant western Johnny Guitar and Douglas Sirk's melodramatic Imitation of Life. Johnny Guitar subverts the traditional male bravado typical of most westerns by pitting two powerful women against each other. The visual artistry of Ray and his cinematographer, Harry Stradling, reveals the campy essense of the film with a rich palette of canary yellows, baked terra cottas, and deep azures.
Imitation of Life achieves a similar feat, but with emotional resonance rather than visual flair. During our 1950s season, we explored Todd Haynes' commendable Douglas Sirk hommage, Far From Heaven. But nothing compares to the authentic touch of Sirk himself. Sirk masterfully understood cinema's power over an audience, manipulating emotions with precision in Imitation of Life. Its finale is one of the most emotionally explosive moments ever captured on celluloid. Camp manifest is many forms. Here we have two films that seem diametrically opposed in genre, but both use camp to full effect to elicit a deep response.
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We continue our Camp Cinema season in our seventh episode covering The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Barbarella (1968)
Special Guest: Manish Mathur, host of the It Pod to Be You, covering romantic comedies from classics to modern hits and everything in between.
French director Jacques Demy embarked on an ambitious project to create a film in which every line was sung. What initially appeared as a gimmicky opera about everyday life evolved into one of the most acclaimed musicals of all time. The film is imbued with vivid color and adorned with enchanting songs, showcasing Demy's profound appreciation for artifice, a hallmark of camp cinema.
In stark contrast to Demy's refined sensibility stands Roger Vadim's audacious science fiction film, Barbarella (1968). Infamous for the wrong reasons, the film features Jane Fonda in the lead role, navigating an incoherent narrative inspired by a French erotic comic. Here, the camp is strikingly naïve, and the collective artistic intentions remain enigmatic and elusive.
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We continue our Camp Cinema season in our sixth episode covering The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and The Day of the Locust (1975).
Special Guest: scholar, artist, author, and curator Marisa C. Hayes of the wonderful Afterimages podcast and book series.
The first film discussed needs no introduction, though Dan and Chris could have used one since the Jim Sharman-directed camp classic was a first-watch for both of them. Enter Marisa to help break down why it perhaps took so many years for two Midwest suburban boys to break through its storied midnight movie status and witness its madcap genius. Then, a hard pivot to John Schlesinger's takedown of the Golden Age of Hollywood in all its messy, over-the-top glory. The proto-Babylon isn't fully self-aware of its turgid and grisly nature, though perhaps that's exactly what defines it as an underrated camp gem, though certainly an oddity that lies on the fringes of canon.
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We continue our Camp Cinema season in our fifth episode covering Hairspray (1988) and Xanadu (1980)
Special Guest: Gavin Mevius and Louie Rendon from the great Mixed Reviews podcast
John Waters is the prince of camp. We simply had to choose one of his films for our season on Camp Cinema. The lucky winner was Hairspray. While Waters is known for his deft ability to push the boundaries of taste and propriety, Hairspray spins and shakes upon the line of respectability without overly indulging in taboo. This spry wiliness in tone perhaps what makes it his most potent film.
Xanadu on the other hand would never flirts with respectability or taboo. It exists in some liminal space between imagination and reality. Nothing about Xanadu makes any sense, especially the plot. But there is something a bit magical within this technicolor rumpus. Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John bring class and warmth to what could have been a real bad trip. Is Xanadu good? The syntax of that question is nonsensical. Camp is post logic, which is where Xanadu lies.
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We continue our Camp Cinema season in our fourth episode covering To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) and Magnolia (1999)
Special Guest: Returning Guest, Rotten Tomato approved film critic, Natasha Alvar from Cultured Vultures
When watching To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, there is an overriding sense of what could have been. Coming out in the mid 1990s, a surprisingly much more open time in American culture, Wong Foo went to number one at the box office. It was a modest hit, but clearly well received by the general public. If this movie was made today, everyone involved would get more death threats than residuals checks. Culture doesn't always move forward, sometimes it backslides.
Magnolia is a controversial pick for Camp Cinema. To me, it is the paradigm of what Susan Sontag called Naive Camp in her 1964 essays Notes on Camp. Magnolia is a manically ambition film with a passionate and serious tone. Paul Thomas Anderson, like Cameron Crowe in Vanilla Sky, strived to reach the artistic heavens, but all he did was take on a tour of the sad and lonely people of the San Fernando Valley. Chris and Natasha offer some good counterpoints to my stance.
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We continue our Camp Cinema season in our third episode covering Sugar and Spice (2001) and Vanilla Sky (2002)
Special Guest: Good friend and frequent guest, Molly
The early Aughts was a bizarre time in American culture. The heady surge of the late 90s into Y2K was quicky benzo'd by 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our two selections for the 2000s were written and produced before the big comedown, and they both definitely have a "we can do anything" vibe. Sugar and Spice deftly somersaulted through the byzantine development process at New Line Cinema, who were likely distracted by their massive production of Lord of the Rings trilogy at the time. What could have easily been a teen movie cash-in is a rather spunky, satirical, and fun mess. Does it work? No, but it is sassy enough to not care.
Vanilla Sky is not fun. Here Cameron Crowe's grandiose vision was blinded by his fiery ambition. Coming off his best film, Almost Famous, Crowe decided to tackle a remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film Abre Los Ojos. Vanilla Sky does not align with the traditional definition of camp, but it certainly seems to be the bullseye of what Susan Sontag called Naive Camp. It is a film so devoutly serious about something so frivolously stupid.
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We continue our Camp Cinema season in our second episode covering The Love Witch (2016) and Black Swan (2010)
Special Guest: Filmmakers Emily Gallagher and Austin Elston of Fishtown FIlms
As the dust begins to settle on the 2010s, the topsy turvy decade begins to come into focus. At the start of the decade, Darren Aronofsky released Black Swan (2010) to critical acclaim. I saw it in a packed NYC theater opening weekend. The buzz was palpable. Looking back now, especially post mother! and the rise of peak tv, the trashy and overwrought elements of Black Swan overshadow the great performances and wonderful cinematography, which is why we have selected as our Naive Camp film for this episode.
The Love Witch had a much quieter release in 2016, but it clicked with a small group of film lovers. While filmmaking is mostly a communal art, Anna Biller was so involved with every aspect of The Love Witch that it could only exist because of her. Biller's retro and kitsch style can not obscure the riotous passion for filmmaking and gender theory at the heart of the film. It is so campy that one could argue it is post-camp in that it is both obsessed with artifice and serious at the same time. At the very least, The Love Witch exists mostly in deviance of the ideas presented in Sontag's Notes on Camp.
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Welcome to the first episode of Season 13 of Film Trace. In this season, we will explore the notion of Camp in Film. Building off of Susan Sontag's foundational 1964 essay, Notes on Camp, we will explore two films each episode we think demonstrate Sontag's concepts of naive camp and intentional camp.
First off is the financial and critical disaster of Madame Web (2024). We argue this film is a good example of what Sontag would call naive camp: over the top, extravagant, but without much artistic merit. A spectacular failure. The open question with Madame is whether anyone involved thought it should be anything more than a lark inspired by the trashy comic book films of the 1990s.
Countering the cinematic cacophony of Madame Web is the arthouse excess of Pearl. Ti West was given a million dollars by A24 to create a prequel to his 2022 slasher X. The star of that film, Mia Goth, helped write the script and plays the titular Pearl. Boy this one is a doozy. Goth is out there in a place all her own. We think it is a great example of intentional camp: total excess that somehow succeeds in being a good film.
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We felt like doing an Oscars show, so we did:
Topics of discussion
1. Intro: 2023's Film Trace movies. They stood the test of time, but were they awarded upon release?
2. Nominated film most obviously conceived specifically with little gold men in mind?
3. Nominated film conceived originally with absolutely no award hopes in mind?
4. Nominated director/writer/DP/actor most obviously groomed to one day become an Oscar winner?
5. Nominated director/writer/DOP/actor least groomed throughout their career to one day walk to the stage?
6. Conclusion: Release the hounds. What 2023 movies do we think will stand the test of time despite receiving zero nominations?
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In the eighth and final episode of our Future Wars season, we discuss the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) alongside the b-movie stunner Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).
Alas we have come to the finale of our Future Wars cycle. It has been a long season with a super-sized eight episode run. Sci-fi is often a real bummer. Most of the movies we covered this season depicted humanity's future as a nightmarish dystopia. Here we trace back the genre to its roots.
The Day the Earth Stood Still established many sci-fi genre conventions while Invasion of the Body Snatchers brilliantly depicted the nebulous unease that took over American domestic life in 1950s. The start of the Cold War did a real number on Americans. The real threat of nuclear annihilation doused the tranquil domesticity of new suburbia in caustic self-doubt and a deep fear of outsiders. But whereas more recent Future War films demonstrated the totalizing destruction of AI, aliens, or ourselves, these films from the 1950s had less fatalistic finales. Perhaps the actual threat of destruction gave them reason to think of an imagined way out.
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In the seventh episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss the classic Dr Strangelove (1964) alongside a bizarre artifact from the French New Wave, Alphaville (1965)
Special Guest: Good friend of the show and onscreen performer Harry Brammer, dialing in from Tokyo.
Here we have two masters, Kubrick and Godard, spinning tales of future conflict and war in the mid 1960s. Slipping in their polemics right before the great social upheavals of the decade, these films depict the western world teetering on the edge of breakdown. Kubrick's scolding satire in Strangelove still smolders 60 years later. He depicts the most powerful people in the world, people with the ability to end the human race, as complete and utter buffoons. The accuracy of his portrayal is startling as it has only become more true with time.
Godard's Alphaville is a very different story. Shot for next to nothing in Paris, this ambitious film can't support its own intellectual weight. While some scenes still pop off the screen, it is a trudge to get through despite it merits.
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