Random Acts of Cinema

Brett Morgen's expressionistic documentary seeks to sidestep the question of "which is the real David Bowie?" and instead sees the creation of his personas as just one strategy used by the performer …

Director Jacques Becker's belle epoque period drama about gangsters sets their lives on such a delicate balance between honor death that the eponymous pretty blonde is all it takes to bring it crashi…

Indie director Melvin van Peebles’ one film for Columbia Pictures pointedly slams against the dictates and standards of studio filmmaking with his Godfrey Cambridge-starring vehicle about a white big…

Just in time for February: it's... Random Acts of Cinema's Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Take me away from all of these possessives.

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An all-star who’s-who of mid-century Italian comedy (we assume) unite for a picture of staggering proportions!  Our boys stumble and bumble their way through a meticulously planned robbery and end up…

Content and Spoiler Warning:  This film dramatizes bullying, violence, against children, and a school shooting.  Those who may not want to listen to this episode should skip this one and join us next…

He lost his job.  He got his draft notice.  The only path forward for this cinefile is clear: alienate everyone in his life and fracture his sanity by filming a progressively more erratic week of his…

In the darkest of night, standing solitary vigil against the forces of evil: there stands the city’s only hope for justice, for vengeance, for truth. There stands… The Cameraman! Director Buster Keat…

Director Frank Capra returns to the podcast with his Oscar-hording smash hit romantic comedy starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.  A glamorous heiress is on the run from her father as she emba…

Director Spike Jonze upends Hollywood conventions in this mind-bending Malkovich.  Can Malkovich Malkovich before Malkovich Malkovich? 

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This time, Mira Nair unleashes her penchant for a romance-set-among-a-sprawling-family-drama on the nation of India as a wedding is organized, threatened, and celebrated amidst the intensity of a rai…

Hitch is back!  Or rather, here he is just as he’s starting to become THE Alfred Hitchcock.  His first thriller blurs the boundaries between guilt, loss, obsession, and paranoia as a bloodthirsty kil…

In his first film, renowned director Bernardo Bertolucci prowls through the not-so-innocent lives of strangers who just happened to be in a park on the night of a murder.  Each have good reason to em…

It is neither a question of where Seijun Suzuki got his ideas from nor who got their ideas from him.  Rather it is simply the plain fact that there were the movies that came before his 1967 art/hitma…

1985.  Sammo Hung.  Jackie Chan.  It sounds like we have all of the ingredients for the perfect action/comedy.  And we do.  We definitely have those ingredients.  Hung directs a rag tag group of orph…

We got ourselves a Mank!  More importantly, we got ourselves a study in contrast between the brash but insecure broadway diva Margo (Bette Davis) and the ambitiously talented wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing…

A classic odd couple picture, except… it’s a trio?! Hilarity and hijinks ensue when a couple of guys find themselves in the unlikeliest of situations: roommates!

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Well, kind of.  Writer/director Jim…

Three heartbreaking stories interweave through Alejandro González Iñárritu's frantic and abrasive entry onto the cinematic world stage.  A lovelorn brother who turns to the brutal but lucrative oppor…

Come listen to a free preview of our upcoming Patreon podcast Are You Friedkin Kidding Me?, where Mike, Charlie, and Alexandra (celebrated returning guest host) watch a different film (or tv show or …

Ok, we don't say it in the episode, but I've just decided that this movie is nothing more than a shameless War of the Worlds rip-off.  And now that I've achieved my attention-grabbing hot take, I'll …