May Special Subject – Jacques Becker Sampler – ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE (1947); RENDEZ-VOUS DE JUILLET (1949); CASQUE D’OR (1952) and TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954)

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Join your hosts as they race the clock to adumbrate the myriad merits of French Golden Age Master, Jacques Becker! We key in on the director’s ingenious use of diverse genres to drop diegetic depth charges into the abyss of gendered subjectivity at midcentury. From the nerve-wracking rom-complications of Antoine et Antoinette to the Bert n’ Ernie gangster pyjama party of Touchez pas au grisbi, no four films have ever done a better (or more rapturously entertaining) job of laying bare the unbecoming banality of being under Patriarchy.

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:    ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE (1947) [dir. Jacques Becker]

0h 36m 27s:    RENDEZ-VOUS DE JUILLET (1949) [dir. Jacques Becker]

0h 56m 15s:    CASQUE D’OR (1952) [dir. Jacques Becker]

1h 21m 51s:    TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954) [dir. Jacques Becker]

 

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1939: WHEN TOMORROW COMES & THE HOUSE OF FEAR

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Universal, 1939: we continue the saga of John Stahl’s final years with the banker regime with When Tomorrow Comes, a frankly pro-labour romance, full of eccentric charm, that rewrites the fate of Irene Dunne’s Back Street character while reuniting the actress with Charles Boyer after their success in Love Affair. Then we turn to the studio’s B mode with Joe May’s intermittently audacious, but consistently funny, murder/haunting mystery The House of Fear, about an ill-fated stage production. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:    WHEN TOMORROW COMES [dir. John M. Stahl]

0h 51m 32s:    THE HOUSE OF FEAR [dir. Joe May]

 

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

                                   

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

 

We now have a Discord server – just drop us a line if you’d like to join! 

Check out this episode!

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Acteurist oeuvre-view – Daniel Day-Lewis – Part 7: GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002) & THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)

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At last we come to the Daniel Day-Lewis perhaps best known to cinephiles: the over-the-top monstrous patriarchs of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007). Working from a couple of the best viewings we’ve personally had of these movies, we discuss how Bill the Butcher and Daniel Plainview build upon the Day-Lewis persona, how they radically depart from it, and how they set the stage for future developments. If you’ve ever been embarrassed by your dad’s inability to socially interact like a normal human being, this episode is for you.

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:    GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002) [dir. Martin Scorsese]

0h 58m 20s:    THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) [dir. Paul Thomas Anderson]

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server – just drop us a line if you’d like to join! 

Check out this episode!

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1939: BACHELOR MOTHER & THE GREAT MAN VOTES

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For our RKO 1939 episode, a Directed by Garson Kanin double feature: Bachelor Mother, starring Ginger Rogers as an unwed department store clerk accused of motherhood; and The Great Man Votes, starring John Barrymore as an alcoholic intellectual struggling to raise two children, including the most precocious child actor of them all, Virginia Weidler (of Philadelphia Story fame). We discuss the “plausible deniability” structure of Bachelor Mother and the kind of social commentary it permits, and the particular brand of autobiographical pathos and dishevelled charm that Barrymore brings to the part of an eccentric, melancholy widower. 

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:    BACHELOR MOTHER [dir. Garson Kanin]       

1h 04m 48s:    THE GREAT MAN VOTES [dir. Garson Kanin]  

 

Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

                                   

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server – just drop us a line if you’d like to join! 

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »