Random Acts of Cinema

Ben Franklin. Rocky. Gritty. Tracy Lord. C.K. Dexter Haven. Macaulay Conner. Sounds like this story is set in Pittsburgh.  *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Max Ophüls' Lola Montès (1955).

Two. White. Guys. Break. Down. Spike. Lee's.  Do. The. Right. Thing. In. 2026. Did we just nail it?   No.  But we try our best. Oh, and we forgot to mention that Radio Raheem's LOVE/HATE monologue is an adaptation of Robert Mitchum's serial killer preacher sermon from Night of the Hunter.  We're pathetic. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing George Cukor's The Philadelphia Story (1940).

Orson is back!  But this time it's with a notorious film in which he struggled with the studio to realize his true vision… you know what?  Let's just say it's an Orson Welles' film.  A group of filmmakers and film historians gave themselves the task to dissect the various edits and versions of the film to attempt a construction of Welles' original vision.  Is it a long lost masterpiece?  Or is nothing quite as it seems…? *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989).

This week we are joined by Mark Covino, co-director of A Band Called Death (2012), to discuss Cornel Wilde's surprising independent Most Dangerous Game riff, pitting a group of Africa. Hunters in 19th-century South Africa against a colonial game hunter.   *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Orson Welles' The Complete Mr. Arkadin (1955).

Ah, young summer love.  So passionate.  So naive.  Never to last.  Never has this been more poignantly explored than in Ingmar Bergman's "Summer" films.  And perhaps this story of Monika and Harry running away from their lives to beaches and islands of Sweden does this at his most direct. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1965).

Imagine a movie directed/edited/starring Orson Welles as himself commenting on the making of this very movie while he wears big hats and capes, smokes giant cigars, DOMINATES heaping plates of raw oysters, does some magic tricks, constantly shows off his gorgeous girlfriend, and monologues about the nature of art and immortality… and all the while the whole movie is about someone else. Sounds fake, right? *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika (1953).

We've scoured our movies this season from Lost in America (1985) to Playtime (1967) and everything in between for the best of the best.  That's right: it's time again to find out who will go home with the coveted Randy and who will forever suffer the indignity of being snubbed by the hosts of Random Acts of Cinema. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Orson Welles' F is for Fake (1973).

It's time again for the whimsical wanderings of a man lost in the urban sea of late 1960s Paris.  Kind of a modern Odyssey if you think about it…  Jacques Tati returns to the podcast, directing himself once more as Monsieur Heulot.   *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! Please join us next week for the 8th Annual Rando Awards!

It's a podcast double doozer!  Renoir and Kurosawa both adapt the same play, over 2 decades apart.  Mifune and Gabin play the same roll.  One is set in the source's original Russia and the other in Edo-period Japan.  Both are about hope and despair at the limit of human poverty.  Is there more to this comparison than… the comparison? *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Jacques Tati's Playtime (1967).

Hitch is back!  His/England's/Europe's first commercial talkie sets the tone and themes for a lifetime of adult-themed psycho-sexual thrillers.  Complicated protagonists, with questionable values, make questionable choices (all in good fun) until evil men force them to come to terms with their own sense of self-worth.  Sounds like a recipe for… blackmail! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing BOTH Jean Renoir's The Lower Depths (1936) and Akira Kurosawa's The Lower Depths (1957).  

Krzysztof Kieslowski returns to the podcast with his 1981 break-out smash hit (or at least it would have been if Polish censors hadn't suppressed it for 6 years and only then to release a heavily cut version).  It's almost as if there is one narrative where the film got released as planed, another where Kieslowski couldn't release it, and yet another where Randy didn't pick it for this podcast. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Aflred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929).  

1.  One.  Un.  Eins.  Welcome to the first episode of the Spirit Guides… is what I would say if we watched the films of the Criterion Collection in numerical order.  It took us nearly seven seasons, but we've finally been assigned spine number one: Jean Renoir's The Grand Illusion.  Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, and (scene-stealing) Erich von Stroheim, trace the lives of prisoners-of-war and their captors during World War I.  Escapes, indignities, and unexpected friendships mark the scenes, but it's really an exploration of how humanity must compete with national duty.  A powerful, but unheard message, in the prelude to the second World War. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blind Chance (1981).  

This week we are joined by special guest Max to (sub in for Mike and) discuss one of the great concert films of all time.  Music.  Death.  Controversy.  The Rolling Stones and the directing trio of the Maysle brothers and Catherine Zwerin find themselves in the middle of a decade-defining disaster: 1969's free concert at Altamont. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blind Chance (1981).

Huh… Apparently Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune made a few movies together. Wonder if this one is any good? *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937).

Sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.  These are the things that you come to Random Acts of Cinema for.  Paul Thomas Anderson almost manages to reach our podcastly levels of hedonism and vice in his late 90s indie apogee covering the late 70s porn apogee. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961).

Imagine a world where, whenever you think you are alone, there are always a bunch of dudes in trench coats quietly standing behind you and resting their hands on your shoulder.  And they can read your mind.  And they talk about you to their friends.  And sometimes they sneak into your dreams. Now imagine that there is nothing creepy about that and it's actually very reassuring.  And that maybe we can find world peace through understanding and a new kind of politically-informed spirituality.  Thanks to these trench coat guys. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997).

Andrew Haigh directs a totally-not-boring movie about people talking about a marriage that seems find but maybe it really isn't.  But, like I said, in a totally-not-boring way. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987).

Did you know that the Beatles also made movies?!?  Yeah, so did we. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Andrew Haigh 45 Years (2015).

This is not your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate's neo-noir western.  This is John Sayle's interrogating generational legacies of racism, corruption, compromise, and passion in a south Texas border town. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night (1964).

Come listen to two woodworkers talk about this one guy who specializes in wooden bench-style kung fu. Oh, and Jackie Chan is in it also.  I guess he directs it too. But let's get back to this bench… *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing John Sayle's Lone Star (1996).

"Once a lawyer, always a drunkard, and now looking like 2010s David Bowie."  So says newly-minted gangster "Rolls Royce" Wensel describing himself to the POSSIBLY love of his life, the daring thief "Bull" Weed.  And it turns out that this, the first American gangster movie (yay!), was also a love triangle (boo!). *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Jackie Chan's The Young Master (1980).

A classic Bergman film. Well, a classic Martin Bergman film. About Temecula.  Where your favorite podcast hosts first met.  Anyway… two neurotic New Yorkers - with ulterior motives - take on a couple of quick gigs in the wine country of (southern) California. Perhaps romance is in the air for this strangely legit cast? *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Josef von Sternberg's Underworld (1927).

Content warning: This episode addresses a film that explicitly addresses issues related to and depicts the actions of violent sexual assault. Director Martha Coolidge blends drama and documentary in an unflinching consideration of her rape as a younger woman.  Ostensibly a dramatic recreation of the events surrounding and during the assault, she breaks through the dramatic wall to discuss the project and personal recollections of herself an the actors in this daring and groundbreaking film. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Martin Bergman's A Weekend in the Country (1996).

Who's ready for an anthology movie about mostly Americans in France writing about mostly not Americans in France for an imagined audience of mostly Americans in America?  And sometimes everyone speaks French.  But mostly they don't.  Wes Anderson works with his ever-growing company of highest-profile players to construct this triptych of art and insanity, love and revolution, and food and crime.  And a deep admiration for the talents and obsessions of midcentury American magazine writers. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Martha Coolidge's Not A Pretty Picture (1976).

Dead or alive, you're listening to me.  Paul Verhoeven somehow achieves both badass copaganda action movie and cutting satire of American violence, consumerism, corporate greed, and bad TV. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021).

Seijun Suzuki dreams up yet another ever-so-slightly-surreal Yakuza picture.  Thank god. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Paul Verhoeven's Robocop (1987).

That Pat Brennan… what a man!  Come listen to us face an ethical quandary when we stumble upon a real treasure of a western, that is still undeniably a 1950s western.  What am I talking about?  Let's just say that it can be summed up in two words: Henry Silva. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Seijun Suzuki's Youth of the Beast (1963).

The more you learn about this movie, the more clear it becomes that what you'd think to be the good parts are the bad parts, and that the bad parts are really the good parts. Making movies is hard.  Sidney Lumet directs a visually stunning reimagining of the Wizard of Oz and then some other stuff is in it too. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Budd Boetticher's The Tall T (1957).

We know y'all are some nasty freaks out there who have been waiting a long time for this one to drop.  Guy Madden comes back with an irreverently cinematic fake/real/fake documentary about his home town of Winnipeg.  It's black and white, it's out of focus, the cuts are fast and many.  It's psycho-sexual.  It's arty AF.  Is he going to vignette any shots?  Uh, yeah. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Sidney Lumet's The Wiz (1978).

Samuel Fuller turns a critical eye on the state of mental health treatment in the United States to, uh… well, not really.  Mostly he just uses a stage theater's idea of a mental hospital as a narrative device for exploring three major American anxieties in the 1960s.  Want to complain about nukes?  Have a patient do a one-man show for a while about how we went insane after building them.  And you know what, that's the tame one of the three.  For a B-movie about a reporter going undercover in a mental ward to solve a murder, things get wild. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Guy Maddox's My Winnipeg (12007).

Documentarian of the ages Errol Morris turns his gentle eye toward the old fellers of a small town in Florida and just sort of lets them do their thing.  Talking about gobblers, wigglers, growing sand, ambidexterity, fake (or maybe real) jewels, seeing the perfection of God in nature, and the magical definition of the word "therefore." *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor (1963).

Gillo Pontecorvo directs a cast of unknowns in his big swing on the historical action/drama about a British agent sent to use all of his cynical wile to foment a slave revolt on Portuguese colony island. Keep careful eye out for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo by Marlon Brando at his understated best. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Errol Morris' Gillo Vernon, Florida (1981).

Roberto Rossellini travels length of the Italian peninsula in the immediate aftermath of WWII to share 6 stories about the lives of Italian civilians and partisans and their relationships with foreign Allied troops.  Love, tragedy, heroism, and sacrifice result from the difficulties of communicating purpose and need of individuals confronted with the inhumane machine of war. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Gillo Pontecorvo's Burn! (1969).

What does it mean to die?  What does it mean to truly live… on a road trip across Spain with Terence Stamp, John Hurt, and Tim Roth in a giant white Mercedes Benz?  Director Stephen Frears grabbles with these enduring questions in his sun-soaked take-down of the neo noir.  Ten Years after snitching on his compatriots, a criminal in hiding is rousted from his dreamy Spanish village life by two hit men sent to exact retribution.  But he seems oddly cool about it all.  What gives? *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Roberto Rossellini's Paisan - War Trilogy (1946). 

One, two monks kneel before you That's what I said now Monks, monks who adore you Just go ahead now One has diamonds in his pockets And that's some bread now This one says he has tuberculosis It's in his lungs now… Juan Bustillo Oro takes us on a Rashomon-esque journey into nightmarish memory in this 1930s Mexican classic. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Stephen Frears' The Hit (1984). 

Finally, a movie comes along with the guts to ask the question: can you be a Fourierist AND a Vebleninian at the same time?  Explore this question and more at the Manhattan debutante ball season after parties of Whit Stillman's career defining entrée about class, love, and pretentious discussion topics. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Juan Bustillo Oro's Dos Monjes (1934). 

Kubrick is on the podcast!  Or at least one of his films was finally randomly selected for the first time.  And he gives us a self-produced, time-zagging, bracingly-funny, bloody, homage-satire of hard-boiled noir. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Whit Stillman's Metropolitan (1990). 

We return once more to the Godzilla Showa-era films with Jun Fukuda's 1974 introduction of some kind of a… Robo-Godzilla!  I think that's what they call it.  And some aliens.  Oh, and there's a new  surprise secret monster called King Caesar also.  Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956). 

Director Arthur Crabtree delves into the late 1950's world of atomic, Cold War, body-snatching paranoia except that he kind of… doesn't?  Honestly this Canada-set, B-movie, Sci-fi, creature flick feels more like a proto-Cronenberg film where it really counts. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Jun Fukuda's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974). 

Researchers at Stanford University conducted a decades-long experiment wherein Koko, a female gorilla, was taught American Sign Language.  The findings and the ethics of this experiment were then (and remain today) controversial.  Director Barbet Schroeder captures intimate footage of Koko, scholars, and her caretakers, leaving the viewer to be charmed by Koko and come to their own conclusions about whether a gorilla can and should be taught how to converse at a high level with humans. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Barbet Schroeder's Koko: A Talking Gorilla (1978). 

American masculinity is fully skewered.  Finally.  Actually, I guess everyone is skewered is Alexander Payne's black-hearted comedy about a Midwest American high School student… election. Opinions are divided on this one. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Barbet Schroeder's Koko: A Talking Gorilla (1978). 

Wong Kar Wai brings us - way back - to lovelorn Hong Kong.  Upon discovering that their spouses are having an affair with with one another, two neighbors strike up a sad acquaintance that soon blossoms into an unrequited affair of their own.  Of course, this makes no sense because who would ever cheat on Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung?  But that's not really the point.  The point is cigarette smoke and silk dresses. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Alexander Payne's Election (1999). 

I don't think we're in the standard spine numbers anymore, Toto… Because we're returning to the Laser Disc collection with this all-timer. Are we doing this in honor of the upcoming release of the second Wicked movie?  No.  No we are not. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love (2000). 

The most accurate description of this episode is that we review 6 Short Films starring W.C. Fields. The idea is that he's arrogant jerk. That's pretty much it.  Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939). 

In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell.  3 months before this, in an act of desperate love, a sex-reassignment surgery was planned and subsequently botched.  And a punk/drag icon was born.  John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig croons, screams, and stage-banters her way into our hearts.  Don't let the fact that this is TECHNICALLY a rock opera (ugh) dissuade you from putting on your foam wig and experiencing this all-time indie classic. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing W.C. Fields - 6 Short Films (1933). 

Frankenhiemer returns to podcast with a… weird art film?  Sort of.  All of the paranoia, threatened masculinity, mid-century gloss, and decaying middle-class domesticity of The Manchurian Candidate remain, but the potboiler-thriller plot is replaced with… vibes. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001). 

Director Lizzie Borden dares to imagine a world in which promised egalitarian reform is achieved, just not for women.  Women from all backgrounds, walks of life, and lifestyles debate, struggle, and eventually unite to fight against male repression in this documentary-style dystopian action/drama.  If that doesn't sell this movie to you, then how about this? 1980s, queer, punk, radical feminist, New York City. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966). 

Our odd run of road movies continues with a classic from an American master.  Terrence Mallick turns the couple-on-a-crime-spree sub genre into a deadpan fairy-tale with stirring visuals, iconic performances, and a meditative tone. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames (1983).

We return to Monte Hellman's examination of American masculinity with a James Taylor and Dennis Wilson-starring road movie.  Two nearly silent racers ramble across the American southwest, acquiring a disreputable father-figure, a notably underage girl, and a supporting cast of American weirdos.  Vroom. Also join us for a bonus follow-up discussion now that Mike has finally watched Highest To Lowest (2025)! Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973).

In honor of Spike Lee's… interesting… new adaptation, we return to the surprisingly satisfying sub genre of Akira-Kurosawa-crime-thriller with his two-movies-for-the-price-of-one kidnapping procedural.  Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop (1971).

Bertrand Tavernier builds a lushly realized foundation around which to topple the poisonous heart of European colonialism.  Whether our hapless police chief chooses deliberate inaction, working towards everyone's best interests, or succumbing to his own selfish impulses, everything and everyone around him rots due to the fundamental moral corruption of racism.  But, like, its a comedy. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963).