The 1001 Movies Podcast

Director:  Spike Lee Producers:  Jason Blum, Spike Lee, Raymond Mansfield, Sean McKittrick, Jordan Peele, David Rabinowitz, Shaun Redick, Charlie Wachtel Screenplay:  Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Wilmott, Spike Lee Photography:  Chayse Irvin Music:  Terence Blanchard Cast:  John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Alec Baldwin Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 96%/Audience: 83%

Director:  Nicholas Ray Producer:  Nicholas Ray Screenplay:  Philip Yordan Photography:  Harry Stradling, Sr. Music:  Victor Young Cast:  Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady, Ward Bond Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 94%/Audience: 85%

Director:  Otto Preminger Producer:  Otto Preminger Screenplay:  Frank S. Nugent, Oscar Millard, Chester Erskine, Ben Hecht Photography:  Harry Stradling, Sr. Music:  Dimitri Tiomkin Cast:  Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Mona Freeman, Herbert Marshall. Leon Ames Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 75%/Audience: 78%

Director:  Yimou Zhang Producer:  Tian-Ming Wu Screenplay:  Jianyu Chen, Wei Zhu Photography:  Changwei Gu Music:  Jiping Zhao Cast:  Gong Li, Wen Jiang, Rujun Teng, Ji Liu, Ming Qian Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 85%/Audience: 83%

Director:  Fritz Lang Producer:  Erich Pommer Screenplay:  Thea von Harbou, Fritz Lang Photography:  Karl Freund, Gunther Rittau, Walter Ruttmann Music:  Gottfried Huppertz Cast:  Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Frohlich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Rasp Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 97%/Audience: 92%

Director:  George Stevens Producer:  George Stevens Screenplay:  A.B. Guthrie, Jr. Photography:  Loyal Griggs Music:  Victor Young Cast:  Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 97% Audiences: 81%

Director:  Rainer Werner Fassbinder Producer:  Christian Hohoff Screenplay:  Rainer Werner Fassbinder Photography:  Jurgen Jurges Music:  N/A Cast:  Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Irm Hermann, Elma Karlowa, Anita Bucher Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 100% Audiences: 91%

Director:  Laszlo Nemese Producers: Gabor Rajna, Gabor Sipos Screenplay:  Laszlo Nemes, Clara Royer Photography:  Matyas Erdely Music:  Laszlo Melis Cast:  Geza Rohrig, Levente Molnar, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont, Jerzy Walczak Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 96% Audiences: 79%

Director:  Nicholas Ray Producer:  James Mason Screenplay:  Cyril Hume, Richard Maibaum, James Mason, Gavin Lambert, Clifford Odets, Nicholas Ray Photography:  Joseph MacDonald Music:  David Raskin Cast:  James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau, Robert F. Simon, Christopher Olsen Rotten Tomatoes:  Critics: 90% Audiences: 84%

From Joshua Klein, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "The third color of the French flag stands for fraternity, and although the last film of Krzysztof Kieslowski's 'Three Colors' trilogy again remains only loosely connected to that theme, he somehow gets to the heart of brotherhood via the sometimes tenuous and often-impossible-to-comprehend ties that connect all of humanity.  If each of the 'Three Colors" films ends up much more than the sum of their ambiguous parts, then Red provides the grand and illuminating summation of all three entities.  Like the closing chapter of a great philosophical novel, Red parcels out its details patiently and elliptically, drawing power from the mysterious plot machinations that connect a good-natured model (the ineffable Irene Jacob) with a cynical, retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant).  Both lead empty lives yet express their loneliness in completely different ways, but the judge sees something intriguing in the model that draws him out of his shell of self-hatred. "Like many of Kieslowski's works, Red runs deep with chance and coincidence, and although the metaphysical director rarely addresses spirituality in his work per se, his final film (Kieslowski retired after directing Red and died shortly later) often seems a meditation on not just earthly bonds but also our place in the universe.  In lesser hands such subject matter would no doubt have gotten bogged down in New Age musings, but Kieslowski is smarter than that.  His characters develop and interact organically, as if tapping into a script made entirely of emotional cues rather than mere words.  His camera captures places and moments that appear insignificant yet whose importance is inevitably born out.  In Red he even manages to almost magically make manifest the very fabric of our existence, as the metaphors and symbolic touches of all three films - Blue (1993), White (1994), and Red - blur together during the challenging and undeniably moving conclusion, which casts the entire trilogy in a new light.  Rarely has a film so brilliantly fused together so many ideas, images, and emotions into one masterful whole, a life primer and work of art posing as a mere movie." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

From Karen Krizanovich, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "Mysticism, poetry, school days, and a futuristic bedroom are only some of the wonders found in Oldboy.  A thriller that hinges on oedipal taboos and blind destiny, hypnotism, and fate, this breakthrough film - part action, part drama, part psychological thriller - has introduced Korean cinema to more viewers than any other film.  The story is more direct and compelling that director Park Chan-wook's popular previous film, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), and features an explosive beginning.  A man is imprisoned for fiteen years without an explanation.  Upon escape, he must find his kidnapper in only five days. "This violent, elegiac masterpiece is based on a Japanese manga cartoon by Garon Tsuchiya.  Actor Min-sik Choi, who performed his own stunts, trained rigorously for his role as hapless kidnap victim Dae-su, a man who tries to escape his windowless prison by ingeniously digging through a skyscraper wall into thin air but is released before he can try his tunnel.  Once free, he vows revenge, Monte Cristo-style, against the kidnapper who has effectively robbed him of his daughter, his wife, and his life.  Now a ragged fighting machine who resembles a Korean Charles Bronson in a fright wig, Dae-su is befriended by a beautiful sushi chef (Hye-jeong Kang) whom he engages by eating a live squid and then passing out on the counter.  Such is the knockdown, drag-out lifestyle of Oldboy.  However complex the tale, it is underpinned by a logic that unfolds clearly, easily incorporating the film's various flashbacks.  Progressing at a pace that sometimes leaves one breathless but also leaves room for thought, Oldboy's choreographed fight scenes are both innovative and surprising - and of the violence serves the plot.  Despite its brutality, it is ultimately a black comedy that deftly rolls elements of mob thriller and vengeance mystery into one.  After winning the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2004, the director stunned the audience by thanking the cast and crew, then thanking the four squid who gave up their lives for the vivid sushi bar scene." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

From Garrett Chaffin-Quiray, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "An allegory about infantilism, Volker Schlondorff's The Tin Drum is told through thr point of view of Oskar Metzerath (David Bennet), a German boy on the sideline of history.  Omniscient before birth, his life becomes the frame for judging adult behavior, especially with regard to troublesome, obsessive sexuality.  When he receives a tin drum for his third birthday, Oskar refuses to grow and bigger as he grows older.  Afterward observing the rise of Nazism, he bangs his drum and exhibits a scream to break glass whenever he feels libidinously challenged or disappointed.  Gradually, however, Oskar's size reduces him to little more than a freak show, simultaneously suggesting the absence of a moral conscience among people who supported the Third Reich. "Throughout its length one picture shocks and confuses.  A midget circus act transforms into the headline of Parisian nightlife.  Eels pill from a severed horse's head.  A Nazi rally transforms into 'The Blue Danube.'  Most disturbing, Oskar, the teenager trapped in a boy's body played by twelve-year-old Bennet, makes love to his housemaid-turned-stepmother, possibly conceiving his child/brother.  A sensation ever since being released in 1979, The Tin Drum is a fantasy turned on end with unexpected jolts." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Kim Newman, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "The image of a black-robed, white-faced Death (Bengt Ekerot) playing chess on the beach with a weary, questioning crusader (Max von Sydow) is as ingrained in the memory of moviegoers as King atop the Empire State Building, Humphrey Bogart spurning Ingrid Bergman at the airport, Janet Leigh stabbed in the shower, or the Imperial Cruiser passing over the camera.  This one scene from Swedish arthouse gem The Seventh Seal epitomizes the momentousness, excitement, and impact new types of cinema had at a point when Hollywood certainties were in recession.  How else to explain the parodies or references in films as varied as Roger Corman's Masque of the Red Death (1964), Woody Allen's Love and Death, John McTiernan's Last Action Hero (1993), and Peter Hewitt's Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991), in the last of which Death plays Twister? "But it's a shame this scene has come to represent the whole of the film in popular imagination.  There's an unfair sense that writer-director Ingmar Bergman was being overly solemn, making something that could stand as an archetype of seriousness or artiness.  Actually, The Seventh Seal, although rooted in the big themes of Bergman's great period, is a very playful, frequently comic picture: a medieval fable influenced by his enthusiasm for the samurai movies of Akira Kurusawa and as concerned with celebrating simple pleasures as indicting complicated torments. "Antonius Block (Sydow), returning after ten years on a bloody crusade that was started by a con man who now makes a living robbing corpses, feels that his faith in God is a disease that mankind should root out.  With his squire (Gunnar Bjornstrand), as much a debating partner as sidekick, Block encounters death in the form of a plague-ridden corpse before he meets the literal Grim Reaper.  The game of chess played throughout the film between Death and the knight is not merely for the crusader's life but for his feelings about God, religion, and humanity.  In the end, hope comes from an alternative Holy Family - a jolly juggler (Nils Poppe), his earthly sensual wife (Gunnel Lindblom), and their lively, innocent toddler - whom Block saves from the plague by willingly joining the dance of death that claims more venal, corrupted characters. "The knight, constantly tormented by curiosities about God and the void (he even visits an accused witch about to burned to ask her what the Devil knows about God), represents one side of Bergman.  The simple showman gently upbraided by his practical wife ("You and your dreams and visions," she says in the film's closing line) represents another seeking redemption through honest entertainment and appalled when his innocent show is upstaged by the horrible, Church-approved spectacle of a crowd of penitents being lashed and tortured.  Bergman is angry and saddened by human evils, especially when sanctioned by supposed religion, but the film also celebrates physical and spiritual love, communal artistic expression, food and drink, and natural beauty." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Adrian Martin, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "In the clinical, highly formalized manner that has become his signature in such films as Benny's Video (1992), Michael Haneke strips away from The Piano Teacher the romantic lushness of the generic melodrama to expose a cold, alienated social structure founded on abuse.  Adapted from Elfriede Jelinek's 1983 novel, the film delves into the psychosexual neuroses underlying, even generating, the intensity of classical art and the rituals we build around it. "Isabelle Huppert gives the performance of her life as Erika Kohut, a respected but professionally unfulfilled piano teacher.  Erika pursues illicit behavior that society considers masculine, from gazing at hardcore porn to insisting on her sexual preferences.  But at every turn she is shunned or reviled, leading to extreme alienation and perversion. "From the point that Erika and her infatuated student Walter (Benoit Magimel) connect, the film embarks on a relentless demonstration of the ways in which a man and a woman manage not to coalesce.  We witness a grim parade of refusals, frustrations, misunderstandings, and violations.  Throughout, Haneke engineers an odd, compelling kind of sympathy for Erika. "The triumph of The Piano Teacher is to carefully place this interpersonal tragedy within the social contexts of patriarchy and high culture." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Chris Fujiwara, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "In this one-of-a-kind masterpiece by one of the greatest American directors, Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi play Bark and Lucy Cooper, an elderly couple faced with financial disaster and forced to throw themselves on the mercy of their middle-aged children.  The children's first step is to separate the two of them so that the inconvenience of hosting them can be divided.  Gradually, the old people's self-confidence and dignity are eroded, until they submit to an arrangement whereby one of them will stay in a nursing home in New York, and the other will go to California. "Leo McCarey's direction in Make Way for Tomorrow is beyond praise.  All of the actors are expansive and natural, and the generosity McCarey shows toward his characters is unstinting.  He demonstrates an exquisite sense of when to cut from his central couple to reveal the attitudes of others, without suggesting either that their compassion is condescending or that their indifference is wicked, and without forcing our tears or rage (which would be a way of forfeiting them).  There is nothing contrived about McCarey's handling of the story, and thus no escaping its poignancy. "Two example will suffice to indicate the film's extraordinary discretion.  During the painful sequence in which Lucy's presence inadvertently interferes with her daughter-in-law's attempt to host a bridge party, Lucy receives a phone call from Bark.  Because she talks loudly on the phone - one of several annoying traits that McCarey and screenwriter Vina Delmar don't hesitate to give the couple - the guests pause in their games to listen.  Their reactions (not emphasized, but merely shown) mix annoyance, discomfort, and sorrow. "The last section of the film, dealing with the couple's brief reuniting and impromptu last idyll in Manhattan, is sublime.  McCarey keeps us aware of the sympathy of outsiders (a car salesman, a coat-check girl, a hotel manager, a bandleader), but never imposes their reactions on us through superfluous reverse shots.  Meanwhile, Lucy and Bark are constantly shown together in the same compositions.  In its passionate commitment to their private universe, Make Way for Tomorrow is truly, deeply moving." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "Michelangelo Antonioni's first feature in color remains a high-water mark for using color.  To get the precise hues he wanted, Antonioni had entire fields painted.  Restored prints make it clear why audiences were so excited by his innovations, not only for his expressive use of color, but also his striking editing.  Red Desert comes at the tail end of Antonioni's most fertile period, immediately after his remarkable trilogy The Adventure (1960), The Night (1960), and The Eclipse (1962).  Although Red Desert may fall somewhat short of the first and last of these earlier classics. the film's ecological concerns look a lot more prescient today than they seemed at the time of its initial release. "Monica Vitti plays a neurotic married woman (Giuliana) attracted to industrialist Richard Harris.  Antonioni does eerie, memorable work with the industrial shapes and colors that surround her, shown alternately as threatening and beautiful as she walks through a science-fiction landscape.  Like any self-respecting Antonioni heroine, she is looking for love and meaning - and finds sex.  In one sequence a postcoital melancholy is strikingly conveyed via an expressionist use of color, following Giuliana's shifting moods. "The film's most spellbinding sequence depicts a pantheistic, utopian fantasy of innocence, which the heroine recounts to her ailing son, implicitly offering a beautiful girl and a beautiful sea as an alternative to the troubled woman and the industrial red desert of the title." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From R. Barton Palmer, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "In the early 1930s, Hollywood - beset with financial difficulties and production problems related to the conversion to sound cinema - turned to stage performers of proven popularity to lure customers back to the theaters.  Among the most notable of these was Mae West, whose play Diamond Lil (which she wrote as a kind of showcase of her several talents) was immensely successful on Broadway and elsewhere.  West proved a happy choice for Paramount, because her unique brand of sophisticated if bawdy humor easily translated on screen; her first film, Night After Night (1932), was a big hit with audiences.  West's antics, especially her famous double entendres and sleazy style, offended religious conservatives of the time and hastened the foundation of the Breen Office in 1934 to enforce the Production Code (promulgated, but widely ignored, in the early 1930s).  West's post-1934 films, although interesting, never recaptured the appeal of her earlier work, of which She Done Him Wrong - the screen adaptation of Diamond Lil - is the most notable example, even garnering an Academy Award nomination. "West plays a 'saloon keeper' in New York's Bowery who is involved with various criminals in the neighborhood.  As Lady Lou, West is pursued by two local entrepreneurs and her fiance is just released from jail, but she is hardly in need of a man as she inhabits lavish quarters above her establishment, replete with servants and an impression collection of diamond jewelry.  Lou, however, is smitten by her new neighbor, the head of the Salvation Army mission (Cary Grant).  Her initial appraisal of the younger man's attractiveness is part of Hollywood legend.  To Grant she utters the famous line 'Why don't you come up sometime, see me.'  As a demonstration of her affection (and power), she uses some of her considerable hoard of diamonds to purchase his mission and make him a present of it.  In the end, Grant is revealed as a detective who promptly takes all the crooks into custody, but 'imprisons' Lou quite differently - with a wedding ring.  A classic Hollywood comedy, full of naughtiness and good humor." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

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From Garrett Chaffin-Quiray, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "Rene Clair's The Million opens on a Parisian rooftop.  Two lovers flirt and retire to their respective apartments, after which the camera dollies along the skyline to a one-shot sequence using forced perspective, miniatures, and matte paintings.  Such a tricky sequence demonstrates a profoundly advanced cinematic style while also revealing how Clair's film is no throwaway musical comedy. "A poor artist named Michel (Rene Lefevre) owes money to various creditors.  Engaged to the pure-hearted Beatrice (Annabella), he disregards her to chase after the floozy Wanda (Vanda Greville) and otherwise keeps up with his friends Prosper (Louis Allibert).  When the gangster Grandpa Tulip (Paul Ollivier) races into the apartment building to avoid the police, Beatrice gives him an old jacket of Michel's out of spite.  Afterwards, Michel and Prosper realize that a lottery ticket they purchased is a millionaire's prize - but the ticket is in the jacket Beatrice gave Grandpa Tulip, who in turned pawned it to the tenor Sopranelli (Constantin Siroesco), who will soon travel to America.  Thus the caper comedy of The Million is set in motion.  Mix-ups, misidentification, disguises, upsets, reconcilliation, and musical numbers follow, all of it to bring Michel and Beatrice together and restore the lottery ticket to its rightful owner.  Along the way a thug in tuxedo tails cries for a love song, a race for the jacket is scored to the sounds of a rugby match, and the opportunistic demands of Michel's creditors and neighbor weigh in on his perceived riches. "Perhaps most remarkable among its virtues is the film's integration of synch-sound recording.  Expository dialogue is offered to still camera setups whereas lesser remarks, often viewed as whispers between characters, are left in silence.  To cover these gaps in the spoken record, Ambient music stitches together each set piece with occasional bursts of song.  More fluid and visually dynamic than many early sound films, The Million is also more entertaining than many subsequent talkies.  In large part this is a credit to Clair's screenplay and deft direction, but it is also due to a willing cast carrying through the demands of a gentle fantasy." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Adrian Martin, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "A lot of walking occurs in this engaging Argentinian crime lark.  The on-foot journey of two swindlers, Marcos (Ricardo Darin) and Juan (Gaston Pauls) offers, in passing, an understated documentary on Buenos Aries in the 21st century.  But as these characters imagine the scams they might pull, their steps propel them into the charged space of a fiction. "Debut director Fabian Bielinsky maintains a firm balance between the mundane and the thrilling.  Much of the film eschews a musical score, giving extra weight to the passing seconds.  But when music is finally allowed in, the effect carries a more energetic wallop than in most bigger-budget caper movies. "Bielinsky clearly adores the Hollywood classics by directors such as Billy Wilder and Joseph Mankiewicz concerning elaborate, double-crossing deceits.  Juan learns early on not to take at face value whatever misfortune occurs around him, because it could so easily be a con engineered by the shifty Marcos.  Such a tricky narrative courts the risk, inherent in this type of story, of creating an ever-escalating spiral of one-upmanship.  But Bielinsky has a special trump card up his sleeve, and that is the reality factor.  The moment in which Argentina's dire economic crisis intervenes is a real highlight." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), an unemployed worker in postwar Rome, finds a job putting up movie posters after his wife pawns the family's bedsheets to get his bicycle out of hock.  But right after he starts work the bike is stolen, and with his little boy Bruno (Enzo Staiola) in tow he crisscrosses the city trying to retrieve it, encountering various aspects of Roman society, including some of the more active class differences, in the process. "This masterpiece - the Italian title translates as 'bicycle thieves' - is one of the key works of Italian Neorealism.  French critic Andre Bazin also recognized it as one of the great communist films.  The fact that it received the 1949 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film suggests that it wasn't perceived that way in the United States at the time.  Ironically, the only thing American censors cared about was a scene in which the little boy urinates on the street.  For some followers of auteur theory the film lost some of its power because it didn't derive from a single creative intelligence.  A collaboration between screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, nonprofessional actors, and many others, the production is so charged with a common purpose that there is little point in even trying to separate achievements. "The Bicycle Thief contains what is possibly the greatest depiction of a relationship between a father and son in the history of cinema, full of subtle fluctuations and evolving gradations between the two characters in terms of respect and trust, and it's an awesome heartbreaker.  It also has its moments of Chaplinesque comedy - the contrasting behavior of two little boys having lunch at the same restaurant.  Set alongside a film like Life is Beautiful (1997), it provides some notion of how much mainstream world cinema and its relation to reality has been infantilized over the past half century." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Kim Newman, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "The Reckless Moment is an unusual film noir in that it reverses the sexes in a replay of the familiar story (as in Double Indemnity [1944] and Scarlet Street [1945]) of an innocent who gets involved with a seductive no-good and is embroiled in crime.  Here, class and respectability assume the status usually accorded to sex and money as housewife Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) loses her grip on suburbia when the sleazy specimen (Shepperd Studwick) who has been seeing her daughter (Geraldine Brooks) is semiaccidentally killed under suspicious circumstances, and she moves his corpse to make things look better. "Lucia's nemesis is played by James Mason, oddly but effectively cast as an Irish lowlife, who starts out blackmailing her but begins, disturbingly, to make sincere romantic overtures.  The focus of the film then changes as the criminal is driven to make a sacrifice that will restore the heroine's life but also suggests that Bennett - who, after all, was the tramp in Scarlet Street - may have unwittingly been manipulating him to her advantage all along.  Viennese director Max Ophuls is more interested in irony and emotion than crime and drama, which gives this a uniquely nerve-flaying feel, and he nudges the lead actors into revelatory unusual performances" Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Garrett Chaffin-Quiray, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "Genre can be used to read history and interpret moments in time.  Accordingly, Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar helped to define the gangster movie while serving as an allegory of production circumstances because it was produced during the Great Depression.  Within the film is inscribed a wholesale paranoia about individual achievement in the face of economic  devastation.  Leavening this theme alongside the demands of social conformity during the early 1930s means that LeRoy's screen classic is far more than the simple sum of its parts. "Caesar 'Rico' Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) is a small-stakes thief with a partner named Joe (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.).  Recognizing a dead-end future, they move to the heart of Chicago where Joe becomes an entertainer and falls in love with a dancer named Olga (Glenda Farrell).  In contrast, Rico gets a taste of the 'life' and enjoys it.  Possessing a psychotic ruthlessness, he gradually looms as the new power on-scene before finally succumbing to an ill-tempered ego and the police.  Gut shot and dying beneath an ad for Joe and Olga's dinner act, Rico sputters some final words of self-determination, underlining how he won't ever be caught because he lived according to the terms of his own ambition. "For audiences, Rico's killer was undoubtedly a clear call of recent tensions about the state of the world at the time.  Limited by the feature film's structure, but not dulled by censorial practice in the days before the Production Code Administration, Little Caesar offers a scornful look at free enterprise taken to an extreme.  Seen through the long view of history and the focus on ill-gotten gains, it's a perfect corollary for Wall Street's collapse, itself the result of poor regulation, mass speculation, and hysteria manipulated to benefit the few at the expense of the many. "Acting out to get a bigger piece of the pie, Rico expresses the wish for acceptance and the drive toward success in an otherwise indifferent world.  Simultaneously terrorizing innocents and devastating the society he desires to control, he ends up illuminating the demands of power with homicidal shadows in this, a seminal film of the early sound era." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

Based on the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

From Michael Tapper, 1001 Movies you Must See Before You Die: "The Phantom Carriage not only cemented the fame of director-screenwriter-actor Victor Sjostrom and Swedish silent cinema, but also had a well-documented, artistic influence on many great directors and producers.  The best-known element of the film is the representation of the spiritual world as a tormented limbo between heaven and earth.  The scene in which the protagonist - the hateful and self-destructive alcoholic David Holm (Sjostrom)  - wakes up at the chime of midnight on New Year's Eve only to stare at his own corpse, knowing that he is condemned to hell, is one of the most quoted scenes in cinema history. "Made in a simple but time-consuming and methodically staged series of double exposures, the filmmaker, his photographer, and a lab manager created a three-dimensional illusion of a ghostly world that went beyond anything previously seen at the cinema.  More important, perhaps, was the film's complex but readily accessible narration via a series of flashbacks - and even flashbacks within flashbacks - that elevated this gritty tale of poverty and degradation to poetic excellence. "Looking back at Sjostrom's career, The Phantom Carriage is a theological and philosophical extension of the social themes introduced in his controversial breakthrough Ingeborg Holm (1913).  Both films depict the step-by-step destruction of human dignity in a cold and heartless society, driving its victims into brutality and insanity.  The connection is stressed by the presence of Hilda Borgstrom, unforgettable as Ingeborg Holm and now in the role of the tortured wife - another desperate Mrs. Holm.  She is yet again playing a compassionate but poor mother on her way to suicide or a life in the mental asylum. "The religious naivete at the heart of Selma Lagerlof's faithfully adapted novel might draw occasional laughter from a secular audience some eighty years later, but the subdued, 'realist' acting and the dark fate of the main characters - which almost comes to its logical conclusion, save for a melodramatic finale - never fails to impress." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

From Adrian Martin, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "In Michael Mann's telemovie L.A. Takedown (1987), there is a scene in which a cop and the criminal he has been obsessively tracking bump into each other while shopping.  There is a tense pause, and then the criminal breaks the ice with a classic invitation: 'Coffee?' "That scene reappears in Mann's Heat, a film whose richly deserved cult following has steadily grown since 1995.  Set in Los Angeles, it takes a well-worked theme - the symbiotic relationship between cop Vincent (Al Pacino) and criminal Neil (Robert De Niro) - and meditates moodily upon it.  Mann combines a flamboyant, epic style with a manic attention to realistic detail - resulting in indelible set pieces like the street shoot-out. "In its exploration of family and intimacy, Heat meets a founding theme of noir fiction: the danger of bonding with another person.  Agonizing scenes dramatize Neil's assertion that a 'professional' should be able to walk away from everything in his life within thirty seconds.  These professional are almost automatons: hard-driven, single-minded, and married to their unsavory work (rather than their teary long-suffering companions).  But they are also proud, stoic men, and in their determination lies a lofty splendor to which Mann pays immortal tribute." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Kim Newman, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the keystone of a strain of bizarre, fantastical cinema that flourished in Germany in the 1920s and was linked, somewhat spuriously, with the Expressionist art movement.  If much of the development of the movies in the medium's first two decades was directed toward the Lumiere-style 'window to the world', with fictional or documentary stories presented in an emotionally stirring manner designed to make audiences forget they were watching a film, Caligari returns to the mode of Georges Melies by presting magical, theatrical effects that exaggerate or caricature reality.  Officials perch on ridiculously high stools, shadows are painted on walls and faces, and unrealistic backdrops and performances are stylized to the point of hysteria. "Writers Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz conceived the film as taking place in its own out-of-joint world, and director Robert Wiene and set designers Hermann Warm, Walter Roehrig, and Walter Reimann put a twist on every scene and even intertitle to insist on this.  Controversially, Fritz Lang - at an early stage attached as director -  suggested that Caligari's radical style would be too much for audiences to take without 'explanation'.  Lang devised a frame story in which the hero Francis (Friedrich Feher) recounts the story - of sinister mesmerist charlatan Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss), his zombielike somnambulist slave Cesare (Conrad Veidt), and a series of murders in the rickety small town of Holstenwall - and is finally revealed to be an asylum inmate who, in The Wizard of Oz (1939) style, has imagined a narrative that incorporates various people in his daily life.  This undercuts the antiauthoritarian tone of the film as Dr. Caligari, in the main story an asylum director who has become demented, is revealed as a decent man out to help the hero.  However, the asylum set in the frame story is the same 'unreal' one seen in the flashback, making the whole film and not just Francis's bracketed story somehow unreliable.  Indeed, by revealing its expressionist vision to be that of a madman, the film could even appeal to conservatives who deemed all modernist art as demented. "Wiene, less innovative than most of his collaborators, makes little use of cinematic technique, with the exception of the flashback-within-a-flashback as Krauss is driven mad by superimposed instructions that he 'must become Caligari.'  The film relies on theatrical devices, the camera fixed center stage as the sets are displayed and the actors (especially Veidt) providing any movement or impact.  Lang's input served to make the movie a strange species of amphibian: It plays as an art movie to the high-class crowds who appreciate its innovations, but it's also a horror movie with a gimmick.  With its sideshow ambience, hypnotic mad scientist villain, and leotard-clad, heroine-abducting monster, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a major early entry in the horror genre, introducing images, themes, and characters that became fundamental to the likes of Tod Browning's Dracula and James Whale's Frankenstein (both 1931)." Have a comment or a question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Ernest Mathijs in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "Paul Verhoeven's most elaborate Dutch film - and the most spectacular and expensive film from Holland at the time - announced themes that the director would return to later when he was working in Hollywood (notably in 2006's Black Books). "Soldier of Orange sketches the experiences of a group of Dutch students during World War II, initially reacting with a shrugging 'a bit of war would be nice,' they soon find themselves forced to make choices - joining the Germans, the resistance movement, or going underground.  Throughout the film, Erik Lanshof (Rutger Hauer) is at the center of things.  While others around him are compelled to choose between different paths, Erik enjoy the freedom of letting chance make his decisions for him, jumping from one adventure to another. "The movie is at its best when it addresses, in minute detail, the social issues dominating wartime Holland.  Each character is a microcosm of Dutch society during the war.  They are made human by connecting them to real people (among the film's characters is Dutch monarch Queen Wilhelmina), but also used as a detailed reflection on how war changes people and their opinions - as if the film is asking us not to judge but to understand the motives of friend and foe." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

From Garrett Chaffin-Quiray in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: "Short on brains, long on brawn - and heart, John G. Avildsen's Rocky catapulted the floundering career of Sylvester Stallone into the stratosphere.  At the same time, it reaped unprecedented box-office sales, established a movie franchise, and landed a one-two punch of jock stereotypes as rich with caricature [sic] today as they were riveting performances in 1976. "The story centers on Rocky Balboa (Stallone), a boxer beyond his prime.  He falls in love with Adrian (Talia Shire), the sister of his friend Paulie (Burt Young), and then works to earn the respect of his trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith).  On the receiving end of a publicity stunt, he eventually gets a chance to unset Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. "Scored with Bill Conti's pulsing trumpet blasts and percussive rumble, Rocky is an immensely entertaining drama about struggling for satisfaction in an indifferent world.  As the combined story work of former Muhammad Ali opponent Chuck Wepner and 'Italian Stallion' Sylvester Stallone, the now famous actor-writer proved versatile and tenacious.  Writing the script, he connected its sale to his participation in the lead role, despite being virtually unknown at the time.  Desperate or inspired bid, he hit a grand slam and become one of Hollywood's biggest superstars. "The film is often overlooked as schmaltz, especially considering Stallone's subsequent career, yet Rocky lovingly details the white working class.  Rocky, Paulie, Adrian, and Mickey respectively work as a debt collector, meat packer, pet store clerk, and gym proprietor; the only upward mobility each has are wishes and dreams.  This 'biopic' returns to a world of folklore where underdogs get their well-deserved chance after working hard. "Important in Rocky are the values of honor and courage, so often questioned in movies throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Such reassurance was well received, if gross receipts are any indication, and Avildsen's film walked off with Best Picture honors at the Academy Awards to make it one for the record books." Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.    

Known for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Brokeback Mountain (2008), director Ang Lee's work in the late 1990's seems to have disappeared into the zeitgeist of America cinema.  This is particularly true of The Ice Storm (1997) an oppressive little film about two families living in New England in 1973, when Nixon dominated the headlines and the sexual revolution was gasping its final breaths.  Like so many films in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, this doesn't mean that a forgotten film is not good, because The Ice Storm is an American masterpiece. Have a comment or a question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

The second in Roberto Rossellini's "War Trilogy", Paisan (1946) is one of the first examples of Italian neorealism.  Split into six separate segments (or chapters), each written by a different screenwriter, the film tells the stories of the Italians and Americans in the final days of World War II.  Laced with tragic irony as well as bit of comic wit, the film is probably Rossellini's most popular films of the 1940's after Rome Open City (1945). Have a comment or a question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or contact him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

Director Bernardo Bertolucci stopped post-production work on The Spider's Stratagem (1970) to direct The Conformist (1970), a bizarre tale of an undercover fascist assassin in Italy in the years shortly before the resignation of Mussolini.  Perfectly crafted, the film is one of Bertolucci's less enigmatic movies, which does not mean that it doesn't inspire the viewer to pause and think about what he has just seen. Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or contact him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

In the 1930's Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were Hollywood royalty, and it was a privilege for young director George Stevens to direct them in Swing Time (1936).  Although Astaire and Rogers would make many films together, this one remains a fan favorite, sporting several musical numbers which were carefully and skillfully choreographed by Fred Astaire, who built patterns with the music and dance steps from one number to the next. Have a comment or a question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or contact him on Twitter at @1001MoviesPC.

One of the first comedies produced by the prestigious Ealing Studios of London, Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) is an exercise in cynicism as well as a bright spot in the early careers of Dennis Price and Alec Guinness.  The film was the pinnacle in the career of director Robert Hamer, an Ealing regular, and also marked the beginning of the career of cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, who would go on to film a number of Hollywood blockbusters. Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

If you see one Bollywood film in your life, it should probably be Mahboob Khan's Mother India (1957) a harrowing tale of the struggles of an Indian woman from her marriage to a doomed fieldworker to her disappointment in her two grown sons. One critic called the film India's answer to Gone with the Wind (1939), and this pretty much hits the mark.  Mother India is exemplary of Mahboob Khan's work, featuring a female protagonist who defeats the odds (both financial and familial) to make it to the top.  A Technicolor masterpiece, the film unfortunately is rarely seen today except by classic Bollywood fans. Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

Wanda (1970) is the first and last feature film written and directed by Barbara Loden, whose only other claim to fame was that she was married to Hollywood director Elia Kazan.  Her name probably would have been eliminated altogether into obscurity if a group of French filmmakers and critics didn't revive her film after her death in 1980. Loden made the film as a sort of feminist anti-Bonnie and Clyde, but it was probably the way it was made (with a realist approach and intentional graininess) that probably appealed to its French fans.  Had Loden not later succumbed to cancer ten years later, there's a very good possibility that she would have enjoyed her revival and made more films. Have a comment or question for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

No Man's Land (2001) is the first film directed by Danis Tanovic, whose first exposure to filmmaking was as a documentarian during the conflict that broke apart Yugoslavia.  As much a commentary as it is a dark comedy, the film drips with Tanovic's sardonic view of the war he witnessed. When a Serbian soldier and a Bosnian soldier find themselves trapped in a trench in the middle of the battlefield (the titular "no man's land"), they find themselves pawns in an agenda between the UN and the media that does not end well.  The film's promotional material marketed it as a commentary, but you won't be smiling when the credits roll at the end. Have a question or comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall had already starred together in Howard Hawks' To Have and To Have Not (1944), but it was when Hawks reunited them in The Big Sleep (1946) that their onscreen chemistry really popped. While the script is as confusing as Raymond Chandler's novel of the same name, Philip Marlowe is the epitome of the hard-boiled detective, an archetype that's been copied and parodied every since.  The real star of the film may be the witty dialogue between Bogart and Bacall, some of which went over the heads of those enforcing Hollywood's strict Production Code. Have a question or comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva (1981) is the first film to be labelled as Cinema du Look, a subgenre of French films featuring intense love affairs, a cynical attitude towards the police, and much location shooting in Paris Metro. Diva is the bizarre story of a young man who unwittingly finds himself in a manhunt by both the police and the Paris' criminal underworld.  On the margins, sometimes manipulating things, is a strange man and his girlfriend who have a fondness for minimal spaces and jigsaw puzzles.  With Beineix's unique direction, the film becomes quite an experience. Have a question or comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (1910) is a documentary made by legendary (and sometime controversial) filmmaker Werner Herzog, director of such films as Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972) and Fitzcarraldo (1982).  Herzog was given limited access to the newly-discovered Chauvet Caves in Southern France before they were closed up only to be studied by scientists. Herzog shot the film with 3-D technology, maneuvering delicate equipment around the caves with a crew of only three people.  What resulted is one of the most hypnotic pieces of documentary cinema, something that will make you wish you invested in a 3-D television. Have a question or comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, and look for the podcast's Facebook page.

By the time 1983 rolled around, it seemed inevitable that someone would make a movie about the space race.  The Right Stuff (1983) is Philip Kaufman's practically exhaustive retelling of Tom Wolfe's book chronicles NASA's Mercury program, which trained the first seven astronauts how to travel in space.  Cast with a bunch of then unknowns (including Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, and the recently departed Sam Shepard), the film was a hit with critics (despite a disappointing return at the box office) but remains something of a cult classic today. Look out for appearances by Jeff Goldblum, Harry Shearer, Veronic Cartwright, and Chuck Yeager himself as a bartender, not to mention special effects and sound editing that could blow your socks off even in 2017. Have a question or a comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, or look for the podcast's Facebook page.

Before he was known for comic book fare like Superman Returns (2006) and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Bryan Singer directed a little something called The Usual Suspects (1995), which initially became an instant cult classic enjoyed mostly when it was released on home video but now stands out as one of the best dramas of its time, thanks primarily to an Academy Award-winning script by Christopher McQuarrie. The Usual Suspects also cemented the career of Kevin Spacey, who also scored in the same year as the creepy killer in Se7en (1995).  Spacey won an Oscar as well.  The rest is in the history of cinema's most surprising plot twists. Have a question or a comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, or look for the podcast's Facebook page.

Perhaps the world's first famous Scots filmmaker, Alexander Mackendrick was not much more than a set designer when he was hired by Britain's Ealing Studios to direct Whisky Galore! (1949).  If you were to ask Mackendrick himself, he would like not cite it as the high point of his career, as the production was plagued with problems between him and the producers. Based on actual events, Whisky Galore! is the charming little story of an island village in Scotland whose inhabitants conspire to steal a boatload of whiskey from a sunken ship.  Traditional stereotypes may stand out, but at the end of the day most audiences won't help but smile to themselves at Alexander Mackenrick's directorial debut. Have a question or a comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, or look for the podcast's Facebook page.

Mel Brooks was lucky.  The Producers (1968) earned him an Academy Award, and if it hadn't been for a chance screening by a popular actor, nobody would have even heard of it by now. Whether or not you can enjoy its special brand of politically incorrect humor, The Producers marks the beginning of a wonderful career not just for writer/director Mel Brooks, but for actor Gene Wilder.  It was, as history would later prove, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Have a question or a comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, or look for the podcast's Facebook page.

Anyone who is anyone knows something about Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946), even if it's just having seen a memorable scene or two.  Capra was fresh off of making propaganda films for the Armed Forces when he created yet another production and made the film, and it's likely the apex of his career. Although it's cherished nowadays as a holiday classic, It's a Wonderful Life came to be so popular seemingly by mistake, and deserves to be seen occasionally on its own merits rather than an annual holiday treat. Have a question or a comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, or look for the podcast's Facebook page.

Before musicals ruled Hollywood, an unknown filmmaker named Rouben Mamoulian was making movies like City Streets (1931) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), both of which were successful exercises in inventive new types of camerawork and storytelling.  With Love Me Tonight (1932), Mamoulian tried his hand at a musical romantic comedy, and proved surprisingly successful. Starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, Love Me Tonight is a twisted little musical romantic comedy which, while predictable, bends the envelope when you least expect it.  It's practically forgotten now, but the talent behind it can still be appreciated 85 years later. Have a question or a comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, or look for the podcast's Facebook page.

King of New York (1990) is probably the best 1990's gangster drama you never heard of.  Director Abel Ferrara was best known for cult hits like The Driller Killer (1979) and Ms .45 (1981) before he made this tale of a drug kingpin, played by Christopher Walken in an Oscar-worthy role, who is released from prison and dedicated to do good for the community. The movie is a perfect vehicle for Walken, who to this today is primarily known as a supporting actor.  King of New York is one of his best roles (if not, hands down, his best), and should not be missed by even his casual fans. Have a question or comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

Since the 1970's, Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin have gained cult status for their homegrown humor about counterculture and drug use.  Although nowadays their appearances together are intermittent, at best, they were probably never as popular in the early 1970's when they became arguably the most popular comedy duo in America with a strong of best-selling albums. It was inevitable that the two would make a movie, peppered with both original pieces and moments from their albums and stage appearances.  Up in Smoke (1978) became the nation's biggest in-joke, mostly because it was directly marketed to those who would most closely relate to the humor, while those who couldn't relate went blissfully unaware.  Watch out for Tom Skerritt and Stacy Keach before they were known. Have a question or comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC.

"I'm going to be a great film star!  That is, if booze and sex don't get me first." One critic called Cabaret (1972) "a musical for people who hate musicals."  As someone who doesn't particularly care for films in which the characters spontaneously burst into song, I heartily agree with this statement.  Bob Fosse's film, which was based on the works of Christopher Isherwood, is snappy, witty, and knows exactly when to drive the plot with dialogue and when to dazzle its viewers with a dance number. Cabaret was the breakout role for Liza Minnelli, earning her an Oscar and guaranteeing her a slot among Hollywood royalty.  She, Fosse, and supporting actor Joel Grey all took home statues on Oscar night, although the film lost Best Picture to The Godfather (1972). Have a question or comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, and look for the podcast's Facebook page.

"That's why when somebody say, 'When you get to the NBA, don't forget about me,' and all that stuff.  Well, I should've said to them, 'If I don't make it, don't you forget about me.'" When filmmakers Steve James and Frederick Marx set out to make a documentary about high school basketball that they hoped would be seen on PBS, they had no idea that it would become a three hour spectacle that inspired critics and audiences alike. Hoop Dreams (1994) isn't really about high school basketball, but about the lives of two students and their families as they climb the ladder with hopes of becoming NBA stars.  Yes, those who enjoy basketball will not be disappointed, but there's more in this film that will make almost any viewer jump for joy or cry tears of frustration. Have a question or comment for the host?  Email Sean at 1001moviespodcast@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter via @1001MoviesPC, and look for the podcast's Facebook page.