Film Trace

In the eighth and final episode of our Future Wars season, we discuss the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) alongside the b-movie stunner Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

Alas we have come to the finale of our Future Wars cycle. It has been a long season with a super-sized eight episode run. Sci-fi is often a real bummer. Most of the movies we covered this season depicted humanity's future as a nightmarish dy...

In the seventh episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss the classic Dr Strangelove (1964) alongside a bizarre artifact from the French New Wave, Alphaville (1965)

Special Guest: Good friend of the show and onscreen performer Harry Brammer, dialing in from Tokyo.

Here we have two masters, Kubrick and Godard, spinning tales of future conflict and war in the mid 1960s. Slipping in their polemics right before the great social upheava...

In the sixth episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss the last man on earth romp The Omega Man (1971) as well as the bonkers fever dream that is Zardoz (1974).

Special Guest: Sean Patrick from the great Everyone’s a Critic podcast

The 1970s were a trip. The Omega Man is a zany, over-the-top apocalypse movie that is helmed by maybe the worst possible choice for the role, Charlton Heston. Zardoz is a legendary cult film that makes ...

In the fifth episode of our Future Wars cycle, we tackle two giant films from the action sci fi maestro James Cameron: The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986).

Special Guest: David Riedel, film critic and co-host of the great Spoilerpiece Theatre podcast.

James Cameron is a master filmmaker. This two film run in the mid 1980s is iconic, legendary, and ground-breaking. When we think of this cycle's theme, Future Wars, we are ultimatel...

In the fourth episode of our Future Wars cycle, we explore two late 90s classic, The Matrix (1999) and Starship Trooper (1997).

Special Guest: Evan Crean, film critic and co-host of the great Spoilerpiece Theatre podcast.

Here we have two films with diametrically opposed authorial voices. The Matrix is self-serious, pointelty intellectual, and so cool that it borders on frigid sterility. Starship Troopers is a polemic anti-fascist s...

In the third episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss Spielberg's bad guy alien film, War of The Worlds along side the bleak and desolate Cormac McCarthy adaptation, The Road.

Special Guest: Film critic and co-host of Spoilerpiece Theatre and The Slashers, Megan Kearns.

The world doesn't end with a whimper. It ends with loud alien tripods and a nuclear winter. Spielberg had already made two alien films before War of the Worlds, C...

In the second episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss with George Miller's gonzo-apocalypto in Mad Max: Fury Road alongside the low budget middle-brow of The Purge.

Special Guest: Tommy Thevenet from the fantastic Haven't Scene It: A Movie Podcast

As we dip a little further into the last decade, our Future War cycle begins to take shape with the genius Mad Max massively outshining the sophomoric drivel of The Purge. Mad Max: Fur...

In the first episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss the new Gareth Edwards sci-fi epic, The Creator, and Denis Villeneuve's recent attempt of adapting Dune onto film.

Our Future Wars cycle is focused on how the conflicts of tomorrow were depicted in the past. Over this 8 episode series, we will review 16 films spanning from the 1950s through today that attempted to predict how mankind might find itself at odds with the world a...

In the final episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we cover two classics, Cool Hand Luke and Rebel Without a Cause.

We have come to the end of our 1950s cycle, and we are struggling to find a thread that weaves through all of these films. The films we covered all use the 1950s in different ways: set dressing, pastiche base layer, dreamscape, hommage, coming of age background. Each film is a creative outcome of the lived reality of ...

In the sixth episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we discuss Peter Bogdanovich's coming of age story, The Last Picture Show (1971), along with the Lenny Bruce bio pic, Lenny, directed by theater great Bob Fosse.

Special Guest: Andrea G, co-founder of filmchisme, X: @alifebydreaming

The 1950s has never been known as a gritty decade. We wanted to find films that demonstrated some of the hidden realities of the Eisenhower years. The ...

In the fifth episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we discuss the 1980s hidden gem Desert Hearts and the highly lauded Diner.

Special Guest: Friend and frequent guest, Molly, who led us both to the existential oasis that is Desert Hearts

We often try to choose two films that create a discourse between them, but here I think it is safe to say both films are talking past each other. Desert Hearts was an impossible film that was made t...

In the fourth episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we cover the 1990s neo-noir LA Confidential along side the coming of age tale in This Boy's Life.

We dive into two different worlds of the 1950s: the glam and seedy glitz of Los Angeles vs the cold and wet solitude of rural Washington. LA Confidential won high praise upon its release in the fall of 1997. It's stature has not faded much in the 25 years since. This Boy's Life had a ...

In the third episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we compare two hommages to the post war decade: Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven and Frank Darabont's The Majestic.

Special guests: Brian Eggert from Deep Focus Reviews, Rotten Tomato Approved and frequent KARE 11 guest film critic

What started out as a random pairing of two 1950s period pieces from the early Aughts became a rather interesting juxtaposition on the potency and fugility ...

In the second episode of our cycle Set in the 1950s, we look at two auteurs who swing for the fences with Terrence Malick's Tree of Life (2011) and Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012).

Special guests and friends of the show Molly and Ryan join us to discuss what happens when Malick and Anderson get the creative freedom and financing to direct the movie they always wanted to make. Tree of Life kicked off a recent prolific period...

In the first episode of our new cycle Set in the 1950s, we take a look at Wes Anderson's new film, Asteroid City (2023).

Both Chris and I are devout Wes Anderson fans, and covering Asteroid City was really the impetus for this cycle's theme. As we have traversed this cycle, we are seeing how the 1950s setting can be used in a variety of ways with varying degrees of historical richness. Wes, quite predictably, uses the Eisenhower ye...

The sixth and finale film in our Stranger Than Fiction cycle is Richard Brooks' true crime magnum opus, In Cold Blood (1967).

Often overlooked by the infamy of its origin source, In Cold Blood enormous value as a film: the beautiful and stark cinematography of Conrad Hall (who went on to shoot Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Road to Perdition), the unsettling and rapturous performances of leads Robert Blake and Scott Wilson,...

The fifth film in our Stranger Than Fiction cycle is Sidney Lumet's provocative bank heister, Dog Day Afternoon (1975).

Special Guest: Good friend of the show and dedicated film nerd, Riley.

Dog Day Afternoon is certainly a film you hear about before you ever see it. The film has had a stellar reputation since its release in the mid 1970s. It is considered one of Sidney Lumet's most important and best films. As we approach the film'...

The fourth film in our Stranger Than Fiction cycle is David Cronenberg's deep trip twin thriller, Dead Ringers (1988).

Special Guest: Rob from the awesome Smoke & Mirrors Podcast

David Cronenberg was evicted from his home after his early film, Shivers, sent shockwaves through the Toronto intelligentsia. Cronenberg has always been an outsider with a deft ability to contort himself into the good graces of the monied class over his...

The third film in our Stranger Than Fiction cycle is Terry Gilliam's visual extravaganza, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998).

Special Guest: The crew from There Are Too Many Movies podcast - Chris Collins, Josh Rodriguez, and Alex Wilshin.

Hunter S. Thompson was the paradigm of Stranger Than Fiction journalism. He helped create the entire genre of creative nonfiction by telling the world what he saw we his own two eyes instead of ...