PODCAST · tv
Film School
by Ira Heinichen, Joshua McClenney
A filmmaker and a writer tackle the AFI's Top 100 Films and beyond to educate themselves about movies and storytelling. Welcome to Film School!
Episodes
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What is the Time Genre? (Cutting Room Floor #234)
How decisions about Time affect our storytelling.
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My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki Deep Dive #4)
"Trees and people used to be good friends..." This week, we're watching Miyazaki's first masterpiece.
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The Devil's Backbone
What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps? Something dead which still seems to be alive? An emotion suspended in time? Like a blurred photograph? Like an insect trapped in amber?
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What Is Genre? (Cutting Room Floor #233)
When we talk about "genre" as it relates to movies, books, comics, etc. what do we mean? What IS "genre?" Josh and Ira break down how we use that term on Film School. Also, Josh recommends MasterChef (Hulu), and Ira recommends Sunderland Till I Die (Netflix). The Genre Five Leaf Clover is…
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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki Deep Dive #2)
"The earth knows it's wrong for us to survive..." We're diving into Miyazaki's second feature film! The world is a wasteland called the "sea of despair." But one intrepid young heroine might have the keys to save us all.
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The Criterion Closet (Cutting Room Floor #232)
Josh and Ira take a trip outdoors to visit the Criterion Closet when it visited Los Angeles. It was a hoot!
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The Castle of Cagliostro (Hayao Miyazaki Deep Dive #1)
Hayao Miyazaki's first film!
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Up Next On Film School: Hayao Miyazaki Deep Dive!
Josh announces our next project on Film School: we're diving deep into the Japanese anime master, Hayao Miyazaki!
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Sideways
I'm not drinking any f----ing merlot!
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The Game
Discovering the object of the game is the object of the game... It's hard to follow up a classic thriller like Seven, but that's exactly what David Fincher had to do with his next feature film, The Game. Michael Douglas, the man who has everything, is given "The Game" for his birthday. But what…
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High Anxiety
I know what came over you: High Anxiety. You've still got it! Well, it turns out we couldn't quite get ol' Hitch out of our system, and neither could Mel Brooks. The king of satire does his signature send-up of the suspense film master, and it's starring Brooks himself! A first! This also…
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The Essential Hitchcock (Cutting Room Floor #231)
53 films. 50 years. 6 decades. After watching every single movie Alfred Hitchcock ever made (minus one, lost in time), Josh and Ira reflect back on the past two years they spent with the legendary director. Beyond the topics of 'what did we learn about and from Hitch?', we attempt to answer a...
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Family Plot (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #53)
Leave your crystal balls out of this, George... It's Hitchcock's final film. After 6 decades, 53 films, and 50 years, Alfred Hitchcock finally reached the end. His last feature is remarkably light fare, comedy over suspense, jokes over violence, a cozy old-school sensibility over the edginess…
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Navigating Transition Periods (Cutting Room Floor #230)
When you're entering into a new chapter of life--any kind; moving, finishing a big project, marriage, divorce, kids, a breakthrough in therapy, new job...--how do you handle that? Is there anything you do, either external or internal, to aid yourself in the process of accepting the change and...
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Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #52)
Don't forget: Bob's your uncle... It's Hitchcock's penultimate film! Second-to-last! And first film in the wild 70s, an era where the R-rating became a thing, and a new frontier opened up in cinema that involved increasingly pushing the envelope of what was acceptable on film. To Hitch's credit…
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If You Ain't Napping, It Ain't Happening (Cutting Room Floor #229)
Do you take naps? If you don't, why is that? And if you do, do you feel guilty about it? Or are they a regular part of your routine (at least when life allows it)? We discuss our stance on all the above (spoiler: we're pro nap), and how we fit such indulgences into our daily routine. Also, Josh...
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Topaz (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #51)
Does the word "topaz" mean anything to you? The Cold War rages on in the world, and Hitchcock delivers a political/spy thriller centered on the lead-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, apparently even based on real events. Is Hitch just replaying the old hits? Or does this one have any juice on its...
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Is It Okay To Compromise? (Cutting Room Floor #228)
When making art like writing or telling a story, when do you compromise? Or DO you compromise? The word is so loaded with negative connotation, but its definition is so slippery, maybe even personal. So...what's an acceptable level of compromise? We discuss! Also, Josh recommends re-watching...
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Torn Curtain (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #50)
How would you like to live behind what you call the Iron Curtain...? It's the height of the cold war. Hitch swaps his nationless networks of mysterious criminals for a far more real-world one: East Germany and the Russians. It's also a different era of Hollywood that's starting to emerge, actors...
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How To Make Sense Of David Lynch (Cutting Room Floor #227)
"Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper." David Lynch pushed the boundaries of filmmaking. He was known for his surrealism, his expressionism, his images, and, much of the time, for…
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Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #49)
You, Freud. Me, Jane? Alfred takes on sex, lies, and money missing from the big safe at work. It's half trippy para-psychology Spellbound, part neo-noirish femme fatale Vertigo, this time with a returning Tippi Hedron as the slippery-with-the-truth title character and an up-and-coming Sean…
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Writing Evil (Cutting Room Floor #226)
The Darkness is out there. Everyone can feel evil working in the shadows of the real world, however figurative or literal you want to attribute it. So, naturally, evil plays a big part in our stories; it behooves us storytellers to know how to effectively represent it. How do we do that? Josh and...
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The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #48)
It's the end of the world! Hitch backs up the classic Psycho with another horror film, but this time it's nature itself that's out for humanity rather than one of our own. What would happen if all the birds in the world suddenly turned against us? Would we stand a chance? That's the very simple...
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Level Up! (Cutting Room Floor #225)
Should I stay or should I go now? It takes SO MUCH EFFORT to reach a plateau--a new level--it can be absolutely daunting to consider doing it all over again to reach the NEXT plateau--the next level. So...how long is it okay to sit back and rest on one's laurels? How long is it okay to stay on…
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Psycho Revisited (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #47)
We all go a little mad sometimes... Welcome to the birth (debatedly) of the slasher film! Hitch might not have been the absolute FIRST to dive into the mind of a twisted serial killer, but he arguably is the most influential to have ever done it. This movie is...well, quite simply: one of the…
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2025 Resolutions, Goals, and Intentions (Cutting Room Floor #224)
Happy New Year!!! With the holidays now in the rear view, our thoughts turn to the year ahead: 2025. What do you have planned for this coming year? What do you want to get done? Where do you want to go? What do you want to accomplish? Josh and Ira answer those questions for themselves, and we...
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2024 Retrospective (Cutting Room Floor #223)
Another year gone! 2024, we hardly knew thee... What will you remember this year for? What's going to come to mind when you think of 2024? What were the victories and the defeats? The adventures? The high points and the low points? Josh and Ira answer those questions for themselves, and invite…
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Elf
Buddy the Elf--what's your favorite color? Will Ferrel brings us a modern holiday classic as the man who was raised by elves up in the North Pole and has just found out he was adopted...so off he goes to meet his real father in the land of humans: New York City. It's Ferrel at his best, the fish...
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The Family Man
I've seen what we could be like together... Nicholas Cage has it all! The penthouse apartment, the eight-figure bank account, and all the solitude in the world. What else could a man want? Well, he's about to fin dout. A mysterious Don Cheadle plops him into the middle of what his life would have...
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North By Northwest Revisited (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #46)
You gentlemen aren't REALLY trying to kill my son, are you...? Might be Ira's favorite Hitchcock. It's the prototypical spy film, predates even James Bond, except that this spy is actually just a regular dude. Handsome Cary Grant, of course, but he's pulled into an international conspiracy…
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The Power Of Finished (Cutting Room Floor #222)
Finishing something can make a lot of things suddenly become clear. There are revelations about our work that can literally only be gained by seeing something through and marking it as "done" in our own heads. So...what have we learned, Josh and Ira, in finishing our own projects? We discuss.…
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Vertigo Revisited (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #45)
You shouldn't keep souvenirs of a killing... We're back to Vertigo! The last time we watched this one, it was late summer of 2021, deep in the AFI's Top 100 list. Top ten, in fact. Seems like an age ago, and yet, the movie took us right back there. It's still great, undeniably one of Hitch's...
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DVD Extras (Cutting Room Floor #221)
Josh calls DVD Extras his film school. The interviews, commentaries, documentaries, featurettes, and other bonus material has been as valuable in his filmmaker education as any class or study. We talk about the benefits of all this extra material around movie making that you might not be tapping...
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The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #44)
An innocent man has nothing to fear... Alfred is doing something new this time: he's telling a true story, every word of it, top to bottom. Henry Fonda plays Manny Balestrero, bass player at the famous Stork Club and father of two, just scraping by to support them. And then he's fingered for…
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Strangeness (Cutting Room Floor #220)
Harold Bloom defined 'strangeness' as a mark of originality that is endemic and absolutely required for any work of literary art to be considered a masterpiece or a classic. Dan Simmons goes further to define it as a quality in the writing or storytelling that indicates to us, the reader (or…
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The Man Who Knew Too Much (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #43)
A man... a statesman... is to be killed... Hitchcock does his one and only remake! Twenty+ years earlier, back in his British period, he did this story once before, under the exact same name! So...does he mix it up? Does he IMPROVE on the original? We watch and find out!
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Ghostbusters II
Let's suck in the guts, guys. We're the Ghostbusters... Bustin' still makes us feel good! The boys are back and saving New York yet again from the spookies. It's been five years, everyone has done a bit of going their separate ways, but there are shenanigans afoot. Ghosts need busting! Can they...
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Poltergeist
They're here... This movie is the perfect horror film for beginners; Spooky 101, if you will. It's not super violent, super scary, or super disturbing...but it DOES bring the noise. It IS scary, and unquestionably a horror movie that gets appropriate crazy by the end. It exists in that weird...
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Ghostbusters
Who you gonna call? It's hard to understate just how large of an impression this movie made on the kids who grew up in the 1980s (and 90s). This movie felt like it was EVERYONE'S favorite movie. Deadpanned Bill Murray, nerdy Harold Ramis, golden retriever Dan Akroyd, skeptical/wtf Ernie Banks,...
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Getting Older (Cutting Room Floor #219)
What's it liked to get older? As Josh and Ira dip their toes into 'middle age,' things start to change. You're not old yet, but you're not young anymore. Some things improve. Some things get worse. Ya boys talk about it. Enjoy! Also, Josh recommends Seinfeld which is currently on Netflix, and Ira...
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The Trouble With Harry (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #42)
I think, Captain Wiles, we're tangled up in a murder... Old Al is trying his hand again at a comedy. This time, its a country community with a dead body on their hands, and they don't want anyone to know about it. Hitch's comedies have been hit and miss so far. How does this one stack up? We…
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How Many Drafts? (Cutting Room Floor #218)
How many drafts is the right number of drafts??? Is it okay to write the thing once and then call it done? Or do we need to write and rewrite and edit and write some more and more and more? Or...is it something in between? Josh and Ira discuss what works for them! Also, Josh again recommends...
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To Catch A Thief (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #41)
The cat has a new kitten... Hitch and Grace Kelly team up again, this time with Cary Grant swapped in for Jimmy Stewart, and the vast, gorgeous French Riviera rather than a single, confined apartment. Grant plays a jewel thief being framed for a robbery he didn't actually commit, and Grace is the...
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How Much Of Greatness Is Up To The Muse? (Cutting Room Floor #217)
Back in Ira's DJing days, he put together literally hundreds of sets. An interesting pattern developed during that time: no matter how much his skill increased as he went (and it did), some sets just worked better than others. Some were great, others weren't, and no amount of skill could make a…
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Rear Window Revisited (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #40)
That's a secret, private world you're looking into out there... It's Hitchcock's first true classic. Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly star in one of the crime film concepts for the ages: a man is laid up with a broken leg and a view out his window into the apartment courtyards behind his...
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How To Use Feedback (Cutting Room Floor #216)
The feedback loop is at the heart of developing any skill. But, the vast majority of the work we do as storytellers is done alone. So, where and when do you open yourself up for other people to comment on? And once get that feedback, what do we DO with it? We discuss! Also, Josh recommends some…
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Dial M For Murder (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #39)
Do you really believe in the perfect murder...? Hitchcock certainly does! This time, it's a man who wants to knock off his cheating wife. Can he get away with it??? Or can the old school, meticulous, quiet Scotland Yard inspector see through it all and figure it out? We watch and find out :)
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Rhetoric (Cutting Room Floor #215)
Have you ever thought of your script, book, or film as a persuasive argument? It is. Drama quite literally arises from two (or several) characters with very different, very persuasive points of view clashing with each other. That's called rhetoric. And if our characters' rhetorical skill can only...
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I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #38)
I want to make a confession... Hitchcock has a nose for a character in a bind, and that's on full display with this one, where a priest takes confession from a murderer, then becomes the main suspect in that very same murder. Will he break his oath as a priest and tell the authorities the truth?…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Film School have?
Film School currently has 468 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Film School about?
A filmmaker and a writer tackle the AFI's Top 100 Films and beyond to educate themselves about movies and storytelling. Welcome to Film School!
How often does Film School release new episodes?
Film School publishes regularly with 468 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Film School?
You can listen to Film School on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Film School?
Film School is created and hosted by Ira Heinichen, Joshua McClenney.
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