Random Acts of Cinema

Her beauty brought powerful men down to their knees.  Her freedom brought down nations.  But how long can a woman flaunt the proprieties of Victorian Europe before she herself becomes a morality tale for the age?  Max Ophüls' lavish biopic of legendary dancer, mistress, and all-together provocative personality struggles with these very ideals... in gorgeous Cinemascope! *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 Pedro Almodóvar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990).

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).