Random Acts of Cinema
by Mike Noyes and Charles Peterson
Each week friends Mike and Charlie have Randy (the random number generator) select a film for them to watch from the Criterion Collection. Then they discuss and review it for your listening pleasure. It's a podcast about the love of film, expanding horizons, painstakingly cataloging the duration of every long take, and friendship.
Episodes
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957 - Mikey and Nicky (1976)
Elaine May steps into the grungy streets of 70s crime drama, bringing along John Cassavetes and Peter Falk at their most bitter and unhinged. A hidden gem? *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!...
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1089 - After Life (1998)
Can you still call a film a Defending Your Life-situation if it doesn't involve Albert Brooks? This and more is debated on this week's episode covering Hirokazu Kore-Eda's imagined limbo, where slightly-sullen social workers/indie filmmakers help to transition their deceased clients into…
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145 - The Firemen's Ball (1967)
Granted: the headline is the secret-not-secret anti-establishment themes cleverly-not-cleverly baked into a Czech new wave film made with state money while under communist control. But what if it's also just really really funny? Milos Forman's break-out film (that almost got him arrested) follows...
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495 - Bang the Drum Slowly - The Golden Age of TV (1956)
Paul Newman plays a literary baseball player who is the reluctant friend of a dying catcher. And he doesn't like paying taxes. And it's in a live made for tv movie from the 50s that was collected and presented by a PBS affiliate in the 80s before it was given the Criterion treatment. And it's…
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722 - Tie Me Up! You Me Down! (1990)
Pedro Almodóvar returns to the podcast for his final (for now?) directorial entree (that we've reviewed) to the Criterion Collection. Is his foray into psycho-thriller a welcome maneuver away from his female cast-led, queer-gaze, sexy, soapy, campy, farcical roots? Or… did he somehow just manage…
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376 - Great Expectations (1946)
A sumptuous period piece directed by David Lean and featuring noted star of stage and screen Alec Guinness? That must mean... Dickens? This is, apparently, one of the most beloved British films ever made. Well, let us be the judge! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a...
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503 Lola Montès (1955)
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...
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901 - The Philadelphia Story (1940)
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...
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97 - Do The Right Thing (1989)
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...
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322 - The Complete Mr. Arkadin (1955)
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...
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415 - The Naked Prey (1965)
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…
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614 - Summer with Monika (1953)
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…
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288 - F is for Fake (1973)
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...
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The 8th Annual Rando Awards
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…
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112 - Playtime (1967)
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...
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239 - The Lower Depths (1936) and The Lower Depths (1957)
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...
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LD154 - Blackmail (1929)
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...
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779 - Blind Chance (1987)
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...
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1 - The Grand Illusion (1937)
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...
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99 - Gimme Shelter (1970)
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:...
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52 - Yojimbo (1961)
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...
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LD366 - Boogie Nights (1997)
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…
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490 - Wings of Desire (1987)
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...
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861 - 45 Years (2015)
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,...
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711 - A Hard Day's Night (1964)
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...
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1202 - Lone Star (1996)
This is not your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate's neo-noir western. This is John Sayle's interrogating generational legacies of racism, corruption, compromise, and passion in a south Texas border town. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random...
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1197 - The Young Master (1980)
Come listen to two woodworkers talk about this one guy who specializes in wooden bench-style kung fu. Oh, and Jackie Chan is in it also. I guess he directs it too. But let's get back to this bench… *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store....
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592 - Underworld (1927)
"Once a lawyer, always a drunkard, and now looking like 2010s David Bowie." So says newly-minted gangster "Rolls Royce" Wensel describing himself to the POSSIBLY love of his life, the daring thief "Bull" Weed. And it turns out that this, the first American gangster movie (yay!), was also a love...
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1306 - A Weekend In The Country (1996)
A classic Bergman film. Well, a classic Martin Bergman film. About Temecula. Where your favorite podcast hosts first met. Anyway… two neurotic New Yorkers - with ulterior motives - take on a couple of quick gigs in the wine country of (southern) California. Perhaps romance is in the air for this...
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1230 - Not A Pretty Picture (1975)
Content warning: This episode addresses a film that explicitly addresses issues related to and depicts the actions of violent sexual assault. Director Martha Coolidge blends drama and documentary in an unflinching consideration of her rape as a younger woman. Ostensibly a dramatic recreation of…
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1282 - The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021)
Who's ready for an anthology movie about mostly Americans in France writing about mostly not Americans in France for an imagined audience of mostly Americans in America? And sometimes everyone speaks French. But mostly they don't. Wes Anderson works with his ever-growing company of…
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23 - Robocop (1987)
Dead or alive, you're listening to me. Paul Verhoeven somehow achieves both badass copaganda action movie and cutting satire of American violence, consumerism, corporate greed, and bad TV. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store. T-shirts,...
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268 - Youth of the Beast (1963)
Seijun Suzuki dreams up yet another ever-so-slightly-surreal Yakuza picture. Thank god. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store. T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be...
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1186 - The Tall T (1957)
That Pat Brennan… what a man! Come listen to us face an ethical quandary when we stumble upon a real treasure of a western, that is still undeniably a 1950s western. What am I talking about? Let's just say that it can be summed up in two words: Henry Silva. *Come support the podcast and get...
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1264 - The Wiz (1978)
The more you learn about this movie, the more clear it becomes that what you'd think to be the good parts are the bad parts, and that the bad parts are really the good parts. Making movies is hard. Sidney Lumet directs a visually stunning reimagining of the Wizard of Oz and then some other stuff…
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741 - My Winnipeg (2007)
We know y'all are some nasty freaks out there who have been waiting a long time for this one to drop. Guy Madden comes back with an irreverently cinematic fake/real/fake documentary about his home town of Winnipeg. It's black and white, it's out of focus, the cuts are fast and many. It's...
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19 - Shock Corridor (1963)
Samuel Fuller turns a critical eye on the state of mental health treatment in the United States to, uh… well, not really. Mostly he just uses a stage theater's idea of a mental hospital as a narrative device for exploring three major American anxieties in the 1960s. Want to complain about nukes?...
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752 - Vernon, Florida (1981)
Documentarian of the ages Errol Morris turns his gentle eye toward the old fellers of a small town in Florida and just sort of lets them do their thing. Talking about gobblers, wigglers, growing sand, ambidexterity, fake (or maybe real) jewels, seeing the perfection of God in nature, and the...
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LD99 - Burn! (1969)
Gillo Pontecorvo directs a cast of unknowns in his big swing on the historical action/drama about a British agent sent to use all of his cynical wile to foment a slave revolt on Portuguese colony island. Keep careful eye out for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo by Marlon Brando at his understated...
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498 - Paisan - War Trilogy (1946)
Roberto Rossellini travels length of the Italian peninsula in the immediate aftermath of WWII to share 6 stories about the lives of Italian civilians and partisans and their relationships with foreign Allied troops. Love, tragedy, heroism, and sacrifice result from the difficulties of…
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469 - The Hit (1984)
What does it mean to die? What does it mean to truly live… on a road trip across Spain with Terence Stamp, John Hurt, and Tim Roth in a giant white Mercedes Benz? Director Stephen Frears grabbles with these enduring questions in his sun-soaked take-down of the neo noir. Ten Years after snitching…
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1048 - Dos Monjes (1934)
One, two monks kneel before you That's what I said now Monks, monks who adore you Just go ahead now One has diamonds in his pockets And that's some bread now This one says he has tuberculosis It's in his lungs now… Juan Bustillo Oro takes us on a Rashomon-esque journey into nightmarish memory in...
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326 - Metropolitan (1990)
Finally, a movie comes along with the guts to ask the question: can you be a Fourierist AND a Vebleninian at the same time? Explore this question and more at the Manhattan debutante ball season after parties of Whit Stillman's career defining entrée about class, love, and pretentious discussion...
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575 - The Killing (1956)
Kubrick is on the podcast! Or at least one of his films was finally randomly selected for the first time. And he gives us a self-produced, time-zagging, bracingly-funny, bloody, homage-satire of hard-boiled noir. *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our...
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1000 - Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
We return once more to the Godzilla Showa-era films with Jun Fukuda's 1974 introduction of some kind of a… Robo-Godzilla! I think that's what they call it. And some aliens. Oh, and there's a new surprise secret monster called King Caesar also. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here!...
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92 - Fiend Without A Face (1958)
Director Arthur Crabtree delves into the late 1950's world of atomic, Cold War, body-snatching paranoia except that he kind of… doesn't? Honestly this Canada-set, B-movie, Sci-fi, creature flick feels more like a proto-Cronenberg film where it really counts. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord...
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340 - Koko: A Talking Gorilla (1978)
Researchers at Stanford University conducted a decades-long experiment wherein Koko, a female gorilla, was taught American Sign Language. The findings and the ethics of this experiment were then (and remain today) controversial. Director Barbet Schroeder captures intimate footage of Koko…
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904 - Election (1999)
American masculinity is fully skewered. Finally. Actually, I guess everyone is skewered is Alexander Payne's black-hearted comedy about a Midwest American high School student… election. Opinions are divided on this one. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast...
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147 - In The Mood For Love (2002)
Wong Kar Wai brings us - way back - to lovelorn Hong Kong. Upon discovering that their spouses are having an affair with with one another, two neighbors strike up a sad acquaintance that soon blossoms into an unrequited affair of their own. Of course, this makes no sense because who would ever...
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LD59 - The Wizard of Oz (1939)
I don't think we're in the standard spine numbers anymore, Toto… Because we're returning to the Laser Disc collection with this all-timer. Are we doing this in honor of the upcoming release of the second Wicked movie? No. No we are not. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come...
About this show
Each week friends Mike and Charlie have Randy (the random number generator) select a film for them to watch from the Criterion Collection. Then they discuss and review it for your listening pleasure. It's a podcast about the love of film, expanding horizons, painstakingly cataloging the duration of every long take, and friendship.
Hosted by
Mike Noyes and Charles Peterson