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Reel 22: Southern Stories
Typically, when a film is set in a southern state, we get a lot of rednecks and yahoos behaving badly. That’s not to say that there isn’t any bad behavior in the films reviewed in this episode, but it’s not the focus of the films. In fact, both Dazed and Confused (1993) and Ruby in…
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Reel 21: Ex-Spies
While this is a truly overstuffed episode, it’s worth it just to hear Sean connect all the dots with regard to various people’s Hollywood careers and how they relate to one another. In today’s episode we look at the lives of spies after they’re done being government employees. Our first film is 1998’s Ronin, directed…
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Reel 20: Depression Comedies
We’ve heard any number of film scholars suggest that the films of the Depression Era were meant to be escapist entertainment, and that’s why screwball comedies and lavish musicals really took off during that period. People were having miserable lives, and for a couple of hours they could get away from all that. 1941’s Sullivan’s…
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Reel 19: War is Absurd
Sean went to Boston to visit family. I went to Nashville for a podcasting conference. He and I have had a hectic couple of weeks. But we’re back and better than ever, baby, as we take on a pair of comedies that outline just how insane war can be. Our first entry is 1933’s Duck…
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Reel 18: It’s How You Play the Game
This episode nearly didn’t make it to you, several times. The universe may have been conspiring against us. And that’s a shame because this is one over-stuffed show. In this episode we take on 1988’s Bull Durham, written and directed by Ron Shelton. Shelton’s experience as a ballplayer shows in the minute details he presents…
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Reel 17: Foreign Exchange, Part 4
Sean and Claude close out their series on foreign films and their English-language remakes with this look at another Akira Kurosawa movie, Yojimbo (1961), and its English remake, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), directed by Sergio Leone. It’s pretty clear that Kurosawa has grown since 1954’s Seven Samurai, and we talk a little more about…









