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PODCAST

Flicks with The Film Snob

Flicks with The Film Snob features a weekly film review focused on new independent releases and old classics. Chris Dashiell knows film, and he knows enough to know what’s worth watching and why. Produced in Tucson Arizona at KXCI Community Radio.

tv & film visual arts

All Episodes

00:03:31

No Bears

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/05/26

The dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi blurs the line between fact and fiction in his film about a village near the country’s border with Turkey. In 2010, the Iranian government ruled that the director Jafar Panahi wouldn’t be allowed to make any more films. Now, even during periods of house arrest, Panahi has managed to cleverly get around the restrictions to continue making movies. His most recent film is called No Bears (the title is a joke that I won’t spoil), and it

00:02:57

M. Hulot’s Holiday

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/05/17

The best introduction to the comedy of Jacques Tati is this 1953 film about an eccentric vacationer, M. Hulot, and his bizarre interactions with other guests at a seaside hotel. If I had to pick one filmmaker who was probably an alien from outer space, it would be Jacques Tati. In his movies, people are viewed as the most awkward and absurd creatures imaginable, like weird puppets that are made to dance in arcane, goofy social rituals. The humor is drier than dry—you are just as

00:03:20

Tori and Lokita

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/05/10

Two young undocumented immigrants from Africa struggle to get by in Belgium, exploited at every turn, and with only each other for support. The Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, are Belgian filmmakers who’ve been making movies for 45 years. What makes their work distinct is the focus on ordinary, working and middle class characters facing ethical and other dilemmas that reflect problems people are having in the modern world. There is typically no musical score in a

00:03:21

The Blue Angel

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/05/03

Josef von Sternberg’s groundbreaking 1930 film showcases the conflict between social respectability and the temptations of sensuality in Weimar Germany. After failing to achieve much box office success in Hollywood, the Vienna-born director Josef von Sternberg went to Germany on the invitation of the famous actor Emil Jannings, with whom he had previously worked, to make a film from Heinrich Mann’s popular novel Professor Unrath. The result, released in 1930, was The Blue

00:03:33

The Inspection

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/04/27

Elegance Bratton’s autobiographical film dramatizes what it was like to be a gay Marine during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” A young black man is rejected by his religious mother when she finds out he’s gay. She kicks him out, and he ends up homeless and living in shelters and on the streets. But then—he joins the Marines. That’s the story of The Inspection, the debut feature film written and directed by Elegance Bratton. And it’s all based closely on Bratton’s own story. Proof that

00:02:56

Seven Samurai

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/04/16

Kurosawa’s 1954 epic adventure is a profound cinematic experience. There’s a sports metaphor I’ve heard used, in basketball mostly, when they say that a player is “in a zone.” Every shot seems to go in; whenever they touch the ball, something good happens. Well, there are some rare cases when I think a filmmaker gets into a zone, and everything the director tries seems to work and to further the artistic purpose of the picture. The result is what we usually would call a “great

00:03:25

Hold Me Tight

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/04/12

Vicky Krieps shines in her latest role, as a wife and mother who abandons her family for mysterious reasons. There’s a mystery at the heart of Hold Me Tight, the latest film from French director Mathieu Almaric, adapted by him from a play by Claudine Galéa. The story opens with Clarisse, a wife and mother played by Vicky Krieps, playing some kind of card game with a deck of Polaroid photos spread out on her bed. Then she goes to her children’s bedroom and looks at her two

00:02:46

The Quiet Girl

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/04/05

A 9-year-old girl is sent away from her abusive family to live with an older couple, who try to break through her fear and silence to let some love in. The Quiet Girl, from Irish director Colm Bairéad, is a quiet movie. It’s the story of Cáit, a nine-year-old Irish girl played by Catherine Clinch, who is painfully shy and withdrawn, only speaking when she’s spoken to. So quiet is she that other kids think she’s weird, and when they laugh at her she sometimes wets herself, which

00:03:33

Eo

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/03/29

The life story of a donkey, and his experiences under different human owners, is depicted to expand our ideas of what subjective life is to include animal life. Humility and innocence are difficult to portray well in fiction or drama. The imperfection of human beings means that artists will more readily create believable bad characters than good ones. But in our hearts we believe in the good, most of us, and in that way animals may come to symbolize for us our intuitions about

00:03:30

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/03/26

The story of the radical art photographer Nan Goldin, and how she led a movement against the Sackler family, the billionaires who pushed OxyContin. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. That’s the title of the new movie by Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras. It starts with a basic framing story, a story of activism. We see Nan Goldin, one of the more famous American art photographers, spearheading a campaign against the Sacklers, a billionaire family that owns Purdue

00:03:26

Women Talking

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/03/21

A mass incident of abuse by men in a religious community causes the women in that community to gather and talk, so they can decide what to do about it. Sarah Polley is a Canadian filmmaker, an actress who eventually moved behind the camera to direct. Her work includes four excellent feature films. And I think the best one is her latest, an intense feminist drama called Women Talking. In a rural religious community, where people wear old-fashioned clothes and travel by horse and

00:03:25

A Time of Return: A Film Snob’s Favorites of 2022

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/03/09

Chris Dashiell talks about his favorite films from the previous year. Every year it’s my difficult task to list my favorite films of the past year. And I’m always late, because it takes a couple months for me to catch up. 2022 was a fantastic year for movies, although I still take note of them within the blurry outlines of the pandemic, going back a couple of years. If we must have a theme, for me it’s surviving and emerging from the past into new awareness. Aftersun (Charlotte

00:03:31

Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/03/02

The latest magical realist epic from Alejandro G. Iñárritu portrays the inner life of a Mexican filmmaker, and the struggles he must go through for his art and his country. Alejandro G. Iñárritu doesn’t do anything by half measures. After conquering Hollywood and coming away with two Oscars, he has now made a film closer to his heart, an introspective portrait of the artist’s world, private and public, and about his home, Mexico. But because it’s Iñárritu, it’s also an

00:03:22

Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/02/27

A documentary about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre not only explains the full story of the shameful attack on the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa that destroyed a prosperous Black community, but details the complex and inspiring history of African Americans in Oklahoma. In 2021, when for some time we’d been in the habit, as a culture, of looking back at historical milestones, a major event from 100 years earlier was publicly recalled and commented upon—an event that did not

00:03:32

Triangle of Sadness

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/02/15

Ruben Östlund’s satire on the ruling class takes us on a luxury cruise headed for disaster. Satire is hard to do well. But Swedish director Ruben Östlund has proven to be a deft practitioner of the satiric art. His breakthrough fifth feature, 2014’s Force Majeure, poked fun at modern middle class illusions concerning masculinity and the family. The Square, from 2017, took aim at modern art and its uncomfortable relationship to politics. Now he’s broadened his range to satirize

00:03:21

The Whale

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/02/08

Brendan Fraser plays a morbidly obese teacher who is facing imminent death while trying to reconcile with his angry teenage daughter. For those who might not appreciate nuance, The Whale could seem like a misleading title. Charlie, the main character played by Brendan Fraser, is a morbidly obese English teacher living in a small house in Idaho, confined both by his enormous size and his deteriorating health. His friend and nurse, Liz, has told him that he has congestive heart

00:03:31

M

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/02/01

Fritz Lang’s 1931 crime picture remains one of the greatest depictions of social rot ever put on film. Once in awhile I get asked what are my favorite films, or my top ten greatest movies, and so forth. My lists have changed over time, but there are certain films that have always been on it. One of these has an unusual title, and I often get puzzled looks because people aren’t familiar with it. From Germany in 1931, directed by Fritz Lang, its title consists of just one letter:

00:03:31

The Banshees of Inisherin

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/01/25

Martin McDonagh returns to Ireland for this tale of contagious madness between two friends falling out. Martin McDonagh made his name as a playwright, with dramas set largely in rural west Ireland and featuring his own special brand of dark humor. The isolation and peculiar habits of his characters throw light on the conflicts and absurdities that motivate people to do crazy and destructive things. In the 2000s he started directing movies, and now his latest film returns to

00:03:30

Flee / Identifying Features

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/01/15

Two films examine the plight of migrants, the first about seeking asylum, the second about the danger of going missing or getting killed. Ours is an age of migrants, those martyred by the legal fictions we call borders. Two recent films explore this persistent, troubling experience. Flee is from a very small genre, that of an animated documentary for adults. It presents the true account of an Afghan man, named Amin for the purposes of the film, whose family escaped from their

00:03:32

It’s a Wonderful Life

Flicks with The Film Snob ·

2023/01/11

Frank Capra’s parable about goodness versus the tyranny of profit bombed on its original release, but then gradually gained classic status with later audiences. Among the handful of older films that are generally considered classic Christmas movies, It’s a Wonderful Life is quite different. Yes, the last fourth or so of the movie takes place during Christmas, and there’s a Christmas tree and some Christmas music, but other than that, the holiday is not an explicit theme of the

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