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PODCAST

Random Acts of Cinema

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.

arts visual arts

All Episodes

01:17:16

LD335 - Shine (1996)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/10/12

Oh boy. Here's a blast from the not-so-nostalgic past. Geoffrey Rush plays piano virtuoso David Helfgott, in Scott Hick's most 90s biopic of all 90s biopics. Talent and determination are hindered by a domineering father and an unbridled ambition to be the best. But the resulting mental breakdown isn't enough to stop the spirit of a genius. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces (1970).

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01:21:04

440 - Brand Upon The Brain! (2006)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/10/05

Oh! The past! The past! Now we've done it. We've made mother cross. Imagine that sort of text and occasional narration over a feature length, black and white, largely-silent film comprised of quick cuts, sporadic sound effects, and haunting imagery. Guy Maddin's experimental film is about an adult Guy (Erik Steffen Maas) recalling his childhood (as young Guy, played by Sullivan Brown) on an island, where his domineering mother (Gretchen Krich) ran an orphanage where they extracted a

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01:09:31

233 - Stray Dog (1949)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/09/28

With Akira Kurosawa’s (ever heard of him?) seminal detective procedural, rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune - ever heard of him?) and worldly but hardly hard-bitten senior detective Sato (Takashi Shimura - ever heard of him?!) hunt through the post-war Tokyo underworld looking for a stolen handgun, hoping to stop an escalating murder-spree in the sweltering summer heat. Among the topics discussed: linen suits, cameras pointed at the sun, and it should be called Stray Dogs (with an “s”)

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01:18:20

LD024 - Young And Innocent (1937)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/09/21

We're running from the law again with our boy Hitch(cock). This time with an earlier film in his esteemed oeuvre as we join two equally young and equally innocent fugitives - Erica (Nova Pilbeam) and Robert (Derrick De Marney) - in a race to prove their...uh...youth and innocence. Anyway, it's a romantic and comedic romp through the English countryside. Witty, adorable, thrilling, tender, and, well, pretty racist it turns out (spoiler alert.) If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we

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01:29:56

210 - Winter Light (1963)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/09/14

We've been dancing around this subject long enough. And how could we not when the Criterion Collection is our subject of inquiry? But we've finally hit the nail on the head. We've got ourselves a 100% genuine mid-century Scandinavian crisis-of-faith movie. And by director Ingmar Bergman no less. A pastor named Tomas (played by perfect-pastor-haircut Gunnar Björnstrand) quietly and with tremendous reserve, runs amok through a small Swedish town, strewing existential crises in his wake. The local

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01:37:22

172 - Pépé Le Moko (1937)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/09/07

Our first Jean Gabin film! He plays the eponymous thief, clever and charming, hiding out in the maze-like Casbah of Algiers - a hive of scum and villainy if there ever was one under the direction of Julien Duvivier. Local and French police are helpless to smoke out Pépé and his merciless but loyal cohort until Gaby, a beautiful tourist tourist played by Mirielle Balin, catches his eye. Obsession and desperation slowly turn his sanctuary into a prison, and the lackadaisically acute Inspector

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01:12:34

698 - King of the Hill (1993)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/08/31

Steven Soderbergh really surprised us with this 1993 coming-of-age story set on the mean streets of 1930s St. Louis. Because we had never heard of it. Hard to believe that this nostalgia-bomb was missed by the two 90s kid hosts of this podcast. Based on the memoirs A. E. Hotchner, the film stars Jesse Bradford as Aaron, left to fend for himself against an onslaught of petty cops, bullies, bellboys, repo men, and so on as poverty and illness scattered his family during the Great Depression. A

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01:41:51

663 - Shoah (1985)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/08/24

Note: This episode’s discussion and the film we are discussing, explicitly recounts the brutal methods, unimaginable suffering, and lingering trauma of the Holocaust. Sensitive listeners may want to skip this one and join us next week. The hosts of Random Acts of Cinema shy away neither from films of exceptional length nor films with difficult subject matter. But the double impact of both in Claude Lanzmann’s Holocaust documentary Shoah would seem to really put our constitutions to the test. But

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01:16:55

333 - Fists in the Pocket (1965)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/08/17

Dissatisfied youth, repressed sexuality, and nihilism running rampant in the dysfunctional Italian family unit is the theme of the week on Random Acts of Cinema. Director Marco Bellocchio’s cruel, bitter little film about Alessandro (played by Lou Castel) thinning out the ranks of his crumbling family through self-obsessed cruelty and murder is punctuated by brilliant photography, powerful acting, and a frantic score by Ennio Morricone. If you would like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will

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01:23:33

066 - The Orphic Trilogy (1930, 1950, and 1959)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/08/10

With his nearly 30-years-in-the-making thematic trilogy, director/poet Jean Cocteau uses innovative film techniques and diverse strategies steeped in personal and classical mythology to consider the needs, methods, obstacles, and curse of the creative mind and the creative life. First with his groundbreaking The Blood of a Poet (1930), non-narrative sequencing and "not surrealist" (but totally surrealist) imagery presents a groundbreaking experimental film. Orpheus (1950) is a dreamy retelling of

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01:29:45

453 - Chungking Express (1994)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/08/03

We are joined by Michael Patrick Jann, film and television writer/director and member of The State to discuss his personal pick: Wong Kar-wai’s frenetic romantic masterpiece Chungking Express. Two stories, each with a lovesick cop (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung) and a self-possessed woman (Brigitte Lin and Faye Wong) navigating Hong Kong and exploring themes of love, heartbreak, street food, and obsession. Funny, adorable, charming, tender, and sexy - our protagonists pursue meaningful if

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01:28:34

1014 - Roma (2018)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/07/27

Alfonso Cuarón's drama-behind-the-drama has all of the trappings of a semi-autobiographical period piece. Meticulously recreated clothing, cars, furniture, street settings, and contemporaneous political turmoil are set largely in the eponymous neighborhood as a failing marriage takes its toll on a family. But of course the real protagonist is one of the maids, Cleo (played by Yalitza Aparicio) who faces her own obstacles of poverty, abandonment, unwanted pregnancy, and murderous rioters. Her

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01:14:00

1036 - The Big Boss (1971)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/07/20

In the promotional material for Lo Wei’s The Big Boss (also known by a few other film titles) break-out star Bruce Lee is seen flying through the air, shirt half-torn from his body, contorted into a now-iconic running jump kick, certain to be delivered to the face of some punk to glorious effect. But does the movie pay-off with this acrobatic feat of violence, as promised on the poster? Yeah: it does. Because Bruce Lee is a movie star. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be

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01:27:26

1007 - Until The End of the World (1991)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/07/13

It's a miracle I even made it out of Longwood alive. This town full of men with big mouths and no guts. I mean if you can just picture it: Wim Wenders made a nearly 5 hour long, globetrotting movie in 1991 predicting the technology, geopolitical concerns, and digital addictions of the 21st century with remarkable foresight. Solveig Dommartin heads up a luminous cast, redressed in 90s future noir, that makes use of gorgeous settings and beautiful photography to explore a magnetic woman's

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01:19:07

569 - The Makioka Sisters (1983)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/07/06

Director Kon Ichikawa's The Makioka Sisters, based on the book by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, catalogs the domestic dramas of the eponymous four women and their family circle in 1930s Japan. Matchmaking, marriage, and the juggling of suitors for the youngest two siblings become complicated by stubborn personalities, dwindling status in society, and the shame of past scandals. The demanding pressure of modernity and a changing Japan beleaguer the family into choices to either compromise or even abandoning

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01:23:46

165 - Man Bites Dog (1992) with Scott Sawitz

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/06/29

Content Disclaimer: This episode examines a film with extremely challenging subject matter. Exceptionally graphic depictions of violence, murder, racism, and brutal sexual assault are both celebrated and trivialized in Remy Belvaux's Man Bites Dog. Listeners who are sensitive to such content and the frank discussion of it are strongly encouraged not to listen to this episode. The hosts disliked the film and disliked talking about the film. Nevertheless, Man Bites Dog is a documentary-style film

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01:09:50

2nd Annual Rando Awards

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/06/22

After months of campaigning and hype, constant drama and re-selection of the hosts, and hours of red carpet interviews, it’s finally happening. Looking back of the year of randomly chosen (and a few guest-selected) films we select and discuss the best of the arbitrary best. Who goes home with their hearts and career-hopes crushed? And who walks away with the most coveted award for excellence for their work in a film? The Randy Award. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be

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01:29:44

1034 - Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) with Briana...

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/06/15

We are joined this week by the hosts of the podcast Chapter One: Take Two - Briana McZant and Maddy McZant - to look deep into the eyes of Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. This one has it all: portraits of ladies, ladies on fire, portraits of ladies on fire, portraits of ladies that are literally on fire, and even a painting titled Portrait of a Lady on Fire that really isn’t a portrait of a lady on fire. And I’m not just being flip; this movie dives headfirst, with puzzle box

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01:17:17

565 - The Great Dictator (1940) with Kevin Allison of...

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/06/08

This week we are joined by special-guest Kevin Allison (of Risk! The Podcast and The State) to talk about a powerful and hilarious film: Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. So, you know when fed-up people call fascists on their practices and they respond by saying they aren’t “technically” fascists? So then they are pressured to walk back their language a little bit and the criticism gets all muddied on a point of semantics based on strict political definitions? Like when a leader who clearly

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01:21:40

1000 - Son of Godzilla (1967) with Angie

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2020/06/01

Following the random selection and then explicit demand of AJ from the Cult Popture podcast, we’re dipping back into the Showa-era Godzilla films, with Jun Fukuda’s Son of Godzilla. We’re joined by longtime friend and Godzilla-expert Angie to help us make sense of this eighth(!) entry into the franchise. This time, there’s a baby Godzilla, a remote weather experiment station on a pacific island, a lady who has been hiding in a cave for some reason, and zero stakes. So it’s a pretty distant echo

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