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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

01:12:08

594/1000 - Godzilla (1954)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/11/04

To celebrate the Collection’s 1000th spine number, we’re reviewing the film that started the kaiju-craze of the 20th century: Ishiro Honda’s 1954 masterpiece Godzilla. Because we’re SOOO clever, we get into the film as a response to fears in the atomic age, but mostly we try to contend with the surprising fact that the movie is genuinely very very good. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Nicolas Roeg’s Insignificance (1985).

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01:00:38

964 - The Kid Brother (1927)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/10/28

With our first random foray into the silent era, Harold Loyld’s comic romance The Kid Brother - officially helmed by director Ted Wilde - has a plot. It’s fine. Charming enough. But really it’s platform to string together a series of brilliant physical comedy set pieces that the lead actor stumbles, flails, and seemingly improvises his way through. Farm hijinks, pranks on bullies, a chase/fight for his life on a derelict boat, and tree climbing highlight the chain of events and showcase Loyld’s

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49:48

366 - The Atomic Submarine (1959)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/10/21

The first true B-movie entry into our randomized journey through the Criterion Collection starts with a mushroom cloud of a bang. Spencer Gordon Bennett’s The Atomic Submarine (1959) follows the intrepid crew of the US Navy Submarine Tiger Shark as it sails to the North Pole to hunt down a mysterious extra-terrestrial threat. That’s right: it’s U.F.O.’s underwater! Is this film classic schlock, a long-hidden treasure, or something more sinister and... unnatural? If you’d like to watch ahead for

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01:11:04

095 - All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/10/14

We follow up last week’s selection with one of the Hollywood classics that inspired it. Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows melodrama challenges conservative America’s expectations of age, class, and femininity as it follows an unconventional romance set against a backdrop of a quaint New England community. Lauded as one of the paragon’s of the so-called “women’s films” of mid-century studio pictures, Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson portray the star-crossed lovers that must navigate the obstacles of

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01:10:10

995 - Polyester (1981)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/10/07

Holding onto the dream of bourgeois America has never seemed so impossible, stupid, crass, and funny as in Jon Waters’ Polyester (1981). Divine heads up a cast of Waters-regulars and boorish newcomers to tell the story of the dissolution of Francine Fishpaw’s family as it succumbs to adulatory, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, drug addiction, hooliganism, murder, and a lot of real-world smells thanks to the scratch-and-sniff gimmick of Odorama. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we

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01:06:38

535 - Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/09/30

Bowie! Sakamoto! Obsession! Uh, POW camp! And...war atrocities!? Torture? Ritual suicide? A subtle exploration of the despondency of an officer in charge of a prison camp facing the different cultural interpretations of the honor of surrendering while simultaneously tormented by his absence at the coup d'etat and subsequent executions of his comrades during the February 26 incident of 1939? Why, that can only mean that we are watching Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawerence! If you'd like to

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01:07:08

776 - Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/09/23

Stylistic pastiche. Symmetrical framing. Murray. Schwartzman. 1960s-centric jukebox soundtrack. It looks like this must be our first Wes Anderson movie. A tale of young love set against scouting, parents in a failing marriage, a lovelorn “cop”, and an oncoming storm of the century combine to either charm or annoy Mike and Charlie. But which is it? If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawerence (1983).

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56:07

315 - Shoot The Piano Player (1960)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/09/16

We're back into The Collection with another heavy-hitter. And it's our first foray into the French New Wave film's of Francois Truffaut. Paris! Kidnapping! Murder! Secret identities! Flashbacks! Shoot-outs in the snow! Oddly-subtitled novelty songs! Does this movie really have it all?! If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be discussing and reviewing Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012).

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01:13:00

1st Rando Awards

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/09/09

Is the 11th episode the right time for a podcast retrospective? It is if you need to hand out a bunch of prestigious Randies, the official awards of the Random Acts of Cinema podcast. Come join us as we put order to all of the randomness by deciding which of the first 10 films we’ve watched are the best of the best by category. If you’d like to listen ahead for next week’s review, we’ll be watching Francois Truffaut’s Shoot The Piano Player (1960).

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01:17:08

136 - Spellbound (1945)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/09/02

Hitchock. Bergman. Peck. And...Salvador Dali? Sounds about right. Let’s see whether or not using psychoanalysis and the combined dream-logic of cinema and surrealist art as devices to advance the plot of a thriller actually works. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, well, we won’t be watching one. Instead, we are going to be hosting the first Rando Awards of 2019. We will be revisiting the first 10 films that we've watched so far and will be handing out prestigious Randies for

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01:01:55

558 - Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/08/26

In our first break from format we’re following up last week’s movie - The Mikado (1939) - with a film exploring the men behind that comic opera: Gilbert and Sullivan. At first, Mike Leigh’s historical drama does some work to explain the circumstances that led to setting The Mikado in imperial Japan, and the second seeks to humanize that choice my exploring the efforts and daily dramas of the entire production leading up to its premiere in 1885. Does Topsy-Turvy justify The Mikado for a post-modern

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59:26

559 - The Mikado (1939)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/08/19

Imagine it’s 1939. The world stands at the precipice of war. So why not make a film adaptation of a classic English comic opera set in Imperial Japan, but all of the character and place names are silly baby-talk? And this reliance of nonsense serves as a stand-in for “foreign” which is contrasted against a view of Japanese culture as arbitrarily cruel and hidebound to antiquated and contradictory social propriety? Except it’s not really about Japan, it’s actually just using tactless cultural

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46:53

767 - My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/08/12

This random number generator selection process that we’re using seems to be doing the trick. For what better way to follow up a 1960s Czech medieval drama than a 1980s British coming-of-age comic drama? Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette is just what we needed. Th-Th-Th-Th-Thatcher. If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we will be reviewing and discussing Victor Shertzinger’s The Mikado (1939).

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59:31

661 - Marketa Lazarova (1967)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/08/05

Now we’re getting into it. This is the real deep-level Criterion Collection stuff here. Legendary - but largely unknown in the U.S. - all-time Czech historic cinema: František Vláčil's 1967 medieval epic Marketa Lazarova. Feuding clans must contend with themselves, the Holy Roman Empire, and the occasional mad Christian preacher. Have we found our first hidden gem, or is this the first sign that we’ve doomed ourselves to 899 or so perplexing art films of questionably-earned reputations? If you'd

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01:13:05

446 - An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/07/29

This is the second of two iconic Japanese filmmakers in a row. Last week we went big with Kurosawa so that can only mean Yasujiro Ozu is next. His Autumn Afternoon of 1962 brings us into the gentlest of domestic dramas. But can it possibly be... too gentle? If you'd like to watch ahead fro next week's film, we'll be reviewing and discussing František Vláčil's Marketa Lazarova (1967).

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01:01:11

138 - Rashomon (1950)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/07/22

This is a big one. If we were to compile our top 10 most “classic” Criterion titles, this film would be somewhere on that list. Probably. At least that’s what we are going to find out for sure in this weeks review of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon of 1950. Our first foray into Japanese cinema! If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s films, we’ll be reviewing and discussing Yasujiro Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon (1962).

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01:06:01

350 - Seduced And Abandoned (1964)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/07/15

What’s the perfect follow-up to a gritty tale of crime in 1981 Chicago? Why, it could only be a 1964 Italian social satire of love, family, Sicilian customs, and the law! Pietro Germi’s Seduced and Abandoned introduces us to our first Criterion comedy. Linen suits and dolly zooms! If you’d like to watch ahead for next week’s film, we’ll be reviewing and discussing Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950).

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52:25

691 - Thief (1981)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/07/08

We jump forward 26 years to go on a caper with Michael Mann's Thief of 1981. It's got everything: perpetually wet city streets, magic hour danish, and an entirely non-comedic performance by Jim Belushi (some things never change...zing!)

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53:34

213 - Richard III (1955)

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/07/01

We're off to a truly grand start of our self-determined but entirely aimless journey through the Criterion Collection with Sir Laurence Olivier's 1955 filmed adaptation of William Shakespeare's Richard III. Come for the acting, but stay for the hats! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we'll be reviewing and discussing Michael Mann's Thief (1981).

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29:33

000 - Introduction & The Premise

Random Acts of Cinema ·

2019/06/27

Quiet on the set! Before we start watching movies, come an meet your hosts: Mike and Charlie. We lay out the structure and rules of the podcast, discuss why we wanted to do this in the first place, and select our first film. Tune in next week for our inaugural review of Lawrence Olivier’s Richard III (1955).

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