The Movie Homework Podcast
It’s once again time for the Movie Homework Podcast! We’ve both been busy watching movies this week! Mariam talks about the 1951 Russian film The Cranes are Flying and the Louise Brooks classic The Diary of a Lost Girl. Meanwhile Ari’s been slumming it, both in good and bad ways, with the musical Rent and the recent Guy Pearce action movie Lock Out. He also caught up with another film from 1951, the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The first piece of homework this week was Ari’s pick; The Limey from director Steven Soderbergh. The 1999 film follows Terrence Stamp as Wilson, a man who arrives in Los Angeles to find out what happened to his daughter who apparently died in a car crash, but he suspects that her record-producer boyfriend Terry Valentine, played by Peter Fonda had something to do with her death.
Mariam’s pick this week is the classic Luis Buñuel film Belle de Jour. It stars Cathernie Denuve as a bourgeois wife of a doctor who decides to start working in a brothel. Ari had never seen it, and had some preconceived notions about it, but were they true?
We then close the show by discussing what we’re watching next week, in our special Christmas themed episode. You can of course send us an email, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and review and subscribe to the show in iTunes.
Welcome to an insane and troubled episode of the Movie Homework Podcast! We kick things off by hearing about the film La cagna which is titled Liza in English, which is a bit of a misnomer since it translates directly to The Bitch. It tells the story of a relationship between Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Denuve, which gets increasingly strange after Denuve kills Mastroianni’s dog. So basically it sounds nuts. Ari hasn’t watched anything non-Homework related this week, but he has some news about Locarno to share… some news which makes Mariam very excited.
The first piece of homework this week is Mariam’s pick, Roman Polanski’s 1965 classic Repulsion. It tells the story of a young woman, played by Catherine Denuve who becomes more and more isolated from the outside world and slowly loses her grasp on what is real and what is a figment of her mind slowly going insane.
Ari’s pick also deals extensively with insanity. Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter tells the story of a man called Curtis, played by Michael Shannon, who keeps getting visions of an storm and he’s not quite sure whether or not he’s slowly losing his mind or getting signs about a coming apocalypse. It also deals heavily with the impact it has on his marriage to Jessica Chastain and his family life. So what do these two films, which both deal with protagonists that are losing their minds, have in common and where do they differ?
As always we close things of by discussing our next episode, which will differ slightly from our usual formula! Don’t forget you can send us an email, write to us and like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. If you like the show it would be great if you could review it in iTunes or share it on your social network platforms! Subscribe to it in iTunes or whatever podcatcher you choose to use!
