Podcast: West Side Story, The Tender Bar, Don't Look Up... and Faye Dunaway?

Nick and Nathaniel reunion finale (part 3 of 3). Dear readers we hope you've enjoyed this epic talk between your host here and the long lost Nick Davis. Here's the final part in which we talk more 2021 movies plus a discussion of Gena Rowlands and Faye Dunaway due to the new class Nick is teaching.

 

78 minutes
00:01 Lana Wachowski going full meta in Matrix Resurrections
10:15 Nick's trouble with Leos Carax's Annette  (with some Pola X history)
17:50 Tony Kushner's reworking of West Side Story and its redux performances. Plus a bit of In the Heights thrown in for reasons Nathaniel objects to
32:00 France's Petite Maman  and Austria's Great Freedom 
39:30 Adam McKay's Don't Look Up and its limitations as well as the harsh critical response
47:00 An extremely odd double feature: Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and George Clooney's The Tender Bar 
          BIG ACTRESSEXUAL FINISH
1:01:06 Nick is teaching a class called "Female Performance in Modern Hollywood" so we discuss our favourite Faye Dunaway and Gena Rowlands performances (with very brief asides to several other post-Method actresses)

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify or download the attachment below. If you missed our previous recent discussion covering a full dozen 2021 movies, that's here. 

West Side Tender Bar with Faye

Sundance: Don't Tell #MeToo This Babysitter's Dead

 by Jason Adams

Have you checked on a straight person today? I don't think the straights are doing okay, at least not judging by Babysitter, a Hashtag Me Too themed Quebecois comedy premiering this weekend at Sundance. Dubbed "screwball surrealism" by the filmmakers, which includes leading actress Monia Chokri (who you should recognize from her work with Xavier Dolan) in the director's chair, this movie plays like somebody stuffed a classic French farce into a blender, right down to the wee-wee maid's uniform. It is a lot, too much, and not enough all at once. Tres exhausting!

It all begins with a drunken boys night out at a boxing match. Or at least I think it does...

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Sundance: The quandaries of 'Framing Agnes'

by Cláudio Alves

In the running time discourse, I'm firmly in the pro-long films camp, believing that a short duration is in no way indicative of cinematic discipline. Even so, it's easy to understand where people like Nathaniel come from. Everyone has seen some messy movie and came out thinking it could have been stronger if a dozen or so minutes had stayed on the cutting room floor. That being said, the reverse can happen when a project has great potential but kneecaps itself by being too brief, unable to develop its ideas. Chase Joynt's Framing Agnes is one such effort, full of fascinating information and captivating thoughts, not to mention good intentions. Unfortunately, at 75 minutes, this documentary flies by without time to explore any of its ideas with adequate depth…

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Sundance Review: A Hostage Situation in ‘892’

By Abe Friedtanzer

Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Chris Witt.It’s probably not the best time to be premiering a drama involving a man walking into a building and taking hostages in the wake of what happened at a Texas synagogue last weekend. There are certainly important differences between the two situations which don’t need to be discussed here, but it’s worth noting that this film may be highly triggering for some at this present moment and, if that’s the case, shouldn’t be screened. But for those who think they can handle this content,  Abi Damaris Corbin's 892 is a well-constructed film with quality performances…

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Tweetweek

Two truths

every single movie at sundance really do be like: pic.twitter.com/YAOaKHLcfP

— the morally corrupt juan barquin (@woahitsjuanito) January 23, 2022

Emma Thompson hasn't had an Oscar nom in over 25 years, and I think we as a society deserve every bad thing that's come to us.

— Robert Daniels @ Sundance aka Marya's apartment (@812filmreviews) January 23, 2022

More after the jump...

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