Podcast: A Beautiful Day, Knives Out, Waves, Atlantics

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (61 minutes)

• 00:01 Happy belated Thanksgiving
• 02:01 Marielle Heller and Tom Hanks offer catharsis with A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• 14:30 Knives Out and that yummy cast: Chris Evans, Toni Collette, etc...
• 21:30 Film Bitch Awards / Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers tangent
• 23:00 Exciting new voice: Senegal's Mati Diop and Atlantics
• 29:20 Waves divides people, including Nathaniel and Murtada, and we also discuss the rush to judgment on first screenings among pundits
• 38:00 Spirit Nominations - What did we make of them?
• 48:20 Best Cinematography - Roger Deakins for 1917... but who else? 
• 59:00 Can you believe it's December already? 

Related Reading
Murtada's interview with Mati Diop
Monica Castillo's Knives Out essay

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

A Beautiful Day for Podcasting

Podcast: Ford v Ferrari, Honey Boy, and Marriage Story

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (59 minutes)

• 00:01 Ford v Ferrari, Christian Bale, impressive crafts, and Oscar talk
• 19:06 Marriage Story, the opening scene, comparisons to Kramer vs Kramer, and more. Plus a lot of love for the actors including Alan Alda.
• 36:05 Honey Boy a Shia Labeouf's confessional with a great Noah Jupe directed by Alma Har'el. But, we confess we have Lucas Hedges fatigue.
• 47:10 Best Costume Design. We're rooting for extreme longshot Hustlers but we survey the whole field.

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Ford v Ferrari

Five Things I Learned Podcasting About Cate Blanchett

by Murtada Elfadl

As you may know I recently started a podcast series about the films of Cate Blanchett, my favorite actor. Seven episodes in I thought I'd share with you some observations that I discovered talking with my guests - who include critics you know and like from this site - about her career...

Click to read more ...

Podcast: JoJo Rabbit and Oscar's Screenplay Races

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (38 minutes)
00:01 Taiki Waitit's JoJo Rabbit. Is its satire successful? We're mixed on just about everything within it including the actors though we both loved Scarlett Johansson as the mother to a little Nazi boy.
16:00 A Parasite tangent "It's so metaphorical!" 
19:20 JoJo Rabbit's Oscar chances hard to read, right? It could be anywhere from 2 to 8 noms
21:50 Adapted Screenplay - The Irishman, JoJo Rabbit, Little Women, etc?
27:00 Original Screenplay - Marriage Story, Parasite, Bombshell, etc?
35:00 Randomness: Hustlers, Dark Waters, and Cats
37:00 Off to Campaign Events!

Related: Oscar Screenplay charts

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

JoJo Rabbit and Screenplays

Podcast: The Irishman, Terminator Dark Fate, and Oscar Buzz

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (60 minutes)
00:01 Murtada's New Fest jury duty
03:00 Martin Scorsese's The Irishman and why it should have been called I Heard You Paint Houses.  Thoughts on the running time, Thelma Schoonmaker's editing, the de-aging visuals, and the performances of Anna Paquin, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. And a trend in 2019: directors revisiting their favourite themes reflectively this year: Scorsese, Almodóvar, and Tarantino
23:30 The Best Supporting Actor Oscar race: Pacino versus Brad Pitt? Plus tangents about Marriage Story, Ford V Ferrari, Dolemite is My Name, Just Mercy and Honey Boy
43:00 Best Actor and Best Director races and what The Irishman's true competition is
50:00 Terminator Dark Fate  and Harriet
57:45 The Best Actress race - is Cynthia in?

READ: A thoughtful positive review of Harriet from K Austin Collins
SHARE: Two tweets we mention...

Harriet is not my favorite film of the year but if you gave hours of your life to see Darkest Hour and The Theory of Everything, you have time for a Harriet Tubman movie.

— Murtada Elfadl (@ME_Says) October 29, 2019

TERMINATOR DARK FATE not giving us an ass shot of Gabriel Luna (the first time traveller not to get one in the franchise) is homophobia. pic.twitter.com/5bR2hgcxGl

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) October 23, 2019

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

I Heard Scorsese Paints Houses