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A careful balancing act between character study and romantic comedy, Joan Micklin Silver’s 1988 film Crossing Delancey strikes a beguilingly effervescent tone in spite of its main character, Izzy (Amy Irving), being so prickly and intransigent. This can largely be attributed to Silver and screenwriter Susan Sandler’s willingness to depict Izzy as a woman who lives life on her own terms, discovering herself as she discovers her power.

The film accepts Izzy in all her dysfunctional glory, understanding that we learn and grow by making often bad decisions. She’s a fascinating character for how she has complete agency but often operates against her own self-interest. And while a love triangle is at the center of the film, one never gets the sense that Izzy needs a man to fix or complete her, but rather one to complement her.

The two men vying for her affection couldn’t be...

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The history of one of New York City’s most vibrant havens for musicians and artists — from Dave Van Ronk, Sonny Rollins and Bob Dylan to Shawn Colvin and Suzanne Vega — will be chronicled in the new book, Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital, by Rolling Stone senior writer David Browne.

Out Sept. 17 via Hachette Books (and available to...

Writer, director and actor Michael Showalter joins hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante to discuss his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

The Baxter (2005)

Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015)

Runaway Daughters (1994)

Clueless (1995)

Bagdad Cafe (1987)

Coda (2021)

The Long Goodbye (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Jaws (1975) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Do The Right Thing (1989)

Sugarbaby (1985)

City Slickers (1991)

Attack! (1956) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Paris, Texas (1984) – Karyn Kusama’s trailer commentary

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)

Pretty In Pink (1986)

Escape From New York (1981) – Neil Marshall’s trailer commentary

Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1986)

The Warriors (1979)

The Thing (1982) – Jesus Treviño’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Innerspace (1987) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Christine (1983)

Crossing Delancey (1988)

Annie Hall (1977) – Robert Weide’s trailer commentary

When Harry Met Sally… (1989)

The Fugitive (1993)

The Big Sick (2017) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Between The Lines...

Each day on Loudon Wainwright III’s front yard, squirrels attack Donald Trump. Well, not exactly: Dangling by string from a tree on his front yard on the eastern tip of Long Island is a Trump squirrel feeder, a plastic head in the shape of a certain world leader that Wainwright stuffs with peanut butter to keep critters away from his house. “It works pretty well,” he says, “but I’m not sure what state the peanut butter is in now.”

Wainwright’s perverse taste in animal bait is a...

As he reminds us album after album, decade after decade, few songwriters have laid out their lives in song as graphically as Loudon Wainwright III. By chronicling his years from post-adolescence to senior citizenry in real time, he’s not only pushed the boundaries of confessional songwriting but allowed those with somewhat more stable lives to live vicariously through his trysts, marriages, divorces, inebriated episodes, quest for success, and bad-dad issues. Pick any point in your life—the arrival of a child, the loss of a parent or two, the...

  This one's a lot of fun, although it will leave a lot of Loudon's longtime fans scratching their heads. But hey, kids, the 1930s and Depression-era stringbands are cool. And it's fascinating to hear Loudon eschew the ironic, smartass approach. Some of these songs are so treacly sweet that they will raise your blood sugar after just a few bars.

Charlie Poole, it turns out, visited more than a few bars himself, and he lived out the short, dead-at-39 self-destructive melodrama that would later be followed by Hank Williams and a hell-raising host of country outlaw musicians. But his songs are really fine, and swing like crazy, particularly when ace fiddlers and mandolin pickers like David Mansfield and Chris Thile latch on to them, as they do on most of these tracks.

The whole dysfunctional Wainwright family -- son Rufus, daughter Martha (who once wrote a song dedicated to her...