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The extraordinary Jonathan Ross discusses his favorite movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Kick-Ass (2010)

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) – Dennis Cozzalio’s 2015 year-end list

The Woman in Black (2012)

Stardust (2007)

The Green Knight (2021) – Our podcast interview with director David Lowery, Dennis Cozzalio’s best-of-2021-so-far list

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

The Astro-Zombies (1968) – Dennis Cozzalio’s drive-in director list

The Corpse Grinders (1971) – Dennis Cozzalio’s drive-in director list

Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Zombies (1964) – Dennis Cozzalio’s drive-in director list

Blood Feast (1963) – Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

The Wizard of Gore (1970)

Police Story (1985) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989)

Re-Animator (1985) – Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

Society (1989)

Eraserhead (1977) – Karyn Kusama’s Blu-ray review

Faster Pussycat Kill Kill (1965) – Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Randy...

Mubi's retrospective, The Crimes of Jean-Pierre Melville, is showing from February 2 - March 6, 2018 in the United States.Jean-Pierre Melville (née Grumbach) took his nom de guerre from the American writer Herman Melville during his time fighting in the Resistance. The Moby-Dick scribe was popular in France, thanks in part to Jean Giono’s fawning translation of that mammoth cetacean opus, though it was the psycho-sexual eccentricities of Pierre; or, the Ambiguities that inspired the name change. The filmmaker’s exacting minimalism bears few obvious aesthetic similarities to the writer’s voluble, serpentine prose, and he lacks Herman’s circuitous sense of dark humor, but they did share an affinity for the details of method, and (lonely souls both) for the lives of solitary men. Working usually within constructs of the mystery and thriller genres, the filmmaker obsessed over details, finding small, particular insights in the ephemera and trivialities of routine.

It’s a given that their Main Slate — the fresh, the recently buzzed-about, the mysterious, the anticipated — will be the New York Film Festival’s primary point of attraction for both media coverage and ticket sales. But while a rather fine lineup is, to these eyes, deserving of such treatment, the festival’s latest Revivals section — i.e. “important works from renowned filmmakers that have been digitally remastered, restored, and preserved with the assistance of generous partners,” per their press release — is in a whole other class, one titanic name after another granted a representation that these particular works have so long lacked.

The list speaks for itself, even (or especially) if you’re more likely to recognize a director than title. Included therein are films by Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Daughter of the Nile, a personal favorite), Pedro Costa (Casa de Lava; trailer here), Jean-Luc Godard (the rarely seen,...

Read More: 9 Must-See Dramas Set Against the Border "Bob le Flambeur" (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1956) Before "Ocean’s Eleven" came "Bob le Flambeur" from the French master of noir, Jean-Pierre Melville. Roger Duchesne plays the eponymous high roller, a middle-aged gambler and ex-con whose elegance is so apparent that he has even won the respect of the town’s cops. For Bob, gambling is not a mere addiction but an essential state of existence. When it is revealed that the Deauville casino will hold 800 million francs on a given night, Bob, who's on a bad streak of luck, assembles a crack team of cons to carry out the heist. While the film yields chance encounters and unintended consequences fit for any gambling movie, the heist itself is perhaps less important than the setup, which is drawn out to maximum effect in the seedy underbelly of Montmartre’s chilly nighttime streets. A calm...

A little bit of a slower week for me as it was my first major screening week of the new year with Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Ride Along and as a result, at home, I only watched one movie, Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur. I wrote the following about Bob le Flambeur on my Letterboxd.com list for the year: A film where I could imagine a remake starring Burt Lancaster in Roger Duchesne's title role and now the earliest Melville film I've seen. Has some rough patches in the second act, but the third act plays out unlike what I expected. Goes to show why the New Wave is looked upon so favorably. Although this is considered something of a precursor to the New Wave movement, it features a lot of the cinematic details associated with some of my all-time favorite films. Other than that, I...