Bonus EP: Film Discoveries with K.J. Relth-Miller

the new beverly cinema presents the pure cinema podcast my name is brian sauer and today we have a very special bonus episode of a series that we call film discoveries and this is a series that is more or less exclusively you know a patreon thing we do this on our patreon we have friends of the show and film people that we love come on and talk about movies they've seen in the last year or so and so if you enjoy this you can check out some more of these on patreon but this one is free and for everybody and that is great because we have a really great guest i have friend of the show and returning guests kj ralph miller joining me she is the director of film programs at the academy museum of motion pictures in los angeles hello kj hi brian how are you i am good i'm good um we just had a lovely hang last night with some friends watching a george c scott movie that we were discussing off mic uh called they might be giants and um so it's we just saw each other but this is a lovely to chat about uh some film discoveries so tell me about your duties i feel like maybe when you're on the calendar episode we talked about it but let's refresh people like what what is your job like what do you handle and what's happening at the academy museum at the yeah thank you for asking i'm going to go ahead and get started so i'm going to go ahead and get started so i'm going to go ahead and get started so i'm going to go ahead and get started so i'm going to go ahead and get started so i'm going to go ahead and get started so i'm going to go ahead and get started thank you for asking i mean actually when i was on the calendar episode if you recall it was for march of 2020 yes so it was for a calendar that never came to me that's right in its entirety in its full you know because a little something happened something look at um and back then i was still at the ucla film and television archive so you had transition then okay yeah yeah i've been at the academy museum for just over four years and um i am the the head of the department that oversees all of the screenings that we put on for the public between our two cinemas at the academy museum um so we offer a robust slate of programming i just looked back at the previous fiscal year which is july 1 to june 30 um and we put on 523 screenings holy year oh holy smoke that is a lot that is a lot yeah we are putting on a lot and it's you know it's not just films that are related to the history of the academy museum we're putting on a lot of history of the oscars or the academy itself um we're also you know teasing out stories from exhibitions to put on screen um in you know full feature-length experiences for folks who are seeing something in the gallery and then maybe you want to see it come to life in a theater and then we also just get to play around with things that are fun and interesting to us including our summer long series called summer of thrills um which you know we've had some great guests come out for this one in in about a well in uh june let me see august a little uh in like a week and a half i don't know when this is going to publish but um we'll have adrian line for uh fatal attraction and unfaithful on back-to-back nights so that's kind of like a nice highlight for the end of the summer yeah and for those who don't know you uh often um introduce and moderate panels with filmmakers and guests and uh you are quite good at it and so it's a lovely thing that you uh have an opportunity to do as much as i imagine that's a little bit of a challenge but i think it's a great opportunity to do that and intense sometimes you have some really uh high profile guests coming yeah i think the um once i got through the david cronenberg q a i was like okay i can tough i can do anything now like that was very that was like the right combination of i respect this person and i'm also like afraid to be on stage with them because they're just so i mean he's so whip smart and oh my god and if he's not in the right mood he might just like razz you or like s with you the entire time um but we we ended up having a i thought a lovely rapport and that was really meaningful um for me professionally and personally and it's when that happens that it gets scary yeah when it's meaningful on like all levels of your life um but no it's like one of my favorite things to do at at the job is um is get to facilitate conversations with filmmakers that uh that i think will then lead to an entertaining experience for an audience yeah no it's really great stuff uh i'm trying to remember what was the movie that you showed the powell pressburger movie gone to earth oh my god we i just want to mention it because that was a screening that alrick and i saw now maybe a couple years ago might be a few years ago years ago yeah and that was a wonderful screening and a movie that neither of us had seen despite our love for powell and pressburger and we're just blown away by and we credit you fully for turning us in that direction because uh did not know about it and beautiful screening just wonderful so i mean these are the kind of things you can come and check out uh academymuseum.org if you want to check out all things uh happening at the academy museum of motion pictures um so kj what are we talking about today in terms of film discoveries i know you you often uh as part of your job you go to film festivals you do you know various things of that um ilk and maybe some of these come from that i don't know but but we'll see what god yeah um well so i was i'm very lucky um that as part of my my job and also for research uh so not just to represent the academy museum but also to find um titles that i might like to bring to the academy museum um i traveled to cinema retrovado in bologna every june um this was my third time going and they this is a festival for those who don't know um that just celebrated its 40th year so it's been ongoing for four decades and it is exclusively repertory so it is entirely films that uh it's entirely older films and celebrating older films not exclusively new restorations there's also rare prints um and sometimes prints that are like pretty beat up because that's the only thing that exists but still they they really have like an expansive um goal with their programming and this year i think they they showed they showed the same number of films that i showed in the academy in one year in eight days only like a little over 500 movies in eight days holy wow so they have multiple venues i remember talking to you or um another friend of ours maybe about a public screenings that they do like in this town square kind of thing like cinema paradiso style or something like yeah every night i mean yeah every night on the piazza maggiore they open it up to the public i mean if you have a badge then you can like pre-reserve where your seat is but the it seats like 6 000 people and they're showing films that you would not expect necessarily would draw 6 000 people every night right but they do it's amazing the the appetite i mean it's a city that um it has the oldest existing university in the world so there's a big like college culture there um it's also historically incredibly liberal it's where the first pride parade in italy was held so um there's just a real like appreciation for arts culture in general um and then there's all of these folks who are in town for the festival who are there specifically to see these movies so it's both for the locals and then also for festival attendees and this year um the opening night screening was sunrise with a full orchestra brand new score and a new restoration of the film which has been restored multiple times i mean it's you know 100 years old at this point um 99 years old i guess um and that that that was still a fresh and like new experience was so incredible um i also saw new york new york for the first time we don't have to talk about that movie but i had never seen it yeah well that's amazing and to see it there must have been fantastic i think i might have mentioned to you like has one of my favorite proposal scenes in a movie ever my god yeah back the car over me is one of my favorite things anyway um that's fantastic i can't imagine seeing a movie with 6 000 people like that just is so intoxicating to me and i i gotta go like this is one of the things that i haven't traveled a lot internationally but this is the kind of thing that motivates me to want to get to my myself over there and check it out sounds incredible the nice thing is like getting yourself there a little pricey you're flying to june and it'll drop flying in june to italy yeah but once you're there the food is some of the best in the world and so affordable lodging is fairly affordable and then a badge i think is like 120 euro and that gives you access to all 500 screenings um wow i know so within the lineup this year there was a barbara stanwick sidebar there was a um there was a mitchell leeson sidebar among others yeah and um really it's kind of a nice thing to see and i think it's a really nice thing to see and i think it's a really nice place to fill in your classic hollywood gaps in things you haven't seen before and this year one of the biggest kind of blind spots for me was mitchell leeson i'd seen midnight before um but not much else and he's really a filmmaker who i think has been sort of relegated to the like production designer category because that's how he started in the silent era and then his career kind of ended in the 1950s because he was very outwardly queer like he was a very unapologetic in in the 1950s about the fact that he was gay and and that ruined his career as that as it did so many people who were you know even closeted in the 50s um so a couple of films in this selection were like really uh real real discoveries for me some early fred mcmurray stuff um but most notably two titles that i'd love to talk about and one of them is hold back the dawn and i don't know if you've seen this brian i have it's been a minute and i was starting to review it the other day and i also get it weirdly crossed with history is made at night which is a borzaggy film that's different but it has yeah it's very good and it has charles charles boyer as well but yeah talk about this one because this is i do like this i definitely am a fan i also love by the way um easy living is one of my all time i absolutely adore it you know remember the night i think that's one of the things about leeson is that he gets a little um hamstrung by the fact that he's got these scripts by preston sturges or in this or in some cases billy uh wilder and charles bracket yeah and they i think that's one of the things about leeson is that he's got these scripts and i think that's one of the things about leeson is that he's got these scripts and he's got these scripts and he's got these scripts and he's got these scripts and he's got these scripts and he's got these scripts and did and that was one of the reasons he got into directing i disagree i think the films are great and i i you know i imagine it's just a young upstart filmmaker being grumpy but like you know the scripts do help a lot they are really great and and this one is this one that charles bracket um billy wilder's it is yeah so that helps it a lot and it's um i think what's most fascinating about it for me and with with all of the the leeson films and i should note too the title of the of the retrospective was easy living with mitchell leeson so like that title is obviously a standout for those who haven't seen it definitely seek that out but hold back the dawn and lady in the dark the other one i'd like to talk about and hands across the table and so many of these movies and midnight are about um both men and women who are trying to are struggling to figure out their future financially and that makes sense for the time period right like it's it's in between wars and it's like post crash and like there's there's just so much anxiety about being financially stable and upwardly mobile and so i think hold back the dawn is is less about that actually and a little bit more about um just what it means to be an american because it's set in a border town uh in mexico where folks who are trying to gain like citizenship and access to the other side of the border are kind of waylaid as they're waiting for their papers and um charles boyer lives in this hotel like a long stay hotel and um uh he's living there and kind of trying to figure out how to he's sort of a playboy and he's trying to figure out his way over to cross the border he's from romania so not an american citizen and then uh he finds out that he's not an american citizen and he's uh he finds that opportunity in the innocent school teacher olivia de havaland who's there with her with a group of young boys and her car breaks down um on the mexican side of the border and charles boyer kind of ensures that her car remains broken and tries to weasel a proposal um out of her and then ends up of course inevitably falling in love with her but i just charles boyer especially in this period like he i think my review of this film was like lie to me all day charles boyer like if you if i were to meet him today or i would have met him back then he could have told me anything and i would have bought it and i would have fallen in love and it would have been destroyed my life yeah no he is so suave and so charming and yeah i i find him to be the same um yeah he's obviously trying to get this marriage thing he there's an interesting opening to this it's almost like a noir opening which is different than i would have expected and i had forgotten about it where he goes to the wedding and he's like oh my god i'm the cops and he's like no he goes to a hollywood studio and he's like i have a story and and he's like but you i have to tell you now because the cops are coming for me and and and it's this whole thing and then it becomes like a flashback you're like oh this is a very noir um coded device that he's doing and i like that and you find out early that he's got like an eight-year wait to get across maybe as part of the refugee like program or whatever and so that's why he's going for this marriage thing and it's a it's an end around but yeah it's so it's a it's a it's a so charming and olivia de havilland i'm a huge fan of her as well and they're just so good together in this it's just adorable they're really fantastic and the the sets i mean because mitchell leeson was a set designer like there is no detail that is not very um specific and like intentional in the set design in this like kind of it's like a very charming hotel it's a bit run down and like each room kind of has its own charm and character um you really see that a lot actually in swing high swing low one of the fred mcmurray i think carol lombard films oh i haven't seen that one that is a little softer on that one okay all right like love triangle that this film so inevitably um charles way is kind of like conspiring with i think he's i think she's an ex girlfriend of his or an ex-lover paulette goddard and like how to kind of get stay with her while also marrying you know olivia de havilland like overnight um to try to gain citizenship and kind of like dupe her um and swing high swing low has a similar kind of triangle involved in it um but but also just has the details of like kind of a run-down home that someone has made really charming and like homey and cozy um and i just love that detail about all of the sets in this movie and and it also you know it's just hard to watch a border movie in this day and age without thinking about um how differently this kind of story would be handled today with uh so much more violence and so much less understanding yeah and so to see a film from like 85 years ago that you know handles it yeah with uh with a hollywood kind of you know kids gloves in a way yeah but it's yeah it's just really fascinating and again charles way is the most charming thing ever yeah i just love that you got to do this whole license series that's so exciting uh and lady in the dark was the first time watch for me um very interesting uh ginger rogers movie some interesting um takes on psychology and but but have at it like tell us about that one i am such a sucker for i mean you and i have talked a lot about our love for pre-code and kind of like i think for me a big um a big i don't know draw of pre-code films is that women can be messy and mean and like and and complicated and also sexy and i so i think i just love when women are portrayed in a complicated light um even when it's ultimately maybe misogynistic so i think lady in the dark has a lot of gender problems um but it is about ginger rogers who's a a very type a magazine editor um in 1944 right and uh and she's kind of she's starting to realize that she's maybe on the edge of burning out like they don't use that term maybe they use the term breakdown but um she's on the edge of burning out and so she kind of starts to go see a psychotherapist to understand why she is the way that she is why she wears pants like why is she why she has to be in in in control and in charge and along with some of these um psychotherapists who are like you know like psychoanalysis scenes also come like really insane i don't know how else to describe like insane overly done overly decorated overly costumed dream sequences yeah really colorful and beautiful and trippy weird absolutely yeah there's a circus scene that's like what is this doing in this movie and truly i think it's a technicolor showcase as part of it yeah um but it really allows i think all of his gifts and put them in one place um and you see that on screen so beautifully in this movie and and i just i don't know i just love laughing at like the ray miland is like the ultimate misogynist like all you need is a man to tell you what to do and he's such a dick he's such a dick yeah he's such a dick in this no it's it's as saucy as he gets i think that was my review like extra saucy ray miland like he's just so good throwing so much attitude and i think one of the reasons that i think it's so saucy is because he's like he's like he's like he's like he's like that that that circus thing happens is he has this pitch for her about a cover of the magazine that's like circus related or something it's it's a weird take but yeah he's i i like him a lot i just think he's fascinating like not an all-time favorite but just an actor i find very interesting and even when he's being like a jerk like he is in this it's still interesting to see uh and and i love um misha hour as the flamboyant photographer yeah who gets so upset and the spits multiple times and just he's adorable and funny he's of course from my man godfrey he's like the prodigy that she the mother takes on that's super goofy and and he's really good in this and yeah it's and so clearly queer like he's so yeah obviously like just straight on a queer character and like that that leeson kind of brings that in and in like not even a winking way it's very like and he's like he's like he's like he's like he's and and but he's kind of the nexus of everything because he's he's the head of all these photo shoots and so he's working with everyone and he's he's well he is a caricature for sure um it's still great to see that character in a movie from 1944 and i think this is the kind of movie that you know um like some of these instagram accounts that are like like costumes and movies are like i follow one that's nails night and it's just nails and it's like photos of nails and cinema oh my gosh so i feel like if you see stills from this movie you're like oh my god i have to see it it is this looks nuts um the movie is not consistently that visually like splendorous um but i do think it's it's a fascinating curio like i sent i sent stills to to my boss and she was like we must show this and i was like well i don't know if we're gonna show it but i love talking about it yeah um and i just it's also you know it's a different turn for ginger rogers she gets to be kind of dramatic and serious and i think she's actually you know i think she's far more talented when it comes to performance and like just line delivery than she really got a lot of credit for because she's always just talked about as a dancer absolutely i think as a dancer she's great but i think as a dramatic performer as a comedian i think she's fantastic um what's the movie she did with uh oh shoot i'll have to look it up for a second but like there's one where she's um like the she's dating somebody oh uh it's jimmy stewart and um she makes a very poor impression on his parents it's i'll look it up in a second is it vivacious yes yes that's it exactly well done yeah yeah george stevens and she is so funny in that movie and i just yeah and dramatically i've always found her to be really good and this is a heavier part and it's interesting yeah the places she goes with this the the analysis and the type of man that she doesn't want and does want by the end what she's sort of figured out i find fascinating um you know again these these early takes on psychology i think are always intriguing at least from the point of view of history i mean you kind of see like the growth of uh of psychoanalysis and psychology with things like spellbound it's like really coming to a fore in the 1940s when cinema is also being really experimental about flashbacks and um and you know a lot of like uh just formally experimental um things that you see play out mostly in noir so it's interesting to see that in like kind of a i mean what would you even call this like a drama musical yeah i mean it's it's not there's not a ton of comedy exactly although i found it funny in a good way like not laughing at it but but yeah it is more dramatic than uh comedic and definitely not fully noir but you know skirting in that area a little bit i guess i don't know it's interesting it's really interesting i never for whatever reason hadn't seen it so i'm glad to be nudged in the direction of watching it because of your list so very cool yeah and this was um i was lucky to see this on a short print that was beautiful nice wow yeah that's awesome that's that's two really cool classic films to start out um what's next what do we got that you want to talk about uh i think i mean since we were talking about uh queer director it might be interesting to segue quickly into the killing of sister george because i know you already talked about the killing of sister george with josh melt with my husband josh miller yes yes just a little plug for there is an episode on our patreon with josh but he did kind of defer to you a little bit he was like you know um let i want to let kj talk about this so we did discuss it briefly but i'd love to hear your take on it and your takeaways from it because i i do love that you guys watched it and that it got me to go back and watch it again and i i really dig this movie i don't know just really hooked me so so talk about yeah i mean i think it surprised all of us when we watched it there were uh it was josh and i and another couple so four of us who are all very movie literate and it's very hard to find something to watch when we're watching it when you feel like all four of you have seen everything yeah um so this was really like the most outlier of of all of the the films that we were considering and i actually like i had heard of it and i said to everyone who was about to watch it oh this must be in michael koresky's new book sick and dirty and i didn't have my copy with me so i ran home and it is not in that book however melissa anderson who just published a great new book um ida lupina's on uh ida lupino's on the cover and i can't think of what okay i'll look it up um but but she's a great author um and a queer film critic and uh and the book is kind of talking about like her her burgeoning understanding of herself as a queer cinephile and um she had written about this film i finally found a review that she had written in 2009 for film comment um and so she her take on it you know it's it's just really interesting to think about this as being the first x-rated film uh the first time an x-rating was applied to a serious film like a film with like not not consistent sexually explicit themes or content and actually it's that less than two minutes sex scene toward the end of the film that gave the film its x-rating yeah or which honestly is so tame compared to other like straight sex scenes in mainstream films that were coming out at the same time so um it's always you know it still happens but less frequently it's always interesting to consider films from the 60s and 70s and 80s that have been slapped with completely inappropriate ratings just because critics oh sorry because the ratings board is like homophobic really i think that that's part of the problem and and concerned about the impact it might have on the sensibilities of a delicate audience you know yeah um so i thought yeah i was i was just as fascinated by this film as anyone else i was kind of expecting the queer content and then as i think you guys discussed to have something from the 60s that is not coded it is it is completely like you can read it in no other way than this is a lesbian story i almost feel the same way about um the haunting which i think is kind of around the same time that's a bit more coded yeah but it's hard to again not read that as explicit when you watch it in 2020s standards are intrigued with that mindset so i don't know what else i can add to it that you all didn't already cover but um i just think to have these two really complicated and also kind of like despicable female characters in uh what ultimately becomes a bit of a love triangle um in the 1960s set in london and directed by robert aldrich it's just like all the things you don't expect to see on a bingo card absolutely not yeah no i think that was the thing at the time that got me was i was just getting into the aldrich i don't want to say alternate canon but the canon that is not what people know him for if you know him um from his big you know uh successes like the dirty dozen and things like that or whatever and yeah so it's it's intriguing that he had this and josh and i talked about it too but this whole uh series of with women and he i don't know i i was gonna ask have you seen legend of lila claire no i haven't no i'm very curious that was when when i was talking to josh i didn't bring it up but that's one that it's a little trickier to see um i think there might be a uh 1080 version that's out there that you can track down but um i'd be very curious to to see it uh to to watch it with you guys if you ever want to watch it if unless you get to it before that which is great uh but i was re-watching parts of it and you won't like it as much as sister george i don't think but it is interesting because it's kim novak and very hollywood uh it just seems like stuff that would be you would appreciate at least the the periphery of it you know the setting of it so but yeah he's got such an interesting filmography that this is part of it and it's i i was really stunned by how good the performances are and how compelling and engaging the movie is for a movie that's almost two hours and 20 minutes long like that just still blows me away yeah i know i mean when we first looked at the runtime we were a little like hemming and hawing but we started it early enough that um like don't let the runtime scare you i should also say it is just fully available on youtube and like a complete version not not censored which is the best way to find it i mean i think that that again like my obsession with complicated kind of like nasty like unapologetic women carries over into films like this and films about lesbian relationships because um you know there are so few films about lesbian or sorry about just like straight up friendships like i love yeah rihanna match for that reason and like you know something like girlfriends or clock watchers yeah films about female friendships are so rare that to have this other canon of like of female romances um just opens up other possibilities for women to have conversations that are different from the conversation that they're having with their partner and i think that that's one of the things that i think is really important and i think that that's one of the things that i think is really important and i think that that's one of the conversations they would have in a story with a straight romance um and i also think that that aldrich is like attention to detail because i just in melissa anderson's review um i guess they filmed the scene uh at the nightclub which is clearly a like a lesbian nightclub yeah in the film that's a real lavender nightclub oh wow in london so his specificity and like adherence to that detail i think is also very important and i think that's one of the things that i think is very um in a way respectful of him to um to document a queer space in this like i think this is pre-stonewall actually so to have this space documented in a time before there was really like like the first ever pride parade even um is is something that's that makes the film really special absolutely no you're totally right i hadn't thought about it in that context that's really cool but you're totally right about the uh not having enough of this kind of portrayal on screen and i think you know you and i we all watch a lot of movies and so when you see something that you're not used to seeing a lot i find it can either you you're just like if you're not adventurous i guess you can kind of be like ah this isn't what i'm used to i don't want to watch this or in my case i'm watching it i'm like oh yeah i really haven't seen a lot of scenes like this and and then and as i said to josh like the movie about 70 percent of it is just beryl reed and suzanna york in scenes yeah often arguing and stuff and i was just transfixed yet again after having not seen it for like 20 years so um just love the nudge and i i we haven't really officially talked about it on the show so i i the more we can put that out there i really it's such a for me it's like one of the um rediscoveries of 2026 so i thank you guys for the oh that's great yeah and i and just one last thing i mean i think you know they're they're mostly um arguing but the special thing about the scene leading up to the club the nightclub scene they're dressed like laurel and hardy that's right like they're dressed in costume to go to this this lavender nightclub and they are being so they're so cute together you kind of get a glimpse for the first time in kind of the the the culminating moments of the movie um about why they maybe fell in love or how they found each other in the first place they have this very playful dynamic and and it does involve booze which is kind of like sister george's whole thing is she's booze soaked for the entire movie um but you get this little glimmer of like maybe what their life was like before you met them and why they fell in love in the first place yeah i think that's a really key scene and it does help the movie overall to have it and i just also love scenes where people dress up like old hollywood stars i gotta say that's just one of my favorite things so anyway um what else we got on your list here um okay this is a major this was a major blind spot um and i can't wait to see to hear your take on it um spoiler it will be screening at the academy museum um later this fall but i somehow i thought i had seen it so i was putting off watching it and then i watched it and realized i had not seen nicholas ray's they live by night oh wow nice nice yeah i i mean this one it's just one of the great noir romance films i just i i you know i really kathy o'donnell and they're just such an incredible couple they they capture my heart every time i watch it i i get so caught up in their in their whole thing you know and this story's kind of been done a little bit in different ways but this is one of my favorite takes on this this specifics obviously thieves by night is based on the same material though albin would say he never watched this movie and whatever thieves like us sorry yes thieves thieves like us exactly and and i i like that movie fine but this is you know this is just so good so so yeah talk about it what do you think well i had seen thieves like us because we um i mean we screened it as part of um a program about women directors in the 70s and thieves like us was was written by john tukesbury or adapted from the novel which is the source text for both films um by john tukesbury who also directed old boyfriends and wrote a couple of other things for altman um including nashville right yeah yeah that's so she's she's incredible and what i love about thieves like us and what's the most memorable thing about it is of course it's a period piece but there's also you know it's not an ensemble piece like most altman films but the way he makes it feel sonically and orally the same as his other films is that it's just like the radio is omnipresent in every scene and this film they live by night actually kind of incorporates elements of that as well so i wonder if i wonder if altman was inspired by hearing the radio kind of come on in the car or in the garage where um where kichi is living with her her father and where farley granger meets her um and and so i don't know actually whether um altman was more inspired by the film or the book but there's definitely echoes of this film in in his adaptation yeah and and i agree with you i mean just the their romance is so innocent and and pure and i actually went to my my shelf of books and all of my kale books to be like has pauline ever written about this movie and she did and hated it oh okay no comment no comment i'm not i know i know but that's crazy but it did it did find success i mean i think it's become much more beloved in recent years and it found success in uh the uk and then was re-released in the states so most audiences actually even though it's a 1940 film it's been a success for a long time and i think in the u.s most audiences didn't see it until a year later um but that's still so much so much time ahead of you know what would come later with bonnie and clyde in badlands i think up until seeing this movie badlands was my favorite lovers on the run film i've just always had such an affinity for that movie and of course the cinematography is gorgeous and i'm like sissy spacex fan number one um but this uh this might have replaced that as my new favorite lovers on the run film and and you you called it a noir which is so interesting because i think it is in spirit but that's not all it is no no i didn't mean to pigeonhole in that way but yeah i mean there is a sense of doom uh fatalism that just sort of is is it's cloaked in it and i think that's why i think of it like that but yeah but yeah it's it's much more it is more romantic and more i don't know it just is more than that you know yeah it's absolutely so neat well we'll we'll be screening it um at the end of october with um nathan gilgood who has a new book of comics oh i love nathan that's awesome yeah yeah he's great he actually contributed some illustrations to um a small la noir screenwriting gallery that we have on view right now oh that's cool yeah i have several of his shirts i love his shirt yeah i have a bunch of his bags totes yep totes are great 10 years old uh hi nathan we love you yes absolutely and we also love or i also love as hamra scott hamra is joining us to also um sell two of his newer books that just came out this year um algorithm of the night and last week in in time cinema and this is a film that all three of us agreed to show together like this is the film that we all could could decide together that this is like the right one for them to have a conversation about so we're screening it on a 35 millimeter print um i think it's the last monday in october so so it's like counter program to all the horror and halloween stuff that will be happening at the museum and also like saturated around town that month oh my gosh i gotta put this in my calendar now i really want to see it i've never seen it on a screen so yeah me neither can't wait october 26th okay putting it in right now thank you yeah all right what's next that was great oh boy um what's next well um of the of the films that i sent that i was interested in talking about i'm interested in brian and what you were able to to catch or what you were able to catch and what you were able to catch and what you were able to watch before we well i let's see i re-watched downhill racer yeah um so we could talk about that if you want and and that was that was about all i had time to oh and i did watch uh home stories which we can get to as well um right but um yeah let's talk about downhill racer then if you want um yeah richie uh huge huge fan uh love you know i again a director not not like he really has a lot of interesting stuff between the bad news bears between the comedies and and some more serious stuff like this which is almost like it definitely feels european you know and it's editing and stuff you know i mean like yeah it's funny you say that about the editing because it it was edited by richard harris who won an oscar for editing titanic which is crazy to think about that this this movie and this was one of his first editing gigs um so the reason i had the the opportunity to see this i actually saved it for the big screen um and a 35 millimeter print an archival print from paramount that we screened um because the director's branch has had selected downhill racer as their select for that month um and so we had the editor join us and uh jason reitman who's one of our director's branch governors at the academy he hosted a conversation with him that was truly like like a two-man stand-up act like it was hilarious it was funny it was also informative um richard harris is 94 years old and the the memories he has of making this film are incredible i mean mostly what he talked about and emphasized and was such a good way to set up the viewing of the film to hear him say this is the way that he uses silence and the way he uses silence and juxtaposes that with with noise and the rhythm that comes out of that and there's so much interesting sound in skiing in general like the sound of the ski is the sound of the snow the sound of the wind yep um but then there's also the moments when their air born and there's no sound yeah um and so not only i think is this like yeah almost like you know documentary style realism of some of the skiing sequences um it also is kind of like a character study with a character you never really learned anything about except in a typical michael ritchie fashion i think um his obsession with winning and his obsession with being the best and i think you see that come out in things like smile um or my my favorite like mean michael ritchie movie is prime cut i think that movie is we're nasty and i love it so much yeah and the candidate i another um yeah a redford movie kind of has a little bit of that too in terms of winning the winning part um but yeah a lot of this one is i mean what i think is great about his stuff is almost all of it has some kind of comedic angle to it you know almost all of it but this one i think is great about his stuff is almost all of it has some kind of comedic angle to it you know almost all of it but this one not so much there's really not much comedy you know in it and and i find that interesting you know but but i also love this cast i'd for it'd been a while since i'd seen it honestly but the gene hackman is the coach and they completely completely shaven um dabney coleman as like the second tier coach uh both fascinating and yeah i mean this guy's just like he's like a small town kid who's talented but like just really doesn't hasn't figured things out he's just like he's out like doesn't it's very naive and and that carries through the entire movie um with his relationships especially with one particular woman like there's just an incredible amount of naivete and uh yeah he just doesn't get it and so it's a fascinating character watch redford play because he has an affability to him that if it was somebody else you would really not like this guy and and as it is he's he's he's kind of tricky he's kind of dicey you know but he's not um he's not an he's not a likable character he really is like he's off-putting he's not a team player no um the way he handles this woman you mentioned like kind of you know suggesting that he's not the only person in her life is while she's speaking they're sitting in a car together and she's oh yeah person is present and while she's speaking about kind of the you know what she's done over the holiday he just lays on the horn like like basically like shut up woman yeah so speaking of like the use of sound and silence and and richard and michael's kind of dual like purpose and goal in achieving that with this film that's such a great use of that um but also a great way to see inside of him and just be like man he's just a child yeah like really is emotionally a child well yeah and between that and the other scene where he goes back home and meets the girl and it's just like hey get in the car you know like and they go and then she tries to tell him some stuff he's like yeah anymore that gum like he's just like got me in a car and he's like yeah he's in terms of the way he deals with women he is immature and insensitive and just kind of awful in a way yeah and you're just like wow what you know it's just so empty there's this emptiness about him that i i as much as it's off-putting it's also weirdly compelling to just kind of see where it's gonna go i actually love the ending too which we won't spoil but i forgot about it and i was like oh is it gonna go this way or that way yeah and then oh okay interesting you know because i'd totally forgotten that so but yeah really well edited well shot and well acted and an interesting early richie effort but yeah i'm with you prime cut by the way is just yeah sissy sissy spacic again but yeah more gene hackman you know uh mary as marianne is his name yeah that's his characteristic marianne anyway no this is cool i'm glad you again another nudge to re-watch something i hadn't seen in a while and i think i actually liked it more this time oh good yeah yeah yeah i'm glad i i think if i had seen it when i was younger i would have been like what is going on like this is this is barely a movie but i but i do appreciate that and and richard harris spoke about this at our event like that how much um you know he he likes to give the audience credit for their powers of um like of uh what's the right term here like he likes to to think that the audience is smart and smarter than him yeah and he likes to give us credit for having figured things out so there are some scenes that sentence oh yeah conversation um you meet robert redford with zero information about who he is and where he's coming from and that all gets filled in eventually so it is it is like the anti-exposition movie and exposition will kill a movie for me so that this has you you do definitely get to figure it out along with the character and he does give you so much credit for figuring it out um or yeah allows you to figure it out um in in such a smart way that that it's really fascinating in a way i would have been kind of frustrated with it if i saw it or dismissed it maybe as like a minor work which maybe it is but but i think it's really worth worth uh worth watching maybe maybe not in the summer it's a weird time yeah you're right good winter movie yeah it was a great winter movie yeah great uh winter holiday movie yeah good stuff um tell me about home stories which is a short sort of compilation and it just i don't know anything about this so okay so this is actually this just gives me an excuse to talk about guy madden again because great we had we had guy madden for four programs um in july and and it was like truly a uh like such a fulfilling experience to have a filmmaker and i told him this on stage to have a filmmaker who i really feel like like i said there are filmmakers that we all love and then and and like respect and appreciate their movies and then there are filmmakers that you you feel like maybe if you were to meet them you might get along because you know they're they're they're they're they're they're you know they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're specifically you and it becomes very personal and i feel that way about guy madden and so to get to spend time with him and like oh yeah this is this guy is great and he can talk forever all those great stories and he also is a voracious reader and such a curious uh viewer that he seeks out so much and he's really like he loves silent film and he also loves you know to just go deep on his subject and so home stories by matthias mueller is one of something he recommended to me it's six minutes long um i don't know if you can find this online anywhere but matthias mueller kind of has um uh his entire filmography is kind of found footage um and piecing together segments from films that have already existed to tell a new story in the juxtapositions within the footage and home stories is a collection of uh shots and scenes from mostly i think 1950s um films of women uh waking up in bed and uh feeling like they are stuck in whatever room that they're in so within six minutes and all of these different um shots from different movies he kind of evokes this sense of like dread and maybe like hopelessness and like stuckness that feels very like what a housewife might feel or what a woman in the 1950s or 60s might feel um and and just creates this dread and it's almost like a horror film in a way because they feel so confined and stuck and you're not sure if they're ever going to quite get outside of their of the homes that are kind of imprisoning them um so this short film is is unique in that it's found footage and it also feels very um influential on guy madden's film the green fog which is also uh you know compilation of of films and um television shows set in san francisco that have been cut together into a remake of vertigo oh my gosh i gotta see this that's the one i've been meaning to see that's amazing yeah so this is fascinating weird oddity i'm curious what you what you thought of it because i mean it's only six minutes yeah i mean it was fast you would take some minutes to be like what is this and then you're like oh wow this is and then i don't think is there even a line of dialogue spoken by any character i don't think so yeah so it is like a bunch of girl ladies that i'm familiar with uh actors and movies that i've seen and i i could almost pick out a couple of them yeah um but yeah waking up being you know obviously not in a great headspace and then not being able to get out of the it's really interesting it i i was intrigued i almost wanted to watch it again back to back i but i had to jump into your next movie but i was like wow this is a fascinating stuff i don't know really i'd never heard of it he's made a couple of others um like uh i'm not going to think of the names right now but but i just love that you know this is why we talk about movies with people who care and this i always learn so much from you brian so it's really nice to to chat with you about movies anytime we get to talk regardless of whether we're recording it or not well same z's same z's as they say so but like you bring such a uh you know a passion and excitement and even if somebody hasn't seen something you don't make them feel bad about it you just want to share it with them and that's kind of how guy approaches it too i love that i love that yeah no i see i find it's really the only way because i think the other way is to off-put people to gatekeep and to do things that i just don't think help uh us as movie fans because it's all about spreading that love you know all the time exactly i love i love the chats as well um so the other three uh if we have time um maybe we can zip through these real quick um screenplay josh mentioned it but he didn't go deep on it at all because he thought you might have some things to say about it from 1984 uh what are your thoughts i mean i'm i'm uniquely obsessed with LA movies and movies about the industry. So to find something that was completely not on my radar, thanks to Muscle Distribution and Chris Bell. So they will be restoring this film and re-releasing it theatrically. And we're really hoping to play it at the museum. And it sort of falls into this, is it Fade to Black? The film that's about the kid that's obsessed with movies and also is maybe a murderer. Yeah. Dennis Christopher. Yeah. Fade to Black. Yeah. Yeah. This kind of falls into that category, but it's about a screenwriter who's kind of writing the murders before he commits them. But it is also an example of total filmmaking ingenuity. There's green screen and double processed stuff in this movie that looks so, it's so charmingly made. And it stars George Kuchar. And so to see him and his completely unmatched physical presence on screen as just like a real shitty landlord, it's very special. And the rest of the actors really feel a bit like stagey amateur, but that all adds to the heightened reality of the movie. And I can't wait for this film to be more widely available. And that's Scream, like the horror movie Scream play, not screenplay. For those who are curious and looking at more about it. And it is kind of a vanity project in a way, in that it's, I think, written, directed and stars one person. Yes. I know Josh and I obviously, and probably you as well, share that love of vanity projects. They're just so unique. They just bring something so different every time. You know, just unfettered vision of somebody who has their own idea of what movies should be. And I always think those are interesting. But yeah, this is- And they exist in every country and like every- That's right. That's the only thing that's great about them is that there's a story like this all over. But yeah, this is one I'm very excited for that muscle distribution restoration and to see it on a screen. Because if I've seen it, it's been a while and I vaguely remember it, but it was like some very, I mean, I don't want to denigrate it too badly, but like not a great transfer from like a trauma DVD or something like that. Yeah. You know, and it deserves better. It was a trauma film. It was a trauma film for a while, right? Which feels like, or trauma owned it, I think. Yeah. Yeah. But I would, I mean, in this place, the Academy, that would be really, really cool. But just to get to see what's at some point, if they have it, then it can be screened. So that's really exciting. So if it's not there, it'll be somewhere else in LA and I'd love to see it with a crowd. I just think it's a really interesting sort of cult item, you know, for sure. Yeah. And we're truly in the golden age of restoration and preservation when films like this are being- Are more widely available in a way that like you maybe have only, you could have only seen it as like a tape transfer, you know, when it was first released. So I'm just, I'm thrilled to be, to have a platform at the museum to be able to showcase some of this weirder off the radar stuff. Yeah. And hats off again to Muscle Distribution who, when they announced this one, also announced Pumping Iron to the Women, which is a fascinating movie that my friend Millie DiCirco turned me on to and is a movie that I- I would also love to see with the crowd, just having watched the original Pumping Iron, which is fine. But yeah, I love where they're headed. I love, Liz Prichard is like an incredible curator and it's so neat that Muscle's, you know, just starting off this year and really getting going and doing exciting things. So big plug for them. A really great brain. Absolutely. Absolutely. So just two more quick ones, if you want. Tell me about the last two on the list here. Just real quick to all of the work that the Film Heritage Foundation in India is doing to preserve Indian and South Asian cinema. And one of their latest restorations is a film from 1972 called Pekiza by the filmmaker Kamal Amroi. And this is maybe best known for being unavailable for the longest time, because it was such a complicated production. There were multiple reshoots. The lead actress who was dating the filmmaker when they first made it was a woman. The lead actress who was dating the filmmaker when they first started making the film became an alcoholic. They split up. She couldn't shoot some of her scenes. And then they decided, oh, wait, let's actually shoot this in, I think they went back and shot it in like a completely different format. So there's, it's also, there's format issues. And what I love about the restoration is that it kind of reflects that. Like it doesn't try to up-res where there's something that might be super grainy. And they really just do very faithful and beautiful restorations. But this is a, this is kind of a, another sub-genre I love, like the holy whore of like, it's about a courtesan, like a very well-regarded courtesan who is traveling between towns on her way to the new kind of brothel where she's, where she's living or meant to live. And she wakes up with a note tied to her toe from a man who has seen her sleeping on the train and tells her in this note that she's the most beautiful woman in the world. She's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. And, and he must meet her one day. And he's sorry that that can't happen right now. And so she wakes up and she's like, oh my God. And she takes this note and puts it in a little locket that she then pins in her hair every day. Or maybe it's on an earring. I'm also reading Song of Solomon right now. And there's a character that has, and I can't remember which is which. But anyway, she has this little, this note in a locket and they eventually come together. But of course, because it's a, it's a beautiful woman. It's a big Bollywood production with tons of numbers and tons of melodrama and, and romance and like up and down and fighting and, and like violence and like maybe some incest. It's just like a very sweeping Bollywood film that has not been available for a very long time. And that also is like, when I left, I had seen it in the same row as a friend. And we saw each other and we were like, is that like everything you could ever want in a movie? And we were like, yeah, I think so. The color, the songs, the performances, the drama, the love story, the action, like, it is truly a full meal of a movie. And it is now more widely available thanks to Shavendra Singh Dungarpour and the Film Heritage Foundation. So I also can't wait to showcase this at the museum, hopefully this winter. Fantastic. Yeah, this is a blind spot area for me in general. Indian cinema like this is something I haven't seen. And it sounds fascinating to me that open is a real good setup. So I'm intrigued. Yeah, it's a great setup. And for anyone curious, like go to the Film Heritage Foundation's website, Instagram, they're posting about their work. And they really are like, like tastemakers and like taste purveyors in the space of Bollywood, and then also more independent South Asian cinema. Excellent. I gotta, I gotta follow them. That's very cool. Last one on the list is something called The Drifting from 64, but or La Derive. La Derive. La Derive, excuse me. And I talked about this on Nicholas Rapold's The Last Thing I Saw podcast, because I saw this at Cannes. Nice. But I just want to shout from the rooftops about this film I had never seen by another woman who was working during like side by side with Agnes Varda and all of the French New Wave dudes. And so she's kind of this like lost moment in in French cinema history to me. And this film's release was kind of troubled. And so she never really made a feature again, and kind of just started working in television, but also like stayed friends with all of like, she was friends with Godard and Truffaut. So this is this figure, Paula del Sol, the director of the film is unique. And then this film is, is kind of about, it's set in in the 1960s. And this young woman who lives in a port town, like runs off with a guitar player thinking that he's the one. And then in the first two minutes of the film, he just leaves her on the ground. on a train while she's sleeping. And she's kind of left to, to find her way to the next man that's going to make her feel the same way that this very charismatic and very dynamic guitar player made her feel. And so there's a series of relationships that she dives into. She's kind of almost a kept woman in certain instances, but, but she's not a tragic figure. And I think both the combination of the story of the filmmaker of this movie, and just the, the lead in this film and, and her kind of like, blase attitude about even like wearing shoes, or like, like, what her mom thinks of her, what her sister thinks of her. She's kind of like, she feels like a John Waters character a little bit. And then she's kind of a war punk. I mean, very much in like a 1960s fishing town milieu. But she's, she's unlike any female character I've seen from that period in a long time, reminds you a little bit of Wanda, but not as sad, a little bit about of like vagabond, but not as harsh. And I was just gonna say, I was feeling vagabond a little bit then you're but then you were like, it's not say, you know, you wasn't sad. And obviously, the way that movie ends couldn't be sadder. So and opens. Yeah, no, this sounds fascinating to me. And by the way, I'm a good plug for your episode of the last thing I saw. And that's That's a podcast I've been listening to for a while now and I'm a big fan of Nicholas Rappold and what he does there. And your episodes is one of my favorites that he did, but that's a podcast in general. I recommend, I would love to get him on an episode of film discoveries by the way. So I may need your help facilitating at some point. Oh, I bet. I hope he would love that. Yeah. If you'd be down, great. No worries if not, but just a nice plug for another movie show that I really dig. And we haven't talked about publicly on the, on the podcast. So I'm glad you listened to it too. Yeah. He's I never miss an episode. He started it during the pandemic and he's been ongoing. And it's taken him to festivals. And usually he's kind of the best coverage of new releases at festivals too. So he'll do like seven can episodes and like a bunch during Toronto and, and it's really valuable and it's, it's all on, you know, wherever you get your podcasts. Absolutely. Yeah. He's, he talks to film programmers and critics and generally folks who, who are in the know in this kind of space, the film festival space. So a lot of that focus is on the stuff that's playing those. So yeah, really, really good show. But yeah, that sounds fascinating. That one. all this, this whole list is great. I was very excited for you to give me the list just so I could see what you've discovered. Cause I knew it would be interesting, but I got to thank you for your time for doing this. Very kind. Thanks for having me, Brian. This is, I mean, love talking about movies in general. Yeah. Specifically. I love talking movies with you. Oh, you're so sweet. So fun. Yeah. And, and yeah, I really look forward to more people discovering some of these movies if they haven't seen them already. And I think specifically, to go back to La Derive, that's going to be available probably early next year. Oh, there's a new restoration. Excellent. Yeah. I was having a little trouble tracking that down with subtitles. So I'm glad to hear that. I would like to see it. So again, check out all things that are happening at the Academy Museum at academymuseum.org for what's happening in terms of programming and just general exhibitions and et cetera, the goings on. At the Academy, which is a lovely place. They actually have a really great trivia night, which I have partaken in a few times and it is wonderful as well. So lots of good stuff happening there again. Thank you so much, KJ. And thanks everyone for listening again. If you like this kind of episode, go check out the Patreon where I've talked to again, your husband, Josh Miller, my friend, our friend, Brett Berg. I've got one coming up with John Rhett from the Trilon. So lots of people we know that have, interesting lists of film discoveries, and that's pretty much exclusively a show that I'm doing for the Patreon only. Just something that I like to do. And you know, this is the kind of conversation I like to have. So if you like it, go check it out over at patreon.com/purecinemapod. But thank you everyone for listening and we'll be back soon with more movie talking. Bye.