#103: Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

This time, Ashley chooses HAPPY-GO-LUCKY and it’s a Mike Leigh rematch!

Long ago on Ep.8, Dave chose Leigh’s NAKED (1993), which featured male characters so repellent that Ashley found the entire viewing experience to be extremely unpleasant.

Now six years later, we discuss a Mike Leigh film she adores, longtime favorite HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, a seemingly lighthearted comedy simmering with tension and darkness. Sally Hawkins gives a brilliant, compulsively watchable performance as Poppy, a cheerful, free-spirited schoolteacher whose big heart and impulsive nature lead her straight into a series of unsettling encounters that her unshakeable sense of humor may not able to deliver her from.

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102: My So-Called Life (1994-1995)

Introducing our lost episode! Three years ago, we started prepwork for a rewatch podcast about the groundbreaking 90s teen series, MY SO-CALLED LIFE, which ran on ABC-TV from 1994 to 1995. The plan: record and bank a few episodes before committing to the launch. Then life happened…you can guess the rest.

Just in time for the 30th anniversary of the series, here is Episode 1 of our MY SO-CALLED LIFE rewatch. Join us as we dissect the Pilot, share our connections to the show, and get reacquainted with introspective 15-year-old Angela Chase (Claire Danes) as she navigates the ups and downs of adolescence and a painful crush on Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto). 

MY SO-CALLED LIFE was an anomaly in the mid-90s when glossy teen soaps like 90210 reigned. Quiet, introspective, and sometimes dark, MSCL was the first TV series to focus on the subjective experience of a teenage girl, and later in its run, the first primetime series to show a teen coming out on-screen.

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#100: The Big 100! Calm Down & Share This Edition

Five years ago on a drive back from Lubbock, we came up with the concept for this podcast. Here we are, celebrating 100 episodes, by switching it up, with patience and love.

Dave picks a movie Ashley adores, COLUMBUS (2017). Ashley chooses RASHOMON (1950) for Dave.

Are we in for a Kogonada/Kurosawa rap battle? Or just a kinder, more generous show? No enforced viewing this time. Just the gift of time and attention during Ashley’s recent visit home from grad school.

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#99: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010)

We’re back and it’s Ashley’s choice!

Joan Rivers was known in her later years for over the top plastic surgery and for participating in the celebrity bullying culture that was rampant in the early ‘00s.

The documentary, JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK sought to look beyond this image to better understand River’s place as a groundbreaking comedian, and possibly the hardest working person in show business. The result is a compelling look at the effects of fame and the insecurity of trying to make a life and a living in the limelight.

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#97: Harvey (1950)

If you’re like Ashley and remember from the height of the blog era a Tumblr called “Sketchy Bunnies,” then you might be a little intimidated by the hero of this week’s pic, a 6 foot 3 and a half inch invisible rabbit named HARVEY. But it turns out that Harvey and his best friend Elwood P. Dowd have a lot to teach us about what is important in life: like being kind to others, finding joy in simple things, and making sure there are strong policies in place to limit the powers of private mental health institutions.

Check out John Green’s moving podcast episode about the impact of Harvey on his life:

• The Anthropocene Reviewed: “Velociraptors and Harvey”

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#95: Certified Copy (2010)

Intriguing, enthralling, enigmatic and ultimately moving, words that go some ways towards describing this month’s pick, CERTIFIED COPY (2010). Directed by Abbas Kiarostami and starring Juliette Binoche and William Shimmel, the film depicts two people with an undetermined relationship to one another as they spend the day in Tuscany. And so questions arise: What is the exact nature of their relationship? Does objective truth exist? And does it matter if it does?

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#93: A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

A LETTER TO THREE WIVES is an odd film; it begins with the film’s villain, who we never see, providing character introductions, then proceeds to tell the story largely in flashbacks. Flashbacks are introduced by what we can only describe as an early vocoder effect that seems strangely out of place in a post-war drama. But the actors and the script really draw you into the domestic drama, most notably, Linda Darnell and national treasure Thema Ritter. Writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz would go on to win Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscars for this film, a feat he would repeat the next year for his masterpiece, ALL ABOUT EVE.

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#91: Phantasm (1979)

To celebrate the changing of the seasons, we have an introspective look at how family death impacts the life of a young man, causing his retreat into a fantasy world that includes flying murder balls, corpse theft, slave labor on a mysterious red planet, and a tall man filled with what appears to be nacho cheese. Actually, maybe PHANTASM isn’t very introspective at all. This cult horror film is odd, plotless, dreamlike and yet somehow still compulsively watchable.

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#89: That Thing You Do! (1996)

While we certainly can’t claim to be in the know about all things mainstream, THAT THING YOU DO! (1995) seems to have been one of those flash in the pan films that came and went from the popular consciousness. Which is fitting since the film follows The Wonders, a fictional band that writes one catchy song and then fades away like so many Surfaris, Lemon Pipers, or Mysterians. Tom Hanks does an admirable job in his directorial debut. With its contagious soundtrack, and extremely likable cast, this movie is still a lot of fun, 25 years later.

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#87: Now and Then (1995)

Before the surge of coming of age films in the late 90s/early 00s, there weren’t many films that addressed adolescence from girl’s perspectives the way that films like STAND BY ME did for boys. So it is perhaps no surprise that the 1995 film NOW AND THEN captured the imaginations of a generation of girls. It has everything: relatable stories of growing up, a killer soundtrack, a passable mystery, the stars of Casper to crush on, and of course a trip to the library archives. Though the “now” story feels tacked on, the “then” storyline totally makes it  worth a watch.

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