Back for season 2 and here to grace you with a two hour special all about writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson! Licorice Pizza has finally hit screens, so it's only right we take a look back at his career. PTA certainly has an obsession with co-dependent relationships, creating sympathy for unruly characters, and a true connoisseur of fuck boys but does it always pay off?
With Paul Schrader's must-read book Transcendental Style In Film - suggested by special guest Viktor van der Valk - as a stepping stone for the last Celebrating Cinema podcast of 2021, our hosts discuss the different varieties of transcendental filmmaking and the way it impacts us as viewers. They talk about their film club pick, Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), and mention essential filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky, Chantal Akerman, Yasujiro Ozu, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Terrence Malick. Where do you find yourself near the Tarkovsky Ring…?
With both the festive season upon us and new restrictions imposed on cinemas, the mack is back and we're here to discuss our cinema comforts! We discuss our chicken-soup films that we watch religiously, as well as try to determine the common themes tying our movie choices that can reveal what we find comforting about our picks.
It’s about time we absolve ourselves of the guilt we feel when enjoying our personal favourites! Writer Basje Boer joins us again to discuss why we should be liberated from the stigma of loving overtly shlocky action films, non-sensical comedies, and schmaltzy teen dramas and romcoms. We question what exactly we are suppose to feel guilty of and how this can limit your own unique love of cinema.
With the release of their feature debut Gagarine (2020) in cinemas here in The Netherlands, we spoke with directors Fanny Liatard & Jérémy Trouilh to discuss the duality of Paris captured on screen. We explore how their magic-realist drama bridges the tensions between the romanticised dreamlike city and its neglected suburbs, united by a universal ability to dream and the importance of utopian images.
Special thanks to Cinéarte for organising this episode.
In conjunction with the upcoming Camera Japan Festival at LAB111, a celebration of upcoming and contemporary Japanese films, we explore our own personal relationship to what Japanese cinema offers. The wealth of Japanese films are too rich to ever justly cover in a single episode, so instead we are joined by programmer and researcher of Japanese cinema Julian Ross, to explore an overlooked genre of Japanese film - Expanded Cinema, a radical form that subverts our understanding of what cinema can be and the audience's relationship to the screen.
It's the big bang of both our 10th episode and the origins of the summer blockbuster, although this episode is not quite like the high-end production of your usual summer hits!
A director is much like a chef, and it is no surprise that directors often use cooking analogies when describing their own process. However, what is perhaps unclear is how a tomato actually symbolises the very essence of cinema, and why eating a blood sausage or a strawberry risotto could correlate to watching a Quentin Tarantino or Sofia Coppola film. Joining us in this celebration of food and cinema is film critic Joost Broeren-Huitenga, who together with his wife, Nienke Huitenga, also explores this unique relationship on their website Een Bord Vol Cinema. Tell us your own stories of food and cinema at celebratingcinema@lab111.nl, if you have any questions or topics you can also write to us.
Cinemas reopened. After months of closed doors, four committed cinephiles gather to celebrate — and discover that one of them has already been caught by the summer blockbuster heatwave. A short, celebratory episode about what we missed, what we came back for, and what it means to be in a room full of strangers watching something together. Capturing a specific moment: the relief and slightly giddy pleasure of the first film back on the big screen after the longest gap most cinemagoers had ever experienced.
Eroticism should be found in balance! Now isn’t it about time that women in cinema got to look back, shifting the gaze back on to the male, or at least express what it is like to be looked at through the male gaze that has dominated cinema. Basje Boer, film critic and author, joins us in celebrating female desire in cinema and exploring the complex gender dynamics within cinema and the effect it has on us as an audience. Our film club choice The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola, 2017) kickstarts our discussion, a hot take on what happens when you equalise desire. As always, if you have any questions you would like us to discuss or stories about cinema you would like to share then please email us at celebratingcinema@lab111.nl
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