Back for season 2 and here to grace you with a two hour special all about writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson! Licorice Pizza (2021) 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?
It’s no secret that LAB111 is getting a third cinema screen, which we can reveal will have the same interior design as the inside of the spaceship from 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968). We are going to tackle this mammoth of a film and discuss solely 2001: A Space Odyssey. You’ll be taken on a journey through space and time as we explore all things Kubrick, so stay tuned.
Films mentioned
(click on the links for tickets to screenings at LAB111)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)
Our hosts
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
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…?
Viktor van der Valk (1987, Iceland) directed Wegloos/Vegleysa (2011) while studying at the School of the Arts Utrecht (HKU). The short was selected for the Debut Competition at the Netherlands Film Festival. After three years at the HKU, Van der Valk continued his film education at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam, where he made the short films Steen/Brick (2013) and Onno de Onwetende/Onno the Oblivious (2014). Nocturne is his first feature and has its world premiere at IFFR 2019. His brother, actor Vincent van der Valk, plays the lead role.
Next episode
Back for season 2 and here to grace you with a two hour special all about writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson! Licorice Pizza (2021) 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?
Films mentioned
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
American Gigolo (Paul Schrader, 1980)
Hardcore (Paul Schrader, 1979)
The Comfort Of Strangers (Paul Schrader, 1990)
Nocturne (Viktor van der Valk, 2021)
Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
15 Hours (Wang Bing, 2017)
A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
Gunda (Viktor Kosakovskiy, 2020)
Le Diable Probablement (Robert Bresson, 1977)
L’Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
Nostalgia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The Tree Of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
West Side Story (Steven Spielberg, 2021)
Nick Of Time (John Badham, 1995)
24 (Robert Cochran, Joel Surnow, 2001-2014)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2017)
The Card Counter (Paul Schrader, 2021)
Diary Of A Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)
Light Sleeper (Paul Schrader, 1992)
Our hosts
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
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.
With director Viktor van der Valk joining our next episode to discuss transcendental films, we have picked Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966) as both our film club pick and an alternative Christmas watch. It is currently available on Mubi and will be kicking off our conversation with Viktor! Let us know your thoughts.
Next episode
Transcendental films with Viktor van der Valk
Viktor van der Valk (Iceland, 1987) directed Wegloos/Vegleysa (2011) while studying at the School of the Arts Utrecht (HKU). The short was selected for the Debut Competition at the Netherlands Film Festival. After three years at the HKU, Van der Valk continued his film education at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam, where he made the short films Steen/Brick (2013) and Onno de Onwetende/Onno the Oblivious (2014). Nocturne is his first feature and has its world premiere at IFFR 2019. His brother, actor Vincent van der Valk, plays the lead role.
Films mentioned
(click on the links for tickets to screenings at LAB111)
Singin’ In The Rain (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, 1994)
Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2018)
Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
Our hosts
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
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.
Basje Boer (1980, Amsterdam) is an author and film critic. She has published various novels, including Nulversie (2019, Nijgh & Van Ditmar) and Bermuda (2016, Nijgh & Van Ditmar), and writes about film, pop culture, art and literature for Dutch magazines De Groene Amsterdammer and De Filmkrant, among others.
She has written at length about topics like the female (and male) gaze, female representation in film and her novels are riddled with references to films and plays on the cliches of cinema.
Next episode
The festive season is on the horizon and the whole team are back together to discuss the films they watch during the Christmas holidays. Luckily it is not just Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988) and Home Alone (Chris Columbus, 1990) on repeat!
Films mentioned
(click on the links for tickets to screenings at LAB111)
The Naked Gun franchise (David Zucker, Peter Segal, 1988-1994)
Twins (Ivan Reitman, 1988)
Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006)
Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021)
Howard The Duck (Willard Huyck, 1986)
Eternals (Chloé Zhao, 2021)
Kindergarten Cop (Ivan Reitman, 1990)
Jingle All The Way (Brian Levant, 1996)
The 6th Day (Roger Spottiswoode, 2000)
Hard Target (John Woo, 1993)
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, 2021)
Double Impact (Sheldon Lettich, 1991)
Rambo III (Peter MacDonald, 1988)
Rambo (Sylverster Stallone, 2008)
Blade: Trinity (David S. Goyer, 2004)
Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
Pain & Glory (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
To The Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2012)
Knight Of Cups (Terrence Malick, 2015)
Song To Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)
Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolino, 1987)
Sex And The City (Darren Star, 1998–2004)
The Sopranos (David Chase, 1999-2007)
Fifty Shades Of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015)
Sex And The City 2 (Michael Patrick King, 2010)
The Many Saints Of Newark (Alan Taylor, 2021)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 19991)
The Tree Of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
Drag Me To Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009)
The Ice Road (Jonathan Hensleigh, 2021)
Old (M. Night Shyamalan, 2021)
Signs (M. Night Shyamalan, 2002)
Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke, 2008)
Cats (Tom Hooper, 2019)
Our hosts
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
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.
With Gagarine’s nationwide release in The Netherlands, we of course urge you to go watch it having listened to our conversation. We also recommend a couple of companion pieces that are being screened at LAB111, both Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012) & La Haine (Mathieu Kasovitz, 1995)
Next episode
The gang is back together to discuss their “guilty pleasures” in film and those really bad films that end up winning you over. Expect a certain someone to be adverse to this idea of there being such things as “guilty pleasures” in cinema, and also how such a philosophy can influence one’s very own film taste.
Films mentioned
(click on the links for tickets to screenings at LAB111)
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
To “celebrate” the release of Clint Eastwood’s latest film Cry Macho and maybe his final swan song, Hugo & Tom get together to discuss their very different relationships to this Hollywood ‘icon’. On the surface this may appear to be a review of one man’s career in film, but perhaps it reveals something about our own attitude to cinema. Is this the Clint Eastwood spin-off show Hugo has always wanted…?
Join us next episode as we speak with directors Fanny Liatard & Jérémy Trouilh to discuss the duality of Paris captured on screen. Courtesy of Cinéarte and with the release of their feature debut Gagarine (2020) in cinemas here in The Netherlands, 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.
Films mentioned
Cry Macho (Clint Eastwood, 2021)
Rawhide TV Series (Charles Marquis Warren, 1959-65)
A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964)
A Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965)
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
Coogan’s Bluff (Don Siegel, 1968)
Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971)
The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1971)
Play Misty For Me (Clint Eastwood, 1971)
Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976)
High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973)
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985)
High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952)
Man Of The West (Anthony Mann, 1958)
Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
Sully (Clint Eastwood, 2016)
The 15:17 To Paris (Clint Eastwood, 2018)
Letters From Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood, 2006)
Elephant (Gus van Sant, 2003)
Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood, 2019)
The Mule (Clint Eastwood, 2018)
Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008)
American Sniper (Clint Eastwood, 2014)
Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood, 1980)
The Bridges Of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995)
Blood Work (Clint Eastwood, 2002)
True Crime (Clint Eastwood, 1999)
A Perfect World (Clint Eastwood, 1993)
Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, 2003)
Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973)
Escape From Alcatraz (Don Siegel, 1979)
The Rookie (Clint Eastwood, 1990)
Our hosts
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
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.
Researcher and writer Julian Ross has been a programmer for International Film Festival Rotterdam since 2015, curating the Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia (features) selection, and he has been on the selection committee of the Locarno Film Festival.
In 2020 he published the book Japanese Expanded Cinema and Intermedia: Critical Texts of the 1960s, alongside fellow editors Ann Adachi-Tasch and Go Hirasawa, on the indelible mark Intermedia and Expanded Cinema, both as critical approach and artistic practice, left on a period of Japanese art history that is broadly considered to be one of its most dynamic moments in the wake of its postwar reemergence.
Next episode
We have a very special episode, at the request of Hugo himself who has managed to convince Tom to sit down and discuss Clint Eastwood’s latest (and maybe his final) film Cry Macho after its release on the 17th of September on HBO’s streaming platform. Consider this both Hugo’s attempt to create a Clint Eastwood spin-off show and Tom’s desperate struggle to bring Hugo back to reality both with his own podcasting ambitions and Clint Eastwood himself.
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
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 Hollywood films! With Hugo at Venice film festival, Kiriko & Tom attempt to determine the definition of a (summer) blockbuster, is it more than just a “box-office hit”? In conjunction with the upcoming Suspicious Minds program, a retrospective of Denis Villeneuve’s work, we also explore what is a so-called “intelligent blockbuster”, skeptical of Christopher Nolan and his apparent pioneering of this heightened term. By exploring the history of the summer blockbuster, we attempt to resolve what the future of this historic marketing strategy has in an industry now dominated by streaming platforms.
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.
Film Club
After listening to this episode and hopefully gaining a greater insight into (the history of) the summer blockbuster, we have chosen Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, 2016) as our film club choice for this episode. We would love to know what your thoughts are of this “intelligent blockbuster”, so leave your review either in the Apple review section for this podcast or send us an email to celebratingcinema@lab111.nl and expect to hear your review read out by Tom, using his best impersonations of movie celebrities.
Films mentioned
(click on the links for tickets to screenings at LAB111)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ryan Coogler, 2022)
Our hosts
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
Before our Celebrating Cinema podcast takes a summer hiatus, we had the chance to check in with our film critic @hemmerzael for a special episode on @cannes_filmfestival! Hugo, part of a jury in Cannes and chatting to us from the French Riviera, joins LAB111 programmer @tomwaist, who wrestles with his fomo, as Hugo considers this the greatest edition of the renowned festival. With his love for lists Tom runs us through his own picks and potential inspirations for future programs at LAB111, mixed with Hugo’s anecdotes of socialising with Adèle Haenel.
We will be taking a mini-summer hiatus but we will return in September for our big 10th episode, with the whole crew back together! Please keep spreading the word of the podcast if you have been enjoying it so far. As always if you have any feedback, questions or topics for discussion then please write in to celebratingcinema@lab111.nl.
Film Club
During our summer hiatus we have given our top picks that are being screened at LAB111 these upcoming weeks – go check them out!
I Know Where I Am Going (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1945)
A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946)
La Double Vie de Véronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1991)
Francesco, giullare di Dio (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)
Autumn Sonata (Ingmar Bergman, 1978)
Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)
Drive My Car (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
Our hosts
from left to right: Tom Ooms (film programmer), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic) Kiriko Mechanicus (film maker), Elliot Bloom (podcast producer)
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.
Joost Broeren-Huitenga (1982) is a contributing editor at de Filmkrant, the Netherlands’ largest independent film magazine, and film critic at Amsterdam-based daily Het Parool.
Together with his wife Nienke Huitenga he writes (and cooks!) about the relationship between food and film on their website Een Bord Vol Cinema.
Next episode
During our mini-summer hiatus and a build-up to our 10th episode, we have a Cannes Special. Hugo, a film critic is there right in the thick of it and will give a unique insight into this particular celebration of cinema. Tom mischievously forces Hugo to question whether he is just a cog in the big machine of the industry itself, although it might be out of slight jealousy that Tom raises such questions, with Hugo speaking from the festival itself, while Tom is locked up in a gloomy-looking Amsterdam. Kiriko misses this one as she takes up a writing residency in Paris, but the gang will be back for the 10th episode in September!
Film Club
Usually we have a film pick for the following episode that we will be discussing, however next episode is a special episode with no film anchoring our discussion. So, instead here are our top 5 picks that are being screened at LAB111 these upcoming weeks – go check them out!
