DOLLY BACK

Dream much, listener? Joining Dolly Back this week on a filmmaker and film near and dear to our hearts is Anna Swanson, a film critic and senior contributor to FilmSchoolRejects, and fellow Manniac on the director's neon-soaked and transcendent Manhunter (1986)! In the earliest adaptation of Thomas Harris' novels, the film would overcome its initial reception and commercial prospects to become an enduring classic among crime fans, replete with synth rock needle drops and an all too real deep-dive into the world of criminals, professionals, and voyeurs. As Will Graham, Hannibal Lecktor, and Francis Dollarhyde are left adrift amongst the red sands and blue skies of the Red Dragon, witness their thorough profile of perhaps the most mythic and romantically Expressionist work of this hallowed filmmaker's career - IT'S JUST YOU AND ME NOW, SPORT!
Anna Swanson's FilmSchoolRejects Author PageDavey Davis' Article on Bright Wall/Dark Room - Manhunting
Rob Hunter's Article on FilmSchoolRejects - 31 Things We Learned from Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' Commentary
Ryan Lambie's Interview with Brian Cox on Manhunter, Michael Mann, and Brett Ratner on Den of Geek
Ben Simington's Article on MUBI - Close-Up on Michael Mann's "Manhunter"

Ringing in the scariest month of the year, Dolly Back is mesmerized by Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure, a 1997 detective thriller that is equal parts horrific and incisive. As a gruesome crime wave sweeps Chiba, Detective Takabe joins forces with the psychologist Sakuma to uncover the mysteries behind the distinct X pattern slashed into their neck and the amnesiac wanderer cropping up at crime scenes. What ensues is a prognosis on polite society, entangling memory, sound, national history, and the apparatus itself as Kurosawa probes the transference of myths and morbidity in a Japan about to enter the next millennium, all of which your hosts are eager to tackle this week! As the podcast embarks on a journey of delightfully scarier fare than usual for October, make sure to pay close attention to their voices as they kick off...
Anton Bitel's Review - "Discover the hypnotic mystery of this nihilistic thriller"

Enter Bayhem - a world of impulses and entropy that has perhaps never been as potent and singular as it was in Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009)! To your hosts, it is a miracle this film exists - even moreso that it sustained commercial success in spite of its WGA strike affected script, IP origins, and near-total departure from its predecessor's setting. As Optimus Prime and Megatron dip their feet into the sense impressions of Operation Desert Storm, this episode examines its impossible assembly, jarring reliance on analog filmmaking, and this film's unholy pact with producer Steven Spielberg's coming-of-age films of old. Although we don't quite have a Linkin Park needle drop - DOLLY BACK, TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUT!
Roger Ebert's Article - "The Fall of the Revengers"

Real life doesn't fit into little boxes that were drawn for it - and surely, the ambitions of this week's high concept exploration of the superhero by M. Night Shyamalan can hardly fit into this episode. In Unbreakable, Bruce Willis' David Dunn learns he is nigh-invincible following a deadly train crash, as Samuel L. Jackson's enigmatic Elijah Price observes his progress and guides him to use his gifts in the service of others. Speaking 22 years after the release of a film that was very much on the vanguard of comic book properties in studio filmmaking, this episode conducts a retrospective analysis of this film's metafictional aesthetics, Shyamalan narrative toolbox, and the budding "rivalry" between mediums - comic books and film!
Denis Mellier's Article - "World Building and Metafiction in Contemporary Comic Books Metalepsis and Figurative Process of Graphic Fiction"

As they brave the always-dangerous waters of Wong Kar-Wai's melancholy, Dolly Back is joined by Hannah Fleisch, a UofT graduate student with an extensive knowledge of world cinemas! Whether it's a sob at the end of the world or a family photograph at the center of yours, this famed Hong Kong filmmaker turns his viewfinder to every nook and cranny that conceals a piece of home - everywhere from a loved one and they food they make for us, all the way down to the ways we throw ourselves into work on the opposite side of the world. As Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung desperately attempt to repair a failing relationship and its many artifacts, so too do the filmmakers reach across time and space for a city on the precipice of change, thriving in the cracks of the film's editing and the numerous echoes across cultures that populate its text. It takes two to tango dear listener, and we invite you to join us on our journey into the politics of immigrant and diaspora cinemas, queer filmmaking, and how WKW's singular style brings them together into one heartbreaking experience!
Hugo Córdova Quero's Article - "Queer(N)Asian Im/Migrants’ Connectedness: An Inter-Contextual Decolonial Reading of Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together"Svetlana Boym's Article - "Nostalgia"
BOMB Magazine Interview - "Wong Kar-Wai by Han Ong"