A Reel Education

This episode focuses on one of the best films of the 1990’s (or any decade): The Shawshank Redemption! Alee Ellingsburg returns to watch this prison drama that is structured about as well as a movie can be structured. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman star in this movie that was one of the first true home video phenomenons. Tim pretty much takes over this episode because he really loves the film. You’ll have to forgive him for that.

Our next film will be Bringing Up Baby.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Rating: 9.3/10 (3,042,120 votes)
Director: Frank Darabont
Writer: Stephen King, Frank Darabont
Stars: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton
Runtime: 142 min
Rated: R
Genre: Drama
Released: 14 Oct 1994 Plot: A banker convicted of uxoricide forms a friendship over a quarter century with a hardened convict, while maintaining his innocence and trying to remain hopeful through simple compassion.

The post Episode 77 – The Shawshank Redemption appeared first on A Reel Education.

This episode, we tackle the 2017 Oscar winner for Best Picture: Moonlight! After the crazy ending to this year’s Oscar ceremony, this film was crowned Best Picture. We’re guessing you haven’t seen it. In fact, neither Melissa or Tim had seen it either. Still, we brought in Pat Wick, who also hadn’t seen it, to be our guest. The film is notable for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact it is the first film featuring an all black cast to win Best Picture. It gave us a lot to think about and we hope you watch the film and it makes you think as well.

Next up, it is time to start exploring all of the actors who have played James Bond both in the Bond franchise and outside of it! We’ll be starting with Sean Connery and Goldfinger!

Moonlight (2016) Rating: 7.4/10 (341,808 votes)
Director: Barry Jenkins
Writer: Barry Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney
Stars: Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Trevante Rhodes
Runtime: 111 min
Rated: R
Genre: Drama
Released: 18 Nov 2016 Plot: A young African-American man grapples with his identity and sexuality while experiencing the everyday struggles of childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood.

The post Episode 90 – Moonlight appeared first on A Reel Education.

For our newest episode, we subjected Jena to the 1984 train wreck that is David Lynch’s Dune! We are joined by two special guests. First is Kelvin Hatle, who has an unholy love for bad movies great and small. Second is Jerry Belich who, along with Melissa, produced a Swede version of the film that you can (and should) watch on Youtube! We try to make sense of a film that almost works on many levels and yet completely fails on all of them. Who knows if we succeeded?

We added the horrible song that Tim wrote for the credit sequence of the Dune Swede. It is after the closing music to the podcast. If you’d like to download your own version of the song (though we don’t know why you would), you can do that here.

Our June 15th episode will be about Cabaret and features special guest Windy Bowlsby!

Dune (1984) Rating: 6.3/10 (187,539 votes)
Director: David Lynch
Writer: Frank Herbert, David Lynch
Stars: Kyle MacLachlan, Virginia Madsen, Francesca Annis
Runtime: 137 min
Rated: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Released: 14 Dec 1984 Plot: A Duke's son leads desert warriors against the galactic emperor and his father's evil nemesis to free their desert world from the emperor's rule.

The post Episode 24 – Dune appeared first on A Reel Education.

We are embarking on a three movie exploration of the same story! First up is a return to the great Akira Kurosawa. His film, Yojimbo, borrows heavily from American Westerns and American film noir. But it has a badass samurai twist courtesy of Toshiro Mifune. We enjoy this relatively light offering from the Japanese master filmmaker as a prelude to exploring the work of another, quite different master.

Next up, we’ll be watching A Fistful of Dollars!

Yojimbo (1961) Rating: 8.2/10 (135,707 votes)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa, Ryûzô Kikushima
Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Eijirô Tôno, Tatsuya Nakadai
Runtime: 110 min
Rated: Not Rated
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Released: 13 Sep 1961 Plot: A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.

The post Episode 54 – Yojimbo appeared first on A Reel Education.

This month, we began our new relationship with the Trylon microcinema in Minneapolis! They have great popcorn! For our first film, we watched David Lean’s epic masterpiece The Bridge on the River Kwai featuring Sir Alec Guiness and William Holden. There was much whistling and a bridge was destroyed! Nary a lightsaber was to be seen! We had great fun talking about this movie with the attendees of the film and you can hear how much fun if you only listen to the episode!

Our June 1st episode will feature guests Kelvin Hatle and Jerry Belich as we talk about the David Lynch’s failed epic, Dune!

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Rating: 8.1/10 (241,306 votes)
Director: David Lean
Writer: Pierre Boulle, Carl Foreman, Michael Wilson
Stars: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins
Runtime: 161 min
Rated: PG
Genre: Adventure, Drama, War
Released: 14 Dec 1957 Plot: British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.

The post Episode 23 – The Bridge on the River Kwai appeared first on A Reel Education.