Stereoactive Movie Club - Ep 5.1 // Round 5 Picks!

Ep 5.1 // Round 5 Picks!

Explicit content warning

09/15/22 • 26 min

Stereoactive Movie Club

Listen up as we reveal our picks for what we’ll be watching in Round 5 of the podcast!

Spoiler alert: we have two bonus picks this time around, so we’ll be watching 7 films total.

And, as referenced in the episode, here is the list of all movies released after 1980 that appeared in the top 100 of the Sight & Sound critics and directors surveys in 2012:

1982 - Blade Runner (Ridley Scott / USA)
1982 - Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, France)
1982 - Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden)
1983 - L’argent (Robert Bresson, France)
1985 - Come And See (Elem Klimov, USSR)
1985 - Shoah (Claude Lanzmann (France)
1986 - Blue Velvet (David Lynch, USA)
1990 - Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami / Iran)
1990 - Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, USA)
1991 - A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, Taiwan)
1994 - Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, Hungary)
1988-1998 - Histoire(s) du cinéma (Jean Luc Godard / France)
1999 - Beau Travail (Claire Denis / France)
2000 - In The Mood For Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong)
2000 - Yi Yi (Edward Yang, Taiwan)
2001 - Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, USA)
2005 - Caché (aka Hidden, Michael Haneke, France/Austria)
2007 - There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)

Produced by Stereoactive Media

Listen up as we reveal our picks for what we’ll be watching in Round 5 of the podcast!

Spoiler alert: we have two bonus picks this time around, so we’ll be watching 7 films total.

And, as referenced in the episode, here is the list of all movies released after 1980 that appeared in the top 100 of the Sight & Sound critics and directors surveys in 2012:

1982 - Blade Runner (Ridley Scott / USA)
1982 - Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, France)
1982 - Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden)
1983 - L’argent (Robert Bresson, France)
1985 - Come And See (Elem Klimov, USSR)
1985 - Shoah (Claude Lanzmann (France)
1986 - Blue Velvet (David Lynch, USA)
1990 - Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami / Iran)
1990 - Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, USA)
1991 - A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, Taiwan)
1994 - Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, Hungary)
1988-1998 - Histoire(s) du cinéma (Jean Luc Godard / France)
1999 - Beau Travail (Claire Denis / France)
2000 - In The Mood For Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong)
2000 - Yi Yi (Edward Yang, Taiwan)
2001 - Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, USA)
2005 - Caché (aka Hidden, Michael Haneke, France/Austria)
2007 - There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)

Produced by Stereoactive Media

Previous Episode

Ep 4.6 // Pather Panchali

It’s Lora’s 4th pick: Pather Panchali, the 1955 film directed by Satyajit Ray. Pather Panchali, which translates as “Song of the Little Road,” is based on the 1929 novel of the same name, which is the semi-autobiographical work of author Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. Satyajit Ray was a graphic designer working on illustrations for a 1944 abridged edition of the book when it was suggested to him that the stoy’s depiction of rural life in the Bengali region of India would make for a good film. A few years later, as Ray became interested in making a movie, he decided to take that suggestion. After a start-stop-start production beset by funding issues, support from the regional government, as well as MoMA and filmmakers like Jean Renoir and John Huston helped to eventually push the production over the finish line. Its success was eventually sure enough that there were two sequels that, together with this film, form what’s known as the “Apu trilogy,” which when taken together follow Apu’s life through adolescence and into adulthood. Pather Panchali won Best Feature Film and Best Bengali Feature Film at India’s 3rd National Film Awards. It was also honored at Cannes with the aforementioned award for Best Human Document and was nominated for or won several other critics, festival, or industry awards around the world. As for our purposes, the film has appeared in the top 10 of Sight & Sound’s critics polls twice, once as a runner up in 1962 and then again at number 6 in 1992. In the 2012 polling, it was ranked #42 by critics and #48 by directors. Produced by Stereoactive Media

Next Episode

Ep 5.2 // Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

It’s Jeremiah’s 5th pick: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, the 1927 film directed by F.W. Murnau.

Based on a 1917 short story called “The Excursion to Tilsit,’ written by Hermann Sudermann, the film was Murnau’s first in the United States, after he was brought over from Germany by William Fox to make something for Fox Film Corporation like the expressionist work he’d produced in his home country – Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, and Faust among those. As with his previous work, the art design is exaggerated or even distorted to represent the emotional and symbolic tone being strived for. Add in innovative camerawork and one of the first synchronized soundtracks featuring a specifically composed score and sound effects, and the technical achievements alone begin to make it clear why the film had been popular and influential.

The film was hailed as a masterpiece by many critics of the day. And it also holds the distinction of being the only film to ever win Best Unique and Artistic Picture at the Oscars – an award that only existed in the ceremony’s first year. More recently, AFI listed Sunrise at number 82 in the 2007 version of their 100 Years... 100 Movies list of the greatest American films.

As for our purposes, Sunrise has appeared in the top 10 of Sight & Sound’s critics survey twice – at number 7 in 2002, and then at number 5 in 2012. Also in the 2012 polling, it was ranked #22 by directors; among the filmmakers who had it on their top 10 lists were Francis Ford Coppola and the Dardenne Brothers. And one more thing worthy of noting: Sunrise was released on September 23rd, 1927... Two weeks later, on October 6, is when The Jazz Singer was released, ushering in the beginning of the sound era for motion pictures.

Produced by Stereoactive Media