Stereoactive Movie Club - Ep 6.1 // Round 6 Picks!

Ep 6.1 // Round 6 Picks!

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05/17/23 • 22 min

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Stereoactive Movie Club

In our next batch of movies, we'll be traveling from the Soviet Union to Florida with stops in Sweden, Hollywood, and Djibouti along the way...

So, listen up as we reveal our picks for what we’ll be watching in Round 6 of the podcast!

Also, we introduce a special guest who’ll be joining us for all of Round 6!

Produced by Stereoactive Media

In our next batch of movies, we'll be traveling from the Soviet Union to Florida with stops in Sweden, Hollywood, and Djibouti along the way...

So, listen up as we reveal our picks for what we’ll be watching in Round 6 of the podcast!

Also, we introduce a special guest who’ll be joining us for all of Round 6!

Produced by Stereoactive Media

Previous Episode

Ep 5.7 // Boyhood w/ Max Goransson

It’s Jeremiah’s Round 5 Bonus Pick: Boyhood, the 2014 film directed by Richard Linklater.

Boyhood tells the story of a young boy, his slightly older sister, their divorced parents, and the people who come in and out of their lives over the course of 12 years, from the time the boy is 6 until he’s 18. Step-parents come and go, or even stay. Many moves are made. And we see the ways in which the parents’ decisions and actions affect their kids until they begin to have more agency and independence.

The story is told a year at a time, and, of course, the special thing about it is that it was also filmed a year at a time, so we see every main or recurring character actually age as the film progresses. The effect of the year-by-year production schedule is that each section of the film is something of a time capsule of both the era when it was shot and the time in each cast members’ life, thus lending an air of docu-realism that could never be achieved if it had been filmed more traditionally as something of a period piece. Linklater, cast, and crew would shoot for a few weeks each year, with the script being written as they went to take into account where the actors were in their lives and, to some extent, what was going on in the world and culture from year to year.

The film was budgeted at $200,000 per year of shooting – or $2.4 million total – and ended up earning $57.3 million making it a box office success, especially when considering that it was never in more than 775 theaters in the US. Critical reception was also strong, with many naming it the best, or among the best, films of its year.

Sight And Sound magazine, for the record, polled 112 international contributors and colleagues to decide their top 20 films of 2014 and ranked Boyhood #1.

The film also won the top prize of the year from a number of other critics groups and other organizations. And Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, received much praise for their portrayals of the estranged parents in the film. It was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, but only Patricia Arquette won, for Best Supporting Actress. It’s other nominations were for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Ethan Hawke), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.

As for our purposes on this podcast, Jeremiah chose this movie as one that he thought deserved to be in the conversation of the Best Films for the 2022 Sight And Sound Poll. It was chosen back before the 2022 poll was out and, as it turns out, it did not make the list. That said, of the ballots that have been made public, director George Miller noticeably had it in his top 10.

Produced by Stereoactive Media

Next Episode

Ep 6.2 // Battleship Potemkin

It’s Mia’s Round 6 Pick: Battleship Potemkin, the 1925 film directed by Sergei Eisenstein.

Divided into 5 acts, Battleship Potemkin, in commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of what is known as the First Russian Revolution of 1905, tells the story of a mutiny aboard the titular Russian naval vessel

In the film’s telling, the crew’s refusal to eat borscht made from maggot-infested meat is the first domino in a series of events that leads to a sort of mini-revolution in the port city of Odessa.

And in the reality of the time when the film was made and released, it effectively helps to connect the still very new USSR to the historical struggles of its citizens under the previous Tsarist regime by portraying the institutional power of those sailors as aligned with the people at a time when the Soviet regime had much to gain from its people believing in such an alignment.

While the film was produced intentionally as propaganda, Eisenstein also used it as a vehicle to further his own experimentation with the concept of “montage.”

Of course, while he may have had his own personal, artistic motivations for this exploration, it’s also undeniable that his work was itself influenced by and part of the Soviet effort to use the medium of film for its own purposes.

The film was considered shocking at the time for its use of graphic violence, much of which has been referenced in other films over the years – especially the Odessa Steps sequence.

But even criticism of the film seems to acknowledge the power of its craft.

As for our purposes, Battleship Potemkin was in the top 10 of Sight and Sound’s critics survey every decade, from the first poll in 1952 up until 2002. In 2012, it ranked at #11 making it a runner up, and in the 2022 poll, it was tied at #54. It’s never been in the top 10 of the directors survey and in the 2022 poll it was tied at #93.

Among the filmmakers who had it on their top 10 lists in 2022 are Michael Mann and Sally Potter.

Produced by Stereoactive Media

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Mentioned in the episode:

IN THE MOOD FOR EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE

https://youtu.be/ekNG7cW-xXE