Episodes
Thursday Jul 01, 2021
Sordid Cinema Podcast #584: Pull the Wool From Your Eyes to See The Parallax View
Thursday Jul 01, 2021
Thursday Jul 01, 2021
Powerful organizations shrouded in secrecy, pulling strings from the shadows, snuffing out all who would dare expose the truth to an unsuspecting populace… It’s hard not to love conspiracy thrillers, and 1970s movie theaters were chock full of them. This week, the Sordid Cinema crew is taking a look at one of the best, the second in director Alan Pakula’s ‘Paranoia’ trilogy, The Parallax View. Clearly taking inspiration from real-life political assassinations, the story features an intrepid reporter investigating a shadowy corporation that appears to be recruiting and training deadly operatives to ‘remove’ political obstacles. But don’t worry about getting bogged down in plot details — there are too many car chases, bar fights, bomb threats, and boat explosions to distract from what’s really happening.
Join Rick, Simon, and Patrick as they explain just what makes The Parallax View such a solid thriller, including the masterful cinematography, excellent staging, and overall likability of star Warren Beatty (even if someone thinks he should have been replaced). But can you trust a film that doesn’t answer all the questions? We may never know exactly what’s goin on, but there’s a lot of fun in trying to figure it out. For all this and more, have a listen!
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Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Sordid Cinema Podcast #583: Johnnie To’s Drug War
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Drug War (2012) Review
Do you love crime movies but wish they’d just jettison all that junk you don’t really need? You know, love interests? Backstories? Metaphors? Who needs ’em? Johnnie To sure didn’t when he put together 2013’s grim, single-minded Drug War, a movie all three of us found something (or several somethings) to enthuse about. We get into Chinese politics, the (possible) effects of snorting heroin, and consider it as the dark, lower-key anti-mirror of John Woo’s Hard Boiled.
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Monday Jun 07, 2021
Monday Jun 07, 2021
Super 8 Review
After a year of anticipation through teasers, images, and speculation, J. J. Abrams’s third feature Super 8 (featuring his first original screenplay) was released in 2011 to much an overwhelming amount of hype. Fans expected big things while critics seemed out to tear it apart— and it didn’t take long before the film became a source of fierce debate. In episode #276 of the Sordid Cinema Podcast (then called Sound On Sight) Ricky D, Justine Smith and Simon Howell sat down to discuss the sci-fi thriller and settle the score. Or at least they tried. What follows is our review of Super 8 recorded way back on June 11, 2011.
Saturday May 22, 2021
Saturday May 22, 2021
Hard Boiled Review
This week on Sordid Cinema, we travel back to 1992, and for the first time ever on the podcast, we sit down to review a John Woo film. And not just any John Woo film, but arguably one of the single greatest action movies of all time. It’s one of Woo’s masterpieces and along with A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Bullet in the Head, it helped revolutionize Hong Kong action cinema! That’s right folks, we finally get around to discussing the effortlessly cool Hard Boiled.
It’s safe to say, Hard Boiled is a masterpiece of action filmmaking and the ultimate expression of everything Woo became famous for. It’s perhaps the granddaddy of a genre once known as Heroic Bloodshed (a term invented by Rick Baker) and it boasts one of the greatest set-pieces ever put to celluloid— a legendary explosion of gunfire and pyrotechnics that takes up the film’s final hour.
In this episode, we break down all three major action set-pieces, from the opening tea house sequence which features two iconic shots of Chow Yun Fat to the warehouse raid where Johnny Wong seizes control of the Triad gangs, and to the climactic siege on a hospital involving hundreds of extras including a dozen or so newborns trying to escape while the building around them goes up in flames.
Expect to hear us gush over Woo’s direction, the movie’s famous unbroken three-minute tracking shot, Michael Gibbs soundtrack, and of course, the stellar performances from Tony Leung, Chow Yun Fat, and Philip Kwok as the eyepatch-wearing maniac Mad Dog, who’s acting and stunt work, often is overshadowed by his co-stars.
Sit back, relax and get ready for a wild ride. This might be the most action-packed episode of the Sordid Cinema Podcast yet!
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Sunday May 16, 2021
Sunday May 16, 2021
Point Blank (1967) Review
Way back on episode 126 of the Sordid Cinema Podcast, we reviewed John Boorman’s gritty, raw crime drama Point Blank, featuring superb performances by Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson.
The 1967 thriller combines elements of film noir with stylistic touches of the European nouvelle vague and features a fractured timeline (similar to the novel’s non-linear structure), disconcerting narrative rhythms, and a carefully calculated use of film space.
Discussing the film is Ricky D, Simon Howell and former co-host, Ali McKinnon.
Saturday May 15, 2021
Sordid Cinema Podcast #579: Black Coal, Thin Ice
Saturday May 15, 2021
Saturday May 15, 2021
Black Coal, Thin Ice Review
For our first non-English feature in a minute, we take a trip to Heilongjiang Province to dissect Black Coal, Thin Ice, Diao Yinan’s grim 2014 neo-noir. (Its successor, the more widely-seen The Wild Goose Lake, may, or may not be the subject of a future Sordid episode.) We get a little lost in the film’s dense and troubling plot, neon cityscapes, and many acts of cruelty and malice. But hey, at least there are fireworks!
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Monday Apr 19, 2021
Sordid Cinema Podcast #576: Ravenous is Hungry for Man Meat
Monday Apr 19, 2021
Monday Apr 19, 2021
Ravenous (1999) Review
In one of our most spirited episodes in recent memory, the gang unites with guest Mike Worby to sing the praises of Antonia Bird’s gonzo 1999 cannibal shocker Ravenous. Is it a horror movie, a western, a cannibalism drama, a homoerotic fable, a survival story, a historical epic, a black comedy, or a satire? The answer is yes. Also: lots of talk about Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn’s oddball score, the brilliant cast, Robert Carlyle’s demonic antics, and how to sell your friends on this one-of-a-kind movie.
Friday Apr 16, 2021
Sordid Cinema Podcast Rewind: Mad Max Special Part 1
Friday Apr 16, 2021
Friday Apr 16, 2021
Max Max and The Road Warrior
The release of Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller’s triumphant return to the franchise he created 36 years prior (!), prompted us to record a two-part extravaganza devoted to Miller’s series of post-apocalyptic thrillers. We get to Fury Road in the second half of this special; for now, former co-host Edgar Chaput rejoined us to discuss the original Mad Max, as well as its significantly more financially impactful sequel, 1981’s The Road Warrior.
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Monday Mar 29, 2021
Sordid Cinema Podcast #574: 'The Silent Partner' is a Hidden Gem
Monday Mar 29, 2021
Monday Mar 29, 2021
Modern thrillers getting you down? Head back to the late 1970s and indulge in Daryl Duke’s The Silent Partner, a nasty, funny neo-noir driven by Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer’s deadly game of cat and mouse. Loaded with gags, twists, and tons of real Toronto landmarks, the film was a critical and commercial hit at the time, but has since evolved into a cult item beloved by critics and connoisseurs of edgy Canadiana. Ricky, Simon, and Patrick offer their perspectives on the twisted characters and ponder how 21st-century audiences might take to this brutal-but-hilarious caper.
Sunday Mar 21, 2021
Sunday Mar 21, 2021
Alex Proyas’ Dark City Review
While The Matrix grabbed more attention the following year from sci-fi fans and moviegoing audiences, 1998’s Dark City still holds up as a fantastically imagined search for what it means to be human in a neo-noir city set on a spaceship hurtling through the cosmos. Alex Proyas’ story of a man without a memory, who is trapped in a waking nightmare perpetrated by Nosferatu-looking aliens who swap memories in and out of citizens as if they were positioning pieces of an unsolvable jigsaw puzzle, moves at a breakneck pace while still managing an intoxicating atmosphere. This week Rick, Simon, and Patrick dive deep into the psyche of this great work of imagination, and while they may not resurface with all the answers, the journey is still a great one.
Join us as we break down John Murdoch’s path from a wanted serial killer to mankind’s redeemer, marvel at the impressive production design, muse on Jennifer Connelly’s nightclub singer character (or lack thereof), and try to parse out that ending. And just why does Christopher Nolan’s name keep coming up? For all this and more, have a listen!
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