Lost in the Movies: December 2018

Patreon update #52: FREE Blade Runner 2049 conversation w/ Max Clark plus preview of Civil War Cinepoem


This is my last update of the year, and only the second that doesn't feature a new podcast episode. From now on, updates will continue on a weekly basis but podcasts will not (although when they do appear they will be consistently jam-packed with material).

This entry includes a look back at 2018 and a sneak peek of 2019. I had three guests on the show and two of those episodes have been made partially and entirely public on YouTube. Now it's time to present the first, and as yet patron-only, conversation, a great-in-depth discussion with friend of the show Max Clark on Blade Runner 2049, the compelling sequel to the beloved 1982 sci-fi classic. If you're a patron who enjoyed this episode before, feel free to share it with others; and if you're not a patron who's curious what you missed, jump right in!


The sneak peek for the coming year is my first video preview since January: a minute from an upcoming resumption of my long-stalled Cinepoem series, featuring two excerpts from two Civil War poems (one by Walt Whitman, the other by Herman Melville) intersecting with a variety of impressionistic film clips. I was really excited to return to this form, and hopefully you like this glimpse as well.





See you in 2019.

Patreon update #51: Before Sunset (+ Twin Peaks season 3 blu-ray special features, It's a Wonderful Life, 2000s politics: Bush administration/Obama campaign & more)


At the end of Before Sunrise, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) hatch a plan to meet on the six-month anniversary of their rendezvous. Well, six months ago I cross-posted my podcast review of Before Sunrise on this site so here we are: the characters are reunited! Of course, it took them a bit longer than it took us - nine years to be exact. Choosing Before Sunset as my last film in focus for 2018 not only serves as a sequel to my earlier episode but also a continuation of my month-to-month Ethan Hawke series, which began with him as Dead Poets Society's shy young prep school student in early autumn and will conclude with him as First Reformed's fanatical pastor in the dead of winter. By the way, it won't take nearly as long for us to reach the next chapter in Jesse's and Celine's ongoing relationship; my plan for January is to review a Hawke/Richard Linklater double feature of Before Midnight and Boyhood.

Indeed, this is my last weekly episode of Lost in the Movies for the forseeable future; from now on, a somewhat beefed-up podcast will drop once a month for all patron tiers. I will also be debuting a Twin Peaks rewatch/introcast podcast for the second tier (the first tier will get access to each episode six months after they premiere, and eventually - years later - I will publish the episodes as a weekly public podcast). I'll have more information in upcoming Patreon updates, because I still plan to write about what I've been up to and link what's available every week on this site. This will include some form of wrap-up/look back at the past year, which not only saw extensive work on Patreon and in-depth retrospective activity for my tenth anniversary, but also my busiest year ever on this site, with over two hundred posts.

For now, in addition to the Before Sunset review and a more detailed announcement about 2019, I (finally!) dive into the blu-ray special features for Twin Peaks: The Return (er, Twin Peaks season 3, er, Twin Peaks: The Limited Event Series); finish my viewing of the CNN documentary series The 2000s, which leads to some thoughts on the previous decade's political landscape; catch up with the last batch of Twin Peaks feedback from the past few months; and conclude with an Opening the Archive entry on the Christmas movie, although of course it's much more than just that.

Thanks for following along this year, and see you again soon.




Line-up for Episode 50

INTRO

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR 2019

TWIN PEAKS REFLECTIONS: Twin Peaks season 3 blu-ray special features

FILM IN FOCUS: Before Sunset

OTHER TOPICS: CNN's 2000s documentary - Mission Accomplished/Quagmire/Yes We Can, NY Times Magazine Afghanistan article, podcast recommendation

LISTENER FEEDBACK: Hands in Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me book interview, is the Evolution of the Arm a good guy?, The Return's connections to seasons 1 & 2, Maddy's murder and Laura's spirit, podcast recommendation, Red

OPENING THE ARCHIVE: It's a Wonderful Life

OUTRO

Patreon update #50: Requiem for a Dream (+ The Blue Rose Magazine in 2018, The Green Book, A Charlie Brown Christmas/It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, Sherilyn Fenn in Twin Peaks season 3, who is Red? & more) and preview of Mary Shelley review


Christmastime is (almost) here with the first of two archive pieces paying tribute to the holiday. This one doubles up a couple Charlie Brown Christmas specials, one from the sixties and one from the nineties, to find out what they tell us about changes in both pop culture and Peanuts canon across the years. I also reflect on Requiem for a Dream over the span of nearly two decades to revisit the early millennium's zeitgeist, much as I did with The Social Network last week. To continue this running theme of cinematic historiography, yesterday's biweekly preview explores how a Mary Shelley biopic straddles the eras of Reason and Romance (which bleed together more than we sometimes remember).

For "Twin Peaks Reflections" I survey a great year of issues for The Blue Rose magazine (including an amazing interview with Sheryl Lee), other topics include The Green Book and Richard Ojeda, and as always there's a ton of compelling listener feedback on Twin Peaks (this week perhaps a bit more than usual).

Stay tuned for one more podcast in a couple days, my last of the year before I take a revamped approach in 2019.



Line-up for Episode 49

INTRO

WEEKLY UPDATE/Patreon: 2nd tier biweekly preview - Mary Shelley

TWIN PEAKS REFLECTIONS: The Blue Rose Magazine in 2018

FILM IN FOCUS: Requiem for a Dream

OTHER TOPICS: The Green Book, Conspiracy Theory, Richard Ojeda, podcast recommendation

LISTENER FEEDBACK: The Owl Cave ring and Annie's nurse, Sherilyn Fenn in season 3, did Lynch care about the Audrey/Cooper romance?, who is Red?, is Audrey dead?, "Mike is the man" & Halloween

OPENING THE ARCHIVE: A Charlie Brown Christmas & It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown

OUTRO

Patreon update #49: The Social Network (+ the Angela Nagle immigration controversy, LeftTube, Fire Walk With Me as Twin Peaks episode, the RR counter/the ring in season 3, Disney's aesthetics/ideology, the Hollywood War and Peace & more)


The Social Network - which I've been planning to make a film in focus since June - is a movie I've covered a couple times before, first in a review/discussion disguised as a Facebook page and later as a visual tribute alternating between the film's images of paper and plastic as methods of communication. This time I take a more straightforward approach and reflect on the film's triple status: as a document of the early 2000s when Facebook was born, as a reflection of the turn-of-the-decade when the film was released, and as an artifact explored in today's context when Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have become deeply entangled in our political and cultural landscape.

Speaking of politics and culture, I've been waiting a couple weeks until I could devote an entire "other topics" section to the backlash against Angela Nagle, author of the popular but controversial Kill All Normies, who recently wrote an essay attacking the left's position on open borders. I think both her approach and the reaction to her speak of a growing rift on the left, a phenomenon I've already begun to explore on previous episodes. I've had a lot to say about this on Twitter and hopefully here I'm able to organize various responses into a cohesive analysis of what's going on, with Nagle and with the left and the issue of immigration more broadly.

This podcast also concludes the exploration of my "4 Ways to Watch Fire Walk With Me" study by examining that film in relation to a dozen Twin Peaks episodes, continues a conversation with listeners about Sherilyn Fenn's and Audrey Horne's on/offscreen stories in The Return, and follows up my two-part review of the Soviet War and Peace by dipping into the archive for my review of the Hollywood adaptation, directed by King Vidor and starring Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, and Henry Fonda.




Line-up for Episode 48

INTRO

WEEKLY UPDATE/recent posts: added Christmas highlight to the sidebar

WEEKLY UPDATE/work in progress: Twin Peaks blu-ray features & John Thorne interview for podcasts

TWIN PEAKS REFLECTIONS: Fire Walk With Me as Twin Peaks episode

FILM IN FOCUS: The Social Network

OTHER TOPICS: Controversy over Angela Nagle's "The Left Case Against Open Borders", podcast recommendation

LISTENER FEEDBACK: LeftTube recommendations, the RR counter scene, Leland/Bob, Teresa's ring, the Pink Room & the Red Room, Twin Peaks truckers, the aesthetics & ideology of Disney

OPENING THE ARCHIVE: War and Peace

OUTRO

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