Lost in the Movies: August 2020

Medium Cool (LEFT OF THE MOVIES podcast #1/LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #4)


A week after the Democratic Party's presidential convention (and the week of the Republican event) seemed like a good time to kick off my Left of the Movies podcast with Medium Cool. Haskell Wexler's fiction/nonfiction hybrid stars Robert Forster and documents the notorious 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. What a contrast with the locked-down, frequently prerecorded virtual gathering which aired last week, although in other ways - particularly the violent protester/police confrontation in the streets outside the hall - the film's events resonate quite well with 2020. For now, this side project, a study of political movies from the past century-plus of cinema, is still a part of the Lost in the Movies feed but some time in 2021 it will get its own listing and move to a monthly rather than every-other-month schedule).


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LINKS FOR EPISODE 4

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Late Summer Update: Journey Through Twin Peaks + updates to Top Posts and the picture gallery


The short version is that hopefully I can finally publish the two missing chapters for my video essay series Journey Through Twin Peaks in September (I would love to have chapter 34 up by September 3, the third anniversary of Twin Peaks' third season finale, but that seems unlikely). After that, I am going to make a new "Path through Journey Through Twin Peaks" schedule which will be tighter and stricter and the Part 6 videos will probably premiere throughout the winter and maybe even next spring.

In other words, I'll finally focus on finishing Part 5 (the lead-up to season 3) as soon as my August Patreon posts are up, followed by a few months building a backlog of non-Journey content to keep this site active through the fall and winter, followed by an exclusive focus on Part 6 (different story areas of season 3) with plenty of breathing room to build up some momentum and a regular pace of publication.

Meanwhile, I want to let readers know that I've just updated a couple key pages on this site for the first time in a year and a half. Both are enjoyable ways to explore my work and, in the gallery's case, to linger over many striking images:
Here's the longer version what's been going on and where I'm headed...

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Before Midnight (LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #3)


First Vienna, then Paris, now a Grecian island. First nineties, then zeroes, now the teens. First twentysomething, then thirtysomething, now fortysomething. And first meeting, then reuniting, then struggling to stay together. The Before trilogy comes to a close as I review the third and (so far?) final film in Richard Linklater's series, part of a longer overview of Ethan Hawke I'm publishing this year. At the end of this podcast I preview my first "Left of the Movies" entry (eventually to be spun off into its own program) covering Medium Cool which captured another tumultuous summer's Democratic presidential convention back in 1968.


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LINKS FOR EPISODE 3

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July 2020 Patreon podcasts: LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #18 - Season 2 Episode 10 and LOST IN THE MOVIES #69 - Twin Peaks cinema: The FBI Story (+ remembering Michael Brooks, Twin Peaks Reflections: Louie, Jonathan, Double R Diner, Hap's Diner, Lucy's pregnancy/Part 4, Fire in the Sky, The Double Life of Veronique & more)


For the first time, an entire "Twin Peaks cinema" segment is devoted to a film I'd never seen before. The idea of covering The FBI Story in relation to Agent Cooper (and his associates) came to me when titling my upcoming Journey Through Twin Peaks chapter on the South Dakota sequences of season 3 - a video I, foolishly it seems, thought would be coming out this month. Aside from its general perpetuation of the Official Federal Bureau of Investigation Mythos (complete with an onscreen cameo by J. Edgar himself), the film also has fascinating connections to Peaks motifs like small town murder investigations, the American landscape, South America as a point of intrigue, and the family as a crucial hinge of the social order. Meanwhile, Twin Peaks Reflections focuses on some minor characters, one of the more trivial subplots (sorry, Wally), and one big location (plus its evil doppelganger), while my archive readings/clips catch up with my earlier work on two "Twin Peaks cinema" entries from last year. Finally, while I didn't have time to finally offer more film capsules, listener feedback, or political coverage (hopefully in August or September), I did want to offer one podcast recommendation in tribute to the recently passed left-wing commentator Michael Brooks, whose work I've recommended in many past episodes. (That four-hour tribute from The Majority Report, which he co-hosted, is worth watching in full.)




My Lost in Twin Peaks podcast enters the ominous waters of mid-season two and, for a not-very-great episode of TV, this was a whole lot of fun to discuss. Subjects include extended reflections - including many from series creators - on the Audrey/Cooper relationship (or lack thereof), what stories could replace "Who killed Laura Palmer?" as a central focus, and even the end of Margaret Thatcher's decade as Prime Minister...



And Todd Holland's flamboyant direction of episode 11 is the subject of the older Lost in Twin Peaks episode I just shared with $1/month patrons.



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