Breadline Optimists: A Film Podcast

A friend mentioned recently that it had been a while since a film left a whole audience in awe. We discussed The Force Awakes . And I remember suggesting Top Gun: Maverick  though I was not exactly sure of the audience reaction since, despite the fact that I attend the cinema once a week (at least 52 times a year anyhow), I somehow ended up catching that one at home.   There's an art theater near me called The Loft. My wife and I have usual seats at the front balcony. When a film really has me in awe, I lean closer to the screen and hold onto the railing with both hands. I watched a couple hundred 2022 releases and saw some fantastical things. Here are a few: Alex Cox's appearance in Mad God , the Yiddish references in Blood Relatives , Dan Hedaya's great, gloomy work in Slapface , Gordy the Chimp from Nope and the moment in Exorcist Vengeance when the Father (Robert Bronzi) gives a  dying woman her last rites then pulls out his gun and chases after her...

In the past, I have played or hosted games of The Incinerator Podcast; most of those are listed somewhere on this blog. I was not able to do a write up on the Nicolas Cage game a friend and I played. I was deep into my podcast at the time and I lost my notes. But for anyone curious the top three of that game were: 3) Color Outside Space 2) Mandy and 1) Joe. But my wife and I wanted to play a game of Screen Drafts for a change.  A normal episode of the Screen Drafts is played with two people. It is a 7 film draft. Each Player gets a veto. And order is determined by trivia (related to the topic of film being discussed, a recent pod episode was on Tobe Hopper). The winner of trivia can chose if they want more picks (7,6,4 and 2) or the number one pick (5, 3, and 1). The films being chosen are usually theatrical films but if both parties agree, a rule called "the mooch rule" can allow for television films to be played. Screen Drafts also has mega episodes and mini mega where far ...

Watching nothing but horror in October is standard stuff. My wife (Vanessa) and I got off to an early start by watching all the films of George Romero late August to mid September. He has 17 films (six of which are zombie films) and all of them are for this moment in time easily available (thank you Shudder for half these titles). I have never had a strong feeling about Romero (except for one title) so I was glad to go through these. His films seem interested in capturing community. I admire Romero for maintaining a shaggy independence throughout his career, and honestly, there is only one film I would label bad and only three I would not recommend. I am going to put my ranked list first with a few comments from V and I then I will put Vanessa's list. 17.  Diary of the Dead (2007) : The first one with noticeable bad effects and lousy characters 16. The Dark Half (1993) This just does not have the cool ragtag cast of characters that a Romero film thrives with. It is mostly a one act...

   A few months ago, I played a game based on the Incinerator Podcast, hosted by one Billy Ray Brewton, where a friend and I determined the best film from Woody Allen. I wrote a blog about it. (https://frombtoapodcast.blogspot.com/2022/05/my-friend-and-i-played-movie-game.html )  I got a lot of good feedback on the blog and a bit later, my wife (Vanessa) and a mutual friend (Scott) decided they wanted to play the same game but with Stephen King adaptations   ( https://frombtoapodcast.blogspot.com/2022/06/my-wife-and-friend-played-movie-game.html). I offered to play an version of this game my wife chose with our friend Scott as engineer. She decided on Marilyn Monroe films. We are both fans and have seen the films, but we decided to rewatch twenty films for this game so the prep work took some time. Here is how the game works. The usual premise is two people make individual top twenty lists on any given topic (for instance vampire films). The host takes a look at...