Advertise on podcast: Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics

A true dark comedy, Zach Cregger’s Weapons (2025) combines a satire of suburbia, a study of addiction, and the satisfaction of a fairy tale. The film works so well because it takes its time to develop interesting characters to the point where the viewer occasionally forgets the horror-movie label and is drawn into the human story of regular people trying to cope with terrible events. Aunt Gladys is terrific, but she’s only part of what makes Weapons so compelling.   Bumper music by John Deley. Weapons works exactly like one of Grimms’ fairy tales; you can find a handsome edition of them here.  Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Mike Takla is on substack at The Grumbler’s Almanac.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A comedy of frustration and a look at how the media takes and then takes back one’s fifteen minutes of fame, Dog Day Afternoon (1975) is on of Sidney Lumet’s best films with one of Al Pacino’s best performances. Sonny wants to be Lee Marvin but acts more like Don Knotts; he wants to be a folk hero, but becomes more like a meme; he has a romance with the media and finds that his mistress is fickle. Sonny is the kind of person who accidentally appears in a viral video, comes to enjoy the renown, but then learns that his hour upon the stage is signifying nothing. Bumper music: Bumper music by John Deley. Interested in the real events that inspired the film and how the film was made? Read Rachel Walther’s Born to Lose: The Misfits Who Made Dog Day Afternoon. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Mike Takla is on substack at The Grumbler’s Almanac. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tod Field’s Tár (2022) is one of the best ghost stories we’ve discussed on the show. The story of a troiubled genius, the film is also a wonderfully ambiguous portrat of a person persued by her past in the form of an unseen and vengerful force. Lydia Tár is by turns charismatic, repulsive, fascinating, and frightening. She’s a real person and demands a compicated response, just like the film as a whole. Part Amadeus and part Lolita, Tár is a high-water mark for anyone intrested in a portrat of the artist. Bumper music: Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 - Trauermarsch by Jason Weinberger & WCF Symphony. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 If, like Lydia Tár, you’re fascinated by Mahler, check out Stephen Downes’ 2025 biography. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Mike Takla is on substack at The Grumbler’s Almanac. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In light of the dismal Disclosure Day (2026), we return to two films that show Spielberg tackling alien visitation (or invasion) stories while at the height of his powers. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and The War of the Worlds (2005) are decades apart, yet united by a single image and devotion to their audiences. The first is as Disneylike as Pinocchio; the second conjures memories of 9/11. Both show domesticity under great strain as families and infrastructures break down; one ends with hope while the other simply stops. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. The War of the Worlds is based on H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel, which you can purchase here. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tennyson called nature “red in tooth and claw,” but that warning didn’t keep Timothy Treadwell from living among the grizzlies of Alaska for thirteen summers–until one of them killed him and his girlfriend. Werner Herzog’s 2005 documentary Grizzly Man tells Treadwell’s story and raises the issues of what happens when we ascribe human motives and characteristics to animals and the ways in which we all attempt to stake out our own territory in an indifferent world. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Herzog’s most recent book The Future of Truth (2025) is a series of essays about what constitutes truth and the threats truth faces in our age of AI and deepfakes. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Woody Allen has called A Streetcar Named Desire the most well-directed film ever made and its influence on Blue Jasmine (2013) is unmistakable. Both concern a woman whose fantasy life and self-deception break down and both feature incredible performances by the lead actress: in Streetcar, it’s Vivien Leigh and here it’s Cate Blanchett. And if Streetcar is a high point of Eliza Kazan’s filmography, Blue Jasmine is surely one of Allen’s and perhaps the best of the subgenre Woody Allen Movies Without The Woody Allen Character. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Blue Jasmine is Allen’s 44th film; his memoir, Apropos of Nothing, details how he became a writer and director of fifty films. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1828, a seventeen-year-old boy was found wandering the streets of Nuremberg, holding two letters and unable to say more than a few words. The locals adopted him as a kind of municipal mascot; eventually, they learned that he had been bound in darkness until his release and struggled to learn more about his past. Werner Herzog took the story as a basis for his 1974 film–not one of his trademark documentaries–and used it as a meditation on the human condition. It’s an unforgettable experience, like seeing 2001 for the first time. Join us as we discuss the film’s ideas, humor, and audacity. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. The German title of the film is Every Man for Himself and God Against All, which is also the title of Werner Herzog’s 2024 memoir. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“Forget it, Jake—it’s Chinatown.” This piece of advice is as famous as it is useless: Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) will never be able to forget what he’s seen. Chinatown (1974) is also impossible to forget: whether it’s the perfect nod to noir or the best noir of all time, it’s endlessly fascinating, compelling, and disturbing. Join us for an improvised conversation about why the film still fascinates and why Noah Cross (John Huston) might be the best movie villain of all time. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. If you want to read a great in-depth book about the making of Chinatown, check out Sam Wasson’s The Big Goodbye. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hollywood loves making movies about itself: on this show alone, we’ve done Sunset Boulevard, Sullivan’s Travels, and Singin’ in the Rain. Get Shorty (1995) is Elmore Leonard’s contribution to the genre, a film that was “meta” before the term became overused: we are given the illusion of spontaneity and the story–like one of Leonard’s novels–seems like it’s being made up as it moves along. This perfect 90s movie is a lighthearted and wholly enjoyable dramatization of screenwriter William Goldman’s famous description of the industry: “Nobody knows anything.” Incredible bumper music by John Deley. If you’re interested in reading the original novel, you can find it here. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A Star Is Born has been filmed four times, but the first version is the best: a combination of Singin’ in the Rain and Death of a Salesman, David O. Selznick’s production drips with “movie” and artificiality, yet still delivers an ending that seems taken from Greek tragedy. No stars were harmed in the making of this film–yet the film also dramatizes the harm inflicted by a steady diet of fame. It’s not an indictment of Hollywood, but an illustration of how the machine works. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. If you’re interested in reading Dorothy Parker, Robert Carson, and Alan Campbell’s excellent screenplay, you can find it here. The collection Memo from David O. Selznick is an addictive edition of hundreds of memos, telegrams, and letters from the producer about the films he helped create, A Star Is Born among them. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Every other movie seems to be touted as a “tour de force”--but Philip Barantini’s 2021 look at ninety minutes in the life of a chef and everyone around him really earns that praise. The entire film was shot in one take, not to be “original,” but because doing so reflects the tension and stress of the whole enterprise: a restaurant, like a film, is a complicated ecosystem in which personalities, hang-ups, failures, and backstories collide. Join us for a conversation about how the restaurant is, like so many of our jobs, a petri dish in which radically different people are placed and forced to coexist. Sometimes, things get ugly. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Adam Reiner’s The New Rules of Dining Out explains how restaurants work and complements the film like a Cabernet Sauvignon does a steak. You can also see Adam Reiner being interviewed about his book and favorite restaurant-based films here on Pages and Frames. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The average estimated words-per-minute in a feature film is 90; His Girl Friday (1940) clocks in at 240. And yet the fast dialogue is only one of its many fascinations. Everything about it perfectly lands: the script, the casting, the camerawork, the minor players–all contribute to what can be called, without the kind of hyperbole found in the Morning Post, a perfect film. It’s as cynical as Network yet as joyful as Singin’ in the Rain and skewers the news-tainment complex with an affection for its perpetrators. Join us for an appreciation for one of the best. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Admirers of the film will enjoy this beautifully designed book edition of the original screenplay, in which the original dialogue from the film is reproduced complete with an accompanying commentary. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Twentieth Century (1934) is a screwball comedy that moves like a runaway train and we are delightfully tied to the tracks. John Barrymore’s audacious performance as director Oscar Jaffee is awe-inspiring; Carole Lombard is equal to the task of pushing back against the man who, in a sense, created her. It’s Frankenstein meets His Girl Friday; it’s ninety minutes of screaming and yelling; it’s filled with as many coincidences as a Wodehouse novel; it’s a great portrait of theatrical types; and it’s laugh-out-loud funny from the first scene to the last. Join us for a ride! Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Michael Morrison’s John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor tells the story of Barrymore’s triumphs as Hamlet and Richard III, which informed his performance as the overly-dramatic Oscar Jaffee. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland.”  That line from James Joyce’s story is heard at the end of John Huston’s 1987 adaptation, a true family affair in which his son, Tony, wrote the screenplay and his daughter, Anjelica, played a major role.  Like Huston’s first film, The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Dead is a perfect adaptation that complements the source material and enriches our understanding of it.    “The Dead” is the final story in Dubliners, James Joyce’s 1914 collection, available here.  Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Wings of Desire (1987) is a film that stays with the viewer; part of how it works is to flood the viewer’s mind with images that seem, at first, disconnected but which also take root and then resurface a day or week later when one isn’t suspecting to think about a trapeze artist or Peter Falk. More like a painting than a film, Wings of Desire flips the usual extolling of the spiritual world over the material one and asks what our lives could be like if we could see the material world as an angel. It’s a film universally loved for reasons that are difficult to articulate but certainly strong. The Pixels of Paul Cezanne is a 2018 collection of essays by Wim Wenders which he presents his observations and reflections on the fellow artists who have influenced, shaped and inspired him. Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at [email protected] with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.