Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics

Nov 04 2024 286 ep. 21 mins 32

Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics Podcast artwork

Two friends with strong opinions watch films separately then discuss them on the show for the first time. Can their friendship survive? Join Mike and Dan as they discuss one film each episode--and in only fifteen minutes, give or take a few. There are no long pauses, pontifications, or politics--just two guys who want to share their enthusiasm for great movies. On Twitter. On Letterboxd. Email: [email protected].

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Blow Out

Nov 04 2024 26 mins

Political noise is as American as baseball and apple pie and in this election season it’s impossible to tune it out completely: it’s on our televisions, radios, phones, and computers. Brian DePalma’s Blow Out (1981) follows a man who is able to hear something underneath all the noise: a perfect character to think about this election season. The real debate for Mike and Dan is

The Fly

Oct 28 2024 25 mins

There’s a moment in The Fly (1986) in which Seth Brundle–well into his transformation into Brundlefly–explains that he must vomit on a donut before eating it. The camera cuts away to show Geena Davis’s reaction, which is the same reaction David Cronenberg evokes in his viewers throughout the film. Grotesque yet surprisingly moving, The Fly is more than disturbing, wonderful

Manchester by the Sea

Oct 21 2024 33 mins

You can’t judge a book by its cover or a movie by its poster. When Mike suggested Manchester by the Sea (2016) for the pod, Dan hooted and derided his co-host as a lover of Hallmark Holiday Classics. But after he watched Kenneth Lonergan’s brutal and sobering examination of unquenchable grief, he admitted his mistake. Join us for a conversation about a film that was mismarketed

Out of Sight

Oct 14 2024 23 mins

The second-best movie based on an Elmore Leonard novel, Out of Sight (1998) does what Netflix and other platforms try to do all the time: throw a bunch of stars together in an effort to increase the quality of the “content.” But those half-assed efforts never come close to Out of Sight, which has a roster of A-list actors, a terrific screenplay based on quality source material,

Kramer vs. Kramer

Oct 07 2024 25 mins

Robert Benton’s 1979 interior drama turned out to be one of the biggest films of the 70s. While we might appreciate Dustn Hoffman now more often than we watch his movies, this marked another example of him owning the decade. It’s his movie, despite the attempt to give balance to the two Kramers fighting for the legal and moral right to raise their son. If you haven’t seen thi

As Good as It Gets

Sep 30 2024 29 mins

For years, Dan avoided this movie, fearing it was like a Hallmark Holiday Classic or Very Special Episode of Mad About You. But after our episode on Broadcast News, Mike insisted Dan give it a watch. Join us as we talk about the ways in which the film surfs just above the sharks of sentimentality that threaten it at every plot point and offers a great combination of characters, pro

Strangers on a Train

Sep 23 2024 24 mins

Strangers on a Train (1951) may not be an “obvious Hitchcock” like Vertigo, Rear Window, or North by Northwest, but it’s fascinating, rewatchable, and has everything we love in the Hitchcock canon. When Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets Bruno Antony (Robert Walker), he learns that he might not know himself as well as he thought he did. The whole film is like a ride on the car

Croupier

Sep 16 2024 23 mins

Has your day today been worth narating? If it were retold in the pages of a novel, would anyone read it? Are you worthy of narration? Most of us would say that we weren’t, but that’s not the case for Jack Manfred, the title character of Croupier, Mike Hodges’ 1998 film about authorship and narcissism. Jack thinks that one must be a gambler or a croupier: one can either try to

L. A. Confidential

Sep 09 2024 30 mins

If L. A. Confidential (1997) were two degrees campier, it would seem like Dick Tracy–but Curtis Hanson made sure to capture the spirit of James Ellroy’s novel while making its labyrinth plot understandable to viewers. Join us for a conversation about how the film examines the need for heroes yet seems to only offer them in a way to which the movies have made us accustomed. Sunl

For a Few Dollars More

Sep 02 2024 30 mins

A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) are collectively known as “The Man with No Name” trilogy and are often thought of as one long movie about the hero’s adventures, much like we think of the original three installments of Indiana Jones. Quentin Tarantino has called the third film the most well-directed film ev