First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

Mar 08 2025 214 ep. 33 mins 106

First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film Podcast artwork

Podcast by Jose Arroyo & Richard Layne

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Shanghai Blues (Tsui Hark, 1984)

Mar 08 2025 23 mins

Tsui Hark’s SHANGHAI BLUES (1984), starring Kenny Bee, Sylvia Chang and Sally Yeh, is currently playing on MUBI. A commercial romantic comedy with musical numbers galore and lots of screwball and slapstick, the film is easy to like. We discuss the pleasures in the performers, the interwar Shanghai setting, the beauty of its look and design, the inventiveness of its shot design an

Thinking Aloud About Film: Bellissima (Luchino Visconti, 1951)

Feb 28 2025 37 mins

We didn’t manage to get to much of the recent Luchino Visconti retrospective at BFI South Bank but we somehow wanted to mark the moment, and how better than a discussion of BELLISSIMA (1951), particularly through the great Eureka/ Masters of Cinema blu-ray. We discuss its themes of obsession, mother love, fantasy, cinema, the effects of media on private and collective aspirations

José Arroyo in Conversation with Dr. Ben Lamb on THE WIRE

Feb 11 2025 52 mins

Wonderful to have an opportunity to discuss THE WIRE (David Simon, showrunner: 2002-2008) -- a show which got mixed reviews and diminishing audiences but nonetheless survived to become a cultural touchstone -- with Dr. Ben Lamb. Ben is the author of You’re Nicked: Investigating British Television Police Series, for Manchester University Press as well as the producer of award winn

José Arroyo In Conversation With Fiona Cox On Wicked (Jon M. Chu, 2024)

Dec 02 2024 63 mins

Fiona Cox, PhD in Film Studies by day, and, under the name of Kitty Mazinksy, chanteuse extraordinaire by night, is the ideal person to talk to about WICKED (Jon M. Chu, 2024). She’s read the book, seen the musical four times and has even performed in it. She now talks to me about musicals, the politics of the film, the dancing, the singing, the numbers, the length. Are critics r

POFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Dylan Day on Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996)

Nov 29 2024 37 mins

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/29/pofcrit-podcast-2024-dylan-day-on-trainspotting-danny-boyle-1996/ Adapted from the 1993 novel by Irvine Welsh, Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting is as whimsical as it is putrid. One of the most iconic and provocative films of the 1990s, it serves to examine the life of heroin addict Mark Renton and his addict friends as they endlessly search for the

Thinking Aloud About Film: Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006)

Nov 29 2024 35 mins

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/29/thinking-aloud-about-film-volver-pedro-almodovar-2006/ Richard and I return to discuss VOLVER (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006), interesting to see always but particularly for Richard now having seen WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS (1984) and his earlier films, which he hadn’t seen before, and thus more fully appreciating one of the ‘returns’ in VO

POFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Madeleine Lear on One Hour Photo (Mark Romanek, 2002)

Nov 25 2024 40 mins

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/25/pofcrit-podcast-2024-madeleine-lear-on-one-hour-photo-mark-romanek-2002/ Starring Robin Williams in one of his most unsettling roles as Sy, the photo guy. One Hour Photo follows Sy, a photo technician, as he forms an obsession with the Yorkin family before taking it upon himself to avenge his shattered fantasy and lost childhood innocence. In the

POFCRIT Podcast 2024: James Thompson on Under The Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell, 2018)

Nov 18 2024 35 mins

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/18/pofcrit-podcast-2024-james-thompson-on-under-the-silver-lake-david-robert-mitchell-2018/ James Thompson on UNDER THE SILVER LAKE: Unpacking the mysteries of this dream-like neo-noir, the podcast takes a look at the film's many potential meanings and messages, as well as its wide array of influences and homages from classical Hollywood. From subl

The Gus Van Sant Podcast No. 6 :Michael J. Glass on Good Will Hunting (1997)

Nov 17 2024 58 mins

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/17/the-gus-van-sant-podcast-no-6-michael-j-glass-on-good-will-hunting-1997/ Michael J. Glass joins me for a discussion of Gus Van Sant’s GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997), a blockbuster success in its day; a film that won Robin Williams an Oscar, made stars of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and left a big cultural imprint. It’s since been much parodied (in

POFCRIT PODCAST 2024: Jake Diamond on I Am Legend (Francis Lawrence, 2007)

Nov 15 2024 48 mins

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/11/15/pofcrit-podcast-2024-jake-diamond-on-i-am-legend-francis-lawrence-2007/ In this podcast we will discuss the often-overlooked 2007 adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. Following Will Smith's rendition of Dr Robert Neville, a virologist and last man on earth, it focuses on the psychological deterioration and complex need for coping mechani