The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

It’s officially fall when the NYFF finally ends. In this episode, Veronica sits down with Fran Hoepfner, Frank Falisi, and our producer Eli Sands to postmortem the 63rd New York Film Festival. This is a spoiler-free conversation.

We get into: Miroirs No. 3, The Mastermind, Late Fame, No Other Choice, With Hasan in Gaza, The Secret Agent, Peter Hujar’s Day, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, A House of Dynamite, Sirāt, Cover-Up, Duse, How to Bake a Cherry Pie

Plus: One Battle After Another, Alana Haim sighing, bringing Tupperware to critics screenings, the push to explicit politics in this year’s slate, film critics turned filmmakers, “actual jeers,” settler colonialist ravers, Magellan wasn’t long enough, the corona of fascism, Veronica hasn’t seen anything yet, and more.

Further reading & listening: Look out for more NYFF coverage on Eli’s podcast, Deep Cut. Find Frank at BWDR and Reverse Shot. Find Fran online at Vulture and ⁠Fran Mag.

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

You can read every single issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room ⁠here⁠, including our most recent issue: ⁠Teachers⁠. We’re also on Bluesky⁠ @BWDR⁠ and welcome listener feedback & sponsorship inquiries at ⁠podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com⁠.

Happy 30th birthday to David Fincher’s Seven (1995). Joining us to celebrate is special guest Adam Nayman, Toronto-based critic, lecturer, and author of, among other books, David Fincher: Mind Games (2021).

We get into: boy movies, the intersections of art and trash, Fincher as mad designer and marketing guru, Veronica can’t do math, canceling Det. Mills, how a spark of ambiguity can incite a book-length study, the undersung editing of Richard Francis-Bruce, the undersung producing prowess of Michael De Luca, what is and is not in the box, and more.

References: Tony Zhou on David Fincher (“And the Other Way is Wrong”), Richard Dyer’s BFI book for Seven, and of course, Adam’s terrific book on Fincher, Mind Games, from Little White Lies/Abrams Books.

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, and produced by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

Find all 142 issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room at brightwalldarkroom.com, and please consider subscribing to the site, which directly helps support this show!

We welcome feedback, inquiries, and sponsorship opportunities at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.

In honor of guest Michael Koresky's new book announcement, we're revisiting this conversation with him from last summer about Steven Spielberg's A.I.

Michael's new book, Sick and Dirty: Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness, will be out from Bloomsbury in June.

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Reverse Shot⁠ co-founder and editor, and Editorial Director at Museum of the Moving Image Michael Koresky joins us to proselytize Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).

Michael takes us back to being an intern in 2001, watching A.I. six times in theaters, how both Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick do “sentimentality with a point,” Jude Law’s dialogue, parables of loss, and how this “unexpected sledgehammer” of 00s’ filmmaking sticks with him today.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by⁠ Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ and⁠ Chad Perman⁠ and produced and edited by⁠ Eli Sands⁠. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

You can find all 135+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room online at⁠ brightwalldarkroom.com⁠. We're on Bluesky at @bwdr and @bwdrpod, and welcome feedback and inquiries at ⁠podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com⁠.

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This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can now enjoy 3 months of free access to Galerie by signing up ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

We’re back with an episode analyzing writer-director Aaron Schimburg’s Kafkaesque body swap, A Different Man.

Joining us is critic, actor, and BWDR darling Frank Falisi, co-founder of Garden State Lantern. We get into Adam Pearson’s Oscar snub and Sebastian Stan’s win, The Substance for boys, shooting in NYC, if you want to dance the mask, the humanism of karaoke, doing your life wrong, self-image as self-esteem, and what it means to never change a bit.

Further reading: Le Cinema Club’s interview with Aaron Schimburg, RogerEbert.com’s interview with Schimburg, Adam Pearson, and Sebastian Stan, and Screen Slate Podcast’s episode with Schimburg (and a few cameos from the film).

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie: a new kind of film club. Listeners can sign up for access to essays, curated film lists, live screenings, and more at join.galerie.com.
Find every issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room at brightwalldarkroom.com. Holy trinity: please give us a follow, rate the pod, give a review. We welcome feedback and inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com. Happy new year.

Our first mini-episode of 2025 looks to one of director Andrew Haigh’s curated picks: Billy Wilder’s subversive farce Some Like It Hot.

We get into the unlikely modernity of Hot’s sexual politics, Orry-Kelly’s naked dresses, Wilder’s collaboration with I. A. L. Diamond, is this the greatest comedy of all time, and more.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

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This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can now sign up for three months of free access to Galerie's streaming library, curated film lists, essays, live screenings and more at join.galerie.com.

Be thankful we did your Gladiator II homework, rewatching Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 1 (2000) with amateur Russell Crowe historian Blake Howard.

This is a Gladiator II-spoiler-free conversation: listen as we get into Crowe kissing disembodied feet, Scott’s world-building, the technology of acting, Oliver Reed’s digitized face (RIP), is anything better than practical effects, expressionism vs. historical accuracy, and more. Gladiator: a good movie.

Further reading: here’s Gladiator cinematographer John Mathieson on returning to the sequel after 24 years.

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie: a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for 3 months of free access to essays, curated film lists, live screenings, and more at join.galerie.com.

You can find every issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room here. Holy trinity: please give us a follow, rate the pod, give a review. We’re on Bluesky at @BWDR and @BWDRPod, and welcome feedback & inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.

This month’s mini-episode takes us into the rich opening sequence of a pick curated by director Andrew Haigh: Nicolas Roeg’s Venetian nightmare, Don’t Look Now .

We get into Graeme Clifford’s expressionist editing, celebrating movies for grownups, the color red, non-chronology, grief, and what lies “beyond the fragile geometry of space.”

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for 3 months of free access to Galerie's curated film lists, essays, live screenings & more at join.galerie.com.

This holiday season, we're revisiting last year's holiday special: an audio essay of one of the most popular articles we've every published on the site: Ethan Warren's ⁠A Grand Yuletide Theory: The Muppet Christmas Carol is the Best Adaptation of A Christmas Carol⁠.

Written and read by ⁠Ethan⁠ himself, with holiday music from ⁠Ryan Pollie⁠.

(Originally aired December 17, 2023)

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We'll be back later this month with two brand new pods, but in the meantime:

Happy Holidays from ⁠Bright Wall/Dark Room⁠!

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This episode is sponsored by ⁠Galerie⁠, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for three months of free access to Galerie by using this special link.

On this special mega episode, co-host Veronica sits down with critic ⁠Fran Hoepfner⁠ and our producer Eli Sands to postmortem the 62nd New York Film Festival. This is a mainly spoiler-free conversation!

We get into: Hard Truths, Caught by the Tides, Nickel Boys, April, Harvest, The Brutalist, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, The Shrouds, Queer, Maria, Stranger Eyes, Eephus, I’m Still Here, Anora, The Room Next Door, one stray line about Misericordia, plus: wife guy directors, the surveillance motif, doing Mike Leigh homework, critic versus public screenings, do we need subtitles to understand Scottish accents, stop describing Brutalist as monumental, are movies too long, Almodóvar’s secret to killing it at Q&A, what lipstick is Mikey wearing in Anora, and more.

Further reading and listening: Fran’s ⁠NYFF report⁠ for Bright Wall/Dark Room and her incredible ⁠piece on Dick Pope⁠, and more of Eli on the festival at ⁠Deep Cut⁠. Find Fran online at ⁠Fran Mag⁠, ⁠Twitter⁠, and ⁠Letterboxd⁠.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by⁠ Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ and⁠ Chad Perman⁠, produced by⁠ Eli Sands⁠, and edited by ⁠Buczar⁠. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

Please: follow, rate, review!

Find all 135 issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room at ⁠brightwalldarkroom.com⁠ (and be sure to check out our upcoming November issue, Neo-Noir 2024). We’re on Twitter (@BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast), ⁠Bluesky⁠, and ⁠Letterboxd⁠, and welcome feedback and ad/sponsorship inquiries at ⁠podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com⁠.

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This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Galerie⁠⁠: a new kind of film club. Listeners can currently sign up for three months of full access to essays, curated film lists, live screenings and much more at ⁠⁠join.galerie.com⁠⁠.

This month’s mini-episode takes us into one of costume designer Sophie de Rakoff’s curated picks: Irvin Kershner’s The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), an American giallo with style to spare. We get into Faye Dunaway’s scream, POV in horror, how this is Helmut Newton x John Carpenter, the ethics of glamorizing suffering, and, yes, the clothes.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for three full months of free access to curated film lists, essays, live screenings and more here.