The Film That Blew My Mind – Details, episodes & analysis

On the heels of our conversation with Chaz Ebert discussing Life Itself, we are sharing this episode from our friends at Filmspotting. As we learned from Chaz, even Roger himself once admitted to getting one review wrong!

In this episode, critic and author Matt Singer joins Filmspotting co-hosts Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen to consider the enduring impact of Ebert and his longtime partner Gene Siskel, and to dissect five other reviews they may have gotten wrong. Originally dropped in October, 2023, the episode followed publication of Matt’s book, “Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel and Ebert Changed Movies Forever”, a vivid telling of the definitive story of Siskel and Ebert and their iconic show, “At the Movies.” 

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The Film That Blew My Mind is nominated for Best Indie Podcast Webby Awards. Please show your support and cast your vote for the People’s Voice Award at the link below. Thank you! https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2024/podcasts/features/best-indie-podcast

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For our final episode of season one, we took our show on the road to record an episode before a live audience at the Sonoma International Film Festival. John Cameron Mitchell, the ultimate multi-hyphenate and creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, joined Cooper and Tabitha on stage for a conversation about Robert Altman’s legendary Nashville. With a cast composed of Karen Black, Keith Carradine, Ronee Blakely, Lily Tomlin, Shelly Duvall, Geraldine Chaplin, Jeff Goldblum, and more, the film knits together the stories of twenty four characters as they navigate their time and place in their own, idiosyncratic ways.

John shares his own experience seeing the film, a halfway-fruitful exchange with Nashville screenwriter Joan Tewksbury, and personal encounters with Samuel Beckett and Robert Altman himself. Plus, how the scene with Keith Carradine singing the Oscar-winning song “I’m Easy” inspired parts of John’s own film Shortbus (2006), what he learned from the Sundance labs with Michelle Satter, and why bedwetters are his kind of people.

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Celebrated for bringing depth and nuance to roles ranging from a drug-addicted art dealer (High Art, Lisa Cholodenko, 1998), to a dying mother meeting her daughter for the first time (Monica, Andrea Pallaoro, 2023), Patricia Clarkson is no stranger to complex emotional terrain. Perhaps that is why she feels somewhat comfortable in the volatile world of A Woman Under the Influence, John Cassavettes’ 1974 masterpiece. The film centers around Mabel Longhetti, brilliantly rendered by Gena Rowlands, as a deeply loving, profoundly unstable housewife and mother of three.

We explore the extraordinary power and nuance of Rowland’s performance, the layered collaboration of Cassavettes, Rowlands, and Falk, and learn the extent to which the film was indeed a family affair. For this iconic film, we could not ask for a better guide than the woman Cooper once dubbed the “Unofficial Queen of Sundance”, Patricia Clarkson.

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From his first viewing at the Angelika as a freshman at NYU, Joan Micklin Silver’s 1988 rom-com Crossing Delancey blew Michael Showalter’s mind. In this episode Michael shares how and why the movie made a lasting mark and how it continues to influence his work today. Adapted by Susan Sandler from her play of the same title, this is the story of Izzy Grossman (Amy Irving), a nice Jewish girl with roots in Manhattan’s Lower East Side but now living uptown with literary-adjacent aspirations. Sam Posner (Peter Reigart) is a purveyor of pickles, with a shop down the street from Izzy’s grandmother’s apartment. 

We learn how the film’s spot-on portrayal of 1980s city living with characters who exist in coffee shops and bars and bookstores, and apartments, resonated with the life 18-year-old Michael imagined for himself. As he unpacks what makes this a rom-com classic, co-hosts Cooper and Tabitha spark a debate around the off-screen future for Sam and Izzy, and where they might be today.

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From her feature film directorial debut Flamin’ Hot, to her career-launching turn as Gabrielle Solis on Desperate Housewives, Eva Longoria has a thing for characters - and people - who get things done. Case in point, Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro), the central character in Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995) who brings hard-won street smarts and ruthless clarity to his job as casino boss. He is less clear-eyed when it comes to his hustler-addict wife (Sharon Stone) and unhinged mafioso best friend (Joe Pesci), both of whom sow chaos with every move. 

Eva takes us inside the film that brings us the violent, stylish, and desperate world of 1970’s Vegas. We learn how Scorsese’s filmmaking in Casino inspired many of the techniques she used in Flamin’ Hot, how she cut her directing chops, and the parallels she sees between her own Texican heritage and the Italian American experiences at the center of so many of Scorsese’s films.

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Time traveling hitman, love-struck greeting card writer, notorious whistleblower, and an alien passing as a human boy are just a few of the characters Joseph Gordon-Levitt has brought to life. His extraordinary range as an actor is matched by his taste in films, as evidenced by his choice of Disney’s Encanto as the film that blew his mind. From the way it subverts storytelling traditions to its layered and lyrical songs, Joe shares all the reasons why Encanto is a favorite with his young family and what it has to say about honesty as the greatest superpower of all.

Plus, zip-lining as an antidote to grief, Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopian “Harrison Bergeron”, and the role that Sundance has played in Joe’s own life.

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When trailblazing Native media maker Sterlin Harjo first experienced Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye one solitary day during the pandemic, he says it felt as if he was floating through the film. Floaty and dark, Altman’s 1973 film adaptation of the 1953 book by Raymond Chandler delivers a wry, wise-cracking Elliot Gould as detective Philip Marlowe and takes place in a Los Angeles reshaped by the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. Cueing off The Long Goodbye, Sterlin makes a case for treating background as foreground and for storytelling that emphasizes an ensemble over a single hero.

From his family’s famous spaghetti to the funeral parlor his auntie called home, we learn all about the people and the place that made Sterlin the filmmaker he is today. Plus, how Oklahoma Noir may well be the genre we didn’t know we were missing.

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Comedienne, chanteuse, star, co-writer, and executive producer of HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, and our favorite Manhattan, Kansas native, Bridget Everett shares the beloved classic, The Sound of Music. From watching the story of the von Trapps as the youngest of six kids, to how she sees it through the lens of her life and work today, Bridget dives deep into the timeless resonance of the movie and its music. We learn of her admiration for the naturalistic musicality of the film, and why Dame Julie Andrews is one of her favorite voices of all time.

Plus, her love of Barry Manilow, why co-host John Cooper marched down Santa Monica Boulevard in heels, and what Reverend Mother and Ad-Rock have in common.

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The cinematic force that is Ryan Coogler brings us deep into Jacques Audiard’s masterful, layered Un Prophéte. When Malik, an Algerian man, arrives to serve his sentence in a French prison, he must rely upon his capacity for observation and learning to navigate the complex dynamics of race, ethnicity, language, and power that define life behind these particular bars. Ryan touches on why this film is often compared to The Godfather, and describes Malik, played by the fiercely intense Tahar Rahmin as, “the greatest learner ever put to screen.” 

We hear about Ryan’s formative years as a film student at U.S.C., his first visit to the Cannes Film Festival, and how Alejandro Iñárritu’s Amores Perros and Fernando Merielles and Katia Lund’s City of God have also inspired him along the way.

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