Dir. Rob Reiner. Starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher The difference between When Harry Met Sally (…, and you’re nuts if you think I’m going to type that every time) and every other romantic comedy is that When Harry Met Sally has the most boring plot. Bringing Up Baby throws Cary Grant and Kate Hepburn together via Baby, the… Read More When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Dir. Ava DuVernay. Starring Michelle Alexander, Van Jones, Angela Davis When was the first time you were ashamed to be an American? I don’t just mean hurt, or looked askance, or felt a trigger of anxiety in your gut, but I mean just honest-to-goodness shame, the kind that horrifies you and makes you so angry you… Read More 13th (2016)
It’s another edition of the B&B B&B, but based on the number of topics we give airtime to, it’s more like three. In our first segment, we discuss TV: The Book, the marvelous Sepinwall/Zoller Seitz joint which gives an authoritative and super readable rundown of great American television. Matt: I was pleasantly surprised by where… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 26: British Miniseries and the Worth of Clive Owen
Dir. Laurent Cantet. Starring Francois Begaudeau, Franck Keita, Rachel Regulier The title of The Class, en francais, is Entre les murs. “Between the Walls” is a much better title for this film than “The Class.” What goes on between the walls of a classroom is not precisely secret, but it is meant to be self-contained. When Khoumba (Regulier)… Read More The Class (2008)
Dir. Hugh Wooldridge. Starring Idina Menzel, Josh Groban, Adam Pascal For half a second back there, I thought that the Christmas movie musical was about to become a staple of the American film schedule. Les Miserables hit, Into the Woods missed, and then The Force Awakens came out a year later, with a new Star Wars property expected every Christmas, in… Read More Chess in Concert (2008)
Dir. Adam Kane. Starring Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Chi McBride Late in the first season of Pushing Daisies, Chuck (Friel) discovers the Big Secret that Ned (Pace) has been keeping from her since they were little kids: Ned killed Chuck’s dad. Ned didn’t mean to – didn’t know until it happened, in fact, that he was… Read More Pushing Daisies S2E3, “Bad Habits”
I’ve long been fond of Roger Ebert’s assertion that a children’s movie can do just fine without a villain. Here’s the opening paragraph of his review of My Neighbor Totoro: Here is a children’s film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy. A film with no villains. No fight… Read More The Great British Bake Off
Dir. Ridley Scott. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young The opening shots of Blade Runner are a watershed moment, every bit as essential to the canon of opening scenes as Star Wars or Clockwork Orange or The Searchers. It is a perfect establishing shot, so much more than “look at this building we’re in.” It sets a tone for the entire… Read More Blade Runner (1982)
In honor of our twenty-fifth episode, we’ve decided to talk about a famous thing with the number “30” in it. Since 30 for 30s are universally popular, we’ve decided to return to sports and talk about some topics – overwhelmingly, as we’ve found out, from our childhoods – which deserve some press. In this episode,… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 25: B&B Presents 25 for 25
You might have thought that Matt and I had exhausted ourselves on music-related podcasts, or perhaps you thought we had reached the height of hubris when we claimed to know the 100 most ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s songs, respectively. But you would be wrong, because the B&B B&B has outdone itself: it has divined the… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 24: The Great “Reptilia v. Take Me Out” Debate of 2016
Seeing Things Secondhand 