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
Dir. Charles Sturridge. Starring Ted Danson, James Fox, Mary Steenburgen I have long been on the record that just because something shares the same title as its source material doesn’t mean, necessarily, that it must follow the source material’s lead. In practice, what that means is that film adapters should feel real freedom to edit… Read More Gulliver’s Travels (1996)
Dir. Robert Altman. Starring Ronee Blakley, Henry Gibson, Michael Murphy To me, the most remarkable thing about Nashville is that it places the American id not in New York City or Los Angeles, nor Boston or Texas or DC, but in Tennessee. It has the audacity to presume that something interesting has happened away from… Read More Nashville (1975)
It’s 1983. Stephen King has just published Christine and Pet Sematary, although “The Body,” the novella that birthed Stand by Me, was just published last year, and no one could have forgotten Carrie just yet. Last year was also the year that E.T. came out, where friendly aliens get sloshed at home, dress in Yoda costumes, and have to hide… Read More Stranger Things, Season 1
Inspired by the events of the reasonably recent B&B B&B episode, “Podcast Yes!” and bummed out by how many books I have which are still in Rubbermaid totes, I’ve gone through the Harry Potter books again for the first time in a couple of years. In lieu of doing separate posts on each book, which… Read More Seven Sevens: A Harry Potter Retrospective
Dir. Martin Scorsese. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder The Age of Innocence is the mirror universe of Gangs of New York, films released and set less than ten years apart, with the same director and the same leading man. Admittedly, the differences begin to proliferate from there; Day-Lewis’ Newland Archer is never quite as… Read More The Age of Innocence (1993)
We learned during the podcast! We admit that this edition is a touch scattered, but maybe it’s just because we’re finally one of our longest-percolating ideas. We’ve combined Pokemon and famous philosophers into cute(?), marketable(?), playable(!) “Pokelosophers,” each with their own moves, HP, types, and evolutionary trees. Find out about some of our favorite evolutions,… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 23: When Did You Learn that Persian Looks Just Like Michel Foucault?
Seeing Things Secondhand 