Emulsion Ep. 6 - Edo Choi and Alexander Fee on Mikio Naruse
In a city where the rents are too high, the subways are too slow, and morale barely hovers above cope, repertory options might make such troubles worthwhile. So one thinks while looking over Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us, a career-spanning, 35mm-rich, two-cinema retrospective that began last weekend at Japan Society and will continue at Metrograph. It was my pleasure to sit down with those theaters' respective programmers, Alexander Fee and Edo Choi, for a discussion of Naruse's necessity in both theatrical and celluloid contexts, titles of particularly special note, and––most importantly––the best places to eat in each institution's neighborhood.
Japan Society: https://japansociety.org/film/mikio-naruse-the-world-betrays-us/
Metrograph: https://metrograph.com/category/mikio-naruse/
On the subject of film programming, I'll also note that my screening of Cymbeline (with filmmaker Michael Almereyda present for a Q&A) is this Friday––tickets may be purchased here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amnesiascope-cymbeline-with-michael-almereyda-qa-tickets-1352522103019?aff=ebdsoporgprofile
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The B-Side Ep. 161 – Maggie Cheung (with Nick Newman)
Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.
It’s a day to celebrate! We discuss the legend Maggie Cheung! Our B-Sides include Lost Romance (a.k.a. Story of Rose), Full Moon in New York, Green Snake, and Sausalito. Our esteemed guest for this episode is Nick Newman, host of the Emulsion podcast for The Film Stage.
We talk about the Hong Kong New Wave, Maggie’s aborted performance in Inglourious Basterds, the true B-Sidey-Ness of Sausalito, and Maggie Cheung’s brief, lovely, recent Sight and Sound interview.
There’s also Nick’s Sight and Sound List, that GQ piece, Julia Ormond’s tackling a famous Audrey Hepburn role, and Nick’s great interview with filmmaker Olivier Assayas back in 2022.
By 2004, at the young age of forty, Cheung retired from acting. Her legacy has only cemented further in the decades since her final films, something we discuss in this episode as well.
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2:01:43
The B-Side Ep. 160 - Debra Winger (with Murtada Elfadl)
Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.
Today we talk about the great Debra Winger! Our B-Sides include Legal Eagles, Betrayed, The Sheltering Sky, and Forget Paris. Our guest is the inestimable Murtada Elfadl, Culture Writer, Critic, and Film Curator.
We discuss Winger’s stratospheric rise to stardom, her indescribable performance in Terms of Endearment, and her (unfair?) reputation for being “difficult.” There’s also plenty of discussion about Rosanna Arquette’s documentary Searching for Debra Winger, a film in which Arquette speaks with many famous actresses about aging in Hollywood. The motivation of the piece was partly motivated by Winger’s exodus from the business for over half a decade in the mid-1990s.
There’s also conversation about Shirley MacLaine's 1984 Oscars speech, Tom Berenger being deeply proud of Betrayed and his performance in the film, and all those NBA players that appear in Forget Paris. Janet Maslin and Roger Ebert’s superb reviews of Betrayed are mentioned, as is Debra’s perfect laugh.
Finally, we touch on when Raquel Welch sued MGM and won for being fired from Cannery Row (Winger replaced her in the role), Winger’s dropping out of A League of Their Own after Madonna was cast (bonus Patti LuPone on Evita clip here!), Melanie Griffith and William Hurt being director Bernardo Bertolucci’s first choices for the leads in The Sheltering Sky, and Debra Winger’s infamous Watch What Happens Live episode.
Amalia Ulman has followed El Planeta, one of this decade's most auspicious debuts, with the equal-parts caustic and sincere Magic Farm. With its limited release beginning today, Nick Newman had the fortune of speaking with her and Chloë Sevigny in an interview that highlights the particular relationship between a writer-director-actor and her co-star.
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The B-Side Ep. 45 – Ben Affleck (with Marie Bardi)
Hello everybody and welcome to The B-Side podcast for The Film Stage, here we talk about movie stars; not the films that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones they made in between!
And today, with The Accountant 2 out in theaters, we thought we’d revisit our episode on the B-Sides of Ben Affleck! Originally recorded in March 2020, at the time of the release of The Way Back, our friend Marie Bardi joins us to talk about our love for a sad Ben Affleck performance, and his ups and downs in B-Sides like Forces of Nature, Bounce, Changing Lanes, and Hollywoodland.
We reflect on how his work seems to constantly mirror his life offscreen, and what makes him such an appealing movie star to root for. We get into a lot, so please enjoy this look back at the B-Sides of Ben Affleck.
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