This week consecrates a major turn in the 50-year career of Alan Rudolph, which began as an assistant to and screenwriter for Robert Altman before transitioning into decades writing and directing original, romantic, occasionally unnerving American cinema at a time parallel to (if never quite reaching the fame or acclaim of) Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, and David Lynch. The turn is not a new film, but Criterion anointing 1984’s Choose Me, perhaps the best entry point into his corpus, with a 4K release that marks an astonishing restoration of both the film itself and its long-neglected reputation.
For this release Nick Newman had the fortune of speaking with Rudolph in an hour-long conversation that detailed Choose Me's creation, how his films both before and after are now defined by it, and honest perspectives on a career just slightly outside the celebrity-auteur spotlight.
--------
59:41
The B-Side - Amy Irving and Peter Riegert on Crossing Delancey
Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk to movie stars! About a movie that people love and the hidden gems they've also made!
Dan Mecca and Conor O'Donnell were lucky enough to speak with Amy Irving and Peter Riegert, on the occasion of the Criterion release of Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey. We discuss the legacy of the film nearly forty years later. With Irving we touch on Honeysuckle Rose, Carried Away, and her new music album. With Riegert we talk about Chilly Scenes of Winter (also directed by Micklin Silver), the feature he directed King of the Corner, and the eclectic range of characters he’s played over the years.
Additionally, we mention Steven Soderbergh’s oeuvre (they were both in Traffic!), the actor’s directorial debuts Riegert starred in (Infinity and Jerry & Tom specifically), and how they’ve both grown as performers over time.
--------
1:15:47
Andrew Davis on Gene Hackman and His New Novel Disturbing the Bones
We love speaking with filmmaker Andrew Davis. In late 2023 The Fugitive director came on our podcast The B-Side to discuss a slew of hidden gems as well as the 4K release of the Harrison Ford blockbuster.
Davis is back to talk about his novel Disturbing the Bones, a political thriller that reads like an entertaining, extrapolated version of some of his best films. The plot concerns an archaeological dig in Illinois wherein a body is discovered. It leads to a murder investigation amidst a global crisis spurned by a catastrophic, nuclear mistake.
The B-Side co-host Dan Mecca spoke with Davis about the book, his Arnold Schwarzenegger action film Collateral Damage, his upcoming projects, and the state of both the film industry and the country.
--------
35:02
Emulsion Ep. 1 - Carson Lund on Eephus + Hesse Deni on CHAOS
Presenting Nick Newman's Emulsion, a new podcast from The Film Stage.
“WHY on EARTH is there another film podcast?” Is the question you, the reasonable listener, are asking while nevertheless hitting play on this pilot-of-sorts for yet another entry in perhaps the seventh art’s most undignified progeny.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: here is a show that strives to stand outside its peers. This is not a show informing you that the week’s big new release is pretty good, actually or a group of guys talking about ’80s movies so bad they’re riduclawesome or me digging up the ruddiest MKV file I can find and having a friend from the Internet talk about it with me for 46 minutes––but there will be some of that, because it’s better than talking about most other things.
Rather, I’ve envisioned this as a multi-headed object: conversations among filmmakers, film programmers, and cinephiles mixed with monologues, reviews, streaming and repertory highlights––a podcast that takes you from the miked-up, pop-filtered confines of a professional-sounding show to the sturm und drang of chats among friends in a packed bar, which is where some of my most fruitful film discussions have been held and which often yields more valuable observations than, speaking hypothetically, someone stressing over saying just the right thing because they have a microphone in front of them and are emphatically aware that they’re on a film podcast.
On this debut episode I talk with Carson Lund, the co-writer, director, and editor of Eephus, now in limited release; then Hesse Deni of Movie Mindset joins me to discuss Errol Morris’ CHAOS: The Manson Murders, which is now on Netflix.
Music courtesy of Alex Walton: "Love Theme From an Unreleased Film" from the album Giving It Up.
--------
39:59
Remembering Gene Hackman
In honor of the legendary Gene Hackman, who has passed away at the age of 95, we're sharing The B-Side's episode from 2022 discussing his career and most overlooked films.
Subscribe to The B-Side below:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4EJFEQMTuLFPIDTbsrbL62
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-b-side-a-film-stage-podcast/id1490472263
See the original description below:
Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. 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 discuss perhaps the greatest living actor: Gene Hackman! Dan Mecca and Conor O'Donnell are joined by one of our good, good friends Mitchell Beaupre! Senior Editor at Letterboxd, co-host of their Weekend Watchlist podcast (as well as the brand new podcast Acting Out with Ryan and Mitchell), and contributor to great sites like The Film Stage (!), Paste Magazine, The Playlist, and Little White Lies. Our B-Sides today are: All Night Long, The Package, Heartbreakers, and Welcome to Mooseport.
We talk Hackman’s beginnings, Mitchell’s superb piece on Hackman’s spectacular 2001, the actor’s own reflections on his accomplished career, his mid-career hiatus, and – finally – his frequent combativeness with his directors. Additional topics include Tommy Lee Jones’ wild ‘90s, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s recollection of Heartbreakers (both the good and the bad), the work of René Descartes, Nicolas Roeg’s Hackman-starring epic Eureka, and the iconic Fox television show Party of Five.
Ireland