For our Valentine's Day 2025 episode, we plunge deep into the nature of relationships by discussing two films whose romantic pairings are arguably not relationships at all: Spike Jonze's Her (2013) and his sometime collaborator, Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020). Isolation, loss, misogyny, male fantasies, hope and despair: we've got all of the Valentine's goodness for you. And it continues with our Fear and Moviegoing discussion of Mike Leigh's Hard Truths (2024).

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: HER (2013) [dir. Spike Jonze]

0h 54m 53s: I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (2020) [dir. Charlie Kaufman]

1h 30m 24s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths (2024)

Related content:

· Our immensely long and under-edited discussion of Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Our Town (1940)

· Our second ever podcast: Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2003)

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

We start off our second round of MGM Studio Year by Year episodes with these 1930 films: the Marion Davies comedy vehicle The Florodora Girl (directed by Harry Beaumount) and Cecil B. DeMille's Madam Satan, which Elise decides is something like Eyes Wide Shut if it was made by James Cameron (but, alas, not as interesting as that sounds). (It's still pretty interesting, though, if only for the Art Deco Lightning Dancers. Yes, you read that right.) Plus, we give our impressions of MGM based on our first round of viewings and draw attention to some of the highlights from it.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: MGM Recap

0h 28m 41s: THE FLORODORA GIRL [dir. Harry Beaumont]

0h 45m 29s: MADAM SATAN [dir. Cecil B. DeMille]

Year in Film information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

For this episode of our Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view series, our featured acteur plays a disillusioned modern woman in two 1934 movies, Where Sinners Meet and Let's Try Again, that are cynical about marriage in a way that (we argue) screwball comedy would soon render archaic. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we give our impressions of three more Marco Bellocchio films, Devil in the Flesh, Vincere, and the especially enigmatic Blood of My Blood.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: Where Sinners Meet (1934) [dir. J. Walter Ruben]

0h 18m 20s: The Marriage Symphony (1934) [dir. Worthington Miner]

0h 43m 00s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Marco Bellocchio retrospective at TIFF – part 2: Devil in the Flesh (1986), China is Near (1967), Vincere (2009) and Blood of My Blood (2015)

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!