This month’s mini-episode takes us into one of costume designer Sophie de Rakoff’s curated picks: Irvin Kershner’s The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), an American giallo with style to spare. We get into Faye Dunaway’s scream, POV in horror, how this is Helmut Newton x John Carpenter, the ethics of glamorizing suffering, and, yes, the clothes. -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for three full months of free access to curated film lists, essays, live screenings and more here.

This whole episode is a trap. In it, we join Josh Hartnett scholar and The Film Stage gentleman Dan Mecca to dissect the ins and outs of M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. We talk about: baby bangs, Hartnett always being a little bit weird, the tooth gap, Sleeping with the Enemy’s hand towels, auteur theory, one good part in The Village, Hayley Mills on the walkie-talkie, and more. Further reading: Dan’s interview with Hartnett for Film Stage, Nicholas Russell’s M. Night Shyamalan essay for BWDR, and you can even run it back to Dan’s first-ever The B-Side episode on Hartnett himself. --- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad. You can find all 134 issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our most recent issue on Spike Lee, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please help us find more ears: follow, rate, comment, leave us a review! This episode is sponsored by ⁠Galerie⁠: a new kind of film club. Listeners can sign up for 3 full months of free access to curated film lists & streaming films, essays, live screenings and much more at ⁠join.galerie.com⁠.

Inspired by the curation of costume designer ⁠Sophie de Rakoff⁠, this month we're taking a loving look at the gear-shifting, hybrid charms of Jonathan Demme's screwball noir, Something Wild—and the Ray Liotta entrance that changes everything. -- This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can now sign up for 3 months of free access here.

Joining us this month: Blank Check co-host & staff writer at The Atlantic, David Sims! In summer’s last gasp, we go back to a flashpoint of summer blockbuster season: Jan de Bont’s 1996 Twister, plus its legacy in Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung, 2024), epic ensemble casting, craving movies about grown-ups, Hollywood’s dangerous brunettes, why not kissing at the airport matters, whether anyone votes in the world of Twisters, cinema sequences and storm spectatorship, Daisy Edgar Jones’s accent work, and the Spielberg touch. Stuff we reference: Jan de Bont in conversation with Tim Grierson, and Lee Isaac Chung on the Twisters ending. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. --- This episode is sponsored by ⁠Galerie⁠, a new kind of film club featuring curated films, original articles and interviews, and interactive live events. BW/DR listeners can now sign up for three full months of free access to Galerie through ⁠this special link⁠.

Chad goes full dad in this mini-episode on Richard Linklater’s 2014 coming-of-age epic Boyhood. Specifically, the plural meanings of Patricia Arquette’s anguished move-out speech, and why raising children to lead their own lives is a bittersweet success. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. --- This episode is sponsored by Galerie, where you can join Veronica & Chad for a watch party this Sunday, August 18 at 3pm ET/12pm PT. We'll be hosting a viewing of Olivier Assayas' ⁠Clouds of Sils Maria⁠, with live commentary and conversation, and would love to have you stop by and say hello! (BW/DR listeners can currently sign up for three months of free access to Galerie ⁠here⁠.)

Welcome back to the pod Carrie Courogen, author of Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius out now from St. Martin’s Press. Carrie joins us to discuss Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid (1972), her honeymoon horror film co-starring May’s daughter Jeannie Berlin and Charles Grodin as doomed newlyweds and Cybill Shepherd as the coed for whom Grodin’s Lenny quite literally risks it all. Further reading: here’s Chad’s interview with Carrie in the June 2024 issue. BW/DR did its own Elaine May issue back in September 2019, where you can find the genesis of Carrie’s May scholarship along with Ethan Warren on The Heartbreak Kid, and Veronica on May’s first feature, A New Leaf.  The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.  Find every issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room at brightwalldarkroom.com. Podcast-wise, we appreciate your ratings and reviews. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and welcome feedback and inquiries at [email protected]. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club featuring curated films, original content, and live events. BW/DR listeners can now sign up for three months of free access at https://join.galerie.com⁠.

Follow us into one of Rachel Kushner’s picks: Maurice Pialat’s slow ode to the sacred and profane, Under the Sun of Satan (1987). Co-starring Gérard Depardieu and Pialat’s muse Sandrine Bonnaire alongside Pialat himself, Under the Sun is a pastoral parable with a lot of dialogue and a few good screams. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club.

As summer begins in earnest, we're looking back at a 2022 highlight—Charlotte Wells’s staggering debut feature Aftersun—and revisiting one of our most popular episodes ever: a conversation with film critic, author, and educator ⁠Adam Nayman⁠. Adam shares special insights from his ⁠conversation with Wells⁠ about the film, plus the case for cinematic mystery, Paul Mescal crying, analog devices and the technology of memory, good karaoke scenes, fatherhood feelings, and why 2022 stinker The Whale stumbles precisely where Aftersun soars. For more on Aftersun, check out producer ⁠Barry Jenkins’s conversation⁠ with director Wells for the Directors UK podcast, Filmmaker’s ⁠profile⁠, and Wells’s own ⁠letter to audiences⁠ for A24. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by ⁠Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ and ⁠Chad Perman⁠ and produced and edited by ⁠Eli Sands⁠. Our theme music is composed by Chad. You can find all 130+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our most recent, Breaking Point, at ⁠brightwalldarkroom.com⁠. Please subscribe, rate, and flatter us with a review, it truly helps the show! This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Bright Wall/Dark Room listeners can sign up using this special link to get two months of free access to Galerie's essays, live conversations, and streaming catalogue! This episode originally aired in January 2023. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bright-wall-dark-room/message

It’s showtime–in this episode, Chad takes us through the opening of one of Ethan Hawke’s curator picks: Bob Fosse’s autobiographical kaleidoscope, All That Jazz (1979). Here’s the Motion Pictures Editors Guild on what makes All That Jazz the fourth-best edited film in history, and Hawke himself on “personal filmmaking at its finest.” The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for two months of free access via this link.

Back from vacation with our summer blockbuster episode: author, Reverse Shot co-founder and editor, and Editorial Director at Museum of the Moving Image Michael Koresky joins us to proselytize Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). Michael takes us back to being an intern in 2001, watching A.I. six times in theaters, how both Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick do “sentimentality with a point,” Jude Law’s dialogue, parables of loss, and how this “unexpected sledgehammer” of 00s’ filmmaking sticks with him today. For more, read story writer Ian Watson’s account of working with Kubrick and Michael’s Reverse Shot co-founder Jeff Reichert on “the desperation underlying much of human love.”  The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. You can find all 130+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room online at brightwalldarkroom.com. We remain on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and welcome feedback and inquiries at [email protected]. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can enjoy two months of free access by signing up ⁠here⁠. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bright-wall-dark-room/support

In honor of the 50th anniversary of its release this month, we're revisiting our conversation on Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), looking at the film through the lenses of surveillance and seclusion, Gene Hackman and Walter Murch, Catholic guilt and cool jazz. From its bird’s eye opening to the obliterative final shots, we get into the nuts and bolts of Coppola’s “personal” post-Godfather film and what it means to watch, fixate, deduce, mishear, and, despite everything, to long to be seen. (Originally released July 25, 2022) -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. -- We'll be back with two new episodes next month - talk soon! -- This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners can sign up for two months of free access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr.

On this month's micro episode, we get into Elliott Smith soundtracking a savory first kiss in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting (1997), a film that changed one of our co-host's lives forever. -- The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. -- The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is sponsored by our friends at Galerie. To find out more about Galerie—a new kind of film club—sign up for two free months at join.galerie.com/bwdr.

It’s still February in our souls. This month, we’re joined by writer and Letterboxd Senior Editor Mitchell Beaupre to revisit Mira Nair’s recently 4k-restored romance, Mississippi Masala (1991), starring Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury. We get into the film’s ever-timely exploration of diasporic longing, when talking on the phone looks like phone sex, first-gen trauma, a particularly memorable prelude to a kiss, romanticizing physical media, and the finer points of Mitchell’s insightful April 2022 interview with Nair (over at The Film Stage). The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners can sign up for two months of free access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr. You can find all 128 issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room—including our double issue on the films of 1999 that starts this week!—over at brightwalldarkroom.com. Podcast-wise, we really appreciate your ratings and reviews. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, have a Patreon if you'd like to support the show, and always welcome feedback or inquiries at [email protected].

The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is a series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month we're chatting about expressive sound and slow motion in John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood (1991), a pick by curator Reinaldo Marcus Green. To see the rest of Green’s hit picks, sign up at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr. * This episode is co-hosted by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Chad Perman⁠⁠⁠⁠ and produced and edited by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Eli Sands⁠⁠⁠⁠. * Further reading/Articles Referenced: They've Gotta Have Us - Karen Grigsby Bates (New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1991) How Boyz n the Hood Beat the Odds to Get Made—and Why It Matters Today - Sam Kashner (Vanity Fair, August 4, 2016) * To read our current issue, or browse our 125+ issue archive, visit us at Bright Wall/Dark Room

This month we’re joined by writer, critic, and editor Nicholas Russell to chat about Bradley Cooper’s Maestro (2023). We get into: what makes a Bradley Cooper Film (thanks Fran), when weird voices work, that epigraph, tension as structure and provocation, what’s going on with the ending, getting moved by Mahler, and more. -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, and produced & edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. You can find every single issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our January issue on The Best of 2023, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We really, really appreciate your ratings & reviews. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and welcome feedback and inquiries at [email protected]. And, to the best of our knowledge, we have never once abandoned Snoopy in the vestibule. -- This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. This month's featured curator is writer/director James Gray. BW/DR readers & listeners can sign up for two free months of access here.

This month, we're looking at James Gray's Two Lovers, exploring its intimacy, specificity, complexity—and a fantastic Joaquin Phoenix dance scene. --- The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is a series of bite-sized episodes in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at ⁠⁠Galerie⁠⁠. Each month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. BW/DR readers & listeners can use this special link to get two months of free access to Galerie, a new kind of film club! --- This episode is co-hosted by ⁠⁠Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Chad Perman⁠⁠ and produced and edited by ⁠⁠Eli Sands⁠⁠.

Merry Cruisemas, from our home to yours! For our 3rd annual celebration, we sit down with bosom buddy, film critic, and podcast extraordinaire Blake Howard to discuss Doug Liman’s 2014 film, Edge of Tomorrow. We get into: time loops, Emily Blunt's triceps, Cruise's determined pathos, Limon's blockbuster craftmanship, McQuarrie's calibrations, repetition and rewatchability, three-beers-in movies, and more. -- Cruisemas 2022: Vanilla Sky Cruisemas 2021: Eyes Wide Shut Blake's podcast empire: One Heat Minute Productions -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by ⁠⁠Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Chad Perman⁠⁠ and produced and edited by ⁠⁠Eli Sands⁠⁠. Our theme music is composed by Chad. To read the current issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room, or browse our 125+ issue archive, visit us at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re also on Twitter ⁠@BWDR⁠ & ⁠@TheBWDRPodcast⁠, and always welcome feedback and advertising inquiries at ⁠[email protected]⁠. Happy Holidays, and thank you, truly, for giving us an hour or so of your time each month. We appreciate it more than you'll ever know. See ya next year! -- This episode is sponsored by ⁠Galerie⁠, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up using ⁠this special link⁠ to get two free months of access to the site!

This holiday season, a very special holiday podcast treat: an audio version of one of our most popular essays of all time, Ethan Warren's A Grand Yuletide Theory: The Muppet Christmas Carol is the Best Adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Written and read by Ethan himself, with music by Ryan Pollie and art by Brianna Ashby. Happy Holidays from Bright Wall/Dark Room! -- This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up using this link to get two free months of access to the site!

On this special episode, co-host Veronica sits down with critic Fran Hoepfner to talk high/lowlights of the 61st New York Film Festival. We get into: looking in vain for the element of surprise (All of Us Strangers), Bradley Cooper as crazy guy (Maestro), the Sunday-night-on-HBO vibes of Anatomy of a Fall, Elordi charisma (Priscilla), the biggest laughs in Last Summer, Janet Planet’s perfect execution of kid perspective, why Wiseman’s Menu-Plaisirs Les Troisgros is not The Bear, what to watch (or listen?) for in La Chimera, funny voices in May December and Ferrari, why we keep thinking about detesting The Zone of Interest, plus Fran’s annual award for ‘altercation as a quiet film begins.’ * Find Fran online at Fran Mag, Twitter, and Letterboxd, and read her omnibus dispatch from the festival here. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and (usually) Chad Perman, and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. *This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up with this special link to get two free months of access!

This is The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a series of bite-sized episodes in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at ⁠Galerie⁠. Each month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. Privacy, intimacy, and conspiracy are all at play in this month’s moment from George Stevens’ 1951 tragedy, A Place in the Sun. --- The BW/DR Podcast is co-hosted by ⁠Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ and ⁠Chad Perman⁠ and produced and edited by ⁠Eli Sands⁠. --- This series is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR readers & listeners can sign up for Galerie using this special link!

This month, author and Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett joins us to talk about Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). We get into the elasticity of the western, what constitutes pure cinéma, Claudia Cardinale thirst, Big Screen Movies and the garages that screen them, Leone the minimalist and maximalist, and more. -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by ⁠Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ and ⁠Chad Perman⁠ and produced and edited by ⁠Eli Sands⁠. Our theme music is composed by Chad. You can find all 125 monthly issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s brand new issue on Westerns, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We really, really appreciate your ratings and reviews. We’re on Twitter @BWDR & @TheBWDRPodcast, and always welcome feedback and advertising inquiries at [email protected]. Yeehaw. -- This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners may sign up for access at ⁠https://join.galerie.com/bwdr⁠ and use code JOINGALERIE for 1 month free.

The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is a series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month we chat about a musical moment in Charles Laughton’s spellbinding Appalachian noir The Night of the Hunter, a pick by curator Duke Johnson. And we’ll be hosting a live discussion on the film on Saturday, October 28, at 2:00 pm ET/11:00 am PT. To join the conversation, sign up at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr. The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands.

It’s nearly spooky season and we’re waxing nostalgic for The Craft (Andrew Fleming, 1996) with Los Angeles film critic and podcaster extraordinaire Katie Walsh. We get into crushing on Robin Tunney, the 90s, the death of subculture, slow-motion hallway walks, where are their parents—and stay tuned for Katie’s on-air pull from the Rachel True tarot deck. -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. -- This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners may sign up for access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr and use code JOINGALERIE for 1 month free. -- Find all 120+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s issue on Nostalgia, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We really, really appreciate your ratings and reviews. We’re on Twitter @BWDR & @TheBWDRPodcast, and always welcome feedback and inquiries at [email protected]–blessed be. This episode of The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast was recorded during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film discussed in this episode wouldn't exist.

This is The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a series of bite-sized episodes in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Each month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month we bid goodbye to summer with Robert Altman’s hallucinatory 3 Women (1977), a Palm Springs take on Persona. For info on upcoming live movie discussions hosted by Galerie, and to read Emma Cline’s languid essay on 3 Women, sign up at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr. The BW/DR Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. (Artwork for this episode by Tom Ralston) --- This series is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up now for early access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr.

Welcome to The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a new series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we’ll pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole.This month: in concert with director Mike Mills’s library, we look at Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966), directed by Věra Chytilová and co-written by Ester Krumbachová. Like a surreal Czechoslovak precursor to the music video for Aerosmith’s “Cryin’.”For info on our upcoming live discussions (with you, for you!) hosted by Galerie, please subscribe, follow, and watch this space. The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. This series is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Bright Wall/Dark Room readers & listeners can sign up now for early access, before its public launch, here.