Unreel: Recent Episodes
Marcy Levy and Jeff Lewonczyk
Marc Levy and Jeff Lewonczyk are two creative professionals who bloviate about the movies. Come endure them!
Yes, we finally did it - we finally watched The Room. Surprise, it was terrible! Come listen to what a couple of guys who missed the boat on this cult classic happen to think about it after going in with as little background and context as possible...
You’ve probably never heard of The Noah. It’s a strange, obscure entry in the last-man-on-earth genre, filmed in the late 1960s, populated by a single actor. It’s unique – but is that a good thing? Opinions differ!
Despite claiming we would never do so, we end up deciding to watch a comedy. Does hilarity ensue? Hardly! Find out which one of us loved In the Loop, and which one felt, well, out of the loop.
After we watch the acclaimed 2008 animated documentary Waltz With Bashir, we expose you to the unthinkable: genuine emotion.
(FYI, we were so overcome that we didn't check the mic levels before recording, and so the sound quality is a bit dodgy - apologies, but that's the price you pay for RAW FEELING.)
We both finally check out one of Terry Gilliam's more recent films, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and we nearly come to blows about what we think our disappointment means for Terry Gilliam's entire oeuvre. Come gawk!
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night might possibly be the best Persian-language vampire noir romance that any of us have ever seen. But does that make it a good movie? FIND OUT.
Did you know there's a film by a French director about a rubber tire that comes to life and kills people in the desert? Well, now you do! Find out what we thought about it, and why you should or shouldn't give it a test drive.
Is Richard Kelly's Southland Tales a missing masterpiece or an unredeemable mess? Don't expect any easy answers in this episode - Jeff and Marc are too busy yelling at each other to think it through.
We watched a bloody musical! No, we're not suddenly British - Repo: The Genetic Opera really is a sung-through film with tremendous amounts of gore. Too much? Not enough? Listen and learn!
If you're not familiar with the early-'80s mixed-up quasi-feminist punk satire Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, this episode will either make you really want to see it or really want to avoid it.
Escape From Tomorrow is a contemporary experimental film that was shot surreptitiously at Disney resorts. Marc hated it, but he's sure Jeff will love it. Will Jeff disappoint us - again?
Paul Thomas Anderson is a director of undeniable talent and ambition - but he's made plenty of divisive choices throughout his creative career. In this episode Marc and Jeff dive into Anderson's filmography to explore where their admiration of his work overlaps, and where it diverges - sometimes drastically (coughINHERENTVICEcough).
Can a narrative movie show a flagrant disregard for the rules of effective storytelling and still be an artistic success? Opinions vary! In this episode, Marc and Jeff discover where their tastes diverge through discussion of Seijun Suzuki's gonzo 1967 yakuza tale, Branded to Kill - replete with rice fetishists and lepidopteran deus ex machinas.
Welcome to the first, inaugural, way-too-long world premiere episode of UNREEL! This is our first attempt at podcasting, so be kind to us (or don't, we're grown men who can handle criticism) (except for Marc). To kick things off, we engage in a freewheeling discussion of Lost Soul - The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau, a great documentary directed by David Gregory, which does just what it says on the tin - and, along the way, discuss what makes a bad movie good, examine the challenges of being an auteur director, and sow the seeds of interpersonal discord that will make future episodes so damn compelling. Enjoy!