Sub Titles: Recent Episodes
Matthew Burchanoski
We have to talk about Woody Allen now which also means we need to talk about romance in the city. New York City, that is. Tim guides through different eras figuring out what makes love in the Big Apple a trope all its own. Annie Hall prompts us, of course, then Tim introduces The Age of Innocence and Marty which lead to talk of Edith Wharton, imagining Ernest Borgnine as any age younger than 60, Italian mothers, and Michelle Pfeiffer's immensely interesting early 90s.
Drugs and music go together like this podcast and hating on The Magnetic Fields. We as millennials remember well the lessons of D.A.R.E. (and are also very boring) but others have a more open attitude to a life of drugs. Ghostface Killah's Fishscale covers the highs and lows of drug peddling, usage, and culture and has Matt thinking, what if we 'Just Say Yes' instead? Cypress Hill and Spiritualized ask a similar question and measure the nuanced impacts of drug culture on one's health, art, bank account, and more.
The episode Tim and Matt were made for, explaining movies via Dril tweets. If you don't know Dril, go open Twitter and have yourself a reading session. We rattle off a bunch of favorites, and Tim relays how this David Lean classic is really just a Dril gem, as are The Insider and The King of Comedy. Lean, Mann, and Scorsese makes this a heavy hitter directors episode, but have they captured the spirit of their times as elegantly as Dril?
Belle and Sebastian produced a truly marvelous set of mournful yet sweet songs on If You're Feeling Sinister, a niche that they still loom over 30 years later. You might call it earnest, or even (and Matt might fight you) twee, but we call in New Sincerity. Matt and Tim talk the David Foster Wallace of it all then focus on some other breathtakingly vulnerable and poignant albums by artists in their feelings, Broken Social Scene's You Forgot it in People and Cat Powers' Moon Pix.
The movie title announces but Tim questions, are these really The Best Years of Our Lives? What makes the years best or even meaningful? How do we live out our lives as best we can? It's freshmen philosophy time, baby, but with two unrelenting cynics who, nevertheless, believe in the power of narrative. Tim brings Groundhog Day and Meet Me in St. Louis for consideration, the former with it's one-liners and latter with some immortal tunes.
Another one of those episodes where Matt pretends to know anything about electronic music. Some fun ones here though, all classics of that late-90s shooting star genre Big Beat, which is blessedly straightforward in name. Chemical Brothers make it on the Spin list with Dig Your Own Hole, and Matt talks Fatboy Slim's You've Come a Long Way, Baby and Propellerheads' Decksanddrumsandrockandroll as progenitors and exemplum of the Big Beat sound and era.
At their cores, the guys (particularly Tim) exude Dad Energy. That's surely been evident this entire podcast, but it's heightened here when they get to talk about early 19th century American history, specifically the Monroe Doctrine. See how the West was metaphorically won, or vaguely claimed, in Missing and The Mosquito Coast.
Actually okay timing here with Drake having just released a new album. Matt won't "get" that one just like he doesn't "get" Take Care...or Lana Del Ray's Ultraviolence or Father John Misty's Pure Comedy. Decade defining artists of the 2010s all, and unequivocally absent from any of Matt's personal playlists or rankings. Listen to Matt and Tim embrace their inner Abe Simpson as they ponder how they once had "it" but then "it" changed under their feet.
Dr. Strangelove is as much a movie of incredible sight gags and one-liners as it is profound political commentary. Tim and Matt share their favorites, naturally, before Tim frames the film as the more successful Twin to a similar, proximate movie. He then considers William Wyler’s Jezebel and Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street in a similar vein, wondering what makes them more popular, successful, and ultimately lasting.
A whole host of albums on the docket in this one! Matt gives Tim the choice of two sets to be considered alongside Eric B. and Rakim’s stone-cold classic Paid in Full. (If you haven’t heard Eric B. and, especially, Rakim directly, you’ve heard them in other artists.) Tim chooses the DMX and Busta Rhymes route as Matt outlines their cases as foundational, formative acts in hip-hop.
The famous addition to the movie version of Sound of Music, "Something Good" speaks to that (realized) hope of doing something, anything helpful for others. Tim tracks that theme of I Must Have Done Something Good through Crossing Delancey (Joan Micklin Silver)and Manhunter (Michael Mann) and how that sentiment often lives somewhere between exhausted relief and neurotic yearning.
p.s. This episode was recorded before our hiatus, please ignore any dated references.
We love a good genre episode and here’s a big one from the 90s, which has influenced everything from Bjork to the theme song of House. Portishead’s Dummy sets the stage for the forlorn, downtempo, psychedelic mix of jazz, dub, and soul that is Trip-Hop. Neither Massive Attack nor Lamb has the secret ingredient that is Beth Gibbons, but both offer unique, compelling visions of Trip-Hop’s range with the former’s demented house beats in Mezzanine and the latter’s insistent break-beats in Lamb.
p.s. This episode was recorded before our hiatus, please ignore any dated references.
Tim is here doing serious things and giving some love to the old studio model of movie making along with the peak and power of MGM. Meanwhile, Matt is being a nudnik and subjecting Tim and everyone else to a ranking of Butt Rock songs. Where else can you hear about Naughty Marietta, Breaking Benjamin, various Mickey Rooney joints, and Staind all at once? Where else would you even want to?!
p.s. This episode was recorded before our hiatus, please ignore any dated references.
“It was beauty killed the beast.” So ends King Kong (1933), whom Matt and Tim love very much. A memorable last line goes a long way in establishing a film’s legacy, especially when it encapsulates the spirit of the film so perfectly. Tim looks at Back to the Future and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang as other instances of movies that tie a perfect bow on their journeys. (As a bonus, see how much Matt can annoy Tim with that Pretenders song.)
p.s. This episode was recorded before our hiatus, please ignore any dated references.
Matt is feeling his oats in this one and ready to confront you all with the legacies of Mumford and Sons and Nickelback. Vampire Weekend feel like a Matt band, but they aren't. What they undoubtedly are is a King of 21st Century Rock, emblematic of a larger genre movement. So, too, were Mumford and Nickelback. Love them or (most likely) hate them, they allow us to track the ebbs and flows of popular rock in the current century.
p.s. This episode was recorded before our hiatus, please ignore any dated references.
Though I would have appreciated the bit of running La La Land into this for no reason, Tim has standards. He's looking at the classic crime film as a Three Decade Period Piece. In other words, the movie released roughly three decades after the bit of history it covers. We're going to small town Indiana and big, seedy L.A. as we discuss Hoosiers and Farewell, My Lovely and consider the significance of time difference the same as our ages.
p.s. This episode was recorded before our hiatus, please ignore any dated references.
We're back after a long but necessary hiatus. And what better way to return than with....oh no. Welp, Kanye is back on the podcast, and even more treacherous than last we talked about him. Which is a shame, because College Dropout is a genuinely fun, and funny, album. With a clear potshot at Ye's recent history, Matt talks some albums that try to Make Hip-Hop Fun Again in Del tha Funky Homosapien's Both Sides of the Brain and Madvillain's Madvillainy (which also means this is the second pod appearance for the late, great MF DOOM).
p.s. We actually recorded this one before our hiatus, so ignore any dated references.
Tim loves a good chance to slag the AFI for choosing not actually American movies but we have a bit of nuance on that theme this episode. Tim looks at John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy as a prime example of a non-American director bringing some foreign style to American cinema. Consideration of two directors with highly distinct, and maybe even iconoclastic, styles follows with F.W. Murnau (Tabu)and Sergio Leone (Once Upon a Time in America).
Matt keeps the rock theme going and checks in on life after the extinction (read: reunion tours) of the dinosaurs. Sleater-Kinney lambast and reinvigorate rock all at once in The Woods, a totemic and virile nearly-closing statement from the band. Rock is always on the verge of death in the magazines yet forever vital in our hearts, and Matt looks to Queens of the Stone Age and The Darkness that, like Sleater-Kinney, carry the perpetually fading torch of rock music in the 21st century.
The Philadelphia Story, in addition to being an interesting early rom-com, reflects well on one of the great mid-century movie titans, MGM. Tim tracks the story - the rise and fall, the palace intrigue, the style and viewpoint - of MGM through the momentous The Philadelphia Story and two smaller features in Love Finds Andy Hardy by George B. Seitzand Tea and Sympathies by Vincente Minnelli. Tim also official declares himself a leading scholar of Andy Hardy studies, while he and Matt would both like short men to calm down and realized that miniscule Mickey Rooney was once married to Ava Gardner.
I don't know that grunge killed Guns N' Roses so much as Guns N' Roses killed Guns N' Roses but, regardless, Appetite for Destruction lives on in radio waves and arenas everywhere. "Welcome to the Jungle," "Paradise City," and "Sweet Child of Mine" are pretty close to unkillable. They're also reflective of a different time in the pop landscape, a bigger and louder and more leathery time. A time When Dinosaurs Roamed, as is the theme for this episode considering the innovation and success of, along with Guns N' Roses, The Cult's Electric and Def Leppard's Hysteria. Throw up your best sign of the horns and bang your head, it's time to rock.
We’re all trying to hold back the darkness these days, but the folks in these movies especially so. Tim takes quick stock of the most annoying child actors, then talks the dark circumstances surrounding the protagonists of Shane, Bringing Out the Dead, and Maria Full of Grace. A mysterious gunman, an ambulance driver, a drug mule all fighting to hold back the pain of the past and future. Plus one is Nicolas Cage.
The 2009 Grammys were weird as hell. Matt and Tim cover that weirdness in great depth before digging into the especially weird Best Album category. Robert Plant and Allison Krauss won that year, and Ne-Yo was there too. But Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III gets the Spin nod here and man is he as odd as ever. After Weezy discussion, Matt goes fully in his bag and gets to talk about Radiohead’s In Rainbows and, finally, Coldplay and Viva La Vida. He’s got an uphill battle with Tim, tune in to see if he can pull off that Coldplay best exemplifies the 2009 of it all.
Anything that gets Tim and Matt close to Beefsquatch is dangerous, and Tim’s just not even trying to avert it here. Come for the Beefcake chants, stay for the measured and considered analysis of masculinity and gender performativity. Gaze upon the beefy males of It Happened One Night, The Swimmer, and The Vikings and question your own gendered expectations and the deep sadness of them all.
For all the Shoegaze lovers out there - and apparently you’re a sizeable contingency of our audience - here are three albums that are, at most, a stone’s throw from stuff featured in the My Blood Valentine and Shoegaze Decile episodes. Scottish alt-rockers The Jesus and Mary Chain debuted with Psychocandy in 1985 to massive and continued acclaim. All shiny melodies drenched in feedback, Psychocandy casts a long shadow of influence. Matt offers the similarly foundational Cocteau Twins and their 1990 album Heaven of Las Vegas and the David Lynch-approved 2012 effort from The Chromatics, Kill for Love.
A regular concern for Tim and Matt is the art of translating the stage into film, which so often goes awry. We’ve talked other instances of this in previous episodes, but Tim builds the whole ship out of Pulitzer Prize adaptations this time. Transforming the intimacy of the playhouse into the spectacle of the cinema is no easy feat, and a dying one at that. A Streetcar Named Desire remains the gold standard, by critical consensus anyway, yet remains an uncomfortable movie. Tim brings back Norman Jewison and Sidney Lumet for other examples of making the stage work on the screen with A Soldier’s Story and Long Day’s Journey Into Night, respectively.
“Get the point? Good, let’s dance.” Such is the ethos of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, a massive and eminently funky album which, along with Jackson’s Control, helped define and kick off New Jack Swing. Teddy Riley, who was instrumental to the New Jack Swing sound, describes the genre as “a new kid on the block who’s swinging it,” which Matt takes as a guiding star for how Karyn White’s self-titled album and Bell Biv DeVoe’s Poison come out swinging in more ways than one. We talk the actual music signifiers of New Jack Sing, an astounding Archer joke, the art socially conscious balladry, and try to wrest Janet Jackson from bad faith Super Bowl connotations.
We joke about how when the Podcat looks out the window he’s watching TV and, well, that’s more or less what’s happening in Rear Window! Hitchcock really knew how to wrestle profundity out of a kind of silly concept. After Matt and Tim investigate and learn some interesting Manhattan geography, Tim outlines Scopophilia, or the love of looking, and how it operates in Tod Browning’s Freaks and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Good psychological concept and three movies interested in the horror of the everyday, you love to see it.
After a good conversation about P.J. Harvey and her cattle experience, Matt and Tim talk the blunt force marvel that is Rid of Me. 30 years in, Harvey remains a titan with an immense shadow of influence, which sets up the somewhat cheeky theme of Canon Fodder. Matt looks at two other artists he thinks have a great shot at being canonized in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (a fun if sort of functionally unimportant honor) and what styles and influences they filter through their own artistry: St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy and Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There.
Part 1 is an album to illegal to stream. Part 2 has a movie with a director too tarnished to love. Intolerance serves as the D.W. Griffith cut-out on the AFI list given The Birth of a Nation is more trouble than it’s worth at this point. As it’s poster says, Intolerance is “colossal spectacle,” and Tim guides us through the ways in which it’s a Film School standout. He excites Matt a whole lot too with two genre movies in Forbidden Planet and Night of the Living Dead, both of which are technical marvels.
Welcome to the episode with the hardest album to find! De La Soul’s seminal 3 Feet High and Rising is, notoriously, not streaming given the legal mess of its remarkable amount of samples. Matt’s fully in his bag here talking the construction of music and interrogating what music entails. We discuss the theoretical underpinnings of Assemblage as a concept and process, then talk the legacy and impact of 3 Feet High and Rising, the joyous muchness of The Avalanches’ Since I Left You, and the radical franken-music of Amon Tobin’s Foley Room.
It’s a good question! The AFI will have to deal with the 21st century more at some point; Fellowship of the Ring certainly has a case, though. Tim and Matt talk the trilogy in general, then Tim makes the big case for Fellowship, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. (This is Malick’s final appearance in what has been a wonderful running bit.) Tune in to see where we plant our GOAT flags!
One of the earliest albums on the Spin list (January 1985), Husker Du’s New Day Rising proves a fun favorite for both Matt and Tim. We talk the band’s place in the Our Band Could Be Your Life of it all (i.e. 80s punk and early hardcore) and their sonic take on the line “it aggravates and it pacifies.” Matt brings two post-hardcore darlings to the table in Cursive and Thursday and talks abrasive music and catharsis.
Been 10 episodes, which means it’s time for another bonus pod. In this decile, Matt takes inspiration from the discussion of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as an album given particular significance from it’s proximity to 9/11. Rather than looking at the “most” 9/11 albums, though, he instead ranks the actual releases on 9/11, which was banger of an album day including the likes of Jay-Z, Bob Dylan, Mariah Carey, and Nickelback. Tim, meanwhile, looks at the art of the Remake, which includes discussion of The Mummy (1999) and Ben-Hur (1925). We also have a fun time remembering who stars in one of those movies…
Topical! Recorded before Spielberg dropped his but nonetheless weary of the impending discourse. After necessary, and sadly topical, love for Stephen Sondheim and quick rankings from Tim and Matt both, Tim clamors down the fire escape away from the usual West Side Story talking points to talk love in weird places and doomed circumstances with Desert Hearts and They Live by Night.
You know him, you could just as easily love or hate him, and you have to respect his technique. (Technique I say! Not content.) As a bonafide Suburban White Boy Matt has a lot of Eminem thoughts and love. He traipses through how hard it is to like Eminem, why he probably shouldn’t, and then gushes about Em’s craft as well as the mind-bending work of Aesop Rock and MF DOOM.
Tim is getting technical today, looking at vibrant (and lurid) weaponizations of Color Cinematography. Taxi Driver might be gritty in general, but it along with The Hunt for Red October and Niagra show us a different way from the dull, brown, arid cinematography of modern blockbusters.
After awhile of hand-wringing about the importance of Wilco’s magnum opus, Matt settles in on the deconstructive and experimental bent of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. (He’s also sorely tempted by the 9/11 significance of it all, but stay tuned for more on that!) Bonny Light Horseman’s updated folk standards go toe-to-toe with Ben Howard’s moody and destabilizing landscapes in this battle of deeply felt and Impressionistic albums.
Two things of note here. First, our (somehow) first ever play-in Sub Title! Tim pits two versions of Father of the Bride against one another and Matt decides which gets to face The Birdcage. Second, I’m not sure there’s been a bigger tonal shift between entry and Sub Title options before. The violence and despair of The Deer Hunter gives way to the hilarity of Steve Martin, Martin Short, Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, and Hank Azaria in shoes.
Korn famously (notoriously) insisted that their musical lineage starts with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More. More generally, their history begins in alt rock of the late 80s and early 90s, an era of experimentation, forceful expansion, and quite a bit of weirdness. The Chili Peppers aren’t in this episode, but Matt appreciates the violent ache of Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral before considering how Jane’s Addiction and Faith No More broke the alt rock mold(s) in their own unique ways.
A disproportionate amount of this episode is Matt railing on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which features one of the worst people in his estimation. Tim keeps things fair and moving though in his analysis of MASH as a movie about terrible people maybe sorta learning to be not as terrible before talking Ferris, where no one learns a damn thing, and Five Came Back, where a lot of people learn some hard things they’d really rather not. Listen to hear which is the worst of them all in some productive way.
Remember the aughts when most indie music was dance-y? Good times? Good times. Innocuous times, if we believe the worry of one James Murphy who warns as much on the opening of LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver. Matt looks at the legacy, longevity, and punchiness, or lack thereof, of Murphy’s totem of an album. Up as replacements are Phoenix’s gargantuanly popular Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and Hot Chip’s prickly, but no less beloved, The Warning where both are judged by their handling of emotional profundity and innocuous dance rock.
Tim and Matt have shown previous interest in naming the “Most” of various things - most 00’s, 90’s, and 80’s songs, for example. The things that best embody and symbolize an era or genre or concept. Tim returns that thought experiment here with three movies that are the Most their respective directors. North by Northwest has all the Hitchcock you know and expect, while Moby Dick and My Darling Clementine distill John Huston and John Ford, respectively, as much as they tell actual stories. But which Auteur is truest to themselves?
Tell us which option you would have chose, vote in our poll below!
Last week was Myth and History; this week is the Cosmos. The Moon and Antarctica, an album near and dear to Matt’s heart, tries to speak (with) God with layers of guitar in a Cosmos entirely of Modest Mouse’s design. Built to Spill, MM’s Pacific Northwest counterparts, and Hum, of Shoegaze Decile fame, have similarly searching and vast 90s albums in Perfect From Now On and You’d Prefer and Astronaut, respectively. One is more metaphysical and the other more astrological, both, however, investigate the stars of the universe.
Tell us which option you would have chosen, vote in our poll below!
Tim, as is his wont, is working with another AFI list here in 100 Years…100 Thrills, a list that he and Matt decide is truly bonkers but in a charming way. Jaws - which, hey, good film - lands number 2nd on that list. The Exorcist is 3rd, which is the first Sub option since Tim can actually watch it now. And while Tim can’t use the movie in 1st, Psycho, he looks to another Hitchcock film, Notorious, in this battle of thrills, both the spectacular and the horrifying.
Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City is probably the most widely beloved and respected debut from 2010s hip-hop, and which Kendrick album is his best is a Discourse deserving of the capital letter. Matt doesn’t wade into that, rather he considers GK, MC for the autobiographical origin story that it is, Kendrick’s concept album about the creation of Kendrick Lamar. Danny Brown’s Old and Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool go toe-to-toe in this episode about Concept Rap albums with a bent towards self-creation.
Y’all remember Rocky loses in the first one, right? Well Tim and Matt are here to remind you - and remind you why that’s a good thing - and Tim is being the depressing one this week when he talks about The Cincinnati Kid and Make Way for Tomorrow, two movies where loss looms large and some everyday folks are working hard to survive. Everyone loses, but who loses most meaningfully?
This is the first recorded episode after that summer break we took, so forgive any ring rust. No better way to get revved back up than with our favorite band to hate: Pavement. We say things about Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (we like it more! I think! Kinda!). Then Matt introduces Tim to two bands that draw on Pavement’s style. Speedy Ortiz’s Major Arcana and Cymbal’s Eat Guitars’ LOSE vie for indie rock supremacy while, crucially, not being mistaken for Pavement’s sound.
The sweetness of Chaplin making dinner rolls dance shines in The Gold Rush, and gives Tim his jumping off point for this episode. Things escalate quite a bit as we move from dancing bread to two antagonists realizing a secret, anonymous letter writing love, to dinosaurs and the sins of science. In each Tim finds moments of beauty and wonder. Tune in to see how he pitches all this to Matt, grumpy skeptic of most things happy.
Few things get Matt more excited than concept records and jarring indie music. Put the two together and you have In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel’s classic that’s beloved, hated on, called overrated, and beloved again in regular cycles. Anais Mitchell and Hurray for the Riff Raff aren’t as, well, batshit as NMH, but their albums Hadestown and The Navigator, respectively,are historical and mythological records much like In the Aeroplane. Listen to see which allegories Tim likes best.
Years from now, when historians and cultural anthropologists analyze the vital impact of Sub Titles, they’ll look to this episode for the self-evident truth of Tim’s proselytizing for Nashville as well as the origins of our then world famous band Musie and the Beef. It’s all business as usual, I guess I’m saying, to the point that here comes the lit crit terminology too as Tim discusses Diegetic Musicals. The Faustian insanity of Brian de Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise runs into the muted melancholy (and John Goodman) of the Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis.
Have you, too, been wondering why Matt isn’t talking about more 90s Grocery Store Rock canon bands? Lucky for you he’s got just the stuff you need this episode! After talking M.I.A.’s Kala, how it holds up almost 15 years later, and the inescapability of “Paper Planes,” Matt moves to talk about two bands with some equally pervasive hits with famous movie connections. That’s right, it’s time for Dave Matthews Band and Goo Goo Dolls.
Part 1 of this episode is sad and heavy. Part 2 is funny and, ahem, zany. Matt and Tim talk the brilliant irreverence of the Marx Bros and Duck Soup(as with all screwballs, thorough discussion of favorite gags ensues). Tim introduces two romance screwballs in The Palm Beach Story and What’s Up, Doc?, both of which pay homage to and, fittingly, muck up the typical genre formula with some heady filmmaking.
Matt has teased with the philosophy before but this episode is all-in with a somehow not too literal reading of the title of Elliott Smith’s heartbreaking 1997 album, Either/Or. After giving a quick foundation for Kierkegaardian analysis - out of care for your intro to philosophy course as well - Matt traces the legacy of Smith and the presence of Kierkegaard’s existentialism through two (massive) personal favorites: The National’s High Violet and Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight. Kierkegaard often guides us to consider anxiety and Matt definitely felt some while Tim was choosing the winner…
We’re all about pivotal years in this set. After Matt covered 2000 and hip-hop, Tim looked to 1941 and some of that year’s pivotal, most accomplished films. 1941 is a precipice year historically and cinematically, and Tim talks us through Sullivan’s Travels before considering the historical, cultural, and technical significance of The Devil and Daniel Webster and The Little Foxes.
We’re back to sing the praises of Outkast. After the smooth perfection of Aquemini, Andre and Big Boi dropped the at once massively accessible and obtusely futuristic Stankonia. You know “Ms. Jackson,” “B.O.B.,” and “So Fresh, So Clean,” all of which her major hits in 2000 (and far beyond). You know who else was huge in 2000? Ludacris and Nelly. Like, absurdly so. Matt talks those three artists and what their 2000 releases say about the present and future of hip-hop, then Tim decides which one is truly the Hot Shit.
Matt and Tim are up to their old shenanigans with a bracket and a alternate history choose your own adventure game in this bonus episode of Sub Titles. On the music side, Matt is running his way through a bracket of some choice 80s metal tunes, as inspired by the Master of Puppets episode. And over in movies, Tim is imagining how things could have gone differently for George Lucas after American Graffiti, which, depending on how the die rolls, may or may not include dalliances with Star Wars, the MCU, and Apocalypse Now.
After looking at 2000 in Part 1, Tim shoots us back to 1941 for Part 2. We begin with Sullivan's Travels, a satire of trying to make it in Hollywood and trying to be socially relevant. It's a movie, to some degree, about breaking type, as are The Devil and Daniel Webster and The Little Foxes. Tim takes us through matters of pie stealing, Bette Davis, murderous intent, and old Mr. Scratch in our journey to determine which movie most reflects the momentous year that was 1941.
"Ms. Jackson," "So Fresh, So Clean," "B.O.B." You know Stankonia. There's a great chance you started humming one of those songs upon reading the title. There's also a great chance you start humming Nelly's "Country Grammar" and/or Ludacris' "Southern Hospitality" when I write those. What binds all of those together? The year 2000, an absolute monster year for hip-hop crossover hits and artists. Eminem has the monolith of the year, but we'll get to him in a later episode. For know Matt and Tim talk the goodness, sensuality, and strangeness of Stankonia, before considering Nelly's Country Grammar and Ludacris' Back for the First Time as both monuments to 2000 and sneaky influential albums on their own. Let's remember some tunes.
You might think that if Tim and Matt, those cynics, are talking about Nostalgia then you’re in for a pretty negative episode. But we really like American Graffiti! So no hate here, just good vibes and directors looking back on when they were younger and maybe less sad. Tim talks a couple big shots in Raoul Walsh and Orson Welles with The Roaring Twenties and The Magnificent Ambersons, respectively. See if the past is all it’s cracked up to be for either director.
Burial’s Untrue (which, amazingly, we only reverse once in this podcast) is a seminal electronic album but Matt is rude and still not really digging into electronic music. Instead, he’s talking about how engrossing and generous the world of Untrue is and how well Burial brings listeners in. Such an Intimate experience with music is incredibly powerful, and Matt presents Julien Baker’s Turn Out the Lights and Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism as two albums with which he has had close, intimate relationships, as have countless listeners with both.
Cabaret is a movie of many wonderful moments funny and somber. Standing tall among them is when everyone realizes they can’t control or stop the rise of the Nazis. Tim guides us through The Towering Inferno and Ace in the Hole, two movies that also upend any sense of control the protagonists might feel whether that’s via some human element or some element of nature.
You, dear listener, may well have staunch Beyoncé, and/or Beyoncé, opinions. Matt does not. Still he ventures on, chatting with Tim about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Queen’s self-titled album (there are more of one than the other and you can guess which…) and how it functions as a sort of reset in her career, one in which Beyoncé defines Beyoncé for all to hear. Matt looks to other examples of self-titled albums telling us something about how those artists perceive themselves with Bon Iver and Paramore after and in the face of pretty firm narratives.
We recorded this episode before the passing of Ned Beatty, and now an eerily prescient movie is even more sadly topical. Tim and Matt talk just how prescient Network, a movie regularly labeled as such, is, and for reasons you may not expect. Then Tim introduces Speedy and All That Heaven Allows as two other movies with similarly biting and pressing commentary on Modern Times, whenever they may be. Which is also to say there's a lot of talk about Harold Lloyd and Rock Hudson.
An album with more fun emphasis points in the title than fun songs! More seriously, Achtung Baby was a big reset moment for U2 in the midst of their global domination and did signal some stylistic shifts for the band. Matt and Tim talk how Achtung Baby is and isn't different from prior U2 affair, the respect we have for a band that just shoots their shot, and the importance of Berlin and Hansa Studio, where the album was recorded and a place of regular artist reinvention. Matt offers two other albums recorded at Hansa, both of which are markers of change and/or development for their respective artists: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Psychedelic Furs.
The real story here is how well can Tim and Matt resist doing the Toto bit. One of them fares better than the other. Also they discuss The African Queen, its precipitous fall between AFI lists, grungy Bogart, screen chemistry, and Africa. Tim then presents two films with African settings that are vital to the primary romance plot, John Ford's Mogambo and Anthony Minghella's The English Patient. Talk of orientalism, megafauna, The Scramble for Africa, world war geopolitics, and, of course, maps ensues.
Matt and Tim looked at the significance of Public Enemy back in the Fear of a Black Planet episode and they re-up that discussion here in the context of the predecessor, 1988's It Takes a Nation of Millions. That album was released during a quietly, and as we discuss catastrophically, consequential year. It also topped 1988's Pazz and Jop list. Matt presents two other top five albums from that poll in Tracy Chapman's self-titled debut (you probably know "Fast Car" and nothing else) and Midnight Oil's Diesel and Dust (you probably know "Beds are Burning" and nothing else), which came in third and fourth, respectively. In addition to the accolades, both albums also speak to the particular tensions of 1988. But which most embodies the year?
After Tim and Matt discuss the sheer joy of Raiders of the Lost Ark and how to basically hush and have fun, Tim starts to target Matt and call out his graduate exploits. Really he’s looking at Indiana Jones as the ultimate Poindexter Come Alive, a character type he traces in Ball of Fire and Losing Ground. Are you the type of academic who mugs at the camera in Peruvian temples, fights crime, or gets pedantic about the concept of art?
If you’ve been pining for Matt to explain more philosophy here’s the episode you’ve been waiting for! Pulp’s Brit Pop staple, Different Class, regales with withering and genuinely funny tales of class relations, hipster posturing, and love as class warfare. Matt introduces two albums with similar preoccupations with class and revolutionary politics in Rage Against the Machine’s The Battle of Los Angeles and Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s F# A# ∞. All three albums were released in the mid to late 90s, so tune in to hear about that particular historical context and which album makes the most profound argument about class relations.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (I am, George) features one of the most compellingly uncomfortable arcs of any movie as we watch George and Martha destroy their entire imagined world. Other married couples crack-up much less metaphysically, including the mental and emotional fracturing of A Woman Under the Influence and, well, the fracturing of nearly everything in the coldly violent The Shining.
I’m not sure a metal band will again reach the heights that Metallica has. Their finest statement is Master of Puppets, a pummeling and tight 55 minutes of metal at its most populist. Matt presents albums by two highly respected and beloved metal acts from the last 20 years, Leviathan by Mastodon and Blue Record by Baroness, in a battle of Georgia bands. If you’re looking for your way into metal more broadly, look no further.
A lot going on in this episode. Tim gets to talk Westerns for a minute, so you know he’s excited, then he and Matt fuss about Unforgiven and talk about the nature of legends and who gets to print them. Tim offers two even more recent examples as the Malickissance continues with the visually marvelous The New World, and then one person gets real feisty about The Social Network. Tune in to find out which!
As fond as music critics are of praising Radiohead - more than deservedly so for the monumental Kid A - they’re almost more fond of identifying the next Radiohead. Matt assesses why that might be, landing on a general yearning for a specific brand of popular rock music, and offers Tim two albums by classic “The Next Radiohead” bands: Travis and Muse. That’s right, kids, it’s the Muse episode. Buckle up.
If you live for Tim’s impressions, here’s an episode for you. Dustin Hoffman realizes misogyny is a thing in Tootsie and Tim guides us through two other movies where maybe, hopeful a resident macho man realizes he’s being a shead. Tune in to hear how the "‘Guy You Hate Might Have a Point' and ‘Lusty Moralist’ types fare and if they feel any shame in Hud and Sadie Thompson*, respectively.
The Low End Theory is a high-point in hip-hop generally, and has a strong claim to being the pinnacle of the Native Tongues movement, a collective of early 90s artists with special love for jazz, Afrika Bambaataa, and a playfulness out-of-step with the burgeoning gangster rap scenes. Matt contextualizes Native Tongues, then gives Tim the choice of Queen Latifah’s assured and bouncy All Hail the Queen and Black Sheep’s edgier, at times sillier, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.
Violence comes in many shades. Tim and Matt talk all of ‘em here before settling on The Old Ultraviolence for which A Clockwork Orange is notorious. We got great evil performances all around as Tim brings The Big Heat and No Country for Old Men for consideration. Not exactly easy movies to watch, but we see what narrative purpose violence can serve and which forms are the oldest and most insidious.
I don’t know how much explaining the theme on this one needs but this has to be the silliest episode we’ve recorded thus far. Partially that’s because Weezer is a silly band who ruined Tim’s song. But it’s also partially because of the list of bands that opened for Weezer right after Blue Album. Matt talks Veruca Salt and Archers of Loaf, tune in to find out who all the rejects are too.
Who doesn’t love a good episode driven by angst and trauma? Tim and Matt indulge a couple of their pet passions as Tim, inspired by the historicism of our Saving Private Ryan episode, traipses through WWII films made during WWII and Matt, inspired by himself and all the sad white boys these past 10 episodes, looks at how pop-punk is doing in the 2010s and now, after it’s commercial heyday.
Not since [checks notes] one episodes ago have Matt and Tim been so confused by the popularity of a film! Maybe five episodes ago if you want the Forrest Gump Hate Parade of 2021. At any rate, Saving Private Ryan and it’s nonsensical plot is on the block this week before Tim takes us through other films looking at WWII in retrospect. The Malickissance continues with the titan The Thin Red Line going against Samuel Fuller’s The Big Red One in the battle of red WWII films with more profound things to say about the war and its lasting effects and legacy.
Beck and his music are difficult to parse in 2021, largely because what he was/is so good at is the norm now rather than progressive like in 1996 when Odelay delighted and confused listeners. Matt talks Beck’s importance and influence in terms of his uncanny ability to break down several genres and styles to stitch them together, then two other artists with similar Deconstructionist impulses working in the swirl grunge, college rock, indie, and alternative: Melvins and The Butthole Surfers.
After dutifully attending to the “Why is this movie number 1 on IMDB?” conversation, Tim and Matt consider how communities are established in terrible situations. Prison obviously falls into that category. Tim also guides us through the society of survival among Antarctic scientists in The Thing and the “this is what we got” vibes of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Two podcast favorites in Carpenter and Altman, see which one goes on!
Automatic for the People is sort of notoriously R.E.M.’s death album, the one in the throes of existential wonder. While death does appear throughout the album, it’s more an extended contemplation of mortality and what, if anything, lies beyond this life. “Find the River” suggests nothing. Matt plumbs into The Antler’s gorgeously heart-rending Hospice and the howling pain of Touché Amoré’s Stage Four to see what those have to say about death, mortality, memory, and the Great Beyond.
We got paid in Part 1, and now we owe. Tim and Matt consider the importance of Butch and Sundance before Tim offers two other movies with exacting forces looking for recompense. Terrence Malick Appreciation Month continues with his Days of Heaven up for consideration against Delbert Mann’s Separate Tables. Can Malick keep the perfect game alive? Will a meta argument sway Matt? Can anyone be happy in these movies? Why does Tim like Robert Redford on a bicycle so much?
Teenage angst hasn’t paid Matt well in any literal way, but he does maintain a soft spot for many of the rock bands it has. Cobain made that the first line on the prickly follow-up to Nevermind, In Utero, and immediately cast it as a rejection of fame and Nevermind itself. In this episode, Matt offers albums by two other artists who teenage angst paid off well and who seem hell-bent on getting beyond that past, just like Nirvana. Listen in for talk of Foxing’s Nearer My God and, finally, the My Chemical Romance episode you’ve all probably been expecting from Matt (though not the album you might expect!).
The Silence of the Lambs seemingly gets only more popular and influential with time, which is genuinely impressive for what could easily be seen as a (good) genre film. We talk about genre films, about the cinematic legacy of The Silence of the Lambs (especially to a genre we don’t like as much which I’ve now decided is called Nu-Horror), and why we can’t seem to get enough of murderous psychopaths murdering psychopathically. Hitchcock makes his first Sub Titles appearance with Shadow of a Doubt, while the unintentional-yet-delightful run of Terrence Malick begins with Badlands as we discuss the disconcerting magnetism, romantically or otherwise, of some serial killers.
“Juicy” is one of the greatest rags-to-riches songs ever put to tape. A humorous and detailed story of coming from “sardines for dinner” to “Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis.” The sensation of “making it” runs through Ready to Die, and in this episode Matt presents two other albums from artists wrestling with their fame, status, and wealth in Watch the Throne, by Jay-Z and Kanye in their imperial phase, and The Eminem Show, by Eminem in peak scaring white parents phase. Buckle up, this one’s a journey.
Everyone’s favorite region of the U.S., as Matt teases in part 1. Maybe not, but it could be the most mythologized (though not represented). Beyond being the origin of a Lion King joke none of us got as kids, In the Heat of the Night leaves front-and-center the matter from which Southern identity can never escape: race. Tim talks Daughters of the Dust, a hyper-specific look at the Gullah of the lowlands, and The Member of the Wedding, a broader encapsulation of Southern identity, as replacements for understanding this complex and proud region.
Our theme this week comes from Robert Christgau, who can turn a phrase better than any other music critic. (The) Dismemberment Plan’s Emergency & I is all nervy energy, jittery mood swings, and mid-20s panic. It’s also an album Matt and Tim like quite a lot. For replacements, Matt offers two albums even closer to his heart in Motion City Soundtrack’s I Am the Movie and Los Campesinos! No Blues. We talk ennui and existentialism and freaking the f*** out, then Tim does some fun math to make a choice.
Matt and especially Tim are never far from railing on Forrest Gump, that famed jaunt through the 20th century with terrible disability politics and Tom Hanks doing a funny voice. We’re constitutionally unable to let that go, but Tim does try to steer us to the theme of History Class with two films inhabiting specific places and eras in Meek’s Cutoff and Zodiac. We like those films much more and good discussion of historicism and representation follows.
Courtney Love’s acerbic lyricism breathed precious fresh air into a male-dominated genre. In the spirit of Hole’s Live Through This, Matt looks to two groups fronted and run by women with strong musical chops and even stronger voices confronting the, often stupid, men around them in love and their scenes. Justine Frischmann of Elastica and Brody Dalle of The Distillers bring fire and wit to Brit-pop and punk, respectively. Listen to hear which lands the heaviest knockout punch to the Patriarchy.
Journalism has long been a pressurized and risky endeavor, not just in the era of Fake News. All the President’s Men stands as a look into a profession and the unique ideological challenges involved as much as a glimpse of a historical moment. Tim offers Warren Beatty’s Reds and James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News as two other films presenting some seemingly eternal political challenges and other unique questions of medium and entertainment, both of which speak to Journalism writ large.
The Replacements brand of heart-on-sleeve heartland punk is well established and adored. Also well established is their legendary drinking and raucous behavior (banned for life from SNL!). Matt talks two albums that continue in Tim’s Drunk and Full of Tunes legacy in The Hold Steady’s woozy yet bitchin’ Almost Killed Me and Japandroids’ blaring and nostalgic Post-Nothing.
Chaplin’s riotous Modern Times has several incredible sight gags, including two scenes of characters traversing the “guts” of machines. Of course, Modern Times is also a film about how industrialization and alienation of labor make us disposable cogs for a larger, more nebulous machine. Tim tracks more (mostly) metaphorical visions of individuals being disposable objects and Food for Machines in David Lynch’s Eraserhead and Jordan Peele’s Get Out.
East Coast Hip Hop in the mid 90s doesn’t need me to make its importance evident; the names made themselves important. Illmatic gets the shaft on the Spin list but it’s due respect in this episode. Nas’ brilliant poetry vividly captures a place, Queensbridge, as a microcosm of NYC and the East Coast Hip Hop scene in the mid 90s. Matt presents Mobb Deep’s The Infamous and Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt as two other vital entries for understanding the scene, place, and lives of artists.
The Wild Bunch’s famous, and visceral, opening becomes the theme this episode as Tim offers movies that make clear the power of many ants over just a few scorpions. The Ox-Bow Incident and Silence are two movies in which sheer numbers overwhelm staunch individual conviction, forever altering worldviews in the process.
An episode Matt has been eyeing up since the beginning, full of music he can remember listening to as long as he has listened to music. Listen to Matt and Tim giggle like children at Dookie and then more seriously consider its legacy, one Green Day still has a tough time living down. Dookie’s brilliant, fun Pop-Punk set the stage for a generation of bands speaking the concerns and troubles of adolescence one raucous sing-a-long at a time. Matt offers two massive personal favorites in Blink-182’s Enema of the State and Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American as replacements for Dookie’s outwardly immature and surprisingly perceptive Pop-Punk.
Jack Lemmon plays an all-time sad sack in The Apartment, someone with little to look positively on even when it’s Christmas. Tim offers two other movies that have similarly Blue Christmases in 3 Godfathers, a John Ford allegory of the three wise men, and Three Days of the Condor, a Sydney Pollack film wherein Christmas rolls on unperturbed as Robert Redford becomes increasingly paranoid and perturbed.
Outkast’s magnum opus ends with audio of their infamous Source Awards acceptance speech, Andre barking at a booing crowd “The South’s got something to say.” And with that, the theme of our Aquemini episode, an album Matt thinks Spin has far too low. Outkast still have heavy influence on Atlanta specifically and hip hop in general; in this episode Matt discusses two other footholds in Southern hip hop: Houston and New Orleans. UGK’s Ridin’ Dirty epitomizes the languorous, chopped-and-screwed ethos of Houston while Juvenile’s 400 Degreez builds on New Orleans’ bounce music scene to craft the scariest party album ever.
We’re 20 episodes in! Which is exciting, and also means it’s time for another bonus episode. Our cups runneth over with takes and Deci’s Midnight Runners is our chance to dig further into something that piqued our interest from the ten prior episodes.
Matt bends the broad arc of Shoegaze history to give some more shine to a genre and artists he genuinely thinks most people would love. Listen in for more on Catherine Wheel, Alcest, Nothing, Greet Death, and Hum, and to hear which Matt describes as “Pearl Jam in a wind tunnel.”
Tim has a lot of problems with you people (read: the Oscars) and you’re going to hear about them. He gives us a highly scientific ranking of which Scorsese films have been the most screwed by the Academy, which is a pretty high bar.
It’s hard for Kubrick to not make a movie feel like him but he was working Out of Type with the swords-and-sandals epic Spartacus. Tim guides us through two replacement titles by other beloved directors with hyper-unique styles. John Carpenter plays it straight and even sweet on Starman and David Lynch’s vision of a twisted America take a back seat in the warm, heartfelt action of The Straight Story.
Really exciting episode for Matt who gets to dissect The Pixies’ vibrant, enduring classic Doolittle, an album as influential as it was weird in 1989. The Pixies’ now basically patented loud-soft-loud (or soft-loud-soft if they were feeling feisty) stands the test of time and endures in many an album from the 90s and 00s, including The Mars Volta’s delightfully insane De-Loused in the Comatorium and Modest Mouse’s first masterpiece, The Lonesome Crowded West. Tune in to hear which album makes the most affecting use of Pixies-esque abruptness.
Tim takes Sunrise, the AFI movie this week, as a unique journey narrative, a Journey to Tilsit, that pushes couples to the brink. Dodsworth faces an uphill battle against Sub Titles-core movie Before Midnight, listen to see how well Tim fares selling the profound-in-its-uncomfortableness experience of both (He does well!). Keep your Myers-Briggs and enneagram, on this podcast we judge people by their favorite Before movie.
Meet Me in the Bathroom, Lizzie Goodman’s essential oral history of the early 2000s NYC rock revival, chronicles the rise and coked out denouement of bands like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, Vampire Weekend, and the Walkmen. With The Strokes’ debut Is This It as this week’s Spin entry, Matt looks to Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Fever to Tell and The Walkmen’s Bows + Arrows as essential documents of a brief, shining moment in rock history.
You might be thinking that this episode will be nothing but silly. Shame on you! It’s not only silly. Tim finds much pathos as he guides us through the relationship between vessel and captain in the mega-smash Titanic and not as mega-smashes but highly compelling 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Master and Commander.
Björk is a genre unto herself and Homogenic one of her earliest masterpieces. Apparently Iceland has fertile ground for growing experimental acts in general and we take some time to dig into Sigur Ros and mum, two acts pushing and ignoring genre much like Björk. Is it worth trying to understand what Jonsi is singing? Does mum take us to the limit of how much post-rock doesn’t need to, ya know, rock? How many Icelandic bands does Matt know? Will Agaetis byrjun or Finally We Are No One stand as the Björkiest of them all?
True to form, Tim and Matt end up hating on Gen X more than Boomers here. Listen to find out how! And to hear more about a few significant and ideologically loaded films that speak directly about and to a generation brought up on a hope quickly destroyed in the late 60’s and beyond. Easy Rider is the AFI entry for the week, which leads Tim to discussion of Shampoo and Modern Romance as we look beyond the OK, Boomer of it all to see what went wrong.
Paul’s Boutique remains as thrilling and befuddling as ever, a deeply fun listen that somehow, someway remains on streaming platforms despite it’s impressively liberal usage of samples and references. To say a record still lacking a comprehensive list of samples used is dense feels like understatement. In this episode, Matt introduces two other exceptionally Dense albums in mewithoutYou’s appendix-and-Theology-course-necessitating Pale Horses and (it’s finally that episode, folks) Tool’s geometrically, spiritually, and Danny Carey-ly constructed Lateralus.
Tim slowly encroaches on Matt’s music territory with another week of musical theming, in the form of full interludes this week. With the Marx Bros’ romp A Night at the Opera as his inspiration, Tim guides us through two very-not-Marx-Bros-like films that also make weighty use of well-timed Musical Interludes: Short Cuts and Anatomy of a Murder.
Brian Wilson, he of Beach Boys fame and writer of such brilliance as “Good Vibrations” and “God Only Knows,” is notoriously shy and reclusive. His genius, however, is indisputable. In this episode, we take a look at three artists with shades of Brian Wilson: reclusive, a bit prickly, genius-level songwriters. The Magnetic Field’s 69 Love Songs, Spin’s entry for the week, showcases Stephin Merritt’s love of literal titles and his genuinely impressive range. After some, lively, discussion of 69 Love Songs’ relative merits, Matt brings D’Angelo back into the fold with Black Messiah and tries not to fanboy too hard about Fiona Apple and The Idler Wheel.
When Oliver Stone hits he hits hard. When he misses he whiffs entirely. Platoon has some of both. While Tim and Matt spend some time talking about the film’s war bonafides, and lack thereof, Tim directs us to the theme of Classical Needledrops, inspired by Platoon’s use of “Adagio for Strings.” He then continues the reclamation of Heaven’s Gate and waxes about personal favorite The Right Stuff, both of which are recontextualized by some surprising classical music drops.
Public Enemy’s incendiary and essential Fear of a Black Planet prompts Matt to think about and present different ways of presenting and embodying black power in music. Still to his and Tim’s befuddlement, Ms. Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a viable replacement option and squares off here against scrappy underdog Things Fall Apart, The Roots’ jazz-hop classic.
In which Tim and Matt do a really good job of not just quoting Tevye and heaping praise on Topol. AFI gives Tim 12 Angry Men to work with, which he turns into the afore-referenced Fiddler on the Roof and Ratatouille. What connects a fourth-wall-breaking traditionalist and a rat-chef? Persuasion, of course! Come for the favorite Tevye moments, stay for an actually genuine discussion of rhetoric and elements of persuasion.
In this episode Matt explains a subgenre you might have heard of but remains mysterious, much like the swells and swirls of the music it produces. We talk Shoegaze in all its gauzy and aqueous goodness via My Bloody Valentine’s still gorgeous Loveless, and Matt presents two other Shoegaze heavyweights to illustrate the different spirits of the genre and to determine which is the best representative.
The 1938 screwball classic Bringing Up Baby is the AFI entry for this episode, and man is the leopard cute. Tim talks through the zany...everything of the film before casting it as an example of Patrician Romance. With that theme Ernst Lubitsch makes his second appearance on the podcast in Heaven Can Wait, which goes against Dorothy Arzner's Craig's Wife in a battle of rich folk being various degrees of unfaithful and romantic and showing us the nuanced contours of what it means to be together.
A battle of hip-hop heavyweights this week. Jay Z's The Blueprint is the Spin entry, an album that functions as both a statement of success and as a model for how to Grow Old in hip-hop, a genre notorious (in 2001) for not having many artists with long careers (or even lives). Matt talks through Nas' Stillmatic and The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death as other examples of how rappers deal with wealth, fame, and relevance as they mature. And boy howdy the rap beefs we get to talk about in this episode. Here's to "Ether," forever the best diss track.
With the Philadelphia of it all as his guide, Tim remarks on the importance of Pennsylvania to The Sixth Sense and then to The Irishman and Witness. We talk about the twist, marvel at the performances in The Irishman, giggle about Al Pacino devouring scenes as Jimmy Hoffa, discuss the sight of peak Harrison Ford in Amish country, consider the stark differences between parts of PA not but an hour away from each other, and Matt just generally geeks about his home state and Tim about his adopted city.
Sonic Youth were part of a vanguard of bands in the late 80s redefining what guitar music and American rock could sound like. In this episode, we look at more recent artists that wield Distortion with a similar verve to Sonic Youth: Silversun Pickups and Mitski. We discuss how such heavy, fuzzy effects can increase emotional impact. We also realize that Rock Band II has to be the subject of a future Deci’s Midnight Runners.
Swing Time is really a showcase for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in all their grace and beauty. In this episode, Tim brings for consideration two other films that are showcases of talent. One is a powerhouse, and inimitable, solo performance by Judy Garland in A Star is Born (‘54); the other may be the most beloved ensemble in history. Listen to see if and how Matt might talk himself out of the Muppets.
D’Angelo’s simply incredible Voodoo kick-started a truly impressive year for albums in 2000 with its concoctions of soul, R&B, hip-hop, funk, blues, and damn near everything else. Heady arrangements with visceral kick is basically the D’Angelo brand, which Matt discusses in this episode before introducing two other vitally important Neo-Soul albums that came before the crest that was Voodoo: Maxwell’s Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite and Erykah Badu’s Baduizm.
Full as they are with Content, Sub Titles episodes don't always allow Tim and Matt to slow down on niche topics, as is their wont. We'll be doing just that after every tenth episode, dedicating a bonus episode to topics we want to discuss further, and differently. On deck for this inaugural episode is Tim trying to convince you all that he does actually like Meryl Streep, with a ranking of her performances naturally, and Matt trying to convince you to stop throwing things at the stage for just a second and hear why nu-metal isn't all bad. Welcome to Deci's Midnight Runners.
Meryl Streep acts the hell out of Sophie’s Choice in a way few could. See if that’s enough to warrant kind words from Tim who discusses two other movies driven by women making choices in dire straits. Sub Titles darling If Beale Street Could Talk and the multi-dimensional chess game that is A Letter to Three Lives present Women on the Verge and having to make often impossible choices.
Do you like Pavement? Do you even remember Pavement? If you’re of a certain age you might. Otherwise, join Matt in slagging and dragging Pavement for their grating aloofness. While Pavement does the whole “it’s ironic, get it” shtick, Matt turns focus to two bands where the shtick is the Form: Ween and Art Brut.
Goodfellas (somehow only 91 for AFI!) ends with Henry Hill eating egg noodles with ketchup like a schnook. While it's hard to sympathize with a Henry Hill, the moment probably feels real to many of us, as do the events of two other films following schnooks, The Crowd and Wendy and Lucy. Join us in this episode to hear Tim sing the praises of Goodfellas and then lead us through the somber, affecting lives of those who barely scrape by and who simply blend in with the rest of us schnooks.
Endtroducing….. remains a masterclass in hip-hop production and sampling, and is an ode to DJ Shadow’s record store and collection. An album recorded on a simple four-track, Endtroducing….. prompts this episode’s discussion of Home Recording in which Matt discusses Iron and Wine’s The Creek Drank the Cradle and Jay Som’s Turn Into as exemplars of taking potential recording limitations and making that at-home feel a powerful tool and theme.
I have but one thing to say: suicide condors. Okay fine, I’ll say more. Join us to hear Tim discuss the Eye-Popping and shocking nature of The French Connection while I make jokes about Gene Hackman’s hat and see how we get to screwball war acting troupe turned screwball actual war resistance group and aforementioned divebombing condors along with random shootings of main characters.
It seems impossible at this point to talk about a Kanye West album without first reckoning with Kanye West the person. This is particularly true of the deeply personal, often immensely self-aware, and always uncompromising My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye’s gargantuan classic. As Kanye pulls out all of his tricks on MBDTF, so too do Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Anthony Gonzalez of M83 on The Fragile and Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, respectively. Matt talks about the vital connection between emotion, and often emotional distress or mental illness, and Maximalist music before Tim decides which of these heavyweights is the heaviest.
Tim and Matt discuss the eternal allure and rot of Los Angeles as Tim guides us through two movies that share absolutely nothing besides presenting L.A. in all it’s toxic glory: Speed and My Brother’s Wedding. Join us, also, in attempting to figure out the best scene in Pulp Fiction, a movie that still thrills all these years later.
The highest entry on the Spin list from a woman! Perhaps surprising but well-deserved for Liz Phair's sexually evocative and uncompromising Exile in Guyville. Matt discusses Exile's wit and power before introducing two other examples of Whip-Smart Women in the righteous fury of Alanis Morissette's immortal Jagged Little Pill and Courtney Barnett's literary and guitar shredding Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit. As an extra treat, prepare to mark your bingo cards for the most pedantic moment yet on this podcast.
Tim takes us through rampant contagion and people wearing masks, people too afraid to live in the world, a "great" man only concerned with himself, and questions of legacy. Movies from the 1952, 1971, and 1994, so sort of a meta Cold Comfort that we've been dealing with these problems for decades. After introducing the overshadowed yet crucial film The Last Picture Show, Tim offers Safe and the The Bad and the Beautiful as movies where comfort can only be had with serious compromise.
The episode Matt has been preparing for for years, really. The one where he discusses the beautifully apocalyptic tones of OK Computer and Radiohead's prescience and then talks about, and even slightly defends nu-metal. One band, System of a Down, is one many of us agree is good. The other, Korn, is a poster child for a genre many of us hate. So get excited for talk of the best song on Toxicity, why Korn is better and more important than you remember, and how both show different sides of the mobius strip of our category, All the World is F*.
This episode has everything: high school chemistry lessons, an appearance by the Podcat, the moon. Tim guides us through that famous, and brilliant, Spike Lee Joint Do the Right Thing and the impact of Tight Quarters. Next he offers The Diary of Anne Frank and Apollo-13 as replacement titles that show how pressurized, terrifying, and even boring tight spaces can be.
Everyone knows The Smiths are great and that The Queen is Dead is probably their most important work so Matt and Tim try to revel in the smaller things - the genre digressions, the mispronunciations, the"oh God here he goes" moments (you know who) - as they discuss what makes The Smiths so beloved, even while they hate each other so much. Then Matt introduces two often misunderstood albums by other bands who will never reunite despite broad and deep love from fans: The Talking Heads' funk-pop delight Little Creatures and R.E.M.'s crunchy, blaring Monster.
In our continuation of episode 4, Tim talks through the brilliance and beauty of Blade Runner and the category of Becoming Human Again. He and Matt discuss the casual charm of Beauty and the Beast, a movie that's been with us our whole lives and teaches us the importance of the soul, and the insane charm of Big Trouble in Little China, a movie that informs our humor and wrestles with the relationship between human nature, bodies, and big trucks.
Join us in part one of episode 4 wherein Matt takes us through his odd relationship with Daft Punk and their Cosplay on Discovery (2001) before introducing the animated front and pop haven that is Gorillaz and Gillian Welch's warm embodiment of Appalachian roots and folk music.
For various reasons, Tim and Matt need to wait a week before posting the next full episodes. We didn't want to leave listeners hanging, so we've whipped up an episode about a few titles we're sad to not have in our pools of replacement titles. Tune in for talk of the subversive noir of The Phenix City Story, Los Campesinos! vibrant wit on Hold On Now, Youngster, Sally Field's union efforts in Norma Rae, and the eternal appeal of Third Eye Blind.
Matt begins with talk of Prince's inimitable Sign O' the Times and other artists who shouldn't be made analogies in David Bowie and Joni Mitchell, offering Blackstar and Night Ride Home, as substitutions. Tim explains the brilliance of John Ford and Thermonuclear Jimmy before looking to other prime examples of Playing Against Type in Fort Apache and Milk.
Tim takes us through Play Time as he makes the cases for Greta Gerwig's wonderful retelling of Little Women (2019) and Stand By Me (part of the glorious Rob Reiner Run)as replacements for the underrated-by-AFI Toy Story. Then for something completely different as Matt discusses the business and musical impact of Wu-Tang Clan's ever powerful debut Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), suggesting Digital Underground's giddy, funky Sex Packets and D12's irreverent Devil's Night as other models of Rap Collectives.
First, Matt offers up Alice in Chains' Dirt and Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger as potential replacements for Nirvana's game-changing album, Nevermind, in the category of Grunge Forefathers. Then, Tim offers up Johnny Guitar and Morocco as possible subs for Ben-Hur for the theme of Queer Subtext.
In this intro episode, Matt and Tim explain the concept of Sub Titles. We talk about how each episode will work, why we chose lists from Spin and AFI, respectively, discuss special considerations, and give a short preview of future episodes.