The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast: Recent Episodes
Bright Wall/Dark Room
A podcast from Bright Wall/Dark Room, engaging with the business of being alive, one movie at a time. Hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick & Chad Perman.
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 Shotco-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 podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.
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.
Riffing on Kim Gordon’s curation, we get into Lynne Ramsay’s atmospheric Morvern Callar(2002), a mixtape of a film whose cursed vacation vibes echo something of Barbara Loden’s Wanda and foreshadow Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun. Shout outs to Georgia Humphreys’ terrific essay “Another Girl, Another Planet” and The Mamas and the Papas’ unlikely club banger, “Dedicated to the One I 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.
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.
--- 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)
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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.
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We'll be back with two new episodes next month - talk soon!
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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.
Joining our spicy all-in-the-family March episode are substitute co-host Fran Hoepfner and BW/DR staff writer Sarah Welch-Larson. Listen as long-time Dune-thusiast Sarah absolutely schools us on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two(2024).
We get into the finer points of adapting Frank Herbert, how all the Bene Gesserit are sexy, space gravity, Rebecca Ferguson’s jaw, the secularization of Chani, are thumpers biodegradable, and more. Special shout-outs to Sarah’s prescient piece on Dune (2021) and Max Read’s encyclopedic annotation of Part Two.
The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is (usually) 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 every issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room at brightwalldarkroom.com, including our current issue on one of the single best years in film history, 1999.
Podcast-wise, we really appreciate your ratings and reviews. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and welcome any feedback, questions, or sponsorship inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.
This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club, currently featuring Kim Gordon as curator; BW/DR 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.
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The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands.
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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 podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.
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.
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This episode is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands.
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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)
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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.
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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 podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.
And, to the best of our knowledge, we have never once abandoned Snoopy in the vestibule.
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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, Liman's blockbuster craftmanship, McQuarrie's calibrations, repetition and rewatchability, three-beers-in movies, and more.
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Cruisemas 2022: Vanilla Sky
Cruisemas 2021: Eyes Wide Shut
Blake's podcast empire: One Heat Minute Productions
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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 podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.
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!
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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!
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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.’
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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 use this special link to get two months of free access!
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.
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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 podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com. Yeehaw.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com–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.
This episode 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. To learn more, visit the WGA strike hub and read about the SAG-AFTRA strike here.This is 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: from Mike Mill's curated library on Galerie, we're discussing Buster Keaton and Edward Sedgwick's 1928 The Cameraman. Tune in for details on Keaton's deadpan charisma, as well as how Chad's pick of moment brings him back to the baseball games of his childhood.For info on upcoming live movie discussions (with you, for you!) hosted by Galerie, 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.
This episode of 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. To learn more, visit the WGA strike hub and read about the SAG-AFTRA strike here.Your mission, if you choose to accept it: in concert with August’s “heists” issue we’re talking across Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), Mission: Impossible (1996) with brilliant Vulture and New York Magazine critic–and platinum-tier BWDR supporter!–Bilge Ebiri. We get into the [redacted] of Ilsa Faust, when plot makes no sense, Tom Cruise playing himself, lyricism in action films, Fallout = sex, what the franchise is saying about digital versus analog, watching A Few Good Men once a week, 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. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners may sign up for access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr.Join us for our first live, interactive online discussion on Galerie on Friday, August 5th, at 1pm PST / 4pm EST! Chad and Veronica will discuss Daisies (1966, dir. Věra Chytilová), a film from Mike Mills’ curated Galerie movie list.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s impossible missions, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We really, really appreciate ratings and reviews. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and we welcome feedback and inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com. This message will self-destruct in––
This episode 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. To learn more, visit the WGA strike hub and read about the SAG-AFTRA strike here.
This is 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 Karyn Kusama’s library, we chat about how Todd Haynes’s Safe (1995) transposes the female ennui of Antonioni’s Red Desert to the sherbert interiors of Sherman Oaks, CA.
For info on upcoming live movie discussions (with you, for you!) hosted by Galerie, 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.
We’re proud to feature our June issue’s guest editor, poet and PhD student Spencer Williams, in conversation about a pair of films that hearken to our theme of trans cinema: Canadian Billy Tipton doc Ordinary Man (Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt, Canada, 2020, now streaming on Criterion Channel) and the incendiary short American Reflexxx (Alli Coates, 2015, on YouTube). We get into: why this double feature, the perils and profits of visibility, improv as queer praxis, did MoMA’s audience get it, the meta device of audition scenes, always performing, working with and against the talking heads format, glitch time, 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. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners may sign up for early access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr.
This month, we're celebrating the 10th anniversary of BW/DR! You can find all 120 issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s bouquet of trans cinema offerings, at brightwalldarkroom.com.
The only way for our pod to reach new listeners is for you to subscribe, rate, and review: please do that! We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and we welcome feedback and inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.
Happy Pride.
This is 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 actor Taylor Russell’s library, we look at the relentlessness and romance of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love (2002). A movie so pretty, we just want to smash it.For info on upcoming live discussions (with you, for you!) hosted by Galerie, please subscribe, follow–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, and listeners can sign up for early access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr.
Joining us this month to wax rhapsodic about Katharine Hepburn is film professor, author (Mike Nichols: Sex, Language, and the Reinvention of Psychological Realism), and Hepburn devotee Kyle Stevens. Listen as we get into George Cukor’s 1940 film adaptation of The Philadelphia Story: the oppositional coherence of the love “square,” getting radicalized by late night TCM, why Hepburn wasn’t hot on Meryl Streep, wishing Mike and Dex would kiss, the remoteness of worship versus the proximity of love, talking talking talking, Kyle’s Isabelle Huppert shirt, 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. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners may sign up for early access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s Kat Attack, at brightwalldarkroom.com. The only way for our pod to reach new listeners is for you to subscribe, rate, and review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and we welcome feedback and inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com. Please, put us in your pocket!
It’s been a minute but we’re back! With writer and Bright Wall OG (literally, she wrote essay 1 for issue 1) Karina Wolf to discuss Wim Wenders’ iconic Wings of Desire (1987), a film that bridges “road movies” and “siblings” (trust us).
We get into the essential decency of Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk’s warmth, transformative romance, whether angels have grandmas, Henri Alekan’s dignifying vision, Wim Wenders’ lack of strategy, how particulars turn universal, and more.
Here is Karina’s terrific essay on Wings of Desirefor BW/DR, and here’s her wonderful piece on Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991).
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 early access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr.
You can find all 115+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room at brightwalldarkroom.com.
Listeners: please subscribe, rate, review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and we welcome feedback and inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.
Thanks for listening; we missed you, too.
This month for our sports issue we’re joined by ace writer and admitted baseball enthusiast Frank Falisi to run the numbers on Bennett Miller’s Oscar-nominated ode to analytics, Moneyball (2011). We touch on romance versus data, the fractious appeal(?) of Billy Beane, how Miller replaced Soderbergh in this case of life imitating art, 2010s’ signature “slick cinema” and baseball’s televisuality, where are the women, decent single dads, and the difference between a big win and a dodged loss. Read Frank’s terrifically moving essay on the Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein doc video, “‘The Love You Send is Endless’: The Stupid Futurity of The History of the Seattle Mariners,” here.
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 all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including February’s exploration of sports on film, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and give us a review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re happy to report we’re getting big in Sweden but love our listeners everywhere.
For our annual fashionably late “Best Of” issue, we’re looking at a 2022 highlight: Charlotte Wells’s staggering debut feature Aftersun, featuring 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.
Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including January’s paeans to last year’s best, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and flatter us with a review. We’re on Twitter @TheBWDRPodcast and @BWDR and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Happy new year.
December means one thing: Happy Cruisemas, from our home to yours. This month we welcome back special Cruise correspondent and BWDR torchbearer Elizabeth Cantwell to discuss Cameron Crowe’s 2001 Vanilla Sky. Surrealist rom com or indulgent puzzle film? Flop or parable? We get into needle drops, Crowe’s self-referentiality, whether Cruise is always more or less wearing a mask, is Brian real, what got lost in translation (from Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los ojos), the Citizen Kane of it all, are rich people likable, Cameron Diaz’s tour de force, and more.
For further reading, check out our own Ethan Warren on Vanilla Skyback in 2020, and Robin Bell at Den of Geek. 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 all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including December’s ode to romantic comedies of which this may or may not be one, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and honor us with a review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. And thanks for spending the year with us.
Our November episode comes a little late, but in the continuous spirit of “recovery,” Chad and Veronica are joined by writer, editor, and Powell's Books managing editor Kelsey Ford to talk Pedro Almodóvar’s Dolor y Gloria (Pain and Glory, 2019). We get into the film’s “wildly tender” exploration of autobiography and artistic process, Almodóvar’s aspirational apartments, that for-old-times’-sake kiss, melodrama’s coincidences, being in the mood for moms, and wanting Penelope Cruz to make you a chocolate sandwich. Here’s Almodóvar talking about Pain and Glory at the BFI Southbank, here’s GQ’s 2019 profile discussing the film, here’s the film’s screenplay, and here’s Alex Jacob’s supercut of Alex Trebek saying “genre.”
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 all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including November’s recovery issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and honor us with a review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Back soon with our annual Tom Cruise episode (a happy holiday, indeed).
On this very special episode, cohost Veronica sits down with beloved critic Fran Hoepfner to talk highlights of the 60th New York Film Festival–of which Fran’s omnibus review for BWDR is out now. In it, Fran describes the programming slate as offering, maybe, catharsis: “a healing that can only be done in a dark room, surrounded by others, but entirely viewed through your own eyes.” Listen as we break down what we saw with our own eyes, including: wanting to go on spooky vacation (Eternal Daughter), hot finger guns (Tár), getting fits off in Master Gardener, the good boring parts of Aftersun, “journalism” in square quotes (Stars at Noon), why Armageddon Time isn’t Green Book, is Triangle of Sadness’s Ruben Östlund performing ‘stupid guy who thinks he gets it,’ Mark Rylance in crazy mode (Bones and All), Park Chan-wook’s elastic worlds (Decision to Leave), the revolutionary humanist élan of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, and a case for why Roxy audiences need to pee before the film starts. Plus, a guest appearance by our producer-editor Eli Sands on the Rohmerian sensibility of Showing Up.
Find Fran online at her mag, Twitter, and Letterboxd. 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.
Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s trek through cinema’s b-roll and Fran’s fest coverage, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and love us up with a quick review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com.
For October’s B-Movies issue–just in time for spooky season–we’re casting an eye back toward RKO darling Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (1942), one of the studio’s most successful forays into low-budget, low-runtime horror. Joining us is film critic and curator, and Artistic Director of Indie Memphis, Miriam Bale. Listen as we historicize our love for Cat People back to Martin Scorsese’s endorsement (“psychosexual!”) in A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), lament the scourge of work wives, and admire this film’s timeless restraint (while appreciating the comparative verve of Paul Schrader’s remake).
Further reading: Geoffrey O’Brien on Cat People’s insightful ambiguity and Karina Longworth on Val Lewton’s work at RKO.
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 all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s trek through cinema’s b-roll, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and honor us with a quick review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Thanks for listening; we’ll see you in the dark.
It’s a month of time travel at BW/DR. Right on the heels of the growing buzz for Rian Johnson’s new genre love letter Glass Onion, we’re discussing his 2012 sci-fi thriller, Looper. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a young Bruce Willis (with the help of that infamous prosthetic nose), but we might be the first to ask: is it a metaphor for parenting? Meanwhile, Veronica interprets a symbolic reincarnation and Chad shares his love for the humanity within time travel movies. Plus, for the first time, listeners like YOU call in to share their thoughts on the film.!
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 all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s issue on time travel, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show your support via Patreon. To help us keep going & growing, please subscribe, rate, share and/or honor us with a quick review of the show.
We’ve traveled back to 1987 to wax ecstatic about Elaine May’s maligned box office failure, Ishtar. We match May’s compassion for the brashly stupid Chuck and Lyle (played by Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, respectively) as Chad explains his personal connection to the movie, Veronica wonders how (and if) the movie successfully balances its many threads, and guest Frank Falisi lays out his theory that this is a high musical à la Vincente Minnelli.
Some further reading that we reference on the show: Peter Biskind’s account of the film–excerpted from Star, his Beatty biography–for Vanity Fair, enthusiast Richard Brody speaking with Elaine May for the New Yorker, and Chad's own Ishtar essay, “But We Can Sing Our Hearts Out,” featured in our 2019 issue dedicated to May’s movies & legacy.
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 all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s jaunt back to ‘87, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and honor us with a quick review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Thanks: we think you’re wonderful.
For “Voyeur” July, we’re talking one-on-one about The Conversation (1974) 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 Francis Ford Coppola’s “personal” post-Godfather film and what it means to watch, fixate, deduce, mishear, and, despite everything, to long to be seen.
Some stuff we reference: Walter Murch’s “Rule of Six” for editors, Koraljka Suton’s piece for Cinephilia & Beyond, and this terrific 1974 interview with Coppola and Brian de Palma for Filmmakers Newsletter.
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 all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s lookie-look issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and give us a quick review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com.
The category is summertime sadness as we discuss Luca Guadagnino’s 2009 melodrama I Am Love. Chad and Veronica are joined by author, critic, and Wesleyan film professor Lisa Dombrowski to break down Guadagnino’s long standing collab with Tilda Swinton, the social necessity of melodrama, how DP Yorick Le Saux crafted two distinct worlds, the erotics of shellfish, radical haircuts, justice for Ida, and the power of envisioning private experience. Come for the suffering, stay for the liberation.
Some extras we reference: Nathan Heller’s profile on Guadagnino for the New Yorker, and Patricia Thomson’s piece on Le Saux’s cinematography for American Cinematographer.
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 all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s weepie issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to subscribe, rate, and review–you’re also welcome to show your support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Grazie di tutto!
To salute our May theme of “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll,” Chad sits down with deputy cohost Fran Hoepfner and our special guest, movie and music writer Sydney Urbanek, to discuss the greatest initially-PG-rated movie of all time(?): Miloš Forman’s 1984 Amadeus. They get into childhood piano lessons, reading love letters in Salzburg, which composers hated their wives, modern resonance in period films, and the surprising extent of the Mozart cinematic universe, from Fernando and Carolina to Marie Antoinette. Subscribe to Sydney’s newsletter here, and sample Fran’s writing on classical music here.
The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is usually co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad Perman.
Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s sexy, druggy, rocked out issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to send love and lunch money via Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Thanks for listening.
Lock the door: for our April devotional to Paul Newman, we’re revisiting Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958) with BW/DR contributor and Vulture critic Roxana Hadadi. Join us as we get into the irrepressible chemistry of Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, the pitfalls and opportunities of stage-to-screen adaptation, where Tennessee Williams’s queer plot went, stormy weather indoors and out, and how Cat served as a fulcrum for both stars’ careers. Read Roxana’s 2019 essay on the film here, and her piece on Newman’s Road to Perdition here.
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 Perman.
You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this April’s all-Newman-all-the-time issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to send love and lunch money via Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. As always, thanks for listening.
Break out the tissues: for our tenth pod, we’ve got a revealing one-on-one episode with cohosts Chad and Veronica swapping a medley of their most memorable, formative movie moments, with a very special cameo by our producer and editor, Eli Sands. We chat about camera movement and transcendence, the power of misremembering, why melodrama rules, the terrible beauty of Cary Grant, the sun, the moon, and our limited time on earth. Deep. Watch along with the film moments we discuss:
Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg, 2020)
Sunshine (Danny Boyle, 2007)
The Dybbuk (Michał Waszyński, 1937)
Joe Versus the Volcano (John Patrick Shanley, 1990)
All My Life (Bruce Baillie, 1966)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this March’s issue on movie “Moments,” at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to send love and lunch money via Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. As always, thanks for listening.
February is “Opulence” month at BW/DR and we’re at the juncture of maximalism and mid-century modern, tackling Peyton Reed’s 2003 rom-com Down With Love. Joining us is editor-in-chief of Fran Magazine, writer and OG Bright Waller Fran Hoepfner. We talk about the calculus of comedy, homage vs. parody, “high concept” romance, the David Hyde Pierce of it all, whether Pillow Talk sucks, and what goes into crafting Jacques Demy-style feel-gooderie for the new millennium.
If you want to read some of what we reference, check out these interviews with actor Sarah Paulson, costume designer Daniel Orlandi, and set decorator Don Diers.
The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Chad Perman composed our theme.
You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our current issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR, and now also @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to support us on Patreon! We also welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Thanks for listening, lovers.
For our Best of 2021 issue, we’re diving deep into Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog with film critic and Quorum (Film Quarterly) editor Girish Shambu, author of The New Cinephilia–now in its second, expanded, PDF-only edition! We talk about Campion’s signature expressionism, the versatility of props, masculinities, Jonny Greenwood, and the capital-R Romanticism of this profound gothic western.
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 Perman.
You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our current issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR, and now also @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to help our pod grow is to support us on Patreon! We also welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Thanks, all, for listening, and happy new year from BW/DR.
This month at BWDR, we swerve from the usual holiday sentimentality and instead explore films that exemplify a state of ‘FUBAR’: fucked up beyond all recognition/repair. Joining us is poet, educator, and original Bright Wall co-conspirator Elizabeth Cantwell to discuss Stanley Kubrick’s beloved psychosexual Christmas thriller, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). We chat about color and Christmas lights, shooting London for NYC (for Vienna), Tom Cruise’s dubious sex appeal, the complexities of marriage, whether the weed makes you aggressive, and much 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 Perman.
You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our current issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter@BWDR, and the best way to show your love for our pod and help us grow is to support us on Patreon. We also welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com. Thanks for listening! And stay safe.
Our theme this month is “Generations,” and we’re joining renowned pickle man enthusiast and Elaine May biographer Carrie Courogen to discuss Joan Micklin Silver’s intergenerational NYC rom-com, Crossing Delancey(1988). We chat about marriage brokerage, douchey literary parties, movie magic in a Papaya King, Jewishness and immigration in Silver’s oeuvre (watch her 1973 educational short here), the challenges women filmmakers faced and face to get features financed, and the incontrovertible hotness of young Peter Riegert. Swoon.
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 Perman.
You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our current issue,at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR, and the best way to show your love for our pod and help us grow is to support us on Patreon. We also welcome listener feedback, and advertising/sponsorship inquiries, at editors@brightwalldarkroom.com.
Thanks for listening!
October marks the 100th issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room, and we're observing that milestone with longtime staff favorite (and official selection for our “Best of the Decade” issue in December 2019), the revisionist rom-com Sleeping With Other People (2015, dir. Leslye Headland). BW/DR Editor-in-Chief Chad Perman and Senior Editor Zosha Millman are joined by fellow Senior Editor Ethan Warren to discuss the perils of following the formula of When Harry Met Sally in 2015, debate the quintessential Jason Sudeikis performance, and educate one another on the finer points of... well, our parents might read this, so just listen for yourself. And be sure to stick around for a celebration of our 100th issue milestone, as well as to hear some bittersweet news about changes in the BW/DR editorial (and pod) team.
Read BW/DR Issue 100: Transcendence.
Join us on Patreon, where for just $5/month you can access all of our issues & publications going back to 2013.
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Track what we're watching and preview new essays on our Letterboxd HQ page.
This episode is produced and edited by Eli Sands.
David Lowery's The Green Knight captured the heart of a whole lot of our staff this summer, so for our August episode we're talking our way through the forest. Join guest host Zosha Millman as she dives deep into Lowery's latest film with special guests Fran Hoepfner and Kelsey Ford.
This month, Veronica & Chad sit down with special guest Travis Woods—erotic thriller aficionado and the driving force behind our July issue—to talk through a film he and Veronica consider one of the "icons of the genre," the 1993 Sharon Stone/William Baldwin film, Sliver.
(Episode produced by the wonderful & amazing Victoria Alejandro)
Our May issue is focused on the films of 1971, so for the second episode of our podcast we're going deep on one of the more fascinating films from that year, Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge. Join co-hosts Veronica Fitzpatrick & Chad Perman, and returning special guest Zosha Millman, as they talk their way through Nichols' darkly complex and cinematic battle of the sexes.
(Episode art by Tony Stella)
Our pilot episode is here! Join hosts Veronica Fitzpatrick & Chad Perman as they talk through a perennial BW/DR staff favorite, Moonstruck, with special guest Zosha Millman.
Topics include: John Patrick Shanley’s moons, Nicolas Cage’s wolf growls, Cher’s anti-walk of shame, and all things operatic multi-generational romantic comedy.