On this special mega episode, co-host Veronica sits down with critic ⁠Fran Hoepfner⁠ and our producer Eli Sands to postmortem the 62nd New York Film Festival. This is a mainly spoiler-free conversation! We get into: Hard Truths, Caught by the Tides, Nickel Boys, April, Harvest, The Brutalist, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, The Shrouds, Queer, Maria, S…

This month’s mini-episode takes us into one of costume designer Sophie de Rakoff’s curated picks: Irvin Kershner’s The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), an American giallo with style to spare. We get into Faye Dunaway’s scream, POV in horror, how this is Helmut Newton x John Carpenter, the ethics of glamorizing suffering, and, yes, the clothes. -- The Bri…

This whole episode is a trap. In it, we join Josh Hartnett scholar and The Film Stage gentleman Dan Mecca to dissect the ins and outs of M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. We talk about: baby bangs, Hartnett always being a little bit weird, the tooth gap, Sleeping with the Enemy’s hand towels, auteur theory, one good part in The Village, Hayley Mills on th…

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

Joining us this month: Blank Check co-host & staff writer at The Atlantic, David Sims! In summer’s last gasp, we go back to a flashpoint of summer blockbuster season: Jan de Bont’s 1996 Twister, plus its legacy in Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung, 2024), epic ensemble casting, craving movies about grown-ups, Hollywood’s dangerous brunettes, why not kissin…

Chad goes full dad in this mini-episode on Richard Linklater’s 2014 coming-of-age epic Boyhood. Specifically, the plural meanings of Patricia Arquette’s anguished move-out speech, and why raising children to lead their own lives is a bittersweet success. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and prod…

Welcome back to the pod Carrie Courogen, author of Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius out now from St. Martin’s Press. Carrie joins us to discuss Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid (1972), her honeymoon horror film co-starring May’s daughter Jeannie Berlin and Charles Grodin as doomed newlyweds and Cybi…

Follow us into one of Rachel Kushner’s picks: Maurice Pialat’s slow ode to the sacred and profane, Under the Sun of Satan (1987). Co-starring Gérard Depardieu and Pialat’s muse Sandrine Bonnaire alongside Pialat himself, Under the Sun is a pastoral parable with a lot of dialogue and a few good screams. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted…

As summer begins in earnest, we're looking back at a 2022 highlight—Charlotte Wells’s staggering debut feature Aftersun—and revisiting one of our most popular episodes ever: a conversation with film critic, author, and educator ⁠Adam Nayman⁠. Adam shares special insights from his ⁠conversation with Wells⁠ about the film, plus the case for cinematic…

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 Wal…

Back from vacation with our summer blockbuster episode: author, Reverse Shot co-founder and editor, and Editorial Director at Museum of the Moving Image Michael Koresky joins us to proselytize Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). Michael takes us back to being an intern in 2001, watching A.I. six times in theaters, how both Spiel…

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 ba…

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 t…

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, Rebecc…

On this month's micro episode, we get into Elliott Smith soundtracking a savory first kiss in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting (1997), a film that changed one of our co-host's lives forever. -- The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. -- The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is spo…

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 …

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 Rei…

This month we’re joined by writer, critic, and editor Nicholas Russell to chat about Bradley Cooper’s Maestro (2023). We get into: what makes a Bradley Cooper Film (thanks Fran), when weird voices work, that epigraph, tension as structure and provocation, what’s going on with the ending, getting moved by Mahler, and more. -- The Bright Wall/Dark Ro…

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 …

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, repet…

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 W…

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 l…

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 t…

This month, author and Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett joins us to talk about Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). We get into the elasticity of the western, what constitutes pure cinéma, Claudia Cardinale thirst, Big Screen Movies and the garages that screen them, Leone the minimalist and maximalist, and more. -- The Bri…

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 c…

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 …

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 …

This is The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a series 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, in concert with Mike Mills' curated list, Chad and Veronica look at The Cameraman (1928), reflecting on the impos…

Your mission, if you choose to accept it: in concert with this month's “Heists” issue, we’re talking across Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), and Mission: Impossible (1996) with brilliant Vulture and New York Magazine critic—and platinum-tier BWDR supporter!—Bilge Ebiri. We get into the [red…

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…

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 No Ordinary Man (Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt, Canada, 2020, now streaming on Criterion Channel) and the incendiary short American Reflexxx (Alli …

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 …

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 radicali…

Welcome to The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a new series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we’ll pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month: in concert with director Mike Mills’s library, we look at Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966), directed by Věr…

It’s been a minute but we’re back! With writer and Bright Wall OG—literally, she wrote the first essay for our first issue back in 2013—Karina Wolf to discuss Wim Wenders’s 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…

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’ signatu…

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 th…

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 …

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 as…

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 enti…

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 w…

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? Mean…

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 t…

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 mean…

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…

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 compose…

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 que…

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 …

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…

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 capit…