Cinema News: Podcasters pick their favorite movies

August 22, 2025 | View in browser

A man with crazy hair gets mildly shocked.

By Mark Olsen

Staff Writer

Hello! I'm Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

The LAT published its fall movies preview this week, taking a look at what is coming up through Thanksgiving. There is a list of the 21 movies we're most excited about, which includes a broad selection of styles, genres and tones.

Among the movies to look out for are Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another," Benny Safdie's "The Smashing Machine," Luca Guadagino's "After the Hunt," Kathryn Bigelow's "A House of Dynamite," Mary Bronstein's "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You," Yorgos Lanthimos' "Bugonia," Scott Cooper's "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere," Lynne Ramsay's "Die My Love," Dan Trachtenberg's "Predator: Badlands," Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value," Noah Baumbach's "Jay Kelly," and Edgar Wright's "The Running Man."

Some of these titles have already been seen at festivals, but many have not. And if even a fraction of them pan out, it should make for quite a season.

I spoke to actor Zoey Deutch and director Richard Linklater about their collaboration on "Nouvelle Vague," about the making of Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking 1960 debut feature "Breathless." Deutch plays American-born actor Jean Seberg, who was living in Paris at the time and agreed to be in the movie. After Godard's film made her an international star, Seberg had an unpredictable career until her death in 1979 at only age 40.

"Is the rest of her life incredibly fascinating and intense and tragic? Yes," said Deutch. "But Rick was really adamant on telling a story at a very specific moment in time. We're not telling anything that happens after. Godard is not a legend yet. You don't know who this guy is, what he's doing. He's not who he was later. Don't read the last page of the book when we're still on Page 1."

Carlos Aguilar spoke to newcomer Tonatiuh, who has a breakout performance opposite Diego Luna and Jennifer Lopez in Bill Condon's adaptation of "Kiss of the Spider Woman."

"When I first met Jennifer, I was like, 'Oh my God, that's Jennifer Lopez, what the hell?'" Tonatiuh recalled. "I must have turned left on the wrong street because now I'm standing in front of her. How did this happen? What life am I living?"

And Tim Grierson spoke to Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest for an in-character interview as David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel from the rock group Spinal Tap for their long-awaited sequel, "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues." (Director Rob Reiner also is interviewed in character as documentary filmmaker Marty DiBergi.)

"Can I ask a question?" Tufnel interjects at one point. "This has begun? The interview?"

Pocasters choice at 'Friend of the Fest'

Already underway, this year marks the third edition of the American Cinematheque's "Friend of the Fest" series, in which podcasters pick their favorite movies to show. Most of the screenings will have the podcast hosts doing live intros, while some will even be recording live shows on site.

"It's mostly trying to find that middle ground," said Cindy Flores, film programmer at the American Cinematheque, in an interview this week. "You don't have to be a connoisseur or a film geek or a cinephile. Everybody loves film. And that's the great thing about the podcast festival is that you get to see a wide variety of titles and choices and things that people are interested in."

The popular Ringer podcast network will have four shows represented, with "The Big Picture" selecting "Michael Clayton," "The Watch" showing "24 Hour Party People," "House of R" choosing "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "The Midnight Boys" presenting "Blade."

Other podcasts in the series include "The Dana Gould Hour" showing "Carnival of Souls," "Office Hours Live" with the "Weird Al" Yankovic-starring "UHF" (in a rare 35mm print with possible surprise guests), "Upstairs Neighbors" showing "Bottoms," "Lifted" showing "Misssissippi Masala," "Cinematic Void" screening "River's Edge," "Flightless Bird" choosing "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" and "Ticklish Business" presenting "Design for Living."

The LAT's own Amy Nicholson, along with her "Unspooled" co-host Paul Scheer, have selected the Kevin Costner sci-fi film "Waterworld."

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The "Linoleum Knife" podcast will screen "Clue" from a newly-made DCP that will feature only one of the film's multiple endings, selected by hosts Alonso Duralde and Dave White.

The podcast "Perf Damage" is hosted by the husband-and-wife team of Charlotte Barker and Adam Barker, who actually worked on restoring their selection: the L.A. premiere of the new 4K update of Robert Altman's "Popeye."

Marc Maron, who will be shutting down his "WTF" podcast later this year, will screen Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller."

Points of interest

Elizabeth Taylor triple bill

As part of its "Summer of Camp" series, the Academy Museum will feature on Sunday a triple bill of Elizabeth Taylor movies, all screening in 35mm, with "Secret Ceremony" and "Boom!" — both from 1968 and directed by Joseph Losey — and then Brian G. Hutton's 1972 "X Y & Zee." These are all visually rapturous movies with some amazing costumes and will make for an incredible daylong experience.

In the horror-tinged psychodrama "Secret Ceremony," Taylor co-stars with Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum. Adapted by Tennessee Williams from his own play "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore," "Boom!" pairs Taylor with her real-life paramour Richard Burton in some astonishing Mediterranean locations. "X Y & Zee" co-stars Michael Caine.

In May 1968, Times film critic Charles Champlin wrote, "Filmland's reigning vaudeville act, the Flying Burtons, are together again in a sleek, aberrational and posturing piece of nonsense called 'Boom!' … 'Boom!' is gorgeous to look at. Losey's sense of place is I think unsurpassed by any director now working, and Mrs. Goforth's house, with its sun-baked walls and cool, dark, artful interiors, its talking bird and chained monkey, the waves crashing on the rocks below the terrace, is perfectly realized."

In June 1968, Kevin Thomas published an interview with playwright Williams. Of "Boom!" he said, "It's a beautiful picture, the best ever made of one of my plays. I think Elizabeth has never been that good before. I don't know whether the public is going to buy it, for Lord's sake. I hope they do for Elizabeth's sake as well as my own. … I can always make out, but inwardly she's a very fragile being."

In his Nov. 1968 review of "Secret Ceremony," Champlin continued the thought on Losey, writing, "His most notable gift is the care and skill with which he conveys the atmosphere generated by a particular house or place."

In a 1970 item as Taylor was about to begin shooting "X Y & Zee," she was asked if she would consider retiring. "I'm so lazy, I think I should retire," she responded. "The unfortunate thing is I enjoy acting."

'The Diary of a Teenage Girl' 10-year anniversary

Also on Sunday, the Gardena Cinema will host a 10th anniversary screening of "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" with a Q&A with producer Miranda Bailey. Adapted from the hybrid novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, it was the debut feature from Marielle Heller, who would go on to make "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" as well as "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and "Nightbitch."

Starring Bel Powley, Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgård, the story is about the sexual awakening of a 15-year-old girl in 1976 San Francisco.

Reviewing the film, Rebecca Keegan wrote, "Big summer action movies can be thrilling, but if you really want to feel your heart pounding out of your chest, try being a 15-year-old girl for 101 minutes. That's the running time of 'The Diary of a Teenage Girl,' a rare gem of a movie that takes its audience inside the ecstatic, confused and unapologetically horny brain of a girl named Minnie Goetze. 'Diary' is a vivid and often shocking story of growing up female in 1976 San Francisco, told with tenderness and humor by first-time director Marielle Heller and starring a blue-eyed lightning bolt of an actress named Bel Powley as Minnie."

In an interview with the director at the time, Heller said, "Teenage girls are represented really poorly; I think we as a society are afraid of teenage girls. We're definitely afraid of their sexuality, and so teenage girls are either shown in this really virginal state or this really slutty state, but it's never what it actually felt like to be a teenage girl as a full human.

"You're just as complete of a person as a teenage boy," she added. "Holden Caulfield is a really complex character, so where's our female Holden Caulfield? It just felt really important, the chance to represent teenage girls in a way that actually felt real."

'Cooley High'

On Wednesday the Academy Museum will present 1975's "Cooley High" in 35mm with director Michael Schultz and actors Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs and Glynn Turman present for a conversation with academy governor and filmmaker Ava DuVernay.

Written by Eric Monte and based on his own experiences growing up in Chicago, the film is set in 1964 and follows two high school friends through a series of endearingly freewheeling misadventures.

In a 2019 article on the occasion of a screening and tribute at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater — now included on the Criterion Collection disc of the film — Susan King spoke to many involved in the making of "Cooley High." Robert Townsend, who would go on to make "Hollywood Shuffle" and most recently be seen on "The Bear," had a one-line role as a teenager. "The movie changed my life," he would say.

"It's a movie, but it's making me laugh, it's making me think, and to me that's what real movies do — speak to people that look like me and speak to everybody," said Townsend. "That was my first lesson from Michael Schultz."

'The Lovers on the Bridge' in 4K

A new 4K restoration of Leos Carax's "The Lovers on the Bridge" is playing at Laemmle's Royal, Glendale and Town Center locations and any chance to see this delirious romance on-screen is worth taking.

First shown at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, the movie would not get a release in America until 1999. The story of a street performer (Denis Lavant) and an artist losing her eyesight (Juliette Binoche), the film is told with dazzling flair and overwhelming style. Unable to shoot on the actual Pont Neuf bridge in Paris where the plot is set, Carax built a full-scale replica, said to be at the time the largest set ever built in France.

Writing about the film in 1999, Kevin Thomas said, "Leos Carax's 'The Lovers on the Bridge' has the raw, gritty look of a documentary on the homeless, but it is in the grand tradition of heady screen romances. It's a throwback to the golden era of both Hollywood and of the fatalistic French cinema that teamed such international icons as Jean Gabin and Michelle Morgan … a go-for-broke dazzler that takes constant chances, dares to go over the top, indulges in one anticlimactic scene after another, only to make such risks pay off all the more at the finish."