Has any director achieved more than Chantal Akerman while still in their 20s? The only comparison point is really Orson Welles. This is the woman who made Jeanne Dielman, voted the greatest film of all-time by Sight & Sound, when she was 24, and the masterpieces kept coming.
In this episode, Matt and Chris dive into what makes Chantal Akerman's early masterpieces so special, from their daring and changing form, redefining what cinema could be, to their deeply personal, human, and touching connections.
We will also explore why these films put so many people off, even pissing them off, and the controversy around Jeanne Dielman in particular - but more importantly, we will discuss each of the 4 major feature films Akerman made in the 70s - timestamps included:
We also made the decision to include the more often overlooked 5th major film she made immediately after her 4 early masterpieces:
A worthy inclusion in this set? Let us know, but we felt we had to talk about it!
Are biopics mostly just lazy summaries of Wikipedia articles? A production mill of comfort food aimed to cash in on the icons of your youth/past? Or: Are they great insights into intriguing people of the past and present?
Join us as our hosts share their disdain for conventional biographies, before being told - by IMDb - just how many biopics they actually love.
For 13 years, the ICMForum has hosted a poll of obscure favourites. In that time, only 6 films have won.
In this episode, we discuss we discuss each winner in detail, and talk about why you NEED to seek them out?
Oh, and the 14th edition is going on right now. You can submit your vote up until the 30th of September.
Buster Keaton was so dedicated to his craft that he broke his neck and still finished the take. Then showed up the next day.
In this episode, we trace his rise from Fatty Arbuckle's sidekick to his own master, ending the journey while Keaton was still at the top of the world, with his last solo-directorial effort in the silent era: The General.
We'll chat through his best shorts, with particular focus on One Week and The High Sign, get into his first attempt at a feature film with Three Ages, and then cover his two arguably best films, Sherlock Jr. and The General.
Along the way, we'll pause to just awe at the incredibly creative, hilarious, and often death-defying gags and stunts, and talk about why he remains icon to this day.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:10:22 - Fatty Archbuckle's Sidekick
00:17:47 - One Week
00:30:02 - The High Sign
00:35:02 - Three Ages
00:45:40 - Sherlock Jr
00:54:13 - The General
How many films will we be able to agree on this time? Listen in as Arthur, Chris, Sol, and Tom reveal their top 10 films of 2024.
Spoiler: As usual, even our number 1s are not safe from criticism, though we did have a few surprising overlaps and agreements.
And while we may not see eye to eye on everything, we do seem to all have one thing in common: the belief that 2024 was a pretty amazing year for cinema.
The ICMForum community has voted on the best films of the 2020s (so far). Join us as we present and react to their (our) choices, with a surprising number of disagreements!
In this episode, we go through the top 50. Feel free to explore the complete list of ICMForum's Top 250 of the 2020s.
You can also see the list on IMDb and iCheckMovies.
Do you love exactly the same films for exactly the same reasons as you did 10-20-30+ years ago?
In this episode, we try to figure out how and why taste changes, and explore how different our preferences are from when we first got into cinema.
We will also ponder the very serious possibility that cinema acts as a literal drug, where the more exposed we are, the stronger a fix we need.
Could it be that we are all on the same path to more and more extreme tastes, be it experimental cinema or the goriest horrors we can find?
Listen in and find out.
Showgirls went from being considered one of the worst films of all time to one of the best in less than 30 years.
How does a film go from winning both Worst Picture and Worst Picture of the Decade at the Razzies to being in They Shoot Pictures Don't They's Top 1000?
Was everyone who saw it then just "wrong"? Did they come in with the wrong expectations? Or: Was Showgirls just too ahead of its time?
In this episode, Sol and Arthur tackle these and more questions while complaining, over and over again, how none of the original haters wanted to rewatch the film and join the podcast.
Should everyone just bite the bullet and see Showgirls again?
He made the B-movie about a rubber tyre killing people with its psychic powers. He had superheroes give monsters cancer and stoners raise a dog-sized fly. Quentin Dupieux is weird. He's surreal. And ... kinda trashy and lowbrow when he wants.
In this episode, we turn everything on its head, starting with his most recent film (that we have all seen - Daaaaaalí! - and working our way back to his very first mini-feature Nonfilm - as we try to figure out what makes him tick and how we could explain his films at a dinner party.
Timestamps:
Intro: 00:00:00
Dinner Party Pitch - 00:03:00
Daaaaaalí! - 00:12:14
Yannick - 00:22:08
Smoking Causes Coughing - 00:34:07
Incredible but True - 00:39:38
Mandibules - 00:45:00
Deerskin - 00:51:17
Keep an Eye Out - 00:56:32
Reality - 00:59:23
Wrong Cops - 01:04:33
Wrong - 01:09:19
Rubber - 01:11:46
Steak - 01:19:43
Nonfilm - 01:23:17
One of us rated Emilia Perez 1/10 - find out why, as we make blanket statements about why the Academy may love it, estimate its chances and utter the words "inspirational trauma porn" more than once.
Are we in a new 60s, where Hollywood is burning out of steam and foreign films, along with A24 and Neon, are taking the spotlight? Could we be on the road to one of the best decades in history, or is it something far more lacklustre going on? Join us as we break down our impressions of the first half of the 2020s and guess/share our hopes of what this decade will be remembered for. How wrong will we be?
The ICMForum's 8th annual film festival is here. In this episode, Chris and Matt discuss the 10 films on the main slate and shout out favourites across the program.
Adam, Brett, and Chris collectively watched practically every single Pixar Short, from the early CGI experiments in the 80s to Academy Award nominees and winners to DVD extras and the still-running "SparkShorts."
Exhausted from endless Cars Franchise tie-ins, though more optimistic about Toy Story, this episode flies between love and admiration to disappointment.
Listen in to hear which Pixar shorts we love, which disappointed us, and which sparked a heated debate with "soulless content" accusations.
Don't worry, it ends on a note of positivity as we discuss the co-op program, an initiative we were all thoroughly ignorant of, but resulted in some of the best work from Pixar employees.
Are all war films horror? Someone on today's panel will claim so - but in that case - where can we draw the lines? Join us as we try to define horror and, more controversially, make bold claims that some huge horror films, including The Omen, don't qualify.
Join us as we see where we fit in on the scale between Grown Ups and Jeanne Dielman, accidentally diss a bunch of people as being part of a hive mind, and stumble onto moments of self-awareness and discovery.
We may love cinema, but some movies are just pure torture. In this episode, we will reveal our picks for the worst movie ever made, dive into what makes us hate (or dislike) films in general, and, as a provocative bonus, reveal which critically acclaimed darlings we have rated 1/10.
Can returning champion [NAME REDACTED] hold onto their title against new and old foes? Tune in to the 2nd edition of Talking Images' Big Quiz Show to see which of the hosts actually know what they're talking about.
P.S. Be sure to check out our first Quiz Show episode as well.
Clint Eastwood's westerns are iconic! His more "contemporary" westerns ... less so.
In this episode, we discuss each of the 7 times Eastwood directed and starred in Western masterpieces like Unforgiven and odd quasi-western misfires like Bronco Billy.
Can we find anything connecting them? Is there a line running from High Plains Drifter to Cry Macho? Oh, and how many of his characters were ghosts? Listen in and find out.
Timestamps:
Pssst ... Space Cowboys is not discussed in this episode, but we might get to it in the future. Want to here us talk about Eastwood some more? Let us know on ICMForum.com.
We did it! We have recorded 100 episodes (+ a pilot) of our extremely niche film podcast, and it seems some people care!
Join us as we walk down memory lane, reveal our most cringe-worthy, as well as proudest moments, and share our so-far hidden stats of the most listened-to episodes.
We'll also reveal our unpopular film opinions, which just might become future episodes.
What's wrong with Tom? How can we break through to him? Join our intervention/hateful interrogation of why he has no interest in watching more documentaries.