Episode 43 – The Annual Richard Lester Year-End Dinner: 2020

It’s been a year-end tradition that me, Aaron Smith, and Ted Haycraft usually meet sometime after Christmas but before New Years at an IHOP or Denny’s, recap the year among friends, and eventually get into an argument as to whether Richard Lester is the father of the music video. It happens. Every year. This year, we’ve migrated away from in-person dining to the podcast episode, where the three of us talk the incompleteness of a 2020 top ten list, the general foolishness of making one in a small market before the following year’s Oscar ceremony, and whether or not any Covid cases have been traced to American movies theaters. Also: 2020’s mediocre movies with recommendable elements like The Photograph or Let Him Go, 2020 critical punching bags that might get reassessed like Wild Mountain Thyme or Hillbilly Elegy, and what debased movies we’re putting on our private theater rental double-features after the Christmas films.

Smith is the lead manager at Showplace Cinemas East in Evansville, IN.

Haycraft is film critic for WFIE-14 and co-hosts Cinema Chat on its Midday show. He can also be found on Cinema Chat’s Facebook page.

Episode 33 – 'Robin and Marian'

Ted returns this week and makes his pick — a go-to favorite from a director in his trinity of greats. On today’s episode we talk about the director favorite hills that we die on defending, Ted’s interrupted series for Evansville’s Victory International Film Festival off-season, the cinematic history of Robin Hood with entries coming seemingly once in every three years, and A Hard Day Night’s director Richard Lester’s unheralded status in the pantheon of great directors. Also: the great Steven Soderbergh interview book with Lester Getting Away With It: Or: The Further Adventures of Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw, Sean Connery’s cinematic gimmick of love-tapping women, the current state of cinematic romantic fatalism, and, ultimately, we defend/question Lester for his female characters’ range of agency.

Robin and Marian is available to rent on VOD.

Ted Haycraft is film critic for WFIE-14 and co-hosts Cinema Chat on its Midday show. He can also be found on Cinema Chat’s Facebook page.