Beer and a Movie

238: Djibouti Shorts - Both Sides of the Blade/Beau Travail

Claire Denis had wowed us back in episode 45 when we reviewed her then-new-release, High Life, but it has taken our Sight & Sound catch-up journey to get us back to the writer/director's unique cinematic perspectives. To pair with her 1999 film Beau Travail (#7 on the 2022 poll), we look at one(!) of her two features from 2022, Both Sides of the Blade, starring BaaM faves Juliette Binoche (High Life) and Vincent Lindon (Titane) as well as Gregoire Colin, who also appears in Beau Travail. Its all about grown-up drama and cinematic style this week on BaaM, but you may want to put on your dancing shoes, just to be safe.

237: Observing Humanity - EO/Tokyo Story

With the streaming arrival of 2022 critical favorite EO, we took the opportunity to look at this rather unorthodox Polish film which provides glimpses of the range of human behavior, especially as pertains to treatment of animals, through the eyes of the titular donkey at its center. As our companion film, we review our fifth overall from the top ten of the 2022 Sight and Sound critics poll, Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story from 1953, a classic of Japanese cinema that offers a methodical and patient peek at a dispersed family, tapping into some very relatable themes of generational drift and disconnect. Helping Dave and Joe wade through all this are returning guest Kyle Ferguson, our first proper Czech beer (sorry, Poland!), and a return visit to Hitachino Nest to see if can overcome the spoiled offering we had tried waaaaaay back in episode 5. It's a packed episode. Do it up! 

236: The Platonic Ideal of Cinema - Cocaine Bear/In the Mood for Love

Forget Wong Kar-Wai's whip pans, this episode may cause some whiplash with its shifting between its A- and B-pictures. First up is the horror comedy of Cocaine Bear, currently burning up the box office during a relative lull in new releases. We follow it with our first review in a series that has us playing catch-up with the top ten films of the newest iteration of the Sight & Sound critics' list that we had not already addressed on past episodes. That has us looking at Wong's In the Mood for Love, a romantic drama that has impressed critics and (niche) audiences alike since its initial arrival in the year 2000 (yes, read that in LaBamba's voice). All this with beers from a new-to-us brewery, Family Business Brewing, and our returning guest, Anthony Zoccolillo. Cheers!

235: It’s BaaMies Time!

It's that time of year again! Your hosts have done their level best to take in as many films released in 2022 as they possibly could and to look back at the beers they had reviewed in that year as well. They are now ready to share their personal preferences and other assorted thoughts on the year, along with some fun diversions. It's a jam-packed episode with none other than BaaM's former producer/host Carlos returning for all the fun!

234: Netflix Noms - All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)/Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

In our final episode before our 2022 year end wrap-up, The BaaMies, we look at two films that are in the mix for Academy Awards. The (anti-)war film All Quiet on the Western Front has 9 nods, mostly focused on more technical aspects of filmmaking, but also including Best Picture - an award that the 1930 adaptation of the same novel had received long ago. The harder to classify Bardo, from Alejandro Iñárritu, is in the mix for Best Cinematography. With returning guest Josh Deleon we offer our thoughts on these films that might still be able to sneak onto our end of the year lists.

233: Collective Power - Women Talking/She Said

Sarah Polley's latest effort, Women Talking, is currently in limited release as a nominee for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. BaaM invited a crackerjack panel of returning guests - Emily Suggs (Episode 205) and Kailey Diaz (Episodes 216 and 228) - along with one new guest, psychologist Dr. Pam Brouillard, to discuss it over, you guessed it, some beer. As a second film, we look at She Said, a dramatization of the investigative reporting that led to the downfall of Harvey Weinstein, that is now streaming on Peacock. 

232: Vacation, Had to Get Away - Infinity Pool/Aftersun

We go on holiday this week with two films with resorts as their settings. Brandon Cronenberg's latest, Infinity Pool, is a speculative horror trip that charts the experience of a struggling writer who stumbles into a sort of tourism that goes beyond any we've ever before seen on screen. Aftersun is the debut feature of Charlotte Wells, offering a semi-autobiographical look at a moment in a father-daughter relationship that takes on more gravity as the daughter looks back at it many years in the future. Lots to discuss and some fine beers to sip, so get on your cabana wear and settle in with us by the pool, won't you? 

231: Of Bombast and Subtlety - RRR/Decision to Leave

We go audacious and then reserved with our pairing of films this week. First up, we take on the Tollywood (a nickname for the Telugu language film industry) blockbuster, RRR, an historical epic packed with action, song, dance, and romance that is getting lots of attention even outside its home market. Our second film is a much quieter police procedural-cum-psychological drama, Park Chinook's Decision to Leave. Both films have been fixtures on many 2022 year end lists. Listen in this week, as we discuss these films and sip some beers with returning guest Jimmy Willden!

230: Awardsworthy Performances - Tàr/The Banshees of Inisherin

We're in full on awards season catch-up mode with this week's episode. While Tàr and The Banshees of Inisherin were both released in the fall, neither were readily available to us at the time. Now that both are available on streaming platforms and have begun receiving copious accolades, we felt the need to seriously engage. Join in and hear what we think of these performance-driven films while we sip a pair of stouts with very different origins.

229: The Uncanny Valley of the Dolls - M3gan/A.I. Artificial Intelligence

It's an almost-but-not-quite-human episode this week when we take on the recent horror satire hit M3gan, about a robot doll going rogue and running amuck when its creator chooses to test it on her recently orphaned niece. For our film pairing, we also look at Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a film project inherited from Stanley Kubrick and which has at its center another robot doll whose primary objective gets complicated by human being humans. With remote guest Kyle Ferguson rejoining us for these conversations, we sip on 4 different beers from breweries in Texas and California. Cheers!