The Film Stage Presents

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Emulsion Ep. 2 - Alan Rudolph on Choose Me Mar 23, 2025

Show notes

This week consecrates a major turn in the 50-year career of Alan Rudolph, which began as an assistant to and screenwriter for Robert Altman before transitioning into decades writing and directing original, romantic, occasionally unnerving American cinema at a time parallel to (if never quite reaching the fame or acclaim of) Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, and David Lynch. The turn is not a new film, but Criterion anointing 1984’s Choose Me, perhaps the best entry point into his corpus, with a 4K release that marks an astonishing restoration of both the film itself and its long-neglected reputation. For this release Nick Newman had the fortune of speaking with Rudolph in an hour-long conversation that detailed Choose Me's creation, how his films both before and after are now defined by it, and honest perspectives on a career just slightly outside the celebrity-auteur spotlight.

The B-Side Ep. 157 - Amy Irving and Peter Riegert on Crossing Delancey Mar 13, 2025

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Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk to movie stars! About a movie that people love and the hidden gems they've also made! Dan Mecca and Conor O'Donnell were lucky enough to speak with Amy Irving and Peter Riegert, on the occasion of the Criterion release of Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey. We discuss the legacy of the film nearly forty years later. With Irving we touch on Honeysuckle Rose, Carried Away, and her new music album. With Riegert we talk about Chilly Scenes of Winter (also directed by Micklin Silver), the feature he directed King of the Corner, and the eclectic range of characters he’s played over the years. Additionally, we mention Steven Soderbergh’s oeuvre (they were both in Traffic!), the actor’s directorial debuts Riegert starred in (Infinity and Jerry & Tom specifically), and how they’ve both grown as performers over time.

Andrew Davis on Gene Hackman and His New Novel Disturbing the Bones Mar 11, 2025

Show notes

We love speaking with filmmaker Andrew Davis. In late 2023 The Fugitive director came on our podcast The B-Side to discuss a slew of hidden gems as well as the 4K release of the Harrison Ford blockbuster. Davis is back to talk about his novel Disturbing the Bones, a political thriller that reads like an entertaining, extrapolated version of some of his best films. The plot concerns an archaeological dig in Illinois wherein a body is discovered. It leads to a murder investigation amidst a global crisis spurned by a catastrophic, nuclear mistake. The B-Side co-host Dan Mecca spoke with Davis about the book, his Arnold Schwarzenegger action film Collateral Damage, his upcoming projects, and the state of both the film industry and the country.

Emulsion Ep. 1 - Carson Lund on Eephus + Hesse Deni on CHAOS Mar 06, 2025

Show notes

Presenting Nick Newman's Emulsion, a new podcast from The Film Stage. “WHY on EARTH is there another film podcast?” Is the question you, the reasonable listener, are asking while nevertheless hitting play on this pilot-of-sorts for yet another entry in perhaps the seventh art’s most undignified progeny. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: here is a show that strives to stand outside its peers. This is not a show informing you that the week’s big new release is pretty good, actually or a group of guys talking about ’80s movies so bad they’re riduclawesome or me digging up the ruddiest MKV file I can find and having a friend from the Internet talk about it with me for 46 minutes––but there will be some of that, because it’s better than talking about most other things. Rather, I’ve envisioned this as a multi-headed object: conversations among filmmakers, film programmers, and cinephiles mixed with monologues, reviews, streaming and repertory highlights––a podcast that takes you from the miked-up, pop-filtered confines of a professional-sounding show to the sturm und drang of chats among friends in a packed bar, which is where some of my most fruitful film discussions have been held and which often yields more valuable observations than, speaking hypothetically, someone stressing over saying just the right thing because they have a microphone in front of them and are emphatically aware that they’re on a film podcast. On this debut episode I talk with Carson Lund, the co-writer, director, and editor of Eephus, now in limited release; then Hesse Deni of Movie Mindset joins me to discuss Errol Morris’ CHAOS: The Manson Murders, which is now on Netflix. Music courtesy of Alex Walton: "Love Theme From an Unreleased Film" from the album Giving It Up.

The B-Side – Remembering Gene Hackman Feb 25, 2025

Show notes

In honor of the legendary Gene Hackman, who has passed away at the age of 95, we're sharing The B-Side's episode from 2022 discussing his career and most overlooked films. Subscribe to The B-Side below: https://open.spotify.com/show/4EJFEQMTuLFPIDTbsrbL62 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-b-side-a-film-stage-podcast/id1490472263 See the original description below: Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. Today we discuss perhaps the greatest living actor: Gene Hackman! Dan Mecca and Conor O'Donnell are joined by one of our good, good friends Mitchell Beaupre! Senior Editor at Letterboxd, co-host of their Weekend Watchlist podcast (as well as the brand new podcast Acting Out with Ryan and Mitchell), and contributor to great sites like The Film Stage (!), Paste Magazine, The Playlist, and Little White Lies. Our B-Sides today are: All Night Long, The Package, Heartbreakers, and Welcome to Mooseport. We talk Hackman’s beginnings, Mitchell’s superb piece on Hackman’s spectacular 2001, the actor’s own reflections on his accomplished career, his mid-career hiatus, and – finally – his frequent combativeness with his directors. Additional topics include Tommy Lee Jones’ wild ‘90s, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s recollection of Heartbreakers (both the good and the bad), the work of René Descartes, Nicolas Roeg’s Hackman-starring epic Eureka, and the iconic Fox television show Party of Five.

Bill Morrison on His Oscar-Nominated Short Incident Feb 04, 2025

Show notes

Welcome to a special new podcast episode from The Film Stage. Here at the site we’ve long been fans of the work of Bill Morrison, who you may best know from his astounding 2016 archival documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time. The New York-based filmmaker received his first-ever Oscar nomination this year for his short film Incident, which reconstructs a 2018 police shooting in Chicago, reassembling the event and its immediate aftermath from a variety of sources, including surveillance, CCTV, dashboard, and body-worn cameras, as a synchronized split-screen montage. With the film now available to watch for free at The New Yorker, The Film Stage co-founder and host of The B-Side podcast, Dan Mecca, spoke with Morrison about the nomination, the Rashomon-influenced inception of the project, how we grasp memory over time as a series of images, and much more. Enjoy the conversation. Watch Incident here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/incident-shows-how-officers-react-when-a-police-killing-is-caught-on-tape

Bonus Ep. – Box Office Bonanza (July 21, 2000) Nov 29, 2024

Show notes

As a special holiday gift to The Film Stage podcast feed, listen to a new Box Office Bonanza! Here we talk about random box office weekends and where they fit into our lives. The movies, the memories! This episode features Dan Mecca, Conor O’Donnell, Mitchell Beaupre, Jordan Raup, and Cory Everett. The box office weekend in question is July 21, 2000. The number one movie in the country was the Robert Zemeckis-directed, Clark Gregg-scripted, Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer-starring supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath. The number three movie was the second Pokémon feature film, Pokémon 2000. Gladiator was still in theaters, so was U-571. But at the start, we mount a passionate defense of the new Zemeckis epic Here, which has now arrived digitally. After that, we talk about Martin Lawrence movies. We talk about how horrible Greg Kinnear’s character is in Amy Heckerling’s Loser. We talk about Al Pacino’s new autobiography Sonny Boy. The sport doc Michael Jordan to the Max gets some discussion. An Office Space reference is completely ignored! There are too many 9/11 jokes! How many? You’ll have to listen to find out. We remember that great bit with Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise from the MTV Movie Awards (“He’s Harmless”). There’s an appreciation of Jesus’ Son as well. There’s a Saving Silverman reference, talk of yo-yos and Yu-Gi-Oh! There’s a remembrance of that time The Perfect Storm and The Patriot came out the same weekend. Finally, for a few moments I’m convinced that nobody has been recording the podcast! There’s a lot here, people! We’re thankful for you listening to us have fun! We hope you have some fun too! Check out The Film Stage’s 2024 Holiday Gift Guide and Cory Everett’s slew of Cinephile books and games! Enjoy this episode and we welcome other interesting box office weekends to cover in the future. Stay tuned in 2025 for more podcast news from The Film Stage!

Farewell Episode – Megalopolis Oct 14, 2024

Show notes

For the 550th episode of The Film Stage Show, Brian Roan and Robyn Bahr have a major announcement: after over 12 years, hundreds and hundreds of guests, and thousand-plus hours of discussions, The Film Stage Show is coming to an end. We bid farewell with a discussion of a film in the works decades before the podcast began: Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. Thank you to all of our dedicated listeners! The Slack channel will still continue and be sure to follow Brian Roan and Robyn Bahr on their future movie-going adventures below: https://x.com/BrianJRoan https://x.com/RobynBahr If you don't subscribe yet, The B-Side: A Film Stage Podcast will continue and you can learn more here: https://thefilmstage.com/tag/the-b-side/ The Film Stage Show is supported by MUBI, a curated streaming service showcasing exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, MUBI premieres a new film. Whether it's a timeless classic, a cult favorite, or an acclaimed masterpiece — it’s guaranteed to be either a movie you’ve been dying to see or one you’ve never heard of before and there will always be something new to discover. Try it for free for 30 days at mubi.com/filmstage.

Ep. 549 – Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (with Trace Sauveur) Sep 26, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to a new episode of The Film Stage Show! Brian Roan and Robyn Bahr are joined by Trace Sauveur to discuss Tim Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, now in theaters. Enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor. All new Patreon supporters receive a free 4K UHD or Blu-ray upon joining. The Film Stage Show is supported by MUBI, a curated streaming service showcasing exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, MUBI premieres a new film. Whether it's a timeless classic, a cult favorite, or an acclaimed masterpiece — it’s guaranteed to be either a movie you’ve been dying to see or one you’ve never heard of before and there will always be something new to discover. Try it for free for 30 days at mubi.com/filmstage.

Ep. 548 – Janet Planet (with George W. Myers) Sep 20, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to a new episode of The Film Stage Show! Brian Roan and Robyn Bahr are joined by George W. Myers to discuss Annie Baker's directorial debut Janet Planet, now on VOD. Enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor. All new Patreon supporters receive a free 4K UHD or Blu-ray upon joining. The Film Stage Show is supported by MUBI, a curated streaming service showcasing exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, MUBI premieres a new film. Whether it's a timeless classic, a cult favorite, or an acclaimed masterpiece — it’s guaranteed to be either a movie you’ve been dying to see or one you’ve never heard of before and there will always be something new to discover. Try it for free for 30 days at mubi.com/filmstage.

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