Our 2024 Christmas episode is devoted to all 312 minutes of Ingmar Bergman's late masterpiece Fanny and Alexander (1982); a phantasmagorical smorgasbord of genres and summary of the writer-director's obsessions. We explore the film's Keatsian and Kierkegaardian implications, its relationship to the Modernist moment, and its oneiric inquiry into the nature of reality... among the many other topics raised by this dramatically and conceptually rich movie. We hope the holiday season gives you many opportunities to eat, think, and be merry!

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: FANNY & ALEXANDER (1982) [dir. Ingmar Bergman]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

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Our first Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view presents us with a couple of politically reactionary pre-Codes: Wynyard's Hollywood debut, Rasputin and the Empress (1932), which is mostly Rasputin (a very freaky Lionel Barrymore), not much Empress (Ethel B), and almost no Wynyard; and her Hollywood triumph, Cavalcade (1933), Noël Coward's version of the Modernist recoil from the 20th century. We find much to discuss in these movies' tortured relationship with recent history.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: RASPUTIN & THE EMPRESS (1932) [dir. Richard Boleslawski]

0h 29m 03s: CAVALCADE (1933) [dir. Frank Lloyd]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

In this 1948 Studios Year by Year episode, we look at two artefacts from Dore Schary's brief tenure as Head of Production at RKO, Berlin Express (directed by Jacques Tourneur), an early Cold War curiosity in which Robert Young and Merle Oberon try to save Paul Lukas from the clutches of Nazis in war-torn Frankfurt, and The Boy with Green Hair (directed by Joseph Losey), the pacifist fantasy, starring Dean Stockwell and Pat O'Brien, over which Schary clashed with the Elon Musk of studio-era Hollywood, Howard Hughes. We discuss the films' historical context, as well as the non-political pleasures they have to offer.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: The RKO Story summary of 1948 at Radio-Keith-Orpheum

0h 05m 08s: BERLIN EXPRESS [dir. Jacques Tourneur]

0h 24m 19s: THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR [dir. Joseph Losey]

0h 46m 49s: Listener mail with Amy

Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

Link: For 'KL': The Boy With The Green Hair

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!