Overlapping Dialogue

Sit right here and have another beer in Mexico...it very well may be your last! Our latest look at crime cinema has us trudging through the muck of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, director Sam Peckinpah's unforgiving neo-western from 1974. But before we descend into oblivion, we load up a Blue Plate Special where we discuss Kathryn Bigelow's appropriately titled Strange Days, parse the latest David Cronenberg release Crimes of the future, and celebrate the dearly departed character acting legend Phillip Baker Hall. Upon eventually taking the off-ramp to Hell, we consider the game changing filmography of Peckinpah, the beauty of Warren Oates, and weigh what exactly today's film in question adds to the genre complexion of New Hollywood's cynicism. Feel free to skip to 2:12:05 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

Hop in the getaway car as we fumble through an already ill-conceived score gone wrong with part 2 of our ongoing deep dive on crime cinema with 1973's The Friends of Eddie Coyle, the godfather of Boston crime yarns. But on the way to the heist, we first gorge ourselves with Blue Plate Special topics as varied as Alex Garland's latest assault on the modern subconscious (Men), the unexpected yet welcome brilliance of Top Gun: Maverick, the utterly rotten and dishonorable Paramount+ televisual product The Offer, and a mourning of the loss of star Ray Liotta. Upon arriving to the subject of today's episode, we tackle what this movie gains from the monumental star presence of Robert Mitchum and how this work effectively threads the needle as a gripping genre offering and simultaneous paranoid, Watergate-era New Hollywood statement. Whew, ok, we think we'd like our phone call now... Feel free to skip to 2:31:07 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests. https://thebigwblog.wordpress.com/2022/06/01/out-of-pocket-6-original-sin/?fbclid=IwAR3BPlW0vNqw_eTfiKwJ3TlE9cpsPHfvS2oTXTN6n4YGO17Iolxvx98n5RE

We decided to finally spring ourselves out of hiatus jail and make a semi-triumphant return with Each Dawn I Die, an underrated 1939 gem from the hallowed Warner Brothers gangster film canon! But first...this week's full-fledged gruel of a Blue Plate Special involves discussions of a host of new releases, including The Batman, Ambulance, The Northman, and Memoria, as well as belated thoughts on the Will Smith-Chris Rock fiasco and the ongoing disaster that is the Jonathan Debt (Johnny Depp to some) and Amber Heard defamation trial. Finally, we bust out of this joint with a celebration of the classic Hollywood gangster film tradition, delight in all things Jimmy Cagney, and in general just have a blast getting back into the swing of things. Feel free to skip to 2:33:09 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

All aboard as we celebrate one, two, three, four, scratch that, fifty episodes of Overlapping Dialogue with a movie so big that even this podcast couldn't sink it: Titanic! But before we rally to the lifeboats or slide hopelessly to our chilly doom, this week's Blue Plate Special finds us chowing down on a whole host of recent watches, including Smooth Talk, The Green Fog, Kameradschaft, Mud, and Far From Heaven. Once the appetizers are dispatched, we feast on James Cameron's gargantuan main course of a production, working our way through the various historical contexts the movie situates itself in, unpack the film's at once broad yet entirely effective characterizations of class, and answer the question of whether or not this really was the last great Hollywood movie made at this scale and execution. Spoiler alert: it was. It really was... Feel free to skip to 3:11:33 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

Remember that gum you like? Well, it's going to come back in style...and leave you with plenty to chew on. This week's episode finds us cautiously shuffling through the enchanting, delicious nightmare known as Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the prequel/marginal-sequel to the beloved cult classic TV show that fills in a few gaps while crafting whole new gulfs along the way. But before we traipse through the labyrinthian corridors of the Red Room, we discuss a recent profile of Francis Ford Coppola that acts as its own coda to our recent Godfather episodes, followed by a fully-loaded Blue Plate Special with topics as diverse as the most recent acts of cultural terrorism perpetrated by the Walt Disney Company with their Storyliving suburban experience, discussions of trailers for the forthcoming summer releases Elvis and Nope, and a bite-sized review of Netflix's The Power of the Dog. We eventually take in the wispy Douglas firs and Norma's signature cherry pie upon entering the city limits of Twin Peaks, with an introduction covering our own journeys with the show and director David Lynch generally, how its narrative and aesthetic concerns evolved not only over time but between iterations and mediums, interpret how exactly Fire Walk With Me simultaneously expanded the emotional and mythological scope of the series, talk about the ways in which The Return would go on to further enrich all that came before it, and what exactly the entire Twin Peaks phenomenon "means" to us. Don't worry, there are no clear-cut, easy answers to be found, only a profound sense of emotional catharsis. And we wouldn't have it any other way. Feel free to skip to 3:45:17 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

Just when we thought we were out, they pulled us back in...to keep talking about all things Godfather! This week's bonus episode has us exploring the larger Godfather-verse- or whatever- which includes but is not limited to the original 1969 source material from Mario Puzo, the much maligned conclusion of the cinematic trilogy, the ex post facto videogames (which especially hold a place in our collective hearts), and the forthcoming Paramount+ series The Offer that looks every bit as mediocre as most of the aforementioned iterations of the franchise. Nothing may ever touch the original two films but we had a lot of fun dissecting the countless ways in which the Corleone family forcefully assert themselves into the larger pop cultural landscape. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

What better way to follow up last episode's discussion of the greatest film of all time than by subsequently tackling the greatest sequel of all time? The Godfather Part II's successes are myriad but its sheer force of will to act as both a prequel and a sequel to its hallowed predecessor with such taste and confidence make it one of the most unlikely triumphs in the history of cinema. Tune in as we talk through the ways in which the film's arc acts as a rendition if not muted rebuke of the original that forges a genuinely metatextual statement on the very premise of sequels generally, unpack the various historical contexts the film jumps between in exhaustively dramatizing the first half of America in the 20th century, and shriek with joy at each and every scene involving Michael Gazzo. Feel free to skip to 2:39:55 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests. http://people.uncw.edu/berlinert/research/documents/Berliner.GII.pdf

This week's episode, an offer we simply couldn't refuse, has us celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of quite literally the greatest film to ever grace the collective medium of cinema: The Godfather. We do our best to explore the endless number of facets that elevated Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 masterwork as the natural evolution of the gangster genre (one of America's purest artforms), situate its status within the New Hollywood canon, place each and every brilliant performance in their context of coexistence with one another, and weigh its various historical and political contexts to uncover what exactly about it continues to capture the attention of all who interact with it- past, present, and future. Above all else, this is just a podcast of two movie lovers giggling with joy talking about the work that made them fall in love with motion pictures in a deep and fundamental way. We hope it's but a fraction of a delight to listen to as it was for us to produce. Feel free to skip to 2:36:40 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

Are you searching for that special movie that openly invites you to log on, hack in, go anywhere, and steal everything? Then baby, you're in the right place because our latest episode has us gone in 60 mbps with Swordfish, the slick action thriller that once again challenged our assumptions on the lengths to which John Travolta would go to further embarrass himself. But before we jack into this wannabe Matrix...this week's Blue Plate Special finds us loving John Sayles's 1987 union masterpiece Matewan, waxing nostalgically at the 2000 Disney Channel original movie Phantom of the Megaplex, and taking issue with the very existence of the deeply stupid 2000 mob "comedy" The Crew. Speaking of questionable cinema from the early 00s, our discussion and commentary of Swordfish parses what exactly such a work is attempting to posit on a moral or ethical level, evaluates the extent to which this movie's premise and stylings ape a post-Tarantino cinematic philosophy, and assess the extent to which it's the least bit justifiable to fashion a movie about terrorism on the eve of 9/11 as smugly entertaining as this. Come for the pretentious monologues on the unreality of the opening moments of the 21st century, stay for the latest inductee of Overlapping Dialogue's Hall of Fame (the Immune) and a special announcement at the episode's conclusion about a very brief but special upcoming series of episodes we have in store... Feel free to skip to 1:58:22 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests. https://blockbluster.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/gone-in-60-mbps-notes-on-swordfish-a-breathtaking-disasterpiece/

This may be the beginning of a beautiful podcast... We open up this week's podcast with some thoughts and observations on the NFL Wild Card Weekend before diving into a Blue Plate Special filled with WWII pictures The Longest Day (1962) and Kelly's Heroes (1970). Upon finally ducking into the exotic saloon known as Rick's Cafe, we discuss what exactly about Casablanca makes it among the most legendary creations in the history of cinema, why the movie's aged over the past eighty years like the finest of wines, how it fits into the evolution of Humphrey Bogart's iconic star persona, and delight in the deliciously arch performances of Claude Rains and Conrad Veidt (#FindOne hive unite). Feel free to skip to 2:18:17 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

We worked overtime and then some, burning every ounce of midnight oil we had, when it came to bringing you our very first episode of 2022 on Into the Night, John Landis's 1985 nocturnal romp. But before we get there...we discussed, for likely far longer than necessary, why exactly Valkyrie, the laughable 2008 historical drama, is perhaps the "greatest middle school movie ever" before diving face first into a Blue Plate Special involving thoughts on last year's Annette, a new segment within a segment called Baggage Claim where we gradually traverse our way through the Airport franchise, and finish off with a celebration of the lives and careers of Hollywood legends Sidney Poitier and Peter Bogdanovich. This week's subject film is every bit as scattershot as the rest of that intro, as it includes but is not limited to an unexpected but terrific pairing of Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, the thrilling comedic aesthetics of 80s Landis, a two scene villain turn from the legendary David Bowie, and more director cameos than a DGA sponsored picnic. Feel free to skip to 2:41:18 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

Anchors aweigh on 2021 as we deliver our very last episode of the year with Otto Preminger's colossal 1968 "comedic" misfire Skidoo! But before we steer directly into the iceberg, this week's Blue Plate Special has us parsing the Matrix sequels (Reloaded, Revolutions, and the latest Resurrections) for meaning and edification, followed by an outright celebration of Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film Licorice Pizza. Upon finally arriving to the Mad Magazine-esque pastiche that is Skidoo, we critique the ways in which television began altering the stylings and aesthetics of film comedy in the 1960s and beyond, question the decision making of dramatic filmmaker like Preminger endeavoring to direct a comedy as scattershot and misguided as this, and in general mourn the presence of stars (in this case from the 1930s) rapidly approaching their expiration dates. Feel free to skip to 2:43:21 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests. https://thebigwblog.wordpress.com/2021/12/24/hm-upgrades-the-matrix-resurrections-as-a-reflection-of-the-perils-of-the-legasequel/?fbclid=IwAR370jACqmDJ_-av6T2bU_UmKzXAaIHKufbGy6xfVuTKCbX2Jjv7dbEQOo4 https://thebigwblog.wordpress.com/2021/12/27/the-world-doesnt-revolve-around-gary-valentine-licorice-pizza-and-the-perfection-of-the-shaggy-dog-story/

Have yourself a very Spidey Christmas with everyone's friendly neighborhood webhead and his very first cinematic outing from Sam Raimi and company in 2002. But before we dig into the biggest present under the tree, we sort through the Blue Plate Special-themed stocking stuffers, ranging from discussions on the forgotten gem Where the Buffalo Roam and contemporary classic The Matrix, inspired in part by the latter film's recent sequel/reboot The Matrix Resurrections. We finally tear through the Tobey Maguire-adorned wrapping paper to parse the myriad ways in which the character of Peter Parker and his various iterations remains among the greatest creations of comic book storytelling, mull how superhero films have evolved (or arguably devolved) over the past two decades-plus, and in general take multiple trips down memory lane to gloriously relive a childhood favorite. 'Tis the season, right? Feel free to skip to 2:43:21 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

In honor of the approaching behemoth known as December 25th, we decided to load up the shopping cart and max out the charge card with one of the...Schwarzenegger-est movies in the Christmas canon: 1996's Jingle All the Way! Listen as we discuss the wildly idiosyncratic film career and public life of Ahnuld, delight in the ingeniously specific performance of Phil Hartman, parse the endlessly problematic material supplied to a very funny Sinbad, and in general guffaw at the litany of contradictions in the holiday season and its corrosive relationship to capitalism. We even get into the gutter a bit to discuss our top five favorite books we read in 2021 in this week's Blue Plate Special. Feel free to skip to 2:18:02 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

We take a little break from the audio commentating to do a little bit of audio pontificating on a whole host of topics, starting with a Blue Plate Special concerned with re-litigating the holiday classic The Nightmare Before Christmas before finding a lot to love in Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg. This week's bonus episode finally gets around to the broad and nearly indefinable topic of what exactly happens when history and filmmaking collide. What does the art form of cinema "owe" the people, places, and ideas of the past and what do such interpretations have to tell us about the times in which they were produced? We follow up a parsing of the various modes, highs, lows, and all in the middle when it comes to notable examples of historical films and finally get around to pitching some of our own ideas of past peoples or events ripe for contemporary consideration. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests. https://blockbluster.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/gods-good-humor-forrest-gump-titanic-and-the-historical-ethics-of-hollywood-filmmaking/

What better way to follow up last week's episode on an elegant period piece drama about the mid-20th century (see Jackie) than yet another exploration of the immutable soft screams of love gained and lost with Carol, Todd Haynes's 2015 masterpiece? But before we get there...this week's Blue Plate Special has us talking some football and sharing some belated joy over the Las Vegas Raiders' remarkable Thanksgiving Day overtime victory against the Dallas Cowboys, taking issue with the general existence of the new Disney Plus release of the legacyquel Home Sweet Home Alone, and finally settling once and for all what exactly qualifies something as a "Christmas movie." Upon finally arriving on the firmly closed doorstep (real Harge Heads know) of the week, we dive into what makes Haynes one of the singular artists of his generation while discussing how the contrasting presences of stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara make for a most compelling duo. Feel free to skip to 2:23:52 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

We thought we'd follow up last week's lengthy labyrinth of an episode on the events of November 22, 1963 with a more quiet and graceful remembrance of the same day and its lasting after effects with 2016's Jackie. But before we take yet another stroll down the American Century's middle period...this week's Blue Plate Special finds us discussing our recent experience seeing legendary rock band Genesis early on their ongoing The Last Domino? tour before transitioning to some thoughts on Wes Anderson's latest The French Dispatch. The film of the week inevitably sparks a discussion on recent trends in biopics and period films over the past decade and how exactly Natalie Portman's brilliant performance and Larrain's icily precise direction at once subvert and compliment the very sort of myth making historical fictions have been forging for centuries. Feel free to skip to 1:46:18 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

Was it Lee Harvey Oswald on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository with a Carcano Model 38 carbine rifle? Perhaps David Ferrie years before in a Floridian swamp owned by the CIA with a decaying Thompson submachine gun? Wait, what about a forever anonymous gunman, in effect a shadow indicative of forces far beyond our understanding (much less control) armed with the potent mysteries inherent to the ever evolving demands of the American Century? All we know for certain is that President John F. Kennedy died in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, a day that forever changed the nation. This week's subject film, 1991's JFK, attempts to make the abstract concrete in an exploration of American fault lines that would soon threaten to cripple the country in the decade(s?) to follow. Listen as we walk through our own reflections of the assassination and its enduring legacies before diving into the conspiratorial cinema of Oliver Stone. Does the movie's technical brilliance distract from its logical and ethical discrepancies? What relationship does this film hold to a citizenry ever more comfortable with tin-foil-hat philosophizing? Where can we find any additional scenes, alternate takes, blooper reels, etc. of John Candy's performance as Dean Andrews? Indeed, if any exists, #ReleaseTheDeanAndrewsCut. We don't intend to definitively answer any of the aforementioned questions but we promise you there's plenty to sort through in this jam packed, 6.5 hours long episode. Feel free to skip to 2:49:01 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.

If you're looking to hear a slew of above average Sean Connery impressions...then we have the podcast for you! We take our first ever dive into the canon of Alfred Hitchcock with his late career masterpiece from 1964, Marnie. But first: this week's Blue Plate Special has us gobbling up the sumptuous new release Spencer before we take issue with both the meme-ification of film culture and the nonstop media coverage of and obsession with the Smith family. Upon eventually getting around to Marnie, we reflect on the place Hitchcock's filmography in not only the larger history of film but our own lives and how this film's leering brilliance plays into some of the director's most problematic aesthetic impulses. Feel free to skip to 2:04:21 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/marnie-is-the-cure-for-hitchcock-mania

In honor of the film's forthcoming golden anniversary, this week's subject has us grappling with the celebrated auteurism of Stanley Kubrick and his iconoclastic vision of a dystopian future, 1971's A Clockwork Orange. But first...the Blue Plate Special forces us to confront an even more alarming cultural product: the forthcoming presence of a Buzz Lightyear origin story. Seriously, why??? Thankfully, a new segment-within-a-segment allows the two of us to fan the flames of some recent cinematic line-reading obsessions we have indeed deemed worthy of your undivided attention: i.e. things we've been burning on (shout out to friend of the pod Jim Rome), Upon finally journeying through the sickening path of destruction wrought by today's subject film, we situate A Clockwork Orange within the wider spectrum of all things Kubrick, attempt to engage with the deceptively facile binary of anarchism or fascism such a satire attempts to suggest, and compare the film to the many other cinematic acts of nihilism shockingly routine and welcome in the larger cultural moment of 1971. Feel free to skip to 1:38:22 for the beginning of our audio commentary. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at huffmanbrothersproductions@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.