PODCAST: Episode 239 of "The Cinephile Hissy Fit" Podcast

For their 239th episode, two jet-set film critics, two midlife crisis dads, and two culturally open school teachers, Will Johnson and Don Shanahan, begin a two-episode arc on films that inspired recent travel from our two hosts. This month, Will got back from a transformative solo trip to the nation of Japan, meaning Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation became the immediate reflection point for an episode.

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Sun Never Sets

While his plots have been quite varied over Swanberg’s 20-year-plus career, some tale of love is almost always percolating in the background, often dwelling for long stretches at the pining level. There’s a very peculiar love triangle at the center of Swanberg’s new film, The Sun Never Sets, which epitomizes this energy; only this time, the flailing from attempted grand romantic gestures is the center of the movie, not the subplot.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Mayday

Having walking Hollywood stereotypes play walking Cold War stereotypes that try to call out and correct actual historical stereotypes turns into a fruitless exercise that ends up reinforcing all three layers of those uncorrected tropes. Even when these two main characters diverge slightly from their norms, they are surrounded by all the other tired caricatures, meaning everyone who came into Mayday pretending ends up still pretending.

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