Sound On Sight / Sordid Cinema

Our resident favorite filmmaker, Canada's own David Cronenberg, has been busy lately. We got his Freud/Jung historical biopic A Dangerous Method less than 12 months ago, and he's already back with the sure-to-be-divisive Cosmopolis. a very talky Don DeLillo adaptation starring Robert Pattinson as a multi-billionaire on a path of self-destruction. Ricky D and Simon Howell, flying solo like the olden days of the 'cast, tackle the new flick, along with a personal favorite of Ricky D's, 2002's gloomy, cerebral Spider.

The cinematic summer of 2012 rolls on with director Ridley Scott's first sci-fi effort in almost 30 years, Prometheus, whic has provoked fierce discussion among critics, audiences, fanboys and cinephiles as to its merits since it hit theaters this weekend. In both spoiler-free and spoiler-ful flavors, Ricky D, Julian Carrington and Simon Howell are here to dissect the remains. In between, they take a look back at 1979's original Alien to see how the canonical sci-fi/horror chiller holds up.

After 321 episodes of Sound On Sight, Simon Howell gets ready to make his move to Toronto, marking this the very last time the SOS hosts record a podcast live within the same room and same city. On this very special occasion we continue our France May 68 marathon by taking a look at Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers, his response film to Bertolucci's The Dreamers (a movie we discussed last week). But first up is Miss Bala, Mexico’s 2012 submission for Best Foreign Language Film, recently released on DVD.

Quebec's most divisive new director of the last few years, as well as one of its most prominent, Xavier Dolan has already produced three features, each of which have played at Cannes. His latest, Laurence Anyways, is a hugely ambitious undertaking, spanning a decade and running well past two and a half hours. Ricky, Justine and Simon try to suss out whether or not his efforts paid off. Then, we kick off a new marathon, in which every week we'll tackle a film set in or around May '68 in France, inspired by the social unrest currently brewing in SOS's home province. This week, the subject is Bernardo Bertolucci's incestastic The Dreamers.

For his birthday show, Ricky D selects...sad French films? He'll explain his choice soon enough, just be aware of the all-classic lineup: Robert Bresson's Mouchette (with an assist from Julian), Louis Malle's revered 1987 autobiographical coming-of-age drama Au revoir, les enfants (with Justine), and finally the unavoidable early New Wave touchstone Les quatre cents coups, aka The 400 Blows, which Ricky and Simon take on solo.

Never have our opinions been of less importance than in discussing Joss Whedon's The Avengers, the comib-book-movie tentpole to end all tentpoles, but we give it the old college try anyway. Justine Smith, Derek Gladu, and Simon Howel talk up the massively successful flick in both spoiler-free and spoiler-ful flavors, then take a look back, well before Whedon's current salad days, to 2005's Firefly tie-in flick, Serenity.

Writer-director Whit Stillman was once one of the most buzzed-about American filmmakers around - that is, until he took almost a decade to make another film. Damsels in Distress, his new, delightfully screwy pseudo-romantic comedy, finally breaks his extended period of silence, and our own Justine Smith got to talk to him about it. She, Simon Howell and special guest Rudie Obias of The Auteur Cast review the new movie, along with his previous film, 1998's The Last Days of Disco.

It's SOS host Justine Smith's birthday show, so she gets to choose the flicks and the tunes. She opted for a serously kickass Southern Gothic double feature: first up is Elia Kazan's Baby Doll, written by Tennessee Williams; next is Charles Laughton's legendary directorial one-off Night of the Hunter.

It's a Joss Whedon double feature, sort of: this past weekend saw his long-delayed collaboration with Drew Goddard, The Cabin in the Woods, finally see release to mostly-rapturous reviews. We spoil the hell out of it in our extended, rambling take on the movie, but not before we take a look at an older Joss Whedon screenplay most seem to have conveniently forgotten about: 1997's Alien Resurrection, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Ricky D, Justine Smith and Simon Howell return to the dank Batcave known as Sordid Cinema! This time around, martial arts are the focus, thanks to Gareth Evans's Indonesian asskicking epic The Raid: Redemption, currently kicking around arthouses everywhere. They also get to talking about 1978 kung fu touchstone The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.

In our second look at some of last year's Cannes Film Festival prizewinners, Justine Smith, Julian Carrington and Simon Howell tackle Joseph Cedar's lauded Footnote, a dark, somewhat askew comedy about duelling Talmudic scholars who also happen to be father and son (and also Israel's Oscar submission film from 2011); then Ricky D taps Simon out so that all can sing the praises of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, an epic-length crime saga from Turkey.

With March almost over, it seems as good a time as any to check in on our cinematic 2012 and start to weigh the few films of worth we've seen. Simon, Ricky, Justine and Julian ponder the question, re-open the Hunger Games / Battle Royale debate, and also review an unlinely SOS favorite, the Jonah Hill / Channing Tatum buddy-cop comedy 21 Jump Street, in full, glorious, spoiler-filled detail. You've been warned.

As you probably know by now, blockbuster season (as denoted by movies that people actually go see en masse) starts in earnest this week with the release of Gary Ross's The Hunger Games, adapted from Suzanne Collins's ludicrously popular book series. Ricky D, Simon Howell and Justine Smith take on the new flick, and take the opportunity to also talk up one of the most infamous cult movies of the 2000s, Japan's Battle Royale, which shares a whole lot of conceptual tissue.

Do you know where your kids are? This week we take a look at two French-language flicks that offer up kids in peril, albeit in considerably different levels of peril. First up in Polisse, the French policier about a squad of specialized officers whose job is to protect the young and innocent of Paris. We'll also discuss Le gamin au vélo, AKA The Kid With a Bike, the latest social-realist drama from the Dardenne brothers; both premiered at Cannes last year, and both were prize-winners, but which will win the favor of Ricky D, Justine Smith, and Simon Howell?

Sound on Sight Walking Dead Podcast #22: “Beside the Dying Fire”