Episode 82: Father's Day Movies / Manual Cinema

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Description

In anticipation of Father’s Day this Sunday, the first segment of today’s show is all about movies and dads. Host Tom Breen is joined by certified dad and movie lover Nick Schupbach to talk about movie recommendations for Father’s Day, the different ways that dads and father-child relationships are portrayed on screen, and the experience of being a dad and sharing movies with your kids.

On the second segment of the show, Breen talks with composer Kyle Vegter and artistic director Julia Miller about Manual Cinema, a Chicago-based troupe of artists who create live performances that blend aspects of theater, cinema, and shadow puppetry. Manual Cinema is one of the featured artists at this year’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and we’ll talk all about their unique approach to creating “live cinema.”

Episode 80: The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand / The High School That Rocked

THE LIFE AND GARDENS OF BEATRIX FARRAND (2017) by Karyl Evans

Description

On today's episode of Deep Focus, host Tom Breen talks with two Connecticut filmmakers who will be screening their new movies playing at this year's New Haven Documentary Festival.

On the first segment of the show, Breen is joined by six-time Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Karyl Evans to talk about her new movie The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand, about a pioneering female landscape architect who lived and worked in New Haven for over a decade in the first half of the 20th century.

On the second segment, Breen talks with writer / producer Fred Cantor The High School that Rocked, a short documentary about how from 1966 - 1968 Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut hosted concerts by some of the biggest names in rock and roll, including The Doors, The Animals, Cream, The Rascals, and Sly & The Family Stone.

Links

NHDocs: http://www.nhdocs.com/

The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand trailer: https://vimeo.com/201694337

The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand Website: http://www.beatrixfarranddocumentary.com/

The High School That Rocked Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheHighSchoolThatRocked/

Episode 79: NHDocs 2017 / Alien: Covenant

Description

On the first segment of today’s show, host Tom Breen talks with Yale film studies professor Charles Musser about the 4th annual New Haven Documentary Film Festival, which runs from June 1 through June 11 at the Whitney Humanities Center and the Main Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library in downtown New Haven. Musser is a co-founder and co-director of the fest.

On the second segment of the show, Breen is joined by New Haven Independent staff writer Allan Appel for a review of Alien: Covenant, the latest installment in the four-decade-old sci-fi / horror series that finds a new ship, a new crew, and a new planet beset by the same old problems of merciless nature and technology, and big chomping mouths with rows upon rows of teeth.

Links

http://www.nhdocs.com/

Episode 78: Literary Adaptations / A Quiet Passion

THE DEAD (1987) by John Huston

Description

On the first segment of today’s show, host Tom Breen talks with New Haven Review publisher Bennett-Lovett Graff all about movie adaptations of works of literature: what makes for a good movie adaptation of a novel, short story, or play? What are some of the challenges and benefits of making that transition from printed page to screen? What are a few examples of our favorite literary adaptations? This conversation focuses in particular on one such literary adaptation, The Dead, a 1987 film directed by John Huston and adapted from the 1914 short story by James Joyce.

On the second segment of the show, Breen is joined by Connecticut-based poet and teacher Kate Rushin to talk about A Quiet Passion, Terence Davies’ new biopic about 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson. Although not a direct adaptation of any particular written work, A Quiet Passion offers another perspective on representing literature through movies in the way that it closely interweaves Dickinson’s poetry with her life, underscoring her preoccupations with fame, truth, beauty, and death.

Links

New Haven Review website: http://www.newhavenreview.com/

Institute Library website: http://institutelibrary.org/
 

Episode 77: Mother's Day Movies / Their Finest

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

Description

On the first segment of today's show, host Tom Breen and WNHH's Babz Rawls Ivy celebrate Mother's Day by sharing on moms and movies, talking about everything from favorite cinematic moms to movie picks for mother’s day to our own experiences watching movies with our moms. For the second segment of today’s show, Breen is joined by New Haven Independent reporters Allan Appel and Lucy Gellman for a review of THEIR FINEST, Lone Scherfig’s new World War II-era dramedy about a female screenwriter recruited by the Ministry of Information Film Division to help beef up the women’s dialogue in British wartime propaganda pictures.

Episode 76: Food Haven

Description

On today's episode of Kitchen Sync, host Lucy Gellman is joined by Deep Focus host Tom Breen and local filmmaker Jim O'Connor to talk about Food Haven, O'Connor's new documentary that explores New Haven's rich and varied culinary scene.

Episode 75: The Lost City of Z / Magneticfest 2 / Breakfast with Curtis

Description

On the first segment of today’s show, host Tom Breen is joined by New Haven Independent staff writer Allan Appel for a review of The Lost City of Z, a new movie from director James Gray that looks at the life of Percy Fawcett, a real-life British explorer, cartographer, and artillery officer who made several expeditions to the Brazilian Amazon in the first quarter of the 20th century before mysteriously disappearing in the heart of what the British Empire referred to as the green desert, or the green hell of the Amazon jungle.

On the second segment of the show, Breen talks with Lyric Hall’s Joe Fay and filmmaker Laura Colella about two movie-related events that will be taking place at Lyric Hall in Westville this weekend: this Saturday will see Magneticfest 2, a VHS swap meet and screening day organized by Fay, and this Sunday will see a screening of Colella’s 2012 indie comedy Breakfast with Curtis, followed by a conversation with the filmmaker and the cast.

Links

http://lyrichallnewhaven.com/events/magnetic-fest-2/

http://lyrichallnewhaven.com/events/breakfast-with-curtis/

Episode 74: Les Blank Music Docs

Brian Slattery on the banjo.

Description

On today’s very special episode of the show, host Tom Breen talks with writer-editor-musician Brian Slattery about the music documentaries of Les Blank, a pioneering independent filmmaker who made over 40 movies between 1960 and 2015, many of which focused on the diverse traditional musical subcultures of the American South. Over the course of the show, Brian plays songs on the guitar, fiddle, and banjo that are inspired by or some way related to the music in Les Blank's movies.

Other Links

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3381-les-blank-s-cinema-vitalite

Episode 73: Robert Frank Movies

Still from Laura Israel's DON'T BLINK - ROBERT FRANK

Description

Today’s interview-only episode of the show is all about the movies of Robert Frank, the Swiss-born photographer who captured the odd, overlooked, simmering contours of roadside America with his 1958 book The Americans, and then promptly left the field of still photography to become a pioneering figure in the development of post-war American independent cinema. There are two Robert Frank-related movie screenings happening in New Haven this upcoming weekend, and host Tom Breen is joined by the folks who organized and are participating in those events to talk about Frank as a filmmaker, a photographer, and a dedicated, complicated, American observer.

The guests on today's show are Brian Meacham, Laura Israel, and Nicholas Dawidoff. Brian is the archive and special collections manager at the Yale Film Archive, and a regular guest on this show. Laura is an editor, a longtime filmmaking collaborator of Robert Frank’s, and the director of a new feature-length documentary called Don’t Blink - Robert Frank. And Nicholas is a journalist and author of a number of books that explore American culture, sports, and identity, including 2013’s Collision Low Crossers. He is the author of a 2015 profile of Robert Frank for the New York Times Magazine called The Man Who Saw America, and is also a New Haven native and a fellow at Yale’s Branford College.

Links

https://www.facebook.com/events/759586187531706/

http://www.dontblinkrobertfrank.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/magazine/robert-franks-america.html?_r=0

Episode 72: Rob Harmon / John Carpenter Movies

Rob Harmon

Description

On today's interview-only episode of the show, host Tom Breen is joined by Best Video employee Rob Harmon for a conversation about the movies, style, and enduring cinematic appeal of John Carpenter, the writer-director-composer who made a name for himself in the 1980s as both an entertaining genre filmmaker and an artistically ambitious auteur through such films as Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, The Thing, and many more films that straddled the lines between sci-fi, horror, action, and satire.

Episode 70: Strange Cinema / Beauty and the Beast

Description

On the first segment of today’s show, host Tom Breen talks with Joe Fay and Alex Dakoulas about Strange Cinema, a new bi-monthly screening series and collaboration between Lyric Hall and Strange Ways in Westville that looks to celebrate 80s and 90s underground culture, from low-budget horror movies to patches, pins, and VHS. On the second segment, Breen and Allan Appel share some thoughts on the latest Disney re-make of Beauty and the Beast.

Other Links

https://www.facebook.com/events/257005164726923/
https://www.strange-ways.com/
http://lyrichallnewhaven.com/

Episode 69: David Sikora / I Am Not Your Negro

David Sikora

Description

On the first segment of today's show, host Tom Breen talks with local freelance cinematographer David Sikora about two films that have helped shape his love of cinema: Oliver Stone's 1994 blood-soaked satire Natural Born Killers and Darron Aronofsky's 2000 hallucinogenic drama Requiem for a Dream. For the second segment, Breen talks with Madison Art Cinemas director Arnold Gorlick about the new James Baldwin documentary, I Am Not Your Negro. For a complete archive of Deep Focus episodes, go to deepfocusradio.com.

Episode 64: Crow Stories / Hidden Figures

CROW STORIES by Sean Kernan

Description

On today's episode of Deep Focus, host Tom Breen talks with Branford photographer Sean Kernan about CROW STORIES, his new documentary that offers a glimpse into the life, landscape, and culture of the Crow People, a Native American tribe concentrated in southern Montana. For the second segment, he's joined by Inner City News editor Babz Rawls-Ivy for a review of the new movie HIDDEN FIGURES.

Other Links

http://www.crow-stories.net/
http://www.seankernan.com/
http://www.bestvideo.com/film-screening-connecticut-photographer-sean-kernans-crow-stories-documentary-screens-mon-jan-30/

Episode 62: Love Hate Relationship / La La Land

Description

For the first segment of today's show, host Tom Breen talks with local rapper Joey A.X. and Boston-based filmmaker Sev One about their recent music video, "Love Hate Relationship," which explores Joey's ambivalent, affectionate perspective on the city in which he grew up: Elm City. Tom is joined by Lucy Gellman and Allan Appel during the second segment for a divisive review if La La Land, Damien Chazelle's new musical that stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

Other Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN_10rZyBwk
http://www.killjoeyax.com/

Episode 58: Shaping the American Identity

Still from Emory Farb's short documentary Standing with Standing Rock

Description

Today's interview-only episode of the show is all about student documentaries that explore the elusive and contentious nature of American identity. Host Tom Breen is joined in the studio by Rena Tobey, who teaches an Honors College-level course at Southern Connecticut State University called “Shaping the American Identity.” As the semester nears its conclusion, she has given her students the opportunity to satisfy their final project requirements by creating short documentaries that explore some of the themes covered in the course. We’ll talk with Rena and two of her student documentarians, Evie Jenkins and Emory Farb, about the scope of this course, some of the challenges of being a student filmmaker, and trying to use documentaries to better understand what it means to be an American.

Episode 57: In Search of Lost Films / Loving

Description

On today's episode of Deep Focus on WNHH Community Radio, host Tom Breen talks with film journalist Phil Hall about his new book, "In Search of Lost Films," which explores the many influential and intriguing movies that have disappeared over the course of the past century. For the second segment of the show, Breen is joined by WNHH Station Manager Lucy Gellman and New Haven Independent reporter Allan Appel for a review of the new movie, Loving.

Other Links

https://soundcloud.com/onlinemovieshow
http://cinema-crazed.com/blog/author/philhall/
http://filmsnobbery.com/author/phil-hall/
https://www.amazon.com/Search-Lost-Films-Phil-Hall/dp/1593939388
https://www.loc.gov/programs/static/national-film-preservation-board/documents/pub158.final_version_sept_2013.pdf
 

Episode 56: I Am Shakespeare / Moonlight

Poster for I AM SHAKESPEARE

Description

This episode of Deep Focus is all about I AM SHAKESPEARE, a new documentary from New Haven filmmaker Stephen Dest that tells the story of Henry Green, a young man from Newhalville struggling to reconcile the many different sides of himself in a city painfully divided by class, race, education, and violence. Breen talks with Dest and Green about the story behind this film, the power of committing so much of yourself to a work of art, and the prospect of better understanding yourself and your city through movies. For the second segment of the show, Tom is joined by Inner City News editor Babz Rawls-Ivy and New Haven Independent reporter Markeshia Ricks for a review of MOONLIGHT.

More Links

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/new_film_supports_new_art_for_new_haven/

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/new_film_will_tell_henry_green_story/

Episode 55: Hacksaw Ridge / Joe Fay

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Description

On today's episode of Deep Focus, host Tom Breen and fellow WNHH hosts Allan Appel and Lucy Gellman review Hacksaw Ridge, a new World War II movie from director Mel Gibson that stars Andrew Garfield as American Army medic and battlefield conscientious objector Desmond Doss. For the second segment of the show, Breen talks with Lyric Hall film programmer Joe Fay about his time working at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Dallas-Fort Worth and about two movies that have had a strong influence on his own understanding and love of cinema: Tobe Hooper’s 1974 slasher classic THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and Joe Dante’s family-friendly 1989 horror-comedy THE ‘BURBS.

Episode 54: Frank and Caroline Mouris / The Handmaiden

Excerpt from FRANK FILM (1973) by Frank and Caroline Mouris

Description

On today's episode of Deep Focus, host Tom Breen welcomes experimental animators and filmmakers Frank and Caroline Mouris and film archivist Brian Meacham to the show to talk about the Mouris' careers making movies, some reflections on the mesmerizing world of experimental animation, and upcoming screenings of their films at the Whitney Humanities center. For the second segment of the show, Breen, Allan Appel, and Lucy Gellman review the new movie The Handmaiden.

Timeline

00:00 - 43:02 -- interview with filmmakers Frank and Caroline Mouris and Yale film archivist Brian Meacham
44:00 - 59: 38 -- review of The Handmaiden

Other Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZm67rgUAfQ
https://www.facebook.com/events/964252377030216/

Episode 53: It Happened But Nobody Noticed / Denial

Jerry Lombardo (Thomas Breen photo)

Timeline

00:00 - 38:20 -- interview with Jerry Lombardo and Eric Michael Schrader about It Happened, But Nobody Noticed
39:20 - 58:42 -- review of Denial

Description

This week's episode is about It Happened, But Nobody Noticed, a 2009 documentary from directors Jerry Lombardo and Eric Michael Schrader that documents New Haven’s punk and New Wave underground music scene from 1978 to 1988. Host Tom Breen talks with Lombardo and Schrader about how this movie came to be; some of the bands, venues and unique personalities that made up New Haven’s punk and New Wave scene in the 80s; and the ways that movies and music can intersect to help us understand this specific time and place in our city’s underground cultural history. The second half of the show features a review of the new movie Denial.

Other Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu3hrc-sx50