Cole Smithey and Mike Lacey discuss Charlie Chaplin's first sound picture "THE GREAT DICTATOR."

THE GREAT DICTATOR

In this episode we discuss Elaine May's great romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid, starring Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd.

THE HEARTBREAK KID — Elaine May

Mike and I discuss Nagisa Oshima's DEATH BY HANGING while drinking Racer 5 from Bear Republic. 

DEATH BY HANGING — Nagisa Oshima

LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST) had its first guest co-host! None other than Filmwax Radio's Adam Schartoff. The host of a podcast with a lineage of guests that will knock your socks off, Adam had the boys watch and discuss Francis Ford Coppola's masterful and lesser known "The Conversation." 

This episode was imbued with good times by Firestone Walker's Double Jack IPA.

THE CONVERSATION — Francis Ford Coppola (With Guest Co-Host Adam Schartoff)

Peter Falk and Alan Arkin invented the bromatic comedy all the way back in '79 in Arthur Hiller's screwball comedy classic THE IN-LAWS. In this episode, Mike is hungover, obsessed with the show Quincy M.E., and gives shout outs to his fav bars in Brooklyn. Cole saw something crazy and tragic at Macy's, misses classic '70s TV, and he cracks open a Founders All Day IPA.

THE IN-LAWS — Arthur Hiller

Guest co-host Thelma Adams (film critic, Author "The Last Woman Standing") stopped by to discuss BABY FACE (1933). The movie stars Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, and a baby-faced (appropriately enough) John Wayne as a forgettable rung in Stanwyck's ladder to victory via sexual conquest.

Is it a cautionary morality tale? A feminist empowerment narrative? Both or neither? The boys and Thelma hash it out over Big Swell by the Maui Brewing Company.

BABY FACE — Alfred E. Green (with Guest Co-Host Thelma Adams)

Best not to be consumed around children or the squeamish, Cole and Mike get into their longest episode yet talking about David Cronenberg's 1996 sex-violence fantasy CRASH. Often confused with a certain middling think-piece on racism, this CRASH (based on the 1973 book by J.G. Ballard of the same name) follows James Spader's character James Ballard as he enters the world of car crash fetishists. Is the movie anti-kink? Is it a meditation on consumerism and our crash course for self annihilation? The boys slam down Revolution Brewing's Anti-Hero IPA and collide with some surprisingly impactful answers.

CRASH — David Cronenberg

A lounge singer, his sex worker girlfriend, a severed head, and two gringo hitmen that might be in love make Sam Peckinpah's 1974 Mexican action flick a must see. 21st Amendment Brewery's El Sully made this shoot-em-up starring Warren Oates go down real easy.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA — Sam Peckinpah

Roman Polanski made more than one film about a  creepy apartment complex, he made three in fact. This is the third installment of his "Apartment" trilogy, and its a perfectly creepy October episode of LA GRANDE BOUFFE. Two Roads Brewing Company helped make the good times happen with their Roadmary's Baby pumpkin ale.

THE TENANT — Roman Polanski

"What's in the box ... er... basket, man?" is the question you'll be asking for about half of act 1 of this movie, before you're consumed with other questions. Like, what's with the lead characters hair? And WHAT exactly is this writer/director trying to get off his chest? It seems INTENSE. The guys watched Basket Case and drank Evil Twin Brewery's No Hero Oatmeal Stout.

BASKET CASE — Frank Henenlotter

Adam Curtis (The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self) has made a career in documentaries transposing powerful news footage, unnerving interviews, and his signature authoritative British narration. The effect are long form documentaries tackling immensely complicated events and eras in the 20th and 21st centuries that he attempts to describe with simple, elegant theses. Cole and Mike's acrimonious conversation was made possible by a .75 L bottle of Transmitter Brewing's WF1.

HYPERNORMALISATION — Adam Curtis

Armond White, venerable film critic and contrarian extraordinaire stops by to talk about MOONLIGHT from Barry Jenkins. Cole and Armond rehash their issues with Toy Story 3 (which made them infamous on Rotten Tomatoes), Armond goes in on "Obama's America".

MOONLIGHT — Barry Jenkins with Guest Co-Host Armond White

The two brothers of American Cinema and Two Brothers Brewing (and their Imperial Red Ale) made this discussion of BLOOD SIMPLE a blast. The Coen's first film may not be their best, but it's certainly a masterful piece of neo-noir that foreshadows some of their best films over the three decades since BLOOD SIMPLE's release.

BLOOD SIMPLE — Joel and Ethan Coen

Cole and Mike are back for Season 2 of LA GRANDE BOUFFE with another Truffaut flick, his best received film released in 1980 THE LAST METRO. It tells the story  of an Aryan theatre owner in Nazi Occupied Paris who keeps the lights on and shows running, all while hiding her Jewish husband (and the show's director) in a secret apartment in the theatre's basement.

THE LAST METRO —François Truffaut

The guys take on Rainer Werner Fassbinder for the first time with this Nazi fighting classic from 1979.

Plot summary: Near the end of World War II, Maria (Hanna Schygulla) marries Hermann (Klaus Lowitsch), who is immediately sent off to battle. When the war concludes, Maria believes that Hermann is dead. She starts working at an Allied bar, where she meets American soldier Bill (George Byrd). They start a relationship that is interrupted when Hermann returns alive. During a scuffle between the men, Maria accidentally kills Bill. Hermann takes the blame and goes to jail, while Maria begins a hard new life.

THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN — Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Coppola doubled down on the OUTSIDERS success and his S.E. Hinton collaboration with this weird, mostly black and white gang movie that's always almost a musical and never clearly not set in the '80s.

RUMBLE FISH — Francis Ford Coppola

The real life parallels get weird and personal in Roman Polankski's TESS, a beautifully filmed period piece that's is as grounded in reality as it's star's English accent is bad.

TESS — Roman Polanski

Cole and Mike pop open Netflix to watch a doc featuring the ultimate realist (if not pessimist) Noam Chomsky.

REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM — Starring Noam Chomsky

Singer-Songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is the star of the recently deceased Jonathan Demme's performance film, compellingly filmed inside a storefront in late '90s NYC (a store which is now, perhaps appropriately or sadly, a Guitar Center).

STOREFRONT HITCHCOCK — Jonathan Demme

Wim Wenders black and white and sometimes color sprawling, poetic ode to the detached observers of the universe has long fascinated dramatist Phillip Holt, so we had him on the show to talk about why it deserves to be remembered for more than just being the film that inspired that terrible Nick Cage, Meg Ryan vehicle that had that Goo Goo Dolls song.

WINGS OF DESIRE — Wim Wenders with Special Co-host Phillip Holt

Richard Linklater's 2001 WAKING LIFE was chosen by Special Guest Co-Host Jack Rico of the podcast Highly Relevant with Jack Rico (Founder/Editor showbizcafe.com).

WAKING LIFE — Richard Linklater with Special Guest Co-Host Jack Rico

Cole and Mike answer the age old question: can two guys stay friends who disagree about the age old question: can men and women just be friends?

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY – Rob Reiner

What would Patton do if his join daugheter ran off and joined the sex industry? The ever uncompromising Paul Schrader answered this question in the spiritual forefather of the TAKEN franchise with HARDCORE, a gonna-get-my-daughter-back revenge drama with all the hippie face stomping and Calvinist Apologetics you could ever want. We drank Peak's Organic IPA and hung out with Cole's adorable foster kittens during this one.

HARDCORE – Paul Schrader

Despite being virtually the only actors in the film, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe create a film filled with unspeakable horrors and unparalleled visual imagery that still has critics and audiences up in arms asking why von Trier made this film. Cole and Mike have some pretty good ideas as to why, but the beer may have gotten in the way.

ANTICHRIST — Lars von Trier

Paul Dédalus is an anthropologist with three memories of his youth that won't leave him.

MY GOLDEN DAYS — Arnaud Desplechin

Words aren't what they seem in this cult favorite from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos.

DOGTOOTH — Yorgos Lanthimos

SIERRA NEVADA'S BOUBLE BULLET DOUBLE IPA gave us the craft beer inspiration needed to dive into Cole's favorite film of all time, Bernardo Bertolucci's epic set in Parma, Italy. Donald Sutherland, Gerard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster, Robert De Niro, and Dominique Sanda contribute to this undeniable masterpiece.

1900 — BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI

Dramatist and LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST)regular Phil Holt returns to the podcast to discuss PAUL SCHRADER'S FIRST REFORMED over a glass of BUNKER'S BROWN ALE.

PHIL HOLT — FIRST REFORMED

Film critic Cole Smithey discusses Bertrand Tavernier's ROUND MIDNIGHT (staring the great Jazz legend Dexter Gordon) with CHRIS CUZME, head brewer and owner of FIFTH HAMMER BREWING in Long Island City, New York. It helps that CUZME (as we affectionately call him) is also a talented sax player who performs with his own Jazz band at the brewery every Wednesday night! Yes, you read that correctly.

CHRIS CUZME — ROUND MIDNIGHT

NYC craft beer legend Mike Lovullo brings Jim Jarmusch's GHOST DOG — THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI to the feast, along with a bottle of SASUGA! stainless-aged saison from OXBOW BREWING CO. Mike gives a crash course in hops for all you craft beer lovers!

GHOST DOG — MIKE LOVULLO

Filmmaker and screenwriter Mikhail Karadimov brings TYSKIE Polish Beer straight from Greenpoint Brooklyn to discuss Krzysztof Kieślowski's THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE. Bon appétit!

DOUBLE LIFE VERONIQUE — MIKHAIL KARADIMOV

For the climax of this year's annual SHOCKTOBER1 series, cinematographer Casey Regan ("Step," "Ballet Now") chews the fat with film critic Cole Smithey over Steven Sheil's horror masterpiece "MUM & DAD" with the aid of Stone Brewing's SANCTIMONIOUS IPA.

MUM & DAD — CASEY REGAN

FILMWAX RADIO PODCAST host ADAM SCHARTOFF makes his third guest co-host appearance on LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST) to discuss NICOLAS ROEG'S adaptation of the TERRY JOHNSON play INSIGNIFICANCE. SIERRA NEVADA'S CELEBRATION IPA makes Adam forget film titles, but it doesn't matter because all is fair in craft beer and movies.

INSIGNIFICANCE — ADAM SCHARTOFF

Returning guest co-host documentarian Jeremy Workman discusses his new film THE WORLD BEFORE YOUR FEET and his dad Chuck Workman's Beat Generation documentary THE SOURCE over BROOKLYN OKTOBERFEST from Brooklyn Brewery.

THE SOURCE — JEREMY WORKMAN

Political cartoonist, columnist, and author Ted Rall co-hosts this episode of LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST) podcast to discuss BBC documentarian ADAM CURTIS'S ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE EPISODE ONE.

ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE — ADAM CURTIS

Political cartoonist Ted Rall returns to co-host a discussion of THE GILLIGAN MANIFESTO, a documentary that outlines the television series's leftist underpinnings. We're drinking UNION JACK IPA from FIRESTONE WALKER.

THE GILLIGAN MANIFESTO — TED RALL

New York City cinephile Martin Keller helps kick off LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST) 3.0. All new episodes are recorded live at Blind Tiger Ale House on Bleeker at Jones in the West Village. Now we get to pick a beer we think goes best with our film choice right off Blind Tiger's generous board of great craft beer. Cigar City's MADURO Brown Ale is the beer of choice for our discussion of this impressive Western from Andrew Dominic.

JESSE JAMES — MARTIN KELLER

KILLING THEM SOFTLY — MARTIN KELLER

Veteran film critic Cole Smithey and NYC cinephile Martin Keller discuss  THE MAD BOMBER, one of the films that inspired Quentin Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

THE MAD BOMBER — MARTIN KELLER

Veteran film critic Cole Smithey and NYC cinephile Martin Keller discuss  Quentin Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD at BLIND TIGER in New York City's West Village over glasses of PEEKSKILL VALLEY LIFE IPA.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD — Martin Keller

BLAST OF SILENCE —  JEREMY WORKMAN

Happy Birthday

Gen X veteran film critic Cole Smithey invites a different co-host to copiously consume international politics and culture through the prism of a single film and a different craft beer.

LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST)

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks