The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast

Welcome to The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a new series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we’ll pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole.This month: in concert with director Mike Mills’s library, we look at Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966), directed by Věra Chytilová and co-written by Ester Krumbachová. Like a surreal Czechoslovak precursor to the music video for Aerosmith’s “Cryin’.”For info on our upcoming live discussions (with you, for you!) hosted by Galerie, please subscribe, follow, and watch this space.The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands.This series is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Bright Wall/Dark Room readers & listeners can sign up now for early access, before its public launch, here.

It’s been a minute but we’re back! With writer and Bright Wall OG—literally, she wrote the first essay for our first issue back in 2013—Karina Wolf to discuss Wim Wenders’s iconic Wings of Desire (1987), a film that bridges “road movies” and “siblings” (trust us). We get into: the essential decency of Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk’s warmth, transformative romance, whether angels have grandmas, Henri Alekan’s dignifying vision, Wim Wenders’s lack of strategy, how particulars turn universal, and more. Here is Karina’s terrific essay on Wings of Desire for BW/DR, and here’s her wonderful piece on Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991). The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. Listeners can sign up for early access at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr. You can read our current issue, and our 100+ issue archive at Bright Wall/Dark Room. Listeners: please subscribe, rate, review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and we welcome feedback and inquiries at [email protected]. Thanks for listening; we missed you, too.

This month for our sports issue we’re joined by ace writer and admitted baseball enthusiast Frank Falisi to run the numbers on Bennett Miller’s Oscar-nominated ode to analytics, Moneyball (2011). We touch on romance versus data, the fractious appeal(?) of Billy Beane, how Miller replaced Soderbergh in this case of life imitating art, 2010s’ signature “slick cinema” and baseball’s televisuality, where are the women, decent single dads, and the difference between a big win and a dodged loss. Read Frank’s terrifically moving essay on the Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein doc video, “‘The Love You Send is Endless’: The Stupid Futurity of The History of the Seattle Mariners,” here.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including February’s exploration of sports on film, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and give us a review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. We’re happy to report we’re getting big in Sweden but love our listeners everywhere.

For our annual fashionably late “Best Of” issue, we’re looking at a 2022 highlight: Charlotte Wells’s staggering debut feature Aftersun, featuring film critic, author, and educator Adam Nayman. Adam shares special insights from his conversation with Wells about the film, plus the case for cinematic mystery, Paul Mescal crying, analog devices and the technology of memory, good karaoke scenes, fatherhood feelings, and why 2022 stinker The Whale stumbles precisely where Aftersun soars. For more on Aftersun, check out producer Barry Jenkins’s conversation with director Wells for the Directors UK podcast, Filmmaker’s profile, and Wells’s own letter to audiences for A24. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including January’s paeans to last year’s best, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and flatter us with a review. We’re on Twitter @TheBWDRPodcast and @BWDR and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Happy new year.

December means one thing: Happy Cruisemas, from our home to yours. This month we welcome back special Cruise correspondent and BWDR torchbearer Elizabeth Cantwell to discuss Cameron Crowe’s 2001 Vanilla Sky. Surrealist rom com or indulgent puzzle film? Flop or parable? We get into needle drops, Crowe’s self-referentiality, whether Cruise is always more or less wearing a mask, is Brian real, what got lost in translation (from Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los ojos), the Citizen Kane of it all, are rich people likable, Cameron Diaz’s tour de force, and more. For further reading, check out Ethan Warren on Vanilla Sky back in 2020 for BW/DR, and Robin Bell at Den of Geek. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad. Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including December’s ode to romantic comedies of which this may or may not be one, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and honor us with a review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. And thanks for spending the year with us.

Our November episode comes a little late, but in the continuous spirit of “recovery,” Chad and Veronica are joined by writer, editor, and Powell's Books managing editor Kelsey Ford to talk Pedro Almodóvar’s Dolor y Gloria (Pain and Glory, 2019). We get into the film’s “wildly tender” exploration of autobiography and artistic process, Almodóvar’s aspirational apartments, that for-old-times’-sake kiss, melodrama’s coincidences, being in the mood for moms, and wanting Penelope Cruz to make you a chocolate sandwich. Here’s Almodóvar talking about Pain and Glory at the BFI Southbank, here’s GQ’s 2019 profile discussing the film, here’s the film’s screenplay, and here’s Alex Jacob’s supercut of Alex Trebek saying “genre.”The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including November’s recovery issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and honor us with a review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Back soon with our annual Tom Cruise episode (a happy holiday, indeed).

On this very special episode, cohost Veronica sits down with beloved critic Fran Hoepfner to talk highlights of the 60th New York Film Festival–of which Fran’s omnibus review for BWDR is out now. In it, Fran describes the programming slate as offering, maybe, catharsis: “a healing that can only be done in a dark room, surrounded by others, but entirely viewed through your own eyes.” Listen as we break down what we saw with our own eyes, including: wanting to go on spooky vacation (Eternal Daughter), hot finger guns (Tár), getting fits off in Master Gardener, the good boring parts of Aftersun, “journalism” in square quotes (Stars at Noon), why Armageddon Time isn’t Green Book, is Triangle of Sadness’s Ruben Östlund performing ‘stupid guy who thinks he gets it,’ Mark Rylance in crazy mode (Bones and All), Park Chan-wook’s elastic worlds (Decision to Leave), the revolutionary humanist élan of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, and a case for why Roxy audiences need to pee before the film starts. Plus, a guest appearance by our producer-editor Eli Sands on the Rohmerian sensibility of Showing Up.Find Fran online at her mag, Twitter, and Letterboxd. The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and (usually!) Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s trek through cinema’s b-roll and Fran’s fest coverage, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and love us up with a quick review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected].

For October’s B-Movies issue–just in time for spooky season–we’re casting an eye back toward RKO darling Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (1942), one of the studio’s most successful forays into low-budget, low-runtime horror. Joining us is film critic and curator, and Artistic Director of Indie Memphis, Miriam Bale. Listen as we historicize our love for Cat People back to Martin Scorsese’s endorsement (“psychosexual!”) in A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), lament the scourge of work wives, and admire this film’s timeless restraint (while appreciating the comparative verve of Paul Schrader’s remake).Further reading: Geoffrey O’Brien on Cat People’s insightful ambiguity and Karina Longworth on Val Lewton’s work at RKO.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s trek through cinema’s b-roll, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and honor us with a quick review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Thanks for listening; we’ll see you in the dark.

It’s a month of time travel at BW/DR. Right on the heels of the growing buzz for Rian Johnson’s new genre love letter Glass Onion, we’re discussing his 2012 sci-fi thriller, Looper. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a young Bruce Willis (with the help of that infamous prosthetic nose), but we might be the first to ask: is it a metaphor for parenting? Meanwhile, Veronica interprets a symbolic reincarnation and Chad shares his love for the humanity within time travel movies. Plus, for the first time, listeners like YOU call in to share their thoughts on the film.!The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s issue on time travel, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show your support via Patreon. To help us keep going & growing, please subscribe, rate, share and/or honor us with a quick review of the show.

We’ve traveled back to 1987 to wax ecstatic about Elaine May’s maligned box office failure, Ishtar. We match May’s compassion for the brashly stupid Chuck and Lyle (played by Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, respectively) as Chad explains his personal connection to the movie, Veronica wonders how (and if) the movie successfully balances its many threads, and guest Frank Falisi lays out his theory that this is a high musical à la Vincente Minnelli.Some further reading that we reference on the show: Peter Biskind’s account of the film–excerpted from Star, his Beatty biography–for Vanity Fair, enthusiast Richard Brody speaking with Elaine May for the New Yorker, and Chad's own Ishtar essay, “But We Can Sing Our Hearts Out,” featured in our 2019 issue dedicated to May’s movies & legacy.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s jaunt back to ‘87, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and honor us with a quick review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Thanks: we think you’re wonderful.

For “Voyeur” July, we’re talking one-on-one about The Conversation (1974) through the lenses of surveillance and seclusion, Gene Hackman and Walter Murch, Catholic guilt and cool jazz. From its bird’s eye opening to the obliterative final shots, we get into the nuts and bolts of Francis Ford Coppola’s “personal” post-Godfather film and what it means to watch, fixate, deduce, mishear, and, despite everything, to long to be seen.Some stuff we reference: Walter Murch’s “Rule of Six” for editors, Koraljka Suton’s piece for Cinephilia & Beyond, and this terrific 1974 interview with Coppola and Brian de Palma for Filmmakers Newsletter.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s lookie-look issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. Please subscribe, rate, and give us a quick review. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and you’re welcome to show support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected].

The category is summertime sadness as we discuss Luca Guadagnino’s 2009 melodrama I Am Love. Chad and Veronica are joined by author, critic, and Wesleyan film professor Lisa Dombrowski to break down Guadagnino’s long standing collab with Tilda Swinton, the social necessity of melodrama, how DP Yorick Le Saux crafted two distinct worlds, the erotics of shellfish, radical haircuts, justice for Ida, and the power of envisioning private experience. Come for the suffering, stay for the liberation.Some extras we reference: Nathan Heller’s profile on Guadagnino for the New Yorker, and Patricia Thomson’s piece on Le Saux’s cinematography for American Cinematographer.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s weepie issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to subscribe, rate, and review–you’re also welcome to show your support via our Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Grazie di tutto!

To salute our May theme of “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll,” Chad sits down with deputy cohost Fran Hoepfner and our special guest, movie and music writer Sydney Urbanek, to discuss the greatest initially-PG-rated movie of all time(?): Miloš Forman’s 1984 Amadeus. They get into childhood piano lessons, reading love letters in Salzburg, which composers hated their wives, modern resonance in period films, and the surprising extent of the Mozart cinematic universe, from Fernando and Carolina to Marie Antoinette. Subscribe to Sydney’s newsletter here, and sample Fran’s writing on classical music here.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is usually co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad Perman.Find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this month’s sexy, druggy, rocked out issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to send love and lunch money via Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

Lock the door: for our April devotional to Paul Newman, we’re revisiting Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958) with BW/DR contributor and Vulture critic Roxana Hadadi. Join us as we get into the irrepressible chemistry of Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, the pitfalls and opportunities of stage-to-screen adaptation, where Tennessee Williams’s queer plot went, stormy weather indoors and out, and how Cat served as a fulcrum for both stars’ careers. Read Roxana’s 2019 essay on the film here, and her piece on Newman’s Road to Perdition here.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad Perman.You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this April’s all-Newman-all-the-time issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to send love and lunch money via Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. As always, thanks for listening.

Break out the tissues: for our tenth pod, we’ve got a revealing one-on-one episode with cohosts Chad and Veronica swapping a medley of their most memorable, formative movie moments, with a very special cameo by our producer and editor, Eli Sands. We chat about camera movement and transcendence, the power of misremembering, why melodrama rules, the terrible beauty of Cary Grant, the sun, the moon, and our limited time on earth. Deep. Watch along with the film moments we discuss:Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg, 2020)Sunshine (Danny Boyle, 2007)The Dybbuk (Michał Waszyński, 1937)Joe Versus the Volcano (John Patrick Shanley, 1990)All My Life (Bruce Baillie, 1966)Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including this March’s issue on movie “Moments,” at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR and @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to send love and lunch money via Patreon. We welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. As always, thanks for listening.

February is “Opulence” month at BW/DR and we’re at the juncture of maximalism and mid-century modern, tackling Peyton Reed’s 2003 rom-com Down With Love. Joining us is editor-in-chief of Fran Magazine, writer and OG Bright Waller Fran Hoepfner. We talk about the calculus of comedy, homage vs. parody, “high concept” romance, the David Hyde Pierce of it all, whether Pillow Talk sucks, and what goes into crafting Jacques Demy-style feel-gooderie for the new millennium.If you want to read some of what we reference, check out these interviews with actor Sarah Paulson, costume designer Daniel Orlandi, and set decorator Don Diers.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Chad Perman composed our theme.You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our current issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR, and now also @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to widen our pod’s reach is to support us on Patreon! We also welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Thanks for listening, lovers.

For our Best of 2021 issue, we’re diving deep into Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog with film critic and Quorum (Film Quarterly) editor Girish Shambu, author of The New Cinephilia–now in its second, expanded, PDF-only edition! We talk about Campion’s signature expressionism, the versatility of props, masculinities, Jonny Greenwood, and the capital-R Romanticism of this profound gothic western.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad Perman.You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our current issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR, and now also @TheBWDRPodcast, and the best way to help our pod grow is to support us on Patreon! We also welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Thanks, all, for listening, and happy new year from BW/DR.

​​This month at BWDR, we swerve from the usual holiday sentimentality and instead explore films that exemplify a state of ‘FUBAR’: fucked up beyond all recognition/repair. Joining us is poet, educator, and original Bright Wall co-conspirator Elizabeth Cantwell to discuss Stanley Kubrick’s beloved psychosexual Christmas thriller, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). We chat about color and Christmas lights, shooting London for NYC (for Vienna), Tom Cruise’s dubious sex appeal, the complexities of marriage, whether the weed makes you aggressive, and much more.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad Perman.You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our current issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter@BWDR, and the best way to show your love for our pod and help us grow is to support us on Patreon. We also welcome listener feedback and sponsorship inquiries at [email protected]. Thanks for listening! And stay safe.

Our theme this month is “Generations,” and we’re joining renowned pickle man enthusiast and Elaine May biographer Carrie Courogen to discuss Joan Micklin Silver’s intergenerational NYC rom-com, Crossing Delancey (1988). We chat about marriage brokerage, douchey literary parties, movie magic in a Papaya King, Jewishness and immigration in Silver’s oeuvre (watch her 1973 educational short here), the challenges women filmmakers faced and face to get features financed, and the incontrovertible hotness of young Peter Riegert. Swoon.The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by Chad Perman.You can find all 100+ issues of Bright Wall/Dark Room, including our current issue, at brightwalldarkroom.com. We’re on Twitter @BWDR, and the best way to show your love for our pod and help us grow is to support us on Patreon. We also welcome listener feedback, and advertising/sponsorship inquiries, at [email protected] for listening!

David Lowery's The Green Knight captured the heart of a whole lot of our staff this summer, so for our August episode we're talking our way through the forest. Join guest host Zosha Millman as she dives deep into Lowery's latest film with special guests Fran Hoepfner and Kelsey Ford.

This month, Veronica & Chad sit down with special guest Travis Woods—erotic thriller aficionado and the driving force behind our July issue—to talk through a film he and Veronica consider one of the "icons of the genre," the 1993 Sharon Stone/William Baldwin film, Sliver.(Episode produced by the wonderful & amazing Victoria Alejandro)

Our May issue is focused on the films of 1971, so for the second episode of our podcast we're going deep on one of the more fascinating films from that year, Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge. Join co-hosts Veronica Fitzpatrick & Chad Perman, and returning special guest Zosha Millman, as they talk their way through Nichols' darkly complex and cinematic battle of the sexes.

Our pilot episode is here! Join hosts Veronica Fitzpatrick & Chad Perman as they talk through a perennial BW/DR favorite, Moonstruck, with special guest Zosha Millman. Topics include: John Patrick Shanley’s moons, Nicolas Cage’s wolf growls, Cher’s anti-walk of shame, and all things operatic multi-generational romantic comedy.