Listening: Bela and Boris and More

One of the very best podcasts out there, You Must Remember This, is back with a new season, “Bela and Boris.” Karina Longworth introduces the first episode, “Where the Monsters Came From” (41’40”): “Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff were two middle-aged, foreign, struggling actors who became huge stars thanks to Dracula and Frankenstein, the first two of a trend of monster movie hits released by Universal Studios during the 1930s. This season, we’ll discuss their parallel but very different lives and careers. Today, we’ll start by exploring where each man came from, what they were doing before they got to Universal, and why Universal began making monster movies in the first place.”

On a new episode of The Director’s Cut (29’40”), Rian Johnson, who’s got a little movie coming out in December, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, talks with Denis Villeneuve about his latest, Blade Runner 2049.

The new Talkhouse Podcast (36’52”) features Edgar Wright (Baby Driver) in conversation with Jackie Chan. Topics include Chan’s “game-changing films Police Story and Project A; making it in Hollywood on his own terms; how he approached doing some of his death-defying stunts (and fearing ghosts were trying to kill him!); his transition from action star to actor, being on set with James Cameron; receiving a special Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards; and much more.”

And on an earlier Talkhouse Podcast (49’54”), Lena Dunham and Danny Strong talk about her new performance project at St. Ann’s Warehouse and his feature debut, the J. D. Salinger biopic Rebel in the Rye.

Peter Labuza, host of The Cinephiliacs, talks with Agnès Varda and JR (Faces Places) and Theo Anthony (Rat Film) about new directions non-fiction cinema has been taking (62'46").

And Varda and JR, along with Susan Lacy (Spielberg), are Adam Schartoff’s guests on Filmwax Radio (56’53”).

“The Cinema of Experience” is the theme of the latest Film Comment Podcast (48’59”) as Nicolas Rapold, Teo Bugbee, Ashley Clark, and Farihah Zaman discuss “how cinematic technique is used to reflect nonwhite perspectives and stories of immigration, and what is different about the latest generation of storytelling.” Recorded live at the New York Film Festival.

Marc Maron talks with Beau Bridges, and then, Jeff Bridges (125’29”) and then, on another episode of the WTF Podcast, with Tracey Ullman (78’01”).

Mike White, Jamey Duvall, and Alex Winter discuss Roman Polanski’s The Tenant (1976) in the Projection Booth (97’17”).

Talk Easy host Sam Fragoso discusses the state of journalism and sexual misconduct in the film industry with Jen Yamato of the Los Angeles Times (69’32”).

PDK Files is a new podcast about the life and work of Philip K. Dick.

Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and DJ Candlestick have released Purple Veckatimest/Painted ruins (CHOPNOTSLOP), an album of chopped and screwed Grizzly Bear remixes. André-Naquian Wheeler, writing for i-D, notes that “the off-kilter creation does have at least one super enthusiastic fan: Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste.”

For news and items of interest throughout the day, every day, follow @CriterionDaily.