Best Film Ever

“We all go a little mad sometimes.”

Join Ian & Megs for our 351st episode as we check into the Bates Motel, definitely avoid Cabin One and discover why showers have never quite felt the same since for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) — one of the most influential films ever made, one of cinema’s greatest exercises in audience manipulation… and perhaps a slightly stranger viewing experience than its reputation suggests.

Liam isn’t with us this week — he checked into the Bates Motel and Norman assures us he checked out first thing this morning. We have absolutely no reason to question that.

Kev is also absent. His mother wouldn’t let him come.

This week we discuss:

The extraordinary construction of Norman Bates — Anthony Perkins gives us one of cinema’s great characters long before we completely understand who we’re looking at. Awkward, charming, vulnerable, funny and quietly unsettling: how does Hitchcock make Norman someone we instinctively like at almost exactly the moment we should be becoming afraid of him?

The narrative pivot that changed movies — Psycho spends almost its entire opening act convincing us that Marion Crane is the protagonist and that the stolen $40,000 is the story. Then Hitchcock pulls the floor out from underneath us. Is the shower scene’s real brilliance not simply that Marion dies, but that the entire movie we thought we were watching dies with her?

And then it pivots again — Marion’s crime disappears, Norman becomes our point of identification and eventually the film shifts towards Lila and Sam investigating what happened. Psycho repeatedly hands the narrative from one character to another. Is that structural instability part of its genius — or one reason the middle of the film occasionally feels less propulsive than its reputation suggests?

Those pacing issues — for a film remembered as relentlessly suspenseful, there are stretches where Psycho moves remarkably slowly. We talk about whether that deliberate patience increases the tension, whether some sequences simply drag, and how differently the film plays when you already know exactly what is waiting in the fruit cellar.

Can a movie survive when its

greatest pleasure is a twist everybody already knows? Norman Bates and Mother may be one of the least secret twists in cinema history. So what remains once surprise has disappeared? Does Psycho become richer on repeat viewing because we can watch Hitchcock constructing the deception — or does losing the revelation inevitably remove some of the film’s power?

The shower scene beyond the shower scene — one of the most famous sequences ever filmed has almost escaped the movie surrounding it. Does its enormous cultural reputation distort the way we watch Psycho now, leaving us waiting for moments we already know rather than experiencing the story Hitchcock originally designed?

Anthony Perkins is doing an extraordinary amount of work — the nervous laughter, the pauses, the tiny flashes of irritation whenever Marion mentions his mother. Once we know the truth, how much of Norman’s performance changes meaning without Perkins ever appearing to deliberately “play the twist”?

Marion Crane and the movie that disappears with her — Janet Leigh gives the first half enormous emotional weight, particularly as Marion begins regretting the decision that brought her to the motel. Does killing her make Psycho thrillingly unpredictable, or does the film sacrifice its most compelling emotional storyline for the sake of its greatest trick?

That psychologist scene. After Hitchcock has spent the entire film communicating through images, performance and implication, a psychiatrist arrives and essentially explains the movie to us. For a modern audience, it can feel astonishingly clunky — almost like somebody walking onstage after the curtain falls to explain what we just watched.

But did audiences in 1960 actually need it? Ideas surrounding dissociative identity, gender, sexuality and mental illness were understood very differently by mainstream audiences. We ask whether the scene becomes more defensible when considered historically — not necessarily because its psychology is accurate, but because Hitchcock may have needed to give contemporary viewers a framework through which to process what they had just seen.

And the performance within that infamous scene is actually excellent — Simon Oakland delivers an enormous amount of exposition with authority and conviction. So can something simultaneously be a strong performance and clumsy storytelling? And is our problem really with the scene itself, or simply with how radically cinematic language has changed since 1960?

Hitchcock versus the audience — stolen money, voyeurism, false protagonists, sympathetic murderers, hidden identities. Psycho continually makes us invest emotionally in something before revealing that we have been looking in completely the wrong direction. How much of the film is really about Norman Bates — and how much is Hitchcock demonstrating just how easily an audience can be controlled?

And finally, whether Psycho is the Best Film Ever — a film containing some of the greatest sequences, characters and filmmaking decisions in cinema history, but one where the pieces might actually be more perfect than the experience of watching the whole thing.

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at
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“That's not a knife. THAT'S a knife.”

Join Ian & Megs for our 350th episode as we leave the Australian outback behind, head for New York City and discover just how far charm, confidence and an extremely large knife can take you in Peter Faiman’s Crocodile Dundee (1986).

Liam isn’t with us this week — he tried telling Mick Dundee that he knew his way around the Australian wilderness. He has not been seen since.

Kev is also absent, having become distracted by the promise of a Walkabout Creek drinking session and apparently forgotten there was a podcast to record.

This week we discuss:

Mick Dundee as a character creation — Paul Hogan creates someone instantly recognisable, enormously charismatic and almost impossible not to like. But is Mick himself significantly better than the movie built around him?

Great character. Great movie? Crocodile Dundee gives us an iconic central character, memorable scenes and lines that have survived for forty years — but do those ingredients disguise a surprisingly thin story?

Memorable moments aren’t the same thing as narrative — the crocodile attack, the knife, the bar scenes, the subway ending. We remember an extraordinary amount of Crocodile Dundee, but does remembering the individual moments make us overestimate the strength of the film connecting them together?

The movie effectively changes genre halfway through — the Australian section plays almost like an adventure comedy, while New York turns Mick into a fish-out-of-water character. Which half works better, and does the film ever feel completely whole?

Paul Hogan’s performance — understated, relaxed and rarely chasing the punchline. How much of the movie’s success comes simply from Hogan understanding exactly how much — and how little — Mick Dundee needs to do?

Sue Charlton is much harder to understand than Mick — she is fascinated by Mick, romantically attached to Richard and seemingly capable of treating both men with remarkable cruelty depending upon what the scene requires.

Susan, Richard and Mick — this relationship increasingly frustrated us. Richard is certainly not presented as particularly sympathetic, but Sue repeatedly humiliates him, keeps him emotionally dangling and then seems surprised by his reactions. Meanwhile, she also plays with Mick’s feelings while refusing to be honest about what she actually wants.

Does the romance actually work? Mick and Sue have obvious chemistry, but does the screenplay earn their relationship — or are we simply carried along by Hogan and Linda Kozlowski until that enormously charming final scene tells us everything has worked out?

The changing comedy of Crocodile Dundee — some jokes remain beautifully simple and effective; others very clearly belong to 1986. How much can we separate the film’s enormous cultural impact from the parts that have aged awkwardly?

New York through Mick’s eyes — the movie’s best trick might be reversing our expectations. Mick initially appears to be the strange outsider, yet his straightforward view of the world often makes everyone around him seem considerably stranger.

And finally, whether Crocodile Dundee is the Best Film Ever — or simply one of cinema’s great reminders that creating an unforgettable character and giving him unforgettable lines is not necessarily the same thing as telling an unforgettable story.

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at
https://www.patreon.com/BFE

We are very thankful to the following Patreon backers for their generous support:

Juleen from It Goes Down In The PM

Hermes Auslander

James DeGuzman

Synthia

Shai Bergerfroind

Ariannah Who Loves BFE The Most

Paul Komoroski

Duane Smith (Duane Smith!)

Andy Dickson

Aashrey

Chris Pedersen

Randal Silva

Nate The Great

Rev Bruce

Richard

Ryan Kuketz

Dirk Diggler

Stew from the Stew World Order podcast

NorfolkDomus

John Humphrey's Right Foot

Timmy Tim Tim

Youth Hosteling with Chris Eubank

Buy some BFE merch at https://my-store-b4e4d4.creator-spring.com/.

Massive thanks to Lex Van Den Berghe for the use of Mistake by Luckydog. Catch more from Lex's new band, The Maids of Honor, at https://soundcloud.com/themaidsofhonor

Also, massive thanks to Moonlight Social for our age game theme song. You can catch more from them at https://www.moonlightsocialmusic.com/

“What really matters is what you like, not what you are like.”

Join Ian & Liam for our 349th episode as we alphabetise the vinyl, rank our emotional catastrophes and head back to Championship Vinyl for Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity (2000).

Megs isn’t with us this week — Rob asked her to rank her five worst break-ups and she decided she’d rather never speak to any of us again. Kev has disappeared into a record shop and refuses to come out until everyone agrees his Top Five Albums list is objectively correct.

This week we discuss:

John Cusack as Rob Gordon — charismatic, funny, self-aware... and still somehow completely incapable of recognising that he might be the problem.

A coming-of-age story for a man in his 30s — has Rob reached adulthood without ever actually growing up, and is the film really about emotional adolescence arriving about fifteen years late?

The strange A Christmas Carol connection — like Scrooge, Rob is forced to revisit his past, confront the stories he has told himself about his own unhappiness and realise that memory becomes much less comforting when other people get to challenge your version of events.

Breaking the fourth wall and controlling the narrative — does Rob talking directly to us make him more honest, or simply allow him to curate his own story in the same way he curates his record collection?

The Top Five obsession, music and taste as identity — are Rob’s lists just a funny character trait, or a defence mechanism that allows him to substitute having good taste for actually having a personality?

The ex-girlfriend tour and the women in Rob’s life — funny, revealing and deeply unhealthy. Does revisiting these relationships actually help Rob understand himself, and how much are we still trapped inside his self-centred perspective?

Barry, Dick and Jack Black before JACK BLACK — the supporting cast repeatedly threaten to walk away with the movie, while Jack Black seems to arrive already fully formed.

The ending and Rob’s emotional growth — does he genuinely mature, simply become more self-aware, or finally learn the fairly basic lesson that loving someone requires occasionally making the story about somebody other than yourself?

And finally, whether High Fidelity is the Best Film Ever — or simply the perfect film for anyone who has ever mistaken having excellent taste for having an excellent personality.

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at
https://www.patreon.com/BFE

We are very thankful to the following Patreon backers for their generous support:

Juleen from It Goes Down In The PM

Hermes Auslander

James DeGuzman

Synthia

Shai Bergerfroind

Ariannah Who Loves BFE The Most

Paul Komoroski

Duane Smith (Duane Smith!)

Andy Dickson

Aashrey

Chris Pedersen

Randal Silva

Nate The Great

Rev Bruce

Richard

Ryan Kuketz

Dirk Diggler

Stew from the Stew World Order podcast

NorfolkDomus

John Humphrey's Right Foot

Timmy Tim Tim

Youth Hosteling with Chris Eubank

Buy some BFE merch at https://my-store-b4e4d4.creator-spring.com/.

Massive thanks to Lex Van Den Berghe for the use of Mistake by Luckydog. Catch more from Lex's new band, The Maids of Honor, at https://soundcloud.com/themaidsofhonor

Also, massive thanks to Moonlight Social for our age game theme song. You can catch more from them at https://www.moonlightsocialmusic.com/

“Get off my lawn.”

Join Ian, Liam & Megs for our 348th episode as we pull the Gran Torino out of the garage and spend some time with the angriest man on the street for Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (2008) — a film about racism, masculinity, community and the legacy we leave behind.  Kev isn’t with us this week — Walt caught him looking at the Gran Torino and has been sitting on the porch staring at him ever since. Kev assures us he'll be allowed to move eventually.  And we're delighted to welcome BFF of the BFE Hermes Auslander to help us unpack one of the most fascinating — and occasionally deeply uncomfortable — films of Eastwood's later career.

This week we discuss:

Clint Eastwood and legacy — how much does Gran Torino deliberately trade on everything Eastwood has represented on screen for the previous forty years?

Where does this rank among our Clint Eastwood films? We put Walt Kowalski up against the other Eastwood performances and movies we've covered on the BFE.

Masculinity according to Walt — tools, cars, beer, work and absolutely no discussion of feelings. Is the film celebrating this version of manhood or slowly dismantling it?

The creation of “the other” — Walt begins with an entire community reduced to stereotypes and slurs.

And the dismantling of “the other” — what happens once the people Walt has spent years categorising actually become people to him?

Walt and Thao — a mentorship that begins with an attempted car theft and becomes the emotional heart of the movie.

Sue — is she actually the person most responsible for breaking through Walt's defences?

The language of Gran Torino — can the film use racism to interrogate racism without occasionally becoming too comfortable with the joke?

The performances around Eastwood — does the decision to cast inexperienced Hmong actors add authenticity, or expose some pretty significant gaps in performance?

And is there one acting moment that nearly ruins the entire film? When Walt locks Thao away, does Bee Vang give us anything close to the desperation that this enormously important scene requires?

Walt's biological family versus the family next door — the people he's related to seem increasingly distant while the people he initially despises become his community.

Father Janovich is more important than he first appears — what begins as Walt mocking an inexperienced young priest develops into a relationship that becomes crucial to understanding the ending.

What does Walt actually leave behind? The Gran Torino matters, but his real legacy might have considerably less to do with the car.

Clint Eastwood playing Clint Eastwood — brilliantly weaponising his own screen persona, or occasionally drifting into self-parody?

That ending — after a career built around armed men solving problems with violence, Eastwood gives Walt one final confrontation and refuses to let him fire the gun.

But does everything finish a little too neatly? Walt gets his redemption, Thao gets the car and the gang problem gets wrapped up remarkably cleanly for a film that has spent so long dealing in messier realities.

Hermes joins us to tackle the redemption question — does learning to love a handful of people actually undo a lifetime of prejudice?

And finally, whether Gran Torino is the Best Film Ever — or Clint Eastwood putting his own cinematic legacy on trial.

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at
https://www.patreon.com/BFE

We are very thankful to the following Patreon backers for their generous support:

Juleen from It Goes Down In The PM

Hermes Auslander

James DeGuzman

Synthia

Shai Bergerfroind

Ariannah Who Loves BFE The Most

Paul Komoroski

Duane Smith (Duane Smith!)

Andy Dickson

Aashrey

Chris Pedersen

Randal Silva

Nate The Great

Rev Bruce

Richard

Ryan Kuketz

Dirk Diggler

Stew from the Stew World Order podcast

NorfolkDomus

John Humphrey's Right Foot

Timmy Tim Tim

Youth Hosteling with Chris Eubank

Buy some BFE merch at https://my-store-b4e4d4.creator-spring.com/.

Massive thanks to Lex Van Den Berghe for the use of Mistake by Luckydog. Catch more from Lex's new band, The Maids of Honor, at https://soundcloud.com/themaidsofhonor

Also, massive thanks to Moonlight Social for our age game theme song. You can catch more from them at https://www.moonlightsocialmusic.com/

Are you ready for some (fantasy) football?  We're back with our Patrons once again and invited a returning special guest to join us to fill out the field  We've got your BFE favourites - Ian, Liam, and KevDog, drafting live.  We're also joined live by some of the BFE Patreon personalities, adding to the merriment and we've got a very special guest.

It's a peak behind the curtain as you catch the BFE group just kicking it as we pretend we know what we're doing with Fantasy Football.  In between bites of Pizza and Chicken Nuggets we provide commentary on the picks by our absent drafters - whether they're drafting remotely or letting the computer do the heavy lifting)

There's pizza, banter, and a behind-the-scenes perspective that might help you know your BFE peeps a little bit better.