The Magic Lantern

There aren’t many films more personal to me than Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men (2007). I grew up at the f... Read more

Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984) is our first ever crowdsourced episode choice, and we’re so grateful to you, our listeners,... Read more

You may think you know all there is to know about Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Watch it again. Right now. Joseph St... Read more

I was eight years old when I saw the first television commercial for John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and it was galvan... Read more

Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954) has always been one of my favorites, and having too much time on one’s hands while the sum... Read more

The Long Goodbye (1973) is my favorite Robert Altman film. For the longest time that was McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)... Read more

In the groundbreaking Get Out (2017), director and writer Jordan Peele wove together terror, horror, dark satire, and la... Read more

The Third Man (1949) is rightly hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. I thought so the very first time I saw it... Read more

When they were first tasked with making a documentary about the Bouvier family and their reminiscences of East Hampton, ... Read more

Rope (1948) is Alfred Hitchcock’s almost perfect crime. Based loosely upon the real life case of Leopold and Loeb, it wa... Read more

If someone tells you not to love them, take them at their word. Who knows what may be lurking in their tower? So if we l... Read more

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) made me want to be a film director. Maybe it was that rosy glow the film cast over me as a... Read more

Are you still afraid to go into the water? Does the specter of a killer shark still haunt you, 44 years after that monst... Read more

Why do I enjoy this film so much? In the simplest terms, The Uninvited (1944) features a big house by the sea I really w... Read more

This is a very special episode for us. For the first time, we are discussing a film that is a patron’s choice! Ian Buckl... Read more

It is a very great pleasure to revisit something you think you know well and find new facets and new dots to connect. Th... Read more

A world of pure imagination. That’s what we’re promised by Mel Stuart’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), ... Read more

I resisted the pull of Black Christmas (Clark, 1974) for a very long time. Too long. I thought it was going to be too sc... Read more

In A New Leaf (1971), Elaine May’s screenwriting and directorial debut, I think you will see the legacy of her indelible... Read more

When I first encountered Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), I had no idea h... Read more