265 The Usual Suspects

This week Matt and Mark get it together to review the classic The Usual Suspects. A plot intensive illusion, it leads the viewer along with its narrative with the classic "Just the Facts!" detective boilerplate. But at it's center is a deception, a ruse perpetrated by an unreliable narrator, for this film is a long-con and it's not only playing the characters, it's playing you the viewer. While Verbal and Kayser Sose are possibly one-in-the-same, neither one are confirmed real. The Usual Suspects deals in perception as a tool of social currency, exploiting our confidence. In classic Phillip K Dickian fashion, TUS plays on this theme and it plays it well. A film like no other, it is a hard-boiled crime drama mired in its tropes, but at the same time, it is something else.

Download: 265 The Usual Suspects

264 Ronin

This week Matt and Mark review the bombastic (and slightly silly) Frankenheimer actioner Ronin! More like a tabletop RPG come to life, Ronin deftly utilizes a McGuffin plot in which to thread its Mamet enhanced characters. For whatever reason, we forgive it its military-grade body count and implausible set pieces. Why? Because its a fun film. Unlike most action drivel, Ronin's interstitial scenes have lives of their own and not just a scaffold to tie the car chases together.

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263 Yojimbo

Time for a little "Fist Full of Akira Kurosawa" with our review of his classic Ronin Samurai film Yojimbo. Weighing heavy with the archetype of the Western Genre, Kurosawa reinterprets the dynamic in 19th Century feudal Japan. While its debatable such a small Japanese village could harbor rival gangs of such murderous intent, the true enigma of the film is the mysterious Ronin Sanjuro. His motivations are mercurial, his turned conscience uncharacteristic. While a great film, its biggest fault may be Kurosawa's need of the film's amoral anti-hero to forcible assume a typical High Noon archetype. But whatever, Sanjuro's a cinematic badass, and that's pretty cool.

Download: 263 Yojimbo