Film Noir

With this week's episode, we offer a long overdue thanks to Patreon stalwart and regular guest star Gavin McDowell, who once asked Tim, Carrie, and Rob to share their thoughts on the wonderful cinematic form known as film noir. We were never to make that happen, but this is the next best thing: Gavin himself joins Tim to chat about the history, style, and classification of noir, along with fellow guest star Zev Burrows. Topics discussed include the ethically queasy appeal of the vicious women of noir, the difference between nihilism and cynicism, and whether either "film noir or "Alfred Hitchcock" can be reasonably described as film genres. In addition, for our movie roundtable, Zev catches up with the Jean Cocteau/Jean-Pierre Melville collaboration Les Enfants terribles, Gavin patches a terrible oversight by finally seeing Billy Wilder's The Apartment, and Tim shares his thoughts on British plays for television such as 1987's Road, his assignment from Patreon supporter David G.