Latest Afitop100 Podcast Episodes
How To Create Great Side Characters (Cutting Room Floor #196)
Film School - March 07, 2024 11:00 - 44 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsFrodo had Sam. Luke had Artoo. Harry had Ron and Hermione. Side characters are just as important to a well-told story as the main characters are. So, how do you make a great one? And what's the trap, sometimes, of a side character who's more interesting, more active than even your hero? We discu...
Secret Agent (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #19)
Film School - March 04, 2024 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsGeneral Pompellio Montezuma De La Vilia De Conde De La Rue! Peter Lorre is back, this time as a sidekick assassin who goes by the name "The Hairless Mexican," and "The General," of which he is neither. Hitch has been on a roll with his newfound focus on suspenseful fare. How does this one stac...
If You Could Travel Anywhere (Cutting Room Floor #195)
Film School - February 29, 2024 11:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsIf you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? What would top your list? Money is no object, neither is time. Dream as big as you want. Also, Josh recommends Deep Space Nine on Pluto TV and Paramount+, and Ira recommends both versions of Suspiria; the new film is on Prime, and ...
The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #18)
Film School - February 26, 2024 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsBeautiful, mysterious woman pursued by gunmen. Sounds like a spy story... Widely considered to be the first modern spy movie ever made, Hitchcock is leaning into his strengths yet again (huzzah!): murder, conspiracy, and a man on the run. This time, its Robert Donat who's world is turned upsid...
What is a Framing Device? (Cutting Room Floor #194)
Film School - February 22, 2024 20:00 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsFraming devices can be a powerful storytelling tool...but what ARE they? What is an "epistolary," or a "flashback" or an "unreliable narrator"? And whyyyy would we use them? What effect can they have on a story? We talk about it! Also, Josh recommends the animated series Justice League which i...
The Man Who Knew Too Much (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #17)
Film School - February 19, 2024 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsGoodbye for the last time. What could be more touching than that? Peter Lorre. That's the first thing to know about this movie: Peter. Lorre. Hitch teams up with his first truly enduring star, someone we still know to this day, and they're off on an adventure of spies, murders, conspiracies, a...
How Personal Should Your Story Be? (Cutting Room Floor #193)
Film School - February 15, 2024 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsWe all know the power of a personal story when we encounter one. Nothing cuts like the truth. But, turning that lens to our own work...just how personal should our own work be? Is it possible to be too personal? Sure seems like it is. By the same token, it seems even easier to not be nearly pers...
Waltzes From Vienna (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #16)
Film School - February 12, 2024 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsAnd now the polka, you worms. Hitchcock makes a musical! ...kinda. It's an operetta, which were very much in fashion at the time; a little music, a little dancing, and a love story at the center. This one centers around a highly-fictionalized version of how "The Blue Danube" was written in 19t...
What Makes A Great Hero? (Cutting Room Floor #192)
Film School - February 08, 2024 11:00 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsWho are the heroes that got under your skin, that live with you well past watching or reading the story, the heroes that changed you? Why? Why did they stick with you? And in thinking about/asking those questions, how can we apply the answers to our own storytelling? This week, we dive in on how...
Number Seventeen (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #15)
Film School - February 05, 2024 11:00 - 58 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsYa don't have to do nothin' in this 'ere house - ya stand still and things happen! Cutting to the chase here: this miiight be Hitchcock's first truly terrible film. It's a bit baffling how clumsy it is given how many films he's made before this, several of them decent, and perhaps one or two o...
What is the Best Time to Create? (Cutting Room Floor #191)
Film School - February 01, 2024 11:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsDo you have a time of day (or night) where you find that you're the most creative? What about times that are consistently free? Or have the least number of distractions? Finding a reliable pocket of your day in which you can do your creative work can be a superpower. On this episode, Josh and Ir...
Rich and Strange (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #14)
Film School - January 29, 2024 11:00 - 59 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsI want some of the good things of life... Hitch definitely tries something a little different with this one: it's a comedy drama this time--not nearly the silly farces he's tried to this point on the comedy side, and certainly nothing as dark as murder on the drama side. It's a rags to riches ...
Sympathetic or Unsympathetic Villains? (Cutting Room Floor #190)
Film School - January 25, 2024 11:00 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsThere's much ado these days about making your villain's point of view a sympathetic one. After all, everyone is the hero of their own narrative. But...what about all those villains who are just, you know, assh*les? DO you have to make your villain sympathetic??? We discuss! Also, Josh recommen...
The Skin Game (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #13)
Film School - January 22, 2024 11:00 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsWhat's gentility worth if it can't stand fire? This film is about the revolution in "Industrial Revolution." An old school landowning family finds their idyllic country world being invaded by a young-money industrialist. A feud develops. And grows. And grows until it sucks everyone down into t...
Hitchcock's Silent Era Takeaways (Cutting Room Floor #189)
Film School - January 18, 2024 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsNot everyone is aware that Hitchcock actually started making movies all the way back in Britain’s 1920s silent era. Now that we’ve watched all of those films (that are available, anyway), we take a look back and think about what we’ve learned. What takeaways can we glean, not just about Hitchcoc...
Mary (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #12)
Film School - January 15, 2024 11:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsDas ist kein Theaterstück, das ist das Leben. The 1930s were a wild era in film. The industry was exploding; there was a ton of money to be made, especially in foreign markets...if you could figure out a way to get your movie into the local language...like German! Because sound couldn't be add...
2024 Resolutions Goals & Intentions (Cutting Room Floor #188)
Film School - January 08, 2024 17:41 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsHappy New Year! Lots of fun stuff to come on the podcast this year, and for Josh and Ira personally. We talk about what the year-to-come has in store. What’s on the horizon for you?
2023 Retrospective Year In Review (Cutting Room Floor #187)
Film School - December 28, 2023 20:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsAs we turn the page on 2023, we take a look back on the last FIVE YEARS that we've done this exercise, and we consider how far we've come, and how that affects what we think of this year. It was a banner year in some ways, and a difficult one in others. We discuss what this year means for us, an...
A Muppet Christmas Carol
Film School - December 23, 2023 19:52 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsGod bless us, everyone! Jim Henson's Muppets take on the Dickens classic holiday tale of the humbug-miser who discovers that generosity is not only the way to live Christmas, but to live your entire life. Michael Caine plays Scrooge, Kermie plays Bob Cratchit, and Gonzo is our narrator...shena...
White Christmas
Film School - December 18, 2023 11:00 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsI'm dreaming of a white christmas... Kinda wild we haven't watched this classic yet. Not all old musical, romantic comedies translate to the modern era. So much has changed in how we feel about love, what is good comedy, and the holidays. AND YET...there is something absolutely magical about t...
You Are You What You Watch (Cutting Room Floor #186)
Film School - December 11, 2023 11:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsDoes what you watch, read, or listen to influence what you're creating? YES! So, is that a good thing? A bad thing? Perhaps both? What does that depend on? And how exactly does it influence our work in those ways? If that influence is tehre, SHOULD we be watching, reading, and/or listening to st...
Murder! (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #11)
Film School - December 04, 2023 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsAny answer to that, sir John??? See, now this seems like something Hitchcock: a woman is found beside a dead body with the knife that killed them in her hand. But...did she do it? One juror doesn't think so, even after agreeing to convict her. So, he launches his own investigation. Can he disc...
Lynch vs. Hitchcock: Similarities & Differences (Cutting Room Floor #185)
Film School - November 27, 2023 19:59 - 44 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsNow that we're decently far into our second filmmaker deep dive, let's take a moment to think about what we've seen thus far. What are the differences and similarities between the two of them. Are there any patterns we can see between David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock? Where to do they align, and...
Juno and the Paycock (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #10)
Film School - November 21, 2023 22:02 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsIt's miraculous. Whenever he senses a job in front of him, his legs begin to fail him. Alfred takes on the beloved (at the time) play about the Irish Civil War and modern times with this one. There's fast talking, heavy drinking, rags and riches, frivolity and tragedy, slaptstick and drama. It...
Blackmail (Silent Version) (Cutting Room Floor #184)
Film School - November 13, 2023 11:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsAs soon as we learned there was ANOTHER version of Hitchcock's Blackmail--the silent version, which was actually more popular at the time than the "talkie" version was--we knew we had to set aside the time to watch it. It's not exactly a different movie. Most of the cast is the same. Most of the...
Blackmail (Alfred Hitchcock Deep Dive #9)
Film School - November 06, 2023 11:00 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsMorning, Alice. 'Eard about the murder? The talkies have arrived! Alfred Hitchcock has the distinction of making Britain's very first. So, how does Hitch do with a full-on script, and TALKING actors? The subject certainly seems like Alfred's cup of tea. So...how does it turn out? We watch and ...
Aliens
Film School - October 30, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsGet away from her you bitch! Cameron drags us back, kicking and screaming, to the world of the Aliens. And yes, this time, there is more than one. There's a whole outpost full of them. But we have marines! Guns! Explosives! We'll be fine...right? It has the reputation of being one of those rar...
The Ring
Film School - October 23, 2023 21:52 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsBefore you die, you see...the ring Spooky season 2023 bringing the noise. US gets hit with its own version of The Ring. So, how similar is it to the Japanese version? What did they change? The movie was a sensation at the time--especially with that four-quadrant-friendly PG-13 rating...so how ...
Alien
Film School - October 17, 2023 02:15 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsIn space, no one can hear you scream. This movie. THIS. MOVIE. It's one of those unicorns--it could have been so bad, so cheesy, so forgettable. And yet, through that incredible collision of luck and execution, we got a masterpiece. HR Giger's creature design is still the scariest monster ever...
Ringu
Film School - October 09, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 25 ratingsYou will die in one week... The original. This was one of--if not THE--films that kickstarted a renaissance in Japanese (and Korean, and Hong Kong, and more) horror. Old world ghosts and curses meet new world anxieties when our protagonist Reiko finds herself sucked into the mystery of how fou...
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