Our first mini-episode of 2025 looks to one of director Andrew Haigh’s curated picks: Billy Wilder’s subversive farce Some Like It Hot.

We get into the unlikely modernity of Hot’s sexual politics, Orry-Kelly’s naked dresses, Wilder’s collaboration with I. A. L. Diamond, is this the greatest comedy of all time, and more.

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

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This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can now sign up for three months of free access to Galerie's streaming library, curated film lists, essays, live screenings and more at join.galerie.com.

Be thankful we did your Gladiator II homework, rewatching Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 1 (2000) with amateur Russell Crowe historian Blake Howard.

This is a Gladiator II-spoiler-free conversation: listen as we get into Crowe kissing disembodied feet, Scott’s world-building, the technology of acting, Oliver Reed’s digitized face (RIP), is anything better than practical effects, expressionism vs. historical accuracy, and more. Gladiator: a good movie.

Further reading: here’s Gladiator cinematographer John Mathieson on returning to the sequel after 24 years.

The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie: a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for 3 months of free access to essays, curated film lists, live screenings, and more at join.galerie.com.

You can find every issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room here. Holy trinity: please give us a follow, rate the pod, give a review. We’re on Bluesky at @BWDR and @BWDRPod, and welcome feedback & inquiries at podcast@brightwalldarkroom.com.

This month’s mini-episode takes us into the rich opening sequence of a pick curated by director Andrew Haigh: Nicolas Roeg’s Venetian nightmare, Don’t Look Now .

We get into Graeme Clifford’s expressionist editing, celebrating movies for grownups, the color red, non-chronology, grief, and what lies “beyond the fragile geometry of space.”

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The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, produced by Eli Sands, and edited by Buczar. Our theme music is composed by Chad.

This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up for 3 months of free access to Galerie's curated film lists, essays, live screenings & more at join.galerie.com.