Trylove

Welcome back to the Golden Barrys, our annual awards ceremony, now in its seventh iteration! Jesus, really? Yeah, our first one was at the end of 2019, so I guess that lines up. Huh. It’s an annual literal roundtable deliberation to decide the best and Barriest movies we saw this year at or through the Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It’s also one of the most fun episodes to make because we really get to wax poetic about how much this podcast and the people who listen to it mean to us, so we hope you enjoy! References: Literally every episode we recorded in 2025 Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Show art by Emily Csuy. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Times

A retread of GOODFELLAS (1990) or a nastier, meaner take on a life of crime? Our discussion (a rare in-person recording of CASINO looks inward, at the performances, embarrassments, and broken hearts that define it, and outward, at how this movie left its mark on the middle period of director Martin Scorsese’s career — and gave Sharon Stone what might be her best film role. References: “NERVOUS IN THE DESERT: Elizabeth Street alienation in Martin Scorsese’s Casino” by Ben Tuthil for Perisphere, the Trylon blog Trylove Episode 294: GOODFELLAS (1990) with Dan Nagan Trylove Episode 178: BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999) with Charlie Mackin Trylove Episode 76: AFTER HOURS (1985) “Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog #SharonStoneDoesn’tCareWhatYouThink #35mm Follow us on Twitter at @trylovepodcast, Bluesky at @trylovepodca.st, and email us at tryl

Sam Raimi’s wild-ass Western has his signature style all over it, but from a certain perspective, it’s really Sharon Stone’s vehicle: As star and producer, she reportedly got both Raimi and Leonardo DiCaprio attached to the project, and she even contributed to creative elements like costuming and plot. What a lady! THE QUICK AND THE DEAD was critically divisive when it came out (despite an all-star cast including Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, and Keith David), and we weren’t much more unified in 2025: We’ve got a variety of opinions on if the ridiculous plot gets too much in the way of a real story, what the value of a good gag is in otherwise well-charted cinematic waters, and whether or not the whole thing even holds together. References: “The Masterpiece that Almost Was: The Quick and the Dead” by Ryan Sanderson for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “The Family Stone: How Sharon Stone’s Vision Shaped The Quick and the Dead” by Courtney Kowalke for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “Lance Henriksen Interview

Content warning: This discussion includes references to sexual violence. BASIC INSTINCT superfan and longtime Trylon volunteer Kelly Krantz says it is “THE erotic thriller.” And she’s probably right! But what makes the tale of Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) and her quarry, Nick Curran (Michael Douglas), the ultimate in a genre defined by extremes and titillating taboo? We’re here to find out! Our discussion digs into the essential Paul Verhoeven-ness of BASIC INSTINCT, the true motivations of the two headstrong leads, who’s really the victim in their psychosexual mind games, and then close with some skunk trivia (in fitting with a “you know it smells crazy in there” motif). Find Kelly… On Twitter at @kransekage_ On Letterboxd at @luckyhoss On Trylove episodes: WINGS OF DESIRE (1987), ARREBATO (1979), PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974), REVOLVER (1973), THE DOOM GENERATION (1995), THE NIGHT PORTER (1974), REMEMBER MY NAME (1978), PLAY IT AS IT LAYS (1972), OUTLAND (1981) References: “Male Hysteri

The Trylon’s 2025 series on the films of HAUSU (1977) director Nobuhiko Ōbayashi comes to a close, and with it our episodes on one of the podcast’s favorite filmmakers… for now, anyway. The series ends with THE ISLAND CLOSEST TO HEAVEN, an often overlooked gem in Ōbayashi’s significant catalogue about Mari (Tomoyo Harada), a young girl who travels to New Caledonia in search of a legendary island her father (Yukihiro Takahashi) told her about before his early death. Instead of the mythical island, Mari finds inhabitants like Taro (Ryōichi Takayanagi) with similar stories to hers: Loves lost, grief that’s filled the gap, and a hope for something new from what remains. References: Trylove Episode 150: THE GREEN RAY (1986) "Memories of Summer," Harry Mackin's essay on HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND (1986) for Perisphere, the Trylon blog Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets C

With Kris Montello! Just as star student Yuka (Hiroko Yakushimaru) awakens to her otherworldly powers (and her feelings for kendo athlete Koji [Ryôichi Takayanagi]), Venusian imperialist Kyogoku (Toru Minegishi) issues an ultimatum: Use her powers to force the universe into conformity and order or be flattened with the rest of it. When Yuka refuses the call, Kyogoku instead enlists transfer student Michiru (Masami Hasegawa) and begins his conquest with the student body at Yuka’s school. It goes without saying that SCHOOL IN THE CROSSHAIRS is a visual feast. But no matter how ‘out there’ it gets, inside every Nobuhiko Ōbayashi film is an incredibly human heart animating its zanier flair. That’s what we’re here for! Find Kris… At krismontello.com On Letterboxd at DHCKris On Twitter at kris_montello On Bluesky at krismontello.bsky.social At the the Asian-American International Film Festival On Trylove episodes about SAMURAI REINCARNATION (1981), AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON (1962) References:

It doesn’t take long for DOWN BY LAW to switch modes, from a grimy, somewhat self-serious noir to an acerbic, straight-faced prison break comedy. Radio DJ Zack (Tom Waits) and low-rent pimp Jack (John Lurie) share a cell in Louisiana after being framed for separate crimes. Instead of really coming together, they both kinda stick to their tough guy personas until Roberto (Roberto Benigni), a silly Italian manslaughterer, makes them an unlikely trio. References: “The Breathless Loitering of Down By Law” by Ryan Sanderson for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “The Lyrical Loneliness of Down By Law” by Jackson Stearn for Perisphere, the Trylon blog "Memories of Summer" — Harry Mackin's essay on HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND for Perisphere, the Trylon blog Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog #TomWaitsForNoMan #35mm Follow us on

Republished 11/16/2025 (originally published on April 19, 2020, as "'Trylove in the Time of Corona' Episode 4") In April 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, HAUSU (1977) director Nobuhiko Ōbayashi passed away from lung cancer. With the Trylon closed for public safety, we took the opportunity to diverge from our typical format and cover one of the director's least-seen films: HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND. The film eventually played at the Trylon in November 2025 during an Ōbayashi film series, so we've republished our original episode to mark the occasion. The original description is as follows with updated credits and references. In honor of Nobuhiko Obayashi's passing on April 10, we're discussing HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND (1986), the director's summery teen romance that does what all good teen movies do: it makes you want to trek the Japanese countryside on a Kawasaki motorcycle. Less outrageous but no less pointed than Obayashi's seminal HAUSU (1977), HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND is stil

In Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s time-traveling teen movie, there’s nothing to be fixed about the past. After staying late at school one day to help clean up, Yoshiyama (Tomoyo Harada) sniffs the wrong lavender potion in the chem lab and gets caught in a time loop. (Whom among us?) As she gains awareness of her new ‘ability’(?), she sometimes helps her friend Goro (Toshinori Omi) stay out of danger; but most of the time, she spends the extra time growing increasingly conflicted about her growing feelings about her childhood friend Fukamachi (Ryōichi Takayanagi). Its lack of focus on science fiction is just one of the ways THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME is unlike other time travel movies. It’s got the characteristic Ôbayashi touch, veering between overwhelming sincerity and knowing absurdity, depending on how he wanted his audience to feel. In this episode, we discuss how Ôbayashi put his own spin on Yasutaka Tsutsui’s original novel, how to make young people nostalgic for things they’ve never experienced for themselve

Robert Butler’s NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER is not what the title makes it sound like. It sounds like some kind of bizarro New York neo-noir fairytale, like STREETS OF FIRE (1984) or AFTER HOURS (1985), but it’s far more grounded than that: An ex-cop (James Brolin)’s daughter (Abby Bluestone) is kidnapped by a troubled New Yorker with a grudge against the developers who razed the Bronx neighborhood where he grew up. Problem is, that guy? The Juggler (Cliff Gorman)? He went and grabbed the wrong guy’s little girl! Anyway, absolutely zero juggling takes place in its 100-odd minutes. Instead, it’s a fascinating display of the Big Apple at the end of the ‘70s — an odyssey from Central Park to the South Bronx — replete with mouthy cabbies (Mandy Patinkin), roving gangs in flamboyant fits, Dan Hedaya with a shotgun, porno peep shows, harried lieutenants, violent gentrification, and virulent racism. Join us on our journey across DA GREATEST CITY ON OITH as we discuss the simple joys of a simple protagonist, how much sympat

It’s the big kahuna of demonic possession movies, and honestly, a big fish in the pond of horror cinema in general: THE EXORCIST remains an absolute stone-cold classic more than 50 years after its release. Harry even wrote a Perisphere blog about seeing it as a lapsed Catholic! But how does it stay dreadful when nothing scary is happening? Why is it important that Chris MacNeil is an actress by trade? If Lankester Merrin is Batman, does that make Pazuzu the Joker? All that and more, plus a ghostly appearance from THE EXORCIST superfan Blake Hester (@metallicaisrad)! References: “Fear in a Handful of Dust: Hell, Faith, and Will in The Exorcist” by Harry Mackin for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “The Mesmerizing Horror of Essentially a Single Room Set in The Exorcist” by Allison Vincent for Perisphere, the Trylon blog Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog #Nixonlan

Wicker Dan the Birthday Man is back to specifically NOT talk about the bees! THE WICKER MAN isn’t the folk horror you’d assume based on the movies it inspired (including the 2006 remake). It’s more about a square who just can’t hang, the free-loving society he invades, and the reveal that maybe that society isn’t so free, after all. Find Dan… On Twitter at @aDapperDanMan On Bluesky at @adapperdanman.bsky.social On Letterboxd at @aDapperDanMan On his podcast about movies, Everything We Learned On Trylove episodes about RONIN (1981), FACE/OFF (1997), MANDY (2018), EDGE OF TOMORROW (2013), GOODFELLAS (1994), BARBARIAN (2022), DEMOLITION MAN (1993), HEAVENLY BODIES (1984) On Stoop Kidz! A Hey Arnold! Podcast References: “The Wicker Man: The Sources for an Insular Folk Horror” by Sophie Durbin for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “Totally Folked Up: Sex, Song, and Sacrifice in The Wicker Man” by Jay Ditzer for Perisphere, the Trylon blog Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket pr

Content warning: This episode contains discussions of sexual violence, including as depicted in ROSEMARY’S BABY and as perpetrated by director Roman Polanski. We’re jazzed to welcome Louis Gagnon, a Trylon volunteer and fellow film fella, to continue our coverage of NixonLand at the Trylon! ROSEMARY’S BABY is rightly considered one of the greatest horror movies ever made, weaving the story of a woman envisioning herself as a mother with the unctuous interlopers who would usurp her uterus for unseemly uses. Find Louis on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/PikedDogfish/ References: “Rosemary’s Baby: The Anatomy of a Satanic Impregnation Scene” by Sophie Durbin for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “‘This is no dream! This is really happening!’: Rosemary’s Baby’s Horrific Reflections of Female Subjectivity in 1968 and Present-Day America” by Jillian Nelson for Perisphere, the Trylon blog Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcoming series,

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is one of the most important American movies ever made. There, we said it! It’s hot, it’s gross, it’s tense, and it’ll test your patience — Tobe Hooper’s cult classic set the table for literally every slasher movie ever made, but it still holds its own among the horror heavy hitters in any generation since. On this episode, the Boys (each with varying degrees of familiarity with the series) discuss the main themes of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, the morbid beauty of American decline, Nixon, and dinosaur parts. References: “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Hippie Road Trip Masterpiece (Film as a Self-Care Text About How It’s Totally Fine to Go No Contact With Your Family)” by Phil Kolas for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “Massacre for Sale: Houses on the Market Right Now That Look Like the House from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” by Ben Jarman for Perisphere, the Trylon blog Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcom

Mann boy Tony Wagner returns to discuss another “compromised” movie! Eerie, violent, and hacked to bits by the studio, the supernatural horror mystery THE KEEP would be an oddity in any director’s career. In a remote Romanian village during World War II, Nazis (Jürgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne) occupy a foreboding stone citadel feared and revered by the locals (Robert Prosky, W. Morgan Sheppard). Tempted and terrorized by an unknowable presence inside, they relocate a Jewish historian (Ian McKellen) and his daughter (Alberta Watson) from a concentration camp to uncover its secrets. Also, an altogether average and unremarkable Greek gentleman (Scott Glenn) arrives to make sure things don’t get too out of hand (he is measurably less than successful). Originally planned as a 3.5-hour epic, Paramount Pictures demanded cut after cut until audiences were left with a kind of incomprehensible 98 minutes of… something. As a result, Michael Mann has all but disowned THE KEEP, leaving behind a weird, complex monolith to h

Robert Aldrich’s iconic ensemble action movie is brimming with testosterone, redemption arcs, and more little gags than you would probably guess. Lee Marvin uses 12 no-hope inmates’ basic distrust of authority as glue to bind them, wind them up, and whips them into Nazi-slaughtering shape on a suicide mission. For some, freedom and redemption hang in the balance; for others, nothing much at all. Let’s take it apart: Its struggle to balance so many Guys, cynicism about who really wins wars, why the hell Maggott is even here, the crappy TV sequels, and more. References: Actor Jack Palance Won’t Play Racist for $141,000 (Jet, March 10, 1966) “What are We, Some Kind of Dirty Dozen?” by Finn Odum for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “The Dirty Dozen: Your Dad’s Favorite Movie Before FOX NEWS Got To Him” by Phil Kolas for Perisphere, the Trylon blog Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy tickets Contribute to Perisphere,

Hal Ashby’s Navy comedy-drama THE LAST DETAIL is pretty straight on paper: Young seaman Larry Meadows stole from a charity favored by the boss’s wife, and longtimers Billy "Badass" Buddusky and Richard "Mule" Mulhall are his ferrymen to the prison where Meadows will spend the next eight years of his life (or maybe six). Before they get there, Badass and Mule are determined to show Meadows one last good time. Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, and Randy Quaid power through a drunken odyssey trying to forget their destination — and the lives waiting for each of them after the deed is done. It’s a hugely funny, heartfelt movie that still manages to be a classic ‘70s bummer. In this discussion, we delve into the different classes each of the leads represent, the escapades they use to distract themselves, their earnest yearning to leave an impact on each other, and their doomed efforts to change a foregone conclusion. References: Upcoming Cult Film Collective screenings at the Trylon, dedicated to pr

With special guest Luke Mosher (@TinyPlanetsPod)! TOP SECRET! was the product of creative struggle. Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker’s creative engines were tapped after their breakout hit AIRPLANE! (1980), and its box office performance left something to be desired. But today, its impact is measured in more important ways — like its unmatched commitment to a good bit, how well it set up Val Kilmer for Hollywood, and how fucking funny that singing horse gag still is. In this episode, we talk about our favorite jokes from TOP SECRET!, the unique relationship between the creators and the viewer, why Val Kilmer is the perfect vessel for a ridiculously incongruous character, and how fucking funny that singing horse gag STILL is. Find Luke… On Twitter at @tinyplanetspod On Letterboxd at @soharborcoat On Perisphere, the Trylon blog, including “You Must Have Done Something: Orson Welles’ The Trial” and “Waiting for Something to Happen: György Fehér’s Twilight” On the Trylove episode about THE EMPIRE STR

In PATTERNS, engineer-turned-executive Fred Staples is excited to start his new job at the big firm that acquired his factory. But before long, he realizes he’s being groomed to replace Bill Briggs, a friendly long-timer who’s lost favor with the cruel CEO, Walter Ramsey. Rather than fire Briggs, Ramsey sabotages and humiliates him in an effort to force his resignation — and make the reticent Staples his new right-hand man. Here, we discuss the psychological dynamics of postwar workplace dramas, the headtrip stylings of Rod “The Twilight Zone” Serling’s script, the shifting balance of power in 20th century American labor, and what kind of person our protagonist becomes — and who he THINKS he’s become — by the time the credits roll. Then, our friends and former guests write in with their burning questions about the podcast! References: Watch PATTERNS on the Internet Archive Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to increase ticket prices! Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy

That’s right — three of your favorite boys talkin’ BOY! A preteen boy living on the streets of Tokyo pulls scams to provide for his dysfunctional family. It takes a toll on his body and his mind: He and his stepmom take turns throwing themselves in front of moving vehicles and extorting innocent motorists by threatening to go to the police. The scores keep getting bigger and the opportunities keep shrinking until it seems there’s no way out of the vicious cycle — not with a wounded vet for a dad, a toddler to care for, and another baby on the way. In this episode, we tug at threads about growing wealth disparities during Japan’s “economic miracle,” the boy’s internal fantasies and external realities, and where in the world our friend Aaron Grossman went. References: “Young Boy, Old Soul” by Terry Serres for Perisphere, the Trylon blog “The Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast” by Maureen Turim from University of California Press Give to the Trylon’s Film Forever Fund so they never have to