Episodes

So many people exhaust themselves trying to lose weight in the most inefficient way. Don’t put 95% of your effort where only 5% of the results come from. The 3 Rules of Fat Loss are where 95% of the results come from, the gurus & magazine editors can keep the other 5%. 40+ Recipe Cards are at the very bottom. This article will be updated frequently with articles, recipes, and relevant tidbits, so check back. Updated: 2/17/2020 – Added research links regarding resistance training in aiding bod...

We sing through National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation” and discuss: editing; physical comedy; story; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “What’s funny is funny. The same thing that made you laugh a hundred years ago makes you laugh now.“ – Chevy Chase Watch us on YouTube: Short Spotlight: “Threads” This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 97: National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation” appeared first on The Pestle.

We sparkle through “Twilight” and discuss: writing and story, what makes Twilight an awful movie; special guest Scott Garrett Graham; Wes maybe gets stoned on air as a coping mechanism for intellectualizing a bad movie; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.“ – Ernest Hemingway Notes & References: Scott Garrett Graham links – Instagram, Spotify, Apple Music Watch us on YouTube! Short Spotlight: This Week’s R...

We do the math on Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” and discuss: plot and subplots; performances; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “I don’t want a lot of guys like me who played the game. Quite frankly, I want blank canvases; I want people to come in with new ideas. I don’t want the biases of their own experiences to be a part of their decision-making process.“ – Billy Beane Notes & References: Peter Brand is largely based on Paul DePodesta Watch us on YouTube! Short Spotlight: “Bre...

We speed through Christian Bale’s “Ford v Ferrari” and discuss: super in-depth cinematography breakdown; writing, and keeping a story on topic; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “I woke up this morning, and I still don’t believe I won the Daytona 500.“ – Dale Earnhardt Notes & References: Gator in the water prank Ford v Ferrari BTS Watch us on YouTube! Short Spotlight: This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 94: “Ford v Ferrari” appeared first on The Pestle.

We try to recall Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and discuss: cinematography; writing and story, subtle commentary; we are joined by special guest Dr. Jennifer Sapio!!; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “I hate a movie that will end by telling you that the first thing you should do is learn to love yourself. That is so insulting and condescending, and so meaningless. My characters don’t learn to love each other or themselves.“ – Charlie Kaufman Notes & Refe...

We relive Doug Liman’s “Edge of Tomorrow” and discuss: shooting a time travel story; writing and story; cinematography, how color grading, lenses, and lighting impacted the story; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.“ – Sun Tzu Watch us on YouTube! So it looks like they shot on location and threw up a massive green screen wall. Probably much easier than building the set i...

We cackle through Joaquin Phoenix’s “Joker” and discuss: cinematography; story; performances; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn’t that give me equal right?“ – Charles Manson Notes & References: Denis Villeneuve IMDB Short Spotlight: This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 91: “Joker” appeared first on The Pestle.

We tiptoe through John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and discuss: cinematography; special effects and how they tie into the theme; building suspense; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “Horror is always the same. It changes with the culture and changes with technology. The stories are always the same. There are just two basic stories in horror, two simple ones — evil is outside and evil is in here [in the heart].“ – John Carpenter Short Spotlight (NSFW): This Week’s Recommendations: Th...

We stalk through Drew Goddard’s “The Cabin in the Woods” and discuss: cinematography; story and writing; allegory; the role of horror films in society; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “Some people ask why people would go into a dark room to be scared. I say they are already scared, and they need to have that fear manipulated and massaged. I think of horror movies as the disturbed dreams of a society.“ – Wes Craven Notes and References: The Pestle is on Patreon!! Become a Patro...

We sprint through Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” and discuss: cinematography, how the film medium affects the story; story and writing; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “Show people your stuff, listen carefully to their responses, but ultimately don’t value anyone’s opinion above your own. Be influenced by writers you dislike as well as writers you like. Read their stuff to figure out what’s wrong. Find a balance between the confidence that allows you continue, and the self-critical...

We ride through Michael Mann’s “Collateral” and discuss: cinematography, film and digital; emotionally investing in characters; challenging the characters; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.“ – Ralph Waldo Emerson Notes & References: Tom Cruise UPS Courier Coyote scene improv Short Spotlight: This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 87: “Collateral” appeared f...

We jazz-hands our way through Christopher Nolan’s “The Prestige” and discuss: writing tricks; story; the film’s real “prestige”; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.“ – Harry Houdini Short Spotlight: Todd’s sweet sweet microphone This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 86: “The Prestige” (2006) appeared first on The Pestle.

We fly through Gus Van Sant’s “Finding Forrester” and discuss: cinematography, and how lens selection affects the perception of the story; writing; story, and inciting incidents’; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.“ – J.D. Salinger, from his short story “A Girl I Knew” Notes & References: J.D. Salinger Short Spotlight: This Week’s Recommendations: The ...

We decipher Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival” and discuss: cinematography; color; story; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It’s all embodied in a language.“ – Noam Chomsky Notes & References: Lance Armstrong “The Move” podcast Lance Armstrong “The Forward” podcast “Inside Star Wars” podcast “Inside Jaws” podcast – (Wes’ note: they’ve kinda pollut...

We venture into Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” and discuss: cinematography, camerawork, and lighting; story & writing; storming the beaches in the opening scene; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “...just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel.“ – Captain Miller Notes & References: Moral Injury Maggie Rogers! – find her on Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple Music, Youtube, etc. This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 83: “Saving Private Ryan” appeared fi...

We kickpunch, blast, and stab our way through Keanu Reeves’ “John Wick 3” and discuss: world building; fighting; we interview Aaron Alexander, an actor, stuntman, and fight choreographer (“Lucifer”, “Agents of Shield”, “Dirty John”, “Threads”, et al); and other such stuff and things and stuff. “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.“ – Bruce Lee Notes & References: Follow Aaron on Instagram Aaron ...

We blast our way through James Cameron’s “T2: Judgment Day” and discuss: wardrobe; vfx; story & writing; scifi rules of time travel; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “I tend to like strong female characters. It just interests me dramatically. A strong male character isn’t interesting because it has been done and it’s so cliched. A weak male character is interesting: somebody else hasn’t done it a hundred times. A strong female character is still interesting to me because it hasn’...

We stalk our way through James Cameron’s 1984 sci-fi/horror/action film “The Terminator” and discuss: visual storytelling; fx; robots & AI; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, and he’s like, yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out.“ – Elon Musk Notes & References: The AI Minute – Youtube series about Artificial Intelli...

We drink our way through Alexander Payne’s “Sideways” and discuss: story; cinematography; performances; and other such stuff and things and stuff. “It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.“ – Heraclitus Notes & References: Wes’ vineyard mini-documentary This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 79: “Sideways” appeared first on The Pestle.

We blast into Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame” and discuss: story; theme; genre mixing; and a plethora of more things such as this. “The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.” – Friedrich Nietzsche This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 78: “Avengers: Endgame” appeared first on The Pestle.

We drift into Tom Hanks’ “Cast Away” and discuss: cinematography; story & theme; how subtext creates powerful emotions; and a plethora of more things such as this. “Black holes ain’t as black as they are painted. They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly to another universe. So if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up—there’s a way out.” – Stephen Hawking This Week’s Recommendations: The post Ep 7...

We burn through Tony Scott’s “Man on Fire” and discuss: editing; performances; writing, how writing drama for film can differ from TV; And many of the things. “There came this point where I sat down with all my notebooks and I had to start to write, when I thought: this whole notion of writing for the person who understands nothing, the average reader… He has to die! I can’t have him in my head. And so the person I started writing for was the homicide detective.“ – David Simon Notes & Referen...

We land on “Apollo 11” and discuss: cinema verite vs direct cinema; power of editing; celluloid vs digital; and a plethora of more things such as this. Clip of the Day: Notes & References: Vanity Fair article & video Space.com featurette Wiki: Direct Cinema vs Cinema Verité Todd Douglas Miller detailing cameras, footage, scanning, et al – says it’s 10-perf 70mm film capturing the close-ups of the launch (not 35mm as I supposed) Article Interview with Todd Douglas Miller Pythagoras, Anaxa...