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Monday September 30th, 2019 with Josh Murray and Joshua Robert Bateman
Ad Astra and the work of James Gray

It’s a week of dads and zads and ads and Brads as the Joshes dive into James Gray’s acclaimed seventh film, Ad Astra (2019). They pore over Hoyte van Hoytema’s tremendous cinematography, the merit of comparisons to Apocalypse Now (1979), the film’s dual identities as instrospective character piece and thrilling actioner, a baboon, and the complex performances from Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, and Ruth Negga. It’s a film both hosts admire but don’t adore, so they reflect on their preferred works from the Gray oeuvre. Josh M’s favourite is Two Lovers (2008), with a banner performance from Vinessa Shaw. But the hosts dive deepest into Josh B’s favourite, the historical adventure The Lost City of Z, and praise its haunting, dreamlike qualities of obsession, its subversive good use of the wife back home character, and Robert Pattinson’s transformative supporting role. There are also shouts to Little Odessa (1994), We Own the Night (2007), and The Immigrant (2013). There’s also news about other local stuff to see: The Ottawa Canada-China Film Festival for a few weeks, thoughts on Joker (2019), and the ByTowne playing Krzysztof Kieślowski‘s massively acclaimed Three Colors trilogy (1993-1994).