Four Favorites with Jack’s Facts: Dog Day, Mike Leigh, La La Land and the midway Top 25

Give us a cuddle, Maurice! Letterboxd head of platform content Jack Moulton, the man behind The Letterboxd Show’s “Jack’s Facts”, joins hosts Slim and Gemma for a chat about our favorites of the Top 25 films of 2022 so far and Jack’s four Letterboxd faves: Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies, Matthieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, and the movie that did not win the 2017 Oscar for Best Picture, Damien Chazelle’s La La Land.

Plus: attractive sweaty Al Pacino, how lockdown helped Jack complete several film circles, long film runtimes, heist movies, what our hostage demands would be (fried chicken all the way), the healing power of a cup of tea, the “Mike Leigh Phase” of every British boy, can La Haine’s Hubert be our boyfriend, Amelie’s boyfriend’s directorial career, love across an ocean, queuing for a movie with a small bladder, musicals for people who don’t like musicals, why everyone should see Blinded by the Light, and could “It was fine” be the worst movie-critic burn ever? Here’s to the ones who dream!

Lists and links
The Letterboxd list of films mentioned; Letterboxd’s Top 25 Highest Rated for first half of 2022, Dave’s Official Top 250 Narrative Feature Films, Darren’s Letterboxd’s Top 250 Horror Films, Jack’s Women Directors: The Official Top 100 Narrative Feature Films and Official Top 250 Documentary Films.

Tsai’s Films I would like to show to my mom, Steve G’s movies where a family gathering starts with subtle tension and then everything goes completely to shit, Tori’s If you like (American film) watch (foreign film) and Sour Dee’s films that are even more damaging to think of than to actually see.

Reviews mentioned
Reviews of Dog Day Afternoon by Ray, Mad, Amaya, Hallie; Secrets & Lies by Kaleb and Eely; Ashley Wells’ review of La Haine, Sam Van Hallgren’s review of La La Land.

Credits
This episode was recorded in Auckland, Los Angeles and Pennsylvania, and edited by Slim. Facts by Jack (duh!). Booker: Linda Moulton. Transcript by Sophie Shin. Theme: ‘Vampiros Dancoteque’ by Moniker.