Four Favorites with Ana Lily Amirpour: sad cinema, hungry babies, Keanu Reeves and American Psycho

“It’s so fun to be bad.” Spooky season continues with filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour, who talks to Gemma and Slim about her four favorite films—American Psycho; Death Becomes Her; Gremlins; The NeverEnding Story—and the makings of her latest feature Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon and her episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

Plus: how Ana Lily got Keanu Reeves to sport a ’stache (and why he paid for his own wig in The Bad Batch), the saddest scene in all of cinema history, the deep and psychedelic qualities of Everything Everywhere All at Once, crushing on Atreyu, how to care for your psychic health when you are a filmmaker, how Mary Harron nailed her American Psycho adaptation, the story behind the gorgeous poster for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Gemma’s love for Kate Micucci, Slim’s love for Kate Hudson, Ana Lily’s love for hard lighting, why we’ve been watching movies all wrong, the intelligence of comedians, making sure there are snacks in the story, walking red carpets with your dog, the genius of Robert Zemeckis, peak Rossellini, and is Gizmo a symbol of consumerism or cinephile pin-up? #hopefordweebs

Lists & Links:
The Letterboxd list of films mentioned in this episode. Rachel’s “Movies I wanna show my kids”. Yazz’s “When you’re feeling a little lost”. Josiah’s “The filmbro watchlist” (aka the gaslighter’s bible). Etsy’s “red flag for men, white flag for women”. Cult Girls - Jack’s interview with Guinevere Turner

Reviews:
The NeverEnding Story by Danny, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon by Jon Williams, Gremlins by Willow McLay.

Credits:
This episode was recorded in Los Angeles, Auckland and Pennsylvania, and edited by Slim. Facts by Jack. Booker: Brian Formo. Transcript by Sophie Shin. Art by Samm. Theme: ‘Vampiros Dancoteque’ by Moniker. The Letterboxd Show is a TAPEDECK production.