100: Old Joy with Isaac Feldberg

Phil and Emily are joined by critic and editor Isaac Feldberg to continue their Richard Kelly Reichardt mini-series with Kelly Reichardt's quiet breakthrough, Old Joy (2006). Isaac edits at Letterboxd Journal and writes for RogerEbert.com and Fangoria, and as a former Eagle Scout, he might be the perfect guide to a movie about two guys going camping.

Made for roughly $30,000 and shot in the forests east of Portland, Old Joy follows old friends Kurt (Will Oldham) and Mark (Daniel London) on a weekend trip to a hot spring deep in the Cascades. Almost nothing happens, and somehow everything does. It became Reichardt's calling card, earned rapturous reviews including four stars from Roger Ebert, and announced one of American cinema's most quietly essential filmmakers.

The gang gets into why Reichardt remains a beloved secret, the kind of filmmaker fans swear will one day get a Criterion box and a wave of "how did we not know about this?" They dig into the ache underneath the film's radical simplicity, the suspense of a friendship that can't quite say what it means, the tender and unspoken queerness running through it, and why these two men sound less like a Richard Linklater hangout and more like real life. Plus Lucy the dog, "the John Cazale of canine performers," the perfect Old Joy double feature, and the image of a slug on a mossy boulder that Ebert never forgot.

Why do we remember the small moments more than the big ones? Old Joy has a few answers. Come sit with it.

Follow the show & guests:

Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits

Phil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove

Emily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams

Isaac Feldberg —https://www.instagram.com/ijfeldberg

💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.