Ribbon of Memes

It's been over a century and a quarter since the first moving picture was committed to celluloid - the "ribbon of dreams", as Orson Welles mellifluously intoned.

And so, welcome, one and all, to Ribbon of Memes, a new podcast in which Roger Bell_West and Nick Marsh supply grateful listeners hot takes about films considered masterpieces by critics or filmgoers in general.

The rules: we choose one "masterpiece" from every year from the earliest days of cinema to our dreadful modern dystopia. Do we agree these films are classics? Are we entertained? Did we even understand what the film was trying to say? The questions are endless!*

We start in 1973 (for reasons explained in the first podcast) and progress vaguely chronologically (unless we think of another film that makes an interesting comparison to the one we have just seen, or are otherwise distracted by shiny new things).

Yes, that's right, we decided that what the world really needed was two more uninformed middle-aged white guys telling the world about media largely produced by similar people. Find out whether we were right or not herein!

*Actually, no, that's most of them.

We're also on iTunes, Spotify and Google Podcasts.

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It's a Wonderful Miracle on 34th Street 23 December 2023

Nick and Roger discuss Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

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We mentioned in passing American civil religion.

Tags: drama

  1. Posted by J Michael Cule at 01:57pm on 23 December 2023

    James Stewart stayed in the Air Force Reserves after the war and rose to be a Brigadier General in SAC: he flew B-52s. The image of 'George Bailey' delivering all out nooclear heck on the Rooskies in some alternate history is a little peculiar.

    There's a rather good and quite terrifying fantasy short story called THE CALVIN COOLIDGE HOME FOR DEAD COMEDIANS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Calvin_Coolidge_Home_for_Dead_Comedians) in which purgatory for comedians who used obscene and disrespecful jokes consists of watching IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE until they repent.

    Yes, you should watch HARVEY.

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 10:30am on 24 December 2023

    Now you've got me picturing Stewart as Major "King" Kong…

  3. Posted by Nick at 08:45pm on 24 December 2023

    I believe there’s also a short story called ‘The Last Temptation of Clarence Goodbody’. I like the title so much that I’m not sure I want to know any more.

  4. Posted by Nick at 08:04pm on 25 December 2023

    Oddbody, sorry, had a brain moment.

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