Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky

Episode 320: Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek’s kinoapparatom)

Released 30 July 2025

For this episode, we watched the 1929 experimental Soviet documentary Man with a Movie Camera, written and directed by Dziga Vertov. Our version had a soundtrack composed by Michael Nyman. For its age, it’s a relatively recent entry to the Sight and Sound list, making its first entry in 1992, making it to the top ten in 2012 and settling in ninth place in 2022. It has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Next time we will be discussing In the Mood for Love. If you want to watch it before listening to the next episode, you can buy the DVD or Blu-Ray on Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com, or you can download it via iTunes (UK) or iTunes (USA).

BEST PICK the book is available now from all the usual places, and the paperback is out now.

• From the publisher https://tinyurl.com/best-pick-book-rowman
• UK Amazon https://amzn.to/3zFNATI
• US Amazon https://www.amzn.com/1538163101
• UK bookstore https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781538163108
• US bookstore https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/best-pick-john-dorney/1139956434
• Audio book https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Best-Pick-Audiobook/B09SBMX1V4

To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas, you can join our Facebook group, email us on bestpickpod@gmail.com, or find us on Bluesky.

You can also visit our website at https://bestpickpod.com and sign up to our mailing list to get notified as soon as a new episode is released. Just follow this link: http://eepurl.com/dbHO3n.

If you enjoy this podcast and you’d like to help us to continue to make it, you can now support us on Patreon for as little as £2.50 per month.

Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky

Episode 319: Vertigo

Released 25 June 2025

For this episode, we watched the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, based on the French novel The Living and the Dead by Boileau and Narcejac and with a screenplay credited to Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor. It’s a favourite of countless subsequent movie makers and topped the 2012 Sight and Sound poll before being pushed down into second place by Jeanne Dielman in 2022.

• So-called “Foreign Censorship Ending” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xorq7mGusw
• https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/15/i-had-to-leave-hollywood-to-save-myself-kim-novak-on-art-bipolar-hitchcock-and-happiness
• Kim Novak at the Academy Awards https://youtu.be/a1t-TMhObFc?si=SqByAHgZs3UJ0E-k&t=116
• https://www.kimnovakartist.com
• 16 Postcodes with Jessica Regan (use offer code DRAMASCHOOL for a 20% discount) https://museumofcomedy.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873655309

Next time we will be discussing The Man with a Movie Camera. If you want to watch it before listening to the next episode, you can buy the DVD or Blu-Ray on Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com, or you can download it via iTunes (UK) or iTunes (USA).

BEST PICK the book is available now from all the usual places, and the paperback is out now.

• From the publisher https://tinyurl.com/best-pick-book-rowman
• UK Amazon https://amzn.to/3zFNATI
• US Amazon https://www.amzn.com/1538163101
• UK bookstore https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781538163108
• US bookstore https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/best-pick-john-dorney/1139956434
• Audio book https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Best-Pick-Audiobook/B09SBMX1V4

To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas, you can join our Facebook group, email us on bestpickpod@gmail.com, or find us on Bluesky.

You can also visit our website at https://bestpickpod.com and sign up to our mailing list to get notified as soon as a new episode is released. Just follow this link: http://eepurl.com/dbHO3n.

If you enjoy this podcast and you’d like to help us to continue to make it, you can now support us on Patreon for as little as £2.50 per month.

Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky

Episode 318: Tokyo Story

Released 28 May 2025

For this episode, we watched the 1953 Japanese classic Tokyo Story, directed by Yasujirō Ozu from a screenplay by Ozu and his frequent collaborator Kogo Noda. This film came in at number 4 on the most recent Sight & Sound critics poll and has often featured in the poll’s upper reaches as well as making strong showings in many other greatest-films-of-all-time lists. It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 100/100 on Metacritic.

• Influential Storytelling thesis https://gensoken.toyo.ac.jp/japanese-society-and-culture/vol3/iss1/2/
• 16 Postcodes https://museumofcomedy.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873655309
• https://variety.com/2025/film/awards/oscars-viewing-requirement-loopholes-1236380799/

BEST PICK – the book is available now from all the usual places, and the paperback is out now.

• From the publisher https://tinyurl.com/best-pick-book-rowman
• UK Amazon https://amzn.to/3zFNATI
• US Amazon https://www.amzn.com/1538163101
• UK bookstore https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781538163108
• US bookstore https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/best-pick-john-dorney/1139956434
• Audio book https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Best-Pick-Audiobook/B09SBMX1V4

To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas, you can join our Facebook group, email us on bestpickpod@gmail.com, or find us on Bluesky.

You can also visit our website at https://bestpickpod.com and sign up to our mailing list to get notified as soon as a new episode is released. Just follow this link: http://eepurl.com/dbHO3n.

If you enjoy this podcast and you’d like to help us to continue to make it, you can now support us on Patreon for as little as £2.50 per month, but please be aware that future releases will continue to be sporadic.