Episode 9: Sean Burns (Film Critic at WBUR's The ARTery) and Jen Johans (Film Critic + Screenwriter)
About the episode:
First up, in this two-part episode, I join Staff Writer at WBUR's The ARTery and a Contributing Writer at North Shore Movies - my favourite Bostonian - Sean Burns. Sean recounts hilarious observations of Boston labourers working with Daniel Day-Lewis on the set of The Crucible, before gushing about the beauty of 90s Madeleine Stowe.
To close the episode, I join film critic and screenwriter Jen Johans to discuss symphonies of trios echoing throughout the film and the double devastation of Uncas and Alice's death.
About the show:
THE LAST (12 minutes) OF THE MOHICANS is a twelve-episode limited podcast series focusing on the climax of the Michael Mann’s 1992 epic The Last of the Mohicans. The format of the podcast, which slightly differs from ONE HEAT MINUTE, utilises the entire final twelve-minute climax of Mohicans as a portal to explore the themes of the movie, the cross-section of political apparatuses, colonial superpower wrangling, and Mr Mann’s riff on the “great American hero.” With an Academy Award-winning score from Randy Edelman and Trevor Jones, iconic performances, stunning cinematography from Dante Spinotti, a relentlessly paced script from Mann and co-writer Christopher Crowe and masterful orchestration from Mann; the film’s extended finale - triggered by the delivery of tribal justice until the credits roll - is arguably one of the greatest endings to almost any movie ever.
About the movie:
The Last of the Mohicansis adapted (and significantly altered from) James Fenimore Cooper novel, set in 1757, Mohicans follows three trappers who are inadvertently drawn into the French and Indian War when they rescue the daughters of British Colonel and their British Captain escort from an ambush. It stars Academy Award Winner Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Academy Award Winner* Wes Studi, Russell Means, Eric Schweig, Jodhi May and Steven Waddington.
ABOUT SEAN BURNS
Sean Burns is a Staff Writer at WBUR's The ARTery and a Contributing Writer at North Shore Movies. He was Philadelphia Weekly's Lead Film Critic from 1999 through 2013 and worked as the Movies Section Contributing Editor at The Improper Bostonian from 2006 until 2014. His reviews, interviews and essays have also appeared in Metro, The Village Voice, The Boston Herald, Nashville Scene, Time Out New York, Philadelphia City Paper, Movie Mezzanine, The House Next Door and RogerEbert.com.
A 2013 nominee for the National Society of Film Critics, Burns was a recurring guest on the late David Brudnoy's WBZ 1030 AM radio show, and in 2002 received an award for Excellence in Criticism from the Greater Philadelphia Society of Professional Journalists.
His writing has been called "jocular but serious, more like a 1940′s daily reporter pounding out columns on a manual typewriter than a typical 21st-century navel-gazing film critic." Meanwhile, his sisters still tell him that he "swears too much and drives like an old lady."
TWITTER: @SEANMBURNS
ABOUT JEN JOHANS
An avid film buff and three-time national award-winning writer, the only time Jen Johans ever got into trouble in school, was for talking about movies during quiet time. Jen Johans received a BA in Film Studies and was dubbed a walking movie encyclopaedia. Dedicated to sharing her love of film with others, Johans went from working on local festivals to curating and hosting a film discussion series before she launched the first version of her site Film Intuition in her final semester back in 2006. Originally devoted solely to the work of female filmmakers (hence its name), although she branched out as readership grew to cover everything from classic to modern mainstream fare, after twelve years and 2,400 pieces, Johans remains just as committed as ever to reviewing films made by women. Likewise eager to showcase foreign, arthouse, and indie titles often overlooked on other sites, when she isn't writing about or watching movies, chances are she can be found talking about them on Twitter (@FilmIntuition) where there's no such thing as quiet time.
TWITTER: @FILMINTUITION
