Locked down and looking for comfort, Letterboxd editor Gemma Gracewood, London-based film and music writer Ella Kemp and LA-based musician and writer Demi Adejuyigbe explore why Paddington Bear, Donald O’Connor and Talking Heads are deeply uplifting in these strange times, nominate their favorite actors-doing-things-on-the-internet, and find film-watching solutions to the attention-span issues that come with staying home.

Links

Pixar director recommendations for children:

• All Ages
• 7 to 12 Years
• 12 Years and Over

The Letterboxd Feel-Good Showdown

Our interview with Paddington and Paddington 2 writer-director Paul King

Edgar Wright’s 100 favorite comedies

Rian Johnson’s favorite 70s movie musicals

Bright Wall/Dark Room’s crowd-sourced list of most obscure movie recommendations. Our panel’s picks:

• Angel (Ella)
• The Castle (Demi)
• Wham! in China: Foreign Skies (Gemma)

Patrick Stewart’s Sonnets

Sam Neill’s therapeutic Twitter and Instagram feeds

Demi’s food-bank donation drive

Richard E. Grant on Twitter

Art House Online—help us support art house cinemas by renting these new, recent and re-released films, and read Ella’s interview with Levan Akin, director of And Then We Danced

The panel’s feel-good picks for this week:

• Donald O’Connor’s ‘Make ’em Laugh’ dance sequence from Singin’ in the Rain (Gemma)
• Stop Making Sense (1984), Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads film (Demi)
• The Shop Around the Corner (1940) (Ella)

This podcast was recorded in Los Angeles, London and Auckland and edited by Morgan Avery. Our podcast artwork is by Ann Davenport. Leave a voice message telling us your favorite films set in big cities for our next episode, in which our West Coast editor Dominic Corry and New York correspondent Susannah Gruder will remember the recent past through movies.