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“Electric Shadows” Film Chat

Spencer and Yimi Zhao-Williams 7 Episodes Jun 19, 2026

A conversational podcast where hosts Spencer and Yimi Zhao-Williams chat about movies, playfully referencing the Chinese term for film (“电影” literally meaning “electric shadow”). Beyond cinema, the show touches on a variety of other topics. It feels like a casual chat room for film lovers and beyond.

Episodes

Ep 7 | Paprika — The Film That Out-Inceptions Inception Jun 19, 2026 00:38:08 Final episode in the Satoshi Kon mini-season. Yimi and Spencer close out the trilogy with Paprika (2006) — a team of psychiatrists invents a device, the DC Mini, that lets people enter each other's dreams. When the devices are stolen, dreams begin merging with reality and the boundary holding the city together starts to collapse.They talk through the Inception comparison everyone makes, why animat

Ep 6 | Millennium Actress, Satoshi Kon Trilogy Jun 13, 2026 00:47:03 Satoshi Kon mini-season, episode two. Yimi and Spencer discuss Millennium Actress (2002) — a documentary crew visits a reclusive former actress, and her memories pull them inside the films she made across a lifetime. If Perfect Blue was about identity written by others, this one is about identity written by desire.They cover the key and what it actually unlocks, the Sisyphus reading of the final l

Ep 5 | Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon Trilogy Jun 3, 2026 00:59:09 Perfect Blue and Parasocial Horror: Kicking Off an Electric Shadow Satoshi Kon Mini-SeasonElectric Shadow hosts Yimi and Spencer begin a three-episode Satoshi Kon series by discussing Kon’s 1997 film Perfect Blue, following their prior episodes on Linklater’s Before Trilogy. They outline the plot about Mima, a former pop idol transitioning into acting, and frame the film’s dense themes: idol cultu

Ep 4 | 'Before' Trilogy, Before Sunrise May 26, 2026 01:11:31 Electric Shadow Discusses Linklater’s Before SunriseHosts Yimi and Spencer introduce their podcast Electric Shadow, which focuses on long conversations about films rather than reviews, and discuss Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise while watching the trilogy backwards. They compare their first and current viewings, focusing on Jesse and Celine’s immediate mutual attraction, naturalistic dialogue,

Ep3 | 'Before' Trilogy, Before Sunset May 18, 2026 00:57:52 For our third episode, we're in the middle of the trilogy and the middle of the afternoon, in Paris, in real time.Before Sunset (2004) gives Jesse and Céline one hour and a half. They haven't seen each other in nine years. He has a flight to catch. They walk.We watched this one already knowing where they end up — which changes everything. This is the most rewatched film of the three for bo

Ep2 | 'Before' Trilogy, Before Midnight May 5, 2026 00:59:58 We started Electric Shadows with the toughest film in the trilogy.Before Midnight is the third Linklater Before film — the one most people find difficult to sit with. Jesse and Céline are together now, in Greece, with kids and years of accumulated life between them. The romance of Before Sunrise is long gone. What's left is something more honest, and more uncomfortable to watch.We rewatched th

Ep1 | Night Is Short, Walk on Girl Apr 28, 2026 00:50:54 For our first episode, we picked the movie that — between the two of us — has the strangest origin story.Night Is Short, Walk on Girl (Masaaki Yuasa, 2017) follows one unnamed girl through a single night in Kyoto — a drinking contest with a possibly immortal old man, a used book fair with a god who hates auction prices, a guerrilla theater with a playwright who won't change his pants, and a co

“Electric Shadows” Film Chat

Episodes

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