Douglas Trumbull’s space imagery in “The Tree of Life.” Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

I first met filmmaker Mike Eisenberg at a screening of Wes Anderson’s utterly delightful treasure “Moonrise Kingdom” about a month before it finally opened across the country. When it ended, Mike turned to me and said, “There’s no filmmaker other than Wes Anderson who can make A Wes Anderson Film. People have made films that look like Terrence Malick’s work, but no one makes films like Anderson.” I took that as a rather bold statement, considering Malick’s visual language is so distinctive, yet when I saw Mike’s acclaimed short film, “Stitches,” I was amazed to discover that the young Tribeca Flashpoint grad had managed to create handcrafted space imagery similar to Douglas Trumbull’s visuals in “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “The Tree of Life.” That’s merely one impressive aspect of Eisenberg’s short, a heartrending ode to childhood loss, enduring love and the ageless appeal of baseball.

Mike is the founder of Tall Tale Productions and also writes film reviews for TheMovieMash.com. On this podcast, we discuss his visually arresting work, as well as the work of various filmmakers, including Anderson, Malick and Woody Allen.

The program was produced at Columbia College Chicago. Technical producer was Rebecca Nystedt. An Indie Outlook Production.