Episode 178 – SUPER 8 / Special Guest: William Eubank at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival
Episode 178 – We get another report from the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival including an interview with director of LOVE William Eubank and some thoughts on the end to the myth of redemptive violence in the Summer blockbuster SUPER 8 are proferred.
Episode 177 – The 2011 Seattle International Film Festival / TABLOID / HOT COFFEE / X-MEN: FIRST CLASS / Special Guest Carl Spence
Episode 177 – We get Jett’s dispatches from the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival including an interview with artistic director of the fest Carl Spence and brief thoughts on Errol Morris’ TABLOID and the must-see doc HOT COFFEE.
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS: Birth of a Nation
I guess X-MEN: FIRST CLASS was set in the ‘60s to better reflect Matthew Vaughn’s thoughtless patriarchal identification, because it damn sure wasn’t about civil rights, the Cold War, liberation, or the Holocaust, weighty abstracts whittled into icons, the better for Vaughn to pretend his film has some deep, world-historical meaning
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST
It isn’t simply that I like DEAD MAN’S CHEST better than CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, that my sui generis brain chemistry arbitrarily prefers squid-pirates to skeletal specters and sexy rogues to straight-laced do-gooders, thought that’s certainly true.
Episode 176 – TREE OF LIFE / ROAD TO NOWHERE / Special Guest: Steven Gaydos
Episode 176 – Thoughts on the syrupy yet beautiful TREE OF LIFE and the mysterious and stunning ROAD TO NOWHERE; includes an interview with ROAD writer Steven Gaydos. Also discussed: STAVISKY… and REJOICE AND SHOUT.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
While the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise started with a fun, fresh take on a notoriously stale brand of box office poison, eight years and two directors later, the plastic surgery is finally catching up to it.
Episode 175 – MIDNIGHT IN PARIS / Brief Thoughts on THE HANGOVER 2, KUNG-FU PANDA 2 and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4
Episode 175 – Review of the brilliantly light and lovely MIDNIGHT IN PARIS; how THE HANGOVER 2 could have been saved and brief thoughts on KUNG-FU PANDA 2 and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4: ON STRANGER TIDES.
BRIDESMAIDS: Funny Girl
I’m shocked—shocked!—to find the big, dirty bone of contention with Paul Feig’s BRIDESMAIDS is the centerpiece gross-out scene, when whole mailing lists of people expecting a nice, polite feminist comedy were driven to conniptions
Episode 174 – THOR / BRIDESMAIDS
Episode 174 – Review of the “I’ve already forgotten if I’ve seen it” THOR and my film of the year BRIDESMAIDS. Enjoy!
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Insane, or: When the Communal Viewing Experience Goes Wrong
The Grove in Los Angeles is a lot of things to a lot of people. More precisely, it is meant to be everything to everybody. The sprawling, 575,000-square foot, open-air marketplace offers an alternative to Main Street, Costco, the Internet or any sort of reality existing beyond the confines of a price-tag. I mean no [...]
THOR: Norwegian Wood
If you only see one small-town American story with an Oedipal skeleton enveloping space and time and prehistoric beasts this summer, please, for the love of all that is cinematically holy, make it Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE, because Kenneth Branagh’s nominally Norse still-life THOR is so cosmically incompetent
Episode 173 – FAST FIVE / Special Guest: Jack Gill
In this week’s show Gareth and I mull over that great summer action film FAST FIVE and have on as a special guest an award-winning stunt coordinator from the movie Jack Gill.
Carlos Reygadas, BATTLE IN HEAVEN and the Sound of Silence
The Film Talk’s magnificent JumboChat5000 operating system, which also coughs up my lottery numbers, recently flagged up a months-old post by my comrade Tony Youngblood about cinema anima.
SCREAM 4: All About Neve
If you’re wondering what horror tropes are left for Wes Craven, Kevin Williamson, and blonde TV starlets to skewer with the resurrected corpse of the SCREAM franchise, SCREAM 4 isn’t much help.
Episode 172 – This is the End and the Beginning / YOUR HIGHNESS / Why We Do The Film Talk
In what could be our last show Gareth and I discuss the new comedy YOUR HIGHNESS and ruminate on why film criticism matters as well as the reasons behind our desire to continue reviewing, investigating, mocking and praising cinema week after week.
Episode 171 – OF GODS AND MEN / AU HASARD BALTHAZAR
In what might quite possibly turn out to be our penultimate show we talk about Gareth’s film of the year so far: OF GODS AND MEN as well as one of the greats: AU HASARD BALTHAZAR.
JANE EYRE: Bride of Rochester
For a film about a singular meeting of minds, Cary Fukunaga’s JANE EYRE is kind of undistinguished. Now, the words remain delicious morsels straight from Charlotte Bronte’s novel, and the performances (Mia Wasikwoska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, and Judi Dench) embody three-dimensions like James Cameron never dreamed of.
Sacred Monsters – Bronson v. Statham
At the height of his mid-1970s cinematic celebrity, Charles Bronson was known in movie-mad France as “Le Sacre Monstre,” or “The Sacred Monster.” It’s a strange sentiment, but an appealing one. Bronson was the archetypal action hero of the 70s, but he couldn’t seem more atypical by 21st century standards. He had a face and [...]
Episode 170 – The Secrets of Pitching with Darris Hatch / The Nashville Film Festival / Erin Buckley on NDAPEWA
In today’s show Gareth and I talk with producer and manager Darris Hatch on the secrets of pitching and Erin Buckley stops by to discuss the child produced Namibian short NDAPEWA; all part of the 2011 Nashville Film Festival.
Episode 169 – The Nashville Film Festival / BUCK / An Interview with Director Cindy Meehl / THE CONSPIRATOR
In today’s show Gareth and I talk with Cindy Meehl, the director of the Sundance and Full Frame Audience Award Winning documentary BUCK as part of the 2011 Nashville Film Festival and muse slight on Robert Redford’s new historopic THE CONSPIRATOR.
MILDRED PIERCE: A Woman’s Picture
In the grand tradition of Ingmar Bergman and Rainer Werner Fassbinder comes Todd Haynes’ television miniseries MILDRED PIERCE, which seems like a gray area for The Film Talk but such is the modern age: the difference between Michael Curtiz’ MILDRED PIERCE and Todd Haynes’ is one of degree, not kind, and if cinephilia embraces Youtube [...]
Episode 168 – Nashville Film Festival / Ursula Lawrence – Writers Guild of America East / SUBMARINE
In today’s show Gareth and I talk with Writers Guild of America East Lead Strategic Organizer Ursula Lawrence, discuss the new coming of age laugher SUBMARINE, and touch lightly on THE SLEEPING BEAUTY, 13 ASSASSINS and UNCLE BOONME WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES as part of the 2011 Nashville Film Festival.
Episode 167 – An Interview with Monte Hellman / ROAD TO NOWHERE
In this week’s show Gareth and I join director Monte Hellman to discuss his film ROAD TO NOWHERE as part of the 2011 Nashville Film Festival.
SUCKER PUNCH, CERTIFIED COPY & The Nashville Film Festival
After an exhausting week of a Disney World vacation and NOT riding the new Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios because the park closed one hour earlier than I expected, I’m back for quick reviews of SUCKER PUNCH, CERTIFIED COPY, and the 2011 Nashville Film Festival. The Belcourt’s game-changing series VISIONS OF THE SOUTH has [...]
