The Film Comment Podcast

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Ballad of the Coen Brothers Sep 26, 2018

Show notes

“In their films—especially Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn’t There, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, and Inside Llewyn Davis—there’s always the sense that the deck is stacked against us and that we’re the authors of our own misery, a doubly discomfiting, Camusian view that perfectly matches their aesthetic approach, an overwhelming omniscience that results in a kind of bravura melancholy,” Michael Koresky writes in his feature about Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in our September/October issue. This week, Koresky, FSLC Editorial and Creative Director, moderates a special Film Comment Podcast featuring three more Coeniacs in conversation about the brothers’ dazzling 30-year-plus body of work, from greatest hits to lesser-known ballads: K. Austin Collins, film critic at Vanity Fair; Aliza Ma, head of programming at Metrograph; and Adam Nayman, Toronto-based critic and author of the new book The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together (Abrams). The Ballad of Buster Scruggs screens on October 4 and 9 in the New York Film Festival and opens in November. And look out for our Film Comment Talks during NYFF: the Cinema of Experience on September 29, our Filmmakers Chat on October 7, and our critics' Festival Wrap about festival highlights on October 10.

Ethan Hawke Sep 21, 2018

Show notes

Our latest guest for our Film Comment Talks was Ethan Hawke. His new film Blaze, which he directed, stars in, and co-wrote, was released in August by IFC Films. In a busy year that also saw the release of First Reformed, where he played a tormented priest, Hawke took time to talk with FC stalwart Nick Pinkerton about playing characters who value authenticity and integrity. The actor-writer-filmmaker was in prime raconteur mode, in front of an enthused audience. Look out for more Film Comment Talks during the New York Film Festival and beyond!

Work / Bujalski Sep 19, 2018

Show notes

“Very rare are the movie depictions of restaurant work that evoke the mental and emotional dissonance required to get through an eight-hour shift,” April Wolfe wrote in her Film Comment review of Support the Girls. “Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls—which takes place predominantly within a topsy-turvy 24-hour period, as the manager of a T&A sports bar juggles the concerns of every needy patron and employee—portrays precisely that odd mix of knowing self-abjection and bubbling, flirtatious confidence present in real-life restaurant workers.” The portrayal of work on screen is a practically inexhaustible topic for study, but recently we dipped a toe into the discussion, with a little help. A few weeks before the fall festival glut, I joined filmmaker/critic Sierra Pettengill, author of the Chick Strand feature in our September/October issue, for an interview/discussion with Bujalski concerning Support the Girls and the challenges of depicting work on screen.

Toronto Three Sep 14, 2018

Show notes

Our Toronto 2018 podcast series comes to a close as our group gabs about Olivier Assayas's garrulous Non-Fiction, Alex Ross Perry's Her Smell, Ho Wi Ding's Cities of Last Things, and more. Guests include Aliza Ma, head programmer at Metrograph; Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of the Moving Image in New York and Film Comment columnist; leading Toronto critic Adam Nayman, a Cinema Scope and Reverse Shot contributor; and Michael Koresky, Director of Editorial and Creative Strategy at Film Society of Lincoln Center. Back to New York!

Toronto Two Sep 12, 2018

Show notes

The Toronto hit parade continues with another podcast from the festival formerly known as the Festival of Festivals. I brought together even more hearts and minds this time for another spirited chat: Aliza Ma, head programmer at Metrograph; Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of the Moving Image in New Yorkand Film Comment columnist; Nick Davis, a Film Comment contributing editor and professor of film, literature, and gender studies at Northwestern University; and Michael Koresky, director of editorial and creative strategy at Film Society of Lincoln Center. We discussed High Life, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Crossing, American Dharma, and In Fabric.

Toronto One Sep 11, 2018

Show notes

Drawn like hopeless spaceships into a black hole, Film Comment and friends are currently attending the sprawling Toronto film festival. I brought together a couple of critics willing to take time out from the buffet of movies for a spirited chat: Nick Davis, a Film Comment contributing editor and professor of film, literature, and gender studies at Northwestern University; and leading Toronto critic Adam Nayman, a Cinema Scope and Reverse Shot contributor. We discussed a number of films you may not have heard much about, and a few you have, including Fahrenheit 11/9, Graves Without a Name, Destroyer, Peterloo, and Aniara.

Venice Sep 05, 2018

Show notes

Taking a breath to look back, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by Jonathan Romney, FC contributing editor, in an undisclosed garden location at the Venice Film Festival to discuss a few of the much-anticipated headliners: Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, Laszlo Nemes’s Sunset, S. Craig Zahler’s Dragged Across Concrete, and Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria.

Great Debuts, Still Masters Aug 30, 2018

Show notes

This week on the podcast, the re-release of Terence Davies’s first full-length film, Distant Voices, Still Lives, in a new restoration, has our guests reminiscing about great debut features throughout cinema. After discussing Davies’s 1988 masterpiece, the group goes on to talk in detail about some great first features to careers that either took off or were frustratingly cut short, including a trio of Ter(r)ences and Lynne Littman. Joining in the discussion were frequent Film Comment contributors Ina Archer, media conservator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture; Michael Koresky, the Director of Editorial and Creative Strategy at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (and author of the University of Illinois Press book Terence Davies; and critic and FC contributing editor Nick Pinkerton.

The Summer of 2001 Aug 22, 2018

Show notes

This week on the podcast we head back to the summer of 2001. These days, the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop has become a way of life, though at the time that summer, we were blithely seeing movies without knowing what was to come. It was the year of Mulholland Drive but also of Rush Hour 2, a year of shifting gears into a new decade, and a formative time for many of us at the magazine. In our free and easy late-summer discussion, we’ve tried to capture what was special about the movies we were seeing at that moment, even though some of us can’t believe the movies we were seeing at that moment. For this trip down memory lane, I was joined by Aliza Ma, head programmer at Metrograph in New York, and Michael Koresky, the editorial and creative director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Locarno 2018 Aug 09, 2018

Show notes

With a playful 13.5-hour multigenre film-of-films from Mariano Llinas, an ultra-sharp new Hong Sangsoo, and an array of other experiments, the Locarno Festival this year maintained its position as a reliable source of vitality in the cinematic landscape. The 71st edition also marked an end of an era, in one respect at least, as artistic director Carlo Chatrian will be moving on to the coveted top post at the Berlinale. But there was plenty to talk about in the stimulating lineup, which has a way of trickling into other festivals of note in the coming year: already, Ray & Liz, La Flor, and Too Old to Die Young have been announced in the main slate of the New York Film Festival. In Locarno, I discussed the films on offer with regular FC contributor Jordan Cronk, founder/director of Acropolis and Locarno in Los Angeles, and one of the Locarno Critics Academy participants, Becca Voelcker, a PhD student in Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University and freelance film critic and programmer.

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