The Film Comment Podcast

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Sebastián Silva Jan 22, 2018

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In this Film Comment Podcast transmission from Park City, Sundance regular Sebastián Silva discusses his latest film, Tyrel, which had its world premiere on Saturday. Shot in anamorphic handheld by the DP of Post Tenebras Lux and The Florida Project, Alexis Zabe, the film follows Tyler (Jason Mitchell) as he accompanies his friend Johnny (Charlie Abbott) to a weekend birthday retreat in upstate New York. There, Tyler finds himself the only black person among a pack of heavily drinking white bros, with Caleb Landry Jones and Michael Cera among them. Silva chats with FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold about leaving the story open enough to allow for ambiguity, liberal white guilt, and certain nuances that might jump out at American audiences. The Film Comment Podcast from Sundance is sponsored by Autograph Collection Hotels.

Sundance 2018: Day Five Jan 22, 2018

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As the first weekend of Sundance comes to an end, FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold and Eric Hynes, FC contributor and Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image, discuss the white privilege and bacchanalia of Sebastián Silva’s disorienting Tyrel, Ethan Hawke’s biopic of heavy-drinking country singer/songwriter Blaze Foley, Gustav Möller’s gimmicky debut thriller The Guilty, and the joyousness and charm of Sandi Tan’s first-person Singapore-set documentary Shirkers. The Film Comment Podcast from Sundance is sponsored by Autograph Collection Hotels.

Sundance 2018: Day Four Jan 21, 2018

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It’s day four and we’re still going strong! In this episode, Nicolas Rapold, FC Editor-in-Chief and Eric Hynes, FC contributor and Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image, discuss the social media hell of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, Craig William Macneill’s ascetic biopic of Lizzie Borden, the vampirism of Sundance, and the economic unhappiness of Paul Dano’s Wildlife. The Film Comment Podcast from Sundance is sponsored by Autograph Collection Hotels.

Sundance 2018: Day Three Jan 20, 2018

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It’s Sundance, day three! On this (snowier) edition of our daily Sundance 2017 podcast, FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold and Eric Hynes, FC contributor and Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image, discuss three more films—Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening, and Stephen Laing’s Crime + Punishment—with a word or two for Reinaldo Marcus Green’s New York triptych Monsters and Men. The Film Comment Podcast from Sundance is sponsored by Autograph Collection Hotels.

Sundance 2018: Day Two Jan 19, 2018

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It’s Sundance, day two! On this edition of our daily Sundance 2017 podcast, FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold and Eric Hynes, FC contributor and Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image, discuss three new films—Tamara Jenkins’s Private Life, Maxim Pozdorovkin’s Our New President, and Elan and Jonathan Bogarin’s 306 Hollywood—as well as the weather and the experience of moviegoing at this unique festival. The Film Comment Podcast from Sundance is sponsored by Autograph Collection Hotels.

Sundance 2018: Day One Jan 18, 2018

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Before the madness begins, Film Comment kicks things off with a glimpse of what to expect from the hectic experience that is the Sundance Film Festival—how it sets the tone for the coming year and what it means to cinema lovers. Join Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold and Eric Hynes, FC contributor and Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image, every day during the festival at noon. They will discuss what they’ve seen, what they hope to see, and everything in between. The Film Comment Podcast from Sundance is sponsored by Autograph Collection Hotels

Good Soundtrack, Bad Movie Jan 16, 2018

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“Can a meretricious, inane movie with nothing else to recommend it produce a radiant, rousing film score?” asks Gary Giddins in “Rolling Thunder,” the January/February 2018 edition of Film Comment‘s “Playing Along” column. “Very rarely,” he answers. Although Giddins isolates Franz Waxman’s score for Taras Bulba as a specific example, the guests on this week’s episode of the Film Comment Podcast each provide a couple more, which led to reminiscences about genre sampler OSTs, unlikely pop music cues, and whether or not Steven Spielberg’s idea of humor is just…shouting. For this conversation, FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca is joined by Tom Scharpling, host of The Best Show, and frequent FC contributors Margaret Barton-Fumo and Nick Pinkerton.

Phantom Thread Jan 09, 2018

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“In Paul Thomas Anderson’s work, love can be—quite literally—a miracle,” writes Sheila O’Malley in her January/February 2018 Film Comment cover story, “Love, After a Fashion.” “People are scarred by life, their emotional resilience decimated by disappointments and neglect. But sometimes love is offered and, as Blanche DuBois says, famously, in A Streetcar Named Desire: ‘Sometimes—there’s God—so quickly!’ That’s the redemptive romantic journey of Phantom Thread, where Reynolds says to Alma at one point that she may very well keep his ‘sour heart from choking.’” Of course, Phantom Thread is no familiar story of redemption through romance. O’Malley joins FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca on this week’s Film Comment Podcast to discuss its beguiling, and even radical, twist on a love story.

Reckoning With Misogyny Jan 02, 2018

Show notes

Stories about Harvey Weinstein’s misconduct and cover-ups have opened the floodgates of revelations about other figures in the entertainment industry and beyond. Victims have finally been able to come forward and be heard, while the #metoo movement has fueled conversation and action, amidst an Internet outrage machine that can cheapen dialogue. In this episode of The Film Comment Podcast, Digital Producer Violet Lucca was joined by Molly Haskell, author of the landmark 1974 text From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies and regular critic to Film Comment; Monica Castillo, the film writer for The New York Times’s Watching; and Aliza Ma, head programmer at the Metrograph Theater, for an in-depth conversation about the implications of this historic moment. Purchase our feminist film anthology in our app: https://reader.filmcomment.com/contents_page/table-of-contents-feminist-film/pugpig_index.html

Steve Bannon (Most Popular of 2017) Dec 26, 2017

Show notes

As filmmaker and critic Jeff Reichert put it in his January/February 2017 Film Comment feature on Steve Bannon’s documentary work, “We could dismiss Bannon as the Rainer Werner Fassbinder of shoddily made straight-to-video white supremacist documentary. But his tactics have helped put Trump in the White House, so what can we learn about Bannon or America from watching them?” This episode of the Film Comment podcast tackles that very question. Reichert, along with Chapo Trap House podcast co-host Will Menaker and FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca, looks back on Bannon’s nine films released under the “Citizens United” banner. It goes without saying that there’s a lot to talk about regarding their unlikely aesthetic sensibility (sales presentation meets Leni Riefenstahl meets Michael Bay meets Vic Berger ECUs) and their characterizations of history and reality. The panel also digs into the past 15 years of political documentary on the right and the left (hello, Adam Curtis!), including the ways in which filmmakers package narratives, fact-check their material, and consider their audiences.

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