The Film Comment Podcast

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Sundance 2025 #4: Isabelle Huppert on LUZ Jan 28, 2025

Show notes

The great French actress Isabelle Huppert is a mainstay at many international festivals, but seeing her grace the screens at Sundance in Park City, Utah was a uniquely pleasant surprise. Huppert stars in LUZ, the second feature from Hong Kong director Flora Lau, which premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at this year’s edition. The film follows two characters who turn to virtual reality to attempt to reconnect with estranged loved ones. One of them is a reformed gangster in Chongqing trying to find his daughter who was taken away from him years ago; the other is a Hong Kong gallery owner who goes to Paris to visit her stepmother (played by Huppert) who is facing a terminal diagnosis. Huppert carries the role with her typical combination of flair and subtlety, portraying a woman who faces mortality with quiet, even irreverent self-assuredness. Last week, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish chatted with Huppert about how she came to be a part of LUZ, what it’s like to communicate across language barriers on and off-screen, and how Apichatpong Weerasethakul introduced her to virtual reality. Catch up on all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

Sundance 2025 #3, with Lovia Gyarkye, Alana Pockros, and Lisa Wong Macabasco Jan 27, 2025

Show notes

It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. On today's episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by critics Lovia Gyarkye (The Hollywood Reporter), Alana Pockros (The Nation), and Lisa Wong Macabasco (Vogue) to discuss two of the best films to premiere at the festival so far—Kahlil Joseph's BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (2:45) and Mary Bronstein's If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (14:07). The group also debates Katarina Zhu's Bunnylovr (23:18), Hailey Gates's Atropia (35:40), and Charlie Shackleton's Zodiac Killer Project (46:42). Catch up on all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

Sundance 2025 #5, with Vadim Rizov and Ruun Nuur Jan 26, 2025

Show notes

It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. On today's episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker Magazine) and Ruun Nuur (co-founder of Evil Eye Cinema; features programmer at Cleveland International Film Festival) to discuss festival selections Predators (2:30), The Stringer (20:10), Khartoum (29:25), Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) (34:58), and Peter Hujar's Day (45:30). Catch up on all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

Sundance 2025 #2, with Robert Daniels and Tim Grierson Jan 26, 2025

Show notes

It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week and a half, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. Today, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish is joined by critics Robert Daniels (rogerebert.com) and Tim Grierson (Screen International, Los Angeles Times, and more) to discuss early festival selections Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore (2:35), Rabbit Trap (11:40), Twinless (25:40), and By Design (36:26). Catch up on all of our Sundance 2025 coverage at filmcomment.com

Sundance 2025 #1, with Maddie Whittle, Ruun Nuur, and Vadim Rizov Jan 25, 2025

Show notes

It’s late January, which means that the intrepid Film Comment crew is once again on the snowy slopes of Park City, Utah, bringing you dispatches, interviews, and podcasts covering all the highlights of this year's Sundance Film Festival. For the next week and a half, we’ll be gathering the best critics on the scene to talk about each day’s premieres on the Podcast. To kick things off, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish gathered Maddie Whittle (programmer at Film at Lincoln Center; FC contributor), Ruun Nuur (co-founder of Evil Eye Cinema; features programmer at Cleveland International Film Festival), and Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker Magazine) to share their responses to the films premiering during the first few days of the fest. The group discusses SLY LIVES! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) (3:07), Pee-wee as Himself (20:48), All That’s Left of You , and The Perfect Neighbor. Stay tuned for more of our Sundance 2025 coverage!

Robert Eggers on Nosferatu Jan 15, 2025

Show notes

Nosferatu, the new film by Robert Eggers, has been the talk of the movie-town since its release on Christmas Day. With his remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 classic of the same name, Eggers has become the latest auteur to bring Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula to the screen, joining a group that also includes Werner Herzog and Francis Ford Coppola. Like those before him, Eggers makes the tale of the Transylvanian vampire all his own. His Nosferatu is rooted in precise historical detail—as in his earlier films like The Witch (2015) and The Northman (2022)—while also bringing a contemporary psychodramatic sensibility to the characters, particularly Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp). On today’s Podcast, Eggers joins Film Comment Editor Devika Girish to discuss why he wanted to make Dracula “scary” again, the polarizing feminist readings of Nosferatu, and the visual restraint of the film. If you stick it out until the end, you’ll also hear Eggers share some of the movies and T.V. shows he counts as Guilty Pleasures—including a reality show featuring a “demonic masc villain.”

Mike Leigh on Hard Truths Jan 14, 2025

Show notes

A new film from Mike Leigh is always a cause for celebration. Starting with his first feature Bleak Moments in 1971, Leigh has carved out a singular place in British and global cinema for his beautifully sensitive and detailed portraits of the lives of his largely working-class characters. His latest, Hard Truths, arrives six years after his previous release, the 2018 historical drama Peterloo. The new film reunites Leigh with the great actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste, with whom he worked on the Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies in 1996. In Hard Truths, Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a middle-aged Londoner teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Perpetually unhappy, she spends her days spewing vitriol at everyone she encounters—especially her resigned husband (David Webber) and depressed adult son (Tuwaine Barrett). Only after she is confronted by her sister, played by Leigh veteran Michelle Austin, does she begin to confront the roots of her inexplicable anger. On today’s Podcast, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute sat down with Leigh to dig into his process—everything from casting actors and choosing locations to working with music composers and choosing the film’s title. A true actor’s filmmaker, Leigh works closely with his cast over months to develop characters and their backstories. What we see on screen is only, as Leigh remarked, “the tip of the iceberg.”

New Year, New Releases, with Lovia Gyarkye and Michael Blair Jan 08, 2025

Show notes

Two enigmatic icons with enduring holds on the Western imagination are currently lighting up multiplex screens: fearsome Transylvanian vampire Dracula and Nobel Prize–winning American treasure Bob Dylan. Both released on Christmas Day, Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown are ambitious efforts at crafting new and absorbing tales out of these two mainstays of pop culture. Nosferatu stars Bill Skarsgård, Lily Rose-Depp, and Nicholas Hoult in the latest adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, joining a cinematic canon established by filmmakers like F.W. Murnau, Francis Ford Coppola, and Werner Herzog. A Complete Unknown features Timothée Chalamet as the young Dylan, tracing his arrival in New York in 1961 to his set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where he famously decided to “go electric.” On this week’s Podcast, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute invited Lovia Gyarkye, film critic at The Hollywood Reporter, and FC’s very own Michael Blair (a Dylan aficionado) to debate the successes and failures of the two films—for both loyalists and neophytes of Dylan & Dracula. The group also discussed a few other Christmas Week releases, including Barry Jenkins’s Mufasa and Rachel Morrison’s The Fire Inside—and if you stay till the very end, you can also listen to their thoughts on Peter Watkins’s monumental La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000), which the Film Comment team viewed this past weekend at Anthology Film Archives. Sections: A Complete Unknown (7:25) Nosferatu (31:20) Mufasa (48:00) The Fire Inside (52:16) La Commune (Paris, 1871) (55:56)

The Best Films of 2024, with Molly Haskell and Michael Koresky Dec 13, 2024

Show notes

On December 12, 2024, as part our annual winter list extravaganza, Film Comment Editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish led a panel of special guests—Molly Haskell (critic, author), and Michael Koresky (critic, founding editor of Reverse Shot)—for a live real-time countdown of the films topping our year-end critics’ poll. The evening featured a lively discussion (and some hearty debate) about the films as they were unveiled—and now it’s here in Podcast form, for your home-listening pleasure. Consider it a holiday gift from us to you, our loyal listeners. Read the full list, plus Best Undistributed Films, individual ballots, and more, at filmcomment.com/best-films-of-2024

Holiday New Releases, with Robert Daniels and Beatrice Loayza Dec 03, 2024

Show notes

Sleepily emerging from the turkey-induced haze of Thanksgiving break and looking ahead to the barrage of Best of 2024 lists, Film Comment Editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute invited critics Robert Daniels and Beatrice Loayza to discuss some of the most highly-anticipated Hollywood blockbusters (and would-be blockbusters) of this year’s holiday season. The group convened to offer their thoughts on Steve McQueen’s Blitz (3:25), Edward Berger’s Conclave (17:00), Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II (31:56), Halina Reijn’s Babygirl (43:55), and Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 (55:53).

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