Podcasts »
The Cinematical Roundtable: Live from SXSW with Drew McWeeny and Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Thrillers, SXSW, Mystery & Suspense, Lionsgate Films, Universal, Warner Brothers, Festival Reports, Podcasts, War
Welcome to the inaugural broadcast of The Cinematical Roundtable, our latest podcast here at the site, where we'll speak with writers and readers alike about the latest in film offerings. Our first episode has Drew McWeeny of Hitfix fame and our own Scott Weinberg joining you and I on the road as we discuss March's The Haunting in Connecticut, April's Observe and Report, May's Drag Me to Hell, and June's The Hurt Locker following their respective SXSW premieres in Austin, Texas.
Please pardon our dust as we get this puppy off the ground, please brace yourself for some mild profanity, and please tell your friends. Especially that one cute redhead. She's not seeing anyone, right?
Download MP3 By Clicking Here
Sundance Interview: 'Big Fan' Writer-Director Robert Siegel
Filed under: Drama, Sundance, Festival Reports, Podcasts, Interviews
.jpg)
Robert Siegel made his directorial debut with Big Fan (reviewed by Erik Davis) at this year's Sundance Film Festival; comedian Patton Oswalt (interviewed here) stars as a lonely sports talk radio caller and New York Giants fanatic whose only love goes horribly wrong. Siegel spoke with Cinematical in Park City about his acclaimed script for The Wrestler, directing a comedian, why he's not worried about the wrath of the NFL, why Big Fan wouldn't have worked with George Clooney in the lead, and what he was hoping to explore with the film: "Sports radio can be very wonderful and joyous and spirited, but other times it can just be this forum for bitter ... it's a lot like the internet, you know? There are good blogs and bad blogs ... so in that way, (the world of sports radio) is kind of like the proto-blog, where you can just vent and take out all your frustrations ... but there's definitely this kind of angry White male hostile undercurrent to a lot of sports radio; it wouldn't be interesting to me if that was the only thing it had going for it, but that thing definitely gives it an extra layer. ... "
You can listen to the interview here at Cinematical by clicking below:
You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Sundance Interview: Director Ondi Timoner and Josh Harris of 'We Live in Public'
Filed under: Documentary, Sundance, Podcasts, Tech Stuff, Interviews
Getting ready to interview director Ondi Timoner and subject Josh Harris about the documentary We Live in Public (reviewed here) at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, I sat with my recorder and got ready with my questions as Timoner offered me a T-shirt for the film. A nice gesture, and a casual one -- but the fact that Timoner, Harris and I were being filmed at the time by a camera capturing their Sundance experience for future use turned a gracious, friendly gesture into a curiously weighted proposition: What if I didn't take it? What if I didn't want it? And how long would my reaction endure?
Revolving around Harris' spectacularly failed internet art projects Quiet and We Live in Public, Timoner's film uses Harris as a case study in the perils of our over-broadcast age and offers an examination of the numbing, overwhelming possibilities the internet offers. Timoner and Harris spoke about the film, why the subject of the film refuses to watch it, information theory and the power behind pointing a camera, plus much more.
You can listen to the interview here at Cinematical by clicking below:
You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Sundance Interview: Kevin Spacey of 'Shrink'
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Sundance, Festival Reports, Podcasts, Interviews
In Shrink, screening in the Premiere section at the Sundance Film Festival, Kevin Spacey plays a psychiatrist whose boutique L.A. office, A-list clientele and best-selling pop psychology books form a thin layer of respectability over his ruined personal life, insurmountable grief, serious pot problem and a host of other crises. Spacey developed the film with his Trigger Street production company, with Jonas Pate directing Thomas Moffet's script, and Spacey part of an ensemble cast that includes Robin Williams, Saffron Burrows, Mark Webber, Dallas Roberts and Keke Palmer. I asked Spacey if doing so many scenes revolving on just two people talking is an actor's dream, or an actor's nightmare: "As compared to? Explosions, and cars flying through the air? I think it's an actor's dream, and I also think it's an audience's dream; there's noting quite like being able to go to to a play or the cinema and watch people exchange as human beings, I think."
Spacey spoke with Cinematical about smoking fake weed, how Sundance has changed the movies, how Hollywood eats its young, his voice-over role as the supercomputer GERTY opposite Sam Rockwell in the Sundance selection Moon, and much more.
You can listen to the interview here at Cinematical by clicking below:
You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Sundance Interview: John Krasinski, Writer/Director/Actor, 'Brief Interviews With Hideous Men'
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Sundance, Festival Reports, Podcasts, Interviews
Writer, director and actor John Krasinski isn't knocking himself out trying to be cool about the debut of his film Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (which Scott Weinberg reviewed here) in the Dramatic Competition at Sundance: " Being at Sundance, I think, is the greatest honor I could ever have for this movie, truly. Sundance has always been -- before I got the show (The Office), before I came to Sundance -- it's always been to me, that place where film making is done for film lovers. There's a feeling here that people appreciate taking chances and doing bold things, and I think my cast and crew took big chances. ..." Krasinski spoke with Cinematical in Park City about adapting a seemingly unadaptable book, his respect for the late David Foster Wallace, casting Julianne Nicholson (Flannel Pyjamas) as the woman facing an army of Hideous Men, and much more.
You can listen to the interview here at Cinematical by clicking below:
You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Sundance Interview: Patton Oswalt of 'Big Fan'
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, Sundance, Festival Reports, Podcasts, Interviews
As Paul Auferio, the title character in Robert Siegel's Big Fan (which Erik Davis reviews here), Patton Oswalt didn't have a chance to fall back on the skill set he's honed through the years as one of the best stand-up comics working today: "As a comedian, your instinct is you tag everything with a joke or a look or a take; this guy, this character ... this is not one of those movies where the writer and director is looking at the characters ironically or in a post-modern sense where it's implied You all know that we're better than that, we're way smarter than this, that we're all looking down on this character, aren't we? This is a character that has no irony about himself ... and just unabashedly loves what he loves, to the detriment of having a real life. ..."
Oswalt spoke with Cinematical about the challenges facing a movie and comics obsessive in the part of playing a sports obsessive, how he sees Paul as an 'imploding" character, some of his favorite independent films and how he sees Big Fan as a tribute to some of the classic 'lonely man' dramas of the 1970's, plus much more.
You can listen to the interview here at Cinematical by clicking below:
You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Sundance Interview: Paul Giamatti, Star of 'Cold Souls'
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, Sundance, Podcasts, Interviews
Playing himself -- or, rather, a kind-of version of himself who volunteers to have his soul removed -- in this year's Sundance Dramatic Competition entry Cold Souls (see our review here), Paul Giamatti faced some fairly unique challenges: "I kind of forgot that I was playing myself in this ... I kind of felt that (director Sophie Bart) captured, in a funny way, an archetypal type of neurotic New York self-involved actor ... I kinda forgot I was playing myself; and I don't mean that to sound disingenuous about it, but I really did. ..." Giamatti spoke with Cinematical about how much he enjoyed Shoot 'Em Up, tapping into Russian melancholy for Cold Souls through facial hair and headgear and which midnight zombie film he'd most like to catch while in Park City. ...
You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:
You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Sundance Interview: 'Brooklyn's Finest' Director Antoine Fuqua
Filed under: Action, Drama, Sundance, Festival Reports, Podcasts, Interviews
Cinematical spoke with Brooklyn's Finest director Antoine Fuqua on a sunny Saturday afternoon; within hours, Fuqua's gritty police drama would have sold to Senator Entertainment, the first distribution deal made at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Of course, as Fuqua talked with Cinematical about his exemplary cast, how exactly you make a cops-and-crooks film in the wake of The Wire and the challenges of shooting in New York, the film's sale was in the future. Fuqua also defended the film's controversial final shot, even as he noted he was willing to entertain discussions about changing it; "The whole point of the movie is that they don't have the proper help in the police force, and there's a huge piece in The New York Times about more police killing themselves than dying in the line of duty that just came out a few months ago ... and when you read that, it's so sad and heartbreaking, and you go "You gotta show that. ..."
You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:
You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
The Rocchi Review with Kris Tapley of In Contention
Filed under: Awards, Podcasts, Brad Pitt, Interviews, Oscar Watch, The Rocchi Review: Online Film Community Podcast
Which year-end lists are really worth caring about? What films got a boost from the Broadcast Film Critics and Golden Globe nominations, like Happy-Go-Lucky, and which ones got lost in the shuffle? What's Iron Man doing on the AFI Top Ten Films List, anyhow? And what long, epic films are perfect for enjoying with a turkey sandwich on Boxing Day? Joining James this week to talk about all these topics and more is Kris Tapley of the weblog In Contention. You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:
As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
Interview: 'Valkyrie' Producer and Writer Christopher McQuarrie
Filed under: Thrillers, MGM, United Artists, Podcasts, Celebrities and Controversy, Tom Cruise, Interviews, War
Best known as the writer of The Usual Suspects, Christopher McQuarrie has an impressive number of films on his resume (including his criminally overlooked directorial debut, The Way of the Gun), but Valkyrie -- opening nationwide this week -- saw him also serve as a producer alongside director Bryan Singer and star Tom Cruise. A thriller about the 1944 plot inside the German military to try and assassinate Adolph Hitler, Valkyrie turns one of history's nightmares into a taut modern thriller -- a tricky balancing act that the film pulls off: "What we tried to do was to always maintain the focus that this was a movie about an event, that this was a movie about the events of July 20th (1944), and remain focused on that. We weren't making a bio-pic, we weren't making a film about the Holocaust -- all of those things were happening ... (but) this movie is about this incredible event that happened. ... And at the same time, maintaining a sense of responsibility."
McQuarrie spoke with Cinematical from New York about working alongside the German government, how producing a mega-million war film was like "drinking from a firehose," forgoing German accents, his possible future take on superheroic franchise The Champions and much more. You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:
You can also download the interview in full right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.
_thumbnail.jpg)
Alec Baldwin Becomes Latest to Threaten Retirement
The First 'Iron Man 2' Poster Appears!
The Return of Jessica Alba?
Now 'New Moon' Prevents Skin Cancer!_thumbnail.jpg)
Discuss: Who Would be the Most Profitable Director if ...
_thumbnail.jpg)
