New developments in the case of an artist arrested for bioterrorism (from the doc Strange Culture), lead us into a web of noir (Murder, My Sweet) and an unexpected look at No Country for Old Men. All of which reveal the sinister culture of PARANOIA!

 

 FilmCouch #68 - Paranoia [27:37m]: Play Now | Download

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FilmCouch #68 - Paranoia

Strange Culture, Murder, My Sweet, No Country for Old Men

Paul interviews Kal Penn (Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, opening tonight), which inadvertently pushes Paul & Kevin on to a road trip–metaphoricaly speaking–from a Whites Only saloon in the old west to the ghettos of Canada where a mathematician is changing the world and a legendary filmmaker brings them to enlightenment.

(Also under discussion EMPz 4 Life)

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FilmCouch #67 - Wisdom of Kumar

*Note: The phone number announced in the show has technical problems. If you want to leave a message, call:

1-800-749-0632
Channel: 8838
Password: 1111

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, EMPz 4 Life

The night before Sony Pictures Classics planned to open Errol Morris’ Abu Ghraib doc Standard Operating Procedure in two theaters the Tribeca Film Festival hosted a screening of the film, followed by a conversation between Morris and Jarhead author Anthony Swofford.

Beat to the festival circuit by over a year by Rory Kennedy’s Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (which debuted at Sundance 2007 and later screened on HBO), Morris’ two-hour dissection of the Iraqi prison schedule retreads a fair bit of ground that will be familiar to anyone who has followed the scandal closely and/or seen the previous film. But where Kennedy was primarily concerned with depicting the psychological climate that led to the abuses (of both detainees and power) and their photographic documentation, Morris is more concerned with revealing the discrepancy between what those iconic photographs seem to be documenting, and what the testimony of the indicted soldiers suggests is closer to the truth. “We looked at the photographs and thought we knew everything about Abu Ghraib,” Morris said after the screening. “We knew nothing.” …Read more

When a laugh is more powerful than a tear. The Care Bears Big Wish Movie, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? and, possibly, Iron Man share a common theme. A quiet–almost subliminal appeal–to an audience seeking a straight shot of entertainment asking them to drop apathy and get involved in a troubled world. A new subversive cinema (that I wrote about earlier this week), which isn’t a filmmaker sneaking a message past Hollywood executives, but past a message-weary audience.

 

 FilmCouch #66 [27:25m]: Play Now | Download

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store and an episode will download each Friday)

filmcouch-66
Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?, Iron Man, Care Bears Big Wish Movie

Over our five days at the Institute, we kept returning to a series of binary oppositions: print versus online; doing it for the passion versus doing it for the pay; criticism as consumer reporting versus advocacy for artists. With such circular questions, it’s hard to get anywhere, making it easy to lapse into what filmmaker Kelly Reichardt jokingly referred to at one point as “glass half full of shit” thinking. But out of the morass of questions and unresolvable clashes came an emphasis on compromise and balance: nearly every guest speaker made some mention of making trade offs, of covering for noble failures with less-noble successes.

This seemed most prevalent on Saturday, with Reichardt and Tom Kalin’s independent filmmaker panel; Ryan Werner of IFC and Don Krim from KINO representing indie distribution; and, particularly, the online film criticism panel, featuring Eugene Hernandez (indieWIRE), Michael Koresky (Reverse Shot), Matt Zoller Seitz (The House Next Door and The New York Times) and Stu Van Airsdale (The Reeler and Defamer).

The issue of blogs as an alternative/corrective to the mainstream media came up early in the day, with Seitz’s explanation for how The House Next Door got started. “I was really irritated by the negative reviews of Terrence Malick’s The New World,” he said, “And I just wanted to write about how great it was like every day.”
…Read more

If you’re visiting a theater and tired of the same old movie clichés, conventional wisdom would point you to the independent movie selection. However, a string on indiewood flicks–most recently The Visitor (opening tonight)–are caving in on their own “indie” clichés. Like rogue environmentalists tracking an invasive species in an Appalachian creek bed, we digest their ways and spew out some indiewood movie pitches of our own.

As a palette cleanser, we talk to Carson Mell. We formed a crush on him last week watching Wholphin DVD No. 5. His sharp wit and creativity are on display in his short animation, Chonto.

 

 FilmCouch 65 [30:52m]: Play Now | Download

filmcouch-65

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store and an episode will download each Friday)

Iraq fatigue: the conventional wisdom settled on in the last year that nobody wants to go to a movie theater for an Iraq war movie (most recently: Stop-Loss). Is it a new phenomenon or are all movies questioning war during wartime doomed to financial failure?

The new Wholphin quarterly DVD magazine is out. It’s probably the best curated source for short films outside a major festival and we give it the attention its due on FilmCouch.

 

 FilmCouch 64 [31:24m]: Play Now | Download

FilmCouch 64

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store and an episode will download each Friday)

Let’s talk documentaries. First up, an interview with AJ Schnack, founder of the Cinema Eye Honors, a new annual awards ceremony honoring the craft of non-fiction filmmaking, a genre often judged more on its subject matter than its artistry. Next up, an interview Jason Kohn, director of Manda Bala, the winner of this year’s top Cinema Eye prize. Kohn talks about weaving together the film’s disparate elements, searching for the line between good and evil, and crafting a “non-fiction science fiction film”.

 

 FilmCouch 63 [30:24m]: Play Now | Download

FilmCouch 63

Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) is probably the most bankable schlock-meister working. 10,000 B.C. is a snickerfest with some amazing woolly mammoths. On the evolutionary chain of movies, it’s a driect descendant of the campy Raquel Welch star vehicle, One Million Years B.C. (1967). Adam Forrest and I thought it would be fun to watch them both, but didn’t expect One Million to blow us away when it turned more Shakespeare than schlock.

Karina phones in to explain what makes a good musical and why Love Songs–opening tonight–and so many others from the last 30 years don’t make the cut.

 

 FilmCouch 62 [30:42m]: Play Now | Download

FilmCouch 62

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store and an episode will download each Friday)
10,000 B.C., One Million Years B.C., Love Songs