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)

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

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

So we went a little nuts at the Denver Film Festival–just shy of 50 podcasts went up on SpoutBlog and the Denver sitelet. But unless you’re really bored this Thanksgiving weekend, we realize you won’t have time to sit down and listen to them one by one. We thought we would help out by highlighting a handful of our favorites. Like all greatest hits albums, it’s not going to provide the full experience, but it at least gives you a good sense for what was going on in Denver. Listen in…

- Academy Award-winning director Anthony Minghella talking about his newest film, Breaking and Entering.

- Angie Avarez discussing her mockumentary about high school teachers, Chalk.

- Brothers and ultimate collaborators Aaron and Adam Nee talking about their film The Last Romantic.

- Filmmaker David Gow and the two impressive male leads in Steel Toes.

- Sister team Amy and Andrea Doe talking about making Saucy Flyer UFO P.I..

- Filmmaker Matthew Porterfield discussing being a kindergarten teacher and how he made his documentary Hamilton.

- Samira Goetschel and her controversial film Our Own Private Bin Laden.

- The November 15 Roundtable Recap with Bill, Kevin and Dave, talking about nine or so films they had just watched.

- The unexpected interview with Will Ferrell and his wife Viveca Paulin, focusing on Paulin’s work on the film Nail Polish.

- Richard Berge and his documentary The Rape of Europa, which explores the plunder of Europe’s art treasures during WWII.

- Our first conversation with Canadian cinema verite treasure Allan King.

- One amazing question and one amazing answer from Tim Robbins.

- The November 17 Roundtable Recap with Dave, Paul, Kristin and Kevin, who shares a great story about the Tim Robbins event.

- Another great director with an impressive list of films, Michael Apted, discussing the inspirational aspects of his new historical film Amazing Grace.

Allan King’s latest film, EMPz for Life, is a film long overdue. The common concept of racism is outdated and conjures images from the Civil Rights Movement. The racism we face today has been harder to attach an image to. EMPz for Life accomplishes just this as the camera crew follows–in King’s signature cinema verite style–half a dozen young men and their frustrated mentor through twelve weeks of their life in inner city Toronto.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast

In the 1960s and 70s, Allan King was at the forefront of a new way of doing documentary using cinema verite. Up until that point, cinema verite hinged on a central question that needed to be answered by the film, but King decided that the real life drama was the story in and of itself. This was very clear (and very successful) in the 1969 film A Married Couple, which Paul and I watched last night. I went into the film thinking it would be very interesting on an academic level, so I wasn’t prepared to be moved so deeply by the drama between Bill and Antoinette unfolding on the screen. King and his crew filmed the couple in their home for 10 weeks, until they appear to have completely forgotten the camera was present. The demonstrations of what goes wrong–and right–in a marriage are powerful. After the screening, Paul and I were very privileged to talk to Mr. King about the process of making A Married Couple and his particular understanding of marriage since making the film.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast