Jeff Goldblum is at Telluride to promote his new film, Adam Resurrected, directed by Paul Schrader. The film follows the story of a Holocaust survivor who also happens to be a clown. Committed to an asylum after the war, he becomes a ring leader of sorts. On the opening day of the festival Goldblum was graciously hugging young fans and striking odd poses for snap-shots. We got a chance to ask him about his media intake, which includes a substantial amount homework from Schrader.

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Some movies are violent, some are disturbing, and others are just plain wrong. Paul W. S. Anderson’s Death Race is a fun ride with some gnarly crashes, but it can’t hold a candle to its demented predecessor, Roger Corman’s Death Race 2000 (1975).

Cinema’s favorite weirdo, Cripsin Glover, is taking his film across the country, personally hosting a series of screenings. The film, What Is It?, is dense and provocative filmmaking, but not necessarily in a good way. Glover describes his opus as a critique of corporate-controlled studios’ fear of taboo. It’s either that, or just a whole lot of snails being killed, mixed with porn, mixed with possibly exploitative uses of actors with downs-syndrome.

For a more upbeat take on the absurd, we take a look and some the fun being had in Spout’s Movie Games group. Specifically, what happens when scenes from our favorite movies are digitally translated to another language, then back into English. The result: surreal hilarity. Our dramatic reading proves that The Big Lebowski could have been a whole lot weirder.

 

 FilmCouch 85 [37:54m]: Play Now | Download

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

0:00 - Intro

3:05 - Death Race, then and now

16:30 - Crispin Glover’s What Is It?

31:29 - Fun with online translators, Big Lebowski style

filmcouch-85

The epic battle between McCain and Obama will shape America’s future. To prepare, we look at an eerily similar battle from America’s past, the 1960 primaries between JFK and Hubert Humphry, as portrayed in Robert Drew’s verité classic, Primary.

Karina stays in for the weekend watching back-to-back movie marathons to settle an age-old debate: Who’s better, Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire? Also, she shares her fantasy of seeing Olympic gymnastic ass-kicker Nastia Liukin star in a prison-break exploitation flick. It never hurts to dream…

On a more serious note, we talk to director Richard Berge about his documentary The Rape of Europa. The film recounts the heroism of WWII monument men, soldiers tasked with protecting the most priceless artifacts of Western Civilization. Berge tells the story of two veteran monument men debating the film’s central question: can a work of art be more valuable than a human life?

 

 FilmCouch 84 [33:52m]: Play Now | Download

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

0:00 - Intro, send us your Olympian movie pitch

3:55 - Primary

12:33 - Karina on Gene Kelly vs. Fred Astaire, and Nastia Liukin’s future in Hollywood

24:16 - The Rape of Europa

filmcouch-84

Tropic Thunder is taking heavy fire, not for Robert Downey Jr.’s blackface performance, but rather for Ben Stiller’s spoof movie-within-a-movie, Simple Jack. Is this a case of political correctness gone too far? Or does Hollywood have serious flaws in how it portrays people with disabilities? The latter may have been Stiller’s point all along…

Our friend Kevin Kelly shares the tale of his journey to the fabled Skywalker Ranch to see Clone Wars and meet the elusive George Lucas. The film, essentially a two hour trailer for the upcoming animated series, gets into some pretty wonky territory when it asks the question we’ve all wondered: What would Truman Capote be like as a Hutt?

Karina checks in with what she’s watching. An Elliott Gould retrospective sheds some light on Little Murders and Jean-Luc Godard’s refusal to direct it. Also, Azazel Jacobs, director of the upcoming Mamma’s Man, Doris Day in Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, and soft-core porn sci-fi web show, The Fold.

 

 FilmCouch 83 [40:19m]: Play Now | Download

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

FilmCouch 83

4:07 - Tropic Thunder

16:50 - The Clone Wars, Skywalker Ranch

25:30 - Karina’s Media Diet

Rogen and Franco are hilarious in Pineapple Express, but the pothead to really watch out for is Danny McBride. Often relegated to brilliant and all-too-brief supporting roles, McBride stars in The Foot Fist Way, which is finally getting a gradual release thanks to Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. McBride’s magic lies in his ability to be a complete asshole 100% of the time on screen, while still charming the viewer. How does he do that?

ALSO, a call to Karina brings us back to the mid-twentieth century with some great television. What is it that makes AMC’s Mad Men so addictive? Need an excuse to not leave the house for the rest of the summer? Try TCM’s Summer Under the Stars.

 

 FilmCouch 82 [31:57m]: Play Now | Download

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

filmcouch-82

Pineapple Express, TheFoot Fist Way

It took a lot of persistence (more on that in this week’s FilmCouch), but I managed to get an interview with Sean Penn. Penn is here with Into the Wild, which he directed. Based on a book of the same name, the film follows the real life story of a young man’s journey into the heart of the Alaskan wilderness. We chatted about what it took to get the film made (Penn spent 10 years securing the rights), and what a relief it is to be behind the camera rather than playing extremely tortured individuals.

 

 Sean Penn interview [2:50m]: Play Now | Download

Sean Penn Interview

Into the Wild

I got five minutes to talk to Werner Herzog (it felt like an hour at the time). He’s here with his new documentary on Antarctica, Encounters at the End of the World. But when you get five minutes with a living legend, you don’t want to spend it on a movie synopsis you can read online. So, we talk about life, risk and how his mom quit smoking.

Note: I reference Dieter Dengler of Herzog’s Rescue Dawn and Little Dieter Needs to Fly as well as a panel discussion he was on regarding Sean Penn’s Into the Wild.

Werner Herzog interview

John Krakauer, Sean Penn, Werner Herzog and moderator on a TFF 2007 panel discussion

Werner Herzog, Encounters at the End of the World

I interviewed Stefan Ruzowitzky about his new film The Counterfeiters. It’s a movie about the massive Nazi counterfeiting operation during WWII. He made because some people “need a punch in the face.”

Stefan Ruzowitzky interview

Stefan Ruzowitzky The Counterfeiters

Kevin caught up with Kevin Macdonald to have a conversation about My Enemy’s Enemy. This is the second time we’ve been able to chat with him about his films, including last year’s Telluride sensation, The Last King of Scotland.

Kevin Macdonald, My Enemy’s Enemy, The Last King of Scotland