The Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Moviefilm Podcast

Hey! We are joined here by ANDY MORSE, the host of REKINDLING OUR BONDS, a podcast about the motion pictures regarding the life and career of JAMES BOND (available on: iTunes! Youtube ! Spotify! ) to talk about TOKYO DRIFTER, a kind of James Bondy-French New Wavvy Yakuza movie with wild vibes. Topics include: the particular qualities of a work made under pressure, wondering if Seijun Suzuki knew a...

Twenty years in the making, Marcell Jankovics' animated adaptation of Imre Madách's sort-of play is a terribly ambitious intellectual undertaking about the role of man's inherent nature in the onspooling of history. But is it any good? We discuss.  A useful article about Madach . Read the play here if you're inclined . The movie is available on iTunes. Matt's recc . Corbin's recc is not important...

In 2008 Mike Leigh made a movie about a genuinely nice lady coming into contact with a lonely right wing maniac. Sooner or later it became the model for how society was structured. Let's talk about it! Topics include: Sally Hawkings, clubbing, British repression, Mike Leigh in particular, and other stuff.  Matt recc . Corbin recc's a music artist. Next week's episode is about The Tragedy of Man ....

Matt and Corbin are joined by the famous music writer NATALIE WEINER ( Don't Rock the Inbox , other famous publications) to discuss NASHVILLE, Robert Altman's sprawling sociological survey of the city of Nashville, home of the Country Music Industry, and also America. Is it a convincing portrait of either? We discuss.  Natalie wrote about the movie's use of country music as metaphor here. Natalie'...

This is, somehow, the third movie we've done about pesants and the second movie we've done about agricultural barons trying to remove a community from the land where they live so it can be overwhelmed by animal agriculture. This one has some weird Brechtian qualities and beautiful photography. But is it any good? We get into it. Check out the movie on Mubi .   Corbin recommends a game, Matthew a b...

Matt and Corbin, recording from the Portland Convention Center, talk about "Celine and Julie go Boating," a movie about two friends who are looking to have a good time and also maybe save a girl from a cycling ghost house deep in the heart of Paris, France. Topics: friendship, theater, improv, The French New Wave, and other stuff.  I liked this essay that discusses the movie. Corbin recc . Matt re...

Corbin and Matt wrap up Digital Frontiers with MELANCHOLIA, a movie about depression, the end of the world, and like fifty other things. It's been a second since we recorded so I cannot properly remeber what we talked about, but I suspect we touch on the movie as a uniquely digital object that represents the apex of a young form, Dunst's absolutely annhilating performence, "The End of the World" v...

Hi! THis week, Matt and Corbin talk about "Captain America, The First Avenger," a movie about Captain America, an American Superhero. Topics: The MCU as a sort of end-product of the first two decades of digital cinema, the function of the superhero as a multi-meaning storytelling device, the production design in this movie (Good!) and the cinematography in this movie (Less good!), adapting Jack Ki...

Whoops, a little late! Sorry everyone Matt is busy and I am something aside from busy but diverting enough that I forgot to post the episode. This one is about "Leviathan," a documentary from the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard about commerical fishermen, the ocean, and things all sloppin' on the camera. Watch it here !  Topics include: GoPros, sloppy noises, thinking about how a camera is doin...

Old Cinema! New Cinema! Here they are, together! Ellis and Corbs talk about "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's honestly conspicously excellent family movie about a an orphan, a great filmmaker, and the open wounds of World War One. Topics: how exactly is Scorsese so good at making a special effects extravaganza, the 3D moment, fated to fail, color, and Scorsese's ability to bring a wide range of techniques...

Welcome. In this episode Matt and Corbin talk about Abbas Kiarostami's 2010 brainscrew "Certified Copy," a movie about two strangers hanging out in the Italian countryside. Topics include: Binoche's performence, an anchor in a storm, Kiarostami as a natural candiate for digital cinema owing to his particular unfussiness, and Walter Benjamin. So much Walter Benjamin. Matt's recc . Corbin's recc is...

(sorry for the double post. this is a repost of a bad upload. LISTEN TO THIS ONE) Hi there! Matt made a guest appearance on a great new podcast about cinema, history, and the left and we are sharing it, with you, RIGHT HERE! The podcast is called 'Cold War Cinema,' and you can find it here  and  here .  Join Ellis and hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as they discuss: The Phoen...

Corbin and Matt talk about THE SOCIAL NETWORK, David Fincher's (and also Aaron Sorkin's) parable about the fouding of Facebook and the terrible dream of what felt like was coming next. Topics include: capital and moral hazard, the Winkelvosses and Eduardo, the movie's make believe version of Zuckerberg, Fincher setting the palette for the future by accident, and a bunch of other stuff. I dont know...

Documentarian CHRISTOPHER JASON BELL (MeansTV, ' Miss Me Yet ,' the upcoming ' Failed State ') joins us to talk about 'A Married Couple,' Alan King's 1969 documentary about a disintegrating Canadian marriage. Topics include: reality TV, the weird sexism in the movie's reception, documentary performance, the parade of hideous outfits this guy wears, and the terrible language of irrational arguement...

Ellis and Corbin talk about post-continuity infused, found footage horror extravaganza PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Topics include: real estate in 2006 (the true horror), why there wasn't a second demonologist in San Diego at the time, the editing style, HDR cameras, porn aesthetics, and other stuff. Read some Fabulous Criticisim about Paranormal Activity here.  NOTICE: OUR NEXT EPISODE IS NOT ABOUT THE S...

We had to do it, so we did. Topics include: the insane camera setup they used on this, Cameron: Movie Napoleon, the...particular aesthetics, and the faint nostalgia for Michael Bay real heads feel while watching this thing. There's stuff we like about it, too.  Read this to  learn stuff about Avatar .  Ellis rec here . Corbin rec'd a video game, again. Next week: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. 

Speed Racer. It's a masterwork. It also might give you a headache. We must live in that contradiction. Topics: Comic Books and post-continuity cinema, the movie's collage-like qualities, the alternate vision for Hollywood it presents, and the movie as a product of globalization.  Matt's recommendation . Corbin's . Next episode is about "Avatar," which you can watch on Disney+, if you dare. 

Ellis and Corbin and ERIC MARSH discuss "Che: Part One," Steven Soderbergh's process-oriented tale of the Cuban Revolution, and the first movie ever shot on a 4K Movie Camera. Topics include: Oakley Sunglasses, Soderbergh during this time, digital cinematography blessing his particular way of working, and why CAPITALIST STREAMING PLATFORMS make this movie hard to watch.  Ellis: 'Song at the end is...

Eyy! Rachel Getting Married! It's a heavy movie! We talk about Ann Hathaway playing into public type, the incredibly strange casting, Demme as a physical filmmaker working in a kinetic-digital world, rehab, European family vs American Family, 'Realism,' and other stuff. Hey: there's a weird little background sound in this episode. Sorry we hope it doesn't drive you insane. We were recording at Wor...

Some big news: Corbin and Matt lost their minds and recorded about film academy stuff for two hours. Our topic is Hollywood Continuty and its accelerants and defectors, which we process through the frame of Tony Scott's 2006 sort-of-sci-fi movie Deja Vu. Topics are wide and varied and include: comic book storytelling, film scanning, the digital console, Jim Caviezel, Ozu (again), and Michael Bay,...

We still got a will and a burning rage to win, folks, because Ellis and Corbs are talking about WALK HARD! Topics: Non-linear editing and audience testing, Judd Apatow, John C. Reilly, bizzaro Phil Hoffman, the evolving form of the comedy star during this time, the superior (but rarely seen) director's cut of this movie, and the weird line between parody and pastiche the movie straddles. Weirdly l...

Corbin and Matt ride their horses across the Digital Frontiers and arrive at BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD, a world-historic bummer that legendary director Sidney Lumet stages in a series of disgusting interiors. Also PSH drops a bunch of rocks on a glass table. It's excruciating.  Corbin recommends a donut shop. Matt recommends "The Studio," on Apple TV. Next week's episode is about "Walk Ha...

We got a live one here, folks! Matt and Corbin talk about 'Zodiac,' David Fincher's digital cinema landmark that also happens to be one of the best movies of the aughts. Topics include: slip sliding into the place where no knowledge can validate you and the terror that remains, Fincher's San Fran past, ILM, a smoking fetus, digital's capacity to enable control freaks in directors chairs and execut...

After months in the digital mines, Matt and Corbin come up for air with NATE FISHER, co-writer of the fabulous new American Baseball Picture EEPHUS. We discuss Tony Scott's 1996 Travis-Bickle-As-Sports-Fan classic THE FAN. Topics include: Frederick Weisman, Deniro in a very strange mode, Barry Bonds, and modernist stability slipping into the chaotic morass of the next thing. Our recs this week don...

It goes without saying that a fake holiday to celebrate a film franchise owned by the Disney Corporation is an atrocity of taste and nonsense of the highest degree. Why does life under the social mediaized form of capitalism subject you to all this simpery, this nonsense, this neverending wave of novelty? Truly we are in hell. But hey we had a Star Wars episode in the tank so screw it, Happy Star...