Podthoughts by Colin Marshall: FilmWeek

Posted by Maximum Fun on 7th February 2011

Vital stats:
Format: multi-critic film discussion with occasional director interviews
Episode duration: 40-50m
Frequency: weekly
Archive available on iTunes: last 20

As one of film criticism’s hands beckons me forward, its other one pushes me away. For my money — or, these days, for my internet attention — film criticism can, at its best, be one of the most interesting forms going. The conversation around film criticism, a festival of anxious hand-wringing about the profession’s current relevance and/or prospects of future existence, offers far less. Hence film criticism fans’ desperate thirst for the work of engaged, conversational, non-academic critics for whom criticism is not a sideline to a sideline, a secret pursuit during office hours, or a way to notch a byline or journal article — critics who take movies as, shall we say, serious business.

On FilmWeek’s [RSS] [iTunes] rotating panels of critics, at least several members do seem to approach their craft that admirably. Each week, the show draws a few from a pool just large enough to keep me from really having gotten to know each one’s individual personality and preferences well, but exposure to such a wide, shifting range of cinematic judgment has its own advantages. These critics, who write for everything from national newspapers to web sites whose URLs are their own names, share their takes on and debate the merits of what’s new in theaters and on DVD, from the interesting (Somewhere, White Material) to the pretty interesting (Black Swan, The King’s Speech), to that which takes breath they’ll never get back (The Green Hornet, No Strings Attached).

You’ll have noticed the KPCC logo in the image above — nothing gets by a sharp reader like you — which explains why FilmWeek though distributed as a podcast as well as a broadcast, retains a much more public-radio-y sensibility than most film podcasts. In its original context, the program runs as but a weekly segment of the Southern Californian station’s flagship show AirTalk (MiddleCaps evidently being KPCC’s house titling style). Larry Mantle, one of those quick-on-his-feet public radio guys — and a veritable gold mine of moves to steal for an aspiring public radio superstar such as myself — hosts both AirTalk and FilmWeek with that particular brand of objective-type demeanor which allows guests’ opinions to soar proud and free. (Until shot down by other guests, that is.)

The podcast’s best showcase for Mantle thus comes outside the critical segments, when he interviews filmmakers like David O. Russell and Sofia Coppola. (I’d link you up to those conversations, or to any of them, but they inexplicably go unmentioned in the RSS feed’s episode descriptions.) While somewhat rare and often way too short, they keep the criticism-centric rest of the show feeling fresh with their occasional doses of the creator’s perspective. Maybe this sounds a little daring for public radio at this moment, but let me pitch it: wouldn’t it sometimes be damn cool to hear the directors in conversation with the critics, too? I don’t mean to go all Godard on you, but the wall built between filmmaking and film criticism has come to bother me; I think it’s high time to knock some holes in it.

As film criticism on the radio goes, AirTalk delivers some of the most entertaining I’ve heard. The only qualm I can summon borders on philosophical: is it better to discuss movies systematically, criticizing everything that enters a certain width of release, or is it better to allot coverage as advocacy, devoting more time and attention to richer pictures, regardless of their public profile? This show tends to take the former route, talking about whatever’s coming out and in the zeitgeist. That can be to the good, but part of me will always wish for a radio show that doesn’t know Country Strong exists.

[Podthinker Colin Marshall also happens to be the host and producer of public radio’s The Marketplace of Ideas [iTunes], the blogger of The War on Mediocrity and the writer of The Ubuweb Experimental Video Project.]