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 doing something, guys with horny mermaid tattoos, Solaris, pornography, moshing, and post-continuity reem...
Aug 17, 2025•1 hr 38 min
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 to the table. Read a fascinting article about Rave Culture in Britain here . Corbin Rec . Matt rec ...
Aug 08, 2025•1 hr 59 min
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 available on your music streaming application of choice. Our next episode is about "Hugo." Watch it ...
Aug 01, 2025•1 hr 53 min
(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 Phoenician Scheme’s connections to the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-backed cultural operation from 1...
Jul 31, 2025•1 hr 36 min
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 if you can see, but this episode is very long. Corbin rec . Ellis rec . Next episode is about " Cer...
Jul 27, 2025•2 hr 4 min
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 arguements stuck deep in a nightmare mire. I will not be indexing our recs this week, there are simply too ma...
Jul 18, 2025•1 hr 39 min
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 SOCIAL NETWORK, LIKE WE SAID HERE. It is about "A Married Couple." Watch it here ....
Jul 12, 2025•1 hr 22 min
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....
Jul 04, 2025•1 hr 43 min
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....
Jul 02, 2025•1 hr 35 min
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 "Carlos Puebla – Hasta Siempre, Comandante," which is about Che.' Our next episode is about SPEED RA...
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr 51 min
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 Workers' Tap and the music was a little loud. We swear the episode is good enough that you will be able...
Jun 18, 2025•1 hr 37 min
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, the angel and the demon in one manifestation and the role of superhero movies in rebelling AGAINST p...
Jun 06, 2025•2 hr 16 min
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 long? Corbin's Reco Here . Matt recommends The Ankler, a newsletter about Da Movie Buziness . Next we...
May 30, 2025•1 hr 48 min
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 Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," which you might have to rent? Sorry.
May 23, 2025•1 hr 27 min
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 executive's offices alike, and Matt's buckwild thesis on how the Zodiac killer is digital cinema. Corbin r...
May 16, 2025•1 hr 44 min
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't have any relevant links, so I will spare you the description of them here. But, Eephus is current...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 59 min
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 Wars Day, May the Fourth Be With You! We are joined by friend of the program Ryder Canepa to talk ab...
May 04, 2025•1 hr 58 min
Corbin and Matt have spent week dreading the moment when they would have to watch INLAND EMPIRE , David Lynch's extreme digital cinema expirment that he shot with a skateboard camera. But what if... it's actually kind of sick with it? Corbin recommends The Long Good Friday . Matt recommends Protean Magazine. Our next episode will be about STAR WARS EPISODE THREE: REVENGE OF THE SITH. It was in theaters again! It's not in theaters anymore, boo!...
May 02, 2025•1 hr 37 min
Hey sorry the episode is late, we recorded like three episodes this week and Matt didn't have time to edit. Anyway while we were scrambing to figure out something to watch for weird scheduling reasons, we discovered that Apocalypto was shot on digital and boy oh boy were we lucky for that fact because this is a weird one/wild digital artifact. Topics include: Gibson's unrelenting thrist for a certain kind on screen violence, the weird push and pull between woke method and conservative values in ...
Apr 28, 2025•1 hr 33 min
Corbin and Ellis talk about the new proliferation of tracking takes at the dawn of digital cinema, focusing in particular on " Children of Men ,' Alfonso Cauron's movie about the whole world losing their minds when fertility ends. Also metioned: Timecode , Russian Ark , video games, Gravity, and 1917. Matt reccomends an album . Corbin reccomends a movie . Next week's episode is about APOCOLYPTO, which you can watch on Hulu ....
Apr 18, 2025•1 hr 39 min
Statham. Handheld cameras. Offensive stuff. Insane continuity. Statham. Violence. Statham. Statham. Statham. Statham. It's Crank, baby. Matt reccomends this article . Corbin reccomends this article . Next week's episode is about tracking shots, you could watch Children of Men and/or Russian Ark, but you don't have to, I don't think....
Apr 11, 2025•1 hr 30 min
ERIC MARSH joins Matt and Corbin to talk about MIAMI VICE, Michael Mann's digital fantasia/globalization fable/index of excruciatingly hot one liners. Topics include: globalization as topic and as aesthetic driver, the insane looking sky, and the unstability of digital filmmaking in an unstable time. Matt Recommends "Tokyo Vice" on MAX. Corbin recommends "Hell Hath No Fury," an album available on your local music streaming service. Eric recommends the song "Alone," by The Cry. Check out Eric's P...
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr 41 min
Corbin and Matt are joined by TYLER THEUS, a famous academic, to discuss "Still Life," a movie by a friend of the program who I have never said anything bad about, Jia Zhangke. Topics include: slow cinema, fiction/doc hybridization, the movie's relationship to neorealism, critical forms and aesthetic forms, hyper-mediated Mise-en-scène and the Three Gorges Dam. Watch Still Life here . Seriously, watch it, it's great. Corbin reccommends an album, avaibale on album streaming services or at your lo...
Mar 28, 2025•1 hr 44 min
PIXAR TIME BABY! Ellis and Corbin talk about 'Cars,' a movie about a civilization of Cars. Why are the Cars alive? What build the world they live in? How do they reproduce? Then, after they talk about the important stuff, they talk about Pixar, their history and centrality to digital cinema as a practice, the Pixar-to-SFX pipeline, their storytelling technique, and the nostalgia for modernity that lives in this particular movie. Good Episode! Corbin reccomends a new video game, available in your...
Mar 24, 2025•1 hr 37 min
Corbin and Matt talk about 'WHAT IS DIGITAL CINEMA,' a 1995 essay by Lev Manovich concerned the difference between filmic cinema of the 20th Century, and the emerging technological and artistic form that we have been talking about the last few weeks. It's a little hard to explain this episode to be honest, but it's good. Read Manovich's essay here . Corbin reccomends a movie currently in theaters. Matt reccomends " Blackberry ," a movie. Next week's episode is about 'Cars,' from 2006 . We will h...
Mar 17, 2025•1 hr 26 min
Huh? Why? Good question: it's because of Rodriguez's approach to economical filmmaking, which would come to whoopsiedoodle dominate everything uh oh! We get into it, as well as one or two other topics. Banderas is actually Spanish, not Mexican (I looked) but I don't think this invalidates my broader point. Corbin Reccomends the Mars Trilogy. Matt reccomends ' Hail Satan ?" a documentary about jerks. Next week's episode is about a few movies trying new things in digital around the early/mid-aught...
Mar 06, 2025•1 hr 37 min
28 Days Later is a "Zombie" movie made with a TV Camera that you watch on a big screen. It's really great! We talk about the practical and impractical applications of digital technology, materiality and zombie movies, the movie's depiction of fascism and soildering, then and now, and also what a spectacular bummer this thing is. Read a great essay about filmic materiality and the zombie movie here . Research also pulled up this extemely weird but kind of nifty essay about how 28 Days Later is ki...
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 37 min
Bro we're so back. We've never been more back. Because two white guys got in a room and talked about STAR WARS EPISODE TWO: ATTACK OF THE CLONES, which is, in addition to being one of the most reviled movies (By total weight, not percentage of hatred per person) of all time, the first major motion picture ever shot on digital cameras. We sorta think it's neat? Topics include anything but the plot, which, you know, it not important. The cameras they made, the difficult dransition to HDR Sensors, ...
Feb 20, 2025•2 hr 3 min
HEY EVERYONE! Corbin and Matt are starting a new series! It's called Digital Frontiers: Digital Cinema From 1998-2011, and it's about the movies' transition to digital as a primary medium, as seen in the movies that took the first steps forward. We are excited for you to join us on this journey, seeking answers to the eternal present question: "hey, why do movies look like that now?" Our first episode is about "Festen," ('The Celebration,' in English), The first certified Dogme 95 movie and an a...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 41 min
Matt and Ryder love The Brutalist! Corbin thinks it's fine. We talk about it! Topics: codings in the text, the question of a broad anti-oppression reading vs. a zionist one, and the life of an artist, which sucks ass. Corbin reccomends TWO MOVIES currently in theaters. Ryder reccomends "Different Trains" by Steve Reich . Matt reccomends "Blueprinting" by the Aizuri Quartet . Next week's episode will be the beginning of a new series, DIGITAL FRONTIERS, a history of the early days of Digital Cinem...
Feb 01, 2025•1 hr 27 min
