Special Episode - Our Favorite Films of 2012

Click here to listen to Part 1 

Click here to listen to Part 2 

Peter believes that the Top 10 list is less of a summation of a year in film than a personal statement on how one view's cinema at that moment. So in this epic 2+ hour episode, he invites the idiosyncratic Keith Uhlich to join him on a journey through the year in film. They discuss terrorists and presidents, romances and mentors, artificial and stylized views of the world to authentic miracles. Plus some of Peter's former guests and friends of the show call in with their picks, and they also list some of the great films of years past that they finally caught up with.

0:00-1:42 Opening / Announcement

1:42-3:54 Introduction to Top 10s
3:55-1:01:04 Picks for #10 through #6
1:01:04-1:02:14 Close

0:00-2:25 Introduction to Part 2

2:26-8:22 Favorite Filmic Discoveries

8:23-1:30:01 Picks for #5 through #1

1:30:01-1:35:30 Picks for #20 through #11
1:35:30-1:39:14 Trivia Round / Close / Outtake

Episode #10 - Katey Rich (Take This Waltz)

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"I tend to be an optimist most of time. I want movies to be good. But when you can look at something—look at the whole big picture, you know everything that's coming out next year already. You have this knowledge of how all the moving pieces are fitting together. It's fun to know I can cover all of that. "

Peter can often get lost in the history of cinema that he often forgets that movies were born in the industry, and Hollywood keeps that art alive. So for his last interview of the 2012 season, CinemaBlend editor-in-chief Katey Rich joins him for a lively conversation about the ins and outs of the movie industry. Katey discusses her origins as a moviegoer in South  Carolina and her interest in why things were popular to the trials, tribulations, and pleasures of running a site that is always about the "now." They then get into some of the more interesting pieces she's written about the depiction of women in Hollywood, as well as why it's okay to nitpick. Finally, they dive into one of 2012's more intimate and underrated films, Take This Waltz, and discover how Sarah Polley can add real magic to a story as old as time.

0:00-1:01 Opening

1:52-5:37 Establishing Shots - Zero Dark Thirty

5:52-46:16 Deep Focus - Katey Rich

47:11-1:01:19 Double Exposure - Take This Waltz (Sarah Polley)

1:01:19-1:09:10 Spoiler Discussion of Take This Waltz

1:09:12-1:12:03 Close and Outtakes

Read Katey Rich's work on CinemaBlend.Com and click here to read her reviews. Follow Operation Kino here.

Episode #9 - Godfrey Cheshire (Close-Up)

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"I really like films that engage with the world. Film to me is, persay, a medium. It’s not an end in itself. I like films that deal with human reality, the different problems we have in the world, the different cultures we have in the world, all the sort of compliexities we have going through life—political, romantic, psychological—and I think film is an incredible medium for showing that."

Godfrey Chesire has seen it all. From his early experiences with the Westerns of John Ford, to his experience of the American New Wave while abroad in Europe, to the discovery of Chinese and Iranian cinema in the 1990s, Cheshire has remained an essential voice about how to talk and think about cinema in an honest and humanizing way. So Peter is quite excited to take him back through a whirlwind tour of his career, from the alt-weeky The Spectator to the heyday of the New York Press, and through his experiences with Edward Yang and writing about the emergence of digital cinema. The two also discuss his documentary Moving Midway, a film that battles his own personal history and cultural history of the plantation, and end their discussion with Abbas Kiarostami's all-too-fascinating text Close-Up, which they easily declare the Citizen Kane of Iranian film.

0:00-1:27 Opening

1:27-4:47 Establishing Shots - Portrait of Jason Kickstarter

5:02-1:01:57 Deep Focus - Godfrey Cheshire

1:03:08-1:30:09 Double Exposure - Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami)

1:30:11-1:31:50 Close

Read Godfrey Cheshire at the New York Press, Film Comment, the New York Times, and The Criterion Collection (Many of Cheshire's articles are only available via digital archives—please contact me via email if there is a particular article you would like at feedback@thecinephiliacs.net). 

Watch Moving Midway on Netflix. 

Episode #8 - Matt Singer (The Buried Secret of M Night Shaymalan)

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"I enjoy more of the debating, the talking it out, the thinking about it, weighing the pieces in your mind, and trying to understand the other person's point of view."

Peter remembers seeing Matt Singer during news and festival bits on the IFC channel back in the day, so he was quite excited to bring it the man to sit down to talk about his work on Criticwire and elsewhere. Matt discusses the winding path he took to entering film criticism, his genuine interest in working in various types of media, and of course his fascination of superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two also explore his explanation for watching "bad" movies, the wonderful world of Internet commenters, and the ever notorious Kevin Smith. Finally, Matt brings in a strange pick for 'Double Exposure' - A TV documentary called The Buried Secret of M Night Shaymalan, that is truly one of the most maddening films ever produced, provoking a discussion that proves to be just as bonkers.

0:00-4:43 Opening / Establishing Shots - "To The Film Industry in Crisis"

4:57-58:25 Deep Focus - Matt Singer

59:21-1:20:30 Double Exposure - The Buried Secret Of M. Night Shaymalan

1:20:33-1:22:22 Close / Outtake

Read Matt Singer at Criticwire, Screen Crush, Time Out, the IFC Blog. Listen to Filmspotting: SVU and check out the archives of the IFC Podcast. View his clips from At The Movies.

Follow Matt on Twitter. Email him at matt@indiewire.com

Episode #7 - Ali Arikan (Withnail and I)

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"I supposed it's like a two pronged approach: you had the serious business of film criticism, and at the same time...you had the geeks, the nerdish aspect of it. Still today, there is a huge disconnect, and I find myself firmly in both."

Peter takes cinema very seriously, but sometimes we all need a good laugh, and no one makes Peter howl in laughter than reading the work of Ali Arikan. So laughs are abound when Ali comes in from Turkey to join The Cinephiliacs. Ali discusses his early forays into movies while in his home country (as well the troubles with viewing films there) and the journey he took to becoming an established critic working for English language sites like The House Next Door, Press Play, and as a member of Roger Ebert's Far Flung Correspondents. From there, the two dive into the problem of nostalgia in film, a bonafide love for Steven Spielberg, and a defense of one of the most derided films in the last twenty years. Finally, Peter challenges Ali to make him love Withnail & I, a cult comedy from Bruce Robinson that might be more tragic than even its alcoholic protagonists realize. 

0:00-0:56 Opening

1:43-4:40 Establishing Shots - Pierre Étaix and Le Grand Amour

4:56-1:01:56 Deep Focus - Ali Arikan

1:03:09-1:24:19 Double Exposure - Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson)

1:24:20-1:26:10 Close / Outtake

Read Ali Arikan at Dipnot.TV (Turkish language only), The House Next Door, Press Play, Fandor, and his own blog.

Follow Ali on Twitter.

Episode #6 - Farran Smith Nehme (Three Strangers)

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"[Writing about undiscovered classics] is in a sense more rewarding because you can give a little light and a little love to something that hasn't been duly appreciated."

After three weeks of new movies, The Cinephiliacs returns by going to old school filmmaking as Peter sits down with Farran Smith Nehme, aka the Self-Styled Siren, blogger extraordinaire when it comes to classic Hollywood movies. The two discuss how she first fell in love with the movies of Hollywood's golden age, approaching classic cinema beyond the expected titles and myths, and living the dream by appearing on Turner Classic Movies. They close out the show by examining Three Strangers, a film noir by Jean Negulesco and co-written by John Huston that might not be the best film ever made, but damn if it doesn't have some out of this world sequences and killer performances by Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Peter Lorre as a romantic lead, of all things!

0:00-1:13 Opening
1:14-4:58 Establishing Shots - Kant and Criticism
5:12-45:15 Deep Focus - Farran Smith Nehme
46:30-1:05:38 Double Exposure - Three Strangers (Jean Negulesco)
1:05:39-1:07:32 Close / Outtake

Read Farran Smith Nehme at the Self-Styled Siren, the New York Post, the Criterion Collection, and Joan's Digest.
Follow Farran on Twitter.

Special Episode - The 50th New York Film Festival #3 (David Ehrlich)

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If there is one thing that has defined the New York Film Festival since its first year in 1963, the festival has always aligned itself with the most essential names in world cinema (the first film to play NYFF? Buñuel’s Exterminating Angel). So as Peter closes out his coverage of the festival’s 50^th iteration, he brings on world cinema aficionado David Ehrlich from the Criterion Corner to discuss the biggest auteurs and their new ambitious movies. Included in this final dispatch are a story of love from Michael Haneke, a celebration of movement from Leos Carax, a cynical autobiography from Olivier Assayss, and a Tokyo-set puzzler from Abbas Kiarostami.

0:00-1:37 Opening

2:00-8:54 Amour (Michael Haneke)

9:01-15:33 Spoiler Discussion of Amour

16:08-26:59 Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

27:54-37:46 Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas)

38:01-52:45 Like Someone In Love (Abbas Kiarsotami)

52:46-54:46 Close/Outtake

Read David Ehrlich at Box Office Magazine, his Criterion Corner Column at Movies.Com, and the Criterion Corner Tumblr. 

Follow David on Twitter, as well as the Criterion Corner.