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Under discussion:

The Apartment  (1960)

Oh, look: it’s my favorite New Year’s Eve scene of all time. Consider this a spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen Billy Wilder’s The Apartment…um, you’re missing out on a fundamental life experience, and you need to watch it immediately. To the rest of you: many happy returns of the new year. We’ll be posting lightly on Monday, and will be back in full-force on Wednesday, January 2nd.

Under discussion:

High Fidelity  (2000)

Sunshine  (2007)

The Boss of it All  (2006)

The Last Winter  (2006)

This is nothing like my top ten of 2007. I don’t not do top ten lists because I think they’re stupid, pointless or pretentious. I don’t do them because I never see enough films in the year to feel I’m adequately representing what is the best of the year. I don’t even feel I could represent my favorite of the year, since later on I’ll likely see some great films from this year that would qualify as my favorite(s). So, I’m just going to present some movies (or parts of movies) I really loved this year, and tell you what I loved about them. Because to me best of lists are merely a reminder of movies I still need to see, consider this a list only of things you might have missed and should definitely check out.

• Sunshine and The Last Winter - Two incredible science fiction stories that each ends rather disappointingly. Fortunately both are good enough until their denouements that they are completely recommendable to serious sci-fi fans and anybody else who wants to spark up some discussions about environmental issues and/or psychological implications of being out in the middle of nowhere.
• The Boss of It All - Not the most remarkable Von Trier film, but proof that he can make a simple comedy if that’s what he wants to do. I especially enjoyed it because I’ve had a passive boss who was exactly like the one in the film. Also, Ibn Hjejle has now been redeemed for her awful, out-of-place presence in High Fidelity.

(more…)

FilmCouch is one year old! And what a year it has been. In the course of 2007, we’ve gone from being a little-known movie podcast, to being a Webby-nominated little-known movie podcast.

Without further ado, here is my list of favorite FilmCouch moments of 2007:

FilmCouch #22 - Remakes Paul, Adam and I discuss remakes, both real and imagined. Adam wonders who would fill the cast of Pulp Fiction if it had been made in 1975, and Paul envisions a 1971 version of The Matrix called The Dot-Matrix, a young Robert Redford frees his mind in an Indian sweat-lodge ritual, and must destroy his dot-matrix punch card so he can remove himself from “the system.”

FilmCouch #33 - No End In Sight Charles Ferguson’s methodical investigation of what went wrong in the occupation of Iraq deeply affected Paul and I. There was a lot of hand-wringing, cigarette-smoking, and passionate debating that took place to get this episode made.

FilmCouch #35 - Mumblecore 2007 was a banner year for a small group of no-budget indie filmmakers including the Joe Swanberg, Aaron Katz, and the Duplass Brothers. Ultimately all the buzz, and particularly the label “Mumblecore,” may have done more harm than good. In this episode we sought to cut through the chatter with two simple questions: Are the movies good? If so, why?

FilmCouch #38 - Into the Wild We interviewed Sean Penn about his struggle to turn the non-fiction man vs. nature tale into a movie. Then we compared it to a lost Harrison Ford gem, The Mosquito Coast. The verdict? Ford: 1 Penn: 0.

FilmCouch #39 - The Economy Paul and I discuss Paul Haney’s issue doc, The Price of Sugar, a sobering look at where our sweets come from. And for a look at the opposite end of the have-and-have-not spectrum, we reflect on Oliver Stone’s classic, Wall Street.