The Film Comment Podcast

The Film Comment Podcast returns with another update from Park City. FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined this time by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis and FC contributor Amy Taubin for a rundown of standout films from the festival, both fiction and documentary. These include Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, Nisha Ganatra's Late Night, Rachel Lears's documentary Knock Down the House, Chinonye Chukwu's Clemency, Julius Onah's Luce, Joe Talbot's The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang's One Child Nation.

The Film Comment Podcast returns with our fourth update from the snow-and-glamour-packed streets of Park City, Utah. For today's episode, FC Editor-in-Chief is joined by guests and FC contributors Devika Girish, Eric Hynes (also curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image), and Ashley Clark (also senior programmer of cinema at BAM). Today's conversation focuses on a range of films, including The Farewell, Luce, Midnight Family, The Last Tree, Clemency, Paradise Hills, Ms. Purple, and The Sound of Silence. Check back throughout the week for regular updates from the Sundance Film Festival.

On the third Film Comment Podcast from the Sundance Film Festival, FC Editor in Chief Nicolas Rapold is once again joined by FC contributors Devika Girish and Eric Hynes(also curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image) to chat about a few highly-touted features that left them wanting. These include Joe Talbot's The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Scott Z. Burns' The Report, Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale, and Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala's The Lodge. Check back throughout the week for regular updates from the Sundance Film Festival.

We're back with our second update from Park City. Today's podcast features Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold in conversation with FC contributors Devika Girish and Eric Hynes (also curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image). The focus today is on a Rashid Johnson's Richard Wright adaptation Native Son, Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert's documentary American Factory, Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra's The Infiltrators, and Ben Berman's absurdist doc Untitled Amazing Johnathan Movie. Check back for more updates from Sundance 2019 throughout the next week.

In the first of a series of updates from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold hits the slopes with Eric Hynes, FC contributor and curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image. In addition to discussing their dietary regimens (one must maintain strength in the face of this cinematic avalanche), the two trade highlights from their first day in Park City. Rapold and Hynes kick off with a chat about Bart Freundlich's soapy After the Wedding (featuring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams) before digging deeper into a slate of documentaries: Petra Costa's The Edge of Democracy, Todd Douglas Miller's Apollo 11, and Alexandre O. Philippe's MEMORY—The Origins of Alien. Check back over the next week and a half for updates on all the highlights from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

In the calm before the storm, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sits down with critic and FC contributor Amy Taubin to chat about some of their more eagerly anticipated film from Sundance 2019, opening January 24 and running through February 3. Perhaps appropriately, the conversation begins with films that aren’t actually in competition, but will be showing as part of Slamdance, the Sundance alternative celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In addition to Steven Soderbergh’s High Flying Bird (screening February 7 as part of Film Comment Selects), the two also touch on Beniamino Barrese’s The Disappearance of My Mother and Nick Broomfield’s Leonard Cohen documentary, among others. Check back in throughout the next week and half for regular updates from the snow-topped cinemas of Sundance.

From Woodstock to Stop Making Sense to Madonna: Truth or Dare, the concert film provides an up-close-and-personal—and otherwise unattainable—perspective on performance and performer. In the new issue of Film Comment, out now, contributor Andrew Chan digs into the long-awaited 1972 Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace, finally released in 2018 after years of legal wrangling and building anticipation. The wait was well worth it, as the Sydney Pollack-directed film documents Aretha’s transcendent gospel and R&B and provides (as Chan writes) “access to the woman behind the microphone while at the same time radiating a ghostly effect that’s impossible to shake.” For the latest Film Comment Podcast, Nicolas Rapold sat down with Chan, who is also web editor at The Criterion Collection, and Film Comment contributor and Rogerebert.com critic Sheila O’Malley to discuss Amazing Grace and three other specially selected concert films: The T.A.M.I. Show, Sign o' the Times, and Can’s 1972 Free Concert.

New year, new rep report! Our latest edition looks at the annual mainstay of the restoration calendar, To Save and Project at the Museum of Modern Art—featuring everything from Chantal Akerman to Nude on the Moon—as well as a wide-ranging survey of the city symphony film at Anthology Film Archives. And on the new release side of the episode, we play catch-up with the likes of Welcome to Marwen and more. Joining Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold this time were our regulars from Screen Slate, its founder Jon Dieringer and FC contributing editor and independent programmer Nellie Killian; and two colleagues from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Programming Assistant Maddie Whittle and Digital Marketing Manager Jordan Raup, also founder of The Film Stage.

All too often, the ritual of ranking films at the end of the year leaves a lot of worthy movies on the cutting floor. Some don’t receive enough votes to make our Best of 2018 list; others maybe don’t leap to mind when weighing the artistic strengths and weaknesses of movies. So now that you’ve read about the best of 2018, we present the rest of 2018—a few films that we enjoyed but that, for one reason or another, didn’t crack the hallowed top 20. Editor-in-chief Nicolas Rapold talked with Michael Koresky, editorial and creative director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and two colleagues in FSLC Programming, Maddie Whittle and Tyler Wilson.

For the final Film Comment Talk of the year, Matt Dillon came to the Film Society of Lincoln Center to talk about his new film, The House That Jack Built, directed by Lars von Trier. The film stars Dillon as a serial killer who recounts a series of his murders over several years. Dillon talked about playing a depraved character and working with von Trier. Maddie Whittle of the Film Society of Lincoln Center moderated the dialogue.