The Cinematologists Podcast

Before Sunrise (with film reviewer Ren Zelen)

The first screening of season 4 at the University of Brighton, Hastings campus is Richard Linklater's romantic drama Before Sunrise starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. Dario is joined on-stage by screenwriter and lecturer Rob Greens (@robgreens) and by Digital Film alumnus James Calver (@jammycalver) who are both big fans of the film and Linklater's style of filmmaking. Dario also interview's freelance film reviewer Ren Zelen who gives her take on some of the main releases at the London Film Festival. If you want to read Ren's review follow her on twitter @RenZelen.

Memento

We return with season 4 featuring a freshers week choice at Falmouth University with Christopher  Nolan's complex, existential neo-noir Memento getting the nod. Neil is joined on stage to introduce the film once again by Kingsley Marshall.Neil and Dario also discuss how to engage to the fullest extent with all the possibilities of film culture that are out there. 

Broken Embraces

Our second summer episode is our London debut where we took the podcast to the Curzon Bloomsbury to screen Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces. Perhaps not his most highly lauded film Broken Embraces does however, offer an opportunity to discuss Almodovar's relationship to cinema itself through the film's meta-cinematic structure and constant allusions to how we see the world cinematically.This episode also features an interview with Jose Arroyo from the University of Warwick who has written about and interviewed Almodovar.  Dario's blog on Broken EmbracesApologies for some poor quality sound on this episode.

Summer Special

In this summer interlude Dario and Neil cover a large range of subjects including the state of cinema, Bret Easton Ellis' film podcast, fandom and online culture, the Cary Grant Festival in Bristol, the joys and ills of academic conferences, and various films they have seen. Show notes:Bret Easton Ellis podcastDeath Foretold is not Death - Neil's article in Director's NotesCreators, fans and death threats: Talking to Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman and more on the Age of Entitlement - LA Times article by Todd MartensCinematologists screening of Broken Embraces: 

Old Joy/I am Belfast (plus an interview with Mark Cousins)

Dario is joined by Neil at the Electric Palace in Hastings once again to screen Kelly Reichardt's poetic road movie Old Joy. A rainy afternoon in a fern-carpeted forest. Two old friends, Mark and Kurt (Will Oldham), drive up into the mountains near Portland, and get lost trying to find the hot springs. Resounding with sustained images and sounds given the time to reverberate, unarticulated tensions course through the film like a hidden creek. Finally at the turn-off to the springs, we see the sky reflected in their windshield and the whole world turns on this moment.The episode also feature's Neil's fascinating interview with all round cinematic mensch Mark Cousins about his new film I Am Belfast.

The Last Detail (with film critic Christina Newland)

In our penultimate episode of the season Dario is joined by film Scholar, writer and podcaster Alex Fitch to present a classic of the American new wave: The Last Detail (1973) directed by the under appreciated Hal Ashby and starring Jack Nicholson. Two hard-boiled petty officers, Buddusky and Mulhall, are detailed to take a young sailor, Meadows, to a Naval Prison to serve an eight-year sentence for a trivial offense, and they decide to show him a good time on the way. They narrowly escape a bar fight, tangle with some Marines, and visit a brothel for Meadows’ first sexual experience. After reluctantly turning him in, Buddusky and Mulhall realize they are as much prisoners of their own world as Meadows now is of his.ario also interviews freelance film critic and journalist Christina Newland. They discuss studying film at university, writing process, feminist politics, and boxing movies along with this weeks overarching theme: the American new wave.Christina Newland's article on Creed and the Legacy of the boxing film.Molly Haskell (1987) From Reference to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the MoviesCinephilia and Beyond: ‘The Last Detail: Hal Ashby and Robert Town's Slice of the 70s America'

Ex_Machina

Dario returns to the School of Film and Television at Falmouth University to host a screening of Alex Garland's Sci-Fi drama Ex_Machina. He is joined on-stage by Dr Verena Von Eicken who selected the film and they discuss its potential to be read as a metaphorical critique of gendered power relations and the male gaze. Neil and Dario also discuss issues around the narrative structure of film, Alex Garland as a writer director and other recent examples of hard Sci-Fi such as Her (2013) and Under the Skin (2013).
Show Notes: 
Link to Laura Mulvey's seminal 1975 essay Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema
Link to Donna Haraway's 1983 essay The Cyborg Manifesto
 

20000 Days on Earth (with director Kieran Evans)

Neil and Dario meet up in Falmouth to discuss the Nick Cave music 'documentary' 20000 Days on Earth directed by Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth. Neil also interview British film director Kieran Evans about the fundamental relationship between music and film.