The Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Moviefilm Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Werner Herzog deals in ecstatic truths. But are they truthful enough to deal with the brutal legacy of slavery and colonialism? We discuss COBRA VERDE, Herzog's last collaboration with Klaus Kinski, a movie about the slave trade and the little freaks who kept it running. Topics include: producing a shot with thousands of extras, Herzog and history, and, weirdly, Michael Haneke.

Watch the movie here or on Criterion, who are doing a big Herzog retrospective right now. Here is an article about the movie that was interesting that I dont necessarily 100% agree with. 

Matt's rec. Corbin's rec is in a weird release vortex right now but you'll be able to see it soon. Ryder recommends a food. Our next episode is about EDDINGTON. You can watch it on HBOMax if you're so inclined. Have a wonderful week!

Since we started this show we've known that, someday, we would sit down to talk about Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, a movie about Metallica, and the world, going to therapy for the first time.

Topics include: popular music, thrash, the 80's, drinking, how exactly you make a heavy metal record, the way computers absolutely annihilated the music business in a way that predicted the future annihilations we are currently living through, the advent of a new perspective on therapy and the emergence of therapy-speak, even among the world's biggest violence-celebrating band. 

excerpted music in this episode in order:

Corbin and Matt wrap up Digital Frontiers with MELANCHOLIA, a movie about depression, the end of the world, and like fifty other things. It's been a second since we recorded so I cannot properly remeber what we talked about, but I suspect we touch on the movie as a uniquely digital object that represents the apex of a young form, Dunst's absolutely annhilating performence, "The End of the World" vs. the actual end of the world, and other stuff. 

Next episode: "Celine and Julie Go Boating." Watch here. 

Big Corbs and Lil' Matty Movies talk about THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS, an Italian neorealist epic about the Last Pesants and their nice community. Topics include: modernity's strange slow creep, the limits of community, and the weird little glasses the priest wears. Features audio problems because Corbin needs a New Mic, but you can handle that, right? 

Matty and Corbsy talk about COMPUTER CHESS, American Director Andrew Bujalski's fable about AI, shitty hotels, flirting, free will and the Mysterious Man of Myth, Michael Papageorge. 

Dr. Movies and Mr. Ducks take up "Wild in the Country," a Serious Drama starring Elvis Prestly, who you might know from his other, less dramatic roles. Discussion includes: screenwriter Clifford Odets, a leftist snitch who was also maybe corny, the hazy period when Hollywood was trying to break into method acting and not quite succeeding, if you can see Elvis as not-Elvis (you can't), and when, exactly, it became unacceptable to bang your cousin. 

Corbin and Matt discuss OPPENHEIMER, Christopher "Mr. Movies" Nolan's biographical picture about the life and career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of atomic bomb development at Los Alamos. Topics include: the hole where the idealogy was supposed to go, the movie's IMMACULATE casting, a therotical version of the movie made by Mike Leigh, and Nolan's dialogue. 

Discussion regarding GOD TOLD ME TO, American sicko auteur Larry Cohen's tribute to the joys and perils of murdering someone because God said so. Topics include: the ways the movie has read throughout time, if movies should have narrative closure, and goop. 

In our DEBUT EPISODE, Matt and Corbin talk about Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the second film from the master of anime, Hayao Miyazaki. Topics include: natural and technological visions of apocalypse, the comic's more jaded, but also more fulfilling ending, and Matt's weird animation blind-spot. 

Hi! THis week, Matt and Corbin talk about "Captain America, The First Avenger," a movie about Captain America, an American Superhero. Topics: The MCU as a sort of end-product of the first two decades of digital cinema, the function of the superhero as a multi-meaning storytelling device, the production design in this movie (Good!) and the cinematography in this movie (Less good!), adapting Jack Kirby's fly by night ethic to a large, settled metanarrative, how the movie's depiction of the Red Skull conforms to Nazi neurosis, and, of course, the question of if Captain America is Good or Bad. 

Matt's Recommendation. Corbin's. Next Week's episode will be the FINAL EPISODE of our Digital Frontiers series and it will be about MELANCHOLIA. Watch it here!