Filmspotting
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Filmspotting is a weekly film podcast and radio program from Chicago hosted by Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson. Until May 2006, the show was called Cinecast but a conflict over the name forced the change. Shortly after the name change to Filmspotting, the show was picked up for a monthly broadcast on Chicago public radio station WBEZ.
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[edit] Hosts
- Adam Kempenaar graduated from Grinnell College with a bachelor of arts in English in 1997 and also has a B.A. in communication/film studies (1998) and a master's in journalism from the University of Iowa (2005). He was a film critic for The Daily Iowan for two years before moving to Chicago in the fall of 2002. He also hosted a weekly film talk show, "Burn Hollywood Burn," on 89.7 KRUI in Iowa City. He is married with three children: Holden, Sophie, and Quinn.
- Sam Van Hallgren resides in Milwaukee and previously worked on the public radio show This American Life. Van Hallgren left the show in September 2007 to focus on his career and spend more time with his wife, leaving Matty "Ballgame" Robinson to co-host the show with Kempenaar.
- Matty Robinson was a contributor and guest host on Filmspotting. As of September 2007, he has taken over for Sam Van Hallgren. Robinson has been rumored to be reviving his acting career with a part in an upcoming remake of The Pride of the Yankees.
It was announced that the current hosts of Filmspotting, Kempenaar and Robinson, will be teaching a course at the University of Chicago beginning the spring of 2008. Currently, the course is expected to cover directors Michael Curtiz and Howard Hawks, focusing on what separates film as art from film as entertainment.
[edit] Show format
The show starts with a review of either a recently released film or a discussion of a "Marathon" film. It also includes listener feedback (either e-mails sent by listeners, or, increasingly, MP3 audio files or voice mails from listeners).
A regular feature is "Massacre Theater", in which Adam and Matty (poorly) perform dialogue from an undisclosed movie and invite readers to guess what it's from for a prize.
They also have Top 5 lists. For their top 5 lists, Adam and Matty try not to pick iconic "pantheon" films that would be too obviously chosen, such as The Godfather or Citizen Kane. They also employ a penalty box system in which films they have placed on Top 5 lists too often must go and not be chosen for a Top 5 again for a year or more.
For the "Movie Marathons", the hosts review six to eight movies from a particular genre or director that they haven't already seen. Their first marathon was westerns. They have also covered Alfred Hitchcock films, musicals, horror, screwball comedy and Werner Herzog. At the end of their six- to eight-week marathon, they present awards for best film, best director, best actor, etc., for that marathon, naming the award after something related to the genre or director they've just covered. For example, for the western marathon, they gave away the Duke awards.
They used to offer overlooked DVD picks, then took that segment to a short-lived vodcast called Cinecast A/V. They now offer overlooked DVD picks via an e-mail subscription newsletter called "The Dope Sheet".
[edit] Music
During breaks in the show, "Filmspotting" primarily features music from artists on the Chicago label Bloodshot Records, in addition to artists from Messenger Records, Reverbose Records and, even more rarely, Merge Records. The guitar-driven theme song is "This Machine" by now-defunct Chicago band Age of the Rifle.
[edit] Name change
The last Cinecast show was the two-part 100th podcast on May 12-13, 2006, after which the name changed to Filmspotting. The specific reason for the change was not discussed, but there is a company called CineCast [1] that produces pre-show advertisements in theatres. Adam and Sam originally said the show would be renamed The Cinema Show, but then solicited suggestions from listeners. Contenders included Cinecrack, Cinediction and Burn, Hollywood, Burn, but the hosts announced their final selection on the 8 May 2006 show (Cinecast #98): Filmspotting. Listener Nicholas Correnti from Florida State University Film School suggested the name Filmspotting and won $50 worth of DVDs for his part in re-naming Cinecast.
[edit] References
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