conor.

Films that have been the focus of episodes of The Post Movie Bar podcast, hosted by Conor Bateman, James Hennessy and Melanie Jayne.

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1. Pi

   In our very first episode, Conor, James and Mel discuss whether The Dark Knight Rises and the Spiderman reboot held a candle to their predecessors, the importance (or lack thereof) of the 2012 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time Poll and take an in-depth look at Darren Aronofsky’s debut feature film, π.

2. Night on Earth

   In this episode Conor, James and Mel discuss a preview screening of Beasts of the Southern Wild, debate whether original screenplays are inherently better than adapted or remade properties and look at the film of the week, Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth.

3. Read My Lips

   This week Conor, James and Mel discuss Todd Solondz’s dark comedic masterpiece ‘Happiness’ before moving into this week’s discussion, a debate about the role of the auteur in a visual effects-heavy filmic environment and then finally a look at the film we recommend this week, Jacques Audiard’s 2001 Hitchcockian thriller ‘Read My Lips’.

4. The Man Who Wasn’t There

   This week Conor, James and Mel discuss the successes and failures of The Avengers, the role context plays in both influencing the editing of a film as well as the representation of real life events in cinema and look in-depth at the Coen Brothers’ masterful film noir, The Man Who Wasn’t There.

5. THX 1138

   This week Conor, James and Mel talk about what they’ve been watching recently and Conor’s trip to the Sydney Underground Film Festival, the role of movie trailers and advertising campaigns for modern cinema and look at George Lucas’ debut feature film, THX 1138.

6. Dressed to Kill

   Episode 6 sees the show have its first special guest in Dr. Bruce Isaacs, a film lecturer at the University of Sydney and author of ‘Toward a New Film Aesthetic’ and the soon-to-be-released ‘The Orientation of Future Cinema’. Conor, James and Mel debate with Bruce about “The Avengers” and whether Michael Snow’s “Wavelength” is great cinema or torture for students and then move on to discuss the relationship between Australian cinema and that of the United States and finally end with a heated argument over Brian De Palma’s film “Dressed to Kill”.

7. Looper

   This week Conor, James and Mel look at genre conventions by way of The Cabin in the Woods, rom-coms and the films of Rian Johnson. The film up for discussion is Johnson’s latest, the time-travel film Looper. An unusual choice for the show, as we tend to focus on older films but we felt that Looper was a film that we just had to tell everyone to go out and see because it really is rare to find a film of this calibre wrapped inside so many conflicting genres.

8. Hard Eight

   This week Conor, James and Mel look at why Conor hates Scorsese’s ‘Gangs of New York’, discuss whether decade-spanning epics or films that take place over a day are more successful at engaging with audiences and then look at this week’s film, P.T. Anderson’s debut feature, ‘Hard Eight’ (‘Sydney’).

9. Shock Corridor

   In our 9th episode we discuss the delights of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dvd commentaries and why Annie Hall is one of the best films of all time, then move on to look at the intersection between the worlds of theatre and cinema and end with a look at this week’s film, Samuel Fuller’s 1963 psychological thriller, Shock Corridor.

10. Funny Games

    This week Mel favours the eyebrowless Guy Pearce, James promotes Bong Joon-ho and Conor is thrown off by the synths of Peter Weir’s Witness. What follows is a discussion of the role of violence in cinema and an analysis of a filmic commentary on violence, Michael Haneke’s original 1997 version of Funny Games.

…plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Not only is the subject matter of the film, an insight into the NYT, interesting on face value, the film ends up grappling with the changing media landscape through talking heads, all of whom provide interesting and often conflicting perspectives, and through following the actions of David Carr, a former crack addict and now media reporter for the Times.

Carr shines in the film, I got so much pleasure out of watching him slam the founders of Vice Magazine to their faces and his supremely strong sense of where he is and what he does. Not only is he funny and insightful, his unique activism for the Times as still a bastion of journalism seems to be the crux and heart of the film, which really does leave you enarmoured by the Grey Lady.

In addition to Carr, the film also features many other reporters, desk chiefs and even quite a significant amount of time with Executive Editor Bill Keller, who really humanises the top job in the world’s biggest paper.

The pace of the film prevented it from ever falling into overtrod territory - we spin through the first big WikiLeaks infodump, the demise of publisher Tribune and the introduction of NYT paid subscriptions; perhaps a lesser story but nonetheless a seismic shift in the role and practice of the newspaper.

An interesting companion piece to Bill Cunningham New York and vastly superior to Sorkin’s The Newsroom in content and ideology, this is a documentary that should be watched by anyone interested in the old and new schools of journalism and really anyone who has ever dreamed, however faintly, of taking up residence in the Times’ incredible New York office.