Plastic Podcast

The venerable and exceedingly intermittent Plastic Podcast, which has outlived the two blogs with which it was intertwined, and whose audio archives were difficult to ...

The Plastic Podcast

An audio program about movies. Listen with your iPod or computer.

Plastic Podcast

The venerable and exceedingly intermittent Plastic Podcast, which has outlived the two blogs with which it was intertwined, and whose audio archives were difficult to ...

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About

Daily Plastic is a Chicago-based movie blog, a collaboration between Robert Davis and J. Robert Parks, the same pair who brought you the wearable movie tote, the razor-thin pencil pocket, and that joke about aardvarks. If you know the whereabouts of the blue Pontiac Tempest that was towed from the Plastic Parking Lot on the evening of August 7th, 2008, or more importantly if you've recovered the red shoebox that was in its trunk, please contact us at your earliest convenience.

Davis was the chief film critic for the late, great Paste Magazine (which lives on now as a website) from 2005 through 2009, and he counts this interview with Claire Denis among his favorite moments. Every once in a while he pops up on Twitter. He's presently sipping puerh in Chicago, even at this hour. Meanwhile, Parks, whose work has appeared in TimeOut Chicago, The Hyde Park Herald, and Paste, is molding unsuspecting, college-aged minds in the aforementioned windy city. Media types are warned to stay clear of his semester-sized field of influence because of the distorting effects that are likely to develop.

The © copyright of all content on Daily Plastic belongs to the respective authors.

Opening this weekend are three big movies that I'm not particularly interested in:

  • High School Musical 3
  • Saw V
  • Pride & Glory IV: Glory's Revenge Upon Pride

If you see them, please report back. We'll do the same if we get lost and stumble into the wrong darkened room and accidentally get a glimpse of one of them. Smaller releases include:

  • I've Loved You So Long, which I like less than others.
  • Changeling, the new Clint Eastwood film, which I'm afraid will remind me too much of that scene in Mystic River or that thing that happens in Million Dollar Baby. But maybe I'll check it out.

Far more interesting among the small releases are two imperfect but surprisingly fascinating films

  • Happy-Go-Lucky
  • Synecdoche, New York

The former is the new film by Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Topsy-Turvy) and the latter is the directorial debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. I skipped the Leigh film in Toronto, assuming that it would be ... fine. But it turns out to be quite a bit better than that, not only because the Amélie-like surface of the main character is covering something far more interesting but also because she comes into contact with other personalities who to tease it out instead of highlight it with sprinkles. In the theater, Kaufman's film feels familiar and unpleasant -- like rolling around in someone's laundry. But something about it is sitting well in the brain. More later.

Coming Soon

The early word from reliable sources on the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace, is not encouraging.

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