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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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.

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Warner Bros. Pictures

In The Reaping, Hillary Swank goes to a swampy town in the South to investigate some weird paranormal-type happenings. It's what she does. She's a professional certified scientific debunker.

Gets there. Snoops around. Sees some pretty plagueish occurrences of unclear scientific basis, including a river that has run red with goop and coughed up all manner of dead frogs and livestock. Even Swank and her team of rubber-booted scientists are gagging on the stench, but they gather their samples like pros and send them to the lab for analysis. Check for blood, boys. Let's see what's makin' this thing all red.

Now, the movie has lots of jolts and gross-outs up to this point, but for me it's not yet scary. However, it will be. After gathering their samples, the team retires for the evening at an old house near the river. Crickets chirp. Or cicadas. Whatever. Some Southern bug. The scientists shoot the breeze. They fire up the grill for some dinner and relaxation, and a local guy throws some grub over the coals. Plague or no plague, a team of debunkers has gotta eat. "What's cooking?" they ask the griller. And he says, "Fish."

Gulp. The team pauses. The film pauses. Its heart skips a beat. Reaction shot. Reaction shot. Reaction shot. F-f-f-fish?

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