Thoughts on 400 Episodes of the /Filmcast

The /Filmcast just recorded its 400th episode, a review of Martin Scorsese’s newest film Silence. Eight years I’ve been doing this podcast, most recently with my intrepid co-hosts Devindra Hardawar and Jeff Cannata.

Last night, we received the following email about the podcast from a listener I’ll refer to as Brett. I’ve posted an excerpt from the email below, with his permission.

I share this excerpt not as an act of self-aggrandizement, but rather as encouragement to anyone reading it: You too can create something meaningful for other people. In fact, you probably already are, just by being who you are, interacting how you do, sharing what you do.

When we started the podcast, we didn’t think we’d be creating something that would allow people to feel less alone in the world. Maybe we just wanted to create something that made US feel less alone in our passion for movies, and by doing so, it made others feel the same as well.

And so when I read an email like this, I don’t think “I’m amazing!” I think: if some nincompoop with a microphone and an internet connection like me can create this kind of feeling in people, then pretty much anyone can. And you should all keep putting yourself out there and doing so.

***
Dear David, Devindra and Jeff,

My name is Brett. I’m 36 and I live northeast Philadelphia, PA. I have been listening to your podcast now for quite some time. I’m a huge fan. I’m also a musician, audio engineer and a lover of film. My love for film eventually led me to find your podcast. Since then, I’ve been with you guys every step of the way. To me, it’s the best podcast, in my opinion, for movie lovers.

I am writing this as I lay in a hospital bed. In 2012, I was diagnosed with leukemia. And ever since then, my life has been one disaster after another. I went through a divorce with a girl I had been with for 15 years. We have a beautiful son together. His name is David.

So I’m currently laying in a hospital bed and I’m in extreme pain. All I want to do is listen to you guys. So I started playing episode 400 and this feeling of peace just came over me. I just close my eyes and listen to the three of you talk film, make Boom goes the dynamite jokes, or the really well-handled ad reads with David and Jeff.

I just wanted you to know that your podcast is truly a light in a dark place. Since 2012, I’ve been in and out of hospitals. More times than I can even remember at this point. Tonight, I had a mental breakdown and started feeling very sorry for myself. The nurse came in to give me my meds. I took them, turned the TV, went to my podcast app and there was the new episode. I’m 30 minutes in and I’ve already forgotten where I was.

I just wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. You’re really helping people in ways you might not know. I am sure you receive emails like this all the time but I really felt the need to express my gratitude to the three of you tonight.

I write this not in the hopes that you will read it on the podcast but that you will read this and feel a sense of pride. You would be really surprised to learn that three friends talking about movies can make someone who is very sick actually smile. So I thank you as much as I can. Your podcast means so much to me. When I listen to an episode, it just reminds me of conversations and arguments I’ve had with my friends in regards to film. Please continue to do what you do…

Thank you for hearing me out,
Brett

Welcome to the new davechen.net!

After many months of languishing on an old Blogger account, the new davechen.net is finally here! I’m once again hoping this blog will once again become a permanent, online repository for my writings, as well as links that I find interesting.

In the age of Medium, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter, it is so easy to spend all of our time building our online profiles elsewhere. Doing so confers many benefits, but there are also some important downsides. Personally, I like to own and control all my content, in order to ensure its longevity. Hence, this new WordPress install to replace the old blog.

WordPress is a fully-featured blogging platform that offers numerous benefits over Blogger:

  1. It’s open source and maintained by a distributed community, meaning it’s likely to not only last for awhile, but will continue being updated (Unlike Blogger, which seems to have been completely forgotten)
  2. I can finally implement some modern-day SEO for the site! Blogger gives you very little control over this.
  3. TONS of plug-ins can be integrated into your site, such as Disqus.
  4. Should I ever want to leave, many OTHER platforms support WordPress migration. Not so with Blogger.

From this point on, my plan is to try to post on here as frequently as I post to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. That means a lot more updates, some of which will be pretty short (maybe even a sentence long). I won’t always succeed with this rate of updates, but I’m going to try my hardest and it’ll be better than nothing.

Big thanks go to my brother, Michael, for his help with setting this up. And thanks in advance to you, the reader, for checking this site out. I hope you find it interesting.

My 10 Favorite Longreads of 2016

It has been a brutal year in terms of updating this blog (only 5 posts since the LAST “Top 10 Longreads” post? Terrible). I am putting plans in place to move this sucker over to WordPress/Medium and get going again. The biggest obstacle remains porting over/recreating all my old posts and making sure the link structure is intact. Once that’s done, I am hopeful that the regular blogging will recommence!

But some traditions die hard, so as usual, here are my 10 favorite longreads of 2016 in no particular order. These were pieces that in some way caused me to think, moved me, changed my mind, or made me laugh. I hope you get something out of them too:

How Making a Murderer Went Wrong – Kathryn Schulz explores the terrifying implications of letting popular entertainment dictate the path of justice in individual cases. In the case of the wildly popular Making a Murderer on Netflix, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the case presented to you.

 How Zano Raised Millions on Kickstarter and Left Most Backers with Nothing – Kickstarter (the company) did something most companies wouldn’t: they asked a freelance reporter to write a story on one of their high-profile failures. Kickstarter failures happen often, with project creators frequently failing to deliver on the promised project or on individual rewards. By pulling back the curtain on how one company failed, this story hopes to encourage caution in optimistic backers.

Ask Polly: I’ve Failed at Everything I Worked to Achieve – It wouldn’t be a yearly favorite longreads list without another advice column by Heather Havrilesky. In this one, she provides advice to a young law school student struggling with trying to make sense of her level of accomplishments (or lack thereof). As usual, her advice feels universal and essential.

It Smelled Like Death: An Oral History of the Double Dare Obstacle Course – Hilarious piece by Marah Eakin about a pop culture artifact that I hadn’t given any thought to since childhood. The best nuggets from this piece all involve how slapdash and potentially dangerous the obstacle course really was. Sometimes, the best entertainment is borne of necessity and severe constraints.

 The Revenge of Roger Ailes – Riveting story by Gabriel Sherman about how the women at Fox News took down Roger Ailes, a man who sexually harassed women with impunity and who subjugated his employees through constant fear and scrutiny.

How Things Work – In Nick Denton’s final post for Gawker, he lays out what he was trying to accomplish with his company and its flagship blog, as well as what led to its downfall. A lot of insightful ink was spilled about how the downfall of Gawker is emblematic of a lot that’s going wrong with the media and our culture today. This piece by Denton himself felt like the best one to include here.

Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All – In a year filled with great reporting about Donald Trump (and a ton of truly awful reporting about him), I was struck by Tony Schwartz’s desire to speak out against Trump decades after helping him write The Art of the Deal. This piece in The New Yorker was one of the first that featured his critiques, and its anecdotes are still remarkable to this day.

 Time Risk – More than any other piece this year, Terry Rossio’s column on “time risk” helped me to understand the entertainment industry better. It is a massive column (it took me over 2 hours to read) but within its insights about how film projects get made, there’s also a lot here about how we choose to spend our time as creators in this world, and what we should prioritize.

Death, The Prosperity Gospel, and Me – Cancer can instantly reconfigure all of your life’s priorities and your entire view of the world. Kate Bowler movingly describes what happens when your theology comes in conflict with your life circumstances.

 The Quest for a Unifying Theory of Time Travel in Star Trek – Delving through decades worth of Trek episodes and films, Xaq Rzetelny searches for a way to explain how the legendary franchise deploys the mechanic of time travel.  In other words, this article was genetically engineered for me to love it.

Also worth mentioning:
– Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
– History tells us what will happen next with Brexit and Trump by Tobias Stone
– In Defense of a Boring, Comfortable Life by B.J. Mendelson
– Future Shock by Abraham Riseman

I re-watched Avatar

Star Wars: The Force Awakens recently passed Avatar at the box office to become the number 1 domestic grossing film of all time. Upon hearing this news, a lot of people had the same reaction: “Avatar was the #1 grossing film of all time? Oh yeah…”

Listeners of the /Filmcast will know that we’ve been discussing Avatar for a few months already. Specifically: how could a film rapidly become the highest grossing film of all time and leave absolutely no cultural footprint? (Side note: hundreds of people have already sent me the link to Scott Mendelson’s piece on this topic. If I get it one more time, I fear I may have a Col. Miles Quaritch-esque freakout. That’s an Avatar reference, for those of you who have no idea what the characters’ names in Avatar are).

Awhile ago, a listener gifted me an Avatar Blu-Ray, and after all the Avatar conversation recently, I felt I should revisit the film. So yesterday I popped in the disc and tried to see it through fresh eyes. Here are a few of my reactions:

In my opinion, the CG still holds up – James Cameron pioneered some pretty amazing filmmaking techniques for this film, which allowed him to use/position a camera as he would in a conventional filmmaking environment but see a reasonable approximation of the final product on-the-fly. This allowed the film to “feel” like it was being shot with actual cameras on Pandora, with the weight movement that those cameras would bring to a real-world shoot. Moreover, while the world of Pandora is very clearly CG and a bit too shiny/clean to look totally photorealistic, the blend between the practical and the CG elements felt really seamless to me. And what never gets lost are the characters’ emotions. Neytiri (played by Zoe Saldana) is still this movie’s best special effect.

Everything is great except Na’vi Sigourney Weaver. She creeps me the hell out.

James Cameron still knows how to direct action like nobody else – The final hour of this film is a spectacular series of set pieces, with the destruction of Home Tree, the battle between the Na’vi and the marines, and then Quaritch’s final face-off with Jake Sully. Great sense of geography, pacing, and stakes throughout. Awesome action choreography.

 James Cameron is not subtle – The Na’vi’s connection with the forest is not just metaphorical. It’s LITERAL. As in, there’s actually a neural network IN THE ACTUAL PLANET. Oof.

The Avatar Blu-Ray is terrible – Remember when Blu-Rays used to force you to stream special features? Because they might get updated in the future? Yeah, me neither. Awful.

 The arc of the whole movie is just bizarre – It’s not too much of a stretch to assume that Avatar is an allegory about white people and Native Americans. The film invites us to relive the colonization of America, only this time, from the POV of the natives. And as Sully and the Na’vi brutally ruin and kill the appendages of the American military in the film’s final set piece, we as the audience are invited to cheer them on. It all just felt very…weird.

I was reminded of Annalee Newitz’s great piece about how Avatar and the fantasy within it is a distinctly “white” fantasy:

These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color – their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the “alien” cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become “race traitors,” and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It’s not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it’s not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It’s a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.

I remember seeing The Last Samurai and how that was a movie about someone who not only adapted to the ways of the samurai; he mastered them. The same happens in Avatar. Jake Sully doesn’t just barely squeak in as a member of the tribe; he rides Toruk to victory, which is considered one of the greatest honors and almost an impossible feat within Na’vi culture.

What does it say about white culture that it seems to be the only culture producing these kinds of narratives about redemption via assimilation into and mastery of other cultures? The film made me wonder. (P.S. If there’s, say, an Asian film about a guy who not only becomes assimilated into white culture but a master within it, leading a bunch of whites into victory, please let me know).

James Horner’s score is still beautiful – Still love the work of this brilliant man. RIP.

My 10 Favorite Longreads of 2015

My reading life really took a hit this year. Between my full-time job, the release of The Primary Instinct, and the release of my cello EP, I didn’t have nearly as much time to dive into online essays and investigative journalism as I wanted to (and as I have in years past).

Nonetheless, I was still able to consume a few pieces that really spoke to me. In particular, many of these pieces focused on the challenges of choosing a life in the arts, something I’ve struggled with mightily this year.

Anyway, here are my favorite reads of 2015, in no particular order.

Ask Polly: Should I give up on my writing? – Heather Havrilesky remains one of my favorite writers on the internet (In fact, when I first started the /Filmcast, she was one of the two people I knew wanted to get on the show. The other one: Shawn Ryan. Still gotta figure out a way to make the Havrilesky guest spot happen…). Havrilesky really has been killing it with her Ask Polly column, and this entry is no different – a beautiful essay on the limits of chasing after fame.

Get rich or die vlogging: the sad economics of internet fame – It’s an act of boldness to show people your weaknesses and your balance sheet. Gaby Dunn does it here in order to reveal the trials and tribulations of being in the Internet’s “middle class.” Sometimes, hundreds of thousands of subscribers and followers don’t convert into income cleanly, and Dunn gives voice to this anxiety.

25 Years in LA (parts 1-5) – While I don’t always agree with Drew McWeeny’s opinions on films or the entertainment industry, I’ve always found his to be an essential voice in our world. Plus, I’m fascinated by the backstories of how my favorite writers came to be who they are. Drew’s “25 years in LA” series was moving and personal, and gave readers a glimpse into a time in his life (and perhaps in all our lives) when it felt like anything was possible.

Raiders of the Lost Web – The web we know is dying piece by piece. Linkrot affects all elements of our society, all the way up to the Supreme Court. Adrienne LaFrance’s piece for The Atlantic about how a Pulitzer-finalist investigative series almost vanished should give any online content producers pause: we are partially responsible for preserving the work that we produce. And we must do all we can to make that happen.

The Lonely Death of George Bell – This extraordinary investigative effort documented what happens to a person when they die in New York. Most people who have friends and family have people to take care of their affairs for them. But for those who live lives of solitude, the resolution of their affairs fall to civil servants, who are brought together across time to help put this person to rest.

How Snoopy Killed Peanuts – In advance of the new Peanuts film, Kevin Wong published this loving chronicle of how Peanuts became less biting (and less intelligent) over time. This piece will make you miss the Peanuts of yesteryear.

The art of sound in movies – A fascinating behind-the-scenes look into the sound design of films like No Country for Old Men and Miles Ahead. These people are some of the many unsung heroes in the film industry.

The Last Day of Her Life – Sandy Bem knew her mind was deteriorating, and she wanted to die on her own terms. But how does one choose when it is time to die? A heartbreaking story of love, life, and loss that makes me consider how to approach the end of my own life.

The Myth of the Ethical Shopper – Buying clothing that isn’t made in terrible conditions is becoming more and more challenging these days. Shopping responsibly is an intractable issue, and Michael Hobbes’ piece for Huffington Post explores these problems in depth.

How to lose weight in 4 easy steps – Hilarious and touching, this piece by Aaron Bleyaert is (obviously) not just about weight-loss. It’s about how to deal when your life blows up and how to reconstitute it afterwards.