Film Junk Episode #200: Year End Podcast Live on Sunday, Dec. 28th!

Posted by on December 26th, 2008   Filed under: Site News

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Hey guys, here are the details on the upcoming Film Junk Year End Video Podcast, which also happens to be our 200th episode! We will be broadcasting the entire thing live on Ustream.tv this Sunday, December 28th @ 9 pm EST.

The topics we will be covering include:

  • Film Junk’s Top 10 Movies of 2008
  • Winners of the Film Junk 2008 Reader’s Choice Awards
  • Recap of the biggest news stories of the year
  • Review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  • Responding to your questions live in the chat room!

We hope you’ll be able to join us for this momentous occasion. When the time comes, the live broadcast will be embedded on the Film Junk main page, but if you want to participate in the chat room it’s easiest if you create a user account ahead of time over at Ustream.tv. (Yes, we will also be releasing an audio version of the podcast afterward.) See you there!

» Related Link: Ustream.tv: Film Junk Channel



  • Audio no video, right? I think video live would be awesome.

  • Greg

    Okay. Bulldogs play at 6pm. Game should end around 8:30. Should be back from Hamilton around 9.

  • Tom: There is live video as well.

  • Falsk

    I need me some live Reed Farrington.

    No, seriously.

  • swarez

    OK I’ve downloaded a bunch of old podcasts and the latest cantankerous for my flight home from Florida. Yous bastidchiz better entertain my ass on that hell of a flight.

  • Project Genesis

    Greg, what if you go into overtime?

  • Yeah, Sean…just confirming.

  • Andreas

    Don´t know if I´ll be able to follow this live but I´ll definitely listen to it later. Big expactations for the 200th show…don´t let us down guys. ;)

    Cheers!

    Andy “The Swedish polarbear”

  • Neil M

    It’s a Christmas miracle!

  • Hannes

    Is this viewable on a Mac computer?

  • I’m pretty sure it works on Macs. Just head over to Ustream.tv and try watching some of their other live streams right now.

  • I’m back in town! I’ve been guilty of giving one word answers to your live questions in the past, but I’m prepared today to elucidate and be eloquent.

    Falsk, it’s nice to feel wanted! I don’t know if this 200th episode will be anything special. I don’t feel especially cheerful, but you can count on me to say something stupid.

    Swarez, hope your flight home from Florida was swell. I heard Air Canada was losing a lot of luggage during these holidays.

    Sean, I’d love to set up multiple cameras and switch between them. I have a Panasonic AV mixer that we could use. It’s too late to set this up, but I would love trying it if you’re game for it in the future.

  • Not sure if you know this, but ‘Falsk’ means fake in danish.

  • No, I didn’t know that, Henrik. Falsk sounded like a Shakespeare character.

  • Falsk

    Really? I’ve just always used the middle of my last name (RachFALSKi) as my online handles.

    The more you know…

  • Let me guess….waiting for Greg…. :)

  • Goon

    Maybe my eye isn’t properly trained, but I didn’t notice any of your cgi complaints at any point. Did you see it in digital? Maybe its more pronounced that way, but I was pretty amazed by it and walked out more pumped for the making of doc than I was for the movie to begin with.

  • Neil M

    I don’t really understand some of Jays problems with Benjamin Button. I think the issue of Benjamin watching all of his loved ones passing on as he grows younger is secondary to the bigger tragedy; the romance between him and Daisy that is drastically shortened because of his reverse aging. So his comment that the movie could have worked just as well if he aged normally is a bit problematic. One thing I absolutely agree with, and I was wondering if you guys were going to bring it up, is the ridiculously bad acting by Kate Blanchett in the hospital scenes. The movie definitely wasn’t perfect, but I thought it was pretty damn good overall (not to mention gorgeous to look at).

  • Goon

    “So his comment that the movie could have worked just as well if he aged normally is a bit problematic.”

    Precisely. And his entire worldview is changed by the fact that he grows up with all his friends around him dying when he’s a child, looking exactly like him. He never even had the chance to enjoy being a brat.

    Regardless, just doing a straight up epic movie of some regular schmuck’s entire life is something I’d be interested in.

  • JakeTheFatMan

    There needs to be a movie about Abraham Simpson and how he spent forty years as a night watchman at a cranberry silo.

  • It’s hard to make any points on the podcast when you’re not allowed to get into spoilers. So before anyone reads on, SPOILER ALERT.

    SPOILERS AHEAD.

    ______________________________________________

    So Benjamin is born old. Physically, he looks like and old man and suffers from many of the same afflictions as someone of the age of 80 years. He can’t talk. He can’t hear. He can’t see. He can’t walk. He can’t communicate with those around him. How different is this than being born normally? As a boy, somehow he’s surrounded by people he relates to. Even the little girl wants to hang out with him. Sure he’s scolded for doing so. That’s about where it ends. In every other case, he’s not an outsider.

    “And his entire worldview is changed by the fact that he grows up with all his friends around him dying when he’s a child, looking exactly like him.”

    Maybe if he wasn’t surrounded by elderly people, they wouldn’t be dying around him. This would happen to anyone, even if they weren’t aging in reverse. The fact that he looks like them isn’t explored as much as it should’ve been. He just continues with a matter-of-fact approach of ‘I should be dead, but I guess I’m not’.

    “I think the issue of Benjamin watching all of his loved ones passing on as he grows younger is secondary to the bigger tragedy; the romance between him and Daisy that is drastically shortened because of his reverse aging.”

    The main curse of his reverse aging is the idea of watching people pass him by as he gets younger. I didn’t think this was that effective considering the fact that for most of the movie he was surrounded by old people and strangers. His old friends die before him, just as they would normally. His Mother dies before him, just as she would normally. The only difference is they say ‘You’ve gotten so much younger!’.

    Sure, he decides to cut off his relationship with Cate Blanchett and his daughter, but this isn’t something that’s abnormal. What about parents that have kids at an older age? Parents that are unable to care for their kids for financial reasons? Parents that go to jail?? This conflict is not really that out of this world. He gets younger and can’t care for his child. Doesn’t the same thing happen when people get older? As a character in the movie said, ‘We all end up in diapers’. Exactly.

    Hell, even Cate Blanchett’s character outlives him! He doesn’t even have to see her die! Sure, the moment when he’s a baby is pretty powerful. If only the rest of his life was that tortured. Instead, he seemed to go on about his business without any real conflict. At least none directly related to his problem.

    I understand the idea of using this reverse aging as a clever way to look at the someone’s life story and what someone goes through when growing old, but I just was expecting something a little more fantastic.

  • Also, I would’ve liked to have discussed this further on the show, but according to Reed people were getting bored of it in the chat room.

  • Primal

    I would of loved for you guys to elaborate on the movie further, but it was really one person, I think MovieMoxie saying that she didn’t believe you guys were still talking about Button. No one actually said they were bored. It was Reed’s interpretation I guess.

  • Now I get it. Reed was bored and he was looking for any comments in the chat room to manipulate and help push his own agenda. That bastard.

  • About The Wrestler, I just remember in your review you went on about things like how it showed the reality of wrestling, how much Mickey Rourke looks like an actual wrestler, how they used the 80s hair metal so much better than any other movie, how they shot the film in front of actual wrestling crowds etc. all these things that are so specific to the idea of wrestling, and with wrestling being part of the culture it means something, but when its not all of these things mean nothing to a guy like me. I really want to see it, but I just doubt it will resonate as much with me as it would had I grown up someplace where wrestling is part of the culture and taken seriously as entertainment. Say it had been badminton, would the movie exist? Would it have the cultural things you highlight like the music?

  • Henrik….the was a Maxim article on him….you should read what he had to go through….Pretty impressive as his trainer said that Mickey took the role very seriously even doing most of his own stunts. Says a lot for an old guy.

  • Haha, I’m Jay’s bastard hate-child. People in the chatroom were also saying that no one was standing up to Jay. Well, I made Jay shut-up. Haha.

    Jay, you’re always accusing me of looking for a gimmick, so I don’t understand why the straight-forward depiction of showing a man aging in reverse should make the film less enjoyable for you.

    Cate Blanchett and Tom Cruise are getting dissed for their acting in their recent movies. I wonder why their directors didn’t say anything. Maybe because David Fincher and Bryan Singer are bad at directing actors?

  • Neil M

    Thanks for clarifying Jay. I think there are several different themes that could have been explored further in the movie. In the end Fincher chose to focus the story around the effects that Benjamin’s condition had on his relationship between him and Daisy, and I think that it worked fairly well. The idea that the only time that their relationship could ever truly work was that one moment in time when they met in the middle was pretty interesting to me, even though it wouldn’t be that cut and dry.

    “He gets younger and can’t care for his child. Doesn’t the same thing happen when people get older?”

    Well, he said that he didn’t want to burden Daisy with caring for two children by herself. I can’t remember if he outright said it, but I think that he would want them to have a chance at a normal family as well. His inability to care for the child was only part of the story. I will admit though that this was the weaker half of the conflict.

    “The main curse of his reverse aging is the idea of watching people pass him by as he gets younger. I didn’t think this was that effective considering the fact that for most of the movie he was surrounded by old people and strangers. His old friends die before him, just as they would normally.”

    You’re right. It wasn’t that effective. But hold on. Would he have formed all of the relationships that he did with the old people in his house had he looked like every other kid? I don’t think so. He wasn’t even allowed to play with other kids even though he so desperately wanted to. When you’re a normal kid and you grow up with other kids, you all grow up together and watching a friend die is rare. Bejamin had to see all of his friends pass away at a very early age. This would have been a difficult thing for him to deal with, even though we don’t see the consequences of this as much as we maybe should.

    And Reed, Cate Blanchett was only terrible in the scenes where she tried to play an old dying woman. Otherwise she was great. I don’t know what Fincher was thinking with that though.

  • Neil M

    “In the end Fincher chose to focus the story around the effects that Benjamin’s condition had on his relationship between him and Daisy, and I think that it worked fairly well.”

    Sorry it’s like 2am…

    In the end Fincher chose to focus the story around the effects that Benjamin’s condition had on his relationship with Daisy, and I think that it worked fairly well.