Life has kept the CMC crew from recording as of late, but Corey and Nicole Bontoft took the time recently to at long last plow through the entirety of Joss Whedon’s Firefly and the feature film follow-up, Serenity.

That is all!!

As always, please feel free to leave messages here on the blog, at criticalmasscast@gmail.com or on Twitter @cmasscast

DOWNLOAD LINK

Total Run Time: 50:14

File Size: 46.0 MB

Well, we finally made it happen!!  CMC host Greg Ashman and old podcasting pal Mark Perez of The Devil and Miss Mindy got together to have a conversation on director Andrew Haigh’s “Weekend”, starring Tom Cullen and Chris New.  The UK romantic indie drama coursed its way through the festival circuit in 2011 to critical acclaim and landed a great Criterion release in August of this year.  Hope you enjoy the show and be sure to check out Dennis Lim’s fantastic piece, “The Space Between Two People” that helps to break down the craft of the film and its place both in contemporary and queer cinema.

As always, please feel free to leave messages here on the blog, at criticalmasscast@gmail.com or on Twitter @cmasscast

Opening/closing song: Marz- John Grant and Midlake

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Total Run Time: 1:30:09

File Size: 82.5 MB

CMC co-host Corey Pierce recently did a guest spot on The Cinecast, Row Three’s official film review podcast.  From the website:

“Continuing with another week centered around an interesting title to talk about, Corey Pierce from CriticalMassCast joins us for a (SPOILER!) filled discussion on structure, themes and mouth-feel of Looper. Corey explains the ‘Rule of Awesome’ when it comes to these types of movies, and whether or not to nitpick. Kurt obsesses about the visual queues in the film and Andrew contemplates Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s adoption of Bruce Willis’ body language. We move on to grading homework, wherein Matt Gamble joins us for colour commentary and general merriment. The Watch List has Corey giving a mini-review of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, while Kurt falls down the Kubrick rabbit hole with visual essays both good and bad. Micro-discussions on The Fountain, Christopher Guest, Electric Cars, The Game, Alan Rickman and Compliance ensue.”

Recently, CMC co-host Corey Pierce had a chance to guest host an edition of In Between Days  on the Matineecast where they talked up the changing face of celebrity stardom: check it out here

From the website:  “Norma Desmond said she still was big, and that it was the pictures that got small. Maybe she was right…then again, maybe not.

There are a few bumps and bruises along the way in this episode, but I think it still works very well. Truthfully, this sort of four-person, two boys/two girls dynamic was what I wanted to trot out for every IBD episode. Here’s hoping I can do it more often! For this show, the four of us talked about the changing face of movie stars, and what it takes to be one and stay one nowadays.

My guests this week include a podcasting vet, and two rookies. The old hand is Corey Pierce from CriticalMassCast; the newbies are Danielle D’Ornellas and Titania Plant. The four of us got

To recap the concept of this offshoot – expect to see these episodes turning up once a month. My intention is for them to be a bit more raw (there are almost no cuts in this conversation), a bit shorter, with no rules, and less of a pecking order on who sits down at the table.

Enjoy!”

Letterboxd is a social site for sharing your taste in film. Use it as a diary to record your opinion about films as you watch them, or just to keep track of films you’ve seen in the past. Rate, review and tag films as you add them. Find and follow your friends to see what they’re enjoying. Keep a watchlist of films you’d like to see, and make lists about any aspect of film, for example: favorite heist films. Import historic data from several popular apps, and add films to your US Netflix instant queue directly from the site.

What is exciting now is that Letterboxd has made finally made the transition from private to public beta. All pages on Letterboxd are now publicly visible (except for those deemed private by their owners), and all new users are able to send invitations to friends immediately following sign up. Letterboxd will remain invitation-only for a period, to enable it to control its rate of growth.

Be sure to follow CMC hosts Gregory Ashman and Corey Pierce on this great resource and start a dialogue. Below is a screenshot of the basic Letterboxd interface which is pretty user friendly…

From the Toronto International Film Festival website:

TIFF Announces New Festival Box Office Location And New Ticket Packages

Toronto – The Toronto International Film Festival® returns for its 36th year with a new Festival Box Office location opening August 23 at Metro Hall (225 King St. West), increased daytime public screenings, a special offer and new ticket packages designed to enhance the Festival experience for Festival pros, first-timers and everyone in between. The 36th Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8 to18, 2011.

“We are constantly looking at customer feedback in order to enrich the Festival experience. In 2011 we are implementing changes that are the direct result of Festival-goers’ suggestions, including new ticket packages and increased daytime screenings,” said Cameron Bailey, Co-Director, Toronto International Film Festival. “TIFF Bell Lightbox will be the heart of the action for 11 days as the building will serve as the hub of activity throughout the Festival.”

Ticket packages are on sale for TIFF Members beginning June 20, for Visa† cardholders on July 4, and for Visa, cash and debit payments on July 11. Ticket packages can be purchased online 24 hours a day at tiff.net/festival, by phone Monday to Friday from

10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET at 416-599-TIFF or 1-888-599-8433, and in person at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Box Office at 350 King St. West from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET.

Hey CriticalMassCast fans listen up:  Resident CMC host Greg Ashman has been doing a little moonlighting these days on his new show, Zero Pretension

Hosts Greg Ashman, and Shawn Keown will be bringing you a bi-weekly showcase of all things cool. From films and video releases, TV shows, video games, to comic books, we will be addressing a huge variety of media. We also vow to look at many different types of media; whether it be B movie SciFi and Action or the A list Block Buster; we will cover it all. Trust us when we say that the films and movie releases that we are talking about can either be found at your local movie theater or video store.

Each episode will be featured on our website as both a download link and a built-in streaming media player, so you can listen to us any way you like. We also have our podcasts on iTunes and be sure to follow @zeropretension on Twitter! We’ll keep you updated on which films to see, what shows to watch, and anything else that strikes our twitter fancy.

So this is us … getting off the soap box. Grab the popcorn … it is time for your Feature Presentation … ZeroPretension.

James Franco (right) and Aaron Tveit in Howl- Inside Out's opening gala presentation

Inside Out is a not-for-profit registered charity that exists to challenge attitudes and change lives through the promotion, production and exhibition of film and video made by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people of all ages, races and abilities.

In 1991, Inside Out celebrated its first film and video festival with a small community of people who yearned to see film and video created by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people. Currently the largest event of its kind in Canada, the Festival entertains film buffs of all stripes. Taking place over 11 days, the Festival draws crowds of 35,000 to screenings, artist talks, panel discussions, installations and parties that highlight more than 250 films and videos from Canada and around the world.

The opening gala presentation will be Howl, the genre bending biopic of famed beat poet Allen Ginsburg directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (The Celluloid Closet, The Times of Harvey Milk, Paragraph 175) starring James Franco, Aaron Tveit, Jon Hamm, Marie Louise Parker, and Jeff Daniels.  Criticalmasscast will be there for this special event at Toronto’s beautiful Bata Shoe Museum and will report back.  Stay tuned!

The National FIlm Board of Canada (NFB) has created over 13,000 productions and won more than 5,000 awards at festivals, including 12 Oscars. With more Academy Award nominations than any production company or organization outside of Hollywood, the NFB continues to be a pioneer in Canadian cinema.

The NFB garnered its 70th Oscar-nominated film with Madame Tutli-Putli: a stop-motion journey into the fully imagined, tactile world of its titular character. Travelling on the night train, Madame Tutli-Putli finds herself caught in a metaphysical adventure that forces her to confront her demons.

Quite recently The National Film Board of Canada launched an HD Screening Room on their website complete with a number of award-winning animated shorts.  You can check out most of their content online or take advantage of their amazing iphone/ipod touch application which you can download for free from the iTunes store which provides quick access to the NFB’s extensive library of documentary and animation pieces.

The critically lauded animation shorts that the NFB have produced over the years were a big part of my childhood and definitely contributed to my love and appreciation of animation over the years.  Highlights for me include, 1977′s Oscar winning stop-and-go classic “The Sand Castle” and 1988′s Oscar-nominated animated short “The Cat Came Back” by Cordell Barker.  My favourite of the bunch though is Janet Perlman’s “The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin” which was nominated for best animated short at the 1981 Academy Awards.  The short takes a new look at a centuries-old tale:

- Posted by Greg

It’s finally here! The 82nd annual Academy Awards air Sunday at 8pm on ABC.

Don’t forget to subscribe to CriticalMassCast: next week we discuss the ceremony in our post-Oscar wrap-up show.

And now… our list of predictions, along with who we think really deserves the statue:

The Criterion Collection have announced their upcoming April titles, among them Jean-Luc Godard’s visually stunning New Wave masterwork Vivre sa vie; Sidney Lumet’s brilliant Tennessee Williams adaptation The Fugitive Kind (certainly overdue for a renaissance), starring Marlon Brando and…. Olivier Assayas’s Summer Hours, which was touted as my #3 best film of 2009 on episode three and a favourite film of mine.

The film will be available as a 2-disc DVD edition and a 1-disc Blu-Ray on April 20, 2010 .  Here is what you can expect on the Criterion edition:

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Olivier Assayas and cinematographer Eric Gautier (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
• New video interview with Assayas
• A short documentary featuring interviews with Assayas and actors Charles Berling and Juliette Binoche, and showing the cast and crew on set
• Inventory, an hour-long documentary by Olivier Gonard, shot partly in Paris’s Musée d’Orsay, that examines the film’s approach to art
• Theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones

- posted by Greg

Greg’s runners-ups: Broken Embraces, The Hurt Locker, Drag me to Hell, A Single Man, The September Issue, Avatar, The Box, Moon, A Serious Man, Star Trek, Coraline, Where the Wild Things Are, Waking Sleeping Beauty, Departures, Watchmen, Two Lovers, The Class, The Girlfriend Experience, The Hangover, I Love You Man

Ryan’s runners-ups: Drag me to Hell, Up, Bruno, Taking Woodstock, Humpday, A Serious Man

Worst/disappointing films of 2009: Greg: Up, Funny People, Taking Woodstock, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The International, Knowing, Lymelife, X-Men Origins: Wolverine Ryan: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen,  New Moon: The Twilight Saga (come on folks, you could see this one coming)