On the Plastic Podcast, Robert Davis and J. Robert Parks talk about movies.
They first met at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007 when they realized they were writing for the same publication. Over the next two years, Davis and Parks recorded a series of conversations about movies, sometimes twice a month, even though they lived in San Francisco and Chicago, respectively. Then Davis moved his family to Chicago, and ironically the podcasts dwindled to a trickle. But every once in a while, the two cinephiles see something in a dark room that they feel like talking about. And you're welcome to listen in.
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Davis was the chief film critic for Paste Magazine from 2005 through 2009, when it was a national print publication. (It lives on now as a popular website.) Here he is chatting with filmmaker Claire Denis. Here he is on the phone with composer Danny Elfman. Here he is name-checking Harun Farocki in a review of Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Here he is smirking at Twilight. And so on. Sometimes he pops up on Twitter.
Parks fell into film criticism in the late ‘90s much like you would into a large hole — by accident and head-over-heels. Over the course of ten years, he wrote for a few different publications (including the Hyde Park Herald, Paste Magazine, and TimeOut Chicago) and way too many websites and blogs. He also teaches and likes to think he molds minds in the windy city. Optimism and/or hubris spring eternal. Here's J. Robert on Killer of Sheep, Time of the Wolf, and Homework.