The Film Stage Presents

When, a few years ago, I agreed to interview the filmmaker Rob Tregenza on the eve of his career-spanning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, I did not anticipate it would, before long, lead to a producing credit on his new film. Nor a whole other feature in the time between that he thanked me for helping motivate, or an extended interview on his strange experiences working with Béla Tarr.

This week marks the release of Tregenza’s sixth feature, Fast, a characteristically audacious and formally virtuosic that opens at MoMA on Wednesday, August 12 for a world-premiere one-week run, followed by an opening at Los Angeles’ Laemmle cinemas on August 21.

If you suspect I’m biased in the movie’s favor, good work; you are correct. But I also have as many questions about it as anyone else, and wanted to speak to Tregenza about Fast’s particulars and peculiarities. Thus this conversation that I hope you—whether you choose to be the listener or the reader—find as illuminating as I, the interviewer.

There’s podcasts about movies (hello) and there are movies about podcasts. A podcast helping create a movie that is not itself about the podcast, but reflects its worldviews and the sense of humor that has become a kind of lingua franca among people in their 20s and 30s: that is novel.

Thus: Chunks. If you’re a regular listener of Chapo Trap House, you’ve probably heard ads for the film proffered by the show’s producer Chris Wade, who has also taken up producing duties on this film, which is a comedy anthology that moves between public-access TV, animation, live-streamed poker, and more straight-ahead narrative projects that still reflect something of screen life and the modern dystopia. Chunks was spearheaded by Amber A'Lee Frost, a longtime contributor to Chapo who has since started ColdFeet, a production entity that previously supported Eephus. It was my pleasure speaking with Chis and Amber about Chunks, translating the Chapo sensibility to cinema, and ColdFeet’s forthcoming projects.
Music courtesy of Lex Walton: “Love Theme from an Unreleased Film” from the album Giving It Up.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we discuss the great Michael Mann! Our B-Sides are The Keep, Public Enemies, Blackhat, and Ferrari. Our guest is the iconic Blake Howard of One Heat Minute Productions.

We discuss the troubled making of The Keep, as well as that incredible Tangerine Dream score. The legendary Twilight Zone episode “The Howling Man” also comes up. There’s also mention of how many movies about the French-Indian War there are (spoiler alert: not many!)

Blake, Conor, and Dan Mecca discuss the legacy of Mann and his recent output of underappreciated films. Why is it that Michael Mann’s films are often released to lesser success than their long-term reputations suggest?

There’s celebration of Mann’s ever-evolving digital aesthetic, conversation about the contentious star-director relationship on the set of Public Enemies, and his demanding, exacting instincts. As legendary producer Amy Pascal once put working with the director: “You forget about the pain of childbirth too. I mean, whatever you go through, you still want another baby. It’s like that with Michael too.”

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. 

Today we discuss perhaps the most popular filmmaker alive today: Christopher Nolan! Our B-Sides are Insomnia, The Prestige, and Tenet. Our guest is the legendary Blake Howard of One Heat Minute Productions. 

We chat about late-period Al Pacino, the unexpected success of Batman Begins, and those other magician movies that came out around The Prestige in 2006.

There’s appreciation for the unique Nolan commentary for Insomnia and that Entertainment Weekly cover for Batman Begins, and the great character actor Martin Donovan.

Like the old song goes: summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street. While the theater has its benefits as a restrictive space, and we do not encourage interrupting those to your immediate left and right with heavy movement, one appreciates, at times, the excuse to tap your feet. Or at least a reminder that theaters aren’t just about a big screen, but a sound system better than the built-in speaker  situated behind your TV.

Hence: Electronica. It’s a new series running at BAM from today, July 10, to July 14, featuring an "amalgam of films from across the globe boasting electronic-heavy soundtracks." Some titles you might know chapter and verse; others, I think, have not played in New York for at least the decade I’ve lived here. I was glad to speak with BAM’s Yasmina Tawil about Electronica, but what follows is really a discussion of programming in its finer points: when to screen and why; when you can’t screen but really want to; what attracts an audience, and how you attract the audience with something they don’t necessarily want; and how this is seemingly the one realm of cinema where people reject monetary offers. I hope you enjoy, and see something in Electronica as it’s running.

Learn more: https://www.bam.org/film/2026/electronica