The Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Moviefilm Podcast

This week, Matt and Corbin are joined by DOM SINACOLA (Film Critic at The Portland Mercury, The Werner Hertzblog) to talk about LESSONS OF DARKNESS, Werner Herzog's impressionistic non fiction essay movie about the burning oilfields of Kuwait in the wake of the first Gulf War. Topics include: is this movie responsible? Germany in the post war, Herzog and truth and lies, and other stuff. Honestly it's been a while since we recorded it, so it's possible I'm missing something.

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. And we got a Bluesky going.

Next episode is about "The White Ribbon," which is streaming somewhere, probably.

Do you remember that when Jean-Luc Godard took psychedelics and made a Spider-Man Movie? We talk about it!

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. And we got a Bluesky going.

Next episode is about "Lessons of Darkness," watch it here.

Corbin and Matt talk about "J'accuse!," Abel Gance's nearly-three hour long French silent film epic about the horrors of the First World War and the generational crashout it evoked. Watch it here.

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. And got a Bluesky going.

Next episode is about "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." It's on Disney+.

Oh hey! Sorry for the delay, Matt was really busy for a few weeks so we had to take a break. But, hey: we've back, talking with Madeline Lane-McKinley, feminist writer, parent, teacher, and author of Solidarity with Children: an Essay Against Adult Supremacy (Haymarket, 2026). We discuss Weapons, Zach Cregger's recent 2025 horror comedy/suburban Brothers Grimm pastiche. Topics include: the figure of the witch in contemporary society, suburban life and Fortress Mindset, how cruddy the cops in this movie are, how the film wants us to process Gladys, and Julia Garner's incredible Madonna hair.

Madeline's book is available here at a fabulous price. Follow them here!

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. And got a Bluesky going.

Our next episode will be about J'Accuse, Abel Gance's first film about the horrors of WW1.

The master is here, folks, and this time he wields the themes and some of the particulars of one WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S great work KING LEAR in service of a hypnotic nightmare about the horrors of war. It whips! We talk about that, about Kurosawa as a supremely 'Cinematic' figure trying on a 'Theatrical' hat in this movie, Lear as an eternal political fable, some of the hot shit sequences in here, and other stuff.

this is a weird way to deal with this bit theres a lot of interesting academic writing about RAN out there, in shakespeare journals and filmic ones. peek around if you wanna learn something.

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. We also got a Bluesky going.

Matt's rec is in theaters. Corbin's rec is mega off the done. We dont know what the next episode is, for reasons that would take too long to explin here. Thanks!

Ryder C. joins Matt and Corbs to discuss "The Secret Agent," a drama film that uses the rythyms of historical research to tell a story about a man getting suqeezed by the military dictatorship in 1970's Brazil. It's a cool movie, scope it out.

Matt rec. Ryder's rec sounds cool but is hard to find on streaming. Perhaps you can take a journey and find it. Corbin reccomends a movie currently in theaters.

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. We also got a Bluesky going.

Our next episode is about RAN. Watch it here.

This week, Béla Tarr, a Hungarian art film director of note, passed away at the age of 70. Tarr's stark, highly idiosyncratic dramas about the dread in the heart of every man are favorites of Matt Ellis and many other philosphically inclined, hard thinking movie fans the world over.

'The Turin Horse,' Tarr's last film, released in 2011, tells a story so small you can drown it in a bathtub: A farmer and his daughter and their horse live a brutally meger lifetyle in a small farmhouse while the world around them devolves into... something? That's it, that's all he needs, folks. Art!

Corbin rec. Ellis rec. Our next episode is about THE SECERET AGENT which may or may not be in a theater near you right now.

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. We also got a Bluesky going.

Music: "Dark Space Low" - Angelo Badalamenti, from Twin Peaks: The Return, "The Closing of the Gates" - Luke Howard and the Budapest Art Orchestra

A Great American Film Artist made a movie about a liar trying to power through his banal midcentruy existence by grifting. It's not Marty Supreme, though, it's "The Mastermind" by Kelly Reichardt! We talk about it!

Listen to KR on the LARB Radio Hour here!

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. We also got a Bluesky going.

Our next episode will be about, uhh... how about Escape from New York? We've never done Carpenter before. Watch it here.

Merry Christmas. In the mid-80's, Godard made a fascinating high art movie about the Virgin Mary and the Christmas story. It made some people extremely angry. Should they have been angry? We discuss.

Watch the movie here. Also check out these essays about the film, if you're inclined.

Corbin rec. Matt's rec is life management based. Next episode is about THE MASTERMIND. It's available on Mubi, a service Corbin does not have access to. Hope he figures that out!

Frederick Wiseman made a movie about a horse racing track in New York State. That's all it is. But then what? We discuss.

Watch the movie here, it rocks. Interview with Wiseman here. You can also find hundreds of other interviews with him. He's very smart.

Corbin rec. Matt rec.

Check out the show on Letterboxd if you're into that thing. Matt is also on there. We also got a Bluesky going.

Our next episode is our Christmas Special, where we will be discussing "Hail Mary." Watch it here.