Bonus: Ask Us Anything (Excerpt)

0:00This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Breakthrough the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton cross training tread plus powered by Peloton IQ. With real-time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.com. Hey, film spotters. Josh and Adam here. Wednesdays are when we usually drop something in the feed from the film spotting archive. You know, 20 years worth of shows we can dig into.

0:36So we do that from time to time. This week, however, we're going to share some of the bonus show that we shared with the members of the Film Spotting family this month. Ask us anything. We do this from time to time. Open it up, the mailbag segment, if you will. And yeah, touched on some fun stuff. I was asked about this master's program I'm pursuing right now in Scotland. Uh, we learned a little bit more about how Adam ended up teaching in Iowa and the moment that, you know, film spotting became something more than Adam and producer Sam, who always joins us for these shows initially planned. So that's just some of the good stuff we dig into on this.

1:21Ask us anything. Yeah. There's several more questions that the entire film spotting family gets to listen to. That's one of the benefits of being a film spotting family member is getting those November bonus shows. I loved that question. I think that's the one we ended with because I had no idea what Sam was going to say, and we ended up having very different answers. So you can check that out. You're going to get a taste of it here. I believe it depends what producer Sam has decided to excerpt for you. And that's what you get to hear now. Hello, Film Spotting family. It is time for Ask Us Anything, your November bonus content.

2:01And yes, you're probably hearing this after episode 1040 where we talked about The Running Man and Nouvelle Vogue. And I'm sure I said this, I sound a little froggy. We recorded this actually before that episode and it's head cold season, at least for me. Sounding perfect, as always, are Josh Larson and Sam Van Halgren. Josh, how are you doing? I am dodging all the coughing going around me on, is this how universities are, Adam? Like everyone seems to be sick. Like everyone in my cohort is coughing. No one wants to skip a seminar, you know, and look bad. So far I've managed to avoid it, but now I've probably just cursed myself.

2:44Okay. You're good right now though, Sam. How are you doing? Yeah. I'm just saying just this, just this talk. I don't want to hear this. I just feel like we've I cursed everyone that's listening. Right. I just, you've made me aware and grateful that I am feeling 100 % healthy this very moment. We put out the call to the Film Spotting family about a week ago, maybe less, and said, hey, it's ask us anything time. Send us in some questions. We need to replenish the mailbag. And wow, did they deliver. I didn't even get a chance to transfer all of them. You haven't even seen the complete list. Oh, it's incredible.

3:16So many came in. So many we want to answer. We only have about 40 minutes to get as many in as possible. And for us, the way we talk, and there are so many good questions, we might only get to like four of them because they're so good and we can't stop chattering. But we'll see what we can do. Let's go ahead and jump right in. We are going to start with this one from Zach Brooks, who wants to know, as we get closer to 2026, do you have any film-related New Year's resolutions? And as we close out 2025, are there any movie objectives you'd like to complete before the clock strikes midnight? Guys, objectives, resolutions.

3:57Are you movie resolutions guys? I am not a resolution guy of any kind, really. Not opposed to it. I'm not either. Just I have enough tasks in my life. I don't need to make them up. But, you know, this question prompted me to think about it. And funnily enough, Zach, I was just in discussion with Michael Phillips because I'm hoping to finagle a way to get to the Venice Film Festival next fall. And he, of course, we just got a report from him this past fall from his time there. He's been going for a number of years and it will line up, I think, when I am going to have to be closing out my master's program.

4:41So I'll have to be back here in St. Andrews, Scotland, right around the time. And I'm thinking, why not try to put those two things together and actually attend the Venice Film Festival? So that's maybe more of a bucket list item for me next year, but I hope to make it happen. yeah i feel like we need to make the same resolution we made when we started film spotting adam just a just a movie a week can i just get a movie a weekend that isn't a movie that i'm just happened to be watching with my kids which i love i love to do that my 11 year old is always wanting to watch something some kind of nonsense but it's uh it's a joy it's a pleasure uh to watch with but it's not necessarily the kind of movies I'm trying to check off my list.

5:29Sam, aren't you in charge of programming in Spring Green? I mean, aren't you programming in two different venues at this point? I mean, you would seem to have some control over this. There's like three venues now. I just had a great meeting. Oh, my gosh. We're doing – because, yeah, we was programming. So Taliesin, right? We had this series of Taliesin. Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin. And in their old playhouse, we screened three films this summer. A great Hitchcock series just had the meeting a couple days ago about next summer. It's going to be six films. We're going to do screwball comedy. We're going to do classic movie homes, Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, Rebecca, Manderley.

6:10I'm so excited. At Taliesin, are you kidding me? I'm living the dream. So you program, but you don't attend. I don't watch. I'm there for the intros usually. But I have certainly made, to Zach's question, I have made resolutions in the past. I remember, I think it was about 10 years ago, and this is how long it's been probably since I made my last resolution. I was in that sweet spot where on Saturday mornings everyone was sleeping a little bit late. And I'm like, I have got to start seeing more movies that are like big, big movies. Many of them on the Criterion channel. I'm going to get up early and I'm going to watch a movie by myself, Criterion Channel.

6:50I remember there were like three weekends I watched Red Shoes, which I hadn't seen in a long time. I saw Only Angels Have Wings. I saw The Young Girls of Rochefort. I remember distinctly these three beautiful Saturday mornings that I had these ecstatic experiences with. It never happened again. And I'm at a point now in my life where I'm just like, it seems even more impossible to imagine starting a resolution, following through on one. So no, Zach, no, there are no resolutions. But here's pouring one out for all failed resolutions in the past. Yeah, I think I have one similar to you, Josh, not a resolution.

7:26I'm not resolved to do this, but there have been some conversations about possibly fulfilling one of my longtime movie related dreams, which is going to the Cannes Film Festival. and that happens in May, usually right after the spring semester ends. So if I can get my grades turned in, I could actually potentially be a free man and could go to the Cannes Film Festival. So I'm hoping that could happen. This might be the first year, 2026. I tell you how it's going to happen, Adam. The way it's going to happen is I'm going to make a film that's going to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, and you're going to be sitting in the audience at the premiere shaking your head that this is the only way you made it.

8:10And when am I going to make my film? And my film is going to be called The 500 Blows. Yes, exactly. Yeah, see, Josh doesn't know. Josh doesn't know what we're talking about. He still can't see it. I'm clueless, but let me know how that goes, Adam. I'm halfway there already. So I'll be in the neighborhood next spring. Okay. Before we get to the next question, I promise I'm not going to take time with this, But I think listeners might appreciate this. So I'm going to throw it out there. And of course, if you if you do have any, Josh, Sam, go ahead and chime in. But just earlier today, about three hours ago, my daughter, my oldest daughter, a.k.a.

8:49film spotting PA, Sophie Kempinar, sent me a text out of the blue. She sent me a text and it said this film spotting things I say in my regular life as if they are widely understood. And I again, I think our family members could possibly relate. So if they have any like this, send them to us. Feedback at film spotting dot net. Maybe we can feature them on the show or at least in a future edition of Ask Us Anything. The three she sent me were blind spotting, uber review and on air production meeting. Curiously, no one knows what she's talking about when she says those three things. So do you have any of those?

9:29I'm asking you, I suppose, but also I'm asking the listening public here. Do you have any of those that you say and you realize that the person you're talking to has no idea of which you speak? I'm glad to hear Overview has lodged itself that strongly. I feel like it had its moment and then it kind of faded away. And, and so yeah, for it to persist for Sophie is encouraging, absolutely blind spotting and frequently, I don't know. I feel like I'm at about a 60 % rate of people. I think they can put it together. I think it's enough, even without reference to the show, they understand what you're getting at.

10:09Um, so yeah, I use that one all the time. A blind spot, blind spot. I have to do some blind spot, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I think I say sacred cow a lot and then really have to explain what that is. So throwing that out there again, feedback at filmspotting.net. Fern Josephs wants to know for each of you, what's the best thing personally that's come out of doing the podcast? How hard is that? I'm not going first. I feel like, Sam, you need to take this one first. Okay. You know, it makes me think of a lot of ways to answer this question. You know, we often talk about how it's just one show after another.

10:56We rarely get to pick our heads up out of the sand and get any perspective like what Fern is getting at. So I start there with my head in the sand. And I just have to say it really is the creative outlet. This is a creative endeavor. And I love it. You know, I really, really enjoy it. And I have to say, I've brought this up a couple of times when we have a chance to talk to listeners. I don't care how many people are watching the video version of the show. I love doing the video version of the show. I did not anticipate that at all. I really, really enjoy it. I'm making my own movie every week a little bit.

11:35You know, it just, it feels like, you know, flexing that muscle a little bit. So it's super fun. But then occasionally, and it's something like Film Spotting Fest, or it's an email we get out of the blue from a listener we've never heard from that has been listening for 20 years or whatever it is. And you're just like, what an honor it is to be a part of this community that has come out of this show. I mean, just a completely unintended, beautiful consequence of working on this show. It really is just like being on the Discord and I don't feel like I'm interacting with listeners of Film Spotting.

12:10These are like friends of mine or whatever, you know, and it's just like I feel like these are people I know. And some every once in a while, it kind of clicks that that's what's happening. That's what has happened. So a lot of pleasures associated with the show, but yeah. Yeah, as you were talking about it being a creative endeavor, Sam, My mind, before I even said it, went to the video aspect, which I'm not all that involved in, but I know just from talking about it with you have seen how it's kind of, not that you need to be rejuvenated, but charged you in a way to get to explore that way of putting together a show like this.

12:47So that's been exciting to see. Yeah, for me, it's absolutely related to what you were just talking about. it's the relationships because I don't know that I would consider myself naturally a people person. And what I mean by that is like, I'd be perfectly happy just watching movies, thinking about them, writing about them, and maybe even talking about them without forming any long lasting relationships beyond that. But I think about the circles of relationship that this show has afforded that, you know, the one of us here, the people who work weekly on it. So us here, Joe Dessau, you know, and then, and then others who are, you know, more regularly involved from our production assistants over the time to Michael Phillips.

13:35Um, but you know, there are other film critics who I've been able to connect with on just a personal level because of the show. And then what you said, Sam to like the listeners, there has always been an avenue, whether it was when I first joined the message board, I was not on message boards at all and then got thrown in and met so many people that way, some of whom are still now on Discord. And yeah, so I think for me, it's definitely been the relationships because it's not something I would have sought or been able to have fostered myself. To go to the superficial stuff just for a second, we never would have imagined.

14:16We never did imagine, of course, when the show started that we would have opportunities to interview the filmmakers we've interviewed, to go to the festivals we've gone to, just to partake in some of these film critic opportunities, quite frankly, to be considered film critics, to be listened to regularly and to have people really trust and value not just our opinions, but really want to just hear what we have to say, want to be part of the conversation with us. All of that, that's why it's so hard to pick an answer. And I wondered if you would say what you said. And of course, I was going there too, but I don't think it's just us saying the right answer.

15:03It is the right answer. The community part of it, the relationship part of it. And I was going to be even more specific with it. I think it's the larger community, but beyond that you know when i asked josh if he wanted to appear as a guest on the show and maybe i don't know if he had an inkling or not but he may not have he certainly didn't know all the details that he was actually auditioning for the show i had never even spoken to him before we'd had no interaction it's true like zero i think maybe i'd seen him at a couple screenings but otherwise we'd literally. I think we chatted back and forth a little on social probably.

15:45Yeah. But otherwise it was, we'd never met in person, like actually met. So now having this 13 plus year relationship is pretty remarkable. And Sam, I was just thinking about this because of this question that we were introduced because of Kevin. We obviously got to know each other very quickly and became friends very quickly. And because of email at the time and because of the blog that I started way back in the early days of blogging, you and I were doing what we do right now. We were talking about movies. We were having a conversation about movies over a blog. But the whole reason we started film spotting, as you alluded to earlier, was to force us.

16:27We've always said it was to force ourselves to watch one movie a week. But it was more than that. And it was actually, it was to force us to watch one movie a week so we could get together, at least for me. Yeah, yeah. So we could get together in the same room and have a conversation about it. You're right, you're right. It wasn't like we would separately be watching a different movie. It was watching the same movie so we could do this. And so I think about it now, about 25 years later from the time we met for the first time, and without film spotting, I think we would still be friends with each other.

17:03but there's no way we would be in communication with each other as regularly as we are. We would not have hung out even remotely with each other as many times as we have over the years. Like our friendship would not be remotely what it is without film spotting. So that relationship part of it too. It's half our life. It's exactly half our life. Wow. You didn't have to put it that way, Sam. Quick math. Yeah. Let's move on. It'll only become more a percentage of my life as we move forward from here. There you go. To hear the rest of that Ask Us Anything bonus show, become a member of the Film Spotting family.

17:39You can learn more at filmspottingfamily.com, including learn about all the benefits that you get in addition to bonus shows like the weekly newsletter, exclusive access to events, being part of the Film Spotting family discord, and more. Again, filmspottingfamily.com. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

18:17Film Spotting is listener supported. Join the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com and get access to ad-free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, And for the first time, all in one place, the entire Film Spotting archive going back to 2005. That's filmspottingfamily.com.