IFC News: Craig Brewer, Cam Archer, award hangover.

A little late this week — a combination of the flu and weariness knocked us out yesterday. Anyway, new on IFC News:

We've been quite vocal about our displeasure with "Hustle & Flow," and we did go over some of those issues with director Craig Brewer, though those questions didn't fit into this interview — we'll try to transcribe them here on the blog later in the week.

The exploitation element is always an interesting one to watch with an audience — when you start employing elements of exploitation, you, right or wrong, bring your audience into that culpability, into the guilt. My favorite moment in the movie is when Christina is almost completely passed out — she's feverish, and [Jackson] is trying to pick her up, he's trying to help her and in her fever, she lunges forward and kisses him, and the audience flinches like they were in a horror movie. Off of a kiss! I think that they're caught in this difficult place, and I'm caught, as a filmmaker, in this interesting place of titillating them and terrifying them at the same time. II think that's why that exploitation feel, I think, worked. I didn't think it was, like, a frosting to put on the cake. I felt that if I'm going to explore all these Southern archetypes that I'm obsessed with, that includes that 18-wheeler mudflap silhouette, it includes that redneck fantasy. I mean, look at her shirt, for Godsakes. I'm giving you archetypes to say this is a fable.

Michael Atkinson writes about Kazuo Hara's "kamikaze documentary" "The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On" and Dario Argento's "Profondo Rosso."

Matt Singer talks to ever-so-young filmmaker Cam Archer about "Wild Tigers I Have Known."

I read online that years before your films showed there, you were a volunteer at the Sundance Film Festival.

I was, I used to work outside a theater. I had a wonderful time; I can't say anything negative about the experience. It's funny though, people will say "Oh, that's how you got your films into Sundance." If only it were that simple! I never met a programmer. Ever. I never met anyone who would have even known a programmer. It was just fun to be surrounded by that filmmaking community.

In the podcast, we compare how we did with our Oscar predictions.

Matt reviews "Black Snake Moan" and remembers "The Wayward Cloud." On "Black Snake Moan":

Brewer has legitimate artistic chops; a good ear for dialogue, a talent with actors and a knack for making films with really good soundtracks. At times his visuals are as saucy as his subject matter: a shot that captures Rae's stupor by dragging the camera at a ninety-degree angle to the ground might just be the best approximation of drunkenness ever recorded on film.

And Christopher Bonet has the round-up of what's new in theaters.

+ IFC News