In Review On Mic

About In Review On Mic

Conversations about film, film culture, and film criticism from In Review Online's writers. inreviewonline.substack.com (https://inreviewonline.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

In Review Online

Category

tv & film · tv & film

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episode

9 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

4 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Nov 2026

   In Review On Mic: Lee Chang-dong

   With Possible Love now on Netflix, Hugo Emmerzael is joined by In Review Online contributors Padai Ó Maolchalann and Ethan J. Rosenberg to look back at the cinema of South Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong. Three films from a modest seven-film oeuvre: his 1997 debut Green Fish, his follow-up, Oasis (2002), and this year’s Venice Grand Jury Prize winner Possible Love. Along the way: grace in a gangster movie, urination as a motif, Murakami and Jarmusch, the ethics of representing disability on screen, Faulkner’s Benjy, Kieślowski’s Dekalog, and why love is possible in an impossible world. Runtime: 50:54 On the mic: - Hugo Emmerzael (https://hugoemmerzael.com), host. Film critic and programmer. - Padai O Maolchalann, critic and In Review Online contributor, contributed a new essay on Oasis for our Lee Chang-dong retrospective - Ethan J. Rosenberg (https://ethanjrosenberg.com), critic and In Review Online contributor, who reviewed Possible Love here. The films: - Green Fish (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea, 1997). Lee’s debut feature, made at 42 after a career as a novelist. - Oasis (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea, 2002). Silver Lion for Best Director and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Moon So-ri at Venice. - Possible Love (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea, 2026). Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at Venice, now streaming on Netflix. Chapters: 00:00 Intro; 01:31 Welcome, and why Lee Chang-dong now; 03:01 Three films, and first encounters with Burning and Poetry; 04:55 Green Fish: a gangster film with grace; 07:16 Humiliation, precarity and small moments of dignity; 08:47 Compassion for every character; 10:23 Spoilers: a dying man’s breath on a windshield, and urination as a motif; 12:01 Green Fish as a microcosm of South Korea: Murakami, Jarmusch and Tom Waits; 14:42 The scarf, and a John Woo moment; 16:05 Where Lee sits in South Korean cinema: Hong Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho; 19:01 Parasite, style over character, and why Lee is never nihilistic; 20:07 Oasis: the plot, and the ethics of representation; 22:13 The dove shot and Lee’s willingness not to cut; 24:45 Moon So-ri’s performance; 26:03 Compassion and magical realism as a window into the mind (and a theory about Burning); 28:46 Breaking naturalism, the assault scene, and Kim Ki-duk; 31:58 The final act: a naturalist thriller and a “heteronormative courtship script”; 34:43 Faulkner: Barn Burning, Benjy and The Sound and the Fury; 36:45 On to Possible Love (which Hugo missed in Venice); 38:02 The plot: two couples, layoffs, a documentary, and a Dekalog origin; 40:29 A cumulative work: what happens after Burning’s rage; 42:44 Hong Sang-soo, No Other Choice and Lee’s universalism; 45:13 Three hours that end at the perfect moment, and the ethics of telling other people’s stories; 46:39 Possible Love as a retrospective in itself: Jeon Do-yeon, Sol Kyung-gu, Poetry and Secret Sunshine; 49:02 Plugs and goodbyes; 49:55 Outro. Mentioned in this episode: Films: Peppermint Candy, Secret Sunshine, Poetry and Burning (Lee Chang-dong), Parasite (Bong Joon-ho), No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook), A Prophet (Jacques Audiard), Dekalog (Krzysztof Kieślowski) People: Moon So-ri, Sol Kyung-gu, Jeon Do-yeon, Hong Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, John Woo, Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits (”Temptation”), Kathleen McHugh (on Oasis and intersectionality) Reading: Haruki Murakami’s “Barn Burning” and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and The Sound and the Fury. You can read Ethan J. Rosenberg’s review of Possible Love and the full Lee Chang-dong retrospective on our Substack (https://inreviewonline.substack.com/t/filmmaker-retrospectives). In Review On Mic is brought to you by the team of In Review Online. Produced by Chris Cassingham, Emily DuGranrut, Luke Gorham and Hugo Emmerzael. Edited and mixed by Hugo Emmerzael. Music by Beau Zwart. Recorded October 2026. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to In Review Online at inreviewonline.substack.com/subscribe (https://inreviewonline.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   29 Oct 2026

   In Review On Mic: Outré Horror

   Just in time for Halloween, Hugo Emmerzael is joined by filmmaker Connor Sen Warnick and horror writer, scholar and critic Mike Thorn for two avant-garde horror gems from 1989, both newly restored in 4K. E. Elias Merhige’s black-and-white creation myth Begotten, long passed around as the ultimate cursed text of obscure horror, meets Stephen Sayadian’s gleefully sexualized, unofficial sequel to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Along the way: drone horror, creepypasta, a theory about hand job scenes, porn as avant-garde cinema, and why horror doesn’t always need to explain itself. On the mic - Hugo Emmerzael, host. Film critic and programmer based in Amsterdam. - Connor Sen Warnick, filmmaker. His first feature, Characters Disappearing, had a theatrical run this summer, with more screenings planned for the winter. Read editor Chris Cassingham’s interview (https://inreviewonline.substack.com/p/the-negative-version-of-history-connor?r=869ala) with Warnick. - Mike Thorn (https://inreviewonline.com/the-writers/mike-thorn/), horror writer, scholar and critic. Author of “Darkest Hours”, “Shelter for the Damned”, and “Peel Back and See”: mikethornwrites.com (http://mikethornwrites.com) The films - Begotten (E. Elias Merhige, US, 1989). Newly restored in 4K from the original 16mm negative. - Dr. Caligari (Stephen Sayadian, US, 1989). Newly restored in 4K. Chapters - 00:00 Intro - 01:28 Welcome, and two outré horror films for Halloween - 02:10 Begotten: fifteen years with a “cursed” film (trailer at 02:28) - 04:25 How do you even describe Begotten? - 06:01 First encounters, bad rips and media archaeology - 09:23 The images that stay, and the hand job rule - 13:32 Drone horror and the cosmic weird - 14:40 Maya Deren and durational unease - 16:48 Where Begotten came from: SUNY Purchase, Artaud and Butoh, a door-to-door distribution campaign - 19:26 The internet afterlife: 4chan, creepypasta and cursed texts - 21:23 From Ringu and Kiyoshi Kurosawa to A Page of Madness, Takashi Ito and Scott Barley - 24:42 Merhige after Begotten: Din of Celestial Birds, Shadow of the Vampire, Suspect Zero, Marilyn Manson - 27:11 On to Dr. Caligari (trailer at 29:22) - 31:37 Two films that pair uncannily well - 32:50 What is Dr. Caligari? Sayadian, Hustler, Nightdreams and Café Flesh - 36:08 Films that couldn’t get made today - 38:26 Horror’s rules, the avant-garde and excess - 41:23 A haunted house of pleasure: spectatorship and porn - 43:42 Kenneth Anger, George Kuchar and the pull of obscurity - 44:35 Synthesizing subcultures, then and now - 47:34 Legibility, marketability and “elevated horror” (and Backrooms) - 49:55 Plugs and goodbyes - 51:01 Outro Runtime 52:26 Mentioned in this episode: Films: Je, tu, il, elle (Chantal Akerman), Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren), Pulse (https://inreviewonline.com/2021/07/19/pulse/) and Chime (https://inreviewonline.com/2024/05/27/chime/) (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), Ringu (Hideo Nakata) and The Ring (Gore Verbinski), A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926), Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara), Sleep Has Her House (Scott Barley), Din of Celestial Birds, Shadow of the Vampire and Suspect Zero (E. Elias Merhige), Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau), Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene), Nightdreams and Café Flesh (Stephen Sayadian), Videodrome (https://inreviewonline.com/2023/02/04/videodrome/) (David Cronenberg), Eraserhead (https://inreviewonline.com/2026/02/19/through-the-donut-of-perception-william-blake-eraserhead-essay/) (David Lynch), Backrooms (https://inreviewonline.com/2026/06/22/finding-portal-in-kane-parsons-backrooms/) (Kane Parsons). People: Takashi Ito, Kenneth Anger, George Kuchar, Antonin Artaud, Giambattista Vico, Dennis Jakob, Gemma Files, Mitchell Froom (composer on Sayadian’s films), and Larry Flynt. Reading: Zach Lewis’s interview with E. Elias Merhige on Begotten (https://inreviewonline.com/2026/10/06/the-one-becomes-the-many-elias-merhige-interview/), and Mike Thorn’s piece on 1994 as the year of the web (https://inreviewonline.com/2024/06/13/world-wide-web-of-dread/). On the next episode of In Review on Mic: A deep-dive retrospective on the cinema of Lee Chang-dong. (https://inreviewonline.com/2026/10/23/lee-chang-dong-retrospective/) Credits In Review On Mic is brought to you by the team of In Review Online. Produced by Chris Cassingham, Emily DuGranrut, Luke Gorham and Hugo Emmerzael. Edited and mixed by Hugo Emmerzael. Music by Beau Zwart. Recorded 27 October 2026. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and find all our writing at In Review Online (http://inreviewonline.com) and here on our Substack. Get full access to In Review Online at inreviewonline.substack.com/subscribe (https://inreviewonline.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   12 Oct 2026

   In Review On Mic: The New York Film Festival

   In Review On Mic #2: A Dispatch from the New York Film Festival For our second episode, Hugo Emmerzael hands the mic to InRO editor Chris Cassingham, who reports from the 64th New York Film Festival with regular contributors Ethan J. Rosenberg and Robert Stinner. Together they dig into three of the festival’s most talked-about titles, and each shine the spotlight on one more favorite amongst the lineup. The films * Everytime (Sandra Wollner, 2026), winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes * The Man I Love (Ira Sachs, 2026), with Rami Malek * Bucking Fastard (Werner Herzog, 2026), with Kate and Rooney Mara One more film each * Robert: The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971), the restored, uncensored version * Chris: Report to Mother (Amma Ariyan, John Abraham, 1986), from the Revivals section * Ethan: A Man of His Time (Notre salut, Emmanuel Marre, 2026) Chapters: 00:00 Intro; 01:15 Welcome, and our NYFF histories; 04:36 Everytime; 20:16 The Man I Love; 34:01 Bucking Fastard; 42:17 One more film each: The Devils, Report to Mother, A Man of His Time; 52:04 Wrap-up; 52:14 Outro and credits. Also mentioned * Past NYFF favourites: Toni Erdmann, Manchester by the Sea, Christian Petzold’s Transit, Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada * On Everytime: Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan), Blue Heron (Sophy Romvari), Ozu’s Good Morning (Ohayō) * On The Man I Love: Angels in America, Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, Elsinore with Andrew Scott * On Bucking Fastard: Herzog’s Queen of the Desert, Salt and Fire, Family Romance, LLC, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Even Dwarfs Started Small; David Lynch’s The Straight Story, Wild at Heart and Lost Highway; Practical Magic 2; Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars * On A Man of His Time: Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People and Welcome to Sarajevo Read more on In Review Online * Robert Stinner on The Man I Love (https://inreviewonline.com/2026/09/28/the-man-i-love-review/) * All of our NYFF 2026 coverage (https://inreviewonline.com/tag/nyff26/) Find our contributors * Chris Cassingham (https://inreviewonline.com/the-writers/chris-cassingham/) * Ethan J. Rosenberg (https://inreviewonline.com/the-writers/ethan-j-rosenberg/) * Robert Stinner (https://inreviewonline.com/the-writers/robert-stinner/\) * Hugo Emmerzael: on Instagram @hemmerzael (https://www.instagram.com/hemmerzael/) Credits * Host: Hugo Emmerzael * This episode: Chris Cassingham, with Ethan J. Rosenberg and Robert Stinner * Producers: Chris Cassingham, Emily DuGranrut, Luke Gorham and Hugo Emmerzael * Music: Beau Zwart * A production of In Review Online (https://www.inreviewonline.com) Like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to In Review Online at inreviewonline.substack.com/subscribe (https://inreviewonline.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

4. 

   7 Oct 2026

   In Review On Mic: The Debut

   In Review On Mic #1: Debuts Welcome to the first episode of In Review On Mic, the new podcast from In Review Online. For our pilot, we look at where three great filmmakers started out: their debut features. Hugo Emmerzael is joined by InRO writers Dhruv Goyal and Joshua Polanski, and each of them brought a debut to the table.The films * Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973), picked by Dhruv * No Man’s Land (Danis Tanović, 2001), picked by Joshua * The Chaser (Na Hong-jin, 2008), picked by Hugo Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:36 Welcome, and our three debuts 06:00 Badlands 26:31 No Man’s Land 43:52 The Chaser 53:08 Wrap-up and plugs 56:00 Credits Also Mentioned * Malick: Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World * Tanović: Circus Columbia, Death in Sarajevo, Triage, The Postcard Killings, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker * Na Hong-jin: The Wailing, Hope * The rest: Bonnie and Clyde, Breathless, Se7en, Taxi Driver, Paths of Glory, Eraserhead, Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho), Quo Vadis, Aida? (Jasmila Žbanić), 11’09”01 September 11, Murder 2 Recommended readingJohn Bleasdale, The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick (University Press of Kentucky, 2024), the first full biography of Malick. It also covers what he was doing during his twenty-year break between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line.https://www.kentuckypress.com/9781985901193/the-magic-hours/Find our guests * Joshua Polanski: Joshua Polanski is a freelance film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition to In Review Online, he contributes to The Rapidian, Klassiki Journal, Rue Morgue, Bay Area Reporter, and Offscreen, among other places. His interests include the technical elements of filmmaking & exhibition, slow & digital cinemas, and East Asian & Middle Eastern film. His column on Baltic cinema is the only place with dedicated and consistent writing on cinema in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in English on There Were No Gods Left (https://www.therewerenogodsleft.com). * Dhruv Goyal: A Bollywood Film & Music Lover now adrift on Silent Art House Shores. Has also written for High on Films (https://www.highonfilms.com/author/dhruv/.). * Hugo Emmerzael: Hugo Emmerzael is an Amsterdam-based film critic, public speaker, and curator with over a decade of experience at the intersection of cinema, music and culture at large. He is on Instagram at @hemmerzael (https://www.instagram.com/hemmerzael/). Coming soon on In Review On Mic * A retrospective episode on Lee Chang-dong, as Possible Love opens in a limited US theatrical run ahead of its Netflix release * A bonus dispatch from the New York Film Festival * A Halloween episode with spooky movies Credits * Host: Hugo Emmerzael * Guests: Dhruv Goyal and Joshua Polanski * Producers: Chris Cassingham, Emily DuGranrut, Luke Gorham and Hugo Emmerzael * Music: Beau Zwart * A production of In Review Online (https://www.inreviewonline.com) Like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to In Review Online at inreviewonline.substack.com/subscribe (https://inreviewonline.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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