This week on IFC News:

We have an interview with "Year of the Dog" director Mike White:

I personally think this is a very punk rock movie, even though I wanted to dress it up in a sort of schoolmarm-ish "dog and lady" [look]. It’s funny, because some of the responses to the movie been "This is propaganda-mongering" or "This is PETA activism," [but] if she ended up with a guy in the end and went running off into the sunset like most other movies, nobody would be saying that. That’s just movies. I think that we as a society are really pushed all the time that we need to pair up, and that is the ultimate end goal. To show characters that aren’t necessarily going to fit into that, or that aren’t even seeking it, is a truly unusual characterization.

Aaron Hillis has a talk with "Syndromes and a Century"‘s Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul:

At first, I didn’t intend it to be two parts. But when we started, it was quite obvious: man and woman, rural and modern. So we said, why not? I think it’s about the contrast in Thailand and in my life, how things changed and are changing quickly. We yearn for a certain thing that cannot come back.

And, to settle a question you didn’t even know you had:

What was the last blockbuster that left you smiling?

I enjoyed "Grindhouse" very much. Is that a blockbuster? I really loved Tarantino‘s part.

Michael Atkinson does "Sombre" and "Notes on a Scandal":

[Philippe] Grandrieux isn’t interested in psychological explanations, nor is he sucker-punching us with gore, suspense or those ridiculous, elaborate clue-laden schemes that only serial killers in movies seem to concoct. In reality, as in "Sombre," the selection of victim is usually a matter of bad luck. But Grandrieux’s approach is better than simply realist — it’s terrifyingly intimate (the camera stays so close during the murders that it’s as if you’re caught in a headlock) and subjective, the film itself often launching off into an abstracted storm of confused imagery, not unlike Lodge Kerrigan‘s much-lauded "Clean, Shaven."

On the podcast, we run down cop movie clichés in honor of "Hot Fuzz."

Matt Singer reviews "Stephanie Daley" (which prompts musings on how one would define a "Sundance movie") and "Everything’s Gone Green":

And Christopher Bonet has what’s new in theaters.

+ IFC News