With the premiere one week away, I find myself in the middle of a press bonanza--well, relatively speaking. For a movie made at this level, the attention is wildly incommensurate, though I would hesitate to say it's undeserved. I've done two television interviews, have a radio interview scheduled on Monday, and an interview for an online outlet scheduled for mid-week. On top of that, it seems a new review is posted every day, from the I-must-be-dreaming review to the more conventionally glowing review to the astute interpretive essay. But the best experience by far, in terms of both promotional punch and personal gratification, has been my interview on Cinema Scene.

When I first saw a reference to Cinema Scene on a Bay Area blog a while back, I went to the website, poked around, and watched an episode. I laughed, I cried, I adopted a new faith. To say I'm a devout viewer would be misleading; I'm an obsessive viewer, watching passages of a given episode multiple times and in some cases committing epigrammatic phraseologies to memory. The iPod is handy for watching such things repeatedly, but I've also wired the laptop to the television and consumed it in popcorn-friendly form. Despite being compressed for the web, the show looks good on TV, thanks to producer Peter McGettigan, director Ryan Mulligan, and lighting designer Emery Hudson. Having been in the studio, I can vouch for the amount of elbow grease that goes into production. Ryan and Peter value the product so highly that they distribute it in just about every format you can think of: video podcast (H.264), audio podcast (MP3); it can be viewed directly on the main website and the podcast site, as well as on blip.tv and YouTube; and of course it airs twice per week on Channel 27 in Santa Cruz.

It's hard to explain what's so addictive about Cinema Scene. At a glance, the format is reminiscent of Siskel & Ebert--and yet as Steve remarked after I introduced him to the show, "Better than Siskel and Ebert when Siskel and Ebert was Siskel and Ebert." Like me, Steve charged through several episodes at once--and keep in mind that these are half-hour shows. Given the spirit of our times and the unwritten rules of internet video, why does a half-hour work? Why doesn't it seem self-indulgent, belabored, antiquated? Obviously the show was conceived for television, where a half-hour is still a tolerable denomination of time, but that has nothing to do with successful translation to the web.

Each week, hosts Mort Marcus and Richard von Busack take on four new films in theatrical release and then revisit old favorites in "video corner" (for instance, a recent discussion of the shortcomings of Woody Allen’s London period led them to a recommendation of the far more substantial Crimes and Misdemeanors). But the ostensible format of the show is sometimes subverted by contravening circumstances, like the week they had to plow through a crop of Oscar contenders due to awkward release dates, an electrifying episode in which both men more than measured up to the material--for once, rather, the material measured up to their incisive and flourishy opining. In fact, that episode contains two of my favorite Cinema Scene moments: first, after an extended clip from There Will Be Blood, in which Daniel Day-Lewis shouts until the veins on his forehead are thrown into sharp, sweaty relief, Mort says, "I despised this film."

Now, that's a provocative juxtaposition.

He continues, "I think [Paul Thomas] Anderson is very overrated. I think as a technician he’s marvelous, he just doesn't know people."

This is not the reckless iconoclasm of a contrarian; Mort is often relaxed in his posture toward well-liked films--Juno, for instance. And in the same episode Richard gleefully torches Juno, with pop-culturey wisecracks worthy of Diablo Cody herself: "It's time for me to be the bad guy wrestler because I hate this film, and I know the whole country has been rubbing it raw with its caresses. But it's about as independent as Chemical Bank. It's an example of turning lives into lifestyles. I have very little patience for this film."

And if that doesn't reflect the ice in his veins, Richard has the audacity to place restrictions on the legacy of Ingmar Bergman immediately following the much-celebrated Swedish director's death. "Not one of the greatest, but a giant. The incredible personal force that results in five marriages is reflected in a body of work that has tremendous range. People have said that his genius is especially theatrical, and I think that even in some of his most dynamic films, like Shame, even that has its passages which are fairly theatrical, framed by proscenium arch."

Cinema Scene possesses an uncommon vitality, and by educating our perception it fulfills the demands of serious criticism.

I knew nothing about the first incarnation of the show until a few days ago, when I appeared as a guest. It turns out that Mort and Richard are veterans of nearly 250 episodes, with volume two currently at number 89. Previously the show was produced by Comcast, which also aired it, but there were some inauspicious firings (aren't they always?), and the show was dropped. I'm not sure whose idea it was to revive the show, or how closely the new version resembles the original, but there is a well-seasoned quality to the discussions, and a deep respect between the two critics that fosters productive exchanges. I don't know many people who could affect the necessary aplomb. If faced with such formidable opponents, most would probably stomp off the set or concede the argument before fully establishing their own positions.

Regardless of the easily digested "universal appeal" of the set design, it's hard to miss the somewhat scholarly bearing of our hosts--gray beards, glasses, blazers. In appearance and credentials they may suggest inaccessibility, even obscurantism, but if they happen to beat up on pseudo-indie garbage like Charlie Bartlett, they still have room in their generous hearts for the escapist charms of The Bee Movie. What constitutes curmudgeonliness in some "old school" or highbrow critics is nowhere to be seen here. These are not film snobs. Nor are they innocuous buffs, making a career out of culturally emaciated generalizations as many bloggers are trying to do. Mort and Richard are distinguished, discerning, even wise, and their earnest discussions thump on my brain like shoveled fertilizer. As Dietrich said of Welles, "When I have seen him and talked with him, I feel like a plant that has been watered."