“Best and hippest voices” on movie podcast hooks worldwide listeners and gains mainstream acclaim

Industry insiders and the mainstream media have praised “Filmspotting,” a weekly podcast movie discussion, with NewsReview.com hailing the co-hosts as “film criticism’s best and hippest voices since Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.”

“We’re film lovers, and we just love talking about film,” says Matty Robinson, co-host with Adam Kempenaar, who realized the potential of the new medium in 2005.

Three months after starting, Apple selected “Filmspotting” as one of just a handful of “featured shows” used to promote the launch of its iTunes podcasting service.

“We didn’t really know what that meant at the time,” notes Kempenaar. “Then we went from around 300-400 subscribers to 10,000 overnight.” The show now regularly pulls in around 20,000 listeners.

“We start it off with a review and then have some fun with it, trying to create the sense of being around friends and discussing movies,” Robinson says. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Kempenaar is the new media director for the Chicago Blackhawks, while Robinson is a theatre actor.

Kampenaar and original co-host Sam Van Hallgren recorded early shows in Kempenaar’s office with just microphones, a laptop and a small mixer.

“Podcasting was exciting because it was so brand new,” says Kempenaar. “We thought we could get noticed if we really did it right.”

“We wanted to force ourselves to watch one new movie per week and talk about it. Then the show just took on a life of its own.”