While still in its infancy, podcasting is one fast-growing baby (Wikipedia defines podcasting as "a web-based broadcast medium... like an audio magazine subscription"). Cheap to produce, easy and free to access, and wide open and unregulated in format, podcasts are the new frontier in audio content.

Reel Reviews, hosted by Michael Geoghegan, is already a podcasting must-listen. Armed with a love for film, an easy going and engaging style, and an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema history, Geoghegan has quickly ascended to the podcasting elite.

In this first of two installments, Michael talks about the intimacy and immediacy of podcasting, some of his favorite films of all time and how they fit into Reel Review's "Cinephile Series," and the best directors his friends have never heard of.

Check out Part II of the interview here.

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Eric Berlin: How do you go about putting each show together?

Michael Geoghegan: It's pretty easy in the sense that it's fun for me. I have a theater in my house, and I've got close to 1,000 DVDs down there and God knows how many laser discs. I've been addicted to film forever, and so I'll just think of some movie I'm interested in and I'll generally watch it, and then about a day or two later if it's still floating around in my head, and I've got some thoughts that have percolated to the top, I'll sit down and do a little bit of research just to make sure I've got everyone's name correct and that kind of thing. And I write six bullet points, the main things I want to talk about. Then I just go downstairs. I have my audio equipment downstairs in the basement. Basically I just flip it on and go through my show.

I don't have a script. It's not outlined step-by-step or anything like that. I'll generally have something like, "Talk about Robbie Muller's use of color in the cinematography." "Talk about Michael Mann and the importance of the scene with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino at the table."

At one point I tried to come up with all of these great notes, and I found that that just wasn't a good style for me. I spent more time trying to hit all the notes I had written down.

Ultimately, I'm just trying to record the essence of the conversation you might have with your friends, and encouraging them to see a good film. You want to tell them enough to get excited, but not too much to ruin the movie experience.

EB: It seems to me that's almost one of the revolutionary parts about podcasting - that you get that kind of a feel to it.

MG: Yeah, and hopefully you can tell when I'm getting excited about something I'm talking about. And if I were to write that, that would never come through.