What I'm trying to do with Reel Reviews is to bridge the gap between the "thumbs up thumbs down" approach - see it or don't see it - and the approach that a lot of people in Los Angeles who are really involved in the industry have, who know the people and know every little bit about the film. I would call that the much more academic approach.

I'm trying to bridge the gap so that I can flesh out a little bit more than that. My goal is that when you're done listening to the show, you'll want to see the film. I think the biggest compliment I ever got was someone who said, "If you haven't seen the film, listen to the Reel Review first, because you'll enjoy the movie even more."

As you hear about some of the characters, as one or two of the critical scenes come up, I've given you some background where you can put that whole thing into context.

When I first got involved, I was thinking, "Well, there's plenty of people who know more about films than me." There are guys who make films for a living! But the reality is that that's not necessarily who I'm talking to. I'm talking to my buddies, with that film they've never seen and I'm really trying to encourage them to go see it.

EB: Speaking of excitement, how does a film get anointed to the lofty status of 'Cinephile Series'?

MG: Well, those are a little different. Those are harder to do. [laughs]

I end up watching the film three or four times. I mean, it takes some time! Generally, I reserve that for films that I deem worthy, or have just enough going on that people have something to talk about. It's important that you saw the film first.

So as an example, it would be really hard to do a Reel Review of Mulholland Drive. It would be too confusing because there's too much you can't tell someone, otherwise you'd ruin it. Another example is Memento. In those cases, what we do is announce the film about three weeks in advance, telling everybody this is the movie we're going to do. It gives everybody a chance to go out and rent it or, if they've got it in their collection, re-watch it.

And then the Cinephile Series goes a bit longer, but the idea there is that everything's fair game. We don't have to worry about spoilers, We can start out, if we want, talking about the very end of the film. The understanding is that everyone has seen it, or at least when they're listening to it, they're agreeing to the fact that they're going to be hearing everything about this film. But hopefully the kinds of things that we flesh out will make another viewing of the film - even after that - more interesting.