David Chen
School
Harvard University, Amherst College
Expertise
"Better Call Saul", "Game Of Thrones", Stephen Tobolowsky
- David hosts "The Filmcast" podcast, a weekly breakdown of the biggest entertainment news.
- During his tenure at /Film, David also hosted the "The Ones Who Knock," "A Cast Of Kings," and "The Tobolowsky Files" podcasts, all of which centered on some of his favorite pop culture topics.
- In honor of the 2014 release of "Interstellar," David used a looping cello to perform a cover of Hans Zimmer's "Time." You can find it on YouTube.
Experience
David worked as the managing editor of /Film from May 2008 to March 2012. During his time at /Film, he worked on a variety of different projects, including some of the most popular film-and-television-centered podcasts.
Education
David earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in law, jurisprudence, and social thought from Amherst College in 2006. In 2011, he graduated from Harvard University with a Master of Education in technology, innovation, and education.
/Film is one of the most trusted entertainment sites on the web, catering to the particular interests of film buffs, binge watchers, and casual fans. We cover everything from big releases from Marvel, DC, and Disney to independent film and classic Hollywood, and we do so while maintaining a firm commitment to journalistic integrity and excellence.
Our team consists of veteran entertainment editors, subject-matter experts, writers, fact-checkers, graphic designers, and beat reporters dedicated to bringing you the kinds of fresh, accurate, and exclusive scoops only a credible and trusted outlet can provide. For more information on our editorial process, view our full policies page.
Stories By David Chen
-
“Making a Movie” is a series of columns that chronicles our attempt to make, market, and distribute a film with Stephen Tobolowsky in 2014. It's been an intensely busy summer as I've struggled to keep up with my full-time job, my podcasts, and my film. But we are now closing in on the finish line. The…
-
In this bonus episode of "A Cast of Kings," Joanna and David discuss the availability of "Cast of Kings" t-shirts (pre-order them here!), the all-new directors for Game of Thrones: Season 5, as well as all the things that Joanna and David are watching and doing to stay busy during the Game of Thrones off season. Be sure to…
-
Theater is like life, you never know what will happen next. That's supposed to be the good part. The Tobolowsky Files is a podcast from the people who brought you the /Filmcast, featuring a series of stories about life, love, and the entertainment industry, as told by legendary character actor Stephen Tobolowsky. You can e-mail Stephen at…
-
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is out in theaters this weekend (click here to see our site's coverage of it thus far), and you should go see it. It's a tense, action-packed meditation on the intractability of tribalism, a summer blockbuster that actually has characters you care about and a story that will make you…
-
I recently had a chance to visit the Fremont Sunday Market, which is always brimming with interesting curios and personalities. This past weekend, the work of Dave Ryan from Manticore Stencil really caught my eye. Ryan makes a living off his eye-catching pop culture stencils, which are on display at the Market and at various…
-
This post contains some very minor spoilers for Season 2 of Orange is the New Black I just finished the second season of Jenji Kohan's Orange is the New Black on Netflix and I was blown away by it. What an extraordinary piece of work Kohan has created: a show that is brimming with rich,…
-
Transformers: Age of Extinction is a relentless assault on the senses that somehow still managed to bore me to tears. It's a 2 hour and 40 minute film that features giant robots riding enormous robot dinosaurs killing bad giant robots, yet is devoid of any meaningful thrills or excitement. Filled with explosions, flying glass, a laughably…
-
After some protracted disagreements with the Weinstein Company, Bong Joon-Ho's Snowpiercer will finally hit theaters this weekend in the form that Bong intended. I've been a huge fan of Bong Joon-Ho since I saw Memories of Murder on DVD years ago. I find that he's able to deftly balance wildly divergent tones in his films, from the zany…
-
David and Joanna are joined by an awesome Kickstarter backer, Micah Haley from Scene Magazine, to discuss your e-mails and deliver their final thoughts on the last season. If you like the show, feel free to leave us a review on iTunes and be sure to follow us on Facebook for updates on the show. Download or Play in Browser:…
-
It's been a pretty great season of Game of Thrones, with plenty of new characters (and plenty of killing off of old/new characters) to keep us busy on "A Cast of Kings." As each season wraps up with several consequential episodes, it's often easy to forget how much insane stuff happened during the earlier episodes. Thus,…
-
Joanna and David discuss the tenth episode of season 4 of Game of Thrones, "The Children." Thanks to our sponsor for this week, The Midwest Film Nerds Podcast. Click here to vote on "A Cast of Kings" T-shirt slogan, and also learn how you can get David to release the rest of his reaction video. If you like the show, feel…
-
I saw How to Train Your Dragon seven times in theaters when it was released in 2010. For me, few other films have taken better advantage of the IMAX format, and few have done a better job at conveying the exhilaration of flight. But beyond being a technical marvel, it also had a lot of heart and…
-
/Film's Germain Lussier called 22 Jump Street (out in theaters this weekend) one of the funniest and best films of the summer. I saw 22 Jump Street this week and found it to be immensely enjoyable. Its knowing references to its bizarre sequel status were amusing, and I loved the gags in the last half…
-
Joanna and David discuss the ninth episode of season 4 of Game of Thrones, "The Watchers on the Wall." Thanks to our sponsor for this week, Hover. Learn more details about our T-shirt contest on our Facebook page. If you like the show, feel free to leave us a review on iTunes and like us on Facebook. Download or Play in…
-
Doug Liman's Edge of Tomorrow is out in theaters now and it's one of my favorite films of the year (see Germain's review here). But if you were like me and many other film critics, you might've found that ending to be a wee bit lacking on a variety of fronts. Let's talk about why Edge of…
-
Like many sports movie fans, I find the conventions of the sports movie both stultifyingly familiar yet oddly comforting. So when I saw the trailer for Andrew Disney's Intramural recently, I knew I'd have check it out at the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival. While /Film readers didn't really warm to the film's trailer when it debuted, I…
-
Let's say you're making a sci-fi film featuring a camera that takes pictures of what happens 24 hours in the future. You'd probably need a lot of note cards to make sure you keep all the events of the film straight. That, plus yarn to connect different scenes and photos together. Lots and lots of…
-
Joanna and David discuss the eighth episode of season 4 of Game of Thrones, "The Mountain and the Viper." Thanks to our sponsor for this week, Pat Sponaugle. Be sure to read up on this episode's callback joke, plus check out reaction shots of a dubious nature. If you like the show, feel free to leave us a review…
-
This weekend, I saw a movie at the Seattle International Film Festival that had a budget of $6,000. Joshua Caldwell's Layover, which had its world premiere here, was shot in 11 days in Los Angeles and takes place during the course of a single evening, as a itinerant frenchwoman Simone (played by Nathalie Fay) re-connects with a…
-
Jon Favreau's Chef has been rolling out to theaters across the country these past few weeks and the reviews have been good. Many think that it's a sweet film that shows Favreau returning to his indie roots. If you've seen the movie, then you know that an app called 1SecondEveryday makes a prominent appearance within. That app…
-
We're all gamblers. The only difference is that some of us know what a sure thing looks like. The Tobolowsky Files is a podcast from the people who brought you the /Filmcast, featuring a series of stories about life, love, and the entertainment industry, as told by legendary character actor Stephen Tobolowsky. You can e-mail Stephen at…
-
Fourteen years and six movies after the first X-Men hit theaters, Bryan Singer returns to the X-Men universe to try and breathe new life into a waning franchise. The task that Singer and writer Simon Kinberg created for themselves is challenging: to unify two separate timelines through a time travel conceit, and to make it feel…
-
Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past is my favorite film of the summer so far. (See Russ's review here.) Singer's return to the X-Men universe deftly combines two disparate timelines and delivers spectacular action set pieces, plus it has the emotional heft to make that action mean something. It's an achievement on par with…
-
Joanna and David discuss the seventh episode of season 4 of Game of Thrones, "Mockingbird." Thanks to our sponsor for this week, Nate Makes Films. If you like the show, feel free to leave us a review on iTunes and like us on Facebook. Download or Play in Browser: Subscribe to A Cast of Kings:
-
This week marks the start of the 40th annual Seattle International Film Festival, a 3-week movie extravaganza featuring over 270 feature films. That is, by any measure, an ungodly number of movies, and the whole thing can be pretty damn overwhelming. This will be my third year attending the festival I'm really looking forward to…
-
“Making a Movie” is a series of columns that chronicles our attempt to make, market, and distribute a film with Stephen Tobolowsky in 2014. A lot of people have asked me how we're planning to distribute the film we're making with Stephen Tobolowsky this year. The film is shaping up to be some hybrid between a…
-
Gareth Edwards Godzilla hits theaters this weekend (see Germain's review here). I thought the film was good, but not great. It doesn't have as much action as other "Big Monster" movies such as Pacific Rim or even Roland Emmerich's terrible 1998 version; instead, it chooses to focus on the human dramas that result from Godzilla's appearance. The only…
