Junk Filter

131: Tubi or Not Tubi (with Doug Tilley) May 29, 2023

Cinema Smorgasbord’s Doug Tilley joins the pod for a discussion of the two major AVOD streaming services, Tubi and Pluto TV, and their massive libraries of free content, brought to you with short but forced advertising breaks.

Even though Tubi has over 60 million regular monthly users, it still feels like an underground streaming platform, carrying tens of thousands of obscure films and documentaries along with recognizable catalog titles from major film studios spanning decades. Doug regularly monitors new arrivals to Tubi and posts update threads on Twitter using the #TubiOrNotTubi hashtag.

So what are the catches for using a streaming service with a massive library for free? Beyond learning to navigate their algorithms to discover content, some may be uncomfortable with its ownership (Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation) or put off by some of the questionable material that can be found (their “documentary’” category is loaded with agit-prop documentaries about Trumpism or some pushing COVID paranoia). We offer tips on how to sift through the trash to find the treasure, and we also discuss highlights from Tubi’s main competitor, the more upscale Pluto TV.

There are dozens of premium episodes of the show available exclusively to Junk Filter patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. Coming this summer to the podcast: a summer sidebar series on the influential TV show Miami Vice! Sign up at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Doug Tilley on Twitter.

Liam O'Donnell and Doug Tilley serve up a platter of cinematic sensations, falling under a variety of unusual and unique categories celebrating undervalued actors and underseen favorites, over at their podcast hub Cinema Smorgasbord. Follow them on Twitter too!

Trailer for Cop Killers (Walter R. Cichy, 1973)

“Rabbit Hole” - Tubi Super Bowl commercial, 2023

TEASER - 130: Return of the Jedi (with Rob Rousseau) May 23, 2023

Access this entire 90 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/130-return-of-83425574

Rob Rousseau returns to the show from Montreal for an episode commemorating this week’s 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi.

Episode VI of “The Skywalker Saga” is not on the level of the first two films in the original trilogy but it’s still a lot of fun, even if it shows the signs of what would become problems for the franchise. We talk about all the changes George Lucas made to Jedi over several revised “Special Editions” (to their detriment), how the successes of this film illustrate the failures of the other trilogies, and we discuss the sleazy Steely Dan vibes we got from revisiting Jabba’s Palace and the “Jizz-wailing” sounds of the Max Rebo Band.

Plus: the hypocrisy of Crime Minister Trudeau’s stated passion for Return of the Jedi.

You might be able to find the Despecialized version of Return of the Jedi at the Internet Archive.

Follow Rob Rousseau on Twitter, and check out his podcasts @insurgentspod and @TRRSpod. And The Insurgents has a Substack.

Teaser trailer for Revenge of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983)

129: History of the Eagles (with Maggie Serota) May 14, 2023

The writer Maggie Serota returns to the show for a deep dive into the 2013 music documentary for Showtime, History of the Eagles, directed by Alison Ellwood.

This comprehensive 3 hour documentary is the official story of one of America’s biggest rock bands, spanning their massive popularity in the seventies, their solo careers in the eighties and their reunion in the nineties, but Maggie and I think that as entertaining as the movie must be for fans of The Eagles, it’s even more fun to watch if you’re not a fan. As sanitized and flattering the film is towards the group’s two leaders Glenn Frey and Don Henley, their legendary arrogance and the shocking mistreatment of the other members of the group (in particular the guitarist Henley coldly refers to as “Mr. Felder”) bursts through the constructed image to create a very funny portrayal of toxic masculinity and fevered egos on the rampage.

We discuss our favourite moments of hubris and chaos, compare this epic documentary to the more recent Beatles film Get Back (which also includes appearances from the great producer Glyn Johns, who clearly didn’t enjoy working with the Eagles), and praise the MVP of the band and the film, guitar god Joe Walsh.

There are dozens of premium episodes of the show available exclusively to Junk Filter patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Maggie Serota on Twitter, and subscribe to her wonderful substack Professor Garbage.

Trailer for History of the Eagles (Alison Ellwood, 2013)

Music video for “I Can’t Tell You Why”, Eagles, 1979

“Choice of a New Generation” - Pepsi commercial featuring Don Johnson and Glenn Frey, directed by Ridley Scott, 1985

128: How to Blow Up a Pipeline (with Corey Atad) Apr 20, 2023

The writer Corey Atad returns to the pod for a discussion of the controversial new eco-thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline, an action film inspired by Andreas Malm’s best-selling non-fiction work that argues in favour of direct and destructive action against the fossil fuel industry to escalate the battle against climate change. The film dramatizes the blowing-up of a pipeline by depicting the act as if it were a heist film, with stopwatch-precise editing and flashbacks explaining how the members of the crew found each other.

We discuss (in some detail) the criticism the film has received from the left and from the right: some on the left feel the movie fails a purity test by being marketed and released in multiplexes by film financiers and studios with ties to Big Oil, while some on the right are furious this pro-terrorist “Hollywood propaganda” is meant to turn the audience into radical extremists. But we also talk about the film itself, and how its in league with classic genre entertainments like First Bloodthat function both as dynamic thrillers and delivery devices for deeper social commentary.

Plus: Corey and I prepare to say ‘farewell’ to our ‘legacy verified’ Twitter bluechecks on 4/20, and we discuss Elon picking a fight with the CBC.

There are dozens of premium episodes of the show available exclusively to Junk Filter patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Corey Atad on Twitter.

Trailer for How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Daniel Goldhaber, 2023)

“How to Blow Up a Pipeline Filmmakers Hope You Take Their Advice”, by Corey Atad, for Gawker, September 21, 2022

“How to Blow Up a Pipeline Is A Film About Action”, by Corey Atad, for Defector, April 12, 2023

“The Bomb Hardly (Agit)Pops: An Essay on How to Blow Up a Pipeline” by A.E. Hunt, for Cine Móvil NYC, April 4, 2023

TEASER - 127: The Benaissance: Air (with Ursula Lawrence) Apr 14, 2023

Access this entire 77 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/127-benaissance-81474016

The comedy writer Ursula Lawrence returns to the podcast from Madison, Wisconsin for a discussion of the latest film from Ben Affleck as a director, Air, a film made by Amazon Studios that was so well-received when it screened at SXSW that it got picked up by Warner Bros. and fast-tracked into cinemas before its streaming premiere.

Air tells the story of how Nike landed a sponsorship deal with Michael Jordan before his rookie year in the NBA thanks to the efforts of talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) who has to convince CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) that Jordan is a once-in-a-generation talent worth risking everything on: they design a new shoe around him, at a time where the company was known more for its running shoes than for basketball.

So why is a hagiographic movie about corporate executives and star athletes making a fortune so much fun, even if you are on the left and understand the dark side of Nike’s legacy? It has to do with the current Benaissance: this is a movie made by a happy man that also serves as a mission statement for a new production company founded by Ben and Matt, Artists Equity, aiming to make entertainment that fairly compensates the creative talent, a film that like its superstar subject displays a relaxed confidence. The film’s unexpected use of basic semiotic theory and period detail make it crowd-pleasing entertainment that is destined to be a perennial Movie for Dads; comfort viewing that we’ll be watching on cable for years. Who knew the formerly Sad Affleck had it in him?

Plus: Ben speaking fluent Spanish, and former governor Scott Walker losing his mind as younger voters in Wisconsin reject the GOP!

Follow Ursula Lawrence on Twitter.

Trailer for Air (Ben Affleck, 2023)

126: Paint Your Wagon & Black Adam (with Jessica Ritchey) Mar 31, 2023

The Maryland-based writer and critic Jessica Ritchey is my special guest for a show that compares the current decline in the interconnected comic book movie business to the collapse in the late sixties of the Roadshow Musical with a look at the notorious 1969 musical western Paint Your Wagon (starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood) with 2022’s box office disappointment Black Adam, meant to launch a new DC superhero franchise for star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Hubris connects these two movies: Paint Your Wagon was a troubled production that was extremely expensive to make and not nearly the hit Paramount expected it to be, while Black Adam was The Rock’s brazen attempt to take over the direction of the DC Universe but released at the moment a new regime took over at Warner Bros’s DC unit.

Black Adam came from the Shazam saga but Johnson consciously distanced the would-be franchise from its source and even teased a future battle between this antihero and Henry Cavill’s Superman that also helped to doom the following Shazam sequel to box office oblivion, leading to public feuding between its star Zachary Levi and Johnson.

Jessica and I discuss the cultural conditions that swallowed up these two films in their respective eras, the questionable politics of these films, and why the Simpsons parody of Paint Your Wagon works better than the original!

There are over three dozen premium episodes of the show available exclusively to patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Will Sloan. More to come! Sign up at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Jessica Ritchey on Twitter and subscribe to her Patreon!

Trailer for Paint Your Wagon (Joshua Logan, 1969)

Trailer for Black Adam (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2022)

The legendary Simpsons' takedown of Paint Your Wagon

TEASER - 125: Sexy Beast (with Dan Siber) Mar 10, 2023

Access this entire 84 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! https://www.patreon.com/posts/125-sexy-beast-79799951

Dan Siber, an avid listener of the show and a Junk Filter patron, pitched his way on to the show for a discussion of Jonathan Glazer’s British crime drama Sexy Beast (2000), which is getting a prequel streaming series on Paramount+ this fall.

Sexy Beast stands apart from the other cool British crime films of the period because the film is not so easy to classify: it swings across genres like comedy, suspense and psychological horror, as our hero Gal Dove (Ray Winstone), a retired ex-con living in sunny Spain, is pulled back for one last job in London for a criminal syndicate by two different psychopaths: the relentlessly menacing hatchetman Don Logan (Oscar-nominated Ben Kingsley), and the Final Boss, crime lord Teddy Bass (Ian McShane) who is ultimately even more terrifying than Logan.

We talk about the psychology of these characters, this film’s exploration of class, crime and power, how influential Sexy Beast must have been on Christopher Nolan, and what we might expect from the upcoming prequel series.

UK trailer for Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000)

Don Logan Band Aid 20 commercial directed by Glazer, 2004

124: Raquel Welch and Myra Breckinridge (with Karen Geier) Feb 28, 2023

Toronto-based writer and content strategist Karen Geier returns to the show to discuss the late screen goddess Raquel Welch and her greatest role as a trans woman out to destroy the Hollywood patriarchy in the 1970 film version of Gore Vidal’s controversial best-selling novel Myra Breckinridge, produced on a high budget by 20th Century Fox in the early days of the new X rating.

Long considered one of the worst movies ever made, Karen and I mount a defense of Myra Breckinridge as a ruthless satire of Hollywood that is intentionally distasteful and accidentally based in terms of its sexual politics. We discuss the troubled production and the cast of creatives including the British director Michael Sarne (who hated the book), the film critic Rex Reed (who made his acting debut here and trashed the movie when it was released) and the original screen sex goddess Mae West, coaxed back on the screen after nearly 30 years, who refused to appear on screen with Raquel and demanded she get top billing and two musical numbers (even though the film was not a musical).

Karen and I also discuss Raquel’s insane prime-time network tv specials and her comeback in the eighties as the star of a series of salacious workout videos.

You can watch Myra Breckinridge for free over at the Internet Archive.

There are over three dozen premium episodes of the show available exclusively to patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Will Sloan. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Karen Geier on Twitter.

Trailer for Myra Breckinridge (Michael Sarne, 1970)

Raquel!(TV special for CBS from 1970)

From Raquel With Love (TV special for ABC from 1980)

Highlights from Welch’s eighties at-home workout videotape A Week With Raquel (1986)

“Swinging Into Disaster”, an in-depth article on the making of Myra Breckinridge, by Steven Daly for Vanity Fair, April 2001

TEASER - 123: The Dick Tracy Trilogy (with Will Sloan) Feb 19, 2023

Access this entire 70 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! https://www.patreon.com/posts/123-dick-tracy-78893447

The writer and podcaster Will Sloan returns for a show about Warren Beatty and his now-decades long relationship to Chester Gould’s classic thirties comic strip detective Dick Tracy.

We discuss what we can now call The Dick Tracy trilogy: the gorgeously crafted 1990 blockbuster he starred in and directed, and two curious no-budget followups he has made for Turner Classic Movies in the ensuing decades: 2010’s Dick Tracy Special, which aired only once and became a cult object for the true Beatty heads, and the surprise followup that dropped without warning this week, Dick Tracy Special: Tracy Zooms In. In both these specials Beatty gives an interview as the “real” Dick Tracy where he airs long-held grievances with how Beatty messed up the movie about “my life”.

So what’s going on here? Is the 85-year-old Beatty just doing this to hang on to the screen rights to maintain his artistic control of the property? Is he using the property to make avant-garde comedy where half the joke is the lack of energy being put into them? Is Beatty commenting on the state of modern cinema (and his own screen legacy) in his twilight years?

Will and I are obsessed with Late Style Beatty and his latest instalment of “the franchise” snaps this entire project into perspective for us: we discuss all three works in detail.

Follow Will Sloan on Twitter and subscribe to his wonderful podcasts The Important Cinema Club and Michael and Us.

Trailer for Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, 1990)

122: Aftersun (with Rafa Sales Ross) Feb 14, 2023

This episode contains major spoilers and deals with difficult subject matter, so please watch the film before you listen to this discussion.

Freelance film critic and programmer Rafa Sales Ross joins me from Scotland to discuss Charlotte Wells’ debut feature Aftersun, starring newcomer Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal in an Academy Award-nominated performance as Calum, a Scottish single father who takes his 11 year old daughter Sophie on a trip to a resort in Turkey in the late nineties, a story told partly through the use of MiniDV holiday footage but more importantly refracted from the perspective of a grown-up Sophie, now at the same age her father was on this fateful vacation and reconsidering her memories.

As a film critic who saw Aftersun at its tear-soaked screening at Cannes and as part of the programming team that later selected the film to open the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Rafa is uniquely equipped to speak about this powerful drama about what gets captured in the “mind camera”; parenthood, loss, depression, empathy, memory, nostalgia and the hard-won wisdom children experience when they transform into adults and finally start to understand their parents as people.

There are over three dozen premium episodes of the show available exclusively to patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Rafa Sales Ross on Twitter and visit her website.

Trailer for Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)

Rafa’s interview with Charlotte Wells on Aftersun, for “Little White Lies”, November 15, 2022

UNLOCKED: 45: The Genius of Burt Bacharach (with Marker Starling) Feb 09, 2023

In honor of the passing of the great Burt Bacharach, this premium episode of the podcast from July 29, 2021 has been unlocked. There are dozens of exclusive episodes of Junk Filter available to patrons of the podcast; you can sign up at patreon.com/junkfilter

Toronto-based musician Marker Starling returns to the podcast for an extensive conversation about the life and career of Burt Bacharach, one of the greatest American musicians. His songbook with lyricist Hal David is a monumental catalogue of pop music, and their longtime partnership with singer Dionne Warwick produced dozens of standards, many written specifically for her voice.

We discuss the highs and lows of their work together: smashing the colour barrier between pop and r&b, their innovative song structures, their chart hits and deep cuts, and the disastrous movie musical Lost Horizon (1973) that led to the end of their partnership.

Follow Marker Starling on Twitter

Bacharach rehearsing with Dionne Warwick on the song "Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets" for a 1970 TV special

Bacharach working with a children's choir from the Lost HorizonTV Special

Burt Bacharach and Angie Dickinson - commercial for Martini & Rossi

"Walk On By" - Dionne Warwick performing live on Belgian television, 1964

"Hasbrooke Heights" - Burt Bacharach

"Make It Easy on Yourself" - Dionne Warwick, from Frost Weekly, 1973

"Close To You" by Hilton Als, for The New Yorker, December 8, 2013:

Veda Hille - Plants (2001)

Nicholas Krgovich - Plants (2021)

121: A History of Canadian Pay TV (with Ed Conroy) Feb 01, 2023

Ed Conroy, a Toronto-based cultural historian and the creator of Retrontario, joins the show for a look back at the 40th anniversary of Pay TV in Canada.

On February 1, 1983, Canada’s first Pay TV channels arrived on the airwaves to great fanfare: Competing movie services First Choice and Superchannel offered subscribers blockbuster movies "uncut and commercial free" while the more refined C Channel offered more highbrow fare: world cinema, opera, theatre and concerts. First Choice distinguished itself from the other services by offering adult entertainment (softcore nudity on the soap opera “Loving Friends and Perfect Couples” and late night Playboy Channel programming, co-productions that controversially qualified as Canadian Content).

But Pay TV was not a success out of the gate, leading to C Channel going off the air within weeks and First Choice eventually having to merge with Superchannel (Canadians know the service now as Crave).

Ed and I take the listener on a tour of this chapter in television history, when uncut movies in your home were a novelty in the days before VCRs were commonplace, and the thrill of being exposed to exciting illicit programming, bringing Canadian teenagers in the eighties an at-home crash course in high and low film culture.

RIP Noah Cowan, veteran programmer and artistic director for TIFF who brought us Midnight Madness at the Festival and whose father Edgar brought us C Channel, a service ahead of its time.

There are over three dozen premium episodes of the show available exclusively to patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ed Conroy on Twitter and visit his wonderful found local video repository Retrontario

First Choice commercial, February 1983

Superchannel commercial, March 1983

C Channel commercial featuring Gordon Pinsent, February 1993

TEASER - 120: The Singing Detective (with Ted Mills) Jan 31, 2023

Access this entire 87 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! https://www.patreon.com/posts/120-singing-with-77990062

The American writer and filmmaker Ted Mills, now living in Wellington New Zealand, joins the program for a discussion of the television playwright Dennis Potter’s greatest achievement, his 1986 series for the BBC, The Singing Detective.

One of the earliest examples of what we would now call “Prestige TV”, The Singing Detective was acclaimed for the breakout lead performance from Michael Gambon and for how it told a difficult story in a complex manner taking place over several planes of time, reality and fantasy. In 6 epsiodes, an unpleasant pulp novelist hospitalized with a ghastly and paralyzing case of psoriasis begins to put the pieces of his life together with the help of the hospital’s psychiatrist, starting to comprehend that his horrible mental and physical condition may be related to unresolved traumas from his childhood.

We talk about Dennis Potter as a tv playwright, critic and advocate for public television’s power to both entertain and emancipate the viewer, the controversies in the UK when the program first aired, the show’s positive portrayal of psychotherapy, the self-conscious blurring of autobiography and fiction in Potter’s work, and how the experimental structure of The Singing Detective influenced modern prestige TV like The Sopranos and Twin Peaks.

We also (briefly) discuss the (bad) American remake from the early 2000s with Robert Downey Jr.

The Singing Detective is currently available to view at the Internet Archive and on YouTube.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ted Mills on Twitter and Instagram and visit his website.

TEASER - 119: YMO Part 1: Those Naughty Boys (with Isobel from pet wife) Jan 25, 2023

Access this entire 83 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! https://www.patreon.com/posts/119-ymo-part-1-77692321

Isobel from the Brooklyn-based electronic group pet wife returns to the show for the first of a two-part series on the pioneering Japanese electronic music supergroup Yellow Magic Orchestra: keyboardist Ryuichi Sakamoto, bassist Haruomi Hosono and the drummer, Yukihiro Takahashi.

Part one of the series is about how YMO changed the world, with a discussion of highlights from their span of albums as a band from 1978 to 1993, music that provided the blueprints for many genres of modern music including hip hop, electronica, house, techno and video game soundtracks. We talk about the parallels between YMO and the Four Lads from Liverpool, their style, wit and technical innovations, and we mourn the stunning recent passing of Yukihiro Takahashi, a hero of ours.

A second episode, on the solo careers of those Naughty Boys, is coming soon!

Follow pet wife on Twitter, Spotify and Bandcamp

YMO’s appearance on Soul Train, performing “Tighten Up” and “Firecracker” for a mystified Don Cornelius, 1980

YMO back together performing "Rydeen", 2007

Music video for “Ongaku”, 1983

TEASER - 76: Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear (with pet wife) Jan 24, 2023

Access the entire 92 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63667721

Isobel and Noelle from the experimental electro pop group pet wife join me from Bushwick, Brooklyn to discuss the life of Marvin Gaye and his 1978 concept album Here, My Dear.

There’s nothing like Here, My Dear, the result of a divorce settlement between Gaye and his first wife Anna, where it was agreed that he would record his next album for Motown and give to her the entire advance and half the royalties. He delivered a two record set that chronicled the story of their marriage and divorce. A commercial failure at the time, which hastened his all-consuming drug abuse and eventual death (at the hands of his own father), it has since been re-evaluated as one of his greatest achievements and hugely influential on contemporary r&b.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow pet wife on Twitter and visit the group's website!

Music video for pet wife’s B.L.O.O.D.O.R.A.N.G.E. (2020)

Television commercial for Here, My Dear (1978)

118: Star Wars: Andor (with Roxana Hadadi and Corey Atad) Jan 06, 2023

Roxana Hadadi, a TV critic for New York magazine's culture site Vulture. and returning guest Corey Atad join me for an enthusiastic discussion of Tony Gilroy’s ambitious new Disney Star Wars streaming series Andor.

Gilroy, who had been brought in by Lucasfilm to rescue the troubled production Rogue One in 2016, recently returned to the franchise for a series that provides a backstory for the character Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) who sacrificed his life to steal the plans for the Death Star. But Andor the series is not really a Space Opera with the typical fan servicing Disney has provided Star Wars fans in recent years. Instead it’s a program built as a series of mini arcs that analyze how fascist rule is systemically maintained (through private police, colonial rule and the prison industrial complex) and how people living under such a system can either become radicalized, victimized or complicit. It’s Star Wars fused with Blade Runner, The Battle of Algiers and yes, Michael Clayton. We discuss the show’s intelligent design and impeccable vibes, and we wonder, for a show that is so clearly sympathetic to antifascism, why it hasn’t enraged the culture warriors on the right who are usually always angry about Star Wars.

There are over three dozen premium episodes of the show available exclusively to patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Roxana Hadadi and Corey Atad on Twitter

Roxana’s interview with Andor's creator Tony Gilroy, for Vulture, November 23, 2022

Tony Gilroy speaking from the picket lines in support of the 2008 Writer’s Guild strike.

Trailer #2 for Star Wars: Andor(Season 1, 2022)

117: Winner Wonderland (with Alex Shephard) Dec 25, 2022

Alex Shephard, senior writer for The New Republic, returns to Junk Filter to discuss two demented grindhouse classics from the English director Michael Winner, the notorious Charles Bronson thriller Death Wish 3 (1985) and a recently rediscovered home invasion melodrama from the year prior, Scream For Help.

Both films have much in common: two trashy and violent melodramas, both set in New York State but mostly filmed in London. each with an original soundtrack from a member of Led Zeppelin! Alex says Death Wish 3 is a work of American fascist art, a proto-MAGA vision that helps to explain today’s reactionary conservative mindset. Scream For Help is like an R-rated After School Special that couldn’t be made today and is a must-watch for DW3 heads.

Plus! A supersized post-mortem of the World Cup in Qatar, including the greatest WC final ever, Messi securing GOAT status, the crashing-out of Cristano Ronaldo from elite status in football, and how journalists managed to cover the tournament while also combatting the sportswashing efforts of FIFA and the host country. Vamos Argentina Carajo!

Happy Holidays! Thank you to the listeners and patrons. We'll have new episodes in early January!

There are over three dozen premium episodes of the show available exclusively to patrons: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Alex Shephard on Twitter.

A clip from an industrial commercial for the Wildey .457 Magnum, tied into the release of Death Wish 3

Trailer for Death Wish 3 (Michael Winner, 1985)

Trailer for Scream For Help (Michael Winner, 1984)

Winner promoting Death Wish II in the UK before getting his ass handed to him by BBC presenter Anna Raeburn over the film’s depiction of sexual assault, 1982

An archive of some of the “Winner’s Dinners”: a long-running restaurant review column for the Sunday Times

“Fox Sports’ US World Cup Coverage Is An Unmissable Abomination” by Alex Timms, for The Guardian, December 5, 2022

TEASER - 116: Straub, Sight & Sound (with Ben Nash) Dec 12, 2022

Access this entire 65 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! https://www.patreon.com/posts/116-straub-sight-75792117

Ben Nash returns to the podcast from Colchester England to say farewell to the influential French filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub, who with his wife Danièle Huillet produced several decades worth of formally controlled yet fiercely radical works.

We offer the listener an introduction to the relatively obscure films of Straub-Huillet by concentrating on three of them: their controversial first film Not Reconciled (1965), perhaps their most widely-seen work, The Chronicle of Anna Magdelena Bach (1968) and 1979’s Italian drama From the Clouds to the Resistance.

Ben and I also discuss the results of this decade’s Sight & Sound list of the Top 100 Films of All Time as voted on by filmmakers and critics, like the works of Straub-Huillet these results raise questions about the overall “accessibility” of anti-commercial arthouse cinema in the modern streaming age, of anti-commercial arthouse cinema in the modern streaming age, and how 'the canon' reflects the changing tastes of a changing audience.

Subscribe to our Patreon to access dozens of additional episodes: some notable previous Patreon guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, @ReclinerNotes and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ben Nash on Twitter.

Trailer for Mubi’s retrospective of the films of Straub-Huillet, 2019

TEASER - 115: Risky Business (with James Majure) Nov 28, 2022

Access this entire 85 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! https://www.patreon.com/posts/115-risky-with-75212483

Public health worker and trivia host James Majure returns to the pod from Athens, GA for a show about one of the most significant American films of the eighties: Paul Brickman’s Risky Business, the movie that instantly turned Tom Cruise into a star and still stands as one of his best films nearly 40 years on.

Seen today Risky Business feels like "Michael Mann for Teens"; a sex comedy shot and paced like an urban thriller (set in Chicago at night with a Tangerine Dream soundtrack). We talk about the film’s remarkably progressive critique of Reagan-era capitalism and class structure in America, how this film sent many Gen Xers to Horny Jail in the eighties, and the ways it set the template for the rest of Cruise’s career. We also discuss Brickman’s preferred ending to the movie (a rare example of studio interference benefiting the overall work).

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some notable previous Patreon episode guests include Jared Yates Sexton, Jacob Bacharach, David Roth, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

James Majure runs a mobile public health vaccination team operating in and around Northeast Georgia. He also hosts a weekly trivia game in Athens!

Trailer for Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983)

114: Jurassic Musk (with Jacob Bacharach) Nov 22, 2022

The novelist and essayist Jacob Bacharach returns to the pod to discuss the Elon Musk era of Twitter in relation to another cautionary tale about what happens when you fool with Mother Nature, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park. It turns out there are unintended consequences to messing around with systems you didn’t understand when you first altered them!

We talk about Jurassic Park as a perfect example of blockbuster filmmaking, and how to get over one’s snobbery about Spielberg as a great cinema craftsman, and then we go to town on Twitter's new CEO; "Comedy is now legal on Twitter" proclaimed Musk shortly before discarding the verification system by making a bluecheck available to anyone with a credit card, and just like Jurassic Park, no one in control anticipated what could possibly go wrong.

We talk about his misunderstanding of what Twitter is, his new parasitical friendship with Cat Turd 2, and how his lack of knowledge about comedy, technology and humanity has created this perfect storm, chasing off employees, users and advertisers in what is turning out to be the most expensive 420 joke ever told.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Will Sloan. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Jacob Bacharach on Twitter and visit jacobbacharach.com

Teaser trailer for Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)

TEASER - 113: Diego Maradona (with Conrado Falco) Nov 18, 2022

Access this entire 70 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! https://www.patreon.com/posts/113-diego-with-74800431

On the eve of what looks like the most cursed World Cup yet, the host of the Criterion Project podcast Conrado Falco joins the show to discuss Asif Kapadia’s 2019 football documentary Diego Maradona, the Get Back of sports documentaries, assembled from hundreds of hours of video filmed for an abandoned documentary project in the eighties that captured the years Maradona played for SSC Napoli in the Italian premier league.

When Maradona arrived in Naples he was considered a superstar and when he left 7 years later he was the most hated man in Italy. In between Maradona dragged his team to Serie A championships, won a World Cup for Argentina with a mixture of cheating and genius, and got mixed up with the Neapolitan crime family and descended into drug abuse and personal chaos. It’s of a piece with Senna and Amy, Kapadia’s earlier documentaries of remarkable lives destroyed by celebrity told with the skillful use of rare personal archival material.

Plus: Conrado and I wrestle with the moral dilemma of rooting for Messi and Argentina in a World Cup being held in the human rights hellscape of Qatar.

Follow Conrado Falco on Twitter.

Conrado has two podcasts: The Criterion Project and Foreign Invader.

Check out Conrado's webseries Wormholes on YouTube.

Trailer for Diego Maradona(Asif Kapadia, 2019)

112: American Hustle (with Matthew Perpetua) Nov 06, 2022

Matthew Perpetua of the long-running Fluxblog returns to the pod from Brooklyn, but this time his visit is only tangentially related to Steely Dan. This is an episode about the notorious director David O. Russell, whose first film in 7 years, the all-star Amsterdam, just bombed at the box office. But it has a lot in common with an earlier Russell film that was a big hit with audiences, if not with most critics, 2013’s American Hustle, a film Matthew and I both quite liked.

Released in the same month as Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle was derided by some as “Scorsese-lite”, a retread of Goodfellas stuffed with showy performances and cartoonish behaviour. It was reviewed as if it was supposed to be a historical drama (as it was based on the true story of two con artists who worked with the FBI to ensnare corrupt congressmen in the ABSCAM sting operation). But American Hustle worked for us as a ridiculous screwball comedy about desperate people chasing after the American Dream in a cynical age, a film quite possibly made by a madman, though at a time before more sordid details about Russell’s personal conduct became public and tarnished his reputation.

We try to make a case for why American Hustle is Good, Actually, but we also discuss why Amsterdam, another loopy story based on another obscure footnote in American history, with even more big names in the cast, doesn’t succeed.

With sidebars on the oncoming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and our views on Elon Musk’s early days of “running” Twitter.

Sign up for the Junk Filter Patreon to support the show directly and access dozens of bonus episodes! https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Matthew Perpetua on Twitter and subscribe to the new Fluxblog Substack!

Trailer for American Hustle (Russell, 2013)

Trailer for Amsterdam (Russell, 2022)

“David O. Russell is latest face of Hollywood’s workplace abuse problem” by Sonia Rao for The Washington Post, October 7, 2022

111: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (with David Moscrop) Oct 31, 2022

The writer and podcaster David Moscrop, a contributing columnist for the Washington Post, returns to the pod from Ottawa to discuss a Spooky Season classic, Francis Ford Coppola’s lavish adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a film that turned 30 years old this year but like a vampire has barely aged a day.

Coppola followed up The Godfather Part III with an ambitious gothic horror with an all-star cast, filmed entirely indoors on sets and soundstages. His visual effects supervisor was his son Roman Coppola, and they decided use techniques from the early days of cinema to adapt a novel from the same period.

We discuss the film’s “naive visual effects”, the over-the-top aesthetic from sets to costumes to performances, the film’s horniness which greatly influenced future vampire stories, and we try to mount a defense for the enduring knock against this film, the mannered turn by Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker.

Plus: we discuss Ontario Premier Doug Ford trying to weasel out of having to testify at the Emergencies Act inquiry in Ottawa.

Sign up for the Junk Filter Patreon to support the show directly and access dozens of bonus episodes! https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow David Moscrop on Twitter, listen to his podcast Open To Debate, and subscribe to his new Substack!

From Den of Geek, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic”, an in-depth discussion with Roman Coppola of the film’s visual effects, by David Crow, October 16, 2020

Trailer for Bram Stoker’s Dracula(Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)

TEASER - 110: Michael Mann: The Keep (with Sean Armstrong) Oct 29, 2022

Access this entire 75 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! https://www.patreon.com/posts/110-michael-mann-73896455

Veteran boom operator Sean Armstrong (Hannibal, Star Trek: Discovery) returns to the podcast for the latest episode on our series on the films of Michael Mann, with the one film he prefers not to discuss, his second feature, 1983’s supernatural horror thriller The Keep.

Paramount took control of the production as the costs and the running time skyrocketed, issues compounded by the sudden death of the visual effects designer (who hadn’t told anyone what he had in mind), and after reshoots the film was dumped into cinemas at Christmas, heavily butchered by the studio, and confusing to audiences.

Sean and I discuss what Mann had in mind, the amazing anachronistic synth score by Tangerine Dream, and the pleasures that can be found in considering a damaged work of art, one Mann will likely never revisit and restore to his intentions.

There are additional Michael Mann episodes (on Heat and Thief) available now on the Junk Filter Patreon feed, as well as dozens of bonus shows. Patrons help to make Junk Filter possible. You can subscribe at patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Sean Armstrong on Twitter.

Trailer for The Keep (Michael Mann, 1983)

109: Blob ’88 (with Meg Shields) Oct 24, 2022

The writer Meg Shields (Film School Rejects) returns to the show for a look at one of the highlights of Criterion Channel’s lineup of 80s Horror, Chuck Russell’s 1988 remake of the fifties cult classic The Blob.

Not as celebrated as two other eighties Body Horror remakes of fifties sci-fi (Carpenter’s The Thing and Cronenberg’s The Fly), The Blob is ripe for rediscovery with it’s incredible use of practical special effects and miniatures to tell the tale of a goopy pink organism that terrorizes a small ski town in California which is revealed not to be an alien creature but in fact a secret biological weapon on the loose when government agents seize control of the area in an attempt to contain it. But a pair of plucky local teens (Shawnee Smith and Kevin Dillon) might be mankind’s only hope for survival.

The Blob succeeds thanks to a smart screenplay by Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont that leans into the ridiculousness of the premise while showing a gleeful disregard for genre expectations throughout. A box office flop at the time thanks to a bad marketing campaign, sometimes movies like The Blob take a long time to find an audience.

Plus: Meg recommends some other highlights of Criterion’s well-chosen lineup of eighties horror offerings.

Sign up for the Junk Filter Patreon to support the show directly and to access dozens of bonus episodes! https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Meg Shields on Twitter.

“Slime and Space Dust: How They Built The Blob”, by Meg Shields, for Film School Rejects, August 19, 2020

Theme from The Blob by “The Five Blobs” (written by a young Burt Bacharach, 1958)

Trailer for Beware! The Blob (Larry Hagman, 1972)

Trailer for The Blob (Chuck Russell, 1988)

Trailer for Junglee (Chuck Russell, 2019)

TEASER - 108: Holly Hunter (with Ursula Lawrence) Oct 17, 2022

Access this entire 81 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron: https://www.patreon.com/posts/108-holly-hunter-73420058

Comedy writer Ursula Lawrence (Drunk History, Adam Ruins Everything) returns to the pod for a show about the great actor Holly Hunter, with a look at the two classic movies she made to launch her big-screen career in 1987, Raising Arizona and Broadcast News, as well as one of her best performances in Michael Ritchie’s 1993 small-screen satire for HBO, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom.

Along the way we discuss why Nicolas Cage only worked once with the Coen Bros, how Broadcast News is just as prescient about the future of news media as Network was, our shared love of Albert Brooks, and we marvel at the incredible Emmy-winning performance Hunter gives as Wanda Holloway in Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, a postmodern comedy about true crime and tabloid culture more people should know about.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast can access additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ursula Lawrence on Twitter.

Trailer for Raising Arizona (Joel Coen, 1987)

Trailer for Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1987)

The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (Michael Ritchie, 1993) is currently available to watch for free on YouTube (but the last 15 minutes of the film are heavily pixelated)

107: Hair Metal (with Elana Levin) Oct 10, 2022

Few genres of music are as critically maligned as the Hair Metal genre, also known as Glam Metal, a term invented to distinguish “Legitimate" Heavy Metal from the poppier and more ridiculous guitar rock performed by men with big hair who wore “feminine” makeup and accessories and performed power ballads.

The music writer and podcaster Elana Levin joins the show from Brooklyn to discuss the lineage of Hair Metal, how it functions as camp, the importance of pop music as an influence on the sound, the controversial content that earned the wrath of the censorious PMRC in the eighties, and spotlight some of the best bands and songs from the era that deserve more attention (Cinderella, Ratt, Kix and Faster Pussycat.) And we explore how the sound of eighties Hair Metal influenced adult contemporary and country music in the nineties.

Sign up for the Junk Filter Patreon to support the show directly and access dozens of bonus episodes! https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Elana Levin on Twitter and check out their podcasts Graphic Policy Radio and Deep Space Dive!

Elana’s essay “Notes on Camp: David Lee Roth”

Elana’s appearance on the Is It Camp? podcast to talk about David Lee Roth and Van Halen

"There’s No Wrong Time To Rock: A Peacemaker-Inspired Playlist" by Elana Levin for Women Write About Comics

Cinderella’s local commercial for Pat’s Chili Dogs, 1983

Kix - Cool Kids, 1983

Ratt - Round and Round, 1984

Motley Crüe - Too Young To Fall In Love, 1984

106: Michael Mann: The Insider (with James Slaymaker) Sep 27, 2022

James Slaymaker, a film writer and the author of Time is Luck: The Cinema of Michael Mann returns to the show from Southampton, England to discuss one of Mann’s finest films, 1999’s The Insider.

One of the great films about journalism, The Insider is based on the true story of Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, a former tobacco company vice president who dares to go on the record about Big Tobacco and the product tampering that posed a public health risk. Wigand agrees to appear on 60 Minutes thanks to their tenacious producer Lowell Bergman. But in a shocking turn of events, CBS tampers with the story; fearing a massive lawsuit from Brown & Williamson for “tortious interference” that could destroy the network, they force a sanitized version on the air, putting Wigand in further jeopardy when a smear campaign is concocted by B&W to further discredit and destroy him. Critics loved the film but it was beset by media controversy upon release and never found an audience.

We talk about The Insider as one of Mann’s most radical works, a big budget drama (released by Disney!) about corporate malfeasance and heroic individuals fighting against overwhelming systems. Along the way we discuss the fantastic performances, Mann’s visual approach that borders on abstract expressionism, pointing the way to his 21st century digital filmwork, and why this film is a Dudes Rock classic.

There are additional Michael Mann episodes (on Heat and Thief) available now on the Junk Filter Patreon feed, as well as dozens of bonus shows. Patrons help to make Junk Filter possible. You can subscribe at patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow James Slaymaker on Twitter.

James’ book Time is Luck, The Cinema of Michael Mann, is now available in paperback and Kindle.

The full version of Jeffrey Wigand’s interview with 60 Minutes, aired February 4, 1996

“Jeffrey Wigand: The Man Who Knew Too Much” - the Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner that The Insider was adapted from, May 1996

Trailer for The Insider (Mann, 1999)

TEASER - 105: Sorcerer & The Wages of Fear (with Peter Fishbeast) Sep 22, 2022

Access this entire 81 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus episodes) by becoming a Junk Filter patron: https://www.patreon.com/posts/72332422

Filmmaker Peter Fishbeast returns to the podcast from Belper, England to discuss the great director William Friedkin and his 1977 thriller Sorcerer.

Hot off two of the biggest hits of the seventies (The French Connection and The Exorcist), Friedkin decided to do his own version of one of the most acclaimed international films of all time, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear, the tale of four desperate fugitives who are paid by an avaricious oil company to drive trucks full of nitroglycerine hundreds of miles to put out a raging fire at their refinery. It was an expensive and troubled production and had the bad timing of opening the same weekend that Star Wars was released widely across North America, heralding a cultural sea change in Hollywood that swept up his fellow auteurs in the New American Cinema of the seventies.

Peter and I compare Sorcerer and The Wages of Fear, the two different ways these films criticize U.S. imperialism, andhow Friedkin’s misbegotten film eventually got a proper restoration in the 2010s and found a new audience. We also discuss the notorious international cut of Sorcerer, re-titled Wages of Fear and heavily tampered with by the worldwide distributor against the director’s wishes.

Plus: Peter tells us about the mood in the UK in the wake of the passing of Her Majesty.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast can access additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Peter Fishbeast on Twitter and visit his website.

Trailer for Le Salaire de la peur (Clouzot, 1953)

Trailer for Sorcerer (Friedkin, 1977)

104: JLG/RIP (with Will Sloan, Toph, Ben Nash and James Slaymaker) Sep 20, 2022

To commemorate the death of Jean-Luc Godard, we’ve assembled a panel to discuss his impact on cinema: returning guests Will Sloan and Ben Nash are joined by two new guests, the Southampton-based film writer and PhD researcher James Slaymaker, and in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, Toph, friend of the show, francophile socialiste and Twitchstreamer.

We’ve all come to Godard from different directions and different parts of the world, and we discuss the effect his films have had on each of us, with a particular emphasis on Godard’s post-commercial film career after 1967: his radical Marxist tracts with the Dziga Vertov Group, his epic falling-out with François Truffaut, his “comeback” in the eighties that peaked when he tricked Golan & Globus into financing his 1987 experimental “all-star” practical joke King Lear for Cannon, his pivot to video criticism which yielded his epic essay Histoire(s) du cinéma, and the Late Style works Film socialisme and Le Livre d'image.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast can access additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ben Nash, James Slaymaker, Will Sloan and Toph on Twitter.

Meetin’ WA (Godard short film where he grills Woody Allen, 1986)

Selected Godard trailers:

Week-end (1967)

King Lear (1987)

Film socialisme (2010)

Goodbye to Language (2014)

103: My Son Hunter (with Dave Weigel) Sep 12, 2022

Washington Post political reporter Dave Weigel returns to the show for a look at the new conservative political satire My Son Hunter, directed by the actor Robert Davi, his first directorial feature in 15 years.

The story of the chaotic lifestyle of Hunter Biden, his business dealings and the salacious details of the contents of his recovered laptop has frustrated the right ever since it failed to change the outcome of the 2020 election. Davi’s movie about the affair, distributed online directly through Breitbart and toplined by “cancelled” actors Laurence Fox and Gina Carano, was designed to blow up the political discourse but comes across as a conservative attempt to emulate Adam McKay’s approach to left-leaning political satire. The filmmakers insist the news about My Son Hunter is being suppressed by the liberal media and Big Tech, so Dave and I were happy to watch this movie for Junk Filter listeners.

As a political reporter, Dave knows perhaps a little too much about the Hunter Biden saga and acts as a helpful interpreter to explain the conservative talking points this movie is trying to make to the uninitiated. We speak about the filmmakers, the decision to film this patriotic project in Serbia, and the film’s ultimate lack of nerve in depicting the events.

Follow Dave Weigel on Twitter and subscribe to his Washington Post newsletter The Trailer.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast can access additional exclusive episodes every month: previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Alex Shephard, Bryan Quinby and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Trailer for My Son Hunter (Davi, 2022)

TEASER - 102: Blood & Chocolate (with Scott Bunn) Sep 08, 2022

Access the entire 109 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102-blood-with-71701563

In the latest in a recurring series on the albums of Elvis Costello, Scott Bunn, the author of the wonderful Recliner Notes blog, joins me from Asheville, North Carolina for an in-depth discussion of EC’s final album for Columbia Records before the breakup of his band The Attractions, Blood & Chocolate.

After a creative low point in the wake of the end of his first marriage, and with a dysfunctional band who were nearing their end, Costello roared back in 1986 with both King of America and Blood & Chocolate, the latter a strange, loud rock record about breakups, jealousy, infidelity and increasingly psychotic cuck fantasies, set against an apocalyptic world spinning off its axis.

We go track by track into the album; along the way we discuss the role his new partner Cait O’Riordan played in its creation and the various personae Costello inhabits on the record, including his alter-ego Napoleon Dynamite (yes, that name derives from this album, though unacknowledged by the film’s director).

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast can access additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Alex Shephard, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Scott Bunn on Twitter, check out the Recliner Notes blog, and listen to Scott’s indie radio podcast!

"I Want You" - Fiona Apple (live with Costello’s band), 2006

101: Olivia Newton-John (with Terrance Balazo) Aug 24, 2022

Writer and trivia host Terrance Balazo returns to the show to mark the passing of Olivia Newton-John. Beyond achieving iconic screen stardom as the “good girl gone bad” Sandy in Grease, she changed the sound of country music in the seventies and then pop music in the eighties with “Physical”, the biggest chart hit of the decade and a key influence on performers like Madonna and later Kylie Minogue.

Of course we discuss Grease (and Grease 2), but we also dive into Olivia’s notorious rollerskating musical Xanadu as well as her screen debut in the obscure 1970 British sci-fi musical comedy Toomorrow and her reunion with John Travolta Two of a Kind (featuring the uncredited voice of Gene Hackman as God!)

Plus, we watched her insane 1980 prime-time tv special Hollywood Nights, an all-star salute to Tinseltown.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast can access additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Alex Shephard and Sooz Kempner. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Terrance Balazo on Twitter.

Terrance’s Twitchstream for his weekly trivia contest Another Round Trivia.

Olivia Newton-John accepting the 1974 CMA award for Best Female Vocalist of the Year

Argentine trailer for a 1979 cash-in re-release of Toomorrow (Val Guest, 1970)

Olivia Newton-John: Hollywood Nights (ABC TV special, 1980)

Trailer for Xanadu (Robert Greenwald, 1980)

TV spot for Two of a Kind (John Herzfeld, 1983)

“Magic” - Olivia Newton-John, 1980

"Physical" music video - Olivia Newton-John, 1981

“Make a Move on Me” - Olivia Newton-John, 1982

Olivia’s anti-crack PSA, 1987

TEASER - 100: Michael Mann: Thief (with James Majure) Aug 22, 2022

Access the entire 79 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100-michael-mann-70847596

For the 100th episode of Junk Filter, public health worker and trivia host James Majure joins us from Athens, GA to discuss Michael Mann’s first feature film as a director, 1981’s Thief starring James Caan and Tuesday Weld.

Thief is a fundamental text of modern cinematic language, and the starting point for all of Mann’s career-long preoccupations; the personal code of the professional, the challenges facing the criminal trying to re-enter society, and an immersion into a nocturnal world of city streets, dive bars and diners. Notably Thief offers a fairly Marxist critique of the capitalist system and the personal compromises one is forced to make to operate within it.

Plus: farewell to the great James Caan, and a preview of the new novel “Heat 2”!

Patrons of the podcast can hear this and over 30 premium episodes that are exclusive to the Patreon feed, including guests Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Alex Shephard, Chris Calogero, and Jacob Bacharach. Access bonus episodes every month and support the show directly by going to https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

James Majure runs a mobile public health vaccination team operating in and around Northeast Georgia. He also hosts a weekly trivia game in Athens!

Trailer for Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

99: It's Morbin' Time (with Jacob Bacharach) Aug 10, 2022

The author Jacob Bacharach returns for a show about the new film about the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Michael Morbius.

The failure of Morbius, both critically and commercially, is interesting to ponder: why did this particular Marvel movie bomb? Why did this film inspire so many viral memes that Sony Pictures decided to re-release it in cinemas to cash in on Morb Fever? And is the ironic online Morbius Cult our contemporary equivalent to the Juggalos?

Jacob and I discuss Morbius in detail, but along the way we also talk about Jared Leto as a “risk-taking” actor, including his notorious Joker, his Oscar-winning role as a trans woman in the frustrating Dallas Buyers Club, and his laboured bid for another Oscar nomination in House of Gucci.

Follow Jacob Bacharach on Twitter and visit jacobbacharach.com

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Will Sloan. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

International trailer for Dallas Buyers Club (Vallée, 2013)

The first teaser for Morbius (Espinosa, 2022), from 2020

ESKE - Off the Meds (aka The Morbin’ National Anthem), 2020

98: He Got Game (with Mike Mekus) Aug 02, 2022

Manhattan-based actor and writer Mike Mekus returns to the show for a discussion of one of Spike Lee’s most underrated films, 1998’s basketball drama He Got Game starring Denzel Washington and NBA player Ray Allen.

Denzel is Jake Shuttlesworth, a convict secretly released from Attica by order of the warden to try to get his son Jesus, a future NBA star, to sign a letter of intent to play college ball for the Governor’s alma mater “Big State”. But Jesus is estranged from his father and under great pressure to either sign with a competing college (the aggressive “Tech U”) or head straight to the pros from high school.

He Got Game is a film about American exploitation in its many forms, and as messy as it can be, it contains many sequences of great power and beauty, filmed primarily around Coney Island in Brooklyn. It’s also a film from the brief period at Touchstone Pictures where Disney was making complex movies for grownups made by great filmmakers.

We discuss several aspects of the film including Spike’s use of music (the inspired pairing of Aaron Copland with Public Enemy) and his perennial blind spot: the portrayal of his female characters.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Alex Shephard, Chris Calogero, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Mike Mekus on Twitter and check out his blog!

Trailer for He Got Game (Spike Lee, 1998)

Spike Lee’s cryptocurrency commercial for Coin Cloud, July 2021

TEASER - 97: Michael Mann: Heat (with Chris Calogero) Jul 29, 2022

Access the entire 84 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/69724035

The very funny actor and comedian Chris Calogero joins me from Los Angeles for a discussion on one of the great L.A. films, Michael Mann’s Heat!

Michael Mann is back in action lately, with Ferrari in production, the impending release of his first novel Heat 2, and the news that it will be adapted for the screen as a prequel/sequel to the 1995 classic.

Chris and I go to Riff City for this episode: we talk about the influence Waingro has had on today’s hard-right insurrectionists, Mann’s 1989 TV movie L.A. Takedown which Heat is a remake of, the increasing insanity of Al Pacino’s portrayal of Vincent Hanna, and finally we also offer Mann some free ideas for what he can do when he finally adapts Heat 2 for the big screen.

You can watch L.A. Takedown (Mann, 1989) for free on YouTube.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Alex Shephard, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Chris Calogero on Twitter and visit chriscalogero.com

96: Blue Murder (with Patrick Marlborough) Jul 26, 2022

The writer, actor and musician Patrick Marlborough, a regular contributor to Vice, Gawker and The Guardian, joins me from Perth in Western Australia for a show about the groundbreaking 1995 miniseries Blue Murder, starring Richard Roxburgh.

Blue Murder tells the true story of corruption in the New South Wales police department and the friendship between the hot-headed detective Roger Rogerson and the Sydney crime kingpin Neddy Smith, who was given the “green light” by Rogerson to commit crimes, including murder, with police protection. This bombshell series, produced by the public broadcaster ABC, was banned from the airwaves in New South Wales for 6 years.

We discuss this terrific miniseries, the inferior recent sequel Blue Murder: Killer Cop (2017), produced by the private channel Seven Network, and Patrick offers some insights into Toxic Masculinity, Aussie-style, and the landscape of media culture Down Under that these two miniseries represent.

Both Blue Murder and the sequel are currently available to stream on Prime Video in Canada, and can also be found on YouTube.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Alex Shephard, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

You can find Patrick Marlborough on Twitter and Patrickmarlborough.com

“Blue Murder: Nothing Has Exposed Australia’s Mean Streak Better Than This Sleazy Drama” by Patrick Marlborough, for The Guardian, July 26, 2022

Ad for the DVD release of Blue Murder (Michael Jenkins, 1995)

Ad for Blue Murder: Killer Cop (Michael Jenkins, 2017)

95: Mission: Impossible 2 (with Aaron Casias and Carlee Gomes) Jul 12, 2022

The hosts of the Hit Factory podcast, Aaron Casias and Carlee Gomes, return to the show from San Francisco to defend John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), generally considered the weakest film in the series.

Woo’s underappreciated sequel is best enjoyed as his attempt to fuse modern American blockbuster filmmaking with the delirious style of Hong Kong action cinema and the spirit of Hitchcock’s grand Hollywood entertainments, in this case openly echoing the plot of Notorious. It also set the template for Mission: Impossible as a continuing series of thrillers.

Most importantly, this was the movie where Tom Cruise turned into the Tom Cruise we have today: the man who does his own death-defying stunts and the last real Hollywood movie star, who practically makes propaganda for himself.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Alex Shephard, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Aaron Casias and Carlee Gomes on Twitter.

Subscribe to the Hit Factory podcast; you can also support the show directly through Patreon.

Trailer for Mission: Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000)

Trailer for Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)

"Aeropuerto", John Woo’s great commercial for Nike, 1998 (he was working on this when he was tapped by Cruise to direct M:I 2.)

A great interview with Thandiwe Newton for Vulture where she spills the tea on her film career and talks about working on M:I 2.

TEASER - 94: Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (with Alex Shephard) Jul 04, 2022

Access the entire 84 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/68615908

Alex Shephard, senior writer for The New Republic and co-host of the Mr. Difficultpodcast, returns to Junk Filter for a discussion of Baz Luhrmann’s maximalist jukebox musical biopic Elvis, starring Austin Butler in a star-making role as The King and the distracting cartoonish performance from Tom Hanks as his manager/svengali Colonel Tom Parker.

Plus: Alex discusses his recent TNR interview with the documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, recently subpoenaed to testify for the January 6 Committee in DC about what he captured on the day of the insurrection for his upcoming Discovery+ series on the outgoing first family in the final days of the Trump Presidency.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive access to additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby, Karen Geier, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Alex Shephard on Twitter and check out the Mr. Difficult podcast.

93: Lightyear (with Adam Jackson) Jun 28, 2022

Writer Adam Jackson (Vice, Noisey) returns to the podcast for a discussion of the new Disney/Pixar animated feature Lightyear.

Why did Lightyear fail at the box office? Was it the convoluted premise (this isn’t a movie about the toy Buzz Lightyear or even a Toy Story film, this is the movie about the actual Buzz Lightyear that young Andy loved so much in 1995 that he bought the toy)? Was it the “controversial” LGBTQ content (which adds up to about 45 seconds of screen time and yet triggered hysterical calls for boycotts of the movie from the anti-Disney religious right)? Was it anger over the replacement of the conservative Tim Allen with the affable Chris Evans as the voice of Buzz? Was it stiff market competition from Jurassic World Dominion and Top Gun: Maverick? Adam and I went to see it together to see for ourselves where things went wrong.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive access to additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby, Karen Geier, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Adam Jackson on Twitter.

Trailer for Lightyear (Angus MacLane, 2022)

92: Serial Mom (with Karen Geier) Jun 20, 2022

Toronto-based writer and content strategist Karen Geier returns to the show for a discussion of John Waters and his 1994 “true crime” comedy Serial Mom, starring Kathleen Turner as a suburban Baltimore housewife who is eventually discovered to be a serial killer and becomes a tabloid sensation during her criminal trial. The remarkable thing about this film is it was released mere weeks before the O.J. Simpson murders and Waters strangely anticipated the cultural issues brought up by this case: the American obsession with crime and celebrity.

Karen and I discuss the film and some adjacent current topics including Cancel Culture, the moral panic over Trans Rights and Drag Queen Story Time, the legacy of the O.J. trial, and the popularity of True Crime podcasts and documentaries.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive access to additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby, Karen Geier, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Karen Geier on Twitter and check out her podcast On Belief. She also has a Patreon!

Trailer for Serial Mom (John Waters, 1994)

TEASER - 91: Bully (with Ricky Camilleri and Chris Chafin) Jun 12, 2022

Access the entire 90 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/67675544

The hosts of the 30 Years Later podcast, Ricky Camilleri and Chris Chafin, join me from New York City to discuss Larry Clark’s 2001 true-crime drama Bully.

Possibly the ultimate Florida movie, Bully is a tale of crime and punishment that contrasts a strongly moralistic narrative with Clark’s sweaty, lurid and lecherous visual approach to adapt the true story of a group of sex-crazed stoner teens in Fort Lauderdale who conspire to commit the brutal murder of young Bobby Kent, himself a tormentor of one of the killers, his lifelong pal Marty Puccio.

We discuss this film as a black comedy, Chris vouches for the accuracy of the film’s portrayal of Y2K South Florida teens, we tackle the issues of exploitation and consent that accompany tales of the film’s turbulent production, and we wonder if a movie as uncompromising as Bully could even get made in America today.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ricky Camilleri and Chris Chafin on Twitter.

Check out the 30 Years Later podcast! I was a recent guest of the show to discuss Patriot Games. They have also launched a new Patreon feed.

“An Oral History of Larry Clark’s Cult Classic Bully” by Daniel Clemens, for i-D magazine, July 27, 2021

Trailer for Bully (Larry Clark, 2001)

90: Riders of Justice (with Gus Lanzetta) Jun 06, 2022

Writer and podcaster Gus Lanzetta returns to the podcast from São Paulo, Brazil for a show about Mads Mikkelsen and his 2020 Danish action comedy Riders of Justice.

Along the way we discuss Mikkelsen’s two careers in domestic and international cinema, the history of Danish cinema that dates back to the beginning of the medium, and how Riders of Justice balances action, violence and comedy and puts a uniquely Danish spin on familiar genre tropes.

Plus: Gus lends his Fast Saga expertise to discuss the latest news from the set of Fast X. Has Vin Diesel snapped?

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Gus Lanzetta on Twitter.

Trailer for Riders of Justice (Anders Thomas Jensen, 2020)

Music video for “Bitch Better Have My Money” - Rihanna, 2015

Vin Diesel singing “Stay” by Rihanna in his house

TEASER - 89: Ricky Gervais (with Rob Rousseau) Jun 01, 2022

Access the entire 72 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/67140452

From Montreal, Rob Rousseau returns to the podcast for a discussion of the decline of comedian Ricky Gervais, with the release of his new Netflix special Super Nature. We’re a long way from the heights of The Office now. Why does Gervais seem more determined now to court controversy than to tell actual funny jokes? Do edgy "anti-woke" comedians with huge platforms realize (or even care) that they are contributing to a cultural anti-trans panic that is already making life dangerous for LGBT people?

Plus: Ontario sleepwalks towards the re-election of Doug Ford as Premier.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Rob Rousseau on Twitter, and check out his podcasts @insurgentspod and @TRRSpod.

88: The Imperial Six (with Gerry Flahive) May 27, 2022

Writer and former NFB senior producer Gerry Flahive joins the podcast to discuss moviegoing in Toronto in the 1970s, at the dawn of the multiplex age. Gerry worked as a teenage usher at the new Imperial Six cinema, under the precise command of cinema manager Phil Traynor, the inspiration for Gerry’s alternate Twitter persona Bert Xanadu, who tweets from the year 1973 where he is both the reigning mayor of Toronto and the manager of the Imperial Six. Bert’s tweets and essays have been collected in Gerry’s new book I Own This Town: The Mayor Bert Xanadu Xanthology.

Gerry and I talk about the many movie theatres, from cavernous palaces to alternate film spaces to grindhouses that used to exist on Yonge Street, the eclectic programming and architecture of the Imperial Six, and the local film culture that led to the development of cinema multiplexes and the Toronto International Film Festival.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Gerry Flahive and Mayor Bert Xanadu on Twitter.

I Own This Town: The Mayor Bert Xanadu Xanthology by Gerry Flahive is now available at the Spacing store in Toronto and other fine bookstores. Also available as an e-book at Amazon.

Famous Players Theatres “Next Attraction” snipe, mid-1970s

Famous Players Theatres “Gift Books” snipe, 1972

Trailer for Emperor of the North (Robert Aldrich, 1973)

Trailer for The Harrad Experiment (Ted Post, 1973)

TEASER - 87: Joe Piscopo (with Will Sloan) May 20, 2022

Access the entire 88 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/66652078

Will Sloan returns to the podcast for an in-depth discussion of the strange career path of comedian and impressionist Joe Piscopo: from his origins on Saturday Night Live and stardom as their second banana to superstar Eddie Murphy, his short-lived movie career, his bodybuilding phase, his various network tv specials, most notably 2012’s A Night at Club Piscopo for Showtime, to his current life as a conservative talk radio guy in New Jersey.

All of Piscopo’s eighties tv specials discussed on this episode are available to watch on YouTube, and A Night at Club Piscopo is currently streaming on Tubi.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Will Sloan on Twitter and subscribe to his great podcasts The Important Cinema Club and Michael and Us.

“Kimberly” - Joe Piscopo, 1997

The Vulture Transcript: Joe Piscopo Dissects His Career, From SNL to the Buff Era and Beyond - by Steve Marsh, August 2011

86: Martin Campbell — Selected Works (with David Roth) May 16, 2022

Defector Media’s David Roth returns to Junk Filter to discuss highlights from the long career of veteran action filmmaker Martin Campbell and pay tribute to his work beyond the famous 007 reboots.

We discuss his origins in film and television: his debut in British sex comedies in the seventies, his groundbreaking 1985 BBC miniseries Edge of Darkness with Bob Peck and Joe Don Baker, a terrific “bottle episode” he made for NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street (“Three Men and Adena”), No Escape, his effective 1994 sci-fi with Ray Liotta (set in the year 2022!), and his latest, the Liam Neeson “Hit Man with Alzheimer’s” B-movie Memory.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow David Roth on Twitter and check out his show with Drew Magary, Distractor: A Defector Podcast

Trailer for Eskimo Nell (Campbell, 1975)

Trailer for No Escape (Campbell, 1994)

Trailer for Memory (Campbell, 2022)

85: The Hoffa Cinematic Universe (with Ursula Lawrence) Apr 29, 2022

Comedy writer and labor organizer Ursula Lawrence (Drunk History, Adam Ruins Everything) returns to the show from Madison, Wisconsin for a look at 3 epic films that in unique ways depict the life of the controversial president of the Teamsters Union Jimmy Hoffa: Sylvester Stallone in F.I.S.T. (Norman Jewison, 1978), Jack Nicholson in Hoffa (Danny DeVito, 1992) and Al Pacino in The Irishman (Scorsese, 2019).

How do these films contrast Hoffa’s achievements for the American worker with his connections to organized crime, his mysterious disappearance and how he is remembered culturally? Why didn’t Danny DeVito continue directing historical epics? And why is there a scene in Hoffa that takes place in the woods but filmed indoors on a giant soundstage (with a live deer?)

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ursula Lawrence on Twitter and her French Republican Calendar project

A must-read: Patrick Goldstein’s report for the Los Angeles Times from the set of Hoffa, 1992

Trailer for F.I.S.T.(Norman Jewison, 1978)

TV commercial for Hoffa (Danny DeVito, 1992)

Danny DeVito’s address to the 2011 Teamsters convention in Las Vegas

TEASER - 84: Under the Silver Lake (with Brian Buster) Apr 23, 2022

Access the entire 88 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65467969

Writer Brian Buster joins me from Los Angeles to discuss David Robert Mitchell’s 2018 mystery Under the Silver Lake, Mitchell’s blank check film after the success of It Follows. Silver Lake played in competition at Cannes but for some reason its distributor A24 got cold feet and after moving the release date a couple of times, dumped it into a few theatres and VOD nearly a year later.

A disaffected and desperate young man named Sam (Andrew Garfield) meets a beautiful blonde (Riley Keough) who vanishes the next day. Sam plays detective to find out where she went, and descends into a mystery world of secret societies, coded messages and conspiracies just below the surface of sunny Tinseltown.

In our spoiler-heavy discussion, Brian and I talk about how Silver Lake anticipated Epstein Brain, this film’s placement in the sub-genre of Ambient Noir, the associations the film has to Hitchcock and Mulholland Drive, and the decoding of the cryptic clues and perceived secret messages of the film taken up online by its fans.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Brian Buster on Twitter and stay tuned for Brian’s Patreon, coming soon!

Trailer for Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell, 2018)

83: Father Stu (with Ethan Vestby) Apr 17, 2022

Returning guest Ethan Vestby, a contributor to The Film Stage, joins the pod for a discussion of All Things Wahlberg, including Mark's brand new project, the faith-based comedy/drama Father Stu, based on a true story, co-starring Mel Gibson and directed by Gibson’s girlfriend Rosalind Ross in her feature debut.

Father Stu is the kind of studio movie we don’t see a lot of these days, a personal project aimed at Catholic audiences that Wahlberg partly financed himself along the lines of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ but unlike most entertainment aimed at the religious market, this one is loaded with sleaze and profanity and easily earns its R rating. What does this tell us about the changing world of faith-based entertainment in the new world of the MAGA-influenced religious right and their sudden opposition to “cancel culture”?

Plus we talk about Mark Wahlberg’s business ventures including the Wahlburgers chain, his HBO reality series Wahl Street, and his prolific partnership with the director Peter Berg.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ethan Vestby on Twitter.

Trailer for Season 1 of Wahlberg's HBO reality series Wahl Street

Trailer for Father Stu (Rosalind Ross, 2022)

82: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (with Peter Fishbeast) Apr 12, 2022

Filmmaker Peter Fishbeast joins me from Belper in Derbyshire, England to discuss the 1969 George Roy Hill blockbuster Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, aka Dudes Rock: Origins.

Butch Cassidy is a great example of the influence the French New Wave had on late sixties Hollywood cinema, as it transitioned towards the New American Cinema of the seventies. It’s a western loaded with countercultural appeal and modern sensibilities, powered by an unexpected Burt Bacharach soundtrack that spawned the first No. 1 song of the seventies, "Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head".

Peter and I talk about the film’s enigmatic director George Roy Hill, the magic of Paul Newman and Robert Redford as Dudes Rock avatars, William Goldman’s screenplay being perhaps an unfortunate influence on today’s quippy soy banter in modern blockbusters, and the film’s forgotten prequel.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Will Sloan, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Peter Fishbeast on Twitter and visit his website.

Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head - Bobbie Gentry, 1971

Trailer for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969)

Trailer for Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (Richard Lester, 1979)

TEASER - 81: The Power of the Dog & The Searchers (with Brenden Gallagher) Apr 07, 2022

Access the entire 82 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64822370

Screenwriter and filmmaker Brenden Gallagher joins the program from Los Angeles to discuss two westerns about Toxic Masculinity: Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (2021), for which she won Best Director at this year’s Academy Awards, and John Ford’s The Searchers (1956).

In some ways The Power of the Dog seems to be a film in dialogue with The Searchers, both stylistically and in terms of being a psychological profile of a damaged and dangerous American male archetype. We also talk about the complex legacy of The Searchers, considered one of the greatest American films, but featuring an unapologetically racist hero.

And speaking of the perils of Toxic Masculinity, we also talk about this year’s Academy Awards!

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Brenden Gallagher on Twitter and visit his website.

Sacheen Littlefeather turning down Marlon Brando’s Oscar for Best Actor in The Godfather, 1973

Trailer for The Power of the Dog (Campion, 2021)

Trailer for The Searchers (Ford, 1956)

80: Red Heat (with Asawin Suebsaeng) Apr 03, 2022

Asawin Suebsaeng, senior reporter for The Daily Beast and co-host of the Fever Dreams podcast, joins the show from Cincinnati to discuss Walter Hill’s underrated 1988 Cold War cop thriller Red Heat, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a KGB cop on the hunt for a Soviet gangster on the loose in the United States, forced to cooperate on the case with Chicago cop Jim Belushi. Arnold mentioned filming Red Heat in Moscow during his recent video address for the Russian people to tell them the truth about the war in Ukraine.

Swin and I talk about Red Heat as an amazing time capsule of the end of the Cold War and how the film holds a sympathetic view of the Soviet Union (in particular, their style of policing) and how in some ways this movie anticipated the current respect in some American conservative circles for the modern autocratic Russia of Vladimir Putin (himself a former KGB agent in the eighties!)

Plus: the secret connection Red Heat has to John Woo’s The Killer!

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Asawin Suebsaeng on Twitter and check out the Fever Dreams podcast!

Swin’s recent book with Lachlan Markay, Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump’s Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington, is available here.

Trailer for Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939)

Trailer for Red Heat(Walter Hill, 1988)

79: The Last of Sheila (with Marker Starling) Mar 25, 2022

Toronto musician Marker Starling, who does the music for the podcast, returns for a deep dive into one of our favourites: the 1973 all-star murder mystery The Last of Sheila, directed by Herbert Ross, with an original screenplay by puzzle fanatics Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.

A producer’s wife is killed in an unsolved hit-and-run death during his house party. A year later, the producer invites some guests from the party, all Hollywood strivers, for a weeklong cruise on the French Riviera, where every night they must play a parlour game of his devising, in what seems to be his sadistic plan to discover the true identity of the killer.

We talk about our shared love as kids for wanting to see “movies for grownups” in the seventies, biographical details of the cast and filmmakers, and a spoiler-filled discussion of the elaborate plot of The Last of Sheila, a key influence on Knives Out and perhaps the ultimate seventies movie. Plus: our duelling James Mason impressions!

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Marker Starling and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Marker Starling on Twitter.

James Coburn beer commercial for “Schlitz Light”, 1978

James Mason plugging Thunderbird Wine in the sixties

Trailer for T.R. Baskin (Ross, 1971)

Trailer for The Last of Sheila (Ross, 1973)

TEASER - 78: We Are All Batmen, Part II (with Corey Atad and Ben Nash) Mar 18, 2022

Access the entire 58 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63901173

Part two of our Bat Panel on the Gotham Cinematic Universe focuses on Joker (Phillips, 2019) starring Joaquin Phoenix in his Oscar-winning performance as the Clown Prince of Crime, and how both it and The Batman lean heavily on signifiers from other characteristic filmmakers to tell their stories.

We also continue our discussion of The Batman, including the evolution of the character on screen, and how the latest film portrays Batman as “The World’s Greatest Detective”.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Corey Atad and Ben Nash on Twitter.

Trailer for Joker(Phillips, 2019)

77: We Are All Batmen, Part I (with Corey Atad and Ben Nash) Mar 17, 2022

Returning Junk Filter guests Corey Atad and Ben Nash join forces for a special Bat Panel, a two part episode on the latest films in the Gotham Cinematic Universe.

Part one takes a deep dive into Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022): what we liked about it, our issues with the film, a discussion of the film’s politics, and how DC and Warner Bros. continues to evoke the cinematic style of other filmmakers (in this case the work of David Fincher) to tell the Batman story.

Part two (available on the Junk Filter Patreon feed) continues the discussion with a focus on Todd Phillips’ Oscar-winning Joker (2019), with additional observations on its relationship to The Batman.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Corey Atad and Ben Nash on Twitter.

Trailer for The Batman (Reeves, 2022)

The Batman - Oreo commercial (UK)

The Batman - Little Caesar's Calzony commercial (US)

Trailer for Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski, 1993)

75: The Color of Money (with Steven Hyden) Mar 06, 2022

The author and music critic Steven Hyden joins the program from Minneapolis to discuss Paul Newman' and “The Fast (Eddie) Saga”: 1961’s The Hustler and Martin Scorsese’s only sequel, 1986’s The Color of Money.

We talk about The Hustler as a bridge between classic Hollywood filmmaking and the New American Cinema of the later 60s, and the great performances (all four main actors were Oscar nominated).

This was my first time watching The Color of Money. We discuss Scorsese as a commercial filmmaker, the great pairing of Newman and Tom Cruise, and how this film was a stylistic dry run for the next phase in his career. Plus: Scorsese’s masterful use of Phil Collins and Michelob Rock to capture a particular cultural milieu of the 1980s, his musical partnership with Robbie Robertson, and some of our favourite Scorsese needledrops,

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Steven Hyden on Twitter.

Steven’s upcoming book, Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation, is available for pre-order now!

Trailer for The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961)

Trailer for The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986)

74: Harry Dean Stanton (with Justin Schneider) Mar 02, 2022

One of the great American character actors, Harry Dean Stanton had over 200 acting credits but only played the leading role in two films, and my guest Justin Schneider (a patron of the podcast) pitched his way onto the show to discuss them: 1984’s arthouse classic Paris, Texas and the underseen 2017 comedy-drama Lucky (Stanton’s final film to be released before his death).

Along the way we discuss the healing power of cinema, and how beloved Harry Dean was with filmmakers, actors and audiences.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Justin Schneider on Twitter.

Harry Dean Stanton promoting Paris, Texas and Repo Man on Late Night With David Letterman, October 16, 1984

Trailer for Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)

Trailer for Lucky (John Carroll Lynch, 2017)

TEASER - 73: Shattered Glass (with Aaron Casias and Carlee Gomes) Feb 21, 2022

Access the entire 92 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62861889

The hosts of the Hit Factory podcast return to Junk Filter for a discussion of the 2003 drama Shattered Glass, the directorial debut of screenwriter Billy Ray, starring Hayden Christensen and Peter Sarsgaard. It’s a great adaptation of the rise and fall of The New Republic's hotshot journalist Stephen Glass, who was exposed as a serial fabulist through the rigorous fact-checking of a competitive news outlet and then the magazine’s new editor, Charles Lane.

We discuss Shattered Glass as an underrated and compelling drama about ethics in journalism, how it serves as a distant early warning of a problem in media that’s only gotten worse, and how the film portrays how white collar sociopaths operate in the workplace and how to successfully confront one.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Aaron Casias and Carlee Gomes on Twitter.

Subscribe to the Hit Factory podcast; you can also support the show directly through Patreon.

72: Costa-Gavras: State of Siege & Missing (with Jacob Bacharach) Feb 14, 2022

The author Jacob Bacharach returns to the pod. Following the recent JF episode on Z by Costa-Gavras, we continue to explore the work of the great Greek-French filmmaker with two of his greatest: 1972’s State of Siege, set in an unnamed Uruguay but filmed in Salvador Allende’s Chile, and 1982’s Missing, set in the unnamed Chile of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship but filmed in Mexico.

Both films are based on true stories about the executions of American citizens in South America. Both films enraged the State Department for directly implicating the United States in these deaths and the ongoing role of US Imperialism in the violent operations of Latin American military dictatorships. And importantly, both films are thrilling cinema, at once highly entertaining and politically astute.

We recorded this show on the day Premier Doug Ford declared a State of Emergency in Ontario, so Jacob and I also discuss the Trucker Convoy for Freedom… did you know that one of the tipping points for the 1973 coup d’état in Chile was an organized trucker protest?

Follow Jacob Bacharach on Twitter and visit jacobbacharach.com

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Will Sloan. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Trailer for State of Siege(Costa-Gavras, 1972)

Trailer for Missing (Costa-Gavras, 1982)

TEASER - 71: Double Troubles: Belfast & The Image You Missed (with Ben Nash) Feb 07, 2022

Access the entire 89 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62244513

Ben Nash, a PhD student at Kings College London and a writer whose work has appeared at Mubi and Splice Today, joins the show from Colchester, England to discuss two recent films about “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, each grappling in their own way with issues of history, family, memory and cinema.

Belfast (2021) has been called director Kenneth Branagh’s “most personal film”, a depiction of his childhood as sectarian violence gripped his neighbourhood. It’s a film that views the turbulent era from a Protestant child’s perspective, but it’s notably a story that for the most part omits the city’s Catholic population from the narrative.

In the excellent 2018 documentary essay-film The Image You Missed, filmmaker Donal Foreman grapples with the legacy of his estranged father, the late American guerrilla filmmaker Arthur MacCaig, who shot documentaries about the conflict in Northern Ireland from the on-the-ground perspective of the Irish Republican socialist left.

Along the way we summarize the conflict in Northern Ireland, Branagh’s peripateticdirecting career, the idea of “personal films” and the challenges of mixing monochrome and multicolour in cinema.

The Image You Missed is available for rent at Vimeo On Demand

Follow Ben Nash on Twitter.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

70: The Informant! (with Mike Mekus) Feb 01, 2022

Actor and writer Mike Mekus joins the show from Manhattan for a discussion of Steven Soderbergh and his 2009 “comedy thriller” The Informant!

Based on the best-selling non-fiction book of the same name (sans exclamation point) by Kurt Eichenwald, it’s the story of Mark Whitacre, an Archer Daniels Midland Company executive turned corporate whistleblower on price-fixing collusion in agri-industry, who turns out to have been embezzling from the company the entire time he was co-operating with the FBI.

We talk about what we love about Soderbergh’s career-long capitalist critique in his works, the many risks he takes in presenting The Informant! as a comedy, and we shake our heads at the irony of Matt Damon now repeating the role of the unreliable narrator but in real life, as the new pitchman for Crypto dot com. Father of daughters Matthew Damon, what are you doing?

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Mike Mekus on Twitter.

Mike writes for the9layground.com and has a blog!

Trailer for The Informant! (Soderbergh, 2009)

ADM (Supermarket to the World) "Original Impossible Burger" TV Commercial, 1990

TEASER - 69: Armed Forces (with Nick Miller) Jan 28, 2022

Access the entire 111 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/61765426

Brooklyn-based musician Nick Miller joins the program for a deep dive into the immortal 1979 Elvis Costello and the Attractions album Armed Forces.

Costello and his band recorded Armed Forces after relentlessly touring This Year’s Model in America, absorbing the influences of the only music they listened to on the road (ABBA, Bowie, Kraftwerk and Cheap Trick) for a dark, complex, funny and furious power pop record that regularly equated doomed social and romantic relationships with the rise of Neo-Nazism and racism in Britain, an album that was originally titled Emotional Fascism.

We discuss every track on the UK release of Armed Forces, Costello’s self-destructive response to his sudden success that led to an incident that damaged and nearly derailed his career, why he’s not playing “Oliver’s Army” in concert anymore, and how Costello somehow managed not to become an accidental hero to incels.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Nick Miller on Twitter, and check out Nick Miller’s music on Bandcamp!

68: Costa-Gavras: Z (with Sotiris Tsernoglu) Jan 26, 2022

My guest Sotiris Tsernoglu joins the show from Lesbos, Greece to discuss the incendiary political thriller Z by the Greek-French filmmaker Costa-Gavras.

Z shocked the world on its release in 1969, striking a huge cultural chord worldwide in an era of war, protests and political assassinations (it was immediately banned in Greece). Set in an unnamed French-speaking country and filmed in Algiers to avoid state interference, Z is a thinly-fictionalized but clinically detailed account of the 1963 murder of Grigoris Lambrakis (Yves Montand), a popular democratic politician set up by the country’s military establishment to be murdered by right-wing extremists, and the dogged, incorruptible magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who connects the dots of the incident and attempts to bring the guilty to justice, leading to one of the greatest endings in cinema.

We discuss the real life story of the assassination of Lambrakis, the bravery of Costa-Gavras to fuse politics and entertainment to expose the crimes of the Greek military regime to a worldwide audience, the attempts to suppress the film, and how the shocking story told in Z still resonates today, in Greece and elsewhere.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Will Sloan, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Sotiris Tsernoglu on Twitter.

Trailer for Z (Costa-Gavras, 1969)

TEASER - 67: ABBA from A to B (with Terrance Balazo) Jan 13, 2022

Access the entire 103 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/61121473

Toronto writer and trivia master Terrance Balazo joins the show for a deep dive into the history of the Fleetwood Mac of Sweden, ABBA. From their origins in the European "Schlager" music genre and the contempt for the group in Sweden in their early days, to their legendary victory at the Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo" that instantly broke them in England and kicked off ABBAmania around the globe, to the spectacular disintegration of the band in the early eighties, and forty years later, their unexpected 2021 album Voyage and their bizarre and ambitious new hologram reunion engagement starting this March in London.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Terrance Balazo on Twitter.

Terrance’s Twitchstream for his weekly trivia contest Another Round Trivia.

TEASER - 66: Don't Look Up (with Corey Atad) Jan 06, 2022

Access the entire 86 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/60782460

Film writer Corey Atad, a contributor to Esquire, Hazlitt, Slate and other outlets, returns to the podcast for a discussion of Adam McKay's new all-star satire for Netflix Don’t Look Up, a disaster movie about a comet heading directly for Earth that also stands as an allegory for the threat of climate change and the systemic problems in American media and government that we've seen manifested during the pandemic.

Corey and I discuss what works about the movie and also what doesn't work, why this satire isn't exactly the new Dr. Strangelove, as well as our reaction to the filmmakers' odd conflation of any criticism this film has received from critics with their supposed climate change denialism or their hurt feelings about the film's depiction of the media.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Until he returns to Twitter, check out Corey's work here

Trailer for The Wandering Earth (Gwo, 2019)

65: The Last Duel & House of Gucci (with Anna Swanson) Dec 20, 2021

Anna Swanson, Senior Contributor for Film School Rejects, returns to the podcast to discuss The Riddler (aka Ridley Scott) and the two all-star historical epics he has released this fall, October’s The Last Duel (the critically acclaimed drama that unexpectedly bombed) and November’s House of Gucci (a critically drubbed melodrama that has become a sizeable hit).

We discuss some of the criticism The Last Duel has received about it’s unusual storytelling structure, why Ben Affleck’s over-the-top supporting performance in Duel works while Jared Leto’s cartoonish turn in Gucci doesn’t, the response from the Gucci family over their portrayal in the movie, and the 83-year-old Riddler’s delightful IDGAF attitude towards churlish criticism of his Late Style output.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Will Sloan, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Anna Swanson on Twitter.

A highlight from Ridley Scott’s “Fuck You” tour promoting The Last Duel.

TEASER - 64: Live and Let Die (with Andrew Tracy) Dec 16, 2021

Access the entire 86 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59961406

Andrew Tracy, the new associate editor of Reel Screen magazine, joins the program as our first in-person guest for a deep dive into the famously problematic 007 entry Live and Let Die, Roger Moore's debut as James Bond, going up against the powerful druglord Dr. Kananga, played by Tha God Yaphet Kotto.

Plus, a discussion of Bond's inability to make a proper cup of coffee in his apartment, and we praise another great Yaphet Kotto performance of the period, the film he made just before Live and Let Die, Larry Cohen's incendiary social satire Bone (1972).

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Some collected Andrew Tracy reviews for Cinema Scope magazine.

Trailer for Live and Let Die (Guy Hamilton, 1973)

UK Milk Board commercial tied-in to the release of Live and Let Die, 1973

From Live and Let Die, Bond trying and failing to make a decent cup of coffee for M

63: The Beatles: Get Back (with Rob Rousseau) Dec 04, 2021

Writer and podcaster Rob Rousseau joins me from Montreal to discuss Peter Jackson’s new epic-length documentary about those four mop-topped Lads from Liverpool.

The Beatles: Get Back draws from the raw material collected in 1969 by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for his 1970 documentary Let It Be. More than just a documentary about the Beatles, Get Back is more importantly a film about the process of artistic expression and collaboration that also offers a detailed reconsideration of the official myths and legends about the final days of the band.

Rob and I also discuss Smooth Ringo, Checked Out John, Handsome Paul and George’s amazing fits.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive access to additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jacob Bacharach, Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Karen Geier and more! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Rob Rousseau on Twitter, listen to his show The Insurgents, and check out his regular live show on Twitch.

Ramsey Lewis - Cry Baby Cry

Evinha - Something

62: Eternals (with Dave Weigel) Nov 28, 2021

After taking some time to let it marinate, the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel joins me to unpack the 26th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Chloe Zhao’s Eternals.

We discuss how Eternals was first promoted as “a Terrence Malick version of a Marvel film”, some of the film’s flaws and questionable aesthetic choices (particularly the controversial Hiroshima scene), how it was received by critics and fans, whether there will be an Eternals 2, and where the MCU goes from here.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive access to additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jacob Bacharach, Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Karen Geier and more! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Dave Weigel on Twitter and subscribe to his Washington Post newsletter “The Trailer”

Geico Eternals tie-in commercial

“Parking Spot” - Lexus / Eternals tie-in commercial

McDonald’s / Eternals tie-in Happy Meal commercial

61: Three Films by Bill Forsyth (with Ursula Lawrence) Nov 17, 2021

Comedy writer Ursula Lawrence (Drunk History, Adam Ruins Everything) returns to the podcast from Madison, Wisconsin to discuss three great films from the Scottish writer/director Bill Forsyth, whose early self-financed successes laid the groundwork for Scotland’s film industry to flourish.

We talk about three of Forsyth's best films: his first studio project, the highly-acclaimed Local Hero (1982) with Peter Riegert and Burt Lancaster, 1984’s Comfort and Joy, his “serious comedy” about an ice cream van turf war in Glasgow (based on true events!) and his American debut, 1987’s Housekeeping with Christine Lahti, based on Marilynne Robinson’s great novel, an underseen masterpiece sadly orphaned by Columbia Pictures during a studio regime change.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive access to additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jacob Bacharach, Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner and more! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ursula Lawrence on Twitter.

Trailer for Local Hero (Forsyth, 1982)

Trailer for Comfort and Joy (Forsyth, 1984)

Horrible trailer for Housekeeping (Forsyth, 1987) to give you an idea of how badly Columbia Pictures marketed the film.

60: Scott Joplin (with Osita Nwanevu) Nov 09, 2021

The New Republic's Osita Nwanevu joins the show from Baltimore, Maryland to discuss the life of Scott Joplin, known in his day as the King of Ragtime. At the dawn of the 20th century, Joplin's music achieved widespread popularity in America, transcending segregated society, and his innovations laid the groundwork for the evolution of jazz and helped to revolutionize American music and the culture itself. Joplin died penniless in 1917 and his name languished in relative obscurity for decades until his music was rediscovered in the early 1970s and he received long-overdue recognition for his achievements.

Osita and I also discuss some of the key works in Joplin's catalog, including his only surviving opera "Treemonisha".

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive access to additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jacob Bacharach, Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Will Sloan and more! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Osita Nwanevu on Twitter.

You can subscribe to Osita's newsletter here

Maple Leaf Rag (Joplin, composed in 1899, performed by Alexander Peskanov)

Bethana, A Concert Waltz (Joplin, composed in 1905, performed by Alexander Peskanov)

TEASER - 59: This Year's Model (with Jared Bailey) Nov 06, 2021

Access the entire 101 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58389913

Jared Bailey joins me from Columbia, South Carolina to discuss Elvis Costello’s monumental 1978 pop/punk album This Year’s Model, his first with his band The Attractions. Costello and his Argentine producer Sebastian Krys recently deconstructed and reimagined this landmark record for the new Spanish Model project where the album’s lyrics are reinterpreted by singers from across the Spanish-speaking world, using the original backing tracks.

We also discuss Elvis Costello as the prototypical dirtbag leftist, and his career-long musical relationship to the nation of Argentina, from his protest song "Shipbuilding" inspired by the war in the Falkland Islands, his undisguised contempt for the warmongering Margaret Thatcher, and his affinity with the Argentine people that must have informed the Spanish Model project, which makes this timeless work accessible to an entirely new audience of listeners.

Follow Jared Bailey on Twitter.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Will Sloan, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

58: Dune vs Dune (with Jacob Bacharach) Nov 02, 2021

Author Jacob Bacharach returns to the pod for a deep dive into the various adaptations of Frank Herbert’s Dune, directly comparing David Lynch’s 1984 epic with the 2021 Denis Villeneuve version of the first half of the book, with digressions on the 2000 TV miniseries Frank Herbert’s Dune and the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune.

We also discuss in detail two of Denis Villeneuve’s recent futuristic works that are related through casting and themes to his Dune: his 2015 thriller Sicario (which depicts an American covert war against Mexican drug cartels in an otherworldly manner) and 2017’s Blade Runner 2049.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive access to additional exclusive episodes every month: some of our notable previous guests include Jacob Bacharach, Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner and more! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Jacob Bacharach on Twitter and visit jacobbacharach.com

Trailer for Dune (David Lynch, 1984)

Trailer for Dune: Part One (Denis Villeneuve, 2021)

Trailer for Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015)

Music video for Tom Sawyer(Rush, 1981)

57: Angel Heart (with Robyn Citizen) Oct 22, 2021

Robyn Citizen, TIFF’s Senior Manager of Festival Programming, returns to the program to discuss (in great spoilery detail) a Spooky Szn classic, the film noir / horror hybrid Angel Heart, an extremely controversial film in 1987, branded with the X rating by the MPAA before director Alan Parker removed 10 seconds of sex and violence.

Like The Sixth Sense overa decade later, Angel Heart has everything riding on the big twist at the end paying off, and is a pleasure to revisit just to see how you were tricked the first time. We also talk about the glory days of Mickey Rourke, the film’s complex portrayal of race and its white protagonist operating in black spaces (set in mid-fifties Harlem and segregated New Orleans), and this film’s themes of racial necropolitics: a framework of how society determines who gets to live and who has to die, which would later repeat itself in real life New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

Plus: how Lisa Bonet crossed Bill Cosby by starring in this film, and how Angel Heart sparked a decades-long feud between Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro!

Consider supporting the podcast directly by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes every month: sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Robyn Citizen on Twitter.

Trailer for Angel Heart (Parker, 1987)

From the syndicated television cut of Angel Heart, alternate (mostly SFW) version of That Scene with imagery not included in the theatrical version.

56: Bond, Craig Bond (with Liam Daly) Oct 17, 2021

Recovering Maritimer, avant-cinephile and fellow Bond head Liam Daly joins the show from Ottawa to review the Daniel Craig 007 era, a 15 year reign that has just ended with the release of the long-delayed No Time To Die.

Relatively unknown at the time he was announced as the new James Bond, Daniel Craig became a major movie star after 2006’s Casino Royale, which became an instant classic in the 007 series. We mount a defense of the much-maligned Quantum of Solace, we grouse about Skyfall, Liam tries to talk me into liking Spectre (which introduces Blofeld back to the series after decades of copyright issues), and we both discuss what we liked about No Time To Die (which you should see before you listen to the show because we might spoil some of the surprise turns of events).

Plus Liam and I name our favourite 007 actors and films, and offer our suggestions for where the Bond franchise goes next.

Consider supporting the podcast directly by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes every month: sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Liam Daly on Twitter.

1979 Japanese Seiko Calculator C359-5000 TV commercial, tied-in to Moonraker.

2008 Sony Bravia TV commercial, tied-in to Quantum of Solace.

Original 2019 trailer for No Time To Die(Fukunaga, 2021)

TEASER - 55: Observe and Report (with Bryan Quinby) Oct 07, 2021

Access the entire 80 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/57121333

Street Fight Radio’s Bryan Quinby joins the show from Columbus, Ohio to discuss Jody Hill’s black comedy Observe and Report.

Misunderstood in 2009 as a mean-spirited comedic spin on Taxi Driver and King of Comedy, it is clearer to see in 2021 that Observe and Report was intended as a vicious satire not only of the American police state, but also of the kinds of toxic males that want to be cops, presented as a Judd Apatow-style laff riot.

Bryan and I talk about our appreciation for anti-comedy and harsh satire, how this film anticipated the kinds of guys who populate the alt-right, the bad timing of this film being released right after the smash hit comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and how Jody Hill went on to be one of the great modern satirists of American life through his subsequent work for HBO.

Follow Bryan Quinby on Twitter.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Karen Geier, Will Sloan, Zach Vasquez and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Check out Bryan's great podcasts Street Fight Radio and The P.O.D Kast.

Trailer for Observe and Report (Jody Hill, 2009)

54: The Card Counter (with Will Menaker) Sep 27, 2021

Chapo Trap House’s Will Menaker joins us from Brooklyn to discuss the career of veteran writer-director Paul Schrader, whose latest work The Card Counter is the latest iteration of a story Schrader has told many times over his long career, in true Auteurist tradition: an immersion into a dark subculture from the anguished perspective of God’s Lonely Man.

To set the table, Will and I also discuss two important concepts of understanding modern cinema, both of which strongly apply to this podcast and The Card Counter: Movie Mindset™ and Dudes Rock Cinema. Along the way we discuss previous Schrader films that specifically relate to this latest work including Rolling Thunder, Blue Collar, Light Sleeper, Auto Focus, The Walker and First Reformed.

Plus we review Schrader’s use of Facebook to communicate takes so hot that he is often told by his distributor to log off!

Consider supporting the podcast directly by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes every month: sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Will Menaker on Twitter and Letterboxd.

Paul Schrader’s Facebook posts are documented on Twitter at @paul_posts

Music Video for Tight Connection To My Heart - Bob Dylan (Schrader, 1985)

Trailer for The Card Counter (Schrader, 2021)

53: Cutter's Way (with Dan Boeckner) Sep 15, 2021

Dan Boeckner of Operators and Wolf Parade and co-host of The Bottlemen podcast returns to Junk Filter for an episode about one of the great underseen films of the eighties, Ivan Passer’s 1981 California neo-noir Cutter’s Way, based on the crime novel Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg.

One rainy night in Santa Barbara, Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) witnesses a man dumping the corpse of a young girl; when he later recognizes a local captain of industry as the man who could be the culprit, his unhinged and physically shattered Vietnam veteran buddy Alex Cutter (John Heard) takes this ball and runs with it, launching an ill-advised blackmail scheme against the tycoon.

Dan and I discuss the joys of what we'd call the Ambient Mystery genre, this film’s relationship not only to the seventies paranoia genre but also to The Big Lebowski, the brilliant performances from two actors who should have had bigger careers (John Heard and Lisa Eichhorn), how Cutter’s Way was mishandled by United Artists on the way to becoming a cult classic, and how we are all Alex Cutter now.

Plus! An extended chat about next week's Bad Vibes Election in Canada!

Follow Dan Boeckner on Twitter, and consider supporting Operators' Biblioteka Patreon!

Trailer for Cutter’s Way (Ivan Passer, 1981)

TEASER - 52: American Movie (with Sean Armstrong) Sep 13, 2021

Access the entire 82 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/56088312

Veteran boom operator Sean Armstrong (who worked on every episode of Hannibal!) joins the podcast to discuss Chris Smith’s 1999 film American Movie, a work by a determined documentary filmmaker about a determined independent filmmaker: it tells the story of Wisconsin’s Mark Borchardt and his determination to finally finish his abandoned short horror film Coven and sell enough copies of it on VHS to finance his long-planned feature film Northwestern.

Plus: Sean tells us what it was like to work on Hannibal with tha god Mads Mikkelsen!

Follow Sean Armstrong on Twitter.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Karen Geier, Will Sloan, Sooz Kempner and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

51: The Films of Andrew Dominik (with Ashley Naftule) Sep 06, 2021

The writer and playwright Ashley Naftule returns to the pod from Scottsdale Arizona for a look at the work of the ambitious Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik, who has made only 4 films so far, each of high quality, each in their own way about outlaws.

Chopper (2000), a comedic biopic of the notorious and unrepentant Aussie criminal / tabloid folk hero Mark “Chopper” Read, with a starmaking performance from Eric Bana

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), a revisionist epic Western starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck (badly mishandled by Warner Bros.)

Killing Them Softly (2012), a crime drama that serves as an allegory for the 2008 financial crisis and one of the first mainstream films to offer any kind of leftist critique of the Obama era

One More Time With Feeling (2016), a music documentary about Nick Cave made in the wake of the death of Cave’s son

We also discuss Dominik’s upcoming film Blonde, and the fights he is currently having with Netflix over final cut.

Plus: Tony Leung joins the MCU!

Consider supporting the podcast directly by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes every month: sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ashley Naftule on Twitter.

"Andrew Dominik on 20 Years of Chopper: 'Ethics have nothing to do with it'" - Luke Buckmaster, for the Guardian, August 18, 2021

Trailers for

Chopper (2000)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Killing Them Softly (2012)

One More Time With Feeling (2016)

50: Val Kilmer (with Aaron Casias and Carlee Gomes) Aug 30, 2021

The hosts of the Hit Factory Podcast, Aaron Casias and Carlee Gomes, join us from San Francisco to discuss two Val Kilmer films.

Made as David Mamet was getting redpilled post-9/11, his bizarre 2004 thriller Spartan has a stripped-down screenplay comprised mostly of jargon and commands and features a terrific performance from Kilmer as an army ranger sent to rescue a high-value target (the President’s daughter) kidnapped by sex traffickers (a scenario that has new meaning in our modern political age).

The new documentary Val is assembled from hundreds of hours of video captured by Kilmer over the course of his life, and although there is much candor to the film in terms of how Kilmer has been living with loss, certain notorious aspects of his life are downplayed: Kilmer’s well-earned, career-long reputation as “difficult” for example. Val is available on Amazon Prime.

Follow Aaron Casias and Carlee Gomes on Twitter.

Subscribe to the Hit Factory podcast and you can also support them through Patreon.

Trailer for Spartan (David Mamet, 2004)

Trailer for Val (Leo Scott, Ting Poo, 2021)

TEASER - 49: Being There (with Jacob Bacharach) Aug 25, 2021

Access the entire 93 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55330993

Author Jacob Bacharach returns to the pod to discuss Hal Ashby’s evergreen social satire Being There (1979), adapted from the novel by Jerzy Kosinski. featuring Peter Sellers in his greatest performance as Chance, a simple-minded gardener raised by television who becomes a respected political thinker in Washington through sheer circumstance, luck and misunderstanding.

Along the way we discuss the amazing run of great films Hal Ashby made through the 1970s, Being There’s (mostly) successful themes of racial unfairness, media saturation and sexual dysfunction in Washington, and how this film was used as a somewhat tired metaphor during the Trump era to “explain” his Presidency.

Plus we discuss the flawed 2004 HBO movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers starring Geoffrey Rush, which includes a depiction of the making of Being There and in so doing reveals the perils of a great actor attempting to play a great actor... with a sidebar about our mutual enjoyment of Predator 2 (by the same director!)

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Karen Geier, Will Sloan, Sooz Kempner and Zach Vasquez. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

48: Ghost World (with Violet Lucca) Aug 20, 2021

Violet Lucca, web editor for Harper's Magazine and the host of the publication's podcast, is the special guest for an in-depth discussion of Terry Zwigoff’s 2001 comedy Ghost World, based on a running segment within Daniel Clowes’ comic book series Eightball. The screenplay by Clowes and Zwigoff was the first comic book adaptation to be nominated for an Academy Award.

Violet and I discuss the experience of feeling Extremely Seen watching a movie (in both positive and critical ways), how the film depicts the decline of a close friendship between two young girls as they transition into adulthood, the film’s critique of what Zwigoff termed “contrived consumerism”, and how the story arcs of Enid and Rebecca parallel the subsequent careers of Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson.

Plus: speaking of 20th anniversaries... the Taliban is running Afghanistan again.

Consider supporting the podcast directly by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes every month: sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Violet Lucca on Twitter.

Violet hosts The Harper’s Podcast.

Trailer for Ghost World (Zwigoff, 2001)

TEASER - 47: Welcome to Me (with Karen Geier) Aug 09, 2021

Access the entire 87 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/54704122

Toronto-based writer and content strategist Karen Geier (The Guardian, Vice, The Cut) joins the podcast to discuss Shira Piven’s 2015 comedy-drama Welcome To Me, about a mentally ill woman obsessed with television and Oprah (Kristen Wiig); she wins a staggering amount of money in the California lottery, goes off her meds and bankrolls an expensive and strange syndicated daytime talk show about herself, where she re-enacts traumatic events in her life using actors for an increasingly attentive television audience.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Sooz Kempner and Zach Vasquez. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

46: Phantom Thread (with Zandy Hartig) Aug 02, 2021

Los Angeles-based writer actor and producer Zandy Hartig joins the pod for a conversation about Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 historical romance Phantom Thread.

Anderson's first film shot entirely outside of the United States, Phantom Thread is a hybrid of his detailed historical recreations like There Will Be Blood and The Master fused with Punch-Drunk Love's absurdist romantic sensibility. The film was said to be the final screen performance of the great Daniel Day-Lewis but it is also a generous showcase for the relatively unknown Luxembourgian actress Vicky Krieps. Zandy and I also talk about the film’s extraordinary visual design and tone, what it has to say about adapting with the times, the challenges of living with a creative person and the role of the muse, and how Phantom Thread might be a secret comedy!

Also Zandy talks about her ongoing collaboration with Oklahoma’s prolific DIY filmmakers Mickey Reese and Jacob Ryan Snovel.

Consider supporting the podcast directly by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes every month: sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Zandy Hartig on Twitter and check out zandyhartig.com

Trailer for Phantom Thread (Anderson, 2017)

Mickey Reese directs funny Instagram commercials for George's Liquors in Oklahoma City, and Zandy’s in the latest one!

TEASER - 45: The Genius of Burt Bacharach (with Marker Starling) Jul 29, 2021

Access the entire 132 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45-genius-of-54253436

Toronto-based musician Marker Starling, who does the original music for the podcast, is my special guest for a very in-depth and supersized conversation about the Burt Bacharach and Hal David songbook, their innovative work with their greatest discovery Dionne Warwick, and the dissolution of their partnership in the wake of the disastrous 1973 movie musical Lost Horizon.

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Will Sloan, Sooz Kempner and Zach Vasquez. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

44: Oliver Stone’s JFK (with Ursula Lawrence) Jul 23, 2021

Comedy writer Ursula Lawrence (Drunk History, Adam Ruins Everything) returns to the podcast from Madison, Wisconsin to discuss the cultural influence of Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991), which 30 years ago revolutionized visual language in American cinema; a hybrid of classic all-star Hollywood filmmaking and experimental film techniques with its mixture of various film stocks and a complex editing structure, made just before digital editing was a post-production standard.

We discuss the great performances, the radical elements, the flaws, and how JFK’s information bath and blending of facts and conjecture normalized and mainstreamed conspiracy thinking in the wider culture, providing a stylistic template for Galaxy Brain arguments in the post 9/11 information age.

Plus I had to ask Ursula about the new NBA champions!

Follow Ursula Lawrence on Twitter and be aware of her Jacobin Calendar project!

Trailer for JFK (Stone, 1991)

TEASER - 43: Late Style Jerry Lewis (with Will Sloan) Jul 18, 2021

Access the entire 85 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53826690

Toronto-based writer and podcasting king Will Sloan returns to the podcast to discuss the final films of director Jerry Lewis, Hardly Working (1980) and Cracking Up (a.k.a. Smorgasbord, 1983) as well as his great performance in Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1982).

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Sooz Kempner and Zach Vasquez. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

42: The Marvel Complex (with Jared Yates Sexton) Jul 15, 2021

Author and political commentator Jared Yates Sexton returns to Junk Filter to discuss the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its association with the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex.

I have seen very few of these MCU films, uncomfortable as I am with the partnership between Disney/Marvel and the U.S. Department of Defense, but for the pod I watched the recent Russo brothers trilogy of Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame for a discussion with Jared on the MCU’s stranglehold on popular culture and the role these superhero movies play to advance the project of US Imperialism.

Consider supporting the podcast by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes (including Jared and I discussing the Disney Star Wars movies) - sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Jared Yates Sexton on Twitter.

Jared’s got a Substack!

Check out Jared’s show with Nick Hauselman, The Muckrake Podcast

“Origin Story” - recruitment commercial for the U.S. Air Force that ran before American screenings of Captain Marvel in March 2019

“Why Captain Marvel is a Recruiting Win for the Air Force” by James Barber, for Military.com, March 20, 2019

41: Excalibur (with Meg Shields) Jul 06, 2021

BC-based film writer Meg Shields returns to the podcast for a conversation about her favourite movie, John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981), the definitive screen version of the legend of King Arthur.

Reportedly Zack Snyder’s favourite film too, Excalibur kickstarted a wave of sword and sorcery movies in the early eighties. Filmed entirely on location in Ireland and featuring several future stars in the vast supporting cast (including Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson), Excalibur is a berserk personal vision along the lines of Boorman’s previous fantasy films Zardoz and Exorcist II: The Heretic, depicting the Arthurian legend in a weird mixture of historical realism (muddy battlefields, heavy armour and ugly combat) and phantasmagoric delight (modern levels of sleaze and violence). It makes you wonder why people still keep trying to make King Arthur movies!

Plus: RIP Richard Donner, and all hail Stephen Dorff for trashing Marvel movies!

Consider supporting the podcast by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes - sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Meg Shields on Twitter.

"All That Glitters: Style as Substance in John Boorman's Excalibur" by Meg Shields, for Film School Rejects, April 10, 2021

Trailer for Excalibur (Boorman, 1981)

TEASER - 40: Deep Cover (with Zach Vasquez) Jul 01, 2021

Access the entire 89 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53154024 Returning guest Zach Vasquez (Crooked Marquee, The Guardian) comes back to discuss another LA Neo-noir, Bill Duke’s 1992 crime classic Deep Cover, on the eve of its arrival to the Criterion Collection. One of the most radical studio releases of the nineties, Deep Cover stars Laurence Fishburne (in his final role billed as Larry) as an undercover cop posing as a drug dealer while working for the DEA. He teams up with an unsuspecting mobbed-up lawyer (Jeff Goldblum) and they form an unlikely friendship as Fishburne moves up the towards the top of a cocaine cartel and discovers the horrible truth about the war on drugs and the whims of U.S. foreign policy while wrestling with his own tortured conscience. It’s a super-left political movie disguised as a thriller that got a wide release in 1992: a hip hop classic with echoes of film noir and even Apocalypse Now, made with great style by Bill Duke, loaded with quotable dialogue and charged with major Dudes Rock energy from Fishburne and Goldblum. We also talk about how Deep Cover’s soundtrack draws a through-line between Serge Gainsbourg and Dr. Dre. Follow Zach Vasquez on Twitter. Trailer for Deep Cover (Duke, 1992)

39: Danpilled III: Danpilled Summer (with Matthew Perpetua) Jun 22, 2021

The third chapter in a continuing series between Junk Filter in Toronto and Matthew Perpetua’s Fluxpod in Brooklyn, Danpilled III is about vibin’ in a Steely Dan t-shirt as we start to emerge from the pandemic into the promise of a Danpilled Summer.

Matthew and I choose at least one good summer song from each of Steely Dan's golden age albums plus an overdue discussion of Donald Fagen’s 1982 solo record The Nightfly, which is basically a Steely Dan album without Walter Becker, and appreciations of several key studio musicians that helped to define their sound: Jeff Porcaro, Bernard Purdie and Michael McDonald.

We discuss “Do It Again”, “King of the World”, “Parker’s Band”, “Bad Sneakers”, “Kid Charlemagne”, “The Fez” “I Got The News”, “Home At Last”, “Babylon Sisters”, “Glamour Profession”, “I.G.Y.”, “New Frontier”, “The Nightfly” and “Gaslighting Abbie” from their 21st century comeback LP Two Against Nature.

Consider supporting the podcast by becoming a Junk Filter Patron and receive access to additional premium episodes - sign up at Patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Matthew Perpetua on Twitter and check out his great music podcast Fluxpod.

Legendary drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie demonstrates the influential drum pattern he created, The Purdie Shuffle.

“From the Bottom: The Bassists Of The Nightfly” - profile of the bass players on this album.

Vintage TV commercial for Aja (1977) narrated by Eartha Kitt.

UNLOCKED: Danpilled II (with Matthew Perpetua, from Fluxpod) Jun 20, 2021

In celebration of the first day of summer, and in advance of this week's upcoming Junk Filter episode Danpilled III: Danpilled Summer, I have unlocked this bonus Patreon content on the public Junk Filter feed, the sequel to Episode 24, courtesy of Matthew Perpetua's Fluxpod.

This time Matthew and I go EVEN DEEPER down the Steely Dan rabbit hole by focusing entirely on songs, with discussions of 17 classics we both love including "Show Biz Kids," "Deacon Blues," "Chain Lightning," "Josie," "FM," "Pretzel Logic," "Reelin' in the Years," "Only A Fool Would Say That," "Black Cow" and "Don't Take Me Alive."

Just like the COVID vaccine, it's the second dose that really gets you.

Consider becoming a patron of Junk Filter to support this show directly and receive access to Premium episodes! https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

TEASER - 38: Find Me Guilty (with Gus Lanzetta) Jun 19, 2021

Access the entire 88 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52691451

In our first episode with a South American guest, writer and podcaster Gus Lanzetta joins the pod from São Paulo, Brazil to discuss Vin “The Movies” Diesel on the eve of the worldwide release of F9.

Gus has deep knowledge of the Fast & Furious franchise as a former correspondent for Rolling Stone Brazil but he suggested we talk about Vin’s best performance as a screen actor in Sidney Lumet’s entertaining 2006 courtroom comedy/drama Find Me Guilty (based on a true story with a screenplay based on the actual trial transcripts). He plays Jackie DiNorscio, a Mafia soldier swept up in a mass prosecution of organized crime figures in New Jersey in 1985, the longest Mafia trial in American history. Jackie makes the foolhardy decision to act as his own lawyer in the case instead of selling out his friends and family by cooperating with the prosecutors. It’s of a piece with Lumet’s career-long interest in the criminal justice system and the plight of the one man clinging to their integrity under tremendous pressure.

Gus also draws parallels between Find Me Guilty and the systemic corruption of the Bolsonaro government and tells us his perspective on life in São Paulo during Brazil's tragic and ongoing mishandling of the pandemic.

Plus Gus tells me why I need to catch up with the Fast & Furious family as the long-running franchise heads towards the finish line.

Follow Gus Lanzetta on Twitter.

Gus also co-hosts a popular Brazilian Portuguese pop culture podcast - Popcult

Here's the link to order Gus's new book on starting your own podcast, Ouvindo vozes

Trailer for Find Me Guilty (Lumet, 2006)

37: Panic in the Streets (with David Moscrop) Jun 11, 2021

Ottawa-based author and political commentator David Moscrop, whose work has appeared in the Washington Post and Maclean’s, joins the pod to talk about an underseen film noir classic, Elia Kazan’s Panic in the Streets.

Shot entirely on location in New Orleans, Kazan’s film depicts a heroic public health official (Richard Widmark) and a determined police captain (Paul Douglas) in a race against time to capture a criminal on the loose (Jack Palance in his feature film debut) who doesn’t know he’s become a plague carrier and has no intention of being caught.

Panic in the Streets is fascinating to consider over 70 years later; a film made by an immigrant that associates immigration with contagion (it was originally titled Port of Entry), a film with Red Scare overtones made by a director who would soon testify against friends before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and then make the masterpiece On The Waterfront (“a celebration of the informer” as Orson Welles would later put it), two aspects of the film that still speak to our current polarized era.

And of course we talk a little bit about Doug Ford and the excellent prospects of a post-pandemic fall election in Canada.

Follow David Moscrop on Twitter.

David’s recent book Too Dumb For Democracy? is available now through Goose Lane Editions.

Trailer for Panic In The Streets (Kazan, 1950)

TEASER - 36: Pretty Woman (with Sooz Kempner) Jun 08, 2021

Access the entire 82 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52243824

Comedian and podcasting queen Sooz Kempner joins the pod from Surrey, England to discuss Garry Marshall’s 1990 smash hit Pretty Woman, which made a massive star out of Julia Roberts and created a new template for the rom-com.

Disney’s grown-up movie division Touchstone Pictures redeveloped J.F. Lawton’s dark dramatic screenplay about the dangers of the L.A. sex trade (originally titled 3000) into a frothy fairy tale about a young and somewhat innocent sex worker Vivian (Julia Roberts) hired by handsome vulture capitalist Edward (Richard Gere) to be his week-long companion for $3000 while he’s in town for a big business acquisition. Despite the arrangement, they fall in love.

Along the way we discuss how co-star Jason Alexander’s career might have gone if he hadn’t been cast on Seinfeld right after this film, Garry Marshall casting Héctor Elizondo in every movie he directed, and how this vaguely problematic but lightweight movie has aged better than you would assume.

Plus a general chat about our respective countries’ racist statues, anti-lockdown weirdos and Reply Guys!

Follow Sooz Kempner on Twitter

Check out Sooz’s podcasts:

The Queen Podcast

Mystery On The Rocks

“Rescue Rom-Com: Sex Workers Reflect on the Fantasy of Pretty Woman” by Kayla Kibbe for Bitch Media, December 17, 2020

Trailer for Pretty Woman (Marshall, 1990)

35: Sound and Vision (with Michael Balazo) May 28, 2021

The very funny Toronto comedian, writer and podcaster Michael Balazo joins the show for a discussion of David Bowie’s American odyssey in the seventies, as captured by two film projects. The 1975 BBC documentary Cracked Actor followed Bowie on his Diamond Dogs tour and revealed a frail, drug-fueled, isolated rock star, which inspired Nicolas Roeg to cast him as the alien visitor in his big screen debut, 1976’s The Man Who Fell to Earth; a sci-fi classic that directly influenced the next two Bowie albums, Station To Station and Low, and his newest persona, the Thin White Duke. It was an incredibly productive era for Bowie artistically, and it was a miracle he made it out of this insane period of his life alive, as Michael and I discuss in detail.

Plus a fun chat about two great guys you need to know about: Čumil and Glurpo!

Follow Michael Balazo on Twitter.

Check out The Landlord and Tenant Podmess, Michael's comedy pod he does with James Hartnett.

Cracked Actor: A Film About David Bowie (Yentob, 1975)

Original trailer for The Man Who Fell to Earth (Roeg, 1976)

"Bowie and the Missing Soundtrack: The Amazing Story Behind The Man Who Fell to Earth" by Chris Campion, for the Guardian, September 8, 2016

Stay - Bowie performing live on Musikladen (West German television), 1978

34: God Grodin (with John Semley and Will Sloan) May 21, 2021

Returning guests John Semley and Will Sloan join the pod to celebrate actor, author and activist Charles Grodin, a comedy hero of ours who passed away this week at age 86.

With special attention paid to his legendary talk show appearances on Carson and Letterman in character as a belligerent and uncooperative guest, his two highly influential film comedy masterpieces The Heartbreak Kid and Clifford, and other highlights of a long career that ranged from Rosemary’s Baby to Midnight Run to two Beethoven movies.

Follow John Semley and Will Sloan on Twitter.

Trailer for The Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May, 1972)

TEASER - 33: X Gave It To Ya (with Adam Jackson) May 20, 2021

Access the entire 81 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/51486104

Toronto’s own Adam Jackson (a former contributor to Vice and Noisey) strikes a victory for Reply Guys everywhere by talking himself onto the podcast as a guest to discuss the late DMX as a screen actor.

We discuss 5 of his performances: his debut, the influential hip hop classic Belly (1998), his trilogy of dumb studio action films by the overqualified cinematographer turned director Andrzej Bartkowiak - Romeo Must Die (2000), Exit Wounds (2001) and Cradle 2 The Grave (2003), and his most ambitious film, Ernest Dickerson’s misunderstood crime drama Never Die Alone (2004). DMX discovered the source material by the Black pulp fiction novelist Donald Goines when he was in prison and used his clout in Hollywood to get it made as a movie: a disturbing and often grimly effective potboiler about how a sociopath’s mind operates.

We also discuss our shared neighbourhood of Bloordale: a magical land of bodegas, ice cream shops and numerous weed dispensaries.

Follow Adam Jackson on Twitter and on Instagram

Trailer for Belly (Hype Williams, 1998)

Trailer for Never Die Alone (Ernest Dickerson, 2004)

DMX meeting Rakim for the first time backstage - a touching clip, RIP king

32: The Nasty Girl (with David Demchuk) May 17, 2021

Toronto-based playwright and author David Demchuk (The Bone Mother) joins the pod to discuss Michael Verhoeven’s The Nasty Girl (1990), a coming-of-age tale based on a true story about a precocious and tenacious young student who enrages her small German town as she relentlessly endeavours to uncover what life was really like there during the Third Reich.

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, The Nasty Girl has kept a lower profile in recent years but is fascinating to reconsider today with its unexpected use of comedy and Brechtian distancing devices (rear-screen projection, direct address, surrealist scene staging) to tell this troubling tale about buried history and the plight of the truth-teller, grounded by an incredible performance by Lena Stolze.

David also discusses his upcoming horror novel RED X.

David’s latest novel RED X comes to you from boundary-pushing Penguin Random House imprint Strange Light on August 31. Preorder now!

Canada: http://tinyurl.com/RED-X-CDA

US: http://tinyurl.com/RED-X-USA

David's website: daviddemchuk.com

David's nice Twitter: @david demchuk

David's not-as-nice Twitter: @dd_toronto

German trailer for Das schreckliche Mädchen (Michael Verhoeven, 1990)

31: Dick Pix (with Jacob Bacharach) May 12, 2021

The author Jacob Bacharach joins the pod from Blacksburg, Virginia to discuss selected film adaptations of the work of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick.

We feature two films that understood the assignment, striking the balance between properly adapting PKD while retaining the integrity of the filmmaker’s vision - Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall and Richard Linklater’s underrated A Scanner Darkly.

We also talk about two projects that show how you can go wrong adapting Dick: John Woo’s last Hollywood film Paycheck and the recent Amazon series The Man in the High Castle, both works that fundamentally mishandle their source material.

Obviously we talk about Elon Musk, how High Castle feels like Nazi Mad Men, John Woo getting bossed around by Ben Affleck in Vancouver, and how much we both miss the actual acting of Robert Downey, Jr.

Follow Jacob Bacharach on Twitter and check out jacobbacharach.com

Jacob is a Junk Filter patron! Consider being one too, and receive access to bonus episodes - Patreon.com/junkfilter

Teaser trailer for Total Recall (Verhoeven, 1990)

Trailer for Paycheck (Woo, 2003)

Trailer for A Scanner Darkly (Linklater, 2006)

Trailer for The Man in the High Castle, Season 1 (2015)

TEASER - 30: But Seriously, ffolkes (with Corey Atad, Ben Gordon, Meg Shields, Anna Swanson) May 11, 2021

Access the entire 99 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/51136898

This panel discussion episode is a deep dive into the bizarre 1980 maritime action film ffolkes (aka North Sea Hijack) starring Roger Moore and James Mason, made in between Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only.

A terrorist cell led by Anthony Perkins and Michael Parks hijacks a supply ship in the North Sea, attaches bombs to an oil rig and a refinery platform and demands 25 million pounds in 24 hours or they will blow them all up and create an environmental catastrophe. The Prime Minister does not want to be seen to be negotiating with terrorists so she arranges for Lloyds of London to engage the services of Rufus Excalibur ffolkes, an eccentric counter-terrorism expert who ticks all the Pure Cinema boxes - he’s an alcoholic bearded genius who hates women, loves cats and doing needlepoint, and puts together a covert team to thwart the bad guys in a race against time.

Returning guests Anna Swanson and Corey Atad are joined by Ben Gordon and Meg Shields for a free-wheeling celebration of this stopwatch thriller for Dads that is much more entertaining than it has any right to be.

Follow these lovelies on Twitter:

ffolkes (1980) - trailer

29: Superstar & Dark Waters (with Justine Smith) May 05, 2021

Montreal-based film writer and programmer Justine Smith returns to the pod to discuss two radical works by the great director Todd Haynes, both based on true stories: his first short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1988) and his latest feature, Dark Waters (2019).

Dark Waters was written off by many critics at the time of release as a “work-for-hire” project from Haynes, but in fact it is of a piece with the director’s career-spanning concerns about the dangers built into living in a consumer society and the hidden illnesses that grow behind the facade of normalcy. Both films have the courage to name names and display great empathy towards their subjects, as well as the audience that also has to navigate the hard societal truths these films reveal.

Dark Waters is available for rent on iTunes. Superstar cannot be distributed legally after Richard Carpenter, upset over the film’s retelling of his sister’s life and death using Barbie dolls, sued Haynes for the use of unlicensed Carpenters music in the film. Bootleg transfers show up on YouTube from time to time.

Consider becoming a patron of Junk Filter to get access to bonus episodes: patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Justine Smith on Twitter

A teenaged Karen Carpenter displaying great skill as a drummer on a sixties variety show, one of the many talents that were suppressed in her tragic life.

(They Long To Be) Close To You- Carpenters, 1970

“The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” - the New York Times Magazine article by Nathaniel Rich that Dark Waters is adapted from, January 10, 2016

28: Roe v. Wade & Gutfeld! (with Alex Shephard) Apr 23, 2021

The New Republic’s Alex Shephard joins the show from Brooklyn to discuss the new Conservative propaganda film Roe v. Wade, filmed three years ago in the hopes of cashing in on the anticipated repeal of a woman’s right to abortion access by a conservative Supreme Court, but only now dribbling out to VOD in the early days of the new Biden administration.

The film’s director Nick Loeb also stars as an amoral abortionist who reveals "the truth" about his profession, the Henry Hill of this shameless attempt to simulate the style of both Goodfellas and Oliver Stone’s JFK, with a cast stuffed with conservative Hollywood stars as well as a raft of cameos from several alt-right personalities. And like JFK, the film presents an alternative conspiracy theory version of recent American history, but loaded with anti-Semitic stereotypes, stomach-churning tactics and outright lies designed to discredit Planned Parenthood and the Women's liberation movement.

It’s a repellent movie on all levels but Alex and I put ourselves through it so you don't have to, for a discussion about the motivations of the filmmakers, our observations on the modern conservative impulse to create entertainment at all costs to own the libs (despite their movement's supposed contempt for showbiz), and the amateurish, mediocre failures that result.

Speaking of which, Alex and I also discuss the worst new show on television - Gutfeld!

Consider becoming a patron of Junk Filter to get access to bonus episodes: patreon.com/junkfilter

Check out Danpilled II, the sequel to the Junk Filter episode on Steely Dan, over at Matthew Perpetua's Fluxpod!

Follow Alex Shephard on Twitter.

"Is Gutfeld! the Worst Show on Television?" - Alex’s article for The New Republic, April 8, 2021

Teaser trailer from when Roe v. Wadewas supposed to be released in 2019

Marlow Stern’s brutal interview with Jamie Kennedy on how he wound up getting involved in this movie, from The Daily Beast, April 2, 2021

27: Shakedown (with Ricky Camilleri) Apr 18, 2021

Ricky Camilleri of the Thirty Years Later podcast joins the show from Brooklyn to talk about the 1988 James Glickenhaus thriller Shakedown (released internationally as Blue Jean Cop). Shakedown is a prime example of Dudes Rock cinema: films that celebrate and uphold the ideals of male friendship.

Peter Weller is an overworked but idealistic NYC public defender who takes the case of a crack dealer accused of murder; when the victim turns out to be an undercover cop and his client insists he acted his self-defense, Weller teams up with Sam Elliott, a tough undercover cop who knows all about the “Blue Jean Cops” in the NYPD who run a criminal racket robbing crack dealers. Together this unlikely duo battle New York's crack kingpin and the gang of dirty cops.

Shakedown is simultaneously slick, ridiculous and progressive—an entertaining, go-for-broke movie with serious, relevant subject matter. Imagine “the People’s Lethal Weapon”, as Ricky calls it. Featuring spectacular stunts and action on grimy pre-Giuliani Times Square locations, it’s one of the few American action films to get anywhere near the reigning style of Hong Kong action films of the same period. In this ep we revel in our shared appreciation for this fun James Glickenhaus movie that has flown below the radar for too long.

Consider becoming a patron of Junk Filter to get access to bonus episodes: patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ricky Camilleri on Twitter.

Check out Ricky’s movie podcast with Chris Chafin, Thirty Years Later.

Trailer for Shakedown (Glickenhaus, 1988)

“How I Saved A Coked Up Miles Davis After He Crashed His Lamborghini” by James Glickenhaus, for Jalopnik, June 20, 2012

Jesse’s Dudes Rock film list on Letterboxd.

TEASER - 26: Rebels of the Neon God (with Ruairí McCann) Apr 11, 2021

Access the entire 68 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/49910402

Our first international guest, Belfast-based film critic and editor Ruairí McCann, joins the podcast to discuss the great Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang and his auspicious first feature, 1992’s Rebels of the Neon God, a film that took 23 years to get a North American release.

Rebels of the Neon God set the tone for Tsai Ming-liang's singular film career: his exploration of urban loneliness, the use of public and private spaces, and the beginning of his career-spanning work with actor Lee Kang-sheng, who was a teenager in this film and whose aging process into middle-age Tsai has been chronicling over the course of their partnership, in this most extraordinary ongoing collaboration between actor and director.

Ruairí and I discuss the evolution of Tsai as a filmmaker, his place within the Taiwanese New Wave (and his personal relationship with the legacy of the French New Wave), and I also talk with Ruairí about the recent riots that have been raging in Belfast, and how life in Northern Ireland has been during the pandemic.

Follow Ruairí McCann on Twitter.

Ruairí has a lot on the go these days:

- Ultra Dogme, a film and music criticism website where he’s managing editor

- photogénie, a Belgium-based, internationally-run film periodical where he’s contributing editor

- Electric Ghost Magazine, a film essay and review website based in London, where he’s a staff critic and contributing editor

Ruairí’s recent piece on Tsai Ming-liang's recent film Days, for Ultra Dogme.

Go! Go! Gorillo - King Kong Loves The Blonde One- music video for an Austrian rock band directed by the great Wakaliwood filmmaker Nabwana I.GG

25: Cocktails and Dreams (with Robyn Citizen) Apr 05, 2021

Robyn Citizen, TIFF’s Senior Manager of Festival Programming, joins the program to discuss one of her obsessions: 1988's box office smash Cocktail.

Cocktail was adapted for the screen by Heywood Gould from his own novel, but the dark tale was significantly brightened when Disney refashioned the film as a Tom Cruise vehicle for Touchstone Pictures during their domination of the multiplex in the eighties. The film started the “flair bartender” craze and its soundtrack spawned two monster radio hits: “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys and “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin. Cocktail waspartly shot in Toronto. It was also the film Cruise was working on when he joined the Church of Scientology.

Taken as sunny mass entertainment in the eighties, Cocktail’s darker elements can be seen more clearly today: time has revealed its grim sexual politics and its troubling depiction of “success” in the Reagan era. It's a great example of how sometimes America unintentionally tells on itself through its movies.

And since Robyn is from Texas, we had to talk about the other guy named Cruz.

Follow Robyn Citizen on Twitter.

A good profile of Heywood Gould and his experience working on Cocktail, by Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, March 21, 2013.

24: Danpilled (with Matthew Perpetua) Mar 31, 2021

Brooklyn-based writer and podcaster Matthew Perpetua (Fluxblog) joins the pod for an extended conversation about Steely Dan, a Boomer band that Gen X had to learn to like (as they got older) but which had a different appeal for Millennials and Gen Z thanks to their music being sampled in hip-hop and their inclusion in “Yacht Rock” subculture.

Along the way we discuss the cinematic properties of the band’s music through their storytelling and Kubrickian approach to production, the heavy use of irony and subversion in their lyrics, the usual reasons why people bear grudges against their music, and an appreciation of their 1980 album Gaucho as the perfect soundtrack for people just vibin’ in COVID-era solitude.

Follow Matthew Perpetua on Twitter

Check out Matthew’s great new music podcast Fluxpod and the Fluxpod Patreon

Steely Dan Dictionary (an important resource once you’ve been Danpilled)

Excerpt from the VH1 Classic Albums episode on Aja - the making of Peg (including isolated Michael McDonald vocals!)

Three illustrative Steely Dan songs

- Glamour Profession (1980)

- Razor Boy (1973)

- The Fez (1976)

Music video for New Frontier - Donald Fagen, from The Nightfly (1982)

Tom Robinson - Ricky Don’t Lose That Number (a cover version that makes the subtext text)

23: Out For Justice (with Maggie Serota) Mar 26, 2021

Brooklyn-based writer/journalist Maggie Serota (Spin, Esquire, Rolling Stone) joins the pod to discuss the mysteries of Steven Seagal’s movie career at Warner Bros. in the late eighties through the mid nineties with a deep dive into his bizarre 1991 Brooklyn-set crime thriller Out For Justice.

This was clearly Seagal’s attempt at being taken seriously as an actor, a pretentious mafia drama originally titled The Price of Our Blood with several allusions to On the Waterfront, an opening title card quoting playwright Arthur Miller, an overqualified supporting cast and showy Seagal acting monologues. Warner Bros. hacked this ego trip down to a standard-issue 90 minute Seagal actioner, and the studio-imposed results are fascinating.

Along the way Maggie and I talk through the enigma of Seagal - a cipher, a relentless fabulist, a movie star seemingly created in a laboratory who let the power go to his head, and a bit of a creep (allegedly! allegedly!)

Plus: a little chat about how the first Creed film hilariously skips over the details of how Adonis Creed’s father died, and this month’s 30th anniversary of The KLF’s album The White Room.

Follow Maggie Serota on Twitter.

Check out Maggie’s new podcast, Three Things With Maggie & Mike

"Man of Dishonor" - the notorious Spy magazine article on Steven Seagal's personal conduct, by John Connolly, July-August 1993 issue

"Seagal Under Siege", Ned Zeman, Vanity Fair, October 2002 - this article provides background on Seagal's longtime producer Julius Nasso who had a major hand in Out For Justice, and details the attempted (and partly successful) shakedown of Seagal by the mob.

The KLF - 3AM Eternal (music video)

TEASER - 22: Zack Snyder's Justice League (with Will Sloan, David Hains, Ethan Vestby) Mar 23, 2021

Junk Filter patrons have access to the full 73 min episode as well as past and upcoming Premium episodes. Consider becoming a direct supporter of the program by becoming a patron. https://www.patreon.com/posts/49084707

The first panel discussion of the podcast features an in-depth discussion of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (Snyder, 2021). Was it worth the wait? Is the artist’s original vision an improvement on the 2017 studio release heavily doctored by Joss Whedon? And does this film finally answer the question first posed when the Snyder DC Trilogy began in 2013: “How does Superman shave?”

Follow Will Sloan, David Hains and Ethan Vestby on Twitter.

21: Sad Affleck (with Ursula Lawrence) Mar 19, 2021

This episode contains spoilers for both films.

Comedy writer Ursula Lawrence (Drunk History, Adam Ruins Everything) joins the show from Madison, Wisconsin to discuss the last few years of the career of Ben Affleck.

Affleck has had quite the decade: after two big hits as a director with The Town and the Academy Award for Best Picture winning Argo, he announced he would be starring as Batman in a series of new DC films. From this point his personal life seemed to go into a tailspin: his marriage ended, the paparazzi covered his every vape break or DoorDash delivery, and he wound up going to rehab twice.

Ursula and I discuss two recent Affleck vehicles, both directed by Gavin O’Connor: 2016’s strange, overstuffed thriller The Accountant, and 2020’s understated alcoholism drama The Way Back.

Follow Ursula Lawrence on Twitter.

A review of The Accountant from the perspective of Tom Iland, an autistic person who is also a Certified Public Accountant!

“The Accountant is another example of Hollywood’s autism problem” by James Luxford, for Little White Lies, November 2016

20: The Gamification of Cinema (with Alex Ross) Mar 15, 2021

Toronto-based researcher and PhD candidate Alex Ross is today’s guest for a discussion of the intersection between videogame culture, film culture and fandom.

We go over the initial use of videogames in the 80s as story premises (Tron, WarGames), official videogame adaptations in the 90s (Mortal Kombat), and into the 21st century, when films were adapted into videogames (GoldenEye, The Godfather), and videogames themselves became more cinematic (the Grand Theft Auto series, which in turn inspired Crank). Leading us into today: blockbusters that feel more and more like cut scenes and gaming quest storylines designed to serve an increasingly entitled and anxious audience segment, while some of the worst aspects of the game development workplace now directly influence how films are finished and released.

Alex also tells us about some newer games that get close to approximating actual cinema.

Follow Alex Ross on Twitter.

Alex has just published an academic article on the intersection between gaming and gambling, for the Journal of Consumer Culture.

“Video Games Can Never Be Art” by Roger Ebert, April 2010

Trailer for Mortal Kombat (Paul W.S. Anderson, 1995)

TEASER - 19: Tony Scott's The Fan (with David Roth) Mar 10, 2021

Junk Filter patrons can hear the entire 100 minute episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/48593297

Defector Media’s David Roth joins the podcast from New York City to discuss The Fan, Tony Scott’s 1996 psychological thriller about a deranged San Francisco Giants fan and struggling knife salesman (Robert DeNiro) who develops an extremely unhealthy fixation on superstar slugger Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes), a player experiencing his own parallel career crisis. It’s not a good movie but an extremely fun movie to talk about, since it has major tone problems and a storyline that in another pair of hands could have been a great dark satire about the dangers of sports fandom.

David and I also talk at length about the Toronto Blue Jays, a team that might even have a shot this year.

Follow David Roth on Twitter

Trailer for The Fan (Tony Scott, 1996)

Supercut of all the times De Niro says “Bobby!” in The Fan

18: 52 Pick-Up (with Zach Vasquez) Mar 03, 2021

Los Angeles-based film writer Zach Vasquez comes on the show to discuss John Frankenheimer’s sordid 1986 crime melodrama 52 Pick-Up, one of the only legit good movies made by Cannon Films, a slept-on eighties classic.

With a screenplay by Elmore Leonard adapted from his 1974 novel, 52 Pick-Up was not well-received upon release but time has been extremely kind to this shocking and grimy thriller about a wealthy businessman (Roy Scheider) who becomes the target of a blackmail plot, and has to use his wits to outsmart a trio of sadistic creeps from the porn world who keep upping the ante to horrifying levels.

Zach and I also talk about that brief period where Cannon Films tried to make prestigious arthouse/grindhouse fare, the greatness of Frankenheimer, the film’s engagement with the sleazy reality of Los Angeles in the eighties, it’s influence on the other great Elmore Leonard LA lowlife crime drama Jackie Brown, and how 52 Pick-Up contains not one but two unforgettable movie villains, Clarence Williams III and John Glover.

Follow Zach Vasquez on Twitter.

Zach's new piece about Fellini, for Crooked Marquee

A nice appreciation of the movie from the New Beverly Cinema blog.

Trailer for 52 Pick-Up (Frankenheimer, 1986)

17: Tha God Takeshi Kitano (with Dan Boeckner) Feb 22, 2021

Dan Boeckner of Operators and Wolf Parade joins the pod today from Montreal to discuss Tha God Takeshi Kitano. Outside his homeland Kitano is best known for his prizewinning violent crime dramas, but in Japan “Beat” Takeshi is a superstar TV comedian whose serious arthouse film career was not taken seriously there for several years.

Dan and I discuss two of Kitano’s films that exemplify his singular comic sensibility: the deadpan Boiling Point (1990) and the galaxy-brained sex comedy Getting Any? (1994), two films about the plight of the young, frustrated Japanese male oaf, and the culture that made him this way.

Plus: a celebration of Takeshi Kitano the god of video game design with a look at his hilarious and impossible-to-play eighties game Takeshi’s Challenge (marketed to children!), and some thoughts about the new Adam Curtis documentary series Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.

Follow Dan Boeckner on Twitter

Dan just launched a new Canadian politics podcast with Riley Quinn: The Bottlemen.

The incredible karaoke scene from Boiling Point (Kitano, 1990)

Trailer for Getting Any? (Kitano, 1994)

16: Cronenberg's Rabid (with Angelo Muredda) Feb 19, 2021

Toronto-based writer and film critic Angelo Muredda joins the pod for a discussion of David Cronenberg’s Canuxploitation classic Rabid (1977), a depiction of a horrifying viral epidemic sweeping the city of Montreal that is fascinating to reconsider today as we approach the one year anniversary of the start of lockdowns in Canada related to the real-world Coronavirus pandemic. We discuss Cronenberg’s use of limited resources and the banality of seventies Canadian architecture and interior design to generate dread, his depictions of institutions and the scientist-monster heroes that serve as his usual protagonists, and we muse aloud about how Ontario Premier Doug Ford would respond if he had to preside over a Rabid-style pandemic.

Plus: a discussion about the latest essay from Martin Scorsese: in a world of media conglomerates controlling public access to what they consider “content” and streaming services algorithmically determining what audiences should see next, what will this do to the art of cinema?

Follow Angelo Muredda on Twitter

Rabid (David Cronenberg, 1977) - trailer

Martin Scorsese’s essay "Il Maestro: Federico Fellini and the Lost Magic of Cinema”, Harper’s Magazine, March 2021 issue

TEASER - 15: The Fandom Menace (with Jared Yates Sexton) Feb 15, 2021

PATREON EPISODE: Subscribe to our Patreon to hear the whole 87 minute episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/47584756

Author and political commentator Jared Yates Sexton joins the pod to discuss the Disney Star Wars movies in great detail. Jared and I are both lapsed Star Wars fans and in this episode we talk about a bunch of things: our deteriorating relationship with these films and how the new Star Wars trilogy unintentionally encapsulates our political and cultural moment, with their pandering fan service, nonsensical story structure, and corporations pretending to be artists. And we discuss The Rise of Skywalker's ill-advised return of the Emperor, and the shabby treatment of Carrie Fisher...

Plus an extra discussion of toxic fandom as it pertains to Star Wars and Jesse's Twitter battle with Justice League fans.

Follow Jared on Twitter

Jared Yates Sexton's book, "American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People" (Dutton) is available now!

14: Found Footage Horror (with Joe Berkowitz) Feb 12, 2021

Minneapolis-based author and Fast Company opinion columnist Joe Berkowitz joins the podcast this week to talk about the found footage horror genre with a focus on Ti West’s 2013 thriller The Sacrament, which presents a fictionalized version of the 1978 Jonestown massacre, set in the modern era and presented as an edgy documentary from Vice Media. Joe and I discuss the evolution of the Found Footage genre, their common structural problems, the use of Vice journalists in The Sacrament, and the overall “ethics” of cinematic exploitation.

Plus: a chat about the annoyingly obvious but noteworthy parallels between Trump and Reverend Jim Jones, and what a week of trolling Snyder Cut fans on Twitter with obvious jokes about a swearing Batman in the R-rated Zack Snyder's Justice League reveals about “superhero movies for grownups”

Follow Joe Berkowitz on Twitter

Joe Berkowitz’s new book “American Cheese: An Indulgent Odyssey Through the Artisan Cheese World” (HarperCollins) is available now!

Joe’s piece for Fast Company which inspired this episode

Guyana: Cult of the Damned (aka Guyana: Crime of the Century) (1979) - trailer

13: White SquallAnon (with David Hains) Jan 16, 2021

Toronto-based journalist David Hains joins the pod on the eve of Trump’s exit from the White House, in the wake of the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6. Many people in the melee were members of QAnon, an elaborate pro-Trump online conspiracy theory that has picked up more believers during this pandemic year.

QAnon hates Hollywood for its supposedly depraved celebrities but ironically much of their language and belief structure comes from their misunderstanding of certain (unlikely) Hollywood movies, in particular Ridley Scott’s forgettable 1996 boys-on-the-high-seas adventure White Squall.

We talk about other random movies that influence the QAnon community’s conspiracy theories, including The Godfather, Part III (?!?!) and Dan Crenshaw’s recent “Georgia Reloaded” political commercial, with his problematic appropriation of Marvel movie imagery that inspired the most deranged of Trump’s supporters. How will this movement handle reality potentially shattering their certainty?

Plus: after his recent feud with Warner Bros, will Cyborg survive the Snyder Cut of Justice League?

Follow David Hains on Twitter.

Trailer forWhite Squall (Ridley Scott, 1996)

Georgia Reloaded (Crenshaw, 2020)

Jack Kirby’s son didn’t like the use of Captain America imagery being used by the violent mob in DC.

“A Former Marine Stormed The Capitol As Part of a Far-Right Militia” - Ronan Farrow, The New Yorker, January 14

12: Femme Fatale and Domino (with John Semley) Jan 11, 2021

Spoilers abound during our discussion, please watch Femme Fatale before listening as there is a stunning twist you don’t want us to ruin for you. Femme Fatale is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime. No need to watch Domino first, or even at all!

For the first of likely several Junk Filter episodes about Brian De Palma, Toronto-based writer John Semley joins the program for a look at two films that bookend De Palma’s post-Hollywood exile in the land of European film financing, 2002’s Femme Fatale (a masterpiece) and 2019’s Domino (not a masterpiece). Along the way we talk about the director’s career-spanning obsessions, the concept of “Pure Cinema”, how Femme Fatale can be compared to Raising Cain and Mulholland Drive, and the plight of the aged auteur with nothing left to prove.

Plus John and I try to process the attempted insurrection in Washington and Twitter suspending Trump’s account in the aftermath.

Follow John Semley on Twitter.

One of the greatest modern movie trailers: the European teaser for Femme Fatale: it tells you everything and nothing at once.

11: The Bane Episode (with Corey Atad) Jan 04, 2021

Toronto-based writer Corey Atad joins the pod today to talk about Bane, as a jumping off point to discuss Christopher Nolan, who seemed like one of the villains of 2020 as he was determined to release Tenet in theatres during a global pandemic, but who became a Good Guy at the end of the year when he started feuding with his studio Warner Bros. after they used Tenet’s disappointing box office totals to justify moving their entire 2021 release slate to HBOMax to prop up their streaming service at the expense of theatrical releases.

Audiences that went to see Tenet in August when it was assumed to be The Movie That Will Save Cinema were bound to be somewhat disappointed, but seen now without that kind of pressure on it, stoned on the couch at home, Corey and I argue that Tenet is actually a Dudes Rock movie and that its incomprehensibility can be best appreciated as a feature, not a bug.

Follow Corey Atad on Twitter.

Hilarious Tenet “Behind The Scenes” electronic press kit

10: Welcome To New York (with Will Sloan) Dec 29, 2020

On this week’s episode, Toronto-based writer and podcasting magnate Will Sloan returns to the pod to discuss Abel Ferrara’s 2014 film Welcome To New York, a dramatization of IMF chief (and presumptive future French President) Dominque Strauss-Kahn’s arrest in Manhattan in 2011 for the sexual assault of a hotel chambermaid, starring Gerard Depardieu as the thinly-disguised DSK figure. Not only was it Ferrara’s best film in years, but it was also very ahead of the curve, a drama centred around issues that would become central cultural themes in the second half of the decade: the #MeToo movement, the abuse of power and privilege, and the sexual predation of powerful political figures. The film was released in Europe in Ferrara’s explicit version, but the American distributor imposed shocking and drastic cuts to the film for its US release, removing 17 minutes and altering the meaning of the film. Ferrara spoke out against the mutilation of his work and threatened to sue the distributor, and the noise over the creative interference blunted the film's impact stateside, in a stunning example of corporate censorship of an artist.

Perhaps critics and audiences were not ready to listen to what Welcome To New York had to say in 2014 but it’s a fascinating film to consider now.

Plus a discussion of the unpromising trailer for the upcoming Scorsese documentary for Netflix about Fran Leibowitz.

The full 125-minute version of Welcome To New York is available on Apple TV (and through torrenting) - steer clear of the 109-minute American cut, the one most commonly available in North America.

Happy New Year!

Follow Will Sloan on Twitter.

A very good interview with Abel Ferrara about the film, from when it screened during the Cannes Film Festival (out of competition), from Daniel Kasman for Mubi, June 2014

9: The Astrologer (with Peter Kuplowsky) Dec 21, 2020

Toronto-based film producer and TIFF Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky comes on the pod to talk about The Astrologer (1975), a one of a kind vanity production / ego trip by first time filmmaker (and con artist) Craig Denney, briefly screened after being rediscovered decades later but then pulled from circulation over music licensing issues too complex to untangle. But before the clampdown it did play theatrically in Toronto, thanks to Peter Kuplowsky. And I got to see it.

This episode goes down the rabbit hole: what The Astrologer is, how it was made, and why you currently can’t see it. Don’t worry that you need to see this film before you listen to the show because it could be a long time before it is seen again, and besides this crazy film is impossible to ruin and just part of an incredible overall story. Our conversation also covers vanity films, the numerous comparisons that can be made between The Astrologer and Citizen Kane, the horseshoe theory of when incompetence becomes genius, and the mysteries around director Craig Denney, who disappeared from the world in the years following the film’s completion and near-erasure.

Plus Peter and I chat about how George Lucas could be the subject of the next Citizen Kane remake, and Peter recommends a newly rediscovered vanity film you CAN see right now.

Follow Peter Kuplowsky on Twitter.

The Astrologer - “re-release” trailer

"Who Is The Astrologer?” - the most comprehensive article on Craig Denney & the film, by Sean Welsh for Matchbox Cine Club

The American Genre Film Archive rescued The Astrologer and does great work restoring and scanning rare film prints, find out more at their website.

Peter Kuplowsky produced two films that will be available in January 2021:

Climate of the Hunter

Psycho Goreman

8: Viridiana (with Justine Smith) Dec 14, 2020

Our subject today is nuns in the movies in general, and in particular the 1961 Luis Buñuel masterpiece Viridiana. Buñuel left Spain over the Franco dictatorship and forged a great filmmaking career in Mexico. Surprisingly. Buñuel accepted an invitation from Franco to return to Spain to make whatever film he wanted. He delivered Viridiana, one of the great “Fuck You” movies, a vicious satire of both Franco’s dictatorship and the Catholic Church. It was condemned by the Vatican and banned in Spain for 17 years. It also won the Palme d’or and vaulted Buñuel into the top rank of world cinema.

Justine Smith is a Montreal-based film writer and programmer with a longtime fascination with nuns in cinema: she and I also talk about our mutual dislike of The Sound Of Music, the problems with Quebec’s “secularist” policies, and life in Montreal during the pandemic.

Follow Justine Smith on Twitter.

“When Hard Meets Soft: The Painful Pleasures of Nunsploitation Cinema” by Justine Smith (for Cléo)

American trailer for Viridiana

Um Mundo Catita: “As minhas coisas favoritas”

7: Bigger Than Life (with Ashley Naftule) Dec 11, 2020

An overworked family man suddenly facing a terminal health crisis is given what appears to be a miracle cure, an experimental steroid treatment. But as the man’s health returns, he becomes addicted to the steroids and gets increasingly deranged and delusional, his mania escalating into a full blown domestic rampage that threatens to destroy him and everyone around him. This is what likely cost President Trump his re-election, but it’s also the plot of Nicholas Ray’s 1956 masterpiece of melodrama Bigger Than Life, starring James Mason.

Phoenix-based playwright, writer and extremely funny Twitterer Ashley Naftule joins host Jesse Hawken for a discussion of Bigger Than Life, it’s thematic similarities to Trump’s Coronavirus meltdown, and how the film’s social critique of labor conditions, healthcare costs and middle class anxiety still resonate strongly today.

Plus: a discussion of sexy Walter Matthau, Phoenix’s indie film scene, Joe Arpaio at the movies, and the new Wong Kar Wai restorations.

Follow Ashley Naftule on Twitter.

Ashley wrote about Zazie Dans Le Metro’s 60th anniversary, for Bright Wall Dark Room

Bigger Than Life (Cough Syrup Remix) - DO NOT watch this before seeing the movie properly, for repeat viewers only

6: Body Snatchers and BBQ (with Daniel Reynolds) Dec 07, 2020

Today’s extremely Toronto Politics Twitter episode concerns the ongoing #BBQAnon clownshow in town. A barbecue restaurant got a lot of media attention recently when they defiantly refused to cooperate as the province imposed new public health restrictions on indoor dining during a new COVID-19 lockdown: the local right wing press hailed the restauranteur as a “barbecue revolutionary” fighting for “the little guy” but this spectacle wound up giving media oxygen to some of the darkest forces in the city, including the anti-mask/anti-vaccine brigade and the far right.

Guest Daniel Reynolds is a writer and critic who also works for the City of Toronto as a traffic planner: he and host Jesse Hawken discuss this dystopian story of civic paranoia and media gaslighting and frame it within the context of a classic science-fiction parable, the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a tale told four times so far by Hollywood, most notably in the masterful 1978 version by Phillip Kaufman, starring Donald Sutherland as a public health inspector!

Plus: Jesse runs an exciting local heritage proposal past Daniel for the redevelopment of the Dufferin & Dupont area that no resident of downtown Toronto will want to miss!

Find out more about what Daniel Reynolds is up to here:

https://www.akareynolds.com/

5: The 15:17 to Paris (with Matt Christman) Nov 30, 2020

Chapo Trap House’s Matt Christman joins host Jesse Hawken for an in-depth conversation about Clint Eastwood’s 2018 Dudes Rock drama The 15:17 To Paris, a re-enactment of the 2015 incident where three young American tourists stopped a terror attack on a European high-speed train... but starring The Boys as themselves, and telling the whole story that led to this decisive moment, going back to their childhood.

Part After School Special, part aimless travelogue, starring non-actors but strangely featuring sitcom actors in supporting roles, this is a film about millennials made by an 87 year old man. It’s one of the most bizarre modern film experiments to get a wide release from a major studio, and a great example of the beguiling Late Style of God Clint, where distinctions can be drawn between Eastwood’s personal ideology and what motivates him as a film artist.

And yes, we do provide analysis of the Gelato Scene.

Follow Matt Christman on Twitter.

4: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (with Anna Swanson) Nov 27, 2020

In this spoiler-heavy discussion of the instant Dudes Rock classic Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Toronto-based writer Anna Swanson joins host Jesse Hawken for an in-depth examination of the various controversies sparked by Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film and how we interpret them. Not only did Anna write a great article that thoroughly investigates one of the film’s most shocking reveals, but we also all owe her a debt of gratitude for creating the “Leo Pointing” viral Twitter meme.

We also talk about Hollywood’s unexpected lyrical beauty and sensitivity, the pleasures of being tricked by a good storyteller, and whether post-pandemic moviegoing will ever be the same.

Do not listen to this episode if you have not seen the film and don’t want it completely ruined for you.

Follow Anna Swanson on Twitter.

“Did Cliff Booth Kill His Wife? An In-Depth Investigation” - by Anna Swanson (for Film School Rejects)

“Why Are You Laughing At Bruce Lee?” - by Walter Chaw (for Vulture)

An example of the seamless visual effects in the film: this is the real opening to the episode of “The FBI” that features Rick Dalton in the movie.

3: Punch-Drunk Love (with Adam Nayman) Nov 23, 2020

Host Jesse Hawken is joined by Toronto-based author and film critic Adam Nayman, who has written a new pictorial monograph “Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks”, for an in-depth discussion of Anderson’s singular romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love. The film won the Best Director prize at Cannes but despite some great reviews, audiences weren’t quite sure what to make of it in 2002, as the long-anticipated followup to the epic Magnolia turned out to be a 90 minute (arthouse-adjacent) Adam Sandler comedy. But time has revealed Punch-Drunk Love to be the film that marked a new trajectory in Anderson’s career, a generous and complex work, and one hugely influential on other filmmakers, especially a recent feature-length simulation of an anxiety attack starring Sandler, Uncut Gems.

Adam & I discuss, among other things, the pure pleasure Punch-Drunk Love offers viewers, how the film is related to later Anderson works, how it is situated right on the precipice of a major technological shift in the culture, what it has to say today about Incels and Dream Girls, and a look at some of the Extremely Online takes it has inspired over the years.

Plus Adam & I talk about the David Fincher / Orson Welles battle being waged on Film Twitter as Mank approaches.

“Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks”, by Adam Nayman, is available now from Abrams Books:

Follow Adam Nayman on Twitter

Here’s the fan video that puts forward the theory that Punch-Drunk Love is secretly the story of Superman:

2: Al Goldstein (with Will Sloan) Nov 18, 2020

Toronto podcasting magnate and author Will Sloan was also, improbably, one of the last people to see Al Goldstein alive. Goldstein, for better or worse, was a trailblazing First Amendment crusader who embodied a particular time and place in American cultural history as the publisher of Screw magazine and the host of the long running New York public access program Midnight Blue, both indelibly scuzzy documents of the city’s sex trade in the 70s and 80s. Things didn’t end particularly well for Al, as two documentaries we discuss, 1996’s Screwed and 2005’s Porn King: The Trials of Al Goldstein, make abundantly clear.

We discuss our mutual long-term fascination with this complicated creep, discuss the ultimate fate of most psychopaths, and draw parallels between Goldstein’s downfall and the current collapse of another monstrous creation of New York City’s media ecosystem, the soon-to-be ex-President.

Plus a discussion about the upcoming Netflix prequel to Citizen Kane, the story of a screenwriter known to friends and foes alike simply as...Mank.

Follow Will Sloan on Twitter.

Al Goldstein & Jerry Lewis together on New York morning television, 1976

Al’s immortal battle with the host (and studio audience) of the Wally George show, 1988

Will wrote a great piece for Hazlitt about the life of Al Goldstein shortly after his death.

Will Sloan & Justin Decloux’s new book about Matt Farley & Motern Media.

Amazon (Canada)

Amazon (USA)

1: Uneasy Listening: Richard Harris (with Marker Starling) Nov 12, 2020

My name is Jesse Hawken and welcome to episode one of Junk Filter, a new podcast about film, music, politics and jokes.

For our debut episode, Toronto musician Marker Starling joins me to celebrate the music of actor Richard Harris. His notorious 1967 pop smash MacArthur Park is his most famous song, but is only the tip of the iceberg: Harris recorded several epic concept albums in partnership with the great American songwriter Jimmy Webb, that are by turns beautiful, powerful and completely insane.

We also talk about Mr. Starling’s new LP High January (Tin Angel Records) and working with Laetitia Sadler (Stereolab) and producer Sean O’Hagan (The High Llamas), and I ask him what music has been getting him through All This.

Follow Marker Starling on Twitter.

Richard Harris - Interim

Richard Harris - Blue Canadian Rocky Dream

Jesse Hawken has directed two music videos for Marker Starling

Husbands

Hue and Cry

Purple Mountains - Nights That Won’t Happen