Junk Filter

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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)

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

Show notes

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.

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

Show notes

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.

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

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