Junk Filter

Latest Episodes:

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.

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

Show notes

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.

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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).

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

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.

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

Show notes

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

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

Show notes

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.

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