Junk Filter

Latest Episodes:

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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)

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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)

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

Show notes

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)

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected