Junk Filter

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202: David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials and Naked Lunch (with Violet Lucca) Feb 24, 2025

Show notes

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence.

Violet Lucca, the author of the new monograph David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials, returns to the podcast from Brooklyn to discuss the book and his controversial 1991 adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch starring Peter Weller and Judy Davis, filmed in Toronto standing in for 50s New York and Morocco, recreated by Cronenberg’s longtime production designer Carol Spier in a former General Electric plant in Toronto’s west end.

We discuss Cronenberg’s lifelong connection to Canadian cinema and the city of Toronto with digressions on Videodrome, The Dead Zone and The Fly before grappling with Naked Lunch, which is less of a literal film version of the novel and more a meditation about the life of Burroughs and what it is to be an artist in general. We also discuss Cronenberg’s cinematic explorations of paranoia and conspiracy theories, and his relationship to the queer artistic community in Canada reflected across his career, even if he’s always identified himself as a heterosexual man.

And we (briefly) contrast Naked Lunch with the new Burroughs cinematic adaptation, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer starring Daniel Craig, which we feel misses the boat on how to adapt Burroughs for the screen.

Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Violet Lucca on Bluesky.

David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials, by Violet Lucca (Abrams Books) is now available!

City TV commercial for their public service program “Toronto the Good” (1975)

Universal Pictures' studio trailer for Videodrome (Cronenberg, 1983)

Trailer for The Dead Zone (Cronenberg, 1983)

Trailer for Naked Lunch (Cronenberg, 1991)

Trailer for Queer (Guadagnino, 2024)

TEASER - 201: Michael Mann: Blackhat (with James Slaymaker) Feb 21, 2025

Show notes

Access this entire 70-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.patreon.com/posts/201-michael-mann-122785625

James Slaymaker, the author of Time is Luck: The Cinema of Michael Mann, returns to the podcast for a show about Mann’s much-maligned 2015 techno-thriller starring Chris Hemsworth as a blackhat hacker named Hathaway, granted release from prison by the FBI in a secret mission between American and Chinese police to track down the leader of an international cybercrime terror organization that is remotely manipulating the stock market to cause global chaos.

Blackhat was a financial failure upon release that resulted in an eight year break between Mann’s feature film works. James and I discuss the director’s cut of the film (recently released on video) which addresses some of the theatrical cut’s issues and James makes a case for the film as a misunderstood work that anticipated some of the next decade’s concerns with technology and the real world consequences of living in a surveillance state, as Mann continues to explore the possibilities of digital cinema.

Follow James Slaymaker on Twitter.

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

Trailer #1 for Blackhat (Michael Mann, 2015)

200: Proof of Life (with Roxana Hadadi) Feb 10, 2025

Show notes

Roxana Hadadi, film and tv critic for Vulture and New York magazine returns to the pod for another episode about Tony Gilroy, this time looking at his screenplay for Taylor Hackford’s kidnapping thriller from the year 2000,Proof of Life, starring top-billed Meg Ryan and the ascendant superstar Russell Crowe.

Crowe plays Terry Thorne, an Australian K&R (Kidnap & Ransom) consultant sent down to the fictional South American Republic of Tecala to negotiate the release of an American oil company engineer (David Morse) held hostage by anti-government forces in the Andes mountains, who finds himself falling for Morse’s distraught wife Meg Ryan.Proof of Life is best remembered today as the movie where Crowe and Ryan had an affair on location which doomed the movie to tabloid gossip; she was blamed for the end of her marriage to Dennis Quaid, and then for the financial failure of the film, leading to her decline as an A-list star.

Proof of Life feels like a laboratory for some of Tony Gilroy’s future works (for instance Crowe’s character is based on a real life Australian hostage negotiator named Thomas Clayton!); viewing it through aMichael Clayton lens reveals a film that might have been better were it not for the nervousness of the studio that led them to play down the chemistry between the leads and the film’s critique of co-operation between unethical corporations and corrupt governments in the Global South. It’s a great example of the “Five-Star Three-Star Movie” which time sometimes helps to reveal.

Junk Filter is on Bluesky now!

Follow Roxana Hadadi on Twitter and Bluesky.

Trailer forProof of Life (Taylor Hackford, 2000)

“Adventures in the Ransom Trade”, by William Prochnau, for Vanity Fair, the main source material for Tony Gilroy’s screenplay, April 1998

TEASER - 199: The MCU: Munich Cinematic Universe, Part 2 (with Corey Atad) Feb 06, 2025

Show notes

Access this entire 92-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.patreon.com/posts/199-mcu-munich-2-121674522

In part two of our look at Munich, Corey Atad and I continue to discuss Spielberg’s masterpiece, and expand our discussion to other works that stem from the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, including more on the 1986 Canadian TV movie Sword of Gideon, Kevin Macdonald’s Oscar-winning documentary from 1999 One Day in September and the effective new German docudrama starring Peter Sarsgaard, September 5, a detailed recreation of the hostage crisis from the perspective of the ABC Sports team there to cover the games who suddenly found themselves covering the terror attack as a live event for a worldwide audience, forcing the media to grapple in real time with the ethics of reporting on terrorism and how Black September and the West German police could also adapt their tactics to weaponize this live coverage, in this case with tragic consequences. The medium is the message, you could say….

Follow Corey Atad on Twitter and visit coreyatad.com

Trailer for September 5(Tim Fehlbaum, 2024)

198: The MCU: Munich Cinematic Universe, Part 1 (with Corey Atad) Feb 06, 2025

Show notes

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence.

The film writer Corey Atad returns to the pod for a two-parter on Steven Spielberg’s 2005 masterpiece Munich, which turns 20 years old this year and yet has barely aged a day.

Spielberg starts the film with Black September’s terror attack on the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics and then follows a secret team of Israelis dispatched by their government to hunt down and kill 11 Palestinians around Europe said to have played a role in the massacre. But as their violent mission continues, Avner (Eric Bana) and his team start to doubt the nobility of their task as the compounding violence they commit corrodes their souls.

In this first episode, Corey and I discuss Spielberg as a master filmmaker at the height of his powers, the brilliant, clear-eyed screenplay by Tony Kushner and how a film understood to be a comment on the 9/11 attacks when first released can be seen better now as a film about the harsh truths of the Israel/Palestine conflict and the futility of fighting terrorism with counter-terrorism.

We contrast this look at Munich with another adaptation of the source material, the forgotten 1986 Canadian TV movie Sword of Gideon based on George Jonas’ 1984 non-fiction book Vengeance, a more openly Zionist interpretation of the text. And we discuss some of our favourite parts of Munich including the notorious sex scene!

Part two of this discussion is available on the Patreon feed: more about Munich and Sword of Gideon, the documentary One Day In September and an extended discussion of the new film about the Munich Olympics massacre, September 5.

Consider becoming a patron of the podcast to access this and dozens of exclusive bonus episodes for only $5 (US) a month! patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Corey Atad on Twitter and visit coreyatad.com

Extended international trailer for Munich (Spielberg, 2005)

Commercial for Sword of Gideon (Michael Anderson, 1986)

A breakdown of one of the complex camera movements in Munich.

197: Big Nick (with Jake Serwin & Ian Rhine from Pod Casty For Me) Jan 29, 2025

Show notes

The hosts of the left politics and film podcast Pod Casty For Me, Jake Serwin and Ian Rhine, return to Junk Filter for a supersized episode about Christian Gudegast’s Den of Thieves films, starring the new King of January movies Gerard Butler in his greatest role as debauched cop Big Nick O’Brien of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The first Den of Thieves features a cat and mouse plot where Big Nick leads his team of dirty cops against a heist crew planning to rob the Federal Reserve in LA, using their informant Donnie played by O’Shea Jackson Jr., a film that had ardent defenders including the German director Christian Petzold who raised eyebrows when he placed it on his list of the best films of the decade.

Coming seven years later, the sequel Pantera takes the story to Europe, where Big Nick tracks Donnie down in the French Riviera as he and his new European gang are planning a complex heist of the World Diamond Center, forcing his way into the crew.

We discuss the evolution of the series, how the sequel doubles down on the Dudes Rock qualities of the first film, and reveals how smart this dumb guy series actually is, with all the things it has to say about gang culture in the LA Police, toxic masculinity, and the healing powers of a summer in Europe with your boys as Den of Thieves evolves into an actual action franchise. If the first one feels like a variation on Michael Mann, the second one evokes Rififi, Ronin, Tenet, Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris and most unexpectedly Richard Linklater’s Before series.

Plus: we discovered there are two cuts of Pantera in circulation and we discuss their differences.

Follow Pod Casty For Me on Twitter, and you can find out more about the show and subscribe to their Patreon feed at their website.

“A Tradition of Violence: The History of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department” reported by Cerise Castle for Knock LA, March 2021

Final trailer for Den of Thieves (Gudegast, 2018)

First trailer for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (Gudegast, 2025)

TEASER - 196: A Complete Unknown (with Jared Bailey) Jan 13, 2025

Show notes

Access this entire 87-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.patreon.com/posts/196-complete-119875574

Jared Bailey (aka Twitter’s @Stolendans) returns to the podcast from Columbia South Carolina for a show about James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as the young Bob Dylan, and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger.

Choosing to portray the rise of Bob Dylan as a mainstream Music 101 period piece may have been a commercial choice that has rubbed some true Dylan Heads the wrong way, but the director has at least made an entertaining prestige picture that looks and feels right with Chalamet up to the challenge of playing a difficult part.

We discuss how this film retools the actual history for the sake of Hollywood conventions, how Mangold chooses to portray the women in Dylan’s life and the film’s cautious treatment of any political content, keeping things vague enough that it’s been left open to interpretation; in some conservative circles they think the film is really about Dylan the individual artist taking on the Marxist folk music scene, portrayed here as The Establishment.

Plus: Jared and I discuss Bob Dylan, the pioneer of singing with a funny voice (a big influence on Paul McCartney, we think) and dreamcast some future Dylan biopics!

Follow Jared Bailey on Twitter and Bluesky.

Trailer for A Complete Unknown (James Mangold, 2024)

The Highwaymen on the New Zealand talk show Holmes, 1991

195: Kraven the Hunter (with Adam Jackson) Jan 01, 2025

Show notes

The writer and friend of the pod Adam Jackson returns for a show about what has turned out to be the finale of Sony’s "Spider-Man Movies Without Spider-Man In Them Cinematic Universe", Kraven the Hunter, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe.

Directed by J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, All Is Lost), Kraven was originally set for release in January 2023 but after guild strikes, reshoots and several schedule changes was finally released at the end of 2024, and on the eve of its debut Sony announced they were wrapping up this attempt to make standalone origin stories of Spider-Man villains like Venom, Morbius and Madame Web, which led to Kraven having the weakest series opening yet. But Adam and I were surprised at how much fun we had watching it, full of good actors delivering ludicrous performances, with the added hilarity of this ”origin story” being a dead-end for the “franchise”.

Plus: Adam provides us with a year in review of the comic book movie, which would have been the weakest one in history were it not for the massive success of Deadpool & Wolverine, and we talk about what we’re looking forward to in 2025.

Follow Adam Jackson on Twitter and Bluesky.

First Red Band trailer for Kraven the Hunter (J.C. Chandor, 2024)

“Reverse Psychology” commercial for the 2020 Russell Crowe thriller Unhinged, calling us back to the cinema

TEASER - 194: Die Harder (with Brian Abrams) Dec 24, 2024

Show notes

Access this entire 68-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.patreon.com/posts/194-die-harder-118608075

In part two of our discussion of the Die Hard series, Brian Abrams, the author of Die Hard: An Oral History and I go over the sequels to John McTiernan’s 1988 masterpiece.

We make a case for Renny Harlin’s Die Hard 2 (1990) as the platonic ideal of a blockbuster sequel - a bigger, dumber version of the original with a great supporting cast which delivers on the formula and also serves as a better “Christmas movie” than the first one to boot.

We itemize our issues with McTiernan’s return to the franchise with Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), and trash the final two films in the series, Len Wiseman’s Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and John Moore’s rock-bottom final entry, 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard, inexplicably set in Russia.

Follow Brian Abrams on Letterboxd and check out his website.

“Die Hard: An Oral History” by Brian Abrams is available to download as a Kindle Single

"Robert Costanzo, the Essential Worker", by Brian Abrams, for Lowbrow Reader, 2022

“Die Hard is Back”: Bruce Willis’ final performance as John McClane in a 2020 battery commercial

Music video for “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun”, The Beastie Boys

193: Die Hard (with Brian Abrams) Dec 24, 2024

Show notes

The writer Brian Abrams returns to the show from Brooklyn for the first of two episodes on the Die Hard series.

In part one, Brian, the author of Die Hard: An Oral History, gives us the details on the genesis of the franchise, which perfected a formula for action comedy films that producers Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon had been developing through the eighties with 48 Hrs, Commando and Predator and instantly converted Moonlighting’s Bruce Willis into a legit movie star.

Brian spoke to dozens of members of the Die Hard creative team for his oral history and we discuss the film’s major players, the genre innovations, its politics, and the recipe for what makes a good Die Hard movie. And I force Brian to explain the Bill Clay scene; what tipped John McClane off that Clay was Hans Gruber?

Part two of our discussion, on the other four films in the Die Hard series, is available on the Patreon feed.

Happy Holidays from Junk Filter!

Follow Brian Abrams on Letterboxd and check out his website.

“Die Hard: An Oral History” by Brian Abrams is available to download as a Kindle Single.

Trailer for Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)

Canadian Labatt Ice Beer commercial featuring Alexander Gudenov, 1993