Access this entire 126-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/178-junk-filter-112189443 Jake Serwin and Ian Rhine from the great left politics and culture podcast Pod Casty F…

It's two movies for the price of one today! (Podcast remains free.) In 2014, Paul Schrader directed Nicolas Cage and Anton Yelchin in a thriller about a CIA agent with frontotemporal dementia trying to hunt down an old enemy before his mind goes. The money guys took the film away from him, edited it into a totally anonymous Redbox movie themselves,…

Access this entire 86-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/180-miami-vice-113085968 We celebrate the 40th anniversary of the premiere of NBC’s crime drama Miami Vice with a…

In 2013, Paul Schrader directed deeply troubled recent child actress Lindsay Lohan and porn star/human Quagmire James Deen from a script by literary dolt Bret Easton Ellis in a crowdfunded, low-budget curio about the vapid cruelty of modern Los Angeles. THE CANYONS was widely disregarded on release, but has steadily grown in esteem by some particul…

The writer and podcaster Gus Lanzetta returns to the podcast from São Paulo to give our listeners an update on life in Brazil since their Supreme Court banned X: The Everything App from access to the country, and we thought we would pair this with a movie about a revolutionary communication tool that was suddenly not important anymore: Matt Johnson…

Sorry for the late update, everybody - we got trapped in one of those two-person horse costumes for like 48 hours, really really scary. But we're back to talk pretty seriously about Paul Schrader's 2008 literary adaptation ADAM RESURRECTED, the story of a German Jewish clown who becomes a concentration camp commander's human dog and then finds hims…

Paul Schrader concludes his first set of Man In A Room films with 2007's THE WALKER, a bookend to AMERICAN GIGOLO that finds the lonely man working as a literal escort for society women in D.C. But will Carter Page III find meaning outside of managing a few political wives' secrets? Should Woody Harrelson be doing that voice? Is Jake so unceasingly…

The power of 'cast compels you, listener - to enjoy this week's episode! Paul Schrader was hired to replace John Frankenheimer as director of a prequel to THE EXORCIST, and things only got stranger from there. Our pal, and producer of the new film CRUMB CATCHER, Chadd Harbold returns to the show to help us discuss Schrader's DOMINION: PREQUEL TO TH…

Veteran national politics reporter for Semafor David Weigel returns to the show for a discussion of the new conservative political biopic Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid as The Great Communicator, or as he was known in Russia, The Crusader, for the film is told from the perspective of a former KGB agent (Jon Voight) who identified him early on as the…

Schmile, listener! This week we're pointing our viewfinders at Paul Schrader's sleazy 2002 Bob Crane biopic AUTO FOCUS with writer and co-host of the Doughboys and Get Played podcasts, Nick Wiger! Join us for a discussion of fame, destructive sexual obsession, smoldering male violence, Willem Dafoe - you know, all the usual Schrader stuff. Plus: we…

Somebody call 911 - it's a new episode podcast! Only kidding, there's no emergency. Except you might have some friggin palpitations when you hear our great conversation on Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese's final collaboration (to date), BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, with film writer and literal rock star Soraya Sebghati! We're talking Cage, we're talkin…

1999 is one of the great movie years - perhaps because Paul Schrader's FOREVER MINE only technically premiered that year, and didn't see release until 2002 (on Starz, to boot). But is this long-gestating tale of torrid passion the Sirkian romance Schrader claims, or more of a nasty noir pastiche? Is it neither of those things, and instead a very co…

"AFFLIC" - the Aflac duck if he was talking about this movie! For real, though, a lot of the characters in this film could have used some insurance based on many of the events that take place in Paul Schrader's 1997 Russell Banks adaptation AFFLICTION. Returning to the show to help us discuss this snowbound story of alcoholism and abuse is writer a…

Paul Schrader. Elmore Leonard. Tom Arnold. Dave Grohl. It's like the freaking Traveling Wilburys had a baby! Four babies, I guess. Anyway what I'm saying is Schrader's 1997 faith healer comedy TOUCH involved a weird bunch of people. Luckily we have the great Jane Altoids joining us to sort it all out! We're talking stigmata, daytime TV, self-parody…

Access this entire 100 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/176-danpilled-109048208 Fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua returns to the show to continue our Danpilled series, this t…

Now I've heard of a Major Motion Picture...but a Mayor Motion Picture??? Now I'm being carted off to a hospital for having typed that!! Nah, just kidding. We're talking about one of those today: Harold Becker's 1996 not-John-Grisham city politics thriller CITY HALL, on which Paul Schrader was one of four credited writers! Your favorite Pauld Casty …

The Milwaukee-based film critic and programmer Chris Cassingham joins the show this week to discuss the great director George Stevens and his 1953 masterpiece Shane, starring Alan Ladd and Jack Palance, about a mysterious gunfighter who finds work with a homestead family in the open range of lawless Wyoming and is drawn into the community’s conflic…

"Boy, I sure wish there was a sequel to the 1991 HBO Original Movie CAST A DEADLY SPELL, only more of a reboot than a sequel, and with Dennis Hopper taking over the role of detective H. Phillip Lovecraft from Fred Ward, and I hope it's mostly a fumbled metaphor for McCarthyism," you're probably saying to yourself all the time. Well, you will not be…

Access this entire 86 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/174-costners-108247008 The film writer Corey Atad returns for a show about the return of Kevin Costner to the dir…

Wake up, listeners! Should be easy if you're anything like the protagonist of Paul Schrader's 1992 film LIGHT SLEEPER, which we're talking all about today with writer/editor/poster extraordinaire Jake Tropila! Join us for a great conversation about Schrader's "mid-life movie," addictive behavior, actually humanizing the drug trade, 90s New Age stuf…

Sami Gold, an undergraduate political science student at George Washington University and contributor to Liberal Currents joins me from New York City to discuss some key texts of reactionary right-wing cinema from the post-Civil Rights era and the beginning of America’s involvement in Vietnam and the election of Richard Nixon, what we could call co…

No, you haven't fallen asleep in a Venice alleyway - it's really the podcast! Today we're wandering La Serenissima and monologuing about our fathers as we discuss Paul Schrader's dreamy 1990 literary adaptation THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS with filmmakers and To The White Sea cohosts Jordan Fish and Ray Tintori! And yes, we do figure out which of us is…

Access this entire 93 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/172-american-v-o-107059565 In the second half of our discussion about the 2016 FX miniseries American Crime Story…

Surprise, listeners! Jake went to a Clint-related estate sale recently and we had to tell you all about it ASAP. Ian's hearing all of this for the first time on mic, too. We'll post all the photos over on our Patreon feed, unlocked for everybody. Enjoy! https://www.podcastyforme.com/ Follow Pod Casty For Me: https://twitter.com/podcastyforme https:…

With the recent death of O.J. Simpson and this month’s 30th anniversary of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the writer and content strategist Karen Geier returns for a look at the other great O.J. tv epic of 2016, Ryan Murphy’s 10 part series American Crime Story: The People v. O. J. Simpson: On part one of our discussion we dis…

"I want him to stop. I can't take the pain. The voices and the pain." No, those aren't the words of our listeners - they're the words of Jesus Christ as written by Paul Schrader! Understand your confusion, though. Today we're genuflecting before Martin Scorsese's highly controversial 1988 film THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, adapted by Schrader from…

Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the podcast! Just playing, nobody preys upon us. But we're back in Symbionese Liberation Army territory this week to talk Paul Schrader's 1988 biopic PATTY HEARST! Join us for a spirited conversation about Natasha Richardson, Ving Rhames, the movie's angle on leftism, ideological and physical …

The film writer David Jamell Moses joins the show for a discussion about a great nineties film that has been flying under the radar for too long, Boaz Yakin’s debut feature Fresh (1994) starring Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson and a 13-year-old actor named Sean Nelson making his film debut, in one of the greatest screen acting performances by…

This is an unlocked bonus episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me. Here's some hidden gold for ya: the damned Pod Casty For Me Patreon feed! No, for real. Let's be for real now. Today we're finishing up the Man With No Name trilogy with the final and best film of the lot, Sergio Leone's 1966 Civil War Western epic THE GOOD, THE BAD AND TH…

1..2..3..4! Pretty rock and roll way to start an episode description, I thought. This week we're absolutely shredding (guitar term) through a discussion of Paul Schrader's understandably underseen 1987 struggling rock band sibling melodrama film, LIGHT OF DAY, and joining us are our great pals Ryan and Este from the Altmania podcast! We talk mom st…

Hop on the launch, folks, we're heading to THE MOSQUITO COAST! Peter Weir's 1986 film scripted by Paul Schrader, that is. Join us for a conversation about the unfinished capitalist critique of prepper guys, the problems with Going Back To Nature, and how we are much smarter and better than Allie Fox generally because we have done more reading. Well…

Access this entire 105 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/169-cannons-with-105061266 The film writer Jessica Ritchey returns for a show about Cannon Films, and the aggre…

It's the MISHIMA episode. It's also the Mishima episode, in a way. We do our best to discuss both Paul Schrader's 1985 art-biopic MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS and the man Yukio Mishima with our returning pal Comrade Yui, who has been on a real journey with this film. As you might expect, things get pretty weighty: the nature and purpose of art,…

It's been so long...just kidding, it's been a week! That's the normal time between episodes. Nevertheless, we're back with Paul Schrader's first film he "didn't" write himself, the 1982 erotic horror remake CAT PEOPLE, and we're thrilled to be joined by film writer and genuine English person Esmé Holden! We talk Schrader's depiction(s) of women, re…

Elana Levin from Graphic Policy Radio returns to the show for a deep dive into the second wave of Ska music, a brief but influential era when black and white UK musicians fused Jamaican dance music of the sixties into punk and new wave music of the seventies to create a sound that would further revolutionize American popular music in the nineties. …

THIS is entertainment, folks! We're taking a swing at Martin Scorsese's masterful 1980 boxing biopic RAGING BULL (from a script by Paul Schrader) with film critic and Heavyweight Champion of the Podcast, Bilge Ebiri!!! Join us for a wonderful conversation about Scorsese's wild years, ROCKY, memory, the word "doggerel," and more. Plus, Bilge tells u…

Pick out your shirt and tie, listener! We're talking Paul Schrader's 1980 stylish crime film AMERICAN GIGOLO this week, and we've called up film critic Brandon Streussnig to help us do it! Production design, fashion history, Bresson, several Giorgios - we get into it. Jake put on cologne for this one as a bit. See if you can hear the smell! Further…

Hey listener, it's been a while. How have you been? Do you ever think about me? Just kidding it's a new episode on Joan Tewkesbury's sole feature film, OLD BOYFRIENDS, written by Paul and Leonard Schrader! Who better to join us on this exploration of women's experience in New Hollywood than writer, Online Film Culture Titan and the inventor of #AYe…

Access this entire 87 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows every month) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/167-civil-war-102981212 The comedy writer Ursula Lawrence (Drunk History, Adam Ruins Everything) returns to the show from Madison…

"Oh my Pod, cast's my daughter!" - something Jake Van Dorn might say if he were alive today...to hear our episode on Paul Schrader's sophomore feature as director, the 1979 Calvinist-dad-goes-to-Pornville film HARDCORE! Joining us on our journey into smut-hell is writer, actress, and filmmaker Manuela Lazić! We get into Dad Stuff, Schrader's aesthe…

The writer Sean T. Collins joins the pod from Long Island for a deep dive into the original 1989 Road House and the 2024 remake now streaming on Amazon Prime. Sean’s book Pain Don’t Hurt offered daily meditations on specific elements of Road House for an entire year, and we discuss the many virtues of this eighties classic about Dalton, the second-…

Get your disguise on, listener! We got a big boy this week: Paul Schrader's directorial debut, the 1978 auto workers union heist film BLUE COLLAR! The fellas are going long on this one, talking UAW history, race and organized labor, Richard Pryor's performance, Harvey Keitel trying very hard to quit the movie, Yaphet Kotto's lifetime of UFO encount…

Get your hand out of that garbage disposal and press play, listener! We're doing our best to do an episode on John Flynn's 1977 vetsploitation nasty ROLLING THUNDER, but mostly we end up talking about Paul Schrader's mucked-with script. It's a fascinating study in how a story can go from TAXI DRIVER damning to DEATH WITH reactionary with just a few…

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. The founder of Fun City Editions, Jonathan Hertzberg, joins the podcast from New York City to discuss the boutique video label and their latest blu-ray release, 1983’s Deep in the Heart, aka Handgun, directed by Ken Loach’s longtime English producer Tony Garnett. Deep in the Heart, a brutal port…

Access this entire 89 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows every month) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/164-ghostbusters-101387544 The writer and friend of the pod Adam Jackson returns for a show about the Ghostbusters series, which …

Pucker up, listeners - Daddy's here! That's right: accomplished Brian De Palmist and official Daddy of the show, Hit Factory co-host Aaron Casias, is back to help us unpack De Palma's Schrader-scripted 1976 VERTIGO riff OBSESSION! We kind of did a one-episode De Palma podcast, honestly, because there's a bit more BDP here than Paul Schrader. Join u…

The writer Corey Atad joins me from Phuket, Thailand for a sequel to our Junk Filter episode about Bane that turned into a discussion about Tenet, and we return to the topic because of the recent cultural reconsideration of Christopher Nolan’s 2020 time-bending thriller, which was released during the pandemic and has taken some time to find an audi…

Access this entire 99 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows every month) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/162-zone-of-with-100893723 The writer James Slaymaker, author of Time is Luck: The Cinema of Michael Mann, returns to the pod fro…

We're back with the second part of our discussion of Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER. Join us for more on the film's engagement with race and gender, Jodie Foster's performance, Travis Bickle's cinematic children, and the John Hinckley, Jr. of it all. Further Reading: Taxi Driver: BFI Film Classics by Amy Taubin "Manhattan Transference: Ashley Clark …

The author Jacob Bacharach returns for a sequel to our Junk Filter episode about Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, with a look at his long-awaited Dune: Part Two. Villeneuve said in interviews that he thought of Frank Herbert’s novel as an allegory for the French Canadians under the thumb of the authoritarian government of Maurice Duplessis that used the Ca…