Junk Filter

The film writer Meg Shields returns to the podcast from Vancouver for a show to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Tobe Hooper's schlock sci-fi horror masterpiece, Lifeforce.Cannon Films' big swing for the fences, Lifeforce had an astronomical budget for the time, with huge practical sets, hundreds of extras and innovative special effects from the great John Dykstra including massive miniature work and cutting-edge optical effects, all in the service of a bonkers tribute to Hammer horror. The runaway production was a cocaine-and-Dr Pepper-fueled vision of naked space vampires hiding in Halley's Comet (led by the beautiful Mathilda May) who arrive on Earth and unleash havoc on the city of London.We discuss 1955's The Quatermass Xperiment and 1967's Quatermass and The Pit, huge influences on John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper, before diving into the madness of Lifeforce, rejected by audiences in 1985 and setting off the eventual collapse of Cannon Films. We also compare the two cuts of the movie (as the American distributor Tri-Star changed the title from Space Vampires and shortened their version by 10 minutes against the director's will) and how this crazy movie has stood the test of time to become a cult favourite.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/junkfilterFollow Meg Shields on Bluesky.Trailer for The Quatermass Xperiment aka The Creeping Unknown (Val Guest, 1955)Trailer for Quatermass and the Pit (Roy Ward Baker, 1967)Teaser trailer for Lifeforce (Tobe Hooper, 1985)Full trailer for Lifeforce“Cannon Fodder: The Making of Lifeforce” documentary (Calum Waddell, 2013)Billy Idol - Dancing with Myself music video, directed by Tobe Hooper (1981)

The film writers Brian Abrams and Will Sloan return to the podcast for a salute to one of our favourite screen presences, the great American character actor Joe Don Baker, who passed away this month at the age of 89. We discuss the full arc of Joe Don's career, thrust into leading man status in the early seventies playing Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser who waged war against the Dixie Mob in 1973's populist smash hit Walking Tall, and the less financially successful followup with the same director (Phil Karlson), the brutal, sweaty noir thriller Framed, to the role that (like it or not) defined him for so many in the culture as a scuzzy cop in 1975's Mitchell (immortalized on one of the funniest episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000) to his comeback in the eighties in the masterful BBC miniseries Edge of Darkness (where he received the most acclaim he ever got as an actor), his several appearances in the Bond series (where he played both a good guy and a bad guy), and his notable supporting role in Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear. 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/junkfilterFollow Brian Abrams on Twitter and Letterboxd.Brian and Liz Charboneau have a new film podcast: It Gets Better.Follow Will Sloan on Twitter and Bluesky and subscribe to his substack and his podcasts The Important Cinema Club and Michael and Us.Will's new book Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA (OR Books) can be purchased now! “RIP JDB”, from Will's substack, May 19, 2025Trailer gallery:Walking Tall (Phil Karlson, 1973)Golden Needles (Robert Clouse, 1974)Mitchell (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1975)Checkered Flag or Crash (Alan Gibson, 1977)Joysticks (Greydon Clark, 1983)German trailer for Getting Even (Dwight H. Little, 1986)

Access this entire 90-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/212-accountant-2-128936873The comedy writer Ursula Lawrence returns to the podcast from Madison Wisconsin for a sequel to our Junk Filter episode about Ben Affleck's ludicrous 2016 thriller The Accountant. Coming along almost 9 years after the original, Gavin O'Connor's The Accountant 2 chronicles the continuing adventures of Christian Wolff, the autistic number-cruncher slash hitman who is brought in to solve the murder of retired Financial Crimes detective J.K. Simmons and crack a human trafficking ring with the help of his estranged assassin brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) and his silent partner Justine who runs a secret school of autistic hacker children who can break into any computer system to help him solve the case.Whereas the first film was so serious in tone it lapsed into unintentional comedy, the sequel doubles down not only on the laughs (and convoluted plotting) but also on the controversial portrayal of autism as a superpower to create an equally loopy thriller / hangout film that forges the way to this becoming a regular franchise, and stands as a necessary cultural corrective to Robert F. Kennedy Jr's ongoing real-life demonization of people with autism. In fact we hope RFK Jr. is the villain in The Accountant 3!Plus: a discussion of the Oscar-winning short film The Accountant (2001) starring a pre-fame Walton Goggins, and a deluge of bad puns from the reviews of The Accountant 2!Follow Ursula Lawrence on Twitter and Bluesky and you can purchase the latest edition of her French Republican Wall Calendar here!Trailer #2 for The Accountant 2 (Gavin O'Connor, 2025)

CW: This episode contains discussions of alcoholism and cinematic violence including animal cruelty.The writer, comedian and musician Patrick Marlborough returns to the podcast from Perth, WA to discuss Wake in Fright (1971), the landmark Australian film by the late Canadian director Ted Kotcheff. One of only two films to be shown twice in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, and influential in shaping both the Australian New Wave and Ozploitation genres, Wake in Fright was acclaimed around the world but outraged local audiences with its brutal and merciless depiction of Australian toxic masculinity, violence, and alcoholism.Patrick gives us some insight on how Wake in Fright captures some of the ugliest aspects of the Australian national character, and we discuss how Kotcheff's Canadian-ness was an asset for his outsider's view of this world, the amazing supporting performance by Aussie comic screen icon Chips Rafferty in his final role, and how this great film was nearly lost forever. 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/junkfilterFollow Patrick Marlborough on Bluesky, and subscribe to their wonderful Substack The Yeah Nah Review.Trailer for the new restoration of Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971)Original US trailer for Wake in Fright (aka Outback)"The Making of Wake in Fright", Peter Galvin's extensive 3-part feature on the production, for SBS “Wake in Fright understood the horrors of Australian booze culture. 50 years on, nothing's changed” by Joseph Earp, for The Guardian, April 9, 2025“Andor in the Genocide” by Patrick Marlborough, for the literary journal Overland, April 30, 2025

The writer and podcaster Will Sloan returns for a show about Robert De Niro's latest film, Barry Levinson's The Alto Knights, where he plays two parts on screen, the mob boss Frank Costello and his hotheaded rival Vito Genovese, and their decades-long struggle for control of the New York mafia.The Alto Knights was the pet project of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who brought this expensive vanity production to the screen seemingly as a personal favour to the veteran screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, a film made by elderly creatives that flopped hard at the box office on release. So why this project? And why is Robert De Niro playing both lead parts? This is what Will and I wanted to know, and so we discuss the failures of The Alto Knights along with a look at De Niro's public persona as one of Trump's biggest haters and how he can still deliver as a great actor from time to time, depending on the director. 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/junkfilterFollow Will Sloan on Twitter and Bluesky and subscribe to his wonderful podcasts The Important Cinema Club and Michael and Us.Will's new book Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA (OR Books) can be purchased now! Trailer for The Alto Knights (Barry Levinson, 2025)

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/209-beekeeper-126797811The writer and friend of the pod Adam Jackson returns for a look at the new dynamic duo of American action cinema, Jason Statham and director David Ayer, who are on a roll these days at the multiplex.2024's The Beekeeper was a solid hit, a ludicrous conceit milked for every drop of its potential, starring Statham as a retired secret military operative who goes back to the life when a friend is exploited by a shady phishing operation, and as he moves up the pyramid taking revenge it turns out this criminal enterprise goes all the way up to the heights of state power.  The followup, A Working Man (co-written by Sylvester Stallone!) finds Statham as Levon Cade, a former British soldier now working in construction in Chicago, who is asked to rescue the daughter of his employer from a sex trafficking ring run by the Russian Mafia. We discuss this unique writer/director partnership, a lightning round of some of our favourite Jason Statham movies, and the many highlights from both The Beekeeper and A Working Man, action films that know what they are, deliver the goods and correctly identify the worst people in today's society (scam artists, crypto bros, white South African psychos and guys with Jared Leto beards). Follow Adam Jackson on Twitter and Bluesky. Follow Junk Filter on Bluesky too!Trailer for The Beekeeper (David Ayer, 2024)Trailer for A Working Man (David Ayer, 2025)

To mark the passing of the great Gene Hackman, the writer and critic Sean T. Collins and the cartoonist and graphic novelist Julia Gfrörer are my special guests for a deep dive into one of our favourite films, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974).The Conversation was groundbreaking in terms of film editing; when Coppola was pulled away to direct The Godfather Part II, editor Walter Murch had to streamline a narrative out of an incomplete film shoot and synthesized new approaches to picture editing and sound design which he credited to studying Hackman's precise performance as the surveillance expert Harry Caul, a lonely middle-aged man whose Catholic guilt and past sins begins to weigh on his conscience as he obsesses over his latest spycraft job, plagued with worry over the fate of the young couple he's recorded and what the tape will be used for by his sinister corporate client. We discuss the autobiographical details Coppola lent to the characterization and Jungian psychoanalysis that can be applied to the content, some of our favourite moments, and how the themes of The Conversation continue to resonate with audiences over half a century later. Follow Sean T. Collins and Julia Gfrörer on Bluesky. And support Sean and Julia's work on Patreon!Julia Gfrörer's newest collection of fiction World Within the World: Collected Minicomix & Short Works 2010-2022 (Fantagraphics) is now available. ‘I'm Not Afraid of Death': How Gene Hackman's Dream in The Conversation Mirrors Our Dark Moment, by Sean T. Collins, for Decider, February 27, 2025“The Making of The Conversation: An Interview with Francis Ford Coppola” by Brian De Palma, from Filmmakers Newsletter, 1974, reproduced by Cinephilia & Beyond Trailer for The Conversation (Coppola, 1974)

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/207-john-ford-124925337The writer and film programmer Chris Cassingham returns to the podcast from Milwaukee to discuss one of John Ford's greatest films, 1955's The Long Gray Line, Ford's only film shot in the CinemaScope format.Starring Tyrone Power in one of his final films before his unexpected death at age 44, The Long Gray Line tells the true story of Marty Maher, a young Irish immigrant who arrived to the West Point military academy in the late 1800s and lived and worked there for 50 years, moving up from the kitchen to become a non-commissioned officer and athletic instructor and a beloved figure to generations of cadets. The film spans this half-century and the narrative evolves from a wacky comedy to a stark and tragic tale of loss, as Maher and his wife Mary (Maureen O'Hara) continue to age as the continuum of young cadets come and go, some to die in combat through the two World Wars. We talk about Ford's innovations in the use of the then-new technology of CinemaScope, with his camera favouring the Z-axis (the depth of the widescreen image) to visually depict the theme of the film, life's vanishing points, with a protagonist who slowly realizes the lack of control he has over his own life, a film certainly influential on Scorsese's The Irishman, with Ford offering at once a tribute to West Point and a questioning of the futility of Maher's task, a lifetime spent training young men to die for their country. Follow Chris Cassingham on Twitter and Bluesky and subscribe to his new substack Dark Optimism.The Long Gray Line is currently available to watch for free (with ads) and in CinemaScope on YouTube and Tubi. Trailer for The Long Gray Line (John Ford, 1955)

CW: Spoilers for Conclave.The author Jacob Bacharach returns to the pod for a show about Edward Berger's entertaining political thriller Conclave starring Ralph Fiennes as a conflicted Cardinal who is required to preside over the selection of the new Pope, and amidst the infighting among the Cardinals, uncovers a shocking conspiracy within the halls of power in Vatican City. To discuss the reaction to Conclave from some offended Catholics means we have to spoil the big twist, but despite this movie being practically a commercial for the virtues of The Holy See and the future of the church, many have been outraged by the film's “liberal agenda” and its interpretation of Catholic dogma and we review some of the apoplectic highlights, from Megyn Kelly to Catholic film critics. We also discuss some of Our Boys in this: John Lithgow's ambitions to be the first Canadian Pontiff, and the two Italian men who would be Pope, Sergio Castellitto's racist, vaping Cardinal and the American liberal Stanley Tucci.We also discuss a completely forgotten all-star religious epic that is vaguely relevant to Conclave, 1972's Pope Joan, starring Liv Ullmann as a pious ninth-century woman who disguises herself as a man to save her life, moves up the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and is elected Pope, a medieval legend the film presents as fact. 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/junkfilterFollow Jacob Bacharach on Twitter and Bluesky and visit jacobbacharach.comTrailer #1 for Conclave (Edward Berger, 2024)Pope Joan can be found on the Russian social network / streaming service Odnoklassniki.SCTV sketch “The Man Who Would be King of the Popes”, 1977

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/205-woman-in-2-123622191In part two of our discussion about Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Jessica and I discuss Jane Campion's 2003 “erotic thriller” In the Cut, savaged by critics on release for its graphic portrayal of a woman's complex sexual desires in a dangerous New York City, also based on a best-selling novel. It's possible that In the Cut is Campion's response to Mr. Goodbar, only directly from a woman's perspective, and we talk about the sexist cruelty Meg Ryan was subjected to in the press for playing this role, and what Campion has to say about a woman's sexuality amidst the violence of the patriarchy, and its implication of the NYPD as part of the problem, especially bold for a movie made in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.We also discuss a fun TV movie that acts as a bridge between Mr. Goodbar and In the Cut, 1982's Hotline, starring Lynda Carter as a young woman working at a crisis call center who finds herself playing a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer, in a film that continually threatens to tip over into a TVM Giallo. Follow Jessica Ritchey on Bluesky, and support her work on Patreon.Hotline (Jerry Jameson, 1982) is available to watch for free on YouTube. Trailer for In the Cut (Jane Campion, 2003)

CW: This episode contains spoilers and discussions of cinematic sexual violence. The film writer Jessica Ritchey returns to the show for a two-part series about two controversial films about a woman's complex sexuality, films that took a couple of decades to be rediscovered and better understood.In part one we discuss Richard Brooks' 1977 drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar starring Diane Keaton, based on the popular seventies bestseller by Judith Rossner, based on the true story of a New York City schoolteacher who was murdered by a man she picked up at a singles bar. Mr. Goodbar was a major hit for Paramount upon release, but a few weeks later it was overshadowed by another Paramount release with an even bigger cultural impact and hit soundtrack, Saturday Night Fever. Mr. Goodbar has been hard to see properly for decades due to its reputation as a misogynist, depressing film and the extremely expensive licensing costs for its disco soundtrack, until the end of 2024 when Vinegar Syndrome unexpectedly released a limited-edition restoration. Jessica and I dig into the thorny and complex issues this film presents about a woman's sexuality, partly due to Richard Brooks' determination to tell a more empathetic story than the more punishing tone of Rossner's novel (she was angered by the adaptation). Brooks may not have been the ideal person to make this film being two generations removed from the subject but nevertheless his film contains an interesting and useful critique of the patriarchy, using his understanding of New Hollywood techniques. Jessica and I also discuss the film's use of music, Diane Keaton's tremendous performance as Theresa Dunn, the depiction of all the terrible men in her life, and our responses to the shocking conclusion of the film. Part two of this discussion is exclusive to the Patreon feed: more about Mr. Goodbar, contrasted against a controversial 2003 film that could be seen as a feminist response to it, Jane Campion's In the Cut, and a 1982 TV movie about a woman in danger that echoes some of these themes, Hotline starring Lynda Carter. 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/junkfilterFollow Jessica Ritchey on Bluesky, and support her work on Patreon.The limited edition Vinegar Syndrome release of Looking for Mr. Goodbar can be purchased here.“Goodnight Theresa”, a YouTube playlist Jessica and I cooked up of disco songs that came out too late to be included on the Goodbar soundtrack but would have fit right in.Trailer for Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Richard Brooks, 1977)

Gus Lanzetta returns to the podcast from São Paulo to discuss two films by the Brazilian director Walter Salles: 1998's Central Station, starring Fernanda Montenegro, and his latest, Ainda Estou Aqui (I'm Still Here) starring Montenegro's daughter Fernanda Torres, both Academy Award-nominated for their respective performances.In Central Station Fernanda Montenegro gave one of the greatest screen performances of the 20th Century as Dora, a retired schoolteacher running a scam writing letters for illiterate people at Rio's train station who winds up rescuing an orphaned boy and transporting him to the far reaches of the country to try and reunite him with his long-lost father, in a film that reaches an overwhelming emotional power.Fernanda Torres received universal acclaim in Salles' latest film as Eunice Palva, the wife of a former leftist congressman in Rio before the coup d'état. When he is disappeared by the secret police and she is also interrogated for weeks by the state, their happy domestic life is shattered and Eunice devotes the rest of her life to social justice work and getting the state to finally admit what they did to her husband, refusing to give in to the fear, in a film that Torres has described as a “national therapy session” for a country that would wish to ignore this period in their history.Gus and I talk about these two acting dynamos, the Tropicalia movement, Burt Lancaster, Bugs Bunny, MF DOOM, crying at the movies, and our hopes that Brazil finally wins the first Oscar for their cinema. Is it coming home?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/junkfilterFollow Gus Lanzetta on Bluesky.Listen to Gus' podcast project that is relevant to the topic of the Brazilian dictatorship, Um Espião Silenciado (A Silenced Spy, in Portuguese)“Fernanda Torres Has Already Won” by Seth Abramovitch, for The Hollywood Reporter, February 15, 2025French trailer for Central Station (Walter Salles, 1998)Brazilian trailer for Ainda Estou Aqui (Walter Salles, 2024)International trailer for I'm Still Here (Walter Salles, 2024)“Minha Gente” (My People), Erasmo Carlos, 1972

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/junkfilterFollow 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)

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-122785625James 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)

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.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/junkfilterJunk 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

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)

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.

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. 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 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)

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

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. 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 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

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

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. 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 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

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. Aaron and Carlee from the Hit Factory podcast return from San Francisco to discuss one of Anthony Mann's best films, the psychological western Man of the West, starring Gary Cooper in one of his final performances as a former outlaw who has worked to get away from his sordid past and rebuild his life, only to find himself by circumstance back in league with the very “family” of killers who raised him, in a classic film noir scenario transposed to the Western genre. Jean-Luc Godard hailed Man of the West as the best film of 1958 and in this episode we discuss the psycho-sexual complexities of this western and how it pointed the way to the future of American cinema including the horror genre, how like Michael Mann's Manhunter it implicates the audience by depicting an “audience” within the movie forced to watch sexually-charged violence unfold, and the modernity of the performances by Lee J. Cobb as the crazed paterfamilias of the killers and the singer Julie London as the “saloon singer” held hostage by the gang. We also discuss what this film has to say about violence as the substance that forged Western expansion and which, as we've seen in the wake of Donald Trump's re-election, still courses through the American bloodstream today. 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 Aaron and Carlee on Twitter, and support the Hit Factory Patreon. Julie London's title theme for Man of the West, un-used in the film itself Trailer for Man of the West (Anthony Mann, 1958)

Access this entire 50-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/191-manhunter-2-117666207 James Majure and I continue our discussion of Michael Mann's Manhunter, first by exploring Mann's career-long interest in the 1975 non-fiction book The Home Invaders, a strange mid-series episode of Miami Vice that serves as a tv version of Manhunter with Sonny Crockett going inside the mind of a bizarre cat burglar, and how Dino DeLaurentiis churned out Hannibal material in the wake of success of The Silence of the Lambs (which he didn't produce) including an inferior Brett Rather version of Red Dragon (shot by the same cinematographer) with an all-star cast and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, which makes one appreciate Mann's artistic achievement with Manhunter even more. The Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar by Frank Hohimer (1975), a key text for the cinema of Michael Mann which has inspired many works including the forthcoming Heat 2, is available to read on Internet Archive. 1986 TV spot for Manhunter, 1986 Commercial for the network premiere of Manhunter on NBC, 1989 Trailer for Red Dragon (Brett Rather, 2002)

James Majure returns to the pod from Athens, GA for a two-part episode on Michael Mann's Manhunter, a box office and critical disappointment in 1986 that has emerged over the decades into being extremely influential not only on Mann's future works but on film and television in general, from genre conventions to forensic procedurals on TV. In part 1, we discuss the various cuts of Manhunter in existence, the source material, Thomas Harris' bestselling novel Red Dragon, Mann's tremendous empathy towards all the characters in his adaptation, the ways Manhunter's themes keeps turning up in Mann's later works, and how the Miami Vice series seems to have been a test kitchen for a lot of Mann's preoccupations as a film stylist.  Plus: a Michael Mann update with the surprise arrival of The Keep to Bluray and the 25th anniversary of The Insider. Part 2 of our discussion about Manhunter, including the Brett Ratner remake Red Dragon and a mid-series episode of Miami Vice that feels a lot like Manhunter, is available on the Junk Filter Patreon feed.  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 "There Was Courage at Disney In How We Approached It": Michael Mann Reflects on The Insider 25 Years Later, by Tamera Jones & Steven Weintraub, in Collider, December 6, 2024 Trailer for Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986) Original music video for The Prime Movers 'Strong As I Am' from the Manhunter soundtrack, directed by Dante Spinotti

The author Jacob Bacharach returns for a show about Ridley Scott's latest, the big-budget sequel to his Oscar-winning Gladiator. Set 16 years later, Paul Mescal plays Lucius, the secret son of Russell Crowe's Maximus, who seeks revenge against Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) the Roman general who conquered his home and enslaved him. He is sent into gladiator combat in the Colosseum by the scheming arms dealer Macrinus (Denzel Washington) a former slave who plans to use Lucius to seize power from Rome's tyrannical twin emperors. Jacob and I discuss The Ridler's latest epic, which means to top the original in terms of sheer spectacle (including queer-coded villains, baboon and rhino gladiator battles and a crazy naval battle set in a flooded Colosseum filled with sharks), and yet can't quite get out from under the shadow of the original, despite a fantastic supporting turn by the always dependable Denzel. 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 Jacob Bacharach on Twitter and Bluesky and visit jacobbacharach.com Trailer #2 for Gladiator II (Ridley Scott, 2024)

Access this entire 94-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/188-teri-garr-21-116729215 The writer and content strategist Karen Geier returns for a show to mark the passing of the great Teri Garr, a gifted and influential comic actress and pop cultural icon who worked with everyone from Elvis Presley, Cher and Jack Nicholson to Spielberg, Scorsese and Coppola. We discuss a cross-section of highlights from her body of work, from her 9 appearances as a background dancer in Elvis movies, to tv and commercials in the seventies, to her breakout role in Young Frankenstein, her Oscar-nominated performance in Tootsie, some of her lesser-known but interesting parts and her legendary status as David Letterman's favourite talk show guest, which cemented everyone's love for her. But we also discuss how brutally honest and aware she was about showbiz sexism and how it helped (and hurt) her career. Many of the Teri Garr performances we discuss are available to watch on YouTube or Dailymotion including all of her Letterman guest appearances and her 1986 comedy miniseries with Carol Burnett and Charles Grodin, Fresno. Follow Karen Geier on Twitter. Random Roles: Teri Garr, by Sean O'Neal for The AV Club, July 22, 2008 Teri Garr in the amateur short film Where's the Bus? by John Harris, 1964 (shot in b&w anamorphic 16mm)

The film writer Corey Atad and I went on opening day to see the new Clint Eastwood courtroom drama Juror #2, which is getting an extremely limited release in North America even though Warner Bros. gave it a full rollout in the UK, France and Spain. Why is David Zaslav doing Clint, still working at age 94, one of the icons of American cinema and of Warner Bros., so dirty? Before seeing Clint's latest, Corey embarked on a journey into the last decade of Eastwood's work for his Substack, so we touch on these films and where Juror #2 fits in with the preoccupations of Clint in his Late Style period, a series of films that examine what takes to be a hero, the concepts of right and wrong, the challenges of modern American life, and the people trying to do their best within failing systems, in this case a struggling justice system not designed to handle people operating out of self-interest. In our discussion we don't give away any spoilers for Juror #2 that aren't in the trailer. Go see this movie! 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 Corey Atad on Twitter and visit coreyatad.com Corey's reviews of all the Late Style Clint movies discussed in this episode are on his Substack - here's his review of Juror #2. “The Mystery Behind Clint Eastwood's Juror #2 Release Is Solved” by Pamela McClintock, for THR, Nov 4, 2024 “Halftime in America” - Clint's 2012 Super Bowl ad for Chrysler, directed by David Gordon Green Trailer for Sully (Clint Eastwood, 2016) Trailer for Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, 2024)

Access this entire 48-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/186-apprentice-2-115230237 On part two of our discussion about The Apprentice, Sami Gold and I discuss the 2024 election and have a more specific conversation about the role of Trump in modern political life and how he's changed both political parties, and our concerns about the outcome of the 2024 election. Sami also brings us a report from the “Make America Healthy Again” rally in Washington DC with Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson. Follow Sami Gold on Twitter and subscribe to his Substack, Shmulik's Takes. “There's No Check on Trump Except Reality”: A Q&A With Wayne Barrett, by Alex Shephard and Theodore Ross, for The New Republic, December 1, 2016

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. Sami Gold, undergraduate political science student at George Washington University and contributor to Liberal Currents, returns to the podcast for a two-part deep dive into the controversial new Donald Trump origin story The Apprentice, which was released weeks before the 2024 election despite half-hearted attempts from the Trump campaign to block the film.  Featuring Sebastian Stan as young Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as his notorious mentor, the political fixer Roy Cohn, The Apprentice exceeded our low expectations. Part one of our discussion is about the film itself: the challenges of depicting Trump cinematically, an evaluation of how Toronto does standing in for Manhattan in the seventies and eighties, and the mixed reaction to the film from within Trump's inner circle.  Part two of our discussion, on Trumpism in general and the upcoming election, is available on the Patreon feed.  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 Sami Gold on Twitter and subscribe to his Substack, Shmulik's Takes “Don't Mess With Roy Cohn” by Ken Auletta, for Esquire, December 1978 “How Gotham Gave Us Trump”, by Michael Kruse, for Politico, July/August 2017 “The Apprentice at Cannes: Location Manager Richard Hughes on the Whirlwind Of 50 Locations In 30 Days”, from the Directors Guild of Ontario's “The Wider Lens”, May 21, 2024 International trailer for The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, 2024)

The author and film critic Adam Nayman returns to Junk Filter to discuss the new Jason Reitman race-against-time comedy thriller Saturday Night about the backstage antics leading up to the first episode of SNL in 1975, a feature film that serves an an ode to its producer Lorne Michaels while trying to spin tension and suspense out of a foregone conclusion.  Reitman is back in Oscar Bait mode after having some success with the new Ghostbusters films, but this one, like many of his recent award season efforts, failed to connect with audiences. Adam and I discuss the film's shortcomings, which real life characters it chooses to venerate and which it chooses to attack or demean, and how Reitman, in his supposed recreation of a comedy revolution, actually values the establishment of an institution.  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 Adam Nayman on Twitter.  Saturday Night Live Deserved Better Than Saturday Night, by Adam Nayman for The New Republic, September 30, 2024 Trailer #1 for Saturday Night (Jason Reitman, 2024)

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/183-curse-of-meg-114731524 The film writer Meg Shields returns from Vancouver for a spooky season show about one of her favourites, the 1961 Hammer Films gothic horror The Curse of the Werewolf, the first starring role for the great Oliver Reed. Based loosely on Guy Endore's novel The Werewolf of Paris, Hammer's only werewolf movie is a unique take on the usual lycanthropic fare, positing it as a spiritual curse tied to a person's environment rather than something you catch from a werewolf bite. Set in Spain, the film follows Reed as a young man who gets a job at a wine vineyard… cursed to transform into a werewolf when the moon is full. His only hope for a normal life depends on the love of a good Catholic woman. Complications ensue. Despite its controversial violence and memorable werewolf transformation effects, the film was initially unsuccessful but has since garnered a cult following and is now considered one of Hammer's best. Reed's tragic performance, mirroring his future troubled life, adds depth to this dark tale. Plus: some great quotes from Oliver's 1979 autobiography “Reed All About Me” and Meg's takes on some of the other Horror FX movies now streaming on Criterion Channel, along with The Curse of the Werewolf.  Follow Meg Shields on Twitter. Trailer for The Curse of the Werewolf (Terence Fisher, 1961)

The author Jacob Bacharach returns to continue this podcast's look at Megalopolis. On this episode we compare Coppola's latest to another overheated epic about a visionary architect, King Vidor's ludicrous 1949 adaptation of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Coppola has acknowledged the film version of The Fountainhead as a key influence on Megalopolis, but what Jacob and I value about these two films is how they each rebuke the reactionary source material: Vidor does it through hyperbole while Coppola rejects Rand's philosophy outright in his parable about America as a near-future Roman Empire. And both films are intensely personal projects with Vidor pointing the way towards the future of cinematic language (no doubt inspiring Paul Verhoeven and the Coen Brothers) and Coppola emptying out his bag of tricks to finally finish a deranged project he spent half his life hoping to make. And Jacob and I contrast the ways we each saw Megalopolis: from a packed out IMAX cinema in Toronto with a live-streamed Coppola q&a and the full “immersive” presentation to being the only people in a suburban cinema in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was the best time we each had in a movie theatre in eons. 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 Jacob Bacharach on Twitter and visit jacobbacharach.com “Ayn Rand Made Me a Communist”, by Jacob Bacharach for the New Republic, January 27, 2016 Trailer for The Fountainhead (King Vidor, 1949) Second trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis (that got pulled by Lionsgate)

CW: this episode contains spoilers for Joker 2 and discussions of cinematic sexual violence. The film writer Jessica Ritchey returns to the podcast to discuss the Reverse Barbenheimer of 2024: the more or less simultaneous release of two extremely expensive blockbusters, Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis and Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux, two films that, as it turned out, nobody wanted to see. The original Joker was a riff on Scorsese's Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, and the sequel drew inspiration from his earlier musical New York, New York as well as Coppola's One from the Heart, but it was a shock to the studio and to fans of the first film when this unnecessary sequel turned out to be of little interest to general audiences (especially when word got out it was a musical, downplayed in the marketing) and was taken as a slap in the face by a significant section of the fanbase. Megalopolis was not expected to be a hit but got a one-week theatrical release in the IMAX format and flabbergasted those few who saw it on that scale with its ludicrous plot, grandiose posturing and eye-popping visuals. But will this grand cinematic folly be reconsidered in the future as so many previous Coppola films have? We say yes.  We discuss all four of these films, offer a post-mortem on where it all went wrong for Joker 2, and profess our unexpected enthusiasm for Megalopolis and why we think it bizarrely succeeds where these other bloated vanity productions all fail. 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 Jessica Ritchey on Bluesky, and support her work on Patreon. Trailer for New York, New York (Martin Scorsese, 1977)  Trailer for One from the Heart (Francis Ford Coppola, 1982) First trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux (Todd Phillips, 2024) First trailer for Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, 2024) Music video for “My Life”, Billy Joel, 1978

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 new episode of Junk Filter's continuing series on the show. James Majure returns from Athens, Georgia to discuss the bizarre duelling vanity musical projects of stars Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas that appeared as the success of the show culturally peaked. Philip Michael Thomas struck first with a strange solo album for Atlantic Records in 1985, Living the Book of My Life, that came with a famously terrible music video for the single “Just The Way I Planned It”; for some reason PMT promoted this project by reissuing a forgotten anti-drug exploitation film he made in 1978 (co-starring The Gap Band), retitled Death Drug, where he plays a rising musical talent who tries PCP and immediately goes insane, which features ludicrous new sequences shot on a camcorder that make the project even more incoherent. Don Johnson on the other hand had a solo rock album for CBS Records the following year, Heartbeat, with full label support and an all-star cast of collaborators. It spawned a Top 5 hit with the title track and came with an expensive album-length music video project for HBO that feels like a lost Sonny Crockett episode of Miami Vice. We also discuss one of the most bizarre episodes of Vice that has this eighties psychedelic vanity production energy, Season 4's “Missing Hours”, featuring alien abductions, UFOs and (inexplicably) Chris Rock and James Brown. “Miami Vice at 40: You Can't Go Home Again” by Chaim Roth, for Miami New Times, September 24, 2024 Music video for Heartbeat (Don Johnson, 1986) Music video for Just The Way I Planned It (Philip Michael Thomas, 1985)

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's 2023 comedy-drama BlackBerry. BlackBerry is that rare Canadian movie that had a worldwide impact; based loosely on a true story, it chronicles the boom and bust of the tech firm Research in Motion based out of Waterloo Ontario, and their “angel investor” Jim Balsillie who scaled the small company up to a global powerhouse with 20 billion in sales annually with their invention of the BlackBerry smartphone, only to crash out years later when the iPhone changed the marketplace once again. Gus and I talk about the recent boom of movies dramatizing the origin stories of brands and what makes BlackBerry stand out from the rest, what this film has to say about being a Canadian, Glenn Howerton's terrific performance as the hotheaded Balsillie, and how Johnson pushes the limits of copyright law and the Fair Use exception to tell this story with unlicensed clips and logos. And Gus tells us all about life in Brazil now that Elon's latest “jogada de mestre” has led to a mass exodus of Brazilians over to Bluesky and what led up to his idiotic war against the Brazilian Supreme Court that has further jeopardized the company! 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 Gus Lanzetta on Bluesky. Part one of Gus Lanzetta and Antonio Uribe's series The Boku Diaries for American Jank Trailer for BlackBerry (Matt Johnson, 2023) Canadian viral video Man Goes Crazy Rips off Shirt During Street Interview Music video for Tapa no Real, Marcos Valle, 1983

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 For Me join me for a deep dive into Gerard Butler's trilogy of Has Fallen thrillers, which chronicle the life and times of Secret Service agent (and American hero) Mike Banning. We discuss all three entries which span the 2010 decade and fuse meathead action cinema with post 9/11 paranoia and anxieties: Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen, one of the two 2013 thrillers about a terrorist attack on the White House, the ultraviolent sequel London Has Fallen, released in the wake of the real life terror attacks in London and Paris, and the best film in the franchise so far, Angel Has Fallen, where a weary Mike Banning has to take on the deep state and evil military contractors who have framed him for an assassination attempt on peacenik President Morgan Freeman, which leads him to have to team up with his estranged dad Nick Nolte, interrupting his Unabomber lifestyle. Plus: a review of Mike Banning's classified Secret Service dossier (which I found on the internet), and how excited we all are for the return of Butler's other iconic screen hero Big Nick O'Brien in next January's Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. 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. Trailers Olympus Has Fallen (Antoine Fuqua, 2013) London Has Fallen (Babak Najafi, 2016) Angel Has Fallen (Ric Roman Waugh, 2019) Preview of the 2024 Canal+ streaming series Paris Has Fallen (no Butler in it, though he has a producer credit)

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 man who would someday defeat the Soviet Union with facts and logic. There's a lot to unpack with Reagan, filmed in 2020 during the pandemic and only being released now. This film represents how much the Conservative movement has changed in the Trump era and since this film was shot, which leads us into a discussion about how Reagan has been somewhat diminished in the modern Republican Party, and how this political hagiography is somewhat out of step with the times. Why is a film about such a significant historical figure such a low-budget, clumsy affair populated with “stars” like Kevin Sorbo and Robert Davi (as Leonid Brezhnev!) and told from the perspective of defeated Soviet spies, with a new Bob Dylan recording in the end credits? Follow Dave Weigel on Twitter and Bluesky, and subscribe to his twice-weekly newsletter “Americana” on Semafor. Trailer for Reagan (Sean McNamara, 2024)

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 time taking a look at one of the main contributors to their sound, the singer Michael McDonald, who has just released his memoir What a Fool Believes, co-written with Paul Reiser. Through a look at some of our favourite McDonald songs we discuss his long and productive career, from his troubled childhood to his collaborations (musical and otherwise) with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, to the way he applied what he learned from Steely Dan to his leadership of the Doobie Brothers and his influence on singles through the seventies and eighties. Sober since the mid-nineties, he's enjoyed a second wind as an artist and pop culture icon in the 21st century through sampling, guest appearances on the music of contemporary artists and as a central figure of the whole concept of Yacht Rock. Plus: Matthew's thoughts on the Disney era of the X-Men with the release of Deadpool & Wolverine! Follow Matthew Perpetua on Twitter and subscribe to the Fluxblog Substack! The legendary Michael McDonald “Ride like the Wind” SCTV skit The Doobie Brothers performing “What a Fool Believes” live in 1981

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 conflict against a gang of violent cattleranchers who are trying to take over the territory. George Stevens' life was transformed by his service in World War II as part of the military's Special Motion Picture Coverage Unit, bearing witness to D-Day and the liberation of the Nazi death camps, and he returned to Hollywood to become one of the great American dramatic filmmakers with his unofficial fifties trilogy of A Place in the Sun, Giant, and this immortal western that serves both as a classic example of the genre and as a revisionist “psychological western” that questioned heroism, masculinity, the family unit and most importantly, the horror and the toll of gun violence on American life, a work that pushed cinema in the fifties forward towards the modern age, and is cited by some of today's great directors as a key influence. Plus: on the eve of the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, a discussion of what was once billed as Hugh Jackman's final performance as the character in 2017's Logan, a film that pays explicit (and in our opinion unearned) tribute to Shane. 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 Chris Cassingham on Twitter and catch up to Chris' film writing here. Re-release trailer for Shane (George Stevens, 1953)

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 director's chair with the first chapter of his planned four-part theatrical western epic Horizon: An American Saga. Costner resuscitated his career as a leading man thanks to television with Yellowstone and then surprisingly left the series to begin work on Horizon (which may have been a factor in his wife's filing for divorce after he started selling his properties to finance the production). Warner Bros. through its studio New Line Cinema agreed to release the first two instalments, initially scheduled to open within weeks of one another, but when the first chapter tanked at the box office the studio indefinitely postponed the release of Chapter Two. Corey and I went to see the first one (in an empty theatre) and we talk about the film as Costner's personal vision, how it compares to his other films as a director, and how this planned theatrical epic still cannot escape the shadow of television or transcend the history of the genre. Follow Corey Atad on Twitter, visit coreyatad.com and subscribe to Corey's Substack! Teaser trailer for Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One and Two (Costner, 2024)

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 counter-counter revolutionary cinema or Silent Majority cinema. We begin with a discussion of the John Birch Society, a formerly influential wing of the Republican Party whose ideas we can see being indulged now in Donald Trump's control of the GOP, including the JBS's controversial propaganda film Anarchy U.S.A., which argues that the Civil Rights movement is a secret Communist plot to fuel a “Negro-Soviet” takeover of the United States. John Wayne was once a member of the John Birch Society and we discuss his passion project of the late sixties, the controversial pro-Vietnam War film The Green Berets which he co-directed, one of the only studio films about the war made during the war, released in the summer of 1968 in a climate of antiwar protests, assassinations and the rise of Richard Nixon. And we also discuss the 1970 political satire Joe, starring Peter Boyle as a blue collar, racist, anti-hippie right-winger who strikes up a friendship with a conservative member of the executive class who in a moment of rage murders the drug-dealing boyfriend of his junkie hippie daughter, and how their search for her in New York leads to further carnage, with remarkable echoes to modern politics because these two men represent the two main voter blocks that support Trump today.  To support this show directly and to receive access to dozens of exclusive episodes, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠patreon.com/junkfilter Follow Sami Gold on Twitter and subscribe to his Substack, Shmulik's Takes. Sami's article "Chris Rufo and the Great Liberal Threat" for Liberal Currents, Feb 27, 2024 "Barry Goldwater vs. The Swinging '60s: The ‘Choice' Film” by Daniel McCarthy, for the American Conservative, May 20, 2013 The suppressed 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign commercial Choice The John Birch Society propaganda film Anarchy U.S.A. (G. Edward Griffin, 1966), courtesy of the National Film Preservation Foundation Trailer for The Green Berets (John Wayne and Ray Kellogg, 1968) UK trailer for Joe (John G. Avildsen, 1970)

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: The People v. O.J. Simpson, Karen Geier and I dig into more of the great performances including Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden, and Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran, and talk about some of the other highlights of the series, including the possible romance between Clark and Darden the show illustrates, and the episodes about the Bronco chase, the racism of the LAPD and the experiences of the sequestered jury members, and a salute to the other creative forces of the show, producers and showrunners Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, specialists in what they call “anti-biopics”, depicting the lives of people who wouldn't seem worthy of the biopic treatment, with full immersions into these characters and their worlds.  American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson is available for streaming on Hulu in the United States and Disney+ internationally.  Follow Karen Geier on Twitter.

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 discuss the cottage industry of content that surrounded the Simpson trial, and how Murphy rose to the occasion in this series by approaching this story as history, tragedy and camp, infusing soap opera theatrics into the retelling of a true life televised trial that in turn led to the replacement of soap operas with reality television, and how the Kardashian family, through their involvement in the trial, directly benefited from this cultural sea change.  We discuss in detail a few of the fine performances from the ensemble cast, including from some unexpected turns: Connie Britton as Faye Resnick, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey and Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J., and we dig into one of the best episodes, the one that centers on Marcia Clark and the one episode that deviates from the source material, Jeffrey Toobin's The Run of His Life, and dramatizes moments from Marcia Clark's 1997 memoir Without a Doubt, focusing on the intense sexism she faced while trying to prosecute this case.  Part two of this discussion, on more of the great performances and some of our favourite moments in the series, is available on the Patreon feed. To support this show directly and to receive access to Part two of this discussion and dozens of exclusive episodes, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at patreon.com/junkfilter Follow Karen Geier on Twitter. American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson is available for streaming on Hulu in the United States and Disney+ internationally. 

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 a child. Nelson plays Michael (aka Fresh), a quiet 12-year-old boy who runs drugs for rival gangsters in New York City, including one kingpin who has addicted his sister to heroin and considers young Fresh to be his heir apparent. When Fresh witnesses an act of horrifying gun violence, he takes inspiration from his estranged alcoholic father, a speed-chess master, and applies the principles of the game of chess to carry out a complex strategy to eliminate the gangsters and save himself and his sister from their fates. Fresh isn't as well-remembered as other urban crime dramas of the 1990s  but David and I love it, and on this episode we go deep on the film's many virtues; some may be surprised to learn this film was made by a white director but Yakin hardly takes a wrong or phony step to tell this Black story, which functions as a thriller and a tragedy, with magnificent performances and a devastating conclusion. Plus: how to properly pronounce the name “Giancarlo Esposito”! Become a patron of the podcast to access to exclusive episodes every month. Over 30% of Junk Filter episodes are exclusively available to patrons. To support this show directly for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) please subscribe at  ⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter Follow David Jamell Moses on Twitter, and check out his writing over at his blog Departures. Here's David's appreciation thread for Fresh on Twitter that inspired this episode Trailer for Fresh (Boaz Yakin, 1994)

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 aggressive attempt by “The Go-Go Boys” Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus to bring legitimacy to their schlock studio by financing projects designed to win them awards and prestige. Despite the critical success of some of these offerings, and some high-profile wins and nominations, none of these films were financially successful thanks to Cannon's hapless marketing strategies and their bad reputation within the film industry (including staggering money losses, a shareholder revolt and an SEC investigation into their accounting practices). Cannon would file for bankruptcy by the end of the eighties. We discuss 5 of these prestige projects: the dark journalism thriller Street Smart (which Cannon financed for Christopher Reeve in exchange for starring in Superman IV and the film that put Morgan Freeman on the map), Andrei Konchalovsky's masterful Runaway Train (the best film the studio ever made) and his followup, the American gothic drama Shy People (an award winner at Cannes which vanished without a trace), Nicolas Roeg's Castaway (the film Oliver Reed was promoting the night he almost beat up David Letterman), and Barbet Schroeder's black comedy about alcoholism Barfly with Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. Street Smart, Runaway Train and Shy People are currently available to stream on Tubi. Follow Jessica Ritchey on Bluesky, and support her work on Patreon. Trailers Street Smart (Jerry Schatzberg, 1987) Runaway Train (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985) Shy People (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1987) Castaway (Nicolas Roeg, 1986) Barfly (Barbet Schroeder, 1987)

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. The modern ska genre gets made fun of a lot (mozzarella sticks, anyone?) but Elana will have you know that ska music is not a joke. In an 18-month period, 2 Tone Records, an indie label founded by the keyboardist from The Specials, Jerry Dammers, took over the UK pop charts with major distribution support from Chrysalis Records. In the wake of the election of Margaret Thatcher and the rise of white nationalists taking advantage of national economic malaise, a musical rebuke of these trends came from bands in the town of Coventry, offering alternative visions of racial harmony and anti-fascist songs you could dance to. The 1981 concert documentary Dance Craze, recently restored, captures the 2 Tone bands performing in their prime. We discuss the evolution of ska, pay tribute to some of the top groups of the Second Wave Ska era including The Selecter, Madness, Bad Manners and The Specials and bid farewell to their lead singer the late great Terry Hall, whose passing last year inspired this episode. Become a patron of the podcast to access to exclusive episodes every month. Over 30% of Junk Filter episodes are exclusively available to patrons. To support this show directly for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) please subscribe at  ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter Follow Elana Levin on Twitter and check out their podcasts Graphic Policy Radio and Deep Space Dive! Elana's “2nd Wave Ska” Spotify playlist  BBC Arena segment from 1980 on 2 Tone Records and the new ska scene coming out of Coventry. Madness-inspired Colgate advert from the UK, 1982 Re-release trailer for Dance Craze (Joe Massot, 1981) The Selecter - On My Radio, from BBC's Top of the Pops, 1979 The Beat - Stand Down Margaret, from ITV's O.T.T., 1982 The Specials music videos Gangsters (1979) Ghost Town (1981) Free Nelson Mandela (1984)

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, Wisconsin to discuss A24's first foray into blockbuster filmmaking, Alex Garland's Civil War, set in a near-future America torn into factions, as seen from the perspective of an intrepid team of reporters travelling to Washington D.C. to get an interview with the totalitarian President on the verge of being violently deposed by the “Western Forces” of Texas and California. Garland has described the work as an anti-war film where the particulars of the conflict are mere backdrop to a general story of combat journalists, but Ursula and I discuss Civil War's politics anyway, what the film is and what it isn't, and kick the tires on its stated tone of ‘impartiality' which seems more like faux-neutrality (with a Trumpian president and references to ‘the Portland Maoists' that cater to the audiences' already-existing biases). Plus: an on-the-ground report from Ursula about seeing Civil War in a theatre in Madison that serves food and drinks! Follow Ursula Lawrence on Twitter. Trailer #1 for Civil War (Alex Garland, 2024)

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-greatest bouncer in the world (Patrick Swayze) who is hired by the owner of a violent honkytonk bar in Jasper, Missouri to clean up the place, raising the ire of the local crimelord Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara) who rules Jasper with an iron fist and an amazing crew of henchmen. Sean has given this movie a great deal of thought over the years and we discuss the ludicrous plot, spectacular performances and classic one-liners. And we also compare the OG Road House to the new remake with a pumped-up Jake Gyllenhaal as Dalton and UFC fighter Conor McGregor in his screen acting debut as the main henchman, with the action transposed to the Florida Keys. The remake wisely does not try to recreate the original so much as to modernize it, resulting in a film that's honestly not as bad as fans of the original feared it would be. Become a patron of the podcast to access to exclusive episodes every month. Over 30% of Junk Filter episodes are exclusively available to patrons. To support this show directly for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) please subscribe at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter Sean's writing can be found at seantcollins.com and you can also support his work on Patreon. Sean's book Pain Don't Hurt: Meditations on Road House is available from Mutual Skies publishing. All Fucked Up: Erotic Tales from the Road House Expanded Universe - the fanfic zine by Julia Gfrörer, Sean T. Collins and Gretchen Felker-Martin, available on Julia's Etsy store. Trailer for Road House (Rowdy Harrington, 1989) Trailer for Road House (Doug Liman, 2024)

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 portrayal of American gun culture as seen from an outsider's perspective, stars the undersung actress Karen Young in her screen debut as a Boston schoolteacher working in Dallas who is groomed and then sexually assaulted by a well-liked local attorney and antique gun collector. She gets nowhere trying to get the police and the church to support her quest for justice, but gets all the help she needs from the local gun club, and transformed by the culture and her experience, plans her revenge. The film was bought by Warner Bros. not to release the film properly, but to keep it from interfering with the commercial prospects of their upcoming Clint Eastwood release with a similar theme, Sudden Impact. Deep in the Heart is the kind of film this label specializes in: films that have for various reasons been forgotten in the modern age but deserve to be restored, reissued and rediscovered. Jonathan gives us insight into the process and the challenges of locating and reviving these catalogue titles, and how Deep in the Heart still speaks to contemporary American concerns over 40 years later. Become a patron of the podcast to access to exclusive episodes every month. Over 30% of Junk Filter episodes are exclusively available to patrons. To support this show directly for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) please subscribe at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter Follow Fun City Editions on Twitter. You can order Fun City Editions' new release of Deep in the Heart through their website. Trailer for Deep in the Heart aka Handgun (Tony Garnett, 1983) Fun City Editions trailer for Seeing Red: 3 French Vigilante Thrillers Trailer for Strangers Kiss (Matthew Chapman, 1983), restored version coming soon from FCE

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 celebrates its 40th anniversary this year with the latest installment, Ghostbusters V. We discuss the entire saga; from Ivan Reitman's classic original, the Real Ghostbusters cartoon that refined the series as entertainment for kids, the disappointing 1989 sequel, the 2016 all-female reboot that became a flashpoint for culture warriors online, and the recent legacy sequels guided by Jason Reitman, which have recast this saga as some form of modern American myth about a family legacy instead of just being high-concept comedies about New York schlubs who become entrepreneurs (aka the winning formula for success) We praise the Bobby Brown theme for Ghostbusters II, commend Dan Aykroyd for his fully-committed performance in the latest film (a stark contrast to Bill Murray's clear disinterest in his continuing involvement), and dig into how these new films meant for “the true fans” of the series continually get wrong what the actual legacy of these films is, as Columbia Pictures continues to struggle to make a real cinematic universe out of this IP, forever hoping lightning will strike twice. Plus: why isn't Muncher in the new one? Follow Adam Jackson on Twitter. Ghostbusters promotional film shown at the ShoWest convention for the cinema exhibition industry, 1984 Clip from the 1985 Academy Awards - nominee for Best Original Song, Ray Parker Jr.'s ‘Ghostbusters' Music video for Bobby Brown's ‘On Our Own' from the Ghostbusters II soundtrack, 1989