Podcasts about Projection booth

Kenji Tanigaki is anything but furious when he discusses his latest film, The Furious (2025). The film stars Xie Miao and Joe Taslim as two men united by a common enemy - child trafficking. The movie combines pathos with some breath-taking fight scenes in a film reminiscent of The Raid, Taken, and John Wick. Check local listings for where The Furious is playing near you.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike welcomes Andrew Nette and Jedidiah Ayres back to dissect Dark of the Sun (1968), a brutal, kinetic men‑on‑a‑mission film whose pulp thrills sit atop a surprisingly rich political and historical foundation. The trio digs into the movie's Cold War backdrop, its depiction of the Congo Crisis, and the real mercenaries who inspired characters like Curry and the sadistic Henlein — from “Mad” Mike Hoare to Siegfried “Congo” Müller, whose Iron Cross‑wearing exploits echo through the film. They explore Jack Cardiff's muscular direction, the film's obsession with logistics, its uneasy colonial gaze, and how Rod Taylor and Jim Brown anchor a story that veers from heist film to war movie to moral reckoning. Chainsaws, trains, diamonds, and geopolitics collide in one of the wildest action films of the 1960s.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with re-recording mixer Duncan McRae and sound designer/supervising sound editor Jeffrey A. Pitts about their work on They Will Kill You (2026), the action-comedy horror film directed by Russian filmmaker Kirill Sokolov. Co-written by Sokolov and Alex Litvak, the film stars Zazie Beetz as an ex-convict who answers an ad for a housekeeping job at a mysterious New York City high-rise, only to discover the building has a long history of disappearances. Sokolov stages brutal combat sequences in wide angles with largely unbroken takes before introducing a supernatural element that raises the stakes further.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with re-recording mixer Duncan McRae and sound designer/supervising sound editor Jeffrey A. Pitts about their work on They Will Kill You (2026), the action-comedy horror film directed by Russian filmmaker Kirill Sokolov. Co-written by Sokolov and Alex Litvak, the film stars Zazie Beetz as an ex-convict who answers an ad for a housekeeping job at a mysterious New York City high-rise, only to discover the building has a long history of disappearances. Sokolov stages brutal combat sequences in wide angles with largely unbroken takes before introducing a supernatural element that raises the stakes further.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

In 1968, Romanian filmmaker Lucian Pintilie completed his second film, Reconstituirea — known in English as Reconstruction or The Reenactment — and, within a month of its 1970 release, it vanished. Not banned outright, but buried: withdrawn, never televised, never revived for nearly two decades. By the time Romanian audiences could see it freely in 1990, it had acquired near-mythological status. A 2008 critics' poll ranked it the greatest Romanian film ever made.The premise is deceptively simple: two young men, Vuică and Ripu, get drunk at their graduation party, brawl with a bartender, and are offered a deal — reenact the fight for an educational film about the dangers of alcohol and walk free. What follows is a sustained, darkly comic, and finally devastating examination of what happens when institutional power turns a camera on the people it controls.Mike talks with Spencer Parsons and Andrei Idu about Pintilie's deliberate subversion and why this film  became the foundation for the entire Romanian New Wave. Guest interview Radu Toderici -- whose essay about the film will be featured as part of the upcoming book ReFocus: The Films of Lucian Pintilie.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

In 1968, Romanian filmmaker Lucian Pintilie completed his second film, Reconstituirea — known in English as Reconstruction or The Reenactment — and, within a month of its 1970 release, it vanished. Not banned outright, but buried: withdrawn, never televised, never revived for nearly two decades. By the time Romanian audiences could see it freely in 1990, it had acquired near-mythological status. A 2008 critics' poll ranked it the greatest Romanian film ever made.The premise is deceptively simple: two young men, Vuică and Ripu, get drunk at their graduation party, brawl with a bartender, and are offered a deal — reenact the fight for an educational film about the dangers of alcohol and walk free. What follows is a sustained, darkly comic, and finally devastating examination of what happens when institutional power turns a camera on the people it controls.Mike talks with Spencer Parsons and Andrei Idu about Pintilie's deliberate subversion and why this film  became the foundation for the entire Romanian New Wave. Guest interview Radu Toderici -- whose essay about the film will be featured as part of the upcoming book ReFocus: The Films of Lucian Pintilie.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with filmmaker Kimi Takesue, whose work — spanning documentary, fiction, and experimental forms — is now collected on the Criterion Channel. Takesue grew up shuttling between Honolulu and Massachusetts, and that cross-cultural, biracial upbringing informs every frame she has made, from early shorts rooted in identity politics to acclaimed features documenting cross-cultural encounters in Uganda, Laos, and Hawaiʻi.Her films, including Where Are You Taking Me?, 95 and 6 to Go, and Onlookers, examine those encounters through an observational lens, tracing the power dynamics and unspoken tensions that emerge when tourists and locals share the same unequal terrain. Takesue discusses her practice of traveling without research or agenda, letting one thing unfold into the next, and how a devastating failed fiction project directly led to the making of Where Are You Taking Me? She also talks about the rhythm and formalism of Onlookers, the tension between aestheticizing beauty and critiquing the tourist gaze, the influences she only fully embraced later in her career, and her current work-in-progress following tour guides at Cambodian atrocity sites.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with filmmaker Kimi Takesue, whose work — spanning documentary, fiction, and experimental forms — is now collected on the Criterion Channel. Takesue grew up shuttling between Honolulu and Massachusetts, and that cross-cultural, biracial upbringing informs every frame she has made, from early shorts rooted in identity politics to acclaimed features documenting cross-cultural encounters in Uganda, Laos, and Hawaiʻi.Her films, including Where Are You Taking Me?, 95 and 6 to Go, and Onlookers, examine those encounters through an observational lens, tracing the power dynamics and unspoken tensions that emerge when tourists and locals share the same unequal terrain. Takesue discusses her practice of traveling without research or agenda, letting one thing unfold into the next, and how a devastating failed fiction project directly led to the making of Where Are You Taking Me? She also talks about the rhythm and formalism of Onlookers, the tension between aestheticizing beauty and critiquing the tourist gaze, the influences she only fully embraced later in her career, and her current work-in-progress following tour guides at Cambodian atrocity sites.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Orson Welles spent thirty-five years trying to put Sir John Falstaff on screen. Chimes at Midnight (1966) is the result: a film drawn from five Shakespeare plays — primarily the two Henry IV parts, with passages from Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor — that lifts Falstaff from comic supporting player to tragic protagonist. Welles plays the knight himself, a lumbering, larger-than-life tavern dweller and unlikely father figure to Prince Hal (Keith Baxter), heir to the guilt-haunted Henry IV (John Gielgud). When Hal must choose between loyalty to Falstaff and the demands of the crown, the film becomes what Welles called a lament "for the death of Merrie England." Dismissed by critics on its 1966 Cannes premiere and barely distributed in the United States, the film spent decades trapped in rights disputes — finally reaching audiences properly through the Janus Films/Criterion restoration in 2016.Mike talks with Spencer Parsons and David MacGregor about the film's three-decade gestation across stage and screen, the filmmaking ingenuity behind its legendary Battle of Shrewsbury sequence, the autobiographical dimensions of Welles's performance, and why Chimes at Midnight now stands for many critics as the greatest Shakespeare film ever made.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Orson Welles spent thirty-five years trying to put Sir John Falstaff on screen. Chimes at Midnight (1966) is the result: a film drawn from five Shakespeare plays — primarily the two Henry IV parts, with passages from Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor — that lifts Falstaff from comic supporting player to tragic protagonist. Welles plays the knight himself, a lumbering, larger-than-life tavern dweller and unlikely father figure to Prince Hal (Keith Baxter), heir to the guilt-haunted Henry IV (John Gielgud). When Hal must choose between loyalty to Falstaff and the demands of the crown, the film becomes what Welles called a lament "for the death of Merrie England." Dismissed by critics on its 1966 Cannes premiere and barely distributed in the United States, the film spent decades trapped in rights disputes — finally reaching audiences properly through the Janus Films/Criterion restoration in 2016.Mike talks with Spencer Parsons and David MacGregor about the film's three-decade gestation across stage and screen, the filmmaking ingenuity behind its legendary Battle of Shrewsbury sequence, the autobiographical dimensions of Welles's performance, and why Chimes at Midnight now stands for many critics as the greatest Shakespeare film ever made.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

In 2025, New Jersey's favorite hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength returned — twice. Writer/director Macon Blair's big-budget reimagining, The Toxic Avenger (2023), finally received a wide theatrical release in August 2025. Peter Dinklage voices Winston, a terminally ill janitor at a corrupt pharmaceutical company who falls into a vat of toxic chemicals and emerges as Toxie — a mop-wielding mutant vigilante. Kevin Bacon stars as the company's scheming CEO and Elijah Wood as his security-minded brother, in a film that wraps its splatter comedy around themes of healthcare, corporate greed, and unlikely heroism.Also in 2025, Troma's own Andrew L. Miller and Adam Peltier reconstructed The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989) and Part III (1989) into the single film they were always meant to be. Titled Mr. Melvin, the 127-minute cut restores the narrative logic Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz originally intended  — following Toxie's post-heroic depression, a manipulated journey to Japan, and a Faustian deal with Apocalypse Inc. that turns him into a corporate sellout before the ultimate confrontation with the Devil himself.Mike talks with Rob St. Mary about both films, and the episode includes interviews with Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman and Mr. Melvin co-producer and co-editor Andrew L. Miller.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

In 2025, New Jersey's favorite hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength returned — twice. Writer/director Macon Blair's big-budget reimagining, The Toxic Avenger (2023), finally received a wide theatrical release in August 2025. Peter Dinklage voices Winston, a terminally ill janitor at a corrupt pharmaceutical company who falls into a vat of toxic chemicals and emerges as Toxie — a mop-wielding mutant vigilante. Kevin Bacon stars as the company's scheming CEO and Elijah Wood as his security-minded brother, in a film that wraps its splatter comedy around themes of healthcare, corporate greed, and unlikely heroism.Also in 2025, Troma's own Andrew L. Miller and Adam Peltier reconstructed The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989) and Part III (1989) into the single film they were always meant to be. Titled Mr. Melvin, the 127-minute cut restores the narrative logic Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz originally intended  — following Toxie's post-heroic depression, a manipulated journey to Japan, and a Faustian deal with Apocalypse Inc. that turns him into a corporate sellout before the ultimate confrontation with the Devil himself.Mike talks with Rob St. Mary about both films, and the episode includes interviews with Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman and Mr. Melvin co-producer and co-editor Andrew L. Miller.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

From indie narratives to deeply personal documentaries, filmmaker Mye Hoang has built a career around stories about identity, community, and unexpected connections. On this episode of *The Projection Booth*, Mike sits down with Hoang to trace her creative journey—from her early work to her breakout documentary Cat Daddies—before diving into her latest film, 25 Cats from Qatar.The new documentary follows an extraordinary rescue effort as a network of volunteers races to save stray cats living on the streets of Doha, where the feline population has spiraled into crisis. What begins as an uplifting animal rescue story quickly reveals larger issues involving migration, class, labor, and global responsibility. Hoang discusses balancing advocacy with storytelling, capturing high-stakes rescue missions on camera, and why the film resonates far beyond cat lovers.The conversation also highlights the film's screening at the Arab American Film Festival at Cinema Detroit, where audiences can catch the film and a post-screening discussion with Hoang and subject Katy McHugh. It'll be sure to be lively conversation about documentary filmmaking, compassion, and the surprising ways a film about 25 cats can say a lot about the world we live in.  Find out more at https://www.25catsfromqatar.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

From indie narratives to deeply personal documentaries, filmmaker Mye Hoang has built a career around stories about identity, community, and unexpected connections. On this episode of *The Projection Booth*, Mike sits down with Hoang to trace her creative journey—from her early work to her breakout documentary Cat Daddies—before diving into her latest film, 25 Cats from Qatar.The new documentary follows an extraordinary rescue effort as a network of volunteers races to save stray cats living on the streets of Doha, where the feline population has spiraled into crisis. What begins as an uplifting animal rescue story quickly reveals larger issues involving migration, class, labor, and global responsibility. Hoang discusses balancing advocacy with storytelling, capturing high-stakes rescue missions on camera, and why the film resonates far beyond cat lovers.The conversation also highlights the film's screening at the Arab American Film Festival at Cinema Detroit, where audiences can catch the film and a post-screening discussion with Hoang and subject Katy McHugh. It'll be sure to be lively conversation about documentary filmmaking, compassion, and the surprising ways a film about 25 cats can say a lot about the world we live in.  Find out more at https://www.25catsfromqatar.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with Simon Glassman, the writer-director of the 2025 Canadian horror-comedy Buffet Infinity, a feature debut that premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival to instant cult acclaim.Buffet Infinity takes place in the fictional Alberta town of Westridge County, where an all-you-can-eat restaurant chain arrives alongside a mysterious sinkhole and begins swallowing the local community whole — literally and figuratively. The film is constructed almost entirely from mock television commercials and news bulletins, building its cosmic horror narrative through the grammar of low-budget local advertising. Follow https://www.instagram.com/buffetinfinitymovie/ for more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with Simon Glassman, the writer-director of the 2025 Canadian horror-comedy Buffet Infinity, a feature debut that premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival to instant cult acclaim.Buffet Infinity takes place in the fictional Alberta town of Westridge County, where an all-you-can-eat restaurant chain arrives alongside a mysterious sinkhole and begins swallowing the local community whole — literally and figuratively. The film is constructed almost entirely from mock television commercials and news bulletins, building its cosmic horror narrative through the grammar of low-budget local advertising. Follow https://www.instagram.com/buffetinfinitymovie/ for more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Comedy Month wraps up as Mike talks with Rob St. Mary and Heather Drain about Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered (2001) and Producer Lauren Lloyd joins Mike for an interview about working on the film that was almost universally trashed on release. Green wrote, directed, and stars as Gord Brody, an aspiring cartoonist who heads to Hollywood to sell his drawings as an animated series. After a catastrophic pitch meeting, Gord retreats to live with his parents—long-suffering father Jim (Rip Torn), mother Julie (Julie Hagerty), and younger brother Freddy (Eddie Kaye Thomas). Also along for the ride: Marisa Coughlan as Betty, a wheelchair-using rocket scientist. Closer in spirit to Dadaist provocation than anything else at the multiplex in 2001. Mike, Rob, and Heather dig into Green's career, the film's reception, deleted material from the trailer and behind-the-scenes footage, and the question of what Freddy Got Fingered is actually trying to do.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Comedy Month wraps up as Mike talks with Rob St. Mary and Heather Drain about Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered (2001) and Producer Lauren Lloyd joins Mike for an interview about working on the film that was almost universally trashed on release. Green wrote, directed, and stars as Gord Brody, an aspiring cartoonist who heads to Hollywood to sell his drawings as an animated series. After a catastrophic pitch meeting, Gord retreats to live with his parents—long-suffering father Jim (Rip Torn), mother Julie (Julie Hagerty), and younger brother Freddy (Eddie Kaye Thomas). Also along for the ride: Marisa Coughlan as Betty, a wheelchair-using rocket scientist. Closer in spirit to Dadaist provocation than anything else at the multiplex in 2001. Mike, Rob, and Heather dig into Green's career, the film's reception, deleted material from the trailer and behind-the-scenes footage, and the question of what Freddy Got Fingered is actually trying to do.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with editors Martin Biehn and Kevin Hibbard about their work on Drift (2026), directed by Deon Taylor.Isaac "Drift" Wright is an Army veteran and self-taught photographer whose trauma finds an outlet in illegal high-rise climbing — scaling some of the world's tallest structures to capture images from vantage points no permit would allow. The film documents his pursuit of art and healing while tracking an escalating confrontation with law enforcement that puts his freedom at risk. It premiered at South by Southwest in 2026.Follow Wright on his Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/driftershoots/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with editors Martin Biehn and Kevin Hibbard about their work on Drift (2026), directed by Deon Taylor.Isaac "Drift" Wright is an Army veteran and self-taught photographer whose trauma finds an outlet in illegal high-rise climbing — scaling some of the world's tallest structures to capture images from vantage points no permit would allow. The film documents his pursuit of art and healing while tracking an escalating confrontation with law enforcement that puts his freedom at risk. It premiered at South by Southwest in 2026.Follow Wright on his Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/driftershoots/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Identity fractures and reality starts to slip in this deep dive into The Infinite Husk. Mike sits down with the film's writer-director-composer-etc., Aaron Silverstein, to unpack a mind-bending indie that blurs memory, selfhood, and the fragile boundaries of perception. The conversation cuts straight to process—how the film's layered structure took shape, the challenges of sustaining ambiguity without losing emotional grounding, and the visual language that turns disorientation into design. Expect talk of influences, production hurdles, and the tightrope walk between narrative coherence and existential drift.Find out more at https://www.theinfinitehuskmovie.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Identity fractures and reality starts to slip in this deep dive into The Infinite Husk. Mike sits down with the film's writer-director-composer-etc., Aaron Silverstein, to unpack a mind-bending indie that blurs memory, selfhood, and the fragile boundaries of perception. The conversation cuts straight to process—how the film's layered structure took shape, the challenges of sustaining ambiguity without losing emotional grounding, and the visual language that turns disorientation into design. Expect talk of influences, production hurdles, and the tightrope walk between narrative coherence and existential drift.Find out more at https://www.theinfinitehuskmovie.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

What's the perfect alibi? Being at the doctor's office while your dogs do the dirty work. Mike White and Chris Stachiw sink their teeth into Season Seven's "How to Dial a Murder," a 1978 episode that features one of the most ingeniously gruesome murder methods in the entire Columbo canon. Nicol Williamson commands the screen as Dr. Eric Mason, a behavioral psychologist with iron self-control, a house full of movie memorabilia, and two very well-trained Dobermans named Laurel and Hardy. When he discovers that his late wife had been having an affair with his best friend Dr. Charles Hunter (Joel Fabiani), Mason devises a kill that's equal parts Pavlov and Orson Welles: dial home, ask a question about Citizen Kane, and let the dogs handle the rest.  There's also the small matter of Columbo's complicated feelings about the dogs — and whether they deserve what the legal system has in store for them.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Todd Solondz's disowned debut finally gets its day in court. Fear, Anxiety & Depression (1989) follows Ira Ellis, a bespectacled, self-deluding playwright adrift in the last gasp of the East Village art scene — too busy pining after a performance artist named Junk to notice the woman who actually loves him.Mike Sullivan and David Rodgers join Mike to dig into the film Solondz famously begged a friend not to rent, examining what makes it both a fascinating time capsule of downtown New York bohemia and an unmistakable preview of the tragicomic sensibility that would eventually produce Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse. They also make the case for why this orphaned debut — unavailable on any legitimate platform since its 1990 VHS release — deserves a proper restoration and re-release.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Paul Gallico's 1970 novel Matilda told of a male boxing kangaroo who becomes an unlikely heavyweight contender, upending the worlds of sports promotion and organized crime. Producer Albert S. Ruddy, fresh from his Oscar-winning triumph with The Godfather, acquired the rights and brought the story to the screen in 1978, co-writing with Timothy Galfas. The resulting G-rated family comedy stars Elliott Gould as Bernie Bonnelli, a small-time talent agent who discovers the boxing kangaroo and sees his ticket out of obscurity. Clive Revill plays Billy Baker, Matilda's devoted owner and former British boxer, while Robert Mitchum turns up as Duke Parkhurst, a manipulative sportswriter, and Harry Guardino heads the mob contingent scheming to control the outcome of Matilda's fights. The kangaroo himself was portrayed by Gary Morgan in a Rick Baker $30,000 suit.Mike talks with co-hosts Cullen Gallagher and Mike Sullivan about the film, then brings in interviews with actors Gary Morgan and Elliott Gould along with two posthumously-released interviews with producer Albert S. Ruddy and screenwriter Timothy Galfas, Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Paul Gallico's 1970 novel Matilda told of a male boxing kangaroo who becomes an unlikely heavyweight contender, upending the worlds of sports promotion and organized crime. Producer Albert S. Ruddy, fresh from his Oscar-winning triumph with The Godfather, acquired the rights and brought the story to the screen in 1978, co-writing with Timothy Galfas. The resulting G-rated family comedy stars Elliott Gould as Bernie Bonnelli, a small-time talent agent who discovers the boxing kangaroo and sees his ticket out of obscurity. Clive Revill plays Billy Baker, Matilda's devoted owner and former British boxer, while Robert Mitchum turns up as Duke Parkhurst, a manipulative sportswriter, and Harry Guardino heads the mob contingent scheming to control the outcome of Matilda's fights. The kangaroo himself was portrayed by Gary Morgan in a Rick Baker $30,000 suit.Mike talks with co-hosts Cullen Gallagher and Mike Sullivan about the film, then brings in interviews with actors Gary Morgan and Elliott Gould along with two posthumously-released interviews with producer Albert S. Ruddy and screenwriter Timothy Galfas, Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with director Marcie Hume about making Corey Feldman vs. the World, the ethics of documentary filmmaking, and what it means to capture a subject in freefall.Hume has said the film was never intended as a hit piece, and the documentary bears that out. It presents testimony from Feldman, the Angels, his then-wife Courtney Anne Mitchell, and fans who attended the shows, letting events speak for themselves. What emerges is a portrait of a deeply damaged person caught in cycles he can't seem to break — part tour film, part cautionary tale, and part document of Hollywood's long history of failing the children it exploits.Learn more at https://www.coreyfilm.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with director Marcie Hume about making Corey Feldman vs. the World, the ethics of documentary filmmaking, and what it means to capture a subject in freefall.Hume has said the film was never intended as a hit piece, and the documentary bears that out. It presents testimony from Feldman, the Angels, his then-wife Courtney Anne Mitchell, and fans who attended the shows, letting events speak for themselves. What emerges is a portrait of a deeply damaged person caught in cycles he can't seem to break — part tour film, part cautionary tale, and part document of Hollywood's long history of failing the children it exploits.Learn more at https://www.coreyfilm.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

When a bank robbery goes sideways, two strangers find themselves bound together on the road — Billie (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), whose desperation brought her to the bank in the first place, and Franny (Grace Van Dien), a pregnant teenager with nothing left to lose. What begins as a hostage situation slowly reshapes into something stranger and more human: an unlikely alliance, an argument across the American heartland, and the gradual discovery that these two women need each other more than either is willing to admit.Silver Star reunites French filmmakers Ruben Amar and Lola Bessis behind the camera for the first time since Swim Little Fish Swim, their debut feature that broke through at SXSW in 2013. The film had its world premiere at the 2024 Deauville American Film Festival and went on to screen at Les Arcs, Denver, Glasgow, and the Love International Film Festival in Mons, where it won Best Screenplay. Indican Pictures acquired North American rights and released the film theatrically on January 30, 2026.Mike talks with stars Grace Van Dien and Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson about bringing Silver Star to life.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

When a bank robbery goes sideways, two strangers find themselves bound together on the road — Billie (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), whose desperation brought her to the bank in the first place, and Franny (Grace Van Dien), a pregnant teenager with nothing left to lose. What begins as a hostage situation slowly reshapes into something stranger and more human: an unlikely alliance, an argument across the American heartland, and the gradual discovery that these two women need each other more than either is willing to admit.Silver Star reunites French filmmakers Ruben Amar and Lola Bessis behind the camera for the first time since Swim Little Fish Swim, their debut feature that broke through at SXSW in 2013. The film had its world premiere at the 2024 Deauville American Film Festival and went on to screen at Les Arcs, Denver, Glasgow, and the Love International Film Festival in Mons, where it won Best Screenplay. Indican Pictures acquired North American rights and released the film theatrically on January 30, 2026.Mike talks with stars Grace Van Dien and Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson about bringing Silver Star to life.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

John Singleton was twenty-three when he wrote Boyz N the Hood and twenty-four when it made him the first Black filmmaker and youngest person ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. Released in 1991, the film drew from Singleton's own upbringing in South Central Los Angeles to deliver an unflinching portrait of Black life there, launched the careers of Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and Nia Long, and established Singleton as one of the most important voices in American cinema. Over the next three decades he directed Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Shaft, and Four Brothers, and served as a producer on Hustle & Flow and the FX series Snowfall, which was still in production when he died of a stroke in 2019 at age fifty-one.The Life of Singleton: From Boyz N the Hood to Snowfall by journalist Thomas Golianopoulos draws on nearly 400 original interviews to document Singleton's full arc — his years as a driven film student at USC, his rapid ascent in Hollywood, his complicated personal life, and his final years. Published by Andscape Books in 2025, the biography traces how Singleton's commitment to putting authentic Black stories on screen shaped an industry and inspired generations of filmmakers. Mike talks with Golianopoulos about his four years reporting the book and the life of Hollywood's first self-proclaimed hip-hop director.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

John Singleton was twenty-three when he wrote Boyz N the Hood and twenty-four when it made him the first Black filmmaker and youngest person ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. Released in 1991, the film drew from Singleton's own upbringing in South Central Los Angeles to deliver an unflinching portrait of Black life there, launched the careers of Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and Nia Long, and established Singleton as one of the most important voices in American cinema. Over the next three decades he directed Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Shaft, and Four Brothers, and served as a producer on Hustle & Flow and the FX series Snowfall, which was still in production when he died of a stroke in 2019 at age fifty-one.The Life of Singleton: From Boyz N the Hood to Snowfall by journalist Thomas Golianopoulos draws on nearly 400 original interviews to document Singleton's full arc — his years as a driven film student at USC, his rapid ascent in Hollywood, his complicated personal life, and his final years. Published by Andscape Books in 2025, the biography traces how Singleton's commitment to putting authentic Black stories on screen shaped an industry and inspired generations of filmmakers. Mike talks with Golianopoulos about his four years reporting the book and the life of Hollywood's first self-proclaimed hip-hop director.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Comedy Month continues as Mike talks with co-hosts Keith Gordon and Heidi Honeycutt about Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).Chicago, 1929. Musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are barely scraping by when they stumble onto the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, witnessing Spats Colombo and his mob gun down a rival gang. With the killers on their tail, the two desperate musicians disguise themselves as women and join Sweet Sue's Society Syncopators, an all-girl band heading to Miami. Aboard the train they meet Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), a ukulele-playing singer with a weakness for saxophonists and a dream of marrying a millionaire.  Mike also talks with scholar Noah Isenberg — author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller We'll Always Have Casablanca and currently completing a cultural history of Some Like It Hot for Norton — about the film's origins, its enduring legacy, and what it still has to say.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Comedy Month continues as Mike talks with co-hosts Keith Gordon and Heidi Honeycutt about Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).Chicago, 1929. Musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are barely scraping by when they stumble onto the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, witnessing Spats Colombo and his mob gun down a rival gang. With the killers on their tail, the two desperate musicians disguise themselves as women and join Sweet Sue's Society Syncopators, an all-girl band heading to Miami. Aboard the train they meet Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), a ukulele-playing singer with a weakness for saxophonists and a dream of marrying a millionaire.  Mike also talks with scholar Noah Isenberg — author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller We'll Always Have Casablanca and currently completing a cultural history of Some Like It Hot for Norton — about the film's origins, its enduring legacy, and what it still has to say.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Released in 1978 and directed by John Landis, National Lampoon's Animal House follows the anarchic members of Delta House fraternity at Faber College as they wage war against pompous Dean Wormer (John Vernon) and the rival Omega House. Written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, and Chris Miller, and starring John Belushi as the legendary John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the film became one of the highest-grossing comedies of its era and helped launch the modern R-rated comedy.Jeff Nelligan's satirical new book When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor: Animal House in Western Intellectual Thought subjects the film to mock-scholarly analysis, taking its title from Bluto's historically garbled motivational speech. Casting Animal House as a Homeric odyssey and a meditation on society's moral impulse, Nelligan lampoons academic pretension while celebrating a comedy that has embedded itself permanently in American culture. Nelligan is a Washington, D.C. public affairs executive, Army veteran, and author of several previous books on parenting and political life. Mike talks with him about the film's enduring legacy and the making of the book.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Released in 1978 and directed by John Landis, National Lampoon's Animal House follows the anarchic members of Delta House fraternity at Faber College as they wage war against pompous Dean Wormer (John Vernon) and the rival Omega House. Written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, and Chris Miller, and starring John Belushi as the legendary John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the film became one of the highest-grossing comedies of its era and helped launch the modern R-rated comedy.Jeff Nelligan's satirical new book When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor: Animal House in Western Intellectual Thought subjects the film to mock-scholarly analysis, taking its title from Bluto's historically garbled motivational speech. Casting Animal House as a Homeric odyssey and a meditation on society's moral impulse, Nelligan lampoons academic pretension while celebrating a comedy that has embedded itself permanently in American culture. Nelligan is a Washington, D.C. public affairs executive, Army veteran, and author of several previous books on parenting and political life. Mike talks with him about the film's enduring legacy and the making of the book.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with Sound Designer Bryan Parker about his work from his early days on Reality TV to his current jobs on The Pitt and Scarpetta. Parker describes how he works with his peers and creative partners to create the best experience via his craft.Follow Bryan on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bryanvanbryanBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Evy (Nina Kiri) hosts a paranormal podcast from her childhood home, where she has returned to care for her dying mother. A skeptic to her co-host Justin's (Adam DiMarco) true believer, she keeps the supernatural at arm's length — until anonymous recordings begin arriving: a married couple, their home filled with strange noises, their lives unraveling. As Evy listens, the distance between their story and her own begins to collapse.Mike talks with editor Sonny Atkins about shaping a horror film built around sound, the discipline required to cut a story told almost entirely in audio, and what it means to edit your first feature.Learn more about Sonny at https://www.slatkins.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Alice Maio Mackay made her first feature film at 16. By 20, she had six. The latest, The Serpent's Skin, follows Anna, a young trans woman who flees her transphobic hometown and falls for Gen, a goth tattoo artist with a gift for the supernatural. Mike talks with Mackay about the making of the film, her approach to genre filmmaking, and what drives one of the most prolific young voices in independent cinema.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Adapted by Preston Sturges from Ferenc Molnár's play and directed by William Wyler, The Good Fairy (1935) is a screwball fairy tale built on mistaken identities, comic misfortune, and the peculiar moral logic of someone who genuinely wants to do good but hasn't quite figured out how the world works.  Luisa (Margaret Sullavan) has grown up knowing nothing of the world outside the orphanage walls. When she's finally released into Budapest society, she proves as well-meaning as she is naïve — and as prone to catastrophe as she is to kindness. A chance encounter with the wealthy and lecherous Konrad (Frank Morgan) sets off a chain of complications, chief among them the lie that she's already married. The problem is that she isn't, but she soon will be — to a bookish, bearded lawyer named Dr. Sporum (Herbert Marshall) who has no idea any of this is happening.The film showcases the range of Margaret Sullavan's screen presence — radiant and funny and heartbreaking in equal measure — alongside Frank Morgan's gloriously stammering comic turn.The episode also looks at the 1947 remake I'll Be Yours, starring Deanna Durbin, and the 1951 Broadway musical adaptation Make a Wish, with music by Hugh Martin and a book co-written by Sturges and Abe Burrows.Mike talks with co-hosts Rahne Alexander and Federico Bertolini about Molnár, Wyler, Sturges, and the many lives of a very good fairy.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike and Ben Buckingham take a look at Exposure 36, the 2022 film written and directed by Mackenzie G. Mauro. Charles Oudo stars as Cam, a photographer spending the last three days on Earth selling drugs and wandering the streets of New York City, encountering a colorful cast of characters along the way.The apocalypse here is background noise rather than spectacle — a quiet, meditative film that doubles as something of a Rorschach test, with different viewers latching onto entirely different aspects of the story. Mike and Ben dig into the episodic, wandering narrative, the film's mysterious blue figures, its use of photography as a distancing mechanism, and the way the story shifts from meditative sci-fi into neo-noir thriller territory before it's all over. Mauro joins the show to discuss the film.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike is joined by Payton McCarty-Simas and Rob St. Mary to dig into Fucktoys, the 2025 SXSW Special Jury Award winner written, directed by, and starring Annapurna Sriram. Sriram plays AP, a sex worker adrift in Trashtown — a candy-colored dystopia of industrial decay and pastel skies — after a swamp-dwelling tarot reader tells her a curse can be lifted for a thousand dollars and the sacrifice of a baby lamb. What follows is a picaresque night of surreal encounters, escalating absurdity, and a collision of intimacy, exploitation, and class in a pre-millennium alternate universe.The gang explores the film's John Waters–adjacent sensibility and its candy-coated production design, debating whether the aggressive tonal shifts and theatrical performances sharpen the film's satirical edge or tip into pure indulgence. They also dig into what the curse might actually represent, how Sriram's central performance holds the chaos together, and where Fucktoys fits within a lineage of underground feminist and transgressive cinema.Also featured is an interview with writer/director/star Annapurna Sriram. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike sits down with filmmaker and archivist Mike Davis to discuss Dead, White & Blue — a gleefully subversive political satire assembled entirely from recycled public domain footage.Davis, whose previous "green movies" include Sex Galaxy and President Wolfman, sifted through more than 300 films — predominantly training and educational films produced by the U.S. government, military, and law enforcement — to construct a comedy about the KKK's use of a shrink ray to retrieve an incriminating bullet from the body of a Black man shot by a racist white cop, while an Atlanta mayor goes missing and the U.S. military closes in. The result is a film that plays like found footage as social X-ray, with flat-affect dubbing, sly sight gags, and a retro visual texture that doubles as pointed commentary.Mike and Davis dig into the art and obsession of the "green movie" — a tradition running from J-Men Forever to Kung Pow! Enter the Fist — and what it takes to build a coherent (or deliberately incoherent) narrative from hundreds of forgotten films. They discuss the particular satirical charge of repurposing government and law enforcement footage, why race relations make for such rich — and risky — comedic territory, and what drives a filmmaker to spend years hunting through public domain archives instead of just making a movie the normal way.Find out more at https://stag-films.com/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike sits down with director Stephanie Laing to discuss Tow — a true-story drama about one woman's year-long legal war against a predatory towing company and the system behind it.Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne) is living in her 1991 Toyota Camry on the streets of Seattle when the car — her only lifeline — gets impounded, leaving her with a bill for $21,634 she has no hope of paying. What follows is battle for dignity against an indifferent bureaucracy, with support from a pro bono lawyer (Dominic Sessa) and a shelter manager (Octavia Spencer) who believes in her. Laing, a veteran of Palm Royale and Physical, brings an empathetic eye to the material without flinching from the grinding reality of homelessness and addiction.Mike and Laing discuss adapting a real person's story, the challenge of making systemic failure feel intimate, and what drew her from television to the feature format.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike sits down with writer-director Addison Heimann to discuss Touch Me — a psychosexual sci-fi horror-comedy about codependency, addiction, and the seductive promise that something out there could touch you and make all the pain go away.Codependent best friends Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) find themselves homeless, Joey's mysterious ex resurfaces with an offer too good to refuse. Heimann  talks with Mike about mining autobiography for genre material, the influence of hentai on the film's plot, and what it means to make a movie about addiction from a place of real pain.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Owen (Justice Smith) is a quiet kid on the outskirts of everything — his school, his family, his own life. When he meets Maddy (Jack Haven), a fellow outcast devoted to late-night supernatural TV show The Pink Opaque, something stirs in him that he can't quite name. Together they lose themselves in the show's mythology, its heroes Isabel and Tara battling the dream-warping Mr. Melancholy from within the Midnight Realm. When Maddy disappears and the show gets canceled, Owen finds himself alone in a suburb designed to swallow people whole — watching years pass like seconds.Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow asks what it costs to not know yourself, wrapping that terror in the hypnotic glow of '90s television and the specific dread of adolescence that never ends. Horror film, coming-of-age film, and something harder to name — it builds a portrait of a person burying themselves alive.Lu Etienne and Maxi Breckwoldt join Mike to trace Owen's journey from the bleachers to the Fun Center and beyond, unpacking the film's psychic static, its suburban uncanny, and the question haunting every frame: what if you're already suffocating, and you just don't know it yet?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with writer/director Maya Annik Bedward about her feature documentary Black Zombie (2026). The film looks at Haitian Vodou and how it's been been bastardized by Hollywood in films from early works like White Zombie to modern movies like World War Z and everywhere in-between.The film had its premiere at SXSW 2026. Find out more at https://www.instagram.com/blackzombiemovie/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike sits down with Leslie Winston — legendary performer of the Golden Age of Adult Film and AVN Hall of Fame inductee — and Mark Jason Murray, founder of Ultra Flesh Archives, to celebrate the release of Wildheart: The Leslie Winston Collection, now available on Blu-ray.Ms. Winston looks back on her remarkable two-decade career, sharing personal memories of the era of loops shot between 1980 and 1982 showcased in this collection. Mr. Murray discusses the passion and painstaking work behind Ultra Flesh Archives, what drove him to preserve and restore these films from original 8mm and Super 8 elements, and what collectors can expect from the label going forward.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with writer Aaron Tracy about his new podcast series, The Secret Life of Roald Dahl, which tells the story of the (in)famous writer who once served in the British Secret Service before becoming the author of macabre tales and beloved children's books.Find out more about the podcast at https://www.listentoparallax.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with multi-hyphenate Grace Glowicki about her new film, Dead Lover (2025). It's a stinky look at a gravedigger (Glowicki) who searches for a love who is taken too-soon.The film is playing theatrically around North America. Check local listings or visit https://deadlovermovie.com/ for more details.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth