Pod Casty For Me

Get your silly little trunks on, listener: we're headed to the octagon this week to talk HAYWIRE, Soderbergh's much-delayed 2011 (anti-?) spy thriller starring MMA fighter Gina Carano. And joining us is our friend, podcaster and musician Ryan Torgeson (@molecularlioneI)! We talk mid-2010s action cinema, mixed martial arts, Soderbergh's decision to alter Carano's voice in post, Carano's decision to...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. We're trying something new this week - we've recorded a feature commentary track! Watch Clint Eastwood's 1971 directorial debut PLAY MISTY FOR ME as we talk about it. Sure, we did an episode on this movie already, but that was three years ago. W...

This is an unlocked episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. This week we're taking a look at a bunch of songs about, featuring, or otherwise related to Clint Eastwood...which is a great reason to bring on Jetski, aka Ian Ostaszewski, the composer of the Paid Costly For Me theme music! We chat Gorillaz, Metallica, t...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. Merry Christmas, everybody - here's the episode one day early just because we love ya. Not unlike a certain jolly old elf, Ian stopped by Jake's home for a quick visit a few weeks back, and the boys (plus FPG) ran a 10K race together that was, f...

Wash your hands, folks: it's time to talk CONTAGION, Steven Soderbergh's absurdly prescient 2011 pandemic disaster film. We talk public health, hyperlink cinema, Soderbergh's evolving digital aesthetic, the nature of government, and the film's second life as a Covid lockdown classic. With a special Kate Winslet audio collage that Ian definitely asked for! Check it out. Further Reading: The Viral U...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. In our first-ever Patreon Listeners' Choice poll, something like 52% of you voted for David Fincher's ZODIAC, the movie we probably should have done within the first five premium eps if we're being honest. But now we've done it! It's all here: D...

Open your notebooks and fill up your glasses of water, folks: today we're looking at Steven Soderbergh's two documentaries on Spalding Gray. And Ian's pissed off! We're joined once more by our friend, writer and critic Rob Rubsam, to talk 1996's GRAY'S ANATOMY, a sort of longform music video for Gray's "monolog" of the same name, and Soderbergh's 2010 posthumous "autobiography" of Gray, AND EVERYT...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. Our friend and yours Comrade Yui is back to talk two Ernest Hemingway adaptations in our wheelhouse - THE KILLERS (1946) by CRISS CROSS director Robert Siodmak and THE KILLERS (1964) by DIRTY HARRY director Don Siegel (plus the short Tarkovsky m...

"Would I lysine to you?" - Mark Whitacre. Hey that's just a joke but maybe they could have used it on the posters for THE INFORMANT!, Steven Soderbergh's 2009 corporate espionage caper about the lysine price-fixing scandal and one of the weirdest guys there has ever been. And joining us to talk big business, the FBI, and organized crime in all its forms is writer and podcaster Dan O'Sullivan ( The...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. Finally, we've reached the end of Sergio Leone's filmography with the long-in-development gangster epic ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. This film has many admirers, to whom we say: sorry! We didn't care for it, and we'll tell you why - with a littl...

Soderbergh's second film for Mark Cuban's Magnolia Pictures was THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, a largely improvised look at life on the cusp of the Great Recession starring adult film megastar Sasha Grey. We're joined by an anonymous writer and sex worker to talk about one of Soderbergh's less-appreciated great films, sex work as work, Grey's legacy, depictions of intimacy, and Power Wash Simulator fo...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. While making CHE, Steven Soderbergh fell so in love with Bolivia's national liquor, singani, that he decided to export it to the US as Singani 63 - just like Che Guevara would have done. Nah just kidding but we tried it and it's actually quite g...

The leftist podcast about Steven Soderbergh movies has finally arrived at CHE, Soderbergh's two-part biopic of (Argentine) Cuban Revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Joining us to provide the kind of deep historical context you know we go crazy for is historian of Cuba and scholar of Latin American and Caribbean history Andrés Pertierra! We have never read more in preparation for an episode,...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. We celebrate the late Terence Stamp by taking a look at Stephen Frears's 1984 proto-LIMEY existential gangster film, THE HIT. Plus: a little bit of Pasolini's TEOREMA talk for good measure. Thanks as always to Jetski for our theme music and Jere...

We're going back to Vegas for one more job...it's the thrilling conclusion to the trilogy, OCEAN'S THIRTEEN! Well, maybe "thrilling" is arguable. But the episode sure is! We're talking Oprah, Steve Wynn, Mexican labor action, Five Diamond status - it's all here, folks. Further Reading: "Steve Wynn's Biggest Gamble" by Nina Munk Meet The AAA Diamond Rating Experts Further Viewing: DOWN BY LAW (Jarm...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. Friend of the show Aaron from Hit Factory joins us to assemble the definitive Tier List of characters played by Clint Eastwood. Along the way, we answer important questions like: What is a Tier List for? What makes a good character? Has Ian deve...

After 2005's digital day-and-date experiment BUBBLE, Soderbergh swung hard in the other direction with a Golden Age Hollywood pastiche: his (loose) adaptation of Joseph Kanon's postwar Berlin mystery THE GOOD GERMAN. Joining us is film writer and literal historian Peter Raleigh! We talk adaptation, aesthetic imitation, Denazification, CASABLANCA, and much more. Check it out! Further Reading: The G...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. A year after ERIN BROCKOVICH, another unashamedly feminine legal professional challenged norms and won at the box office in LEGALLY BLONDE. Here to talk gender performance, turn-of-the-millennium feminism, and Reese Witherspoon's many crimes is...

Another Pod Casty For Me Experience: we're talking Steven Soderbergh's 2005 experiment BUBBLE - day-and-date release experiment, digital cinematography experiment, first-time actor experiment, improvised script experiment - with our buddy Evan from Left of the Projector! And this one's set at a factory, so you know we go crazy on it. We get into film distribution economics, working people on film,...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. This week we're looking at another one of Dirty Harry's spiritual children, Paul Verhoeven's 1987 ROBOCOP. Violence, corporate greed, police stuff - much to talk about here. But we're also talking about it because Verhoeven is a Dutch guy and Ja...

A little something different this week: we're looking at two Soderbergh-scripted adaptations of international genre films! First, Soderbergh adapted Ole Bornedal's 1994 NATTEVAGTEN as 1997's NIGHTWATCH, also directed by Bornedal, starring post-TRAINSPOTTING, pre-PHANTOM MENACE Ewan McGregor as a night watchman at a spooky morgue. Next, Soderbergh turned Fabián Bielinsky's 2000 Argentine heist smas...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. Writer and PCFM official Catholicism Correspondent Rob Rubsam is back for another Martin Scorsese examination of faith: 2016's SILENCE. We talk Jesuits, Japan, nuance, and our own religious baggage. Great, thoughtful ep - hope you enjoy! Follow...

OCEAN'S ELEVEN was a monster hit, and so naturally Steven Soderbergh made a sequel. An extremely normal sequel that didn't confuse or piss off almost everyone who saw it. We're getting silly today talking about OCEAN'S TWELVE - a very silly movie - with writer and film critic Rory Doherty! We're both sick right now so that's all the episode description you get, sorry! Good movie, good ep - check i...

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month. In 1998, Steven Soderbergh produced Gary Ross's PLEASANTVILLE, a visually inventive satire of nostalgia and small-town repression - and in 2025, we did a dang Patreon episode on it. We talk passion, desire, old TV, and the ongoing push for safe...

Steven Soderbergh's second release of 2002, after FULL FRONTAL, was another very odd move: a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's SOLARIS (well, more of a new adaptation of the Stanislaw Lem novel). Underappreciated at the time, Soderbergh's SOLARIS has grown in reputation as one of the great science fiction films of the 2000s - so we brought on a bonafide science fiction expert, Aaron Thorpe, to talk abo...