The Hip Pocket

Boy, this one's tricky. How do you define a "dumb" movie? We dig into our un-ironic love for MIDNIGHT MADNESS, JACKASS NUMBER TWO, and NOTHING BUT TROUBLE as we attempt to answer the question for ourselves.

One of our favorite people from one of our favorite shows stops by to pick a few favorites with us. Frank Conniff picked SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, the W.C. Fields comedy THE BANK DICK, and Elliott Gould in the oddball LITTLE MURDERS. We chose WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? as our response, and THE HEARTBREAK KID joins the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame.

Aundria, Drew, and Craig talk about the way movies portray New York City and each pick a title that speaks to them about the city, using TIMES SQUARE, THE APARTMENT, and CROCODILE DUNDEE to make their points.

We're joined by my old friend from HitFix, Alan Sepinwall, to talk about some deep-dish comfort food choices. He brings us MIDNIGHT RUN, NOBODY'S FOOL, and USED CARS, and our response film is SNEAKERS. In addition, we induct THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE into the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame.

Drew, Aundria and Craig discuss three movies that were designed to hurt you, including POSSESSION, THREADS, and PRIME CUT.

Indie producer David Lawson Jr. joins us with an '90s kid's dream line-up: RAD, GLEAMING THE CUBE, and AIRBORNE, and we pick BMX BANDITS as our response title. Plus BAD NEWS BEARS enters the HPHoF!

Drew, Aundria and Craig each pick a film that represents Los Angeles to them. Aundria's choice is the Denzel Washington showcase TRAINING DAY. Craig's choice is Jon Favreau's influential '90s indie SWINGERS. Finally, Drew's choice is the Hal Ashby/Warren Beatty classic SHAMPOO. 

Filmmaker COREY SHERMAN joins us to discuss a fistful of independent visions. We kick it off with RUBY IN PARADISE, discuss the anime OCEAN WAVES, and wrap it up with Mike Leigh's caustic CAREER GIRLS. Our response film is Jennifer Jason Leigh in GEORGIA, and we continue that theme with RUSH, which is added to the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame.

Drew, Aundria, and Craig decided to each pick a comforting, relaxing favorite in a special SOFT EPISODE. Craig picked the Kenny Rogers comedy SIX PACK, Aundria picked the beloved John Hughes holiday favorite, PLANE TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES, and Drew picked the gentle French fable PETITIE MAMAN.

JOHN GHOLSON is an actor and an artist and an all around good egg. He was one of the stars of the recent indie horror hit MAN FINDS TAPE, and you've seen his face in things like the recent Netflix series BAD THOUGHTS as well. He's joining the Hip Pocket crew to kick off season four with some esoteric picks. Peter Jackson's BRAINDEAD, Eric Schaeffer's IF LUCY FELL, and the indie documentary masterp...

For the second year, we were lucky enough to be asked to do a live Hip Pocket for The Chattanooga Film Festival! Our guest for this hybrid video audio podcast was hybrid animator, producer, writer and director Michael Dougherty. He wrangled GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS and made KRAMPUS annual viewing for horror geeks, not to mention birthed Halloween icon Sam, the burlap-headed bastard from SEAS...

Writer/actor/producer Jonathan Penner joins us to talk about his picks RRR, The Fly, and The American Friend, and we pick Repo Man and Into the Night in response.

Shout Factory producer Jeff Roland joins us to discuss Hip Pocket titles including LIFEFORCE, BETTER OFF DEAD, and FURIOSA, and we also discuss JOE VS THE VOLCANO and TO LIVE & DIE IN LA.

Film critic Kristen Lopez joins us to talk about disability representation in film, and we discuss Freaks, Coming Home, and Me Before You, as well as Ukranian film The Tribe and Born on the Fourth of July.

DAN FIENBERG has been the Chief Television Critic at The Hollywood Reporter for a decade now and hosts TV’s Top 5, a weekly television podcast for the trade. He also writes the Now See This newsletter and was the president of the Television Critics Association. He was a co-founder of HitFix, one of the original writers for the site, and I have spent an enormous amount of time at film festivals and...

AKELA COOPER is a writer/producer who basically kicks a ton of ass. She is, after all, the writer of Malignant and M3GAN, and she has brought her exuberant nerd energy to a variety of projects over the years. She wrote Hell Fest and The Nun II, and she’s worked on TV shows like American Horror Story, Luke Cage, The 100, Grimm, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. She has been a horror fan since chil...

SCOTT DERRICKSON is a writer/director/producer whose latest film The Black Phone 2 opened last weekend at #1. His breakthrough film, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, was in 2005, and his movie Sinister is often cited as one of the scariest films of the 2000s. He works frequently with our guest from earlier this season, C. Robert Cargill, and their partnership includes films like Doctor Strange, The Gor...

SARAH WATSON is a writer/producer who is best known as the creator of The Bold Type, the author of a terrific YA novel called Most Likely, and for her work on the long-running Parenthood. We met through mutual friends and bonded over general movie nerdery, and watching her climb through the ranks of writing rooms has been a huge pleasure over the years. Plus she’s a great dog owner, and, honestly,...

PHIL NOBILE JR. is the editor-in-chief of Fangoria magazine, which is kicking ass and taking name these days. Before this, you may have known him as part of the Birth. Movies. Death. editorial team, where he spent a ton of energy writing about his deeply-seeded love of the James Bond franchise. He’s also worked as a producer on films like Horror Noire, Satanic Panic, and VFW, and you’ve probably s...

KATIE RIFE is a freelance writer and critic from Chicago who is best known for her deep focus on genre and exploitation fare. She was the news editor for The AV Club from 2014 to 2019, and then Senior Editor from 2019 to 2022. She is currently writing for outlets like RogerEbert.com, Rolling Stone, Indiwire, and Vulture. You can get a taste of what she’s like from her round-up of the best of last...

C. ROBERT CARGILL was, of course, Massawyrm in his Ain’t It Cool days. He was also Carlyle over at Spill. Those are ancient credits, though. These days, he’s hard at work with his new film The Black Phone 2, and he’s got a story featured in the new anthology It’s The End of the World As We Know It, a collection of stories set in the world of Stephen King’s The Stand. He’s maybe best known for Sini...

NICK “TIGER” WIGER is celebrating the tenth year of co-hosting Doughboys, where he and Mike review chain restaurants. He also co-hosts Get Played, a video-game podcast that has special bonus episodes that focus on anime, one of Wiger’s passions. He showed up ready to share that passion with us, and I thought it was a great trio of titles, representing three very different type of storytelling. Fir...

Criterion reached out to me recently to talk about their new release of 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould. I was delighted to see them announce a 4K remaster of the film. My own copy is from so long ago that I’m pretty sure it was in 480p. At first, I was just interested in seeing the disc, but I saw them mention that François Girard was going to be available for a few interviews. My thanks to Dian...

I’ve never met PETER FILARDI or had, to the best of my knowledge, any contact with him. I certainly know his work. Both Flatliners and The Craft were big movies when they came out, and Filardi was at Fantasia, the Montreal film festival I attended for several years, with his movie Ricky 6 the first time I went. He’s attending the Chattanooga Film Festival this year with his new short film, Damn Ha...

BRIAN DUFFIELD is a writer/director who has been one of the most acclaimed (and busiest) screenwriters of the last decade. He has shown up on The Black List, the annual selection of the best-loved unproduced scripts in Hollywood, roughly 50 times in the last ten years, which is mathematically confusing but impressive. We talk about his unusual upbringing in this episode, and we dig into just how w...