Watch With Jen™

SLEEPY HOLLOW series co-creator, screenwriter, & the co-host of Podcast Like It's the 2000s, Phillip Iscove joined me for this thoughtfully incisive, laugh-filled, ' 90s-kid-nostalgic episode devoted to the three film pairings of formerly married superstars Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman. Beginning with Tony Scott's DAYS OF THUNDER, we dive into the wilds of Ron Howard's FAR & AWAY, and wr...

As the old adage goes, friendships that begin with Midnight Run quickly move on to The Twilight Zone . It was such a joy to bring my Midnight Run-Through pod guest Alan Sepinwall back to Watch With Jen to chat about his brilliantly engrossing, brand-new, page-turning biography of Rod Serling, hitting shelves next week. I read & loved my advance copy of Sepinwall's great book. And as you'll qui...

When it rains, it pours! I spent most of September recording terrific episodes & now I have enough banked that you'll receive a few extra tricks & treats this month from Watch With Jen. Today, that means I'm introducing you to the delightful playwright & screenwriter Megan Mostyn-Brown (partner of another pal & recurring guest, Mr. Jordan Harper). Megan's bold, briskly paced debut...

It's always a pleasure & honor to have one of our most knowledgeable & inventive guests, the great Karina Longworth, back on the podcast. The brains & voice behind her critically beloved film history podcast, You Must Remember This, Karina joined me to discuss the brand-new season of the long-running series called The Bisexuals. Covering not only her behind-the-scenes process and her r...

Brilliant screenwriters, hilarious storytellers, & insightful cinephiles Larry Karaszewski (ED WOOD & THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT) & Dan Waters (HEATHERS & BATMAN RETURNS) return for their 3rd appearance on Watch With Jen. Choosing a genre purely for entertainment & curiosity's sake, rather than one they're especially devoted to, in this briskly paced, raucous, laugh-filled conv...

Award-winning cultural historian Isaac Butler returns to the podcast to discuss screen censorship, the arts battles of the '80s & '90s with the rise of the religious right, Citizen Ruth , South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut , The People vs. Larry Flynt , & his outstanding new book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars . Originally Posted on Patreon (9/9/2...

Boston-based WBUR and Spliced Personality Substack film critic Sean Burns returns to the podcast to help celebrate the centennial of the beloved iconic character actor (& subject of the Blondie song "I Want That Man") Mr. Harry Dean Stanton. Offering you a nice overview of some of his most famous films, including PARIS, TEXAS and REPO MAN, plus conversations about STRAIGHT TIME, CISCO PIKE, PR...

"Just say, 'Dance, monkey, dance!'" My honorary kid brother from Oz, One Heat Minute Productions' podcaster Blake Howard, returns to the show this week to chat about two of our favorite filmmakers & actors in director Sidney Lumet's SERPICO with Al Pacino, and John Frankenheimer's FRENCH CONNECTION II, starring Gene Hackman. Join us for a tightrope walk down the thin blue line, that's one of a...

Sheila O'Malley is one of our greatest film writers, historians, & critics of screen acting. Her essays & reviews on The Sheila Variations blog & Roger Ebert's site are always must-reads, & I've been incredibly fortunate to have had her on the pod a few times to discuss some of cinema history's best & brightest performers. This time, she's back to share her thoughts on the vuln...

You're in for a treat this week! Queue up Watch With Jen's long-overdue reunion of covering iconic action superstars with my dear friends (& frequent guests) Jed Ayres, Jordan Harper, & Priscilla Page. In '24, we gathered to dig deep into Jean-Claude Van Damme's life & career. And in '25, Jordan & Priscilla logged in for a celebration of all things Jackie Chan. This time, we're goi...

Delightful Mary Higgins Clark award-winning mystery writer Lina Chern drops by the podcast once again for a perfectly summery, vacation-and-sunscreen-season-worthy tour of Island Movies, such as SEND HELP, SHUTTER ISLAND, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, KING KONG, CAST AWAY, SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS, & beyond. Lina's Bio: "Hi. I'm Lina. My debut novel Play the Fool won the 2024 Mary Higgins Clark Awar...

Encyclopedic cinephile, writer, and pal Jed Ayres joins us once again to discuss the action-horror subgenre Games of Death. Taking us on a journey from THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, we touch on some of the biggest, rarest, & best films in the genre before exploring THE HUNGER GAMES, READY OR NOT, & SELF-RELIANCE. Originally Posted on Patreon (7/15/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuitio...

Earlier this year, I had a blast revisiting five of my favorite Joan Cusack performances for RogerEbert.com 's Women Writers Week celebration. My friend, the prolific MovieMom.com critic Nell Minow, who also writes and edits for Ebert's site, was my editor for the article, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring her back to Watch With Jen to explore a handful of our favorite Cusack rol...

This week, film scholar and author Mike Miley returns to the podcast to discuss one of his favorite directors, Jonathan Demme. Intriguingly, Mike opted to focus on Demme's earliest movies before his most successful era of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and PHILADELPHIA. Although we touch on the unsung filmmaker's entire career, in this fast-paced, well-researched conversation, Mike and I cover Demme's backg...

My good friend, Black List Senior Vice President Kate Hagen, returns to Watch With Jen for this throwback summer celebration of 1996 films written, directed, and starring women. A diverse cross-section of independent and commercial offerings that we highlight throughout the hour, Kate and I discuss WALKING & TALKING, A VERY BRADY SEQUEL, HARRIET THE SPY, THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS & DOGS, plus o...

It was a joy to bring on a fellow Arizona critic & film scholar, the brilliant & funny Barbara VanDenburgh, to discuss the masterful Arizona-raised filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Barbara's favorite director and her greatest area of film knowledge; it's wild to realize that we haven't done an official Spielberg episode of the pod before this one. I know you'll love it! Covering the filmmaker's...

The brilliant and soulful Roxana Hadadi returns with this episode devoted to one of her current favorite actors, the great Riz Ahmed. Similar to past conversations focused on terrific character actors like Tom Wilkinson and Edward Norton, this week, we explore Ahmed's filmography at large, discuss his evolution as an actor, and what sets him apart in the films THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, NIGHTCR...

Every time Leslie Byron Pitt is on the podcast, we go deep, & this episode is no exception. A film blogger and hobbyist photographer, Leslie is also a fellow podcaster, co-hosting the shows Fatal Attractions and Hustlers of Culture. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the way that photography and the role of the photographer are used in a variety of films, and zero in on REAR WINDOW,...

CITY OF MARGINS, SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT, & SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET author William Boyle returns to the show to discuss Old Hollywood icon Joan Crawford's incredible career from silent movies through the 1970s. Digging deep to share biographical insights and shout out films that are often overlooked, in this fast-paced chat, we cover HUMORESQUE (1946), SUDDEN FEAR (1952), and JOHNNY GUITAR...

Hot off the news that he's just sold one million copies of his books, my wonderfully talented friend, KING OF ASHES and ALL THE SINNERS BLEED novelist S.A. Cosby returns to the pod this week for a delightful episode Gen Xers in particular will love. Listen in as we wax nostalgic, nerdy, & philosophical about the American independent film scene, video stores, actors with faces, Sundance, the Ne...

The charming and inventive B-Side pod boys return to the show to discuss a trio of films that seem like they could be unofficial sequels to other movies telling the same story or starring the same lead. Films discussed include MY BLUE HEAVEN (after GOODFELLAS), AIR FORCE ONE (which plays like a continuation of Jack Ryan's adventures), and ENEMY OF THE STATE (which acknowledges its debt to THE CONV...

Straight from the pages of today's New York Times , Watch With Jen's first podcast guest, author Jordan Harper, returns ahead of the release of his fittingly titled new thriller, A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE. A devotee of Japanese cinema, food, and culture, Jordan gives me a crash course in the cinema of director Juzo Itami. An all-time "wife guy," who began making movies in his early fifties and made 11...

Current and aspiring writers of all backgrounds will love this episode, devoted to storytelling, humanism, empathy, and creativity. Horror author Laurel Hightower makes her Watch With Jen pod debut, exploring some of Disney's magic-minded movies of the past few decades, particularly ENCHANTED, ENCANTO, and WISH. A sprawling, soulful chat with a woman who instantly felt like an old friend, I can't...

Recently on the pod, I reunited with the gifted arts journalist Candice Frederick, one of my oldest friends from the early days of Film Twitter. Candice was one of the first guests I ever had on Watch With Jen, and we had a ball logging on to discuss some of the best and most under-discussed coming-of-age movies of the past 40+ years, including those we first saw as adults in our early 40s. While...

In honor of that time I went on an Easter Egg Hunt as a toddler in 1984 and had no luck, I'm giving everyone this Easter egg of an episode a day early. Hope you and yours have a safe, happy, healthy, and lovely weekend full of good movies and great memories. This week, I'm honored to bring back one of my oldest Film Twitter buddies, the great Brian Saur, who I've known and collaborated with on var...