The Projection Booth

We're looking at Jamie Babbit’s But I’m A Cheerleader. Released in 1999, the film stars Natasha Lyonne as Megan, the titular cheerleader who seems to have some very “unnatural urges” according to her parents, teachers, and friends. She’s sent to a camp where she gets re-educated in the ways of heterosexuality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of thi...

On this special episode of The Projection Booth, Mike talks to Josh Howard the director of The Lavender Scare (2019) a documentary about the systematic purge of gays and lesbians from the government in the 1950s and how the injustices they faced helped spur the Gay Liberation Movement. Learn more at www.thelavenderscare.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a su...

We conclude our back to back discussions of Philip K Dick adaptations with a look at 2002’s Minority Report. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film was originally set as a sequel to Total Recall (1990). It's the story the chief of pre-crime (Tom Cruise) -- a unit of the police that uses psychics to arrest people before they commit the crimes they are predicted to do. When he's fingered for an impe...

We’re kicking off back to back discussions of Philip K Dick adaptations with a look at 1990’s Total Recall. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, the film spent years in turnaround until Arnold Schwarzenegger was attached and got the thing made. It's the story of a common construction worker who dreams of life on Mars. When he learns of a procedure that can implant memories of being on Mars, things get a li...

Based loosely on the writings of Jack London and Leon Ray Livingston, Robert Aldrich's Emperor of the North Pole (1973) tells the story of two hobos in the American Northwest during the depression -- A Number One (Lee Marvin) and Cigaret (Keith Carradine). The two have a very uneasy relationship with one another and a completely antagonistic relationship with Shack (Ernest Borgnine), a railwayman...

We’re looking at the 2019 film Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited. It’s an update of the 1983 film Taking Tiger Mountain which stars a young Bill Paxton as Billy Hampton, a man who’s been brainwashed and sent to a patriarchal country by a group of militant females in order to assassinate its leader and stop the widespread human traffic in which the leader indulges. Learn more about your ad choices. V...

Mike "McBeardo" McPadden has done it again; trawling through the sludge of a film subgenre to find the commonalities while holding up both the gems and the most execrable examples of teen flicks in his latest book, Teen Movie Hell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/suppor...

It seemed a fairly ordinary night when Stefan and his wife Valerie, two young, normal, healthy kids on their honeymoon. They stop in Belgium on their alleged way to England where they check into a nearly abandoned hotel. There they encounter the mysterious Countess Bathory and her assistant Ilona. From there, some strange things start to happen in Harry Kumel’s Daughters of Darkness (1971). Learn...

On this epic episode of The Projection Booth, we remember the road warrior, the man we called Mad Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything and became a shell of a man, a burnt-out desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again. Ben Buckingham and Mike Thompson join Mik...

We're looking at Orson Welles's The Other Side of the Wind again. Way back in May 2015, four years ago, it was still something of a dream that this film would ever get completed and shown to the world. There were rumors but there had been rumors before. Ken Stanley and Rob St. Mary join Mike to discuss Orson Welles's latest film along with special guests Bob Murawski, Josh Karp, and Joseph McBride...

As part of the Other Side of the Wind Redux episode, Mike talked with Academy Award-winning editor Bob Murawski about his early days in Michigan, working on Sam Raimi's films, Grindhouse Releasing, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support . Become a supporter o...

Peter Hyams’s Outland (1981) plays like a Western in space with Sean Connery as Marshall W.T. O’Neil, the head lawman at a rough and tumble mining colony where a mysterious series of deaths puts him at odds with the powers that be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/suppor...

On this special episode of The Projection Booth, Mike talks to festival director Ariel Wan about the 2019 Cinetopia Film Festival. The fest takes place in Ann Arbor, Bloomfield Twp, Dearborn, Detroit, and Royal Oak between May 10 - 19, 2019. For more information visit www.cinetopiafestival.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https:...

Mike talks to director Yu Gu, former Oakland Raiderette Lacy Thibodeaux-Fields, and former Buffalo Jill Maria Pinzone about the documentary A Woman's Work: The NFL'S Cheerleader Problem which tackles the startling pay inequity of the National Football League. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-proj...

Fritz Lang's M (1931) is the story of a child murderer (Peter Lorre) in Berlin during the last years of the Weimar Republic. When the police fail to capture the terror of Berlin it's up to the criminal underworld to do the job. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support ....

We get passionate about a film with a very inflammatory title, The Passover Plot. Released in 1976 the film was directed by Michael Campus and based loosely on a book by Hugh J. Schonfield. It’s basically another retelling of The Passion Play Spencer Parsons and Chris Bricklemyer join Mike to talk about Zalman King playing Jesus, Donald Pleasence chewing scenery, and food that's good enough for Je...

On this special episode of The Projection Booth Mike talks with filmmaker Pamela B. Green about her documentary film Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché, a look at an under-discussed pioneering female filmmaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support . Bec...

On this special episode, Mike talks to author Aaron Shulman about his book The Age of Disenchantments: The Epic Story of Spain's Most Notorious Literary Family and the Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War and the El Desencanto (Jaime Chávarri, 1976). Both the book and the movie deal with the Paneros of Madrid, Spain -- a fascinatingly dysfunctional family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

Sergio Martino’s American Tiger (1989 ) is the story of Scott Edwards a rickshaw driver in Miami, Florida who becomes embroiled in a supernatural mystery involving VHS tapes, Asian mysticism, Jonestown, and the dark lord Satan himself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/su...

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) is based very loosely on a book by Gary K. Wolf. It tells the tale of Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), a hard boiled detective who gets hired by the head of a movie studio, R.K. Maroon, to take some photos of our titular Roger Rabbit’s wife (Kathleen Turner) playing patty cake with the head of a place called Toontown. It’s a story of intrigue...

Mike talks with Steve Byrne, Arts and Entertainment Editor of The Detroit Free Press and Executive Director of the Freep Film Festival, the documentary-focused fest that runs from April 10-14, 2019. In the spotlight are films such as Boy Howdy! The Story of Creem Magazine, Bathtubs Over Broadway, and Detroit Tigers: The Roar of '84. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Be...

Scott Reynolds's, Heaven (1998) is a New Zealand film that features crime, sex, and the supernatural. It's the story of our titular Heaven (Daniel Edwards), a transsexual, precognitive stripper who works for a violent member of the underworld, Stanner (Richard Schiff). Moreover, it’s the story of gambler Richard Marling (Martin Donovan), his wife and her lover, a psychiatrist. And, believe it or n...

Directed by Doris Dörrie, Me and Him (1988) is based on the novel Two: A Phallic Novel by Alberto Moravia and stars Griffin Dunne as Bert Uttanzi, a man who has a very active relationship with his penis. On the day of his 35th birthday he begins hearing directly from his penis, voiced by Mark Linn-Baker. Bert is an architect who’s trying to get his plans for a new marina built. He’s overly dedicat...

Samm Deighan and Bill Ackerman join Mike to discuss The Fly. Released in 1986, David Cronenberg’s film stars Jeff Goldblum as scientist Seth Brundle, a man who meets a journalist, Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis). The film tells the tale of their relationship as they get together and become driven apart after an accident changes Brundle irreparably. Special guests are Emma Westwood, author of the Dev...

Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) is based on the 1985 book by Patrick Süskind. The film tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), a man born without scent and an acute sense of smell. He goes on a quest to capture the most beautiful scent in the world... David Kittredge and Josh Stewart join Mike to discuss the film and the recent Netflix series somewhat inspir...