Watch With Jen™

Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down over Zoom & chatting with one of my favorite couples, Chris & Elizabeth Cantwell. An L.A.-based television & comic book writer, listeners first heard Chris discuss his work on the brilliant series he co-created HALT & CATCH FIRE in one of Watch With Jen's most popular episodes. His wife is the ever-insightful, poet, teacher, scholar, &am...

Welcome to the fourth installment in our Summer '25 suite of episodes devoted to recent Physical Media releases from The Criterion Collection. This will be the last new episode of Watch With Jen before I go on a brief summer hiatus but I'm hoping to return with more wonderful shows & conversations you'll love in mid to late August. SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET novelist William Boyle returns thi...

I've been pre-scheduling podcast episodes this summer &, forgetting that we are now living in a time of anything goes chaos in the U.S., last week's conversation wound up publishing in the hours after the news involving Iran. Hopefully anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn't normally pivot from major world news to self-promotion but I still wanted to take this opportunity to apologize for an...

We're back with part two of our ongoing summer series devoted to the newest physical media releases from The Criterion Collection & today's episode is a must for neo-noir fans everywhere. First up, you'll hear from bestselling award-winning authors S.A. Cosby (whose newest novel KING OF ASHES just hit shelves last week) & Jordan Harper (SHE RIDES SHOTGUN & EVERYBODY KNOWS) on director...

It's cowboys, & truckers, & samurai, oh my! In the first part of a summer suite of Season 6 episodes devoted to Physical Media released this year by The Criterion Collection, you'll hear conversations with some of my dearest friends (& your favorite guests). Just in time for Father's Day, we're embracing Dudes Rock (or at times, ironically, "Dudes Don't Rock") Energy for the first quar...

Welcome to the unofficial second half of a delightful extended conversation about actor James Gandolfini that started at the end of April with me interviewing film critic, historian, & author Jason Bailey about his new outstanding biography GANDOLFINI: JIM, TONY, & THE LIFE OF A LEGEND for Poisoned Pen Bookstore. While I highly recommend you check out that earlier discussion on the Poisone...

Since the kind souls at The Criterion Collection generously sent both myself & my dear friend (& kid brother from an Oz mother) Blake Howard the same brand new pristine 4K edition of director Norman Jewison's Academy Award winning 1967 masterpiece IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, we decided to team up to cover it together. Although you'll still hear several traditional Watch With Jen: Physical Me...

This week, I'm pleased to bring you a cheery conversation with my delightful friend, fellow podcaster, and animation expert Rachel Wagner. Incredibly hardworking and prolific as the woman behind both the website Rachel's Reviews and the popular Hallmarkies podcast, in this breezy, fast paced, nostalgic, well researched discussion, we celebrate the films of the always inventive Aardman Animation, i...

Earlier in the year, I met the terrific & very prolific author Erica Ruth Neubauer at Poisoned Pen Bookstore when she was in town to promote her newest Jane Wunderly mystery series novel HOMICIDE IN THE INDIAN HILLS. From the moment that I discovered that she had a very cool, intricate tattoo of the game board & weapons from CLUE, I knew she'd be a great guest on Watch With Jen & I was...

I always learn so much in my conversations with Canadian cinephile, critic, & author Adam Nayman & this episode - devoted to a quartet of big screen adaptations of Ira Levin's buzzy bestselling novels that captivated a generation of readers - is no exception. Listen in as we take you through his career as a master storyteller of what Stephen King deemed "Swiss watch" worthy plots while exp...

It was such a pleasure to reunite with WHAT LIES WEST writer-director Jessica Ellis for this thoughtful, breezy, good-hearted celebration of three films about women's sexuality onscreen. Diving into two very different, boldly inquisitive bright lights of '90s cinema in CHASING AMY & ANTONIA'S LINE, which bookend this conversation, we also explore 2024's lovely, compassionate, surprisingly bitt...

It was wonderful to welcome back poet, teacher, writer, & scholar Elizabeth Cantwell this week to explore haunted houses both in film & real life, plus the existential, psychosexual, guilt-filled, Freudian, & supernatural realms of THE HAUNTING (1963), THE CHANGELING (1980), POLTERGEIST (1982), STIR OF ECHOES (1999), & more. I always learn so much when I talk to Elizabeth & we...

And now for something completely different... featuring one of past guests & fellow authors Ace Atkins, Megan Abbott, & William Boyle's dearest friends. The first half of this week's episode with Oxford, Mississippi based ADVENTURE TIME & SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS screenwriter, voice actor, & author Jack Pendarvis is a freewheeling anything goes conversation about writing, shovels, Wil...

Brilliant DARE ME, THE TURNOUT, & BEWARE THE WOMAN author & Criterion Collection cinephile Megan Abbott returns once again to Watch With Jen for a thoughtful, well-researched, & intriguing conversation about one of twentieth century cinema's most misunderstood and beloved screen icons, Doris Day. Investigating the subversive ways that Day's work raised questions about the evolving atti...

Spring into romance with this lovely, jubilant celebration of a trio of knowledgeable RogerEbert.com critic & editor Nell Minow's favorite underrated classic romcoms: THEODORA GOES WILD, I LOVE YOU AGAIN, & BALL OF FIRE. Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop (+ Direct Link to the Mug ) Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi Theme Music: Solo Acoustic G...

It's here! Recording my 250th episode introduction was tougher than I thought it'd be for a few reasons. The first is, of course, because I'm a total cheeseball & much too earnest, which is a curse both Midwestern & Italian-American since I tend to treat everyone like family and am much too passionate about what interests me. But the second reason is because right now it's such a rough tim...

Last week's launch of Season 6: Episode 1 generated more downloads than we'd received for quite some time & I want to thank you so much for warmly welcoming back the podcast in 2025 in the same week we celebrated its fifth anniversary. A few days ago, I uploaded a new film recommendation video in a supplemental series for patrons that I'm calling Watch With Jen: Bonus Recs & I'm keeping th...

Welcome back to Watch With Jen. Just in time for the fifth anniversary of the podcast (which officially began on March 3, 2020), I'm releasing the first of at least a two-part episode devoted to L.A. Movies. Like everyone else, I watched in horror as the Santa Ana wind wildfires ripped through a city that I dearly love at the start of 2025. Unable to contribute financially to the many worthy chari...

It's finally here! Behold our Season 5 finale episode, which, in true Watch With Jen form is a group chat extravaganza celebrating the best new physical media releases in recent months. In this feature-length compilation, you'll hear thoughtful, articulate, occasionally personally revealing, funny, & fresh spins on NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (with novelist S.A. Cosby), Scarface - 1932 (with critic...

In this super-sized celebration of the Muscles from Brussels, three of my dearest friends and your listener-favorite guests return to the podcast to discuss the life and career of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme. Offering an extensive overview of his entire filmography, courtesy of the show's two certified Van Damme experts in film essayist Priscilla Page and novelist Jed Ayres, and with sharp i...

A film critic for publications & companies such as LA Weekly , New York Magazine , Vulture , The New York Times , The Criterion Collection, & formerly, The Village Voice , the brilliant Bilge Ebiri is one of my favorite journalists working today. Reuniting with Bilge to celebrate & evaluate the filmography of the great actor Russell Crowe, in this warm, chatty conversation, we look bac...

To celebrate the 55th birthday of "Sesame Street," I had a wonderfully inspiring chat with the legendary Noel MacNeal about his incredible decades-spanning career. From wrangling puppets on "Sesame Street" in 1982 to becoming "Bear in the Big Blue House" in 1997 to currently working as the resident puppeteer on "Last Week Tonight" Noel's rich, candid, & witty stories about everything from the...

My dear friend, Letterboxd managing editor Mitchell Beaupre returns to the show to discuss the filmography & mystique of one of cinema's coolest counterculture icons, Elliott Gould. Giving a thoughtful overview of the way that his work has evolved over the years, in this engaging conversation, we focus on three of what we consider to be Gould's greatest cinematic staples: THE SILENT PARTNER, T...

It’s Jen x2! In easily the most stressful week of an incredibly fraught fall, I know we could all benefit from a little extra kindness and positivity, which just so happen to be two of the qualities most filmgoers associate with actor Paul Rudd. Chatting with Vulture' s delightful TV critic Jen Chaney, who literally wrote the book on writer-director Amy Heckerling's masterful 1995 romcom CLUELESS,...

Author Stephanie Wrobel takes a break from the busy book tour for her acclaimed, addictive new mystery novel THE HITCHCOCK HOTEL to talk about writing, what it takes to navigate multi-character arc narratives, & lessons in suspense from the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. In addition to covering her exciting mystery, we discuss three of the biggest Hitchcockian sources of inspiration for...