Cinema Junkie

Get a first look, I mean, listen, to Troma Entertainment's latest film "#Shakespeare's Sh--storm." Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman talks with me about finally being old enough to play Prospero in his 100% Troma-tized adaptation of the Bard's "The Tempest." We also talk about being kicked off YouTube, starting a streaming channel, and surviving more than four decades outside Hollywood as a truly indepe...

As if the zombies knew a real pandemic was heading our way, there was a surge of undead films in 2019 with more than a dozen infecting cinemas. So as we deal with a real pandemic Cinema Junkie gets its annual check up with the Doctor of the Dead, Arnold T. Blumberg, whose diagnosis is that COVID is ruining the fun of the zombie apocalypse by giving us something far scarier in the willful ignorance...

Everything you need to know you can learn from zombies. Author Max Brooks pretty much laid out a lot of what we're been dealing with during this coronavirus pandemic in his novel "World War Z" that came out in 2006. He will have a virtual panel at this year's Comic-Con@Home called "Zombies and Coronavirus: Planning for the Next Big Outbreak." Brooks says of his panel, "People can expect to hear us...

While in quarantine I discovered the Apple TV show "Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet" created by "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's" Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Megan Ganz. The show debuted in February but had a bonus quarantine episode released at the end of May. So for this podcast I wanted to look to the gaming world and creating a show about the dynamics of running a game design company. I...

David F. Walker, author of the upcoming "The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel," talks more about the research he's done for his book and I have my full interview with a member of the San Diego Original Black Panther Party, Henry Lee Wallace V. So I stray off the film path for this bonus or perhaps it's better titled a companion podcast to Black Films That Matter. Walker talks about the Black P...

David F. Walker (writer of "Shaft" and "Luke Cage" comics, and graphic novels on Frederick Douglas and The Black Panther Party) picks some Black films that matter to provide context for today's protests. We discuss the controversial 1973 film "The Spook Who Sat By The Door" that United Artists pulled from release; Melvin Van Peebles' "The Watermelon Man" in which Godfrey Cambridge plays a white ma...

This month and into July Shudder is hosting the Etheria Film Festival, a showcase of genre shorts by women filmmakers, and a Queer Horror Collection featuring the new documentary "Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street." I will highlight the best of Etheria and then speak with filmmakers Tyler Jensen and Roman Chimienti about making "Scream Queen!" and finally speak with Mark Patton (Jesse in "N...

Matt Berry has given us a gallery of hilarious characters from the buffoonish Douglas Reynholm in "The IT Crowd" to full of himself actor Steven Toast in "Toast of London" to the Staten Island vampire Laszlo Cravensworth in "What We Do In The Shadows," which has its season finale on June 10, 2020. I had the pleasure of speaking with Berry about his career including such cult classics as "Snuff Box...

Cinema Junkie has been exploring escapist films to distract you from our current coronavirus pandemic but as parts of the country and some businesses start to reopen I decided it was time to explore some unconventional pandemic films that raise issues beyond just the virus itself. I will be speaking with neuroscientist and emotion researcher Eric Leonardis who has been spending his quarantined tim...

Write, blogger, and classic film enthusiast Will McKinley will be your guide to becoming a more adventuresome digital explorer as you navigate the quarantine landscape. He suggest skip the entertainment fast food and pick more nourishing options from the digital buffet. We'll discuss everything from free services to boutique streaming services to bulking up on physical media. There really are so m...

April was to have been the month we got Bond 25, "No Time To Die" but the film has been postponed to November because of the current pandemic. So here's a discussion about the best and most outrageous Bond rip off spy films that provide perfect escapist fare while sheltering at home. To help guide us through this fun terrain is #Bond_age espionage aficionado James Patrick. We also pay tribute to H...

Cinema Junkie offers up some quarantine viewing options that provide escapism. First up, TCM Classic Film Festival had to cancel its Hollywood event but has moved it to its TCM cable channel for a Home Edition that anyone can enjoy while sheltering at home. Charles Tabesh, senior vice president in charge of programming at Turner Classic Movies, previews the festival. The Nora Fiore, author of the...

UC San Diego professor Joel Wertheim uses the 2011 Steven Soderbergh film "Contagion" to teach a class every fall in epidemiology because it is so accurate in depicting a global pandemic. I talk to Wertheim about viruses and what we might be able learn from pop culture about dealing with the current coronavirus pandemic.

I became a fan of Benh Zeitlin after his first film "Beasts of the Southern Wild." Now almost eight years later he has a second film that once again captures the wonder of childhood through a young girl's eyes. For "Wendy" he has reimagined "Peter Pan" from her point of view and place the idea of motherhood front and center. I speak to him about shooting on 16mm, working with non-professional chil...

February is Women In Horror Month and Cinema Junkie checks in with the Twisted Twins Jen and Sylvia Soska. The Soskas have a new film currently streaming, it's the remake of fellow Canadian David Cronenberg's 70s cult favorite, "Rabid." I have been following the rise of the Twisted Twins since their feature debut "Dead Hooker in a Trunk" in 2009 and their brilliant and most personal project "Ameri...

The Academy Award nominations always incite me to give out my own awards for best of the year. So here are the Cinema Junkie Awards to highlight the films that I loved this year, some of which I feel were severely under-appreciated.

Imagine a body as your canvas, a knife as your paintbrush, and blood as your medium. That in a nutshell is the Italian giallo film. Cinema Junkie is on holiday break so I am serving up a tasty archive from 2017 when I looked to Italian giallo cinema. I’ll be back with a new episode in two weeks where I give out the Cinema Junkie Awards. But since I am co-hosting a film series in San Diego at Digit...

Fasten your seatbelts! Cinema Junkie is racing off on a vacation break and playing a favorite archive episode this week. I'll be back with new episodes in January. Since I will be co-hosting a yearlong Gearhead Cinema program at San Diego's Digital Gym Cinema in 2020 I am digging into the archives for my interview with stunt driver Steve Lepper who talks about the best car movies and car chases of...

At a time when much of Hollywood's award hopefuls feel familiar in their storytelling formula, it's refreshing to find films like "Waves" and the upcoming "A Hidden Life" from Terrence Malick that speak in an audaciously cinematic language that is pure visual poetry. "Waves'" filmmaker Trey Edward Shults grabbed my attention two years ago for "It Comes At Night," an unconventional horror film that...

It's the holidays and I'm feeling sentimental. My dad died on Aug. 23 this year and he's the person responsible for making me fall in love with movies. So for my holiday edition of Cinema Junkie I give thanks to my dad for passing on his passion for movies to me and I highlight some of my favorite movie memories I shared with my dad. So it's a personal edition of the show and you'll get some insig...

It's crazy gearheads to crazy rich Asians as Cinema Junkie goes from the Le Mans track to debating the best in Asian American films from the past two decades. First up, director James Mangold discusses his new film "Ford v Ferrari," about the showdown between the two car icons in 1966 at the 24-hour Le Mans race. It may be called "Ford v Ferrari" but the story is really more about American car des...

Two films that will make my ten best list are arriving in theaters: "The Lighthouse" and "Jojo Rabbit" so I'm thrilled to be able to highlight both films with interviews. I speak with filmmaker Robert Eggers (who previously directed "The Witch") about his new film "The Lighthouse" starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson and set in an 1890s remote New England lighthouse. And then I talk with act...

Eddie Murphy stars in the Netflix film "Dolemite is My Name." The film introduces audiences to singer, musician, stand up comic, actor and film producer Rudy Ray Moore. Moore found success in the 1970s with a string of Blaxploitation films that began with the 1975 film "Dolemite." I speak with award-winning comic book writer David Walker, who knew the real Rudy Ray Moore, as well as with independe...

With AMC's "NOS4A2" renewed for a second season Cinema Junkie digs into the archives for a 2013 interview with author Joe Hill at the KPBS studios. He talks about his best-selling novel, horror, and comics. Plus he reads a selection from his novel and we'll hear from fans about what they love about his writing.

John Waters' Odorama has inspired filmmaker JC Calciano to make his new film "Steam Room Stories: The Movie" in Cinema Scent. I talk with Calciano about scratch 'n' sniff cards, going from YouTube to feature films, and working with Traci Lords.