Death is a Photograph

Patreon here. This week, DP heads south. South to Chile — a nation which ended its military junta and dictatorship through an advertising-powered referendum just as the Cold War was ending. Could there be material that's more End of History in its politics? Chilean director Pablo Larraín seemed to think not — producing his 2012 feature No — half as a celebration of the 1988 presidential referendum...

Patreon here .  This week DPP delves into Guy Ritchie's feature debut Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). What did the 1990s rebirth of Cockney-cool during the Blair era mean for Gen X? How did London feel just before the turn of the 21st century? And why are British-gangster movie directors so posh? Find out in today's episode.

Patreon and full episode here. In the second of DPP's special book episodes, Sam and Chase interview Yale Law and History professor Samuel Moyn on his new book Gerontocracy in America: How the Old are Hoarding Power and Wealth – and What to Do About It (2026). For how much longer will the Boomers and Silent Generation rule America? And how does their dominance differ from historical gerontocracies...

Patreon here. This week, DPP explores the cult film — Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered (2001). Panned at the time by venerable critics like Roger Ebert — Freddy Got Fingered has only grown in influence in the last two decades, generating a reputation as the ur-Gen X slacker and freak-out comedy. Is this a piece of Dada genius or a symptom of the Hollywood studio system indulging the worst tendencie...

Patreon here. This week, the DPP lads head east — to the wild years of Russia in the 1990s after the fall of communism. That's right — we're talking about 1997's gangster coming-of-age feature Brat by Aleksei Balabanov , a film that explores Russia at a turning point: between the drunken post-Communist years of Yeltsin and the rising authoritarianism of Putin. To paraphrase Gramsci — "the crisis c...

DPP ventures into the North Chicago suburbs as it broaches its first John Hughes film —  Sixteen Candles (1984). What does adolescence look like in the affluent upper middle classes for Gen X? What role does the family play? What did dating look like for those coming of age in the epoch? Find out in today's episode.

Patreon here.   This week, the DPP boys check out Reginald Hudlin's 1990 House Party . The film launched a long-running series of coming-of-age comedies under the House Party title, terminating in 2023. Centring around the exploits of rap duo Kid n' Play, the film did much to introduce hip-hop into the American mainstream. It also foregrounds African American middle-class suburban life on fil...

To access the full episode —  subscribe to our Patreon .  In the first of DPP's special book episodes, Sam interviews Oxford politics lecturer and NYT contributing writer Anton Jäger on his new book: Hyperpolitics (2026, Verso) . Jäger's text is an expansion of two essays: ' From Bowling Alone to Posting Alone ' (2022) and ' Everything is Hyperpolitical ' (2023). Through an analysis of p...

Patreon is here.  Today's DPP episode explores the little-known 1994 feature by multi-media artist Jessica Hagedorn – Fresh Kill . Recycling, sushi, yuppies, toxic waste, nameless megacorporations, ethical hacking – Staten Island – Fresh Kill has it all, wrapped up in a dissonant prose-poem of a script. But did the world really turn into the endlessly diffused and globalised set of networks t...

Find our patreon here .  The DPP boys were picking through the flea markets of Berlin — looking for Trabant car parts and old jars of Spreewaldgurken. In amongst the clutter, we came across a dusty videotape — Goodbye, Lenin! (2003). Wolfgang Becker's breakout hit — a deep dive into Ostalgie — only a few years after German reunification — asks the question: what if you could keep living in a...

Like, rate, and subscribe at our patreon – here.   This week, DPP delve into the high school comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). The film, directed by Amy Heckerling and based on the gonzo reporting of Cameron Crowe, is a vignette of teenage life in suburban southern California in the 1980s. With Reagan in power, plentiful jobs, and easy credit, what did adolescence look like for a br...

Chase is solo on this episode with guest Andrew Young to discuss i ♥ huckabees, an under-the-radar feature film by early Gen-X wunderkind David O. Russell. NIMBYism, environmentalism, cod-psychology, adolescent existentialism, self-help, the fear of suburbia, ecological doom, space-hoppers – i ♥ huckabees has it all. Where does a generation go when questions of material survival have been answered...

Subscribe to DPP's patreon.   This week, DPP takes on Gen X myth-making about the city of Manchester – namely, through Michael Winterbottom's 2002 film 24 Hour Party People . Why did Manchester explode as a Gen X-era subcultural and music mecca in the 1980s and 1990s, overtaking places more central to the boomer consciousness like Liverpool? And how did those involved in the post-punk and aci...

Connect with us on Patreon .  DPP journeys to the Garden State, and Chase's political domain, this week — that's right, we're covering slacker favourites Clerks (1994) and Clerks II (2006). Directed by Kevin Smith, these films explore what it's like to spend a decade working marginal, dead-end jobs, without actively identifying oneself as marginal or a failure, because you've got your friends...

Subscribe to our Patreon here .  The DPP boys head back up to Scotland (we can't keep away), in search of meaning in deindustrialised hellscapes — that's right, we're doing Trainspotting (1996) and Danny Boyle's lesser-known follow-up: T2 (2017). Is there any compensation for the full-scale loss of meaning, association and community brought about by the offshoring of manufacturing and the ris...

Subscribe on Patreon .  In the first of our solo episodes this season, the DPP boys sit down, shut their asses up, and listen to Gen X women in the workplace, specifically Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Alanna Ubach in Jill Sprecher's 1997 office comedy Clockwatchers . If Office Space, Fight Club and Falling Down express a male rage at deindustrialisation, the meaninglessness of...

This week, the DPP lads are joined by David Jamieson , journalist and editor of Conter Scot to discuss Mel Gibson's 1995 epic Braveheart . What does a botched historical drama about Scotland's First War of Independence (1296-1328) by an American-Australian traditionalist Catholic tell us about the political conscioussness of Gen X and the contemporary American right? What does, and did, freedom me...

This week on DPP the boys sit down with Eddie Averill, formerly of Extended Clip , now of Vintage Violence , to investigate Paul Thomas Anderson's LA epic Magnolia (1999). Is Hollywood an American virus? Is TV the Gen-X brain bug? Dig in with Chase, Sam, and Eddie to find out.

Our Patreon.   It's giving unemployed. This week, DPP is joined by poet, podcaster, author, and host of Varn Vlog — C. Derick Varn — to discuss Richard Linklater's non-linear, slice-of-a-generation classic, Slacker (1990) . Set in the suburbs of Austin, Texas, Slacker follows an interwoven set of 20 and 30-somethings, doing, well, not exactly much. This is pre-techlord and podcaster Austin. H...

You can find our Patreon here .  This week, the DPP lads are joined by writer, critic and marketing director at publishing house Deep Vellum (and friend of the pod) Jon Repetti — to discuss Spike Lee's 1999 crime thriller Summer of Sam . Summer of Sam revolves around the fallout from a real-life killing spree committed by David Berkowitz between 1975 and 1977. Lee's 1999 feature is an odd com...

Subscribe for upcoming premium content.  This week, Chase and Sam at DPP are joined by architecture critic and writer Owen Hatherley to discuss British director Patrick Keiller’s London (1994) and Robinson in Space (1997). ​ London and Robinson in Space form the first two parts of the decade-long Robinson trilogy . Keiller's two essay films capture Britain during the interregnum between Thatc...

This week, DPP is joined by prolific podcaster and Renaissance man J.G. Michael of Parallax Views to discuss two underappreciated gems by director Adam Rifkin : The Chase (1994) and Detroit Rock City (1999). Rifkin, who got his start in the world of wrestling (could there be a more Gen X origin story?), has produced an oeuvre defined by Hollywood's commercial needs. Yet, in between, family-friendl...

Today, and once again, the Europeans outnumber the Americans on this week’s DPP. Chase and Sam are joined by British GQ staff writer and friend of the pod, Josiah Gogarty, to discuss Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's seminal feature film The Great Beauty (2013) and slightly self-indulgent coming-of-age piece The Hand of God (2021). Sorrentino, alongside Luca Guadagnino, is probably Italy's best-...

In today's episode of DPP - Chase and Sam are joined by filmmaker Charles Pinion to discuss his 1988 film Twisted Issues . Pinion's films — made during Gen X's heyday — revolve around skater culture, punk rock, DIY aesthetics and, in the case of Twisted Issues , maniac zombie killers with fencing masks. You can see Pinion's back-catalogue of films here . As ever — like, rate, subscribe. Or ya know...

It's the new year, and Sam and Chase have returned to their PMC day jobs in force. Less mind-numbing conversations by the water cooler, less pizza parties, less boredom — but far more existential dread and precarity ( who said things couldn't get better ). In today's episode, we're joined by sociologist and writer Dan Evans to discuss two Gen X films about work and working: Joel Schumacher's Falli...