Feeling Seen

Indie producer, film festival programmer, and fellow Maximum Fun movie podcaster Drea Clark called dibs on Muriel Heslop before the first episode of Feeling Seen ever aired. The movie has been a favorite since its 1994 release, and while Drea doesn't relate to every aspect of Toni Collette's iconic "terrible" wannabe bride, Muriel's journey to self-acceptance and growth spoke to Drea, both then an...

From his early films like The Roost (2005) and Trigger Man (2007), to  his work with other bootstrappy filmmakers on the original V/H/S anthology, to this year's double  -- no, make that triple! -- feature of X , Pearl , and soon MaXXXine, director Ti West has been a distinctive voice in the genre cinema landscape.  So how perfect that he felt seen -- and inspired -- by another unique cinema voice...

At 62, Doug Jones is as busy as ever, playing The Baron on FX's What We Do in the Shadows , Saru on Star Trek: Discovery , and returning to the role of Billy Butcherson in Hocus Pocus 2. But you might be most familiar with Doug for his singular roles in heavy prosthetics -- as Abe Sapien in Hellboy and Hellboy II , as The Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water ; as Pan and the Pale Man in Pan's Labyr...

Polish film director Agnieszka Smoczyńska has fascinated audiences with films like The Lure and Fugue. Now, her first English-language film is in theaters. Silent Twins tells the true story of the Gibbons twins, with a style that sets harsh reality and the beauty (and power) of imagination in contrast. So perhaps it’s no surprise that stories of fantastic heroines on fanstastic journeys has long e...

The days when Ryan Kwanten was best known for playing Jason Stackhouse on True Blood may be coming to an end. This year alone, he's toplined three films -- the upcoming action thriller Section Eight , last month's Glorious (a two-hander with J.K. Simmons), and   Expired .   Here, Ryan shares what drives his project choices and performances and tells us why he feels seen by Maximus Decimus  Meridiu...

Television writer and producer Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz really struggled to find a character that she saw herself in -- a Latinx, first-generation American, striving to do her best as a woman in a male-dominated world. But when she found Amy Santiago (played on BROOKLYN NINE-NINE by Melissa Fumero), Brig REALLY found her -- she got hired to write on BROOKLYN NINE-NINE not long after the show began...

A writer for stage and screen, an artistic director, and an actor, Kwame Kwei-Armah chose a truly poetic trio of Black men pushed to a righteous breaking point for today’s conversation. Which is a perfect parallel to his latest project, Breaking (which premiered at Sundance ‘22 under the title 892 ), starring John Boyega and based on the true story of Brian Brown-Easley.  Then, Jordan has one quic...

Dana Gould’s connection to Ed Wood – both the movie and the man himself runs deep. He shares Wood’s love of monster horror, he auditioned to be in the Tim Burton film, and as he’s gotten older, he’s found himself relating to both the Ed and Bela Lugosi characters in new ways. Here, he shares those stories, plus how his inner Ed helped him bring his “Dr. Z” to life. Then, Jordan has one quick thing...

Feed drop! Jordan recently interviewed Christina Ricci for 'Bullseye with Jesse Thorn' and we wanted to make sure you heard it. Christina Ricci talks with Bullseye about the unique, fascinating arc her career has taken. Ricci began as one of the most iconic child actors of the 90s – think Casper and The Addams Family. Then, an indie film legend in films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The Ice...

Today, Amanda Deibert is a writer for the new He-Man series, DC Comics series like Super Hero Girls and Wonder Woman , and much more. Back when she first started reading the Harry Potter books (and seeing the subsequent films), she found a deep kinship with Harry’s struggles, and his ability to find his true home and chosen family. He was even a part of her coming out story! After the main discuss...

When Michael Greyeyes was a kid in Saskatchewan, seeing Will Sampson as Chief Bromden was eye-opening. Now, thirty years into his acting career, Greyeyes has entered a new chapter of his professional life – one where he’s telling collaborative stories of native communities. It’s our first time returning to a film, this time with a new character and a totally new perspective! Then, Jordan has one q...

Charlotte Colbert is a multimedia artist fascinated by questions of identity, nature, inheritance, and cultural demands. Her feature debut, SHE WILL, is an ethereal ghost story about healing, witchcraft, and revenge. LA BOUM is a movie from 1980 about a cute 13 year old who goes to a fun party. Where do these paths intersect? In “the Noumenon,” apparently!  After that far-out and philosophical con...

Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut tells the story of Lady Bird (nee Christine) in her final year of high school – dabbling with not just a new name, but also new boys, new hobbies, pushing the boundaries of her old relationships, and somehow disappointing her mother just by being herself (and applying to out-of-state colleges). Relatable much? Mary Kate Wiles (Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Fairly Odd...

W. Kamau Bell ( United Shades of America , We Need to Talk about Cosb y) has carved out his own, personalized niche in media, a blend of comedy, documentary, and community. His path didn’t always make sense to his peers, but he forged ahead because he felt that his mission was clear. That’s just one thing he has in common with Denzel Washington’s Eli from the underloved 2010 “ post-apocalyptic neo...

Writer ( The Daily Show with Jon Stewart , Mystery Science Theater 3000 , Maniac of New York ) and co-host of the The Flop House Elliott Kalan has loved film and New York City almost all his life. While cinema has offered him no shortage of characters to relate to, there was one character that Elliott related to as a teenager that, for him, represents the very things he is most happy to have grown...

As Kristen Meinzer ( Movie Therapy , By the Book , Romance Road Test ) observes, Anne of Green Gables does something relatively rare in media: it centers the story of an adopted heroine. Growing up in Minnesota, there were many aspects of Anne Shirley’s character than Kristen saw in herself, for better and worse. She and Jordan unpack that, get meta about podcasts (Kristen did, after all, write th...

Rebeca Huntt’s debut feature is a personal documentary that, even through its specificity, tells a story that is familiar to many but rarely depicted on screen. So it follows that when she thought hard about what character made her feel seen, no one character jumped out. But the ones that she named – Frances Ha, Poetic Justice, Lady Bird, Matilda – had something special in common with one another,...

Growing up, writer/producer Ali Schouten-Seeks saw herself as a total Kathleen Kelly (that is, Meg Ryan’s quirky character from YOU’VE GOT MAIL ). But as she got older, she began to learn the value of owning even those quirks that some would have women tamp down…much like Sally Albright in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (also Meg Ryan, of course). Only on FEELING SEEN does rom-com comp lit meet self discove...

Brianne Tju has starred in series like Light as a Feather, I Know What You Did Last Summe r, and Scream , and plays the lead in the new Blumhouse movie Unhuman . She’s broken barriers and had several “firsts” under her belt. But for her, seeing the films of Wong Kar-wai was a major first – the first time she saw complex romantic relationships between characters who looked like her.  Then, Jordan h...

When he was a kid growing up in Beverly Hills, writer/director Christopher Landon (DISTURBIA, FREAKY, HAPPY DEATH DAY) watched MOMMIE DEAREST with his older sister, on repeat. The 1981 film is now a camp classic, and Faye Dunaway's Joan Crawford is, to put it mildly, over-the-top. But on today's show, Chris tells us why he sees himself in the character of Joan's daughter, Christina Crawford (whose...

How is an overprotected ballerina on the brink of a major career coup like an up-and-coming director with a huge debut thriller on her hands? It’s not a riddle — it’s the topic of today’s episode with Chloe Okuno, director of the brand new movie WATCHER . She’s talking about how she sees herself in Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers in BLACK SWAN. Then, it’s even more women on the brink with Jordan’s o...

It all started in 1979…Meredith Salenger felt seen by the sweet-but-feisty Carrie (aka “Frog”) in SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. And Field’s starring role in NORMA RAE called to her long before she got involved in political fundraising and activism. An actor with a decades-long career, and now the co-host of the podcast ’ Did You Get My Text? ’ with husband Patton Oswald, she shares how she’s still inspir...

Norwegian writer/director Eskil Vogt (on both solo projects and those co-written with frequent collaborator Joachim Trier) is intrigued by the idea of “coming of age”...regardless of what age that might be. So it makes sense that he “felt seen” at an early age by The Breakfast Club ’s Brian Johnon (Anthony Michael Hall). More recently, Eskil saw himself in Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) from The Souv...

Finnish director Hanna Bergholm put her creative spirit into her new body-horror coming-of-age film for IFCMidnight, Hatching . But she's hear today to tell us about feeling seen by another creative spirit: the titular Lucy Muir in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1947 classic The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Then, Jordan has one quick thing about Tron , obviously. Hatching is in theaters and will hit streaming in...

When MaxFun’s own Janet Varney saw Peter Jackson’s HEAVENLY CREATURES as a teen, she didn’t let the movie’s whole matricide thing keep her from feeling seen. The daydreamy, obsessive devotion of a young Kate Winslet and a young Melanie Lynskey for one another was what really stood out. She and Jordan unpack all of that, plus talk about queer murderers in film, the “danger” of women alone together,...