Feeling Seen

If you needed proof that '90s movies were built different, look no further than TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT. It's a practical effect-driven spinoff of a horror comedy anthology from a Black director, sprinkled with bare-breasted ladies, centered around a mixed-race cast, set in the Southwest,  and starring Billy Zane as an ooze-filled demon and Jada Pinkett as a quietly brooding Final Girl....

Director/production designer Ariel Vida (VIDE NOIR, Rustic Films) has seen RRR many, many times. In this conversation with Jordan, she talks about the ways the movie makes her feel seen not only through the characters themselves, but through its unabashed celebration of abiding friendship  -- and the enthusiastic reception that message has gotten around the world. #RRRforOscars Then, Jordan has on...

Happy New Year! We're celebrating the end of 2022 by replaying a favorite early episode of the show. Enjoy, and here's to great things in 2023. This episode originally aired in November 2021. This week’s show could be titled “A Very Special Episode.” We actually have the wonderful Susan Orlean on to talk about watching Meryl Streep her in the movie ‘Adaptation.’ She takes Jordan through the proces...

This one is for everybody working to strike that balance between caring for yourself and caring for your "family of origin." A forgotten and surprisingly dramatic SNL spinoff directed by Harold Ramis in 1995, Stuart Saves His Family spoke to a younger Kevin Maher as an adult from a family where alcoholism was an issue. It even factors thematically into Kevin's new humor book, Santa Doesn't Need Yo...

Today, director David Bruckner talks with Jordan about feeling seen by Holly Hunter's character, Jane Craig, in the 1987 classic, BROADCAST NEWS. Directed by James L. Brooks, it's a journalism....satire? rom-com? dramedy?... starring Hunter, Albert Brooks, and William Hurt. It's one of those movies that is so prescient about what news media would become. And for David Bruckner -- whose latest film...

Film critic Amy Nicholson (whose ' Unspooled ' podcast with Paul Scheer is currently in its fourth season) first encountered 'Click' as a budding young critic and USC student. She didn't love it, but it did make her cry. This conversation with Jordan is an exploration of why that might be, alongside the ways things have improved and devolved in the years since the movie's 2006 release. Then, one q...

Actor Noah Segan -- or, should we say, writer/director/producer/actor Noah Segan -- is the star and creative force behind his directorial debut, BLOOD RELATIVES . In it, he plays a century-old, lone-wolf vampire who suddenly has a teenage daughter to think about. Segan, a dad himself, chose another suddenly-a-father character for today's epsiode: H.I. McDonnough (Nicolas Cage) from the 1987 Coen B...

Sometimes our co-hosts really struggle to come up with a character to discuss for our show. But actor Raúl Castillo ( The Inspection , Cha Cha Real Smooth , Looking , and much more) went with his gut, and what came to mind immediately was The Outsiders , and especially Matt Dillon's character of lead "greaser" Dallas "Dally" Winston. Jordan, Raúl, and you the listener will all learn at the same ti...

Rahul Kohli is a working actor -- and thanks in part to the prolific Mike Flanagan, he's been working a lot lately.  In this episode, Rahul (whose latest film is NEXT EXIT, directed by Mali Elfman) tells us the many ways that he feels seen by Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) in the KARATE KID films, and does so with a scrappy spirit that Daniel would approve of.  Then, Jordan's one quick thing is an...

We're celebrating our First Birthday with the one and only Paul Feig, writer/director/producer behind stuff like FREAKS AND GEEKS, BRIDESMAIDS, SPY, THE HEAT, A SIMPLE FAVOR, and lots more stuff. Starting off with his deep identification with the singularly obsessed Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, Paul shares stories of his childhood as a sci-fi loving movie ner...

David Bizzaro has had a long and varied career in front of and behind the camera, but his newest role is Mochi on Netflix's Waffles and Mochi's Restaurant. Mochi is...well, a mochi. He talks a lot, but doesn't say words. He's a tiny pink ball. He's friends with Michelle Obama. This week, David shares his journey into puppetry, his family background raised by an immigrant mother, seeing neurodivers...

“Tell me a tale of yourself, so that I might know thee,” King Arthur asks Dev Patel’s Gawain in The Green Knight (2021). At a time in her life when she was struggling with illness and her own creative ambitions, Nyla Innuksuk heard the question as if she were the one being asked. She’ll tell us all about it – and lots of great behind-the-scenes stories of her tale of Indigenous girls in the Canadi...

Lucky McKee's new film, Old Man, is the latest in a career of character-driven horror favorites like May, The Woman, and All Cheerleaders Die . And in this episode, he's sharing his personal resonance with Charlie, the main character in Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973). In a powder keg of rough men always threatening to go off in a burst of violence, Charlie (played by Harvey Keitel) is a mediator w...

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...