Hit Factory

Culture writer and premiere authority on all things concerning pop divas Sydney Urbanek joins Aaron & Carlee to discuss the 1996 adaptation of the classic Andrew Lloyd Weber & Tim Rice musical 'Evita' staring Madonna. We discuss the pop singer's efforts to silence her Erotica -era critics, the parallel lives of Madonna and the historical figure she portrayed, and the musical's tenuous rela...

This month, we are donating all of our Patreon proceeds to Hotels Not Hospitals , a project of organizers and activists working for the rights of unhoused people in San Francisco. This is an organization spun out of the DSA SF Homelessness Working Group (Democratic Socialists of America, San Francisco Chapter) and is endorsed by DSA SF. We sat down with organizer Edna Kozikaro to discuss the proje...

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We close out 2020 with the cult favorite 'Dark City' - a film that definitely didn't influence The Wachowski's 'Matrix' films in any way whatsoever. Aaron & Carlee break down the film's genre-bending aesthetic charms, its relation to the late-90s trend of augmented reality narratives, and discuss the necessity of imagination in developing an alternative political project to neoliberal nostalgi...

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Into the jungle we both wade // Another film from a bygone decade // First - Dr. discourse of a sort // is granted some undue import // For movie talk you'll have to wait // Until we cover the M4A debate // On to Jumanji. The Game. The status quo // And what our next roll will bestow Also, Aaron was sort of right about The Thief & The Cobbler . Subscribe to Hit Factory on Patreon .

Evan MacDonald from the Kino Lefter Podcast joins Aaron in the Hit Factory to discuss Whit Stillman's 1990 directorial debut 'Metropolitan'. We discuss the recent death knell for the movie theater experience, the utopian socialism of Charles Fourier, and the profound inferiority complex plaguing the elite class. Check out and subscribe to Kino Lefter for more awesome socialist movie content.

It's the summer of 1998, and a celestial rock is on a collision course for planet Earth. Our first ever double-feature episode explores the right-wing, explosive preposterousness of Michael Bay's 'Armageddon' alongside the competent, neoliberal eulogy that is Mimi Leder's 'Deep Impact'. Aaron & Carlee sing some Aerosmith and become Ben Affleck apologists along the way.

Thanksgiving. 1973. Or 1997. Or 2020. We revisit one of the unsung masterpieces of the decade: Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm". Aaron & Carlee discuss the film's once-in-a-generation cast, Mychael Danna's hauntingly evocative score, and the cyclical nature of our political and social malaise.

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Meagan Day is a staff writer at Jacobin and the coauthor of 'Bigger than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism'. Meagan joins Aaron & Carlee in the Hit Factory to discuss the anti-politics of Nora Ephron's 1998 romantic-comedy 'You've Got Mail' and recast Clintonite Third Way centrism as political defeatism. Read Meagan's piece, "The Romance of American Clintonism...

Election Day is nigh. To commiserate, we revisit Warren Beatty's overlooked, all-too-salient political comedy 'Bulworth'. Aaron & Carlee discuss the necrotic 2020 Presidential race, Jay Billington Bulworth's IRL political counterpart, and survey the 90's subsumption into Third Way Clintonian centrism. Warren Beatty's Op-Ed "Why Not Now?": https://archive.commondreams.org/warrenbeatty.htm "Hail...

We kept all the lights on and watched the scariest film of the 1990's, "The Blair Witch Project". Aaron & Carlee discuss the film's legacy as a vanguard of viral marketing and found-footage cinema, its appeal to a greater sense of pre-millennium malaise, and the role of supernatural evil in the age of misinformation. Special thanks to the brilliant and hilarious Nick Lutsko for providing this...

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It's officially Spooky Season! We kick it off (and go a little long) with the rebellious-older-sister of 90's Witch Cinema™: 'The Craft'. Aaron & Carlee gush over the peerless Fairuza Balk, extol the combination of plaid skirts with chunky boots, and dissect the film's thesis with a hammer and sickle.

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It's been a while...Sandrapalooza continues into September with Marco Brambilla's dystopian action banger 'Demolition Man'. We talk the film's fetishization of consumption, the liberal tendency towards maintaining hierarchies while sanitizing culture, and speculate on the cleanliness of Sylvester Stallone's nethers. We're still donating all Patreon funds to the The Conscious Kid's COVID Rent Relie...

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Sandrapalooza kicks off with John Turteltaub's 1995 romantic comedy "While You Were Sleeping". We talk the film's underlying classism, Sandra Bullock's indefatigable charm, and the 90's tendency to treat generation-crippling medical debt with a profound nonchalance.

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We discuss Steven Spielberg's thrilling, technologically groundbreaking, sort-of-narratively-static "Jurassic Park", the underappreciated Bob Peck, and the follies of Disney World's inter-COVID reopening. kaptainkristian's "Jurassic Park - Pushing The Limits of Visual Effects": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rlr3Lzvqog Jeff Goldblum Laugh Remix "Hahahrawrrahaha" by FLIPSHOT. Follow FLIPSHOT on S...

We break down Joel Schumacher's critically misunderstood "Falling Down", talk Michael Douglas's hot 90's bod, and get a tad socialist in the process. 

The first episode. Aaron & Carlee break down Sydney Pollack's adaptation of the John Grisham thriller "The Firm" starring Tom Cruise. Rob Jarvilla's Joel Schumacher Obituary from THE RINGER: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2020/6/22/21299608/joel-schumacher-obituary-batman-forever-lost-boys-flatliner-falling-down