Junk Filter

CW: Spoilers for Conclave. The author Jacob Bacharach returns to the pod for a show about Edward Berger’s entertaining political thriller Conclave starring Ralph Fiennes as a conflicted Cardinal who is required to preside over the selection of the new Pope, and amidst the infighting among the Cardinals, uncovers a shocking conspiracy within the halls of power in Vatican City.  To discuss the react...

Access this entire 70-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.patreon.com/posts/205-woman-in-2-123622191 In part two of our discussion about Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Jessica and I discuss Jane Campion’s 2003 “erotic thril...

CW: This episode contains spoilers and discussions of cinematic sexual violence.  The film writer Jessica Ritchey returns to the show for a two-part series about two controversial films about a woman’s complex sexuality, films that took a couple of decades to be rediscovered and better understood. In part one we discuss Richard Brooks’ 1977 drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar starring Diane Keaton, base...

Gus Lanzetta returns to the podcast from São Paulo to discuss two films by the Brazilian director Walter Salles: 1998’s Central Station , starring Fernanda Montenegro, and his latest, Ainda Estou Aqui (I’m Still Here) starring Montenegro’s daughter Fernanda Torres, both Academy Award-nominated for their respective performances. In Central Station  Fernanda Montenegro gave one of the greatest scree...

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. Violet Lucca, the author of the new monograph David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials , returns to the podcast from Brooklyn to discuss the book and his controversial 1991 adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch starring Peter Weller and Judy Davis ,  filmed in Toronto standing in for 50s New York and Morocco, recreated by Cronenberg’s longti...

Access this entire 70-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.patreon.com/posts/201-michael-mann-122785625 James Slaymaker, the author of Time is Luck: The Cinema of Michael Mann , returns to the podcast for a show about Man...

Roxana Hadadi, film and tv critic for Vulture and New York magazine returns to the pod for another episode about Tony Gilroy, this time looking at his screenplay for Taylor Hackford’s kidnapping thriller from the year 2000, Proof of Life , starring top-billed Meg Ryan and the ascendant superstar Russell Crowe. Crowe plays Terry Thorne, an Australian K&R (Kidnap & Ransom) consultant sent do...

Access this entire 92-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.patreon.com/posts/199-mcu-munich-2-121674522 In part two of our look at Munich , Corey Atad and I continue to discuss Spielberg’s masterpiece, and expand our discus...

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. The film writer Corey Atad returns to the pod for a two-parter on Steven Spielberg’s 2005 masterpiece Munich , which turns 20 years old this year and yet has barely aged a day. Spielberg starts the film with Black September’s terror attack on the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics and then follows a secret team of Israelis dispatched by t...

The hosts of the left politics and film podcast Pod Casty For Me, Jake Serwin and Ian Rhine, return to Junk Filter for a supersized episode about Christian Gudegast’s Den of Thieves films, starring the new King of January movies Gerard Butler in his greatest role as debauched cop Big Nick O’Brien of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The first Den of Thieves features a cat and mouse plot...

Access this entire 87-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.patreon.com/posts/196-complete-119875574 Jared Bailey (aka Twitter’s @Stolendans) returns to the podcast from Columbia South Carolina for a show about James Mangold’s...

The writer and friend of the pod Adam Jackson returns for a show about what has turned out to be the finale of Sony’s "Spider-Man Movies Without Spider-Man In Them Cinematic Universe", Kraven the Hunter , starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe. Directed by J.C. Chandor ( Margin Call , All Is Lost ), Kraven  was originally set for release in January 2023 but after guild strikes, reshoots a...

Access this entire 68-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁠ https://www.patreon.com/posts/194-die-harder-118608075 In part two of our discussion of the Die Hard series, Brian Abrams, the author of Die Hard: An Oral History and I go over the se...

The writer Brian Abrams returns to the show from Brooklyn for the first of two episodes on the Die Hard  series. In part one, Brian, the author of Die Hard: An Oral History , gives us the details on the genesis of the franchise, which perfected a formula for action comedy films that producers Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon had been developing through the eighties with 48 Hrs , Commando  and Preda...

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. Aaron and Carlee from the Hit Factory podcast return from San Francisco to discuss one of Anthony Mann’s best films, the psychological western  Man of the West , starring Gary Cooper in one of his final performances as a former outlaw who has worked to get away from his sordid past and rebuild his life, only to find himself by circumstance back...

Access this entire 50-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ https://www.patreon.com/posts/191-manhunter-2-117666207 James Majure and I continue our discussion of Michael Mann’s Manhunter , first by exploring Mann’s career-long interest in the 1975...

James Majure returns to the pod from Athens, GA for a two-part episode on Michael Mann’s Manhunter, a box office and critical disappointment in 1986 that has emerged over the decades into being extremely influential not only on Mann’s future works but on film and television in general, from genre conventions to forensic procedurals on TV. In part 1, we discuss the various cuts of Manhunter in exis...

The author Jacob Bacharach returns for a show about Ridley Scott’s latest, the big-budget sequel to his Oscar-winning Gladiator. Set 16 years later, Paul Mescal plays Lucius, the secret son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus, who seeks revenge against Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) the Roman general who conquered his home and enslaved him. He is sent into gladiator combat in the Colosseum by the scheming a...

Access this entire 94-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠ https://www.patreon.com/posts/188-teri-garr-21-116729215 The writer and content strategist Karen Geier returns for a show to mark the passing of the great Teri Garr, a gifted and influential...

The film writer Corey Atad and I went on opening day to see the new Clint Eastwood courtroom drama Juror #2 , which is getting an extremely limited release in North America even though Warner Bros. gave it a full rollout in the UK, France and Spain. Why is David Zaslav doing Clint, still working at age 94, one of the icons of American cinema and of Warner Bros., so dirty? Before seeing Clint’s lat...

Access this entire 48-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/186-apprentice-2-115230237 On part two of our discussion about The Apprentice , Sami Gold and I discuss the 2024 election and have a more specific conversation abo...

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. Sami Gold, undergraduate political science student at George Washington University and contributor to Liberal Currents, returns to the podcast for a two-part deep dive into the controversial new Donald Trump origin story The Apprentice , which was released weeks before the 2024 election despite half-hearted attempts from the Trump campaign to b...

The author and film critic Adam Nayman returns to Junk Filter to discuss the new Jason Reitman race-against-time comedy thriller Saturday Night about the backstage antics leading up to the first episode of SNL in 1975, a feature film that serves an an ode to its producer Lorne Michaels while trying to spin tension and suspense out of a foregone conclusion.  Reitman is back in Oscar Bait mode after...

Access this entire 68-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/183-curse-of-meg-114731524 The film writer Meg Shields returns from Vancouver for a spooky season show about one of her favourites, the 1961 Hammer Films gothic ho...

The author Jacob Bacharach returns to continue this podcast’s look at Megalopolis . On this episode we compare Coppola’s latest to another overheated epic about a visionary architect, King Vidor’s ludicrous 1949 adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead . Coppola has acknowledged the film version of The Fountainhead  as a key influence on Megalopolis , but what Jacob and I value about these two fi...