Junk Filter

BC-based film writer Meg Shields returns to the podcast for a conversation about her favourite movie, John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981), the definitive screen version of the legend of King Arthur. Reportedly Zack Snyder’s favourite film too, Excalibur kickstarted a wave of sword and sorcery movies in the early eighties. Filmed entirely on location in Ireland and featuring several future stars in the...

Access the entire 89 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53154024 Returning guest Zach Vasquez (Crooked Marquee, The Guardian) comes back to discuss another LA Neo-noir, Bill Duke’s 1992 crime classic Deep Cover, on the eve of its arrival to the Criterion Collection. One of the most radical studio releases of the ninetie...

Access the entire 88 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52691451 In our first episode with a South American guest, writer and podcaster Gus Lanzetta joins the pod from São Paulo, Brazil to discuss Vin “The Movies” Diesel on the eve of the worldwide release of F9 . Gus has deep knowledge of the Fast & Furious franchi...

Ottawa-based author and political commentator David Moscrop, whose work has appeared in the Washington Post and Maclean’s, joins the pod to talk about an underseen film noir classic, Elia Kazan’s Panic in the Streets . Shot entirely on location in New Orleans, Kazan’s film depicts a heroic public health official (Richard Widmark) and a determined police captain (Paul Douglas) in a race against tim...

Access the entire 82 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52243824 Comedian and podcasting queen Sooz Kempner joins the pod from Surrey, England to discuss Garry Marshall’s 1990 smash hit Pretty Woman , which made a massive star out of Julia Roberts and created a new template for the rom-com. Disney’s grown-up movie divis...

Returning guests John Semley and Will Sloan join the pod to celebrate actor, author and activist Charles Grodin, a comedy hero of ours who passed away this week at age 86. With special attention paid to his legendary talk show appearances on Carson and Letterman in character as a belligerent and uncooperative guest, his two highly influential film comedy masterpieces The Heartbreak Kid and Cliffor...

Access the entire 81 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/51486104 Toronto’s own Adam Jackson (a former contributor to Vice and Noisey) strikes a victory for Reply Guys everywhere by talking himself onto the podcast as a guest to discuss the late DMX as a screen actor. We discuss 5 of his performances: his debut, the infl...

Toronto-based playwright and author David Demchuk ( The Bone Mother ) joins the pod to discuss Michael Verhoeven’s The Nasty Girl (1990), a coming-of-age tale based on a true story about a precocious and tenacious young student who enrages her small German town as she relentlessly endeavours to uncover what life was really like there during the Third Reich. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best...

The author Jacob Bacharach joins the pod from Blacksburg, Virginia to discuss selected film adaptations of the work of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. We feature two films that understood the assignment, striking the balance between properly adapting PKD while retaining the integrity of the filmmaker’s vision - Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall and Richard Linklater’s underrated A Scanner Darkly . We al...

Access the entire 99 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/51136898 This panel discussion episode is a deep dive into the bizarre 1980 maritime action film ffolkes (aka North Sea Hijack ) starring Roger Moore and James Mason, made in between Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only . A terrorist cell led by Anthony Perkins and Mic...

The New Republic ’s Alex Shephard joins the show from Brooklyn to discuss the new Conservative propaganda film Roe v. Wade , filmed three years ago in the hopes of cashing in on the anticipated repeal of a woman’s right to abortion access by a conservative Supreme Court, but only now dribbling out to VOD in the early days of the new Biden administration. The film’s director Nick Loeb also stars as...

Ricky Camilleri of the Thirty Years Later podcast joins the show from Brooklyn to talk about the 1988 James Glickenhaus thriller Shakedown (released internationally as Blue Jean Cop ). Shakedown is a prime example of Dudes Rock cinema: films that celebrate and uphold the ideals of male friendship. Peter Weller is an overworked but idealistic NYC public defender who takes the case of a crack dealer...

Access the entire 68 minute episode (and additional bonus episodes) by becoming a patron of Junk Filter:  https://www.patreon.com/posts/49910402 Our first international guest, Belfast-based film critic and editor Ruairí McCann, joins the podcast to discuss the great Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang and his auspicious first feature, 1992’s Rebels of the Neon God , a film that took 23 years...

Robyn Citizen, TIFF’s Senior Manager of Festival Programming, joins the program to discuss one of her obsessions: 1988's box office smash Cocktail. Cocktail was adapted for the screen by Heywood Gould from his own novel, but the dark tale was significantly brightened when Disney refashioned the film as a Tom Cruise vehicle for Touchstone Pictures during their domination of the multiplex in the eig...

Brooklyn-based writer/journalist Maggie Serota ( Spin , Esquire , Rolling Stone ) joins the pod to discuss the mysteries of Steven Seagal’s movie career at Warner Bros. in the late eighties through the mid nineties with a deep dive into his bizarre 1991 Brooklyn-set crime thriller Out For Justice . This was clearly Seagal’s attempt at being taken seriously as an actor, a pretentious mafia drama or...

Junk Filter patrons have access to the full 73 min episode as well as past and upcoming Premium episodes. Consider becoming a direct supporter of the program by becoming a patron. https://www.patreon.com/posts/49084707 The first panel discussion of the podcast features an in-depth discussion of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (Snyder, 2021). Was it worth the wait? Is the artist’s original vision an i...

This episode contains spoilers for both films. Comedy writer Ursula Lawrence ( Drunk History , Adam Ruins Everything ) joins the show from Madison, Wisconsin to discuss the last few years of the career of Ben Affleck. Affleck has had quite the decade: after two big hits as a director with The Town and the Academy Award for Best Picture winning Argo , he announced he would be starring as Batman in...

Junk Filter patrons can hear the entire 100 minute episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/48593297 Defector Media’s David Roth joins the podcast from New York City to discuss The Fan , Tony Scott’s 1996 psychological thriller about a deranged San Francisco Giants fan and struggling knife salesman (Robert DeNiro) who develops an extremely unhealthy fixation on superstar slugger Bobby Rayburn (...

Los Angeles-based film writer Zach Vasquez comes on the show to discuss John Frankenheimer’s sordid 1986 crime melodrama 52 Pick-Up , one of the only legit good movies made by Cannon Films, a slept-on eighties classic. With a screenplay by Elmore Leonard adapted from his 1974 novel, 52 Pick-Up was not well-received upon release but time has been extremely kind to this shocking and grimy thriller a...

Dan Boeckner of Operators and Wolf Parade joins the pod today from Montreal to discuss Tha God Takeshi Kitano. Outside his homeland Kitano is best known for his prizewinning violent crime dramas, but in Japan “Beat” Takeshi is a superstar TV comedian whose serious arthouse film career was not taken seriously there for several years. Dan and I discuss two of Kitano’s films that exemplify his singul...

Toronto-based writer and film critic Angelo Muredda joins the pod for a discussion of David Cronenberg’s Canuxploitation classic Rabid (1977), a depiction of a horrifying viral epidemic sweeping the city of Montreal that is fascinating to reconsider today as we approach the one year anniversary of the start of lockdowns in Canada related to the real-world Coronavirus pandemic. We discuss Cronenber...

PATREON EPISODE: Subscribe to our Patreon to hear the whole 87 minute episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/47584756 Author and political commentator Jared Yates Sexton joins the pod to discuss the Disney Star Wars movies in great detail. Jared and I are both lapsed Star Wars fans and in this episode we talk about a bunch of things: our deteriorating relationship with these films and how the new S...

Minneapolis-based author and Fast Company opinion columnist Joe Berkowitz joins the podcast this week to talk about the found footage horror genre with a focus on Ti West’s 2013 thriller The Sacrament , which presents a fictionalized version of the 1978 Jonestown massacre, set in the modern era and presented as an edgy documentary from Vice Media. Joe and I discuss the evolution of the Found Foota...

Toronto-based journalist David Hains joins the pod on the eve of Trump’s exit from the White House, in the wake of the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6. Many people in the melee were members of QAnon, an elaborate pro-Trump online conspiracy theory that has picked up more believers during this pandemic year. QAnon hates Hollywood for its supposedly depraved celebrities but ironically much...

Spoilers abound during our discussion, please watch Femme Fatale before listening as there is a stunning twist you don’t want us to ruin for you. Femme Fatale is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime. No need to watch Domino first, or even at all! For the first of likely several Junk Filter episodes about Brian De Palma, Toronto-based writer John Semley joins the program for a look at two...