My Movie DNA

In episode 26, Johnny talks to Mutant Records co-founder Mo Shafeek . Mo started Mutant Records earlier this year with fellow founding members of Mondo’s poster and vinyl divisions. They really are the hot new label in town, and it’s been great to see them hit the ground running with some big name releases already.  Johnny's talk with Mo covers the Wachowskis , Josie & The Pussycats , and Tren...

In episode 25, Johnny talks to music A&R man Martyn James . Martyn works for Universal Music in London and is one of the lucky few who gets to dig into the vaults of bands and solo artists to find things to put out on reissues and box sets.  He was also part of the team that put together the Oasis documentary Supersonic back in 2016, directed by Mat Whitecross.   Johnny's talk with Martyn...

In episode 24, Johnny talks to music supervisor  Ron Payne . Ron started his Hollywood career as a Production Assistant for John Hughes in 1984.  He went on to be a set P.A. on Weird Science , Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , and Pretty In Pink , and then a music supervisor / music co-ordinator on Some Kind Of Wonderful , Planes, Trains & Automobiles , She’s Having A Baby , The Great Outdoors , Uncl...

In episode 23, Johnny talks to returning My Movie DNA alumnus Daíbhid MacCann .  In what is becoming an annual tradition, this episode is Johnny and Daíbhid's round-up of the Academy Awards nominees for films released in 2023. They go through the major categories to declare what they think will win, but also what they think should win, on the night. Their talk covers boogying out of a window t...

In episode 22, Johnny talks to music supervisor, movie producer and music manager Tarquin Gotch . Tarquin’s career saw him rise to Head of A&R at Arista Records in the 1980s - overseeing acts like The Thompson Twins, Simple Minds,  The Stray Cats , and The Beat . He then moved to Warners, transitioning Prince, Madonna and many other American acts into the UK. Moving into music management he ov...

Following East Auckland DJ Phil Taylor's appearance on ⁠episode 19 of My Movie DNA⁠, Phil returned the favour and invited Johnny to be a guest on his She'll Be Right radio show on ⁠East FM⁠ in late November 2023.  This was a four-hour show, full of soundtrack picks, good chat, and Johnny even tackles a couple of songs on the guitar.  Thanks to Phil Taylor for the invitation and many thanks to stat...

Following East Auckland DJ Phil Taylor's appearance on episode 19 of My Movie DNA, Phil returned the favour and invited Johnny to be a guest on his She'll Be Right radio show on East FM in late November 2023. This was a four-hour show, full of soundtrack picks, good chat, and Johnny even tackles a couple of songs on the guitar. Thanks to Phil Taylor for the invitation and many thanks to station ma...

In episode 21, Johnny talks to arthouse cinema programmer Gorjan Markovski.  Gorjan can be found curating Auckland's Academy Cinema, a subterranean theatre that caters for arthouse / festival movies and retro / classic screenings.  Johnny's talk with Goran covers Tarantino, Polanski and Godard, the absence of Kiera Knightley in movies made in the last decade, and they discuss whether it’s appropri...

In episode 20, Johnny talks to London rapper Jelani Blackman.⁠  An accomplished vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Jelani has just released his fantastic debut album The Heart Of It. This comes after a busy few years in the industry that saw him collaborating with - among others - Damon Albarn and Gorillaz, and with producers Fred Again and Brian Eno.  Johnny's talk with Jelani covers C...

In episode 19, Johnny talks to Phil Taylor, East Auckland Radio DJ, quizmaster, journalist and all-round community champion.⁠ You can find Phil - or PJ - presenting the She’ll Be Right show on Saturday afternoons on East FM, broadcast locally in Auckland, but also online and on I Heart Radio.  They talk about comedy from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton all the way up to John Candy and Bill Murra...

In episode 18, Johnny talks to Darren Waugh, a fellow Auckland film nerd, and co-host of the labyrinthine movie podcast Ludicrously Specific.⁠ Darren has been co-hosting Ludicrously Specific since 2020 alongside his friends Doug Dillaman and Steve Skeet.  I urge you to check it out if you like falling down cinematic rabbit holes, and hearing about films with ludicrously specific connections.  Our...

In episode 17, Johnny talks to Jasher and Mykah Drake, hosts of the world’s leading Godzilla podcast, Podzilla. Brothers Jasher and Mykah love all things Godzilla, and their enthusiasm for monster movies and all of cinema in general, is infectious. We cover Edgar Wright, John Carpenter, and the current state of the MCU and blockbusters in 2023 - and we're left to wonder whether Andrew Garfield and...

In episode 16, Johnny talks to Stuart Buchanan, an award-winning artist born and raised in Glasgow.  Today, Stuart lives in Catterline, an old fishing village in the North East of Scotland, where he paints from his studio overlooking the North Sea.  Stuart’s work is quite well known in the British art scene, so a quick Google search will show you some great examples of his style - lots of peaceful...

In episode 15, Johnny talks to Ross Williams, director and founder of The Daily Jaws.  If you’re a big Jaws fan, you might already follow one of the Daily Jaws social media accounts, where Ross and his colleague Dean Newman provide daily updates to their loyal fan base of hundreds of thousands of Jaws heads.  This conversation was recorded online in early July 2023.  We talk about Alien and Aliens...

In episode 14, Johnny talks to New Zealand filmmaker Fraser Grut. Fraser has just completed work as a director on 'Hot Potato', an upcoming film about Australian supergroup the Wiggles, which will be releasing on Amazon later in the year.  And over on Fraser’s Instagram you can find all the latest instalments of his 10,000 Dreams project - something that is almost too crazy to even imagine (but Fr...

In episode 13, Johnny talks to British stand-up comedian, writer and filmmaker Matthew Highton. Matt is the first My Movie DNA recommendation from a previous guest, after the fantastic Bec Hill mentioned him back in episode 8. Johnny then discovered he and Matt share the same hometown of Oldham in the North West of England, so he was the perfect person to trade war stories with and talk about movi...

In episode 12, Johnny talks to Visual Effects artist Sofia Diaz. Born and raised in Mexico, but now living in New Zealand, Sofia has worked on several successful films and TV shows including Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, Moon Knight, and the Netflix shows Wednesday and Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities.  This conversation was recorded face to face towards the end of April 2023.  We...

In episode 11, Johnny talks to skateboarding library archivist and fellow Auckland cinephile Jacob Powell. When he’s not archiving materials at the University of Auckland Library, or skateboarding around Auckland’s skate parks, Jacob can be found watching and writing about movies. In fact, Jacob was an OG user of Letterboxd from day one - and his interview on that journey can be found in the artic...

In episode 10 of the My Movie DNA podcast, Johnny welcomes his first returning guest - Daíbhid MacCann from episode 7 - for a round-up of the Oscars. We’re about a week away from the 95th Academy Awards so we thought we’d get together and discuss what we think will win, what should win, etc. This conversation was recorded online in early March of 2023, and comes complete with a fair bit of New Zea...

In episode nine, Johnny talks to the British composer, producer, DJ and violinist Tomm Matthews. For his soundtrack work, Tomm is a three-time Golden Bell nominee for Best Score/Best Sound Design. He’s written music for TV dramas, feature films & trailers as well as the theme music for a number of popular TV shows. This conversation was recorded in person in mid-January of 2023. We talk about the...

In episode eight, Johnny talks to the brilliant award-winning writer and comedian Bec Hill. Australian-born and London-based, you might know Bec from her hilarious Flipchart videos - that she calls Paper Puppetry - which have been featured on shows such as 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown and the Jonathan Ross show. Bec’s approach to comedy can be best summed up by this review of her 2017 Edinburgh...

In episode seven, Johnny talks to Daíbhid MacCann, one of his oldest friends from Manchester. Johnny and Daíbhid used to work together in the late-2000s but despite living a world away have remained friends ever since due to their shared love of films. This bumper Christmas episode was recorded online in mid-November of 2022, and ends up up being the longest My Movie DNA episode yet. The conversat...

In episode six, Johnny talks to Dominic Corry, one of New Zealand’s leading film journalists. Dom is the film critic for the New Zealand Herald, editor-at-large for Letterboxd and regularly contributes to Flicks and Radio New Zealand, among other places. This conversation was recorded face-to-face in early November of 2022. We talk about the experience of growing up as a film nerd in New Zealand,...

In episode five, Johnny talks to David Lowbridge-Ellis, editor and commander-in-chief of LicenceToQueer.com, a fantastic online community that looks at the James Bond universe from an LGBTQ perspective. As well as being a James Bond obsessive, David is also an avid film fan and his background as a secondary school teacher and headmaster turns this into possibly the most eloquent and articulate My...

In episode four, Johnny talks to Cameo England. One of New Zealand's last working cinema projectionists, Cameo is the Film & Technical Manager at the glorious Hollywood Avondale, where she regularly projects 35mm prints of movie classics. Cameo has worked in cinemas since the mid-2000s, where she learnt to project film in the pre-digital era, and now shares that skill with cinema audiences in Auck...