The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by renowned critic and film historian David Thomson to discuss his new book, A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies . It’s a bracing tome, given its thesis: That the film screen has fundamentally altered who we are and how we interact with the world, in ways mostly negative. I’ll have more on this book in my newsletter this week, but I reall...

This week I’m joined by CNN’s media analyst Brian Stelter to discuss the big news of the week, Comcast’s decision to spin NBC Universal off into a separate company. What will happen to the broadcast network? Who might some of the suitors be for the standalone company? All that and more on this week’s episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend!

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Ben Fritz of the Wall Street Journal to discuss his exclusive on the partnership between Google and A24 and what it portends for the rest of the studios who are either diving into the world of AI filmmaking or cautiously sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how things shake out. 

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by my first guest, the great Richard Rushfield, to talk all things TV. What’s the deal with Fox buying Roku? What does the post-peak-TV era look like? And, perhaps most importantly, who is on the Mount Rushmore of television? All that and more on this week’s episode. Leave your pick for the all-time-top-four TV figures in the comments!

I’m joined by Peter M. Hoffman this week to discuss his new memoir, Karmic Winds , about his time in Hollywood as the tax lawyer who could figure out how to get movies financed and get people paid. Fans of 1980s action movies will recognize many of the names here, as Hoffman was a key figure in the Golan and Globus empire before becoming CEO of Carolco Pictures during their epic run of films that...

I’m super-excited about this week’s episode, as I’m getting to talk about one of my favorite zombie movies ( Day of the Dead ) with one of the creators of that film (John Harrison, the first assistant director and composer of its iconic score) and one of the producers at one of my favorite boutique Blu-ray labels (Jeff Roland from Shout Factory/Scream Factory). We talk all about the making of the...

Just as a heads up: This episode was posted on the Takes feed over the weekend, but I wanted to make sure and share it with y’all because a.) it was a lot of fun and b.) I did a weirdly large amount of work for it, having to rewatch three films and read a bunch of stuff. But I wanted to make sure you guys heard it in case you haven’t subscribed to the Takes feed. (And if you haven’t, for shame! Yo...

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Julia Alexander to discuss her latest piece for Puck on why romantasy—the subgenre of fine literature dedicated to dragons and sex—has had a hard time gaining a foothold on streaming services despite burning up the book charts. We also chatted about Amazon’s advertising ambitions and how it hopes to use its supposedly profitable video division to drive busin...

Hey everyone, so: This posted in the Takes feed over the weekend. (You can watch the video on Substack here or YouTube here .) I Just wanted to make sure this episode got into the Bulwark Goes to Hollywood feed in case you don’t subscribe to the Takes feed (though you should!) and also to give everyone a heads up that Mona Charen and I will be doing an episode of her podcast on A Man for All Seaso...

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Scott Mendelson of The Outside Scoop to preview the summer movie season and address some of the hottest questions in the biz. Why did Netflix push Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie to next year and give it a full(ish) theatrical window? What’s shaping up to be the biggest flop of the summer? Is box office health finally back on the upswing after some down years po...

Occasionally, someone will ask me if I think they should invest in a movie. My answer is, invariably, the same: you should only invest in movies you really believe in; you should understand that even if you invest, the movie will likely never get made because most movies never do; and you should only invest if you’re willing to lose everything you put in, because even those movies that do get made...

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Lou Diamond Phillips, who you know from … well, tons of stuff. La Bamba , Young Guns , Longmire , and last year’s best new TV show, The Chair Company . He’s on the show this week to discuss his new film, Keep Quiet , which is playing this Saturday evening at the Dallas International Film Festival and should hit theaters this summer. We talked about all sorts o...

Special two-part episode of the podcast this week! The big news in Hollywood this week has been the burgeoning effort by Hollywood creatives to fight the purchase of Warner Bros. by Paramount Skydance. Thousands of names—including some of the biggest in the business—have signed an open letter in the hopes of demonstrating that not everyone in the industry is on board with the potential deal. So I...

I’m joined on this week’s episode by Ed Solomon, the writer of the new Steven Soderbergh feature, The Christophers , which is in limited release this weekend and going wider next. It’s the story of an aging artist, played by Ian McKellen, and his new assistant, played by Michaela Cole, who has been hired by the artist’s son and daughter to forge a series of paintings from an earlier, more successf...

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Steve Starkey to discuss his new book, On the Set of Forrest Gump . Steve won an Oscar for best picture as producer on that film, but he has a career that, as I told him, has meant a lot to me, with credits on, among other pictures, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi , Who Framed Roger Rabbit , the two Back to the Future sequels, Contact , Cast Away ,...

On this week’s episode, I’m very pleased to be joined by McKay Coppins, author of April’s cover story in The Atlantic : “Sucker: My Year as a Degenerate Gambler.” We discussed the rise of sports betting apps, why his boss gave him $10,000 to lose, how the wild proliferation of sports gambling could destroy faith in the sports we watch, and why Kalshi/Polymarket could wind up getting people killed....

I’m very pleased to be rejoined by Kevin Goetz, who is the guru of movie testing to discuss his latest book, How to Score in Hollywood . When you spend nine figures on a film and another eight figures marketing it, you want to know what works for audiences and what doesn’t, and Kevin’s the guy who can help you do that. He believes that nearly every movie—if it’s made for the right price and market...

On this week’s episode, I’m very pleased to be joined by David Streitfeld to discuss his new book, Western Star: The Life and Legends of Larry McMurtry . Amongst the topics discussed: McMurtry’s obsession with book buying and selling; how his books and the films they were made from helped shape the view of the west; and why Lonesome Dove —both the book and the miniseries—endures more than 40 years...

On this week’s episode, I’m very pleased to be rejoined by Rod Blackhurst (we had him on a couple of years back to discuss his indie crime drama Blood for Dust ) and joined for the first time by Ethan Suplee, veteran character actor we all know and love from films like Mallrats , Remember the Titans , and The Wolf of Wall Street and TV shows like My Name Is Earl .  We’re discussing their new film,...

We have a special bonus episode this week: I’m joined by Óliver Laxe, the director of the Oscar-nominated Sirāt , to discuss his film about a rave at the end of the world and how we can find community in an age of dislocation and isolation. I wanted to get this out now because a.) the film is expanding this weekend, b.) Laxe himself will be in attendance at a handful of shows across the country ov...

I’m joined by Paul Fischer on this week’s episode to discuss his new book, The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg—and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema . It’s a fascinating look at a pivotal moment in film history, when the breakdown of the studio system gave rise to the auteurist 1970s, the first half of which was dominated by Francis Ford Coppola, only to cede the landsc...

This week, I’m joined by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman to discuss their Oscar-nominated documentary, The Alabama Solution . Currently streaming on HBO, their documentary combines interviews, investigative journalism, and footage from within the prisons themselves obtained via contraband cellphones to reveal the horrible and dangerous living conditions of those serving time in the Alabama co...

Remember that weird moment in the 2024 campaign cycle where Donald Trump started referring to how much he loved and identified with “the late, great Hannibal Lecter”? That was odd, right? I discussed that and more with Brian Raftery, whose new book Hannibal Lecter: A Life is both the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for the love consuming your heart and a fascinating portrait of a bizarre creation fro...

I’m very pleased to be joined this week by Matthew Robinson, who is the screenwriter of the new film, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die . It is the rarest of things: a mid-budget, high-concept, sci-fi action-comedy. Starring Sam Rockwell as a time-traveler from a ruined future (or possibly just a bum with a fake bomb strapped to his chest), Robinson and director Gore Verbinski ( The Ring , Pirates of...

On this week’s episode, I’m very pleased to be joined by Ric Roman Waugh, the director of the new film Shelter , starring Jason Statham. We talked a lot about making that movie and how he best utilized Statham’s skills as opposed to Dwayne Johnson’s in the movie Snitch or Gerard Butler’s in the Greenland films, Kandahar , and Angel Has Fallen . Shelter , which is in theaters now, is a little more...