The Projection Booth

On this episode we’re looking at a pair of films from Roman Polanski. First up we’re discussing the 1962 film Knife in the Water. It’s about a couple, Andrej and Krystyna, who run across a young man without a name. After that we discuss another film with a trio of characters, 1994's Death and the Maiden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podc...

We continue our examination of the films of 1969 with a look at Dariush Merhjui’s The Cow. The film stars Ezzatolah Entezami as Hassan, a man with a very high status in his village. He’s the proud owner of the sole cow. When he goes away for a morning his cow mysteriously dies and the rest of the villagers conspire to cover this up by telling him that the animal has run away. Let’s just say that H...

On this special episode of The Projection Booth we’re looking at Ken Russell’s Tommy. Released in 1975 this is an interpretation of The Who’s Rock Opera of the same name which stars Roger Daltry as the titular Tommy. After witnessing a scene of his mother and her lover killing his father, Tommy is rendered psychosomatically blind, deaf, and mute. He becomes a wiz at pinball, starts a religion, and...

Our examination of 1969 continues with our first American film we’ve discussed this year, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Directed by Sydney Pollack and based on a novel by Horace McCoy, the film stars Michael Sarrazin as Robert and Jane Fonda as Gloria, a pair who get thrown together in a marathon dance contest during the Great Depression. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

Our look at 1969 continues with a discussion of Jacques Rivette’s L’Amour Fou. The story of a director, Sebastien, and an actress, Claire. We watch them work together on the play Andromaque -- seeing the crafting of the production via behind-the-scenes 16mm footage as well as the 35mm film cameras that capture the real behind-the-scenes footage of Sebastien and Claire’s fizzling relationship. Jona...

Heather Drain joins Mike to take listener questions, rail against the Rondos, and give a peek behind the podcast curtain as we celebrate nine years of The Projection Booth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support . Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://ww...

Our appreciation of 1969 continues with a look at The Big Dig. Also known as The Blaumilch Canal, the film was written and directed by Ephraim Kishon and stars Bomba Tzur as the titular Blaumilch, an escaped mental patient with a mania for digging. When he finds a jack hammer in downtown Tel Aviv he kicks off a chain of events that demonstrates the absurdity of bureaucracy. Learn more about your a...

Our exploration of 1969 continues this week as we head from Europe to Argentina to check out Armando Bo’s FUEGO. It’s the story of Laura who’s played by the one and only Isabel Sarli. She is a woman driven by her passions. After she marries Carlos, played by Bo, she realizes what a hopeless nymphomaniac she is. Heather Drain and Rod Lott join Mike in discussing this South American firecracker of a...

It's less than two minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. Our Eastern Neighbors are being quarantined from the corona virus. And here we are talking about the end of the world as shown in 1969 by director Marco Ferreri. The Seed of Man / Il seme dell'uomo stars Marzio Margine as Cino and Anne Wiazemsky as Dora, the only lovers left alive after a plague has wiped out most of the world's populat...

Our appreciation of 1969 continues with a look at Piero Schivazappa’s Femina Ridens / The Laughing Woman. Also sometimes known as The Frightened Woman, the film stars Phillipe Leroy as Sayer, the head of a charity foundation, and Dagmar Lassander as Maria, one of his employees. She she expresses an interest in writing an article about male sterilization, he takes that as his cue to invite her to h...

Our appreciation of 1969 continues with our second look at an adaptation of Edowaga Rampo’s work, Blind Beast. Directed by Yasuzo Masumura, the film stars Mako Midori as Aki Shima, a model, and Eiji Funakoshi as Michio, a blind sculptor who becomes obsessed with her. He and his mother kidnap Aki and keep her in his warehouse studio where the two become engaged in a game of cat and mouse as he trie...

Our appreciation of 1969 continues with a look at Teruo Ishii’s Horrors of Malformed Men. Based on the writings of Edogawa Ranpo, the movie tells the tale of Hirosuke Hitomi played by Teruo Yoshida. When we first see him, he’s locked up in an insane asylum. And things only go downhill from there… Ben Buckingham and Jess Byard join Mike to delve into the ero-guro. Learn more about your ad choices....

Taking its title from the notorious book by Leopold von Sacher-Mascoch, Jess Franco's Venus in Furs (1969) stars James Darren as Jimmy Logan, a musician who can blow a cool horn. He finds the corpse of a woman he had seen at a party, the mysterious Wanda (Maria Rohm). When Wanda shows up -- alive and seducing -- shortly thereafter, Jimmy becomes obsessed with her, despite his loving relationship w...

Our examination of 1969 continues with a look at Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile. Based on a play Pasolini wrote, the film cross-cuts between an Italian enclave in Germany in 1967 and a rogue cannibal in an unknown time around Mt. Etna. Ken Stanley and Jonathan Owen join Mike to dissect this oblique film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podca...

Based on a book by Vasilis Vasilikos, Costa-Gavras’s Z (1969) stars Yves Montand as a political activist who is killed after a rally. The film also stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as the investigator of the incident who manages to uncover a vast conspiracy. Keith Gordon and Eric Cohen join Mike to discuss this political thriller which is a thinly veiled re-telling of the events in Greece of 1963 and...

We're kicking off our discussion of the films of 1969 with a look at Yoshishige Yoshida's Eros + Massacre. The film tells two parallel stories - one in the early 1920s and the other in contemporary 1969. Samm Deighan and Chris Stachiw join Mike to smugly discuss the film. We're joined by special guest Professor Dick Stegewerns author of Kiju Yoshida and ATG - The Reluctant Partner. Learn more abou...

For the last episode in our Sci-Fi December series it's a five hour journey into Douglas Trumbull's Brainstorm (1983) which stars Christopher Walken as scientist Michael Brace who has helped in the discovery of a new technology that records the sensations of a person and allows for playback directly into another person's brain. Interviews include Trumbull, actress Louise Fletcher, screenwriters Br...

Sci Fi December continues with a look at the 1986 film from Georgiy Daneliya, Kin Dza Dza. It’s the story of two men who are transported to the planet Pluke where they have to navigate the barren landscape and strange cultures of the people there. Jennifer Handorf and Dan Martin join Mike to unpack the rituals and anthropological implications of Pluke as well as dicuss the 2013 animated remake, Ku...

Sci-Fi December rolls along with a look at 1989’s Millennium. Directed by Michael Anderson, the film stars Kris Kristofferson as an airline disaster investigator who stumbles onto something unexpected at the site of a mid-air collision. It will lead him into a tangled web of time traveling shenanigans. Jedidiah Ayres and Chris Bricklemyer join Mike to discuss the film, John Varley's source novel,...

Sci-Fi December continues with a look at The Creation of the Humanoids. Copyrighted 1960, the film was directed by Wesley Barry and written by Jay Simms. It plays like a stage play about a post-Apocalyptic world in which androids are a large part of society and human beings fear being replaced by them. Jennifer Handorf and Dan Martin join Mike to discuss the film, science fiction as allegory, and...

We kick off sci-fi December with a look at Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). Based on the book by Walter Tevis, the film stars David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, a strange man who appears in the office of a patent attorney with some big ideas that help him start on the road to untold wealth. Along the way he meets colorful characters such as Candy Clark as Mary Lou, a hotel worker...

On this special episode Mike talks to Stew Buck, the writer/director/producer of a pair of upcoming documentaries -- A World War II Fairy Tale: The Making of Michael Mann's "The Keep" and Uncovering Wolfen.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support . Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionboot...

Noirvember 2019 wraps up with Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944). With a screenplay co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler and based on a story by James M. Cain, the film is one of the seminal works of film noir. It stars Fred MacMurray as fast-talking Walter Neff, an insurance agent who gets played for a dope by a dame. The dame in question, Phyllis Dietrichsen, is played by the one and on...

Noirvember 2019 continues with a look at The Conversation (1974). Sandwiched between the first two Godfather films, The Conversation is writer/director Francis Ford Coppola’s paean to European art films of the 1960s, most notably Antonioni’s Blow-Up. Instead of swinging London, however, The Conversation is set in San Francisco and stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, a schlubby nudnik whose life revo...

Daniel Kremer returns to the Projection Booth as a director rather than a co-host with a discussion of his film Overwhelm the Sky (2019) along with the film's lead actor, Alexander Hero. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support . Become a supporter of The Projection Boot...