The Projection Booth

Based on the 1952 Mickey Spillane novel, Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) stars Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer, a hardboiled gumshoe who gets dragged into a mystery involving a glowing case, duplicitous dames, and two-fisted violence. Max Allan Collins, director of Mike Hammer's Mickey Spillane, talks about his career and working on Mickey Spillane's posthumous work. Writer Andrew Nette and Pro...

How do you solve a problem like Marnie? Released in 1964, Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie stars Tippi Hedren as the titular heroine -- or perhaps anti-heroine -- an itinerant thief who gets caught and essentially blackmailed into marriage with Mark (Sean Connery) who thinks that Marnie is broken and takes it upon himself to "fix" her, diving deep into her childhood trauma. Tania Modleski (The Women Who...

Released in 1973 in a truncated form, Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid has had a long, contentious history. We’ll be talking about that as well as the film itself in which Kris Kristofferson plays the titular Billy the Kid. He’s the friend and eventual enemy of James Coburn as Pat Garrett. The film stars a host of familiar faces and character actors with this speaking to the passing of...

On a special episode of The Projection Booth, Mike talks with filmmaker Steve Mitchell about his 2017 documentary King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen. Mike also speaks to the film's subject, Larry Cohen, about his work on "Branded" and "Columbo" as well as several of his films. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/suppor...

After a brief hiatus, The Projection Booth returns with a discussion of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986). The film is seen as a hallmark of the “heroic bloodshed” subgenre of action films, doing for gunplay what a generation of Hong Kong films had done with swords. The film tells the tale of Ho (Ti Lung), a criminal whose younger brother, Kit (Leslie Cheung), is a police officer. He's betrayed...

You want podcasters?  On this special episode, five podcasters discuss Rob Reiner's 1992 film A Few Good Men. Written by Aaron Sorkin (and tweaked for the screen by William Goldman), the film stars Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, and a slew of other familiar faces in this tense courtroom drama about masculinity, patriotism, honor, and duty.  The episode is hosted by Jay and TJ of the We've...

Mike talks to Theo Anthony about his unusual documentary work, Rat Film from 2017. 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://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Released in the United States as The Lure , Agnieszka Smoczynska's 2015 film Corki Dancingu is the story of two mermaids, Golden (Michalina Olszanska) and Silver (Marta Mazurek), who join the world of humans as singers at a dinner club. To say the least, the have a little trouble fitting in. Carol Borden (The Cultural Gutter) and David Rodgers (Bingecast) join Mike to discuss this modern take on H...

Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen redefined gay erotica with his intricate, fetishistic drawings of muscle-bound uniformed men. Dome Karukoski's 2017 bio-pic Tom of Finland explores the life of Laaksonen (Pekka Strang) and his legacy. Maitland McDonagh (120 Days Books) joins Mike to discuss Tom of Finland, Daddy and the Muscle Academy, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad...

Mike talks to director Marc Meyers about his film My Friend Dahmer (2017). Based on the graphic novel by Derf, the film tells a humanistic story about one of America's most notorious serial killers. 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 Pro...

Directed by Joseph Cates and written by Arnold Drake and Leon Totayakan, Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965) stars Sal Mineo as Lawrence Sherman, a waiter at a nightclub and Juliet Prowse as bartender Norma Dain. Someone has an unhealthy obsession with Norma and keeps making obscene phone calls to her. Heather Drain and Terry Frost join Mike to talk about this sleazy thriller. Learn more about your ad c...

Is it future...? Or is it past...? It's a bit of both as we revisit David Lynch's Fire Walk With Me (1992) along with "Twin Peaks" Season 3 (AKA "Twin Peaks: The Return") on this final #Shocktober2017 episode. We speak specifically about the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - Teresa Banks and the Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer fan edit as well as Mark Frost's The Secret History of Twin Peaks. Interv...

Shocktober 2017 continues with a look at the offbeat horror comedy TerrorVision (1986). Written and directed by Ted Nicolaou, the film centers on the Putterman Family who, while father Stan -- Gerrit Graham -- is installing a new satellite dish and accidentally receive a distant transmission of a horrific hungry monster which proceeds to feast on the family including wife Rachel (Mary Woronov), so...

Shocktober 2017 continues with a the 1976 film from Roman Polanski, The Tenant . Adapted from a book by Roland Topor (Fantastic Planet), the film also stars Polanski as Trelkovsky, a man in need of a new apartment. He finds one where the previous occupant has defenestrated herself. After her death, he's able to move in and finds that his neighbors don't like him being noisy... in fact, they don't...

Shocktober 2017 kicks off with Karl Freund's final film as a director and Peter Lorre's film film in America, Mad Love (1935). Based upon Maurice Renard 's The Hands of Orlac, the film shifts focus from the titular Orlac to Dr. Gogol, a cunning physician who specializes in some questionable procedures. He’s fascinated by the actress Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) and, rebuffed in his advances, manag...

We wrap up the first Czechtember series with a film from director Oldrich Lipský, 1966's Happy End, an experimental comedy (which is as unusual as that sounds) that puts scenes in opposite order and runs motion backward from the death of our main character (Vladimír Menšík) while he gives the voice-over account of life from birth. Of course, this provides us with constant ironic juxtapositions. Th...

Czechtember continues with a look at Juraj Herz's The Cremator (AKA Spalovac mrtvol). Released in 1968, the year of the Prague Spring, the film stars Rudolf Hrusínský as Karl (or Roman) Kopfrkingl, a man dedicated to the idea of liberating the soul from the body through the practice of cremation. Samm Deighan joins Mike to discuss collaborators and the madness that gripped the world in the 1930s a...

On this special episode, Mike talks with author Patty Farmer about her work including her latest books, Starring the Plaza and Playboy Laughs. Find out more at www.patty-farmer.com . 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...

Czechtember continues with a look at Pavel Jurácek's Case for a Rookie Hangman (AKA Prípad pro zacínajícího kata) from 1970. Very loosely based on the third part of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the film tells the tale of Lemuel Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) in the land of Balnibarbi, a surrealistic landscape where Lemuel has a hard time finding his footing, literally. Kat Ellinger and Kevin...

Set in the distant year of 2017, The Running Man (1987) is set in a dystopian world where reality television rules the airwaves and the most popular show pits criminals against muscle-bound, spandex-clad "stalkers". Based loosely on a novella by "Richard Bachman" (AKA Stephen King), the film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a man framed as "The Butcher of Bakersfield" and thrown Runnin...

We kick off the first annual "Czechtember" with a look at the most-easily accessible films of the Czech New Wave, the charmingly disarming 1966 film Closely Watched Trains (AKA Ostre Sledované Vlaky or Closely Observed Trains). Co-written and directed by Jirí Menzel and based upon Bohumil Hrabal's novella, the film stars Václav Neckár as Milos Hrma, a young man from a family of eccentrics. Not wan...

The 1968 film by Frank and Eleanor Perry, The Swimmer (based on the John Cheever short story of the same name), stars Burt Lancaster as Ned Merrill, a Connecticut executive who decides to head back home by swimming through the pools of his neighbors, a "river" which he names "Lucinda" after his wife. Along the way, Ned is met with drinks, laughs, reminders of his affairs that went sour, and maybe...

We're up all night to get lucky as we discuss the 2001 film from director and co-writer Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Intacto which stars Leonardo Sbaraglia as Tomás, a man who survives a plane crash and who may just be the luckiest man in the world. He's found by Federico (Eusebio Poncela), who introduces him to an underground world where luck is something of a commodity and the man who rules over thi...

On this special episode, Mike talks with writer Michael Lucker about his career in Hollywood (including co-writing the screenplay for A Vampire in Brooklyn) as well as his recent book, CRASH! BOOM! BANG! How to Write Action Movies. 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/suppor...

On this special episode, Mike talks with writer/director Albert Pyun about his latest film, the sci-fi epic Interstellar Civil War: Shadows of the Empire (2017). They also discuss Pyun's dementia and how he was able to use this as an artistic method in the creation of his film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.c...