Uncut Gems Podcast

In this episode of the show we are launching A-Woo-Gust, a month-long series of episodes where we will talk about John Woo and the movies he made in Hollywood! We are starting with the iconic Hard Target starring the iconic JCVD and his iconic greasy mullet! Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about Hong Kong cinema, spaghetti westerns, Lance Henriksen on fire, JCVD as a dete...

In this episode of the show we are going on a mission into space to stop a comet from hitting our planet... while following a paranoid conspiracy thriller... and watching Elijah Wood get married way too young. That is we are talking Deep Impact , a Mimi Leder-directed less talked about competitor to the 1998 Armageddon ! Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about injecting dra...

In this behemoth of a show we are putting a bow on our Animal Attack Summer series by talking about not one, not two, not three, but four movies, including ALL Jaws sequels ( Jaws 2 , Jaws 3-D , and Jaws: The Revenge ) as well as one of the earliest and most direct ripoffs of the 1975 classic, the 1977 Orca - The Killer Whale . Joined by a special guest MJ Smith, host of Let's Jaws For a Minute po...

Here's a short teaser of our brand new Patreon-exclusive episode of Uncut Gems Tie-ins, a monthly series where we take a classic movie and connect it to a film discussed on our main show. This month we chose to tie into the regular show in a bit of an unconventional way, as we decided to talk about the original 1954 Godzilla, a seminal kaiju movie which is both an animal attack creature feature an...

Animal Attack Summer continues as we talk about the 1978 Piranha and the 1982 Piranha 2: The Spawning . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about the arcane art of ripping off Jaws , the idea of throwing the kitchen sink at a movie, Joe Dante making an exploitation film, James Cameron's woes directing (or not) Piranha 2 , the inferiority of large amounts of small fish in comp...

In this episode of the show we are continuing Animal Attack Summer and we talk reptiles. This week we are discussing the 1980 Alligator and the 1999 Lake Placid . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us opine on the legacy of Jaws yet again, the Corman-adjacent filmmakers carrying the animal attack torch, the pitfalls of corporate villains, Robert Forster as a Bullitt wannabe, Bridget...

Here's a short teaser of the sixth episode of our Patreon-exclusive show Uncut Gems Marathons where each year we will pick one director and, one by one, discuss their entire filmography. For 2022 we have chosen to dive deep into the cinema of David Lynch. In this episode of our David Lynch Marathon, we are expanding our conversation on Twin Peaks by talking about Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me , a...

In this episode of the show we are launching our brand new four-episode series titled Animal Attack Summer where each week we will talk about at least two movies about dangerous animals squaring off against unsuspecting people! This week we are talking about snakes (and a little bit about crocodiles) as we are taking on the 1997 Anaconda together with the fifth sequel in this franchise, a crossove...

Here's a short teaser of the sixth episode of our Patreon-exclusive show Uncut Gems Marathons where each year we will pick one director and, one by one, discuss their entire filmography. For 2022 we have chosen to dive deep into the cinema of David Lynch and in June we are taking on the original run of Twin Peaks . In this episode of our David Lynch Marathon, we are continuing the conversation abo...

In this episode of the show we are joined by a fellow kindred spirit Jackson Boren to talk about Judgment Night ! Over the course of our long and sprawling conversation you will hear us talk about genre filmmaking in the 90s, Stephen Hopkins as an overlooked genre director of that era, Alan Silvestri borrowing from himself, the famous crossover soundtrack, the idea of making an ensemble piece in t...

Here's a short teaser of the sixth episode of our Patreon-exclusive show Uncut Gems Marathons where each year we will pick one director and, one by one, discuss their entire filmography. For 2022 we have chosen to dive deep into the cinema of David Lynch and in June we are taking on the original run of Twin Peaks . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about our history with Tw...

Here's a short teaser of an older recording of ours we made for Clapper's old Patreon account way back in 2021, where we no longer post any new content. Therefore, we thought it would be a good idea to give this podcast a new home, where it is available to listen for FREE! We talked about four films tied inextricably to The Matrix , i.e. Ghost in the Shell , Dark City , Existenz and The Thirteenth...

In this episode of the show we are joined by our good buddy Ewan Gleadow to talk about not one but two movies directed by Uwe Boll: House of the Dead and Postal . Over the course of our wild and totally unhinged conversation you will hear us talk about the vagaries of adapting video games, Uwe Boll's directorial ego and his ability to convince high-flying names to star in his movies, his sense of...

Here's a short teaser of our brand new Patreon-exclusive episode of Uncut Gems Retrospectives, a monthly series where we pick a handful of movies tied around a specific theme, a filmmaker or an actor and have an honest chat about them. This month we are dedicating our mini-retrospective to the memory of Ennio Morricone as we talk about three movies directed by Sergio Corbucci for which he wrote mu...

In this episode of the show we are finishing our Shapeshifters and Body Snatchers series by talking about the the mostly forgotten 1987 sci-fi thriller The Hidden . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about Kyle MacLachlan as an alien, the 80s action as a state of mind, the vagaries of making science-fiction on the cheap, the movie's infrequent yet suggestive special effects,...

Here's a short teaser of our brand new Patreon-exclusive episode of Uncut Gems Tie-ins, a monthly series where we take a classic movie and connect it to a film discussed on our main show. This month we are reaching the apex of our Shapeshifters and Body Snatchers marathon by talking about the 1982 The Thing , which celebrates the 40th anniversary of its original premiere. Over the course of our wo...

In this episode of the show we are continuing our Shapeshifters and Body Snatchers series by talking about the 2011 prequel/stealth remake of John Carpenter's The Thing . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about whether this movie needed to exist in the first place, how it fits in the lore of its predecessor and whether it succeeds in enriching it in any way. We also spend a...

In this episode of the show we are continuing our Shapeshifters and Body Snatchers series by talking about The Faculty , a Robert Rodriguez-directed pastiche of science-fiction and horror. Over the course of our conversation you will hear us try to hash out who had more influence on this project, Robert Rodriguez or Kevin Williamson, whether the trend of 'screamifying' different genres works in th...

In this episode of the show we are continuing our Shapeshifters and Body Snatchers series by talking about Species , a 1995 merger of science-fiction with an erotic thriller. Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about how much effort and money was spent on this movie and what the return on this investment ended up being, Natasha Henstridge spending most of her time on the scre...

Here's a short teaser of the third episode of our Patreon-exclusive show Uncut Gems Marathons where each year we will pick one director and, one by one, discuss their entire filmography. For 2022 we have chosen to dive deep into the cinema of David Lynch and in May we are continuing this journey by discussing Wild at Heart . Over the course of our conversation - which was in its own way wild at he...

In this episode of the show we are officially launching our Shapeshifters and Body Snatchers series by talking about the 1951 classic, The Thing from Another World . Over the course of our chat you will hear us talk about the struggles of early science-fiction with embracing visual storytelling, how the movie carries over some aspects of a screwball comedy perhaps to its own detriment, how it coul...

Here's a short teaser of our brand new Patreon-exclusive episode of Uncut Gems Retrospectives, a monthly series where we pick a handful of movies tied around a specific theme, a filmmaker or an actor and have an honest chat about them. This month we are tying our retrospective to our upcoming Shapeshifters and Body Snatchers series by talking about three movies playing within the template left beh...

In this episode of the show we are observing May the 4th celebrations (albeit a bit late) by talking about the 1980 Roger Corman-produced knock-off of Star Wars , namely Battle Beyond the Stars . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about the film's various connections to Lucas' movie, how it draws directly from Kurosawa, Sturges and even the Greek mythology, all in addition t...

Here's a short teaser of our brand new Patreon-exclusive episode of Uncut Gems Tie-ins, a monthly series where we take a classic movie and connect it to a film discussed on our main show. This month we are tying into our upcoming string of episodes tentatively titled Shapeshifters and Body Snatchers, as we are talking about the Philip Kaufman-directed 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers...

In this episode of the show we are marking the anniversary of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's passing by talking about one of his arguably lesser known works, namely Lifeboat . Over the course of our deep and meandering conversation you will hear us talk about the film's single-location gimmick, various bits of drama on set, Canada Lee's magnificent performance, the film functioning both as an anti-Nazi pr...