Uncut Gems Podcast

THIS PODCAST IS AVAILABLE IN FULL FOR FREE ON OUR PATREON!!! (patreon.com/uncutgemspod) In this last bonus tie-in podcast of the year we are discussing Ben Affleck's most acclaimed movie Argo . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about where Argo ranks among Affleck's directorial efforts, how it stacks up against other prominent movies of its year, how many historical...

In this episode of the show, our Ben Affleck mini-retrospective continues with The Town . Over the course of our chat you will hear us talk about whether The Town is a herald of filmmaking growth from Affleck, how he directs his own performance and how the ideas of organic authenticity explored in Gone Baby Gone translate to a different genre. We comment on Affleck's directorial style, Jeremy...

In this episode of our Mike Nichols Marathon, the last of the year, we are ankle-deep in the auteur's 90's output as we discuss the 1991 film Regarding Henry . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us debate whether Nichols abandoned or lost his subversive edge over the course of two decades since his most iconic work or if his early masterpieces were an anomaly in a catalogue...

In this episode of the show we are embarking on the last of our 2025 director series, in which we will take a close look at the directorial efforts of one Ben Affleck and discuss all of his movies, one by one. Thus, we shall begin with Affleck's debut feature Gone Baby Gone . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about Affleck's transition to directing that felt both li...

In this episode of the show we are finishing John Dahl Fall with a conversation about his 1998 effort Rounders . Over the course of our chat you will hear us wonder how this movie was dumped unceremoniously and how Miramax decided to have more faith in Shakespeare in Love , how it fits (or doesn't) in John Dahl's creative catalogue and how it also gained second life on home video in the fo...

In this bonus podcast we are tying into our Noir-vember conversation on John Dahl by talking about another influential 90's neo-noir, namely Bound . Over the course of our sprawling discussion you will hear us try to identify where exactly The Wachowskis came from, as they seemingly came out of nowhere, and how their directorial debut charted the course for them to eventually direct The Matrix...

In this episode of the show our November journey through the films of John Dahl continues with his 1996 Unforgettable . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about the ways in which this movie continues Dahl's pet obsession with film noir and how it departs from it, how it fits into the 90s microtrend of thrillers with a sci-fi element like Strange Days or Flatliners and ho...

In this episode of our 2025 series in which we discuss classics from 1975 and 1995 we are turning our attention to Night Moves directed by Arthur Penn. Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about how this movie executes on the film noir template with its convoluted plots and morally ambiguous characterizations and how it functions as its subversion. We debate the possible reaso...

In this episode of the show, our conversations about John Dahl noir-adjacent thrillers continues with The Last Seduction . Over the course of the recording you will hear us talk about the way in which this movie traverses between tropes of noir and the more 90s-specific erotic thriller, how Linda Fiorentino embodies and elevates the archetypal femme fatale and a project destined originally for TV...

In this episode of the show we are joined by Jak and Carson to celebrate the show's 250th episode. In this show we spare a few minutes reminiscing and we also engage in a brief game of Uncut Gems trivia before talking about the movie of the day, John Dahl's Red Rock West . In this part of our show we discuss the film's difficult fate, cult resurrection and universal critical acclaim. W...

In this episode of our Mike Nichols Marathon we enter the 90s with a conversation about Postcards from the Edge . In this show you will hear us talk about the challenge of adapting a seemingly unfilmable material and how it was a task for its first-time author Carrie Fisher. We talk about the many facets of mirroring reality this movie allows, how it thinly veils its relationship with Carrie Fishe...

In this episode of the show we are embarking on the 11th mini-run of the year and we are contributing to the tradition of observing Noir-Vember. On this occasion, we will spend the entire month talking about films directed by John Dahl - The John Dahl Fall, so to speak. And we begin our deliberations with Dahl's 1989 debut Kill Me Again . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us ta...

In this episode of the show we are parting ways with Stuart Gordon-Tober as we are discussing his 1991 The Pit and the Pendulum . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about Gordon moving from adapting Lovecraft to another challenging godfather of horror, Edgar Allan Poe, how challenging it must have been to essentially have to invent a story to wrap around a sparse narrative a...

In this podcast we are tying into the Lovecraftian vibe of our Stuart Gordon October by talking about the Richard Stanley-directed Color Out of Space . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about this movie as a cult classic and an exemplar of cosmic horror, how it treats Lovecraft's prose and adapts it for the modern viewer and how it attempts to mesh sensibilities of The...

In this episode of the show our October series of Stuart Gordon's early movies continues with a conversation about the 1987 Dolls . Over the course of our chat you will hear us talk about Gordon's brief departure from adapting H.P. Lovecraft and directing what could easily look like a dark fairy tale in the vein of the Grimm Brothers. We talk about Gordon's time filming in Italy, the m...

In this tenth instalment of our 2025 series where we talk about iconic movies from 1995 and 1975, we finally take on the David Fincher-directed Se7en . Joined by the all-star guest Hillary White we leave no stone unturned as we talk about Se7en as a cultural touchstone, with a great tangent on how movies used to be cool and their cultural primacy has since been diminished, how it immediately enter...

In this episode of the show, our Stuart Gordon-Tober continues with a great chat about his sophomore piece From Beyond . Joined by Kevin and Erin, the wonderful duo of hosts behind The Podcast That Wouldn't Die, we delve deep into the thick of things as we discuss how this movie came together, how it translates (or doesn't) the H.P. Lovecraft story to the screen and how it co-exists with o...

In this episode of our ongoing Mike Nichols Marathon, we are touching base with our man as he's on a career rebound with his featherlight-yet-nuanced rom-com Working Girl . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about Nichols at the tail end of the 1980s, how it fits in the landscape of escapist comedy and how it subverts the 80s yuppie excess with its cutting commentary on...

In this episode of the show we are beginning a brand-new monthly retrospective and this time we are setting our sights on one Stuart Gordon and his debut feature Re-Animator . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about Stuart Gordon's beginnings, how his debut draws from exploitation cinema and how it anchors itself in literary connections to H.P. Lovecraft and Mary Shelle...

In this episode of the show we are closing our September retrospective of David Ayer's crime movies with his 2020 outing The Tax Collector . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about how this movie was poorly received by the critics and suffered financially thanks to its mid-pandemic rollout and how it eventually found its place on streaming where general audiences ended...

In this show, we are tying into our September retrospective of David Ayer's crime movies with his found footage police procedural End of Watch . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us debate Ayer's use of the found footage aesthetic, how it plays fast and loose with its own rules and whether it adds or detracts from the experience. We also talk about this movie standing out f...

In this episode of the show, our cruise through David Ayer's crime movies continues with his 2014 effort titled Sabotage . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about the many reasons why this movie failed at the box office and how it would have been a slayer on home video just ten years prior, David Ayer giving Arnold Schwarzenegger a rather atypical assignment and the ide...

In this episode of our 2025 series where we take on the big-hitting movies from 1975 and 1995, we are talking about the Sidney Lumet-directed masterpiece Dog Day Afternoon . Over the course of our sprawling conversation you will hear us talk about Al Pacino's towering performance, the genesis of the story taken from real life, and how this stranger-than-fiction crisis turned into a media circu...

In this episode of the show we are continuing our conversations about crime movies directed by David Ayer with a chat about Street Kings . You will hear us talk about the genesis of the project as a James Ellroy script and how multiple directors had a crack at it before David Ayer, how the movie is unmistakably a relative of LA Confidential and how Ayer's hand distinguishes it from its prestig...

In this episode of the show we are embarking on a brand new monthly mini-journey through the cinema of David Ayer, specifically his crime movies, and we begin with his directorial debut Harsh Times . Over the course of our conversation you will hear us talk about Ayer's beginnings as a writer, his transition into directing and how his work owes a heck of a lot to Antoine Fuqua, Ridley and Tony...