Unwatchables with Marc & Seth

We’ve already tackled two films from KIDS’ Larry Clark on our previous “Kids Aren’t All Right” episode— who’d have thought he had more unwatchable in him? Today we’re joined by B.R. Yeager, author of the acclaimed horror novel NEGATIVE SPACE, for further evidence that the kids still aren’t, in fact, all right. Both of these films show the dark side of coming of age in all its potential trauma and...

Today’s films take us deep into the subjective sensory experience of extreme mental illness, including at least one character with paranoid schizophrenia. Chicago film critic Isaac Feldberg (of http://RogerEbert.com , Paste Magazine, and more) joins us to discuss the very different— but equally harrowing— approaches of two superficially similar films, both by writer/director Lodge Kerrigan: his au...

Today we’re joined by Bob McCully from the film podcast Split Your Head to discuss two of the first films to violently tear up the notion that puppets are just for kids. Back when puppetry was mostly the domain of children’s entertainment, these movies brought enough graphic sex, drugs, and violence to traumatize any child unlucky enough to stumble upon them: Peter Jackson’s 1989 ultra-dark comedy...

Today we’re tackling two controversial landmarks in gay cinema with help from Guy Lodge, film columnist for The Observer and chief UK film critic for Variety. Both films were scandalous for the early 1980’s, pushing boundaries with their unflinching depictions of the lives of gay men just before the AIDS crisis. First up is 1982’s QUERELLE, the final and most provocative film from legendary German...

This week’s Unwatchables is a double feature of “NYC cop movie sleazecore”— a term coined by guest Jason Bailey, film critic, author, and host of the popular film podcast A Very Good Year. Both of these films were mired in controversy for their explicit content; both are by directed by legendary, and legendarily cranky, auteurs; and both star iconic New York actors navigating the city’s seedy unde...

Today we’re joined by Bilge Ebiri, one of the country’s leading film critics for Vulture and New York Magazine, to tackle Peter Greenaway’s most disturbing film. The British director may be best known for his 1989 arthouse classic THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER, but he made several other singular, controversial, and often shocking films in the 80’s and 90’s. Perhaps the most shockin...

Today’s guest is Christopher Norris aka Steak Mtn, the visual artist behind album art for bands like Against Me!, the frontman of Combatwoundedveteran, and now the author of the new book THE HOLY DAY. He’s here to help us figure out what happened to Lindsay Lohan, former teen idol from films like FREAKY FRIDAY and MEAN GIRLS, who seemed on her way to working with legendary directors like Robert Al...

Unwatchables welcomes author and film/TV critic Charles Bramesco to discuss one of the most intimidating of all cinematic rites of passage. Bela Tarr’s SATANTANGO is 7 hours and 20 minutes long, and at least one of our hosts endured the entire film in one butt-numbing sitting. And lest you think that 7+ hours flies by, it’s also a quintessential example of slow cinema at its bleakest and most puni...

Today’s Unwatchables features Aisha Harris, cohost of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour and author of the new book Wannabe: Reckonings With the Pop Culture That Shapes Me. On our “Stranger Than Fiction” episode, we discuss two bizarre true crime stories dramatized in unflinching detail: Craig Zobel’s shocking drama COMPLIANCE, and Stuart Gordon’s darkly comic thriller STUCK. We talk about what these in...

Unwatchables welcomes Scout Tafoya— critic, video essayist, and author of But God Made Him a Poet: Watching John Ford in the 21st Century— to discuss the film branded for decades as the quintessential big-budget disaster. Michael Cimino’s HEAVEN’S GATE gets blamed for a lot of things: for bankrupting its studio, for animal cruelty, and for singlehandedly ending the auteur-driver New Hollywood era....

On today’s Unwatchables, we ask the question: how do you follow up one of the most popular sci-fi trilogies ever made? If you’re the Wachowskis, it’s with three straight flops, each one stranger, more expensive, and more widely derided than the last. We’re joined by Brad Efford of the internet zine Wig Wag to survey the sisters' entire post-Matrix career, and figure out if anything deserves cu...

(Content Warning: The second half of this episode contains discussions of suicide) It’s time for Unwatchables to dive into some REALLY nasty stuff with an assist from Tom Davies, writer and podcaster for http://AVForums.com . Jörg Buttgereit’s infamously gross cult horror film Nekromantik defied state censors with its gruesome yet empathetic look at necrophiliacs (and the women who love them!), wh...

Today’s Unwatchables takes our first dive into non-fiction with help from Jon Nix, documentary filmmaker and director of the new film Don’t Fall in Love with Yourself . Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentaries about the 1960’s Indonesian mass killings are a singularly bizarre and uncomfortable spectacle: The Act of Killing allows the killers themselves to gleefully re-enact their atrocities, while The L...

Unwatchables is joined by film critic Carlos Aguilar, writer for http://RogerEbert.com , Variety, the New York Times, and many more, to dive into one of the most original and provocative auteurs of the last 15 years. Yorgos Lanthimos has been compared to the likes of Michael Haneke and Luis Bunuel, and we’re talking perhaps his two most disturbing films: the 2009 twisted family portrait Dogtooth ,...

The Wrap’s film editor Kristen Lopez joins us this week to discuss one of the earliest entries in the Unwatchables canon. Tod Browning’s Freaks is one the most controversial films of the 1930’s, a one-of-a-kind exercise in empathy and (arguably) horror that essentially ended the career of the Dracula director. Topics include the film’s journey to becoming a cult classic, Browning’s unique and ill-...

This week’s Unwatchables welcomes Vanity Fair's chief critic Richard Lawson to discuss one of the most audacious and savage provocations from one of our most relentless provocateurs. Lars Von Trier’s Dogville is a 3-hour critique of American “values” that’s filmed on a mostly bare soundstage and puts its star Nicole Kidman through one of the director’s most harrowing gauntlets of suffering. Topics...

Ron Ormond was a B-movie exploitation director before a near-death experience inspired him to start producing some of the most bizarre and gruesome Christian films ever made. We're joined by Cinematary’s Michael O’Malley to discuss two of his surreally morbid collaborations with Baptist preacher Estes Pirkle: 1974’s nightmare vision The Burning Hell , and 1971’s anti-communist screed If Footmen Ti...

Experimental filmmaker Harmony Korine burst onto the independent film scene with his screenplay for Larry Clark's Kids , but it's his own grotesque, alienating, and often shocking films that turned him into a cult figure. Unwatchables is joined by author, musician, and Korine superfan Marzi Margo to discuss two of the director’s most notorious provocations: his 1997 directorial debut Gummo , and 2...

Today we’re joined by Marya E. Gates, film critic for sites like http://RogerEbert.com and creator of both #Noirvember & #AYearWithWomen , to discuss one of the most daunting of classic films. Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman is a 200-minute minimalist art film that recently topped Sight and Sound’s poll of The Greatest Films of All Time, unseating titles like Vertigo and Citizen Kane— and pis...

Unwatchables kicks off Season 2 with special guest A.A. Dowd, former film editor of The AV Club and current culture editor at Chron. This week’s films challenge us to identify with main characters whose repellent behavior stretches the definition of “protagonist”: Mike Leigh’s blistering character study Naked , and Neil LaBute’s immersion in toxic masculinity In the Company of Men . We discuss the...

Unwatchables closes out the year (and season one!) with film critic Keith Phipps, former film editor of the AV Club and The Dissolve, co-host of The Next Picture Show, and author of Age of Cage. In the spirit of the season, this is a special REVERSE episode: two heartwarming family films from directors who usually specialize in the Unwatchable. First up is David Lynch’s G-rated Disney drama The St...

This week we’re joined by Filmspotting’s Josh Larsen— author of Fear Not , an upcoming book taking a faith-based look at horror— to discuss one of our most skin-crawling provocations yet. Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a seminal text of both body horror and Japanese cyberpunk, an experimental horror/superhero film that’s as surreal as it is disgusting. We discuss the film’s nightmarish...

Who better to help us close out our month of high-profile misfires than THE Nathan Rabin, author of My Year of Flops and The Joy of Trash ? On the table are two wildly ambitious passion projects whose disastrous Cannes premieres threatened to end their directors’ careers: Richard Kelly's 2006 gonzo sci-fi satire Southland Tales , and David Robert Mitchell's 2018 absurdist noir Under the Silver Lak...

This week’s Unwatchables features Matt Singer, film critic, author, and editor of ScreenCrush.com , to help continue our month of high-profile misfires (or are they?). His pick is one of the most foolhardy cinematic experiments ever released by a major studio: Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho . It’s not a reimagining, a reboot, or even a legacy-quel— to use a phrase that our...

Unwatchables is devoting November to the biggest flops, misfires, or— possibly?— misunderstood gems of the past few decades. Kicking off the month are two mega-budget failures that were widely mocked for assuming the worst of their audiences: 2019’s ill-fated adaptation of Cats , and 2021’s celebration of intellectual property Space Jam: A New Legacy . We’re joined by podcaster Emily B. to discuss...