Watch With Jen™

Joining me this week is Jason Carney, who is not only a colleague and friend but also, the incredibly hard-working Executive Director of the Phoenix Film Festival, which is a fun, filmmaker-friendly nationally acclaimed, impressive event that has run for 23 years. Held at the wonderful Harkins Scottsdale 101 Theatre, this year's festival is set to open on Thursday, March 23 with Ray Romano's direc...

Having recorded several extra episodes in February & March in the lead-up to Season 4, it's a true delight to sprinkle a bunch of these bonus conversations into the new season, both as a surprise & also my sincere way of thanking you for making the podcast more successful than it's ever been before. While eventually, we will ease back into weekly releases, for now, I hope you're enjoying t...

A writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, today's guest Duncan Birmingham was an executive producer and screenwriter for IFC's MARON and also served as a co-executive producer and writer on the Starz series BLUNT TALK as well. Additionally, Duncan's short films have premiered at such festivals as Sundance and AFI, and his screenplay SWINGLES, which was bought by Paramount, was also on The Black...

This week, I was so happy to welcome back my good friend Rachel Wagner who was my guest for the most downloaded episode of Season 3 devoted to LOL Funny '90s Romcoms. The woman behind not only the website, pod, & YouTube channel Rachel's Reviews as well as The Criterion Project podcast, the Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic also runs the incredibly popular Hallmarkies podcast, & is a ve...

As soon as this episode was announced & I began researching it, there was a massive amount of interest from listeners to hear what turned out to be an absolutely hilarious yet still very insightful conversation with author Adrian McKinty. So in that spirit, & because I've recorded a pretty healthy backlog of episodes for the new season so far, I thought I'd upload it early for all of you a...

An episode that we've been planning since we recorded our first conversation devoted to Martin Scorsese in Season 2, this week, I was so honored to welcome back my favorite crime writer working today to dissect one of her most significant sources of inspiration, the fascinating & controversial writer-director Paul Schrader. Novelist Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of such acclaimed, r...

We are back in 2023 with the first episode of the fourth season of Watch With Jen & it's a nice long, chatty, analytical one that's as surprisingly moving as it is filled with great Hollywood stories. RAVENOUS, OCEAN'S ELEVEN, & MATCHSTICK MEN screenwriter Ted Griffin (who also created FX's TERRIERS & produced THE WOLF OF WALL STREET) returns to the podcast to pay tribute to his old la...

Behold our final episode of not only this 3-part holiday bonus special, but also the final episode of Season 3. For fun last night, I used a calculator to add up the number of installments of Watch With Jen that have been uploaded in the show's history so far & was stunned to discover that this one is number 170! That's A LOT of conversations about film, you guys, & I want to thank you so...

Welcome to the second of three bonus episodes on films you can now find on physical media. Zeroing in on some of my favorite contemplative foreign & art-house releases, in this 82-minute installment of Watch With Jen, we discuss three films you can now find on Criterion disc, including THE POWER OF THE DOG, DRIVE MY CAR, & THE INFERNAL AFFAIRS TRILOGY, as well as MONSIEUR HIRE, which Cohen...

Welcome to the first of three bonus physical media episodes that I'll be releasing this week to celebrate the end of the third season, the end of the year, and above all, to thank you for your support throughout 2022. In this installment, which is devoted to '22 releases, you'll hear film critic Sean Burns and critic/podcaster Blake Howard on TOP GUN: MAVERICK, "New York Times" bestselling author...

For the third season finale of Watch With Jen, I was thrilled and proud to welcome back one of my dearest pals and the hardest-working man in pod-business, Mr. Blake Howard. The brains behind the stellar One Heat Minute Productions that launched with an in-depth minute-by-minute investigation and appreciation of Michael Mann's "Heat," he's released numerous pods since, including "All The President...

This week, I'm so pleased to welcome back to the podcast a very talented, supportive, and funny friend. Currently based in Newark, Delaware, Mitchell Beaupre is not only the Senior Editor at one of my favorite services (via Letterboxd), but they're also the co-host of the Weekend Watchlist and Four Favorites podcasts, which you can find in the stream for The Letterboxd Show. Additionally, a prolif...

Watch With Jen started 2022 with an episode featuring fan favorite S.A. Cosby, so as we begin wrapping up our third season, it's only fitting that we bring Shawn back to discuss more movies he loves. As kind and genuine as he is knowledgeable and gifted, the first time I ever chatted with Shawn was one week before he released the book that would become a smash success and put him on the map. The r...

A film critic for publications such as LA Weekly , New York Magazine , Vulture , The New York Times , and formerly, The Village Voice , the brilliant Bilge Ebiri is one of my favorite journalists working today. And recently, he was kind enough to name Watch With Jen one of the best current film podcasts in an article for Vulture . Additionally, a writer-director who's known for the films New Guy ,...

Returning to Watch With Jen this week, we have my very talented friend and an official (and very popular) friend of the show. William Boyle is the acclaimed novelist behind such titles as Gravesend , The Lonely Witness , A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself , City of Margins , and Shoot the Moonlight Out . In addition to crafting these wonderfully humanistic Lumet-like character-driven ensemble cr...

This week's guest is a terrific character actor with over thirty years in the industry. A veteran of more than seventy Hollywood movies and hundreds of episodes of television, Donal Logue is the beloved scene-stealer of such films as Sneakers , Blade, and Zodiac , and TV series as Grounded for Life , Sons of Anarchy , Vikings , Gotham , and of course, the great Terriers , which Jed Ayres and I cel...

About a decade ago now, my mom read a WWII-era historical thriller novel called Mr. Churchill's Secretary and became an instant fan of both the main character - Maggie Hope, an intrepid young spy, and codebreaker who rose up to meet the challenges of that time - as well as author Susan Elia MacNeal. In the years that followed, she would eagerly anticipate each new installment and I remember going...

This week, I was so pleased to welcome back a very dear friend to the podcast. A senior film critic who writes the most soulful, insightful, and humanistic pieces at FilmFreakCentral.net, Walter Chaw's bylines have also appeared in LA Weekly , The New York Times , New York Post , The Washington Post , Criterion , New York Magazine , and more. Additionally, the author of a book about the film MIRAC...

Returning to the podcast this week, we have a very talented freelance writer and lecturer specializing in women surrealists and visual culture. Sabina Stent's bylines include Magnum Photos and Crime Reads and she also writes a substack newsletter called Love Letters During a Nightmare. Her next online lecture is for the Morbid Anatomy Museum and is titled Cinematic Surrealism in Los Angeles: Maya...

In this highly-requested feature-length episode, dear friends and past guests Jed Ayres, Rob Belushi, and Blake Howard join me to explore the critically acclaimed, award-winning FX Australia series Mr. Inbetween , which ran for three seasons from 2018-2021. Created and written by the show's charismatic lead Scott Ryan, the series finds the actor starring as muscle, debt-collector, hitman, and Unde...

This week, I'm very excited to bring back one of our warmest & most knowledgeable guests who's become synonymous with fall. In fact, this is her third consecutive fall episode and fifth appearance overall! An accomplished lawyer and a highly readable film critic at her own site MovieMom.com and at RogerEbert.com where she's also an editor, Nell Minow has written over 3,000 movie reviews since...

Returning to the podcast today, we have a fan favorite in the form of Mr. Jordan Harper. One of my dearest friends, this podcast's very first guest, and my Pandemic Movie Club, and Game Night crew buddy, Jordan is the Edgar award-winning author of She Rides Shotgun , Love & Other Wounds , The Last King of California - releasing in September in the UK - and Everybody Knows , which will be avail...

In his last appearance, film writer Sean Burns joined me to take a look at Michael Douglas in lothario mode in one of the pod's most hilarious and popular adults-only episodes. And this week, he's back to dissect five films starring one of the podcast's most beloved and covered character actors in the form of Jack Nicholson's turns in Easy Rider , Five Easy Pieces , The Shining , Terms of Endearme...

This week, we're welcoming back a woman I had so much fun dissecting Roger Moore's Bond era with the last time she appeared on the podcast towards the end of Season 2. Julia Ricci is a Senior Programmer at Heartland Film in Indianapolis, Indiana, which organizes the Heartland International Film Festival and the Academy Award-qualifying Indy Shorts International Film Festival. She has been part of...

This week, I was so pleased to welcome two friends and the hosts of The Film Stage's excellent podcast The B-Side, which covers movie stars in a fascinating way by focusing not on the films that made or kept them famous but the ones that actors made in between. The delightful show just celebrated its four-year anniversary and I had such a fun time joining hosts Dan Mecca and Conor O'Donnell to dis...