Watch With Jen™

Striking while the iron is hot and while people's schedules are most open, we're back with another bonus episode for you this week and you are definitely in for a treat. 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 we...

Today's guest, the great Dana Stevens has been Slate's chief film critic since 2006 as well as a veteran podcaster in her own right, serving as a co-host of the magazine's long-running weekly culture pod, "The Slate Culture Gabfest," which you should definitely seek out. An accomplished journalist whose work has also appeared in such esteemed publications as The New York Times , The Washington Pos...

Join us for "a ride with a trickster and a javelin man to a town down by the sea," in this engaging, analytical feature-length conversation dedicated to FX's 2010 wonderful one-season wonder series "Terriers." A sun-drenched San Diego set comedic crime show about scrappy unlicensed private eyes who are brilliantly brought to life by real-life friends Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James, the seri...

A Rotten Tomatoes approved film critic and journalist who writes for "Variety" and Fresh Fiction TV, this week's guest Courtney Howard is also a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, as well as Critics Choice, and the Online Film Critics Society. Holding an informal meeting of the cinematic Gen X Babysitter's Club with me this week to tackle the late '80s-early '90s studio comedies "...

Welcome back to the podcast! Taking a look at the work of legendary director John Huston and the films "Key Largo," "Fat City," and "Prizzi's Honor," today's installment, featuring "New York Times" bestselling "Razorblade Tears" author S.A. Cosby, is a little different from what longtime listeners are used to hearing on the pod. Sprinkled throughout this extended conversation, which covers everyth...

Wrapping up our Physical Media series with this third and final installment, which also brings this season of Watch With Jen to a close, I hope you've enjoyed listening to these freewheeling episodes half as much as my collaborators and I did making them as well. Continuing on from where we left off yesterday with Walter Chaw and Nikki Dolson in Part 2, today we're kicking things off with my frien...

We're back with Part 2 of 3 of this season's final series of episodes devoted to recent physical media releases. Joining me today, we have the brilliant film critic Walter Chaw (whose video essay on Walter Hill's 48 Hrs. dubbed "Profane and Profound" you can find on Netflix's new series VOIR ) and the witty and wonderful crime writer Nikki Dolson as well. After investigating The Naked Spur and The...

I'm wrapping up the second season of Watch With Jen with three holiday presents for you. Starting today, they arrive in form of this trio of laid-back, conversational episodes devoted to recent physical media releases. Featuring some of your favorite recurring guests (and my closest friends) as well as analysis by yours truly solo, Part 1 finds me tackling the Brian Wilson style symphony of taste...

The name is Moore, Roger Moore. In this lively, research-intensive episode on 007, I'm joined by Julia Ricci, the delightful Emmy nominated documentary researcher and senior programmer at the well-respected Heartland Film, which hosts two terrific festivals every year. Having recently completed a year-long project to watch each and every James Bond film for the first time, Julia sat down with me t...

If you're going to go gothic, the best person to bring along is undoubtedly victorian literature and romantic poetry scholar Walter Chaw. A very good friend and the sharp yet humanistic critic whose work you can and should read at FilmFreakCentral, it's always an honor and a pleasure to talk about film, art, life, writing, sex, gender, and Hitchcock with Walter and today's discussion is no excepti...

Returning to the podcast once again, 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 the brand new Shoot the Moonlight Out . In addition to crafting these wondrously humanistic Lumet-like character-driven...

This week on Watch With Jen, we have a very special guest and the man behind one of my favorite shows in recent memory. The TV writer, director, producer, showrunner, and co-creator of Halt and Catch Fire , which, along with The Americans , Succession , and Better Call Saul , is easily one of the best series of the 2010s, Christopher Cantwell is here to tell us all about the cult favorite AMC show...

A marketing and social media manager at Turner Classic Movies, you can see the work of today's wonderfully delightful guest Diana Bosch on the network's social accounts creatively spreading the joy of classic movies with fans around the globe. Diana's love of old Hollywood and the classics can be traced back to TV's I Love Lucy and the film noir that's similarly one of my favorites, Laura . Additi...

As I recently discovered, one of the best things about having an actor on the podcast is that not only do they bring a valuable and unique perspective to these discussions about film and craft but they also have the ability to do all of the voices we're talking about! (And this particular guest is especially gifted in that department.) A very talented, versatile, and witty performer with more than...

This week on the podcast, we have a woman who truly needs no introduction - one whose voice is or should be (especially if you're a cinephile) her own introduction. A film writer I remember reading as far back as Cinematical and The Village Voice as well as the author of Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood , and books on George Lucas, Al Pacino, and Meryl Streep, Karina...

Happy Halloween from Watch With Jen, care of this episode that will put you in the mood for the spooky season. One of my oldest Twitter friends from way back in the fail whale days, I'm so pleased to be joined today by the wonderfully witty Scott Weinberg. A prolific film writer for twenty years as well as a Jack of All Trades, Scott Weinberg has created such great podcasts as the new Overhated (w...

Planning to travel? It always helps if you have the right guide. And when it comes to New York City, I have the perfect one for you today, especially if you're a film fan, because he literally just wrote the book on it. That's right, this week on the podcast, I was so honored to have back my talented friend Jason Bailey. The author of the brand new book Fun City Cinema , in this entertaining and i...

If you follow me on social media, you'll recall that earlier this year, I fell head over heels for Columbo. From creating a popular episode-by-episode mega-thread on Twitter to deciding that Peter Falk (who I'd long loved) was going to be one of my most-watched actors for the year on Letterboxd, I soon began steering even the most casual conversations with acquaintances back to my new favorite tel...

Is there a doctor in the house? Well, as it happens, this week there definitely is. A doctor of women surrealists and a freelance writer specializing in visual culture, art, couture, Old Hollywood, and more, the lovely Sabina Stent joins us to talk about some of her favorite generational soundtrack movies, including American Graffiti , Dazed and Confused , and Reality Bites in this warm, nostalgic...

On the podcast this week, I welcomed back a very talented and thoughtful writer as well as a man recently (and affectionately) dubbed "Film Twitter Royalty." Peter Avellino's long-form essays on the movies that fascinate and frustrate him make his blog Mr. Peel's Sardine Liqueur a must-read for cinephiles. In a conversation that's equal parts witty nostalgia and astute film criticism, we took a lo...

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, this week, I was so pleased to welcome back the friendly and wise Nell Minow. The author of over 3,000 reviews since the 1990s, Nell has also written a handful of terrific film books, including 101 Must-See Movie Moments and The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies...

This week, I was so pleased to welcome back one of the funniest guests I've ever had, the quick-witted, fresh, and very clever Sean Burns. A staff writer at WBUR's The ARTery and contributing writer at North Shore Movies , Sean Burns was Philadelphia Weekly 's lead film critic from 1999-2013 and worked as the movie section contributing editor at the Improper Bostonian from 2006-2014. Additionally,...

Pack your sunglasses, suits, smokes, and Stetson hats, and get ready for a tour of international crime movies. In case the title of today's show didn't already give it away, this episode is different. Inspired by some of the requests I received from Patreon donors at "The Right Stuff" level who were looking for segments about new westerns, John Woo, and crime movies in general, I put together my f...

This week, I welcome one of my dearest friends back to the podcast. A talented freelance illustrator, blogger, and film fan, Kate Gabrielle is the designer of both the season one and two versions of our gorgeous Watch With Jen logo. As a professional artist, she's not only worked with the TCM Film Fest, Netflix, Doubleday, Mental Floss , and more but also runs her own brightly colored, uplifting s...

Nobody makes a creative, ultra-specific crime subgenre Letterboxd list quite like my good friend, Peckerwood and Fierce Bitches author Jedidiah Ayres. Inspired by his inventive and comprehensive "Just Dew It" list of Extreme Sports Crime Films (and their close relatives), we selected four titles to watch and discuss which were made and released during our childhood and teen years. Although we refe...