The Projection Booth

Mike is joined by Payton McCarty-Simas and Rob St. Mary to dig into Fucktoys, the 2025 SXSW Special Jury Award winner written, directed by, and starring Annapurna Sriram. Sriram plays AP, a sex worker adrift in Trashtown — a candy-colored dystopia of industrial decay and pastel skies — after a swamp-dwelling tarot reader tells her a curse can be lifted for a thousand dollars and the sacrifice of a...

Mike sits down with filmmaker and archivist Mike Davis to discuss Dead, White & Blue — a gleefully subversive political satire assembled entirely from recycled public domain footage. Davis, whose previous "green movies" include Sex Galaxy and President Wolfman, sifted through more than 300 films — predominantly training and educational films produced by the U.S. government, military, and law e...

Mike sits down with director Stephanie Laing to discuss Tow — a true-story drama about one woman's year-long legal war against a predatory towing company and the system behind it. Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne) is living in her 1991 Toyota Camry on the streets of Seattle when the car — her only lifeline — gets impounded, leaving her with a bill for $21,634 she has no hope of paying. What follows is batt...

Mike sits down with writer-director Addison Heimann to discuss Touch Me — a psychosexual sci-fi horror-comedy about codependency, addiction, and the seductive promise that something out there could touch you and make all the pain go away. Codependent best friends Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) find themselves homeless, Joey's mysterious ex resurfaces with an offer too good...

Owen (Justice Smith) is a quiet kid on the outskirts of everything — his school, his family, his own life. When he meets Maddy (Jack Haven), a fellow outcast devoted to late-night supernatural TV show The Pink Opaque, something stirs in him that he can't quite name. Together they lose themselves in the show's mythology, its heroes Isabel and Tara battling the dream-warping Mr. Melancholy from with...

Mike talks with writer/director Maya Annik Bedward about her feature documentary Black Zombie (2026). The film looks at Haitian Vodou and how it's been been bastardized by Hollywood in films from early works like White Zombie to modern movies like World War Z and everywhere in-between. The film had its premiere at SXSW 2026. Find out more at https://www.instagram.com/blackzombiemovie/ Become a sup...

Mike sits down with Leslie Winston — legendary performer of the Golden Age of Adult Film and AVN Hall of Fame inductee — and Mark Jason Murray, founder of Ultra Flesh Archives, to celebrate the release of Wildheart: The Leslie Winston Collection, now available on Blu-ray. Ms. Winston looks back on her remarkable two-decade career, sharing personal memories of the era of loops shot between 1980 and...

Mike talks with writer Aaron Tracy about his new podcast series, The Secret Life of Roald Dahl, which tells the story of the (in)famous writer who once served in the British Secret Service before becoming the author of macabre tales and beloved children's books. Find out more about the podcast at https://www.listentoparallax.com/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast...

Mike talks with multi-hyphenate Grace Glowicki about her new film, Dead Lover (2025). It's a stinky look at a gravedigger (Glowicki) who searches for a love who is taken too-soon. The film is playing theatrically around North America. Check local listings or visit https://deadlovermovie.com/ for more details. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth...

Kyler Fey and Michelle Kisner join Mike to dig into Bertrand Mandico's striking 2017 feature debut, The Wild Boys (Les Garçons Sauvages). A fever dream of transgression and transformation, the film follows five privileged boys who rape and murder their literature teacher — then are spirited away by a mysterious sea captain to the strange and sensual Dress Island, where nature itself begins to resh...

Re-recording mixer Martyn Zub discusses the new film from Padraic McKinley, The Weight (2026), the story of a battle-scarred veteran in The Great Depression who's hired to help smuggle a fortune in gold across 100 miles of impenetrable wilderness. The film stars Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe and had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreake...

She's been dug up, renamed, reanimated, and gaslit — and Hollywood expects her to be grateful. Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! resurrects the Bride of Frankenstein for a 1930s Chicago that feels equal parts Weimar cabaret and fever dream, with Jessie Buckley delivering a ferocious, uncontainable performance at the center of a film that can't quite contain itself. Mike White and Chris Stachiw dig in...

Mike sits down with Julie Wyman, director of The Tallest Dwarf — a documentary that is as personal as it is political.  When filmmaker and UC Davis professor Julie Forrest Wyman set out to make The Tallest Dwarf, she discovered she has hypochondroplasia dwarfism herself — and that hers is the last of a body type she has inherited. The film charts her quest to find her place within the little peopl...

Christine La Monte discusses her career and her latest work producing a pair of opera-themed documentaries, the uplifting Viva Verdi! (2025) and the stunning Ai Weiwei's Turandot (2025). La Monte talks about the importance of opera in the modern world and the Oscar-nominated song "Sweet Dreams of Joy." For more information visit: https://www.lamonteproductions.com/ Become a supporter of this podca...

Collision as courtship. Self-destruction as intimacy. Fatih Akın’s Head-On (2004) opens with two suicide attempts and spirals into a sham marriage between Cahit (Birol Ünel) and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), German Turks who weaponize matrimony to escape themselves. What begins as a performance of tradition mutates into volatile love, violence, prison, exile, and a reunion that refuses catharsis. Keith G...

Sound designer Mark A. Mangini returns to The Projection Booth to discuss The Oldest Person in the World (2026), the Sam Green documentary about the successive holders of the oldest person title. Mark discusses the importance of using sound to tell a story and recounts his work on Dune and Mad Max: Fury Road.  Look for screenings of The Oldest Person in the World at https://www.theoldestperson.com...

Mike talks with editor Derek Boonstra about his work on Seized (2026). Premiering recently at Sundance Film Festival, the documentary traces the human fallout of asset forfeiture and the legal gray zones that allow property to be taken without conviction. Find out more about Derek at his website, https://derekboonstra.com/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pr...

Mike talks with editor Andres Landau about his work editing the 2026 documentary, Nuisance Bear. A sobering look at the uneasy relationship between polar bears and humans when humans are infringing on the bears' natural environment.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support . Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www....

Director Angelo Madsen joins Mike to discuss his latest film, the 2025 documentary A Body to Live In which focuses on the body artist Fakir Musafar who spent his lifetime manipulating his physical form. The film's edgy subject is matched by its confrontational visual style in a striking work that will not easily be forgotten. The film is currently playing at venues across North America.  Check you...

Australia month crashes to a delirious halt with 1997’s Welcome to Woop Woop, Directed by Stephan Elliott and adapted from Douglas Kennedy's The Dead Heart by screenwriter Michael Thomas, the film strands American grifter Teddy (Johnathon Schaech) in a surreal outback shantytown ruled by Daddy-O (Rod Taylor) and fueled by show tunes, superstition, and mob justice. Susie Porter co-stars as Angie, w...

Mike sits down with editor Ryan Kendrick to discuss Carousel (2026) and unpack how Rachel Lambert's film finds its rhythm in silence, hesitation, and the messy recalibration of adult love. Watch the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFJmY__SC8I Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support . Become a supporter of The Projection...

Mike talks with writer and podcaster Brian Raftery about his latest book, Hannibal Lector: A Life. It's a look at Thomas Harris and his most famous creation, the genteel boogeyman Hannibal Lector in his various book, film, and TV incarnations from Red Dragon to Bryan Fuller's captivating series. Buy the book now at https://amzn.to/4qMuNzB Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.co...

Mike talks with Cody Jarrett and Siouxzan Perry about their 2025 documentary TURA! The filmmakers discuss how the project came together and how they shaped the voluminous material into a feature-length film. How can one film contain the power and strength of the one-and-only Tura Satana?  VIsit https://turamovie.com/ for more details.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/p...

We continue our Australian month with Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds, the stark 1989 feature debut of Alex Proyas. Before The Crow or Dark City, Proyas delivered this sun-blasted sci-fi Western set in a post-apocalyptic desert where the wind blows and desert bakes. A lone wanderer, Smith (Norman "The Norm" Boyd), emerges from the dunes and collides with siblings Felix and Betty Crabtre...

The Projection Booth continues its dive into Australian cinema with Pandemonium, the delirious 1987 feature from writer-director Haydn Keenan. A film that plays like a fever dream filtered through exploitation cinema, absurdist theater, and cultural anxiety, Pandemonium resists easy summary—and happily punishes anyone who tries. The story unfolds through the fractured testimony of Kales Leadingham...