Episodes
Well, we've reached the end of our Paul Schrader retrospective - for a couple weeks until OH, CANADA comes out - and it's time to discuss our findings. What did we learn about Schrader? About film? About podcasting? About ourselves? Can we remember all the different ways we got sick and hurt since March? Where are we going next, and when?
Thank you to everyone who has followed along on our lonely journey toward transcendence. A very special thanks to all the guests who joined us and made the...
Published 11/22/24
As a little bonus, we talked some more MASTER GARDENER with Jake's old friend and professional New Orleans gardener Bob Martin! Lots of technical gardening chat, native NOLA plants, gardening movies, and some commiseration between friends of Jake that he very quickly shuts down.
Enjoy!
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Published 11/15/24
It's the end of our Schrader project - for a few weeks, at least - as we tackle the final film of his "Man In A Room" trilogy, 2022's MASTER GARDENER. Joining us is New Orleans-based writer Matthew Germenis! We're talking horticulture as both a restorative and reactionary practice, the film's ultimately tangential relationship to far-right movements, reformed Neo-Nazis, the legacy of plantation architecture, and more! Great ep!
Don't forget to check out our technical chat with IRL New...
Published 11/15/24
It's the one you've all been waiting for - our episode on Alfonso Pineda Ulloa's 2014 film THERE ARE NO SAINTS, adapted from an unmade Schrader script, which sat on a shelf for 8 years before getting dumped on VOD after his FIRST REFORMED/CARD COUNTER comeback. What's that? You don't know what this movie is and you don't really want to hear us talk about it? Great news - this episode was recorded live (to tape) at Ian's home in Oaxaca, is mostly about Jake's visit there, and contains shocking...
Published 11/08/24
Ante up, listeners - we're dealing out another big one this week. Paul Schrader's 2021 follow-up to FIRST REFORMED, the (ostensible) poker drama THE CARD COUNTER, was another "Man in a Room" film, this time exploring the moral weight of past actions. Joining us to talk about Abu Ghraib, Iraq War films, and how much a filmmaker's stated politics really matter compared to what's on screen is writer and critic Roxana Hadadi! Don't worry, there's plenty of Star Wars prequel digression on this...
Published 11/01/24
We're taking a detour this week to talk about some Paul Schrader projects that never made it to the screen - the Montreal-set gangster film QUÉBECOIS!, the Elio Petri remake INVESTIGATION, psychedelic murder mystery THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION, film festival-set stage plays Berlinale and The Cleopatra Club, biopics EIGHT SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF HANK WILLIAMS and GERSHWIN, and the Bret Easton Ellis-scripted shark thriller BAIT.
We read PDFs so you don't have to! Unless you want to, in which case...
Published 10/25/24
This is a big one, folks. Paul Schrader's 2017 FIRST REFORMED, a climate-doom riff on WINTER LIGHT and DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, kicked off a new phase of his career that's still unfolding as we speak. Phases unfold, right? Anyway, to help us unpack both this tremendous work of transcendental cinema and our own crushing despair, we're joined once again by our great friends Aaron and Carlee from the Hit Factory podcast. Is it illegal to describe a bomb vest as a form of prayer? We'll find out...
Published 10/18/24
Arf arf, listeners - this week we're talking Paul Schrader's 2016 goofaround crime thriller DOG EAT DOG with Darryl Edge and Petros Patsilivas from the Getting Dafoe You podcast! This film was a form of creative redemption for Schrader and Nicolas Cage after the fiasco of DYING OF THE LIGHT, but is it of any interest to an audience? We report, you decide. We also decide, to be honest. The four of us have now likely given more attention to this film than anyone involved in its production, so I...
Published 10/11/24
It's two movies for the price of one today! (Podcast remains free.) In 2014, Paul Schrader directed Nicolas Cage and Anton Yelchin in a thriller about a CIA agent with frontotemporal dementia trying to hunt down an old enemy before his mind goes. The money guys took the film away from him, edited it into a totally anonymous Redbox movie themselves, and released it as "A Paul Schrader Film" anyway. He was contractually prohibited from disparaging the result, but Schrader, along with the cast...
Published 10/05/24
In 2013, Paul Schrader directed deeply troubled recent child actress Lindsay Lohan and porn star/human Quagmire James Deen from a script by literary dolt Bret Easton Ellis in a crowdfunded, low-budget curio about the vapid cruelty of modern Los Angeles. THE CANYONS was widely disregarded on release, but has steadily grown in esteem by some particularly movie-brained folks. Will we be among them? What about our guest, writer Charles Lyons-Burt? You'll have to listen to find out!
Spoiler: we...
Published 09/27/24
Sorry for the late update, everybody - we got trapped in one of those two-person horse costumes for like 48 hours, really really scary. But we're back to talk pretty seriously about Paul Schrader's 2008 literary adaptation ADAM RESURRECTED, the story of a German Jewish clown who becomes a concentration camp commander's human dog and then finds himself the Van Wilder of an Israeli psychiatric facility after the war. It is at once a very relevant and profoundly unhelpful film for the current...
Published 09/22/24
Paul Schrader concludes his first set of Man In A Room films with 2007's THE WALKER, a bookend to AMERICAN GIGOLO that finds the lonely man working as a literal escort for society women in D.C. But will Carter Page III find meaning outside of managing a few political wives' secrets? Should Woody Harrelson be doing that voice? Is Jake so unceasingly distractible on this episode that it ends the podcast? You'll have to listen to find out!
Further Reading:
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset...
Published 09/13/24
The power of 'cast compels you, listener - to enjoy this week's episode! Paul Schrader was hired to replace John Frankenheimer as director of a prequel to THE EXORCIST, and things only got stranger from there. Our pal, and producer of the new film CRUMB CATCHER, Chadd Harbold returns to the show to help us discuss Schrader's DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST (and Renny Harlin's reworked version, EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING). It's all here: the auteur theory proven correct(???), crises of faith,...
Published 09/06/24
Schmile, listener! This week we're pointing our viewfinders at Paul Schrader's sleazy 2002 Bob Crane biopic AUTO FOCUS with writer and co-host of the Doughboys and Get Played podcasts, Nick Wiger! Join us for a discussion of fame, destructive sexual obsession, smoldering male violence, Willem Dafoe - you know, all the usual Schrader stuff. Plus: we talk the Minions, Tyga bites, and how Bob Crane would have been a podcaster. Also if you're related to either of the hosts of the show, maybe...
Published 08/30/24
Somebody call 911 - it's a new episode podcast! Only kidding, there's no emergency. Except you might have some friggin palpitations when you hear our great conversation on Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese's final collaboration (to date), BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, with film writer and literal rock star Soraya Sebghati! We're talking Cage, we're talking TAXI DRIVER redux, we're talking the novel coronavirus, we're talking blood-soaked dreadlocks, we're talking all kinds of stuff. Great movie,...
Published 08/23/24
1999 is one of the great movie years - perhaps because Paul Schrader's FOREVER MINE only technically premiered that year, and didn't see release until 2002 (on Starz, to boot). But is this long-gestating tale of torrid passion the Sirkian romance Schrader claims, or more of a nasty noir pastiche? Is it neither of those things, and instead a very compelling advertisement for The Legendary Pink Palace of St. Pete Beach? What's the deal with Joseph Fiennes? You'll have to listen to find out!
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Published 08/16/24
"AFFLIC" - the Aflac duck if he was talking about this movie! For real, though, a lot of the characters in this film could have used some insurance based on many of the events that take place in Paul Schrader's 1997 Russell Banks adaptation AFFLICTION. Returning to the show to help us discuss this snowbound story of alcoholism and abuse is writer and film programmer Glenn Heath, Jr.! Join us for discussion of small-town authority, proximity, auto-dentistry, and more.
Further Reading:
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Published 08/09/24
Paul Schrader. Elmore Leonard. Tom Arnold. Dave Grohl. It's like the freaking Traveling Wilburys had a baby! Four babies, I guess. Anyway what I'm saying is Schrader's 1997 faith healer comedy TOUCH involved a weird bunch of people. Luckily we have the great Jane Altoids joining us to sort it all out! We're talking stigmata, daytime TV, self-parody, tonal control, and more.
Everything goes very normally on this episode and Jake behaves in a way that is completely fine and actually...
Published 08/02/24
Now I've heard of a Major Motion Picture...but a Mayor Motion Picture??? Now I'm being carted off to a hospital for having typed that!! Nah, just kidding. We're talking about one of those today: Harold Becker's 1996 not-John-Grisham city politics thriller CITY HALL, on which Paul Schrader was one of four credited writers! Your favorite Pauld Casty boys had a grand old time talking municipal procedure, Al Pacino, Danny Aiello, Donald Manes, David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani, bongo clubs, and more....
Published 07/26/24
"Boy, I sure wish there was a sequel to the 1991 HBO Original Movie CAST A DEADLY SPELL, only more of a reboot than a sequel, and with Dennis Hopper taking over the role of detective H. Phillip Lovecraft from Fred Ward, and I hope it's mostly a fumbled metaphor for McCarthyism," you're probably saying to yourself all the time. Well, you will not believe your luck: there is one of those, and for some goddamn reason Paul Schrader directed it! Today we're talking 1994's WITCH HUNT, a film noir...
Published 07/20/24
Wake up, listeners! Should be easy if you're anything like the protagonist of Paul Schrader's 1992 film LIGHT SLEEPER, which we're talking all about today with writer/editor/poster extraordinaire Jake Tropila! Join us for a great conversation about Schrader's "mid-life movie," addictive behavior, actually humanizing the drug trade, 90s New Age stuff, and our favorite jokes. Damn, we should really be charging at least $200 for a show like this. Instead it's free!!!
Further Reading:
"Movie...
Published 07/12/24
No, you haven't fallen asleep in a Venice alleyway - it's really the podcast! Today we're wandering La Serenissima and monologuing about our fathers as we discuss Paul Schrader's dreamy 1990 literary adaptation THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS with filmmakers and To The White Sea cohosts Jordan Fish and Ray Tintori! And yes, we do figure out which of us is which character from the film. We talk Ian McEwan, Harold Pinter, Gen X masculinity, befriending weirdos, dad stuff, vampires, and much more....
Published 07/06/24
Surprise, listeners! Jake went to a Clint-related estate sale recently and we had to tell you all about it ASAP. Ian's hearing all of this for the first time on mic, too. We'll post all the photos over on our Patreon feed, unlocked for everybody. Enjoy!
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Published 06/30/24
"I want him to stop. I can't take the pain. The voices and the pain." No, those aren't the words of our listeners - they're the words of Jesus Christ as written by Paul Schrader! Understand your confusion, though. Today we're genuflecting before Martin Scorsese's highly controversial 1988 film THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, adapted by Schrader from not The Bible, and joining us on our spiritual journey is writer Robert Rubsam. Jake has a bunch of day-one theology questions that Ian and Rob do...
Published 06/28/24