Episodes
Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the podcast! Just playing, nobody preys upon us. But we're back in Symbionese Liberation Army territory this week to talk Paul Schrader's 1988 biopic PATTY HEARST! Join us for a spirited conversation about Natasha Richardson, Ving Rhames, the movie's angle on leftism, ideological and physical consent, and Disneyland in 1974. It's a good ep!
Content warning: we talk about sexual violence on this episode.
Further Reading:
An Oral...
Published 06/21/24
This is an unlocked bonus episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me.
Here's some hidden gold for ya: the damned Pod Casty For Me Patreon feed! No, for real. Let's be for real now. Today we're finishing up the Man With No Name trilogy with the final and best film of the lot, Sergio Leone's 1966 Civil War Western epic THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. No Oxford comma for Sergio I guess! Well, fair enough.
We both loved this one, actually, and had a bang-up time talking about Eli...
Published 06/14/24
1..2..3..4! Pretty rock and roll way to start an episode description, I thought. This week we're absolutely shredding (guitar term) through a discussion of Paul Schrader's understandably underseen 1987 struggling rock band sibling melodrama film, LIGHT OF DAY, and joining us are our great pals Ryan and Este from the Altmania podcast! We talk mom stuff, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Jett and Michael J. Fox's palpable sexual chemistry, the very limited revolutionary potential of popular music, and a...
Published 06/07/24
Hop on the launch, folks, we're heading to THE MOSQUITO COAST! Peter Weir's 1986 film scripted by Paul Schrader, that is. Join us for a conversation about the unfinished capitalist critique of prepper guys, the problems with Going Back To Nature, and how we are much smarter and better than Allie Fox generally because we have done more reading. Well, Ian has. One time I pitched Ian on a Patreon episode where I just ask him questions about agriculture for an hour, and this basically became...
Published 05/31/24
It's the MISHIMA episode. It's also the Mishima episode, in a way.
We do our best to discuss both Paul Schrader's 1985 art-biopic MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS and the man Yukio Mishima with our returning pal Comrade Yui, who has been on a real journey with this film. As you might expect, things get pretty weighty: the nature and purpose of art, Schrader's depiction of the suicide, whether you can be a bodybuilder without being fascist about it. This is a special one, folks.
Further...
Published 05/24/24
It's been so long...just kidding, it's been a week! That's the normal time between episodes. Nevertheless, we're back with Paul Schrader's first film he "didn't" write himself, the 1982 erotic horror remake CAT PEOPLE, and we're thrilled to be joined by film writer and genuine English person Esmé Holden! We talk Schrader's depiction(s) of women, remakes, zoos as prisons/prisons as zoos, and the David Bowie of it all.
Excited for you to have John Heard this one, folks! Hey, come on. I'm just...
Published 05/17/24
THIS is entertainment, folks! We're taking a swing at Martin Scorsese's masterful 1980 boxing biopic RAGING BULL (from a script by Paul Schrader) with film critic and Heavyweight Champion of the Podcast, Bilge Ebiri!!! Join us for a wonderful conversation about Scorsese's wild years, ROCKY, memory, the word "doggerel," and more.
Plus, Bilge tells us about something he did that may change the podcast forever. Like, for real.
Further Reading:
Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan...
Published 05/10/24
Pick out your shirt and tie, listener! We're talking Paul Schrader's 1980 stylish crime film AMERICAN GIGOLO this week, and we've called up film critic Brandon Streussnig to help us do it! Production design, fashion history, Bresson, several Giorgios - we get into it. Jake put on cologne for this one as a bit. See if you can hear the smell!
Further Reading:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Painter of Modern Life XI: The Dandy by Charles Baudelaire
"Talking Film Costume:...
Published 05/03/24
Hey listener, it's been a while. How have you been? Do you ever think about me? Just kidding it's a new episode on Joan Tewkesbury's sole feature film, OLD BOYFRIENDS, written by Paul and Leonard Schrader! Who better to join us on this exploration of women's experience in New Hollywood than writer, Online Film Culture Titan and the inventor of #AYearWithWomen, Marya E. Gates (@oldfilmsflicker)??? Join us for a wide-ranging conversation on everything from the film's rediscovery and restoration...
Published 04/26/24
"Oh my Pod, cast's my daughter!" - something Jake Van Dorn might say if he were alive today...to hear our episode on Paul Schrader's sophomore feature as director, the 1979 Calvinist-dad-goes-to-Pornville film HARDCORE! Joining us on our journey into smut-hell is writer, actress, and filmmaker Manuela Lazić! We get into Dad Stuff, Schrader's aesthetic style as a director, the political economy of sex work, HARDCORE as remake of THE SEARCHERS, and try very, very hard to understand Christian...
Published 04/19/24
Get your disguise on, listener! We got a big boy this week: Paul Schrader's directorial debut, the 1978 auto workers union heist film BLUE COLLAR! The fellas are going long on this one, talking UAW history, race and organized labor, Richard Pryor's performance, Harvey Keitel trying very hard to quit the movie, Yaphet Kotto's lifetime of UFO encounters (really), and whether Schrader could really have made such a leftist film without meaning to, as he claims. This episode is nearly three hours...
Published 04/12/24
Get your hand out of that garbage disposal and press play, listener! We're doing our best to do an episode on John Flynn's 1977 vetsploitation nasty ROLLING THUNDER, but mostly we end up talking about Paul Schrader's mucked-with script. It's a fascinating study in how a story can go from TAXI DRIVER damning to DEATH WITH reactionary with just a few strokes of Heywood Gould's pen. Plus some Vietnam talk, a COCKTAIL/RAIN MAN tangent, and Tommy Lee Jones. Good ep!
Further Reading:
Paul...
Published 04/05/24
Pucker up, listeners - Daddy's here! That's right: accomplished Brian De Palmist and official Daddy of the show, Hit Factory co-host Aaron Casias, is back to help us unpack De Palma's Schrader-scripted 1976 VERTIGO riff OBSESSION! We kind of did a one-episode De Palma podcast, honestly, because there's a bit more BDP here than Paul Schrader. Join us for more Bernard Herrmann talk, more Geneviève Bujold talk (from TIGHTROPE, remember?), and very informed New Orleans opinions. Check it out! You...
Published 03/29/24
We're back with the second part of our discussion of Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER. Join us for more on the film's engagement with race and gender, Jodie Foster's performance, Travis Bickle's cinematic children, and the John Hinckley, Jr. of it all.
Further Reading:
Taxi Driver: BFI Film Classics by Amy Taubin
"Manhattan Transference: Ashley Clark on Taxi Driver"
An Assassin's Diary by Arthur Bremer
Further Viewing:
LE FEU FOLLET (Malle, 1963)
THE KING OF COMEDY (Scorsese, 1982)
...
Published 03/22/24
Buckle up, listeners! We talked so much about Martin Scorsese's landmark 1976 neo-noir nightmare TAXI DRIVER, written by Paul Schrader, that it's gonna be a two-parter. Talk about morbid self-attention!
What was the film's production process like? Whose beach house did Scorsese and Schrader hang out at? Why don't discussions of 1970s New York City crime ever talk about root causes? Should someone become a person like other people? How is Jake like both Martin Scorsese AND Drew Carey?
All...
Published 03/15/24
The time has come, listeners, to discuss the films of Paul Schrader. That's right: Pauld Casty For Me has arrived, and this is the first episode. Of a new series about Paul Schrader movies. Basically imagine how the Clint Eastwood episodes went, roughly, but just replace all the specifics with Paul Schrader stuff. It'll make sense once you start listening.
To kick things off, we're digging into Schrader's first produced screenplay, the 1975 Sydney Pollack neo-noir-yakuza picture THE YAKUZA,...
Published 03/08/24
We've run out of Clint Eastwood movies that fit our weird criteria, and now we're gonna talk about what we've learned from this whole endeavor. Where we are on Clint, on the auteur theory, on thinking about film, on thinking about political art, on each other, on the prospect of ever doing anything - it's all here for your inspection, dear listener.
Oh and also we reveal what we're doing next! We're very excited about it and we hope you will be, too. Here's a hint: I'm going to start...
Published 02/16/24
Here we are, folks - the end of Clint Eastwood's filmography to date. We've unlocked all the legendary weapons and retailer-exclusive armor sets and are ready to do battle with the final boss of Pod Casty For Me: writer and podcaster Will Sloan! Will joins us for a relaxed and agreeable discussion of Eastwood's relaxed and agreeable 2021 neo-Western CRY MACHO and some thoughts on the man's long career, his always-evolving relationship to images of masculinity, his love of animals, and his...
Published 02/10/24
You, dear listener, will know his name...and the truth. That's right, we're going long as hell on Clint's 2019 A.C.A.B. masterpiece RICHARD JEWELL with our biological parents, Aaron and Carlee from Hit Factory!! Join us for a thorough investigation of Eastwood's evolving relationship to images of masculinity, the film's treatment of the Kathy Scruggs character, #NOlympics, and the wonderful performances of Paul Walter Hauser, Kathy Bates, and Sam Rockwell. Special movie, special episode!...
Published 02/03/24
Hop in the Lincoln Mark LT, listeners, we've got a duffel bag full of conversation about THE MULE! Join us for a long-haul chat about Clint's 2018 old-man-drug-trafficker drama about s****y fathers and late capitalism. Spoiler for what we thought of the movie: we both loved it! We talk drug war cinema, the film as a sort of GRAN TORINO REDUX, the film as Alison Eastwood's personal 15:17 TO PARIS, Sondra Locke's death just before its release, and lots more. Hee-haw, folks!
(Actually I looked...
Published 01/26/24
Life has been catapulting us toward this moment...the episode where we lose our minds singing the praises of THE 15:17 TO PARIS with returning guest, writer and Slow Learners Podcast host John Semley! Join us for several hours of exaltant analysis of Clint Eastwood's 2018 avant garde docudrama, starring the real guys who really tackled a heavily armed shirtless man on a train. We really get into it here, folks: millennial masculinity amid the bleak futurelessness in which we've all spent most...
Published 01/19/24
Brace for impact, listeners! Returning guest Nick Newman of The Film Stage joins us for a white-knuckle journey through Clint Eastwood's 2016 chronicle of real-life heroism and not-so-real-life stifling bureaucracy, SULLY. We talk about the film's relationship to real events, the oddness of turning this particular story into a movie, and Nick unlocks something huge about late Clint for us. Great ep, and we even kept it under the film's running time! Listen or you're an NTSB stooge!
Topics...
Published 01/12/24
This is a big one, folks: for our 50th episode (arguably), we're taking aim at Clint Eastwood's monster hit military biopic AMERICAN SNIPER. Is this an anti-war film, as Clint claims? Is it a glorification of military power? Is it either? Why does Chris Kyle's hat say "Charlie" on it? What is Bradley Cooper's whole deal? For real, though, we get into a lot of pretty heavy stuff on this one, and we're extremely smart about it. They say we're the deadliest minds-men in podcast history, with...
Published 01/05/24
Here's a little gift for you all this holiday season: we're going deep on Clint's infamous impromptu speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention where he talked to an invisible Barack Obama in a chair. Plus a bunch of our usual b******t! Enjoy and see you in 2024!
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Published 12/29/23
Oh, what an ep! We're singing in beautiful harmony about Clint's 2014 Broadway adaptation JERSEY BOYS with returning guest Marie Bardi-Salinas (now with extra last name)! Join us as we talk directly to the camera about jukebox musicals, New Jersey's cultural dominance in the 2000s, falsetto masculinity, and why exactly Clint was the one to make this movie. Plus, Ian gets mad at Jake for liking this movie despite claiming that he doesn't like musicals only for Marie to mostly talk him out of...
Published 12/22/23