Hit Factory's Chief Canadian Correspondent and host of Junk Filter Podcast Jesse Hawken is back to discuss the work of French genre provocateur Claude Chabrol and his 1995 thriller 'La Cérémonie' starring Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert. Inspired by the true story of Christine and Lea Papin - two French sisters who, as live-in maids, were co…

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Film lover and zine-er Katie Stebbins joins to discuss Alan J. Pakula's smart, understated legal thriller Presumed Innocent featuring Harrison Ford in one of his finest performances. Taut, richly detailed, a…

The Milwaukee-based film critic and programmer Chris Cassingham joins the show this week to discuss the great director George Stevens and his 1953 masterpiece Shane, starring Alan Ladd and Jack Palance, about a mysterious gunfighter who finds work with a homestead family in the open ranges of lawless Wyoming and is drawn into the community’s confli…

We sat down for a brief conversation with Alex Cox, the director of Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Walker, and many more to talk about the state of filmmaking today, the sensations Alex hopes one feels when watching his films, and the sanctity of digital media and curation in an era of endless, decontextualized content streams. Alex is currently crowdfundi…

Producer and filmmaker Chadd Harbold returns to the show to discuss Terrence Malick's awe-inspiring WWII epic The Thin Red Line. The film marked Malick's return to the director's chair after a 20 year absence from filmmaking and features an ensemble cast of dozens of recognizable faces, including many massive stars of the period reduced to mere min…

Access this entire 86 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/174-costners-108247008 The film writer Corey Atad returns for a show about the return of Kevin Costner to the dir…

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Another solo Aaron & Carlee episode as we dig into an oft-forgotten erotic thriller of the early 90s, Nicholas Kazan's Dream Lover, starring James Spader and a post-Twin Peaks Mädchen Amick. A story of love,…

Sami Gold, an undergraduate political science student at George Washington University and contributor to Liberal Currents joins me from New York City to discuss some key texts of reactionary right-wing cinema from the post-Civil Rights era and the beginning of America’s involvement in Vietnam and the election of Richard Nixon, what we could call co…

Access this entire 93 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/172-american-v-o-107059565 In the second half of our discussion about the 2016 FX miniseries American Crime Story…

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. We've reached the halfway point of 2024, which means it's time to sit down with the joint CEOs of Hit Factory LLC and discuss some of the best films of the year, recent finds, and new additions the CarleeCor…

With the recent death of O.J. Simpson and this month’s 30th anniversary of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the writer and content strategist Karen Geier returns for a look at the other great O.J. tv epic of 2016, Ryan Murphy’s 10 part series American Crime Story: The People v. O. J. Simpson: On part one of our discussion we dis…

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Producer and co-host of Die Hard On A Blank Podcast and recovering Lars Von Trier superfan Liam Billingham joins to discuss enigmatic Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier and his breakout Cannes award-winning f…

The film writer David Jamell Moses joins the show for a discussion about a great nineties film that has been flying under the radar for too long, Boaz Yakin’s debut feature Fresh (1994) starring Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson and a 13-year-old actor named Sean Nelson making his film debut, in one of the greatest screen acting performances by…

Filmmaker, critic, video essayist and author Scout Tafoya joins the show to discuss the work of undersung journeyman Bruce Beresford and his brilliant 1991 film 'Black Robe', a story of faith, the frontier, and the church as a pernicious vestige of the European colonial project. Set amidst the 17th Century French conquests of North America in moder…

Originally dropped: May 8th, 2021 Trevor, Brie, and Leslie discuss season one of Amazon Prime horror series Them. Thank you so much for your subscriptions, support, and kind words. Support the show by subscribing: http://patreon.com/strugglesession http://strugglesession.substack.com https://strugglesession.supercast.com/ Leslie would love to hear …

On today's episode special guest writer and comedian Kate Willett joins us to talk about her new stand-up special Loopholes! We also discuss why popular comedians are still talking about "cancel culture" and why the politics of Amy Schumer and Jerry Seinfeld aren't funny at all. Thank you so much for your subscriptions, support, and kind words. Sup…

Filmmaker, producer, writer, and podcast guest extraordinaire Jared Bailey joins to discuss one of the iconic texts of 90s popular cinema, 'Forrest Gump' directed by Robert Zemeckis and winner of the 1994 Academy Award for Best Picture (among many others). For all its swings at grandeur, the film is a deceptively simple one in premise: An ordinary …

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Mad Max maestro George Miller has a new film in theaters, so writer/producer/co-creator of Fox's 'Sleepy Hollow' & co-host of Podcast Like It's... Phil Iscove joins to discuss the work of the visionary direc…

Access this entire 105 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠https://www.patreon.com/posts/169-cannons-with-105061266 The film writer Jessica Ritchey returns for a show about Cannon Films, and the aggre…

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Filmmaker, writer, and dude with an insanely high midi-chlorian count Neil Bahadur joins to discuss George Lucas's return to the Star Wars saga with the prequel trilogy kickoff 'Star Wars: Episode I - The Ph…

Originally posted 10/22/22 Hello spooky friends! Leslie and Jamie Peck are back to talk vamps. On this edition of Vampire Castle we sink our fangs into the the bloody, sexy, and surprisingly great Interview with the Vampire TV series. Lestat, Louis, and Claudia are back in prestige TV form, and it slays. Tune: cumgirl8 - Pluck Me https://twitter.co…

Elana Levin from Graphic Policy Radio returns to the show for a deep dive into the second wave of Ska music, a brief but influential era when black and white UK musicians fused Jamaican dance music of the sixties into punk and new wave music of the seventies to create a sound that would further revolutionize American popular music in the nineties. …

Writer, critic, and Hit Factory Discord all-star Jason Miller returns to the show to discuss Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan's 'Center Stage', an experimental biopic exploring the life and work of Chinese silent film star Ruan Lingyu who achieved an unprecedented celebrity before tragically taking her own life at only 24. Ruan is played magnificent…

Get the full episode by subscring at http://sesh.show On today's special two-part episode Leslie chats with Josie Riesman, author of the New York Times Best Seller Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America about the apparent downfall of Vince McMahon. Ringmaster was one of my favorite books of last year and you don’t have to know or car…

Writer, comedian, and Lydia Tár's former publicist Daniella Mazzio joins to discuss Gus Van Sant's sharp, pitch-black satire of media, true crime, and a patently American brand of late 20th Century celebrity, 'To Die For'. The film is based on the Joyce Maynard novel of the same name, itself inspired by the true life trial of Pamela Smart, who sedu…

FX's acclaimed police drama The Shield presented a darker and more realistic depiction of policing. On today’s episode I had a great conversation with Joe Mayall about the series and his article Twenty Years Ago, The Shield Captured the Brokenness of American Policing. Read it here: https://jacobin.com/2023/12/the-shield-tv-policing-lapd-torture-la…

Access this entire 87 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows every month) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/167-civil-war-102981212 The comedy writer Ursula Lawrence (Drunk History, Adam Ruins Everything) returns to the show from Madison…

In honor of its upcoming 25th anniversary (as well as a chance meeting between the director and guest Matt Belenky), we're unlocking our episode on Spike Lee's 'Summer of Sam'. Here's what we had to say about this monumental work back in the summer of 2022: Writer Matt Belenky joins us from New York in the midst of a heat wave to discuss Spike Lee'…

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Writer and critic Eamon Tracy joins to discuss the brilliant James Gray and his debut feature 'Little Odessa' starring Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, and Vanessa Redgrave. Made when Gray was just 23 years old, it…

The writer Sean T. Collins joins the pod from Long Island for a deep dive into the original 1989 Road House and the 2024 remake now streaming on Amazon Prime. Sean’s book Pain Don’t Hurt offered daily meditations on specific elements of Road House for an entire year, and we discuss the many virtues of this eighties classic about Dalton, the second-…

Leeds-based film journalist and podcaster Amber T. (@hornbloodfire) joins for a double feature discussion of bad vibes connoisseur Kiyoshi Kurosawa's V-Cinema revenge thrillers 'Serpent's Path' and 'Eyes of the Spider'. Written in collaboration with 'Ringu' screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi and directed back-to-back within an incredibly short producti…

CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. The founder of Fun City Editions, Jonathan Hertzberg, joins the podcast from New York City to discuss the boutique video label and their latest blu-ray release, 1983’s Deep in the Heart, aka Handgun, directed by Ken Loach’s longtime English producer Tony Garnett. Deep in the Heart, a brutal port…

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Political reporter David Weigel joins to discuss the work of director Hal Hartley and his 1997 feature, 'Henry Fool'. The film, written and directed by one of the great undersung auteurs of American indie ci…

On today’s episode I had a great conversation with returning champion Jesse Hawken. We discuss the recent stumbles and possible downfall of Disney’s MCU. We talk about the box office failure of The Marvels, the production hell of Mahershala Ali's Blade, and the Zionist superhero that may be holding up the next Captain America. All that plus a brief…

Access this entire 89 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows every month) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/164-ghostbusters-101387544 The writer and friend of the pod Adam Jackson returns for a show about the Ghostbusters series, which …

Writer and podcaster Jake Tropila returns for a dive into the dusty, hard-nosed pleasures of John Dahl's 1993 neo-noir western 'Red Rock West'. The film has been newly restored and released on blu-ray in a great edition courtesy of Cinématographe, a new sub-label from the folks behind Vinegar Syndrome. We start with a discussion of the career of Jo…

The writer Corey Atad joins me from Phuket, Thailand for a sequel to our Junk Filter episode about Bane that turned into a discussion about Tenet, and we return to the topic because of the recent cultural reconsideration of Christopher Nolan’s 2020 time-bending thriller, which was released during the pandemic and has taken some time to find an audi…

Access this entire 99 minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows every month) by becoming a Junk Filter patron! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. https://www.patreon.com/posts/162-zone-of-with-100893723 The writer James Slaymaker, author of Time is Luck: The Cinema of Michael Mann, returns to the pod fro…