Sonny Bunch hosts The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, a new podcast featuring interviews with folks who have their finger on the pulse of the entertainment industry during this dynamic—and difficult—time.
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My guest this week is Valentina El Harizi, an 18-year-old first-time filmmaker who has an entry at the DIFF Shorts Film Festival. (If you get this email early enough and happen to live in the Dallas area, you can head over to the Angelika Film Center Dallas on Mockingbird Lane and catch the film; the “High School Shorts” program starts at 3PM local…
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On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Robbie Whelan, who covers the wide world of Disney for the Wall Street Journal. We talked about all the stuff Disney rolled out at D23 (Sequels! Theme park additions! New Cruise ships!) and discussed the ways in which the softness in Disney’s “Experiences” division (which includes, among other endeavors, the th…
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This week I met with novelist (and Bulwark+ member!) Brad Thor in a shadowy location (upstairs at Dallas’s magnificent flagship Half Price Books) to discuss his latest book of international intrigue, Shadow of Doubt. We also talked about the idea that men don’t buy novels, smuggling real-world ideas into the universe of his fiction while maintainin…
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I’m joined this week by Thomas Doherty, Brandeis professor and author of Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939, and Maria Elena de las Carreras, lecturer in film studies at the UCLA School of Film and Television, at the CSUN Department of Cinema and Television Arts,* to talk about the recent restoration and Blu-ray release of two documentaries by Herbert…
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Ryan Faughnder on Paramount's Big Changes
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This week I’m being rejoined by the Los Angeles Times’s Ryan Faughnder to discuss the sale of Paramount to David Ellison. What does this mean for the various arms of Viacom? Then we discussed the collapse of Redbox and the state of the box office. If you enjoyed this episode, please sign up for Ryan’s newsletter, The Wide Shot, here. It’s free! And…
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On this week’s episode I’m joined by Jennifer Esposito, the director, writer, and star of Fresh Kills, a mob movie told from the perspective of mob wives and mob daughters. We discussed her career in the movies and how that helped prep her to stand behind the camera, why it’s hard to find audiences for original movies telling stories aimed at adult…
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Often, when people discuss television viewing these days they’ll conclude their chat with something like “But we just don’t know what people are watching.” That is an increasingly outdated view of the data, however. On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Dierdre Thomas, the Chief Product Officer for Nielsen’s Audience Measurement business unit. We t…
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On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Stephen Robert Morse and Seth Porges, the producers and directors of How to Rob a Bank. Streaming now on Netflix, the true-crime doc’s subject, Scott Scurlock (aka, the Hollywood Bandit), calls to mind Point Break in his commitment to living his life however he pleased and funding it through criminal activities…
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On this week’s episode, I’m joined by John DeVore, author of Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Off-Off Broadway. In addition to discussing his life in the arts and the different species of theatre children—from the stage to politics to religion, theatre kids come in all shapes and size—we also talked a bit about the evolution of media in the post-9/11, …
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On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Sean O’Connell to discuss his new book, Bruce Willis: Celebrating the Cinematic Legacy of an Unbreakable Hollywood Icon. Breaking down Willis’s career—which has been sadly cut short following his diagnosis of aphasia—by comedies, action movies, work with auteurs, and “Die Hards,” the book is an exhaustive loo…
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On this week’s episode, I invited David Poland on so he could talk us all of the ledge about the state of theatrical exhibition. And while he didn’t quite do that—his opening words: “It’s, it’s bad! Things are bad”—he did highlight why things aren’t necessarily disastrous and how both the studios and the exhibitors can help get everything back on t…
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Bobby Miller on his film, 'The Cleanse,' finally getting a Blu-ray release.
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This week, I’m joined by Bobby Miller, the writer/director of The Cleanse, to talk about the film’s long and winding path to a Blu-ray release. (You can buy it at Amazon or for five bucks less at the great DiabolikDVD.) We discussed getting that film made, the struggle to secure a release, and why owning a physical copy of a movie packed with speci…
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On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix-Fine to discuss their searing look at the assault on the Capitol on January 6 perpetrated by supporters of Donald Trump attempting to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. We discussed how they got their footage, why the events are being memory-holed by embarrassed Republican politici…
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I’m thrilled to have Adrienne LaFrance of The Atlantic on the show this week to discuss her profile of Albert Brooks and more generally celebrate his greatness. From movies like Broadcast News and Defending Your Life, to voicework on The Simpsons and Finding Nemo, to his under-appreciated villainy in Drive, Brooks’s talents have wowed multiple gene…
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This week, I’m rejoined by Glenn Kenny to discuss his new book The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface. Among the topics discussed: What a Scarface directed by Sidney Lumet might have looked like; how the movie secured an R rating rather than a commercially disastrous X; and whether or not Scarface is a “political” movie. If you enjoyed this epis…
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On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by the Los Angeles Times’s Ryan Faughnder (read and sign up for his newsletter here!) to discuss Netflix’s big data change, why some in Hollywood are hoping for David Ellison to take over Paramount (though shareholders have a different view), and more. If you liked what you heard, share this episode with a frien…
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As readers may remember, The Beekeeper has been one of my favorite movies of the year thus far. One thing in particular I loved about it was the costume design: It’s an underappreciated artform, conveying character through clothing, and the costuming in this film perfectly conveyed a range of characters, from “taciturn hero” to “crazed killer” to “…
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From 'Funny or Die' to Western Neo-Noirs
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On this week’s show I talked to Rod Blackhurst, the director of the new film Blood for Dust, about … well, a whole bunch of stuff. From his early shorts on the comedy website Funny or Die starring Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, to a documentary about Amanda Knox, to the horror short “Night Swim” (which recently received the feature-lengt…
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The Best and the Worst of Streaming 2023
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I’m very excited to be rejoined by the Entertainment Strategy Guy (subscribe to his newsletter!) to discuss the year in streaming. What were the biggest hits in TV and film? What were the biggest misses? Could linear-like ad-supported streaming services be the future for big services like Netflix and Disney+? Is there a double standard for the tech…
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This week I was thrilled to chat with star David Krumholtz and writer-director Bob Byington about their new movie, Lousy Carter. It’s a wide-ranging conversation, touching on topics from shooting during the age of Covid to where Krumholtz was when he got the call to audition for Oppenheimer, and I hope you find it as fun to listen to as it was for …
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On this week’s episode I’m thrilled to be rejoined by Brandon Struessnig and Bilge Ebiri, who spearhead Vulture’s annual Stunt Awards. We talked about the year’s big winner, John Wick Chapter 4, how folks kind of have to decide for themselves how much CGI is too much CGI when determining what counts as practical and what counts as digital, and comp…
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This week I’m honored to be joined by Dallas Film Commissioner Tony Armer to discuss what, precisely, a film commissioner does. On this episode he discusses his own path to getting involved in the film industry, breaks down different kinds of incentives cities and states use to woo productions, and talks about how Dallas has made itself more attrac…
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'Beetlejuice: The Musical,' Indie Film, and Life on the Road
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This week I’m pleased to be joined by Abe Goldfarb, who is currently playing Otho for the touring company of Beetlejuice: The Musical and both starred in and co-directed First Time Caller (which I reviewed here). You may remember a few months back that Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert got kicked out of a showing of Beetlejuice: The Musical; well, Abe h…
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A couple years back I had Ian and Eshom Nelms on the show to talk about their new Christmas classic, Fatman. We had a great talk, so I was thrilled when their people reached out to see if I’d like to discuss their new flick, a sort of southern revenge thriller/neo-noir by the name of Red Right Hand. We discussed getting Orlando Bloom and Andie MacD…
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Richard Rushfield's Hollywood Field Guide
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On this week’s episode, we have the original Bulwark Goes to Hollywood guest, Richard Rushfield of The Ankler, returning to discuss his fabulous Hollywood Field Guide. How do you assuage actors, reassure writers, and make your way through the rest of Hollywood? Richard will guide you. Plus, we discuss the state of the box office, how Oscar season i…
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Julian Schlossberg Returns to Tell More Hollywood Tales!
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This week Julian Schlossberg returns to tell more tales of life in the arts. From reading his life story as the narrator of the new audiobook version of his memoir, Try Not to Hold It Against Me, to his work with the great Elaine May, to keeping the classic 1970s picture Mikey and Nicky in circulation, we had tons to discuss. Make sure to check out…
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This week I’m joined by Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel for the Motion Picture Association, to discuss how the trade group wages the global war on intellectual property infringement. A couple of months back we had the MPA’s Terri Davies on the show to talk about the Trusted Partners Network and how the film …
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What Did Peak TV Let Escape from 'Pandora's Box'?
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This week I’m thrilled to be joined by Peter Biskind to discuss his new book, Pandora’s Box: How Guts, Guile, and Greed Upended TV. From the rise of HBO to the streaming boom, how we watch TV—and what gets shown on TV—has radically changed over the last few decades. We discuss the role of technology, advertising, and changing audience tastes, and m…
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Very excited to have James Emanuel Shapiro, President of U.S. distribution at XYZ Films, back on the show with a recap of all the action at Cannes and a discussion about the state of the film festival scene writ large. Then we discuss some of his upcoming releases, including the new sci-fi flick Restore Point and XYZ’s exciting acquisition of Skyli…
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How 'The Family Plan' Became a Hit for Apple
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This week, I’m re-joined by David Coggeshall to talk The Family Plan, AppleTV+’s high-concept action-comedy about a dad, Mark Wahlberg, who has to take his family on the run when his past life as a hitman rears its ugly head. Released over the Christmas holiday season—as David notes in today’s episode, the perfect time to capture families looking f…
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This week, I’m joined by Brandon Katz to talk about Parrot Analytics’s new report on the state of streaming and why the “winner take all” theory of the so-called streaming wars was always a little bit silly. We discuss what attracts viewers to the streaming services, what keeps them there once they sign up, and how Parrot Analytics measures “demand…
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This week I’m joined by Sam Wasson to discuss his new book The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story, which chronicles the making of Apocalypse Now and the rise and fall of Coppola’s revolutionary studio, American Zoetrope. From technological innovations to the madness of Coppola’s effort to capture America’s first “Rock and Roll War,” the…
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Whit Stillman on 'Metropolitan,' a Christmas Movie
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This week I’m thrilled to be joined by Whit Stillman, the director of, among other features, The Last Days of Disco, Barcelona, and Love and Friendship. He’s on the show today to discuss Metropolitan and the way it has been embraced as a classic Christmas movie, as well as the evolution of the indie film business over the last 40 years or so. If yo…
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On this week’s episode, Scott Mendelson returns to the show to discuss how 2023 shook out at the box office, why niche films and niche audiences became more important than ever to movie theaters, and whether or not studios are hiding that Wonka, The Color Purple, and next year’s Mean Girls remake are musicals because they’re worried about the impac…
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This week I’m joined by Zach Schonfeld to discuss his new book, How Coppola Became Cage. Zach’s look at the early years of Nicolas Cage’s career is deeply researched, featuring interviews with directors like David Lynch (Wild at Heart), Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas), and Cage’s own brother, Christopher Coppola (Deadfall). We talked about Cage’s m…
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This week, I’m rejoined by Scott Eyman, author of Charlie Chaplin Vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided. We discussed the great silent star’s exile from America, how the press and the government conspired against Charlie Chaplin, the personal and professional perils of being prematurely anti-fascist, and why Buster Keaton seems to be mo…
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Why You Can Finally Watch 'Moonlighting' on Streaming
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This week I’m joined by Glenn Gordon Caron, the creator and showrunner of Moonlighting, to talk about that series’s long-awaited arrival on streaming. We discussed the show’s creation, the discovery of Bruce Willis, how he and costar Cybil Shepherd kept up with the show’s trademark rapid-fire patter, the difficulty in clearing music rights (and how…
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This week I’m joined by Terri Davies. Terri heads up the Motion Picture Association’s Trusted Partners Network, which helps studios and other partners develop best practices for avoiding leaks of films and TV shows pre-release, from pre- to post-production. We discussed her time at Sony Pictures from 2000 to 2015, a period of time during which the …
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This week I’m joined by Walt Hickey, the author of You Are What You Watch: How Movies and TV Affect Everything. Among the many topics discussed on this show: the surprisingly durable effect of Warner Bros.’s merchandising efforts aimed at adults; how identity and pop culture become hopelessly (and negatively) intertwined; and how violent movies can…
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Zoey Ashe's Life in the (Future) Panopticon
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This week I’m rejoined by Jason Pargin to discuss his new novel, Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia, and the ways in which the futuristic panopticon he envisions for Zoey and the other citizens of Tabula Ra$a is a little like now, but moreso. We talk for a bit about how book marketing has evolved over the last decade-plus, why TikTok became a must…
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I’m joined by Matt Singer this week, author of Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel and Ebert Changed Movies Forever. The book, out this Tuesday, is a wide-ranging look at the myriad ways in which Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s seminal show—or, really, three shows, which ran across multiple networks over multiple decades—changed not only film criticism but …
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This week, I’m thrilled to be joined by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker to discuss their new oral history, Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! In this episode we discuss, among other topics, what set the ZAZ style apart from other titans of the 1970s/1980s comedy boom, how the serious actors on set nailed their dea…
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This week I’m joined by Elaine Low of The Ankler and its Strikegeist newsletter to talk about the end of the WGA strike and what the writers won, from performance-based residuals on streaming originals to minimum writers room sizes to AI protections. We also discussed how the picket line and social media helped maintain solidarity and, briefly, how…
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Before we get started: apologies for the downgrade in my audio quality about 10 minutes into this episode. My computer, unappreciative of the coffee I spilled on it earlier in the week, decided to restart itself mid-recording in protest. It shall be punished greatly. —— This week I’m joined by Brian Abrams, author of “You Talkin’ to Me?”: The Defin…
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Fantasy Culture and the Flight from Reality
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This week I’m rejoined by Jonathan Taplin, author of The End of Reality: How 4 Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto, to discuss the ways in which popular culture may be leading the public down a dark road. Mr. Taplin has previously been on the show to talk about his career in the entertainment business, from …
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Data Transparency Is a Double-Edged Sword
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This week I talk to Ben Dreyfuss, formerly in charge of audience acquisition at Mother Jones and currently the author of the Calm Down Substack, about the promise and the peril of complete data transparency. Ben watched what happened firsthand as data about what readers wanted became more and more available to journalists: how it shaped what was wr…
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Erotic Thrillers: Unsung Heroes of Home Video
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This week I’m joined by Anthony Penta, director of We Kill for Love, a documentary/film essay about the erotic thriller and its place in the history of cinema. Drawing parallels to film noir and gothic romances, among other genres, Penta traces not only the artistic legacy of We Kill for Love but also the role they played in the early days of home …
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This week I’m joined by Chris Yogerst to discuss The Warner Brothers, his fascinating new look at the life of Jack, Harry, Sam, and Albert Warner, who collectively formed the Warner Bros. studio. From the technological innovations such as sound pursued by Sam, to the moral case for cinema made by Harry, to the classic mogul behavior of Jack, the jo…
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This week I’m rejoined by The Entertainment Strategy Guy to talk about his two-part series on streaming flops (TV shows here; movies here). If hits pay for the misses, and we know what the hits are, shouldn’t we know what the misses are as well in order to make fewer of them? We discuss his methodology and then examine one buzzy title, Hijack, to s…
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This week I’m joined by Roy Price, the founder of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, to discuss what it would look like in 2023 to start a brand-new movie studio. Which genres are under-served? What price points should budgets be aimed at? And which audiences are looking for something they aren’t getting from the big studios? We also talk a bit about …
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