A film history and theory podcast that delves deep into a variety of favorites and elusive gems one specific genre at a time. Join the journey and together we can learn about film, auteurs, genre, and the general art of cinema better. The title is facetious, calm down. New Episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
In the forty-second episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by actors Ben McGinley and Danny Hernandez to discuss the bitter lens of coming-of-age nostalgia that defines Philip Kaufman's melancholic look at a generation defined by shifting history and lost naivete in the raw and gripping adaptation of Richard Price's novel The Wanderers (1979).
In the forty-first episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined for a one-on-one conversation with actor Ben McGinley to discuss the maximalist style and absurdly earnest tropes of Kathryn Bigelow's dedicated and slick embodiment of the American actioner with its weirdly existential clashing between authoritarian stability and reckless freedom in Point Break (1991).
In the fortieth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined for a one-on-one conversation with screenwriter David Gutierrez to discuss the circular irrationality and chaos of an uprising going nowhere in Werner Herzog's bleak yet ironic assessment of rebellion within a closed and corrupt system in Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970).
In the thirty-ninth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by screenwriter Katy Baldwin and editor Kristi Shimek to discuss the original cult sensation that centers around the quotidian normalcy and fulfilling community of circus performers that is interrupted by self-doubt, exploitation, and betrayal resulting in a swift and demented form of justice in Tod Browning's sensational horror melodrama Freaks (1932).
In the thirty-eighth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined for a one-on-one conversation with screenwriter August Gummere to discuss one of the most provocative mosaics of youthful despair and apathy in Larry Clarke's gritty and authentic assessment of a pre-Giuliani New York skating subgroup as they navigate poverty, societal neglect, the AIDs epidemic, and their own worst impulses in Kids (1995).
In the thirty-seventh episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined for a one-on-one conversation with cinematographer Ezra Balcha to discuss the surrealist satire on the falsity of the American Dream, the soullessness of corporate cubicle life, and the deconstruction of language in Steven Soderbergh's anarchic and creatively revitalizing Schizopolis (1996).
In the thity-sixth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by filmmakers Daniel Lopez and Mario Ruiz to discuss the madcap ambition and delirious purgatory of William Friedkin's technically stunning and thematically dense adaptation of Georges Arnaud's The Wages of Fear that becomes a bleak assessment of fate, world politics, and desperate circumstances in Sorcerer (1977).
In the thirty-fifth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by novelist Samuel Cullado and film critic Tyler Harlow to discuss the clinical scalpel of David Cronenberg's personalized adaptation of J.G. Ballard's novel depicting a new flesh of metal, wire, and collision that was trying to assess our natural dehumanization in conjunction with technological advancement in Crash (1996).
In the thirty-fourth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by screenwriter Katy Baldwin and actor Dan Bauer to discuss the joyous satire of lo-fi science-fiction fandom and the actors who have taken the gift of a show's community and philosophy for granted in Dean Parisot's wonderful ode to how pop culture can be more than simply a commercialized product in the hilarious Galaxy Quest (1999).
In the thirty-third episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by filmmaker Daniel Lopez and musician Ben Childs to discuss the fractured and enigmatic construction of Nicolas Roeg's Christ-like allegory for modernity's denial of true progress and enlightenment in the experimentally bold adaptation of Walter Tevis' novel The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976).
In the thirty-second episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by screenwriter Katy Baldwin and cinematographer Ezra Balcha to discuss John Sayles' low-budget science-fiction parable about the alienation of the immigrant experience, the complexities of assimilation, and the preservation of community in the warm, tender, and often times silly The Brother from Another Planet (1984).
In the thirty-first episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by filmmaker Daniel Lopez and cinephile Alejandro Etcheagaray to discuss the mixture of avant-garde formalism, black nationalist attitude, and revolutionary politics that created the explosive and rebellious statement of black power, autonomy, and survival in Melvin Van Peebles' radical Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971).
In the thirtieth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by editor Kristi Shimek and cinematographer Ezra Balcha to discuss the ethereal and experimental black vampire film from artist Bill Gunn that utilizes rich metaphor, hallucinatory ambiance, and raw sexuality to make a commentary on the assumptions of black culture and what might be the monstrous realities behind those assumptions in Ganja & Hess (1973).
In the twenty-ninth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined for a one-on-one conversation with screenwriter August Gummere to discuss the full 80s camp of soundtrack, aesthetic, and attitude in Joel Schumacher's flamboyant subversion of the vampire genre that reflects on found family, Generation X anxiety, and the seduction of immortality with no responsibility in the cult classic The Lost Boys (1987).
In the twenty-eighth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by novelist Samuel Cullado and cinematographer Josh Carter to discuss the purgatorial hellscape of a gentrifying city for one sexually repressed word processor in his looped surrealist Odyssey of confronting his insecurities and trying to find home in Martin Scorsese's maddening and hilarious After Hours (1985).
In the twenty-seventh episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by fellow podcaster Ben Thelen and activist Kerry Harwin to discuss the tenuous line between genius and madness in Darren Aronofsky's exquisite dissection of order and chaos in the universe and the numerology, mysticism, and materialism that people attempt to use to bridge the two together in the true independent masterpiece Pi (1998).
In the twenty-sixth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by fellow podcaster Michael Willer and graphic designer Nell Bailey to discuss Stephan Elliott's vibrant and complex portrait of the gay, trans, and drag queen experience of Australia that pushed representation and tolerance forward with its reflections on male identity, performative truth, and healing bigotry with humanity in the road film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994).
In the twenty-fifth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by fellow podcast Ben Thelen for a one-on-one conversation about Jennie Livingston's anthropological document about the gay and drag queen subculture of the New York ball scene and how the lifestyle embodied challenges to societal definition, fluid gender representation, and a house culture that created a new found idea of family in the stunning and groundbreaking documentary Paris is Burning (1990).
In the twenty-fourth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by screenwriter David Gutierrez and filmmaker Mario Ruiz to discuss the experimental, phantasmagoric, and surrealist dive into the underground gay subculture of Japan in the 60s where a loose adaptation of Oedipus Rex guides us through shifting genres, changing identities, and a contorted script of experience in Toshio Matsumoto's barrier smashing Funeral Parade of Roses (1969).
In the twenty-third episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined for a one-on-one conversation with fellow podcaster Lee from Spro & Lee Take on the Academy as they discuss the irreverent nature and knowing stupidity of SCTV favorites Bob & Doug McKenzie as they become the Rosencrantz & Guildenstern of an unsuspecting Hamlet tragedy in the sketch turned film adaptation known as Strange Brew (1983).
In the twenty-second episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by editor Kristi Shimek and musician Ben Childs to discuss the eerily prescient dystopian lens of Norman Jewison's assessment of media violence, corporatization, and the sacrifice of individuality for the sake of comfort in the highly efficient and incredibly technical Rollerball (1975).
In the twenty-first episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by stunt actor Danny Hernandez and filmmaker Daniel Lopez to discuss the prescient dissection of media violence, personality politicians, and the co-mingling of religion and corporation that makes up the Roger Corman produced and Paul Bartel directed exploitation satire Death Race 2000 (1975).
In the twentieth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined for a one-on-one conversation with filmmaker Daniel Lopez to discuss David Cronenberg's mutation of adaptation and biography of William S. Burroughs famously unadaptable beat generation novel as he weaves a surreal impression about the writing process as madness, the id conjuring psychic horrors, and sexual repression breeding ambivalence in the delirious and non-sensical Naked Lunch (1991).
In the nineteenth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by fellow cinephile Derek Paranay and dork of all trades Daniel Lopez to discuss the witty yet melancholic tale of youthful idealism, transient friendship, and pragmatic betrayal in Bruce Robinson's semi-autobiographical reflection of the hangover that followed the swinging sixties in Withnail & I (1987).
In the eighteenth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined for a one-on-one conversation with screenwriter Katy Baldwin to discuss Franc Roddam's ode to the faded Mod subculture and how its disappearance relates to the transience of youth, identity, and history in the gritty kitchen sink adaptation of The Who's second rock opera Quadrophenia (1979).
In the seventeenth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by screenwriter Katy Baldwin and musician Ben Childs to discuss the bitter death of a pop culture Frankenstein's monster known as The Monkees in Bob Rafelson's counter cultural dissection of fame, identity, and the emerging schizophrenic digestion of television that is the band film Head (1968)
In the sixteenth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by editor Kristi Shimek and activist Kerry Harwin to discuss the opulent world building of Luc Besson's ode to comic book color and science-fiction grandeur in the flamboyant, gender-bending, and archetype subverting space opera centering around the mythic battle between good and evil that is The Fifth Element (1997).
In the fifteenth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by screenwriter August Gummere and podcaster Lee Charles from Spro & Lee Take on the Academy to discuss the irreverent and dark satire on the absurd notion of assumed ruling class divinity, power, and wisdom filtered through the schizophrenic identity of one particular British Lord in Peter Medak's uproarious adaptation of Peter Barnes' experimental play The Ruling Class (1972).
In the fourteenth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by screenwriter Gio Maldonado for a one-on-one conversation about Ken Russell's controversial political treatise about the precarious merger between church and state, the use of mass hysteria as a tool of control, and the persecution of the righteous (sound familiar) in the horrific historical retelling of the largest demonic possession event in history, The Devils (1971).
In the thirteenth episode of Season 11: The Son of Cult Flicks, Kyle is joined by screenwriter Katy Baldwin and stunt actor Danny Hernandez to discuss one of the first entries in the category of camp film, John Huston's oddball and accidental inversion of the classic noir in the humorously existential and meandering hardboiled mystery that is the Truman Capote penned adaptation of James Helvick's novel Beat the Devil (1953).
