Filmmaker and musician William Breen returns to the podcast to unpack the hot mess that is Baz Luhrmann's maximalist take on "The Great Gatsby." Headlined by Leonardo DiCaprio as the titular Gatsby, Luhrmann's adaptation divided critics at its Cannes premiere 10 years ago, but went on to clean up at the box office and build a small but vocal cult following. But what ultimately went wrong? Was it Jay-Z's extremely 2010's soundtrack? Was Carey Mulligan up for the task of playing such a beloved cha...
May 10, 2023•53 min•Season 3Ep. 43
In 1994, Quentin Tarantino was on top of the film world. He had just won Cannes with "Pulp Fiction." He was riding the cult success of "Reservoir Dogs" and the Tony Scott -directed "True Romance." At the same time, Oscar-winning provocateur Oliver Stone desperately needed a hit after the box office failure of "Heaven and Earth." Months before "Pulp Fiction" premiered theatrically, Stone and Tarantino's "Natural Born Killers" debuted in dog days of summer amidst a torrent of controversy. Not only...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 3Ep. 40
What makes a foundational movie experience? For critic and podcast regular Logan Kenny , it was seeing Joseph Kosinski's meditative tech opera "TRON: Legacy" in IMAX 3D when he was 9 years old. Logan returns to us for an episode discussing two Vulgar Maximalist cult classics that polarized anti-digital critics at the time of their releases over 10 years ago. First up, it's The Wachowski's fever dream cartoon come to life "Speed Racer" starring Emile Hirsch, Susan Sarandon, Christina Ricci and Jo...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Season 3Ep. 42
Vulgar Vibes continues this week with two cyberpunk thrillers from two world-renowned auteurs. First up, it's Abel Ferrara's feverish adaptation of William Gibson's "New Rose Hotel." Starring Willem Dafoe, Christopher Walken and Asia Argento, Ferrara's take on the short story was heavier on vibes than plot, centering much of the action around a prostitution ring moonlighting as a karaoke bar. It's heady sci-fi for people who fuck. After that, we're logging in to the dark web corporate espionage ...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 37
In 2003, Vincent Gallo brought his second feature "The Brown Bunny" to the Cannes Film Festival. The rest is history. The so-called controversy surrounding Gallo's film became bigger than the film itself. It was called indulgent. Embarrassingly sincere. Most famously, in the words of Roger Ebert , it was "the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival." And that didn't even touch on the infamous unsimulated blowjob. But what qualifies a failure? Is indulgence always a bad thing? Is th...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 34 min•Season 3Ep. 36
Hell is what you make it. Or maybe it's just an alternate reality created by a prolific Lovecraftian author. For our penultimate installment in the Vulgar Horror series, we're taking listeners back to the mid-90's for a pair of unhinged bangers starring Sam Neill . First up, it's John Carpenter's meta take on a Stephen King -esque horror writer with 1994's "In the Mouth of Madness," starring Neill as a skeptical insurance investigator slowly unraveling. After that, we're boarding Paul W.S. Ander...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Season 3Ep. 34
Director Robert Zemeckis could have never predicted that his 1992 box office disappointment "Death Becomes Her" would endure 30 years later as an essential entry in the queer cult classic canon. Pitting Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn against one another as frenemies in a quest for eternal youth and casting Bruce Willis as the hapless alcoholic they're fighting over, Zemeckis created an inspired piece of camp with groundbreaking VFX work and pitch-perfect offbeat casting. The co-host of Gay Wine, K...
May 09, 2023•42 min•Season 3Ep. 32
We're kicking off our 3rd Annual Rotten Horrors ™ with two podcast favorites! Writer and one of our in-house Queer Cinema commentators Kaycee Felton-Lui joins us for a look back at Tony Scott's feature debut "The Hunger," starring David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon . At the time of its release in 1983, Scott's debut was panned and written off as a lurid exercise in style over substance. Today, it's regarded as a midnight classic and one of the most important debuts of the 20th cen...
May 09, 2023•42 min•Season 3Ep. 31
When Sony gave Paul Verhoeven $100 million to adapt H.G. Wells' "The Invisible Man," they might not have been expecting a nihilistic, hard-R slasher, but that's what they got! Kevin Bacon underwent a notoriously grueling shoot with groundbreaking VFX to give what is still the most bleakly realistic depiction of the source material to date. Many directors have offered their take on the question: What would a man do if nobody could see him? But only Verhoeven could bravely answer: "Well, he'd prob...
May 09, 2023•50 min•Season 3Ep. 33
Our five week descent into the grotesque madness of Vulgar Horror comes to an end today on the podcast. For our special Halloween send-off, we're finally diving into the 100% rotten career of musician, filmmaker and certified Wife Guy, Rob Zombie. Over the last 20 years, Zombie has amassed one of the most singular horror filmographies in the canon. Critics have almost unanimously given his work the cold shoulder, dubbing his specific brand of the genre as "Hixploitation." Today on the podcast, w...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Season 3Ep. 35
TW: This episode contains discussion of rape and sexual assault. Some filmmakers court controversy wherever they go, but few have been as polarizing as Catherine Breillat and Lena Dunham . For our third installment in the Rotten Female Gaze miniseries, we'll be dissecting two films from Breillat and Dunham that offered an uncompromising and often uncomfortable look at the complexity of female sexuality. Beginning in 1999 with Breillat's visceral and painful "Romance," a film that shocked audienc...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Season 3Ep. 29
For our final Vulgar Female Gaze installment, we're looking back at a pair of underseen 90s dark comedies. First up, it's photographer Cindy Sherman's first and only foray into directing with the 1997 horror comedy "Office Killer" starring Carol Kane, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Molly Ringwald . After that, we're switching gears for the late, great Adrienne Shelly's sophomore feature, "I'll Take You There" starring Ally Sheedy . Filmmaker Giselle Bonilla joins us to discuss her surprising connection ...
May 09, 2023•56 min•Season 3Ep. 30
For our second installment in the Vulgar Female Gaze miniseries, we're interrogating the often polarizing sub-genre of women doing crime. Writer Jaime Bolker joins us for a look back at two ripped from the headlines comedies: the 2001 cheerleaders turned bank robbers comedy "Sugar & Spice" and Sofia Coppola's pivot into the true crime genre with 2013's "The Bling Ring." Coming on the heels of "Bring It On" and "But I'm a Cheerleader," Francine McDougall's midwestern crime satire "Sugar &...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Season 3Ep. 28
When looking at the canon of "Vulgar Auteurism," you'll notice that most of the directors mentioned are... surprise... men! Specifically, white men. But because the very concept of "Vulgar Auteurism" is so loose and open to interpretation, we decided to dedicate the next month to female filmmakers that have, at one point or another, directed a critical misfire that honors the "Vulgar Female Gaze." Writer Kaycee Felton-Lui joins us for our first installment in the miniseries for a double feature ...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Season 3Ep. 27
The American Western experienced a resurgence in the 90s after the critical and financial success of "Dances with Wolves" and "Unforgiven." At that time, Sam Raimi was more known for his groundbreaking work in horror, making him an unlikely choice to spearhead a Western revisionist action film with genre heavyweight Gene Hackman. But that was the only director star and producer Sharon Stone wanted for the project. Stone used her post- "Basic Instinct" power to not only bring Raimi on board, but ...
May 05, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 3Ep. 24
"For those that understand they're living the last days of the world, death acquires a different meaning. The extinction of all reality is a concept no resignation can encompass." This week's guest, Michael Aghajanian, has described Ridley Scott's 2013 bomb "The Counselor" as a "flagship Rotten Rewind movie." This is, after all, a movie that opens with Michael Fassbender finger-fucking Penelope Cruz while telling her she has "the most luscious pussy in all of Christendom," and later features a n...
May 05, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Season 3Ep. 26
SUBSCRIBE NOW for early access and exclusive bonus episodes at WWW.PATREON.COM/ROTTENREWIND Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke made six films together over the course of a decade. They also had a tumultuous romantic partnership that culminated in a 19 month trial where Locke developed breast cancer. Locke, an Academy Award nominated actress, turned to directing in the late 80s, but was never able to achieve the notoriety she deserved because of her public falling out with Eastwood. Today on the...
May 05, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 22
Vulgar Neo-Noir continues this week with one of the most controversial and divisive films - and filmmakers - of their time. 1980s Hollywood was steeped in Orientalism, predominately seen in action films like "Flash Gordon" and "Big Trouble in Little China" and futuristic sci-fi landscapes like the iconic imagery of "Blade Runner." We're riding solo today for an in-depth conversation about the fetishization of Asian culture in Hollywood cinema, specifically in Michael Cimino's murky Chinatown cri...
May 05, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 23
"You don't have to lick my ass. Just fuck me." It's hard to think of a better quote in the canon of genre master Brian De Palma. Today on the show, we finally get the opportunity to dive into one of our favorite directors' filmography by discussing two of De Palma's most divisive critical failures: the 1998 Nicolas Cage conspiracy thriller "Snake Eyes" and the 2002 erotic thriller "Femme Fatale" starring Antonio Banderas and Rebecca Romijn. Filmmaker Andrew Jacobson joins us for the first time t...
May 05, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 3Ep. 25
SUBSCRIBE NOW for early access and exclusive bonus episodes at WWW.PATREON.COM/ROTTENREWIND The year is 1991. Tony Scott is still riding the momentum of his generation-defining phenomenon “Top Gun.” Writer Shane Black is the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood before the age of 30. Bruce Willis’ seemingly untouchable star power has been dealt a blow by the recent disaster known as “Hudson Hawk.” Producer Joel Silver is quickly developing a reputation as the most hands-on, hard-nosed producer ...
Aug 31, 2022•1 hr 28 min•Season 3Ep. 21
SUBSCRIBE NOW for early access and exclusive bonus episodes at WWW.PATREON.COM/ROTTENREWIND Between the one-two punch of "Predator" and "Die Hard" and going to federal prison for illegal wiretapping, vulgar auteurist John McTiernan satirized the genre he helped redefine with Hollywood's biggest star and screenwriter. The result? According to McTiernan , himself: “Last Action Hero was the worst time I’ve ever had in this business.” Actor Chad Alligood joins us on the podcast again to unbox the 90...
Aug 24, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Season 3Ep. 20
SUBSCRIBE NOW for early access and exclusive bonus episodes at WWW.PATREON.COM/ROTTENREWIND History might tell you that the Cold War ended in the late 80s, but it actually ended in 1985 when Sylvester Stallone directed the fourth installment of the "Rocky" franchise and sent the braindead American hero to Soviet Russia to avenge his best friend's death. Today on the podcast, we continue our descent into Vulgar Auteurism with two films that defined 80s aesthetics and film as we know it: the afore...
Aug 17, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 19
SUBSCRIBE NOW for early access and exclusive bonus episodes at WWW.PATREON.COM/ROTTENREWIND "When it started, America was just a handful of scrawny colonies. Now, it's the most buff, pumped-up country on the planet." - Daniel Lugo To celebrate the most buff, pumped-up country on the planet, Rotten Rewind is kicking off our most epic miniseries to date. For the next 6 months, we'll be asking listeners the question: "What is Vulgar Auteurism?" In its simplest terms, it's a movement that celebrates...
Aug 10, 2022•57 min•Season 3Ep. 18
SUBSCRIBE NOW for early access and exclusive bonus episodes at WWW.PATREON.COM/ROTTENREWIND All good things must come to an end. Today, we have to say goodbye to our month long retrospective on the Rotten works of America's last movie star, Tom Cruise . Critic and writer Logan Kenny returns to the podcast to help us dissect the most divisive film of Cruise and director Cameron Crowe's careers, 2001's "Vanilla Sky." Crowe and Cruise made their long awaited reunion at the turn of the century with ...
Aug 02, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Season 3Ep. 17
If you've ever been a bartender, you've heard of Tom Cruise's "Cocktail." You've probably even seen it. Since it's release 34 years ago, the film has become something of a bartender's rite of passage. It's also so much darker than you'd ever think the movie where Tom Cruise flips bottles at a TGIF's would be. For our second installment in our Rotten retrospective on Cruise, we're looking back at 1988's "Cocktail" as well as his 1990 re-teaming with "Top Gun" director Tony Scott for the racing dr...
Jul 13, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Season 3Ep. 15
After two months of global destruction, dystopian wastelands and the divorced dads that will do anything to protect their stacked daughters, we say goodbye to our ROTTEN APOCALYPSE miniseries. For our grand finale, we're looking back at one of the most notorious disasters of the 20th century and an underrated late career banger from one of our best directors. First up, it's the infamous 1995 flop "Waterworld" starring Kevin Costner as a half-man/half-fish/100% incel living in a post-apocalyptic ...
May 27, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Pamela Anderson as a bounty hunter who impales nazis with the heel of her stilettos. Ice-T as the leader of a rebel group of half kangaroo men. A Courtney Love produced soundtrack featuring Björk and Face to Face. Lori Petty headlining an MGM-produced adaptation of a cult comic book series. Things that could have only existed in the mid-90s. For the seventh installment of our ROTTEN APOCALYPSE series, we're diving into a pair of steampunk Gen-X flicks that remind us what comic book movies looked...
May 13, 2022•53 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Hollywood is in the midst of a serious movie star crisis. in an era of Marvel superheroes and interchangeable Chris's, it's hard to remember a time when we had actual movie stars that could draw audiences to theaters. for our latest chapter in rotten apocalyptic cinema, we're watching the world burn with two of our favorite podcast mack daddies and two of our most timeless leading men: Keanu Reeves and Nicolas Cage. we're discussing two forgotten sci-fi disaster thrillers from the late 2000s tha...
Apr 15, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Season 3Ep. 7
"Despite what you may have heard, Armageddon is a work of art by a cutting-edge artist who is a master of movement, light, color, and shape—and also of chaos, razzle-dazzle, and explosion." -- Jeanine Basinger, in her essay on Michael Bay's 1998 "Armageddon." if this podcast was made for one director, it would be Michael Bay . for the second installment in our “rotten apocalypse” series, we’re celebrating the ultimate dudes rock disaster banger: “Armageddon.” the 1998 film was many things: the f...
Apr 08, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 6
over 35 years before denis villeneuve successfully brought frank herbert's landmark sci-fi novel to the big screen, david lynch entered the pantheon of notorious box office bombs with his own attempt at adapting the famously "unadaptable" classic. with the 2022 oscars finally upon us and denis villeneuve's "dune" more than certain to take home the most awards of the evening, we wanted to take a trip back to 1984 when producer dino de laurentiis thought that he finally had his very own "star wars...
Mar 25, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 4
