On this week’s episode, I talked to Alex Reisner about his pieces in The Atlantic highlighting the copyrighted material being hoovered into large language models to help AI chatbots simulate human speech. If you’re a screenwriter and would like to see which of your work has been appropriated to aid in the effort, click here; he has assembled a searchable database of nearly 140,000 movie and TV scripts that have been used without permission. (And you should read his other stories about copyright ...
Dec 07, 2024•40 min
This week I’m rejoined by Sean McNulty of The Ankler’s morning roundup newsletter, The Wakeup , to discuss the big news in cable land: ComcastNBCUniversal’s decision to spin (most of!) their cable properties into a new, separate company, called SpinCo for now. What does this mean for MSNBC, USA, and the rest of the impacted channels? Why is Bravo staying under the Comcast umbrella? What impact will this have on NBC? All of these questions are asked and some answers are given. Warning: There is a...
Nov 23, 2024•40 min
This week I’m thrilled to be joined by Jacob Navok, the CEO of Genvid Entertainment, to discuss his company’s new partnership with DC Comics, DC Heroes United. A combination mobile game and Justice League television show, DC Heroes United is a fascinating hybrid entertainment experience, one that Navok has been working on in various forms for years now. The first 20 minutes or so of the show are largely about DC Heroes United; after that, we discuss the evolution of this sort of interactive gami...
Nov 16, 2024•59 min
This week I’m joined by Russell Hainline, the screenwriter of the forthcoming Netflix original Hot Frosty as well as a whole bunch of Hallmark original Christmas movies (including last year’s The Santa Summit and the forthcoming The Santa Class ). I asked him on today to talk about the burgeoning market for Christmas movies on channels like Hallmark and streaming services like Netflix, and we had a great chat about how Hallmark resembles a cable network less than the old Hollywood studios like R...
Nov 09, 2024•53 min
This week I’m joined by Mark Cousins, the writer and director of the new documentary, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock . We talked about his movie’s unorthodox presentation, why Hitchcock remains eternally relevant, and how he puts together his incredible video essays. (If you’ve never seen his The Story of Film: An Odyssey , you really should.) And then he turned the tables on me with some closing questions! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!
Nov 02, 2024•34 min
Good show, long show today with the Entertainment Strategy Guy (subscribe to his Substack here ). I’m going to offer up timestamps here, which I don’t usually do, because there’s a ton of stuff covered in this podcast. Amongst the topics we discussed: Marvel vs. DC in the TV realm (:40); Tulsa King’s status as a surprise hit for Paramount+ (11:40); what the data about Netflix’s second season of Monsters suggests about its completion rate and why that matters (16:06); why horror has a lower strea...
Oct 26, 2024•1 hr 3 min
On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Thomas Negovan, who oversaw the reconstruction of Caligula: The Ultimate Cut . Combing through 96 hours of the original negatives, Tom rebuilt the film from the ground up in order to bring it closer in line with the vision of writer Gore Vidal, director Tinto Brass, and star Malcolm McDowell. We discussed some of the technical challenges of tracking down source materials, the challenge of reconstructing a film that felt entirely different from every version ...
Oct 19, 2024•46 min
I’m joined by Gabriel Sherman, the writer of The Apprentice , on this week’s episode. Sebastian Stan plays Donald Trump in this movie in theaters now about the future president’s relationship with noted legal fixer and possible evil supervillain Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). The movie’s path to distribution is almost as interesting as the film itself: following production and a decent response at Cannes, it found itself in limbo as the original financier got cold feet and studios worried about repri...
Oct 12, 2024•42 min
On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Parrot Analytics’s Brandon Katz to discuss a vexing issues for streaming channels and audiences alike: why do the services have such a difficult time helping people find more things on the service to watch? Our chat is based in part on his column in the Observer , and you should read it if you have a second. But the long and the short of it is that streaming services are dealing with customers signing up for a month or two, binging what they want to watch,...
Oct 05, 2024•40 min
This week I’m talking to a friend here in Dallas, Bart Weiss, about the Ernie Kovacs Award taking place this weekend at the Texas Theatre. This year’s honoree is Jerry Casale from the band Devo, and we’re discussing his work both with the band and as a pioneer of the music video artform. Check out the links above for tickets to the various events (the screening tonight is going to be pretty fun, I think, as the movie is super-interesting). If you’re in the Dallas area I hope you check it out. An...
Sep 28, 2024•39 min
NOTE: This is the correct audio file! Apologies, crossed my Audioboom streams the first time around. On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Jason Pargin to discuss his latest novel, I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom , a standalone comic adventure about life in the age of interconnectivity . It’s out Tuesday; you can preorder it now . And I really hope you do: Pargin is among the most precise observers of life as it is lived in the digital age, and one of the things we really di...
Sep 21, 2024•1 hr 6 min
This week I’m joined by Amy Nicholson, the director of the documentary Happy Campers , which is now available for rental or purchase on VOD at Apple. We discussed the ragtag oceanside community Amy documented, how she came to find herself in a position to tell their story, and some of the stranger reactions to the film’s decision to be less didactic and more emotionally compelling. If you’re intrigued by what you hear here, make sure to check out the movie. And if you enjoyed this episode, pleas...
Sep 14, 2024•55 min
This week I talked to Steven Watts about his new book, Citizen Cowboy: Will Rogers and the American People . Rogers was a fascinating figure, one who straddled America’s status as a largely agrarian, frontier-expanding nation to the more urban, cosmopolitan nation we have today. He helped people manage the cultural change with his humor and became one of the most famous (and beloved) men in America by riding the new mass media wave and gently sticking it to politicians of all stripes. If you wan...
Sep 07, 2024•39 min
On this week’s episode, I’m joined by John Magary, editor of the new film Between the Temples . We discuss how he got into the editing business, the role of the editor in building the rhythm and flow of a picture, the aesthetic choices an editor can make in shaping the meaning of a movie, and a little about his work with the Criterion Channel. If you enjoyed this episode, try to find a theater playing the movie near you; it’s in 500 or so screens, which means there’s a decent chance there’s a sh...
Aug 31, 2024•56 min
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 time. ) We discussed her film, “Behind the Scenes,” as well as the difficulties of growing up in a world where social media is the first, second, and...
Aug 24, 2024•39 min
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 theme parks) may suggest general economic softness that’s hidden by the success of movies like Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine . If you enjoy...
Aug 17, 2024•48 min
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 maintaining their entertainment value, and a potential adaptation of his Scot Harvath novels into a streaming hit. If you’re looking for a late-summer read, m...
Aug 10, 2024•53 min
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 Kline: Crisis: A Film of ‘The Nazi Way’ and Lights Out in Europe . Doherty and de las Carreras provided commentary tracks on the films and were kind...
Jul 27, 2024•54 min
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 if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend!...
Jul 20, 2024•36 min
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 adults, how social media is helping build a base of support, and the powerfully feral performance of Odessa A’zion. You can watch Fresh Kills right now fr...
Jul 13, 2024•43 min
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 talked about the evolution of Nielsen’s business measuring market share, how the company captures what people are watching and where, and how overall v...
Jul 06, 2024•36 min
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. But, as Porges told me in our interview, How to Rob a Bank is also a subversion of the cinematic trope of the noble bank robber, a rejection of tha...
Jun 29, 2024•32 min
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, pre-iPhone age. And we went back to one of my favorite topics: why no one can behave themselves in public these days! Get off our lawns! If you enjoy...
Jun 22, 2024•45 min
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 look at, mostly, the highs (and some of the lows) of Willis’s career. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!...
Jun 15, 2024•36 min
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 track. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!
Jun 08, 2024•55 min
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 special features like commentary tracks and making-of docs is a real thrill for a filmmaker who grew up absorbing the extras on features like Boogie Nigh...
May 24, 2024•35 min
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 politicians, and how you can help spread the word about this documentary so people aren’t allowed to forget what, and who, they’re supporting when they suppor...
May 18, 2024•51 min
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 generations of moviegoers and TV watchers....
May 11, 2024•34 min
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 episode, make sure to listen to our previous encounter (and pick up his book Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas , it’s a hoot). And please share this with...
May 04, 2024•48 min
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 friend!...
Apr 27, 2024•30 min
