Hey friends! We are back with a month of new to our feed episodes and are kicking off with a feed drop from our pals over at Cinematic Doctrine. Earlier this year, Philip was invited on to discuss what might be the quintessential American horror film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and it was a wonderful time. Discussion topics include: How community and traditions shape us The cost of industrialization Care for the disabled Man's brutality to one another and more! If you're watching along with us ...
Jul 07, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 178
Tyler Huckabee returns to the show and the late, great Hannibal Lecter makes his Substance debut! In 1991, Jonathan Demme shocked critics and audiences alike with his sleek, stylish, unsettling, and genuinely fantastic film The Silence of the Lambs. It went on to be the third film in cinematic history to win all 5 of the big awards come Oscar season. The film won Best Picture, Demme won Best Director, screenwriter Ted Tally won Best Screenplay, and Jodie Foster & Anthony Hopkins each won Bes...
Jun 05, 2025•1 hr 34 min
Sorry for the publishing delay! And yes, we know it says Tuesday on the intro, etc. It was a holiday weekend and things have been busy. But here we are with a new show and a WONDERFUL conversation with Episcopal priest and author, Reverend Joseph Yoo. Joseph has grown his online platform over the years on an authenticity and decency that feels so refreshing amidst so many spiritual and religious leaders taking advantage of people or sharing a message absent of love. It's also refreshing that he'...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 176
Hey there, film fam! Been working on this for the last few weeks in between life and our regular episodes but Panic Fest 2025 was such a great time that we wanted to highlight some of the wonderful talent from the festival as well as Screenland Armour, the fest's incredible host! Panic Fest is a Kansas City based genre film festival that has been running for over a decade and has been recognized by a number of critical organizations as one of the best genre festivals in the world. It's a wonderf...
May 08, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 175
As Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan's most recent collaboration, Sinners, is dominating the domestic and worldwide box office, we thought it would be a good time to look at their first project together, Fruitvale Station. Fruitvale is partially the telling of the tragic story of the killing of Oscar Grant in Oakland CA on New Year's Day 2009, but it's so much more. Beyond being a mere recreation of events and the conveying of the awful facts, the film is a beautiful portrait of a young man who...
Apr 28, 2025•1 hr 14 min
Kogonada. Ever heard of him? The South Korean-born American filmmaker began to get attention for his video essays that analyzed themes and motifs from various films and television series before launching as a writer/director with the film we are covering this week, Columbus (2017) . The movie follows two people who are at a place in their lives where they need to make important decisions related to their family and their future. Jin (John Cho), the son of a renowned architect, comes to Columbus ...
Apr 14, 2025•1 hr 27 min
It's always great having a returning guest and this week we're welcoming back a friend we talked to back in 2021. Alexis Busetti is a seminary student and podcaster who we've been following and engaging with for several years. Her weekly show That Makes Total Sense!, is a wonderful listen and always has interesting and thoughtful people on. This week, she's back to discuss what we've both learned over the last few years of making our shows, how we're preparing to love our neighbors through a soc...
Apr 08, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 172
Happy April Fools Day, y'all! Jupiter Ascending is silly and fun and we hope you join author and Kansas City film critic (The Pitch) Abby Olcese as we look at the Wachowskis's ambitious original science fiction fantasy film, Jupiter Ascending. Starring: Mila Kunis, Mila Kunis, Eddie Redmayne, and Sean Bean. Substantive Cinema Episode List Shoutouts: Death of a Unicorn The Monkey We Tell Ourselves Stories by Alissa Wilkinson Follow Us Instagram Philip's Letterboxd Shar...
Apr 01, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 171
Last week we had a great time talking movies with our Canadian friend Marta Djordjevic, so we figured we'd keep it going and double down with another Canadian guest AND a Canadian film (and stay tuned in the post show to potentially hear Marta about this week's film)! I Like Movies is writer/director Chandler Levack's 2022 directorial debut and it's a complete delight. It's very funny, it's sweet, it's sad, it's cringey, and it beautifully captures a period of life that everyone can relate to wh...
Mar 24, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 170
Way back when the show relaunched in 2020, we had planned on covering Abbas Kiarostami's Palme d'Or winning Taste of Cherry but I was overruled by my then cohosts who, at the time, were not terribly taken with the film. Now almost five years later, I'm excited to return to it with an even greater appreciation of it. I'm also delighted to be joined on this episode by my internet friend, film historian, critic, and podcaster Marta Djordjevic. Her former podcast, McFly’s Movie House, is a treasure ...
Mar 17, 2025•1 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 169
Nazis...I hate these guys. Seth Vargas of the Movie Friends podcast joins us to discuss Jeremy Saulnier's 2015 punk horror masterpiece, Green Room. When a down on their luck punk band takes a blind gig at a venue that ends up being a skinhead bar, things get gnarly. We talk Seth's background in the aughts punk scene, Patrick Stewart's terrifying performance, the struggle of the independent artist, how systems can be just as malicious and destructive as individuals, the late Anton Yelchin, and mo...
Mar 13, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 168
Sorry about the unintentional hiatus but we are back! Pre-Super Bowl, I sat down to catch up with Editor Dave to catch up and do a little TTU. David Lynch died and that sucks, but we have an incredible body of work to enjoy forever along with the legacy of inspiration he's left to countless artists. One way or another, Donal Trump won the election and the next four years are gonna be full of things that really suck (for everyone around the world, even the folks who voted for him), however this i...
Mar 10, 2025•1 hr 14 min
We are excited to welcome Alissa Wilkinson back to the show. Alissa is an author and staff film critic for the New York Times. It has been a few years since we had her on the show to talk about the 2019 Greta Gerwig adaptation of Little Women and since then she's written two wonderful books, the most recent being We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. We talk Joan Didion, John Wayne, old Hollywood, growing up in fundamentalism, the subversive spirituality of Marti...
Jan 27, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 166
We are back and joined by crime fiction and television writer Megan Abbott with a Substantive Cinema show on one of Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader's most underrated films, Bringing Out the Dead! Substantive Cinema Episode List Shoutouts: Between the Temples Virtue I Like Movies Follow Megan Instagram Twitter BlueSky Website Follow Us Instagram Twitter Philip's Letterboxd Share Your Questions/Suggestions/Feedback With Us: Email: thesubstancepod@gmail.com DM on Instagram Supp...
Jan 14, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 175
Twenty years ago on Christmas Day, Wes Anderson released his fourth feature film into the world. The star-studded Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was not as an immediate hit as some of Anderson's other films but it's one that has aged incredibly well. Bill Murray leads a cast of phenomenal actors such as Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Anjelica Huston, and many others as the titular Steve Zissou on a quest for both revenge against the rare (and possibly fictional) shark ...
Dec 16, 2024•1 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 164
Hey there, and Merry almost Christmas! This week we've got a wonderful conversation about faith and art that covers the width and breadth of global, historical Christianity as well as the importance of one's personal spiritual practices. Our guest today is Rev. Ben Lansing who is a professional comic strip artist by vocation as well as running the Our Church Speaks Instagram account. Ben's passion for art, history, and his faith were very encouraging to me, especially as he seems to approach it ...
Dec 09, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 163
Four weeks in a row, can you believe it?! This week we are back with a Substantive Cinema pick that we've been excited for for quite some time, Walter Hill's underrated masterpiece Southern Comfort . The movie follows a squad of National Guardsmen doing exercises in the Louisiana swamps. After some painfully avoidable events, the men become hunted and are on the run for their lives against an enemy of their own making in a place that, while actually being part of their own homeland, they find en...
Nov 25, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 162
Hey! This is our third weekly drop in a row and we've got a great one coming next week as well! We are back (but will probably shift back to biweekly shortly so we don't burnout)! This week, we welcome back friend of the show Abby Olcese to talk about her wonderful new book, Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies (InterVarsity Press). You may know Abby from her work at The Pitch in Kansas City, RogerEbert.com, Paste, Sojourners, and more OR you may have seen her incred...
Nov 18, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 161
Once again, we recorded this episode a while back (a number of months ago, in this case) but due to the lamentable state of many things in the US, our episode this week feels eerily timely. For our first Noirvember Substantive Cinema epsiode of 2024, we are looking at one of Samuel Fuller's most celebrated and highly regarded films, Shock Corridor . In the movie, Johnny Barrett, a journalist in pursuit of fame and acclaim, poses as a lunatic in order to infiltrate a mental institution where a mu...
Nov 11, 2024•1 hr 50 min
We are back! We weren't planning on holding this episode until right before the US Election Day but here we are. Jon Guerra is an immensely talented devotional music singer songwriter and his new project American Gospel is a beautiful, timely project that some of our listeners put on our radar a while back so we were delighted to have this conversation with him! We talk music, faith creativity, film (Jon composed some of the music for Substantive Cinema favorite film A Hidden Life), what it mean...
Nov 04, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Happy to be back in your feeds! Our old friend Josh Tiessen (see Ep. 61 for his first appearance on the show) is back with an incredible new book and body of work and we're excited to share this conversation with you! Purchase Josh's new book! From Josh's website: Completed between 2020-2023, this new body of work explores two divergent perspectives on wisdom, and how might flourish in a society filled with facts, but mired in confusion. The solo exhibition was on display at Rehs Contemporary Ga...
Sep 05, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Notes!
Jun 24, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Happy Father's Day! We will hopefully be back on track with our replay schedule here as we build up to our relaunch! Tyler Huckabee is someone who's work and perspective I've appreciated for a long time and it was a real joy to sit down and talk about movies and the work of David Lynch with him. We cover our mutual, less than virtuous, introduction to his work in Mulholland Drive, finding humanity in people of all walks of life, the value and wisdom of old age, the importance of tending to our r...
Jun 16, 2024•1 hr 37 min
NOTES
Jun 02, 2024•1 hr 30 min
Hi friends! We are in a busy season at the moment and are working on a number of exciting things for The Substance and to help give us some time to do things at a high level, we are going to take a few weeks to replay some classic episodes from our 150+ show library. This episode was remarkable for how high it made it on our highest download charts when our guest doesn’t have a traditional social media presence. What she does have however, is a track record of high quality work and an email list...
May 13, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Hey friends! We are in a busy season at the moment and are working on a number of exciting things for The Substance and to help give us some time to do things at a high level, we are going to take a few weeks to replay some classic episodes from our 150+ show library. Our conversation with Bradly in 2021 was the fastest episode to hit 1,000 downloads and for good reason! We talked not only about CRT but about how and why conversations focused on addressing societal shortcomings and human failure...
May 06, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Philip is traveling for a family funeral and notes will get more filled out soon! Margaret’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/margaretrosebronson Website: https://deconstructiondoula.myflodesk.com
Apr 21, 2024•1 hr 18 min
This week on The Substance, we are welcoming back a returning guest and talking about a book that has the best cover we've seen in quite some time! Courtney Ellis returns to the show and this time we are talking about her new book from InterVarsity Press, Looking Up: A Birder's Guide To Hope Through Grief. It's a beautiful book that is part memoir, part counseling session, and part sales pitch for the hobby of birding (Spoiler Alert: we have already downloaded the Merlin Bird ID app since our co...
Apr 07, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Happy April Fool's Day! We had a great time covering Manos: The Hands of Fate back in 2022 and we were bummed that we missed it last year but are delighted to be back this April Fool's with another Un-Substantive Cinema show. This year it's Hot Shots! Part Deux , one of the silliest movies of all time. Written and directed by Jim Abrahams (of Airplane!, Top Secret!, & The Naked Gun) and starring Charlie Sheen, Lloyd Bridges, and Valeria Golino, Hot Shots! Part Deux mirrors the plotlines of f...
Apr 01, 2024•1 hr
When people think of the American western movie, it's usually gunfights and cowboys and bank robbers and romance and, if we're being honest, a pretty rough portrayal of nearly anyone who isn't a white man. They can be fun and exciting but they are often devoid of substance and many times can end up promoting some unhealthy perspectives. The fact that John Ford and John Wayne were two of the most prolific and influential figures in this genre makes their work in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance t...
Mar 24, 2024•1 hr 19 min
