a podcast about film and filmmaking - one director at a time

The spooky season is here! Why not indulge in the twisted fantasy worlds of one renowned, revered Mexican filmmaker by the name of Guillermo Del Toro! Of course I needed to enlist a super fan of his and I was lucky enough to have returning guest Chloe Waryan back on the show for another truly delightful discussion. Not to mention, you're in for a surprise when Chloe and I introduce a bonus segment after the movie reviews that I know you'll enjoy!

Letterboxd's very own Mitchell Beaupre returns after their debut a couple years ago for a nail-biting discussion on one of our premiere action-thriller directors working today. Jeremy Saulnier has a terrific new movie out on Netflix called Rebel Ridge which we review at length in addition to the rest of his filmography. For the first half hour though after the introduction, we review a little-talked about movie that just came out called Megalopolis by an obscure director named Francis Ford Coppola. Then after our conversation, you get to hear an archival interview I did about a decade ago with Jeremy Saulnier.

Couldn't be more thrilled to share the latest conversation I had with one of my favorite returning guests, actor/writer/director Keith Gordon who may remember as Arnie from John Carpenter's Christine. He's been on several times in the past to not only talk about his films and his career but particular movies he thinks you should seek out from a particular decade. In the tradition of the Pure Cinema Podcast, this is more of a back-and-forth conversation about ten titles from a list that we put together and finalize. There's a little bit of everything - a short film, a wacky comedy, a neo-noir, a Gothic horror film and an acclaimed documentary as we run down favorites from the 2000s that we hope you'll seek out if you haven't yet.

Over at my old RSS feed for a now-defunct podcast I hosted called Voices & Visions, I would recruit friend and Austin-based journalist Dan Solomon to go back 20 years to talk about a year in music. We would curate a new list of ten favorite records from that year, playing snippets of certain songs and discussing our feelings about music in general. As of 2021, I decided to include my dear friend Jason Simpson, also a writer, to join us in this endeavor. Though V&V no longer exists, I’ve archived all of the episodes here for your listening pleasure.

I’ve had the pleasure of talking with writer/director/actor Keith Gordon (CHRISTINE, DRESSED TO KILL) a half dozen times now. First it started out talking about his directorial career (WAKING THE DEAD, A MIDNIGHT CLEAR), then we began a yearly tradition of discussing underrated films from each decade. He’s a true blue cinephile, a one of a kind talent and an all-around super cool artist that I’m grateful to have corresponded with over these past few years. Here’s to many more!

Not only is Mr. Sorkin a part of the team, but he even asked former co-host Patrick Ripoll and a couple other previous guests, to come back for the first episode under our new format. We talk about director David Lean and so much more. More to say during the introduction but thank you to all for listening and for your support. It's going to be a much better show from here on out!