Explore every episode of the podcast The Projection Booth Podcast

We continue Art House August with a look at Mike Leigh’s Naked (1993).  The film features amateur philosopher and full-time gadfly Johnny, played brilliantly by David Thewlis.  We follow Johnny as he flees to London from Manchester after raping a woman and stealing a car.  

We also follow Jeremy (Greg Crutwell), an unrepentant bastard and interesting counterpoint to Johnny.

Elinor Lewy (Somebody's Watching podcast) and Nick Kujawa join Mike to discuss the film and Johnny's "dark night of the soul".

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We continue Art House August with a look at Christopher Petit’s Radio On. Released in 1979, the film is a road movie about a London man investigating the death of his brother in Bristol. A deliberately paced black and white film, it became famous for the use of modern music on its soundtrack. 

Ben Slater and Mark Begley join Mike to discuss this unusual film.  Writer/director Chris Petit talks about how the film came together.


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In this special episode of The Projection Booth, co-hosts Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast and Father Malone of Midnight Viewing join forces to dissect Alien: Romulus 2024, the latest installment in the iconic Alien franchise. Directed by visionary talent Fede Alvarez, this film attempts to return to the franchise’s horror roots while pandering to fans.

Our hosts delve into the Alien: Isolation inspiration, the ghoulish visual effects, and the story of Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her robot pal Andy (David Jonsson) who live in a mining colony before they escape with three dead meat friends to derelict space station Romulus-Remus where hundreds of face-huggers are kept in cold storage. The film eventually introduces a very familiar(ish) face and some Prometheus/Alien: Covenant gets introduced thanks to producer Ridley Scott.

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We're celebrating our 700th episode of The Projection Booth with what may be the first time we've discussed a movie for a third time as we continue to document the troubled history of the 1980 film Caligula.

We first spoke about the film almost 10 years ago where we were joined by Maitland McDonagh to discuss the movie while Ranjit Sandhu gave us the sordid history behind the production and talked about his book 200 Degrees of Failure and filmmaker Alexander Tuschinski discussed the career of Tinto Brass and the original intentions Brass had for the finished film.

We came back together in 2018 to discuss the re-discovery of the original footage of Caligula and the plans Penthouse and Alexander had to restore the film to Tinto Brass’s original vision.

Now Rob and Mike are joined by Heather Drain to talk about the version of Caligula that played at Cannes in 2023. Once referred to as Caligula MMXX, it’s now called Caligula: The Ultimate Cut and it was produced by a person named Thomas Negovan.

We’ll be discussing the film as well as what’s happened to this project over the last six years along with President of Penthouse Global Licensing, Caroline Kirkendoll, and director of Mission: Caligula, Alexander Tuschinski.

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As part of our Fantasia 2024 coverage, Mike spoke to writer/director Jeffrey St. Jules about his new film, Silent Planet. The film stars Briana Middleton and Elias Koteas in a story of two convicts imprisoned on a distant planet.

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Mike spoke with director David Schurmann and actor Jean Reno about their new film, My Penguin Friend, a heart-warming story of an injured penguin that returns from the sea to find his rescuer and his family. 

The film opens in the US on August 16, 2024.


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We’re kicking off an August of Art Films with a look at Victor Erice’s 1973 film, The Spirit of the Beehive. The film stars Ana Torrent as Ana, a five year old girl who lives with her older sister, Isabel, her mother, and her distant father in a palatial estate. When the film Frankenstein comes to their little Castilian town, Ana becomes fascinated by the creature killing little Maria.  This comes at a time when she begins to understand death in the harrowing world around her.

Heather Drain and Robert Bellissimo join Mike to discuss this thought-provoking film.

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As part of our coverage of Fantasia 2024, Mike spoke with director Kourtney Roy and actor Jason Deline about their new film, Kryptic (2024), a horror/drama about a woman searching for a lost monster-hunter. 

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As part of our coverage of Fantasia 2024, director Miguel Llansó (Crumbs, Jesus Shows You The Way to the Highway) returns to the Projection Booth to discuss his latest film, Infinite Summer (2024), in which a girls weekend becomes a transhumanist romp.

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On this special bonus episode of The Kolchak Tapes, Mike talked with Paul Terry, author of the new Kolchak short story collection "Kolchak - The Night Stalker: Haunted & Hunted." It's includes five riveting stories that expound on the career of intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak and his quest for journalistic truth in a world where things go bump in the night.

Find out more at https://www.paulterryprojects.com/


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Mike Faloon and Lexy Van Dyke join Mike to wrap up Sci-Fi July with one of the classics of the genre, Forbidden Planet (1956). A loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the film stars Leslie Nielsen as Commander J.J. Adams.  He and his crew land upon a planet in the Altair system where they look for survivors from the spaceship Bellerophon.  There they discover just Professor Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), his daughter Altaria (Anne Francis), and their robot servant (Robby).   There’s a mystery afoot and it’s up to Commander Adams and his gang of goofy astronauts to solve it. 

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Axel Kohagen joined Mike to discuss his annual horror movie marathon for charity.

The event takes place September 22-24, 2024.

Follow Axel on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/axelscares for live updates and prizes.

Donate to the cause at: https://give.thetrevorproject.org/fundraiser/5625245




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Mike spoke with both director Marcus Dunstan and actress Jade Pettyjohn about the new horror/comedy slasher film #AMFAD.

The film is scheduled to be released in select theaters and video on demand on August 2, 2024.

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Sci-Fi July continues with a look at Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element.  Written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, the film stars Bruce Willis as Korben Dallas, a cab driver who becomes embroiled in a crisis that threatens to destroy the Earth (if not love itself).

Actor Galen Howard and writer Paul Zimmerman join Mike to discuss this beloved cult classic. Interviews include screenwriter Kamen, Sound Supervisor Mark A. Mangini, and Production Manager John A. Amicarella,

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Sci-Fi July continues with Ishiro Honda’s Latitude Zero.  Written by Ted Sherdeman and based on his and his wife Anne’s NBC radio serial of the same name, the film stars Joseph Cotten as a Captain Nemo-like commander of a submarine on it's way to... Latitude Zero, an underwater Utopia populated by scientists from the world over.  Their enemy, Malic (Cesar Romero), will stop at nothing to destroy them, even if it means making a manticore with pieces of his crew.

Walter Chaw and Carol Borden join Mike to discuss this under-seen kaiju classic and its fascinating origin. 

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Writer Heidi Honeycutt discusses her new book, I Spit On Your Celluloid, a look at female genre filmmakers throughout the ages.

Buy her book and find out more via her website: https://heidihoneycutt.com/

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Katharine Coldiron (Junk Film) and Tim Luz (CinemaSpection) join Mike to discuss Phil Tucker's sci-fi classic Robot Monster (1953), a cold war film in which a gorilla with a porthole on his head tries to eliminate the last few hu-mans that remain on Earth after unleashing an army of dinosaurs to wipe out everyone else.

Mike talks with Bob Furmanek President and Founder of the 3-D Film Archive before chatting with Anders Runestad about his book, I Cannot, Yet I Must: The True Story of the Best Bad Monster Movie of All Time Robot Monster.

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On this special episode, Mike talks with Dawn Mikkelson about her new documentary, Minnesota Mean (2024), It's a look at a season in the rough and tumble world of Roller Derby. 

Find out more at https://www.minnesotameanfilm.com/

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On this special cross-over episode with Chris Stachiw's Kulturecast, we're discussing the new Netflix film, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F - The TLDL; is that Mike, Chris, and Father Malone really enjoyed its mix of Murphy's comic chops and a few throwbacks to the older films. 

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We continue Sci-Fi July with a look at the Yogoslavian/Czechosolvakian co-production Visitors from the Arkana Galaxy.  Directed by Dusan Vukotic and co-written by Projection Booth favorite Milos Macourek, the film stars Zarko Potocnjak as Robert, a writer who manifests some of his own characters to hilarious results. 

Samm Deighan (Eros plus Massacre) and Ryan Verrill (Disc-Connected) join Mike to discuss this quirky sci-fi film. 


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Just a little preview of some stuff coming up at the Fantasia Film Festival which runs July 18 to August 4 in Montreal, Canada. It's the premiere genre festival of North America.

This year's fest includes several Projection Booth favorites including Miguel Llansó, Monte Hellman, Allen Moyle, Kier-la Janisse, Elric Kane, Vincenzo Natali, and more.

Find out more at https://fantasiafestival.com/




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Mike talks with Peter Tatara and Alexander Fee, programmers from the Japan Cuts Film Festival which runs July 10 - 21, 2024.  Find out more at the website https://japansociety.org/film/japancuts/

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Mike spoke with Robert Kiviat about his career and his latest "documentary", The Mandela Effect Phenomenon which tries to present a serious argument that self-centered people mis-remembering things is an obvious signal that they're in the wrong universe. 

After a lot of debate, Mike relucantly decided to release this special episode. 

THE MANDELA EFFECT PHENOMENON will be available on Digital on July 9, 2024.

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Darkman, Barb Wire, Navy Seals, Hard Target... all of these (and more!) were written by Chuck Pfarrer, military-man turned screenwriter who made his bones throughout the 1990s. On this special episode, Mike spoke with Mr. Pfarrer about his fascinating career.

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Samm Deighan and Axel Kohagen join Mike to kick off a month of science fiction fun with the one film that is the least sci-fi of the bunch, The Unknown Man of Shandigor. Released in 1967 the film is a rare feature film from Swiss filmmaker Jean-Louis Roy.

The film is something of a spy movie which stars the singular Daniel Emilfork as Professor Herbert von Krantz, a scientist who has crafted a device called the Annulator which can reverse a nuclear explosion. He, his assistant Yvan, and daughter Sylvaine are the targets of several spy rings -- The Russians, The Americans, The French maybe, and the Man with the Platinum Ring all want The Annulator or to destroy it.

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We wrap up the first of a few Request Months with one from Brian Tessitore, The Graduate. The Mike Nichols film stars Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, the titular graduate. He's adrift after college and falls into an affair with Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), a family friend.

Keith Gordon and Katharine Coldiron join Mike to discuss the seminal film along with homages and the "sequel," Rumor Has It. Beverly Gray, author of Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How the Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation, talks about her work including her time on Death Race 2000.

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We continue our Patreon request month with one requested by Peter Rogers, Orson Welles's The Trial. Released in 1962, the film stars Anthony Perkins as K in this adaptation of Franz Kafka's nightmare in bureaucracy.

Playwright David MacGregor and writer Mike Faloon join Mike to discuss this beautiful, baroque interpretation of Kafka's work as well as 1962 Norwegian television film and the 1993 version starring Kyle MacLaughlin.

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Susie Bright returns to The Projection Booth to talk about her work on The Wachowskis' Bound, her audible show, donating her archives to Cornell, and her substack, https://susiebright.ink/

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Bruce Joel Rubin (Brainstorm, Ghost, Jacob's Ladder) and Joseph Maddrey join Mike to discuss two new books put out by Paul Cronin's Sticking Place Books: It's Only A Movie -- Bruce's revelatory autobiography -- and Three Visionary Screenplays -- a compilation of three unproduced Rubin scripts.

Find out more at https://www.brucejoelrubin.com/ 

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On this special episode Mike talks with writer/director Derek Ting, actor Marc Singer, and actress Nikki Leigh about their parts in Ting's latest film, Agent Recon. This action/sci-fi film opens in the U.S. on June 21, 2024.

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Mike spoke with director Nate Dushku, writer Amnon Lourie, and star Michael Emery about their queer horror film Birder (2023) in which a birdwatcher (Emery) visits a nude campground in New Hampshire. 



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On this special episode, Mike talks with Alex Henes and Matthew Merenda, the directors and co-writers of Mind Body Spirit, a found footage horror film in which a yoga influencer (Sarah J. Bartholomew) finds there's something going on in her studio.  

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Andrew Nette, El Goro, and Mike have no failure in communicating about  Stuart Rosenberg’s 1967 film Cool Hand Luke.  The film stars Paul Newman as the titular Luke.  He’s a former war hero who cuts the heads off of some parking meters and gets tossed onto a chain gang for his crimes.  

We discuss the film and the book as well as highlighting some of Rosenberg's other directorial efforts. 

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We’re kicking off a month of Patreon requests with a request from Dallas Novell; 1982’s TV movie The Executioner's Song. Based on a book by Norman Mailer with a screenplay by Mailer -- and maybe Tracy Keenan Wynn -- it’s the story of the last nine months in the life of Gary Gilmore which stars Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore and Rosanna Arquette as his girlfriend, Nicole Baker.

Made for TV Mayhem's Amanda Reyes and Wake Up Heavy's Mark Begley join Mike to discuss the film, capital punishment, and more while director Lawrence Schiller talks about how The Executioner's Song came about.

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We wrap up Comedy Month with a look at Phil Joanou’s 1987 film Three O’Clock High. Based on a screenplay by Richard Christian Matheson and Tom Szollosi, the film stars Casey Siemaszko as Jerry Marshall, a dweeby high school student that runs awry of new student and general malcontent Buddy Revell, played by Richard Tyson.

Tim and Agatha Luz join Mike to discuss how the film is an exercise in style which sets it apart from other typical high school movie fare.

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Mike talks with filmmaker Phoebe Jane Hart about her latest short film, Bug Diner, which has been playing at major festivals in 2024. Be sure to catch it if you can.

Visit https://www.phoebejanehart.com/ to learn more about Ms. Hart.

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Mike talks with author Alonso Duralde about his latest book, Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film, an exhaustive look a queer film history and its participants. The book is now available for purchase. 

Buy it now at https://amzn.to/3UWpCPR

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Friend-of-the-Podcast Jonathan Penner returns to discuss the line-up for 2024's Escape from Tribeca program at the Tribeca Film Festival as well as some other events and programs of interest. The festival runs June 5-16. Get more details at https://tribecafilm.com/escape-from-tribeca

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Our story takes us to Memphis where Mike White is hot on the trail of John Michael McCarthy... a so-called "filmmaker" that trades in skin and sin, making lurid movies like The Sore Losers, Teenage Tupelo, Superstarlet A.D., and so much more.

White gets every filthy detail about JMM's rap sheet and his new book filled with depravity and available via Fantagraphics: https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/teenage-tupelo 

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Nine years after we took our first trip down the Fury Road, we're re-introduced to Furiosa (Alyla Browne / Anya Taylor-Joy) and told the tale of her journey from The Green Place to the Citadel and beyond.

This is a cross-over episode with The Kulturecast where Chris Stachiw, Mike White, and Father Malone discuss this latest entry in George Miller's stunning filmography.




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Mike spoke with production designer Victor Molero about his career from his early films in Spain to Tom Kallan's Savage Grace to his recent work on Paramount+'s A Gentleman in Moscow. Learn more about Mr. Molero at https://www.victormolero.com/

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Mike speaks with producer Glen Zipper about his career from being a prosecutor in New Jersey to being a documentarian. They speak about Zipper's latest film, The Blue Angels, a love letter to the amazing performers of the U.S. Navy.

The film is playing theaters as well as being available on Amazon Prime.

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Our month appreciating comedic films continues with The Coen Brothers’ Hudsucker Proxy.  Released in 1994, the film stars Tim Robbins as Norville Barnes, a graduate of Muncie Indiana’s business school.  He gets a job at Hudsucker Industries whose CEO, Waring Hudsucker, happens to join the great hereafter the day Norville begins work.  After a mix-up, Barnes goes all the way from the mail room to the boardroom and becomes the new interim head of the corporation. 

Rahne Alexander and David Kittrredge join Mike to discuss the ins, the outs, and the what-have-yous about this oft-overlooked tribute to classic screwball comedies told only in the way that the Coen Brothers (and Sam Raimi) could tell it.

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Ian Brownell and Otto Bruno join Mike for a discussion of Preston Sturges and his 1944 film The Miracle of Morgan's Creek which stars Betty Hutton as Trudy Kockenlocker, a woman who really helps support the troops going off to World War Two. When she finds herself married to an unknown soldier and pregnant in her small town, she eyes 4F local Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken).

Author Stuart Klawans talks about his outstanding book, Crooked, but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges , before the guys also visit Sturges's Hail the Conquering Hero (1944).

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Comedy month continues with a film that could be categorized as "pure action" film has a hard time being taken seriously, Tango & Cash (1989). Directed by Andrey Konchalovskiy, Albert Magnoli, and more, the film stars Sylvester Stallone as the stockbroker cum supercop Ray Tango and Kurt Russell as slobby supercop Gabriel Cash. Yes, they're an odd couple of cops who get sent up the river by crime boss Jack Palance.

Chris and Lizzie of the What Went Wrong podcast join Mike to discuss the film while original screenwriter, Randy Feldman, and producer Peter MacDonald talk about the making of Tango & Cash.

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As part of #Spider-Mondays, Mike was invited to do a live podcast at the Redford Theatre in Detroit after the screening of Spider-Man 2 (2004). He was joined by Dan Merritt of Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. The two discussed director Sam Raimi's best entry in the Spider-series -- if not the best Spider-Man film of the bunch.

Thanks to the Motor City Cinema Society and the Redford Theatre for making this possible.







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We’re kicking off a month discussing comedy films with a look at Frank Oz’s Bowfinger.  Released in 1999, the film was written by and stars Steve Martin as the titular Bowfinger, a struggling filmmaker who, along with his group of misfit artists, makes a movie around the unknowing presence of unstable superstar Kit Ramsey, played by Eddie Murphy.

Kevin Lehane and Rob St. Mary join Mike to keep it together. 


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Mike speaks with Nick Roth, writer and co-director (along with his wife, Lindsey Haun) of the 2024 film, Hanky Panky. The film is a comedy featuring a talking handkerchief.

Find out where it's streaming at https://hankypankythemovie.com/

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Mike spoke with director Stefon Bristol about his new film, Breathe (2024), in which the earth is bereft of breathable air. They also discussed his earlier work, See You Yesterday.

Breathe opens on April 26, 2024.

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Mark Begley (Wake Up Heavy), Chris Stachiw (The Kulturecast), and Mike White (The Projection Booth) host this monthly podcast. Join us on an exciting journey through the illustrious career of this comedy icon as we explore his groundbreaking roles, behind-the-scenes stories, and timeless contributions to the world of entertainment.

Each episode of the Chasing Chevy Chase podcast brings you expert analysis, and nostalgic reflections on Chevy Chase's most iconic characters in classic films like National Lampoon's Vacation, Caddyshack, and Fletch.

On our official first episode we're discussing Joe Camp and his Benji Empire which includes the film Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980) in which Chevy plays a private dick whose killed on a case and gets sent back to Earth not as Warren Beatty but Benji the dog.  He tries to solve the case of his own murder and continue wooing Jane Seymour. 

Subscribe today at http://www.chasingchevypodcast.com

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