The Projection Booth
The Projection Booth is a film discussion podcast that covers a wide variety of genres with in-depth critical analysis. The show regularly features special guest talent who discuss their past cinematic gems. It has been recognized as a premier film podcast by notable publications such as The A.V. Club, IndieWire, Entertainment Weekly, and Filmmaker Magazine.
Episodes
Special Report: A Century of Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock remains cinema's Master of Suspense a century after directing his first film, but decades of biography have blurred the line between the man and the myth. Mike talks with author Tony Lee Moral about his sixth Hitchcock book, A Century of Hitchcock, and the archival discovery that reshaped it: a 36-page 1980 transcript of biographer Donald Spoto's own interview with Tippi Hedren.Mo
Special Report: Rubberhead (2026)
Nick Taylor built The Nick Taylor Horror Show by asking filmmakers how they actually got their movies made — an unofficial film school he later put to use directing his own feature. Mike talks with Taylor about turning that same curiosity on Steve Johnson, the special makeup effects legend behind Slimer, the Fright Night vampires, and the Howling werewolves, and a childhood hero whose success vali
Episode 810: Deadlock (1970)
Roland Klick's Deadlock (1970) strips the spaghetti western down to its bones — no horses, no heroism, just three men and a suitcase in the Negev. When the wounded Kid (Marquard Bohm) staggers out of the desert clutching stolen cash, Charles Dump (Mario Adorf) sees an opportunity. When the cold-eyed Mr. Sunshine (Anthony Dawson) arrives to collect, the triangle tightens. Klick shoots it all like a
Episode 809: Cemetery Without Crosses (1969)
Vengeance never ends — that's the warning Manuel issues early in Robert Hossein's 1969 Cemetery Without Crosses, and the film spends the next ninety minutes proving him right. When the widow Maria hires the black-gloved, spiritually exhausted gunslinger to avenge her husband's murder at the hands of the powerful Rogers family, she sets in motion a cycle of brutality that punishes the innocent alon
Special Report: We Are Pat (2025)
Thirty years ago, Saturday Night Live's "It's Pat" turned gender ambiguity into a recurring punchline. Today, the question of what to do with that legacy — and who gets to answer it — is anything but simple.Mike talks with director Ro Haber about We Are Pat, their feature documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it earned a Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Direct
Special Report: Fantasia 2026
July in Montreal means Fantasia is back. Mike offers his annual curtain raiser for the Fantasia International Film Festival — one of the great genre film festivals on the planet — running July 16th through August 2nd, 2026.This year's lineup spans Nicolas Winding Refn's mist-shrouded sci-fi nightmare Her Private Hell (opening night), a 147-minute samurai epic from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Agnieszka Smocz
Special Report: Mortal Kombat II (2026)
Finish him. Or at least finish the plot. Mortal Kombat II arrives with the promise of the full tournament, a new roster of fighters, and the long-awaited arrival of Johnny Cage — played by Karl Urban — as the wisecracking Earthrealm champion fans have been demanding since 2021.Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast take on Simon McQuoid's sequel to the 2021 reboot, written by Jeremy Slate
Special Report: We Are Guardians (2023)
Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, indigenous forest guardians risk their lives to defend ancestral lands from illegal loggers — and the fate of the entire rainforest hangs in the balance. We Are Guardians follows indigenous guardian Marçal Guajajara and indigenous leader Puyr Tembé as they stand at the frontlines of this fight, while on the other side, illegal logger Valdir struggles to survive and se
Special Report: Supergirl (2026)
She's not her cousin. Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) arrived on screen in Supergirl with a chip on her shoulder and a body count on her conscience — a cosmic revenge story light-years removed from the sunnier mythology of Superman. Whether the DCU's second theatrical outing delivered on that premise is another question entirely.Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast dig into Craig Gillespie's
Special Report: King Kong - The History of a Movie Icon
From his 1933 debut as a tragic fairy-tale monster to his current reign over an ever-expanding Monsterverse, King Kong has spent more than ninety years proving that beauty isn't the only thing capable of killing the beast — time certainly hasn't.Mike talks with film historian and self-described Kongophile Ray Morton about the revised and updated edition of his book King Kong: The History of a Movi
Special Report: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)
This is the Way — but is it the right way to bring the galaxy's most beloved odd couple to the big screen? After three seasons on Disney+, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu trade the small screen for an IMAX-sized adventure, with the stakes raised and the runtime expanded accordingly.Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast discuss Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, directed by Jon Fav
Episode 807: Massacre Time (1966)
Western month begins here. Lucio Fulci's Massacre Time (1966) arrived in the wake of Django riding a wave of Italian genre fever, and it announced something different lurking inside the spaghetti Western: a director with a genuine appetite for cruelty. Franco Nero plays Tom Corbett, a gold prospector summoned back to a hometown now wholly owned by the Scott family — their name on every building, t
Special Report: Disclosure Day (2026)
The truth belongs to seven billion people. That's the promise of Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg's return to science fiction and to the extraterrestrial obsessions that have haunted his work since Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Whether audiences are ready to believe is a different matter.Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast sit down with the summer's most buzzy Spielberg event fil
Special Report: Doc Meets World (2026)
Thirty years after Boy Meets World made them household names, Danielle Fishel (Topanga), Rider Strong (Shawn), and Will Friedle (Eric) launched a rewatch podcast and hit the road — and directors Chris Levitus and Zane Rubin were there to capture it all. Mike talks with Levitus and Rubin about Doc Meets World, their feature documentary premiering at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.The two filmmakers
Special Report: Jackass: Best and Last (2026)
Twenty-five years ago, a group of idiots convinced MTV to let them hurt themselves on television. Now, Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass crew are back one last time — older, creakier, and somehow still willing to do things that no sane human being would consider.Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast pay their respects to Jackass: Best and Last, the fifth and final installment in the franc
Special Report: Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World (2025)
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver inspired millions with her celebrations of nature, attention, and the examined life — yet she remained one of American literature's most intensely private figures. Filmmaker Sasha Waters spent years building an intimate portrait of Oliver from the inside out: sifting through thirty to forty boxes of correspondence, notebooks, and personal photographs before
Special Report: Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror (2025)
Fifty years on, The Rocky Horror Picture Show remains the longest-running theatrical release in cinema history — and it shows no signs of stopping. Linus O'Brien, son of creator Richard O'Brien, joins Mike to discuss Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, his feature documentary tracing Rocky's unlikely journey from a Royal Court Theatre upstairs production to a global midnight-screening phen
Episode 806: The Postman (1997)
Sci-fi month concludes with one of the great cinematic boondoggles of the '90s. Kevin Costner directs and stars in The Postman (1997), playing a wandering drifter who stumbles into a postal uniform and accidentally becomes the savior of a shattered America, restoring hope and democracy one undelivered letter at a time. Standing in his way: General Bethlehem (Will Patton), a Shakespeare-quoting war
Special Report: Boy George and Culture Club (2025)
Few bands burned brighter—or more colorfully—than Culture Club, and director Alison Ellwood joins Mike to unpack the making of her acclaimed documentary Boy George & Culture Club. From the group's improbable formation and meteoric rise to the personal relationships, creative tensions, and heartbreak that shaped their music, Ellwood reveals how she crafted an intimate portrait using the voices
Episode 805: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
What kind of man doesn't drink, avoids women, and prefers the company of other strange men in the park? Gene Fowler Jr.'s I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958) plays the alien-infiltration premise with surprising melancholy and remarkable restraint for a film with such a lurid title. Mike, Bill Ackerman, and Ben Buckingham dig into the film's overlapping readings — Cold War paranoia, the Lav
Special Report: Dear Upstairs Neighbors (2026)
Editor Sarah Affleck pulls back the curtain on one of filmmaking's most invisible—and essential—arts. From cutting reality television to shaping animated features at LAIKA and Pixar, Affleck traces her journey through the editing room while explaining why animation offers creative possibilities unlike any other medium.The conversation dives into her work on the acclaimed animated short Dear Upstai
Special Report: Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul (2026)
Gregg Allman lived inside the central contradiction of American music — a white Southern kid who built his art on the blues, fled his demons while pouring them into song, and emerged as one of rock's most essential voices. Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul traces that journey from a childhood shattered by his father's murder to the soulful authority the Allman Brothers Band carved out through rel
Episode 804: Dark City (1998)
Rob St. Mary and Rob Spencer join Mike to dig into Proyas's tale of John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), who wakes in a cheap hotel room with no memory, a dead body nearby, and a city that refuses to add up. Detective Bumstead (William Hurt) closes in while the pale, bald Strangers rearrange reality every time the clocks stop — building a world that is simultaneously a locked-room mystery, a Philip K. Dic
Episode 803: Timerider - The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982)
Mike and Aaron Carruthers kick off Sci-Fi June with William Dear's time-travel oddity Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann, in which motocross racer Lyle Swann (Fred Ward) accidentally blasts a century into the past and spends the entire film completely unaware that he's done it. That central gag — a fish out of water who doesn't know he's a fish — drives most of the conversation, along with the
Kenji Tanigaki on The Furious (2025)
Kenji Tanigaki is anything but furious when he discusses his latest film, The Furious (2025). The film stars Xie Miao and Joe Taslim as two men united by a common enemy - child trafficking. The movie combines pathos with some breath-taking fight scenes in a film reminiscent of The Raid, Taken, and John Wick. Check local listings for where The Furious is playing near you.Become a supporter of this
Episode 802: Dark of the Sun (1968)
Mike welcomes Andrew Nette and Jedidiah Ayres back to dissect Dark of the Sun (1968), a brutal, kinetic men‑on‑a‑mission film whose pulp thrills sit atop a surprisingly rich political and historical foundation. The trio digs into the movie’s Cold War backdrop, its depiction of the Congo Crisis, and the real mercenaries who inspired characters like Curry and the sadistic Henlein — from “Mad” Mike H
Special Report: They Will Kill You (2026)
Mike talks with re-recording mixer Duncan McRae and sound designer/supervising sound editor Jeffrey A. Pitts about their work on They Will Kill You (2026), the action-comedy horror film directed by Russian filmmaker Kirill Sokolov. Co-written by Sokolov and Alex Litvak, the film stars Zazie Beetz as an ex-convict who answers an ad for a housekeeping job at a mysterious New York City high-rise, onl
Episode 801: Reconstituirea (1968)
In 1968, Romanian filmmaker Lucian Pintilie completed his second film, Reconstituirea — known in English as Reconstruction or The Reenactment — and, within a month of its 1970 release, it vanished. Not banned outright, but buried: withdrawn, never televised, never revived for nearly two decades. By the time Romanian audiences could see it freely in 1990, it had acquired near-mythological status. A
Special Report: Kimi Takesue: Crossings and Encounters
Mike talks with filmmaker Kimi Takesue, whose work — spanning documentary, fiction, and experimental forms — is now collected on the Criterion Channel. Takesue grew up shuttling between Honolulu and Massachusetts, and that cross-cultural, biracial upbringing informs every frame she has made, from early shorts rooted in identity politics to acclaimed features documenting cross-cultural encounters i
Episode 800: Chimes at Midnight (1965)
Orson Welles spent thirty-five years trying to put Sir John Falstaff on screen. Chimes at Midnight (1966) is the result: a film drawn from five Shakespeare plays — primarily the two Henry IV parts, with passages from Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor — that lifts Falstaff from comic supporting player to tragic protagonist. Welles plays the knight himself, a lumbering, larger-than
Episode 799: The Toxic Avenger (2023)
In 2025, New Jersey's favorite hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength returned — twice. Writer/director Macon Blair's big-budget reimagining, The Toxic Avenger (2023), finally received a wide theatrical release in August 2025. Peter Dinklage voices Winston, a terminally ill janitor at a corrupt pharmaceutical company who falls into a vat of toxic chemicals and emerges as Toxie
Special Report: Mye Hoang on 25 Cats from Qatar (2025)
From indie narratives to deeply personal documentaries, filmmaker Mye Hoang has built a career around stories about identity, community, and unexpected connections. On this episode of *The Projection Booth*, Mike sits down with Hoang to trace her creative journey—from her early work to her breakout documentary Cat Daddies—before diving into her latest film, 25 Cats from Qatar.The new documentary f
Special Report: Simon Glassman on Buffet Infinity (2025)
Mike talks with Simon Glassman, the writer-director of the 2025 Canadian horror-comedy Buffet Infinity, a feature debut that premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival to instant cult acclaim.Buffet Infinity takes place in the fictional Alberta town of Westridge County, where an all-you-can-eat restaurant chain arrives alongside a mysterious sinkhole and begins swallowing the local comm
Episode 798: Freddy Got Fingered (2001)
Comedy Month wraps up as Mike talks with Rob St. Mary and Heather Drain about Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered (2001) and Producer Lauren Lloyd joins Mike for an interview about working on the film that was almost universally trashed on release. Green wrote, directed, and stars as Gord Brody, an aspiring cartoonist who heads to Hollywood to sell his drawings as an animated series. After a catastrop
Special Report: Drift (2026)
Mike talks with editors Martin Biehn and Kevin Hibbard about their work on Drift (2026), directed by Deon Taylor.Isaac "Drift" Wright is an Army veteran and self-taught photographer whose trauma finds an outlet in illegal high-rise climbing — scaling some of the world's tallest structures to capture images from vantage points no permit would allow. The film documents his pursuit of art and healing
Special Report: Aaron Silverstein on The Infinite Husk (2025)
Identity fractures and reality starts to slip in this deep dive into The Infinite Husk. Mike sits down with the film’s writer-director-composer-etc., Aaron Silverstein, to unpack a mind-bending indie that blurs memory, selfhood, and the fragile boundaries of perception. The conversation cuts straight to process—how the film’s layered structure took shape, the challenges of sustaining ambiguity wit
Episode 797: Fear, Anxiety and Depression (1989)
Todd Solondz's disowned debut finally gets its day in court. Fear, Anxiety & Depression (1989) follows Ira Ellis, a bespectacled, self-deluding playwright adrift in the last gasp of the East Village art scene — too busy pining after a performance artist named Junk to notice the woman who actually loves him.Mike Sullivan and David Rodgers join Mike to dig into the film Solondz famously begged a
Episode 796: Matilda (1978)
Paul Gallico's 1970 novel Matilda told of a male boxing kangaroo who becomes an unlikely heavyweight contender, upending the worlds of sports promotion and organized crime. Producer Albert S. Ruddy, fresh from his Oscar-winning triumph with The Godfather, acquired the rights and brought the story to the screen in 1978, co-writing with Timothy Galfas. The resulting G-rated family comedy stars Ellio
Special Report: Corey Feldman Versus the World (2025)
Mike talks with director Marcie Hume about making Corey Feldman vs. the World, the ethics of documentary filmmaking, and what it means to capture a subject in freefall.Hume has said the film was never intended as a hit piece, and the documentary bears that out. It presents testimony from Feldman, the Angels, his then-wife Courtney Anne Mitchell, and fans who attended the shows, letting events spea
Special Report: Silver Star (2024)
When a bank robbery goes sideways, two strangers find themselves bound together on the road — Billie (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), whose desperation brought her to the bank in the first place, and Franny (Grace Van Dien), a pregnant teenager with nothing left to lose. What begins as a hostage situation slowly reshapes into something stranger and more human: an unlikely alliance, an argument across th
Special Report: The Life of Singleton
John Singleton was twenty-three when he wrote Boyz N the Hood and twenty-four when it made him the first Black filmmaker and youngest person ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. Released in 1991, the film drew from Singleton's own upbringing in South Central Los Angeles to deliver an unflinching portrait of Black life there, launched the careers of Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and
Episode 795: Some Like it Hot (1959)
Comedy Month continues as Mike talks with co-hosts Keith Gordon and Heidi Honeycutt about Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).Chicago, 1929. Musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are barely scraping by when they stumble onto the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, witnessing Spats Colombo and his mob gun down a rival gang. With the killers on their tail, the two desperate musicians disg
Special Report: When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor
Released in 1978 and directed by John Landis, National Lampoon's Animal House follows the anarchic members of Delta House fraternity at Faber College as they wage war against pompous Dean Wormer (John Vernon) and the rival Omega House. Written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, and Chris Miller, and starring John Belushi as the legendary John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the film became one of the highest-gro
Special Report: Bryan Parker on Scarpetta (2026)
Mike talks with Sound Designer Bryan Parker about his work from his early days on Reality TV to his current jobs on The Pitt and Scarpetta. Parker describes how he works with his peers and creative partners to create the best experience via his craft.Follow Bryan on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bryanvanbryanBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projecti
Special Report: Sonny Atkins on undertone (2025)
Evy (Nina Kiri) hosts a paranormal podcast from her childhood home, where she has returned to care for her dying mother. A skeptic to her co-host Justin's (Adam DiMarco) true believer, she keeps the supernatural at arm's length — until anonymous recordings begin arriving: a married couple, their home filled with strange noises, their lives unraveling. As Evy listens, the distance between their sto
Special Report: The Serpent's Skin (2025)
Alice Maio Mackay made her first feature film at 16. By 20, she had six. The latest, The Serpent's Skin, follows Anna, a young trans woman who flees her transphobic hometown and falls for Gen, a goth tattoo artist with a gift for the supernatural. Mike talks with Mackay about the making of the film, her approach to genre filmmaking, and what drives one of the most prolific young voices in independ
Episode 793: The Good Fairy (1935)
Adapted by Preston Sturges from Ferenc Molnár's play and directed by William Wyler, The Good Fairy (1935) is a screwball fairy tale built on mistaken identities, comic misfortune, and the peculiar moral logic of someone who genuinely wants to do good but hasn't quite figured out how the world works. Luisa (Margaret Sullavan) has grown up knowing nothing of the world outside the orphanage walls. W
Episode 792: Exposure 36 (2022)
Mike and Ben Buckingham take a look at Exposure 36, the 2022 film written and directed by Mackenzie G. Mauro. Charles Oudo stars as Cam, a photographer spending the last three days on Earth selling drugs and wandering the streets of New York City, encountering a colorful cast of characters along the way.The apocalypse here is background noise rather than spectacle — a quiet, meditative film that d
Episode 794: Fucktoys (2025)
Mike is joined by Payton McCarty-Simas and Rob St. Mary to dig into Fucktoys, the 2025 SXSW Special Jury Award winner written, directed by, and starring Annapurna Sriram. Sriram plays AP, a sex worker adrift in Trashtown — a candy-colored dystopia of industrial decay and pastel skies — after a swamp-dwelling tarot reader tells her a curse can be lifted for a thousand dollars and the sacrifice of a
Special Report: Dead, White & Blue (2025)
Mike sits down with filmmaker and archivist Mike Davis to discuss Dead, White & Blue — a gleefully subversive political satire assembled entirely from recycled public domain footage.Davis, whose previous "green movies" include Sex Galaxy and President Wolfman, sifted through more than 300 films — predominantly training and educational films produced by the U.S. government, military, and law en
Special Report: Stephanie Laing on Tow (2025)
Mike sits down with director Stephanie Laing to discuss Tow — a true-story drama about one woman's year-long legal war against a predatory towing company and the system behind it.Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne) is living in her 1991 Toyota Camry on the streets of Seattle when the car — her only lifeline — gets impounded, leaving her with a bill for $21,634 she has no hope of paying. What follows is battl
Special Report: Addison Heimann on Touch Me (2025)
Mike sits down with writer-director Addison Heimann to discuss Touch Me — a psychosexual sci-fi horror-comedy about codependency, addiction, and the seductive promise that something out there could touch you and make all the pain go away.Codependent best friends Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) find themselves homeless, Joey's mysterious ex resurfaces with an offer too good t
Episode 791: I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
Owen (Justice Smith) is a quiet kid on the outskirts of everything — his school, his family, his own life. When he meets Maddy (Jack Haven), a fellow outcast devoted to late-night supernatural TV show The Pink Opaque, something stirs in him that he can't quite name. Together they lose themselves in the show's mythology, its heroes Isabel and Tara battling the dream-warping Mr. Melancholy from with
Special Report: Black Zombie (2026)
Mike talks with writer/director Maya Annik Bedward about her feature documentary Black Zombie (2026). The film looks at Haitian Vodou and how it's been been bastardized by Hollywood in films from early works like White Zombie to modern movies like World War Z and everywhere in-between.The film had its premiere at SXSW 2026. Find out more at https://www.instagram.com/blackzombiemovie/Become a suppo
Special Report: Wildheart - The Leslie Winston Collection
Mike sits down with Leslie Winston — legendary performer of the Golden Age of Adult Film and AVN Hall of Fame inductee — and Mark Jason Murray, founder of Ultra Flesh Archives, to celebrate the release of Wildheart: The Leslie Winston Collection, now available on Blu-ray.Ms. Winston looks back on her remarkable two-decade career, sharing personal memories of the era of loops shot between 1980 and
Special Report: The Secret World of Roald Dahl
Mike talks with writer Aaron Tracy about his new podcast series, The Secret Life of Roald Dahl, which tells the story of the (in)famous writer who once served in the British Secret Service before becoming the author of macabre tales and beloved children's books.Find out more about the podcast at https://www.listentoparallax.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/t
Grace Glowicki on Dead Lover (2025)
Mike talks with multi-hyphenate Grace Glowicki about her new film, Dead Lover (2025). It's a stinky look at a gravedigger (Glowicki) who searches for a love who is taken too-soon.The film is playing theatrically around North America. Check local listings or visit https://deadlovermovie.com/ for more details.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--
Episode 790: The Wild Boys (2017)
Kyler Fey and Michelle Kisner join Mike to dig into Bertrand Mandico's striking 2017 feature debut, The Wild Boys (Les Garçons Sauvages). A fever dream of transgression and transformation, the film follows five privileged boys who rape and murder their literature teacher — then are spirited away by a mysterious sea captain to the strange and sensual Dress Island, where nature itself begins to resh
Special Report: Martyn Zub on The Weight (2026)
Re-recording mixer Martyn Zub discusses the new film from Padraic McKinley, The Weight (2026), the story of a battle-scarred veteran in The Great Depression who's hired to help smuggle a fortune in gold across 100 miles of impenetrable wilderness. The film stars Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe and had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker
Special Report: The Bride! (2026)
She's been dug up, renamed, reanimated, and gaslit — and Hollywood expects her to be grateful. Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! resurrects the Bride of Frankenstein for a 1930s Chicago that feels equal parts Weimar cabaret and fever dream, with Jessie Buckley delivering a ferocious, uncontainable performance at the center of a film that can't quite contain itself. Mike White and Chris Stachiw dig in
Special Report: Julie Wyman on The Tallest Dwarf (2025)
Mike sits down with Julie Wyman, director of The Tallest Dwarf — a documentary that is as personal as it is political. When filmmaker and UC Davis professor Julie Forrest Wyman set out to make The Tallest Dwarf, she discovered she has hypochondroplasia dwarfism herself — and that hers is the last of a body type she has inherited. The film charts her quest to find her place within the little people
Special Report: Christine La Monte on Viva Verdi! (2025)
Christine La Monte discusses her career and her latest work producing a pair of opera-themed documentaries, the uplifting Viva Verdi! (2025) and the stunning Ai Weiwei's Turandot (2025). La Monte talks about the importance of opera in the modern world and the Oscar-nominated song "Sweet Dreams of Joy."For more information visit: https://www.lamonteproductions.com/Become a supporter of this podcast
Episode 789: Head-On (2004)
Collision as courtship. Self-destruction as intimacy. Fatih Akın’s Head-On (2004) opens with two suicide attempts and spirals into a sham marriage between Cahit (Birol Ünel) and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), German Turks who weaponize matrimony to escape themselves. What begins as a performance of tradition mutates into volatile love, violence, prison, exile, and a reunion that refuses catharsis.Keith Go
Special Report: The Oldest Person in the World (2026)
Sound designer Mark A. Mangini returns to The Projection Booth to discuss The Oldest Person in the World (2026), the Sam Green documentary about the successive holders of the oldest person title.Mark discusses the importance of using sound to tell a story and recounts his work on Dune and Mad Max: Fury Road. Look for screenings of The Oldest Person in the World at https://www.theoldestperson.com/B
Special Report: Derek Boonstra on Seized (2026)
Mike talks with editor Derek Boonstra about his work on Seized (2026). Premiering recently at Sundance Film Festival, the documentary traces the human fallout of asset forfeiture and the legal gray zones that allow property to be taken without conviction.Find out more about Derek at his website, https://derekboonstra.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-proj
Special Report: Andres Landau on Nuisance Bear (2026)
Mike talks with editor Andres Landau about his work editing the 2026 documentary, Nuisance Bear. A sobering look at the uneasy relationship between polar bears and humans when humans are infringing on the bears' natural environment. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.pat
Special Report: Angelo Madsen on A Body to Live In (2025)
Director Angelo Madsen joins Mike to discuss his latest film, the 2025 documentary A Body to Live In which focuses on the body artist Fakir Musafar who spent his lifetime manipulating his physical form. The film's edgy subject is matched by its confrontational visual style in a striking work that will not easily be forgotten.The film is currently playing at venues across North America. Check your
Episode 788: Welcome to Woop Woop (1997)
Australia month crashes to a delirious halt with 1997’s Welcome to Woop Woop, Directed by Stephan Elliott and adapted from Douglas Kennedy's The Dead Heart by screenwriter Michael Thomas, the film strands American grifter Teddy (Johnathon Schaech) in a surreal outback shantytown ruled by Daddy-O (Rod Taylor) and fueled by show tunes, superstition, and mob justice. Susie Porter co-stars as Angie, w
Special Report: Ryan Kendrick on Carousel (2026)
Mike sits down with editor Ryan Kendrick to discuss Carousel (2026) and unpack how Rachel Lambert's film finds its rhythm in silence, hesitation, and the messy recalibration of adult love.Watch the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFJmY__SC8IBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Boot
Special Report: Brian Raftery on Hannibal Lector - A Life
Mike talks with writer and podcaster Brian Raftery about his latest book, Hannibal Lector: A Life. It's a look at Thomas Harris and his most famous creation, the genteel boogeyman Hannibal Lector in his various book, film, and TV incarnations from Red Dragon to Bryan Fuller's captivating series.Buy the book now at https://amzn.to/4qMuNzBBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/
Special Report: Tura! (2025)
Mike talks with Cody Jarrett and Siouxzan Perry about their 2025 documentary TURA! The filmmakers discuss how the project came together and how they shaped the voluminous material into a feature-length film. How can one film contain the power and strength of the one-and-only Tura Satana? VIsit https://turamovie.com/ for more details. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/pod
Episode 787: Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1989)
We continue our Australian month with Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds, the stark 1989 feature debut of Alex Proyas. Before The Crow or Dark City, Proyas delivered this sun-blasted sci-fi Western set in a post-apocalyptic desert where the wind blows and desert bakes.A lone wanderer, Smith (Norman "The Norm" Boyd), emerges from the dunes and collides with siblings Felix and Betty Crabtree
Episode 786: Pandemonium (1987)
The Projection Booth continues its dive into Australian cinema with Pandemonium, the delirious 1987 feature from writer-director Haydn Keenan. A film that plays like a fever dream filtered through exploitation cinema, absurdist theater, and cultural anxiety, Pandemonium resists easy summary—and happily punishes anyone who tries.The story unfolds through the fractured testimony of Kales Leadingham,
Episode 785: Shirley Thompson Versus The Aliens (1972)
The Projection Booth kicks off a month devoted to Australian oddities with Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens, the startling 1972 debut from director Jim Sharman. Long unseen outside of archival corners of the internet, the film sits at the crossroads of experimental theater, pop music, political anxiety, and institutional paranoia. Heather Drain and Chris O’Neil join Mike to unpack the film’s rad
Episode 784: Arizona Dream (1993)
Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream drifts between deadpan comedy and waking dream, a film where ambition, escape, and American myth collide at odd angles. Written by David Atkins and directed by Emir Kusturica, the 1993 features Axel (Johnny Depp) stranded between New York routine and Arctic fantasia after his cousin (Vincent Gallo) drags him west to Arizona. There, Axel falls into orbit around his Un
Special Report: Homegrown (2024)
Mike talks with Michael Premo, director of Homegrown, about embedding himself with right-wing activists in the years leading up to—and following—January 6, 2021. Rather than treating the Capitol attack as an aberration, the film traces how grievance, conspiracy thinking, and political identity seep into everyday life. The conversation digs into the ethics of proximity filmmaking, questions of acce
Episode 783: Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970)
The Projection Booth turns its attention to Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970), the adaptation of Joe Orton’s infamous stage play, directed by Douglas Hickox. Jonathan Owen and Rob St. Mary join Mike to dig into Orton’s razor-sharp wit, corrosive humor, and enduring legacy as one of Britain’s most provocative voices. The hosts unpack how the film confronts taboo subjects—sexuality, class resentment,
Episode 782: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Spencer Parsons and Chris Stachiw join Mike to dig into the ideological undercurrents of The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s contentious capstone to his Batman trilogy. Released in 2012, the film finds a broken Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) pulled back into action as Gotham—now pointedly resembling New York—falls under siege by Bane (Tom Hardy) and the League of Shadows.The conversation move
Episode 781: Z Channel - A Magnificent Obsession (2004)
Adam Long and Josh Hadley join Mike to explore Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004), the sweeping documentary from Xan Cassavetes about the rise and fall of Los Angeles’s most influential pay-TV channel. More than a cable station, Z Channel was a film school beamed into living rooms, programming uncut movies, international cinema, director’s cuts, and repertory favorites long before that was
Special Report: Dead Man's Line (2018)
Mike talks with Alan Berry and Mark Enochs, the filmmakers behind Dead Man’s Line, a chilling dive into one of America’s most disturbing true-crime stories. The conversation traces how the directors reconstructed the life and legend of Tony Kiritsis, whose 1977 hostage standoff transfixed the nation and blurred the line between media spectacle and lived horror.Berry and Enochs unpack their researc
