The Projection Booth

Епізоди

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  Special Report: Ancestral Beasts (2026) 18.08.2026 35хв

  Writer-director Tim Riedel joins Mike for Ancestral Beasts (2026), a Red River Métis horror feature in which Elyse (Morgan Holmstrom) retreats to a remote family cabin after her mother's death and finds something in the woods that feeds on everything she won't face.Riedel traces the film back to his mother's Sixties Scoop childhood and her later borderline personality disorder diagnosis — the creature he grew up sensing in the shadows — then through a documentary career, a shoestring proof of concept that landed at Frontières during Cannes, and a 20-day Manitoba shoot with a largely Indigenous cast and crew that a blizzard couldn't stop. He also talks about making horror in the woods as a kid with DP Joey Forte, telling 70% of a story so the audience can author the rest, and bracing for Fantasia's meowing crowd. Is the monster ancestral, or inherited?Find out more at https://www.michifkoonteur.com/ 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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Episode 808: The Wild Bunch (1969) 17.08.2026 4год 23хв

  Rob St. Mary and Josh Hadley join Mike for The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah's blood-soaked western about Pike Bishop (William Holden) and his aging outlaws chasing one last job against Robert Ryan's bounty hunter, a former member of the gang. When Angel is captured by the Mexican warlord Mapache, the Bunch has to decide whether to ride away or ride back for him.We have a plethora of interviews for this one with actress Lilia Castillo, actor Alfonso Arau (Herrera), screenwriter Walon Green, Kathryn Jones, author of Tall in the Saddle: The Life of Ben Johnson, Hollywood's Real Cowboy, and Bill Mesce, author of The Wild Bunch: The American Classic That Changed Westerns Forever.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: Spider-Man - Brand New Day (2026) 07.08.2026 1год 28хв

  Spider-Man: Brand New Day argues a hero can be both the mask and the man, no universe reset required. Mike welcomes Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast for a crossover dissecting Destin Daniel Cretton's grounded, detective-flavored entry in the Tom Holland era, one that ditches multiverse noise for a genuine emotional throughline between Peter Parker and a scene-stealing Sadie Sink.Mike and Chris unpack why this might be the best Holland Spider-Man yet, how Marisa Tomei's Aunt May keeps the franchise grounded, the Man-Spider mutation plot pulled from The Other, Jon Bernthal's Punisher partnership, and what a psychic rampage signals for the MCU's slow-building X-Men rollout. Spoilers arrive after the setup, alongside a debate over secret-identity fatigue and whether Marvel finally made a superhero movie about being a person rather than a franchise cog.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light (2024) 06.08.2026 28хв

  How do you make a documentary about an artist so iconic she's practically wallpaper — flowers, bones, desert light, done to death? Filmmakers Paul Wagner and Ellen Casey Wagner set out to demythologize Georgia O'Keeffe instead, and Mike sits down with the married directing team to talk about it. They trace the project from a small University of Virginia exhibit revealing O'Keeffe's forgotten Charlottesville summers to a full-scale feature, built around the intimate Stieglitz letters released decades after her death and voiced in the film by Claire Danes. Paul and Ellen discuss securing cooperation from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, filming across her many homes from Wisconsin to New Mexico, the crises of confidence that once had her burning her own paintings, and getting Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy on board. They also talk COVID-era production chaos, the film's long festival-to-theatrical rollout, and why an artist this famous can still surprise her biggest fans.Find out more at: https://www.georgiaokeeffefilm.com/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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Episode 812: Cut-Throats Nine (1972) 05.08.2026 1год 3хв

  A gold-plated chain gang, a snowbound death march, and a father hunting a killer who's already survived the trip: Joaquin Luis Romero Marchent closed out his western career with Cut-Throats Nine (1972), still cited as the goriest Spanish western ever made. Mike White talks with Nick Schlegel and Heather Drain about how Sergeant Brown (Robert Hundar) and daughter Cathy (Emma Cohen) end up stranded with seven condemned convicts after a botched bandit ambush, and how gold hidden in their chains curdles cooperation into betrayal, torture, and a murder mystery Brown never gets to solve. They trace Romero Marchent's late-career demolition of heroic western conventions, the film's kinship with (and possible one-upping of) The Great Silence, Luis Cuadrado's snowbound cinematography, and whether the film's notorious gore implicates the audience or just splatters it. Masterpiece, curiosity, or endurance test: is this the most nihilistic western ever made?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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: Never Change (2026) 04.08.2026 30хв

  You don't usually think about the editor when a comedy lands its jokes, but editor Whit Conway is exactly why Never Change! moves the way it does. Mike talks with Conway about a career built on doing a little bit of everything — Chicago advertising work, Second City, SNL's pre-tape department, DP'ing for The Late Show, directing for Jimmy Kimmel Live! — and how that generalist grounding prepared him for this movie's absurd production math: shooting wrapped in late October 2025, and the finished film hit Hulu on June 17, 2026. Conway breaks down his years-long shorthand with director Marty Schousboe from three seasons of Joe Pera Talks With You, working alongside writer-star John Reynolds in the edit bay, the line-by-line organizational system that saved the cut, and the friends-and-family screening that reshaped the back half of the movie. He also gets into the one joke that made him nervous — the one where he says his own name out loud on camera.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: Zodiactually: The Real Story of a Fake Serial Killer 03.08.2026 49хв

  What if America's most famous uncaught serial killer was never one man at all? Eddie McNamara — former NYPD officer, 9/11 first responder, and author of Zodiactually: The Real Story of a Fake Serial Killer — joins Mike to argue the Zodiac wasn't a criminal mastermind but a myth stitched together from unrelated crimes, media hunger, and one compromised homicide detective. Drawing on police files, FBI records, court transcripts, and years of cold-calling witnesses, McNamara explains why Vallejo's own investigators never believed the first two murders were Zodiac's, digs into Dave Toschi's documented history of planting fan letters about himself in San Francisco papers, and reassesses Arthur Leigh Allen, the case's most famous suspect. He and Mike also cover the gulf between David Fincher's film and the real record, the glut of self-published theories clogging the true-crime shelf, and what it's like realizing you've stumbled onto an actual overlooked killer while debunking a fake one.Find more at https://feralhouse.com/zodiactually/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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Episode 811: The Outfit (1973) 28.07.2026 1год 26хв

  Donald Westlake — writing as Richard Stark — said only one movie made from a Parker novel "got the feeling right." That's John Flynn's The Outfit (1973), starring Robert Duvall as Earl Macklin, out of prison to find his brother murdered by the mob over a bank job. Rather than run, Macklin runs at them, hitting every vulnerable Outfit operation until they pay. Joe Don Baker and Karen Black co-star alongside a murderer's row of noir faces: Robert Ryan, Marie Windsor, Jane Greer, Timothy Carey, and Elisha Cook Jr.Jedidiah Ayres and Gary Phillips join Mike to dig into Westlake's dual-track career, the Parker adaptations from Point Blank to Play Dirty, Flynn's flat-and-mean style, and the film's year-long crawl across America courtesy of MGM's "smiling cobra" James Aubrey. Released in celebration of Arrow Video's new Limited Edition Blu-ray — featuring a commentary track by Mike and Jedidiah.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: A Century of Hitchcock 24.07.2026 28хв

  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.Moral traces how Spoto's personal grievances against Hitchcock — including being routinely ignored by name and bitten by the director's West Highland terrier — colored The Darkside of Genius and shaped decades of tabloid narrative. Drawing on new interviews with secretaries, screenwriters, and script supervisors who worked alongside Hitchcock, Moral makes the case for reexamining the record on Hitchcock's treatment of women, from Tippi Hedren's shifting accounts to the making of The Birds and Marnie.The conversation also revisits The Pleasure Garden on its hundredth anniversary, Hitchcock's collaboration with Salvador Dalí on Spellbound, and what a possible sixth Hitchcock book might hold. Find Tony Lee Moral's book and more of his work at tonyleemoralbooks.com.Buy the book at: https://amzn.to/4fvEBKG 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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: Rubberhead (2026) 24.07.2026 17хв

  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 validated Taylor's own outsider love of monsters.Taylor traces the six-year odyssey of Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson, from meeting Johnson at Monsterpalooza through the funding struggles of an unapologetically niche passion project. He discusses narrowing the film's circle of interview subjects to people who truly knew Johnson — including John Landis and Linnea Quigley — over chasing bigger names, and how editor Joe Krings kept the project's fan enthusiasm in check.The conversation closes with Rubberhead's Fantasia Festival world premiere and where to catch it. Follow Taylor on Instagram at @iamnicktaylor or visit americannightmare.co for updates. 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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Episode 810: Deadlock (1970) 22.07.2026 1год 30хв

  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 fever dream, backed by a Can soundtrack that makes the heat feel alive.Jessica Shires, and Spencer Parsons join Mike to dig into this criminally underseen West German neo-western — its debt to Leone, its surreal humor, its nihilist gut-punch of an ending, and why it deserves to stand alongside the genre's best.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Episode 809: Cemetery Without Crosses (1969) 15.07.2026 1год 46хв

  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 alongside the guilty.Mike talks with co-hosts Oren Shai and Professor Richard Edwards about this French-Italian-Spanish production, one of the most melancholy and formally rigorous Euro-Westerns ever made. Topics include Hossein's rejection by the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd and his debt to  fatalism, the Leone connection, Michèle Mercier's turn as one of the genre's strongest female leads, Scott Walker's haunting title song, and where the film belongs in the canon alongside The Great Silence and The Wild Bunch. 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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: We Are Pat (2025) 14.07.2026 24хв

  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 Director. The film follows a cohort of trans and non-binary comedians as they reimagine and rewrite the original Pat sketches, using camp and humor to reclaim a character whose popularity once hinged on making others uncomfortable. Julia Sweeney (Pat herself) joins the conversation, along with contributors including Molly Kearney, Murray Hill, Nori Reed, and Sabrina Wu.Haber and Mike dig into how comedy functions as both a tool of oppression and a radical force for change, and wrestle with the harder questions the film poses: how does art age, and can narratives that once mocked us be genuinely reclaimed? We Are Pat is now streaming on Prime Video and available to rent or buy on Fandango at Home. Follow the film on Instagram at @wearepatdoc.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: Fantasia 2026 12.07.2026 10хв

  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 Smoczynska's A.I. thriller Hot Spot starring Noomi Rapace, and Jenn Wexler's The Last Temptation — the Becky sequel nobody asked for but everyone needed. Closing Night belongs to The Fox, an Australian dark comedy with Olivia Colman voicing a talking fox with opinions about your fiancée.The Retro section alone is worth the trip: 35mm screenings for Robert Lepage's Le Confessionnal and Bruce McDonald's Pontypool, a 4K restoration of Paul Morrissey's Forty Deuce, and the world premiere restoration of Metal Messiah — a 1978 Canadian glam-rock sci-fi film that has been hiding in the dark for nearly fifty years. Plus, Takashi Shimizu receives a career honor and brings two new films. It's a full plate.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: Mortal Kombat II (2026) 10.07.2026 1год 19хв

  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 Slater. The film pits Earthrealm's champions against Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) and the forces of Outworld, with Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Lewis Tan, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada all returning, and Adeline Rudolph and Tati Gabrielle joining the fight as Kitana and Jade. Mike and Chris weigh in on whether the sequel improves on its predecessor or lands with all the dramatic weight of a finishing move on easy mode.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: We Are Guardians (2023) 10.07.2026 37хв

  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 sees no other way forward than continuing to cut. Mike talks with co-directors Chelsea Greene and Rob Grobman about the making of this award-winning documentary. Directed by Edivan Guajajara, Greene, and Grobman, and produced by Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens with Leonardo DiCaprio serving as executive producer, We Are Guardians has earned accolades including Best Documentary at the Raindance Film Festival, the International Green Film Award at Cinema for Peace, and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Mostra São Paulo International Film Festival. Greene and Grobman join Mike to discuss how they brought this urgent story to the screen, the challenges of filming in a contested and dangerous environment, and what they hope audiences will carry with them. Follow the film on Instagram and TikTok at @weareguardiansfilm.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: Supergirl (2026) 09.07.2026 1год 9хв

  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 Supergirl, written by Ana Nogueira and adapted from Tom King and Bilquis Evely's acclaimed comic miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. The film stars Alcock alongside Eve Ridley as Ruthye Marye Knoll, Matthias Schoenaerts as the villain Krem of the Yellow Hills, Jason Momoa as Lobo, and David Corenswet reprising his role as Superman. Mike and Chris take stock of what works, what doesn't, and what Alcock's performance promises for the character's future in the DCU — box office results notwithstanding.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: King Kong - The History of a Movie Icon 09.07.2026 37хв

  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 Movie Icon (Bloomsbury Academic). First published in 2005 as the definitive account of the King Kong phenomenon, Morton has extensively revised and expanded his original tome to cover decades of new material — from Kong's animated incarnations and stage productions to the Kong variants, spoofs, and projects that never made it to the screen. The updated edition concludes with the most recent films placing the great ape within an ever-expanding "Monsterverse," and is packed with photographs and based on extensive new research and exclusive interviews. Morton and Mike dig into the creation of the Kong character by Merian C. Cooper, the making of the 1933 original, and what it is about this particular giant ape that has kept audiences captivated across every era of cinema.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Special Report: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) 08.07.2026 1год 10хв

  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 Favreau from a screenplay by Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor. Set in the aftermath of the Empire's fall, the film finds Din Djarin and his apprentice recruited by the New Republic — represented by Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) — to take on the remnants of Imperial warlords, with Jeremy Allen White joining the cast as Rotta the Hutt. Mike and Chris break down whether the franchise's leap to theaters was a triumph or a stumble, and what it means for the future of Star Wars.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth 
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  Episode 807: Massacre Time (1966) 08.07.2026 1год 32хв

  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, their violence on every street corner. Waiting for him is his brother Jeff (George Hilton), drinking himself to death, and Junior Scott (Nino Castelnuovo), a white-suited sadist with a bullwhip and nowhere near enough supervision.Mike White, Spencer Parsons, and Joe Odber dig into Fulci's pre-horror career, Fernando Di Leo's crime-inflected screenplay, the film's feudal vision of capitalism, and the charged dynamics of the Scott family — Oedipal, theatrical, and deeply strange. They also trace Junior's lineage forward to a certain plantation dandy in a white suit.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.patreon.com/projectionbooth