The Projection Booth Podcast

In Joan Micklin Silver's Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979) John Heard plays Charles, a lovelorn man who pines for Laura (Mary Beth Hurt), who's taking a break from her relationship with Ox (Mark Metcalf).Produced by Metcalf, Amy Robinson, and Griffin Dunne, the film was initially released as Head Over Heels with a ridiculous advertising campaign that didn't capture the true spirit of the movie. Fortunately, the film was given another chance with a new ending and its proper title.Bill Ackerman and Daniel Kremer (who's writing a book about Joan Micklin Silver) join Mike to discuss the film, which is finally getting a proper Blu-Ray release.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmaker Greg Travis discusses his career from his days doing stand-up, to his acting (Watchmen, Starship Troopers, Showgirls), and the 30 years-in-the-making Dark Seduction.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jerry Schatzberg's Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) stars Faye Dunaway as Lou Andreas Sand, a model who has been used up and discarded by the fashion industry. Her former photographer and lover, Aaron (Barry Primus) interviews Lou, allowing screenwriter Carole Eastman to take the audience back and forth in a fracture time structure, allowing us to see the pieces of the puzzle that is Lou.Bill Ackerman and Daniel Kremer join Mike to discuss this fascinating and once difficult-to-find film.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Britain's ground-breaking 2000 AD comic introduced a raft of vital artists and writers along with indelible characters like Judge Dredd, Halo Jones, Strontium Dog, and more. The documentary Future Shock! The Story of 2000 AD (2014) tells the story of the ups and downs of this influential work.Director Paul Goodwin and producer Sean Hogan discuss the creation of Future Shock!.Josh Hadley joins Mike to reminisce about comics and the film adaptations of various 2000 AD stories.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrei Tarkovsky 's Stalker (1979) is a deceptively simple film about three men who venture into the verdant and mystical "Zone" in search of a room where their innermost desires will come true. Based loosely on Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkadiy Strugatskiy, the film becomes a meditative experience about art, religion, and logic.Elric Kane and Joe Yanick join Mike to discuss this unusual "science fiction" film.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fellow Detroiter Ted Raimi discusses how he got into acting, what it's like having Michigan recreated in New Zealand, his work in Lunatics a Love Story, and much more in this interview.Learn more about Ted at his website: http://www.tedraimi.com/Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1949 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's short story, The Rocking Horse Winner (adapted and directed by Anthony Pélissier) is an intense family melodrama shot like a horror film. The film stars John Howard Davies as Paul Grahame, a young boy desperate to bring his mother happiness.Maitland McDonagh joins Mike to discuss this poignant work.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this special episode of The Projection Booth, we're looking at the 1962 film from Roger Corman, The Intruder. The film stars William Shatner as Adam Cramer, a stranger who comes to the Southern town of Caxton, a town on the brink of school integration. Cramer is there to stop integration or, moreover, he’s there to stir up trouble.The film was written by Charles Beaumont who based the screenplay on his own novel of the same name.Elric Kane and Chris Stachiw join Mike to discuss this remarkable and disturbing film that demonstrates how a demagogue can rise to power by stoking the fires of fear and hatred.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sadly, Miguel Ferrer has passed away. For some reason I have been sitting on the remainder of our interview with him from the Robocop episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vincenzo Natali and Jeffrey Babcock join Mike to look at the 1973 film from René Laloux, Fantastic Planet . Also known as La Planète Sauvage, this animated film was based on a book by Stefan Wul called Oms en série with visuals designed by Roland Topor of the Panic Movement. The film tells the tale of a world where exist as pets and pestilence to the Draags, 39 feet high blue-skinned creatures who enjoy meditation.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's more from the composer of the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls soundtrack, Stu Phillips. Find out more about Stu at http://www.stuwho.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Director Steven Okazaki discusses his latest documentary, Mifune: The Last Samurai. The film highlights Toshiro Mifune's samurai films, especially those he made with Akira Kurosawa.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russ Meyer's first of two films for 20th Century Fox is a swinging quasi-sequel to Jacqueline Susann's tawdry Valley of the Dolls. Written by Roger Ebert, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) tells the tale of a female rock group who move out to Hollywood only to find it a cess-pool of broken dreams where only the strong and pure of heart survive.Interviews include Doyle Green (Lips, Hits, Tits, Power: The Films of Russ Meyer), Dolly Read-Martin (Kelly), Marcia McBroom(Pet), Erica Gavin (Roxanne), John Lazar (Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell), Stu Phillips (Composer), and Lynn Carey (Vocals).Joining Mike this week are Heather Drain and Jordan Blossey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike talked to producer Randall Emmett about his career (Narc, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Lone Survivor) and the long journey Martin Scorsese's Silence (2016) took to get to the silver screen.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence, the word and the act.A trio of busty go-go dancers (Tura Santana, Haji, Lori Williams) kill a man in the desert and kidnap his girlfriend before attempting to rob a lascivious old man and his two sons in the heated melodrama Faster, cat! Kill! Kill! (1965) from auteur Russ Meyer.Beth Accomando and Miguel Rodriguez of the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival join Mike to discuss this paean to female power and fast cars. Guest Dean DeFino is the author of the Cultography on Faster, cat! Kill! Kill!, while Jimmy McDonogh penned Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Lone Wolf & Cub Films (also known as the Babycart Films, the Kozure Okami Films, the Shogun Assassin series and more) are six movies released from 1972-1974 starring Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Itto, the Shogun's decapitator. After he's framed by the villainous Yagyu clan, he travels the countryside with his young son in a tricked-out baby cart as an assassin and son for hire. Adapted from the manga by author Kazuo Koike, the films are both gorgeously contemplative and gory bloodbaths.Geoff Todd and Axel Kohagen join Mike to discuss the original manga, the television adaptations, the 1989 follow-up film, the 1992 reboot, and a handful of influences that the films have had on American popular culture.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Initially lambasted by critics, John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) was a brilliant adaptation of John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There?. The film tells the story of a dozen men in Antarctica who are infiltrated by an alien shapeshifter.Interviews include authors John Kenneth Muir (The Films of John Carpenter), Jez Conolly (Devil’s Advocates: The Thing), actors Joel Polis (Fuchs), Thomas G. Waites (Windows), and cinematographer Dean Cundey.Patrick Bromley of the F This Movie podcast and El Goro of the Talk Without Rhythm podcast join Mike on this very special episode.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lemon Popsicle (AKA Eskimo Limon AKA Going All the Way) is a heartfelt 1978 coming-of-age sex comedy written and directed by Boaz Davidson and produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.Mike talks with writer/director Boaz Davidson, star Zachi Noy, and star of the Lemon Popsicle remake, Last American Virgin, Diane Franklin.Oren Shai and Heather Drain join Mike to discuss the original film, the American remake, and the 8(!) other films in the series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sam Fuller's Run of the Arrow (1957) tells the tale of O'Meara (Rod Steiger) the man who shot the last bullet of the Civil War. Disenfranchised by Reconstruction, he heads west to live with the Sioux (lead by Charles Bronson). Relevant in 1957 when the U.S. was tearing itself apart over Civil Rights, the film is still as relevant in today's tumultuous times.Filmmaker Samantha Fuller discusses A Fuller Life (2013), the documentary about her father's life, while Christa Fuller offers insight about the making of Run of the Arrow. Paul Talbot, author of Bronson's Loose!: The Making of the Death Wish Films, discusses Charles Bronson's career and the times he played Native Americans in film.Joining Mike are film scholar Cullen Gallagher and Joseph Maddrey, author of The Quick, the Dead and the Revived: The Many Lives of the Western Film.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Projection Booth celebrates our 300th episode with Russell Mulcahy's Highlander (1986), a science fiction/fantasy film in which immortals fight through time until only two remain -- Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) and The Kurgan (Clancy Brown). Though originally a box office flop, the film found new life on cable and VHS before spawning a bizarre franchise.The film's director, Russell Mulcahy, and original screenwriter, Gregory Widen, discuss their relationship with Highlander. Josh Hadley and Mike Thompson join Mike White in unravelling the many incarnations of the film's progeny.