The Pink Smoke podcast

In this episode, host Martin Kessler welcomes John Arminio of the Popcorn Eschaton! podcast to discuss Kevin Reynolds' underappreciated 1988 war film The Beast. Set during the second year of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, it follows a Soviet T-55 tank unit who lose their way in the mountains following a savage attack on a Pashtun village and the vengeful mujahideen soldiers tracking them, committed to destroying "the Beast." Kessler and Arminio dig into this "holy grail of tank movies" and how it smartly deals with themes of revenge and mercy, the Islam faith, Pashtunwali, overcoming language barriers and humanizing both sides of a "rotten war." Popcorn Eschaton!: https://soundcloud.com/zebras-in-america/popcorn-eschaton-1 Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

The Pink Smoke brigade is back to discuss the movies of 2023. Hosts Martin Kessler, John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg look back on a year replete with above-average horror films, new works from tenured auteurs and theoretical physicists battling it out at the box office with living dolls. The conversation naturally digs into their personal favorites, including two animated masterpieces, a kaiju showpiece, a surprising amount of mainstream and direct-to-streaming releases, and a new bona fide classic from Brazil. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers, the most tender and violent of all audiences, one week before their general release. Support our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by filmmaker & pulp paperback aficionado Steven Sheil to discuss semi-legendary, semi-forgotten crime fiction author Charles K. Williams. The group looks at a pair of nautical thrillers, Aground & its sequel Dead Calm (most famously adapted into the Billy Zane/Sam Neil classic (& also unsuccessfully adapted in yet another Orson Welles production debacle.)) Following the story of a no-nonsense charter boat captain & the charming, irrepressible widow he falls for, the aesthetic/philosophical difference between the books represents the shift happening in pulp crime in fiction of the era: the move from classic hardboiled, masculine stories to psychological thrillers concerned with the inner lives of criminals. It's a fantastic conversation about one of the most successful crime writers of his era, an author undeserving of his slow fade into obscurity. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Steven Sheil on X: https://twitter.com/SSheil The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers, the most tender and violent of all audiences, one week before their general release. {www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke} Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven often comes up in conversation about the greatest Westerns ever made, and even ones about the greatest films of the last 30 years. It served not only as a culmination of Clint's fabled career in cowboy movies but as an austere reflection on 100 years worth of Western cinema, and was lauded as the ultimate revisionist response to a genre that never tackled serious themes of violence and morality or presented a realistic portrait of life on the late 19th century American frontier. But was it really? The Pink Smoke welcomes back artist/historian David Lambert to expand upon the thoughts he presented in his epic Twitter thread examining the minutiae of its script, casting, authenticity, costuming, influences and actual place within the overall Western genre. Unforgiven is a great film, but do people even understand what it's trying to say? Lambert makes a strong case for reappraisal with hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs. David Lambert's Twitter/X thread that inspired the episode: https://twitter.com/DavidLambertArt/status/1556511206029946880?t=LgtylPHI5v2XdS5FhtDgeg&s=19 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com David Lambert on X: twitter.com/DavidLambertArt The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. {www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke} Having outmaneuvered the Outfit, shatterproof heister Parker resurfaces with a new face and a new caper. But there might be too much to watch with this armored car knockover in Jersey: a shaky accomplice, a surly waitress planning a double-cross and an oafish chauffeur looking to avenge his murdered employer. Can our criminal anti-hero juggle all these uncertain angles and still come away with a sweet boodle? Continuing our series of episodes on Richard Stark's 24-book Parker series, we jump into the slick and streamlined second book The Man With the Getaway Face, in which Stark (pen name for the legendary Donald E. Westlake) presents a line-up of memorable characters including reliable sidekick Handy McKay, broken heister Pete Skimm and the tragically obstinate Stubbs. How has the Parker character developed since his first adventure? And has this book been adapted into an obscure Mexican film or not? The Man with the Getaway Face art by Tony Stella. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Hosts Christopher Funderburg, John Cribbs & Martin Kessler are joined by legendary poster artist Tony Stella to discuss Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1981 masterpiece Quest for Fire. A personal favorite of both Kessler and Stella, this is one of the most enthusiastic & passionate conversations ever recorded for the podcast. Set 80,000 in the past, Annaud’s film, despite being positioned as high-class awards bait in Europe, plays like a rollicking and funny adventure film with more in common with The Vikings or a classic Hollywood swashbuckler than a dour and serious look at humanity’s beginning. But while the film is an expression of pure cinematic joy, it’s also a serious and thoughtful look at the origins of civilization in terms of science, language, morality, humor & emotion. An exciting conversation about a knockout film! The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Tony Stella on X: twitter.com/studiotstella Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

In this emergency bonus episode, hosts Martin Kessler and Christopher Funderburg sit down to discuss Marvel’s The Marvels of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With an all-time low box office debut for an MCU film, the hosts use the film’s various artistic, conceptual and financial failures as a jumping off point to discuss the seeming impending end of the superhero era of blockbuster cinema. From the passive performances to shoddy special effects to audience fatigue, the Kessler and Funderburg look at the failures of the film not as a celebratory “ding dong the witch is dead” moment that so many Serious Cinephiles are receiving its flop as representing, but by placing the film in the context of the larger history of popular cinema and what it means when those popular eras come to a close. It's a diagnosis of what went wrong with the film that gives full respect to what has gone right with the superhero genre for the past 20 years. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

This is it. Frank Henenlotter’s perfect six. Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg discuss one of their favorite filmmakers and his half dozen brilliant, unforgettable exploitation (not horror) films: Basket Case and its sequels, Brain Damage, Frankenhooker and Bad Biology. What more needs to be said? Put it in your ear. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke "Central County was a big, rangy county with mountains to the north and mountains to the south and a vast loneliness in between. The mountains were filled with trees and creeks. The loneliness was called the Dead Hills. They were thirty miles wide. There were thousands of hills out there: yellow and barren in the summer with lots of juniper brush in the draws and a few pine trees here and there, acting as if they had wandered away like stray sheep from the mountains and out into the Dead Hills and had gotten lost and had never been able to find their way back...poor trees..." The podcast heads west for this October's horror fiction episode, where they find a couple cowboy killers recruited from a brothel to vanquish a mischievous monster in an isolated mansion out in Eastern Oregon. Richard Brautigan's rugged, experimental, very funny The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western begins as a travelogue of turn-of-the-century frontier life and makes a drastic shift to the surreal when the two gunmen (who don't put any lace on their killings) reach their sinister assignment. Artist and American Western history expert David Lambert is on hand to offer his take on whether countercultural cult poet/novelist Brautigan passes muster as a western writer, or if Hawkline Monster is a xerox copy of an audacious literary achievement. Lambert talks with hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs about the unmistakable Brautigan-ness of the novel, how the book fares when it moves into much stranger territory in its second half, and the fascinating decades-spanning background of multiple failed movie adaptations. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com David Lambert on X: twitter.com/DavidLambertArt The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. We’re joined by screenwriter Tom Vaughan to discuss a pair of cult classics by director Gary Sherman. We dig into the small-town murder-conspiracy thriller Dead and Buried as well as the ne plus ultra sleaze-thriller Vice Squad. The strengths and weaknesses of the films make for an interesting contrast that leads into a larger discussion about the practical intersections of screenwriting and on set filmmaking (with some talk about meddling producers thrown in for good measure.) The trio compares Dead and Buried’s wonky & lumpy script (by Alien and Total Recall scribes Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett) to Vice Squad’s drum-tight story to consider how screenwriting plays into (or interferes with) making two such memorable films. It’s the Wings Hauser appreciation hour, folks, come get baptized in the neon slime. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Tom Vaughan on X: https://twitter.com/storyandplot The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke dives headfirst into the world of American pulp magazines of the 30's & 40's with two tales of derring-do featuring adventurer/scientist/detective/explorer and superhero prototype Doc Savage. Known as the Bronze Man, Savage trots the globe with his fabulous five-man brain trust facing off against all manner of ostentatious villains and colorful henchmen. Doc was the hero of 213 stories from 1933 to 1949, popularized for a new generation when revived as paperbacks between 1964 and 1990. Hosts Christopher Funderburg, Martin Kessler and John Cribbs chose two of them to read and discuss: The Fortress of Solitude and The Devil Genghis, both written by Lester Dent under the by-line "Kenneth Robeson" and published in 1938. Featuring death rays, giant amazon women and one of the most diabolical supervillains ever created who'll stop at nothing short of total world domination, the stories were so filled with action and intrigue it made each host emit a low, mellow growl subconsciously, something like the trilling of a strange bird from the jungle. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg are back with their rundown of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival! From the highest highs (The Boy and the Heron) to the lowest lows (Limbo) and the poutine in between, they take a look at the state of cinema as explicated by one of the world’s premiere film festivals. They discuss new films by Wim Wenders, Anna Kendrick, Ethan Hawke, Hayao Miyazaki, Errol Morris, Victor Erice, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, Shinya Tsukamoto and so much more - they discuss not just the highlights, but every single goddamn film they saw while in the Queen City! Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg return to the Queen City for the 48th annual Toronto International Film Festival to watch all the best in the current world of le cinema. With a line-up seemingly handcrafted to get us excited, we talk our must-see films, wildcards, and the ones we’re dreading. Included in this year’s slate are new movies by Hayao Miyazaki, Errol Morris Victor Erice, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, Shinya Tsukamoto and more …choosing which titles among the 300+ entries to see is going to be tough. Get psyched! Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

Christopher Funderburg is joined by Martin Kessler to discuss Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Bundesrepublik Deutschland trilogy: Lola, The Marriage of Maria Braun and The Longing of Veronika Voss. Collectively one of the most incisive looks at post-war West Germany and the re-birth of a nation shattered by Nazism, Fassbinder’s uncompromising and tender BRD films represent, for many, the highpoint of his legendarily prolific career. All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available a week early to our Patreon subscribers, the most sophisticated, urbane & hoity/toity of all audiences. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available one week before their general release to Patreon subscribers. Subscribe to get early access & so much more: https://www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Reality is under attack! Chaos reigns in an unnamed capital city where unwholesome apparitions exist among the besieged citizens, projected by apparatuses invented by magician/mad scientist Dr. Hoffman which modify the nature of reality itself. The city's last hope is to send a Ministry of Determination clerk on a picaresque journey to assassinate the doctor and destroy his device, a mission that will involve river cannibals, Sadeian pilgrims, religious centaurs and anatomical acrobats. This is the world of The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, written by the inimitable Angela Carter. Joining hosts Martin Kessler and John Cribbs to travel Carter's mythological landscape of desire is Melanie Daniels, producer and co-host of the Cinema Parlor Podcast. Together they attempt to traverse this almost indefinable, orgiastic blend of romanticism, horror, fantasy, surrealism, magical realism, philosophy, science fiction, Gulliver, Kafka and Conrad from one of the most unique voices in English literature. Melanie Daniels on Twitter: twittter.com/plasticwerewolf Cinema Parlor Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/cinemaparlor The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

A classic episode (utterly classic) episode released from behind the Patreon paywall. Savor it like some kind of a savory soup. Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg are joined by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire as well as Calgary's own Carly Schmidt to discuss the new film from Olivier Assayas, NON-FICTION.

What more can possibly be said about Dziga Vertov & Mikhail Kaufman's Man With a Movie Camera, one of the most studied, discussed and written-about films ever made? Is everybody sick of hearing how amazing it is? Perhaps it speaks to the film's timeless artistic energy and bold experimentation that there's always something to say about the camera techniques, radical editing and unique blending of avant-garde and documentary styles which come together using "no titles, no scenario, no actors, no sets" to create an "absolute language of cinema." To help get the best possible insight into this giant artwork, hosts Martin Kessler and John Cribbs welcome Jeremy Workman, a filmmaker who's taken inspiration from Vertov in everything from his award-winning film Lily Topples the World to his latest short documentary Deciding Vote. How has Workman trained his Kino-Eye to the subjects in front of his own movie camera? Is a one hour-long, nearly-100 year old Russian movie's impact so far-reaching that it continues to inspire modern art and filmmaking around the world? Jeremy Workman's website: www.jeremyworkman.com The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

The Pink Smoke is coming in from the cold to debrief our listeners on 100 years worth of espionage thrillers. Starting in the 1920's, we chose one notable spy movie (as well as a few alternate picks) for each decade leading to our present day in order to decode how they reflect the history and pop culture of their respective epoch. From the years leading to World War II through the Cold War and up to the modern age of counterintelligence in the time of domestic terrorism and the internet, we recruited agents John Arminio (co-host of Popcorn Eschaton!) and Bill Scurry (co-host of I Don't Get It) to analyze these cloak-and-dagger tales and what they have to say about the excitement and morality of the spy profession. In Part Two, we deal with the 1980's, an era of glorified excess in which the spy movie survived by integrating itself within other popular subgenres, and make our way up to the 2020's, a much quieter and retrospective period for espionage thrillers. In between, we discuss the most charmingly repugnant spy of them all, a rip-roaring roller coaster ride about the CIA's greatest asset with amnesia (no - not that one!), betrayals and double crosses set in the corporate world and plots critical of counterintelligence agencies that can't detect deception among their own ranks. Popcorn Eschaton!: https://soundcloud.com/zebras-in-america/popcorn-eschaton-1 I Don't Get It Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-get-it-podcast/id1205228194 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss (possibly) their favorite film of the year, Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters. This episode, recorded in 2018, was released from behind our Patreon paywall. Enjoy it. Think about it. Perhaps someday... learn to love it.

The Pink Smoke is coming in from the cold to debrief our listeners on 100 years worth of espionage thrillers. Starting in the 1920's, we chose one notable spy movie (as well as a few alternate picks) for each decade leading to our present day in order to decode how they reflect the history and pop culture of their respective epoch. From the years leading to World War II through the Cold War and up to the modern age of counterintelligence in the time of domestic terrorism and the internet, we recruited agents John Arminio (co-host of Popcorn Eschaton!) and Bill Scurry (co-host of I Don't Get It) to analyze these cloak-and-dagger tales and what they have to say about the excitement and morality of the spy profession. In Part One, we cover the 1920's through the 1970's which includes one epic silent masterpiece, various adventures set behind enemy lines during the war of nations, intimate stories of British citizens who exploit governments for personal gain, human dramas about moral degradation behind the Iron Curtain and post-Watergate paranoid thrillers. Support our Patreon! All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available a week early to our Patreon subscribers, the most open-minded and good-natured of all audiences: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Popcorn Eschaton! https://soundcloud.com/zebras-in-america/popcorn-eschaton-1 I Don't Get It Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-get-it-podcast/id1205228194 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

PSP: Pulp Fictions covers the "Bond Novel That Never Was" - crime writer Donald Westlake's FOREVER AND A DEATH! Westlake is a favorite author of hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs so they're at full force in discussing this curious posthumously published work that on the surface seems to have nothing to do with 007.

Over a decade after his high-octane cyber-punk metal mutilation fetishism monster debut Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), director-producer-writer-cinematographer-editor-star Shinya Tsukamoto truly discovered himself as an artist and filmmaker with the blue-tinted, rain-drenched fever nightmare A Snake of June (2002). His seventh feature film, it follows three characters: a sexually-repressed telephone counselor, her hygiene-obsessed husband and a mysterious, spying interloper who will disrupt and upend their domestic sterilization. Hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs revisit every monochromatic corner of this beautifully strange film, which is somehow persistently cruel yet deeply empathetic to the three characters who find themselves trapped within the oppressive confines of their urban surroundings. How much of this is a self-critique by Tsukamoto (who also plays the creepy, disembodied voyeur) on the exploitative nature of cinema itself? Is there a safe middleground between cultural subjugation and unrestrained liberation? There's a lot to discuss about this deceptively short masterwork. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available a week early to our Patreon subscribers, the most open-minded and good-natured of all audiences. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

"There's no such thing as an unfashionable hero or an unsuitable heiress." Hot off their five-hour excursion into Swishbuckler Cinema, hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg trace the sordid subgenre's origins to George MacDonald Fraser's expansive series of novels featuring Harry Paget Flashman, a self-described "scoundrel with no proper feelings" who often finds himself cowering miserably in the middle of some of the 19th century's greatest military disasters. For this episode, our hosts randomly selected Flashman's Lady (1977), the sixth book of the 12-part "Flashman Papers," to see how successful the author was at mixing rousing adventure with rakish humor. From performing the first hat trick in a cricket match to crossing swords with East Indies pirates and being enslaved in Madagascar, unscrupulous cad and insatiable lecher Flashman never misses an opportunity to represent all the worst elements of colonial Victorian England...yet somehow comes off as delightfully roguish? The discussion digs into the series' multi-layered parody of historical texts, MacDonald Fraser's irreverent razing of cultural myth and how a morally repugnant character can still be appealing as a narrator and leading character within the framework of picaresque fiction. Support our Patreon! All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available a week early to our Patreon subscribers, the most sophisticated and noble of all listeners: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by Martin Kessler to finally settle the debate of "what is art?" and "what is trash?" in cinema! Using the similarities between a Tales from the Crypt episode and a Patricia Highsmith short story as a jumping off point, the duo digs into the differences between artists and artisans, art and entertainment, high and low, product and artwork - not as a value judgement distinction but as a way of exploring the meaning of the categories into which films and literature are shifted. Superhero movies, John Carpenter, Thomas Mann, Robocop, Jaws, and Godard - what does it mean to differentiate between Art and Trash? Who's to say if Tarkovsky is better than William Castle? And why would you react negatively to drawing (or not drawing) a distinction between them? Join us for this open-minded, good-natured discussion of a highly fraught subject! Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available a week early to our Patreon subscribers, the most open-minded and good-natured of all audiences. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

On this episode, we're joined by filmmaker Bill Teck to discuss some of his favorite moments of bittersweet love in the movies. Having made One Day Since Yesterday, a documentary about Peter Bogdanovich's unsung sleeper They All Laughed, Teck knows something about cinema's most achingly romantic, heart-wrenchingly complicated relationships and crafted a list of some of the most unforgettable. We follow Teck through his picks, which include fairy tale connections and acrimonious separations set in New York, Los Angeles and an idyllic Greek Island, in the worlds of art, business and sports - even the dangerous and freewheeling streets of scenic New Jersey! Whether it's new love, love in pieces, or love in retrospect, the 24 films covered in this episode are a testament to how susceptible we are to the pitfalls and upturns of love on the big screen. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Bill Teck on Twitter: twitter.com/billteck The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Here it is. Our massive exploration of one of the most disreputable genres imaginable: The Swishbuckler. A loose collection of movies created in the mid-70s through the mid-80s parodying the classic swashbucklers of yore, swishbuckler films like Zorro The Gay Blade, Pirates, Yellowbeard and Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers are marked by their terrible comedy, penchant for grotesquerie, extreme campiness and even more extreme poor taste. This might be The Pink Smoke's most massive podcast undertaking yet: from the genre's roots in Richard Lester's Musketeers films to a send-off into the swashbuckler revival of the 90s ignited by Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, it's an improbably in-depth look at an utterly ridiculous genre for which hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs have an almost inconceivable enthusiasm. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke (Still need an explanation of what the hell is going on here? Here ya go: At the dawn of cinema, there was The Swashbuckler: intrigue, romance and derring-do that swept audiences into the colorful royal courts and handsome pirate ships from the pages of Dumas and Sabatini. Even after its post-war peak, the Swashbuckler remained the most popular of Hollywood entertainment, having made international stars of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn and modern legends of mythical heroes like Zorro, Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers and Captain Peter Blood. By the 1970's, the legacy of Fairbanks and Flynn had devolved into what we loving term the Swishbuckler: a subgenre of comedy that borrowed the same tales of adventure and romance mixed with a healthy dose of modern irreverence. For a solid decade, raunchy satires placed in historical settings marked a trail of flatulence and queasy sexual politics across American screens to an overwhelmingly hostile critical and poor commercial response. We at the Pink Smoke are so fascinated by this odd epoch of cinema that we recorded a nearly five-hour episode in which we chronicle 14 Swishbuckler "classics," trying to understand how this wave of mediocrity managed to stay afloat for 10 years in spite of marked indifference to outright derision from critics and consistently sinking box office returns. How did these always weird, sometimes nasty exercises in Golden Era grave robbing reflect the styles and attitudes of comedy of the time? How did they deal with huge movements like women's liberation? Was the heritage of the Swashbuckler respected, even while the outmoded ideals of gallantry and romance were being purposefully disrespected? If you ever asked for an in-depth analysis of this bizarre trend of parodying a bygone era of film, you've come to the right place!) The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

In 1986, NBC debuted the series Crime Story, co-created by former Chicago cop Chuck Adamson and produced by hot-off-Miami Vice Michael Mann. The show adapted an unconventional serial format in order to span three decades in the conflict between MCU detective Lt. Mike Torello (Dennis Farina) and rising mobster Ray Luca (Anthony Denison). The ambitious approach proved the downfall of the show, which was canceled after two seasons, but Mann & co. managed to create over 30 hours worth of network drama that for the first time in American television felt like one very long movie. On this episode, host John Cribbs welcomes editor/filmmaker and Über-Mann fan Eric Pfriender to discuss the feature-length pilot episode of Crime Story, directed by Abel Ferrara. In addition to revisiting the epic scope, stellar cast and pioneering direction of the pilot, they talk about the recent Michael Mann career revitalization including the debut of his new series Tokyo Vice, publication of his novel Heat 2 and promise of his upcoming $90 million biopic about Enzo Ferrari. They also get off track and talk about Heat...a lot. Midnight in the Guest Room: [email protected] Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine

All episodes of The Pink Smoke podcast are made available to Patreon subscribers a week before their general release. Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg are joined by Martin Kessler to discuss the year in movies. The conversation naturally digs into their favorite films of the year, everything from an animated French adaptation of a Japanese short story collection to the travels of Mrs. Harris to the big guns everyone is talking about by filmmakers like Mr. Play Mountain and Park Chan-wook. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

"Nobody enjoyed having pie in the sky turn into pie in the face." Keenly aware of the 1988 Chevy Chase vehicle Funny Farm (the last movie directed by George Roy Hill), hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs only recently discovered its source novel written by sports columnist and humorist Jay Cronley. In this episode, they travel into rural life along with city slickers Andy and Elizabeth Farmer, who've just bought a seemingly idyllic country home complete with a pond with two ducks, a drunken mailman who hurls letters from his truck as he roars past, and a dead body buried in the garden. The Farmers soon discover that Redbud, Oklahoma, the would-be Acorn Capital of the World, is pretty much hell on earth and do what they can to suffer through their new existence in an episodic narrative that's incredibly funny and often surprising. The hosts delight in this world Cronley created and probably quote more lines than any other book-themed episode. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Alternate summary: Elizabeth won't tell anyone she's writing a book about squirrels. She's middle-aged, pretty, and passionate - perfect for Andy, who just wants to write about casino heists. When they move to the country, she drops everything and her notebook begins to fill with poetry. But he's over-his-head and she's about to write two important words: The End. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

We get high-vallewton* with Tim Quirk, longtime cinephile and frontman of one of The Pink Smoke's favorite bands, Too Much Joy. At the height of the pandemic, Quirk initiated a binge of great movies that led him to Val Lewton's legendary run of low-budget horror films produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940's. Quirk was captivated by these deep philosophical explorations of darkness and isolation, which directly inspired songs on the latest Too Much Joy albums, Mistakes Were Made and All These Fucking Feelings. Focusing on The Seventh Victim and I Walked with a Zombie (both released in 1943), we tap into Tim's enthusiasm for the economical creepiness, profound purple dialogue and "the glitter of putrescence" that preoccupies those who inhabit the shadows of Lewton's screen. Are they the real monsters? Do we as a society have a collective death wish? Are these complex explorations of loneliness, fear and self-destruction even really horror movies? However you define them, there's no question that Lewton's films are unlike anything else. * Like, highfalutin.** ** We would at least task any other lyricists inspired by these movies to write a song that rhymes "highfalutin" with "Val Lewton." Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Tim Quirk on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tbquirk Too Much Joy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TooMuchJoyHQ The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro/Outro Music: Too Much Joy "I Met a Ghost."

On our massive new episode, hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs are joined by longtime friends of the show John Arminio and Bill Teck to discuss one of the greatest film series in the history of le cinema: the Indiana Jones tetralogy! Join them at their own podcasting Club Obi-Wan as they tackle Mr. Play Mountain’s brilliantly fun series the way Indy tackles one of Lao Che’s henchmen going after the antidote on the scattering and chaotic dance-floor. They delve deep into their shared Well of Souls to explore the role of Philip Kaufman in the creation of the character, the missed opportunity to have Danny DeVito in the series, the stunning stuntwork across the films, the moments when the comedy works or doesn’t work and why its vision of the Hebrew G-d is so powerfully beautiful. Maybe most surprisingly, as with their discussion of the most unloved film in the Star Trek series (William Shatner’s Star Trek V) the group rises to the defense of the much-detested Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Give it a listen. We have top men working on it right now. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Bill Teck on Twitter: twitter.com/billteck John Arminio on Twitter: twitter.com/QuasarSniffer The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“Only pain and suffering will make you realize who you are.” A Halloween double feature! Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg look at a pair of re-marriage thrillers in which the new spouse turns out to be diabolically psychotic: Audition and The Stepfather. Director Takashi Miike and screenwriter Donald E. Westlake (the respective creative forces behind each film) bring a masterful level of artistry and intelligence to the brutality (both physical and emotions) of the movies, taking genre filmmaking to its apex. The conversation compares the films’ depiction of the differences between feminine and masculine performance, their themes about abuse and exploitation, and what each one has to say about the nature of evil. Beware of your fantasies of a perfect family and a perfect spouse, they might kill you. All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available a week early to our Patreon subscribers, the most decisive & thoughtful of all listeners. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“I’ve looked into his eyes and seen the blackness of the beyond, the great nothing that waits for our warmth.” The podcast gets as metal as it will ever get: we’re joined by Tenebrous Kate of the Bad Books for Bad People podcast to discuss David Peak’s utterly indefensible horror novel Corpsepaint. Its snaking story slithers its way from a grimy travelogue about a pair of musicians traveling across Europe to the Ukraine to record an album into full-blown Lovecraftian apocalyptic horror. But wait, it gets worse! Murder, torture, school shootings, heroin withdraw, the cruelty of the old gods, evil goats and blood-caked fretboards, the story begins with black metal and ends with plague, cannibalism and mass death. The discussion touches on the traditions of cosmic horror, the definite but indefinable distinction between black and death metal, and the pleasures of artworks that will definitely fail any moral purity tests. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Listen to Bad Books for Bad People: www.badbooksbadpeople.com/ The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Bad Books for Bad People on Twitter: twitter.com/badbooksbadppl The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“The chaste woman loves to contemplate dawn.” Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg sit down to discuss Henri-Georges Clouzot’s masterpiece of suspense, Les Diaboliques. The film follows a pair of abused women seeking revenge on their tormentor as it builds to one of cinema’s greatest (and most diabolical) twist endings. The conversation covers Clouzot’s controversial past and working methods, why the comparisons to Hitchcock are reductive, the artistic influence of his wife Vera, why Clouzot’s Le Corbeau made both furious the Nazis and French resistance furious, and the balance of power between Clouzot’s twins masterpieces Diaboliques and The Wages of Fear. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“The trouble with us Americans is that we all want a tragedy with a happy ending.” Sophie won't tell anyone she's sleeping with her professor. He's young, handsome, and passionate - perfect for Sophie, who just wants to write about love. When they hook up, he drops everything and her notebook begins to fill with poetry. But while he's head-over-heels, she's about to write two important words: The End. We're joined by Pink Smoke 3rd mic Marcus Pinn (of Pinnland Empire) to discuss Hal Hartley's brilliant film Surviving Desire! The conversation looks at Hartley's vanishing place in the American film canon, why it's more important to repeatedly read a single paragraph from The Brothers Karamazov than to know Dostoevsky's biographical details, and the disappearance of the independent cinema landscape in which Hartley's work flourished. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Marcus Pinn on Twitter: twitter.com/PINNLAND_EMPIRE The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

For this episode in our Patreon-exclusive series on Franz Kafka’s The Trial, we’re joined by Martin Kessler to discuss unfinished masterpieces, over-finished masterpieces, post-humous puzzles, re-edits, rejiggerings, and all manner of ways in which the “completeness” of a masterpiece can remain unresolved. Naturally, Kafka’s work leads the way in the discussion, but quickly turns to artworks ranging from the various film versions of Don Quixote to Bizet’s Carmen to Blade Runner, The Confessions of Felix Krull, Zulawski’s On the Silver Globe, German’s It’s Hard to be a God, Billy Budd and The Good Soldier Schweik. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

We’re back. After an extended Covid, malaise and illness-induced hiatus, John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg return to the 47th annual Toronto International Film Festival to watch all the best in the current world of le cinema. The preview follows their traditional format: each picks 3 must-see films, 3 films to avoid & a handful of wildcards! Included in this year’s slate are North American debuts of new movies by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Sarah Polley, Jafar Panahi, Steven Spielberg, Sally El Hosaini…choosing which titles among the 300+ entries to see is going to be tough. But the experience is always unique, there are always fun discoveries and unexpected screenings, hopefully our excitement for this always monumental event is palpable on the episode! Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two”

Parker, that stoic solo brute of independent career criminals, made his debut in the pages of Richard Stark's The Hunter 60 years ago. Stark (the pseudonym under which legendary crime fiction writer Donald E. Westlake chronicled the Parker stories) introduces the world to this ultimate anti-hero at his lowest: backstabbed by a coward, shot by his own wife, ripped off for his take from a bold heist, forced to kill his way out of a prison labor camp and travel penniless cross country to New York, where he expects to enact some savage revenge on those who crossed him. Hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs revisit this first entry in the 24-book Parker series to examine what made the character so instantly intriguing and why the novel, adapted twice as the Lee Marvin-starring Point Blank and Mel Gibson-ruined Payback, seems weirdly detached from the subsequent books. What does this very readable pulp thriller have to say about lazy corporations and bad luck and monogrammed belt buckles? And the big question of the episode: when does Parker become Parker? The Hunter artwork by Tony Stella. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by critic & author Martin Kessler for the second of four episodes covering Errol Morris’ stunningly brilliant documentary television show, First Person. Filmed on Morris’ notorious documentary-interrogation device, The Interrotron, and touching on all his favorite obsessions, First Person brought Morris’ ground-breaking documentary style to the small screen. This podcast episode, titled “Wastebasket Taxon,” focuses on the episodes of First Person that looked at one of his favorite subjects: weird science. This episodes covers “Eyeball to Eyeball,” “I Dismember Mama,” “Harvesting Me,” and “Smiling in a Jar.” Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by critic & author Martin Kessler for the second of four episodes covering Errol Morris’ stunningly brilliant documentary television show, First Person. Filmed on Morris’ notorious documentary-interrogation device, The Interrotron, and touching on all his favorite obsessions, First Person brought Morris’ ground-breaking documentary style to the small screen. This podcast episode, titled “Likely Heroes,” focuses on the episodes of First Person that looked the rarest of all subjects in Morris’ oeuvre: heroes. Possibly. Maybe. Arguably heroes. This episodes covers “The Little Gray Man,” “Leaving the Earth,” “You’re Soaking in It!,” and “Mr. Debt.” Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by critic & author Martin Kessler for the second of four episodes covering Errol Morris’ stunningly brilliant documentary television show, First Person. Filmed on Morris’ notorious documentary-interrogation device, The Interrotron, and touching on all his favorite obsessions, First Person brought Morris’ ground-breaking documentary style to the small screen. This podcast episode, titled “Crime (Adjacent) Stories,” focuses on the episodes of First Person that looked at people embroiled in crime without being criminals themselves. This episodes covers “The Killer Inside Me,” “In The Kingdom of the Unabomber,” “The Only Truth,” “The Stalker,” and “The Parrot.” Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by critic & author Martin Kessler for the first of four episodes covering Errol Morris’ stunningly brilliant documentary television show, First Person. Filmed on Morris’ notorious documentary-interrogation device, The Interrotron, and touching on all his favorite obsessions, First Person brought Morris’ ground-breaking documentary style to the small screen. This podcast episode, titled "The Best and the Brightest," focuses on the episodes of First Person that explored the inscrutable nature of human intelligence. This episode covers “Stairway to Heaven,” “The Smartest Man in the World,” “One in a Million Trillion,” and “Mr.Personality.” Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“I want to kill someone but everybody’s already dead.” Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg sit down to discuss Tom Piccirilli’s grotesque Southern Gothic novel A Choir of Ill Children. This movie comes via a recommendation from author Stephanie Crawford, who paired it with John Farris’ All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes by on our episode about that book. It’s a deeply eerie and unsettling book, in utterly poor taste in the best possible sense. Their discussion digs into the books’ diffuse plot, the gentrification of horror/exploitation genres and what happens when the ham is in the house. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss Jim Thompson's haltingly bizarre crime novel THE GOLDEN GIZMO, originally published in 1954 as part of a flood of work by Thompson following the success of THE KILLER INSIDE ME. GIZMO, however, is based on a manuscript written by Thompson years earlier and rejected by publishers until demand for Thompson's work resurrected it. Visit The Pink Smoke site: http://thepinksmoke.com/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheLastMachine https://twitter.com/thepinksmoke

“You are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory.” Martin Kessler returns to take a trip down memory lane, joining John Cribbs in conversation about Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall. Since its release in 1990, Verhoeven's consciousness-expanding roller coaster ride has remained a mind-blowing anomaly, a fusion of high-minded philosophical science fiction and pulse-pounding big Hollywood action that thrilled audiences even as it explored the dangers of sinking too far into escapist fantasy. Kessler and Cribbs discuss the wonders of Verhoeven's epic achievement, its source material (the Philip K. Dick head trip "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale") and the decade-long aborted attempts to bring it to the screen. Grab a Johnnycab and join our hosts as they dive into the ultimate vacation reverie/nightmare - open your mind and get your ass to Mars! Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Martin Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

In 1985, William "Hurricane Billy" Friedkin was back on the streets with the savage and illusive policier To Live and Die in L.A. Filmed with gritty precision, photographed in painterly textures by the immortal Robby Müller and encompassing one scorcher of an extended city-wide high-speed pursuit that leaves even the celebrated chase from The French Connection in the dust, the movie electrified the screen yet couldn't produce a spark critically or commercially. It has since been rightfully recognized as a classic, much to the satisfaction of hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs who sit down to review the fatal errors of Richard Chance, Rick Masters and John Vukovich on the blood-red scorched inland valleys of the City of Angels. A would-be presidential assassin exploding midair, bungee jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge, the intricate art of creating "funny money," a foot chase at an airport terminal, canvases set ablaze, kabuki-inspired performance artists, dumpster death, strip club stoolies, botched stakeouts, prison yard hits, a sleazy lawyer who work both sides, a speedy escape down a wrong way street, Steve friggin' James - there are a million reasons to love this movie. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“You just like children. Have eyes but don't see. You try live in taiga, soon dead.” We’re joined by illustrator and poster designer Tony Stella to discuss what might be Akira Kurosawa’s most neglected masterpiece, Dersu Uzala! The trio discusses where the film, an unexpected Russian-Japanese co-production, fits into the filmography of a filmmaker any reasonable cinephile would consider to be among the greatest to ever do it. Coming shortly on the heels of Kurosawa’s suicide attempt, Dersu represents a strange spiritual transformation for the filmmaker but one that led directly to his stunning creative rebirth with Kagemusha, Ran and Dreams. The film follows a Russian army officer in the early 20th century on a series missions exploring the far reaches of the taiga on the border between Russia and China. On his initial trip into the extreme and unforgiving wilderness, he meets the titular character, a strange woodsman who yells at fire, shoots with supernatural accuracy, and knows the landscape better than anyone who ever lived. It’s the story of an unlikely friendship between impressive, seemingly indomitable men. Tony Stella on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studiotstella/ The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

On this episode, The Pink Smoke welcomes back podcaster and physical media maven Brian Saur to bite into the succulent apple that is The Lady Eve. The gleaming center of an unparalleled four-year, 7-movie run of masterpieces from the peerless Preston Sturges, Eve strikes an immaculate balance of comedy that is high and low brow, impressions of love both cynical and romantic, and a leading lady who's positively anything but good and positively anything but bad. With a top-to-bottom phenomenal cast including Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette and William Demarest breathing life into Sturges' brilliant dialogue and deftly executing his pratfalls, it's hard to argue against this movie being the pinnacle of Hollywood's age of slapstick. Along with co-host Elric Kane on the Pure Cinema Podcast, Brian originated the phrase "handshake film" to describe great movies that are easy for fellow cineastes to bond over and The Lady Eve is certainly that. Like Brian, hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs are huge Sturges fans who find every frame of Eve irresistible, so this episode quickly turns into a gush session in which they quote favorite lines, deconstruct favorite scenes and have a great time doing it! Just the Discs on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCffVK8TcUyjCpr0F9SpV53g The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Brian Saur on Twitter: twitter.com/bobfreelander Pure Cinema Podcast on Twitter: twitter.com/PureCinemaPod The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“It came to Mr. Blood, as he trudged forward under the laden appletrees on that fragrant, delicious July morning, that man - as he had long suspected - was the vilest work of God, and that only a fool would set himself up as a healer of a species that was best exterminated.” Join hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs on the high seas as they celebrate the 100th anniversary of Rafael Sabatini's seminal swashbuckler Captain Blood. Detailing the odyssey of Dr. Peter Blood from his unjust persecution in the Bloody Assizes to his enslavement on the sugar plantations of Barbados and escape to a spectacular career as the most feared and beloved buccaneer on the Caribbean, it's the very definition of a page-turner that transported the romance and adventure of Dumas into the 20th century. Famously adapted by Michael Curtiz as the 1935 classic starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Sabatini's tale of honor and morality is as timeless now as it was 100 years ago. Our hosts glide through a rip-roaring narrative that chronicles Blood outfoxing a Spanish Admiral, crossing swords with lascivious pirate Levasseur, sacking the cities of Maracaybo and Cartagena with his fellow Brethen of the Coast and romancing the unattainable heart of Arabella Bishop, the niece of his greatest enemy! The flags fly and the cannons roar as Sabatini reshapes the adventure novel for the next century. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

We're joined by Steven Sheil, co-curator of the Mayhem Film Festival, to discuss this fantastic 50's crime novel written by H. Vernor Dixon, a truly obscure author who deserves more attention. Sheil describes the surprisingly literary book as Westlake's Parker combined with The Great Gatsby!