The Pink Smoke podcast

“Jim, you don't ask the Almighty for his I.D.” It’s something you didn’t dream was possible, the unlikeliest scenario in all the universe: four people sitting down together in praise of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg are joined by a pair of friends the show (perhaps the best friends of the show), John Arminio and Bill Teck, in defense of one of the least-defended films in all of le cinema. The group discusses the pros (and undeniable cons) of the film: from the brilliant casting of virtual unknown Laurence Luckinbill as the Vulcan prophet Sybok to what makes a Star Trek film Star Trek-y to how the success and genial humor of Star Trek IV got the series pointed in the wrong direction. Each of the group has a different perspective and relationship to the series, so the discussion approaches from a variety of directions the seemingly unapproachable task of recusing the film’s reputation. Join us for a trip to the great beyond and the fraudulence to be found there. 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"

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss the "voodoo" thriller that was adapted for the screen into John Schlesinger's The Believers as well as the real-life criminal enterprises inspired by the book/movie. It's a story of oblivious racism, NYC grime, goofy acronyms & the endless recounting of what our hero read in research files.

“The Experiment is The Experiment.” We’re joined by critic & filmmaker Martin Kessler to discuss the Strugatsky Brothers’ magnum opus, The Doomed City. Long self-suppressed by the brothers due to fears of retribution by Soviet government under which it was written, the book has a potency and imagination that rivals their best work like Hard to Be a God (adapted into the legendary film by Alexei German) and Roadside Picnic (adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky into the all-time classic Stalker.) The story concerns a bizarre city operating unstuck from time under the incomprehensible parameters of an opaque social-metaphysical project known only as The Experiment. Theological novel, pointed political allegory, mind-bending sci-fi story; like the land of The Experiment itself, The Doomed City is an ever-changing landscape with mysteries apt to be interpreted wildly differently depending on who is doing the interpreting. We go deep on this challenging but wildly engaging masterpiece from some of the most important science-fiction writers ever to exist. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Martin Kessler on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MovieKessler 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"

The great Bill Duke, immortalized onscreen for his roles in Car Wash, Predator, Action Jackson, The Limey and Mandy, also boasts a distinctive five-decade career directing film and television. On this episode, hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs welcome back Pinnland Empire guru Marcus Pinn to discuss Duke's 1984 feature debut, The Killing Floor. After premiering on the PBS American Playhouse series, winning the Special Jury Prize at Sundance and being chosen as an Official Selection of the "La Semaine de la Critique" section at Cannes, the movie practically disappeared from sight until its recent 4k restoration and preservation by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Set during a period of migration of Southern black workers to the giant Chicago slaughterhouses during the first World War, Killing Floor concerns the struggle to build an interracial union even as meatpacking management actively plotted to divide the workface along ethnic lines, a conflict which boiled over in the race riots of 1919. Featuring early performances from Alfre Woodard and Dennis Farina, an exhaustively researched screenplay by Leslie Lee (from a story by producer Elsa Rassbach) and assured direction from Duke, it's a film that deserves more recognition for both its subject matter and its own time and place in American filmmaking. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Marcus Pinn on Twitter: https://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"

"I do know my room was so cold in winter and so hot in summer I couldn't sleep. Your house looked like heaven, high up there. That's how I began to hate you." On this episode hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs discuss the namesake of this very site, Akira Kurosawa's intense crime masterpiece High and Low! A long-standing favorite of the Pink Smoke, its founders are always excited to dig into this thriller about the harrowing moral decisions forced into play by a botched kidnapping. The film's unique structure moves from a single-set drama about corporate back-stabbing to an expansive police procedural that winds its way through every level of Tokyo and, consequently, shifts its focus from Toshiro Mifune as an executive under pressure to Tatsuya Nakadai as the detective chasing down every lead. Brilliant from start to finish, there's a case to be made that High and Low represents the culmination of the finest era in the Japanese master's body of work. 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"

"Move over Judith Krantz and Jackie Collins... JUICY!" - Booklist Cupid's arrow has struck the Pink Smoke on St. Valentine's Day, and they've decided to give some love to that most disrespected of genre fictions: the romance novel. Recruiting beach-read paperback enthusiast Melanie Daniels from the Cinema Parlor Podcast, hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg access the world of glamorous women and their lusty affairs with truculent suitors via Fame & Fortune by Kate Coscarelli. Known to cinephiles as author of the Phantasm novelization (and mother of Phantasm writer-director Don Coscarelli), Kate produced six salacious books dealing with the steamy lives of rich widows, lonely housewives, ambitious businesswomen and rising starlets struggling to stay on top in the cutthroat upper class society of Los Angeles. Fame & Fortune deals with the circle of friends of one Peach Malone, super-wealthy widow of Drake "Midas" Malone trying to regain control of her estate following the death of her Prince Charming. Her friends include Grace Gable, a hairdressing entrepreneur harboring a dark secret; Maggie Hammond, blossoming interior designer with two smoky beacons for eyes like a Keane painting; Laura Austin, frail wife of an in-demand doctor whose own eyes have shifted to Hollywood's hottest sex symbol Ghilly Jordan; and Belinda Cornwall, the absolute doyenne of Los Angeles society - the lady with the whim of iron! Coscarelli juggles this large cast of characters as they struggle to wrest back dominance of their own lives by outsmarting, upstaging and maybe even murdering the gorgeous brutes who stand in their way. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Melanie Daniels on Twitter: twitter.com/plasticwerewolf 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"

Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs discuss the new, posthumously-published novel from the great crime novelist, Donald Westlake - author of the Parker & Dortmunder books. Westlake is a Pink Smoke favorite and the podcast has previously covered Forever and a Death (a script for a James Bond movie converted into a novel) and Double Feature (a pair of novellas about violence in Hollywood.) The story of a woman putting off responding to a marriage proposal by contracting a New York cabby to drive her to Los Angeles rather than flying there, Call Me a Cab is a bit of a change-up for Westlake. Instead of a dark thriller like The Hunter and The Ax or a clever, genial crime story like The Hot Rock, this latest novel is a low-key romance built around a meandering road-trip. It’s a unique story and approach by an author from who you would least expect it. 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 pay tribute to the recently deceased Peter Bogdanovich, considering his work both as a filmmaker and a cinephile by exploring his list of the best American films of 1939 (the year of his birth). We’re joined by Bill Teck, the director of One Day Since Yesterday, a loving celebration of Bogdanovich’s They All Laughed - a box office & critical failure only now being rediscovered in no smart part because of Teck’s documentary. Bogdanovich's list includes screwball comedies, adventure films, melodramas, westerns, movies that (most importantly to Bogdanovich) express the personalities & emotions of their directors. The trio connects these films to Bogdanovich’s life and work, Teck’s experiences with the man himself & a discussion of the cruelty of Bogdanovich’s critical burial and deserving resurrection. The episode includes a healthy “fuck you” to Hal Needham. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Bill Teck on Twitter: twitter.com/billteck John Cribbs on Twitter: twiiter.com/TheLastMachine 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 his old friend Adam Leon to discuss Leon’s new film Italian Studies. Starring Vanesse Kirby (The Queen, Mission Impossible: Fallout, Pieces of a Woman), the film follows an author who suffers a psychotic break and wanders Manhattan, joining up with a group of random teenagers in attempt to take ahold of herself and her identity once again. The discussion touches on Leon’s sudden success with the SxSW-winning, Cannes-selected Gimme the Loot, the weird intersection of success and failure that came with his follow-up film Tramps, and the risks of making a film that you know will be divisive like Italian Studies. Leon talks about the process of working with an actress like Kirby on a somewhat experimental film, how he found the film’s teenager actors, and why his film’s titles are always awful. 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 Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss the year in movies. The conversation naturally touches on their favorite films of the year but more than that, the duo discusses why they rarely do these “year in review” pieces anymore and how their approach to cinema has changed as they’ve gotten older. By the end of the conversation can they find a way to balance their negativity about the current state of things with their lifelong love of film? No. The answer is no. 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"

"Not even death is static like a picture is. If you look at a corpse long enough, you see things move beneath the skin, as real and liquid as the blood in your own veins." What is Generation Loss? Is it a crime novel about a jaded never-was photographer turned leather-clad gumshoe? Is it a horror story about furry weasel-like "fishers" stalking tourists in rural Maine? Or maybe it's a dark melodrama about art and redemption in which a middle-aged alcoholic is forced to channel the energy normally reserved for self-damage to save a young girl from a reclusive, decades-old evil? Hosts Chris Funderburg and John Cribbs struggle to get a handle on genre-flipping Elizabeth Hand's Shirley Jackson Award-winning novel, the first of a series featuring tattooed shutterbug Cass Neary. 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”

"A captain's job is a lonely one. He's easily misunderstood." On this episode, we welcome back John Arminio and his father, Captain Tom Arminio, USN, Retired, to tackle a double feature of classic WWII-set Naval melodramas: 1954's The Caine Mutiny and 1955's Mister Roberts. Both films deal with the tricky subject of bad military leadership, how it trickles down the ranks and threatens the effectiveness of an entire ship. Whose is the worst captain, Humphrey Bogart's erratic and incompetent Queeg or James Cagney's oppressive and oblivious Morton? When is the right time for officers to take a stand against a potentially mad or tyrannical leader? When is the right time to pitch the palm tree into the ocean? Organizing movie screenings and discussions with his geographically separated family during the height of the pandemic, John Arminio has enjoyed regular movie talks with his father, whose 24 years of Naval experience give him a unique insight into these depictions of faulty leadership on the decks of wartime ships. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Arminio on Twitter: twitter.com/QuasarSniffer John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

“Perhaps when one is about to die one sees every kind of bird pass; when one sees the crow it means one’s time has come.” A bit of a weird one: hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg each picked a “war story” to discuss. The podcast loves to dig into short stories (in the past it has looked at everything from Edogawa Ranpo to Patricia Highsmith) and, as a way of exploring the short fiction format, this episode deeps on a pair of only tangentially stories brought together around a loose theme. The two “war stories” selected are Harlan Ellison’s hugely influential sci-fi classic “Soldier” and Italo Calvino’s bizarre & poetic “The Crow Comes Last.” While these two stories couldn’t be more different in approach, the conversation ends up being surprisingly revealing about both works and how they relate to each other. At very least, it provides the hosts an opportunity to talk about two of their absolute favorite authors! All episodes of the Pink Smoke podcast are available to Patreon subscribers a week before their release to the general public! 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 Daniel Craig Era of James Bond has officially ended, allowing John Cribbs and special guest John Arminio to conclude their comprehensive review of every Bond movie, which they began in April of 2020 (the original premiere date of the much-delayed No Time to Die!) Starting with 2006's series reboot Casino Royale and finishing with their thoughts on the latest 007 adventure, Cribbs & Arminio reminisce on the things that got them excited and the things that made them disappointed in the last 15 years of the fabled franchise. Why did Craig always have to be a rogue agent? Why was he so bad at protecting women? Did SPECTRE really need to subsidize Quantum? Was the overall characteristic of Craig's superspy really embarrassing failure? These are just some of the questions tackled by our duo of double 0 analysts as they wrap up the Pink Smoke's series of Bond reevaluation. And don’t fail in your duty to check out our previous Bond episodes: Bond in the Brosnan Era: http://thepinksmoke.com/PSP74BondBrosnan.html Bond in the 80s I: thepinksmoke.com/PSP62Bondinthe80sI.html Bond in the 80s II: thepinksmoke.com/PSP63Bondinthe80sII.html Bond in the 70s: soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-564624820/psp-ep58-james-bond-in-the-70 spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/2t6MQIIbFBKzzKfdtZaQ9x apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-5…i=1000489551247 Bond in the 60s: soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-564624820/psp-ep52-james-bond-in-the-60s spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3g6UHop4amOmuBpljaxx3F apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-5…i=1000506773799 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Arminio on Twitter: twitter.com/QuasarSniffer John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

“Bad luck isn't brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds.” This is it: our mammoth exploration of the work of Italian aesthete Dario Argento. Hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs are joined by filmmaker and illustrator Patrick Horvath to explore the career of one of horror cinema's most notorious and beloved artists. They cover it all, from the brilliant beginnings of the "animal trilogy" of The Bird with Crystal Plumage, Cat O' Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet to the some of the highest points in the history of horror cinema with Suspiria and Deep Red all the way through to the bitter end. They pair each of the films from Argento's golden era with a film from the more dispiriting later portion of the filmmaker's career in order to explore the continuity of his themes and artistic ideas. They look in-depth at the classics like Opera and Inferno while keeping their eyes open for silver linings such as his two Masters of Horror entries and his "Max von Sydow teams up with a parrot to solve mysteries" late-giallo Sleepless. It's here, the most comprehensive podcast study of one of the artists who defined the genre. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Patrick Horvath on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PatrickHorvath 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"

“Looks like his pecker was blowed off, Lydell.” Join hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs as they team up with film writer and podcast stalwart Stephanie Crawford for a journey down to Dasharoons, an idyllic Arkansas estate where you can expect scenic sunsets, Creole dishes and the occasional testicle explosion. That's right - for our annual October horror read, we delved into the pages of All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By, a lyrical and trashy epic of 70's genre fiction written by John Farris! This southern gothic gets going quickly and doesn't stop barreling down its dark and twisted hill. A groom runs amok and slashes family members with a ceremonial saber at his own military academy wedding. A fingernail-less detective investigates a series of inexplicable lightning bombs. A traumatized WWII soldier might be possessed by the spirit of his decapitated father. Somehow it all involves magical vengeance and an ambidextrous Voodoo rainbow serpent-goddess (could it be otherwise?) It's all Crawford and our hosts can do to keep their heads above the putrid water of this book's strange, fascinating, tawdry world. You can get updates on Stephanie Crawford’s most recent publications and podcast appearances on House of a Reasonable Amount of Horrors: hoaraoh.com. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Stephanie Crawford: twitter.com/scrawfish 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"

For October's horror fiction pick, The Pink Smoke welcomes back Wendy Mays of the Pet Cinematary and Losers Pod podcasts to talk about the swarm of killer-cats-descending-on-rural-Long Island-community classic Feral by Berton Roueche. Among the topics discussed: if it's possible to sympathize with city couples who abandon kittens on the side of the road at the end of the summer, the right way to deal with cannibalistic strays who decide to add human flesh to the menu and whether or not a 1991 TV movie totally ripped off Roueche's novel. Snuggle up with your favorite feline and follow along! The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com/ The Losers podcast: https://theloserspod.podbean.com/ Pet Cinematary podcast: https://petcinematary.podbean.com/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

“A guy wants to name his cock ‘Macho,’ it’s fine by me.” We’re joined by filmmaker Bill Teck to discuss the latest film from Clint Eastwood, Cry Macho. Mr. Teck previously joined us to discuss Eastwood’s 2019 film Richard Jewell and remains our favorite person with whom to discuss the 91 year-old star-auteur. We place the film within the larger context of Eastwood’s complicated career and its nearing end. The film follows a deeply washed-up rodeo star who travels to Mexico City on behalf of his former boss to find the man’s teenage son. We discuss how the film takes on the gentle rhythms of its aged star’s physical movements, the sweetness and generosity of its approach, and how satisfying it is to watch Eastwood slowly pet animals that are clearly calmed by his presence. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Bill Teck on Twitter: twitter.com/billteck 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"

Aleksei German month at The Pink Smoke kicks off with this primer spearheaded by Martin Kessler of the Flixwise: Canada podcast. Kessler is one of the English-speaking world's leading authorities on German - this episode is intended as an entry-point into the filmmaker's work, a titan of Russian cinema who remains surprisingly unknown outside of his native land.

Hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs dig into the work of the Belgian author Georges Simenon via his crime novel La tête d’un homme, featuring his wildly popular character Inspector Maigret. The ultra-prolific Simenon wrote 11 novels in 1931, the year that he wrote La tête, and rarely slowed down during his legendary career - even at the reduced pace of his later years, he would purportedly write a novel in 11 days. La tête d’un homme (also known as A Man’s Head or Maigret’s War of Nerves) begins with the story of a prisoner escaping from prison... with the unexpected help of Maigret. From there, it builds to a confrontation with a criminal whose manner & belief system disturbs the detective on a profound level. It’s a classic of detective fiction - we discuss its place in culture, the film adaptations, and how to approach Simenon’s work even as a total novice. 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"

How do you solve the aesthetic-philosophical problem of Michael Ritchie, the not-quite-auteur/not-quite-journeyman director of satirical social comedies like The Candidate and Smile and such eccentric comedy classics as The Bad News Bears and Fletch? Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs decided to go at it the hard way by diving into Prime Cut, Ritchie's sort-of second feature (it debuted a day before The Candidate) - hands-down his weirdest and nastiest movie. What on the page seems like an easy grand slam - a 70's crime thriller that pits an M76-packing Lee Marvin against Gene Hackman under the vast and gorgeous Kansas sky - is in practice more an outlandish curio with its scenes of mob rivals fed through a slaughterhouse, young naked women auctioned in pens like cattle and extended set piece featuring Marvin and rookie star Sissy Spacek running from a deadly combine harvester that threatens to harvest them. Is it a case of Ritchie tripping himself up, finding his sensibilities as a filmmaker at odds with the gritty material, or is there more to it than that? Join us in appreciating the clear merits and murkier demerits of this bizarre tale of meat and machine guns. 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"

"Bright blazing intuitions may go rushing through a man’s mind, swifter and more terrible than lightning, flashing over a landscape that seems clear in every detail. Then they go out, and there is only a greater blackness." Nothing is what it seems - unless everything is what it seems - in the account of an eloping couple's ill-fated voyage from New York to Vermont. What strange fate befell this Amish-raised lollapalooza and her gabardine suit-garbed coxcomb on a backroad in the Berkshires? And what does it have to do with a freckled-faced city surgeon, a refugee Basque surrealist artist, the author of an arduous text on psychopathology and the postmaster of Whippleville? Joel Townsley Rogers's The Red Right Hand is a cipher of crime fiction, a phantasmagoria of molds, tramps, ration books, brain surgery, eyeless houses, sawdust sinkholes, red-eyed rattlesnakes, prewar crepe-soled sports shoes and the beautiful dance of the corkscrew and the bottle. Confused? That's only to be expected when you make the turn onto the old Swamp Road and find yourself transfixed by the chimerical logic of what seems like a straightforward story of murder until it distorts and disorients the narrative into a truly unique reading experience. In this episode, Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs veer into this Bermuda Triangle of murky prose - is it all pulp and circumstance or a meticulously fathomless work of art? Together they wade through Rogers's curious cast of characters, casual allusions to alternative history and obsessive repetition of superficially trivial details to reach the elusive epicenter of this crazy book, the very definition of a cult classic. 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 Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by Professor of Sociology John Balzarini to discuss the latest installment in the Marvel Comics Universe.

“Don’t gush over the sea. It’s always been there.” It's a “Jean Gabin is getting too for this shit” double feature! On this episode, hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs discuss two unforgettable French crime films: Jacques Becker's Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) and Henri Verneuil's Any Number Can Win (1963), both starring the grandfather of quiet cool, M. Jean Gabin. Playing aging gangsters intent on making off with that last big score, the legendary leading man slipped into these late-career roles like a comfy pair of silk pajamas - and looked amazing in those pajamas, too. Eyeing longtime Pink Smoke favorite Grisbi like a coveted bar of gold, the guys question why it's so difficult to contextualize such an obvious masterpiece, its director's place in cinema history and what the movie is really about. They compare it to Verneuil's later film, which also features Alain Delon as a (gorgeous) young thug enlisted by Gabin to heist a seaside casino. Both movies are fun, sad, sexy and poetic as any great French crime film, but most importantly they help establish the difference between a gentleman and a pimp. 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 more you struggle, the more new passages you make in the labyrinth, the more the box is like another layer of outer skin that grows from the body, and the inner arrangement is made more and more complex.” On this episode, hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg climb into a corrugated cardboard nightmare and explore Kobo Abe’s delightfully bizarre The Box Man. Best known for his work with Hiroshi Teshigahara on the film adaptation of his novels (including The Face of Another and Woman in the Dunes), Abe was one of the most brilliant and original novelists of the 20th century. The conversation covers the book’s elliptical, elusive, free-flowing structure and evasive narrative truth, whether Abe is unfairly overlooked due to his association with Teshigahara, and where the book fits into the history of literature (in the context of Abe’s aggressive rejection of Japanese culture). Listen as Funderburg, a total Abe novice, discovers a new favorite author and Cribbs offers suggestions on how to approach Abe’s intimidating oeuvre. 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”

Join hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg for a deep dive into Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and its cinematic adaptations. The story of a naive governess & her innocent charges is the quintessential ghost story, a metaphorical exploration of abuse, theodicy and the ways in which adults let down the children around them. Some of the adaptations discussed include Jack Clayton’s 1961 masterpiece The Innocents, Michael Winner’s surprisingly erudite and unsurprisingly tasteless prequel The Nightcomers and the recent work of irredeemable stupidity The Turning (which reimagines the story as a grunge-era Stephen King knock-off.) The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

“Nostalgia is one of our saving graces.” On the latest episode, hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg take things back to their heroic bloodshed drenched pasts to discuss John Woo’s ne plus ultra of Hong Kong action cinema, Hard Boiled. Like many a greasy teenage malcontent in the early 90s, their exposure to the films of John Woo was key in setting them on a life-path of undeviating film nerd-dom. Join them as they discuss their shared love of Tequila, rice like family, one corrupt cop, one vicious hitman and 10,000 bullets - it’s a celebration of John Woo’s golden age with a focus on Hard Boiled, the film that took an extreme sub-genre to its extremes, the extremity of extremity. Their conversation touches on the importance of melodrama and big emotions in heroic bloodshed films, the surprising similarities of the careers of John Woo and Wong Kar-Wai, and the sheer joyful awesomeness of massive action sequences. It’s as purely celebratory as the show gets. 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 Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by filmmaker Bill Teck to discuss RICHARD JEWELL. The latest film director by Clint Eastwood, it's the true story of an Atlanta security guard falsely accused by the FBI and Atlanta-Journal Constitution of planting bombs at the 1996 Olympics. The discussion turns from Paul Walter Hauser's astounding performance (and checkered Juggalo history) to the media environment surrounding domestic terrorism in 1996 to how Eastwood's unadorned style impresses without going in for the big show-off moments. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Bill Teck on Twitter: twitter.com/billteck John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

This is a deeply personal episode, so indulge us. For their 50th wedding anniversary, we’re joined by host Christopher Funderburg’s parents to discuss the film that brought them together: Mike Nichols’ 1967 countercultural comedy, The Graduate. Along with co-host John Cribbs, they get into it all: the history of both their relationship and the film itself. We discuss what the film meant to their generation, the cultural conflicts between the Los Angeles types in the film and audiences in Murray Kentucky, the novel on which the film is based, and (of course) plastics. 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”

Abel Ferrara has been making films for nearly 50 years without compromising his unique, provocative, unflinchingly autobiographical vision. In this episode we invited special guests Marcus Pinn and John Frankensteiner to discuss Ferrara's four narrative films from the last decade: his farewell to New York City in 4:44 Last Day on Earth, his return to a very different kind of city in Welcome to New York, a chronicle of the last days of a filmmaking legend with Pasolini and the brutal self-examination that is his latest film, the Rome-set roman à clef Tommaso starring Willem Dafoe. Marcus previously appeared on an episode of the podcast The Wrong Reel to discuss Ferrara's full filmography. We pick up the thread here by talking about how this particular Ferr-era of 2010 to 2019 fits into the scope of his long career, his evolution as an artist, his past and his future. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine John Frankensteiner on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JFrankensteiner Marcus Pinn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PINNLAND_EMPIRE Intro & outro music by the man himself, Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

On this episode of The Pink Smoke podcast, host John Cribbs is joined by Amanda Gilbert to discuss Alex Garland's Annihilation. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com/ The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke PSP theme music by Marcus Pinn: http://www.pinnlandempire.com/

On the inaugural episode of The Pink Smoke podcast, we tackle Michael Haneke's semi-sequel to Amour & discuss whether the filmmaker is entering a new phase of his career. Join hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs as they enter a new phase of their professional lives. One in which they have a podcast. The Pink Smoke site: http://www.thepinksmoke.com/ The Pink Smoke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepinksmoke Theme music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

"The rat had taken some pleasure in attacking a member of the human race, one with the same smell as the big ones." We’re joined by regular guest & noted animal-lover Wendy Mays to discuss Patricia Highsmith’s THE ANIMAL-LOVER’S BOOK OF BEASTLY MURDER! This collection of short stories follows a series of creatures from elephant to cat to rat to cockroach that find themselves wrapped up in murder, robbery and all manner of unsettling Highsmithian mayhem. Previously having joined us to discuss the novels FERAL and PET SEMATARY, Mays returns to dig into these moral tales about animals encountering the worst of humanity has to offer. The stories, ranging in tone from sentimental to blackly comic, represent Highsmith on a strange and experimental artistic tangent. Join us to find out about the bravest rat in Venice, the greediest pig in France and the cat burglar that was actually a monkey. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Wendy Mays on Twitter: https://twitter.com/meowmays 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”

Of all the overlooked, misunderstood films directed by Tobe Hooper, Spontaneous Combustion remains one of the most overlooked and misunderstood. There are few viewing experiences as shocking and tragically poetic as watching human nuclear meltdown Brad Dourif expel flames from his body as smoke pours out of him like the tip of a lit cigar. On this episode, hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg invite Stan Giesea, author of Charred Remains - an account of his time on the set of Spontaneous Combustion - to talk about his experience behind-the-scenes of the most genuinely weird and fascinating metaphysical thrillers ever produced. They discuss what makes this movie, a tale of corruption and individual cataclysm yet a love story at its core, an essential part of the late master's work. Support our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Stan Giesea on Twitter: twitter.com/stangiesea 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”

It was inevitable that our decade-spanning reappraisal of the James Bond franchise would hit the Pierce Brosnan period, but rather than return to die another day host John Cribbs and special guest John Arminio go full-tilt into all four films running from 1995 to 2002. Following Bond's evolution in an era of megalomaniacal media moguls, invisible cars and Dr. Christmas Jones, they question whether the charismatic Irishman ever really found his footing as the fabled spy or if his efforts were simply not enough. Topics covered as Cribbs & Arminio bungee jump into each film include the celebrated N64 Goldeneye video game, Donald E. Westlake's unproduced Bond script, the bizarre parting sentiment of Desmond Llewelyn's Q and striking contrast in quality between the first and second half of Brosnan's final 007 adventure. Do these movies really mark the low ebb of the series, or are there things to love about the Pierce years? And don’t fail in your duty to check out our previous Bond episodes: Bond in the 80s I: http://thepinksmoke.com/PSP62Bondinthe80sI.html Bond in the 80s II: http://thepinksmoke.com/PSP63Bondinthe80sII.html Bond in the 70s: soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-564624820/psp-ep58-james-bond-in-the-70 spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2t6MQIIbFBKzzKfdtZaQ9x apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-58-james-bond-in-the-70s/id1529803112?i=1000489551247 Bond in the 60s: soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-564624820/psp-ep52-james-bond-in-the-60s spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3g6UHop4amOmuBpljaxx3F apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-52-james-bond-in-the-60s/id1529803112?i=1000506773799 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Arminio on Twitter: twitter.com/QuasarSniffer John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg discuss Patricia Highsmith’s 1960 crime novel, This Sweet Sickness. The novel follows a stalker who constructs a perfect marriage in his mind and goes to horrifying extremes to make that vision of domestic bliss a reality. It’s a book about the psychosis of a romantic worldview, about the insanity lurking behind the ideas of a One True Love. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg sit down to pay tribute to one of the greatest screenwriters who ever lived, Jean-Claude Carrière. When Carrière recently passed away the hosts decided to pick a handful of the writer’s films to discuss as a way of exploring his long and incredibly varied career. From his career-defining work with Luis Buñuel to his long-running associations with filmmakers including Miloš Forman & Pierre Étaix to his more off-beat one-off projects, few screenwriters were as fearless & unpredictable. Carrière’s career began in the early 60’s & spanned decades - he kept working right up until the end, with screen credits as recently as 2019. This is our remembrance of the novelist, ghost-writer, conversationalist, adapter and screenwriter who collaborated with everyone from Umberto Eco to Nagisa Ōshima to the Dalai Lama. Rest in peace, Carrière. 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”

“Who speaks of realism here?” This is it: our mammoth exploration of the work of Japanese iconoclast Seijun Suzuki. Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by poster illustrator and peerless cinephile Tony Stella to examine the legendarily idiosyncratic and uncontrollable director. From Suzuki’s start as an impossibly lazy assistant director at Shochiku to his his period as a relentlessly prolific genre filmmaker at Nikkatsu to his second act as an esteemed independent artist. His films long-suppressed by Nikkatsu and unknown outside of his native country, Suzuki’s reputation took off in America in the 90s when filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch sang his praises (Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog is famously an extended homage to Suzuki’s career-breaking Branded to Kill); after a few tumultuous decades, Suzuki finally achieved the international renown he deserved. Join us as we follow the director’s journey, beat by beat, film by film; from his early “youth in revolt” films like Everything Goes Wrong to his wild genre experiments like Youth of the Beast & Tokyo Drifter to his notorious “flesh trilogy” that caps off his early career with the brilliant Carmen from Kawachi. We go after it all: the Taisho trilogy, his Lupin III anime, his golf comedy, his late-period curtain call. It’s here, the most comprehensive podcast study of a filmmaker like no other. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Tony Stella on Twitter: twitter.com/studiotstella 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 John Cribbs is joined by John Arminio to discuss the James Bond films of the 60s. Looking at what many fans consider the series’ untouchable golden age, Cribbs & Arminio go film by film through every cinematic portrayal of Bond in the decade, not even skipping over 1967’s Casino Royale! Starting with Dr. No and Ursula Andress (as iconic as Venus de Milo) emerging from the ocean, touching on the duo’s consensus for the best film in the series, and capping off the conversation with a discussion of the series’ transition away from lead actor Sean Connery to George Lazenby with the undervalued On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Cribbs & Arminio drill down into what makes that era of Bond films so irresistible! The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine John Arminio on Twitter: twitter.com/QuasarSniffer Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

On this month's pulp fiction episode, Funderburg & Cribbs discussed former cop Joseph Wambaugh's brutal, depressing & hilarious Hollywood conspiracy thriller, The Glitter Dome. It's a masterpiece of the "sleazy cop" genre that depicts a world of casual racism, violence, and depravity in a chaotic story about cops wildly failing to live up their duty.

“Most great art has been commission work. Bernini didn’t sit around making statues because he liked making statues, he did it because Pope So-and-so wanted a bust of himself on his elaborate tomb… Rembrandt, I’m sure, would’ve been happier doing something other than painting fat businessmen most of his life.” No name is as synonymous with the art of novelization as “Alan Dean Foster,” known for his work reverse engineering novels out of films like The Thing, Alien and, most of all, Star Wars. We’re joined by the prolific sci-fi author to discuss his storied career - the novelizations, continuation novels and original work - in the context of his recent dispute with the Disney corporation over unpaid royalties after their acquisition of Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox. We start at the beginning with his adaptation of a crummy Italian gender-swapped Tarzan rip-off before the conversation explores everything from when Frank Frazetta’s artwork suggests stories far more compelling than the source they’re portraying, why world-building in novelistic writing is the same in original stories or adaptations, and how he came to write the first Star Wars expanded universe novel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (which spawned an entire ecosystem of ancillary material.) Foster is a legend in his field and this discussion explores his crucial role in modern pop culture - and why the Disney company’s ambivalence about paying him the royalty money he’s unquestionably owed is so repellent in a larger context that extends beyond Foster himself. 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 tigers, the three of us, but who the hell are we to make decisions for the world just because we’re compulsive?” For this special international episode, we’re joined by Nicolás Virviescas and Daniel Castro, founders of the Colombian online film criticism portal Filmigrana. Our guests selected Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination to discuss for the occasion, the story of a stranded astronaut whose only motivation for survival is revenge. The book, a favorite of filmmaker John Carpenter, recalls the work of William Gibson, Stephen King, J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick and Warren Ellis - despite being written in 1956 before any of those artists came to prominence. Join us for this NYC to Bogota transmission of our thoughts on the book’s sci-fi satire, violence, betrayal and metaphysics - it’s William Blake meets psycho-surgery, The Count of Monte Cristo & corporate espionage in Bester’s cult classic. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Filmigrana site: https://filmigrana.com/ The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Nicolás Virviescas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/valticam 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 John Cribbs is joined by Emmy-winning editor/producer & longtime Pink Smoke contributor Eric Pfriender to discuss the soundtrack work of Tangerine Dream, the experimental music conglomeration best known for their scores for films like Risky Business, Sorcerer, Thief and Near Dark. Inspired by the recent re-release of Sorcerer’s soundtrack (featuring cover art by the great Tony Stella!), this is an in-depth exploration of pulsating electronic psychedelia that feels like a chase scene leading straight into despair. Way more Ghost Dad talk than you were expecting, guaranteed. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg are joined by filmmaker, podcaster & critic Martin Kessler to discuss his new book, Maya Non Grata. An exploration of Apocalyto’s bizarre relationship to history, historicism and art, Kessler’s authorial debut is available for only $2 via our Patreon: patreon.com/posts/44478461 The group discusses this a deeply strange Hollywood action flick set at the dawn of European conquest of the Yucatan peninsula, a vanity project by disreputable actor-turned-director Mel Gibson. Maya Non Grata is Martin Kessler's engaging, meticulously researched odyssey into the controversies surrounding Gibson's representation of historic Mesoamerica, diving deep into the film's idiosyncratic approach to period drama and addressing the charges of inaccuracy leveled at its depiction of a nearly-vanquished culture. Kessler takes an inquisitive approach to Apocalypto's peculiar relationship to the spotty historical record concerning the post-Classic Maya, attempting to unravel the elusive historical truth and exploring the film's frequent whimsical reliance on the idea that "there's no reason this couldn't have happened." In 138 captivating pages, the author examines his own relationship to the movie - Kessler's deeply personal, colloquial, unpredictable book considers the question, "What does art owe to history?" The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Martin Kessler on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MovieKessler 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”

“There wasn’t a word for the way he felt about Melinda, for that combination of loathing and devotion.” Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss Patricia Highsmith’s 1957 novel, Deep Water, a cruel and curious marital thriller about a shamelessly philandering housewife and the seemingly meek husband who not only puts up with her affairs but invites her paramours into their home. Highsmith’s 5th novel might be her masterpiece; the writing combines the author’s cutting psychological insights with a slow-burning plot organized around capricious lies and equally capricious murders. It’s the story of slugs, a small press specializing in poetry, and when an unwillingness to address domestic strife becomes a kind of dangerous psychosis. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke 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 and Christopher Funderburg turn their attention to one of the most mysterious films from the golden age of Jean Renoir’s filmmaking career: 1932’s La Nuit du Carrefour. Despite being championed by André Bazin and described by Jean-Luc Godard as “the only great French detective film,” this film remains possibly the most obscure work produced by Renoir in the 1930’s. Adapted from a book by the punishingly prolific Belgian crime novelist Georges Simenon, the film serves as the first cinematic depiction of the author’s wildly popular Inspector Maigret - a character who appeared in 75 novels and 28 short stories in addition to innumerable films and tv adaptations. The conversation considers the strange place of the film in Renoir’s body of work, the synergy of Simenon and Renoir’s artistic sensibilities, and how to tell who will be the villain in any given Renoir film just by looking at them. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke 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”

"She is all merciless night animal...yet with a wisdom that goes back to Egypt and beyond - and which is invaluable to me. For she is my spy on buildings, you see, my intelligencer on metropolitan megastructures. She knows their secrets and their secret weaknesses, their ponderous rhythms and dark songs. And she herself is secret as their shadows. She is my Queen of Night, Our Lady of Darkness." In two books written nearly 25 years apart, "weird fiction" guru Fritz Leiber examined how ancient witchcraft and black magic continue to prey malignantly on unsuspecting contemporary characters deeply entrenched in the rational. Whether it's faculty wives hexing a sociology professor in CONJURE WIFE or the paramental entities tormenting a writer in San Francisco in OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, Leiber sees modern life as a conduit for a "new science" of the supernatural, which we dig into with this horror-themed October episode! Our guest is Rebecca Baumann, head of public services at Lilly Library, curator of the 2018 exhibition Frankenstein 200: The Birth, Life and Resurrection of Mary Shelley's Monster and avid collector of genre fiction. Baumann shares her take on these essential "weird" tales as well as details of Leiber's life that offer rare insight into his perspective on femininity. (Also on how to pronounce his name, which John gets wrong through most of the episode.) The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke For the Frankenstein 200 book: https://iupress.org/9780253039057/frankenstein-200/ Hellebore issue discussed in the episode: https://helleborezine.bigcartel.com/product/hellebore-3-the-malefice-issue The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Rebecca Baumann on Twitter: twitter.com/arkhamlibrarian John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by filmmaker & professor Mtume Gant (Whiteface, Spit) to discuss Elem Klimov's shattering WWII phantasmagoria, Come & See. The conversation touches on the function of even the best war films as righteous propaganda, extreme cinema, the film's relationship to post-War cinema in Japan & Germany as well as Tango & Cash's deep connections to Andrei Tarkovsky. It's a surprisingly light-hearted episode about an incredibly tough film. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

We’re joined by screenwriter Tom Vaughan (Winchester, Unstoppable) to discuss his picks for the 10 greatest horror screenplays ever written. From consensus classics like Dan O’Bannon’s script for Alien and Joseph Stefano’s work on Psycho, to offbeat choices like the remake of The Blob, the conversation digs into what makes for brilliant writing in a genre where the art of the screenplay often gets overlooked. Vaughan breaks down Howard Hawks' maxim that a great film is "three good scenes and no bad ones," the importance of scene work, what constitutes "cheating" in a narrative, and how to breathe life into clichés, homages and remakes. An in-depth conversation about craft and how legendary films lay their foundation before the shooting starts. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Tom Vaughan on Twitter: twitter.com/tomvaughan 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”

“I don’t know where that ham came from, she thought. And I’m not going to think about it. Ever.” We’re joined by writer Steven Sheil to discuss a book of his own selecting: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s The Blank Wall. Sheil is the screenwriter and director of Mum & Dad, Dead Mine and Unmade as well as the co-curator of The Mayhem Film Festival in Nottingham. Holding’s “domestic noir” provided the basis for 2001’s The Deep End starring Tilda Swinton and Max Ophüls’ The Reckless Moment - it’s the story of an average housewife who finds herself wrapped up in manslaughter, blackmail & all manner of mayhem seemingly at odds with her gentle, genteel character. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Steven Sheil on Twitter: twitter.com/SSheil 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”