Advertise on podcast: The Projection Booth Podcast

Todd Solondz's disowned debut finally gets its day in court. Fear, Anxiety & Depression (1989) follows Ira Ellis, a bespectacled, self-deluding playwright adrift in the last gasp of the East Village art scene — too busy pining after a performance artist named Junk to notice the woman who actually loves him. Mike Sullivan and David Rodgers join Mike to dig into the film Solondz famously begged a friend not to rent, examining what makes it both a fascinating time capsule of downtown New York bohemia and an unmistakable preview of the tragicomic sensibility that would eventually produce Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse. They also make the case for why this orphaned debut — unavailable on any legitimate platform since its 1990 VHS release — deserves a proper restoration and re-release. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Paul Gallico's 1970 novel Matilda told of a male boxing kangaroo who becomes an unlikely heavyweight contender, upending the worlds of sports promotion and organized crime. Producer Albert S. Ruddy, fresh from his Oscar-winning triumph with The Godfather, acquired the rights and brought the story to the screen in 1978, co-writing with Timothy Galfas.  The resulting G-rated family comedy stars Elliott Gould as Bernie Bonnelli, a small-time talent agent who discovers the boxing kangaroo and sees his ticket out of obscurity. Clive Revill plays Billy Baker, Matilda's devoted owner and former British boxer, while Robert Mitchum turns up as Duke Parkhurst, a manipulative sportswriter, and Harry Guardino heads the mob contingent scheming to control the outcome of Matilda's fights. The kangaroo himself was portrayed by Gary Morgan in a Rick Baker $30,000 suit. Mike talks with co-hosts Cullen Gallagher and Mike Sullivan about the film, then brings in interviews with actors Gary Morgan and Elliott Gould along with two posthumously-released interviews with producer Albert S. Ruddy and screenwriter Timothy Galfas,  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with director Marcie Hume about making Corey Feldman vs. the World, the ethics of documentary filmmaking, and what it means to capture a subject in freefall. Hume has said the film was never intended as a hit piece, and the documentary bears that out. It presents testimony from Feldman, the Angels, his then-wife Courtney Anne Mitchell, and fans who attended the shows, letting events speak for themselves. What emerges is a portrait of a deeply damaged person caught in cycles he can't seem to break — part tour film, part cautionary tale, and part document of Hollywood's long history of failing the children it exploits. Learn more at https://www.coreyfilm.com/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

When a bank robbery goes sideways, two strangers find themselves bound together on the road — Billie (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), whose desperation brought her to the bank in the first place, and Franny (Grace Van Dien), a pregnant teenager with nothing left to lose. What begins as a hostage situation slowly reshapes into something stranger and more human: an unlikely alliance, an argument across the American heartland, and the gradual discovery that these two women need each other more than either is willing to admit. Silver Star reunites French filmmakers Ruben Amar and Lola Bessis behind the camera for the first time since Swim Little Fish Swim, their debut feature that broke through at SXSW in 2013. The film had its world premiere at the 2024 Deauville American Film Festival and went on to screen at Les Arcs, Denver, Glasgow, and the Love International Film Festival in Mons, where it won Best Screenplay. Indican Pictures acquired North American rights and released the film theatrically on January 30, 2026. Mike talks with stars Grace Van Dien and Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson about bringing Silver Star to life. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

John Singleton was twenty-three when he wrote Boyz N the Hood and twenty-four when it made him the first Black filmmaker and youngest person ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. Released in 1991, the film drew from Singleton's own upbringing in South Central Los Angeles to deliver an unflinching portrait of Black life there, launched the careers of Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and Nia Long, and established Singleton as one of the most important voices in American cinema. Over the next three decades he directed Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Shaft, and Four Brothers, and served as a producer on Hustle & Flow and the FX series Snowfall, which was still in production when he died of a stroke in 2019 at age fifty-one. The Life of Singleton: From Boyz N the Hood to Snowfall by journalist Thomas Golianopoulos draws on nearly 400 original interviews to document Singleton's full arc — his years as a driven film student at USC, his rapid ascent in Hollywood, his complicated personal life, and his final years. Published by Andscape Books in 2025, the biography traces how Singleton's commitment to putting authentic Black stories on screen shaped an industry and inspired generations of filmmakers. Mike talks with Golianopoulos about his four years reporting the book and the life of Hollywood's first self-proclaimed hip-hop director. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Comedy Month continues as Mike talks with co-hosts Keith Gordon and Heidi Honeycutt about Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959). Chicago, 1929. Musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are barely scraping by when they stumble onto the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, witnessing Spats Colombo and his mob gun down a rival gang. With the killers on their tail, the two desperate musicians disguise themselves as women and join Sweet Sue's Society Syncopators, an all-girl band heading to Miami. Aboard the train they meet Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), a ukulele-playing singer with a weakness for saxophonists and a dream of marrying a millionaire.   Mike also talks with scholar Noah Isenberg — author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller We'll Always Have Casablanca and currently completing a cultural history of Some Like It Hot for Norton — about the film's origins, its enduring legacy, and what it still has to say. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Released in 1978 and directed by John Landis, National Lampoon's Animal House follows the anarchic members of Delta House fraternity at Faber College as they wage war against pompous Dean Wormer (John Vernon) and the rival Omega House. Written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, and Chris Miller, and starring John Belushi as the legendary John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the film became one of the highest-grossing comedies of its era and helped launch the modern R-rated comedy. Jeff Nelligan's satirical new book When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor: Animal House in Western Intellectual Thought subjects the film to mock-scholarly analysis, taking its title from Bluto's historically garbled motivational speech. Casting Animal House as a Homeric odyssey and a meditation on society's moral impulse, Nelligan lampoons academic pretension while celebrating a comedy that has embedded itself permanently in American culture. Nelligan is a Washington, D.C. public affairs executive, Army veteran, and author of several previous books on parenting and political life. Mike talks with him about the film's enduring legacy and the making of the book. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with Sound Designer Bryan Parker about his work from his early days on Reality TV to his current jobs on The Pitt and Scarpetta. Parker describes how he works with his peers and creative partners to create the best experience via his craft. Follow Bryan on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bryanvanbryan Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Evy (Nina Kiri) hosts a paranormal podcast from her childhood home, where she has returned to care for her dying mother. A skeptic to her co-host Justin's (Adam DiMarco) true believer, she keeps the supernatural at arm's length — until anonymous recordings begin arriving: a married couple, their home filled with strange noises, their lives unraveling. As Evy listens, the distance between their story and her own begins to collapse. Mike talks with editor Sonny Atkins about shaping a horror film built around sound, the discipline required to cut a story told almost entirely in audio, and what it means to edit your first feature. Learn more about Sonny at https://www.slatkins.com/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Alice Maio Mackay made her first feature film at 16. By 20, she had six. The latest, The Serpent's Skin, follows Anna, a young trans woman who flees her transphobic hometown and falls for Gen, a goth tattoo artist with a gift for the supernatural.  Mike talks with Mackay about the making of the film, her approach to genre filmmaking, and what drives one of the most prolific young voices in independent cinema. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Adapted by Preston Sturges from Ferenc Molnár's play and directed by William Wyler, The Good Fairy (1935) is a screwball fairy tale built on mistaken identities, comic misfortune, and the peculiar moral logic of someone who genuinely wants to do good but hasn't quite figured out how the world works.   Luisa (Margaret Sullavan) has grown up knowing nothing of the world outside the orphanage walls. When she's finally released into Budapest society, she proves as well-meaning as she is naïve — and as prone to catastrophe as she is to kindness. A chance encounter with the wealthy and lecherous Konrad (Frank Morgan) sets off a chain of complications, chief among them the lie that she's already married. The problem is that she isn't, but she soon will be — to a bookish, bearded lawyer named Dr. Sporum (Herbert Marshall) who has no idea any of this is happening. The film showcases the range of Margaret Sullavan's screen presence — radiant and funny and heartbreaking in equal measure — alongside Frank Morgan's gloriously stammering comic turn. The episode also looks at the 1947 remake I'll Be Yours, starring Deanna Durbin, and the 1951 Broadway musical adaptation Make a Wish, with music by Hugh Martin and a book co-written by Sturges and Abe Burrows. Mike talks with co-hosts Rahne Alexander and Federico Bertolini about Molnár, Wyler, Sturges, and the many lives of a very good fairy. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike and Ben Buckingham take a look at Exposure 36, the 2022 film written and directed by Mackenzie G. Mauro. Charles Oudo stars as Cam, a photographer spending the last three days on Earth selling drugs and wandering the streets of New York City, encountering a colorful cast of characters along the way. The apocalypse here is background noise rather than spectacle — a quiet, meditative film that doubles as something of a Rorschach test, with different viewers latching onto entirely different aspects of the story. Mike and Ben dig into the episodic, wandering narrative, the film's mysterious blue figures, its use of photography as a distancing mechanism, and the way the story shifts from meditative sci-fi into neo-noir thriller territory before it's all over. Mauro joins the show to discuss the film. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike is joined by Payton McCarty-Simas and Rob St. Mary to dig into Fucktoys, the 2025 SXSW Special Jury Award winner written, directed by, and starring Annapurna Sriram. Sriram plays AP, a sex worker adrift in Trashtown — a candy-colored dystopia of industrial decay and pastel skies — after a swamp-dwelling tarot reader tells her a curse can be lifted for a thousand dollars and the sacrifice of a baby lamb. What follows is a picaresque night of surreal encounters, escalating absurdity, and a collision of intimacy, exploitation, and class in a pre-millennium alternate universe. The gang explores the film's John Waters–adjacent sensibility and its candy-coated production design, debating whether the aggressive tonal shifts and theatrical performances sharpen the film's satirical edge or tip into pure indulgence. They also dig into what the curse might actually represent, how Sriram's central performance holds the chaos together, and where Fucktoys fits within a lineage of underground feminist and transgressive cinema. Also featured is an interview with writer/director/star Annapurna Sriram.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike sits down with filmmaker and archivist Mike Davis to discuss Dead, White & Blue — a gleefully subversive political satire assembled entirely from recycled public domain footage. Davis, whose previous "green movies" include Sex Galaxy and President Wolfman, sifted through more than 300 films — predominantly training and educational films produced by the U.S. government, military, and law enforcement — to construct a comedy about the KKK's use of a shrink ray to retrieve an incriminating bullet from the body of a Black man shot by a racist white cop, while an Atlanta mayor goes missing and the U.S. military closes in. The result is a film that plays like found footage as social X-ray, with flat-affect dubbing, sly sight gags, and a retro visual texture that doubles as pointed commentary. Mike and Davis dig into the art and obsession of the "green movie" — a tradition running from J-Men Forever to Kung Pow! Enter the Fist — and what it takes to build a coherent (or deliberately incoherent) narrative from hundreds of forgotten films. They discuss the particular satirical charge of repurposing government and law enforcement footage, why race relations make for such rich — and risky — comedic territory, and what drives a filmmaker to spend years hunting through public domain archives instead of just making a movie the normal way. Find out more at https://stag-films.com/  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike sits down with director Stephanie Laing to discuss Tow — a true-story drama about one woman's year-long legal war against a predatory towing company and the system behind it. Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne) is living in her 1991 Toyota Camry on the streets of Seattle when the car — her only lifeline — gets impounded, leaving her with a bill for $21,634 she has no hope of paying. What follows is battle for dignity against an indifferent bureaucracy, with support from a pro bono lawyer (Dominic Sessa) and a shelter manager (Octavia Spencer) who believes in her. Laing, a veteran of Palm Royale and Physical, brings an empathetic eye to the material without flinching from the grinding reality of homelessness and addiction. Mike and Laing discuss adapting a real person's story, the challenge of making systemic failure feel intimate, and what drew her from television to the feature format. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support. Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth