The Film Stage Presents

The Tokyo International Film Festival's 39th edition, running from October 26 to November 4, mixed new titles that would surprise even the most hardened festivalgoer with restorations of Kenji Mizoguchi, Shinji Sōmai, and three films in Nikkatsu’s Roman Porno canon. It is my great fortune to attend, every year offering titles that recenter my sense of a given film year. It's one thing to describe the scenario and quite another to live it. In the spirit of being at an ever-moving festival in a lively city, I recorded a conversation at an outdoor restaurant on a Saturday night in Ginza. Our contributor Mark Asch was kind enough to sit down and offer a remarkably fluid set of thoughts on Hironori Kujiraoka's Saravah and Takenoshin Yaza's Hinotama: Ball of Fire in between sips of Asahi and bites of fried squid, while Letterboxd Journal's Katie Rife joined to share a few perspectives on the festival—the Japanese premiere of Godzilla Minus Zero coming to loom over our talk as it did much of this year’s festivities. Music courtesy of Lex Walton: “Love Theme from an Unreleased Film” from the album Giving It Up.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. And sometimes scary movie directors! Happy Halloween! As is tradition, our dear friend Gavin Mevius (of The Mixed Reviews and The Q Division podcasts) joins us to discuss a Halloween-themed director. This year it’s the great—and very underrated—Jacques Tourneur! Our B-Sides include The Leopard Man, Anne of the Indies, Stranger on Horseback, Nightfall, and Night of the Demon. We discuss Tourneur’s early, legendary collaborations with producer Val Lewton, as well as his diverse filmography and tackling of most every genre. He’s also “a short king,” as Conor mentions, which is to say he always made films with a short runtime. There are many lovely diversions and plenty of discussion about many of Tourneur’s films. We mention some of the few interviews he gave and highlight his honest commentary about his own work. We also talk about Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German, a film that will one day be good!

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. Our subject today is the weird, handsome, and weirdly handsome James Spader! The B-Sides are White Palace, 2 Days in the Valley, Critical Care, and Slow Burn. Our guest is Veronica Fitzpatrick, editor of the new book In the Mood? As described on the A24 website: “From flirtation and foreplay to all-out kink, In the Mood? offers a menu of over 100 erotic movie recommendations.” There are THREE Spader films featured in the book, including White Palace! We talk about what a great on-screen listener Spader is, his bravery in going bald in Hollywood, his sexiness through the years, and that White Palace tagline (“The story of a younger man and a bolder woman”). Additional Spader movie recs include Bad Influence and The Music of Chance. The silent film masterpiece Greed comes up (the inspiration for Slow Burn), as does the recent New York Film Festival, and the untapped lunacy of 1990s cinema.

There are holy grails, and then there’s The Devils. While Ken Russell’s 1971 film has been available in some form or another for decades, many (like me) always avoided it—not for its scandalous content, but for the lack of such. In a rare class of studio films that passed through the era of director’s cut DVDs without proper restoration, it’s long seemed destined for cinematic purgatory. That has changed in a manner so drastic it’s like everybody’s making up for lost time. With the creation of their new label, Clockwork, Warner Bros. announced a restoration of the full, uncut iteration for widespread release on 35mm that was preceded by a splashy Cannes world premiere that sold out in seconds. It happened in no small part because of The Devils’ biggest champion, Mark Kermode, who has spent decades on the front line for Russell’s vision. With Kermode in town for a U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, I had the pleasure of partaking in a long, impassioned conversation with (literally) one of the most famous voices in film. Two notes: 1) Kermode told me after our conversation that his white whale is a complete restoration of the director’s cut of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III; 2) at some point I misuse the term “begs the question.” I could feel myself making the mistake in real time, yet it slipped out. We regret the error.

Welcome to The Film Stage Presents! Today we’re speaking with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Daniel Kraus about his novel Whalefall and the new film of the same name (which he co-wrote with director Brian Duffield).  We chat about Whalefall, adapting it from book to screen, his recent Pulitzer win for his novel Angel Down, and other underrated sea survivor movies. Among them are All Is Lost, White Squall, and In the Heart of the Sea.  Additional topics discussed include the differences between books and movies, how the whale in Whalefall is actually a setting and not a villain, and the survival books we read as kids (The Cay by Theodore Taylor, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, Lord of the Flies by William Golding). There are mentions of the great Walter Hill film Southern Comfort and the great Carroll Ballard film The Black Stallion. Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity also comes up, which Kraus feels is the best comp to Whalefall.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! And sometimes we get to talk to stars about their own B-Sides! Today is a big one for us. The legend Josh Hartnett is on the podcast to talk about his new film Verity and dish on some of his B-Sides, including Town & Country, August, and Valley of the Gods. We chat with Hartnett about his growth as an actor, his memories on the chaotic set of the Warren Beatty-starrer Town & Country, his love for the underseen August, his joy making Lucky Number Slevin, and the luck and stress of having both his big movie (Verity) open mere days before his big new show (Below). We make mention of this fascinating Vanity Fair piece from 2001, as well as his intentional disappearance from Hollywood in the mid-2000s. There’s also a brief mention of his potential regret in dismissing a chance at playing Batman for Christopher Nolan early on.

If you live in New York, you know this is the best time of year for filmgoing; if you don’t, you probably realize such and just wish you were here. The 64th New York Film Festival begins this Friday, September 25, and runs a little over two weeks, accounting for encores that are appreciable and often still insufficient for seeing everything on offer at Lincoln Center. I can speak from experience that seeing as much as you want—or, let’s be honest, seeing even more than you wish—is like a full-time job. Imagine the task of being its architect. That man is Dennis Lim, with whom I spoke last year on the eve of the 63rd edition. Dennis has plenty more to say as this year begins, not least on the theme of sorts that has emerged from our dystopian moment. This conversation is not doom and gloom, though—by his read, cinema is in a strong-enough place that there’s reason to be hopeful, even cherish the medium. Plus: there’s always Hong Sangsoo.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.  Today we discuss New Jersey legend James Gandolfini! Our B-Sides include: The Mexican, Romance & Cigarettes, Cinema Verite, and The Drop. Our guest literally wrote the book on Gandolfini! Jason Bailey, author of Gandolfini Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend. He also co-hosts the podcast “Guide for the Film Fanatic” on the One Heat Minute Productions network. I was honored to chat about The Adventures of Robin Hood on the pod not too long ago! We discuss Gandolfini’s early years as a character actor, his fun times on the set of the holiday debacle Surviving Christmas, and the chemistry of friendship that Gandolfini and Julia Roberts build in the underrated The Mexican.  Jason dishes on the process of writing his great book, we all lament the next act of great Gandolfini performances we did not get, and I remember some iconic episodes from The Sopranos. We discuss his playful energy and singular legacy, and what could have been. There’s also a chat about Jason’s upcoming book YIPPEE KI-YAY "Die Hard,” Bruce Willis, and the Reinvention of the Action Movie.

After a fraught journey to the big screen at the hands of corporate overlords, Coyote Vs. ACME has finally seen the light of day. Despite the C-suite mishigas the film is proving to be a well-earned success. It’s a funny, charming, and uniquely sobering look at the things we buy and use, and the companies we get used by. Rooted as much in the world of Chuck Jones as The Verdict or A Civil Action, the cartoon courtroom antics are built on the bones of a legal thriller, and the resulting observations bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the reality of our relationship with almost every corporation in 2026. To unpack this, I spoke with Joe Galbo, a social media specialist for a U.S. safety regulatory agency. Over the past decade, Galbo has made it his mission to raise awareness of unsafe products in wry and off-beat ways one meme at a time. We discuss the irony of how the film’s fraught distribution is reflected in its script, and frankly enhances its message. We also get into how the film captures an ever-present dread in the face of AI and the “enshittification” of just about everything we buy and use. We marvel at how unflinching the film is in delivering these sentiments, and why the Looney Tunes are the perfect vessel to raise awareness. Be sure to follow Joe @josephgalbo.bsky.social, and for any info on unsafe products (or how to report them) visit saferproducts.gov. Coyote Vs. ACME is now in theaters.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! And sometimes we get to talk to movie directors about their own B-Sides! Today, with his new film Just Play Dead now in theaters and available on VOD/Digital, we spoke with the great Martin Campbell about his long, accomplished career. Along with Just Play Dead, we focus on his early films Criminal Law, Cast a Deadly Spell, and Beyond Borders. The perennially underrated filmmaker tells us how he gets movies like Just Play Dead made these days, why he still wants to make an outright comedy, why his Green Lantern film didn’t work (spoiler alert: it was the script being written “by committee" and eleventh-hour budget cuts), and the freedom that comes with smaller budgets on independent productions. There are also brief discussions about GoldenEye (a final budget of just $58 million!), his cult classic No Escape, and why he doesn’t like the actual making of his movies but he loves the editing.