Hit Factory

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.CW: Discussions of cinematic sexual assault and violence.Film Critic Lex Briscuso joins us to discuss Satoshi Kon's masterful animated psychological thriller Perfect Blue. The film follows Mima, a former J-Pop idol who has recently left the music group Cham! that made her famous and beloved in order to pursue a career as an actress. As Mima struggles to adapt to the demands of her new profession, she becomes the victim of an obsessive stalker and steadily begins to lose her grip on reality. Visceral, confounding, and richly layered with considerations about celebrity, artifice, and the toll of creating a public persona, Perfect Blue represents the very best animated cinema has to offer and showcases what the medium is capable of in the hands of a brilliant artist.We begin by unpacking the film's contemplations of public image and the fledgling internet; how Kon anticipates the production of digital avatars and how these versions of ourselves skew people's perceptions of our interiority. Then, we discuss Perfect Blue's perspective on patriarchal, predatory systems within entertainment and art, as well as how the film conveys the top-down proprietary relationships that we build around celebrity. Finally, we examine the film's core tragedy - the loss of agency and sense of self that necessary follows any participation within a larger system of public visibility and the subsequent collapse of solidarity these losses breed.Follow Lex Briscuso on Twitter.....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish.

Filmmaker Christopher Jason Bell (Miss Me Yet, Attention Shoppers) joins us to discuss Last Action Hero, a meta action comedy featuring too many ideas, a healthy serving of great jokes, and a fascinating reckoning for its star Arnold Schwarzenegger as he was aging into the second act of his movie star career. We begin with a conversation about the action hero vehicle, its dominance in the 1980s, and its turn to self-reference and parody in the early 1990s. Then, we explore Last Action Hero's bizarre combination of action movie tropes and lighter cartoon comedy logic that makes its satirical targets more difficult to identify. After, we address the ways the film incidentally exonerates itself from some of the more ideologically thorny tendencies of police films by embracing fantasy and drawing attention to its artifice. Finally, we spend some time discussing Chris's latest brilliant and beautiful film Failed State, how its component parts all came together, and what it means to be a filmmaker in our moment of constant crises and social alienation.Follow Christopher Jason Bell on TwitterWatch Chris's films on Means.tv Watch the trailer for Failed StateGet access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.Associate Editor at Roger Ebert Robert Daniels joins to discuss the latest Spike Lee joint Highest 2 Lowest, a loose reimagining of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 procedural masterpiece High & Low that marks the fifth collaborationg between Lee and the inimitable Denzel Washington. Thematically rich, unabashedly confrontational and occasionally baffling, Highest 2 Lowest is everything you would hope for from a late period Spike Lee picture, as Lee grapples with personal concerns about masculinity, the contradictions of Black capitalism, and the generational divide around the nature of authenticity in art when success has finally come your way.We begin with a discussion of the bold formal choices of Highest 2 Lowest, including the stylistic gambit of dividing the film firmly into two aesthetic halves; the first half marked by an austere, antiseptic, and artificial atmosphere that finally gives way to a more daring, brash and musical rhythm when the film descends on the streets of Spike's native New York, escaping the Dumbo high rise apartment of the film's early chapters. Then, we explore the film as autocritique, with Lee and Washington examining their positions as elder statesmen of Black artistry, and the push-pull of working within systems of capital built upon racialized heirarchies. Finally, we tackle the film's thorny political propositions, its conservative tendencies, and the thrill of trying to parse where exactly an artist like Spike Lee stands on the issues and questions he presents within the text.Read Robert Daniels on Highest 2 Lowest at Roger EbertRead Alphonse Pierre on Highest 2 Lowest at PitchforkFollow Robert Daniels on Twitter.....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

We inaugurate (and conclude) our coverage of Senegalese master Ousmane Sembène with a discussion of his 1992 feature Guelwaar, the late filmmaker's only work of the decade. In essence a minor comedy of errors revolving around the misplaced body of a departed community leader and political agitator, Guelwaar transforms several times over into a profound and moving chronicle of national identity, religious conflict, and the material politics required to resist colonial rule. We begin with an explication of Sembène's politics and how his Marxism informs the social milieu of his works. Then, we praise the film's feminism, its many nuanced women characters, and the director's progressive standpoint on sex work . Finally, we relate Sembène's invocation of aid as a tool of imperial oppression to current situations ongoing in Gaza.Get access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

3D artist, animator and director of the new film Boys Go to Jupiter Julian Glander joins us to discuss the live wire pleasures of SLC Punk! starring Matthew Lillard as a Stevo, a brash, blue-haired anarchist punk rocker who, alongside his best friend Bob, seeks meaning in the aimlessness of Salt Lake City, Utah. Though set amidst the deeply conservative Reagan 80s, the film belongs to the long lineage of early 90s slacker movies, navigating the push-pull of material stability at the expense of authenticity and self-actualization. We discuss the film's take on the punk in the 80s and how it finds common throughlines with 90s slacker culture through a flattening of the political contours of the anarcho-punk movement. Then, we explore how the film fluctuates between flattery and fetishization for its disaffected protagonists' lifestyle and critique of its shallowness, as well as the harsh realities of conforming to the capitalist systems we all seek to rebel against. Finally, we discuss Julian's new film Boys Go to Jupiter, and how it updates many of the concerns of the 90s slacker era, finding rich satirical terrain in the gig economy, hustle culture, and a system that asks us to choose between integrity and comfort. Go see Boys Go to Jupiter, now playing at a theater new you.Follow Julian on Twitter.Get access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.More new movie talk as we take on the most divisive film of the summer, Ari Aster's COVID-era neo-western Eddington. The film follows Joaquin Phoenix as Joe Cross, the sheriff of Eddington, NM who - frustrated by the state's mask mandates in early 2020 - decides to run for mayor to depose the incumbent Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), a boilerplate liberal looking to move the town into the future by granting subsidies to a tech company attempting to build a data center at the edge of town. The film also traces the various conflicts that erupts as the era's wave of Black Lives Matter protests (following the murder of George Floyd) run up against the sheriff's department and the competing ideologies of the townsfolk, all emboldened by the hypermediated, isolated existences that defined the pandemic.We beging by addressing the film's politics, rejecting criticisms of the film as "centrist" or evincing a "both sides are bad" mentality, instead revealing the fundamental retreat of material politics as the defining order of the 2020s. Then, we discuss the film as western, how it embraces the lineage of John Ford, and how its world of localized, independent vacuums of internet-fed ideology suggest a collapse of the dialectic. Finally, we look at what the movie has to say about Big Tech, the victims of capitalism, and its (quite cynical) read on where America all headed.Read Alex on Eddington at More Like Shit StackRead Ed Berger on Eddington at Reciprocal Contradicton 2.0....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.Writer, academic, and prestigious poster Peter Raleigh earns his hat trick, returning to the Factory Floor to discuss Abel Ferrara's philosophical vampire film The Addiction. Shot in stark, vivid black & white cinematography and featuring a breathtaking lead performance by the great Lili Taylor, the film explores vampirism as a natural extension of the maladies of the world, a physical expression of the spiritual sickness of existing in modernity as a subject of the American Empire.We begin with a discussion of Abel Ferrara as director, his unsparing eye for difficult subject matter, and the unexpected tenderness and humanism that emanates from such an exacting body of work. Then, we explore the film's multifaceted take on vampirism, simultaneously allegorizing addiction, spiritual retribution, and a subjective manifestation of imperial blowback. Finally, we discuss the potency of a film that locates a cutlural zeitgeist and comment on its afflictions through formalism rather than mimeography, conjuring the essence of a historical-material milieu rather than seeking shallow pattern recognition.Follow Peter Raleigh on Twitter.Read and Subscribe to Peter's Substack Long Library.Read Peter on Abel Ferrara's The Addiction.....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

We welcome the esteemed critic, journalist, and podcaster Jourdain Searles to the show to discuss Quentin Tarantino's seminal third feature Jackie Brown, an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch that also serves as Tarantino's love letter to Blaxploitation cinema and one of its defining stars, Pam Grier. We begin with a discussion of Blaxploitation cinema, Pam Grier's status within the genre, and how Tarantino navigates the fine line between homage and aesthetic fetishism. Then, we unpack the film's taught, thoughtfully structured script that manages to pack the customary twists and reversals of a Leonard adaptation without skimping on the romance and hangout vibes that underly Tarantino's most accomplished work. Finally, we pull back to discuss Tarantino today and whether we can successfully decouple the director's artistry from his support for Israel. Follow Jourdain Searles on Twitter. Get access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

Vulture and New York Magazine film critic Bilge Ebiri returns to discuss Bernardo Bertolucci's stunning mood piece Little Buddha, a rich and evocative story of an American family who travel to Bhutan after learning their son may be the reincarnation of the spiritual leader of a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks. The film also chronicles chapters in the life of Siddartha (played by Keanu Reeves) who rejects his life of sheltered privilege after learning of human suffering in order to seek a path of spiritual enlightenment. Exhibiting Berolucci's customary visual richness - emboldened by breathtaking images from Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro - and an otherworldly emotional frankness, Little Buddha conjures the sensation and grandeur of a personal spiritual awakening. We discuss the career of Bertolucci and his "Eastern Trilogy" beginning with 1987's Best Picture winner The Last Emperor, in which Bertolucci's fascination with the spiritual and cultural practices of the Asian continent became a personal endeavor into a deeper understanding of his own artistic ethos. Then we unpack the splendid uncannines of Little Buddha and how Bertolucci's directorial mastery allows for a film of constant settling and de-escalation to feel thrilling and proulsive through it's evocation of a preternatural emotionality. Finally, we discuss the west's fascination with the Tibetan independence movement in the 1990s and the American films it inspired during the decade.   Follow Bilge Ebiri on TwitterOrder Little Buddha on 4K or Blu-ray from Kino LorberGet access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish

Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.We're back with more Danny Boyle coverage, this time discussing his latest film 28 Years Later, the long-awaited sequel to Boyle's own 28 Days Later (as well as its sequel 28 Weeks Later) that bracingly rejects the template set by both its predecessors and the broader scope of modern blockbusters to deliver a visceral, formally daring, and narratively audacious film that feels both mythic and keenly of-the-moment.We begin by discussing the reunion of Boyle's 28 Days Later collaborators, secreenwriter Alex Garland and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, and the film's narrative and technical accomplishments achieved by shooting on the iPhone 15 and employing a breakneck editing style that ventures occasionally into the realm of the avant-garde. Then, we contemplate the film's episodic structure, producing tonally distinct chapters that feel indebted both to Homeric and Alighierian epics as well as fantasy storytelling. Finally, we engage with the film's perspectives on death and mass crisis in the 21st century, how it speaks to our moment post-COVID and amidst Israel's ongoing genocide, and asks us to honor and value life in ways unfamiliar and reverent.Watch the trailer for 28 Years LaterListen to Taylor Holmes' reading of Rudyard Kipling's "Boots"Listen to Young Fathers' soundtrack for 28 Years Later....Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish.