Toronto-based critic, lecturer, and author Adam Nayman joins us to look back at Billy Bob Thornton's directorial debut and acting showcase Sling Blade. Once considered a high-water mark of 90s American indie cinema success within popular culture and the awards circuit, Thornton's film is now often relegated to 'curio' status; a fascinating time cap…

London-based film writer Esmé Holden joins us to discuss David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly. Based on the Tony Award-winning David Henry Hwang play - itself based on the the real life relationship between Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Beijing opera singer - Cronenberg's film embraces the conventions of melodrama while thoughtfully exploring gend…

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. Following our conversation with the film's director Pascal Plante, we dive into one of the year's best films, Red Rooms: a thriller tailor made for our disaffected, hyper-mediated moment that asks many unset…

Filmmaker Pascal Plante (director of Red Rooms, one of our favorite movies of the year) joins to discuss Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar's 1996 debut, Thesis. While riveting simply at the topical level of its tense genre thrills, the movie also metatextually concerns itself with the moving image as a mediated reflection of our corporeal realit…

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. George Washington University ungergrad and Liberal Currents contributor Sami Gold just informed us that there's an election coming up in the good ol' US of A, so we decided to discuss a foundational text of …

An impromptu decision to do something "Halloween-y" led us to 1994 meta-slasher Wes Craven's New Nightmare, the seventh installment in the long-running A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, which sees Craven returning to the director's chair for the first time since the original installment and OG Nightmare final girl Heather Langenkamp returning, p…

Justice Warrior Ben Clarkson returns to discuss the 1997 action thriller The Jackal, starring Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, and Sidney Poitier in his final film role. Ostensibly a remake of the the 1973 Fred Zinneman film The Day of the Jackal (itself an adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's 1971 debut novel of the same name), the film attempts to update…

Writer, curator, and author of the upcoming book Revolutionary Desires: The Political Power of the Sex Scene, Xuanlin Tham joins us to discuss the work of Taiwanese New Wave director Tsai Ming-liang and his 1994 film Vive L'Amour. It's a quietly devastating exploration of longing, desire, and urban alienation about a trio of young Tapei residents w…

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 take a moment away from the 90s to share our thoughts on Coralie Fargeat's latest brash body-horror festival darling The Substance, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. It's a stylish, blunt provocat…

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, researcher, and fellow podcaster John Semley joins the program to discuss Buffalo '66, directed, written by, and starring the ever-controversial Vincent Gallo and co-starring Christina Ricci, Anjelic…

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. Twitter-banished Brazilian Gus Lanzetta makes a long-awaited and triumphant return to discuss Iain Softley's sexy, stylish Hackers. Impressively researched and committed to creating a dazzling, expressionist…

Independent filmmaker Zach Clark joins to discuss the work of punk auteur legend Jon Moritsugu and his 1994 cult favorite Mod Fuck Explosion. A riff on classic Hollywood tales like West Side Story, the film is brash, outrageous, occasionally reprehensible, and is (in Zach's words) less about teen angst so much as it simply *is* teen angst manifeste…

Journalist and writer Séamus Malekafzali returns to the program to discuss Johnny Mnemonic. Directed by artist Robert Longo and adapted by William Gibson from his own short story, the film was met with lukewarm box office reception and critical derision upon initial release, but has since endured as a classic of 90s cyberpunk aesthetics and startli…

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. You voted for it, we watched it. We discuss the winner of our Patron Poll, Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Veronique - A new film to both Hit Factory hosts, and one that has become an instant favor…

Director, co-writer, and star of The People's Joker (one of our favorite films of the year), Vera Drew joins for a discussion of the sexy, taboo-breaking, teen thriller Cruel Intentions. A 90s update of the 18th century Peirre Choderlos de Laclos novel 'Les Liaisons dangereuses' (aka Dangerous Liaisons), the film is a darkly comic and gleefully mis…

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, programmer, and filmmaker Juan Barquin joins to explore the work of M. Night Shyamalan and his breakout feature, The Sixth Sense. Now somehwat underrated in Shyamalan's impressive oeuvre, even and es…

Writer, critic, and editor of the Electric Dreams newsletter Fred Barrett joins the show to discuss the neon-drenched, saxophone-laden, softcore erotic thrills of Nico Mastorakis' In the Cold of the Night. The film is a hazy, dreamlike cut of meathead De Palma references, prolonged sex scenes, and fascinating gestures toward deep state mind control…

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. Film lover and zine-er Katie Stebbins joins to discuss Alan J. Pakula's smart, understated legal thriller Presumed Innocent featuring Harrison Ford in one of his finest performances. Taut, richly detailed, a…

We sat down for a brief conversation with Alex Cox, the director of Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Walker, and many more to talk about the state of filmmaking today, the sensations Alex hopes one feels when watching his films, and the sanctity of digital media and curation in an era of endless, decontextualized content streams. Alex is currently crowdfundi…

Producer and filmmaker Chadd Harbold returns to the show to discuss Terrence Malick's awe-inspiring WWII epic The Thin Red Line. The film marked Malick's return to the director's chair after a 20 year absence from filmmaking and features an ensemble cast of dozens of recognizable faces, including many massive stars of the period reduced to mere min…

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. Another solo Aaron & Carlee episode as we dig into an oft-forgotten erotic thriller of the early 90s, Nicholas Kazan's Dream Lover, starring James Spader and a post-Twin Peaks Mädchen Amick. A story of love,…

Hit Factory's Chief Canadian Correspondent and host of Junk Filter Podcast Jesse Hawken is back to discuss the work of French genre provocateur Claude Chabrol and his 1995 thriller 'La Cérémonie' starring Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert. Inspired by the true story of Christine and Lea Papin - two French sisters who, as live-in maids, were co…

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've reached the halfway point of 2024, which means it's time to sit down with the joint CEOs of Hit Factory LLC and discuss some of the best films of the year, recent finds, and new additions the CarleeCor…

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. Producer and co-host of Die Hard On A Blank Podcast and recovering Lars Von Trier superfan Liam Billingham joins to discuss enigmatic Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier and his breakout Cannes award-winning f…

Filmmaker, critic, video essayist and author Scout Tafoya joins the show to discuss the work of undersung journeyman Bruce Beresford and his brilliant 1991 film 'Black Robe', a story of faith, the frontier, and the church as a pernicious vestige of the European colonial project. Set amidst the 17th Century French conquests of North America in moder…

Filmmaker, producer, writer, and podcast guest extraordinaire Jared Bailey joins to discuss one of the iconic texts of 90s popular cinema, 'Forrest Gump' directed by Robert Zemeckis and winner of the 1994 Academy Award for Best Picture (among many others). For all its swings at grandeur, the film is a deceptively simple one in premise: An ordinary …

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. Mad Max maestro George Miller has a new film in theaters, so writer/producer/co-creator of Fox's 'Sleepy Hollow' & co-host of Podcast Like It's... Phil Iscove joins to discuss the work of the visionary direc…

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. Filmmaker, writer, and dude with an insanely high midi-chlorian count Neil Bahadur joins to discuss George Lucas's return to the Star Wars saga with the prequel trilogy kickoff 'Star Wars: Episode I - The Ph…

Writer, critic, and Hit Factory Discord all-star Jason Miller returns to the show to discuss Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan's 'Center Stage', an experimental biopic exploring the life and work of Chinese silent film star Ruan Lingyu who achieved an unprecedented celebrity before tragically taking her own life at only 24. Ruan is played magnificent…

Writer, comedian, and Lydia Tár's former publicist Daniella Mazzio joins to discuss Gus Van Sant's sharp, pitch-black satire of media, true crime, and a patently American brand of late 20th Century celebrity, 'To Die For'. The film is based on the Joyce Maynard novel of the same name, itself inspired by the true life trial of Pamela Smart, who sedu…

In honor of its upcoming 25th anniversary (as well as a chance meeting between the director and guest Matt Belenky), we're unlocking our episode on Spike Lee's 'Summer of Sam'. Here's what we had to say about this monumental work back in the summer of 2022: Writer Matt Belenky joins us from New York in the midst of a heat wave to discuss Spike Lee'…

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 and critic Eamon Tracy joins to discuss the brilliant James Gray and his debut feature 'Little Odessa' starring Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, and Vanessa Redgrave. Made when Gray was just 23 years old, it…

Leeds-based film journalist and podcaster Amber T. (@hornbloodfire) joins for a double feature discussion of bad vibes connoisseur Kiyoshi Kurosawa's V-Cinema revenge thrillers 'Serpent's Path' and 'Eyes of the Spider'. Written in collaboration with 'Ringu' screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi and directed back-to-back within an incredibly short producti…

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. Political reporter David Weigel joins to discuss the work of director Hal Hartley and his 1997 feature, 'Henry Fool'. The film, written and directed by one of the great undersung auteurs of American indie ci…

Writer and podcaster Jake Tropila returns for a dive into the dusty, hard-nosed pleasures of John Dahl's 1993 neo-noir western 'Red Rock West'. The film has been newly restored and released on blu-ray in a great edition courtesy of Cinématographe, a new sub-label from the folks behind Vinegar Syndrome. We start with a discussion of the career of Jo…

Writer and Senior Vice President at The Black List Kate Hagen joins to discuss Nancy Savoca's 'Household Saints', a generational tale of Italian women in New York and the shifting influences of faith, divinity, and family in their day to day lives. Long unavailable and thought lost to time, an original print of the film was discovered by the filmma…

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. Unofficial Hit Factory Sci-Fi Correspondent Aaron Thorpe is back to discuss the time traveling eccentricities of Terry Gilliam's '12 Monkeys' - a sort of quasi-remake of Chris Marker's 'La Jatée' (1963) feat…

Writer and resident Gilbert & Sullivan expert Julia Sirmons joins to discuss Mike Leigh's 'Topsy-Turvy', a story of the aforementioned musical duo and the production of one of their most popular shows, 'The Mikado'. It's a film that feels at once like an outliler in Leigh's career up to that point (his first film not set in contemporary working-cla…

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. Jake Serwin & Ian Rhine, hosts of the preeminent Clint Eastwood podcast Pod Casty For Me return to discuss one of the finest studio comedies of the 90s, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" starring…

New York-based filmmaker and producer Chadd Harbold joins to discuss the 1994 Tim Burton biopic 'Ed Wood', a sincere, loving portrait of the titular filmmaker and his band of Hollywood misfits coming together to make oddball, outsider B-movies that remain enduring works to this day. We discuss Tim Burton as filmmaker, the increasingly diminishing r…

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. Matt Bors & Ben Clarkson, creators of the excellent sci-fi/action satire graphic novel 'Justice Warriors' join to talk about one of our main guys - Paul Verhoeven (aka Pauly V) and his landmark sci-fi/action…

Just in time for Sundance festivities and a whole new cycle of 'May December' discourse, we're back to discuss Todd Hayne's 1991 debut feature 'Poison'. Both the winner of the Best Feature Award at the aforementioned Park City festival and a characteristically controversial release from the filmmaker, 'Poison', based in part on the works of queer a…

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. Aaron is joined by Jordan Fish and Ray Tintori of the preeminent Coen Bros. podcast, To The White Sea, to discuss the chilly, snow-capped neo-noir 'A Simple Plan', directed with uncharacteristic restraint by…

It's officially 2024...Happy New Year? We're not getting our hopes up! While everyone nursed their hangovers and tried desperately to get back to "normal" everyday life, we decided to take a look back at all the things we watched in the past year and talk about some stuff that falls outside the usual scope of the show. Join us as we each count down…

Get access to this entire episode, the entire Denzember catalog, and all of our premium episodes by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Universally beloved Vulture critic and Hit Factory all-star Roxana Hadadi returns to close out Denzember with a hefty chat about Mira Nair's 1991 romantic drama 'Mississippi Masala', a story of identit…

New York-based writer Ashley Reese joins us for our a very special Christmas installment of Denzember as we discuss Penny Marshall's 1996 romantic comedy 'The Preachers Wife'. We discuss the film as a metatextual exploration of Denzel Washington's celebrity image as well as part of Whitney's second leg as an international superstar and actress. We …

Get access to this entire episode, the entire Denzember catalog, and all of our premium episodes by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. Denzember continues with GQ Senior Editor Frazier Tharpe II joining us to discuss Jonathan Demme's 'Philadelphia', one of the first major Hollywood films to take on the AIDS crisis. Far from a simple "…

Chapo Trap House and Movie Mindset's very own Will Menaker stops by to help celebrate Denzember and discuss Carl Franklin's 'Devil in a Blue Dress', based on the inaugural Easy Rawlins mystery novel of the same name by author Walter Mosley. It's a stylish period noir made by a filmmaker and team seemingly uninterested in reproducing the aesthetic t…

Writer, editor and podcaster Edward Ongweso Jr. returns to the show to kick off Denzember, a monthlong celebration of our greatest living actor, with a conversation about Spike Lee's seminal 1992 biopic 'Malcolm X'. It stands as one of Lee's most triumphant achievements and one of Denzel Washington's very best performances as one of the most signif…

An introduction to our monthlong celebration of our greatest living actor, Denzel Washington. Get access to all forthcoming Denzember episodes as well as our entire back catalog and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month. . . . . Our Denzember theme song is "FUNK" by OPPO.Di Hit Factory