Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 110 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by AwardsWatch contributor Josh Parham discuss the latest film in their Paul Verhoeven series, Hollow Man (2000).

In his final project within the Hollywood system, Paul Verhoeven entered the new millennium looking to make a new take on a classic horror film, about a scientist working on a special government project that turns you invisible by taking a special serum. In aiming to make a more conventional blockbuster, the director made one of his most controversial, thorny pictures as the main protagonist of the film is a downright psycho, hell bent on staying invisible despite being told how dangerous he has become by his long time co-workers on the project. It’s a mostly entertaining throwback to the 2000s with excellent special effects as well as a deeply disturbing commentary attached to it. Ryan, Jay, and Josh break down their thoughts on the film, the creepy nature of tech-bros, the unfocused nature of who really is the lead of this film, the filmography of Kevin Bacon, how cool this movie poster was at a Blockbuster video, and just how many jokes can Josh make about Jay relating to the main characters of this film.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h23m. The guys will be back next week to continue their series on the films of Paul Verhoeven with a review of his film, Black Book. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).