Game Dev Story

Al Lowe is the creator of Leisure Suit Larry, the irreverent Sierra On-Line franchise that broke all the unspoken rules of game development. A crucial contributor through all of Sierra On-Line's brightest years, Al went from teaching music to students to developing videogames loaded with wit and personality. In our inaugural episode of Game Dev Story, a series where we talk to veteran and indie developers about their history in games, Al joins our show to share his philosophy about game development and to give the inside scoop about one of the most interesting studios of the '80s and '90s. Like playing one of Al's games, listening to him reflect on his career in games is compelling and very charming.

Seattle-based filmmaker Reed Harkness stops by for a chat about his new documentary Sam Now, an exploration not just of family, but in the same vein as Sarah Polley's miraculous Stories We Tell (2012), about how we tell our stories, the ways our environment shapes who we are, and what it means to film our families. Sam Now is showing in Seattle this month at Northwest Film Forum & The Grand Illusion. You won't want to miss it.

Mickey Reese is creating a scene in Oklahoma. His many films are communal exhibitions made with friends, crafted out of love for the great American filmmakers who came before him. Reese's recent genre works have caught attention at festivals and now his Altman-esque Country Gold is seeking an audience. We had a great chat with the director, exploring the themes of his new film and its relationship with American movies about country music and the established canon of movies about the place of idols in pop culture.

do it themselves, weaving together a neo-noir stoner comedy overflowing with dedication and homage to all of their favorite filmmakers. The film is The Lad Goodbye, and Vaughn and Jack are here to talk to its trio of creators, The Film Lads - Nolan, Kirk, and Victor.

Today, find out how the lads met, the process that led to the creation of the film, its dizzying array of influences, how The Lad Goodbye's hazy stoner logic all came together, Letterboxd as a platform for social film discovery, and so much more.

The film is available to watch for free any time on their Vimeo page, and you can connect with the Film Lads on Nolan, Kirk, and Victor's Letterboxd pages.

Angus MacLane is the director of Pixar's latest venture Lightyear, returning the studio to their rightful place in theaters, and expanding upon the meta fiction of the Toy Story franchise. MacLane was previously co-director on Finding Dory (2016) and notably has directed a series of shorts and significant pieces of animation for the studio. Join us as we discuss the path to directing at Pixar, why Buzz needed his own origin story, what it's like to develop a major animated film during a pandemic, and much more.

It's our honor to welcome Charles Roxburgh to the show. As the director mastermind behind the Motern Media vehicle, Charles is responsible for so many of our new favorite cult movies and is just as amiable on our show as is apparent in all of his lovely movies. Join us for a longform open-hearted conversation discussing yet another gem in the Motern canon, but also our collective love of cult and outsider films as a whole. There are many details here you're just not gonna get anywhere else!

The incomparable Matt Farley joins the regular Moterncast crew to highlight a gem from the Motern catalogue: 2007’s Freaky Farley, a rare throwback to ultra specific horror tropes. You won’t want to miss our interview, full of new details you won’t find anywhere else about the slate of upcoming Motern projects!

Panah Panahi's Hit the Road is an emotional new journey from Iran. Directed by the son of one of Iran's great filmmakers, we had the pleasure to chat with Panahi about family ties, becoming a great director himself, controversy and Iranian cinema, and a profound love of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Mark Cousins is a foremost chronicler of the new film canon, expanding our culture and understanding of cinema in innovative and diverse new directions. With The Story of Film (2011) and Women Make Film (2018), Cousins has provided us with new pathways for discovery and a more diverse appreciation of film. With his new project, The Story of Looking, premiering at Telluride, Cousins creates a more internal document: exploring the gift of looking and what it means to observe the world. In The Story of Looking, wherein Cousins is preparing for a risky eye surgery, the camera is turned inward, examining what it means to see the world, through the lens of cinematic language. Our conversation covers all this and more, in our latest entry of our Interviews series.

We have a chat with Jesse Blanchard, creator of Frank & Zed, a puppet horror film with analogues to Frankenstein and the history of puppet cinema. We chat about the Pacific Northwest puppetry scene, the technical side of working exclusively with puppets, and do a bit of show and tell with some of the puppets created for the feature.

View the interview and our show and tell with the puppets on The Twin Geeks YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJINgApKpYE&t=283s