HARD OUT

Host Jay Thornton—himself a survivor of Stage 3 colon cancer—and multi-hyphenate artist Joe Wilson (who has been battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer for well over a year, and has valiantly outlived his docs' estimates) chop it up over their experiences fighting the good fight both artistically and in the cancer ward, and how vital humor is to both.

Horror film aficionado Al Lucard is a friend of the show, an a fan of our sicko mockumentary CACTUS JACK (can find it on Vudu and Amazon)—he stopped by back in June (I know, I know, been busy as hell lately) to talk horror films, filmmaking, movie nostalgia, the tragic and touching story of why he started his youtube movie review channel, and his all-time favorite flick, the original 1990 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

Check it out!

Title of this one kinda says it all. Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton (no relation—unfortunately, given the power of nepotism in Hollywood)!) broke in with a million dollar spec sale of their epic Santa origin story Winter's Knight to Sony and have since written such high profile projects as TV adapts of Old Man's War and Final Fantasy, but their first produced feature—Hulu/Disney+'s THE PRINCESS—was tragically part of the Mouse House' recent avaricious and unceremonious 50+ project dump to catch a tax break.

We're baaaaa-aaaack. Well, Jay is (though Chris or even R. Michael Gull may pop in from time to time to co-host), after a six-month hiatus.

Screenwriter and filmmaker Rob Hagans, aka "The Bespectacled Mofo," drops by to talk making movies on a true nano (or even "pico") budget. We're talkin' $1k films, people!! Give a listen and hell—grab your smartphones and join the movement! Gull and Jay are already noodling ideas in the $1k space.

This week Jay and R. Michael Gull sit down to chop it up with writer-director Chris Rucinski and actor Jesse Gavin, the star of Chris' super solid, character-driven directorial debut indie thriller NORTHERN SHADE.

Whew! This one is *WILD*, folks!

Don't call it a comeback! After two-timing it on another podcast, Jay is back home where he belongs at Hard Out—with none other than his muse R. Michael Gull as co-host moving forward (fans of Chris, don't fret, he'll pop in once in a while).

After a long hiatus, we're back with an episode we recorded on July 24, 2021 with none other than Alvaro Rodriguez—screenwriter of MACHETE, FROM DUSK 'TIL DAWN 3: The Hangman's Daughter, Netflix "Mexanime" SEIS MANOS, indie film THE LAST RAMPAGE, El Rey's FROM DUSK TIL DAWN TV adapt, Showtime's upcoming AMERICAN RUST and more! He also talks Sam Fuller's amazing noir classic PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET, his uber-talented family (Robert Rodriguez is his cousin), and running for the Board of Directors of the WGAw (Writers Guild of America, West).