Hit Factory

SCOTTEMBER concludes with Tony's brilliant naval submarine action thriller 'Crimson Tide' featuring near-best performances from two titanic actors: Gene Hackman & Denzel Washington. Film writer Zach Vasquez returns to discuss the real-world geopolitics that inform the film's ideology, the script's racial undertones (and how much we might have Tarantino to thank), and why this might be our favorite Tony of them all. Plus - we finally give our definitive Top 5 Tony's.

Follow Zach Vasquez on Twitter.

Read Zach's Crooked Marquee pieces:

Crimson Tide at 25: A Muscular Action Masterpiece for Bleeding Hearts

I Hate Everybody: An Ode to the Racially-Charged Action Movie

Hit Factory Patrons have exclusive access to every episode of SCOTTEMBER along with our back catalog of premium episodes and bonus content. Consider subscribing for just $5 today.

For $5/month, Hit Factory Patrons have exclusive access to every episode of SCOTTEMBER, along with our back catalog of premium episodes and bonus content.

Writer and podcaster Gus Lanzetta joins us to discuss Tony Scott's prophetic surveillance technothriller 'Enemy of the State', starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman. We talk the who's-who ensemble of young 90s up and comers (including Jack Black, Jason Lee, and Seth Green), explore the film's libertarian-leaning (and liberal-indicting) perspective on national security, and make the case for Tony as the singular auteur capable of originating the visual language of surveillance cinema popularized in the post-9/11 era.

Follow Gus Lanzetta on Twitter.

Hit Factory Patrons have exclusive access to every episode of SCOTTEMBER, including an extended version of this episode where we discuss everything from Bolsonaro to Jon Hamm (along with our back catalog of premium episodes and bonus content). Consider subscribing for just $5 today.

For $5/month, Hit Factory Patrons have exclusive access to every episode of SCOTTEMBER, along with our back catalog of premium episodes and bonus content.

We kick off SCOTTEMBER with "the 'Chinatown' of racecar movies," and one of Tony's first films of the 1990s, 'Days of Thunder'. Taylor Grimes returns for his hat trick as we talk about the persistent popularity of NASCAR, Cole Trickle as a continuation of Tom Cruise's career-long delineation of the meritocratic mindset, and relish Robert Duvall dirty-talking a chassis. We also begin to sketch our working thesis of Tony Scott as Hollywood's seminal arbiter of cinematic pop art in the vein of Warhol. 

Hit Factory Patrons will have exclusive access to every episode of SCOTTEMBER, along with our back catalog of premium episodes and bonus content. Consider subscribing for just $5 today.

Culture writer Owen Morawitz joins us to discuss Roland Emmerich's galaxy-hopping 1994 sci-fi action blockbuster 'Stargate'. With the help of the well-studied Owen, we unpack the film's open-ended  (sometimes shallow) mythology, examine 'Stargate' as a Gulf War parable, and briefly discuss the ongoing challenges of separating the art from the artist.

Readings:

Variety: 'Stargate Turns 25: How Roland Emmerich's Sci-Fi Classic Overcame a Chaotic Birth'
Entertainment Weekly: 'James Spader is Slack Happy'

Consider supporting the podcast by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content.

Follow Owen Morawitz on Twitter
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Our theme song is "Mirror" Chris Fish

Sarah Jaffe is a reporting fellow at Type Media Center and the author of 'Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone'. She joins us in our den-of-slack to discuss 'Reality Bites' directed by Ben Stiller and starring some of your all-time 90s faves Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn, and Stiller himself. Topics include the flattening of class dynamics within the story's central love triangle, the myth of the "labor of love", and the film's position within the 90s neoliberal imaginary.

Follow Sarah Jaffe on Twitter.

Consider supporting the podcast by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" Chris Fish

Film writer Kyle Turner joins us to discuss Peter Jackson's horror-fantasy thriller 'Heavenly Creatures', the movie that introduced the world to Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey. We discuss the film's bridging of Jackson's early horror experiments and his later fantasy epics, explore the colonial dynamics personified by the relationship at the center of its narrative, and canonize the film in the small pantheon of a "transcendent queer cinema".

Consider supporting the podcast by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content.

Read Kyle's excellent Polygon piece on camp aesthetics in Peter Jackon's 'Lord of the Rings' Trilogy: https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/2021/5/19/22444043/lord-of-the-rings-galadriel-speech-frodo-face-camp

Follow Kyle Turner on Twitter.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" Chris Fish

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