MovieMaker

Nick Richey, director of 1-800-HOT-NITE, is as cooly understated as he is full of surprises. The new film is about a teenager in trouble (Cobra Kai star Dallas Dupree Young) who gets surprisingly good advice from a phone sex operator (Aly Richey) on a wild night with his friends.

The film is inspired by Richey's own tumultuous early years, growing up on the edge of trouble in Vancouver, Washington, near Portland. Many of his scary childhood experiences — like a weird encounter with a reptile — made it into 1-800-Hot-Nite. So did his and his friend's habit of calling phone sex lines.

The film, which premiered to acclaim at the Deauville Film Festival in France, has completed a U.S. festival run that included the Heartland International Film Festival and Austin Film Festival. It's now available everywhere on VOD.

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Matt Stawski grew up a Detroit punk fan, shooting his friends' bands with equipment from a local TV and radio station. So of course he was the ideal person to direct Blue's Big City Adventure, the new Blue's Clues movie.

It's actually not as weird as it sounds. Blue's Big City Adventure is packed with light, color, and music. And Stawski found his way to it after directing videos for bands like Anti-Flag, which led to jobs directing videos for Fall Out Boy, Snoop Dogg, and CeeLo Green — including the latter's giddily colorful 2010 video for "Forget You."

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Follow Her director Sylvia Caminer knows all the potential pitfalls of making a psychosexual thriller: cheesy sex scenes, falling into tropes, and at worst, actors who feel exploited. She avoids them all in Follow Her, a film written by and starring Dani Barker, a former influencer herself whose script skillfully subverts cliche in favor of a meta exploration of the genre.

In this episode, Caminer — a documentarian and producer as well as a first-time feature director — also talks about social media cautionary tales, stealing shots in NYC, and going on the road with Rick Springfield.

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In Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom, host and executive producer Rasool Berry travels to Galveston, Texas to learn about the real origins of Juneteenth, our newest national holiday. He talks with the descendants of the people who were emancipated on the first Juneteenth, June 19, 1865, to learn the true story of the day — and how the truth has been twisted to help people feel better about the past. He also met with Opal Lee, the grandmother of Juneteenth, whose long quest to gain recognition for the day ultimately led her to the White House.

You can watch the full film, Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom, here.

You may also know Rasool Berry from his podcast Where Ya From? And if not, check it out!

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Peter Phok is having an amazing year — he executive produced both X, released in March, and its prequel Pearl, released in September. And he's planning ahead to MaXXXine, the third film in the horror trilogy directed by Ti West and starring Mia Goth, who co-wrote Pearl with West.

Phok goes way back with West — they attended NYC's School of Visual Arts together —but he's also produced horror hits separately from the director, including the Netflix hit 1BR, which we covered in a previous episode of this podcast. Phok is an extremely hands-on producer, even when working remotely, as he did for Pearl and X. He talks with us about achieving the 1970s grit of X and the early cinematic Technicolor majesty of Pearl with the same camera, the Sony VENICE. And he tells us about his cinematic white whale... a Ti West film set in space.

We conclude by asking for some details on MaXXXine, and discuss what it will take to get Mia Goth an Oscar nomination.

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Kelci Parker, vice president of Animation at Hulu Originals, shared some perspective with students at the SCAD Animation Fest on the art of storytelling: "We're not curing cancer. But we may be bringing someone a laugh as they go through treatment."

Parker, recipient of the 2022 SCAD Animation Fest Award of Excellence, spoke about her journey from writing her own screenplays to working at Comedy Central to helping shape Hulu hits like Only Murders in the Building, How I Met Your Father, and Marvel's M.O.D.O.K. and Hit-Monkey.

As an executive who has also been a creative, Parker is especially interested in giving good feedback. In this episode, she talks about her approach — and why that person giving you feedback is your friend.

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Come on down! Director C.J. Wallis joins us to talk about his documentary 'Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much,' which tells the story of Ted Slauson, a math assessment test writer and “The Price Is Right” fanatic. From an early age, Slauson studied the prices of the show’s prizes, and even wrote software to help him memorize them. He eventually gets caught up in a controversy when one contestant gets a price a little *too* right. Plus: Eric and Jason discuss their love for comfort TV classics and needing to take a break from intense media content.

Hosts: Eric Steuer and Jason Betrue

Theme music: Yalls (https://yalls.bandcamp.com)

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This episode is sponsored by Evermoon Media: https://www.evermoonmedia.com/learn

We speak with Bianca Stigter, director of 'Three Minutes: A Lengthening.' The documentary is a beautiful and devastating tribute to a Jewish community in Poland that was captured on film in 1938 and wiped out by the Nazi regime a year later. We also talk about Nathan Fielder's unique (and hard to describe) docuseries 'The Rehearsal' and discuss fascinating artifacts uncovered in record stores, flea markets, and neighbors' homes.

Hosts: Eric Steuer and Jason Betrue

Theme music: Yalls (https://yalls.bandcamp.com)

Send us a note at [email protected]

Visit MovieMaker Magazine online: https://www.moviemaker.com

Welcome to Actual Facts, where we discuss documentary films and talk to the filmmakers behind them. In this first episode, we speak with Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller, directors of 'Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song.'

Hosts: Eric Steuer and Jason Betrue

Theme music: Yalls (https://yalls.bandcamp.com)

Send us a note at [email protected]

Visit MovieMaker Magazine online: https://www.moviemaker.com

We should probably shut the podcast down, because somehow we scored an interview with the legendary SLASH. We talk about his work executive producing and scoring the gnarly soundtrack for Rodrigo Gudiño's The Breach, about a chief of police investigating the very strange appearance of a mutilated body on the Porcupine River.

We talk about how Slash got involved in the project, as well as his work with Quentin Tarantino, how so many G'N'R songs ended up in Thor: Love and Thunder, and why there will never be a Guns N Roses movie.

Also, whether he's hopeful about the future of rock 'n' roll... and movies.

Warning: snakes

(Pictured: Slash and Rodrigo Gudiño.)

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