Out There in the Dark

By Basement Inc.

Hosts Azed Majeed and Tom Alexander discuss philosophy, psychology, politics and culture through film.... more

Download on the App Store

Download on the App Store

Get it on Google Play

FAQs about Out There in the Dark:

How many episodes does Out There in the Dark have?

The podcast currently has 63 episodes available.

Out There in the Dark episodes:

August 31, 2020 042: Unimagined Alternatives: The Revelatory Power of Apocalypse Movies
"It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism,” -Frederic Jameson
Apocalypse in the original Greek meant an "uncovering, disclosure, or revelation", but has at become more commonly understood as an event heralding the end of the world. In this episode, Azed and Jay are joined yet again by filmmaker Omar Majeed (Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam) and Azed's son, Ishmael (because...you know, what else is there to do during the Covid lock down?) as they explore 4 of their favorite Apocalypse themed movies; Snowpiercer (2013) directed by Bong Joon-ho, Children of Men (2006) directed by Alfonso Cuarón, The Sacrifice (1986) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and Melancholia (2011) directed by Lars Von Trier. All your favourite topics are in this one episode: existential despair, denial of death, capitalist fascism, and the destruction of life as we know it as an inevitable consequence of human folly and ignorance. Enjoy!
...more
1h 57min
July 14, 2020 041: Dance, Myth, Adventure and Chaos: Escapist Cinema for the COVID Blues
The last several months have delivered an overwhelming dose of hard knocks and brutal reality. With COVID-19 dominating our every social interaction many people including the Preverts crew have been turning to the films that promise some kind of respite from the stress-filled anxiety of our everyday lives. With special guests Ishmael and Omar Majeed we each pick a few films that help make life just a little bit brighter including Spirited Away, The Life Aquatic, Duck Soup and Singin' in the Rain, among others.
In the process of discussing what escapism means and what it offers to each of us we discovered how each of these films manage to capture some aspect of our deeply ingrained fantasy lives. The films discussed explore dance, myth, adventure and pandemonium in ways that soothe our dread and excite our spirits. The benefits of which often last far beyond the length of the films themselves.
You'll have to forgive us for the quality of Omar's audio. He was piping in from Operation Hennessy's Underwater Sea Laboratory.
We apologize to Kieran Dick for cutting our discussion of the Gary Busey classic DC Cab due to time constraints.
...more
1h 53min
June 09, 2020 040: Beautiful Blondes & Neurotic Cowboys: 10 Underappreciated Westerns
Like the screwball comedy and the musical, The Western would seem to be a dead genre. While every so often we get a "revisionist" take, like The Coen Brothers' True Grit or Tarantino's Hateful 8, still the western seems to belong to a by-gone era. However, the Western being the quintessential American genre, depicting the very origins of American identity, it arguably has more relevancy today than at any other time. In this episode, Azed and Jay sift through the annals of film history and pluck out their favourite underappreciated Westerns. No Rio Bravo or The Searchers here, these meta-westerns expose the underlying issues of race, class and gender that form the ethos of American "exceptionalism" and the paradoxical idea that history's greatest democracy somehow co-exists with it's oligarchic underpinnings. Films covered in this episode: Jay's Picks: Two Mules for Sister Sarah (1970, d: Don Siegel), Comanche Station (1960, d: Bud Boetticher), Persued (1947, d: Raoul Walsh), The Missouri Breaks (1976, d: Arthur Penn) and Bend of the River (1952, d: Anthony Mann). Azed's picks: The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949,d: Preston Sturges), Forty Guns (1957, d: Samuel Fuller), Little Big Man (1971, d: Arthur Penn), Heaven's Gate (1980, d; Michael Cimino) and The Ox Bow Incident (1947, d: William A. Wellman)
...more
2h 11min
April 30, 2020 039: Bare Feet and Bad Motherf***ers - The Cinema of Quentin Tarantino (Part Two)
As promised this episode is Part Two of our Tarantino retrospective where we tackle some of the most important questions in the history of the podcast. Will Azed let Jay get a word in edgewise? Will Jay start a race war by agreeing too much with Kieran and not enough with Omar and Azed? Will Tarantino get one of us to use the "n word"? And is Kieran Dick his real name?
The answers; no, maybe, yes (Omar) and he'll probably kill me for even divulging the possibility of such a thing (at the very least he might crush my windpipe or maybe cleave a hamstring).
Aside from all the violence and racial tension we discuss every film between Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood developing a deeper understanding of the themes and methods behind Tarantino's filmography. For discussions of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown check out Part One.
Once again, if you're in a particularly Tarantino-esque mood you can check out a playlist Jay made for a fictional Tarantino film right here. It's filled with all kinds of the funk, psych, soul, surf, pop nuggets that Quentin packs into his films (including a smattering of Ennio Morricone of course).
...more
1h 19min
April 23, 2020 038: Bare Feet and Bad Motherf***ers - The Cinema of Quentin Tarantino (Part One)
Welcome back to another episode of Mutiny of Preverts where we scratch that preverted itch for all you cinema lovers out there!
In this episode we brought back two of our favourite guests in Omar Majeed and Kieran Dick to break down the career of Quentin Tarantino. We get into some heated debates regarding the merit and intentionality behind some of his biggest hits. Is he a straight forward revisionist or is he engaging in the rich history of uchronia, a kind of speculative fiction that explores alternate histories of our world? We tackle that question in a general discussion then get into a film by film breakdown from Reservoir Dogs to Jackie Brown (and even a little nubbin of content covering My Best Friend's Birthday, his debut short film). In Part Two we'll cover the rest of his filmography from Kill Bill to Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
As an extra treat Jay put together a playlist of a fictional Tarantino soundtrack featuring all kinds of the funk, psych, soul, surf, pop nuggets that Quentin packs into every frame of his films (including a smattering of Ennio Morricone of course). Click here to check it out.
...more
1h 23min
April 03, 2020 037: The OG American Psycho-Nicolas Cage and Vampire’s Kiss
Pandemic Shmandemic! MoP will courageously continue to do our show as a way of giving back to the 70-80 listeners who continue to support us. So here it is, the long-awaited Nicolas Cage episode, focusing on his "infamous" performance in the much maligned 1988 film Vampire's Kiss (dir. Robert Bierman). Azed and Jay enthusiastically defend the film as deeper than merely highly meme-able kitsch, while our guest Brooklyn filmmaker and bon vivant, Keiran Dick declares, "it's not a good movie, you guys know that". We also discuss other great and not so great Cage performances and dissect his unique acting style. Other topics covered in this episode: Life during lock down, Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide, DC Cab and Keiran un-ironically asking us which one film we would take into the underground bunker? MoP BONUS FEATURE: New recipes for Bat soup and Pangolin burgers!
...more
1h 46min
February 23, 2020 036: 2020 Oscar Bitch Fest!
The Academy Awards caused a stir on the twitter sphere by awarding South Korean film, Parasite with Oscars in 4 major categories ( Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film). Usually, we at MoP love to spew vitriol and general 'bitch-iness" at the Oscars, but this year our sneering contempt was tempered by this show of authentic "wokeness".
On this episode, Azed and Jay are joined by guest critic, Tom Alexander, Director of Theatrical Releasing at Mongrel Media, as they cover the 9 films nominated this year, pick their personal fav's and almost come to fisticuffs over Jay's (traitorous?) change of heart about Joker. Attorney Bill Barr is launching an investigation into Jay and has already revealed that he once hired prostitutes to urinate on a picture of Martin Scorsese.
...more
2h 12min
February 03, 2020 035: Best Films of the 2010s
After a substantial hiatus the Preverts are back! And we've founded a brand new awards ceremony called The Preversions with all the prestige of the East Tampa Film Critics Association and the popularity of the Films for Incels subreddit. Some of the many categories include; Most Crypto-Fascist Film, Best Film That Made You Skip Pornhub That Day, Most Indelible Image, Most Depressing Film, Best Film You Don't Understand and a whole bunch more!
We also get into larger discussions about trends throughout the decade that we liked such as the accessibility of certain tools that made the films of Don Hertzfeldt possible or that we didn't care for like the box office dominance of movies that Scorsese would refer to as "theme park rides". Within this construct we cover many of the decades most discussed films from Joker to Holy Motors and Birdman to Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. It's a sprawling episode that only begins to cover the past decade in film that gave us some of the most memorable cinematic moments of all time.
Anyway, we were very excited to get back at it and we'll have another episode coming at you soon.
...more
2h 13min
December 24, 2019 MoP 059:ENCORE BROADCAST- The Obligatory Christmas Episode
ENCORE PRESENTATION!
Why are so many Christmas movies about suicide, despair, poverty and criminality? Isn't it supposed to be all about peace, love and hope? In this episode , Azed and Jay welcome filmmaker, Sean Cisterna (Kiss and Cry) to discuss their favourite Christmas movies. Sean breaks down his chosen favourite, Gremlins, to reveal the fascinating subtext woven deep in this seemingly benign monster movie. Jay unearths an obscure Ukrainian Christmas movie called Melody for a Street Organ, and Azed chooses a Jimmy Stewart Christmas classic, but not the one you're thinking about. Also, in the spirit of the holidays, we fully analyze the alternative version of 'Jingle Bells' and attempt to comprehend what it is that is causing Batman to smell. Could it be a glandular issue?
...more
1h 35min
November 11, 2019 MoP 033: REPEAT BROADCAST! A Formidable Woman: The Films of Elaine May
Azed and Jay are busy makin' a movie, and haven't had time to do a new episode, but with the recent news that the mercurial and alluring Elaine May is set to direct her 5th feature film at the age of 87, we are re-posting our tribute to the formidable Ms.May from last year. We'll be back in December with a new episode.
“Elaine was formidable…. one of the most intelligent, beautiful and witty women I had ever met. I hoped I would never see her again.” —Richard Burton
One of the most innovative artists to emerge out of the Beat era, Elaine May has been an object of fascination and curiosity for her entire strange, volatile career. On this episode of MoP, we take a deeper look at the life and work of the great Elaine May who only made 4 feature films A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mickey & Nickey and the infamous, Ishtar.
...more
1h 36min

FAQs about Out There in the Dark:

How many episodes does Out There in the Dark have?

The podcast currently has 63 episodes available.