Pod Casty For Me

Look, either you know what this is or you won't believe us. In 2017, Steven Soderbergh and writer Ed Solomon made a murder mystery show that was an app on your phone. You used your phone to decide which scenes to watch next to find out who killed Sharon Stone. This is real. Then they re-edited it as a miniseries for HBO, and now you can't watch the app version literally anywhere. The whole thing is nuts, and thank G-d we have our friend Comrade Yui to help us navigate through it (app joke). Join us for a typically wide-ranging conversation about interactivity, the artist as fascist (complimentary?), video game theory, and biodigital jazz, man. Hey more like Steven Flappybird! Because he deleted the app! Well, someone did.

Further Reading:

Extra Lives by Tom Bissell

Cain's Jawbone by Torquemada

"Interactive Cinema: The Ambiguous Ethics of Media Participation" by Marina Hassapoulou - https://filmquarterly.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Hassapopoulou_Interactive_Introduction-1.pdf

"Mosaic: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Review of Steven Soderbergh's Mystery" by Matt Brennan - https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/mosaic/mosaic-hbo-steven-soderbergh-review

Further Viewing/Playing:

MOSAIC trailer/app demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km_u51OE3VA

KINOAUTOMAT (Činčera, 1967)

OUT 1 (Rivette, 1971)

ZORK (Anderson, Blank, Daniels, and Lebling, 1977)

DRAGON'S LAIR (Bluth, 1983)

CLUE (Lynn, 1985)

MASS EFFECT 2 (Hudson, 2010)

BLACK MIRROR: BANDERSNATCH (Slade, 2018)

Follow Comrade Yui:

https://x.com/yui_antinomy

https://www.patreon.com/c/comrade_yui/

https://letterboxd.com/comrade_yui/

Follow Pod Casty For Me:

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Support us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/PodCastyForMe

Artwork by Jeremy Allison:

https://www.instagram.com/jeremyallisonart

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month.

You voted, we watched! For our third Listener Choice episode, we jumped in the saddle to talk OPEN RANGE, Kevin Costner's 2003 Lauran Paine adaptation that he seemed to think would be his UNFORGIVEN. We disagree! To the many Costnerds among you, we apologize in advance - but this thing ain't UNFORGIVEN, let me tell ya. We talk free grazing, mythmaking, saving dogs, and the wonderful Robert Duvall and Michael Jeter.

Avatar: The Last Annettebender. Is that anything? Let us know.

As always, thank you to Jetski for our theme music and Jeremy Allison for our artwork.

Produced by Jake Serwin & Ian Rhine. Edited by Ryan Torgeson.

The Winds of Winter is still a distant dream for incarcerated fantasy fans, but our episode on Soderbergh's 2017 NASCAR caper LOGAN LUCKY is coming to you on schedule. We brought back our friend, and rebel among San Diego film critics, Glenn Heath Jr. to discuss how Ocean's 7-Eleven combines Soderbergh's impatience with conventional film production, his visions of an incongruous South, and his preternatural flair for heist movies. It might be a live-action cartoon or it might be serious American Regionalism. We lay it all out for you in what Sebastian Stan has called "the dirtiest air of all."

Further Reading:

"Will Soderbergh's Strategy of Bypassing the Studio System...," by Ryan Faughnder

Prison Life Unlocked by Phillip Vance Smith Jr.

"Former Coal Towns Get Money from Clean-Energy Factories," by Hiroko Tabuchi

"How an Ex-Coal Mining Town is Turning to Ecotourism," by Emily Cataneo

"For Black NASCAR Fans, Change Would Mean Feeling at Ease," by Andrew Keh

Further Viewing:

RAISING ARIZONA (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1987)

BOTTLE ROCKET (Wes Anderson, 1996)

TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY (Adam McKay, 2006)

BERNIE (Richard Linklater, 2011)

Follow Glenn Heath Jr.:

His Twitter

Digital Gym Cinema

San Diego Asian Film Festival

Pacific Arts Movement

Follow Pod Casty For Me:

https://www.podcastyforme.com/

https://twitter.com/podcastyforme

https://www.instagram.com/podcastyforme/

https://bsky.app/profile/podcastyforme.bsky.social

https://www.youtube.com/@podcastyforme

Support us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/PodCastyForMe

Artwork by Jeremy Allison:

https://www.instagram.com/jeremyallisonart

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month.

As promised, we decided to dig in on last year's Best Picture winner and one of the most-discussed Political Films to come out of Hollywood in a long time: Paul Thomas Anderson's ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER. And of course we roped in our buddy Ryan Torgeson, formerly of the Altmania podcast, who has maybe more context for this film than anyone we know. We talk about whether the film has a coherent politics and what that might be, the film's depiction of Black women, the "discourse" that most pissed us off, being the child of radical parents, and of course how many beers we've had (and their relative size). Really great conversation, check it out!

follow Ryan: https://x.com/molecularlioneI

"Black Actresses Are Carrying One Battle After Another" by Angelica Jade Bastién - https://www.vulture.com/article/black-actresses-are-carrying-one-battle-after-another.html

Mother Country Radicals podcast - https://crooked.com/podcast-series/mother-country-radicals/

As always, thank you to Jetski for our theme music and Jeremy Allison for our artwork.

Scrub in, folks - we're headed back to the operating theater for the second and final season of The Knick! Doctors Thack and Edwards and the gang are up to even more bleak shenanigans this time, and we're talking about it all. It's a bonafide Pod Casty cornucopia of context as we chat medical hypnotism, eugenics, Black Nationalism, sideshows, addiction treatment, urban revival churches, condoms, New York City corruption, and a bunch of other stuff. Plus, Kimi's really one on this time.

Further Reading:

Soderbergh interview on AI by Brent Lang

Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance by Melinda Cooper

Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts by Ben Singer

The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum's America by Benjamin Reiss

André Holland interview by Rodrigo Perez

"The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey" by Paul Prescod

"The Shadow of Booker T. Washington" by Jervis Anderson

"A Short History of the Condom" by Hallie Lieberman

"The Wedding Night" by Ida Craddock

Further Viewing:

THE MOSQUITO COAST (Weir, 1986)

MAD MEN (various, 2007)

J. EDGAR (Eastwood, 2011)

Follow Pod Casty For Me:

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https://www.youtube.com/@podcastyforme

Support us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/PodCastyForMe

Artwork by Jeremy Allison:

https://www.instagram.com/jeremyallisonart

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month.

We're back with another commentary track, this time for a movie by a director we almost covered: David Cronenberg. His 1988 identical twin gynecologist horror-tragedy DEAD RINGERS deals with all kinds of themes we love: the nature of the self, of experience, of the body, of morality. It's also got the guy from Soderbergh's KAFKA and the lady from TIGHTROPE and OBSESSION. Listen to this along with the film or just listen on its own - it works either way, in our opinion!

"Dead Ringers" by Ron Rosenbaum & Susan Edmiston

Thanks as always to Jetski for our theme music and Jeremy Allison for our artwork.

Get ready for one (second-to-)last ride! We're hopping on the food truck with the Kings of Tampa to talk MAGIC MIKE XXL, Greg Jacobs's 2015 sequel to MAGIC MIKE, on which Soderbergh served as both cinematographer and editor. Returning to the show is our pal, movie person and social media producer Marie Bardi! We talk nontoxic masculinity, female pleasure, the film's response to race-based criticism of MAGIC MIKE, and whether the Kings can be considered a leaderless worker collective. Grab your cheetos and water and give it a listen.

Further Reading:

"Where Mike Got the Magic" by Tressie McMillan Cottom

"The Subversive Phallocentrism of Channing Tatum," by Katie Warfield

"The Lived Experience of Male Sex Work." by Michael G. Cutris and Joshua L. Boe

Further Viewing:

GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, Busby Berkeley, 1933)

THE STORE (Frederick Wiseman, 1983)

BEAU TRAVAIL (Claire Denis, 1999)

STEP UP (Anne Fletcher, 2006)

STEP UP REVOLUTION (Scott Speer, 2012)

NOCTURAMA (Bertrand Bonello, 2016)

DOG (Reid Carolin, Channing Tatum, 2022)

Follow Marie Bardi-Salinas:

https://www.instagram.com/mariebardi/

https://www.mariebardi.com/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blank-check-with-griffin-david/id981330533

Follow Pod Casty For Me:

https://www.podcastyforme.com/

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https://www.instagram.com/podcastyforme/

https://bsky.app/profile/podcastyforme.bsky.social

https://www.youtube.com/@podcastyforme

Support us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/PodCastyForMe

Artwork by Jeremy Allison:

https://www.instagram.com/jeremyallisonart

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month.

Prepare to get real BOSS BABY vibes, folks. Making good on a tweeted threat, we had our friend, filmmaker Christopher Jason Bell join us to try to make sense of 2017's THE BOSS BABY, an animated film for children that baffled us all. We end up talking about what it means to compare films, whether there is a use to analyzing any text at all, and if one can be a boss without any productive process over which to boss. Plus, we sing the praises of the brilliant 2022 Boss Baby Symposium, which you should all check out. Also: a message from Maxwell!

Follow Chris Bell: https://x.com/UpdateTheGrids https://linktr.ee/christopherjasonbell

The Boss Baby Symposium: https://bbsymposium.weebly.com/last-years-event.html

Thanks as always to Jetski for our theme music and Jeremy Allison for our artwork.

May the pods be ever in your feed-ver. Or whatever! We're screwing with the chronology a little bit today because we decided Steven Soderbergh's second unit work on Gary Ross's 2012 YA adaptation THE HUNGER GAMES was worth doing on the main feed after all. And we were right! There's a ton to talk about, from the film's style and what it means to try to find Soderbergh in it to the whole series's depictions of class, political struggle, war, and propaganda, to the popularity of dystopian young adult fiction, to the effectiveness of "political" art like ANDOR and ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, to the surprisingly enduring legacy of Hunger Games imagery in real protest movements around the world, to how much this film (and later ones in the series especially) remind us of Gaza. Good stuff, please check it out.

Further Reading:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins

"A Radical Female Hero From Dystopia" by Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott

"Suzanne Collins Talks About 'The Hunger Games,' the Books and the Movies"

"'Hunger Games': The Real Story Behind Steven Soderbergh's Involvement" by Philiana Ng

"Hunger Games: Israel Forces Gazans to Choose Between Starvation and Risking Their Lives" by Nir Hasson

"'The Hunger Games' Turns 10: Director Gary Ross Reflects on Filming, Story's Resonant Themes" by Lexy Perez

"Mark of the (Mr.) Beast" by Veronica Phillips

Further Viewing:

THE RUNNING MAN (Glaser, 1987)

VOCES INOCENTES (Mandoki, 2004)

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (Lawrence, 2013)

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 1 (Lawrence, 2014)

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 (Lawrence, 2015)

ANDOR (Various, 2022-2025)

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (Anderson, 2025)

THE LONG WALK (Lawrence, 2025)

REALITY CHECK: INSIDE AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL (Loushy & Sivan, 2026)

Follow Pod Casty For Me:

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Support us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/PodCastyForMe

Artwork by Jeremy Allison:

https://www.instagram.com/jeremyallisonart

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to Patreon.com/PodCastyForMe to hear more for just $5 a month.

Attention all Thieves, Gray Mages, Unbidden Warriors, Dark Avians, Riverwynders and Sappers: it's MICHAEL CLAYTON time. Tony Gilroy's 2007 corporate thriller vehicle about fixers, cover-ups, mental breakdowns, and baguettes was produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's production company Section Eight, and has become a bonafide New Dad Classic. Joining us to talk all things Gilroy are Rusteen Honardoost and Alex Wolinetz of the wonderful Andorks podcast - and you're never gonna believe this, but we found some connections to ANDOR here. Plus we learn about the paper Ian wrote on this movie in high school. Really great conversation, check it out!

Follow Rusteen and Alex: https://www.andorkspod.com/ https://x.com/rusteenh https://bsky.app/profile/alexwolinetz.com

Thanks as always to Jetski for our theme music and Jeremy Allison for our artwork.