It's the end of our Schrader project - for a few weeks, at least - as we tackle the final film of his "Man In A Room" trilogy, 2022's MASTER GARDENER. Joining us is New Orleans-based writer Matthew Germenis! We're talking horticulture as both a restorative and reactionary practice, the film's ultimately tangential relationship to far-right movements, reformed Neo-Nazis, the legacy of plantation architecture, and more! Great ep!

Don't forget to check out our technical chat with IRL New Orleans gardener Bob Martin, also in this feed!

See you next week for a wrap-up of Schrader so far.

Further Reading:

"Three Bullets in the Gun: Paul Schrader on Master Gardener" by Erik Luers

"Paul Schrader: ‘My movies are more on the witty clever side than the drop-your-pants funny side’" by Mark Asch

Paul Schrader Interview by Isaac Feldberg

"Christian Picciolini: The neo-Nazi who became an anti-Nazi" by Natasha Lipman

"I was a neo-Nazi. Then I fell in love with a black woman" by Claire Bates

"The Rehabilitation of ‘Pitbull,’ a Former Wrestler and Neo-Nazi" by Joseph Goldstein

"Land-Grant Eugenics: Spreading an Idea in Rural America" by Joshua Earle

Further Viewing:

FIRST REFORMED (Schrader, 2017)

THE CARD COUNTER (Schrader, 2021)

ERASING HATE (Brummell, 2011)

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It's the one you've all been waiting for - our episode on Alfonso Pineda Ulloa's 2014 film THERE ARE NO SAINTS, adapted from an unmade Schrader script, which sat on a shelf for 8 years before getting dumped on VOD after his FIRST REFORMED/CARD COUNTER comeback. What's that? You don't know what this movie is and you don't really want to hear us talk about it? Great news - this episode was recorded live (to tape) at Ian's home in Oaxaca, is mostly about Jake's visit there, and contains shocking revelations that turn much of PCFM's Ian Lore upside down. Plus some talk about neo-exploitation cinema, John Wick riffs, narcocultura, and eating bugs. Fun ep, check it out!

Further Reading:

Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents by Stephen Thrower

"After 'The Canyons,' Strange Tale of 'The Jesuit'" by Paul Schrader

Review by Nick Mangigian

Further Viewing:

ROLLING THUNDER (Flynn, 1977)

HARDCORE (Schrader, 1979)

JOHN WICK (Stahelski, 2014)

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Ante up, listeners - we're dealing out another big one this week. Paul Schrader's 2021 follow-up to FIRST REFORMED, the (ostensible) poker drama THE CARD COUNTER, was another "Man in a Room" film, this time exploring the moral weight of past actions. Joining us to talk about Abu Ghraib, Iraq War films, and how much a filmmaker's stated politics really matter compared to what's on screen is writer and critic Roxana Hadadi! Don't worry, there's plenty of Star Wars prequel digression on this one, too.

Further Reading:

Roxana's review of THE CARD COUNTER

Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life by Richard Beck

Lynndie England interview in Stern

Paul Schrader interview in GQ

Paul Schrader interview with The Playlist

Further Viewing:

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (Morris, 2008)

CAMP X-RAY (Sattler, 2014)

FIRST REFORMED (Schrader, 2017)

THE REPORT (Burns, 2019)

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We're taking a detour this week to talk about some Paul Schrader projects that never made it to the screen - the Montreal-set gangster film QUÉBECOIS!, the Elio Petri remake INVESTIGATION, psychedelic murder mystery THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION, film festival-set stage plays Berlinale and The Cleopatra Club, biopics EIGHT SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF HANK WILLIAMS and GERSHWIN, and the Bret Easton Ellis-scripted shark thriller BAIT.

We read PDFs so you don't have to! Unless you want to, in which case they're linked below.

Ian also makes a medium-exciting discovery about one of the screenplays he read...listen to find out what the h--- we're talking about.

Further Reading:

QUÉBECOIS! by Paul Schrader

INVESTIGATION by Paul Schrader

THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION by Paul Schrader

Berlinale by Paul Schrader

The Cleopatra Club by Paul Schrader

EIGHT SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF HANK WILLIAMS by Paul Schrader

GERSHWIN by Paul Schrader

BAIT by Bret Easton Ellis

Further Viewing:

24 HOURS OR MORE (Groulx, 1973)

INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION (Petri, 1970)

ODYSSEY INTO THE MIND'S EYE (Boydstun, 1996)

MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (Schrader, 1985)

THE CANYONS (Schrader, 2013)

INTO THE BLUE (Stockwell, 2005)

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This is a big one, folks. Paul Schrader's 2017 FIRST REFORMED, a climate-doom riff on WINTER LIGHT and DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST, kicked off a new phase of his career that's still unfolding as we speak. Phases unfold, right? Anyway, to help us unpack both this tremendous work of transcendental cinema and our own crushing despair, we're joined once again by our great friends Aaron and Carlee from the Hit Factory podcast. Is it illegal to describe a bomb vest as a form of prayer? We'll find out together!

Further Reading:

"Paul Schrader on How ‘First Reformed’ Reflects His Own Despair Over Climate Crisis"

"Paul Schrader on First Reformed’s Provocative Ending and Its Many Influences"

IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report, 2023

WWF Backgrounder: Comparing climate impacts at 1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C and 4°C

Further Viewing:

DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (Bresson, 1951)

WINTER LIGHT (Bergman, 1963)

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Arf arf, listeners - this week we're talking Paul Schrader's 2016 goofaround crime thriller DOG EAT DOG with Darryl Edge and Petros Patsilivas from the Getting Dafoe You podcast! This film was a form of creative redemption for Schrader and Nicolas Cage after the fiasco of DYING OF THE LIGHT, but is it of any interest to an audience? We report, you decide. We also decide, to be honest. The four of us have now likely given more attention to this film than anyone involved in its production, so I think we've earned the right. Fun ep, check it out!

Further Reading:

"Paul Schrader: ‘I’ve made some important films. Dog Eat Dog is not one of them’"

"Paul Schrader and Willem Dafoe: 'We thought we should really do the nasty'"

"The Goofball Criminals of Paul Schrader’s 'Dog Eat Dog'" by Richard Brody

Dog Eat Dog by Edward Bunker

Education of a Felon by Edward Bunker

Further Viewing:

STRAIGHT TIME (Grosbard, 1978)

AFTER DARK, MY SWEET (Foley, 1990)

OUT OF SIGHT (Soderbergh, 1998)

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It's two movies for the price of one today! (Podcast remains free.) In 2014, Paul Schrader directed Nicolas Cage and Anton Yelchin in a thriller about a CIA agent with frontotemporal dementia trying to hunt down an old enemy before his mind goes. The money guys took the film away from him, edited it into a totally anonymous Redbox movie themselves, and released it as "A Paul Schrader Film" anyway. He was contractually prohibited from disparaging the result, but Schrader, along with the cast and producer Nicholas Winding Refn, publicly disowned the released version, and Paul drank himself into a stupor. Several years later, during the editing process on First Reformed, he returned to DYING OF THE LIGHT and made it into something between a director's cut and a fascinating work of video collage art called DARK, which is legally unreleasable but available to view for free. It's so nuts, and it changed the course of his career. We're gonna talk about it!

Further Reading:

"Warning: ‘Dying of the Light’ Is Not a Paul Schrader Movie" by Anne Thompson

"Paul Schrader’s Secret New Movie: How the Director Resurrected a Wild Nicolas Cage Performance Without Permission" by Eric Kohn

Further Viewing:

DARK (Schrader, 2017)

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In 2013, Paul Schrader directed deeply troubled recent child actress Lindsay Lohan and porn star/human Quagmire James Deen from a script by literary dolt Bret Easton Ellis in a crowdfunded, low-budget curio about the vapid cruelty of modern Los Angeles. THE CANYONS was widely disregarded on release, but has steadily grown in esteem by some particularly movie-brained folks. Will we be among them? What about our guest, writer Charles Lyons-Burt? You'll have to listen to find out!

Spoiler: we both despised the experience of watching this, and reading other people's appreciations of it made us feel insane. But Charles makes some compelling arguments! Good ep, please don't get too mad at us.

Further Reading:

"In Lindsay's Stardust Orbit" by Braxton Pope

"Paul Schrader's 'The Canyons'" by Richard Brody

"Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie" by Stephen Rodrick

Paul Schrader interviewed for Salon by Daniel D'Addario

Further Viewing:

AMERICAN GIGOLO (Schrader, 1980)

THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS (Schrader, 1990)

THE 15:17 TO PARIS (Eastwood, 2018)

THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (Cassavetes, 1976)

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Sorry for the late update, everybody - we got trapped in one of those two-person horse costumes for like 48 hours, really really scary. But we're back to talk pretty seriously about Paul Schrader's 2008 literary adaptation ADAM RESURRECTED, the story of a German Jewish clown who becomes a concentration camp commander's human dog and then finds himself the Van Wilder of an Israeli psychiatric facility after the war. It is at once a very relevant and profoundly unhelpful film for the current moment, but we do our best to get to the bottom of the ideas at work here. We recorded this a few weeks ago, so facts about Israel's genocide of the people of Palestine are that many weeks old as we post this, to say nothing of whenever you find yourself listening to it. But, as ever: free Palestine.

Further Reading:

Adam Resurrected by Yoram Kaniuk

"We Are Conquerors" by Adam Shatz

"Yoram Kaniuk - The Last Great Zionist" by Yuval Ben-Ami

"Israeli Writer Yoram Kaniuk, 83, On Pain And Peace"

Palestine: A Socialist Introduction ed. Sumaya Awad and brian bean

Further Viewing:

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (Forman, 1975)

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (Benigni, 1997)

THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED (just kidding)

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Paul Schrader concludes his first set of Man In A Room films with 2007's THE WALKER, a bookend to AMERICAN GIGOLO that finds the lonely man working as a literal escort for society women in D.C. But will Carter Page III find meaning outside of managing a few political wives' secrets? Should Woody Harrelson be doing that voice? Is Jake so unceasingly distractible on this episode that it ends the podcast? You'll have to listen to find out!

Further Reading:

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

"The Consummate Chum: Jerome Zipkin Dies at 80" by Mort Sheinman

"The Gigolo Grows Up" by Kyle Buchanan

Further Viewing:

AMERICAN GIGOLO (Schrader, 1980)

NOW YOU SEE ME (Leterrier, 2013)

NOW YOU SEE ME 2 (Chu, 2016)

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