Rotten Rewind

Our five week descent into the grotesque madness of Vulgar Horror comes to an end today on the podcast. For our special Halloween send-off, we're finally diving into the 100% rotten career of musician, filmmaker and certified Wife Guy, Rob Zombie. Over the last 20 years, Zombie has amassed one of the most singular horror filmographies in the canon. Critics have almost unanimously given his work the cold shoulder, dubbing his specific brand of the genre as "Hixploitation." Today on the podcast, we're unpacking two Zombie sequels that, for better or worse, best represent the spirit of Zombie's style.

First up, it's his 2005 love letter to 70's horror and lovers on the run thrillers, "The Devil's Rejects" starring his beloved wife Sheri Moon-Zombie, Bill Moseley and the late, great Sig Haig as the unforgettable Captain Spaulding. After that, we're heading to the late aughts for Zombie's notoriously divisive sequel "Halloween II" featuring Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie Strode and Malcolm McDowell playing the famous Dr. Loomis as a grifting scumbag.
Zombie loyalists Nick Laskin and Lindsay Theirl join us to discuss their unabashed love for Zombie and how hard it can be defending the cult filmmaker in an age of "elevated horror." Why is Zombie so alienating for even the most die-hard of horror fans? Why are horror fans becoming Marvel-esque gatekeepers with 40 year old franchises? Are audiences turned off by genre entries that reckon with our enjoyment of watching innocent people murdered before our eyes? Is "Halloween II" the "Fire Walk with Me" of the franchise? There's only one place to find out.

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For our final Vulgar Female Gaze installment, we're looking back at a pair of underseen 90s dark comedies. First up, it's photographer Cindy Sherman's first and only foray into directing with the 1997 horror comedy "Office Killer" starring Carol Kane, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Molly Ringwald. After that, we're switching gears for the late, great Adrienne Shelly's sophomore feature, "I'll Take You There" starring Ally Sheedy.
Filmmaker Giselle Bonilla joins us to discuss her surprising connection to Adrienne Shelly, the tonal whiplash of Shelly's low budget take on the romcom and the

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TW: This episode contains discussion of rape and sexual assault.

Some filmmakers court controversy wherever they go, but few have been as polarizing as Catherine Breillat and Lena Dunham. For our third installment in the Rotten Female Gaze miniseries, we'll be dissecting two films from Breillat and Dunham that offered an uncompromising and often uncomfortable look at the complexity of female sexuality.

Beginning in 1999 with Breillat's visceral and painful "Romance," a film that shocked audiences during its initial festival run and continues to divide critics and fans of the French auteur to this day with its bleak vision of one woman's sexual unravelling. After that, we'll move onto Dunham's thematically thorny and tonally messy comedy, "Sharp Stick" starring Kristine Froseth, Jon Bernthal, Taylour Paige, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Scott Speedman as a feminist porn star.

Is the backlash Dunham received over the last decade harsher because she's a young, female filmmaker? Are we so desensitized that seeing unsimulated sex in a film feels tame today? Does Dunham double down on her racial blind spots in "Sharp Stick?" Is the Scott Speedman Revival Tour the hottest ticket in town you never saw coming? Find out right now on the hottest podcast on Patreon.

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For our second installment in the Vulgar Female Gaze miniseries, we're interrogating the often polarizing sub-genre of women doing crime. Writer Jaime Bolker joins us for a look back at two ripped from the headlines comedies: the 2001 cheerleaders turned bank robbers comedy "Sugar & Spice" and Sofia Coppola's pivot into the true crime genre with 2013's "The Bling Ring."

Coming on the heels of "Bring It On" and "But I'm a Cheerleader," Francine McDougall's midwestern crime satire "Sugar & Spice" was met with a critical shrug, but managed to find enduring success as a future sleepover classic for 90s kids. Coppola, usually a critical darling, was met with a more divisive reaction than usual for her muted look at the true story of a group of San Fernando Valley teens who loved to rob tabloid celebrities in the late 2000s.

How did "Sugar & Spice" go from the hot title every young actress wanted to be in to the tonally erratic January release it was doomed to become? Was 1999-2002 the golden era for Mena Suvari? Has James Marsden ever given a bad performance? Was Sofia Coppola the right choice for a ripped from the headlines true crime romp? Did "The Bling Ring" help set the stage for the "A24 brand?" Is Emma Watson's accent more Valley Girl or Canadian? Do dads get horny? Join us for a conversation on all this and more!

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When looking at the canon of "Vulgar Auteurism," you'll notice that most of the directors mentioned are... surprise... men! Specifically, white men. But because the very concept of "Vulgar Auteurism" is so loose and open to interpretation, we decided to dedicate the next month to female filmmakers that have, at one point or another, directed a critical misfire that honors the "Vulgar Female Gaze."

Writer Kaycee Felton-Lui joins us for our first installment in the miniseries for a double feature about toxic women and female rage. First up, it's the 1989 dark comedy "She-Devil" starring Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr and Ed Begley, Jr. After that, we're jumping to 2012 for Leslye Headland's debut feature and adaptation of her own stage play, "Bachelorette" starring Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan and Isla Fisher.

Is "She-Devil" really the career-ending bomb that it was made out to be in 1989? Was there really a time when Meryl Streep was told she could never be funny? Did "Bachelorette" come too soon after the success of "Bridesmaids?" Was it too dark for general audiences looking for another comedy where women shit in a sink? Is there anything Kirsten Dunst can't do? Was Roseanne ill-equipped to face off against Streep in "She-Devil?" Why haven't any of us seen "Sophie's Choice?" Why doesn't Max know what a Baja Blast is? There's only one place to find out.

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The American Western experienced a resurgence in the 90s after the critical and financial success of "Dances with Wolves" and "Unforgiven." At that time, Sam Raimi was more known for his groundbreaking work in horror, making him an unlikely choice to spearhead a Western revisionist action film with genre heavyweight Gene Hackman. But that was the only director star and producer Sharon Stone wanted for the project. Stone used her post-"Basic Instinct" power to not only bring Raimi on board, but to land Russell Crowe his first American role, and personally pay a baby-faced Leonardo Di Caprio's salary after the studio nixed the idea of him co-starring. The result? A box office and critical failure that began the decline of Stone's thriving career and left Raimi feeling like he was all to blame.

Today on the podcast, we're taking a slight detour from Vulgar Neo-Noirs to Vulgar Western Noirs with Sam Raimi's "The Quick and the Dead" and Walter Hill's Prohibition-era thriller "Last Man Standing," starring current podcast favorite, Bruce Willis. Writer and cartoonist Michael Chau joins us to discuss the gonzo vision of Raimi and why critics must have hated fun in 1995. We're also unpacking the sexism that Stone experienced at the height of her fame, the comeback she so badly deserves, Leo's hold on teenage girls in the 90s, Gene Hackman's pussy eating skills, why Bruce Willis isn't a hat guy, stinky Western dicks, Sisqo's Shakedown, and our new spinoff series "Whores Next Door."

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"For those that understand they're living the last days of the world, death acquires a different meaning. The extinction of all reality is a concept no resignation can encompass."
This week's guest, Michael Aghajanian, has described Ridley Scott's 2013 bomb "The Counselor" as a "flagship Rotten Rewind movie." This is, after all, a movie that opens with Michael Fassbender finger-fucking Penelope Cruz while telling her she has "the most luscious pussy in all of Christendom," and later features a now notorious scene where Cameron Diaz fucks the windshield of a Ferrari. Sadly, in 2013, critics and audiences weren't ready for 2 hours of beautiful actors reciting verbose monologues about the nature of violence and destiny in between scenes of graphic beheadings and Cameron Diaz fucking a car. Thankfully, it's been 9 years since Ridley Scott brought Cormac McCarthy's first produced original screenplay to the big screen and we, as a society, have accepted that we are living in the last days of the world.
So how does "The Counselor" stack up against podcast heavyweights like "In the Cut," "Bamboozled" and "Vanilla Sky?" Is this really one of the few Ridley Scott films that Tony Scott could have directed? Did Javier Bardem really base his look on mega producer Brian Grazer? Is Brad Pitt in the middle of a pussy-eating Renaissance? Could anyone have filled Cameron Diaz's shoes as a gold-toothed Machiavellian ice queen with tacky leopard tattoos? Is McCarthy's worldview too nihilistic or just right for our apocalyptic times? Does truth really have no temperature? Find out right now on America's most celebrated podcast.

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Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke made six films together over the course of a decade. They also had a tumultuous romantic partnership that culminated in a 19 month trial where Locke developed breast cancer. Locke, an Academy Award nominated actress, turned to directing in the late 80s, but was never able to achieve the notoriety she deserved because of her public falling out with Eastwood.
Today on the podcast, we're looking back on their final collaboration together, the fourth entry in the "Dirty Harry" franchise, "Sudden Impact," as well as Locke's sophomore feature behind the camera, "Impulse." Critic and writer Jourdain Searles returns to the show for an in-depth conversation about the tragedy surrounding Locke's career and her mostly unseen directorial efforts.
Why were we robbed of such a talented artist's future works? Was Sondra Locke the Polly Platt to Eastwood's Bogdanovich? How do reconcile an artist's off-screen behavior with their legendary career? What happens when Dirty Harry tackles rape culture? Why doesn't Theresa Russell work anymore? How the fuck do you pronounce George Dzundza's last name? Find out right now as we kick off our month-long descent into the seedy back alleys and underworlds of Vulgar Neo-Noir. 

Vulgar Neo-Noir continues this week with one of the most controversial and divisive films - and filmmakers - of their time. 1980s Hollywood was steeped in Orientalism, predominately seen in action films like "Flash Gordon" and "Big Trouble in Little China" and futuristic sci-fi landscapes like the iconic imagery of "Blade Runner." We're riding solo today for an in-depth conversation about the fetishization of Asian culture in Hollywood cinema, specifically in Michael Cimino's murky Chinatown crime thriller "Year of the Dragon" and Ridley Scott's neon-drenched Yakuza thriller "Black Rain."
Does "Year of the Dragon's" ambiguous morality stand in the way of it being the masterpiece it so badly wants to be? Has there ever been a more unsympathetic "hero" than Mickey Rourke's racist, Vietnam vet turned renegade cop, Stanley White? Is "Black Rain" unofficial dudes rock cinema? Can Michael Douglas play a bad boy? How hard does Jan de Bont go in "Black Rain?" Are you even boys if you don't call each other "babe?" Is this fucking Vietnam all over again?! There's only one place to find out...

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"You don't have to lick my ass. Just fuck me."

It's hard to think of a better quote in the canon of genre master Brian De Palma. Today on the show, we finally get the opportunity to dive into one of our favorite directors' filmography by discussing two of De Palma's most divisive critical failures: the 1998 Nicolas Cage conspiracy thriller "Snake Eyes" and the 2002 erotic thriller "Femme Fatale" starring Antonio Banderas and Rebecca Romijn.

Filmmaker Andrew Jacobson joins us for the first time to pay tribute to the Horny King and his two favorite De Palma flicks. Is De Palma the most underrated of his 70s peers? Does a movie have to make sense to be good? Can anyone pull off the greasy ponytail look the way Antonio does in "Femme?" Is marrying Rebecca Romijn the greatest achievement of Jerry O'Connell's life? Why aren't more people talking about the statue of Luis Guzman in Puerto Rico??? Does anyone ever crave Gary Sinise in a movie? Is De Palma's upcoming take on the Harvey Weinstein scandal unnecessary, or is it the perfect movie for right now? Find out right now on America's horniest podcast.

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