The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood

This week I’m joined by Mark Cousins, the writer and director of the new documentary, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock. We talked about his movie’s unorthodox presentation, why Hitchcock remains eternally relevant, and how he puts together his incredible video essays. (If you’ve never seen his The Story of Film: An Odyssey, you really should.) And then he turned the tables on me with some closing questions! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!

Good show, long show today with the Entertainment Strategy Guy (subscribe to his Substack here). I’m going to offer up timestamps here, which I don’t usually do, because there’s a ton of stuff covered in this podcast. 

Amongst the topics we discussed: Marvel vs. DC in the TV realm (:40); Tulsa King’s status as a surprise hit for Paramount+ (11:40); what the data about Netflix’s second season of Monsters suggests about its completion rate and why that matters (16:06); why horror has a lower streaming ceiling than theatrical ceiling (21:29); Prime Video’s moves into sports and news (30:56); the four horsemen of the media apocalypse (38:41); and a cautious defense of embattled WB-Discovery honcho David Zaslav (56:17).

Phew! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Thomas Negovan, who oversaw the reconstruction of Caligula: The Ultimate Cut. Combing through 96 hours of the original negatives, Tom rebuilt the film from the ground up in order to bring it closer in line with the vision of writer Gore Vidal, director Tinto Brass, and star Malcolm McDowell. We discussed some of the technical challenges of tracking down source materials, the challenge of reconstructing a film that felt entirely different from every version previously known, and how McDowell and costar Helen Mirren responded to the reconstituted picture.

The Ultimate Cut debuted at Cannes last year and is available now via streaming, Blu-ray, and 4K from Drafthouse Films and Unobstructed View. (The Blu-ray and 4K sets also include a previous cut of the film; for more on that cut and its odd provenance, I’d recommend reading this note at Diabolik DVD.) And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!

I’m joined by Gabriel Sherman, the writer of The Apprentice, on this week’s episode. Sebastian Stan plays Donald Trump in this movie in theaters now about the future president’s relationship with noted legal fixer and possible evil supervillain Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). The movie’s path to distribution is almost as interesting as the film itself: following production and a decent response at Cannes, it found itself in limbo as the original financier got cold feet and studios worried about reprisals from Donald Trump if he were to win the presidency again. We discussed all that and more in our chat; if you found it interesting, I hope you share it with a friend!

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Parrot Analytics’s Brandon Katz to discuss a vexing issues for streaming channels and audiences alike: why do the services have such a difficult time helping people find more things on the service to watch? Our chat is based in part on his column in the Observer, and you should read it if you have a second. But the long and the short of it is that streaming services are dealing with customers signing up for a month or two, binging what they want to watch, and then canceling their sub, over and over, hopping from service to service. Is this anyway for folks to live? 

This week I’m talking to a friend here in Dallas, Bart Weiss, about the Ernie Kovacs Award taking place this weekend at the Texas Theatre. This year’s honoree is Jerry Casale from the band Devo, and we’re discussing his work both with the band and as a pioneer of the music video artform. Check out the links above for tickets to the various events (the screening tonight is going to be pretty fun, I think, as the movie is super-interesting). If you’re in the Dallas area I hope you check it out. And if you enjoyed this episode, I hope you share it with a friend!

NOTE: This is the correct audio file! Apologies, crossed my Audioboom streams the first time around.

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Jason Pargin to discuss his latest novel, I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, a standalone comic adventure about life in the age of interconnectivity. It’s out Tuesday; you can preorder it now. And I really hope you do: Pargin is among the most precise observers of life as it is lived in the digital age, and one of the things we really dive into in this episode is the way in which social media and smartphone living have really altered how we not only interact with each other but also ourselves. 

This week I’m joined by Amy Nicholson, the director of the documentary Happy Campers, which is now available for rental or purchase on VOD at Apple. We discussed the ragtag oceanside community Amy documented, how she came to find herself in a position to tell their story, and some of the stranger reactions to the film’s decision to be less didactic and more emotionally compelling. If you’re intrigued by what you hear here, make sure to check out the movie. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!

This week I talked to Steven Watts about his new book, Citizen Cowboy: Will Rogers and the American People. Rogers was a fascinating figure, one who straddled America’s status as a largely agrarian, frontier-expanding nation to the more urban, cosmopolitan nation we have today. He helped people manage the cultural change with his humor and became one of the most famous (and beloved) men in America by riding the new mass media wave and gently sticking it to politicians of all stripes. If you want to learn more about Rogers, make sure to check out Steven’s book. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend!

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by John Magary, editor of the new film Between the Temples. We discuss how he got into the editing business, the role of the editor in building the rhythm and flow of a picture, the aesthetic choices an editor can make in shaping the meaning of a movie, and a little about his work with the Criterion Channel. If you enjoyed this episode, try to find a theater playing the movie near you; it’s in 500 or so screens, which means there’s a decent chance there’s a showing somewhere in your neighborhood. And make sure to share it with a friend!