After a fraught journey to the big screen at the hands of corporate overlords, Coyote Vs. ACME has finally seen the light of day. Despite the C-suite mishigas the film is proving to be a well-earned success. It’s a funny, charming, and uniquely sobering look at the things we buy and use, and the companies we get used by. Rooted as much in the world of Chuck Jones as The Verdict or A Civil Action, the cartoon courtroom antics are built on the bones of a legal thriller, and the resulting observations bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the reality of our relationship with almost every corporation in 2026.

To unpack this, I spoke with Joe Galbo, a social media specialist for a U.S. safety regulatory agency. Over the past decade, Galbo has made it his mission to raise awareness of unsafe products in wry and off-beat ways one meme at a time. We discuss the irony of how the film’s fraught distribution is reflected in its script, and frankly enhances its message. We also get into how the film captures an ever-present dread in the face of AI and the “enshittification” of just about everything we buy and use. We marvel at how unflinching the film is in delivering these sentiments, and why the Looney Tunes are the perfect vessel to raise awareness.

Be sure to follow Joe @josephgalbo.bsky.social, and for any info on unsafe products (or how to report them) visit saferproducts.gov.

Coyote Vs. ACME is now in theaters.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! And sometimes we get to talk to movie directors about their own B-Sides!

Today, with his new film Just Play Dead now in theaters and available on VOD/Digital, we spoke with the great Martin Campbell about his long, accomplished career. Along with Just Play Dead, we focus on his early films Criminal Law, Cast a Deadly Spell, and Beyond Borders.

The perennially underrated filmmaker tells us how he gets movies like Just Play Dead made these days, why he still wants to make an outright comedy, why his Green Lantern film didn’t work (spoiler alert: it was the script being written “by committee" and eleventh-hour budget cuts), and the freedom that comes with smaller budgets on independent productions. There are also brief discussions about GoldenEye (a final budget of just $58 million!), his cult classic No Escape, and why he doesn’t like the actual making of his movies but he loves the editing.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars and not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones they made in between. In a revisited episode as Mutiny arrives, Dan Mecca, Conor O'Donnell, and Jordan Raup discuss The B-Sides of Jason Statham’s career.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars and not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones they made in between. Today, in a revisited episode, we explore the career of a B-Side prince: Matt Damon. From his Oscar-laden breakout film Good Will Hunting to the upcoming Ford v Ferrari, the Boston-born filmmaker has made many hit movies, and twice as many that were underseen. And don’t get us started on all of the cameos!

Our Damon-focused episode explores Gerry, The Brothers Grimm, Hereafter and The Great Wall. We discuss the career of Terry Gilliam and his many troubles making Grimm. We dive into the tragic inspiration behind Gerry as well as Gus Van Sant and Matt Damon’s desire to experiment with long camera shots. We gauge how accurate podcast producer Conor O’Donnell’s review of The Great Wall was from a couple of years back.

When, a few years ago, I agreed to interview the filmmaker Rob Tregenza on the eve of his career-spanning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, I did not anticipate it would, before long, lead to a producing credit on his new film. Nor a whole other feature in the time between that he thanked me for helping motivate, or an extended interview on his strange experiences working with Béla Tarr.

This week marks the release of Tregenza’s sixth feature, Fast, a characteristically audacious and formally virtuosic that opens at MoMA on Wednesday, August 12 for a world-premiere one-week run, followed by an opening at Los Angeles’ Laemmle cinemas on August 21.

If you suspect I’m biased in the movie’s favor, good work; you are correct. But I also have as many questions about it as anyone else, and wanted to speak to Tregenza about Fast’s particulars and peculiarities. Thus this conversation that I hope you—whether you choose to be the listener or the reader—find as illuminating as I, the interviewer.

There’s podcasts about movies (hello) and there are movies about podcasts. A podcast helping create a movie that is not itself about the podcast, but reflects its worldviews and the sense of humor that has become a kind of lingua franca among people in their 20s and 30s: that is novel.

Thus: Chunks. If you’re a regular listener of Chapo Trap House, you’ve probably heard ads for the film proffered by the show’s producer Chris Wade, who has also taken up producing duties on this film, which is a comedy anthology that moves between public-access TV, animation, live-streamed poker, and more straight-ahead narrative projects that still reflect something of screen life and the modern dystopia. Chunks was spearheaded by Amber A'Lee Frost, a longtime contributor to Chapo who has since started ColdFeet, a production entity that previously supported Eephus. It was my pleasure speaking with Chis and Amber about Chunks, translating the Chapo sensibility to cinema, and ColdFeet’s forthcoming projects.

Music courtesy of Lex Walton: “Love Theme from an Unreleased Film” from the album Giving It Up.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we discuss the great Michael Mann! Our B-Sides are The Keep, Public Enemies, Blackhat, and Ferrari. Our guest is the iconic Blake Howard of One Heat Minute Productions.

We discuss the troubled making of The Keep, as well as that incredible Tangerine Dream score. The legendary Twilight Zone episode “The Howling Man” also comes up. There’s also mention of how many movies about the French-Indian War there are (spoiler alert: not many!)

Blake, Conor, and Dan Mecca discuss the legacy of Mann and his recent output of underappreciated films. Why is it that Michael Mann’s films are often released to lesser success than their long-term reputations suggest?

There’s celebration of Mann’s ever-evolving digital aesthetic, conversation about the contentious star-director relationship on the set of Public Enemies, and his demanding, exacting instincts. As legendary producer Amy Pascal once put working with the director: “You forget about the pain of childbirth too. I mean, whatever you go through, you still want another baby. It’s like that with Michael too.”

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. 

Today we discuss perhaps the most popular filmmaker alive today: Christopher Nolan! Our B-Sides are Insomnia, The Prestige, and Tenet. Our guest is the legendary Blake Howard of One Heat Minute Productions. 

We chat about late-period Al Pacino, the unexpected success of Batman Begins, and those other magician movies that came out around The Prestige in 2006.

There’s appreciation for the unique Nolan commentary for Insomnia and that Entertainment Weekly cover for Batman Begins, and the great character actor Martin Donovan.

Like the old song goes: summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street. While the theater has its benefits as a restrictive space, and we do not encourage interrupting those to your immediate left and right with heavy movement, one appreciates, at times, the excuse to tap your feet. Or at least a reminder that theaters aren’t just about a big screen, but a sound system better than the built-in speaker  situated behind your TV.

Hence: Electronica. It’s a new series running at BAM from today, July 10, to July 14, featuring an "amalgam of films from across the globe boasting electronic-heavy soundtracks." Some titles you might know chapter and verse; others, I think, have not played in New York for at least the decade I’ve lived here. I was glad to speak with BAM’s Yasmina Tawil about Electronica, but what follows is really a discussion of programming in its finer points: when to screen and why; when you can’t screen but really want to; what attracts an audience, and how you attract the audience with something they don’t necessarily want; and how this is seemingly the one realm of cinema where people reject monetary offers. I hope you enjoy, and see something in Electronica as it’s running.

Learn more: https://www.bam.org/film/2026/electronica

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we discuss America’s Sweetheart: Julia Roberts! Our B-Sides include: I Love Trouble, America’s Sweethearts, Full Frontal, and Larry Crowne. Our lovely guest is Joe Reid of Vulture and the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast.

We discuss Julia’s frequent career peaks and valleys, that ridiculous People Magazine cover in 1993, the tumultuous production of I Love Trouble, and the aftermath of a difficult Hook shoot.

There’s talk of the giant comeback that was My Best Friend’s Wedding and Julia’s knowing, clever subversion of the rom-com leading character in it. We make time for the rise and fall of Revolution Studios, Joe Roth’s passion project that had a tumultuous first seven years.

Scooter gangs and the 2008 Recession come up in talking about Larry Crowne (naturally), and there’s debate over how successful Julia has been over these last couple of decades in her “legend era.”