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 celebrate filmmaker James L. Brooks! His new movie Ella McKay is in theaters now!

Our returning guest is very good friend Adam Drosin, and together we are The Brooks Brothers. Our B-Sides today are I’ll Do Anything (musical cut included), Spanglish, and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

We discuss Brooks’ impossibly successful career as a producer of both film and television, his keen eye for talent (his support of superb filmmaker Kelly Fremon Craig), and, of course, his reckoning with failure.

There’s also the recipe for that sandwich in Spanglish, Julia Roberts’ feelings about Nick Nolte on the set of I Love Trouble (which came out the same year as I’ll Do Anything, a rough year for Nolte professionally), and that Gracie Films fanfare. We also give The Critic some deserved love.

We ponder the editing choices in Brooks’ 2010 debacle How Do You Know and celebrate his acting in the masterpiece Modern Romance (directed by Albert Brooks!). Cinematographer John Seale also said in an interview that the movie he shot that he used the most film on was Spanglish!

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 talk about someone who played Bond, James Bond, and Blanc, Benoit Blanc. It’s Daniel Craig!

Our returning guest is the great Gavin Mevius, co-host of both The Mixed Reviews Podcast and The Q Division on Glitterjaw.

Our B-Sides today include The Mother, Enduring Love, The Golden Compass, and Cowboys & Aliens. We also spend some time on The Invasion.

We remember the controversy of Craig’s being blonde and being cast as Bond (silly!), as well as the early roles he took on before our B-Sides. There’s conversation on the films of Roger Michell and if he really is some version of Mike Leigh lite. There’s also an earnest debate about which film is worse: The Golden Compass or Cowboys & Aliens?

Mild shock takes hold as we three recall both that HBO did in fact make FULL THREE SEASONS of His Dark Materials (!) and the somewhat disingenuous, cash-grabby way Cowboys & Aliens came to be.

One of the many special things in Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley, is the production design. Nearly every element of each setting feels like it was just sitting there, waiting to be captured. Of course, this is not the case. It was meticulously, carefully planned and built. The Film Stage's Dan Mecca was lucky and honored to speak with Alexandra Schaller, the film’s production designer, about the agonies and ecstasies of bringing Train Dreams to life, as well as some earlier, accomplished work in her career.

Additional thanks to Schaller, who provided The Film Stage access to mood boards and behind-the-scenes photos from the project.

Explore here: https://thefilmstage.com/train-dreams-production-designer-alexandra-schaller-on-finding-beauty-in-the-land-and-making-small-films-feel-big/

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 Richard Linklater! He’s an American indie legend who we recently just spoke to! With two new films out here at the end of 2025 (Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague), we discuss his B-Sides: SubUrbia, The Newton Boys, Me and Orson Welles, and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood.

Our guest is Ryland Aldrich, our dear friend, an accomplished producer and experienced writer on film, as well as the creator of FYCit App,“the number one smartphone app for awards voters and guild members to find awards screenings, events, and content for all the season’s top contenders.”

Conor, Ryland, and I dig into our love for Linklater, the highs and lows of his long, accomplished career, and his continued improvement as a stylist.

We debate Ethan Hawke’s chances of getting an Oscar nomination for his Blue Moon performance, the lasting cultural relevance of School of Rock, and Orson Welles’ famous response to a question about Elia Kazan many years ago.

There’s also mention of the Mercury Theater’s famous 1938 broadcast of “The War of the Worlds,” the documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, and those real-life clips of The Newton Boys.

A world-cinema fixture who's earned the support of Martin Scorsese, M. Night Shyamalan, Olivier Assayas, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Béla Tarr, Claire Denis, Christian Petzold, Tilda Swinton, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi––among many others––Carlo Chatrian reshaped the festival landscape with his work as artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival and Berlinale, his influence such that an abdication of his position at the latter in 2023 caused an honest-to-God outcry.

He is now serving as director of the National Cinema Museum in Turin and, for the last couple weeks, also acted as head of the international competition jury at the Tokyo International Film Festival. While we were both there, I sought the opportunity to ask him about these responsibilities, and found myself engaged in a rigorous serious conversation about where he sees cinema culture at the moment, where it might be headed, and––amidst all this––reasons to be hopeful.

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 David Cronenberg, one of the truly great Canadian geniuses and the filmmaker credited with the advent of “body horror” (a distinction he bristles against, for what it’s worth). Our B-Sides today include Fast Company, The Brood, M. Butterfly, and Spider. Our guest today is the incomparable Veronica Fitzpatrick, professor at Brown University and Editor-at-Large and Podcast Co-Host at Bright Wall/Dark Room. 

We talk about how handsome Oliver Reed is in The Brood, how Cronenberg’s films often start with a bang, how misguided M. Butterfly is, and how Fast Company was, in fact, a movie directed by David Cronenberg. There’s talk of his novel Consumed, his multiple collaborations with certain great performers like Jeremy Irons, and his incredible, intellectual mind. This is a man who has adapted Stephen King, William Burroughs, Don DeLillo, J.G. Ballard, and Patrick McGrath. What range!

There’s the real-life French diplomat on which M. Butterfly is based, as well as the metatextual nature of both Cronenberg’s adaptation of David Henry Hwang and his later picture A Dangerous Method. It’s Cronenberg taking stock of the psychology of his own films! Fascinating. Veronica mentions B.D. Wong’s Tony speech, we all marvel at the fact that Adrian Lyne remade Lolita (with Jeremy Irons!) in 1997 and it barely got a release! There’s a lot in here! Happy Halloween!

Given her work in and around cinema, it’s no surprise that Stephanie LaCava would write a novel that is, no small feat, cinematic. Said novel is Nymph, a slim and elliptical and fully satisfying character piece about a young woman, Bathory––called “Bat” for short––whose parents’ strange lifestyle, either involving spy craft or assassinations or just being out-and-out weirdos, brings her down dark corners.

Having known Stephanie for a little bit, I already knew she was worth talking to. (An important quality for any podcast guest.) But when she sent me the book last month, I read it with enough speed and relish that it was no question we should talk about Nymph, the Chantal Akerman and Abel Ferrara films that inspired it, and the complex personal feelings these things can raise. While I hope you like our conversation, I mostly hope it drives one to reading Stephanie's novel.

Order Nymph here: https://www.versobooks.com/products/3384-nymph?srsltid=AfmBOorlFqrsPmUBBXZkib0EKTKrXwvCfSY0sCRZ1mooAPre-6aOgVfw

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 talk about a performer that we lost far too soon: Bill Paxton.

Our B-Sides today include Brain Dead, Indian Summer, Traveller, and Frailty. Our guest is Billy Ray Brewton, and we cover a lot of ground.

We dive into Paxton’s Roger Corman origins (Crazy Mama getting reamed out by legend Stella Adler in New York, his ultimate move to Los Angeles, James Cameron, etc.), his love of movie-making and being on set, his tragic death, and much, much more.

We mention his first directing gig (“Fish Heads” by Barnes & Barnes on SNL), his last directed feature (The Greatest Game Ever Played), and his recent podcast appearances before his death. There is also this charming late night appearance.

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 talk about maybe the greatest actor who ever lived: Philip Seymour Hoffman. But seriously, did Hoffman ever give a bad performance?

We talk about it! Conor and I are back and our Philip Seymour Hoffman B-Sides are Leap of Faith, Owning Mahowny, Pirate Radio, and Jack Goes Boating. We go through his whole filmography, spot-checking the crucial moments throughout his career.

We briefly discuss his Oscar-winning performance in Capote, his iconic supporting turn in Along Came Polly, and his Oscar-nominated role in Charlie Wilson’s War. There’s also an admiration at the power he wielded with silence, and an examination into why The Master is his acting masterpiece.

Additionally, we remain astonished by the career of John Patrick Shanley (writer/director of Doubt), we celebrate the upcoming Greenland 2: Migration, and the ability of Richard Curtis to squeeze earnest sentimentality out of garish manipulation.

There’s also chat about Seth Rogen, who lost out to Hoffman for the role of The Count in Pirate Radio and was approached by Hoffman to star in Jack Goes Boating, until Hoffman played the role himself. Rogen discussed these things himself on a recent Blank Check podcast episode.

Ed Wood died the better part of a half-century ago, and to this day his reputation as the world's worst filmmaker persists. Even in this era when seemingly everything can be reclaimed, few have made the effort for Plan 9 from Outer Space, Glen or Glenda, or Night of the Ghouls, making all the more compelling a new book that does so without necessarily making the case for Wood as a strictly speaking good filmmaker. The author is Will Sloan and the book Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA, which studies Wood's filmography as a genuinely dream-like and ideologically... if not driven, then at least somewhat occupied with major questions of identity.

The work shows in Sloan's book, which contains key biographical information, rundowns of Wood's novelistic career, and a larger consideration of what constitutes a bad movie. I was extremely pleased to speak with him about these and sundry other subjects.