The Projection Booth

Mike talks with writer Aaron Tracy about his new podcast series, The Secret Life of Roald Dahl, which tells the story of the (in)famous writer who once served in the British Secret Service before becoming the author of macabre tales and beloved children's books.

Find out more about the podcast at https://www.listentoparallax.com/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Mike talks with multi-hyphenate Grace Glowicki about her new film, Dead Lover (2025). It's a stinky look at a gravedigger (Glowicki) who searches for a love who is taken too-soon.

The film is playing theatrically around North America. Check local listings or visit https://deadlovermovie.com/ for more details.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Kyler Fey and Michelle Kisner join Mike to dig into Bertrand Mandico's striking 2017 feature debut, The Wild Boys (Les Garçons Sauvages). A fever dream of transgression and transformation, the film follows five privileged boys who rape and murder their literature teacher — then are spirited away by a mysterious sea captain to the strange and sensual Dress Island, where nature itself begins to reshape them.

The trio explores the film's roots in transgressive literary tradition, its place within a rich lineage of queer underground filmmaking — from Jean Genet and Kenneth Anger to Guy Maddin — and Mandico's bold formal choices: tactile black-and-white cinematography, analog practical effects, and the provocative decision to cast women as the "wild boys," destabilizing gender from the very first frame.

The conversation ranges across Mandico's developing filmography as well, examining how After Blue and She Is Conann extend the obsessions on display here: artificial worlds, collapsing gender binaries, and the body as a site of punishment and desire. More than a debut, The Wild Boys emerges as a manifesto for a wholly singular cinematic vision.


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Re-recording mixer Martyn Zub discusses the new film from Padraic McKinley, The Weight (2026), the story of a battle-scarred veteran in The Great Depression who's hired to help smuggle a fortune in gold across 100 miles of impenetrable wilderness. The film stars Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe and had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

She's been dug up, renamed, reanimated, and gaslit — and Hollywood expects her to be grateful. Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! (2026) resurrects the Bride of Frankenstein for a 1930s Chicago that feels equal parts Weimar cabaret and DC fever dream, with Jessie Buckley delivering a ferocious, uncontainable performance at the center of a film that can't quite contain itself. Chris Stachiw and Mike dig into the ideas the film gets right, the heavy hand that undercuts them, and why a $90 million feminist monster movie ending on The Monster Mash is both the most logical and least earned conclusion imaginable.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Mike sits down with Julie Wyman, director of The Tallest Dwarf — a documentary that is as personal as it is political. 

When filmmaker and UC Davis professor Julie Forrest Wyman set out to make The Tallest Dwarf, she discovered she has hypochondroplasia dwarfism herself — and that hers is the last of a body type she has inherited. The film charts her quest to find her place within the little people community at a moment when dwarf identity is poised to radically change, exploring everything from the legacy of exploitation to the thorny ethics of pharmaceutical interventions promising to make little people taller.

Visually striking, humorous, and touching, The Tallest Dwarf invites audiences to rethink identity, disability, and what it means to belong in a world that wants to change who you are.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Christine La Monte discusses her career and her latest work producing a pair of opera-themed documentaries, the uplifting Viva Verdi! (2025) and the stunning Ai Weiwei's Turandot (2025). La Monte talks about the importance of opera in the modern world and the Oscar-nominated song "Sweet Dreams of Joy."

For more information visit: https://www.lamonteproductions.com/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Collision as courtship. Self-destruction as intimacy. Fatih Akın's Head-On (2004) opens with two suicide attempts and spirals into a sham marriage between Cahit (Birol Ünel) and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), German Turks who weaponize matrimony to escape themselves. What begins as a performance of tradition mutates into volatile love, violence, prison, exile, and a reunion that refuses catharsis.

Keith Gordon and Rahne Alexander join Mike to unpack Akın’s fusion of Sirkian melodrama, Fassbinder fatalism, and arabesk despair.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Sound designer Mark A. Mangini returns to The Projection Booth to discuss The Oldest Person in the World (2026), the Sam Green documentary about the successive holders of the oldest person title.

Mark discusses the importance of using sound to tell a story and recounts his work on Dune and Mad Max: Fury Road.

 Look for screenings of The Oldest Person in the World at https://www.theoldestperson.com/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.

Mike talks with editor Derek Boonstra about his work on Seized (2026). Premiering recently at Sundance Film Festival, the documentary traces the human fallout of asset forfeiture and the legal gray zones that allow property to be taken without conviction.

Find out more about Derek at his website, https://derekboonstra.com/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth is part of the Weirding Way Media podcast network. Explore more of our shows at http://weirdingwaymedia.com.