Watch With Jen™

This week, I was honored to bring one of my dearest friends & fellow "Brunette Dad with Bangs" aboard Watch With Jen for her first-ever podcast appearance. A long-in-the-works collaboration that Priscilla Page & I began planning in the summer of '22, the very first time we hung out as we cruised around to chat & see the lights of L.A. on a summer night, it's only fitting that we made her debut a hangout episode about cars.

More leisurely paced than your typical release, at the start of our discussion, I ask Priscilla about her background as a writer & the date in her twenties that made her first fall in love with cars. Soon, however, we shift our focus to two films & chase scenes starring Tom Cruise that she's written about & adores in writer-director Christopher McQuarrie's JACK REACHER & MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING.

Part 1 of a two-part episode focusing on two filmmakers who've crafted some of the most delightful car sequences in American film, you'll hear us tackle director John Frankenheimer's GRAND PRIX & RONIN next. The perfect accompaniment to your holiday travel & a terrific way to begin to close out this season of the podcast, I'm so delighted to introduce you to one of my favorite people beyond the staggeringly great film essays that she's penned over the years in this wonderful conversation. (Note: You won't have to wait very long for Part 2; it will be dropping earlier than usual as my holiday gift to you.)

Bio: One of the brightest & most popular lights of Film Twitter, Priscilla Page writes about cars, movies, and cars in movies, focusing mostly on your dad's favorites: actioners, thrillers, westerns, etc. Her bylines include Hagerty, Autoweek, Empire Magazine, The Guardian, Polygon, Birth.Movies.Death., and Bright Wall/Dark Room. You can keep up with Priscilla's outstanding work through her Patreon.

Originally Posted on Watch With Jen's Patreon (12/15/23): https://www.patreon.com/posts/94718858

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We Now Have Mugs!

Note: We're doing something new this season on Watch With Jen. Usually, I release our end-of-the-year Physical Media conversations across multiple episodes. But in '22, some listeners said they found it slightly confusing to see similar titles a few times in a row & they'd rather have a marathon installment instead so we're trying it in '23 with a supersized, superstar-filled episode. Additionally, rather than ending the season on Physical Media as we've done in the past, this year, you'll still receive a few more outstanding eps after this week's release. (Oh, & if you wondered why I didn't upload a new pod last week, it's because I was researching & recording all of these wonderful conversations!)

Clocking in at nearly 3 hours, this episode includes Walter Chaw on Walter Hill's 1979 film THE WARRIORS, Bilge Ebiri on Terrence Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN, William Boyle, S.A. Cosby, & Sean Burns on Brian De Palma's CARLITO'S WAY, & Nikki Dolson on William Wyler's THE DESPERATE HOURS. Whether you're running holiday errands or just in need of a little company as you go about your work day, I hope you enjoy Watch With Jen's 2023 winter Physical Media extravaganza!

Originally Posted on Patreon (12/4/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/94065404

NEW: Bring home a Watch With Jen mug for the holidays!

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This week, I was so pleased to welcome back to the pod one of my crime writer friends' favorite crime writers & a man whose taste in film, literature, & poetry is an endless source of delight on Twitter. Adrian McKinty was born & raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, & then studied philosophy at Oxford University before he moved to Australia & New York. He is the author of more than a dozen crime novels, including his Dagger & Edgar nominated debut DEAD I WELL MAY BE, the critically acclaimed Sean Duffy series, as well as the smash international bestseller & award-winning standalone thriller THE CHAIN.

A man whose books have been translated into over thirty languages, Adrian has won the Edgar Award, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Ned Kelly Award (three times), the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Macavity Award, the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award. Adrian's most recent novels include the smash bestseller THE ISLAND & the latest Sean Duffy mystery THE DETECTIVE UP LATE.

After having such a delightful first conversation with Adrian about EXCALIBUR & LORD OF THE RINGS earlier in the year (& then chatting with him once again for the upcoming MIDNIGHT RUN-THROUGH pod series with Blake Howard's One Heat Minute Productions), I couldn't wait to bring him back to discuss movies with me once again. Emailing me while working on his next book, Adrian came up with an ingenious idea to look at the ways that the Coen Brothers address creative blocks in the films BARTON FINK & INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS.

Witty yet highly analytical, in this episode, we check into the hotel from hell to explore the life of the mind in the 1991 film first & then take a folksy walk through early '60s Greenwich Village in search of a cat in one of the Coens' final works as a filmmaking team. The perfect companion to your holiday travels this week in the United States, it's a must for fans of the filmmakers & especially those who adore FINK, which is dissected in great detail in this entertaining conversation.

Originally Posted on Patreon (11/18/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/93115677

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This week, I was so pleased to welcome back two friends & the hosts of The Film Stage's excellent podcast The B-Side, which covers movie stars in a fascinating way by focusing not on the films that made or kept them famous but the ones that actors made in between. A producer & filmmaker living in Pittsburgh, Dan Mecca started The Film Stage with Jordan Raup in college at Buffalo & Conor O'Donnell is a post-production supervisor based in New York City & also serves as a critic for The Film Stage.

In the 39th episode of the podcast this season, the boys from The B-Side join me to discuss the career & main overarching theme that you will find in the filmography of child actor turned Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard. A man who's been working hard his entire life growing up on film sets where he'd see hundreds of craftsmen quietly executing their jobs with skill & precision in an industry that tends to overlook these individuals in favor of picture-perfect movie stars, Ron Howard is utterly fascinated by the working man. Particularly drawn to studying the work-life balance & the way we all struggle to care for family, friends, & ourselves while at the same time earning a living with purpose, since he stepped foot behind a camera, Howard's gravitated to these tales as a filmmaker. While we touch on numerous pictures that he's made and collaborators he's worked alongside throughout his career in this infectiously delightful & insightful feature-length conversation, we focus primarily on the films PARENTHOOD, THE PAPER, & THIRTEEN LIVES.

Originally Posted on Patreon (11/12/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/92808304

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Returning to Watch With Jen this week, we have my very talented friend and an official (and very popular) friend of the show. William Boyle is the acclaimed novelist behind such titles as Gravesend, The Lonely Witness, A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself, City of Margins, and Shoot the Moonlight Out. In addition to crafting these wonderfully humanistic Lumet-like character-driven ensemble crime epics, Bill is quite the pop culture buff and one hell of a good movie trivia game player.

In this entertaining follow-up to the first installment of a new pod series focused on French Crime Movies that we launched in Season 4, Bill is back to chat about another trio of terrific works released across three decades: director Alain Corenau's CHOICE OF ARMS, Claude Chabrol's TORMENT (aka HELL), and Guillaume Canet's TELL NO ONE.

Originally Posted on Patreon (11/7/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/92467704

Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive

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Peckerwood novelist and Hardboiled Wonderland blogger Jed Ayres returns to the podcast this week for a two-hour extravaganza devoted to the man famously dubbed "the poet laureate of wild assholes with revolvers," Mr. Elmore Leonard. One of the godfathers of contemporary crime fiction and an influence on every single writer working in the genre today (whether they realize it or not), Jed and I investigate the western genre that launched the Navy vet lovingly nicknamed Dutch.

Revisiting a few films you've heard discussed on Watch With Jen in the past, including 3:10 TO YUMA and THE TALL T (both from 1957), we then explore some of the revisionist westerns made from his books or penned directly for the screen by Leonard in the late '60s and early '70s, including HOMBRE, THE MOONSHINE WAR, VALDEZ IS COMING, and JOE KIDD.

A perfect way to kick off Noirvember since these are indeed works of Western noir, after these films were released at the end of the genre's heyday, Elmore Leonard moved to crime fiction. Fans of the author's work won't want to miss what is likely just the first of multiple eps devoted to Leonard.

Originally Posted on Patreon (10/30/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/91886163

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Returning to the podcast this week, we have the witty and wonderful writer-director Jessica Ellis. A graduate of UCLA and the American Film Institute who made her feature filmmaking debut with the acclaimed coming-of-age movie What Lies West, Jessica is one of the brightest lights on Twitter and never fails to make me smile. In this thoughtful, charming, and nostalgia-filled conversation that's perfect for Halloween, we share amusing stories from our lives and explore the way that magic has been used onscreen in the films Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Illusionist (2006), & Now You See Me.

Originally Posted on Patreon (10/23/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/91522593

Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive

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This week, I'm honored to be joined by not one but two brilliant screenwriters, Larry Karaszewski & Daniel Waters.

Larry Karaszewski & his writing/directing/producing partner Scott Alexander are best known for writing unusual true stories such as the films ED WOOD, THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT, MAN ON THE MOON, AUTO FOCUS, BIG EYES, DOLEMITE IS MY NAME, & the hit television miniseries THE PEOPLE VS. OJ SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY. The team has won Emmys, Golden Globes, Producers, & Writers Guild Awards. Additionally, Larry is also a former Governor & Vice President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

Born in Ohio & raised in Indiana, Daniel Waters is the Edgar award-winning screenwriter of the 1988 cult classic HEATHERS starring Winona Ryder & Christian Slater. Additionally, the man who wrote or co-wrote the films BATMAN RETURNS, HUDSON HAWK, THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE, DEMOLITION MAN, & more, he's also the writer-director of HAPPY CAMPERS & SEX & DEATH 101.Dear friends & movie buddies since their teenage years in Indiana, in this witty & well-researched ninety-minute conversation, the two champion the incredible '70s run of filmmaker Michael Ritchie. Focusing on Ritchie's view of America in the films DOWNHILL RACER, PRIME CUT, THE CANDIDATE, SMILE, THE BAD NEWS BEARS, & SEMI-TOUGH, before his wildly uneven '80s era, this episode is a must for '70s film fans.

Originally Posted on Patreon (9/18/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/89431917

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