We Came From Celluloid

Brian Pritchard and I start with Doug Liman's Go and the '90s wave of too-cool-for-the-room crime movies, and end up somewhere I didn't see coming: who gets pulled up in Hollywood, and why. Brian tells a story from a Heath Ledger documentary about Ledger's LA house becoming home base for Cate Blanchett, Guy Pearce, and Naomi Watts. Jonah Hill landed Accepted because he was Justin Long's roommate. Robert Pattinson told Cronenberg to put him in anything. Nepotism, or just trusting the people you know? We argue about it. Plus my early horror binge, including the gloriously baffling She Loved Blossoms More and Nicolas Cage not saying one single word in Willy's Wonderland. There's also Mandy, Tom Waits as the devil, why Brian is done giving Baron Munchausen the benefit of the doubt, Cronenberg's bleak streak, and Viggo Mortensen aging out of the pretty-guy roles.

This week Brian and I sit down with Jeremy, the guy who books the bands, runs the sound, and secretly runs the social media at Maple Grove Tavern. We talk about what it's like being the most second-guessed man in any bar, including the guy who wanted the PA pointed at his barstool, and the one question every band should ask themselves: where's your energy going? Jeremy has a warning for bands using AI on their show posters. I've got a punk-rock rant about cutting up magazines. We also get into Final Fantasy VII, Fallout, BioShock Infinite, Bandersnatch, and why Stubbs the Zombie had one of the best soundtracks ever. Plus the studio Jeremy's building near Cleveland's steel yard, and the domain name we tried to hand him on air. It opens with Paul Rudd saving my morning.

Brian Pritchard and I dig into a question I've been chewing on since I rebuilt wecamefromcelluloid.com: stand-up comedians built huge audiences off podcasts and parasocial relationships, so why can't bands do the same? Brian pushes back. Liking us as people doesn't mean you'll like the music. We get into why you can buy exposure but never virality, the Shirley Manson warning about a generation of lost songs, and how High Fidelity and Angus taught a whole generation to romanticize the lovable loser. Then it's Tim Robbins, Kyle Gass, and Jack Black's pre-fame deep cuts, the lost art of the mom-and-pop video store, Ghana's gloriously unhinged hand-painted movie posters, journaling, and a real disagreement about words and what they mean. Plus: Brian finds out on air that his podcast with his dad is already live.

This week Brian & I sit down with his son Ben Pritchard, filmmaker, and the guy behind the music project Sparks McFly, to talk about actually making things happen with no gatekeepers standing in your way. We get into whether he sees himself as more of a producer or a rapper, how his found-footage mockumentaries That Time We Stole the TV and Next Up come together without a written script, and the online creator collective, Johnny, Jack, Luca, Avery, that turned into Ohio Walnuts, complete with a Kickstarter that funded the first time any of them ever met in person. We also get into Backrooms, indie hits outshining Star Wars, and why Ben's about to head to Atlanta to act in a friend's directorial debut. Plus: buying a domain name for one cent, and why I bought my daughter's URL the day she was born.

Brian Pritchard and I kick things off talking about Devs, Alex Garland's miniseries with Nick Offerman, before getting into something that's been bugging both of us: how much of the stuff we love just disappears once streamers decide it's not worth keeping around. That turns into a real conversation about physical media, why I'm still hunting down DVDs and Blu-rays, and why owning something, studio time, gear, a movie, changes how you actually value it. I get into a whole rant about what "return on investment" really means, using an argument I once had about an electric co-op to make the point. We also get into why I let our friend James handle plumbing and nothing else, Puma Thurman's upcoming Devil's Night show, early rumblings of our December tour, and a little family life catch-up from graduation season.

Brian Pritchard and I start with music this week, Presidents of the United States of America's Supermodel, Kaspar Babypants, why modern production makes every genre sound the same, Polyphia's Tim Henson chasing his final form, and the Dream Theater album that got even better after Mike Portnoy came back. Then things get heavier. We trace a line from Fight Club straight into nu-metal and the incel movement, and I get honest about how close I came to going down that path myself after college, and how discovering libertarianism ("nobody owes you shit") pulled me out of it. We also get into envy, generational wealth, and why the money never survives three generations. Closes out with a TV and movie catch-up: Reacher, Tulsa King, Silo, Ted Lasso, and why Matinee might be the ultimate love letter to why we watch movies in the first place.

Welcome back to We Came From Celluloid, where a couple of Ohio dads who make video-game-adjacent music sit down with two guys who actually built a whole band around it. This week Brian and I are joined by Saker and Rick from Masterhand, the Smash Bros.-costumed, nu-metal-meets-nerdcore-hip-hop supergroup that's somehow only two years old and already headlining, touring, and about to share a stage with us at Bessie Fest. We start where these things always start, a rabbit hole about the last time I stood on that exact Cove stage in Geneva-On-The-Lake, auditioning for a band called The Bentreys back in 2006 in front of a packed room, getting the gig, and then getting lied out of it by my own drummer. Twenty years later, same venue, much less humiliating circumstances. From there Saker and Rick walk us through how Masterhand actually came together, a Discord-era Voltron of a hip hop comedian, a prog-metal singer, a session drummer nobody's ever heard play, and a guitarist so good the whole band jokes he could've done all five parts himself, and how they went from a self-titled bedroom album to a five-city van tour opening for actual nerdcore legends within about a year of existing. That leads into the real meat of the episode: the identity question every band like ours eventually has to answer. Are you a comedy act or a real one? Masterhand plants their flag on the Protomen side of the VGM-versus-nerdcore divide, writing songs inspired by video games rather than covering the soundtracks, and Saker and Rick get honest about how differently that hits each of them, since half the band came from dead-serious projects and half came from goofball ones. Brian's take on it, that sincerity in the delivery is exactly what makes the joke land for the people paying attention, turns into one of the more quietly profound moments of the show, and it pays off hard when Saker admits the heaviest song on Masterhand's upcoming record is about Bubble Bobble. We also get into the origin of "Funny Money," their surprisingly sharp anti-capitalism anthem disguised as a Monopoly song, which they're sending us to close out the episode. Then, because we can't help ourselves, we detour into Longlegs versus The Substance and where a movie earns the right to go off the rails in its third act, a shared love of Oddity and Caveat, and a long, mournful conversation about what happened to Weezer and the Barenaked Ladies once their driving creative force either left or coasted. This one's for anyone who's ever had to defend a genuinely silly project as genuinely good work, and for anyone who'll be at The Cove on August 23rd to watch us find out together. Subscribe, rate, and review We Came From Celluloid wherever you listen, and follow along for more conversations about the films and music that shape our lives.

Welcome back to We Came From Celluloid, where two dads with a podcast and a band try to figure out how to be both at the same time. I'm Nicky P, here with Brian Pritchard, and this episode isn't really about a movie, it's about the business of trying to be a band, which somehow still manages to turn into a bit about writing a Halloween III song on the spot. We open up honest about where things actually stand right now, Brian's professional world eating his bandwidth, me trying to be the one pushing the band forward on the business side while he gets his footing. No sugarcoating it: this is what it actually looks like to keep a band moving when everybody's got grown-up schedules and grown-up problems. What We Cover:

• Why a "small" schedule change can wreck your creative routine without you realizing it
• Scouting new venues and trying to crack the east side of Cleveland
• Oddmall, Con on the Cob, and using convention culture to cross-promote the band
• The "minimum viable product" version of Puma Thurman: me and Brian as an acoustic duo
• Whether you can turn a convention vendor table into a busking stage
• The Halloween III: Season of the Witch bit — writing a song on demand, then pulling the curtain closed until it's ready
• Patreon-style request tiers and the improv comedy roots of that idea
• Brian's voice memo archive and the song he wrote and doesn't remember writing
• The real story behind how "Labor Day" became As Long As the Snow Falls
• Bodhi, the mystery Point Break riffs, and Brian's total inability to remember which song is which

The Real Talk: This episode is less "let's talk about a movie" and more "here's what it actually takes to keep a band alive when life gets in the way." But because we can't help ourselves, even the logistics talk turns into a bit about busking a Season of the Witch song for a stranger at a convention table. Deep Dive - The Curtain Bit: What starts as a genuine question, could we perform at a vendor table at Con on the Cob, spirals into a full comedic bit about writing songs to order, complete with an imaginary army tent curtain we pull closed when it's "writing time." It's a perfect example of how this show works: real logistics conversation, then immediately off the rails into a movie reference nobody saw coming. The Songwriting Archaeology: Brian's got a backlog of at least ten unfinished song ideas sitting in voice memos, including one Lindsay found on her phone that Brian has zero memory of writing. We also get the real story of how a song called "Labor Day," which sat unfinished for the longest time, eventually became As Long As the Snow Falls, and why Nicky was hesitant to touch Brian's guitar work until Brian basically forced his hand. Key Moments:

• The "minimum viable product" version of a live show, explained
• Why performing at a convention table might be "almost like busking, but why the hell not"
• The full Season of the Witch bit, curtain and all
• Nicky forgetting which Point Break riff is which, in real time, on mic
• The origin story of As Long As the Snow Falls

The Bottom Line: You don't need a movie to talk about movies. This episode is proof that the film-and-music intersection isn't just about analyzing what's on screen, it's baked into how this band thinks, jokes, and builds. Sometimes the best bit of the episode is two guys workshopping a fake gig for a horror sequel nobody else remembers. Also Featured: Tangents about Oddmall, Cleveland venue geography, Patreon tiers, improv comedy roots, and Brian's ongoing inability to remember his own riffs. This episode is for anyone who's ever wondered what actually goes into keeping a band moving between tours, and for anyone who wants to hear two grown men seriously debate busking a Halloween III song at a mall. Subscribe, rate, and review We Came From Celluloid wherever you listen. Follow us on social media for behind-the-scenes content, movie recommendations, and more conversations about the films and music that shape our lives.

Welcome back to We Came From Celluloid, where two Ohio dads with a podcast and a band try to figure out why art means something different than what it was actually built to mean. I'm Nicky P, here with Brian Pritchard, and this week we went from Chris Nolan's most confusing movie to the dumbest, most brilliant songwriting origin story in our band's history.

We kick things off with Tenet, Brian's watched it five or six times and still isn't sure the plot works, but he's landed on peace with it by treating it as Nolan's heightened spy movie homage. That gets us into director's intent generally, which leads to one of my favorite movie facts: The Orphanage was designed to be Peter Pan told from the parents' perspective, a kid just vanishing one day. You'd never guess it watching the movie cold, but once you know, it recontextualizes the whole thing.

What We Cover:

• Brian's ongoing complicated relationship with Tenet and Nolan's "heightened spy movie" defense

• Guillermo del Toro's Presents The Orphanage and its secret Peter Pan concept

• Why "dancing about architecture" over-intellectualizing can ruin a David Lynch movie

• The after-the-fact mythology bands build around their own songs (including our own "Brown Coat Man")

• Easter eggs bands hide inside live performances: Ween's Chariots of Fire tease, Tool dropping Suspicious Minds into Stink Fist, Mars Volta's genre-hopping detours

• Dome's "Blood on the Borderline" and dropping Game of Thrones, Terminator 2, and Always Sunny's Dayman into a breakdown

• THE EMILIO STORY: how a mumbled, meaningless lyric became the entire political concept behind "Two Faces of America"

• Puma Thurman's own hidden Nights in White Satin sample buried inside "1212"

• Cover songs as a handshake with the audience, and why Weezer's note-for-note Africa cover missed the entire point

• Between the Buried and Me's cover album and how they made every song unmistakably their own

• Chad Kroeger's surprising ownership of a Santana song and the Lifehouse version that got there first

• Sinatra, Louis Prima, and why phrasing is the whole ballgame if you want to learn how to actually sing

The Real Talk: This episode isn't really about movies or music separately, it's about the space between what a creator intends and what an audience actually experiences. Sometimes that gap is a director's carefully hidden Peter Pan metaphor. Sometimes it's a guy mumbling nonsense syllables that somehow becomes your band's entire political statement. Either way, the meaning shows up whether or not you meant to put it there.

The Emilio Deep Dive: Dome's "Two Faces of America" started as literal gibberish, a singer mumbling something that sounded like "Emilio" in the chorus. Instead of writing real words, the band leaned all the way in, built a chorus around Emilio Estevez versus Charlie Sheen, and ended up with one of the more overtly political songs on the record. None of it was planned. All of it worked.

The Cover Song Philosophy: We get into why the best covers (Between the Buried and Me's Bicycle Race into their gutting Day I Tried to Live and Colorblind) succeed by filtering someone else's song through your own identity, and why Weezer's technically perfect Africa cover felt so hollow by comparison.

Key Moments:

• Brian's five-or-six rewatches of Tenet and his eventual peace with "it's just a heightened spy movie"

• The Orphanage's secret Peter Pan framing device

• The full "Emilio, he's no Sheen at all" origin story

• Puma Thurman's own buried Nights in White Satin sample in "1212"

• The Weezer Africa cover takedown

• Chad Kroeger's unlikely ownership of a Santana song

• Sinatra and Louis Prima as a masterclass in phrasing

The Bottom Line: Whether you're a director hiding a fairy tale inside a horror movie, a singer mumbling nonsense that becomes a political statement, or a band burying a 60-second riff for the diehards to catch live, art keeps generating meaning long after it's "finished." Maybe it's never actually finished at all.

Subscribe, rate, and review We Came From Celluloid wherever you listen. Follow us on social media for behind-the-scenes content, movie recommendations, and more conversations about the films and music that shape our lives.

Welcome back to We Came From Celluloid, where two pop culture nerds and band geeks sit at the apex of music & film, except this week we actually let a third weirdo into the room. I'm Nicky P, here with Brian Pritchard, and this episode we're joined by Joey Steele, a man Brian has known since they were 13-year-olds destroying their hearing in a band called Nosferatu, and who has since spent the last 20-plus years fronting All Torn Up, Cop Out, and Bowhead. This is only the second time we've had a guest, and Joey did not come to play nice. He came in hot with a theory of music as community organizing, stayed hot through a debate about whether punk audiences actually agree with anything, and left us with a metaphor involving methamphetamine and Malcolm X that I'm still thinking about. What We Cover:

• Joey's 20-year run fronting All Torn Up, and the very different mission behind Cop Out
• Why "music is community organizing" and musicians who deny that "suffer" for it
• The Commitments and the difference between showing off and actually connecting
• How three bands (All Torn Up, Cop Out, Bowhead) let Joey express anger, playfulness, and pure surrealism separately
• Punk scenes, masculine energy, circle pits, and who gets left out of the room
• Night of the Living Dead as an accidental political awakening in eighth grade
• Spike Lee's run of films (Crooklyn, Clockers, Bamboozled) as a suburban wake-up call
• The "moment between thought and action," Nicky's slow-down theory vs. Joey's speed-up-and-hit-a-brick-wall theory
• Malcolm X as the shared reference point for both approaches
• Whether arguing has ever actually changed anyone's mind (spoiler: rarely)
• John Waters vs. anger as competing strategies for getting a message across
• Bowhead's surreal lyrical world, insects, conjoined twins, and a Joshua tree watching the world burn
• The upcoming Bowhead / Puma Thurman tour dates later this year

The Real Talk: This episode is proof that our best conversations happen when somebody disagrees with us in a way that actually sharpens the point instead of just being noise. Joey and I don't agree on much, politically, temperamentally, or otherwise, but that friction is exactly what made this one worth recording. Deep Dive: The Moment Between Thought and Action: My whole framework is "slow down and think before you act." Joey's is "speed up until thought and action happen at the same time." Different roads, same destination: Malcolm X, who Joey credits with mastering exactly that synthesis, and who's quoted on every single All Torn Up record because of it. Deep Dive: Three Bands, Three Emotions: All Torn Up is anger. Cop Out is joy and resistance together. Bowhead is pure surrealism, a song about insects leaving a waterfall shelter, a song about conjoined twins in a car accident, and a song about being a Joshua tree watching fire roll down a mountain toward you. Same guy, three completely different emotional registers. Key Moments:

• Joey's Nosferatu-induced hearing damage and the song "Lost Monkeys"
• "If you wanna wank, use that thing in your hand, not your sax," Nicky's Commitments reference lands perfectly
• The circle pit vs. the political slogan: why Nicky's punk roots were about the room, not the ideology
• Night of the Living Dead: an eighth grader's first real political thought, delivered by Tom Savini
• The meth/Malcolm X exchange that anchors the whole episode
• Joey teasing Bowhead's "The Burning," the Joshua tree song that closes out the episode

The Bottom Line: Whether you slow down or speed up, the goal is the same, actually thinking about what you're doing instead of running on conditioned autopilot. Joey's spent 20-plus years trying to force that moment through music. This episode is us trying to have it out loud, on mic, in real time. Also Featured: Tangents about bass players never counting, System of a Down playing to stadiums full of people who don't share their politics, and whether Nicky is secretly more of a John Waters guy than he's willing to admit. This episode is for anyone who's ever wondered whether art changes minds faster than arguing does, and for anyone who's ever had a band practice end in a broken hand over a political disagreement. Subscribe, rate, and review We Came From Celluloid wherever you listen. Follow us on social media for behind-the-scenes content, movie recommendations, and more conversations about the films and music that shape our lives.