The Pink Smoke podcast

1974 was a landmark year for film, a convergence of exciting international cinema and the original voices of New Hollywood that still resonates 50 years later. In our new series we invite a different guest for each episode to choose a 1974 movie to talk about, ranging from giant blockbusters to minor cult curios and everything else in between. One of the more neglected films of the year was The Education of Sonny Carson, the coming-of-age tale of an inner city kid who moves from life with a street gang to fighting for survival during a stretch in prison. Directed by The Mack's Michael Campus and adapted by civil rights activist Sonny Carson from his autobiography, the film packs a more brutal punch than any movie from its time yet barely gets mentioned these days. Marcus Pinn returns to discuss the film's curiously underwhelming reputation despite its decades-long legacy through hip hop music and influence on the next 50 years of cinema. Even with a messy aesthetic and muddled narrative, Campus' film is an unquestionably powerful artwork that captures individual struggle and the cruel reality of life in Bedford-Stuyvesant with the use of real locations and real Brooklyn gangs. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

1974 was a landmark year for film, a convergence of exciting international cinema and the original voices of New Hollywood that still resonates 50 years later. In our new series we invite a different guest for each episode to choose a 1974 movie to talk about, ranging from giant blockbusters to minor cult curios and everything else in between. Despite the domination of Coppolas, Polanskis and Cassaveteses, 1974 really belonged to Mel Brooks. Nearly 50 at the time, the legendary comedy writer had risen from his Borscht Belt origins to release two classic films in one year, 1974's #1 box office smash Blazing Saddles and trailing all the way back at #4 highest grossing picture Young Frankenstein. While both films became instant perennial favorite parodies of then out-of-style genres, Young Frankenstein is a true love letter to the Universal Monster movies of yore and a masterfully-made horror flick that just happens to have jokes in it. We welcome back Pink Smoke favorite and wig expert Kate Wilkinson to join our chorus of praise for co-writer Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (sorry, Fronk-en-steen), Marty Feldman as Eye-gor, Teri Garr as Inga, Cloris Leachman as Frau Blücher, Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth, Kenneth Mars as Inspector Kemp, recent Oscar-winner Gene Hackman as the Blind Man and true 70's superstar Peter Boyle as The Monster - each performer at the absolute top of of their game. We discuss the film's origins being deeper than the iconic 1931 James Whale movie, whether this is more a triumph for Brooks (who was banned from casting himself) or Wilder (it was his baby) and how it fit into the comedy mindset of the mid-70's. Wig Wurq on Tumblr: https://wigwurq.tumblr.com/ Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

A Pink Smoke tradition resurrected: our once annual Summer Movie Blockbuster Preview Extravaganza returns from the dead as we train a beady and judgmental eye on all that Hollywood has to offer over an increasingly marginalized and marginal summer blockbuster season. Even if audiences no longer flock (in droves!) to big budget star-studded special effects spectaculars the way they used to, it’s still worth considering what the immediate future holds for le cinema du multiplex. Hosts John Cribbs, Martin Kessler and Christopher Funderburg are joined by Pink Smoke copache Marcus Pinn to discuss Fall Guys, Deadpools, Borderlandies, the ways in which Howard Stern resembles Brandon Lee, under what circumstances you might be willing to watch Daddio, how much of a benefit of the doubt George Miller has earned and betraying the true essence of Garfield. It is essential listening for All True Cinephiles. As essential as A Quiet Place: Day One or Despicable Me 4. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Marcus Pinn on Twitter: twitter.com/PINNLAND_EMPIRE Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“War… war never changes…” Attention wastelanders, time to strap on the ol’ power armor and grab a rusty gauss rifle, we’re headed into (and out) of Vault 33 to explore the new streaming TV series based on the massively popular open-world RPG Fallout video game series. Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by fellow fans of the video game series, screenwriter Tom Vaughan and critic Stephanie Crawford, to discuss the 8-episode first season of the new show from executive producer Jonathan Nolan (who also directed a few episodes.) They talk about how to adapt a video game into a different kind of narrative art, how the specificity of the Fallout world translates into a new medium, the rifts within Fallout fandom, the charm of Walton Goggins and the perks of creating a bloody mess. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Tom Vaughan on X: twitter.com/storyandplot The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. {www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke} For the first episode of our new series 197:4 Fifty Years Later, we’re joined by the first guest ever to appear on the podcast, the peerless man of le cinema Brian Saur. The Pure Cinema and Just the Discs podcast impresario selected for our conversation to discuss one of the most maligned and neglected Best Picture nominees of all-time, the ne plus ultra of blockbuster disaster films, The Towering Inferno. Star-studded cast featuring Steve McQueen (at the height of his box office power), Paul Newman (coming off 1973’s Best Picture winner, The Sting), Fred Astaire (shamelessly nominated for Best Supporting Actor), William Holden & Faye Dunaway (together two years before Network), Jennifer Jones, Richard Chamberlain and too many others to name battle a high-rise blaze in a special effects extravaganza that puts the spectacle in “Outrageously Outsized Hollywood Spectacle.” We do our best to ignore the consistent presence of OJ Simpson and put the focus where it belongs: on Sterling Siliphant. We dig into the split-direction of disaster movie mastermind Irwin Allen and actor’s director John Guillermin, McQueen and Newman’s amazingly petty competition for screen-time, the utterly ridiculous Oscar the film did win, and why there should be more appreciation for Hollywood cinema doing what only Hollywood cinema can do. Stars, explosions, character actors, air-tight screenwriting and buckets of poured money into the blaze: join us in standing in awe of this monument to Hollywood blockbusterizing. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Just the Discs podcast: https://justthediscs.libsyn.com/ Pure Cinema podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pure-cinema-podcast/id1204885502 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. {www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke} 1974 was a landmark year for film, a convergence of exciting international cinema and the original voices of New Hollywood that still resonates 50 years later. In our new series we invite a different guest for each episode to choose a 1974 movie to talk about, ranging from giant blockbusters to minor cult curios and everything else in between. In this introductory episode, hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs discuss the idea behind the series and their relationship to movies from the year 1974. They go over the biggest films of the year: which were the most successful in terms of box office, critical success and long-ranging canonization? Why are these movies still relevant 50 years down the line? Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

In this episode, host Martin Kessler welcomes John Arminio of the Popcorn Eschaton! podcast to discuss Kevin Reynolds' underappreciated 1988 war film The Beast. Set during the second year of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, it follows a Soviet T-55 tank unit who lose their way in the mountains following a savage attack on a Pashtun village and the vengeful mujahideen soldiers tracking them, committed to destroying "the Beast."  Kessler and Arminio dig into this "holy grail of tank movies" and how it smartly deals with themes of revenge and mercy, the Islam faith, Pashtunwali, overcoming language barriers and humanizing both sides of a "rotten war." Popcorn Eschaton!: https://soundcloud.com/zebras-in-america/popcorn-eschaton-1 Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

The Pink Smoke brigade is back to discuss the movies of 2023. Hosts Martin Kessler, John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg look back on a year replete with above-average horror films, new works from tenured auteurs and theoretical physicists battling it out at the box office with living dolls. The conversation naturally digs into their personal favorites, including two animated masterpieces, a kaiju showpiece, a surprising amount of mainstream and direct-to-streaming releases, and a new bona fide classic from Brazil. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers, the most tender and violent of all audiences, one week before their general release. Support our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by filmmaker & pulp paperback aficionado Steven Sheil to discuss semi-legendary, semi-forgotten crime fiction author Charles K. Williams. The group looks at a pair of nautical thrillers, Aground & its sequel Dead Calm (most famously adapted into the Billy Zane/Sam Neil classic (& also unsuccessfully adapted in yet another Orson Welles production debacle.)) Following the story of a no-nonsense charter boat captain & the charming, irrepressible widow he falls for, the aesthetic/philosophical difference between the books represents the shift happening in pulp crime in fiction of the era: the move from classic hardboiled, masculine stories to psychological thrillers concerned with the inner lives of criminals. It's a fantastic conversation about one of the most successful crime writers of his era, an author undeserving of his slow fade into obscurity. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Steven Sheil on X: https://twitter.com/SSheil The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers, the most tender and violent of all audiences, one week before their general release. {www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke} Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven often comes up in conversation about the greatest Westerns ever made, and even ones about the greatest films of the last 30 years. It served not only as a culmination of Clint's fabled career in cowboy movies but as an austere reflection on 100 years worth of Western cinema, and was lauded as the ultimate revisionist response to a genre that never tackled serious themes of violence and morality or presented a realistic portrait of life on the late 19th century American frontier. But was it really? The Pink Smoke welcomes back artist/historian David Lambert to expand upon the thoughts he presented in his epic Twitter thread examining the minutiae of its script, casting, authenticity, costuming, influences and actual place within the overall Western genre. Unforgiven is a great film, but do people even understand what it's trying to say? Lambert makes a strong case for reappraisal with hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs. David Lambert's Twitter/X thread that inspired the episode: https://twitter.com/DavidLambertArt/status/1556511206029946880?t=LgtylPHI5v2XdS5FhtDgeg&s=19 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com David Lambert on X: twitter.com/DavidLambertArt The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. {www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke} Having outmaneuvered the Outfit, shatterproof heister Parker resurfaces with a new face and a new caper. But there might be too much to watch with this armored car knockover in Jersey: a shaky accomplice, a surly waitress planning a double-cross and an oafish chauffeur looking to avenge his murdered employer. Can our criminal anti-hero juggle all these uncertain angles and still come away with a sweet boodle? Continuing our series of episodes on Richard Stark's 24-book Parker series, we jump into the slick and streamlined second book The Man With the Getaway Face, in which Stark (pen name for the legendary Donald E. Westlake) presents a line-up of memorable characters including reliable sidekick Handy McKay, broken heister Pete Skimm and the tragically obstinate Stubbs. How has the Parker character developed since his first adventure? And has this book been adapted into an obscure Mexican film or not? Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Hosts Christopher Funderburg, John Cribbs & Martin Kessler are joined by legendary poster artist Tony Stella to discuss Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1981 masterpiece Quest for Fire. A personal favorite of both Kessler and Stella, this is one of the most enthusiastic & passionate conversations ever recorded for the podcast. Set 80,000 in the past, Annaud’s film, despite being positioned as high-class awards bait in Europe, plays like a rollicking and funny adventure film with more in common with The Vikings or a classic Hollywood swashbuckler than a dour and serious look at humanity’s beginning. But while the film is an expression of pure cinematic joy, it’s also a serious and thoughtful look at the origins of civilization in terms of science, language, morality, humor & emotion. An exciting conversation about a knockout film! The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Tony Stella on X: twitter.com/studiotstella Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

In this emergency bonus episode, hosts Martin Kessler and Christopher Funderburg sit down to discuss Marvel’s The Marvels of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With an all-time low box office debut for an MCU film, the hosts use the film’s various artistic, conceptual and financial failures as a jumping off point to discuss the seeming impending end of the superhero era of blockbuster cinema. From the passive performances to shoddy special effects to audience fatigue, the Kessler and Funderburg look at the failures of the film not as a celebratory “ding dong the witch is dead” moment that so many Serious Cinephiles are receiving its flop as representing, but by placing the film in the context of the larger history of popular cinema and what it means when those popular eras come to a close. It's a diagnosis of what went wrong with the film that gives full respect to what has gone right with the superhero genre for the past 20 years. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

This is it. Frank Henenlotter’s perfect six. Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg discuss one of their favorite filmmakers and his half dozen brilliant, unforgettable exploitation (not horror) films: Basket Case and its sequels, Brain Damage, Frankenhooker and Bad Biology. What more needs to be said? Put it in your ear. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke "Central County was a big, rangy county with mountains to the north and mountains to the south and a vast loneliness in between. The mountains were filled with trees and creeks. The loneliness was called the Dead Hills. They were thirty miles wide. There were thousands of hills out there: yellow and barren in the summer with lots of juniper brush in the draws and a few pine trees here and there, acting as if they had wandered away like stray sheep from the mountains and out into the Dead Hills and had gotten lost and had never been able to find their way back...poor trees..." The podcast heads west for this October's horror fiction episode, where they find a couple cowboy killers recruited from a brothel to vanquish a mischievous monster in an isolated mansion out in Eastern Oregon. Richard Brautigan's rugged, experimental, very funny The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western begins as a travelogue of turn-of-the-century frontier life and makes a drastic shift to the surreal when the two gunmen (who don't put any lace on their killings) reach their sinister assignment. Artist and American Western history expert David Lambert is on hand to offer his take on whether countercultural cult poet/novelist Brautigan passes muster as a western writer, or if Hawkline Monster is a xerox copy of an audacious literary achievement. Lambert talks with hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs about the unmistakable Brautigan-ness of the novel, how the book fares when it moves into much stranger territory in its second half, and the fascinating decades-spanning background of multiple failed movie adaptations. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com David Lambert on X: twitter.com/DavidLambertArt The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. We’re joined by screenwriter Tom Vaughan to discuss a pair of cult classics by director Gary Sherman. We dig into the small-town murder-conspiracy thriller Dead and Buried as well as the ne plus ultra sleaze-thriller Vice Squad. The strengths and weaknesses of the films make for an interesting contrast that leads into a larger discussion about the practical intersections of screenwriting and on set filmmaking (with some talk about meddling producers thrown in for good measure.) The trio compares Dead and Buried’s wonky & lumpy script (by Alien and Total Recall scribes Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett) to Vice Squad’s drum-tight story to consider how screenwriting plays into (or interferes with) making two such memorable films. It’s the Wings Hauser appreciation hour, folks, come get baptized in the neon slime. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Tom Vaughan on X: https://twitter.com/storyandplot The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke dives headfirst into the world of American pulp magazines of the 30's & 40's with two tales of derring-do featuring adventurer/scientist/detective/explorer and superhero prototype Doc Savage. Known as the Bronze Man, Savage trots the globe with his fabulous five-man brain trust facing off against all manner of ostentatious villains and colorful henchmen. Doc was the hero of 213 stories from 1933 to 1949, popularized for a new generation when revived as paperbacks between 1964 and 1990. Hosts Christopher Funderburg, Martin Kessler and John Cribbs chose two of them to read and discuss: The Fortress of Solitude and The Devil Genghis, both written by Lester Dent under the by-line "Kenneth Robeson" and published in 1938. Featuring death rays, giant amazon women and one of the most diabolical supervillains ever created who'll stop at nothing short of total world domination, the stories were so filled with action and intrigue it made each host emit a low, mellow growl subconsciously, something like the trilling of a strange bird from the jungle. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg are back with their rundown of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival! From the highest highs (The Boy and the Heron) to the lowest lows (Limbo) and the poutine in between, they take a look at the state of cinema as explicated by one of the world’s premiere film festivals. They discuss new films by Wim Wenders, Anna Kendrick, Ethan Hawke, Hayao Miyazaki, Errol Morris, Victor Erice, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, Shinya Tsukamoto and so much more - they discuss not just the highlights, but every single goddamn film they saw while in the Queen City! Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg return to the Queen City for the 48th annual Toronto International Film Festival to watch all the best in the current world of le cinema. With a line-up seemingly handcrafted to get us excited, we talk our must-see films, wildcards, and the ones we’re dreading. Included in this year’s slate are new movies by Hayao Miyazaki, Errol Morris Victor Erice, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, Shinya Tsukamoto and more …choosing which titles among the 300+ entries to see is going to be tough. Get psyched! Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

Christopher Funderburg is joined by Martin Kessler to discuss Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Bundesrepublik Deutschland trilogy: Lola, The Marriage of Maria Braun and The Longing of Veronika Voss. Collectively one of the most incisive looks at post-war West Germany and the re-birth of a nation shattered by Nazism, Fassbinder’s uncompromising and tender BRD films represent, for many, the highpoint of his legendarily prolific career. All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available a week early to our Patreon subscribers, the most sophisticated, urbane & hoity/toity of all audiences. Support our Patreon:
 www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X:
 twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: 
twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X:
 twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” 
Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"