The Projection Booth Podcast

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-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

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-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

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-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

She's been dug up, renamed, reanimated, and gaslit — and Hollywood expects her to be grateful. Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! resurrects the Bride of Frankenstein for a 1930s Chicago that feels equal parts Weimar cabaret and fever dream, with Jessie Buckley delivering a ferocious, uncontainable performance at the center of a film that can't quite contain itself. Mike White and Chris Stachiw dig into the ideas the film gets right, the heavy hand that undercuts them, and why a $80 million feminist Frankenstein 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-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

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-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

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-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

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. Is this a tragic romance, a critique of identity politics, or a brutal study of freedom curdling into nihilism? No easy redemption. No national reconciliation. Just survival.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

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-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

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-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with editor Andres Landau about his work editing the 2026 documentary, Nuisance Bear. A sobering look at the uneasy relationship between polar bears and humans when humans are infringing on the bears' natural environment. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Director Angelo Madsen joins Mike to discuss his latest film, the 2025 documentary A Body to Live In which focuses on the body artist Fakir Musafar who spent his lifetime manipulating his physical form. The film's edgy subject is matched by its confrontational visual style in a striking work that will not easily be forgotten.The film is currently playing at venues across North America.  Check your local listings or visit https://www.abodytolivein.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Australia month crashes to a delirious halt with 1997’s Welcome to Woop Woop, Directed by Stephan Elliott and adapted from Douglas Kennedy's The Dead Heart by screenwriter Michael Thomas, the film strands American grifter Teddy (Johnathon Schaech) in a surreal outback shantytown ruled by Daddy-O (Rod Taylor) and fueled by show tunes, superstition, and mob justice. Susie Porter co-stars as Angie, who drags Teddy into the warped social rituals of Woop Woop—Dog Day, asbestos mines, pineapple Christmas, and a kangaroo called Big Red.Ben Buckingham and Rahne Alexander join Mike to dissect the film’s Cannes infamy, its grotesque fairy-tale politics, and Elliott’s post-Priscilla swing for the fences. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike sits down with editor Ryan Kendrick to discuss Carousel (2026) and unpack how Rachel Lambert's film finds its rhythm in silence, hesitation, and the messy recalibration of adult love.Watch the trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFJmY__SC8IBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with writer and podcaster Brian Raftery about his latest book, Hannibal Lector: A Life. It's a look at Thomas Harris and his most famous creation, the genteel boogeyman Hannibal Lector in his various book, film, and TV incarnations from Red Dragon to Bryan Fuller's captivating series.Buy the book now at https://amzn.to/4qMuNzBBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with Cody Jarrett and Siouxzan Perry about their 2025 documentary TURA! The filmmakers discuss how the project came together and how they shaped the voluminous material into a feature-length film. How can one film contain the power and strength of the one-and-only Tura Satana? VIsit https://turamovie.com/ for more details. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

We continue our Australian month with Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds, the stark 1989 feature debut of Alex Proyas. Before The Crow or Dark City, Proyas delivered this sun-blasted sci-fi Western set in a post-apocalyptic desert where the wind blows and desert bakes.A lone wanderer, Smith (Norman "The Norm" Boyd), emerges from the dunes and collides with siblings Felix and Betty Crabtree (Michael Lake and Melissa Davis), who survive on beans, religious fervor, and flying mania. Smith's arrival fractures their fragile world, igniting jealousy, spiritual dread, and Felix’s obsessive dream.Cullen Gallagher and Rob Spencer join Mike to explore Proyas’s theological undercurrents, and the film’s singular place in late-’80s Australian cinema. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth continues its dive into Australian cinema with Pandemonium, the delirious 1987 feature from writer-director Haydn Keenan. A film that plays like a fever dream filtered through exploitation cinema, absurdist theater, and cultural anxiety, Pandemonium resists easy summary—and happily punishes anyone who tries.The story unfolds through the fractured testimony of Kales Leadingham, an escapee from an asylum portrayed by David Argue, who recounts his time working as a surveyor at a decaying movie studio run by the grotesque siblings (or spouses?) EB and PB De Wolf. What follows is a barrage of unstable identities, pagan imagery, religious parody, sexual panic, fascist satire, and mythic nonsense, all orbiting the enigmatic “Dingo Girl,” whose presence seems to fracture reality itself.Mike is joined by Heather Drain and Payton McCarty-Simas to unpack Keenan’s anything-goes approach to narrative, performance, and tone. The discussion wrestles with the film’s wild accents, confrontational humor, taboo imagery, and relentless escalation—from Nazi roleplay and talking mirrors to possessed dolls, zombie parties, musical numbers, and outright apocalyptic imagery.  The episode also features an interview with Haydn Keenan, who reflects on the film’s creation, its confrontational sensibility, and its afterlife as a cult object.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

The Projection Booth kicks off a month devoted to Australian oddities with Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens, the startling 1972 debut from director Jim Sharman. Long unseen outside of archival corners of the internet, the film sits at the crossroads of experimental theater, pop music, political anxiety, and institutional paranoia. Heather Drain and Chris O’Neil join Mike to unpack the film’s radical shifts in tone and form: the oscillation between black-and-white and color, the omnipresent off-screen voices, the rock-and-roll aliens, and the way Sharman folds Cold War fears, ecological warnings, and Australian cultural touchstones into Shirley’s fractured psyche. The discussion also traces how the film anticipates Sharman’s later work, with its collision of spectacle, provocation, and musical disruption. The episode features an interview with production designer Brian Thomson, who reflects on the film’s theatrical roots, handmade aesthetic, and the creative freedom that allowed such a strange debut to exist. Part asylum drama, part pop-art warning, Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens stands as a message from the margins nobody was prepared to hear.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream drifts between deadpan comedy and waking dream, a film where ambition, escape, and American myth collide at odd angles. Written by David Atkins and directed by Emir Kusturica, the 1993 features Axel (Johnny Depp) stranded between New York routine and Arctic fantasia after his cousin (Vincent Gallo) drags him west to Arizona. There, Axel falls into orbit around his Uncle Leo (Jerry Lewis) and the Stalkers—mother and daughter played by Faye Dunaway and Lili Taylor—each chasing a private version of freedom.Mike, joined by co-hosts Andras Jones and David Rodgers, unpacks how Arizona Dream bends tone and narrative into something closer to folklore than plot, balancing melancholy against absurdity. The conversation explores Kusturica’s outsider view of America, the film’s uneasy relationship with realism, and the way dreams—Inuit or otherwise—function as both refuge and trap. Mike also talks with screenwriter David Atkins about shaping the script, collaborating with Kusturica, and navigating a studio-era release that never quite knew what to do with a movie this strange.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with Michael Premo, director of Homegrown, about embedding himself with right-wing activists in the years leading up to—and following—January 6, 2021. Rather than treating the Capitol attack as an aberration, the film traces how grievance, conspiracy thinking, and political identity seep into everyday life. The conversation digs into the ethics of proximity filmmaking, questions of access and responsibility, and what it means to document extremism without caricature or spectacle. Homegrown emerges as a quietly unsettling portrait of radicalization unfolding in plain sight.Find out more at https://homegrown.film/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth