The Pink Smoke podcast The Pink Smoke

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.

Anyone familiar with actor Marjoe Gortner's background as a child evangelist preacher (and his later milking of said image as depicted in the Oscar-winning 1972 documentary Marjoe) will know he often commanded his congregation to pray. But is there any prayer that could help the Wildcats? Anthony King - husband, father, beer leaguer, hockey player and film writer - is also a huge fan of Marjoe Gortner, and he's here to discuss the former minister's first full length film, Pray for the Wildcats, which debuted on ABC in January of 1974.

A murderer's row of television personalities make up the titular squad: Mayberry's own Andy Griffith, Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch and William Shatner fresh off the USS Enterprise are joined by Marjoe on a dirtbike trip to the Baja California desert. Desperate to impress Griffith's sociopathic business exec, the three ad execs bring along plenty of personal baggage on a trip fraught with resentment and failure that ultimately ends in death. It's a terminally square yet truly strange and somewhat obscure TV movie that we're glad Anthony unearthed for us to survey.

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Anthony King on X:
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The Pink Smoke on X:
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Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two”
Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers, the most determined and unsparing of all audiences, one week before their general release.

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The Cannes Film Festival, May 1994. Two independent American crime films featuring guns, gangsters, torture, redemption, stylized artificial dialogue, quirky comedy, a cool soundtrack, a main character who dies and is resurrected and a criminal's kept woman with an Anna Karina haircut made their debut at the southern tip of France. One of them went on to conquer the world and become one of the most beloved and imitated films of the ensuing 30 years. The other faded into obscurity and is barely brought up three decades later. The films are Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Hal Hartley's Amateur, and their divergent paths clearly shifted the cultural space of American independent cinema moving forward.

We welcome back Pinnland Empire guru Marcus Pinn (like us, a teenage budding cinephile in the mid-90's) to talk about these two films, how they were shaped by the climate of late 80's/early 90's indie cinema, their impact and their legacy. Despite Hartley's deep meaningful contemplations proving no match for Tarantino's sheer exuberance, these are two films that were meaningful to all three of us, so we also get pretty heavily into some formative personal history and lament the slow death of a truly specific kind of American movie. Who's the real amateur here?

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www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke

The Pink Smoke site:
www.thepinksmoke.com

Marcus Pinn on Twitter:
twitter.com/PINNLAND_EMPIRE

The Pink Smoke on Twitter:
twitter.com/thepinksmoke

John Cribbs on Twitter:
twitter.com/TheLastMachine

Christopher Funderburg on Twitter:
twitter.com/cfunderburg

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.

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.

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twitter.com/storyandplot

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The Pink Smoke on X:
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Christopher Funderburg on X:
twitter.com/cfunderburg

Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two”
Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"