Junk Filter

Jesse Hawken
Junk Filter

Junk Filter: a podcast about strange and overlooked artifacts from the worlds of film, music and popular culture with a generous side order of jokes and politics. Hosted by Jesse Hawken with guests from the worlds of Politics Twitter and Film Twitter. Original music for the program by Marker Starling. Follow us now on Twitter: @junkfilterpod

  1. FEB 10

    200: Proof of Life (with Roxana Hadadi)

    Roxana Hadadi, film and tv critic for Vulture and New York magazine returns to the pod for another episode about Tony Gilroy, this time looking at his screenplay for Taylor Hackford’s kidnapping thriller from the year 2000,Proof of Life, starring top-billed Meg Ryan and the ascendant superstar Russell Crowe. Crowe plays Terry Thorne, an Australian K&R (Kidnap & Ransom) consultant sent down to the fictional South American Republic of Tecala to negotiate the release of an American oil company engineer (David Morse) held hostage by anti-government forces in the Andes mountains, who finds himself falling for Morse’s distraught wife Meg Ryan.Proof of Life is best remembered today as the movie where Crowe and Ryan had an affair on location which doomed the movie to tabloid gossip; she was blamed for the end of her marriage to Dennis Quaid, and then for the financial failure of the film, leading to her decline as an A-list star. Proof of Life feels like a laboratory for some of Tony Gilroy’s future works (for instance Crowe’s character is based on a real life Australian hostage negotiator named Thomas Clayton!); viewing it through aMichael Clayton lens reveals a film that might have been better were it not for the nervousness of the studio that led them to play down the chemistry between the leads and the film’s critique of co-operation between unethical corporations and corrupt governments in the Global South. It’s a great example of the “Five-Star Three-Star Movie” which time sometimes helps to reveal. Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter Junk Filter is on Bluesky now! Follow Roxana Hadadi on Twitter and Bluesky. Trailer forProof of Life (Taylor Hackford, 2000) “Adventures in the Ransom Trade”, by William Prochnau, for Vanity Fair, the main source material for Tony Gilroy’s screenplay, April 1998

    1h 12m
  2. FEB 6

    198: The MCU: Munich Cinematic Universe, Part 1 (with Corey Atad)

    CW: This episode discusses cinematic sexual violence. The film writer Corey Atad returns to the pod for a two-parter on Steven Spielberg’s 2005 masterpiece Munich, which turns 20 years old this year and yet has barely aged a day. Spielberg starts the film with Black September’s terror attack on the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics and then follows a secret team of Israelis dispatched by their government to hunt down and kill 11 Palestinians around Europe said to have played a role in the massacre. But as their violent mission continues, Avner (Eric Bana) and his team start to doubt the nobility of their task as the compounding violence they commit corrodes their souls. In this first episode, Corey and I discuss Spielberg as a master filmmaker at the height of his powers, the brilliant, clear-eyed screenplay by Tony Kushner and how a film understood to be a comment on the 9/11 attacks when first released can be seen better now as a film about the harsh truths of the Israel/Palestine conflict and the futility of fighting terrorism with counter-terrorism. We contrast this look at Munich with another adaptation of the source material, the forgotten 1986 Canadian TV movie Sword of Gideon based on George Jonas’ 1984 non-fiction book Vengeance, a more openly Zionist interpretation of the text. And we discuss some of our favourite parts of Munich including the notorious sex scene! Part two of this discussion is available on the Patreon feed: more about Munich and Sword of Gideon, the documentary One Day In September and an extended discussion of the new film about the Munich Olympics massacre, September 5. Consider becoming a patron of the podcast to access this and dozens of exclusive bonus episodes for only $5 (US) a month! patreon.com/junkfilter Follow Corey Atad on Twitter and visit coreyatad.com Extended international trailer for Munich (Spielberg, 2005)  Commercial for Sword of Gideon (Michael Anderson, 1986) A breakdown of one of the complex camera movements in Munich.

    1h 39m
  3. JAN 29

    197: Big Nick (with Jake Serwin & Ian Rhine from Pod Casty For Me)

    The hosts of the left politics and film podcast Pod Casty For Me, Jake Serwin and Ian Rhine, return to Junk Filter for a supersized episode about Christian Gudegast’s Den of Thieves films, starring the new King of January movies Gerard Butler in his greatest role as debauched cop Big Nick O’Brien of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The first Den of Thieves features a cat and mouse plot where Big Nick leads his team of dirty cops against a heist crew planning to rob the Federal Reserve in LA, using their informant Donnie played by O’Shea Jackson Jr., a film that had ardent defenders including the German director Christian Petzold who raised eyebrows when he placed it on his list of the best films of the decade. Coming seven years later, the sequel Pantera takes the story to Europe, where Big Nick tracks Donnie down in the French Riviera as he and his new European gang are planning a complex heist of the World Diamond Center, forcing his way into the crew. We discuss the evolution of the series, how the sequel doubles down on the Dudes Rock qualities of the first film, and reveals how smart this dumb guy series actually is, with all the things it has to say about gang culture in the LA Police, toxic masculinity, and the healing powers of a summer in Europe with your boys as Den of Thieves evolves into an actual action franchise. If the first one feels like a variation on Michael Mann, the second one evokes Rififi, Ronin, Tenet, Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris and most unexpectedly Richard Linklater’s Before series. Plus: we discovered there are two cuts of Pantera in circulation and we discuss their differences. Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter Follow Pod Casty For Me on Twitter, and you can find out more about the show and subscribe to their Patreon feed at their website. “A Tradition of Violence: The History of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department” reported by Cerise Castle for Knock LA, March 2021 Final trailer for Den of Thieves (Gudegast, 2018) First trailer for Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (Gudegast, 2025)

    2h 7m
  4. JAN 13

    TEASER - 196: A Complete Unknown (with Jared Bailey)

    Access this entire 87-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.patreon.com/posts/196-complete-119875574 Jared Bailey (aka Twitter’s @Stolendans) returns to the podcast from Columbia South Carolina for a show about James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as the young Bob Dylan, and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger. Choosing to portray the rise of Bob Dylan as a mainstream Music 101 period piece may have been a commercial choice that has rubbed some true Dylan Heads the wrong way, but the director has at least made an entertaining prestige picture that looks and feels right with Chalamet up to the challenge of playing a difficult part. We discuss how this film retools the actual history for the sake of Hollywood conventions, how Mangold chooses to portray the women in Dylan’s life and the film’s cautious treatment of any political content, keeping things vague enough that it’s been left open to interpretation; in some conservative circles they think the film is really about Dylan the individual artist taking on the Marxist folk music scene, portrayed here as The Establishment. Plus: Jared and I discuss Bob Dylan, the pioneer of singing with a funny voice (a big influence on Paul McCartney, we think) and dreamcast some future Dylan biopics! Follow Jared Bailey on Twitter and Bluesky. Trailer for A Complete Unknown (James Mangold, 2024) The Highwaymen on the New Zealand talk show Holmes, 1991

    5 min
  5. JAN 1

    195: Kraven the Hunter (with Adam Jackson)

    The writer and friend of the pod Adam Jackson returns for a show about what has turned out to be the finale of Sony’s "Spider-Man Movies Without Spider-Man In Them Cinematic Universe", Kraven the Hunter, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe. Directed by J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, All Is Lost), Kraven was originally set for release in January 2023 but after guild strikes, reshoots and several schedule changes was finally released at the end of 2024, and on the eve of its debut Sony announced they were wrapping up this attempt to make standalone origin stories of Spider-Man villains like Venom, Morbius and Madame Web, which led to Kraven having the weakest series opening yet. But Adam and I were surprised at how much fun we had watching it, full of good actors delivering ludicrous performances, with the added hilarity of this ”origin story” being a dead-end for the “franchise”. Plus: Adam provides us with a year in review of the comic book movie, which would have been the weakest one in history were it not for the massive success of Deadpool & Wolverine, and we talk about what we’re looking forward to in 2025. Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter Follow Adam Jackson on Twitter and Bluesky. First Red Band trailer for Kraven the Hunter (J.C. Chandor, 2024) “Reverse Psychology” commercial for the 2020 Russell Crowe thriller Unhinged, calling us back to the cinema

    1h 18m
  6. 12/24/2024

    TEASER - 194: Die Harder (with Brian Abrams)

    Access this entire 68-minute episode (and additional monthly bonus shows) by becoming a Junk Filter patron for only $5.00 (US) a month! Over 30% of episodes are exclusively available to patrons of the show. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.patreon.com/posts/194-die-harder-118608075 In part two of our discussion of the Die Hard series, Brian Abrams, the author of Die Hard: An Oral History and I go over the sequels to John McTiernan’s 1988 masterpiece. We make a case for Renny Harlin’s Die Hard 2 (1990) as the platonic ideal of a blockbuster sequel - a bigger, dumber version of the original with a great supporting cast which delivers on the formula and also serves as a better “Christmas movie” than the first one to boot. We itemize our issues with McTiernan’s return to the franchise with Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), and trash the final two films in the series, Len Wiseman’s Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and John Moore’s rock-bottom final entry, 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard, inexplicably set in Russia. Follow Brian Abrams on Letterboxd and check out his website. “Die Hard: An Oral History” by Brian Abrams is available to download as a Kindle Single "Robert Costanzo, the Essential Worker", by Brian Abrams, for Lowbrow Reader, 2022 “Die Hard is Back”: Bruce Willis’ final performance as John McClane in a 2020 battery commercial Music video for “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun”, The Beastie Boys

    5 min
  7. 12/24/2024

    193: Die Hard (with Brian Abrams)

    The writer Brian Abrams returns to the show from Brooklyn for the first of two episodes on the Die Hard series. In part one, Brian, the author of Die Hard: An Oral History, gives us the details on the genesis of the franchise, which perfected a formula for action comedy films that producers Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon had been developing through the eighties with 48 Hrs, Commando and Predator and instantly converted Moonlighting’s Bruce Willis into a legit movie star. Brian spoke to dozens of members of the Die Hard creative team for his oral history and we discuss the film’s major players, the genre innovations, its politics, and the recipe for what makes a good Die Hard movie. And I force Brian to explain the Bill Clay scene; what tipped John McClane off that Clay was Hans Gruber? Part two of our discussion, on the other four films in the Die Hard series, is available on the Patreon feed. Over 30% of all Junk Filter episodes are only available to patrons of the podcast. To support this show directly and to receive access to the entire back catalogue, consider becoming a patron for only $5.00 a month (U.S.) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/junkfilter Happy Holidays from Junk Filter! Follow Brian Abrams on Letterboxd and check out his website. “Die Hard: An Oral History” by Brian Abrams is available to download as a Kindle Single. Trailer for Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988) Canadian Labatt Ice Beer commercial featuring Alexander Gudenov, 1993

    1h 21m
4.6
out of 5
48 Ratings

About

Junk Filter: a podcast about strange and overlooked artifacts from the worlds of film, music and popular culture with a generous side order of jokes and politics. Hosted by Jesse Hawken with guests from the worlds of Politics Twitter and Film Twitter. Original music for the program by Marker Starling. Follow us now on Twitter: @junkfilterpod

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