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The Pink Smoke podcast

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Feb 20, 2025 • 2h 15min

Ep. 152 Major Dune-dee

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, two of the most recognized directors of their day, were each in their mid-30's when they embarked on their third feature film: an epic studio movie to be shot in Mexico (headquartered at Estudio Churubusco). In both cases, the resulting film was a commercial disappointment and a critical disaster. What went wrong? Who's fault was it? Do these maligned movies deserve reappraisal?In tribute to the legendary Sam Peckinpah's 100th birthday and the recent passing of the great David Lynch, the Pink Smoke has recruited artist David Lambert and filmmaker Martin Kessler to revisit these two films. Lambert takes us through the history of Peckinpah's 1965 debacle Major Dundee, including how star Charlton Heston almost murdered his hellfire director, while Kessler walks us through the production of 1984's infamously derided adaptation of Dune.  Exclusive "Major Dune-dee" art by David Lambert. Hey! Look! It's our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: x.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on X: x.com/thelastmachine David Lambert on X: x.com/DavidLambertArt Martin Kessler on X: x.com/MovieKessler
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Dec 31, 2024 • 1h 20min

1974: Fifty Years Later / A Wife To Be Sacrificed & Castle Of Sand

Support our Patreon: 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. The early 70's was a particularly transitional period for Japanese cinema in which major stars and directors found themselves shut out by the studios while the "Pinku eiga" era, in which celluloid sex and violence ran rampant, was on the rise. Surviving this shift in the landscape, director Yoshitaro Nomura, leading man Tetsuro Tamba and legendary screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto collaborated on the police procedural The Castle of Sand. On the other end of the spectrum was audacious auteur Masaru Konuma and his muse Naomi Tani who in 1974 teamed up for two movies including the BDSM melodrama Wife to Be Sacrificed, featuring "perhaps the most beautifully photographed flogging scene ever." Join us for this bizarre double feature programmed by Daniel Castro, writer and co-founder of the Colombian online film criticism portal Filmigrana, in which we discuss the state of Japanese cinema in the 70's, the pushing of boundaries versus the tugging of the heart, and the thin line between art and pornography. Hey! Look! It's 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”
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Dec 24, 2024 • 1h 14min

1974: Fifty Years Later / Female Trouble

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Who better to spend the holidays with than rebellious hair hopper Dawn Davenport, who goes from pinning her screaming mother under a Christmas tree for failing to provide the desired gift of Cha Cha heels to becoming the brightest star to light up the electric chair. Kate Wilkiinson returns to talk about the *most* John Waters movie ever made, his 1974 cult classic that puts his favorite obsessions of crime, fame and grotesque glamour center stage. Is there anything more lovable than a hideous Baltimore accent? Can anyone deny the sex appeal of Edith Massey sewn into a tight leather S & M outfit? And is there something about all this that's weirdly wholesome? 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. Wig Wurq on Tumblr: www.wigwurq.tumblr.com/ 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”
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Dec 17, 2024 • 1h 15min

PSP 1974 The White Dawn

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. We start winding down the series with a great companion piece to our past episodes on "wilderness adventure" classics Dersu Uzala and Quest for Fire. Filmmaker Jeremy Workman returns to discuss Philip Kaufman's The White Dawn, the story of three whalers who become stranded in the Northern Arctic and end up integrating with an Inuit tribe. There's a lot to talk about, from Kaufman's status as possibly the most underrated of 70's directors to Michael Chapman's naturalistic photography, the film's inspired use of diegetic music, authentic regional language and frozen landscapes, and how this movie is definitely not Louis Malle's Black Moon. Jeremy Workman on social media @jeremyworkman on Twitter Jeremy Workman's website https://jeremyworkman.com/ Website for Secret Mall Apartment secretmallapartment.com 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”
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Dec 3, 2024 • 1h 9min

1974: Fifty Years Later / Symptoms

Support our Patreon: 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. Debuting in competition at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival was British thriller Symptoms from Catalan director José Ramón Larraz, a difficult-to-synopsize terror tone poem featuring Angela Pleasence being threatened by psychosexual hallucinations and a peeping odd-job man. Joining us to rake the leaves of this moody manor are Dan Pullen and Bradley J. Kornish of the Movies from Hell website and podcast who give their opinions on Spanish genre directors of the decade, the film's place among hysterical women movies like Repulsion and how horror movies were beginning to evolve in 1974. Movies from Hell website: moviesfromhell.com 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”
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Nov 13, 2024 • 56min

1974: Fifty Years Later / The Nickel Ride

Support our Patreon: 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. Host Martin Kessler hops on The Nickel Ride, one of the more unjustly neglected films of that hallowed cinema year that sees director Robert Mulligan instill a distinctively L.A. setting with a shadow of noir desperation and a tinge of French crime drama melancholy. Martin is joined by two ardent cinéastes, podcaster Felicia Maroni and film writer Andrew Nette, to discuss how Mulligan creates a precis of mid-70's American movie constructs - fading machismo, pervasive paranoia, volitional isolation - that thrills even when there's more talking than shooting. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Andrew Nette on social media: @pulpcurry.bsky.social Andrew Nette's Pulp Curry website pulpcurry.com Andrew Nette's Substack newsletter: andrewnette.substack.com Felicia Maroni on social media: @CineMaroni Seeing Faces in Movies Podcast seeingfacesinmovies.com/episodes
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Oct 29, 2024 • 1h 21min

1974: Fifty Years Later / The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

What is there left to be said about the greatest horror film ever made? 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”
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Oct 22, 2024 • 1h 11min

1974: Fifty Years Later / Killdozer

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers, the most killer-ish and dozer-y of all audiences, one week before their general release Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke celebrates the Spooky Season with the most terrifying subject imaginable: a sentient, vengeful bulldozer! Guest Joe Gibson has chosen this TV movie from the pen of science fiction legend Theodore Sturgeon to discuss for our 1974 series, one that comes between the highway horror of Duel and apocalyptic chaos of Maximum Overdrive. Can the half dozen construction workers stranded on an island off the coast of Africa survive the wrath of a meteorite-possessed Killdozer? This is a very fun movie. 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. Joe's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/zoltarak/ 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
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Oct 9, 2024 • 1h 14min

Ep. 151 Devil Girls

Episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke "'It doesn't seem important anymore.' Her eyes held a vacant stare which bothered Dee. They appeared to be looking but not seeing anything. 'I didn't think I'd ever want anything more than I did, gold and good times and excitement. I guess I lived it day and night. Gold! Bread! Loot! I quit school to get it. Money was the only thing that was important in the whole world to me and I didn't care much how I got it. And I liked it so's I could buy fly juice and powder! Pot! Hashish! Now it's all changed. I don't want any of it. Why fly when there’s no place left to fly?" In celebration of Edward D. Wood Jr.'s 100th birthday, The Pink Smoke dives into one of the many pulp books the venerated "worst director of all time" churned out in the last decade of his life. In spite of being overstuffed with characters and subplots, Devil Girls from 1967 is also packed with the kind of half-clunky/half-poetic dialogue and potboiler action sequences that made his films so entertaining. Devil Girls tells the story of The Chicks, an all-female gang of juvenile delinquents involved in drug running within their kill-crazy gulf port town. Between jazzing on the big H, heisting soda shops and taking part in hazy orgies with the local thugs, these young troublemakers also arrange the murder of a schoolteacher and kill a parent or two. Which of them will see the light and follow Reverend Hank Steele's path to salvation? Which will end up under a boat propeller? Listen to this episode before you light another fix candle - your life might depend on it! 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 John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"
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Oct 1, 2024 • 1h 5min

1974: Fifty Years Later / Mahler

All Pink Smoke Podcast episodes are made available one week before their general release to Patreon subscribers. Subscribe to get early access & so much more: 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. Falling somewhere between his more restrained films about Elgar and Delius and his untamed biopics of Strauss and Liszt, in 1974 Ken Russell released a portrait of Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer Gustav Mahler and his silently suffering spouse Alma. We welcome back Russell's wife and collaborator Lisi Tribble Russell, who shares her insights on this low-key masterpiece and memories of her friendship with its star, the wonderful Georgina Hale. 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

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