The Pink Smoke podcast

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by critic & author Martin Kessler for the second of four episodes covering Errol Morris’ stunningly brilliant documentary television show, First Person. Filmed on Morris’ notorious documentary-interrogation device, The Interrotron, and touching on all his favorite obsessions, First Person brought Morris’ ground-breaking documentary style to the small screen. This podcast episode, titled “Wastebasket Taxon,” focuses on the episodes of First Person that looked at one of his favorite subjects: weird science. This episodes covers “Eyeball to Eyeball,” “I Dismember Mama,” “Harvesting Me,” and “Smiling in a Jar.” Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler 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"

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by critic & author Martin Kessler for the second of four episodes covering Errol Morris’ stunningly brilliant documentary television show, First Person. Filmed on Morris’ notorious documentary-interrogation device, The Interrotron, and touching on all his favorite obsessions, First Person brought Morris’ ground-breaking documentary style to the small screen. This podcast episode, titled “Likely Heroes,” focuses on the episodes of First Person that looked the rarest of all subjects in Morris’ oeuvre: heroes. Possibly. Maybe. Arguably heroes. This episodes covers “The Little Gray Man,” “Leaving the Earth,” “You’re Soaking in It!,” and “Mr. Debt.” Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler 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"

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by critic & author Martin Kessler for the second of four episodes covering Errol Morris’ stunningly brilliant documentary television show, First Person. Filmed on Morris’ notorious documentary-interrogation device, The Interrotron, and touching on all his favorite obsessions, First Person brought Morris’ ground-breaking documentary style to the small screen. This podcast episode, titled “Crime (Adjacent) Stories,” focuses on the episodes of First Person that looked at people embroiled in crime without being criminals themselves. This episodes covers “The Killer Inside Me,” “In The Kingdom of the Unabomber,” “The Only Truth,” “The Stalker,” and “The Parrot.” Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler 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"

Host Christopher Funderburg is joined by critic & author Martin Kessler for the first of four episodes covering Errol Morris’ stunningly brilliant documentary television show, First Person. Filmed on Morris’ notorious documentary-interrogation device, The Interrotron, and touching on all his favorite obsessions, First Person brought Morris’ ground-breaking documentary style to the small screen. This podcast episode, titled "The Best and the Brightest," focuses on the episodes of First Person that explored the inscrutable nature of human intelligence. This episode covers “Stairway to Heaven,” “The Smartest Man in the World,” “One in a Million Trillion,” and “Mr.Personality.” Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler 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"

“I want to kill someone but everybody’s already dead.” Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg sit down to discuss Tom Piccirilli’s grotesque Southern Gothic novel A Choir of Ill Children. This movie comes via a recommendation from author Stephanie Crawford, who paired it with John Farris’ All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes by on our episode about that book. It’s a deeply eerie and unsettling book, in utterly poor taste in the best possible sense. Their discussion digs into the books’ diffuse plot, the gentrification of horror/exploitation genres and what happens when the ham is in the house. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss Jim Thompson's haltingly bizarre crime novel THE GOLDEN GIZMO, originally published in 1954 as part of a flood of work by Thompson following the success of THE KILLER INSIDE ME. GIZMO, however, is based on a manuscript written by Thompson years earlier and rejected by publishers until demand for Thompson's work resurrected it. Visit The Pink Smoke site: http://thepinksmoke.com/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheLastMachine https://twitter.com/thepinksmoke

“You are what you do. A man is defined by his actions, not his memory.” Martin Kessler returns to take a trip down memory lane, joining John Cribbs in conversation about Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall. Since its release in 1990, Verhoeven's consciousness-expanding roller coaster ride has remained a mind-blowing anomaly, a fusion of high-minded philosophical science fiction and pulse-pounding big Hollywood action that thrilled audiences even as it explored the dangers of sinking too far into escapist fantasy. Kessler and Cribbs discuss the wonders of Verhoeven's epic achievement, its source material (the Philip K. Dick head trip "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale") and the decade-long aborted attempts to bring it to the screen. Grab a Johnnycab and join our hosts as they dive into the ultimate vacation reverie/nightmare - open your mind and get your ass to Mars! Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Martin Kessler on Twitter:
 twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on Twitter:
 twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two”
 Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

In 1985, William "Hurricane Billy" Friedkin was back on the streets with the savage and illusive policier To Live and Die in L.A. Filmed with gritty precision, photographed in painterly textures by the immortal Robby Müller and encompassing one scorcher of an extended city-wide high-speed pursuit that leaves even the celebrated chase from The French Connection in the dust, the movie electrified the screen yet couldn't produce a spark critically or commercially. It has since been rightfully recognized as a classic, much to the satisfaction of hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs who sit down to review the fatal errors of Richard Chance, Rick Masters and John Vukovich on the blood-red scorched inland valleys of the City of Angels. A would-be presidential assassin exploding midair, bungee jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge, the intricate art of creating "funny money," a foot chase at an airport terminal, canvases set ablaze, kabuki-inspired performance artists, dumpster death, strip club stoolies, botched stakeouts, prison yard hits, a sleazy lawyer who work both sides, a speedy escape down a wrong way street, Steve friggin' James - there are a million reasons to love this movie. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

“You just like children. Have eyes but don't see. You try live in taiga, soon dead.” We’re joined by illustrator and poster designer Tony Stella to discuss what might be Akira Kurosawa’s most neglected masterpiece, Dersu Uzala! The trio discusses where the film, an unexpected Russian-Japanese co-production, fits into the filmography of a filmmaker any reasonable cinephile would consider to be among the greatest to ever do it. Coming shortly on the heels of Kurosawa’s suicide attempt, Dersu represents a strange spiritual transformation for the filmmaker but one that led directly to his stunning creative rebirth with Kagemusha, Ran and Dreams. The film follows a Russian army officer in the early 20th century on a series missions exploring the far reaches of the taiga on the border between Russia and China. On his initial trip into the extreme and unforgiving wilderness, he meets the titular character, a strange woodsman who yells at fire, shoots with supernatural accuracy, and knows the landscape better than anyone who ever lived. It’s the story of an unlikely friendship between impressive, seemingly indomitable men. Tony Stella on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studiotstella/ The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

On this episode, The Pink Smoke welcomes back podcaster and physical media maven Brian Saur to bite into the succulent apple that is The Lady Eve. The gleaming center of an unparalleled four-year, 7-movie run of masterpieces from the peerless Preston Sturges, Eve strikes an immaculate balance of comedy that is high and low brow, impressions of love both cynical and romantic, and a leading lady who's positively anything but good and positively anything but bad. With a top-to-bottom phenomenal cast including Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette and William Demarest breathing life into Sturges' brilliant dialogue and deftly executing his pratfalls, it's hard to argue against this movie being the pinnacle of Hollywood's age of slapstick. Along with co-host Elric Kane on the Pure Cinema Podcast, Brian originated the phrase "handshake film" to describe great movies that are easy for fellow cineastes to bond over and The Lady Eve is certainly that. Like Brian, hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs are huge Sturges fans who find every frame of Eve irresistible, so this episode quickly turns into a gush session in which they quote favorite lines, deconstruct favorite scenes and have a great time doing it! Just the Discs on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCffVK8TcUyjCpr0F9SpV53g The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Brian Saur on Twitter: twitter.com/bobfreelander Pure Cinema Podcast on Twitter: twitter.com/PureCinemaPod 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"