The Pink Smoke podcast

"Move over Judith Krantz and Jackie Collins... JUICY!" - Booklist Cupid's arrow has struck the Pink Smoke on St. Valentine's Day, and they've decided to give some love to that most disrespected of genre fictions: the romance novel. Recruiting beach-read paperback enthusiast Melanie Daniels from the Cinema Parlor Podcast, hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg access the world of glamorous women and their lusty affairs with truculent suitors via Fame & Fortune by Kate Coscarelli. Known to cinephiles as author of the Phantasm novelization (and mother of Phantasm writer-director Don Coscarelli), Kate produced six salacious books dealing with the steamy lives of rich widows, lonely housewives, ambitious businesswomen and rising starlets struggling to stay on top in the cutthroat upper class society of Los Angeles. Fame & Fortune deals with the circle of friends of one Peach Malone, super-wealthy widow of Drake "Midas" Malone trying to regain control of her estate following the death of her Prince Charming. Her friends include Grace Gable, a hairdressing entrepreneur harboring a dark secret; Maggie Hammond, blossoming interior designer with two smoky beacons for eyes like a Keane painting; Laura Austin, frail wife of an in-demand doctor whose own eyes have shifted to Hollywood's hottest sex symbol Ghilly Jordan; and Belinda Cornwall, the absolute doyenne of Los Angeles society - the lady with the whim of iron! Coscarelli juggles this large cast of characters as they struggle to wrest back dominance of their own lives by outsmarting, upstaging and maybe even murdering the gorgeous brutes who stand in their way. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Melanie Daniels on Twitter: twitter.com/plasticwerewolf 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"

Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs discuss the new, posthumously-published novel from the great crime novelist, Donald Westlake - author of the Parker & Dortmunder books. Westlake is a Pink Smoke favorite and the podcast has previously covered Forever and a Death (a script for a James Bond movie converted into a novel) and Double Feature (a pair of novellas about violence in Hollywood.) The story of a woman putting off responding to a marriage proposal by contracting a New York cabby to drive her to Los Angeles rather than flying there, Call Me a Cab is a bit of a change-up for Westlake. Instead of a dark thriller like The Hunter and The Ax or a clever, genial crime story like The Hot Rock, this latest novel is a low-key romance built around a meandering road-trip. It’s a unique story and approach by an author from who you would least expect it. Support our Patreon:
 www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com 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"

We pay tribute to the recently deceased Peter Bogdanovich, considering his work both as a filmmaker and a cinephile by exploring his list of the best American films of 1939 (the year of his birth). We’re joined by Bill Teck, the director of One Day Since Yesterday, a loving celebration of Bogdanovich’s They All Laughed - a box office & critical failure only now being rediscovered in no smart part because of Teck’s documentary. Bogdanovich's list includes screwball comedies, adventure films, melodramas, westerns, movies that (most importantly to Bogdanovich) express the personalities & emotions of their directors. The trio connects these films to Bogdanovich’s life and work, Teck’s experiences with the man himself & a discussion of the cruelty of Bogdanovich’s critical burial and deserving resurrection. The episode includes a healthy “fuck you” to Hal Needham. Support our Patreon:
 www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: 
twitter.com/thepinksmoke Bill Teck on Twitter: twitter.com/billteck John Cribbs on Twitter: twiiter.com/TheLastMachine 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 his old friend Adam Leon to discuss Leon’s new film Italian Studies. Starring Vanesse Kirby (The Queen, Mission Impossible: Fallout, Pieces of a Woman), the film follows an author who suffers a psychotic break and wanders Manhattan, joining up with a group of random teenagers in attempt to take ahold of herself and her identity once again. The discussion touches on Leon’s sudden success with the SxSW-winning, Cannes-selected Gimme the Loot, the weird intersection of success and failure that came with his follow-up film Tramps, and the risks of making a film that you know will be divisive like Italian Studies. Leon talks about the process of working with an actress like Kirby on a somewhat experimental film, how he found the film’s teenager actors, and why his film’s titles are always awful. 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 Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two”
 Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss the year in movies. The conversation naturally touches on their favorite films of the year but more than that, the duo discusses why they rarely do these “year in review” pieces anymore and how their approach to cinema has changed as they’ve gotten older. By the end of the conversation can they find a way to balance their negativity about the current state of things with their lifelong love of film? No. The answer is no. 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"

"Not even death is static like a picture is. If you look at a corpse long enough, you see things move beneath the skin, as real and liquid as the blood in your own veins." What is Generation Loss? Is it a crime novel about a jaded never-was photographer turned leather-clad gumshoe? Is it a horror story about furry weasel-like "fishers" stalking tourists in rural Maine? Or maybe it's a dark melodrama about art and redemption in which a middle-aged alcoholic is forced to channel the energy normally reserved for self-damage to save a young girl from a reclusive, decades-old evil? Hosts Chris Funderburg and John Cribbs struggle to get a handle on genre-flipping Elizabeth Hand's Shirley Jackson Award-winning novel, the first of a series featuring tattooed shutterbug Cass Neary. 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”

"A captain's job is a lonely one. He's easily misunderstood." On this episode, we welcome back John Arminio and his father, Captain Tom Arminio, USN, Retired, to tackle a double feature of classic WWII-set Naval melodramas: 1954's The Caine Mutiny and 1955's Mister Roberts. Both films deal with the tricky subject of bad military leadership, how it trickles down the ranks and threatens the effectiveness of an entire ship. Whose is the worst captain, Humphrey Bogart's erratic and incompetent Queeg or James Cagney's oppressive and oblivious Morton? When is the right time for officers to take a stand against a potentially mad or tyrannical leader? When is the right time to pitch the palm tree into the ocean? Organizing movie screenings and discussions with his geographically separated family during the height of the pandemic, John Arminio has enjoyed regular movie talks with his father, whose 24 years of Naval experience give him a unique insight into these depictions of faulty leadership on the decks of wartime ships. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Arminio on Twitter: twitter.com/QuasarSniffer John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

“Perhaps when one is about to die one sees every kind of bird pass; when one sees the crow it means one’s time has come.” A bit of a weird one: hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg each picked a “war story” to discuss. The podcast loves to dig into short stories (in the past it has looked at everything from Edogawa Ranpo to Patricia Highsmith) and, as a way of exploring the short fiction format, this episode deeps on a pair of only tangentially stories brought together around a loose theme. The two “war stories” selected are Harlan Ellison’s hugely influential sci-fi classic “Soldier” and Italo Calvino’s bizarre & poetic “The Crow Comes Last.” While these two stories couldn’t be more different in approach, the conversation ends up being surprisingly revealing about both works and how they relate to each other. At very least, it provides the hosts an opportunity to talk about two of their absolute favorite authors! All episodes of the Pink Smoke podcast are available to Patreon subscribers a week before their release to the general public! 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"

The Daniel Craig Era of James Bond has officially ended, allowing John Cribbs and special guest John Arminio to conclude their comprehensive review of every Bond movie, which they began in April of 2020 (the original premiere date of the much-delayed No Time to Die!) Starting with 2006's series reboot Casino Royale and finishing with their thoughts on the latest 007 adventure, Cribbs & Arminio reminisce on the things that got them excited and the things that made them disappointed in the last 15 years of the fabled franchise. Why did Craig always have to be a rogue agent? Why was he so bad at protecting women? Did SPECTRE really need to subsidize Quantum? Was the overall characteristic of Craig's superspy really embarrassing failure? These are just some of the questions tackled by our duo of double 0 analysts as they wrap up the Pink Smoke's series of Bond reevaluation. And don’t fail in your duty to check out our previous Bond episodes: Bond in the Brosnan Era: http://thepinksmoke.com/PSP74BondBrosnan.html Bond in the 80s I: thepinksmoke.com/PSP62Bondinthe80sI.html Bond in the 80s II: thepinksmoke.com/PSP63Bondinthe80sII.html Bond in the 70s: soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-564624820/psp-ep58-james-bond-in-the-70 spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/2t6MQIIbFBKzzKfdtZaQ9x apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-5…i=1000489551247 Bond in the 60s: soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-564624820/psp-ep52-james-bond-in-the-60s spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3g6UHop4amOmuBpljaxx3F apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-5…i=1000506773799 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Arminio on Twitter: twitter.com/QuasarSniffer John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

“Bad luck isn't brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds.” This is it: our mammoth exploration of the work of Italian aesthete Dario Argento. Hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs are joined by filmmaker and illustrator Patrick Horvath to explore the career of one of horror cinema's most notorious and beloved artists. They cover it all, from the brilliant beginnings of the "animal trilogy" of The Bird with Crystal Plumage, Cat O' Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet to the some of the highest points in the history of horror cinema with Suspiria and Deep Red all the way through to the bitter end. They pair each of the films from Argento's golden era with a film from the more dispiriting later portion of the filmmaker's career in order to explore the continuity of his themes and artistic ideas. They look in-depth at the classics like Opera and Inferno while keeping their eyes open for silver linings such as his two Masters of Horror entries and his "Max von Sydow teams up with a parrot to solve mysteries" late-giallo Sleepless. It's here, the most comprehensive podcast study of one of the artists who defined the genre. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Patrick Horvath on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PatrickHorvath 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"