Watch With Jen™

This week, I'm so pleased to welcome back to the podcast a talented, supportive, and funny friend. Currently based in Newark, Delaware, Mitchell Beaupre is not only the Senior Editor at one of my favorite services (via Letterboxd), but they're also the co-host of the Weekend Watchlist and Four Favorites podcasts, which you can find in the stream for The Letterboxd Show. Additionally, a prolific freelance film journalist and stellar interviewer for prestigious outlets such as "The Film Stage," "Paste Magazine," "The Playlist," and "Little White Lies," you can keep up with all of their impressive work on Twitter @ItIsMitchell. Over the past few years, I've enjoyed following Mitchell's film journeys on social media, including their discovery of a trio of outstanding Meryl Streep romance movies that I love, including FALLING IN LOVE, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, and most recently, THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, which became one of their new favorites. Messaging them instantly to join me in discussing the topic of Meryl Streep in Love, we chose these three films which showcase a lighter, more accessible, and less "actorly" side of the Oscar-winning legend, yet one that might boast her best performance committed to film. And as we delve deeply into what Streep and her great co-stars and craftsmen are doing in these movies and the ways they touch us, we wind up doing a lot of storytelling along the way, culminating in a long, personal, and philosophical conversation about friendship, love, and some of our own experiences that I know listeners will appreciate. Originally Posted on Patreon (7/27/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/86758622 Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Logo: KateGabrielle.com

A film critic for publications such as LA Weekly, New York Magazine, Vulture, The New York Times, and formerly, The Village Voice, the brilliant Bilge Ebiri is one of my favorite journalists working today. Although we've discussed some of his favorite directors like Terrence Malick & Neil Jordan tangentially in the past, I was thrilled to bring him back to the podcast this time to focus on the filmmaker who helmed his favorite movie of all time Barry Lyndon. An engaging and insightful journey into Ebiri's own life & career exploring the work of Stanley Kubrick, which is one of his particular areas of expertise, over the course of two jam-packed hours of conversation, we explore the films Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, & The Shining. Unable to stop asking him questions about the rest of Kubrick's filmography, the result is a highly entertaining, story-filled exchange that's sure to be a new favorite among cinephiles. Moreover, following the podcast's three most recent installments covering French Crime Movies, the oeuvre of actor-producers Amy Robinson & Griffin Dunne, & the Ranown Westerns of Budd Boetticher, this episode is the perfect way to close out what has unofficially become Watch With Jen's Criterion Collection-centric July. Originally Posted on Patreon (7/22/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/86458886 Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Logo: KateGabrielle.com

The director behind the hilarious LEGO BATMAN MOVIE, the popular series ROBOT CHICKEN, as well as the films THE TOMORROW WAR starring Chris Pratt for Prime, & the brand new RENFIELD with Nicholas Hoult & Nicolas Cage, this week, I was so pleased to welcome filmmaker Chris McKay to the podcast.A huge film buff who fell in love with the films of Alfred Hitchcock early, thanks to his cinephile mom, Chris McKay is such an enormous fan of B-movie director Budd Boetticher that his Twitter handle is even @BuddBoetticher in his honor. And with The Criterion Collection releasing a captivating new Ranown Westerns box set featuring jaw-dropping 4K restorations of a handful of the best films that Boetticher made with his most important collaborator & star Randolph Scott, it was the perfect time to team up with McKay to discuss a quartet of his favorites.Zeroing in on the outstanding SEVEN MEN FROM NOW (which is not included in the Criterion box), THE TALL T, COMANCHE STATION, & RIDE LONESOME, in this spirited, fast-moving episode, we set out for the wide open spaces of Boetticher's westerns with Scott. Along the way, we pay particular attention to not only the great supporting players who stole scenes from the leading man as antagonists but also the screenplays from Burt Kennedy for films that all seem to be in conversation with one another. Whether you're new to Boetticher's filmography, Westerns in general, or are a devotee of the genre, you're sure to find this installment a delight.Originally Posted on Patreon (7/17/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/86244952Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free MusicLogo: KateGabrielle.com

In Season 3 of the podcast, my good friend Kate Hagen - a talented writer & Senior Vice President at The Black List - joined me to kick off a fascinating new series of conversations with the people behind the movies we love. We launched it with what is still one of my all-time favorite episodes: a long, career-spanning discussion with the great filmmaker Allison Anders & then a few months later, we reunited to chat with Allison's daughter, the hard-working & acclaimed music supervisor Tiffany Anders. And recently, Kate returned to help me welcome two extraordinary guests, actors & producers Griffin Dunne & Amy Robison, who, along with their company Double Play Productions, were behind some of the best movies when we were growing up, including director Joan Micklin Silver's CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER, director John Sayles' BABY IT'S YOU, Martin Scorsese's AFTER HOURS (which also starred Dunne), Sidney Lumet's RUNNING ON EMPTY, & more. An actor I think most people in my generation first remember as the teacher upon whom Anna Chlumsky's character had an impossible crush in MY GIRL, Griffin Dunne has had an impressive career on both sides of the camera, acting in films as diverse as AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON & QUIZ SHOW, & directing films such as PRACTICAL MAGIC & the wonderful Joan Didion documentary THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD. Amy Robinson made a stunning debut as an actress in director Martin Scorsese's MEAN STREETS, in which she played Teresa. And in addition to the films she's produced with Dunne, Robinson has also produced director Joan Chen's AUTUMN IN NEW YORK, the Hughes brothers' FROM HELL, Michael Cuesta's 12 & HOLDING, Nora Ephron's JULIE & JULIA among others. In this feature-length episode, the warm & thoughtful duo behind Double Play Productions take us on a tour of their memories making some of the most acclaimed films from the late '70s through the early '90s & beyond. Timed to release this week as AFTER HOURS debuts on disc from The Criterion Collection (a few months after CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER did as well), film buffs, & especially those interested in the business of making movies are sure to enjoy this endearing conversation. Note: SAG strike rules prevent actors from discussing or promoting any projects they made under past contracts. This conversation was recorded prior to the strike in May of 2023. Originally Posted on Patreon (7/14/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/86100088 Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Logo: KateGabrielle.com

Returning to Watch With Jen this week, we have my very talented friend and an official (and very popular) friend of the show. William Boyle is the acclaimed novelist behind such titles as Gravesend, The Lonely Witness, A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself, City of Margins, and Shoot the Moonlight Out. In addition to crafting these wonderfully humanistic Lumet-like character-driven ensemble crime epics, Bill is quite the pop culture buff and one hell of a good movie trivia game player too. Although he's a distinctly American writer-, given that he sets his sometimes interconnected tales in Brooklyn neighborhoods, Bill has quite a following for his work in France where he routinely visits for appearances and book events. Knowledgeable in his love of film, and continuing to foster his keen interest in the country, its people, as well as its cinema, this episode seemed like the perfect starting point for a new series that Bill & I will be revisiting in the future that's devoted to our love of French Crime Movies. To kick us off, Bill bypassed some of the most obvious iconic titles like ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS, RIFIFI, PURPLE NOON, and LE CERCLE ROUGE, and selected slightly deeper cuts from the '50s, '60s, and '70s respectively. In this fascinating 86-minute installment that we're calling Part 1, we explore the films TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, and MAX & THE JUNKMEN, while also championing other titles you'll want to be sure to jot down. Vive La France!Vive La France!Originally Posted on Patreon (7/5/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/85589343 Logo: KateGabrielle.com Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive

Whether you're embarking on an exotic vacation or staying close to home, we're back from our month-long hiatus a few days early to give you something you can escape into your headphones & enjoy over the long holiday weekend. Delivering a month of hotly anticipated episodes featuring a killer lineup of guests & themes, we begin with the return of the brilliantly insightful Roxana Hadadi on HBO's remarkable "Succession," which is one of the most popular watercooler shows of the twenty-first century. A TV critic with Vulture, who also writes about film & pop culture, previously Roxana was the film editor & a critic with Pajiba, & her reviews, essays, recaps, and other writing have also been published by The AV Club, Polygon, RogerEbert.com, The L.A. Times, Crooked Marquee, The Playlist, Fox Digital, GQ, & Inverse. Back together for the first time since last summer's great installment devoted to "The Americans," here we cover the entire 4-season run of "Succession." An in-depth conversation that's filled with spoilers, it doesn't take long for Roxana & I to throw ourselves into the emotional highs & lows of Jesse Armstrong's incredibly well-written, brilliantly acted, masterful series in this feature-length episode that fans of the show will love. From "Columbo" to "Mr. Inbetween," we've only covered television a handful of times on this podcast because it's time intensive & best dissected once a series has ended, but we hope to keep bringing you these occasional celebratory explorations of shows we can't stop thinking about in the future so if you enjoy them, please share, subscribe, review, & let us know. Originally Posted on Patreon 6/29/23 here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/85260037 Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Logo: KateGabrielle.com

Returning to the podcast this week for the first time since I chatted with him and other wonderful writer-editors of the online film journal BW/DR (Bright Wall/Dark Room) about their favorite comfort movies a few seasons back, we have Ethan Warren.A member of the Boston Society of Film Critics who holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina - Wilmington, plus the writer-director of the film WEST OF HER, Ethan stopped by to give us the inside scoop on his rich, fascinating new cinema studies book for Columbia University Press. Part of the publisher's Directors Cuts series which focuses on the work of the most significant contemporary international filmmakers, Ethan Warren's outstanding work entitled "The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha" is now available and I highly recommend you check it out.Having just recorded my own contributions on Paul Thomas Anderson's SYDNEY aka HARD EIGHT for the tie-in Pod Thomas Anderson podcast that Ethan collaborated on with One Heat Minute Productions and Blake Howard, I opted to have Ethan join me to chat about Anderson's two collaborations with the great actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Opening the episode with an appreciation of Anderson's work, including stories of seeing his films in the theater and our evolving relationship with them, plus more information about the author's book and writing process, the second half of this roughly hour-long conversation zeroes in on THERE WILL BE BLOOD and PHANTOM THREAD.Note: This will be the last new installment of the podcast for roughly a month, as I'm giving myself a little time to recharge ahead of our upcoming 200th episode. Rest assured, I'll be sharing recommendations and other surprises on our Patreon next month and will also continue working on shows behind the scenes but am giving myself a little break to heal from an injury and creating a cushion of episodes in case I travel, anything unforeseen arrives, or life gets busier. Thank you for your listenership and support!Originally Posted on Patreon (5/27/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/83634986 Logo: KateGabrielle.comTheme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive

This week, it was so great to welcome Peter Avellino back to the podcast. A talented and thoughtful writer (& Film Twitter royalty), Peter Avellino's long-form essays on the movies that fascinate & frustrate him in equal measure have long made his blog Mr. Peel's Sardine Liqueur a must-read for cinephiles. Just in time for the Memorial Day kickoff of Summer Movie Season in 2023, Peter & I go back in time thirty years in order to highlight three intelligent thrillers for grown-ups released in the summer of '93: GUILTY AS SIN, THE FIRM, & THE FUGITIVE. Celebratory & nostalgic, yet clear-eyed, while all Watch With Jen listeners are bound to enjoy this conversation, those with a special place in their heart for moviegoing in the early '90s are sure to find this episode particularly entertaining. Originally Posted on Patreon (5/22/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/83393401 Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Logo: KateGabrielle.com

Welcome to Dennis Hopper in the 1990s aka Watch With Jen's third & final installment in our first spotlight series devoted to the careers of iconic character actors that we love to see onscreen. Timed to be running the same week as his birthday, we kick off our Hopper finale with an extended appreciation of his return to the director's chair for the 1990 film THE HOT SPOT c/o its biggest fan, my Pandemic Movie Club buddy & fellow erotic thriller devotee Travis Woods. Then we take you on a tour of Hopper's prolific & diverse '90s period of memorable performances in films such as THE INDIAN RUNNER, BOILING POINT, RED ROCK WEST, TRUE ROMANCE, SPEED, & WATERWORLD, & wrap everything up with some bonus recommendations by my brilliant guests. Included in this episode, you will hear from Jed Ayres, Duncan Birmingham, William Boyle, Elizabeth Cantwell, S.A. Cosby, Jordan Harper, & Travis Woods. The feedback on this series has been extraordinarily gratifying & I want to thank you so much for your listenership & support. While I will be taking a very short hiatus at the start of summer after we release S4: E20 to rest & recharge due to a recent injury, Watch With Jen has much more in store for you very soon, including two tie-in episodes that are focused on highly anticipated July Criterion releases with VIP guests, as well as our 200th episode. One of these conversations was recorded yesterday & it was staggeringly great so I can't wait to share it with you.Note: Due to language & subject matter, once again, this episode is for mature audiences only.Originally Posted on Patreon (5/18/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/83198058Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music ArchiveLogo: KateGabrielle.com

Between the fact that I'm a bit overscheduled next week & I've loved hearing from listeners who enjoyed the first installment in this series, I decided to take advantage of a free morning to edit & upload this episode early! Releasing just in time for Dennis Hopper's birthday on the 17th (& mine a couple of days later), welcome to the second installment of our three-part series devoted to the actor. Filled with analysis & appreciation of some of his most popular films & performances from a panel of seven outstanding guests, plus excerpts from a lifetime of interviews with Hopper voiced by yours truly, this episode covers the decade that made him an icon all over again with the film BLUE VELVET. I guess technically you could call this Dennis Hopper's Blue Period! Centered on the 1980s, we open with the controversial OUT OF THE BLUE & then talk about his great comeback year of 1986, & the films BLUE VELVET, RIVER'S EDGE, & HOOSIERS. Featuring great stories about seeing these films with audiences &/or way too young, plus insights from Hopper on directing actors & learning about women, along with Lynch's chronicle of casting him to play Frank Booth, this has been our most hotly anticipated release since I mentioned this project, so I hope you dig it. Originally Posted on Patreon (5/14/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/82997515Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Logo: KateGabrielle.com