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We got our hands on Sofia Coppola's diary and read it to try and make sense of her dreamy, quietly devastating debut The Virgin Suicides. Adapted from the Jeffrey Eugenides novel of the same name, Coppola's film tells the story of the five Lisbon sisters as seen through the eyes of the boys they charm and perplex in equal measure. Adopting the male gaze as a means of dismantling it, the film is a gauzy, stylish showcase that approaches the concerns of girlhood with sincerity while unearthing the tragedies of femininity under the patriarchal thumb of suburban American life.
We discuss the film's aesthetic contradictions and how it weaponizes its own visual splendor against the viewer, its beauty a calculated veneer masking uncomfortable truths. Then, we examine the film's brilliant narrative device, using a single unidentified narrator to represent the collective attitudes of the young men incapapable of comprehending the fullness of the Lisbon sisters and their interiority. Finally, we ponder the connections Coppola draws between femininity and the natural world, how she literalizes this coupling within the film's suburban landscape and distinctive milieu.
The Roxie theater in San Francisco is still seeking funds to help buy their building! Be sure to listen to our recent conversation with producer and Roxie board member Henry S. Rosenthal and visit the Roxie website to donate today!
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish -
We finally bring the brilliant, indelible work of Claire Denis to the pod with a discussion of her 1994 TV movie U.S. Go Home. Produced as part of the anthology series Tous les garcons et les filles de leur age… alongside work from other French visionaries like Chantal Akerman, Olivier Assayas and André Téchiné, Denis' film is an elliptical, compassionate coming-of-age story that regularly subverts expectations and never succumbs to the potentially regressive tendencies of its narrative milieu.
We begin with some chatter about recent Hit Factory-featured filmmaker Edward Yang and a recent watch of his final work, Yi Yi. Then, we explore Denis' film - its lyrical formalism, its exquisite soundtrack - and how she crafts a work of simultaneously keen observation and hypnotic ambiguity.
Watch U.S. Go Home on YouTube
The Roxie theater in San Francisco is still seeking funds to help buy their building! Be sure to listen to our recent conversation with producer and Roxie board member Henry S. Rosenthal and visit the Roxie website to donate today!
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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David Cronenberg returns to the big screen this week with The Shrouds, perhaps his most autobiographical film to date. The film involves grieving tech entrepreneur Karsh (played brilliantly by Vincent Cassel) who has developed the means to surveil the dead in their tombs, including his recently deceased wife. After a series of grave defacements in the cemetery plot he owns, and in which his wife is buried, Karsh ventures down a rabbit hole of conspiracies technological, geopolitical, and psychosexual seeking answers in an increasingly indeterminate reality.
We attempt to unpack this rich text with an examination of Cronenberg's perspectives on our hypermediated present, and how the constant hum of "connectedness" becomes an impedement to our ability to process our own traumas. Then, we explore the films labyrinthine narrative, weaving an intricate - a deliberately unresolvable - web of various plots, evoking the derealization of our interconnected age of information overload. Finally, we explore the films nuanced, mature eroticism, and illuminate why Cronenberg is the master of making non-cinematic sex feel simultaneously trenchant and deeply arousing.The Roxie theater in San Francisco is still seeking funds to help buy their building! Be sure to listen to our recent conversation with producer and Roxie board member Henry S. Rosenthal and visit the Roxie website to donate today!
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish -
The Roxie Theater, a San Francisco landmark in the Mission District, is one of the oldest continuously operated cinemas in the United States, with its history tracing back to the early 1900s.
Recently, The Roxie kicked off the public phase of their fundraising campaing, Forever Roxie, in order to purchase their buidling, invest in technology upgrades, and expand their programming. As the premier theater destination for both hosts of Hit Factory, we want to get the word out to listeners and ask for your support in ensuring that The Roxie remains a cherised and thriving institution in San Francisco for the long haul.
We sat down for a breif conversation with film producer, former punk drummer, and Roxie board member Henry S. Rosenthal to learn more about the Forever Roxie campaign, to talk movies and the state of cinema more broadly, and cast light on why The Roxie's efforts to guide their own future as the owners of their building extends beyond San Francisco's film community and could become a roadmap for independent film exhibition all over the country.
The Roxie is more than a theater. It is a home alive with engagement and inspiration where filmmakers, artists, and audiences forge a creative community through workshops, conversations, collaborative projects and fierce programming that place The Roxie at the forefront of independent film. Please donate what you can to help bring this quintessential SF film instituion into the future!
Donate to Forever Roxie & Find More Ways to Support HERE.
Help spread the word on your own with the Forever Roxie Social Media Toolkit.
Follow The Roxie on Instagram for more updates.
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We inaugurate the brilliant Taiwanese master Edward Yang with a conversation about his transcendent 1994 social satire A Confucian Confusion. Following up his staggering masterwork A Brighter Summer Day, Yang turned his attention to Taipei in the 1990s at the height of its rapid evolution into a port city of global capital and the effects this shift had on the value systems and relational dynamics of the city's people. Evoking the slapstick and breackneck pacing of more popular modes of cinema - including the American romantic comedy - the film follows a large ensemble of Taipei's young professionals caught up in the frenzy of capitalism's mechanisms of social order, all in pursuit of an irresolute alternative that can liberate them from their self-made misery and help them achieve something approaching an honest, authentic way of life.
We begin with a conversation about Yang as artist, his preoccupations, his distinct convergence of heart and wit. Then, we break down A Confucian Confusion's ensemble, how the characters reflect Yang's feelings about Taipei's consumer-friendly, corporatized status, and how honest desire is sublimated into the cold calculus of business language - a phenomenon that presages and predicts modern tech culture and its bastardized language of wellness and attunement. Finally, we discuss the film's unique and delicate balance of trenchant political satire and touching character drama; how Yang achieves a profound and honest reflection of the minor victories and acts of liberation we can achieve within a totalizing capitalist milieu.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
Xuanlin Tham, author of the new book Revolutionary Desires: The Political Power of the Sex Scene returns to the show to discuss the Wachowskis' debut feature - the sharp, sexy sapphic neo-noir Bound. Emboldened by brilliant performances from its two leads Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly, the film is both an assured and nimble stylistic calling card for the future Matrix directors and a carefully studied lesbian romance, rendered in considered motif and visual flourish.
We begin with an examination of the Wachowskis as filmmakers and how their work exists at a singular nexus of mass appeal and subversiveness. Then, we discuss the influence of feminist author and journalist Susie Bright, a key influence and collaborator on the film, and how she informed the Wachowskis' formal approach to formally conveying the slow burn of lesbian eroticism. Finally, we discuss the film's erotic sequences, how they transcend simple arousal, and what they tell us about the revolutionary capacity of sex and pleasure as a weapon against capitalism's confining homogeneity.
Buy and read Xuanlin's book Revolutionary Desires: The Political Power of the Sex Scene at 404Ink.
Read Xuanlin's Manifesto for the Modern Cinematic Sex Scene at AnOther.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish
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Film critic and author A.S. Hamrah joins for a conversation on his recent Fast Company piece "Hollywood’s obsession with AI-enabled ‘perfection’ is making movies less human", which details some alarming (and frankly, depressing) recent use cases of A.I. in both studio blockbuster fare and awards-contending independent releases like Brady Corbet's The Brutalist.
We attempt to unpack the psychology driving the pervasive and exponential use of A.I. in moviemaking - Is there a genuine impetus on the part of a moviegoing audience to iron out anything that antagonizes credulity? Why do filmmakers seem so eager to embrace the ease of A.I. at the expense of cinema's sense of "authenticity"? The, we examine the material implications of A.I. on film workers, and how the unanimous embrace of the technology poses an existential threat to the future of craftspeople in Hollywood. Finally, we look to the near future and ask, "Are we already past the tipping point? What, if anything, can we do to oppose A.I.s dominance of Hollywood at the expense of real artistry?"
Buy A.S. Hamrah's book, The Earth Dies Streaming from n+1
Read A.S. Hamrah on the 2025 Oscar nominees and the best films of 2024 at n+1.
Follow A.S. Hamrah on Twitter.
Get access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Returning friend of the show Comrade Yui swings by to discuss the 1994 Full Moon direct-to-video masterwork Dark Angel: The Ascent. The story follows the exploits of a bored, beautiful young demon Veronica Iscariot (Angela Featherstone) as she defies the orders of her parents and the rules of hell to visit Earth and walk among the humans. It's not long before she realizes that humanity has forsaken its God-given gifts and descended into all manners of evil, which must be brutally punished. Written by Freeway director Matthew Bright and directed by Linda Hassani (her sole feature directorial effort), the film defies all expectations of the DTV format with an unusually rich premise, emotional depth, and style to spare.
We begin with a discussion of the film's unique theology, offering a vision of Heaven and Hell working in concert to do the bidding of the Almighty. Then, we explore how Bright's script searingly antagonizes many of society's ills, especially those germane and topical to the mid-90s - anti-welfare rhetoric, police brutality, antisexualism. Then, we uncover the film's depthful look at the notion of fallenness, and how its characters perceive of complacency and disregard for evil as tantamount to evil itself.
Follow Comrade Yui on Twitter.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
We're back talking about the recently-released Babygirl, directed by Dutch actor-turned-director Halina Reijn. Despite some initial apprehensions based on the discourse and reviews from trusted sources, we both found the film to be a stylish, funny, and intelligent examination of desire, kink, and the ways that the patriarchy suppresses and rejects expressions of female pleasure that are incongruent with the capitalist guardrails of our culture.
We begin by discussing the film's nimble balancing of aesthetic impulses which heighten the proceeding's with a sense of hyperreality without sacrificing the story's emotional core. Then, we praise the magnetic work of Nicole Kidman, and the nuances of her performance and character: a high-powered woman caught in the ideological trap of patriarchy that grants her material success while demanding that she stifle her corporeal desires, judging them as aberrant, even wicked. Finally, we explore the film's thoughtful approach to the nature of sexuality and erotic experience, finding compelling layers of meaning and understanding often missing from today's films.
Read Justine Peres Smith on Babygirl for Cult MTL.
Read Jourdain Searles on Babygirl for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Pre-Order Xuanlin Tham's Revolutionary Desires from 404Ink..
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.Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish.
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Fan favorite Hard Mike returns to the show alongside newcomer Syd Bricks to discuss Paul Schrader's Affliction, one of the filmmaker's most well-observed explorations of addiction and the generational cycles of suffering that manifest as a result of leaving personal trauma and pain unresolved. The film follows Nick Nolte's Wade Whitehouse, an alcohlic, washed-up cop in a small New Hampshire town whose maladies put him at odds with his community as he circles the drain, falling deeper into his own delusions of murder, conspiracy, and betrayal. The film also stars a monstrous James Coburn as the Whitehouse patriarch, in a role that would earn him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Together, we discuss our personal experiences with alcoholism and why the film is one of the very best about the subject in its dizzying, unmooring evocation of being caught in the chaos of addiction, both as the afflicted and as someone who loves them. Then we discuss the film's novel use of the neo-noir format as a subversive element of narrative to capture us in the dragnet of delusion meticulously architected by the film's unreliable protagonist. Finally, we praise the exemplary work of the film's cast, especially Nolte and Coburn, and how their screen personas function perfectly as characters filled with unmanageable woe, malice, and hurt.
Follow Hard Mike on Twitter.
Follow Syd Bricks on Twitter.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
Film critic Eamon Tracy returns to the show to discuss Renny Harlin's mountain-bound Die Hard riff Cliffhanger starring Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, and Michael Rooker. A taut, well-staged action thriller that served as a revitalization effort for Stallone's leading man bonafides in the early 90s after a rough patch of box office and critical bombs, the film sports a refreshingly lean premise and a host of jaw-dropping setpieces that were rewarded with a massive $255 million worldwide box office haul and a quietly outsized influence on the past three decades of action cinema.
We begin with a discussion of Stallone and how the film makes use of both the actor's surprising capacity for subtlety in performance as well as his much more conspicuous and impressive physique. Then, we pull apart the film's broadly apolitical plot mechanics, including the intricate ways the script navigates around giving John Lithgow's Eric Qualen an explicitly partisan or geopolitical motive. Finally, we talk broadly about the sport of mountain climbing, the colonial ideology perpetuated by notions of conquering forbidding terrain, and the ways that indigenous communities are seeking to problematize imperialist narratives and perspectives within arenas of outdoor sport and recreation.
Read Eamon's recent reviews for Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain and Seijun Suzuki's Underworld Beauty at Irish Film Critic.
Follow Eamon Tracy on Twitter.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish
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It's a New Year and we don't feel any different!
In typical Hit Factory fashion, the simple task of creating an "In/Out" list for 2025 became a discussion about the infantilization of culture, embracing cinephilia beyond marketing cycles, and how the current state of art reflects an empire in decline. If you've ever wanted to hear a movie podcast tell you that you "have an ethical and spiritual imperative to seek out better films...you're in the right place!
Other topics include the reign of filmmaker Alan Rudolph, how autonomous vehicles are definitely surveiling you, whether Doechii will be at the Met Gala, and our eager anticipation of Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Brooklyn-based writer and editor Robert Rubsam joins to discuss the work of Terence of Davies and his 1992 masterwork, The Long Day Closes. An impressionistic evocation of memory and sensation, the film is the culmination of Davies' early autobiographical period, exploring the roughly 5 year period between when the filmmaker's abusive father died and when he began his time in primary school, which Davies has called "the happiest years of [his] life."
We discuss the films distinctive formal approach to autibiography, forgoing concrete scenes in favor of a densely-woven, ellipticap tapestry of music, sounds, and images that give the impression of searching memory in real time. Then, we explore how the film reckons with the concept of nostalgia, offering reverence for and criticism of the social values of Liverpool in the 1950s in equal measure. Finally, we explore the life and work of Davies beyond The Long Day Closes, how the filmmaker's irresolute feelings about his own identity informed his later works, and why he may never be en vogue with cinematic tastemakers.
Follow Rob Rubsam on Twitter and visit Rob's website to read his work.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
We discuss the winner of our latest Patreon poll: Aki Kaurismäki's The Match Factory Girl, the story of a young working class woman, Iris, looking for love and a sense of belonging in industrialized Helsinki. The final installment of Kaurismäki's 'Proletariat Trilogy', the film resembles that of a fable that takes an unexpected and comically violent turn as Iris seeks revenge on those who have done her wrong.
We describe the film's sparse formal elements - an abbreviated runtime, minimal dialogue, nominal use of diegetic music, and austere mise en scène - and how it employs these components to reflect Iris' profound subjugation. Then, we examine the film's narrative and how it functions, briefly, as a mechanized process, mirroring its opening assembly line sequence and asking us to connect modes of production with an atomized social structure. Last, we discuss the film's final act, and how constant reminder of our own unfreedom often results in unexpected, volatile response..
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish -
Toronto-based critic, lecturer, and author Adam Nayman joins us to look back at Billy Bob Thornton's directorial debut and acting showcase Sling Blade. Once considered a high-water mark of 90s American indie cinema success within popular culture and the awards circuit, Thornton's film is now often relegated to 'curio' status; a fascinating time capsule of the mid-90s with very little (if any) cultural purchase among today's cinephiles.
We discuss the work of Billy Bob Thornton, the evolution of Sling Blade (from one man show to short film to feature), and suggest some reasons for its breakout success. Then, we discuss the film's fascinating hodgepodge of elements and inspirations, combining the social economy of Southern American Gothic, the moralism of Christian parable, and formal qualities of independent cinema to make something at once distinctive and comfortably inessential. Finally, we ask if movies like Sling Blade can still gain the same level of critical and commercial cachet in today's film environment and what some of this fall's box office hits and awards front-runners might indicate about where we're headed.
Follow Adam Nayman on Twitter.
Get access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
London-based film writer Esmé Holden joins us to discuss David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly. Based on the Tony Award-winning David Henry Hwang play - itself based on the the real life relationship between Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Beijing opera singer - Cronenberg's film embraces the conventions of melodrama while thoughtfully exploring gender & queernes and weaving a complex romance tragically undone by the conventions and bigotries of the colonial-capitalist order.
We begin by discussing the films explorations of gender, queerness, and transness, and how Cronenberg showcases an exceptionally forward-thinking and nuanced portrayal of these concepts in an era of films content with caricature, stereotype, and parody. Then, we consider how M. Butterfly presents a ground-zero for further explorations of the body, its presentation within societal perfrormance, and the fluidity of sexual expression that would become hallmarks of Cronenberg's signature style throughout the next few decades. Finally, explore the complicated ideological stictures that confine the film's protagonists and how capitalism's myopic definitions of identity continue to hinder self-actualization in its subjects.
Follow Esmé Holden on Twitter.
Read Cinema Year Zero.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
Following our conversation with the film's director Pascal Plante, we dive into one of the year's best films, Red Rooms: a thriller tailor made for our disaffected, hyper-mediated moment that asks many unsettling questions about the way emerging technologies sever us from empathy, create parasocial complexes, and push toward frightening new modes of nonconsensual connectivity and surveilance.
We continue our contemplations on Haneke's "Violence and the Media", and how Red Rooms explores notions of equivalency amongst the images on our screens. Then, we praise Plante's formal control and ethics, how he constructs his 21st century milieu, what he chooses to show and how he shows it. Finally, we caution against passivity when engaging with mediated forms and why our moment demands that we make meaning of our realities, even as powerful forces work toward our mindless complicity in ever-expanding horrors.
Red Roomsis available now on VOD and on Region A Blu Ray from Vinegar Syndrome..
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Filmmaker Pascal Plante (director of Red Rooms, one of our favorite movies of the year) joins to discuss Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar's 1996 debut, Thesis. While riveting simply at the topical level of its tense genre thrills, the movie also metatextually concerns itself with the moving image as a mediated reflection of our corporeal realities, the push-pull of commercialism and artistry, and the ethics of satisfying a violent culture's sublimated desires for shocking, exploitative imagery.
We discuss Amenábar's preternatural capacity behind the camera; how his ability to mystify with the language of cinema allows viewers to recognize their complicity in the film's graphic scenarios as spectators while never sacrificing the raw thrills of moviegoing. Then, citing Michael Haneke's writing, we discuss the nature of violence in media, the responsibilites of the artist, and the morbid concept of mindless entertainment. Finally, we connect the film's subject matter to that of Pascal's latest, discussing parallels, distinctions, and the reward of watching films that assume their audience's intelligence.
Red Rooms is available now on VOD and on Region A Blu Ray from Vinegar Syndrome.
Get access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron for just $5/month.
George Washington University ungergrad and Liberal Currents contributor Sami Gold just informed us that there's an election coming up in the good ol' US of A, so we decided to discuss a foundational text of presidential cinema - Oliver Stone’s brilliant, frenetic JFK. Meticulously composed on several different film formats, masterfully edited in a radical, experimental style, and structured as a steady unraveling of institutional footings, the film stands as one of the finest formal evocations of political radicalization ever made for the silver screen.
We discuss the film's groundbreaking formalism, how it creates an unmooring effect on behalf of its viewers, and charts the cacophonous frenzy of conspiracy thinking. Then, we talk about where Stone sits in relation to the film's protagonist Jim Garrison, what the film gets very wrong, and why the minutiae doesn't ultimately matter in the borader context of its critique of empire. Finally we look to the upcoming election, share our personal thoughts on the outcomes, and what it means for Palestinian resistance and political movements in our own country.
Follow Sami Gold on Twitter.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. -
An impromptu decision to do something "Halloween-y" led us to 1994 meta-slasher Wes Craven's New Nightmare, the seventh installment in the long-running A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, which sees Craven returning to the director's chair for the first time since the original installment and OG Nightmare final girl Heather Langenkamp returning, playing a semi-fictionalized version of herself. Several layers more complex than the premise initially suggests, New Nightmare brings the franchise back to its roots, examining childhood trauma and ideation and offering thoughtful considerations about Craven's legacy as a storyteller and how his films have affected those who participate in bringing his nightmarish visions to life - a full two years before Craven's smash hit Scream would go on to mine similar thematic territory with its meta explorations of genre.
We discuss the film's self-reflexive look at the Nightmare franchise, and how Craven attempts to ellicit new fears from purposefully identifiable rehashes of his work. Then, we discuss the film's surprisingly intricate exploration of Langenkamp as performer and icon - how the film reckons with audience expectations and seeks atonement for turning its star into curio for our own catharsis. Finally, we discuss reference, reflexivity, and homage and consider why Craven's self-quoting offers more than the empty nostaligia-laden iconography of so many current films.
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Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish. - Visa fler
