Episode 781: Z Channel - A Magnificent Obsession (2004)

Guest Co-Hosts: Adam Long, Josh Hadley

Adam Long and Josh Hadley join Mike to explore Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004), the sweeping documentary from Xan Cassavetes about the rise and fall of Los Angeles’s most influential pay-TV channel. More than a cable station, Z Channel was a film school beamed into living rooms, programming uncut movies, international cinema, director’s cuts, and repertory favorites long before that was standard practice.

The conversation digs into the channel’s daring programming philosophy, its outsized impact on American film culture, and the obsessive, self-destructive personality of founder Jerry Harvey. The hosts examine how the documentary balances cinephile nostalgia with a clear-eyed look at the personal and institutional costs of that obsession, while also asking what Z Channel’s legacy means in today’s algorithm-driven media landscape.

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Buy Z Channel - A Magnificent Obsession on DVD

Music:
"Channel Z" - The B-52s

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Special Report: Dead Man's Line (2018)

Special Guests: Mark Enochs, Alan Berry

Mike talks with Alan Berry and Mark Enochs, the filmmakers behind Dead Man's Line (2018), a chilling dive into one of America’s most disturbing true-crime stories. The conversation traces how the directors reconstructed the life and legend of Tony Kiritsis, whose 1977 hostage standoff transfixed the nation and blurred the line between media spectacle and lived horror.

Berry and Enochs unpack their research, ethical choices, and the challenge of shaping archival chaos into a tense, humane documentary. They also discuss the struggles for distribution and the obligatory Hollywood remake, Dead Man's Wire, the 2026 release from director Gus Van Sant and writer Austin Kolodney.

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Kiritsis and Me: Enduring 63 Hours at Gunpoint by Dick Hall
Visit the official Dead Man's Line website

Music:
"Amoreena (BBC Session)" - Elton John

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Episode 780: The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (2023)

Guest Co-Hosts: Keith Gordon, Lisa Vandever

Writer, director, and star Joanna Arnow delivers one of the sharpest, most quietly uncomfortable comedies of recent years with The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (2023), a film that weaponizes awkwardness, deadpan humor, and emotional stasis. Arnow plays Ann, a thirty-three-year-old woman drifting through New York City, desperate for connection but seemingly incapable of advocating for herself. She works a job that barely registers as meaningful, endures social interactions that feel transactional at best, and navigates a BDSM relationship that has quietly slipped from consensual ritual into something emotionally hollow.

Lisa Vandever and Keith Gordon join Mike to unpack Arnow’s deceptively modest narrative and the precision with which it captures a very modern kind of paralysis.

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Hear Keith Gordon on the Supporting Characters podcast:

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed on Digital
Visit the Supporting Characters podcast

Music:
"Solidarity Forever" - Burl Ives

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Episode 779: Megalopolis (2024)

Guest Co-Hosts: Mike Thompson, Rob St. Mary

Mike Thompson and Rob St. Mary join Mike to step into the rubble, rhetoric, and Roman cosplay of Megalopolis (2024), Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed, forty-years-in-the-making cinematic fever dream. A film obsessed with power, legacy, architecture, and Great Men Thinking Great Thoughts, Megalopolis feels less like a movie than a manifesto—one that demands to be taken seriously while daring you to laugh at it. Cesar Catalina, the troubled genius nobody appreciates (write what you know, Francis), strides through a New Rome built on vibes, speeches, and a miracle substance called Megalon.

The episode also explores Megadoc, Mike Figgis’s fly-on-the-wall documentary which attempts to chronicle the chaos, conviction, and sheer force of will behind Coppola’s production. Seen together, the film and the documentary form a portrait of an artist betting everything—money, reputation, legacy—on a single idea. Love it, hate it, or remain profoundly confused by it, Megalopolis refuses to be ignored. And once it gets into your head, it doesn’t leave.

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Megalopolis on Blu-Ray
Buy Megalopolis the Graphic Novel

Music:
"Megalopolis" - U.K. Subs

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Episode 778: The Book of Revelation (2006)

Special Guest: Ana Kokkinos
Guest Co-Hosts: Spencer Parsons, Rob St. Mary

Spencer Parsons and Rob St. Mary join Mike to unpack Ana Kokkinos’s unflinching 2006 adaptation of Rupert Thomson ’s novel, The Book of Revelation, a film that refuses easy provocation, using intimacy, trauma, and performance as tools for something far more unsettling.

The story follows Daniel (Tom Long), a dancer who vanishes during a mundane errand for his girlfriend Bridget (Anna Torv). What initially plays as a mystery gradually reveals itself as a confrontation with sexual violence, shame, and the long aftermath of violation—rendered without sensationalism and without moral shortcuts.

Mike also sits down with director Ana Kokkinos to discuss the making of the film, her approach to depicting male sexual assault, and her insistence on pushing past eroticism toward emotional truth. The conversation explores how The Book of Revelation challenges audience expectations, destabilizes gendered narratives of victimhood, and stands as one of the most difficult--and necessary--Australian films of its era.

This episode wrestles with discomfort, representation, and empathy, asking what it really means when cinema turns its gaze on trauma.

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Visit RAINN
Visit Males Survivor
Visit 1 in 6
Buy The Book of Revelation by Rupert THomas
Buy The Book of Revelation on DVD

Music:
"The Secret Garden" - Vassilis Tsabropoulos
"Abbaon Fat Tracks" - Tricky

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Special Report: Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

Guest Co-Hosts: Chis Stachiw, Mark Begley

If you're not listening to the Chasing Chevy Chase podcast, here's an episode to whet your appetite... 

Chevy Chase takes an unexpected turn into sci-fi thriller territory with Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992). Directed by John Carpenter and adapted from H.F. Saint's novel, the film follows Nick Halloway (Chase), who becomes invisible after a freak laboratory accident. As he grapples with the perks and pitfalls of invisibility, he also tries to evade ruthless CIA operative David Jenkins (Sam Neill) and connect with Alice Monroe (Daryl Hannah). 

It’s an ambitious mash-up of comedy, romance, and paranoia that didn’t quite land with audiences or critics at the time but remains one of the oddest entries in Chase’s career. Mike, Mark, and Chris break down the film’s tonal shifts, behind-the-scenes clashes, and its place in both Chase’s and Carpenter’s filmographies.

Visit http://www.chasingchevypodcast.com for more... 

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H. F. Saint
Buy Memoirs of an Invisible Man on Blu-Ray

Music:
"I Am Invisible" - They Might Be Giants

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2025 Year End Wrap Up

I never like to talk about the most- and least-downloaded episodes of the year until the next one but that's not how these year-end lists work. I want to emphasize how much I think folks should check out the movies and episodes in the least-downloaded list as there are some great films there.

Least-Downloaded 2025 Episodes

1. Episode 763: Romance for Bugle (1967)
2. Episode 764: Conspirators of Pleasure (1996)
3. Episode 771: The Killer (1989) - Redux
4. Episode 732: Death of a Bureaucrat (1966)
5. Episode 774: Cop (1988)
6. Episode 766: In My Skin (2002)
7. Episode 749: O Pagador de Promessas (1962)
8. Episode 773: Black Gravel (1961)
9. Episode 762: Lemonade Joe (1964)
10. Episode 772: V.I. Warshawski (1991)

Most-Downloaded 2025 Episodes

1. Episode 755: Return of the Jedi (1983)
2. Episode 736: Casablanca (1942)
3. Episode 725: All the President's Men (1976)
4. Episode 727: Being There (1979)
5. Episode 739: La Haine (1995)
6. Episode 740: Airplane II - The Sequel
7. Episode 737: Dumb and Dumber (1994)
8. Episode 724: 24 Hour Party People (2002)
9. Episode 752: Metropolis (1927)
10. Episode 753: Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

Music Mix Track Listing:

Title	Artist	Episode
A Little Drop of Poison	Tom Waits	Poison
24 Hour Party People	Happy Mondays	24 Hou Party People
Watching the Detectives	Elvis Costello	VI Warshawski
There She Goes	The La's	So I Married an Axe Murderer
Ingrid Bergman	Billy Bragg	Csablanca
No Birds do Sing	Public Image Limited	The Langoliers
Centurion	Sammy Burdson	The Image (Metzger)
Story of O	DaddyCool	The Story of O
Metropolis	Kraftwerk	Metropolis
Plus putes que toutes les putes	Orties	Raw
Assassin De La Police Vs. Edith Piaf	Cut Killer Remix	La Haine
Dans La Peau	Marie Carmen	In My Skin
Metti Una Sera A Cena	Mafalda Minnozzi	Love Circle
Candomblé	Mariana Aydar	O Pagador de Promessas
Shock Me	Original Soundtrack	Blood and Diamonds
Limonádový Joe	Úvodní titulky k americké verzi	Lemonade Joe
Move	Larry Marks	Move
Abbaon Fat Tracks	Tricky	The Book of Revelation (2006)
Man For All Seasons	The Bee Gees	Man for All Seasons
Drunk For Life	Sally Yeh	The Killer
Eye in the Sky	The Alan Parsons Project	Red Lights
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?	Bette Davis & Debbie Burton	Whatever Happaned to Baby Jane
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte	Patty Paige	Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte
Johnny's Garden	Stephen Stills	Being There
Sluneèný hrob	The Blue Effect	Pelisky
Season Of The Witch	Lana Del Rey	Season of the Witch
Exterminating Angel	The Creatures	Exterminating Angl
Alucarda	Carriage	Alucarda
Boom Shaka-A-Lak	Apache Indian	Dumb and Dumber
Friday on my Mind	The Easybeats	Weekend
Gloria	Laura Branigan	Gloria
Sweet Rachel	Beau Coup	Sweet Sweet Rachel
Impeach the President	The Honeydrippers	All the President's Men
Jumpin' Jack Flash	The Rolling Stones	Jumpin' Jack Flash
Cathy's Clown	The Everley Brothers	COP
Hot Pie and Tomato Sauce	John Meillon	On the Beach
Fräulein Schmidt	Billy Sanders	Black Gravel
Space Cowboy	The Steve Miller Band	Battle Beyond the Stars
Midnight Rambler	The Rolling Stones	The Strangler
Ewok Celebration	John Williams	Return of the Jedi
Bobcat Rap (I'm A Lot Like You)	Bobcat Goldthwait	Burglar

Listen Now:

The Projection Booth · 2025 Music Mix

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Episode 777: The Image (1975)

Special Guests: Rob King, Lina Mannheimer
Guest Co-Hosts: Jessica Shires, Heather Drain

Radley Metzger pushes the boundaries of erotic cinema with The Image (1975), a film that treats desire as ritual, performance, and provocation. Adapted from the infamous novel by Catherine Robbe-Grillet-—writing under the name Jean de Berg—-the film unfolds as a stylized confession. Carl Parker plays Jean, the author surrogate recounting a charged encounter with his estranged friend Claire (Marilyn Roberts) and the young woman who becomes the focus of his controlled cruelties, Anne (Mary Mendum).

Joining Mike are Jessica Shires and Heather Drain, as the conversation situates The Image alongside Metzger’s other works and within a broader lineage of European erotic literature and BDSM aesthetics. The episode interrogates authorship, consent, power, and the uneasy space between fantasy and autobiography that defines Robbe-Grillet’s writing and Metzger’s adaptation.

Interviews with Rob King, author of Man of Taste: The Erotic Cinema of Radley Metzger, and filmmaker Lina Mannheimer (La Cérémonie) expand the discussion, connecting The Image to questions of female authorship and the gaze.

Listen/Download Now:

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy The Image on Blu-Ray
Buy The Image by Jean de Berg
Read The Image (1975): The Kook, the Thief, His Wife & His Lover by The Rialto Report

Music:
"Centurion" - Sammy Burdson

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