Noirvember 2025 roars to life with Walter Hill's sleek, existential chase film The Driver (1978). Ryan O’Neal plays the nameless getaway specialist who moves through Los Angeles like a ghost, pursued by Bruce Dern’s manic lawman hell-bent on taking him down. It’s a lean, hypnotic duel between predator and prey where style is substance and silence is power.
Mike rides shotgun with Beth Accomando and Walter Chaw to unpack Hill’s minimalist approach, his homage to Melville’s Le Samouraï, and the cold precision that makes The Driver a high-octane hymn to professionalism and control.
Addendum: Big apologies to Ms. Adjani. Re-reading her Wikipedia, it looks like she's not anti-immmigrant but actually speaks out against anti-immigration!
#Noirvember2018 kicks off with the 1972 film from director Sam Peckinpah, The Getaway. Based on the novel by
Jim Thompson and adapted by Walter Hill, the film stars Steve McQueen as Doc McCoy and Ali MacGraw as Carol McCoy, two young lovers with nothing better to do than rob a bank with the duplicitous Rudy Butler (Al Lettieri) and the barely-a-character Jack Dodson (Bo Hopkins). Let’s just say that things don’t go as well as they should.
Released in 1961, Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo was an international sensation and put jettisoned star Toshiro Mifune into the pantheon of cinematic badasses. It’s the story of merchants who manipulate two factions of gangsters in a small town. Our main character -- a man with no name -- comes to the town and after sizing things up decides that he’ll make a bit of money playing both sides against one another. Along the way we discover that perhaps he’s not the unscrupulous amoral bastard he pretends to be.
Eric Cohen and Jordan Blossey join Mike to discuss Yojimbo, it's sequel Sanjuro and a few other "Yojimbo movies" as well as Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, Walter Hill's Last Man Standing and a raft of other similar films.
Special Guests: D. Harlan Wilson, Sandy King, Peter Jason, Keith David Guest Co-Hosts: El Goro, Patrick Bromley
On this special episode of The Projection Booth, we're giving you a choice: either put on the podcast, or start eating a trash can.
Yes, we're talking about John Carpenter's They Live (1988) wherein a man with no name -- or a name that means nothing -- Nada ("Rowdy" Roddy Piper) comes to Los Angeles looking for work only to find a vast conspiracy instead.
Music:
"Return to Church" - John Carpenter & Alan Howarth
"Wake Up" - John Carpenter & Alan Howarth
"Back Alley" - John Carpenter & Alan Howarth
"Transport Station" - John Carpenter & Alan Howarth
"For Everybody" - "Rowdy" Roddy Piper
"With Hoffman Lenses We Will See The Truth" - Set Your Goals
"They Live" - Reign of Zaius
"Obey, Consume... Escape" - Jon of the Shred
Special Guests: Lance Henriksen, Holt McCallany, Vincent Ward, John Fasano, Mark Verheiden Guest Co-Host: Brad Jones
One of the most hated -- and possibly most misunderstood -- sequels around, David Fincher's Alien³ had contentious production history. We'll attempt to unwrap the behind-the-scenes turmoil and on-screen mayhem along with Brad Jones, the Cinema Snob.
We talked to Vincent Ward who brought the idea of "monks in space" to the game and the late John Fasano who worked on a few drafts of the Alien 3 script. We also spoke with actors Lance Henriksen and Holt McCallany about what it was like to be on the set. And, we're joined by Mark Verheiden who wrote the incredible Dark Horse comics Alien series.
Errata: The baby alien came out of Kane, not Ash, in Alien. The less-than-stellar special effects of Alien³ were a blue-screened rod puppet, not CGI. The "Assembly Cut" on the Blu-Ray Quadrilogy does not contain new shots but only cleaned-up audio.
Hickey & Boggs, a nihilistic neonoir directed by and starring Robert Culp, gets examined in The Projection Booth by Mike and Mondo Justin along with guest Joe Robin and Richard Edwards.
Mike and Mondo Justin get crazy and have a blast chatting about the 1984 Walter Hill directed, Streets of Fire. Justin talks with the star of the film, Michael Paré.
In addition, the guys get a bizarre and from-beyond-the-grave telephone call from Mr. Hervé Villechaize. We know it seems impossible but you should listen anyway because you won't believe it.
Special Guests: Michael Beck, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, David Patrick Kelly, Terry Michos, David Harris & Sam Shaber
Come out and play with Mike and Mondo Justin as they come to you from the depths of New York City. This week,the guys make podcast history by examining the 1979 Walter Hill classic, The Warriors with the majority of the film's cast by their side. Not to be missed. A first for this type of outlet.
Guest Co-Hosts: Beth Accomando, Walter Chaw
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Special Guests: 
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Hickey & Boggs, a nihilistic neonoir directed by and starring Robert Culp, gets examined in The Projection Booth by Mike and Mondo Justin along with guest Joe Robin and Richard Edwards.
Special Guest: Michael Paré
Special Guests: