Justin Theroux is an insanely talented actor that has been on the indie and big-budget movie scene for quite some time. He’s most memorable for his devilishly charming facial expressions, ridiculously sculpted, statuesque bod, and a penchant for wearing a lot of bracelets. So, it may come as a shock to some that your boi just hit the big 50, an age I’m told is high, but as someone who just had a two-hour visit to the movie about “the beach that makes you old,” I can assure you that 50 is merely another benchmark for this well-proportioned thespian of the stage and screen. To celebrate his very existence, I thought I’d take a trip through his filmography, which is filled with, “What the hell, that was HIM?!”s from top to bottom, as well as a few entries that have not only been some of my favorite projects but also contain some of my favorite performances from the Chocolate City-born dish of a man. One of Theroux’s earliest roles was as Cowboy (Clarence) in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion , a cornerstone VHS on any late-90s movie shelf. From early on, Theroux’s ridiculously good-looking attributes and clever, in-the-know persona led to some truly funny moments, his entire role in RAMHSR is a perfect example. Theroux pretty much plays off of Janeane Garofalo in every scene they have together - both super fun and fairly easy from an acting standpoint - and he always looks like he’s equally having a great time being in a movie, and simultaneously acting the hell out of a one-joke character. Ironically, just a few years later, another one of Theroux’s best-known performances also centers around a cowboy. This time, one that he has to seek out, in Mulholland Dr. The bicentennial knockout once described discussing theories and motivations in director David Lynch’s projects as just, “frustrating yourself,” stating that more often, there really isn’t any “connective tissue” intended to be traced. This is just such an articulate and uncomplicated way of explaining what is so entertaining and special about much of Lynch’s work. To his credit, Theroux’s turn in Mulholland Dr. is one of my favorite performances of the entire Lynch empire. He plays his character, Adam, with just the right level of posh douchiness, as an on-the-nose noir-novella caricature. This is all glued together by Lynch’s indomitable ability to make the ridiculous sing and seem tangibly realistic, and Theroux proves to be the perfect vessel for that sort of energy. A personal favorite, Mary Harron’s American Psycho, features an awesome, scene-serving performance from Theroux, as well as fellow, nifty-fifty co-star Josh Lucas. Both actors pretty much act as set-ups and conversational foils to our lead, Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman. They get the soup stirring at the top and middle of their rare scenes to really bring out the ridiculous commentary on these ridiculous men. Theroux’s greasy, slicked-back hair, beady, coked-out eyes and faux high-class utterances of lines like: “Speaking of reasonable…” and “I mean, do you know anything about Sri Lanka?” add to the spicy sauce that is American Psycho’s whole vibe, and from my standpoint, they are some of its best ingredients. When speaking of the career of Justin Theroux, one would be remiss if they didn’t at least mention a few of his more legendary supporting roles, such as the secondary villain (read: muscle) in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle , playing a character named (.......) Seamus O’Grady. You can guess from the name what might make this performance a bit of a stand-out. Also of note, he played Joe on Six Feet Under for a single season run as Brenda’s rebound from Nate while the two were briefly separated. If you're familiar with the show, he’s the one she kept hitting with a spoon while tied to a bed. Again, you can see the appeal. He’s also got a great scene-stealing character (“Keats”) in The Baxter , and an epitome of man-ness in Seth from Wanderlust , where his laid-back, good-looking persona is weaponized against Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston (hey now!). Another fascinating aspect of Theroux’s career is his many turns behind the camera in various parts of the filmmaking process. This is pretty standard for an individual as talented as he is, as creative as he is, as friendly as he is, (and for someone who has been working in Hollywood for as long as he has) but it’s the projects he chooses that is the most interesting. Theroux’s directorial effort, Dedication, back in 2007, seems to have scorned him a bit on the main chair. In interviews, he’s cited that the film was a blast to make. He was really proud of the cut he brought to festivals, which received pretty great reactions from most there. Unfortunately, as was typical of many an indie movie in the 90s and 00s, Harvey Weinstein (*thunderclaps*) got his hooks into it, and he pretty much re-edited the thing top to bottom, yielding a version that Theroux has said he is very much not a fan of. In keeping with the “oopsie-daisies” of film history, JT was also the single-credited screenwriter for Iron Man 2 . Take a moment with that fact. In hindsight, as has been discussed several times in many areas of the film talk world, the issues with Iron Man 2 have become more and more revealed as failures on the part of the young Marvel Industry as a whole not understanding what they should do with the new power they had unleashed. Assuming Theroux wrote the line, “That is not my bird,” and envisioned Tony Stark in full, neck-down Iron Man suit, eating a donut while resting in another giant donut, I say Okay. But it’s his involvement as the co-writer in the forever funny (yet slightly aged) Tropic Thunder that is hands-down his largest accomplishment to the page behind the movies. Tropic Thunder is one of those new-age classics (in my opinion). At merely 12 years old it already holds such weight as both a work of individual art and a time capsule of the movie industry at the time, both in formation and evolution, much like The Dark Knight was that very same summer. It’s funny, the film is loaded with an amazing cast and awesome set pieces and it’s got the third-best Tom Cruise performance of all time ( Magnolia and Collateral , if you’re wondering). When he wasn’t popping into the most popular franchise of all time for little more than a side-glance joke , Theroux was putting a few years into probably his best work to date: The Leftovers. I’ve spoken endlessly about my love for the three-season HBO show, mainly on the Story Screen Presents Cathode Ray Cast episode covering the entirety of The Leftovers with Bernadette Gorman-White. I stand by everything I’ve said in that wine-fueled conversation. (It’s seriously a great ep; give it a listen when you can if you haven’t.) Once again, Theroux’s ability to balance pathos, charm, and humor is a weapon to wield across every episode of The Leftovers . The role of Kevin Garvey is a tricky one starting out, and believe me, it only gets trickier the deeper down the rabbit hole the story goes over its 28 episode run. Anyone who has watched this show in its entirety has been nodding their head the entire time they’ve been reading this article because to see what Theroux does in that show so seemingly effortlessly is to know just how special and gifted of a performer he truly is. Recently, the fit AF cuddly bug has been turning in his usual array of supporting and lead roles. Both in Mute and Maniac , he plays egregiously characterized and over-the-top scene stealers. He tosses on make-up and accents to hide his general libidinous presence, while once again getting Dad Ripped ™ to play Allie Fox in The Mosquito Coast reboot series on Apple TV+. The series is based on the book written by Justin’s very own uncle, Paul Theroux. It might be most memorable for its 1986 film adaptation starring a Super Saiyan-level powerful Harrison Ford. The series is well worth the watch, following the happenings leading up to the events of both the book and the previous film. It’s loaded with a great cast, has a real smooth episodic attitude to it, (it very much reminds me of the peak of Breaking Bad , to be honest) and of course, it showcases some more amazing tools Theroux has in his arsenal, as his talents continue to grow and develop. He also recently appeared in the Hulu Original, False Positive , where he acts as the sort of John Cassavetes to Ilana Glazer’s Mia Farrow. It’s a pretty fun movie, which really soars from its performances by Glazer, Theroux, and an off-the-chain good Pierce Brosnan. It was really just a reminder of how Theroux understands his role within certain projects and is able to give his characters an insane depth of realism, whether it’s really called for or not, and without ever being too distracting. That’s tough stuff, man. On the horizon, Justin’s got an amazing-looking HBO limited series, The White House Plumbers , coming up, of which he is also acting as executive producer. The series has been filming in our area (Dutchess County, NY) for some months now, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting most of the cast and crew here and there. (A certain star was even nice enough to buy out a full screening of In the Heights during its opening week at Story Screen Beacon Theater for the series’ entire crew). But alas, I’ve yet to have the opportunity to embarrass myself in front of the dude that would definitely make a pretty interesting choice for Reed Richards. (I’m still in the Phoebe Waller-Bridge camp, but Theroux would be a very acceptable choice). Anyway, Happy Birthday to ya, you dignified faculty of a trouper. I very much look forward to everything you’ve got coming up, as well as continuously revisiting everything you’ve already given us. Cheers, and don’t let the number get to ya. After all, it’s just that anyways. Mike Burdge Editor-in-Chief Founder of and programmer for Story Screen. Lover of stories and pizza in the dark. When he isn't watching movies, you can find him reading things about people watching movies. He currently resides in Poughkeepsie, NY, and most assuredly is going through a French Connection phase.

Robby Anderson chats with guest and fellow DCEU expert, Mike Burdge, about the James Gunn-made sequel to the James Gun rip-off that was made by David Ayer, a jar of expired beans and a committee of lunatics. Let's find out how ol' Jimmy Gunns did in a different type of degenerate-superhero-sandbox. Listen on....

When The Others premiered 20 years ago, I was but a mere 12 years of age and, admittedly, not one who got out to the theater as often as I would have liked. The bulk of my horror-watching experience was garnered during tittering slumber parties where my friends and I delighted in sneaking salacious titles such as The Blair Witch 2: The Book of Shadows and Joy Ride . As you can tell by this fare, I needed my horror to be buried under a layer of satire and camp in order to sleep at night. If I would have watched The Others in 2001, I would have been secretly terrified...but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why. Publicly, among friends, I would have agreed that the film was boring and lengthy because The Others wasn’t made for 12 year-olds. And looking back, now having seen it, I don’t think The Others was made for 2001 either. In my memory, The Others exists primarily as spoof fodder. Nobody can forget its lampooning in 2003’s Scary Movie 3 : as the infamous “I am your daughter” scene was used as a vehicle to poke fun at allegations against Michael Jackson while also alluding to the fact that Jackson himself was an alien. Knowledge of that particular scene (the actual scene from The Others and not Scary Movie 3 ) was all I had from which to base my opinion, and from that alone, I was convinced The Others was terrifying. Also, from what I remember of trailers and commercials during that time period, it seems that was what the studio was attempting to sell: a frightening period piece about body morphing and horrifying haunts. So I was pleasantly surprised to find The Others had a lot more to say. Without delving too specifically into details, The Others was far ahead of its time when it comes to thematic layers of trauma and grief. I remember there was a general consensus of approval of the film upon its release, but I really don’t remember anyone having much to say about what the film spoke to. Perhaps it’s because I was a child at the time, but it seemed that during that time period, horror films were considered to be successful if they were scary in the traditional sense, and the general population didn’t really want their horror films to actually make them sad. Scares good, feelings bad. The Others doesn’t offer up many scares in the traditional “boo” sense, leaning far more into the ideas of what tangible scares are: death, grief, abandonment, war, mental illness, and generational and regional trauma. To that effect, I’m blown away by how little I had heard about this film while I was growing up and learning to appreciate horror films, and I’m saddened to think of how poorly advertised it was. In reality, however, if it were advertised as what it actually is, I don’t think people would have flocked to the theater to see it. The advertisements seemed to brainwash moviegoers into thinking they were indeed seeing a horror film, where in reality, I watched a period-drama about a war-torn family and region that was highlighted poignantly by spirits and the macabre. I feel as if I live in a different reality than the one that had existed in the early 2000s. I now wonder how many other films of years past I’ve been led to believe are one thing, are actually something completely different. Recently watching The Others , I was also able to ret-con my newly formed belief that Nicole Kidman is a bad actress, which just isn’t true. The two most recent Nicole Kidman projects I’ve watched are The Undoing and Big Little Lies , both of which feature David E. Kelley characters that just aren’t that great...which has warped my opinion of Kidman herself. (I might be a masochist because I’m still intrigued by Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers ...but that’s an essay for a different time.) Watching The Others reminded me just how brilliantly Kidman can control a scene, and it’s a good thing because she’s in nearly every single one of ‘em. It might as well be called Nicole Kidman and the Others . She’s an absolute delight to watch, and despite some of the plot remaining somewhat flimsy, her performance tethers you to the reality of the world. An additional bonus is her coupling with a pre-med Christopher Eccleston (prior to his rise to stardom in 2005’s Doctor Who reboot). Not to say the supporting cast isn’t also captivating to varying degrees, but this truly is Kidman’s film. If you haven’t yet seen The Others (and were living under that lonely rock with me), I’d encourage you to give it a try. In the current world of Hereditary s and The Lighthouse s et al, The Others would fit right in. And if you have seen it, perhaps it’s time to revisit the isle of Jersey. It’s quiet there, and a bit too contemplative, but the fog is nice and it can give you the time to remember how lucky you are to have the means of communication with the world, and others, around you. Come for the morbid tale of isolation, stick around for the stunning set design. This isn’t The Others I remember, nor the one I thought I was being sold, but I’m happy to keep it. Are you mad? This is your movie. Bernadette Gorman-White Managing Editor Bernadette graduated from DePauw University in 2011 with a Film Studies degree she’s not currently using. She constantly consumes television, film, and all things pop culture and will never be full. She doesn’t tweet much, but give her a follow @BeaGorman and see if that changes.

*(on my couch) As the beginning of every superhero movie trailer clearly points out: “The world is changing.” Sanitizer bottle stations still riddle the landscape in front of, next to and just past every doorway. People that don’t believe in science are dying meaninglessly across the nation. Human beings recently set the ocean on fire and tried to put it out by spraying a bunch of water on it. The same people who throw temper tantrums for having to wear a mask at a 7-Eleven are questioning the “toughness” of a 30 time World Champion Olympic Athlete who spent years as the face of one of the most disturbing abuses in sports history, a history that has A LOT of entries in that department. When all is said and done, and we look back on these years from our isolation pod towers, being charged by the cycle of our very own vacuous existence, we will remember that it sucked and did not get better ever. But, there were also festival movies that got released on digital platforms, allowing for normie critics like myself to gain access to the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, which every year features some of the freshest flicks about to be distributed over the next couple awards seasons. Some of them stunk and some of them were fantastic, a pretty regular balance from what I’ve been led to believe from past, bigger festival events. Below I’ve listed off a few that I felt might be of interest to write about, and hopefully to read about, too. Enjoy, and keep on watchin’ movies, ol’ sports! WEREWOLVES WITHIN A delight from start to finish, this lil comedy-horror indie is full of fun performances, slick filmmaking and is simply flat-out hilarious. This one is a bit of a fib, as I wasn’t able to catch it during my virtual window for the festival, but got myself a private screening with my buddy, Tim, on the big screen and boy oh boy I’m glad I was forced to wait. There’s something special about a small, low stakes film just being transformed by the size of your viewing experience. With a little cheating, this could be the most inarguably great video game adaptation of all time. Not to brag (too hard), but I also had the delight of briefly corresponding with director Josh Ruben on the possibility of stopping by Story Screen Beacon Theater for an intro and Q&A, but alas it fell apart in the end. Even so, I found him to be a very delightful human being and someone who I think has just the right head on his shoulders for operating in this world of Hollywood. THE PERFECT DAVID (EL PERFECTO DAVID) A riveting ride of tension and beauty, The Perfect David is equally horrifying in its story of control and confidence as it is blindingly visionary in its approach to an audience’s gaze and interpretations of these characters we are fighting to understand. A very delicate tone is nearly smashed to pieces by the overwhelming stress of its subject matter, yet The Perfect David never strays too far from what it understands to be its most powerful attribute: the fragility of compassion and understanding. WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING This one kind of missed the mark a bit for me. Sure, it’s well-directed and adequately performed, but ultimately the lack of momentum causes this symbolic family horror to fall short on the scares and cares. Definitely something to check out if you’re into the premise presented in the synopsis and trailer, as it just might not be exactly what you expect, and folks’ appreciation of that will vary. BRIGHTON 4TH A sweet glimpse at a jagged story, Brighton 4th never lets up on the abysmal existence of its characters, yet injects them into moments of pure friendship and love that make the whole experience an overall joyful one. The mixture of sorrow and devotion, all wrapped in a bitter portrayal of flawed masculinity, is a palpable one. Levan Tedaishvili is remarkable as the film’s lead, and Giorgi Tabidze, who plays his son, is hopefully a newcomer to watch out for. But, in my opinion, the big star is director Levan Koguashvili, whose talent for framing oozes with naturalism yet still has that flair you can’t deny being captivated by. Easily one of my favorites of the fest. HOW IT ENDS This is one that I think will grow on me over time. It’s bright atmosphere and bubbly attitude are extremely engaging, often even entertaining, but it’s vignette style of storytelling deflates the world trying to be built. It’s as if you’re watching a person move bricks from one pile to the next, unaware that someone right behind them is doing the reverse, leaving the same thing happening over and over and over again. Intentional? Possibly. Rewarding? Not really. ULTRASOUND Very much my vibe. Just a little more entertaining than it is confusing, with some cool tricks up its sleeve. It’s a very neat flick, and one that benefits from the lack of a trailer or deep synopsis that a viewer is forced to engage with in a festival filled with just finished and undistributed materials. Mark my words, director Rob Schroeder is gonna make one hell of a movie in the next five years. NO STRAIGHT LINES: THE RISE OF QUEER COMICS A fascinating and joyous ride through one of the most influential stages in both counter and queer culture. A cast of insanely talented artists and storytellers giving their thoughts on their passion? Sign me the hell up. There’s something in this doc for everyone, be them huge fans of the genre and movement, complete newbies to the culture or any varying point in between. It’s hard to make a doc that is 95% talking heads, but No Straight Lines pulls that off effortlessly by using footage of truly impressive and relatable people who changed, and continue to change, the world. NO RUNNING Get Out but with aliens and no pulse. This was the first flick I tossed on in the festival and while it has its moments, it doesn’t have the charm needed to carry a full movie, really just coming across as an over bloated episode of The X-Files without Scully and Mulder. SHAPELESS This one may be elegant while never getting too sophisticated, but that never stops a great lead performance and a genius pitch (eating disorder communicated by Cronenbergian body horror visuals) from making it a slick lil entry into a lovely sub-genre that I happen to adore. NO MAN OF GOD Simple and effective, this one was my first big shocker of the festival. I loved it. Elijah Wood continues to be such an interesting performer. Luke Kirby, here portraying the menacing Ted Bundy, weaponizes his inherent charm as a good-looking-acting man to bring to life the inexplicable appeal the real life Bundy could hold over so many. This is one I highly suggest checking out without having seen the trailer if you can, as there are a few moments that hit very hard for me during my screening that the trailer accidentally spoils. You almost feel bad for Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy!! THAT Ted Bundy!!! THE NOVICE Whiplash but with rowing? Mmhmm!! Yes, please! With elements that recalled (but never imitated) Julia Ducournau’s own trip to college, Raw , The Novice is equally accomplished. The film contains, and unabashedly flaunts, a level of talent both in front of and behind the camera that should make even the most skeptical critic excited about the next projects from this crew. Raw. Painful. Tragic. Grueling. Beautiful. My favorite film of the fest, and now I understand why it’s so annoying when pictures like this don’t get immediately picked up and released the same year as the festival in which they premiere. I want EVERYONE to see this thing. It’s going to straight-up blow people’s minds. That’s all for me on this. My first official festival outing was a glorious and exciting one (thanks Diana DiMuro for the great gift!), and I’m pretty psyched to do more of these. I’ll be hitting Fantastic Fest this year (LEGITIMACY!! VALIDATION!!!) so I’ll definitely try to catch a more varying array of films at that fest for another one of these pieces in September. Until then, enjoy the world as much as you can, even while it’s just about literally burning down around us. And watch more movies. Mike Burdge Editor-in-Chief Founder of and programmer for Story Screen. Lover of stories and pizza in the dark. When he isn't watching movies, you can find him reading things about people watching movies. He currently resides in Poughkeepsie, NY, and most assuredly is going through a French Connection phase.

Robby is joined by guest, Diana DiMuro, to talk about the eagerly-anticipated and long-awaited David Lowery film, The Green Knight , which contains a hot Dev Patel kissing people and talking to a fox. It rules. And here's why.... Listen on....

The bois, Jack, Robby and Mike, hop back into the driver's seat (all three of em) to return to the world of family, corona and backyard grillin' with their review of F9: The Fast Saga . Listen on....

The Midnight Gospel is simultaneously a makeup of familiar things I really enjoy, as well as some things I’ve never seen before. The combination of philosophy and animation that The Midnight Gospel aspires to be is a single idea, one that is a feast for the eyes as well as fuel for the mind, but despite the show truly excelling on both these fronts, there are times that it struggles to find a perfect synergy of these mediums. This could be because of the show’s two creators, both considered powerhouses of their respective art forms: Duncan Trussell and Pendleton Ward. Duncan Trussell is a comedian, primarily known for his podcast, the Duncan Trussell Family Hour . Here listeners take part in a one to two hour philosophical tangent that covers all things that both haunt and percolate the mind. Duncan Trussell has proven to be a master interviewer, pulling deep thoughtful truths from both fellow comedians, as well as authors on death, meditation and the general status of the human condition. Trussell masterfully crafts an audio medium containing a unique cosmic texture as he includes “skits.” These are parodies of advertisements that sound like they’re being beamed from another dimension, or sometimes during interviews the sound will glitch and reverberate, jarring the listener in a way that is entirely by design. The podcast may exist within the constraints of time, but on occasion it also divorces itself from this construct. In the mind's eye, Trussell’s sound booth or interview room may seem like it exists on an asteroid gently moving its way across the celestial cosmos. He’s also super funny and that’s always a good chaser for conversations orbiting the fleetingly serious. Pendleton Ward is probably one of the greatest animators of our age. Ward’s name is attached to many beloved animated series: The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack , Uncle Grandpa, and Bee and PuppyCat. He is also the creator of one of the most popular zeitgeists of both children’s and adult programming: Adventure Time . Ward’s mind seems to be a place of whimsy and magic, but this may be a coverup for the existential dread that kicks up beneath. Ward’s Adventure Time has been heralded for its ability to be both a fun journey through the candy kingdom, while also tackling adult subject matter that is accessible for children. Ward is a master of subtext, a wizard, sewing the threads of the questions that keep us up at night into a quilt of fun animated romps. It comes as little surprise that Ward himself was a fan of Trussell’s podcast; they had more than a few psychedelic thoughts in common. The two had discussed making a show together back in 2013, but both parties claimed to be too busy to embark on this new journey. It wasn’t until years later, when Ward animated a segment from one of Trussell’s podcasts that this idea would take shape. From this marriage - an interview discussing the ethical debate of drug use over wild and violent animation - The Midnight Gospel was born. The Midnight Gospel feels at times more like an artistic experiment, than it does a show that is concerned with narrative or plot. We follow Clancy (voiced by Trussell himself), a space caster (a podcaster but in space!) who goes to various dying worlds to find interviews for his space cast (a podcast but in space!). Through these journeys, Clancy assumes a simulated form and discusses, simply put, death, with his interviewees. Though putting it simply does these conversations an injustice, these discussions don’t always revolve around where you go when the lights go off, but instead tackle that greater experience that precludes and extends beyond where you go when the lights go off. These conversations with the colorful denizens of various worlds are clips pulled from Trussell’s podcast, but edited and manipulated in the context of the show. Interviewees refer to Duncan’s character as Clancy, except for the times when they forget to be in character, which the show uses as an opportunity to break the fourth wall. Between the show and the podcast, Trussell’s own self seems to be static, without a concrete home; he has become a character of the air waves, which seems by design. These interviews are soothing as well as deeply unsettling, as staring into the void can most assuredly be. The animation that intertwines with these interviews is equally excellent. The animation is never too on the nose in how it relates to the interviews. It is incredibly abstract, but not without characters and plot; your mind might just have to do more legwork to fuse the two together. I promise you, the links between the two are there. My only criticism of the show is that there are times (more so in the beginning of the season) that the animation and the interviews do not have as much synergy as I would’ve liked. As an avid podcast listener, as well as podcaster, (hey, check out Story Screen Presents, ya dingus) as well as a lover of most things animated, (read, like, anything I’ve ever written, ya dingus) this show is in a lot of ways very up my alley. However, I was so invested in the listening aspect of the show at times, that I couldn’t focus on the animation, and vice versa. There were times that the show felt like it was competing for my own attention. Though later in the season, this feels like less of an issue as the two halves of the series start to better blend together. Could this mean that I started to become more literate in the show's language? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s the type of show that needs to be viewed more than once; that’s entirely possible too. As The Midnight Gospel continues through its first season, we get to learn more about Clancy as a character, gleaning nuggets of his past, present and future. We also begin to learn more about the insane multiverse that the series takes place in. I wish that we got a bit more of this story, but much like how Adventure Time handles its very serious post-apocalyptic narrative under a candy coated surface, I believe The Midnight Gospel will tackle these subjects (and more) in future seasons….that is…if there are any. The Midnight Gospel feels like an experiment, one where the scientists who created it are very much present in every second of the show. It took awhile for the meta-context of how the show exists - this brainchild of two awesome dudes - to take a backseat and allow me to start living in its fiction, but once I got there it was one of the best visual/audio experiences I’ve ever had. I hope we get more of The Midnight Gospel, but I have my doubts; Trussell and Ward are two aloof creators. Ward was pretty much retired until this concept came around and I wonder if he’ll stay out of retirement for it. If there were to be no more seasons of The Midnight Gospe l, that would honestly fit within the show’s many themes. The things you love are fleeting; life itself is fleeting. How we choose to live it and understand our place in it helps enrich our journey. Finding our peace in the present, feeling our extremities, and living in the now, unshackles us from our constructs of time and space. Death is a stop on the journey, but we don’t live in a world where it doesn’t exist; you must face it. We may have to face the fact that we only get eight episodes of this show, but it’s never going anywhere, and I have serious doubts anyone “gets it” on the very first watch, even if you’re watching with your third eye open. Robert Anderson Co-Head of Podcasting Robert has a degree in Screenwriting and Playwriting and works in multiple genres. He's just your typical man-child who enjoys most things nerd culture. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @RoBaeBae

Bernadette and guest, Robby Anderson, chat all about the latest Marvel series to take the world by storm for a few weeks, Loki . How's this reality-shifting and future-building adventure when all was said and done at the end of the season? Let's find out.... Listen on....

When news spread that the George A. Romero Foundation had raised funds to restore The Amusement Park , a long-presumed “lost” film by the late Amerindie horror director, anticipation went through the roof for horror fans and a certain type of cinephile worldwide. Commissioned by the Pittsburgh-area chapter of The Lutheran Society in 1973 to create an extended PSA-for-hire about the plight of the aging in American society, quickly shot by Romero’s The Latent Image company and the unhinged result promptly shelved following some trial screenings (wouldn’t you love to have been at one of them?), even Romero had largely given the 53-minute-long work up for lost. “I haven’t seen it in years,” Romero admitted to Tony Williams in the latter’s 2001 book George A. Romero: Interviews . Romero’s widow and GARF founder, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, filled in more details about the film and its rediscovery shortly before Romero’s passing in 2017 in a recent interview with Gizmodo : It was commissioned by the Lutheran SeniorLife, a precursor to programs like Meals on Wheels, and they wanted to hire a director to shoot something for their community centers to get the word out, to help get support, and all of that. It was his only work-for-hire ever in his whole career, so it really wasn’t meant to be released as a film, per se. It was only in 2017, when a very good friend of ours who was a programmer at the Turin Film Festival gave me this 60mm (note: probably “16mm”) print and a DVD. I was like “Whoa, what’s this?” And [George] said, “Well, you know, it was a little something I did in ‘73.” So three, four weeks before he passed, we slapped it in the DVD player and we watched it. I’m telling you, it was incredible that: a) he never mentioned it, and b) it was just so edgy, and so different, and so harsh, and relevant, and all of those emotions that I was feeling. I said, “Why is it that you never mentioned it?” and he was like, “Suze, it was three days. It was bing, bang, boom. We shot it, it was nothing, it was a commission.” Far from nothing, undeniably different and harsh — if, given the film’s subject matter and intended purpose, not exactly edgy — deeply unusual and an anomaly in the career of this most anomalous of American filmmakers, it’s easy to see why the Lutherans gave The Amusement Park a pass. Perhaps inevitably, the prospect of a restored “lost” Romero film from the fecund first decade of his career has generated hype around this commission from a religious group which it could never live up to, even as some of the more effusive praise some have offered it is being utilized in its promotion. Make no mistake: this is nowhere even close to “the scariest film Romero ever made,” and too much of the film and its often woefully obvious allegorical critiques range from the unintentionally ludicrous to the simply insipid. In spite of all that, this minor work is and retains an undeniable, indelible curiosity, particularly as it applies to Romero’s filmmaking at this tipping-point moment in his career. ___________________________ Following a brief introduction by the film’s star, Lincoln Maazel — father of classical conductor Lorin and later top-billed in Romero’s subsequent revisionist/materialist vampire tale, 1977’s Martin — in an empty West View Park (the film’s titular location long since torn down), we see an unnamed, bloodied and traumatized Maazel alone in a spectrally white room, mouth-breathing with exhaustion. A more pristine version of himself enters the room and tries unsuccessfully to address his damaged self. The uninjured persona asks his beaten-up doppelganger if he wants to go outside — no, the other self manages, “there’s nothing outside!” Eager to go outside and see for himself, this cleaner persona exits a door that opens out directly onto the bustling amusement park, while his wounded self, demonstrably incorrect, insists “There’s nothing out there!” Maazel finds himself needing tickets which he pays in cash, while other older individuals attempt to hock their personal possessions for a fraction of their worth from a huckster working the box office, a function he’ll perform in other scenes as the doorkeeper to other representations of American society. This anonymous protagonist takes not particularly thrilling rides on the park’s modest roller coaster, mini-train, and carousel, on each of which we get a glimpse of a graven-faced reaper, complete with robe and scythe — a recurring, unsubtle reminder of mortality to be found in The Amusement Park , lamentably among many others. The only attraction that actively entices older people to enter turns out to be a fish-eye-lensed nightmare of institutional senior supportive care, with quick cuts to aggressive physical therapy sessions and glazed-over senior citizens in a featureless dayroom — Maazel escapes from it in horror. He enters a fortune-teller’s tent in time to observe a young couple who want to learn about their future together: “are you sure?” inquires the teller. Cue a glimpse of their future, beginning with a fake TV interview with a slumlord who won’t maintain his buildings while the older female desperately tries to help her ailing husband and reach his overwhelmed, indifferent doctor by payphone, returning to their walkup apartment exhausted and holding her husband’s hand as he expires. All three leave the tent literally mortified by this strange revelation, but the young man, upon seeing Maazel, irrationally attacks him, an act of violence which will be soon exceeded by a separate attack from a trio of bikers (with The Reaper also once more reappearing in their midst) who beat Maazel and swipe his remaining tickets. Wounded, he staggers to a “freak show” performance, one that presents older individuals in bathing suits subjected to jeers and pelted food from the crowd, which then turns on Maazel as “one of them.” He seems to finally find some peace and human connection with a young girl who invites him over to her family’s picnic, offering him some chicken as he offers to read “The Big Bad Wolf” to her. Soon, however, the girl’s mother begins to impersonally pack up their belongings, ignoring their disheveled guest and preparing to go, taking the girl with her and leaving Maazel alone, howling in despair. We last see him shuffling with other down-trodden senior citizens away from the camera, as the introduction in the white room in reprised at the conclusion; a nightmarish cycle of agony, goes the implication, for Maazel and other older Americans, abandoned to either in chilly sterility or the mayhem of modern society. Maazel returns once more, out of character in the empty amusement park at the end in yet another framing device, encouraging those who were moved by the previous story to help out with social services organizations dedicated to the elderly. He is seen walking away as credits roll. ___________________________ The Amusement Park was made at a crucial, transitional moment in Romero’s career during its first decade, a period which represents the peak of his work as a filmmaker, stretching between the towering icons of his exceptionally influential (and strikingly different) zombie masterpieces, 1968’s Night of the Living Dea d and 1978’s Dawn of the Dead . Romero’s projects following Night — 1970’s There’s Always Vanilla , 1971’s Jack’s Wife (aka Season of the Witch ) and 1973’s The Crazies — have endured over the decades and today have far stronger reputations than they garnered at the time of their limited releases. Each of these films from the early ’70s was a box office failure, leaving the impression that Romero’s epochal, still-transgressive Night was a one-off fluke in a career otherwise destined for obscurity. In the interim, his Latent Image company continued to crank out industrial films and would, following work on The Amusement Park , also produce a season of the syndicated sports series The Winners , probably the most underseen of all Romero’s work; this series also resulted in one more cult rarity in the Romero oeuvre, his 1975 documentary on the then-young superstar running back for the Buffalo Bills, O.J. Simpson: Juice on the Loose. One indication of this transitional moment can be seen in The Amusement Park ’s opening credits: this would appear to be the first film to be produced under the aegis of Laurel Entertainment, the production company Romero formed with Richard Rubenstein, the producer of most of Romero’s subsequent films for the next fifteen years. Here, Rubenstein is credited as associate producer, with Dawn cinematographer Michael Gornick credited as audio engineer (even avid Romero fans may not realize that the cinematography for The Amusement Park , along with the previous Crazies and subsequent Juice on the Loose , is credited to none other than Night ’s iconic “cemetery zombie” himself, S. William “Bill” Hinzman). Rubenstein was essential in getting Romero’s work in front of a wider audience as the ’70s wore on, and Laurel’s next feature, Martin , was a modest arthouse hit which bolstered Romero’s critical profile, leading to Dawn the following year, an acknowledged classic that also constitutes, from where I sit, Romero’s last major work as a filmmaker. Although directing from a script by Walton Cook (a Romero associate and sometime actor in his films), there’s no mistaking that, in its best moments, Romero is The Amusement Park ’s true auteur. One of Romero’s trademark strengths is the ratcheting up of tension and otherwise conveying a world where the only law is Murphy’s. Williams, who hadn’t seen The Amusement Park when asking Romero about it for his book of interviews, refers to the film quite accurately as a “documentary-fantasy”: the cinéma vérité aspect of capturing real people at an actual location, reinforced by the largely volunteer non-professional cast of social-service employees and recipients —all in addition to Maazel’s fourth-wall-breaking intro and outro — provides a potent grounding in reality for much of the absurdity and overbroad critiques in Cook’s script. Romero regularly shoots Maazel mobbed in the middle of crowds of park attendees walking in different directions around him, cinematically reinforcing that this character is old, in the way, and increasingly disoriented, lost in a crowd. Furthermore, Romero’s trademark rapid-fire editing style* adds to a queasy uncertainly about what will come next, another trademark effect found in his best work. One also finds certain themes and/or fixations from his previous and subsequent films throughout The Amusement Park , including the use of amusement parks in There’s Always Vanilla , the supernatural upending of conventional expectations from Jack’s/Season , the use of marching bands in parade formation soon to be echoed in Martin and a fetish with bikers that ranges from Dawn through its underrated, imperfect follow-up Knightriders , all the way up to 2000’s fitful, ultimately disappointing Bruiser . However, it is finally Cook’s script and, for all the nerviness of his conceit, its episodic structure isn’t a match for the energy Romero brings to it, and certain concepts induce as much head-scratching as eye-rolling. The white room at the beginning and end of the story is too remote and antiseptic a metaphor for the circle of brutality it bookends. And what can Cook mean to have Maazel insist “There’s nothing out there!” when, in fact, there’s so obviously way too much “out there”? The evident harm which has been inflicted upon him is ample proof. The obvious implication is that this cry is intended as an indictment of the vacuousness of 70’s America but its off-pitch expression is one of several self-canceling strategies (if that’s the word) in Cook’s scenario. I was further puzzled by the young man lashing out at Maazel’s character following the fortune-teller’s vision. Maazel, here as elsewhere, had nothing to do with the young man or his eventual fate, but becomes somehow, as in Kafka, implicated nonetheless and injured in the process — it certainly keeps an audience on edge, not knowing when the next instance of senseless mayhem will occur. Sad to say, one dispiritingly shared quality between Cook’s script and most of Romero’s films is a facile good/evil dichotomy: as poet Evan Shipman once described Dostoevsky to Hemingway, both Cook and Romero are only good at shits and saints. That said, some of those shits are priests and it’s an undeniably bold move to present such a defiantly anti-clerical message in a film underwritten by a religion. The (in many senses) pitiful scene with the child towards the end concludes with Maazel stumbling off in the distance behind a close-up of his unfinished piece of chicken, a howler of cult-historic proportions — one is left baffled as to its ultimate meaning to the film, although chances are good it was not intended to be a critique of food waste. Select moments like this combine wrongheaded hilarity with genuine bewilderment, making The Amusement Park feel at certain points like an afterschool directed by Tommy Wiseau. Still, Romero imparts a vivid, bad-trip present tense to this sometimes strained allegory, capturing — like so many of his still little-known 70’s films — a blunt, brutal, peculiar, banal yet unsettling snapshot of America. Would his O.J. documentary prove to be even more unsettling today? Here’s hoping George A. Romero Foundation will allow us to see for ourselves by greenlighting its restoration as its next project. * A whole other essay could be written about Romero’s strengths as an editor, but he is one of the only major director-editors of his generation of American filmmakers and one of its finest. The Amusement Park is streaming exclusively via Shudder. James Keepnews James is a musician, writer, and multimedia artist. James’ writing has appeared in Chronogram , Pacific Sun Magazine , New Haven Advocate, and other publications. You can check out his previous pieces for Story Screen: “’Have a Nice Apocalypse’ —The Resolute Irresolution of Southland Tales, ” and “Archives and Morals: Jean-Luc Godard and the Boundless Provocations of The Image Book. ”

Robby chats with guest, Diana DiMuro, about the latest MCU flick to drop, the much anticipated (in more ways than one) Black Widow . How'd this thing finally land? Welp, give it a listen to find out. Listen on....

One of my favorite parts about the summertime is going to the movies. On a hot humid day, there’s no better feeling than entering a large cold dark room with an ice-cold beverage, ready to be transported into a story. Hollywood has been banking on this idea and it’s worked. The modern origin of the blockbuster took place on June 20th, 1975 with the release of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws . Audiences devoured Spielberg’s exciting and terror-filled film that set the standard for the summer blockbuster. While Jaws is considered a classic blockbuster for its special effects, superb cast, and story, these credentials are not always necessary. Sometimes you can have one or two of these and still have a blockbuster that people will come back to again and again. As a writer, I am always ready to write about film as an art form that adds to the human consciousness in important ways. At the same time, I can appreciate a film that places the spectacle before anything else. Sometimes you just want to be taken on a ride. Sometimes you want an overconfident lead to save the day with swagger. Sometimes you just want shit to blow up. No blockbuster does this better than the 1996 film Independence Day . Independence Day takes place over three days, during the July 4th weekend. A massive alien mothership pulls up next to Earth and releases somewhat smaller (but still large) ships over major cities around the world. Panic ensues! Through this initial panic, we are introduced to multiple storylines. First, there’s David, played by Jeff Goldblum (America’s future daddy), who is a down-and-out satellite engineer and technological expert. He is the first to find a hidden signal being transmitted by the alien ships that are counting down to a possible coordinated attack. David and his hilarious Jewish father, played by Judd Hirsch, to Washington D.C. to warn the President of this impending doom. He does this by contacting his ex-wife who just so happens to be the White House Communications Director. The President, played by Bill Pullman, is trying to figure out the best course of action while he is pulled in different directions by his cabinet and the military. We are introduced to Russel, a drunken Vietnam vet played by Randy Quaid, who’s not at all surprised by this alien invasion, as he claims he was abducted ten years prior and knew that aliens had their sights on earth. And then, we’re introduced to our star, Captain Steven Hiller, played by a young Will Smith. He is a Marine fighter pilot who has dreams of flying for NASA one day, who was just about to take the holiday weekend off before the alien invasion begins. The President weighs his options and does not want the public to panic. The public, however, is doing one of two things: panicking or preparing to welcome the aliens with open arms. Some people are trying to flee cities, while others find the tallest buildings around to get a better look. David is finally able to reach the President at the White House and tries to explain that the Aliens are about to attack. The President is unmoved at first and sends a “welcome wagon” to one of the spaceships. This welcome wagon is a helicopter with flashing lights reminiscent of Close Encounters of a Third Kind , a film with a much friendlier space invader. These aliens however are not so nice. This is made even clearer as the welcome wagon is shot out of the sky by the spaceship as soon as it tries to get close. The President orders the evacuation of all major cities, but it's too late. The giant spaceships fire a single large beam down onto each major city, causing massive destruction and death. Independence Day was director Ronald Emmerich’s first foray into apocalyptic films. With this film, he set the standard of how to destroy the planet. He would do so again in the films The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and 2012 (2009). With the help of CGI, Emmerich has blown up cities, countries, and even whole continents. All of this calamity and destruction almost becomes a character in itself: the ultimate villain that no one can escape. Post-apocalyptic films like I am Legend and The Matrix Trilogy focus on what happens after, while Emmerich’s films are interested in the actual events that lead to a radical new future for mankind. With the scope of planetary destruction as the main goal, it is easy to see why Emmerich’s films have been criticized for their lack of character development and thin plot lines. Independence Day does not escape from these critiques. I would argue that the film, at the very least, gives you characters that you can't help but root for. With major cities destroyed all across the globe and military strikes proving useless, all hope seems lost. We start to see our main characters deal with this new reality. Captain Steven Hiller is one of the sole survivors of an aerial dog fight with the aliens, and he manages to take down one of their fighter jets. In one of the funniest scenes in the film and the first time we actually see what the aliens look like, Steven Hiller walks right up to the downed alien spacecraft ready to throw hands. The alien just killed his best friend and as the alien tries to come out of its craft he punches it straight in the face. He then chomps on a cigar saying, “Now that’s what I call a close encounter.” There is no fear in Will Smith’s character, only confidence. This confidence will serve Will Smith well when he moves on from Independence Day to make other blockbuster classics like Men in Black, Wild Wild West, and Bad Boys 2. Meanwhile, the President, his staff, and David and his father all manage to barely escape the destruction by lifting off on Air Force One at the very last minute. As they fly around they ponder their next move. The President has immediate regret about not evacuating the cities sooner and the reality that millions have died sets in. Bill Pullman's portrayal as the U.S. President is as idealistic as one could hope for in this situation. He regrets not acting sooner and when he finally agrees to use the nuclear option, which fails due to the aliens' protective shield, he decides to not try it again. It’s worth mentioning that he is fed bad ideas from his Secretary of Defense Albert Nimzicki, played by James Rebhorn. Bill Pullman’s portrayal as the President is all about leadership, integrity, and doing the right thing, ideals that have been sorely lacking in that particular office in the real world. James Reborn’s loudmouth government official who lacks any of those qualities, unfortunately, seems right on brand in the real world. I mean this guy is amazing; he still thinks it would be a good idea to nuke the aliens after it doesn’t work out the first time. Aboard Air Force One, David’s hilarious father goes on a rant about Area 51 being real and the government hiding it from the public, which the President assures him is false. The Secretary of Defense then tells him that actually, that's not entirely accurate. The President and the gang are taken to a very real Area 51 which has three dead aliens and a small alien fighter jet just like the one that they are fighting against now. The reason for this major secret being kept from the President? “Plausible deniability.” I mean is that not a textbook line from an idiot government official trying to weasel himself away from any responsibility? But I digress. Just as the President is made aware of this well-hidden secret, Captain Steven Miller finds his way to this very well-hidden secret with a seemingly dead alien carcass and a caravan of people in mobile homes who just so happened to find him in the middle of the desert. How convenient! At this point in the film, these characters start to find each other in such a ridiculous way that it’s clear that the writers and the director realized they had to get the story moving in an already two-and-a-half-hour-long film. I mean, when Will Smith’s character gets to Area 51 and finds out his stripper girlfriend and her kid could possibly be dead after the initial alien attack he steals a helicopter and looks for them anyways. He finds them seconds later and hey, they are with the First Lady, who is severely injured. He brings them all back to Area 51 where the First Lady dies and the President becomes sad. Just as this all seems like an absurd deviation, the film picks up the main story again. Scientists at Area 51 begin an autopsy of the alien body brought back by Captain Steven. The alien seems to be in an organic space suit that springs open and reveals a smaller alien, sort of like a Russian doll. Just then, the alien emits a psychic frequency that causes the head scientist to have painful headaches. The alien comes to life and starts to kill the other scientist. The President is eager to see this recently captured alien, and when he and his entourage enter the room where the autopsy is taking place they find a mess. The alien has the lead scientist by the throat with its tentacles, using him as a telepathic puppet. He wants to be released. The President tries his hand at diplomacy, telling the aliens that they can learn a lot from each other if they can have a truce and peace. The alien does not agree and only wants them to die. He begins to perform the same psychic frequency on the President who falls to the ground. The President’s security detail shoots the alien multiple times, killing it. It just so happens that the President was able to read this particular alien’s mind and sees that their plan is this: invade the planet, kill all of its inhabitants, take their resources, and then move on to the next one. This scene is very effective because the alien’s design in this film is truly scary. When they are cutting him open it feels very real and the aliens look so different than any other alien seen on film or in any other media. When the alien is speaking to the President, its tone is very matter-of-fact and frightening. In a movie that leans heavily on comedy and spectacle, this scene makes the stakes seem very real. While all of this goes down, Jeff Goldblum's character, David, is having a rough time. He is heavily drinking knowing that the world is screwed. Early on in the film, we see him as a bike riding, recycling, environmentalist techie, who now drunkenly states we should pollute the world as fast as we can so that the aliens don't even want it anymore. His father tries to snap him out of it and goes on another hilarious rant, this time about his son having a cold. This inspires David to create a virus that will take down the aliens’ defense system for a short period of time. Thanks, dad! He tests his virus on the alien ship at Area 51 and it works. Exhausting all other efforts, the President approves David’s crazy plan: sneaking the alien ship onto the mothership hovering above Earth, hacking their computer system, temporarily taking down their defenses, and bombing the hell out of the sister ships hovering in Earth’s atmosphere. Who volunteers for this crazy plan you ask? Only America’s two favorite daddys, Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith of course! As they prepare for their ascent to the mothership, the President, a former fighter pilot himself, rounds up as many pilots as he can to help attack the ships once the defenses are down. This is when we see drunken veteran pilot Russel again, who is more than willing to volunteer himself to obliterate his former capturers. The President gives a rousing speech to the airmen before they take off that is actually incredibly moving. I got goosebumps listening to it as a kid and I received those same goosebumps 25 years later. After a quick impromptu wedding ceremony where Captain Steven Hiller marries his girlfriend with David and his ex-wife serving as witnesses, they shoot off into space as Earth's final hope. The banter between David and Steven on their important mission is funny as both of their qualities are on full display. Steven is really enjoying being able to fly this advanced spacecraft and does so by going very fast and performing flips in the air. David's anxiety about even agreeing to this mission is on full display now as he begs Steven to stop. Both Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum are at the top of their comedic game in this final part of the film and it almost makes you wish they had more screen time together. Their journey to the mothership is where we are again reminded of the great CGI that still holds up today in this film. They are pulled into the mothership as the aliens recognize the ship as one of their own. Inside the massive mothership, they float by a huge army of aliens preparing for an invasion. They are docked in front of an alien air traffic controller of sorts and this is where they initiate uploading the virus. With a few clicks of David’s laptop, the virus is uploaded and the shields are down. It’s time for the humans to attack! The President, along with his ragtag team of pilots, is finally able to start doing some damage to the massive ships and alien fighter jets. The aliens prepare to fire another energy beam down on Earth. In a nail-biting scene, the President and his pilots realize they are out of rockets and have no way to stop the impending beam. Our drunken hero Russel is the last one with a rocket and prepares to fire it at the beam, but his rocket is jammed. He knows what he must do. He ends up sacrificing himself by flying his plane directly into the beam before it goes off. He screams: “ Hello boys, I’m baaack!” For a character that was mostly a mess the entire film, his sacrifice for mankind feels rewarding. They now know the alien ship's weak spot and they spread the message throughout the world. As for our heroes on the mothership, they plant a bomb and narrowly escape, but the massive explosion from the bomb destroys the mothership and it looks as if it engulfs them as well. Back on Earth, their signal is lost for a moment, only for it to reappear in the nearby desert. The President, along with Captain Steven’s new wife, David’s ex, and his father find them walking back from their victory, cigars in their mouths, looking like a couple of badasses. They all look up to the falling alien spaceship and as it falls, debris rains down like fireworks. Independence Day, indeed. This was one of my favorite movies growing up as a kid and in my most recent viewing, I still had a great time. The comedy throughout is funny, the CGI holds up even to today’s high standards, and the A-list cast gives it their all. We get to see a young Will Smith star begin to shine, and Jeff Goldblum is just good in anything, am I right? Today we are inundated with sequels, prequels, remakes, and Disney’s Marvel movie and television show-making machine. It is nostalgic to watch a film like Independence Day that is before all of that. There was a sequel to Independence Day that was made in 2016, also directed by Roland Emmerich. This film, titled Independence Day: Resurgence , apparently has a lot of the same cast minus Will Smith. This writer has not seen that film nor needs to. From what I understand it is not very good. If you really want to be that guy, you can argue that the first Independence Day is not very good. But sometimes you gotta just let go and watch a cheesy science-fiction blockbuster from the ’90s. Life is too short to constantly watch art-house films all of the time or to only watch movies that are of today’s technological standards. I was recently dragged to the theaters to see F9 (Fast and the Furious 9) by some friends. The movie was dumb and not very good, but I had a very good time. Independence Day is of the same vein. On a final thought, we should probably start preparing for some kind of encounter now that the U.S intelligence community has recently said that some of the UFOs their airmen have encountered are “unexplainable.” If you can believe that, then you should be able to enjoy Independence Day for what it is, a damn good time. Sahil Sharma Sahil is a social work student at Hunter College and has dreams to watch every film in the Criterion Collection. He is passionate about meditation and has been known to quote Step Brothers word for word.

Robby chats with guest, Diana DiMuro, about the insanely cool and wildly funny horror-comedy, Werewolves Within . Listen on....