The Hip Pocket

• The Hip Pocket #305 - Sarah Watson

  SARAH WATSON is a writer/producer who is best known as the creator of The Bold Type, the author of a terrific YA novel called Most Likely, and for her work on the long-running Parenthood. We met through mutual friends and bonded over general movie nerdery, and watching her climb through the ranks of writing rooms has been a huge pleasure over the years. Plus she’s a great dog owner, and, honestly, what higher praise is there? She’s currently hard at work on seasons two and three of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but decided to take some time to talk to us about three movies that are hugely important to her. First up is The Dish, a delightful Australian comedy about a team at a remote radio dish who play an important role in the Apollo moon landing mission. Then there’s the Brit Marling/Mike Cahill film Another Earth, which, like most Brit Marling projects, is an absolute vibe. And then there’s the coming-of-age drama A Walk on the Moon, with Viggo Mortensen and Diane Lane. Aundria picked this week’s response film, the terrific Denis Villenueve SF/drama Arrival, and it dropped right into the line-up in a delightful way. Finally, this week’s Hip Pocket Hall of Fame entry is one of my favorite films of the ‘90s, the Robert Zemeckis adaptation of the Carl Sagan novel Contact. I hope you enjoy this hangout with Sarah as much as I did, and I encourage you to dig into her IMDb page and check out her work. She’s the best. Support The Hip Pocket over at Patreon, where we’re neck-deep in recording a full season of bonus episodes! Support The Hip Pocket on BlueSky! The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker. Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer. It is a Formerly Dangerous Production. You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

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• The Hip Pocket #304 - Phil Nobile Jr.

  PHIL NOBILE JR. is the editor-in-chief of Fangoria magazine, which is kicking ass and taking name these days. Before this, you may have known him as part of the Birth. Movies. Death. editorial team, where he spent a ton of energy writing about his deeply-seeded love of the James Bond franchise. He’s also worked as a producer on films like Horror Noire, Satanic Panic, and VFW, and you’ve probably seen him in documentaries as a talking head. While you might guess that he’d pick all horror films or maybe spy movies because of his Bond mania, he threw us a delightful curveball instead. First up, we’ve got Peter Fonda’s lyrical, heartbroken follow-up to Easy Rider, the recently reclaimed and restored The Hired Hand, co-starring Vera Miles and the great Warren Oates. This one will sneak up on you, and I think the same is true of his second film this week. It was a legendary pain in the ass for its studio, but I adore Elaine May’s Mikey & Nicky, co-starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes. Finally, he picked a movie that ties together this week’s theme of unusual male friendships, a legendary comedy that just got a legacy sequel last week in theaters. That’s right. Turn it up to 11, because we’re talking about Rob Reiner’s 1984 This Is Spinal Tap. Our reaction film for Phil is the first entry in one of the unlikeliest ongoing film franchises right now as Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan, and a fistful of Michael Caine impressions hit the road in Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip. We inducted a movie into the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame this week that’s all about the way men are sometimes pressed together into unlikely friendships in suburbia, and how that can lead to a sort of spiraling collective insanity. I hope you love Joe Dante’s The ‘Burbs as much as I do. I hope Phil enjoyed his time in The Hip Pocket as much as we enjoyed having him, and I strongly encourage you to support him and the entire Fangoria team. They couldn’t be doing any better these days, and I am genuinely proud to be a subscriber. Support The Hip Pocket over at Patreon, where we’re neck-deep in recording a full season of bonus episodes! Support The Hip Pocket on BlueSky! The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker. Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer. It is a Formerly Dangerous Production. You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

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• The Hip Pocket #303 - Katie Rife

  KATIE RIFE is a freelance writer and critic from Chicago who is best known for her deep focus on genre and exploitation fare. She was the news editor for The AV Club from 2014 to 2019, and then Senior Editor from 2019 to 2022. She is currently writing for outlets like RogerEbert.com, Rolling Stone, Indiwire, and Vulture. You can get a taste of what she’s like from her round-up of the best of last year’s horror films. The minute Katie sent her list over, I knew we were in for a wild ride. Her first pick is the scuzztastic vigilante picture, A Gun For Jennifer. Somehow, that almost feels tame compared to her second pick, the international grindhouse classic, Female Prisoner Scorpion - Jailhouse 41. Even if you don’t know that movie, you probably know the theme song. Finally, she picked a straight-up exploitation masterpiece, the movie that put Russ Meyer on the map. That’s right… we’re talking about Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Our response film was chosen by Aundria, who took the “violent women” theme and went a different direction with it. It was a delight to dig into Rob Reiner’s Misery with Katie as a result. Finally, my pick for this week’s Hip Pocket Hall of Fame entry is a film that was a major jump forward for a filmmaker who got his start making women-in-prison films for Roger Corman. I dearly love the 1986 film Something Wild, and hope I’ve done it justice with this piece. This is a great indication of what kind of guests and conversations we’re having this season. I am delighted by the way the show continues to evolve, and by the way our guests come in ready to play. Our thanks to Katie for taking the time. Support The Hip Pocket over at Patreon, where we’re gearing up for a full season of bonus episodes! Support The Hip Pocket on BlueSky! The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker. Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer. It is a Formerly Dangerous Production. You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

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• The Hip Pocket #302 - C. Robert Cargill

  C. ROBERT CARGILL was, of course, Massawyrm in his Ain’t It Cool days. He was also Carlyle over at Spill. Those are ancient credits, though. These days, he’s hard at work with his new film The Black Phone 2, and he’s got a story featured in the new anthology It’s The End of the World As We Know It, a collection of stories set in the world of Stephen King’s The Stand. He’s maybe best known for Sinister or the first Doctor Strange, and for doling out tons of sunshiney advice for screenwriters on social media. He picked three movies that approach nostalgia in different ways, and it’s quite a line-up. First, there’s Masters of Time (or Time Masters, depending on how you see it listed), a French animated film from the director of Fantastic Planet. It’s a brain-bending science-fiction picture that you truly have to see for yourself. His second film is the blisteringly funny (and wildly influential) Hellzapoppin’, a massive success in its time that is now largely forgotten. We get into the reasons behind that before we move on to his final film, the uber-charming Roll Bounce. Our reaction film to him was Drunken Master II, a film I picked because all three of Cargill’s films were just overflowing with joy, and that’s the way Drunken Master II makes me feel as well. Finally, our addition to the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame this week is the strange, hard-to-categorize but easy-to-adore The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Like I said, we cover a lot of ground in this one, and I hope you guys enjoy it. Support The Hip Pocket over at Patreon, where we’re gearing up for a full season of bonus episodes! Support The Hip Pocket on BlueSky! The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker. Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer. It is a Formerly Dangerous Production. You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

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• The Hip Pocket #301 - Nick Wiger

  NICK “TIGER” WIGER is celebrating the tenth year of co-hosting Doughboys, where he and Mike review chain restaurants. He also co-hosts Get Played, a video-game podcast that has special bonus episodes that focus on anime, one of Wiger’s passions. He showed up ready to share that passion with us, and I thought it was a great trio of titles, representing three very different type of storytelling. First up, there’s The Castle of Cagliostro, the first feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It’s a unique title in his filmography because of the origins of the film, but you can feel his voice loud and clear in the film’s energy. His second film is one of the foundational classics of the genre, the great Ghost in the Shell. And to wrap it up, he chose Look Back, a film that came out last year and that should have gotten way more attention than it did. Our response film is a movie I once discussed onstage with Roger Ebert at his film festival in Champaign-Urbana, Rin Taro’s Metropolis, and it was definitely interesting to revisit it after almost 20 years. Finally, this week’s selection for the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame is a film that is not anime, but the way it used anime as an inspiration is dazzling, and the result is a film that I rewatch often and love more every time. Let’s talk about Speed Racer, because it is always a good time to talk about Speed Racer. Always. Support The Hip Pocket over at Patreon, where we’re gearing up for a full season of bonus episodes! Support The Hip Pocket on BlueSky! The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker. Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer. It is a Formerly Dangerous Production. You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

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