The Projection Booth Podcast

• Special Report: 2025 Fantasia Curtain Raiser

  The Fantasia International Film Festival returns for its 29th edition, running from July 17 to August 8, 2025, and promises another electrifying celebration of genre cinema from around the world. With its full slate now unveiled across three waves of programming, Fantasia 2025 continues its tradition of championing daring filmmakers and boundary-pushing storytelling.Among the major highlights this year is Yuji Shimomura’s highly anticipated Crazy Musashi, penned by cult favorite Sion Sono. Also debuting is the world premiere of The Beast Within by genre auteur Gabriel Carrer, while Bertrand Mandico’s surreal She Is Conan the Barbarian will receive its North American premiere following acclaim in Cannes. Other festival standouts include Kiah Roache-Turner’s creature feature Beast of War, and Macoto Tezuka’s live-action adaptation Barbara II, based on the manga by Osamu Tezuka.Fantasia 2025 will also spotlight a robust Quebecois lineup, particularly through the Fantastiques Week-ends du cinéma québécois, which includes 77 short and feature films from emerging and established local talent. This year’s program emphasizes bold, original visions, including the premiere of David B. Ricard’s mockumentary Alien Tribute, and Alexandre Prieur-Grenier’s nightmarish Enfer en eau trouble.The festival continues its legacy of nurturing new voices with its Camera Lucida and Axis sections, while also welcoming back returning favorites such as Larry Fessenden (Blackout), Takashi Shimizu (Immersion), and Calvin Lee Reeder (Yummy Fur).With over 130 feature films, dozens of special events, and a strong presence of Asian, North American, and international genre cinema, Fantasia 2025 affirms itself as one of the world’s premier showcases for fantastical film.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

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• Episode 751: A Man for All Seasons (1966)

  By request from Patreon supporter Peter Rogers, we’re tackling A Man for All Seasons (1966), Fred Zinnemann’s acclaimed adaptation of Robert Bolt’s stage play. Joining Mike are Spencer Parsons and Robert Bellissimo to explore this portrait of Sir Thomas More, played with quiet defiance by Paul Scofield in an Oscar-winning performance. The film follows More’s moral and political stand against King Henry VIII’s divorce and remarriage, a position that would cost him his freedom—and ultimately his life. We unpack the film’s legacy, its courtroom drama structure, and how it reflects shifting power, faith, and integrity during a pivotal moment in English history.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

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• Episode 750: Gloria (1980)

  John Cassavetes may be known for his raw, improvisational indie dramas, but with Gloria (1980), he delivered something entirely different—a gritty urban thriller with a heart, starring the incomparable Gena Rowlands who plays the titular Gloria, a tough, no-nonsense woman with mob ties who suddenly finds herself the reluctant guardian of a young boy targeted by gangsters after his family’s brutal murder. Armed with nothing but attitude and a pistol, Gloria hauls the kid through the hostile streets of New York City, dodging bullets, hitmen, and her own complicated past.Mike is joined by returning guests Judith Mayne and Andrew Rausch to explore the film’s unconventional blend of gangster tropes, maternal instinct, and Cassavetes’s offbeat sensibilities. We dig into Rowlands’s powerhouse performance, the film’s strange place in Cassavetes’s career, and its legacy as a cult favorite that paved the way for countless “reluctant protector” thrillers.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

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• Special Report: So Fades the Light (2025)

  Mike talks with filmmakers Chris Rosik and Rob Cousineau about their 2025 film So Fades the Light, a quiet, unsettling drama about the long shadows of cult trauma. The story follows Sun (Kiley Lotz), once known as the “God Child” of the Iron and Fire Ministry, a violent extremist group shattered by a police raid. Years later, Sun lives in isolation, traveling the country in her van—until the release of the cult’s leader (D. Duke Solomon) draws her back to the ruins of her former life.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

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• Special Report: Strangelove Country

  Author D. Harlan Wilson joins Mike to discuss his latest book, Strangelove Country, a collection of critical fictions examining four of Stanley Kubrick’s most influential science fiction films: Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Blurring the lines between criticism, fiction, and satire, Wilson explores how Kubrick’s work continues to shape cultural narratives about technology, violence, human identity, and control.The conversation covers Wilson’s experimental approach to writing, the enduring legacy of Kubrick’s cinema, and how speculative fiction and critical theory intersect. Together, they examine how Kubrick’s visions of the future—and their contradictions—remain as unsettling and relevant as ever.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

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