The Projection Booth Podcast

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.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with Alan Berry and Mark Enochs, the filmmakers behind Dead Man’s Line, 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.Watch the full-length documentary, Dead Man's Line, for free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUcZXVT6888Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike talks with the creative team behind Luger, a provocative Spanish thriller that blurs the line between obsession, power, and violence. Joining the conversation are filmmaker Bruno Martín, director Santiago Taboada, and producer Mario Mayo.Together, they dig into the film’s origins, its unsettling themes, and the choices that shaped its stark tone and moral unease. The discussion explores the challenges of mounting an independent Spanish production, navigating international audiences, and crafting a film that resists easy answers while demanding engagement. From conception to execution, this episode pulls back the curtain on Luger and the collaborative vision that brought it to life.Learn more at https://lugerlapelicula.com/en/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

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.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth 

Mike Thompson and Rob St. Mary join Mike to step into the rubble, rhetoric, and Roman cosplay of Megalopolis, 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 (Adam Driver), 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.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth