The Pink Smoke podcast

We watched Arthur. A New York love story. Pure lightning in a bottle. The little movie that went on to become the #4 biggest hit of 1981. And we watched Arthur 2: On the Rocks. A critical punching bag. An outcast. Something considered a travesty of elegance and taste, when it's considered at all. More to the point, what is Arthur in 2025? It's weird that it was so successful back in the day, and even weirder that we'd still want to discuss it now. We dig into that weirdness, and the double weirdness of its denigrated solo sequel: why it happened, how it happened and how it happens to work for us, just a little. Support our Patreon:www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site:www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter:twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on Twitter:twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter:twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / "Tea for Two" Outro music: Marcus Pinn / "Vegas"

We continue our series on the Parker books by Donald E. Westlake, published under the nom de guerre Richard Stark, which follow the various criminal activities of hard-boiled heister Parker and the shady characters surrounding him looking to screw up the score. Coming after the 'Outfit Trilogy' that kicked off the series, 1964's The Mourner is one of the weirder entries, focusing specifically on the eponymous MacGuffin: a lost historical statue sitting in the art collection of an embezzling expatriate from a small Slavic country who has himself been targeted by a secret policeman whose desire for a new life of luxury in America will mess everything up for Parker and his partner Handy McKay.  The Mourner artwork by Tony Stella. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / "Tea for Two" Outro music: Marcus Pinn / "Vegas"

Ever since Dogfight was released in 1991 to middling reviews and invisible box office, it's slowly developed a following among viewers who appreciate Nancy Savoca's empathetic story of two young people making a meaningful connection at a pivotal point of the early 60's. Two such viewers are host Martin Kessler and his guest, film writer and programmer Vanya Garraway. They explore this very human film and the richness of its lead characters, an aspiring folk singer and a young soldier due to deploy to Vietnam who chooses her as his date for a party where the marine who brings the ugliest girl is rewarded. Over a single night, the couple find themselves challenging rigid gender roles and finding unexpected inner strength, leading to what Garraway refers to as "one of the most romantic scenes you'll ever see in cinema." Support our Patreon:www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site:www.thepinksmoke.com Vanya Garraway on Twitter:@nostalgiaphile@PaidInSweat Paid in Sweatprod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pag…0abda7cb4e9& Movie Kessler on X:twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X:twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two”Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Last year, the Pink Smoke Podcast created a series called 1974: 50 Years Later, each episode featuring a different guest who chose a 1974 movie to talk about, ranging from giant blockbusters to minor cult curios and everything else in between. But since all our guests are cool outsiders with eccentric tastes, most of them stayed away from the most iconic movies of that fabled cinematic year, eschewing The Godfather Part II in favor of forgotten TV movies and experimental horror films. While that was just fine with us, we decided it might be a good idea to back up and cover some of the acknowledged classics of 1974, starting with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. The first of four projects released by the ultra-prolific auteur (two theatrical, two for TV), Ali tells the tale of a 60-year-old window cleaner who falls in love with a Moroccan Gastarbeiter half her age, much to the disapproval of their contemporaries. One of the enfant terrible's more gentle movies, it's still populated by his lovably repellent characters in whom Fassbinder seeks to excavate some humanity in a miserable post-war West German society. We discuss the director's destructive creativity, how his worldview is more complicated than those of directors with whom he's often connected (Douglas Sirk and Ken Loach fans maybe give this one a miss) and how his most endearing and connective theme is loneliness. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on X: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / "Tea for Two" Outro music: Marcus Pinn / "Vegas"

Host Martin Kessler finds himself in the middle of an angelic civil war, complete with soul-sucking seraphims, ritual exorcism, apocalyptic implications and an intervention from Lucifer himself, as he opens the ancient book (or should it be a scroll?) on Gregory Widen's 1995 theological thriller The Prophecy. Luckily, he's able to enlist first-time Pink Smoke guest Matthias van der Roest and fan favorite John Arminio to confront Christopher Walken's celestial terminator Archangel Gabriel before he turns heaven into hell. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler John Arminio on X: twitter.com/QuasarSniffer Popcorn Eschaton! soundcloud.com/zebras-in-america/popcorn-eschaton-60-dead-man Matthias van der Roest on X: twitter.com/MattRSays The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / "Tea for Two" Outro music: Marcus Pinn / "Vegas"

Host John Cribbs is joined on the latest episode of The Pink Smoke podcast by Martin Kessler of Flixwise: Outpost Canada to discuss Mike Leigh's latest film, Peterloo. A historical drama looking at the semi-forgotten massacre at St. Peter's field in 1819, the film sees Manchester-ite Leigh returning to his home turf and somewhat unfamiliar artistic territory. With Vera Drake, Topsy-Turvy and Mr. Turner, historical dramas aren't precisely strange terrain for Leigh, so what makes Peterloo feel like the filmmaker has stepped outside of himself?

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss the legendary documentarian Errol Morris' latest film AMERICAN DHARMA, an extended interview with Steve Bannon (the architect of Donald Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign). It's another typical Morris study of self-deception, specious reasoning & the strange intersections of pop cultural & real life. The podcast discussion also addresses the issues of deplatforming, how the film fits alongside FOG OF WAR & THE UNKNOWN KNOWN and the politics of fear. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

For Clint Eastwood’s 90th birthday, hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs have each selected one of the actor/director’s films to discuss. This Eastwood Double Feature looks at Don Siegel’s The Beguiled and Eastwood’s own Unforgiven, a pair of films that illustrate why the star-auteur achieved his iconic status while remaining hard to pin down as an artist. The intense hothouse sexual politics of The Beguiled and the irony-soaked destruction (and rebuilding) of myths found in Unforgiven serve as a jumping off point to exploring Eastwood’s cinematic legacy, philosophies and elusive politics. It’s an unflinching discussion of one of cinema’s most towering, embattled, and controversial figures. The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: 
www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: 
twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: 
twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: 
twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

The myth of Wyatt Earp ignited at the ascent of cinema, his alleged Old West exploits embellished on celluloid during the Silent Era so that he was a full-fledged American legend come the golden age of Hollywood. Earp westerns were such an established staple that Law and Order, the first movie to star a surrogate Wyatt, was already out in 1932. All the familiar elements were there - Tombstone, Doc Holliday, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral - but the names of the players were different. From fairly straight biographical retellings including The Arizonian and Dodge City to radical revisions like Sam Fuller's Forty Guns and Edward Dmytryk's Warlock, the "Wyatt Earp movie without Wyatt Earp" has developed into an obscure but crowded subgenre. Who could identify such a subgenre but artist/Old West historian David Lambert, returning to The Pink Smoke to share his thoughts on the cinematic legacy of the killin'est peace officer who ever lived. Why so many thinly-veiled adaptations of the gunfighter's printed legend? How do they stack up next to the official versions, like John Ford's My Darling Clementine? Come for a nice long dive into these and other inquiries, stay for Lambert's killer Andy Devine impression. Hey! Look! It's our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: x.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on X: x.com/thelastmachine David Lambert on X: x.com/DavidLambertArt

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, two of the most recognized directors of their day, were each in their mid-30's when they embarked on their third feature film: an epic studio movie to be shot in Mexico (headquartered at Estudio Churubusco). In both cases, the resulting film was a commercial disappointment and a critical disaster. What went wrong? Who's fault was it? Do these maligned movies deserve reappraisal?In tribute to the legendary Sam Peckinpah's 100th birthday and the recent passing of the great David Lynch, the Pink Smoke has recruited artist David Lambert and filmmaker Martin Kessler to revisit these two films. Lambert takes us through the history of Peckinpah's 1965 debacle Major Dundee, including how star Charlton Heston almost murdered his hellfire director, while Kessler walks us through the production of 1984's infamously derided adaptation of Dune.  Exclusive "Major Dune-dee" art by David Lambert. Hey! Look! It's our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com The Pink Smoke on X: x.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on X: x.com/thelastmachine David Lambert on X: x.com/DavidLambertArt Martin Kessler on X: x.com/MovieKessler