The Pink Smoke podcast

The immortal Casca, the solider cursed by Jesus to remain as he is until the Second Coming. This month's pulp fiction-oriented episode takes a look at the blood-and-vileness-soaked military fantasy from Barry Sadler, best known as the one-hit wonder behind the 1966 tune The Ballad of the Green Berets. Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by Martin Kessler of Flixwise: Canada to discuss the film's atrocious racial & sexual politics, bizarre sense of history and deep-seated insanity. Flixwise: Canada: http://flixwise.com/category/episodes/flixwise-canada/ The Pink Smoke: http://thepinksmoke.com/ John Cribbs, Martin Kessler & Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelastmachine https://twitter.com/moviekessler https://twitter.com/cfunderburg

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg are joined by (who else?) Wendy Mays of the Pet Cinematary podcast to discuss both Stephen King's novel and the recent adaptation of Pet Sematary! The conversation features a discussion of why filmmakers always attempt to "fix" King's work, the nature of grief in horror cinema and an all-hamster remake of The Virgin Suicides.

On this episode of The Pink Smoke podcast, hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg cover a fictionalized take on the Manson Family, a beautiful actress caught in a web of violence & the seedy side of Hollywood. That’s right: we’re going deep on Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders. This continuation novel from 1994 by author William Harrington surprisingly manages to eschew total tastelessness and even guides the hosts from Columbo novices into budding super-fans. Get reeled in by the illiterate slogans scribbled in blood on the walls of a fabulous mansion, stay for the goofy limericks & descriptions of bowls of chili.

On this Pulp Fictions episode, hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg discuss five short stories from Japanese writer Edogawa Ranpo, the master of "ero guro nansensu" or "erotic, grotesque nonsense." One of the true masters of the murky border where horror fiction bleeds into crime fiction, Ranpo is one of the 20th century's greatest genre fiction writers whose name deserves to be spoken alongside Poe & Lovecraft.

Martin Kessler, who previously brought books about an immortal centurion and an omnipotent alien god to the podcast, returns to discuss The Ninth Configuration by William Peter Blatty. A reworking of the Exorcist author's 1966 novel Twinkle Twinkle Killer Kane! and basis for his 1980 movie, Configuration is set at Center Eighteen, a military sanitarium in an isolated castle deep in the Washington woods. Rehearsal for Shakespeare plays starring dogs and the sledgehammering of uncooperative atoms are only some of the routine events witnessed by the new enigmatic head psychiatrist, a man determined to learn why one of the inmates freaked out during a scheduled space mission and refused to go to the moon. It's a unique and intimate novel full of the kind of theological discourses Blatty explored in all his best-known work. Among other topics, Kessler talks with hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs about how Blatty's comedy background shaped the tone of the book, the existential horror of dying in space and the problem of the world's smartest dog. 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.

"Had she asked him to lie down and die for her then and there, he would have been glad to do it, and glad of her having asked it, as well." Amour fou is the flavor of this episode, in which hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg delve into the longest and most experimental novel written by crime fiction legend Cornell Woolrich. The book, 1947's Waltz Into Darkness, begins as the straight-forward story of a New Orleans lonelyheart targeted by a beautiful, conniving imposter but becomes something else entirely once he meets her again and finds that his obsession outweighs his need for vengeance. For more Woolrich goodness, join our Patreon for access to a feature-length commentary on Tobe Hooper's 1990 TV movie I'm Dangerous Tonight, the greatest cursed Aztec cloak-turned-into-cocktail dress film ever made. Researched and recorded by John Cribbs, the commentary examines everything from the mythology of animism to the interesting connections between the film and the life of Cornell Woolrich, whose novella of the same name inspired the movie. The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Support our 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 music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

On this episode hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg are joined by filmmaker & historian Bill Teck to discuss their shared love of Philip Kaufman’s cult classic The Wanderers - a coming-of-age comedy about teenage gangs in the Bronx in 1963. The conversation explores the film’s singular tone, how Kaufman remained an outsider even among the New Hollywood mavericks of the 70’s, and the ways in which The Wanderers resembles an American Fellini movie. It’s free-flowing conversation about a film that brings the trio joy while provoking them to grapple with issues of consequence - the film itself is a serious goof, a heavy comedy, a brutal lark and a true cult phenomenon in an era when such films are increasingly rare. Get your baseball bat & satin jacket, we’re headed into Ducky Boy country… The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon:
 www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Bill Teck: https://twitter.com/billteck The Pink Smoke on Twitter:
 twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: 
twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: 
twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

With the tedious inevitability of an unloved season, host John Cribbs returns with special guest John Arminio to continue their decades-spanning reappraisal of the James Bond franchise one film at a time. That means moving from the mud clone/gorilla transforming/Sausage King madness of Diamonds Are Forever into the Roger Moore era that took cinema's favorite secret agent from Bond... to beyond. Whether playing hopscotch on the heads of 'gators, corkscrewing a Hornet 'cross a ravine, escaping enemies via free-fall with and without parachute, the extremes of 70's Bond ensured that even as the Cold War got colder, nobody did it better! Cribbs & Arminio examine every eye-popping stunt and shameless one-liner of this remarkable period of the series that sent its hero to an oil rig in Baja, a funhouse in Thailand, deep underwater and into outer space. 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 what would’ve been the filmmaker’s 75th birthday, hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg are joined by editor/producer Eric Pfriender to discuss the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. They’ve each picked a film to discuss from the notoriously volatile director, a Triple Feature of Fassbinder’s work that serves as a jumping off point for exploring the legendarily prolific filmmaker’s philosophies and obsessions. In Love is Colder than Death, The Merchant of Four Seasons, and In a Year of 13 Moons, we can see the themes that would repeat and repeat themselves throughout his career: the disappointments of romantic love, the instability of identity (specifically sexual identity), the stresses and miseries of domestic life, the ironic way in which unhappy people can be both victims of fate and injustice while at the same time being the source of their own problems. 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.

A remembrance of Stuart Gordon, who passed away earlier this week. Gordon is one of the Patron Saints of The Pink Smoke, a fearless, risk-taking artist who refused to be confined to any particular corner of genre filmmaking. This episode covers the essential viewing in Gordon’s filmography, the films that resonated on a personal level with the hosts & the wildcards in an unpredictable career lined under-appreciated detours into weirdness. Gordon will be missed, especially by us. 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.