The Pink Smoke podcast

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers, the most tender and violent of all audiences, one week before their general release. Support our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by filmmaker & pulp paperback aficionado Steven Sheil to discuss semi-legendary, semi-forgotten crime fiction author Charles K. Williams. The group looks at a pair of nautical thrillers, Aground & its sequel Dead Calm (most famously adapted into the Billy Zane/Sam Neil classic (& also unsuccessfully adapted in yet another Orson Welles production debacle.)) Following the story of a no-nonsense charter boat captain & the charming, irrepressible widow he falls for, the aesthetic/philosophical difference between the books represents the shift happening in pulp crime in fiction of the era: the move from classic hardboiled, masculine stories to psychological thrillers concerned with the inner lives of criminals. It's a fantastic conversation about one of the most successful crime writers of his era, an author undeserving of his slow fade into obscurity. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Steven Sheil on X: https://twitter.com/SSheil The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers, the most tender and violent of all audiences, one week before their general release. {www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke} Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven often comes up in conversation about the greatest Westerns ever made, and even ones about the greatest films of the last 30 years. It served not only as a culmination of Clint's fabled career in cowboy movies but as an austere reflection on 100 years worth of Western cinema, and was lauded as the ultimate revisionist response to a genre that never tackled serious themes of violence and morality or presented a realistic portrait of life on the late 19th century American frontier. But was it really? The Pink Smoke welcomes back artist/historian David Lambert to expand upon the thoughts he presented in his epic Twitter thread examining the minutiae of its script, casting, authenticity, costuming, influences and actual place within the overall Western genre. Unforgiven is a great film, but do people even understand what it's trying to say? Lambert makes a strong case for reappraisal with hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs. David Lambert's Twitter/X thread that inspired the episode: https://twitter.com/DavidLambertArt/status/1556511206029946880?t=LgtylPHI5v2XdS5FhtDgeg&s=19 The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com David Lambert on X: twitter.com/DavidLambertArt The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. {www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke} Having outmaneuvered the Outfit, shatterproof heister Parker resurfaces with a new face and a new caper. But there might be too much to watch with this armored car knockover in Jersey: a shaky accomplice, a surly waitress planning a double-cross and an oafish chauffeur looking to avenge his murdered employer. Can our criminal anti-hero juggle all these uncertain angles and still come away with a sweet boodle? Continuing our series of episodes on Richard Stark's 24-book Parker series, we jump into the slick and streamlined second book The Man With the Getaway Face, in which Stark (pen name for the legendary Donald E. Westlake) presents a line-up of memorable characters including reliable sidekick Handy McKay, broken heister Pete Skimm and the tragically obstinate Stubbs. How has the Parker character developed since his first adventure? And has this book been adapted into an obscure Mexican film or not? The Man with the Getaway Face art 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"

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke Hosts Christopher Funderburg, John Cribbs & Martin Kessler are joined by legendary poster artist Tony Stella to discuss Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1981 masterpiece Quest for Fire. A personal favorite of both Kessler and Stella, this is one of the most enthusiastic & passionate conversations ever recorded for the podcast. Set 80,000 in the past, Annaud’s film, despite being positioned as high-class awards bait in Europe, plays like a rollicking and funny adventure film with more in common with The Vikings or a classic Hollywood swashbuckler than a dour and serious look at humanity’s beginning. But while the film is an expression of pure cinematic joy, it’s also a serious and thoughtful look at the origins of civilization in terms of science, language, morality, humor & emotion. An exciting conversation about a knockout film! The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Tony Stella on X: twitter.com/studiotstella Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

In this emergency bonus episode, hosts Martin Kessler and Christopher Funderburg sit down to discuss Marvel’s The Marvels of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With an all-time low box office debut for an MCU film, the hosts use the film’s various artistic, conceptual and financial failures as a jumping off point to discuss the seeming impending end of the superhero era of blockbuster cinema. From the passive performances to shoddy special effects to audience fatigue, the Kessler and Funderburg look at the failures of the film not as a celebratory “ding dong the witch is dead” moment that so many Serious Cinephiles are receiving its flop as representing, but by placing the film in the context of the larger history of popular cinema and what it means when those popular eras come to a close. It's a diagnosis of what went wrong with the film that gives full respect to what has gone right with the superhero genre for the past 20 years. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

This is it. Frank Henenlotter’s perfect six. Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg discuss one of their favorite filmmakers and his half dozen brilliant, unforgettable exploitation (not horror) films: Basket Case and its sequels, Brain Damage, Frankenhooker and Bad Biology. What more needs to be said? Put it in your ear. 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”

Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke "Central County was a big, rangy county with mountains to the north and mountains to the south and a vast loneliness in between. The mountains were filled with trees and creeks. The loneliness was called the Dead Hills. They were thirty miles wide. There were thousands of hills out there: yellow and barren in the summer with lots of juniper brush in the draws and a few pine trees here and there, acting as if they had wandered away like stray sheep from the mountains and out into the Dead Hills and had gotten lost and had never been able to find their way back...poor trees..." The podcast heads west for this October's horror fiction episode, where they find a couple cowboy killers recruited from a brothel to vanquish a mischievous monster in an isolated mansion out in Eastern Oregon. Richard Brautigan's rugged, experimental, very funny The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western begins as a travelogue of turn-of-the-century frontier life and makes a drastic shift to the surreal when the two gunmen (who don't put any lace on their killings) reach their sinister assignment. Artist and American Western history expert David Lambert is on hand to offer his take on whether countercultural cult poet/novelist Brautigan passes muster as a western writer, or if Hawkline Monster is a xerox copy of an audacious literary achievement. Lambert talks with hosts Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs about the unmistakable Brautigan-ness of the novel, how the book fares when it moves into much stranger territory in its second half, and the fascinating decades-spanning background of multiple failed movie adaptations. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com David Lambert on X: twitter.com/DavidLambertArt The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. We’re joined by screenwriter Tom Vaughan to discuss a pair of cult classics by director Gary Sherman. We dig into the small-town murder-conspiracy thriller Dead and Buried as well as the ne plus ultra sleaze-thriller Vice Squad. The strengths and weaknesses of the films make for an interesting contrast that leads into a larger discussion about the practical intersections of screenwriting and on set filmmaking (with some talk about meddling producers thrown in for good measure.) The trio compares Dead and Buried’s wonky & lumpy script (by Alien and Total Recall scribes Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett) to Vice Squad’s drum-tight story to consider how screenwriting plays into (or interferes with) making two such memorable films. It’s the Wings Hauser appreciation hour, folks, come get baptized in the neon slime. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Tom Vaughan on X: https://twitter.com/storyandplot The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

All episodes are made available to Patreon subscribers one week before their general release. www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke dives headfirst into the world of American pulp magazines of the 30's & 40's with two tales of derring-do featuring adventurer/scientist/detective/explorer and superhero prototype Doc Savage. Known as the Bronze Man, Savage trots the globe with his fabulous five-man brain trust facing off against all manner of ostentatious villains and colorful henchmen. Doc was the hero of 213 stories from 1933 to 1949, popularized for a new generation when revived as paperbacks between 1964 and 1990. Hosts Christopher Funderburg, Martin Kessler and John Cribbs chose two of them to read and discuss: The Fortress of Solitude and The Devil Genghis, both written by Lester Dent under the by-line "Kenneth Robeson" and published in 1938. Featuring death rays, giant amazon women and one of the most diabolical supervillains ever created who'll stop at nothing short of total world domination, the stories were so filled with action and intrigue it made each host emit a low, mellow growl subconsciously, something like the trilling of a strange bird from the jungle. Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Movie Kessler on X: twitter.com/MovieKessler The Pink Smoke on X: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on X: twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg are back with their rundown of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival! From the highest highs (The Boy and the Heron) to the lowest lows (Limbo) and the poutine in between, they take a look at the state of cinema as explicated by one of the world’s premiere film festivals. They discuss new films by Wim Wenders, Anna Kendrick, Ethan Hawke, Hayao Miyazaki, Errol Morris, Victor Erice, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, Shinya Tsukamoto and so much more - they discuss not just the highlights, but every single goddamn film they saw while in the Queen City! 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”