Hit Factory
Hit Factory
A podcast about the films of the 1990s, their politics, and how they inform today's film landscape. Exploring the output of a seemingly bottomless decade. America's first and only movie podcast.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 6, 2020 • 54min
You've Got Mail feat. Meagan Day
Meagan Day is a staff writer at Jacobin and the coauthor of 'Bigger than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism'. Meagan joins Aaron & Carlee in the Hit Factory to discuss the anti-politics of Nora Ephron's 1998 romantic-comedy 'You've Got Mail' and recast Clintonite Third Way centrism as political defeatism. Read Meagan's piece, "The Romance of American Clintonism" here: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/youve-got-mail-nineties-films-rom-coms-capitalism. Learn more about Labor Notes at: www.labornotes.org
Oct 31, 2020 • 1h 8min
UNLOCKED: Bulworth
Election Day is nigh. To commiserate, we revisit Warren Beatty's overlooked, all-too-salient political comedy 'Bulworth'. Aaron & Carlee discuss the necrotic 2020 Presidential race, Jay Billington Bulworth's IRL political counterpart, and survey the 90's subsumption into Third Way Clintonian centrism. Warren Beatty's Op-Ed "Why Not Now?": https://archive.commondreams.org/warrenbeatty.htm "Hail to the Chief Remix" by Yoe Mase www.soundcloud.com/yoemase
Oct 24, 2020 • 60min
The Blair Witch Project
We kept all the lights on and watched the scariest film of the 1990's, "The Blair Witch Project". Aaron & Carlee discuss the film's legacy as a vanguard of viral marketing and found-footage cinema, its appeal to a greater sense of pre-millennium malaise, and the role of supernatural evil in the age of misinformation.
Special thanks to the brilliant and hilarious Nick Lutsko for providing this week's outro song. Follow Nick on Twitter @NickLustko https://twitter.com/NickLutsko and check out his latest album 'Swords' on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/album/2oTWDmzqeri1WOvpSH5J4g?si=omPnVDlCTqa2ZDvtrR1OhQ
Oct 16, 2020 • 2min
Sleepy Hollow *TEASER*
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Oct 9, 2020 • 1h 20min
The Craft
It's officially Spooky Season! We kick it off (and go a little long) with the rebellious-older-sister of 90's Witch Cinema™: 'The Craft'. Aaron & Carlee gush over the peerless Fairuza Balk, extol the combination of plaid skirts with chunky boots, and dissect the film's thesis with a hammer and sickle.
Oct 1, 2020 • 3min
The Net *TEASER*
Subscribe today for access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content. www.patreon.com/hitfactorypod
Sep 14, 2020 • 1h 24min
Demolition Man
It's been a while...Sandrapalooza continues into September with Marco Brambilla's dystopian action banger 'Demolition Man'. We talk the film's fetishization of consumption, the liberal tendency towards maintaining hierarchies while sanitizing culture, and speculate on the cleanliness of Sylvester Stallone's nethers. We're still donating all Patreon funds to the The Conscious Kid's COVID Rent Relief Fund through the end of September. Subscribe today at www.patreon.com/hitfactorypod
Aug 16, 2020 • 4min
Speed feat. Taylor Grimes *TEASER*
Subscribe today for access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content. www.patreon.com/hitfactorypod
Aug 6, 2020 • 1h 4min
While You Were Sleeping
Sandrapalooza kicks off with John Turteltaub's 1995 romantic comedy "While You Were Sleeping". We talk the film's underlying classism, Sandra Bullock's indefatigable charm, and the 90's tendency to treat generation-crippling medical debt with a profound nonchalance.
Jul 28, 2020 • 3min
Starship Troopers *TEASER*
Subscribe today for access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content. www.patreon.com/hitfactorypod
