Andrew Cook
My recommendation for the week is Talk Film Society, a podcast network devoted to all things cinema, with extensive coverage stretching back years. Talk Film Society is principally managed by Marcelo Pico and Siobhan Irving, able and affable hosts who handle the flagship Talk Film Society podcast. They also host my personal favorite, “Have a Nice Apodcalypse,” a podcast devoted (almost) entirely to Southland Tales, Richard Kelly’s labyrinthine cult classic, and one on which I have appeared as a guest.
They also have several other podcasts with many other hosts. Some look at specific filmmakers, for instance “Oh, Welles,” hosted by Mike Schindler and Max Hegel. Schindler and Hegel examine all 13 of Orson Welles’ directorial efforts from Citizen Kane to The Other Side of the Wind, which Netflix released decades after the legendary auteur’s death. They also dig into Hopper/Welles, the wide-ranging conversation between Welles and actor/director Dennis Hopper filmed in 1970 and released in 2020.
Others tackle broader topics, such as “Queer and Now” hosted by Dave Giannini and Manish Mathur, a podcast devoted to Queer Cinema ranging from James Whale’s campy pre-Code classic The Old, Dark House to modern work like Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
If podcasts aren’t your thing, Talk Film Society features a significant amount of written material as well. Hannah Holway’s eight-part “Beyond the Final Girl” series, which examines the depiction of women in the horror films of the 2010s as well as 2020’s The Invisible Man, is a particular highlight.
Talk Film Society is a great repository for thought and discourse about film, free of the kind of gatekeeping and toxicity which can so alienate people looking for discussion of the things they love, especially in podcast form. If any of the above sounds interesting, I would say definitely check them out!
