The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood6 Loka 2022

How Cult Classic 'John Dies at the End' Kicked Off a Literary Career

On this week’s episode, Sonny is joined by Jason Pargin for a wide-ranging and freewheeling discussion about, among other things, the propriety of jokes about nuclear war, how a cult classic movie kicked off his literary career, and the ways in which social media algorithms have possibly led you to believe that your favorite writers have disappeared and/or died. (As the former executive editor of Cracked dot com, Jason has some experience with this.) Oh, we also talk about his new novel—If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe, out October 18—and why you don’t need to read the three previous books in the series to enjoy it.

That said: I would recommend reading them! The first, John Dies at the End, is probably the easiest to skip since you can get the basics by watching the movie (streaming now on Hulu) but basics are, well, basic, and you don’t want to be Basic, now do you? (You can buy a new copy here and a used copy here). The second, This Book Is Full of Spiders, is my favorite of them, a deft deconstruction of the late-2000s-to-mid-2010s wave of zombie movies, shows, and video games. (New here, used here.) What the Hell Did I Just Read is perhaps the funniest book about depression I’ve ever read. (New here, used here.)

One of the things we talk about in this episode is Jason’s dislike of live events, meaning readings/signings. Which in turn means that if you want to get a signed copy of the new one, well, you have to preorder it from Parnassus Books in Nashville. And you have to do it by October 17, a scant 11 days from now. So … go get it, I don't know what you’re waiting on.

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Can Subsidies Bring Film Production Back to the USA?

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Chris Fenton to discuss efforts to pass a federal tax credit that would help reshore American film production and his own made-in-America film, Bad Counselors, ...

17 Heinä 59min

How the Screen Has Changed Us

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by renowned critic and film historian David Thomson to discuss his new book, A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies. It’s a bracing tome, given...

10 Heinä 44min

Comcast and NBC Universal Are Breaking Up: What Does That Mean?

This week I’m joined by CNN’s media analyst Brian Stelter to discuss the big news of the week, Comcast’s decision to spin NBC Universal off into a separate company. What will happen to the broadcast n...

3 Heinä 31min

The Increasing Entanglements of Hollywood and AI

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Ben Fritz of the Wall Street Journal to discuss his exclusive on the partnership between Google and A24 and what it portends for the rest of the studios who are e...

26 Kesä 37min

The Mount Rushmore of TV

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by my first guest, the great Richard Rushfield, to talk all things TV. What’s the deal with Fox buying Roku? What does the post-peak-TV era look like? And, perhaps...

19 Kesä 44min

The Wild West of 1980s Movie Financing

I’m joined by Peter M. Hoffman this week to discuss his new memoir, Karmic Winds, about his time in Hollywood as the tax lawyer who could figure out how to get movies financed and get people paid. Fan...

12 Kesä 40min

Bringing 'Day of the Dead' Back to Life

I’m super-excited about this week’s episode, as I’m getting to talk about one of my favorite zombie movies (Day of the Dead) with one of the creators of that film (John Harrison, the first assistant d...

5 Kesä 58min

Three Movies to Prep For Our Viral Apocalypse

Just as a heads up: This episode was posted on the Takes feed over the weekend, but I wanted to make sure and share it with y’all because a.) it was a lot of fun and b.) I did a weirdly large amount o...

29 Touko 47min