The Projection Booth26 Nov 2025

Episode 774: Cop (1988)

Noirvember closes with James B. Harris’s Cop (1988)—the first time James Ellroy’s feverish fiction hit the big screen. Mike teams with Andrew Nette and Rod Lott for a deep read of Harris’s adaptation, where James Woods’s unhinged Detective Lloyd Hopkins hunts a killer across eighteen years of buried violence.

The trio digs into Ellroy’s original novel Blood on the Moon and the wilder, abandoned incarnation that came before it—L.A. Death Trip, the unsold, manuscript that first birthed Hopkins. Using material from Ellroy’s own accounts and critical studies (including the brute-force early drafts, the rewrites demanded by Otto Penzler and Nat Sobel, and the shift to publishable structure), the conversation maps how a doomed finale turned into a tight serial-killer pursuit.

The episode also features a new interview with James B. Harris, who breaks down the challenges of translating Ellroy’s structure, keeping Hopkins’s mania intact, and staying faithful to the narrative rhythms of the novel. What emerges is a portrait of a filmmaker wrestling with source material born in chaos—reforged into the dark, abrasive thriller that helped spark decades of Ellroy adaptations.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(1000)

Episode 405: Super Fly (1972)

We wrap up Black History Month 2019 with three white guys talking about one of the pillars of the blaxploitation pantheon, Super Fly (1972). Directed by Gordon Parks Jr., written by Philip Fenty, and ...

27 Feb 20191h 55min

Episode 404: Trouble Man (1972)

Black History Month 2019 continues with a look at the 1972 film directed by Ivan Dixon and written by John D. F. Black, Trouble Man . Robert Hooks stars as cool cat Mr. T. That’s T that rhymes with P ...

21 Feb 20192h 56min

Episode 403: Get Rollin' (1980)

Get Rollin'! (1980) is the story of three very colorful people and their lives in and around a roller rink in Brooklyn; Vinnie Venzerrelli of the "Jigaboo Jammers", Pat The Cat, and Inez Daniels.Learn...

13 Feb 201956min

Episode 402: House Party (1990)

Jay Scott Smith and Patrick Bromley join Mike to discuss the 1990 film from writer director Reginald Hudlin, House Party. Starring Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin, AKA Kid N’ Play, the film is...

5 Feb 20191h 59min

Episode 401: F/X (1986)

Robert Mandel's F/X (1986) -- also sometimes known as FX: Murder by Illusion -- is the story of Rollie Taylor (Bryan Brown), a movie special effects man who is hired by two government agents (Cliff De...

29 Jan 20192h 50min

Episode 400: The Rutles - All You Need is Cash (1978)

For the 400th episode of The Projection Booth, Maurice Bursztynski and Skizz Cyzyk join Mike to discuss the 1978 made-for-TV movie The Rutles: All You Need is Cash. Directed by Gary Weis and Eric Idle...

22 Jan 20192h 45min

Episode 399: To Be or Not To Be (1942)

We conclude our discussion about Ernst Lubitsch with a discussion of his 1942 film To Be or Not To Be, the story of Joseph and Maria Tura (Jack Benny and Carole Lombard), two actors in Poland who are ...

15 Jan 20192h 11min

Episode 398: Trouble in Paradise (1932)

The first of two episodes focusing on Ernst Lubitsch, this week we're discussing Trouble in Paradise (1932). The film stars Herbert Marshall as Gaston, a gentleman thief who initially connects with Li...

11 Jan 20192h 12min