Two reasons this podcast exist: Film Junk and Patrick Ripoll. So I'm always grateful when Patrick returns since he's the OG co-host of this show. He's always doing killer work with Reg on 96 Greers that I highly recommend. But I vividly recall two moments of the past decade: his love of Clouds of Sils Maria and my love for Personal Shopper. Made a mental note to put French filmmaker Olivier Assayas on the list of potential directors and the time has come to cover him.

The epic yearly retrospectives continue as we travel back 30 years to rewatch, reconsider and share favorites along with many memories too! Join me on this 6-hour plus journey alongside Chicago critics Erik Childress and Collin Souter. Many laughs, songs, clips, trailers, excerpts and so much more! Thank you so much for the support and for listening. And of course, thank you so much to Collin & Erik for spending time nerding out about a wide range of titles.

When I first saw Hiroshima Mon Amour, this particular director went on the long list of names I made sure to include. Alain Resnais is an internationally acclaimed film director, associated with both the Left Bank Group and the Nouvelle Vague. His preoccupation with the themes of time, memory and history, and his dazzling exploration of cinematographic technique, made him one of France’s most distinctive and influential filmmakers for over 60 years, inspiring the likes of David Lynch & Michel Gondry. Previous guest and film scholar Kate Blair returns to discuss his work and more!

The title of this episode says it all. Over four hours of nerdy movie conversations and recommendations all about the year 2023. Two Director's Club mainstays return. Bill Ackerman (host of Supporting Characters and guest host of this show) along with Patrick Ripoll (co-host of 96 Greers) join me as well all share their favorite films of 2023.
No categories this year (like Best Actor, etc.) but plenty of reflection, surprising disagreement and even a wild story about what happened when Patrick tried to see one of Jim's favorites. Thank you so much for the support this past year, listeners. And huge thanks to Patrick and Bill for joining me again.

Happy New Year! You’re probably wondering who this podcast episode is all about. I also cheated a little this time because the first three movies, he didn’t even direct! We’re talking about my favorite writer, Charlie Kaufman who is responsible for my 2nd favorite movie Synecdoche New York among many other incredible screenplays most of us know and love.

More importantly, joining me for this lively discussion is the creator of the Mental Filmness Film Festival, Sharon Gissy. She’s also a huge fan of Charlie Kaufman, I knew she would bring a lot of insight, passion and joy to the podcast. If you’re a fan of Synecdoche, hopefully you enjoy the final minute (in other stay til the end). In about a week, the favorite films of 2023 episode will drop featuring Patrick and Bill.

Podcasters Ross Bratin and Tripp Burton join me to talk all about the filmography of Frank Oz, someone each of us love and grew up with - whether as a Muppet or as a director, his achievements and talent are immeasurable. We start with his very first solo gig as a director, The Muppets Take Manhattan and go all the way up to his last narrative feature, Death at a Funeral. We discover some thematic ties and most importantly, we have lots of laughs due to Oz's incredible skills as a comedic filmmaker.

This episode is about the same running time as The Conjuring 2! Why does a horror movie need to be well over two hours? One might inquire to breakthrough horror filmmaker James Wan and that's exactly what I set out to do for this Halloween spooktacular! This is my favorite month of the year for a reason! Joining me is librarian and Instagram sensation Chloe Waryan to talk all about the current state of horror while reviewing the work of James Wan, covering the majority of his filmography, particularly the franchises he helped to create which changed the face of horror forever!

The new episode arrives a few days later than planned (since it was scheduled to be our September episode) but nevertheless, we have a delightfully animated episode on tap here featuring another two of my favorite podcasters. The talented, prolific Billy Ray Brewton (of The Incinerator Podcast & Movie Mixtapes) joins me alongside his good friend and co-host Ryan Verrill, who also has own podcast that I highly recommend called The Disc-Connected.

We learn about their passion projects and their origin stories at the start since this is their first time on! Together we three have delved into the legendary work of one Don Bluth, the man brave enough to depart from Disney at a time when their output wasn’t the strongest. He set out to make his own distinguishable work and was mostly successful particularly at the start of his career as a director.

Wendell B. Harris Jr. is an American independent filmmaker trained in drama at Interlochen and Juilliard. His family founded Prismatic Images, a multi-award-winning film/video/audio production facility in Flint, Michigan, in 1979 and he broke onto the scene by making the breakthrough Sundance smash, Chameleon Street just one year after Steven Soderbergh broke with his debut film. One of my favorite film critics, Robert Daniels joins me to talk about Chameleon Street and the reason why it was Harris' only film to date. (He has tried many times to get projects greenlit but it still hasn't happened as of this recording). Robert and I celebrate the audacity of this remarkable talent both in front of the camera and behind it.

Delightful guests Jack Draper and Clay Williams of a new favorite show of mine, Exiting Through The 2010s, make their debut to talk about a mutual favorite directors of theirs: Mr. Carl Franklin (ONE FALSE MOVE, DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS). We focus on the five films he made all in a row, most of which are highly acclaimed and one of them should be far more acclaimed than it seems to be. Wondering which one that is? You'll have to listen! This was such a blast!

As listeners know, I've been going back 30 years to talk about the year in film with Collin and Erik, so I asked Jason and Dan to do the same from now on with records. 1993 was the year I officially started my own band so it's a special discussion for me, in terms of records that had a bigger impact than most. Hearing my number one choice for favorite record of this year changed my life forever. Hopefully everyone enjoys this discussion about our favorite records from 1993. It was such a blast sharing memories with dear friends from high school as well as getting to hear a lot of incredible music from the early 90s. (Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, The Afghan Whigs, Liz Phair and so much more).

Two years ago, Bill Ackerman and Patrick Ripoll joined forces to do a deep dive into the filmography of Wong Kar-wai, an Asian filmmaker who found great acclaim with his quirky tales of loneliness and longing set among a world of urban alienation in contemporary Hong Kong. Now they return to do a deep dive into the filmography of Tsai Ming-Liang, an Asian filmmaker who found great acclaim with his quirky tales of loneliness and longing set among the world of urban alienation in contemporary Taipei. Time is a wheel we all can't help but ride.

Every year I ask my friend Patrick to provide me with something special in the form of a podcast gift. Not only do we celebrate my 45th birthday (May the 4th be with me) but we also decided to celebrate this here podcast! I asked Patrick this time to revisit the first two films we actively disagreed on going all the way back to Episode 2 in 2011. What happens 12 years later when both him and I decide to re-watch The Devil's Rejects (dir. Rob Zombie) and Somewhere (dir. Sofia Coppola). Do we feel the same now as we did back then?

For this episode I recruited two terrific and talented film writers and commentators especially since two of the movies we talk about happen to be all-time favorites for the both of them. Guest co-host and Supporting Characters host Bill Ackerman returns as well as Chicago film critic Marya Gates for a delightful discussion on the work of Joan Micklin Silver. She's responsible for a number of excellent films including HESTER STREET, CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER, BETWEEN THE LINES, CROSSING DELANCEY and so much more!

Yep, more bonus content to close out the month before Bill comes aboard in April with an epic series on Jean-Luc Godard. For this delicious treat of an episode, up front you get a delightful conversation featuring Matt Strauss from Tao Group Hospitality who oversees a number of New York restaurants and food + beverage venues in and around NYC. He has a lot to say about his exciting feast planned for this week which was inspired by his love of the film Babette's Feast which Bill and I discussed for the Director's Club Patreon at Matt's request! Matt and I also serve up a three course meal of our own discussing favorite food movies that I chose along with some honorable mentions. Following Matt's interview, you get an evening snack in the form of an excerpt of a bonus episode I once did with my friend Marissa all about The Top 25 Snacks In America!

As if 2 hours plus for PTA Part II wasn't enough, you are about to get even more content all about my favorite filmmaker. This time I interview author/writer extraordinaire Ethan Warren about his recently released book, The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha that I highly recommend. We talked for close to 40 minutes about what inspired him to write it, along with his thoughts on PTA in general. Soon after that, you'll get to hear more conversation from my former co-host Patrick Ripoll. About a year ago for Patreon, we reviewed Licorice Pizza which Patrick felt strongly about whereas I thought that it wasn't one of his strongest films for reasons you heard me bring up with Nick & Steve. I decided to conclude this double dose of PTA talk with the original hosts on a film that Patrick did love.

Way back in 2012 before THE MASTER had come out, for Episode 35, my former co-host Patrick and I enlisted Steve Prokopy to talk about my favorite director of all time. Now that PTA has released four fascinating movies since the last time we recorded, it’s about time I recruit one of the people responsible for turning me into a movie freak: Mr. Nick Digilio of The Nick D Podcast. We catch up with Nick, talk very briefly about the Oscars and then we have conversations about THE MASTER, INHERENT VICE, PHANTOM THREAD & LICORICE PIZZA, then we end with listing our top three favorites.

One of my favorite films of the year so far is Alex Heller's THE YEAR BETWEEN, now available on VOD. The reason for that is detailed further in my review during the first ten minutes but after that, stay tuned for guest correspondent (and Mental Filmness film festival founder) Sharon Gissy as she speaks with the writer/director and star of this excellent, insightful look at Bipolar disorder and so much more. It'll be playing on March 30th at the Music Box Theatre so I encourage you to come that night if you live in and around the Chicagoland area!

We found… a way. You may be wondering why there hasn’t been an official new episode for a while? Well, I’ve been spending the past six weeks binging on movies from 1993 for an annual tradition that has taken place for the past 8 years! Yes it’s that time folks. The yearly retrospectives continue as we travel back 30 years to rewatch, reconsider and share favorites along with many memories too! Join me on this 6-hour plus journey alongside Chicago critics Erik Childress and Collin Souter.

Hosts Bill Ackerman and Jim Laczkowski were asked to talk with two filmmakers about their latest work. First, Jim speaks with Lukas Dhont about his coming-of-age tale CLOSE which is opening on February 3rd in Chicago. Then, Bill had the opportunity to interview Mia Hansen-Løve about her latest drama ONE FINE MORNING opening on January 27th in NYC. Grateful to both directors for taking the time to talk with us.