Transformative technology. Fips. The Marvel Model disrupting superhero movies (and how it can survive alongside perpetual reboots). The literal death of film. Megan Ellison saving movies. The sleeper hits of 2012 and a great movie year for every kind of fan. Emerging independent funding. Fans saving shows with their own money. The digital horizon.

Here at the end of the year (and the end of this podcast) I’ve asked FSR associate editor Rob Hunter, Cinema Blend editor-in-chief Katey Rich, Movies.com managing editor Erik Davis and screenwriter Geoff Latulippe (Going the Distance) to talk about the things that will never be the same again in the movie world after 2012. They’ve come through with some incredibly interesting answers.

Plus, your view on what’s changing and a look ahead to the future.

Download Episode #156

On This Week’s Show:

The End [Beginning - 13:25]: From higher frame rates to digital supremacy, Rob Hunter talks about technology changing the movie landscape.

Superheroes United [13:25 - 26:30]: With The Avengers dominating, studios are keen to follow in their footsteps, but could it mean an end to visionary directors taking Nolan-style advantage of creative freedom? Katey Rich speaks on the end of big superhero movies as stand-alone projects.

Make It Yourself [26:30 - 38:00]: Erik Davis on how crowdfunding has altered indie projects (and work from big names) and explains why 2012 was such a strong year for movies.

The Beginning [38:00 - The End]: Geoff LaTulippe and I discuss the year’s surprises and your views on the end of film. Plus, we announce our new podcast project and where you can find us starting in January.

Adele “Skyfall” a cappella from RamirezAguilar on SoundCloud

Check Out the Reject Radio Archives For More Movie Conversations

Or listen on iTunes.

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From placing Citizen Kane in a modern, Murdoch-filled context to getting really close up with Joan of Arc, Landon Palmer and I have been re-examining the Sight & Sound Top Ten, and we’re hoping we learned something.

Today, we’ll compare notes and see how the list has rewritten history for silent films, elevated “serious” work and acted as a queue-filling reminder that there are always more amazing movies to discover.

Download Episode #155

On This Week’s Show:

Catching Vertigo: [Beginning - 19:30]: What watching the top ten movies of the Sight & Sound 2012 list taught us.

Please go rate us on iTunes.

Next Time on the Show:

The End.

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Although different in style and tone, celebrating Halloween and Suspiria together is an obviously great idea after speaking with Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, two horror writers who have created wicked traps for the Saw franchise, played lifeguard for Piranha 3DD and continue the terror of their own masked killer with the forthcoming The Collection.

From grisly realism to stylized violence, we discuss how they both prove horror films can be beautiful and revel in Melton’s still-fierce fear of the plants outside his window.

Plus, we check in with Bloody Good Horror co-host Casey Criswell to get his take on the new Evil Dead (2013) trailer.

Download Episode #154

On This Week’s Show:

Ashless [The Beginning - 6:00]: Horror expert Casey Criswell and I briefly break down our hopes for the remade Evil Dead.

The Night He Came Home to the Ballet Academy [6:00 - The End]: Screenwriter Patrick Melton and writer/director Marcus Dunstan talk about their favorite scary movies.

Please go rate us on iTunes.

The Entire Filmmaker’s Fear Series:

Radio Silence defends Joy Ride

C. Robert Cargill praises In the Mouth of Madness

Joe Dante celebrates The Exorcist

Next Time on the Show:

Vacation time. See you all in two weeks.

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As it says on its website, The Black List — the annual guide to the most well-liked unproduced screenplays floating around Hollywood — is responsible for over 200 scripts getting made into films. The unique project was created by Franklin Leonard, a production executive working up until recently for Overbrook Entertainment, who drops the listing every year on the second Friday in December. In the past, it’s been a useful tool for both writers who want to get their work noticed and executives who want to find something worth making. If there’s been any true critique of The Black List, it’s that it’s too insular. As Slate’s David Haglund noted in 2011, it’s a project that celebrates work that’s already made its way inside the impossibly closed circle of the Hollywood studio system.

Perhaps in response to that criticism (but probably born more from a broader, higher ideal), Leonard didn’t wait until Christmas to unveil a new mission: to open the Black List to everyone.

If you’re an aspiring screenwriter, The Black List is now a machine for getting your work read by the right people. For $25 a month, per script, they’ll host your work in a database where 1200+ professionals (studio and non) will be able to read it, propelled by an algorithm of ratings. Obviously, nothing like this has been tried before, but because it’s such an exciting initiative, it also demands a high level of scrutiny. To that end, Leonard has penned a lengthy piece explaining his vision and its mechanics, and he spoke with me recently about the potential problems and paradigm shifts that might come with the new Black List.

Check out the interview below:

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In a way, it’s a bit like Kickstarter For Screenwriters; the major differences being that you theoretically have to impress a small pool of powerful people instead of a wide range of potential fan-investors, and that the work has to speak for itself in place of a sales pitch. To that end, Leonard is above board to be so direct regarding the level of quality that each script will have to hit before writers even consider paying The Black List to play match-maker. If you’re still polishing, don’t submit just yet.

And that’s the key difference here between a Get Rich Quick Scheme and what Leonard is doing. In the former, everything sounds too good to be true because it can’t be; in the case of the Black List, everything sounds too good to be true, but you also have to work insanely hard to create a remarkably good product before you can reap the rewards. This isn’t a something-for-nothing situation.

Screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe (who has no affiliation with Leonard or this project (although Going the Distance was on the Black List in 2008)) writes intelligently and cautiously about the new project, and my evaluation echoes his. Ultimately, there should be some tip-toeing around what seems quite revolutionary specifically because it’s new territory. Leonard has planned thoroughly, but latent negative consequences might still come up.

However, it seems clear that it won’t take much time at all (let’s say 3 months…starting after the dormant holiday season) before The Black List announces its first sale from connecting an aspiring, talented screenwriter to a production partner or manager. While it does seem a bit too good to be true, there’s a blunt logic and realism to the method at work here that makes sense. At the very least, the mechanics appear fully functional.

Erasing the Catch-22

Outside the gates.

The modern history of the studio system has been plagued by a brutal Catch-22: in order to get your work into the hands of someone important, someone important has to have already had it in their hands. The new Black List erases that impossible hurdle by acting as a broker between the ambitious and the established. It has the power to become a central hub for directly connecting those populations in the same way that crowdfunding sites introduce creators to consumers.

Could it fail? Sure. It could be flooded by screenwriters who are in no way ready to play at that level, bogging down the time and workload of the readers and polluting the algorithm with a large population of scripts that producers have zero interest in reading. However, there’s reason to believe that it will rise above that because of 1) the prohibitive cost of keeping a script in the system that’s not doing well and 2) the pedigree that the Black List brand brings to the proceedings. I have no doubt that the reason serious studio executives are on board with this project is the history of success that Leonard and his December gift have built.

If hyperbole is allowed to run wild, the new Black List might completely revolutionize the way that screenwriters are discovered, the way producers choose projects and the way that the industry itself embraces a life-saving sense of calculated risk and innovation. Without the grandstanding, Leonard and his crew have given the world an excellent new high tide for writers that has every opportunity to lift all boats.

So what are you waiting for?

Early work from J.J. Abrams! Paul Walker speaking in a high-pitched lady voice! Jaw-ripping pranks gone wrong! After gaining incredible popularity on YouTube and making one of the best sequences in V/H/S, the gang from Radio Silence goes out on a limb to celebrate the underserved horror classic movie, Joy Ride.

Can they convince you to fall in love with it?

Download Episode #153

On This Week’s Show:

A Fast and Furious Joy Ride [The Beginning - The End]: Radio Silence worships at the feet of Steve Zahn.

Please go rate us on iTunes.

Last Time on the Show:

Sinister writer C. Robert Cargill celebrates In the Mouth of Madness

Next Time on the Show:

Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (Saw franchise, The Collection) share their favorite scary movies.

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All throughout October, we’ll be hearing from horror filmmakers about their favorite scary movies. We’ve already heard from Joe Dante on The Exorcist, so we turn now to a newcomer on the horror scene. C. Robert Cargill (who some may know as Massawyrm from years of writing at Aint It Cool) is the co-writer of Sinister, which hits theaters tomorrow (10/12). In his film, Ethan Hawke plays a true crime novelist, so is it any wonder that Cargill has chosen to celebrate a horror flick with a writer at its giant, monstrous heart?

You can go watch it right now online, or you can join us for a discussion of the last great John Carpenter film and best H.P. Lovecraft movie that isn’t based on anything Lovecraft wrote.

Download Episode #152

On This Week’s Show:

Mustache of Horror [The Beginning - 1:00]: A friendly reminder from John Carpenter.

Sutter Cane Rules The World [1:00 - The End]: C. Robert Cargill talks In the Mouth of Madness.

Please go rate us on iTunes.

Last Time on the Show:

Joe Dante’s Favorite Scary Movie

Next Time on the Show:

V/H/S filmmakers Radio Silence share their favorite scary movie.

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Matthew Lillard was one of the iconic faces of high school life in the 1990s. His roles in Scream, SLC Punk, Hackers and She’s All That cemented that image throughout a broad base of genres. Now, he’s returned to high school for his first stint as a director. In Fat Kid Rules the World, an obese kid is brought back from the suicidal brink by punk rock music and a new friend.

Lillard took the time to speak with me about the annoying passivity of film acting, what he has in common with Tyler Perry and the ten-year journey of bringing this adaptation to an audience.

Check out the interview below:

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All throughout October, we’ll be hearing from horror filmmakers about their favorite scary movies. First up is the legendary Joe Dante, whose new movie The Hole is available on DVD/Blu-ray and VOD. He’ll spread a little love to Val Lewton, talk about a movie with a very specific meaning to Catholics and explain how he makes horror work for ages 6 through 96.

Download Episode #151

On This Week’s Show:

What Stares Back [The Beginning - The End]: Joe Dante talks about The Hole and The Exorcist.

Please go rate us on iTunes.

Last Time on the Show:

Our 150th Episode Celebration-aganza-palooza

Next Time on the Show:

Sinister writer C. Robert Cargill tells us about his favorite scary movie.

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For our 150th episode, we decided to go back to the first show’s conversations, and we discovered something mildly depressing: that the discussions are pretty much the same. In 2012, we’re still talking about the topics of 2009; Transformers (a fourth is on the way), G.I. Joe (a delayed sequel is coming), Avatar (a dozen follow-ups will keep James Cameron busy until he retires), Marvel flicks (which have dominated) and remakes (which have not).

Good thing we changed the format of the show a while back.

Beyond the great repetition, reviewing the news from 3 years ago reveals a lot about the state of modern filmmaking through the lens of hindsight. Werner Herzog is a highlight, and revisiting the releases (Drag Me To Hell and Up) gives us an idea of what might actually endure.

On this week’s show, we re-form the team from that pilot episode – site publisher Neil Miller and associate editor Rob Hunter – to dip ourselves in the cool waters of nostalgia and try to figure out what, if anything, is different about the movie-making landscape after 150 shows.

Download Episode #150

On This Week’s Show:

Segment 1: The Week of June 1, 2009 [0:00 - 27:30]

• First: A Little History
• Then: Iron Man might be an alcoholic Now: Marvel rules the world
• Then: The first images of The Fallen Now: Michael Bay returning for a fourth Transformers
• Then: The first Bad Lieutenant trailer is awesome Now: Werner Herzog continues to be awesome
• Then: The first Avatar concept art Now: The threat of many more Avatars to come
• Then: G.I. Joe gets a boring poster Now: G.I. Joe can barely get a release date

Segment 2: Movies Re-visited [27:30 - 47:30]

• Drag Me to Hell (Cole’s Review)
• Up (Neil’s Review)

Segment 3: The World Famous Third Segment [47:30 - 60:00]

• Then: Too many remakes! Now: Too many remakes!

Please go rate us on iTunes.

Last Time on the Show:

Movies Are the Quickest Way to the Human Heart: Wayne White and Neil Berkeley on Beauty is Embarrassing

Next Time on the Show:

All throughout October, horror filmmakers will discuss their favorite scary movies. First up, Joe Dante. Tune in next Thursday.

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In 2010, Jon Vickers was named the first director of the Indiana University Cinema, a bold initiative to build a world-class film screening program at the university. The hiring, much like the renovation of their 1930s theater into a THX-certified modern venue, was a noted combination of reverence for cinematic history and foresight into its future.

In this interview, we sit down with Vickers to take a verbal tour of the new theater, to discuss the challenges of programming in an age between film and digital, to figure out how to entice Werner Herzog to your cinema, and to share a personal love of movies.

Of course, there’s also the big question: how can an art house scene thrive in a city of only 80,000?

Check out the interview below:

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Neil Berkeley‘s new documentary, Beauty is Embarrassing, invites us into the blissful insanity of Wayne White – the artist behind Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, several iconic music videos and a ton of incredible prints.

Both men join me to discuss the nature of art, why it could possibly be embarrassing, and then I try to get them to say the word of the day.

Download Episode #149

On This Week’s Anthology Show:

Handsomeness [The Beginning - The End]: Wayne White and Neil Berkeley on Beauty is Embarrassing.

Please go rate us on iTunes.

Last Time on the Show:

4 Things Movies Can Learn From the Video Game Industry

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Is the chasm between active participation in video games and passive observation in movies too wide to cross? It’s undeniable that the major studios have stumbled a bit when it comes to adapting video games into movies, but are there lessons from the video game industry itself that producers can learn?

To answer this question, we turn to movie reviewer, Wizard World managing editor, and producer of Planet of the Apps over at Machinima, Kevin Kelly.

Download Episode #148

On This Week’s Anthology Show:

Error 37 [The Beginning - 2:30]: One video game lands like a big budget movie complete with anticipation and disappointment.

One Up [2:30 - The End]: Kevin Kelly offers 4 lessons movies can learn from video games.

Please go rate us on iTunes.

Last Time on the Show:

The V/H/S Filmmakers on Making Found Footage Fun Again

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“Fangoria” as a gateway drug, YouTube fame leading to feature work, a magical 1998 Camry, the way porn plays with our minds, filming “Safety Second” style, and most of all trying to make found footage horror not feel like boring home movies.

The filmmakers behind V/H/S (which is available on iTunes and VOD today) wanted to increase the ratio of scares per minute by combining the new popular subgenre with a throwback anthology style. On this week’s podcast, we mirror that anthology style in order to talk with many of the minds behind the punk horror explosion.

Download Episode #147

On This Week’s Anthology Show:

The Wrap Around Segment [The Beginning - 6:10]: With violence in the news, do we really need horror as an escape? Producers Brad Miska and Roxanne Benjamin as well as director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett explore disbelief suspension and a genuine outlet for real-world tension.

You Are Not the Only Predator [6:10 - 23:30]: David Bruckner on the sexual politics and pack mentality of his V/H/S installment.

The Slasher Silhouette  [23:30 - 37:00]: Glenn McQuaid discusses tackling a subgenre and a filming style he’s never done before and invites us to go camping.

Crowded Haunted House [37:00 - 60:00]: Radio Silence explains the freedom to be stupid on Halloween.

Podcast #56 [60:00 - The End]: Here’s hoping you haven’t thrown up yet.

Rating us on iTunes is good for your heart.

Go check out Radio Silence’s work and explore David Bruckner’s excellent video projects at his site.

Plus, Netflix members can watch Bruckner’s The Signal, Glenn McQuaid’s I Sell The Dead, and Adam Wingard’s and Simon Barrett’s A Horrible Way to Die instantly.

Last Time on the Show:

The One Thing Every Director Needs

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In The Words, Bradley Cooper stars as a writer who builds a bit of success off of another man’s work and sees that decision spiral outward (and downward). With Jonah Lehrer and Fareed Zakaria making headlines for not being completely honest with readers, plagiarism is a hot topic in our information-fueled culture, so writer/directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal join me to discuss their new movie where theft becomes a metaphor for ambition in a society short on patience.

They also pass down the lessons they learned making their first feature and reveal the one item every director should own.

Download Episode #146

On This Week’s Show:

True Romance [The Beginning - 1:00]: A brief remembrance of Tony Scott.

Good Running Shoes [1:00 - The End]: Klugman and Sternthal talk The Words.

Rating us on iTunes is good for your heart.

Last Time on the Show:

What the Movie World of 2017 Will Look Like

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Movie theaters downloading their films from a secure studio-run cloud; inexpensive high-quality cameras at the fingertips of creators; fans as front-end financiers. It may represent 5 short years, but technology and culture are shifting so quickly that the movie world of 2017 has the potential to look radically different than our own. How will studios respond to an influx of independent films? Will a rejection of owning physical discs lead to a ballooning rental business? Will actors and creator be able to earn millions without stepping foot on a studio lot?

We’ve asked Tugg CEO and Terrance Malick production partner Nicolas Gonda as well as savvy, forward thinking indie producer Keith Calder (The Wackness, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Thunder Soul) to mentally step into a time machine and report back on what that world might look like. From production to exhibition and everything in between.

The only sure thing is that cars will be driving us to the theater themselves. And that Men in Black V is probably going to kick ass.

Download Episode #145

On This Week’s Show:

Tugg CEO Nicolas Gonda Envisions The Future [The Beginning - 18:30] 

Producer Keith Calder Envisions The Future [18:30 - The End]

Rating us on iTunes is good for your heart.

Last Time on the Show:

How One Website Plans to Digitally Connect Fans to Filmmakers

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If you only had a minute to tell a story, what would you say? Would it be enough time to express great human sorrow? A gut-punch of a laugh? As it turns out, filmmakers from all over the world achieve this feat every year at the Filminute International One-Minute Film Festival. Currently in its 7th year, executive director John Ketchum is once again issuing the challenge to everyone to deliver a strong movie in only a minute.

It seemed only fair to give him a single minute to pitch his film festival. We go slightly over, but maybe that’s just more proof of tough the challenge is. The online festival will run during the month of September, and you can check out the entire proceedings at Filminute’s website, but for now, here’s Ketchum with a bit about their philosophy and what you can expect.

Check out the incredibly brief interview below:

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MoPix CEO Ryan Stoner wants your movie to find an audience. He also wants fans to find new filmmakers. His company is a turnkey digital distribution model that seeks to give up to 100% of profit made through online “ticket” sales back to the production. It’s a bold new business, and he joins us to discuss their goals, what drives them, and his vision for the future.

Plus, Cinema Blend Editor-in-Chief and Operation Kino host Katey Rich joins the show to play Good News Bad News with this week’s top stories.

Download Episode #144

On This Week’s Show:

Good News Bad News [The Beginning - 12:45] Katey Rich and I share our favorite and least favorite news of the week.

Brave New World [12:45 - The End]: MoPix’s Ryan Stoner explains how his company can help filmmakers and fans.

Rating us on iTunes is good for your heart.

Last Time on the Show:

Paco Plaza’s Big Bloody Romantic Gamble with ‘REC 3: Genesis’

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Not content to deliver the same kind of movie as REC and REC 2, Paco Plaza has crawled way out onto a blood-covered limb to turn the third installment, REC 3: Genesis, into a romantic horror comedy set at a wedding. There are still some jaw-ripping practical effects and zombie scares aplenty, but the tone is purposefully meant to deny audience’s their expectations.The gamble is one that might alienate fans.

This week on Reject Radio Horror Chit Chat, we speak with the director about the risk in making something beyond expectations (and how he plans on getting killed quickly when the zombie apocalypse goes down). Plus, we get into a thorough discussion about remakes with our old friend Scott Weinberg.

Download Episode #143

On This Week’s Show:

Learning Not To Automatically Hate Remakes [The Beginning - 32:15] Scott Weinberg and I try to be nicer to the concept of remakes on the eve of Total Remake‘s release.

Chainsaws and Wedding Dresses [32:15 - The End]: Horror director Paco Plaza suits up in a SpongeJohn costume to deliver romance, laughs and scares at the risk of turning off some of REC‘s fans.

Rating us on iTunes is good for your heart.

Last Time on the Show:

The Passion of the Pissed Off Fans

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What would Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan‘s baby look like? Thanks to science (i.e. This Website), we now know. Pretty damned handsome, actually.

In their latest movie, The Babymakers, a loving husband (Paul Schneider) finds out his swimmers are sad, so he’s forced to rob a sperm bank to get his last viable donation back and impregnate his wife (Olivia Munn) with it.

Directed by Chandrasekhar and co-starring Heffernan, the pair joined us to discuss the finer points of semen heists, to talk about the time they turned down the chance to remake a comedy classic and how studios are now pushing comedy filmmakers to get extreme.

And, yes, of course, they’re both champing at the bit to make Super Troopers 2.

Check out the entire 15-minute interview below:

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The Writers Guild of America‘s latest survey of screenwriters [PDF] shows that the world of storytelling isn’t that sunny. From the bother of late payments to the difficulty of sweepstakes pitching, the overall number of screenwriters is down along with the overall money their industry is able to make.

So what happened?

For former WGA board member Craig Mazin, it seems like the movie industry is less and less interested in making movies. He joins us to explain a key business shift that created a huge work gap between screenwriters, to dissect the results of the survey, and to define some of the technical jargon.

Oh, and if you’re looking for a happy ending, this particular Hollywood story might not have one. Fair warning.

Check out the entire 24-minute interview below:

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We’ve been waiting on Sight & Sound‘s Top Ten List for the past ten years, and it comes out in a few weeks. To get prepped for it, and to explore the strange work of choosing the ten best movies of all time, In Contention critic and first time voter Guy Lodge explains the thought process that went into creating his list.

It’s a seemingly impossible task. After all, do you place Vertigo about North By Northwest? Do you go purely personal or for “important” works? Do you brazenly include an embarrassing favorite or stick with a list that will be respectable? And why does Citizen Kane always win?

Download Episode #141

On This Week’s Show:

Random Top Ten Lists [The Beginning - 4:25] A bunch of the best ten movies of all time – just not exactly the same ten.

Rosebud [4:25 - The End]:  Guy Lodge and I discuss the finer points of picking the best of all time.

Check out:

The Sight & Sound 2002 List

The FSR Internet Critic 2012 List

Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise.

Last Time on the Show:

How Will We Remember Yorgos Lanthimos When He Dies?

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Yorgos Lanthimos confounded and excited fans with Dogtooth and he returns to theaters this summer with Alps – the story of a group that begins a business where they impersonate the recently deceased in order to help the mourning cope. In this interview with Landon Palmer, Lanthimos discusses toying with identity and death while giving an eye into his filmmaking process (and describing the difficulty in marketing a movie while trying to maintain its mysteriousness).

Download Episode #140

On This Week’s Show:

Movie News Roulette [The Beginning - 20:15] Landon Palmer joins me to test his luck against 6 random words and 1 piece of bad movie news before getting down to some analysis.

Gymnastics and Verbal Abuse [20:15 - The End]:  Palmer returns with an interview of Yorgos Lanthimos (Alps, Dogtooth).

Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise.

Last Time on the Show:

How One Fan Proved There’s Too Much Movie Marketing

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How much movie advertising is too much? What’s the number? When 25% of the movie is online in ads before it comes out? 10%? 2%? Are you ready to go back to a world where the magic and mystery happens when you’re in the theater instead of at your laptop?

Louis Plamondon’s (aka Sleepy Skunk) “Amazing Spider-Man in 25 Minutes” is an awesome look at the movie, but it’s also a critical middle finger to movie marketers for stealing that magic. We spoke with the mash-up editor about finding 20% of a blockbuster online before it hit theaters, what that means for piracy and how that’s deeply unfair to the people who worked on the movie.

Download Episode #139

On This Week’s Show:

We Don’t Drink Cocoa Anymore [The Beginning - The End]:  The terrible feeling that we’re drowning in movie marketing has been proven. The joke is no longer funny. Sleepy Skunk talks about the viral video that hit big.

That Variety article Sleepy Skunk mentions

Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise.

Last Time on the Show:

How to Film Someone Killing Himself

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The Duplass Brothers got into making movies by making movies. Some called it Mumblecore, but it should really be called The Nike Method. Their latest, The Do-Deca-Pentathalon features two brothers locked in an epic (yet secretive) sporting event that they take exactly as seriously as it needs to be taken.

But as Mark and Jay Duplass explain in this interview, no matter the type of movie they make, they’ll always focus on the small moments and emotions that arise from them. One example? Battleship. If given the blockbuster, here’s how the pair would have delivered the littoral explosion-fest

Mark Duplass: I think inherently, Jay and I are interested in feelings. We’re obsessed with feelings, so even if we made…Battleship…and that was the script we were heading into, we would start gravitating toward how the men on that battleship felt towards each other, and we’d probably have a whole scene about someone angry with someone else because they keep leaving hair on the soap. It’s just what we like. So, we’re almost helplessly and hopelessly ourselves. It’s not an attempt. It just comes out.

Right. So specifically, how would you change Battleship? You’d add more hair on the soap, and what else would make it a Duplass Battleship movie?

Jay Duplass: I think that it would be, more specifically, as opposed to events that are happening outside, missiles being launched in the air, missiles being launched in the water…

MD: We’d hear those in the background.

JD: …but we’d be focused on the hallway between two specific rooms where somebody was just walking too loudly one night, and then another guy has to come out and figure out how he’s gonna confront this person that – every time he goes to the latrine – he’s hocking a loogie a little bit too loud.

MD: And the reason why he’s doing this is because he’s secretly very upset that the other guy has been hogging the blender for his kale smoothies.

JD: Absolutely.

MD: And he has not been cleaning it sufficiently.

JD: No, he hasn’t. It’s a little bit stinky every time he turns on that blender. It would be about the cabin fever of a group of men living together. They love each other, but they’re about to destroy each other. So, I think the deaths that happen on the battleship in our movie would eventually come from someone strangling someone else because of domestic problems.

I feel like there’s a really profound sentiment there – that aliens are attacking but we’re the ones that will destroy ourselves internally.

MD: Plus, you can make that movie for about $500,000 because all you have to do is steal one wide establishing shot of a battleship that you use every 20 minutes to remind everybody where you are, and then you shoot the other things in a really dirty porn stage in downtown Los Angeles for $500 a day.

Check out the entire 12-minute interview below:

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Daniel Stamm‘s A Necessary Death is like a shot of whiskey that’s easy to pour but not easy to drink. His directorial debut (which won him the job for The Last Exorcism) follows a film student making a documentary about a man preparing for, and going through with, his suicide.

It’s difficult territory to be certain, but it’s handled with grace, humor, and more than a few touching moments which make the horror of the inevitable and the twisting emotions growing in the film crew that much harder to handle. It’s an excellent movie, and Stamm joins us to delve deeper into its creation (and audience’s reactions).

Download Episode #138

On This Week’s Show:

The News in Brief [The Beginning - 1:30]: A quick overview of what went down this week.

Suicide Is Painless [1:30 - The End]: Daniel Stamm discusses A Necessary Death – now available on DVD and VOD.

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Last Time on the Show:

To Sell His Novel, Author Nick Santora Became a Director

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