BRIAN DUFFIELD is a writer/director who has been one of the most acclaimed (and busiest) screenwriters of the last decade. He has shown up on The Black List, the annual selection of the best-loved unproduced scripts in Hollywood, roughly 50 times in the last ten years, which is mathematically confusing but impressive. We talk about his unusual upbringing in this episode, and we dig into just how wild it is that he grew up denied of mainstream pop culture, only to become the creator of Spontaneous and No One Will Save You. His upcoming adaptation of Daniel Kraus’s wildly popular novel Whalefall is in production now, but he took some time to join us with one of the most personal line-ups of the season.

He chose three films that tell an unusual story about his desire to become a storyteller. First up, there’s the 1973 Christian exploitation film A Thief in the Night, a film that was new to all three of us. Then he chose The Prince of Egypt, the animated musical that kicked off DreamWorks Animation. Finally, he selected the sweaty Southern drama, Black Snake Moan, and he managed to tell us a story that tied all three of these films together in a way I found both surprising and completely logical.

Our reaction film for him is the Lars Von Trier feel-bad epic Breaking the Waves, one of the few films that ever stirred real feelings of faith in me, an avowed atheist.

And finally, for the last Hip Pocket Hall of Fame entry for the season, I chose Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant, beautiful mediation on life, Ikiru.

If you’d like to support The Hip Pocket at Patreon, you can find us at https://www.patreon.com/c/DrewMcWeeny.

If you’d like to find us on BlueSky, you can find us at https://bsky.app/profile/itsthehippocket.bsky.social.

The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker.
Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer. 
It is a Formerly Dangerous Production.

BEN HOSLEY is more than just a podcast producer. He runs his own fashion line, and he produces an annual Christmas album that has become a cult sensation. He met the Blank Check boys at UCB, where they first proposed a podcast that sounded like an extended bit, a show that would talk about only The Phantom Menace, as if there had never been another Star Wars film. Who knew that ten years later, they would have the most acclaimed movie podcast in the world?

One of the most popular recurring bits on the show is when they have Ben choose a movie between their longer miniseries, and over the years, he’s picked titles like Fletch, Under Siege 2, and Clifford, the Martin Short comedy. They’ve come to know those films as “porch movies” because of the way Ben watched them as a kid, and I knew when we invited him on that we’d get some eclectic picks. He did not disappoint, either, bringing us three totally different films to discuss.

First, he picked the 1997 survival thriller The Edge. He also picked Dennis Hopper’s searing 1982 film Out of the Blue. Finally, he wrapped things up in a big warm hug of a movie, the 1989 comedy Uncle Buck.

Our response film to Ben felt like a perfect bookend to Out of the Blue in the form of 1987’s harrowing River’s Edge.

Finally, we decided to add Rock’n’Roll High School to the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame. After all, David Fincher once declared it to be “a perfect movie.” Sounds like a recommendation to me!

If you’d like to support The Hip Pocket at Patreon, you can find us at https://www.patreon.com/c/DrewMcWeeny.

If you’d like to find us on BlueSky, you can find us at https://bsky.app/profile/itsthehippocket.bsky.social.

The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker.Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer. It is a Formerly Dangerous Production.

JOE LYNCH has directed movies, TV, and music videos for almost 20 years now. With his long-time buddy Adam Green, he was the co-creator and co-star of Holliston, a truly bizarre sitcom, and they have a long-running podcast called The Movie Crypt where they’ve talked to basically anyone who has ever made a horror film, and they also host an annual marathon to raise money for a Yorkie charity. You may have seen his movies Everly with Selma Hayek or Mayhem with Steven Yeun or Suitable Flesh with Barbara Crampton and Heather Graham. He is perpetually busy, so we were lucky to find a time for him to pick three movies to discuss.

First up is Short Time, a Dabney Coleman vehicle that doesn’t feel like any other Dabney Coleman movie. Then he picked the beautiful Wayne Wang film Smoke, starring Harvey Keitel. And finally, he takes a wild left turn to choose the disco era ensemble comedy Thank God It’s Friday.

Our response film is a big swing from one of our most flamboyant filmmakers, and I have loved it since the moment it was released, so let’s talk about Tucker: The Man and His Dream.

Finally, I decided to induct into the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame a movie that polarized audiences when it came out, and it still feels completely insane when you see it now. I get it if you don’t love Hudson Hawk, but I do.

If you’d like to support The Hip Pocket at Patreon, you can find us at https://www.patreon.com/c/DrewMcWeeny.

If you’d like to find us on BlueSky, you can find us at https://bsky.app/profile/itsthehippocket.bsky.social.

The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker.Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer. It is a Formerly Dangerous Production.