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.

KEVIN BIEGEL is one of the eight hundred writers who worked on A Minecraft Movie, and that’s just the latest highlight in a career that has been dedicated to making people laugh. He broke into the industry working for the Farrelly Brothers on Me, Myself & Irene, and he has moved from one great situation to the next. He worked on South Park before landing on Scrubs, where he worked for a number of seasons before he went on to create Cougar Town with Bill Lawrence, his boss at Scrubs. He also created Enlisted, a passion project that was as much about his own brothers as it was the US military. More recently, he was the screenwriter of The Machine, a film that brought the stand-up of Bert Kreischer to life.

Kevin was also the host of a long-running Movie Night here in Los Angeles where he was eventually hosting about 50 people every event, showing triple-features of carefully curated lunacy, and this week, he drew from some of the highlights of his time attending festivals and hosting his own events to pick a list of three films that were all part of unforgettable screenings. First up is Neil Breen’s Fateful Findings, a bit of outsider art that you have to see to believe. Then we’ve got Action USA, a long-lost local Florida film that Kevin literally rescued from obscurity. Finally, it’s the fantastic Daryl Duke film Payday, starring Rip Torn, a must-see for anyone obsessed with the work of Danny McBride and Jody Hill.

Our response film is an example of what happens when you don’t program a film festival the right way, the harrowing Dowdle Bros. movie The Poughkeepsie Tapes.

And finally, after the conversation we had, I felt like there was only one possible addition to the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame this week, the underseen but outstanding caper film Gambit, starring Michael Caine and Shirley McClaine.

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.

MIKE MITCHELL is best known these days as one of the hosts of the wildly-popular Doughboys podcast, where he reviews fast-food chain restaurants with his co-host, Nick “Tiger” Wiger. He is a prominent figure in the LA comedy scene, having trained at the UCB Theater, and he only seems to be picking up steam as an actor. This summer, you’ll see him in the second season of Peacock’s hit adaptation of the Twisted Metal videogame series, reprising his role of Stu, and he’s got a number of movies waiting to be released as well. You may have seen him in The Tomorrow War or on Netflix’s Love, or maybe you know him from his time with The Birthday Boys, a comedy troupe that had a two-season show on IFC, produced by Bob Odenkirk.

His picks today speak to who he is as a performer. There’s Tommy Boy, the movie that made a case for Chris Farley as a movie star. He also picked South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which he saw at the perfect impressionable age. And finally, he picked The Muppet Movie, which feels like the most Mike Mitchell film of all time.

Our response film was brand-new to Mike, which is always fun, especially when it’s something as silly as Amazon Women on the Moon.

Finally, this week’s selection for the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame was chosen because this episode was recorded the week that David Lynch passed away. I had no choice, so buckle up as we dig deep into Eraserhead.

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.

ERIC VESPE cut his teeth as Quint at Ain’t It Cool, starting with the site when he was still in high school, and he grew up embedded on film sets all over the world. He has written hundreds if not thousands of interviews and set visits, and along with his creative parter Aaron Morgan, he’s also made several short horror films while developing various feature projects.

He was one of the first people I invited to be on the show, in large part because he’s become a podcasting superstar with The Kingcast and The Spiel, focused on two of pop culture’s most totemic artists. I was not surprised when he came back with two films right away, because I think if you turn my friend into a math equation, his first film plus his second film is a pretty handy summation of who he is.

I mean, his Hip Pocket choices are Almost Famous, Jaws, and A Matter of Life and Death, the Powell and Pressberger masterpiece. I mean, Eric really is the kid from Almost Famous, but for the movie business in the early 2000s, and of course, he took his online name from Spielberg’s breakthrough blockbuster, something that he found incredibly awkward when he actually met Spielberg, as we’ll discuss. That last film? Well, Eric’s a big ol’ softie, which is one of the reasons I love him, and that movie speaks directly to that gooey romantic heart of his.

I figured if he’s going to give you a core couple of pieces of his identity as his picks, I can do the same, so I’m adding Lawrence of Arabia to the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame this week.

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.

BEAR MCCREARY is our guest today, and he couldn’t have been more of a delight. From the moment I contacted him about being on the show, he was engaged and excited. He sent me a number of possible combinations of films and themes before landing on the one he went with: Movies that combine rock music and symphonic score on their soundtracks.

Makes sense. After all, McCreary is one of the hardest-working film and TV composers today. His mentor was the legendary Elmer Bernstein, so he learned about film composition from one of the all-time greats, but he’s also a working rock musician who frequently collaborates with his brother Brendan. His breakthrough work was the Battlestar Galactica reboot, and his music was a huge part of that show’s identity. He’s done terrific work for Outlander, Foundation, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. His recent album The Singularity features contributions from guests like Rufus Wainwright, Slash, Buck Dharma, Scott Ian, Joe Satriani, and Corey Taylor. In 2019, he wrote the score for Godzilla, King of the Monsters, a score that my son, a lifelong Godzilla fan, refers to as “straight f*****g fire.”

His three Hip Pocket choices were Highlander, Pink Floyd - The Wall, and Heavy Metal, and I felt it was my moral imperative to choose Phantom of the Paradise as our response film.

Finally, I was in a mood after all of that, so I picked Hedwig and the Angry Inch to join the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame.

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.

CLAY KELLER is a writer, actor, and podcaster, and one of the hosts of Screen Drafts, a collaborative competitive movie discussion game where groups of people battle it out to create the definitive lists on topic after topic after movie loving topic. He was one of the hosts of the now-defunct Vidiots podcast, and he’s helped create a sprawling community of movie fans who can endlessly debate the various categories that are introduced each week.

His three Hip Pocket selections were Broadcast News, Malice, and Summer Hours. Craig chose True Stories as our response film.

Finally, Drew inducted Quick Change into the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame.

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.