Episode 26: Heaven Can(t) Wait Movies, feat. Tyler Foster

We’ll get back to scary things next month, because this month is all about the wholesome possibilities of death stories. Gabe and returning guest Tyler Foster explore a surprisingly prevalent subgenre of romantic comedies concerning the processes of the afterlife. Avoiding movies that focused too much on haunting or possession, we still ended up with a list of seven movies that share a curious number of concepts and tropes in common – Alexander Hall’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Victor Fleming’s A Guy Named Joe (1943), Vincente Minnelli’s Cabin in the Sky (1943), Ernst Lubitsch’s Heaven Can Wait (1943), Powell & Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (aka: Stairway to Heaven, 1946), Warren Beatty & Buck Henry’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan remake, Heaven Can Wait (not otherwise related to the Lubitsch movie, 1978), and Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life (1991).

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James LaczkowskiComment
Episode 25: Year in Horror: 1960 feat. Patrick Ripoll of Tracks of the Damned (part 1 of 2)

Happy Halloween! It’s time to settle some schoolyard arguments and decide once and for all the most incredible year in horror cinema history. Our world’s greatest scientists, historians, and statisticians have compiled all the pertinent data and come to the following conclusion: 1960 was the best year for horror movies. Gabe and returning guest Patrick Ripoll of Tracks of the Damned parsed 32 of the year’s genre releases and chose six to discuss at length – Georges Franju’s Eyes without a Face, Michal Powell’s Peeping Tom, Roger Corman’s (Fall of the) House of Usher, Nobuo Nakagawa’s Jigoku, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, and John Llewellyn Moxey’s City of the Dead. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho also comes up constantly, but not at length, because it’s one of the most popular movies ever made.

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James LaczkowskiComment
BONUS EPISODE: Halloween Music Mix 2021

Time to sit back and vibe with more spooky music and movie clips. I’ve decided to put the Halloween mix onto the main podcast stream this year, instead of SoundCloud. I tried to dig deep into my archives to include songs, themes, and remixes that I’ve never used for another Halloween mix. Please enjoy and have a happy Halloween!

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James LaczkowskiComment
Episode 24: Monster Lovers, feat. Arianny Pilarte of Not All Podcasts Wear Capes

Join Gabe and first-time special guest Arianny Pilarte (@laciguapa) of Not All Podcasts Wear Capes fame as we talk about the long-standing fictional phenomenon of loving, smooching, and screwing movie monsters, from vampires and zombies, to Beasts (of the “Beauty and” variety) and fishmen. This is a broad subject, so, for this podcast, we’ve narrowed it down to four movies: Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark (1987), Tony Ching Siu-Tung’s Chinese Ghost Story (1987), Brian Yuzna’s Return of the Living Dead III (1993), and Joel Schumacher’s Phantom of the Opera (2004). Note that we occasionally had some latency issues, so Gabe talks to himself for a few minutes during the Near Dark discussion. He blames gremlins, specifically that sexy one from Gremlins 2.

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James LaczkowskiComment
Episode 23: Food-Themed Movies, feat. Kristine Fisher

Prepare yourself for the most mouthwatering, scrumptious, toothsome, and downright yummy episode of Genre Grinder yet. Gabe and returning guest/his significant other/food buddy, Kristine Fisher – who knows a thing or two about cooking – chow down on six courses of food-themed movies that mostly fit the concept of magical realism, including Jûzô Itami’s Tampopo (1985), Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast (Danish: Babettes gæstebud, 1987), Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Alfonso Aráu’s Like Water for Chocolate (Spanish: Como agua para chocolate, 1992), Stephen Chow’s The God of Cookery (1996), and Stanley Tucci & Campbell Scott’s Big Night (1996).

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Episode 22: Afrofuturism & Black Sci-fi/Fantasy, feat. Justin Clark

What might the world look like in a universe where Africa hadn’t been colonized? What might the race relations of our world look like to a visitor from outer space? What if Superman was a Black nerd from D.C.? What if malevolent aliens crash landed in the London projects? These questions and more will be answered in Genre Grinder’s look at Afrofuturism and Black sci-fi/fantasy movies. Join Gabe and returning guest host Justin Clark of Slant Magazine & Game Spot as they attempt to parse this wide-ranging, unique, and socially relevant genre by looking at five films – John Coney’s Space is the Place (1974), John Sayles’ The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Robert Townsend’s The Meteor Man (1993), Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block (2011), and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You (2018). They also take time to chat briefly about other relevant films.

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Episode 21: Most Dangerous Game Shows, feat. Luana Saitta of Monster Island Commentaries

Psychotic games and sadistic reality television are on the docket this month. Gabe and returning guest Luana Saitta of Monster Island & Movie Lobby Commentaries check out three politically-charged classics about televised death sport, including Elio Petri’s The 10th Victim (Italian: La decima vittima, 1965), Paul Bartel’s Death Race 2000 (1975), and Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man (1987). Come for the wacky costumes and violence, stay for the endless puns and surprisingly prescient social satire.

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Episode 20: Asylum Horror, feat. Betsy Jorgensen of Your Favorite Monsters

Mental health can be scary, but do you know what’s even scarier? The archaic asylums of the bygone era, where we used to lock up the mentally ill. Gabe and returning guest Betsy Jorgensen of the Your Favorite Monsters podcast take a look at four tales of cursed mental health institutions, including Mark Robson’s Bedlam (1946), Juan López Moctezuma’s The Mansion of Madness (1973), Brad Anderson’s Stonehearst Asylum (2014), and Jung Bum-shik’s Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018).

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James LaczkowskiComment