The Projection Booth Podcast

The Projection Booth continues its dive into Australian cinema with Pandemonium, the delirious 1987 feature from writer-director Haydn Keenan. A film that plays like a fever dream filtered through exploitation cinema, absurdist theater, and cultural anxiety, Pandemonium resists easy summary—and happily punishes anyone who tries.

The story unfolds through the fractured testimony of Kales Leadingham, an escapee from an asylum portrayed by David Argue, who recounts his time working as a surveyor at a decaying movie studio run by the grotesque siblings (or spouses?) EB and PB De Wolf. What follows is a barrage of unstable identities, pagan imagery, religious parody, sexual panic, fascist satire, and mythic nonsense, all orbiting the enigmatic “Dingo Girl,” whose presence seems to fracture reality itself.

Mike is joined by Heather Drain and Payton McCarty-Simas to unpack Keenan’s anything-goes approach to narrative, performance, and tone. The discussion wrestles with the film’s wild accents, confrontational humor, taboo imagery, and relentless escalation—from Nazi roleplay and talking mirrors to possessed dolls, zombie parties, musical numbers, and outright apocalyptic imagery.  

The episode also features an interview with Haydn Keenan, who reflects on the film’s creation, its confrontational sensibility, and its afterlife as a cult object.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

The Projection Booth kicks off a month devoted to Australian oddities with Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens, the startling 1972 debut from director Jim Sharman. Long unseen outside of archival corners of the internet, the film sits at the crossroads of experimental theater, pop music, political anxiety, and institutional paranoia. 

Heather Drain and Chris O’Neil join Mike to unpack the film’s radical shifts in tone and form: the oscillation between black-and-white and color, the omnipresent off-screen voices, the rock-and-roll aliens, and the way Sharman folds Cold War fears, ecological warnings, and Australian cultural touchstones into Shirley’s fractured psyche. The discussion also traces how the film anticipates Sharman’s later work, with its collision of spectacle, provocation, and musical disruption.

The episode features an interview with production designer Brian Thomson, who reflects on the film’s theatrical roots, handmade aesthetic, and the creative freedom that allowed such a strange debut to exist. Part asylum drama, part pop-art warning, Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens stands as a message from the margins nobody was prepared to hear.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream drifts between deadpan comedy and waking dream, a film where ambition, escape, and American myth collide at odd angles. Written by David Atkins and directed by Emir Kusturica, the 1993 features Axel (Johnny Depp) stranded between New York routine and Arctic fantasia after his cousin (Vincent Gallo) drags him west to Arizona. There, Axel falls into orbit around his Uncle Leo (Jerry Lewis) and the Stalkers—mother and daughter played by Faye Dunaway and Lili Taylor—each chasing a private version of freedom.

Mike, joined by co-hosts Andras Jones and David Rodgers, unpacks how Arizona Dream bends tone and narrative into something closer to folklore than plot, balancing melancholy against absurdity. The conversation explores Kusturica’s outsider view of America, the film’s uneasy relationship with realism, and the way dreams—Inuit or otherwise—function as both refuge and trap. Mike also talks with screenwriter David Atkins about shaping the script, collaborating with Kusturica, and navigating a studio-era release that never quite knew what to do with a movie this strange.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Mike talks with Michael Premo, director of Homegrown, about embedding himself with right-wing activists in the years leading up to—and following—January 6, 2021. Rather than treating the Capitol attack as an aberration, the film traces how grievance, conspiracy thinking, and political identity seep into everyday life. 

The conversation digs into the ethics of proximity filmmaking, questions of access and responsibility, and what it means to document extremism without caricature or spectacle. Homegrown emerges as a quietly unsettling portrait of radicalization unfolding in plain sight.

Find out more at https://homegrown.film/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

The Projection Booth turns its attention to Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970), the adaptation of Joe Orton’s infamous stage play, directed by Douglas Hickox. Jonathan Owen and Rob St. Mary join Mike to dig into Orton’s razor-sharp wit, corrosive humor, and enduring legacy as one of Britain’s most provocative voices.  The hosts unpack how the film confronts taboo subjects—sexuality, class resentment, violence—without softening Orton’s contempt for social respectability or his glee in watching social structures collapse.

At the center of the film is Mr. Sloane, a charming, amoral drifter and occasional rentboy played with unnerving poise by Peter McEnery. When Sloane encounters the aggressively lonely Kath (Beryl Reid) and her domineering, closeted brother Ed (Harry Andrews), he quickly embeds himself into their lives—sexually, psychologically, and economically.

The group also broadens the discussion to Orton’s screen legacy, touching on the other 1970 adaptation Loot, as well as the biopics Prick Up Your Ears and Joe Orton Laid Bare. Together, they consider how Orton’s work—and his life—continue to challenge audiences, remaining as abrasive, funny, and unsettling now as they were more than half a century ago.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth