Join Alex and Dr. Jeff Punske as they explore the linguistic and cognitive aspects of Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi masterpiece, Arrival (2016). The film stars Amy Adams as Dr. Louise Banks, a renowned linguist, and Jeremy Renner as a renowned theoretical physicist. Together, they must decipher an extremely complex language from newly-arrived extraterrestrials, referred to as the heptapods. But as Louise begins to learn their language, she begins to experience time differently! Alex and Jeff explore the nature of cognition and language and discuss how the film uses the Sapir-Whorf hypotheses to explain how Louise ultimately experiences her life during this time and afterward... or was it beforeward?

Check out Jeff's edited book, Xenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language!

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed.

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex and friend of the show Dr. Ed Hansen as they discuss the delightfully silly and usefully psychological High Anxiety (1977), Mel Brooks' send-up to the master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. The film stars Brooks as Dr. Richard Thorndyke, a world-renowned psychiatrist who begins a new career at the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous. Joining him are his normal contributors, including Cloris Leachman, Harvey Korman, and Madeline Kahn. When Thorndyke is framed for murder, he must use all the Hitchcockian tools at his disposal to clear his name. Of course, no discussion of Hitchcock films can be made without a discussion of Freud, as well as the use of the term "High Anxiety", using humor as a means to cope with anxiety, the role of suspense to build a crescendo of anxiety, and a brief foray into institutionalization and its foibles. After listening to this podcast, you recovery rate might also be "once in a blue moon"!

Follow Ed on BlueSky @EdHansen_PhDAD or Threads EdHansen_PhDAD

If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed.

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex in a solo episode as he has some fun with the day this episode goes out to the public: 4/20! The film explored is the oft-ridiculed Reefer Madness (1938), a propaganda film against the drug marijuana. Originally, it was meant to be an education film for parents so that they may notice the warning signs produced by a church group. The film earned cult status when it was shown in the exploitation film circuit in the '30s & '40s, earning immortality when efforts to preserve its historical status were undertaken in the 1970s. The film exaggerates and completely misidentifies the effects and consequences of marijuana use, using this phony information to invoke fear in ignorant viewers. The episode explores the historical inputs into the film, discusses the way the propaganda may have been effective in the time period, and concludes with a description of where the world currently is with cannabis.

If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed.

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex and Prof. Kayla Sargent as they explore the wild web of secrets and gender psychology in the independent film City Island (2009). The film follows the Bronx*-island-of-the-same-name patriarch Vince, played by Andy Garcia, as he attempts to change his career from prison correctional officer to actor, a secret he keeps hidden from his wife and family. Perhaps a much larger issue is that he finds his long-lost son, also unknown to the family, in the prison he works at. The other members of the family all of something they're not sharing, and the episode explores how each of these hidden truths are gendered in many ways. Even pre-controversy Ezra Miller has a great little character arc!

*In the intro, Alex says Brooklyn and not Bronx — oops! Shows how much he knows the New York boroughs...

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed.

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex in a solo episode as he explores the more overt mother obsession themes in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). The film released two years after Hitchcock's Vertigo, which had subtler mother obsession themes. In this film, which stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Hitchcock specifically smacks the audience over the head with the overt Oedipal complex and Freudian themes. Hailed as a masterpiece in its own right, Psycho is considered to be Hitchcock's first horror movie, with a insane lasting cultural impact, the least of which the shrieking violins. The discussion is split into two broad parts: the first explores the Freudian themes in a historical context, as a sort of companion follow-up to the previous episode on Vertigo, and the second part latches onto the psychiatrist's monologue at the end the film as a closer interpretation to what a modern clinical psychologist might assess and analyze within the context of the film's plot. Have a listen to this episode, but be sure Mother doesn't catch you!

If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed.

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex and film studies professor Daniel Kieckhefer as they explore the deeper meaning in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Vertigo (1958). The film stars James Stewart as a boyish former SFPD detective, haunted by a near-death experience that leaves him with extreme vertigo. He's called on as a private detective to investigate a woman, played by Kim Novak, who is seemingly possessed by a dead relative. This paper-thin mystery (as the critics at the time called it) is not what Hitchcock wanted audiences to pay attention to, however; as Daniel explains, this is classic Freudian Oedipal complex. The duo explore the explanation from a historical lens, both from a filmmaking and a clinical psychology perspective. It's pretty clear that obsession is the concept to focus on, but its really what the true object of that obsession that is up for debate! There was agreement that Stewart played a really creepy dude and in no way was he the good guy of this story.

Check out Daniel's website where he posts weekly on all sorts of films: The Cinematograph

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed.

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex and filmmaker Andrew Vogel, director of the new psychological horror/thriller film, Herman (2025), as they discuss the themes and psychological concepts found within his directorial debut! The film follows a harrowing evening experienced by the titular character, Herman, played by Colin Ward. Herman is dealing with the grief and guilt losing his wife 40 years ago and it manifests as some form of darkness. The pair discuss these topics from a psychological perspective, including how religious psychology plays a role, as well as psychosis as meaning-making rather than a mental disorder. There's a lot up to audience interpretation and Alex has a field day thinking up various ideas to prod the filmmaker!

Check out VP Independent's Instagram or email Andrew directly. You can find Herman (2025) now on Amazon — leave a review if you watch it!

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed.

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex in a solo episode as he explores the Scorsese psychological thriller Shutter Island (2010)! Starring Leonard DiCaprio as a troubled US Marshal, the film follows the Marshal’s investigation into the disappearance of a patient at a psychiatric facility and prison for the criminally insane on a desolate, rocky island in the mid-1950s. However, beneath the surface, sinister forces lurk, and the episode delves into the mysteries surrounding the case. It explores the potential psychological and psychiatric diagnoses for the characters (whether it’s schizophrenia or something else entirely). Additionally, the film sheds light on the state of psychiatric and psychological care during that era in the United States. As Leo’s final line in the film suggests, sometimes, ignorance can truly be bliss!

If you like this content, you might like my new Audible audiobook/course, A Psychologist Goes to the Movies, available now! It features six films that have been on this show, condensed into 25-30 min essays, researched and analyzed.

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex and Corinne Hobbs as they dive into a headfirst slide in home, exploring the mid-90s Disney hit Angels in the Outfield (1994)! Corinne is working toward her doctoral dissertation about coaching and pregame speeches, and knows all things sports psychology, so this is the perfect film to explore. The pair discuss how George Knox (Danny Glover) evolves as a coach, from curmudgeon to a strong believer in his players and the truth that anything can happen. A discussion of faith in sports follows, including how superstitions play a role in an elite athlete's sphere of influence on their sport and abilities. Sports and magic go together like a horse and a carriage!

Also, check out Corinne at Michigan State University's Institute for the Study of Youth Sports!

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex and Celeste Pilegard as they discuss the first of two Keanu Reeves dystopian cyberpunk future films, Johnny Mnemonic (1995). The film was directed by Robert Longo and he quit filmmaking after this one. A film having to do with storing other people's memories in your head while others suffer from a debilitating disease caused by electronics, while set in 2021... you have to wonder if the author of the short story, William Gibson, was some sort of soothsayer! The pair discusses the interesting memory portrayals and their relation to scientists' current understanding of memory, as well as the recent introduction of generative AI and its effects of cognition. Nerve Attenuation Syndrome is still a bit far-fetched, though and reminds us all of class struggle rather than literal 5G causing COVID.

Also, check out Celeste's Cognitive Psychology OER textbook (Cognitive Foundations) in Second Edition!

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!

Join Alex and guest host Dr. Jill Swirsky as they enter the world of musical theater yet again, this time traveling to the land of Oz in Wicked (2024)! The film is an adaptation of the Broadway play, which was an adaptation of the novel by Gregory Maguire. We follow Elphaba, played by Cynthia Erivo, the eventual Wicked Witch of the West, on her journey as a child and young adult. Along the way, she learns about her true magical abilities but ultimately becomes the villain of Oz when she uncovers a terrible secret. Along for the ride is Ariana Grande's Glinda (Galinda at the start!), who at first is antagonistic toward Elphaba but ultimately creates a powerful friendship. Jeff Goldblum shines as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Michelle Yeoh is truly a scary Madame Morrible. The story offers a rich well of psychological concepts, from ostracism and adolescent development in its wake, as well as Maslow's self-actualization theory. It's such a good story, you'll definitely end up defying gravity!

Read Dr. Swirsky's Psi Chi blog Psychology Pop Culture Corner for contributions on more musicals! Also, check out these OER materials to use Sesame Street in developmental psychology.

Please leave your feedback on this post, the main site (cinemapsychpod.swanpsych.com), on Facebook (@CinPsyPod), or Threads/Instagram (@cinemapsych_podcast). We'd love to hear from you!

Don't forget to check out our Paypal link to contribute to this podcast and keep the lights on! Don't forget to check out our MERCH STORE for some great merch with our logo and other designs!

Legal stuff:
1. All film clips are used under Section 107 of Title 17 U.S.C. (fair use; no copyright infringement is intended).
2. Intro and outro music by half.cool ("Gemini"). Used under license.
3. Film reel sound effect by bone666138. Used under license CC-BY 3.0.

Go to this link to read a transcript generated by Whisper AI Large V3 Model. Disclaimer: It is not edited and may contain errors!