It was a joy to bring on a fellow Arizona critic & film scholar, the brilliant & funny Barbara VanDenburgh, to discuss the masterful Arizona-raised filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Barbara's favorite director and her greatest area of film knowledge; it's wild to realize that we haven't done an official Spielberg episode of the pod before this one. I know you'll love it! Covering the filmmaker's life, career, major themes, techniques, collaborators, and more, we touch on most of his pictures in this fast-paced conversation, and pay special attention to three of his summer releases, JAWS, JURASSIC PARK, and A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Guest Bio: Barbara VanDenburgh is a longtime arts and entertainment journalist, a film critic, and a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle. She is also the founder and host of the First Draft Book Club, a popular, long-running book club that discusses recently published works of literary fiction at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix. She is the former books editor of USA Today and currently manages programming and communications for The Sidney Poitier New American Film School at Arizona State University.

Originally Posted on Patreon (6/16/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuition/posts/161259047

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The brilliant and soulful Roxana Hadadi returns with this episode devoted to one of her current favorite actors, the great Riz Ahmed. Similar to past conversations focused on terrific character actors like Tom Wilkinson and Edward Norton, this week, we explore Ahmed's filmography at large, discuss his evolution as an actor, and what sets him apart in the films THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, NIGHTCRAWLER, and SOUND OF METAL.

Guest Bio: A TV critic with Vulture, who also writes about film & pop culture, Roxana was previously the film editor & a critic with Pajiba, & her reviews, essays, recaps, and other writing have also been published by The AV Club, Polygon, RogerEbert.com, The L.A. Times, Crooked Marquee, The Playlist, Fox Digital, The Criterion Collection, GQ, & Inverse.

Originally Posted on Patreon (6/7/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/160446279

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Every time Leslie Byron Pitt is on the podcast, we go deep, & this episode is no exception. A film blogger and hobbyist photographer, Leslie is also a fellow podcaster, co-hosting the shows Fatal Attractions and Hustlers of Culture. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the way that photography and the role of the photographer are used in a variety of films, and zero in on REAR WINDOW, ONE HOUR PHOTO, and CITY OF GOD in particular.

Originally posted on Patreon (5/31/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/159733813

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CITY OF MARGINS, SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT, & SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET author William Boyle returns to the show to discuss Old Hollywood icon Joan Crawford's incredible career from silent movies through the 1970s. Digging deep to share biographical insights and shout out films that are often overlooked, in this fast-paced chat, we cover HUMORESQUE (1946), SUDDEN FEAR (1952), and JOHNNY GUITAR (1954).

Originally Posted on Patreon (5/23/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/159040535

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Hot off the news that he's just sold one million copies of his books, my wonderfully talented friend, KING OF ASHES and ALL THE SINNERS BLEED novelist S.A. Cosby returns to the pod this week for a delightful episode Gen Xers in particular will love. Listen in as we wax nostalgic, nerdy, & philosophical about the American independent film scene, video stores, actors with faces, Sundance, the New Queer Cinema movement, & iconoclastic filmmakers of the 1990s. We started with groundbreaking director Gregg Araki's TEEN APOCALYPSE TRILOGY, then went everywhere, & obviously, fittingly, NOWHERE. The three main films in the trilogy that we discuss are TOTALLY F***ED UP, THE DOOM GENERATION, and NOWHERE, but we bring in myriad other films, directors, and actors from this terrific era that valued original voices and stories that no one else could tell.

Orginally Posted on Patreon (5/14/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/158267662

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The charming and inventive B-Side pod boys return to the show to discuss a trio of films that seem like they could be unofficial sequels to other movies telling the same story or starring the same lead. Films discussed include MY BLUE HEAVEN (after GOODFELLAS), AIR FORCE ONE (which plays like a continuation of Jack Ryan's adventures), and ENEMY OF THE STATE (which acknowledges its debt to THE CONVERSATION).

Originally Posted on Patreon (5/3/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/157259020

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Straight from the pages of today's New York Times, Watch With Jen's first podcast guest, author Jordan Harper, returns ahead of the release of his fittingly titled new thriller, A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE. A devotee of Japanese cinema, food, and culture, Jordan gives me a crash course in the cinema of director Juzo Itami.

An all-time "wife guy," who began making movies in his early fifties and made 11, which starred his incredibly expressive wife, Nobuko Miyamoto, Juzo Itami's life and career are discussed, along with the movies SUPERMARKET WOMAN, TAMPOPO, and MINBO: THE GENTLE ART OF JAPANESE EXTORTION.

Be sure to pick up A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE in your favorite indie bookstore, and if you're interested in learning more, you can tune in to watch me interview Jordan on Wednesday, April 29, at 5:00 PM PST on behalf of Poisoned Pen Bookstore.

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Originally Posted on Patreon (4/26/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/156607489

Current and aspiring writers of all backgrounds will love this episode, devoted to storytelling, humanism, empathy, and creativity. Horror author Laurel Hightower makes her Watch With Jen pod debut, exploring some of Disney's magic-minded movies of the past few decades, particularly ENCHANTED, ENCANTO, and WISH. A sprawling, soulful chat with a woman who instantly felt like an old friend, I can't recommend this conversation enough.

Bio: Laurel Hightower is a bourbon-loving, pitbull-snuggling native of Lexington, Kentucky. She is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of WHISPERS IN THE DARK, CROSSROADS, BELOW, EVERY WOMAN KNOWS THIS, SILENT KEY, SPIRIT COVEN, THE DAY OF THE DOOR, and THE LONG LOW WHISTLE, and has more than a dozen short fiction stories in print.

Originally Posted on Patreon (4/18/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/155953536

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Recently on the pod, I reunited with the gifted arts journalist Candice Frederick, one of my oldest friends from the early days of Film Twitter. Candice was one of the first guests I ever had on Watch With Jen, and we had a ball logging on to discuss some of the best and most under-discussed coming-of-age movies of the past 40+ years, including those we first saw as adults in our early 40s. While initially we were going to focus on RUNNING ON EMPTY, PARIAH, and JUNO, we wound up having a breezy, sunny, nostalgic, and introspective chat about a wide range of movies and cultural figures that defined our generation, including River Phoenix and John Hughes. It's ideal for Spring!

Bio: Candice Frederick is a talented culture journalist for hire. She was formerly the Senior Culture Reporter at HuffPost. Other bylines include The Daily Beast, Time, History.com, New York Times, Bloomberg, ELLE, Harper's Bazaar, and many others.

Originally Posted on Patreon (4/11/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/155361805

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In honor of that time I went on an Easter Egg Hunt as a toddler in 1984 and had no luck, I'm giving everyone this Easter egg of an episode a day early. Hope you and yours have a safe, happy, healthy, and lovely weekend full of good movies and great memories.

This week, I'm honored to bring back one of my oldest Film Twitter buddies, the great Brian Saur, who I've known and collaborated with on various projects for over sixteen years, from the blog Rupert Pupkin Speaks to DVD Netflix to pods. Gifting us with an inventive trio of forgotten film noir titles he discovered on his incredible Pure Cinema and Just the Discs podcasts, in this entertaining discussion, we cover THE POWER OF THE WHISTLER (1945), ROAD HOUSE (1948), and SHAKEDOWN (1950), and other unsung B-movie goodies you'll treasure as a cinephile.

Bio: Brian Saur is the co-host of the Pure Cinema Podcast, a long-running film podcast he hosts alongside Elric Kane. As the official podcast of the New Beverly Cinema, the show has spent the past nine years exploring cult and classic films, with a particular emphasis on uncovering hidden, off-the-beaten-path gems. Over the years, it has featured high-profile guests such as Quentin Tarantino, Sean Baker, Rian Johnson, Edgar Wright, Patton Oswalt, Larry Karaszewski, and Dan Waters. At its core, the podcast aims to recreate the experience of walking into a video store and getting personalized movie recommendations from the knowledgeable staff behind the counter. ‍ Listen to Pure Cinema anywhere you get podcasts.

Originally Posted on Patreon (4/4/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/154778751

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It's always such a joy when I can bring on a friend I know IRL who lives in my home state, so it is with great pleasure that I scheduled a Zoom hang with the critically acclaimed, wondrously creative, and darkly comedic journalist-turned-author Amina Akhtar. More of a breezy, nostalgic chat about life, Gen X, print journalism, and the '90s, than a traditional episode devoted to the movies, with the release of Devil Wears Prada 2 right around the corner, it was the perfect time to talk to Amina about the twenty years she spent working in the fashion magazine industry.

Accidentally stumbling into a full time position at Vogue after a month working as a fact checker, Amina was the assistant to Anna Wintour's second in command, and worked along with Lauren Weisberger, who no one in her office realized was secretly writing and getting ready to publish the thinly veiled satire of her work life with Wintour at Vogue in The Devil Wears Prada. Light-hearted, funny, and eye-opening, Amina shares her insights and memories, and we discuss how the film, starring Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and Meryl Streep, reflected and differed from the real thing.

Bio: Amina Akhtar is a novelist and former fashion editor. Her satirical first novel, #FashionVictim, drew critical acclaim. Kismet, her second book, was set in the stunning and creepy world of wellness. Almost Surely Dead, Akhtar’s third novel, was published by Mindy Kaling’s imprint. Akhtar is currently working on her fourth novel.

Akhtar has worked at Vogue, Elle, the New York Times, and New York Magazine, where she was the founding editor of the women’s blog The Cut. She lives not too far from Sedona, Arizona.

Originally Posted (3/29/26) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/154266082

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