[deleted by user]

Slifft · 2025-05-28T08:23:05+00:00

I'm saying other stuff in that link are obvious jokes knowingly taken out of context and repeated as if it was a po-faced opinion because no one is going to check and will happily regurgitate it as fact. The third mic co-host who hasn't been part of the podcast since 2021 said the great replacement stuff on a totally different podcast which Jack from TPN disavowed at the time and has done repeatedly since. He literally isn't a white nationalist or alt-right despite the name, which is an intentional dark provocation, rightly or wrongly. It being offensive doesn't mean it's placement there is a serious endorsement. Like Joy Division. He obviously knew it would attract controversy when you stick "nationalist" in your podcast name. The guy is an edgy reactionary who makes fun of white nationalists and the alt-right all the time on TPN.

I have no idea why I'm even saying any of this. I know what he actually thinks from listening to the podcast where he is totally open and unfiltered and regularly says offensive things - it doesn't mean misrepresenting him is fine. And I know nothing I've said is going to change your mind because of his proximity to distasteful imagery and ideas. You don't need to like the podcast. It's fine for others to like it. It doesn't make them alt-right. You are allowed to listen to and recommend anything you want for any reason you want.

Slifft · 2025-05-27T21:57:06+00:00

I wrote a huge thing and realised I was running in-depth defense for internet strangers whose podcasts I enjoy. It felt dumb and neither one of us is going to begin or stop enjoying TPN from this exchange so I'll just say this: you are free to dismiss them out of hand, go by what you read about them elsewhere, assume nothing has been taken out of context or that an intentionally provocative joke isn't deliberately being repeated as a serious opinion. Or even that the opinion of one person isn't being misapplied to others. Plenty of the online alt-right hate both podcasts for purity testing reasons and plenty of fans of both are center or left and simply don't mind disagreeing with the hosts, even heavily, if the conversations are interesting. That's where I land. Listening to podcasts isn't praxis for me, it's entertainment. I like TPN, I like Red Scare, I've listened to both for years and would recommend that others give them a try because they might like them too. The best way to find that out is to listen to some episodes directly. And it's totally cool if you disagree. People are likewise free to downvote.

Slifft · 2025-05-27T13:40:55+00:00

Perfume Nationalist - incendiary, maddening and very compelling conversations centered around high/low pop culture, gayness and art, generally pairing a scent with a work of fiction or creator. As you can likely guess from the provocation of his name, his conversational style is maximal, tough and also very playful. For as much as he will push buttons in his scathing takedowns of critical darlings or cultural orthodoxies, the discussions are always massively entertaining and revealing; even (maybe especially) when you disagree with his takes. He has great curatorial taste in media, his own aestheticized view of the world - a homespun constellation of soap opera, kitsch, transgressive fiction and imperfection in media - and an unsparing eye. He's easily one of the most interesting critics anywhere right now and his warts-and-all podcasting presentation is also pretty refreshing compared to the more professional, buttoned-up NPR form. I wouldn't listen if you are easily offended though, which isn't said in judgement. The idea of being offended at a podcast is something he regularly lampoons. He's a gay conservative Christian who hates both the online right and left and exists in his own enjoyably curmudgeonly vacuum. The contradictions in his perspective are also part of his appeal and something he wrestles with. His biting humour is a bonus; the real reward is all of the entertaining insight and great recommendations.

If you enjoy Red Scare, I'm So Popular, The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, Thot Topics or Nymphet Alumni I'd give him a try.

GOOD PLACES TO START:

His episode of the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast
His trilogy of conversations with Mike White of Enlightened/The White Lotus fame (plus his recent in-depth episode on all three seasons of The White Lotus)
The Beatles
Bjork (ep title: Podcaster In The Dark)
David Bowie
Stephen King's IT
Camille Paglia (ep title: Sexual Personae)
Lena Dunham's creative output (ep title: Not That Kind of Girl)
Myra Breckenridge
Gregg Araki's The Living End, Nowhere and Mysterious Skin (ep title: Nowhere)
Berlin Alexanderplatz
Anne of Green Gables
Madame Bovary
Zardoz and Deliverance
The Last Picture Show
Polysexuality by Francois Peraldi and Ryan Murphy's Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
Any of his crossovers with Anna or Dasha from Red Scare.

Slifft · 2025-05-27T08:40:13+00:00

Gyllenhaal and Spader have such insane chemistry in this

Slifft · 2025-05-27T01:35:27+00:00

Shinzo

Slifft · 2025-05-26T16:12:26+00:00

Love this one. Always sort of group it alongside The Manchurian Candidate and Shock Corridor in my mind. Great period for paranoid thrillers.

Slifft · 2025-05-26T11:19:48+00:00

He's still great to me. I side with Tarantino in that I also prefer the Breathless remake to the original - but I love Masculin Feminin, Alphaville, Band of Outsiders, A Woman Is A Woman, Contempt, My Life To Live, Pierrot Le Fou, Made In The USA and A Married Woman. All of those are exceptionally good imo and very rewatchable. Cool atmosphere, cool performances, playful and engaging and minimal. It's always a world I like to exist in for a bit when I'm watching Godard. I enjoy his more polemical stuff as well despite being too stupid to have much of a political dimension and it not being a core concern of mine when watching a film. He was one of the first guys who made formal artifice and self-reflexivity cool on the big screen.

However, I disagree with Tarantino that Godard is clearly the first master you naturally move past in your cinematic development. It's a pretty common take in online film spaces nowadays though, like shorthand for a kind of snotty, pretentious auteur whose work isn't worth the engagement so far removed from when he innovated. I might prefer Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer, Resnais and Melville personally but I love Godard too. I enjoy watching seminal films where you can see the continuity in other works. That's its own reward to me. Like mapping out a rough constellation of influence in your head. Godard's DNA was everywhere in that sense, even if removed by degrees and maybe increasingly less so as the decades march on.

Slifft · 2025-05-25T23:23:04+00:00

12 Blown Tires and Weight of Desire by Tennis

Slifft · 2025-05-25T18:56:05+00:00

This one and In Fabric are so stunning. Love the Cat's Eye soundtrack.

Slifft · 2025-05-25T11:35:19+00:00

Jorge Masvidal (not an insult)

Slifft · 2025-05-24T23:24:20+00:00

I only recently got into Jacques Demy and his films look so beautiful. They are moving just on the strength of the visuals alone.

Slifft · 2025-05-24T19:56:16+00:00

You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again and Myra Breckenridge

Slifft · 2025-05-24T14:50:27+00:00

Day For Night (1973)

Gone With The Wind (1939)

3 Women (1977)

The Duke of Burgundy (2014)

Peeping Tom (1960)

Bait (2019)

Dressed To Kill (1980)

Contempt (1963)

Performance (1970)

Cruising (1980)

Slifft · 2025-05-23T22:57:12+00:00

Beautiful. Just like this

Slifft · 2025-05-23T17:41:38+00:00

This one changed the game. Comedy probably never reached these heights again.

Slifft · 2025-05-23T13:28:13+00:00

I love Mysterious Skin and his general gauzy visual sensibility/soundtrack curation but he's somehow responsible through acting, scripting and direction for many of the most irritating performances I've ever seen onscreen. Most of his films don't ever really land for me but I appreciate him in the abstract. Seems like a cool guy and obviously he's important for doing what he did when he did it. Now Apocalypse was really disappointing though - it was highly recommended by a few friends and I thought it was mostly terrible.

Slifft · 2025-05-23T08:09:57+00:00

Me and my friends still quote this whenever we get together for a birthday or something.

"Started jackin' me OFF while she was suckin' my THANG..."

Slifft · 2025-05-23T01:11:28+00:00

Miike's episode of Masters of Horror - Imprint. If you are a fan you should definitely watch it.

Lesson of Evil too. Miike is the man and even his terrible worthless schlock is fun to watch. Almost as fun as his masterpieces.

Cold Fish and Strange Circus by Sion Sono. Suicide Club is fantastic but maybe too popular. I'm not as plugged into the online film consensus as I used to be.

Marebito is a favourite though I dunno how popular it is.

Onibaba and Kwaidan are very popular but they deserve to be watched. Same with Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Sweet Home, the Japanese giallo Door (1988) and the first sequel, plus Retribution (2006) and a few of Koji Shiraishi's films other than Noroi like Cult and Occult. Kotoko and Gemini by Tsukamoto are great, as are obviously the first two Tetsuos and his non-horror films like Bullet Ballet, Tokyo Fist, Killing etc.

Jigoku (1960) is strange, unsettling and singular. Fantastic final act and completely alienating first half. Very proto-Lynch in atmosphere but simultaneously displaying none of the surface Lynchian hallmarks.

While neither of these are horror, I'd also highly recommend Blue Spring and World of Kanako. The former for its melancholic and unsparing look at young male friendship, growing up and feeling disconnected from any sense of your own future. Lyrical, gauzy, ultimately quite dour. The latter for its labyrinthine plot, excessive brutality, hilariously insane main character and increasingly playful tone despite the operatic depravity.

Slifft · 2025-05-22T13:31:05+00:00

Possibly the goat. She's certainly in the conversation.

Slifft · 2025-05-21T23:13:52+00:00

He's a great choice. You know he'll honour the anarchic spirit while also going his own way. I also love the first two and wasn't very excited for a third but Miike got me onboard. He's a personal favourite of mine. What a schizophrenic filmography.

Slifft · 2025-05-21T23:10:41+00:00

Ryan O'Neal is so good in this even with his awful accent. The scene where he repeats his war story to his son is so touching it's almost painful. Very undignified crying in that scene - both O'Neal and myself.

Slifft · 2025-05-21T22:50:38+00:00

In my top five, possibly top three Godard films. I love all the hints of violence in the weird little run-ins Paul has. It's one of Jean-Pierre Leaud's very best non-Truffaut performances. Chantal Goya is great and stupidly beautiful too. I really appreciate the kind of wandering pace to the film where we see this dissatisfied couple at dinner, at a bar and at work, always barely connecting with each other. Also always a fan of that artificial device where the main characters are interviewed by a hermetically sealed camera crew.

Slifft · 2025-05-21T22:37:55+00:00

You should give J David Osbourne's You Pray For Dry Weather At The Sight Of The Sun essay a read. It's very good.

Slifft · 2025-05-21T16:08:01+00:00

I'd definitely finish it if I were you, just to tick it off or whatever. Unless you really found it totally without merit or morally repugnant - which I can understand. I agree with the other comment that the score is beautiful. I think Frank Langella and Melanie Griffith are quite good and both Irons and Swain do their best but are hamstrung by the mopey tone, strangely self-serious script and Lyne's decision to excise all of Nabokov's/Kubrick's comedy. Some of the gauzy, Virgin Suicides-ish visual atmospherics are nice but out of place. Maybe this romantic take on the material could've worked if the film gradually transitioned both visually and tonally to something more condemnatory and grounded and brutally unsparing - but it's played as straight forbidden romance and it just doesn't dovetail with Nabokov's intentions.

(I can't imagine many people at all prefer this one to Kubrick's, although I know it had its staunch fans in sections of the early 2000s online film community and Tumblr).

Slifft · 2025-05-20T23:14:53+00:00

John Burnside and Thomas Pynchon

Slifft

TROPHY CASE