Podcasts by Phi Phenomenon
The Phi Phenomenon is an interview podcast hosted by film editor Shane Hazen with filmmakers, writers, artists, craftsman, critics, and -- essentially -- film lovers, about the movies they've loved and how it shaped their lives.
Further podcasts by Phi Phenonenon
Podcast on the topic Filminterviews
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Episode 99 – Michael Mann&Meg Gardiner's 'Heat 2' from 2023-09-17T22:18
After an initial hesitance from a few film fans, Michael Mann’s Heat has cemented itself as an all-timer, as both a great Los Angeles movie, an ac...
ListenEpisode 98 – 'To Be or Not to Be'&Ernst Lubitsch from 2023-09-08T22:14:41
First declared as Europe’s answer to D.W. Griffith, later (after emigrating to Hollywood) credited as the creator of the modern musical and, as Jean Renoir...
ListenEpisode 97 – Robert Bresson's 'Notes on the Cinematographer' from 2023-08-28T20:20:43
Over the course of his career, but mainly in a period from 1950-59, French director Robert Bresson kept a notebook of advice to himself on keeping his very...
ListenEpisode 96 – 'Convergence Culture' w/ Author Henry Jenkins from 2023-08-18T19:41:43
Hollywood and Wall Street have obvious reasons to be obsessed with I.P. (Intellectual Property) because its consistently proven moneymaking abilities. But,...
ListenEpisode 95 – 'Down With Love' from 2023-08-08T02:35:01
The only features Peyton Reed has directed for the past decade have been Ant-Man films for Marvel. Before that, for a brief period in the late aug...
ListenInterlude in Self-Promotion Minor from 2023-06-14T01:22:19
Why have there been so few episodes this year? Because I’ve been directing a low-budget feature film since February! And Monday, Listen
Episode 94 – The Annual Richard Lester Year-End Dinner: 2022 from 2023-02-15T03:53:41
It’s been a year-end tradition that me, Aaron Smith, and Ted Haycraft usually meet sometime after Christmas but before Ne...
ListenEpisode 93 – The 'Is "Die Hard" a Christmas Movie?' Debate from 2022-12-23T19:28:12
Roughly since 2007, the assertion that Die Hard -- a movie that takes place at Christmas -- is a Christmas movie has been met with either...
ListenEpisode 92 – 'Sight&Sound's' 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time Critics' Poll from 2022-12-13T22:02:15
Sight & Sound magazine and the British Film Institute put out their once-every-decade poll of greatest films. The top ten:
Episode 91 – 'Red Carpet' w/ Author Erich Schwartzel from 2022-07-22T10:02
Though it had been widely predicted to happen sometime later this decade, China managed to surpass North America during the pandemic 2020 — during the first year of decade — in...
ListenEpisode 90 – Whatever Happened to George Lucas's Post-Retirement Experimental Films? from 2022-06-10T10:07
George Lucas has been talking retirement since 1977. Weary of the mainstream cinema he helped to created, he began saying in interviews that he was plannin...
ListenEpisode 89 – 'Blood, Sweat&Chrome' w/ Author Kyle Buchanan from 2022-06-02T19:07:59
Hiatus over! When Mad Max: Fury Road came out in 2015, a 30-year gap since Beyond Thunderdome, its breathless and near-universal receptio...
ListenEpisode 88 – The Annual Richard Lester Year-End Dinner: 2021 from 2022-01-03T10:00
It’s been a year-end tradition that me, Aaron Smith, and Ted Haycraft usually meet sometime after Christmas but before Ne...
ListenEpisode 87 – Steven Spielberg's Musical(…Sequence)s from 2021-12-20T16:32:04
After 32 features, Steven Spielberg has finally directed his first full-fledged musical! The director whose camera has visually danced composition...
ListenEpisode 86 – 'All of the Marvels' w/ Author Douglas Wolk from 2021-12-16T02:28:34
In his magnificent second book on comics, the great critic Douglas Wolk has synthesized 60 years of continuous storytelling from Marvel Comics authors and declared it, ...
ListenEpisode 85 – 'Let It Be' v. 'Get Back' from 2021-11-29T22:49
Which is your favorite Beatle(s’ documentary about making their last released album, one that ultimately documented simmering tensions that would lead to t...
ListenEpisode 84 – 'The Show'&Alan Moore's Cinema from 2021-11-22T17:11
Though comic book writer Alan Moore has officially finished his final projects and begun a well-deserved retirement from the medium of sequential art, he h...
ListenEpisode 83 – John Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy from 2021-11-15T20:34
The workman Master of Horror, John Carpenter’s career has been checkered by commercial successes and, in the midst straight-forward meat/potatoes storytell...
ListenEpisode 82 – 'Dune's from 2021-11-01T10:00
We finally (finally!) have a good cinema version of Dune! Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel has been the beneficiary — often “of a doubt” — of m...
ListenEpisode 81 – Ridley Scott's 'The Duellists' from 2021-10-25T10:00
Our second Ridley Scott episode! With his newest theatrical film, The Last Duel (at least, for two more months, until House of Gucci), al...
ListenEpisode 80 – 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' from 2021-10-18T15:34
After several delays, the newest James Bond film, No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s final outing, was finally released. It’s gotten solid reviews, an...
ListenEpisode 79 – Neil Postman's 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' from 2021-10-12T00:42
During the pandemic, most of us wanted comfort content to get us to sleep. But did we err too far away from fulfilling art, and towards escapism? On this e...
ListenEpisode 78 – Jamie Kirkpatrick / 'Open Range' from 2021-10-04T04:55
Working from home, Jamie Kirkpatrick edited a solid, tight Western script that was proposed to him as “a Wal-Mart movie,” only to...
ListenEpisode 77 – @ScottPropAndRoll from 2021-09-28T02:52
During the pandemic, Austin-based prop master and art director Scott A. Reeder started messing around on Listen
Episode 76 – 'For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close' w/ Director Heather Ross&Co-Editor George Mandl from 2021-09-17T22:46:51
Del Close was an early member of the Compass Player (later Second City), an early proponent of “Yes, and” improv method, the “Harold” longform improv format, and an unironic “guru” of almost every ...
ListenEpisode 75 – 'Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol' from 2021-09-10T01:41:09
Every child who was raised post the invention of VCR, post-DVD, post-streaming, developed the same habit, one encouraged by (a) tired and beleaguered paren...
ListenEpisode 74 – Mark Yoshikawa / 'After Life' from 2021-09-04T17:52:02
The kindest, humblest, most talented, best-combo film editor I’ve ever worked with was Mark Yoshikawa. From his humble beginnings assistan...
ListenEpisode 73 – TV G.O.A.T. Pt. 3: 'The Wire' from 2021-08-26T19:00
The last pick in this series of TV G.O.A.T.s is mine and an obvious, modern one: HBO’s The Wire. On this episode, joined by Ted Heycraft Listen
Episode 72 – TV G.O.A.T. Pt. 2: 'The Singing Detective' from 2021-08-19T20:58:36
Before Peak TV, what was considered the television medium’s G.O.A.T.? One prominent candidate among TV critics for many years was another British import, t...
ListenEpisode 71 – TV G.O.A.T. Pt. 1: 'The Prisoner' from 2021-08-12T20:38:05
Before the advent of the current Peak TV era, television has seen its reputation burnished from the low idiot box cool medium to the novelistic adult venue...
ListenEpisode 70 – Yuval Noah Harari&the Point of Storytelling from 2021-08-06T01:36:43
With the existential change to theatrical filmgoing after last year, many filmmakers are doing their own existential rethinks of why they do what they do. ...
ListenEpisode 69 – 'The Fury' w/ Sam Irvin from 2021-07-30T03:03:55
After a teenage publishing career of film fandom and criticism, Sam Irvin’s first professional job came on the set of Brian De Palma’s
Episode 68 – 'Rachel Getting Married' w/ Editor Tim Squyres from 2021-07-23T01:08:30
Director Jonathan Demme had the reputation as one of the most humanist filmmakers — meaning his films had the ethos of “no one is evil” and everyone had th...
ListenEpisode 67 – Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' Novelization from 2021-07-14T10:00
Quentin Tarantino's ethos was once described, efficiently, by the online writer Film Crit Hulk thusly: “Listen
Episode 66 – '1776' from 2021-07-07T17:29:10
We may be through with the Fourth of July for this year, but the Fourth of July, to quote the phrase, isn’t through with us. On this episode, Ted H...
ListenEpisode 65 – 'Midnight Run' w/ Editor Billy Weber from 2021-06-02T04:44:25
With Charles Grodin’s passing two weeks ago, an appreciation of his under-appreciated career can’t neglect what is most inarguable his finest cinematic (tw...
ListenEpisode 64 – Editing&Drumming from 2021-05-24T17:00
As an editor and a drummer, I’ve been banging the drum — literally in many instances — about the connection between the two. Director/drummer combos range ...
ListenEpisode 63 – 'Shooting "Midnight Cowboy"' w/ Author Glenn Frankel from 2021-05-17T10:00
The podcast’s first Pulitzer Prize-winning guest! (/brag), author Glenn Frankel joins me (and, once again, Ted Haycraft) ...
ListenEpisode 62 – 'The Keep' from 2021-05-10T10:00
The one entry in Michael Mann’s filmography that the director rarely speaks about is his second theatrical feature and his one foray into fantasy, an unfor...
ListenEpisode 61 – 'To the White Sea' Screenplays: Peoples v. Coen Brothers from 2021-05-03T10:00
Deliverance author James Dickey’s final novel, an intense and primal WWII story about a crashed Air Force gunner trying to make his way through th...
ListenEpisode 60 – 'Two-Lane Blacktop'&'Getting Straight' from 2021-04-26T10:00
Two filmmakers’ filmmakers, ones who both honed their craft in ’60s low-budget B drive-thru movies before achieving gradual and undeniable acclaim, died th...
ListenEpisode 59 – 'The Films of Budd Boetticher' w/ Author Robert Nott from 2021-04-19T10:00
Though born in Chicago, Budd Boetticher was adopted and raised in Evansville, making him somewhat inarguably its most notable filmmaking resident. ...
ListenEpisode 58 – The Cuts of 'Heaven's Gate' from 2021-04-12T10:00
Famed as the movie that destroyed a studio and an Oscar-winner, writer/director Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate got its reputation replenished with...
ListenEpisode 57 – 'All That Jazz'&Bob Fosse from 2021-04-05T10:00
From the stages of Broadway musicals came one of the most adventurous and innovative editorial directors, and that adventurousness peaked with Bob Fosse’s ...
ListenEpisode 56 – 'Deadly Illusions' w/ Writer/Director Anna Elizabeth James&Editor F. Brian Scofield from 2021-03-29T10:00
How does a movie get into Netflix’s Top 10, seemingly out of nowhere — especially an indie production? On this episode writer/director Anna Elizabe...
ListenEpisode 55 – 'Southland Tales' Cannes Cut from 2021-03-22T10:00
Another cross-over episode! I’m joined by podcaster Ryan Whitten to discuss this new/old cut of the infamous sophomore film from the the c...
ListenEpisode 54 – 'Miami Blues' from 2021-03-17T01:33:11
Four years before Pulp Fiction set off a trend of quirky, violent crime films in the ’90s, writer/director George Armitage adapted the first of Ch...
ListenEpisode 53 – Mike Nichols' Audio Commentaries from 2021-03-08T11:00
The best way we thought to celebrate the great writer Mark Harris’s new book Mike Nichols: A Biography, a book about the famed director filled wit...
ListenEpisode 52 – 'The Counselor' from 2021-03-01T11:00
Literary-cinematic powers unite! Ted Haycraft is back to talk about this 2013 film, Cormac McCarthy’s follow-up to both his novel and the ...
ListenEpisode 51 – 'Father Goose'&Cary Grant from 2021-02-22T11:00
Lani Gonzalez is back to discuss her favorite film star and his (un)surprisingly(?) charming 1964 film, Grant’s penultimate screen appeara...
ListenEpisode 50 – Chris Hazen from 2021-02-15T11:00
Anniversary episode! I get drunk with my big brother and talk about movies we liked when we were kids.
ListenEpisode 49 – 'Monterey Pop'&'Gimme Shelter' from 2021-02-08T11:00
It’s obviously not just the film industry that’s having trouble during the pandemic; the music industry’s working bands have found their main revenue strea...
ListenEpisode 48 – 'Rumble Fish' from 2021-02-01T11:00
Crossover episode! Joining this episode are AJ Gonzalez and Bryan Connolly, hosts of ...
ListenEpisode 47 – 'Nothing Lasts Forever'&'SNL' Cinema from 2021-01-25T11:00
Filmmaker Kyle Smith is back, along with first-time guest co-host and old friend of the show (and me), writer and performer Dustin...
ListenEpisode 46 – 'Not Fade Away' from 2021-01-18T11:00
How does one follow-up creating, showrunning, and sticking the landing to The Sopranos, the cultural phenomenon, often thought to be the greatest ...
ListenEpisode 45 – Annie Baker's 'The Flick' from 2021-01-11T11:00
As movie theaters across the country are about to go through another metamorphosis point after having been largely empty this last year, now seems as good ...
ListenEpisode 44 – 'The Nolan Variations' w/ Author Tom Shone from 2021-01-04T11:00
After Tom Shone convinced Christopher Nolan to participate for the first time in a book about the filmmaker’s career, the writer/director ...
ListenEpisode 43 – The Annual Richard Lester Year-End Dinner: 2020 from 2020-12-28T17:00
It’s been a year-end tradition that me, Aaron Smith, and Ted Haycraft usually meet sometime after Christmas but before Ne...
ListenEpisode 42 – Have Yourself an 'Eyes Wide Shut' Christmas from 2020-12-21T23:00
Is this 1999 film ripe for a fresh debate, much like Die Hard, on its merits as a Christmas movie? Not really, but filmmaker Kyle Smith Listen
Episode 41 – 'Meeting People is Easy' w/ Dir. Grant Gee from 2020-12-14T11:00
It’s rare for a band’s tour documentary to appeal beyond its fanbase. But with Grant Gee’s documentary Meeting People is Easy, it...
ListenEpisode 40 – Mike Leigh&'Topsy-Turvy' from 2020-12-07T17:00
Filmmaker Kyle Smith joins this week to discuss Mike Leigh, the playwright-turned-Palme d’Or-winning writer/director, his 1999 film about ...
ListenEpisode 39 – Jack Kirby&'Star Wars' from 2020-11-30T11:00
It’s the ultimate episode: Ted gets to talk Jack Kirby, I get to talk Star Wars. On this episode we talk comic artist Kirby’s art...
ListenEpisode 38 – Glenn Kenny from 2020-11-23T11:00
Ted is back this week to talk with Glenn Kenny, who’s been writing knowledgeable, incisive film criticism with verve, dis...
ListenEpisode 37 – 'Swing Shift' Theatrical Cut v. Director's Workprint from 2020-11-16T11:00
I’m joined today by esteemed editor Julia Bloch to discuss the 1984 film directed by Jonathan Demme that history has often forgotten in li...
ListenEpisode 36 – John Ford&'The Long Gray Line' from 2020-11-09T11:00
This time last century, John Ford was an actor, day-player, and assistant director hanging with his actor-brother in the emerging medium of motion pictures...
ListenEpisode 35 – 'Girl Walk // All Day' w/ dir. Jacob Krupnick from 2020-11-02T11:00
When Girl Talk’s album All Day came out in 2010, filmmaker Jacob Krupnick had no connection with the mashup artist. So it took a ...
ListenEpisode 34 – 'Possession' from 2020-10-26T10:00
This year’s Halloween pick may not be a full-blown horror movie, per se, but it definitely qualifies as one of the most confidently batshit movies ever mad...
ListenEpisode 33 – 'Robin and Marian' from 2020-10-19T10:00
Ted returns this week and makes his pick — a go-to favorite from a director in his trinity of greats. On today’s episode we talk about the...
ListenEpisode 32 – Tyler Savage from 2020-10-12T10:00
How are independent filmmakers hoping to make their names on the film festival circuit dealing with the pandemic? On today’s episode is Tyler Savage, whose...
ListenEpisode 31 – 'Too Old to Die Young' from 2020-10-05T10:00
Did one of the world’s boldest and most polarizing working filmmakers release a 13-hour movie last year for it to garner almost no attention? On today’s ep...
ListenEpisode 30 – Aaron Smith II from 2020-09-28T10:00
Brockasmithovich returns! On today’s episode, we talk about what it’s like first-hand managing Evansville’s most popular movie theater during the pandemic,...
ListenEpisode 29 – 'The Evil Dead'&'Evil Dead II' at the Drive-In from 2020-09-21T10:00
As fall comes, does the end of summer drive-in season mean the end of theatrical film-going for those of us unwilling to go back to a theater during COVID-19? On today’s short episode o...
ListenEpisode 28 – Pauline Kael's 'Raising Kane' from 2020-09-14T09:00
Revolving guest-host Lani Gonzalez joins again this week for Shane’s pick, the controversial and often “discredited” 1971 essay from the polarizing New Yorker film critic ...
ListenEpisode 27 – 'The Steel Trap'&Teresa Wright from 2020-09-07T09:00
Starting the new format of revolving guests, in this week’s discussion co-host Lani Gonzalez picks the actress Teresa Wright, the only performer to ever re...
ListenEpisode 26 – Jonathan Rosenbaum from 2020-09-01T03:00
Celebrated as one of Jean-Luc Godard’s favorite American film critics, Jonathan Rosenbaum has had an esteemed career as a writer of weekly film columns, b...
ListenEpisode 25 – 'Speed Racer' (2008) from 2020-08-24T10:00
The 25th anniversary episode! Have you too found yourself dismissing the Wachowskis’ exuberant, boisterous, child-like, form-busting IP-driven blockbuster ...
ListenEpisode 24 – 'Big Wednesday' from 2020-08-18T03:00
Ted’s pick this week turns a little bit contentious due not to the movie itself — we both liked it — but, unsurprisingly for an election year, because of t...
ListenEpisode 23 – 'A Matter of Life and Death' from 2020-08-10T10:00
Me and Ted argue, for the third week in a row of this format, over who loves this majestic, magical 1946 movie more — him or me? Am I able to convince a vi...
ListenEpisode 22 – 'Dick Tracy' from 2020-08-03T10:00
This week is Ted’s pick and, surprise surprise, he’s picked the Warren Beatty-directed comic strip adaptation as it hits its 30 years anniversary! On this ...
ListenEpisode 21 – 'New York, New York' from 2020-07-27T10:00
Season two starts here, with a new bonus format! Guest-host Ted Haycraft and Shane discuss Martin Scorsese’s misbegotten musical, its similarities to a cer...
ListenEpisode 20 – Pat Means from 2020-04-06T09:00
Season one finale. Pat Means rules Hollywood with a tyrannical iron fist. J/K, she’s my mom. On today’s personal episode, we find out if I really am named ...
ListenEpisode 19 – Tomas Vengris from 2020-03-30T09:00
While most film directors tend to be professionally recruited from writers or directors of photography, an argument can be made that editors understand the...
ListenEpisode 18 – Tim Lucas, Pt. 2 from 2020-03-23T09:00
On today’s episode, the second part of an interview with Video Watchdog founder and publisher Tim Lucas, we talk about his book Mario Bava: Al...
ListenEpisode 18 – Tim Lucas, Pt. 2 from 2020-03-23T09:00
On today’s episode, the second part of an interview with Video Watchdog founder and publisher Tim Lucas, we talk about his book Mario Bava: Al...
ListenEpisode 17 – Tim Lucas, Pt. 1 from 2020-03-16T09:00
Tim Lucas had been writing various columns reviewing home video releases — one of the first critics to actually review the presentation elements of the rel...
ListenEpisode 17 – Tim Lucas, Pt. 1 from 2020-03-16T09:00
Tim Lucas had been writing various columns reviewing home video releases — one of the first critics to actually review the presentation elements of the rel...
ListenEpisode 16 – Jacob Johnston from 2020-03-09T09:00
Evansville has only had a handful of (feature, narrative) directors comes from the area — and a new one has joined its ranks: Jacob Johnston. On today’s ep...
ListenEpisode 15 – Mick Stieler from 2020-03-02T10:00
If — or, more likely, when — one of Mick Stieler’s grandchilden works at a local Showplace Cinema location, it will mark six generations of his fa...
ListenEpisode 14 – Keegan DeWitt from 2020-02-24T10:00
From his collaborations with filmmakers like Aaron Katz, Alex Ross Perry, Chad Hartigan, and Brett Haley, music composer Keegan DeWitt has offering some of...
ListenEpisode 13 – Eric Braysmith from 2020-02-17T10:00
When movies were the top of cultural conversation, much of that was fostered in college and university campus film programs. If they no longer hold that pe...
ListenEpisode 12 – Matthew Ulm from 2020-02-10T10:00
Faith-based films (translation: Christian films) are a commodity that Hollywood would love to understand — and exploit. But in many cases, it’s a regional ...
ListenEpisode 11 – Tyler Coates from 2020-02-03T10:00
With voting for the Academy Awards set to finish next week, so ends another Oscar campaign season. Today’s guest, Tyler Coates, recently finished a stint c...
ListenEpisode 10 – Robert Grigsby Wilson from 2020-01-27T10:00
How exciting is it to have a movie you worked on play at the Sundance Film Festival? Is a career jump in the offing? Or not? Film editor Robert Grigsby Wilson has been hustling through all kinds of...
ListenEpisode 09 – Jess Fuselier from 2020-01-20T10:00
With the Sundance Film Festival starting up this week, what is the future of independent feature distribution? Theatrical run opportunities are strangely s...
ListenEpisode 08 – Nicholas Meyer from 2020-01-13T11:00
It’s tricky to narrow down a favorite film of all time, but me, I frequently do: Star Trek II: The Wraith of Khan. Nicholas Meyer directe...
ListenEpisode 07 – Ted Haycraft from 2020-01-06T11:00
I have never met anyone, anywhere, who loves movies more than Ted Haycraft. No one who believes more in the movies’ power to make viewers empathize with their fellow species, its redemptive power, ...
ListenEpisode 06 – Louis Plamondon from 2019-12-30T10:00
Known on the internet primarily by his self-given character name “Sleepy Skunk,” trailer editor Louis Plamondon has been making dynamic and comprehensive end-of-year trailer mashups for most of the...
ListenEpisode 05 – Ben Fritz from 2019-12-23T11:00
You’re not going to find a better book about the current mindset — and future of — the Hollywood movie studios than Ben Fritz’s The Big Picture: The Fi...
ListenEpisode 04 – Paul Hirsch from 2019-12-16T11:00
Paul Hirsch was the finishing editor on freaking Star Wars. Multiple generations of film-goers weened on that film learned what they know about fi...
ListenEpisode 03 – AJ Edwards from 2019-12-09T11:00
AJ Edwards answered a call for cast and crew from his local Virginia TV newscast and arrived, overdressed, in a suit, to an interview for what would turn o...
ListenEpisode 02 – Aaron Smith from 2019-12-02T12:00
Aaron Smith manages Evansville’s largest theater, Showplace Cinemas East, and has done so for almost 20 years. That makes him a first-hand witness on the subject everyone in the film in...
ListenEpisode 01 – Kevin Chenault from 2019-11-26T19:54:07
On the inaugural episode, Shane speaks to Evansville filmmaker Kevin Chenault about the effect House Party and Kids had on his early film...
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