PODCAST · tv
Filmsuck
by Eileen Jones and Dolores McElroy
Support us on Patreon.com/filmsuck for bonus episodes and more perks! In this podcast for the people, we bring you the truth about the rotten state of cinema, its often odious or ham-fisted relationship to politics, and its occasional wondrous bursts of courage and brilliance. Filmsuck is a bi-weekly podcast hosted by Eileen Jones, film critic at Jacobin magazine and recovering academic, and Dolores McElroy, diva enthusiast and lecturer in film and media at UC Berkeley.
Episodes
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Grading TEENAGE SEX & DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores have high praise for TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA, the new horror-comedy by up-and-coming writer-director Jane Schoenbrun (I SAW THE TV GLOW). It’s about nerdy, academically-trained filmmaker Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder of HACKS), who’s been hired to reboot...
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Historic Re-release of THE DEVILS
Host Eileen Jones is joined by writer and cinephile Alex Deley in celebrating Ken Russell's THE DEVILS, a 1971 film so controversial in its day that it was heavily censored, then banned in many countries, then released but rated X in the UK and USA, then critically reviled—Roger Ebert gave it…
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NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and the Southern Gothic
The only film that actor Charles Laughton directed is the now-celebrated NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955), a unique, nightmarish, dark fairy tale vision that's part of the "Southern Gothic" series of films currently running on the Criterion Channel. The film's an adaptation of Davis Grubb's 1953 novel,...
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Spring TV Potpourri
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores provide a rundown on what's on TV, which starts off as a cheerful endeavor and ends up in a state of despondency over our grim cultural moment. We report on the third season in twenty years of THE COMEBACK, the HBO Max cringe comedy starring Lisa Kudrow as Valerie...
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DISCLOSURE DAY: Nostalgia for the Summer Blockbuster
Filmsuck co-hosts enjoy the old-fashioned movie-fun of watching what's essentially one long chase in the new Steven Spielberg action-adventure DISCLOSURE DAY. It's his return to sci-fi alien-invasion-themed movies that are a specialty of his represented by CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND…
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NATCHEZ: Mississippi Goddam
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores praise the complex and ultimately harrowing Susannah Herbert documentary NATCHEZ, currently streaming on YouTube and Apple TV+ and soon to arrive at PBS. It focuses on the engine driving this Mississippi River port town's economy, which is tourism—specifically the…
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Chris Fleming: Saving Stand-up Comedy
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores express their admiration and affection for comedian Chris Fleming and his hilarious new HBO special CHRIS FLEMING: LIVE AT THE PALACE. Highly recommended! You may know Fleming from his dazzling comic flights on YouTube and Instagram, but as Fleming puts it, this…
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HAMNET: Good Grief
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores resisted seeing HAMNET, so they both marvel at the emotional impact it achieves by the poignant ending, when almost everyone in theater audiences dissolves into tears. HAMNET is a period tragedy by Chloe Zhao (NOMADLAND) that’s been playing in arthouse theaters for two...
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THE BRIDE! A Messy Monster Mash
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores agree that the title character in writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE BRIDE!, played by Jessie Buckley (who also portrays the wry, raddled spirit of author Mary Shelley) is terrific. She has a brilliantly disheveled look of undead glamor featuring wild...
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The Schism Over THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE
Co-hosts disagree on THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE, a new film about the title character (played by Amanda Seyfried) who founded the Shaker religion. Eileen liked it because she has a morbid religious streak that makes her obsessively interested in movies about old-time people who see visions and…
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FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER: Here's to Strained Family Relations
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores found Jim Jarmusch’s new indie film Father Mother Sister Brother a sleep-inducing slog. It’s a comedy-drama anthology film in three chapters about difficult family relationships that won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and stars Adam Driver, Tom Waits…
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A Very TV Christmas
In honor of the season, co-hosts Eileen and Dolores take on the made-for-TV holiday movie, focusing especially on the perennial Hallmark Channel favorite, A SHOE ADDICT’S CHRISTMAS (2018). It’s about a thirtysomething department store employee and shoe-lover named Noelle (Candace Cameron Bure)...
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FRANKENSTEIN: Guillermo Del Toro's Grand and Goofy Obsession
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores disagree when it comes to their basic reactions to the new FRANKENSTEIN, written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro and currently playing on Netflix. Whereas Dolores finds a number of aspects of the film compelling, such the opulent production design, the sensitive...
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BUGONIA: The Rhetorical Impasse
Co-host Eileen Jones and special guest Conan Neutron of the Movie Night Extravaganza podcast enthuse about the wild and riveting new Yorgos Lanthimos film, Bugonia. It concerns a pair of rural cousins, played by Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis, who abduct the CEO of a pharmaceutical company (Emma...
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It's a Good Time for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores agree that Paul Thomas Anderson’s ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is a must-see movie and a model for American filmmaking right now. An adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel VINELAND, ONE BATTLE makes brilliant use of such dynamic genres as action, dark comedy, and the...
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Darren Aronofsky CAUGHT STEALING a Good Time
New Filmsuck episode! Dolores and I enthuse about CAUGHT STEALING. It's doing pretty badly at the box-office, though it's a timely dark comic noir of chaotic working class life, and Austin Butler has a delightful co-star in the cat actor playing Bud.
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Straying into Documentaries
Special guest Asali Echols, documentary filmmaker, talks to me about the current state of documentary films. We discuss a recent trend toward reviving the strict "observational documentary," led by filmmakers like Elizabeth Lo, whose breakthrough film was the dog's-eye-view movie STRAY (2020).…
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Cracking Ourselves Up: Self-presentation in Onscreen Comedy: PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF
New Filmsuck episode! While Dolores is making the world safe for opera in Santa Fe, I'm talking to my friend M Dalebout, whose area of scholarly expertise is identity construction in onscreen comedy. We start off with the 2025 HBO Max documentary PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF!
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How Much is TOO MUCH?
New Filmsuck episode! I rage against Lena Dunham, who cursed us all with GIRLS and is back doing further harm to impressionable minds everywhere with her new, semi-autobiographical Netflix romantic comedy TOO MUCH. Dolores has a more measured reaction to this low-stakes entertainment about an...
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WHITE LOTUS Season 4: How Deep is the Water?
Season 4 of Mike White's big hit show WHITE LOTUS might not be the most profound thing you've ever seen, but Dolores and Eileen still enjoy its excellent cast reveling in portraying the latest tales of ghastly behaviors of the rich.
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Praise for SINNERS
Co-hosts Dolores and Eileen enthuse about the messy but compelling thrills of Ryan Coogler's delirious Deep South vampire extravaganza!
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JOHN WICK and BALLERINA: Seeking Rough Justice
Action film enthusiasts rejoice! Special guest Forrest "Flacko" Miller of the lively and popular Movie Night Extravaganza podcast joins co-host Eileen Jones for an episode delving into the everybody's-a-killer world of JOHN WICK 1 - 4, including the new riotously violent spin-off BALLERINA…
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Meet Your Heroes Part Deux: Interviewing Todd Haynes
All about that time Dolores interviewed her favorite living director Todd Haynes (SAFE, FAR FROM HEAVEN, I'M NOT THERE, CAROL, MAY DECEMBER)--which was only two weeks ago! Filmsuck co-hosts exult in all things Haynes, including his films, his academic background, his current political take, his...
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This Absurd Ritual, The Oscars
Late in the narcotizing Oscars 2025 telecast, host Conan O'Brien made the oddly poignant promise that "Through trauma and joy, this seemingly absurd ritual is going to be here." It was a weird, oblique, it'll-be-okay reference to the seismic upheavals in America, after the whole nearly-four-hour...
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We're Still Here
Talking about I'M STILL HERE, a new political drama based on the 2015 memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva about the fracturing of his leftist family in the early 1970s, during the right-wing military dictatorship in Brazil. It's the latest film by Walter Salles (MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, CENTRAL STATION)…
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Dissecting David Lynch
It's a Very Special Filmsuck episode open to the public! Co-host Eileen Jones interviews writer and cinephile Alex Deley, who wrote a fantastic piece for JACOBIN magazine about the glories of Lynch films.
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Cohost Experience Uneven FLOW
We've got a rare total disagreement between co-hosts when it comes to FLOW, the highly praised Latvian animated feature that's up for Oscars for both Best Animated Film and Best International Film. Dolores found this dialogue-free tale of a housecat and several other animals trying to survive a...
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NOSFERATU: Robert Eggers' Dark Dream
Can't get enough of that new NOSFERATU, so co-hosts Eileen and Dolores are debating its merits and demerits while at the same time embracing the film as a cinephile must-see.
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Holding Space for "Glicked"
Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores take the "Glicked" challenge and watch WICKED and GLADIATOR II back-to-back. Here are hilarious our survivor's tales.
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Season of the Witch
Filmsuck co-hosts Eileen and Dolores celebrate Halloween with a discussion of the witch films currently featured in the Criterion Channel series. They include such favorites as BLACK SUNDAY, SUSPIRIA, THE WITCHES, THE CRUCIBLE, and THE LOVE WITCH, but the most exciting discovery is IL DEMONIO…
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BEETLEJUICE Returns to the Living
Filmsuck co-hosts Eileen and Dolores celebrate the long-awaited sequel BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, thirty-six years after Tim Burton's beloved 1988 comedy hit. Michael Keaton is back as the high-living undead title character, a "freelance bioexorcist," along with Winona Ryder as former depressed…
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Back Episode: ADVENTURELAND and the Summer Amusement Park Film
Summer's nearly over and we're looking at the effect of carnivals and amusement parks in such hot-weather hits as ADVENTURELAND (2009), ZOMBIELAND (2009), THE LOST BOYS (1987), and SOME CAME RUNNING (1958).
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Faye Dunaway: Don't Fuck with Me, Fellas!
Filmsuck co-hosts tackle the life and career of thorny but fascinating star Faye Dunaway, which is the topic of the new HBO Max documentary FAYE. Her long and turbulent stage and screen career includes such memorable films as BONNIE AND CLYDE, THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, CHINATOWN, NETWORK, MOMMIE...
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Deborah Kerr Rhymes with Star!
New Filmsuck episode! We're celebrating Scottish-born actor Deborah Kerr ("...rhymes with star!") whose stardom in 1940s England got her a Hollywood studio contract and a "ladylike" star image she had to fight in order to get better roles. She ought to be better known for her unusual air of...
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Drive Away Dolls: An Experiment in Fun
Filmsuck co-hosts agree that this funny low-budget film by Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, which is the first film of their "lesbian B-movie trilogy," represents a challenge to our dull American film era.
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The Book of Barbra: Surveying Streisand
Co-hosts grapple with the new Barbra Streisand memoir, a 900+ page tome called MY NAME IS BARBRA that came out in November 2023 but takes three months to read. Latest Filmsuck! Co-host Dolores, a devoted fan of the EGOT award-winning singer-actor-producter-director, brings impressive insight to…
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Agonizing Over the Academy Awards
We're wading into the Oscar nominations and the people who hate them!
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MAESTRO and the Mess that is the Biopic
In this episode, we talk about the sad mess that is the biopic genre, with MAESTRO, currently playing on Netflix, as one of our main examples. Dolores takes a reasonable stance on the biopic, praising the good ones and indicating the fascination of the form for a certain type of audience, and...
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POOR THINGS: Is It a GreatThing?
Filmsuck co-hosts round out 2023 and blaze into 2024 with an epic hashing-out of the flamboyantly gorgeous new Yorgos Lanthimos film POOR THINGS that reunites him with his creative team from THE FAVORITE (2018), screenwriter Tony McNamara and lead actor-producer Emma Stone. Stone plays a kind of...
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Todd Haynes’ Mature Take
Co-hosts agree that Todd Haynes gripping new melodrama MAY DECEMBER is one of his best! The film has been nominated for several Independent Spirit Awards including Best Feature, Best Director for Haynes, Best First Screenplay for Samy Burch, and Best Lead Actor for Natalie Portman. (But not...
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Blessings on THE CURSE
Filmsuck co-hosts hash out the agonizingly compelling cringe-comedy series THE CURSE--created by Nathan Fielder and Bennie Safdie, who also star alongside Emma Stone--and arrive at amazing insights explaining all of contemporary life. This podcast is such a bargain!
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Pre-Code Halloween Party: Two From Boris Karloff
New Filmsuck episode! A Halloween celebration of Boris Karloff in two of his pre-Code films: THE OLD DARK HOUSE and THE BLACK CAT! He's best known for FRANKENSTEIN, but Karloff gave so many great performances, it's a good time to appreciate his range. Many of his films are widely available, but...
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Bottoms: New Teen Comedy is Tops
Filmsuck co-hosts revel in a raucous low-budget comedy called Bottoms that's playing at a theater near you, and doing amazingly well with critics and young audiences. It's about a high school girls-only fight club--excuse me, "women's self-defense class"--and it's so refreshingly funny and...
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Old Broads Hit the Road
Latest Filmsuck! Our "Old Broads Hit the Road" episode features a discussion of a promising film/TV trend involving older women on the move seeking liberatory experiences in ELLE S'EN VA (ON MY WAY, 2013), JUANITA (2019), HACKS (2021-), and MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS (2021).
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Go Bears: Why We’re Still Thinking About THE BEAR Seasons 1 & 2
Filmsuck co-hosts Eileen and Dolores agree that the relentless affect and unusual staying power of the FX/Hulu series The Bear makes it a rare example of popular art in the tradition of the family-torment plays of Eugene O'Neill and Edward Albee. A belated tribute!
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BARBIE and OPPENHEIMER: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Doll
Latest Filmsuck! Co-hosts Eileen and Dolores agree on finding Greta Gerwig's BARBIE surprisingly funny and delightful, and Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER a ponderous, unenlightening snore. In order to argue these contentious views, we have to get into the gritty details, so this is a...
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Asteroid City: Wes Anderson’s Alien Affect
Filmsuck co-hosts Eileen and Dolores fearlessly defy obsessive Wes Anderson fans in reviling his soul-deadening, seersucker suit sensibility!
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Somebody Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Hangin’ in the Heartland
In this year's Filmsuck Pride Month episode, we’re talking about the fresh and funny HBO series Somebody Somewhere. It’s just wrapped up its second season and been renewed for a third, so if you haven’t been watching it, now is a good time to catch up with this offbeat show that fans have been...
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Retelling the Stars: Little Richard and Brooke Shields
Filmsuck co-hosts talk about two new documentaries that deal with two wildly different celebrities, each negotiating a lifetime of public performances beginning in childhood--Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields on Hulu, and Little Richard: I Am Everything, available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.…
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Dead Ringers: Dead-on or DOA?
Latest Filmsuck episode! Co-hosts Dolores and Eileen tackle the new Amazon Prime miniseries DEAD RINGERS, based on the 1988 David Cronenberg body-horror freakout classic, and featuring Rachel Weisz in the roles of disturbingly codependent twin gynecologists once played by Jeremy Irons. The...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Support us on Patreon.com/filmsuck for bonus episodes and more perks! In this podcast for the people, we bring you the truth about the rotten state of cinema, its often odious or ham-fisted relationship to politics, and its occasional wondrous bursts of courage and brilliance. Filmsuck is a bi-weekly podcast hosted by Eileen Jones, film critic at Jacobin magazine and recovering academic, and Dolores McElroy, diva enthusiast and lecturer in film and media at UC Berkeley.
HOSTED BY
Eileen Jones and Dolores McElroy
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Filmsuck have?
Filmsuck currently has 85 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Filmsuck about?
Support us on Patreon.com/filmsuck for bonus episodes and more perks! In this podcast for the people, we bring you the truth about the rotten state of cinema, its often odious or ham-fisted relationship to politics, and its occasional wondrous bursts of courage and brilliance. Filmsuck is a...
How often does Filmsuck release new episodes?
Filmsuck has 85 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Filmsuck?
You can listen to Filmsuck on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Filmsuck?
Filmsuck is created and hosted by Eileen Jones and Dolores McElroy.
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