The Hip Pocket

Aundria, Drew, and Craig talk about the way movies portray New York City and each pick a title that speaks to them about the city, using TIMES SQUARE, THE APARTMENT, and CROCODILE DUNDEE to make their points.

We're joined by my old friend from HitFix, Alan Sepinwall, to talk about some deep-dish comfort food choices. He brings us MIDNIGHT RUN, NOBODY'S FOOL, and USED CARS, and our response film is SNEAKERS. In addition, we induct THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE into the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame.

Drew, Aundria and Craig discuss three movies that were designed to hurt you, including POSSESSION, THREADS, and PRIME CUT.

Indie producer David Lawson Jr. joins us with an '90s kid's dream line-up: RAD, GLEAMING THE CUBE, and AIRBORNE, and we pick BMX BANDITS as our response title. Plus BAD NEWS BEARS enters the HPHoF!

Drew, Aundria and Craig each pick a film that represents Los Angeles to them. Aundria's choice is the Denzel Washington showcase TRAINING DAY. Craig's choice is Jon Favreau's influential '90s indie SWINGERS. Finally, Drew's choice is the Hal Ashby/Warren Beatty classic SHAMPOO. 

Filmmaker COREY SHERMAN joins us to discuss a fistful of independent visions. We kick it off with RUBY IN PARADISE, discuss the anime OCEAN WAVES, and wrap it up with Mike Leigh's caustic CAREER GIRLS. Our response film is Jennifer Jason Leigh in GEORGIA, and we continue that theme with RUSH, which is added to the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame.

Drew, Aundria, and Craig decided to each pick a comforting, relaxing favorite in a special SOFT EPISODE. Craig picked the Kenny Rogers comedy SIX PACK, Aundria picked the beloved John Hughes holiday favorite, PLANE TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES, and Drew picked the gentle French fable PETITIE MAMAN.

JOHN GHOLSON is an actor and an artist and an all around good egg. He was one of the stars of the recent indie horror hit MAN FINDS TAPE, and you've seen his face in things like the recent Netflix series BAD THOUGHTS as well. He's joining the Hip Pocket crew to kick off season four with some esoteric picks. Peter Jackson's BRAINDEAD, Eric Schaeffer's IF LUCY FELL, and the indie documentary masterpiece AMERICAN MOVIE are his picks, and our response title is the Canadian cult gem HARD-CORE LOGO. In addition, we discuss Roman Coppola's CQ for the Hip...

For the second year, we were lucky enough to be asked to do a live Hip Pocket for The Chattanooga Film Festival!

Our guest for this hybrid video audio podcast was hybrid animator, producer, writer and director Michael Dougherty. He wrangled GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS and made KRAMPUS annual viewing for horror geeks, not to mention birthed Halloween icon Sam, the burlap-headed bastard from SEASONS GREETINGS and TRICK ‘R TREAT. We went all in on Mike’s career and his picks, plus AI, media literacy…and screw worms. Mike brought us NETWORK, THEY LIVE, and IDIOCRACY, and we...

Writer/actor/producer Jonathan Penner joins us to talk about his picks RRR, The Fly, and The American Friend, and we pick Repo Man and Into the Night in response.

Shout Factory producer Jeff Roland joins us to discuss Hip Pocket titles including LIFEFORCE, BETTER OFF DEAD, and FURIOSA, and we also discuss JOE VS THE VOLCANO and TO LIVE & DIE IN LA.

Film critic Kristen Lopez joins us to talk about disability representation in film, and we discuss Freaks, Coming Home, and Me Before You, as well as Ukranian film The Tribe and Born on the Fourth of July.

DAN FIENBERG has been the Chief Television Critic at The Hollywood Reporter for a decade now and hosts TV’s Top 5, a weekly television podcast for the trade. He also writes the Now See This newsletter and was the president of the Television Critics Association. He was a co-founder of HitFix, one of the original writers for the site, and I have spent an enormous amount of time at film festivals and industry events with him. He was part of the Firewall & Iceberg podcast with Alan Sepinwall, and I felt genuinely lucky to work at a publication with the tw...

AKELA COOPER is a writer/producer who basically kicks a ton of ass. She is, after all, the writer of Malignant and M3GAN, and she has brought her exuberant nerd energy to a variety of projects over the years. She wrote Hell Fest and The Nun II, and she’s worked on TV shows like American Horror Story, Luke Cage, The 100, Grimm, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. She has been a horror fan since childhood, and that deeply-seated love of the genre shines through in all of her work.

She picked three delightful films for us...

SCOTT DERRICKSON is a writer/director/producer whose latest film The Black Phone 2 opened last weekend at #1. His breakthrough film, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, was in 2005, and his movie Sinister is often cited as one of the scariest films of the 2000s. He works frequently with our guest from earlier this season, C. Robert Cargill, and their partnership includes films like Doctor Strange, The Gorge, and the first Black Phone.

Scott made his picks quickly and confidently, and why not? He picked three great, totemic movies, films that feel like they were inevitable additions to this...

SARAH WATSON is a writer/producer who is best known as the creator of The Bold Type, the author of a terrific YA novel called Most Likely, and for her work on the long-running Parenthood. We met through mutual friends and bonded over general movie nerdery, and watching her climb through the ranks of writing rooms has been a huge pleasure over the years. Plus she’s a great dog owner, and, honestly, what higher praise is there?

She’s currently hard at work on seasons two and three of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but decided to t...

PHIL NOBILE JR. is the editor-in-chief of Fangoria magazine, which is kicking ass and taking name these days. Before this, you may have known him as part of the Birth. Movies. Death. editorial team, where he spent a ton of energy writing about his deeply-seeded love of the James Bond franchise. He’s also worked as a producer on films like Horror Noire, Satanic Panic, and VFW, and you’ve probably seen him in documentaries as a talking head. While you might guess that he’d pick all horror films or maybe spy movies because of his Bond mania, he thr...

KATIE RIFE is a freelance writer and critic from Chicago who is best known for her deep focus on genre and exploitation fare. She was the news editor for The AV Club from 2014 to 2019, and then Senior Editor from 2019 to 2022. She is currently writing for outlets like RogerEbert.com, Rolling Stone, Indiwire, and Vulture. You can get a taste of what she’s like from her round-up of the best of last year’s horror films.

The minute Katie sent her list over, I knew we were in for a wild ride. Her first pick is the scuz...

C. ROBERT CARGILL was, of course, Massawyrm in his Ain’t It Cool days. He was also Carlyle over at Spill. Those are ancient credits, though. These days, he’s hard at work with his new film The Black Phone 2, and he’s got a story featured in the new anthology It’s The End of the World As We Know It, a collection of stories set in the world of Stephen King’s The Stand. He’s maybe best known for Sinister or the first Doctor Strange, and for doling out tons of sunshiney advice for screenwriters on social media...

NICK “TIGER” WIGER is celebrating the tenth year of co-hosting Doughboys, where he and Mike review chain restaurants. He also co-hosts Get Played, a video-game podcast that has special bonus episodes that focus on anime, one of Wiger’s passions. He showed up ready to share that passion with us, and I thought it was a great trio of titles, representing three very different type of storytelling.

First up, there’s The Castle of Cagliostro, the first feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It’s a unique title in his filmography because of the origins of the film, but...

Criterion reached out to me recently to talk about their new release of 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould. I was delighted to see them announce a 4K remaster of the film. My own copy is from so long ago that I’m pretty sure it was in 480p. At first, I was just interested in seeing the disc, but I saw them mention that François Girard was going to be available for a few interviews.

My thanks to Diana and the fine folks over at Criterion, who had to really work to pin the time down for...

I’ve never met PETER FILARDI or had, to the best of my knowledge, any contact with him. I certainly know his work. Both Flatliners and The Craft were big movies when they came out, and Filardi was at Fantasia, the Montreal film festival I attended for several years, with his movie Ricky 6 the first time I went. He’s attending the Chattanooga Film Festival this year with his new short film, Damn Handy, and when they pitched him the basic premise of our show, he said he was interested.

As soon as we started communicating about his...

BRIAN DUFFIELD is a writer/director who has been one of the most acclaimed (and busiest) screenwriters of the last decade. He has shown up on The Black List, the annual selection of the best-loved unproduced scripts in Hollywood, roughly 50 times in the last ten years, which is mathematically confusing but impressive. We talk about his unusual upbringing in this episode, and we dig into just how wild it is that he grew up denied of mainstream pop culture, only to become the creator of Spontaneous and No One Will Save You. His upcoming adaptation of Daniel Kraus’s wi...

BEN HOSLEY is more than just a podcast producer. He runs his own fashion line, and he produces an annual Christmas album that has become a cult sensation. He met the Blank Check boys at UCB, where they first proposed a podcast that sounded like an extended bit, a show that would talk about only The Phantom Menace, as if there had never been another Star Wars film. Who knew that ten years later, they would have the most acclaimed movie podcast in the world?

One of the most popular recurring bits on the show is when...

JOE LYNCH has directed movies, TV, and music videos for almost 20 years now. With his long-time buddy Adam Green, he was the co-creator and co-star of Holliston, a truly bizarre sitcom, and they have a long-running podcast called The Movie Crypt where they’ve talked to basically anyone who has ever made a horror film, and they also host an annual marathon to raise money for a Yorkie charity. You may have seen his movies Everly with Selma Hayek or Mayhem with Steven Yeun or Suitable Flesh with Barbara Crampton and Heather Graham. He is perpetually busy, so we we...

KEVIN BIEGEL is one of the eight hundred writers who worked on A Minecraft Movie, and that’s just the latest highlight in a career that has been dedicated to making people laugh. He broke into the industry working for the Farrelly Brothers on Me, Myself & Irene, and he has moved from one great situation to the next. He worked on South Park before landing on Scrubs, where he worked for a number of seasons before he went on to create Cougar Town with Bill Lawrence, his boss at Scrubs. He also created Enlisted, a passion project that was as...

MIKE MITCHELL is best known these days as one of the hosts of the wildly-popular Doughboys podcast, where he reviews fast-food chain restaurants with his co-host, Nick “Tiger” Wiger. He is a prominent figure in the LA comedy scene, having trained at the UCB Theater, and he only seems to be picking up steam as an actor. This summer, you’ll see him in the second season of Peacock’s hit adaptation of the Twisted Metal videogame series, reprising his role of Stu, and he’s got a number of movies waiting to be released as well. You may have seen...

ERIC VESPE cut his teeth as Quint at Ain’t It Cool, starting with the site when he was still in high school, and he grew up embedded on film sets all over the world. He has written hundreds if not thousands of interviews and set visits, and along with his creative parter Aaron Morgan, he’s also made several short horror films while developing various feature projects.

He was one of the first people I invited to be on the show, in large part because he’s become a podcasting superstar with The Kingcast and The Spiel...

BEAR MCCREARY is our guest today, and he couldn’t have been more of a delight. From the moment I contacted him about being on the show, he was engaged and excited. He sent me a number of possible combinations of films and themes before landing on the one he went with: Movies that combine rock music and symphonic score on their soundtracks.

Makes sense. After all, McCreary is one of the hardest-working film and TV composers today. His mentor was the legendary Elmer Bernstein, so he learned about film composition from one of the all-time greats, bu...

CLAY KELLER is a writer, actor, and podcaster, and one of the hosts of Screen Drafts, a collaborative competitive movie discussion game where groups of people battle it out to create the definitive lists on topic after topic after movie loving topic. He was one of the hosts of the now-defunct Vidiots podcast, and he’s helped create a sprawling community of movie fans who can endlessly debate the various categories that are introduced each week.

His three Hip Pocket selections were Broadcast News, Malice, and Summer Hours. Craig chose True Stories as our response film.

...

BRYAN COGMAN is today’s guest, and he’s showing his sensitive side with his choices. This might be a surprise if you primarily know him from his WGAw-nominatd work on Game Of Thrones as a writer/producer. He was educated at Juliard as an actor, and he’s certainly got a big soft spot in his heart for great performances. He’s also worked on remakes of Sword in the Stone and Zorro for Disney, with the latter in development as a series for Wilmer Valderama.

His three Hip Pocket selections were About A Boy, Broadway Danny Ro...

JASON PARGIN is today’s guest, and he came ready to dig deep! No surprise if you’ve read his acclaimed novels like John Dies at the End, Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick, or This Book is Full of Spiders, or if you know his work from Cracked.com. He has a massive TikTok following these days and his latest book, I’m Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom, feels like an essential text for our turbulent times.

His three Hip Pocket selections were American Beauty, Fight Club, and Office Space, and I pick...

ALLIE GOERTZ is today’s guest, and if don’t already know Allie, you’re welcome for the introduction. A former editor of Mad magazine, a writer for @Midnight, a songwriter and performer, and an old-school podcaster, Allie has pretty much done it all. I’ve known her for a long time, and she was one of the first people I wanted to have on to give this format a test run.

Her three Hip Pocket picks this week are A Mighty Wind, They Came Together, and Big Night, and Aundria picked Sleeping With Other People as our resp...

It’s finally time for the second season of The Hip Pocket, and to get things rolling, we’ve got a very special guest.

BILL OAKLEY was a writer/producer for The Simpsons, eventually showrunning the series for several seasons with his creative partner, Josh Weinstein. They co-created the cult favorite Mission Hill, and more recently, Oakley is the creator and writer of Space: 1969, an original audio comedy for Audible. He’s also become a beloved figure on Instagram for his fast-food reviews, and just celebrated the Seventh Annual Steamie Awards.

Bill chose three Hip Pocket...

The first season of The Hip Pocket comes to a close with an episode focused on the films of the 2020s. Aundria, Drew and Craig discuss the haunting Aftersun, the gleefully silly Love & Monsters, and the wild dark comedy Riders of Justice.

You can find The Hip Pocket at drewmcweeny.com or on your favorite podcasting apps.

The first season's almost over and Aundria, Drew and Craig look at the 2010s this time, discussing the Argentine black comedy Wild Tales, the geek documentary Wolfman's Got Nards, and John Carney's super-charming Sing Street.

You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

Drew, Aundria and Craig picks three Hip Pocket titles from the first decade of the 2000s, discussing 800 Bullets, George Washington, and the somehow still underrated Michael Clayton.

You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

The big Hip Pocket season one warm-up continues as we reach the 1990s. We talk about The Man in the Moon, Dogfight, and Grace of My Heart, and things get emotional!

You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

The first season of The Hip Pocket continues as Aundria, Drew and Craig pick three films from the 1980s. The Chocolate War, Summer School and The Big Easy all spark lively conversations as they discuss why they chose such unusual titles as part of this warm-up season.

You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!

This is not the '70s episode you're expecting. Drew, Aundria, and Craig all choose a Hip Pocket title to represent one of the wildest decades of film, so get ready for conversation about The Silent Partner, Robert Altman's Nashville and the enduring classic Jaws... 2.

You can find us at drewmcweeny.com and on your favorite podcasting apps!