The Projection Booth Podcast

John Singleton was twenty-three when he wrote Boyz N the Hood and twenty-four when it made him the first Black filmmaker and youngest person ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. Released in 1991, the film drew from Singleton's own upbringing in South Central Los Angeles to deliver an unflinching portrait of Black life there, launched the careers of Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and Nia Long, and established Singleton as one of the most important voices in American cinema. Over the next three decades he directed Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Shaft, and Four Brothers, and served as a producer on Hustle & Flow and the FX series Snowfall, which was still in production when he died of a stroke in 2019 at age fifty-one.

The Life of Singleton: From Boyz N the Hood to Snowfall by journalist Thomas Golianopoulos draws on nearly 400 original interviews to document Singleton's full arc — his years as a driven film student at USC, his rapid ascent in Hollywood, his complicated personal life, and his final years. Published by Andscape Books in 2025, the biography traces how Singleton's commitment to putting authentic Black stories on screen shaped an industry and inspired generations of filmmakers. Mike talks with Golianopoulos about his four years reporting the book and the life of Hollywood's first self-proclaimed hip-hop director.

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Comedy Month continues as Mike talks with co-hosts Keith Gordon and Heidi Honeycutt about Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).

Chicago, 1929. Musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are barely scraping by when they stumble onto the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, witnessing Spats Colombo and his mob gun down a rival gang. With the killers on their tail, the two desperate musicians disguise themselves as women and join Sweet Sue's Society Syncopators, an all-girl band heading to Miami. Aboard the train they meet Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), a ukulele-playing singer with a weakness for saxophonists and a dream of marrying a millionaire.  

Mike also talks with scholar Noah Isenberg — author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller We'll Always Have Casablanca and currently completing a cultural history of Some Like It Hot for Norton — about the film's origins, its enduring legacy, and what it still has to say.

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Released in 1978 and directed by John Landis, National Lampoon's Animal House follows the anarchic members of Delta House fraternity at Faber College as they wage war against pompous Dean Wormer (John Vernon) and the rival Omega House. Written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, and Chris Miller, and starring John Belushi as the legendary John "Bluto" Blutarsky, the film became one of the highest-grossing comedies of its era and helped launch the modern R-rated comedy.

Jeff Nelligan's satirical new book When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor: Animal House in Western Intellectual Thought subjects the film to mock-scholarly analysis, taking its title from Bluto's historically garbled motivational speech. Casting Animal House as a Homeric odyssey and a meditation on society's moral impulse, Nelligan lampoons academic pretension while celebrating a comedy that has embedded itself permanently in American culture. Nelligan is a Washington, D.C. public affairs executive, Army veteran, and author of several previous books on parenting and political life. Mike talks with him about the film's enduring legacy and the making of the book.

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Mike talks with Sound Designer Bryan Parker about his work from his early days on Reality TV to his current jobs on The Pitt and Scarpetta. Parker describes how he works with his peers and creative partners to create the best experience via his craft.

Follow Bryan on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bryanvanbryan

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Evy (Nina Kiri) hosts a paranormal podcast from her childhood home, where she has returned to care for her dying mother. A skeptic to her co-host Justin's (Adam DiMarco) true believer, she keeps the supernatural at arm's length — until anonymous recordings begin arriving: a married couple, their home filled with strange noises, their lives unraveling. As Evy listens, the distance between their story and her own begins to collapse.

Mike talks with editor Sonny Atkins about shaping a horror film built around sound, the discipline required to cut a story told almost entirely in audio, and what it means to edit your first feature.

Learn more about Sonny at https://www.slatkins.com/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth