The Projection Booth

Western month begins here. Lucio Fulci's Massacre Time (1966) arrived in the wake of Django riding a wave of Italian genre fever, and it announced something different lurking inside the spaghetti Western: a director with a genuine appetite for cruelty. Franco Nero plays Tom Corbett, a gold prospector summoned back to a hometown now wholly owned by the Scott family — their name on every building, their violence on every street corner. Waiting for him is his brother Jeff (George Hilton), drinking himself to death, and Junior Scott (Nino Castelnuovo), a white-suited sadist with a bullwhip and nowhere near enough supervision.

Mike White, Spencer Parsons, and Joe Odber dig into Fulci's pre-horror career, Fernando Di Leo's crime-inflected screenplay, the film's feudal vision of capitalism, and the charged dynamics of the Scott family — Oedipal, theatrical, and deeply strange. They also trace Junior's lineage forward to a certain plantation dandy in a white suit.

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

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

The truth belongs to seven billion people. That's the promise of Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg's return to science fiction and to the extraterrestrial obsessions that have haunted his work since Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Whether audiences are ready to believe is a different matter.

Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast sit down with the summer's most buzzy Spielberg event film. Written by David Koepp from a story by Spielberg, Disclosure Day follows a cybersecurity whistleblower and a meteorologist caught in the aftermath of a government cover-up about alien life. The film stars Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo, with a score by John Williams — his thirtieth collaboration with Spielberg. Mike and Chris weigh in on whether the film lives up to Spielberg's legacy or settles for familiar comfort.

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

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

Thirty years after Boy Meets World made them household names, Danielle Fishel (Topanga), Rider Strong (Shawn), and Will Friedle (Eric) launched a rewatch podcast and hit the road — and directors Chris Levitus and Zane Rubin were there to capture it all. Mike talks with Levitus and Rubin about Doc Meets World, their feature documentary premiering at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.

The two filmmakers discuss how a phone call from Strong turned into a three-year project, why a $20,000 union fee inadvertently shaped their entire approach, and what it took to make a documentary that works just as well for viewers who never watched the show. They also break down the division of labor — Rubin as archival hunter, Levitus as editor — and the painstaking work of crafting an opening that could bring any audience up to speed before the real journey begins.

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

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

Twenty-five years ago, a group of idiots convinced MTV to let them hurt themselves on television. Now, Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass crew are back one last time — older, creakier, and somehow still willing to do things that no sane human being would consider.

Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast pay their respects to Jackass: Best and Last, the fifth and final installment in the franchise, directed by Jeff Tremaine and produced with Spike Jonze. The film blends never-before-seen new stunts — tailored, inevitably, to a cast now well into their fifties — with archival footage and greatest hits from across the franchise's history, featuring the full returning roster: Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Jason "Wee Man" Acuña, Dave England, Preston Lacy, and Danger Ehren, alongside newer members Rachel Wolfson, Zach Holmes, Jasper Dolphin, and Poopies. Mike and Chris reckon with what Jackass meant, what it spawned, and whether this farewell sticks the landing.

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

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

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver inspired millions with her celebrations of nature, attention, and the examined life — yet she remained one of American literature's most intensely private figures. Filmmaker Sasha Waters spent years building an intimate portrait of Oliver from the inside out: sifting through thirty to forty boxes of correspondence, notebooks, and personal photographs before they entered the Library of Congress, and tracking down a long-lost video recording that captures Oliver speaking publicly for the first time about surviving childhood abuse.

Mike talks with Waters about the making of Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World (2026) — her path into documentary filmmaking through the school of Barbara Kopple, the subjects that have chosen her over the years, the creative problem-solving demanded by a subject who rarely allowed herself to be filmed, and what it felt like to introduce the film to a sold-out crowd of 1,100 at the Missouri Theatre during its world premiere at True/False. Waters also reflects on her parallel career as an experimental filmmaker and educator at VCU School of the Arts, and the pleasures of a good pie shake.

Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World opens theatrically July 3, 2026, and airs on PBS American Masters on August 25, 2026. Find Sasha Waters online at pieshake.com and on Instagram @pieshakepictures.

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

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