3-time national award-winning writer & full time walking movie encyclopedia Jen Johans of FilmIntuition.com delivers a steady stream of great movie recommendations, thoughtful career deep dives, & first rate conversations with critics, authors, actors, journalists, filmmakers, and more on Watch With Jen.™️ Originally launched on Patreon (https://patreon.com/FilmIntuition), where new installments premiere first, once each episode is unlocked to the public, you'll be able to find every episode here as well.
You're in for a treat this week! Queue up Watch With Jen's long-overdue reunion of covering iconic action superstars with my dear friends (& frequent guests) Jed Ayres, Jordan Harper, & Priscilla Page. In '24, we gathered to dig deep into Jean-Claude Van Damme's life & career. And in '25, Jordan & Priscilla logged in for a celebration of all things Jackie Chan. This time, we're going back to our Gen X & Millennial childhoods watching Arnold Schwarzenegger save the day. From PUMPING IRON to T2 & beyond, we compare/contrast Arnold with his fellow Planet Hollywood investors & action megastars Bruce Willis & Sylvester Stallone, discuss what it is that sets him apart as a mischievous, charismatic presence with a surprisingly light touch, and walk you through some of his biggest films. Although we reference many other performances & pictures along the way, in this feature-length conversation, we set our sights on PUMPING IRON, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, COMMANDO, PREDATOR, TOTAL RECALL, & T2: JUDGEMENT DAY. Full of nostalgia, laughs, stories, and clever insights, we hope you'll enjoy this conversation as much as we did. And make sure you're subscribed to Watch With Jen; we can't wait to get the band back together again to cover another action legend for you soon! Originally Posted on Patreon (7/28/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuition/posts/watch-with-jen-165083130 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Delightful Mary Higgins Clark award-winning mystery writer Lina Chern drops by the podcast once again for a perfectly summery, vacation-and-sunscreen-season-worthy tour of Island Movies, such as SEND HELP, SHUTTER ISLAND, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, KING KONG, CAST AWAY, SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS, & beyond. Lina's Bio: "Hi. I'm Lina. My debut novel Play the Fool won the 2024 Mary Higgins Clark Award and was a 2024 Lefty and Anthony Award nominee. A sequel, Tricks of Fortune , is expected in 2025. Other work has appeared in The Marlboro Review, The Bellingham Review, Rhino, The Collagist, and Black Fox Literary Magazine. I have also written trivia questions, word puzzles for a TV game show, paranormal romances, dialogue for your favorite comic book characters, award-winning movie reviews, and poems that have been published and read by up to dozens of people." (c/o LinaChern.com ) Originally Posted on Patreon (7/22/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuition/posts/164555257 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Encyclopedic cinephile, writer, and pal Jed Ayres joins us once again to discuss the action-horror subgenre Games of Death. Taking us on a journey from THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, we touch on some of the biggest, rarest, & best films in the genre before exploring THE HUNGER GAMES, READY OR NOT, & SELF-RELIANCE. Originally Posted on Patreon (7/15/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuition/posts/163902834 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Earlier this year, I had a blast revisiting five of my favorite Joan Cusack performances for RogerEbert.com 's Women Writers Week celebration. My friend, the prolific MovieMom.com critic Nell Minow, who also writes and edits for Ebert's site, was my editor for the article, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring her back to Watch With Jen to explore a handful of our favorite Cusack roles that I wasn't able to cover in the piece. Touching on almost her entire filmography in this briskly energetic conversation, we pay close attention to WORKING GIRL, TOY STORY 2 (& 5), SCHOOL OF ROCK, MY BLUE HEAVEN, ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES, and several others. Originally Posted on Patreon (7/8/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuition/posts/163253169 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
This week, film scholar and author Mike Miley returns to the podcast to discuss one of his favorite directors, Jonathan Demme. Intriguingly, Mike opted to focus on Demme's earliest movies before his most successful era of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and PHILADELPHIA. Although we touch on the unsung filmmaker's entire career, in this fast-paced, well-researched conversation, Mike and I cover Demme's background, recurring themes, collaborators (especially David Byrne), contemporaries, and those he influenced (most notably Paul Thomas Anderson), plus the films STOP MAKING SENSE, SOMETHING WILD, and MARRIED TO THE MOB. One of my favorite episodes of the season so far and perfect for the Fourth of July weekend given what Demme chooses to celebrate onscreen in America; it's also a must for cinephiles with access to the Criterion Channel, given that this month there's a spotlight on the filmmaker's work. Mike's Bio: Mike Miley is the author of David Lynch's American Dreamscape: Music, Literature, Cinema and Truth and Consequences: Game Shows in Fiction and Film . His writing on film has appeared in The Atlantic , Bright Lights Film Journal , Reactor , The Smart Set , and elsewhere. His next book, A Guide to Reading (and Finishing) David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest , will be published next year. He's currently working on an oral history about an 80s cult classic. Originally Posted on Patreon (7/1/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuition/posts/162635425 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
My good friend, Black List Senior Vice President Kate Hagen, returns to Watch With Jen for this throwback summer celebration of 1996 films written, directed, and starring women. A diverse cross-section of independent and commercial offerings that we highlight throughout the hour, Kate and I discuss WALKING & TALKING, A VERY BRADY SEQUEL, HARRIET THE SPY, THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS & DOGS, plus one of the summer's biggest headline getters, STRIPTEASE with Demi Moore, who made history that year as the highest paid studio actress of all-time. While the film itself isn't great, Moore's success paved the way for women such as Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon to earn paychecks closer to those of their male counterparts. Shouting out other films that year that you need to see (like I SHOT ANDY WARHOL, which releases in two months from Criterion), Kate also walks us through the summers of '76, '86, '06, and '26 to let us know the way opportunities have changed. Note: I never know whether or not to include my pod series MIDNIGHT RUN THROUGH in my official show count, but if you take a look at the total number of pods I've uploaded since the show's beginning in 2020, this marks the 300th offering from Watch With Jen! Thanks for listening. Originally Posted on Patreon (6/25/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuition/posts/162054436
It was a joy to bring on a fellow Arizona critic & film scholar, the brilliant & funny Barbara VanDenburgh, to discuss the masterful Arizona-raised filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Barbara's favorite director and her greatest area of film knowledge; it's wild to realize that we haven't done an official Spielberg episode of the pod before this one. I know you'll love it! Covering the filmmaker's life, career, major themes, techniques, collaborators, and more, we touch on most of his pictures in this fast-paced conversation, and pay special attention to three of his summer releases, JAWS, JURASSIC PARK, and A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Guest Bio: Barbara VanDenburgh is a longtime arts and entertainment journalist, a film critic, and a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle. She is also the founder and host of the First Draft Book Club, a popular, long-running book club that discusses recently published works of literary fiction at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix. She is the former books editor of USA Today and currently manages programming and communications for The Sidney Poitier New American Film School at Arizona State University. Originally Posted on Patreon (6/16/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/FilmIntuition/posts/161259047 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
The brilliant and soulful Roxana Hadadi returns with this episode devoted to one of her current favorite actors, the great Riz Ahmed. Similar to past conversations focused on terrific character actors like Tom Wilkinson and Edward Norton, this week, we explore Ahmed's filmography at large, discuss his evolution as an actor, and what sets him apart in the films THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, NIGHTCRAWLER, and SOUND OF METAL. Guest Bio: A TV critic with Vulture, who also writes about film & pop culture, Roxana was previously the film editor & a critic with Pajiba, & her reviews, essays, recaps, and other writing have also been published by The AV Club, Polygon, RogerEbert.com , The L.A. Times, Crooked Marquee, The Playlist, Fox Digital, The Criterion Collection, GQ, & Inverse. Originally Posted on Patreon (6/7/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/160446279 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Every time Leslie Byron Pitt is on the podcast, we go deep, & this episode is no exception. A film blogger and hobbyist photographer, Leslie is also a fellow podcaster, co-hosting the shows Fatal Attractions and Hustlers of Culture. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the way that photography and the role of the photographer are used in a variety of films, and zero in on REAR WINDOW, ONE HOUR PHOTO, and CITY OF GOD in particular. Originally posted on Patreon (5/31/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/159733813 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
CITY OF MARGINS, SHOOT THE MOONLIGHT OUT, & SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET author William Boyle returns to the show to discuss Old Hollywood icon Joan Crawford's incredible career from silent movies through the 1970s. Digging deep to share biographical insights and shout out films that are often overlooked, in this fast-paced chat, we cover HUMORESQUE (1946), SUDDEN FEAR (1952), and JOHNNY GUITAR (1954). Originally Posted on Patreon (5/23/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/159040535 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Hot off the news that he's just sold one million copies of his books, my wonderfully talented friend, KING OF ASHES and ALL THE SINNERS BLEED novelist S.A. Cosby returns to the pod this week for a delightful episode Gen Xers in particular will love. Listen in as we wax nostalgic, nerdy, & philosophical about the American independent film scene, video stores, actors with faces, Sundance, the New Queer Cinema movement, & iconoclastic filmmakers of the 1990s. We started with groundbreaking director Gregg Araki's TEEN APOCALYPSE TRILOGY, then went everywhere, & obviously, fittingly, NOWHERE. The three main films in the trilogy that we discuss are TOTALLY F***ED UP, THE DOOM GENERATION, and NOWHERE, but we bring in myriad other films, directors, and actors from this terrific era that valued original voices and stories that no one else could tell. Orginally Posted on Patreon (5/14/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/158267662 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
The charming and inventive B-Side pod boys return to the show to discuss a trio of films that seem like they could be unofficial sequels to other movies telling the same story or starring the same lead. Films discussed include MY BLUE HEAVEN (after GOODFELLAS), AIR FORCE ONE (which plays like a continuation of Jack Ryan's adventures), and ENEMY OF THE STATE (which acknowledges its debt to THE CONVERSATION). Originally Posted on Patreon (5/3/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/157259020 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Straight from the pages of today's New York Times , Watch With Jen's first podcast guest, author Jordan Harper, returns ahead of the release of his fittingly titled new thriller, A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE. A devotee of Japanese cinema, food, and culture, Jordan gives me a crash course in the cinema of director Juzo Itami. An all-time "wife guy," who began making movies in his early fifties and made 11, which starred his incredibly expressive wife, Nobuko Miyamoto, Juzo Itami's life and career are discussed, along with the movies SUPERMARKET WOMAN, TAMPOPO, and MINBO: THE GENTLE ART OF JAPANESE EXTORTION. Be sure to pick up A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE in your favorite indie bookstore, and if you're interested in learning more, you can tune in to watch me interview Jordan on Wednesday, April 29, at 5:00 PM PST on behalf of Poisoned Pen Bookstore . Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Originally Posted on Patreon (4/26/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/156607489
Current and aspiring writers of all backgrounds will love this episode, devoted to storytelling, humanism, empathy, and creativity. Horror author Laurel Hightower makes her Watch With Jen pod debut, exploring some of Disney's magic-minded movies of the past few decades, particularly ENCHANTED, ENCANTO, and WISH. A sprawling, soulful chat with a woman who instantly felt like an old friend, I can't recommend this conversation enough. Bio: Laurel Hightower is a bourbon-loving, pitbull-snuggling native of Lexington, Kentucky. She is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of WHISPERS IN THE DARK, CROSSROADS, BELOW, EVERY WOMAN KNOWS THIS, SILENT KEY, SPIRIT COVEN, THE DAY OF THE DOOR, and THE LONG LOW WHISTLE, and has more than a dozen short fiction stories in print. Originally Posted on Patreon (4/18/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/155953536 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Recently on the pod, I reunited with the gifted arts journalist Candice Frederick, one of my oldest friends from the early days of Film Twitter. Candice was one of the first guests I ever had on Watch With Jen, and we had a ball logging on to discuss some of the best and most under-discussed coming-of-age movies of the past 40+ years, including those we first saw as adults in our early 40s. While initially we were going to focus on RUNNING ON EMPTY, PARIAH, and JUNO, we wound up having a breezy, sunny, nostalgic, and introspective chat about a wide range of movies and cultural figures that defined our generation, including River Phoenix and John Hughes. It's ideal for Spring! Bio: Candice Frederick is a talented culture journalist for hire. She was formerly the Senior Culture Reporter at HuffPost. Other bylines include The Daily Beast, Time, History.com , New York Times, Bloomberg, ELLE, Harper's Bazaar, and many others. Originally Posted on Patreon (4/11/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/155361805 Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
In honor of that time I went on an Easter Egg Hunt as a toddler in 1984 and had no luck, I'm giving everyone this Easter egg of an episode a day early. Hope you and yours have a safe, happy, healthy, and lovely weekend full of good movies and great memories. This week, I'm honored to bring back one of my oldest Film Twitter buddies, the great Brian Saur, who I've known and collaborated with on various projects for over sixteen years, from the blog Rupert Pupkin Speaks to DVD Netflix to pods. Gifting us with an inventive trio of forgotten film noir titles he discovered on his incredible Pure Cinema and Just the Discs podcasts, in this entertaining discussion, we cover THE POWER OF THE WHISTLER (1945), ROAD HOUSE (1948), and SHAKEDOWN (1950), and other unsung B-movie goodies you'll treasure as a cinephile. Bio: Brian Saur is the co-host of the Pure Cinema Podcast, a long-running film podcast he hosts alongside Elric Kane. As the official podcast of the New Beverly Cinema, the show has spent the past nine years exploring cult and classic films, with a particular emphasis on uncovering hidden, off-the-beaten-path gems. Over the years, it has featured high-profile guests such as Quentin Tarantino, Sean Baker, Rian Johnson, Edgar Wright, Patton Oswalt, Larry Karaszewski, and Dan Waters. At its core, the podcast aims to recreate the experience of walking into a video store and getting personalized movie recommendations from the knowledgeable staff behind the counter. Listen to Pure Cinema anywhere you get podcasts. Originally Posted on Patreon (4/4/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/154778751 Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
It's always such a joy when I can bring on a friend I know IRL who lives in my home state, so it is with great pleasure that I scheduled a Zoom hang with the critically acclaimed, wondrously creative, and darkly comedic journalist-turned-author Amina Akhtar. More of a breezy, nostalgic chat about life, Gen X, print journalism, and the '90s, than a traditional episode devoted to the movies, with the release of Devil Wears Prada 2 right around the corner, it was the perfect time to talk to Amina about the twenty years she spent working in the fashion magazine industry. Accidentally stumbling into a full time position at Vogue after a month working as a fact checker, Amina was the assistant to Anna Wintour's second in command, and worked along with Lauren Weisberger, who no one in her office realized was secretly writing and getting ready to publish the thinly veiled satire of her work life with Wintour at Vogue in The Devil Wears Prada . Light-hearted, funny, and eye-opening, Amina shares her insights and memories, and we discuss how the film, starring Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and Meryl Streep, reflected and differed from the real thing. Bio: Amina Akhtar is a novelist and former fashion editor. Her satirical first novel, #FashionVictim , drew critical acclaim. Kismet , her second book, was set in the stunning and creepy world of wellness. Almost Surely Dead, Akhtar’s third novel, was published by Mindy Kaling’s imprint. Akhtar is currently working on her fourth novel. Akhtar has worked at Vogue , Elle , the New York Times , and New York Magazine , where she was the founding editor of the women’s blog The Cut . She lives not too far from Sedona, Arizona. Originally Posted (3/29/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/154266082 Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Two of my favorite buddies, New York Times bestselling, award-winning KING OF ASHES author S.A. Cosby and WBUR and Spliced Personality film critic Sean Burns, return to the podcast to celebrate the career of the great character actor Delroy Lindo. Originally conceived at the end of last season before life and scheduling got in the way, with Lindo's recent Oscar nomination for SINNERS, this winter/spring was the perfect time to discuss one of our favorite scene-stealers of the last 35+ years on Watch With Jen. Referencing everything, including our favorites like HEIST and GET SHORTY, in this episode, we took a closer look at MALCOLM X, THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, THE CORE, and A LIFE LESS ORDINARY to illustrate that he's always one of the most compelling parts of any movie, no matter how it turns out in the end. The result is a fun, thoughtful, and rollicking conversation. Originally Posted on Patreon (3/22/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/153670188 Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
We're back with the first episode of our seventh season! CALIFORNIA BEAR author Duane Swierczynski returns to the podcast to discuss his brand new graphic novel DEAD FLOWERS for John and Sandy Carpenter's Storm King Comics, digs into the way that filmmaker and composer John Carpenter's work has inspired him, and introduces Jen to THE FOG, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, & IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. Originally Posted on Patreon (3/15/26) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/153124788 Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Sharply intelligent, dazzlingly analytical, & a genuinely kind soul, my gifted friend, freelance writer and Letterboxd editor Mitchell Beaupre is one of my favorite guests for a reason. Returning to the pod for the first time in a year, this episode kicks off the start of a new Watch With Jen miniseries covering some of our favorite westerns of the twenty-first century. Beginning with 2020-2025, Mitchell and I take a deeper look at Kelly Reichardt's FIRST COW, Jane Campion's THE POWER OF THE DOG, & Kevin Costner's HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER 1. Note: Unless a wild burst of inspiration suddenly strikes, this will most likely be the pod's season finale for '25. Fear not, Watch With Jen: Season 7 will launch in the new year. Sending best wishes to you and yours for a safe, happy, healthy, and peaceful holiday season. Originally Posted on Patreon (12/22/25) here : https://www.patreon.com/posts/146466616 Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi & PayPal Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive
Producer's note
Steal the structure. Not the show.
Keep the useful structure, then change the audience, point of view, and voice until the idea is unmistakably yours.
