Did you know that fear lives within your body, a creature that attaches itself to your spine that can only be subdued by screaming? True medical fact! At least that’s the premise of William Castle’s 1959 shocker, notorious for installing buzzers in audience members’ seats. Matt Singer joins us to share the love for Castle and Vincent Price — and to discuss his fantastic new book, “Funny Business: The Old-School Wedding Crashers and Knocked-Up Virgins Who Changed Comedy Forever.”

“Every Time a Bell Rings: The Legacy of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ America’s Most Beloved Holiday Film” is Emily St. James and Lauren Theisen’s thoughtful, deeply researched, and beautifully composed meditation on Frank Capra’s 1946 classic. They join us to discuss its themes, its reputation, its peculiar history, and its ongoing legacy. 

Our pal Sean Burns joins us to discuss how a near-death experience left him eager to revisit Bob Fosse’s 1979 examination of his own flaws, demons, indulgences, and professional grind. Come for the celebration of a New Hollywood classic, stay to watch Rob Marshall catch many, many strays!

Carmelita Valdez McKoy is a carnivorous watcher of movies, and has been her entire life. She shares the details of her cinematic education with us on this week’s episode, and her thoughts on David Cronenberg’s both of its moment and waaaaay ahead of its time smash-up of sci-fi, body horror, and media commentary. 

Writer, The Film Stage co-founder, and “The B-Side” co-host Dan Mecca joins us fresh off a fabulous Letterboxd roundup of Robin Hood movies to talk about the consensus choice for the best of them all: the 1938 Technicolor extravaganza, featuring the dream team of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.

Usually our guests select a movie they love. Film essayist, podcaster, and ‘80s chronicler Drew McWeeny instead picked a movie he knows doesn’t work, but is fascinated by: noted non-comedy director John G. Avildsen’s adaptation of Thomas Berger’s satirical novel, the final on-screen pairing of the cast-against-type John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. 

Sarah Welch-Larson’s book “Becoming Alien: The Beginning and End of Evil in Science Fiction's Most Idiosyncratic Film Franchise” thoughtfully and energetically explores the series that launched with Ridley Scott’s magnificent 1979 sci-if/horror mashup, so she joins us to discuss its making, execution, and ongoing influence. 

It's the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, so Jason and Mike are celebrating by talking about Robert Altman's seminal encapsulation of the USA's chaos and beauty, and by previewing Mike's new show, where he does long-form deep dives exploring our ongoing experiment, Whitewashed History.

Whitewashed History premieres on the 4th of July on Substack and wherever you find your podcasts. 

Isaac Butler’s phenomenal new book, “The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars,” is a detailed examination of the intersection of art and politics in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s — just like Bob Fosse’s 1972 film adaptation of the Weimar-set Broadway smash. We discuss both in this week’s can’t-miss episode!

Film essayist, podcaster and author of “Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA” Will Sloan joins us for our first discussion of one of the XXX-rated titles in GUIDE. We’ll discuss the transgressive 1982 adults-only dystopian satire ”Café Flesh” — and the blurry line between mainstream and hardcore. 

Film critic, essayist, and programmer Ashley Clark’s most recent book is “The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films,” and he joins us to discuss one of the most beloved of those films: Perry Henzell’s reggae gangster classic, “The Harder They Come.”

If you’ve spent any time reading the marvelous, energetic, infectiously enthusiastic prose of Sheila O’Malley — film critic, essayist, and author of the recent “The Art and Making of Frankenstein” — you will not be surprised that, given a list of movies to choose from, she chose one starring Elvis Presley. So we discussed “King Creole,” his 1958 vehicle directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Carolyn Jones, Dolores Hart, and a (comparatively!) young Walter Matthau.

The Edgar award-winning author of “Everybody Knows” and “She Rides Shotgun” joins us to discuss his new novel “A Violent Masterpiece,” as well as John Milius’s 1981 adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s pulp classics — the movie that made a movie star of an Austrian bodybuilder with a complicated name.

The legendary film critic and historian and his “Maltin on Movies” co-host (and daughter!) join us to discuss their wonderful new book “Family Movie Night Menus: Recipes and Films for Unforgettable Times Together,” and one of their very favorite movies, Billy Wilder’s acidic media commentary “Ace in the Hole.” 

AV Club alum and “Happy Place” proprietor Nathan Rabin joins us to discuss his wonderful new book “The Fractured Mirror,” cataloging all of the movies *about* movies, as well as one of his strangest cultural obsessions: Tom Laughlin’s immensely profitable, culturally ubiquitous, and completely forgotten small-town martial arts social drama “Billy Jack.”

“Pop Culture Happy Hour” co-host Aisha Harris was herself a confused teen when she first watched Elia Kazan and William Inge’s confused-teen tale “Splendor in the Grass”; she joins us to discuss the timelessness of its conflicts, the mastery of Kazan’s direction, and the absolutely scorching chemistry of leads Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty.

Long before he was the chief film critic for “Rolling Stone,” David Fear discovered “Guide for the Film Fanatic” at the mall bookstore and it became “my Bible, my Torah, my Quran.” He joins us to discuss his four-decade obsession with “Guide,” and the genius of Mel Brooks’s 1974 Universal horror valentine/spoof.

Kristen Lopez is a busy critic (her site is The Film Maven), podcaster (her podcast is Ticklish Business), and author (her most recent book is “Popcorn Disabilities”). She joins us to discuss the first concert documentary we’ve dived deep on from “Guide”: Led Zeppelin’s 1976 rock epic, “The Song Remains the Same.”

Justin and Laura Khoo’s podcast “Cows in the Field” explores the philosophical, aesthetic, and cultural themes in popular movies, high and low, “good” and “bad,” which aligns them clearly with Danny Peary and GUIDE. Together, we work through Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s bestseller — a polarizing picture, throughout the culture, throughout the years, and even within our four-person conversation.     

Carrying over an annual tradition from our previous podcast “A Very Good Year,” New York Times film critic, author, and friend of the pod Alissa Wilkinson returns to discuss her top five movies of the year we’ve just completed, and to talk a bit about the trends and controversies that preoccupied us.