GF1.That’s what the New Jersey gangsters on The Sopranos called the film. To everyone else, it was The Godfather, a 1972 film that saved Paramount Pictures and catapulted the careers of Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton to the stratosphere. It also reintroduced a struggling Marlon Brando to the world.In this episode, I interview Mark Seal, author of Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of the Godfather, recently published by Simon and Schuster. The book chronicles the unlikely rise of writer Mario Puzo (author of The Godfather novel), gambling habits, mob connections, Hollywood feuds, casting disputes, on-the-set backstabbing. The more one reads, the more one wonders how the damn thing turned out so well.

Hotter than Bond. Cooler than Bullitt. In this episode, it's Shaft.

Inspired by John Wayne, a Texas dishwasher named Joe Buck (Jon Voight) buys a cowboy hat, boots and leather jacket for his new life as a New York sex worker. He figures women will be into that. It turns out, gay men are really into it. After getting off a bus, Joe rents a room and begins wandering around Manhattan. At every turn, New Yorkers pick his pocket, including Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a coughing, limping, streetwise hustler who takes $20 off of the naive Buck.In this episode, I interview Glenn Frankel, the author of Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic, about the classic film starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. Released with an X rating in 1969, the movie was a surprise hit for United Artists and director John Schlesinger.

Bloody. Unnerving. Thrilling. Thirty-plus years after its release, Goodfellas still packs a punch. Or should I say a kick in the head? Martin Scorsese directed the movie. Based on Wiseguy, a book by Nicholas Pileggi about the gangster Henry Hill, Goodfellas stars Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Lorraine Bracco. The movie is renowned for its tracking shots, a wise-cracking and crazy-violent Joe Pesci, a shocking opening, complex and shifting storytelling and a heady mix of intimidating Italian guys. In this episode, I interview Glenn Kenny, the author of Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas about what he learned while researching and writing his book. Kenny is a film critic whose work has appeared in the New York Times and RogerEbert.com.

Lots of critics think that Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO has no peers. When SIGHT & SOUND magazine asked hundreds of critics to pick their favorites, the 1958 movie starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak topped the list. But one woman begs to differ. Beth Lewis doesn't much see what all the fuss is about. She watched VERTIGO in London with her partner Chris Attaway, a British audio producer. After the film, Chris turned on his recorder and documented her hot takes on the movie. The result is an engaging audio story titled “I’ve Never Seen a Hitchcock. Vertigo. After.” Chris is host of LEFT of the DIAL (https://open.spotify.com/show/0mbP2xA5IKuG281jFazVvY), a new music podcast on Spotify. Much of his other audio work can be heard on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/bozwina). Host Todd Melby's new book is titled A Lot Can Happen in the Middle of Nowhere: The Untold Story of the Making of Fargo. It's available for preorder. The Drunk Projectionist website is here (https://www.thedrunkprojectionist.com/).

An interview with Brett Harvey, director of "Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo." After struggling with heroin and robbing stores as a teenager, Trejo spent years incarcerated in California prisons. After his release, he worked as a drug counselor. A fluke visit to a movie set resulted in Trejo landing a tiny role in "Runaway Train." More small roles followed, mostly as a badasses. The Los Angeles actor is best known for his roles in "Machete," "Con Air," "Dusk Till Dawn," and "Heat."

Georges Mourier describes Napoléon as “not just a masterpiece." The Cinémathèque Française restoration expert says the 1927 silent film "is also a monster piece.” Which is why, while working on a new restoration of the Abel Gance classic, Mourier never be alone with Napoléon. Instead, a collaborator will always be with him in the screening room as he grapples with the genius of Gance. In this episode of The Drunk Projectionist podcast, host Todd Melby and Mourier discuss the many versions of the movie, discuss the snowball fight scene, analyze the singing of the Marseillaise at the Club Des Cordeliers, and much more. Also here: https://bit.ly/2jQB3aw

The Drunk Projectionist's Todd Melby interviews Albert Serra, the director of "The Death of Louis XIV." The opinionated and entertaining Serra discusses the film's origin as an art installation at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1:58), Louis XIV's agony (2:58), pre-filmmaking discussions with collaborators (4:00), how he gets five "magical" minutes every day when shooting (12:12), oworking with Jean-Pierre Leaud (13:10), the intelligence of actors (17:15), silent film star Harry Langdon (19:25), Andy Warhol's films (22:30), why he doesn't look at shots from inside the camera (26:00), the film's most important scene (33:33), the relationship between truth and beauty (42:50).

The Drunk Projectionist's Todd Melby interviews Charles Burnett, director of "Killer of Sheep." Critic Terrence Rafferty of GQ called the film "one of the most striking debuts in movie history." The movie examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse. Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a teacup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife, holding his daughter.

The Drunk Projectionist's Todd Melby interviews Frederick Wiseman director of "Titicut Follies," a 1967 documentary about a hospital for the criminally insane. In this interview with Todd Melby, he also reveals why he shot most of his movies on 16mm, how his films are structurally similar to plays and why he hates the term "cinema verite." In the interview, Wiseman discusses Jim's victimization at the hands of prison guards (5:20), Vladmir's case review (9:07), the limitations of documentaries (13:54), the importances of long scenes (17:28), the length of his films (20:03), on directing a theatrical production of "Happy Days" (24:45), on the advantages of shooting on 16mm (26:29), on recording sound and working with cinematographers (28:51), on other documentary filmmakers (29:31), and on "cinema verite" (29:58).