A podcast about the films of the 1990s, their politics, and how they inform today's film landscape. Exploring the output of a seemingly bottomless decade. America's first and only movie podcast.
**Come see WTO/99 at The Balboa Theater SF on Sunday, April 26th 7:30pm, hosted by Hit Factory featuring a post-screening Q&A w/ director Ian Bell. Tickets are available here (https://www.balboamovies.com/calendar-of-events/wto-99-april-26).**
Filmmaker Caroline Golum joins Aaron to discuss her singular, stunning new feature Revelations of Divine Love (now playing in New York and Seattle with more cities on the way) alongside the work of visionary Winnipegian aueteur Guy Maddin, and his mesmeric, troubled Twilight of the Ice Nymphs.
Revelations of Divine Love is a dramatization of the life and holy visions of the 14th-Century anchoress and mystic Julian of Norwich, whose collected writings are the oldest surviving English language texts written by a woman. the film is also, to quote friend of the show critic Robert Rubsam (https://thebaffler.com/latest/wild-facts-rubsam) “a plague story; a rebellion story; an expression of the persistent supremacy of Love in a world of nearly unbearable suffering. It is both period-accurate and pointedly anachronistic, carefully handmade and plainly artificial. It is totally remarkable, and then some.”
Alongside Caroline, we discuss the linkages between faith and a radical politics, the need for splendor within a vision of a new world, and the ways that the distancing effect of artifice in film binds us to a material history of handcrafted artistry in the medium. Then, we detail the fraught production history and conflicted returns of Guy Maddins Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, a film that famously almost broke the director, and led him to consider quitting filmmaking altogether. Finally, we extract the virtues of Twilight, its place in a canon of "cinema of the erotic lanscape", its gorgeous art direction, and a sublime turn from the inimitable Shelley Duvall.
Watch the trailer for Revelations of Divine Love (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuKics1aoFc).
Follow Caroline Golum (https://x.com/carolineavenue?s=20) on Twitter.
Follow Revelations of Divine Love (https://www.instagram.com/revelations_of_divine_love/) on Instagram.
Get access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron (https://www.patreon.com/hitfactorypod) for just $5/month.
.
.
.
.
Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish (https://chrisfish.bandcamp.com/).
2 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT
Splendor feat. Alice Maio Mackay
**Come see WTO/99 at The Balboa Theater SF on Sunday, April 26th 7:30pm, hosted by Hit Factory featuring a post-screening Q&A w/ director Ian Bell. Tickets are available here (https://www.balboamovies.com/calendar-of-events/wto-99-april-26).**
Prolific filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay joins us to discuss her newest feature The Serpent's Skin (expanding this week to Los Angeles and San Francisco (https://roxie.com/film/the-serpents-skin/)) alongside the high-gloss, sugary sweet, and characteristically transgressive Gregg Araki film Splendor. Structured as a prototypical romantic comedy, the film subverts the classic love triangle dynamic to explore the unique dynamics and language of intimacy that develops between a romantically committed threesome.
We begin with a discussion of Alice's latest film The Serpent's Path - a lush, bold trans lesbian fantasy that wears its debts to teen classics like The Craft and Buffy the Vampire Slayer proudly on its sleeve. Then, we dive into the 90s work of Gregg Araki, and how Splendor subverts the expectations laid by the director's previous films in the Teen Apocalypse trilogy while losing none of the director's antagonisms toward the stricutres of heteronormative American society. Finally, we interrogate the film's subtle complexities, how Araki navigates the shifting dynamics of the threesome within the language of the romcom, and how the film pushes past the trap of "selling out vs. buying in" customary to so many films of the decade.
See The Serpent's Skin (https://roxie.com/film/the-serpents-skin/), now playing in NY, SF & LA.
Follow Alice Maio Mackay (https://x.com/alicemaiomackay?s=20) on Twitter.
Get access to all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron (https://www.patreon.com/hitfactorypod) for just $5/month.
.
.
.
.
Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish (https://chrisfish.bandcamp.com/).
25 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT
Highway Patrolman feat. Pod Casty For Me *TEASER*
Get access to this entire episode as well as all of our premium episodes and bonus content by becoming a Hit Factory Patron (https://www.patreon.com/hitfactorypod) for just $5/month.
Jake Serwin and Ian Rhine of the illustrious Pod Casty for Me join to discuss Alex Cox's 1991 crime drama Highway Patrolman. Made during a period of exile in Mexico after Cox's ostensible blacklisting from Hollywood (and the WGA) following the dramatic failure of his 1987 film Walker, the film tells the story of - you guessed it - a rookie highway patrolman in rural northern Mexico as he navigates the job, The System™, and myraid problems domestic and romantic.
We survey the signature punk style of Alex Cox as filmmaker, and how he renders Mexico an environment of characteristically seedy texture and aesthetic while preserving nuance, never letting the people or the country become a monolith. Then, we discuss the film's handling of character, specifically protagonist Pedro Rojas (played excellently by Roberto Sosa) and how he relates to two women in the film - his wife (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez) and his sex worker girlfriend (Vanessa Bauche). Finally, we consider the film's reflections on policing, the things distinctive to Mexico and its people's relationship with law enforcement, as well as those things that remain consistent in how young men become attracted to the job and how value systems and ideology are propagated and preserved.
Watch Highway Patrolman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic2EBAw3sHs) on YouTube via Kino Lorber
Listen and Subscribe to Pod Casty For Me (https://www.podcastyforme.com/)
Follow Pod Casty For Me (https://x.com/podcastyforme?s=20) on Twitter
.
.
.
.
Our theme song is "Mirror" by Chris Fish (https://chrisfish.bandcamp.com/).
Inside a recent episode
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs feat. Caroline Golum
Published 10 Apr 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] But there's still that movement and that exchange happening kind of across different places. So I think it's an interesting thing to look at, like, what a version of... like global trade looks like in the middle ages compared to when the Europeans kind of do their scramble for everybody else's land. Um, or I should say the crowns of Europe because the everyday people, not all of them did it, but the crowns of Europe start to do their scramble and the banks and the shipping and custom houses and stuff make their scramble. Um, In the Middle Ages, you would get an orange, but you could also get a sword that came by way of the Silk Road from East Asia. […]
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
