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Ep. 204: Mike Kuchar (Kuchar Brothers) filmmaker/painter/comic artist/cinematographer I’ve been a fan of The Kuchar Brothers for almost twenty years and they are among my top 5 directors. They are known as heroes to filmmaker John Waters and were part of the underground film scene in New York City in the late 1950’s and 1960’s as championed by film curator Jonas Mekas. This was one of my favorite interviews and one of the biggest honors I’ve ever had in doing this podcast. Mike is one of the funniest, kindest, creative, and most thoughtful filmmakers of the past 50 years. The way he speaks about making films is truly magical. The care he puts into the work and the reverence he has for the actors in his films are a true rarity. We talked about a lot of topics, but my favorite thing was when Mike spoke about remembering his birth. That’s the kind of magical and wonderful things he can do with his brain. I’m pretty sure he spoke about that ability as a way of time traveling through his own memories. He is operating at genius level. If you don’t know his films, Mike directed a film called “Sins of the Fleshapoids” which is one of my favorite of his films. It features his brother George in a lead role. https://tubitv.com/movies/100027431/sins-of-the-fleshapoidsMany of the Kuchar Brothers films can be found here to watch for free below at Penn Sound. It says it’s George’s films but it has Mike’s films as well. PennSound: George KucharMike Kuchar has been a majorly influential figure in the underground film and comics scenes since the 1960s, first in his hometown of the Bronx and, from the 1970s on, in the creative hotbed of San Francisco. Together with his twin brother George, the Kuchars gained cult recognition for their over-the-top, no-budget films that sent up Hollywood epics, weepy romances, and sci-fi B movies. In iconic films like Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965), The Craven Sluck (1967), and Death Quest of the Ju-Ju Cults(1976), Mike developed his distinctive style that jettisoned traditional narrative structure and acting professionalism in favor of extravagant, tender sagas that would have a significant impact on emerging theorizations and expressions of camp as an artistic sensibility. John Waters, Guy Maddin, and Wayne Wang all cite the Kuchars as an important influence. (In It Came From Kuchar Waters calls them “true underground filmmakers,” says they should be knighted, and points to George’s cinematic use of turds as a precursor to his own Pink Flamingos; Maddin, discussing their aesthetic, recalls the actors’ “aggressively stylized voices” and remembers feeling as though “chocolate bars had been applied to the eyebrows,” which are like no other eyebrows in the history of film.) At a time when Andy Warhol was making movies in which nothing happened, and non-narrative filmmakers like Stan Brakhage were making experimental, formalist films, the Kuchar brothers pumped out one mutant Hollywood melodrama after another—works that, in a climate of hip, affectless filmmaking, were “all affect.” Jonas Mekas, film critic for the Village Voice at the time, speculated that the makers of Barbarella had stolen ideas directly from the Kuchar film Sins of the Fleshapoids.- Evan James (from an article in Mother Jones) 4-13-2010https://www.kucharbrothers.org/mike-kucharhttps://www.kucharbrothers.orghttps://www.instagram.com/kucharbrothersCredits This episode was produced, researched, and (barely) edited by Rich Wexler https://www.vintageannalsarchive.com/vintage-annals-archive-podcast.htmlFollow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vintageannalsarchiveandpodcastPlease support our PatreonPlease consider becoming a member of our Patreon as it goes to paying out editors well and to being able to start to afford paying out guests for their time that are more working class artists and musicians. https://patreon.com/VintageAnnalsArchive

About Carla JimenezShe has had roles in series such as Lincoln Heights, My Name Is Earl and Little Britain USA, and has appeared in films including Miss March(2009) and Phat Girlz (2006).Jimenez has appeared in Nacho Libre, Lady in the Water, and Accepted. In 2003, Jimenez appeared as a character named Virginia, in the independent cult film My Life with Morrisseyby Andrew Overtoom. She was a recurring character on the ABC TV shows Desperate Housewives, Better Off Ted and Last Man Standing. She also played the recurring role of Rosa on Raising Hope.Jimenez has also appeared in the Netflix sitcom Fuller House, playing an adoption agent for Jesse and Becky. She played Alba, the Pembertons' maid, on FOX's The Mick and most recently in the film “Micro Budget”. She also originated the role of Pancha in her first Broadway production “Real Women Have Curves” that opened 4-27-2025 and has a long history of performing in plays and musicals. https://www.instagram.com/thisiscarlajimenezTHE STORYWhen Terry (Patrick Noth) discovers he's about to be a father, he does what any other sane person would do. He moves himself and his nine-months-pregnant wife from Iowa to Los Angeles to shoot a low-budget indie movie and sell it to a streamer for a “fuck-ton of money.”Documented by his cousin Devin’s behind-the-scenes camera crew, Terry suddenly finds that his beliefs about diversity, the #MeToo movement, and what technically qualifies as a properly financed film production put him at odds with, well, every single person who meets him.Featuring a cast of comedy MVPs, the uproarious Micro Budget follows Terry’s disastrous attempts to make a disaster movie, and his inability to serve a decent lunch.THE CASTBrandon Micheal Hall (Poker Face), Patrick Noth (The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show), Emilea Wilson (Alternatino With Arturo Castro), Nichole Sakura (Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain), Jordan Rock (Bupkis), Jon Gabrus (101 Places to Party Before You Die), Bobby Moynihan (Saturday Night Live), Hal Linden (Barney Miller), Neil Casey (Ghostbusters), Maria Bamford (Lady Dynamite), Mike Mitchell (Twisted Metal), Don Fanelli (A League of Their Own), Nate Fernald (The Late Late Show with James Corden), Morgan Evans (Teen Wolf After Show), Kate Flannery (The Office), Matt McCoy (Seinfeld), with Chris Parnell (30 Rock) and Carla Jimenez (Nacho Libre).https://www.instagram.com/microbudgetmoviehttps://www.microbudgetmovie.com/

I had a great chat with Morgan Evans and Patrick Noth who were the team behind the smart and hilarious comedy “Micro Budget” now out on VOD! We had a fun chat about independent filmmaking, improvisation, and stories from their early days at UCB. THE STORYWhen Terry (Patrick Noth) discovers he's about to be a father, he does what any other sane person would do. He moves himself and his nine-months-pregnant wife from Iowa to Los Angeles to shoot a low-budget indie movie and sell it to a streamer for a “fuck-ton of money.”Documented by his cousin Devin’s behind-the-scenes camera crew, Terry suddenly finds that his beliefs about diversity, the #MeToo movement, and what technically qualifies as a properly financed film production put him at odds with, well, every single person who meets him.Featuring a cast of comedy MVPs, the uproarious Micro Budget follows Terry’s disastrous attempts to make a disaster movie, and his inability to serve a decent lunch.THE CASTBrandon Micheal Hall (Poker Face), Patrick Noth (The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show), Emilea Wilson (Alternatino With Arturo Castro), Nichole Sakura (Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain), Jordan Rock (Bupkis), Jon Gabrus (101 Places to Party Before You Die), Bobby Moynihan (Saturday Night Live), Hal Linden (Barney Miller), Neil Casey (Ghostbusters), Maria Bamford (Lady Dynamite), Mike Mitchell (Twisted Metal), Don Fanelli (A League of Their Own), Nate Fernald (The Late Late Show with James Corden), Morgan Evans (Teen Wolf After Show), Kate Flannery (The Office), Matt McCoy (Seinfeld), with Chris Parnell (30 Rock) and Carla Jimenez (Nacho Libre).THE DIRECTORMorgan Evans is WGA-award nominated writer and director known for writing the animated Batman feature film Merry Little Batman for Warner Bros. Micro Budget is his first feature film as a writer/director. In addition to feature film writing, he has also written for Teen Titans Go! (Cartoon Network), Liza on Demand (YouTube Premium), The Onion, and various Netflix late night comedy programs. As a director, his work can be seen on shows like Earth To Ned (Jim Henson/Disney+), The Legendary Dudas (Nickelodeon), The Fix (Netflix), and The Teen Wolf After Show (MTV).THE PRODUCERSPatrick Noth is an Emmy-nominated comedian who plays Terry in Micro Budget and wrote the film’s script with director Morgan Evans. He began his career studying at the Upright Citizen's Brigade, and his credits include writing for and appearances on IFC, TV Land, NBC, MTV, Nickelodeon, Netflix's The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show, and digital platforms like College Humor and Above Average. Patrick has also worked as a director for Comedy Central, and made many independent projects like his comedy rap song and music video "My Posse" and the award-winning festival short Babysitting.Emilea Wilson is an award-winning actor and producer who plays Terry’s wife Erica in Micro Budget and is married to Patrick Noth (Terry) in real life. Her film acting credits include Time Freak (Academy Award Nominee for Best Live Action Short Film) and What I See When I Look (Sun Valley Film Festival, SV Shorty Award Winner). Other acting credits include The Blacklist, Alternatino, Two Sentence Horror Stories, Happyish, Sneaky Pete, The Jim Gaffigan Show, and Orange is the New Black. Her voiceover work includes Rockstar Games' Red Dead Online, and Hamster & Gretel for The Disney Channel.Rob Hatch-Miller and Puloma Basu directed the documentary feature Other Music (Tribeca Film Festival), about the final days of a beloved independent record store. They've also been the producers of numerous music videos and other projects for artists including MGMT, the Postal Service, Kurt Vile, Aimee Mann, Real Estate, and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, as well as Funny Or Die videos, independent short films, and the Adult Swim infomercial The Newbridge Tourism Board Presents "We're Newbridge: We're Comin' To Get Ya!" with The Best Show's Tom Scharpling & Jon Wurster.

About Bonnie “Prince” Billy The man who sings and composes under the name Bonnie "Prince" Billy and acts under the name Will Oldham has, over the past three-plus decades, made an idiosyncratic journey through, and an indelible mark on, the worlds of indie rock and independent cinema.About “We Are Together Again” Out Now! In 2019 we started in to exploring a process of making Louisville, KY records again, in Louisville studios with Louisville musicians. We did I Made a Place this way, then Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You. Things were going well, and then they started going better. The Purple Bird alit on our shoulders and sung its mating call into the ears of listeners all over the world, thanks primarily to the guidance of friend and producer David Ferguson. That bird is out flying around still, leaving abundances of smiling faces in its mighty wake. Having learned thus to fly, Bonny got back to work on the Louisville-first mandate, digging back into songs left open on the table during the Purple process. Bonny went into End of an Ear studio with Jim Marlowe engineering and co-producing; together they assembled a platoon of brilliant singers, blowers and pickers, including especially Bonny’s current tour mates Jacob Duncan (flute and saxophone) and Thomas Deakin (clarinet, whistle, baritone electric guitar, accordion, cornet). Chris Bush applied his modular synth skills to Duncan’s sax for “Davey Dead”. And harpist Erin Hill, who Oldham first met back in the 1980s when he was a wee lad, sings and plays all over “Davey Dead”. Oldham’s cousin Ryder McNair took a break from assistant-scoring Ridley Scott productions to write string quartet arrangements for these songs, and Will’s brother Ned returns after two decades to sing and play bass. This record was made closer to the Ohio River than any Oldham’s been involved with since 1993’s Palace Brothers There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You. Louisville’s current-and-past vital musical community is hi-lighted on every song. Catherine Irwin, who sang on the BPB release Ease Down the Road, is back here on “Hey Little” and “Vietnam Sunshine”. Lacey Guthrie, Tory Fisher and Katie Peabody, the three front women of the band Duchess, sing together on the opening and closing songs, parallel odes to the beast that is fear. The door was swung ajar by the Purple Bird, with its new take on homespun country bombast, and Bonny has stuck his gorgeous foot into that door to whisper his “I love you”s to all who need them (which we kind of all do). We start small, continue small, like oak tree seeds or the sperm-and-egg concoctions mixologized by the parents of movers-and-shakers since the dawn of time. Plant these songs into your soul’s brain, into your existence’s heart and the trees will grow and fruit and flourish and nourish. We thank you. Released March 6, 2026Thomas Deakin: accordion, whistle, electric guitar, cornet, tuba, clarinet and singingJacob Duncan: saxophone, flute, piano and singingAll percussion by Caleb VasquezAll string arrangements by Ryder McNairViolin: Charlie Bisharat, Camille Miller, Sara Callaway Cello: Jake BraunViola: Zach DellingerSinging: Tory Fisher, Lacey Guthrie, Katie Peabody, Maggie Halfman, Catherine IrwinFlute and singing: Nuala Kennedy, Bouzouki and singing: Eamon O'Leary Harp and singing: Erin HillBass: Ned Oldham, Chris CuppPiano: Ryder McNairMoog and piano: Jim MarloweTapes and electronics:Christopher BushRecorded and mixed by Jim Marlowe at End of an Ear in the Portland neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky in the Spring of '25Mastered by Seth ManchesterSuala was recorded by Martin O'Malley at Malbay Studios, County Clare, Ireland. Eamon was recorded by Jefferson Hamer at Epiphany in New York CityAll songs by Will Oldham/Royal Stable Music (ASCAP)Album Available at Bandcamp https://bonnieprincebilly.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-together-againCreditsStephen Bluhm - Engineer Rich Wexler - Interviewer Otter Castro - Editor

Ep. 200: Guy Maddin (Filmmaker) Guy Maddin has directed thirteen feature-length movies, most recently Rumours (2024), starring Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander; as well as The Forbidden Room (2015), My Winnipeg (2007), and The Saddest Music in the World (2003). He has also mounted over seventy performances of his films around the world featuring live elements – orchestra, sound effects, singing and narration — most recently, The Green Fog (2016), which was accompanied live by the Kronos Quartet. His screenplay collaborators include Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro and poet John Ashbery. His movies Archangel (1990) & The Heart of the World (2000) both won National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Experimental Film. For the past 15 years he has partnered with co-directors Evan and Galen Johnson."No one makes films like fabulist Guy Maddin. From his home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Maddin is isolated from the facile preoccupations and coarse trends which plague the majority of Hollywood films nowadays. It could be argued, though, that he is also estranged from what passes for independent cinema. Truly a stranger in a strange land. But what a strange land indeed! His films are black comedic excursions into the netherworlds of silent film, but he also has an uncanny feel for replicating images and sounds from painting, classical music, and literature. They could easily become a pretentious mess in less-skilled hands, yet Maddin’s melodramatic films are anything but. They’re playful, complex, hilarious, and exquisite; a perfect melange of high art and camp. Cinematic images that can only be described as post-modern phantasms. Perhaps the only other filmmaker today who is so comfortable reworking such melodramatic terrain is - Lars von TrierHis films include 1988 - Tales from the Gimli Hospital1990 - Archangel1992 - Careful1995 - Sissy-Boy Slap-Party 2002 - Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary 2003 - Cowards Bend the Knee2003 - The Saddest Music in the World 2006 - Brand Upon the Brain!2007 - My Winnipeg2017 - The Green Fog2024 - Rumours Guy is currently busy colour-correcting the 4K restoration of his film CAREFUL (1992) so please keep an eye out on his Instagram guy.maddin for updates.https://www.instagram.com/guy.maddinPLEASE SUPPORT OUR PATREON AND/OR BANDCAMP so we can pay our guests!!! And do another 5 seasons. You will receive video only releases of the episodes for most episodes via Patreon or Bandcamp Episodes available there for subscribers who am sad I get free ads and collabs opportunities on our Instagram with 191,000 followers! Great value! https://vintageannalsarchivepodcast.bandcamp.comhttps://patreon.com/VintageAnnalsArchiveCreditsStephen Bluhm - Sound Engineer and episode editor https://www.stephenbluhm.funRich WexlerProducer/Interviewer https://www.instagram.com/vintageannalsarchiveandpodcasthttp://www.vintageannalsarchive.comEpisode EditorsOtter Castro https://www.instagram.com/ottercastro

ART SHOW! WITH CAPTAIN SKINNERA “how-to” series unlike any other. Bob Ross on LSD meets The Evil Dead… in Space.Premiering on YouTube and Substack on Friday, February 13 with new episodes weekly from Friday, March 6.TUNE IN!YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@EtchFilmSUBSCRIBE: etchstudio.substack.comART SHOW! WITH CAPTAIN SKINNER follows the misadventures of a doomed PBS-style television series. As Skinner and his tiny crew (including the stop motion animated Space Cowboy) attempt to produce a television series in outer space, their efforts are constantly thwarted by – well – everything from meteor showers to intrusive thoughts to the stark horror of an uncaring cosmos. ART SHOW! WITH CAPTAIN SKINNER is comprised of 10 episodes, each running around 15 minutes in length. In each episode, we watch as Skinner creates a unique and stunning piece of artwork. The show is a bombastic, futuristic, gore and color-saturated love letter to shows like The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross and Commander Mark and the Secret City. ART SHOW! flips the script by oozing hyper-phantasmagorical slapstick, body-horror, and off-the wall comedy. SKINNERCo-creator/Writer/StarSkinner is a beloved artist, creator, comedian, writer, and general manifestation of psychedelic nightmare experiences who has infected many medias worldwide! He’s created art for Grammy winning albums and bands like High on Fire and Mastodon, award-winning music videos and films, commercial experiences for Adult Swim, Warner Brothers, and hosted shows for Super Deluxe and various music festivals.You can find his art on murals the world over as well as on skateboards and comics and t-shirts and toys.Skinner exists as a bizarre mixture of entertainment and visual intensity. https://www.theartofskinner.comhttps://www.instagram.com/theartofskinnerALLEN CORDELLCo-creator/Writer/DirectorAllen is an award-winning filmmaker obsessed with things that are weird and beautiful, especially when filmed at 24 frames per second and layered with insane sound design. He’s directed a handful of music videos for Beach House, Dan Deacon, Girl Talk (and others!), as well as the short film The Lizard Laughed adapted from a comic book by Noah Van Sciver. ABOUT ETCH ETCH is an independent animation and production company run by the award-winning trio of Emmy and WGA Award-winner Philip Gelatt (The Spine Of Night, Europa Report, They Remain, The Bleeding House and Love Death + Robots), Will Battersby (The Spine Of Night, They Remain, Trumbo) and Morgan Galen King (The Spine Of Night). Specializing in the provocative, intelligent and innovative, as well as fantastical and horrific, Etch seeks to put the dark magic back into moving images. ETCH has expertise in animation, documentary and feature production and a core philosophy of maintaining ownership and creative control through novel approaches to production and distribution. Recent projects include FIRST WORD ON HORROR featuring award-winning authors Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Tremblay, Elizabeth Hand, Laird Barron, and Mariana Enriquez. Upcoming projects include CASSIE WORKMAN IS WITCHY AF, featuring Australian comedienne Cassie Workman and Produced by Lily Wachowski and ART SHOW! WITH CAPTAIN SKINNER featuring infamous Oakland artist and multi-hyphenate Skinner.FOLLOW ETCH:etchfilm.com / @etchfilmCreditsStephen Bluhm - Sound Engineer and episode editor https://www.stephenbluhm.funRich WexlerProducer/Interviewer http://www.vintageannalsarchive.comEpisode EditorsOtter Castro https://www.instagram.com/ottercastro

I’m in need of doing the podcast for now on in an independent manner and going to be working on that over the next 3-6 months. All prior episodes will stay up! There is no such thing as a free podcast, album, film, and most of these platforms keep 95% of the profits. It’s just not a system I can ethically support any longer. I don’t mind spending $4000-5000 a year to do this but I’m sick of not benefiting from these systems. My patreon has been updated a lot as of late and has a lot of amazing uncensored content I can’t post on Instagram. I’m releasing early episodes and video only episodes. If you like the podcast I need to ask you to support it. I get no money from Spotify and no money from Apple Podcasts and yet they sell ads and still make money. I’m just done working my ass off to make billionaires richer. I’d also like to have enough money to throw some of it to our guests. We are going to be putting out our 200th episode as a two parter with Bonnie Prince Billy and Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. I’m lucky to get some amazing guests but I’m done with having no way to monetize any of it. Please do your part to help if you consume the podcast. www.patreon.com/vintageannalsarchive

Deborah Dash Moore Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Midcentury New York - In the middle of the twentieth century, good cameras became smaller and lighter, enabling street photographers to roam alleyways, ride elevated trains and subways, and stroll beaches in summertime to capture daily life with urgency and intimacy. Walkers in the City showcases the distinctive urban vision that working-class Jewish photographers produced with these new cameras on New York City's streets and in public spaces. Drawing on the experiences of and photographs by a generation of young Jewish photographers who belonged to the New York Photo League, Deborah Dash Moore offers a new perspective on New York as seen through their eyes--a cityscape of working-class people and democratizing public transit. With their cameras, they pictured Gotham's abrasive social milieu and its evanescent textures and light, creating an archive of vernacular images of city life and a distinctive tradition of street photography that would be widely imitated. Walkers in the City documents how these roving, imaginative New Yorkers, entranced by the medium of photography, transformed everyday sights into rousing, joyous, and poignant moments of time, creating visual poetry out of the fabric of social life.About Deborah Dash Moore - Deborah Dash Moore is an American Jewish historian whose scholarship focuses on Jewish urban life, the creation of ethnic identity, and visual culture. Much of her work has concentrated on New York’s vibrant Jewish community, uncovering its neighborhoods, streets, institutions, and photographic images. She has also explored the postwar Jewish culture of America’s Sunbelt, ventured into the experience of Jews who served in World War II, and examined the impact of women and gender in Jewish life. Moore has been a trailblazer in the field of American Jewish history who has chronicled the myriad expressions of Jewish culture in 20th-century America. She has been an influential teacher and mentor as well as a key leader in the field of modern Jewish history.https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/faculty/ddmoore.htmlCreditsStephen Bluhm - Sound Engineer and episode editor https://www.stephenbluhm.funRich WexlerProducer/Interviewer http://www.vintageannalsarchive.comEpisode EditorsOtter Castro https://www.instagram.com/ottercastro

Beau McCall—proclaimed by American Craft magazine as “The Button Man creates visual and wearable art by hand-sewing clothing buttons onto mostly upcycled fabrics, materials, and objects. His artworks offer commentary on an array of topics such as pop culture and social justice. Buttons are a universal fastener connecting the world through an everyday item. Through this medium I create visual and wearable artworks by hand-sewing clothing buttons onto mostly upcycled fabrics, materials, and objects. My goal is to generate a dialogue by using buttons to expand the definition of art, stimulate one’s curiosity and imagination, draw attention to the unique history of buttons, and address a vast array of themes including pop culture and social justice.https://beaumccall.comSouleo Creative. Curator. Impresario. Consultant. Muse. Souleo has been hailed as an “Icon of Harlem” (Ruth Millington, art historian and author of Muse) and “Harlem’s Heart & Soul” (NY Daily News). An acclaimed creative, curator, writer, impresario, consultant, and muse he seamlessly merges the worlds of visual art, fashion, literature, media, and the performing arts to document and amplify the stories of the emerging and underrepresented via exhibitions, events, and writing.https://souleouniverse.comCreditsStephen Bluhm - Sound Engineer and episode editor https://www.stephenbluhm.funRich WexlerProducer/Interviewer http://www.vintageannalsarchive.comEpisode EditorsOtter Castro https://www.instagram.com/ottercastro

Kathy Shorr was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her work crosses the borders of documentary, portraiture and street photography. She received her undergraduate degree in photography from The School of Visual Arts and has an MS in Education, earned while working as a New York City Teaching Fellow working in the public schools in crisis. Her work has been shown in galleries throughout the United States and Europe including the celebrated Visa Pour L’Image for photo journalism in Perpignan, France. Her first book, SHOT … 101 Survivors of Gun Violence in America was published by powerHouse Books in 2017. Her second book, Limousine was published in December 2024 by Lazy Dog Press. She lives and works in New York City.https://www.kathyshorr.comhttps://www.instagram.com/katshorrCreditsStephen Bluhm - Sound Engineer and episode editor https://www.stephenbluhm.funRich WexlerProducer/Interviewer http://www.vintageannalsarchive.comEpisode EditorsOtter Castro https://www.instagram.com/ottercastro