FOLLOWING FILMS - Podcast, Movies, Music, and More

There is a moment early in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie where Matt Johnson stands atop the absolute highest tip of the CN Tower antenna, buffeted by high winds, preparing to skydive into a packed Rogers Centre. The goal is simple, yet completely unhinged: parachute into a live Toronto Blue Jays game to announce that his two-man, instrument-free band is playing a gig at the Rivoli that night. They do not have a gig booked at the Rivoli. They do not even have songs written.   If you have followed director Matt Johnson and co-creator Jay McCarrol since their early web series days or their cult Viceland television show, you already know the vibe. If you are walking into this feature-length cinematic manifestation completely blind, you might feel like you have accidentally ingested a dangerous amount of caffeine and nostalgia. Distributed by NEON, this film is a magnificent, boundary-pushing triumph of independent comedy. It is a movie that defies the sterile, focus-grouped...

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse captures the chaotic reality of creative obsession with raw authenticity. Originally released in 1991, this legendary documentary chronicles the near-fatal production of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece, Apocalypse Now. Armed with a camera and a hidden recorder, Eleanor Coppola captured the psychological unraveling of an auteur lost in the jungle, transforming a simple behind-the-scenes record into a profound study of artistic ruin. Now, a definitive three-disc box set from Lionsgate Limited rescues this classic and Eleanor’s broader filmography from obscurity, offering a comprehensive look at a family bound by cinema.

Punk rock icons NOFX are giving fans the ultimate career-spanning parting gift. Following the critical acclaim of their documentary film 40 Years of Fuckin’ Up—which premiered at SXSW and has already hit the San Francisco International Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival marketplace—the band has officially announced a massive companion release. 40 Years of Fuckin’ Up: Soundtrack + Score will arrive everywhere on August 28, 2026, as a deluxe double LP, celebrating four decades of ground-breaking, rule-breaking punk rock. The expansive release divides into two distinct musical journeys: a 15-song soundtrack and an 11-song original score. The score marks a bold creative leap for frontman Fat Mike, who composed the tracks alongside collaborator Matt Nasir and performed them with a full orchestra. Meanwhile, the soundtrack side is packed with rarities that diehards have been waiting for, including six unreleased recordings like "Secret Society (demo)," "On The Road (demo),...

  Welcome back to the Following Films Podcast. I’m Chris Maynard. Every once in a while, a movie comes along that refuses to fit into a neat little box. It doesn’t care about genres, and it certainly doesn't care about playing it safe. That’s exactly what writer-director Tyler Cornack has delivered with Mermaid. Released by Utopia, this film is a sun-drenched, deeply surreal piece of indie cinema centered on a desperate Florida man who discovers a wounded, reptilian mermaid and decides to shield her from a ruthless world. It’s bizarre, it’s beautiful, and it features a brilliant ensemble cast—including today's guest. You know him from massive blockbusters, definitive political satires, and decades of unforgettable character work in projects like Veep, Dave, and Transformers. In Mermaid, he steps into the frame to play Keith, a calculating, menacing figure who serves as a massive threat to our main characters. The phenomenal Kevin Dunn is on the show today. It’s a loose, insight...

The first season of Prime Video’s Fallout defied the historical curse of video game adaptations, achieving what many thought impossible by capturing the exact tonal tightrope of the franchise. Showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet perfectly balanced horrific, hyper-violent post-apocalyptic dread with a chipper, mid-century retro-futuristic dark comedy. Season 2 takes this established playground and aggressively ups the ante, moving the narrative cross-country from the irradiated ruins of Los Angeles to the iconic, sun-bleached dangers of the Mojave Wasteland and New Vegas. This sophomore outing is bigger, bloodier, and considerably more ambitious. Yet, as the show expands its world to juggle complex faction politics and staggering Pre-War lore, it faces a classic sequel dilemma of whether a series can maintain its tight character focus when the sandbox around it becomes this overcrowded. The answer is a resounding, if occasionally messy, yes. At the beating, irradiated ...

The Ghostface masking era enters its next physical chapter this summer. Submersive Media has officially announced that Scream 7, the latest installment in the iconic slasher franchise, is carving its path onto home video. Fans can add the film to their shelves on June 16th, with options including a standard 4K UHD, a highly anticipated Limited Edition 4K UHD Steelbook, and a standard DVD release. Following its theatrical run earlier this year, the film marks a significant milestone for the franchise, bringing original scribe Kevin Williamson behind the camera as director. Working from a screenplay by Williamson and Guy Busick, with a story by Busick and James Vanderbilt, Scream 7 pivots the narrative focus squarely back to the franchise's ultimate final girl, Sidney Prescott.   The story picks up with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) attempting to maintain the quiet, protected family life she fought so hard to build, far away from the blood-soaked legacy of Woodsboro. That peac...

When I Love Lucy premiered on CBS on October 15, 1951, television was still a nascent, regional medium experimenting with its own identity. By the time the show wrapped its six-season run in 1957, it had not only conquered the American cultural landscape but had practically written the blueprint for the modern situational comedy. More than seven decades later, the series remains an astonishingly durable piece of pop culture, transcending mere nostalgia to exist as a masterclass in comedic engineering. At the center of this enduring success is the brilliant, chaotic friction between Lucy Ricardo, an ambitious, star-struck housewife with an insatiable desire for the spotlight, and her husband Ricky, a hot-tempered Cuban bandleader whose pragmatic stability is constantly tested by his wife’s schemes. Backed by their practical, older landlords and best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz, the quartet formed a comedic ensemble that has never truly been replicated. To appreciate I Love Lucy full...

  Welcome to the Following Films Podcast. I’m your host, and today we are diving into a project that is a must-see for anyone interested in lost cinematic history. One notable entry of the silent era is the loss of Lon Chaney’s 1922… classic? A Blind Bargain. For decades, it has lived only in production stills and the imaginations of horror historians. But our guest today has done something much more ambitious than a simple remake. Paul Bunnell has reimagined this macabre tale, transporting the gothic dread of the original into a stylized, 1970s landscape. The film follows a desperate young man who, driven by the need to save his mother, strikes a devastating deal with an unhinged physician. It’s a story of twisted experiments, moral decay, and the high price of hope. We’re going to talk about the challenges of reviving a "lost" story, the influence of the man of a thousand faces, working with Crispin Glover, and the process of bringing this dark vision to life. A Blind Barga...

Ultraman: Towards the Future (1990) When we talk about the sprawling legacy of Tsuburaya Productions, the early 1990s often feel like a forgotten frontier. After Ultraman 80 ended its run in 1981, the franchise went into a sort of live-action hibernation on television. The silence was finally broken not in Tokyo, but in the rugged landscapes of South Australia. Ultraman: Towards the Future (known in Japan as Ultraman Great ) stands as a fascinating anomaly: a high-concept, environmentally conscious co-production that attempted to westernize the Giant of Light without stripping away his soul. The series opens with an ambitious scope. Astronauts Jack Shindo and Stanley Haggard are exploring the surface of Mars when they witness a titanic struggle between a silver giant and a grotesque, pulsating entity known as Gudis. This isn't just a monster-of-the-week; Gudis is a sentient virus, a cosmic cancer that seeks to assimilate all life. When Stanley is killed and Jack is left strand...