This week, DPP is joined by Jacobin film critic [https://jacobin.com/author/eileen-jones] and host of the Filmsuck podcast [https://www.patreon.com/filmsuck]: Eileen Jones [https://x.com/Eileen15Jones]. We gather in the police station break room over coffee and doughnuts to discuss Errol Morris's 1988 film, The Thin Blue Line [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(1988_film)]. Morris's documentary has been incredibly prescient — bringing to the fore big 21st-century questions about 'fake news,' 'polarisation,' and state power. Sam, Chase, and Eileen contemplate a few questions — "what even is the truth, man?" and "what if justice just serves the system, dude?" as they discuss the rise of postmodernism and narrativisation in late 20th century documentary making. Like, subscribe, and rate us on Spotify. (Or we'll fabricate evidence against you.) Our Patreon can be found here [https://www.patreon.com/c/deathphotopod]. (Free for now). 

This week DPP is joined by filmmaker William Garcia Bigelow [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3123571/?ref_=tt_ov_1_1] of Sometime the Wolf (2025), Attrition (2013) and The Couple. Chase and Will discuss Danny Boyle's directorial debut Shallow Grave [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRbvZ7WwHhc] (1994).  Sam, who once briefly lived in a massive flat in Edinburgh as a toddler, (many heinous crimes were committed there), is off sick. In his absence, Chase and Will try to figure out why young professionals in the 1990s were flat sharing and whether Gen X is innately doomed to murder each other.  In what ways does Shallow Grave foreshadow the nihilism and violence of later generational films like Trainspotting? Find out in today's episode. Our Patreon can be found here [https://www.patreon.com/c/deathphotopod]. Free for now. Paid updates forthcoming.  Like, rate and subscribe — or we'll get Ewan Mcgregor to chuck you out of the topfloor window of a Morningside Edinburgh flat. You've been warned. 

DDP is joined today by cultural historian Shalon van Tine [https://www.shalonvantine.com/] to discuss Martin Bell's Streetwise [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetwise_(1984_film)] (1984) and Larry Clark's Kids [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_(film)] (1995). As of two months ago — all the hosts of DPP are now on the wrong side of thirty. Consequently, there couldn't be a better time to dive into the archives and explore some youth culture both Chase and Sam are too young to remember — 1980s streetkids in Seattle and 1990s skaters in Manhattan. Was Gen X really as independent as they say they were? And where did this latchkey ethos come from: family breakdown, liberation, austerity, neoliberalism, outsourcing, the corrosion of the counter culture, the end of social democracy? With Gen Z dubbed, rightly or wrongly, 'puriteens [https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/puriteens-sex-negative-lgbtq-pride-tiktok-twitter-1180208/]' by the mainstream press (with teen pregnancy, drug use and drinking down), why were their parents, in contrast, so darn hedonistic? Find out in today's episode. Our Patreon — as ever — can be found here [https://www.patreon.com/deathphotopod].  For now, everything is free. Bonus episodes, polls and other features coming up.  * Like, rate, and subscribe: Sam and Chase need to buy Christmas presents for Francis...

This week DPP is outside of linear time entirely — or is it? We're joined by writer, author, and journalist Philip Womack [https://x.com/WomackPhilip] to discuss Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride (1987). Irony, cynicism, earnestness — new sincerity? Cold war analogy or riff on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels? We discuss it all through the prism of blockbuster 1980s Hollywood. Womack can be found at @WomackPhilip [https://x.com/WomackPhilip], he's a frequent contributor to the Literary Review, The Spectator and The Telegraph. He is also a children's book author. His latest novel is Ghostlord (2023). [https://www.waterstones.com/book/ghostlord/philip-womack/9781915071262] You can find our Patreon here [https://www.patreon.com/c/deathphotopod]. Bonsues episodes, polls and other paid features forthcoming.  As always, please like, rate and subscribe — it smooths the wheels as we hurtle towards the End of History. 

This week DPP is joined by academic, podcaster, editor of Sublation Magazine and founding member of the Platypus Affiliated Society: Spencer Leonard to talk about the 1989 Civil War flick Glory [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(1989_film)].  Leonard briefly taught Sam a course on Indian political history at the University of Virginia in the depths of the 2010s — so this is a homecoming of sorts. Glory marked a high-water mark for a certain liberal and intergrationist conception of race-relations in the USA. In 1989, the struggle for civil rights 'appeared' to be over, the threat of radical alternatives to the American social compact was diminishing in day-to-day and week-to-week as the Soviet Union collapsed and Reganism ran its course. Yet, at the same time, left-liberal conceptions of 'recognition' and Rawlsian justice were at their height. Then, Gen X could look forward to a 21st century defined by postracial politics — not the Afro-Pessimism that actually emerged. Can some men with moustaches and silly frock-coats run at each other with rifles without triggering a Hegelian meditation on The End of History? The answer is no. Chase and Spencer Yank out on Civil War references, while Sam is left baffled and wishing this was all about an earlier, 17th-century civil war. Who exactly were James Montgomery, Robert Shaw?, and Frederick Douglass? And why do they matter so much to Gen X? Find out in today's episode. Leonard can be found at @SpencerALeonard [https://x.com/SpencerALeonard], he edits Sublation Magazine [https://www.sublationmag.com/] and his latest publication is Marx and Engels on Bonapartism: Selected Journalism, 1851–59 [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/marx-and-engels-on-bonapartism-9781666928051/]. As always, please like, subscribe, rate on Spotify and follow us at DeathPhotoPod on X [https://x.com/deathphotopod].  You can find our Patreon here [https://www.patreon.com/c/deathphotopod].  Bonus episodes to come. 

This week we're joined by podcaster, writer, artist and academic Matthew Ellis [https://x.com/matthiasellis?lang=en] to talk about Wes Anderson's 2007 hit-and-miss feature The Darjeeling Limited. Can Gen X find spiritual sustenance in the East, or will they fail like their Boomer forerunners, empty, cold, confused and shivering in some pay-as-you-go ashram? Isn't it more fun to go shopping anyway? Sam (as a Brit) gets his Indian-hat on and Chase freaks out about Anglican hymns. This, and more, in today's episode. You can find Ellis's podcast at the Andersonianlly named 'The Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Moviefilm Podcast [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pacific-northwest-insurance-corporation-moviefilm/id1712416222].' Check out his Substack, "Histories of the Present." [https://www.historiesofthepresent.com/] DPP Patreon: [https://www.patreon.com/c/deathphotopod] 

In today's episode Sam & Chase are joined by American novelist, founding editor of the LA Review of Books, and screenwriter Matthew Specktor — who worked directly on the optioning of David Fincher's 1999 classic adapation of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (1996). Was 1999 the height of human civilisation? Or simply the start of a rage fueled dissent into middle child syndrome? Listen to find out. Find our Patreon at [https://www.patreon.com/c/deathphotopod]. 

Chase & Sam launch DEATHPHOTOPOD with a series of questions: what is Tony Blair? Who is the End of History? Whither Gen X?  Head to our Patreon at [https://www.patreon.com/c/deathphotopod] Dedicated to a paragon of Gen X virtue: Giles Alexander Hardyman-Charter (1967-2025).