If you are subscribed to the show you will have noticed that my little write-ups come a good few days after the episode becomes available to listen, which is a bit odd, but I assure you it is not. Granted, on some level, this may be a by-product of simply being busy with other things, but it is also sort of purposeful as it maybe increases the lifespan of each episode and maybe helps to some extent with its exposure.

What I suppose this gives me, is an opportunity to speak from ‘behind the scenes’ and engage with you more directly, not through the content I create. So, I think going forward I’ll probably skip the usual advertising shenanigans if there’s something more I’d like to say. After all, there’s always the official PR of the show available on CLAPPER.

Anyhow, the discussion we had was absolutely fantastic and we actually managed to go quite deep into the film itself, which isn’t necessarily guaranteed. As a matter of fact, no amount of talking points prepared ahead of time is ever going to successfully steer the conversation, which has to be managed more or less like a weather event: by responding to developments, being prepared and always having an umbrella at the ready. So be sure to check it out because we did touch on quite a number of aspects of this movie: its bizarre production, the chemistry (or lack thereof) between leads, the moody aesthetics and more. And – naturally – we spent quite a while talking about Michael Mann in general, which should hopefully lead you to assume this is not the only film of his to make an appearance on the show. So stay tuned for that.

In unrelated news, I feel I have to say something about the lengthy saga with Apple Podcasts temporarily freezing its feed of the show. Finally, after four or five emails (and a total of two weeks), they responded and eventually fixed the issue, so at least I can rest assured that any new listener will have unfettered access to all episodes of the show. But I have to say I am severely disappointed with Apple Technical Support in general. I know we are in the middle of a global pandemic, but literally all companies I interact with are more than capable of responding to queries within 24-48 hours and engaging with me as though I was a human being. Apple is an unfortunate exception. Not only have they successfully ignored a number of my emails and tweets, they only responded after I started a creator account on their website (which I deem completely pointless because I will never ever use Apple to host anything directly, especially after this unfortunate episode), and even this took them five god-damn days! Ridiculous! But at least now, having persistently pestered them for two-and-a-half weeks, order in the galaxy has been restored and you can safely enjoy The Uncut Gems Podcast through Apple Podcasts as well… that is until it goes pear-shaped again.

So, that’s it for now. I hope you’ll enjoy the episode. I know it’s been a bit quiet recently on the site but I am simply busy working on a massive project over at CLAPPER, which I will eventually re-share here when it’s all done. Long story short, I have been making my way through The Underground Railroad and taking a deep analytical look at its themes in a series of ten articles, which I will top off with at least one (or two) more cross-sectional feature articles as well. For now, you can find what I have published on this already on CLAPPER but they will make their way here eventually as well. Once this is finished, I will be able to focus on a handful of reviews (and one or two other pieces) I wanted to write here, so keep your eyes peeled for that as well!