Libsyn Directory

Soderbergh Ep. 10: Traffic (2000) with Benjamin Y. Fong

Release Date: 06/20/2025

PATREON PREVIEW: 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)

Pod Casty For Me

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to to hear more for just $5 a month. You voted, we watched! For our second Listener Choice episode, we're sitting down with Michael Bay's 2016 action docudrama 13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI, a supposedly just-the-facts look at the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. The film is brutally short on context, but don't worry - that's what we're here for. Join us to talk interventionism, AMERICAN SNIPER, Office Jim, Hillary Clinton, and more. Plus - a message from...

Soderbergh Ep. 24: Magic Mike (2012) with Zoë Ligon

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It's here, lawbreakers: our episode on Steven Soderbergh's 2012 runaway hit MAGIC MIKE. Is this a sobering look at economic precarity after the Great Recession? Or is it a movie about gyrating hunks? Here to help us answer that question is writer, adult content creator, and proprietor of Spectrum Boutique, Zoë Ligon! We talk transactional desire, hot bods, side hustles, Zoë's experience seeing Magic Mike Live in Vegas, and a lot more. Look: you're horny, let's do it - listen to the episode, that is! Plus, a brief note about Minneapolis. Further Reading: Further Viewing: SATURDAY NIGHT...

PATREON PREVIEW: Moneyball (2011)

Pod Casty For Me

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to to hear more for just $5 a month. Most movies weren't directed by Steven Soderbergh, but few were as notably not directed by Steven Soderbergh as this one: MONEYBALL, the true story of the 2002 Oakland Athletics' revolutionary sabermetrics-based hiring strategy, was 5 days from shooting when Sony pulled the plug on Soderbergh's version. After a rewrite by Aaron Sorkin and a few cast change-ups, a slicker, Fincher-lite version directed by Bennett Miller made it to theaters, and we're talking about...

Soderbergh Ep. 23: Haywire (2011) with Ryan Torgeson

Pod Casty For Me

Get your silly little trunks on, listener: we're headed to the octagon this week to talk HAYWIRE, Soderbergh's much-delayed 2011 (anti-?) spy thriller starring MMA fighter Gina Carano. And joining us is our friend, podcaster and musician Ryan Torgeson (@molecularlioneI)! We talk mid-2010s action cinema, mixed martial arts, Soderbergh's decision to alter Carano's voice in post, Carano's decision to blow her career up by being a hateful moron, special consultant and Duvdevan Unit war criminal Aaron Cohen, and more. Further Reading: Further Viewing: THE IPCRESS FILE (Furie, 1965) FUNERAL...

PATREON PREVIEW: Commentary - Play Misty For Me (1971)

Pod Casty For Me

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to to hear more for just $5 a month. We're trying something new this week - we've recorded a feature commentary track! Watch Clint Eastwood's 1971 directorial debut PLAY MISTY FOR ME as we talk about it. Sure, we did an episode on this movie already, but that was three years ago. We're different now! We've learned new stuff and forgotten most of what we said then, anyway. In the episode, we'll explain exactly how to sync our conversation with the film, but we've designed this as something you can...

UNLOCKED: Songs About Clint with Jetski

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This is an unlocked episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to to hear more for just $5 a month. This week we're taking a look at a bunch of songs about, featuring, or otherwise related to Clint Eastwood...which is a great reason to bring on Jetski, aka Ian Ostaszewski, the composer of the Paid Costly For Me theme music! We chat Gorillaz, Metallica, the Beastie Boys, My Chemical Romance, and more - plus Ian's podcast-related birthday present! Let us know if you want more of this, because there are a lot of songs about Clint. Here's the playlist with full songs: Thanks...

PATREON PREVIEW: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) / The Boys Run A 10K

Pod Casty For Me

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to to hear more for just $5 a month. Merry Christmas, everybody - here's the episode one day early just because we love ya. Not unlike a certain jolly old elf, Ian stopped by Jake's home for a quick visit a few weeks back, and the boys (plus FPG) ran a 10K race together that was, for some reason, in celebration of Bill Melendez's 1965 television special A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS. So we decided to discuss this classic short and Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, who like our usual subject was a Bay Area...

Soderbergh Ep. 22: Contagion (2011)

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Wash your hands, folks: it's time to talk CONTAGION, Steven Soderbergh's absurdly prescient 2011 pandemic disaster film. We talk public health, hyperlink cinema, Soderbergh's evolving digital aesthetic, the nature of government, and the film's second life as a Covid lockdown classic. With a special Kate Winslet audio collage that Ian definitely asked for! Check it out. Further Reading: The Viral Underclass by Steven Trasher Health Communism by Artie Vierkant and Beatrice Adler-Bolton Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett...

PATREON PREVIEW: Zodiac (2007)

Pod Casty For Me

This is a preview of a premium episode from our Patreon feed, Paid Costly For Me! Head over to to hear more for just $5 a month. In our first-ever Patreon Listeners' Choice poll, something like 52% of you voted for David Fincher's ZODIAC, the movie we probably should have done within the first five premium eps if we're being honest. But now we've done it! It's all here: Dirty Harry inspiration Dave Toschi, true crime ethics, Bay Area geography, what this movie is actually saying, and about a full hour of Melvin Belli stuff. Enjoy! As always, thank you to Jetski for our theme music and Jeremy...

Soderbergh Ep. 21: Gray's Anatomy (1996)/And Everything Is Going Fine (2010) with Robert Rubsam

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Open your notebooks and fill up your glasses of water, folks: today we're looking at Steven Soderbergh's two documentaries on Spalding Gray. And Ian's pissed off! We're joined once more by our friend, writer and critic Rob Rubsam, to talk 1996's GRAY'S ANATOMY, a sort of longform music video for Gray's "monolog" of the same name, and Soderbergh's 2010 posthumous "autobiography" of Gray, AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE. How does a figure like Gray emerge and rise to fame? Where does we place him in the long tradition of neurotic white guys who make everything about themselves? Is Jake one of...

More Episodes

The second half of Soderbergh's unbelievable year 2000 was TRAFFIC, his sprawling adaptation of the 1989 Channel 4 miniseries about the many sides of the drug trade. At the time, it was hailed as a highly nuanced and humane look at narcotics. But how does it look from 2025? Joining us to discuss is professor and author of our much-cited Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge, Benjamin Y. Fong! We talk macroeconomics, "Mexico filter," drug movies, Benicio Del Toro's accent, and a whole lot more. Really fascinating episode, we hope you enjoy!

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