Hello, my name's Justin McLuhan. I'm here today with Will Sloan.

And you're listening to the Important Cinema Club. And today, we're going to be talking about

Indonesian cult cinema. And this is a subject that Will really wanted to tackle.

And I'm curious to know, like, where you got an interest in it.

It's a subject that I'm eager to explore that I know virtually nothing about.

This is a very exciting topic, but it's also an intimidating one because, okay, I'm going to go the long route to answer your question.

It's like, when you start getting really into film, first you understand that you've got movies like, you know, the Godfather and Pulp Fiction, and, uh, you know, those are the movies, you know, you got your citizen Kane. Those are the good movies. That's not the level above like Michael Bay. And then pretty soon you learn that there are these things called art movies, which are by people like Bergman and Fellini and Herzog. And then you also learn that there's a thing

called a cult movie. And those are made by people like Ed Wood and Roger Corman.

Wait, are those bad movies, Will? Well, there's no such thing as a bad movie.

Available on iTunes podcast. Check it out now.

You know, eventually you understand that there are a number of different

film cannons that are existing alongside each other. But then, like, there are canons within

cannons and canons that seem invisible. And, you know, like, there are a lot of resources out

there to help you get interested in, for example, Hong Kong action movies or even Bollywood movies. Those are sort of

exotic faraway genres that are nevertheless relatively accessible for Western viewers like us to

get into. Then there are whole other worlds that you eventually discover, worlds like Turkish

rip-off movies or low-budget African action movies, and all of this feels

like the dark matter of film history.

And it's also fairly undocumented most of the time. It's difficult to find primers on a lot of

these, you know, outputs from different countries. Like, we've talked about it before.

Even India is such a vast filmography. And it's

tough for someone to take your hand and be like, hey, these are the movies you should watch. Because they're not only a lot of them. They're also very long. And you need to get used to the kind of rhythms that they work at. So for about 10 or 15 years, I've had this book on my shelf called Mondo Macabro by Pete Tooms. It's a great book. It has always intimidated me. It's a book I've had this book on my shelf called Mondo Macabro by Pete Toombs.

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