Episode 787: Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1989)

The Projection Booth

Tv & Film, Film Interviews, Film Reviews, Film History

4.6 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We continue our Australian month with Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds, the stark 1989 feature debut of Alex Proyas. Before The Crow or Dark City, Proyas delivered this sun-blasted sci-fi Western set in a post-apocalyptic desert where the wind blows and desert bakes.

A lone wanderer, Smith (Norman "The Norm" Boyd), emerges from the dunes and collides with siblings Felix and Betty Crabtree (Michael Lake and Melissa Davis), who survive on beans, religious fervor, and flying mania. Smith's arrival fractures their fragile world, igniting jealousy, spiritual dread, and Felix’s obsessive dream.

Cullen Gallagher and Rob Spencer join Mike to explore Proyas’s theological undercurrents, and the film’s singular place in late-’80s Australian cinema.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The audio commentary. It's a dying art form, but here at One Track Mind, I, your wonky yet affable
0:10.7	host, Ryan Luis Rodriguez, analyze film through the prism of these embryonic forms of podcasting,
0:17.3	one audio commentary at a time. Masterpieces, crapsterpieces, live action, animation, cult classics,
0:26.1	films literally no one has ever heard of.
0:29.1	No track is too small and no track is too big.
0:32.9	Join me and my guests from the entertainment world
0:35.4	as we keep these features alive every other Tuesday.
0:38.8	Hey, who else is gonna discuss Bill and Ted's bogus journey one week and Citizen Kane the next?
0:45.5	Us, that's who? Sure you have to put up with my voice, but there's a certain give and take in this industry.
0:52.5	That's one track mine, part of the someone's
0:55.4	favorite productions family, and available wherever you get your podcasts.
1:04.4	Hello and welcome to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys. My name is Hunter. In this podcast, I'll be
1:09.7	joined by a different guest each week to discuss a
1:11.8	classic Western movie or TV show. I've been a fan of classic Westerns for as long as I can
1:16.1	remember, and in recent years, they've become very nostalgic for me. I love the aesthetic,
1:20.5	the tropes, and I love seeing different filmmakers' takes on them. At their best, they're
1:25.1	incredibly entertaining, rewatchable, and some of my all-time
1:28.2	favorite movies are westerns. We'll mostly focus on Western movies made in Hollywood, but we'll also
1:32.9	be covering spaghetti westerns, and one thing I'm very excited to get into are Western TV shows.
1:37.7	I've got some amazing guests coming on the show, film professors, historians, and podcasters,
1:42.5	and tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys is part of the
1:44.6	Someone's Favorite Productions Podcast Network, and many guests on the show will be from other
	...

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