Hammer to Nail Review: Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror

If you’re reading this review, chances are you’re already aware of the awesome power of movies. The best films can be the connective tissue for society’s outcasts. Even those with more “normie” proclivities can unlock something hidden deep within them when exposed to the right combination of moving images, sounds, and vibes.

For many people, that first magic film was and IS The Rocky Horror Picture Show. So-called Transylvanians don’t forget the first time they saw Frank-N-Furter throw off his cape to strut around in a saucy corset without apology. At the Frankenstein place, It’s Brad and Janet, in their J.C. Penny undergarments, who are the outsiders. But even they will be welcomed into the fold with open arms (and legs).

Linus O’Brien’s film, Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, is so much more than a historical document. It’s an origin story for a cultural touchstone of Queerdos. And yes, you can be straight and still be counted among their ranks, so long as you leave your judgments outside in the rain. Richard O’Brien first birthed his masterwork in the form of a 1973 London stage show, with Tim Curry in the original cast. It was wildly popular, but it would take fits and starts to grow into the juggernaut it is today. Fifty years later, it resonates anew with young audiences and slips on like an old fishnet stocking for O.G. fans.

Who better to tell this storied history than a guy who literally grew up with Rocky Horror: Linus O’Brien. Richard O’Brien’s son was always aware that his dad wrote a pervasive musical, but it didn’t dawn on him until a few years ago, just how meaningful it is to people. He explains it beautifully in his director’s statement:

“As I read through the comments [on a youtube video of “I’m Going Home”], I was overcome with emotion – each person shared their personal story and the deep place the song held in their heart… this was the first time I truly grasped the enormity of its influence on individual lives… the unique cult phenomenon it fostered and the safe space it created for all kinds of people; and the unfortunate reality that, in today’s political climate, Rocky is as relevant as ever.”…

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October 1, 2025
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Review: Year of the Fox

Megan Griffiths’ latest film, Year of the Fox (check out my interview with Griffiths and screenwriter Eliza Flug here) is a coming-of-age drama set in 1997 Seattle and Aspen. On the cusp of high school graduation, a young woman (Sarah Jeffery, TV’s Descendants), adopted into the upper echelon, gets a disillusioning peek behind the curtain of adulthood. There, she finds selfishness, pettiness, a ring of predators and the people who protect them. Year of the Fox presents a complex tableau of American high society including gender politics, the commodification of young girls, patriarchal hypocrisy, and the price of privilege that only women incur.

If this sounds familiar, you might be living in the United States in the year 2025. As of this writing, the president is doing everything he can to prevent the release of a list of rich pedophiles, even though he’s “definitely not on it”. In fact, there isn’t even a list. Let’s focus on important things like the recipe for Coca-Cola!  Twenty-eight years later, the only thing that’s really changed is the soundtrack. Systematic patriarchal exploitation is as American as apple pie.

As you might have guessed, Eliza Flug’s semi-autobiographical tale leans dark. But it’s not a suffocating darkness. That’s a tonal balance that Megan Griffiths has always deftly straddled in her myriad films about American womanhood (Eden, The Off Hours, Lucky Them, Sadie). Together, this dream team has crafted a weighty story about the ripples created when powerful men use their sovereignty to hurt women, without reproach, time and time again. Griffiths and Flug effectively inform the audience of the dirty deeds without miring us in the acts themselves. We don’t need to see the assaults, because it reverberates through the narrative: folded arms, hunched shoulders, a new bruise, a condom wrapper stuffed in a drawer, a knowing glance, a mysterious car dropping off a teenage girl in the wee hours, a man calling a seventeen-year-old girl, “an old soul.” It’s a shorthand that is familiar to at least 50% of the population. We know what all these things mean because we have all witnessed it or experienced it firsthand…

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September 25, 2025
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Review: Boys Go to Jupiter

Writer/director Julian Glander, best known for his 3D animated video game, ART SQUOOL, and Adult Swim contributions, gets personal with his feature debut, Boys Go to Jupiter. This animated slice-of-life musical conjures Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Barbie, Playmobile toys, and The Florida Project. But Glander and his producing partner, Peisin Yang Lazo mash up their evident influences in a way that feels wholly unique. It’s hardly the first film to depict that nebulous, confusing, and sometimes scary period betwixt teenhood and adulthood. But it feels fresh in so many ways. This one has sleeper classic written all over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if future filmmakers one day cite this film as an influence.

The story follows Billy 5000 (Jack Corbett, host of NPR’s Planet Money TikTok series),, a suburban teenager and recent high school drop-out, who is languishing in the dead zone between Christmas and New Years Eve. He decides that the best way to get his life on track is to earn $5000 delivering food via the Grubster app. He commutes on a Swagtron hoverboard, taking him across the paths of many oddball characters, who are voiced by a staggering roster of talent. Among them: an ineffectual security guard (Julio Torres, Problemista), the downtrodden owner of a mini golf course (Joe Pera), a fanatical Christian woman (Sarah Sherman, SNL), a spirited octogenarian (Cole Escola, TVs Search Party, Broadway’s Oh, Mary!), and the diabolical CEO of an orange juice company (90s comedy legend, Janeane Garofalo), who also happens to be the mother of Billy’s crush, Rozebud (indie musician Miya Folik). Influencing his misadventures at every turn is a donut-shaped alien he accidentally picks up during a delivery, and a worm-like creature (Tavi Gevinson) who may hold Billy’s fate in their… whatever it is that supernatural worms use instead of hands.

Meanwhile, Billy checks in with his friends, including the supportive and aptly-named Beatbox (Elise Fisher, Eighth Grade), a wild card called Freckles (Grace Kuhlenschmidt, TV’s The Daily Show), and the friend group scapegoat, Weenie (Chris Fleming). The crew are usually getting into some manner of suburban mischief. i.e. “We’re going down to the train tracks. Do a little train track stuff.” His family, including older sister, Gail 5000 (Eva Victor, Sorry, Baby) provides motivation in the form of tough love…

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September 12, 2025
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Interview: Megan Griffiths & Eliza Flug (YEAR OF THE FOX)

Megan Griffiths’ latest film, Year of the Fox, is a coming-of-age drama that takes place in 1997 Aspen and Seattle. Ivy (Sarah Jeffery) is a young woman on cusp of finishing high school, when she gets a disillusioning peek behind the curtain of her parents’ social circle. There she finds selfishness, deceit, pettiness, judgement, and a ring of untouchable predators. If you are reading this in America in the year 2025, this dynamic may sound achingly familiar. Systematic patriarchal exploitation is as American as apple pie.

As you may have guessed, screenwriter Eliza Flug’s semi-autobiographical tale leans dark. But it’s not a suffocating darkness. As Ivy puts it: “It’s hard to trust the good memories through the bad, but they were just as real”. Griffiths has always been deft at maintaining this verité tonal balance, ever since her quiet stunner, The Off Hours, premiered at Sundance in 2011. Griffiths and Flug are a match made in feminist cinema heaven. Their affinity for a light touch is a breath of fresh air in this perpetual landscape of male-dominated cinema. Sometimes the occasion calls for a Coralie Fargeat protagonist barfing up blood all over the patriarchy, and other times, a cozy, quietly scathing tone poem like Year of the Fox delivers a similar catharsis. Together, this dream team has crafted a formidable film about the ripples created when powerful men use their influence to hurt women – without repercussion – time and time again.

I recently chatted with Megan and Eliza about their journey since the film’s debut at the Seattle International Film Festival, trusting the audience to grasp narrative nuance, the music and films that inspire them, and using art as an act of rebellion.

 This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Hammer to Nail: Thank you for joining me today and for making this incredible film. I felt a personal connection to Year of the Fox because I graduated from high school in 1996 and moved to Seattle for college. The dynamic between Ivy’s parents is very familiar to me. I found myself gasping in recognition, especially when the parents talk to each other because that’s how my parents talked to each other for many years.

Megan Griffiths: Glad it was relatable.

Eliza Flug: Sorry it was relatable.

[Everyone laughs]

HtN: And I also loved that you showed something rarely depicted in movies and TV, which is that an encounter with a predator can be just as traumatizing even if they don’t get what they came for. Just being in proximity to the danger. Seeing that play out on screen was so unusual.

MG: Yes, a near miss can be traumatizing too.

HtN: The film premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2023. What was the journey like from the festival debut to the recent release?

MG: We were working with a distributor and ultimately, they weren’t putting out the film, and so we ended that relationship and worked with our new distributor, Monument Releasing, to get the film [out]. We’ve been waiting anxiously to release the film for this entire period so we’re happy to be getting it out now.

HtN: When did you start production?

MG: We shot it in 2021.

HtN: Wow!

MG: Yeah, it’s been a long journey. It’s not like the COVID era is ancient history but it is weird to think about the fact that we were shooting with a very freshly vaccinated crew with very strong limits on how many people could be in our party scenes and how to get people to be on set together safely. This was all very present in our production.

EF: And on the production side, it was a 15% markup for a COVID nurse to be on set at all times, and on the insurance cost. On my end, it was interesting to see that happen. There had been shutdowns in L.A. In the month while we were filming in Colorado and Washington state, we’d had one within less than two months. So, getting together as a community was special. It was actually really nice to see humans and be together. It was a really special time, for sure.

MG: Yeah, and it was a story we were both really ready and excited to share, and it’s just been a challenge. I mean, the entire film landscape is a challenge right now, so we’ve just been part of that – the issues that are affecting every filmmaker these days.

HtN: Yeah. And issues that are affecting every woman. I mean, you shot this so long ago and it was as true in 1997 as it is today in 2025. So many truths in this movie.

You both complimented each other creatively on this film. Eliza, in your writer’s statement for the film you talked about how power is always better when it is shared. [Author’s note: The full quote is, “It was freeing to write this reflection and to see Megan Griffiths, a filmmaker I respect, take what she read and create this translation, to work with her and to learn about power, and how it is better when it is shared. Always.”]

How did you share the power when you were collaborating on this film?

EF: I think that you choose it, and you’re very selective on how you do something, especially if you want it to be relatable to other people. You have to be true, and you hope for that truth and integrity in the relationship. It’s not something you can force. And it’s something you come by honestly every day. And so, Megan led the charge on that with production and with her community – our shared community of women working together, wanting to create something that would speak to our children. It was more about, “what do they think of this and what will they see?” Making film can be very selfish and making art is very self-involved, but it was an act of trying to create something for other people as opposed to just being about the past or the self. I think we both came from that perspective, which made it easy to work together.

MG: I think we had a shared desire to have this conversation be – not just something that was happening between the two of us over coffee – but having with an audience. Within our culture the conversation’s gotten a lot louder recently because of what’s leading the headlines these days, but it’s not new. The idea of talking about sexual politics, talking about predation, both sides of the coin – the people who are predators and the people who are interacting with them and having their lives impacted by them – these are all conversations that have been going on since way before this movie, since way before Jeffrey Epstein, but they’re coming to a head culturally right now and I’m glad we’re able to contribute our little piece of the puzzle…

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August 8, 2025
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Review: I Don’t Understand You

Watching I Don’t Understand You, the new semi-autobiographical comedy/thriller co-written and directed by real-life married couple Brian Crano and David Joseph Craig, I was reminded of my own “imminent parenthood” time. There is a certain panic that sets in when it’s definitely happening but you’re not sure you’re ready. In the case of I Don’t Understand You, it goes off the rails in very broad ways, but the vibes are inherently relatable. The dark comedy stars Nick Kroll (TVs Kroll Show, Big Mouth) and Andrew Rannells (TVs Big Mouth, Girls) as the Craig and Crano proxies, who embark on a wedding anniversary/babymoon to Italy on the cusp of their impending fatherhood.

Crano and Craig’s debut is, in many ways, a tribute/throwback to outrageous comedies about couples who see their relationship tested beyond their wildest imaginations. Films like, The Money Pit, Date Night, and Flirting with Disaster spring to mind. There’s also a top note of misunderstanding-based violence, like in Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. I won’t spoil the journey, but viewers should be prepared. for. anything.

We first meet Dom and Cole as they record and then re-record an introduction video to send to their prospective surrogate (played sparingly and virtually by Amanda Seyfried). The men struggle to find the balance between being themselves and making a good impression. But no matter what, they don’t want to get burned again (their previous surrogate wasn’t even pregnant and made off with a large sum of money). Plus, they REALLY want to become parents.

Craig and Crano really were scammed by a would-be surrogate, got stranded in the Italian countryside, and had to make their way through the crisis with only the most basic Italian skills (there are several jokes about the ineffectiveness of Duo Lingo in the film). Dom and Cole can barely communicate with the people tasked to help them, and the cultural differences between Italians and Americans cannot be overstated…

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June 26, 2025
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Presents: Richard Green, director of “I Know Catherine, the Log Lady”

On this very special episode of Really Weird Stuff: A Twin Peaks Podcast, we team up with independent cinema outlet, Hammer to Nail, to interview Richard Green, director of the new documentary, I Know Catherine, the Log Lady, about the life and death of Catherine Coulson, aka Margaret Lanterman from Twin Peaks. As the film shows, her time on T.P. was just a fraction of the huge, dynamic life of a beloved woman. 

Lynch fans will also recognize Richard Green as the Magician from
Mulholland Dr. (“No Hay Banda!”) 

Baxter spoke to Green about his indelible time working with David, the challenges of reducing hundreds of hours of content into a digestible feature, the importance of the theatrical experience, and how David’s death may have been a boon to art-house cinema. 

Plus MUCH MORE! 

Check iknowcatherine.com for more information and to see if the film is coming to your city!

Hammer to Nail



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May 15, 2025
Categories: Filmpinions, Pod People . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Interview: Richard Green, director of I Know Catherine, The Log Lady

https://www.hammertonail.com/interviews/richard-green

Twenty-five years after the season two finale of the seminal prestige drama Twin Peaks aired, David Lynch heralded a third season with the following tweet: “That gum you like is going to come back in style.” This was exciting news for Twin Peaks fans and David’s frequent players alike. Catherine Coulson started working with David in his Eraserhead days, which was also when the two friends first conceived the mysterious, enigmatic, and prescient character, The Log Lady, who would eventually serve as a sort of Greek Chorus for the show and an oracle for the characters. There was no way Coulson was going to let a little thing like a terminal cancer diagnosis stop her from participating in Twin Peaks: The Return.

Director Richard Green (7 Year Zig Zag) saw a cosmic opportunity to bookend I Don’t Know Jack (his 2002 documentary about Catherine’s first husband, Jack Nance) with a peek into Catherine’s prolific legacy both in art and interpersonal connection. I Know Catherine, the Log Lady is a captivating, poignant depiction of this indelible renaissance woman who was so much more than just “the lady with the log”. Jessica Baxter recently got a chance to speak with Green about his process, inspiration, working with David Lynch, and the incomparable experience of seeing film in a movie theater.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Hammer to Nail: Thank you so much for meeting me today. I loved your movie. It was just such a moving depiction. I already knew a little bit from just reading about Catherine and then of course seeing The Return. But there was so much I didn’t know so thank you for filling in all those blanks.

Richard Green: It’s a pleasure to have you watch it and I appreciate what you’re saying, thank you.

HtN: So, you met Catherine in the early 70s in San Francisco?

RG: Actually, I never met her in San Francisco. She had been in San Francisco and then she moved down to L.A. and went to [The American Film Institute]. And I moved up to San Francisco right about the same time and started a theater company… All of the people that had been in hers – the Circus – migrated into ours – the Theater of Marvels. I met Jack [Nance] up there but I didn’t meet Catherine until I came down [to Los Angeles]. It was ‘73, I was 20. I was on my way to hitchhike around Europe for a year, to do the hippie adventure [laughs]. And I ended up auditioning for something that one of Catherine’s close friends was in and staying in L.A. for an extra 12 weeks. And, in that time, the place I hung out was in Beachwood Canyon with Catherine, and Jack at their apartment where David [Lynch] was also living at the time. And it was just fun. It was a great place to hang out. Jack was hysterical. David was charming. And Catherine would constantly make sure you had enough to eat and drink… Heaven.

HtN: That sounds divine. Do you remember your first interaction with her or an early memory of meeting Catherine?

RG: You know, I do but it’s very vague… but it is coming up the stairs…I know exactly the stairs, just going into the apartment [in Beachwood Canyon] which my friend lives in now. And I just remember Jack and David at a table, and Catherine coming out of their kitchen The stove and the sink are right there by the door, and she would pop her head out: [musically] “Can I get you anything?” …Kind of this singing… Half of it’s probably fantasy but I just remember her as, everything being musical. The way she moved and the way she talked and the way she laughed had kind of a musical rhythm to it. It was different than anybody that I knew. That’s what I remember about Catherine and then, ya know, just her and Jack kinda… [pantomimes two fists banging together]…

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May 15, 2025
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Review: I Know Catherine, The Log Lady

You probably DO know Catherine, the Log Lady. She was an actress for stage and screen, a camera operator for John Cassavetes, and a frequent collaborator with a little auteur you may have heard of called David Lynch. She also played a signature character in Lynch’s seminal TV show, Twin Peaks. The final performance of her career is beautifully captured in the third season of the show, filmed 25 years after season two ended on one of the most infamous cliffhangers of all time. She get shte documentary treatment in Richard Green’s I Know Catherine, the Log Lady.

Sometimes, things fall together so perfectly that it feels pre-ordained. Catherine Coulson got her start in 1960s San Francisco, when she co-founded an acting troupe called The Circus. She met David Lynch working for him behind the camera on his nascent films. Lynch was an audio-visual magician, who assembled an indelible crew to birth what is arguably the most dynamic body of work to grace the large and small screens. Richard Green, who directed this documentary about Catherine’s life, played a character called The Magician in David Lynch’s 2001 masterpiece, Mulholland Dr.

Most know Catherine Coulson as Margaret Lanterman aka “The Log Lady”; a prescient oddball who traversed the cursed town of Twin Peaks, delivering cosmic messages transmitted through an ever-present log that only she could hear. But Coulson was also a very talented stage actor and camera operator, as well as a reliable caretaker for those she loved. Several people interviewed in I Know Catherine mention her penchant for taking in “wounded birds” and “stray dogs.” These birds and dogs were people, and some of them, sadly, were her romantic partners.

Richard Green knew Catherine, and, as a result, became a tertiary figure in Lynch’s social circle. He got the idea for his 2002 documentary, I Don’t Know Jack, at the 1996 memorial for the film’s subject: Eraserhead star Jack Nance. Nance was Catherine Coulson’s first husband, and Catherine was instrumental in corralling David for I Don’t Know Jack. How fitting, then, that Green could bookend the story with I Know Catherine, the Log Lady…

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April 29, 2025
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Review: The Becomers

Writer/director Zach Clark (Little Sister, White Reindeer) returns with his fifth feature film, The Becomers– a unique pandemic-era allegory with notes of Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, and The Coneheads.

When an unnamed alien couple (called X and Y in the script) evacuate their dying planet for the refuge of earth, they are separated, and must enact unimaginable horrors to assimilate to their new surroundings and ultimately reunite. Aided by the universal trauma of the 2020 global pandemic, Clark fits a lot of context into a tight ninety-minute story. The result is an impactful, at times grotesque, occasionally comedic, and wholly romantic depiction of what it takes to regain a sense of normalcy and contentment after losing everything you once knew.

Differentiated only by the color of their pupilless, glowing eyes, X and Y utilize a technology invented by their planet’s scientists, to assimilate on Earth. Unfortunately, in involves stealing the body of a human, at the cost of their life. Worse still, the effect is only temporary, resulting in a string of unwitting deaths in the name of their own survival. They just happen to land in the Chicago area during the uncertain, mask-filled, social-bubble era of our recent past. This timing has its advantages and disadvantages.

The plot unfolds organically, with a voiceover (from Russell Mael of the band Sparks) metering out the events that brought the couple into this predicament. The narrator continues revealing the backstory throughout the present narrative. We learn a bit about the culture of their former lives, and this is where the Coneheads comp comes in. It began with a blind date over “squash steak wraps and black drink” before the couple “connected pods” and made a life together. “There were signs of things to come – the news was strange, scary, yet our little lives were as normal as ever.” They describe a rather familiar set of events that result in their own global crisis, and ultimately, a complete planetary evacuation to save their species…

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November 26, 2024
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hammer to Nail Review: Monica

Despite recent progress (and plenty of setbacks), representational Trans cinema remains a barren landscape. Fortunately, we have an oasis in the form of Italian director Andrea Pallaoro’s new film, Monica, starring Trace Lysette. Pallaoro and his writing partner, Orlando Tirado, are no strangers to crafting intimate cinematic portraits of women in crisis. Charlotte Rampling won an acting award at The Venice Film Festival for helming their 2017 film, Hannah. Lysette received Venice Film Festival accolades of her own in 2022, when she became the first out Trans woman to star in a selected film.

Monica follows the titular character, a Trans woman working as a massage therapist in L.A. and in the death throes of a relationship with an unseen jerk called Jimmy. In between leaving voicemails for Jimmy, Monica is shocked to receive a call from Laura, the sister-in-law that she has never met. Laura lives in an unnamed Midwest town, raising 3 kids with Monica’s brother, Paul. It’s the same town Monica fled years before, when her mother kicked her out for being Trans. The mother who drove her away is now dying, but refusing hospital care, and the family needs Monica to lighten the load. We can guess pretty early on that the kind-hearted Laura is also hoping to facilitate a deathbed reconciliation for the family. Monica surprises herself by agreeing to come. She packs up her hot-but-janky convertible and makes the long drive to her trepidatious homecoming.

Monica is a stranger in a familiar town, meeting her sister-in-law and siblings for the first time. She hasn’t seen her little brother since Eugenia (the flawless Patricia Clarkson) told her she couldn’t be her mother anymore. No one in her biological family has ever met her as Monica. Every interaction she has outside the relative safety of Los Angeles is fraught with the prospect of conflict or even violence. So naturally, she proceeds with caution, ready to flee at the first sign of danger. She has learned this survival skill through experience. We don’t need to know specifics and the narrative doesn’t elaborate…

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May 9, 2023
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: , , , , , , , . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

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