The Projection Booth

In 1988, a Soviet underground rock hero flew west to record an album for CBS, and Michael Apted's cameras went with him. The Long Way Home (1989) follows Boris Grebenshchikov and his band Aquarium from studio sessions in New York and Montreal back to a Leningrad where glasnost was still a hope, with Dave Stewart, Annie Lennox, Chrissie Hynde, and Crosby, Stills and Nash along for the ride. Now it's back: a 4K remaster built from the only surviving 16mm print premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in January 2026, with a new epilogue on Grebenshchikov's exile.

Mike talks with producer Steven Lawrence about bringing the film back to the screen. Lawrence got his start in New York public-access television, filmed CBGB bands in the 1970s, produced long-form programming at MTV, and co-founded Link TV. He and editor Susanne Rostock supervised the remaster and co-directed the new ending.

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A man comes home from an alien abduction to find a tenant living in his house. Into the Sky (2026), a Fantastic Fest world premiere starring Sam Richardson, Sofia Black-D'Elia, and David Cross, pairs that premise with classic rom-com bones: the meet-cute, the estranged spouse, the big wedding. Drew Mylrea and Evan Wolf Buxbaum make their feature directing debut with an idea a decade in the making.

Mike talks with them about a script that sat for six years after Evan called it terrible, a wedding scene inspired by the barn where Drew officiated Evan's own, cast improv that changed how they shot, a fruit-based code for settling disputes behind the monitor, and hoisting actors skyward on wires during short Catskill summer nights.

Follow Into the Sky on Instagram and visit the film's official website for the merch raffle.

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Nothing says team-building like a trap. Corporate Retreat (2026), a horror comedy that had its world premiere at BIFFF in Brussels, lures ambitious young executives to a luxury desert estate where the trust games turn deadly. Director Aaron Fisher follows his debut feature Inside the Rain (2019) with a cast that includes Odeya Rush, Rosanna Arquette, and Alan Ruck.

Mike talks with Fisher and actress Ellen Toland, who plays COO Aubrey Johnson, about a one-room thriller in the spirit of Saw (2004) born from his father's 2008 financial collapse, blocking the carnage with chalk drawings and action figures in a backyard, Gary J. Tunnicliffe's practical gore, parodying summer-camp trust falls after consultants quoted $250,000, and a Brussels crowd that treated the premiere like a midnight-movie party.

Follow Aaron Fisher on Instagram and follow Ellen Toland on Instagram.

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Gunshots on Lioness aren't supposed to sound like movie gunshots. Supervising sound editor George Haddad, an Emmy winner for The Studio, talks with Mike about building Taylor Sheridan's CIA drama from authentic sources: researching how a specific weapon sounds in a specific place, recording a friend's Rivian for another series, and cleaning dialogue so viewers never reach for the subtitles.

The conversation also goes back to Berklee, drumming, and a childhood Star Wars (1977) moment, then to DVD-era restorations of Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), where Clint Eastwood returned to re-record lines, and to Jackass Number Two (2006) versus House of 1000 Corpses (2003).

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Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

Nearly sixty years after Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin shot the most famous footage in Bigfoot history, forty seconds of forgotten 16mm film locked in a safe for half a century threaten to blow the legend wide open. Capturing Bigfoot (2026), a SXSW documentary that had the Bigfoot community arguing before most of them had seen it, comes from director Marq Evans of Claydream (2021) and arrives October 20, National Bigfoot Day, on Prime Video and in select theaters.

Mike talks with Evans about the email from a colleague that started it, 130 interview tapes from researcher Greg Long, how Patterson's son Clint became the film's emotional heartbeat, watching the new footage on camera for the first time, being shut down by a bank president mid-interview, and why Evans pulled the film from festivals to protect its secret. 

Visit the film's official website.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.

Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth