It’s the 200th episode of CinemAddicts, and to celebrate the show co-creator Anderson Cowan is back with the crew. Anderson and I created CinemAddicts back in late 2015. I’ve got a few memories to share before diving into our milestone episode!
I have been close friends with Anderson since the Westwood One years. He was working on Loveline and another radio program (I think it was called Ferrall on the Bench). We immediately struck a friendship thanks to our shared love of cinema.
My job initially was a partnership between E! Entertainment and Westwood One. They combined to form E! Radio. I attended press junkets, did a daily news fax and would also edit soundbites to go on a daily prep service that serviced radio stations across the U.S. It wasn’t a solo operation, and in my 19 years on the job I had several partners to help get the daily show out to stations.
My interviews at the time were recorded on cassette tape, and during those years Anderson would listen to my press junket tapes for a little education and insight. I complained about doing junkets and watching movies that were pretty forgettable. I wasn’t watching the movies I really wanted to see, but instead was assigned movies to cover for E! Radio.
I have since tempered my pessimism. Watching movies as part of your job, though not lucrative by any means, is a total privilege.
That said, witnessing Anderson over the years continue to have a passion for movie watching and filmmaking is a total inspiration. When we started CinemAddicts, it was Anderson who wanted to spotlight Indie films. Basically stuff that was not exactly front and center on The Film Vault (the popular movie review podcast he hosts with Bryan Bishop).
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I wanted a more populist take on movie reviewing with CinemAddicts, but thankfully Anderson’s focused viewpoint on the podcast won out.
For several years, Bruce Purkey, Eric Holmes and I also did a weekly movie review podcast titled Find Your Film. Due to Anderson’s many commitments, he could not record CinemAddicts on a regular basis. Just one regular episode and a Patreon bonus episode is all he could give the past two years, and to be honest I was surprised he was able to keep CinemAddicts a priority with all his responsibilities.
Bruce and Eric moved from Find Your Film to CinemAddicts in November 2022 and since then CinemAddicts has returned to its regularly scheduled weekly format.
The name CinemAddicts was coined by Anderson Cowan over drinks at a Westwood bar (whose name I forget). Who knew years before I would stumble on that very same moniker while reading a movie review by writer James Agee. Best known for his screenplays for The Night of the Hunter and The African Queen, Agee received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his autobiography A Death in the Family.
***One of my favorite moments in cinema is this scene from The Night of the Hunter:
