A Hip Pocket Double-Header: NYC and Frank Conniff

Okay, we got a little out of step there.

Last Friday, we released a new episode of The Hip Pocket, and I neglected to post the article here at the newsletter. That’s because I had a semi-catastrophic couple of weeks, health-wise. Now that I’m in my no-longer-mid-50s, I am feeling it at times. Things I would have shrugged off a decade ago absolutely level me now. I took three different falls in four different days, and my back ended up totally trashed. It’s crazy how much pain I felt for a few days, and how much it threw off everything else.

I think my least favorite thing about my industry these days is the uncertainty. Even when something moves forward, it feels like it does so at an entirely unpredictable pace. You wait and wait and suddenly there’s an urgency that seems impossible considering how long everyone waited. Juggling different jobs and different assignments can be maddening when things shift, and considering how little you are allowed to say about things while they’re in progress, it’s hard to explain what’s happening.

I’m guessing I now have the rest of this year to write for you guys. After that, things might get a little weird for a while. When I do find myself overloaded with work, I’ll do my best to communicate that so you understand what’s going on. It’s a good problem to have, and one I honestly wish was more of a problem. It’s been a very lean and difficult 2026, and I’m hoping 2027 is going to be an improvement.

So let’s do a double-dip today. First, we’ve got last week’s episode, in which the three of us picked movies that we love about New York City. The way we each approached that assignment was, once again, a real treat for me. I love setting a theme and then seeing how Craig and Aundria interpret that theme. I look forward to these episodes just as much as I look forward to meeting a new guest and sharing picks with them.

My choice was The Apartment, and honestly, I will take pretty much any excuse to talk about The Apartment. I love everything about it. I love the performances, the script, the remarkable black-and-white photography. It’s as good as movies get. Craig’s pick is the punk rock story of two best friends who find each other at a flashpoint for change in the city. I love Times Square, and was so happy he picked it. Finally, Aundria picked a film that has been part of her movie DNA since she was a little kid, and I shocked her by telling her stories about how big a success Crocodile Dundee was when it came out in 1986.

This week’s new episode is very exciting for me as a longtime Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan. There was a time when that show was an important part of my weekly social schedule, and I would have lost my mind at the idea of having anyone from the show join me for a little movie chat. As a result, I still can’t believe how easy it was to talk TV’s Frank himself into joining us. His picks were great fun, as I suspected they would be, and he proved to be just as thoughtful as I’d hoped.

I will give you a heads-up, though, that because Frank and his collaborators were in the midst of making some brand-new MST3K experiments for us, he was forced to call in from an actual satellite. We did everything we could to fix the sound, but it’s one of those things where we had two choices: scrap the episode, or make the best out of the recording we had. It shouldn’t matter. He made such great picks and had such great reasons for the choices that I think you’ll have as good a time as we did.

His first pick is The Bank Dick, and I’m always down to talk about the very particular comedy cinema of W.C. Fields. His second pick is one of the most delightfully acid films of the ‘50s, Sweet Smell of Success. Finally, he chose an eccentric ‘70s comedy starring Elliott Gould, Jules Pfeiffer’s Little Murders.

As if that line-up wasn’t already amazing, our response film is one of the daffiest comedies of the ‘50s, the live-action cartoon that is Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and then we added Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid to the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame.

I can’t believe how much fun it is to make this show, and how much I look forward to each and every one of these conversations. We’re starting to plan our guests for 2027, and I think it’s going to be the best year yet of the show. Going to a weekly format has helped us start to built a real rhythm, and I think it’s going to give us a momentum that will take the show to the next level.

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Drop us an email at itsthehippocket@gmail.com if you’d like! We’d love to hear about your favorite Hip Pocket films!

The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker.

Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer.

It is a Formerly Dangerous Production.

100% HUMAN-MADE © 2026 by Matt Kindt, LLC is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0