The Hip Pocket #302 - C. Robert Cargill

The migration to Ghost is underway.

For now, I’m still posting things here, and I will right up until the last moment, when everything switches over. That should be before the end of the month for sure, and sooner if possible. I like the way things look at Ghost, and I’m starting to learn how to build articles over there.

Part of the issue is that I’ve been using Substack since late 2019. I’m just plain used to it, and I’ve learned new publishing platforms so many times now that my brain just feels exhausted at the prospect of doing it again. To some degree, I’ve become comfortable with inertia, which is not great. I’m 55. I’ve got a lot of publishing years ahead of me. I have a lot of things I plan to do, and I have things I would very much like to write and publish here. I look at this migration to Ghost as an opportunity to draw a line in the sand and say “Here’s the new thing,” looking at the Substack era as an era of experimentation and learning.

I have goals for the audience I want to build here. I have nearly 10,000 different people reading the free issues of this newsletter, and I need more of those 10,000 people to convert to paying subscribers. I am going to make some goals clear when we kick things off at Ghost, and there will be some old features and some new features coming over there that should make it clear that we’re doing something new. I’ve worked hard to think about what I want Formerly Dangerous to look like moving forward, and I hope you’ll be excited by what I’ve got planned.

In the meantime, we’re on our way with season three of The Hip Pocket, and this week’s guest has got a lot to say about three very particular films. This is an episode that many, many people asked me about, and I think a number of you thought it would never happen. Well, if you’re someone who’s been reading me since the Ain’t It Cool days, buckle up, because this is another AICN reunion. And maybe the unlikeliest of them…

C. ROBERT CARGILL was, of course, Massawyrm in his Ain’t It Cool days. He was also Carlyle over at Spill. Those are ancient credits, though. These days, he’s hard at work with his new film The Black Phone 2, and he’s got a story featured in the new anthology It’s The End of the World As We Know It, a collection of stories set in the world of Stephen King’s The Stand. He’s maybe best known for Sinister or the first Doctor Strange, and for doling out tons of sunshiney advice for screenwriters on social media. He picked three movies that approach nostalgia in different ways, and it’s quite a line-up.

First, there’s Masters of Time (or Time Masters, depending on how you see it listed), a French animated film from the director of Fantastic Planet. It’s a brain-bending science-fiction picture that you truly have to see for yourself. His second film is the blisteringly funny (and wildly influential) Hellzapoppin’, a massive success in its time that is now largely forgotten. We get into the reasons behind that before we move on to his final film, the uber-charming Roll Bounce.

Our reaction film to him was Drunken Master II, a film I picked because all three of Cargill’s films were just overflowing with joy, and that’s the way Drunken Master II makes me feel as well.

Finally, our addition to the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame this week is the strange, hard-to-categorize but easy-to-adore The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

Like I said, we cover a lot of ground in this one, and I hope you guys enjoy it.

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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.