We’re back with an all-new season of Guide for the Film Fanatic! In each episode, Jason Bailey and Mike Hull invite a guest from the world of film (including filmmakers, authors, critics, actors, and more) to select one of the 1600+ “must-see movies” collected in Danny Peary’s seminal 1986 book, Guide for the Film Fanatic. Bailey, Hull, and their guests deep dive on each film, discussing its history, themes, style, performances, initial reception, and legacy, taking a fresh look at some of the most beloved titles in cinema history.

This week, film critic, essayist, and programmer Ashley Clark — whose most recent book is The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films — joins us to discuss one of the most beloved of those films: Perry Henzell’s reggae gangster classic, The Harder They Come.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ve partnered up with One Heat Minute Productions on this show, so we’ve migrated over to their feed; subscribe now if you haven’t already. 

We’re also putting our new episodes up on YouTube! Watch the show on our YouTube channel, @guideforthefilmfanatic, for visual accompaniment and bonus stuff and who knows what else:

The Harder They Come is currently streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, and Amazon Prime Video, as well as a variety of ad-supported streamers. You can read the New York Times review here, the TIME review here, Roger Ebert’s review here, and Pauline Kael’s review here. 

You can buy The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films here, and his previous book that we discussed, Facing Blackness: Media and Minstrelsy in Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled,”, here. Ashley’s Substack is here.  If you’d like to check out the YouTube page for Mike’s other podcast, “Black Diplomats,” it’s here. And Jason’s book Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend is OUT NOW, and you can order it from MZS Press, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your hardbacks, ebooks, paperbacks, and/or audiobooks. 

Last but not least, if you’d like to make a little donation to support us and the show, you can do that at Ko-fi!