Movie of the Year

Movie of the Year: 2006
The Puffy Chair
The Puffy Chair Podcast Hits the Road
The Puffy Chair podcast episode sends the Taste Buds on a road trip through the Duplass brothers' scrappy 2006 breakout. Ryan, Mike, and Greg buckle up to decide whether this mumblecore landmark deserves a deep run in the Movie of the Year 2006 bracket. Moreover, they bring serious backup this week. Critic and author Keith Phipps joins the panel to help unpack a movie made for the price of a used car. Together, the group digs into fragile relationships, DIY filmmaking, and one very symbolic recliner. Can a $15,000 indie outmuscle the blockbusters of 2006? Press play and ride along.
About the Film
The Puffy Chair follows Josh, a struggling New York booking agent played by Mark Duplass. Josh wins an eBay auction for a burgundy recliner that matches the one his dad owned years ago. Consequently, he plans a road trip to deliver the chair as a birthday gift. His girlfriend Emily, played by Katie Aselton, comes along for the ride. His free-spirited brother Rhett, played by Rhett Wilkins, joins them on the way. Naturally, the trip tests every relationship in the van.
Jay Duplass directed the film, which he created with his brother Mark. The brothers shot it for roughly $15,000 borrowed from their parents, and the cast earned $100 a day. The movie premiered at Sundance in January 2005 and later won the Audience Award at South by Southwest. Roadside Attractions and Netflix released it theatrically on June 2, 2006. As a result, it qualifies for our 2006 bracket, and it arrives with real critical pedigree. Check the full credits at IMDb and the reviews roundup at Metacritic. New to the season? Start with our Movie of the Year 2006 introduction.
Guest Panelist: Keith Phipps
Keith Phipps brings nearly three decades of film criticism to the panel this week. He joined The A.V. Club in 1997 and became its editor in 2004, helping build it into a cultural institution. Later, he co-founded the beloved film site The Dissolve and served as editorial director for film and TV at Uproxx. His byline has appeared in Rolling Stone, Slate, GQ, Vulture, and The New York Times, among many others. Currently, he writes The Reveal, a film newsletter he created with longtime collaborator Scott Tobias. He also co-hosts The Next Picture Show, a biweekly podcast in the Filmspotting family that pairs classic films with modern successors. Additionally, Phipps wrote the acclaimed book Age of Cage: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career, an NPR Books We Love selection. Few guests know indie film history better, so the Taste Buds put him straight to work.
Josh and Emily (and Rhett)
Every road movie needs passengers, and this one packs the van with tension. The panel starts with Josh and Emily, a couple fluent in baby talk but allergic to honest conversation. Their relationship anchors the film, and the podcast crew debates whether Josh ranks among 2006's most frustrating boyfriends. Emily wants commitment and emotional validation. Josh wants to deliver a chair and dodge every hard question along the way. Meanwhile, Rhett climbs aboard and scrambles the whole dynamic. His impulsive romanticism works as comic relief, yet it also lights the fuse under Josh and Emily's slow-motion breakup. Keith Phipps helps the Taste Buds weigh how the improvised performances make these fights feel painfully real. Ultimately, the group asks a simple question. Do we root for this couple, or do we root for the exits?
Filmmaking Style on The Puffy Chair 2006 Podcast
Style takes center stage in the second discussion topic. The Duplass brothers shot with handheld cameras, natural light, and a whole lot of improvisation. Critics soon filed the film under mumblecore, a label built on low budgets, naturalistic dialogue, and twentysomething malaise. However, the panel debates whether that label helps or flattens the movie. The Puffy Chair podcast crew also examines the famous snap zooms, the cramped framing, and the brothers' choice to cast their actual parents. Furthermore, Phipps places the film within the mid-2000s indie boom that he covered firsthand as a critic. The $15,000 budget becomes a character in itself. Does the rough look create intimacy, or does it simply look cheap? Notably, the panel connects this DIY approach to the music of the era covered in our 2006 Mixtape Part I.
The Chair
What about the recliner itself? The chair works as the film's MacGuffin, its symbol, and arguably its best supporting player. Josh buys it because it resembles the chair from his childhood living room. Therefore, the purchase says less about his dad and more about Josh's own nostalgia. The panel unpacks what the chair represents: arrested development, misplaced sentimentality, and the gap between a grand gesture and genuine care. Along the journey, the chair suffers indignities that mirror the crumbling relationships around it. By contrast, the film's quietest moments reveal what an honest gift might have looked like. The Taste Buds and Keith Phipps debate whether the chair earns its title billing. No spoilers here, though. The chair's final fate stays a surprise for listeners.
Genre Blast
The episode also features a Genre Blast segment, a PopFilter favorite. The Taste Buds zoom out from the film and blast through its genre lineage. Is The Puffy Chair a road movie, a romantic comedy, a breakup drama, or the founding text of mumblecore? Each label carries its own history, and the panel traces them all. Specifically, the crew connects the film to decades of American road pictures and indie relationship stories. Keith Phipps adds critical context from his years covering the movement's rise and fall. Listen to the full episode to hear where the genre conversation lands.
Why The Puffy Chair Still Matters
Twenty years later, this tiny film casts a surprisingly long shadow. The Duplass brothers parlayed it into a remarkable career spanning Cyrus, Safety Not Guaranteed, Togetherness, and Room 104. Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton became one of indie film's great creative couples. Meanwhile, the movie's distribution deal made history of its own. Netflix co-released it theatrically in 2006, an early experiment that hinted at the streaming future to come. The mumblecore movement it helped launch reshaped American independent film and influenced a generation of DIY creators. Above all, The Puffy Chair podcast conversation proves the film still sparks real debate. Its questions about commitment, communication, and growing up have not aged a day. The AFI Catalog preserves the film's place in the historical record. Our bracket will decide its place in 2006.
Related Episodes from Movie of the Year: 2006
Movie of the Year: 2006 Intro Part 1
Movies of 2006 Bracket Reveal and Sweet 16
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
2006 Mixtape Part I
All Movie of the Year Episodes

FAQ: The Puffy Chair Podcast and Film
What is The Puffy Chair podcast episode about?
The Puffy Chair podcast episode features the Taste Buds and guest Keith Phipps evaluating the Duplass brothers' 2006 film for the Movie of the Year bracket. Topics include the Josh and Emily relationship, the film's mumblecore style, the symbolism of the chair, and a Genre Blast segment.
What is The Puffy Chair about?
The film follows Josh, who wins an eBay auction for a recliner matching his dad's old chair. He road-trips to deliver it as a birthday gift, joined by his girlfriend Emily and his brother Rhett. Consequently, the journey exposes every crack in their relationships.
Who directed The Puffy Chair?
Jay Duplass directed the film, which he made with his brother Mark Duplass, who wrote, produced, and starred. Many sources credit the brothers as a filmmaking team, and the movie launched their careers.
Who stars in The Puffy Chair?
Mark Duplass stars as Josh, Katie Aselton plays Emily, and Rhett Wilkins plays Rhett. Notably, the Duplass brothers' real parents appear as Josh's parents.
Is The Puffy Chair a mumblecore movie?
Yes, critics widely consider it a founding film of the mumblecore movement. Its low budget, improvised dialogue, and naturalistic performances defined the style. However, the Duplass brothers have expressed mixed feelings about the label, a tension the episode explores.
How much did The Puffy Chair cost to make?
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Movie of the Year: 2006
Mixtape, Part II

The 2006 Mixtape Part 2 Podcast Finishes the Playlist
The 2006 Mixtape Part 2 podcast picks up exactly where Part I left off. The full five person panel returns to finish what they started: a definitive, collectively built playlist of the best songs of 2006. Ryan, Mike, and Greg, the Taste Buds behind Movie of the Year, are once again joined by guests Nate Ragolia and Taylor Wilhite. Consequently, the debates get sharper as the remaining playlist slots get scarcer.
Part I established the ground rules and the early picks. Now, in Part 2, the panel faces the harder half of the job. The obvious anthems are gone. Therefore, every remaining selection demands a real argument, a defense of taste, and a willingness to absorb four rounds of pushback.
How the 2006 Mixtape Podcast Format Works
The Mixtape episodes mark a deliberate departure from the standard Movie of the Year format. Normally, the show runs films through a bracket, as it did in the 2006 bracket reveal. The Mixtape works differently. Each panelist adds one song per round to a shared playlist. There are no eliminations and no head to head matchups. Instead, the tension comes from scarcity and pride.
Every pick claims a slot that another panelist wanted. Moreover, every pick invites immediate judgment from the rest of the table. The format rewards conviction above all. A safe choice earns shrugs. A bold choice, defended well, earns respect. In practice, the round-robin structure turns a simple playlist into a portrait of five distinct musical sensibilities colliding in real time.
Guest Panelists: Nate Ragolia and Taylor Wilhite
Nate Ragolia returns for the second half of the Mixtape. Nate co-hosts Debut Buddies, a podcast dedicated to firsts of all kinds, and he has authored three published books. His background as a writer and critic gives his picks analytical weight. Additionally, he arrives with the confidence of someone who has already survived one full round of Taste Bud scrutiny in Part I.
Taylor Wilhite also returns to complete the panel. Taylor is a former PopFilter mainstay whose appearances are now rare, which gives the Mixtape episodes a sense of occasion. Longtime listeners know his taste and his willingness to fight for it. Together, the two guests expand the show's usual trio into a five voice ensemble. As a result, the playlist reflects a far wider slice of 2006 than any single host could deliver.
The Music of 2006, Revisited
The year 2006 offered an unusually rich field for a project like this. Pop radio belonged to Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, and Rihanna. Meanwhile, Gnarls Barkley's Crazy became an inescapable cultural event. Emo and pop-punk hit a commercial peak, hip-hop delivered landmark records, and indie rock crossed over to mainstream ears. The full sweep of the year is documented at Wikipedia's 2006 in music page, and it is staggering in retrospect.
Movie of the Year usually spends its energy on cinema, the kind of work chronicled at RogerEbert.com. However, the Mixtape episodes prove the same critical instincts apply to music. The panel treats each song the way the show treats films like Brick or Tristram Shandy: with curiosity, skepticism, and a genuine desire to figure out what holds up twenty years later.
Completing the Playlist
Part 2 covers the closing rounds of the mixtape. The panel works through the final picks, and the stakes rise with every turn. Notably, the late rounds force each panelist to confront what the playlist still lacks. Does it need another ballad? Another guitar record? Another undeniable radio smash? Each answer reshapes the final product.
The completed tracklist stays a surprise until you press play. No spoilers here. Nevertheless, expect passionate defenses, at least one pick that baffles the room, and the special satisfaction of hearing a playlist snap into its final form. By the end, the panel delivers a mixtape that could only exist through this exact collision of five sensibilities.
Why the 2006 Mixtape Part 2 Podcast Still Matters
The 2006 Mixtape Part 2 podcast completes the season's most distinctive experiment. The Movie of the Year season began with the 2006 intro episode and a field of 128 films. The Mixtape widens that lens. It argues that a year of culture includes its soundtrack, and that the songs of 2006 shaped memory just as powerfully as its movies did.
Above all, the episode captures why list making endures as a critical exercise. A playlist forces choices, and choices reveal values. Ultimately, the 2006 Mixtape Part 2 podcast delivers both a finished tracklist and a spirited argument about what deserves to last. Subscribe, listen to both parts, and then build your own version. Yours will differ, and that is exactly the point.
Related Episodes from Movie of the Year: 2006
2006 Mixtape, Part I
Movie of the Year: 2006 Intro, Part 1
Movies of 2006: Bracket Reveal and Sweet 16
Tristram Shandy: Movie of the Year 2006
Brick: Movie of the Year 2006
Browse All Movie of the Year Episodes

FAQ: 2006 Mixtape Part 2 Podcast
About the Episode
What is the 2006 Mixtape Part 2 podcast about?
The 2006 Mixtape Part 2 podcast is the concluding half of a special Movie of the Year episode. The five person panel of Ryan, Mike, Greg, Nate Ragolia, and Taylor Wilhite finishes building a collective playlist of the best songs of 2006, one pick at a time.
Do I need to listen to Part I first?
Listening to Part I first is recommended. Part I establishes the format, introduces the panel, and covers the opening rounds. Part 2 continues directly from that point and completes the tracklist.
Who are the guests on the 2006 Mixtape Part 2 podcast?
Nate Ragolia and Taylor Wilhite return for Part 2. Nate Ragolia co-hosts the Debut Buddies podcast and has authored three published books. Taylor Wilhite is a former PopFilter regular who now makes occasional guest appearances.
About the Mixtape and the Music
How does the Mixtape format work on Movie of the Year?
Each panelist takes turns adding one song per round to a shared 2006 playlist. There is no bracket and no eliminations. Every pick must survive the scrutiny of four other panelists with strong opinions about the music of 2006.
What songs are on the 2006 mixtape?
The full tracklist stays a surprise until you hear the episodes. The picks span pop, hip-hop, indie rock, R&B, and the emo and pop-punk wave that defined 2006 radio. Listen to both parts to hear every selection and the arguments behind them.
Who are the Taste Buds?
The Taste Buds are Ryan, Mike, and Greg, the three core hosts of Movie of the Year on the PopFilter network. Each season they run a bracket style competition to crown the best film of a single year. The current season covers 2006.
What were the biggest songs of 2006?
2006 produced era defining hits like Gnarls Barkley's Crazy, Justin Timberlake's SexyBack, and Beyonce's Irreplaceable. The year also marked a commercial peak for emo and pop-punk. The Mixtape episodes dig into which songs actually deserve playlist immortality.
Where can I listen to the 2006 Mixtape Part 2 podcast?
You can stream the episode right on this page using the player above. Movie of the Year is also available on all major podcast platforms through the PopFilter network.

Movie of the Year: 2006
Mixtape, Part I
The 2006 Mixtape Podcast Kicks Off — One Song at a Time
The 2006 Mixtape podcast episode is unlike anything else in the Movie of the Year catalog. Instead of debating a single film, Ryan, Mike, and Greg welcome two special guests — Nate Ragolia of Debut Buddies and longtime PopFilter friend Taylor Wilhite — for a round-robin music showcase that captures the full, chaotic glory of 2006's soundscape. Each panelist takes a turn placing one song into a collective playlist, building something that is part argument, part love letter, and part time machine back to a genuinely strange year in pop culture.
2006 was a transitional moment in popular music. Rap remained dominant, but with several megastars between album cycles, the charts opened up to a remarkably diverse mix of genres. Moreover, pop-punk and emo were infiltrating the mainstream at full speed. Additionally, R&B, dancehall, and indie rock were all jostling for space on the same playlists. The result was a year where "SexyBack," "Hips Don't Lie," "I Write Sins Not Tragedies," and "Dani California" could all feel equally essential — and equally of the moment. Consequently, building a 2006 mixtape is less a curation exercise and more a negotiation, which is exactly what makes this episode so much fun.
Tune in for Part I of the 2006 Mixtape on the Movie of the Year 2006 podcast, and find out whose taste holds up, whose picks land with a thud, and which songs define the year better than any film ever could.
About the 2006 Mixtape Format
The Mixtape episode breaks from the standard Movie of the Year formula in the best possible way. Rather than a single film under the microscope, the full panel of five — Ryan, Mike, Greg, Nate, and Taylor — each take turns contributing one song per round to a shared playlist. The songs land wherever they land: the bracket, the conversation, the collective memory. No rules govern the selection beyond personal conviction and a willingness to defend the pick.
The format rewards both champions of the obvious and advocates for the overlooked. Someone will inevitably go for the consensus anthem. Someone else will go deep on an album cut that never charted but defined their year. Furthermore, disagreements are baked in. Five people with five different relationships to the music of 2006 means that every pick is a small act of argument — an assertion about what mattered and why.
Part I covers the opening rounds of that playlist construction. Part II will follow, continuing the conversation and expanding the tracklist. Together, they form a two-part portrait of a year in music told through the ears of five people who were living it.
Guest Panelists: Nate Ragolia and Taylor Wilhite
Nate Ragolia is a freelance writer, editor, published author, voice over artist, and podcaster based in the PopFilter extended universe. He co-hosts Debut Buddies, a fortnightly podcast dedicated to firsts — debut albums, premiere episodes, inaugural seasons, the first of anything worth examining. Co-hosted with Kelly Attaway and Chelsea Hollander, Debut Buddies has built a devoted audience by taking the concept of beginnings seriously and hilariously. Nate is also the author of three books: There You Feel Free (2015), The Retroactivist (2019), and One Person Can't Make a Difference (2022). He brings to the Mixtape episode both the analytical rigor of someone who thinks carefully about cultural artifacts and the genuine enthusiasm of a lifelong music fan.
Taylor Wilhite is a familiar voice to longtime PopFilter listeners. A former mainstay of the network, Taylor steps back into the booth for this special occasion — one of his rare guest appearances since stepping back from regular podcasting. His history with the PopFilter crew means he arrives fully acclimated to the energy, the arguments, and the particular pleasure of five people trying to out-taste each other in real time. His presence makes Part I feel like a reunion as much as a music show.
Building the Playlist: Round by Round
Each round of the 2006 Mixtape follows the same structure: one panelist, one song, one chance to make the case. The picks accumulate into something that starts to resemble an actual playlist — though a playlist with a lot of disagreement baked into its sequencing.
2006 was the kind of year where the argument over what belongs is genuinely interesting. The Billboard charts were dominated by Daniel Powter's "Bad Day," Sean Paul's "Temperature," and Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack." However, the year also produced landmark indie and alternative releases, left-field hip-hop moments, and a wave of pop-punk anthems that hit a specific generation square in the chest. Notably, the question of which songs were great versus which songs were simply inescapable is a distinction worth debating — and this episode debates it at length.
As a result, the round-by-round format becomes a kind of stress test for taste. Each pick either extends the playlist's internal logic or breaks it, and the panel's reactions reveal as much about their musical identities as about the songs themselves. Part I lays the groundwork for what promises to be a contentious and deeply enjoyable full tracklist.
Why 2006's Music Deserves a Closer Listen
It is easy to dismiss the music of 2006 as a transitional era — neither the peak years of hip-hop's commercial dominance nor the coming digital disruption that would reshape the industry within a few years. Nevertheless, that framing undersells how much was actually happening. Beyoncé released B'Day. The Raconteurs debuted. Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers dropped as a double album. FutureSex/LoveSounds by Justin Timberlake redefined what a mainstream pop record could sound like.
Above all, 2006 was the last full year before the iPhone and streaming would begin to permanently reorganize how people discovered and consumed music. In practice, this means the mixtape as a cultural object — physical or digital — still carried enormous weight. A playlist in 2006 was still a statement, still a gift, still a way of saying something about who you were and what you cared about. Therefore, building a 2006 mixtape now is an act of archaeology as much as curation, and the Movie of the Year crew approaches it with exactly the right combination of nostalgia and rigor.
Meanwhile, the Mixtape format itself reflects something true about the show: Movie of the Year has always been as much about the people doing the talking as about the films under discussion. Bringing in Nate Ragolia and Taylor Wilhite expands that conversation in ways that a single-film episode simply cannot. The result is one of the most purely enjoyable episodes in the 2006 season.
Why the 2006 Mixtape Podcast Still Matters
The mixtape as a format has never really gone away. Streaming playlists are its digital descendants, and the impulse behind them — the desire to arrange songs into an argument about feeling and meaning — is as alive now as it was when people were still burning CDs. The 2006 Mixtape episode taps into that impulse directly, using the year's music as a lens for understanding both the culture of 2006 and the tastes of the five people assembled to discuss it.
Specifically, the episode works because it trusts its panelists. Nate Ragolia's credentials as a critic and author give his picks analytical weight. Taylor Wilhite's history with PopFilter gives the episode a sense of occasion. And the core Taste Buds — Ryan, Mike, and Greg — provide the continuity and argumentative energy that listeners have come to expect from the 2006 season. Together, they make a compelling case that the music of 2006 is worth revisiting, debating, and yes, assembling into a playlist — even twenty years later.
Ultimately, the 2006 Mixtape podcast is the season's most distinctive episode, and Part I is where it all begins. Subscribe, listen, and start forming your own opinions about what should have made the cut.
Related Episodes from Movie of the Year: 2006
Movie of the Year: 2006 — Intro Part 1
Movies of 2006 — Bracket Reveal and Sweet 16
Tristram Shandy — Movie of the Year: 2006
Brick — Movie of the Year: 2006
Browse All Movie of the Year Episodes

FAQ: 2006 Mixtape Podcast — Part I
About the Episode
What is the 2006 Mixtape podcast episode about?
The 2006 Mixtape, Part I is a special episode of Movie of the Year in which the full five-person panel — Ryan, Mike, Greg, Nate Ragolia, and Taylor Wilhite — take turns contributing songs to a shared 2006 playlist. Each round features one pick per panelist, building a collective mixtape that reflects the full range of the year's music while generating plenty of debate along the way.
Who are the guests on the 2006 Mixtape episode?
The episode features two special guests. Nate Ragolia is the co-host of Debut Buddies, a podcast about firsts,...

Movie of the Year: 2006
Brick
The Brick podcast episode of Movie of the Year arrives just in time to appreciate one of 2006's most audacious genre experiments. Ryan, Mike, and Greg are joined by Pete Wright of TruStory FM to dig into Rian Johnson's neo-noir debut, a film that transplants the hard-boiled world of Dashiell Hammett into the hallways and parking lots of a Southern California high school. Few films from this era take a bigger swing, and fewer still land it this cleanly.
About Brick (2006)
Brick is a neo-noir mystery thriller written, edited, and directed by Rian Johnson in his feature directorial debut. The film opened in New York and Los Angeles on April 7, 2006, distributed by Focus Features. It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan Frye, a teenage loner who pushes his way into the criminal underworld of his high school to investigate the disappearance -- and eventual murder -- of his ex-girlfriend Emily, played by Emilie de Ravin. The supporting cast includes Lukas Haas as the drug kingpin known only as the Pin, Nora Zehetner as the duplicitous Laura, Noah Fleiss as the enforcer Tug, and Richard Roundtree as a vice principal navigating the chaos from the margins.
Johnson wrote the first draft in 1997 immediately after graduating from USC School of Cinematic Arts. He spent the next seven years trying to get it made, with every financier asking him to set it in college instead of high school. He ultimately raised approximately $450,000 from friends and family, shot the film in 20 days, and spent three months rehearsing with the cast beforehand. The score -- inventive and deeply atmospheric -- was composed by Johnson's cousin Nathan Johnson using traditional instruments alongside improvised ones including filing cabinets, kitchen utensils, and tack pianos, all recorded on an Apple PowerBook.
The film drew on hardboiled classics, particularly the novels of Dashiell Hammett, and won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It holds an 80% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned three stars from Roger Ebert, who called it a rich source of dialogue and behavior. You can read Ebert's full review at RogerEbert.com. Brick has since become a cult classic and a clear blueprint for Johnson's later work on Knives Out.
Find the full cast and crew listing at Brick on IMDb.
Guest Panelist: Pete Wright
Pete Wright is a podcaster, author, educator, and co-founder of TruStory FM, a podcast production network he has built over more than three decades in media. He has logged thousands of episodes across more than three dozen shows covering film, ADHD, creative process, brand storytelling, and the craft of audio production. His work spans journalism, corporate communications, and graduate-level teaching, where he spent fifteen years working with students on storytelling and media production.
Among his best-known projects is The Next Reel Film Podcast, a deep-dive film discussion series that serves as his primary film-critical home. He also co-hosts Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast alongside Nikki Kinzer, an award-winning show with over a million annual downloads and 29 seasons of episodes since its 2010 launch. In 2024, Pete and Nikki co-authored Unapologetically ADHD: A Step-by-Step Framework for Everyday Planning on Your Terms, a practical guide grown directly from the podcast's community and themes. His debut science fiction novella, Lattice, was published in 2026. Pete's most recent podcast venture is Headstone, a personal series about legacy, memory, and the stories we leave behind. He is based in Portland, Oregon. This Brick podcast episode marks his first appearance on Movie of the Year.
Brick Podcast Discussion: Noir in High School
The central creative gamble of Brick is not simply that it applies film noir conventions to a high school setting. More precisely, it applies them without irony. Johnson made a deliberate choice to play every scene completely straight, and the cast follows his lead without a single wink at the camera. Consequently, the absurdity of the premise becomes the engine of the film's tension rather than its release valve.
This Brick podcast opens with a foundational question: does the noir-in-high-school conceit actually work? The genre's grammar depends heavily on power asymmetry, corruption, and the lone investigator operating outside institutional structures. High school provides all three. Brendan's relationship with the vice principal mirrors the classic detective's uneasy truce with law enforcement. The Pin's basement headquarters functions as the smoky back room. The femme fatale and the enforcer play their archetypal roles without adjustment.
Johnson drew specifically on the novels of Dashiell Hammett -- particularly the Continental Op stories -- and encouraged his cast to read Hammett rather than watch noir films. He wanted the stylistic choices to come from the source material, not from imitation of existing screen adaptations. That decision gives Brick a distinctive texture. Moreover, the dialogue mixes actual period noir slang with invented high school vernacular in a way that creates its own self-consistent world. As Roger Ebert noted, the story never fully clarifies itself while it unfolds, but it delivers a rich supply of behavior and incident along the way.
Genre Bending: What the Brick 2006 Film Is Actually Doing
Brick belongs to a specific 2006 moment when genre recombination was operating at a high creative pitch. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang had landed the previous year playing similar games with noir self-awareness. Sin City had arrived with a maximalist visual approach to the same source material. Brick chose a third path: minimal budget, straight-faced commitment, and an insistence that the formal constraints of the genre could do meaningful emotional work if you simply trusted them.
The genre-bending discussion on this Brick podcast examines how Johnson uses the noir framework not as homage but as architecture. The structure of a hardboiled mystery -- the inciting mystery, the series of contacts, the betrayal, the revelation -- maps onto adolescent social hierarchies with surprising precision. Furthermore, the paranoia endemic to the genre translates naturally into the heightened social surveillance of high school life, where everyone watches everyone and information is currency.
The Spaghetti Western and Anime Influences
Johnson has cited Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns and Shinichiro Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop as visual influences alongside the noir literary tradition. That combination matters, because it explains why Brick never feels purely retro. The film's rhythm and its relationship to violence carry a different energy than classic noir. Notably, Johnson used shoes as a design element for each character, treating footwear as an immediate visual shorthand for who each person is. It's a small detail that reflects how thoroughly he thought through every layer of the film's visual language.
Additionally, the score by Nathan Johnson uses invented instruments -- wine-o-phones, tack pianos, kitchen utensils -- to create an atmosphere that nods to classic noir without reproducing it. The result is a film that works as genre exercise, coming-of-age story, and tone poem simultaneously.
The Treatment of Women in Brick
Noir has always had a complicated relationship with its female characters, and Brick inherits that complication without fully interrogating it. Emily exists primarily as a body -- a mystery to be solved, a loss to be avenged. She drives the entire plot but occupies very little of the film's actual screen time. Laura is more present, but her function remains rooted in the femme fatale archetype: beautiful, manipulative, ultimately revealed as the architect of the tragedy.
The Brick podcast addresses this directly. Does Johnson's decision to play the genre completely straight mean he also reproduces its blind spots uncritically? The case for the defense is that Brick is a formal exercise, and the female characters serve genre functions that the film deliberately signals as such. The case against is that signaling an archetype and interrogating it are different things, and Brick largely declines to do the latter.
Moreover, the pregnancy subplot -- Emily is pregnant with Tug's child, a revelation that triggers her murder -- adds a layer of consequence to the female characters' bodies that the film handles with notable brevity. It functions as a plot mechanism more than a human reality. The discussion examines how this choice shapes the film's emotional center, which ultimately rests entirely with Brendan's grief and not with Emily's life or Laura's survival.
Nevertheless, Nora Zehetner's performance as Laura earns genuine complexity within the constraints the script gives her. The hosts explore whether that performance transcends the archetype or simply executes it with exceptional skill.
Rushmore: 2006 It Boys
The Taste Buds carve out space in this episode for a Rushmore segment dedicated to the It Boys of 2006 -- the young male actors whose stars were ascending in that specific cultural moment. Brick arrives at a fascinating point in Joseph Gordon-Levitt's career trajectory, before Inception and The Dark Knight Rises made him a mainstream anchor, when he was still operating in the cult-film

Movie of the Year: 2006
Slither

The Slither Podcast Brings Body Horror to the 2006 Bracket
The Slither podcast episode unleashes the first true horror movie on our Movie of the Year 2006 bracket. After opening the season with Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, the Taste Buds trade metafiction for meteorites. Consequently, things get slimy fast. Ryan, Mike, and Greg welcome producer and festival programmer Drea Clark to dig into James Gunn's gleefully gross directorial debut. Together, the panel asks whether a movie full of alien slugs deserves a deep run in the bracket. Above all, they ask whether Slither has more on its mind than exploding deer and tentacled husbands.
About the Film
Slither is a 2006 science fiction horror comedy written and directed by James Gunn. A meteorite crashes outside the small town of Wheelsy, South Carolina, carrying an alien parasite. The parasite infects wealthy local Grant Grant, played with squirming brilliance by Michael Rooker. Soon, Grant transforms into a tentacled monster, and slug-like creatures spread through the town. Meanwhile, police chief Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion) and Grant's wife Starla (Elizabeth Banks) try to stop the invasion.
Universal released the film on March 31, 2006. Notably, it flopped at the box office, grossing under $13 million against a $15 million budget. However, critics largely embraced it. Roger Ebert praised its Troma-loving spirit in his RogerEbert.com review, and the film became a cult favorite on home video. In addition, it launched the directing career that eventually gave us Guardians of the Galaxy and the new DC Universe.

Guest Panelist: Drea Clark
This week the Taste Buds welcome Drea Clark, a true film industry polymath. Drea co-hosts Maximum Film! on the Maximum Fun network, the long-running movie podcast she shares with film critic Alonso Duralde. Furthermore, her credentials behind the scenes run deep. She has served on the Sundance Film Festival programming team, led narrative feature programming at Slamdance for over a decade, spent ten years with the LA Film Festival, and curated Geena Davis's Bentonville Film Festival. As a producer, her features include The Last Time You Had Fun, Lake Los Angeles, and No Light and No Land Anywhere, the latter executive produced by Miranda July. In short, few guests are better equipped to judge a scrappy genre debut from a first time director.
James Gunn as a First-Time Filmmaker
Before Slither, James Gunn was a writer with a strange resume. He cut his teeth at Troma on Tromeo and Juliet, then wrote the live action Scooby-Doo movies and the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. Consequently, Slither arrived as his first chance to direct his own material. The panel debates what the film reveals about Gunn as a filmmaker. Specifically, they trace the DNA that later shows up in Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad, and Superman. The needle drops, the found family of misfits, and the sincere heart under the gross-out gags all start here. Moreover, Drea brings a programmer's eye to the question of how debut features signal a career to come.
Sex and Violence on the Slither 2006 Podcast
Slither earns its R rating with enthusiasm. The Taste Buds tackle how the film weaponizes both sex and violence, often in the same scene. Grant's infection plays like a grotesque infidelity story, and the alien's reproductive plans push body horror into genuinely uncomfortable territory. However, the violence stays cartoonish enough to keep the comedy alive. The panel asks where Gunn draws that line, and whether the bathtub scene, the barn scene, and that infamous bursting body still shock today. Ultimately, the conversation lands on a bigger question. Does the film use its excess for a purpose, or is the excess the point?
Is Slither an Allegory?
Every great monster movie smuggles in a meaning, or so the theory goes. Therefore, the panel puts Slither on the couch. Is the film an allegory for toxic marriage, with Grant's transformation literalizing a controlling husband? Is it about small town conformity, as a hive mind absorbs an entire community? By contrast, maybe Gunn simply loves slugs and explosions, and the search for subtext misses the joke. Drea, Ryan, Mike, and Greg each stake out a position. Nevertheless, the debate keeps circling back to Starla, whose arc gives the film its surprising emotional weight.
Trivia
No Movie of the Year episode is complete without Trivia. This week's round digs into Slither's production and its B-movie family tree. Expect questions about the practical effects, the casting, and the film's connections to Troma legend Lloyd Kaufman, who cameos in the movie. Additionally, the segment tests whether the panel can untangle Slither from the movies it lovingly rips off, including Night of the Creeps and Shivers. Play along and see if you can outscore the Taste Buds.
Dream Blunt Rotation
New season, new games. In Dream Blunt Rotation, the panel assembles the ultimate smoke circle from the world of Slither. Which characters make the cut, and which get left outside the garage? Mayor Jack MacReady seems like a chaotic invite, while Bill Pardy might be the chillest hang in Wheelsy. Meanwhile, the conversation drifts toward the cast and crew themselves. Listen to find out who earns a spot in the rotation and whose vibes get vetoed.
Awards and Recommendations
The episode closes with Awards and Recommendations, the segment where the Taste Buds hand out honors to the film's cast, crew, and creatures. Nominees this week range from Michael Rooker's fearless physical performance to the effects team behind the slugs. As a result, expect passionate cases and at least one baffling pick. The winners stay a surprise, so you will have to listen for the results. Afterward, the panel shares recommendations for what to watch next if Slither leaves you hungry for more horror comedy.
Why Slither Still Matters
Twenty years later, Slither looks like a turning point hiding in plain sight. It kept practical creature effects alive at a moment when Hollywood was abandoning them. Furthermore, it proved that horror comedy could carry real emotion, a balance Gunn has chased ever since. The film's box office failure also tells a story about 2006 itself, a year when audiences ignored a future superstar director. In practice, the Slither podcast episode asks the question this whole season exists to answer. Does cult status and influence make a movie a contender for the best film of 2006? Listen and judge for yourself.
Related Episodes from Movie of the Year: 2006
Movie of the Year: 2006 — Intro, Part 1
Movies of 2006: The Bracket Reveal
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
All Movie of the Year episodes

FAQ: Slither Podcast and Film
What is this episode of the Slither podcast about?
Ryan, Mike, and Greg debate whether James Gunn's Slither deserves to advance in the Movie of the Year 2006 bracket. Guest panelist Drea Clark joins to discuss Gunn's debut, the film's sex and violence, and its possible allegories.
What is Slither (2006) about?
An alien parasite crash-lands near the small town of Wheelsy, South Carolina, and infects a wealthy local named Grant Grant. He mutates into a tentacled monster while slug-like creatures take over the town. A police chief and Grant's wife fight to stop the invasion.
Who directed Slither?
James Gunn wrote and directed Slither as his feature directorial debut. He later directed the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and now co-runs DC Studios.
Who stars in Slither?
The cast includes Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker, Gregg Henry, and Tania Saulnier, with a small role for Jenna Fischer. Full credits are on IMDb.
More Questions from the Slither 2006 Podcast
Was Slither a box office success?
No. The film grossed under $13 million against a $15 million budget. However, strong reviews and home video sales turned it into a cult classic.
Is Slither a remake?
No, but it wears its influences proudly. Gunn openly drew on Night of the Creeps, Shivers, The Blob, and the Troma catalog, where he started his career.
Who is the guest on this episode?
Drea Clark, producer, festival programmer, and co-host of the Maximum Film! podcast on Maximum Fun.
Why does Slither still matter?
It launched James Gunn's directing career, championed practical effects, and perfected the horror comedy tone that countless films have imitated since. The Slither podcast episode makes the full case.