I’m a guest on the latest episode of Struggle Session, a terrific left-wing pop-culture podcast starring Leslie Lee III, Jack Allison, and Jonathan Daniel Brown! On this episode I join the gents to talk about the entire Alien franchise — all eight movies, from the original quadrilogy to the Alien vs. Predator spinoffs to the Ridley Scott prequels. In space no one can hear you debate the space jockey, but down hear on earth all you have to do is subscribe and listen!

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)

“I’ve already gone places. I just wanna stay where I am.” Stanton’s role as tired-looking trailer-park owner Carl Rodd in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks prequel was as cryptic as everything else in the film, lasting just a few short minutes and some spare lines of dialogue. But he packs decades of world-weariness into his brief screen time; nobody could turn “It’s just more shit I gotta do now” into a punchline that doubled as a declaration of existential despair. Stanton reprised and expanded the role in Peaks’ astonishing third season this year, cracking jokes about defying death one minute, bearing witness to unspeakable tragedy like an earthbound angel the next – a moving, bonus grace note in a long, legendary career. STC

I consider it one of the great privileges of my career as a writer to have written about Alien and Twin Peaks for Rolling Stone’s list of 10 Essential Harry Dean Stanton Movies.