I’m very happy to have appeared on Jesse Hawken’s fine podcast Junk Filter to talk about the two Road House movies, Pain Don’t Hurt, and related topics. I hope you enjoy!

In the years since its release, Road House became the most basic of basic cable pleasures. A perpetual fixture of weekend afternoon timeslots on commercial cable networks that air movies for dudes, it won over a generation with its neo-western vibe, its assortment of colorful (read: weird) characters, and its unceasing onslaught of people getting struck in the head. Not even the censorship of the film’s colorful language and gratuitous nudity, male and female alike, kept it from achieving this life after theatrical death.

Along the way, cult comedy icons like the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew and Clerks director Kevin Smith sang the movie’s praises. Kelly Lynch started telling a well-received anecdote about how Bill Murray and his brothers call her husband any time they catch her big sex scene in the movie on cable. And a growing legion of fans discovered you can’t find its unique blend of sturdy construction and cockamamie content anywhere else.

So when Amazon announced plans for director Doug Liman—an action-filmmaking expert with Go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and the Bourne franchise on his resume—to helm a remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the Swayze role, the reaction from certain cinephile quarters was as if someone decided to take a crack at Citizen Kane. How could anyone hope to recapture the goofy glory of the original?

Turns out you can’t—and that’s exactly the strength of the new film, out on Prime Video on March 21. Liman, Gyllenhaal, and company recognize that what made the original Road House so delightfully stupid won’t quite work in 2024.Their version ends up being a sweet-natured, hilarious, and, of course, psychotically violent tribute to an unlikely masterpiece, and the creators’ affection for the original article shines through in every frame.

I wrote about Road House old and new, Swayze and Gyllenhaal, “Rowdy” Herrington and “Doug” Liman, for my debut at Time.