Episodes

After more than 140 films screened, ten filmmaker podcast interviews, and more than a dozen written essays, The Cinematropolis deadCenter 2022 coverage comes to a close in today’s final festival episode of The Cinematic Schematic looking back at the highlights from the festival from the full Cinematropolis team including writers Jo Light, Daniel Bokemper, and Christopher Shultz. Bokemper shares his in-person festival experience before each person from around the virtual table talks about the fil...

One of the unexpected outcomes of the pandemic was the way people quickly connected across the globe via the internet. Through those remote connections, real-world relationships were built. With this year’s deadCenter returning to the entirely in-person experience, filmmakers and film lovers from across the country traveled to the heart of OKC to share and experience stories big picture stories with Okie audiences. Among the out-of-towners to hear about deadCenter during the pandemic were the Fu...

‘A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,’ said Jojen. ‘The man who never reads lives only one.’ – George RR Martin, A Dance with Dragons (2011) The 2022 deadCenter Film Festival has reached its last day and to complete this year’s exciting return to a fully in-person event, the team is closing the festival with a story about the beloved TV program that explored all written stories, The Reading Rainbow, with the documentary Butterfly in the Sky. In this episode of The Cinematic Schematic,...

Like the dove that represents their spirit, the Cymande story soars once again, this time in OKC. The 2022 deadCenter Film Festival is the home of many experiences, including a few free and open to the public in OKC’s most beautiful spaces. Last night they premiered the OKC Thunder Film, The Seeds of Greenwood, as part of the Friday Night Frolic in Scissortail Park, and tonight they are debuting the new music documentary, Getting It Back: The Cymande Story. The film documents the origins of the ...

The 2022 deadCenter Film Festival is the home to a wide variety of Okie Features from multitalented filmmakers like Cate Jones. In 2020, Jones made her directorial debut with the She’s the Eldest, a black and white dramedy with a real personal touch. She’s back this year with a similar style in her new experimental comedy inspired by actual events, Chicken House. The film is written, directed, and stars Jones who tells the story of three roommates forced to adjust to living with a new and myster...

Today marks the first day of the deadCenter 2022 Film Festival and a return to fully in-person festivities after two years of hybrid events. Not only is deadCenter bringing back several pieces of its staple programming such as the Okie Shorts Volume 1 and Volume 2, movie night in the Wheeler District, and Oklahoma Film and Music Office panels, but they’re also experimenting with some new ideas. Meet UndeadCenter, the festival’s latest track dedicated to the wild and weird “midnight” style genre ...

Today we continue our exclusive deadCenter 2022 coverage with a look at this year’s deadCenter opening night film from director Daresha Kyi, Mama Bears. Kyi sits down with us on The Cinematic Schematic to talk about how she first learned about the Mama Bears organization before making the documentary. Joining host Caleb Masters in this interview is a special guest co-host, this year’s deadCenter Pride Programmer, Laron Chapman. The film tells the moving story of the rise of the movement of evang...

How do you raise a new generation to overcome more than a hundred years of setbacks? The Cinematic Schematic continues our exclusive deadCenter 2022 coverage with a look at another tried and true festival tradition, a public OKC Thunder Films screening. This year’s film, The Seeds of Greenwood, highlights the newly formed Thunder Fellows program that launched in the historic Greenwood District a century after the Tulsa Race Massacre. The enrichment program gives Black high school students opport...

Bank heists. Family character drama. Twisted morality. If you like to see any of these elements at the movies, writer/director Kyle Kauwika Harris’s new film premiering at this year’s deadCenter Film Festival, Out of Exile, is a must-see. It’s a “one last job” crime thriller complete with impressively shot action setpieces grounded in family tragedy and a hope of redemption for the central character, Gabriel Russell (Adam Hampton), before FBI Agent Brett Solomon (Ryan Merriman) stops him in his ...

In this exclusive deadCenter 2022 interview, we sit down with writer/director Bryan Beasley to discuss his new film and the festival’s war movie this year, The Battle of Honey Springs. Beasley talks about how the battle had direct impacts on the US Civil War and helped shape Oklahoma history before sharing his experience bringing this epic skirmish to life at the location of the actual battle for the Honey Springs Battlefield Visitor Center. If you’re a fan of innovative documentary or historica...

Today kicks off our exclusive coverage of the 2022 deadCenter Film Festival! To help listeners prepare for what to expect, The Cinematic Schematic is joined by the deadCenter director of operations+festival, Miranda Patton, and the deadCenter director of programming, Sara Thompson, to discuss this year’s return to fully in-person activities before taking a look at all of the fantastic movies playing at this year’s festival. We also talk about all of the exciting parties and other festivities you...

Following his one-two punch in elevated psychological horror with The Witch(2016) and The Lighthouse(2019), up-and-coming indie auteur Robert Eggers is back with a new Norse epic unlike any we’ve seen on the big screen in recent years, The Northman. In the newest episode of The Cinematic Schematic, host Caleb Masters is joined by a roundtable including The Cinematropolis‘s own Daniel Bokemper, Geek Girl Features‘ Chelsea Ratterman, and first-time joiner, Craig Sanger, the critic-at-large for WWL...

In today’s episode of The Cinematic Schematic, we dive deep into The Daniels (that’s Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) wildly ambitious multiverse(move over Dr. Strange) to explore themes of love, balance, regret, and so much more through some of the most bizarre filmmaking you’ve ever seen with Everything Everywhere All At Once. Drunken master fight scenes out of a Jackie Chan movie? Check. Shocking revelations around every corner? Check. A versatile and emotionally grounded Michelle Yeoh performa...

In the newest episode of The Cinematic Schematic, hosts Caleb Masters and Laron Chapman return to continue the annual Oscar predictions episode for our fourth year. Let’s admit it. The Academy has struggled to stay relevant in the mainstream for at least the last decade which has led to frequent programming shakeups for better and (mostly) worse and the 94th Academy Awards is no exception. Firstly, the decision was made recently that not all categories would be airing live during the telecast ce...

“This isn’t the podcast you deserve, but it is the one you need right now.” – Alfred Pennyworth in some modern iteration of Batman, probably. The Cinematic Schematic returns in our March edition to take a dive deep into Gotham’s criminal underbelly to answer the most important question regarding The Batman: Does the big screen need another new take on Batman, especially so soon, and if so, is writer/director Matt Reeves up for the challenge? Rejoining host Caleb Masters to explore the answers to...

Hello Sidney…we’re home. In this episode of The Cinematic Schematic, we’re rejoined by recurring guests Laron Chapman, Zachary Burns, and Brock Lay to follow our Scream retrospective discussion up with a review of the newest entry in the series, Scream (2022), AKA Scream 5 AKA 5cream(the correct title). This conversation starts with the ice-breaker question, “who is your favorite horror movie villain or antagonist?” We then jump into a spoiler-free review of Scream(2022) where we provide our ver...

What’s your favorite scary movie podcast? The Cinematic Schematic is back for our first episode of the year to look back at Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s franchise dedicated to riffing on the most popular horror and slasher movie tropes of the day, the Scream series. As a prelude to our upcoming Scream(2022) review, we’re joined by returning guests Laron Chapman, Zachary Burns, and Brock Lay to reassess each of the first four entries to determine whether or not the Scream series lives up to ...

The Cinematic Schematic is back to follow the white rabbit and see how close to the line between fiction and reality we can go in our review of The Matrix Resurrections. Award-winning Oklahoma filmmaker and returning guest, Laron Chapman, joins the cast of GoodTrash Media‘s Dalton Stuart and The Cinematropolis contributor Daniel Bokemper from our recent Matrix Trilogy retrospective to discuss the latest entry in the franchise that taught millenials about kung fu and propelled Neo(Keanu Reeves), ...

Look out wallcrawler fans! Today, The Cinematic Schematic will web-sling through the multiverse and into a review conversation covering this year’s biggest film to date, Spider-Man: No Way Home, with special guests Chelsea Ratterman from Geek Girl Features and GoodTrash Media’s Arthur Gordon. Tom Holland returns as Spider-Man/Peter Parker for the sixth time in his third standalone film appearance in No Way Home. His latest outing picks up right where 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home left off. My...

Step right up to The Cinematic Schematic! Is it more cinema or unruly beast? In this week’s episode, we’re rejoined by The Cinematropolis contributor, Daniel Bokemper, to do a spoiler-free review of Guillermo Del Toro’s newest film, Nightmare Alley, before diving into an in-depth spoiler discussion. In his first film as a director since winning the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director with The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro returns to a familiar and more comfortable genre, noir. The tra...

Eighteen years after the release of the last film in The Matrix franchise, we are just a week away from the unexpected series return with the fourth entry, The Matrix Resurrections. In this special supersized edition of The Cinematic Schematic, we take a look back at the original 1999 film along with its sequels, Reloaded(2003) and Revolutions(2003). We review each film individually before discussing whether or not they work together successfully as a trilogy. We close out the conversation by ta...

Before beginning the final stretch into the holiday season, The Cinematic Schematic is taking a moment to be thankful for all of the movies that came out this past November with a special November 2021 movie review round-up. In this special episode, we’re rejoined by the longtime friend of the show and award-winning filmmaker, Laron Chapman, to do a series of mini-reviews of November 2021’s most prominent films including Marvel’s Eternals, Netflix’s tick, tick…BOOM!, Spencer, and Ridley Scott’s ...

Planet Thunder Productions is at it again! On today’s special edition of The Cinematic Schematic, Jacob and Zachary Burns rejoin the show to discuss the Indie Go-Go fundraising opportunity for their new film, Hell Hath No Fury. Fury resurrects one of Jacob Burns’ earlier scripts about a married couple who separately and unknowingly plan to murder each other on the same fateful night. Fury marks a shift in gears for Planet Thunder Productions. Much like the dark comedies such as Fargo or The Lady...

It’s time to step back into the old Wes Andersonian time machine to explore a fondly remembered era for journalists and print magazines. In today’s episode of The Cinematic Schematic, we’re joined by I Can’t Unsee That Movie‘s Jeff Huston to review Wes Anderson’s new movie, The French Dispatch. It’s been twenty-five years since Wes Anderson made it big with his feature film directorial debut, Bottle Rocket. In the years since, his films have dabbled in stop motion animation with The Fantastic Mr...