On this episode of And Now We Drink, Matt Slayer sits down with longtime industry writer, reviewer, and newly minted XRCO Hall of Famer Tod Hunter for a sprawling, funny, and deeply inside-baseball conversation over bourbon. Tod brings decades of perspective from AVN, XRCO, sets, awards rooms, and the shifting landscape of media, offering candid thoughts on what awards still mean, how performers’ careers have changed, and why the industry’s legal and labor issues remain more complicated than most outsiders realize.
Matt and Tod dig into the evolution of entertainment from theatrical runs and plot-driven features to Gonzo, DVDs, streaming, OF, and today’s creator economy. Along the way, they talk 2257 compliance, legal cases, performer privacy, the rise and fall of print magazines, and what makes a scene or feature genuinely stand out after thousands of reviews.
The conversation also detours—gloriously—through Los Angeles history, Tommy’s chili burgers, the Magic Castle, Beverly Hills trains, Mexican food debates, old-school Thomas Guides, London in the ’70s, and Tod’s unexpected run as both a Jeopardy contestant and writer.
Equal parts industry archive, barroom storytelling, and cranky-but-charming cultural commentary, this episode is a reminder that nobody tells industry war stories quite like someone who has been taking notes for nearly thirty years.
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