Jim Cummings & PJ McCabe Talk 'The Beta Test' [Deep Focus]

Welcome back to the Deep Focus podcast. My guests this week are a duo: Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe, the co-directors, co-writers and co-stars of IFC Films’ “The Beta Test,” and let me say that yes, this conversation is well-overdue. "The Beta Test" came out in late November, but hey, it’s on VOD and more importantly, in a little teaser of what’s to come: you will see "The Beta Test" on our upcoming list of the Best Films Of 2021 That You Didn’t See.

If that feels like a backhanded compliment. It's not meant to be. The film is just sorely overlooked and we urge people to see it. "The Beta Test" is about a married Hollywood agent—played by Cummings—who receives a mysterious letter for an anonymous sexual encounter and becomes ensnared in a big web of deceit, lies, and twist and turns. It's a dark, satirical look at Hollywood, cancel culture, the woke age of empathy and how that's really just terrified a lot of white men. Cummings and McCabe also talk about one of their indie heroes David Gordon Green who they have worked with a little bit and tease two more indie films they have in the works and suffice to say they are very ambitious.