ARE WE GOOD?

(Check out HtN Editor Don R. Lewis’s Are We Good? movie review, it’s now available on VOD. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)

Marc Maron doth protest too much. Or, doth he?

For fans of Marc Maron’s seminal podcast WTF, it’s kind of hard to believe it launched over 15 years ago. Also astonishing is the fact that in that same time frame, podcasting has either challenged or usurped most previously prominent news and entertainment outlets. As became abundantly clear in the last election, this is a doubled edged sword as pretty much anyone can start a podcast and there’s no telling who will make it big as hacks like Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Candance Owens and others have continued to command big money and powerful political connections while simply “just asking questions” or just “having a conversation.” Although you may like those people and their podcasts, the lack of any sort of journalistic oversight or adherence to any kind of standard, including integrity or good taste, is alarming. Yet, I digress. Sort of.

Steven Feinartz’s 2025 documentary Are We Good? focuses on the famously temperamental comedian who, as I mentioned, perhaps doth protest too much (or is it kvetch?) while inadvertently changing the landscape of the longform, oral interview and podcasting by total accident. The basic plotline of the doc follows Maron as he preps for his second ever HBO special after several on Netflix and other channels. (Note: If you’ve yet to watch the special –Marc Maron: Panicked– you really should as he completely elevates his game.) Yet the doc uses the prep merely as a framework as it’s really a solid overview of Maron’s life and career and his troubled, longstanding relationship with myriad cats.

After many years chock full of fits and starts and drugs and booze in standup comedy throughout the early 2000s,  Maron became a co-host of a morning talk show on the doomed radio network Air America which was launched to be a left-wing answer to right-wing outlets like FOX News or Rush Limbaugh. Alongside his co-host Sam Seder, Maron gained some popularity for his non-nonsense, angry demeanor, a part of his personality that us fans realize is more than just part of his act. But the thing is, we fans also relate because there’s just so fucking much to be infuriated about nearly all the time. Plus, he’s working on it and as anyone who tries to own their shit knows, it’s a lifelong process.

As Air American began its decline, radio producer Brendan McDonald approached Maron with a pitch for a new form of broadcasting called “podcasting” and Maron, at yet another dead-end seeming career crossroads gave it a shot. It was pretty successful right out of the gate as Maron had access to great guests and the show continued to grow while remaining almost exclusively a 2-person operation.

Much of the early WTF podcast featured Maron trying to make amends to fellow comics and entertainers who he is convinced are angry at him. I’d say his batting average was about .250 in that regard as, and he’s basically admitted as much, many of these beefs were mostly all in his head and stemming from a place of jealousy at the more successful mixed with a real knack at not suffering fools and hacks lightly.

By now maybe you’re wondering why, on a website devoted to indie film, I haven’t mentioned Maron’s relationship with filmmaker Lynn Shelton which ended with her cruelly untimely demise in 2020. That’s because, for me personally, it’s still too painful to talk about as I considered Lynn a friend. But Maron’s pain is still evident in the doc as he speaks about her both in terms of what they had as well as in terms of what will never be. Again, all too sad. But, like Maron with Lynn and like all of us with the WTF podcast, it was such a great and wonderful thing to have that in our life. A friend who we could rage vicariously through yet laugh and maybe keep trying to become a better version of ourselves again and again. And ultimately, one walks away from Are We Good? with that feeling.

Steven Feinartz; Are We Good?

– Don R. Lewis (@ThatDonLewis)

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