Cinema Oblivia

Warren Oates and Peter Fonda just wanted to hop in their RV and take their wives on a ski trip. But a group of murderous Texan satanists had other ideas in Race With The Devil, the nearly forgotten horror/car chase hybrid flick! Certified Texan Anthony Abatte joins me to talk about this (literal) cult classic, and if Texas really has bands of roving satanists who hunt down tourists in RVs. He said...

*cue Visitor theme music* Joe Odber returns to Cinema Oblivia to delve once again into ancient aliens, albeit in a slightly roundabout way. The Visitor is a film made by madmen that makes no sense. It's kind of brilliant. It's kind of stupid. It's all kinds of indescribable. John Huston is in it though! And Shelley Winters! What the hell! We try to parse it out as much as possible. I think we fail...

Making a return appearance on Cinema Oblivia, Brian Ashcraft joins me to talk about Michael Mann's masterpiece (a Mannterpiece, if you will), Manhunter. It's the least known Hannibal Lector film, but it's probably the best, thanks to amazing performances, stunning direction and cinematography, amazing music, and truly, a showstopping career-making performance by Chris Elliot. Okay, he has one line...

Nothing says Halloween like...a Satanic Panic movie starring Skippy from Family Ties and featuring cameos by Gene Simmons and Ozzy?!? Trick or Treat is an odd little slasher that's more charming than scary, and a great time capsule of the early 80s. Matt Kucick dug this one out of obscurity and he's here to talk about it and this film's shocking connection to Flogging Molly?!?!

HELLO, I'M MR. EDD. Goddamn I love Action Jackson. And Rich Nelson from the podcast Don't You Want Me also loves Action Jackson, so we spend a lot of time talking about how great this movie is. We also go into it's rapid production, muted reception, and the damn shame that a sequel never got made.

Urgh! A Music War is a 1982 concert film featuring performances by some of the biggest and most influential bands of the era, including The Police, The Go Gos, Oingo Boingo, Joan Jett, and Gary Numan. It also nearly got me banned for life from YouTube. Nextlander's Alex Navarro joins me to talk about both of these things!

In 1970, a German documentary called Chariots of the Gods came out. It proposed the entirely unscientific idea that ancient aliens helped create humankind's greatest achievements. It was nominated for an Oscar, made millions of dollars, and completely ruined The History Channel. Mandela Effect chronicler Joe Odber and I talk about this train-wreck a flick, its shocking racist origins, and the dama...

It's the other Michael Crichton movie about robots running amok. Yes, after Westworld (but before Jurassic Park) Crichton wrote and directed this tale for the big screen, where Tom Selleck fights an evil Gene Simmons (is there any other kind?) and his legion of killer acid-spitting spiderbots. Diamond Feit joins me to discuss this lesser, but still wildly entertaining, Crichton effort, a charming...

No, NOT the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines buddy cop comedy (although that's also a good movie)! Instead, Madeleine Koestner from the Unnamed Film Festival and I are talking about the forgotten Paul Walker vehicle by Wayne Kramer (not the one in the MC5). A huge bomb when it came out, this movie has gone on to be a cult classic, and rightfully so, it's an absolutely bonkers flick. Listen and find out...

SHO NUFF! That's all that needs to be said about this stone cold CLASSIC starring the one and only Taimak and the late great Vanity, but somehow T.L. Foster and I manage to talk for nearly 90 minutes about how great this movie is. Because it's really great. Yeah, it's not that obscure or forgotten but I've had a shitty few months, humor me.

Leslie Nielsen tries to murder Evel Knievel so he can use his corpse to smuggle dope. Gene Kelly tries to help Knievel, but he's held hostage by Dabney Coleman. Lauren Hutton wants to take a photo of Evel breaking his neck, but is also in love with him so she feels bad about it. There's also a kid with a mop top. And orphans. Viva Knievel! is a weird movie. Elliot Long joins me to try and make sen...

Ghost World isn't a movie about ghosts, it's a movie about teenage isolation, misanthropy and self-hate, which are actually way scarier than anything supernatural. The totally awesome Maddie Copp and I talk about this early-2000s classic of malaise, go over what we think the film is trying to say, and hypothesize about where its protagonists would be in the year 2021.

Ever wonder what would happen if a Japanese filmmaker decided to make their own tribute to Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise, while throwing in a bit of The Who's Tommy and possibly a slice of the Faustian disco musical, The Apple? Well, wonder no more, because that's exactly what happened with The Legend of the Stardust Brothers, a magical lost Japanese film from the 80s. I'm joined by Thi...

You are what you eat, and today Sonya Ballantyne and I are eating the late-90s cannibal western megabomb, Ravenous. Well, we're not so much eating it as discussing its troubled production, portrayal of First Nations people, and what the hell metaphor they're trying to go for in this flawed, but interesting, flick.

When people talk about Hong Kong action films of the 80s and 90s, John Woo and Jackie Chan are usually at the forefront of the conversation, but Ringo Lam also released some amazing films during that time. For example, Full Contact, the dark, grimy and crazy 1992 classic that serves as an evil twin to the glossy and sleek Hard Boiled. Henry Gilbert from Talking Simpsons stops by to talk about this...

T.L. Foster wanted to talk about Gymkata, so today we are talking about Gymkata! Legendary for being "so bad it's good" but is it really just bad? The Kurt Thomas gymnastic vanity project gets all the discussion is deserves, and then some!

My dad passed away a few weeks ago. My love of movies, and this podcast, would not exist without him, so I wanted to take some time to talk about him, the movies he loved, and all the ways he was a really awesome dad. I miss ya, guy.

Walter Hill's 1978 existential, minimalist masterpiece about a getaway driver trying to outsmart not only the cops, but the crooks who want him dead, was a bomb when it first came out. But in the years since it's rightfully earned its place as a cult classic. Writer and hardcore film geek Brian Ashcraft joins to talk about this under-appreciated gem.

I am very happy to be joined by Kyle Shutt from the band The Sword and the podcast The High Way to talk about Natural Born Killers, a film that could have only been made the year it came out and no other year. Is it super dated? For sure, but does it hold up? Find out!

Put on your leg warmers! Matt Kucick joins me to talk about two films that tried to cash in on the 80s aerobics craze, and failed miserably: the John Travolta/Jamie Lee Curtis romantic drama Perfect, and the cheapo sleazo slasher Killer Workout (aka Aerobicide). Both are bad, but in entirely different ways. Although, both have pretty great soundtracks. Disclaimer: This episode was cursed and plagu...

H.B. Halicki had a dream: A dream to smash as many cars as possible. And he achieved said dream with his 1974 magnum opus, Gone in 60 Seconds. Twitter's supcat and I talk about that classic, the films Halicki made afterwards, and the bizarre legal wranglings that have made finding the original versions of said films a nightmare in the 21st century.

Action! Suspense! Comedy! Romance! Ray Walston shooting cops! This movie has it all! Diamond Feit joins me to talk about this Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor classic, why it's still a great movie, and why parts of it might be a little shocking to see today. All aboard!

Smokey and the Bandit was the second most popular movie of 1977 (behind Star Wars - perhaps you've heard of it) and it spawned a whole slew of pale imitations in its wake. While the car action genre is bigger than ever thanks to the Fast & Furious films, Smokey's kind of been left in the dust. But that's not fair! Listen to me and my guest Elliot Long talk about how this movie is still great and o...

Golgo 13: The Professional is a landmark piece of animation that still looks breathtaking all these years later. Norm from A Question of Character joins me to talk about the film's revolutionary use of CG, fantastic sense of style, and dope soundtrack. We also talk about some of our other favorite old-school anime from the 80s and 90s!

Cloak and Dagger! Atari: The Motion Picture! Sure, it was a crass attempt at blatant product placement, but it's also kind of a sweet movie about a boy and his dad. And Elliot from ET murders a dude with a gun. Fellow movie geek and all around great guy Tony Recznik talk about what's great and not-so-great about this 80s classic.