Full Cast And Crew

Sometimes a film captures the public imagination because it expresses a universal truth in an of-the-moment way. Sometimes it's because its great artistry reframes a thing we thought we knew. And sometimes it's because it's pre-chewed, spiceless mush that spackles over the heart-spaced hole where consciousness used to sit before a militantly vapid consumerist culture eradicated humanity's desire –...

This week the FULL CAST AND CREW crew saddles up for THE LAST UNICORN, a 1982 animated feature which, depending on your age, either scared the crap out of you or you have yet to experience.  'The Last Unicorn' is a grandly bizarre spectacle mashing up incredible Japanese hand-drawn animation, voices from Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin, Brother Theodore, and Jeff Bridges, and surprisingly sophisticated tak...

Across an arctic tundra, a lone sled dog runs, pursued by 2 men in a helicopter. One of them brandishes a rifle and begins shooting.  Workers at a remote arctic research station watch as the helicopter crashes and explodes.  They befriend the dog, welcoming him..and something else... into their kennel.  Thus begins John Carpenter's classic icy masterpiece 'The Thing'.  Featuring spot-on casting, s...

'Green Book' tells white people that it's all good! Racism, man!  Good thing that's over, amirite?  From a shaky, ill-conceived premise comes a shaky, ill-conceived White Savior movie directed, of course, by "Dumb & Dumber" director Peter Farrelly.  That said, Vigo and Mahershala do very good jobs with limited material.  The movie itself is a by-the-numbers Odd Couple/Road Trip/Buddy Comedy with f...

We start with Chris' uber-millennial French Press Coffee injury, which you have to hear to believe.  Moving on to viewer comments, Jason is taken to the Woodshed for his previous-episode attempt to tamp down Chris' soliloquy on some obscure comic-book run of issues where blah blah blah....anyway, lesson learned.  Moving onto Bird Box, we remove our critical blindfolds and dive into the where's and...

Christian Bale gained 50 pounds to play Dick Cheney in Adam McKay's 'Vice' so he MUST be good in it, right? AND he won a Golden Globe, and they don't just hand those out like House Select Committee Assignments, after all.  So we get ourselves elected to figure out what's going on in this movie.  Also: Withnail & I rears it's brilliant head again as Chris admits he didn't see 'American Psycho' and...

Who cares about the Golden Globes? Someone, I am sure. In this BONUS episode Jason and Chris react to this Oscar Night Dress Rehearsal, from the hosts, to the winners, to award shows in general. Did we like it? Did we hate it? Did we even WATCH?! Listen to this BONUS episode and find out! (Spoiler: the answer to all three is, "a little ...") E-mail:  fullcastandcrewpod@gmail.com Twitter: @fullcast...

Chris got new glasses.  If Harold Ross could be seen wearing eyeglasses in the offices of the New Yorker in the 1920's...he'd knock them off his face in incredulous wonder at the chance to contemplate the films of Bruce Robinson that star Richard E. Grant, like "Withnail & I" and "How To Get Ahead In Advertising".  Oh, and we discuss 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?", starring Melissa McCarthy and REG......

Alfonso Cuaron's 'Roma': if you've seen it, you know why the film has received unanimous critical acclaim, with reviewers calling it "achingly beautiful" and "engrossing".  'Roma' was chosen by Time magazine and the New York Film Critics Circle as the best film of 2018, and by the National Board Of Review as one of the top ten best films of 2018.  It's earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Fore...

Yorgos Lanthimos' aptly-named new film 'The Favourite' is gorging on every awards nomination like The Queen attacking a cake. Our intellectual discussion covers the towering brilliance of Olivia Culman, Lanthimos' genius other film 'The Lobster', and the career implications of being cast as "Wanking Man" in a movie. Chris shares his own actorly experience playing a man whose acne medication render...

'Widows' failed to make much of a mark at the box office. Critical acclaim hasn't YET translated into Awards Season loot, with so far only an ensemble acting nod from the Critics' Choice Awards.  In other news The Critics' Choice Awards are apparently a thing.  But there ARE things to celebrate and recommend in this flawed but often-compelling would-be action/heist/social commentary flick.  We cel...

An athlete is rendered a paraplegic through a devastating jogging accident.  A trained helper monkey arrives as his live-in assistant.  A well-meaning but drugged out lab rat performs monkey-altering experiments.  Some sort of Manimal transference takes place and the bodies and histrionics pile up from there.  It's 1988's George A. Romero horror classic "Monkey Shines" starring Chicago P.D.'s pre-...

Is the new Coen Brothers movie the best Western of all time? Or is it more like FOR the Best Western Hotel chain?  We root around in the prairie dust, the hoofprints, the majestic vistas and, in the simple finality of man's ruthless violence towards his fellow man, find some of life's imponderables answered.  Also:  James Franco, Tom Waits, and an excellent animal cast of equines, owls, trained fi...

"White-lady aspirational materialism and a special kind of empty that feels warm", is the beating heart at the center of Nancy Meyers movies, says our guest Alex in this episode, and boy did she hit the nail on the head.  It's an alternative universe where nothing is really wrong, except perhaps some of the basics of filmmaking.  But let's not go into it with our eyes hooded in suspicion of Califo...

Is 'Bohemian Rhapsody' the Biopic that Freddy Mercury and Queen deserve? More urgently, is "I Love My Car" to this movie what "Why Did You Do That" is to "A Star Is Born"? Episode also features Jason's voice going up a Freddy-like 2 octaves when it's revealed that Chris never saw "Amadeus"...and Chris buries the lead on The Time He Co-Starred With Rami Malek.  Also: the perils of 70'S wigs.  And:...

BONUS EPISODE! It's hard to capture in words the scope of the effect that Stan Lee had on the world of pop culture, or on the emotional development of co-host Chris. So we don't even try. Instead we stroll through the world of comics that Stan helped cultivate, flipping through a tattered old issue we had on hand, from the front cover and the opening splash to the ad for army men on the back. Than...

1978's SUPERMAN is one of the most beloved superhero movies ever made and Christopher Reeve is THE iconic Superman. How, then, did SUPERMAN II turn into such a cynical, inferior sequel, with the filmmakers snatching defeat from the jaws of certain victory? Hear how Brando suggested to the director that he appear as either a donut or a talking suitcase, and how the original creative team vanished f...

Show Biz, Man...it's a bitch, and the drugs only work until they don't.  SPOILER ALERT if you haven't seen ASIB, or fed the dog a steak lately.  Loosen your belts and dig in, as we have two very different takes on this movie.  Who is who and which is which? In this hotly-anticipated ripped-from-the-headlines episode, the boys break down Bradley Cooper's directorial debut, and dive deep into the pe...

BONUS EPISODE! Not the movie THE FRENCH CONNECTION (which is great) but France-related material that came up when we tried to record about A STAR IS BORN with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga (in the movie, not with us in the studio). This says nothing about the film but was too good to throw away. So sit back, open a Perrier, spread some brie on a poodle, and enjoy! E-mail: fullcastandcrewpod@gmail.c...

In this week's SCAAARRRY Halloween episode, the fellas give their souls over to the directorial debut of legendary special-effects man Stan Winston: the hillbilly-horror-revenge- monster-classic PUMPKINHEAD, starring almost-the-Terminator Lance Henriksen. This leads to discussions of baroque kills, arithmetic, 80s jerks, the morally corrosive impulse toward revenge, Jason's glasses, acting school,...

Balls! Strikes! Jon Lovitz! In this grand slam episode, Chris and Jason find themselves on opposite teams when it comes to A League Of Their Own.  Highlights: Chris's sunglasses and stolen bike are diversions as Chris wonders how you score a touchdown in baseball. Jason speculates as to the motives of screenwriters Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz. And we both celebrate Laverne & Shirley, Lenny, Squ...

WELCOME FRIENDS (because who else would roll the dice on a new podcast?)! In the inaugural episode of FULL CAST & CREW your hosts, Jason and Chris, examine SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, the sociologically rich 1977 examination of tribalism and masculinity that's been reduced in the popular imagination to kitschy music and a funny suit. We go past its star turn by John Travolta to talk about the music, oth...