Full Cast And Crew

An episode in memoriam of Val Kilmer, who died this week. Mentioned in this episode: 'Val', the  excellent, moving, insightful, thoughtful documentary compiled from decades of Val Kilmer's home movies. 'Tombstone' is many people's favorite Kilmer film. 'Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's The Island of Dr. Moreau' is a fantastic making-of-a-trainwreck documentary about one of the mo...

Don Simpson was one-half of one of the most successful production partnerships in Hollywood history. His reality-distortion-field helped bring about films like Flashdance, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, The Rock, Crimson Tide, and Days of Thunder, films that collectively grossed more than $3 billion dollars. Don Simpson's life is a cautionary tale with an ignominious ending forever ensconced in Holly...

What does it say about your favorite podcast host that he considers the 1979 BBC adaptation of John le Carre's seminal espionage novel 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' to be COMFORT VIEWING?? Nonetheless, as Smiley would say, there we are. In this episode, curiously one in which I am still totally unresolved as to how best to approach this series in episodic fashion, I explore the myriad genius aspe...

Considering the versatile, endlessly watchable and iconic American actor Gene Hackman.

HERE IT IS! Your most-anticipated episode of the year.

I'm joined by David Schumann of the IG and YouTube accounts @vhsrevolution as we each offer up our Top Five out of the 10 Best Picture Nominees ahead of Sunday night's Academy Awards telecast. And yes, I will be doing my Postmortem Recap episode following the broadcast.  Follow David on Instagram here. Check out David's YouTube Channel here.

Here's the third of my episodic trilogy about George Roy Hill's films 'Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid', 'The Sting', and, now: 1977's 'Slap Shot'.  

My deep dive into the films of Director George Roy Hill continues with the most iconic Western ever made: "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid".

George Roy Hill's 1973 masterpiece 'The Sting' (released December 1974) grossed in 1974 what would be over 900 million dollars today. It's a deceptively simple, stealthily subversive and counter-cultural film wrapped in the meticulous trappings of a 1930's Warner Bros gangster picture, and re-teaming Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid with that film's director. In this episode: How Peter Boyle, Jack...

In Hollywood, the story beats of werewolf movies were codified in 1941 by a German-Jewish emigrant to Hollywood via London named Curt Siodmak, who wrote the seminal film 'The Wolf Man', starring Lon Chaney, Jr. 40 years later, John Landis made the most important and enduring and influential werewolf film ever made in 'An American Werewolf in London'. It was his follow-up to the one-two punch of 'A...

Sparse. Laconic. Expansive. Languid. Wry. The Coen Brother's 2007 Neo-Noir Western 'No Country For Old Men' moves to the fatefully ticking beat of it's own Grandfather Clock.  It's a film that rewards close viewing and is astoundingly faithful to Cormac McCarthy's novel while also being so completely a "Coen Brothers film" even as it's their (only?) adaptation of an existing book. Featuring an ico...

'Liquid Sky' was a $500,000 largely experimental film by the Russian expat director Slava Tsukerman that sprung from a group of friends and colleagues surrounding School of Visual Arts acting teacher Bob Brady.  What's it about?  Heroin, Cocaine, Aliens, Art, Fashion, Dancing, Nightclubs, Science, Sex, Lesbian Knife Fights, Androgyny, Shrimp, Berlin...and that's just the first 45 minutes.  Much mo...

'Raising Arizona' was the 2nd film written and directed by The Coen Brothers, and it's one of my most foundational movies; a movie that spoke to who I was at 18, when I first saw it in 1987 and continues to be one of my favorites today. In this episode I revisit the film, tell some anecdotes about the making-of, and revel in the wonderful, nuanced performances, Carter Burwell's brilliantly distinc...

Our episodic roll of the Scorceseverse dice comes up a winner here with a look at 'Casino', Marty's unofficial "sequel" to 'Goodfellas' and a treatise on the inevitable end of mob controlled Vegas casinos. If you're interested in how we got here, check out my episodes about Goodfellas and 'Mean Streets': Goodfellas Part 1 Goodfellas Part 2 Goodfellas Part 3 Goodfellas Part 4 Mean Streets

The Full Cast and Crew MartyVerse run continues with the first of Scorcese's unofficial trilogy of gangster films, 'Mean Streets'. In this episode: Marty's Little Italy, Family, High School, NYU, Los Angeles, and early directorial experiences and how they influence and inspired 'Mean Streets'. How 'Mean Streets' was very nearly a blaxploitation film funded by Roger Corman.  John Cassavetes seeing...

OK, so I wasn't quite done with Goodfellas, try as I did...one more bridge episode here before we get into 'Mean Streets' and 'Raging Bull'... In this episode, we consider Marty's Oscar frenemyship, DeNiro's screen qualities, his most famous and best onscreen performances, and, finally...FINALLY...all of his scenes from "Goodfellas" considered from a DeNiro/Jimmy Conway perspective.

In part 3 of my three-episode take on Martin Scorcese and Nicholas Pileggi's masterpiece 'Goodfellas', we pick the film up just after the halfway point, which is Tommy's killing of Spider.  Test audiences and studio executives were completely discombobulated by the loss they felt of the breezy, funny, enjoyable glamorization of the gangster life that the first half of the film represents.  And the...

In Part 2 of my 3-part exploration of the brilliance, humor, and bravura filmmaking of Marty Scorcese's 'Goodfellas', I talk about iconic scenes from the film's first half, including: The Bamboo Lounge Crew Introduction scene with Pete The Killer, Freddie No-Nose, and Jimmy Two Times. The Jimmy/Henry "I'm a clown" scene. The Copa Entrance scene. The Bruce beat-down scene. Morrie's Wigs The Billy B...

This is the first of at least 2 episodes about Martin Scorcese's 1990 masterpiece 'Goodfellas'.  Let's be honest: it'll probably take three episodes to cover all the genius onscreen in this epitome of the perfect film. In this episode, I explore the film's roots in Nick Pileggi's classic non-fiction book 'Wiseguy', and the early involvement of vital creative participants in the film like producer...

RIP Teri Garr.   Star Trek   https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=WfAP6fJZ1is   After Hours   https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ZPMDA9N1itk   Tootsie   https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=vp3nln2xans   https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=c0pUtIIwGHo   Michael   https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=0y6NM7Ax9hk   Mr. Mom   https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=OvQctA3xsoE     Young Frankenstein   https://youtu.be/H4seO...

I'm traveling for work this week so in lieu of a typical episode I'm taking a wild flyer on something new; maybe it'll work maybe it won't! It's a watch-along episode.  It's like sitting next to me at a screening of 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' and me talking all the through the movie with salient interjections like "Oh I love this part" and "How cool is Brad??".  THIS IS HOW I FIND THE REAL FC...

Director Mary Herron and her co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner did what 'American Psycho' author Bret Easton Ellis thought was impossible: made a film of his controversial, considered-unfilmable 1991. novel.  And the lens through which they espied Patrick Bateman proved exactly the right way to gain something meaningful out of what, frankly, is a pretty unreadable and repetitive novel. The astonish...

Brains addled after 'Megalopolis', I attempted and then discarded the idea to do 'Blazing Saddles' but was left wanting. So then, in a way I don't fully understand, but probably having to do with the idea of films that are said to be 'so bad they're good', I somehow arrived at the idea of doing Iain Softley's 1995 film 'Hackers' starring Angelina Jolie in her first onscreen role, Johnny Miller, an...

I went and saw Francis Ford Coppola's 'Megalopolis' so you don't have to.  You're welcome.

Actor Kathy Baker joins the podcast this week for a very special episode about her 1988 film 'Clean and Sober'. Director Glenn Gordon Caron probably needed a stiff drink or 20 after coming off the tumultuous four-season run of 'Moonlighting' with its famously fractious co-stars.  Instead he chose to direct one of the most underappreciated film gems of the 80's in 'Clean and Sober', co-produced by...