Full Cast And Crew

Before I get to Oliver Stone and Brian DePalma's 1983 Miami-set remake of 'Scarface'...here's a background episode about the 1932 'Scarface', written by Ben Hecht and directed by Howard Hawks, the Steven Spielberg of the 1930's and 40's. From that still-vital, seminal gangster film, I also found my way to some others: Little Caesar  is a 1931 American  pre-Code  crime film distributed by  Warner B...

One of the stranger and most poorly-marketed films of the 70's is Nicholas Gessner's adaptation of Laird Koenig's 1974 novel 'The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane'.  Far from the horror film the poster and trailer tried to sell audiences on, it's instead an unsettling but realistic portrait of a young girl in an uncertain situation, and a film that I find particularly resonates with people who...

It's almost Memorial Day Weekend in the States and that means it's time for Yacht Rock! The term didn't exist before the 2005 web series of the same name was written, directed, and produced by J. D. Ryznar, David Lyons, Hunter D. Stair, and Lane Farnham.  You can revisit their highly specific genius here. Before that, music of the type we now refer to as 'Yacht Rock' was known as "The West Coast S...

Some thoughts on gratitude and appreciation, and a few anecdotes about how quickly humans go from wide-eyed wonder and astonishment to entitled self-centered expectations, drawn from my three-concert experiences during Dead & Company's recent inaugural stint at MSG's groundbreaking new concert and film venue, Sphere Las Vegas.

OK so today in Las Vegas I learned it's "Sphere" and not "The Sphere".  And we're back recording for posterity impressions of the 2nd night of the inaugural 3-show residency kick-off for Dead & Company at Sphere Las Vegas.  

Some thoughts on an extraordinary in-person collective entertainment experience...remember those??

The female actors of 'Blade Runner 2049' are a huge part of the brilliance of Denis Villenueve's 2017 sequel to Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner'. They bring to life such wonderfully complicated, original, genre-bending, emotionally resonant, funny, and strong characters. In this special episode of the podcast, I take a look at all of the scenes featuring the incredible actors who brought the characte...

Denis Villenueve's masterpiece 2nd part of his 'Dune' trilogy.  

Barry Sonnenfeld and Scott Frank's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 1990 crime novel 'Get Shorty' was the 2nd film that John Travolta made after returning to top stardom with a bang in Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction'.  This vibe-y, enjoyable, smartly-written and brilliantly-acted mid-90's example of the $20-30 million-dollar studio movie that now seems like a vestige of another time and place.  

I'm joined again by multi-hyphenate Brad Caleb Kane for a discussion about Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's iconic 1950 satirical noir Hollywood cautionary tale 'Sunset Boulevard' and various other digressions!       

The second in my growing collection of episodes devoted to 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'...this time it's an episode celebrating all the brilliant Cliff Booth scenes...scenes representing some of Brad Pitt's finest acting to date and the heart and soul of Tarantino's greatest homage to the Hollywood of his youth.

It's my annual Oscar Recap. And Killers of the Flower Moon wuz robbed!

All of Leonardo DiCaprio's scenes as Rick Dalton in Quentin Tarantino's movie-making love-letter 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' If you're new to the podcast, there's an episode just for you. Previous All Their Scenes episodes: Phillip Seymour Hoffman in 'Charlie Wilson's War' Michael Keaton in 'Jackie Brown' and 'Out of Sight' as Special Agent Ray Nicolette. Paul Newman in 'The Verdict' Sean Penn...

Alan J. Pakula deserves more attention and respect as one of the grestest American film directors of any era.  His run of films in the 70's, from 'Klute' to 'The Parallax View' to 'All The President's Men'...all brilliantly shot by Cinematographer Gordon Willis (The Godfather films)...are as impressive and of their moment as any films made in this thrilling period of American filmmaking. In this e...

Carol Reed and Graham Greene's iconic post-war neo noir classic 'The Third Man'. A perfect movie. Steven Soderbergh calls it the only movie you need to watch in order to learn how to make a movie. In this episode I cover the making of, the battles between David O. Selznick, Alexander Korda, Reed and Orson Welles, the happenstance score to end all film scores and MORE.

In which my evolving, complicated relationship with the crowd-pleasing John 'Frenzy' MacKenzie's exuberant, vibe-y classic 'The Long Good Friday' is flayed open and nailed to the floor for your auditory enjoyment.

Director Toby Amies and I discuss his excellent and unexpected documentary 'In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50'.    

Ridley Scott's brilliant 1979 sci-fi/horror classic 'Alien' burnished his deserved reputation as bold re-interpreter of techno-dystopian futurism and exploder of genres. But it made a lot of money and dollar signs in the eyes of 'Alien' producers Brandywine Productions led them to turn for a sequel to James Cameron, who had already done a similar turn on the Rambo franchise, penning a "rewritten"...

One of the most quotable and iconic of British films, born out of writer/director Bruce Robinson's personal experiences and shepherded to the big screen by George Harrison and his Handmade Films company. 'Withnail & I' is a beloved comedy but in this episode I talk as much about its forlorn, end-of-an-era wistful heart as I do the incredibly quotable lines. Particularly I was interested to learn o...

Billy Friedkin's iconic 1971 game-changing NYC police procedural/car chase classic 'The French Connection' has a fascinating backstory and making-of history, and, hey: that's what I'm here for! To bring you all the best stories behind the scenes on the streets of New York and all the context and color that helps place this movie in the pantheon of the films that came before and after it.   The NY...

Peter Yates was quietly one of the most interesting film directors of his time. His seminal 1967 British train-robbery film 'Robbery' got him noticed for the job directing Steve McQueen in 1968's 'Bullitt'.  In that film, Yates turned in a car chase frequently mentioned as second only to the iconic one filmed by Billy Friedkin in 'The French Connection'. By 1973,  Yates was in Hollywood, working u...

Martin Scorcese's new film 'Killers of the Flower Moon' is in many ways his magnum opus; it's a film carefully wrought with all of his and his production team's highest possible creative efforts, and it also marshals all those resources in the furtherance of a greater collective understanding and reckoning with yet another dark chapter in America's history. Links Marty's interview with Edgar Wrigh...

A particular interest of mine is phone calls in movies. I'm interested in them as plot devices, as examples of good or indifferent screenwriting, as opportunities for actors to show different sides of themselves in scenes where they're not opposite other actors, and on and on. In this episode we'll take a look at a few different genres of Movie Phone Call scenes: scenes where actors are onscreen p...

An appreciation of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and his brilliant portrayal of real-life CIA Most Interesting Man Gust Avrokotos in Mike Nichols' final film 'Charlie Wilson's War'. 

'Lost In America' was Albert Brooks' 3rd film as a writer/director/star and remains probably the most broadly-appealing of his films.  It's one of two of his films to have been given the Criterion stamp of cineaste approval, the other being the often-underrated 'Defending Your Life', and now,  and perhaps even more important, it's the first of his films to be given the Full Cast and Crew treatment...