Full Cast And Crew

In his new book, Charles Elton tackles the impossible; a biography of late director Michael Cimino, an elusive, mysterious, obfuscating, and contrary Hollywood figure in real life...and, if possible, a man even more complicated and gossiped about online, in the press and in the power lunch spots of Hollywood than any other Oscar-winning director of his or any time. From Long Island roots to Mad Me...

Thrilled to be joined again by pop culture historian and author Richard F. Brown to do the definitive 'Taxi' total rewatch and episode. We get into the mysterious beauty and melancholy of Bob James' 'Taxi' theme song 'Angela', and the temporary filmed open that became so identified with the ennui and thwarted ambitions of the beloved cabbies of the Sunshine Cab Co. We discuss all the characters an...

Dissecting the latest attempt at reinventing the Oscars and assessing where, if anywhere, the telecast goes from here. 

Thrilled to be joined this week by Kyle Buchanan, a NY Times writer whose new book 'Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild & True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road' is out now from William Morrow. Kyle and I talk about the incredible 30-year-journey of Fury Road; two times called off just prior to shooting, casting issues with Mel Gibson flaming out (and aging out) of the role, a non-traditional storyboard scr...

Jason and FCAC returning guest Bruce Edwards, a television and film line producer and production manager as well as a filmmaker, collector, and cinema and comic geek par excellence to dive into the making of Ridley Scott's 1982 cinematic masterpiece 'Blade Runner'. Topics covered include Alternative Casting, the 7 versions of the film, the actor's strike that resulted in 9 additional months of pla...

Joined again by good friend of the pod and pop cultural maven and scholar Richard Brown, this week we dive into all the 70's goodness of iconic sitcom 'WKRP in Cincinnati'.  We talk the theme song, Tim Reid's impressive career and contributions to the series and to 'Frank's Place', the KRP cast, some iconic KRP episodes, KRP-adjacent content like the feature 'FM' and MORE..so, baby, if you've ever...

Jason is thrilled to be joined by crime writer Joseph Schneider, author of two (and soon to be three) LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel novels (links below), to discuss the criminally-underrated Peter Bogdanovich thriller 'Targets', Joseph's novels, 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood', and much more. 'Targets' was made in 1967 when  Bogdanovich, then working for Roger Corman's B-Picture factory of filmmaki...

Late to the party, as ever!  Topics: My weird aversion to watching what's popular. My weird aversion to Adam McKay (con't). A certain HBO series' production staff puts LabelMaker labels on EVERYTHING in our shared office space. The Jeremy Strong New Yorker hit piece and how it enraged me to action-viewing Succession.  

If you know the pod, you know I am of the opinion that Gomorrah and The Bureau are probably the best TV series ever made.  And Gomorrah just concluded a Season 5 run, available in the States on HBO Ma. The final (in question marks?) season of this landmark series attempted to build upon and bring to a close a storyline begun in S1, EP1: that of Gennaro and Ciro and their twisty, entangled frenemys...

(NOTE: A previous version of this episode erroneously posted and was cut off at the end. This is the revised posting with the full episode) Joined once again by FCAC special guest Richard Brown, Jason gets into Walter Hill's seminal, cult hit 'The Warriors', which despite (or perhaps because of) deficiencies in funding, production time, cast difficulties (resulting in the firing of the lead actor...

Mike White's 'The White Lotus' is a product of the pandemic; a quick-turnaround series that went from inception to air in 9 months as HBO scrambled in 2020 to line up produceable content from trusted creators. Shot in one location, the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, under strict quarantine protocols, the series is a testament to the power of what can happen when limited options meet fairly un...

I admit to having a few deep-seated biases when it comes to writer-directors whose work doesn't speak to me.  Two of them have names that rhyme with Karen Zhorkin and Badham McWay.  This is neither here nor there with regard to anything but it makes for an interesting viewing experience when I need to TRY and put those biases on the shelf in order to watch something like 'Don't Look Up', which has...

Back from holiday break and bursting into 2022 with a special quick listen all about the best Film & TV books I read in 2021 AND a quick review of the Harry Potter reunion special on HBO Max, in which I totally forgot to mention how great Helena Bonham Carter was in cackling her way through the entire thing and being her naughty, bawdy self.   Links to the Books mentioned in this episode: Midnight...

Longtime journalist and author Mark Seal has a fantastic new book out that's positively overstuffed with brilliant and hilarious and mind-blowing anecdotes about the story of 'The Godfather', from Mario Puzo's unlikely beginnings to the movie's famously tortuous path to and through production. Mark and I chat about some of the great revelations in his book and about all the wonderful and colorful...

I'm joined this week by Frazer Rice, a James Bond freak whose familiarity with the films, the books, the comic strips, and the business of Bond makes him the idea guest to chat and speculate with on The Future Of Bond. With 'No Time To Die' closing out the Daniel Craig era, Bond now enters what likely is a 2-4 year window between films and a search for the Next Bond.  The search this time is perha...

Still in a music kind of mind after last week's episode all about the fantastic Beatles Get Back doc series. I'm still in a Legends kind of mood so I'm recounting Bob Dylan's fantastic run of recent concerts at the Beacon Theater in New York City, which I was fortunate enough to catch a couple of. Some of the funny incidents in line and inside the show with fans basically having a hard time adjust...

Some thoughts and musings after watching the Peter Jackson-directed 6-hour recut of the Beatles legendary/infamous 'Let It Be' sessions and Apple rooftop concert performance.      Topics covered: Behind-the-scenes of the documentary series. Why The Beatles continue to fascinate and resonate. Yoko: A Revisionist History The Clothes. The Instruments. John Lennon's 'Don't Let Me Down': A Howl. Billy...

For your Thanksgiving commuting or family-avoidance pleasure, friend of the pod and frequent guest Richard Brown and I dive deep into the making of Star Trek; the who, the what, the why.  We also make stops at iconic 1970's Star Wars toys and books and assorted tie-ins.  We wander through the movies and come up with some surprisingly counter-intuitive faves. We talk great episodes and not-so-great...

News broke yesterday that Jonah Hill would play Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia in some form of scripted series on Apple, to be directed and/or produced by Martin Scorcese. While Marty's rock credentials speak for themselves...his rock credentials also speak for themselves, namely: his bizarre choice to add people like Sharon Stone to the refurbished footage from Dylan's legendary Thunder Road R...

Follow Jason as he walks-and-talks (he can do both! Mostly at the same time!) en route to his first trip to an actual movie theater in almost 18 months to see Denis Villenueve's epic adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic science-fiction classic 'Dune'.  And then we pause recording and pick it up again right after Jason is back from the screening. This movie is one I (i switched tenses!) have been loo...

Were you in High School in the 80's like FCAC host Jason Cilo was?  Probably you're not that old, but trust him; it was a time!  1989's 'Teen Witch' is many things: a fairly low-budget sort-of rip-off teen-comedy witch movie treading water in the wake of John Hughes movies and 'Heathers' and other 80's teenage films, most notably, but it has a charm and staying power all its own that has to be res...

The recent death of actor George Segal sent me to finally watch Altman's 1974 gambling opus, 'California Split', starring Segal and Elliot Gould.  It's a fantastic film and a great representation of the prime Altman ouvre. But behind the scenes and extending into the present day...there are cast-member murders, deaths, prison stints, and tragedies that offer a hypothetical parallell to the varied...

Charles Grodin died at 86 on May 18th, 2021.  His career spanned from 1954 to 2017, but what's notable about Grodin is how he always prioritized happiness over success and power within the entertainment industry. This is something he wrote about over his several books, and is contained within the evidence his career leaves behind. Offered club gigs, he turned them down because the thought of doing...

Gone in 60 Seconds  is a 1974 American  action film  written, directed, produced by, and starring  H.B. "Toby" Halicki . [2]  The film centers on a group of car thieves and the 48 cars they must steal in a matter of days. It is known for having wrecked and destroyed 93 cars in a 40-minute  car chase  scene, one of the longest in film history. A total of 127 cars were either destroyed or damaged th...

The Grateful Dead Movie , released in 1977 and directed by  Jerry Garcia , is a film that captures live performances from rock band the  Grateful Dead  during an October 1974 five-night run at  Winterland  in  San Francisco . These concerts marked the beginning of a hiatus, with the October 20, 1974, show billed as "The Last One". The band would return to touring in 1976. The film features the " W...