Full Cast And Crew

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...

A quick recap and assessment of last night's Oscar telecast, which, to me, was a much-needed reboot and refresh of a format that had become stale, out of touch with itself and increasingly at odds with the stated mission of awarding creative efforts. In this episode I talk a bit about some of the conventional wisdom (or lack thereof) that's hampered the evolution of the Oscar telecast over the yea...

The Rockford Files is one of the most beloved tv titles and James Garner's Jim Rockford would become the character this veteran actor was and will forever be best known for.  There's a reason Garner, whose career began in the 1950's, titled his excellent, charming, and self-deprecating autobiography 'The Garner Files'.  In this episode, I take a look back at my own introduction to the series durin...

Is there a moment, a single day, a couple of hours even, in your teenage years that you could point to and say "that was one of the most important and formative times in my life"? In this episode, Jason is joined by two of his oldest friends, Chris and Roy, and they revisit a specific afternoon in 1985 when, as 15-year-olds, they began a friendship that opened up so much into all their lives. The...

Heather Thomson and Marianne Sierk are two of my favorite people and social media follows guaranteed to brighten your day with laughs.  They're talented and funny comedians and Marianne is also a Sorceress who somehow put a spell on my cinephile dude self and made me watch  Practical Magic and talk about it for an hour and a half with two die-hard "Prac Mag" obsessives! Much fun was had and our co...

Starman  is a 1984 American  science fiction   romance film  directed by  John Carpenter  that tells the story of an  alien  who has come to Earth and cloned a  humanoid  body (portrayed by  Jeff Bridges ) in response to the invitation found on the  gold phonograph record  installed on the  Voyager 2  space probe. The original screenplay was written by  Bruce A. Evans  and Raynold Gideon, with  De...

A listener question prompted this episode about Peter Weir's excellent 2003 period naval-warfare epic 'Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World', and why it's one of my favorite films and a comforting re-watch at any time I encounter or am in the mood for it. The movie is an interesting demarcation line between a Hollywood that would make a movie like this for 150 million dollars...and a Ho...

In our first post-Trump episode, Jason is joined by Friend Of The Pod Richard Brown to discuss the 1979 Nick Nolte film North Dallas Forty. Before that, Rick and Jason catch up on withdrawing from political mainlining, growing up as children of single Mom's in the 1970's, and then get to the good stuff; a robust, detailed discussion of the genius of Ted Kotcheff and the singular pleasures of  Nort...

Two-time FCAC Very Special Guest Ted Jessup and I revisit 1974's Panavision international espionage and Nazi-hunting thriller 'The Odessa File' and make plenty of stops along the way to discuss 'The Rainmaker', 'Deliverance' 'The Seven-Ups', 'Anaconda', 'Coming Home', 'Heat', 'The Assassin', and much more!

Gomorrah  ( Italian :  Gomorra - La serie ) is an Italian  crime drama  television series created by  Roberto Saviano  for  Sky Atlantic . Based on Saviano's  book of the same name , [1]  the show premiered on Sky Atlantic in  Italy  on 6 May 2014, and has run for four seasons. The title of the show is a play on the name of the Neapolitan crime syndicate,  Camorra . The 2008  film of the same name...

The Bureau  (original title:  Le Bureau des Légendes ) is a  French   political thriller  television series created by  Éric Rochant  and produced by TOP - The Oligarchs Productions and  Canal+ , which revolves around the lives of agents of the  DGSE  (General Directorate of External Security), France's principal external security service. Originally aired in France from 27 April 2015, it was laun...

It's been a long time coming, and finally, its time to devote an entire episode to singing the praises of 'Columbo'!  In this Very Special Episode of the pod, Jason is once again joined by TV historian and pop-cultural eminence grise Richard Brown as they discuss the classic Columbo episode 'Try and Catch Me', starring Ruth Gordon and work their way through 20 Questions About Columbo as submitted...

Jason is joined by stand-up comedian, actor, and podcaster Sean Donnelly for a deep-dive into M. Night Shayamalan's 'Signs', which Sean and Jason agree is a film that now feels like an old-fashioned Hollywood movie of the sort we just don't get anymore. Jason and Sean also talk about Sean's new UFO podcast, his appearances on Letterman, Conan, and Colbert, the state of stand-up comedy in the midst...

Get Carter  is a 1971 British  crime film  directed by  Mike Hodges  and starring  Michael Caine ,  Ian Hendry , [3]   Britt Ekland ,  John Osborne  and  Bryan Mosley . The screenplay was adapted by Hodges from  Ted Lewis 's 1970 novel  Jack's Return Home . Producer  Michael Klinger  optioned the book and made a deal for the ailing  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer  (MGM) studio to finance and release the film...

On Her Majesty's Secret Service  is a 1969  spy film  and the sixth in the  James Bond  series  produced by  Eon Productions . It is based on the  1963 novel  by  Ian Fleming . Following  Sean Connery 's decision to retire from the role after  You Only Live Twice , Eon Productions selected an unknown actor and model,  George Lazenby , to play the part of  James Bond . During the making of the film...

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan  is a 1982 American  science fiction film  directed by  Nicholas Meyer  and based on the television series  Star Trek . It is the second film in the  Star Trek  film series , and is a  sequel  to  Star Trek: The Motion Picture  (1979). The plot features Admiral  James T. Kirk  ( William Shatner ) and the crew of the starship  USS  Enterprise  facing off against the...