Have You Ever Seen

Episode #700! Such an occasion calls for a special episode as I give you reviews of not 1, not 2 but 3 old comedies all in 1 show. We're talking about Sons Of The Desert, Monkey Business and, the headliner, Topper. This is the first time on Have You Ever Seen for Laurel & Hardy, although the Marx Brothers and Cary Grant have been gabbed about a lot in the past. Grins can be had...even though many...

Five Easy Pieces turned out to be an incredibly relatable movie for me to discuss these days. In fact, this 699th episode might get a little TOO personal as I shared plenty of things about my own life. Jack Nicholson gives one of his deepest performances as he continued to build his legend following Easy Rider the year before. Here we have universal themes of alienation, rebellion, family strife,...

Hal Ashby was right in the middle of an incredible run when Shampoo came out in the mid-'70s. He made a few bonafide classics amongst his 7 films that were released that decade. This isn't his funniest work though. In fact, typical for this director, the laughs are sometimes explosive, but they're spaced out. This is in fact generally a sad film...especially considering how much casual carnality i...

Wait, my 697th podcast about a 90-year-old, B&W musical is just destined to set download records, isn't it?! Well, maybe there's no chance of that, but an Astaire/Rogers love story with an idiot plot IS fodder for a sarcastic monologue. You're bound to have at least 1/4 of as much fun with this episode as I had preparing it. Top Hat is similar to Fred & Ginger's reviled Swing Time (reviled around...

Connery & Caine were powerful names to put on the poster for The Man Who Would Be King. And while their adventure movie wasn't a huge hit, it has a huge legacy. John Huston directs Kipling's story with Sean and Michael playing scheming British ex-soldiers Danny & Peachy. And, God's Holy Trousers, are Caine & Connery ever a tremendous team! The fellas make an almost impossible journey to North Afgh...

November is finally the time to get to this year's Best Picture Oscar winner and here in episode #695, the talk/rant is indeed about "Ani". Somehow, auteur Sean Baker tied Walt Disney's record by winning 4 Oscars in one night while foul-mouthed fireplug Mikey Madison won Best Actress as well. She and Yura Borisov are two of a half-dozen people giving strong performances in Anora, the Russian-centr...

Just like last year with the Dawn Of The Dead remake being posted on Halloween itself, the 694th episode on Have You Ever Seen is a redo of a horror classic that hits the airwaves on Scary Day. Tom Savini came up with a solid take on Romero's signature film, which basically invented the zombie movie back in 1968. There's a lot of bickering and boarding in the 1990 Night Of The Living Dead, but the...

The penultimate horror film in Have You Ever Seen's 10th Annual Scary Movie Month was a blockbuster and an Oscar-winner. And that's unusual for the relentless and unsubtle director Darren Aronofsky. He isn't often rewarded so much for the chances he takes. This 693rd episode talks about how the intense Black Swan is women-centric, even as the women in it go through hell. Natalie Portman won Best A...

It's taken 692 podcasts before The Man Of 1000 Faces has come up on Have You Ever Seen, but here Lon Chaney finally is as the title character in Rupert Julian's Phantom Of The Opera. Despite the high kill count, this isn't particularly scary...although it IS eerily effective. The colour tinting in this otherwise black & white movie helps set a baleful mood. And the red-letter moment is when Mary P...

Jewel once asked "who will save your soul" and when Morfydd Clark made Saint Maud with Rose Glass, she answered enthusiastically "I will!" We've got one of those "reality vs. fantasy" storylines again as a feverishly devout Catholic deals with her delusions (if they ARE that) while battling with her dying patient (Jennifer Ehle). Glass was making her directorial debut and, while her movie isn't bo...

As Canadians eat bird on Thanksgiving and Americans eat Italians on Columbus Day (correct?), Have You Ever Seen just goes all listicle on ya again. I've got a Top 20 countdown for you to, well, chew on. Here are the 5 greatest debuts by an actor in a horror movie and the 15 greatest directorial debuts in horror. Okay, it's lot more than just those 20. These things are fluid. In any event, this lis...

Inclement weather is heading your way! We discover in this 689th edition of Have You Ever Seen that there are angry, dead mariners on a boat surrounded by fog...and they're out for revenge on the residents of a small coastal town 100 years later. Well-made though this film is, it's definitely lesser John Carpenter, coming out right in the middle of his brilliant Halloween/Escape/Thing run. His hor...

In Jezebel, Bette Davis plays a sassy Southern belle who pushes prudish fiancé Henry Fonda away. And it's all over a red dress. Jezebel is a movie about manners, propriety and stubbornness in the Antebellum South (courteous though they are, they DO have plenty of slaves) with the looming threat of Yellow Fever. William Wyler's romance in and around New Orleans isn't an all-time classic, but Bette...

Repeat after me and say it with the coolest lisp in cinema: here beginneth the 687th Have You Ever Seen podcast. The Untouchables is one Brian De Palma's most-successful films is also the first one of his to be discussed around here in 9 years...and, after Carrie, only the 2nd in total. And he was great at violent gangster flicks. It's still the days of Prohibition in America and Al Capone runs th...

A new era begins in this 686th edition of Have You Ever Seen as Ryan talks about David Lynch's mainstream breakout after Eraserhead got him noticed by this film's executive producer, Mel Brooks. The Elephant Man stars Oscar nominee John Hurt in the title role and Anthony Hopkins as his sympathetic doctor. Unusual for Lynch, his B&W biographical character piece doesn't have sex, gory violence or ba...

This was supposed to be the slot for Bev & Ryan to talk about David Lynch's The Elephant Man, but that episode has been pre-empted. Instead, this 685th edition of Have You Ever Seen has Ryan talking alone about a major life change that greatly affects this podcast. Check this one out for those details, but also note that all my talk about "maybe" covering The Elephant Man next Monday was unfounded...

Ryan's got a Friday solo show today with this 684th edition of Have You Ever Seen. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is a zany rom-com with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy playing a likable husband & wife who move themselves & their daughters from NYC out to the country. And their house turns out to be a disaster. This film has been acclaimed over the decades, even though it's more congenial than it i...

It's Labour Day, sure, but we're working the podcast anyway as we talk about critically-disliked films made by 14 outstanding actors. We put the names of 50 living thespians in a hat, then pulled out 7 names apiece and talked up 1 movie of each of theirs that Rotten Tomatoes gave a bad review. A splat, if you will. Some of the names in this 683rd edition of Have You Ever Seen include Ford, Foxx, S...

Our summer of podcasting comes to an end with this 682nd episode about The Martian, where we talk about Matt Damon having a years-long space adventure alone on the red planet. He's left behind by his crew and has to use his wits & botany talent to survive until they can come back for him...with plenty of help from the geniuses at NASA back on Earth. The optimism in Andy Weir's novel translates to...

Reuniting the Titanic team of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (not to mention Kathy Bates) was something audiences had wanted for more than a decade. Maybe they didn't expect another doomed romance that was also bleak and sad. Revolutionary Road is about middle-class ennui, quiet desperation and the cruelty of hope. And the stars are terrific playing unextraordinary people yearning for somethin...

Mr. And Mrs. Smith was a hit action comedy that started out as a vehicle for Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie. What director Doug Liman and his team couldn't have known going in was that the "Brangelina" phenomenon would overwhelm their movie and be the start of a passionate, but ultimately controversial real-life relationship and marriage. We of course discussed all that gossip in episode #680, but we...

Holidays often mean we post a listicle...and so the Civic Holiday brings about our breakdown of the American Film Institute's greatest movies that DIDN'T make their 1998 or 2007 Top 100 lists. So there's no Citizen Kane, Godfather, Jaws action here. These are nominees that were shunned both times, such as Dog Day Afternoon, Ghostbusters, L.A. Confidential...and so many more. Bev listed her #100 do...

Marilyn Monroe was a gorgeous blonde, the kind who made men's tongues hit the floor. She also played innocent, cute and dumb as well as anyone. Case in point, The Seven Year Itch is where that famous image of her skirt being blown up while she's standing over a subway grate comes from. And the cinematic icon aced all of those angles in Billy Wilder's comedy. Yes, the director had to compromise and...

The least-well-known title we'll be covering in this month of mirth-filled movies is Tom Di Cillo's sharp satire about the stresses of independent filmmaking. But those who aren't aware of it should know that Living In Oblivion will bust some guts. Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener are terrific in the lead roles as the director and his temperamental star, but James Le Gros hilariously steals the...

This second week in Have You Ever Seen's month of funny films has Ryan covering the more sweet than hilarious WWII war comedy Mister Roberts. The legendary director John Ford and his co-director Mervyn LeRoy had a strong cast to work with, although Ford's mean-spirited temper comes up often in this episode. Henry Fonda is not at his very best in the title role, but he's still awfully good. James C...