Have You Ever Seen

While Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass might be dated now, it was certainly controversial 15 years ago. It's jammed with violence and bad language...and many of those naughty words come out of the mouth of an 11-year-old girl. But it's also a story about a young nobody who becomes a star on social media and goes on to save his city from very bad guy. Take away that he DOES become a superhero and this mov...

Charlie Chaplin's The Kid represents the 3rd-oldest movie we've ever reviewed, but it continues to be an accessible story 104 years later. Chaplin adopts Jackie Coogan and they live a life of squalor---and also chicanery---but they ARE happy together. There's genuine affection between these two actors. Coogan's performance was a landmark for child actors while Chaplin was, as always, a comic virtu...

Grizzly Man represents Bev's 2nd movie of choice this month, a documentary about another documentarian as Werner Herzog looks into the troubled life of nature-crusader Timothy Treadwell. He would go into the Alaskan wilderness every summer (often with a girlfriend) and befriend bears, but his hubris and narcissism eventually led where it almost had to: him getting eaten by a hungry bear. His girlf...

This is the 3rd straight January in which Have You Ever Seen has talked about a Buster Keaton comedy classic. Reviews of most of the man's great silent films are now on this channel, including our podcast about The General that went up nearly 12 years ago. And if this incredible stuntman and stonefaced actor isn't a must-see for serious film buffs, then just who is? Although, while Steamboat Bill...

The 637th edition of Have You Ever Seen kicks off the 10th Annual Month O' Bev. Joel & Ethan Coen's True Grit was unusual for them, in that it was a blockbuster. It was also nominated for all kinds of awards, including 10 Oscars...something the brothers WERE used to. The cinematography, the production design and the florid language are standouts in this remake of the 1969 western. Jeff Bridges pla...

To wrap up the year, Have You Ever Seen episode #636 reviews our first Peter Sellers movie in over 10 years. He was flawlessly funny in Dr. Strangelove (which is the other film we reviewed) and he's note-perfect in Being There too. Hal Ashby had a very-underrated run of greatness in the '70s, directing powerful dramas like Coming Home, but also making truly funny-yet-cynical yuck-fests like Shampo...

"Dread" and "frantic" are key words when describing Prisoners, Denis Villeneuve's bleak (but excellent) thriller about how evil people can push others to the darkest of dark sides. Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal headline a strong cast. In fact, there are marvelous performances throughout this intense and disturbing drama. Aaron Guzikowski's intricate screenplay is a real highlight here, but Pris...

Surprise...it's a bonus episode! Have You Ever Seen #634 is another Ryan solo show. And in it, the monologue is about baseball players, journalists and a lot of liars. Meet John Doe's climax also takes place on Christmas Eve, so Frank Capra's rabble-rouser is timely in that way. It's unfortunate his speech-filled dramedy isn't funnier though, even if it's certainly inspirational. Gary Cooper plays...

With Christmas just a few days away, the 633rd episode on this Have You Ever Seen channel is the right time to talk about one of the funniest holiday movies. The Santa Clause is not just a consistent laugh-getter. It's also touching...and those are 2 good reasons the flick has been so rewatchable. Tim Allen made his film debut in John Pasquin's blockbuster and it's like we said about Galaxy Quest:...

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were at the height of their careers when they jumped at the chance to work with the great Stanley Kubrick. He hadn't directed a movie in 12 years, then he died before Eyes Wide Shut was even released...so it turned out to be his final film. And it's a long, complex film, which Kubrick took over a year to shoot. It's a sex movie that isn't very sexy...but was that inten...

Billy Crystal was on a big hot streak in the late '80s and early '90s, topped by this comedy-western blockbuster. Ron Underwood directed City Slickers and did a terrific job balancing the laughs with all the mid-life crises of the 3 main characters. It's a comedy with some sting. What this film does best is connect with middle-aged men who are going through the things that Crystal, Bruno Kirby and...

Bev is off for this 630th edition of Have You Ever Seen, so Ryan is in monologue mode talking about The Polar Express. The turn of the century saw Robert Zemeckis direct 3 consecutive motion-capture animated films (2 of which are Christmas movies), which were expensive and, to many viewers, very off-putting with that "uncanny valley" quality of the character's faces. Tom Hanks wore the tight suit...

Danny DeVito has done all manner of laughter, seriousness and biopics for going on 50 years. When he directs movies though, they tend to be dark comedies. Pitch black. Case in point, the often-meanspirited War Of The Roses, which is his best and funniest film. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner are just about at their career best as the (title) hateful married couple. They're rich yuppies, who ha...

The 628th edition of Have You Ever Seen has Ryan doing a monologue about The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. William Dieterle directs this adaptation of Victor Hugo's tragic novel as a strange love triangle, with both Cedric Hardwicke's Frollo and Charles Laughton's Quasimodo falling hard for Maureen O'Hara's Esmeralda. Perc Westmore's makeup and many other technical aspects of this production are quite...

Bob Fosse's autobiographical musical about how he makes art until he dies is all about a guy who's doing too much and can't cope, yet he's compelled to never stop working. Name an addiction and he's got it. Yet his 8 1/2-esque story---with Roy Scheider playing a heightened version of his director---is a potent one, with all its flashy editing, production design and terrific choreography. We weren'...

Sometimes we turn into a fanboy and a fangirl for an entire episode...and this is one of those times. Have You Ever Seen #626 has us absolutely loving Galaxy Quest, which is director Dean Parisot's best film and it's also probably the best-ever Star Trek movie. All the characters get terrific arcs, but particularly Tim Allen as the arrogant commander. As great as he is in the leading role, Sigourn...

Our 625th episode is another Ryan solo show, with the topic of the day being George Cukor's 1954 take on A Star Is Born. Judy Garland plays a movie star on the way up while James Mason plays a movie star on the way down. While Garland was the one who was struggling with addiction in reality, Mason's character is the one who's a raging alcoholic bringing much pain to his wife, who also happens to b...

A sci-fi movie about nuclear war sounds like a depressing way to honour veterans on their day, but not when the podcast is about one of the greatest (horror) movies ever made. James Cameron didn't have much of a budget to make The Terminator, but it started a franchise. And it stars the unlikeliest of movie stars, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton are terrific too, but Ah-nul...

Nice and uplifting movies like The Straight Story are a welcome sight in a world that's evermore cynical and meanspirited. David Lynch, a man known for sex and violence, was an usual choice to direct a real-life story about an elderly man riding his lawnmower across state lines just so he could visit his ailing brother. Still, despite some wonky acting from some of the non-professional actors, thi...

Happy Halloween! Scary Movie Month comes to an end with this 622nd edition of Have You Ever Seen. No, this episode isn't about George Romero's 1978 zombie classic where humans hole up in a mall. Ryan's 3rd solo show in 3 days is about Zack Snyder's intense 2004 remake. The original had plenty of blood, guts and thrills, but also a lot of satire. This has even more gore, better acting and action sc...

Even though The Blair Witch Project didn't invent the genre, it's probably the best-known and the biggest hit of all the found footage movies. The online marketing campaign was especially revolutionary. It's a shame that Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez never hit these heights again as writers or directors, but they got so much mileage out of their made-up story, considering it was mostly improvi...

Halloween Week = extra episodes! Ryan talks by himself here about the 1979 Amityville Horror...and a little about the other Amityville flicks too...all of which are based on a horrific real-life tragedy that led to a (possibly made-up) haunting in that same house. James Brolin and Margot Kidder play newlyweds who move into a place on Long Island with her 3 kids, then it starts messing with all of...

We kick off a big week on Have You Ever Seen with our 619th episode, a gab about Tim Burton's (probably) best film. One of the quirkiest directors of all time was actually fairly grounded making this lighthearted biopic. Johnny Depp is troublesome these days, but you can't question his work in Ed Wood as the optimistic, yet stunningly self-unaware title filmmaker. And while the entire cast is righ...

Most of our choices so far in this year's Scary Movie Month haven't been all that goosebump-inducing. Creature From The Black Lagoon isn't very frightening either, but Jack Arnold's film WAS influential, especially on Guillermo Del Toro and his Oscar-winning The Shape Of Water. The Gill Man in this 1954 Universal Monster flick might look corny now in his creature suit, but the underwater shots the...

Fridays mean Ryan posts monologues on Have You Ever Seen and our 617th episode digs a one-man hole into Pet Sematary. Mary Lambert's 1989 horror show about unholy reanimation keeps on reminding us that "sometimes dead is better". The one who's always saying that, Fred Gwynne, is probably the best actor in this cast, although he's not THAT much better than the underwhelming Dale Midkiff or Denise C...