The Next Reel Film Podcast

"We deal in lead, friend." The Magnificent Seven is a breeze to watch. It’s fun. It has that clean vibe of early Hollywood westerns. Plus it’s based on Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, giving it some serious street cred. Despite all of that, however, it was quite a legal imbroglio to get made. Yet once released, it eventually became successful enough to spur three sequels, a TV series and more. Joi...

"Once more, we survive." When you think of Akira Kurosawa, it’s easy to connect him to great samurai films like Ran, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo and Sanjuro. What’s surprising, however, is that he didn’t make his first samurai film until midway through his filmmaking career. That film, of course, is arguably his greatest film, Seven Samurai, which was released in 1954. Join us –...

"How are we defining ‘contained?’"While working on The Informer! with Steven Soderbergh, screenwriter Scott Z. Burns was inspired by a scene with Matt Damon ranting about the germs Scott Bakula’s character left on a phone to explore the idea of a viral pandemic. From there, Contagion was born. Join us – Pete Wright and Andy Nelson – as we conclude our disease film series with Soderbergh’s 2011 gli...

"Either the blindness spread the panic or the panic spread the blindness."When Fernando Meirelles showed his 2008 film Blindness to José Saramago, the author of the original book upon which it was based, Saramago loved it. Unfortunately for them, neither critics nor audiences connected with the allegorical film. It’s a tough watch with questionable character motivations and a fairly depressing wor...

"Very odd what happens in a world without children’s voices."It’s unfortunate that Alfonso Cuarón’s film Children of Men never found the audience it deserved, at least theatrically. Sure, it has been hailed as one of the best films of the year it was released, is often cited as one of the best science fiction films of the 21st century and was critically praised but for whatever reason, the audienc...

"How’d you like to wake up in the morning and be him?"The Next Reel’s Speakeasy is an ongoing series of ours in which we invite an industry guest to join us and bring along one of their favorite movies to talk about. In this month’s episode, cinematographer Sam Levy joins us to talk about one of his favorite films, John Huston’s 1972 boxing film Fat City. We talk about the depressing story present...

"You can’t stop the signal."Most people involved in making Joss Whedon’s 2005 film Serenity acknowledge that it was a near miracle that they got to make it. The TV show upon which it was based, “Firefly,” was canceled before its 14 episodes all aired and it seemed dead. Luckily, the rabid fanbase clamored loud enough and Universal saw that there may be an audience for a continuation of the story a...

"You have to love its simplicity. It’s one billionth our size and it’s beating us."After making Das Boot, Wolfgang Peterson came to Hollywood and began a new period in his life making big spectacle films, often action thrillers. Unfortunately, that meant when it came time to make his 1995 film Outbreak – stemmed from the world’s curiosity in the Ebola outbreak in Africa paired with the release of...

"We’re not dealing with the flu virus here."George A. Romero made The Crazies just a few years after making his breakout film Night of the Living Dead in ‘68, but with the popularity of Romero’s zombie film and the others in his ‘Dead’ trilogy still to be determined, he was still a struggling indie filmmaker. So it was with a very meager sum that he set out to make The Crazies and delivered a very...

"It should’ve been left up to the scientists! It’s a colossal mistake! Tell the President I said so!"Michael Crichton’s space disease thriller hit the public at the perfect time – when everyone was afraid of the astronauts accidentally bringing back space viruses upon returning to Earth. Crichton wrote the book in a very pseudo-scientific way that made it feel like more of a scientific documentati...

"You are discarded. You are the refuse of the past."Richard Matheson’s 1954 vampire horror novel “I Am Legend” helped influence the zombie genre (it was the inspiration for the ‘68 George Romero film “Night of the Living Dead”) and popularized the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease. Yet for some reason, filmmakers haven’t been able to crack the story. It’s been made into three differ...

"You have to know who you are and what you are. It’s the only way you’ll lead decent lives."The Next Reel’s Speakeasy is an ongoing series of ours in which we invite an industry guest to join us and bring along one of their favorite movies to talk about. In this month’s episode, costume designer Alana Morshead joins us to talk about one of her favorite films, Mark Romanek’s 2010 film “Never Let Me...

"Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!" Stanley Kubrick didn’t do comedy often which is a shame because “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” is arguably one of the funniest films ever made. What’s interesting is that Kubrick intended on making a serious film about one of his greatest fears at the time: the threat of nuclear war. But after sever...

"Would’ve been a quiet night, too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids!" Stop-motion animation has been a part of film since nearly the beginning, starting with a toy circus coming to life in 1898’s “The Humpty Dumpty Circus.” Since then, it’s undergone many critical changes and improvements as filmmakers have experimented with what they could do with it, and in 2012, Laika released the firs...

"I’m going to cause such a terrible stink in this Third Reich of theirs that thousands of troops that could well be employed at the front will be tied up looking after us!" It’s time for another Listener’s Choice episode, and we’re talking about one of the all-time WWII classics. That’s right, listener Michael Cook decided that it was time for us to discuss John Sturges’ 1963 film “The Great Escap...

"We’ve been patriotically slaving for three years to help a spy ring!" “Ministry of Fear” was Fritz Lang’s third film of four anti-Nazi movies that he made, but it feels less anti-Nazi and more just straight up Hitchcockian thriller. And while Lang didn’t like the final result of the film and Graham Greene, who wrote the novel on which the movie’s based, also didn’t like the film, it’s a very fun...

"Hasta la vista, baby."The Next Reel’s Speakeasy is an ongoing series of ours in which we invite an industry guest to join us and bring along one of their favorite movies to talk about. In this month’s episode, costume designer Sarah Trost joins us to talk about one of her favorite films, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. We talk about why we all love this film so much and where this movie fits into our...

"Good heavens, man, I never intended to shoot. I merely wanted to find out if it were possible." 1941 was an interesting time for the US as the country started the year off as a passive, neutral observer of what Germany and Hitler were doing in Europe and ended with the attack on Pearl Harbor, leading the US to officially enter WWII. And while Fritz Lang’s 1941 anti-Nazi film “Man Hunt” was rushed...

"Just you wait, it won’t be long. / The man in black will soon be here / With his cleaver’s blade so true. / He’ll make mincemeat out of you!" When “M,” Fritz Lang’s first sound film, opened in 1931, it was clear that Lang already understood how to employ sound to his advantage in telling his story. Unlike many early ‘talkies,’ “M” isn’t wall-to-wall talking; instead, Lang used it as a sparse tool...

"You still don’t seem to know what I am capable of!" Fritz Lang’s 1928 silent spy thriller “Spies” rarely gets brought up when people mention Lang and his filmography. Dwarfed by arguably two of his best made on either side of it – “Metropolis” and “M” – “Spies” was Lang’s first film outside the shell of Ufa, the German motion-picture company. It did well enough for itself, but not well enough to...

"Isn’t it worth the loss of a hand to have created the man of the future, the Machine-Man—?!” Fritz Lang’s sci-fi classic has really been through the wringer since it’s premiere in 1927. After having been cut nearly in half then reshaped, people have struggled over the decades to restore the 2 ½ hour film to its full glory but to little avail. In 2008, however, a 16mm print of a horribly scratched...

"This was, like, two corpses in three hours. I mean, am I crazy? That’s unusual, right?" Shane Black was gone from the scene for a decade before his return as not just writer but also director with 2005’s “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” a comedy crime mystery that unjustly largely flew under everyone’s radar. It was mostly critically acclaimed, but with Warner Bros.’ modest release plans and minimal advert...

"Is that a tea cozy on his head?"The Next Reel’s Speakeasy is an ongoing series of ours in which we invite an industry guest to join us and bring along one of their favorite movies to talk about. In this month’s episode, sound mixer Michael B. Koff joins us to talk about one of his favorite films, Guy Ritchie’s crime comedy thriller from the year 2000, “Snatch!” We talk about Guy Ritchie’s style,...

"Name’s Charly, by the way. You’re gonna love me." When New Line Cinema bought Shane Black’s spec script “The Long Kiss Goodnight” in 1994 for $4 million, it created a new record for the selling price of spec scripts for more than 10 years until 2005 when Terry Rossio’s and Bill Marsilii’s script “Déjà Vu” sold for $5 million. While Black walked away with a hefty paycheck, he had no idea that this...

"Be prepared, son. That’s my motto. Be prepared." When Shane Black was paid $1.75 million for his spec script “The Last Boy Scout,” it was the most any screenwriter had been paid for their script up to that point. It wouldn’t take long before that record was broken, but the bar had been set – and more importantly, the expectations – for what Shane Black the screenwriter could deliver. Unfortunatel...