The Super 70 Podcast

Everyone loves The Graduate, except me. Screenwriter Buck Henry and Director Mike Nichols hit the ball out of the park with this biting commentary on American society at the height of the 1960s. But underneath the nods and smiles to the counterculture and Robert Surtees’ superior cinematography, there are disturbing signs of sickness in the left. Join me as we marvel at how such a perfect film can...

Walter Wanger was a convicted criminal rebuilding his career when he collaborated with television director Don Siegel and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring to make a film of Jack Finney’s science fiction serial. What they were going for was a cheap B-movie like The Blob or Godzilla that could run second bill in drive-in double features. What they got was a lasting monument to our nations fears in 195...

Michael Curtiz was already one of the most successful directors in Hollywood when Warner Brothers practically forced him to cast Joan Crawford in one of the most famous melodramas ever made. Crawford, an American household name who was recognized as one of the most professional actors in Hollywood, led a devastating supporting cast in this 1945 mystery that tells us more than we ever wanted to kno...

Melvin LeRoy and Busby Berkeley both direct Golddiggers of 1933. The second incarnation of a popular broadway hit, Golddiggers of 1933 is a tangled tale of love, sex, and money. Well, actually it’s just about sex and money, right? Or is it about social issues and sexism? Perhaps this has something to do with the #MeToo movement. Join me, Ginger Rogers, and Dick Powell as we try to figure out if th...

Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman crossed two unlikely themes when they made The General for United Artists: the Southern Lost Cause in popular culture and Keaton’s vaudeville straight man act. The result is a tale all too well told in Hollywood: an expensive flop that comes to be appreciated over time but still has problematic content. Join me as we ride with Keaton through several misadventures o...

We wrap up the 1980's by looking at Michael Lehmann's 1988 pop bubble gum suicide film tome Heathers. With a screenplay by Daniel Waters and starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, Heathers is an unlikely black comedy that threw glitter on the glamorous to bemoan a culture that pursued evil in the race to popularity. Dismissed at the time as an insulting anti-John Hughes trash pick, Heathers w...

Mel Brooks took on a huge challenge when he decided to Produce and star in a remake of the classic Ernst Lubitsch black comedy To Be or Not To Be from 1941. Critical opinion was mixed at the time with most saying it would have been better if Brooks had left the sardonic and extremely sarcastic war film alone. The result, To Be or Not To Be 1983 presents itself as a very noble attempt to give the s...

Our second foreign film is Peter Weir’s Gallipoli. Released in 1981 and starring a very young Mel Gibson, Gallipoli is a First World War Saga that traces the facts and fallacies of Australia’s involvement in a horrible battle that literally changed nothing but Australia’s attitude about what it meant to be a member of the British Empire. This is another one of my more rambling episodes so if you l...

Starring wrestling superstar “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and the amazing veteran David Keith, we watch John Carpenter’s master commentary on capitalism: 1988’s THEY LIVE. Released the Friday before the federal election, THEY LIVE is an overt criticism of yuppies mixed with an undercurrent on race, politics, and the future of America. Join me as we uncover not only how THEY LIVE was relevant in 1988, but h...

This month we will be digging deep into Ghostbusters 1984. In fact, most of the time I will be paraphrasing or directly quoting Adam Bertocci and his online essay Overthinking Ghostbusters posted on his website www.runleiarun.com. I found that I had very little to add to Bertocci’s fine analysis and asked him very kindly if I could use some of it for this podcast. To Adam, I say a heartfelt thank...

This month we look at the eternal cross-genre classic Back to the Future. Seemingly about a time-traveling teenager, this blockbuster from 1985 showcased Robert Zemeckis as a Hollywood directing powerhouse capable of complex cinematographic techniques to critique life in the 1980s by looking at the 1950s. But perhaps there is more to look at than Zemeckis planned. We’ll go scene by scene through M...

This month we take a look at Hiyao Miyazaki's Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind. This Manga from 1984 gives us a peak into what Japan was thinking of in the '80's: environmentalism, violence, and pacifism. Layered over this is a female protagonist who would rather save lives than take them in her quest to help the Kingdom of Tolmekia see the world as she does. This commentary is less a scene by s...

This month we take a look at Looker, the 1981 science fiction thriller by author-director Michael Crichton. Starring Albert Finney, James Coburn and Susan Dey, Looker peers into the uncomfortable and uninviting industry of advertising and marketing. Though not a perfect film, Looker exposes a raw nerve of our consumer society we should all be thinking about. Join me as we go scene by scene through...

The cultural gem we will be watching this month is Writer-Director Ken Finkleman's 1985 comedy Head Office. With a star studded cast and endless delivery of jokes it is easy to dismiss this very important commentary on corporate America that is just as relevant today. Turn The Super 70 Podcast on while we watch Head Office on DVD or the 90 minute version found on YouTube. Find me at www.thatdyland...

I know this is rather ambitious of me to choose such a complicated film for my first podcast, but I couldn't help it. Blade Runner is multi-layered, endlessly fascinating, but not perfect. Join me by turning the podcast on while you watch Blade Runner Final Cut (2007) and we'll go scene by scene through this flawed masterpiece of collaborative filming from the talented Ridley Scott.