The Wages of Cinema

So, there's a new Mummy movie out... no, not THAT Mummy from a few years ago (yeah, the last one was nine years ago with Brendan Fraser, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor). This is part of the NEW deal, the one that Universal wants to get into the "Universe"/franchise game with their old Universal-Monsters, and this goes back to one of the first movie franchises with the likes of Frankenstein, The Invisi...

(Sing it with me, "IIIIIIII.... IIIIIIII..... I'm Wonder Woman..." as disco plays on and on....) Anyway, we saw Wonder Woman, the fourth film in this thing that Warner brothers is trying to do called the "DC Cinematic Universe". This time Zack Snyder isn't as deep into the mix as in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice... no, he only co-wrote the story and produced it. Yeah. So he's...

Sometimes a movie bombs or doesn't do well at the box office and no one notices. Other times... you get George Lucas hitching his wagon to frequent collaborators Willard Huyuck and Gloria Katz (American Graffiti, Temple of Doom) and with his love for comic books he decided to take his try at producing one (by Star Wars comics creators MARVEL no less, making this the first feature-length adaptation...

And now we turn our attention to a King Arthur movie neither of us have heard of from the 1960's starring Ronald Lewis and Janette Scott. What have we done? wagesofcinema@gmail.com (PS: This replaces a previous upload of this episode segment, listen to THIS one and not that one as the previous one has been deleted)

First, in this end-of-May episode 3 part blow-out, Andrew and Jack read some messages from some listeners (one of whom you may know as a certain Guest Star who's name rhymes with 'Hat'). A lot of this concerns the Alien movies, most especially Covenant which we reviewed episode 85. This ends at 21:55 Then, Jack and Andrew talk MORE Comic book movies that are NOT adapted from DC or Marvel comics -...

Not counting when that rascally Xenomorph fought the Predator in two rather wildly WTF movies from the past decade, we now have the sixth Alien-franchise films. 'Covenant' follows Prometheus, which you may or may not have seen (though we certainly talked about that 2012 film, all the way back in episode *9.4* in our retrospective on director RIDLEY SCOTT - Jack mistakenly said episode 4 in this ep...

How do we begin with this story? So now we have many, many King Arthur movies out there, right? There's one from 1953 (go back to episode 19.2 where we talked about 'Knights of the Round-table), there's the (quasi) classic Disney one from the 60's, John Boorman's Excalibur, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (not to mention the 2004 Clive Owen one, lest I forget... okay, I did, sorry, it was like...

So here we come to the third part of this episode, #82, and also the third in this return to HORROR in APRIL! And sure it may technically be now May, but a) we recorded this in April, gosh-darn-it, and b), hey, it's still April *somewhere* at the moment (thank you, west coast!) And one day if one finds this and they have no idea what month is which, this can fit in just fine.... Anyway, now Jack a...

This podcast is rated for the COOL audiences! But seriously, as Jack and Andrew continue their exploration of movies that have eluded them so much that the titles make them go WHOA, here is an especially 'insert Keanu Reeves on a loop' title: THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (which was titled "La Residencia" in Spain, not as auspicious of course), which stars Lilli Palmer as a headmistress at a boarding sc...

Tonight we begin the 82nd Wages of Cinema Podcast extravaganza on... a sad note, as the wonderful filmmaker (and more importantly a good person) Jonathan Demme passed away and Jack takes some stock of how he could be taken for granted as a great filmmaker (and once again Jack and Andrew debate if Silence of the Lambs is a true "horror" film). Then, Jack discusses some new movies he's seen that are...

Jack and Andrew of the Wages of Cinema welcome you all back to the third annual installment of HORROR in APRIL. Why April? Because we love horror movies and it's another half a year until October, so we're going to soak up the genre, dangnabbit! We have a different approach this year, however, as we will present the first segment as a NEW horror movie that is out now in select theaters and VoD (Yo...

Pick a movie, any movie, I won't look... now your Jack Nicholson movie has to be.... astonishing, brilliant, revelatory, mad, insane, dramatic, heartbreaking, quiet, angry, brash, crude, mischievous, deranged, p*ssed, scary, funny, amused, amusing, delirious, fearful, masculine, critical of masculinity, normal, over-the-top, SMILEY!? Jack Nicholson is a favorite actor of the Wages of Cinema, and A...

On this third installment of 'What the Devil is That', Andrew and Jack really get a much fuller sense of what the title of this experiment in seeking out movies we've never heard of as the film is from South Korea and is... well, it's unlike anything we've quite seen before. Even Scorsese has to come on before the movie starts in an introduction and tell the audience, "No, trust me, Korean cinema...

After a discussion for roughly the first 20 minutes where Jack mentions the latest Cinema-Con, where the National Association of Theater Owners (or, and don't laugh, NATO), get together with the studios for a trade/industry convention to check out what's going on with new movies (Jack and Andrew also briefly talk about the latest JUSTICE LEAGUE trailer), and in this discussion a major component be...

"What does it have to do with 'Nam?! What does anything have to do with NAM?!"! - The Dude (Jeff Lebowski) to Walter in The Big Lebowski What indeed.... Jack, Andrew, and that lovable supplementary scamp Guest Star Matt (Matthew Catania) went over to see the second installment in the new Warner Brothers/Legendary MonstersVerse franchise (first the 2014 Godzilla, now this, guess what comes next?) H...

It appears that Andrew can no longer be with us - he went up in the big thing that happened in Westchester a year ago that we'll keep mentioning but not get to and... okay, seriously, he just couldn't make it to see the 10th film in the X-Men franchise (give or take a Deadpool), and this has been touted as, after 17 years, the goodbye for both Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/"Ted Theodore" Logan, and Si...

So... how about those Oscars, eh? No surprises at all, you know, not a single one to talk about, nothing to investigate, just the same ol' predictable thing going on with the presenters and winners and the speeches and timers and some little light spiffy jokes from Mr Kimmel and some presenters and then HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL WHAT JUST HAPPENED AT THE END THERE?! It might be best, to say the least i...

Susan Hayward. John Gavin. Vera Miles. You remember then, don't you? No? Good! Because Jack and Andrew are here to tell you about what they did once when, under the direction of David Miller (don't remember him much either), acted in the THIRD adaptation of Hurst's BACK STREET, a classic tale of love gone awry in the midst of bad timing and a bad wife. How does it all turn out for these people, an...

We return with a full 3 part episode! We begin with some sad news as, just as of this past weekend, the wonderful and always dependable character actor and movie STAR Bill Paxton (gotta use caps for the man) passed away, so we take a brief look back at some of his most memorable roles (including a bit at the end of this episode from his role of Hicks in ALIENS). Then, Jack tells tale of new releas...

The Great Wall doesn't simply come out of any garden variety Hollywood studio blockbuster committee or machine. This is a unique case (at least as of this posting in February of 2017): This is not only the most expensive *Chinese* production ever made (in conjunction with Universal and Legendary - *not* connected with their Godzilla or Kong productions, don't get too excited, we address that here)...

Three years after Chris Miller and Phil Lord's film of The LEGO Movie hit theaters, a spinoff (sort of) sequel, The LEGO Batman Movie, gives us more Batman. But what Batman, you might ask (and once again voiced by Will Arnett)? Hoo-boy. There's more than one, and it seems different ages get the Batman they deserve (or, if they're lucky, want). This Batman is... not like the others. Certainly not h...

Following on a previous REQUIRED READING that we did a year ago (go to episode 37.3 for that, https://soundcloud.com/wagesofcinema/making-of-star-wars), we now look at the making of EPISODE 5 in the Star Wars series, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. How did George Lucas do it? Should he have given himself a screenwriting credit (or given Leigh Brackett, may she rest in peace)? How did Irvin Kershner, Gary...

This year for 2017, Jack and Andrew take on a new year-long challenge; first there was "The List", where one host gave the other a film to watch that the other hadn't seen, and visa-versa, a sort of year-long film school; the "Cinema Immersion Tank" was about diving literally into one film for a week through revisiting five times, until every crevice of a frame could be inspected and absorbed. Now...

So what do chest-bursters, James McAvoy, early turn of the century vibrators, and the Hal 9000 computer all have in common? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! But God knows that doesn't stop the Wages of Cinema from trying! This week on this first part of the latest installment of the Wages of Cinema, Jack and Andrew pay tribute to the career of actor John Hurt, who passed away recently, but more import...

Double, Double, Boil & Trouble! It's... that rarity of a Walt Disney Animated Feature that's a disaster? How much so? What if we told you it cost $44 million dollars to make over a period of 5 years (actually 14 when you count when it was optioned for development)? The BLACK CAULDRON represented a point when the old guard and the new age began at the Walt Disney studios, right after the retirement...