Have You Ever Seen

Nope is about spectacle, exploitation and selling a product, no matter how that product feels about being sold. The alien---if it IS in fact an alien---is one of the most unique creations in recent history. Which is fitting because Jordan Peele is one of the most original filmmakers going. Still, just like Quentin Tarantino, Peele always finds clever ways to mix in dozens of pop culture references...

Ryan talked alone about the classic slasher flick Halloween on Monday. The solo episode this time gets into the business of one of its offshoots...Friday The 13th. In fact, all 12 of the Fridays are discussed here, so this is not a traditional review of one particular film. Iconic mass murderer Jason Voorhees---and his mother before him---successfully killed people at the cursed Camp Crystal Lake...

It was nearly a year ago that Ryan monologued about Rob Zombie's Halloween. Well, our 540th episode was an overdue time to monologue about John Carpenter's legendary original. In this one-man show, you'll get a record number of asides, but also some theories that might answer questions that people have had about the movie for the past 45 years. This father of all modern slasher movies is influenti...

Our 8th Annual Scary Movie Month has arrived and we kick it off with a film that has several legit frights and some "I'm creeped out in my own basement" staying power. Our 539th episode talks about demonic possession, child endangerment and other weird things. Director James Wan knows how to use jump scares in The Conjuring, but he also knows how to build tension and he really knows how to shoot a...

We covered our first Ozu movie earlier this year and our first Mizoguchi review dropped just 3 days ago, so it was way past time to talk about Federico Fellini. The flamboyant Italian made several classics, but 8½ seems to be the favourite for many fellow filmmakers who've followed in his footsteps. This is about as influential as any movie we've discussed in years. It's a director's dream too (so...

We're still over a week away from Scary Movie Month, but Ryan is here to monologue about a Japanese ghost story anyway. Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu has long been ranked on many esteemed critics' lists of great films...including the Sight & Sound. And it should be. It's beautifully made and, while it isn't particularly frightening, it's eerie. Ugetsu's story is basically just a love of money & power v...

Rushmore's got Wes Anderson, Bill Murray and...yeah, Jason Schwartzman. That's a combination that's hit a lot of cinematic home runs and, to many, this was a grand slam. For a second-time filmmaker, this is an undeniably assured movie. Anderson hits a lot of the same character beats here that he does in all his movies and his (team's) production design & costume choices have been called "twee" for...

While United 93 avoids politics, we sure got political during this 535th episode. But the whole world supposedly changed on this very day 22 years ago and we felt the need to comment on that and what such upheaval has meant to all of our lives. More than 3000 people died during the terrorist attacks on 9/11, but our "civil" society quickly became more divided than ever. As such, we HYES'ers dealt...

Since this 534th episode of Have You Ever Seen hits the airwaves on Labour Day, it felt right to talk about a character who has FOUR different jobs in one movie. Mrs. Doubtfire is a funny film that has...well, to be honest, lost a lot of its comedic zing 30 years on, although the serious scenes still have a lot of emotional sting. This might be the most-personal movie the lovable Robin Williams ev...

The Night Of The Hunter is Exhibit A when you talk about films that are revered more now than they were when they came out. To many, this KEEPS getting better every time they see it. We're fans too. Charles Laughton was better known as a clever actor, but this was his directorial debut. For a first-time director, he pulled off a stylish allegory and scary fairy tale that's filled with surreal imag...

The 532nd edition of Have You Ever Seen talks about a noir that not everyone is aware of, but they should be. Pickup On South Street crackles. Richard Widmark plays a pickpocket, but he remains an anti-hero from the start to the finish...even though crime stories are often about redemption after bad behaviour. He's got (an eventually) loyal "dame" in Jean Peters, he's got a shack right on the rive...

And thus the people who started this podcast to review the AFI's Top 100 Lists have now made a point of talking about the Sight & Sound list. S&S critics ranked Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles in the #1 spot last December, which is the main reason we committed 200 minutes to watch it...let alone decided to review it. Ryan went on a passionate rant about their controversial Top...

Martin Scorsese is the master director of movies that glamorize scumbag criminals without passing judgement on their terrible behaviour. He's (almost) in Goodfellas territory here, featuring a reprehensible-but-charismatic criminal who's too young for all this power and opportunity to do bad things. Perhaps Marty is also showing us a funny version of his own drug-addled past in The Wolf Of Wall St...

As we "celebrate" the Civic Holiday, Bev takes the week off and Ryan monologues in the 529th episode of Have You Ever Seen. The underrated Hal Ashby always got great performances out of his actors during that incredible run he had in the '70s. In Coming Home, he uses a plethora of classic songs---so many classic songs---to back up his stars' excellent work. Oscar winners Jon Voight and the remarka...

If Harrison Ford isn't the most-successful movie star in history, then he's at least on the shortest of shortlists. And he's almost a silent-film actor in The Fugitive, while Oscar-winner Tommy Lee Jones as his dogged antagonist is positively verbose. Ford gets to play smart, determined and driven to find the one-armed man who killed his wife, despite having a terrible lawyer representing him. Jon...

John Garfield didn't even live to see 40, but he DID make several good films in the '40s. In Body And Soul, he's a decent guy who finds himself in a love triangle and makes many bad career decisions. It's the age-old story of a boxer who gets mixed up with the wrong people. Robert Rossen's acclaimed picture isn't remarkably original, but it's a well-made film. The man who directed The Hustler knew...

Bev is not a fan of biopics or of Sean Penn, but even she knows that Gus Van Sant's Milk is a great example of both. Harvey Milk was a passionate, charming, hard-working activist who was gunned down by Dan White just as he was starting his political career, but there WAS some whitewashing of his personal life in this. Still, Penn is so authentic. The movie, which mixes in plenty of real footage, v...

Everything Everywhere All At Once turned into an unlikely hit last year, then went on to win 7 Oscars just a few months ago. That means it was time for us to cover it because we always review the winner of Best Picture at some point later that summer. Actually, we talked a lot in this episode about many different Oscars shows and we jumped around a lot regarding the plot...which is fitting for a m...

Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn were a great duo and they made many movies together, but they specialized in romantic comedies. Adam's Rib is a rom-com that does a great job with the rom, but isn't nearly funny enough to be called great at the com. The plot has some problems too. George Cukor's courtroom movie has been acclaimed by nearly everybody, but Ryan took real issue in this solo venture...

Bullitt is famous for its car chase (an action scene that many movies have tried---and usually failed---to equal or surpass), but this police thriller has got so much more going for it than just that. As for this being called an action film, well, it's actually more of a murder mystery. Steve McQueen is his trademark Mister Cool, but his romance with Jacqueline Bissett also gives him humanity. It'...

It's become a tradition for us in recent history to cover a disaster film on or near the 4th Of July, so this year's choice is the Auteur Of Explosions, Michael Bay. Armageddon is crass, it has tonal problems, it's edited into incoherence, but, truth is truth, this blockbuster still worked on at least one of us. And we both acknowledge how entertaining it is. Bay's macho, in-your-face filmmaking s...

Superman has been a patriotic force on the big screen seemingly forever, but Richard Donner and his team did it best in 1978. Except for Superman II, none of the sequels or reboots hold any kind of candle to Donner's Supes, especially when it comes to the ways in which Christopher Reeve chose to play him. He's great when he's Superman, but greater at playing Clark Kent. No one else has ever come c...

As far as ensemble "a few days in the life of a bunch of people" movies go, Short Cuts is not only one of Robert Altman's best...it's one of the best anyone has ever made. He maintains a consistent tone and pace beautifully for over 3 hours. It's even pretty tense for a character study. Altman also ties all these Los Angelenos together brilliantly, even though Raymond Carver's short stories aren't...

Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally screenplay made for a classic romantic comedy. It's one of the best in the genre. Sleepless In Seattle, however, is a rom-com that isn't funny and we didn't even find it particularly romantic, partly because the couple we're supposed to root for don't even meet until the end. That's a clever idea, but we don't think it works to keep these 2 great stars apart for...

Before anyone gets all excited that this is a review of the Pacino/DePalma version of Scarface, Ryan's latest solo show actually focuses on the Hawks/Muni version. The 1983 "little friend" comes up a lot though, so it's almost like getting 2 reviews in 1. And you should be just as excited about the 1932 original anyway because Paul Muni, director Howard Hawks and producer Howard Hughes (yup, him)...