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DigiGods Episode 262: Cormania
329 Plays6 months ago
A remembrance of the great Roger Corman, Los Angeles loses a local broadcasting legend, 4k debuts for an Oscar classic, a camp classic and plus amazing new Criterions, Tenacious D and OSS 117! 4k #DVD #Bluray #4k #TV #Movies
In this episode, the Gods discuss:
- 12 Strong (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Affliction (Blu-ray)
- Allonsanfan (Blu-ray)
- American Sniper (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Beekeeper (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Black Tight Killers (Blu-ray)
- The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Blu-ray)
- Cabin in the Sky (Blu-ray)
- The Crime is Mine (Blu-ray)
- The Crow (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Departed (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Dogfight (Blu-ray)
- Dune: Part Two (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Elegant Beast (Blu-ray)
- The Facts Of Murder (Blu-ray)
- Fremont (Blu-ray)
- Funeral Home (Blu-ray)
- The Gate (Blu-ray)
- Goodbye & Amen (Blu-ray)
- I Am Cuba (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Killer Klowns from Outer Space (35th Anniversary Edition) (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- La Haine (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Lair of the White Worm - Steelbook (Blu-ray)
- Last Man Standing (Blu-ray)
- Le Combat dans L'ile (Blu-ray)
- The Little Drummer Girl (Blu-ray)
- Magic Mike (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Mean Girls (2004) (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Mean Girls (2024) (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Messiah Of Evil Limited Edition (Blu-ray)
- Misunderstood (Blu-ray)
- The Morning After (Blu-ray)
- My Demon Lover (Blu-ray)
- My Sailor, My Love (Blu-ray)
- Ocean's Trilogy (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Once Upon a Time in the West (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- One from the Heart (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Orphan (Blu-ray)
- OSS 117 Blu-ray boxed set (Blu-ray)
- Other People's Children (Blu-ray)
- Over the Edge (Blu-ray)
- Picnic at Hanging Rock (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Please Baby Please (Blu-ray)
- The Rain People (Blu-ray)
- Revoir Paris (DVD)
- The Road Dance (DVD)
- The Roaring Twenties (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Shape of Night (Blu-ray)
- Signature Move (Blu-ray)
- Steel Magnolias - 35th Anniversary (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- The Sting Of Death (Blu-ray)
- A Story of Floating Weeds / Floating Weeds: Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu (Blu-ray)
- The Sunday Woman (Blu-ray)
- Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (Blu-ray)
- Thinner (Blu-ray)
- Werckmeister Harmonies (4k UHD Blu-ray)
Please also visit www.Cinegods.com and Substack.HollywoodHeretic.com.
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Transcript
Tim's Cereal Addiction & Hollywood's Criticism of Seinfeld
00:00:24
Speaker
So, Tim, you were saying about Jerry Seinfeld and Frosted. Well, look, look, look, I don't care for this kickin' Jerry Seinfeld thing, but before all of that, I'm Frosted, I watch this movie, and I giggle all the way through this perfectly ridiculous movie. Now, admit it, I had a serious serial addiction for several years. Between the ages of 6 and like 18.
00:00:49
Speaker
But, you know, I kicked it. So I think that I can say clearly now that that's just a perfectly cute movie. I love the shape of it. It's because it's sort of set up like a space like the memory of the space. I mean, I know you remember the space race. So things that they would do is set up like that, which is that's Jerry, me and Jerry are about the same. So I don't I don't get why Hollywood has decided to kick that movie specifically.
00:01:15
Speaker
Look, if you want to kick Jerry because of some things Jerry said, knock yourself out. I don't. I don't. Jerry hasn't said anything that bothers me at all. But if you must, go ahead. What are you kicking the movie for? The movie's a perfectly cute family film. I don't get it.
Survival in Hollywood: Past vs Present
00:01:30
Speaker
I get it a little bit. I think the reason they want to kick the film is because Jerry kind of upset people when he said movies are dead and, you know, he had a few other things. And sitcoms and all that. Yeah. I mean, look, he's making some valid criticisms of the business.
00:01:47
Speaker
He really is. He's making some very valid criticisms. I think he and everyone else are a little too fatalistic about it because to my mind, it's a problem. But if you know film history, you're like, okay, when radio came in, it was a problem. When sound came in, it was a problem. When television came in, it was a problem. When VHS and beta came in, it was a problem. We've been facing these problems for a long time.
00:02:10
Speaker
So the movies always survive. Hollywood always survives. It's manageable. Everybody thought that when 1969, 70, 71 rolled around, the box office just died, that the 70s represented the end of the blockbuster era. And then along came Star Wars, right? So it's just one of those things. So yeah.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah well look all true jerry jerry is a little bit isolated i think if you if you really feels like. Comedians can do whatever they want they may be a little bit more contained in where they get to do what they do you know.
00:02:54
Speaker
Because because because you know everything has become a bit siloed but i think it's a little tough to say that funny people can't be funny in the media you know in the way that they want to be funny in the media you can do whatever you want to do i watch that black lady sketch comedy show believe me yeah you can say whatever the hell you want to say
00:03:15
Speaker
And now, might you get some pushback from various different quarters in a way that you did not 20, 25, 30, 40 years ago? Certainly you might. But so what? Everybody's tough. Everybody can take it. And the reality is everybody today can crank up a YouTube channel and literally say whatever they want to say, or TikTok channel for that matter, if you can talk fast.
00:03:39
Speaker
No, that's true.
Seinfeld's Movie Compared to Blazing Saddles
00:03:41
Speaker
All of that. All of that. Yeah. But I like, I like contrast. I thought it was cute. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was, look, Jerry compares, compared it to, to like blazing saddles in the sense that it's just silly and they had a lot of silly fun making it. If you go in thinking, oh, is this the real story of how they got, you know, made the pop tart? No.
00:04:04
Speaker
No it's not but it's awfully funny it's very it's no different than that we're el yankovich movie two three yeah which had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual story of will i ask but he was on board and i think that there's nothing we'll get off the thing i think,
00:04:22
Speaker
That because unfrosted is really not a terribly pointed commentary about corporate America in the broadest possible way it makes a little bit of fun of corporate America. But it's not. It's not political in any way. I think it's something about that pisses people off. I think if they wanted it to be meaner, then it's not mean.
00:04:45
Speaker
Then Jerry's not your guy. Yeah, Jerry don't do mean. Jerry doesn't do that.
Tim & Jerry Seinfeld at Movie Premieres
00:04:51
Speaker
I went to the premiere and took my daughter to her first premiere and it was awfully fun. This is the thing. She's so much braver than I was at that age. She's just walking around waving at everyone trying to get them to acknowledge her, which you can do when you're an 11-year-old girl. She understands that she's cute and she's young and she's a kid and you're going to get them to do it.
00:05:13
Speaker
So, she waves to Jerry Seinfeld when he's talking to Ted Sarandos. And I'm standing there, I'm thinking, okay, I couldn't wave to Jerry and Ted Sarandos because I'd get thrown out of this place. There's my daughter smiling, waving at Jerry Seinfeld and interrupting his conversation with Ted Sarandos, the $50 million CEO of Netflix. And he looks over and he smiles and he waves back. And I thought, oh my gosh, the world is just going to open up for her. And then she does the same thing to Jim Gaffigan.
00:05:42
Speaker
And we're just working the room. It's just working the room. It's unbelievable. It's a currency of youth, of childhood, and all kids should learn how to use it. But it was very funny.
00:05:58
Speaker
around us introduce Jerry before the screening, saying, hey, it was Jerry's birthday yesterday. He turned 70. Can you believe that? Jerry Seinfeld, he looks half that age. I didn't realize Jerry was that much older than me, to be honest with you. I'll be 63 in a couple of weeks, but I didn't realize Jerry was a decade older than me. We just seem like we were literally from the same age.
00:06:20
Speaker
Well, he looks great and you look great. He looks fantastic. Yeah, I'm cheating. So, he, so, Sarandos introduces him and he walks, he says, let's sing Happy Birthday. So, the whole auditorium sings Happy Birthday for Jerry Seinfeld at the premiere. And he walks out and he says, isn't that just the saddest song? Everyone feels worse if you've had his song to you or if you're singing it. You just feel worse.
00:06:44
Speaker
It's a great laugh. It's a great line. It's so true. Anyway, Jerry,
Remembering Roger Corman
00:06:49
Speaker
the king of truth. Anyway, we've had a couple of... Wow, did we lose a couple of people this week. Let's talk first about the one everybody knows, which is Roger Corman finally bit the dust at 98. 98. He was one of the... He might even be the last. I'm thinking all the people we interviewed for Schlock, The Secret History of American Movies, 24 years ago.
00:07:12
Speaker
Roger may be the last I'm trying to think I mean we have a couple of pundits who were younger Michael Bowen is still with us But of the major filmmaking characters, I think he I think he was the last I think he was he's gone Sam Arkoff is gone and you know Doris Wishman is gone But Roger was the most interest. I mean you were there for a lot of those interviews. Yeah, Mr. Roger would David
00:07:34
Speaker
Roger, we couldn't, you know, we had to go interview him at his studios in Venice. He had a little studio lot in Venice at the time, which was a classic Roger Corman deal where you could actually, you know, the sound stages were meaningless. They were utterly not sound stages because you could hear all the planes flying from Santa Monica Airport.
00:07:54
Speaker
It was nearby. Every player, you heard him coming and going. There was nothing soundproof about those soundstages. They were just the worst. So that was very Korman-esque. But he comes in on time, sits down, and we got the lighting set up and the whole thing done. Dave Weishart was there, and we did a little bit of B-roll with him.
00:08:17
Speaker
And then the most fascinating thing, every other interview subject, it was just an interview. You interview them, they talk to you, they answer your questions, thank you very much, and move on. With Corman, it was, so tell us what it was like the first day you opened up your theater as well, on the day we opened, actually, stop, let's stop that, let's take that again.
00:08:38
Speaker
On the first day, one more time, let's do that again. I kid you not, it was hysterical. He was doing takes of himself. He was doing takes. And he did that a number of times. He did that like three or four times where he wanted to deliver the line a certain way. Or something occurred to him and he wanted to redo it and include that. And you saw the filmmaker in him working.
00:09:06
Speaker
You saw that aspect of his personality and the control freak. It was a very illuminating interview. I've never forgotten that. It was really fascinating. What did I get Roger for? In a weird, weird, weird way, I sort of worked for Roger, but not really. Roger had those offices. I think they were the New World. New World. New World. Yeah. They were on Sepulveda? I want to say Sepulveda.
00:09:34
Speaker
Polvida, not too far from UCLA. Yeah, exactly. Polvida between Wilshire and Ohio. People aren't here for me. They have no idea what I'm talking about. It's a big deal if you do it. I was working for some temp agency and they stuck me in doing some admin crap in New World.
00:09:55
Speaker
And and I did my admin crapped a new world and Roger would walk in and walk out and do this do that And I was really working for his assistant. Anyway, I never said a word to him at all. This is 1990 19. Yeah 1991, you know you and and John all the gay salad on you I got more in over at that day and I go and I'm interviewing I'm interviewing Roger for it. Yeah, we were talking about before the show should do ever
00:10:29
Speaker
So this is close to a year later, if not a year later. And Roger Corman, in that way you were talking about the way he spoke,
00:10:40
Speaker
And I'm sure people who've seen them in interviews, he had sort of particularly sort of clipped way of speaking. He spoke that way. That was not an affectation. His brother Gene, you knew Gene. Gene spoke that way too. It was just a thing from wherever the hell they were from. People spoke like that. And I swear to you, I'm a radio junket. Frankenstein Unbound, Roger Corman, he looks right at me and says, don't you work for me?
00:11:11
Speaker
Now, I'm the only black kid at this table. I think I was the only black kid at that office. So Roger would answer, but he looked right at me and said, don't you work for me? And Roger was walking back and forth through New World a year earlier. He was actually paying attention to who the hell was in the room. And he had no reason to be paying attention to the kid from Apple One. I was like, well, you know, I used to, I doped and I interviewed Roger Corman.
00:11:40
Speaker
But here's something about Korman 2. As we talked about in Schlock, he had aspirations to be a great artist at one point. And as so often happens, he poured all these passions into, in one film in particular, The Invader, which is a great film. Let's be serious. The Invader is a great film.
00:12:05
Speaker
Black and White stars William Shatner as a race-baiting racist who goes down into this southern town and really, really stirs him up. And Roger was a very, very socially conscious civil rights era guy. I mean, he was very much about that moment. And this was his film that he wanted to speak to a certain mentality in the South.
00:12:27
Speaker
that he felt was pervasive and that had not really received proper attention in the media. So he wanted to tell this story. And if you have seen The Invader, William Shatner is astonishing in that part. This is a pre-Star Trek William Shatner, a pre-Twilight Zone William Shatner, but he is astonishing. He is menacing.
00:12:49
Speaker
But he is credible. He's not evil. He's just a man of conviction. They just happen to be incredibly wrong convictions. One of the reasons I always thought that Bill Shatter was so good in that part is because he's from Canada. That's one of the reasons I think that that outsider's perspective, I think he could see those people in a way that, you know, people, you know,
00:13:14
Speaker
And a lot of the other folks, they were from down around about there. And there was something about Bill Shatter in that part that was just a little... Anyway, you're absolutely right what you're saying about Roger, though. And Roger would have said to you that he brought that conviction to pretty much all of his films, no matter how schlocky we could... Roger was...
00:13:36
Speaker
His intention was to make a good film, an entertaining film, a film that achieved its intention every single time. I think after The Invader failed, he said, you know what? I'm just not going to put myself emotionally on the line anymore. I'm just going to give them what they want.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah. And from that point forward, he became the Roger Corman that we know and being very, you know, stingy, which he was with money. He made everything on a nickel. He didn't design, he didn't have designs on being the guy who brought in future talent and created the next Robert Town, created the next James Cameron. You know, he didn't like, I mean, when you look at the careers that he created, Jonathan Demme, I mean, we have, there are at least
00:14:27
Speaker
five or six best pictures, which would not exist but for the fact that Roger Corman gave those filmmakers their start. But he didn't have designs on being the guy who cultivated talent. He just became that guy because he was open to young talent.
00:14:46
Speaker
He didn't throw up doors and he didn't slam doors in anyone's faces. He didn't throw up gatekeepers. He was open to being a place where people could come in and learn the craft from the ground up. And as a result, a lot of really talented people took him up on it and were willing to work for less to get that experience.
00:15:05
Speaker
And I think there's something to be learned in that. We don't have anyone today who does that, who just says, you know what, I don't care if you didn't go to film school, I don't care if you didn't even go to high school. Come on, work for me. Yeah, now it's all gatekeeping. And even if somebody at the top might be inclined to engage the system that way, there are four or five gatekeepers.
00:15:30
Speaker
Keepers between, you know, you and them. I don't think I think Spielberg's a good guy and would tap a kill on the shoulder, but you got to get to 75 gatekeepers to get to spill. But Roger, no gatekeepers. And I mean, the biggest gate was if you wanted too much money.
00:15:50
Speaker
Then they know you cannot work for me, sir. But if you're willing to do good work for a reasonable amount of money, then I will give you the opportunity to make your bones and make your day. And he did that. We used to call it the Roger Corman School of Film School, Roger Corman Film School. And if you knew, and people would try to look that up, you can't look it up, folks. You either went to it or you didn't.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's Roger Corman. And women, Roger Corman, no Gail Ann Hurt without Roger Corman, who won the Academy Award for Hurt Locker.
00:16:32
Speaker
uh, you mean the director, uh, director. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I look, I look at that while we're chat, but all, but these, these, these folks came through Roger Corman men and women and Brown folks and not just the biggie names too. There's a whole crap load load of, uh, you
00:16:56
Speaker
Set designers costume designers a real grunt type people's an electrical department like that Catherine Bigelow, thank you very much for looking at work No, Catherine. No Roger Corbin. No Catherine Bigelow Catherine Bigelow one what?
00:17:13
Speaker
If I'm not mistaken, was it the first or second Academy Award for director, best picture directed by a woman? First woman to win it. First woman to win it outright. That's Roger. In terms of a through line. Jonathan Demme cut his teeth doing all those women in prison films.
00:17:33
Speaker
Thank you. And there were a bunch of them. There were a bunch of them. No Roger Corman, no Pam Grier. I mean, we could play that game they play with Kevin Bacon. Only you could probably go two degrees. And of course, we always forget that Roger Corman had that wonderful cameo in Godfather II as a senator.
00:17:56
Speaker
You know, wonderful little throwaway there, but immortalized in a Best Picture. Roger left quite a legacy. I'm sorry he didn't make it to 100. I think we were all hoping he was 98. I was saying before the show, my feeling is once you pass 95, I feel like you're entitled to 100.
00:18:17
Speaker
You earned it.
The Legacy of Sam Rubin
00:18:19
Speaker
Otherwise, it's like running the Boston Marathon and just giving up at mile 25. No, just see it through. Come on. It's not good. And the thing about Roger, Roger was completely compost mentus. Roger was doing stuff right before the pandemic. Roger was at work doing biz, making movies, executive producing. He's kind of like Ivan Reichman. I think Ivan Reichman still has three films coming out.
00:18:45
Speaker
Not five years ago. Then we had another passing, which isn't really felt so much outside of LA, but it was felt hugely here. Local entertainment journalist Sam Rubin passed at the unbelievably premature age of 64. Sam Rubin has been a fixture here for over 30 years.
00:19:09
Speaker
When we were starting out, Sam was starting out. He had started out elsewhere, but he came to LA in the early 90s and he was immediately a personality on KTLA. He was everywhere on local news. He was on red carpets. He was at premieres. He was a morning show anchor. He was a ubiquitous entertainment journalist and he was a tireless journalist. I would see him like,
00:19:38
Speaker
5 a.m. Oscar nomination announcements. All the rest of us look like we've just rolled out of bed. We're hating life. It's still dark. Sam is over in the corner bouncing off the walls, put together like he went right to the nines, suit and tie on his fifth cup of coffee, ready to go on camera. He's camera ready right then and there at 5 a.m. and you just want to slap the guy. You're like, I don't know who you are. And then, you know, you would see him like 11 o'clock at night finishing up a red carpet.
00:20:06
Speaker
do you sleep? The guy worked seven days a week, 19 hours a day for over 30 years, and I think he worked himself to death. He loved it. I got to agree with you. Sam, and those of you out there in the big internet system that we used to say, might have seen Sam. Look, Sam did a lot of international television. I was an international guy back then.
00:20:32
Speaker
And Sam did a lot of international television. So in Australia, they knew Sam as well as they did here in LA and in the UK. Because Sam did the big shows. And Sam was just a great guy in our little email exchange that we had when we found out that Sam had passed. I related the story of how when I first got started doing red carpets, Sam
00:20:55
Speaker
Who do you particularly want to ktla that's the local station that he was on here although he did some work over at fox and whatnot when you want to ktla and and really became the senior entertainment reporter there steve edwards and some other guys have been around sam would be you could no matter what time you to the channel five
00:21:15
Speaker
you would see sam live on air and i could not understand how he did it how could you possibly be on the morning show the afternoon show the e early evening show the evening show in the evening in the late evening jobs as possible i'm counting the hours he had to be sleeping at the office.
00:21:30
Speaker
because there's no way. So that was Sam. This is how good a guy was. Red carpets work like this. There's a hierarchy. The more important your outlet, the sweeter the spot you get on the red carpet. The spot closest to the limousine door when it opens. That's what we used to say about that sweet spot. Sam was way up there. He was in that sweet spot. Sam, when I first got started,
00:21:55
Speaker
you know we would chitchat and have fun all this kind of stuff and then i would walk way down to the other end of the car and sam started saying to me hey brother stand next to me you'll get everybody now this is something that you're not good you publicist and people yeah all this is very pacific right but when sam said he's standing next to me
00:22:17
Speaker
They made room. Yeah, that's the juice that Sam had and that's the kind of good guy Sam was and and that seems like, you know, but it was a really, really, really big deal because it made what Sam did is he made sure that I got the important interviews and getting the important interviews made sure that I kept my job.
00:22:36
Speaker
He knew that. He knew that. And he says, no, bro, I'm going to make sure you keep your job. And you know, people do things like that. You just don't forget. You don't forget. He's just, he was, that was just wonderful. And it was 30 years ago and he's just great.
00:22:53
Speaker
And I made an analogy just purely off the cuff in some email exchanges that we were having with Mark and Ray, but Sam was also a crucial, indispensable component of building the Broadcast Film Critics Association, which then became the Critics Choice Association. In those early days,
00:23:11
Speaker
The broadcast film critics was founded by Rod Lurie and Joey Berlin. Now, Rod at the time was doing a bit of media, but mostly a print journalist, right? And he eventually migrated. He was a member of the LA film critics before I was there. And he migrated to being a filmmaker, but Rod was not a big face to people from television. And neither was Joey. Joey was a print journalist.
00:23:36
Speaker
So my analogy was always, if you're going to use a biblical analogy, Rod Lurie was broadcast film critic Jesus and Joey Berlin was broadcast film critic Peter, but it was Sam Rubin who came on, joined that board and became film critic Paul. He evangelized the organization. He grew the organization. When people were approached by the broadcast film critic, what's that? And they would look at the roster and you're like, all right, Rod Lurie, I've read him, Joey Berlin.
00:24:05
Speaker
I know Sam Rubin. I watch him every morning. I watch him every evening. He's on the 11 o'clock news. He's on the morning show. He's everywhere. That being everywhere was his currency. And it was a currency that like you said, that he used that currency to benefit you.
00:24:23
Speaker
He used that currency to benefit the broadcast film critics, which grew into the critics choice, which today will outlive him. He used his currency in ways that benefited others. And that was enough for him. It didn't have to come back to him. I mean, he really was one of those pay it forward guys. Yes. And you don't find a lot of them in our business. You don't. And he was beloved all over LA. I mean, the day he died, his face and name was on billboards.
00:24:53
Speaker
the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier lit up Sam. I mean, that's how treasured he was in this town. And we have had entertainment journalists in the past. George Benacchio is not that beloved around here. Gary Franklin was not beloved like that. Henry Sheehan, the other Henry Sheehan. David Sheehan, David Sheehan. David Sheehan, sorry.
00:25:17
Speaker
David Sheehan, not that, not that beloved. I mean, you know, it took something to be an entertainment journalist in Los Angeles, which is so hard, and they judge you so roughly, and you've got to deliver the goods. And somehow he got the interviews. And like I said, he paid it forward. And he paid it forward to everybody. Everyone loved the guys. So Sam Rubin, gone at 64, far too early. He will be tremendously missed. He leaves a huge hole in in LA media culture. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:46
Speaker
tough one anyway fortunately we haven't had any other deaths those are the two but yeah a couple of couple of big boys around you I don't know it's these things happen but sometimes they they throw you for a bit of a per loop yeah per loop
00:26:04
Speaker
Well, let's talk about some movies. I'm going to go through some music box titles here first. We haven't touched on Music Box in a while. Music Box is a wonderful company, a great little distributor. They release movies theatrically and on DVD and Blu-ray.
00:26:20
Speaker
and they continue to thrive in an environment where distributors are being choked, but they get great foreign films, they get great indies. They just have a wonderful footprint and a lot of their stuff they acquired in years past from the City of Light, City of Angels Festival, Culcoa. Now the French American Film Festival. What are they, French American? Faf. Yeah. Faf now. That's taken me a while.
00:26:49
Speaker
Yeah. I don't like FAF. I like Coca-Cola. It rolls off the tongue, but unfortunately, there were certain guild members. I still call it Coca-Cola. It's an affiliation between the Franco-American Cultural Fund and the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild. Let's just say, and I'm not going to name any names, but let's just say there are some grumpy old directors.
00:27:14
Speaker
who in meetings for years have been saying it sounds too much like Coca-Cola. And they finally won. They finally won. What does FAF sound like? It doesn't sound like anything.
00:27:29
Speaker
I can't say it because I have a lisp, so that's not going to happen. Anyway, so the first title here from Music Box, DVD only, but it's a beautiful movie. I wish it were on Blu-ray because it's so beautifully shot. Wonderful location. Based on a novel, The Road Dance. The Road Dance is based on a true story. It takes place in a little village in the Scottish Hebrides. Those islands north of Scotland, which are just so cold, it's astounding that anybody ever bothered to live there.
00:27:59
Speaker
This is a beautiful love story on the eve of World War I. It's a period love story based on a novel by John McKay from 2002. It's just an old-fashioned melodrama. It's beautiful. It's touching. The backdrop of war just gives it such a great presence, this ever-present power of
00:28:22
Speaker
something that's about to happen. It's a lovely, lovely film. It does not overstay its welcome. It's just under two hours. And Richie Adams wrote and directed it. Hell of a filmmaker. Look for this guy in the future. But a beautiful movie. I really love this. Hermione Corfield is the actress. She's lovely. Morvin Christie, Mark Gaddis, Will Fletcher, all these people that I just, I don't know, but they're wonderful performers and I look forward to seeing more of them in the future.
00:28:47
Speaker
That's that's it's one of those beautiful Irish movies said during that period where everything was made of wool. Yes. Maybe canvas with everything. And it's in everybody's just in the wind is never not blowing. Yeah, it's one of those beautiful things is never a sunny day and it's just I love those movies.
00:29:12
Speaker
It's absolutely terrific. And then we've got another sweet little kind of remote island movie here. It's called My Sailor, My Love by Klaus Haro. I hope I didn't mispronounce his name. It's got some of those umlaut dots over the A and the O. To me, that just means it's a heavy metal name.
00:29:36
Speaker
I see the two dots, I just think, you know, Megadeth or Motley Crue. Anyway, no, Klaus Harrow directed My Sailor, My Love, which takes place in remote Ireland. And it's about an old guy who doesn't necessarily get along with his daughter and his daughter hires an older local grandmother to basically care for him.
00:29:59
Speaker
And this creates all kinds of fascinating family entanglements and it's about late life love and it's really, really sweet and that Irish backdrop is just so fantastic. It is genuinely beautiful. This is also only on DVD, not on Blu-ray, but it made its run in theaters and it was very well received at the Toronto Film Festival and it's beautiful.
00:30:24
Speaker
present-day Irish backdrop so now you have all kinds of not natural fibers and then on blu-rays film I know Tim was very fond of Fremont by about Jalali
00:30:42
Speaker
What a wacky, crazy, weird, quirky, beautiful little indie this is in all in black and white. It's about an Afghan translator refugee who is now in Fremont, California. If you know Fremont, California, it's no great shakes. It's kind of dull in the middle of nowhere, but somehow it becomes a poetic backdrop here. It might as well be an Irish or a Scottish island.
00:31:05
Speaker
But it's about this woman, she used to be a translator, and now she's working in a fortune cookie factory. And Tim, take it away. Tell us why this is such a charming movie. It's a lovely, charming movie. She works in that factory for this family, and she eventually gets the job writing the little fortunes that go inside the cookies because of the fortunes that they're doing. And it's just this lovely, lovely movie where she's able to express
00:31:29
Speaker
the things that she's feeling. She was a former translator for the military. And she puts them into these cookies. It's the kind of thing that Jim Jarmusch... Yes. It's a Jim Jarmusch film. But, you know, with these characters from these places who have experienced these things, but it's really constructed in the way Jim constructed films, you know, 80, whatever. You know those movies Jim made.
00:31:58
Speaker
back then. It's absolutely beautiful, lovely, very, very moving and simple. Homie from The Bear is in the film too. Greg took a few other people. Really good movie. It's fun. Jimmy Allen White. That's his
00:32:15
Speaker
Yes. No, it's a terrific little movie. It's black and white. It's on Blu-ray, thank goodness. Also, not on Blu-ray, but on DVD, it should be on Blu-ray, is Alice Winokur's tremendous French film, Revoir Paris, which means Sea Paris again. This is such a powerful movie. Virginie Ephira, the latest French actress to kind of make her
00:32:39
Speaker
to plant her stake in international cinema. This premiered at Cannes in 2022, also went to, the director's Fortnite there, and then it went on to the Toronto Film Festival. Keep your eye out for this film. It's on DVD from Music Box. It's tremendous. It's basically about a woman, played by Virginia Effia,
00:33:00
Speaker
who one night is just having dinner and a terrorist attack happens and when she recovers from this thing she really doesn't even remember it but she goes back and in this respect it's a lot like
00:33:15
Speaker
The Jeff Bridges Peter Weir film Yeah, yeah that wonderful movie playing crash film yeah Yeah one Academy Award for that yeah, yeah
00:33:31
Speaker
Fearless, thank you. Fearless. It's a little bit like fearless in that regard, which is that it's not about the event. That's not so much about the plane crash. This isn't so much about the terrorist event. It's about survivor's guilt. It's about amnesia of sorts that she doesn't allow herself to remember certain things, so she has to go back and find other survivors and reconnect. It's about the healing process.
00:33:56
Speaker
It's about the trauma and the healing and it's ultimately just an opportunity for a great, great performance. Tremendous lead performance there by Elphira. On Blu-ray, the rest of these are all on Blu-ray and I'm going to save the best for last because it has some fabulous quotes on it, some pull quotes by an amazing film critic.
00:34:18
Speaker
So, another great film with Virginia Fierra, who is totally different here, is Other People's Children. And this is by another female filmmaker, Rebecca Zlatowski. I love Rushdie Zem, but I've never seen him be so sensitive here. This is basically about a French woman and her relationship with a man, played by Rushdie Zem, who has a child, a daughter from a previous relationship.
00:34:44
Speaker
And the degree to which the daughter's mother, his ex-wife, continues to be a huge part of their lives, and she wants to get pregnant and have a child with him. She wants that bond with him as well. The ex-wife just will not go away, continues to have emotional troubles, and there's all of these bonds, and she obviously has the bond with the child that Althea doesn't have.
00:35:12
Speaker
It's what the French do so well, which is to get not it's not just here, here are some relationships. They get inside the seams and the crevices of these relationships and they just they work it like dough. And it's a it's a magnificent movie. It's really, really well done. Literally, the equivalent of these films, 15, 20, 25 years ago, were all theatrically released films all over the United States. They would play the limleys in the here and there and we would be talking about some of them would be would be and frankly, there were sort of equivalents of these
00:35:42
Speaker
films, American equivalents of these films, not remakes of these films, but equivalents of these films. The American equivalent of these films either don't get made mostly, or if they do get made, they certainly only live their lives streaming. They don't get made and get theatrical. All of these films that you're talking about now, these films are all theatrically released in Europe and France.
00:36:07
Speaker
I don't know, that's the thing. There's the value of these sorts of films in general, but certainly it's films that get theatrically released and spend time in theatres. Man, that's the thing that we got to think about here in the United States. I agree. We got to get the French ones back in theatres, but we got to get the American, the English ones back in theatres too.
00:36:30
Speaker
Well, here's a crazy one. It's called Please, Baby, Please. This is from the Music Box Selects Collection, Amanda Kramer. A lot of great female directors now. Amanda Kramer directed this. Variety quoted on the back of this. I have to quote this because it's a great poll quote. West Side Story by way of Kenneth Anger. It's bananas, man. This movie's bananas. And that's really what it is. It's about this couple, Andrea Reisborough and Harry Melling, or this couple. They live in the Lower East Side.
00:37:00
Speaker
This is the movie Ridesboro should have been nominated for an Academy Award. I know, right? Oddly nominated for that other thing. She's fantastic in this. They have a run-in with this street gang, these greasers, and it just all kind of blows up from there. It's a lot of great extras on here, including a cast Q&A from the premiere in Los Angeles and Outtakes and a lot of other stuff.
00:37:24
Speaker
but it really, it's just, it's weird, man. It's a strange, weird, eccentric movie. It makes the 50s look like you've never seen them look in any other movie ever. I would almost say that it's like Grease by way, not West Side Story by way of Kenneth Anger, I would call it like Grease by way of Jim Jarmusch. As long as you're talking about Jarmusch, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, again, early 90s here,
00:37:51
Speaker
These little kind of these kind of movies were being made all the time. Although you saw them everywhere. I mean, this is this is this is not that even by big filmmakers score says he made what what was it mean streets? I think it's not means. Yes. That other one he made with Griffin Dunn.
00:38:08
Speaker
Oh, after hours, after hours. It's a little psychedelic. It's all sets and everything's green or purple or under. It's just a whole scene, man. I love these. I've always loved those little movies and I hope we find a space for them again. I agree. A theatrical space. Yeah, man.
00:38:29
Speaker
And speaking of Signature Move, another music box selects movie, which is also a little bit bonkers. This won the grand jury prize for the best US narrative feature at Outfest, which is no longer in existence a few years ago. And it premiered at South by Southwest.
00:38:53
Speaker
It's kind of crazy. It's about Shabana Osmee, who I absolutely adore, a wonderful Indian actress. Shabana Osmee and Fauzia Mirza play a mother and daughter. It's about an American-Pakistani family and their mother and daughter. The daughter is an attorney. They live in Chicago.
00:39:14
Speaker
The mom has a fixation on television that borders on insane. I mean, it's like she's just, television is everything and it somehow
00:39:32
Speaker
somehow mexican lucha libre wrestling gets involved in the story i want to know how it's a look at the eccentricities of american culture and all of our immigrant cultures when they get thrown into a melting pot.
00:39:51
Speaker
I don't even know how else to describe it it's just really it's a really weird fun engaging movie and it gets into the differences between generations and mothers and daughters and immigrants and their native born children and it just it's it's fun and weird and very very eccentric so.
00:40:12
Speaker
It's it's it's one of those movies look They this is a movie about a lesbian lesbian Pakistani and a Pakistani Muslim lesbian in Chicago Look it all which is true, but the movie doesn't present. No like that statement. Oh
00:40:27
Speaker
Well, that's true. It's been the same. Except for the fact that that's the stuff. It's just this funny movie, a little bit dramatic with the mom, because your mom has these issues about identity. Anyway, it's just this cute. Again, I'm going to keep saying this all the way, I think all the way through. 25 years ago, this would have been like the
00:40:49
Speaker
incredibly true adventures of two girls in law. Exactly. Well, you know, these are really sharp movies and, and, you know, we'll have a little lovely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's his name's first, first kiss. Yeah. Yeah. Those lives in that spot. And those were just all these great, great movies. These movies are cute. I really like these movies.
00:41:08
Speaker
So, and then we have a Francois Ozon movie, The Crime is Mine, which for my money, if we're going to talk about courtroom drama, is so much better than the, uh... That thing, that French thing from, from, yeah. That was just Oscar nominated and won an Oscar for Best Green Play in New York. Yeah, yeah.
00:41:24
Speaker
This is so much better. The crime is mine is a courtroom farce. Let's say that right up front. This is a courtroom farce and it is a rousing one. It is so smart. It is so satirical. He's just poking holes at everybody. You don't have to understand how the French justice system works as opposed to the other one.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah. Right. It's very confusing. You're like, I don't understand what the judges are doing. I don't understand why you're allowed to present that as evidence. No, you don't even need to know that here. The whole thing is just a great big ... It's really, really mocking human nature more than anything else. A lot of great guest stars in this thing.
00:42:07
Speaker
You know, the reason that this woman becomes a superstar witness in this ridiculous farce of a trial and becomes all, which blows up in the mind of the public and the whole thing.
00:42:22
Speaker
is the murder in question for which she is accused is so ridiculous and so bizarre and you find it incredulous that this is even happening. It's really a wonderful movie. It's very, very fun. The Crime is Mine with Francois Ouzant and what a cast it has.
00:42:44
Speaker
I mean, Isabelle Leupard, Danny Boone, Fabrice Luccini, a lot of just wonderful French actors show up in this thing. It's really a lot of fun. And then lastly, here we have Jean Dujardin in the two-film set of the two Michelas Avicius...
00:43:05
Speaker
two Michel Azenivisius OSS 117 films, Cairo, Nest of Spies, and Lost in Rio. This is a two Blu-ray set, which has a couple of quotes on here. Of the first one, it says, the funniest spy spoof ever made. And the next one says, the second funniest spy spoof ever made. Both of them credited to box office.
00:43:29
Speaker
Now, when both of these films were released separately on DVD because they were separate releases and they had a little bit more real estate to actually name the critic, I was able to parade those DVDs around and say, look, I was quoted. Unfortunately, my name is not attached to those quotes, but it should be because I'm the one who wrote them both.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, man. That sucks. Yeah, it sucks a little bit. Yeah, it is what it is. Now we know. But they got feature commentaries by Aznavisius, who is wonderful, and Dujardin, whom I've never met. I've met Aznavisius. I've interviewed him, but I've not met Dujardin. So that is fun. And then there's making up featurettes and alternate scenes and bloopers and a lot of other fun stuff on here.
00:44:16
Speaker
All of those out on DVD in Atlanta? The third film is out on Blu-ray. The third film, As an Avicius, had nothing to do with, and it's really sad. I mean, these are just hysterical movies. As I think people know now, because we've covered the older films here, OSS 117, Ubert Bommiser de la Batte is his name, is the original French James Bond, but it's a spy character who predates James Bond.
00:44:43
Speaker
think predate the Bond films or else they're right in the same pocket. I think they're like 63 or something like that. It might be. They're right around the same time. The original films are straight. The novels were straight. They play the original films straight.
00:44:58
Speaker
And when Azovisius and Dujardin got together for these, they said, let's just go for broke. And they shoot them as if they were made in the 60s. But it's just silly. It's just wacky stuff. The laughs come fast and furious. They're just wonderful.
00:45:17
Speaker
I love these movies, I love the music and this is what really set Aznavisis up to win the Oscar for the artist because he's such a great mimic. He's able to mimic a certain kind of film and a certain kind of filmmaking and he did that in the artist except he went back to a different era in black and white and silent and so forth. But yeah, I remember when I interviewed him at Coca-Cola again, he talked about doing the third film
00:45:40
Speaker
which, you know, one of the key things in these movies is that, he's a misogynist and he's, you know, let's not call, I mean, yes, he takes advantage of women, but he thinks he's a really good guy. And we shouldn't call him a racist because he's really trying hard. When he uses epithets and he makes stereotypes, he thinks he's being a really noble guy. He thinks he's being really, really magnanimous. He's just a clueless dork.
00:46:09
Speaker
And so all of that stuff, the stereotyping of Arabs and stereotyping of Jews and stereotyping of Latin Americans, it's all done so over the top. It's hysterical and you laugh at him, you're not laughing at anybody else. And it's tricky – And it's meant to be pushed through the – It's set in the 60s.
00:46:32
Speaker
It's set in the 60s. When the other ones were actually made and it's, so anyway. I mean look, in the second film when he meets up with Jewish and with Israeli intelligence and he's surprised that they're Jewish because of their noses, I mean it is, you cannot help but laugh because it's taking that stereotype and it is just pushing it right to the wall and it's so wonderful. And when I interviewed him for Kolkawa,
00:47:00
Speaker
he said, yeah, in the next film, he goes to Africa. We were like, Oh, my God, love. Yeah, that it were like, Oh, my gosh, I know I totally can see this. I can completely see how this movie is going to play. We've been there before. That's like the last frontier of you bear and all of his is politically incorrect, you know, idiosyncrasies and all of his just unbelievably incorrect racial stereotyping. Go for it. And then as a vicious had a falling out with the screenwriter.
00:47:31
Speaker
and he just walked away and they brought a new director in and his previous writing partner kind of took over the film and that third film is not as funny. It just isn't it misses something it misses that light touch and so you know
00:47:48
Speaker
directors can do wonders. If you're the right director and you have the right touch with the material, sometimes you got to... So 2009, 2006, those two, the third film, 2021.
00:48:05
Speaker
Yeah. And the difference brother lies in that time. You're right, you're right. That's, that's, you're so, so, um, uh, in, in, yeah, anyway, yeah, I guess really nothing else, but those two films absolutely stare. I love those two films. Shall we, shall we do some 4k or television? Where, where are we going to jump? 4k, 5k. Let's do some 4k. All right. Yeah, let's do some 4k over here. Um, there's a ton of, oh, there's a ton here. So let's, um,
00:48:35
Speaker
I start with the 800-pound gorilla talking about Dune Part 2. Yeah, man. You know, which is to my map, look, they're very different films. You're almost in genre, almost in the way that Alien and aliens are literally different genres of film in the same thing. This is much more of an action film. It sure is. It's a combat and battle film. Indeed, once you get into the third act, that's what you're doing.
00:49:04
Speaker
Oh, it's nonstop. We're doing gigantic set piece nonstop stuff. First film, you know, it had its moments of all of that, but it was really establishing narrative and blah, blah, blah and all that kind of stuff, which is, you know, a lot of that's going on here too. But it's really just, so if you like the first film, you're just going to have to love this one because it's all of the stuff you get in the first film with five times the action.
00:49:29
Speaker
It's very true. It feels like the first film was all set up, and this is all payoff. Yeah. And people keep kind of comparing this to, well, David Lynch did it all in one film. No, he didn't. Yeah, no, he didn't. What does that mean?
00:49:46
Speaker
I mean, the Lynch film stands apart as a Lynch film. It's very much David Lynch's Dune and it's not so much Frank Herbert's Dune. It's David Lynch kind of using Dune to do what Kubrick... That platform to make a David Lynch film. Yeah, like what Kubrick did with the show.
00:50:02
Speaker
Shining. Stephen King, there's no Stephen King in The Shining. It's all family. Stephen King didn't even like The Shining. He did. It's why he made it again when he had a chance. Yeah, and made a terrible movie. This is the movie for people who are fans of the books. This is what really is very, this is faithful to the source material. Let Lynch's movie kind of be out there and be what it is. If you've any read the books.
00:50:28
Speaker
David Lynch very famously said, you know, I never read those books. And I'm like, you don't say. And you know, what's interesting, so I mean, and when we, you know, there really are four incarnations of Dune. There's Denis Villeneuve's Dune in Dune Part Two, which we have here, and we're going to get Dune Messiah now, apparently. Yes.
00:50:45
Speaker
And by the way, let me just say on 4K, this just wipes it out. I mean, if you have a state of the art 4K TV and you put this thing on there with all of this, I mean, especially at the very, very beginning, all of the kind of the rich reds and the blacks and the colors which show up beautifully when you see this at IMAX and you would think, oh, that's never going to reproduce at home. It's just the colors are too intense. The contrast is too intense. No, no.
00:51:07
Speaker
The people at Warner Brothers, they do this better than anyone else. This is a state-of-the-art 4K on the right TV. This thing just blows up your house. Audio, picture, the whole thing, it's right there. It pushes everything right to the limit. And the extras are great too.
00:51:23
Speaker
The extras are tremendous. There are very few extras, but they're really great because they get into all of the stuff. How do they do that stuff? Because you look at this, you go, I can't believe that's CGI. It's something else, the writing of the worms. I see him and I've never seen CG do that. You get insights into all that stuff. It's wonderful. But here's what's interesting. There's David Lynch's Dune.
00:51:46
Speaker
There's Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune, which never got made, but if you've seen the doc, you kind of feel like you know what it would be. It's very different, like all of that, you know...
00:51:57
Speaker
All of the intense designs that he was getting out of HR Giger, you know, pre-alien Giger. And then there was the TV miniseries, dude. Frank's son. Yeah, which my wife worked on kind of at a distance and which is, you know, shot by Vittorio Soraro very nicely but otherwise not that memorable.
00:52:18
Speaker
And then there's this, and this still stands apart. The Denis Villeneuve's dune is the faithful dune, and you got to own this because it's state of the art. Well, the storylines, the television dunes, those were not Frank's. Frank was going to write that stuff, but his son, I've got some other writer getting Sullivan or something, sort of like finished those storylines.
00:52:42
Speaker
So this, as you say, very, very, Denny read the books and these films are about what the books are about and get the context correct. And then you have all the other Denny type stuff and it's kind of cool.
00:53:01
Speaker
So I want to talk for a second about The Beekeeper with Jason Statham. And I want to just be very, very clear on this. So first of all, this movie is basically, it's another, you know, it's like the last several Denzel Washington movies. Those equalizer movies.
00:53:20
Speaker
The Equalizer movie is basically an equalizer movie. It's basically a man on fire. It's one of those movies. He's a badass and he goes around, he kills people, and he makes the bad guys pay. Whatever. Liam Neeson. It's a Liam Neeson movie. It's a Denzel Washington movie. That's what it is. If you expected anything else of a movie starring Jason Statham called The Beekeeper, if you genuinely believed that a movie called The Beekeeper starring Jason Statham would be about beekeeping,
00:53:49
Speaker
Just check yourself into a hospital. That's on you. You are not paying attention. A movie starring Jason Statham called The Beekeeper is about an international killer. A movie starring Jason Statham called The Plumber is about an international killer. A movie starring Jason Statham called The Accountant is about an international killer.
00:54:13
Speaker
I don't care what the movie is called. If it stars Jason Statham, it could be called, you know, the hairdresser, the hairdresser. It's about as international killer. Thank you. I just know that.
00:54:27
Speaker
Just know that. That's the way it rolls. Let's see what else we got here. Any 4K's that jump out at you? Let's talk about Steel Magnolias because the big old inner girl that I am. I love this movie. And just always did. 1989.
00:54:52
Speaker
It's just a beautiful, beautiful Herbert Ross film. With Cheryl McLean and Olympia Dukakis and Sally Field, you know, all just at the top of their game. And of course, you know, giving us Julia Roberts, that young, young, young Julia Roberts, not long off. This is after, I don't think I might have made this before, but it came out after Pretty Woman.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think it did. It was one of those kind of things. There might be mystic pizzas in there someplace, but, and she was just this, you know, I mean, look, I don't want to give away the plot of the film because, you know, it's this beautiful southern gothic drama comedy sort of thing. And this is the kind of film, by the way, that got made a whole lot back then. Billy Bob Thornton was making a
00:55:42
Speaker
a lot of these films back then. Whales of August, all these, you know the ones. Oh, the Whales of August. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the stuff that they were doing back then. You went right through Fried Green Tomatoes. It was a whole mess of them. And this was a monk amongst those. And I loved all of those films. It was just this beautiful movie. And, you know, look, I don't, I don't, again,
00:56:02
Speaker
Pretty damn sure if you make this movie today you're not gonna get yourself this big gigantic of theatrically released you know the thing that this movie was being this was a huge huge hit film and it made julie roberts are super duper actually no kidding around movie star.
00:56:22
Speaker
It was, I mean this is an astounding cast and they don't do this enough anymore. I mean Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley Maclean, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts. All female cast starring women from all different generations and of all different ages who hit all of these different audience demos.
00:56:42
Speaker
Amazing. And it's often pointed out, why did Titanic become the most successful film of all time? Because boys and men raced out to see a love story, a doomed love story set on the Titanic, you know, which sank 100 years earlier. No, it's because women went to it and they forced the men to come with them and they got multiple tickets out of that. So there is something about saying, you know what, if you want to make a lot of money with a movie, appeal to women.
00:57:10
Speaker
You can go to a dozen of them. Bridges of Madison County. It was ridiculous, ridiculous. Great director's commentary from Herbert Ross recorded obviously before he died. Deleted scenes. There's a TV pilot from 1990, which is weird. I'd forgotten about that. I did not know that, yeah. And then a featurette. Here's the other thing about this movie though.
00:57:38
Speaker
Everyone involved in this movie, not just the cast, if you look at all the others, and God bless these men who said, you know, it's okay, we're gonna be second fiddle. Dylan McDermott, Tom Skerritt, Sam Shepard, they're okay with it. They're okay, secure in their masculinity. This is the ladies' film.
00:57:54
Speaker
Robert Harling, who wrote the play, did the screenplay. Wonderful adaptation of his own play because he opens it up. It's not a play just adapted to a movie. He finds a new gear. He makes it bigger and more expressive. It's more a part of the south. The southern backdrop is much, much more realized.
00:58:13
Speaker
But then, let's look at the men who were involved, the other men who were involved in shooting this. Now, Georges de la Rue, the wonderful French composer who won his Oscar for a little romance. Perfect. Perfect, right? Jules and Jim. He knows this territory. He knows this territory.
00:58:31
Speaker
produced by Ray Stark whose aunt was Fanny Brice. Ray Stark made Funny Girl happen. He brings the Funny Girl element to this and directed by Herbert Ross. Herbert Ross and Ray Stark worked together on the sequel to Funny Girl. Herbert Ross was choreographer on Funny Girl, became director of Funny Lady and would go on to do things like The Turning Point, Footloose. So, I mean, these are all people who
00:58:55
Speaker
are very comfortable with this territory. This was one of the last significant films produced by Ray Stark. It's a gem. I agree with you. 35th anniversary. Can't believe it's been that long. Steel Magnolia is wonderful. I know.
00:59:13
Speaker
Boy, he may have passed, but let's see. 2001. Yeah, he passed in 2001. It's been a long time. Yeah, he passed pretty much early. I don't know why. I have him still around in my head. He would have been 90 this year. It's because DP's tend to live forever, right?
00:59:33
Speaker
They're like five British DPs who all live to be over 100 years old. It's crazy. It's crazy. Let's see here. Speaking of DPs, I held an Academy Award winning the Oscar for... I'll say it right out. John Alcott, when he won the Oscar for Best in Metography for Barry Lyndon, I held that Academy Award a couple of weeks ago.
01:00:05
Speaker
I'll share that story at a future point when I'm a little more at liberty to explain what was going on. But I held John Alcott's Academy Award for Barry Lyndon. Those things are heavy, man.
01:00:18
Speaker
The old ones anyway. Some heft of those things. Let's talk for a second about 1969's Once Upon a Time in the West from Paramount Presents in 4K. Unbelievable movie.
01:00:34
Speaker
many people would say, Sergio Leone's great achievement. This is greater than even one spot time in America, greater than the fistful of dollars and few dollars more and good, the bad and the ugly. I'm inclined to agree. The opening to this film is just a masterpiece of cinematic tension. Woody Strode, Henry
01:00:57
Speaker
Bond is so menacing and dark, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, but I just, I think of Woody Strode with that hat and the water dripping on the hat in the beginning and the sunlight just glistening off his nose and it's just, that's like, that is such an iconic image for me. It's just, it's beautiful stuff waiting for that train. Oh my gosh.
01:01:19
Speaker
An amazing movie, an amazing movie. This is an overlap of Sergio Leone and Dario Argento. Dario is one of the writers on this podcast. Yeah. I think it's one of the reasons why it's ever so slightly, narratively darker. Probably true. Probably true. Because I think that's Dario. Yeah, and look, dude, Claudia Cardinale, you know, sometimes
01:01:47
Speaker
Sometimes we forget about her. I know. But yeah, she was one of the ones for sure. Yeah. We were talking about that the other day. We were at dinner and someone said, what is my brother-in-law? Is my brother-in-law?
01:02:02
Speaker
law. So we were at Mother's Day dinner. And he looks at me and he goes, the beautiful Italian actress. And I go, Gina Lola Bridget. No, no, no, the other one. And I go, Vera Lisi. He goes, no, no, no, the other one. I go, Claudia Cardinale. No, no, no, no. Sofia Oren. Yes, Sofia Oren. And in that moment, after having gone down the list, I should have started with Sofia. You go down that list and you just go,
01:02:24
Speaker
Damn, Italy was just turning them out at a certain point. Oh, what do you think? Bangin' is ridiculous. Holy cow. You know, he's collage cutting out. She was one. Yeah. Sometimes we forget about her, but yeah. Well, lots of extras here. And let me just say too, here's something important. When this came out on DVD, it was ripping. I mean, it was just beautiful. It was a beautiful DVD.
01:02:46
Speaker
Then it came out on Blu-ray, and whoever did the Blu-ray transfer, as Mark used to say, whatever monkey was running the switches at the machine when they just ruined it, the contrast was all off, the timing was all off, the day for night stuff was all off, everything was off. It just didn't look like the movie that it was. All of that has been corrected here. On 4K, this once again looks the way it needs to look.
01:03:08
Speaker
If you double dipped on DVD and Blu-ray and you kept them both around just from the off chance that you need to have a reference version, you can discard both now. You can go and sell them or make coasters out of them. This is your definitive. And because it is a Paramount Presents deal, it comes with a voodoo code or an Apple code, whichever you want. So yeah, tons of extras on here, heaps of extras.
01:03:34
Speaker
kind of a multi-person commentary commenting on the film, because we don't have Leonie around. So Alex Cox, who does nothing but commentaries now, teams up with John Carpenter and John Milius and some film historians, and they all give their take on it. There's a great look back with our friend Leonard Malton, who just is always just such a joy to listen to. And a new commentary with the host of the Spaghetti Western podcast, who know things about this movie that nobody in their right mind has any business knowing.
01:04:04
Speaker
It really is kind of crazy. That's funny. Got a couple from Warner Brothers. It just came out of the blue here. We got no announcement on these. We got no calendaring on these. They just showed up one day, and so people may not be aware of it. One is 12 Strong with Chris Hemsworth. Oh, really? Yeah, which is okay.
01:04:29
Speaker
It's a 9-11 guys on a mission movie. It's fine. It's Chris Hemsworth. It's decent. Ted Talley co-wrote it. Ted wrote Science of the Lambs. It's solid. I don't know if it goes anywhere that other movies haven't gone. Then Magic Mike is on 4K as well. They have wrapped it up, but this is the first one, right?
01:04:54
Speaker
This is the first one with Matthew McConaughey basically upstaging everybody. McConaughey kind of steals this movie because he's given, I mean, yes, Channing Tatum does the, he's the lead and he dances up a storm and you have the relationship between all these guys and it kind of gets into the grit of this. This is not an exploitive movie as a lot of people thought it may have been.
01:05:19
Speaker
The second sort of is, but this one is not. This is very much about the grit of what goes on in that world. But Matthew McConaughey is the club owner. My gosh, he's just so good. He's tough and he's just a little bit dark and he brings an extra dimension. So anyway, that's out there too. Magic Mike.
01:05:37
Speaker
Let me pop a couple of the other ones out of here real quickly. One from the heart reprise a new edit, a director's cut because this is, well it's not, I don't know how new, I guess it is this year.
01:05:51
Speaker
Because Coppola's been redoing all of his old movies, right? He did Cotton Club, and he did a new cut of Apocalypse, and he's kind of going down the line. Anyway, he's basically fixed one from the heart. I don't know if all the problems are gone, but it's a beautiful, beautiful movie. I still defend it. I think it's a great experiment. I don't think there would be a La La Land but for one from the heart.
01:06:08
Speaker
And this got two discs. The first one has the new cut and all of its special features on 4K. The second one has the original theatrical release on Blu-ray, not 4K, but also with a whole bunch of extras and tons and tons of stuff going on here. There's a couple of commentary on the first one. And loads and loads and loads of featurettes on the second one. Some new-ish featurettes on the 4K as well.
01:06:38
Speaker
It's pretty great. And Coppola has Megalopolis coming out soon. That's the whole thing. We should talk about that at some point. Yeah. And that's rumored to be closer to this than any previous Coppola film.
01:06:49
Speaker
What was that one he did that was set in Argentina with the tech, tech, tech, tech something. Oh, Tetro, Tetro. Tetro, yeah. Tetro, yeah. I saw them made of Tetro. I don't know. I don't know. But I've heard the surrealism element of it kind of veers more toward one from the heart slash Rumblefish.
01:07:08
Speaker
Right, so there's a bit of that. And then also on 4K now is from the DC animated universe, Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths part two. Part three comes out in June, so if you're keeping up on it, just hang with it. It's a really, really good telling of Crisis on Infinite Earths. It's different from the one that we got from the Arrowverse.
01:07:33
Speaker
Not overly, but it's a little bit different. It's got Green Lantern and stuff in it, and that's pretty cool. It's very, very nicely done. The plot is significantly still borrowed from the comic books.
01:07:48
Speaker
A couple of steelbook 4Ks here that I should mention. One is, I'll do the Oscar winner first, The Departed, which I've always been a little bit rough on because it's based on a Hong Kong trilogy, which I think is better, which is Infernal Affairs. I think Infernal Affairs is an amazing trilogy. I think it's one of the great film achievements in the last 50 years.
01:08:12
Speaker
They didn't want to do three films here, so they kind of changed the timeline and changed a few things and made it so they could make one film. And Scorsese made a second-rate adaptation of a first-rate Hong Kong film and somehow went on to win Best Picture for it. Whatever. People love this film. I'm unfortunately biased. I think Matt Damon is great in it. I think DiCaprio is okay. I think Jack Nicholson is great. I think Mark Wahlberg is fine. I don't know.
01:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, Tim corroborates. We were in agreement on this way back in 2006 when it came out, yeah. And the other 4K steel book is Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Killer Clowns, both with a K. This is from Shout Factory, Scream Factory, rated PG-13, just in case you're worried about the title, Killer Clowns. My daughter is terrified of this because she's terrified of clowns. She doesn't even want to look
01:09:10
Speaker
other of this thing shot come in some take out of the box and is she kinda had a little fit and i said no it's a stupid movie it's very silly she goes some clowns get me i said no all the clowns are particularly scary is there killer clowns in there from others
01:09:25
Speaker
Tim, is this movie not absolutely totally definitive of a certain kind of filmmaking in the 1980s? Oh yeah, absolutely. Particularly these brothers. Because the brothers show up in the movie. They're these goofy guys running around in this movie. This is one of the first films that I reviewed for our own newspaper. Entertainment Today. Entertainment Today.
01:09:49
Speaker
where he was playing at the cress over there in a helicopter. And it was the early, early, early VHS hit. This was one of the films that really kept the VHS into being one of the things that regular folks had to have. This kind of... Yeah. Emphasis on drug because you have to be on drugs to...
01:10:17
Speaker
to do it to do really appreciate this look um here's the premise of this the these flying saucers land and the aliens inside of them look like uh circus clowns with fangs and they uh but that's just the way they look it's not a costume it's not a costume the aliens from this planet look like that
01:10:39
Speaker
It's just, you know, I just, it's so bizarre. It's such a strange concept, but it's what happened in the 1980s. People made weird movies like this. So there it is. There's a bunch of extras on the making of it. And on the, the Chiota or Kyoto brothers, however you pronounce it, but they didn't really go on to do much else. And I hope they, I hope they got their retirement out of this.
01:11:03
Speaker
We've also got The Crow with Brandon Lee on 4K. It's interesting because they've resurrected The Crow again. There are a lot of people who feel like they should leave it alone, that it should be Brandon Lee's part forever. I get that, but the tragedy doesn't mean that we should freeze this.
01:11:25
Speaker
this character, this franchise, this property which predates him. I mean, you know, certainly honor him and remember him, but I think if people want to take different stabs at this, they certainly should be allowed to. I was not a huge fan of this, but I do understand why it has a following.
01:11:42
Speaker
Anyway, it is on 4K. It has a handful of decent extras. Audio commentary with Jeff Most, the producer, and John Shirley, the screenwriter, is very interesting. I think the commentary with Alex Proyas, the director, is a little bit... I mean, it's good, but it's disturbing because he obviously does... Alex, of course. Yeah. Yeah.
01:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, extended scenes deleted. Until that thing would, you know, the more recent thing with Alex Baldwin and, you know, Rust and all that kind of stuff. That moment in this movie, you know, in 1994, that was the big moment, man. And things were changed and whatnot. Nevertheless, the film, the film, I kind of always appreciated the film.
01:12:27
Speaker
But it was one of those, there have been a few of those moments in Hollywood history, to be honest, where things just really went wrong on the set. And then we had to figure out John Landis in Twilight Zone, that whole situation, back in 1984. Anyway, I always kind of dug this movie, though.
01:12:47
Speaker
And then we got Mean Girls, both versions, both films, the original Mean Girls on 4K, 20th anniversary. I still think this is a really fun film. Tina Fey wrote it and got a great cast.
01:13:05
Speaker
The wonderful commentary with Mark Waters and Tina Fey and Lauren Michaels just talking about the making of the film, really, really fun. Lindsay Lohan, maybe her best performance. Rachel McAdams is very, very sweet here. Tim Meadows always makes me laugh. Amy Poehler is just hysterical here as well as is Tina Fey. I did not expect that they would necessarily
01:13:33
Speaker
make this into a musical into a broadway musical which they did and that is how we get the other four k of this week this this is a musical version of me and girls straight from broadway a little bit different they've changed the story tiny bit the characters are different but tina phase in it.
01:13:52
Speaker
And I'm sure she's made a mint off of this thing. It did not do well in theaters, I think because they didn't quite know how to promote it. I think they've been trying to minimize the musicalized aspect of a lot of these musicals. They fumbled it with Color Purple, they fumbled it with this, and they didn't quite fumble it with Wonka, but Wonka somehow
01:14:14
Speaker
you know, transcended it. So in any case, if it's a musical, brag about it being a musical people. Put the music in the trailer. The big moment. This trailer goes for about a minute and a half without even letting you know it's a musical. It's the same thing. It's color purple.
01:14:33
Speaker
Yeah, they got it working with those sing movies, not just animation, but the other ones. High school music. There are lots of them where they get it. You kind of own it. You got to own it. Anyway, the Mean Girls musical, also I think underrated and quite a bit of fun and worth checking out. So there it is. There's a great gag reel on here, by the way. It's really, really fun gag reel. So there it is.
01:15:01
Speaker
Let's see, and then we have two more 4Ks here. The first one is the Oceans trilogy, which is all together on one nice slim set. I'm glad they didn't try to release all three separately. It's all three films, Oceans 11, Oceans 12, Oceans 13, which get progressively sillier and sillier and sillier until you have Julia Roberts playing a woman who has to impersonate Julia Roberts.
01:15:26
Speaker
The wheels come off. They know, they're like, everybody kind of says, you know what, nobody's taking this crap seriously anymore. So just go for broke. But I really enjoy all three of these films. I love the interplay between George Clooney and Brad Pitt. I love the music by David Holmes, which is just so funky and jazzy and cool and hip. And who would have thought that a Bad Frank Sinatra Brat Pack movie could be turned into three great Steven Soderbergh movies? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:15:53
Speaker
I wish they had not, you know, the oceans ate.
01:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, I know what you're saying, that they didn't go there. Yeah, I know. That's unfortunate. But a lot of great extras here, commentaries. Steven Soderbergh does all three commentaries. It's a good week for him between this and Magic Mike. Yeah. All on 4K. Jerry Weintraub shows up on here as deleted scenes. Matt Damon is so much fun, because he doesn't even try to steal this movie. I mean, if you're Matt Damon, or any of the rest of those guys, for that matter, Bernie Mac, or Elliot Gould,
Casey Affleck & Bradley Cooper: Career Highlights
01:16:28
Speaker
I mean, all these guys, Casey Affleck. Casey Affleck is one Oscar. He's one best actor, for crying out loud. And they are all totally okay with just saying, you know what? Let George and Brad hog the limelight and Julia, and Pacino at a certain point. Let him just, and Andy Garcia, let them kind of, I'll just deliver my lines and I'm along for the ride and the catering.
01:16:53
Speaker
It's fun. And let's wrap up the 4K segment with American Sniper, Bradley Cooper, and Sienna Miller, the Clint Eastwood movie, which made a gigantic outrageous sum of money to tell the story of Chris Kyle. Bradley Cooper transformed his body. He got eloped. He shredded it to build a Chris Kyle body. Does this movie, given
01:17:21
Speaker
I mean, war movies are tough. John Wayne movies were all the rage at one moment until they weren't, and then they kind of became again. I mean, war movies are tough to make evergreen. How does this survive the current moment, do you think? It's kind of a tough thing. I mean, even in the moment of the movie, there was a bit of controversy. Chris Kyle, of course, it's a little underlying thing.
01:17:43
Speaker
he went on to do was to kill himself and some other servicemembers at a firing range. Okay, he had been... Well, he got killed by a student, is what it was. It was a guy that he'd been showing how... That's right. I'm sorry, Wade. That's right. Yeah.
01:18:02
Speaker
That's tragic. He had been a noted American sniper. These movies always depend on what the movie is actually about, on whether or not the filmmakers know what to make the movie about. If you make a movie like this and you in any way, shape or form,
01:18:29
Speaker
glorify the killing, the killing in and of itself, then you're not making the movie about the right thing. And so, you know, and some people said that, you know, this movie sort of glorified that. I don't think it did. I think this movie showed a person sort of broken by that, even though that's in the movie.
01:18:52
Speaker
I think you're right, and the scene I always point to, which I think is the best scene in the movie, and I don't know if this even happened, but you know, Sienna Miller is tremendous as Chris Kyle's wife, and there is a scene where he's on the phone with her.
01:19:06
Speaker
You can call somebody on a cell phone from the Middle East. You can call them on a cell phone from the middle of the battlefield. You could zoom from the middle of the battlefield and they do. I mean, we see the war in Ukraine and in Israel and everywhere else
01:19:23
Speaker
We see it not just on the news, we see it in real time on people's phones. Instagram. On Instagram. Yeah. And so that's a chilling thing and the scene here where he's on the phone with his wife and she hears the firefight happening right then and there and it is in an absolute panic over not knowing what's happening to her husband as she hears the bullets and the guns.
01:19:49
Speaker
is an amazing moment. I mean, it's one of the best things that Clint Eastwood has ever done as a filmmaker. And I do not believe in any way whatsoever that you're meant to watch that scene and go, oh, isn't that cool?
01:20:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You are not. You are meant to... It's not about how cool Chris Kyle is in that moment. It is about how terrified and helpless his wife is. Yeah. It's about the effect on her, not on him. And I think that's where the movie shows its hand. I think the people who criticized it and the people who celebrated it probably did so for all the wrong reasons, both. Yeah, correct. You're absolutely right. Yeah.
01:20:26
Speaker
But tremendous film and a lot of great extras on here as well. Really, really worth checking out. It, you know, of course, does not have a commentary with Eastwood, which is something that he just does, unfortunately. How old is Clint?
01:20:41
Speaker
My goodness, that's a great point. He's got to be 95. Is he 95? Hold on. He's younger than Roger Corman. So, you know.
Clint Eastwood's Enduring Career
01:20:50
Speaker
Let's see. Let's see how old he is. He's 93. He's 93. He's much younger than Corman. They weren't even in high school together. Yeah, because they're both from around here. Yeah, that's right. Because you know, Clint might make it. Clint might make it.
01:21:04
Speaker
Boy, I hope so. He's looking feeble-ish, but he's still making a movie now. He's directing something. Yeah, he's working something. He's not stopping.
01:21:13
Speaker
Let me rip through just a few other new movies that are not on 4K, but worth probably mentioning.
Movie Reviews: Stephen King to Tenacious D
01:21:18
Speaker
The Stephen King Thinner Collector's Edition is out now. This is from Tom Holland, decent horror director. I wouldn't call this movie particularly scary, but it's got its moments. Joe Mantegna is kind of fun and campy in it.
01:21:36
Speaker
We also have the special edition of Funeral Home, which also has a great tagline on it, some things never rest in peace.
01:21:46
Speaker
Also, not that scary, but this is from Shout Studios. You know, this is, it's fun-ish. This is Canadian kind of horror satire, I would almost call it. But yeah, it's, you know, bed and, takes place in a bed and breakfast that they've nicknamed dead and breakfast. It's funny.
01:22:09
Speaker
It's cute. The Tenacious D movie, The Pick of Destiny with Jack Black and Todd Gass is just absolutely hilarious. This is from Shout Select. I think this movie, it just doesn't take itself seriously. It's their whole crazy satirical quasi mock rock and roll shtick that they do as Tenacious D, and I think the movie's funny.
01:22:36
Speaker
I was watching X-Files the other night, and it was the episode that Jack Black is in, Jack Black is in the episode of X-Files with Giovanni Roblici. The X-Files, all those shows are really great. You look and you see this guy. Jack Black was thin.
01:22:52
Speaker
I know. I know. It's weird, right? He was in Bob Roberts. Same crazy eyes. He was thin in Bob Roberts, too. Remember he was a bit part in Bob Roberts. I think he was one of the two kids who go up to get an autograph from Bob Roberts. When Bob Roberts says something like, and don't do crack, that's a ghetto drug.
01:23:20
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Next one here from Shout is Collector's Edition of Orphan from Shout Factory, Scream Factory. Orphan also pretty darn good as long as we're getting into kind of spooky Catholic adjacent horror films. I thought this had some moments, right? Peter Sarsgaard, Vera Farmiga. Yeah, it's just creepy enough.
01:23:45
Speaker
Yep, just creepy enough. And then from Shout Select, let me put the, I'm just gonna put these next to the two Shout Select films here. Over the Edge, which a lot of people have completely forgotten about. Over the Edge is a late 70s film. Yep, 79. Right, yeah. Jonathan Kaplan. Yeah, I mean it was Jonathan Kaplan kind of, and I think it was his dad,
01:24:12
Speaker
who did the music. Is it Saul Kaplan? Was Saul Kaplan his dad? I think mine did. Doing the Coppola thing, right? Anyway, Tim Hunter was a co-writer on this. So a lot of good people went into this. And this is one of the film, this introduced the world to Matt Dillon. This was Matt Dillon's first movie. Kind of amazing.
01:24:33
Speaker
great soundtrack, a lot of great 70s music, you know, Cars, Van Halen, Ramones, all kinds of really, really tremendous bunch of music. But this is really just a coming of age film about, you know,
01:24:49
Speaker
teenagers in this town, which is sort of transforming what suburbia is in what's going to be in the 1980s. It's a really, really interesting look at a bunch of troubled kids who are not necessarily of the 70s, not necessarily of the 80s. They're kind of caught between generations. There's too many of them. There are really high population of them in this town. It's a very compelling film.
01:25:21
Speaker
And then we also have Paul Schrader's Affliction from Shout Select, Nick Nolte and James Coburn, his father and son, and man did this movie disturb me. Gosh, his most hateful father-son relationship I've ever seen in my life. But James Coburn,
01:25:36
Speaker
Boy, did he actually just slay this. He won Best Supporting Actor in 1997 and deservedly. He was, the arthritis had overtaken his hand in that particular way. And I thought it was, well, it should have been a consummate actor. He was, did he really use that physical affectation?
01:25:59
Speaker
in this film, you know, he put his hands in the frame in a way that, you know, brilliant stuff, just brilliant stuff. It's really, it's tremendous. And then a few others here real quickly, my Scott Valentine, who was forgotten almost instantly after he became an actor. What was it on Family Ties, right? Is where he kind of
01:26:23
Speaker
Yeah, so they tried to turn Scott Valentine into a star after he was Mallory's boyfriend on Family Ties. And they made My Demon Lover, which is just not a good film.
01:26:40
Speaker
I view that for a day, but it's weird because I think they thought, hey, you know, Justine Bateman's brother just kind of stepped in. So this is what they did. They took Michael Keaton, Michael J. Fox, right, from the show and turned him into Teen Wolf.
01:27:05
Speaker
And then they took Justine Bateman's brother, Jason Bateman, and made him the next teen wolf. So I think at some point, somebody said, hey, why don't we take her boyfriend from the show and make him kind of a teen wolf and make him? No, just stop it. No, don't do that. Anyway, my demon lover, it's out there on Blu-ray.
01:27:20
Speaker
As is the morning after with Jane Fonda and Jeff Bridges, which is pretty good actually. Kind of from the fatal attraction mold, but it's not terrible.
Cinematic Influences: Kurosawa to 80s Horror
01:27:31
Speaker
And then I want to talk about the last man standing for a minute with Bruce Willis. We've had a tough time with Bruce and want to pay homage to him. Do I remember correctly, I hate to put you on the spot, but do I remember correctly, did you do the junket for this?
01:27:47
Speaker
Absolutely. For Last Man Standing. Yeah, yeah, dude. For the adaptation of Kursauer's Yojimbo, right? Yes, Yojimbo. And it's all part of that whole very interesting thing that was going on where, you know, Kursauer and the Japanese, we do samurai movies, but those movies were being influenced by American movies, John Ford movies, and all these movies. And Eastwood, and the Giuseppe Giolioni movies.
01:28:12
Speaker
And then the next thing you know, American filmmakers around this time are looking at those movies and adapting them to these American movies. And you know, in full level, they were really just making these movies, the Magnificent Seven, they were already American movies. It's just this wonderful whirlwind, this movie.
01:28:28
Speaker
which I really loved at the time because it was using that almost video game perspective of the first person shooting, which I fairly knew at that moment when we moved into this town. It didn't basically that same story sort of plays out as he goes back and forth between these sort of rival gangs, one at a time and the other and the other at a time. And I thought it was a lot of fun. Walter Hill,
01:28:52
Speaker
I don't think he has gotten credit for being, he's a wonderful writer, obviously. But Walter Hill made some really, really good movies. That's a director, too. And one of them is definitely one of them. And so I'm also going to share the fact that a couple of things, Ry Cooter, great score, tremendous score here.
01:29:11
Speaker
And I also want to share that this is shot by my good friend Lloyd Ahern, who I just saw on Friday because I went to our local State of the City address. And Lloyd is more or less retired, but he still just cannot let a camera out of his hands.
01:29:27
Speaker
So there's Lloyd with his camera taking pictures of everyone and everybody at the State of the City address, which kind of lures a lot of dignitaries in. And no sooner do I sit down, then Lloyd makes me pose with our former mayor so he can take a picture of it. I'm like, why are you taking my... He goes, well, you never know when you might need it.
01:29:48
Speaker
weirdest thing in the world. He's like at this library of photographs of everybody that he's keeping on hand just in case. Just in case like some point down the line I go, oh, I wish I had a picture of me standing with our former mayor. You know what? Lloyd's got one. I needed one. I'll call him up. Can you pull that off your driver? That's ridiculous. But he just, it's like, you know, you can take the, he just will not let go of a camera. That's a true cinematographer.
01:30:13
Speaker
So, anyway, Lloyd, in all seriousness, Lloyd shot the hell out of this movie. This movie has some amazing photography. It really does. Just a great look overall, but, you know, that sort of really innovative thing that they were doing right there. And, you know, Walter Hill doesn't get enough credit. You made Wild Bill the year before you made that, which was my favorite. There was a run of these Wyatt Earp movies around this time. Tombstone. Yeah, all that stuff. And I'll tell you,
01:30:39
Speaker
If you talk to Lloyd, Lloyd will tell you all about the stuff that they did with Wild Bill because in Wild Bill, it has those black and white sequences that were shot on VHS to get like a really weird look. Like they over said they shot them on VHS and then they desaturated them to black and white and got like this really disturbing kind of flashbacky dream image quality out of it. It was really, when you talk to Lloyd and he explains to you the process, you're like, how did, how did
01:31:08
Speaker
Did any of you even ever imagine that would work? It sounds like, let's just do something, let's just do something crazy and maybe it'll work out. And it did. Yeah, beautiful stuff, man. Unbelievable. Anyway, shall we rip through? Well, let's hit these two steel books real quickly. No, a couple other steel books here, The Gate. They're both from Vestron Video.
01:31:33
Speaker
Steel Books, a little bit of retro action here back to the 80s. 86 and 88, these two films, The Gate. How do you feel about The Gate? Look, it's part of this era of films of where all kinds of stuff was happening in places that don't really exist. The Hellraiser films were worth it. Yeah.
01:32:00
Speaker
Suburban men and things were happening terrible out in the burbs every all this is all in the burbs yet Yeah, hope the guys films interview and so being in the burbs was a horrible place to be because I held gate Might open in your backyard and of course these sort of storylines, you know a few years later They were informing guys like Josh Whedon and would give us stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer And things were teenagers and the kids have to get together, you know young Stephen Dorsey
01:32:31
Speaker
in this movie, if I recall correctly. So, you know, these movies were kind of cool back in the day. Yeah. You know, Stephen Doris' dad is like a legendary songwriter. Oh, we were just talking about the show. He did a lot of sitcom openings. I mean, famous ones. The one for that Alan Thicke show with Kurt Cameron. It's so funny.
01:32:56
Speaker
My friend Michael Jay who wrote Toy Soldiers and he wrote Hot Summer Nights or whatever it was from Top Gun. Anyway, he just moved to Nashville because that's where all the great songwriting is going on these days. And honestly, it's like every other post of his on Facebook is like, hey, here I am with Steve Dorff doing a new song for some artist. And it's like, oh my gosh, living the life.
01:33:20
Speaker
Oh, man. The Lair of the White Worm is the other restaurant title. This is a Ken Russell film that's completely bonkers. I know they say, yeah, this is based on a novel by Bram Stoker. No, you say it's adapted from the novel by Bram Stoker, but what it is is a Ken Russell movie that bears next to no resemblance whatsoever to what that novel actually is.
01:33:48
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, Catherine Ochsenberg, almost unrecognizable here. I don't know. This is just- I actually love Amanda Donahoe, but yeah. This is weird, this movie. Amanda Donahoe. Young Hugh Grant. Amanda Donahoe basically doing the whole demon deal here. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
Ken Russell's Eccentricity & Peter Weir's Restoration
01:34:21
Speaker
I mean, gosh.
01:34:27
Speaker
Well, you know, I mean, bodily about a blind person, anyone who hadn't heard the story before, we were supposed to interview him for Stupid for Movies and Mark and I were going to get to the hotel after the crew had already set up. And then, you know, we got a call from the crew saying he won't come down. He won't come down.
01:34:42
Speaker
And, you know, and they never got the interview. I even got to the hotel. I'm like, what's going on? And they kept calling out and everyone who would call up, whether it was the concierge or anybody else, they'd call it up. And Ken Russell would answer the phone and he would just cackle and then hang up on them.
01:35:00
Speaker
the madman and anyway later that night in the public was so apologetic and later that night he went for a q&a at the academy which was just as much of a train wreck the poor guy can you the q&a at the academy he just kept asking ken questions and can we just cackle and laugh and point at him and laugh and look to the audience and let me answer any questions using same lost his mind.
01:35:22
Speaker
Just terrible. Oh my gosh. All right. Let's do, actually, the blow through the criterion and radiance stuff. There's a lot of amazing criterions we have here. I'm thinking Hanging Rock. Oh my gosh.
01:35:40
Speaker
I'm
01:36:00
Speaker
And on Voodoo, you can go to Voodoo in the store and they got a criteria section now. It's kind of amazing. No, this makes me so sad that Peter Weir just announced he's not going to make any more movies because he's still young for crying out loud. He's not even 80. Really, Scott is like seven years older and he's got like 10 films in development. I mean, come on. Peter's tapping out. Ken Loach, he says that his most recent film is his laugh.
01:36:27
Speaker
And Woody is saying, too, Woody's saying he may be done as well. It's not funny anymore. Yeah, you know, well, you know, Woody has a situation where he can only get him made in Europe. But who knows, you know, health situations and whatnot. But yeah, Peter, man, man.
01:36:40
Speaker
Well, there was a novel written in 1967 by Joan Lindsay, which, you know, eight years later, Peter Weir adapted into one of the, basically the movie that defined him and got him his Hollywood career. And, you know, it is this very, very disturbing movie about a group of girls in Australia who go on this, you know, the group of college girls who go on this Valentine's Day outing and they vanish.
01:37:07
Speaker
And it's not a mystery, really. It's a psychological exploration. It is an unusual, fascinating, powerful film. And it is gorgeous on 4K. I had only ever seen this thing before in projected, really bad 35mm prints that had just sort of lost all their color. This thing is just wonderfully shot, really
01:37:29
Speaker
It resurrects the film. There's an amazing onset documentary among the copious extras here, which has interviews with everybody right at the time. It's like onset, we're making a doc and it's tremendous. It really, really gives you a feel for what they were doing at the time. So this is just great. You got to get it. 4K, Picnic and Hanging Rock.
01:37:50
Speaker
Yeah, man. Peter, man, obviously, I can't, because you're just here in front of me, from picnic at Hanging Rock forward, right? The Last Wave. And I'm just skipping through Gallipoli, Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, Mosquito Coast, Did Full of Society, Green Card. Green Card, it's the first time I interviewed him, because it was here, and after that was Durod. Durod depredues for his first English language film, I think it might have been.
01:38:17
Speaker
And then Fearless, which of course we were talking about, not too terribly long ago, that Peter Riffick, that came up. Truman Show, Master and Commander. And incidentally, all these next four that we're talking about, they're all 4K Blu-ray combo editions. One of them I've been waiting for forever. I Am Cuba by Mikhail Kalatuzov. Sure,
Cinematic Gems: I Am Cuba to The Roaring Twenties
01:38:43
Speaker
I'm destroying it. 1964. I Am Cuba is a tremendous movie.
01:38:47
Speaker
And it's only been available before in this very special edition DVD that came in a cigar box, which I have had stored in the most delicate of storage conditions for the longest time, because it's just so cool, that cigar box. But I can get rid of it now.
01:39:04
Speaker
I Am Cuba, Soy Cuba, is this really amazing movie from 1964. It's a political and an artistic artifact of a moment that fills in a lot of blanks.
01:39:27
Speaker
that we still don't have properly filled in from that period. And Cuba was, I mean, everything related to Batista and Castro and the revolution and what happened there and the Bay of Pigs and everything about Cuba is such a fraught relationship with the United States and Cuban Missile Crisis and Kennedy and all of these things have kind of colored what Cuba is and what its relationship was to the Soviet Union at this point in time.
01:39:56
Speaker
Anyway, this movie really kind of gets inside all of that. A good chunk, because it's like these vignettes. Four vignettes. Four different vignettes. Yeah. It's pre-revolutionary.
01:40:11
Speaker
So you get the sense of what Cuba was like just before. And because people forget, even post-revolutionary, early post-revolutionary Cuba, the relationship between Cuba and the United States was still fairly cordial for a moment there. You see that in the Godfather, right? I mean, Michael Corleone, the Godfather films Michael Corleone is going to Cuba because they've got casino interests there and right there. I mean, it was a lot of American money that was-
01:40:41
Speaker
Before Castro came to the U.S., and who did he speak before? Was it the U.N.? Did he go to the U.N.? Castro? It might have been. Castro came, he went to the U.N., and that's when he said all that really commie crap. It started to go downhill from there. But for a moment there, because it's not like we really gave a damn about Batista. Anyway, that history is reflected in this film, is my point.
01:41:08
Speaker
It's all reflected in. It has a beautiful score by Carlos Farinhas. It's just beautifully made, beautifully put together. And there's a great interview with Martin Scorsese here from about 20 years ago. Yeah. And a 2004 documentary on the making of the film with everybody involved. It's a great 4K. It's a great 4K. It's a historic film and super important. The Roaring Twenties.
01:41:35
Speaker
super great Raul Walsh film made in 1939, that legendary year when just everything seemed to be amazing. This is just a great Raul Walsh gangster movie from the 1930s and Warner Brothers gangster film from the time and James Cagney and
01:41:56
Speaker
It's great. I mean, it's absolutely terrific. Everything in this movie just hums. Humphrey Bogart. It's just terrific. Priscilla Lane, who was not really a gangster mall. But, you know, Cagney is the star. It's funny to see Bogart kind of second fiddle to Cagney, really. But, you know, Frank McHugh, a lot of people who were just really regulars for Warner Brothers at the time, they were all stock players.
01:42:24
Speaker
And it's great, Raul Walsh, fantastic. And the nice thing here is that the story was co-written by Robert Rosson, who would go on to be his own kind of tough guy, filmmaker. So, a lot of great stuff there. Some good extras as well, but, you know, Roaring Twenties in 4K. Come on, give it up. It's a Warner Brothers gangster film. And Mathieu Kasevitz's Hate La N in 4K is pretty great. I remember being blown away by this film. I don't think Kasevitz has even come close to doing this since.
Artistic Storytelling: Hate La N to Werkmeister Harmonies
01:42:53
Speaker
Really just a tremendous movie that maybe the first film that got inside the ethnic friction in France between all of these different groups that were suddenly creating a very volatile mixture in the outskirts of Paris.
01:43:11
Speaker
You have North Africans, and you have Central Africans, and you have Asians and Middle Easterners, and it's like this immigrant stew that is really going to explode at some point. My goodness, this is amazing cinematography here. One of the great films of the 90s. Really great. Then the Werkmeister harmonies, Tim.
01:43:33
Speaker
Yes. Bellatards, Wehrmeister Harmonies, all 145 minutes of it from 2000.
01:43:43
Speaker
Bellatar, of course, the great Hungarian director, who is really an acquired taste, co-directed by Agnes Hrunitsky. She gets co-directing credit here. I'm not sure that was always the case. I'm going to tell the Lafka story. I don't know if I've told this before, but our dear friend and colleague, Bob Kohler in Lafka.
01:44:05
Speaker
Bob has is known for being like Bob sees so many movies at so many festivals that every year odd movies that odd festivals would yes yes Bob sees the movies that nobody else sees Bob used to be variety's go-to person if somebody said hey you know there's this like five and a half hour movie shot in a in a dead Indonesian island language and half the movie half the movie is is black screen you only hear sounds
01:44:35
Speaker
The editor would say, let's send Bob. And Bob would love it. He'd find something great to say about it. So this is in, I think, 2001, 2002, whenever it was, whenever Mulholland Drive was. So we're having our voting meeting at Mike Reschaffin's house.
01:44:54
Speaker
And we're all sitting there and going through the room and everybody is giving their point. I mean, it's ultimately best picture is a runoff between in the bedroom and Mulholland Drive. Everything that afternoon was Mulholland Drive versus in the bedroom. And in the bedroom winds up winning by a nose, right? By a nose. But it was Mulholland Drive and in the bedroom. Three points to Mulholland Drive. Two points for something, one point for something. Three points for in the bedroom, two points for Mulholland Drive, one point for some other damn thing.
01:45:23
Speaker
And this is one person after another, after another. I think I was like three points for Mulan Drive, two points for in the bedroom, on and on and on. There it goes, around the room. Gets around to Bob. Oh, three points for Bellatar's Werkmeister harmonies. And the room just absolutely erupts into laughter.
01:45:41
Speaker
People just start busting up. It's like, there goes Bob again. I was seeing a decent amount of movies at the time, but I'm like, who's what? What movie? What are you talking about? Bob looks around at the room and he points out, he waves his finger like he's scanning the room and he says to everybody very seriously, don't laugh if you haven't seen it.
01:46:11
Speaker
Yeah, and you know what? It's a pretty amazing movie. Oh, it's a beautiful movie. It's a beautiful movie. But I had no idea what it was. I didn't know at the time. No. But it is slow. Make no mistake, it is very slow. But it takes place in this mystical kind of village. And it's sort of a fairy tale about a society, a civilization in complete and total collapse. And it's all framed around this Fellini-esque circus.
01:46:41
Speaker
And, um...
01:46:43
Speaker
It really is. It's a haunting film. It's a deeply, deeply haunting film. It just kind of sticks in your head. And you're right about Agnes, because she was not always... She worked with Bella a lot in Turinhorse. And so that was a bit of a thing. They were married. Oh, see, I didn't even know that. Oh, yeah. And so if Bella was making a movie, she was there and lots of folks said that she probably should have gotten
01:47:13
Speaker
Yeah, interesting credit for him and a lot of things. So yeah one of those kind of situations
01:47:19
Speaker
And then our last two criterions, Blu-ray only, not 4K, but they're both pretty terrific. One is Dogfight, the Nancy Savoza film that paired a young River Phoenix with a young Lily Taylor and it's poetic and beautiful and it's wonderful. It's one of the few films, most films tend to be about an ugly person, tend to be about a beautiful girl who takes pity on an ugly guy.
01:47:45
Speaker
This is about this nasty game where these guys try to get whoever loses has to date the ugly girl, right? Wants to be the sweetest romance. It's just the sweetest thing in the world. I mean, Lily Taylor, so courageous to play that part.
01:48:03
Speaker
Oh, it just really super duper courageous early in her career. And just such a poignant and beautiful movie. So it's a 1991 movie. But I think it's set like if I recall correctly, maybe in the 50s or 60s or something like that.
01:48:20
Speaker
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's just really, really young River Phoenix who would not be with us that much longer. Very sad. And then the last one here is the brilliant Yasujiro Ozu did something amazing that I don't think any other filmmaker did other than Alfred Hitchcock, but Ozu did it right before Hitchcock.
01:48:42
Speaker
which is that he took, well, I guess you could say that Cecil B. DeMille did it with the Ten Commandments. But Ozu certainly was right in there in saying, I'm going to remake my own movie. In 1934, he made a movie called A Story of Floating Weeds, and in 1959,
01:49:04
Speaker
he made Floating Weeds, a remake of it, in color. So he took his 34 black and white movie, which was already magnificent, and he expanded the story, moved it to the seaside, shot it in color in 1959. And you know what? Both movies are amazing. They're just absolutely fantastic. But you learn a lot about Ozu's evolution as a filmmaker here, because there's 25 years between these films, right? I mean, there's 25 years of
01:49:32
Speaker
evolution as a filmmaker and as an artist and the way he perceives the world. You know what? They're both just absolutely beautiful and poetic and this is a wonderful thing to have on your shelf to learn from. It really is. It's great. Terrific. Ozu and his observational skills of Japanese society, just wonderful stuff. Let's go through a few of these radiance titles real fast.
01:49:59
Speaker
I'm not overly fond of some of these, but they're all significant, so we'll go through here real, real quickly. The Bounty Hunter Trilogy from Radiance, all three films by Shigahira Ozawa and Aichi Kudo. You know, great Japanese sword fight movies. They're fine. They were all made in the late 60s, early 70s.
01:50:23
Speaker
I don't like them as much as others. The movies are the fort of death, eight men to kill, and killer's mission. They're fine. If you're a fan of Japanese movies from that era, knock yourself out. You'll go absolutely nuts for it. Another Japanese filmmaker, Nabooru Nakamura, made The Shape of Sight, which is
01:50:43
Speaker
kind of an underground romance film from 1964. I don't really know who else to compare it to, but it gets really dark. It's not a happy romance. The guy pushes her into prostitution and he's an underground figure and it's pretty dark, but it is at the same time in the darkness is a great deal of poetry.
01:51:14
Speaker
From 1966, the Italian film Misunderstood by Luigi Cominici. Also, this is the Blu-ray premiere of this. Not one of my favorite films, but I know a lot of people love this film. It's an Italian melodrama.
01:51:34
Speaker
It's a little bit schmaltzy. It's a little bit, you know, it's a little cloying, but it is nonetheless popular. Better is the Paviani brothers' wonderful Alonzanfan. Alonzanfan, A-L-L-O-N-S-A-N-F-A apostrophe N. Try saying that 10 times quickly.
01:51:59
Speaker
Yes, from 1974, the Taviani brothers always lovely, make always wonderful. This is a great performance by Marcello Mastroianni. I don't want to compare it to Red Badge of Courage, although I think you probably could.
01:52:20
Speaker
It's one of those courage movies, right? It's about the movies about men who are cowards and have to evolve courage, but it's not a warmongering movie. It's not a guy about a guy who's the only way he finds courage is to become a martyr in war. He doesn't want to be a soldier and he has to, at a certain point, take advantage of circumstance to become the man he is meant to be, let's put it that way.
01:52:47
Speaker
Mastroianni is absolutely terrific in it. Black Tight Killers has been out before. I think it was
01:52:56
Speaker
I think the American Cinematheque had something to do with the prior release of this. Anyway, it's out again on Blu-ray from Radiance, made in 1966. And if you've seen Kill Bill, you have probably seen a fair amount of homage to this film. It's got a whole groovy vibe, a whole Japanese 60s go-go Austin Powers vibe to it.
01:53:20
Speaker
the color is just saturated it's got that late sixties mid sixties kind of real funky heavy psychedelic color and it's you know it's a crime film i mean it's a you know it's got about a female assassins who kidnapped this
01:53:41
Speaker
this war photographer and after that, they may as well just be go-go dancing for all I care. I mean, there's kind of a treasure hunt thing going on, but it really is. It's all about the filmmaking and the style. It's awfully fun. It's awfully fun. Primary colors, baby.
01:53:57
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. The Sunday Woman from 1975, another Luigi Comancini film. Again, not exactly my favorite, but it does have some good performances in it. Jacqueline Bissette, Marcello Masturiani, and Jean-Louis Trentignan are all absolutely superb. It's one of the first European films that got wide distribution here.
01:54:23
Speaker
in which homosexuality was treated as just very matter of fact. Jean-Louis Trentignon just happens to be Jacqueline Bessette's gay friend and that's it. It's not made a big deal of, but they do become murder suspects and that's what makes the film a little bit off center and interesting.
01:54:45
Speaker
I don't think it's great, but I think it's certainly worth watching. Goodbye and Amen. Goodbye and Amen, however someone wants to pronounce it, from 1977, also an Italian film by Damiano Damiani, one of the most unfortunate Italian names of all time. I'm probably going to catch flack for that. Email us at gods of digigods.com if you don't like me making fun of Damiano Damiani's name.
01:55:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's an espionage thriller, Claudia Cardinale, the only good thing in it, and that's a lot, right? We love Claudia. Too close. Yeah, but it's all about trying to overthrow. It's CIA and spies and trying to overthrow some banana republic in Africa. I didn't really vibe here, not heavily. Let's see five more here. Let me get through these as fast as I can.
01:55:35
Speaker
Kohei Oguru's The Sting of Death was a huge festival favorite in 1990. I remember it doing very well. I don't remember it ever getting a release in the United States, but it takes place after World War II.
01:55:59
Speaker
A couple, a writer, a writer and his wife, and she's going crazy. That's it. It's somebody going mad. It's one of those movies. People losing their minds. I don't know why. There's nothing else really to it. 1973, a bizarre movie called Messiah of Evil by Willard Huck and Gloria Katz, who are old George Lucas standbys, most famous for writing the disastrous Howard the Duck. Oh, yes.
01:56:24
Speaker
Be warned, Messiah of Evil is nothing like Howard the Duck, and I almost wish it were. I am not a huge fan of Will and Huck and Gloria Cats. I kind of think that they're... I don't know. It's just utterly bizarre. Anyway, this has
01:56:45
Speaker
This has extras on it, which I think are better than the movie, especially the documentary, which looks at the film in its own context in 1973 in terms of what was happening at the time that would produce such a film as this. I think the extras are very, very interesting. I think the movie itself, like there's a commentary on here from some horror archivists, which is pretty great. But otherwise, it's, you know what?
01:57:12
Speaker
It's just weird. This woman, she's been getting these scary letters from her dad, so she goes to visit him in his town, and then it just goes all Wicker Man, and it's not Howard the Duck. Yeah, it's just one of those movies where just don't get near that town. Look, if there's a house and nobody wants to go into the house,
01:57:36
Speaker
Don't go to the house. If there's a town and people are warning you about the town, I don't care if your dad lives there, tell him to leave. Say, dad, come visit me. It's your turn. Come see me. Don't go to the town. Just don't. Just don't.
01:57:51
Speaker
Alan Cavalier's Comba d'Enlil, also with Jean-Louis Trentignon, very impressive performance from Trentignon, from 1962, pretty legendary year. Trentignon is a very interesting political film, especially for Cavalier, but Trentignon is a
01:58:15
Speaker
He's a sort of a spy. He's kind of like a fascist terrorist of sorts. And he becomes a wanted man and he has to flee and kind of go into hiding to avoid from being discovered. And you would think, poor guy, how are you going to survive that? Well, you know how he survives it? Romy Schneider is his wife. That works out pretty well.
01:58:45
Speaker
And then the last two here, The Facts of Murder, which was a very, very successful Italian film in 1959, did very well with awards and on the awards circuit. Again, Claudia Cardinale.
01:59:01
Speaker
is wonderful in this film. Cannot get enough of her. Pietro Germi is the director and the star of this, right? And it's basically a noir. It's a noir all about robbery and murder and Claudia Cardinale. And I don't really care if they catch the bad guy or not. I don't care if the money's recovered. I don't care if anything's recovered. I don't care if the world disintegrates. Just point that camera at Claudia Cardinale. And everything will be fine.
01:59:29
Speaker
And big week for Japanese films. We're going to end on one here in this batch. We need to end the show. My goodness, we're at two hours. So it's time to wrap up. Yuzo Kawashima from 1962, a Japanese filmmaker I am not that familiar with, but the film Elegant Beast is really a nice artifact from a very rich Japanese era.
01:59:52
Speaker
And it's kind of a nice contrast to the Ozu films that we're mentioning previously. Because Ozu is the one everybody always points to is like, oh, this is what Japanese life was like at the time. But this is a much darker look at Japanese life. This is about a family who shows one, you know, they appear to be one way outwardly to people that know them.
02:00:14
Speaker
And they are, they have, boy do they have, there's some nasty stuff going on behind the scenes with this family. So it's based on a stage play. Very, very compelling. Really, really well shot. Very, very disturbing. Cool film. It's called Elegant Beast by Yuzo Kawashima, written by Kaneto Shindo. Really cool film. So definitely check that out. I think it's neat. I think it's a little bit like Parasite in summer.
02:00:44
Speaker
cards. Interesting. So I think that, yeah, it made me think. I'm like, I could see this as kind of being an inspiration on some level for Parasite. So there it is. Oh, you know what?
02:00:53
Speaker
Let's end on the Warner Archive films here, because I want to end on Cabinet in the Sky, Little Drummer Girl, and The Rain People, because Coppola's Megalopolis is going to screen this week at Cannes. So in honor of Coppola, who we already talked about once today with One from the Heart, his really, really underrated movie, The Rain People,
02:01:19
Speaker
is now out on on blu-ray for more archive and i barely knew about like i kinda knew about this movie but i you know you never really had any interest in seeing it cuz it's a super early couple of film and you know how good can his earliest movies be. Boy it's pretty darn good. Yeah well jimmy and charlie night robert of all you know that that the in their youngest versions yeah.
02:01:42
Speaker
Oh my gosh, they're all so good, especially Shirley Knight. Oh, she's so young and beautiful in this movie. She's just great here. It's really terrific. This movie was made in 1969. You watch it, it is a really wonderful drama. It's very uncouple alike. They shot this in 18 states.
02:02:07
Speaker
18 different states, if you can believe that. It's a great road trip. It's wonderful. A woman just bails on her husband and bolts from Long Island on one morning and it becomes a little kind of easy rider-ish and James Kahn and Robert Duvall are young and amazing and pre-Godfather and it's a great movie.
02:02:27
Speaker
Yeah, Eleanor's in it. Yeah, she is. Who just passed? I know, Eleanor Coppola. We didn't do an O-bit on Eleanor Coppola, but we should make mention of that. Yeah, she should have been among those O-bits. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
02:02:42
Speaker
Diane Keaton and Little Drummer Girl, which I always frickin' hated. George Roy Hill directed this. Man, when I saw this movie the first time in 1984, I hated this film. I thought it was boring and lame and, you know, I don't get it. It's John Le Carre. It's not suspenseful. It's not exciting. I want to see a spy movie. And watching it again, I think Young Me was an idiot.
02:03:06
Speaker
Really, you know, you change your opinions of things. No, seeing it again, I thought it's pretty powerful in Klasky Institute. Very, very good in this film. Given present day international events around the Middle East and Palestinians and all of that kind of stuff it did, you know, it was really Masada's involved in an undercover thing and the Palestinian ended bomb, it's a whole thing.
02:03:32
Speaker
It is timely. It is deeply timely. And then let's go out on MGM's wonderful musical from the Arthur Freed era, 1943's Cabin in the Sky, based on the hit Broadway musical, incredibly well-directed by Vincent Minnelli. And, you know, what a cast here. I mean, what an unbelievable cast.
02:03:55
Speaker
Oh my God, Louis. Tremendous movie that helped break down a lot of racial barriers at the time because you had movies that were made for black audiences and you had movies made for white audiences. It's 1943. It's still a war. And you know what? This was a hit on Broadway and everybody went to see this. This was a huge crossover hit. It made a giant star out of Lena Horne.
02:04:21
Speaker
made a giant sore out of Lena Horne. Louis Armstrong was already a crossover hit, as was Duke Ellington. They're both here. And Eddie Anderson, man, Rochester, from the radio, you know, Jack Benny's Rochester, he's just so... And Butterfly McQueen. It's just really a wonderful, and there's a great narrative in this movie, too. Budsby Berkeley, uncredited, of course.
02:04:50
Speaker
It's interesting, yes, he directed some of the best moments in this thing, which are tremendous, which are tremendous, yeah. It's a beautiful movie. It's a beautiful, beautiful movie. And I wish they'd resurrected on the stage, because it would be great to do this on the stage today. I think somebody on Broadway should do a revival of this. I really do.
02:05:13
Speaker
Anyway, you know happiness is just a thing called Joe. Take a chance on love. I mean some of these songs you've heard them. Sweet George Brown? You just don't know what they're from, but they're all from this. Lina was George Brown. Anyway, yes, it's fantastic.
02:05:28
Speaker
So get that Warner Archive collection. It's absolutely sensational. And with that, so we are over time. I'm stag this week. My girls are on holiday. Well, not holiday. It's a school field trip, but they're at Yosemite. The daughter's at Yosemite with the whole fifth grade class and my wife got sacked into being a chaperone, so she's
02:05:52
Speaker
So so so so school is not out or they were to the summer That's interesting We're out in June second week in June or in my first week, it's like you start the beginning of the second week in June no
02:06:08
Speaker
But this is a fifth grade class tradition going back many years and they go up to Yosemite and they learn about nature and they take walks and field trips and learn to be self-sufficient. But what it basically is, it's supposed to be a big baptism by fire coming of age experience that gets you ready for middle school.
02:06:31
Speaker
That's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to sort of shock your system a little bit. It's like, have you grown up now? Have you grown up now? That's it. You know, it's supposed to smack you around a little bit and get it together. And so these kids now, they're like, oh, I got to do all this stuff by myself and carry my own suitcase and my own stuff and make my own bed. And so they allegedly, they're supposed to come back transformed and ready for sixth grade. I don't know how true that is, but that's the idea.
02:06:57
Speaker
That was fantastic. I love it. I love it. I love it. That's the idea. That's the idea. All right. So with that, everybody, thank you for listening. And we'll be back in a few weeks.
02:08:26
Speaker
Bye!