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DigiGods Episode 32: Vintage Variety
52 Plays9 years ago
This week, three great directors, three great Blu-rays: Robert Altman's The Player, Michael Mann's Manhunter (featuring the first movie appearance of Hannibal Lecter) and Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion. Plus, a Voxbox!
DigiGods Podcast, 05/24/16 (MP3) — 33.69 MB
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In this episode, the Gods discuss:
- 10 That Changed America (DVD)
- Agent Cody Banks (Blu-ray)
- Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London (Blu-ray)
- Art House (DVD)
- Bad Influence (Blu-ray)
- Bannister: Everest On the Track (DVD)
- Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood (DVD-R)
- Codegirl (DVD)
- Dreams Rewired (DVD)
- Ecuador: The Royal Tour (DVD)
- The First 100 Years (DVD-R)
- French Postcards (Blu-ray)
- Hired to Kill (Blu-ray/DVD)
- I Know A Woman Like That (DVD)
- I Saw What You Did (Blu-ray)
- Iphigenia (Blu-ray)
- Killer Force (Blu-ray)
- The King and Four Queens (Blu-ray)
- The Legend of Lost (DVD)
- Manhunter [Collector's Edition] (Blu-ray)
- Marianne (DVD-R)
- A Married Woman (Blu-ray)
- Matthew Barney: No Restraint (DVD)
- Mediterranea (DVD)
- The Messenger (Blu-ray)
- The Naked Island (Blu-ray)
- NOVA: Iceman Reborn (DVD)
- NOVA: Memory Hackers (DVD)
- Of Men and War (DVD)
- On The Threshold Of Space (Cinema Archives) (DVD-R)
- Packed in a Trunk (DVD)
- The Player (Blu-ray)
- The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (Blu-ray)
- Race For The Yankee Zephyr (Limited Edition Collection) (DVD-R)
- Rich Kids (Blu-ray)
- River of Grass (Blu-ray)
- The Sum of Us (Blu-ray)
- Susan Slept Here (Blu-ray)
- Suspicion (Blu-ray)
- That's Sexploitation! (Blu-ray)
- Theory of Obscurity: A Film About the Residents (Blu-ray)
- Toyen (DVD)
- Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art (DVD)
- Welcome to Leith (DVD)
- The Whoopee Boys (Blu-ray)
- A Yank at Oxford (DVD-R)
- Year of the Comet (Limited Edition Collection) (DVD-R)
- Zapped (Blu-ray)
Please also visit CineGods.com.
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Transcript
Mario Mendez's Contributions and Intros
00:00:21
Speaker
Gentlemen, Mario Mendez here, driving, foggy. And I wanted to ask you guys a couple of questions. A question and a comment. Let's start with the question first. What happened to the intros? What are the intros? I wrote a lot of intros. I have an ego. I want to hear myself. And I'm bringing back a box box because, damn it, nobody's doing any box boxes. We're the digigods, damn it, they're going to represent. Anyway, a question.
00:00:48
Speaker
uh... and please correct me wait if i'm wrong but uh... i don't want to have maybe five years back i think you said digital copy what what's the point of having a digital locker you got the blu-ray got this what we need to talk about
Netflix Recommendations and Future Content
00:01:04
Speaker
uh... obviously the world's changed and and uh... when you can stream movies on phone and uh... the question i wanted to ask is i know you you know the home video market is what you review
00:01:17
Speaker
But there's a lot of things that are airing now that are exclusive to Amazon, exclusive to Netflix that you guys aren't reviewing. So if I may, I want to make a recommendation myself. If you have Netflix, there's this new thriller called Hush. It's a little bit like Wait Until Dark. I don't want to give anything away. But it does require two things from you. One is to have a really good sound system or watch it with headphones, because that has a very dynamic sound mix.
00:01:44
Speaker
The second thing, probably the hardest thing for home video, and that's your undivided attention because it is about an 82-minute thriller, I'd say maybe seven minutes of dialogue. And so it requires a lot of focus. But it's really, really good. I just recommend that one. And I wanted to see if you guys in the future, you know, will recommend things, you know, that aren't available through disk.
00:02:09
Speaker
be it, you know, Daredevil or Unsinkable. Wait, what's it called? Wait, keep the tape rolling. Keep it on Star Wars. Hang on. Unbreakable kimushvit. No, damn it. Yeah, Unbreakable kimushvit. Anyway, so enjoy and any thoughts?
Praise for Mario & Production Delays
00:02:27
Speaker
Thanks.
00:02:27
Speaker
And thank you, Mario, the wonderful Mario Mendez, such a loyal listener and always a great contributor, and of course the brother of the great Mike Mendez, who in my opinion should be directing stuff like the Jurassic World sequel, or the Godzilla sequel, which just lost... I know, Gareth Edwards. Gareth Edwards is his director. So, yeah, I'm officially lobbying for Mendez's touch to make its way over to the... That sounds dirty. Thank you, doesn't it?
00:02:56
Speaker
Anyway, so thank you, Mario. Hoping your brother gets one of those big studio shots at some point because he'd do a much better job. He really would do a much better job. He should be on the Godzilla on shortlist at this point. Anyway, so quick question, quick answers to the questions. The intros,
00:03:11
Speaker
I still have to finish producing them. That's Wade's fault, by the way. It is. It's entirely my fault. You have them all. I've got a toddler. I've had, like, you know, a film festival chores at Kolkawa. And I don't know how to do it. And Mark doesn't know how to do it. And then I've got the film week radio this week, and I've got movies coming out of my ears, left and right. So I just have not set the time aside to do it.
00:03:33
Speaker
I will do it after the show. That is a promise. I will get it done.
New Synagogue Website Plans
00:03:38
Speaker
You promised that earlier. You know what? I actually have some time now. My whole incredible, ridiculous streak of April and May stuff, all my chores are finally thinning out a little bit. Plus, I got sideswiped by the crazy lady in the car. What happened with that? The cops can't find her. They have no way of tracking her down. I talked, honestly. I kid you not. Let me finish answering Mike's questions.
00:04:02
Speaker
Mario's questions. So anyway, hush, really interesting. We should check that out. There's a lot of great stuff on Amazon and Netflix that we really, we just don't have a chance to get to. And the website, of course, the Sydney Gods website is still coming. It's just a matter. Again, my fault for putting it on ice because of other commitments, but that's actually going to go into overdrive this week.
00:04:26
Speaker
It will. And you will be on the email chain that will... You get to drive this thing this week. Well, if you drive, it'll take forever. It'll take forever. I will email the web designer a hundred times a day and direct them in the right way. Brilliant. I'm going to turn that whole monster over to you this week.
Content Ideas for the Website
00:04:43
Speaker
By the way, we can say this too. Is there anything you'd like to see?
00:04:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. On the website. Yeah. Like Wade and I are launching a Synagogue's website. The moment Wade gets off his ass and forwards me the name of the person we've used to design the damn thing. And we're figuring out, you know, what we'd like to see on it. Obviously, the podcast will be on it. Some of our writings will be on it. New writings, maybe old writings. And that was the other thing, which is that, yes, all of this stuff that we don't get to really deal with on the podcast, that we'll begin to be able to sort of explore that and bring other writers on and
00:05:16
Speaker
and let that become a part of the overall kind of umbrella world that we're going to have on the site. So there will be reviews and blogs and tech reviews and all kinds of other interesting things over time. So we will steadily grow this,
Humorous Website Suggestions
00:05:31
Speaker
and by all means email us, gods at digigods.com, and let us know what functions and functionality and features on the site you want to see. No naked pictures of Wade. I'm just putting it out there. I'm not interested. Nobody's interested.
00:05:45
Speaker
I will put that behind a firewall. How about that? Behind a paywall. I'll put it behind a paywall. Exactly. There's no amount of money people would pay for that. In fact, I will pay you not to look at that. Do we answer his question? Yes, we did.
Parenting Anecdotes and British Influence
00:06:01
Speaker
I think we answered it. So yes. Mario, you wrote some awesome intros and we're going to get those suckers up there.
00:06:09
Speaker
I have a toddler. Have I mentioned that I'm Pink Flamingo? Have I mentioned this? You have not. Okay, I'm Pink Flamingo now. Because her newest thing, Peppa Pig's still a fan, Shawn the Sheep's still a fan. She's still a fan of all this stuff, but she has discovered Sarah and Duck, which is another British show. It's all British. That's why my daughter says Walter and not water. See, that's not good. It's not good. Not good? No, she's not British.
00:06:34
Speaker
But she says Walter. Yeah, but you know, like Madonna, remember Madonna was affecting a British accent when we made fun of her. Yeah. Don't don't don't do that to her. Well, you know what? Christie reinforces it. Christie says Walter so that she keeps saying it because she thinks it's cute.
00:06:47
Speaker
Then what I would do is I would go, you're very tendologically advanced, I would go in and I would ADR all of the Peppa pigs. So that is all American accents. That's what I'm going to do. Well, anyway, Harvey Fierstein. She loves Sarah and Duck, which is my little girl named Sarah and her duck. But they also have a friend named John who has a pet pink flamingo. So somehow, now she runs around the house quacking because she's a duck.
00:07:15
Speaker
and mommy is sarah and somehow for whatever reason i am pink flamingo so uh we went from calling me daddy to calling me wade which was really which is still kind of a thing but for substantial portions of the day i am referred to as pink flamingo so you may refer to me as pink flamingo if you wish i will not that you know what that'll be your name uh behind the paywall what are your new photos are
Listener Engagement and Wrestling Book
00:07:40
Speaker
All right, so real quickly, also off the top, and Mario, thank you again for the question. Others who want to send in VoxBoxes, gods at digigods.com, gods at digigods.com. Send us emails, whatever you want. Greatest 100 Matches is a book.
00:07:56
Speaker
from WWE. And we don't often talk about books, but I just felt like I know a lot of our fans are into wrestling. And this is actually kind of a nice book. This is from the DK people who do a lot of these nonfiction kind of coffee table books. And it's nice. It's got a lot of full color stuff. And if you're really into wrestling, this is one that should be right on your coffee table.
00:08:23
Speaker
All of your guests can read up on the 100 Greatest Matches. All right. Mark, shall we?
Documentary Reviews: Sexploitation Films
00:08:32
Speaker
We got a lot of docs.
00:08:34
Speaker
We've got a lot of docs to cover, so let's dive through this stack of documentaries that has sort of piled up over a while. I want to start with That's Sexploitation, which is very near and dear to my heart because of course Ray, who was here some weeks ago in a weird surrogate,
00:08:56
Speaker
mode. Ray and I made a documentary over a decade ago called Schlock the Secret History of American Movies and interviewed a lot of these people like David Friedman and a lot of people who were really Doris Wishman who were central to the whole sexploitation era and we got a lot of really great cooperation from something weird
00:09:15
Speaker
Something Weird Video was really wonderful to us. They didn't charge us for per minute or per second for using clips. It was a flat fee deal. We couldn't have made the documentary otherwise because most of these films are in the Something Weird library. They gave us basically a flat fee, full access to all their material for a flat amount. It was wonderful and enabled us to make the movie.
00:09:37
Speaker
And so we are endlessly indebted to Mike Vrainey over there for doing that for us. Anyway, Mike Vrainey of Something Weird produced this.
Sexploitation Films as American Film History
00:09:51
Speaker
So this is sort of his end of it, written and directed and edited by Frank Hennenlotter. I'm not going to say that our film is better. I'm not going to say that this film is better. It's different.
00:10:01
Speaker
And the two really go together, and there's more than you can say about this particular era and these particular films than can be summed up even in two films. It really is a totality that needs to be addressed in a scholarly fashion. And all of these films are part and parcel of the story and all different perspectives. And so I would say this is a lovely Blu-ray, and I really do highly recommend it. David Friedman, of course, is all over this thing. And you get a commentary.
00:10:29
Speaker
with Lisa Petrucci from Something Weird and Frank Hennenlotter, the director. And it's really, really good. Now, I should also point out that Mike Vrainey
00:10:39
Speaker
who produced it and who, of course, was the brain behind something weird video and with whom we met when we made the deal. He has since passed on. So, Braney was not able to do the commentary and to sort of contribute his perspective on this, but it would not have been possible without him. So, you know, if you, all, Sexploitation films specifically are the subject of this and
00:11:03
Speaker
You know, you don't get into obviously slasher films and gore films and a lot of the other things that we touched on. This is very, very specifically the sexploitation era, but it is a really, really... Don't sell it short. It doesn't treat it cheap. It doesn't treat it like, you know, some big comic joke from the 60s. It treats it as it deserves to be treated, which is...
00:11:24
Speaker
is a genuinely fascinating and vital piece of American film history. Worth considering, definitely something that isn't talked about enough. So that's Sexploitation from Sebrin. By all means, check it out. Wait, there's an artist named Matthew Barney. He's married to Bjork. They're weird, both
Exploring Matthew Barney's Artistic World
00:11:42
Speaker
of them. They are weird. Next film.
00:11:45
Speaker
He did a film that actually I saw called Drawing Restraint 9. And in this film, it takes place on this Japanese whaling vessel. And there's like 45,000 pounds of petroleum jelly artist vessel. And he's using it for an art project. It's a bizarre, bizarre movie. He's a weird man. Because Matthew Barney is a bizarre, weird man. And if you want to get a sense of what Matthew Barney is really like, I would definitely check out on DVD, No Restraint, which is a film by Alison Chernick.
00:12:15
Speaker
And it is all about the creation of Drawing Restraint 9 and how strange Barney is and how we went to Japan and collaborated with Bjork and they created this gigantic
00:12:28
Speaker
thing that involved a welling vessel and Japanese rituals and tens of thousands of pounds of petroleum jelly. And you really get a sense of one of the most iconoclastic, unique, singular artists really of our time. There was actually retrospective of his stuff in LA recently.
00:12:51
Speaker
Matthew Barney is a very, very strange man.
Roger Bannister's Four-Minute Mile
00:12:54
Speaker
And if you think that, you know, like whoever you could say is weird, like whatever artist you could David Lynch, David, Matthew Barney, so far beyond that the body makes David Lynch look look like Disney.
00:13:04
Speaker
I had to review a Matthew Barney film once with Andy Klein on film week, and all I remember from that very strange thing, it had something to do with, there was some vehicle that he created or something, but basically a substantial portion of the film consists of footage of him as he crawls
00:13:27
Speaker
into some space underneath, and I'm barely able to recall this because I was so horrified, he crawls into some space underneath this vehicle and basically stimulates his, well let's put it this way, he stimulates his shaft by rubbing it on the crankshaft.
00:13:48
Speaker
How's that? You're watching this and I think there was clay or paper mache involved. I can't remember. It's not pornography. It's weird performance art stuff. And you just look at this and you're saying, I don't know where this comes from and I don't know where it's going. For some reason, at one point he became so obsessed with testicles that he wound up with a five film cycle all about how much. And again, it's not pornographic. No. He's just a really unique
00:14:17
Speaker
Oh, that's one way of putting it. I mean, imagine being in that house with it. You know what? He and Bjork are probably totally normal at home. They probably sit around saying, hey, you want to watch CSI? Let's order out. Let's get Chinese. Uh-oh, you going out? Well, put on the weird outfit because we don't want people thinking we're normal. All right. Bannister, Everest on the track, the Roger Bannister story. If you don't know who Roger Bannister was, you need to. British guy who broke the four-minute aisle.
00:14:44
Speaker
And he's really a fascinating figure. I'm kind of surprised that a better narrative film has never been done about him. But anyway, this is a nice brisk little 70-minute documentary all about Roger Bannister and his amazing accomplishment and his whole life and backstory and all that stuff.
00:15:03
Speaker
Really interesting. Fascinating guy. And it's a totally worthwhile story. Very nicely
The Residents: Anonymity and Surrealism
00:15:10
Speaker
told. Nothing groundbreaking or earth-shattering. But if you don't know the story you need to, it's just one of those great sports stories that
00:15:19
Speaker
Because he's not competing against a team. He's competing against time. And a lot of people thought it was impossible, and now people break the four-minute mile routinely. So it's no longer a big deal. And guys run marathons and run like 430 miles for two hours continuously. But anyway.
00:15:40
Speaker
Really interesting little movie. Then we got on the Don Hardy documentary here, Theory of Obscurity, a film about the residents. If you don't know who the residents are, as long as we're on the subject of weirdness, residents are definitely on the Matthew Barney weird scale. The residents are what happens if David Lynch were to re-conceptualize Blue Man Group while on
00:16:06
Speaker
I don't know, meth or something. The residents are a very strange group and they're famous basically for the wearing giant eyeballs on their heads as masks.
00:16:21
Speaker
That's kind of what defines them, but their videos are some of the tweaked, weirdest, most surreal and bizarre and disturbing things that you will ever see. If you go online and just search for the residents and look at any of those videos which are online, it'll kind of
00:16:36
Speaker
you'll have nightmares for weeks. So anyway, they've been around for decades and decades, and they've made over 60 albums, and nobody knows who they really are. That's what makes this thing so deeply, even more disturbing than you would think just from the visuals and the music itself. So it's entirely possible there's a lot, and likely that a lot of different people have played, been a part of this, and it's kind of like a secret club.
00:17:05
Speaker
in many respects, like this weird covert clandestine club that you get invited to. It's like Freemasonry in some way and no one knows how many of them and who they are. It's very weird. So anyway, Don Hardy somehow convinced the manager of the residence to let him
Mediterranea: Migrant Journeys to Italy
00:17:23
Speaker
basically be fly on the wall and to document, you know, this whole weird world that they've created. And that's what this is. And it is, I can't say it's something I really liked, but it was certainly very, very interesting. Well, speaking of very, very interesting,
00:17:45
Speaker
Absolutely heartbreaking film. This played at Cannes Critics Week last year. This is all about African migrants who want to take the rather dangerous journey via boat to Italy and hoping for a better life. And it's all about best friends. They're in Burkina Faso and they want to go to Italy. So, you know, the plight of immigrants obviously is a big deal here in the United States with Donald Trump, you know, our future president.
00:18:18
Speaker
It's the strangest year. No one knows what's going to happen here. The whole world is watching us and just thinking, is this a show? Is this what Americans are becoming? Somebody's going to walk out at some point and go, no, no, we're really kidding. But anyway.
00:18:34
Speaker
Anyway, so this thing, it's just riveting. It's a nonprofessional cast, a lot of sharply observed moments. It's just really interesting stuff, Mediterranean. It's just a beautiful, humanistic look at the immigrant experience. And again, it did play a can, so obviously there's some pedigree there. And yeah, you may want to totally check this thing out if you're into foreign cinema. If you're into documentaries, you remember a bunch of years ago there was a documentary called Winged Migration, 2001, all about big birds flying,
The Messenger: Songbirds in Peril
00:19:04
Speaker
made everybody love birds just like the penguin doc made everybody love penguins march to the penguins now we have another documentary that's similar to wing migration called the messenger and the messenger is all about songbirds
00:19:17
Speaker
And I got to tell you, the guy who shot this thing, Daniel Grant, is just gorgeous. All these up close and super slow-mo shots of these songbirds is just gorgeous. And the movie, what it really is, is sort of this call to action because I guess songbirds are becoming extinct. And so they want to kind of get you into the whole songbird thing and give you a sense that these birds are beautiful and they're important. And yeah.
00:19:46
Speaker
This guy, Grant, he shot this thing at frame rates of up to like a thousand frames a second. A film is 24 frames a second. That's like some high-speed photography. He shot this thing a thousand frames per second to get super slow-mo. You can only do that with digital cameras these days. He did it by very, very quickly cranking. Oh, he did it with a crank, like an old silent film camera. He had to really bench press to be able to get up to that crank speed.
00:20:15
Speaker
How do you really get the lats going? Anyway, this thing is, it's a beautiful documentary and it's important. And obviously when it comes to these sort of activist documentaries, we're into like, now it's all these big things like global warming and the end of the world and whatnot. Here's a small documentary about a very fascinating subject that is beautifully shot and totally worth watching. It is called The Messenger.
00:20:36
Speaker
Nice. So here's a really just deeply disturbing film.
Welcome to Leith: White Supremacy in North Dakota
00:20:42
Speaker
It's called Welcome to Laith. I like this thing. Did you like this? I did. Man, it's disturbing though. It is. It's creepy that this could happen. This takes place in North Dakota, and it's about this white supremacist who basically attempts to sort of take over to dominate an entire small town.
00:21:02
Speaker
And against the will of the people, to be
Of Men and War: Veterans and PTSD Treatment
00:21:06
Speaker
honest. And it's really disturbing. The guy in question is Craig Cobb, who I am not familiar with. I don't really keep him. Why would you want to be familiar with the white supremacist? Well, I don't know. A lot of them are famous. You sort of know some of these like Metzger. And there's a lot of these guys who they scream, what's David Duke? There's a lot of them who sort of, they're loud mouths and they make the news because they do notorious things. I've never heard of this guy. And I figure, OK, if this guy has the means, the resources,
00:21:31
Speaker
to create this much trouble, and he's below the radar, that's kind of scary, because that's somebody who could cause him trouble. And indeed he does. Let me guess, he's voting for Trump. Yeah. Actually, there was a really interesting interview with the Metzger guy about Trump. You should look it up. It's fascinating. They asked him, I think it was the rap that went and dug him up.
00:21:56
Speaker
And asked him and said, so KKK people are supporting Trump. How do you feel about that? It is the weirdest interview that transpires. It really is. It is surreal. These people are just deranged. So anyway, speaking of deranged, this guy's deranged too, but he's dangerous. And it really is a disturbing, scary film, but you sort of need to know that this goes on. On a brighter side, well somewhat brighter side, of men and war,
00:22:23
Speaker
is a documentary about war veterans who are suffering from PTSD and their uh... the treatment process and how it affects their lives at a place called pathway home where uh... you get these unique really advanced PTSD therapies and uh... putting your lives back together again this is a it's a two and a half hour long movie it can be very grueling at times but it is incredibly a life affirming and it'll bring it to tears it really will uh... it it's it finds hope
00:22:52
Speaker
in an almost hopeless set of circumstances.
Art House: Homes as Art
00:22:57
Speaker
A documentarian named Don Freeman, a lot of great doc makers out there, did a really fine film called Art House, which I like architecture. I have good friends who are very daring and kind of innovative artists slash architects. And I like architecture that's not just, OK, here we're going to build a thing, but we're going to
00:23:17
Speaker
We're going to make it kind of a presentation unto itself. We're going to do something that's artful and architectural all at the same time. And that is very much what this is about.
00:23:26
Speaker
It is a really, really fascinating look at a particular kind of architecture that turns homes and living spaces into works of art. I don't know the names in particular of any of the architects that are covered in here, but what a fascinating world and what interesting ways of taking something that is otherwise mundane
00:23:50
Speaker
to a lot of people and making it really, really daring. Very interesting. And then Code Girl from Keno Lorber is an okay documentary about a competition, a worldwide competition that tries to encourage more women to become computer programmers.
Code Girl: Women in Coding Competitions
00:24:09
Speaker
Because most coders, most people who write programs and apps and work in the computer field and do coding are men.
00:24:15
Speaker
And not any great reason for that other than it seems that it's culturally acceptable for men to do it and for boys to do it and it's a nerdy thing and girls don't, it's not like a girly thing to do. So there's a competition that encourages women all over the school, all over the world in different schools to participate in writing code and writing apps and these work groups. And that's basically what this is about. It's all these teams from all over the world who are trying to get to win a $10,000 prize for this international competition.
00:24:44
Speaker
And it's a little bit too much of a subject to bite off, but many of the girls are really, really cool and you learn a lot about these different cultures and what they're facing and what they're struggling with and the taboos they're trying to beat and a lot of the socioeconomic barriers.
00:25:02
Speaker
and yet they're, you know, they're writing apps that do all these interesting things for their communities and for their neighborhoods. So, it's a good film. Probably should be better. It's a little bit too much of a subject to tackle in one documentary, but it's still very, very, it's, you know, it's pleasant to watch. It's affirming. Good subject.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yes, Wade? Yes. Your turn. From memory, from Nova's memory hackers. And, you know, as somebody who can't remember jackass anymore, it's the worst. Are we continuing last week's dementia senility theme? Is that what we're doing?
00:25:36
Speaker
I was curious about this. What is this about? Memory hackers. Memory, okay. It's about how we remember things, how we remember our past and how far back our memory goes and where we put my key memories and key moments of our lives, where do they go from a neuron perspective, you know?
Memory Hackers: Exploring Memory Science
00:25:55
Speaker
And these guys, they can use this research, this total cutting edge 24th century research, to kind of get a sense from a molecular level how memory works. They talk to this kid, I think he's like 10 or 11, but they talk to this kid who remembers everything he's ever experienced in his life.
00:26:16
Speaker
cuz he's some sort of memory freak sweet and so what they did is they they they killed him and uh... cut his brain open up uh... so uh... yes it's it's it's all about the uh... the mind how memory works how the mind could be used to to trick yourself and how the mind could be used and where memories go as you get older how they disappear and i found this thing totally exciting memory hackers told them to us what effect
00:26:39
Speaker
I barely remember watching it because I have Alzheimer's at this point, but that was a joke. But I did like it very much. Memory happens. It's kind of a joke. Sort of a joke. Maybe it's for folks who are losing their memory, like me. So a couple here on art, a couple of interesting art-centric documentaries.
Rediscovering Edith Lake Wilkinson
00:26:55
Speaker
Packed in a Trunk is all about Edith Lake Wilkinson, who, again, I don't follow enough of the art world to have known why she's significant.
00:27:06
Speaker
She is famous, she is a lesbian artist. That doesn't mean she does lesbian art, there's no such thing. But it is significant because, you know, when you are a lesbian and you're growing up in the 1940s, that suddenly creates its own barriers to becoming a successful artist.
00:27:27
Speaker
In this case, that barrier was that she was sent to an asylum and that effectively ended her life. And her genius was all packed away in trunks and thrown into an attic. And it wasn't until years later when her great niece, Jane Anderson, who is actually an award-winning television producer,
00:27:45
Speaker
and writer and director and has worked on all kinds of really great things for HBO and other networks. She basically is the one who unravels this and suddenly we have all of this amazing art that was locked away because of certain taboos at the time.
00:28:08
Speaker
And the artist had her career and her life prematurely ended. And it's an incredibly tragic life that comes to light through some amazing, sort of redeemed by all of these amazing paintings. And they are amazing. They are almost Van Gogh-like in their use of color and their use of perspective and just the way that she saw the world.
00:28:29
Speaker
It makes you sad and happy all at the same time. So definitely worth checking out. This is Packed in a Trunk, really a wonderful, wonderful film. And then slightly less wonderful, but perhaps equally interesting in many respects, is an essay movie called Toyin, which is a documentary about Toyin, who is a surrealist Czech painter, directed by the Czech new wave director Jan Nemek.
00:28:58
Speaker
Jan Nemec or Nemecz, depending on how you choose to pronounce it, very influential Czech new wave director and tries to sort of illuminate the work of Toyin in a political context here. That's the whole idea because being opposed to Czech communism during that period was a
Dreams Rewired: Evolution of Communication
00:29:23
Speaker
you know, was really what, you know, art was your protest, art was your weapon. So that's what the approach is here. This is essentially an essay film, and it is a DVD-R, so you have to order it directly from Facets, and it is worth checking out if you are an art film or an art history film buff. I'm not quite sure how to explain
00:29:50
Speaker
a documentary called Dreams Rewired. All I can say is that it was completely fascinating. It was directed by three people, and it's actually very academic, but when you watch it, you sort of see a theme emerging. It uses early film.
00:30:06
Speaker
early radio talks about television and all these different means of communication and how they have connected all of us together and sort of driven technology into the future. Because as a people, we are a naturally connected people. We want to be connected by shared experiences. Sure. I don't really want to be connected to you, but I get what you mean. You made a more general sense. Because of the paywall of news. Yeah, exactly.
00:30:34
Speaker
And so you get something like maybe from the telephone where you could call somebody in another city connect themselves with them Whereas you only do that via mail sure you get something like like film where people People say don't realize that
00:30:50
Speaker
early film was like 80% of the country would go see a film every week because it was the first, even more than the theater, the first truly mass communication experience that everybody wanted to experience on a weekly basis.
00:31:06
Speaker
And then came television, where you get 50 million people at the time in the early days, 50 million people watching the same show. So again, it gets rather academic, but this documentary fascinating called Dreams Rewired is all about how these shared experiences help shape who we are and help shape the future. So I would definitely check this out, Dreams Rewired. It is such a big subject, took three people to direct this thing, but it was
00:31:32
Speaker
It was narrated in rather unique fashion by Tilda Swinton. So if you're into the Tilda Swinton, and of course, who isn't, then you will enjoy this lively, huh? Love Tilda. Lots of great old footage in this thing. I mean, we're talking films from the 1880s. So anyway, good stuff. Dreams Rewired. Don't get scared by the academic nature of it. It's really good stuff. Also good.
00:31:55
Speaker
is a documentary that I flipped through because I have no interest in visiting Ecuador, although I did really enjoy the topography and staring at the food.
Ecuador: Landscape and Culture
00:32:06
Speaker
It's a beautiful country and it is hot and wet, hot and wet, and it features the president of the country, Rafael Correa. And yeah, I mean, I guess I got a little bit more of a sense of Ecuador and what I might want to visit, but I don't really want to visit Ecuador.
Troublemakers: Land Art Movement
00:32:21
Speaker
Continuing our art theme is Troublemakers, the story of land art from documentarian James Crump. I can't say I'm really into land art. I didn't really know it existed. Still not quite sure what the point is, but I get it. It's like people who
00:32:36
Speaker
you know whatever they have the uh... whatever you have it like the tour de france you know there will be a lot of farmers in france will go out with a tractor and they will plow some picture in their cornfields or their wheat fields so you can see it from a helicopter and you go is that nice it says you know go lance go or stop drugging or whatever stop doping uh... it that's a little bit of the kind of thing going on here uh... land art was it became a thing i guess in the uh... nineteen sixties
00:33:03
Speaker
And you had a lot of people who would go and they'd do these weird landscape kind of create things like stuff that you can only see from helicopters and airplanes. Anyway, this revisits a lot of that stuff and it had a moment back then.
00:33:22
Speaker
primarily 1960s, maybe dipping into the 1970s. And I don't really kind of get what the point was, or it almost seems more like vandalism on a level to me. I hope I'm not insulting anybody by saying that. But anyway, so it's like graffiti is one thing. You can wash it off, and you put it onto man-made walls. But this is like, I don't know. I don't get it. But anyway, so that's an interesting doc. Troublemakers, the story of land art.
00:33:51
Speaker
It is provocative, if nothing else. Hang on, let me throw in a documentary that you may want to buy for your grandmother or grandfather. More like grandmother, but I mean that seriously.
I Know a Woman Like That: Celebrating Women
00:33:59
Speaker
A documentary called I Know a Woman Like That. And I Know a Woman Like That is a wonderful documentary about women who are getting older. They're in their late 60s, they're in their 70s. And it's a time when people just assume that older folks just like disappear.
00:34:17
Speaker
because they're not out there on their iPhones playing Angry Birds. But actually, they live vital lives. They have their own hobbies, and they've made their own choices. And it's great stuff. There's some famous women of that age in there. Eartha Kitt, Lauren Hutton is in there too. So Gloria Steinem, obviously, who is in the news all the time. So yeah, so I know a woman like that is all about how just because you're a woman who is growing older doesn't mean you have to give up on life. And it is inspiring, and I just thought it was terrific.
00:34:47
Speaker
And then a couple from PBS, 10 that changed America.
10 That Changed America: Architectural Milestones
00:34:51
Speaker
These are things that changed America, architecturally, design-wise, et cetera, et cetera. So we're talking like homes, entire communities, landscape design. It's a very broad
00:35:10
Speaker
It's a very broad perspective that they take on things that change, but what they wanted was anything that was broadly architectural, so not just an actual individual house or building or a thing, but things that include landscape architecture and entire architectural developments.
00:35:28
Speaker
It's really a very, very open architectural consideration, but it wants to sort of make the point that these ten things actually changed the country with respect to urban planning, with respect to suburban planning, with respect to, you know, community planning, with just the general aesthetic.
00:35:46
Speaker
And it's interesting. I don't know that I necessarily agree that these are the 10 that changed America, but they are certainly interesting. You obviously get the Eames home from Charles and Ray Eames. You obviously get Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright. Those things go without saying. And then you get stuff like Monticello, and it's worth checking out. I mean, only if you're really, really interested in the subject matter, but it's an interesting journey.
00:36:16
Speaker
And then Iceman Reborn is an installment of Nova that goes into the Ice Mummy and what we have learned from the Ice
Iceman Reborn: Ancient Insights
00:36:28
Speaker
Mummy. If you aren't familiar with the Ice Mummy, this is a guy who was murdered 5,000 years ago. They named him Otzi.
00:36:39
Speaker
When they unearth this mummy, they're obviously this is one of the most well-preserved glacial age Mummies ever and they immediately started violating him and dissecting him and analyzing him to see what they could learn about our ancient past and
00:36:56
Speaker
And what they found out was that basically he interrupted somebody's television viewing time, and that's why they killed him. So things haven't really changed in 5,000 years. You know what? I'm telling you, people love Golden Globe reruns. They do. And that's unbelievable. Horrible. And you remember that Timothy Hutton film Iceman. Yeah. It's a good movie. Yeah. He plays a guy who was buried in the D.I.s for thousands and thousands of years.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's resurrected. All right, classic
The Player: Satire of Hollywood
00:37:25
Speaker
stuff. We got a ton of classic stuff. We're going to burn through this stuff and try to get through it by the end of the show. Mark, tell us what spectacular glories we have on Criterion this week. Wade, sometimes there are films when you think to yourself, yes, Criterion's doing that one, the player.
00:37:45
Speaker
which I saw at Cannes, I still remember, man. That was such a- Okay, drop the name, tell me the story. No, because it was just such an awesome revelation. Altman was at Cannes with the player, and it was about the movie biz, and everybody was very excited, and it turned out to be even better than anyone imagined. It was amazing. Amazing. It is because the movie is not only a great film on its own, but it is also this representation of what Altman thought about the industry.
00:38:14
Speaker
And that cool opening single take shot. And that great opening single take shot. Which is just cool because it just takes you through studio offices and it sort of insinuates you into a studio, onto a studio lot in a very, very interesting way. It's great. Well, but you know, Altman had this weird relationship with Hollywood and he was very cynical about it and he loved it as much as he hated it, it seemed to me. Yeah, no for sure.
00:38:40
Speaker
this film sort of brings all that, not only all that to bear, but it's also a great amalgam of his styles. The overlapping dialogue and the wit, right? It's all there in the player and it looks great. Kraytane did an amazing job with it. And I just feel like, you know what, obviously Altman
00:39:01
Speaker
did great comedies, he did mash, he did great westerns, he did, you know, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. He reinvented the detective picture pretty much with the long of eye, but with the player he just knocks it out of the park. This thing is funny and it is insightful and it is witty and in a way it's almost the ultimate Robert Altman film because it is not only, not only stylistically does it,
00:39:21
Speaker
does it combine everything he's good at, but the subject matter obviously is so close to him because it's really about just the caustic, nasty, mean underbelly of Hollywood, which I think is what Albin really thought of the industry. Well, I mean the part where Peter Gallagher is talking about like
00:39:37
Speaker
we could replace writers that was this really that was a big laugh at the time where was like a boy that can you imagine that is it was a good exaggerated view of hollywood cynicism it was it felt like a metaphor for like an exaggerated metaphor for for just how horrible the business was and now we get to a place where people actually are start to ourselves almost saying that like we could do away with writers we could we could uh... you know we could do a movie that is basically uh... is written by fans of the rights itself
00:40:07
Speaker
It just it's it's amazing how how close we've come to the edge and yet what's what what I find odd about it Not odd, but wonderful about it is that it's not means it's really not mean-spirited No, it's not it's kind of a fun funny movie It is even though there's a lot of venom in the way that you know This is really what Altman kind of thinks of the underbelly. Is that Altman's personality? It's almost personality. This movie is Altman's personality stylistically and also Psychologically, it is Altman
00:40:33
Speaker
And but yet it is still really funny. Yeah, it's vicious. It's like it's vicious and satirical, but it's not mean spirited. And so the player is just fantastic. And this is a must buy and criteria knocks out of the park 4k digital restoration. There's an old audio commentary with Altman, which is great from 1992. New interviews with Tim Robbins and can can film festival start from 1992. In fact, I think you may even see way there.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah, because he's so he's dropping names. So now there's some deleted scenes and out takes which is great and I just you have to buy this now you have to buy the player I agree
00:41:32
Speaker
And they're the only ones who live on the island and they survive by, you know, they farm and they plow and they sort of fend for themselves and they have to carry the water for the plants by themselves. And it just starts there. It's just a very interesting film. There's very little dialogue.
00:41:38
Speaker
It's one of the best criterions I've had in a while.
The Naked Island: Visual Storytelling
00:41:47
Speaker
In fact, I'm trying to remember now in the film, is there no dialogue in this movie?
00:41:50
Speaker
You know, there's actually no dialogue in this movie, now that I'm looking back on it. So there's no dialogue in the film, and yet it is totally riveting, 96 minutes, so it's not like you have to stare at a, it's basically a silent film. I mean, it's funny, like you say, oh, there's no dialogue, that's so unusual. Well, the first, you know, 30 years of verb, let's say, yeah, 30 years of film, there's no dialogue. It's like the Shaun the Sheep movie. You watch the Shaun the Sheep movie, and you're loving it, and it takes you, I mean, you realize that, you know, at a certain point, you're like, wait a minute, this is, I've been watching this for an hour, and no one has actually said a word. It's all just grunts and sounds, and oohs and ahs.
00:42:21
Speaker
It's great. In terms of extras, obviously the film is a little bit obscure, so there's not the enormous amount of extras that you're used to on Criterion, but there is an audio commentary featuring Canado Shindo from 2000. There's Benicio del Toro, he's a huge fan of the film, so they actually dug him up and they had him film some sort of appreciation, which is pretty good.
00:42:48
Speaker
And yeah, so there you go. I would definitely check out The Naked Island. It's a unique film from a country where like in 1960, post-war, they're kind of, you know, they're getting their cinema on, you know, and it's great.
00:43:04
Speaker
All right, got some Warner Archive titles here, which I'm going to go through really quickly.
Classic Film Blu-ray Releases
00:43:10
Speaker
A couple of Blu-rays, a couple of fantastic Blu-rays. The less known one here is Susan Slept Here, which was the last film that Dick Powell ever made. Dick Powell and a very young Debbie Reynolds. And this is a really terrific romantic comedy with a little bit of an edge to it, from 1954. Not the kind of thing that you would necessarily expect from this period. This was an RKO film, 1954.
00:43:33
Speaker
basically Frank Tashland, who did a lot of great Jerry Lewis movies, directed this, about a really troubled young woman who was 17 who is basically a cop brings her to Dick Powell to prevent her from getting any worse. She's got all, you know, to sort of whip her into shape. And he decides the only way to do that is to marry her and then divorce her when she turns 18.
00:44:01
Speaker
I don't want to get into any of the marriage laws. I know people are thinking, wait, how do you marry a 17-year-old? Isn't this kind of twisted and pervy? And isn't there kind of a Lolita thing going on? Yes, and yes, and yes, and don't ask about it. It's 1954. It's explained in the film, gets through all that stuff. But I would love to, at some point, talk to Alonzo about this because this is, in theory, a Christmas film.
00:44:24
Speaker
And, uh, you know, because the whole thing takes place in and around Christmas. And, uh, I would love to know his opinion of this because it is definitely one of those tweaked Christmas films that, uh, he often talks about and he is the, uh, the expert and Francis costars. Otherwise Debbie Reynolds, wonderful, Dick Powell, wonderful. And speaking of Debbie Reynolds, uh, you know, you know, that documentary at can all about her relationship with Carrie Fisher is getting rave reviews. You heard about that.
00:44:48
Speaker
There's the documentary at Cannes with all about Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher and their relationships, getting all kinds of crazy rave reviews. Really?
00:44:55
Speaker
I didn't even know that existed. Also from the Warner Archive collection on Blu-ray. A long overdue wonderful Blu-ray. My goodness this looks great and it's just wonderful and thank goodness they did this. Made on demand Blu-ray suspicion the Alfred Hitchcock classic with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. I adore Joan Fontaine even though she was the first one to go and she always said that Olivia de Havilland would probably be angry if she did if she beat her to that as well.
00:45:19
Speaker
And Olivia de Havilland's gonna turn 100, is it this year or next year? She's 99. She's 99. It's crazy. Crazy, I'm pretty sure. You might wanna check that up. Anyway, so the idea here is, it's basically about a woman.
00:45:34
Speaker
who marries someone who, it turns out, may be a murderer on the verge of murdering her. And, you know, Joan Fontaine is just so good at these kinds of parts. It's a little bit of Rebecca in there. This was made in 1941, the year after Rebecca, so she's definitely playing to audience expectations of who she is, and she does it brilliantly. Cary Grant, equally brilliant.
00:45:59
Speaker
Cedric Hardwick, Nigel Bruce, a lot of other great supporting performers here, and a fantastic screenplay co-written by Samson Raffleson. If you don't know that name, one of the great screenwriters in the history of the Golden Era. And then we also have
00:46:15
Speaker
On regular DVD R, still part of the Warner Archive MOD, the first 100 years with Robert Montgomery and Virginia Bruce, which is a cute, sweet sort of comedy of manners, I guess is probably the best way to put it. It takes place in Massachusetts and a lot of that old snappy banter that people just sit around,
00:46:43
Speaker
drawing rooms and in nice restaurants and just it bounces back and forth and it's that kind of stuff they just don't write anymore. It's just really, really nicely put together. That's a fun film. A Yank at Oxford starring Robert Taylor, basically just one of those movies about life at Oxford and
00:47:02
Speaker
how rough it can be and how sophisticated it can be. Most of it is centering on college athletics, and it's fine. I wouldn't call it amazing or anything, but it's a nice little golden era throwback.
00:47:18
Speaker
And then we have cinema's exiles from Hitler to Hollywood. This is particularly interesting actually. This looks at movies between 1933 and 1939 when there was a huge exodus from the German film industry into Hollywood.
00:47:34
Speaker
obviously seeing the writing on the wall, and a lot of these are, you know, in the silent era, Germany was the equal, the Weimar cinema was the equal to Hollywood in the world. Hollywood did not become dominant until after World War II. That was when Hollywood became the dominant film industry to the exclusion of all the others, because World War II destroyed the German and the Italian and the French film industries. Well, F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, they all came over and made amazing films.
00:47:57
Speaker
They made – well, this is about the 1933 to 1939 period. Just, you know, once Kristallnacht happened and then the writing was on the wall, every – just about every Jew in Germany said, I'm going to keep my career going in that other industry and we benefited
00:48:12
Speaker
And a really tremendous story here. So this is Cinemas' Exiles from Hitler to Hollywood. It deals with Billy Wilder, Fritz Long, Peter Lorre, Franz Waksman, Fred Zinemann, you know, on and on and on. And when you think about the movies that they made that we wouldn't have or that would be different if not for them, it's like they reinvented Hollywood. Well, what's funny is that if you look at American film versus, let's say, European film,
00:48:41
Speaker
the Germans had visually, the Germans had it on us in the early days of film. If you look at like Nosferatu and some of these classic expressionism films, Metropolis, they had it on us big time. We might have had the technology, and Charlie Chaplin, of course, was not even American, but Charlie Chaplin maybe had that, was able to combine like comedy and pathos, whatever. But the Germans, in terms of shooting, the early days, they really had it on us. So when they came over and brought some of that sensibility to our films, it made our films better. Yep, absolutely true.
00:49:12
Speaker
And then Marion Davies stars for director Robert Z. Leonard in Marianne. This was an MGM film from 1929. This is really right there on the cusp of, you know, silent to sound. And so the audio is really raw. I have to say, Warner did an unbelievable job of burnishing this up and really kind of giving it a little shine and a sheen.
00:49:39
Speaker
for a DVD release, especially considering it's a DVD-R, but it still has the old movie feel to it. And it's wonderful. If you don't understand why Marion Davies was such a wonderful star and why she continued to be one, why making the transition to the talkies worked for her, here you go. This is beautiful. This spells it out for you. So for film history buffs, this is a really fun jump back in time.
00:50:06
Speaker
Definitely check it out. Marianne, a wonderful, wonderful showcase for Marianne Davies and all of her inimitable talents.
00:50:14
Speaker
I have something wonderful. I know you do. Wade, Kelly Reichert is probably the best director whose films you've never seen.
River of Grass: Kelly Reichart's Debut
00:50:21
Speaker
He's the best American director whose films you've never seen. She makes films that are so slow, they almost don't move. It's almost like a single frame. I love them. I think they're incisive, they're funny, and I gotta say, oscilloscope did a great job re-releasing River of Grass. Which is the one that really kind of put her on the map in many respects.
00:50:42
Speaker
Because I want to see a movie where, and I think you want to see a movie too, where people pass marijuana joints, people pass them between each other using their feet.
00:50:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. I'm not a big fan of this film. I'm not really a fan of her. No, I'm not. Billy, Wendy and Lucy, Meeks Cut-Off's good stuff. But I understand why. Wendy and Lucy, yes. There are some moments. I understand what people like about her films. There's an honesty, and she lets her characters breathe and lets scenes kind of unfold in real emotional time and doesn't really sort of force the issue. Nothing feels inauthentic. I get all of that. I don't particularly enjoy watching them.
00:51:20
Speaker
Well, this one has a bit of a crime plot in it, too, which you might kind of like. It's about these two lovers. They're on the run. And it takes place in South Florida, which seems like the type of place where just lonely, dead inside people would go and hang out. And these two lovers, they're taking a swim, and a gun goes off. And then that kind of gets the plot going. And I just think this thing was great. It really set the stage for who Kelly Reichart would eventually become.
00:51:50
Speaker
And what's funny is that she really hasn't changed that much since this film, in terms of budgets. Maybe, you know, she gets Michelle Williams to star in her films, right?
00:51:58
Speaker
Yeah, often. Which, because I think Michelle Williams was in... No, was it... The Lucy thing. The Lucy thing, right. Yeah, with the double. But that was good. Anyway, so this is Kelly Reichert's film debut, and it was just terrific. So we have that, and on the other end of the spectrum we have Hire to Kill, which Arrow for some reason has decided is worth a
00:52:20
Speaker
Blue ran a DVD collection. This is a strange one. I, I, I, most of the, most of the Arrow stuff I kind of look at and I go, oh, that, thank goodness they brought that out.
00:52:30
Speaker
Black Caesar or whatever else but this is this is what I was like a little weird I mean it's about this this guy plays his mercenary he's hired by George Kennedy who plays this CAA guy to go into the go into the Mediterranean and try to rescue a rebel leader it's not a particularly good film and it wasn't it's not really a cult film it just it's just a weird little movie I mean frankly people love it because Oliver Reed wears the most bizarre mustache you've ever seen in your life
A Married Woman: Godard's Work
00:52:54
Speaker
It's true. And I mean, actually, they have it on the box. Yeah, it's come on. What's he doing with that? I don't know. It's like things like a character of its own. Yeah. Anyway, the thing is pretty preposterous. But, you know, I guess there's some colorful locations to look at and I'll read choose the scenery and I guess it's fine. But I think I was done better than higher to kill. Yes, they have.
00:53:15
Speaker
Also, we have A Married Woman by Jean-Luc Godard. I'm going to say something about Jean-Luc Godard. Never my favorite. No, mine either. I'm supposed to love him because we love film, but I just don't get it. Anyway, but Coen Film, and they're just wonderful. We love Coen Film. They came out with this and did a pretty good job. 2010 interview with
00:53:36
Speaker
Agnes B is involved in this and also a 2010 interview with a Ghadar scholar which definitely helps because Ghadar films obviously are a little impenetrable and that is not by accident and so yeah so it's about this woman who wants to get a divorce and she's also got a lover who she has a child with and it sort of goes on from there so yeah a married woman I don't know if this is one of Ghadar's best films but it was pretty well received at the time especially the Venice Film Festival yeah
00:54:05
Speaker
Alright, and then I got three here from the MOD line over at 20th Century Fox and MGM. They have their Fox Cinema Archives and MGM Limited Edition releases. And we got one from MGM and two from Fox.
00:54:19
Speaker
all in the standard MOD packaging. Actually, I'm sorry, two from MGM, one from Fox. I take that back. The Fox one is on the threshold of space, which was a big CinemaScope production back in 1954.
00:54:36
Speaker
No, 1956. And I can't say that this is a particularly good film, but it was one of those big cinemascope demos at the time. 1956 was the year that everything kind of changed. That was the year that
00:54:51
Speaker
around the world in 80 days, won Best Picture, and with Tadeo, which was a rival widescreen format. Everything was widescreen. Everything was about showing off Cinerama, CinemaScope, this scope, and that Rama. Everything was all about showing off this new, the whole new widescreen era. And so this is trying to combine that with the excitement about the space program,
00:55:17
Speaker
Which, by the way, in 1956 was not really even much of a reality. It was more theory than anything else. Sputnik didn't go up until the following year. So this is all kind of looking down the line and trying to combine real-life space enthusiasm with widescreen excitement. And it's OK. It's a nice little flashback, pretty well put together. But otherwise, it ain't no right stuff.
00:55:43
Speaker
And then on the MGM line, the Race for the Yankees Zephyr, which is kind of a middling movie with Ken Wall and Donald Pleasance racing George Papard to try to find an old wrecked World War II plane that may have 50 million dollars in it. Meh, it's okay. More worth seeing just because of who's in it.
00:56:08
Speaker
And then one of my all-time favorites, Year of the Comet. And by all-time favorites, I mean not even remotely. This is a strange Peter Yates misfire that looks really good, but doesn't
00:56:24
Speaker
It doesn't, never quite gels. Decent cast, Louis Jourdan, still, you know, he's still got it going on in this, and Ian Richardson, Penelope Ann Miller, and Tim Daly, very, very engaging, but it, the whole kind of, it's sort of a Hepburn-Tracy chemistry that they're going for, and it doesn't really, doesn't quite work.
00:56:45
Speaker
So, but anyway, you know, Penelope Ann Miller and Tim Daly, still a lovely couple. If you like them, in spite of the fact that their chemistry doesn't really hold together in this sort of capery, comedy, romantic chemistry thing, then, you know, if you just want to see them, by all means, check it out. But that's on MOD from the manufacture on demand line, the MGM limited edition collection from MGM and 20th Century Fox.
00:57:14
Speaker
All right, Mark, I got a whole ton of Olive titles here. You have a whole ton of Olives? A whole ton of Olives. We got a blazing set of releases from Olive this month. Most of them are really, really noteworthy. Maybe not my favorite films, but they are significant, and they are somebody's favorite films. So I'm going to start with the lone DVD in this thing, which is Legend of the Lost.
00:57:42
Speaker
which is a strange combination of talent. If you didn't know, John Wayne and Sophia Loren actually did star in a movie together, and this is it, Legend of the Lost. Sophia Loren had a lot of weird pairings in her career. I mean, she, and they weren't necessarily great movies, but she somehow got around and made a movie with just about every major male actor in Hollywood, rather extraordinary.
00:58:03
Speaker
This takes place in the Sahara. Rosana Brasi is also in this. This was made in 1957. We're stuck in the 50s quite a lot today. And it is essentially a Western that takes place in the Sahara, which seems to be the only way that they could justify pairing up John Wayne with Sophia Loren.
00:58:24
Speaker
Uh, beautiful photography. Um, you know, it has kind of a whole, the whole idea is about finding the, uh, the lost city of Ophir where there's a treasure and, you know, it's one of those usual kind of, uh, uh, the pot boiler old, uh, Indiana Jones type things that where people are looking for something archeological and, and there's a certain
00:58:49
Speaker
thing to that but really what you're watching it for is Jack Cardiff's amazing cinematography which is just gorgeous and makes Sophia Loren looks gorgeous, doesn't really make John Wayne look gorgeous but I guess that's the point to John Wayne. Alright and then we've also got the private affairs of Bell Ami with George Sanders and Angela Lansbury both of whom are magnificent with dialogue. This is actually a really really fun film directed by Albert Lewin in 1946
00:59:16
Speaker
based on the Guy de Maupassant novel, Belle Ami, and it's just delightful. It's exactly what you'd expect. A lot of great dialogue, fun, beautiful photography, fun back and forth. Angela Lansbury is just terrific. I mean, young in a way that you look at it and you're like, that's the lady from Murder, She Wrote?
00:59:34
Speaker
She's young and hot and scorching and cool, and George Sanders always so sophisticated. Really, really a fun film. And then the very weird but culty zapped with Scott Baio and Willie Ames. Man, this thing just continues to live on. This has been released many times on DVD. It is now finally out on Blu-ray, courtesy of Olive. What a great get for them. In 1982, kind of a quintessential youth film from 1982, when both Willie Ames and Scott Baio were
01:00:02
Speaker
They were a thing, right? They had their moment, and this was their moment. And this was supposed to be their big movie moment, didn't really turn into it. But it was also at that time when kids were, kids and the whole thing was, remember, you know, my science project and weird science and all that stuff. This is a little bit kind of presaging that vein of strange movies that would dominate the 80s, giving kids telekinetic powers and to do all kinds of really
01:00:32
Speaker
Goofy, untoward kid things. And then actually one of the actresses in the film
01:00:41
Speaker
it also shows up in rich kids that is trini alvarado trini alvarado uh... how also had a moment she is in nineteen seventy nine's rich kids and uh... this is not a particularly good film i don't think but it had a moment because was directed by robert young and it was written by the very talented judith ross and uh... it had a it it had a bit of a following and it's the dates kind of poorly but
01:01:08
Speaker
I don't know, there's something charming about the whole young romance thing, the way that it's depicted here. Robert Altman was an executive producer on this. It was actually produced by the Canadian company, Lionsgate. That is lion, apostrophe S, space, G-A-T-E, which would go on to become the current Lionsgate. So this is one of their earliest. The previous incarnation of that company actually was involved in making this at the time. So I mean, it's a, you know, that's more nostalgia than anything else.
01:01:38
Speaker
Speaking of Kids with Powers, the more recent Cody Banks series with Frankie Muniz now makes it in Agent Cody Banks, along with Agent Cody Banks 2, Destination London. Both of these are now out from Olive on Blu-ray. I was never a fan of these, but a lot of people love these movies. Harold Zwart, the Norwegian director who directed
01:02:03
Speaker
Agent Cody Banks is he's okay He want you know, he didn't direct the sequel Kevin Allen directed the sequel, but I don't know I mean whatever those films really make you happy and then I'll I'll finish the rest of the actually go ahead and talk about those. I'll finish these when you're done With one of the most important films we'll talk about this week I think obviously the player being the number super number one is Manhunter
Manhunter: Tense Storytelling
01:02:29
Speaker
The Man Hunter was directed by Michael Mann and co-stars William Peterson from Live to Live and Die in L.A. And why is this movie important Wade? Because it stars Brian Cox as...
01:02:40
Speaker
Hannibal Lecter. I love this movie. Some people prefer this over Silence of the Lambs. I don't understand that part, but some people do. Well, I kind of prefer it over Silence of the Lambs. I think Silence of the Lambs is a better, more effective film, but here's what I like. This is a very 80s movie. I like Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecter better than Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter because Anthony Hopkins is playing up the psycho part of it. You look at him playing that part and you think, nobody would ever go to you as a doctor.
01:03:10
Speaker
Nobody would ever see you. They just wouldn't. You're just weird and creepy and I can tell you're a psychopath. Brian Cox underplays it in this thing. He's sitting behind that glass and when William Peterson goes to see him, you just think, well, why is this guy behind glasses? There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him. And eventually the manipulative psychopath shows itself and gets under his skin and inside his head.
01:03:31
Speaker
It's a much more, he gets the character better. He wasn't ever going to win an Oscar for it because he's not chewing the scenery, but it is a better representation of who that character is. Well, the thing with Hopkins is that he, you know, he had, he was only in that film for like, you know, 20 minutes or something. Yeah. But yet his presence was in the film the entire way through. Owns it. He owned the whole movie. It's a little bit the same here.
01:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, well, this one is a little bit, it's similar to The Sounds of the Lamb. It's actually based on Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon, which would be remade by Brett Ratner, which means that you should go ahead and see Man Horrible, because Brett Ratner is terrible and horrible. Although I have to say, as a producer, Brett Ratner, he kills it.
01:04:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's true. As a producer? Yeah. Makes good movies. Yeah, no, everything that Rat Pack has been financing is great. Absolutely. It's just the most bizarre turn of events for that guy. Stop directing movies, just finance and produce them, and we'll be good. We'll be good.
01:04:28
Speaker
Anyway, William Peterson plays a, he's an FBI, well, he was an FBI profiler and he gets pulled back in to help find this serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy. And just like Sounds of the Lambs, in order to kind of get into the mind of the Tooth Fairy, he's got to converse with Hannibal Lecter. So yeah, I have to say that Shot Factory did a great job with the
01:04:52
Speaker
With the Blu-ray, just fantastic. New interviews with the DP, Dante Spina. He was one of the greats. William Peterson, Tom Noonan, and John Allen, who was in this. Tom Noonan is just, Tom Noonan is chilling in this movie. He is so freaky. I've never been able to watch him in any other part and take him seriously. Because like he wears that, he wears that weird like super villain. Yeah, when he puts the, yeah, ugh, so creepy.
01:05:15
Speaker
Anyway, there's two discs to this. There's a director's cut. There's an audio commentary by Michael Mann, which is great because, you know, Michael Mann is he is so he's so smart and specific in terms of his intentions and how we achieve them that any Michael Mann audio commentary is worth it. He's not the most, you know, hilarious guy on an audio commentary, but you'll learn a lot.
01:05:36
Speaker
So Manhunter is a great film and a great piece of history and even though as Wade says it's a little 80s it's still just a terrific movie and an important film especially considering where that series and where that character would go to best picture Oscar-winning success. Yes. So there's that and then we also have a movie called I Saw What You Did which is
01:06:00
Speaker
Not a good movie, but it's got a cool premise. People don't really do this anymore in the age of social media, but when I was a kid, we used to do crank calls. You just call random people and say stupid things and then see how long it would take them to figure out that you're actually an idiot. This movie is about these two kids and they would call people and they would say, I saw what you did.
01:06:23
Speaker
And then the other person on the line would either figure it's just a prank, or maybe you would call somebody who just murdered his wife, and then when he hears, I saw what you did, it starts this whole little turn of events. So it's a cool little premise. I wish the movie was better. It's with Joan Crawford. It does have some historical significance in that it stars Joan Crawford and was produced and directed by William Castle.
01:06:50
Speaker
William Castle, who was one of the great horror showmen. The exploitation filmmaker who worked for the studios at Columbia at the time. He was a great marketer of his movies. The guy who would make a film and then in the print ads it would say, we've hired a nurse to show up to every screening of this film. So if anybody faints, there'll be a nurse there to revive you. And he would create these great
01:07:17
Speaker
carnival atmospheres for his movies and Castle was the best. So it does have historical significance. It does have a great premise, although it's not a great movie. I saw what you did. And then finally, at least for me, we have Bad
Bad Influence: 80s Excess and Morality
01:07:31
Speaker
Influence. Now Bad Influence is with Rob Lowe and James Spader. And it sort of came out during that, you know, less than zero kind of 80s, you know, people are looking at like cocaine was the drug of choice back then.
01:07:46
Speaker
And there was a lot of movies like Apartment Zero or again Less Than Zero and Bad Influence. And it was all about like, you know, people sort of diving into this like big city cosmopolitan success stories where these kids would get really, really successful.
01:08:06
Speaker
and kind of rich at a young age. And then they'd reap the pay, have to pay the price. They had to pay that they did good. They just devolved a life style and some life. So like hookers and coke and whatever. And then they have to pay the price. And bad influence is one of those films. The only reason why this film is any good was because it was directed by Curtis Hanson. So it was written by David Koepp, but directed by Hanson and Curtis Hanson is very much interested. He's very much interested in the characters, whereas a lot of directors would not be. So that's why bad influence works as well as it does.
01:08:36
Speaker
all right here's wrapping up the rest of the olive titles this is the cream of the crop here uh... telesavales had been primarily known for his television career later on uh... with kojak and what not but telesavales made some awfully cool movies and one of them was as late as nineteen seventy five and killer forces one of those movies and uh... oj simpson's presence in this will probably be a turn off to a lot of people but what a great cast what uh... what a really really cool uh...
01:09:03
Speaker
kind of tough guy's squad movie. There were a lot of these, you know, Dirty Dozen and, you know, the original Inglorious Bastards. There were a lot of these kinds of movies at the time. And 1975 is a little late for these, especially for Val Guest, who directed this, who was primarily known for, you know, genre films in the 1960s. But somehow it all comes together and it is a really cool throwback movie here with Telly Saval's and
01:09:31
Speaker
Christopher Lee, OJ Simpson, really Peter Fonda. This is a really super cool cast. And the idea basically is that Telly Savalas leads a security officer for a diamond syndicate. And the whole thing gets into the smuggling of diamonds and smuggling them in and out of South Africa. It's really kind of a cool movie and a little bit ahead of its time.
01:10:00
Speaker
Here's the other stuff that we're getting from Olive this month. French postcards. Fascinating, interesting movie. Not a great film by any means, but an interesting movie where Willard Huck and Gloria Katz, who are old friends and colleagues of George Lucas, and who wrote American Graffiti, they're basically trying to do an American Graffiti part two that takes place with a bunch of American students at a French school, an institute of French studies.
01:10:28
Speaker
It's not enough to erase the fact that they went on to do Howard the Duck, but it is interesting that they're sort of trying to replicate the chemistry and that whole sense of camaraderie. And there's some really good performances here, Deborah Winger and Mandy Patinkin. Definitely worth checking out. It's a curious little blast from the past.
01:10:46
Speaker
The Whoopi Boys with Michael O'Keefe and Paul Rodriguez. Really interesting, only because Paul Rodriguez, this is sort of him at his best. This is when Paul Rodriguez was a thing in 1986. Michael O'Keefe is kind of along for the ride. Not the greatest pairing in the world, but kind of a quintessential 80's comedy, well-directed by John Byram, who should have had a better career.
01:11:07
Speaker
A terrific film is The Sum of Us with Jack Thompson and Russell Crowe before Russell Crowe really blew up huge as a star. This is about a tough Aussie dad trying to sort of be as accepting as he possibly can over the fact that his son is gay. This film is so funny and so charming and so sweet and so wonderful and it's not the kind of part you would ever imagine Russell Crowe playing. So it's definitely worth checking out. My favorite line in this? Up ya bum.
01:11:34
Speaker
It's a great, great movie. Iphigenia with Irene Pappas is a Michael Kacchianis film, Michael Kacchianis, who did Zorba the Greek, also with Irene Pappas. This is essentially his Oscar-nominated 1977 incredibly cool adaptation of
01:11:53
Speaker
Euripides with Kosta Kazakos as Agamemnon and Tatiana Pappasmoku as Iphigenia, really a great film, probably the best adaptation of Euripides which is infrequently made into movies but has been several times. And then lastly, the wonderful and delightful late career success of Clark Gable
01:12:16
Speaker
in The King and Four Queens, which is just horrific. Clark Gable, in one of his best parts, as this amazing Western con man, 1956, a brisk, wonderfully written, incredibly well-directed movie by Raul Walsh that is just to die for. Clark Gable and Eleanor Parker have never been better. You've got to check this out. This is the gold release this month from Olive. So, great bunch of movies.
01:12:42
Speaker
All right, Mark, I think that does it for the show. That does it for the show. We are done. See you next week. See you next week.