The Peacemaker (1997)
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This week, we continue to collect members of the Ocean's gang like Infinity Stones, as we find Danny playing a convincing soldier and compelling leading man in a 90s geo-political thriller that feels like a total forgotbuster, despite starring two massive movie stars and launching DreamWorks as a studio. It's 1997's The Peacemaker, directed by Mimi Leder, and starring George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Marcel Iureș, Aleksandr Baluev, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Holt McCallany, Goran Višnjić, and Michael Boatman. One of the Cloondog's early jumps from ER star to silverscreen leading man, this movie is...
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The Fugitive
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This week, look, we know you don't care, but we didn't kill our wife, okay?? We're heading out on the run with a hairy Harrison in search of the one-armed man, as we have a hell of a time with one the great dad thrillers of the 90s. It's 1993's The Fugitive, directed by Andrew Davis, and starring Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Joe Pantoliano, Jeroen Krabbé, Daniel Roebuck, L. Scott Caldwell, Tom Wood, Andreas Katsulas, Julianne Moore and Jane Lynch. Both a perpetual chase action movie as well as a taut conspiracy thriller, the movie is boosted enormously by a lineup of U.S....
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Mr. 3000
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As J Mo rapidly approaches (or has perhaps already passed?) 3000 films watched all-time on Letterboxd, it felt fitting to kick off a new year with the story of another man who thought he'd hit the 3000 plateau only for it to be taken away from him on a technicality, as we try to whip ourselves back in to game-shape for 2025 by watching a sports comedy that's a little too light on laughs. It's 2004's Mr. 3000, directed by Charles Stone III, and starring Bernie Mac, Angela Bassett, Michael Rispoli, Dondré Whitfield, Paul Sorvino, Chris Noth, Keegan-Michael Key, Dane Cook and Tom Arnold. While...
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Blow Out
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For one last time in 2024, we're closing out DePalmber: Part De by opening the vault door and welcoming another of our beloved classics into the podcast canon, this time a bleak noir thriller about a foley artist in the film industry who winds up recording proof of a political murder conspiracy while out grabbing sounds for a new low-end horror picture, and gets swept up into a dark world of intrigue where no one is safe. It's 1981's Blow Out, written and directed by Brian De Palma and starring John Travolta, Nancy Allen, Jon Lithgow, Dennis Franz, Peter Boyden, John Aquino and Deborah...
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Blue Chips
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MERRY SHAQMAS, EVERYONE! We hit pause on DePalmber: Part De this week and pick up our annual Christmas tradition of exploring the filmography of basketball player / actor Shaquille O'Neal, here making his acting debut in a Nick Nolte-helmed character drama loosely based on notorious college coach Bobby Knight. It's 1994's Blue Chips, directed by William Friedkin, and starring Nolte, Shaq, Mary McDonnell, Ed O'Neill, J.T. Walsh, Alfre Woodard, Penny Hardaway, Anthony C. Hall and Bobby Knight. This was Friedkin's return to the fold after 20 years of banishment at Paramount, following a serious...
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Body Double
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This week we're auditioning for the role of a lifetime as DePALMBER: PART DE continues with another example of what feels like well-worn territory for our man of the month: an erotic thriller in which a working class man in show business is forced to be an unlikely hero as he becomes entangled in a murder. It's 1984's Body Double, directed, produced, and co-written from a story by Brian De Palma, and starring Craig Wasson, Melanie Griffith, Gregg Henry, Deborah Shelton, Guy Boyd and Dennis Franz. As De Palma's immediate follow-up to Scarface, it's a brazenly bizarre swing on what was surely a...
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The Untouchables
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It's the final month of year, which means it's time again to celebrate the reason for the season and make it another DePalmber to ReMalmber as we fire up another Brian De Palma series, DePALMBER: PART DE, with 1987's The Untouchables, directed by De Palma, written by David Mamet, and starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia, Charles Martin Smith, Robert De Niro, Billy Drago and Patricia Clarkson. A 1930s Chicago gangland drama about the prohibition war on Al Capone, it's a quintessential Dad Movie that found second life as a classic video store rental in the decade-plus after its...
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No Country For Old Men
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This week, we're fixin' to do somethin' dumber than hell but we're gonna do it anyway, as we close out No-Theme-ber by circling back to the coin-flip best movie of 2007, a gravely serious and barbed-wire-taut neo-western crime thriller that the Coens still manage to sneak an enormous amount of low-key goofy comedy into. It's 2007's No Country For Old Men, written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the book by Cormac McCarthy, and starring Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garrett Dillahunt, Tess Harper, Barry Corbin, Beth Grant and...
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Gladiator
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This week, as Gladiator II hits the theaters to repeat the same beats of its predecessor and prove that what we do in life truly does echo in eternity, we circle back to the original to cross a movie off of Hayley's list and get her hyped to see some hunks on the IMAX screen. It's 2000's Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, Tommy Flanagan and Spencer Treat Clark. A somewhat controversial Best Picture winner at the time, it has remained one of Scott's most celebrated pictures...
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Legally Blonde
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This week, we're headed to Harvard Law (what, like it's hard?) as J Mo cashes in a recent thrift store pick-up so we'd have something light and breezy to discuss in the wake of recent events. It's 2001's Legally Blonde, directed by Robert Luketic, and starring Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma Blair, Matthew Davis, Victor Garber, Holland Taylor, Jennifer Coolidge, Ali Larter, Osgood Perkins, Raquel Welch and Linda Cardellini. A box office hit that spawned a sequel, a broadway musical (with accompanying talent search reality show), and apparently a forthcoming prequel TV series, and...
info_outlineThis week, it's the first week of P.T.August as we're set to spend the next five Fridays indulging in the works of Paul Thomas Anderson, beginning with a Blu-ray J Mo's been carting around for 11 years now without having ever actually watched before now. It's 2012's The Master, written and directed by P.T. Anderson, and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Rami Malek, Laura Dern, Jesse Plemons, Ambyr Childers and Kevin J. O'Connor. Watching it now, it feels like PTA was a good four years ahead of the culture in exploring the dynamics of cults, how they operate and why people get sucked in to them -- a subject on which there are now countless documentary series, but must have felt cutting edge in 2012. Loaded with visual flair and anchored by a trio of tremendous lead performances, it's Anderson's own personal favourite of his films. Will our hosts agree? Plus: Hayley's still boiling over the cut kiss from the end of Twisters.
If you'd like to watch the film along with us this week, The Master can be found streaming in Canada on Amazon Prime, Hoopla and the Criterion Channel at the time of publication, the latter of which is also celebrating P.T.August with an August collection of Anderson's work.
Other works discussed in this episode include The Fabelmans, Deadpool, Deadpool 2, Species, Species II, Under The Skin, Evil, Plane, There Will Be Blood, Arrival, Night Bitch, Nocturnal Animals, Ren Faire, Fight Club and many more.
P.T.August continues next week as we get back at it with an unseen film-on-disc from Hayley's collection, as we watch Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps in 2017's Phantom Thread, also available to stream at the moment on Amazon Prime. Until then, we'll see you at the movies!!