224. Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess
Full Cast And Crew
Don Simpson was one-half of one of the most successful production partnerships in Hollywood history. His reality-distortion-field helped bring about films like Flashdance, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, The Rock, Crimson Tide, and Days of Thunder, films that collectively grossed more than $3 billion dollars. Don Simpson's life is a cautionary tale with an ignominious ending forever ensconced in Hollywood history. His appetite for drugs, prostitutes, plastic surgery, black Levi's 501 jeans (worn once and discarded), wrecking Porsches, pharmacology, peanut butter, and pizza got the best of him at...
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223. 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' (1979 BBC Series)
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What does it say about your favorite podcast host that he considers the 1979 BBC adaptation of John le Carre's seminal espionage novel 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' to be COMFORT VIEWING?? Nonetheless, as Smiley would say, there we are. In this episode, curiously one in which I am still totally unresolved as to how best to approach this series in episodic fashion, I explore the myriad genius aspects of the production.
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222. Gene Hackman Appreciation Episode
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Considering the versatile, endlessly watchable and iconic American actor Gene Hackman.
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221. Oscar Recap 2025!
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HERE IT IS! Your most-anticipated episode of the year.
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220. OSCAR SPECIAL: Ranking The Best Picture Nominees w/ @vhsrevolution
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I'm joined by David Schumann of the IG and YouTube accounts @vhsrevolution as we each offer up our Top Five out of the 10 Best Picture Nominees ahead of Sunday night's Academy Awards telecast. And yes, I will be doing my Postmortem Recap episode following the broadcast. Follow David on Instagram Check out David's YouTube Channel
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219. 'Slap Shot' (1977)
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Here's the third of my episodic trilogy about George Roy Hill's films 'Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid', 'The Sting', and, now: 1977's 'Slap Shot'.
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218. 'Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid' (1969)
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My deep dive into the films of Director George Roy Hill continues with the most iconic Western ever made: "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid".
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217. 'The Sting' (1973)
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George Roy Hill's 1973 masterpiece 'The Sting' (released December 1974) grossed in 1974 what would be over 900 million dollars today. It's a deceptively simple, stealthily subversive and counter-cultural film wrapped in the meticulous trappings of a 1930's Warner Bros gangster picture, and re-teaming Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid with that film's director. In this episode: How Peter Boyle, Jack Nicholson, Richard Boone, and Warren Beatty almost got cast in 'The Sting', the brilliant Marvin Hamlisch Scott Joplin songs used on the soundtrack, the fantastic supporting cast of...
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216. 'An American Werewolf In London' (1981)
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In Hollywood, the story beats of werewolf movies were codified in 1941 by a German-Jewish emigrant to Hollywood via London named Curt Siodmak, who wrote the seminal film 'The Wolf Man', starring Lon Chaney, Jr. 40 years later, John Landis made the most important and enduring and influential werewolf film ever made in 'An American Werewolf in London'. It was his follow-up to the one-two punch of 'Animal House' and 'The Blues Brothers'. He could make any film he wanted, with anyone he wanted. So he made a script he'd begun when he was 18 years old. A script he'd first discussed with an...
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215. 'No Country For Old Men' (2007)
Full Cast And Crew
Sparse. Laconic. Expansive. Languid. Wry. The Coen Brother's 2007 Neo-Noir Western 'No Country For Old Men' moves to the fatefully ticking beat of it's own Grandfather Clock. It's a film that rewards close viewing and is astoundingly faithful to Cormac McCarthy's novel while also being so completely a "Coen Brothers film" even as it's their (only?) adaptation of an existing book. Featuring an iconic performance by Javier Bardem as the philosophical killer Anton Chigur, brilliant cinematography from frequent Coen collaborator Roger Deakins, and perfectly wrought twangily-Texas turns by...
info_outlineDirector Mary Herron and her co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner did what 'American Psycho' author Bret Easton Ellis thought was impossible: made a film of his controversial, considered-unfilmable 1991. novel.
And the lens through which they espied Patrick Bateman proved exactly the right way to gain something meaningful out of what, frankly, is a pretty unreadable and repetitive novel.
The astonishing lead performance from Christian Bale catapulted him to the stardom and rarified air he continues to occupy as an actor today. And the performance is a wonder to dissect, if you'll pardon the pun.
Featuring a wonderful assortment of supporting actors like Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Justin Theroux, Reese Witherspoon, Reg E. Cathey, Josh Lucas, Matt Ross, Jared Leto, Cara Seymour and Samantha Mathis, the film is one of the most essential films about NYC in the 80's.