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211. 'Mean Streets' (1973)

Full Cast And Crew

Release Date: 11/26/2024

224. Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess show art 224. Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess

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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) show art 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 show art 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! show art 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 show art 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) show art 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) show art 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) show art 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) show art 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) show art 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...

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More Episodes

The Full Cast and Crew MartyVerse run continues with the first of Scorcese's unofficial trilogy of gangster films, 'Mean Streets'.

In this episode: Marty's Little Italy, Family, High School, NYU, Los Angeles, and early directorial experiences and how they influence and inspired 'Mean Streets'.

How 'Mean Streets' was very nearly a blaxploitation film funded by Roger Corman. 

John Cassavetes seeing 'Boxcar Bertha', an exploitation film Scorcese directed for Corman, and telling Marty "You just spent a year of your life making a piece of shit. Don't you have something more personal to do?"

Films mentioned by Scorcese as inspirational/informational to 'Mean Streets'

‘Gilda’

‘The Shanghai Gesture'

'Shadows'

'Who's That Knocking At My Door'

'Boxcar Bertha'

'Open City' 

'Paisa'

'Shoeshine'

'Bicycle Thieves'

'Cool Breeze' 

'Buck Privates'

'Scorpio Rising'

'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning'

'The Road to Singapore'

'Marty'

'Fatso'

'Accatone'

'How Green Was My Valley'

'The Informer'

'The Searchers'

'On The Waterfront'

'East of Eden' 

'His Girl Friday' 

'The Big Sky'

'The Thing' 

'Two Rode Together'