239. Dead & Company 60th Anniversary Shows, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
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Dead & Company's 60th Anniversary three-show stand is an opportunity to talk about about the living history that the band's music represents, the ongoing and still-vital multi-generational pull of the concerts, which drew about 175,000 people, and the fascinating real-time challenge represented by sitting in with the band. Using Sturgill Simpson and Trey Anastasio as examples of how players find a space for their instrument to occupy in the band's sonic tapestry, I dive into the sink-or-swim weirdness of entering this telepathic onstage space and speculate on what could be next for...
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238. John Grisham's The Rainmaker
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In 1996, Francis Ford Coppola needed the money. He was coming off a run of films that included The Godfather Part III, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Jack. His critical and box office results were at a career nadir. So he agreed to direct an adaptation of the John Grisham bestseller 'The Rainmaker' for Paramount. He wouldn't direct another film for 10 years. And he'd make only four more, including the epic disaster 'Megalopolis'. Curious then that 'The Rainmaker' is a superlative example of a courtroom thriller, a big-business-versus-the-little-guy movie that features...
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237. '2010 The Year We Make Contact'
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Well, it's come to this. Was it curiosity? Was is discovery? A sense of completism? Oxygen deprivation? Whatever it was, I've now watched '2010: The Year We Make Contact' and I leave it for you to decide whether I'm any better for it.
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236. '2001: A Space Odyssey', Part 4
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We've come to the end...or is it the beginning? This is part 4 of my series of episodes about the emotional and intellectual contact Stanley Kubrick made between movie-goers and his epic science-fiction film of 1968. Here's . if you haven't; it's free and filled with random recommendations based on what I'm reading, watching and listening to on a given week. Some of it podcast-adjacent and some totally unrelated.
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235. '2001: A Space Odyssey', Part 3
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In Part 3, I geek out into how incredible and evocative the HAL sequences are in this film; what an amazing sense of character and personality Kubrick creates through the use of Doug Rain's iconic, best-in-class voiceover and the varying cutaways to HAL's electronic eye in scenes featuring the computer. Be sure to check out my other episodes covering the other sections of 2001. Next up: THE STAR GATE sequence in Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite.
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234. '2001: A Space Odyssey', Part 2
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In part 2 of my four-part series on 2001, I am going through the TMA-1 (Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One) sequence in which Dr. Haywood Floyd of "The Council" visits the International Space Station, diverts some Russian scientist attentions, presents a specious, US Governmental coverup of the Clavius discovery to a group of cowed committee members, and then embarks to Clavius base on the Moon to visit the Monolith. This sequence famously uses Johann Strauss' 'The Blue Danube' as well as additional modern pieces by Ligeti. Here's the Tom, we kid because we love! . It's full of recommendations and...
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233. '2001: A Space Odyssey', Part 1
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The first of my four-part series on Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' covers some introductory approach notes and the first sequence in the film: 'The Dawn Of Man'. In these episodes I want to avoid a nerdy technical discussion about how the filmmakers did what they did in this extraordinary, still-vital film masterpiece and instead focus on the remarkable ability of the film to inspire thoughts and feelings in its viewers. For a bibliography of resources consulted in the research of these episodes, check out for links to materials you might find of interest.
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232. 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' & 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre II'
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I'd never seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre before this episode. I had also never seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre II. Regrets, I have a few. And this apparent chainsaw-sized hole in my film-going life is at the heart the Brad Caleb Kane Experiment In Terror that are our Cannon Fodder series of episodes. Find out what happened in this chaotic mess of an episode.
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231. Cannon Fodder: '52 Pickup' (1986)
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Cannon Fodder continues! John Frankenheimer finds himself directing for Cannon Films with Roy Scheider starring in Elmore Leonard's own adaptation of his 1974 novel 52 Pickup. Watch before it leaves this weekend. Watch the excellent Cannon Films/Golan Globus unauthorized documentary Watch , the Larry Cohen documentary, featuring Martin Scorcese. Listen to Subscribe to my newsletter, , it contains recommendations for movies, music, tv shows, books, and musings on popular culture and the events of the given day. It's free. Listen to the first , with my special guest, Brad Kane.
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230. Cannon Fodder: Charles Bronson in '10 to Midnight' (1983)
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In this week's episode it's the debut of 'Cannon Fodder', a recurring series of episodes where I watch a curated selection of films made by schlockmeisters Golan/Globus in the 1980's for their Cannon Film Group, one of the most entertaining production shingles you'll ever hear or see. In Brad's view, he is a man of the people's cinema and I am a high-minded, opinionated cinephile. Duly diagnosed, I agreed to expand my horizons under Brad's careful tutelage. The result is either an epic argument or filled with surprises...or both. Here's a about the "Go-Go Boys" as they're known. Here's some ...
info_outlineLong before 'Waiting For Guffman', Christopher Guest directed 'The Big Picture', a heartfelt, hilariously incisive movie about making movies. The film was greenlit during British film executive David Puttnam's brief tenure running Columbia Pictures. Co-written by Guest's 'Spinal Tap' co-star Michael McKean, who also turns in an unexpectedly warm and heartfelt performance, 'The Big Picture' is worthy of rediscovery for its impressively spot-on send-up of both Los Angeles and the studio executives who populate the business.
The film stars Kevin Bacon, McKean, J.T. Walsh, Emily Longstreth, an uncredited Martin Short, Fran Drescher, Jennifer Jason Leigh.
You can watch the film here.
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