297. Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
Full Cast And Crew
SEQUELS... In this episode, I take a look at one of the most infamous film debacles of all time: John Boorman's ill-advised, poorly conceived, crowd-displeasing follow-up to one of the greatest and most popular horror films ever made. How could it go wrong? From the start, throughout, and even after release. Let me count the ways. Also, a bit on our current moment of performative reclamation of movies that are just demonstrably awful. Resist!
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296. Michael Keaton, Glenn Close & Robert Duvall in 'The Paper' (1994)
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One of the great newspaper movies, a great NYC location movie, a great set-dressing movie, a great acting movie...on and on. The Paper deserves more recognition; it's aged particularly well as a love letter to and from a very particular time in the media business.
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295. Dolly Parton & UK Crime Show Recs
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Summer's rapidly ending and it's time to get back to the FCAC rhythm and routine. Some thoughts on the passing of Dolly Parton and some UK crime shows I've been watching of late, notably the Apple TV series 'Criminal Record'.
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294. 'Crossing Delancey' (1988)
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Joan Micklin Silver's 1988 NYC love-letter/romantic comedy Crossing Delancey is one of the superlative NYC films of all time. And watching it today, it's hard not to mourn the loss of the sense of collective experience as New Yorkers she puts onscreen, given our current situation in the City of so much divisive rhetoric and violence. And this film righteously upends the conventions of its genre and allows a fantastic collage of actors to shine in roles as notable for their refusal to stereotype as they are for their humor and depth of feeling.
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293. Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' (2026)
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Go and see 'The Odyssey' in the biggest and best theater you can. You won't regret it. A rollicking great epic cinematic event. Historian Tom Holland interviews Actor Tom Holland on The Rest Is History does (the poem).
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292. Robert Redford in 'The Candidate' (1972)
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Michael Ritchie and Redford's still-searingly satiric and spot-on takedown of political operatives and image crafting, peddling, and pandering in the modern campaign-industrial complex speaks louder than ever, given recent events in our body politic.
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291. Listening to The Beatles in Ireland
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On a recent trip through Ireland with my daughter, I unexpectedly got back into The Beatles...this is the story.
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290. 'Dogfight' (1991)
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Nancy Savoca & Bob Comfort's wonderful jewel-box gem of an American independent film from 1991.
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289. 'Running On Empty' (1988)
Full Cast And Crew
Sidney Lumet and Naomi Foner (and Executive Producers Griffin Dunne and Lisa Robinson) took what in lesser hands would be a family melodrama and allowed it to become an incredibly mature, layered, complicated story resting entirely on the capable shoulders of its cast of wonderful actors...not least 17-year-olds Martha Plimpton and River Phoenix, a couple off-screen and on.
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288. [indistinct chatter] 6/19
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In this weeks [indistinct chatter] episode: Disclosure Day The Social Reckoning Clarkson's Farm Season 5 Next Week's Episode of Movies I I Haven't Seen. Musings, anecdotes, recriminations.
info_outlineIn the second of my two-parter on Dog Day Afternoon, we get out of the fictional universe of the film and explore the real people behind the characters shown onscreen.
John Wojtowicz' life proved truly stranger and more depressingly pedestrian than fiction. So much so that he preferred the fictional version of himself and performed that role for the rest of his life after being released from prison in 1978 until his death in 2006.
The LIFE Magazine article that caught the attention of Pacino's producer and manager.
A very good jailhouse interview with John Wojtowicz from the Village Voice's Cliff Jahr.
The excellent documentary Based on a True Story: Dog Day Afternoon by the Dutch filmmaker Walter Stokman.
The documentary that covers more of the end of John's life, The Dog.
Pierre Huyghe's installation video art piece Third Memory, an indispensable part of understanding memory, film, and the roles we perform.
I didn't get to this in the podcast but here's an unpublished essay John wrote to the NY Times reviewing the film.
1978 Washington Post profile of John, freshly out of prison.