Revisiting classic movies, including the AFI's greats, foreign films and documentaries.
Bob Fosse's autobiographical musical about how he makes art until he dies is all about a guy who's doing too much and can't cope, yet he's compelled to never stop working. Name an addiction and he's got it. Yet his 8 1/2-esque story---with Roy Scheider playing a heightened version of his director---is a potent one, with all its flashy editing, production design and terrific choreography. We weren't huge fans of the songs in All That Jazz, but these actors sure can dance, especially Ann Reinking (whose name is pronounced "Rine-king"). So...5, 6, 7, 8...put on some black clothes and do your heart-killing morning routine every day as the 627th edition of Have You Ever Seen pieces through All That Jazz.
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Sometimes we turn into a fanboy and a fangirl for an entire episode...and this is one of those times. Have You Ever Seen #626 has us absolutely loving Galaxy Quest, which is director Dean Parisot's best film and it's also probably the best-ever Star Trek movie. All the characters get terrific arcs, but particularly Tim Allen as the arrogant commander. As great as he is in the leading role, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Enrico Colantoni and especially Sam Rockwell are hilarious throughout too. They play bad actors from a cancelled sci-fi TV show who get to become heroes, as Colantoni and the alien Thermians enlist the humans to battle a great villain (Robin Sachs as Sarris). And the obsessive nerds who worship the stars of their favourite show get to be heroes too. So discover that intense fandom can be what saves your life as we rave and then rave some more about Galaxy Quest.
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Our 625th episode is another Ryan solo show, with the topic of the day being George Cukor's 1954 take on A Star Is Born. Judy Garland plays a movie star on the way up while James Mason plays a movie star on the way down. While Garland was the one who was struggling with addiction in reality, Mason's character is the one who's a raging alcoholic bringing much pain to his wife, who also happens to be his discovery. She sure can sing though in this "musical"...and she sings a lot. The film is WAY too long and, while Cukor's version is a favourite of many, Bradley Cooper's 2018 ASIB is just plain better. In any case, imma let you finish your speech at an awards show, but first let's talk about tough times in Hollywood as Have You Ever Seen analyzes a beloved classic.
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A sci-fi movie about nuclear war sounds like a depressing way to honour veterans on their day, but not when the podcast is about one of the greatest (horror) movies ever made. James Cameron didn't have much of a budget to make The Terminator, but it started a franchise. And it stars the unlikeliest of movie stars, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton are terrific too, but Ah-nuld playing a murderous machine is his signature role, even if he's all wrong for an infiltration unit. He's a futuristic, murderous cyborg who's sent back in time to kill the woman who will become the mother of leader of the resistance. The chase is on. The Terminator is thrilling and it never lets up and it's all built on the back of a great screenplay. Yeah, Cameron introduces a lot of paradoxes and they don't all track, but the actors are so good in these roles that their intense performances make up for a lot of the "but how?" angles. So upgrade your pet from a lizard to a dog and prepare for a horrific future while this 624th edition of Have You Ever Seen has Ryan monologuing about The Terminator.
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Nice and uplifting movies like The Straight Story are a welcome sight in a world that's evermore cynical and meanspirited. David Lynch, a man known for sex and violence, was an usual choice to direct a real-life story about an elderly man riding his lawnmower across state lines just so he could visit his ailing brother. Still, despite some wonky acting from some of the non-professional actors, this is one of the director's finest film. Sissy Spacek is pretty great in her limited screen time as Richard Farnsworth's daughter, while Farnsworth's last performance is probably his BEST performance. He's just remarkable, playing a thoughtful man who's near the end of his life. His often-watery eyes have often inspired one of us to have watery eyes watching this film. So spend some quiet time looking up at the stars as you slowly motor across the heartland while our 623rd podcast glides through the G-rated loveliness of The Straight Story.
Well, Actually: to clarify what the Salon reviewer Charles Taylor wrote about this movie, he said "it's as wonderfully strange as anything Lynch has done".
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Happy Halloween! Scary Movie Month comes to an end with this 622nd edition of Have You Ever Seen. No, this episode isn't about George Romero's 1978 zombie classic where humans hole up in a mall. Ryan's 3rd solo show in 3 days is about Zack Snyder's intense 2004 remake. The original had plenty of blood, guts and thrills, but also a lot of satire. This has even more gore, better acting and action scenes that are even cooler. Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames lead a not-remarkably-famous cast, most of whom DO hold their own and give us a few more emotional moments than you might expect in an action/horror movie. Jake Weber and the scene-stealing Michael Kelly are the standouts. So be one of the last of the Mall-hicans as this monologue grabs the car keys, hits the gas and races away from the undead in an apocalyptic Milwaukee.
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Even though The Blair Witch Project didn't invent the genre, it's probably the best-known and the biggest hit of all the found footage movies. The online marketing campaign was especially revolutionary. It's a shame that Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez never hit these heights again as writers or directors, but they got so much mileage out of their made-up story, considering it was mostly improvised by the then-unknown Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams. The unresolved mystery takes a lot of heat for its ambiguity, yet Ryan's one-man show talks about how haunting the whole thing still feels 25 years later. This 621st edition of Have You Ever Seen also talks a lot about who or what might have caused these 3 to disappear. So face the wall on this penultimate day of both October and of Scary Movie Month as this episode tries to figure out the horrific deal in The Blair Witch Project.
Additional note: both the fake documentary "The Curse Of The Blair Witch" and the 2016 "Blair Witch" have been rewatched since recording this podcast. The "doc" is indeed very effective and even quite eerie. And while the 2016 sequel has its moments, Adam Wingard is WAY too reliant on jump scares and loud shock moments to bother building the dread the original Blair Witch did.
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Halloween Week = extra episodes! Ryan talks by himself here about the 1979 Amityville Horror...and a little about the other Amityville flicks too...all of which are based on a horrific real-life tragedy that led to a (possibly made-up) haunting in that same house. James Brolin and Margot Kidder play newlyweds who move into a place on Long Island with her 3 kids, then it starts messing with all of them...especially Brolin's mind. Chairs rock on their own, furious flies fill a room, fathers get mad and walls bleed...but will the Lutzes listen to what Rod Steiger heard early on and "GET OUT"? In any case, for God's sake, download the 620th edition of Have You Ever Seen as Stuart Rosenberg's fairly-effective horror show is discussed in fairly humorous detail.
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We kick off a big week on Have You Ever Seen with our 619th episode, a gab about Tim Burton's (probably) best film. One of the quirkiest directors of all time was actually fairly grounded making this lighthearted biopic. Johnny Depp is troublesome these days, but you can't question his work in Ed Wood as the optimistic, yet stunningly self-unaware title filmmaker. And while the entire cast is right there with him, it's the Oscar-winning Martin Landau who stands out the most as horror icon Bela Lugosi. Ed Wood is also quite sympathetic to Ed's lifestyle, whether it's that he's transgender and hasn't pulled the string on that just yet...or it's simply that he likes to wear women's clothes. In any case, Burton and the team accept the weirdness of this entire crew...and also their lack of talent. So be-vare and take carrrrre as we present a talk about the exploits of the "worst director of all time".
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Most of our choices so far in this year's Scary Movie Month haven't been all that goosebump-inducing. Creature From The Black Lagoon isn't very frightening either, but Jack Arnold's film WAS influential, especially on Guillermo Del Toro and his Oscar-winning The Shape Of Water. The Gill Man in this 1954 Universal Monster flick might look corny now in his creature suit, but the underwater shots the crew got and the stunts they all did down there remain impressive. The most-famous scene is, of course, when the creature yearns for Julie/a Adams as she swims on the surface. Ah, the loneliness of the outcast. But while the title character is violent, you could also say that he's provoked. There's a lot of "bad guy" blame to go around...to Gill AND to the Richards, Carlson & Denning. So set sail on the Rita with our 618th podcast in your ears as we discuss the soggy doings in Creature From The Black Lagoon.
Well, Actually: the pronunciation of Ricou Browning DOES seem to be "Rico". Also, the 1975 and 2005 King Kong films should have been called "remakes", not "sequels". Also also, Arthur Ross wrote "The Creature WALKS Among Us", not "The Creature Among Us".
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Fridays mean Ryan posts monologues on Have You Ever Seen and our 617th episode digs a one-man hole into Pet Sematary. Mary Lambert's 1989 horror show about unholy reanimation keeps on reminding us that "sometimes dead is better". The one who's always saying that, Fred Gwynne, is probably the best actor in this cast, although he's not THAT much better than the underwhelming Dale Midkiff or Denise Crosby. The horror highlights in the last act are excellent though. Pet Sematary also has many links to The Shining, which are 2 of the most-vivid Stephen King books. No, this gore-soaked film isn't close to perfect, but it might chill your blood more than once. So stop listening to the coot who lives across a very dangerous road and start listening to the 617th edition of Have You Ever Seen.
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