Denis Villenueve's masterpiece 2nd part of his 'Dune' trilogy.  

Barry Sonnenfeld and Scott Frank's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 1990 crime novel 'Get Shorty' was the 2nd film that John Travolta made after returning to top stardom with a bang in Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction'.  This vibe-y, enjoyable, smartly-written and brilliantly-acted mid-90's example of the $20-30 million-dollar studio movie that now seems like a vestige of another time and place.  

I'm joined again by multi-hyphenate Brad Caleb Kane for a discussion about Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's iconic 1950 satirical noir Hollywood cautionary tale 'Sunset Boulevard' and various other digressions!       

The second in my growing collection of episodes devoted to 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'...this time it's an episode celebrating all the brilliant Cliff Booth scenes...scenes representing some of Brad Pitt's finest acting to date and the heart and soul of Tarantino's greatest homage to the Hollywood of his youth.

It's my annual Oscar Recap. And Killers of the Flower Moon wuz robbed!

All of Leonardo DiCaprio's scenes as Rick Dalton in Quentin Tarantino's movie-making love-letter 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' If you're new to the podcast, there's an episode just for you. Previous All Their Scenes episodes: Phillip Seymour Hoffman in 'Charlie Wilson's War' Michael Keaton in 'Jackie Brown' and 'Out of Sight' as Special Agent Ray Nicolette. Paul Newman in 'The Verdict' Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' Warren Zevon on David Letterman  

Alan J. Pakula deserves more attention and respect as one of the grestest American film directors of any era.  His run of films in the 70's, from 'Klute' to 'The Parallax View' to 'All The President's Men'...all brilliantly shot by Cinematographer Gordon Willis (The Godfather films)...are as impressive and of their moment as any films made in this thrilling period of American filmmaking. In this episode, I dive into Pakula's understated persona and genius for working with actors, the period...

Carol Reed and Graham Greene's iconic post-war neo noir classic 'The Third Man'. A perfect movie. Steven Soderbergh calls it the only movie you need to watch in order to learn how to make a movie. In this episode I cover the making of, the battles between David O. Selznick, Alexander Korda, Reed and Orson Welles, the happenstance score to end all film scores and MORE.

In which my evolving, complicated relationship with the crowd-pleasing John 'Frenzy' MacKenzie's exuberant, vibe-y classic 'The Long Good Friday' is flayed open and nailed to the floor for your auditory enjoyment.

Director Toby Amies and I discuss his excellent and unexpected documentary 'In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50'.    

Ridley Scott's brilliant 1979 sci-fi/horror classic 'Alien' burnished his deserved reputation as bold re-interpreter of techno-dystopian futurism and exploder of genres. But it made a lot of money and dollar signs in the eyes of 'Alien' producers Brandywine Productions led them to turn for a sequel to James Cameron, who had already done a similar turn on the Rambo franchise, penning a "rewritten" script for the sequel 'Rambo: First Blood Part II' that paved the way for the ridiculously...

One of the most quotable and iconic of British films, born out of writer/director Bruce Robinson's personal experiences and shepherded to the big screen by George Harrison and his Handmade Films company. 'Withnail & I' is a beloved comedy but in this episode I talk as much about its forlorn, end-of-an-era wistful heart as I do the incredibly quotable lines. Particularly I was interested to learn of Bruce's formative me-too experience on the set of Zeffirelli's 'Romeo & Juliet' and how...

Billy Friedkin's iconic 1971 game-changing NYC police procedural/car chase classic 'The French Connection' has a fascinating backstory and making-of history, and, hey: that's what I'm here for! To bring you all the best stories behind the scenes on the streets of New York and all the context and color that helps place this movie in the pantheon of the films that came before and after it.   The NY Times article about this summer's censorship of the film is linked here. Mark Kermode's very...

Peter Yates was quietly one of the most interesting film directors of his time. His seminal 1967 British train-robbery film 'Robbery' got him noticed for the job directing Steve McQueen in 1968's 'Bullitt'.  In that film, Yates turned in a car chase frequently mentioned as second only to the iconic one filmed by Billy Friedkin in 'The French Connection'. By 1973,  Yates was in Hollywood, working under a three-picture deal with Peter Bart and Robert Evans at Paramount.  Two of those didn't...

Martin Scorcese's new film 'Killers of the Flower Moon' is in many ways his magnum opus; it's a film carefully wrought with all of his and his production team's highest possible creative efforts, and it also marshals all those resources in the furtherance of a greater collective understanding and reckoning with yet another dark chapter in America's history. Links Marty's interview with Edgar Wright. 'The FBI Story' 1959 Film version of the Osage Murders. The many Osage artisans behind...

A particular interest of mine is phone calls in movies. I'm interested in them as plot devices, as examples of good or indifferent screenwriting, as opportunities for actors to show different sides of themselves in scenes where they're not opposite other actors, and on and on. In this episode we'll take a look at a few different genres of Movie Phone Call scenes: scenes where actors are onscreen portraying both sides of the calls, scenes where we only hear the audio of the other side of the...

An appreciation of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and his brilliant portrayal of real-life CIA Most Interesting Man Gust Avrokotos in Mike Nichols' final film 'Charlie Wilson's War'. 

'Lost In America' was Albert Brooks' 3rd film as a writer/director/star and remains probably the most broadly-appealing of his films.  It's one of two of his films to have been given the Criterion stamp of cineaste approval, the other being the often-underrated 'Defending Your Life', and now,  and perhaps even more important, it's the first of his films to be given the Full Cast and Crew treatment. Links: Albert Brooks:  Famous School For Comedians  Hilarious clips from Lost In America ...

'Across 110th Street' is a 1972 Harlem crime film that contains many of the tropes of the exploitation films of the era...but it also contains incredible performances from black actors whose skills rise far above the material at hand, people like Paul Benjamin, Yaphet Kotto, Richard Ward, and Marlene Warfield.  And Bobby Womack's title song was used to great effect in 'Jackie Brown', as discussed in my last two episodes. In this week's episode I use the verses and choruses to explore Bobby...

Elmore Leonard's cocky, energetic ATF Agent Ray Nicolet is a key protagonist in his book 'Rum Punch'.  For Quentin Tarantino's film adaptation of 'Rum Punch', 'Jackie Brown', the character, now named "Ray Nicolette" was embodied by the brilliant Michael Keaton with a perfectly cocky, energetic physicality. While cinematic universes are commonplace nowadays, in 1997 it was a surprise to see the character appear, uncredited, in Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Leonard's novel of the same...

Quentin Tarantino surprised fans with the release of his third film, 'Jackie Brown' coming as it did on the heels of the global phenomenon that was 'Pulp Fiction' in all its unprecedented Tarantino-ness.  Devoid of gory violence, 'Jackie Brown' is a thoughtful, hilarious, insightful and moving crime story that manages to be incredibly faithful to the ethos of the Elmore Leonard novel 'Rum Punch' (on which the film is based) while also mining Tarantino's own deeply personal connection to the...

Billy Friedkin, maybe the weirdest (in a good way) major American director of his generation, almost doesn't make sense on paper; wait...the same guy directed 'The French Connection' and 'The Excorcist'?  But the ups and downs of Friedkin's storied and somewhat haphazard career are what makes him one of the most interesting directors to consider. And 'To Live and Die in LA' is some kind of crazy masterpiece, punching WELL above its weight as a non-studio, non-union middling-budget (6 million...

A deep-dive into the semiotics of 'Barbie' and its post-feminist critique of corporate capitalism and American mores. Just kidding, I went and saw 'Barbie' with five 12-year-olds. Six, if you count me. But seriously, this episode unpacks some of the things I found interesting about the film, its very existence, its brilliant marketing and repositioning.  Also: supporting cast wins and losses, why the filmmakers missed a perfect opportunity to put the idiotic 'Barbie Girl' song to great use,...

I'm joined by legendary ad-man-turned brand-identity guru, author, screenwriter, and producer Ernest Lupinacci to talk all things 'The Godfather' and 'The Godfather, Part II' (with a sideways glance at 'The Godfather, Part III'), including our preferences, what II gained and lost in terms of casting and production, returning Mario Puzo to center stage credit for creating this universe of indelible characters. Follow my guest Ernest Lupinacci on Instagram. Check out Ernest and illustrator...