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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Rian Johnson's best and worst rated films, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and The Brothers Bloom (2008), respectively. Nate felt like he was watching The Brothers Bored, Austin misses shirtless Kylo, and Tyler knocks Rian Johnson off his top directors list after being subjected to his lowest rated film. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and Seven Psychopaths (2012), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Rian Johnson about making Star Wars: The Last Jedi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQCRFXVoM38  

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Robert Rodriguez's best and worst rated films, Sin City (2005) and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005), respectively. Nate plays the role of Boredboy, Austin is still confused, and they're both tired from watching 5 of the same credit sequences in Sin City. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST for our milestone 90th episode where we will compare Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and The Brothers Bloom (2008), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Fritz Lang about his life and career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QgLyyYEEnA

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The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A young boy is recruited by his imaginary friends Sharkboy and Lavagirl to help save their planet.

• Ratings: IMDb 3.5 | RT 20% C / 31% A
• Released: 2005
• Director: Robert Rodriguez
• Writer(s): Robert Rodriguez and Marcel Rodriguez (written by), Racer Rodriguez (story)
• Cinematographer: Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids 3, Machete Kills)
• Notable actors: Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd, George Lopez, David Arquette, Kristin Davis, Jacob Davich
• Budget: $50 million
• Box office: $69.4 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Taylor Lautner, ironically, has a fear of sharks.
  • The story was conceived by Robert Rodriguez's then seven-year-old son Racer Rodriguez, who receives an on-screen "Story By" credit. Max is named after Racer's middle name (Racer and Robert also provide the audio commentary for the DVD and Blu-ray together).
  • The movie was shot and completed so quickly that by the time Robert Rodriguez was ready to ship it, the advertisements weren't finished.
  • Taylor Lautner's martial arts skills helped him to obtain the role of Sharkboy. "When I auditioned for the film, Robert Rodriguez, the director, didn't know that I had my martial arts background, and while we there in Austin, TX he saw a DVD of me and asked me to choreograph my own fight scenes", said Lautner.
  • George Lopez plays and voices 4 of the movie's characters.

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Sin City Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A film that explores the dark and miserable town, Basin City, and tells the story of three different people, all caught up in violent corruption.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.0 | RT 77% C / 78% A
• Released: 2005
• Director: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez
• Writer(s): Frank Miller (graphic novels)
• Cinematographer: Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids 3, Machete Kills)
• Notable actors: Jessica Alba, Devon Aoki, Alexis Bledel, Powers Boothe, Cara D. Briggs, Jude Ciccolella, Jeffrey J. Dashnaw, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Jason Douglas, Michael Clarke Duncan, Tommy Flanagan, Rick Gomez, Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Rutger Hauer, Michael Madsen
• Budget: $40 million
• Box office: $158.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Because of the way the movie was shot, Mickey Rourke (Marv) and Elijah Wood (Kevin) never met until after the film was released.
  • The swords used by Miho (Devon Aoki) in this film are the same ones used by some of the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003). That film's director, Quentin Tarantino, had been keeping them in the back of his garage.
  • Robert Rodriguez has said that he does not consider this movie to be an adaptation so much as a translation. This is why there is no screenwriting in the credits. The only mention of writing is Frank Miller as the creator of the graphic novels.
  • Guest director Quentin Tarantino directed the scene involving Dwight (Clive Owen) and Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) in the front of the car, before Dwight is pulled over by a police officer.
  • The film, and many of its effects and scoring, were all done in Robert Rodriguez's studio, which is immediately across the street from his house, because he refuses to work anywhere else, and shuns other Hollywood traditions. It took his friendship with Miramax honchos Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein to make the production of this film possible, as no other studios would take a chance on either Rodriguez's methods or such a bizarre film.
  • While the three stories in the film are based on "The Hard Goodbye," "The Big Fat Kill" and "That Yellow Bastard" as well as the short "The Customer is Always Right" there is a very brief scene taken from the story "A Dame to Kill For," in which Dwight (Clive Owen) thinks in a voice over in Kadie's Bar how Marv "would have been okay if he'd been born a couple of thousand years ago."
  • The scene in which Marv climbs out of the manhole, and staggers up against a wall, was acted out in reverse, then shown forwards, to give an otherworldly appearance to Marv.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Fritz Lang's best and worst rated films, M (1931) and The Return of Frank James (1940), respectively. Nate doesn't have much to say about Frank James, Austin really appreciates child murders, and they both fawn over their boy Rogey D. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Robert Rodriguez's Sin City (2005) and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D (1940), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Fritz Lang about his life and career: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYk0qzqqjmQ

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The Return of Frank James Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Frank James continues to avoid arrest in order to take revenge on the Ford brothers for their murder of his brother Jesse.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.7 | RT 83% C / 48% A
• Released: 1940
• Director: Fritz Lang
• Writer(s): Sam Hellman (original screenplay)
• Cinematographer: George Barnes (Rebecca, Spellbound, The War of the Worlds)
• Notable actors: Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Jackie Cooper, Henry Hull, John Carradine, J. Edward Bromberg, Donald Meek
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • The original treatment had Frank romantically interested in the reporter played by Gene Tierney, but the studio became fearful of a possible lawsuit by Frank's widow and/or son, so it was eliminated from the script.
  • The studio bought the rights to the James Brothers but changed the facts for entertainment. Although Frank surrendered 6 months after Jesse James' murder, both Ford brothers were already dead and Frank had nothing to do with their deaths.
  • Film debut of Gene Tierney.
  • Jackie Cooper and Matthew "Stymie" Beard shared the same screen for the first time since their last appearances together in Bargain Day (1931) (as Hal Roach's Rascals).

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M Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.4 | RT 100% C / 95% A
• Released: 1931
• Director: Fritz Lang
• Writer(s): Theo von Harbou and Fritz Lang (script), Egon Jacobson (article)
• Cinematographer: Friz Arno Wagner (Nosferatu, Spies, Destiny)
• Notable actors: Pete Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke, Theodor Loos, Gustaf Grundgens, Friedrich Gnab, Fritz Odemar, Pual Kemp, Theo Lingen, Rudolf Blumner, Georg John
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • Fritz Lang's cruelty to the actors was legendary. Peter Lorre was thrown down the stairs into the cellar over a dozen times. When Lang wanted to hire Lorre for Human Desire (1954) over two decades later, the actor refused.
  • Fritz Lang asserted that he cast real criminals for the court scene in the end. According to biographer Paul Jensen, 24 cast members were arrested during filming.
  • Contrary to popular belief, Fritz Lang did not change the title from "The Murderers are Among Us" to "M" due to fear of persecution by the Nazis. He changed the title during filming, influenced by the scene where one of the criminals writes the letter on his hand. Lang thought "M" was a more interesting title.
  • Director Fritz Lang said this is his favorite of all of his films.
  • Although he was thrilled to play such a major part, Peter Lorre came to hate it later as people tended to associate him with being a child murderer in real life.
  • In Germany, the Nazis banned the movie in July 1934.
  • The film is supposedly based on the real-life case of serial killer Peter Kürten, called "The Vampire of Düsseldorf", whose crimes in the 1920s horrified Germany. However, director Fritz Lang has expressly denied that he drew any inspiration from the case. Nevertheless, he and his wife Thea von Harbou researched the crimes carefully, consulting with German police, visiting murder scenes, interviewing sex offenders in prison and even talking to detectives in Scotland Yard in London. According to Lang biographer Paul Jensen, the director spent eight days doing field research in a mental institution.
  • The organization of beggars mentioned in the film actually did exist in Berlin at the time.
  • Two-thirds of the film was shot with sound, the remaining third was shot silent. At the time the license fees for sound equipment were quite prohibitive, so this was a move to try to keep costs down. However, Fritz Lang liked the eerie, unnerving quality that arose from going from a sound world to one where there is no noise at all.
  • MGM studio executive Irving Thalberg assembled his writers and directors for a private screening of this film, telling them that they needed to be making films of this power and caliber. He also admitted that if anyone had brought a story of a child killer to him, he would have rejected it.
  • The use of voiceover narration was a groundbreaking new technique at the time.
  • Before making this, Peter Lorre had mainly been a comedic actor.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Charlie Kaufman's best and worst rated films, Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Anomalisa (2015), respectively. Nate is excited for the Oscars, Austin doesn't know what the hell is going on, and they both continue their love affair with Charlie Kaufman. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Fritz Lang's M (1931) and The Return of Frank James (1940), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director John Ford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u2DDjKKR10

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Anomalisa Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A man crippled by the mundanity of his life experiences something out of the ordinary.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.2 | RT 91% C / 70% A
• Released: 2015
• Director: Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson
• Writer(s): Charlie Kaufman (written by)
• Cinematographer: Joe Passarelli (Marrying God, Beatdown, Skyler)
• Notable actors: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan
• Budget: $8 million
• Box office: $5.5 million

• Fun Facts:
  • This film was crowd-funded through Kickstarter.com.
  • Michael stays at the Fregoli hotel. The Fregoli delusion, or the delusion of doubles, is a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise. The syndrome may be related to a brain lesion and is often of a paranoid nature, with the delusional person believing themselves persecuted by the person they believe is in disguise.
  • With the exception of the two leads, every character (male or female) is voiced by Tom Noonan.
  • The first R-rated animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
  • In earlier stages, this film was planned to be only a short film, with 40 minutes in length.
  • David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tom Noonan are the same actors that voiced the original "sound play" on which the movie is based.
  • The song Lisa sings to Michael was originally supposed to be Céline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", but was changed to Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" when the Titanic (1997) theme song could not be licensed for the movie.
  • The classic movie the protagonist puts on TV, reenacted with puppets, was originally supposed to be Casablanca (1942), but the production could not afford to license it so it was changed to My Man Godfrey (1936), which was in the public domain.
  • At 8:47, Michael enters the Fregoli Hotel. Except for a brief shot of Michael's face (9:27 to 9:29), the shot remains unbroken until 12:29, following Michael from the front desk of the hotel, into the elevator, up to the tenth floor and to his hotel room, where the last image of the shot is Michael urinating in his room's toilet.
  • The movie takes place in 2005.
  • Co-director Duke Johnson stated it took six months for him to animate the sex scene because of technical reasons and making the scene realistic as opposed to comedic.
  • Michael is in every scene of the film, except the last one.
  • In the last scene with the girls in the car, the camera briefly focuses on Marie's face and you can see she is a different person to the face that Michael sees everyone as.

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Synecdoche, New York Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A theatre director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he creates a life-size replica of New York City inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.5 | RT 69% C / 71% A
• Released: 2008
• Director: Charlie Kaufman
• Writer(s): Charlie Kaufman (written by)
• Cinematographer: Frederick Elmes (Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Night on Earth)
• Notable actors: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Sadie Goldstein, Tom Noonan, Peter Friedman, Charles Techman, Josh Pais, Daniel London, Robert Seay, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh
• Budget: $20 million
• Box office: $4.4 million

• Fun Facts:
  • At the start of the film, when 'Phillip Seymour Hoffman' is reading the news at the breakfast table, he reads out that "Harold Pinter has died.... wait.... no - he's won the Nobel prize". This is a reference to a famous Sky News clip whereby Sky, in their rush to be first with breaking news, accidentally announced that Harold Pinter was dead. In fact it had just been announced that he was to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature.
  • The article that Caden reads while in the doctor's waiting room, about his wife, is titled: "It's Good To Be Adele". The intro paragraph reads: "Six months ago, Adele was an under-appreciated housewife in Eastern New York. Stuck in a dead-end marriage to a slovenly ugly-face loser, Adele Lack had big dreams for her and her then four-year-old daughter, Olivia. That's when her paintings got small."
  • The name next to the buzzer of Adele's apartment reads "Capgras." Given the subject of the film - a man has actors play the real people in his life - this is almost certainly a reference to a psychological phenomenon called the Capgras delusion, where the sufferer believes that everyone in his or her life has been replaced with an identical-looking impostor.
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman's character's last name is a reference to the Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, which is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood or internal organs.
  • Roger Ebert named this film the best of the 2000s.
  • Christopher Evan Welch, according to Charlie Kaufman, was cast at the last minute. Welch only had less than a day to rehearse and perform his scene, delivering a monologue.
  • In a radio interview, director Charlie Kaufman revealed that while scouting for a location, he and a few other crew members became stuck in an elevator late at night and were afraid it would plummet. They had to open the doors and jump out to escape. In the same interview, Kaufman discussed a recurring and claustrophic dream he has about being stuck in an elevator, and that the movie was purposefully structured like a dream (it has double the number of scenes than an average movie of its length).

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare John Ford's best and worst rated films, The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Tobacco Road (1941), respectively. Nate hates old people, Austin has a crush on Henry Fonda, and they both are surprised at the lack of western. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Anomalisa (2015), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director John Ford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P2fY75Qlxs

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Tobacco Road Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A poor family in rural Georgia struggles to make ends meet as the clan's father proudly refuses help at every turn.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.6 | RT N/A C / 36% A
• Released: 1940
• Director: John Ford
• Writer(s): Erskine Caldwell (based on the novel by), Jack Kirkland (stage play), Nunnally Johnson (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Arthur C. Miller (Anna and the King of Siam, The Song of Bernadette)
• Notable actors: Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy, Elizabeth Patterson, Dana Andrews, Slim Summerville, Ward Bond
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: $1.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews get barely 5 minutes of screen time each. Gene gets just half a dozen lines to speak
  • The Broadway play by Jack Kirkland based on Erskine Caldwell's novel opened 4 December 1933 and set a record for longevity on Broadway when it closed on 31 May 1941 after 3,281 performances. It was revived on Broadway twice in the next two years, bring its total running time there to nearly ten years (1933-1943). Opened at the Theatre Masque and then moved to the 48th Street Theatre followed by the Forrest Theatre for the original production. The play was revived in 1942, 1943 and 1950. The original Broadway production is the seventeenth longest running show ever as of February, 2013.
  • The early-1941 Ford Super De Luxe Convertible Club Coupe, driven by Harvey Parry, survived its ordeal. During filming it had been crashed into a 100-year-old sycamore tree, then backed out of the debris and driven fast to jump over a 20-foot stream (with the aid of a ramp), and thereafter smashed through several fences, sideswiped a two-ton truck (forcing the truck off the road), rammed through a tool shed (cut from final release), jumped a curb, splintered a park bench, rammed a station wagon, ran into two other trees and skidded until finally overturning. Following this, the car was set right by the crew and driven back to the studio by Parry. A studio employee, Arthur Webb, purchased the badly-damaged convertible from 20th Century-Fox and, with his brother Don, commenced to repair it with hundreds of hours of personal labor and $125 in new parts from a Beverly Hills dealership.
  • The movie was banned in Australia for unspecified reasons, but generally had few censorship problems.

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The Grapes of Wrath Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A poor Midwest family is forced off their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.1 | RT 100% C / 88% A
• Released: 1940
• Director: John Ford
• Writer(s): Nunnally Johnson (screenplay), John Steinbeck (based on the novel by)
• Cinematographer: Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, Wuthering Heights, The Best Years of Our Lives)
• Notable actors: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin, Dorris Bowdon, Russell Simpson, O.Z. Whitehead, John Qualen, Eddie Quillan, Zeffie Tilbury, Frank Sully
• Budget: $800 thousand
• Box office: $2.5 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Prior to filming, producer Darryl F. Zanuck sent undercover investigators out to the migrant camps to see if John Steinbeck had been exaggerating about the squalor and unfair treatment meted out there. He was horrified to discover that, if anything, Steinbeck had actually downplayed what went on in the camps.
  • John Steinbeck loved the movie and said that Henry Fonda as Tom Joad made him "believe my own words".
  • John Ford banned all makeup and perfume from the set on the grounds that it was not in keeping with the tone of the picture.
  • John Steinbeck was particularly enamored with the performance of Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, feeling that he perfectly encapsulated everything he wanted to convey with this character. The two became good friends. Indeed Fonda did a reading at Steinbeck's funeral.
  • Henry Fonda kept the hat he wore in the movie for the rest of his life, until before he passed away in 1982 he gave it to his old friend Jane Withers. Apparently he and Withers, when she was an 8 year old girl and he a young man, did a play together before Fonda made movies. Fonda was so nervous to go onstage that little Jane took his hand, said a little prayer to ease his nerves, and the two of them became good friends for life.
  • The pro-union stance of the film led to both John Steinbeck and John Ford being investigated by Congress during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era for alleged pro-Communist leanings.
  • While filming the Joads' car traveling down the highway, John Ford wanted to add a shot showing the large number of caravans heading west, so the film's business manager stopped actual cars making the trek and paid the drivers five dollars to escort the Joads' jalopy for the cameras.
  • Noah Joad simply vanishes after the scene of the family swimming in the Colorado River. In the book, Noah tells Tom he has decided to stay by the river. In the film, his disappearance is never explained.
  • The production had a fake working title, "Highway 66", so that the shoot of the controversial novel would not be affected by union problems. Much of the dire straits portrayed in the film continued during and after the release of the movie.
  • When Darryl F. Zanuck suggested to John Ford that, to create an upbeat ending, he use Ma Joad's "we're the people" monologue for a closing scene, Ford told Zanuck to direct it himself - which he did.
  • The film was one of the first to be voted onto the National Film Registry (1989).
  • Although John Carradine hated John Ford's bullying style of direction, he nevertheless made eleven films with him over a period of 28 years. Ford was particularly keen on Carradine's unusual look.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Jonathan Demme's best and worst rated films, The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and The Truth About Charlie (2002), respectively. Nate talks bad about Markie Mark, Austin wishes he were Buffalo Bill, and they both record the podcast with some fava beans and a nice Chianti -- thfthfthfthf. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Tobacco Road (1941), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Jonathan Demme about his work on The Silence of the Lambs: https://vimeo.com/226660031

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The Truth About Charlie Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A woman returns from holiday to find her husband has been murdered, and several groups of people are pressuring her to unravel the mystery of his true identity and activities during his final days.

• Ratings: IMDb 4.8 | RT 33% C / 27% A
• Released: 2002
• Director: Jonathan Demme
• Writer(s): Peter Stone (Charade screenplay), Jonathan Demme & Steve Schmidt and Peter Stone and Jessica Bendinger (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto (The Sixth Sense, Star Wars: A New Hope, Signs)
• Notable actors: Stephen Dillane, Thandie Newton, Sakina Jaffrey, Mark Wahlberg, Christine Boisson, Simon Abkarian, Joong-Hoon Park, LisaGay Hamilton, Ted Levine, Tim Robbins
• Budget: $60 million
• Box office: $7.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Mark Wahlberg considers this his worst film.
  • Peter Stone, the writer of Charade (1963) (the basis for the movie) was so against this remake, that in some releases of this movie, his screenwriting credit was changed to Peter Joshua, the name of Cary Grant's character in Charade.
  • The part of Joshua Peters was originally intended for Will Smith, but due to the extended production on Ali (2001), he was unable to make the start of filming on Charlie, so Demme had to move forward with Mark Wahlberg instead, losing the Thandie Newton and Will Smith "double-act" he had imagined watching the original movie Charade (1963).
  • The movie contains numerous connections to French New Wave films. Reference is made to Shoot the Piano Player (1960) and its star, Charles Aznavour, has a singing role at the end of this movie. Anna Karina, featured in several Jean-Luc Godard films, has a bit part.

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The Silence of the Lambs Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.

• Ratings: IMDb 8.6 | RT 95% C / 95% A
• Released: 1991
• Director: Jonathan Demme
• Writer(s): Thomas Harris (novel), Ted Tally (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto (The Sixth Sense, Star Wars: A New Hope, Signs)
• Notable actors: Jodie Foster, Kasi Lemmons, Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, Frankie Faison, Don Brockett, Anthony Hopkins, Brooke Smith, Ted Levine
• Budget: $19 million
• Box office: $272.7 million

• Fun Facts:
  • In preparation for his role, Sir Anthony Hopkins studied files of serial killers. Also, he visited prisons, and studied convicted murderers, and was present during some court hearings concerning gruesome murderers and serial killings.
  • Jodie Foster claims that during the first meeting between Lecter and Starling, Sir Anthony Hopkins' mocking of her southern accent was improvised on the spot. Foster's horrified reaction was genuine, she felt personally attacked. She later thanked Hopkins for generating such an honest reaction.
  • Jame Gumb is the combination of three real-life serial killers: Ed Gein, who skinned his victims, Ted Bundy, who used the cast on his hand as bait to convince women to get into his van, and Gary Heidnick, who kept women he kidnapped in a pit in his basement. Gein was only positively linked to two murders, and suspected of two others. He gathered most of his materials through grave robbing, not murder.
  • When Sir Anthony Hopkins found out that he was cast as Hannibal Lecter, based on his performance as Dr. Frederick Treves in The Elephant Man (1980), he questioned Director Jonathan Demme, and said, "But Dr. Treves was a good man." To which Demme replied, "So is Lecter, he is a good man too. Just trapped in an insane mind."
  • When Sir Anthony Hopkins' agent called him in London, to tell him that he was sending him a script called "The Silence of the Lambs", Hopkins immediately thought he might be going up for a children's movie.
  • With twenty-four minutes and fifty-two seconds of screentime, Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance in this movie is the second shortest to ever win an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, with David Niven in Separate Tables (1958) beating him, at twenty-three minutes and thirty-nine seconds.
  • Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster only share four scenes throughout the course of the film.
  • After Lecter was moved from Baltimore, the plan was to dress him in a yellow or orange jumpsuit. Sir Anthony Hopkins convinced Jonathan Demme and Costume Designer Colleen Atwood that the character would seem more clinical and unsettling if he was dressed in pure white. Hopkins has since said he got the idea from his fear of dentists.
  • One of the inspirations, from whom Sir Anthony Hopkins borrowed, for his interpretation of Hannibal Lecter, was a friend of his in London who never blinked, which unnerved anyone around him.
  • Jodie Foster spent a great deal of time with F.B.I. Agent Mary Ann Krause prior to filming. Krause gave Foster the idea of Starling standing by her car crying. Krause told Foster that at times, the work just became so overwhelming that it was a good way to get an emotional release.
  • Jame Gumb's dance was not included in the original draft of the screenplay, although it appears in the novel. It was added at the insistence of Ted Levine, who thought the scene was essential in defining the character.
  • The Silence of the Lambs was inspired by the real-life relationship between University of Washington criminology professor and profiler Robert Keppel, and serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy helped Keppel investigate the Green River Serial Killings in Washington. Bundy was executed January 24, 1989. The Green River Killings were finally solved in 2001, when Gary Ridgway was arrested. On November 5, 2003, in a Seattle courtroom, Ridgway plead guilty to forty-eight counts of aggravated first degree murder.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Terrence Malick's best and worst rated films, Badlands (1973) and Knight of Cups (2015), respectively. Nate needs to watch more experimental films, Austin gets seduced by Martin Sheen, and neither of them have any idea what Knight of Cups is about. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) and Knight of Cups (2015), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with actor Christian Bale about working with director Terrence Malick on Knight of Cups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGzuSmrvZVA

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Knight of Cups Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.7 | RT 45% C / 37% A
• Released: 2015
• Director: Terrence Malick
• Writer(s): Terrence Malick (written by)
• Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki (Birdman, The Revenant, Children of Men)
• Notable actors: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Brian Dennehy, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Wes Bentley, Isabel Lucas, Teresa Palmer, Imogen Poots
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: $1.1 million

• Fun Facts:
  • According to Christian Bale, Terrence Malick didn't tell the actors what the film was about.
  • There was no script. All of the scenes were improvised.
  • Christian Bale had no lines to learn and Terrence Malick only gave him the character description.
  • During filming Terrence Malick would use a technique he called "torpedoing" where he would unexpectedly send people into the scene to get a reaction from the actors who were performing.
  • Christian Bale said that at the start of each day's shoot he wouldn't know what would happen to his character.
  • During filming, Christian Bale thought Teresa Palmer was a stripper. It was not until about a week after working with her, he suddenly saw a billboard with her face on it and realized that she is an actress.
  • Christian Bale and Natalie Portman both said that they spent more days on the voice-over work for the movie than they did on the actual shooting of the film.

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Badlands Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.9 | RT 98% C / 91% A
• Released: 1973
• Director: Terrence Malick
• Writer(s): Terrence Malick (written by)
• Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto, Steve Larner, Brian Probyn
• Notable actors: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri, Alan Vint
• Budget: $300 thousand
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • The actor originally cast as the architect that rings at the rich man's door did not show up, so Terrence Malick played the part himself. Malick later wanted to re-shoot the scene with another actor, but Martin Sheen refused to re-do the sequence with another person.
  • Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez's (Martin Sheen's sons) feature film debut. Uncredited, both play boys under a lamppost.
  • Sissy Spacek met her future husband, art director Jack Fisk, on the set of this movie. As of November 2015, they have collaborated on eight feature films.
  • The film's tag line ("In 1959 a lot of people were killing time. Kit and Holly were killing people") inspired the Zodiac Killer, who had been lying low for years, to write a letter to a newspaper denouncing their flippant attitude to violence in society by running such an ad.
  • The film's plot and lead characters are based on Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate. In 1958, they embarked on a murder spree that horrified the country.
  • Charles Starkweather had been executed by the time the film started production, but Caril Fugate was still alive and facing parole. The filmmakers changed the principal characters' names to avoid a lawsuit.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Yorgos Lanthimos' best and worst rated films, Dogtooth (2009) and Alps (2011), respectively. Nate feels like he's watching a porno, Austin exclusively watches Black Mirror, and they both sounding pretentious about experimental films. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) and Knight of Cups (2015), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Yorgos Lanthimos about his new film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MOe5nfvLeM

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Alps Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A group of people start a business where they impersonate the recently deceased in order to help their clients through the grieving process.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.4 | RT 74% C / 52% A
• Released: 2011
• Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
• Writer(s): Efthymis Filippou (screenplay), Yorgos Lanthimos (screenplay)
• Cinematographer: Christos Voudouris (Before Midnight, Love Is Strange)
• Notable actors: Angeliki Papoulia, Aris Servetalis, Johnny Vekris, Ariane Labed
• Budget: N/A
• Box office: N/A

• Fun Facts:
  • The 15 Rules of the Alps: An Alps member: 1. Must declare in advance the things he or she is unwilling to do by filling out Form 1 (e.g. kissing, lifting weights, travelling, etc.). 2. Must also declare in advance the things he or she is good at by filling out Form 2 (e.g. dancing, waterskiing, discussing, etc.). 3. Must have some basic knowledge of psychology and sociology. 4. Is obliged to support, under all circumstances, the interests of the Alps group. 5. Must respect other Alps members. 6. Has the right to change their nickname only twice. They cannot choose a nickname belonging to another Alps member. The nickname must strictly be the name of a mountain in the Alps, and not something general or irrelevant (e.g. Blonde, Master, Dragon, etc.). 7. Can never talk about Alps activities with non-Alps members. 8. Is obliged to take the Gymnastics Club Test, if necessary. 9. Must be over 14 years of age. 10. Should always be smart, clean, punctual, and in complete control. 11. Must never get emotionally involved with clients, or have intimate relations with them. 12. Cannot change his or her physical appearance without the Leader's permission (e.g. dye their hair, lose or gain weight, wear coloured contact lenses, etc.). 13. Must be able to make convincing facial expressions (sadness, happiness, despair, etc.). 14. Must honor the title of their membership, and be ready to kill or die for it. 15. Must never attack another Alps member, and must believe in teamwork.
  • Efthymis Filippou, screenwriter, had to step in as the "owner of the lighting shop" two days before shooting of the film started.

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Dogtooth Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: Three teenagers live isolated, without leaving their house, because their over-protective parents say they can only leave when their dogtooth falls out.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.3 | RT 92% C / 75% A
• Released: 2009
• Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
• Writer(s): Efthymis Filippou (writer), Yorgos Lanthimos (writer)
• Cinematographer: Thimios Bakatakis (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster)
• Notable actors: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley, Angeliki Papoulia, Hristos Passalis, Mary Tsoni, Anna Kalaitzidou
• Budget: $240 thousand
• Box office: $1.4 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The entire film was shot on only one lens: an anamorphic lens with 50mm focal length.
  • The inspiration for the film came about because of a discussion Yorgos Lanthimos was having with some friends who were about to get married. When Lanthimos expressed doubts about the institution and family itself, he was struck by the idea about what would happen to a man who went to the ultimate extreme of protecting his family.
  • The first film from Greece to be officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival in a decade.
  • Because the subject matter was so claustrophobic, the choice was made to set the film in as big and expansive a house as the production could find, complete with swimming pool and enormous garden.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare John Schlesinger's best and worst rated films, Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), respectively. Nate is not a Honky Tonk happy camper, Austin talks about his feelings on Dustin Hoffman, and they both confront their masculinity. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Yorgos Lamthimos's Dogtooth (2009) and Alps (2011), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview revisiting the cast and crew of Midnight Cowbow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGR_mD9nW6g

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Honky Tonk Freeway Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: Ticlaw, a small town in Florida, has only one attraction: a safari park. The government constructs a freeway that passes near Ticlaw, but decides not to put an exit into the town. The people of Ticlaw, led by its Mayor, will do anything in order to convince the governor to alter the project.

• Ratings: IMDb 5.0 | RT N/A C / 51% A
• Released: 1981
• Director: John Schlesinger
• Writer(s): Edward Clinton
• Cinematographer: John Bailey (In the Line of Fire, Antitrust, Silverado)
• Notable actors: David Rasche, Paul Jabara, Howard Hesseman, Teri Garr, Jenn Thompson, Peter Billingsley, Beau Bridges, Beverly D’Angelo, Daniel Stern
• Budget: $24 million
• Box office: $2 million

• Fun Facts:
  • The entire town of Mount Dora, Florida, was painted pink for this picture.
  • Due to delays in filming the movie, the Mount Dora section of the picture was was pushed back until the 1980 summer when it had meant to shoot there in spring.
  • When released, its $24 million budget made it the most expensive comedy ever produced. It was a major failure at the box office.
  • Director John Schlesinger's original cut was somewhere in the range of three hours.
  • Two thousand extras and background artists in Mount Dora, Florida were paid around US $35 per day to appear in the film.
  • According to Pulse the Magazine, "the film had been fraught with problems, from a disjointed script to its title - and marketing that implied it was just '...another car crash comedy romp'. This was compounded by the producers' decision to sell the video rights before Universal Pictures agreed to release the film. Angered by this, Universal minimized their marketing support and limited the number of theaters in which the film was shown. Withdrawn from theaters just a week after its release, the movie disappeared".

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Midnight Cowboy Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York to seek personal fortune but, in the process, finds himself a new friend.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.9 | RT 90% C / 88% A
• Released: 1969
• Director: John Schlesinger
• Writer(s): Waldo Salt (screenplay), James Leo Herlihy (based on the novel by)
• Cinematographer: Adam Holender (Smoke, Twisted, Sea of Love)
• Notable actors: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt, Gilman Rankin
• Budget: $3.2 million
• Box office: $44.8 million

• Fun Facts:
  • Before Dustin Hoffman auditioned for this film, he knew that his all-American image could easily cost him the job. To prove he could do it, he asked the auditioning film executive to meet him on a street corner in Manhattan, and in the meantime, dressed himself in filthy rags. The executive arrived at the appointed corner and waited, barely noticing the "beggar" less than ten feet away who was accosting people for spare change. At last, the beggar walked up to him and revealed his true identity.
  • Dustin Hoffman put in so much effort portraying one of Ratso's coughing fits that one time he actually ended up vomiting.
  • According to Dustin Hoffman himself, the taxi incident *wasn't* scripted. During an L.A. Times interview in Jan. 2009, he said that the movie didn't have a permit to close down the NYC street for filming, so they had to set-up the scene with a hidden camera in a van driving down the street, and remote microphones for the actors. After 15 takes, it was finally going well, but this time, as they crossed the street, a taxi ran a red light. Hoffman wanted to say "Hey, we're SHOOTING here!", not only from fear of his life, but also from anger that the taxi driver might have ruined the take. Instead, being the professional that he is, he stayed in character and shouted "Hey, we're WALKING here!" and made movie history. Jon Voight also backs up this version of the incident, saying that seeing how well Hoffman was handling the situation, he likewise stayed in character.
  • Dustin Hoffman kept pebbles in his shoe to ensure his limp would be consistent from shot to shot.
  • The film was rated "X" (no one under 17 admitted) upon its original release in 1969, but the unrestricted use of that rating by pornographic filmmakers caused the rating to quickly become associated with hardcore sex films. Because of the stigma that developed around the "X" rating in the ratings system's early years, many theaters refused to run "X" films and many newspapers would not run ads for them. The film was given a new "R" (children under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian) rating in 1971, without having anything changed or removed. It remains the only X-Rated film ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture, be shown on network TV (although the R reclassification had taken place by then), or be screened by a sitting U.S. President, Richard Nixon.
  • Bob Dylan wrote the song "Lay, Lady, Lay" for the film, but didn't complete it in time to be included in the soundtrack.
  • This film contains the first recorded use of the word "scuzzy", as a description of Ratso Rizzo. At its root, "scuzzy" is apparently a combination of "scummy" and "fuzzy".

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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Download MP3 In today's episode Nate and Austin compare Sam Raimi' best and worst rated films, Evil Dead 2 (1987) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), respectively. Nate goes on about horror films again, Austin has a nostalgia trip, and they both go off on tangents. Check back next Sunday at 7pm PST where we will compare Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and The Brothers Bloom (2008), his best and worst rated films.

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Also check out this interview with director Sam Raimi about his lowest rated film, Spider-Man 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnzoLtP8scQ

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Spider-Man 3 Notes

Worst Rated

PLOT: A strange black entity from another world bonds with Peter Parker and causes inner turmoil as he contends with new villains, temptations, and revenge.

• Ratings: IMDb 6.2 | RT 63% C / 51% A
• Released: 2007
• Director: Sam Raimi
• Writer(s): Sam Raimi & Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent (screenplay), Saim Raimi & Ivan Raimi (screen story), Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (Marvel comic book)
• Cinematographer: Bill Pope (The Matrix, The Jungle Book, Bound)
• Notable actors: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, James Cromwell, Theresa Russell, Dylan Baker, Bill Nunn, Bruce Campbell, Elizabeth Banks, Ted Raimi, Perla Haney-Jardine, Willem Dafoe, Cliff Robertson
• Budget: $258 million
• Box office: $890.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • On May 4th, 2007, while promoting the film on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992), Thomas Haden Church revealed that he broke three knuckles during the subway scene where he swings to punch Spider-Man and ends up punching a chunk of the wall away. Church said that the effects crew had told him that the brick in the middle was fake while the upper and lower ones were real. Unfortunately, the foam brick had not actually been put in place yet, and when Sam Raimi yelled 'action', Church spun around and punched the real brick on the first take.
  • All of the screams Kirsten Dunst had for this film were recycled from Spider-Man 2 (2004).
  • Bryce Dallas Howard performed her own stunts during the crane accident scene, unaware that she was pregnant at the time of filming.
  • In total, the film took 2 years and 10 months to make.
  • There were many scenes that were shot but never released on DVD including a montage of Peter (in his black suit) taking down criminals and leaving them strung up, tons of character-building moments, a confrontation scene between Captain Stacy and Eddie Brock (where Gwen dumps him at her father's house) and Peter freaking out after he looks in a mirror and sees a nightmarish version of the Venom symbiote screaming at him.
  • It was considered at one point to split the movie into two films.
  • One of the sounds used for Venom is of a Tasmanian Devil.
  • According to James Franco, they had to go back and do some re-shoots just prior to the release, because test audiences felt that there was not enough action in the film.

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Evil Dead 2 Notes

Best Rated

PLOT: The lone survivor of an onslaught of flesh-possessing spirits holes up in a cabin with a group of strangers while the demons continue their attack.

• Ratings: IMDb 7.8 | RT 98% C / 89% A
• Released: 1987
• Director: Sam Raimi
• Writer(s): Sam Raimi & Scott Spiegel (written by)
• Cinematographer: Peter Deming (Twin Peaks, Oz the Great and Powerful, Mulholland Drive)
• Notable actors: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley DePaiva, Ted Raimi, Denise Bixler
• Budget: $3.6 million
• Box office: $5.9 million

• Fun Facts:
  • During the scene where the severed head of Linda bites Ash's hand, Bruce Campbell says the single line "work shed". This line was later re-dubbed in post-production due to the quality of the audio, giving it a strange, slightly "disproportionate" sound to the audio. Nine years later, while filming his cameo in Escape from L.A. (1996), the first thing Kurt Russell said to Bruce Campbell on the set was, jokingly, "Say 'work shed'".
  • Stephen King was such a huge fan of The Evil Dead (1981) that he convinced producer Dino De Laurentiis over dinner (who was producing King's Maximum Overdrive (1986) at the time) to have his production company DEG (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group) finance Evil Dead II.
  • Often considered to be a remake of The Evil Dead (1981); however, this is not accurate. The rights to show scenes from the original could not be obtained to re-cap what happened, so the beginning was remade to explain how Ash got to the cabin, etc.
  • The recap of The Evil Dead (1981) includes a shot where the "evil force" runs through the cabin and rams into Ash. When this shot was filmed, Bruce Campbell suffered a broken jaw when Sam Raimi (who was operating the camera) crashed into him with a bicycle - or so people were led to believe. This was a story concocted by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell as a gag to see how many people would believe it actually happened.
  • Most of the film was shot on a set built inside the gymnasium of the JR Faison Junior High School in Wadesboro, North Carolina.
  • Ash's chainsaw appears to switch hands in one scene. This is because Sam Raimi decided Ash should walk the opposite way across the room in that scene, so he flipped the negative.

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Intro music by Eric Lynch

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