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Don Simpson was one-half of one of the most successful production partnerships in Hollywood history. His reality-distortion-field helped bring about films like Flashdance, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, The Rock, Crimson Tide, and Days of Thunder, films that collectively grossed more than $3 billion dollars.
Don Simpson's life is a cautionary tale with an ignominious ending forever ensconced in Hollywood history. His appetite for drugs, prostitutes, plastic surgery, black Levi's 501 jeans (worn once and discarded), wrecking Porsches, pharmacology, peanut butter, and pizza got the best of him at age 52.
Listen in for the outrageous tale of how a pudgy kid from Alaska talked his way into transforming big-budget Hollywood blockbusters for a new decade.
LINKS:
Buy my guest Charles Fleming's definitive book about Hollywood in the 80's, High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess.
Don & Jerry on Charlie Rose, less than a year before Don's death.
A pretty good but exploitational multi-part tv documentary about Don Simpson.
Now-cancelled Hollywood gadfly James Toback's 'The Big Bang', starring Don.
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What does it say about your favorite podcast host that he considers the 1979 BBC adaptation of John le Carre's seminal espionage novel 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' to be COMFORT VIEWING??
Nonetheless, as Smiley would say, there we are.
In this episode, curiously one in which I am still totally unresolved as to how best to approach this series in episodic fashion, I explore the myriad genius aspects of the production.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Considering the versatile, endlessly watchable and iconic American actor Gene Hackman.
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HERE IT IS! Your most-anticipated episode of the year.
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I'm joined by David Schumann of the IG and YouTube accounts @vhsrevolution as we each offer up our Top Five out of the 10 Best Picture Nominees ahead of Sunday night's Academy Awards telecast.
And yes, I will be doing my Postmortem Recap episode following the broadcast.
Follow David on Instagram here.
Check out David's YouTube Channel here.
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Here's the third of my episodic trilogy about George Roy Hill's films 'Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid', 'The Sting', and, now: 1977's 'Slap Shot'.
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My deep dive into the films of Director George Roy Hill continues with the most iconic Western ever made: "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid".
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George Roy Hill's 1973 masterpiece 'The Sting' (released December 1974) grossed in 1974 what would be over 900 million dollars today.
It's a deceptively simple, stealthily subversive and counter-cultural film wrapped in the meticulous trappings of a 1930's Warner Bros gangster picture, and re-teaming Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid with that film's director.
In this episode: How Peter Boyle, Jack Nicholson, Richard Boone, and Warren Beatty almost got cast in 'The Sting', the brilliant Marvin Hamlisch Scott Joplin songs used on the soundtrack, the fantastic supporting cast of instantaneous-read character actors like Jack Kehoe, Dana Elcar, and MORE!
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In Hollywood, the story beats of werewolf movies were codified in 1941 by a German-Jewish emigrant to Hollywood via London named Curt Siodmak, who wrote the seminal film 'The Wolf Man', starring Lon Chaney, Jr.
40 years later, John Landis made the most important and enduring and influential werewolf film ever made in 'An American Werewolf in London'. It was his follow-up to the one-two punch of 'Animal House' and 'The Blues Brothers'. He could make any film he wanted, with anyone he wanted. So he made a script he'd begun when he was 18 years old. A script he'd first discussed with an aspiring special effects and creature-design guy named Rick Baker in 1971. 10 years later, he'd found two unknown leads, hired basically the entire cast of an acclaimed touring production of 'Nicholas Nickleby', and called Baker on the set of another werewolf movie ('The Howling') and convinced him to decamp to England to work on 'An American Werewolf in London'. For his groundbreaking innovations on the film, Baker won the ver first Academy Award ever given for makeup special effects.
Featuring a snappy, smart script, Landis' virtuosic comedy/horror chops, and an unexpected soundtrack of moon songs, 'An American Werewolf in London' is in a class by itself and is one of the most important films ever made.
Other werewolf films of note and worthy of your time:
'Ginger Snaps'
'Wolfen'
'Wolf'
'Dog Soldiers'
'The Howling'
'The Wolf Man' (1941)
'Werewolf of London' (1935)
"Werewolf of London' inspired Zevon's song 'Werewolves of London'. Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers had watched the film and told Zevon jokingly that he should write a song with that title and start a dance craze.
And as far as listicles go, this one is well-reasoned by someone who knows their werewolf films:
The 25 Best Werewolf Movies
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Sparse. Laconic. Expansive. Languid. Wry.
The Coen Brother's 2007 Neo-Noir Western 'No Country For Old Men' moves to the fatefully ticking beat of it's own Grandfather Clock.
It's a film that rewards close viewing and is astoundingly faithful to Cormac McCarthy's novel while also being so completely a "Coen Brothers film" even as it's their (only?) adaptation of an existing book.
Featuring an iconic performance by Javier Bardem as the philosophical killer Anton Chigur, brilliant cinematography from frequent Coen collaborator Roger Deakins, and perfectly wrought twangily-Texas turns by Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones.
A number of signature Coens scenes of the lead characters interacting with a variety of shop clerks, receptionists, store owners, and authority figures abound.
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'Liquid Sky' was a $500,000 largely experimental film by the Russian expat director Slava Tsukerman that sprung from a group of friends and colleagues surrounding School of Visual Arts acting teacher Bob Brady. What's it about? Heroin, Cocaine, Aliens, Art, Fashion, Dancing, Nightclubs, Science, Sex, Lesbian Knife Fights, Androgyny, Shrimp, Berlin...and that's just the first 45 minutes. Much more than just a so-bad-it's-good b-movie, 'Liquid Sky' has endured and is best appreciated for its fantastic design, cinemotography, and score and the period specificity of it's troupe of amateur actors. It has to be seen to be believed, and it's worth checking out! Join me!
Get the very cool 4K restoration DVD of Liquid Sky here.
Listen to the groundbreaking Fairlight CMI synthesizer soundtrack.
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'Raising Arizona' was the 2nd film written and directed by The Coen Brothers, and it's one of my most foundational movies; a movie that spoke to who I was at 18, when I first saw it in 1987 and continues to be one of my favorites today.
In this episode I revisit the film, tell some anecdotes about the making-of, and revel in the wonderful, nuanced performances, Carter Burwell's brilliantly distinctive and pitch-perfect score, and more! I must not tarry.
Some of My Foundational Movies:
My Blade Runner 2049 Episode
My Once Upon a Time In Hollywood Episode
My Blade Runner Episode
Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii
All The President's Men
Close Encounters
Being There
Brazil
Chameleon Street
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Our episodic roll of the Scorceseverse dice comes up a winner here with a look at 'Casino', Marty's unofficial "sequel" to 'Goodfellas' and a treatise on the inevitable end of mob controlled Vegas casinos.
If you're interested in how we got here, check out my episodes about Goodfellas and 'Mean Streets':
Goodfellas Part 1
Goodfellas Part 2
Goodfellas Part 3
Goodfellas Part 4
Mean Streets
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The Full Cast and Crew MartyVerse run continues with the first of Scorcese's unofficial trilogy of gangster films, 'Mean Streets'.
In this episode: Marty's Little Italy, Family, High School, NYU, Los Angeles, and early directorial experiences and how they influence and inspired 'Mean Streets'.
How 'Mean Streets' was very nearly a blaxploitation film funded by Roger Corman.
John Cassavetes seeing 'Boxcar Bertha', an exploitation film Scorcese directed for Corman, and telling Marty "You just spent a year of your life making a piece of shit. Don't you have something more personal to do?"
Films mentioned by Scorcese as inspirational/informational to 'Mean Streets'
‘Gilda’
‘The Shanghai Gesture'
'Shadows'
'Who's That Knocking At My Door'
'Boxcar Bertha'
'Open City'
'Paisa'
'Shoeshine'
'Bicycle Thieves'
'Cool Breeze'
'Buck Privates'
'Scorpio Rising'
'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning'
'The Road to Singapore'
'Marty'
'Fatso'
'Accatone'
'How Green Was My Valley'
'The Informer'
'The Searchers'
'On The Waterfront'
'East of Eden'
'His Girl Friday'
'The Big Sky'
'The Thing'
'Two Rode Together'
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OK, so I wasn't quite done with Goodfellas, try as I did...one more bridge episode here before we get into 'Mean Streets' and 'Raging Bull'...
In this episode, we consider Marty's Oscar frenemyship, DeNiro's screen qualities, his most famous and best onscreen performances, and, finally...FINALLY...all of his scenes from "Goodfellas" considered from a DeNiro/Jimmy Conway perspective.
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In part 3 of my three-episode take on Martin Scorcese and Nicholas Pileggi's masterpiece 'Goodfellas', we pick the film up just after the halfway point, which is Tommy's killing of Spider. Test audiences and studio executives were completely discombobulated by the loss they felt of the breezy, funny, enjoyable glamorization of the gangster life that the first half of the film represents. And the descent into depraved, violent madness was a truthfulness that not every audience...or cast member... could embrace immediately.
GQ Oral History of Goodfellas.
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In Part 2 of my 3-part exploration of the brilliance, humor, and bravura filmmaking of Marty Scorcese's 'Goodfellas', I talk about iconic scenes from the film's first half, including:
The Bamboo Lounge Crew Introduction scene with Pete The Killer, Freddie No-Nose, and Jimmy Two Times.
The Jimmy/Henry "I'm a clown" scene.
The Copa Entrance scene.
The Bruce beat-down scene.
Morrie's Wigs
The Billy Batts Shinebox scene.
Tommy's Mom's House.
The Spider sequences.
This brings us to the halfway point of the film, and the Spider killing represents the turning point, away from the idolization of gangster gods and deathly into the dark heart of the reality of low-level mob-guy life.
In Part 3, we'll cover the rest of the film's scenes, including the stupendous extended cocaine sequences.
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This is the first of at least 2 episodes about Martin Scorcese's 1990 masterpiece 'Goodfellas'. Let's be honest: it'll probably take three episodes to cover all the genius onscreen in this epitome of the perfect film.
In this episode, I explore the film's roots in Nick Pileggi's classic non-fiction book 'Wiseguy', and the early involvement of vital creative participants in the film like producer Irwin Winkler, actors Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino, and Lorraine Bracco, and production team members like Micheal Ballhaus and Thelma Schoonmaker.
In Episode 2, we'll get into the film itself, covering the iconic scenes, the score, the film's reception and legacy, and more.
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RIP Teri Garr.
Star Trek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfAP6fJZ1is After Hours https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPMDA9N1itk Tootsie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp3nln2xans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0pUtIIwGHo Michael https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y6NM7Ax9hk Mr. Mom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvQctA3xsoE Young Frankenstein https://youtu.be/H4seOhR5ChI?feature=shared&t=8 -
I'm traveling for work this week so in lieu of a typical episode I'm taking a wild flyer on something new; maybe it'll work maybe it won't! It's a watch-along episode. It's like sitting next to me at a screening of 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' and me talking all the through the movie with salient interjections like "Oh I love this part" and "How cool is Brad??". THIS IS HOW I FIND THE REAL FCAC HEADS!
Should you actually want to watch along with me...there's a countdown a couple minutes into the episode where you can press play on the media of your choice. We should be in sync then. But no watching is required, you can enjoy this like you would listen to a DVD Commentary as a podcast. What, you don't listen to DVD Commentaries as Podcasts???
- Visa fler
