A bunch of Welsh people talking about films and making stuff.
Time to break out the tin foil hats this week as we take a deep dive into The Philadelphia Experiment, a Sci-Fi movie based on the urban legends surrounding an alleged military incident during World War 2. What sounded like a cheesy B-Movie (seeing as it was directed by the man who brought you Mac & Me and Mannequin On The Move) turns out to be a surprisingly grounded despite its outlandish time travel story.
We have looked at Clint Eastwood as Actor/Director in the past in the hilariously bad The Rookie, but we thought we’d give him another chance by looking at his first work as Director in Play Misty For Me, a tense, psychological, stalker thriller where he plays a poetry reading jazz DJ on the receiving end of a crazed fans obsession. Fake bar games used as seduction, ponds in bedrooms, out of place jazz festivals, punching women out of windows and awkward woodland sex scenes are all up for discussion in this weeks podcast.
We are ready for a bit of Mediterranean flavour this week as we tackle another film produced in Italy. Italy is considered as the birthplace of Art cinema, famous for it’s Neo-realism movement, it’s subversive Spaghetti Westerns and, judging by this weeks film, it’s terribly exploitative and misogynistic crime movies. Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man follows the exploits of the inaptly named Fred and Tony, two trigger happy and a-little-bit-too-rapey cops who are apparently trying to take down a local crime boss, but mostly seem to be: slapping clothes off of women, making people bleed acrylic blood, burning various vehicles and going around being a little bit too heterosexual.
Gus Van Sant has made some decent movies in his time, but one of them from his early work sticks out like a sore thumb, so to speak. Even Cowgirls Get The Blues was a ‘hippy’ novel from the 60’s which became a quirky comedy road movie in the 90’s and whilst it may have seemed a little edgy in the good ol’ days, it may have lost a little something to time. Come and listen to our chat about: drugging birds, none of us really noticing Keanu Reeves was a Native American, angry lesbians and floppy thumb prosthetics.
It finally happened. We let Jamie gush about Mad Max directly and not have to skirt around another movie to do so. This dystopian, pre-post apocalyptic, revenge action movie stands a little apart from the other entries in the Mad Max franchise as their is still a semblance of normal society before it descends into the apocalyptic insanity of the latter movies. What will the Crew make of one of Jamie’s most formative films? Tune in to find out! N.B. As with most Australian films we touch upon here, be ready for plenty of silly accents from the Spoiler Filled Crew.
Richard has brought his own nostalgic Don Bluth movie to the table in the past and now it’s Ant’s turn to do the same as he reveals The Secret of NIMH to the Spoiler Filled Crew. Back in the early 80s, Disney were in a bad patch and this is where Don Bluth truly shone with his early and darker films that harked back to the glory days of Animation whilst also dealing with more complicated themes and action. Whilst this film is heralded as a bit of a nostalgic classic, we make no secrets in finding some of its flaws whilst going through it’s finer points.
Oh dear, where to begin with this one!? Russ Meyer was a creator of many sexploitation movies in the 60s and 70s and we here at Spoiler Filled thought it was time to turn our attention on this much maligned genre by taking a look at his final movie, Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens. Oh My, what were we thinking!? Is it satirical? Yes. Does it push the boundaries? Yes, yes. Do the themes, situations and constant balancing on the line of hardcore pornography totally bum us out? YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
We don’t do this very often, but this week we cast our lights onto 1969’s Midnight Cowboy because we got a viewer request! (Thanks to Karl in Penarth, Howdy Partner!) It’s a movie about a Texan hustler seeking work and a better life in New York and his dealings with a streetwise con man. This time around, Everybody’s Talkin’ about: Unhealthy relations with Grandparents, Andy Warhol-esque parties, Bob Balaban’s bathroom blowjob and unexpected psychedelia.
No, not Eddie Murphy in a fat suit. It’s the original version from the Sixties, and the film that launched a million impressions.
We’ve watched a few films staring Harry Dean Stanton on the podcast before, but never with him in the lead role. They are few and far between sadly, but i guess we got ‘lucky’ with Jamie’s choice this week. It is the directional debut of prolific ‘that-guy’ actor John Carroll Lynch (look him up, you’ll know him), stars the prolific ‘weird-movie’ director David Lynch (no relation) and even though it has a very simple plot, we still have some difficulty summing it up. Be prepared for unexpected Mariachi singing, runaway tortoises, chain smoking, stoned Liberace and shouting profanities at gardens.
