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We remain in the jungle for a third straight episode as we watch King Kong! We begin in an actual jungle and then transition to a concrete one! Given the time period, we are treated to more racism and sexism but also a monster movie that will, from that point on, be the movie against which all other giant monster movies will be measured. Including the remakes of this film. You owe it to yourself to start with the original. We make sure to provide constant musical tribute to special effects wizard Willis O’Brien.
Next up, we are watching 8 1/2!
| King Kong (1933) | |
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Rating: 7.9/10 (94,493 votes) Director: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack Writer: James Ashmore Creelman, Ruth Rose, Merian C. Cooper Stars: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot Runtime: 100 min Rated: Approved Genre: Adventure, Horror Released: 07 Apr 1933 |
| Plot: A film crew goes to a tropical island for a location shoot, where they capture a colossal ape who takes a shine to their blonde starlet, and bring him back to New York City. | |
This episode, we return to the jungle with a look back at the quintessential Tarzan film – 
After watching Spotlight on our last episode, we decided to take a look at another “Newspaper Journalist Thriller” so we watched All the President’s Men! The film stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as the reporters who broke the Watergate story. If you aren’t familiar with Watergate, it is the scandal that ensured every succeeding scandal ended in the word “gate.” This film is a true classic about two guys digging until they finally found the truth. Definitely worth the watch!
As has become an annual tradition, we are watching this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner. For 2016, most people assumed the award would go to Revenant. However, Oscar voters surprised everyone by selecting Spotlight instead. The film is representative of a dying genre as newspaper journalism is a dying medium. Fine performances anchor this movie that is disturbing not so much because of how the story is told but because so much of the story is true.
We take a trip down Western lane with the John Wayne/John Ford classic, Stagecoach! This film basically made a superstar out of Wayne and defined the western genre for the next several decades. It features Ford’s favorite location – monument valley – as well as his favorite actor. In addition to Wayne, the movie also stars a lot of very well known character actors including Andy Devine and John Carradine. Interesting trivia: Wayne was not the first billed actor in this film. That was Claire Trevor!
This episode, we watch the classic French film “La belle et la bete” (Beauty and the Beast). Jean Cocteau’s artistic rending of the classic French fairy tale is a clear influence of the adaptations that followed up to and including the well known Disney version. We talk a lot about the artistry of the film as well as the clear influences on other works. We also spend some time looking at the production filmed in post WWII France.
One episode later than promised, we watch the 1925/1929 version of The Phantom of the Opera! Why do we list two dates? You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out! Not only do we discuss this fine silent film, Tim also spends a not insignificant amount of time ranting about the 2004 musical. If you happened to like the 2004 musical, you may want to skip past that part of the podcast because he will destroy your dreams. Aside from Tim’s epic hatred of the musical, we do talk about some of the color processing involved in the film, Lon Chaney’s makeup, and a lot of other things that involve the film we actually watched.
We’ve been circling this one for a while. Having watched 
For this episode, we take a look at one of the most famous films out of the Hammer Horror studio – Horror of Dracula! We decided to watch the movie because Sir Christopher Lee was in 
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