Adjust Your Tracking

Surprise! We might find it impossible to keep to any schedule be we recorded an episode! In fact we recorded this episode quite a while ago which I'm sure you will soon realize. When we do get to talking about this episodes movie we are continuing are 30s series and Josef von Sternberg's The Devil is a Woman (1935), we talk a lot about him and Marlene Dietrich's relationship and work together. This movie set in Spain at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, introduces you to Antonio Galvan who instantly falls for the captivating Concha Perez. Although Capt. Don Pasqual ‘Pasqualito' Costelar, his old friend, has experiences with her himself as they discuss her devilish ways.

Join Lena and Ollie for a festive special as they embark on an adventure to help save Christmas with Ernest P. Worrell. They also talk about Merry Little Batman, The Holdovers and more!

Noted as being amongst the first franchises, The Thin Man (1934) starred William Powell and Myma Loy as The Charles' a leisure-class couple who enjoy many drinks and endless flirtation. They also dip themselves into detective work when they are seeking some more fun. Known for their trusty fox terrier companion Asta, the couple get dragged through a murder mystery, which ended up with five sequels. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's our Spooktacular Special for Halloween! We are going back to the 80s for Italian horror with Demons (1985). Directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, Demons follows a number of people in West Berlin who are given complimentary tickets to a mysterious movie screening, where they soon find themselves trapped in the theater with a horde of ravenous demons. We also talk a lot about what we've been watching during Spooktober. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Welcome to the nation of Freedonia! Our guides the Marx Brothers will be taking us through international geo-politics in their own high velocity ways. Directed by Leo McCarey this 1933 movie was considered a disappointment at the time but has grown in status to be amongst the Marx most beloved works. Groucho, Zeppo, Chico and Harpo will be taking us into war and it's never been so funny. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's the end of the summer so Adjust Your Tracking is looking back and summarizing this years biggest releases in the BIG SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER BONANZA 2023!  This is really just a loose chat about this summer cinema releases, running down our favourites, and some misses, before chatting about what we hope to keep recording soon and release new episodes. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

We're back with an old friend this week, as we take on James Whale's 1932 horror farce 'The Old Dark House'. We ramble on as usual about some, at time of recording, new releases before heading on to explore this camp masterpiece.  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

As if by magic the podcast returns. Continuing on the 1930s we look at Fritz Lang's masterpiece M, starring the iconic Peter Lorre. We recorded this far ago in December 2022, so be prepared to hear us ramble on about stuff from a while ago before we get into the original German serial killer movie. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's a Christmas Miracle! Like the best BBC shows we are back for a Christmas special. We talk some new releases with Avatar: The Way of Water and Violent Night before getting into our main event Christmas Evil (1980) otherwise known as You Better Watch Out, written and directed by Lewis Jackson and starring Brandon Maggart. The plot involves a very man who has suffered a childhood trauma whose obsession with Santa Clause leads him to go on a rampage, judging who has been naughty or who has been nice. It's another one to add to our depressing Christmas movies list, and John Water's favourite Christmas movie too! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

We're back! And it's new miniseries time on the podcast, as we go well outside of our comfort zone into the 1930s. We start with the war movie to end all war movies, Lewis Milestone's anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front. It was the first movie to ever win Best Director and Best Film at the academy awards and made only 11 years after the end of World War I painted a sympathetic picture of the German troops as they struggle to survive and maintain their humanity on the front lines. Before getting into the main movie we spend quite a bit at the start of this episode catching up on new releases; Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, Jackass 4.5, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story, Happening, and Metal Lords. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's been a while but we are back again! We took the opportunity of the new release of The Batman to do a catch-up episode, tying up our favourite movies from 2021 and then delving into the new iteration of everyone's favourite caped crusader.  It stars Robert Pattinson as Batman alongside Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell. The plot involves Batman, who has been fighting crime in Gotham City for two years, uncover corruption while pursuing the Riddler (Dano), a serial killer who targets Gotham's elite. Keep a watch of your podcast feed as we will be getting back into our regular series in the near future. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's a Christmas Miracle! We are back for a special Christmas episode where we catch up after our long break talk about about new releases and do a deep dive on Spider-Man: No Way Home (100% spoiler warnings!), being the biggest movie of the year feels right for us to concentrate on. We then cautiously step into the 1930s by watching the Christmas classic 'Babes in Toyland' staring comedy legends Laurel and Hardy (discussion starts around 1h15m). The movie, based on the 1903 operetta, introduces Ollie Dee and Stanley Dum who try to borrow money from their employer, the toymaker, to pay off the mortgage on Mother Peep's shoe and keep it and Little Bo Peep from the clutches of the evil Barnaby. A movie that none of us expected to end in a siege. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Strap on your proton pack and ready those traps because today we welcome in the much anticipated fourth film in the Ghostbusters franchise. Sadly Liam is away today, but Ollie is joined by two of his good friends - AYT regular James Raynor and newcomer - Robert Kenyon. We talk about our history with the series, how it has impacted our lives, what makes the first film so special, the sequels, the games and the action figures all before we get into the nitty gritty of Ghostbusters Afterlife. Is this podcast more nostalgia driven than Ghostbusters Afterlife? We will let you be the judge of that.  *Hey Flat top! Just heads up,  this episode is full of spoilers* Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Join us for the second part of our two Halloween specials for Spooktober! As we go back to the origins of Hollywood horror and tackle the King of the Universal Monster Movies; Frankenstein and the following sequel Bride of Frankenstein. Both directed by James Whale, who can be thought of as a early auteur for horror and Hollywood expressionism. We talk about how Universal got into making horror, how Frankenstein got adapted, how the Heys code impacted the two movies and how Whale's identity and that of his actors contributed to those movies and have been read over the years as Queer cinema. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Join us for the first part of our two Halloween specials for Spooktober! Frank Henenlotter made his name with exploitation horror movie Basket Case and would follow this up with the story of Brian, an average New York city guy who becomes dependent on an evil, disembodied parasitic brain named Aylmer. Who eats brains to supply Brian with an hallucinogenic drug. It's psychedelic, detestable, and hysterical. And a must watch. We also talk a lot about new releases particularly news from the DC Fandome and Bond. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's our decade round up episode, the Trackies! Where we give out awards for the films we watched on this miniseries and as always we are joined by our friend Brandon Kahn to chat about what we learnt from this selection of films, the 80s in films and what we liked best. Also we announce our next miniseries. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Set in a dystopian 2019, Akira tells the story of Kaneda, a leader of a biker gang whose childhood friend, Tetsuo, acquires incredible telekinetic abilities after a motorcycle accident, eventually threatening an entire military complex amid chaos and rebellion in the sprawling futuristic metropolis of Neo-Tokyo.  Katsuhiro Otomo's magnum opus Akira was released to international acclaim in 1988, not only was it a spectacular example of animated film, quite beyond anything that had been produced at the time, but it was the first Japanese anime that had been released uncut and unedited outside of Japan. It rightly took America and Europe by storm and issued an awakening of Japanese animation.  All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

The Great Lord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) decides to abdicate and divide his domain amongst his three sons;  Taro (Akira Terao), Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), and Saburo (Daisuke Ryu) but there is no peace between the brothers as full war breaks out shattering the Empire that he built. Now the great Lord wanders his shattered Empire a broken man, but soon all of his past atrocities will come back top haunt him. Ran (1985) in a large part is the culmination of Akira Kurosawa's long career, and it would be his last epic that is as majestic as it is massive. A true masterpiece, and a profound examination of humanity and war. We also talk about Dear Evan Hansen, The Guilty and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

In 1989 Spike Lee wrote and directed Do The Right Thing which, to this day is celebrated as one of the great American movies and at the time the biggest movie ever made by a black director. It tells the story of a Brooklyn neighbourhood during a heatwave, where rising tensions explodes after Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) becomes upset that the neighbourhood Pizza shop, run by Sal (Danny Aiello), who doesn't display any black actors on his wall of fame and refuses to change it. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to other people in the neighbourhood, and tensions rise. It's a film that is as relevant today as it was in the 80s, a timeless classic. We also discuss new releases The Green Knight, Malignant, and Shang Chi. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Iconic Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar had his biggest international success in 1988 with this screwball black comedy that almost defies genre classification, it tells the story of Pepa (Carmen Maura) who resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover Ivan (Fernando Guillén) leaves her. However, she is interrupted by groups of different people from her life including Ivan's son from a previous relationship (Antonio Banderas), his fiancee Marissa (Rossy de Palma) and a Shiite terrorist cell who have been secretly holding her best friend Candela (María Barranco) hostage all whilst being pursued by her loves ex (Julieta Serrano) - who all add to the chaotic web of events. We also discuss new releases Annette and CODA. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Natalie Gardner, who has portrayed Cher on screen, joins us this week to discuss the movie that finally earnt Cher her Oscar. Moonstruck, directed by Norman Jewison, explores romance and love in all of it's complicated aspects based around a New York Italian-American family, where Loterra (Cher) accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Johnny, but then she finds herself falling for his younger brother, Ronny (Nic Cage) who couldn't be more different to his brother and has the allure and promise of bringing passion back to her life. Also starring Olympia Dukakis, Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello, John Mahoney and Feodor Chaliapin. We also discuss some new releases we've been watching; Old and The Suicide Squad. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's big studio blockbuster comedy this week on Adjust Your Tracking. Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker were the most successful comedy directors/writers in the 1980s, with Airplane!, Police Squad, and Top Secret they made a name for themselves for creating wild fast slapstick spoof films that resonated with audiences. The would make one last film as a trio and they swapped spoof for much more standard farce in a film they did not write. Ruthless People stars Danny DeVito and Bette Midler, the story involves a couple who kidnap their ex-boss's wife to get revenge and extort money from him. However, they soon realize he was planning to kill her himself and does not want her back. Meanwhile, the boss's mistress is trying to blackmail him assuming that he did carry out his planned murder. We also talk some new releases with Black Widow, Fear Street Series, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Masters of the Universe: Revelation. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Agnès Varda has been known as the mother of the French New Wave, and is amongst the most important and celebrated filmmakers ever. In 1985 she released what would be her most successful film, Vagabond, where Mona, played by Sandrine Bonnaire, is a young drifter who is found dead in a ditch in rural southern France. The movies plays out in a series of flashbacks and semi-documentary style 'interviews', which recount the last few weeks of Mona's life from the stories of the people she interacted with. A powerful movie which explores what liberty there is in pure freedom, and the ways in which people implant their own prejudice upon the perceived unwanted elements of society.   Not only that but we also talk about In the Heights, The Tomorrow War, Fear Street, Loki, Zappa and more! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Liam is busy, so Ollie asked James Raynor to sit in to talk about one of the more bizarre films of the 1980s - Repo Man, the debut film of director Alex Cox, a satirical science fiction black comedy starring Harry Dean Stanton and Emilo Estiveze. It follows a group of repo men who get caught up in the pursuit of a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu that might be connected to extra-terrestrials. Set in LA with a Punk Rock soundtrack the film is anything but conventional.  While the film didn't fair well at the box office, it did receive great critical acclaim and eventually gained wide spread cult classic status. We also talk School of Rock, The Brady Bunch Movie, Short Term 12,  Phantom of the Opera (1943), Tremors, The Psycho Sequels and 90s John Woo.   All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

This week we are joined by Sean and Frank from the long running Film Junk Podcast, and are looking back at Walter Hills 1984 neo-noir cult classic  - Streets of Fire . When Raven Shaddock, the a leader of a biker gang steals rock singer Ellen Aim, it's up to her ex-boyfriend Tom Cody and a small band of mercenaries to go an get her back. Starring Michael Pare, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan and Willem Dafoe. The film, which promised to be "A Rock & Roll Fable" bombed at the box office but slowly became a cult hit. We also take a look at Prince's 1984 film Purple Rain to compare these two rock musicals of 1984.  All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

The success of Star Wars and blockbusters in general led to studios trying to emulate that success.  In 1983 veteran film maker Peter Yates wanted to combine sci-fi, fantasy and swashbuckling to create an original film that follows Prince Colwyn and his group of outlaws on the planet Krull to save future queen Princess Lyssa from the Beast and his constantly teleporting Black Fortress, they named this film Krull, and despite it being such a huge production and merchandise it flopped spectacularly. Paul Nadin joins us to unravel this failed franchise attempt and to discuss how Hollywood studios often fail in their attempts to recapture success. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 film written and directed by German Icon Werner Herzog and starring infamous actor Klaus Kinski in what would be their penultimate collaboration. The film is based upon a real life rubber baron who transported a disassembled steamboat over land to secure his Rubber trade. In the film however Fitzcarraldo undertakes this feat to secure enough money to bring Opera to his jungle home. The film has a infamously troubled production as Herzog isolated the crew in the Amazon and forced them to manually haul a 320-ton steamship up a steep hill, this was captured in Les Blank's documentary film Burden of Dreams (1982), a rare and crucial companion film to the main film. Herzog's clashes with Kinski were legendary but on this already troubled set it caused so much strife that an extra offered to kill Kinski, Herzog candidly talked about this relationship in his film My Best Fiend (1999). We watched all three of these films and we question what is the necessary sacrifice for the completion of art. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Films rarely come as small as this, in 1981 New York City theatre bona fides Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory started recording their conversations, this would all lead to them writing a small two header screenplay where two old friends catch up over dinner. This became My Dinner With Andre, where the two fictionalised versions of the actors have a conversation which drifts between the nature of humanism verses spiritualism and how this effects their views on theatre, life and politics. This unlikely screenplay would be brought to the screen by French director Louis Malle who tact hand brought something to this conversation and it became, and has remained, an unlikely cult hit and introduction for many audiences into more arthouse cinema. Filmmaker Brandon Kahn helps us to unravel what about this quiet movie made such a lasting appeal.  All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's 1980 and with the help of filmmaker James Raynor we are covering when flamboyant and controversial British Director Ken Russell went Hollywood and directed a science-fiction horror film based on a Oscar award winning writer Paddy Chayefsky's novel and screenplay, Altered States. A film which was dogged by disagreements on the set. It tells the story of a research scientist experiments, played by William Hurt, on altered states of human consciousness using hallucinogenic drugs. But soon his mind-altering experiments get out of control and begin affecting the physical world. It's real trip. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Start a new miniseries! Swallow this! We are going to explore the 1980s in film and to start us off we have a special bonus episode looking at, for us, the most influential horror movie franchise of the 80s. The Evil Dead was the brain child of director Sam Raimi, producer Rob Tapert, and actor Bruce Campbell, who fought to generate financing to create their horror film where a group of teens go to stay at a cabin in the woods and unbeknownst to them let out a supernatural evil which unleashes pure horror on the cabin and takes them out one by one. Despite censoring It was such huge hit that in 1987 they did a sequel, Evil Dead 2 which took this horror movie and turned it on it's head, fully embraced slapstick horror and turned the hero Ash into a Deadite killing, chainsaw wielding, shotgun blasting, quipping action hero of the 80s. Groovy! These two films would create a huge franchise which is still beloved now and we couldn't wait to chat about it. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's our decade round up episode, the Trackies! Where we give out awards for the films we watched on this miniseries and as always we are joined by our friend Brandon Kahn to chat about what we learnt from this selection of films, the 50s in films and what we liked best. Also we announce our next miniseries. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

In the 1950s Alfred Hitchcock was hitting the height of him fame and yet again teaming up with James Stewart and Grace Kelly he made Rear Window a film where a professional photographer is stuck in his apartment, recuperating from a broken leg and this boredom, leads him to spy on his neighbours and comes to the realisation that one of them was responsible for the murder of his wife, and sets out to convince his girlfriend to help him bring justice. It explores neighbourhood paranoia, voyeurism in cinema and the male gaze and cemented Hitchcock as a master of cinema, pathing the way for him to become the worlds best known film maker. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

The only film that Charles Laughton ever directed as 1955's The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish. The plot focuses on the relentless pursuit of two children from a serial-killing preacher who wants to steal the $10,000 hidden by their executed bank-robbing father. A critical and commercial failure on it's release, it is now considered an incredibly influential and highly accomplished film, taking inspiration from German Expressionism from the silent era, it stands apart and gives it a unique and terrifying fairy-tale aspect to it. We also discuss Zack Snyder Justice League and the DCEU. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Comedian and Podcaster Lorcan Mullan joins us to discuss the French New Wave classic The 400 Blows starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, and Claire Maurier. The film was directed by former critic and ‘Gravedigger of Cinema' François Truffaut who directed the film in 1959 after he was banned from Cannes festival for his overly harsh reviews of current French cinema and as a reaction was encouraged to put his theory of the auteur into practice. The result was a sensation which was not only an international success but also set the tone and ushered in the arrival of the French New Wave, which would change world cinema. The film tells the story of Antoine Doinel, a misunderstood adolescent in Paris who struggles with his parents and teachers due to his rebellious behaviour, a wonderful coming of age story which still resonates today. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Ollie invites James Raynor back on the show to talk about one of the most seminal films of all time in Godzilla, Ishirō Honda didn't just make an iconic monster film he invented a total worldwide pop culture icon, including thirty-two films produced by Toho, four Hollywood films and numerous video games, novels, comic books and television shows. All stemming from this 1954 classic, join us as we are introduced to Godzilla an enormous, destructive, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear weapons and our new best friend. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms  

Orson is back! 1958's Touch of Evil was considered for a long time the most forgettable film of Orson Welles' career, he had been removed from the final edit of the film and eventually the studio dumped the film into a b-picture release and it was largely forgotten by critics and audiences alike. That is until an earlier cut was found, and a 58 page memo written by Orson at the time detailing the edits he wanted the studio to make for the film. The re-edit of this film, based around Orson Welles' memo, was released in 1998 and the film quickly started being re-evaluated as a forgotten masterpiece and the original being yet another product of studio interference in the auteur's career. Natalie Gardner returns to help us talk about this film and unravel this fascinating film and marvel at one of the best opening shots in a film, ever. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

The Seventh Seal is a 1957 Swedish historical fantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, it has become an icon in cinema becoming a veritable shorthand for arthouse cinema and inspiring countless homages and parodies, meaning it has cemented itself in social consciousness. The film itself tells the story of a medieval knight (Max von Sydow), who after returning from the Crusades finds his homeland devastated from the Black Death, and when finding Death (Bengt Ekerot) waiting for him undergoes a crisis of faith and challenges him to a literal game of chess. We also spend sometime talking about Sound of Metal, the Meg, Sliding Doors, Minari, Adam Curtis and the Lady and the Dale.  All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

If there are two names that are synonymous with the western it is John Ford and John Wayne, who over their career together made countless Westerns that came to define the genre, and American film making. The Searchers, from 1956 is possibly not only their most epic but the most defining film of each of their career. It has come to be seen as one of the most influential films of all time, and has a list of accolades sees it on lists for greatest film ever made by the American Film Institute, Entertainment Weekly, The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound and Cahiers du Cinéma, plus many others. This week we try and find out it is it worthy of this accolade and delve into what it actually a rather stark and uncomfortable portrayal of racism on the American frontier. We also talk Golden Girls, Disney and Netflix's The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.  All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

The blacklisting and expulsion of Jules Dassin from Hollywood after he was named in the House of Unamerican Activities, meant that the director ended up taking on this adaption of a French crime novel, a turning it into a noir classic that ties French filmmaking with American action, in something quite unique. Rififi was a sensation in 1955, earning Dassin Best Director at Cannes, and earning rave reviews in America which led to Dassin being the first blacklisted director to have a film open in America with his name on it, eventually leading to the end of the blacklist itself. Paul Nadin joins us to helps us prepare for the heist of the century. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Natalie Gardner joins Liam to discuss the 1950 film All About Eve, a giant film of the 1950's, getting a record amount of Academy Award nominations. Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz starring the amazing Bette Davis (who we particularly gush over in the episode) as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star and Anne Baxter playing Eve Harrington, an ambitious young fan who manoeuvres herself into Channing's life, ultimately threatening Channing's career and her personal relationships in seeking fame and fortune as an actress in Broadway. It also features an early onscreen debut of icon Marilyn Monroe.  If you can please help support live theatre during the pandemic by supporting these charities: Theatre Artists Fund Theatre Support Fund All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

We're back! But instead of our scheduled miniseries episode we are taking a a small detour to explore some other films of the 50s, while Ollie is busy with his new music video. Brandon Kahn is here and he has brought along a 1958 French Noir classic which can be seen as a precursor to the French New Wave, Elevator to the Gallows, where two lovers' seemingly perfect murder plan goes awry due to a broken elevator, which sets off a chain of events though one night in Paris. Directed by Louis Malle and stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet but is probably best known for a ground-breaking haunting soundtrack which was improvised by Jazz legend Miles Davis.  All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms  

As it is Christmas we've decided to celebrate the festive season on the podcast by watching a largely forgotten Disney film from 1985. One Magic Christmas positions itself as being a wonderful tale of Christmas but it is northing short of a depressing horror story. Where Santa decides, in order to teach the message of Christmas to a mother played by Mary Steenburgen, he needs to take some rather extreme and drastic steps. By showing her just how tough Christmas can actually be. This is all watched over by the most unlikely angel possible Harry Dean Stanton. After you've experienced One Magic Christmas you'll never quite experience Christmas in the same way again.   All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

Man's atomic age is here, horrifying hordes appear! Exo-Skeleton armor, Exo-Skeleton might, Exo-Skeleton horror, Exo-Skeleton bite. Beware of them! Gordon Douglas' Them! is a 1954 horror movie that started the trend for 'big bug' movies, which became a huge trend in horror combining a fear of invasion, nuclear power and insects which summarised 50s fears. Staring James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, and James Arness, the plot is simple, a nest of gigantic irradiated ants become a national threat when two young queen ants escaped to establish new nests. Filmmaker James Raynor joins us to talk about this horror classic which has some of the most amount of flamethrower action in any picture ever!   All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

In 1953 trailblazing director Ida Lupino made the first ever Hollywood film noir shot by a woman. The Hitch-Hiker tells the story of two fishing buddies (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) who pick up a paranoid hitchhiker (William Talman) during a trip to Mexico, who turns out to be a psychopath who had committed multiple murders. The film was based upon a true crime story of Billy Cook and it shocked audiences with it's grittiness and hard-hitting story and bizarre claustrophobia of the desert backdrop. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking!  Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

MGM and Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful is an unblinking look at hubris and ego in Hollywood's Golden Era. Kirk Douglas stars as Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields, and we see his career through the three peoples personal experiences; director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), movie star Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner), and screenwriter James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell), who explain how he both destroyed their personal lives but made their careers.  It's a visually splendid picture that is a great example of studio film making with John Houseman bringing personal experience and applying a Citizen Kane like structure to Hollywood. Filmmaker Brandon Kahn helps us dissect this classic. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

When it comes to a name in British comedy, Ealing Studios is a name that has persisted throughout the years. Alec Guinness had made his name for these comedies and in 1951 he was teaming up with Alexander Mackendrick to make a strange science fiction comedy about an unassuming scientist who makes a fabric that is both indestructible and doesn't stain, and the fall out which occurs when both the textile mill owners and the trade unions realise this will put them out of work. The Man in the White Suit, is not one of the better known Ealing Comedies but it is certainly one of the most cynically unique of them. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

It's new miniseries time! We've jumped back in time again to the 1950s. The decade where the Cold War started, rock-n-roll was a scary new music form, home television for the first time became commonplace and also the decade where Japanese cinema was introduced to the world. Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura, introduced such a strong framing device and narrative style where four different people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife. The film is an investigation of the idea of objective truth. Easily one of the most significant films ever made. There is also a surprising tangent into the world of professional wrestling. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms  

We're back from hiatus! Just a quick bonus episode this week to wrap up our 70s miniseries. Brandon Kahn joins us to help present our Trackies, awards for the films we watched in the last miniseries, rank the ten films and also also allows us to bookend and chat about what we learnt about 70s cinema.  All ready for next week where we will dive into the 1950s. We had a bit of a technical issue with audio on the record but we hope it's not too distracting. Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

In 1978 they said 'you'll believe a man can fly', and we wanted to see if that was still the case. We chose Richard Donner's classic Superman for our 1970s rewatch to close out or 70s miniseries, starring Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder, plus many more. It's a superhero epic. Everyone knows the story, Kal-El, thanks to Jor-El, is the last survivor of the planet Krypton, who is raised by a kindly couple in Smallville, Kansas. Later moved to Metropolis where he lives as Clark Kent and falls in love with Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane whilst battling the Lex Luthor. It's an incredibly nerdy episode as we are huge Superman fans and this film has so much to talk about. So buckle up and enjoy the flight. All these and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

In 1970 one of the most influential animators of all time, Chuck Jones (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), directed his only feature film The Phantom Tollbooth, based on a novel by Norton Juster,  tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo. Unexpectedly receiving a magic tollbooth and, having nothing better to do, Milo drives through it and enters a kingdom in turmoil following the loss of it's princesses, Rhyme and Reason. We talk all things animation and Chuck Jones before diving into this rather unusual film. All these and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms

No guest this week as we found off the final film of our 1970s series. Time After Time is an adventure film which see HG Welles travel through time to 1970s San Francisco to stop Jack the Ripper. Directed by Nicholas Meyer and starring Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, and Mary Steenburgen, it's a surprisingly romantic adventure film which gained a large cult following after it's release. We also discuss Disney's Mulan and Alien. All this and more on Adjust Your Tracking! Follow us on: Twitter: @adjustyrtrack & Instagram: @betterfeelingfilms