Kael Your Idols: A New Hollywood Podcast

Oooh! We got a grimy one for ya today. We dive right into the dirt with famed auteur Sam Peckinpah's minor (but still fascinating) work: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Warren Oates leads a quirky cast populated by Mexican sex workers and suspiciously corporate hitmen in this tale of sexual jealousy, work, and morality and we just have a ball talking about it! Topics include: the hosts views on violent cinema, the strange life of “the world's most interesting man” and Peckinpah's friendship with Pauline Kael.

Sing Hallelujah, come on get happy! Please, we implore you: get happy already! For this episode we train our gaze at William Friedkin's minor masterpiece, The Boys in the Band. Although it is a landmark film in queer cinema, Boys has by now acquired a rather tricky reputation and we dig right into that. We laugh and cry along with these characters as they navigate the vagaries of identity and performative friendship. Topics include: comparisons to the Netflix version, Leonard Frey's stunning performance, and Friedkin's relationship to masculinity.

It is our deepest pleasure to bring you this episode on Norman Jewison's masterpiece of non-auteurism: Fiddler on the Roof. Both of the hosts have a long and complex relationship to both this film and its source material and could wax for hours on its rich humanism and craft. The tale of Tevye the Dairyman and his daughters remains as fascinating and exciting today as ever! We promise! This movie is not boring at all (except for maybe a couple scenes with Perchik). Topics include: changes from the original stories, Jerome Robbins' opening numbers, and a major change in Alana's life.

In this episode we delve into one of the signature commercial and critical flops of New Hollywood: Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. This gorgeous yet impenetrable film was a crucial turning point bridging the early hippie-influenced films of the late 60s with the more cynical and popular mainstream cinema that came to define the 1970s. We are joined by Stephen Lee Naish, author of two different books discussing this week's subject - Create or Die: Essays on the Films of Dennis Hopper, and Music and Sound in the Films of Dennis Hopper. So enjoy listening to someone actually qualified to talk about this stuff for a change! Topics include: American New Wave vs. New Hollywood, Jorge Luis Borges, and Charles Manson.

Imagine that you could sleep with anyone you wanted in the world, now ask yourself: how would this affect my participation in the American Electoral system? We're diving into the New Hollywood deep end with this episode as we discuss Hal Ashby's Oscar-winning smash, Shampoo! Who knew watching Warren Beatty doing hair and kissing pretty ladies could be such a fun time at the cinema? Topics include: Lee Grant's blacklisting, getting turned on by haircuts, and the death of the 60s.

Merry Christmas! Here's your gift! Sorry it's a bit late but we never officially said we would be exchanging gifts in the first place so... anyway here it is! This episode is a break from our usual format. Absolutely zero New Hollywood or 70s film content to be found under this tree. Instead, Alana wanted to take some time out to do a treatise on Hallmark and streaming-era Christmas rom-com films. Luckily we had the perfect guest available: Ameerah Holliday, whose breadth of knowledge and level of thought given to the subject of Christmas movies far exceeds the usual drivel we spew on this show. Enjoy! Topics include: the role of magic in Christmas, nostalgia as it relates to casting, and taking your family to see Terrifier 3

Yet again we gather at the beginning of a new year. The reason? To pit the films of the previous calendar year against the films released 50 years ago. That's right, it's 74 v 24 baby!  Will New Hollywood reign supreme? Or will Alana and Sam pretend like they prefer a bunch of Netflix movies instead? Listen and find out!

What? What I are your problems with this episode huh? Go ahead and take a piece of paper and write them all down. Go ahead! Tell us what's wrong! Well?? Why aren't you writing?? Look, I promise you we WILL discuss the 1974 Ellen Burstyn vehicle Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. We WILL litigate Scorsese's overactive camera. And we WILL describe the episode we watched of the sitcom Alice with guest star Art Carney. Topics include: “realism”, “feminism”, and Kris Kristofferson AKA Big Daddy Santa Claus.

The time has come to wish a hearty Happy Birthday to Alana! We said she could choose any movie she wanted to talk about and out of all the wonderful New Hollywood classics she chose this one. Love Story itself might be astoundingly mid, but this discussion we had about it was a rollicking good time! More than half of the episode gets spent just gabbing about the our favorite classic film romances, as well as what it even means to be “romantic”. Topics include: Instagram, Erich Segal's alleged populism, and literacy rates then vs. now. One topic that does NOT get touched upon is Robert Evans, despite the fact that the hosts repeatedly insist throughout the episode they will eventually discuss him. Ah well, someday…

Join us in celebrating Sam's birthday with this special episode on the John Frankenheimer film version of Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh. The hosts dig in to the unusual experiment in cinematic stage plays that birthed this project. You might think a four-hour-long play about alcoholism and despair sounds like a weird birthday present to give oneself but this discussion actually turned out to be rather charming and fun. Happy Birthday Sam! Topics include: Jason Robards vs. Lee Marvin, 1950s television, and Alana's thoughts on Jack Lemmon.

The scares continue all through Halloween over here at KYI! The hosts, and their guest Levi Butner, wander the graveyards and get stuck in the muck as they discuss Don Coscarelli's cult classic Phantasm. The obvious connections to Spielberg and Raimi are noted, as are the film's roots in the Universal Monster tradition. Join us as we celebrate this massive achievement in low-budget filmmaking. Just watch out for the Tall Man, that motha's stronggg! Topics include: actors watching their own work, “nerd-horror”, and the many places to hide flying orbs inside a person.

Horror comedy comes to life this episode with the Mel Brooks classic Young Frankenstein. This might be the first movie we've covered that almost everyone we've ever met has undoubtedly seen! The gags remain evergreen, but this watch through the hosts were primarily impressed by the beautiful filmmaking and imaginative storytelling on display. The writing, cinematography, performances, music, and direction are all the stuffs of geniuses working at the top of their game. The effect is almost symphonic. It was good luck indeed that the movie came along at just the right time when the creatives, as well as film comedy itself, still had a lot to prove. Topics include: A Long Strange Trip, Frankenstein Day, and Alana's thoughts on Jim Carrey.

This is a big one, folks. Alana and Sam take a deep dive into cinematic meta-fiction as they explore the relationship between the seminal film 8 1/2 (1963) and its four most prominent New Hollywood descendants: Alex in Wonderland (1970), All That Jazz (1979), and Stardust Memories (1980). We approached this project with the seriousness and rigor we feel it deserves which apparently to us means making you listen to us talk for nearly four hours! Topics include: the 1976 Tonys, acting teachers in 70s movies, and the ontological argument.Start timecodes for each segment: Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 - 0:00:00Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland - 0:56:10Bob Fosse's All That Jazz - 1:46:35Woody Allen's Stardust Memories - 2:23:57

Alana and Sam search for the familiar within the unknown as they immerse themselves in the world of Ridley Scott's genre-defining classic Alien. They ruminate on the disturbing picture it paints of space and the cycles of nature and remark upon the hilarious improv skills of Yaphet Kotto. They also find time to touch on the recently released Alien: Romulus so that they can, you know, hitch onto the crass bandwagon of nostalgia along with everyone else. Topics include: I, Claudius, exploitative nudity, and the relatively high percentage of knights involved in the making of this film.

Put on your spectacles, nerds! We're talking some long-form PROSE in this episode. Our subject today is Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. That's right, not a MOVIE like we typically feature on this podcast, but a BOOK instead. We aim to give you a tour through the thrilling yet crass world Biskind maps out in this book and also take time check in with ourselves as to our general impressions of the Movie Brats. Topics include: Bogdanovich vs. Platt, Coppola's megalomania, and crocodile tears for a dead pig.

Ohohoho it's getting sweaty over here! On this episode we are joined by Ryan and Katie from The List to chat about Cool Hand Luke. Perhaps the defining prison film of the New Hollywood era, Paul Newman's megawatt star power is put to perfect use as the ultimate lovable loser. We had a ball making the episode and what emerged was more or less a complete exegesis on this multifaceted Christian allegory. Except, you know, funny. Topics include: podcasting while married, slang words in West Side Story, and Dennis Hopper's distracting background work.

Tonight's episode of Kael Your Idols will be MASH! That's right, Robert Altman's MASH. Join Alana and Sam, that lovable pair of married movie fans as they dish the dirt on this beloved classic of early seventies cinema. A few laughs and a few tears, some contextual analysis of misogyny, and more on this evening's Very Special Episode of Kael Your Idols! Topics include: the recent death of Donald Sutherland, the meaning of “Altman-esque”, and why this episode is so laaaaate (we're sorry)!

Get ready for the most disgusting, amoral, nastiest podcast-iest episode ever! We are delighted to bring you a discussion of John Waters masterpiece of filth Pink Flamingos. Underground cinema edges closer to the mainstream with this early 70s midnight movie and Sam and Alana both have appropriately strong reactions to its subject matter. Topics include: what it means to be ‘over the top', Netflix's early years, and chickens v. eggs.

We bring you a special new episode ahead of our usual schedule! The excitement of the release of the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has got all of the millions of the fans of the recent entries of the franchise abuzzing. So of course, given that the 1968 original is squarely a New Hollywood landmark we had to watch EVERY SINGLE MOVIE IN THE SERIES! Good thing these movies totally rip! First we discuss the franchise in very broad scope and then we focus in on the original movie. Topics include: Charlton Heston's bod, Sam's first curse word, and the Patterson Bigfoot tape.

Question: If a movie about doppelgängers is itself a doppelgänger of another movie about doppelgängers… uh… like… what's up with that, huh? Our hosts will attempt to answer at least a version of that question as they voyeuristically peek into the world of Brian DePalma's “Obsession”. This episode could prove extra confusing if you haven't actually seen the movie given that: not only is it relatively obscure, its only reason to exist is as a comment on the 1958 Hitchcock masterwork Vertigo. So… you should really at least watch THAT movie before you listen. But whatever. Do what you want to do. It's a pretty good episode if we do say so ourselves! Topics include: Veneta vs. Cornell ‘77, Game of Thrones, and Hollywood-gate.

It's Problematic Art Week on KYI! This episode Alana and Sam are joined by animator Frank Gidlewski for a round-table on Ralph Bakshi's 1973 Künstlerroman "Heavy Traffic". There is much talk of the film's depictions of various taboos both sexual and racial, so, be warned. Also much rumination on the woes of the modern film/animation landscape so…TW for that as well, if you're an animator. Other topics include: making out during edgy movies, parallels with the Godfather, and feuds with R. Crumb.

Destiny's dance continues! This week the hosts go around and around in their conversation on Sydney Pollack's 1969 ode to the hopelessness of human existence (under capitalism)! This 1930s era Jane Fonda vehicle proves to be delightful fodder for Alana and Sam to morbidly contemplate its grim vision of fate. And speaking of grim fates: the film also co-stars Gig Young…Yeesh! Topics include: the birth of existentialism, tracking shots in Gilmore Girls, and Red Buttons.

It's Watergate time on Kael Your Idols! Sorry to jump right in to it but we didn't want to bury the lede. In this episode the hosts get drawn into a web of lies and cover-ups as they discuss the 1976 classic “All The President's Men”. This tale of the greatest newspaper caper ever provides the perfect launching off point for discussing a plethora of New Hollywood character actors and themes. You can't possibly imagine how high up this goes. Topics include: ‘Mark Twain Tonight', impressing your boss, and paranoia.

This week on the ol' podcast: Barbara Loden's massively under-seen film Wanda (1970). We held this conversation a few months ago in the wake of the film placing 49th on the most recent Sight and Sound poll. Is this reputation warranted? Has the movie gone too quickly from being something no one ever heard of to supposedly being considered one of the greatest films of all time? Join Alana and Sam for a rough, run and gun discussion of this recently rediscovered 70s masterpiece. Topics include: Company: A Cast Album, female anti-heroes, and the S.T.I.G.M.A. Manifesto.

If you want to sing out! Sing out! Kael Your Idols is pleased to bring you another Very Special Episode as we turn our attention and our empathy towards the career of Hal Ashby. The hosts are joined by film person Michael J. Dougherty to trace the tragicomic trajectory of this titan of 70s cinema; starting with Ashby's work as an acclaimed editor and terminating with the studio shutting him out of his final film's editing room. For the purpose of this episode we mainly concern ourselves with The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Coming Home (1978), and 8 Million Ways to Die (1986), but the conversation touches on almost all of his notable projects. Topics include: allergies to preciousness,  predictions about the writers strike (this was recorded last summer), and Greta Gerwig.

Welcome to 2024 fellow Kael Your Idolators! For this first episode of the New Year we're gassed up, got the meter running, and we're offering you a midnight ride into the twisted minds of De Niro, Scorsese, and Schrader. These three New Hollywood geniuses unite for the first time to create one of cinema's greatest achievements: Taxi Driver. Join Alana and Sam in this wide-ranging discussion that also takes place VERY late at night. Topics include: talking to yourself, the question of whether or not you are talking to me, and the fact that I'm the only one here.

1973 vs 2023: the match-up of the century! To celebrate the new year we are counting down our top 5 films from these two years in cinema. Which movies were our favorites? Which movies missed the mark? And will 1973 or 2023 reign supreme? Listen to find out.

The pod is taking a slight temporal detour this week and covering The Right Stuff - a film that began its development during New Hollywood and was finished and released in the wake of the Heaven's Gate debacle. Sam and Alana pontificate about whether or not this ambitious space epic retains the artistic spirit of the 70s or if it can't quite achieve liftoff beyond merely ‘fun movie about the early days of the Space Race'. Topics include: the film's digressive structure, Philip Kaufman's Pavlovian response to popcorn, and the charms of Dennis Quaid.

This week Kael Your Idols welcomes filmmaker Levi Butner to discuss George Lucas's mega-hit American Graffiti. The film is, in a sense, the director's first prequel - showing a day in the life of some Modesto teens in 1962 way way back before those pesky social changes came to define the decade. Topics include: similarities to Dazed and Confused, Lucas's incest obsession, and what it takes to get a film made on a budget.

Love! Betrayal! Sunsets! That's right - Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven gets the Kael Your Idols treatment this week. A Texas farm sets the scene for this unusual love triangle unfolding amidst some very loopy voice-over narration. This deeply mysterious film attempts to uncover the hidden beauty and ulterior meaning behind life, nature, and the joys of farm work, all in typically beautiful Malick style. Topics include: Richard Gere's hotness, the film's class commentary, and the perils of being a child actor with a Very Specific vibe.

This week we have a change of pace for the show. Instead of an episode on a single movie, Alana and Sam turn their focus onto the career of a filmmaker - namely the legendary Sidney Lumet. This is the first of many special episodes we have planned focusing on the figures (writers, actors, directors, even studio execs) who made New Hollywood what it was. There will no doubt be individual episodes on Lumet's most famous films of the 70s in the future, but this week your hosts highlight four entries in his oeuvre that they probably wouldn't have a reason to discuss otherwise: 12 Angry Men (1957), Serpico (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Equus (1977). Topics include: Al Pacino's 70s star persona, adapting plays for the screen, and social realism.

In this episode Sam and Alana sink their teeth into one of the most influential films of all time: George Romero's independently produced Night of the Living Dead (1968). A gripping flick about flesh eating Ghouls and the people trying to fight them off - it also happens to be one of our favorite films ever made. The movie is so rich in social commentary that it could only be a product of the 60s and its success could only have come during the New Hollywood era. Topics include: the value of cemeteries, Pittsburgh enthusiasm, and the complexity of the lead character: Ben.

When we found out that the 70s classic The Exorcist was to be the latest victim in Hollywood's obsession with Legacy Sequels, a terrifying truth became all too clear: we would have to cover BOTH films on the podcast. This week your hosts braved the original William Friedkin film; widely considered to be a genre-defining work that changed the future of cinema, and the newly released The Exorcist: Believer by David Gordon Green which…is…also a movie! Topics include: the two films' respective views on religion, William Friedkin's questionable tactics as director, and Ellen Burstyn's iconic haircut.

This week Alana and Sam bring a somewhat *ahem* personal touch to the podcast in discussing Paul Mazursky's tale of two upper-class couples in the late 60s doing what swingin' 60s couples were wont to doooo. The New Hollywood touches are myriad with this film from the styles of acting on display, the particular performers chosen for the project (first appearance of New Hollywood Icon Elliott Gould for example), as well as the visible influence of the flower child sensibilities on even the most straitlaced of couples. Topics include: Natalie Wood as avatar for changing American Womanhood, EST, and Sam & Alana's own experiences with ethical non-monogamy.

The One-Two punch that began New Hollywood continues with the suburban dramedy, “The Graduate”. This sophomore effort from  director Mike Nichols is a highly quotable tale of a listless youngster falling into an affair with first the wife, and then daughter of a family friend. The movie still resonates (for some people at least…), due in no small part to the bravura performances by Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, as well as the haunting Simon and Garfunkel score. Topics include: depression, plaaaastics, and if sleeping with your partner's mom would be a dealbreaker.

At long last: the central conceit of the podcast has arrived! We celebrate New Hollywood officially beginning with… what else but Warner Bros. megahit “Bonnie and Clyde”. In this episode, Kael Your Idols' own dynamic duo explores the fascinating critical response to this divisive classic. Known for its extreme violence and fascinating central relationship, the film launched almost everyone involved in it to the stratosphere of fame and fortune. Topics include: finding Gene Wilder sexually attractive, the conscious influence the creators took from the French New Wave, and the attempt to cast the lead characters as members of the 60s counterculture.

In this episode Sam and Alana continue to explore the foreign film movements that served as precursors to New Hollywood. The focus is on Japan and its studio-mandated ‘New Wave' which allowed for salacious sex, violence, and a more anti-nationalistic worldview. In the spotlight are two very different films: Crazed Fruit directed by Kō Nakahira and Tokyo Drifter by Seijun Suzuki. Topics include: the Sun Tribe phenomenon and Japanese youth culture, pop art stylism, the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and whether two brothers can romance the same lady and still remain “chill".Click Here for show notes

On the previous episode we discussed Jean-Luc Godard and the influence of Cahiers du Cinéma, the famed French film magazine. This week we tell the tale of Agnès Varda and the other half of the French New Wave: the filmmakers associated with the ‘Left Bank'. Varda's debut film, La Pointe Courte, is an intriguing first stab at many of the themes she would come to later refine through her amazing 7-decade-spanning career. Topics include: potatoes, friendship, cats, and whether talking too much prevents you from being happy.NOTE: This episode has a higher amount of background noise than usual… please forgive us.

New Hollywood didn't just come out of nowhere, ya know! European and Asian art movements from the 50s and 60s had a profound impact on American filmmakers and inspired many of the revolutionary impulses they brought to mainstream USA. The next few episodes of the pod focus on a couple different groups of these foreign precursors. This episode the show is zeroing in on the French New Wave filmmakers most associated with the film journal Cahiers du Cinéma.  Alana and Sam discuss Jean-Luc Godard's highly experimental masterpiece Pierrot le Fou.  Topics include: the sexiness(?) of Jean-Paul Belmondo, the film's commentaries on consumerism, and the place for avant garde in the streaming era.

We've seen Old Hollywood at its best, now let's see it at its worst. Recall how last episode was a splashy Old Hollywood Musical? Well, this episode is basically the same thing except instead of a delightful masterpiece, it's a godawful film that bankrupted a studio and helped push the entire movie biz in a different direction. That's right friends, we're talking about arguably the weakest nominee for Best Picture of all time: Doctor Dolittle! Topics include: the factors contributing to New Hollywood's emergence, Rex Harrison and his *ahem* personality, and Anthony Newley impressions.

Ready for more New Hollywood? Hold your horses! Let's first see what the films of the late 60s and 70s were reacting to by going *back* to the eras and movements that directly preceded New Hollywood. This week finds Alana and Sam traveling back to the zenith of Old Hollywood to discuss Walt Disney's Mary Poppins. Topics include the film's depiction of the women's suffrage movement, the world of children vs the world of adults, and of course the tempestuous relationship between Disney and Mary Poppins' author P.L. Travers.

In this episode Alana and Sam begin their journey through New Hollywood by jumping nearly to the end of the era as they discuss Francis Ford Coppola's controversial masterpiece Apocalypse Now. Topics include: the nature of celebrity, the drug culture, Marlon Brando's brilliant/stupid improvisations and the portrayal of coolness in war movies.

This is a preview episode. Alana reveals her lack of film knowledge surrounding New Hollywood. Sam quizzes her about the film movement's historical context. They discuss the conceit of the podcast. What fun.