Podcasts about benecio

We are back again, proving once and for all that What's New to Netflix is the ultimate Netflix podcast, especially when it comes to telling you all of the new titles coming to Netflix in April 2025! Then it's Tom Hiddleston in a J. G. Ballard adaptation of madness, destruction, and paint in High-Rise, directed by Ben Wheatley from 2015. Next, Emily Blunt has to do some very unethical things in order to bring a drug cartel down, with the help of Benecio del Toro and Josh Brolin in Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve, from 2015. And then we get into The Russo Brothers' The Electric State from 2025. Is it as bad as people say it is? Can Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt salvage this movie, or is this one for the scrap heap? All of this plus the shocking absence of comedy specials and reality shows and the return of Black Mirror and You. got a suggestion for the show?: whatsnewtonetflix@gmail.com

Degens Andy S and Brandon Bombay hit listeners with a twist they won't see coming, because it kinda doesn't make sense, while talking about the crime caper classic 'The Usual Suspects.' Andy kicks it off by telling a story about when he wound up in police custody after attending a Grateful Dead show, and similar to Benecio del Toro's infamous fart, he couldn't hold it in while standing in a police lineup.Then the fellas discuss a movie that put handicapped people on film back at least 15 years, and debate whether this movie that is noted for its labyrinthine storytelling still holds up. It features an uneven cast, but there are undeniably great turns from the likes of Gabriel Byrne, character actor Pete Postelthwaite, and Kevin Spacey's duplicitous criminal mastermind. The true star of this however is actor Christopher McQuarrie, but the guys have trouble figuring out why Spacey's Verbal Kint needed to tell lies that were structured around the postings on a police bulletin board. Much like this '90s banger, you'll be talking about — and scratching your head — well after this episode ends. 

Welcome back to The Movie Draft House! We're in the thick of "heist" films month for November 2024 as we review the 2021 film "No Sudden Move" directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Don Cheadle, Benecio del Toro, David Harbour, Brendan Fraser, and Jon Hamm. Tune in to find out why Jeff loves Heist films directed by dudes he's never heard of, why Mark loves Don Cheadle, and just why neither loved this film. IMDB synopsis "A group of criminals are brought together under mysterious circumstances and have to work together to uncover what's really going on when their simple job goes completely sideways." Follow the podcast across all social media! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Paul and Joe break down the films covered in Prime Cut's upcoming S3. Prime Cut Podcast Season 3 Lineup:The Prestige - 2006. Christopher Nolan directs, starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman.Die Hard With A Vengeance - 1995. John McTiernan directs, starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Irons.Foreign Rec. Swap Series: 1988's Dutch thriller The Vanishing, and 2002's Japanese drama The Twilight Samurai.No Country For Old Men - 2007. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Tommy Lee Jones.The Parallax View - 1974. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, and starring Warren Beatty.The Counselor - 2013. Directed by Ridley Scott, starring Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, and Cameron Diaz.Gateway Series 1: 1995's Ransom and 1963's High and Low. Gateway Series 2: 1995's Heat and 1981's Thief. Gateway Series 3: 2013's Horrible Bosses and 1980's 9 to 5. Training Day - 2001. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, and starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. *Bonus: Listener Recommendation: 2000's Way of the Gun, directed by Christopher McQuarrie, and starring Benecio del Toro and Ryan Phillippe. You can follow Prime Cut Movie Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, & TikTok.E-mail Prime Cut Podcast at primecutpodcast@gmail.comhttps://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555307307349https://www.instagram.com/prime_cut_movie_podcast/https://www.tiktok.com/@primecutpodcast?lang=en

Sannette Nicole discusses picking friends based on body and style presentation & which celebs are Sannette Nicole approved this week Featuring her “ Gusband” & Guest host Benecio

The first of a two-part series on the short-lived 80s American distribution company responsible for Dirty Dancing. ----more---- The movies covered on this episode: Alpine (1987, Fredi M. Murer) Anna (1987, Yurek Bogayevicz) Billy Galvin (1986, John Grey) Blood Diner (1987, Jackie Kong) China Girl (1987, Abel Ferrera) The Dead (1987, John Huston) Dirty Dancing (1987, Emile Ardolino) Malcolm (1986, Nadia Tess) Personal Services (1987, Terry Jones) Slaughter High (1986, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten and George Dugdale) Steel Dawn (1987, Lance Hook) Street Trash (1987, Jim Muro)   TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   Have you ever thought “I should do this thing” but then you never get around to it, until something completely random happens that reminds you that you were going to do this thing a long time ago?   For this week's episode, that kick in the keister was a post on Twitter from someone I don't follow being retweeted by the great film critic and essayist Walter Chaw, someone I do follow, that showed a Blu-ray cover of the 1987 Walter Hill film Extreme Prejudice. You see, Walter Chaw has recently released a book about the life and career of Walter Hill, and this other person was showing off their new purchase. That in and of itself wasn't the kick in the butt.   That was the logo of the disc's distributor.   Vestron Video.   A company that went out of business more than thirty years before, that unbeknownst to me had been resurrected by the current owner of the trademark, Lionsgate Films, as a specialty label for a certain kind of film like Ken Russell's Gothic, Beyond Re-Animator, CHUD 2, and, for some reason, Walter Hill's Neo-Western featuring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe and Rip Torn. For those of you from the 80s, you remember at least one of Vestron Pictures' movies. I guarantee it.   But before we get there, we, as always, must go back a little further back in time.   The year is 1981. Time Magazine is amongst the most popular magazines in the world, while their sister publication, Life, was renowned for their stunning photographs printed on glossy color paper of a larger size than most magazines. In the late 1970s, Time-Life added a video production and distribution company to ever-growing media empire that also included television stations, cable channels, book clubs, and compilation record box sets. But Time Life Home Video didn't quite take off the way the company had expected, and they decided to concentrate its lucrative cable businesses like HBO. The company would move Austin Furst, an executive from HBO, over to dismantle the assets of Time-Life Films. And while Furst would sell off the production and distribution parts of the company to Fox, and the television department to Columbia Pictures, he couldn't find a party interested in the home video department. Recognizing that home video was an emerging market that would need a visionary like himself willing to take big risks for the chance to have big rewards, Furst purchased the home video rights to the film and video library for himself, starting up his home entertainment company.   But what to call the company?   It would be his daughter that would come up with Vestron, a portmanteau of combining the name of the Roman goddess of the heart, Vesta, with Tron, the Greek word for instrument. Remember, the movie Tron would not be released for another year at this point.   At first, there were only two employees at Vestron: Furst himself, and Jon Pesinger, a fellow executive at Time-Life who, not unlike Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire, was the only person who saw Furst's long-term vision for the future.   Outside of the titles they brought with them from Time-Life, Vestron's initial release of home video titles comprised of two mid-range movie hits where they were able to snag the home video rights instead of the companies that released the movies in theatres, either because those companies did not have a home video operation yet, or did not negotiate for home video rights when making the movie deal with the producers. Fort Apache, The Bronx, a crime drama with Paul Newman and Ed Asner, and Loving Couples, a Shirley MacLaine/James Coburn romantic comedy that was neither romantic nor comedic, were Time-Life productions, while the Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise comedy The Cannonball Run, was a pickup from the Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest, which financed the comedy to help break their local star, Jackie Chan, into the American market. They'd also make a deal with several Canadian production companies to get the American home video rights to titles like the Jack Lemmon drama Tribute and the George C. Scott horror film The Changeling.   The advantage that Vestron had over the major studios was their outlook on the mom and pop rental stores that were popping up in every city and town in the United States. The major studios hated the idea that they could sell a videotape for, say, $99.99, and then see someone else make a major profit by renting that tape out fifty or a hundred times at $4 or $5 per night. Of course, they would eventually see the light, but in 1982, they weren't there yet.   Now, let me sidetrack for a moment, as I am wont to do, to talk about mom and pop video stores in the early 1980s. If you're younger than, say, forty, you probably only know Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video as your local video rental store, but in the early 80s, there were no national video store chains yet. The first Blockbuster wouldn't open until October 1985, in Dallas, and your neighborhood likely didn't get one until the late 1980s or early 1990s. The first video store I ever encountered, Telford Home Video in Belmont Shores, Long Beach in 1981, was operated by Bob Telford, an actor best known for playing the Station Master in both the original 1974 version of Where the Red Fern Grows and its 2003 remake. Bob was really cool, and I don't think it was just because the space for the video store was just below my dad's office in the real estate company that had built and operated the building. He genuinely took interest in this weird thirteen year old kid who had an encyclopedic knowledge of films and wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch every movie he had in the store that I hadn't seen yet, but there was one problem: we had a VHS machine, and most of Bob's inventory was RCA SelectaVision, a disc-based playback system using a special stylus and a groove-covered disc much like an LP record. After school each day, I'd hightail it over to Telford Home Video, and Bob and I would watch a movie while we waited for customers to come rent something. It was with Bob that I would watch Ordinary People and The Magnificent Seven, The Elephant Man and The Last Waltz, Bus Stop and Rebel Without a Cause and The French Connection and The Man Who Fell to Earth and a bunch of other movies that weren't yet available on VHS, and it was great.   Like many teenagers in the early 1980s, I spent some time working at a mom and pop video store, Seacliff Home Video in Aptos, CA. I worked on the weekends, it was a third of a mile walk from home, and even though I was only 16 years old at the time, my bosses would, every week, solicit my opinion about which upcoming videos we should acquire. Because, like Telford Home Video and Village Home Video, where my friends Dick and Michelle worked about two miles away, and most every video store at the time, space was extremely limited and there was only space for so many titles. Telford Home Video was about 500 square feet and had maybe 500 titles. Seacliff was about 750 square feet and around 800 titles, including about 50 in the tiny, curtained off room created to hold the porn. And the first location for Village Home Video had only 300 square feet of space and only 250 titles. The owner, Leone Keller, confirmed to me that until they moved into a larger location across from the original store, they were able to rent out every movie in the store every night.    For many, a store owner had to be very careful about what they ordered and what they replaced. But Vestron Home Video always seemed to have some of the better movies. Because of a spat between Warner Brothers and Orion Pictures, Vestron would end up with most of Orion's 1983 through 1985 theatrical releases, including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money, the Nick Nolte political thriller Under Fire, the William Hurt mystery Gorky Park, and Gene Wilder's The Woman in Red. They'd also make a deal with Roger Corman's old American Independent Pictures outfit, which would reap an unexpected bounty when George Miller's second Mad Max movie, The Road Warrior, became a surprise hit in 1982, and Vestron was holding the video rights to the first Mad Max movie. And they'd also find themselves with the laserdisc rights to several Brian DePalma movies including Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. And after Polygram Films decided to leave the movie business in 1984, they would sell the home video rights to An American Werewolf in London and Endless Love to Vestron.   They were doing pretty good.   And in 1984, Vestron ended up changing the home video industry forever.   When Michael Jackson and John Landis had trouble with Jackson's record company, Epic, getting their idea for a 14 minute short film built around the title song to Jackson's monster album Thriller financed, Vestron would put up a good portion of the nearly million dollar budget in order to release the movie on home video, after it played for a few weeks on MTV. In February 1984, Vestron would release a one-hour tape, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, that included the mini-movie and a 45 minute Making of featurette. At $29.99, it would be one of the first sell-through titles released on home video.   It would become the second home videotape to sell a million copies, after Star Wars.   Suddenly, Vestron was flush with more cash than it knew what to do with.   In 1985, they would decide to expand their entertainment footprint by opening Vestron Pictures, which would finance a number of movies that could be exploited across a number of platforms, including theatrical, home video, cable and syndicated TV. In early January 1986, Vestron would announce they were pursuing projects with three producers, Steve Tisch, Larry Turman, and Gene Kirkwood, but no details on any specific titles or even a timeframe when any of those movies would be made.   Tisch, the son of Loews Entertainment co-owner Bob Tisch, had started producing films in 1977 with the Peter Fonda music drama Outlaw Blues, and had a big hit in 1983 with Risky Business. Turman, the Oscar-nominated producer of Mike Nichols' The Graduate, and Kirkwood, the producer of The Keep and The Pope of Greenwich Village, had seen better days as producers by 1986 but their names still carried a certain cache in Hollywood, and the announcement would certainly let the industry know Vestron was serious about making quality movies.   Well, maybe not all quality movies. They would also launch a sub-label for Vestron Pictures called Lightning Pictures, which would be utilized on B-movies and schlock that maybe wouldn't fit in the Vestron Pictures brand name they were trying to build.   But it costs money to build a movie production and theatrical distribution company.   Lots of money.   Thanks to the ever-growing roster of video titles and the success of releases like Thriller, Vestron would go public in the spring of 1985, selling enough shares on the first day of trading to bring in $440m to the company, $140m than they thought they would sell that day.   It would take them a while, but in 1986, they would start production on their first slate of films, as well as acquire several foreign titles for American distribution.   Vestron Pictures officially entered the theatrical distribution game on July 18th, 1986, when they released the Australian comedy Malcolm at the Cinema 2 on the Upper East Side of New York City. A modern attempt to create the Aussie version of a Jacques Tati-like absurdist comedy about modern life and our dependance on gadgetry, Malcolm follows, as one character describes him a 100 percent not there individual who is tricked into using some of his remote control inventions to pull of a bank robbery. While the film would be a minor hit in Australia, winning all eight of the Australian Film Institute Awards it was nominated for including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and three acting awards, the film would only play for five weeks in New York, grossing less than $35,000, and would not open in Los Angeles until November 5th, where in its first week at the Cineplex Beverly Center and Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion Cinemas, it would gross a combined $37,000. Go figure.   Malcolm would open in a few more major markets, but Vestron would close the film at the end of the year with a gross under $200,000.   Their next film, Slaughter High, was a rather odd bird. A co-production between American and British-based production companies, the film followed a group of adults responsible for a prank gone wrong on April Fool's Day who are invited to a reunion at their defunct high school where a masked killer awaits inside.   And although the movie takes place in America, the film was shot in London and nearby Virginia Water, Surrey, in late 1984, under the title April Fool's Day. But even with Caroline Munro, the British sex symbol who had become a cult favorite with her appearances in a series of sci-fi and Hammer horror films with Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee, as well as her work in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, April Fool's Day would sit on the proverbial shelf for nearly two years, until Vestron picked it up and changed its title, since Paramount Pictures had released their own horror film called April Fools Day earlier in the year.   Vestron would open Slaughter High on nine screens in Detroit on November 14th, 1986, but Vestron would not report grosses. Then they would open it on six screen in St. Louis on February 13th, 1987. At least this time they reported a gross. $12,400. Variety would simply call that number “grim.” They'd give the film one final rush on April 24th, sending it out to 38 screens in in New York City, where it would gross $90,000. There'd be no second week, as practically every theatre would replace it with Creepshow 2.   The third and final Vestron Pictures release for 1986 was Billy Galvin, a little remembered family drama featuring Karl Malden and Lenny von Dohlen, originally produced for the PBS anthology series American Playhouse but bumped up to a feature film as part of coordinated effort to promote the show by occasionally releasing feature films bearing the American Playhouse banner.   The film would open at the Cineplex Beverly Center on December 31st, not only the last day of the calendar year but the last day a film can be released into theatres in Los Angeles to have been considered for Academy Awards. The film would not get any major awards, from the Academy or anyone else, nor much attention from audiences, grossing just $4,000 in its first five days. They'd give the film a chance in New York on February 20th, at the 23rd Street West Triplex, but a $2,000 opening weekend gross would doom the film from ever opening in another theatre again.   In early 1987, Vestron announced eighteen films they would release during the year, and a partnership with AMC Theatres and General Cinema to have their films featured in those two companies' pilot specialized film programs in major markets like Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston and San Francisco.   Alpine Fire would be the first of those films, arriving at the Cinema Studio 1 in New York City on February 20th. A Swiss drama about a young deaf and mentally challenged teenager who gets his older sister pregnant, was that country's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race. While the film would win the Golden Leopard Award at the 1985 Locarno Film Festival, the Academy would not select the film for a nomination, and the film would quickly disappear from theatres after a $2,000 opening weekend gross.   Personal Services, the first film to be directed by Terry Jones outside of his services with Monty Python, would arrive in American theatres on May 15th. The only Jones-directed film to not feature any other Python in the cast, Personal Services was a thinly-disguised telling of a 1970s—era London waitress who was running a brothel in her flat in order to make ends meet, and featured a standout performance by Julie Walters as the waitress turned madame. In England, Personal Services would be the second highest-grossing film of the year, behind The Living Daylights, the first Bond film featuring new 007 Timothy Dalton. In America, the film wouldn't be quite as successful, grossing $1.75m after 33 weeks in theatres, despite never playing on more than 31 screens in any given week.   It would be another three months before Vestron would release their second movie of the year, but it would be the one they'd become famous for.   Dirty Dancing.   Based in large part on screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's own childhood, the screenplay would be written after the producers of the 1980 Michael Douglas/Jill Clayburgh dramedy It's My Turn asked the writer to remove a scene from the screenplay that involved an erotic dance sequence. She would take that scene and use it as a jumping off point for a new story about a Jewish teenager in the early 1960s who participated in secret “Dirty Dancing” competitions while she vacationed with her doctor father and stay-at-home mother while they vacationed in the Catskill Mountains. Baby, the young woman at the center of the story, would not only resemble the screenwriter as a character but share her childhood nickname.   Bergstein would pitch the story to every studio in Hollywood in 1984, and only get a nibble from MGM Pictures, whose name was synonymous with big-budget musicals decades before. They would option the screenplay and assign producer Linda Gottlieb, a veteran television producer making her first major foray into feature films, to the project. With Gottlieb, Bergstein would head back to the Catskills for the first time in two decades, as research for the script. It was while on this trip that the pair would meet Michael Terrace, a former Broadway dancer who had spent summers in the early 1960s teaching tourists how to mambo in the Catskills. Terrace and Bergstein didn't remember each other if they had met way back when, but his stories would help inform the lead male character of Johnny Castle.   But, as regularly happens in Hollywood, there was a regime change at MGM in late 1985, and one of the projects the new bosses cut loose was Dirty Dancing. Once again, the script would make the rounds in Hollywood, but nobody was biting… until Vestron Pictures got their chance to read it.   They loved it, and were ready to make it their first in-house production… but they would make the movie if the budget could be cut from $10m to $4.5m. That would mean some sacrifices. They wouldn't be able to hire a major director, nor bigger name actors, but that would end up being a blessing in disguise.   To direct, Gottlieb and Bergstein looked at a lot of up and coming feature directors, but the one person they had the best feeling about was Emile Ardolino, a former actor off-Broadway in the 1960s who began his filmmaking career as a documentarian for PBS in the 1970s. In 1983, Ardolino's documentary about National Dance Institute founder Jacques d'Amboise, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin', would win both the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Entertainment Special.   Although Ardolino had never directed a movie, he would read the script twice in a week while serving on jury duty, and came back to Gottlieb and Bergstein with a number of ideas to help make the movie shine, even at half the budget.   For a movie about dancing, with a lot of dancing in it, they would need a creative choreographer to help train the actors and design the sequences. The filmmakers would chose Kenny Ortega, who in addition to choreographing the dance scenes in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, had worked with Gene Kelly on the 1980 musical Xanadu. Well, more specifically, was molded by Gene Kelly to become the lead choreographer for the film. That's some good credentials.   Unlike movies like Flashdance, where the filmmakers would hire Jennifer Beals to play Alex and Marine Jahan to perform Alex's dance scenes, Emile Ardolino was insistent that the actors playing the dancers were actors who also dance. Having stand-ins would take extra time to set-up, and would suck up a portion of an already tight budget. Yet the first people he would meet for the lead role of Johnny were non-dancers Benecio del Toro, Val Kilmer, and Billy Zane. Zane would go so far as to do a screen test with one of the actresses being considered for the role of Baby, Jennifer Grey, but after screening the test, they realized Grey was right for Baby but Zane was not right for Johnny.   Someone suggested Patrick Swayze, a former dancer for the prestigious Joffrey Ballet who was making his way up the ranks of stardom thanks to his roles in The Outsiders and Grandview U.S.A. But Swayze had suffered a knee injury years before that put his dance career on hold, and there were concerns he would re-aggravate his injury, and there were concerns from Jennifer Grey because she and Swayze had not gotten along very well while working on Red Dawn. But that had been three years earlier, and when they screen tested together here, everyone was convinced this was the pairing that would bring magic to the role.   Baby's parents would be played by two Broadway veterans: Jerry Orbach, who is best known today as Detective Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order, and Kelly Bishop, who is best known today as Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls but had actually started out as a dancer, singer and actor, winning a Tony Award for her role in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line. Although Bishop had originally been cast in a different role for the movie, another guest at the Catskills resort with the Housemans, but she would be bumped up when the original Mrs. Houseman, Lynne Lipton, would fall ill during the first week of filming.   Filming on Dirty Dancing would begin in North Carolina on September 5th, 1986, at a former Boy Scout camp that had been converted to a private residential community. This is where many of the iconic scenes from the film would be shot, including Baby carrying the watermelon and practicing her dance steps on the stairs, all the interior dance scenes, the log scene, and the golf course scene where Baby would ask her father for $250. It's also where Patrick Swayze almost ended his role in the film, when he would indeed re-injure his knee during the balancing scene on the log. He would be rushed to the hospital to have fluid drained from the swelling. Thankfully, there would be no lingering effects once he was released.   After filming in North Carolina was completed, the team would move to Virginia for two more weeks of filming, including the water lift scene, exteriors at Kellerman's Hotel and the Houseman family's cabin, before the film wrapped on October 27th.   Ardolino's first cut of the film would be completed in February 1987, and Vestron would begin the process of running a series of test screenings. At the first test screening, nearly 40% of the audience didn't realize there was an abortion subplot in the movie, even after completing the movie. A few weeks later, Vestron executives would screen the film for producer Aaron Russo, who had produced such movies as The Rose and Trading Places. His reaction to the film was to tell the executives to burn the negative and collect the insurance.   But, to be fair, one important element of the film was still not set.   The music.   Eleanor Bergstein had written into her script a number of songs that were popular in the early 1960s, when the movie was set, that she felt the final film needed. Except a number of the songs were a bit more expensive to license than Vestron would have preferred. The company was testing the film with different versions of those songs, other artists' renditions. The writer, with the support of her producer and director, fought back. She made a deal with the Vestron executives. They would play her the master tracks to ten of the songs she wanted, as well as the copycat versions. If she could identify six of the masters, she could have all ten songs in the film.   Vestron would spend another half a million dollars licensing the original recording.    The writer nailed all ten.   But even then, there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.   The closing song.   While Bergstein wanted another song to close the film, the team at Vestron were insistent on a new song that could be used to anchor a soundtrack album. The writer, producer, director and various members of the production team listened to dozens of submissions from songwriters, but none of them were right, until they got to literally the last submission left, written by Franke Previte, who had written another song that would appear on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, “Hungry Eyes.”   Everybody loved the song, called “I've Had the Time of My Life,” and it would take some time to convince Previte that Dirty Dancing was not a porno. They showed him the film and he agreed to give them the song, but the production team and Vestron wanted to get a pair of more famous singers to record the final version.   The filmmakers originally approached disco queen Donna Summer and Joe Esposito, whose song “You're the Best” appeared on the Karate Kid soundtrack, but Summer would decline, not liking the title of the movie. They would then approach Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates and Kim Carnes, but they'd both decline, citing concerns about the title of the movie. Then they approached Bill Medley, one-half of The Righteous Brothers, who had enjoyed yet another career resurgence when You Lost That Lovin' Feeling became a hit in 1986 thanks to Top Gun, but at first, he would also decline. Not that he had any concerns about the title of the film, although he did have concerns about the title, but that his wife was about to give birth to their daughter, and he had promised he would be there.   While trying to figure who to get to sing the male part of the song, the music supervisor for the film approached Jennifer Warnes, who had sung the duet “Up Where We Belong” from the An Officer and a Gentleman soundtrack, which had won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and sang the song “It Goes Like It Goes” from the Norma Rae soundtrack, which had won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Warnes wasn't thrilled with the song, but she would be persuaded to record the song for the right price… and if Bill Medley would sing the other part. Medley, flattered that Warnes asked specifically to record with him, said he would do so, after his daughter was born, and if the song was recorded in his studio in Los Angeles. A few weeks later, Medley and Warnes would have their portion of the song completed in only one hour, including additional harmonies and flourishes decided on after finishing with the main vocals.   With all the songs added to the movie, audience test scores improved considerably.   RCA Records, who had been contracted to handle the release of the soundtrack, would set a July 17th release date for the album, to coincide with the release of the movie on the same day, with the lead single, I've Had the Time of My Life, released one week earlier. But then, Vestron moved the movie back from July 17th to August 21st… and forgot to tell RCA Records about the move. No big deal. The song would quickly rise up the charts, eventually hitting #1 on the Billboard charts.   When the movie finally did open in 975 theatres in August 21st, the film would open to fourth place with $3.9m in ticket sales, behind Can't Buy Me Love in third place and in its second week of release, the Cheech Marin comedy Born in East L.A., which opened in second place, and Stakeout, which was enjoying its third week atop the charts.   The reviews were okay, but not special. Gene Siskel would give the film a begrudging Thumbs Up, citing Jennifer Grey's performance and her character's arc as the thing that tipped the scale into the positive, while Roger Ebert would give the film a Thumbs Down, due to its idiot plot and tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds.   But then a funny thing happened…   Instead of appealing to the teenagers they thought would see the film, the majority of the audience ended up becoming adults. Not just twenty and thirty somethings, but people who were teenagers themselves during the movie's timeframe. They would be drawn in to the film through the newfound sense of boomer nostalgia that helped make Stand By Me an unexpected hit the year before, both as a movie and as a soundtrack.   Its second week in theatre would only see the gross drop 6%, and the film would finish in third place.   In week three, the four day Labor Day weekend, it would gross nearly $5m, and move up to second place. And it would continue to play and continue to bring audiences in, only dropping out of the top ten once in early November for one weekend, from August to December. Even with all the new movies entering the marketplace for Christmas, Dirty Dancing would be retained by most of the theatres that were playing it. In the first weekend of 1988, Dirty Dancing was still playing in 855 theaters, only 120 fewer than who opened it five months earlier. Once it did started leaving first run theatres, dollar houses were eager to pick it up, and Dirty Dancing would make another $6m in ticket sales as it continued to play until Christmas 1988 at some theatres, finishing its incredible run with $63.5m in ticket sales.   Yet, despite its ubiquitousness in American pop culture, despite the soundtrack selling more than ten million copies in its first year, despite the uptick in attendance at dance schools from coast to coast, Dirty Dancing never once was the #1 film in America on any weekend it was in theatres. There would always be at least one other movie that would do just a bit better.   When awards season came around, the movie was practically ignored by critics groups. It would pick up an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and both the movie and Jennifer Grey would be nominated for Golden Globes, but it would be that song, I've Had the Time of My Life, that would be the driver for awards love. It would win the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song would anchor a soundtrack that would also include two other hit songs, Eric Carmen's “Hungry Eyes,” and “She's Like the Wind,” recorded for the movie by Patrick Swayze, making him the proto-Hugh Jackman of the 80s. I've seen Hugh Jackman do his one-man show at the Hollywood Bowl, and now I'm wishing Patrick Swayze could have had something like that thirty years ago.   On September 25th, they would release Abel Ferrera's Neo-noir romantic thriller China Girl. A modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written by regular Ferrera writer Nicholas St. John, the setting would be New York City's Lower East Side, when Tony, a teenager from Little Italy, falls for Tye, a teenager from Chinatown, as their older brothers vie for turf in a vicious gang war. While the stars of the film, Richard Panebianco and Sari Chang, would never become known actors, the supporting cast is as good as you'd expect from a post-Ms. .45 Ferrera film, including James Russo, Russell Wong, David Caruso and James Hong.   The $3.5m movie would open on 110 screens, including 70 in New York ti-state region and 18 in Los Angeles, grossing $531k. After a second weekend, where the gross dropped to $225k, Vestron would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just $1.26m coming from a stockholder's report in early 1988.   Ironically, China Girl would open against another movie that Vestron had a hand in financing, but would not release in America: Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride. While the film would do okay in America, grossing $30m against its $15m, it wouldn't translate so easily to foreign markets.   Anna, from first time Polish filmmaker Yurek Bogayevicz, was an oddball little film from the start. The story, co-written with the legendary Polish writer/director Agnieszka Holland, was based on the real-life friendship of Polish actresses Joanna (Yo-ahn-nuh) Pacuła (Pa-tsu-wa) and Elżbieta (Elz-be-et-ah) Czyżewska (Chuh-zef-ska), and would find Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova making her feature acting debut as Krystyna, an aspiring actress from Czechoslovakia who goes to New York City to find her idol, Anna, who had been imprisoned and then deported for speaking out against the new regime after the 1968 Communist invasion. Nearly twenty years later, the middle-aged Anna struggles to land any acting parts, in films, on television, or on the stage, who relishes the attention of this beautiful young waif who reminds her of herself back then.   Sally Kirkland, an American actress who got her start as part of Andy Warhol's Factory in the early 60s but could never break out of playing supporting roles in movies like The Way We Were, The Sting, A Star is Born, and Private Benjamin, would be cast as the faded Czech star whose life seemed to unintentionally mirror the actress's. Future Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis would be featured in a small supporting role, as would the then sixteen year old Sofia Coppola.   The $1m movie would shoot on location in New York City during the winter of late 1986 and early 1987, and would make its world premiere at the 1987 New York Film Festival in September, before opening at the 68th Street Playhouse on the Upper East Side on October 30th. Critics such as Bruce Williamson of Playboy, Molly Haskell of Vogue and Jami Bernard of the New York Post would sing the praises of the movie, and of Paulina Porizkova, but it would be Sally Kirkland whom practically every critic would gush over. “A performance of depth and clarity and power, easily one of the strongest female roles of the year,” wrote Mike McGrady of Newsday. Janet Maslim wasn't as impressed with the film as most critics, but she would note Ms. Kirkland's immensely dignified presence in the title role.   New York audiences responded well to the critical acclaim, buying more than $22,000 worth of tickets, often playing to sell out crowds for the afternoon and evening shows. In its second week, the film would see its gross increase 12%, and another 3% increase in its third week. Meanwhile, on November 13th, the film would open in Los Angeles at the AMC Century City 14, where it would bring in an additional $10,000, thanks in part to Sheila Benson's rave in the Los Angeles Times, calling the film “the best kind of surprise — a small, frequently funny, fine-boned film set in the worlds of the theater and movies which unexpectedly becomes a consummate study of love, alienation and loss,” while praising Kirkland's performance as a “blazing comet.”   Kirkland would make the rounds on the awards circuit, winning Best Actress awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes, and the Independent Spirit Awards, culminating in an Academy Award nomination, although she would lose to Cher in Moonstruck.   But despite all these rave reviews and the early support for the film in New York and Los Angeles, the film got little traction outside these two major cities. Despite playing in theatres for nearly six months, Anna could only round up about $1.2m in ticket sales.   Vestron's penultimate new film of 1987 would be a movie that when it was shot in Namibia in late 1986 was titled Peacekeeper, then was changed to Desert Warrior when it was acquired by Jerry Weintraub's eponymously named distribution company, then saw it renamed again to Steel Dawn when Vestron overpaid to acquire the film from Weintraub, because they wanted the next film starring Patrick Swayze for themselves.   Swayze plays, and stop me if you've heard this one before, a warrior wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert who comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by the leader of a murderous gang who's after the water they control. Lisa Niemi, also known as Mrs. Patrick Swayze, would be his romantic interest in the film, which would also star AnthonY Zerbe, Brian James, and, in one of his very first acting roles, future Mummy co-star Arnold Vosloo.   The film would open to horrible reviews, and gross just $312k in 290 theatres. For comparison's sake, Dirty Dancing was in its eleventh week of release, was still playing 878 theatres, and would gross $1.7m. In its second week, Steel Dawn had lost nearly two thirds of its theatres, grossing only $60k from 107 theatres. After its third weekend, Vestron stopped reporting grosses. The film had only earned $562k in ticket sales.   And their final release for 1987 would be one of the most prestigious titles they'd ever be involved with. The Dead, based on a short story by James Joyce, would be the 37th and final film to be directed by John Huston. His son Tony would adapt the screenplay, while his daughter Anjelica, whom he had directed to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar two years earlier for Prizzi's Honor, would star as the matriarch of an Irish family circa 1904 whose husband discovers memoirs of a deceased lover of his wife's, an affair that preceded their meeting.   Originally scheduled to shoot in Dublin, Ireland, The Dead would end up being shot on soundstages in Valencia, CA, just north of Los Angeles, as the eighty year old filmmaker was in ill health. Huston, who was suffering from severe emphysema due to decades of smoking, would use video playback for the first and only time in his career in order to call the action, whirling around from set to set in a motorized wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached to it. In fact, the company insuring the film required the producers to have a backup director on set, just in case Huston was unable to continue to make the film. That stand-in was Czech-born British filmmaker Karel Reisz, who never once had to stand-in during the entire shoot.   One Huston who didn't work on the film was Danny Huston, who was supposed to shoot some second unit footage for the film in Dublin for his father, who could not make any trips overseas, as well as a documentary about the making of the film, but for whatever reason, Danny Huston would end up not doing either.   John Huston would turn in his final cut of the film to Vestron in July 1987, and would pass away in late August, a good four months before the film's scheduled release. He would live to see some of the best reviews of his entire career when the film was released on December 18th. At six theatres in Los Angeles and New York City, The Dead would earn $69k in its first three days during what was an amazing opening weekend for a number of movies. The Dead would open against exclusive runs of Broadcast News, Ironweed, Moonstruck and the newest Woody Allen film, September, as well as wide releases of Eddie Murphy: Raw, Batteries Not Included, Overboard, and the infamous Bill Cosby stinker Leonard Part 6.   The film would win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture of the year, John Huston would win the Spirit Award and the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, Anjelica Huston would win a Spirit Award as well, for Best Supporting Actress, and Tony Huston would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. But the little $3.5m film would only see modest returns at the box office, grossing just $4.4m after a four month run in theatres.   Vestron would also release two movies in 1987 through their genre Lightning Pictures label.   The first, Blood Diner, from writer/director Jackie Kong, was meant to be both a tribute and an indirect sequel to the infamous 1965 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie Blood Feast, often considered to be the first splatter slasher film. Released on four screens in Baltimore on July 10th, the film would gross just $6,400 in its one tracked week. The film would get a second chance at life when it opened at the 8th Street Playhouse in New York City on September 4th, but after a $5,000 opening week gross there, the film would have to wait until it was released on home video to become a cult film.   The other Lightning Pictures release for 1987, Street Trash, would become one of the most infamous horror comedy films of the year. An expansion of a short student film by then nineteen year old Jim Muro, Street Trash told the twin stories of a Greenpoint, Brooklyn shop owner who sell a case of cheap, long-expired hooch to local hobos, who hideously melt away shortly after drinking it, while two homeless brothers try to deal with their situation as best they can while all this weirdness is going on about them.   After playing several weeks of midnight shows at the Waverly Theatre near Washington Square, Street Trash would open for a regular run at the 8th Street Playhouse on September 18th, one week after Blood Diner left the same theatre. However, Street Trash would not replace Blood Diner, which was kicked to the curb after one week, but another long forgotten movie, the Christopher Walken-starrer Deadline. Street Trash would do a bit better than Blood Diner, $9,000 in its first three days, enough to get the film a full two week run at the Playhouse. But its second week gross of $5,000 would not be enough to give it a longer playdate, or get another New York theatre to pick it up. The film would get other playdates, including one in my secondary hometown of Santa Cruz starting, ironically, on Thanksgiving Day, but the film would barely make $100k in its theatrical run.   While this would be the only film Jim Muro would direct, he would become an in demand cinematographer and Steadicam operator, working on such films as Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, Sneakers, L.A. Confidential, the first Fast and Furious movie, and on The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic for James Cameron. And should you ever watch the film and sit through the credits, yes, it's that Bryan Singer who worked as a grip and production assistant on the film. It would be his very first film credit, which he worked on during a break from going to USC film school.   People who know me know I am not the biggest fan of horror films. I may have mentioned it once or twice on this podcast. But I have a soft spot for Troma Films and Troma-like films, and Street Trash is probably the best Troma movie not made or released by Troma. There's a reason why Lloyd Kaufman is not a fan of the movie. A number of people who have seen the movie think it is a Troma movie, not helped by the fact that a number of people who did work on The Toxic Avenger went to work on Street Trash afterwards, and some even tell Lloyd at conventions that Street Trash is their favorite Troma movie. It's looks like a Troma movie. It feels like a Troma movie. And to be honest, at least to me, that's one hell of a compliment. It's one of the reasons I even went to see Street Trash, the favorable comparison to Troma. And while I, for lack of a better word, enjoyed Street Trash when I saw it, as much as one can say they enjoyed a movie where a bunch of bums playing hot potato with a man's severed Johnson is a major set piece, but I've never really felt the need to watch it again over the past thirty-five years.   Like several of the movies on this episode, Street Trash is not available for streaming on any service in the United States. And outside of Dirty Dancing, the ones you can stream, China Girl, Personal Services, Slaughter High and Steel Dawn, are mostly available for free with ads on Tubi, which made a huge splash last week with a confounding Super Bowl commercial that sent millions of people to figure what a Tubi was.   Now, if you were counting, that was only nine films released in 1987, and not the eighteen they had promised at the start of the year. Despite the fact they had a smash hit in Dirty Dancing, they decided to push most of their planned 1987 movies to 1988. Not necessarily by choice, though. Many of the films just weren't ready in time for a 1987 release, and then the unexpected long term success of Dirty Dancing kept them occupied for most of the rest of the year. But that only meant that 1988 would be a stellar year for them, right?   We'll find out next episode, when we continue the Vestron Pictures story.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

The first of a two-part series on the short-lived 80s American distribution company responsible for Dirty Dancing. ----more---- The movies covered on this episode: Alpine (1987, Fredi M. Murer) Anna (1987, Yurek Bogayevicz) Billy Galvin (1986, John Grey) Blood Diner (1987, Jackie Kong) China Girl (1987, Abel Ferrera) The Dead (1987, John Huston) Dirty Dancing (1987, Emile Ardolino) Malcolm (1986, Nadia Tess) Personal Services (1987, Terry Jones) Slaughter High (1986, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten and George Dugdale) Steel Dawn (1987, Lance Hook) Street Trash (1987, Jim Muro)   TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   Have you ever thought “I should do this thing” but then you never get around to it, until something completely random happens that reminds you that you were going to do this thing a long time ago?   For this week's episode, that kick in the keister was a post on Twitter from someone I don't follow being retweeted by the great film critic and essayist Walter Chaw, someone I do follow, that showed a Blu-ray cover of the 1987 Walter Hill film Extreme Prejudice. You see, Walter Chaw has recently released a book about the life and career of Walter Hill, and this other person was showing off their new purchase. That in and of itself wasn't the kick in the butt.   That was the logo of the disc's distributor.   Vestron Video.   A company that went out of business more than thirty years before, that unbeknownst to me had been resurrected by the current owner of the trademark, Lionsgate Films, as a specialty label for a certain kind of film like Ken Russell's Gothic, Beyond Re-Animator, CHUD 2, and, for some reason, Walter Hill's Neo-Western featuring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe and Rip Torn. For those of you from the 80s, you remember at least one of Vestron Pictures' movies. I guarantee it.   But before we get there, we, as always, must go back a little further back in time.   The year is 1981. Time Magazine is amongst the most popular magazines in the world, while their sister publication, Life, was renowned for their stunning photographs printed on glossy color paper of a larger size than most magazines. In the late 1970s, Time-Life added a video production and distribution company to ever-growing media empire that also included television stations, cable channels, book clubs, and compilation record box sets. But Time Life Home Video didn't quite take off the way the company had expected, and they decided to concentrate its lucrative cable businesses like HBO. The company would move Austin Furst, an executive from HBO, over to dismantle the assets of Time-Life Films. And while Furst would sell off the production and distribution parts of the company to Fox, and the television department to Columbia Pictures, he couldn't find a party interested in the home video department. Recognizing that home video was an emerging market that would need a visionary like himself willing to take big risks for the chance to have big rewards, Furst purchased the home video rights to the film and video library for himself, starting up his home entertainment company.   But what to call the company?   It would be his daughter that would come up with Vestron, a portmanteau of combining the name of the Roman goddess of the heart, Vesta, with Tron, the Greek word for instrument. Remember, the movie Tron would not be released for another year at this point.   At first, there were only two employees at Vestron: Furst himself, and Jon Pesinger, a fellow executive at Time-Life who, not unlike Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire, was the only person who saw Furst's long-term vision for the future.   Outside of the titles they brought with them from Time-Life, Vestron's initial release of home video titles comprised of two mid-range movie hits where they were able to snag the home video rights instead of the companies that released the movies in theatres, either because those companies did not have a home video operation yet, or did not negotiate for home video rights when making the movie deal with the producers. Fort Apache, The Bronx, a crime drama with Paul Newman and Ed Asner, and Loving Couples, a Shirley MacLaine/James Coburn romantic comedy that was neither romantic nor comedic, were Time-Life productions, while the Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise comedy The Cannonball Run, was a pickup from the Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest, which financed the comedy to help break their local star, Jackie Chan, into the American market. They'd also make a deal with several Canadian production companies to get the American home video rights to titles like the Jack Lemmon drama Tribute and the George C. Scott horror film The Changeling.   The advantage that Vestron had over the major studios was their outlook on the mom and pop rental stores that were popping up in every city and town in the United States. The major studios hated the idea that they could sell a videotape for, say, $99.99, and then see someone else make a major profit by renting that tape out fifty or a hundred times at $4 or $5 per night. Of course, they would eventually see the light, but in 1982, they weren't there yet.   Now, let me sidetrack for a moment, as I am wont to do, to talk about mom and pop video stores in the early 1980s. If you're younger than, say, forty, you probably only know Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video as your local video rental store, but in the early 80s, there were no national video store chains yet. The first Blockbuster wouldn't open until October 1985, in Dallas, and your neighborhood likely didn't get one until the late 1980s or early 1990s. The first video store I ever encountered, Telford Home Video in Belmont Shores, Long Beach in 1981, was operated by Bob Telford, an actor best known for playing the Station Master in both the original 1974 version of Where the Red Fern Grows and its 2003 remake. Bob was really cool, and I don't think it was just because the space for the video store was just below my dad's office in the real estate company that had built and operated the building. He genuinely took interest in this weird thirteen year old kid who had an encyclopedic knowledge of films and wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch every movie he had in the store that I hadn't seen yet, but there was one problem: we had a VHS machine, and most of Bob's inventory was RCA SelectaVision, a disc-based playback system using a special stylus and a groove-covered disc much like an LP record. After school each day, I'd hightail it over to Telford Home Video, and Bob and I would watch a movie while we waited for customers to come rent something. It was with Bob that I would watch Ordinary People and The Magnificent Seven, The Elephant Man and The Last Waltz, Bus Stop and Rebel Without a Cause and The French Connection and The Man Who Fell to Earth and a bunch of other movies that weren't yet available on VHS, and it was great.   Like many teenagers in the early 1980s, I spent some time working at a mom and pop video store, Seacliff Home Video in Aptos, CA. I worked on the weekends, it was a third of a mile walk from home, and even though I was only 16 years old at the time, my bosses would, every week, solicit my opinion about which upcoming videos we should acquire. Because, like Telford Home Video and Village Home Video, where my friends Dick and Michelle worked about two miles away, and most every video store at the time, space was extremely limited and there was only space for so many titles. Telford Home Video was about 500 square feet and had maybe 500 titles. Seacliff was about 750 square feet and around 800 titles, including about 50 in the tiny, curtained off room created to hold the porn. And the first location for Village Home Video had only 300 square feet of space and only 250 titles. The owner, Leone Keller, confirmed to me that until they moved into a larger location across from the original store, they were able to rent out every movie in the store every night.    For many, a store owner had to be very careful about what they ordered and what they replaced. But Vestron Home Video always seemed to have some of the better movies. Because of a spat between Warner Brothers and Orion Pictures, Vestron would end up with most of Orion's 1983 through 1985 theatrical releases, including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money, the Nick Nolte political thriller Under Fire, the William Hurt mystery Gorky Park, and Gene Wilder's The Woman in Red. They'd also make a deal with Roger Corman's old American Independent Pictures outfit, which would reap an unexpected bounty when George Miller's second Mad Max movie, The Road Warrior, became a surprise hit in 1982, and Vestron was holding the video rights to the first Mad Max movie. And they'd also find themselves with the laserdisc rights to several Brian DePalma movies including Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. And after Polygram Films decided to leave the movie business in 1984, they would sell the home video rights to An American Werewolf in London and Endless Love to Vestron.   They were doing pretty good.   And in 1984, Vestron ended up changing the home video industry forever.   When Michael Jackson and John Landis had trouble with Jackson's record company, Epic, getting their idea for a 14 minute short film built around the title song to Jackson's monster album Thriller financed, Vestron would put up a good portion of the nearly million dollar budget in order to release the movie on home video, after it played for a few weeks on MTV. In February 1984, Vestron would release a one-hour tape, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, that included the mini-movie and a 45 minute Making of featurette. At $29.99, it would be one of the first sell-through titles released on home video.   It would become the second home videotape to sell a million copies, after Star Wars.   Suddenly, Vestron was flush with more cash than it knew what to do with.   In 1985, they would decide to expand their entertainment footprint by opening Vestron Pictures, which would finance a number of movies that could be exploited across a number of platforms, including theatrical, home video, cable and syndicated TV. In early January 1986, Vestron would announce they were pursuing projects with three producers, Steve Tisch, Larry Turman, and Gene Kirkwood, but no details on any specific titles or even a timeframe when any of those movies would be made.   Tisch, the son of Loews Entertainment co-owner Bob Tisch, had started producing films in 1977 with the Peter Fonda music drama Outlaw Blues, and had a big hit in 1983 with Risky Business. Turman, the Oscar-nominated producer of Mike Nichols' The Graduate, and Kirkwood, the producer of The Keep and The Pope of Greenwich Village, had seen better days as producers by 1986 but their names still carried a certain cache in Hollywood, and the announcement would certainly let the industry know Vestron was serious about making quality movies.   Well, maybe not all quality movies. They would also launch a sub-label for Vestron Pictures called Lightning Pictures, which would be utilized on B-movies and schlock that maybe wouldn't fit in the Vestron Pictures brand name they were trying to build.   But it costs money to build a movie production and theatrical distribution company.   Lots of money.   Thanks to the ever-growing roster of video titles and the success of releases like Thriller, Vestron would go public in the spring of 1985, selling enough shares on the first day of trading to bring in $440m to the company, $140m than they thought they would sell that day.   It would take them a while, but in 1986, they would start production on their first slate of films, as well as acquire several foreign titles for American distribution.   Vestron Pictures officially entered the theatrical distribution game on July 18th, 1986, when they released the Australian comedy Malcolm at the Cinema 2 on the Upper East Side of New York City. A modern attempt to create the Aussie version of a Jacques Tati-like absurdist comedy about modern life and our dependance on gadgetry, Malcolm follows, as one character describes him a 100 percent not there individual who is tricked into using some of his remote control inventions to pull of a bank robbery. While the film would be a minor hit in Australia, winning all eight of the Australian Film Institute Awards it was nominated for including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and three acting awards, the film would only play for five weeks in New York, grossing less than $35,000, and would not open in Los Angeles until November 5th, where in its first week at the Cineplex Beverly Center and Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion Cinemas, it would gross a combined $37,000. Go figure.   Malcolm would open in a few more major markets, but Vestron would close the film at the end of the year with a gross under $200,000.   Their next film, Slaughter High, was a rather odd bird. A co-production between American and British-based production companies, the film followed a group of adults responsible for a prank gone wrong on April Fool's Day who are invited to a reunion at their defunct high school where a masked killer awaits inside.   And although the movie takes place in America, the film was shot in London and nearby Virginia Water, Surrey, in late 1984, under the title April Fool's Day. But even with Caroline Munro, the British sex symbol who had become a cult favorite with her appearances in a series of sci-fi and Hammer horror films with Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee, as well as her work in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, April Fool's Day would sit on the proverbial shelf for nearly two years, until Vestron picked it up and changed its title, since Paramount Pictures had released their own horror film called April Fools Day earlier in the year.   Vestron would open Slaughter High on nine screens in Detroit on November 14th, 1986, but Vestron would not report grosses. Then they would open it on six screen in St. Louis on February 13th, 1987. At least this time they reported a gross. $12,400. Variety would simply call that number “grim.” They'd give the film one final rush on April 24th, sending it out to 38 screens in in New York City, where it would gross $90,000. There'd be no second week, as practically every theatre would replace it with Creepshow 2.   The third and final Vestron Pictures release for 1986 was Billy Galvin, a little remembered family drama featuring Karl Malden and Lenny von Dohlen, originally produced for the PBS anthology series American Playhouse but bumped up to a feature film as part of coordinated effort to promote the show by occasionally releasing feature films bearing the American Playhouse banner.   The film would open at the Cineplex Beverly Center on December 31st, not only the last day of the calendar year but the last day a film can be released into theatres in Los Angeles to have been considered for Academy Awards. The film would not get any major awards, from the Academy or anyone else, nor much attention from audiences, grossing just $4,000 in its first five days. They'd give the film a chance in New York on February 20th, at the 23rd Street West Triplex, but a $2,000 opening weekend gross would doom the film from ever opening in another theatre again.   In early 1987, Vestron announced eighteen films they would release during the year, and a partnership with AMC Theatres and General Cinema to have their films featured in those two companies' pilot specialized film programs in major markets like Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston and San Francisco.   Alpine Fire would be the first of those films, arriving at the Cinema Studio 1 in New York City on February 20th. A Swiss drama about a young deaf and mentally challenged teenager who gets his older sister pregnant, was that country's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race. While the film would win the Golden Leopard Award at the 1985 Locarno Film Festival, the Academy would not select the film for a nomination, and the film would quickly disappear from theatres after a $2,000 opening weekend gross.   Personal Services, the first film to be directed by Terry Jones outside of his services with Monty Python, would arrive in American theatres on May 15th. The only Jones-directed film to not feature any other Python in the cast, Personal Services was a thinly-disguised telling of a 1970s—era London waitress who was running a brothel in her flat in order to make ends meet, and featured a standout performance by Julie Walters as the waitress turned madame. In England, Personal Services would be the second highest-grossing film of the year, behind The Living Daylights, the first Bond film featuring new 007 Timothy Dalton. In America, the film wouldn't be quite as successful, grossing $1.75m after 33 weeks in theatres, despite never playing on more than 31 screens in any given week.   It would be another three months before Vestron would release their second movie of the year, but it would be the one they'd become famous for.   Dirty Dancing.   Based in large part on screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's own childhood, the screenplay would be written after the producers of the 1980 Michael Douglas/Jill Clayburgh dramedy It's My Turn asked the writer to remove a scene from the screenplay that involved an erotic dance sequence. She would take that scene and use it as a jumping off point for a new story about a Jewish teenager in the early 1960s who participated in secret “Dirty Dancing” competitions while she vacationed with her doctor father and stay-at-home mother while they vacationed in the Catskill Mountains. Baby, the young woman at the center of the story, would not only resemble the screenwriter as a character but share her childhood nickname.   Bergstein would pitch the story to every studio in Hollywood in 1984, and only get a nibble from MGM Pictures, whose name was synonymous with big-budget musicals decades before. They would option the screenplay and assign producer Linda Gottlieb, a veteran television producer making her first major foray into feature films, to the project. With Gottlieb, Bergstein would head back to the Catskills for the first time in two decades, as research for the script. It was while on this trip that the pair would meet Michael Terrace, a former Broadway dancer who had spent summers in the early 1960s teaching tourists how to mambo in the Catskills. Terrace and Bergstein didn't remember each other if they had met way back when, but his stories would help inform the lead male character of Johnny Castle.   But, as regularly happens in Hollywood, there was a regime change at MGM in late 1985, and one of the projects the new bosses cut loose was Dirty Dancing. Once again, the script would make the rounds in Hollywood, but nobody was biting… until Vestron Pictures got their chance to read it.   They loved it, and were ready to make it their first in-house production… but they would make the movie if the budget could be cut from $10m to $4.5m. That would mean some sacrifices. They wouldn't be able to hire a major director, nor bigger name actors, but that would end up being a blessing in disguise.   To direct, Gottlieb and Bergstein looked at a lot of up and coming feature directors, but the one person they had the best feeling about was Emile Ardolino, a former actor off-Broadway in the 1960s who began his filmmaking career as a documentarian for PBS in the 1970s. In 1983, Ardolino's documentary about National Dance Institute founder Jacques d'Amboise, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin', would win both the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Entertainment Special.   Although Ardolino had never directed a movie, he would read the script twice in a week while serving on jury duty, and came back to Gottlieb and Bergstein with a number of ideas to help make the movie shine, even at half the budget.   For a movie about dancing, with a lot of dancing in it, they would need a creative choreographer to help train the actors and design the sequences. The filmmakers would chose Kenny Ortega, who in addition to choreographing the dance scenes in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, had worked with Gene Kelly on the 1980 musical Xanadu. Well, more specifically, was molded by Gene Kelly to become the lead choreographer for the film. That's some good credentials.   Unlike movies like Flashdance, where the filmmakers would hire Jennifer Beals to play Alex and Marine Jahan to perform Alex's dance scenes, Emile Ardolino was insistent that the actors playing the dancers were actors who also dance. Having stand-ins would take extra time to set-up, and would suck up a portion of an already tight budget. Yet the first people he would meet for the lead role of Johnny were non-dancers Benecio del Toro, Val Kilmer, and Billy Zane. Zane would go so far as to do a screen test with one of the actresses being considered for the role of Baby, Jennifer Grey, but after screening the test, they realized Grey was right for Baby but Zane was not right for Johnny.   Someone suggested Patrick Swayze, a former dancer for the prestigious Joffrey Ballet who was making his way up the ranks of stardom thanks to his roles in The Outsiders and Grandview U.S.A. But Swayze had suffered a knee injury years before that put his dance career on hold, and there were concerns he would re-aggravate his injury, and there were concerns from Jennifer Grey because she and Swayze had not gotten along very well while working on Red Dawn. But that had been three years earlier, and when they screen tested together here, everyone was convinced this was the pairing that would bring magic to the role.   Baby's parents would be played by two Broadway veterans: Jerry Orbach, who is best known today as Detective Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order, and Kelly Bishop, who is best known today as Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls but had actually started out as a dancer, singer and actor, winning a Tony Award for her role in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line. Although Bishop had originally been cast in a different role for the movie, another guest at the Catskills resort with the Housemans, but she would be bumped up when the original Mrs. Houseman, Lynne Lipton, would fall ill during the first week of filming.   Filming on Dirty Dancing would begin in North Carolina on September 5th, 1986, at a former Boy Scout camp that had been converted to a private residential community. This is where many of the iconic scenes from the film would be shot, including Baby carrying the watermelon and practicing her dance steps on the stairs, all the interior dance scenes, the log scene, and the golf course scene where Baby would ask her father for $250. It's also where Patrick Swayze almost ended his role in the film, when he would indeed re-injure his knee during the balancing scene on the log. He would be rushed to the hospital to have fluid drained from the swelling. Thankfully, there would be no lingering effects once he was released.   After filming in North Carolina was completed, the team would move to Virginia for two more weeks of filming, including the water lift scene, exteriors at Kellerman's Hotel and the Houseman family's cabin, before the film wrapped on October 27th.   Ardolino's first cut of the film would be completed in February 1987, and Vestron would begin the process of running a series of test screenings. At the first test screening, nearly 40% of the audience didn't realize there was an abortion subplot in the movie, even after completing the movie. A few weeks later, Vestron executives would screen the film for producer Aaron Russo, who had produced such movies as The Rose and Trading Places. His reaction to the film was to tell the executives to burn the negative and collect the insurance.   But, to be fair, one important element of the film was still not set.   The music.   Eleanor Bergstein had written into her script a number of songs that were popular in the early 1960s, when the movie was set, that she felt the final film needed. Except a number of the songs were a bit more expensive to license than Vestron would have preferred. The company was testing the film with different versions of those songs, other artists' renditions. The writer, with the support of her producer and director, fought back. She made a deal with the Vestron executives. They would play her the master tracks to ten of the songs she wanted, as well as the copycat versions. If she could identify six of the masters, she could have all ten songs in the film.   Vestron would spend another half a million dollars licensing the original recording.    The writer nailed all ten.   But even then, there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.   The closing song.   While Bergstein wanted another song to close the film, the team at Vestron were insistent on a new song that could be used to anchor a soundtrack album. The writer, producer, director and various members of the production team listened to dozens of submissions from songwriters, but none of them were right, until they got to literally the last submission left, written by Franke Previte, who had written another song that would appear on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, “Hungry Eyes.”   Everybody loved the song, called “I've Had the Time of My Life,” and it would take some time to convince Previte that Dirty Dancing was not a porno. They showed him the film and he agreed to give them the song, but the production team and Vestron wanted to get a pair of more famous singers to record the final version.   The filmmakers originally approached disco queen Donna Summer and Joe Esposito, whose song “You're the Best” appeared on the Karate Kid soundtrack, but Summer would decline, not liking the title of the movie. They would then approach Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates and Kim Carnes, but they'd both decline, citing concerns about the title of the movie. Then they approached Bill Medley, one-half of The Righteous Brothers, who had enjoyed yet another career resurgence when You Lost That Lovin' Feeling became a hit in 1986 thanks to Top Gun, but at first, he would also decline. Not that he had any concerns about the title of the film, although he did have concerns about the title, but that his wife was about to give birth to their daughter, and he had promised he would be there.   While trying to figure who to get to sing the male part of the song, the music supervisor for the film approached Jennifer Warnes, who had sung the duet “Up Where We Belong” from the An Officer and a Gentleman soundtrack, which had won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and sang the song “It Goes Like It Goes” from the Norma Rae soundtrack, which had won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Warnes wasn't thrilled with the song, but she would be persuaded to record the song for the right price… and if Bill Medley would sing the other part. Medley, flattered that Warnes asked specifically to record with him, said he would do so, after his daughter was born, and if the song was recorded in his studio in Los Angeles. A few weeks later, Medley and Warnes would have their portion of the song completed in only one hour, including additional harmonies and flourishes decided on after finishing with the main vocals.   With all the songs added to the movie, audience test scores improved considerably.   RCA Records, who had been contracted to handle the release of the soundtrack, would set a July 17th release date for the album, to coincide with the release of the movie on the same day, with the lead single, I've Had the Time of My Life, released one week earlier. But then, Vestron moved the movie back from July 17th to August 21st… and forgot to tell RCA Records about the move. No big deal. The song would quickly rise up the charts, eventually hitting #1 on the Billboard charts.   When the movie finally did open in 975 theatres in August 21st, the film would open to fourth place with $3.9m in ticket sales, behind Can't Buy Me Love in third place and in its second week of release, the Cheech Marin comedy Born in East L.A., which opened in second place, and Stakeout, which was enjoying its third week atop the charts.   The reviews were okay, but not special. Gene Siskel would give the film a begrudging Thumbs Up, citing Jennifer Grey's performance and her character's arc as the thing that tipped the scale into the positive, while Roger Ebert would give the film a Thumbs Down, due to its idiot plot and tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds.   But then a funny thing happened…   Instead of appealing to the teenagers they thought would see the film, the majority of the audience ended up becoming adults. Not just twenty and thirty somethings, but people who were teenagers themselves during the movie's timeframe. They would be drawn in to the film through the newfound sense of boomer nostalgia that helped make Stand By Me an unexpected hit the year before, both as a movie and as a soundtrack.   Its second week in theatre would only see the gross drop 6%, and the film would finish in third place.   In week three, the four day Labor Day weekend, it would gross nearly $5m, and move up to second place. And it would continue to play and continue to bring audiences in, only dropping out of the top ten once in early November for one weekend, from August to December. Even with all the new movies entering the marketplace for Christmas, Dirty Dancing would be retained by most of the theatres that were playing it. In the first weekend of 1988, Dirty Dancing was still playing in 855 theaters, only 120 fewer than who opened it five months earlier. Once it did started leaving first run theatres, dollar houses were eager to pick it up, and Dirty Dancing would make another $6m in ticket sales as it continued to play until Christmas 1988 at some theatres, finishing its incredible run with $63.5m in ticket sales.   Yet, despite its ubiquitousness in American pop culture, despite the soundtrack selling more than ten million copies in its first year, despite the uptick in attendance at dance schools from coast to coast, Dirty Dancing never once was the #1 film in America on any weekend it was in theatres. There would always be at least one other movie that would do just a bit better.   When awards season came around, the movie was practically ignored by critics groups. It would pick up an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and both the movie and Jennifer Grey would be nominated for Golden Globes, but it would be that song, I've Had the Time of My Life, that would be the driver for awards love. It would win the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song would anchor a soundtrack that would also include two other hit songs, Eric Carmen's “Hungry Eyes,” and “She's Like the Wind,” recorded for the movie by Patrick Swayze, making him the proto-Hugh Jackman of the 80s. I've seen Hugh Jackman do his one-man show at the Hollywood Bowl, and now I'm wishing Patrick Swayze could have had something like that thirty years ago.   On September 25th, they would release Abel Ferrera's Neo-noir romantic thriller China Girl. A modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written by regular Ferrera writer Nicholas St. John, the setting would be New York City's Lower East Side, when Tony, a teenager from Little Italy, falls for Tye, a teenager from Chinatown, as their older brothers vie for turf in a vicious gang war. While the stars of the film, Richard Panebianco and Sari Chang, would never become known actors, the supporting cast is as good as you'd expect from a post-Ms. .45 Ferrera film, including James Russo, Russell Wong, David Caruso and James Hong.   The $3.5m movie would open on 110 screens, including 70 in New York ti-state region and 18 in Los Angeles, grossing $531k. After a second weekend, where the gross dropped to $225k, Vestron would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just $1.26m coming from a stockholder's report in early 1988.   Ironically, China Girl would open against another movie that Vestron had a hand in financing, but would not release in America: Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride. While the film would do okay in America, grossing $30m against its $15m, it wouldn't translate so easily to foreign markets.   Anna, from first time Polish filmmaker Yurek Bogayevicz, was an oddball little film from the start. The story, co-written with the legendary Polish writer/director Agnieszka Holland, was based on the real-life friendship of Polish actresses Joanna (Yo-ahn-nuh) Pacuła (Pa-tsu-wa) and Elżbieta (Elz-be-et-ah) Czyżewska (Chuh-zef-ska), and would find Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova making her feature acting debut as Krystyna, an aspiring actress from Czechoslovakia who goes to New York City to find her idol, Anna, who had been imprisoned and then deported for speaking out against the new regime after the 1968 Communist invasion. Nearly twenty years later, the middle-aged Anna struggles to land any acting parts, in films, on television, or on the stage, who relishes the attention of this beautiful young waif who reminds her of herself back then.   Sally Kirkland, an American actress who got her start as part of Andy Warhol's Factory in the early 60s but could never break out of playing supporting roles in movies like The Way We Were, The Sting, A Star is Born, and Private Benjamin, would be cast as the faded Czech star whose life seemed to unintentionally mirror the actress's. Future Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis would be featured in a small supporting role, as would the then sixteen year old Sofia Coppola.   The $1m movie would shoot on location in New York City during the winter of late 1986 and early 1987, and would make its world premiere at the 1987 New York Film Festival in September, before opening at the 68th Street Playhouse on the Upper East Side on October 30th. Critics such as Bruce Williamson of Playboy, Molly Haskell of Vogue and Jami Bernard of the New York Post would sing the praises of the movie, and of Paulina Porizkova, but it would be Sally Kirkland whom practically every critic would gush over. “A performance of depth and clarity and power, easily one of the strongest female roles of the year,” wrote Mike McGrady of Newsday. Janet Maslim wasn't as impressed with the film as most critics, but she would note Ms. Kirkland's immensely dignified presence in the title role.   New York audiences responded well to the critical acclaim, buying more than $22,000 worth of tickets, often playing to sell out crowds for the afternoon and evening shows. In its second week, the film would see its gross increase 12%, and another 3% increase in its third week. Meanwhile, on November 13th, the film would open in Los Angeles at the AMC Century City 14, where it would bring in an additional $10,000, thanks in part to Sheila Benson's rave in the Los Angeles Times, calling the film “the best kind of surprise — a small, frequently funny, fine-boned film set in the worlds of the theater and movies which unexpectedly becomes a consummate study of love, alienation and loss,” while praising Kirkland's performance as a “blazing comet.”   Kirkland would make the rounds on the awards circuit, winning Best Actress awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes, and the Independent Spirit Awards, culminating in an Academy Award nomination, although she would lose to Cher in Moonstruck.   But despite all these rave reviews and the early support for the film in New York and Los Angeles, the film got little traction outside these two major cities. Despite playing in theatres for nearly six months, Anna could only round up about $1.2m in ticket sales.   Vestron's penultimate new film of 1987 would be a movie that when it was shot in Namibia in late 1986 was titled Peacekeeper, then was changed to Desert Warrior when it was acquired by Jerry Weintraub's eponymously named distribution company, then saw it renamed again to Steel Dawn when Vestron overpaid to acquire the film from Weintraub, because they wanted the next film starring Patrick Swayze for themselves.   Swayze plays, and stop me if you've heard this one before, a warrior wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert who comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by the leader of a murderous gang who's after the water they control. Lisa Niemi, also known as Mrs. Patrick Swayze, would be his romantic interest in the film, which would also star AnthonY Zerbe, Brian James, and, in one of his very first acting roles, future Mummy co-star Arnold Vosloo.   The film would open to horrible reviews, and gross just $312k in 290 theatres. For comparison's sake, Dirty Dancing was in its eleventh week of release, was still playing 878 theatres, and would gross $1.7m. In its second week, Steel Dawn had lost nearly two thirds of its theatres, grossing only $60k from 107 theatres. After its third weekend, Vestron stopped reporting grosses. The film had only earned $562k in ticket sales.   And their final release for 1987 would be one of the most prestigious titles they'd ever be involved with. The Dead, based on a short story by James Joyce, would be the 37th and final film to be directed by John Huston. His son Tony would adapt the screenplay, while his daughter Anjelica, whom he had directed to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar two years earlier for Prizzi's Honor, would star as the matriarch of an Irish family circa 1904 whose husband discovers memoirs of a deceased lover of his wife's, an affair that preceded their meeting.   Originally scheduled to shoot in Dublin, Ireland, The Dead would end up being shot on soundstages in Valencia, CA, just north of Los Angeles, as the eighty year old filmmaker was in ill health. Huston, who was suffering from severe emphysema due to decades of smoking, would use video playback for the first and only time in his career in order to call the action, whirling around from set to set in a motorized wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached to it. In fact, the company insuring the film required the producers to have a backup director on set, just in case Huston was unable to continue to make the film. That stand-in was Czech-born British filmmaker Karel Reisz, who never once had to stand-in during the entire shoot.   One Huston who didn't work on the film was Danny Huston, who was supposed to shoot some second unit footage for the film in Dublin for his father, who could not make any trips overseas, as well as a documentary about the making of the film, but for whatever reason, Danny Huston would end up not doing either.   John Huston would turn in his final cut of the film to Vestron in July 1987, and would pass away in late August, a good four months before the film's scheduled release. He would live to see some of the best reviews of his entire career when the film was released on December 18th. At six theatres in Los Angeles and New York City, The Dead would earn $69k in its first three days during what was an amazing opening weekend for a number of movies. The Dead would open against exclusive runs of Broadcast News, Ironweed, Moonstruck and the newest Woody Allen film, September, as well as wide releases of Eddie Murphy: Raw, Batteries Not Included, Overboard, and the infamous Bill Cosby stinker Leonard Part 6.   The film would win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture of the year, John Huston would win the Spirit Award and the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, Anjelica Huston would win a Spirit Award as well, for Best Supporting Actress, and Tony Huston would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. But the little $3.5m film would only see modest returns at the box office, grossing just $4.4m after a four month run in theatres.   Vestron would also release two movies in 1987 through their genre Lightning Pictures label.   The first, Blood Diner, from writer/director Jackie Kong, was meant to be both a tribute and an indirect sequel to the infamous 1965 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie Blood Feast, often considered to be the first splatter slasher film. Released on four screens in Baltimore on July 10th, the film would gross just $6,400 in its one tracked week. The film would get a second chance at life when it opened at the 8th Street Playhouse in New York City on September 4th, but after a $5,000 opening week gross there, the film would have to wait until it was released on home video to become a cult film.   The other Lightning Pictures release for 1987, Street Trash, would become one of the most infamous horror comedy films of the year. An expansion of a short student film by then nineteen year old Jim Muro, Street Trash told the twin stories of a Greenpoint, Brooklyn shop owner who sell a case of cheap, long-expired hooch to local hobos, who hideously melt away shortly after drinking it, while two homeless brothers try to deal with their situation as best they can while all this weirdness is going on about them.   After playing several weeks of midnight shows at the Waverly Theatre near Washington Square, Street Trash would open for a regular run at the 8th Street Playhouse on September 18th, one week after Blood Diner left the same theatre. However, Street Trash would not replace Blood Diner, which was kicked to the curb after one week, but another long forgotten movie, the Christopher Walken-starrer Deadline. Street Trash would do a bit better than Blood Diner, $9,000 in its first three days, enough to get the film a full two week run at the Playhouse. But its second week gross of $5,000 would not be enough to give it a longer playdate, or get another New York theatre to pick it up. The film would get other playdates, including one in my secondary hometown of Santa Cruz starting, ironically, on Thanksgiving Day, but the film would barely make $100k in its theatrical run.   While this would be the only film Jim Muro would direct, he would become an in demand cinematographer and Steadicam operator, working on such films as Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, Sneakers, L.A. Confidential, the first Fast and Furious movie, and on The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic for James Cameron. And should you ever watch the film and sit through the credits, yes, it's that Bryan Singer who worked as a grip and production assistant on the film. It would be his very first film credit, which he worked on during a break from going to USC film school.   People who know me know I am not the biggest fan of horror films. I may have mentioned it once or twice on this podcast. But I have a soft spot for Troma Films and Troma-like films, and Street Trash is probably the best Troma movie not made or released by Troma. There's a reason why Lloyd Kaufman is not a fan of the movie. A number of people who have seen the movie think it is a Troma movie, not helped by the fact that a number of people who did work on The Toxic Avenger went to work on Street Trash afterwards, and some even tell Lloyd at conventions that Street Trash is their favorite Troma movie. It's looks like a Troma movie. It feels like a Troma movie. And to be honest, at least to me, that's one hell of a compliment. It's one of the reasons I even went to see Street Trash, the favorable comparison to Troma. And while I, for lack of a better word, enjoyed Street Trash when I saw it, as much as one can say they enjoyed a movie where a bunch of bums playing hot potato with a man's severed Johnson is a major set piece, but I've never really felt the need to watch it again over the past thirty-five years.   Like several of the movies on this episode, Street Trash is not available for streaming on any service in the United States. And outside of Dirty Dancing, the ones you can stream, China Girl, Personal Services, Slaughter High and Steel Dawn, are mostly available for free with ads on Tubi, which made a huge splash last week with a confounding Super Bowl commercial that sent millions of people to figure what a Tubi was.   Now, if you were counting, that was only nine films released in 1987, and not the eighteen they had promised at the start of the year. Despite the fact they had a smash hit in Dirty Dancing, they decided to push most of their planned 1987 movies to 1988. Not necessarily by choice, though. Many of the films just weren't ready in time for a 1987 release, and then the unexpected long term success of Dirty Dancing kept them occupied for most of the rest of the year. But that only meant that 1988 would be a stellar year for them, right?   We'll find out next episode, when we continue the Vestron Pictures story.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

We were somewhere outside of 1998 when the drugs began to take hold. Did you see what God just did to us man? God didn't do that, Terry Gilliam did! He released Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's drug-fueled adventure of excess and debauchery through Las Vegas with his attorney Dr. Gonzo. Johnny Depp and Benecio del Toro star as the lead and his lawyer in this film which garnered less critical acclaim than it did fan buzz about this adaptation of a beloved counterculture novel. But, does it hold up? Listen in as Jon, Colin, and Brent debate grapefruits and carve a little z on your foreheads as we dial back to the place where the wave broke as we try to figure out if this is a good ride or a bad trip.

Rip Borrow Steal is back for a review of FBI agents rolin and brolin blunts as they search for serial killers and dealers... and find them selves.

Prison escapes, death row visits, and how to handle (and not handle) homicide. No it's not an episode of one of those murder-as-snack podcasts, it's Sarah and Nancy discussing serial killers, lovelorn prison guards, manipulative prisoners, and why people who make it their business to cover murder might do it with a little more delicacy. Plus the surgery Sarah cannot talk about, a wee bit of we-told-you-so over Amber Heard being revealed to have not written the 2018 domestic violence op-ed for which ex-husband Johnny Depp is now demanding $50 million in defamation dough, and Sarah plans a trip to see it all firsthand.Por favor: In preparation for a bonus show, the Smoke ‘Em journalistsas invite you to send questions, mash notes, secret messages to smokeempodcast@gmail.com As promised, a baker's dozen of true crime books we love:Shot in the Heart, by Mikal GilmoreLost Girls, by Robert KolkerBlood Will Out, by Walter KirnThe Adversary, by Emmanuel CarrereColumbine, by Dave CullenDown City, by Leah CarrollI'll Be Gone in the Dark, by Michelle McNamara (which, full disclosure, I listened to on audio. Was great - NR)Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe (ditto)The Journalist and the Murderer, by Janet MalcomHelter Skelter, by Vincent BugliosiIn Cold Blood, by Truman CapoteCrossed Over, by Beverly LowryUnder the Banner of Heaven, by Jon KrakaeurEpisode notes:Warrant issued for missing Alabama corrections officer, escaped convictCoconut cream (not coconut milk)Escape from Dannemora, starring Patricia Arquette, Paul Dano, Benecio del Toro“Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes”“Destination Gacy, A Cross-Country Journey to Shake the Devil's Hand,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Kindle) Nancy reads “Destination Gacy” (come on, it's free!)“Hit on the Head,” Sarah's essay about New Orleans stick up“Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hill”To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder, by Nancy RommelmannSkip Hollandsworth's most recent Texas Monthly masterpiece, “The Notorious Mrs. Mossler”“Sword and Scale” podcast that scared the crap out of SarahOutro song: “I'm Alive” by Electric Light Orchestra Nancy and Gacy penpal Rick Gaez, 1994 Detective Nick and Sarah, 2019 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Welp, we're back in a doom scrolling spiral this week, so why not take a visit to a small town full of hot single dads and firemen? We're reading London Hale this week, and talking about the appeal of the quick and dirty romance! We'll also talk about the value of a genuinely hot read and where all the stops are on the romance-to-erotica spectrum. We're also talking about kinks and why daddies are installed in so many of us. Basically, we're telling y'all to read these London Hale books so they'll write more of them for us. Thanks for listening! This episode is sponsored by Kennedy Ryan, author of Reel, and BetterHelp Online Therapy.Our next read along is Diana Quincy's Her Night With the Duke, which was on our Best of 2020 year-end list! Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local bookstore. You can also get it in audio from our partner, Chirp Books!Show NotesAuthors Ellis Leigh and Brighton Walsh are the two authors who write as London Hale. Sarah talked about their books back on the Quick and Dirty interstitial in Season 2. You should read Circe. And Jack Reacher. If you've run out of Jessa Kane books, try Chloe Maine. There is not a Harlequin Presents called The Pregnant Billionaire's Italian Mistress, but you can find The Italian's Pregnant Mistress, The Italian Billionaire's Pregnant Bride, The Italian's Pregnant Cinderella, The Italian's Pregnant Virgin, The Italian's Pregnancy Proposal, and The Italian's Pregnant Prisoner. Robert Redford was a snack. So was Richard Gere both in Pretty Woman and in “the one where he's an Air Force pilot.” (An Officer and a Gentleman, and it was the Navy. Fine.) We also admire the silver fox good looks of Benecio del Toro, Idris Elba, and George Clooney. Andie J. Christopher coined the phrase “stern brunch daddy” and we're all better off for it. Unfortunately, she's the kind of person who deletes old tweets so you can't see that picture of Oscar Isaac with an eating utensil that inspired it, but luckily they talked about it on Reddit and Andie talked about it on the Wicked Wallflowers Podcast. We're constantly trying to explain the difference between Romance vs erotic romance vs erotica.The Great Stepbrother Explosion was mostly 2015-2016, but I'm willing to talk some more about it or cite sources if you have them.The 2020 Netflix movie 365 Days was originally released in Poland under the name 365 dni and was based on a book by Blanka Lipinska. Apparently, there will be a sequel. It doesn't have a release date, but we'll keep you updated, baby girl. Jo Brenner and her friends have a gray scale for dark romance, and I hope she'll explain it all on twitter so I can link to it. Does calling a stranger for phone sex still exist–I bet you're shocked to find out that there was an uptick in demand during the pandemic. In editing, TK means “to come” as in I'll fill it in later. In Fumbled by Alexa Martin, it stands for Trevor Kyle. Eucalyptus is native to Australia and was introduced to England in 1774. You should follow the Male scent catalog on twitter, and if you want to read more about it, check out the book Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World's Smells.

An ambitious duo with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female podcaster who is even more dangerous with words than they are. On Episode 499 of Trick or Treat Radio we are joined by Rachel from the Zombie Grrlz once again.This time around she makes us look smart as we discuss Nightmare Alley from maestro Guillermo del Toro! We also talk about the Nicolas Cage holy trinity, Guillermo del Toro's filmography, and way too much talk about aspirational HJ's and BSO's. So grab your mentalist handbook, be a good sumerian, and strap on for the world's most dangerous podcast!Stuff we talk about: Prolific and Proficient, Rachel from Zombie Grrlz, More Deadly, Midnight Swim, Hellbender, The Adams Family, Death Becomes Her, Witches of Eastwick, The Rock inspiring a Scientist, Nicolas Cage, Pig, Face/Off, Blue Velvet, Bruce Willis, Moonstruck, Goth Quentin Tarantino, Archive 81, Peacemaker, The Book of Boba Fett, “Gafuddled”, Lady Terminator, Servant, Search Party, Wild at Heart, True Romance, James Gunn, kale chips and True Romance, Jordan Peele, “I've hugged more than Possums”, Guillermo del Toro, Nightmare Alley, The Shape of Water, Hellboy, The Devil's Backbone, Carnivale, carny culture, aspirational HJ's, Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette, Wet Hot American Summer, Rocket Racoon, mentalist, chain smoking, Big Top Pee Wee, Benecio del Toro, Large Marge, femme fatale, Nathan Johnson, neo-noir films, Crimson Peak, Charlie Hunnam, BSO (Butt Show Off), America's Ass, Chris Evans, Sean Michaels, Bradley Cooper, Tom Hardy, the true hallmark of a big number is a lot of zeroes, Episode Thigh Hundred, New York Ninja, St. Pauli Girl, William Lindsay Gresham, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, Mondo Macabro, Hot Gams No Hams, Shizer Soze, The Good Sumerians, and No-Snow-Feratu.Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/trickortreatradioJoin our Discord Community: discord.trickortreatradio.comSend Email/Voicemail: mailto:podcast@trickortreatradio.comVisit our website: http://trickortreatradio.comStart your own podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=386Use our Amazon link: http://amzn.to/2CTdZzKFB Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/trickortreatradioTwitter: http://twitter.com/TrickTreatRadioFacebook: http://facebook.com/TrickOrTreatRadioYouTube: http://youtube.com/TrickOrTreatRadioInstagram: http://instagram.com/TrickorTreatRadioSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/trickortreatradio)

Welcome to the Wes Anderson deep end. Adam and Josh sit down to discuss Anderson's latest, THE FRENCH DISPATCH, the densest, most intricate, and maybe most melancholy of his career. There's also that cast, with standout performances from Jeffrey Wright, Benecio del Toro, and Bill Murray. Adam and Josh also share their Anderson Ranked lists and revisit their 2017 Sacred Cow review of RUSHMORE. 0:00 - Billboard 1:03 - Review: "The French Dispatch" Sex Bob-Omb, "We Are Sex Bob-Omb" 35:43 - Polls 50:24 - Next Week / Notes 59:47 - Wes Anderson Ranked 1:15:53 - FS Revisited: "Rushmore" (Sacred Cow, 2017) 1:47:13 - Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Supremes gave the green light last week to Republican moves to make it harder to vote -- that gives Democrats and voting rights groups more work to do. Harold Meyerson comments. Also: “Critical Race Theory” has been attacked on Fox News nearly 1300 times. It's being banned from public schools and colleges in something like 15 Republican states. But what IS “critical race theory”? And why is this happening now? Kimberlé Crenshaw explains; she teaches law at Columbia and UCLA, and she's probably the most prominent figure associated with critical race theory—she coined the term 30 years ago. She's also creator of the concept “intersectionality.” And the hashtag #SayHerName. Also later in the hour: our TV critic Ella Taylor talks about “Summer of Soul”, a documentary about a music festival in a park in Harlem in 1969 --it's the most powerful and moving thing I've seen about the sixties anywhere – and the story it tells was completely forgotten --the footage sat in a basement for nearly 50 years, and no one cared. Also: "No Sudden Move," a new caper film by Steven Soderbergh starring Don Cheadle and Benecio del Toro. 7-8-2021

The Supremes gave the green light last week to Republican moves to make it harder to vote -- that gives Democrats and voting rights groups more work to do. Harold Meyerson comments. Also: “Critical Race Theory” has been attacked on Fox News nearly 1300 times. It's being banned from public schools and colleges in something like 15 Republican states. But what IS “critical race theory”? And why is this happening now? Kimberlé Crenshaw explains; she teaches law at Columbia and UCLA, and she's probably the most prominent figure associated with critical race theory—she coined the term 30 years ago. She's also creator of the concept “intersectionality.” And the hashtag #SayHerName. Also later in the hour: our TV critic Ella Taylor talks about “Summer of Soul”, a documentary about a music festival in a park in Harlem in 1969 --it's the most powerful and moving thing I've seen about the sixties anywhere – and the story it tells was completely forgotten --the footage sat in a basement for nearly 50 years, and no one cared. Also: "No Sudden Move," a new caper film by Steven Soderbergh starring Don Cheadle and Benecio del Toro. 7-8-2021

Book Vs Movie: “The Little Prince” The 1943 Novel Vs the 2015 Adaptation  The Margos say “Vive La France!” as we dive into the classic children's book The Little Prince by author & illustrator Antoine de Saint-Exupery originally published in 1943. The author was a successful poet, journalist, and aviator for many years before he was lost on a WWII mission off Marseille in occupied France in July 1944. Previous to his assumed death, he was the recipient of many awards including the Legion of Honor (1930 & 1939) and the U.S. National Book Award (1940.)  Saint-Exupery was visiting America during WWII and felt passionate about saving France from German occupation. One of his friends at the time was Charles Lindbergh who was an ardent anti-interventionist and part of the hero of The Little Prince is based on the appearance of Lindbergh's blonde son Land.  He and his wife Rose also lived in Quebec for a while where he was inspired by philosophers trying to make sense of war and how France can regain its independence and Democracy. Even though he was well in his 40s--Saint-Exupery served in the French Air Force and served in several missions before his plane disappeared.    The Little Prince would eventually become one of the most successful children's books in the history of publishing translated into over 300 languages and adapted as a film, opera, radio theater, and ballet. The narrator begins the story by telling the audience he doesn't trust adults as they do not receive things “normally.”  He begins conversations by showing them a picture of a snake eating an elephant and the grownups always said it looks like a hat.  The narrator is an aviator who crashes his plane in the Sahara desert. With only a few days of supplies, he meets a little blonde boy (The Little Prince) who tells his life story beginning as an alien from another planet (an asteroid.) He talks about being in love with a “vain” rose and then leaving that planet to save others who need him.  This includes six other planets: One with a king with no subjects A man who needs to be admired all of the time A man who drinks to forget  A rich businessman who can't see the beauty of the stars A lamplighter An old geographer who teaches about “ephemeral” being The Little Prince travels across planet earth and meets many creatures and people who help him grow as a person. (There are so many lessons here. It is hard to name them all!)  The 2015 animated film was directed by Mark Osbourne and features the voices of Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, Paul Rudd, Bud Cort & Albert Brooks (!) and beautiful visuals throughout. It also has a young girl as our protagonist which is one of the major changes in the adaptation.  The movie did very well with critics and won the 2016 Cesar Awards for “Best Animated Film.”  So between the novel and the movie--which did we prefer? Have a listen and find out!  In this ep the Margos discuss: The biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupery  The different adaptations over the years of the material  The terribly sad "real" ending of the story and what we thought of it as children The cast: Riley Osbourne (Little Prince,) Mackenzie Foy (the little girl,) Jeff Bridges (Aviator,) Rachel McAdams (mother,) Marion Cotillard (the Rose,) Benecio del Toro (the Snake,) Albert Brooks (Businessman,) Paul Rudd (the Adult Prince,) Paul Giamatti (Academy Teacher,) Bud Cort (the King,) and Ricky Gervais (the Conceited Man.)  Clips used: The Little Girl meets The Aviator The Little Prince trailer The Little Prince meets the King The Little Prince meets The Conceited Man The Little Prince meets The Businessman The Little Prince meets The Rose The Little Prince soundtrack Hans Zimmer & Richard Harvey Book Vs Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts .  Join our Patreon page to help support the show! https://www.patreon.com/bookversusmovie  Book Vs. Movie podcast https://www.facebook.com/bookversusmovie/ Twitter @bookversusmovie www.bookversusmovie.com Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Brought to you by Audible.com You can sign up for a FREE 30-day trial here http://www.audible.com/?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R Margo D. @BrooklynFitChik www.brooklynfitchick.com brooklynfitchick@gmail.com Margo P. @ShesNachoMama https://coloniabook.weebly.com/  Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine   

Book Vs Movie: “The Little Prince” The 1943 Novel Vs the 2015 Adaptation  The Margos say “Vive La France!” as we dive into the classic children's book The Little Prince by author & illustrator Antoine de Saint-Exupery originally published in 1943. The author was a successful poet, journalist, and aviator for many years before he was lost on a WWII mission off Marseille in occupied France in July 1944. Previous to his assumed death, he was the recipient of many awards including the Legion of Honor (1930 & 1939) and the U.S. National Book Award (1940.)  Saint-Exupery was visiting America during WWII and felt passionate about saving France from German occupation. One of his friends at the time was Charles Lindbergh who was an ardent anti-interventionist and part of the hero of The Little Prince is based on the appearance of Lindbergh's blonde son Land.  He and his wife Rose also lived in Quebec for a while where he was inspired by philosophers trying to make sense of war and how France can regain its independence and Democracy. Even though he was well in his 40s--Saint-Exupery served in the French Air Force and served in several missions before his plane disappeared.    The Little Prince would eventually become one of the most successful children's books in the history of publishing translated into over 300 languages and adapted as a film, opera, radio theater, and ballet. The narrator begins the story by telling the audience he doesn't trust adults as they do not receive things “normally.”  He begins conversations by showing them a picture of a snake eating an elephant and the grownups always said it looks like a hat.  The narrator is an aviator who crashes his plane in the Sahara desert. With only a few days of supplies, he meets a little blonde boy (The Little Prince) who tells his life story beginning as an alien from another planet (an asteroid.) He talks about being in love with a “vain” rose and then leaving that planet to save others who need him.  This includes six other planets: One with a king with no subjects A man who needs to be admired all of the time A man who drinks to forget  A rich businessman who can't see the beauty of the stars A lamplighter An old geographer who teaches about “ephemeral” being The Little Prince travels across planet earth and meets many creatures and people who help him grow as a person. (There are so many lessons here. It is hard to name them all!)  The 2015 animated film was directed by Mark Osbourne and features the voices of Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, Paul Rudd, Bud Cort & Albert Brooks (!) and beautiful visuals throughout. It also has a young girl as our protagonist which is one of the major changes in the adaptation.  The movie did very well with critics and won the 2016 Cesar Awards for “Best Animated Film.”  So between the novel and the movie--which did we prefer? Have a listen and find out!  In this ep the Margos discuss: The biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupery  The different adaptations over the years of the material  The terribly sad "real" ending of the story and what we thought of it as children The cast: Riley Osbourne (Little Prince,) Mackenzie Foy (the little girl,) Jeff Bridges (Aviator,) Rachel McAdams (mother,) Marion Cotillard (the Rose,) Benecio del Toro (the Snake,) Albert Brooks (Businessman,) Paul Rudd (the Adult Prince,) Paul Giamatti (Academy Teacher,) Bud Cort (the King,) and Ricky Gervais (the Conceited Man.)  Clips used: The Little Girl meets The Aviator The Little Prince trailer The Little Prince meets the King The Little Prince meets The Conceited Man The Little Prince meets The Businessman The Little Prince meets The Rose The Little Prince soundtrack Hans Zimmer & Richard Harvey Book Vs Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts .  Join our Patreon page to help support the show! https://www.patreon.com/bookversusmovie  Book Vs. Movie podcast https://www.facebook.com/bookversusmovie/ Twitter @bookversusmovie www.bookversusmovie.com Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Brought to you by Audible.com You can sign up for a FREE 30-day trial here http://www.audible.com/?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R Margo D. @BrooklynFitChik www.brooklynfitchick.com brooklynfitchick@gmail.com Margo P. @ShesNachoMama https://coloniabook.weebly.com/  Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine   

In another chapter of the Chronicles of Meriesa Lopez, Ray Sostre focuses on this delicious chapter of a threesome with a very unusual and erotic experience. This chapter is so hot! Get more of Ray Sostre books here: https://www.amazon.com/Ray-Sostre/e/B00U5NXFMM%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Would you like Marabelle Blue to read your story on the air? Send in a chapter of your book, title and picture of a cover for promo to kinkemagazine@gmail.com Background music my FMS Team "The last second of Love" For more information on interviews, how to become a KinkEMag writer or to sponsor a show and advertise visit https://kinkemag.com/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kemtoptalk/support

Today I'm speaking with actor and chef Joseph Gannascoli, known for playing Vito in the HBO series The Sopranos. Joe has been doing his part to give back to the community raising thousands of dollars through his GoFundMe campaign for frontline workers and delivering meals from local restaurants. Donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Meals-for-Hospital-and-Restaurant-workers Joe started out as a chef, working all over the country. He moved from New York to New Orleans and eventually landed a gig cooking at one of the best restaurants in the world, Commander's Palace. After moving back to New York a friend recommended he audition for play and that's where he got his first taste of acting. He loved it so much he studied acting for a year and half, got out of the restaurant business and wound up in Los Angeles. In LA, it's hard to get auditions without an agent but he ended up getting cast as a day player for a movie. Benecio del Toro saw Joe and ended up casting him for his movie Submission and introduced him to a few people that did casting for The Sopranos. Originally cast as Gino the Bakery Customer, Joe was eventually brought back and cast in a recurring role as Vito Spatafore forever changing his career. He reminisces about food on the set and of course how Italians love to eat! Joe has a big appetite and a big heart that clearly is shining through now that the world needs help. His sister-in-law works in labor delivery at Mt Sinai in South Nassau and his niece works at a hospital in The Bronx and was diagnosed as having Covid-19. After hearing his families stories about what they are going through he wanted to help. Many restaurants in his neighborhood were closed or closing temporarily and he wanted to figure out a way to help both frontline workers and restaurants. His original goal was $1000 and he has crushed it long ago. At the time of this post Joe has raised almost $27k and wants to raise $50k. He's bought food and gift certificates from Vincent's Clam Bar, Villa Maria Pizza, La Famiglia ( plainview ), Vincent's Pizza Lynbrook and many more. The food was delivered 10x to Mt Sinai South Nassau, 3x to Jacobi hospital (Bronx ), 4x to Winthrop hospital, local police departments, the post office, nursing homes and even his UPS driver. Visit https://bigfoodtalk.com to make your donation to support all the restaurants participating in this show.

Marabelle Blue reads the steamy book by Ray Sostre Promiscuity and Success The Chronicles of Meriesa Lopez - a very erotic story of Meriesa and Benecio up in a condo apartment and what happens there, only you should hear when Marabelle reads this passage. For Ray Sostre's books link up to his Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ray+sostre&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 Listen to replays here anytime or download the anchor app and favorite our show! Thank you for listening. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/kemtoptalk/support

REVIEW: We love THE LAST JEDI and aren't afraid to say it. Daniel Ott, our favorite STAR WARS expert and co-host of the Talkin' Tom podcast (talkintom.com) is back with us to chat all things Star Wars and The Last Jedi. POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING: We spend the last part of this episode speculating about what may happen during THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. If you haven't seen the film yet and want to avoid all talk about the final movie, listen for our spoiler alert in the episode. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI stars: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern and Benecio del Toro LISTEN ON: SoundsTooth, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud, Podcoin or wherever you get your podcasts. Find More Content From The OK Connection Team: somanysequels.com https://www.patreon.com/somanysequels instagram.com/somanysequelspod facebook.com/somanysequelspod twitter.com/somanysequels soundstooth.com/app Theme song by Justin Mayer. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

We near the conclusion of the Star Wars saga with the divisive Star Wars: The Last Jedi! Courtney has hot takes on Laura Dern and Benecio del Toro, we dissect why this movie is either beloved or hated, and we meditate on the message and inspiration that Star Wars can bring to fans. You can reach the podcast below: Email: mywifewatchesmovies@gmail.com Twitter: @wife_watches Instagram: @wifewatches

Heidi and James go deep for a profile of this boundary-busting family film from Dalt Wisney studios. A certain "Benecio" is among the in-studio guests who take us behind the scenes at a movie about the unsung heroes of the ocean. Sharks. Oh, and Shark Whisperers, too, sure. 

Sean answers your Marvel questions!0:23 Woo S! KimBased on the Oscars “Black Panther” did win and how many of the cast and crew have praised Ryan Coogler, if Marvel Studios keeps the same production staff and crew for the second Black Panther film as they did for the first one, how likely do you think the second Black Panther will do in terms of getting nominated, I know it's very early to say and I know that is very rare for sequels to get nominated for Best Picture but what are your thoughts on Black Panther 2 getting the same kind of awards buzz the second time around?3:17 Woo S! KimI have heard rumors that Disney Plus may have Marvel Studios shows as a companion piece to tell the backstories of Magneto, Professor Xavier, Victor Von Doom, and Wolverine.  What do you think of this idea, I'm indecisive about this idea, I'm not even sure I want MCU Wolverine's backstory to be played by the same performer we will see on the big screen.  Related to this, if these shows were to take place do you think it's a good way to introduce these characters before they appear in MCU films why or why not, Sean?5:32 Woo S! KimI have a bit of a conundrum Sean being a kid of the 1990's and both “X-Men: The Animated Series” and “Spider-Man: The Animated Series” were both much “Must See TV” for me as a kid on Saturday mornings on the FOX Network, which did you prefer and why?  I can't pick.7:11 Phillip CastroHey Sean, hope you're doing well lately! If you had to select a M.V.A. (Most Valuable Avenger) from each of the first three Avengers movies, who do you think you'd choose? Feel free to base M.V.A. performance on whatever aspects you'd like. Thank you and looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this!16:27 Jeremy EdenOver this past weekend, I was somehow reminded of the time that DC was developing a Green Lantern movie starring Jack Black, with the intent of making it a comedic take on the character and universe.If the MCU didn't exist and we had no choice but to accept a straight comedy take on the universe, who would you "like" to see cast in some of the roles?To be considered a comedic actor, the performer must come directly from stand-up, sketch, improv, or sitcoms.  Since I'm not sure how vast your knowledge of comedic actors is, I will allow you to choose any performer, living or dead, and you can pick them directly from any specific time period.  In other words, if you wanted to take inspiration from a classic SNL sketch, you could cast 1975 John Belushi as the Hulk.You can cast as many MCU Avengers/Guardians as you can pick.  You don't have to cast every role.18:43 MayaHey Sean! You may have answered this way back when, but do you have any predictions on who created Rocket? I was watching a New Rockstars video that resurfaced James Gunn's old tweet saying “Believe it or not if you're really really smart it's [Rocket's creator] hidden somewhere in Vol.2”. I would love to hear your theories if you have any.20:40 AlexWhat  2020 Marvel movies are you most excited for Eternals or Black Widow?  For me,  Eternals excites me  so much  more since like Guardians it feels like uncharted territory the MCU hasn't explored before and that will always excite more than revisiting an old character we've seen before in the movies in a prequel(if the rumors are to believed).23:01 Derek BeebeHey Sean, what are your favorite comic book based video games?  Aside from the PS4 Spider-Man game nothing recent springs to mind, but I loved the X-Men Legends / Marvel Alliance series back in the day.  So many deep cuts as Paul would say.27:08 Derek BeebeAre you familiar with the modern day X-Men comics?  I've only dabbled.  Nothing holds up to Claremont for me, though I also feel a great nostalgia for the 90s Lobdell era which I grew up on.  And Joss Whedon's brief run was great.28:19 Derek BeebeWhat do you think of Brian Bendis?  While I remember loving his New Avengers run, whenever I read anything by him now it just sounds like the same character speaking over and again in a highly unrealistic fashion, which the internet has even termed as Bendis-Speak. 29:18 AlexYou've probably been asked some variation of this question before but do you think there should be a best comic book picture category for the Oscars similar to the  best animated picture categories  or do you think that's simply to patronizing and there should have a comic book movie be a contender for best picture  just as much as   the  non-superhero  independent films?  And do  feel the same way about animated movies as well. And  do you think Into The Spider-Verse should've been a best picture contender instead of just a contender for the animated picture category.34:07 Michael Louis WeaselboyYou might have answered this one at one point but, I was just wondering what is the science of Iron Man?? I know it isn't possible like it is in the movies but how would he be able to fly and do all of the stuff he does in the movies. One thing I have always wondered about is if he gets thrown around inside the suit surely he would break something especially on hard metal, it doesn't look like any padding is in his suits. Also how would the real world react to Tony Stark becoming Iron Man?? What kind of metal would he use?? And would an arc reactor be possible in real life?? Would the government go after him and his suits like what happened on Iron Man 2?? Thoughts??41:30 David RosenFrom the few official descriptions we have of Avengers Endgame, it sounds like reality is going to be something that gets played with a lot in the film, and like Back to The Future Part II, the real plot will revolve around trying to fix something that gets broke, a la reality, timelines, etc. Do you think in the movie, the heroes could end up “beating” Thanos and reversing the snap relatively early on in the movie, only to discover that something ends up being not quite right and whatever crazy antics they used to fix their problem actually screwed things up even more and they end up spending the rest of the movie trying to undo what they did? How much Thanos do you think we'll actually see in the film? Do you think there's a chance that he won't really be “main” villain, but they it could actually be something more abstract like time and/or reality itself?44:01 David RosenThe last time we saw both The Grandmaster and The Collector, they were both in precarious situations, having lost their power, their possessions, and for both, potentially their lives. Let's say for argument's sake, that the Collector survived Thanos and the Grandmaster survived those Sakarans, how would you feel about seeing them in their own Disney+ limited series trying to regain what they previously lost together? If you're a Walking Dead fan, I would kind of liken it to The Governor's story arc having been in charge of a community, lost it all, and then seeking to regain it by any mean necessary. Except here, we would have two very wacky, eccentric, and totally different brothers traveling the cosmos, looking for ways to get back on top. They could visit all the various corners of the Marvel Cosmic Universe that we probably wouldn't get a chance to see in the movies. I know it's hard to say no to a Benecio del Toro and Jeff Goldblum mini-series, but how would you feel about this idea and is there anything you would add to make this a more interesting story? What parts of the cosmic side of things would you bring into this series to continue building up the MCU?47:33 David RosenSince the MCU started, every character that has been introduced in its own franchise has made its way into an Avengers movie. Do you think starting in phase 4 and moving forward, we'll get any new characters with their own movie that won't eventually join the Avengers? With the way things are moving forward, do you think the movies will continue to be dedicated to introducing characters in their own movie first before eventually putting them on some kind of team, whether it's the Avengers or X-men (after the deal closes) or can any newly introduced characters simply exist in their own established world inside the MCU without joining a team? I really don't anything about him yet, but could Shang Chi be the first character in the MCU to exist on his own inside the MCU? Does he have a history with the Avengers that could one day lead him to join the team?51:05 AlexWhat  X-Men character other than Wolverine do you think will be able to hold their own solo film series or a Disney Plus show?52:39 Mookie JohnsonBased on what you've seen in the MCU (not counting Captain Marvel), who would you rate as top 3 in order for land speed and then for air speed if there were races? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

David Metzger has already written and directed three independent films here in Vermont and he has begun work on a fourth. What does it take to get a movie made up here and what is his approach to the art of directing? David also reflects on how his encounters with Dan Aykroyd, Benecio del Toro, and Martin Scorcese affected his journey into cinema.

After a long, sober hiatus, Jared and Connie stagger back to the bar to share their thoughts on the latest installment of the Star Wars franchise: The Last Jedi. Writer/Director Jay Lender (Phineas and Ferb, They’re Watching) returns to join the guys for a lively debate, one or two Hot Buttered Rums, and a few tumblers of Jared’s Star Wars-inspired cocktail, the Blue Milk of Tatooine. Are Porgs the new white meat? What was that thing Luke milked? What if they filmed a chase sequence with a bunch of space ships stuck in cruise control? Spoilers lie ahead, so be warned.  

On this episode of The Resistance Broadcast, we talk about: Carrie Fisher will be in Episode IX; 40th Anniversary Star Wars Stories Book: From A Certain Point of View; Mark Hamill Makes Voice Cameo in Recent BLR Video for “The Force Awakens” as Han Solo; The Last Jedi - Dubrovnik Location Name Revealed? Planet? City? Who knows!! The Last Jedi - Details on Benecio's Character? Colin Trevorrow Finishes Draft on Episode IX; Rogue One Home Release Review; Celebration Orlando Predictions and More. Host: Ganon136 Guests: Pomojema, Bill Sheehy

We can't believe we're already on week 8 of our Star Wars Theory Series, but we can't believe even more is the insane Rey-Kenobi theory that's circling the web. MoviePilot.com recently posted about the Kenobi Theory regarding Rey's lineage, and we have to say, we're pretty convinced. If this theory comes to fruition, we can expect the cartoon series Rebels (and Clone Wars!) and the new movies to come full-circle. In this podcast, we discuss: The Kenobi theory for Rey's lineage: It begins with the cartoon series Clone Wars, then ties into Rebels, and how it could most likely explain Benecio del Toro's character and more of Rey's past in Episode VIII. Don't forget, all of these shows/movies are canon, so everything influences one another! Follow more Star Wars news on PureFandom.com! If you want to write or podcast for Pure Fandom, email liz@purefandom.com.

Join Jimmy and Jason Live from Cleveland as we count down the weeks til THE FORCE AWAKENS; Sarah Michelle Gellar in REBELS; Boba Fett Casting Rumors; David Prowse Documentary; News from NYCC; STAR WARS EPISODE VIII and Benecio del Toro; TOPPS Star Wars Trading Cards; Trivia Contest and more. 

Hayden Christensen in STAR WARS EPISODE VIII rumors and the return of Darth Vader; John Landis has an exclusive scoop on the possibility of a BluRay release for the original Original Trilogy; The history of STAR WARS and the Oscars; Anthony Daniels goes off the deep end...Again; We go In The Cantina with STAR WARS mega-collector Chris Fawcett; STAR WARS REBELS Season 2 speculation;Stories about Benecio del Toro and Gwendoline Christie; James Earl Jones goes Bieber and more! 

Three months until THE FORCE AWAKENS and filming has already begun on STAR WARS EPISODE VIII!  We have the latest updates including Mark Hamill news, interview highlights with Benecio del Toro and Domhnall Gleeson, and what’s the status for the future of DISNEY'S STAR WARS WEEKENDS? A new rumor emerged this week that may mean trouble for the long-running annual event. We try to dig beneath the surface of these reports. STAR WARS  artist Brian Rood’s work was featured on hundreds of pieces of merchandise released on Force Friday. We talk to Brian to get the behind-the-scenes story.  Plus, author Michael Kogge stops by to talk about STAR WARS: ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW and his book tour which brought him to Jimmy Mac's neighborhood.  All this and CHICAGO WHITE SOX STAR WARS DAY, Toronto rock band The Soles, a TOPPS STAR WARS CARD TRADER APP update and more!

We recap FORCE FRIDAY and get an update on the upcoming RFR documentary WHEN THE GALAXY LISTENS with Toronto filmmaker Sheldon Norton; More from our visit with Dave Filoni at Lucasfilm; We review the Sphero BB-8 App Enabled Droid; Mads Mikkelson may have revealed his ROGUE ONE character name and Benecio del Toro is talking about EPISODE VIII; Plus, Wilhelm Scream Beer, Hoggsquattle gets identified, and what is the significance of the number 2187 to STAR WARS? Find out this week on RFR! Destination: STAR WARS.     

We get “confirmations” on who the villains that Benecio del Toro, Lee Pace and Karen Gillan are playing in Guardians of the Galaxy; Entertainment Weekly reveals what the villain Electro is going to look like in Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Andrew Garfield talks about his dream casting of the MJ character; a recent Russian rocket launch goes awry thanks to an upside-down part; and Google decides to shut down more services in favour of Google+. Meanwhile, Bean goes to the supermarket to buy beans and Jelly comes up with his own super villain concept. Also, Bean claims the bad joke department all to himself, leaving Jelly to be the… straight man? He’s a terrible straight man.

Comedian Mike Joyce joins Hank and Joe on the podcast to discuss sweetening comedy cds, Mike's recent marriage, proposal techniques, tweets of an anthill, Lotties vs the rest, Joe's ho woes, Benicio Del Toro, crappy jobs in telemarketing, Mike sells a radio ad to Hank's Pizzeria, a round of DALAI LAMA OR PORNSTAR. out of context quote: "Well, Don Rickles was an exceptional dad so do the math on that Inception riddle." www.winnersandlosersshow.com

Jessica and Rachel of Fangirl Magazine discuss the new release The Wolfman starring Benicio Del Toro and Sir Anthony Hopkins. Serious discussion and not so serious discussion is had.