Podcasts about california split

Lindsey Campbell interviews Vernon Davidson (director) and B.J. Maier (editor) about the documentary SEGAL about actor George Segal. See it as part of NorthWest FIlm Fest on May 10th at 12:00 pm the Metro Cinema. SEGAL looks at the life and career of George Segal. From a shy kid from Long Island to a sought-after leading man during Hollywood's most prolific decades, legendary entertainer George Segal shares his life story. From television (The Goldbergs, Just Shoot Me) to films (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Terminal Man, California Split) his career spanned seven decades.https://www.segal-doc.com/Instagram: @segalmovie

Today on AirTalk: - What to know about the possible impending government shutdown (0:15) - What regions do you think make up the state of California? (15:41) - 27th Street Bakery’s famous Sweet Potato Pie (32:10)

My dear friend, Letterboxd managing editor Mitchell Beaupre returns to the show to discuss the filmography & mystique of one of cinema's coolest counterculture icons, Elliott Gould. Giving a thoughtful overview of the way that his work has evolved over the years, in this engaging conversation, we focus on three of what we consider to be Gould's greatest cinematic staples: THE SILENT PARTNER, THE LONG GOODBYE, & CALIFORNIA SPLIT. Mitchell's Bio:Mitchell Beaupre is the Managing Editor for Letterboxd, whose writing on film has also appeared at Paste Magazine, The AV Club, The Film Stage, Little White Lies, & The Playlist. Originally Posted on Patreon (11/10/24) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/115729513Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless Shop Donate to the Pod via Ko-fi

This week it gets lonely at night, as we live in a twilight world and there are no friends at dusk. We welcome Matt Pollock (Matty's Movie Burner) back to the program on the final Friday of the month to induct a new entry into the podcast canon: 2020's Tenet, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Himesh Patel, Clémence Poésy, Michael Caine, Martin Donovan, Dimple Kapadia, and former NHL super-pest Sean Avery. One of the few major theatrical releases of the COVID era, it was only just re-released to theaters to capitalize on Oppenheimer's Oscar momentum. But it's a polarizing movie to be sure. While the three of us love it a great deal, it is not a popular sentiment. We do our best to analyze why people put this undeniable gorgeous and visually inventive movie in the crosshairs, and if a critical re-appraisal is due. Plus it's not all Tenet talk, as Matty and J Mo combines for Theatrical Field Reports on Late Night with the Devil, Snack Shack and Love Lies Bleeding. Be forewarned: this is our longest episode ever, and you may want to watch the film before listening along. Unfortunately, at the time of publication, Tenet is currently unavailable for streaming in Canada, though, you know, you could check it out of the library if you're keen. Other works referenced in this episode include Wonka, Paddington, Paddington 2, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Licorice Pizza, Sex Drive, American Pie, Thirteen, Trainspotting, Kids, Heat, Superbad, Pineapple Express, The To-Do List, The Way Way Back, The Dark Knight, Early Edition, Prisoners, Dune: Part 1, S1m0ne, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning: Part 1, The Holdovers, The Iron Claw, Dune: Part 2, The Fabelmans, Dazed and Confused, California Split, A History of Violence, Gone Baby Gone, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Footloose, X-Men '97, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Madame Web, Dune (1984), Arrival, Hot Rod, The Departed, The Invisible Man, In Bruges, Widows, Inception, 12 Monkeys, The Terminator, Looper, Dunkirk, Munich, Belfast, Love Actually..., A Haunting in Venice, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Interstellar, Good Time, High Life, The Lost City of Z, The Boy and the Heron, the Twilight saga, May-December, Station Eleven, Weeds, Insomnia, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Malcolm X, The Dark Knight Rises, Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, and Good Will Hunting among others. We'll be back next week to kick off April as we check back in with our old pal Tom Cruise and follow him over to Japan for 2003's The Last Samurai, a movie which is presently unavailable to stream in Canada but can be rented on Amazon and YouTube. Until then, we'll see you at the movies!!

Joe and Paul peruse Netflix and grab 10 titles from the "Classics" category that most fit the Prime Cut Podcast's taste and preferences. They talk through each film, as well as give it a modern comparison:"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,"  paired with "Fight Club""The Conversation," paired with "Enemy of the State""Silverado," paired with "Tombstone," (if it was more lighthearted)"Chinatown, paired with "Gone Baby, Gone""California Split," paired with "Rounders""High Plains Drifter," paired with "Unforgiven""The Sting," paired with "Oceans 11""Charley Varrick," paired with "The Italian Job""Beverly Hills Cop," paired with "The Other Guys""The Parallax View," paired with "The Pelican Brief"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

Some bad singing, the allure and perils of gambling, my grandpa's Campho-Phenique addiction, don't take the bust card, a bunch of gambling movies about self-destructive men, please watch Atlantic City, a couple of fugues, seeing Frank Sinatra, and the old school classiness of my dearly departed dad. Stuff mentioned: Bob Seger "Still the Same" (1978), Dead Kennedys "Viva Las Vegas" (1980), The Color of Money (1986), The Hustler (1961), The Sting (1973), Freddie Mercury "Love Kills" (1984), Passenger 57 (1992), Lookin' to Get Out (1982), The Gambler (1974), Who'll Stop the Rain (1978), The Gambler (2014), Hard Eight (1996), The Cooler (2003), MC5 "Kick Out the Jams" (1969), Uncut Gems (2019), Tricheurs aka Cheaters (1984), Atlantic City (1980), Bugsy (1991), The Godfather Part II (1974), Two for the Money (2005), California Split (1974), Mississippi Grind (2015), James McManus Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker (2003), Let it Ride (1989), Guys and Dolls soundtrack "Fugue for Tinhorns" (1955), Glenn Gould "So You Want to Write a Fugue" (1963), Oceans 11 (1960), Frank Sinatra "Fly Me to the Moon" (1964), and Louis Prima "Just A Gigolo"/"I Ain't Got Nobody" (1956).

This week, Danielle and Millie discuss THE LONG GOODBYE (1973) and CALIFORNIA SPLIT (1974), the cursed holiday season, taking a “Stank Day,” and Elliott Gould's “Would Destroy” status.To see a full ISWYD movie list, check out our Letterboxd here:https://letterboxd.com/isawwhatyoudid/films/diary/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's time for another incredible Altman movie, this one might even be called a "deep cut", although it's got a lot of good attention in the last 10+ years. We're talking about California Split (1974), a gambling comedy starring Elliott Gould and George Segal. This one's an absolute blast and we finally let loose our love of Elliott Gould, possibly the best Altman movie opening next to The Player and talk about how little we know about gambling.  Peace and love!!!   Intro music by Ryan E. Torgeson Outro song: Rooftop Gambler - Pavement

This week, we discuss two films directed by Robert Altman in the 1970s. The first is California Split (1974), starring Elliott Gould and George Segal as a pair of sleazy gamblers who head to Reno to try to win big. The second is Nashville (1975), a huge ensemble piece focused on the American country music capital. The film is often considered to be Altman's best work and received 5 Academy Award nominations. Timestamps What we've been watching (00:00:52) – The Bear season two, The Creator, One Piece season one California Split (00:21:15) Nashville (00:48:00) Coin toss (01:17:05)   Links Instagram - @callitfriendopodcast @munnywales @andyjayritchie   Justwatch.com – streaming and rental links - https://www.justwatch.com

Ryan and Dylan are introduced to the seedy tidings of the world of gambling in Robert Altman's California Split with special guest Alex Guerra.

“Drifting” seems like a great word to describe many of Robert Altman's films, especially California Split, his 1974 buddy film with Elliott Gould and George Segal as gamblers whose friendship is strengthened by their losses. But Mike argues that the film has a deep structure—and one based on a Disney film that we've all seen a hundred times. Elliott Gould's special brand of cool, how gambling relies upon a combination of conviction and control, and the ways in which the film is as interested in poker players as the game itself all come into the conversation. Go ahead—draw on that inside straight and give it a listen! In this episode Dan reads a short passage from Frederick and Steven Barthelme's memoir Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, a terrific glimpse into what motivates otherwise rational people to bet thousands of dollars on the turn of a card. Frederick Barthelme's Bob the Gambler and Paul Auster's The Music of Chance are two of the hosts' favorite gambling-related novels. Follow us on Twitter or Letterboxd. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

“Drifting” seems like a great word to describe many of Robert Altman's films, especially California Split, his 1974 buddy film with Elliott Gould and George Segal as gamblers whose friendship is strengthened by their losses. But Mike argues that the film has a deep structure—and one based on a Disney film that we've all seen a hundred times. Elliott Gould's special brand of cool, how gambling relies upon a combination of conviction and control, and the ways in which the film is as interested in poker players as the game itself all come into the conversation. Go ahead—draw on that inside straight and give it a listen! In this episode Dan reads a short passage from Frederick and Steven Barthelme's memoir Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, a terrific glimpse into what motivates otherwise rational people to bet thousands of dollars on the turn of a card. Frederick Barthelme's Bob the Gambler and Paul Auster's The Music of Chance are two of the hosts' favorite gambling-related novels. Follow us on Twitter or Letterboxd. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Drifting” seems like a great word to describe many of Robert Altman's films, especially California Split, his 1974 buddy film with Elliott Gould and George Segal as gamblers whose friendship is strengthened by their losses. But Mike argues that the film has a deep structure—and one based on a Disney film that we've all seen a hundred times. Elliott Gould's special brand of cool, how gambling relies upon a combination of conviction and control, and the ways in which the film is as interested in poker players as the game itself all come into the conversation. Go ahead—draw on that inside straight and give it a listen! In this episode Dan reads a short passage from Frederick and Steven Barthelme's memoir Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, a terrific glimpse into what motivates otherwise rational people to bet thousands of dollars on the turn of a card. Frederick Barthelme's Bob the Gambler and Paul Auster's The Music of Chance are two of the hosts' favorite gambling-related novels. Follow us on Twitter or Letterboxd. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Some movie news to start followed by a discussion about a Robert Altman classic. Listen LIVE every Wednesday at 8:30am on 91.3 WVUD, or online at: ⁠⁠http://www.wvud.org/

a dead lion and a live dog. or maybe it's the other way round. Hey folks! Ever wanted to watch California Split, but you're barred by law from looking at George Segal's face? Well, your horse has come in, because Ryan Boden and Anna Fleck made Mississippi Grind for just such an occasion. Adam and Aidan dig into this odd, dreamy character study about two gamblers who team up and head down to Mississippi for the score that will redeem their debts and wipe away all their problems. Just kidding, they can't escape their problems. They're their own worst problem. Listen below, or find us in that great Apple Podcast in the sky.

On episode #65 of Floating Through Film, we continue our series that was picked by Luke, Robert Altman! This week we're doing two Altman classics, 1974's California Split (3:54), and 1975's Nashville (1:00:45). We hope you enjoy! Episode Next Week: 3 Women + Popeye Music: - Intro from California Split - Outro from Nashville (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-BMUCVvIaQ&ab_channel=KeithCarradine-Topic) Hosts: Luke Seay (https://letterboxd.com/seayluke/), Blake Tourville (https://letterboxd.com/blaketourville/), and Dany Joshuva (https://letterboxd.com/djoshuva/) Podcast Links (Spotify and Apple): https://linktr.ee/floatingthroughfilm FTF Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/floatingfilm/ FTF Email: floatingthroughfilm@gmail.com

This week on the program, bust out the Courry Brand cat food and light up a cig because we're joined by actor, podcaster and Boom Pro Wrestling personality Travis Woloshyn for a selection out of his collection: Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), starring Elliot Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Henry Gibson and Jim Bouton, and featuring the very first acting role for a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. Based on the book by Raymond Chandler, Altman offers a uniquely comic and at the time derided take on Philip Marlowe and the noir genre that nevertheless went on to influence countless classic films in the years since. Other works discussed in this episode: Inherent Vice, The Big Lebowski, California Split, The Big Sleep, Breathless, and of course, The Legend of Zelda. We also take a dive into Travis's IMDb for a behind-the-scenes look at Stargate SG-1, Supernatural, Woke, and Boom Pro Wrestling. If you'd like to watch the movie along with us (and you really should), it is currently streaming for free on Tubi in Canada at the time of publication. We'll be back next week to discuss the Luc Besson 90s sci-fi action epic The Fifth Element, with Trust The Process host and NEW commentator Jordan Bowman.

On this episode, we talk about the great American filmmaker Robert Altman, and what is arguably the worst movie of his six decade, thirty-five film career: his 1987 atrocity O.C. and Stiggs. ----more---- 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.   On this episode, we're going to talk about one of the strangest movies to come out of the decade, not only for its material, but for who directed it.   Robert Altman's O.C. and Stiggs.   As always, before we get to the O.C. and Stiggs, we will be going a little further back in time.   Although he is not every cineaste's cup of tea, it is generally acknowledged that Robert Altman was one of the best filmmakers to ever work in cinema. But he wasn't an immediate success when he broke into the industry.   Born in Kansas City in February 1925, Robert Altman would join the US Army Air Force after graduating high school, as many a young man would do in the days of World War II. He would train to be a pilot, and he would fly more than 50 missions during the war as part of the 307th Bomb Group, operating in the Pacific Theatre. They would help liberate prisoners of war held in Japanese POW Camps from Okinawa to Manila after the victory over Japan lead to the end of World War II in that part of the world.   After the war, Altman would move to Los Angeles to break into the movies, and he would even succeed in selling a screenplay to RKO Pictures called Bodyguard, a film noir story shot in 1948 starring Lawrence Tierney and Priscilla Lane, but on the final film, he would only share a “Story by” credit with his then-writing partner, George W. George. But by 1950, he'd be back in Kansas City, where he would direct more than 65 industrial films over the course of three years, before heading back to Los Angeles with the experience he would need to take another shot.   Altman would spend a few years directing episodes of a drama series called Pulse of the City on the DuMont television network and a syndicated police drama called The Sheriff of Cochise, but he wouldn't get his first feature directing gig until 1957, when a businessman in Kansas City would hire the thirty-two year old to write and direct a movie locally. That film, The Delinquents, cost only $60k to make, and would be purchased for release by United Artists for $150k. The first film to star future Billy Jack writer/director/star Tom Laughlin, The Delinquents would gross more than a million dollars in theatres, a very good sum back in those days, but despite the success of the film, the only work Altman could get outside of television was co-directing The James Dean Story, a documentary set up at Warner Brothers to capitalize on the interest in the actor after dying in a car accident two years earlier.   Throughout the 1960s, Altman would continue to work in television, until he was finally given another chance to direct a feature film. 1967's Countdown was a lower budgeted feature at Warner Brothers featuring James Caan in an early leading role, about the space race between the Americans and Soviets, a good two years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. The shoot itself was easy, but Altman would be fired from the film shortly after filming was completed, as Jack Warner, the 75 year old head of the studio, was not very happy about the overlapping dialogue, a motif that would become a part of Altman's way of making movies. Although his name appears in the credits as the director of the film, he had no input in its assembly. His ambiguous ending was changed, and the film would be edited to be more family friendly than the director intended.   Altman would follow Countdown with 1969's That Cold Day in the Park, a psychological drama that would be both a critical and financial disappointment.   But his next film would change everything.   Before Altman was hired by Twentieth-Century Fox to direct MASH, more than a dozen major filmmakers would pass on the project. An adaptation of a little known novel by a Korean War veteran who worked as a surgeon at one of the Mobile Auxiliary Surgical Hospitals that give the story its acronymic title, MASH would literally fly under the radar from the executives at the studio, as most of the $3m film would be shot at the studio's ranch lot in Malibu, while the executives were more concerned about their bigger movies of the year in production, like their $12.5m biographical film on World War II general George S. Patton and their $25m World War II drama Tora! Tora! Tora!, one of the first movies to be a Japanese and American co-production since the end of the war.    Altman was going to make MASH his way, no matter what. When the studio refused to allow him to hire a fair amount of extras to populate the MASH camp, Altman would steal individual lines from other characters to give to background actors, in order to get the bustling atmosphere he wanted. In order to give the camp a properly dirty look, he would shoot most of the outdoor scenes with a zoom lens and a fog filter with the camera a reasonably far distance from the actors, so they could act to one another instead of the camera, giving the film a sort of documentary feel. And he would find flexibility when the moment called for it. Sally Kellerman, who was hired to play Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, would work with Altman to expand and improve her character to be more than just eye candy, in large part because Altman liked what she was doing in her scenes.   This kind of flexibility infuriated the two major stars of the film, Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland, who at one point during the shoot tried to get Altman fired for treating everyone in the cast and crew with the same level of respect and decorum regardless of their position. But unlike at Warners a couple years earlier, the success of movies like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider bamboozled Hollywood studio executives, who did not understand exactly what the new generation of filmgoers wanted, and would often give filmmakers more leeway than before, in the hopes that lightning could be captured once again.   And Altman would give them exactly that.   MASH, which would also be the first major studio film to be released with The F Word spoken on screen, would not only become a critical hit, but become the third highest grossing movie released in 1970, grossing more than $80m. The movie would win the Palme D'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival, and it would be nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for Ms. Kellerman, winning only for Best Adapted Screenplay. An ironic win, since most of the dialogue was improvised on set, but the victory for screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. would effectively destroy the once powerful Hollywood Blacklist that had been in place since the Red Scare of the 1950s.   After MASH, Altman went on one of the greatest runs any filmmaker would ever enjoy.   MASH would be released in January 1970, and Altman's follow up, Brewster McCloud, would be released in December 1970. Bud Cort, the future star of Harold and Maude, plays a recluse who lives in the fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome, who is building a pair of wings in order to achieve his dream of flying. The film would feature a number of actors who already were featured in MASH and would continue to be featured in a number of future Altman movies, including Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, John Schuck and Bert Remson, but another reason to watch Brewster McCloud if you've never seen it is because it is the film debut of Shelley Duvall, one of our greatest and least appreciated actresses, who would go on to appear in six other Altman movies over the ensuing decade.   1971's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, for me, is his second best film. A Western starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, was a minor hit when it was first released but has seen a reevaluation over the years that found it to be named the 8th Best Western of all time by the American Film Institute, which frankly is too low for me. The film would also bring a little-known Canadian poet and musician to the world, Leonard Cohen, who wrote and performed three songs for the soundtrack. Yeah, you have Robert Altman to thank for Leonard Cohen.   1972's Images was another psychological horror film, this time co-written with English actress Susannah York, who also stars in the film as an author of children's books who starts to have wild hallucinations at her remote vacation home, after learning her husband might be cheating on her. The $800k film was one of the first to be produced by Hemdale Films, a British production company co-founded by Blow Up actor David Hemmings, but the film would be a critical and financial disappointment when it was released Christmas week. But it would get nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score. It would be one of two nominations in the category for John Williams, the other being The Poseidon Adventure.   Whatever resentment Elliott Gould may have had with Altman during the shooting of MASH was gone by late 1972, when the actor agreed to star in the director's new movie, a modern adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel The Long Goodbye. Gould would be the eighth actor to play the lead character, Phillip Marlowe, in a movie. The screenplay would be written by Leigh Brackett, who Star Wars nerds know as the first writer on The Empire Strikes Back but had also adapted Chandler's novel The Big Sleep, another Phillip Marlowe story, to the big screen back in 1946.   Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich had both been approached to make the film, and it would be Bogdanovich who would recommend Altman to the President of United Artists. The final film would anger Chandler fans, who did not like Altman's approach to the material, and the $1.7m film would gross less than $1m when it was released in March 1973. But like many of Altman's movies, it was a big hit with critics, and would find favor with film fans in the years to come.   1974 would be another year where Altman would make and release two movies in the same calendar year. The first, Thieves Like Us, was a crime drama most noted as one of the few movies to not have any kind of traditional musical score. What music there is in the film is usually heard off radios seen in individual scenes. Once again, we have a number of Altman regulars in the film, including Shelley Duvall, Bert Remsen, John Schuck and Tom Skerritt, and would feature Keith Carradine, who had a small co-starring role in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, in his first major leading role. And, once again, the film would be a hit with critics but a dud with audiences. Unlike most of Altman's movies of the 1970s, Thieves Like Us has not enjoyed the same kind of reappraisal.   The second film, California Split, was released in August, just six months after Thieves Like Us. Elliott Gould once again stars in a Robert Altman movie, this time alongside George Segal. They play a pair of gamblers who ride what they think is a lucky streak from Los Angeles to Reno, Nevada, would be the only time Gould and Segal would work closely together in a movie, and watching California Split, one wishes there could have been more. The movie would be an innovator seemingly purpose-build for a Robert Altman movie, for it would be the first non-Cinerama movie to be recorded using an eight track stereo sound system. More than any movie before, Altman could control how his overlapping dialogue was placed in a theatre. But while most theatres that played the movie would only play it in mono sound, the film would still be a minor success, bringing in more than $5m in ticket sales.   1975 would bring what many consider to be the quintessential Robert Altman movie to screens.   The two hour and forty minute Nashville would feature no less than 24 different major characters, as a group of people come to Music City to be involved in a gala concert for a political outsider who is running for President on the Replacement Party ticket. The cast is one of the best ever assembled for a movie ever, including Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakely, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert DoQui, Shelley Duvall, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Harris, Cristina Raines, Lily Tomlin and Keenan Wynn.   Altman would be nominated for two Academy Awards for the film, Best Picture, as its producer, and Best Director, while both Ronee Blakely and Lily Tomlin would be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Keith Carradine would also be nominated for an Oscar, but not as an actor. He would, at the urging of Altman during the production of the film, write and perform a song called I'm Easy, which would win for Best Original Song. The $2.2m film would earn $10m in ticket sales, and would eventually become part of the fourth class of movies to be selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1991, the first of four Robert Altman films to be given that honor. MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and The Long Goodbye would also be selected for preservation over the years.   And we're going to stop here for a second and take a look at that list of films again.   MASH Brewster McCloud McCabe and Mrs. Miller Images The Long Goodbye Thieves Like Us California Split Nashville   Eight movies, made over a five year period, that between them earned twelve Academy Award nominations, four of which would be deemed so culturally important that they should be preserved for future generations.   And we're still only in the middle of the 1970s.   But the problem with a director like Robert Altman, like many of our greatest directors, their next film after one of their greatest successes feels like a major disappointment. And his 1976 film Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, and that is the complete title of the film by the way, did not meet the lofty expectations of film fans not only its director, but of its main stars. Altman would cast two legendary actors he had not yet worked with, Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster, and the combination of those two actors with this director should have been fantastic, but the results were merely okay. In fact,  Altman would, for the first time in his career, re-edit a film after its theatrical release, removing some of the Wild West show acts that he felt were maybe redundant.   His 1977 film 3 Women would bring Altman back to the limelight. The film was based on a dream he had one night while his wife was in the hospital. In the dream, he was directing his regular co-star Shelley Duvall alongside Sissy Spacek, who he had never worked with before, in a story about identity theft that took place in the deserts outside Los Angeles. He woke up in the middle of the dream, jotted down what he could remember, and went back to sleep. In the morning, he didn't have a full movie planned out, but enough of one to get Alan Ladd, Jr., the President of Twentieth-Century Fox, to put up $1.7m for a not fully formed idea. That's how much Robert Altman was trusted at the time. That, and Altman was known for never going over budget. As long as he stayed within his budget, Ladd would let Altman make whatever movie he wanted to make. That, plus Ladd was more concerned about a $10m movie he approved that was going over budget over in England, a science fiction movie directed by the guy who did American Graffiti that had no stars outside of Sir Alec Guinness.   That movie, of course, was Star Wars, which would be released four weeks after 3 Women had its premiere in New York City. While the film didn't make 1/100th the money Star Wars made, it was one of the best reviewed movies of the year. But, strangely, the film would not be seen again outside of sporadic screenings on cable until it was released on DVD by the Criterion Collection 27 years later.   I'm not going to try and explain the movie to you. Just trust me that 3 Women is from a master craftsman at the top of his game.   While on the press tour to publicize 3 Women, a reporter asked Altman what was going to be next for him. He jokingly said he was going to shoot a wedding. But then he went home, thought about it some more, and in a few weeks, had a basic idea sketched out for a movie titled A Wedding that would take place over the course of one day, as the daughter of a Southern nouveau riche family marries the son of a wealthy Chicago businessman who may or may not a major figure in The Outfit.   And while the film is quite entertaining, what's most interesting about watching this 1978 movie in 2023 is not only how many great established actors Altman got for the film, including Carol Burnett, Paul Dooley, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Vittorio Gassman, Lauren Hutton, and, in her 100th movie, Lillian Gish, but the number of notable actors he was able to get because he shot the film just outside Chicago. Not only will you see Dennis Christopher just before his breakthrough in Breaking Away, and not only will you see Pam Dawber just before she was cast alongside Robin Williams in Mark and Mindy, but you'll also see Dennis Franz, Laurie Metcalfe, Gary Sinese, Tim Thomerson, and George Wendt.   And because Altman was able to keep the budget at a reasonable level, less than $1.75m, the film would be slightly profitable for Twentieth Century-Fox after grossing $3.6m at the box office.   Altman's next film for Fox, 1979's Quintet, would not be as fortunate.   Altman had come up with the story for this post-apocalyptic drama as a vehicle for Walter Hill to write and direct. But Hill would instead make The Warriors, and Altman decided to make the film himself. While developing the screenplay with his co-writers Frank Barhydt and Patricia Resnick, Altman would create a board game, complete with token pieces and a full set of rules, to flesh out the storyline.   Altman would once again work with Paul Newman, who stars as a seal hunter in the early days of a new ice age who finds himself in elaborate game with a group of gamblers where losing in the game means losing your life in the process. Altman would deliberately hire an international cast to star alongside Newman, not only to help improve the film's ability to do well in foreign territories but to not have the storyline tied to any specific country. So we would have Italian actor Vittorio Gassman, Spaniard Fernando Rey, Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, French actress Brigitte Fossey, and Danish actress Nina van Pallandt.    In order to maintain the mystery of the movie, Altman would ask Fox to withhold all pre-release publicity for the film, in order to avoid any conditioning of the audience. Imagine trying to put together a compelling trailer for a movie featuring one of the most beloved actors of all time, but you're not allowed to show potential audiences what they're getting themselves into? Altman would let the studio use five shots from the film, totaling about seven seconds, for the trailer, which mostly comprised of slo-mo shots of a pair of dice bouncing around, while the names of the stars pop up from moment to moment and a narrator tries to create some sense of mystery on the soundtrack.   But audiences would not be intrigued by the mystery, and critics would tear the $6.4m budget film apart. To be fair, the shoot for the film, in the winter of 1977 outside Montreal was a tough time for all, and Altman would lose final cut on the film for going severely over-budget during production, although there seems to be very little documentation about how much the final film might have differed from what Altman would have been working on had he been able to complete the film his way.   But despite all the problems with Quintet, Fox would still back Altman's next movie, A Perfect Couple, which would be shot after Fox pulled Altman off Quintet. Can you imagine that happening today? A director working with the studio that just pulled them off their project. But that's how little ego Altman had. He just wanted to make movies. Tell stories. This simple romantic comedy starred his regular collaborator Paul Dooley as  Alex, a man who follows a band of traveling bohemian musicians because he's falling for one of the singers in the band.   Altman kept the film on its $1.9m budget, but the response from critics was mostly concern that Altman had lost his touch. Maybe it was because this was his 13th film of the decade, but there was a serious concern about the director's ability to tell a story had evaporated.   That worry would continue with his next film, Health.   A satire of the political scene in the United States at the end of the 1970s, Health would follow a health food organization holding a convention at a luxury hotel in St. Petersburg FL. As one would expect from a Robert Altman movie, there's one hell of a cast. Along with Henry Gibson, and Paul Dooley, who co-write the script with Altman and Frank Barhydt, the cast would include Lauren Bacall, Carol Burnett, James Garner and, in one of her earliest screen appearances, Alfre Woodard, as well as Dick Cavett and Dinah Shore as themselves.   But between the shooting of the film in the late winter and early spring of 1979 and the planned Christmas 1979 release, there was a change of management at Fox. Alan Ladd Jr. was out, and after Altman turned in his final cut, new studio head Norman Levy decided to pull the film off the 1979 release calendar. Altman fought to get the film released sometime during the 1980 Presidential Campaign, and was able to get Levy to give the film a platform release starting in Los Angeles and New York City in March 1980, but that date would get cancelled as well. Levy then suggested an April 1980 test run in St. Louis, which Altman was not happy with. Altman countered with test runs in Boston, Houston, Sacramento and San Francisco. The best Altman, who was in Malta shooting his next movie, could get were sneak previews of the film in those four markets, and the response cards from the audience were so bad, the studio decided to effectively put the film on the proverbial shelf.   Back from the Mediterranean Sea, Altman would get permission to take the film to the Montreal World Film Festival in August, and the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals in September. After good responses from film goers at those festivals, Fox would relent, and give the film a “preview” screening at the United Artists Theatre in Westwood, starting on September 12th, 1980. But the studio would give the film the most boring ad campaign possible, a very crude line drawing of an older woman's pearl bracelet-covered arm thrusted upward while holding a carrot. With no trailers in circulation at any theatre, and no television commercials on air, it would be little surprise the film didn't do a whole lot of business. You really had to know the film had been released. But its $14k opening weekend gross wasn't really all that bad. And it's second week gross of $10,500 with even less ad support was decent if unspectacular. But it would be good enough to get the film a four week playdate at the UA Westwood.   And then, nothing, until early March 1981, when a film society at Northwestern University in Evanston IL was able to screen a 16mm print for one show, while a theatre in Baltimore was able to show the film one time at the end of March. But then, nothing again for more than another year, when the film would finally get a belated official release at the Film Forum in New York City on April 7th, 1982. It would only play for a week, and as a non-profit, the Film Forum does not report film grosses, so we have no idea how well the film actually did. Since then, the movie showed once on CBS in August 1983, and has occasionally played on the Fox Movie Channel, but has never been released on VHS or DVD or Blu-Ray.   I mentioned a few moments ago that while he was dealing with all this drama concerning Health, Altman was in the Mediterranean filming a movie. I'm not going to go too much into that movie here, since I already have an episode for the future planned for it, suffice to say that a Robert Altman-directed live-action musical version of the Popeye the Sailor Man cartoon featuring songs by the incomparable Harry Nilsson should have been a smash hit, but it wasn't. It was profitable, to be certain, but not the hit everyone was expecting. We'll talk about the film in much more detail soon.   After the disappointing results for Popeye, Altman decided to stop working in Hollywood for a while and hit the Broadway stages, to direct a show called Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. While the show's run was not very long and the reviews not very good, Altman would fund a movie version himself, thanks in part to the sale of his production company, Lion's Gate, not to be confused with the current studio called Lionsgate, and would cast Karen Black, Cher and Sandy Dennis alongside newcomers Sudie Bond and Kathy Bates, as five female members of The Disciples of James Dean come together on the 20th anniversary of the actor's death to honor his life and times. As the first film released by a new independent distributor called Cinecom, I'll spend more time talking about this movie on our show about that distributor, also coming soon, suffice it to say that Altman was back. Critics were behind the film, and arthouse audiences loved it. This would be the first time Altman adapted a stage play to the screen, and it would set the tone for a number of his works throughout the rest of the decade.   Streamers was Altman's 17th film in thirteen years, and another adaptation of a stage play. One of several works by noted Broadway playwright David Rabe's time in the Army during the Vietnam War, the film followed four young soldiers waiting to be shipped to Vietnam who deal with racial tensions and their own intolerances when one soldier reveals he is gay. The film featured Matthew Modine as the Rabe stand-in, and features a rare dramatic role for comedy legend David Alan Grier. Many critics would note how much more intense the film version was compared to the stage version, as Altman's camera was able to effortlessly breeze around the set, and get up close and personal with the performers in ways that simply cannot happen on the stage. But in 1983, audiences were still not quite ready to deal with the trauma of Vietnam on film, and the film would be fairly ignored by audiences, grossing just $378k.   Which, finally, after half an hour, brings us to our featured movie.   O.C. and Stiggs.   Now, you might be asking yourself why I went into such detail about Robert Altman's career, most of it during the 1970s. Well, I wanted to establish what types of material Altman would chose for his projects, and just how different O.C. and Stiggs  was from any other project he had made to date.   O.C. and Stiggs began their lives in the July 1981 issue of National Lampoon, as written by two of the editors of the magazine, Ted Mann and Tod Carroll. The characters were fun-loving and occasionally destructive teenage pranksters, and their first appearance in the magazine would prove to be so popular with readers, the pair would appear a few more times until Matty Simmons, the publisher and owner of National Lampoon, gave over the entire October 1982 issue to Mann and Carroll for a story called “The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs.” It's easy to find PDFs of the issues online if you look for it.   So the issue becomes one of the biggest selling issues in the history of National Lampoon, and Matty Simmons has been building the National Lampoon brand name by sponsoring a series of movies, including Animal House, co-written by Lampoon writers Doug Kenney and Chris Miller, and the soon to be released movies Class Reunion, written by Lampoon writer John Hughes… yes, that John Hughes… and Movie Madness, written by five Lampoon writers including Tod Carroll. But for some reason, Simmons was not behind the idea of turning the utterly monstrous mind-roasting adventures of O.C. and Stiggs into a movie. He would, however, allow Mann and Carroll to shop the idea around Hollywood, and wished them the best of luck.   As luck would have it, Mann and Carroll would meet Peter Newman, who had worked as Altman's production executive on Jimmy Dean, and was looking to set up his first film as a producer. And while Newman might not have had the credits, he had the connections. The first person he would take the script to his Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols, whose credits by this time included Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?, The Graduate, Catch-22, and Carnal Knowledge. Surprisingly, Nichols was not just interested in making the movie, but really wanted to have Eddie Murphy, who was a breakout star on Saturday Night Live but was still a month away from becoming a movie star when 48 Hours was released, play one of the leading characters. But Murphy couldn't get out of his SNL commitments, and Nichols had too many other projects, both on Broadway and in movies, to be able to commit to the film.    A few weeks later, Newman and Altman both attended a party where they would catch up after several months. Newman started to tell Altman about this new project he was setting up, and to Newman's surprise, Altman, drawn to the characters' anti-establishment outlook, expressed interest in making it. And because Altman's name still commanded respect in Hollywood, several studios would start to show their interest in making the movie with them. MGM, who was enjoying a number of successes in 1982 thanks to movies like Shoot the Moon, Diner, Victor/Victoria, Rocky III, Poltergeist, Pink Floyd - The Wall, and My Favorite Year, made a preemptive bid on the film, hoping to beat Paramount Pictures to the deal. Unknown to Altman, what interested MGM was that Sylvester Stallone of all people went nuts for the script when he read it, and mentioned to his buddies at the studio that he might be interested in making it himself.   Despite hating studio executives for doing stuff like buying a script he's attached to  then kicking him off so some Italian Stallion not known for comedy could make it himself, Altman agree to make the movie with MGM once Stallone lost interest, as the studio promised there would be no further notes about the script, that Altman could have final cut on the film, that he could shoot the film in Phoenix without studio interference, and that he could have a budget of $7m.   Since this was a Robert Altman film, the cast would be big and eclectic, filled with a number of his regular cast members, known actors who he had never worked with before, and newcomers who would go on to have success a few years down the road. Because, seriously, outside of a Robert Altman movie, where are you going to find a cast that included Jon Cryer, Jane Curtin, Paul Dooley, Dennis Hopper, Tina Louise, Martin Mull, Cynthia Nixon, Bob Uecker, Melvin van Peebles, and King Sunny Adé and His African Beats? And then imagine that movie also featuring Matthew Broderick, Jim Carrey, Robert Downey, Jr. and Laura Dern?   The story for the film would both follow the stories that appeared in the pages of National Lampoon fairly closely while also making some major changes. In the film, Oliver Cromwell “O.C.” Oglivie and Mark Stiggs are two ne'er-do-well, middle-class Phoenix, Arizona high school students who are disgusted with what they see as an omnipresent culture of vulgar and vapid suburban consumerism. They spend their days slacking off and committing pranks or outright crimes against their sworn enemies, the Schwab family, especially family head Randall Schwab, a wealthy insurance salesman who was responsible for the involuntary commitment of O.C.'s grandfather into a group home. During the film, O.C. and Stiggs will ruin the wedding of Randall Schwab's daughter Lenore, raft their way down to a Mexican fiesta, ruin a horrible dinner theatre performance directed by their high school's drama teacher being attended by the Schwabs, and turn the Schwab mansion into a homeless shelter while the family is on vacation. The film ends with O.C. and Stiggs getting into a gun fight with Randall Schwab before being rescued by Dennis Hopper and a helicopter, before discovering one of their adventures that summer has made them very wealthy themselves.   The film would begin production in Phoenix on August 22nd, 1983, with two newcomers, Daniel H. Jenkins and Neill Barry, as the titular stars of the film. And almost immediately, Altman's chaotic ways of making a movie would become a problem. Altman would make sure the entire cast and crew were all staying at the same hotel in town, across the street from a greyhound racetrack, so Altman could take off to bet on a few of the races during production downtime, and made sure the bar at the hotel was an open bar for his team while they were shooting. When shooting was done every day, the director and his cast would head to a makeshift screening room at the hotel, where they'd watch the previous day's footage, a process called “dailies” in production parlance. On most films, dailies are only attended by the director and his immediate production crew, but in Phoenix, everyone was encouraged to attend. And according to producer Peter Newman and Dan Jenkins, everyone loved the footage, although both would note that it might have been a combination of the alcohol, the pot, the cocaine and the dehydration caused by shooting all day in the excessive Arizona heat during the middle of summer that helped people enjoy the footage.    But here's the funny thing about dailies.   Unless a film is being shot in sequence, you're only seeing small fragments of scenes, often the same actors doing the same things over and over again, before the camera switches places to catch reactions or have other characters continue the scene. Sometimes, they're long takes of scenes that might be interrupted by an actor flubbing a line or an unexpected camera jitter or some other interruption that requires a restart. But everyone seemed to be having fun, especially when dailies ended and Altman would show one of his other movies like MASH or The Long Goodbye or 3 Women.   After two months of shooting, the film would wrap production, and Altman would get to work on his edit of the film. He would have it done before the end of 1983, and he would turn it in to the studio. Shortly after the new year, there would be a private screening of the film in New York City at the offices of the talent agency William Morris, one of the larger private screening rooms in the city. Altman was there, the New York-based executives at MGM were there, Peter Newman was there, several of the actors were there. And within five minutes of the start of the film, Altman realized what he was watching was not his cut of the film. As he was about to lose his stuff and start yelling at the studio executives, the projector broke. The lights would go up, and Altman would dig into the the executives. “This is your effing cut of the film and not mine!” Altman stormed out of the screening and into the cold New York winter night.   A few weeks later, that same print from New York would be screened for the big executives at the MGM lot in Los Angeles. Newman was there, and, surprisingly, Altman was there too. The film would screen for the entire running length, and Altman would sit there, watching someone else's version of the footage he had shot, scenes put in different places than they were supposed to be, music cues not of his design or consent.   At the end of the screening, the room was silent. Not one person in the room had laughed once during the entire screening. Newman and Altman left after the screening, and hit one of Altman's favorite local watering holes. As they said their goodbyes the next morning, Altman apologized to Newman. “I hope I didn't eff up your movie.”   Maybe the movie wasn't completely effed up, but MGM certainly neither knew what to do with the film or how to sell it, so it would just sit there, just like Health a few years earlier, on that proverbial shelf.   More than a year later, in an issue of Spin Magazine, a review of the latest album by King Sunny Adé would mention the film he performed in, O.C. and Stiggs, would, quote unquote, “finally” be released into theatres later that year.   That didn't happen, in large part because after WarGames in the early summer of 1983, almost every MGM release had been  either an outright bomb or an unexpected financial disappointment. The cash flow problem was so bad that the studio effectively had to sell itself to Atlanta cable mogul Ted Turner in order to save itself. Turner didn't actually want all of MGM. He only wanted the valuable MGM film library, but the owner of MGM at the time was either going to sell it all or nothing at all.   Barely two months after Ted Turner bought MGM, he had sold the famed studio lot in Culver City to Lorimar, a television production company that was looking to become a producer and distributor of motion pictures, and sold rest of the company he never wanted in the first place to the guy he bought it all from, who had a kind of seller's remorse. But that repurchase would saddle the company with massive bills, and movies like O.C. and Stiggs would have to sit and collect dust while everything was sorted out.   How long would O.C. and Stiggs be left in a void?   It would be so long that Robert Altman would have time to make not one, not two, but three other movies that would all be released before O.C. and Stiggs ever saw the light of day.   The first, Secret Honor, released in 1984, featured the great Philip Baker Hall as former President Richard Nixon. It's probably Hall's single best work as an actor, and the film would be amongst the best reviewed films of Altman's career.   In 1985, Altman would film Fool For Love, an adaptation of a play by Sam Shepard. This would be the only time in Shepard's film career where he would star as one of the characters himself had written. The film would also prove once and for all that Kim Basinger was more than just a pretty face but a real actor.   And in February 1987, Altman's film version of Beyond Therapy, a play by absurdist playwright Christopher Durant, would open in theatres. The all-star cast would include Tom Conti, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Guest, Julie Hagerty and Glenda Jackson.   On March 5th, 1987, an article in Daily Variety would note that the “long shelved” film would have a limited theatrical release in May, despite the fact that Frank Yablans, the vice chairman of MGM, being quoted in the article that the film was unreleasable. It would further be noted that despite the film being available to international distributors for three years, not one company was willing to acquire the film for any market. The plan was to release the movie for one or two weeks in three major US markets, depending on its popularity, and then decide a future course of action from there.   But May would come and go, without a hint of the film.   Finally, on Friday, July 10th, the film would open on 18 screens, but none in any major market like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City. I can't find a single theatre the film played in that weekend, but that week's box office figures would show an abysmal $6,273 worth of tickets were sold during that first weekend.   There would not be a second weekend of reported grosses.   But to MGM's credit, they didn't totally give up on the film.   On Thursday, August 27th, O.C. and Stiggs would open in at least one theatre. And, lucky for me, that theatre happened to be the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz. But despite the fact that the new Robert Altman was opening in town, I could not get a single friend to see it with me. So on a Tuesday night at 8:40pm, I was the only person in all of the region to watch what I would soon discover was the worst Robert Altman movie of all time. Now, I should note that even a bad Robert Altman movie is better than many filmmakers' best movies, but O.C. and Stiggs would have ignobility of feeling very much like a Robert Altman movie, with its wandering camera and overlapping dialogue that weaves in and out of conversations while in progress and not quite over yet, yet not feeling anything like a Robert Altman movie at the same time. It didn't have that magical whimsy-ness that was the hallmark of his movies. The satire didn't have its normal bite. It had a number of Altman's regular troop of actors, but in smaller roles than they'd usually occupy, and not giving the performances one would expect of them in an Altman movie.   I don't know how well the film did at the Nick, suffice it to say the film was gone after a week.   But to MGM's credit, they still didn't give up on the film.   On October 9th, the film would open at the AMC Century City 14, one of a handful of movies that would open the newest multiplex in Los Angeles.   MGM did not report grosses, and the film was gone from the new multiplex after a week.   But to MGM's credit, they still didn't give up on the film.   The studio would give the film one more chance, opening it at the Film Forum in New York City on March 18th, 1988.   MGM did not report grosses, and the film was gone after a week. But whether that was because MGM didn't support the film with any kind of newspaper advertising in the largest market in America, or because the movie had been released on home video back in November, remains to be seen.   O.C. and Stiggs would never become anything resembling a cult film. It's been released on DVD, and if one was programming a Robert Altman retrospect at a local arthouse movie theatre, one could actually book a 35mm print of the film from the repertory cinema company Park Circus.   But don't feel bad for Altman, as he would return to cinemas with a vengeance in the 1990s, first with the 1990 biographical drama Vincent and Theo, featuring Tim Roth as the tortured genius 19th century painter that would put the actor on the map for good. Then, in 1992, he became a sensation again with his Hollywood satire The Player, featuring Tim Robbins as a murderous studio executive trying to keep the police off his trail while he navigates the pitfalls of the industry. Altman would receive his first Oscar nomination for Best Director since 1975 with The Player, his third overall, a feat he would repeat the following year with Short Cuts, based on a series of short stories by Raymond Carver. In fact, Altman would be nominated for an Academy Award seven times during his career, five times as a director and twice as a producer, although he would never win a competitive Oscar.   In March 2006, while editing his 35th film, a screen adaptation of the then-popular NPR series A Prairie Home Companion, the Academy would bestow an Honorary Oscar upon Altman. During his acceptance speech, Altman would wonder if perhaps the Academy acted prematurely in honoring him in this fashion. He revealed he had received a heart transplant in the mid-1990s, and felt that, even though he had turned 81 the month before, he could continue for another forty years.   Robert Altman would pass away from leukemia on November 20th, 2006, only eight months after receiving the biggest prize of his career.   Robert Altman had a style so unique onto himself, there's an adjective that exists to describe it. Altmanesque. Displaying traits typical of a film made by Robert Altman, typically highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective and often a subversive twist.   He truly was a one of a kind filmmaker, and there will likely never be anyone like him, no matter how hard Paul Thomas Anderson tries.     Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again in two weeks, when Episode 106, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy, is released.   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.  

On this episode, we talk about the great American filmmaker Robert Altman, and what is arguably the worst movie of his six decade, thirty-five film career: his 1987 atrocity O.C. and Stiggs. ----more---- 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.   On this episode, we're going to talk about one of the strangest movies to come out of the decade, not only for its material, but for who directed it.   Robert Altman's O.C. and Stiggs.   As always, before we get to the O.C. and Stiggs, we will be going a little further back in time.   Although he is not every cineaste's cup of tea, it is generally acknowledged that Robert Altman was one of the best filmmakers to ever work in cinema. But he wasn't an immediate success when he broke into the industry.   Born in Kansas City in February 1925, Robert Altman would join the US Army Air Force after graduating high school, as many a young man would do in the days of World War II. He would train to be a pilot, and he would fly more than 50 missions during the war as part of the 307th Bomb Group, operating in the Pacific Theatre. They would help liberate prisoners of war held in Japanese POW Camps from Okinawa to Manila after the victory over Japan lead to the end of World War II in that part of the world.   After the war, Altman would move to Los Angeles to break into the movies, and he would even succeed in selling a screenplay to RKO Pictures called Bodyguard, a film noir story shot in 1948 starring Lawrence Tierney and Priscilla Lane, but on the final film, he would only share a “Story by” credit with his then-writing partner, George W. George. But by 1950, he'd be back in Kansas City, where he would direct more than 65 industrial films over the course of three years, before heading back to Los Angeles with the experience he would need to take another shot.   Altman would spend a few years directing episodes of a drama series called Pulse of the City on the DuMont television network and a syndicated police drama called The Sheriff of Cochise, but he wouldn't get his first feature directing gig until 1957, when a businessman in Kansas City would hire the thirty-two year old to write and direct a movie locally. That film, The Delinquents, cost only $60k to make, and would be purchased for release by United Artists for $150k. The first film to star future Billy Jack writer/director/star Tom Laughlin, The Delinquents would gross more than a million dollars in theatres, a very good sum back in those days, but despite the success of the film, the only work Altman could get outside of television was co-directing The James Dean Story, a documentary set up at Warner Brothers to capitalize on the interest in the actor after dying in a car accident two years earlier.   Throughout the 1960s, Altman would continue to work in television, until he was finally given another chance to direct a feature film. 1967's Countdown was a lower budgeted feature at Warner Brothers featuring James Caan in an early leading role, about the space race between the Americans and Soviets, a good two years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. The shoot itself was easy, but Altman would be fired from the film shortly after filming was completed, as Jack Warner, the 75 year old head of the studio, was not very happy about the overlapping dialogue, a motif that would become a part of Altman's way of making movies. Although his name appears in the credits as the director of the film, he had no input in its assembly. His ambiguous ending was changed, and the film would be edited to be more family friendly than the director intended.   Altman would follow Countdown with 1969's That Cold Day in the Park, a psychological drama that would be both a critical and financial disappointment.   But his next film would change everything.   Before Altman was hired by Twentieth-Century Fox to direct MASH, more than a dozen major filmmakers would pass on the project. An adaptation of a little known novel by a Korean War veteran who worked as a surgeon at one of the Mobile Auxiliary Surgical Hospitals that give the story its acronymic title, MASH would literally fly under the radar from the executives at the studio, as most of the $3m film would be shot at the studio's ranch lot in Malibu, while the executives were more concerned about their bigger movies of the year in production, like their $12.5m biographical film on World War II general George S. Patton and their $25m World War II drama Tora! Tora! Tora!, one of the first movies to be a Japanese and American co-production since the end of the war.    Altman was going to make MASH his way, no matter what. When the studio refused to allow him to hire a fair amount of extras to populate the MASH camp, Altman would steal individual lines from other characters to give to background actors, in order to get the bustling atmosphere he wanted. In order to give the camp a properly dirty look, he would shoot most of the outdoor scenes with a zoom lens and a fog filter with the camera a reasonably far distance from the actors, so they could act to one another instead of the camera, giving the film a sort of documentary feel. And he would find flexibility when the moment called for it. Sally Kellerman, who was hired to play Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, would work with Altman to expand and improve her character to be more than just eye candy, in large part because Altman liked what she was doing in her scenes.   This kind of flexibility infuriated the two major stars of the film, Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland, who at one point during the shoot tried to get Altman fired for treating everyone in the cast and crew with the same level of respect and decorum regardless of their position. But unlike at Warners a couple years earlier, the success of movies like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider bamboozled Hollywood studio executives, who did not understand exactly what the new generation of filmgoers wanted, and would often give filmmakers more leeway than before, in the hopes that lightning could be captured once again.   And Altman would give them exactly that.   MASH, which would also be the first major studio film to be released with The F Word spoken on screen, would not only become a critical hit, but become the third highest grossing movie released in 1970, grossing more than $80m. The movie would win the Palme D'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival, and it would be nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for Ms. Kellerman, winning only for Best Adapted Screenplay. An ironic win, since most of the dialogue was improvised on set, but the victory for screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. would effectively destroy the once powerful Hollywood Blacklist that had been in place since the Red Scare of the 1950s.   After MASH, Altman went on one of the greatest runs any filmmaker would ever enjoy.   MASH would be released in January 1970, and Altman's follow up, Brewster McCloud, would be released in December 1970. Bud Cort, the future star of Harold and Maude, plays a recluse who lives in the fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome, who is building a pair of wings in order to achieve his dream of flying. The film would feature a number of actors who already were featured in MASH and would continue to be featured in a number of future Altman movies, including Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, John Schuck and Bert Remson, but another reason to watch Brewster McCloud if you've never seen it is because it is the film debut of Shelley Duvall, one of our greatest and least appreciated actresses, who would go on to appear in six other Altman movies over the ensuing decade.   1971's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, for me, is his second best film. A Western starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, was a minor hit when it was first released but has seen a reevaluation over the years that found it to be named the 8th Best Western of all time by the American Film Institute, which frankly is too low for me. The film would also bring a little-known Canadian poet and musician to the world, Leonard Cohen, who wrote and performed three songs for the soundtrack. Yeah, you have Robert Altman to thank for Leonard Cohen.   1972's Images was another psychological horror film, this time co-written with English actress Susannah York, who also stars in the film as an author of children's books who starts to have wild hallucinations at her remote vacation home, after learning her husband might be cheating on her. The $800k film was one of the first to be produced by Hemdale Films, a British production company co-founded by Blow Up actor David Hemmings, but the film would be a critical and financial disappointment when it was released Christmas week. But it would get nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score. It would be one of two nominations in the category for John Williams, the other being The Poseidon Adventure.   Whatever resentment Elliott Gould may have had with Altman during the shooting of MASH was gone by late 1972, when the actor agreed to star in the director's new movie, a modern adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel The Long Goodbye. Gould would be the eighth actor to play the lead character, Phillip Marlowe, in a movie. The screenplay would be written by Leigh Brackett, who Star Wars nerds know as the first writer on The Empire Strikes Back but had also adapted Chandler's novel The Big Sleep, another Phillip Marlowe story, to the big screen back in 1946.   Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich had both been approached to make the film, and it would be Bogdanovich who would recommend Altman to the President of United Artists. The final film would anger Chandler fans, who did not like Altman's approach to the material, and the $1.7m film would gross less than $1m when it was released in March 1973. But like many of Altman's movies, it was a big hit with critics, and would find favor with film fans in the years to come.   1974 would be another year where Altman would make and release two movies in the same calendar year. The first, Thieves Like Us, was a crime drama most noted as one of the few movies to not have any kind of traditional musical score. What music there is in the film is usually heard off radios seen in individual scenes. Once again, we have a number of Altman regulars in the film, including Shelley Duvall, Bert Remsen, John Schuck and Tom Skerritt, and would feature Keith Carradine, who had a small co-starring role in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, in his first major leading role. And, once again, the film would be a hit with critics but a dud with audiences. Unlike most of Altman's movies of the 1970s, Thieves Like Us has not enjoyed the same kind of reappraisal.   The second film, California Split, was released in August, just six months after Thieves Like Us. Elliott Gould once again stars in a Robert Altman movie, this time alongside George Segal. They play a pair of gamblers who ride what they think is a lucky streak from Los Angeles to Reno, Nevada, would be the only time Gould and Segal would work closely together in a movie, and watching California Split, one wishes there could have been more. The movie would be an innovator seemingly purpose-build for a Robert Altman movie, for it would be the first non-Cinerama movie to be recorded using an eight track stereo sound system. More than any movie before, Altman could control how his overlapping dialogue was placed in a theatre. But while most theatres that played the movie would only play it in mono sound, the film would still be a minor success, bringing in more than $5m in ticket sales.   1975 would bring what many consider to be the quintessential Robert Altman movie to screens.   The two hour and forty minute Nashville would feature no less than 24 different major characters, as a group of people come to Music City to be involved in a gala concert for a political outsider who is running for President on the Replacement Party ticket. The cast is one of the best ever assembled for a movie ever, including Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakely, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert DoQui, Shelley Duvall, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Harris, Cristina Raines, Lily Tomlin and Keenan Wynn.   Altman would be nominated for two Academy Awards for the film, Best Picture, as its producer, and Best Director, while both Ronee Blakely and Lily Tomlin would be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Keith Carradine would also be nominated for an Oscar, but not as an actor. He would, at the urging of Altman during the production of the film, write and perform a song called I'm Easy, which would win for Best Original Song. The $2.2m film would earn $10m in ticket sales, and would eventually become part of the fourth class of movies to be selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1991, the first of four Robert Altman films to be given that honor. MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and The Long Goodbye would also be selected for preservation over the years.   And we're going to stop here for a second and take a look at that list of films again.   MASH Brewster McCloud McCabe and Mrs. Miller Images The Long Goodbye Thieves Like Us California Split Nashville   Eight movies, made over a five year period, that between them earned twelve Academy Award nominations, four of which would be deemed so culturally important that they should be preserved for future generations.   And we're still only in the middle of the 1970s.   But the problem with a director like Robert Altman, like many of our greatest directors, their next film after one of their greatest successes feels like a major disappointment. And his 1976 film Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, and that is the complete title of the film by the way, did not meet the lofty expectations of film fans not only its director, but of its main stars. Altman would cast two legendary actors he had not yet worked with, Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster, and the combination of those two actors with this director should have been fantastic, but the results were merely okay. In fact,  Altman would, for the first time in his career, re-edit a film after its theatrical release, removing some of the Wild West show acts that he felt were maybe redundant.   His 1977 film 3 Women would bring Altman back to the limelight. The film was based on a dream he had one night while his wife was in the hospital. In the dream, he was directing his regular co-star Shelley Duvall alongside Sissy Spacek, who he had never worked with before, in a story about identity theft that took place in the deserts outside Los Angeles. He woke up in the middle of the dream, jotted down what he could remember, and went back to sleep. In the morning, he didn't have a full movie planned out, but enough of one to get Alan Ladd, Jr., the President of Twentieth-Century Fox, to put up $1.7m for a not fully formed idea. That's how much Robert Altman was trusted at the time. That, and Altman was known for never going over budget. As long as he stayed within his budget, Ladd would let Altman make whatever movie he wanted to make. That, plus Ladd was more concerned about a $10m movie he approved that was going over budget over in England, a science fiction movie directed by the guy who did American Graffiti that had no stars outside of Sir Alec Guinness.   That movie, of course, was Star Wars, which would be released four weeks after 3 Women had its premiere in New York City. While the film didn't make 1/100th the money Star Wars made, it was one of the best reviewed movies of the year. But, strangely, the film would not be seen again outside of sporadic screenings on cable until it was released on DVD by the Criterion Collection 27 years later.   I'm not going to try and explain the movie to you. Just trust me that 3 Women is from a master craftsman at the top of his game.   While on the press tour to publicize 3 Women, a reporter asked Altman what was going to be next for him. He jokingly said he was going to shoot a wedding. But then he went home, thought about it some more, and in a few weeks, had a basic idea sketched out for a movie titled A Wedding that would take place over the course of one day, as the daughter of a Southern nouveau riche family marries the son of a wealthy Chicago businessman who may or may not a major figure in The Outfit.   And while the film is quite entertaining, what's most interesting about watching this 1978 movie in 2023 is not only how many great established actors Altman got for the film, including Carol Burnett, Paul Dooley, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Vittorio Gassman, Lauren Hutton, and, in her 100th movie, Lillian Gish, but the number of notable actors he was able to get because he shot the film just outside Chicago. Not only will you see Dennis Christopher just before his breakthrough in Breaking Away, and not only will you see Pam Dawber just before she was cast alongside Robin Williams in Mark and Mindy, but you'll also see Dennis Franz, Laurie Metcalfe, Gary Sinese, Tim Thomerson, and George Wendt.   And because Altman was able to keep the budget at a reasonable level, less than $1.75m, the film would be slightly profitable for Twentieth Century-Fox after grossing $3.6m at the box office.   Altman's next film for Fox, 1979's Quintet, would not be as fortunate.   Altman had come up with the story for this post-apocalyptic drama as a vehicle for Walter Hill to write and direct. But Hill would instead make The Warriors, and Altman decided to make the film himself. While developing the screenplay with his co-writers Frank Barhydt and Patricia Resnick, Altman would create a board game, complete with token pieces and a full set of rules, to flesh out the storyline.   Altman would once again work with Paul Newman, who stars as a seal hunter in the early days of a new ice age who finds himself in elaborate game with a group of gamblers where losing in the game means losing your life in the process. Altman would deliberately hire an international cast to star alongside Newman, not only to help improve the film's ability to do well in foreign territories but to not have the storyline tied to any specific country. So we would have Italian actor Vittorio Gassman, Spaniard Fernando Rey, Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, French actress Brigitte Fossey, and Danish actress Nina van Pallandt.    In order to maintain the mystery of the movie, Altman would ask Fox to withhold all pre-release publicity for the film, in order to avoid any conditioning of the audience. Imagine trying to put together a compelling trailer for a movie featuring one of the most beloved actors of all time, but you're not allowed to show potential audiences what they're getting themselves into? Altman would let the studio use five shots from the film, totaling about seven seconds, for the trailer, which mostly comprised of slo-mo shots of a pair of dice bouncing around, while the names of the stars pop up from moment to moment and a narrator tries to create some sense of mystery on the soundtrack.   But audiences would not be intrigued by the mystery, and critics would tear the $6.4m budget film apart. To be fair, the shoot for the film, in the winter of 1977 outside Montreal was a tough time for all, and Altman would lose final cut on the film for going severely over-budget during production, although there seems to be very little documentation about how much the final film might have differed from what Altman would have been working on had he been able to complete the film his way.   But despite all the problems with Quintet, Fox would still back Altman's next movie, A Perfect Couple, which would be shot after Fox pulled Altman off Quintet. Can you imagine that happening today? A director working with the studio that just pulled them off their project. But that's how little ego Altman had. He just wanted to make movies. Tell stories. This simple romantic comedy starred his regular collaborator Paul Dooley as  Alex, a man who follows a band of traveling bohemian musicians because he's falling for one of the singers in the band.   Altman kept the film on its $1.9m budget, but the response from critics was mostly concern that Altman had lost his touch. Maybe it was because this was his 13th film of the decade, but there was a serious concern about the director's ability to tell a story had evaporated.   That worry would continue with his next film, Health.   A satire of the political scene in the United States at the end of the 1970s, Health would follow a health food organization holding a convention at a luxury hotel in St. Petersburg FL. As one would expect from a Robert Altman movie, there's one hell of a cast. Along with Henry Gibson, and Paul Dooley, who co-write the script with Altman and Frank Barhydt, the cast would include Lauren Bacall, Carol Burnett, James Garner and, in one of her earliest screen appearances, Alfre Woodard, as well as Dick Cavett and Dinah Shore as themselves.   But between the shooting of the film in the late winter and early spring of 1979 and the planned Christmas 1979 release, there was a change of management at Fox. Alan Ladd Jr. was out, and after Altman turned in his final cut, new studio head Norman Levy decided to pull the film off the 1979 release calendar. Altman fought to get the film released sometime during the 1980 Presidential Campaign, and was able to get Levy to give the film a platform release starting in Los Angeles and New York City in March 1980, but that date would get cancelled as well. Levy then suggested an April 1980 test run in St. Louis, which Altman was not happy with. Altman countered with test runs in Boston, Houston, Sacramento and San Francisco. The best Altman, who was in Malta shooting his next movie, could get were sneak previews of the film in those four markets, and the response cards from the audience were so bad, the studio decided to effectively put the film on the proverbial shelf.   Back from the Mediterranean Sea, Altman would get permission to take the film to the Montreal World Film Festival in August, and the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals in September. After good responses from film goers at those festivals, Fox would relent, and give the film a “preview” screening at the United Artists Theatre in Westwood, starting on September 12th, 1980. But the studio would give the film the most boring ad campaign possible, a very crude line drawing of an older woman's pearl bracelet-covered arm thrusted upward while holding a carrot. With no trailers in circulation at any theatre, and no television commercials on air, it would be little surprise the film didn't do a whole lot of business. You really had to know the film had been released. But its $14k opening weekend gross wasn't really all that bad. And it's second week gross of $10,500 with even less ad support was decent if unspectacular. But it would be good enough to get the film a four week playdate at the UA Westwood.   And then, nothing, until early March 1981, when a film society at Northwestern University in Evanston IL was able to screen a 16mm print for one show, while a theatre in Baltimore was able to show the film one time at the end of March. But then, nothing again for more than another year, when the film would finally get a belated official release at the Film Forum in New York City on April 7th, 1982. It would only play for a week, and as a non-profit, the Film Forum does not report film grosses, so we have no idea how well the film actually did. Since then, the movie showed once on CBS in August 1983, and has occasionally played on the Fox Movie Channel, but has never been released on VHS or DVD or Blu-Ray.   I mentioned a few moments ago that while he was dealing with all this drama concerning Health, Altman was in the Mediterranean filming a movie. I'm not going to go too much into that movie here, since I already have an episode for the future planned for it, suffice to say that a Robert Altman-directed live-action musical version of the Popeye the Sailor Man cartoon featuring songs by the incomparable Harry Nilsson should have been a smash hit, but it wasn't. It was profitable, to be certain, but not the hit everyone was expecting. We'll talk about the film in much more detail soon.   After the disappointing results for Popeye, Altman decided to stop working in Hollywood for a while and hit the Broadway stages, to direct a show called Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. While the show's run was not very long and the reviews not very good, Altman would fund a movie version himself, thanks in part to the sale of his production company, Lion's Gate, not to be confused with the current studio called Lionsgate, and would cast Karen Black, Cher and Sandy Dennis alongside newcomers Sudie Bond and Kathy Bates, as five female members of The Disciples of James Dean come together on the 20th anniversary of the actor's death to honor his life and times. As the first film released by a new independent distributor called Cinecom, I'll spend more time talking about this movie on our show about that distributor, also coming soon, suffice it to say that Altman was back. Critics were behind the film, and arthouse audiences loved it. This would be the first time Altman adapted a stage play to the screen, and it would set the tone for a number of his works throughout the rest of the decade.   Streamers was Altman's 17th film in thirteen years, and another adaptation of a stage play. One of several works by noted Broadway playwright David Rabe's time in the Army during the Vietnam War, the film followed four young soldiers waiting to be shipped to Vietnam who deal with racial tensions and their own intolerances when one soldier reveals he is gay. The film featured Matthew Modine as the Rabe stand-in, and features a rare dramatic role for comedy legend David Alan Grier. Many critics would note how much more intense the film version was compared to the stage version, as Altman's camera was able to effortlessly breeze around the set, and get up close and personal with the performers in ways that simply cannot happen on the stage. But in 1983, audiences were still not quite ready to deal with the trauma of Vietnam on film, and the film would be fairly ignored by audiences, grossing just $378k.   Which, finally, after half an hour, brings us to our featured movie.   O.C. and Stiggs.   Now, you might be asking yourself why I went into such detail about Robert Altman's career, most of it during the 1970s. Well, I wanted to establish what types of material Altman would chose for his projects, and just how different O.C. and Stiggs  was from any other project he had made to date.   O.C. and Stiggs began their lives in the July 1981 issue of National Lampoon, as written by two of the editors of the magazine, Ted Mann and Tod Carroll. The characters were fun-loving and occasionally destructive teenage pranksters, and their first appearance in the magazine would prove to be so popular with readers, the pair would appear a few more times until Matty Simmons, the publisher and owner of National Lampoon, gave over the entire October 1982 issue to Mann and Carroll for a story called “The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs.” It's easy to find PDFs of the issues online if you look for it.   So the issue becomes one of the biggest selling issues in the history of National Lampoon, and Matty Simmons has been building the National Lampoon brand name by sponsoring a series of movies, including Animal House, co-written by Lampoon writers Doug Kenney and Chris Miller, and the soon to be released movies Class Reunion, written by Lampoon writer John Hughes… yes, that John Hughes… and Movie Madness, written by five Lampoon writers including Tod Carroll. But for some reason, Simmons was not behind the idea of turning the utterly monstrous mind-roasting adventures of O.C. and Stiggs into a movie. He would, however, allow Mann and Carroll to shop the idea around Hollywood, and wished them the best of luck.   As luck would have it, Mann and Carroll would meet Peter Newman, who had worked as Altman's production executive on Jimmy Dean, and was looking to set up his first film as a producer. And while Newman might not have had the credits, he had the connections. The first person he would take the script to his Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols, whose credits by this time included Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?, The Graduate, Catch-22, and Carnal Knowledge. Surprisingly, Nichols was not just interested in making the movie, but really wanted to have Eddie Murphy, who was a breakout star on Saturday Night Live but was still a month away from becoming a movie star when 48 Hours was released, play one of the leading characters. But Murphy couldn't get out of his SNL commitments, and Nichols had too many other projects, both on Broadway and in movies, to be able to commit to the film.    A few weeks later, Newman and Altman both attended a party where they would catch up after several months. Newman started to tell Altman about this new project he was setting up, and to Newman's surprise, Altman, drawn to the characters' anti-establishment outlook, expressed interest in making it. And because Altman's name still commanded respect in Hollywood, several studios would start to show their interest in making the movie with them. MGM, who was enjoying a number of successes in 1982 thanks to movies like Shoot the Moon, Diner, Victor/Victoria, Rocky III, Poltergeist, Pink Floyd - The Wall, and My Favorite Year, made a preemptive bid on the film, hoping to beat Paramount Pictures to the deal. Unknown to Altman, what interested MGM was that Sylvester Stallone of all people went nuts for the script when he read it, and mentioned to his buddies at the studio that he might be interested in making it himself.   Despite hating studio executives for doing stuff like buying a script he's attached to  then kicking him off so some Italian Stallion not known for comedy could make it himself, Altman agree to make the movie with MGM once Stallone lost interest, as the studio promised there would be no further notes about the script, that Altman could have final cut on the film, that he could shoot the film in Phoenix without studio interference, and that he could have a budget of $7m.   Since this was a Robert Altman film, the cast would be big and eclectic, filled with a number of his regular cast members, known actors who he had never worked with before, and newcomers who would go on to have success a few years down the road. Because, seriously, outside of a Robert Altman movie, where are you going to find a cast that included Jon Cryer, Jane Curtin, Paul Dooley, Dennis Hopper, Tina Louise, Martin Mull, Cynthia Nixon, Bob Uecker, Melvin van Peebles, and King Sunny Adé and His African Beats? And then imagine that movie also featuring Matthew Broderick, Jim Carrey, Robert Downey, Jr. and Laura Dern?   The story for the film would both follow the stories that appeared in the pages of National Lampoon fairly closely while also making some major changes. In the film, Oliver Cromwell “O.C.” Oglivie and Mark Stiggs are two ne'er-do-well, middle-class Phoenix, Arizona high school students who are disgusted with what they see as an omnipresent culture of vulgar and vapid suburban consumerism. They spend their days slacking off and committing pranks or outright crimes against their sworn enemies, the Schwab family, especially family head Randall Schwab, a wealthy insurance salesman who was responsible for the involuntary commitment of O.C.'s grandfather into a group home. During the film, O.C. and Stiggs will ruin the wedding of Randall Schwab's daughter Lenore, raft their way down to a Mexican fiesta, ruin a horrible dinner theatre performance directed by their high school's drama teacher being attended by the Schwabs, and turn the Schwab mansion into a homeless shelter while the family is on vacation. The film ends with O.C. and Stiggs getting into a gun fight with Randall Schwab before being rescued by Dennis Hopper and a helicopter, before discovering one of their adventures that summer has made them very wealthy themselves.   The film would begin production in Phoenix on August 22nd, 1983, with two newcomers, Daniel H. Jenkins and Neill Barry, as the titular stars of the film. And almost immediately, Altman's chaotic ways of making a movie would become a problem. Altman would make sure the entire cast and crew were all staying at the same hotel in town, across the street from a greyhound racetrack, so Altman could take off to bet on a few of the races during production downtime, and made sure the bar at the hotel was an open bar for his team while they were shooting. When shooting was done every day, the director and his cast would head to a makeshift screening room at the hotel, where they'd watch the previous day's footage, a process called “dailies” in production parlance. On most films, dailies are only attended by the director and his immediate production crew, but in Phoenix, everyone was encouraged to attend. And according to producer Peter Newman and Dan Jenkins, everyone loved the footage, although both would note that it might have been a combination of the alcohol, the pot, the cocaine and the dehydration caused by shooting all day in the excessive Arizona heat during the middle of summer that helped people enjoy the footage.    But here's the funny thing about dailies.   Unless a film is being shot in sequence, you're only seeing small fragments of scenes, often the same actors doing the same things over and over again, before the camera switches places to catch reactions or have other characters continue the scene. Sometimes, they're long takes of scenes that might be interrupted by an actor flubbing a line or an unexpected camera jitter or some other interruption that requires a restart. But everyone seemed to be having fun, especially when dailies ended and Altman would show one of his other movies like MASH or The Long Goodbye or 3 Women.   After two months of shooting, the film would wrap production, and Altman would get to work on his edit of the film. He would have it done before the end of 1983, and he would turn it in to the studio. Shortly after the new year, there would be a private screening of the film in New York City at the offices of the talent agency William Morris, one of the larger private screening rooms in the city. Altman was there, the New York-based executives at MGM were there, Peter Newman was there, several of the actors were there. And within five minutes of the start of the film, Altman realized what he was watching was not his cut of the film. As he was about to lose his stuff and start yelling at the studio executives, the projector broke. The lights would go up, and Altman would dig into the the executives. “This is your effing cut of the film and not mine!” Altman stormed out of the screening and into the cold New York winter night.   A few weeks later, that same print from New York would be screened for the big executives at the MGM lot in Los Angeles. Newman was there, and, surprisingly, Altman was there too. The film would screen for the entire running length, and Altman would sit there, watching someone else's version of the footage he had shot, scenes put in different places than they were supposed to be, music cues not of his design or consent.   At the end of the screening, the room was silent. Not one person in the room had laughed once during the entire screening. Newman and Altman left after the screening, and hit one of Altman's favorite local watering holes. As they said their goodbyes the next morning, Altman apologized to Newman. “I hope I didn't eff up your movie.”   Maybe the movie wasn't completely effed up, but MGM certainly neither knew what to do with the film or how to sell it, so it would just sit there, just like Health a few years earlier, on that proverbial shelf.   More than a year later, in an issue of Spin Magazine, a review of the latest album by King Sunny Adé would mention the film he performed in, O.C. and Stiggs, would, quote unquote, “finally” be released into theatres later that year.   That didn't happen, in large part because after WarGames in the early summer of 1983, almost every MGM release had been  either an outright bomb or an unexpected financial disappointment. The cash flow problem was so bad that the studio effectively had to sell itself to Atlanta cable mogul Ted Turner in order to save itself. Turner didn't actually want all of MGM. He only wanted the valuable MGM film library, but the owner of MGM at the time was either going to sell it all or nothing at all.   Barely two months after Ted Turner bought MGM, he had sold the famed studio lot in Culver City to Lorimar, a television production company that was looking to become a producer and distributor of motion pictures, and sold rest of the company he never wanted in the first place to the guy he bought it all from, who had a kind of seller's remorse. But that repurchase would saddle the company with massive bills, and movies like O.C. and Stiggs would have to sit and collect dust while everything was sorted out.   How long would O.C. and Stiggs be left in a void?   It would be so long that Robert Altman would have time to make not one, not two, but three other movies that would all be released before O.C. and Stiggs ever saw the light of day.   The first, Secret Honor, released in 1984, featured the great Philip Baker Hall as former President Richard Nixon. It's probably Hall's single best work as an actor, and the film would be amongst the best reviewed films of Altman's career.   In 1985, Altman would film Fool For Love, an adaptation of a play by Sam Shepard. This would be the only time in Shepard's film career where he would star as one of the characters himself had written. The film would also prove once and for all that Kim Basinger was more than just a pretty face but a real actor.   And in February 1987, Altman's film version of Beyond Therapy, a play by absurdist playwright Christopher Durant, would open in theatres. The all-star cast would include Tom Conti, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Guest, Julie Hagerty and Glenda Jackson.   On March 5th, 1987, an article in Daily Variety would note that the “long shelved” film would have a limited theatrical release in May, despite the fact that Frank Yablans, the vice chairman of MGM, being quoted in the article that the film was unreleasable. It would further be noted that despite the film being available to international distributors for three years, not one company was willing to acquire the film for any market. The plan was to release the movie for one or two weeks in three major US markets, depending on its popularity, and then decide a future course of action from there.   But May would come and go, without a hint of the film.   Finally, on Friday, July 10th, the film would open on 18 screens, but none in any major market like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City. I can't find a single theatre the film played in that weekend, but that week's box office figures would show an abysmal $6,273 worth of tickets were sold during that first weekend.   There would not be a second weekend of reported grosses.   But to MGM's credit, they didn't totally give up on the film.   On Thursday, August 27th, O.C. and Stiggs would open in at least one theatre. And, lucky for me, that theatre happened to be the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz. But despite the fact that the new Robert Altman was opening in town, I could not get a single friend to see it with me. So on a Tuesday night at 8:40pm, I was the only person in all of the region to watch what I would soon discover was the worst Robert Altman movie of all time. Now, I should note that even a bad Robert Altman movie is better than many filmmakers' best movies, but O.C. and Stiggs would have ignobility of feeling very much like a Robert Altman movie, with its wandering camera and overlapping dialogue that weaves in and out of conversations while in progress and not quite over yet, yet not feeling anything like a Robert Altman movie at the same time. It didn't have that magical whimsy-ness that was the hallmark of his movies. The satire didn't have its normal bite. It had a number of Altman's regular troop of actors, but in smaller roles than they'd usually occupy, and not giving the performances one would expect of them in an Altman movie.   I don't know how well the film did at the Nick, suffice it to say the film was gone after a week.   But to MGM's credit, they still didn't give up on the film.   On October 9th, the film would open at the AMC Century City 14, one of a handful of movies that would open the newest multiplex in Los Angeles.   MGM did not report grosses, and the film was gone from the new multiplex after a week.   But to MGM's credit, they still didn't give up on the film.   The studio would give the film one more chance, opening it at the Film Forum in New York City on March 18th, 1988.   MGM did not report grosses, and the film was gone after a week. But whether that was because MGM didn't support the film with any kind of newspaper advertising in the largest market in America, or because the movie had been released on home video back in November, remains to be seen.   O.C. and Stiggs would never become anything resembling a cult film. It's been released on DVD, and if one was programming a Robert Altman retrospect at a local arthouse movie theatre, one could actually book a 35mm print of the film from the repertory cinema company Park Circus.   But don't feel bad for Altman, as he would return to cinemas with a vengeance in the 1990s, first with the 1990 biographical drama Vincent and Theo, featuring Tim Roth as the tortured genius 19th century painter that would put the actor on the map for good. Then, in 1992, he became a sensation again with his Hollywood satire The Player, featuring Tim Robbins as a murderous studio executive trying to keep the police off his trail while he navigates the pitfalls of the industry. Altman would receive his first Oscar nomination for Best Director since 1975 with The Player, his third overall, a feat he would repeat the following year with Short Cuts, based on a series of short stories by Raymond Carver. In fact, Altman would be nominated for an Academy Award seven times during his career, five times as a director and twice as a producer, although he would never win a competitive Oscar.   In March 2006, while editing his 35th film, a screen adaptation of the then-popular NPR series A Prairie Home Companion, the Academy would bestow an Honorary Oscar upon Altman. During his acceptance speech, Altman would wonder if perhaps the Academy acted prematurely in honoring him in this fashion. He revealed he had received a heart transplant in the mid-1990s, and felt that, even though he had turned 81 the month before, he could continue for another forty years.   Robert Altman would pass away from leukemia on November 20th, 2006, only eight months after receiving the biggest prize of his career.   Robert Altman had a style so unique onto himself, there's an adjective that exists to describe it. Altmanesque. Displaying traits typical of a film made by Robert Altman, typically highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective and often a subversive twist.   He truly was a one of a kind filmmaker, and there will likely never be anyone like him, no matter how hard Paul Thomas Anderson tries.     Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again in two weeks, when Episode 106, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy, is released.   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.  

Today, we sit with brilliant actor, director, writer, and producer, Natasha Lyonne. At the top, we walk through the inspiration behind her hit Peacock series Poker Face (6:30), including shows and films like Columbo, Night Moves, and California Split (7:40), and a deeply personal scene with Nick Nolte, directed by Lyonne herself (10:50). Then, she reflects on her childhood acting in New York City (14:44), the new creative path she forged for herself at sixteen (22:40), and her healing road to the theatre alongside playwrights Mike Leigh (40:40) and the late Nora Ephron (42:25). To close, we sit with her seven-year journey to creating Russian Doll (44:16), a memorable evening directing the show (50:42), and a lifelong philosophy by Nora Ephron (56:28).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week's entry in the random canon is California Split, Robert Altman's exploration of addiction, friendship and co-dependency. Come for Gould's antics, stay for George Segal's sad sack portrayal of a man whose greatest joy is slowly corroding his life away. Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.

We're back and joined by Mike Harris (director of Your Heart is a Dark & Rotten Place) to discuss Robert Altman's meandering buddy-comedy, California Split. Chronicling two gambling addicts as they bet on virtually everything (horses, poker, pick-up basketball games, boxing) and hang out with an amicable pair of hookers, Altman's cult-classic is both seductively charming while also a deceptively dark look into a seedy and niche American subculture.  We were honored to have Mike's input on this episode. Mike introduced me to The Long Goodbye, Short Cuts, and opened me up to the treasure trove that is Altman's oeuvre in college. He's an infectious champion of many of Altman's films, and thus the perfect guest for any listeners looking for an entry point to Altman's idiosyncratic sensibility. Fitting for the topic at hand, we flow freely throughout this shambolic  episode, digressing into long discussions on everything from Altman's unique cinematic techniques to Godard's love of tennis.  It's a rollicking, rambling good time! Enjoy! https://shermanoaksfilmfestival.com/

Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Plus: Top Gun (1986), TRON: Legacy (2010), Raising Arizona (1987), California Split (1974), Scarecrow (1973), Predator 2 (1990), Star Wars: Episodes IV-VI, and Enter the Void (2009). This episode is sponsored by FNX Fitness (Use the Discount Code: fourseasonsoffilm and receive 15% off your order). Podcast App: https://playpodca.st/fourseasons Spotify: http://bit.ly/4SOFspotify Check out our latest episodes, digital shorts, movie reviews and more: fourseasonsoffilm.com  Where to Find Nathan and Andy:  @fourseasonspod on Twitter  @fourseasonsoffilm on Instagram @NateRBlackburn on Instagram & Twitter  @AJPesa on IG & Twitter  Facebook: http://facebook.com/fourseasonsoffilm YouTube: http://youtube.com/fourseasonsoffilm Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/fourseasonsoffilm @fnx_fit Keep Film Alive!

In this special bonus episode of our Friends' Forever Favorites series, we are joined by Vinny Tucceri of the Cult Movie Stars Podcast to discuss the masterful gambling comedy CALIFORNIA SPLIT (1974). We discuss the dynamic between the two stars, Elliot Gould and George Segal, the many supporting characters (and women named Barbara), Altman's style and legacy, and much more. Join us for this very fun conversation, we bet you'll have a great time. Follow our guest: @vinnybutbetter And the hosts: Brian: @BrianDKeiper Michele: @micheleneggen and the show @MovieLifePod

New guest to the pod Nick stops by to make a few wagers and talk about 1970s gambling movies The Gambler and California Split. The Gambler(1974) Directed by Karel Reisz. Starring James Caan, Paul Sorvino and Lauren Hutton. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veTaDgOd48Y&ab_channel=HDRetroTrailers California Split(1974) Directed by Robert Altman. Starring Elliot Gould, George Segal, Ann Prentiss and Gwen Welles. Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMM3YjKfGoo&ab_channel=thousandcardstare Twitter: @DoubledFeature Instagram: DoubledFeature Email: DoubledFeaturePodcast@Gmail.com Dan's Twitter: @DannyJenkem Dan's Letterboxd: @DannyJenkem Max's Twitter: @Mac_Dead Max's Letterboxd: @Mac_Dead Executive Producer: Koolaid --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/doubledfeature/message

Mark DeVol from You Can Bet on That joins Tim Lawson to go over two gambling movies: California Split and Lay the Favorite. We even got a surprise appearance from Alan “Dink” Denkenson, who was the professional bettor portrayed by Bruce Willis in Lay the Favorite.Co-host: @YouCanBetOnThatShow: @TheBettorLife

Following the recent Robert Altman retrospective at the BFI, we're back with a survey of his work ranging from early corporate work like the ‘The Dirty Look' (1956) up to his 2006 swansong, A Prairie Home Companion, via a glut of bona fide classics of American cinema and one or two legendary flops – i.e. Quintet (1979). We discuss the key features of Altman's visionary film style, trace the vicissitudes of his storied career and ‘get into it' on a number of real favourites, including the essential revisionist western texts McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) and the brilliantly realised comic musical, Popeye (1980), before finishing up with our top 5 Altman films (at the time of recording!). Featuring covers of ‘The Stranger Song' by Leonard Cohen, ‘Thieves like Us' by Iceage, a Hornpipe/Popeye Theme medley arrangement, ‘It Don't Worry Me' by Keith Carradine and ‘Everything is Food' by Harry Nilsson. Full filmography (in chronological order): Modern Football (1951) The Dirty Look (1954) The James Dean Story (1957) Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “The Young One” and “Together” (1958) M.A.S.H (1970) Brewster McCloud (1970) McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) Images (1972) The Long Goodbye (1973) Thieves Like Us (1974) California Split (1974) Nashville (1975) Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) 3 Women (1977) Quintet (1979) HealtH (1980) Popeye (1980) Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) Secret Honor (1984) Aria (1987) Tanner ‘88 (1988) The Player (1992) Short Cuts (1993) Kansas City (1996) Dr. T & The Women (2000) Gosford Park (2001) The Company (2003) A Prairie Home Companion (2006) Bibliography: David Thomson (ed.), ‘Altman on Altman', 2006. Doran William Cannon, ‘The Kid Wanted to Fly—So They Gave Him the Air' in The New York Times, Feb. 7, 1971. Mitchell Zuckoff (ed.), ‘Robert Altman: the Oral Biography', 2009. Robert Niemi, ‘The Cinema of Robert Altman: Hollywood Maverick', 2016. Robin Wood, ‘Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan… and Beyond: Expanded and Revised Edition', 2003. Subscribe to Film Graze on your podcast app of choice. twitter.com/FilmGraze letterboxd.com/Film_Graze/ instagram.com/film.graze/ Co-produced by Emmett Cruddas and Sam Storey

Matt, David and Dan talk with Matt Mazany about Robert Altman's jazzy 70s take on film noir, The Long Goodbye. Topics include the indescribably strange sex appeal of young Elliott Gould, Robert Altman's woolly and unpredictable career, and that neat little cameo from young, hyper-buff Arnold Schwarzenegger.Matt Chester recommends Short Cuts, available only on DVD and Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection. (It's still in print though!)Dan recommends the complete Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Also, he once again recommends The Zebra Striped Hearse by Ross Macdonald.David recommends Under The Silver Lake, available to stream on Kanopy and available for rent or purchase on all major digital platforms.Matt Mazany recommends California Split, available for rent or purchase on iTunes and Amazon.

Danny, Proto, and Slim chat about Signs (2002). Other topics include OLYMPIC FALLOUT, Suicide Squad, The Conversation, California Split, Little Women, nude aliens, a BIG TIME PIVOT for next week, and more. Support the 70mm Patreon to join our VHS Village Discord, listen to exclusive episodes, get your own membership card, use member-only discounts on merch, and vote on future episodes! Subscribe on Spotify for access to exclusive episodes! Episode transcriptions are available thanks to Soph from Film Hags! Don't forget you can visit our website to shop our storefront to buy prints and merch, read episode transcriptions, check out upcoming movies, email the show, upgrade to Letterboxd Pro/Patron at 20% off, and much more. 70mm is a TAPEDECK podcast, along with our friends at BAT & SPIDER, The Letterboxd Show, Dune Pod, FILM HAGS, Will Run For... and Lost Light.

This week, I talk about 2 films that are more recent finds.  They have also moved quickly up the ranks of 2 of my favorite movies of all time.  Join me this week for California Split and Hard Eight.   Intro and Outro Music: Wave Rider by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com  

Mark DeVol from You Can Bet on That joins Tim Lawson to go over two gambling movies: California Split and Lay the Favorite. We even got a surprise appearance from Alan “Dink” Denkenson, who was the professional bettor portrayed by Bruce Willis in Lay the Favorite. Guest co-host: @YouCanBetOnThat Show: @TheBettorLife Use promo code "YOELEVEN" for 11% off at The Bettor Life online shop: TheBettorLife.us/merch Support the show with a monthly pledge at Patreon.com/TheBettorLife Please, take a moment to leave us a rating and review in your podcast app of choice like iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify.

After a year of solitude and reflection, Charlie The Birdman is back to talk more nonsense with the boys. Charlie talks about the Saw franchise and shrimp on Twitch. In the intro, Randy talks TV, Clark is a skater boy, and Russ rode shotgun on “Hell’s Highway / covers The Alien Report for the TBR Report”.   Films: The Mule (2018), Sully (2016), The Big Gundown (1966), For a Few Dollars More (1965), Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017), Nomadland (2020), Top Gun: Maverick (2021), Another Round (2020), The Alien Report (2021), Shadow Zombie (2013), The Underground Railroad (TV), Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017), Hacks (TV), Mainstream (2020), North Hollywood (2021), Mid90s (2018), The Florida Project (2017), Take Out (2004), Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003), That's Adequate (1989), The Forgotten (2004), Gwilliam (2015), California Split (1974), Saw: The Final Chapter (2010), Split (2016), After Earth (2013), The Visit (2015), Old (2021), Hell's Highway (2002), The Passion of the Christ (2004), Mary Magdalene (2018), A Quiet Place Part II (2020), The Devil and Father Amorth (2017), The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021), The Carnivores (2020)   Hey, we're now on YouTube!  Listening on an iPhone? Don't forget to rate us on iTunes!   Fill our fe-mailbag by emailing us at Podcast@TheOverlookTheatre.com    Theme song by Darryl Blood - darrylblood.bandcamp.com/   Reach us on Instagram (@theoverlooktheatre) Facebook (@theoverlookhour) Twitter (@OverlookHour)

This week, Adam and Kevin head back to the theater with a review of A Quiet Place Part II. Other titles discussed include Men and Chicken, Stowaway, Bo Burnham: Inside, and California Split. 0:00 - Intro 0:34 - A Quiet Place Part II review 26:32 - Watch list 43:32 - New releases web: http://filmpulse.net twitter: http://twitter.com/filmpulsenet    facebook: http://facebook.com/filmpulse

John and Max talk all about gambling movies this week. Highlighted are some classics like The Hustler and California Split, as well as, some newer titles to the genre. Also stay tuned for the end with reviews for Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, Cliff Walkers, Shiva Baby, and Ishtar.  Gamblers on Criterion Channel: Gilda (1946), Any Number Can Play (1949), Dark City (1950), The Las Vegas Story (1952), Bob le flambeur (1956), The Hustler (1961), Bay of Angels (1963), Pale Flower (1964), 5 Card Stud (1968), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), California Split (1974), The Gambler (1974), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Atlantic City (1980)**, House of Games (1987), Queen of Diamonds (1991), Hard Eight (1996), Croupier (1998) Website: itsthepicturespodcast.com itsthepictures.substack.com   Download the episode today and tweet at John and Max (@itsthepicpod). Like the show? Review us on iTunes! We are also available on Stitcher. Opening: the Morning by Vidian (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Vidian/58453 Ft: Ciggiburns, Aussens@iter, vo1k1 Closing: Pixie Pixels (featuring Kara Square) by spinningmerkaba (c) copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/jlbrock44/53778  Additional comments? Email us: itsthepictures@gmail.com

At long last, Nico introduces Adam to the world of double zeroes, soft sixteens and cracked aces. It’s the gambling pod! And your five degenerate selections are: The Gambler (18:10), California Split (32:07), Hard Eight (48:00), Rounders (1:00:36) and Mississippi Grind (1:11:50). Chat with the TMT Community on Discord! For More TMT Shenanigans: toomanythoughtsmedia.com Twitter: @funnynicotweets, @someadamhall, @TMT_Media E-mail: toomanythoughtsmedia@gmail.com Subscribe and Rate on Apple Podcasts!

On the April 28, 2021 episode of /Film Daily, /Film senior writer Ben Pearson is joined by managing editor Jacob Hall, weekend editor Brad Oman, and writers Hoai-Tran Bui and Chris Evangelista to gather around the virtual water cooler and talk about what they’ve been up to.   At The Water Cooler: What we’ve been Doing: Brad attended a LAN party with some vaccinated friends. Jacob has been planning a Twilight Imperium game, which is practically a part-time job. What we’ve been Watching: Jacob and Chris watched Mortal Kombat. Ben watched Sasquatch, California Split, The Lady Eve, and started the Harley Quinn animated series.  Jacob watched Haunted: Latin America, and Promising Young Woman. Chris watched The Mitchells vs. The Machines. Brad watched Nobody and 50 Years of Sunny Days. Hoai-Tran is obsessed with Shadow and Bone, watched Cliff Walkers, Ride or Die, and Pulse. What we’ve been Eating: Brad tried Birthday Cake Pebbles, Skittles Gummies, Twizzlers Mystery Flavor, and Eggo Waffles Cereal   All the other stuff you need to know: Jacob: We Need to Talk About the Worst Part of the New ‘Mortal Kombat’ Movie   You can find more about all the stories we mentioned on today’s show at slashfilm.com, and linked inside the show notes. /Film Daily is published every weekday, bringing you the most exciting news from the world of movies and television as well as deeper dives into the great features from slashfilm.com.  You can subscribe to /Film Daily on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the popular podcast apps (RSS).  Send your feedback, questions, comments and concerns to us at peter@slashfilm.com. Please leave your name and general geographic location in case we mention the e-mail on the air. Please rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts, tell your friends and spread the word!  Thanks to Sam Hume for our logo.

Insider? Outsider? Shakeitallaboutsider? Robert Altman’s career was prolific and paradoxical, but what makes his films so memorable? Perhaps it’s the cat food in The Long Goodbye, or the all-yellow motel in 3 Women, maybe it’s Elliot Gould stuffing his shoes with banknotes at the end of California Split, or the off-kilter interrogation scene in The Player? Joining Owen and Ralph this week is actress Blu Hunt, who shares her own Altman journey and helps us diagnose Hollywood’s Discourse disease.

On this Missoula-centric episode, Mike and Mike are joined by another Mike - programming coordinator for The Roxy Theater (aka the indie theater near Mike Smith's house in Missoula, Montana), Mike Emmons is on the podcast to go in-depth on what it's been like navigating the theater through a pandemic, what the Roxy's been doing in the year it's been closed, what they've got planned for this year, and to talk cool events like Centerfield Cinema, the International Wildlife Film Festival, and more! (He also drops a few cool exclusive tidbits along the way). Then, we get into our normal Discussions segment, which ranges from titles like HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON, GOOD TIME, BAD TRIP, CALIFORNIA SPLIT, MINARI, THE FATHER, and NOBODY! CORRECTION: A couple of changes occurred for The Roxy between the time we recorded this and the time it published - the full Centerfield Cinema lineup has been announced, The Roxy hopes to open BEFORE June 1st, and the Roxy Garden may be used more for live events this summer than for movies. Everything is still tentative, only time will tell what happens.

This week, Paul and Erin review two films about poker players: Robert Altman's 1974 buddy comedy CALIFORNIA SPLIT; and Richard Donner's 1994 romp MAVERICK. Plus: we share our quick takes on THE CRAFT: LEGACY, GODZILLA VS. KONG, COLLECTIVE, and RIFKIN'S FESTIVAL.

We question the tyranny of the dollar in Nomadland and revisit the comedy "classic" Three Fugitives plus we also discuss California Split, The Empty Man, Thunder Force and Run. 0:00 - Intro 9:15 - Review: Nomadland 40:10 - Retro Review: Three Fugitives 1:01:50 - Other Stuff We Watched: California Split, Q: Into the Storm, Thirteen Ghosts (2001), Run, Thunder Force, The Empty Man 1:44:30 - This Week on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD 1:50:08 - Outro

Episode 71 should have a "very nice!" start as we discuss our thoughts on the comedy sequel none of us saw coming. It's BORAT: SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM. The second new release of the week sees writer/director Sofia Coppola reteaming with one of her favorites, Bill Murray. He's paired with Rashida Jones in the father/daughter dramedy, ON THE ROCKS. For this week's THROWBACK CHALLENGE, we dive back into the old format once again and give one another films to see for the first time. Noah tasked Andy with 2017's A24 production, A PRAYER BEFORE DAWN, and Andy tossed Noah another Robert Altman flick to cross off his list: 1974's CALIFORNIA SPLIT. Are y'all staying safe and sane? We hope so. Cheers! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-film-harmonic/support

This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Welcome, one and all, to the latest episode of The Film Stage Show! Today, Brian Roan, Michael Snydel, and Bill Graham are joined by special guest Brian Tallerico to discuss Robert Altman's gambling drama California Split, now available on Amazon Prime. Enter our giveaways, get access to our private Slack channel, and support new episodes by becoming a Patreon contributor. For a limited time, all new Patreon supporters will receive a free Blu-ray/DVD. After becoming a contributor, e-mail podcast@thefilmstage.com for an up-to-date list of available films. The Film Stage Show is supported by MUBI, a curated online cinema streaming a selection of exceptional independent, classic, and award-winning films from around the world. Each day, MUBI hand-picks a new gem and you have one month to watch it. Try it for free at mubi.com/filmstage.

So, here we go, into the wild unknown of Jeff Goldblum's cinematic career. In this episode we rip through his first four on screen appearances: it's the 70s baby! Today we talk through Death Wish, California Split, Nashville and St Ives. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/forever-in-blum/message

罗伯特•奥特曼 Robert Altman待嫁女儿心 That Cold Day in the Park (1969)花村 McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)陆军野战医院 MASH (1970)空中怪客 Brewster McCloud (1970)幻象 Images (1972)漫长的告别 The Long Goodbye (1973)加州分裂 California Split (1974)没有明天的人 Thieves Like Us (1974) 纳什维尔 Nashville (1975) 三女性 3 Women (1977) 婚礼 A Wedding (1978) 天生一对 A Perfect Couple (1979) 大力水手 Popeye (1980) 詹姆斯狄恩并发症 Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean(1982) 爱情傻子 Fool for Love (1985) 大玩家 The Player (1992)银色男女 Short Cuts (1993) 云裳风暴 Prêt-à-Porter (1994)堪萨斯情仇 Kansas City (1996)秘密遗产 Cookie&`&s Fortune (1999)高斯福庄园 Gosford Park (2001)牧场之家好做伴 A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Hr 1: California Court says NO to California splitting into 3 states. AND... Susan Olsen, Legislative Director from Women's Defense League talks about Red Flag Laws calling them disarmament in the guise of public safety. Hr 2: The in's and out's of campaigning and elections. Guest John LaRosa from 4 Tier Strategies says to anyone thinking of running for office, if someone gave you the same elevator speech you're using, would you vote for them? The 10 questions to ask BEFORE running for office. Hr 3: Now NYC has super socialist candidate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks that unemployment is so low because so many people have 2 jobs. That's a head scratcher! AND... Straw Ban seems like a little thing. But they add up! Put your foot down and stop letting them control your life! Have you had your healthy dose of reality lately?  More at the Web Site ... www.TheRealSide.com Wanna Partner / Support the Show? https://www.patreon.com/TheRealSide Tweet me @JoeMessina / @TheRealSide Apple App ...  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/real-side-with-joe-messina/id1242114000?mt=8  Android app ... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=starksocial.therealside  Joe takes the issues… especially the controversial issues (politics, prejudice, religion, illegal immigration)… and brings in people from different sides to share their viewpoint. This is definitely  not a fluff piece. And while no one is attacked, the questions are hard-hitting. But the conversation is always respectful and you're sure to learn something new, even if you  don't agree! It's not the right side, it's not the wrong side, but the REAL side of the issues!

Carol is joined byBloomberg's Bob Ivry and they speak to Brian Rye, Bloomberg IntelligenceSenior Healthcare Policy Analyst, and Susan DeVore, CEO at Premier, on a recap of President Trump's plan to lower drug prices and the impact on drug companies. Polina Noskova, Bloomberg News Reporter, talks about the billionaire venture capitalist who wants to split up California. Julie Verhage, Bloomberg News Fintech Reporter, explains how Robinhood's founders became billionaires. And we Drive to the Close with Ernesto Ramos, Portfolio Manager of BMO Large-Cap Value Fund.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Editor Maysie Hoy takes us through her incredible career which includes an apprenticeship with acclaimed director Robert Altman, acting in McCabe and Mrs. Miller starring Warren Beatty, working on the sets of Nashville, California Split, and 3 Women, and then editing Altman's comeback film The Player starring Tim Robbins. We'll also discuss how she developed her editing career, collaborating with directors, and the process for building and sustaining a career as an editor. Also, how she became director Tyler Perry's editor for over a dozen box office hits. And a conversation on the cult classic Freeway starring Reese Witherspoon and the Oscar nominated The Joy Luck Club. Follow us on Twitter @JogRoad Follow us on Instagram @jogroadproductions Subscribe to Jog Road Productions and Road to Cinema on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/jogroadproductions Like us on Facebook  http://jogroadproductions.com/roadtocinemablog/

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the filmmaking partners responsible for the movies Half Nelson, Sugar, and Mississippi Grind, look back at how they started making movies, talk about their creative partnership, and discuss their frustration with the amount of people who have watched Mississippi Grind. Plus, the two dissect the decisions they've made to keep making independent films and why directing television shows (The Affair, Looking, Billions) can be a scary, vulnerable experience.  Topics mentioned: Mississippi Grind, Half Nelson, Sugar, Billions, Buffalo '66, "How to Annoy a Fan Base in 60 Easy Steps" by Bill Simmons, Do The Right Thing, She's Gotta Have It, Goodfellas, First Blood, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Raising Arizona, Stranger Than Paradise, Slacker, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause" by The Jackson Five, NY 99X Radio Station, Exile in Guyville by Liz Phair, True Lies, Struggle a short film by Ryan Fleck, Creed, Hard Eight, California Split, Gowanus a short film by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, Out of Sight, The Moment with Scott Rosenberg: 12/22/15 People mentioned: Vincent Gallo, Rick Barry, Spike Lee, Leonard Maltin, Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Richard Linklater, Emily Dickinson, James Cameron, Grant Heslov, Ryan Coogler, Ryan Gosling, Ben Mendelsohn, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, James Lipton This episode of The Moment is brought to you by Showtime's new series Billions. Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis star in this bold, original drama as two of New York's most powerful titans locked in an epic battle of egos. And there is no line both men won't cross to win. Billions premieres January 17th at 10pm-only on Showtime. Email: themomentbk@gmail.com, Twitter: @BrianKoppelman, iTunes: itunes.com/themoment To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reviews of The Host, California Split, 2007 preview

Reviews of The Host, California Split, 2007 preview