Canadian actor, director, producer, voice actor
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We get the scoop on what really happens after a colonoscopy, there's a crotch controversy in ski jumping, and a Florida man was killed at work by an industrial bread machine. There's updates on Travis Turner and his school district, Eric Adams new crypto coin may be a scam, and who's killing the Philly tow truck drivers? Timothy Busfield was arrested for allegedly touching children, Keifer Sutherland was arrested for allegedly assaulting an Uber driver, and Scott Adams provided the first points in this year's death pool. There's way too many Trump stories, from his trip to a Ford plant, him groveling for a Nobel Peace Prize, Gaza Board of Peace Seats for sale, a potential executive order for the Army-Navy game, and his continuing fascination with Greenland. We tell you what we're watching, discuss Jake Lang's visit to Minnesota, and talk about the DePaul point shaving scandal.
The Texans are clearly the tougher matchup than the Chargers which would make a loss by the Patriots this Sunday not sting as bad. Then, who will follow Zdeno Chara as the next Boston athlete to have his jersey retired discussed in the Arcand Fire. And, after Keifer Sutherland's arrest gets talked about in clickbait, breaking news comes across that Kyle Tucker has chosen to sign with the Dodgers.
Keifer Sutherland threatened an Uber driver in the Hollywood Minute and Space Mountain opened on this day.
Emmy winner Timothy Busfield remains behind bars w/out bond as accusers pile up. The DA calls him an "ongoing danger" due to grooming, touching and decades of alleged sexual assaults/misconduct. "24"star Keifer Sutherland is busted, arrested in a wild Hollywood ride share brawl...that could send him to the slammer for 3yrs. Plus, a model goes from the catwalk to making a perp walk. Jennifer Gould reports. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Timothy Busfield faces a judge. The “West Wing” star in court charged with child abuse. And, inside his home with wife Melissa Gilbert just raided by police. Then, Keifer Sutherland under arrest. The “24” star accused of assaulting a ride share driver. What the police audio reveals. Plus, Matt Damon on his Ben Affleck bombshell that his wife had a crush on Ben. And, Tom Brady Olympics bound? What he told ET about coming out of retirement and why he cloned his dog. Then, Nikki Glaser unfiltered revealing the jokes that were too spicy for the Golden Globes. Plus, we're with Idris Elba ahead of the season 2 premiere of “Hijack”. He reveals what's next for the series. And, Maury Povich takes us down memory lane in an all new ET Then & Now. His life today and why he says he owes his career to wife Connie Chung. Then, how “9-1-1” is upping the stakes for season 9. Only ET is on set getting in on the cast's TikTok action. 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
Robach and Holmes cover the latest news headlines and entertainment updates and give perspective on current events in their daily “Morning Run.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Robach and Holmes cover the latest news headlines and entertainment updates and give perspective on current events in their daily “Morning Run.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Robach and Holmes cover the latest news headlines and entertainment updates and give perspective on current events in their daily “Morning Run.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rolling solo today and emptying the brain. Today I cover: How to get rich overnight, Counting Crows, slowly becoming a grumpy old man, Lemonheads, why do so many celebs wanna bang the youth, my review of "I Love LA," Keifer Sutherland, what never to say to a human woman, and yes. I had dread locks. Plus rapid fire, a joke or two and a delightful glance into my head today Jan 14, 2026. If you like the show please like and subscribe. Watch us on YT @newbergpod or peep this episode https://youtu.be/G6NI3x8z-vI
Showbiz News: Danial Stern, Barry Manilow, Diddy, Keifer Sutherland, and more by 102.9 The Hog
Robach and Holmes cover the latest news headlines and entertainment updates and give perspective on current events in their daily “Morning Run.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In which Robert & Amy celebrate the season, share our favorites for the holidays, and ask you to share your faves & traditions too! Films, music, fiction, audiobooks, traditions. Also, Basketball, Samuel L. Jackson, and Keifer Sutherland. Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie? (Maybe not, but here's one that is!) And just this once ... DON'T Make Your Bed. Look sharp, friends ... Santa Claus is coming to town!
National short girl appreciation day. Entertainment from 1967. Pan Am flight 103 Lackabie bombing, 1st basketball game played, 1st crossword puzzle printed. Todays birthdays - Phil Donahue, Jane Fonda, Frank Zappa, Samuel L. Jackson, Nick Gilder, Jane Kaczmarek, Lee Roy Parnell, Ray Romano, Keifer Sutherland. George S. Patton died. (2024)Intro - Pour some sugar on me - Def Leppard http://defleppard.com/Short girls - Don ArndtDay dream believer - The MonkeesFor loving you - Bill Anderson Jan HowardBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent http://50cent.com/Don't eat the yellow snow - Frank ZappaSamuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a planeHot child in the city - Nick GilderWhat kind of fool do you think I am - Lee Roy ParnellExit - It's not love - Dokken http://dokken.net/
It's the time of year to settle down and watch some great Christmas movies, and one of the big releases everyone is loving this year is "Tinseltown" starring Keifer Sutherland and Rebel Wilson. Cork's Damien Tracey is Associate Producer of the movie and chatted to Elmarie! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2014's Pompeii is all over the place. Designed to be a Roman apocalypse story with a star making turn by Game of Thrones' Kit Harrington, Pompeii fizzled at the box office. But strangely, it's a phenomenal film to talk about the Roman empire and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Historian and archaeologist Dr. Steven Tuck joins in to talk everything this film gets right and wrong about Roman history. Easily one of our best episodes ever.About our guest:Steven L. Tuck is a professor of classics, who is currently head of classics at Miami University. He teaches many classics courses at Miami University, especially those relating to the arts.He received a Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from University of Michigan in 1997, and he is the author of the textbook A History of Roman Art. In addition to his teaching, he has lectured the general public at Classics at the University of Colorado Boulder, Yale University, the University of Puget Sound, Baylor University and for the Getty Villa. He has also appeared in the media discussing classics, including in a 2019 feature for Atlas Obscura on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. and its impact on refugees and migration in the ancient world. For the Vergilian Society, he managed the Villa Vergiliana in Cumae, and organized educational programs there. He is also the author of the brand new book Escape from Pompeii: The Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius and Its Survivors.
Well, last week in our series “I Vant To Vatch Your Feelm!”, we were knee-deep in the 70's and this week, with “The Lost Boys”, we are hip-deep in the 80's, as well as waist-deep in early appearances by later stars. We've got Keifer Sutherland, way before he got all “24” on us. We've got … Continue reading "Episode 360 – Lost Boys (1987)"
He's the man behind the afternoon voice on Sirius XM's 70's at 7. JAYBEAU JONES' love and appreciation for music goes well beyond being a radio personality. His "Music Drives Us" podcast features some of the greatest voices in music history has featured amazing guests like Mickey Dolenz (of the Monkees), actor Keifer Sutherland, Russell Hitchcock (of Air Supply) and so many others who talk about how music has made their lives what they are today. Jaybeau also has stories from behind the microphone, including radio station promotions gone wrong and the great story of filling in for Rick Dees on the Rick Dees Weekly top 40 (That story is worth the whole show!) If you're a fan of radio personalities or Sirius 70's at 7, this is a must listen! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
He's the man behind the afternoon voice on Sirius XM's 70's at 7. JAYBEAU JONES' love and appreciation for music goes well beyond being a radio personality. His "Music Drives Us" podcast features some of the greatest voices in music history has featured amazing guests like Mickey Dolenz (of the Monkees), actor Keifer Sutherland, Russell Hitchcock (of Air Supply) and so many others who talk about how music has made their lives what they are today. Jaybeau also has stories from behind the microphone, including radio station promotions gone wrong and the great story of filling in for Rick Dees on the Rick Dees Weekly top 40 (That story is worth the whole show!) If you're a fan of radio personalities or Sirius 70's at 7, this is a must listen! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Dan, Manny, & Billy put the 1987 quintessential 80s classic The Lost Boys to the ultimate test—THE NOSTALGIA TEST! “The amount of shoulder pads in this movie could start a football team.” -Manny In our 3rd Spooky Season episode, we are in peak 80s form a horror comedy classic. The boys talk about the extremely 80s cast of Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Jason Patric, Keifer Sutherland, and Jami Gertz. It doesn't get much more 80s than this! Dan lays down one of the most unhinged 80s movies multiverses of all time and proposes that The Lost Boys is really a love story between Keifer Sutherland and Jason Patric's characters. Manny realizes that he has seen this movie and talks about it being a rip-off of an insane mashup of other 80s classics, Billy really wants to hang out with these metalhead vampires in the sunken resort, and can movies with kids on bikes ever be made again? And is that Rory Gilmore's grandfather? Grab your best friends, find an abandoned hotel, uncork some Carlo Rossi, whisper sweet vampiric nothings, and fill the bathtub with holy water and garlic because this one is a wild ride! Email us (thenostalgiatest@gmail.com) your thoughts, opinions, and topics for our next Nostalgia Test! Suggest A Test & Be Our Guest! We're always looking for a fun new topic for The Nostalgia Test. Hit the link above, tell us what you'd like to see tested, and be our guest for that episode! Approximate Rundown 00:00 Introduction to the Nostalgia Test 00:44 Meet the Hosts 01:20 Initial Impressions of The Lost Boys 03:30 Diving into the Plot and Characters 06:50 Iconic 80s Moments and Music 11:35 Vampire Mythology and Movie Analysis 26:06 The Bridge Scene and Special Effects 29:13 Vampire Movie Characters and Actors 31:31 Corey Feldman's Unique Acting Style 32:35 Theories on Corey Feldman's Movie Universe 40:59 80s Nostalgia and Childhood Memories 46:24 Lost Boys: A Deep Dive 54:45 The Gay Vampire Theory 01:00:01 Final Verdict on Lost Boys 01:01:39 Closing Remarks and Upcoming Episodes Book The Nostalgia Test Podcast Bring The Nostalgia Test Podcast's high energy fun and comedy on your podcast, to host your themed parties & special events! The Nostalgia Test Podcast will create an unforgettable Nostalgic experience for any occasion because we are the party! We bring it 100% of the time! Email us at thenostalgiatest@gmail.com or fill out the form at this link. LET'S GET NOSTALGIC! Keep up with all things The Nostalgia Test Podcast on Instagram | Substack | Discord | TikTok | Bluesky | YouTube | Facebook The intro and outro music ('Neon Attack 80s') is by Emanmusic. The Lithology Brewing ad music ("Red, White, Black, & Blue") is by PEG and the Rejected
James & Nick 'trick or trick' in the wrong neighborhood. This one being Santa Carla, the murder capital of the world. But weirdly enough it looks like the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (BOARDWALK!). The JPI boys vamp it up this week jumping off a foggy bridge into a first watch of The Lost Boys.Music by these extremely talented artists:"Spooky Swing (Electro Swing Mix)" - Captain Matt & Electro Swing Thing"Halloween Theme (Electro Swing Mix)" - Betty Booom"Danger" - Odd Chap"Nightmare Cure" - DanyloM & Electro Swing ThingCheck them out at:https://electroswingthing.comhttps://www.youtube.com/@OddChap/featured Thanks for tuning in. For more, follow us on Instagram & YouTube @justplayitpodcast & X (fka Twitter) @justplayitpod
Ser & Eric get into the 1st Kevin Bacon movie of "Season F" and examine the horror healing power of forgiveness. Check out "Flatliners" with us... because we've all got a Billy Mahoney in our pasts.Send us a text
In today's Daily Fix:Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's release date has been leaked, and you can expect to play is starting November 14th. Unless you're hoping to play on Switch 2, in which case you may be waiting a bit longer. Black Ops 7 is expected to hit pretty much every major console—yes, even PS4 and Xbox One—except the Nintendo ones. Microsoft and Nintendo have a legally binding agreement to bring Call of Duty to the Switch platform, so it's likely a case of 'when' and not 'if' when it comes to a Switch 2 port. In other news, screenwriter and Solid Snake voice actor David Hayter has finally played Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. After voicing the character across several games starting with Metal Gear Solid in 1998, Hayter was unceremoniously booted from the role for MGS5 in 2015, only to be replaced by the more mainstream Keifer Sutherland. But Hayter has since gotten over it and played MGS5, which he thinks is 'amazing.' And we'll take a look at how all of Borderlands 4's Vault Hunters can work together to take out a boss.Presented by Borderlands 4.
Our journey into wedding movies continues with Lars von Trier's Melancholia! We discuss the dress, the family dynamics, the allegory and why in the end the only thing that matters is your family. Also: You're kidding me with the bean thing, right? Seth gets depressed, Michelle does her nails and we find a wedding speech to top last week's. Check it out! Ad-free versions of all of our episodes are available on our Patreon When you sign up you also get access to our bonus shows, Discord server, decoder ring, shout out on the show AND you get to vote on monthly episodes and themes. That's a lot for only $5 a month! For more info and to sign up visit us on Patreon You can also give a Movie Friends subscription here: Gift a Movie Friends Subscription! Visit our website Send us an email! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram Fill out our listener survey
A bad version of "In the air tonight" by Keifer Sutherland got us to thinking about a top 3 list of actors who really can sing! Do Cheech & Chong belong on that list??
Welcome back to another edition of the Video Store Podcast. This week, get your BFFs together for a movie marathon focusing on Film Friendships. I've selected four films for the staff picks wall, highlighting my favorite best buds and friendships forged in fire. I also answer the age-old question, “Can men and women really be friends?” Let's dig in. Stand by Me (1986)First up is Rob Reiner's 1986 coming-of-age classic, Stand by Me. Starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, and Keifer Sutherland, Stand by Me is a classic focusing on the friendship between four boys growing up in the summer of 1959. Do you still have friends like you did when you were twelve? I hope so. Gather your besties on the couch for this one. Now and Then (1995)Next is the 1995 film Now and Then. I return to my twelve-year-old self whenever I watch this film, not just because I relate to the young leads of the film, but because of the deep and sincere friendship that is the film's through-line. Starring Christina Ricci, Rosie O'Donnell, Thora Birch, Melanie Griffith, Gaby Hoffman, Demi Moore, Ashleigh Aston Moore, and Rita Wilson, these ladies deliver a powerful dramatic, and comedic performance. Get your best gals together for a great film with a great soundtrack. When Harry Met Sally… (1989)Yes, I know what you're thinking: a rom-com in a movie about friendship? You read that right. When Harry Met Sally… addresses the age-old question, “Can men and women be friends?” Well, I've got thoughts on the matter and you'll have to listen to this week's show to find out why I've selected this one for a podcast on film friendship. Thelma & Louise (1991)Closing out our staff picks wall this week is the 1991 drama/comedy/road movie Thelma & Louise. Starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, this Oscar-winning film about two best friends on the run from the law deals deeply with ideas of freedom, friendship, and letting go of others' expectations. Get your bestie to ride shotgun with you for this one. Buckle up. It's a bumpy ride. Thanks for joining us this week on the Video Store Podcast. We hope you'll bring a friend with you and enjoy these films together. Thanks for reading Video Store Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.videostorepodcast.com
National short girl appreciation day. Entertainment from 1967. Pan Am flight 103 Lackabie bombing, 1st basketball game played, 1st crossword puzzle printed. Todays birthdays - Phil Donahue, Jane Fonda, Frank Zappa, Samuel L. Jackson, Nick Gilder, Jane Kaczmarek, Lee Roy Parnell, Ray Romano, Keifer Sutherland. George S. Patton died.Intro - Pour some sugar on me - Def Leppard http://defleppard.com/Short girls - Don ArndtDay dream believer - The MonkeesFor loving you - Bill Anderson Jan HowardBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent http://50cent.com/Don't eat the yellow snow - Frank ZappaSamuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a planeHot child in the city - Nick GilderWhat kind of fool do you think I am - Lee Roy ParnellExit - It's not love - Dokken http://dokken.net/
Welcome back to The Movie Draft House! It's December 2024 and we're ringing in the new year with a month full of "missing persons" films. We start the month off with a remake with the George Sluizer film "The Vanishing" starring Keifer Sutherland, Jeff Bridges, Nancy Travis, and Sandra Bullock! Tune in to find out why Jeff loved this film, why Mark hates Keifer Sutherland, and why remakes are generally a bad idea! IMDB synopsis "The boyfriend of an abducted woman never gives up the search as the abductor looks on." Follow the podcast across all social media! Twitter Instagram TikTok YouTube
We can deep in the reads on Kenny Rogers Face, Keifer Sutherland, The Karate Kid and so much more on this Thanksgiving edition of Lights Out!
Tate is out, Sage is in, and he makes his first pick for our game of Connections, picking Forsaken from 2015, starring Keifer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, Brian Cox, and Demi Moore. This movie was directed by Jon Cassar. GD4AM: 54/100 IMDb: 6.4/10 Metacritic: 55/100 Letterboxd: 3.0/5 RT: 40% In 1872, an embittered gunslinger named John Henry Clayton attempts to make amends with his estranged father Reverend Samuel Clayton while their community is besieged by ruthless land-grabbers. This movie is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. NEXT MOVIE REVIEW: St. Elmo's Fire (1985), which is currently available for rent on most VOD platforms.
In this episode of JacquesTalk we discuss the addition of Dalvin Cook and Dak's future now that CeeDee Lamb has been signed with Clarence E. Hill. We also discussed the Steve McNair documentary and the classic show 24 with Keifer Sutherland.
Today on Sense of Soul we have Twin flames Iseluleko aka Íse and Isis Ma'at El 0. Together they created The Divine Man Channeling Experience, The Hopi Brothers, a benevolent collective of Native American men, speak through pure channel Isis, and support modern men in remembering and reclaiming their original and honorable masculinity. As the husband and partner to Isis, Íse guides this one-of-a-kind interactive experience through storytelling, modeling, and instrumental instruction, wherein men are able to create who they'd like to be in our world as noble men, husbands, fathers, and leaders. You may remember Íse on Sense of Soul in prior also known as Kiko Ellsworth, he is the founder of The Divine Man: Men's Self-Mastery Program. He's an Emmy Award-winner and inspirational speaker who has appeared in hundreds of TV shows, commercials, voice overs, and films- opposite other major stars such as Will Smith, Keifer Sutherland, Martin Lawrence, Eric Roberts, Danny Trejo, and others- spanning his 20+ year entertainment career. His beautiful Twin Flame Isis channels a collective of Earth Spirits. She receives information from collectives of energy, such as Ascended Masters, Earth Spirits, Elementals, ETs, and Angels. Every message that comes forth is a message from higher frequencies, every word pours forth as heavenly truth, and she is a humble medium through which these messages can alter and uplift a person's human experience for the rest of their life. Through consistent spiritual practice, constant mental discipline, and collaboration with Divine Plant Medicine Teachers and her Divine Masculine counterpart, her services continue to grow exponentially, deeply aligned in the energies of love, compassion, inner-standing, and higher consciousness. To honor and support you and your journey. https://www.isisinspires.com https://www.iseluleko.com www.senseofsoulpodcast.com
Kiefer Sutherland's talents go far beyond acting and he's got a new album to prove it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I hid Radio personality Ellen K in my Walk in Closet! AND I played in Lou diamond Phillips Poker game in the hollywood Hills every Week for years! Keifer Sutherland was at the table while Melissa Ethridge played guitar in the corner.
Jake & Ben Full Show from June 26, 2024 Hour 1 The New York Nets sent a haul to Brooklyn for Mikal Bridges. This is the type of Big Game that the Jazz should be on the lookout for! Top 3 Stories of the Day: NBA Draft is tonight! Also, Spicy Tuna is back and Dennis Lindsey has a new gig. Texas A&M Baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle lit up a reporter for asking a valid question. Hour 2 Do NBA prospects with parents that played have a higher chance of sucess as a pro? What You Got Wednesday: Worst Jazz draft picks of all time, Best Donald and Keifer Sutherland movies. Tune in to our draft coverage tonight.
Hour 2 of Jake & Ben on June 26, 2024 Do NBA prospects with parents that played have a higher chance of sucess as a pro? What You Got Wednesday: Worst Jazz draft picks of all time, Best Donald and Keifer Sutherland movies. Tune in to our draft coverage tonight.
What You Got Wednesday: Worst Jazz draft picks of all time, Best Donald and Keifer Sutherland movies.
Would you spend £200 on a sachet of mayo? I'm more of a ketchup person myself…Happy Fri-yay! We've reached the end of the week and it's time for the next instalment of The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X Podcast - the 445th episode, to be exact. On the show this week, Chris and team were joined by three incredible guests. Firstly, chef and restaurateur, Jamie Oliver, has swapped the kitchen utensils for the dictaphone as he releases his second childrens' book, ‘Billy and the Epic Escape'. However, Jamie's not the only one who has been busy writing, as Dragons' Den's Deborah Meaden shares handy finance tips. Finally, the ‘24' actor, musician and all-round legend, Keifer Sutherland, graced the studio to tell us all about his new venture into the whisky business. As well as all that, The Boffin Booth returned as Pippa gets tested on ‘Teletubbies', and the prize-winning game, The Wall, saw some lucky callers get some epic prizes from the Radio X cupboard. Sounds good, right? Well. As Deborah Meaden would say, ‘I'm in'! Hit play and get stuck in to…Dom's Euros sweepstake mistakeJames' posh breakfastChris' new trademark noiseEnjoy! The Chris Moyles Show on Radio XWeekdays 6:30am-10am
In the latest Round Table some maybe discouraging news on Flanagan, Edgar Wright has his Running Man, a fire at The Overlook, and Keifer Sutherland talks bullying on Stand By Me. Then Tadd and Peter have a fun Palaver topic, build your own Ka-Tet from the entire King Universe for your own journey to The Dark Tower. Engage with the show by Email or Social Media! Check the website at DarkTowerPalaver.com or Patreon at patreon.com/darktowerpalaver
Keifer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, and The Baconator. This movie has it all! This is the last movie review of Season XV. Check it out and then join us next week for our final ranking of the movies we watched in the 90's. Like what you're hearing? Follow us out on Spotify! Have movie recommendations? Hit us up at
Who is Ethan Carter and where the heck has he gone? Adam and Kiaran are on the case to solve the mystery of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Tune in to find out if we found him, and whether the mystery is worth solving.
This season's SORKINING is a great one. The fellas dive into Sorkin's film debut 'A Few Good Men'(1992). Starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Keifer Sutherland, Kevin Pollack, Josh Malina, Cuba Gooding Jr, and...Noah Wyle...oh and JT Walsh. Come for the conversation on the whiskey and movie...stay for the discussion on what we think Aaron Sorkin is trying to say about the US Military. Finally...just how the hell many movies has Kevin Bacon been in? Thanks to our Whiskies: Jeremy-Elijah Craig Brandon- Penelope
Description Returning guest Ryan Haupt joins Joe and Producer Andrew to discuss the 1993 Disney adaptation of The Three Musketeers. Starring Chris O’Donnell, Charlie Sheen, Keifer Sutherland, and Oliver Platt, this film is a fun—if loose—adaptation of the 1884 Alexandre … Continue reading →
Billy The Kid leads his group of Regulators to get revenge on the death of their mentor. As his legend grows, the Regulators find them selves in a fight for their lives on the way to becoming legendary outlaws of the Old West. Emllio Estevez, Keifer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, and Lou Diamond Phillips star in the 1988 film, Young Guns! We also discuss Ahsoka episode 3 this week, talk Jennifer Lawrence's latest rom-com (psst she gets naked!) talk about the passing the voice of Harley Quinn, and discuss next week's film for Matt's birthday, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. Visit us for all episodes & more at the www.therebelradiopodcast.com Please leave us a 5-Star review on iTunes! You can also find us on Spotify iHeartRadio Follow us on Facebook
Today, your trusted team of Dad cinephiles is standing at attention to revisit a classic courtroom drama that remains as sharp and relevant as ever – A FEW GOOD MEN.Directed by Rob Reiner and written by the renowned Aaron Sorkin, "A Few Good Men" invites us into a military courtroom where young Navy lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise, is tasked with defending two Marines accused of murder. Kaffee faces off against the intimidating Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, played by the legendary Jack Nicholson in one of his most memorable roles.We'll discuss the tight, crackling dialogue that Sorkin is known for and how it elevates the courtroom scenes into riveting exchanges. We'll also delve into the powerful performances, not only from Cruise and Nicholson but also from a stellar supporting cast including Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, and Kiefer Sutherland.We'll explore the ethical dilemmas at the heart of the story: the tension between duty and morality, the consequences of blind obedience, and the courage it takes to stand up for the truth. As Dads, we'll talk about the lessons we hope to teach our kids about integrity and standing up for what is right, even when it's not easy.Plus, we can't resist breaking down that iconic showdown in the courtroom — "You can't handle the truth!" — and discussing how this line has become ingrained in pop culture.So, suit up and join us as we march into the compelling and morally complex world of "A Few Good Men". You're tuned into Bad Dads Film Review, where we navigate the highs and lows of cinema, one dad joke at a time. Order in the court!We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads
On this week's episode, we remember William Friedkin, who passed away this past Tuesday, looking back at one of his lesser known directing efforts, Rampage. ----more---- 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. Originally, this week was supposed to be the fourth episode of our continuing miniseries on the 1980s movies released by Miramax Films. I was fully committed to making it so, but then the world learned that Academy Award-winning filmmaker William Friedkin passed away on Tuesday. I had already done an episode on his best movie from the decade, 1985’s To Live and Die in L.A., so I decided I would cover another film Friedkin made in the 80s that isn’t as talked about or as well known as The French Connection or The Exorcist or To Live and Die in L.A. Rampage. Now, some of you who do know the film might try and point that the film was released in 1992, by Miramax Films of all companies, and you’d be correct. However, I did say I was going to cover another film of his MADE in the 80s, which is also true when it comes to Rampage. So let’s get to the story, shall we? Born in Chicago in 1935, William Friedkin was inspired to become a filmmaker after seeing Citizen Kane as a young man, and by 1962, he was already directing television movies. He’d make his feature directing debut with Good Times in 1967, a fluffy Sonny and Cher comedy which finds Sonny Bono having only ten days to rewrite the screenplay for their first movie, because the script to the movie they agreed to was an absolute stinker. Which, ironically, is a fairly good assessment of the final film. The film, which was essentially a bigger budget version of their weekly variety television series shot mostly on location at an African-themed amusement park in Northern California and the couple’s home in Encino, was not well received by either critics or audiences. But by the time Good Times came out, Friedkin was already working on his next movie, The Night They Raided Minsky’s. A comedy co-written by future television legend Norman Lear, Minsky’s featured Swedish actress Britt Ekland, better known at the time as the wife of Peter Sellers, as a naive young Amish woman who leaves the farm in Pennsylvania looking to become an actress in religious stage plays in New York City. Instead, she becomes a dancer in a burlesque show and essentially ends up inventing the strip tease. The all-star cast included Dr. No himself, Joseph Wiseman, Elliott Gould, Jack Burns, Bert Lahr, and Jason Robards, Jr., who was a late replacement for Alan Alda, who himself was a replacement for Tony Curtis. Friedkin was dreaming big for this movie, and was able to convince New York City mayor John V. Lindsay to delay the demolition of an entire period authentic block of 26th Street between First and Second Avenue for two months for the production to use as a major shooting location. There would be one non-production related tragedy during the filming of the movie. The seventy-two year old Lahr, best known as The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, would pass away in early December 1967, two weeks before production was completed, and with several scenes still left to shoot with him. Lear, who was also a producer on the film, would tell a reporter for the New York Times that they would still be able to shoot the rest of the film so that performance would remain virtually intact, and with the help of some pre-production test footage and a body double, along with a sound-alike to dub the lines they couldn’t get on set, Lahr’s performance would be one of the highlights of the final film. Friedkin and editor Ralph Rosenblum would spend three months working on their first cut, as Friedkin was due to England in late March to begin production on his next film, The Birthday Party. Shortly after Friedkin was on the plane to fly overseas, Rosenblum would represent the film for a screening with the executives at United Artists, who would be distributing the film. The screening was a disaster, and Rosenblum would be given carte blanche by the studio heads to save the film by any means necessary, since Friedkin was not available to supervise. Rosenblum would completely restructure the film, including creating a prologue for the story that would be retimed and printed on black and white film stock. The next screening would go over much better with the suits, and a mid-December 1968 release date was set up. The Birthday Party was an adaptation of a Harold Pinter play, and featured Robert Shaw and Patrick Magee. Friedkin had seen the play in San Francisco in 1962, and was able to get the film produced in part because he would only need six actors and a handful of locations to shoot, keeping the budget low. Although the mystery/thriller was a uniquely British story, Harold Pinter liked how Friedkin wanted to tell the story, and although Pinter had written a number of plays that had been adapted into movies and had adapted a number of books into screenplay, this would be the first time Pinter would adapt one of his own stories to the silver screen. To keep the budget lower still, Friedkin, Pinter and lead actor Robert Shaw agreed to take the minimum possible payments for their positions in exchange for part ownership in the film. The release of Minsky’s was so delayed because of the prolonged editing process that The Birthday Party would actually in theatres nine days before Minsky’s, which would put Friedkin in the rare position of having two movies released in such a short time frame. And while Minsky’s performed better at the box office than Birthday Party, the latter film would set the director up financially with enough in the bank where he could concentrate working on projects he felt passionate about. That first film after The Birthday Party would make William Friedkin a name director. His second one would make him an Oscar winner. The third, a legend. And the fourth would break him. The first film, The Boys in the Band, was an adaptation of a controversial off-Broadway play about a straight man who accidentally shows up to a party for gay men. Matt Crowley, the author of the play, would adapt it to the screen, produce the film himself with author Dominick Dunne, and select Friedkin, who Crowley felt best understood the material, to direct. Crowley would only make one demand on his director, that all of the actors from the original off-Broadway production be cast in the movie in the same roles. Friedkin had no problem with that. When the film was released in March 1970, Friedkin would get almost universally excellent notices from film critics, except for Pauline Kael in the New York Times, who had already built up a dislike of the director after just three films. But March 1970 was a different time, and a film not only about gay men but a relatively positive movie about gay men who had the same confusions and conflicts as straight men, was probably never going to be well-received by a nation that still couldn’t talk openly about non-hetero relationships. But the film would still do about $7m worth of ticket sales, not enough to become profitable for its distributor, but enough for the director to be in the conversation for bigger movies. His next film was an adaptation of a 1969 book about two narcotics detectives in the New York City Police Department who went after a wealthy French businessman who was helping bring heroin into the States. William Friedkin and his cinematographer Owen Roizman would shoot The French Connection as if it were a documentary, giving the film a gritty realism rarely seen in movies even in the New Hollywood era. The film would be named the Best Picture of 1971 by the Academy, and Friedkin and lead actor Gene Hackman would also win Oscars in their respective categories. And the impact of The French Connection on cinema as a whole can never be understated. Akira Kurosawa would cite the film as one of his favorites, as would David Fincher and Brad Pitt, who bonded over the making of Seven because of Fincher’s conscious choice to use the film as a template for the making of his own film. Steven Spielberg said during the promotion of his 2005 film Munich that he studied The French Connection to prepare for his film. And, of course, after The French Connection came The Exorcist, which would, at the time of its release in December 1973, become Warner Brothers’ highest grossing film ever, legitimize the horror genre to audiences worldwide, and score Friedkin his second straight Oscar nomination for Best Director, although this time he and the film would lose to George Roy Hill and The Sting. In 1977, Sorcerer, Friedkin’s American remake of the 1953 French movie The Wages of Fear, was expected to be the big hit film of the summer. The film originally started as a little $2.5m budgeted film Friedkin would make while waiting for script revisions on his next major movie, called The Devil’s Triangle, were being completed. By the time he finished filming Sorcerer, which reteamed Friedkin with his French Connection star Roy Scheider, now hot thanks to his starring role in Jaws, this little film became one of the most expensive movies of the decade, with a final budget over $22m. And it would have the unfortunate timing of being released one week after a movie released by Twentieth Century-Fox, Star Wars, sucked all the air out of the theatrical exhibition season. It would take decades for audiences to discover Sorcerer, and for Friedkin, who had gone some kind of mad during the making of the film, to accept it to be the taut and exciting thriller it was. William Friedkin was a broken man, and his next film, The Brinks Job, showed it. A comedy about the infamous 1950 Brinks heist in Boston, the film was originally supposed to be directed by John Frankenheimer, with Friedkin coming in to replace the iconic filmmaker only a few months before production was set to begin. Despite a cast that included Peter Boyle, Peter Falk, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands and Paul Sorvino, the film just didn’t work as well as it should have. Friedkin’s first movie of the 1980s, Cruising, might have been better received in a later era, but an Al Pacino cop drama about his trying to find a killer of homosexual men in the New York City gay fetish underground dance club scene was, like The Boys in the Band a decade earlier, too early to cinemas. Like Sorcerer, audiences would finally find Cruising in a more forgiving era. In 1983, Friedkin made what is easily his worst movie, Deal of the Century, an alleged comedy featuring Chevy Chase, Gregory Hines and Sigourney Weaver that attempted to satirize the military industrial complex in the age of Ronald Reagan, but somehow completely missed its very large and hard to miss target. 1985 would see a comeback for William Friedkin, with the release of To Live and Die in LA, in which two Secret Service agents played by William L. Petersen and John Pankow try to uncover a counterfeit money operation led by Willem Dafoe. Friedkin was drawn to the source material, a book by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, because the agency was almost never portrayed on film, and even less as the good guys. Friedkin would adapt the book into a screenplay with Petievich, who would also serve as a technical consultant to ensure authenticity in how Petersen and Pankow acted. It would be only the second time Friedkin was credited as a screenwriter, but it would be a nine-minute chase sequence through the aqueducts of Los Angeles and a little used freeway in Wilmington that would be the most exciting chase sequence committed to film since the original Gone in 60 Seconds, The French Connection, or the San Francisco chase sequence in the 1967 Steve McQueen movie Bullitt. The sequence is impressive on Blu-ray, but on a big screen in a movie theatre in 1985, it was absolutely thrilling. Which, at long last, brings us to Rampage. Less than two months after To Live and Die in LA opened to critical raves and moderate box office in November 1985, Friedkin made a deal with Italian mega-producer Dino DeLaurentiis to direct Rampage, a crime drama based on a novel by William P. Wood. DeLaurentiis had hired Friedkin for The Brinks Job several years earlier, and the two liked working for each other. DeLaurentiis had just started his own distribution company, the DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group, which we’ll shorten to DEG for the remainder of this episode, and needed some big movies to fill his pipeline. We did an episode on DEG back in 2020, and if you haven’t listened to it yet, you should after you finish this episode. At this time, DEG was still months away from releasing its first group of films, which would include Maximum Overdrive, the first film directed by horror author Stephen King, and Blue Velvet, the latest from David Lynch, both of which would shoot at the same time at DEG’s newly built studio facilities in Wilmington, North Carolina. But Friedkin was writing the screenplay adaptation himself, and would need several months to get the script into production shape, so the film would not be able to begin production until late 1986. The novel Rampage was based on the real life story of serial killer Richard Chase, dubbed The Vampire Killer by the press when he went on a four day killing spree in January 1978. Chase murdered six people, including a pregnant woman and a 22 month old child, and drank their blood as part of some kind of ritual. Wood would change some aspects of Chase’s story for his book, naming his killer Charles Reece, changing some of the ages and sexes of the murder victims, and how the murderer died. But most of the book was about Reece’s trial, with a specific focus on Reece’s prosecutor, Anthony Fraser, who had once been against capital punishment, but would be seeking the death penalty in this case after meeting one of the victims’ grieving family members. William L. Petersen, Friedkin’s lead star in To Live and Die in LA, was initially announced to star as Fraser, but as the production got closer to its start date, Petersen had to drop out of the project, due to a conflict with another project that would be shooting at the same time. Michael Biehn, the star of James Cameron’s The Terminator and the then recently released Aliens, would sign on as the prosecutor. Alex McArthur, best known at the time as Madonna’s baby daddy in her Papa Don’t Preach music video, would score his first major starring role as the serial killer Reece. The cast would also include a number of recognizable character actors, recognizable if not by name but by face once they appeared on screen, including Nicholas Campbell, Deborah Van Valkenberg, Art LaFleur, Billy Greenbush and Grace Zabriskie. Friedkin would shoot the $7.5m completely on location in Stockton, CA from late October 1986 to just before Christmas, and Friedkin would begin post-production on the film after the first of the new year. In early May 1987, DEG announced a number of upcoming releases for their films, including a September 11th release for Rampage. But by August 1987, many of their first fifteen releases over their first twelve months being outright bombs, quietly pulled Rampage off their release calendar. When asked by one press reporter about the delay, a representative from DEG would claim the film would need to be delayed because Italian composer Ennio Morricone had not delivered his score yet, which infuriated Friedkin, as he had turned in his final cut of the film, complete with Morricone’s score, more than a month earlier. The DEG rep was forced to issue a mea culpa, acknowledging the previous answer had been quote unquote incorrect, and stated they were looking at release dates between November 1987 and February 1988. The first public screening of Rampage outside of an unofficial premiere in Stockton in August 1987 happened on September 11th, 1987, at the Boston Film Festival, but just a couple days after that screening, DEG would be forced into bankruptcy by one of his creditors in, of all places, Boston, and the film would be stuck in limbo for several years. During DEG’s bankruptcy, some European companies would be allowed to buy individual country rights for the film, to help pay back some of the creditors, but the American rights to the film would not be sold until Miramax Films purchased the film, and the 300 already created 35mm prints of the film in March 1992, with a planned national release of the film the following month. But that release had to be scrapped, along with the original 300 prints of the film, when Friedkin, who kept revising the film over the ensuing five years, turned in to the Weinsteins a new edit of the film, ten minutes shorter than the version shown in Stockton and Boston in 1987. He had completely eliminated a subplot involving the failing marriage of the prosecutor, since it had nothing to do with the core idea of the story, and reversed the ending, which originally had Reece committing suicide in his cell not unlike Richard Chase. Now, the ending had Reece, several years into the future, alive and about to be considered for parole. Rampage would finally be released into 172 theatres on October 30th, 1992, including 57 theatres in Los Angeles, and four in New York City. Most reviews for the film were mixed, finding the film unnecessarily gruesome at times, but also praising how Friedkin took the time for audiences to learn more about the victims from the friends and family left behind. But the lack of pre-release advertising on television or through trailers in theatres would cause the film to perform quite poorly in its opening weekend, grossing just $322,500 in its first three days. After a second and third weekend where both the grosses and the number of theatres playing the film would fall more than 50%, Miramax would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just less than $800k. Between the release of his thriller The Guardian in 1990 and the release of Rampage in 1992, William Friedkin would marry fellow Chicago native Sherry Lansing, who at the time had been a successful producer at Paramount Pictures, having made such films as The Accused, which won Jodie Foster her first Academy Award, and Fatal Attraction. Shortly after they married, Lansing would be named the Chairman of Paramount Pictures, where she would green light such films as Forrest Gump, Braveheart and Titanic. She would also hire her husband to make four films for the studio between 1994 and 2003, including the basketball drama Blue Chips and the thriller Jade. Friedkin’s directing career would slow down after 2003’s The Hunted, making only two films over the next two decades. 2006’s Bug was a psychological thriller with Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd, and 2012’s Killer Joe, a mixture of black comedy and psychological thriller featuring Matthew McConaughey and Emile Hirsch, was one of few movies to be theatrically released with an NC-17 rating. Neither were financially successful, but were highly regarded by critics. But there was still one more movie in him. In January 2023, Friedkin would direct his own adaptation of the Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial for the Paramount+ streaming service. Updating the setting from the book’s World War II timeline to the more modern Persian Gulf conflict, this new film starred Keifer Sutherland as Lieutenant Commander Queeg, alongside Jason Clark, Jake Lacy, Jay Duplass, Dale Dye, and in his final role before his death in March, Lance Reddick. That film will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in Italy next month, although Paramount+ has not announced a premiere date on their service. William Friedkin had been married four times in his life, including a two year marriage to legendary French actress Jean Moreau in the late 70s and a two year marriage to British actress Lesley-Anne Downe in the early 80s. But Friedkin and Lansing would remain married for thirty-two years until his death from heart failure and pneumonia this past Tuesday. I remember when Rampage was supposed to come out in 1987. My theatre in Santa Cruz was sent a poster for it about a month before it was supposed to be released. A pixelated image of Reece ran down one side of the poster, while the movie’s tagline and credits down the other. I thought the poster looked amazing, and after the release was cancelled, I took the poster home and hung it on one of the walls in my place at the time. The 1992 poster from Miramax was far blander, basically either a entirely white or an entirely red background, with a teared center revealing the eyes of Reece, which really doesn’t tell you anything about the movie. Like with many of his box office failures, Friedkin would initially be flippant about the film, although in the years preceding his death, he would acknowledge the film was decent enough despite all of its post-production problems. I’d love to be able to suggest to you to watch Rampage as soon as you can, but as of August 2023, one can only rent or buy the film from Amazon, $5.89 for a two day rental or $14.99 to purchase. It is not available on any other streaming service as of the writing and recording of this episode. Thank you for joining us. We’ll talk again soon, when I expect to release the fourth part of the Miramax miniseries, unless something unexpected happens in the near future. Remember to visit this episode’s page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Rampage and the career of William Friedkin. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.
This week, we continue out look back at the films released by Miramax in the 1980s, focusing on 1987. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California. The Entertainment Capital of the World. It's the 80s Movie Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. On this episode, we are continuing our miniseries on the movies released by Miramax Films in the 1980s, concentrating on their releases from 1987, the year Miramax would begin its climb towards the top of the independent distribution mountain. The first film Miramax would release in 1987 was Lizzie Borden's Working Girls. And yes, Lizzie Borden is her birth name. Sort of. Her name was originally Linda Elizabeth Borden, and at the age of eleven, when she learned about the infamous accused double murderer, she told her parents she wanted to only be addressed as Lizzie. At the age of 18, after graduating high school and heading off to the private women's liberal arts college Wellesley, she would legally change her name to Lizzie Borden. After graduating with a fine arts degree, Borden would move to New York City, where she held a variety of jobs, including being both a painter and an art critic for the influential Artforum magazine, until she attended a retrospective of Jean-Luc Godard movies, when she was inspired to become a filmmaker herself. Her first film, shot in 1974, was a documentary, Regrouping, about four female artists who were part of a collective that incorporated avant-garde techniques borrowed from performance art, as the collective slowly breaks apart. One of the four artists was a twenty-three year old painter who would later make film history herself as the first female director to win the Academy Award for Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow. But Regrouping didn't get much attention when it was released in 1976, and it would take Borden five years to make her first dramatic narrative, Born in Flames, another movie which would also feature Ms. Bigelow in a supporting role. Borden would not only write, produce and direct this film about two different groups of feminists who operate pirate radio stations in New York City which ends with the bombing of the broadcast antenna atop the World Trade Center, she would also edit the film and act as one of the cinematographers. The film would become one of the first instances of Afrofuturism in film, and would become a cultural touchstone in 2016 when a restored print of the film screened around the world to great critical acclaim, and would tie for 243rd place in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll of The Greatest Films Ever Made. Other films that tied with include Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, Woody Allen's Annie Hall, David Cronenberg's Videodrome, and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. A Yes, it's that good, and it would cost only $30k to produce. But while Born in Flames wasn't recognized as revolutionary in 1983, it would help her raise $300k for her next movie, about the lives of sex workers in New York City. The idea would come to her while working on Born in Flames, as she became intrigued about prostitution after meeting some well-educated women on the film who worked a few shifts a week at a brothel to earn extra money or to pay for their education. Like many, her perception of prostitution were women who worked the streets, when in truth streetwalkers only accounted for about 15% of the business. During the writing of the script, she began visiting brothels in New York City and learned about the rituals involved in the business of selling sex, especially intrigued how many of the sex workers looked out for each other mentally, physically and hygienically. Along with Sandra Kay, who would play one of the ladies of the night in the film, Borden worked up a script that didn't glamorize or grossly exaggerate the sex industry, avoiding such storytelling tropes as the hooker with a heart of gold or girls forced into prostitution due to extraordinary circumstances. Most of the ladies playing prostitutes were played by unknown actresses working off-Broadway, while the johns were non-actors recruited through word of mouth between Borden's friends and the occasional ad in one of the city's sex magazines. Production on Working Girls would begin in March 1985, with many of the sets being built in Borden's loft in Manhattan, with moveable walls to accommodate whatever needed to be shot on any given day. While $300k would be ten times what she had on Born in Flames, Borden would stretch her budget to the max by still shooting in 16mm, in the hopes that the footage would look good enough should the finished film be purchased by a distributor and blown up to 35mm for theatrical exhibition. After a month of shooting, which involved copious amounts of both male and female nudity, Borden would spend six months editing her film. By early 1986, she had a 91 minute cut ready to go, and she and her producer would submit the film to play at that year's Cannes Film Festival. While the film would not be selected to compete for the coveted Palme D'Or, it would be selected for the Directors' Fortnight, a parallel program that would also include Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It, Alex Cox's Sid and Nancy, Denys Arcand's The Decline of the American Empire, and Chantel Akerman's Golden Eighties. The film would get into some trouble when it was invited to screen at the Toronto Film Festival a few months later. The movie would have to be approved by the Ontario Film and Video Review Board before being allowed to show at the festival. However, the board would not approve the film without two cuts, including one scene which depicted the quote unquote graphic manipulation of a man's genitalia by a woman. The festival, which had a long standing policy of not showing any movie that had been cut for censorship, would appeal the decision on behalf of the filmmakers. The Review Board denied the appeal, and the festival left the decision of whether to cut the two offending scenes to Borden. Of all the things I've researched about the film, one of the few things I could not find was whether or not Borden made the trims, but the film would play at the festival as scheduled. After Toronto, Borden would field some offers from some of the smaller art house distributors, but none of the bigger independents or studio-affiliated “classics” divisions. For many, it was too sexual to be a straight art house film, while it wasn't graphic enough to be porn. The one person who did seem to best understand what Borden was going for was, no surprise in hindsight, Harvey Weinstein. Miramax would pick the film up for distribution in late 1986, and planned a February 1987 release. What might be surprising to most who know about Harvey Weinstein, who would pick up the derisive nickname Harvey Scissorhands in a few years for his constant meddling in already completed films, actually suggested Borden add back in a few minutes of footage to balance out the sex with some lighter non-sex scenes. She would, along with making some last minute dialogue changes, before the film opened on February 5th, not in New York City or Los Angeles, the traditional launching pads for art house films, but at the Opera Plaza Cinema in San Francisco, where the film would do a decent $8k in its first three days. Three weeks after opening at the Opera Plaza, Miramax would open the film at the 57th Street Playhouse in midtown Manhattan. Buoyed by some amazing reviews from the likes of Siskel and Ebert, Vincent Canby of the New York Times, and J. Hoberman of The Village Voice, Working Girls would gross an astounding $42k during its opening weekend. Two weeks later, it would open at the Samuel Goldwyn Westside Pavilion Cinemas, where it would bring in $17k its first weekend. It would continue to perform well in its major market exclusive runs. An ad in the April 8th, 1987 issue of Variety shows a new house record of $13,492 in its first week at the Ellis Cinema in Atlanta. $140k after five weeks in New York. $40k after three weeks at the Nickelodeon in Boston. $30k after three weeks at the Fine Arts in Chicago. $10k in its first week at the Guild in San Diego. $11k in just three days at the TLA in Philly. Now, there's different numbers floating around about how much Working Girls made during its total theatrical run. Box Office Mojo says $1.77m, which is really good for a low budget independent film with no stars and featuring a subject still taboo to many in American today, let alone 37 years ago, but a late June 1987 issue of Billboard Magazine about some of the early film successes of the year, puts the gross for Working Girls at $3m. If you want to check out Working Girls, the Criterion Collection put out an exceptional DVD and Blu-ray release in 2021, which includes a brand new 4K transfer of the film, and a commentary track featuring Borden, cinematographer Judy Irola, and actress Amanda Goodwin, amongst many bonus features. Highly recommended. I've already spoken some about their next film, Ghost Fever, on our episode last year about the fake movie director Alan Smithee and all of his bad movies. For those who haven't listened to that episode yet and are unaware of who Alan Smithee wasn't, Alan Smithee was a pseudonym created by the Directors Guild in the late 1960s who could be assigned the directing credit of a movie whose real director felt the final cut of the film did not represent his or her vision. By the time Ghost Fever came around in 1987, it would be the 12th movie to be credited to Alan Smithee. If you have listened to the Alan Smithee episode, you can go ahead and skip forward a couple minutes, but be forewarned, I am going to be offering up a different elaboration on the film than I did on that episode. And away we go… Those of us born in the 1960s and before remember a show called All in the Family, and we remember Archie Bunker's neighbors, George and Louise Jefferson, who were eventually spun off onto their own hit show, The Jeffersons. Sherman Hemsley played George Jefferson on All in the Family and The Jeffersons for 12 years, but despite the show being a hit for a number of years, placing as high as #3 during the 1981-1982 television season, roles for Hemsley and his co-star Isabel Sanford outside the show were few and far between. During the eleven seasons The Jeffersons ran on television, from 1975 to 1985, Sherman Hemsley would only make one movie, 1979's Love at First Bite, where he played a small role as a reverend. He appeared on the poster, but his name was not listed amongst the other actors on the poster. So when the producers of the then-titled Benny and Beaufor approached Hemsley in the spring of 1984 to play one of the title roles, he was more than happy to accept. The Jeffersons was about to start its summer hiatus, and here was the chance to not only make a movie but to be the number one listed actor on the call sheet. He might not ever get that chance again. The film, by now titled Benny and Buford Meet the Bigoted Ghost, would shoot in Mexico City at Estudios America in the summer of 1984, before Hemsley was due back in Los Angeles to shoot the eleventh and what would be the final season of his show. But it would not be a normal shoot. In fact, there would be two different versions of the movie shot back to back. One, in English, would be directed by Lee Madden, which would hinge its comedy on the bumbling antics of its Black police officer, Buford, and his Hispanic partner, Benny. The other version would be shot in Spanish by Mexican director Miguel Rico, where the comedy would satirize class and social differences rather than racial differences. Hemsley would speak his lines in English, and would be dubbed by a Spanish-speaking actor in post production. Luis Ávalos, best known as Doctor Doolots on the PBS children's show The Electric Company, would play Benny. The only other name in the cast was boxing legend Smokin' Joe Frazier, who was making his proper acting debut on the film as, not too surprisingly, a boxer. The film would have a four week shooting schedule, and Hemsley was back to work on The Jeffersons on time. Madden would get the film edited together rather quick, and the producers would have a screening for potential distributors in early October. The screening did not go well. Madden would be fired from the production, the script rewritten, and a new director named Herbert Strock would be hired to shoot more footage once Hemsley was done with his commitments to The Jeffersons in the spring of 1985. This is when Madden contacted the Directors Guild to request the Smithee pseudonym. But since the film was still in production, the DGA could not issue a judgment until the producers provided the Guild with a completed copy of the film. That would happen in the late fall of 1985, and Madden was able to successfully show that he had directly a majority of the completed film but it did not represent his vision. The film was not good, but Miramax still needed product to fill their distribution pipeline. They announced in mid-March of 1987 that they had acquired the film for distribution, and that the film would be opening in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Nashville, St. Louis, and Tampa-St. Petersburg FL the following week. Miramax did not release how many theatres the film was playing in in those markets, and the only market Variety did track of those that week was St. Louis, where the film did $7k from the four theatres they were tracking that week. Best as I can tell from limited newspaper archives of the day, Ghost Fever played on nine screens in Atlanta, 4 in Dallas/Fort Worth, 25 screens in Miami, and 12 in Tampa-St. Pete on top of the four I can find in St. Louis. By the following week, every theatre that was playing Ghost Fever had dropped it. The film would not open in any other markets until it opened on 16 screens in the greater Los Angeles metro region on September 11th. No theatres in Hollywood. No theatres in Westwood. No theatres in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica or any major theatre around, outside of the Palace Theatre downtown, a once stately theatre that had fallen into disrepair over the previous three decades. Once again, Miramax didn't release grosses for the run, none of the theatres playing the film were tracked by Variety that week, and all the playdates were gone after one week. Today, you can find two slightly different copies of the film on a very popular video sharing website, one the theatrical cut, the other the home video cut. The home video cut is preceded by a quick history of the film, including a tidbit that Hemsley bankrolled $3m of the production himself, and that the film's failure almost made him bankrupt. I could not find any source to verify this, but there is possibly specious evidence to back up this claim. The producers of the film were able to make back the budget selling the film to home video company and cable movie channels around the world, and Hemsley would sue them in December 1987 for $3m claiming he was owed this amount from the profits and interest. It would take nine years to work its way through the court system, but a jury in March 1996 would award Hemsley $2.8m. The producers appealed, and an appellate court would uphold the verdict in April 1998. One of the biggest indie film success stories of 1987 was Patricia Rozema's I've Heard the Mermaids Singing. In the early 1980s, Rozema was working as an assistant producer on a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation current affairs television show called The Journal. Although she enjoyed her work, she, like many of us, wanted to be a filmmaker. While working on The Journal, she started to write screenplays while taking a classes at a Toronto Polytechnic Institute on 16mm film production. Now, one of the nicer things about the Canadian film industry is that there are a number of government-funded arts councils that help young independent Canadian filmmakers get their low budget films financed. But Rozema was having trouble getting her earliest ideas funded. Finally, in 1984, she was able to secure funding for Passion, a short film she had written about a documentary filmmaker who writes an extremely intimate letter to an unknown lover. Linda Griffiths, the star of John Sayles' 1983 film Lianna, plays the filmmaker, and Passion would go on to be nominated for Gold Hugo for Best Short Film at the 1985 Chicago Film Festival. However, a negative review of the short film in The Globe and Mail, often called Canada's Newspaper of Record, would anger Rozema, and she would use that anger to write a new script, Polly, which would be a polemic against the Toronto elitist high art milieu and its merciless negative judgements towards newer artists. Polly, the lead character and narrator of the film, lives alone, has no friends, rides her bike around Toronto to take photographs of whatever strikes her fancy, and regularly indulges herself in whimsical fantasies. An employee for a temporary secretarial agency, Polly gets placed in a private art gallery. The gallery owner is having an off-again, on-again relationship with one her clients, a painter who has misgivings she is too young for the gallery owner and the owner too old for her. Inspired by the young painter, Polly anonymously submits some of her photographs to the gallery, in the hopes of getting featured, but becomes depressed when the gallery owner, who does not know who took the photos, dismisses them in front of Polly, calling them “simple minded.” Polly quits the gallery and retreats to her apartment. When the painter sees the photographs, she presents herself as the photographer of them, and the pair start to pass them off as the younger artist's work, even after the gallery owner learns they are not of the painter's work. When Polly finds out about the fraud, she confronts the gallery owner, eventually throwing a cup of tea at the owner. Soon thereafter, the gallery owner and the painter go to check up on Polly at her flat, where they discover more photos undeniable beauty, and the story ends with the three women in one of Polly's fantasies. Rozema would work on the screenplay for Polly while she was working as a third assistant director on David Cronenberg's The Fly. During the writing process, which took about a year, Rozema would change the title from Polly to Polly's Progress to Polly's Interior Mind. When she would submit the script in June 1986 to the various Canadian arts foundations for funding, it would sent out with yet another new title, Oh, The Things I've Seen. The first agency to come aboard the film was the Ontario Film Development Corporation, and soon thereafter, the National Film Board of Canada, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council would also join the funding operation, but the one council they desperately needed to fund the gap was Telefilm Canada, the Canadian government's principal instrument for supporting Canada's audiovisual industry. Telefilm Canada, at the time, had a reputation for being philosophically averse to low-budget, auteur-driven films, a point driven home directly by the administrator of the group at the time, who reportedly stomped out of a meeting concerning the making of this very film, purportedly declaring that Telefilm should not be financing these kind of minimalist, student films. Telefilm would reverse course when Rozema and her producer, Alexandra Raffé, agreed to bring on Don Haig, called “The Godfather of Canadian Cinema,” as an executive producer. Side note: several months after the film completed shooting, Haig would win an Academy Award for producing a documentary about musician Artie Shaw. Once they had their $350k budget, Rozema and Raffé got to work on pre-production. Money was tight on such an ambitious first feature. They had only $500 to help their casting agent identify potential actors for the film, although most of the cast would come from Rozema's friendships with them. They would cast thirty-year-old Sheila McCarthy, a first time film actress with only one television credit to her name, as Polly. Shooting would begin in Toronto on September 24th, 1986 and go for four weeks, shooting completely in 16mm because they could not afford to shoot on 35mm. Once filming was completed, the National Film Board of Canada allowed Rozema use of their editing studio for free. When Rozema struggled with editing the film, the Film Board offered to pay for the consulting services of Ron Sanders, who had edited five of David Cronenberg's movies, including Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly, which Rozema gladly accepted. After New Years 1987, Rozema has a rough cut of the film ready to show the various funding agencies. That edit of the film was only 65 minutes long, but went over very well with the viewers. So much so that the President of Cinephile Films, the Canadian movie distributor who also helped to fund the film, suggested that Rozema not only add another 15mins or so to the film wherever she could, but submit the film to the be entered in the Directors' Fortnight program at the Cannes Film Festival. Rozema still needed to add that requested footage in, and finish the sound mix, but she agreed as long as she was able to complete the film by the time the Cannes programmers met in mid-March. She wouldn't quite make her self-imposed deadline, but the film would get selected for Cannes anyway. This time, she had an absolute deadline. The film had to be completed in time for Cannes. Which would include needing to make a 35mm blow up of the 16mm print, and the production didn't have the money. Rozema and Raffé asked Telefilm Canada if they could have $40k for the print, but they were turned down. Twice. Someone suggested they speak with the foreign sales agent who acquired the rights to sell the film at Cannes. The sales agent not only agreed to the fund the cost from sales of the film to various territories that would be returned to the the various arts councils, but he would also create a press kit, translate the English-language script into French, make sure the print showing at Cannes would have French subtitles, and create the key art for the posters and other ads. Rozema would actually help to create the key art, a picture of Sheila McCarthy's head floating over a body of water, an image that approximately 80% of all buyers would use for their own posters and ads around the world. By the time the film premiered in Cannes on May 10th, 1987, Rozema had changed the title once again, to I've Heard the Mermaids Singing. The title would be taken from a line in the T.S. Eliot poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which she felt best represented the film. But whatever it was titled, the two thousand people inside the theatre were mesmerized, and gave the film a six minute standing ovation. The festival quickly added four more screenings of the film, all of which sold out. While a number of territories around the world had purchased the film before the premiere, the filmmakers bet big on themselves by waiting until after the world premiere to entertain offers from American distributors. Following the premiere, a number of companies made offers for the film. Miramax would be the highest, at $100,000, but the filmmakers said “no.” They kept the bidding going, until they got Miramax up to $350k, the full budget for the film. By the time the festival was done, the sales agent had booked more than $1.1m worth of sales. The film had earned back more than triple its cost before it ever opened on a single commercial screen. Oh, and it also won Rozema the Prix de la Jeunesse (Pree do la Jza-naise), the Prize of the Youth, from the Directors Fortnight judges. Miramax would schedule I've Heard the Mermaids Singing to open at the 68th Street Playhouse in New York City on September 11th, after screening at the Toronto Film Festival, then called The Festival of Festivals, the night before, and at the Telluride Film Festival the previous week. Miramax was so keen on the potential success of the film that they would buy their first ever full page newspaper, in the Sunday, September 6th New York Times Arts and Leisure section, which cost them $25k. The critical and audience reactions in Toronto and Telluride matched the enthusiasm on the Croisette, which would translate to big box office its opening weekend. $40k, the best single screen gross in all Manhattan. While it would lose that crown to My Life as a Dog the following week, its $32k second weekend gross was still one of the best in the city. After three weekends in New York City, the film would have already grossed $100k. That weekend, the film would open at the Samuel Goldwyn West Pavilion Cinemas, where a $9,500 opening weekend gross was considered nice. Good word of mouth kept the grosses respectable for months, and after eight months in theatres, never playing in more than 27 theatres in any given week, the film would gross $1.4m in American theatres. Ironically, the film did not go over as well in Rozema's home country, where it grossed a little less than half a million Canadian dollars, and didn't even play in the director's hometown due to a lack of theatres that were willing to play a “queer” movie, but once all was said and done, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing would end up with a worldwide gross of more than CAD$10m, a nearly 2500% return on the initial investment. Not only would part of those profits go back to the arts councils that helped fund the film, those profits would help fund the next group of independent Canadian filmmakers. And the film would become one of a growing number of films with LGBTQ lead characters whose success would break down the barriers some exhibitors had about playing non-straight movies. The impact of this film on queer cinema and on Canadian cinema cannot be understated. In 1993, author Michael Posner spent the first twenty pages of his 250 plus page book Canadian Dreams discussing the history of the film, under the subtitle “The Little Film That Did.” And in 2014, author Julia Mendenhall wrote a 160 page book about the movie, with the subtitle “A Queer Film Classic.” You can find copies of both books on a popular web archive website, if you want to learn more. Amazingly, for a company that would regularly take up to fourteen months between releases, Miramax would end 1987 with not one, not two, but three new titles in just the last six weeks of the year. Well, one that I can definitely place in theatres. And here is where you just can't always trust the IMDb or Wikipedia by themselves. The first alleged release of the three according to both sources, Riders on the Storm, was a wacky comedy featuring Dennis Hopper and Michael J. Polland, and supposedly opened in theatres on November 13th. Except it didn't. It did open in new York City on May 7th, 1988, in Los Angeles the following Friday. But we'll talk more about that movie on our next episode. The second film of the alleged trifecta was Crazy Moon, a romantic comedy/drama from Canada that featured Keifer Sutherland as Brooks, a young man who finds love with Anne, a deaf girl working at a clothing store where Brooks and his brother are trying to steal a mannequin. Like I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, Crazy Moon would benefit from the support of several Canadian arts foundations including Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board of Canada. In an unusual move, Miramax would release Crazy Moon on 18 screens in Los Angeles on December 11th, as part of an Oscar qualifying run. I say “unusual” because although in the 1980s, a movie that wanted to qualify for awards consideration had to play in at least one commercial movie theatre in Los Angeles for seven consecutive days before the end of the year, most distributors did just that: one movie theatre. They normally didn't do 18 screens including cities like Long Beach, Irvine and Upland. It would, however, definitely be a one week run. Despite a number of decent reviews, Los Angeles audiences were too busy doing plenty of other things to see Crazy Moon. Miramax, once again, didn't report grosses, but six of the eighteen theatres playing the film were being tracked by Variety, and the combined gross for those six theatres was $2,500. It would not get any award nominations, and it would never open at another movie theatre. The third film allegedly released by Miramax during the 1987 holiday season, The Magic Snowman, has a reported theatrical release date of December 22, 1987, according to the IMDb, which is also the date listed on the Wikipedia page for the list of movies Miramax released in the 1980s. I suspect this is a direct to video release for several reasons, the two most important ones being that December 22nd was a Tuesday, and back in the 1980s, most home video titles came out on Tuesdays, and that I cannot find a single playdate anywhere in the country around this date, even in the Weinstein's home town of Buffalo. In fact, the only mention of the words “magic snowman” together I can find for all of 1987 is a live performance of a show called The Magic Snowman in Peterborough, England in November 1987. So now we are eight years into the history of Miramax, and they are starting to pick up some steam. Granted, Working Girls and I've Heard the Mermaids Singing wasn't going to get the company a major line of credit to start making films of their own, but it would help them with visibility amongst the independent and global film communities. These guys can open your films in America. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week, when we continue with story of Miramax Films, from 1988. 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.
Coming up, Jordan and I refuse to drink the coffee as we review the 1993 thriller “The Vanishing”, starring Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock, Keifer Sutherland, and Nancy Travis. We talk about why people do not like this movie, some questions we have about this movie, and we argue about Barney as a villain. Thank you all for listening, Love you all, and peace.Click here to check out our linktree! Here you can find the Verdict League, Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, and Podcast streaming options for spotify and non spotify users for every show on the Couch Podcast Network all in one place!!
Courtesy of Executive Producer Patron James, here is Dreamboat Anni's favorite horror movie that we haven't covered on the show yet, one of the coolest movies of 1987 and a cultural touchstone for many, THE LOST BOYS starring Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Keifer Sutherland, Alex Winter and many more!
In this episode of iHeartRadio's Pop Culture Weekly with Kyle McMahon, Kyle talks with Diane Lane & Michael Gandolfini about their Apple TV+ limited series Extrapolations. Then Kyle talks with Kiefer Sutherland and the cast of Paramount+'s Rabbit Hole including Meta Golding & Charles Dance, Walt Klink, Enid Graham & Rob Yang and series creators Glenn Ficarra & John Requa.You can stream Extrapolations exclusively on Apple TV+ here.You can stream Rabbit Hole exlusively on Paramount+ here.Kyle McMahon's Death, Grief & Other Sh*t We Don't Discuss is now streaming: https://www.deathandgrief.show/Chapter-One-The-Diagnosis-AKA-WTF/---------------Get all the Pop Culture Weekly podcast info you could want including photos, videos & transcripts at: https://podcast.popcultureweekly.comWatch celebrity interviews at: https://www.facebook.com/realkylemcmahon/videosor Kyle McMahon YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/officialkylemcmahonRead the latest at http://www.PopCultureWeekly.comFollow Kyle on:Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmacmusicFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/realkylemcmahonInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/kmacmusicYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/officialkylemcmahonWebsite: http://www.kylemcmahon.mePop Culture Weekly twitter: http://www.twitter.com/popculturepodca
Today on the Woody and Wilcox Show:. Recap of Bengals-Chiefs game; Weekend Update on SNL; Woman has men knocking on her door for sex; Reviews of You People; Cool Beans Remix; Woody and the smoke detector; Slanted toilet seats; Insurance companies may not cover certain car brands; Keifer Sutherland's new show; 7-11 worker cleaned microwave with a mop; And so much more!