Podcast appearances and mentions of Norma Rae

On episode 289 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson, Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello, AwardsWatch contributor Mark Johnson, and special guest Kevin Jacobsen, Entertainment Weekly Content Update Editor and host of the And the Runner Up Is podcast. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night. While everyone is settling into the summer blockbuster season and recovering from the Cannes Film Festival from the month of May, the AW team turn to the month of June by going back to a favorite exercise from last year, an extensive tier ranking of an Oscar category. After doing Best Director last year, the team moves the most popular category the Oscars has for the team; Best Actress and its 98 winners. In trying to place these winners in the correct spot, the team had to come together and decide on whether to place these performances in the S (all-time winner), A, B, C, D, or F tier and explain the ranking. Only 49 of the winners are discussed on this episode, including Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday, Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter and Sally Field in Norma Rae, with the rest covered next week. For the first time in the tier ranking episodes, the performances have been randomized, making the show even more unpredictable as to who will be covered from the list of winners on this episode. Also, the team has instituted two rules that include only 15 winners being able to be in the “S tier” and if an actress has multiple wins, only one of their wins can make it into the 15. It adds a fun wrinkle for the team to try and figure out when they get to their final rankings. It may only be part one, but it's a great episode and we hope you all enjoy it and listen next week to part two. You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music, YouTube and more. This podcast runs 3h58m. We will be back in next week for part 2 of our Best Actress tier ranking episode. Till then, let's get into it. Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

Bert Harris, former president of the East Alabama Museum and the Genealogical Society of East Alabama, plus Jayson and Laura Hill, discuss Opelika's history, tour sites, and other amenities the AHA will enjoy for its April 2025 annual meeting. Transcript of episode: https://tinyurl.com/5a26sz5r Links to items mentioned in the episode: Alabama Historical Association: https://www.alabamahistory.net/ ; Opelika, AL: https://www.opelika-al.gov/ ; Museum of East Alabama: https://eastalabama.org/ ; Treaty of Cusseta, 1832: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/treaty-of-cusseta-1832/ ; Creek Removal: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/creek-indian-removal/ ; Montgomery and West Point Railroad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_and_West_Point_Railroad ; Rousseau's Raid: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/rousseaus-raid/ ; Textile mills: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/textile-industry-in-alabama/ ; Norma Rae: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Rae ; John Herbert Orr: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/john-herbert-orr/ ; Yoholo Micco: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/opothle-yoholo/ ; Booker T. Washington: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/booker-t-washington/ ; Booker T. Whatley, How to Make $100,000 Farming 25 Acres: https://archive.org/details/bookertwhatleysh0000what ; Spring Villa (the Penn Yonge House): https://www.opelika-al.gov/321/Spring-Villa-History ; Salem-Shotwell Bridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem-Shotwell_Covered_Bridge ; Darden House (John Wesley Darden): https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/media/darden-house-in-opelika/ ; Heritage House: https://heritagehouse1913.com/about/ ; Brownfield House: https://auburnopelikaalrealestate.com/brownfield-house-in-opelika-al/ ; John Emerald Distilling Company: https://johnemeralddistilling.com/about/ ; Winston Smith T Hardware and Building Supply: https://www.smithtbuildingsupply.com/ ; Opelika Sportsplex: https://www.opelika-al.gov/391/Opelika-Sportsplex-Aquatics-Center ; Beans Mill: https://stephanielane2012.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/beans-mill/

This week, Don and Josh examine three stories from the world of computers. First, they discuss the seedy underside of Pokemon Go. Next, what happens when one little robot goes all Norma Rae and convinces other robots to go on strike? Finally, they get religious and talk about a church in Switzerland that has its very own AI holographic Jesus.

Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Tim Jones as they discuss the celebrated socially conscious Hollywood director, Martin Ritt (1914–1990). Ritt is known for a number of critically aclaimed movies, among them Paris Blues (1961), Hud (1963), and The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965). In this episode, we focus on four of Ritt's explicitly pro-worker films: The Molly Maguires (1970), Sounder (1972), The Front (1976), and Norma Rae (1979). Ritt was never brought before HUAC, but he nevertheless blacklisted after his name was mentioned in the right-wing anticommunist newsletter Counterattack, along with 150 of other Hollywood workers. These experiences were satirized in The Front, the first film that confronts the blacklist era directly.  Sally Field, the star of Norma Rae, once wrote of Ritt that "he felt it was important to stand for something, to have a moral point of view—especially if you work in the arts." That committment to justice is present all through Ritt's work. He boldly tackled labor issues and racism in a number of films, going as far as critiquing the all-white suburbian "utopias" in the overlooked gem No Down Payment (1957).  As always, please suscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave us a review! Drop us a line at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com Happy listening!

On episode 246 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by AwardsWatch Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello and AwardsWatch contributor Josh Parham to go back 45 years to take a look at the 52nd Academy Awards, celebrating the films of 1979. Before we step back into another AW Oscar retrospective, the team take a look at the summer movie box office game as we enter the final month of the summer. With Deadpool and Wolverine, Inside Out 2, and Despicable Me 4 dominating the box office, they take a look at how the summer has shown to prove many of their initial thoughts right about the box office, as well as the couple of surprises that took over the box office like Longlegs. Ryan's team is in the lead by there is still plenty of time left for Erik's team to make a comeback. Onto the main portion of the podcast, Ryan, Sophia, and Josh travel back forty-five years, to 1979, where Hollywood was in the middle of a transition from the auteur filmmaking of the 1970s to the more conventional, franchise, populist filmmaking of the 1980s. The 52nd Academy Awards were a good showcase for this shift in focus as Kramer vs Kramer took home five Oscars, including Best Picture, a small family drama that was one of the top grossing films of the year; beating out All that Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, Norma Rae for the top prize. In their in-depth discussion, the trio talked about the film year of 1979, briefly discuss talk about Kramer vs Kramer as a Best Picture winner, do a little Oscar trivia as it relates to this year, and then the new version of the AW Shoulda Woulda Coulda game, where instead of individual replacements, they must decide as a group who the nominees and winners should be in the top eight categories. The rules of the game state they can only replace two of the nominees that year from each category, except in Best Picture, where the group could replace up to three films to make up the final set of five nominated films. As usual, it was a fascinating, fun conversation including spirited debates, alliances, vote swinging and more that we all hope you enjoy. You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more. This podcast runs 2h42m. We will be back next week to talk about the latest release, Alien: Romulus, as well as break down the Alien franchise as a whole. Till then, let's get into it. Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

Do you believe in magic? How about poofy 70s hair and giant mustaches? Sparkly pink overalls? Cronenbergian nightmares? Rabbis? You will after the Doug Henning episode! The master of illusion (and a question mark) joins the Muppets for some tricks and some schtick, and Fozzie tries to get in on the act with Tribble-esque results. We get in on Norma Rae, All That Jazz, Bugs Bunny, tissue puppetry, and so much more! Listen now…unless it's all an illuuuuuuuuuuusiooooooooonnnnnnnn… https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/doug-henning

Welcome to a new season of Working History! Series co-host Dave Anderson talks with Aimee Loiselle about her book Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class

Before her Oscar willing performance here, Sally Field was a flying nun on TV and starred in a movie about smuggling 400 cases of Coors beer. So, this was a step up. Anyway, join the boys for our latest installment of Union movies month.   Links You can rate and review us in these places (and more, probably) Does This Still Work? - TV Podcast https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/does-this-still-work-1088105 Does This Still Work? on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/does-this-still-work/id1492570867 Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/wsp/publications/annual-summaries/pdf/work-stoppages-1979.pdf Steelworkers https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1979/01/19/steelworkers-to-strike-newport-news/ce2768b5-49b2-4c43-b5a1-74a43e59f388/ Massacre https://www.newspapers.com/image/1027948284/?terms=WVO&match=1  

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The office has long been a fixture in pop culture—but, in 2024, amid the rise of remote work and the resurgence of organized labor, the way we relate to our jobs is in flux. The stories we tell about them are changing, too. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss Adelle Waldman's new novel “Help Wanted,” which delves into the lives of retail workers at a big-box store in upstate New York. They're joined by The New Yorker's Katy Waldman, who lays out the trajectory of the office novel, from tales of postwar alienation to Gen X meditations on selling out and millennial accounts of the gig economy. Then, the hosts consider how this shift is showing up across other mediums. Though some white-collar employees can now comfortably work from home, the office remains an object of fascination. “The workplace is within us,” says Fry. “There will always be shit-talking about co-workers, about bosses—the materials for narrative will always be there.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Working Girl” (1988)“Office Space” (1999)“The West Wing” (1999-2006)“Help Wanted,” by Adelle Waldman“The Pale King,” by David Foster Wallace“Personal Days,” by Ed Park“Then We Came to the End,” by Joshua Ferris“The New Me,” by Halle Butler“The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,” by Adelle Waldman“The Jungle,” by Upton Sinclair“Severance,” by Ling Ma“Temporary,” by Hilary Leichter“Severance” (2022—)“The Vanity Fair Diaries” (2017)“Doubt: A Parable,” by John Patrick ShanleyDolly Parton's “9 to 5”“Mad Men” (2007-15)“Industry” (2020—)“Norma Rae” (1979)“30 Rock” (2006-13)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

"Forget it! I'm stayin' right where I am. It's gonna take you and the police department and the fire department and the National Guard to get me outta here!"Our limited series, "A Film at 45" is back to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the films of 1979. We're dusting off the end of a decade that changed cinema forever, with a fresh look at modern classics and hidden gems that we can't stop watching! On this episode, Amber Lewis joins David and Scott on the hellish floor of a textile mill to discuss Sally Field and her Oscar-winning performance in "Norma Rae."For exclusive episodes and content, check out A Film By... on Patreon! with a FREE 7-day trial!Check out www.afilmbypodcast.com/ for more information.Email us at afilmbypodcast@gmail.com with your questions, comments, and requests.Find us on X Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @afilmbypodcast.

Norma Rae (1979) describes the struggle of Norma Rae Webster (Sally Field), a factory worker with limited education, to unionize a textile mill in North Carolina. The film was directed by Martin Ritt from a screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., and is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton (as told in the 1975 book Crystal Lee, A Woman of Inheritance by New York Times reporter Henry P. Leifermann). Reuben Warshowsky (Ron Leibman), a union organizer from New York City, persuades Norma to help him organize a union. But Norma and Reuben must overcome a series of obstacles, including pressure and harassment from management as well as internal divisions among the textile workers. Norma, moreover, must navigate issues in her personal life, including with her new husband Sonny (Beau Bridges), who resents Norma's growing commitment to the union. Ultimately, Norma succeeds as the workers vote to unionize. The film offers a snapshot of the labor movement on the cusp of the Reagan era in American and features a memorable, Oscar-winning performance by Sally Field in the title role. My guest is Fred B. Jacob, Solicitor of the National Labor Relations Board and labor law professor at George Washington University Law School. Fred's views on this podcast are solely his own and not those of the National Labor Relations Board or the U.S. Government.Timestamps:0:00        Introduction3:33        An inflection point in U.S. labor history6:40        Unionizing the textile industry13:29      The clash between culture and economics14:03      Organizing a workplace 21:08      How unions are protected24:17      A snapshot of the middle of the J.P. Stevens campaign27:08      How the law operates in Norma Rae28:38      Management's pressure tactics31:09      Why you need a “Norma Rae” when trying to organize people32:46      The film's iconic moment of worker power35:30      Violence against the labor movement40:17      Management's exploitation of racial divisions49:58      How the union helps empower Norma 53:57      What happened next at the factory59:30      Crystal Lee Sutton: The real Norma Rae1:01:36   Unions today1:05:14  How the National Labor Relations Act helps people to be brave1:08:51   Other great labor moviesFurther reading:Allan, Angela, “40 Years Ago, ‘Norma Rae'  Understood How Corporations Weaponized Race,” The Atlantic (Mar. 2, 2019)Dray, Philip, There is Power in a Union (2011)Dubofsky, Melvyn & McCartin, Joseph A., Labor in America: A History (9th ed. 2017)Fry, Naomi, “The Ongoing Relevance of ‘Norma Rae,'” New Yorker (Aug. 4. 2020)Kazek, Kelly, “When Hollywood came to Alabama to film 'Norma Rae,'” Al.com (May 3, 2019)Leifermann, Henry P., Crystal Lee, A Woman of Inheritance (1975)Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/faculty/full-time/jonathan-hafetz.cfmYou can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.comYou can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latino-studies

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. 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

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network.

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources--union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories--Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and their labor activism.  While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle's Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are. Aimee Loiselle is assistant professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south

Year-End Podcast Episode: Reflecting on Film Analysis in 2023 and Looking Ahead to 2024In this sprawling year-end episode of the Silver Screen Happy Hour podcast, Chris and Jerome review their past shows, exploring the cinematic analysis they've undertaken throughout 2023. They acknowledge a learning curve in learning to edit video and audio, citing the progression from experimenting with video to being able to release a monthly episode. They reminisce about some of their favorite episodes such as Ethan Hawke Day, Union Solidarity, and the episode featuring Walk the Line & Elvis, and Silence of the Midsommar. They also speak candidly about personal triumphs and challenges experienced during the year, including welcoming a new grandchild! In terms of future plans, the hosts look forward to producing more content in 2024, with a focus on films relating to events and holidays, and intend to cover potential Oscar-winning films during the awards season. They also encourage listener interaction and feedback.00:06 Introduction and Welcome00:19 Looking Back at 2023 and Ahead to 202400:28 Thanking Supporters and Reflecting on the Journey00:46 Reminiscing About the First Episodes01:28 The Star Wars Era02:02 Reflecting on 2023 and the Growth of the Show02:54 Celebrating Personal Milestones03:16 Looking Ahead to Future Episodes04:40 Deep Dive into Ethan Hawke Day07:54 Exploring the Themes of Walk the Elvis10:33 Discussing Union Solidarity in Norma Rae and Hoffa18:01 Analyzing Silence of the Midsommar23:06 Listener Response and Interaction24:18 Veterans Day Special: All Quiet on the Thin Red Line26:23 Creating AI Art for Veterans Day26:59 Instagram's Content Moderation Dilemma28:13 The Impact of AI on Content Creation and Distribution28:23 Guest Appearance on 'Lights, Camera, Rant' Podcast33:59 Reflections on Personal Challenges and the Future of the Podcast45:42 Appreciation for Listener Engagement and Future Plans47:15 Fun Behind-the-Scenes Stories from Past EpisodesLights, Camera, RantWriters/Blockbusters Screenwriting PodcastSilver Screen Happy HourFollow Silver Screen Happy Hour on Instagram here:https://www.instagram.com/silverscreenhappyhour/

On today's episode of the Shame List Picture Show, Michael is joined by community and labor organizer John Connelly to discuss NORMA RAE. The post The Shame List Picture Show S7E17 — NORMA RAE (1979) feat. John Connelly appeared first on Cinepunx.

In solidarity with SAG-AFTRA, Paul and Corey have decided to change things up: For the duration of the TA voting process, they will: 1) cover only films about labor unions/strikes/solidarity/etc.; 2) not cover any new releases (that includes Corey's Pass or Plays); and 3) not recommend any streaming services for where you can find these films. Following Corey's choice, Norma Rae (1979), Paul wanted to make a right turn. Look at things from another perspective. So, the idea was to journey back to the Red Scare and watch some anti-Communist fare. I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951). Based on the true (lol okay) story of Matt Cvetic, the film follows his life as he acts as an informant for the FBI while he pretends to be a proud member of the Communist Party (CPUSA) in Pittsburgh. Hooooooo boy, comrades! This thing sucked. What makes propaganda effective or at the very least enjoyable? Was this guy the biggest jagoff in Pittsburgh? The answers to these and more lie within...

In solidarity with SAG-AFTRA, Paul and Corey have decided to change things up: For the duration of the TA voting process, they will: 1) cover only films about labor unions/strikes/solidarity/etc.; 2) not cover any new releases (that includes Corey's Pass or Plays); and 3) not recommend any streaming services for where you can find these films. Following Paul's choice, 9 to 5 (1980), Corey wanted to talk about another labor film of the era - Norma Rae (1979). Starring Sally Field, Ron Leibman, and Beau Bridges, this film packs a wallop. Paul and Corey have a wonderful time discussing this one.

Special episode with the former journalist, anchor, and street reporter Beverly Poppell, who won a lawsuit against her bosses, when she was fired for "union activity." In this HOT UNION Year, I was happy to have such an icon in unions as Beverly to share what it took to win! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/camillekauer/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/camillekauer/support

We're discussing the 52nd Academy Awards, which honored the films of 1979. The nominees were: All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, Kramer vs. Kramer, Norma Rae. We also discuss non-nominees Alien and The Jerk.Notes: SPOILERS - we talk through the full plots of all the movies we cover.Timestamps are approximate: 9:00 - Breaking Away16:45 - Kramer vs. Kramer33:35 - All That Jazz41:15 - Apocalypse Now1:00:35 - Norma Rae1:11:05 - Should something else have been nominated? 1:11:50 - Alien1:20:35 - The Jerk1:26:40 - Did the Oscars get it wrong?1:30:00 - Jake Gyllenhaal Corner1:33:00 - Conclusions1:38:00 - Next Time

U.S. ADVISES ISRAEL TO DELAY GAZA INVASION HOPING TO BUY MORE TIME FOR HOSTAGESCONGRESS CHAOS DOESN'T HELP AMERICANS FAITH INSTITUTIONSKILLINGS IN THE U.S. ARE DROPPING AT A HISTORIC RATE. DOES ANYONE NOTICE?FRAN DRESCHER IS SAG-AFTRA's NORMA RAE. BUT THE 100 DAY ACTORS STRIKE POSSES NEW CHALLENGES

As of our taping of this episode, Hollywood is still under the shadow of the labor problems which have arisen periodically since the beginnings of the industry. After all, remember that the formation of the Academy and the establishment of the Oscars were in many ways the studio moguls' attempts to crush the burgeoning union movements. Periodically, since the unions were established, they have engaged in strikes, most memorably in 1960 when both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA struck to create a fair distribution of revenue from the then relatively-new medium of television. And every time in the ensuing years when the modes of distribution changed, from syndication to video tapes to DVD's, these issues of equity have led to labor tensions across the board. With the double whammy of streaming and the technological possibilities of AI upon us, both the writers and the actors went on strike again earlier this year. The writers have settled, but the actors are still on the picket lines, and seem far away from a settlement. Some casual observers see this as a case of millionaires fighting with billionaires. So Team Vintage Sand wades into the fray by beginning this latest episode with Michael, who is a longtime and proud member of SAG-AFTRA, discussing the issue from the lived perspective of the 95%+ of his fellow union members who cannot make a living as actors. Simply put, what's at stake is the ability of talented, hard-working people without whom the industry could not exist to put food on their table and make this month's rent. From there, it was a logical pivot to focus the episode on films that deal with labor movements, workers' rights and unionization. We each chose three movies, and naturally, you will find well-known films like "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Norma Rae" in the mix. But the real revelation of the episode for us is that in spite of the powerful human drama that is inherent in the struggles of labor, Hollywood has produced almost no films that touch on the subject beyond a well-known handful. We suppose this should not be a huge surprise given the industry's deep-rooted animosity towards organized labor, but the fact is that of our nine films on the issue, three are from England, one is from France, and one was rejected by the studios and produced and distributed independently. Our hope, as always, is that the episode will open some doors to films you've never seen or haven't seen in a long time. In the end, we make no claims to objectivity here; to quote 8-year-old Charlie Kane (in a completely different context), “The Union Forever!”

On the Season Six premiere of the Halo Halo Podcast, Jezzie and Sigi reunite after a couple of months and recap a stellar adventure to Seafood City and Jolibee and discuss the Hollywood Labour Movement with the recent developments in the WGA Strike as of their October 2nd recording of this ep. Their discussion focuses on movies of the working class including Newsies, Norma Rae and one of Jezzie's favourites--Pride which tells the story of how a small lesbian and gay activist group supports the struggling miners of a small Welsh town in the 1980s. As the movie involves both groups discovering common humanities, Jezzie ties in finding common humanity being a Filipino in the diaspora. He urges us to find power in seeing our common culture and shared traditions rather than judging.

What if we had a Patreon? That's what we're exploring this week as we continue to stand in solidarity with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. In lieu of a new actor interview we're book clubbing 1979's Norma Rae starring Sally Field, Beau Bridges, and Ron Leibman. Norma Rae is inspired by the real story of mill workers unionizing in rural North Carolina. We get into all the important parts: Ron Leibman being hot, Burt Reynolds advising Sally not to do the film, and the beautiful appearance of legendary character actress Grace Zabriskie in a small role. The film is a small quiet human story about the importance of labor unions and it felt like the right time to correct our blindspot and screen it. Also discussed this episode: the Debra Winger-Barbra Hershey led film A Dangerous Woman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Mandy Patinkin vs. Toni Collette. Follow us on social media: @youmightknowherfrom || @damianbellino || @rodemanne A Dangerous Woman (1993) Mandy vs. Tony in the Wild Party Norma Rae (1979) Director: Martin Ritt Screenplay: Irving Ravetch & Harriet Frank Jr Best Song: “So It Goes” (David Shire, ex-husband of Talia Shire and current husband of Didi Conn) Sally Field's Oscar speech (1980)  Jane Fonda, Marsha Mason, Faye Dunaway and Jill Clayburgh turned down the role of Norma Rae Ron Leibman was Roy Cohn in the original Broadway cast of Angels in America Ron Leibman's first wife was Linda Lavin and his second wife was Jessica Walter Shirley MacLaine clip “A dancer died at the top of these stairs”  

On this Double Feature episode, we take a look at films about strikes. As the WGA and SAG continue to strike, we thought it would be a good time to examine how Hollywood has protrayed strikes throughout the years. We discuss; Norma Rae (1979), The Pajama Game (1957), Sorry to Bother You (2018), Harlan County, USA (1976), The Organizer (1963) and Chi-Raq (2015) and then put together a double feature (actually two) recommendation.  Follow us at: Patreon / Twitter / Instagram / Letterboxd / Facebook 

We're celebrating Labor Day at Geek Girl Soup with a few movies and a TV show that explore various working conditions.We start with the HBO limited series “Telemarketers,” which looks at the horrors both of how telemarketing companies treat their workers, and also how these companies deal with consumers and the “nonprofits” they allegedly raise money for. This is a scrappy little series that had almost no budget. It has original footage from inside one of the earliest scummy telemarketing companies.We move on to Sally Field in “Norma Rae.” You've probably seen this Oscar-winning film in which Norma Rae helps unionize the textile factory where pretty much the entire town works.We also watched “Up in the Air,” in which George Clooney spends nine months of the years traveling the country firing people. For fun, we watched “Working Girl” and “9 to 5.” We were disappointed that “Working Girl” pits woman against women. You know, “there can be only one” women in the boys club. Sigh. But yay for the glorious sisterhood of Lily, Dolly, and Jane!You'll hear an excerpt of a discussion Susan and Kelly had with Erik C. Andersen, Hollywood editor. We talk all about the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. If you want to listen to our full interview with Erik, it will be out later this week.Next week: We're celebrating the start of Hispanic Heritage Month! -Original music by Garrett ThompsonFollow us on Instagram @GeekGirlSoupContinue the conversation on FacebookListen to Cort's podcast with Brad at PureFandom.comCheck out Susan's movie stats on Letterboxd Email your questions and comments to GeekGirlSoup@gmail.comGeek on!

EPISODE #394-- For today's episode, we talk about the influential Spanish-Italian sci-fi horror film PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (1965) from director Mario Bava. It's a wild movie. You should check it out. We also talk about Park Chan-Wook's OLDBOY (2003), Martin Ritt's NORMA RAE (1979), and James Gunn's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Vol. 3 (2023). We also talk about, ugh, AHSOKA on Disney+. God. Ugh. Yuck. Donate to the cause at Patreon.com/Quality. Follow the show on Twitter @AQualityInterruption, and James on Twitter @kislingtwits, on Bluesky at kislingconnection.bsky, on Instagram @kislingwhatsit, and on Tiktok @kislingkino. You can watch Cruz and show favorite Alexis Simpson on You Tube in "They Live Together." Thanks to our artists Julius Tanag (http://www.juliustanag.com) and Sef Joosten (http://spexdoodles.tumblr.com). The theme music is "Eine Kleine Sheissemusik" by Drew Alexander. Listen to DRACULA: A RADIO PLAY on Apple Podcasts, at dracularadio.podbean.com, and at the Long Beach Playhouse at https://lbplayhouse.org/show/dracula And, as always, please leave us a review on iTunes or whatever podcatcher you listened to us on!

UNION SOLIDARITY: Norma Rae & Hoffa Script AnalysisIn this Labor Day episode, we dive into the world of unions, labor, and the intriguing figure of Jimmy Hoffa. We discuss two films with strong union themes: "Norma Rae" and "Hoffa," both shedding light on the struggles and triumphs of the labor movement. Amidst sips of our drinks, we analyze the writing, performances, and themes of these films."Norma Rae" takes center stage as the hosts explore its portrayal of a young woman's journey from a regular textile worker to a labor activist. Sally Field's passionate performance captures the spirit of the working class and their fight for better conditions. We also discuss the film's portrayal of unions and their significance in history.Switching gears, we delve into "Hoffa," a biopic that delves into the life of the enigmatic Teamsters leader, Jimmy Hoffa. Jack Nicholson's performance shines as he embodies the charismatic yet complex figure, whose relationships with the mob and his pursuit of power shape the narrative. We dissect the writing, direction, and historical accuracy of the film, and reflect on Hoffa's legacy in the labor movement.As the conversation evolves, we explore Hoffa's disappearance and the film's ending, contemplating the possibility of a different outcome that could have been more satisfying. We also touch on the fascinating connections between these films and other works, offering insights into the interconnected world of cinema.Stay tuned for our upcoming Halloween special episode, where we'll compare and contrast the disturbing films "Silence of the Lambs" and "Midsommar," promising a mix of horror, analysis, and, of course, laughter. With Clubhouse as a new platform to engage with our audience, we look forward to interacting with listeners, discussing movies, sharing thoughts, and perhaps even letting loose with a drink or two (or three)!The Wiegand brothers, Jerome & Chris, love movies, and they are fascinated by human nature and the art of great storytelling. Jerome is a screenwriter and graduate of Columbia College, Chicago. He lives in northern California with his wife and two daughters. Chris has been with Stellantis (Chrysler) since 1999 and lives with his wife, Jessie in Port Huron, Michigan. They have five adult children and 2 grandchildren (with another on the way!).Follow Silver Screen Happy Hour on Instagram here:https://www.instagram.com/silverscreenhappyhour/

Me and you, just us two. Yes, that's what Carrie had engraved in a vintage Rolex for Big but also, it's just us two because we stand with SAG-AFTRA and the WGA. This month we are pulling the spirits of Celeste Holm, Bob Villa, and Steve Urkel from the annals of pop culture. We are also absolutely head over heels for the reignited rumors that Mel B and Geri of the Spice Girls possibly (and probably) carried on a lesbian relationship in the ‘90s. That, plus we take a look at Barbra Streisand's duets album, Fran Lebowitz's WNBA fandom, and start prepping for a Norma Rae screening! Join us!  Follow us on social media: @youmightknowherfrom || @damianbellino || @rodemanne Discussed this month: Bob Villa is alive and only 77! Family Matters theme song  “Anybody got any cheese?” Do the Urkel! Our episode with Lesley Ann Warren where she talks about Celeste Holm "beautiful, a thing of BEAUTY" @ 2:11 Barbra Streisand and Melissa McCarthy Barbra and Anne Hathaway and Daisy Ridley @sapphicunderground's TikToks about Mel B & Geri Third-Wave Feminism and the Spice Girls Geri is 51 and has two memoirs Fran Lebowitz was at the NY Liberty WNBA game with Anne

Norma Rae: Movie Review from the Ray Taylor ShowShow topic: Step into the captivating world of cinema with Ray Taylor's Solo Movie Review Podcast! Join us as we explore the heartwarming and inspiring 1979 American drama film, "Norma Rae." Directed by Martin Ritt and starring the talented Sally Field in the titular role, this gripping movie is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton, a courageous woman who takes a stand against poor working conditions at a textile factory. Follow the journey of Norma Rae Webster as she becomes a symbol of resilience and union activism, fighting for the rights of herself and her fellow workers. This powerful tale of determination and family bonds will leave you moved and motivated!JOIN Inspired Disorder +PLUS Today! InspiredDisorder.com/plus Membership Includes:Ray Taylor Show - Full Week Ad Free (Audio+Video)Live Painting ArchiveEarly Access to The Many FacesMember Only Discounts and DealsPodcast Back Catalogue (14 Shows - 618 Episodes)Ray Taylor's Personal BlogCreative WritingAsk Me AnythingDaily Podcast: Ray Taylor Show - InspiredDisorder.com/rts Daily Painting: The Many Faces - InspiredDisorder.com/tmf ALL links: InspiredDisorder.com/links Genres: Drama

Norma Rae: Movie Review from the Ray Taylor ShowShow topic: Step into the captivating world of cinema with Ray Taylor's Solo Movie Review Podcast! Join us as we explore the heartwarming and inspiring 1979 American drama film, "Norma Rae." Directed by Martin Ritt and starring the talented Sally Field in the titular role, this gripping movie is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton, a courageous woman who takes a stand against poor working conditions at a textile factory. Follow the journey of Norma Rae Webster as she becomes a symbol of resilience and union activism, fighting for the rights of herself and her fellow workers. This powerful tale of determination and family bonds will leave you moved and motivated!JOIN Inspired Disorder +PLUS Today! InspiredDisorder.com/plus Membership Includes:Ray Taylor Show - Full Week Ad Free (Audio+Video)Live Painting ArchiveEarly Access to The Many FacesMember Only Discounts and DealsPodcast Back Catalogue (14 Shows - 618 Episodes)Ray Taylor's Personal BlogCreative WritingAsk Me AnythingDaily Podcast: Ray Taylor Show - InspiredDisorder.com/rts Daily Painting: The Many Faces - InspiredDisorder.com/tmf ALL links: InspiredDisorder.com/links Genres: Drama

This week on the season finale of And the Runner-Up Is, Kevin welcomes Steven Canals, the Emmy-nominated co-creator of Pose, to discuss the 1979 Oscar race for Best Actress, where Sally Field won for her performance in "Norma Rae," beating Jill Clayburgh in "Starting Over," Jane Fonda in "The China Syndrome," Marsha Mason in "Chapter Two," and Bette Midler in "The Rose." We discuss all of these nominated performances and determine who we think was the runner-up to Field.  0:00 - 21:34 - Introduction 21:35 - 42:40 - Jill Clayburgh 42:31 - 1:07:26 - Jane Fonda 1:07:27 - 1:26:42 - Marsha Mason 1:26:43 - 1:52:12 - Bette Midler 1:52:13 - 2:14:25 - Sally Field 2:14:26 - 2:51:07 - Why Sally Field won / Twitter questions 2:51:08 - 2:57:24 - Who was the runner-up? Buy And the Runner-Up Is merch at https://www.teepublic.com/stores/and-the-runner-up-is?ref_id=24261! Support And the Runner-Up Is on Patreon at patreon.com/andtherunnerupis! Follow Kevin Jacobsen on Twitter Follow Steven Canals on Twitter Follow And the Runner-Up Is on Twitter and Instagram Theme/End Music: "Diamonds" by Iouri Sazonov Additional Music: "Storming Cinema Ident" by Edward Blakeley Artwork: Brian O'Meara

In support of the WGA & SAG-AFTRA labor strike, here's a timely BONUS episode! 1979 Oscar Nominee: Norma Rae

NORMA RAE This week's scheduled episode has been interrupted with a special message from Craig and Alan as they try and explain the SAG-AFTRA WGA strike and why it's important to take a stand to help these important unions. Donate to the Entertainment Community Fund, which assists all entertainment workers affected by the strike. On this special @sagaftra @WGAWest support episode, Alan and Craig go back into the Patreon archives to 2019 and discuss the lack of physical media, poor working conditions, the timelessness of Sally Fields and the movie "Norma Rae" on this week's Matinee Heroes!

On the 314th episode of Piecing It Together, David Quinones joins me to talk about Flamin' Hot. This true-ish story about Richard Montanez, the Frito-Lay janitor who came up with Flamin' Hot Cheetos isn't exactly accurate, but it's a lot of fun. Puzzle pieces include Norma Rae, The Founder, Lord of War and Chef.As always, SPOILER ALERT for Flamin' Hot and the movies we discuss!Written by Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette ChavezDirected by Eva LongoriaStarring Jesse Garcia, Annie Gonzalez, Dennis Haysbert, Matt Walsh, Tony ShaloubSearchlight / Huluhttps://www.flaminhotfilm.com/David Quinones is a writer, reporter, podcaster and my best friend. He's also my boss here at the All Points West Podcast Network. Make sure to check out his new podcast Why Are We Like This at https://www.wawlt.comFollow David Quinones on Twitter @david_quinonesMy sixth album, MORE CONTENT is available NOW on iTunes, Bandcamp and all other digital music stores! Make sure to check it out!My latest music video “Ascending" which you can watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fypZ3Z8qeT8The song at the end of the episode is "How To Start A Fire" from my latest album MORE CONTENT.Make sure to “Like” Piecing It Together on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/PiecingPodAnd “Follow” us on Twitter @PiecingPodAnd Join the Conversation in our Facebook Group, Piecing It Together – A Movie Discussion Group.And check out https://www.piecingpod.com for more about our show!And if you want to SUPPORT THE SHOW, you can now sign up for our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/bydavidrosenShare the episode, comment and give us feedback! And of course, SUBSCRIBE!And of course, don't forget to leave us a 5 star review on Goodpods, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Podchaser!Check out the Hallmarkies Podcast at https://www.hallmarkiespodcast.com/And most important of all… Keep going to the theater to see new movies!

The most important out of Hollywood right now is the growing fight on behalf of the makers to get a fair deal so they can keep their lives as working artists and craftspeople. To help us examine this phenomenon through our specialty lens we welcome writer and card-carrying (and currently striking) member of the WGA EMILY KACZMAREK (Monsterland, The Staircase) to talk us through the current moment on the ground and the many wide-ranging implications in the fight for the shape of the industry. And we also took this as a great excuse to look at 1979 Cannes Competition title and Best Actress winner NORMA RAE, starring the great Sally Field. The midbudget movie, the depiction of small town life, the quality of Sally Field's hair, we get into it all together. Follow Emily on twitter @emilykaczmarek Our twitter is @CannesIKickIt Our instagram is @CIKIPod Our letterboxd is CIKIPod Enjoying the show? Feel free to send a few bucks our way on Ko-fi. Thanks to Tree Related for our theme song Our hosts are @andytgerm @clatchley @imlaughalone @jcpglickwebber

This week! The writers' strike is a week in and Josh is feeling it. The AMPTPA is full of evil-doers, the WGA rules, and AI can't write a good CSI: Miami. Drusilla watched Norma Rae, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Cycle, and Mike Leigh's Mean Time. Josh watched And Then the Darkness. Also discussed: Life is Sweet, Legend of Hell House, The Vanishing. The TWINS sequel that got squashed, Danny DeVito was almost in Conan the Destroyer, Coma, House of Yes, Sid & Nancy, Christiane F., Sweet Valley High, American Psycho, Valley of the Dolls, Mia Goth, Pearl, Infinity Pool, Alexander Skarsgard, She-Devil.And, of course, all things Cronenberg. From wiki: “Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological thriller film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. David Cronenberg directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider. Their script was based on the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus and on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland, a "highly fictionalized" version of the Marcuses' story.”  Support the WGA: https://mashable.com/article/how-to-support-wga-writer-strikeNEXT WEEK: The Wicker Man (1973)Website: http://www.bloodhauspod.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/BloodhausPodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloodhauspod/ Email: bloodhauspod@gmail.com         Drusilla's art: https://www.sisterhydedesign.com/Drusilla's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydesister/Drusilla's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/drew_phillips/Joshua's website: https://www.joshuaconkel.com/Joshua's Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoshuaConkel Joshua's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshua_conkel/Joshua's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/joshuaconkel    

Tochi and Zell get their Norma Rae on!!!On Twitter and Twitch:@TochiTrueStory@AZellWillOn Insta:@Treize64@AZellWill

This week's episode takes a look back at the career of trailblazing independent filmmaker Robert Downey, father of Robert Downey, Jr., and his single foray into the world of Hollywood filmmaking, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. ----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 follow up on a movie based on a series of articles from a humor magazine that was trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies with a movie that was sponsored by a humor magazine trying to build their brand name by slapping their name on movies not unlike the other humor magazine had been doing but ended up removing their name from the movie, and boy is brain already fried and we're not even a minute into the episode.   We're talking about Robert Downey's 1980 comedy Up the Academy.   But, as always, before we get to Up the Academy, let's hit the backstory.   If you know the name Robert Downey, it's likely because you know his son. Robert Downey, Jr. You know, Iron Man. Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is a repo baby. Maybe you've seen the documentary he made about his dad, Sr., that was released by Netflix last year. But it's more than likely you've never heard of Robert Downey, Sr., who, ironically, was a junior himself like his son.   Robert Downey was born Robert John Elias, Jr. in New York City in 1936, the son of a model and a manager of hotels and restaurants. His parents would divorce when he was young, and his mom would remarry while Robert was still in school.   Robert Elias, Jr. would take the last name of his stepfather when he enlisted in the Army, in part because was wanted to get away from home but he was technically too young to actually join the Army. He would invent a whole new persona for himself, and he would, by his own estimate, spend the vast majority of his military career in the stockade, where he wrote his first novel, which still has never been published.   After leaving the Army, Downey would spend some time playing semi-pro baseball, not quite good enough to go pro, spending his time away from the game writing plays he hoped to take, if not to Broadway, at least off-Broadway. But he would not make his mark in the arts until 1961, when Downey started to write and direct low-budget counterculture short films, starting with Ball's Bluff, about a Civil War soldier who wakes up in New York City's Central Park a century later.   In 1969, he would write and direct a satirical film about the only black executive at a Madison Avenue advertising firm who is, through a strange circumstance, becomes the head of the firm when its chairman unexpectedly passes away. Featuring a cameo by Mel Brooks Putney Swope was the perfect anti-establishment film for the end of that decade, and the $120k film would gross more than $2.75m during its successful year and a half run in theatres.   1970's Pound, based on one of Downey's early plays, would be his first movie to be distributed by a major distributor, although it was independently produced outside the Hollywood system. Several dogs, played by humans, are at a pound, waiting to be euthanized. Oh, did I forget to mention it was a comedy? The film would be somewhat of a success at the time, but today, it's best known as being the acting debut of the director's five year old son, Robert Downey, Jr., although the young boy would be credited as Bob Downey.   1972's Greaser Palace was part of an early 1970s trend of trippy “acid Westerns,” like Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo and Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie. Character actor Allan Arbus plays Jesse, a man with amnesia who heals the sick, resurrects the dead and tap dances on water on the American frontier. It would be the first movie Downey would make with a million dollar budget. The critical consensus of the film at the time was not positive, although Jay Cocks, a critic for Time Magazine who would go on to be a regular screenwriter for Martin Scorsese in the 1980s, would proclaim the film to be “the most adventurous movie of the year.” The film was not a hit, and it would be decades before it would be discovered and appreciated by the next generation of cineastes.   After another disappointing film, 1975's Moment to Moment, which would later be retitled Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight in order to not be confused with the 1978 movie of the same name starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin that really, truly stunk, Downey would take some time off from filmmaking to deal with his divorce from his first wife and to spend more time with his son Robert and daughter Allyson.   By 1978, Robert Downey was ready to get back to work. He would get a job quickly helping Chuck Barris write a movie version of Barris' cult television show, The Gong Show, but that wasn't going to pay the bills with two teenagers at home. What would, though, is the one thing he hadn't done yet in movies…   Direct a Hollywood film.   Enter Mad Magazine.   In 1978, Mad Magazine was one of the biggest humor magazines in America. I had personally discovered Mad in late 1977, when my dad, stepmom and I were on a cross country trip, staying with friends outside Detroit, the day before my tenth birthday, when I saw an issue of Mad at a local grocery store, with something Star Wars-y on its cover. I begged my dad to give me the sixty cents to buy it, and I don't think I missed another issue for the next decade.   Mad's biggest competition in the humor magazine game was National Lampoon, which appealed to a more adult funny bone than Mad. In 1978, National Lampoon saw a huge boost in sales when the John Landis-directed comedy Animal House, which had the name of the magazine in the title, became an unexpected smash hit at the box office. Warner Brothers, the media conglomerate who happened to own Mad Magazine, was eager to do something similar, and worked with Mad's publisher, Bill Gaines, to find the right script that could be molded into a Mad Magazine movie, even if, like Animal House, it wouldn't have any real connection to the magazine itself.   They would find that script in The Brave Young Men of Weinberg, a comedy script by Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses, a pair of television comedy writers on shows like The Carol Burnett Show, The Sandy Duncan Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Tony Randall Show, who had never sold a movie script before. The story would follow the misadventures of four teenage boys who, for different reasons, depend on each other for their very survival when they end up at the same military academy.   Now, of all the research I've done for this episode, the one very important aspect of the production I was never able to find out was exactly how Robert Downey became involved in the film. Again, he had never made a Hollywood movie before. He had only made one movie with a budget of a million dollars. His movies were satirical and critical of society in general. This was not a match made in heaven. But somehow, someone at Warner Brothers thought he'd be the right director for the film, and somehow, Downey didn't disagree.   Unlike Animal House, Downey and Warners didn't try to land a known commodity like John Belushi to play one of the four leads. In fact, all four of the leads, Wendell Brown, Tommy Citera, Joseph Hutchinson, and Ralph Macchio, would all be making their feature debuts.    But there would be some familiar faces in the film.   Ron Liebman, who was a familiar face from such films has Slaughterhouse-Five, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood and Norma Rae, would play the head of the Academy. Tom Poston, who played Mindy's downstairs neighbor on Mork and Mindy, plays what would now be considered to be a rather offensive gay caricature as the guy who handles the uniforms of the cadets, Antonio Fargas, best known as Huggy Bear on Starsky and Hutch but who had previously worked with Downey on Putney Swope and Pound, as the Coach, and Barbara Bach, who had starred as Anya Amasova in the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.   The $5m film would begin production in Salina, Kansas, on September 17th, 1979, still using the title The Brave Young Men of Weinberg. The primary shooting location would be the St. John's Military School, which was still functioning while the film was in production, and would use most of the 144 students as extras during the shoot. The film would shoot for nine weeks without much incident, and the cast and crew would be home in time to enjoy Thanksgiving with their friends and family.   Unlike Animal House, the makers of The Brave Young Men of Weinberg did attempt to tie the movie into the magazine that would be presenting the film. At the very end of the movie, the magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, shows up on the side of the road, to wave goodbye to people and deliver his signature line, “What, Me Worry?” in a thought bubble that leads into the end credits. The person wearing the not quite realistic looking Neuman head gear, fourteen year old Scott Shapiro, was the son of the executive vice president of worldwide production at Warner Brothers.   After the first of the year, as Downey worked on his edit of the film, the studio decided to change the title from The Brave Young Men of Weinberg to Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. Bill Gaines, the publisher of Mad Magazine, suggested a slightly different title, Mad Magazine Completely Disassociates Itself from Up the Academy, but the studio decided that was too long for theater marquees. But we'll come back to that in a moment.   Warner Brothers set a June 6, 1980 release for the film, and Downey would finish his cut of the film by the end of March. A screening on the Warners lot in early April did not go well. Ron Liebman hated the film so much, he demanded that Warners completely remove his name from everything associated with the film. His name would not appear on the poster, the newspaper ads, the television commercials, the lobby cards, the press kit, or even in the movie itself. Bill Gaines would hate it to, such much in fact that he really did try to disassociate the magazine from the film. In a 1983 interview with The Comics Journal, Gaines would explain without much detail that there were a number of things he had objected to in the script that he was told would not be shot and not end up in the final film that were shot and did end up in the final film. But he wouldn't be able to get the magazine's name off the movie before it opened in theatres.   Now, one of the problems with trying to research how well films did in 1980 is that you really have only two sources for grosses, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and they didn't always report national grosses every week, depending on outside factors. It just hadn't the national sport it's been since, say, 1983.   So when Up the Academy opened in theatres on June 6th, we don't have a full idea of how many theatres it played in nationwide, or how much it grossed. The closest thing we do have for this Variety's listing of the top movies of the week based on a limited selection of showcase theatres in the top 20 markets. So we know that the film played at 7 showcase screens in New York City that weekend, grossing $175k, and in Los Angeles on 15 showcase screens, grossing $149k. But we also know, thanks to newspaper ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that the film was playing in 11 theatres in the New York Metro area, and in 30 theatres in the Los Angeles Metro area, so those listed grosses are merely a snapshot and not the whole picture.   According to Variety's limited tracking of major market showcase theatres for the week, Up the Academy was the second highest grossing film of the week, bringing in $729k from 82 theatres. And according to their chart's side notes, this usually accounts for about 25% of a movie's national gross, if a film is playing in wide release around the entire country.   In its second week, Up the Academy would place ninth on that showcase theatre listing, with $377k from 87 theatres.    But by the time Variety did bring back proper national grosses in the film's third week of release, there would be no mention of Up the Academy in those listings, as Warners by this time had bigger fish to handle, namely Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Shining, and Bronco Billy, their Clint Eastwood movie for the year. In that showcase theatre listing, though, Up the Academy had fallen to 16th place, with $103k from 34 theatres.   In fact, there is no publicly available record of how many theatres Up the Academy played in during its theatrical run, and it wouldn't be until the 1981 Warner Brothers 10-K annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Up the Academy had earned $10m from American movie theatres. If studios get about 55% of the box office grosses in rental fees, that would put the $5m film in a very good position to be profitable, depending on how much was spent on P&A, prints and advertising. The film wasn't an Animal House-level hit, but it wasn't exactly the bomb many have painted it to be.    After Up the Academy, two of the actors, Wendell Brown and Joseph Hutchinson, would never act in another movie, although, billed as Hutch Parker, the latter would produce six X-Men related movies between 2013 and 2019, including Logan. Tommy Citera would make two more movies until he left acting in 1988. And Ralph Macchio would, of course, go on to play Daniel LaRusso, the Karate Kid, in a career-defining role that he's still playing nearly forty years later.   Robert Downey would make another wacky comedy, called Moonbeam, in 1982. Co-written with Richard Belzer, Moonbeam would feature a fairly interesting cast including Zack Norman, Tammy Grimes, Michael J. Pollard, Liz Torres and Mr. Belzer, and tells the story of a New York cable television station that becomes world famous when they accidentally bounce their signal off the moon. But the film would not get released until October 1986, in one theatre in New York City for one week. It couldn't even benefit from being able to promote Robert Downey, Jr., who in the ensuing years had started to build an acting career by being featured in John Sayles' Baby It's You, Fritz Kiersch's Tuff Turf, John Hughes' Weird Science, and the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School, as well as being a member of the cast of Saturday Night Live for a year.   There's be sporadic work in television, working on shows like Matlock and The Twilight Zone, but what few movies he could get made would be pale shadows of her earlier, edgier work. Even with his son regularly taking supporting roles in his dad's movies to help the old man out, movies like Rented Lips and Too Much Sun would be critically panned and ignored by audiences. His final movie as a writer and director, Hugo Pool, would gross just $13k when it was released in December 1997, despite having a cast that included Patrick Dempsey, Richard Lewis, Malcolm McDowell, Alyssa Milano, Cathy Moriarty and Sean Penn, along with Junior.   Downey would also continue to act in other director's movies, including two written and directed by one of his biggest fans, Paul Thomas Anderson. Downey would play Burt, the studio manager, in Boogie Nights, and the WDKK Show director in Magnolia. Anderson adored Downey so much, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker would sit down with Downey for a four-part conversation filmed for the Criterion Company in 2013.   Robert Downey would pass away in July 2021, a curious footnote in the history of cinema, mostly because of the superstar he sired. Most of his movies are hard to find on video, and nearly impossible to find on streaming services, outside of a wonderful two disc DVD set issued by Criterion's Eclipse specialty label and several titles streaming on The Criterion Channel. Outside of Up the Academy, which is available to rent or purchase from Amazon, Apple TV and several other streaming services, you can find Putney Swope, Greaser's Palace and Too Much Sun on several of the more popular streaming services, but the majority of them are completely missing in action. You can also learn more about Robert Downey in Sr., a documentary streaming on Netflix produced by Robert Downey, Jr. where the son recounts the life and career of his recently passed father, alongside Paul Thomas Anderson, Alan Arkin, and mega-producer Norman Lear.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 107, on John Landis's underrated 1985 comedy Into the Night, 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.

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