Mise en Screen

Episode 04: The Naked Gun


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In this episode we both watched awful, terrible, no-good films as punishment for losing the guessing game last episode. We then get back to regular scheduling with guessing and talking about two related films to our main feature: The Naked Gun, directed by Akiva Schaffer as well as written by Schaffer, Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, and starring Liam Neeson as Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr. who is pulled off a bank robbery case due to his excessive force and reassigned to a traffic suicide whose victim's sister, Pamela Anderson, insists was actually a murder. Danny Huston plays a tech billionaire who plans to use a plot device for an evil plan. Hijinks ensue.

Next week we will be discussing Shin Godzilla written and directed by Hideaki Anno and co-directed by Shinji Higuchi.

Works Cited:

  • American Criminal (Dylan Bank, 2019)
  • Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Adam McKay, 2004)
  • The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, 2011)
  • A Karate Christmas Miracle (Julie Kimmel, 2019)
  • Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
  • Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers (Akiva Schaffer, 2022)
  • The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
  • Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016)
  • Hard Boiled (John Woo, 1992)
  • Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
  • Holmes & Watson (Etan Coen, 2018)
  • Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)
  • Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson, 2022)
  • The Lego Movie (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2014)
  • Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2004)
  • Life's Too Short, Season 1 Episode 1 (Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, 2011)
  • "Michael Bay - What is Bayhem?" (Tony Zhou, Every Frame a Painting, 2014)
  • A Minecraft Movie (Jared Hess, 2025) [about which Ben's more articulate thoughts can be found here.]
  • The Naked Gun (Akiva Schaffer, 2025)
  • The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (David Zucker, 1988)
  • Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985)
  • Police Story 2 (Jackie Chan, 1988)
  • Police Story 3: Supercop (Stanley Tong, 1992)
  • Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping (Akiva Schaffer, 2016)
  • The Snowman (Tomas Alfredson, 2017)
  • Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)
  • Snatched (Jonathan Levine, 2017)
  • Spaceballs (Mel Brooks, 1987)
  • Spy Hard (Rick Friedberg, 1996)
  • Step Brothers (Adam McKay, 2008)
  • Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008)
  • Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Adam McKay, 2006)
  • Top Secret! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, & Jerry Zucker and Martyn Burke, 1984)
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)
  • The Untouchables (Brian De Palma, 1987)
  • Venom (Ruben Fleischer, 2018)
  • Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Jake Kasden, 2007)

Find us elsewhere!

Ben Verschoor

  • https://cinema-purgatorio.ghost.io/
  • https://letterboxd.com/jamn4sure/
  • @benverschoor.bsky.social

Steven Santana

  • https://breakingarrows.substack.com/
  • https://letterboxd.com/number8axel/
  • @number8axel.bsky.social‬

Opening music is Root Beer Rag by Billy Joel

Closing music is G-Spot Tornado by Frank Zappa

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Mise en ScreenBy Ben Verschoor & Steven Santana