For the hardest of the hardcore Full Cast and Crew Smiley Heads out there...as promised, here are the Tinker Tailor commentary tracks.

Wasn't sure how folks would consume there: would you benefit from a countdown timed to the episodes on YouTube so you can watch and listen? Or will you just listen to these like a normal episode without watching along? LMK and if I can tweak the format to help out on the subsequent commentaries I will.

Long before 'Waiting For Guffman', Christopher Guest directed 'The Big Picture', a heartfelt, hilariously incisive movie about making movies. The film was greenlit during British film executive David Puttnam's brief tenure running Columbia Pictures.  Co-written by Guest's 'Spinal Tap' co-star Michael McKean, who also turns in an unexpectedly warm and heartfelt performance, 'The Big Picture' is worthy of rediscovery for its impressively spot-on send-up of both Los Angeles and the studio executives who populate the business.

The film stars Kevin Bacon, McKean, J.T. Walsh, Emily Longstreth, an uncredited Martin Short, Fran Drescher, Jennifer Jason Leigh.  

You can watch the film here.

I've launched a newsletter that contains recommendations for movies, tv shows, books, podcasts, and music and you can subscribe and check out last week's issue here.

Or here:

 https://mailchi.mp/d32d4f0985fa/indistinct-chatter

Ryan Coogler's original film 'Sinners' defied the so-called conventional wisdom of Hollywood and dropped only 6% week-to-week in its box office performance. 

It was also the subject of a fascinating online discourse about how the film's box office performance was written about in industry media. 

In this episode I recount the online controversy surrounding some of the reporting on the film and give you my own take on having seen the film.  Enjoy!

The McKinsey Report mentioned in the podcast:  

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/black-representation-in-film-and-tv-the-challenges-and-impact-of-increasing-diversity

'Caddyshack', it turns out, is kind of a miracle of last-minute producer-led stitching together and salvaging, resulting in one of the more quotable films in comedy history.  

Hard to believe that at the time, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Rodney Dangerfield were not yet the massive film stars they'd become as a result of this movie.  

This episode delves into the coke-fueled nonstop party that was this film's production, a production that would contribute to the untimely death of co-writer Doug Kenney on a cliff in Hawaii where he'd gone to dry out.  Doug's death was one of the first casualties of this scene due to drugs, soon followed by John Belushi's.

LINKS:

Watch Caddyshack:

Why doesn't anyone believe me when I say I loved going to see this movie??

An episode in memoriam of Val Kilmer, who died this week.

Mentioned in this episode:

'Val', the excellent, moving, insightful, thoughtful documentary compiled from decades of Val Kilmer's home movies.

'Tombstone' is many people's favorite Kilmer film.

'Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's The Island of Dr. Moreau' is a fantastic making-of-a-trainwreck documentary about one of the most hilariously troubled film sets in Hollywood history.

Watch 'Heat'. It's always good for you.

Enjoy Val as Gay Perry in Shane Black's 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'.

One of the best 80's comedies is 'Real Genius'.

Read the Digital Renegade newsletter.

Don Simpson was one-half of one of the most successful production partnerships in Hollywood history. His reality-distortion-field helped bring about films like Flashdance, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, The Rock, Crimson Tide, and Days of Thunder, films that collectively grossed more than $3 billion dollars.

Don Simpson's life is a cautionary tale with an ignominious ending forever ensconced in Hollywood history. His appetite for drugs, prostitutes, plastic surgery, black Levi's 501 jeans (worn once and discarded), wrecking Porsches, pharmacology, peanut butter, and pizza got the best of him at age 52.

Listen in for the outrageous tale of how a pudgy kid from Alaska talked his way into transforming big-budget Hollywood blockbusters for a new decade.

LINKS:

Buy my guest Charles Fleming's definitive book about Hollywood in the 80's, High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess.

Don & Jerry on Charlie Rose, less than a year before Don's death.

A pretty good but exploitational multi-part tv documentary about Don Simpson.

Now-cancelled Hollywood gadfly James Toback's 'The Big Bang', starring Don.

What does it say about your favorite podcast host that he considers the 1979 BBC adaptation of John le Carre's seminal espionage novel 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' to be COMFORT VIEWING??

Nonetheless, as Smiley would say, there we are.

In this episode, curiously one in which I am still totally unresolved as to how best to approach this series in episodic fashion, I explore the myriad genius aspects of the production.

Considering the versatile, endlessly watchable and iconic American actor Gene Hackman.

HERE IT IS! Your most-anticipated episode of the year.