After my last episode with the wonderful, artfully creepy 'The Dead Zone'...I wanted more. More Walken.  More Sci-Fi.  More 1983.  And then Louise Fletcher died.  And it was all right there: BRAINSTORM.  Douglas Trumbull's 1983 science-fiction passion project-turned-albatross.  On the surface it has it all: a killer cast, a great premise (what if you could experience the thoughts and feelings of other people through a breakthrough of computer technology), and a proven special effects commodity in its director.

But as always seems to be the case with the not-quite-great films that start so promisingly...there were in retrospect warning signs.  Trumbull intended to film the movie in his groundbreaking film format 'Showscan' but the studio balked at the expense and need for theater owners to install expensive new equipment.  Then, various screenwriters took stabs at the script.  And infamously, Natalie Wood, filming her return to the big screen after taking a break to be a Mom, died during filming while on a mysterious overnight yacht trip onboard husband Robert Wagner's boat, with only Christopher Walken along.  The case was never solved and was last reopened in 2018.

So, for all that sturm und drang...how is 'Brainstorm' as a film?  Listen to the episode to find out.

Jason is joined by frequent FCAC contributor Richard Brown as they discuss David Cronenberg's atypical (for Cronenberg) film of Stephen King's novel "The Dead Zone".  A deep celebration of this extraordinary film and the Oscar-worthy (and criminally ignored) performance of Christopher Walken, this episode also celebrates Cronenberg, Producer Debra Hill, Composer Michael Kamen, Walken Co-Star Brooke Adams, and MORE.

The making of George Lucas' first 'Star Wars' film is an incredible saga unto itself.

The global success of 'Star Wars' and how it changed the film business forever is an incredible saga unto itself.

The industry advancements in technology pioneered by Lucas' special effects shop Industrial Light and Magic is an incredible saga unto itself.

The above, and several other sentences I could similarly write, are why it's somewhat difficult to even contemplate 'Star Wars' as 'a movie', as freed of the importance and baggage the entire franchise trails in its considerable wake as its possible to be.

But hey, that's what we do here at Full Cast and Crew.  So in this week's episode, I recount the experience I had in screening 'Star Wars' for the first time in a long time, and contrast that experience with the one I had watching the film AFTER I read the making-of books and watched the making-of documentaries.

In order to gain some clarity, I then invited repeat FCAC guests Dan Hartley and Bruce Edwards (their previous episodes linked below) to join me. Dan is a hard-core Star Wars guy and Bruce is extremely knowledgeable about the franchise and what it represents.

So this episode is not a fan-boy, nerd-herding deep dive into whether Han shot first (of course he did), nor is it a "Star Wars is overrated" trolling excercise. Instead, we talk at length about the making-of, about where the first film succeeds and falls short, and why, and about the legacy of sequels and limited series. Join us, won't you??

Bruce Edwards' appearance on the pod to talk about 'Blade Runner' (the 2nd-most downloaded episode of FCAC all time) can be found here.

Bruce Edwards' appearance on the pod to discuss 'Alien' can be found here.

Dan Hartley joining Chris and I (on what would turn out to be Chris' last episode!) to talk about the brilliantly insane 'Star Wars Holiday Special' can be found here.

Some clips of David Prowse in the Vader costume performing the physical portion of the role and speaking Vader dialogue later to be replaced by James Earl Jones is here.

George Lucas' first film, THX 1138 can be rented here.

Current events lead me to revisit 'The Queen' (2006), which, in addition to being an actor's movie of the highest caliber, offers a more nuanced appraisal of its subjects than I think it gets credit for. 

In the popular imagination, this film is probably considered a film that is sympathetic to the Queen and to the Royals, but a rewatch reveals a film that contains as many caustic anti-Monarchy sentiments as it does understanding and human moments.  A clear-eyed portrait of the Royals and of Tony Blair, the film holds up today as the best-filmed entertainment about the Royal Family, and yes, that includes Peter Morgan's essential but more luridly soapy 'The Crown'.

Centered around the events surrounding Princess Diana's death in a Paris tunnel and the aftermath, 'The Queen' is one of my favorite types of films; a tick-tock amalgam of real-life footage and events blended with fictionalized "what must they have been thinking" moments and plenty of moments where the two different approaches meet, such as the two famous public speech moments: one: Tony Blair's 'People's Princess' statement outside the Church in his constituency, and two: the Queen's statement in tribute to Diana, delivered a week after her death and the capping moment of an extraordinary week of push-pull public sentiment and private grief and backstage wrangling.

Background materials discussed in the episode:  

99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret

'The Queen' on Apple, including special feature commentary by Stephen Frears and Peter Morgan.

Clips referenced in the episode:

Tony Blair's actual "People's Princess" speech

Michael Sheen as Tony Blair delivering the speech

Helen Mirren's Queen's Tribute speech.

The Queen's actual Tribute to Diana

Summer's over and it's time to transition to winter and that means SKI FILMS.

Avoiding pap like "Ski School" and "Hot Dog: The Movie" we are instead taking up a listener suggestion to pod about 'Aspen Extreme'...a film I quote comedically (and to generally blank stares) all the time.  Turns out this movie's actually really good and a cut way above the usual dumbass soft-core porn ski comedies all too frequently littered across our slopes in the 80's and 90's.

Aspen Extreme was written and directed by Patrick Hasburgh, who went on to create TV's 'Hardcastle & McCormick' and '21 Jump Street', and was originally conceived by Hasburgh as a darker and grittier look at ski-town life; the highs and especially the lows: the drugs, the empty pursuit of thrills at the expense of relationships, the death and injuries.  But Hollywood Pictures insisted on cuts and on a marketing campaign geared around the phrase "Top Gun on the slopes" which bore little resemblance to the actually well-written character study/fish-out-of-water buddy dramedy he turned out.

Over time, 'Aspen Extreme' has settled into a comfortable middle-age. Screenings in Aspen now have the glow of fondly reminisced times past, and the cast seems to have all thrived in the decades since release.

So while I intended this episode to be tongue-firmly-in-cheek...I was actually surprised even as a fan of this movie to discover it's a totally competent, even moving film set in and around a ski resort, not just another ski comedy with lowbrow jokes and ethnic stereotypes ('Chinese Downhill'...I'm looking at you, 'Hot Dog')....

Michael Mann's 'Heat' is many things; intensely beloved Los Angeles crime saga, De Niro-and-Pacino-onscreen-together curiosity, technically brilliant filmmaking accomplishment, both genre-defining and genre-busting, a tour-de-force of casting, atour-de-force of acting, a tour-de-force of directing, writing, editing, production design, and score....it has enduring presence and continued influence.  It's one of my top 3 favorite films and as such I've resisted doing it on the podcast because it contains the multitudes above.

But a recent rewatch allowed me to appreciate some aspects of the film anew, and inspired this episode. I was particularly struck by the women of 'Heat', which is perhaps a surprise to those who subscribe to the "Michael Mann makes guy films women aren't interested in" take.  But the work of Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, and Kim Staunton is worthy of the praise it gets in this episode.  The work each actor put into making their characters fully-formed people with their own often conflicted and conflicting reasons for partnering with a criminal or a driven robbery-homicide detective rises these performances from background to foreground. Their scenes are as alive and filled with energy and emotion as the meticulously filmed and edited heist scenes.

And also, the supporting casting is singled out in this episode; from Jon Voight, to Tom Noonan, Bud Cort, Mykleti Williamson, Dennis Haysbert, Tone Loc, Ted Levine, Hank Azaria, William Fichtner, Ricky Harris, Natalie Portman and beyond, Bonnie Timmerman and Michael Mann outdid themselves in searching for, in waiting for, just the right actors capable of going all the way in with characterizations deeper than usual for supporting players in films.

'Heat' is a film that is so praised, so accepted as a masterpiece of its kind that it actually takes some work to watch it free of all that positive baggage and appreciate it all over again as an actor's movie, as one person quoted in the podcast says...it's a film of deep emotional power and human connection.  In this episode, I surprised myself by plugging into these aspects of 'Heat' and hopefully you will enjoy having your filmic receptors tantalized enough to inspire your own re-watch. Please let me know what you think when you do!

In this episode, we revisit Brian DePalma's 1981 thriller 'Blow Out', which reunited the director with his 'Carrie' supporting actor John Travolta, who, fives years later, was post-'Saturday Night Fever', 'Grease' and 'Urban Cowboy' and was now one of Hollywood's biggest stars.

'Blow Out' was one of DePalma's most personal films, stemming from his obsessions with the Kennedy Assassination, voyeurism, filmmaking, Hitchcock, and Garrett Brown's new filmmaking invention, the Steadicam.  Shot in his hometown of Philadelphia among locations he was intimately familiar with.

Topics in the episode:  DePalma's flirtations with directing 'Prince of the City' and 'Flashdance'.  His Hitchcock revelations.  How his small conspiracy film took on larger proportions with the arrival of an unexpected star.  The layers and layers of meta meaning in 'Blow Out'. A revisionist take on 'The Conversation'.  Appreciating 'Blow Up'.  Siskel & Ebert, Pauline Kael, and MORE!

Thrilled to revisit 1979's seminal teen-angst/school destruction fantasy 'Over The Edge'...a teen film to rule them all, a movie that more accurately captures the bonds of youthful friendship and the bounds of self-discovery than all the John Hughes films combined.  Using a mix of first-time, inexperienced, and non-professional locals as actors, the Colorado-shot film has an authenticity and veracity to it that's rarely been equalled. Plus it has an absolute kick-ass soundtrack loaded with Cheap Trick, Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, The Cars, and Ramones. It launched the career of Matt Dillon, who was discovered loitering in a Long Island High School hallway during class time.  "What's your Mother do?" the casting director asked. "She don't do shit" was Dillon's attitudinal reply and he has the job because of and not in spite of his rawness and rough edges.  Joined by frequent FCAC guest star Richard Brown, we talk all about the origin story, making of, and critical and fan reception to this excellent and enduring film.

A random IG post sends Jason down the Joe Spinell wormhole and he emerges in 1973 to experience for the first time 'Cops and Robbers', Aram Avakian's film of a Donald E. Westlake comedy screenplay about two NYC cops who decide to try their hand on the other side of the law. 

Featuring pitch-perfect period performances (say that 10 times fast)...'Cops and Robbers' is a really good gem of a 70's film, and has two great lead performances by NYC acting stalwarts Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna.  Jason shares a cherished memory of being clueless in a CBS employees bar in the early 90's and meeting Cliff Gorman.

Topics covered: Joe Spinell's particular tortured genius for bit character parts. The Godfather bit where Spinell's Willie Cicci is called "Mr. Quested" by a Senator and brings the house down with "Oh yeah, the family had a lotta buffers".

Also: Roscoe Lee Browne for the ages.  ENJOY! Thanks for listening!

Ethan Hawke's meta-documentary about the lives, love, losses, and careers of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward is a worthwhile, often confounding effort with rewards and challenges alike. 

In this episode Jason talks about the origin of the documentary in the discovery of some transcripts of interviews conducted by a Newman associate in pursuit of a memoir and biography that Newman wanted to work on.  For unknown reasons, Newman later abandoned the project and burned the audio tapes.  But the transcripts survived and form the basis for actor-interpreted versions used in Hawke's documentary to varying degrees of success.  

The documentary tackles weighty issues like the loss of Newman's son Scott, the struggle within a marriage to survive the orbital tilt of Newman's level of super-stardom, and Newman's battle with alcoholism...a battle it seems he never quite won.

By turns infuriating and moving, the film is a worthy but effortful watch.  

Also discussed: Alan Cummings lip-sync performance in the documentary 'My Old School', the AI Bourdain quotes used in his posthumous doc, and Peter Jackson's use of machine learning processes to reveal (or create) conversations in 'The Beatles: Get Back'.