Have You Ever Seen

Punk rockers have to fight back against their drug-peddling, murderous hosts in the second edition in Have You Ever Seen's 11th Annual Scary Movie Month. Green Room isn't going to make you jump in fright or sweat out every pore, but it IS an intense experience as Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat and Imogen Poots try to avoid being murdered by Patrick Stewart and his jerky group of neo-Nazis. Arms are left in very bad condition, dogs go for the jugular and the body count is enormous for a fairly contained movie. The violence isn't gratuitous in Jeremy Saulnier's dark thriller, but it IS brutal...and there's much bloodshed. So 1-2-3-4 listen to episode #764. the 10-year-old Green Room.

Well, Actually: Alia Shawkat should be pronounced as it looks: "Shaw-cat," not "Shaw-cot." Also, I've seen Rebel Ridge since recording this episode (which is intense and well-acted like Green Room is...and I recommend it too).

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The 11th Annual Scary Movie Month starts on a Friday this year…and this 763rd episode spends (or wastes) time talking about an early entry in the slasher genre. The Burning is all about an abusive caretaker named Cropsey being burned nearly to death in a stupid prank, then the mutilated man comes back years later for revenge against anyone…and everyone. Tony Maylam's hack shriek-fest isn't scary. It's just cheesy and grisly. Not in a fun way either, even with all the rampant nudity. This lazy dreck is slickly made, at least, with major players like the Weinsteins working behind the scenes. So sharpen your hedge clippers and crash a summer camp as Jason Alexander cracks jokes and the blood flies as I do a thing about The Burning.

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It's fitting that with Scary Movie Month right around the spooky corner, here's a Japanese classic that's all about death. Yojimbo is the first Akira Kurosawa film on Have You Ever Seen in quite a few years. And just like in Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne Of Blood and so many of his others, it's been very influential on other filmmakers. Longtime AK collaborator, Toshiro Mifune, plays a selfish ronin who works 2 sides of a gang war against each other. The antihero is, as he always was, very Kabuki, but also very commanding. He's the star of a bloody and violent B&W classic as people die while Sanjuro rides the fence (and also kills plenty of the townsfolk). So grab a fistful of this 762nd episode as I relate some thoughts about Yojimbo.

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For the 8th year running, Have You Ever Seen spends time on the film that won Best Picture several months earlier. Paul Thomas Anderson finally won not just 1, but 3 Oscars for his funny, often-thrilling action movie. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a former revolutionary (and perpetual nitwit pothead) who's raising Chase Infiniti on his own, since her mother (a dangerously dynamic Teyana Taylor) ratted on their fellow terrorists. Sean Penn is a vicious, racist lawman who's sexually obsessed with Taylor while Benicio Del Toro is a goofy, yet helpful karate sensei. PTA's flick is complicated, since it's all about often-unlikable rabble rousers whose actions got people killed. Fun experience though! I talked a lot about Oscar rival Sinners early on in this episode too, by the way. So don't be a rat OR a terrorist. Just dance backwards while in police custody as I enjoy a few small beers and toss episode #761 your way.

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Wonder Boys and X-Men: The Last Stand might not have much in common, except they made my Top 10 lists in 2000 and 2006. In this 760th episode, I first dug into the lived-in, lovely loneliness in Curtis Hanson's movie about fans of the printed word. Wonder Boys is funny, offbeat and quite satisfying. Michael Douglas leads a terrific cast while the likes of Maguire, Downey, McDormand and Holmes are varying degrees of wonderful too. Just delightful. Then my X-Men 3 review got even more time. The huge-budget production was rushed, there were probably too many actors in the cast and it (apparently) betrayed the classic Dark Phoenix storyline from the comics. Still, I continue to find it exciting and surprising. So maybe you can be The Cure as Have You Ever Seen does some Wondering and some Standing.

Well, Actually: Frances McDormand was in Sam Raimi's Darkman, so she WAS in a superhero film.

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What a scoop! The Labour Day episode talks about what's going down in Billy Wilder's caustic Ace In The Hole. His gift was comedy, but he could obviously handle the serious stuff too. Here he wrote and directed a searing drama about crooked cops, the opportunistic media, bad wives, leeches, ghoulish gawkers...and 1 suffering victim. Ace In The Hole was underappreciated 75 years ago and it was a box office bomb. It's thought of as a classic now, even if it isn't perfect. Kirk Douglas didn't have a problem playing heels...or overacting. He does both here. He's a greedy, self-loathing newspaperman who keeps a man trapped under rubble for many days longer than necessary just so he can publish several human-interest stories. The victim's wife, Jan Sterling, is a vicious jerk too. So do some hollering (and be hollered at) as I put out a bulletin about Wilder's indictment of everybody in show #759.

Well, Actually: Kirk Douglas' stroke happened only a few weeks before he was given an Honorary Oscar in 1996, not a few years before.

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To put a close on August (a month that ended up being about performers performing), I'm getting into the doin's about Howard Hawks' amusing musical starring those mega-watters Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. Well, pseudo-musical. Hawks was one of the best directors of rom-coms...and THAT material in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is at least close to his typical level. The elaborately excellent costumes, the Technicolor and the "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" number just aren't what he was best at, but even that good stuff works well too. The dual love story is snappy amidst all kinds of hoopla about diamond-digging, especially over a tiara. So jump on a boat while you cavort with a bunch of hunky guys and sing about your favourite mineral as I break it all down in this 758th edition of Have You Ever Seen.

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The 757th episode is all about performers. First, Disney's hit about a flying elephant who gets loaded and sees pink elephants is the focus. Dumbo's print on Disney Plus is beautiful. The voicework is also good, plus it's charming, sweet, and (controversial black crows aside) the mother-loves-child story is eternal. Next up was the silent comedy, Show People. Director King Vidor and star Marion Davies were a good team on more than 1 project back then, yet neither has previously been discussed on Have You Ever Seen. Just as in reality, Davies is good at being light and fun in this engrossing comedy, although her character masquerades as a serious actress. There are cameos by many big stars, including Chaplin and 4 actors on my AFI Old-Timey Actors list. So touch trunks with your mom at the circus and also fall for both of your co-stars as I talk about the thrill of performing in this talk about Dumbo and Show People.

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This is the 11th time a Coen Brothers film has been discussed on Have You Ever Seen, although this black comedy is slyer than many of the others. There's also a lot of violence and horror in Barton Fink. It's covering a lot of ground. John Turturro plays the title character, a Broadway playwright who's hired to write a wrestling picture in 1941 Hollywood. After dealing with writer's block for what seems like weeks on end, his script gets meta...and things get weird. John Goodman plays a complicated character with a lot of wit and devilishness while John Mahoney, Judy Davis, Jon Polito and Steve Buscemi contribute their quirks to this one too. Joel & Ethan have Barton talking a lot about the common man in this very uncommon dramedy. T'is a theme. So take your head-box to the beach and contemplate your dark future in California as I fill out close to an hour of talk time in this 756th episode with a look into Barton Fink.

Well, Actually: in the "So I Got Thinkin'" about some of the summer's big releases, Milly Alcock was misidentified Milly "Adcock."

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The 755th episode of Have You Ever Seen is a doubleheader of oldies with very little in common. First, it's Jules Dassin's tough and uncompromising prison-break drama, Brute Force. It was brutally violent for 1947 audiences, as Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford and friends team up to bust out...partly to escape Hume Cronyn's vicious captain of the guards. It's one of the great jailbird flicks, even if it's been surpassed by the likes of Cool Hand Luke and Shawshank in the 8 decades since. Then I touched on Michael Cimino's infamous Heaven's Gate...although that review is more of a defence of a movie that took a lot of heat for ending the "Director's Era" of the 1970s. Hey, Cimino made a good-looking western with a terrific cast (Kristofferson, Walken, Hurt, Bridges, Huppert)...and now the movies made by the "he ended the party" scapegoat is viewed much more favourably. So dedicate about 42 minutes to my 2-pack about the Brute and Gate.

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