Phi Phenomenon

As fall comes, does the end of summer drive-in season mean the end of theatrical film-going for those of us unwilling to go back to a theater during COVID-19? On today’s short episode once again is revolving guest-host Ted Haycraft, who joined me recently for positively perfect drive-in double-feature. We discuss how we’re both ashamed to have only seen both these movies once, the original’s low-budget effectiveness, the sequel calling a mulligan on a perfectly-fine original film, how fans watching that ’87 sequel must’ve felt like Raimi and the Coens Bros. were making their own genus of hyperkinetic cinema, and what moment still brought an audience together with cheers even in a drive-in field.

The Evil Dead is currently streaming on Netflix, while Evil Dead II is currently streaming on Hulu; both are also available on VOD.

Haycraft is film critic for WFIE-14 and co-hosts Cinema Chat on its Midday show. He can also be found on Cinema Chat’s Facebook page.

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Revolving guest-host Lani Gonzalez joins again this week for Shane’s pick, the controversial and often “discredited” 1971 essay from the polarizing New Yorker film critic about the former greatest film of all time and how Orson Welles tried to steal its screenwriting credit from the forgotten Herman J. Mankiewicz. On today’s episode we discuss how, unfortunately, the essay deserves much of its negative reputation due to a pre-determined thesis and sloppy research — but how it also manages to be a brilliant history about a generation of forgotten Algonquin writers giving us the wittiest and most literary period for American film, the 1930s. Also: The essay as the basis for David Fincher’s upcoming Netflix film Mank, the nature of film credit, and whether or not Kael deserves her reputation as America’s greatest film critic.

“Raising Kane” can be found either as the introduction to The Citizen Kane Book or in its two-part publication in the New Yorker here and here.

Citizen Kane is available to rent on video platforms, and is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Gonzalez writes about film for both Book and Film Globe and, alongside her husband AJ, their blog Cinema Then and Now.

Starting the new format of revolving guests, in this week’s discussion co-host Lani Gonzalez picks the actress Teresa Wright, the only performer to ever receive Academy Award nominations for each of her first three films, and in particular her film The Steel Trap. On today’s episode we dive deep into this 1952 film co-starring Joseph Cotton, her Shadow of a Doubt co-star from nine years previous, its writer/director Andrew L. Stone, and other films of Wright’s, from Pride of the Yankees to The Best Years of Our Lives. We also talk her bucking a contract with Samuel Goldwyn for artistic reasons at a time when actors were being dumped by producers, her stage work, and the unique appeal her acting brought to the dignity of so-called “ordinary” women immediately following the end of World War II.

Gonzalez writes about film for both Book and Film Globe and, alongside her husband AJ, their blog Cinema Then and Now.

Celebrated as one of Jean-Luc Godard’s favorite American film critics, Jonathan Rosenbaum has had an esteemed career as a writer of weekly film columns, books, academic analyses, and autobiography via film (an inspiration for this very podcast). On today’s episode we discuss why film culture is more connected now via the Internet than it ever was even in France in the 1970s, being an extra on a Robert Bresson film, his consulting contribution to Orson Welles’s posthumous output through his friendship with Oja Kadar, his continued belief in the importance of film lists, and his influential tenure at the Chicago Reader until leaving in 2008.

Rosenbaum still writes about film on his website, and his most recent book is Cinematic Encounters 2: Portraits and Polemics.

The 25th anniversary episode! Have you too found yourself dismissing the Wachowskis’ exuberant, boisterous, child-like, form-busting IP-driven blockbuster to the dustbin of history? Well, ya shouldn’t! For Shane’s pick this week, he and guest-host Ted Haycraft discuss how this 2008 film utilized the 3D format to adapt a flat 2D cheap TV anime, its use of split-screen and wipes as a hybrid of visual effects and inventive editing, the back and forth intensity and density of its storytelling, live-action Spritle and Chim Chim, and how, even ten years gone, the film still contains currents for the future of digital cinema.

Ted’s pick this week turns a little bit contentious due not to the movie itself — we both liked it — but, unsurprisingly for an election year, because of the politics of Big Wednesday’s outspoken and larger-than-life writer/director. On this episode we talk of the film’s robust romanticism, Milius’s accomplished screenwriting career, his love of literature and militarism, John Ford and how this movie aimed to be “How Green Was My Valley for surfing,” the questionable influence of violence and guns on film, and the role Milius’s self-mythmaking led into his arguable blacklisting from studio filmmaking.

Me and Ted argue, for the third week in a row of this format, over who loves this majestic, magical 1946 movie more — him or me? Am I able to convince a viewer over with all the technical and modern aspects? Or does Ted convince one about how modern and beloved this movie should be? Do you, as a film viewer, want to join our cult of the Powell/Pressburger lovers, a fanclub that includes acolytes such as Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese? Who gives a crap — JUST WATCH THIS MOVIE, YOU’LL BE CONVERTED ONE WAY OR ANOTHER(!). Then, come back and listen to this packed, breathless episode.

This week is Ted’s pick and, surprise surprise, he’s picked the Warren Beatty-directed comic strip adaptation as it hits its 30 years anniversary! On this episode we talk about Beatty’s portrayal in light of a plethora of interestingly designed villains, creator Chester Gould’s art style, the killer cast that included a Godfather reunion, why the movie’s virtues have aged well while its flaws have been largely forgotten, the TV special sequel that aired on TCM just once in 2008, and Ted’s five historical eras of comics book adaptations.

Dick Tracy is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Season two starts here, with a new bonus format! Guest-host Ted Haycraft and Shane discuss Martin Scorsese’s misbegotten musical, its similarities to a certain almost-Best Picture winner from a few years ago, the troubled production, various iterations, and the under-discussed career of screenwriter Earl Mac Rauch.

Season one finale. Pat Means rules Hollywood with a tyrannical iron fist. J/K, she’s my mom. On today’s personal episode, we find out if I really am named after a movie, seeing Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet twice (twice!) in a theater, being a casual movie fan while raising a film fanatic, her contributions to the development of the sitcom Roseanne, what movies scared me as a child to the point of tears, and if she really was worried about me financially going into the arts when she knew no one else who had done so. Means is currently promoting social distancing at an anonymous location in Indiana.