The Cannon Cruisers

Happy Halloween, Cannon Cruisers! Randy here! For our third annual Halloween Spooktacular, JD and I take another Non-CANNON-ical break from the Cannon Catalogue and tackle Psycho II (1983), Psycho III (1986) and the made-for-TV Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990). I had watched Alfred Hitchcock's original Psycho for the first time the night before, then followed it with nearly five straight hours of Psycho sequels the next day. This may have been a mistake.

The marathon itself quickly becomes part of the episode. We start out pleasantly surprised by Psycho II and how seriously it treats Norman Bates trying to return to a normal life. By Psycho III, our patience is beginning to collapse. Psycho IV changes things up with an origin story, but by then I've spent so much time at the Bates Motel that I'm openly begging JD not to make us watch three movies for the next Halloween special.

Content Warning: This episode contains strong language and discussion of horror violence, mental health, suicide-related themes and sexual themes.

Hey Cannon Cruisers fans! Randy here! This week, JD and I take on Michael Mann's Heat (1995), starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. A veteran Los Angeles detective closes in on a highly disciplined professional thief, drawing two men on opposite sides of the law toward an inevitable confrontation.

Heat comes with quite a reputation. It also runs nearly three hours and seems to contain half of Hollywood circa 1995. JD and I talk about how Mann handles a movie this sprawling, with his use of sound getting particular attention in both the quieter scenes and the famous downtown shootout. The conversation also keeps coming back to Pacino and De Niro, and how closely the cop and criminal begin to mirror one another.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of violence and sexual abuse involving a minor.

Hey Cannon Cruisers fans! Randy here! The detour never ends! This week, JD and I check out Marshall Brickman's The Manhattan Project (1986), starring Christopher Collet and John Lithgow. A brilliant teenager becomes suspicious of a nearby research facility and steals nuclear material to prove a point, eventually deciding the best way to expose what is happening is to build an atomic bomb of his own.

Coming immediately after SpaceCamp in our summer detour, JD and I compare two very different 1986 science-fiction films that arrived under some particularly unfortunate real-world circumstances. Much of the discussion follows The Manhattan Project's deliberately slow build and how the consequences of Paul's decisions gradually push the movie into much tenser territory. We also look at its disastrous box-office run and the crowded summer release schedule it was up against.

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of nuclear weapons and mass-casualty scenarios.