The Super 70 Podcast

A couple of months ago, Luke and I had a short discussion on March Madness. I showed him an NCAA bracket and he instantly said, ‘we should do one for James Bond.’ I duly put one together, grouping the bonds together and facing them off basically using Connery, Dalton, and Brosnan on one side and Moore and Craig on the other. Then we went to it, and the results may surprise you.

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List of Bond Films:

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Diamonda are Forever

Live and Let Die

The Man with The Golden Gun

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

Never Say Never Again

A View to a Kill

The Living Daylights

License to Kill

Goldeneye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World is not Enough

Die Another Day

Casino Royale

Quantum of Solace

Skyfall

Spectre

No Time to Die

My son took a course in Fascist Cinema in college. I was aware of his workload since that was an area of my study in grad school. Join us as we talked about the fucked-up values of National Socialist films and why their beauty makes them so dangerous. Be prepared for an opening statement with a lot of requests and qualifiers.

Works Cited:

Hoffman, Hilmar. The Triumph of Propaganda. Providence Press. Berghahn. 1996.

Hull, David. Film in the Third Riech. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1969.

Frieden Ed. Et al., Gender and German Cinema. Berg, 1993.

Rentschler, Eric. The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife. 1996.

Rentschler, Eric. German Film and Literature: Adaptation and Transformations. 1986.

Chapoutot, Johann. The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi. Belknap Press. 2018.

One year ago, I saw a trailer on YouTube, showed it to my son, and he said hell yes! Let’s see Pathaan! We were blown away by this action powerhouse with Hindustan’s most famous actor Shah Ruh Khan and Deepika Padukone. Since then we’ve seen a handful of Bollywood films, all from 2023, and we were greatly impressed with what we saw.

Dave and I go over the biggest releases in 2023 and hit our letterbxd to see what worked, what didn’t, and why we keep going back to the theatre. We also discuss the most important topics of the day, such as watching Fincher’s The Killer with no sound, the merits of Friedkin, and who’s Letterbxd is more impressive.

Takeshi Yamazaki shook the American movie market last month when Godzilla Minus One became the highest earning Japanese film in history. The lizard has always been popular but placed against the backdrop of the tragedy of the Second World War and entwined with the lives of survivors Noriko and Koichi, Godzilla Minus One captures the heart as well as the eyes. Luke and I sit down and discuss the edge of your seat drama, the eye-popping special effects, and the metaphor of it all.

My good friend Dave Anderson went to go see the Holdovers on my recommendation and he listened to my last podcast episode with great envy. Jealous that he could not participate, he texted me, begged me, pleaded with me, to come back into the Hacienda to discuss what must be the first Christmas Classic in 20 years, and what may be the last one in a very long time.

Alexander Payne had not made a single film that I like until I went to see The Holdovers for Tightwad Tuesday. Masked by the period piece setting, the story is more about how broken people find peace than it’s outward image as a Christmas film. Teaming up with Paul Giamatti and using David Hemingson’s first script for the big screen, Payne avoids the rom-com holiday fare by pitting the veteran Giamatti’s cantankerous private school professor against first time actor Dominc Sessa, an actor literally from the drama class at the school used as a set. Balancing the two is Da’Vine Joy Randolf, an inspired casting decision who turns in a revelatory performance. Join my son Luke and I as we discuss this surprising holiday hit that has a chance to become a drama to come back to every December.

My son Luke and I saw Napoleon the day after Thanksgiving and we came back immediately and turned the mikes on to talk about Ridley Scott’s latest epic. We run through the scenes, the history behind the great man (Napoleon, not Ridley) and we contrast this epic from the others it deserves to be ranked with. Join us as we talk about Scott’s unbelievable vision from the Golden Age of Hollywood, his previous historical epic, and why we’re still talking about Napoleon and Ridley today.

After wrapping up the Sorcerer commentary, Dave and I sat around, consumed mass quantities, and as much as we tried to focus on Hurricane Billy Friedkin and his work, we quickly descended into how we consume cinema, soundtracks, and Friedkin’s fellow auteurs. We go all over the place but you can follow along. You can find me on Threads, Letterbxd, and www.thatdylandavis.com.

Hot off the success of the ninth highest grossing movie of all time, William Friedkin abandoned a film about the Bermuda Triangle to focus on a re-interpretation of the George Arnaud novel “The Wages of Fear.” Every possible thing went wrong during every stage of production. Stars dropped out. The budget ballooned. Friedkin fired needed personnel. The shoot stretched past 90 days. Largely ignored in the wake of the release of Star Wars a month earlier, Sorcerer has in the decades since been re-appraised as one of Friedkin’s best films. Ostensibly about four criminals in hiding delivering unstable dynamite to an oil well on fire, Friedkin uses the parable to convey how the different nations of the world have to join together to get the job done... or die in the process. Join me and Dave Anderson as we break down the rhyme and reason of the film that derailed “Hurricane Billy’s” career.

Works Cited

Friedkin, WIlliam. The Freidkin Connection: A Memoir. Harper 2013

Segaloff, Nat Hurricane Billy. William Morrow 1990