Two Geeks and a GIT Classic Movie Reviews

Episode 160: It's back to the late 80s we go for the first film in our "Movies that didn't suck, based on TV shows" pairing with 1987's Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks comedic love-letter to one of the great detective shows of all time, "Dragnet!" Directed by Tom Mankiewicz (who helped write the story, along with Aykroyd), this film follows Joe Friday (Aykroyd), nephew of the Jack Webb character from the original series. As the tale begins, Friday's partner has retired and he's paired with 80s-hipster-equivalent Pep Streebek (Hanks) to investigate the burning of Hugh Hefner/Larry Flint amalgam, porn mogul Jerry Ceaser (Dabney Coleman) latest magazine run. Co-starring orignial cast member Harry Morgan as now Captain Frank Gannon, Christopher Plummer, Alexandra Paul, Jack O'Halloran, Elizabeth Ashley and the great character actor Kathleen Freeman, this film fairly shines with the love Aykroyd has for the original, all the while finding the humor to be had in a really good "fish out of water" story!

Episode 159: Our second Anime film in this pairing, as suggested to us by Twitter user @SleekyOT, is the next major anime film produced by Katushiro Otomo after Akira, 2004's "Steamboy!" Set in 1866 Manchester, England, the story follows James Ray Steam, 3rd generation inventor, as his insatiable curiosity gets him in the middle of a fight to control the power of steam after his grandfather, Lloyd, sends him a mysterious device known only as a "steam ball." The American dub features the voices of Anna Paquin, Alfred Molina, and Patrick Stewart as the men in the Steam family, plus voice actors Rosalind Ayres, Peter Lavin, Kari Wahlgren! And at the end, the trio reveal which two "Movies Based on TV Series (That Don't Suck)" films they'll be talking about for their next pairing!

Episode 158: As per a request by Twitter user @SleekyOT, this pairing focuses on anime, and you can't talk anime without talking the one film that caused a revolution in the United States when it came out on VHS in the early 1990s, 1988's "Akira!" Based on the 6-issue manga series by Katsuhiro Otomo (who also wrote and directed the film), this story follows Kaneda and Tetsuo, fellow bike gang members and sort-of friends, through life in Neo Tokyo. After Tetsuo (almost literally) runs across a strange elderly child, he is captured, subjected to government tests, and finds himself possessed of great psychic abilities. Unfortunately, they may be too powerful for him to control unless he can track down the mysterious Akira and learns control from him! The American dub of the film features the voices of Johnny Yong Bosch, Joshua Seth, and Wendee Lee. This film is about a third of the complete story in the manga, and was completed before the comic was, rather like Game of Thrones!

Episode 157: The second film in our second time-travel pairing is probably the first film that comes to mind when someone says "time-travel movies." It is, of course, the 1985 classic "Back to the Future!" Directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson, Claudia Wells, Marc McClure, Wendie Jo Sperber, and the first cinematic appearance of Billy Zane, this film is a romp with a heart of gold and a sub-text that really examines the essence of time-travel paradox and its effects! Plus, the trio read a tweet from a listener who suggested the film that will start our next pairing!

Episode 156: This is our second pairing of time-travel films, and we're starting with a film that casually examines the ultimate question of time travel: If you can go back in time and change the past, should you? Directed by Don Taylor and starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, James Farentino, Ron O'Neal, and Charles Durning, this film follows the U.S.S. Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which is somehow catpulted back in time to December 6th, 1941, the day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They have the means to stop one of the worst attacks on American soil in history. Should they? Will they? We won't tell you (you'll have to watch the movie for that) but we will tell you all about the production and how the film ended up being such a love-letter to the U.S. Navy that they've used it as a recruiting tool!

Episode 155: Our second film for our "Films About Movie Theatres" pairing comes from 2001, and director Frank Darabont (who also directed "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile"), and tells the story about a Hollywood writer suspected of communist ties back in the McCarthy era, who loses his memory and gets mistaken for a "thought-dead" soldier miraculously returned from WWII in writer Michael Sloane's amazing "The Majestic." The film stars Jim Carey in his first serious (as opposed to comedic) starring role, Martin Landau, Laurie Holden, Bob Balaban, Jeffrey DeMunn, Hal Holbrook, David Ogden Stiers, and the final cinematic performance of veteran character actor James Whitmore. Plus, the film features the voices of Garry Marshall, Paul Mazursky, Syndney Pollack, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, and Matt Damon! This is a "Jim Carey movie" unlike any other, and a good story with a message that still resonates, especially in today's world! Plus, the trio let you in on which two time-travel films they'll focus on for their first pairing in that genre!

Episode 154: This pairing we're calling "Films About Movie Theatres," and we're starting with a semi-autobiographical look at the "Gimmick King" of the 1950s and 60s, William Castle, in 1993's "Matinee!" Directed by Joe Dante, and starring John Goodman as Lawrence Woolsey, the film takes place during the Cuban Missle Crisis, and juxtaposes that against the efforts of a schlock B-movie filmmaker to bring something new to the movie-watching experience, to bring a little showmanship back to the theatre, as it were. Co-starring Cathy Moriarty as Woolsey's long-suffering girlfriend Ruth Corday, the film also features Simon Fentin, Lisa Jakub, Omri Katz, Kelly Martin, Robert Picardo, and the final performance ever from the incredible Jesse White, not to mention smaller roles featuring some original B-Movie actors like Dick Miller and William Schallert! Plus, if you look quickly, you can catch the very first film appearance of Naomi Watts! A fun, gorgeous film about loss of innocence combined with the best in-theatre movie gimmicks of all time!

Episode 153: Our second film featuring the comedy duo of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor moves us to the other end of the 1980s for 1989's Arthur Hiller-directed "See No Evil, Hear No Evil!" Co-starring Joan Severance, Kevin Spacey (in one of his earlist film appearances), and Kirsten Childs, this film follows the lives of Wally (Pryor), who is blind, and Dave (Wilder) who is deaf. They cross paths at just the wrong (or right?) time and get embroiled in an ongoing industrial espionage event which seems them pursued by both the police and the criminals involved! Plus, find out what films about theatres the trio are turning to fore their next pairing!

Episode 152: For this pairing, we focus on one of the great comedy duos of the 1970s and 1980s, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor! In 1980's "Stir Crazy," directed by none other than Sidney Poitier, Skip Donahue (Wilder) and Harry Monroe (Pryor) are two down-on-their-luck guys who decide to ditch New York City for a small rural town in the middle of the country, where they get jobs advertising banking in a rather unique way. After bank robbers steal their costumes, the two are locked up and sent to prison, and from there the story really gets rolling! Co-starring George Stanford Brown, JoBeth Williams, Miguel Angel Suarez, Craig T. Nelson, Barry Corbin, and the astonishing Erland van Lidth, this story rolls on and through in a way that could only happen in the movies!

Episode 151: We move ahead to 1982 for our second film, again arguably the scariest film of its decade. This movie is quite different from last episode's topic, as it's a ghost story with a twist, and then another twist, and then another twist! Directed by Tobe Hooper (and perhaps Stephen Spielberg) and co-written by Spielberg, the movie "Poltergeist" is quite a different take on a traditional haunted house story. Starring Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Dominique Dunne, Oliver Robins, Heather O'Rourke, and Zelda Rubinstein, the story follows a typical American family in the 80s, living in the "Cuesta Verde" subdivision, where Nelson's character Steve Freeling works as a salesman for the builders of the community. Strange things begin to happen in their home, amusing at first, and then they take a much more sinister turn, and that's just the beginning! Truly one of the scariest films of the 80s, and perhaps ever, but one with a bit of humor in it as well. Very Spielberg-ian throughout, and so much fun! Plus, find out what comedy duo the trio will be focusing on for the next pairing!