Author: ccradio

Reel 84: Denzel On the Case, Part 1

This is the first of two episodes we’ll be doing, featuring Denzel Washington as a law enforcement officer of some kind.

We open up with The Mighty Quinn, a 1989 film that Washington made right on the heels of his stint in the television show St. Elsewhere. (Don’t mistake it for his film debut, though.) Denzel is a police officer on a Caribbean island and there are some strange doings happening, which point to a good friend of his as the culprit. It’s a story of comedy, corruption, government interference, voodoo, cool drinks and hot music as he works to crack the case.

From there we return to the mainland and see our man in New York City, for Inside Man (2006), directed by Spike Lee. This is a crime thriller that has Denzel’s character matching wits with a bank robber. There are lots of twists and turns and you’re never sure who the titular “inside man” is until you’re very close to the end—although there are lots of breadcrumbs to help you figure it out. If, that is, you know how to read them.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

From the modern-day pieces of today’s episode, we’re going to jump to a period piece. Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) is set in post-war California. There’s a mystery to be solved, and Denzel’s the man to solve it. Finally, we wrap this package up with Out of Time (2003), which returns Denzel to the present day, but he’s back in a tropical (well, subtropical, anyway) location to solve a murder before it can be pinned on him. Join us, won’t you?

Reel 83: In the Style of Howard Hawks

Our first episode of 2025 is the last of our “In the Style of” series, and this was a fun one to make for us. This time around we’re looking at films that emulate director Howard Hawks in one way or another. Maybe it’s dialogue, maybe it’s the overall vibe, maybe it’s the cinematography…

…Nah. It’s not the cinematography. But it is the vibe and the dialogue. Both of these films, which couldn’t be more different in content and tone from one another (or from most of Hawks’ work, for that matter), definitely have an echo that could get you thinking, “Yeah…he would have handled this pretty much the same way.”

On to fhe movies themselves. And we open up with 1994’s The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down Speed, directed by Jan de Bont in his American feature debut as a director, and starring Keanu Reeves and a then largely-unknown Sandra Bullock. It’s a tense thriller that still manages to overlay a lot of laugh-out-loud  humor, and a little bit of romantic comedy. Dennis Hopper plays a pretty definitive crazy guy as only he can, and we get some smaller-but-solid performances from the likes of Jeff Daniels, Joe Morton and Alan Ruck.

From there we jump ahead to 2015 and The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon for half the movie, and Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels (again), and a lot of other solid talent holding up the other half. Matt Damon is stranded on Mars and needs to stay alive for much longer than his equipment was designed to do. And all the folks on Earth have to find a way to get to Mars much faster than they expected they’d ever need. Again, a taut, serious story with a humorous overlay that’s quite faithful to its source material. Is the story good science? …eh…mostly. There are a few spots where Andy Weir, the book’s author, concedes he had to break the rules to get some characters where they needed to be. But in the long run you don’t care because it’s a fun ride.


COMING ATTRACTIONS:

If you like Denzel Washington, you’re going to love the next episode. Denzel is on the case, as we screen The Mighty Quinn, which wasn’t his first film role but it was his first after St. Elsewhere (I think…I’m pretty sure), and then it’s Inside Man, a heist film with an ending that we think will surprise you.

Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted

Yeah, we kind of dropped off the face of the Earth.

Sean and I separately decided that we needed a break from the schedule. We were getting a little burned out between this project, and life in general, and work hassles, and who knows what else. And one of us finally said to the other, “I can’t take anymore. I have to stop for awhile.”

And the other one replied “I was thinking the same thing! Let’s re-convene in a few weeks!”

So we did, and we were rude not to tell you, so for that we apologize and for your patience, we thank you.

Oddly enough, the episode you’ll hear next is NOT the first one we recorded after the break; we still had a few in the can, as the expression goes. But what I especially appreciated is that you probably won’t know where we pick up again, because we slid right back into the groove like we never stopped.

Reel 83 is scheduled to drop on Thursday night/Friday morning, depending on your time zone. We’ll be looking at a pair of films that were made in the style of Howard Hawks. This was a fun one for us to record, so please join us!

 

Reel 82: In the Style of Ingmar Bergman

In most arts, there’s a fine line between homage and imitation. Go too subtle and nobody gets the references. Go too hard and chances are, you get dinged for pandering.

This time around we land on a couple of films that may do a little of each (in my opinion; Sean might disagree), but they’re good enough that you don’t really care.

We start with Away From Her, a 2006 film written and directed by Sarah Polley. We’ve talked about Polley as an actress in The Sweet Hereafter way, way back in Episode 5. You may recall that the director of that film was Atom Egoyan. In this film Egoyan acted as an executive producer for Polley’s feature directorial debut. In this film Julie Christie is a woman whose Alzheimer’s is advancing to the point where she has to go into a nursing home. Her husband (Gordon Pinsent) has to deal with the guilt, the loneliness, and a few other unexpected consequences of that decision.

From there we go to 2021’s Bergman Island, written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve. Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth are a filmmaking couple who travel to Faro Island to attend a film screening and generally be Bergman Tourists. Krieps’ character is having trouble working, while Roth’s is very productive. In Bergman style, we see a film-within-a-fim, along with reminders that we, as audience members, are watching a film in progress. If that looks confusing, my apologies. But if you’re familiar with Bergman’s films, you’ll get it as soon as you see this movie.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

Next time around, the influential director is Howard Hawks, and we look at another pair of modern-era films. We begin with Speed (1994), directed by Jan de Bont. (Some people call it The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down.) Then we move on to The Martian, from 2013 and directed by Ridley Scott. This may be the only science fiction movie that has an inaccuracy in it that has actually turned off some viewers completely. Fie on them, I say.

Join us, won’t you?

Reel 81: In the Style of Hitchcock

Can I just take a moment to sit back and look proudly upon this episode’s cover art? It wasn’t tough to make but I really like the way it came out.

Okay, onward:

It’s often fun to see a film and realize that there’s something about it that reminds you of another filmic work. Maybe it’s a plot point. Maybe it’s the director’s use of the camera. Maybe it’s the overall feel of the thing. And maybe it’s just homage.

In this episode we’re looking at a pair of films that look and feel as though they’d been directed by Alfred Hitchcock. But in fact, Hitchcock was long dead by the time these films were released. (To be fair, he may have been alive while the first one was being made, but still.)

We begin with Diva, a film from 1981 that was directed and co-written by
Jean-Jacques Beineix. Based solely on the title and perhaps the artwork, you’d never have any idea that it’s a taut thriller. It’s got corrupt cops. It has French mobsters. It’s got opera singers and their groupies. It’s got a teenage thief who doubles as a muse for an artist-cum-philosopher. And, because it’s in the style of Hitchcock, it’s got a McGuffin. (MacGuffin? Research says they’re both right, but “Mc” looks better to my eye.) And that’s not all.

From there we jump ahead to 2006 and a film called Tell No One, directed and co-written by Guillaume Canet. This is one based on Hitchcock’s “innocent man” tropes, where a person finds themselves at the center of a big mystery, and everyone thinks he’s the criminal. We spend the film watching him struggle to prove his innocence as the forces around him get closer and closer. Does he know more than he lets on? Is he, in fact, innocent? You’ll be guessing until the very end.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

In our next episode we move from Hitchcock to Bergman. Reel 82 looks at two films made in the style of Ingmar Bergman: Away From Her (2006) and then the aptly-titled Bergman Island (2021). Join us, won’t you?

Reel 80: Political Thrillers

In previous episodes, we’ve dealt with political stories. Most of them involved spies of some kind, or they involved fictional characters overlaid on real-life scenarios.

This time around we have two stories based on real-life events, though there’s a “but” in there. We’ll get to that in a minute. In this episode we’re looking at a pair of political thrillers. We start with The Battle of Algiers, which is from 1966 (though it had several release dates). Now, you hear a title like that and you say, “Oh, war movie.” But the war in this case is taking place in the streets of Algiers, and it involves the events of 1954 through 1957. During that time the French government was fighting off guerilla insurgency. Things are largely stalemated–with incremental escalation the entire time–until the French army moves in. You’ll find yourself unable to figure out who you’re supposed to root for.

From there we move to 1969 and the film Z (or Zed, if you prefer), directed by Costa-Gavras. This is a thinly-fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. We get to see both sides of the dispute in this case, and again it’s tough to tell who the good guys and the bad guys are. It’s a gripping film whose ending is about as cynical as they come. Too bad it’s pretty much what happened.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

Episode 81 will be the first of three episodes where we look at films which are made in a very specific style. Perhaps it’s homage to a director, perhaps it’s unconscious imitation. Find out with us as we review 1981’s Diva, directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. From there we move to 2006 and Tell No One, directed by Guillaume Canet, both of which appear to be shot in the style of Alfred Hitchcock. Join us, won’t you?

Reel 79: The Dark Side of TV

We don’t often use topics that I chose, but when we do, we have a lot to talk about. Sean and I both love each of this week’s films so unabashedly that both halves of the episode are rather overstuffed, even after editing.

This time around we’re exploring the dark underbelly of media-based popularity, and while both of these films concentrate on television, this could easily be extended to social media. That’s how eerily prophetic these films turned out being, with the exception of a small detail that I’ll get to in a moment.

We start with 1957’s A Face in the Crowd, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. The two are a couple whose lived become intertwined as Griffith’s character increases in popularity from local radio, to national television. It’s a fascinating study in “absolute power corrupts absolutely” and while Kazan gave us the breadcrumbs from the first frame in which we see Griffith’s character, we’re still left with a small “what happens next?” One character, played by Walter Matthau, has an idea, but it’s possible he’s being too cynical.

From there we move on to 1976’s Network, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Peter Finch, William Holden and Faye Dunaway. Finch is a television news anchorman who, on the cusp of being fired, decides to say exactly what’s on his mind, and the audience reaction is as unexpected as it is sensational for the network brass, who want Finch to keep doing the Angry Prophet of the Airwaves thing. It hardly matters that Finch’s character is starting to spiral in mentally; the executives are willing to exploit him for as long as he’s profitable…and no longer. So what happens next?

Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky wrote such a perfect satire that people today don’t even seen the satire in it, because it’s so prophetic. As I mentioned, the film got one detail wrong: Media has tapped into conservative grievances and politics rather than the liberal side.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

In our next episode we’ll be looking at a couple of political thrillers from overseas. We start with 1966’s The Battle of Algiers, and move on to Z (or Zed, if you prefer) from 1969. Join us, won’t you?

Reel 78: Love the Film, Hate the Side Effect, Pt. 2

Oddly enough, I hate the artwork on this episode but I love the fact that I was able to match the films’ respective fonts. You win some, you lose some.

We conclude our mini-series with another pair of films that you can’t help but love. Unfortunately, they’ve also had a ripple effect, and the ripples weren’t so great.

We open with Halloween, from 1978. This film was directed by John Carpenter and stars Jamie Lee Curtis. She’s a teenager who has some truly weird adventures in babysitting. It also stars Donald Pleasance as the voice of reason that everyone ignores.

Halloween set many of the horror/slasher film tropes in motion, for sure. But Hollywood has this unfortunate habit where everything has to be bigger, and scarier, and gorier, and just…more. And so other films of the genre suffered specifically because they tried too hard to replicate the original.

From there we jump to 1989’s When Harry Met Sally…, which also set the template for a lot of films in that “star-crossed lovers” rom-com category. The bad news is that the films in its wake didn’t pay enough attention to what made this couple star-crossed, and Hollywood wound up cranking out a lot of films that looked the same, and (perhaps worse) sounded the same, soundtrack-wise, but were clearly not the same in terms of quality.


COMING ATTRACTIONS:

In Reel 79, we’re going to take you on a tour of the dark side of television. We’ll start with A Face in the Crowd (1957), directed by Elia Kazan and starring Patricia Neal and Andy Griffith, in one of the few times you’ll see him as this kind of character. From there we go to 1976 and Network, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Peter Finch and William Holden. These are two films that were so oddly prophetic that most people today don’t realize they were originally intended to be satire. Join us, won’t you?

Reel 77: Love the Film, Hate the Side Effect

To give you some idea of the lead time we have on our episodes, ponder this: we recorded this episode only a couple of days before President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address for 2024. And here we are, with me coincidentally composing this post shortly after Biden announced his withdrawal from his reelection campaign.

I tell you this not to get all political on you, but because it’s important to part of our discussion during the first half of our episode. But I’ll deal with that anon.

In this episode and the next, Sean and I will look at films that are great in many, many ways, but they’ve had an unfortunate side effect that rippled out since its release. And unlike our usual pattern, where the two films have something specific in common, each film has its own bad effect.

Having said that, there’s an interesting connection between the two films that we discuss in this episode; I address it at the start of Part 2. But anyway, we begin with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the very first film we’ve reviewed from that magical year of 1939. Directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur, Stewart is a naif in the wilds of Washington, D.C. where he accidentally finds himself at the center of a political firestorm.

And here’s where Joe Biden comes in: I was struggling to describe just why I thought the filibuster scene in this film gets to me. I understand that filibusters don’t work like that anymore, and more’s the pity. But a couple of nights later, I saw Biden’s State of the Union speech and afterward, when the pundits were doing the commentary afterward, one of them said that Biden is a “romantic” when it comes to America. And I realized that that’s what I was trying to convey. Jefferson Smith—and I, for that matter—are romantics when it comes to America.

But the downside of this is that too much romanticism can bite you in the back when there are other people around who will bend those same rules to a selfish purpose, and that’s what we see in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

From Washington we go to Baltimore for Part 2 of our episode, to look at 1986’s The Accidental Tourist, directed by Lawrence Kasdan. William Hurt and Geena Davis head up some high-powered talent as Hurt’s character, Macon Leary, navigates his life in the wake of a broken heart, a broken marriage and a broken leg. It’s all tough to do when you’re a popular travel writer. And the unfortunate side effect…well, it’s not what I thought Sean was going to bring up, I’ll tell you that much.

Also of note: when we recorded this, I was barely over a case of Covid, so my voice might be a little crispy here and there.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Next time around we view a pair of films that are wildly different in both tone and content. We begin with the original Halloween from 1978, directed by John Carpenter and starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance.  From there we go to 1989 for Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally… starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. Join us, won’t you?

Reel 76: The Gangster Film as Allegory

This episode and the previous episode have something in common, besides the word “allegory”. All of these films are specifically anti-Capitalism allegories based in genre films. Last week it was Westerns; this week it’s Gangster films. And the only reason I didn’t put that in the episode title is because that’s a LOT of words to put in your metadata.

We begin with The Long Good Friday (1981), directed by John Mackenzie and starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren. While Hoskins had been around for a bit, this was pretty much his breakout role, and he does a terrific job with it, because he’s Bob Hoskins. Helen Mirren, as well, manages to elevate her role from someone who could easily be so much window dressing. But, of course, we talk about that in Part 1 of the episode. Likewise, I’m sure it’ll come up somewhere in Sean’s review when he posts it here.

From there we go to 1980’s Thief, starring James Caan and Tuesday Weld, and directed by Michael Mann. Now, if you’ve been paying close attention you may have a question. “Hey!” you’ll say. “Don’t you usually review the films in chronological order?” Well, yes, we do. But in this case The Long Good Friday was completed in 1979 and wasn’t released until 1981, so we flipped the order this time around.

At any rate, Caan plays a safecracker trying to get out of his life of crime, and Weld is his wife. And just like his filmic “brother” Al Pacino, just when he thinks he’s out, they pull him back in. But perhaps he knows a way to get out for good.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: 

I’ve actually been looking forward to this one for awhile, because I unabashedly love both of these films. Unfortunately, they’ve had an interesting side effect that likely wasn’t attended. We start with 1939’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and it’s a discussion that could easily have gone on for twice as long but (believe it or not) we DO have some restraint. From there it’s The Accidental Tourist, from 1988, and there’s an interesting story I tell about my experience seeing this one in the theater, long before I moved to the film’s setting of Baltimore. Join us, won’t you?