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The success of Star Wars and blockbusters in general led to studios trying to emulate that success.  In 1983 veteran film maker Peter Yates wanted to combine sci-fi, fantasy and swashbuckling to create an original film that follows Prince Colwyn and his group of outlaws on the planet Krull to save future queen Princess Lyssa from the Beast and his constantly teleporting Black Fortress, they named this film Krull, and despite it being such a huge production and merchandise it flopped spectacularly. Paul Nadin joins us to unravel this failed franchise attempt and to discuss how Hollywood studios often fail in their attempts to recapture success.
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Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 film written and directed by German Icon Werner Herzog and starring infamous actor Klaus Kinski in what would be their penultimate collaboration. The film is based upon a real life rubber baron who transported a disassembled steamboat over land to secure his Rubber trade. In the film however Fitzcarraldo undertakes this feat to secure enough money to bring Opera to his jungle home. The film has a infamously troubled production as Herzog isolated the crew in the Amazon and forced them to manually haul a 320-ton steamship up a steep hill, this was captured in Les Blank's documentary film Burden of Dreams (1982), a rare and crucial companion film to the main film. Herzog's clashes with Kinski were legendary but on this already troubled set it caused so much strife that an extra offered to kill Kinski, Herzog candidly talked about this relationship in his film My Best Fiend (1999). We watched all three of these films and we question what is the necessary sacrifice for the completion of art.
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Films rarely come as small as this, in 1981 New York City theatre bona fides Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory started recording their conversations, this would all lead to them writing a small two header screenplay where two old friends catch up over dinner. This became My Dinner With Andre, where the two fictionalised versions of the actors have a conversation which drifts between the nature of humanism verses spiritualism and how this effects their views on theatre, life and politics. This unlikely screenplay would be brought to the screen by French director Louis Malle who tact hand brought something to this conversation and it became, and has remained, an unlikely cult hit and introduction for many audiences into more arthouse cinema. Filmmaker Brandon Kahn helps us to unravel what about this quiet movie made such a lasting appeal. 
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It's 1980 and with the help of filmmaker James Raynor we are covering when flamboyant and controversial British Director Ken Russell went Hollywood and directed a science-fiction horror film based on a Oscar award winning writer Paddy Chayefsky's novel and screenplay, Altered States. A film which was dogged by disagreements on the set. It tells the story of a research scientist experiments, played by William Hurt, on altered states of human consciousness using hallucinogenic drugs. But soon his mind-altering experiments get out of control and begin affecting the physical world. It's real trip.
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Start a new miniseries! Swallow this! We are going to explore the 1980s in film and to start us off we have a special bonus episode looking at, for us, the most influential horror movie franchise of the 80s. The Evil Dead was the brain child of director Sam Raimi, producer Rob Tapert, and actor Bruce Campbell, who fought to generate financing to create their horror film where a group of teens go to stay at a cabin in the woods and unbeknownst to them let out a supernatural evil which unleashes pure horror on the cabin and takes them out one by one. Despite censoring It was such huge hit that in 1987 they did a sequel, Evil Dead 2 which took this horror movie and turned it on it's head, fully embraced slapstick horror and turned the hero Ash into a Deadite killing, chainsaw wielding, shotgun blasting, quipping action hero of the 80s. Groovy! These two films would create a huge franchise which is still beloved now and we couldn't wait to chat about it.
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It's our decade round up episode, the Trackies! Where we give out awards for the films we watched on this miniseries and as always we are joined by our friend Brandon Kahn to chat about what we learnt from this selection of films, the 50s in films and what we liked best. Also we announce our next miniseries.
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In the 1950s Alfred Hitchcock was hitting the height of him fame and yet again teaming up with James Stewart and Grace Kelly he made Rear Window a film where a professional photographer is stuck in his apartment, recuperating from a broken leg and this boredom, leads him to spy on his neighbours and comes to the realisation that one of them was responsible for the murder of his wife, and sets out to convince his girlfriend to help him bring justice. It explores neighbourhood paranoia, voyeurism in cinema and the male gaze and cemented Hitchcock as a master of cinema, pathing the way for him to become the worlds best known film maker.
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The only film that Charles Laughton ever directed as 1955's The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish. The plot focuses on the relentless pursuit of two children from a serial-killing preacher who wants to steal the $10,000 hidden by their executed bank-robbing father. A critical and commercial failure on it's release, it is now considered an incredibly influential and highly accomplished film, taking inspiration from German Expressionism from the silent era, it stands apart and gives it a unique and terrifying fairy-tale aspect to it. We also discuss Zack Snyder Justice League and the DCEU.
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Comedian and Podcaster Lorcan Mullan joins us to discuss the French New Wave classic The 400 Blows starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, and Claire Maurier. The film was directed by former critic and ‘Gravedigger of Cinema’ François Truffaut who directed the film in 1959 after he was banned from Cannes festival for his overly harsh reviews of current French cinema and as a reaction was encouraged to put his theory of the auteur into practice. The result was a sensation which was not only an international success but also set the tone and ushered in the arrival of the French New Wave, which would change world cinema. The film tells the story of Antoine Doinel, a misunderstood adolescent in Paris who struggles with his parents and teachers due to his rebellious behaviour, a wonderful coming of age story which still resonates today.
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Ollie invites James Raynor back on the show to talk about one of the most seminal films of all time in Godzilla, Ishirō Honda didn't just make an iconic monster film he invented a total worldwide pop culture icon, including thirty-two films produced by Toho, four Hollywood films and numerous video games, novels, comic books and television shows. All stemming from this 1954 classic, join us as we are introduced to Godzilla an enormous, destructive, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear weapons and our new best friend.
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