For all you proper film enthusiasts who would like to peruse the films of TruStory FM’s entertainment podcasts by release decade. Get ready for a firehose of film history in these here stacks.
Michael Mann has spent most of his film career exploring the world of crime and the criminals that inhabit it. Not to mention neon lighting. His feature film debut, Thief, certainly started him on the right track. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we continue our 1981 series with Mann’s Thief.
Anyone who listens to the show knows that we have a love/hate relationship with Brian De Palma. With his 1981 film Blow Out, he makes one of his strongest films and lands squarely on the side of ‘love’ for us (thank the heavens since neither of us had seen it recently and we couldn’t remember it well enough). Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we continue our 1981 series with De Palma’s Blow Out.
My Dinner With André is certainly not an easy film to classify. It certainly is a film that could be considered divisive, but that’s really between people who get into it and people who just don’t click with it. It is a film of two people having a conversation over dinner, after all. But to many, it is one of Louis Malle’s classics, a film that makes many lists of great films, and a film that inspires conversation. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we have our own conversation about this film that fits in our 1981 film series.
Many films in the early 80s continued the cynicism of the 70s, and that certainly holds true for a number of John Carpenter’s films, who has used several of his films and characters in them to take a pointed look at the hypocrisy of the government and society’s ills as he saw them. His 1981 film ‘Escape From New York’ falls into that mold, while also feeling like nothing more than an early 80s action thriller set in a dystopian future. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we continue our 1981 series with Carpenter’s ‘Escape From New York.’
Wolfgang Petersen’s epic WWII submarine film came out in Germany in 1981 and changed the way many filmmakers constructed tension in war and action films. It changed the way people viewed Germans during the war because it portrayed the submariners as simply human. And it became the most popular foreign language film in the US for a very long time. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we begin our series on 1981 with Petersen’s “Das Boot.”
In the late 70s and early 80s, Disney Pictures had been getting grief for releasing films that were too adult. When “Splash” came along, they decided to create a new label for releasing more adult fare. And thus, Touchstone Pictures was born! On top of that, the film was such a success that it pushed its star, Tom Hanks, and director, Ron Howard, up toward the upper echelons of the Hollywood elite. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we begin our Tom Hanks series near the beginning of his career with “Splash.”
When the extended trailer for James Cameron’s 1989 undersea scifi spectacular, “The Abyss,” was released, it set the stage for an epic film that promised to deliver “Aliens” underwater. When the film was released, it received good reviews and earned its money back, but wasn’t what people expected. But 3 years later, Cameron was able to return to it and release an extended version with nearly 30 minutes of new material, including an extended ending. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we continue our Original SciFi series with “The Abyss.”
“Pale Rider” marks Clint Eastwood’s 10th time directing himself in a film, something he went on doing until 2008’s “Gran Torino” and something he clearly knows how to do well. This seems to hold true especially in westerns, even though he only directed himself in four of them. Perhaps that’s because he had so much experience in them and learned from other directors like Sergio Leone how to stand, how to ride, how to stare, how to shoot on film. And while “Pale Rider” is an obvious retelling of the classic 1953 film “Shane,” it can stand on its own merits and doesn’t feel like a ripoff. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we come to the last film in our Richard Dysart series, 1985’s “Pale Rider.”
In 1989, Cameron Crowe made his directorial debut with what many consider to be one of his best films, “Say Anything…” It wasn’t one of the top films at the box office that year, but it certainly found its audience since then and is still hailed by many to be one of the great romantic films out there. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — as we talk about Crowe’s first film.
“Blood Simple,” released in film festivals in 1984 and theatrically in 1985, found as many detractors as it did fans initially, but no one can argue that it was all that the filmmaking duo of Joel and Ethan Coen needed to break onto the scene as fresh, quirky and sometimes violent voices in the cinema world. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — on this week’s episode of The Next Reel as we start our Drama by the Brothers Coen series.