Jen talks with Sean Morris (@saneiscrazy on Twitter) about a drug movie in which the producers were afraid to show the drugs: Bright Lights, Big City, starring Michael J. Fox.
Jen and Tim ask Josh Lewis of the Sleazoids podcast (@thejoshl on Twitter) to provide his insight as a film programmer in a wide-ranging discussion of the dire state of movie exhbition.
According to Danny Peary in his book Guide for the Film Fanatic, “when director Michael Winner complained that Death Wish III [sic] was given an X rating because it had 63 killings while the R-rated Rambo [: First Blood Part II, 1985] had 80 killings, the woman at the Ratings Board explained that most of those killed in Rambo are Vietnamese.”
Paul Talbot, Bronson’s Loose!: The Making of the Death Wish Films
Niel Jacoby (@fuckinalpamare on Twitter) joins us to ask: just what the hell is Immortel, ad vitam? It appears to be an incomprehensible dystopian flick based on an incomprehensible graphic novel. We spend a lot of time mocking the movie’s incredibly cavalier attitude towards sexual assault.
The film is based on a graphic novel by Enki Bilal. Remarkably, Bilal was allowed to direct the film in spite of having only one feature and a couple of shorts under his belt.
Along with films like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City, Immortel, ad Vitam was part of a new wave of “digital backlot” movies. This refers to movies made entirely in a green screen environment.
We highly recommend Niel’s very funny podcast (and maybe the only one about Timothy Spall), Spall Talk!
Have you heard of Interstate 60? It’s what we call a “Tim movie”—that is, a movie that only Tim seems to have seen. We go incredibly deep, even though the movie probably didn’t merit it. So much so that you’re getting a two-parter!
Interstate 60 was written by the guy who co-wrote Back to the Future and it’s tailor-made for dads who wistfully scroll through classics dot autotrader dot com on weekends.