Kael Your Idols: A New Hollywood Podcast

We bring you a special new episode ahead of our usual schedule! The excitement of the release of the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has got all of the millions of the fans of the recent entries of the franchise abuzzing. So of course, given that the 1968 original is squarely a New Hollywood landmark we had to watch EVERY SINGLE MOVIE IN THE SERIES! Good thing these movies totally rip! First we discuss the franchise in very broad...

Question: If a movie about doppelgängers is itself a doppelgänger of another movie about doppelgängers… uh… like… what’s up with that, huh? Our hosts will attempt to answer at least a version of that question as they voyeuristically peek into the world of Brian De Palma’s “Obsession”. This episode could prove extra confusing if you haven’t actually seen the movie given that: not only is it relatively obscure, its only reason to exi...

It’s Problematic Art Week on KYI! This episode Alana and Sam are joined by animator Frank Gidlewski for a round-table on Ralph Bakshi’s 1973 Künstlerroman "Heavy Traffic". There is much talk of the film's depictions of various taboos both sexual and racial, so, be warned. Also much rumination on the woes of the modern film/animation landscape so…TW for that as well, if you’re an animator. Other topics include: making...

Destiny’s dance continues! This week the hosts go around and around in their conversation on Sydney Pollack’s 1969 ode to the hopelessness of human existence (under capitalism)! This 1930s era Jane Fonda vehicle proves to be delightful fodder for Alana and Sam to morbidly contemplate its grim vision of fate. And speaking of grim fates: the film also co-stars Gig Young…Yeesh! Topics include: the birth of existentialism, tracking sho...

It’s Watergate time on Kael Your Idols! Sorry to jump right in to it but we didn’t want to bury the lede. In this episode the hosts get drawn into a web of lies and cover-ups as they discuss the 1976 classic “All The President’s Men”. This tale of the greatest newspaper caper ever provides the perfect launching off point for discussing a plethora of New Hollywood character actors and themes. You can’t possibly imagine how high up t...

This week on the ol’ podcast: Barbara Loden’s massively under-seen film Wanda (1970). We held this conversation a few months ago in the wake of the film placing 49th on the most recent Sight and Sound poll. Is this reputation warranted? Has the movie gone too quickly from being something no one ever heard of to supposedly being considered one of the greatest films of all time? Join Alana and Sam for a rough, run and gun discussion ...

If you want to sing out! Sing out! Kael Your Idols is pleased to bring you another Very Special Episode as we turn our attention and our empathy towards the career of Hal Ashby. The hosts are joined by film person Michael J. Dougherty to trace the tragicomic trajectory of this titan of 70s cinema; starting with Ashby's work as an acclaimed editor and terminating with the studio shutting him out of his final film’s editing room...

Welcome to 2024 fellow Kael Your Idolators! For this first episode of the New Year we’re gassed up, got the meter running, and we’re offering you a midnight ride into the twisted minds of De Niro, Scorsese, and Schrader. These three New Hollywood geniuses unite for the first time to create one of cinema’s greatest achievements: Taxi Driver. Join Alana and Sam in this wide-ranging discussion that also takes place VERY late at night....

The pod is taking a slight temporal detour this week and covering The Right Stuff - a film that began its development during New Hollywood and was finished and released in the wake of the Heaven’s Gate debacle. Sam and Alana pontificate about whether or not this ambitious space epic retains the artistic spirit of the 70s or if it can’t quite achieve liftoff beyond merely ‘fun movie about the early days of the Space Race’. Topics in...

Love! Betrayal! Sunsets! That’s right - Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven gets the Kael Your Idols treatment this week. A Texas farm sets the scene for this unusual love triangle unfolding amidst some very loopy voice-over narration. This deeply mysterious film attempts to uncover the hidden beauty and ulterior meaning behind life, nature, and the joys of farm work, all in typically beautiful Malick style. Topics include: Richard Ge...

This week we have a change of pace for the show. Instead of an episode on a single movie, Alana and Sam turn their focus onto the career of a filmmaker - namely the legendary Sidney Lumet. This is the first of many special episodes we have planned focusing on the figures (writers, actors, directors, even studio execs) who made New Hollywood what it was. There will no doubt be individual episodes on Lumet’s most famous films of the ...

In this episode Sam and Alana sink their teeth into one of the most influential films of all time: George Romero’s independently produced Night of the Living Dead (1968). A gripping flick about flesh eating Ghouls and the people trying to fight them off - it also happens to be one of our favorite films ever made. The movie is so rich in social commentary that it could only be a product of the 60s and its success could only have com...

When we found out that the 70s classic The Exorcist was to be the latest victim in Hollywood’s obsession with Legacy Sequels, a terrifying truth became all too clear: we would have to cover BOTH films on the podcast. This week your hosts braved the original William Friedkin film; widely considered to be a genre-defining work that changed the future of cinema, and the newly released The Exorcist: Believer by David Gordon Green which...

This week Alana and Sam bring a somewhat *ahem* personal touch to the podcast in discussing Paul Mazursky’s tale of two upper-class couples in the late 60s doing what swingin’ 60s couples were wont to doooo. The New Hollywood touches are myriad with this film from the styles of acting on display, the particular performers chosen for the project (first appearance of New Hollywood Icon Elliott Gould for example), as well as the visib...

The One-Two punch that began New Hollywood continues with the suburban dramedy, “The Graduate”. This sophomore effort from  director Mike Nichols is a highly quotable tale of a listless youngster falling into an affair with first the wife, and then daughter of a family friend. The movie still resonates (for some people at least…), due in no small part to the bravura performances by Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, as well as the h...

At long last: the central conceit of the podcast has arrived! We celebrate New Hollywood officially beginning with… what else but Warner Bros. megahit “Bonnie and Clyde”. In this episode, Kael Your Idols’ own dynamic duo explores the fascinating critical response to this divisive classic. Known for its extreme violence and fascinating central relationship, the film launched almost everyone involved in it to the stratosphere of fame...

In this episode Sam and Alana continue to explore the foreign film movements that served as precursors to New Hollywood. The focus is on Japan and its studio-mandated ‘New Wave’ which allowed for salacious sex, violence, and a more anti-nationalistic worldview. In the spotlight are two very different films: Crazed Fruit directed by Kō Nakahira and Tokyo Drifter by Seijun Suzuki. Topics include: the Sun Tribe phenomenon and Japanese...