Going Hollywood - Movies and Television from the Golden Age to Today

Could we be more excited about this week's episode?  We know!!

This week, we are hanging out with six of our favorite Gen Xers whose relationship dramas, career travails, sexual exploits and over-caffeinated adventures kept us captivated for a decade. Yes, today we're taking on "Friends".

"Friends" is one of those shows everyone “knows” until you actually sit down and rewatch it and realize how much is going on under...

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we were wrong. It was a GREAT idea to ask the one and only Bruce Vilanch to help us kick off our new “Can’t Stop the Movie!” summer series with the granddaddies  of guilty pleasures, 1980’s disco fiasco “Can’t Stop the Music” and 1977’s “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.”

Bruce discussed his hysterically funny  memoi...

A priceless object. A room full of liars. One detective trying to stay loyal to his own dubious moral code. We’re diving into "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), the Warner Bros classic that turns a hardboiled mystery into the blueprint for film noir, and we’re doing it the way we love best: with story, history, and a few sharp opinions.

We talk about why this is one of the rare movie adaptations that barely flinches fr...

We ain't too dadgum ignorant to recognize that Sissy Spacek's Oscar-winning performance as the "Coal Miner’s Daughter," Loretta Lynn, is one of the most startlingly real transformations any actor has made in film history.  Spacek doesn't "act" Loretta Lynn...she becomes the country superstar--from her humbler than humble beginnings as a backwoods mountain girl to the heights of wealth and fame as the big-hearted and big-...

Start spreading the news!  

I'm flying solo without Brad this week, so I called in film historian Brandon Davis to help me unpack Martin Scorsese’s flawed but brilliant masterpiece from 1977, "New York, New York" starring the one and only Liza Minnelli and Robert DeNiro. 

We get into why the movie shocks people on first watch: lavish MGM-style sets, painted-backdrop “Technicolor” vibes, and...

We are celebrating someone's birthday today on "Going Hollywood" and it is an occasion truly worth marking: Marilyn Monroe's 100th birthday on June 1, 2026. And though it may be odd to think of the ultimate movie sex siren as a centenarian, her image as an ever youthful romantic symbol is forever burnished in celluloid. 

So we feel it's fitting, as we celebrate the life of this screen legend, to take a look at her final, unfini...

People love to dismiss “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” as “dated,” but that word can hide a much harsher truth: much of the discomfort it dramatizes never fully went away. Stanley Kramer’s 1967 classic is still a relevant thesis that dares to ask the question: "But would you want your daughter to marry one?" If that sounds blunt, it is— and that’s why the movie still sparks arguments d...

"Oh, Donald!"

One gurgling little declaration, and a television icon is born.  Is it Mary Richards? Is it Maude Findlay? Nope. It's "That Girl"!

A sitcom can look light as air and still change what viewers believe is possible. "That Girl", which aired from 1966 to 1971,  does exactly that, and rewatching it now makes the impact even clearer. We talk through why Marlo Thomas’s Anne Marie feels so lovable and so importa...

Long before she became notorious for her real life mothering skills, Joan Crawford was famous for her portrayal of a reel life mother; one who had an alarming (one may say unnatural) obsession with her oldest child, and one who would go to any lengths...perhaps even murder...to make her child's dreams come true. Yes, today we're taking on the Big C in her Oscar-winning performance  in the noir-tinged soap opera, "Mildred Pierc...

"I consider this woman to be the greatest actress in the English language."

Thus spoke F. Murray Abraham at the OSCAR podium as he was announcing the winner of the 1985 Best Actress Award. For nearly everyone in the Shrine Auditorium that night, that platitude could only refer to one woman amongst the nominees of Meryl Streep, Ann Bancroft, Whoopi Goldberg and Jessica Lange. It was the final nominee... Geraldine Page. 

In this v...

It's that Poppins woman!  

We kick off our "Best Actress" month by celebrating one of the most magical Oscar winners of all time:  Dame Julie Andrews as the practically perfect nanny herself, "Mary Poppins" (1964)!

She blows in on the east wind like a well-dressed surprise and promptly takes charge of the Banks household with one raised eyebrow,  a carpetbag that definitely did not come from any normal shop and a knack...

Everyone knows the image.  

A man dangling precariously from a clock on the side of a skyscraper, only a handgrip away from plunging to the busy streets below. It must be a scene from a terrifying dramatic thriller, right? Wrong! It's a thriller, alright, but it's from one of the most hilarious comedies every made. From 1923, it's Harold Lloyd in "Safety Last!" 

Long regarded as a masterpiece of silent film comedy, "Safety ...

Katharine Hepburn. Ginger Rogers. Lucille Ball. Eve Arden. Ann Miller. Phyllis Kennedy. Constance Collier. Jack Carson. Is this the roster of an awards ceremony in the 1950s?  No -- it's the call sheet for our movie today, featuring one of the most stacked line-ups of soon-to-be stars ever gathered on a single soundstage. From RKO in 1937, it's "Stage Door."

At first glance, it's Hepburn v Rogers as the main event; two titans o...

A classic sitcom can look effortless, but behind the scenes can tell a different story. A failed pilot. A total recast. A “Hail Mary” save from first season cancellation. All true events that happened to one of the benchmarks of classic situation comedy: "The Dick Van Dyke Show" .

We follow the legendary sitcom back to its origin story: Carl Reiner’s original pilot, why it didn’t sell, and how Sheldon Leonard...

It’s our third season, and we’ve decided that it’s time to take a more serious approach to appreciating the art of film, film history, and the craft of filmmaking.

April Fools! It’s “Airplane!” (1980)

An airliner full of passengers gets hit with food poisoning, the crew goes down, and the only hope is a washed-up pilot with a bruised past. That plot sounds like a straight disaster thriller and that...

On December 14, 2025, Hollywood...and the world...lost a true icon. A man who was not only a gifted actor, but a once-in-a-generation filmmaker who was adept at any style, from satire to horror to romantic comedy. We also lost a true humanitarian and, as his alter ego Harry Burns may have said, a real "mensch".  We are indeed talking about the one and only, Rob Reiner. 

So, for our Season Premiere, we wanted to celebrate t...

All women, all claws. Jungle Red!

Call it “The Real Housewives of New York- 1939 Edition”. For our season two finale, we tackle MGM’s 1939 classic satire “The Women”.  From savage one-liners to that wild Technicolor fashion show, we trace how Claire Boothe Luce’s play survived the Production Code, why Anita Loos’ screenplay still stings, and where the movie trades social ambition for a ...

He's baackkk!!!

Brad makes his return to "Going Hollywood" and we celebrate by actually letting him pick a film!  And what a delightful film it is, too...from 1948 it's 
"Miranda." Join us as we dive into the whimsy and wonder of this lesser-known British comedy starring the late great Glynis Johns as Miranda, a beautiful mermaid with a devastating fin and effect on males that come into her wake.  What can we say? ...

Think you know Lucy? You don't know Lucy. 

In this episode of "Going Hollywood" we dive into "Lucy in London" (1966), the most unconventional hour Lucille Ball ever made, and unpack how a TV icon tried to outrun her own legend at the height of the British Invasion. Today, Tony is joined by "Lucy" insider Thomas J. Watson, and we retrace the bold creative choices that stripped away the laugh track, left the studio behind, and em...