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In 1996, Francis Ford Coppola needed the money.

He was coming off a run of films that included The Godfather Part III, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Jack.  His critical and box office results were at a career nadir.

So he agreed to direct an adaptation of the John Grisham bestseller 'The Rainmaker' for Paramount.  He wouldn't direct another film for 10 years.  And he'd make only four more, including the epic disaster 'Megalopolis'.

Cu...

We've come to the end...or is it the beginning?  This is part 4 of my series of episodes about the emotional and intellectual contact Stanley Kubrick made between movie-goers and his epic science-fiction film of 1968.

Here's the amazing mashup between Pink Floyd's 'Echoes' and the final sequence of 2001.

Please sign up for my newsletter if you haven't; it's free and filled with random recommendations based on what I'm reading, wat...

In Part 3, I geek out into how incredible and evocative the HAL sequences are in this film; what an amazing sense of character and personality Kubrick creates through the use of Doug Rain's iconic, best-in-class voiceover and the varying cutaways to HAL's electronic eye in scenes featuring the computer.

Be sure to check out my other episodes covering the other sections of 2001.

Next up: THE STAR GATE sequence in Jupiter And Beyond ...

In part 2 of my four-part series on 2001, I am going through the TMA-1 (Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One) sequence in which Dr. Haywood Floyd of "The Council" visits the International Space Station, diverts some Russian scientist attentions, presents a specious, US Governmental coverup of the Clavius discovery to a group of cowed committee members, and then embarks to Clavius base on the Moon to visit the Monolith.

This sequence famously...

The first of my four-part series on Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' covers some introductory approach notes and the first sequence in the film: 'The Dawn Of Man'.

In these episodes I want to avoid a nerdy technical discussion about how the filmmakers did what they did in this extraordinary, still-vital film masterpiece and instead focus on the remarkable ability of the film to inspire thoughts and feelings in its viewers....

Cannon Fodder continues! John Frankenheimer finds himself directing for Cannon Films with Roy Scheider starring in Elmore Leonard's own adaptation of his 1974 novel 52 Pickup.

Watch 52 Pickup on Prime before it leaves this weekend.

Watch the excellent Cannon Films/Golan Globus unauthorized documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

Watch King Cohen, the Larry Cohen documentary, featuring Martin Scorcese.

In this week's episode it's the debut of 'Cannon Fodder', a recurring series of episodes where I watch a curated selection of films made by schlockmeisters Golan/Globus in the 1980's for their Cannon Film Group, one of the most entertaining production shingles you'll ever hear or see.

In Brad's view, he is a man of the people's cinema and I am a high-minded, opinionated cinephile. Duly diagnosed, I agreed to expand my horizons unde...

Long before 'Waiting For Guffman', Christopher Guest directed 'The Big Picture', a heartfelt, hilariously incisive movie about making movies. The film was greenlit during British film executive David Puttnam's brief tenure running Columbia Pictures.  Co-written by Guest's 'Spinal Tap' co-star Michael McKean, who also turns in an unexpectedly warm and heartfelt performance, 'The Big Picture' is worthy of rediscovery for its impressi...

Ryan Coogler's original film 'Sinners' defied the so-called conventional wisdom of Hollywood and dropped only 6% week-to-week in its box office performance. 

It was also the subject of a fascinating online discourse about how the film's box office performance was written about in industry media. 

In this episode I recount the online controversy surrounding some of the reporting on the film and give you my own take on having seen th...

'Caddyshack', it turns out, is kind of a miracle of last-minute producer-led stitching together and salvaging, resulting in one of the more quotable films in comedy history.  

Hard to believe that at the time, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Rodney Dangerfield were not yet the massive film stars they'd become as a result of this movie.  

This episode delves into the coke-fueled nonstop party that was this film's production, a product...

An episode in memoriam of Val Kilmer, who died this week.

Mentioned in this episode:

'Val', the excellent, moving, insightful, thoughtful documentary compiled from decades of Val Kilmer's home movies.

'Tombstone' is many people's favorite Kilmer film.

'Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's The Island of Dr. Moreau' is a fantastic making-of-a-trainwreck documentary about one of the most hilariously troubled film sets in...

Don Simpson was one-half of one of the most successful production partnerships in Hollywood history. His reality-distortion-field helped bring about films like Flashdance, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, The Rock, Crimson Tide, and Days of Thunder, films that collectively grossed more than $3 billion dollars.

Don Simpson's life is a cautionary tale with an ignominious ending forever ensconced in Hollywood history. His appetite for drug...