NEXT EPISODE: THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD COMMENTARY TRACK!
Alan Smithee Podcast: Banterbreak 5/17/13
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BANTERBREAK number 2: in which Andrew and I banter upon Iron Man 3, Inside Llewellyn Davis, new Shout! Factory Blu-Ray releases, and the announcement of an official Frank Miller Robocop 3 comic!
Alan Smithee Podcast 88: Judge Dredd (1995, Danny Cannon) & Dredd (2012, Pete Travis)
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In this episode of An Alan Smithee Podcast, we travel to the grim n’ gritty future of Mega City One for two very different takes on the beloved 2000 A.D. comic character Judge Dredd. One is abysmal, the other is awesome! Can you guess which is which?
NEXT EPISODE: SUMMER SPECIAL! CADDYSHACK (1980, HAROLD RAMIS) & CADDYSHACK II (1988, ALLAN ARKUSH)
Alan Smithee Podcast: Banterbreak 4/19/13
Hey Alan Smithee Podcast listeners!
Tired of waiting once a month for our movie blather? Now you can enjoy a mid-month BANTERBREAK in which we shoot the shit about all things movie-related that happen in between episodes!
In our inaugural BANTERBREAK we discuss the death of Ebert, trailers for Star Trek Into Darkness, Man of Steel and RIPD, Room 237, Jurassic Park 3D, and more! Join us, won’t you?
Alan Smithee Podcast 86: Late for Passover – The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, Martin Scorsese) / The Passover Plot (1976, Michael Campus)
NEXT EPISODE: JUDGMENT DAY! JUDGE DREDD (1995, DANNY CANNON) & DREDD (2012, PETE TRAVIS)
Alan Smithee Podcast 85: Red Planet (2000, Antony Hoffman) / Mission to Mars (2000, Brian De Palma)
In this episode of an Alan Smithee Podcast we conclude our two-part look at Mars on film for the month of Mars…March. Unlike our previous episode, these Mars movies portray a more benign look at the planet’s inhabitants (benign to the point of boredom in one case) and center around visits to the formidable fourth rock from the sun rather than invasions from it.
Red Planet was not the first of the two Mars movies to come out in 2000, but it was certainly the lesser. Misrepresented as some kind of horror film, the story is an extremely directionless account of astronauts on a mission to repair terraforming technology installed on Mars due to Earth becoming uninhabitable. What happens next is so boring and inane that the Mars’ stature in popular imagination as a place of wonder, mystery and danger is irreparably reduced in the mind of the viewer. The mostly-talented cast helps add a moment or two. Val Kilmer is a total pro, as always, but one-and-done director Antony Hoffman’s mise-en-scene is even blander than the screenplay. It’s a real waste of a planet.
Mission to Mars is an entirely other kind of space exploration film, one in which the danger of Mars is primarily the matter of getting there, as the title implies. The purpose of the mission is to unravel a mystery with echoes of 2001: A Space Odyssey – echoes so strong that the entire mainstream critical establishment seemed to dismiss the film out of hand as another case of Brian De Palma being unoriginal (a charge Quentin Tarantino stopped having to defend by embracing his lack of originality, but no matter.) Tim Robbins, Gary Sinise and Don Cheadle are all very good at selling the human drama which leads up to a heavy sci-fi conclusion that actually has a point, unlike Red Planet.
Download this episode and get your ass to Mars – again!
NEXT EPISODE: WE’RE LATE FOR PASSOVER! THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988, MARTIN SCORSESE) & THE PASSOVER PLOT (1976, MICHAEL CAMPUS)
Alan Smithee Podcast 84: Invaders from Mars (1953, William Cameron Menzies) / Invaders from Mars (1986, Tobe Hooper)
The ides of March are upon An Alan Smithee Podcast this month and we’ve got the madness! March is also, of course, the month of Mars, the Roman god of war who namesake is shared with our neighbor, the fourth rock the sun. This gives us a great excuse to pick from about a hundred movies set in, on or near Mars and do it twice. Check back in two weeks – the ides of March, the 15th – for another pair of Mars movies!
Our first pair of the month is a twofold evocation illustrating a generation of children’s terror regarding visits from the outside in shorthand as Martians. Ray Bradbury this twice-told tale is not. If the movies have taught us anything, it’s that any potential inhabitants of Mars wants to kill us.
Invaders From Mars (1953, William Cameron Menzies) is a real modern American folk legend, one of the earliest and craziest films about alien visitors as soulless conquering spies and murderers, all wrapped up in the hallucinatory imagination of terrified innocent. 1953 was also the year of The War of the Worlds and the images contained in these films would define the alien invader genre forever. Surreal, gripping and discreetly goofy in a low-budget way every so often.
After influencing a generation of genre filmmakers, the Invaders returned in Tobe Hooper’s 1986 remake of Invaders From Mars. Despite an eclectic, effective cast, slick direction and a wittily sardonic screenplay by Dan O’Bannon and Don Jakoby it failed to find its audience. We, the martian ambassadors at Alan Smithee Podcast are only too glad to sing its neglected praises.
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH: MISSION TO MARS (2000, BRIAN DE PALMA) & RED PLANET (2000, ANTONY HOFFMAN)
