179. 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' (2019)

It's my annual Oscar Recap. And Killers of the Flower Moon wuz robbed!

All of Leonardo DiCaprio's scenes as Rick Dalton in Quentin Tarantino's movie-making love-letter 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'

If you're new to the podcast, there's an episode just for you.

Previous All Their Scenes episodes:

Phillip Seymour Hoffman in 'Charlie Wilson's War'

Michael Keaton in 'Jackie Brown' and 'Out of Sight' as Special Agent Ray Nicolette.

Paul Newman in 'The Verdict'

Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High'

Warren Zevon on David Letterman

Alan J. Pakula deserves more attention and respect as one of the grestest American film directors of any era.  His run of films in the 70's, from 'Klute' to 'The Parallax View' to 'All The President's Men'...all brilliantly shot by Cinematographer Gordon Willis (The Godfather films)...are as impressive and of their moment as any films made in this thrilling period of American filmmaking.

In this episode, I dive into Pakula's understated persona and genius for working with actors, the period details and psychological explorations that result in a layered, non-showy film that rewards repeat viewings.

Carol Reed and Graham Greene's iconic post-war neo noir classic 'The Third Man'. A perfect movie. Steven Soderbergh calls it the only movie you need to watch in order to learn how to make a movie. In this episode I cover the making of, the battles between David O. Selznick, Alexander Korda, Reed and Orson Welles, the happenstance score to end all film scores and MORE.

Director Toby Amies and I discuss his excellent and unexpected documentary 'In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50'.

Ridley Scott's brilliant 1979 sci-fi/horror classic 'Alien' burnished his deserved reputation as bold re-interpreter of techno-dystopian futurism and exploder of genres.

But it made a lot of money and dollar signs in the eyes of 'Alien' producers Brandywine Productions led them to turn for a sequel to James Cameron, who had already done a similar turn on the Rambo franchise, penning a "rewritten" script for the sequel 'Rambo: First Blood Part II' that paved the way for the ridiculously over-the-top guns 'n poses Rambo films that followed.

Discarding with the quality actors and brilliantly lived-in future of the Nostromo and the original 'Alien', 'Aliens' is a box-office-pleasing symbiotic mutual masturbation effort where both audience and filmmaker are complicit in a liason that leaves both dirty and discredited.  It should be noted that I am fairly alone in this opinion, and  many 80's blockbuster-loving film fans revere 'Aliens' as even a superior 'Alien' film to the original!

One such fan is my frequent guest Bruce Edwards. Previously we've digested our love for 'Bladerunner' and 'Alien' on episodes of the podcast.  Here we get into 'Aliens' from our differing perspectives and find more common ground in a discussion about David Fincher's very first feature film, 'Alien 3', which he directed at the ripe old age of 27 and which was and is a legandary troubled production resulting in several competing alien babies; various cuts of the film exist and Fincher himself disavows the film. 

Billy Friedkin's iconic 1971 game-changing NYC police procedural/car chase classic 'The French Connection' has a fascinating backstory and making-of history, and, hey: that's what I'm here for! To bring you all the best stories behind the scenes on the streets of New York and all the context and color that helps place this movie in the pantheon of the films that came before and after it.

The NY Times article about this summer's censorship of the film is linked here.

Mark Kermode's very well made BBC documentary about the making of The French Connection can be seen on YouTube.

Owen Roizman, the film's brilliant and prolific cinematographer's IMDB page is here.

Do yourself a favor and watch the films of the brilliant French director Jean-Pierre Melville.

Listen to David Shire's iconic score for The Taking of Pelham 123 on YouTube.

Don Ellis' haunting end credits music from The French Connection.

Peter Yates was quietly one of the most interesting film directors of his time. His seminal 1967 British train-robbery film 'Robbery' got him noticed for the job directing Steve McQueen in 1968's 'Bullitt'.  In that film, Yates turned in a car chase frequently mentioned as second only to the iconic one filmed by Billy Friedkin in 'The French Connection'.

By 1973,  Yates was in Hollywood, working under a three-picture deal with Peter Bart and Robert Evans at Paramount.  Two of those didn't work out. The third turned out to be 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle', which is one of the very best 70's crime films, one of the very best Boston-set films ever made, and features Robert Mitchum's very best performance amid a wonderfully constructed neo-noir shot entirely on location in a series of blue-collar and working class Boston spots.

In this episode, I talk about 'Robbery', 'Bullitt' and 'The French Connection' and how they compare and contrast to 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle', an underappreciated little masterpiece of the sort Peter Yates specialized in throughout his career.