On our 80th episode of Fabulous Film & Friends what better way to follow up a Road House podcast than by looking at the highlights of pioneering gay director John Schlesinger? We’re talking about 1969’s Midnight Cowboy starring Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Brenda Vaccaro, John McGiver, Sylvia Miles, Bob Balaban and Barnard Hughes as well as 1971’s Sunday, Bloody Sunday starring Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson, Murry Head and Dame Peggy Ashcroft topped off with 1975’s The Day of the Locust starring William Atherton, Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Bo Hopkins, Pepe Serna, Geraldine Paige, Richard Dysart, Lil’ Jackie Earl Haley, an even littler Billy Barty and Mrs. Lovey Howell, herself, Natalie Schaeffer.  I’m joined this week by the reliably ab-fab crew of my kid-sister and lit major Roseanne Caputi as well as the sensitive cowhand himself, actor, photographer and snappy patter producer par excellence Gordon Alex Robertson!  Okay, before we don the fringed suede jackets and find a spot on 43rd St., the synopses:  In Midnight Cowboy big, dumb Texan Joe Buck quits his job as a dishwasher and hops on a Greyhound to the big town, New York City with dreams of making his fortune as a male prostitute servicing rich, bored housewives on Park Avenue. After a series of cringe-inducing misfires, Joe finds himself penniless and living in a squalid, condemned apartment with a sickly, limping con man named Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo. With Ratso serving as Joe’s manager the only place they can go is straight down. Barely surviving a New York winter, Joe’s fortunes finally start to change for the better until a dying Ratso implores Joe to get him to Florida.  Sunday, Bloody Sunday slowly--ever so slowly-- catalogues the highs and lows of two middle-aged, upper-class Londoners, one man, Dr. Daniel Hirsch, a perennially single doctor and one woman, Alex Greville a divorcee who both find purpose and vitality in a love triangle with Bob Elkin, a young sculptor in his 20’s. The three must deal with abrupt change, loss and acceptance when Bob the sculptor moves to America.  The Day of the Locust, based on the 1939 novel by Nathaniel West, follows the course of three, tragic dreamers who came to Hollywood with eyes toward stardom but end up victims of its cold-hearted excess: Tod Hacket, a somewhat idealistic --if a bit rapey set designer from Yale-- who is in love with Fay Greener, a beautiful but talentless day playing actress who refuses to date men that aren’t wealthy, and none other than Homer Simpson, a simple, religious and socially awkward accountant who naively takes Fay in to live with him.  Was Mr. Schlesinger an all time great? Or a one hit wonder?  Find out! Watch this podcast on Youtube: https://youtu.be/rVaMo465c8A Follow FF&F on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fabulousfilmandfriends

This week on Fabulous Film & Friends we’re leaping head first into the bone-cracking, tooth-spitting, throat-ripping and monster-trucking action of the Road House movies! Both of them! That’s the original 1989 version directed by Rowdy Herrington and starring Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliot, Kelly Lynch, Ben Gazzara, Kevin Tighe, Marshall Teague, Julie Michaels, Red West, Kathleen Wilhoite and blink and you’ll miss him, Keith David.  As compared to the 2024 remake directed by Doug Liman and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor McGregor, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams, Post Malone, Arturo Castro & Joaquim de Almeida. My tougher n’ leather crew today is made up of Roseanne Caputi, George Young, David Johnson DMD and although we had to beg him back, the bruiser himself, Gordon Alex Robertson!Before we bite into all that throat-ripping goodness, the synopses: Road House ‘89  is an epic tale of real estate fraud, malfeasance, racketeering and monster truck mayhem when zen, philosophizing Big City club bouncer Dalton is hired by Missouri bar owner Frank Tilgheman to clean up his honky tonk club The Double Deuce. Getting top dollar of 5k a week, Dalton packs up and moves to the town of Jasper to get things moving. After beating up a few goons and cutting the pork out of the Double D, Dalton runs afoul of a local business tycoon, the most Italian looking Brad Wesley you’ve ever seen. Wesley wants the Double Deuce for his own purposes and he also wants Dalton’s new girlfriend, the beautiful and brainy Dr. Elizabeth “Doc” Clay as his own. So Wesley’s plan: KILL DALTON! Dalton enlists the aid of his friend and mentor Wade Garrett to help in the ensuing ruckus, but Garrett’s skills are no match for Wesley’s evil. Wesley kills Wade in doing so unleashes the raging raw brute force of a one man army that is…DALTON! Road House 24’ basically follows the same plot as the original except it moves the locale to Florida and makes Dalton an ex-MMA star and gives him the first name Elwood. And speed boats take the place of Monster Trucks. And that’s about it.   Who wins the smackdown? Find out!Watch the podcast in full color video on Youtube!https://youtu.be/42_91oNtbq4 Follow FF&F on Facebook!https://www.facebook.com/groups/fabulousfilmandfriends

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends we’re covering a trio of Neo Noir films set in the city of…where else? Los Angeles, as we discuss 1998’s The Big Lewbowski, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring the extraordinary Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, David Huddleston, John Tutturo, Ben Gazara, David Thewlis, Tara Reid, Peter Stormare, Leon Russom and Sam Elliot against 2014’s Inherent Vice directed by Paul Thomas Anderson starring Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon, Martin Short, Jena Malone, Maya Rudolph Martin Donovan and Hong Chau, topped off with 2018’s Under the Silver Lake  directed by  David Robert Mitchell  and  starring Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace, Grace Van Patten,  Riki Lindhome, Wendy vanden Heuvel, Callie Hernandez, Jimmi Simpson, Zosia Mamet, Jeremy Bob, Rex Lynn, Patrick Fischler and Sydney Sweeney. My guests today are Roseanne Caputi and back by popular demand, Gordon Alex Robertson!Before contemplating the endless currents of depth and consciousness, man, the synopses:  The Big Lebowski,  follows a lot of ins-and-outs and what-have-you’s of a very complicated case when two goons working for porn king Jackie Treehorn mistakenly burst into the apartment of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski  demanding money that his supposed wife Bunny owes Jackie.  Realizing their mistake but still adding the flourish of urinating on the Dude’s favorite rug, the pair leaves and gets the hang loose and tolerant Dude’s dander up.  Dude the sets off finding the wealthy Jeffrey Lebowski that the pair were looking for and asks him for compensation for his soiled rug. The Big Lebowski flat out refuses the request, calls the Dude a bum, and kicks him out of his house. Surprisingly, a few days later The Big Lebowski summons The Dude to his mansion and asks him to act as a courier to a group of nihilists who have abducted his wife Bunny and are demanding a million dollars in ransom. With his reactionary ‘Nam vet bowling buddy Walter Sobchak at his side, the Dude enters a web of deception, greed and pain as he tries to make sense of the convoluted and problematical condition that he finds himself in.  Inherent Vice ups the ante with ex-cop and junkie P.I. Larry “Doc” Sportello who follows a trail of real estate fraud, heroin smuggling, corrupt federal agents and dentists when his ex-girlfriend Shasta Faye re-enters his life and gives him the tip that her current boyfriend, real estate tycoon Mickey Wolfman, has a wife who is trying to have him committed. With rival LA Police Lt. Detective Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen working alternately, with and against him, Doc plows into the labyrinthian case headfirst aided by only his wits and piles of weed and coke in the desperate quest for the truth.  Under the Silver Lake follows a journey through endless hidden messages, conspiracies and millennial self-discovery as perennial slacker Sam tries to uncover the truth regarding the disappearance of his beautiful neighbor Sarah, who vanishes without a trace a day after billionaire industrialist Jefferson Sevence is killed a car crash. Which film best exemplifies the whole corruption, crime and conspiracies in L.A. thing? Find out!

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends the wait is over and in an exciting change of pace, no negativity. We’re going to slaver and spaz all about 2024’s Dune Part 2 directed by Denis Villanueve and starring Timotheé Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgaard, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Charlotte Rampling, Lea Seydoux, Christopher Walken and (spoiler alert!)  Anya Taylor-Joy.  My guests today are David Johnson DMD and Roseanne Caputi. Series regular and good friend Alex Robertson is sitting this one out because he said, and I quote, “I have to polish my silver and scrub the cabinets tonight.”  But the truth is Dune is sci-fi and is packed wall-to-wall with current superstars with nary an obscure 70’s grindhouse actor to be found in its nearly 3 hour running time.  Before we contemplate the many  riddles of the film, the synopsis:  Dune Part 2 picks up exactly where part one left off: After narrowly escaping multiple assassination attempts and exiled in the harsh desert of the savagely hot and dry spice producing planet Arrakis after Paul Atraide’s father Duke Leto was murdered by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in an brutal attack against House Atraides conceived and orchestrated by the Emperor Shaddam IV, Paul and his mother Lady Jessica have joined with the desert warrior Freman people.  Paul wrestles with the notion or is it a plot? That he is the Kwisatz Haderach, the chosen one prophesized to lead the Freman warriors in a holy war against all of the Houses of the Galactic Empire. Fearing that their plot has backfired, the Bene Gesserit order of witches led by Gaius Helen Mohiam devise a plan to install the sadistic Feyd Rotha Harkonen as governor of Arrakis in order to quell the Freman rebellion brewing which Paul leads and Lady Jessica, now a full full-fledged Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, promotes to the more religiously extreme Southern Freman tribes.   Watch the podcast on Youtube!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osmGNGCvD1IFollow FF&F on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/groups/fabulousfilmandfriends

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends with the glow of our 75th episodeebbing, it’s time to pick up the empty champagne bottles, sweep the floor and go back to discussing one measly film, o’ but what a film it is: 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, and a veritable host of craggy-faced old coots on the white end, and on the Native American end, a who’s who of Oklahoma and Montana actors who either got their big break from doing Community Theater or who have never acted in a major feature film before, including the Oscar nominated Lily Gladstone, who, like myself, got her start acting in Montana’s Missoula Children’s Theater. Who knows? It may have been my heralded performance as the Narrator in Jack in The Beanstalk or my talents at hawking sweatshirts after the big show that gave a young Lily Gladstone the acting bug.  My guests this week are a full sweat lodge of opinionated tribal elders, I’m talking Roseanne Caputi, Alex Robertson and not one but  two celebrated authors returning to the program, George Young and David Johnson, DMD Okay before we get into all-out movie war the synopsis:Based on true accounts of Osage Nation member who were murdered after oil was discovered on Oklahoma tribal land in the 1920’s. The tribal members had retained mineral rights on their reservation, but Bill Hale, a corrupt local, schemes with his dull-witted and greedy nephews Byron and Ernest Burkhart to steal the tribal members' wealth.

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends we are pointing our compasses southward to the land of doom and gloom:Australia! Don’t be fooled by the likes of Paul Hogan, Yahoo Serious and Thor, underneath that loopy, whimsical Australian charm, lies an unparalleled grim and sober yet prophetic outlook about life on Earth as evidenced by 1971’s Walkabout directed by Nicholas Roeg, though full disclosure: he’s an Englishman who shepherded Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, David Gulpilil and John Meillion to cinematic prominence, then 1982’s The Road Warrior aka Mad Max 2 directed by George Miller and starring Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Kjell Nillson, Max Phipps, Vernon Wells, Mike Preston, Arkie Whitely, Viginia Hey and Emil Minty then topped off with The Road directed by Australian native John Hillcoat and starring Viggo Mortenson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Garrett Dillahunt, the late Michael Kenneth Williams, Guy Pearce  and Robert Duvall.  My guests today are once again the series regulars who have both the stomach and gloomy disposition to take solace in rewatching these films back-to-back-to-back, Roseanne Caputi and Alex Robertson.Okay before we go on a walkabout of our own, the synopses: In Walkabout, a perfectly ordinary pair of upper-class English siblings get lost in the Australian outback after their father takes them for a picnic then tries to murder them. They look to be perfect candidates for either heat stroke and/or vulture food until they are rescued by a young Aboriginal teen out on his Walkabout.  The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2  raises the stakes of the original Mad Max and picks up the story with ex cop Max Rockatansky travelling the barren, hellish, post-apocalyptic highways and stumbling upon an evil road gang led by a brute named Lord Humungus. Humungus is hellbent on invading a compound belonging to a group of  civilized and intelligent settlers who have built an oasis around the last of the oil wells and have running lights and supplies. Losing numbers and their morale under the constant attacks of Humungus, the settlers hatch a plan to escape the vermin on wheels and flee to the coast with their oil in tow. With the help of Max and a pilot called the Gyro Captain, the settlers are given a slim chance to survive.  In The Road a Man risks all to protect his Boy and teach him survival skills in another bleak and nightmarish future where all plant and animal life is gone and the dominant humans subsist through murder and cannibalism.    Which film is king of the outback/queen of the end times?Find out!

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends  I’m both chasing butterflies and swatting at hornets whilst forcing my friends to watch and analyze the films of director S. Craig Zahler a filmmaker who couldn’t have a more awkward professional name than if he had gone with "E. Marvin Bummington." But are his films worth discussing? We’re talking 2015’s Bone Tomahawk starring the mighty Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, David Arquette, Lili Simmons, Fred Melamed, Kathryn Morris, Geno Segers and in a pair of blink and you’ll miss ‘em cameos: Sean Young and Michael Paré then 2017’s Brawl in Cell Block 99 starring Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Udo Kier, Marc Blucas, Geno Segers, Dion Mucciato and Don Johnson and finally Dragged Across Concrete which came out somewhere in 2019 and stars Mel Gibson, Tory Kettles, Michael Jai White, Thomas Kretschmann and “the S. Craig Zahler traveling players” who include Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Fred Melamed, Udo Kier and Don Johnson. My guests today are my go-to series regulars who are the only pair I know who have the slightest interest in joining me in this flight of fancy, Roseanne Caputi and Alex Robertson.Okay before we wander outside of town onto the deadly trail: the synopses: In Bone Tomahawk, a murderous outlaw unwittingly leads a band of cannibalistic savages into a peaceful western town where the brutes kidnap the jailed outlaw, a deputy and the town’s doctor who is also the wife of Arthur, a local rancher. Despite an injured leg, Arthur joins a rescue party with Sheriff Hunt, Hunt’s old deputy Chicory, and a mysterious dandy cum gunslinger named Brooder. With Arthur’s injury slowing them down, the four brave men follow the savage’s path to hellish territory where they come face-to-face with unimaginable horrors that test both the team’s courage and sanity. Brawl in Cell Block 99  tells the tale of Bradley Thomas who, in one day , is fired from his job and learns his wife is having an affair. He decides the only way to salvage his marriage is to go full time into drug smuggling to make the real money. A year later all is well: Bradley has a big house and his wife is pregnant but he goes in on a shady deal with some sleazy cartel types and it all goes south, forcing Bradley to choose between killing cops and killing cartel members. He chooses the latter but still ends up with in a five year prison sentence in a minimum security prison. Seems it is what it is until a messenger from the cartel comes to visit Bradley on his second day in the cooler and tells him that if he doesn’t get transferred to the maximum-security prison in order to kill a high value target in Cell Block 99 that his wife and unborn child will be murdered. Bradley dutifully and mercilessly follows their orders to save his family  until he realizes all may not be what it seems.  In Dragged Across Concrete, unorthodox and vaguely shady take-no-prisoners cops, Brett Ridgeman and Anthony Lurasetti, are suspended for use of excessive force and use their unpaid leave to plan a heist. Unfortunately, their plot leads to witnessing a deadly bank robbery committed by a vicious and amoral trio of crooks led by Lorentz Vogelmann, who hired street thugs Henry Johns and Biscuit to be part of their team. With a dire hostage situation on their hands and after witnessing several murders, Henry and Biscuit begin to suspect that their hours are numbered as part of Vogelmann’s crew. At the same time, Ridgeman and Lurassetti are the only ones who have tailed the gang to their getaway hideout and are the only pair who can make a difference. The two forces meet up in the proverbial abandoned warehouse and chaos ensues. How do the films stack up?

Happy New Year everyone, and as we begin another year of Fabulous Film and Friends we’re doing something no one else is doing at this time and looking back at the films of 2023, our 3rd such recap since this show’s inception. My guests are series regulars Roseanne Caputi and Alex Robertson, the only people I know who have the patience to sit through 2023’s bum crop of films. My favorite films of the year were:Asteroid CityGodzilla Minus 1MaestroShowing UpThe FlashFound out why and what my least favorite film was and much much more!

On this final week of 2023 we’re going run and run and run with Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in 2023’s Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part 1, one might even say Dead Reckoning Part Run  directed by Christopher McQuarrie and starring Mr. Cruise, Ving Rhames, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Cary Elwes, Esai Morales Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan, and Henry Czerny.  My two guests are my right hand men on The Blockbuster Crew: Utah’s own David Johnson, DMD and Burton Brown, State of Utah IT.  Before the mad dash to our opinion of this movie, the synopsis:  Ethan Hunt and his team of Mission Impossiblers have to go rogue yet again to stop the world from  yada yada yada. Same old crap megalomaniac with a weapon this time it’s AI. Or something.  Esai Morales is involved. I fell asleep twice so I didn’t quite catch the relationship between the AI and Morales’ Gabriel character.  This movie seemed like more of the same old same old. But as a Tom Cruise running movie, it’s a masterpiece, reaching an operatic Death in Venice level of running sophistication.  But me go further: This is the biggest offender in “The Each Sequel Feels Like the Exact Same Thing Every Time --Except More of It” category.  In fact the whole series is the worst, far worse than James Bond.   Followed by:  Bourne IdentityX-MenRecent Planet of the Apes movies andHarry Potter  Am I right? On your mark! Get Set!Run!

This week on Fabulous Film & Friends we’re going to analyze a trio of “cult classics” from the actor/director pairing of Kurt Russell and John Carpenter. Starting with 1981’s Escape From New York starring Mr. Russell, Donald Pleasance, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Isaac Hayes and Season Hubley, on to 1982’s The Thing starring Russell, Donald Moffat, Keith David, Richard Dysart, David Clennon, T.K, Carter, Richard Masur, Charles Hallahan and Wilford Brimley, And finally 1986’s Big Trouble in Little China starring Russell, Dennis Dun, Kim Cattrall, James Hong, Donald Li, Kate Burton, Suzee Pai and Victor Wong, My two guests are the only pair who would be up for such a comprehensive cinematic showdown : Lit major and lil’ Sis Roseanne Caputi and Actor Funnyman Photobug, Alex Robertson. Before we run the gauntlet, the synopses:  In Escape From New Yorkex soldier and current convict Snake Plisskin is forced under the threat of death by government agent Hauk to rescue the President of the United States after a group of insurgents cause Air Force One to crash in New York city which by 1997 has become a walled off maximum security prison.  The Thing  catalogues the paranoia, fear and sheer horror  that ensues when a shape-shifting alien invades an American Antarctic Research Facility.   Big Trouble in Little China follows the mystic, martial-arts laden misadventures of blowhard truck driver Jack Burton, who, on a routine stop in San Francisco’s Chinatown wins a bet over   his buddy Wang Chi. In order to collect his money, Jack follows Wang to the airport to meet Wang’s beautiful green-eyed betrothed bride Miao Yin who is summarily kidnapped by the evil ancient supernatural gang Lord David Lo Pan. Lo Pan, for his part, inhabits a broken down and decrepit old body and can only move as a spirit in his young and powerful form. In order to attain full strength and fleshly form, Lo Pan  needs Wang’s  green-eyed bride to break his century old curse. With the help of lawyer Gracie Law and a troupe of warriors led by magical Egg Shen, Jack and Wang charge into David Lo Pan’s compound to stage a daring rescue. Which film rates the highest?Find out!

This week on Fabulous Film & Friends we’re going to groove to a tryptic of cool Elmore Leonard adaptations. Why? Because we’re that cool. We be talkin’ 1995’s Get Shorty directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring John Travolta, Rene Russo, Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo, James Gandlafini, David Paymer and Bette Midler up against 1997’s Jackie Brown , directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Robert DeNiro, Bridget Fonda, Michael Bowen and Michael Keaton, capped off with 1998’s Out of Sight directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Dennis Farina again, Albert Brooks and Michael Keaton again. My guests this week are two of my favorite muscle: Lit major and lil’ Sis Roseanne Caputi and Actor/ Funnyman/ Photographer, Alex Robertson. Before we jump into the getaway car, the synopses.Get Shorty  tells the story of Chili Palmer, mob muscle from Florida who has to collect money in Hollywood for his boss Bones Barboni and in the process becomes involved with a producer named Harry Zimm and finds himself a creative in the movie business.  Jackie Brown centers around a Flight Attendant Jackie Brown who gets nabbed by the ATF for smuggling money for the murderous arms dealer Ordell Robbie. She strikes a deal with ATF agent Ray Nicollette and in doing so schemes with Bail Bondsman Max Cherry to fool the feds and take down Ordell in one felled swoop.Out of Sight is a cat and mouse  love story between master bank robber Jack Foley and Federal Marshall Karen Sisco where the two meet during a jailbreak in which Jack takes Karen hostage and they develop an attraction as they ride in the trunk of a car together. Karen escapes and they go their separate ways. Though Jack is determined to pull off one more score or die trying, Karen is determined to take Jack down, and yet they can’t overcome their desire to meet up again. And again. And again.   Who's the coolest? Find out!

Welcome to the 3rd Season kickoff of Fabulous Film and Friends where this week we’re going to pit a pair of beloved personal  favorites from the 80’s against each other in an epic duel of characterization, star power and cinematic moxie. We’re talking about 1984’s The Pope of Greenwich Village directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starring Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke, Burt Young, Daryl Hannah, Kenneth McMillan, Tony Musante, Jack Kehoe, and Geraldine Paige up against 1988’s Midnight Run directed by Martin Brest and starring Robert DeNiro, Charles Grodin, Yaphett Koto, John Ashton, Joe Pantoliano, Jack Kehoe again,  and Dennis Farina. My guests this week are the usual wise guys: Author George Young, Snotty lit major and lil’ Sis Roseanne Caputi and Actor Funnyman, Alex Robertson.  Before we dive in with the fishes, the synopses. The Pope of Greenwich Village tells the story of Charlie Moran and Paulie Giboni two cousins from the neighborhood who get in over their heads when ne’re do well Paulie convinces Charlie to rob a safe belonging to notorious mobster Bedbug Eddie Grant with a $150,000 payout to dirty cops.  Midnight Run catalogues the misadventures of bounty hunter Jack Walsh who has what is seemingly an easy job or Midnight Run of getting mob accountant Johnathan The Duke Mardukis back to LA before his sleazy Bail Bondsman employer loses his shorts in a $450,000 bai bondl if the Duke fails to show at trial. The problem: The mob, the FBI and Jack’s rival Marvin are hot on Mardukis tail and want him either dead or for their own purposes. Which personal favorite is the winner?Find out!

This week on Fabulous Film & Friends we are going to delve into the obsessions of the auteur with this past Summer’s Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Alden Eherenreich, Casey Affleck, Tony Goldwin, and a whole host of blink and you’ll miss them celebrity walk-ons, the most since The Muppet Movie,  as compared to Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, with his embarrassment of riches cast,  Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Tom Hanks, Adrian Brody, Edward Norton, Jeffrey Wright, Matt Dillon, Bryan Cranston, Tilda Swinton, Maya Hawke, Rupert Friend, Willem Dafoe, Steve Carrell, Hong Chau Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Steve Park,  and Margot Robbie.  We are also joined by series regulars George Young, David Johnson, DMD, and Roseanne Caputi, who will begin the talk by each defining the word “Twee.” Before we march into the mêlée of the maestros, the synopsis:  Oppenheimer tells the story of legendary nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer as he stares into the void a lot, develops the atom bomb and then slights a future contender for the U.S. Senate, who drudges up Oppenheimer’s Communist past in an epic IMAX movie of a series of meetings in sweaty conference rooms and senate chambers.  Asteroid City is a movie about a play within a 1950’s TV show depicting the behind the scenes machinations of a Broadway theatrical production about a confluence of Stargazers and their families in a small Arizona town.    Who is the superior present day King of Cinema?Find out!Warning: Salty language!

This week on Fabulous Film & Friends we are going to discuss the 2023 film Nefarious, directed by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon and starring Sean Patrick Flanery, Jordan Belfi, Glenn Beck, Tom Ohmer, Daniel Martin Berkey and Reverend Father Darrin Merlino, who was also the Spiritual Advisor on the film and who just happens to be our special guest this week. We are also joined by series regular Gordon Alex Robertson, who is no stranger to the Good Book and Lovin’ the Lord! Having starred in not one, not two, but three productions of Godspell at Clackamas County Community College in Oregon City, Oregon over a span of thirty years.  Before we plumb the depths! The synopsis: Nefarius tells the tale of the demon Nefariamus, but you can call him Nefarious, who has inhabited the body of a simple-minded criminal named John Wayne Gacy, make that Edward Wayne Brady and after committing a series of horrific murders while possessed by the demon, is sentenced to death. On the day of the execution in an Oklahoma Penitentiary, state appointed psychiatrist Dr. James Martin, himself a replacement for recently deceased psychiatrist Dr. Alan Fischer, who threw himself out a window at the behest of Nefarious, is tasked with determining if Edward is certifiably insane. What ensues is a clash between a self-confident atheist man of science as he goes up against one of Satan’s psychologically cruel and conniving underlings in an epic duel of wits. Does it get the job done? Find out!

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends, we’re concluding our look into the paranoid, dystopian lens of 70’s sci-fi by discussing three of the four versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. We’re talking the 1956 version directed by Don Siegel and starring Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Larry Gates and Sam Peckinpah in a cameo, comparing it to the 1978 version starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright, and Leonard Nimoy along with both Don Siegel and Kevin McCarthy in cameos, as well as the 1993 version called Body Snatchers directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Gabrielle Anwar, Terry Kinney, Meg Tilley, Christine Elise, Billy Wirth, R. Lee Ermey and Forest Whitaker.  My guests this week are series regulars Roseanne Caputi, David Johnson and George Young, and of course, the inimitable Gordon Alex Robertson.  Before we harvest the crop of pod people,  the synopses: All three films center around the idea that an alien species has invaded our planet and has replaced members of our community with look-alikes sprung from plant-like pods. The key  difference in the pod people is that their personalities are devoid of emotion. Which Body Snatchers film wins the war? Find out!

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends,  we're going to review and discuss 2023’s Sound of Freedom, directed by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, and starring Jim Caviezel, Bill Camp, Mira Sorvino, Eduardo Verástegui, Yessica Barrote Perryman, Kurt Fuller and Jose Zúñiga.My guest today are regulars, Alex Robertson, David Johnson, DMD. And in her first Triple F appearance, fearless women's and children's rights activist, movie lover and all around terrific person, Eva Muntean.  Eva has a connection to the film as she worked with Eduardo Verastegui on a book about his film Bella in 2006.Before we venture into the jungle of this heavy-duty film, the synopsis:Sound of Freedom tells the story of real-life Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard,who quit his job with the U.S. Child Crimes Task Force down in Colombia to rescue hundreds of trafficked  children and then founded the nonprofit Operation Underground Railroad, which offers international operations to rescue children, law enforcement support and aftercare for trafficking survivors. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to all of us, David Johnson has been quietly doing volunteer work for O.U.R. and helping trafficking victims with their aftercare. What do we all think of the movie? Find out!

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends, we’re leaping onto the Indiana Jones bandwagon with a quick review of 2023’s non-Spielberg directed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, helmed by James Mangold and starring Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelson, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, Thomas Kretschmann, Boyd Holbrook and John Rhys Davies.  My guests today are two avowed Indy fans, David Johnson and George Young. The synopsis: Indiana Jones, now a lonely old divorcee living in a squalid apartment and retiring from teaching at New York’s Hunter College is called into action by his goddaughter Helena to help her find Archimedes’ time hopping Dial of Destiny before a group of Nazis find it.

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends it’s Spider-verse vs. Snyder-verse as we’re boldly entering the portal of current comic book summer movie multiverses and discussing the latest animated Marvel feature Spider-Man, Across the Spider-verse featuring the voices of Shamiek Moore, Hailey Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac, Karan Soni, Daniel Kaluuya and Jason Schwartzman and we’re seeing how it stacks up against DC’s live action (but barely) The Flash starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, Kiersey Clemons, Michael Shannon, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú and a whole galaxy of blink and you miss them, CGI created celebrity cameos.  My guests today are, David Johnson, DMD, Burton Brown, back from a nearly year-long hiatus, and joining us for his first FFF appearance and our first guest representing the millennial generation of filmgoers, author, hypnotherapist and all-around deep-thinker, Joe Field. Before the portal closes, the synopses:  Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse continues the adventure of Miles Morales, the second Spider-Man who follows his friend Gwen Stacey also known as Spider-Woman, or Spider-Gwen and a team of multi-verse police led by the angry Miguel O’Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 and his new archnemesis, the dimensional portal creating Spot into the Multiverse where he discovers millions of Spider-People from all sorts of dimensions whose lives are affected by the cataclysmic change The Spot has brought upon the multiverse. Or something like that.  In the Flash, Barry Allen aka The Flash, having discovered he can travel through time with his ability to run faster than the speed of light, plots to save his mother from being murdered by changing past history. The plot succeeds, except he ends up creating a world where the only superhero who exist besides himself is Michael Keaton’s Batman, and they are woefully unprepared to fend off the invasion of Kryptonian General Zod, who was stopped by Superman in the movie Man of Steel. Which multiverse is more appealing? Find out!

This week on Fabulous Film and Friends we’re maintaining course on our dark path down creepy 70’s  sci fi as we explore two trailblazers in the world of robotics and AI: 1973’s Westworld starring Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Dick Van Patten, Steve Franken and Star Trek’s Majel Barrett  up against 1975’s The Stepford Wives starring Katherine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson, Tina Louise, Nanette Newman and a whole slew of middle aged men to prove that men can design women better than anybody.  My guests today are series regulars, David Johnson, Roseanne Caputi and Alex Robertson.  Before we roll, the synopses:  Set in a disturbingly near future, Westworld transports rich and lonely swinging singles Peter Martin and John Blane into a theme park /resort called Westworld populated by incredibly life like robots, including a black clad Gunslinger,  who inhabit an 1880’s  Western town and are there to be shot, fought and screwed to the whims and pleasure  of the resort’s guests. But when the robots start to malfunction and go on a rampage against all humans, guess who feels really stupid?  The Stepford Wives tells of the Eberharts, Walter and Johanna and their two daughters who escape the rat race of Manhattan and move to idyllic suburban town of Stepford, Connecticut. It’s a perfect suburban dream for Walter but it turns out to be a nightmare for Joanna when she finds out that all the women are subservient, hard cleaning, perfectly domesticated sex objects for their husbands. The reason?  (Spoiler Alert!) THEY’VE BEEN TURNED INTO ROBOTS! Which robot movie wins?Find out!

With the sugary Fruit Loops of Summer movie fare already upon us, this week on Fabulous Film & Friends we are going to fortify our intellectual palate with some meaty, heavy-duty late 60’s early/70’s sci fi and compare Franklin Schaffner’s 1968 masterpiece Planet of The Apes, starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison and James Whitmore with Richard Fleischer’s 1973 downbeat detective story Soylent Green  also starring Mr. Heston, along with Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Brock Peters, Chuck Connors and Dick Van Patten in a role he was born to play as a  weaselly usher in a walk in euthanasia center.  Joining me as we venture down this dark path of 70’s dystopia are series regulars David Johnson D.M.D, Roseanne Caputi, author, producer and NY resident George Young and the mighty Gordon Alex Robertson. But before we take the first bite: the synopses. Planet of the Apes centers around George Taylor, an astronaut on a deep space voyage whose mission entails returning to Earth 2000 years after the launch of the spacecraft. The vessel crash lands on what seems to be a far off planet inhabited by by dumb and mute humans who are ruled by intelligent but brutal talking apes. Taylor is captured by the apes and shot in the throat making him unable to talk, but when his larynx heals, he lets out the immortal line, “Get your paws off of me you damned dirty ape!” What follows is a tug of war over the perceived intelligence and fading dominance of mankind, leading Taylor to discover the shocking truth of his predicament on the planet.  Soylent Green takes place in what was once the future, the year 2022 where in a poisoned world with very little food and clean water, much of the overpopulated humanity living in squalid apartments and packed shoulder to shoulder, sleeping on stairwells, feeds on a government issued allegedly plankton-based food product called Soylent Green. Scuffling and sweaty Detective Robert Thorn is assigned a murder case where a wealthy power master named William Simonson was assassinated. Thorn follows a trail of murderous clues that lead him to the discovery of the exact nature Soylent Green itself.