Have you seen the recent Canadian trucking movie Rodeo? You should if only to see it get everything right that Over the Top gets wrong. Sighing in frustration, Justin and Jimmy Mac put themselves in the unenviable position of having to criticize Sly Stallone's turn as trucker Lincoln Hawk in the 1987 movie. They sold it as a tale of fathers, sons, trucks, and arm wrestling contests. But all of those interesting possibilities are covered by a series of glistening muscular montages in a film that doesn't know the first thing about trucking. Actually, it doesn't know the first thing about making sense. On a positive note, any discussion involving actor Robert Loggia is worth having. Want to hear the full episode? Click here to find it on the SiriusXM App.
Flawed, fascinating, and not-as-good-as-you-remember-it, Sam Peckinpah's Convoy is often framed as a more truthful version of Smokey and The Bandit. The truth of the matter? It is an ill-conceived mess better discussed as a noble failure undermined by the desperation, addiction, and self-destruction of its director. Like the shoot out that concludes The Wild Bunch, Convoy feels like a lost cause that ends in a slaughter. You could also make a case it is one of the first fateful steps that ends the auteur movement in Hollywood. Want to hear the full episode? Click here to find it on the SiriusXM App.
The enemy of my enemy is worth a box of ammunition. Using the filter of Sam Peckinpah's career, Justin and Jimmy Mac discuss the concept of allies, what it means to be one, and what role they play in Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. They also find time to talk about Peckinpah's fellow workman directors and what it means to work hard and fast. In 1977, Peckinpah was working too hard and fast having made the transition from alcohol and cocaine. All of this sets the stage for his fateful and essentially career ending 1978 production of Convoy. Want to hear the full episode? Click here to find it on the SiriusXM App.
Once more into the dark with author Felix Blackwell. Just as Jimmy Mac loves Halloween III, Justin adores everything about Kathryn Biglelow's cult classic Near Dark including redneck vampires, Tangerine Dream's soundtrack, and even young love. Jimmy has reservations, but Felix gets to cast the deciding vote while working through his thoughts about The Lost Boys. "One thing about living in Santa Carla I could never stomach... all the damn vampires." Want to hear the full episode? Click here to find it on the SiriusXM App.
Having gone down the dark, sinister rabbit hole of Felix Blackwell's success, Justin, Jimmy, and Felix emerge and finally turn their attention to Carpenter's Halloween. In their analysis, the introduction of Michael Myers becomes an inflection point for the history of the genre, The Shining notwithstanding. The discussion uses the movie to talk about why horror is where it is today in regards to music, tone, and subject matter. "The Night He Came Home."
Emerging from the bowels of reddit, viral sensation horror author Felix Blackwell joins Justin and Jimmy Mac. They celebrate all things spooky with a wide ranging discussion of Roger Corman's tales of terror, a history of jump scares, and writing the fiction of dread. They never quite get to John Carpenter's seminal classic Halloween, but that just means Felix will return for the next conversation.
A noble near miss and one of Jimmy Mac's favorite horror movies, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is packed with some great ideas, one terrific performance, and all the cringe-worthy culture of the early 80's. It's the Halloween without Michael Myers. Justin has some reservations, but the longer he talks with his co-host the more he comes to see there might be something great underneath the hood... despite the horror contained in the masks. Want to hear the full episode? Click here to find it on the SiriusXM App.
Since no one can hear you scream in space, Jimmy Mac and Justin fill the vacuum with their analysis of Ridley Scott's 1979 cosmic haunted house Alien. Jimmy Mac attempts to make the case that Alien, even more than Star Wars, might be the ultimate science-fiction trucking movie. It's also a movie we do not recommend watching with your ten-year-old. "No blood; no Dallas."
Director Philip Kauffmann's 1979 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, along with John Carpenter's The Thing, is considered one of greatest remakes in movie history. It is also one of Jimmy Mac's favorite films. Its villainous obstacle of a replicating alien race threatens the very nature of human identity and holds a dark mirror up to the time period of Jonestown, the Iranian hostage crisis, and an existential threat to America's very urge for adventure. That threat was called malaise. Want to hear the full episode? Click here to find it on the SiriusXM App.
Wrapping up their exchange of ideas with stuntman James Logan, Justin and Jimmy Mac express disappointment with the missed opportunities throughout Hal Needham's cinematic love letter to stuntmen Hooper. They also start tracking a troubling trend at the end of the 70's with people making movies having a better time than those watching them culminating with 1981's Cannonball Run. Want to hear the full episode? Click here to find it on the SiriusXM App.