At one time the record-holder as most popular movie ever made, can Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial still win over a modern 11-year-old kid watching it for the first time today? That’s the big question we address in the latest episode of the Film at 11 podcast. This week’s movie choice comes by viewer request,… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 14 | E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Released at the very end of 1993, Tombstone arrived as the first of two back-to-back movies about legendary Wild West lawman Wyatt Earp. A competing film, simply called Wyatt Earp, directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring Kevin Costner, followed six months later in mid-1994. Much publicity was raised in the entertainment press at the time… Read More You’re a Daisy If You Do | Tombstone (1993) 4K Ultra HD
I may have made a mistake in this week’s Film at 11 podcast. I had several last-minute changes of mind about what movie to watch with my son Thomas, until I eventually settled on Jurassic Park. Mind you, this is the kid who found Gremlins a little too scary, and I thought it would be… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 13 | Jurassic Park (1993)
Having come out of film school just a couple years prior, Run Lola Run is exactly the sort of movie I wish I’d been talented and audacious enough to make myself at the time. Thrown together on a shoestring budget with more ambition and nerve than actual filmmaking resources, the movie is equal parts pulse-pounding… Read More Life’s Really Crazy Sometimes, Isn’t It? | Run Lola Run (1998) 4K Ultra HD
After the rather challenging and stressful experience of recording an entire episode with both of my 11-year-old sons, our Film at 11 podcast now returns to its regular, more manageable one-on-one format. This week, I introduce my son Joseph to Penny Marshall’s classic fantasy Big, which remains as delightful and charming today as it was… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 12 | Big (1988)
For a movie nerd who’d only recently come of age and started young adulthood at that moment, the early- to mid-1990s were a very exciting time in cinema. The independent film movement was flourishing, and even within traditional Hollywood circles, a new generation of writers and directors were rising up to make their voices heard.… Read More The Biggest Mexican I Have Ever Seen | Desperado (1995) Arrow Video 4K Ultra HD
It’s doubles all around! To mark our milestone eleventh episode of the Film at 11 podcast, I have subjected both of my 11-year-old sons (yes, both of them!) to not one but two versions of the twin-swapping comedy classic The Parent Trap: the 1961 Hayley Mills original and the 1998 Lindsay Lohan remake. Who better… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 11 | The Parent Trap (Double Feature)!
The legend and myth of El Mariachi are a lot bigger than the movie itself could ever hope to live up to – even though, ironically, that entire story is predicated on how small the film is. The debut feature from director Robert Rodriguez was famously made on an almost inconceivably paltry budget of just… Read More Guitarra Hero | El Mariachi (1993) Blu-ray
For our Film at 11 podcast this week, I made my 11-year-old son watch the 1980 Flash Gordon for the first time, and he seems to have come away totally baffled by the movie. I think I may have broken his brain a little with this one. To be fair to Thomas, I may not… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 10 | Flash Gordon (1980)
Long a cult item with a highly divided reputation among viewers, Barbarella is simultaneously an awful movie and also kind of amazing. I’ve seen it a number of times over the years and somehow both love it and inevitably feel bored senseless by it well before its short 98-minute runtime peters out. I don’t think… Read More A Primitive State of Neurotic Irresponsibility | Barbarella (1968) Arrow Video 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
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