David Warner – Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, 1991

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers! This week Dion Baia and J. Blake are exploring one of their favorite franchises -talking all things Star Trek– and taking a deep-dive into the 1991 film, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country !

Blake and Dion jump right in, unpacking this huge topic- from the original series, to the feature films, and all the other elements that led to this movie, Star Trek VI , as well as utilize the fantastic novelization. They also lay out all the social and geopolitical events that were unfolding around the world at the time that played into this film (which the boys consider one of the best of the series). So watch your Romulan Ale intake, and monitor any enormous neutron radiation fields, because the lads are dissecting one of their absolute favorites in this all new installment of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!

(During the episode Dion and Blake excitedly referred to the great character actor Ward Bond as Wade Bond and his fabulous show Wagon Train as Wagon Trail – yes they can get overzealous at times.)

(Brock Peters was not the voice of the Kingpin on the 1994 Spiderman animated series, but instead it was Roscoe Lee Browne.)

Extras!

Check out the original trailer for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country!

Here’s a great featurette from 1991 on the making of Star Trek VI!

Have a look at this great interview with composer Cliff Eidelman about the film.

Take a listen to the amazing spine-tingling episode of Suspense, entitled The Flesh Peddler, starring the great DeForest Kelley.

As referenced in the podcast, here’s a young Dion HERE and HERE blissfully playing with his CHiPs tricycle, before the now notorious ‘incident’.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Category: Action, Adventure, Books, Classic, Drama, Fantasy, Film, Sci Fi, Serial, Television, Thriller | LEAVE A COMMENT

October 7

In the Mouth of Madness, 1995

Welcome back to another exciting edition of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers! Dion Baia and J. Blake are kicking off week one of their 2016 October-Halloween binge, where they ‘up’ their ‘output’ and deliver one horror-themed podcast a week for the Autumn month. And the boys are kicking off October with a real favorite here at SNMS, a film that spawned a life long love affair with John Carpenter, horror, and quite possibly became the catalyst for one of the guys to even attend film school. That movie is the aforementioned director John Carpenter‘s masterpiece, In the Mouth of Madness, from 1995.

In the Mouth of Madness

Do you read Sutter Cane? The fellas start out the podcast discussing the maestro himself, John Carpenter and Blake‘s two interviews he did with the director that are part of Blake‘s new book Scored to Death: Conversations with some of Horror’s Greatest Composers. Dion jokes about the rumor among their friends that maybe it was in fact Blake who put the seed into Mr. Carpenter’s head to release a new music album, and then to tour. They talk about their mutual background of making home movies with their friends growing up, but specifically the huge inspiration In the Mouth had for Blake when he first saw it while in High School and it turning a ‘light’ on deep inside of him, perhaps even giving him the inspiration to go to film school as well as steer him toward his passion for horror films and their music, which then led to an entire book on the subject. The guys then segue and talk about the background of this film In the Mouth, beginning with the influence the huge pillar, H. P. Lovecraft, had on the horror genre on a whole, and then what elements were distilled into this work. They attempt to analyze and dissect what is and is not reality within the story and the blurred lines that are presented… which lead to some burning questions: Are we already seeing these complicated and convoluted themes within our own culture, vis-à-vis the television reality show industry, which now seems to have set a standard for our entertainment or even how we live and what we consider now our reality? How about in book form, as in the film’s plot- can a book series like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones be real life examples of works of fiction that have taken off and become their own entities, much like Sutter Cane’s work? Even though this story is not based on an actual HP Lovecraft work, can this be categorized as a continuation in the lore and tradition he started almost 100 years before? Well all these questions will be attempted to be answered in this exciting ‘first Halloween 2016 installment‘ of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!

EXTRAS

Here is the original trailer to In the Mouth of Madness.

Have a look and listen to John Carpenter and his band perform the In The Mouth of Madness theme Live at the Retrospective Concert at ACL Moody Theater in Austin, Texas.

Check out John Carpenter himself chat in 2007 about H. P. Lovecraft and In the Mouth of Madness.

Take a look at this featurette for In the Mouth of Madness!

Have a listen to the soundtrack to In the Mouth of Madness!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Category: Books, Classic, Fantasy, Film, Horror, Sci Fi, Thriller, Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT

June 3

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Double Feature- 1990 & 1991

Has it been 2 weeks already?! Well then welcome back to another exciting, wacky, and in this week’s case, new and unique edition of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers! This time around J. Blake and Dion Baia are doing a bonafide double feature, something that was to weekend sleepovers as Jack Daniels was to Frank Sinatra. And after throwing dump truck-loads of money at Quinnipiac University polling and hosting scores of focus group studies, they came up with the perfect pair of films for their inaugural double feature. And what lucky pair did they choose? Well the 1990 and 1991 classics Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze of course!!!

TNMT Double-Feature

The boys are completely sleep deprived this time around but still working on all cylinders, trying to cram as much info as they can about this classic franchise into a tiny, humble podcast. After voicing their concerns about the growing intelligence of the machines on the Island of Sodor (which oddly has NOTHING to do with the TMNT), the fellas quickly jump right into the topic at hand, the backstory of the beloved Ninja Turtles. They discuss the Half Shelled Heroes’ incredible journey from comicbook page to the small screen, leap to action figures, and finally their landing on the 35mm big screen. After the original 1990 film became such a success, Blake and Dion reminisce about the Turtle phenomenon that overtook the world. This popularity greenlit a second film, which made it to the screen just 10 days shy of a calendar year from the original’s release; making it possibly the quickest sequel put into production since the old studio system days of yesteryear.

So was the 1990 movie really an ‘independent’ film? How technically advanced and also cumbersome were the turtle suits, comparably, from one movie to the next? Was the original film really criticized for being so dark and violent, that it actually was censured in the U.K. and some other European countries because of it’s ninja connotations? And then was the 1991 sequel actually criticized for being too light-hearted and not as faithful to the source material.. wait, wha?! And will the lads actually get through the podcast before becoming too incoherent? Well order your pizza pies, grab your skateboards and your favorite pair of Nunchakus, because the guys are heading down into the sewers this week in this colossal double header, on another episode of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!

EXTRAS!

Here is one of the original sketches of the TMNT, quite possibly the earliest sketch of the whole quartet, which in May 2012, sold at auction for $71,700.

Check out the 2014 documentary on the TMNT discussed in the cast, entitled Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Have a look at the deleted scenes from the original 1990 TMNT film!

Here are the fab four on Oprah, circa 1990, with an entire child audience!!

While we’re here, have a watch of the long out of print 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells Tour film!

Have a look at this amazing arrangement of the TMNT cartoon theme song, performed by Scott Bradlee and Post Modern Jukebox (from their Saturday Morning Slow Jams series), sung by Righteous Music Media‘s own Drue Davis!

Last but certainly not least, check out this rare gem, the music video for the 1990 Partner in Kryme single, Turtle Power!