Pop Culture Happy Hour No. 283: Hail, Caesar! and Backstage Stories

George Clooney plays a pampered Capitol Pictures movie star in Hail, Caesar! (Universal)

I'm very happy to be on the panel for this week's Hail, Caesar!-focused Pop Culture Happy Hour, my first with my Washington City Paper pal Bob Mondello. In it, Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon tells Bob he "beat [him] to the Hamlet punch," which is a funny phrase, if you think about it. Earlier in this episode, G-Weld beat me to the Sullivan's Travels punch, but here's the clip I was going to play.

This episode also has some thematic crossover with the Top Five Movies About Movies segment in which I participated on an episode of WBEZ's Filmspotting from late 2011. My NPR review of Hail, Caesar! — wherein I may have underserved the film's philosophical payload, unless I didn't — is here. This was an especially enjoyable episode for me; I hope you all dig it.

Pop Culture Happy Hour No. 278: The Hateful Eight and the Theatrical Filmgoing Experience

Samuel L. Jackson in The Hateful Eight. (The Weinstein Co.)

It's a split verdict from the Pop Culture Happy Hour panel this week on the merits of Quentin Tarantino's eighth and—on account of having been shot in 65mm Super Panavision, for a 2.76:1 aspect ratio when projected in 70mm—widest feature, The Hateful Eight. I don't think I was at my sharpest trying to defend the picture. All I can tell is you that I saw its refusal to give us any character to empathize with fully as a strength, not a weakness, and reflective of a deliberate decision by Tarantino. Although more modest in scale and contained in its setting, this is a more complicated film than the two historical fantasias that preceded it, 2009's Inglorious Basterds and 2012's Django Unchained. I enjoy and admire all of these films, but it's very clear in the latter two who is supposed to enjoy the audience's support. Not so in The Hateful Eight. That discomfiture ain't for everyone. "The viewership for this one narrows to the self-selected," wrote my pal Scott Tobias in his NPR review three weeks ago.

When we moved on to discussing how theatrical film exhibition has evolved, I missed my window to mention Sensurround, the gimmick that Universal rolled out with the 1974 release of Earthquake! That's okay; I used it as my lede for my review of San Andreas eight months ago. You know, The Hateful Eight is only the 11th feature ever shot in Super Panavision 70/Camera 65; of the 10 others, three of them starred Charlton Heston, who is also in Earthquake! That cat sure got around. Imagine the performance he would've given in a Tarantino movie.

More trivia: Scent of Mystery, the 1960 "Smell-O-Vision" epic I mentioned, was directed by Jack Cardiff, who was probably better known for the films he shot as a cinematographer. He was behind the camera for a trio of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger classics in the 1940s, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, and The Red Shoes, and then for John Huston's The African Queen. Much later, after he'd retired from directing, he shot 1984's Conan the Destroyer and 1985's Rambo: First Blood, Part II. But not the first Conan or Rambo movies—the ones you can actually defend. Too bad.

Hear it all here.

Pop Culture Happy Hour No. 274: Star Wars — The Force Awakens and Merch, Merch, Merch

I was delighted to join Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson — and to share my first Pop Culture Happy Hour panel with the estimable Gene Demby — to process our reactions to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We recorded this episode just a few hours after seeing the movie; the review I wrote to accompany the release of the podcast came from a day or so later. I know my opinion had not entirely settled yet, but we had a fun, lively discussion. 

When I sat down to watch the film again two nights later, with Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon seated beside me, he asked if I missed the 20th Century Fox fanfare before the glowing green Lucasfilm logo appeared onscreen. We've spoken before about how that fanfare always gives us a ripple of excitement no matter what we're about to watch, because of the sense-memory of Star Wars. Strangely, I hadn't noticed its absence until Glen pointed it out. (There was a lot of other stuff to notice, c'mon.)

I don't think I mentioned during the toy-talk portion of the podcast that I divested myself of my entire collection of Star Wars figures — in their bust-of-Darth Vader carrying case — at yard sale sometime in the late 1980s for less than $20. My mom, I recall, was not pleased. It's not that she thought I could hold onto them and maybe pay for grad school one day; it's just that I had put my parents through a lot demanding that they track down particular figures for me. (I also demanded a talking toy car from Knight Rider, as you'll hear.) I'm sorry for that, Mom and Dad.

$149.99 at a Bed, Bath, and Beyond near you. (Disney/Lucasfilm)

Stuff I found out for this episode that you won't learn from it: Star Wars action figures each retailed for $1.49 in 1977, $1.99 in 1980, and $2.49 in 1983. There is no small sum of irony in the fact that while many of us, including me, have decried Return of the Jedi as an extended toy ad, it was only the revenue from the sales of Star Wars toys that kept that film's precursor, consensus favorite The Empire Strikes Back, afloat during its troubled production. (Chris Taylor covers all this in his fine book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe.)

Finally, I was happy to be able to pimp my tenth Christmas mixtape, which is posted for your hall-decking streaming pleasure right here.

James-Bonding with Kempenaar & Larsen on Filmspotting No. 563

1963's From Russia with Love is still my favorite 007 flick on most days.

It's been a few years since I sat in on an episode of Filmspotting, the great Chicago-based radio show and podcast devoted to dissection of movies new and old, famous and obscure, foreign and domestic. But now I can reveal that earlier in the week, founding host Adam Kempenaar sent me a highly classified diplomatic cable inviting me to join him an regular co-host Josh Larsen for the Top Five segment of this week's SPECTRE-themed show, devoted to Favorite Bond Things. I regret only that I did not refer to Diana Rigg's character from On Her Majesty's Secret Service by her full name, Contessa Teresa Di Vincenzo.

I supposed I might also have expounded more insightfully on how the big parkour chase at the top of Casino Royale (v. 2006) isn't just one of the most fluidly choreographed, masterfully shot-and-edited action set pieces of the 21st century; it shows us plenty about the brutal, clumsy nature of this film's younger, less seasoned 007, too. Or how my favorite "Bond girl," from that same film — Eva Green's British Treasury official Vesper Lynd — is Bond's equal not only in resolve and intelligence, but ultimately in cunning. She's playing him, the same way Bond uses sexuality to manipulate women in just about every Bond adventure to follow. (And they all follow this one.) Had I mentioned the marvelous cold-open car chase from Quantum of Solace, that would've been another chance to stick up for that oft-maligned sequel. But I already did that in my S.P.E.C.T.R.E. essay in The Atlantic last week.

Listen to the episode here.

Pop Culture Happy Hour No. 255: Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation

Jeremy Renner, Tom Cruise, and Ving Rhames in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.

It was my honor to spend, for the second consecutive year, my birthday — well, the eve of my birthday — at NPR with Team PCHH. Here're my notes and omissions on this thrilling episode.

• I can't believe I did not ask ace PCHH producer Jessica Reedy to play a few bars of Lalo Schifrin's "Theme from Mission: Impossible" to set up that segment. Sure, we all know what it sounds like, but any excuse to play it is a good one. What the hell is wrong with me?

• My friend and editor Alan Scherstuhl of The Village Voice is a noted Tom Cruise-hater. We've debated the relative merits of Cruise's (terrific) Mission: Impossible films and (demonstrably inferior) Fast & the Furious series at a length that I feel is entirely age-appropriate for both of us. I wanted to quote Alan's line about how Cruise is less an actor than a running-man GIF file. The difference is that he considers that at insult and I think it's a compliment, at least when we're discussing an action picture. Vin Diesel looks intimidating standing still but doesn't move especially well. Cruise looks great in motion.
• Had I known on Monday evening when we taped this episode that the podcast U Talkin' U2 2 Me? would post an episode on Wednesday that features a long-form interview with U2, recorded in New York City the night before I saw the band play Madison Square Garden, that would've been What's Making Me Happy this week. Apparently this interview happened just prior to when The Edge and Adam Clayton crashed a 20th anniversary party for the best U2 fansite, @u2.com, where a U2 cover band was performing. For U2 to actually show up on a show that is at least 45 percent devoted to making (affectionate) fun of them is surreal. It won't stop all y'all from continuing to claim they are humorless, but it should.

• The Thing that I did say was Making Me Happy, and still is, Hamilton, now has a release date for its Black Thought and Questlove-produced cast album.