The Top 100 Project

We’ve got our 3rd Now Playing Project, where we forgo the AFI Top 100 and check out some movies you can see on the big screen right now! This time it’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (with Jennifer Lawrence as Panem’s own Neo) and a belated look at the Carrie remake (with Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore). We’ve got a lively chat about 2 powerful young women with spoilers saved for the end. Ignite!

Podcast #33 finds us exploring post-war melodrama, The Best Years Of Our Lives. We kept the wisecracks to a minimum this time, what with all the PTSD and alcoholism and handlessness. We not only discuss those cheerful topics, but also get into themes of post-war readjustment shared by many war movies that came later, not to mention the TV show Homeland. Check it out! It’s “swell’.

Our 32nd Top 100 podcast is the brilliant noir about lust and insurance scams, Double Indemnity! Did it live up to Ryan's hype? Did we like Fred MacMurray in the lead and Edward G. Robinson (nyah!) in a supporting role? Plus, is Barbara Stanwyck the devil? All that and a bunch more is yours for the listenin’!

Just a week shy of its 71st anniversary, Casablanca is the 31st Top 100 Project podcast! We add our voices to the cacophony who’ve reviewed this movie in one way or another. In this, Bev finds a way to compare Rick Blaine to John MacClane, we rip on the absurd letters of transit, and we discuss how this is the most-honoured AFI movie ever. Oh, and you might recognize some of the lines we quote. Here’s listening to us, kid!

Let your redwhiteandblue flags fly for the 30th movie in The Top 100 Project, Yankee Doodle Dandy! Our first biographical AFIer stars James Cagney (in his only AFI film) as Broadway legend George M. Cohan. Fittingly, we spend a little time discussing modern musical biopics too. Most of the podcast was us trying to break each other up with wisecracks, but there’s something useful in here too. We swear!

The 29th edition of The Top 100 Project takes us on the road with Sullivan’s Travels! This is the only time we’ll review a Preston Sturges picture and it’s also our only peek at actors Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. We name-drop a half-dozen great directors and many of their films in this podcast...everything from Hugo to Argo! We also debate the merits of the message of Sullivan’s Travels (and its comedy or lack thereof). We do it all...“with a little sex.” Bring it!

The 2nd edition of The Not 100 Project is a monumental entry for Scary Movie Week...it’s Night Of The Living Dead! The AFI didn't find this horror classic worthy of the Top 123, but its lingering effect on audiences and its influence on film history is massive. Also, we really felt the need to give the horror genre its due in a way the AFI did not. Get your zombie on!

For the 2nd time, we branch out to movies currently in theatres with The Now Playing Project! No AFI classics to be found in this podcast. This time we tackle the intense 12 Years A Slave (with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender) and Captain Phillips (with the beloved Tom Hanks). Apart from some very mild spoilers (which seem self-evident when you realize the movies are based on books written by the people who lived these tortures), you’re safe to hear everything without us ruining the surprises. Fire ‘em up!

This 28th Top 100 Project podcast finds us venturing down the mean streets of film noir with The Maltese Falcon. Finally, we get some Humphrey Bogart and John Huston in our film-loving lives! Check out our thoughts on this noir trailblazer as we continually compare The Maltese Falcon to a future Top 100 flick (Chinatown), discuss Hollywood homophobia, and spend plenty of time marvelling about Bogart…and Bond! Ward Bond. Careful! We spoil the endings of Bogart’s 3 other AFI films during a trivia question, although it’s in a very specific way. Time to hear about the bird!

The Kane chat continues in the second half of our 27th AFI Top 100 movie, Citizen Kane! This time we talk about Orson Welles the quadruple-threat artist and his ultra-talented cast & collaborators. We also open up the Top 100 emailbag and address the Sight & Sound’s 2012 poll because they knocked Kane out of its six-decade perch as numero uno on their own illustrious list. Anyway, this is AFI’s pinnacle, so get your #1 on and rejoice in what they say is the finest achievement in American filmosity in the history of time and space!

What do you say about AFI’s Greatest Movie Of All Time, Citizen Kane? Well, after 27 podcasts of talktalktalk, you take the time to say absolutely everything you can and split your ‘cast into 2 parts! In this 1st half we’ll focus on the politics of making the movie and the real-life comparisons (intentional or otherwise) to a Murdochian newspaper tycoon named Hearst. Details about Orson Welles’ collaborators and about Welles himself will be the focus of Part 2. As always, we’ve got trivia and other cool things. Don’t be scared off by The Greatest Movie Everrrrrr because it---like our podcast---is actually a lot of fun.

We’re branching out again, this time with The Now Playing Project! AFI classics need not apply here. This podcast is entirely devoted to a pair of newly released movies that you can see on the big screen right now. Our first duo: Enough Said (starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini) and Gravity (starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney). No spoilers for either flick until we make it clear we’re going down that road at the end of the podcast. Activate!

The 26th episode of The Top 100 Project finds us digging into The Philadelphia Story! Did it delight us the way it delights AFI voters? Do we think Hepburn should have married Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart or the other guy? Was it a worthy AFIer? Whether yes or no, what’s with classic romantic movies and all the spousal abuse? Hit that play button and enjoy our deeply critical thoughts about a frothy trifle of a movie.

With this little ditty about Fantasia, we’re 20% of the way through the list of AFI’s Greatest American Movies! Podcast #25 takes us into the surreal with its mixture of animation and classical music. Bring on a spirited debate as we strongly disagree about the AFI-worthiness. Who likes the cartoon and who doesn’t might surprise you! Or it might not! Anyway, Fantasia is an audio-visual experience like no other on the Top 100 list and our audio musings about it await your attention.

The Top 100 Project fires up the jalopy for the 24th time with an analysis of The Grapes Of Wrath! After the glitz of Gone With The Wind, John Ford grits it up with the dustbowl, starvation, and pretty overt hints of Communist firebrandery. Gasp...unions! What did we think of Henry Fonda’s signature performance? Of John Ford and his production team? What choked us up? You give a hoot and a holler, so take a listen!

Movie #23 of the 123 AFI movies is the event film to end all event films! It’s Gone With The Wind, the 1939 Oscar-grabber and all-around enormous product of the industry. What was our reaction to the marital rape? To the casual racism? Does it pass the Bechdel Test? Did we get through it in one sitting without having to call in some experts to massage our numb backsides? It’s our longest podcast to date, so make sure your own backside stays comfy and then frankly, my dear, press play!

This Top 100 Project flick is Mr. Smith Goes To Washington! It’s podcast #22 and it finds us taking ol’ Jimmy Stewart to task for his performance (he’s like a certain animated character from a Pixar movie!) while we also talk plenty about real-life and reel-life politics. There’s also trivia and we answer some more reader email! So bring your apple and your thermos, limber up your buttocks, and start filibustering our longest podcast yet.

The Top 100 Project hits you with a little Munchkin magic in podcast #21 because it’s The Wizard Of Oz! Take a ride on a twister to hear us compare Glinda The Good Witch to Kesyer Soze, enjoy us rant about how the Wicked Witch Of The West was screwed out of what was rightfully hers, and to question Dorothy’s home-and-away priorities. We also continue the new tradition of trivia questions and we even answer a loyal listener’s email! All that in an emeraldy little 40-minute package!

It’s The Not 100 Project! A non-AFIer gets reviewed and the first one we’ll cover is Die Hard. Pop this one into your device to enjoy some off-key caterwauling, then stick around as we make it extremely clear that McClane is shoeless in this movie. Also, who can spot my screw-up at the 20-minute mark that’s actually an unintentional homage to the originally erroneous credits of another movie we mention during the Die Hard podcast? All that and tons (TONS!) more. Yippie ki yay, Mister Falcon!

The 20th Top 100 Project podcast is the tortured-love soaper, Wuthering Heights. Settle in for a recurring comparison to a fellow AFIer released 58 years later, to hear Bev’s theory about why this movie is as popular as it is, and to discover our choice for the real villain of this piece (hint: it’s the lady!). Also, we’ve got a new sponsor! All that and quite a tick more awaits you.