The Top 100 Project

Buster Keaton's silent comedies were classics, but they were also action thrillers. He was one of the greatest and gutsiest stuntmen/actors in history. That stuff is phenomenal, so the only real problem with The Navigator is the same as it was in Sherlock Jr last year. Namely, the movie just isn't all that funny. The Navigator's ending sequence has the most laughs and most of the best stunts though. And it helps that Stoneface has chemistry with Kathryn Maguire, who was also his lady love in Sherlock Jr. Here they're in a movie about two pointless, rich people having to fight for their lives while lost at sea. We eventually get into some casual racism, but The Navigator IS a century old. So, instead of dwelling on that, have fun making bad breakfast and then defending your ship from hungry natives as this 561st episode of Have You Ever Seen ambles through The Navigator. For The Record: Monday's episode will be Ruben Ostlund's Force Majeure. Our schedule was changed, so the original throw we recorded was to a

We begin the 9th Annual Month Of Bev by chatting about a cult classic that features punks, Reaganomics and odd automobiles. Repo Man was Alex Cox's debut (Sid And Nancy came 2 years later) and it was also very early in Emilio Estevez's film career. The man who would basically stop acting in motion pictures about 15 years later is just okay here. He's joined in this sci-fi/comedy by veteran character actors like Tracey Walter and Harry Dean Stanton. The movie still touches Bev's Gen-X heart, despite a clunky middle section and an unsatisfying ending. This is a weird flick, but you have to admire that everyone involved embraces the weirdness and had fun making it. Well, maybe not Stanton. So drive your Chevy Malibu across the country---no matter what danger the trunk contains---and obey the code as our 560th edition of Have You Ever Seen pieces through Repo Man. To Be Clear...: Gary Oldman's co-star in Sid & Nancy is Chloe Webb (playing Nancy Spungen). Also, Sy Richardson WAS indeed one of the writers of Ma

We're in "let's look back at 2023" mode as we discuss our fave flicks of last year (so far) and also answer listeners' emails, tweets and YouTube comments. It wasn't a great 12 months at the movies, although we still have to see a lot of red-letter titles before we can make a final call on that. The writers' and actors' strikes were huge stories that might have long-lasting effects, but apart from the whopping successes of Barbenheimer, Sound Of Freedom and Taylor Swift's record-destroying concert film, the biggest story of '23 was the massive failure of most of the superhero movies released by Marvel and DC. And then, yes, we dropped some names and (finally!) responded to our loyal listeners who took the time to write to us. This 559th episode of Have You Ever Seen is a tidy 30 minutes, so get cozy on New Year's Day and spend some time with the Ellises as we tell you what we thought of the year that was. Well, Actually: Ryan messed up the names of superhero movies a few times in this episode. Chris Nolan dir

To wrap up our podcasting year with a record-shattering 77th episode, Ryan is once again on a solo mission to review something that's considered a classic. And while it's always a pleasure to see Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, the  reason to cover The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer is that it represents our first Shirley Temple (Black) flick. She's one of the title characters---you can guess which one---while Cary plays the other title character in another in his long line of rom-com hits. He was the master of the smiley love stories, especially those in the screwball genre. But is either the comedy or the love story in Irving Reis' light-hearted Oscar-winner particularly convincing though? And did Shirley Temple actually wear bobby sox? That last question isn't answered in this 558th dose of Have You Ever Seen, but a lot of other ones are, as this half-hour monologue breaks down The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer. The year may be over, but you can continue to enjoy a 20% discount from Sparkplug Coffee in 2024, if you

We post our final podcast of this year about a Christmas movie a day early, even though The Lion In Winter is only tangentially a Christmas movie at all. James Goldman wrote a complex King Lear story based on real people in director Anthony Harvey's authentic, dirty, unkempt Oscar-winner. Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn lead a fabulous cast (well, except for one person), as they fill the movie with sound and fury, although perhaps all the machinations take them back where they started. We took shots at the concept of royalty (then or now) and also the incestuous nature of those who wear silly crowns, but at least The Lion In Winter is engrossing and entertaining about such silliness. So be kind enough to let your spouse out of the hoosegow for the holidays as our 557th jingle bell digs into King Henry II, Eleanor Of Aquitaine and their not-so-loving children. Well, Actually: Walter Brennan won 3 Oscars for Best Supporting Actor back in the '30s, so Hepburn was only tying him with her 3rd win for this perf

Not only are we reviewing Christmas movies this month, but Trading Places makes for the 2nd of 3 screwball comedies you will be able to find on this channel by the end of December. And like those other two, John Landis' romp tells a good story, but isn't very funny. Dan Aykroyd was established as a star, but Eddie Murphy was just starting his legendary movie career while Jamie Lee Curtis was making a successful transition from horror into comedy. Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy and plenty of others get chances to shine too in this very watchable comedy. They just didn't make us laugh. This episode isn't all fun and games either because we discussed the offensive content and we talked about Landis' involvement in The Twilight Zone tragedy. So bet a buck on the 556th edition of Have You Ever Seen as rich jerks toy with people's lives just because in the Christmassy blockbuster known as Trading Places. Well, Actually: the great R-rated laugh in Coming To America that's discussed at the 15-minute mark is early on in th

Television marathons helped A Christmas Story become a huge favourite this time of year, but Bob Clark's holiday comedy didn't need to be stuffed down people's throats. It earns the rep of being one of the greatest Christmas movies by being funny and sweet. Jean Shepherd's joyful memories of his own life as a kid growing up about 80 years ago in Indiana offset some of the bad memories, whether it be a furnace or a Farkus. The story is episodic by design, but the running storyline is of course Peter Billingsley's obsession with someone making sure to put a Red Ryder BB gun under the tree. He's ideally cast and pretty good as Ralphie, but Melinda Dillon is terrific as his mother and Darren McGavin is having a ball playing The Old Man. Ryan's solo show triple dog dares you not to shoot your eye out as this 555th episode of Have You Ever Seen breaks down the enduring classic that is A Christmas Story. You can still get some Sparkplug Coffee to put under the tree or in somebody's stocking. Our "HYES" promo code pl

We're taking a short break from covering Christmas movies by talking about Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker. Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke are tremendous as the battling teacher and student. Both won Oscars as Bancroft's Anne Sullivan teaches manners and ASL to Duke's deaf and blind Helen Keller. The real Keller was intelligent, stubborn, ferocious and---disabilities or not---also a bit of a jerk. Sullivan pushes back though and DOESN'T have the patience of Job. This is a hard job, especially during their epic 9-minute battle in the dining room. The Miracle Worker is a movie about making connections and they eventually do that...as do we by comparing this difficult girl to our beloved dogs. Forgive us, it's what we know best. So put on some dark glasses and resist the urge to grab food right off people's plates as our 554th water pump of Have You Ever Seen analyzes this biopic about 2 extraordinary women. Sparkplug Coffee is extraordinary too. They will give our listeners a onetime 20% discount if said listene

Holy moly, the 553rd ice-fish of Have You Ever Seen kicks off the Christmas season as Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau bring their crabby charm to the title characters. But the 2 comedy legends are only Grumpy Old Men with each other. They're quite sweet to everybody else, especially to each other's kids and---most of all---to the new babe in town, Ann-Margret. The love story between her and the 2 old coots is not an angle we fully believed in, partly because the decades-long feud is is the REAL love story going on here. Darryl Hannah and Kevin Pollak help make this movie work as well as it does because neither the script nor the direction by Donald Petrie are anything special. Still, we laughed, we ho ho ho'ed and we felt the cold in that small Minnesota town. So don't be a putz or a moron, but DO bring your recently-repaired fishing pole to a frozen lake as we give you the ins and the out(take)s of Grumpy Old Men. Unless the IRS is ready to take your house, you can probably afford Sparkplug Coffee. It'll help

The early '40s was a hugely successful time for director Howard Hawks and his Ball Of Fire stars, Barbara Stanwyck & Gary Cooper. This isn't their crowning achievement (partly because it just isn't as funny as other comedies each of them made), but it's fun and the love story is certainly enjoyable. Hawks was talented enough to excel at making movies in nearly every genre, but he was always in his element when it came to the laughs. Cooper's typical stiffness works well for this nerdy grammarian too. The great Stanwyck though is a little inconsistent as the title character, who uses Cooper and his friends before falling for him (and for them). The inconsistency might be a script problem more than something Babs is failing to do. But while she was more suited to play a lying schemer in The Lady Eve that same year, she DOES help make this rom-com parable about the 7 dwarfs a screwball time at the movies. Ryan's going solo again in this 552nd yapfest of Have You Ever Seen, kids, so get ready to learn lots of

Even though John Sturges is one of the most underrated directors of all time, remaking Seven Samurai could have turned out to be a big mistake if it failed. Instead, The Magnificent Seven is fun, cool and exciting...and it has a layer of sadness too. Sadness and desperation have been unintentional themes in our movies this month, actually. Still, it's hard not to make your western cool when you've got names like Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Charles Bronson in the cast. Who's your favourite of the Seven? What's your favourite broad gesture by a member of the cast? We discussed those things and we discussed how Mag Seven is revered now, but wasn't the blockbuster that it seems like it should have been when it came out. Perhaps the straightforward "good guy vs bad guy" western was a dying genre in 1960, even though this is similar to the greatest horse-and-gun movies in that it has more complications and angles than it seems at first. So go on location down in Mexico and do the right thing for a

For the 4th and final time, we're re-reviewing a movie we discussed 10 years ago. Some films age badly, while some become more relevant. Her is extremely relevant! We didn't have any idea just how addicted to devices our culture would get when this movie came out in late-2013. We're a society of people who are lost in their phones, so the science fiction in Spike Jonze's Oscar-winning story might soon become science fact. In the futuristic Her, Joaquin Phoenix is a lonely writer living in Los Angeles who falls in love with a computer program. Scarlett Johansson provides the friendly voice of "Samantha", and, as tremendous as Phoenix is, this voice-only performance is one of the best things Scar-Jo has ever done. We talked about the morality of our relationship to A.I. and what's real and what's not about a program like Samantha. We also got into whether or not this heartfelt film is the usually-funny Jonze being almost autobiographical in a touching way. In any case, the 550th edition of Have You Ever Seen re

Hollywood studios hadn't made very many major movies about AIDS before 1993, so Philadelphia represented a fairly safe way into this difficult subject. Many considered Jonathan Demme's picture soft and weak, but Ryan's solo show tries to explain why his approach was the right one. Casting stars like Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington in the leading roles was a huge step to drawing people in. And while Hanks won his first Oscar as a gay man wrongfully dismissed by his law firm, Denzel is just as good...although in an entirely different way. But, yes, there are troubling issues with this film. There are the politics of a straight actor playing a gay character, not to mention how Hollywood dealt with HIV & AIDS 30 years ago...and how they still deal with it now. Homophobia, fear of catching an incurable disease, fear of the unknown, all of it is touched on in this 549th edition of Have You Ever Seen. So, counsellor, please devote nearly an hour to the opening, middle and closing arguments that make the case for

There's no better way to debut Ismail Merchant and James Ivory on this channel than to chat about their finest film. The Remains Of The Day also represents the first time Emma Thompson or Hugh Grant have come up on Have You Ever Seen...although Anthony Hopkins HAS been in one classic Oscar winner that we've covered. Something about lambs. In this case, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's layered screenplay adapts Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel about repression through exemplary professionalism, even though that hard work comes at a cost. Did Hopkins dedicate his life to a noble cause...or was his life wasted? We tried to figure out the morality of the job done by the butler Stevens (Hopkins) and the housekeeper Kenton (Thompson) in an old-world country estate where their lord works tirelessly to, in the end, appease the Nazis. Thorny issues. Our 548th podcast analyzes what the talented English actors and their international team brought to the table in this classy production of The Remains Of The Day. Additional thought

Do you like taboo subject matter in your movies? Well, the 547th edition of Have You Ever Seen is filled with it. There's pedophilia, suicide, violent sex fantasies, masturbation, infidelity and so much misery...yet writer/director Todd Solondz somehow also made Happiness entertaining. It's complicated material and it's more honest than most movies are about the horrible people within, but they're relatable human beings. Even the pedophile is. We got quite personal in this review and we talked about censorship and the irrational people who have the bullhorn these days. So trigger warning if you belong in that camp, but also trigger warning in general because this dark movie is often very funny and our gallows humour came out repeatedly. Maybe our brains are as broken as the good dad who's bad enough to abuse little boys. So scarf down a tuna fish sandwich and see if you can navigate your way through love and life as we get real in our talk about Happiness. Sparkplug Coffee is our long-running sponsor. Spend s

Glenn Ford is in Gilda more than Rita Hayworth is and the story is more about his character than hers, but the film still belongs to the gorgeous redhead. She was a true movie star, who had sass, brains, marvelous screen presence and remarkable sex appeal. It's easy to see why the prisoners in The Shawshank Redemption loved watching Charles Vidor's movie over and over again. It isn't a perfect '40s noir though. It has terrific dialogue, but the story is overstuffed. The happy ending isn't really earned either, especially since this has subplots like Germans trying to cash in down in post-WWII Argentina. The 546th hair flip of Have You Ever Seen also features a Ryan rant about the AFI's highly questionable Top 50 Stars list. Value added! So dial up this one-man yammer about Gilda, especially if you want to hear a lot of raves about Rita. Not only will you score some outstanding coffee by going to "sparkplug.coffee/hyes", but you'll save 20% by using our "HYES" promo code. Contact us by email (haveyoueverseenpo

During this horror-laden month of movies that featured plenty of serial killers, Norman Bates tops 'em all for cinematic infamy. He may be infantilized, but this sick human being sure can wield variously effective weapons when he feels the need. Now, coming up with a quality sequel to not only a Hitchcock movie---but also to the infamous Psycho---was a huge ask, but Richard Franklin did an admirable job of making Psycho II an effective suspense thriller. Just like the first flick, this story is as much a mystery as it is a horror movie...and it has its own shocking, twist ending. Psycho II isn't flawless though. We saw the merits, but also questioned the role of Mrs. Spool and we were also split on how good (or not so good) Anthony Perkins is in reprising his iconic role. So stop listening to Mother and start listening to the 545th edition of Have You Ever Seen with a sandwich and some milk by your side as we conclude our 8th Scary Movie Month. Well, Actually: Quentin Tarantino must be just pronouncing Robert

The Wicker Man is a cult movie about a cult, so that alone makes it a good choice for Scary Movie Month. Robin Hardy's film is really more of a mystery than a horror extravaganza though, as the pious and intentionally unlikable policeman from the mainland (Edward Woodward) slowly finds out just how dedicated the Scottish islanders are to their Lord (Christopher Lee). These people love their apples. They're also liberated, sexy and even like to have fun on Summerisle, but they're often mean-spirited as they essentially torture the repressed cop. The picture isn't especially frightening, but the iconic ending is disturbing and haunting. Oh, and as influential as The Wicker Man is, we forgot to mention that this movie was also the inspiration for the Burning Man Festival! We DID often mention the ludicrous Nicolas Cage remake a lot though. Something about a shark. So sacrifice some of your time to sing and dance by the fire as you take in the 544th episode of Have You Ever Seen. Our friendly sponsor Sparkplug Co

This year's Scary Movie Month has turned into a month of undisputed horror classics, especially in these one-Ryan shows. Halloween was discussed on October 9th. Now it's time for one of the best-made, freakiest frightfests ever. William Friedkin's mega-blockbuster won 2 Oscars---it should have won more---and it remains beloved in the eyes of many, even if repeated viewings dampen the skin-crawling moments a little. Not that The Exorcist couldn't terrify the uninitiated, even if the greatly-diminishing returns of the 5 sequels have done nothing to continue its legacy. Those mostly-unworthy follow-ups are highlighted here too, but the main event is the 1973 original with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max Von Sydow and Jason Miller anchoring the maniacal story about demonic possession and religious faith. For all the remarkable technical achievements on display here, the humanity of the characters is a huge reason this film still works. The emotion between Burstyn and Blair, in particular, hits home. So turn down

Nope is about spectacle, exploitation and selling a product, no matter how that product feels about being sold. The alien---if it IS in fact an alien---is one of the most unique creations in recent history. Which is fitting because Jordan Peele is one of the most original filmmakers going. Still, just like Quentin Tarantino, Peele always finds clever ways to mix in dozens of pop culture references. He also knows how to tell a good story and he's becoming quite a visual stylist. His 3rd film is not as much about race as the Get Out and Us were, but he DOES have a diverse cast with the stoic Daniel Kaluuya and the electrifying Keke Palmer playing brother & sister in the lead roles. So whether you're a chimp, a horse, an alien named Jean Jacket, shutterbug ranchers and their associates, or just regular people who enjoy movie podcasts, avert your eyes after you cue up our 542nd show. Our sponsor is Sparkplug Coffee. They will give anyone who uses our "HYES" promo code 20% off their next order. The website is