The Top 100 Project

Have You Ever Seen #512 takes a bus down to the Florida Keys to see what Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson are up to at Lionel Barrymore's hotel. Bogart and co-writer/director John Huston are back doing another noir after The Maltese Falcon made them major players in the industry 7 years earlier. Key Largo was also released the very same year as their masterpiece, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. There's a lot of content packed into this strong script, but Huston ties it all together in a tidy 100-minute runtime. Everyone gets a chance to shine, even if real-life lovebirds Bogie & Bacall are muted compared to their other 1940s collaborations. Robinson stands out the most---even more than Oscar-winner Claire Trevor---playing another in his long line of criminals. So pour a drink to steady your gun-toting hand and batten down the hatches against the raging storm as Ryan handles this Key Largo review alone. Sparkplug Coffee remains our sponsor. Go to "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and use that

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau didn't team up for the first time in The Odd Couple, but it's one of their most-famous collaborations...and certainly one of their funniest. Feminized Lemmon is the sad, neat-freak and alpha-male Matthau is the brash slob. Clash! This begat an unsatisfying sequel 30 years later and many TV series, but the 1968 film was a blockbuster and remains one of the most-beloved "oil and water" comedies ever. Neil Simon adapted his own Broadway hit, then went on to become a writing legend. Gene Saks directed this movie, which is stagy and (not surprisingly for a 55-year-old comedy) a little dated, but those flaws don't ruin this parade of yuks. So don't let everything we do irritate you, even if the Ellises are our very own Oscar and Felix. Just learn to live together and make the 511th rendition of Have You Ever Seen a tidy part of your day. Our sponsor remains Sparkplug Coffee. Go to "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and you'll get a onetime 20% discount by using our "hyes" promo code. If you want

It was about time we covered a Yasujiro Ozu film. The Japanese director is considered a legend and his Tokyo Story has consistently ranked in the Top 5 of the Sight & Sound polls for decades. He gives us a family reunion of a very unhappy family and slowly reveals why we should care about them. That takes quite a while. Ozu's trademark static camera shots are low to the ground. His characters are polite and withholding. And, yet, his style and substance wasn't a home run with both Ellises. Tokyo Story devastated one of us while leaving the other one moved, but much less so. Anyway, stroke that play button while you sit cross-legged on the floor staring off into space with a polite smile on your face. After all, life is disappointing, but we don't think our 510th podcast is. Residents of Japan can't get Sparkplug Coffee delivered to their front door, but Canadians and Americans certainly can. Punch in "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and get a one-time 20% discount. We are people who scroll through Twitter (@movief

The day after we talked about a classic animated film set in the ocean---Finding Nemo---Ryan posts a solo gab about another highly-enjoyable seafaring adventure comedy called Moana. The Disney blockbuster is formulaic, but it's fun and fantastically well-made. So, yes, this monologue spends 10 minutes yipping about Moana, but the real thrust of this 509th episode of Have You Ever Seen is a breakdown of Dwayne Johnson's career in film. Is The Rock actually "the biggest star in the world", as his wrestling colleagues have been saying for years? Ryan deluges you with facts and figures to analyze just how true or not that "biggest star in the world' statement is. Go to "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and you can save 20% off your next order by using that "hyes" promo code. This episode---like our other 2023 podcasts---is available on YouTube. These solo shows are always just the same audio you can download from your podcast avenue of choice, but occasionally Ryan and Bev sit down for some on-camera chat time for the epis

Disney will monopolize Have You Ever Seen's first 2 days of May. We start the month with Finding Nemo, which even 20 years later remains one of Pixar's best stories and feats of animation. Even though he's one of the funniest people in Hollywood, Albert Brooks has to play the killjoy, so the laughs are courtesy of the supporting voice cast, especially Ellen DeGeneres. Her Dory is one of the great characters in all of Pixar, both from a comedy standpoint, but also from a lovability standpoint. We spent a lot of time talking about her checkered real-life history, plus we jawed about the driving forces behind this film: director Andrew Stanton and the now-reviled executive producer John Lasseter. We also talked about Pixar's legacy, including their decline in the past 10 or 12 years. Still, a classic is a classic and Finding Nemo is that. So just keep swimming while you make this podcast mineminemine by downloading it, then go on a perilous mission with your helpful Memento-esque friend as our 508th edition drif

Emerald Fennell has been acting for more than 15 years, but the first film she wrote and directed just 3 years ago was an unforgettable debut behind the camera. We had a few problems with Promising Young Woman's ending, but this rape-revenge movie succeeds remarkably well up to that point. Fennell has a sense of humour, she casts (smartly) against type and shows empathy for everyone, even the villains. Self-preservation is a strong instinct, after all, and putting yourself in the shoes of even someone who did something horrible can be necessary to understand the entire situation. Fennell's Oscar-winning script provides no easy answers. And the sensational Carey Mulligan isn't exactly a hero in this. She's this movie's Batman, channeling her rage and courting death as she exacts justice by essentially turning into a terrorist. This might be the finest performance she's even given. Oh, and she's 5'7", so she's not as short as we thought. Everyone just looks tiny standing next to Bo Burnham. Anyway, our lengthy

Join Ryan for a solo trip back to the era of big shoulder pads and huge hair in this 506th edition of Have You Ever Seen. Working Girl represents the first time a Mike Nichols film has been hashed out on this channel since the fall of 2014. His feminist venture into the comedy arena does something The Graduate didn't. It gets funnier as it goes along. Melanie Griffith's character has long been considered an icon of woman empowerment. How much ARE we supposed to root for Tess though? For good reasons or not, she's lying to everyone around her, including the surprisingly loose Harrison Ford. Even though Ford & Sigourney Weaver aren't in their comfort zones in these roles, the two of them and Griffith make a terrific love triangle in Working Girl. So let a certain body of water run as you settle in for a monologue about a rom-com set in the corporate world that remains fun and funny 35 years later. Sparkplug Coffee! They're our sponsor and they continue to offer a 20% discount to those who use our "hyes" pro

You can't have Revenge Month and not cover a Quentin Tarantino movie. His half of the Grindhouse double-bill, Death Proof, is a throwback to an era of B-level filmmaking that perhaps QT and Robert Rodriguez admire more than audiences did. After all, this was the rare QT box-office bomb. Even he admits it's his worst movie. Still, that car chase is a masterpiece of stunt-work. Real-life stuntwoman-turned-actress Zoe Bell just did what she does anyway...risk her life for the shot in spectacular ways. Sydney Poitier in the first half of Death Proof and then Rosario Dawson in the second half are both hot & cool, but this flick belongs to a malevolent Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike. Is he a stand-in for his director? We discuss. The short of it is, Tarantino's flick remains entertaining and very watchable, despite some horrifying decisions made by the lady "heroes". Well, baby, it's you, so burn rubber to save your life, then drive like a maniac to get some payback as Have You Ever Seen's 505th episode covers t

A feisty and gorgeous Jane Fonda is a perfect accompaniment to this Easter Monday. Or even if young Jane has nothing to do with the rabbit holiday and even if this is far from her most-challenging role, she DOES headline a fun comedy-western where she gets some payback. And that's fitting since this is Revenge Month. Lee Marvin won the Best Actor Oscar for his dual role as the killer villain and the drunken "hero". Comedy performances don't often result in Academy Awards, so his win still stands out. Elliot Silverstein does a good job managing those tonal changes in what was his debut as a movie director. Anyway, Bev has the week off, so Ryan is working alone on this 504th edition of Have You Ever Seen. Spend a zippy 29 minutes hearing all about Cat Ballou, Cat Ball-ou-ou-ou. We have a beverage sponsor and they are Sparkplug Coffee. Type in "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and you can get a 20% discount by entering our "hyes" promo code into the right place. Our podcasts have been going on our YouTube page (@hyesellis

Vengeance is hers! Revenge Month is upon us and the main payback-getters in April will be women. We start with Coralie Fargeat's bloody, gross, violent and awesome Revenge. Her movie is fantastic, but is most of it a fantasy? We got into that possibility and also dug into the symbiosis of #metoo happening around the same time this film was made. Matilda Lutz---who, like her director, didn't become as big a name as she should have---is sexy playing the party girl, then galvanizing as the angry phoenix rising from the ashes. So go on the hunt for a podcast about a justifiably homicidal woman who was badly wronged in our 503rd chat on Have You Ever Seen. Well, Actually: Matilda Lutz was in Final Cut, not One Cut Of The Dead (which is the title of the Japanese film that inspired Final Cut). Also, in addition to Revenge & Mandy, the other picture on Shudder's main page is of a TV show called Channel Zero and the character is known as the "Tooth Child". We are sponsored by Sparkplug Coffee. They will dole out a

We did a brief review of 12 Years A Slave when the film came out nearly 10 years ago. Here in Oscar Month 2023, we delve a lot deeper with the benefit of perspective. This tough-but-necessary film is the pinnacle of slavery movies, partly because it was written and directed by black men (John Ridley and Steve McQueen). Prestige Movies have had far more inclusion in the above-the-line jobs in the decade since, so there's clearly been progress in the film business. As for the story, Solomon Northup was a free man who was forced into this terrible life. It seems even more tragic that it happened to this exceptional man, although the moral question is why did ANYONE ever have to go through this? Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong'o are tremendous at showing us what it probably really was like to be a person held under the boot of vicious racists like Michael Fassbender. So as you cue up our 502nd edition of Have You Ever Seen, we ask you to understand that we're two white Canadians trying to sort through the horro

If we had covered Braveheart about 20 years ago, most people would have said, "that Mel Gibson is an incredible movie star and can he ever direct a battle scene!" But that nutty Aussie is a complex man. The fun-loving reputation he had in his prime is in tatters now that we've all learned about his many, many flaws in the ensuing years. Yet the man is (or was) a terrific actor---even in a movie where he plays a Scotsman---and a talented director of violent action. Bonus: this is a natural lead-in to the "Revenge Month" theme we'll have in our April movies. So settle in for an extensive one-Ryan review in our 501st episode of Have You Ever Seen because while "alba gu brath" is a wonderful rallying cry to fire up the blue-faced troops, it's best to know that you'll never take our freedom to talk about Oscar-winning movies. Sparkplug Coffee sponsors us. We love 'em. Type "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" into your browser and then make sure to use our "hyes" promo code before you finalize your buy. That'll save you 20%. I

And so we've reached 500 episodes! We started this podcast 10 years ago with the goal of analyzing the AFI's Top 100 Lists, so what better way for us to celebrate a landmark episode than to do...a list! And it's with a flourish as we post a king-sized chat about the greatest Best Picture Oscar winners. We each pulled 10 classic Oscar champions out of a box and did a brief review of them, telling you why they're worthy of enshrinement in Awesometown. Then we took exception to a handful of winners throughout the years that were inferior to something else that was nominated against it, but didn't win. This show about The Best Best Pictures is one of the best podcasts we've ever done, so get comfy and listen to us rave about those that won gold. Well, Actually: The Exorcist came out the day AFTER Christmas, not on Christmas Day itself the way The Sting did. Also, it should be noted that Jodie Foster DOES say in The Silence Of The Lambs that transgender people are typically very docile, not psychopathic killers. 

It's a bonus episode, of sorts, but this 499th Have You Ever Seen is definitely timely. We're recapping the Academy Awards. No one got hammered in the face by a miffed man this year, but it WAS a memorable Oscar Night. Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All At Once won 7 awards and was the king of the evening, including taking home 3 acting awards (which hadn't happened in 46 years). That film and All Quiet On The Western Front won nearly half of the total awards just by themselves, so it wasn't one of those "share the wealth" kind of years. Still, the tone in the room was friendly and supportive, especially for Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michelle Yeoh, the Daniels and everyone involved with EEAAO. We break down the whole show in our Oscars Post-View, with all the sweets and even the sours of the 95th Academy Awards. Tweet us your thoughts (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis) or email us (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com).

Charles Dickens' hungry orphan was given the musical treatment in this Best Picture Oscar winner that came out more than a half-century ago. Homelessness and songs are a strange mixture, but Carol Reed (mostly) makes Lionel Bart's stage-show work as a movie...even though the director of The Third Man seemed to be out of his element. Oliver is an overlong, yet impressive production that represents the end of an era for these types of mega-films. We talked about what we felt was missing in Oliver and also how the current decline of superhero movies compares to big-budget musicals in the '60s...because there is something missing in recent MCU projects too. So, my dear, get ready to hear more of us talking about the Academy Awards this month in the 498th episode of Have You Ever Seen. If you drink coffee, make Sparkplug Coffee your brand. Go to "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and use our "hyes" promo code to get a one-time 20% discount. Getting in touch with us is pretty easy. You can shoot us an email (haveyoueverseenpo

Marty is one of the most-understated winners of the Best Picture Oscar there's ever been. And at just 90 minutes long, it's also the shortest. Director Delbert Mann's film has a heavy layer of sadness, yet also has plenty of uplift and hope. Paddy Chayefsky wrote him a simple story and Mann tells it quite effectively. Sparks fly when Ernest Borgnine meets  Betsy Blair at a dance, but his friends and his mother turn up their nose at her. And that's the film. This is just a quiet, pleasant, day-in-the-life movie about regular people trying to find love and happiness. And beauty is what you make of it. So join Ryan doing the solo thing in this 497th episode as he tries not to *ahem* butcher the story of Marty. Sparkplug Coffee sponsors us. You can score a 20% discount on your next order if you use our "hyes" promo code. "Sparkplug.coffee/hyes" is your link. Getting in touch with us is simple. You can email (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com) or tweet us (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis). Look for us on YouTube (

The 95th Academy Awards are coming up on Sunday, so it's time for us to break down what was nominated, what we think should win and what we think WILL win gold on March 12th. There might be quite a few newbies going up on stage because most of the actors and directors have never been nominated before. 2022 was a year of underdogs and comebacks, from Brendan Fraser to Ke Huy Quan, but also one in which luminaries like Angela Bassett and Jamie Lee Curtis finally got a real chance to win an Oscar. So download our 496th podcast as we analyze the Year In Puking and the glories that might be ahead for some very-deserving people at this year's Academy Awards. Get yourself some Sparkplug Coffee to caffeine it up for a long night on the 12th. Go to "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and use that "hyes" promo code to save 20% off what you buy. We would love to hear what you think of this podcast...or any of them. Tweet us (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis) or email us (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com). This episode and all our 2

It took us nearly a decade to talk about a Terrence Malick film, but our first of his is his first-ever motion picture. Malick was an artist right from the start, although Badlands is unlike just about everything he's directed since because it's mostly a two-hander with a brief running time. Sissy Spacek and the Jimmy Dean-esque Martin Sheen have probably never been so monotone, but their deliberately detached performances stand out compared to other histrionic "serial killer on the road" characters. Malick has the entire cast playing it low-key, in fact, and he doesn't glamourize his main characters or make them into fun anti-heroes. Also, because this episode ends the Month Of Crazy Stupid Love, we briefly discussed the Steve Carell/Ryan Gosling rom-com Crazy Stupid Love. So episode #495 of Have You Ever Seen awaits your attention as we wrap up this month of passion projects with one of the more unusual ones we've ever covered. Don't forget to go to "sparkplug.coffee/hyes" and use our "hyes" promo code to s

Our Month Of Crazy Stupid Love wouldn't have been complete without an episode about one of the most-beloved love stories Hollywood has ever made. Of course, William Wyler's Roman Holiday is reprising a lot of Frank Capra's superior It Happened One Night. Roman Holiday isn't as funny as its inspiration, but it's amusing and very enjoyable. Gregory Peck is looser than he normally was and Oscar-winner Audrey Hepburn is just as likable & charming as she always was. And they sell true love (or at least infatuation) during their one day together, tooling around Italy and not being honest about who each of them really is. So dial up Ryan's monologue in this 494th episode of Have You Ever Seen to get the skinny on a classic romance with 2 great movie stars being exactly that. If you could imagine saving 20% off some great coffee, then go to "sparkplug.coffee/hyes". Our "hyes" promo code will save you dollars on your next order. Contacting us can be done via email (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com) or Twitter (Rya

The whole point of Dangerous Liaisons is to give us terrible people doing horrible things just because they can, so it's not beyond our control to make such delicious savagery our 493rd episode. Stephen Frears' cast ranges from phenomenal to, well, a bit mediocre. However, Christopher Hampton's extraordinary adaptation of his own play that started life as a French play about French characters gives us some of the best dialogue we've heard in a while...even if most of it is delivered by Americans. Deceitful Glenn Close makes the very most of her limited screen time and Michelle Pfeiffer vibrates with vulnerability, but this movie is John Malkovich's. He's very effective as a great seducer, even if he's a little miscast. So look sadly in a mirror and remove your makeup as Have You Ever Seen sifts through the many strengths and the occasional weaknesses of Dangerous Liaisons. Our sponsor is Sparkplug Coffee. Go to "sparkplug.coffee.hyes" and then you can save 20% off your next order by using our "hyes" promo cod