Tysto Film Commentaries

Bond is back again in probably the most popular—and certainly most influential—James Bond film. He's asked to check out Auric Goldfinger in this one, and uncovers a dastardly plot to steal—wait for it—gold! I discuss the gold-painted girl, the Aston Martin DB5, the idea of substituting golf for baccarat, the plausibility of putting a Lincoln Continental in a Ranchero, the plausibility of machismo overcoming lesbianism, the US Army's sense of humor, and, of course, Pussy Galore.

Harrison Ford breathes life into another icon when he picks up the whip and fedora offered by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan. I talk about the film's origins and episodic nature, call it "nearly perfect," and point out its various imperfections. I ponder the nature of the triple villain and the character arc that Indy travels. I compare it to romantic comedies and serials of the 1930s and '40s, and to the other Indiana Jones films. I say 1935 a couple of times when I mean 1936. I say Martin Scorsese directed Tucker when I mean Francis Ford Coppola. And I squeeze in a reference to Yakima Canutt.

A Kenny Rogers' Roasters restaurant moves in across the street and beams red light into Kramer's apartment day and night, so he gets Jerry to switch apartments. Elaine buys George a sable hat on the Peterman account along with a load of other things for herself, then gets audited by their accountant. I take apart this classic eighth season episode scene by scene, praising all its loopy goodness and gently pointing out its mild gaps.

Simon Pegg knocks one out of the... cricket pitch(?) as super cop Nicolas Angle Angel, who gets reassigned to sleepy little Sanford and discovers that there is an evil there that does not sleep. Nick Frost pulls duty as his comic sidekick and film professor. And a host of fantastic British actors support Pegg and director Edgar Wright's brilliant and hilarious screenplay. I focus on the failures in it, of course. But I do heap praise where praise heaps are due. I focus mostly on the themes and intricacies of the plot. I compare it to other films in various genres, including Cars, Doc Hollywood, Sharky's Machine, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Shaun of the Dead, Point Break, Bad Boys II, romantic comedies, and spaghetti westerns. But I'm nothing compared to Wright and Tarantino. Check out my voluminous list of films that Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino talk about in their own weird meta-commentary.

Owen Wilson is the voice of Lightning McQueen, the superfast city boy race car who is on his way to California to win the Piston Cup, if only he can ever get out of little old Radiator Springs. Paul Newman is wise old Doc Hudson and Larry the Cable Guy is dumb old Larry the Cable Truck, or should have been. Bonnie Hunt is way sexier than an automobile has a right to be, which causes me to ponder car anatomy. I complain about the title of the film. I explain the concept of setup and payoff. And I explore the difference between American-style animation and Japanese-style animation. But I focus primarily on the two main stories that conflict and the two sub-plots that complicate things further and how the film manages to keep them all from tearing the film apart.

Barry Newman is the mysterious man in the white Dodge Challenger, running away from the cops and his own screwed up life. I discuss the movie as a meditation on motivation, an allegory for the lost soul, and as a Caterpiller promotional film. I compare it (somewhat) with the 1997 version and with Smokey and the Bandit and American Westerns, but mostly with ancient mythology. I boldly suggest that beautiful women can represent both innocence and death, depending on whether they are nude or wearing a cloak and that "J. Hovah" is a little too on-the-nose for a character name. And I use my new CO3U microphone with very good results.

Bond is back in one of the best but not best-remembered Bond flicks. Here, he is the subject of a direct attempt to kill him by involving him in a trap that SPECTRE knows he'll fall for precisely because he knows it's a trap. The lovely but naive Tatiana Romanova is their patsy and Red Grant their oiled-up angel of death. Along the way, a Gypsy catfight goes on too long, Bond keeps forgetting why he's in Istanbul and why he stole the Lector device. Tatiana redeems herself in the third ending, and I wonder how Bond is going to explain her to his girlfriend. I don't have the book to do extensive comparisons, but I do identify most of the cars, not that Bond drives them; he only drives a Chevy pickup.

The James Bond series leaps into action with guns blazing as Sean Connery spends several hours talking to British colonial officials and wandering around Jamaica looking for a clue. Then he turns up the heat and starts blasting by sneaking around an island for a while, hoping not to get captured, before getting captured. Okay, it's a little slow for what we've come to expect, but in 1962, this rocked. And even today, Miss Taro and Honey Ryder can still make your palms sweat. I compare the film to the book thruout and look for motifs, iconic elements, and firsts. I compare it to the Flint and Austin Powers movies that it inspired and to other Bond flicks. Note: Some comments are shaken while others are stirred. Somehow I make the bizarre mistake of saying that Sean Connery appeared in Zulu Dawn.

An imperfect commentary for a nearly perfect film. Bill Murray is chief idiot to Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis in a modern Marx Brothers-style epic comedy thriller. Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, and Ernie Hudson support, not to mention Rick Moranis, William Atherton, and Yugoslavian supermodel Slavitza. Director Ivan Reitman delivers the goods in thrills and chills while the top-talent cast supplies the laughs. I describe the statue-spirit motif, the dual-story structure of the plot, the cartoonish nature of the Ghostbusters which makes them inherently merchandisable, and the evils of synthesizer music. I mistakenly say that Gozer has a "Grace Slick haircut" when I mean a "Grace Jones haircut."

Third in my White-House-related commentaries, overly-dramatic lighting, multiple freak rainstorms, and a complete failure to get Diane Lane's shirt soaking wet detract from a fairly taut, multi-layered thriller. Wesley Snipes is a swaggering DC homicide cop who somehow beats the snot out of several highly-trained Secret Service agents and government assassins. Diane Lane kicks him as his sidekick until she get a chance to save his ass. Alan Alda and that creepy guy from The Agency play "good cop, creepy cop." Dennis Miller miraculously avoids smirking too much. I say "that doesn't make sense" too much and explain a lot about the White House. I explore the logic of assigning an ordinary DC detective to a White House murder case when they already have their own police force. I ponder the idea that the president might be sneaked into the White House by someone other than the Secret Service agent assigned to guard his bedroom. And I consider the plausibility that there might be hidden tunnels underneath the Whit

A romantic comedy (at least I think it's a comedy) set in the White House, with Michael Douglas as a widowed president and Annette Bening as a flustered and flattered—yet somehow hard-as-nails—lobbyist trying to conduct a romance while politics intervenes. I consider the public's negative response to the romance to be a little silly. I ponder how the staff's panic is a little overdone. But I praise the dialog as sharp and the direction as tight, which helps the film over its bumps, which makes sense because this was basically the prototype for the TV show The West Wing. The White House art direction looks beautiful, which I explain at great length, as I did for The Sentinel. However, I misstate the case about the state dinner depicted; it was based on the Yeltsin dinner during the Clinton administration.

Little Judy Garland wins friends and kills witches dead in her vain attempts to just find a way back to Kansas. I compare the movie extensively to the original novel. I explain the concept of a frame story and the minor inconsistencies in the plot, like the troublesome character of Professor Marvel. I use the word brilliant too much. I ponder the possibility that the Wicked Witch is ethnically a Winkie and wonder why the Good Witch isn't ethnically a Munchkin. I bust a few myths, like the one about the hanged stage hand and the one about the "Oh-ee-oh" song. I suggest that Playboy, if it had been around in 1939, might have done a pictorial of the "Girls of the Emerald City Wash & Brush Up Co." I compare the Wicked Witch to Jaws. I suggest that the movie should have been remade in 1985 with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I beg children not the follow the film's advice of not looking for a better life beyond your own back yard.

Secret Service agent Michael Douglas squares off against Kiefer Sutherland while Eva Longoria looks on. I compare the film to In the Line of Fire, the main point being that, here, the hero is "secretly serving" the first lady and not his partner. I explain my Kiefer Sutherland Rule of Cinema. I wonder how a guy like Walter Xavier even keeps up on the sports scores, let alone gets information about an assassination plot. I also explain every detail of the White House interiors, given my intimate familiarity, including where the director and producer are wrong in their commentary and how the Secret Service offices seem to be as big as the entire rest of the West Wing. I offer choice tidbits of presidential history and the origin of Camp David. And I contemplate the possibility that the Canadian mounties fingerprinted Paul Bunyan in 1875.

It's Arnold and Arnold in an action adventure that probes the delicate social issues of the day and shoots them with lasers! I compare the film to Total Recall, Minority Report, James Bond, Frankenstein, and others. I mix up my Michaels. I get totally creeped out by the Simpal Cindy doll. I point out how Schwarzenegger's character is simultaneously a technophobe and a technophile, depending on which tech you present him with. I ponder the fever for the flavor of a nacho banana. I raise the delicate question of why Judi Dench is never cast in this kind of film. I point out plot holes such as "why does any of this happen?" I boldly postulate that the bad guys are not nearly as bad as some of the good guys. I also boldly postulate that Michael Rappaport is not a cat person, but I may still have him mixed up with Michael Rooker or possibly Michael Ironside. I make the mistake of saying that Adam 1 got a RePet instead of a Simpal Cindy, when both Adam 1 and Adam 2 got Simpals. Plus: free advice to young filmmaker

Join me for what is not my favorite movie but nevertheless a classic part of the Schwarzenegger oeuvre. I compare it to The 6th Day and other films and explain where it goes off the rails regardless of which story you believe: the dream story, the reality story, or the alternate reality story, or even the alternate-alternate reality story. I pity the poor rats. I try to find the point the movie may stray from reality. I say "If this is reality..." too many times and get distracted by Sharon Stone. And I get carried away with saying that Paul Verhoeven got carried away with the head games. I don't bother much with the "science", but I do make fun of Cohaagen's henchmen being the worst secret agents ever. And, at some point, I believe I may have suffered a schizoid embolism.

Join me for a great romantic comedy/thriller from 1978 starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Hawn fends off the world with a yellow umbrella. Chase embraces the world clumsily. Dudley Moore tries to screw the world unsuccessfully. The pope thinks The Mikado is supposed to end with dead guys hanging from the mast of a ship from another production. Maybe he just thinks it's "far out." I compare the film to other romantic comedies and other thrillers as well as to Far Out Space Nuts. I don't talk quite as much in this one, but I think the observations are a little richer insights into theme, character, and plotting, and not narrating the scenes so much. I forget to mention that the title is a play on words, since the assassination attempt occurs during a stage performance—a comic opera, actually, but Foul Opera would sound silly. I did slip in a mention in editing that the setup is borrowed from The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Ooh la la! An attempt at doing a commentary on a film I've never seen before. I watch this Fellini classic for the very first time, recording my amusement, confusion, frustration, and eventual disappointment. If you already know and love the film, laugh at my provincial attitude. If you hate it, laugh with me while I try desperately to enjoy it. I mention how the word paparazzi comes from the character of Paparazzo. I consider how much I like Marcello Mastroianni in principle. I mock how ridiculous "Casanova Xavier" is as a name for an American rock-and-roller. I misidentify Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" as "...G Minor" (but what are a few letters between friends?) I'm moved by the tragedy that develops, but ultimately feel that it is squandered, which may have been Fellini's point, for all I know.

My favorite film. I did a commentary for this a couple of years ago that was good but sounded lousy and was in three parts. With everybody downloading big podcasts over broadband, it might as well be in one file, so I've rerecorded it. I describe the historical context as well as the themes and how the plot points are foreshadowed and resolved. I explain the "General DeGaulle/Weygand" mix-up and how the characters relate to the larger picture of Europe in the midst of World War 2, particularly how characters are introduced early and kept alive in the background until they become important.

It's the rip-roaring, high-stakes, high-drama tall tale of the Serenity's greatest adventure ever! The crew is dogged by an Alliance operative almost as crazy as Jubal Early. I apologize to the people of Great Britain on behalf of the entire American film industry. I should apologize to Chiwetel Ejiofor for butchering his name horribly. Mal and the Hole-in-the-Boat Gang take an Alliance payroll but are set upon by reavers. Simon busts Mal a good one and gets dumped on a planet where River is driven cuckoo by a Fruity Oaty Bar commercial. Wash suggests they talk to their old friend, Mr. Universe. Yes. Mr. Universe. You remember him. Inara wants Mal to come and not fight with her. Trap! I show off my English degree my identifying "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Book will take his secrets to the grave. Wash doesn't have any secrets, but if he did, so would he. River is carrying a politician's secret to a lot of other people's graves. The horror of the Pax is exposed. Kaylee and Simon sort out their romantic d