Episodes
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After last episode’s icy prison break, Sean and Cody go down under for Pride Month as they load up the bus for a queer road trip into the outback. In The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Australian drag queen Tick (Hugo Weaving) gets a gig to do a show in the remote outback down of Alice Springs, so he teams up with the flamboyant Felicia (Guy Pearce) and transgender widow Bernadette (Terence Stamp) to get a bus to transport them, their costumes and a giant high-heeled shoe halfway across the continent. But there’s more on the road than dust and kangaroos, as the trio encounter homophobia, unexpected allies, and various bonding experiences in the places they stop along the way. Environmental issues discussed include resource extraction in Australia, boom towns such as Broken Hill and Coober Pedy, aborigines and their sense of their land and history, and lots of queer history.
How did resource extraction, especially gold and other precious metals, shape the history and environment of modern Australia? How did queer history unfold in Australia and how was it different from the course of queer history in the U.S.? Which tiny Australian town produces 70% of the world’s opal? What was the only battle of World War I fought on Australian soil, and how did it come to involve an ice cream salesman? Which environmental hero’s name was claimed by 111 women arrested for an anti-nuclear protest near a site shown in the film? Was Australia slower to warm to LGBT equality than other countries, and if so, why? How did they get the iconic shot in this film? Who is lip-syncing to Vanessa Williams in the end credits? As progressive as this film was for its time, how is it still incredibly cringe-inducing today? All these questions are ready to do drag in the desert in this, the penultimate regular episode of Green Screen.
Where you can find The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-adventures-of-priscilla-queen-of-the-desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109045/
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-adventures-of-priscilla-queen-of-the-desert/Next Movie Up: Dances With Wolves (1990)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Sean and Cody, back from an unplanned hiatus, are joined by The Industry podcast host Dan Delgado for a look at the rarest of birds: an actually good film from schlocky 1980s grindhouse studio Cannon Films! In Runaway Train, prison lifer Manny (Jon Voight) is joined by a whiny shoeless sidekick Buck (Eric Roberts) for a poop-scented breakout from Alaska’s most notorious hoosegow. But their brilliant escape goes terribly wrong when the engineer of the freight train they stow away on croaks from a heart attack, and no one in the entire Alaska Railroad system seems to know how to slow down the train. Environmental issues discussed include the impact of the railroad, a harebrained early 1900s scheme to turn Alaska into Scandinavia, and how perennial Green Screen podcast villain Tricky Nick Nixon swindled Native Americans out of their land for, you guessed it, oil.
How, when, and why were railroads built across Alaska, and how was that process different from how train infrastructure developed in the rest of America? What was “recapitulation,” whose idiotic idea was it, and how did it manage to be both environmentally disastrous and crudely racist? What did President Warren G. Harding really die of? Why did so many of the Cannon films star Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson? How did famed Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa get involved in this movie? Why is “600” the magic number for Eric Roberts’s career? Should Golan and Globus have just shelved the idea for this film and concentrated by putting more money into Superman IV: The Quest For Peace? How did Danny Trejo parlay a life of crime into a successful film, philanthropy and restaurant career? All these questions and more are waiting to jump the track in this, the third-to-last regular episode of Green Screen.
Big thanks to Dan Delgado of The Industry podcast for joining us on the show.
Where you can find Runaway Train: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/runaway-train
Runaway Train (1985) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089941/
Runaway Train (1985) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/runaway-train/Next Movie Up: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Missing episodes?
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We have a statement that we'd like to make to our listeners.
Green Screen will soon be ending its run of regular episodes. There will be three more after this one: Runaway Train, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and the podcast finale, Dances With Wolves.
The reasons why we've made this decision are complicated and we'd like you to hear them in depth. This is why we've recorded this special bonus episode. We'll also talk about what we learned, what we got out of this experience, what we'll miss, and what we see as the contributions our show has made.
This won't be the last time you hear from us; there are three more episodes coming and certain possibilities of more after that, depending on what we decide in the future. The show will remain up so you can continue to listen to past episodes. We wish to thank everyone who has listened to the show, supported us, reached out and made us happy to have embarked on this project.
We mention in the bonus episode that we'll be posting "the list," the comprehensive list of all films that we did, and wanted to do, on Green Screen. That will be coming soon on our website!
Next Movie Up: Runaway Train (1985)
Website For This Episode
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Though still weary from that long train trip to the Urals last episode, Sean and Cody board a British Navy sailing ship headed around Cape Horn as they delve into this swashbuckling 2003 adventure/war film, directed by Peter Weir. In Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World, indefatigable Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) can’t think about anything except the French man-o’-war he’s chasing all over the oceans. But his best friend Maturin (Paul Bettany) is so keen on collecting bugs in the Galapagos Islands that he can barely keep his mind on his job of sawing limbs off teenage crew members injured in battle. A whole lot of cannons go boom when the HMS Surprise finally meets her enemy on, well, the far side of the world. Environmental issues discussed include the effect of the Napoleonic Wars on forests in Europe and Asia, the weird beasts of the Galapagos Islands and how they got that way, “naturalists” in the early 19th century, and more dope on Darwin’s famous voyage.
How did British short-sightedness in managing their forests come back to bite them during the Napoleonic Wars? How far did they have to go to get timber for their ships? Are Americans still mad at the British for burning down their capital in 1814? What’s the history of the Galapagos Islands? Which previous episode was it where we revealed the strange fate of the Beagle, the ship that took Darwin there? Do all historians read Patrick O’Brian novels? How do you pronounce “Maturin”? Who was Alexander von Humboldt and why is there an ocean current named after him? What member of Darwin’s 1835 expedition to the Galapagos was still alive at the time this film was made, and how is that even possible? Which actor in this film’s cast did one of the podcast hosts have a Twitter exchange with? All these questions and more are lying in wait disguised as a whaler in this adventurous episode of Green Screen.
Where You Can Find Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World:
https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/master-and-commander-the-far-side-of-the-world
Next Movie Up: Runaway Train (1985)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Finally having returned from a double-header on Mars, Sean and Cody find themselves on the snowy steppes of Russia in the tumultuous era of the Bolshevik Revolution as they sink into this 1965 epic classic, one of the biggest blockbuster films of all time. In Doctor Zhivago, wistful sawbones and sometime poet Yuri (Omar Sharif) is living his best life with happy wifey (Geraldine Chaplin) and baby, until he suddenly gets the hots for the alluring Lara (Julie Christie) who’s married to someone else. But when the Revolution comes they’re all forced to put on red stars and salute Lenin, or at least the terrifying Comrade Strelnikov (Tom Courtenay), who, by the way, is Lara’s husband. If it sounds complicated, it is! Environmental issues discussed include the internal colonization of Russia into Siberia and across the Urals, how the tsars and the Soviet commissars used and exploited this area, the true nature of “pastoral” Russia as depicted in this film, and what Russia must have been like in the transition between capitalist monarchy and Soviet Communism.
How, environmentally and historically, was Russia’s colonization of Siberia like American colonization of the Western frontier? What did the Soviets plan to do with the vast lands across the Urals, and did they succeed? What happened to all those beautiful country estates, like the one seen in the film that Zhivago and Lara use as their love nest? What are the subtle environmental clues that this film was not made in Russia, but much farther south? What was the special purpose that the dreaded “House of Special Purpose” was used for? What’s the story behind the iconic theme song for this film, and why is it repeated over and over again? Why is the book on which this film is based virtually unreadable? Have you ever heard of a 1981 film called Comin’ At Ya, and why is it famous in film history? What is the John Huston Corollary to the Michael Gough Rule which governs the Five Crowns Award? All these questions are ready to charge the monarchists’ machine guns in this very revolutionary episode of Green Screen.
Where you can find Doctor Zhivago: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/doctor-zhivago-1965
Doctor Zhivago (1965) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059113/
Doctor Zhivago (1965) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/doctor-zhivago/Next Movie Up: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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What, they’re still not back from Mars? Sean and Cody are on number two of a double-header (with last episode) as they take on Ridley Scott’s popular 2015 science fiction drama. In The Martian, plucky and somewhat jerky botanist astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets the Home Alone treatment as his shipmates accidentally leave him behind on Mars. It’ll be four years until anyone from Earth can rescue him and he’s only got 68 packets of potatoes and some freeze-dried poop. Wait, wasn’t that the plot of the last film on the show? That’s not a coincidence. Environmental issues discussed include the scientific and environmental accuracy of this film, radiation exposure for astronauts, Mars’s toxic soil, and various schemes and scams involving real-life proposed trips to the fourth rock from the sun.
Why do we keep changing our minds on whether liquid water exists on Mars or not? Are dust storms on Mars as epic as the way they’re portrayed in this film? Why is growing anything in Martian soil a challenge at best, and a suicide mission at worst? Given the amount of radiation and cosmic ray exposure that astronauts in space and on Mars would receive over the course of a mission, would a realistic sequel to this film necessarily be The Martian 2: Watney Dies of Leukemia? What was Mars One and why was it a scam? Why is the idea of putting Libertarians in space alarmingly dangerous? What do all those different kinds of producers listed in a film’s credits actually do? Why do so many movies involve rescuing Matt Damon as their plot premise? All these questions and more are sprouting from the rusty soil ready to be picked in this adventurous episode of Green Screen.
Where you can find The Martian: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-martian
The Martian (2015) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/
The Martian (2015) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-martian/Next Movie Up: Dr. Zhivago (1965)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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After turning themselves into cartoons last episode, Sean and Cody make a side trip to a mostly fictional version of the red planet on their way back to the real world. In the 1964 space adventure Robinson Crusoe on Mars, white bread astronaut Kit Draper (Paul Mantee) and the monkey he loves crash-land on the titular planet to find the basic tourist amenities such as oxygen, water and food haven’t been restocked in several million years. With only a mid-60s tape deck, an Air Force surplus flight suit and a couple of tubes of turkey paste, can Draper find a way to survive long enough for Lyndon Johnson’s NASA to come rescue him? The environmental issues covered in this episode center around humans’ changing conceptions of conditions on Mars, with surprise cameos by our old friends settler colonialism and the white savior, who we can’t seem to get rid of even 200 million miles from Earth.
What did scientists know or think they knew about what Mars was really like at the time they made this film? Can liquid water exist there or can’t it? What are Mars’s polar ice caps made of? Why did some astronomers, including especially Percival Lowell, believe that the “canals” of Mars were works of engineering created by an alien species? How was the mission of the Mariner space probe in 1965 a huge bummer for filmmakers and conceptual artists who got paid for producing “Mars porn” for science magazines? What poor sap in the costume department on this film had to sew a fur loincloth for a monkey? Is Adam West the only true Batman? Who was that mid-1950s Disney narrator who sounded suspiciously like Orson Welles? Is there no escape from racist stereotyping anywhere in the universe? All these questions are sucking air out of the rocks in this, the first part of a double header on Green Screen centered around Mars, together with the next episode on The Martian.
Where you can find Robinson Crusoe on Mars: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/robinson-crusoe-on-mars
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058530/
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/robinson-crusoe-on-mars/Next Movie Up: The Martian (2015)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Sean and Cody exchange the gross creatures of the last episode for the dubious charms of an animated, drug-induced alternate universe as they dive into this visionary 2013 dystopian science fiction drama. In The Congress, aging Hollywood star Robin Wright, playing herself, lets a movie studio zap her into a digital clone that they can use to put her into any film for the next 20 years. When her contract is up and it’s time to renegotiate, though, she finds herself hyped on hallucinogenic drugs to join the raddest party in town, which is a freaky alternate reality that turns everyone into cartoon characters and makes them forget the real world and its problems. Environmental issues discussed include Facebook and the “metaverse,” plans by Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to either leave Earth behind or make it even worse for its inhabitants, and the ethics of abandoning the real world and allowing environmental problems, like climate change, to go unchecked because reality is just too much of a bummer to deal with.
What is Zuckerberg’s “Metaverse” and why, among its many terrifying implications, is it a total disaster for the environment? Did Zucky announce the whole “Meta” thing to divert attention away from Facebook scandals? What does the “Metaverse” have in common with the environmental history of Las Vegas? Do amoral libertarian billionaires really plan to evacuate Earth and just leave us stuck with all the problems? How did said billionaires totally misread the science fiction novels they obviously grew up on? How are cryptocurrencies, blockchain, NFTs and related scams making climate change worse in a big hurry? Can you really “scan” an actor and put them in any movie you want, as depicted in this film? Remember when they actually tried to do that and put Cary Grant in a Diet Coke commercial? Which movie was it where they turned Paul Giamatti blue? All these questions are assuming new cartoon avatars and heading for the party in this positively hallucinogenic episode of Green Screen.
Where you can find The Congress: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-congress
The Congress (2013) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/
The Congress (2013) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-congress-2013/Next Movie Up: Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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With the pleasant holiday frost fair of the last episode behind them, Sean and Cody lock themselves in Clamp Tower with the titular monsters of this extremely bizarre 1990 film, a sequel to an iconic ‘80s fantasy. In Gremlins 2: The New Batch, the furry pet of cartoonist Billy (Zach Galligan) is kidnapped and taken to a genetic engineering lab, where it spawns a legion of mischievous lizardy creatures. The monsters proceed to take over an urban skyscraper and possibly threaten to destroy the world...unless Billy and his billionaire industrialist boss can stop them. Environmental issues discussed include the 1980s-1990s real estate development career of Donald Trump, pre-politics, and especially his strange unrealized project “Trump City,” which has eerie similarities both to the setting of this film and the 20th century career of New York urban designer Robert Moses.
What effect did Trump—one of the models for Gremlins 2’s billionaire character Daniel Clamp—have on the environment of New York City? What was “Trump City” supposed to be, and why wasn’t it built? What about Ted Turner, the other model for the Clamp character? Who was Robert Moses and how did he make New York a more racist place? Can we blame the Baby Boom generation for climate change? Does CNN really have a “doomsday video” in their vault that they plan to show on the day the world ends? Does this film actually have a plot? How come everybody loves Gizmo despite the fact that he’s one of the most dangerous creatures on Earth who must be destroyed for the survival of humanity? Do the Gremlins films take place in the same literary universe as Stranger Things? What the hell were we thinking when we added this film to the Green Screen list? All those questions and more are multiplying in water in this very unusual episode of the podcast.
Where you can find Gremlins 2: The New Batch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/gremlins-2
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099700/
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/gremlins-2-the-new-batch/Next Movie Up: The Congress (2013)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Now having healed from their bird scratches and psychological trauma last episode, Sean and Cody settle into some chill digs—literally—as they take apart this visually stunning 1992 queer costume drama. In Orlando, the title character (Tilda Swinton), a twinky nobleman in 1600 England, receives a rich estate from Queen Elizabeth in exchange for a promise never to grow old. But after enduring hijinx at a frost fair on the Thames, a cruel diss from the alluring Princess Sasha, and the boredom of centuries, Orlando’s true identity as a trans woman tests the boundaries of Queen Liz’s bargain. Environmental issues discussed include winters in Elizabethan England, frost fairs in London and the history of hydrodynamics of the River Thames.
What exactly is a “frost fair,” how did they get started, and were they really like the way they’re portrayed in the film? Is climate change the reason they don’t happen anymore, or is it simpler than that? Why were traffic jams in London every bit as bad in the 17th century as they are today? What’s “Lapland mutton”? Why did books have such ridiculously long titles 200 years ago? How was Virginia Woolf yet another victim of bi erasure? Who is singularly responsible for why the heavy metal subculture adopted the whole gay biker look, and what does it have to do with this movie? Can you recite a brief history of queer cinema in the 1990s? Are these “heritage” pictures mostly satires in disguise? All these questions and more are having a heyday on the frozen river between London Bridge and Blackfriars in this deeply frozen episode of Green Screen.
Where you can find Orlando: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/orlando
Orlando (1992) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107756/
Orlando (1992) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/orlando/Next Movie Up: Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Thoroughly rehydrated after their detour to post-apocalyptic Australia last episode, Sean and Cody venture into the depths of avian paranoia and Alfred Hitchcock’s abusive soul as they review this classic 1963 horror masterpiece. In The Birds, manic pixie dream girl creepy stalker Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) uses a pair of lovebirds to troll Mitch (Rod Taylor) by delivering them to his family’s house on the California coast. But just as she makes the delivery, birds of all kinds suddenly decide this is the perfect moment to wage an epic jihad against humankind, and the little town of Bodega Bay is first on their target list. Environmental issues discussed include “revenge of nature” stories in fiction, bird behavior and their propensity to attack, a real-life incident involving a mass bird invasion in coastal California in 1961 and its relationship to ocean ecosystems and a toxic algae, unknown at the time but discovered long after the film was made.
Just how fantastic is the scenario depicted in this film—have birds really attacked humans, and if so, under what circumstances? How can toxic shellfish cause a bird invasion? What’s the history of these kind of “revenge of nature” movies, and has climate change made them even more topical than they were in the 1960s? Why don’t people get anchovies on pizzas or salads anymore like they used to 50 or 60 years ago? What’s the relationship between this film and those When Animals Attack shows from ‘90s Fox TV? How did shooting this picture ruin Tippi Hedren’s life? Just how much of a sick, misogynistic bastard was Alfred Hitchcock, and, knowing now how awful he was, should we stop watching his movies? Are Hitchcock’s chintzy rear-pro backdrops deliberately shoddy, or was he just getting lazy? All of these questions are swooping in for the attack in this terrifying episode of Green Screen.
Content warning: this episode contains discussion of psychological and physical abuse.
Where you can find The Birds: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-birds
The Birds (1963) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869/
The Birds (1963) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-birds/Next Movie Up: Orlando (1992)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Glad to be back from the DDT-soaked swamps of Florida last episode, Sean and Cody are joined by Best Pick podcast host Jessica Regan for a journey into the heart of flashy pop-culture ‘90s-ness that is this 1995 science fiction comedy. In the world of Tank Girl, Earth has been desiccated by a comet and lovable desert-dwelling rogue Rebecca (Lori Petty) has the last water that hasn’t been sucked up by the evil Water & Power corporation. When W&P exec Nestlē Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell) decides he’s gotta have her water too, Rebecca nicks a tank and teams up with Jet Girl (Naomi Watts) to wreak some righteous revenge on the capitalist patriarchy. Environmental issues discussed include the real life water swindles, child poisonings and other horrendous deeds of Nestlē Corporation, and whether climate change is today what asteroid/comet apocalypse scenarios were in the ‘90s.
How does Nestlē gain control of water resources it doesn’t own, and how does it abuse the rights of indigenous peoples to choke the planet in billions of unrecycled water bottles? Did Nestlē’s soulless CEO really try to tell the United Nations that water was not a human right? Speaking of that CEO, what other evil planet-killing corporation did he sit on the board of? How was the vision of Tank Girl director Rachel Talalay compromised by sexist memos from studio executives? What’s the perfect age to see this movie? Is this film a noble experiment in feminism and queerness that went off the rails, or does it remain a hidden gem of ‘90s culture? How much would you pay for a prosthetic kangaroo pee-pee? Should there be a remake of this film (yes) and who should play Tank Girl? All these questions and more are rolling across the desert in this much-anticipated, long-awaited episode of Green Screen.
Where you can find Tank Girl: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/tankgirl
Tank Girl (1995) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114614/
Tank Girl (1995) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/tank-girl/Next Movie Up: The Birds (1963)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Sean and Cody did not spend enough time on Arrakis for the bonus episode for their eyes to turn glowing blue, so now they’re headed for the scummiest swamps of Florida—and the cinematic bargain basement—as they analyze this “classic” 1972 creature-feature horror film. In Frogs, well-endowed canoe pilot and ecology photographer Pickett (Sam Elliott) happens into a Southern fried family reunion from Hell as he winds up on a swampy Florida island owned by the cratchety Jason Crockett (Ray Milland). But when the hired help starts getting offed by geckos, snapping turtles and Spanish moss, the Crockett clan realizes they’re at the epicenter of a full-on revolt of nature. Environmental issues discussed include DDT and its legacy, how the modern environmental movement started, Richard Nixon and the establishment of the EPA, and how effects of swampy environments played out in the post-slavery American South.
What fears and fads were “eco-horror” films of this period really trying to tap into? How did Rachel Carson get the credit for starting the environmental movement when a bunch of Georgia women were trying to ban DDT more than a decade before she wrote Silent Spring? Can you pronounce the full names of the chemicals in DDT? Did Tricky Dick Nixon really care about the environment, or was he just grumpy over Vietnam and Kent State? Who’s William Ruckleshaus and what does have to do with Watergate? Did you know that before he was a crusty cowboy, Sam Elliott was a legit Teen Beat heartthrob? Why do the characters in this movie act like slavery was never abolished? Are frogs and geckos considered cute? How can a snapping turtle kill a human being? To what depths was Ray Milland willing to sink to cash a paycheck at the end of his career? Is this the worst film ever covered on Green Screen? Whether it is or isn’t, it’s what we’ve got, so here we go.
Frogs (1972) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068615/
Frogs (1972) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/frogs/Next Movie Up: Tank Girl (1995)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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What’s this? A surprise bonus? Yes, indeed, Sean and Cody are turning Halloween into Christmas by giving you this brief return to the desert planet Arrakis, now reimagined by Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve. In the 2021 version of Dune, about half of what happened in the 1984 David Lynch version happens again but with better special effects, a considerably more comprehensible script, and a shirtless Timothée Chalamet in the role of Paul Atreides that was originally pioneered by Kyle MacLachlan. Can Sean and Cody, incorrigible fans of the bizarre 1984 David Lynch version, accept this lavish CGI-drenched boondoggle as the definitive film version of Dune, or will they chew it up like a sandworm munching on a carryall? Find out! You’ll also hear what Mike Miley, the guest interviewed on the original Dune episode, thinks of the new version.
As this is a shorter and more impromptu episode of Green Screen, the discussion of environmental issues is minimal, but climate change gets a mention, so there’s that.
Dune (2021) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/
Dune (2021) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/dune-2021/Next Movie Up: Frogs (1972)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Back from the ramparts of Beijing in the last episode, Sean and Cody blast off for another trip to outer space as they set a course for this epic 2013 survival drama directed by Alfonso Cuarón. In Gravity, chatty astronauts Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are busy giving the Hubble Telescope a once-over when a wave of supercharged space junk turns their space shuttle into confetti. Drifting off in opposite directions and with the oxygen in their suits running out, the two have to think fast to figure out not only to survive the next 90 minutes, but how to get back on terra firma now that their spaceship is a glitter bomb. Environmental issues discussed include the real-life environment of space, the pollution of Earth orbit with too many satellites and space junk, the scenario of “Kessler Syndrome” which provides the basis of the premise of the film, and the impact back on Earth of the space shuttle program, including pollution and habitat loss from launch facilities.
What exactly is Kessler Syndrome, how common are satellite collisions, and could a scenario like the one shown in this film really occur in real life? How many operational satellites are currently in orbit around the Earth? What was the space shuttle really built to do, and how come NASA didn’t end up doing very much of it despite 30 years and billions of dollars? Why did NASA have to build a manatee sanctuary in Florida? What did Sandra Bullock go through in order to film this movie? Why does Cuarón use so many fewer shots and cuts than most other directors? What did real astronauts think of the film? Is the Sandra Bullock character a strong female lead, or a damsel in distress? Can you believe how much she made from this picture? What other film, yet to be done on the Green Screen list, is Gravity most like, structurally? All these questions are heating up for fiery re-entry in this tropospheric episode of Green Screen.
Gravity (2013) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/
Gravity (2013) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/gravity-2013/Next Movie Up: Frogs (1972)
Additional Materials About This Episode
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Sean and Cody return to China and the widescreen, stereophonic, you-definitely-can’t-see-this-on-TV epic cinema of the early 1960s as they delve into this Nicholas Ray-directed 1963 spectacle about the Yihetuan uprising of the late 19th century, known by imperialists as the Boxer Rebellion. In 55 Days at Peking, an enclave of colonial sahibs led by the dapper Sir Arthur (David Niven) and grizzled U.S. Marine Matt Lewis (Charlton Heston) seem bewildered to find themselves under siege by the 100 million or so Chinese who have inexplicably grown tired of Western powers stealing everything in their country that isn’t nailed down. When a Chinese fundamentalist sect in groovy red turbans attacks the foreign compound in Beijing, the Westerners fight desperately to win the day, and the eyeballs of viewers who might otherwise be home watching I Love Lucy. Environmental issues discussed include the ecological collapse of China in the late 1800s, the worst flood in recorded history, the environmental impact of Confucian family planning, and the awareness—or obliviousness—of Westerners to the environmental havoc they create when adventuring in faraway lands.
What was the so-called “Boxer Rebellion” and why is everything Westerners think know about it, including its name, a distortion? How can a movie whose plot is entirely based on an environmental disaster manage to avoid mentioning the environment for its entire 2½ hour run time? Why was the British East India Company the most evil corporation in history? What were the Opium Wars about, and why were they even worse than their name suggests? How did Confucius manage to screw up China’s environment centuries after he was dead? What were the contents of Charlton Heston’s pithy “note to self” that he wrote after making this film? Why did filmmakers always go to Spain in the 1950s and ‘60s to make big-budget historical epics? How did director Nicholas Ray become the most egregious victim of bisexual erasure in Hollywood? What 1964 picture is Ridley Scott’s Gladiator an uncredited remake of, and was the original better than the remake? Why would a remake of 55 Days at Peking/Beijing be the biggest picture of all time, Titanic for a new generation, and why hasn’t Hollywood (and Beijing) jumped on it? All these questions are ready to storm the walls of the Legations in this big budget epic episode of Green Screen.
55 Days at Peking (1963) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056800/
55 Days at Peking (1963) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/55-days-at-peking/Next Movie Up: Gravity (2013)
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After three straight episodes in the barrios and freeways of L.A., Sean and Cody sample some slow living in the early 19th century Pacific Northwest as they examine this quirky and unusual 2020 indie Western. In First Cow, frontier cook Otis “Cookie” Figowitz (John Magaro) gets fired and chased through the forest by his former employers, and is fortunate to hook up with Chinese immigrant King-Lu (Orion Lee) who’s similarly down on his luck. When they spot a single cow wandering through the Oregon forest they hatch a scheme to milk it and use the dairy to make tasty oily cakes to sell at the local trading post. Unfortunately their best customer, the Chief Factor (Toby Jones), is also the owner of the cow. Environmental issues discussed include the role of cows and cattle in European settlement of the West, how cattle was a harbinger of colonialism, and the environmental history of Sauvie Island, Oregon where the movie was filmed and presumably takes place.
Why would a single cow be such a valuable resource in Oregon Territory in 1820? Who owned Oregon Territory at that time anyway, and why is it so hard to tell? Why did a British Navy captain deliberately import cows into Hawaii in 1792, and why was the King of Hawaii so jazzed about the arrangement? What’s “cattle colonialism”? How come Westerns usually focus on the stories of white men with guns “taming” the West, and how does this film present a different story? Why would this movie make John Wayne really, really mad? Which racist trope which has appeared in numerous other Green Screen films is refreshingly absent from this one? How do you pronounce “clafoutis”? How about “Auberjonois”? Which That Guy in this film is the son of another That Guy who appeared in a previous film profiled on the podcast? Why does Amazon think anyone in their right mind would watch reruns of Murder, She Wrote with commercials? All these questions and more are ready for milking in this decidedly bovine episode of Green Screen.
First Cow (2020) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9231040/
First Cow (2020) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/first-cow/Next Movie Up: 55 Days at Peking (1963)
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Fresh from being serenaded by singing ‘toons in the last episode, Sean and Cody sprint for the finish line of their “L.A. trilogy” and delve into the heart of darkness—and modern Los Angeles—as they examine this media-savvy 2014 thriller. In Nightcrawler, sleazy ne’er-do-well Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) graduates from Satan’s entrepreneurship program and starts going around L.A. filming bloody car crashes and crime scenes so he can sell the gore-soaked tapes to Channel 6’s program director Nina (Rene Russo). But when he and his camera witness a murder that’s tailor-made to inflame the fears and prejudices of Angelenos, whatever used to pass for journalistic ethics gets sliced, diced and filleted as Lou uses the incident to vault to the top of the city’s grimy underground of freelance stringers. Environmental issues discussed include the geography of crime and its incidence as an environmental threat, how the digital media landscape affects political decisions, and how Los Angeles got to be the way it is, especially after the processes discussed in the recent Chinatown and Who Framed Roger Rabbit episodes.
How can cities be designed better to cut down on crime? Why did Los Angeles not only ignore all the ways that can be done, but actively try to thwart them by doing the opposite? Is crime in big cities going up or down, or does it depend on the political beliefs of who you ask? How many “stringers” are there in L.A.? What wild animal is the character of Lou Bloom based on? How does Nightcrawler uniquely illustrate the “Six L.A.s” discussed in the Strange Days episode? How are right-wingers taking over America’s local news TV stations? What’s the connection between Nightcrawler and Chinatown? What legendary science fiction writer did one of the Green Screen hosts have lunch with in 1999? Now having done three L.A. pictures in a row, can we please move on to something else? All these questions are creeping out of the suburbs and coming for your children in this creepy-crawly episode of Green Screen.
Nightcrawler (2014) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872718/
Nightcrawler (2014) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/nightcrawler/Next Movie Up: First Cow (2020)
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We’re on the second part of the “L.A. Trilogy,” and Sean and Cody are joined by two very special guests: John Dorney and Tom Salinsky, two of the three hosts of the Best Pick movie podcast! The Best Pick guys thought Who Framed Roger Rabbit should have won Best Picture in 1988, and they’re here to make their case. In this zany live-action and animated comedy film noir send-up, cartoon star Roger (voiced by Charles Fleischer) is effing up at his job in 1940s Hollywood when he thinks his wife Jessica (voice of Kathleen Turner) is playing pattycake on him with one of L.A.’s biggest landlords. Private gumshoe and sometime alky Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) gets dragged into the case, which involves a mega-conspiracy to bulldoze Toontown’s rail transit to build a bunch of ugly freeways. The major environmental question of the film is a big one in L.A. and American history: did a consortium of automakers and real estate developers deliberately sabotage the transit system? We puzzle out the answer, as well as the details of one of the most beloved films of all time in this toontastic episode of Green Screen.
What’s the real story behind the “Red Car” train that used to grace L.A.’s streets? Why were nine U.S. companies convicted in antitrust court in 1949 of conspiring to kill rail transit, and why did that case not solve the issue? Did something like the “Cloverleaf company” depicted in this film really exist? How and why did the Automobile Club of Southern California sketch out a plan to use freeways as a tool of ethnic cleansing in Los Angeles? Was the script for this film really first intended as “Chinatown, Part III?” How did the creators of this film manage to make such a huge technical achievement look so easy? What would the cartoon version of Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard look like? How is the film radically different than the book it’s based on? Is Judge Doom the most terrifying cinema villain of all time? Who’s Eddie Deezen and what does he have to do with this movie? All these questions and many, many more are bumping the lamp in this, one of the most fun episodes of Green Screen ever.
Big thanks to John Dorney and Tom Salinsky of the Best Pick podcast, which has been a major influence on Green Screen.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/who-framed-roger-rabbit/Next Movie Up: Nightcrawler (2014)
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We’re back, and the “L.A. Trilogy” is finally here! Joined by Los Angeles journalist and historian Hadley Meares, Sean and Cody delve into the environmental history of L.A. by examining this classic 1974 film noir thriller, generally regarded as one of the finest pictures ever made. In Chinatown, private gumshoe J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by a mysterious femme fatale to stick his soon-to-be-sliced nose into a grubby affair involving L.A.’s water commissioner. The case soon takes a nasty turn as Gittes and his moll Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) find themselves in the mist of a labyrinthine conspiracy to steal water and prime real estate in the biggest swindle of all time. Environmental issues discussed include the real-life “water wars” of L.A. vs. the Owens Valley in the early 1900s, the St. Francis dam disaster of 1928, the Los Angeles river, and ethnic cleansing by Los Angeles authorities in the 1930s, especially involving the power of eminent domain.
How true is the Bond villain-like conspiracy at the heart of Chinatown’s plot? How close is it to the real conspiracy, engineered in the early 1900s, to inflict a deliberate drought on Los Angeles’s prime crop land in advance of a vote on a bond measure to fund water infrastructure? William Mulholland: hero or villain? Why did Owens Valley farmers go full-on terrorist in the 1920s, attacking aqueducts with dynamite? How did the Chinese-American population of L.A. get shafted by their white neighbors, not once, but twice? How does this film exemplify the genre of film noir? What does this picture have to do with the Manson murders and Roman Polanski’s own monstrous crimes? How does Chinatown lead into the next film in the L.A. Trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? All these questions and more are shadowing you in a ‘35 Packard in what may prove to be an iconic episode of Green Screen.
Content warning: the director of this film, Roman Polanski, is a convicted child rapist; there is brief discussion of his crime in the episode.
Chinatown (1974) on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/
Chinatown (1974) on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/chinatown/Next Movie Up: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
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