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artycloudpop · 4 years

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1hey are u bored at home, wanna chill and netflix....... but just can’t find some thing nice to watch? here’s a list of movies for u watch

A Ghost Story (2017)

Director David Lowery (Pete's Dragon) conceived this dazzling, dreamy meditation on the afterlife during the off-hours on a Disney blockbuster, making the revelations within even more awe-inspiring. After a fatal accident, a musician (Casey Affleck) finds himself as a sheet-draped spirit, wandering the halls of his former home, haunting/longing for his widowed wife (Rooney Mara). With stylistic quirks, enough winks to resist pretension (a scene where Mara devours a pie in one five-minute, uncut take is both tragic and cheeky), and a soundscape culled from the space-time continuum, A Ghost Story connects the dots between romantic love, the places we call home, and time -- a ghost's worst enemy.

Airplane! (1980)

This is one of the funniest movie of all time. Devised by the jokesters behind The Naked Gun, this disaster movie spoof stuffs every second of runtime with a physical gag (The nun slapping a hysterical woman!), dimwitted wordplay ("Don't call me, Shirley"), an uncomfortable moment of odd behavior ("Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"), or some other asinine bit. The rare comedy that demands repeat viewings, just to catch every micro-sized joke and memorize every line.

A24

American Honey (2016)

Writer/director Andrea Arnold lets you sit shotgun for the travels of a group of wayward youth in American Honey, a seductive drama about a "mag crew" selling subscriptions and falling in and out of love with each other on the road. Seen through the eyes of Star, played by Sasha Lane, life on the Midwest highway proves to be directionless, filled with a stream of partying and steamy hookups in the backs of cars and on the side of the road, especially when she starts to develop feelings for Shia LaBeouf’s rebellious Jake. It’s an honest look at a group of disenfranchised young people who are often cast aside, and it’s blazing with energy. You’ll buy what they're selling.

Anna Karenina (2012)

Adapted by renowned playwright Tom Stoppard, this take on Leo Tolstoy's classic Russian novel is anything but stuffy, historical drama. Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander are all overflowing with passion and desire, heating up the chilly backdrop of St. Petersburg. But it's director Joe Wright's unique staging -- full of dance, lush costuming, fourth-wall-breaking antics, and other theatrical touches -- that reinvent the story for more daring audiences.

NETFLIX

Apostle (2018)

For his follow-up to his two action epics, The Raid and The Raid 2, director Gareth Evans dials back the hand-to-hand combat but still keeps a few buckets of blood handy in this grisly supernatural horror tale. Dan Stevens stars as Thomas Richardson, an early 20th century opium addict traveling to a cloudy island controlled by a secretive cult that's fallen on hard times. The religious group is led by a bearded scold named Father Malcolm (Michael Sheen) who may or may not be leading his people astray. Beyond a few bursts of kinetic violence and some crank-filled torture sequences, Evans plays this story relatively down-the-middle, allowing the performances, the lofty themes, and the windswept vistas to do the talking. It's a cult movie that earns your devotion slowly, then all at once.

Back to the Future (1985)

Buckle into Doc's DeLorean and head to the 1950s by way of 1985 with the seminal time-travel series that made Michael J. Fox a household name. It's always a joy watching Marty McFly's race against the clock way-back-when to ensure history runs its course and he can get back to the present. Netflix also has follow-up Parts II and III, which all add up to a perfect rainy afternoon marathon.

NETFLIX

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

The Coen brothers gave some big-name-director cred to Netflix by releasing their six-part Western anthology on the streaming service, and while it's not necessarily their best work, Buster Scruggs is clearly a cut above most Netflix originals. Featuring star turns from Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, and more, the film takes advantage of Netflix's willingness to experiment by composing a sort of death fugue that unfolds across the harsh realities of life in Manifest Destiny America. Not only does it revel in the massive, sweeping landscapes of the American West, but it's a thoughtful meditation on death that will reveal layer after layer long after you finish.

Barbershop (2002)

If you've been sleeping on the merits of the Barbershop movies, the good news is it's never too late to get caught up. Revisit the 2002 installment that started Ice Cube's smack-talking franchise so you can bask in Cedric the Entertainer's hilarious wisdom, enjoy Eve's acting debut, and admire this joyful ode to community.

NETFLIX

Barry (2016)

In 1981, Barack Obama touched down in New York City to begin work at Columbia University. As Barry imagines, just days after settling into his civics class, a white classmate confronts the Barry with an argument one will find in the future president's Twitter @-mentions: "Why does everything always got to be about slavery?" Exaltation is cinematic danger, especially when bringing the life of a then-sitting president to screen. Barry avoids hagiography by staying in the moment, weighing race issues of a modern age and quieting down for the audience to draw its own conclusions. Devon Terrell is key, steadying his character as smooth-operating, socially active, contemplative fellow stuck in an interracial divide. Barry could be any half-black, half-white kid from the '80s. But in this case, he's haunted by past, present, and future.

Being John Malkovich (1999)

You can't doubt the audacity of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Anomalisa), whose first produced screenplay hinged on attracting the title actor to a script that has office drones discovering a portal into his mind. John Cusack, Catherine Keener, and Cameron Diaz combine to create an atmosphere of desperate, egomaniacal darkness, and by the end you'll feel confused and maybe a little slimy about the times you've participated in celebrity gawking.

A24

The Blackcoat's Daughter (2017)

Two young women are left behind at school during break... and all sorts of hell breaks loose. This cool, stylish thriller goes off in some strange directions (and even offers a seemingly unrelated subplot about a mysterious hitchhiker) but it all pays off in the end, thanks in large part to the three leads -- Emma Roberts, Lucy Boynton, and Kiernan Shipka -- and director Oz Perkins' artful approach to what could have been just another occult-based gore-fest.

Bloodsport (1988)

Jean-Claude Van Damme made a career out of good-not-great fluff. Universal Soldier is serviceable spectacle, Hard Target is a living cartoon, Lionheart is his half-baked take on On the Waterfront. Bloodsport, which owes everything to the legacy of Bruce Lee, edges out his Die Hard riff Sudden Death for his best effort, thanks to muscles-on-top-of-muscles-on-top-of-muscles fighting and Stan Bush's "Fight to Survive." Magic Mike has nothing on Van Damme's chiseled backside in Bloodsport, which flexes its way through a slow-motion karate-chop gauntlet. In his final face-off, Van Damme, blinded by arena dust, rage-screams his way to victory. The amount of adrenaline bursting out of Bloodsport demands a splash zone.

Blue Ruin (2013)

Before he went punk with 2016's siege thriller Green Room, director Jeremy Saulnier delivered this low-budget, darkly comic hillbilly noir. When Dwight Evans (Macon Blair) discovers that the man who killed his parents is being released from prison, he returns home to Virginia to claims his revenge and things quickly spin out of control. Like the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple, this wise-ass morality tale will make you squirm.

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Burning (2018)

Some mysteries simmer; this one smolders. In his adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story, writer and director Lee Chang-dong includes many elements of the acclaimed author's slyly mischievous style -- cats, jazz, cooking, and an alienated male writer protagonist all pop up -- but he also invests the material with his own dark humor, stray references to contemporary news, and an unyielding sense of curiosity. We follow aimless aspiring novelist Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) as he reconnects with Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), a young woman he grew up with, but the movie never lets you get too comfortable in one scene or setting. When Steven Yeun's Ben, a handsome rich guy with a beautiful apartment and a passion for burning down greenhouses, appears, the film shifts to an even more tremulous register. Can Ben be trusted? Yeun's performance is perfectly calibrated to entice and confuse, like he's a suave, pyromaniac version of Tyler Durden. Each frame keeps you guessing.

Cam (2018)

Unlike the Unfriended films or this summer's indie hit Searching, this web thriller from director Daniel Goldhaber and screenwriter Isa Mazzei isn't locked into the visual confines of a computer screen. Though there's plenty of online screen time, allowing for subtle bits of commentary and satire, the looser style allows the filmmakers to really explore the life and work conditions of their protagonist, rising cam girl Alice (Madeline Brewer). We meet her friends, her family, and her customers. That type of immersion in the granular details makes the scarier bits -- like an unnerving confrontation in the finale between Alice and her evil doppelganger -- pop even more.

THE ORCHARD

Creep (2014)

Patrick Brice's found-footage movie is a no-budget answer to a certain brand of horror, but saying more would give away its sinister turns. Just know that the man behind the camera answered a Craigslist ad to create a "day in the life" video diary for Josef (Mark Duplass), who really loves life. Creep proves that found footage, the indie world's no-budget genre solution, still has life, as long as you have a performer like Duplass willing to go all the way.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Armando Iannucci, the brilliant Veep creator, set his sights on Russia with this savage political satire. Based on a graphic novel, the film dramatizes the madcap, maniacal plots of the men jostling for power after their leader, Joseph Stalin, keels over. From there, backstabbing, furious insults, and general chaos unfolds. Anchored by performances from Shakespearean great Simon Russell Beale and American icon Steve Buscemi, it's a pleasure to see what the rest of the cast -- from Star Trek: Discovery's Jason Isaacs to Homeland's Rupert Friend -- do with Iannucci's eloquently brittle text.

Den of Thieves (2018)

If there's one thing you've probably heard about this often ridiculous bank robbery epic, it's that it steals shamelessly from Michael Mann's crime saga Heat. The broad plot elements are similar: There's a team of highly-efficient criminals led by a former Marine (Pablo Schreiber) and they must contend with a obsessive, possibly unhinged cop (Gerard Butler) over the movie's lengthy 140 minute runtime. A screenwriter helming a feature for the first time, director Christian Gudegast is not in the same league as Mann as a filmmaker and Butler, sporting unflattering tattoos and a barrel-like gut, is hardly Al Pacino. But everyone is really going for it here, attempting to squeeze every ounce of Muscle Milk from the bottle.

NETFLIX

Divines (2016)

Thrillers don't come much more propulsive or elegant than Houda Benyamina's Divines, a heartwarming French drama about female friendship that spirals into a pulse-pounding crime saga. Rambunctious teenager Dounia (Oulaya Amamra) and her best friend Maimouna (Déborah Lukumuena) begin the film as low-level shoplifters and thieves, but once they fall into the orbit of a slightly older, seasoned drug dealer named Rebecca (Jisca Kalvanda), they're on a Goodfellas-like trajectory. Benyamina offsets the violent, gritty genre elements with lyrical passages where Dounia watches her ballet-dancer crush rehearse his routines from afar, and kinetic scenes of the young girls goofing off on social media. It's a cautionary tale told with joy, empathy, and an eye for beauty.

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Eddie Murphy has been waiting years to get this movie about comedian and blaxploitation star Rudy Ray Moore made, and you can feel his joy in finally getting to play this role every second he's on screen. The film, directed by Hustle & Flow's Craig Brewer, charts how Moore rose from record store employee, to successful underground comedian, to making his now-cult classic feature Dolemite by sheer force of passion. It's thrilling (and hilarious) to watch Murphy adopt Moore's Dolemite persona, a swaggering pimp, but it's just as satisfying to see the former SNL star capture his character at his lowest points. He's surrounded by an ensemble that matches his infectious energy.

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

As romanticized as adolescence can be, it’s hard being young. Following the high school experience of troubled, overdramatic Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), The Edge of Seventeen portrays the woes of adolescence with a tender, yet appropriately cheeky tone. As if junior year isn’t hellish enough, the universe essentially bursts into flames when Nadine finds out her best friend is dating her brother; their friendship begins to dissolve, and she finds the only return on young love is embarrassment and pain. That may all sound like a miserable premise for a young-adult movie, except it’s all painfully accurate, making it endearingly hilarious -- and there’s so much to love about Steinfeld’s self-aware performance.

FOCUS FEATURES

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Romance and love are nothing without the potential for loss and pain, but most of us would probably still consider cutting away all the worst memories of the latter. Given the option to eradicate memories of their busted relationship, Jim Carrey's Joel and Kate Winslet's Clementine go through with the procedure, only to find themselves unable to totally let go. Science fiction naturally lends itself to clockwork mechanisms, but director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman never lose the human touch as they toy with the kaleidoscope of their characters' hearts and minds.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Before Bruce Campbell's Ash was wielding his chainsaw-arm in Army of Darkness and on Starz's Ash Vs. Evil Dead, he was just a good looking guy hoping to spend a nice, quiet vacation in a cabin with some friends. Unfortunately, the book of the dead had other plans for him. With this low-budget horror classic, director Sam Raimi brings a surprising degree of technical ingenuity to bear on the splatter-film, sending his camera zooming around the woods with wonder and glee. While the sequels double-downed on laughs, the original Evil Dead still knows how to scare.

The Firm (1993)

The '90s were a golden era of sleek, movie-star-packed legal thrillers, and they don't get much better than director Sydney Pollack's The Firm. This John Grisham adaptation has a little bit of everything -- tax paperwork, sneering mobsters, and Garey Busey, for starters -- but there's one reason to watch this movie: the weirdness of Tom Cruise. He does a backflip in this movie. What else do you need to know?

A24

The Florida Project (2017)

Sean Baker's The Florida Project nuzzles into the swirling, sunny, strapped-for-cash populace of a mauve motel just within orbit of Walt Disney World. His eyes are Moonee, a 6-year-old who adventures through abandoned condos, along strip mall-encrusted highway, and across verdant fields of overgrown brush like Max in Where the Wild Things Are. But as gorgeous as the everything appears -- and The Florida Project looks stunning -- the world around here is falling apart, beginning with her mother, an ex-stripper turning to prostitution. The juxtaposition, and down-to-earth style, reconsiders modern America in the most electrifying way imaginable.

Frances Ha (2012)

Before winning hearts and Oscar nominations with her coming-of-age comedy Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig starred in the perfect companion film, about an aimless 27-year-old who hops from New York City to her hometown of Sacramento to Paris to Poughkeepsie and eventually back to New York in hopes of stumbling into the perfect job, the perfect relationship, and the perfect life. Directed by Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories), and co-written by both, Frances Ha is a measured look at adult-ish life captured the kind of intoxicating black and white world we dream of living in.

NETFLIX

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019)

Everyone's favorite disaster of a festival received not one, but two streaming documentaries in the same week. Netflix's version has rightly faced some criticism over its willingness to let marketing company Fuck Jerry off the hook (Jerry Media produced the doc), but that doesn't take away from the overall picture it portrays of the festival's haphazard planning and the addiction to grift from which Fyre's founder, Billy McFarland, apparently suffers. It's schadenfreude at its best.

Gerald's Game (2017)

Like his previous low-budget Netflix-released horror release, Hush, a captivity thriller about a deaf woman fighting off a masked intruder, Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation of Gerald's Game wrings big scares from a small location. Sticking close to the grisly plot details of King's seemingly "unfilmable" novel, the movie chronicles the painstaking struggles of Jessie Burlingame (Carla Gugino) after she finds herself handcuffed to a bed in an isolated vacation home when her husband, the titular Gerald, dies from a heart attack while enacting his kinky sexual fantasies. She's trapped -- and that's it. The premise is clearly challenging to sustain for a whole movie, but Flanagan and Gugino turn the potentially one-note set-up into a forceful, thoughtful meditation on trauma, memory, and resilience in the face of near-certain doom.

A24

Good Time (2017)

In this greasy, cruel thriller from Uncut Gems directors the Safdie brothers, Robert Pattinson stars as Connie, a bank robber who races through Queens to find enough money to bail out his mentally disabled brother, who's locked up for their last botched job. Each suffocating second of Good Time, blistered by the neon backgrounds of Queens, New York and propelled by warped heartbeat of Oneothrix Point Never's synth score, finds Connie evading authorities by tripping into an even stickier situation.

Green Room (2015)

Green Room is a throaty, thrashing, spit-slinging punk tune belted through an invasion-movie microphone at max volume. It's nasty -- and near-perfect. As a band of 20-something rockstars recklessly defend against a neo-Nazi battalion equipped with machetes, shotguns, and snarling guard dogs, the movie blossoms into a savage coming-of-age tale, an Almost Famous for John Carpenter nuts. Anyone looking for similar mayhem should check out director Jeremy Saulnier's previous movie, the low-budget, darkly comic hillbilly noir, Blue Ruin, also streaming on Netflix.

The Guest (2014)

After writer-director Adam Wingard notched a semi-sleeper horror hit with 2011's You're Next, he'd earned a certain degree of goodwill among genre faithful and, apparently, with studio brass. How else to explain distribution for his atypical thriller The Guest through Time Warner subsidiary Picturehouse? Headlined by soon-to-be megastar Dan Stevens and kindred flick It Follows' lead scream queen Maika Monroe, The Guest introduces itself as a subtextual impostor drama, abruptly spins through a blender of '80s teen tropes, and ultimately reveals its true identity as an expertly self-conscious straight-to-video shoot 'em up, before finally circling back on itself with a well-earned wink. To say anymore about the hell that Stevens' "David" unleashes on a small New Mexico town would not only spoil the fun, but possibly get you killed.

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Quentin Tarantino has something to say about race, violence, and American life, and it's going to ruffle feathers. Like Django Unchained, the writer-director reflects modern times on the Old West, but with more scalpel-sliced dialogue, profane poetry, and gore. Stewed from bits of Agatha Christie, David Mamet, and Sam Peckinpah, The Hateful Eight traps a cast of blowhards (including Samuel L. Jackson as a Civil War veteran, Kurt Russell as a bounty hunter known as "The Hangman," and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a psychopathic gang member) in a blizzard-enveloped supply station. Tarantino ups the tension by shooting his suffocating space in "glorious 70mm." Treachery and moral compromise never looked so good.

High Flying Bird (2019)

High Flying Bird is a basketball film that has little to do with the sport itself, instead focusing on the behind-the-scenes power dynamics that play out during an NBA lockout. At the center of the Steven Soderbergh movie -- shot on an iPhone, because that's what he does now -- is André Holland's Ray Burke, a sports agent trying to protect his client's interests while also disrupting a corrupt system. It's not an easy tightrope to walk, and, as you might expect, the conditions of the labor stoppage constantly change the playing field. With his iPhone mirroring the NBA's social media-heavy culture, and appearances from actual NBA stars lending the narrative heft, Soderbergh experiments with Netflix's carte blanche and produces a unique film that adds to the streaming service's growing list of original critical hits.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Hugo (2011)

Martin Scorsese hit pause on mob violence and Rolling Stones singles to deliver one of the greatest kid-centric films in eons. Following Hugo (Asa Butterfield) as he traces his own origin story through cryptic automaton clues and early 20th-century movie history, the grand vision wowed in 3-D and still packs a punch at home.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)

A meditative horror flick that's more unsettling than outright frightening, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House follows the demise of Lily, a live-in nurse (Ruth Wilson) who's caring for an ailing horror author. As Lily discovers the truth about the writer's fiction and home, the lines between the physical realm and the afterlife blur. The movie's slow pacing and muted escalation might frustrate viewers craving showy jump-scares, but writer-director Oz Perkins is worth keeping tabs on. He brings a beautiful eeriness to every scene, and his story will captivate patient streamers. Fans should be sure to check out his directorial debut, The Blackcoat's Daughter.

NETFLIX

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)

In this maniacal mystery, Ruth (Melanie Lynskey), a nurse, and her rattail-sporting, weapon-obsessed neighbor Tony (Elijah Wood) hunt down a local burglar. Part Cormac McCarthy thriller, part wacky, Will Ferrell-esque comedy, I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore is a cathartic neo-noir about everyday troubles. Director Macon Blair's not the first person to find existential enlightenment at the end of an amateur detective tale, but he might be the first to piece one together from cussing octogenarians, ninja stars, Google montages, gallons of Big Red soda, upper-deckers, friendly raccoons, exploding body parts, and the idiocy of humanity.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

With a bullwhip, a leather jacket, and an "only Harrison Ford can pull this off" fedora, director Steven Spielberg invented the modern Hollywood action film by doing what he does best: looking backward. As obsessed as his movie-brat pal and collaborator George Lucas with the action movie serials of their youth, the director mined James Bond, Humphrey Bogart, Westerns, and his hatred of Nazis to create an adventure classic. To watch Raiders of the Lost Ark now is to marvel at the ingenuity of specific sequences (the boulder! The truck scene! The face-melting!) and simply groove to the self-deprecating comic tone (snakes! Karen Allen! That swordsman Indy shoots!). The past has never felt so alive.

Inside Man (2006)

Denzel Washington is at his wily, sharp, and sharply dressed best as he teams up once again with Spike Lee for this wildly entertaining heist thriller. He's an NYPD hostage negotiator who discovers a whole bunch of drama when a crew of robbers (led by Clive Owen) takes a bank hostage during a 24-hour period. Jodie Foster also appears as an interested party with uncertain motivations. You'll have to figure out what's going on several times over before the truth outs.

DRAFTHOUSE FILMS

The Invitation (2015)

This slow-burn horror-thriller preys on your social anxiety. The film's first half-hour, which finds Quarry's Logan Marshall-Green arriving at his ex-wife's house to meet her new husband, plays like a Sundance dramedy about 30-something yuppies and their relationship woes. As the minutes go by, director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer's Body) burrows deeper into the awkward dinner party, finding tension in unwelcome glances, miscommunication, and the possibility that Marshall-Green's character might be misreading a bizarre situation as a dangerous one. We won't spoil what happens, but let's just say this is a party you'll be telling your friends about.

Ip Man (2008)

There aren't many biopics that also pass for decent action movies. Somehow, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen and director Wilson Yip made Ip Man (and three sequels!) based on the life of Chinese martial arts master Yip Kai-man, who famously trained Bruce Lee. What's their trick to keeping this series fresh? Play fast and loose with the facts, up the melodrama with each film, and, when in doubt, cast Mike Tyson as an evil property developer. The fights are incredible, and Yen's portrayal of the aging master still has the power to draw a few tears from even the most grizzled tough guy.

NETFLIX

The Irishman (2019)

Opening with a tracking shot through the halls of a drab nursing home, where we meet a feeble old man telling tall tales from his wheelchair, The Irishman delights in undercutting its own grandiosity. All the pageantry a $150 million check from Netflix can buy -- the digital de-aging effects, the massive crowd scenes, the shiny rings passed between men -- is on full display. Everything looks tremendous. But, like with 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, the characters can't escape the fundamental spiritual emptiness of their pursuits. In telling the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a World War II veteran and truck driver turned mob enforcer and friend to labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Steven Zaillian construct an underworld-set counter-narrative of late 20th century American life. Even with a 209 minute runtime, every second counts.

It Comes at Night (2017)

In this post-apocalyptic nightmare-and-a-half, the horrors of humanity, the strain of chaotic emotions pent up in the name of survival, bleed out through wary eyes and weathered hands. The setup is blockbuster-sized -- reverts mankind to the days of the American frontier, every sole survivor fights to protect their families and themselves -- but the drama is mano-a-mano. Barricaded in a haunted-house-worthy cabin in the woods, Paul (Edgerton) takes in Will (Abbott) and his family, knowing full well they could threaten his family's existence. All the while, Paul's son, Trevor, battles bloody visions of (or induced by?) the contagion. Shults directs the hell out of every slow-push frame of this psychological thriller, and the less we know, the more confusion feels like a noose around our necks, the scarier his observations become.

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Jupiter Ascending is one of those "bad" movies that might genuinely be quite good. Yes, Channing Tatum is a man-wolf and Mila Kunis is the princess of space and bees don't sting space royalty and Eddie Redmayne hollers his little head off about "harvesting" people -- but what makes this movie great is how all of those things make total, absolute sense in the context of the story. The world the Wachowskis (yes, the Wachowskis!) created is so vibrant and strange and exciting, you almost can't help but get drawn in, even when Redmayne vamps so hard you're afraid he's about to pull a muscle. (And if you're a ballet fan, we have some good news for you.)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Perhaps the only movie that ever truly deserved a conversion to a theme-park ride, Steven Spielberg's thrilling adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel brought long-extinct creatures back to life in more ways than one. Benevolent Netflix gives us more than just the franchise starter, too: The Lost World and JP3 sequels are also available, so you can make a marathon of it.

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Killing Them Softly (2012)

Brad Pitt doesn't make conventional blockbusters anymore -- even World War Z had epidemic-movie ambitions -- so it's not surprising that this crime thriller is a little out there. Set during the financial crisis and presidential election of 2008, the film follows Pitt's hitman character as he makes sense of a poker heist gone wrong, leaving a trail of bodies and one-liners along the way. Mixed in with the carnage, you get lots of musings about the economy and American exceptionalism. It's not subtle -- there's a scene where Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn do heroin while the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" plays -- but, like a blunt object to the head, it gets the job done.

Lady Bird (2017)

The dizzying, frustrating, exhilarating rite of passage that is senior year of high school is the focus of actress Greta Gerwig's first directorial effort, the story of girl named Lady Bird (her given name, in that "it’s given to me, by me") who rebels against everyday Sacramento, California life to obtain whatever it is "freedom" turns out to be. Laurie Metcalf is an understated powerhouse as Lady Bird's mother, a constant source of contention who doggedly pushes her daughter to be successful in the face of the family's dwindling economic resources. It's a tragic note in total complement to Gerwig's hysterical love letter to home, high school, and the history of ourselves.

A24

The Lobster (2016)

Greek style master Yorgos Lanthimos' dystopian allegory against romance sees Colin Farrell forced to choose a partner in 45 days or he'll be turned into an animal of his choice, which is a lobster. Stuck in a group home with similarly unlucky singles, Farrell's David decides to bust out and join other renegades in a kind of anti-love terror cell that lives in the woods. It's part comedy of manners, part futuristic thriller, and it looks absolutely beautiful -- Lanthimos handles the bizarre premise with grace and a naturalistic eye that reminds the viewer that humans remain one of the most interesting animals to exist on this planet.

Mad Max (1979)

Before Tom Hardy was grunting his way through the desert and crushing tiny two-headed reptiles as Max Rockatansky, there was Mel Gibson. George Miller's 1979 original introduces the iconic character and paints the maximum force of his dystopian mythology in a somewhat more grounded light -- Australian police factions, communities, and glimmers of hope still in existence. Badass homemade vehicles and chase scenes abound in this taut, 88-minute romp. It's aged just fine.

Magic Mike (2012)

Steven Soderbergh's story of a Tampa exotic dancer with a heart of gold (Channing Tatum) has body-rolled its way to Netflix. Sexy dance routines aside, Mike's story is just gritty enough to be subversive. Did we mention Matthew McConaughey shows up in a pair of ass-less chaps?

The Master (2012)

Loosely inspired by the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard -- Dianetics buffs, we strongly recommend Alex Gibney's Going Clear documentary as a companion piece -- The Master boasts one of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s finest performances, as the enigmatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd. Joaquin Phoenix burns just as brightly as his emotionally stunted, loose-cannon protege Freddie Quell, who has a taste for homemade liquor. Paul Thomas Anderson’s cerebral epic lends itself to many different readings; it’s a cult story, it's a love story, it's a story about post-war disillusionment and the American dream, it's a story of individualism and the desire to belong. But the auteur's popping visuals and heady thematic currents will still sweep you away, even if you’re not quite sure where the tide is taking you.

NETFLIX

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

When Danny (Adam Sandler), Matthew (Ben Stiller) and Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), three half-siblings from three different mothers, gather at their family brownstone in New York to tend to their ailing father (Dustin Hoffman), a lifetime of familial politics explode out of every minute of conversation. Their narcissistic sculptor dad didn't have time for Danny. Matthew was the golden child. Jean was weird… or maybe disturbed by memories no one ever knew. Expertly sketched by writer-director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) this memoir-like portrait of lives half-lived is the kind of bittersweet, dimensional character comedy we're now used to seeing told in three seasons of prestige television. Baumbach gives us the whole package in two hours.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

The legendary British comedy troupe took the legend of King Arthur and offered a characteristically irreverent take on it in their second feature film. It's rare for comedy to hold up this well, but the timelessness of lines like, "I fart in your general direction!" "It's just a flesh wound," and "Run away!" makes this a movie worth watching again and again.

A24

Moonlight (2016)

Chronicling the boyhood years, teenage stretch, and muted adult life of Chiron, a black gay man making it in Miami, this triptych altarpiece is at once hyper-specific and cosmically universal. Director Barry Jenkins roots each moment in the last; Chiron's desire for a lost lover can't burn in a diner booth over a bottle of wine without his beachside identity crisis years prior, blurred and violent, or encounters from deeper in his past, when glimpses of his mother's drug addiction, or the mentoring acts of her crack supplier, felt like secrets delivered in code. Panging colors, sounds, and the delicate movements of its perfect cast like the notes of a symphony, Moonlight is the real deal, a movie that will only grow and complicate as you wrestle with it.

Mudbound (2017)

The South's post-slavery existence is, for Hollywood, mostly uncharted territory. Rees rectifies the overlooked stretch of history with this novelistic drama about two Mississippi families working a rain-drenched farm in 1941. The white McAllans settle on a muddy patch of land to realize their dreams. The Jacksons, a family of black sharecroppers working the land, have their own hopes, which their neighbors manage to nurture and curtail. To capture a multitude of perspectives, Mudbound weaves together specific scenes of daily life, vivid and memory-like, with family member reflections, recorded in whispered voice-over. The epic patchwork stretches from the Jackson family dinner table, where the youngest daughter dreams of becoming a stenographer, to the vistas of Mississippi, where incoming storms threaten an essential batch of crops, to the battlefields of World War II Germany, a harrowing scene that will affect both families. Confronting race, class, war, and the possibility of unity, Mudbound spellbinding drama reckons with the past to understand the present.

NETFLIX

My Happy Family (2017)

At 52, Manana (Ia Shughliashvili) packs a bag and walks out on her husband, son, daughter, daughter's live-in boyfriend, and elderly mother and father, all of whom live together in a single apartment. The family is cantankerous and blustery, asking everything of Manana, who spends her days teaching better-behaved teenagers about literature. But as Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß's striking character study unfolds, the motivation behind Manana's departure is a deeper strain of frustration, despite what her brother, aunts, uncles, and anyone else who can cram themselves into the situation would like us to think. Anchored by Ia Shughliashvili's stunningly internal performance, and punctured by a dark sense of humor akin to Darren Aronofsky's mother! (which would have been the perfect alternate title), My Happy Family is both delicate and brutal in its portrayal of independence, and should get under the skin of anyone with their own family drama.

The Naked Gun (1988)

The short-lived Dragnet TV spoof Police Squad! found a second life as The Naked Gun action-comedy movie franchise, and the first installment goes all in on Airplane! co-star Leslie Nielsen's brand of straight-laced dementia. Trying to explain The Naked Gun only makes the stupid sound stupider, but keen viewers will find jokes on top of jokes on top of jokes. It's the kind of movie that can crack "nice beaver," then pass a stuffed beaver through the frame and actually get away with it. Nielsen has everything to do with it; his Frank Drebin continues the grand Inspector Clouseau tradition in oh-so-'80s style.

The Notebook (2004)

"If you’re a bird, I’m a bird." It's a simple statement and a declaration of devotion that captures the staying power of this Nicholas Sparks classic. The film made Ryan Gosling a certified heartthrob, charting his working class character Noah's lovelorn romance with Rachel McAdam's wealthy character Allie. The star-crossed lovers narrative is enough to make even the most cynical among us swoon, but given that their story is told through an elderly man reading (you guessed it!) a notebook to a woman with dementia, it hits all of the tragic romance benchmarks to make you melt. Noah's commitment to following his heart -- and that passionate kiss in the rain -- make this a love story for the ages.

NETFLIX

Okja (2017)

This wild ride, part action heist, part Miyazaki-like travelogue, and part scathing satire, is fueled by fairy tale whimsy -- but the Grimm kind, where there are smiles and spilled blood. Ahn Seo-hyun plays Mija, the young keeper of a "super-pig," bred by a food manufacturer to be the next step in human-consumption evolution. When the corporate overlords come for her roly-poly pal, Mija hightails it from the farm to the big city to break him out, crossing environmental terrorists, a zany Steve Irwin-type (Gyllenhaal), and the icy psychos at the top of the food chain (including Swinton's childlike CEO) along the way. Okja won't pluck your heartstrings like E.T., but there's grandeur in its frenzy, and the film's cross-species friendship will strike up every other emotion with its empathetic, eco-friendly, and eccentric observations.

On Body and Soul (2017)

This Hungarian film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, and it's easy to see why. The sparse love story begins when two slaughterhouse employees discover they have the same dream at night, in which they're both deer searching the winter forest for food. Endre, a longtime executive at the slaughterhouse, has a physically damaged arm, whereas Maria is a temporary replacement who seems to be on the autism spectrum. If the setup sounds a bit on-the-nose, the moving performances and the unflinching direction save On Body and Soul from turning into a Thomas Aquinas 101 class, resulting in the kind of bleak beauty you can find in a dead winter forest.

NETFLIX

The Other Side of the Wind (2018)

Don't go into Orson Welles' final film expecting it to be an easy watch. The Other Side of the Wind, which follows fictional veteran Hollywood director Jake Hannaford (tooootally not modeled after Welles himself) and his protegé (also tooootally not a surrogate for Welles' own friend and mentee Peter Bogdanovich, who also plays the character) as they attend a party in celebration of Hannaford's latest film and are beset on all sides by Hannaford's friends, enemies, and everyone in between. The film, which Welles hoped would be his big comeback to Hollywood, was left famously unfinished for decades after his death in 1985. Thanks to Bogdanovich and producer Frank Marshall, it was finally completed in 2018, and the result is a vibrant and bizarre throwback to Welles' own experimental 1970s style, made even more resonant if you know how intertwined the movie is with its own backstory. If you want to dive even deeper, Netflix also released a documentary about the restoration and completion of the film, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, which delves into Welles' own complicated and tragic relationship with Hollywood and the craft of moviemaking.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Guillermo Del Toro’s dark odyssey Pan’s Labyrinth takes a fantasy setting to mirror the horrible political realities of the human realm. Set in 1940s Falangist Spain, the film documents the hero’s journey of a young girl and stepdaughter of a ruthless Spanish army officer as she seeks an escape from her war-occupied world. When a fairy informs her that her true destiny may be as the princess of the underworld, she seizes her chance. Like Alice in Wonderland if Alice had gone to Hell instead of down the rabbit hole, the Academy Award-winning film is a wondrous, frightening fairy tale where that depicts how perilous the human-created monster of war can be.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

This documentary-style film budgeted at a mere $15,000 made millions at the box office and went on to inspire a number of sequels, all because of how well its scrappiness lent to capturing what feels like a terrifying haunted reality. Centered on a young couple who is convinced an evil spirit is lurking in their home, the two attempt to capture its activity on camera, which, obviously, only makes their supernatural matters worse. It leans on found footage horror tropes made popular by The Blair Witch Project and as it tessellates between showing the viewer what’s captured on their camcorders and the characters’ perspectives, it’s easy to get lost in this disorienting supernatural thriller.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Poltergeist (1982)

If you saw Poltergeist growing up, chances are you’re probably equally as haunted by Heather O’Rourke as she is in the film, playing a little girl tormented by ghosts in her family home. This Steven Spielberg-penned, Tobe Hooper-directed (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) paranormal flick is a certified cult classic and one of the best horror films of all time, coming from a simple premise about a couple whose home is infested with spirits obsessed with reclaiming the space and kidnapping their daughter. Poltergeist made rearranged furniture freaky, and you may remember a particularly iconic scene with a fuzzed out vintage television set. It’s may be nearly 40 years old, but the creepiness holds up.

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Taking Jane Austen's literary classic and tricking it out with gorgeous long takes, director Joe Wright turns this tale of manners into a visceral, luminescent portrait of passion and desire. While Succession's Matthew MacFadyen might not make you forget Colin Firth from 1995's BBC adaptation, Keira Knightley is a revelation as the tough, nervy Lizzie Bennett. With fun supporting turns from Donald Sutherland, Rosamund Pike, and Judi Dench, it's a sumptuous period romance that transports you from the couch to the ballroom of your dreams -- without changing out of sweatpants.

NETFLIX

Private Life (2018)

Over a decade since the release of her last dark comedy, The Savages, writer and director Tamara Jenkins returned with a sprawling movie in the same vein: more hyper-verbal jerks you can't help but love. Richard (Paul Giamatti) and Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) are a Manhattan-dwelling couple who have spent the last few years attempting to have a baby with little success. When we meet them, they're already in the grips of fertility mania, willing to try almost anything to secure the offspring they think they desire. With all the details about injections, side effects, and pricey medical procedures, the movie functions as a taxonomy of modern pregnancy anxieties, and Hahn brings each part of the process to glorious life.

The Ritual (2018)

The Ritual, a horror film where a group of middle-aged men embark on a hiking trip in honor of a dead friend, understands the tension between natural beauty of the outdoors and the unsettling panic of the unknown. The group's de facto leader Luke (an understated Rafe Spall) attempts to keep the adventure from spiralling out of control, but the forest has other plans. (Maybe brush up on your Scandinavian mythology before viewing.) Like a backpacking variation on Neil Marshall's 2005 cave spelunking classic The Descent, The Ritual deftly explores inter-personal dynamics while delivering jolts of other-worldly terror. It'll have you rethinking that weekend getaway on your calendar.

NETFLIX

Roma (2018)

All those billions Netflix spent paid off in the form of several Oscar nominations for Roma, including one for Best Picture and a win for Best Director. Whether experienced in the hushed reverence of a theater, watched on the glowing screen of a laptop, or, as Netflix executive Ted Sarandos has suggested, binged on the perilous surface of a phone, Alfonso Cuarón's black-and-white passion project seeks to stun. A technical craftsman of the highest order, the Children of Men and Gravity director has an aesthetic that aims to overwhelm -- with the amount of extras, the sense of despair, and the constant whir of exhilaration -- and this autobiographical portrait of kind-hearted maid Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) caring for a family in the early 1970s has been staged on a staggering, mind-boggling scale.

Schindler's List (1993)

A passion project for Steven Spielberg, who shot it back-to-back with another masterpiece, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who reportedly saved over 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. Frank, honest, and stark in its depiction of Nazi violence, the three-hour historical drama is a haunting reminder of the world's past, every frame a relic, every lost voice channeled through Itzhak Perlman's mourning violin.

A Serious Man (2009)

This dramedy from the Coen brothers stars Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics professor who just can't catch a break, whether it's with his wife, his boss, or his rabbi. (Seriously, if you're having a bad day, this airy flick gives you ample time to brood and then come to the realization that your life isn't as shitty as you think.) Meditating on the spiritual and the temporal, Gopnik's improbable run of bad luck is a smart modern retelling of the Book of Job, with more irony and fewer plagues and pestilences. But not much fewer.

WELL GO USA

Shadow (2019)

In Shadow, the visually stunning action epic from Hero and House of Flying Daggers wuxia master Zhang Yimou, parasols are more than helpful sun-blockers: They can be turned into deadly weapons, shooting boomerang-like blades of steel at oncoming attackers and transforming into protective sleds for traveling through the slick streets. These devices are one of many imaginative leaps made in telling this Shakespearean saga of palace intrigue, vengeance, and secret doppelgangers set in China's Three Kingdoms period. This is a martial arts epic where the dense plotting is as tricky as the often balletic fight scenes. If the battles in Game of Thrones left you frustrated, Shadow provides a thrilling alternative.

She's Gotta Have It (1986)

Before checking out Spike Lee's Netflix original series of the same name, be sure to catch up with where it all began. Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns) juggles three men during her sexual pinnacle, and it's all working out until they discover one another. She's Gotta Have It takes some dark turns, but each revelation speaks volumes about what real romantic independence is all about.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

The late director Jonathan Demme's 1991 film is the touchstone for virtually every serial killer film and television show that came after. The iconic closeup shots of an icy, confident Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) as he and FBI newbie Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) engage in their "quid pro quo" interrogation sessions create almost unbearable tension as Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) remains on the loose, killing more victims. Hopkins delivers the more memorable lines, and Buffalo Bill's dance is the stuff of nerve-wracking anxiety nightmares, but it's Foster's nuanced performance as a scared, determined, smart-yet-hesitant agent that sets Silence of the Lambs apart from the rest of the serial killer pack.

THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and David O. Russell’s first collaboration -- and the film that turned J-Law into a bona fide golden girl -- is a romantic comedy/dramedy/dance-flick that bounces across its tonal shifts. A love story between Pat (Cooper), a man struggling with bipolar disease and a history of violent outbursts, and Tiffany (Lawrence), a widow grappling with depression, who come together while rehearsing for an amateur dance competition, Silver Linings balances an emotionally realistic depiction of mental illness with some of the best twirls and dips this side of Step Up. Even if you're allergic to rom-coms, Lawrence and Cooper’s winning chemistry will win you over, as will this sweet little gem of a film: a feel-good, affecting love story that doesn’t feel contrived or treacly.

Sin City (2005)

Frank Miller enlisted Robert Rodriguez as co-director to translate the former's wildly popular series of the same name to the big screen, and with some added directorial work from Quentin Tarantino, the result became a watershed moment in the visual history of film. The signature black-and-white palette with splashes of color provided a grim backdrop to the sensational violence of the miniaturized plotlines -- this is perhaps the movie that feels more like a comic than any other movie you'll ever see.

Sinister (2012)

Horror-movie lesson #32: If you move into a creepy new house, do not read the dusty book, listen to the decaying cassette tapes, or watch the Super 8 reels you find in the attic -- they will inevitably lead to your demise. In Sinister, a true-crime author (played by Ethan Hawke) makes the final mistake, losing his mind to home movies haunted by the "Bughuul."

NETFLIX

Small Crimes (2017)

It's always a little discombobulating to see your favorite Game of Thrones actors in movies that don't call on them to fight dragons, swing swords, or at least wear some armor. But that shouldn't stop you from checking out Small Crimes, a carefully paced thriller starring the Kingslayer Jaime Lannister himself, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. As Joe Denton, a crooked cop turned ex-con, Coster-Waldau plays yet another character with a twisted moral compass, but here he's not part of some mythical narrative. He's just another conniving, scheming dirtbag in director E.L. Katz's Coen brothers-like moral universe. While some of the plot details are confusing -- Katz and co-writer Macon Blair skimp on the exposition so much that some of the dialogue can feel incomprehensible -- the mood of Midwestern dread and Coster-Waldau's patient, lived-in performance make this one worth checking out. Despite the lack of dragons.

Snowpiercer (2013)

Did people go overboard in praising Snowpiercer when it came out? Maybe. But it's important to remember that the movie arrived in the sweaty dog days of summer, hitting critics and sci-fi lovers like a welcome blast of icy water from a hose. The film's simple, almost video game-like plot -- get to the front of the train, or die trying -- allowed visionary South Korean director Bong Joon-ho to fill the screen with excitement, absurdity, and radical politics. Chris Evans never looked more alive, Tilda Swinton never stole more scenes, and mainstream blockbuster filmmaking never felt so tepid in comparison. Come on, ride the train!

The Social Network (2010)

After making films like Seven, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, and Zodiac, director David Fincher left behind the world of scumbags and crime for a fantastical, historical epic in 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Social Network was another swerve, but yielded his greatest film. There's no murder on screen, but Fincher treats Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg like a dorky, socially awkward mob boss operating on an operatic scale. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's rapid-fire, screwball-like dialogue burns with a moral indignation that Fincher's watchful, steady-handed camera chills with an icy distance. It's the rare biopic that's not begging you to smash the "like" button.

SONY PICTURES RELEASING

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

In this shrewd twist on the superhero genre, the audience's familiarity with the origin story of your friendly neighborhood web-slinger -- the character has already starred in three different blockbuster franchises, in addition to countless comics and cartoon TV adaptations -- is used as an asset instead of a liability. The relatively straight-forward coming-of-age tale of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a Brooklyn teenager who takes on the powers and responsibilities of Spider-Man following the death of Peter Parker, gets a remix built around an increasingly absurd parallel dimension plotline that introduces a cast of other Spider-Heroes like Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glen), and, most ridiculously, Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), a talking pig in a Spider-Suit. The convoluted set-up is mostly an excuse to cram the movie with rapid-fire jokes, comic book allusions, and dream-like imagery that puts the rubbery CGI of most contemporary animated films to shame.

Spotlight (2015)

Tom McCarthy stretches the drama taut as he renders Boston Globe's 2000 Catholic Church sex scandal investigation into a Hollywood vehicle. McCarthy's notable cast members crank like gears as they uncover evidence and reflect on a horrifying discovery of which they shoulder partial blame. Spotlight was the cardigan of 2015's Oscar nominees, but even cardigans look sharp when Mark Ruffalo is involved.

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

No movie captures the prolonged pain of divorce quite like Noah Baumbach's brutal Brooklyn-based comedy The Squid and the Whale. While the performances from Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney as bitter writers going through a separation are top-notch, the film truly belongs to the kids, played by Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, who you watch struggle in the face of their parents' mounting immaturity and pettiness. That Baumbach is able to wring big, cathartic laughs from such emotionally raw material is a testament to his gifts as a writer -- and an observer of human cruelty.

SONY PICTURES RELEASING

Starship Troopers (1997)

Paul Verhoeven is undoubtedly the master of the sly sci-fi satire. With RoboCop, he laid waste to the police state with wicked, trigger-happy glee. He took on evil corporations with Total Recall. And with Starship Troopers, a bouncy, bloody war picture, he skewered the chest-thumping theatrics of pro-military propaganda, offering up a pitch-perfect parody of the post-9/11 Bush presidency years before troops set foot in Iraq or Afghanistan. Come for the exploding alien guts, but stay for the winking comedy -- or stay for both! Bug guts have their charms, too.

Swiss Army Man (2016)

You might think a movie that opens with a suicidal man riding a farting corpse like a Jet Ski wears thin after the fourth or fifth flatulence gag. You would be wrong. Brimming with imagination and expression, the directorial debut of Adult Swim auteurs "The Daniels" wields sophomoric humor to speak to friendship. As Radcliffe's dead body springs back to life -- through karate-chopping, water-vomiting, and wind-breaking -- he becomes the id to Dano's struggling everyman, who is also lost in the woods. If your childhood backyard adventures took the shape of The Revenant, it would look something like Swiss Army Man, and be pure bliss.

NETFLIX

Tallulah (2016)

From Orange Is the New Black writer Sian Heder, Tallulah follows the title character (played by Ellen Page) after she inadvertently "kidnaps" a toddler from an alcoholic rich woman and passes the child off as her own to appeal to her run-out boyfriend's mother (Allison Janney). A messy knot of familial woes and wayward instincts, Heder's directorial debut achieves the same kind of balancing act as her hit Netflix series -- frank social drama with just the right amount of humorous hijinks. As Tallulah grows into a mother figure, her on-the-lam parenting course only makes her more and more of a criminal in the eyes of... just about everyone. You want to root for her, but that would be too easy.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Travis Bickle (a young Bobby De Niro) comes back from the Vietnam War and, having some trouble acclimating to daily life, slowly unravels while fending off brutal insomnia by picking up work as a... taxi driver... in New York City. Eventually he snaps, shaves his hair into a mohawk and goes on a murderous rampage while still managing to squeeze in one of the most New York lines ever captured on film ("You talkin' to me?"). It's not exactly a heartwarmer -- Jodie Foster plays a 12-year-old prostitute -- but Martin Scorsese's 1976 Taxi Driver is a movie in the cinematic canon that you'd be legitimately missing out on if you didn't watch it.

FOCUS FEATURES

The Theory of Everything (2014)

In his Oscar-winning performance, Eddie Redmayne portrays famed physicist Stephen Hawking -- though The Theory of Everything is less of a biopic than it is a beautiful, sweet film about his lifelong relationship with his wife, Jane (Felicity Jones). Covering his days as a young cosmology student ahead of his diagnosis of ALS at 21, through his struggle with the illness and rise as a theoretical scientist, this film illustrates the trying romance through it all. While it may be written in the cosmos, this James Marsh-directed film that weaves in and out of love will have you experience everything there is to feel.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Paul Thomas Anderson found modern American greed in the pages of Upton Sinclair's depression-era novel, Oil!. Daniel Day-Lewis found the role of a lifetime behind the bushy mustache of Daniel Plainview, thunderous entrepreneur. Paul Dano found his milkshake drunk up. Their discoveries are our reward -- There Will Be Blood is a stark vision of tycoon terror.

Time to Hunt (2020)

Unrelenting in its pursuit of scenarios where guys point big guns at each other in sparsely lit empty hallways, the South Korean thriller Time to Hunt knows exactly what stylistic register it's playing in. A group of four friends, including Parasite and Train to Busan break-out Choi Woo-shik, knock over a gambling house, stealing a hefty bag of money and a set of even more valuable hard-drives, and then find themselves targeted by a ruthless contract killer (Park Hae-soo) who moves like the T-1000 and shoots like a henchmen in a Michael Mann movie. There are dystopian elements to the world -- protests play out in the streets, the police wage a tech-savvy war on citizens, automatic rifles are readily available to all potential buyers -- but they all serve the simmering tension and elevate the pounding set-pieces instead of feeling like unnecessary allegorical padding. Even with its long runtime, this movie moves.

STUDIOCANAL

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

If a season of 24 took place in the smoky, well-tailored underground of British intelligence crica 1973, it might look a little like this precision-made John le Carré adaptation from Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson. Even if you can't follow terse and tightly-woven mystery, the search for Soviet mole led by retired operative George Smiley (Gary Oldman), the ice-cold frames and stellar cast will suck you into the intrigue. It's very possible Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, and Benedict Cumberbatch are reading pages of the British phone book, but egad, it's absorbing. A movie that rewards your full concentration.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)

Of all the entries in the rom-com revival, this one is heavier on the rom than the com. But even though it won't make your sides hurt, it will make your heart flutter. The plot is ripe with high school movie hijinks that arise when the love letters of Lara Jean Covey (the wonderful Lana Condor) accidentally get mailed to her crushes, namely the contractual faux relationship she starts with heartthrob Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo). Like its heroine, it's big-hearted but skeptical in all the right places.

Total Recall (1990)

Skip the completely forgettable Colin Farrell remake from 2012. This Arnold Schwarzenegger-powered, action-filled sci-fi movie is the one to go with. Working from a short story by writer Philip K. Dick, director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop) uses a brain-teasing premise -- you can buy "fake" vacation memories from a mysterious company called Rekall -- to stage one of his hyper-violent, winkingly absurd cartoons. The bizarre images of life on Mars and silly one-liners from Arnold fly so fast that you'll begin to think the whole movie was designed to be implanted in your mind.

NETFLIX

Tramps (2017)

There are heists pulled off by slick gentlemen in suits, then there are heists pulled off by two wayward 20-somethings rambling along on a steamy, summer day in New York City. This dog-day crime-romance stages the latter, pairing a lanky Russian kid (Callum Tanner) who ditches his fast-food register job for a one-off thieving gig, with his driver, an aloof strip club waitress (Grace Van Patten) looking for the cash to restart her life. When a briefcase handoff goes awry, the pair head upstate to track down the missing package, where train rides and curbside walks force them to open up. With a laid-back, '70s soul, Tramps is the rare doe-eyed relationship movie where playing third-wheel is a joy.

Uncut Gems (2019)

In Uncut Gems, the immersive crime film from sibling director duo Josh and Benny Safdie, gambling is a matter of faith. Whether he's placing a bet on the Boston Celtics, attempting to rig an auction, or outrunning debt-collecting goons at his daughter's high school play, the movie's jeweler protagonist Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) believes in his ability to beat the odds. Does that mean he always succeeds? No, that would be absurd, undercutting the character's Job-like status, which Sandler imbues with an endearing weariness that holds the story together. But every financial setback, emotional humbling, and spiritual humiliation he suffers gets interpreted by Howard as a sign that his circumstances might be turning around. After all, a big score could be right around the corner.

Velvet Buzzsaw (2018)

Nightcrawler filmmaker Dan Gilroy teams up with Jake Gyllenhaal again to create another piece of cinematic art, this time a satirical horror film about the exclusive, over-the-top LA art scene. The movie centers around a greedy group of art buyers who come into the possession of stolen paintings that, unbeknownst to them, turn out to be haunted, making their luxurious lives of wheeling and dealing overpriced paintings a living hell. Also featuring the likes of John Malkovich, Toni Collette, Billy Magnussen, and others, Velvet Buzzsaw looks like Netflix’s next great original.

COLUMBIA PICTURES

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)

Oscar-baiting, musician biopics became so cookie-cutter by the mid-'00s that it was easy for John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow, and writer-director Jake Kasdan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) to knot them all together for the ultimate spoof. Dewey Cox is part Johnny Cash, part Bob Dylan, part Ray Charles, part John Lennon, part anyone-you-can-think-of, rising with hit singles, rubbing shoulders with greats of many eras, stumbling with eight-too-many drug addictions, then rising once again. When it comes to relentless wisecracking, Walk Hard is like a Greatest Hits compilation -- every second is gold.

The Witch (2015)

The Witch delivers everything we don't see in horror today. The backdrop, a farm in 17th-century New England, is pure misty, macabre mood. The circumstance, a Puritanical family making it on the fringe of society because they're too religious, bubbles with terror. And the question, whether devil-worshipping is hocus pocus or true black magic, keeps each character on their toes, and begging God for answers. The Witch tests its audience with its (nearly impenetrable) old English dialogue and the (anxiety-inducing) trials of early American life, but the payoff will keep your mind racing, and your face hiding under the covers, for days.

Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

Before taking us to space with Gravity, director Alfonso Cuarón steamed up screens with this provocative, comedic drama about two teenage boys (Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) road-trippin' it with an older woman. Like a sunbaked Jules and Jim, the movie makes nimble use of its central love triangle, setting up conflicts between the characters as they move through the complicated political and social realities of Mexican life. It's a confident, relaxed film that's got an equal amount of brains and sex appeal. Watch this one with a friend -- or two.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher's period drama is for obsessives. In telling the story of the Zodiac Killer, a serial murderer who captured the public imagination by sending letters and puzzles to the Bay Area press, the famously meticulous director zeroes in on the cops, journalists, and amateur code-breakers who made identifying the criminal their life's work. With Jake Gyllenhaal's cartoonist-turned-gumshoe Robert Graysmith at the center, and Robert Downey Jr.'s barfly reporter Paul Avery stumbling around the margins, the film stretches across time and space, becoming a rich study of how people search for meaning in life. Zodiac is a procedural thriller that makes digging through old manilla folders feel like a cosmic quest.

13th (2016)

Selma director Ava DuVernay snuck away from the Hollywood spotlight to direct this sweeping documentary on the state of race in America. DuVernay's focus is the country's growing incarceration rates and an imbalance in the way black men and women are sentenced based on their crimes. Throughout the exploration, 13th dives into post-Emancipation migration, systemic racism that built in the early 20th century, and moments of modern political history that continue to spin a broken gear in our well-oiled national machine. You'll be blown away by what DuVernay uncovers in her interview-heavy research.

20th Century Women (2016)

If there's such thing as an epistolary movie, 20th Century Women is it. Touring 1970s Santa Barbara through a living flipbook, Mike Mills's semi-autobiographical film transcends documentation with a cast of wayward souls and Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), an impressionable young teenager. Annette Bening plays his mother, and the matriarch of a ragtag family, who gather together for safety, dance to music when the moment strikes, and teach Jamie the important lesson of What Women Want, which ranges from feminist theory to love-making techniques. The kid soaks it up like a sponge. Through Mills's caring direction, and characters we feel extending infinitely through past and present, so do we.

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Casual Interactions #5: Full Transcription

John: Alright Frank, so what did you bring us?

Frank: Okay so, I was just out in Chicago, and I was there for a couple weeks. And I came across some things. One of which is my favorite. I'll start with the good first.

J: Yeah.

F: So the good is, every time I see a root beer that I've never tried- Here's the thing, I'm not a huge root beer fan.

J: Yeah, I don't know many people who are.

F: I can have one root beer and then I'm like, "Okay, that's enough root beer."

J: Yeah.

F: Maybe even half. But if I see one that I've never tried before, I have to, something about it, I just have to try it.

J: Yeah.

F: So, one time I came across the one root beer and it's called WBC, and it's made by, like there's a brewery out there called Goose Island.

J: Oh yeah, I know Goose Island.

F: So Goose Island makes this root beer, and it is by far, my favorite root beer I've ever had. And it's Chicago style, but you could only get it in the Midwest, and I've tried to look, you know, on Amazon and all that stuff, and it's like fucking astronomical on Amazon. But when I was out in Chicago, I found that they had it at Costco, so I bought like, fucking 14 cases of it. So I brought that.

J: You brought it across state lines?

F: I smuggled it.

J: Calling it, you're bootlegging.

F: You know, hey, what are you gonna do? I tried to go the legal route with it, but I don't think it's illegal to just buy something and move it.

J: Right.

F: Anyway, so that's the best. Now, the other side of the spectrum is a drink that I believe is what you would call a Chicago staple.

J: And that's what's in the shot glass.

F: And that's what's in the shot glass. This is Jeppson's Malört and Malört is a wormwood derivative.

Shaun: That's a terrible word.

J: Oh, something they put they put in absinthe?

F: Yeah, but it's not in that, like it's not gonna make you like, it doesn't make you crazy.

J: Okay.

F: It's more, from what I've been told, like a digestive, and almost like a Fernet and stuff like that. But it is by far, one of the most foul things I have ever tasted, and I feel like it's something that you can't describe until you've had it.

J: Alright, so let's do it.

F: Yeah, so here's to those that wish us well, and all the rest can drink some more Malört. Cheers. 3 2 1, go.

S: Oh! Fuck you, man!

F: Yeah.

J: Oh my god, that's- it's like a-

F: So here's the thing, wait wait wait. The thing about it, it's not so much the original-

J: It's like a licorice Listerine!

F: It's not the original shot that gets you, it's the after taste that lingers on your tongue.

J: My heart's on fire!

F: It's like if a grapefruit took a shit out of its- and the shit tasted like earwax, is just what it would be like in liquid form, would taste like Malört.

J: Welcome to Casual Interactions podcast. We're dying here. Can we drink the root beer now?

F: Yes, crack the root beers. That'll help.

J: Jesus.

F: This is by far my favorite root beer.

J: Oh my god, thank god. It was delicious. I think anything would be delicious though, after the Malört.

F: Yeah. Kinda great though, right?

J: I can still feel it on my tonsils.

F: Yeah, it doesn't really go away. It's got that weird sour, yeah I know. Maybe we should've done that at the end of this. We're so sorry!

J: It's okay. So we're gonna pick up from last week. We were talking about writing processes. We talked about what got us- this is gonna be a hard one, man. We talked about what got us into writing, but made us believe that we could do it too, and chase our dreams. You know, one: we didn't actually hear from Shaun a lot last week, because we ran over time, so that's, I wanna lead off with Shaun right now. I wanna talk about writing.

S: You want me to use that? I'll use it.

F: The coffee might help you.

J: But see, that's a weird mix. I mean, coffee, Malört-

F: Yeah well, here's the thing. I'm sorry, the Malört kinda clings to the back of your tongue like a demon.

S: Yeah it's like stuck in your teeth.

F: It doesn't go away.

J: I can't get it off the back of my tongue.

F: Yeah, it's still there. The more you drink it, the more you can kinda laugh as other people try it, because it doesn't affect you as bad.

S: I don't know if we should keep drinking it.

F: No, you don't wanna have anymore of it.

J: No!

F: It's definitely, that's a one and done.

S: My stomach is weird now.

F: Yeah. Yeah.

S: It does weird things to your-

F: Everything makes weird to you.

J: You know what's-

F: I just said "everything makes weird to you."

S: There you go. That's the title of this episode.

F: That's the Malört. Everything makes weird to you!

J: Yeah, I had a giant cup of coffee before, I did a shot of Malört, I'm drinking a root beer. The ride home is gonna be terrible.

F: Yeah.

J: You live, you learn. I feel like I lost a bet.

F: Hey, well here's the thing. Yeah, it tastes like you lost a bet. It tastes a lot like the writing process, to be honest because-

J: Bring it back, Frank.

F: You know, that's the thing, it does. Because like, you know, I don't know about you guys, but at least for me like, the artistic process and all that stuff is, I know that it affects me in such a severe way.

J: Right.

F: Like, when I write a song and I feel like things are going well, and I'm able to express myself in a way that I'm like, "Oh shit, I fucking nailed that one!" Like, oh wow, that's a good song, or I wrote a really good line. You know like, sometimes you'll hear stuff in your head, and if you nail it- like if it comes out through your hands the way you heard it in your head, or even better, you're like, "Motherfuck," and you can ride that high.

J: Oh that's a huge high.

F: For a long time. And sometimes, when you're trying trying trying to write something, or you're trying to recreate that thing that you heard in your head, or you lost that thing in your head, because you fell asleep. You know, like you heard it in the middle of the night and you didn't fucking write it down, or kinda do a voice memo thing, you feel like you just drank a bottle of Malört. That's like, "Man!" Like, you just, I'm so sour at all times, I fucking snap at people, I'm not happy in any way, I'm a fucking grump.

S: Well, what it's like, and it happens to me a lot too, it's almost like these single serving doses of being bipolar.

F: Mhm.

S: That's what I think of it like.

F: Yes.

J: Wow.

F: Because I can be manic.

S: Yeah.

F: And so depressed.

S: Because when you write that thing and you're on this high, the next day or the next hour when something happens, and you question that, and it sends you off on this other tangent, and you're the total opposite.

F: Oh absolutely.

S: You're at this total low.

F: How about those times when you write something and you're like, "Oh damn, I cracked it. I'm actually pretty good at this, I can-" you know like, "all these things that I wanted to believe about myself are ture," and then all of a sudden, you listen back and it sucks. You're like, "No!"

S: Right.

J: See, I know what the opposite of it's like. I actually watched Back to the Future this morning.

F: Okay, alright.

J: Because it's one of my go to movies.

F: Very nice.

J: I'm burping up Malört. The eureka moment, I think, you wanna look at the visual of the eureka moment is?

S: I thought you said urethra moment.

J: Different kind of party, Shaun. We'll talk about that in another episode. It's the one where we get our prostates checked, because we're old.

S: Let's do that, now.

J: No. Doc Brown, when the DeLorean goes back to the future and he gets down, he's looking around, and he sees the fire in the street, and he's jumping up and down like, "Holy shit, I'm not crazy. Holy shit." It's exactly as I imagined it to be, "This is it, I did it." That is one of the greatest highs you will ever feel in your life, when you have that. Whether you're painting, whether you're writing, whether you're drawing, whether you're building a house, when you get It, you'll never get that high off of anything else.

F: Right. And I think that's why we continue to chase it. And that's, you know, one of those things that my dad, I think, tried to instill. First off, my dad was a drummer, my grandfather was a drummer, so music happened a lot in my world, you know? And I would get to go see, if I was, you know, if my dad played a place that my mom would let me go to, I would get to see him play. And if he was playing a bar or something she felt or deemed to be too seedy, then I would get to go see my grandfather play. He played at this like, restaurant which was almost like a speakeasy, actually.

J: Oh, that's so cool.

F: It was kinda hidden in the forest and it was the same crowd-

S: The forest?

F: It was, it was, I swear to god. You had to know, it was like a secret turn, and you went back like-

S: That's cool.

F: You know, 2 or 3 miles into the forest, and there was this fucking little "restaurant." I used air quotes, "restaurant," back there. And the same people, the same you know, older crowd went every fucking weekend. They had their own- they had assigned seating, it was, "That was my table, that was this table," you know? And so, they would play the songs every weekend, or whatever. But I would get to see them, and if I was really good, I would get to stay up and I'd go to the diner after, with the band and that was really awesome.

J: That's awesome. I mean, your grandfather was a drummer's drummer.

F: Yes, yeah.

J: And that was the, you know, the kind of- your dad too, the kind of drums that they'd play, people who know them, they know them. Because it's a very special kind of- it's not like you go to Guitar Center, you hear someone in the drum shop trying out everything. They're, to me, true drummers.

F: Also like true musicians, right.

J: They're cats.

F: Yeah, it was like- yeah! Totally. Total cats, you know? And that was the thing when I said, "I wanna be a musician, or I wanna start a band," their first thing was like, "Don't." Their first advice was, "Don't do that ever." And I think the second form of advice was like, "Alright well, if you are going to do it, then you need to know this. And the thing that you need to know is that there's music, and then there's the music business. And very often, one has nothing to do with the other." And I feel like, that happens a lot too, in the writing. And the writing is very much the music, but then when you show it to other people, it becomes the music business.

J: Right.

F: And what is say, you know, maybe commercially viable, or what do other people like, you know, what's going to grab someone's attention, and you know, it's almost like you start to soil the process and you soil the art form by ever showing it to someone else.

J: Yeah.

F: You know? Because you want so bad to be liked, or to have someone appreciate the thing that you do, and very often, if you're not careful, you can stray from your original path to have someone reaffirm what you're doing is good.

J: Well I mean, at our core, everyone wants to be loved. Everyone wants that affection, everyone wants to know that the work that they do gets that kind of love and attention back in the right way. And a lot of times, it just doesn't because you know, you said before, you have that moment in your head where your hand does what your head is actually thinking, it's awesome.

F: Yes.

J: It is subjective because what your head is now telling your hand to do something, it does it, you're like, "This is great," you show it to someone, and they're like, "Meh," and that's just, you know, it takes the wind completely out of the sails. Shaun, you've been writing comics now for how long?

S: I don't even know, man.

J: It's been a while, right?

F: It's been a long time.

S: Yeah.

J: By the time this comes out, Shaun will have published his fourth book, Wizard Beach for BOOM! Studios. And it's important because the books that you write, Shaun, are really not your traditional comic stories.

S: I try not to do what's been done before. I feel like if I did, what's the point?

F: Mhm.

J: Right.

S: You know? I also feel like what you guys were just talking about, you know, doing this for a period of time. You have to get to the point where it's kinda like, "Well fuck everyone." No one's gonna- not everyone's gonna like everything you do, right? So, for me and the people who are on my team, and my artist and my editors and letterers and colorists and everything, as long as we're happy, that's all that matters. If we're happy with what we put out, when we were in a band, we put out a record together, who cares what this one thinks or that one thinks? What matters is if we're happy.

J: Yeah.

S: That to me is what drives me and what my goal at the end of the day is.

F: In being say like, the sole writer of some stuff, right? Do you take input from say like, not co-creators but like, people that are drawing it or inking it, or stuff like that?

S: Oh absolutely. Absolutely.

F: So there is that collaborative.

S: Oh, comics are very collaborative. I mean, that's why it's important to work with people who are on the same wavelength as you are. And I feel like every book that I've been on, you know, the team behind it, the artist, the colorist, the editors, I feel like, first thing it's important to get your vision across. And after that, you know, it's important that they see what you're trying to do, and they help you get there. They're not trying to control it or trying to change it, they're trying to help you get to where you wanna be. I've been lucky enough to do that, and I feel like that's something that you know, I've done only create your own stuff so far, and I feel like I don't wanna do- I'm not interested in doing mainstream stuff because I feel like once you get into mainstream comics, that's when it becomes, you have 10 people over you, telling you what you can and cannot do, and at that point, is it even really your book anymore?

F: Right.

J: Right.

S: You know what I mean?

F: Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. I can see there being a lot of red tape and rules that you're gonna have to follow with an already established character.

S: Absolutely. Yeah.

J: So how is it different, Shaun, say than being in a band? We've all been in a band together, we've all played in bands where you- in a lot of ways, you're right. Your editor, your collaborating with the editor, the editor is giving you feedback, the editor is throwing ideas at you, but they're not sitting directly across from you when you're writing what you write. Like, in a band, you're in a room with 4 other dudes, or how many other people, you're looking people dead in the eye, you're coming up with ideas on the spot, you're riffing on it, you're bouncing it off together, like, what you do is, and I admire you so much for it. Like, the ability that you have to actually sit in front of a computer and just type things out, and write the books that way you do, I think that's an amazing gift. But you don't have to do it with anyone else looking at you. You get to do it as a singular pursuit. What's that like?

S: It's interesting because I look at it as very much like being in a band.

J: Right.

S: You know? I come to you with this riff I wrote, and then Frank's like, "Oh, I'm gonna play these chords over it," or Hambone's like, "I'm gonna play this bassline over it." And it's like, it's the same thing with comics. I'm gonna come to you with this idea, you know, sometimes you go with just an inkling of an idea, sometimes you go with a full blown out story. And then everyone gets together and they, being in a band obviously happens a lot faster, because you're right here. It's not over email and whatnot, but it's the same type of idea, you know? Everyone's collaborating, throwing in, and the goal and what the goal should be is to make what you're doing the best it can be, you know? If people start having egos, "I want this, I want that," then you need to get out.

J: Yep.

S: You know what I mean?

F: Yeah. I think that's always been such a pitfall of say like, a young artist is that like, "Just because I wrote it doesn't mean it has to be in the song or in the story."

S: Of course.

F: You know.

S: Of course. And that's something-

F: That's the thing, that's how you end up like, "Oh, this song is 27 minutes." Like, "Oh well, yeah."

S: We've done that.

F: "We had to get back to that main riff 16 times."

J: "I have this one shitty preset on this keyboard, and this jungle beat has to be in this song." "It doesn't fit the song at all." "It's fine, we're just gonna play it at the end."

F: "Yeah, we're just gonna put it in there."

J: "Just not gonna say anything about it."

F: "Just shove it in there."

J: Yeah.

S: But that's something that you learn over time in any medium, I feel like. You can be so sentimental about your ideas and creativity because you start off with this, but then that led to something else.

J: Right.

F: Right.

S: You know what I mean?

J: So let me ask you this, Shaun. Keeping in this theme now, you've done different comics for different studios.

S: Right.

J: You did Art Ops for Vertigo, you did the Killjoys for Dark Horse, now you're doing Wizard Beach for BOOM.

S: Right. I did Neverboy for Dark Horse too.

J: Did Neverboy for Dark Horse as well, right?

S: Yeah.

J: So is that like, say, working with different bands? Like, when you're working with a new editor, or working with new artists, and stuff like that? So it's different atmospheres?

S: Absolutely. Absolutely, it is. And that's why it's important to, you know, you wanna get to know these people a little bit before you jump into something.

F: Right.

S: You know what I mean? Like, even if it's from, you know, colleagues and people, your friends in the industry, and this person's great to work with and blah blah blah. You need to have a little kinda background, or even picking up books that they've done in the past. Like, what kind of books have they edited, what kind of stories are they doing? Are they, you know, if I'm gonna bring a story like Neverboy about an imaginary friend to a guy who only does war comics, that's not gonna work.

J: Right.

S: You know?

J: However though, you did Neverboy with Tyler-

S: Jenkins.

J: And he did, which I revere as one of the best comics to come out in the last 10 years, he did Peter Panzerfaust.

S: Right. That's interesting too because then you have an idea where you see someone's art and you're like, "Maybe he's only done this up to this point." You know?

J: Yeah.

S: Like, if you see a guitar player. You know, look at Ray Toro for example, he's a thrasher on the guitar, but then he can go back and play this classical kinda stuff, you know?

J: Yeah.

S: So you see something in there that you wanna maybe get out a little more.

F: Yeah. You see that there is versatility there.

S: Absolutely.

F: And you actually kinda expand upon it. One of the things I think about, say like, writing comics or writing books and of that nature, that I am envious of, yet also, I wonder if you are envious of the other side is, that you know like, being in a band and playing songs, sometimes you have to recreate those songs every night for a live show. But in doing that, sometimes those songs can kinda get fleshed out a little bit more, and you can expand upon them and they change, and you're able to, I guess, still be creative within a work of art that you've already made.

S: Right.

F: Is that something that you miss in the writing process, or is that so awesome that you don't have to worry about recreating it every night, and doing it in front of people live?

S: I feel like, I mean, there's upsides and downsides to both. I feel like a lot of people, you put out a book, you put out a record, I feel like a lot of people feel like they're defined by that one thing.

F: Right.

S: Whereas, you're not. This is just one thing you did, and then I'm gonna go do something else. I feel like a lot of people get caught up if something got bad reviews and whatnot, it's gonna bring them down to a point where they're just miserable, and it's like, you move on and you do something else.

F: But like, alright so say, with Neverboy. Issue 3 of that, if you were to get to, if you have to like, recreate that every night for a month.

S: Oh right, right.

F: Would it change and evolve?

S: Absolutely.

F: You know?

S: Absolutely.

F: Is that something that you maybe miss within this art form?

S: Yeah. You know, it's interesting because when you're writing, there's not one way to do it. Some people like to outline the whole thing first, and then go write it. Some people like to do it as they're writing it, and comics is so- precise 22 pages per issue, you can only fit so much, so many panels on a page.

F: Right.

S: So comics benefits from having an outline. However, having a very detailed outline prevents you from that kind of off the hook creativity that you would get if you were just stream of conscience writing.

F: Yeah.

S: But on the other hand, it's like you know where you're gonna end up. You know where the story's going. You know, it's like playing jazz in a club.

F: I like having restrictions and trying to use those barriers as inspirational tools. You know, sometimes that can kinda help with the process, you know? Being like, "Alright well, if I'm gonna write this song, if I can only do it with 8 notes," try to do something like that. Like, just see where it takes you, you know? Maybe you end up breaking that rule or what, but it gets you to a certain point and that's kinda fun.

J: It's challenging.

F: Yeah.

J: It's challenging instead of just verse, chorus, verse, hit the bridge, go home.

F: Yeah, just setting up different exercises for yourself and seeing what comes out.

S: Well sometimes that's where the best stuff comes. You'll write yourself into a corner, "How the fuck am I gonna get out of it?" You know what I mean?

F: Yeah exactly. Yeah. So alright well that's a question. When you're writing a book,right, and you need, what is it? Like a 6 issue story, right? Or like, story arc. Do you know where you're gonna end up at the end of it, or do you sometimes just start writing and be like, "I'm just gonna see how I can get the fuck out of this."

S: No, you should have an idea. Sometimes that changes during the course of writing it. But I feel like if you don't have an idea of where you're gonna end up, you're gonna have to go back and do a lot of fucking editing.

J: Yeah.

S: When you're done. You know what I mean? Some people do that. Usually when you're writing comics for these publishers and stuff, you're on a deadline and you don't have that luxury to just go off and free write for 6 issues and see where you end up, and then go back and edit the whole thing. I know someone like Stephen King for example, he comes up with this situation in his head and then just goes off and writes, and then when he's done he'll go back and edit it.

J: Right.

S: So if you saw his first draft, it would look nothing like the finished book. Comics, you don't have that luxury because you're on a timetable. You have to get the script in because the artist has to draw it and the colorist has to- and if you don't do it, then this one doesn't get paid, that one doesn't get paid. It's this whole stream of-

F: Oh god, that's so stressful.

J: That's gotta be so stressful.

F: Especially for me, because I'm such a fucking asshole when it comes to that kind of stuff. I'm like, yeah I'll butt fuck a song to the last possible second and make everybody hate me, and then go back to the original fucking version at the last second, you know what I mean?

J: Hey man, it's your nickel, you know?

F: Yeah.

J: So Shaun, how do you feel about say, you know, most of the stories that you tell are usually about 6 issues, sometimes just a little bit more. Is that something you prefer to do? Like, you're telling short but complete stories in a medium.

S: I would like to tell it even shorter.

J: Really?

F: Really?

S: Yeah, I feel like if you can tell something in 8 pages-

J: Right.

S: I mean.

J: Yeah, I mean, look, we all came up loving punk rock. We know less is more, all killer no filler. That's one of the things that I appreciate most about your style of writing, si that I know that I'm gonna get a complete story. You know, start to finish and some things, you kinda want more and you kinda are like, "Oh man, it'd be cool. Hopefully, maybe he does something else with it. Maybe he does something more with it." But you know, some of the best things that I've watched recently were like, "Oh, it's 1 season. This is all it needs to be. We're just doing this and we're gonna call it a day." So that's cool. That is, is that something that maybe you wanna do eventually, write a whole 700 page novel or-?

S: You mean prose? Yeah. I have prose stuff in the works right now. I've had that for a while. And it's interesting because it's very different from comics. Comics is very visual, you're looking. This is what we want you to see. When you're writing prose, it's your imagination. These are some words, take out of it what you get, you know what I mean?

J: Yeah. Awesome.

F: Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm just mulling that for a second.

J: Yeah.

F: To try to think of like, to go from the one medium which is so visual, and is showing you action without you actually having to kinda spoon feed it to a reader, and then having to- you know, then going to like a prose work and having to kinda, detail what's happening that's not being said, but it's actually happening and you have to make it flow.

S: But I feel like that's what's interesting and writing a comic script is like writing a screenplay. You're very direct, the shorter you are, the better. You wanna get, it's almost like directions, you know? This is your recipe. Whereas, prose it's like, you know, words are fun. You could come up with like, really interesting ways to say anything.

J: Yeah.

S: You know what I mean? And get any kinda imagery in your head.

J: See, I've always thought of a novelist as a writer, and half of an artist. And the half of the artist comes in where if you're reading a comic, you know, you tell the artist, "I kinda want this," and then they draw it out, so you visually get to see it. With a novelist, with you writing prose, you're actually painting the image or giving the broad strokes of that image to the reader, where they're gonna flesh it out in their own head. They're gonna visualize it in their own head, their own way. So you're kind of half the artist, right? You're kinda getting them to the set, nd they're gonna paint it themselves. Which I think is amazing.

F: How do you feel about, I guess, like alright say, maybe this is a premature question but, to write a novel and have people kinda fill in the blanks of, you know, what characters look like, or what things are actually happening, and then finding out about that later. Because I feel like that's a lot like, you know, writing songs where a listener kinda makes up their own interpretation of what that song's about, and you know, what it means to them. And sometimes you're like, oh that's, you know like, I love that it lives on in their imaginations. But when they get it so wrong, and you're like, "Oh, no. Goddamn it!"

J: Yeah, I think that's the dad. "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed."

F: Just disappointed, yeah. "So disappointed in your imagination."

J: Well I mean, but that's any kind of storytelling. I remember Kevin Smith used to hang out at this comic shop in Red Bank, Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash. I remember after seeing Chasing Amy I was down there with our friend Ian, and I went in, Kevin Smith was there. And I was like, I was young. This is a billion years ago. I was like, "Can you- what happened at the end of Chasing Amy?" And he looks at me, he's like, "What do you think happened, man?" And I'm like, "No man, I want you to-"

F: Oh man!

J: "Just fucking tell me."

F: Alright, Steve Albini.

J: "Just tell me, man. I've tried to figure this out on my own, like-"

F: Yeah.

J: "Talk to me like I'm a little kid, because I am." Like, you know?

S: I feel like if you're that-

F: "Hold my hand."

S: If you're that abstract, you're not really doing your job as a storyteller.

J: Right.

S: You know? If people are confused by what you're doing, and they don't understand what you're doing-

J: Yeah.

S: You're not doing your job.

J: There is that side of it, as well.

F: But what if that's what you wanted?

S: Well that's different. If that's what you're going for, you know? I mean, I'm all for surreal and abstract stuff. If you're telling a, if I'm telling a story in a comic, I want you to know what's happening. I want you to give a shit about these people it's happening to. You know what I mean?

J: Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I was actually sitting next to our friend George on the couch today, when he was like, "Hey, can I reach out to Shaun to tell him that I liked his book?" And so, our friend George texts you something along the lines of, he's like, "Your book is like Arc Rum and Mobius on like 70s psychedelic fever dream."

S: Yes, right.

J: And I saw that. When he- because he's a writer as well.

S: George is great.

J: And he said it, and I was like, "Wow, that is so on the money," yet I completely understand what's going on in the story, and I don't lose a step reading Wizard Beach, because I'm buying into it. It's stimulating my eyes, it's stimulating my brain, and I know what's going on.

S: Well here's the thing. The simpler the story, the more room you have to kinda go off and do all the weird and abstract stuff. If you had this big complicated story, it's a lot harder to do that kinda stuff.

F: I think that translates to music as well.

S: Absolutely.

F: You know?

S: Sure.

F: You start getting too busy, and you're gonna kinda lose all the intent and all of the power behind it.

J: Oh absolutely. As they say, 10 times of shit in a 5 pound bag.

F: But the bag's Gucci.

J: But the bag's Gucci. It's fine! Yeah. That's the equivalent of "I just went and bought a bunch of nice guitars and gear, but I don't know how to actually use it."

F: Yes, yes.

J: So we're gonna wrap up this episode and we will do a little more next time on writing processes. You guys have any final thoughts before we close it out?

F: You guys want another shot of that?

S: No.

J: No!

S: God.

J: No.

F: Never again? Never again?

S: Fuck.

F: Alright, I see how it is.

J: Yeah, so join- join us next month for another episode of Casual Interactions, where we definitely will not be drinking Malört again. So for Frank Iero and Shaun Simon, I'm John "Hambone" McGuire. Until we meet again, hold onto your friends.

#frank iero #hambone #shaun simon #casual interactions #5 #casual interactions 5 #full transcription

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nickgerlich · 4 years

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Beyond The Dome

I was born into a family who liked to travel. If there is such a thing as genetic predisposition for wanderlust, then I am proof positive it can be passed down from one generation to the next.

We went all over the Midwest. To Toronto and Montreal. To Texas. To Mount Rushmore. I was able to see a big part of America while it was still in a state of transition from the old two-lane to the Interstate era.

And we stayed at an endless array of mom-and-pop motels. Each day on the road, my brother and I would dream of our overnight destination, where there would--hopefully--be a swimming pool, and large lawn for playing catch, and a color TV to watch once it got dark.

Mom and Dad did not have smartphones back then, only handy little triptik flip books provided by the Chicago Motor Club, so their advance knowledge of motels down the road was limited, and more often than not, we played motel roulette when we pulled into a town. Reservations? Only if you didn’t have a spirit of adventure.

It was in the 1970s, though, that Holiday Inn, founded in 1951 and known for its Great Sign, took their two-story motels with the end-cap breeze blocks to a new level with the introduction of the Holidome. Everything that was once outside was now under one sprawling roof, along with a slew of other family-friendly activities.

Putting green. Poolside bar (OK, adults only!). Games. Fitness equipment. Restaurant. Each one was different, as the franchisees sought to out-do one another within the corporate chain. It solved the problems of seasonality, which is especially an issue in the Great White North, as well as a slow but growing safety perception. Parents could let their kids run wild in the Holidome while they had a little--ahem--private time in the room.

It was all great fun, and whenever we stayed at one of those, we knew that Dad must have gotten his bonus, because they were more expensive than the typical motels we patronized. I have many fond memories, including a late-70s church youth group trip downstate for a regional gathering in our denomination.

It is only in adulthood now that I can only imagine the horror of the other guests to have had the misfortune of selecting a motel at which there were hundreds of hormonally-ravaged teens making noise all night. I bet you can hear it now.

But what was hot in the 70s had become lame by the 90s, and in the COVID era, we can’t even imagine a shared public space with all of those highly tactile activities. Sheesh. And never mind that it felt like you were stepping into a tropical terrarium. They should have called it the HumiDome. You can thank the massive swimming pool for that.

Today, it is rare to even find one of these. Most have been demolished, only to be replaced by the now-standard rectangular building, each chain looking much the same, and differing only by a few external finishing points. Holiday Inn, for all its industry-leading innovations through the years, is basically the same as a Hampton Inn, Fairfield Inn, Comfort Inn, blah. Blah. Blah.

And while it is indeed difficult to picture something like this even being open in 2020 because of the pandemic, the wheels of change that caused the demise of the Holidome were set in motion 30 years ago. Our traveling ways changed. It’s not that we didn’t stay in motels any more. No, it’s that the motel became less destination, and just a place to sleep, shower, grab a muffin, and go.

We’re in too much of a hurry, and the notion of checking in at 4pm is quaint at best. Hell, I often don’t check in to my hotels until 9pm or later, fully realizing I am paying about $15 an hour for the privilege at that point, but smug in my accomplishment of having squeezed the last little bit out of today.

At the same time, though, part of me yearns for those simpler days, not just the 1960s with my family, but even the Holidome era. It’s funny how this works, but whenever we look back at the past, it just seems so simple compared to all of our modern problems. Maybe it really was. And maybe our memories are selective, and we only recall the good times, not the bad.

Either way, part of me would like to hitch a ride in a DeLorean and circle back 50 years to family road trips, to a youth convention, to when I was young and had a crush on a pretty girl.

Because today’s motels have been stripped of everything that once made them special, and I am just in one of those retrospective moods. We are way beyond the dome, but I don’t think we are sleeping any better, and my wanderlust is still the same.

Dr “Waxing Nostalgic Today“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #hotels #Holiday Inn #Holidome #travel

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ianomatic · 6 years

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#outatime #delorean (at Midwest Gaming Classic)

#delorean #outatime

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omegaman74 · 7 years

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Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads! The Prequel to the Legacy Vol. 2 ........."Back From the Future!" Coming Soon!!! #BackfromtheFuture #BacktotheFuture #delorean #NikeMags #ThePrequelToTheLegacyVol2 #Omega #Midwest #Represent #ClassicEntertainmentllc Www.OmegaLegacyOfficial.com

#backtothefuture #omega #theprequeltothelegacyvol2 #delorean #represent #nikemags #backfromthefuture #midwest #classicentertainmentllc

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itsworn · 5 years

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Backstage in 1962 With Shelby, Breedlove, Roth, Stanley Mouse, Mickey Thompson, Jet Cars, Dobie Gillis, and the First Ford Mustang

Boom!

The first wave of post-WWII Americans was flooding DMV offices with license applications. Millions more of us were right behind, pacifying ourselves with model kits and slot cars and go-karts and magazines until that magic 16th birthday made the real thing possible. Tri-Five Chevys were just used cars, cheap and abundant. Networks of indoor winter shows brought California’s latest customs to enthusiasts across North America. Automaker dollars flowed freely to motorsports for the first time in five years, since spooked automakers and suppliers pledged to stop supporting racers and promoting speed. Henry Ford II personally announced his factory’s return while mocking secret skunkworks programs that enabled rival manufacturers to win races on Sunday and sales on Monday during the so-called ban. Ford Motor Company simultaneously dispatched an elaborate Custom Car Caravan of modified new cars and display engines. Most of Detroit’s new, lightweight compacts were optionally available with small V8s. The species of muscle car was not germinated just yet, but the gleam was in the eye. What a great year to be a gearhead!

Archive images exposed outside and inside L.A.’s long-gone Great Western Exhibit Center support Tex Smith’s Apr. 1962 HOT ROD appraisal of NHRA’s second Winternationals Rod & Custom Show as, “The major hot rod exposition in the nation” and “the biggest show ever staged that we know of.” The hit-making bands of guitarist Dick Dale and drummer Sandy Nelson undoubtedly contributed to four-day admissions exceeding 65,000, according to HRM. Later, the vast City of Commerce facility hosted the 1968-1979 L.A. Roadsters Shows prior to its demolition.

It’s impossible to imagine such a cohesive hot-rodding world evolving without the media network created by the Petersen Publishing Company. Even after two ex-PPC employees opened Argus Publishers and launched Popular Hot Rodding this year, Petersen monthlies had virtually no competition on a national scale (with the exception of Road & Track, which always stayed ahead of Petersen latecomer Sports Car Graphic). News-hungry enthusiasts had no reliable alternative to coverage arriving two, three, or more months late, sterilized in Hollywood to portray the hobby positively (and ignore drag racing outside of NHRA’s). On paper, Robert “Pete” Petersen appeared to be printing money. Editors never let on how close he—and we—came to losing it all.

There’s a business expression about how strong cash flow will invariably cover up mistakes—until it won’t. Early employees have said that the fledgling company thrice fell perilously behind on printing bills in the 1950s and survived only by the grace of sympathetic, patient printers and bankers. “Pete got a little carried away with his spending,” recalled photographer Bob D’Olivo, who was hired on in 1952 and stayed for 44 years. “The company was growing, and Pete wasn’t seeing all the figures. He hired a general manager to take some of the load, but if you wanted to talk to him in the afternoon, call the bar just down the street, and he willtake your call!”

When Car Craft’s Bud Lang stopped by this Sherman Oaks upholstery shop to report on a T-bodied AA/Modified Roadster under construction out back, Tony Nancy happened to be building a custom oxygen mask. We know that “The Home of Bitchin’ Stitchin’” did its usual fine job because later, when Spirit of America crashed into the water, Craig Breedlove feared that he was trapped and doomed until realizing that the breathing hose was keeping him connected to the submerged cockpit.

D’Olivo said the “major change came in the early 1960s, after two financial guys named Doug Russell and Fred Waingrow came aboard. Tighter control was needed on salaries, projects, travel, and so on. A management-and-numbers guy was needed, and that job went to Fred. All publishers and directors would now report directly to him, about 28 or so. This is when I was given the title of photographic director.”

A tradition of acquiring competitive titles and spinning off experimental ones was paused. As strict formulas were imposed upon individual publications, unprofitable or inconsistently profitable titles were either killed off (e.g., Kart and Rod & Custom Models) or reinvented (e.g., Motor Life became Sports Car Graphic) to free up operating capital and reduce debt. The painfulprocess worked: President Waingrow steered the ship back into the black, and the founder retained full ownership of a company that he would ultimately sell, in two installments, for nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.

Since setting up shop at the 1958 Michigan State Fair at age 18, Stanley “Mouse” Miller drew crowds and eager customers wherever he appeared in the Midwest and Northeast. If $6 seems like too little to charge for a custom airbrushed sweatshirt, that would be about 55 bucks today. The kid could whip out one every hour and do it in color, instead of the basic black outline drawn by competitors. His operation must have impressed Wally Parks, who waded through the sea of ducktails to get the shot. Burned out on monsters by 1965, Mouse returned to his native California (where his animator father used to work for Walt Disney) and found work creating posters for San Francisco music promoters and album art for local bands, most notably the Grateful Dead. Mouse is still painting at 80, and still offers prints of Freddie Flypogger and other lovable “weirdoes” (MouseStudios.com).

Sure, had this virtual monopoly come apart early, competitors would have tried to fill the abandoned niches, but how well, and for how long? Just like the tree that falls in a forest with no one around to hear it, how else in 1962 could all of us, together, have followed Zora and Shelby, hot rods and customs, Roth and Mouse, Tony Nancy and Craig Breedlove, Cobras and Sting Rays, model cars, slot cars, sports cars, old cars, new cars? No way would the photo archive that Bob D’Olivo organized in 1955 and protected had stayed intact, in which case the most complete pictorial record of hot rodding and American motorsports would not exist for us to study and enjoy in a magazine directly descended from Pete’s first one. We’ll be feeling lucky all over again as each coming issue digs deeper into the 1960s.

Decades before IRS became commonplace in domestic cars, Pontiac chief engineer John DeLorean attached this exotic suspension, two-speed-automatic transaxle, and torque tube to entry-level 1961-1963 Tempest compacts with just a few bolts. How convenient for Mickey Thompson’s busy skunkworks, which the factory commissioned to hurriedly convert a stocker for the NHRA’s Winternationals introduction of Factory Experimental classes. Regular visitor Eric Rickman obviously had his run of M/T Enterprises—and a hunch that future readers might appreciate a peek at the world’s fastest man’s junk pile. We are left to wonder how the faded body panel wound up here, and whether some magazine staffer was responsible for separating the piece from an unknown open-wheel race car. (Help, longtime Car and Driver followers?)

Here’s the kind of historical image that could easily go undiscovered without the magnification enabled by modern scanning and digitizing. Only after zooming in to confirm the identity of Zora Arkus-Duntov (with helmet) did we realize that his waiting ride was a test mule made by joining the front half of the upcoming second-generation Corvette with the back half and roofline of a first-gen Vette. Sports Car Graphic tech editor Jerry Titus was granted exclusive access to private January tests at Daytona and Sebring on the condition that he ignore the “blue disguised prototype” that joined a red ’62 model and Zora’s baby, the CERV I single seater, for some brake development. Titus snapped the photo literally behind the distracted engineer’s back in late January, nearly a year before most folks saw a new Corvette in person. (See Apr. & May 1962 SCG.)

Jerry Titus was probably the best racing writer or writing racer ever employed by Robert E. Petersen. At the conclusion of Chevy’s Florida testing, Zora offered a few laps of Sebring in a priceless test car previously driven only by Stirling Moss, Dan Gurney, and Duntov himself. In the May 1962 SCG cover story, Titus described his 172-mph straightaway speed as “conservative” in a 1,700-pound package pushed by at least the 380 hp conceded by Chevrolet. Later, Titus was tabbed by Carroll Shelby to shake down and race the G.T. 350.

Help, readers: Does this scene ring any bells? None of our sources can recall a movie or TV production involving the channeled, 283-powered ’31 highboy that New York transplant Bill Neumann (not pictured) brought to L.A. prior to joining Car Craft and, ultimately, taking over Rod & Custom after PPC editorial director Wally Parks fired the whole staff. Neumann’s classified ad in R&C’s May 1962 Bargain Box mentioned “over 90 trophies,” but no asking price. A born promoter, he helped organize the Speed Equipment Manufacturers Association in 1963 (later renamed the Specialty Equipment Market Association, or SEMA) before opening Neuspeed Performance Systems.

Leave it to George Barris to add life-size TV stars Robert Young and Dwayne Hickman to a Barris Kustoms display that brought three famous hot rods to the Winternationals Rod & Custom Show. Barris’ own AMBR-winning ’27 T played a role in Young’s short-lived Window on Main Street series, while the former Chrisman & Cannon competition coupe costarred with Hickman and beatnik sidekick Bob Denver in an episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Behind them is the Ala Kart, the roadster pickup that survived the 1957 Barris Kustoms fire to become the first repeat winner of Oakland’s tall AMBR trophy. (See Apr. 1962 HRM; May 1962 R&C.)

Yes, slot car racing was both a participant and spectator sport at its peak. Model-maker AMT staged regional competitions on elaborate tracks like the setup at the NHRA’s February show. This showdown matched up winners from 1,100 West Coast hobby shops. Later in the year, AMT cheerleader Budd Anderson unveiled the gamechanging, steerable, 1:8-scale Authentic Model Turnpike system for home use during a six-month, fulltime modeling stint at the Seattle World’s Fair. (See May 1962 CC.)

Pontiac stockers prepared by factory contractor Mickey Thompson enjoyed another dominating season, starting with February’s second Winternationals. What appears to be a late round of Mr. Stock Eliminator—a bonus, heads-up showdown bringing back the quickest 50 stockers, win or lose—finds S/S Automatic champ Carol Cox, the first female allowed to enter an NHRA national event, out in front of stick-class-winner Jess Tyree, an M/T mechanic driving the same 167-mph Catalina that set multiple international speed records over the winter at March Air Force Base. Waiting to run at Pomona are previous-round winners Lloyd Cox, Carol’s husband (Pontiac, right); Gas Ronda (Ford); and eventual runnerup Dave Strickler (Chevy), who would fall in the Mr. Stock final to Don Nicholson (not shown). The barn across the street is long gone, but last time we looked, the two-story house remained. (See May 1962 HRM, MT & CC.)

The ragtag bunch of drag and dry-lakes racers that test-fired Craig Breedlove’s $500 military-surplus engine at Los Angeles International Airport in June, just two months before this homebuilt tricycle’s scheduled Bonneville Nationals debut, must have seemed unlikely to make the builder-driver a household name worldwide. The official team truck’s wooden signboards announced the “Spirit of America World Land Speed Record Attempt.” The low-buck team made it to Speed Week, but the semifinished car/trike was limited to static testing at the adjacent Wendover airbase. (See Sept. 1962 MT.)

Despite the convergence of five jet-powered vehicles on the salt during and immediately following Speed Week, a piston-powered streamliner remained the world’s fastest land vehicle all year—to the certain relief of Revell, which had entered the hot rod market by miniaturizing the 406-mph Challenger I and Ed Roth’s revolutionary Outlaw street roadster. Rather than follow the shady example of fly-by-night model makers that blatantly reproduced identifiable race cars without attribution or remuneration, Revell licensed and heavily promoted the men along with their machines. Revell’s national advertising blasted Roth’s brand and zany image far beyond the hot-rodding press and car-show circuit. (See Nov. 1962 R&C.)

It didn’t take long for an unidentified slot car hobbyist to power one of Revell’s snap-together streamliners. Reader Rick Voegelin, the former Car Craft editor and a lifelong slot racer, squinted at the photo through old eyes and semipositively identified the dual motors as Pittmans, likely swapped out of powerful locomotives.

It’d be a stretch to suggest that muscle cars and Funny Cars were invented here, but the roots of both American inventions run through this very engine compartment. Two years before the second-gen Tempest begat the GTO, Pontiac assigned the Super Stock Division of Mickey Thompson Enterprises to create a prototypical factory hot rod for the NHRA’s new A/Factory Experimental class. Beyond a mandate to stick with genuine Pontiac hardware wherever visible, in-house engineers Hayden Proffitt and Lloyd Cox (pictured) virtually rewrote the rulebook as they converted a four-cylinder ’62 Tempest into the year’s quickest and fastest late model, a runaway A/FX champ at both of the NHRA’s national events. By the time this photo was snapped in late June, displacement of M/T’s Super Duty 421 had soared from 434 to 487 cubes, according to Motor Trend, and Cox had assumed the wheel vacated when Proffitt took a 409 Chevy deal and opened his own shop. Meanwhile, Holman-Moody and Dragmaster were secretly developing 480-inch strokers for Ford and Chrysler, respectively. Understandably alarmed, Wally Parks halted drag racing’s arms race—temporarily—by capping 1963 displacement at 427 for NHRA-legal competition. However, the horse had left the barn, and the Big Three’s monster-motor lessons would not be lost on so-called “outlaw Super Stock” racers running independent meets and run-what-ya-brung match races. (See Sept. 1962 HRM; May & Dec. 1962 MT; June 1962 R&C; Jan. 2017 HRD.)

If you remember being faked out by this photo, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger; so were the rest of us subscribers and newsstand browsers. Art director Al Isaacs’s clever positioning of the car’s shadow and of editor Don Evans’s right forearm clinched the delusion that Monogram’s 1:8-scale “Big T” was a real roadster. Inside, the description of Bud Lang’s cover shot joked that because the car is only 16 inches long, Evans and his “lovely cousin, Sharon Huss … were shrunk for photo.” Either way, such juxtaposition was a neat trick when Xacto knives, layers of physical film, and steady hands were required to do the layout work done digitally now.

Staff photographer Pat Brollier shot the B&W photos for CC’s inside story, which Isaacs laid out like a typical car feature. Despite a steep retail price of $10.98—10 times that of the usual $1.98 kit—strong sales inspired Monogram to rush-order a fullsize running version for use as a promotional vehicle. Customizer Darryl Starbird delivered that bigger-yet Big T to the model maker’s booth at NHRA’s late-summer car show in Indianapolis. (See Oct. 1962 CC; Dec. 1962 R&C.)

This one had us baffled until a regular research source, the American Hot Rod Foundation, came through in a big way. AHRF director David Steele recognized the back wall from later photos of Carroll Shelby’s Cobra factory, while AHRF curator Jim Miller instantly identified the last Scarab that Phil Remington built just before Reventlow Automobiles Inc. was shut down under IRS scrutiny. Its all-aluminum Buick V8 shared technology and major components with similar engines that Mickey Thompson developed for this year’s Indy 500. The suspiciously empty Venice, California, space and much of Reventlow’s workforce were taken over by Shelby not long after photographer Pat Brollier visited in early July. Lance Reventlow personally debuted the sports car in September with an impressive second-place SCCA finish at Santa Barbara and made at least two more starts before selling to John Mecom, who installed a small-block Chevy. Augie Pabst eventually acquired this rarest of Scarabs and still has it, as far as our AHRF friends know. (See Dec. 1962 SCG.)

Lance Reventlow was the husband of actress Jill St. John and the son of infamous heiress Barbara Woolworth Hutton. Mom’s fortune financed the boy’s dream of all-American sports cars, built and driven by homegrown hot rodders to beat the best European factory racers. His trio of front-engined Scarab roadsters did exactly that starting in 1958 with a shocking upset at Riverside’s International Grand Prix and the national SCCA championship. Two subsequent attempts at building formula cars and competing in Europe were expensive failures, however, and the Internal Revenue Service was unconvinced that the cash-burning business was really a business. Lance fatally crashed a private plane in 1972, at age 36. His alcoholic, drug-addicted mother followed in 1979, leaving behind just $3,000 of a trust fund that had once been the equivalent of nearly $400 million in today’s money.

Wally Parks became HOT ROD’s first fulltime editor in 1949, cofounded the NHRA in 1961, and simultaneously guided the publishing company and the sanctioning body through the end of this year. In early 1963, he resigned as editorial director of Petersen’s automotive publications to run the NHRA fulltime.

Two years after designer-builder Athol Graham was killed chasing the unlimited LSR in the homebuilt Spirit of Salt Lake, his widow, Zeldine, and former helper, Otto Anzjon, brought the rebuilt streamliner back to Bonneville to prove that Graham’s design was sound. The inexperienced driver followed officials’ instructions to gradually build speed to the 225-mph range before attempting this first full pass, which lasted about 100 feet before Allison-induced wheelspin exploded the right-rear tire. (See Dec. 1962 MT; Jan. 2017 HRD; Jan. 2019 HRD.)

NorCal drag racers Romeo Palamides and Glen Leasher didn’t get to Wendover until the last day of Speed Week, in August, which is normally restricted to prequalified record runs. They were granted one low-speed shakedown run that reportedly revealed “unexpected chassis problems.” The monstrous Infinity went home to Oakland to prepare for a private session on September 10. Leasher, who’d acquired jet-car experience in Romeo’s busy Untouchable dragster, made a troublefree checkout pass and turned around. On the return trip, he unexpectedly accelerated on “full ’burner,” veered off the course, flipped repeatedly, and was dismembered. (Later that day, Romeo called another Bay Area slingshot driver about fulfilling his jet dragster’s commitments and created a colorful career for “Jet Car” Bob Smith, who miraculously survived crashes in a whole

In late August, the original Ford Mustang was captured in the L.A. shop of famed bodybuilders Dick Troutman and Tom Barnes. Barely a month later, the tube-framed, midmounted-V4, front-drive, 1,480-pound prototype made exhibition laps and fans at both the Watkins Glen and Riverside Grands Prix. Ford described it as a “study vehicle for possible production of a sports car.” Motor Trend predicted that its “Impact should hit squarely and cause excitement in three or four or five years,” adding, “Unlike so many styling projections and dream cars offered so far, this one is crammed full of usable ideas.” (See Nov. 1962 HRM; Dec. 1962 SCG; Jan. 1963 MT; Feb. 1963 CC.)

Judging by other film negatives documenting Robert E. Petersen’s fall hunting trip, the boss got the last laugh by bagging both an elk and a bear.

The day before the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix in Riverside, Carroll Shelby (right) and Ford upstaged Zora Arkus-Duntov (left center) and Chevrolet by sneaking the second Cobra ever built into a so-called Experimental Production class and race that SCCA conceived for brand-new Sting Rays; in particular, the fearsome foursome of Z06 fastbacks entered by Mickey Thompson. Despite Bill Krause’s sizable horsepower handicap, his spunky, 260ci roadster swapped leads with Dave MacDonald’s 327ci Corvette (background) until the Cobra’s rear hub carrier failed an hour into the 300-mile enduro. (See Jan. 1963 SCG; Jan. 2017 HRD.)

These had to be the trickest transporters at Laguna Seca for October’s SCCA showdown. Meister Brau beer outfitted one of the earliest tractor-trailer rigs in the photo archive for hauling the high-dollar Scarabs and Chaparrals campaigned by Harry Heuer, a member of the brewing family. Norm Holtcamp had other ideas and started from scratch on his Cheetah, sliding an electric-load-leveling Mercedes sedan chassis under a ’60 El Camino cab purchased at GM’s Van Nuys Boulevard plant. A hot-rodded ’57 Corvette 283 and three-speed Chevy trans mount amidships. We don’t know whether Holtcamp hit his target of 112 mph fully loaded, but you can be sure that second-owner Dean Moon wrung top speed out of the Cheetah before parking and neglecting it for years at Moon Equipment Company. Longtime HRD readers will recall a small color snapshot in our May 2013 issue of the disembodied remains in the yard of collector Geoff Hacker, who tells us that full restoration is scheduled to start later this year at JR’s Speed Shop (Venice, Florida).

Longtime PPC photographer Bob D’Olivo identified art director Art Smith, but neither the blonde nor the legs. Not much work was getting done the day that SCG editor John Christy wandered by, two weeks before Christmas.

The Mysterion signaled the beginning of Ed Roth’s asymmetrical (some would say dysfunctional) stage. The dual-engined gas dragsters that proliferated during these fuel-ban years might have inspired the twins that buddy Budd Anderson procured from Ford (said to be 406s, but probably ordinary 390s). During transport between shows, their combined weight repeatedly cracked and ultimately collapsed the Swiss-cheese frame, which was stripped and junked along with the body. Reader Don Baker saw the HOT ROD Network preview of this article and sent in a memory of riding bikes with his childhood pals to a show at Devonshire Downs (San Fernando Valley). Lacking money for admission, they arrived early that morning and sat outside, watching the show cars arrive, “when Big Daddy rides in, towing Mysterion. He was alone and asked us to help getting it off the trailer. We pushed it right onto the show floor. Pretty cool at that time.” We found the image on one of the final rolls exposed by staff photographers this year, yet the Mysterion was completed in time for the start of the indoor show season in January. (See Dec. 1962 & Sept. 1963 R&C.)

The post Backstage in 1962 With Shelby, Breedlove, Roth, Stanley Mouse, Mickey Thompson, Jet Cars, Dobie Gillis, and the First Ford Mustang appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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