Have You Ever Seen

To put a close on August (a month that ended up being about performers performing), I'm getting into the doin's about Howard Hawks' amusing musical starring those mega-watters Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. Well, pseudo-musical. Hawks was one of the best directors of rom-coms...and THAT material in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is at least close to his typical level. The elaborately excellent costumes, the Technicolor and the "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" number just aren't what he was best at, but even that good stuff works well too. The dual love story is snappy amidst all kinds of hoopla about diamond-digging, especially over a tiara. So jump on a boat while you cavort with a bunch of hunky guys and sing about your favourite mineral as I break it all down in this 758th edition of Have You Ever Seen. Subscribe to this podcast in your app. Write up a review and rate the podcast too. Look for me on Letterboxd (RyanHYES), Twitter (@moviefiend51) and Bluesky (ryan-ellis). And if you like to write things in long form, email me (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com).

The 757th episode is all about performers. First, Disney's hit about a flying elephant who gets loaded and sees pink elephants is the focus. Dumbo's print on Disney Plus is beautiful. The voicework is also good, plus it's charming, sweet, and (controversial black crows aside) the mother-loves-child story is eternal. Next up was the silent comedy, Show People. Director King Vidor and star Marion Davies were a good team on more than 1 project back then, yet neither has previously been discussed on Have You Ever Seen. Just as in reality, Davies is good at being light and fun in this engrossing comedy, although her character masquerades as a serious actress. There are cameos by many big stars, including Chaplin and 4 actors on my AFI Old-Timey Actors list. So touch trunks with your mom at the circus and also fall for both of your co-stars as I talk about the thrill of performing in this talk about Dumbo and Show People. If you have thoughts you want to share about Jumbo Jr. and/or the People of Show, email me: haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com. Tweets can go to "@moviefiend51", Blueskys to "ryan-ellis" and I also post on Letterboxd (RyanHYES). Subscribe to the channel and also rate and review me.

This is the 11th time a Coen Brothers film has been discussed on Have You Ever Seen, although this black comedy is slyer than many of the others. There's also a lot of violence and horror in Barton Fink. It's covering a lot of ground. John Turturro plays the title character, a Broadway playwright who's hired to write a wrestling picture in 1941 Hollywood. After dealing with writer's block for what seems like weeks on end, his script gets meta...and things get weird. John Goodman plays a complicated character with a lot of wit and devilishness while John Mahoney, Judy Davis, Jon Polito and Steve Buscemi contribute their quirks to this one too. Joel & Ethan have Barton talking a lot about the common man in this very uncommon dramedy. T'is a theme. So take your head-box to the beach and contemplate your dark future in California as I fill out close to an hour of talk time in this 756th episode with a look into Barton Fink. Well, Actually: in the "So I Got Thinkin'" about some of the summer's big releases, Milly Alcock was misidentified Milly "Adcock." Subscribe to Have You Ever Seen in your podcast application. Rate the show and review it as well. Find me on Letterboxd (RyanHYES). I tweet (@moviefiend51) and lurk on Bluesky (ryan-ellis). Email is "haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com).

The 755th episode of Have You Ever Seen is a doubleheader of oldies with very little in common. First, it's Jules Dassin's tough and uncompromising prison-break drama, Brute Force. It was brutally violent for 1947 audiences, as Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford and friends team up to bust out...partly to escape Hume Cronyn's vicious captain of the guards. It's one of the great jailbird flicks, even if it's been surpassed by the likes of Cool Hand Luke and Shawshank in the 8 decades since. Then I touched on Michael Cimino's infamous Heaven's Gate...although that review is more of a defence of a movie that took a lot of heat for ending the "Director's Era" of the 1970s. Hey, Cimino made a good-looking western with a terrific cast (Kristofferson, Walken, Hurt, Bridges, Huppert)...and now the movies made by the "he ended the party" scapegoat is viewed much more favourably. So dedicate about 42 minutes to my 2-pack about the Brute and Gate. Subscribe to this podcast in your app. Write a review, rate the show. Tell some friends. Follow me on Letterboxd (RyanHYES), Twitter (@moviefiend51) and Bluesky (ryan-ellis). The email option is "haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com".

A holiday Monday is a good time to cover a classic: the action/sci-fi/horror that is Aliens. James Cameron's blockbuster was his follow-up to his action/sci-fi/horror hit The Terminator. This might have been a horrible experience for the director and his production team, but everybody involved came up with one of the greatest sequels of all time. Humans battle xenomorphs and the result was many iconic moments and lines of dialogue...and there's a sympathetic feminist at the centre. Sigourney Weaver's best-known character works so well off the likes of Biehn, Henn, Reiser, Henriksen, Paxton and Goldstein...and, of course, those slimy aliens. So get away from her you something or other and cue up that incredible escape music as this 754th edition of Have You Ever Seen talks about the awesome 40-year-old flick we call Aliens. Well, Actually: I forgot to mention the trivia question for next week's show about Brute Force (and Heaven's Gate). It's just that Burt Lancaster is a convict in Brute Force, but he's also a convict in a more-famous prison movie. Which one? You can dream now and you can also subscribe to the channel in your app. Rate, review, follow, look me up on Letterboxd (RyanHYES). Email me (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com). And if you like youse some social media, I'm on Twitter (@moviefiend51) and Bluesky (ryan-ellis).

Robert Donat & Madeleine Carroll were due for a reviewin' on Have You Ever Seen, so episode #753 has them starring in a Hitchcock movie. Ol' Al has come up a lot on this channel...and The 39 Steps isn't even in his Top 10 best movies. This fun thriller was one of his best movies made in England, sure, but his resume is filled with plenty of better stuff. In this one (where the title itself is Hitch's "McGuffin"), Donat pulls off repeatedly impressive escapes, even though he's an ordinary and innocent man falsely accused. That's a regular Hitchcock trope...and the end result is highly entertaining. Then I talked Ann Sheridan in Norman Foster's Woman On The Run. She's a cool customer who has to outfox the cops and also a curious reporter (Dennis O'Keefe) to find her husband, who fled after witnessing a murder. Sheridan is a big name I've never reviewed either...and this not-so-famous flick ended up being a solid bit of entertainment too. To tell me YOUR thoughts about The 39 Steps and/or Woman On The Run, fire off an email (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com). Tweet me (@moviefiend51) or Bluesky me (Ryan-Ellis). I'm on Letterboxd (RyanHYES). Also, subscribe to this show, rate it, review it and spread the word to your fellow film fans.

John Travolta, Nancy Allen and director Brian De Palma teamed up to make the brilliant horror flick Carrie in 1976, but the team was nearly at their best 5 years later in this one about movie-makers. The show-offy De Palma, who mostly made thrillers, loved his characters to be all kinds of shades of gray. Mission possible here. Blow Out's set-ups & pay-offs are excellent...and the ending is operatic, symbolic and powerful. That perfect scream is heartbreaking. This violent tragedy is well-crafted, with inspirations from Antonioni's Blow-Up and the incident at Chappaquiddick. So go get some sound effects for the foley department as this 752nd episode of Have You Ever Seen examines the suspense/conspiracy thriller Blow Out. Well, Actually: at around the 44-minute mark, it should have been The Black Dahlia "was at the end of a pretty poor (box office) run" in 2006, not Femme Fatale. That was released in 2002. Subscribe to this podcast in your app. Rate the show. Review it. Tweet me (@moviefiend51). Bluesky me (Ryan-Ellis). Letterboxd me (RyanHYES). Email me (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com).

Will Ferrell's popularity peaked right around 20 years ago, but he was about as huge as comedy stars got in 2006. In Marc Forster's Stranger Than Fiction, he isn't goofing around...although maybe that was to his fans' discontent. And he's not in tragedy or a comedy, but a dramedy...and the man who had always gone big proved he could also play quiet, nerdy and sad. Emma Thompson is a famous author writing & narrating everything he does...and it upends his life. Falling for the woman he's auditing--the Maggie Gyllenhaal character--upends it too. Stranger Than Fiction also has Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah and Tony Hale doing good work in a pretty great movie. So, taxman, strap on your trusty wristwatch as I dig into a touching filmic experience in this 751st edition of Have You Ever Seen. Rate this podcast and maybe even jot down some words in the form of a review. Subscribe, of course, and do some social-media following. I'm "@moviefiend51" on Twitter, "Ryan-Ellis" on Bluesky, "RyanHYES" on Letterboxd and "haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com" is the email.

The French Foreign Legion called the 3 Geste boys and they trekked off to Africa to end up in William Wellman's tense adventure flick. It's an action-war film that ends with a long, but well-paced siege inside a fort. Gary Cooper is miscast as the title character (he's too old and too American), but he has pretty good chemistry with Ray Milland and Robert Preston, who play his brothers. Susan Hayward is briefly in this too, although Brian Donlevy steals the movie as a jerk sergeant...and got an Oscar nomination for it. There's also a movie-long mystery here after someone steals their benefactor's expensive sapphire. But who...and why?! So tune in for episode #750 as white bros go on assignment in Africa and play war with the locals in Beau Geste. Subscribe to Have You Ever Seen in your app. Jot down a nice review and rate the show too. How do you get in touch? Well, I'm "@moviefiend51" on Twitter, "Ryan-Ellis" on Bluesky and "RyanHYES" on Letterboxd. Prefer email? Well, that's "haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com."

Let's go back to December 2016 when John Lee Hancock's The Founder and Martin Scorsese's Silence were positioned as Oscar contenders. Neither won a gold trophy, but Hancock made the better movie. The Founder is a big-business biopic about Ray Kroc sharking Dick & Mac McDonald out of their own fast-food creation, then franchising McDonald's worldwide. The product isn't so good now, but the film about it is very entertaining, especially Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch's chemistry as the McDonald's brothers. Then I reviewed Silence, although that section is really an evaluation of the noted gangster maestro's religious passion projects...and how Marty is just not at his best when his movies are explicitly about faith. So get drive-though as you swallow this 749th episode where I preach about The Founder & Silence. Subscribe to Have You Ever Seen in your podcast application. Rate the show and review it as well. Also, I like to be contacted. The email address is haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com. Twitter is "@moviefiend51", Bluesky is "ryan-ellis" and Letterboxd is "RyanHYES".

June started on this podcast with a fast-cutting musical in Moulin Rouge. Now I end the month talking about an old-school Technicolor song-and-dancer...and it was an award-winning mega-smash. The King And I is Walter Lang's crowning achievement as a director and the King is the part Yul Brynner played thousands of times onstage. He won an Oscar for playing this hardheaded chauvinist on celluloid opposite Deborah Kerr's Anna, the headstrong English widow hired to teach his many kids. The culture clash leads to a curious "love" story where they barely touch each other until that...well, let's say head-scratching climax. Not a fan of that ending! The lavish production is entirely set-bound, but this is still quite an experience. So settle in for my 748th episode as I investigate the et ceteras in The King And I. Subscribe to "Have You Ever Seen" in your app. Rate the show. Review it. Tweet me (@moviefiend51). Bluesky me (ryan-ellis). Email me (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com). Letterboxd me (RyanHYES).

The podcast rulebook says you have to cover a plane movie for episode #747, so I went with the daddy of the '70s disaster craze. The planes are 707s in Airport, but oh well. George Seaton writes & directs a cast of stars & Oscar-winners (including Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, George Kennedy and Jacqueline Bissett). He was rewarded with a blockbuster hit that snagged 10 Oscar nominations (Helen Hayes even won for her adequate supporting performance) and it started a run of Airport flicks. Those 3 sequels and the various disaster films this influenced followed the formula of intertwining stories, romance, some humour and a lot of peril (in this case, there's a Heflin bomb onboard). This is one of the better ones. It's entertaining and has a thrilling climax. So spend some time hearing about Airport. Subscribe to my channel in your podcast app. Rate my show and review it too. Follow me on Twitter, Bluesky and Letterboxd (@moviefiend51, ryan-ellis and RyanHYES, respectively). As for email, that's "haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com."

F.W. Murnau didn't live long enough to direct a huge slate of films, but the man bullhorning The Last Laugh also has Nosferatu, Faust and Sunrise on his resume. Like those, The Last Laugh is a silent picture And THIS one infamously uses very few intertitles to explain dialogue or motivations. So Emil Jannings went very big! The story is that he loses his job as the doorman of a swanky hotel, leading to depression and shame. The artistry by Murnau and his team are terrific. Their movie is slow-paced and extremely melodramatic, but there's poetry...until an irrational deus ex machina in the last 15 minutes. The story in episode #746 ends up leaving much to be desired. So enjoy the rare Friday show the next few months as I hand out towels and talk about The Last Laugh. Rate and review this podcast in your application, but also become a subscriber. Seek me out on Letterboxd too (RyanHYES) and also Twitter (@moviefiend51) and Bluesky (ryan-ellis). The email address is "haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com".

The key word is charming in the 745th edition of Have You Ever Seen. Only The Lonely has John Candy playing a single Chicago cop who lives with his widowed mother (Maureen O'Hara). He's an extroverted sweetheart who falls for shy Ally Sheedy, but while his bigoted mom might love her son(s), that love is on HER terms. Candy didn't get to play the romantic lead very often (or ever?) before Chris Columbus gave him that chance in the Mama's Boy movie, but he showed he had the chops to evolve as more than just a laugh machine. Then he was dead only a few years later. Only The Lonely wasn't very popular 35 years ago, but it works really well as a dramedy...and it's nearly impossible not to like the 2 leads. In any case, it's good to be a cop in love in a sweet little movie. Subscribe to Have You Ever Seen in your app. Write a little review recommending others give it a chance and also drop a 5-star rating. Follow me on Letterboxd (RyanHYES), Twitter (@moviefiend51) and/or Bluesky (ryan-ellis). You can also email me (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com).

It's as if 007 went to prison for decades, was let out by government guys played by John Spencer & William Forsythe and then he had to help a nerdy Nicolas Cage save hostages on a deserted island. Well, hold up, that IS the plot of The Rock! Michael Bay's action movie is deeper than you might expect, with Ed Harris playing a superstar Marine general who becomes a terrorist…with sympathetic complexity. Cage is the out-of-his-element expert on chemical weapons who teams with Sean Connery's Bond-like ex-spy who once escaped from Alcatraz. The flick is a Bay/Bruckheimer/Simpson collab so it's gaudy, loud, tart-tongued and very exciting. Those 2 Mexican stand-offs are phenomenal scenes. There's death and destruction in The Rock, sure, yet it's just fun. So, yesh, cut Agent Goodspeed some slack as he battles the guy threatening to launch deadly gas while mourning his men (and "his wife") in this 744th episode. Well, Actually: Mason uses SF Information to find his daughter...he doesn't just magically remember a phone number he never had. Also, the funny line about bailing on lemons is in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, not I Love You, Man. Also also, it DOES seem like Tony Todd's character knocks over a rock on purpose to start a massacre in the shower scene...and also at least SOME of Hummel's marines are killed when that "all enemies…foreign, sir, and domestic" melee is over. Subscribe to this podcast in your application. Rate the show, review it, follow, all that. Look for me on Letterboxd (RyanHYES) and juice up an email (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com). Tweet (@moviefiend51) or Sky (ryan-ellis) too.

The first episode of a non-theme month here in June (and the 743rd overall) gets loud about Baz Luhrmann's bombastic Moulin Rouge. It's the kind of zany project where the director and star of this Paris-set movie are both Australians (Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman) while the co-lead is Scottish (Ewan McGregor) and a Colombian (John Leguizamo) plays the real-life French writer Toulouse Lautrec. Kidman and McGregor are well-matched as gaga lovers and, while she got most of the raves, he's just as good...if not even better. Baz's main hook is to use anachronistic pop hits on the soundtrack in his frantic, garish musical that's absolutely in love with love. Either you're all in...or you won't be able to put up with more than 10 minutes of it. But put up with me talking about the sickly courtesan and her idealistic writer who l'amour things up in the spectacular (spectacular) Moulin Rouge. Subscribe to "Have You Ever Seen," but also drop a 5-star rating and maybe even write a complimentary review. Contact options are email (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com), Twitter (@moviefiend51), Bluesky (ryan-ellis) and Letterboxd (RyanHYES).

I put a jaunty bow on Heroes Month with another multi-movie episode. For #742, I'm mostly talking about John Ford's My Darling Clementine, but there's a bit at the end about John Sturges' Gunfight At The O.K. Corral and George Cosmatos' Tombstone. Clementine stars Henry Fonda as the stoic marshal Wyatt Earp and Victor Mature as the uber-talented but sickly Doc Holliday. Linda Darnell is in the mix too and they're all surrounded by a smorgasbord of character actors. Doc, Wyatt and his brothers team up to take on the Clantons in what's considered to be one of the greatest westerns. Then it's onto a much-shorter analyses of Gunfight and Tombstone, where I got to do what so many have done for 33 years: rave about Val Kilmer. So let's go, boys, to where they keep the horses and draw some guns as I give you my 3 takes on the world of Wyatt and Doc. Well, Actually: Elia Kazan was the one who took over directing Pinky after Ford was fired. Also, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson is the name of the actress in Tombstone who plays Wyatt's wife Mattie. Subscribe to Have You Ever Seen in your app. Rate my show and write up a short review (or a long review). Follow me on Twitter (@moviefiend51) and/or Bluesky (ryan-ellis) and also Letterboxd (RyanHYES). And I certainly read emails: haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com.

Since it's Memorial Day, I'm tipping a cap to veterans. And I've got another doubleheader in episode #741, with the bulk of the show devoted to Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down (where American soldiers battle Somalis in 1993 Mogadishu), then there's a short bit at the end about William Wellman's Battleground (where American grunts take on the Nazis during the Battle Of The Bulge in WWII). Both films won technical Oscars and are intense, apolitical war stories. Appropriate for Heroes Month, you just fight for your fellow soldiers. Black Hawk Down stars the likes of Hartnett and McGregor, but we've also got well-known character actors like Sizemore, Fichtner and Shepard...not to mention up-and-comers like Bloom, Hardy and a super-cool Bana. So look out for your buddy as I talk about movies set in the Moag and Bastogne. Subscribe to this podcast in your application. Rate my show and jot down a little review too. The email option is "haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com." Twitter is "@moviefiend51" and Bluesky is "ryan-ellis." If you like Letterboxd, look for "RyanHYES."

The ongoing effort to review long-ago movie stars has me talking about the dashing Tyrone Power and the beautiful Linda Darnell in The Mark Of Zorro. Gail Sondergaard and Basil Rathbone also have key roles in Rouben Mamoulian's 1940 flick. The Mexican man in black shares ties with Robin Hood and Batman, as the Z Man risks his life to rip off the rich to help out the poor. For an action movie, it's pretty muted, but it IS a good time. Then I talked for a bit about Hopalong Cassidy. The conflict is over cattle and territory, which is similar to the storyline in the 1956 Lone Ranger. Hothead Jimmy Ellison wants to fight the whole world while William Boyd kicked off a career playing the title character dozens of more times. "You're alright, kid", so put on a face covering that changes depending on your mood and settle in for this 740th podcast on Have You Ever Seen as I rattle teeth about The Mark Of Zorro and Hopalong Cassidy. Be a subscriber to the podcast in your app. Rate and review the show as well. Check me out on Letterboxd (RyanHYES) or Twitter (@moviefiend51) or Bluesky (ryan-ellis). My email is "haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com".

Call me Snake. Okay, well, that's too cool for me, so just make it Ryan. Either way, this 739th episode gets into the night life and action frenzy that is John Carpenter's Escape From New York. Kurt Russell was already establishing himself as something more than just a Disney kid, then his signature role here cemented it. The eclectic Van Cleef/Borgnine/Harry Dean supporting cast surrounding Russell is effective, but the production design, cinematography, music and other technicals in this dystopian sci-fi bleakness are the drawing card. Carpenter was cynical, yet so underrated in his time...even compared to a top-of-his-game Spielberg in that same era. Now, is Escape From New York funny? Maybe not (partly since it feels like this could actually happen), but it IS fun. So, even though everybody thinks you're dead, burst into the open-air prison that is Manhattan and save the president and his precious cassette tape. Cuz the name's Ellis. Subscribe to Have You Ever Seen in your app. Rate the show, write a pithy review. Look for me on Letterboxd (RyanHYES) and fire off an email (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com). Socials? I'm @moviefiend51 on Twitter and ryan-ellis on Bluesky.