Podcasts
‘Phantasm’ at 45: How Don Coscarelli Captured the ’70s Through His First Three Films [Halloweenies Podcast]
The Halloweenies celebrate the 45th anniversary of an all-timer: Don Coscarelli‘s Phantasm.
Join co-hosts Michael Roffman, Dan Caffrey, McKenzie Gerber, and special guest Adam Carston of Windy City Ballyhoo/Make My Day: A Clint Eastwood Podcast as they revisit the 1979 DIY masterpiece. Together, they dig deep into its roots, try to make sense of the plot, marvel at the music, and chart how Coscarelli’s first two films — 1976’s Jim the World’s Greatest and Kenny & Co. — feel like precursors, making all three a perfect aesthetic trilogy of the ’70s. Both films are available to stream on YouTube, and we highly advise you watch them.
Note: This episode was recorded in February 2024 and is being unlocked for the holidays.
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After kicking off July with discussions of Joe Dante’s seminal werewolf film The Howling (listen) and Ken Russell’s controversial erotic thriller Crimes of Passion (listen), we’re heading to Maine to dissect one of Stephen King‘s most misguided adaptations in Lawrence Kasdan‘s 2003 misfire Dreamcatcher!
Dreamcatcher sees friends Henry (Thomas Jane), Jonesy (Damian Lewis), Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Beaver (Jason Lee) reunite for their annual hunting trip in Maine. Their reunion is cut short when they find themselves caught in the middle of a war between a hostile race of farty-farty aliens and an elite US military unit led by Colonel Abraham Curtis (Morgan Freeman), who has been driven mad after spending decades tracking the extraterrestrials. When Jonesy is possessed by one of the aliens, the remaining friends seek out their disabled childhood friend Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg), who they believe has powers that can save Jonesy…and the world.
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Episode 396: Dreamcatcher (2003)
Watch out for “ister gay” (oof), take some Gas-X and bite our bags because we’re talking Lawrence Kasdan’s baffling 2003 adaptation of Stephen King’s equally baffling novel Dreamcatcher.
Join us as we go all in on the farty-farty aliens populating this hilarious misfire that often feels like a bad Kevin Smith script. It’s a film filled with characters who get a single defining trait (if they’re lucky), played by respectable actors who are here for the paycheck (looking at you, Morgan Freeman).
Plus: blown-out assholes, using guns as telephones, pitying poor Donnie Wahlberg, and wondering why the hell this movie is called Dreamcatcher.
Cross out Dreamcatcher!
Coming Up Next: We’re going to be lounging around a posh Greenwich Village apartment as we check in on Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954).
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