Forbidden Cinema

Episode 106 - The Whole Nine Yards

The Forbidden Cinema crew take a moment to come out of our normal timeline to pay homage to the late, great Matthew Perry.
This week we go all the way in to the distant future of the year 2000 to look at the Bruce Willis / Matthew Perry caper comedy, The Whole Nine Yards.  This critically mixed (but must have been commercially valid as there was a sequel) film had it's flaws, but at a brisk 98 minutes with credits and 2 musical numbers it flew by with some incredible physical comedy from an immensely likable cast.
We welcome in Natasha Henstridge to the podcast without having done Species yet, Zack is flummoxed.  We have suicide humor, Harland Williams, and a delightful performance by Amanda Peet.  We both are shocked at how huge of a man, and how funny of a man Michael Clarke Duncan is.  We also spend some time talking about how an R rated comedy was released in the year 2000 targeted at adults, but not with post American Pie raunchy humor.

Forbidden Cinema 105 - Bram Stoker’s Dracula - Going Deeper

Welcome back everyone!
We hope everyone had a great October / Halloween / Spooky Season.  As we head into the holidays Zack and Jenny follow up with the questions nobody ever bothered to ask about our coverage of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
We threw a little bit of shade by omitting Peter Cushing as Van Helsing in our main episode, so we make sure to give him some love in this one.  We talk about the Spanish language Dracula filmed at night on the same sets as the Tod Browning version.  Have you ever heard of that, we hadn't?
We go through the films for Francis Ford Coppola.  From nudie flicks, to possible the first slasher, the Godfather, to Captain EO.  This guy has done it all.
We pause for a moment to look at a movie ratings site to try to determine the most forbidden film we have covered.  Spoiler alert, Dracula is pretty low on the list because there is no cursing.
We go over how the trippy special effects were created, and how they were mostly parlor tricks that would have been available to the makers of the original Dracula.  We also talk about the 2nd unit director, Roman Coppola, and his influence on one of our favorite filmmakers.
We dig up a 5000 year old fart joke, ponder the Steven Segal film Under Siege spending 4 weeks at #1 in the box office, dig into a newspaper from the day of release, and even find a copy of the motorcycle magazine Easyrider at an estate sale and try to figure out what was going on when this was released.

Forbidden Cinema 104 - Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Happy Halloween family and welcome back to the Jr high lunch table for Bram Stoker's Dracula.  We go back to 1992 for Francis Ford Coppola's wild fever dream featuring so much blood, sex, and religious iconography that we are terrified to think about what would happen if our parent's had ever found out we wanted to see this movie.
This one slipped under the radar.  It was always one we wanted to see, but had no idea how many forbidden elements would be present.  This movie is a mess, but such a spectacular mess.  Every frame is a masterpiece, even when it makes no sense.
Come with us as we go back to 11-12 and remember what it was like to see Gary Oldman and his NKOTB looking Dracula all over the magazines and papers of the day.  Stay for Anthony Hopkins dry humping the Rocketeer's leg.  Cary Elwes shows up.  Did we mention Keanu and Winona are possibly still legally married in Romania?

Forbidden Cinema 103 - Scream - Going Deeper

Join us as we answer the questions that nobody ever thought to ask about Scream.  We answer the things that came up in our full episode covering the 1996 horror / slasher classic, Scream.  This movie revitalized a genre, and showed studios that teens were a valid audience.  Come along as 2 church youth group kids grow up, get married, and watch all of the things our parent's wouldn't let us watch.  
This week we realize that Neve Campbell is a 3 time guest on our show.  We try to figure out who Skeet Ulrich is and what he has been doing lately.  We really dive into the box office and business of this film and it's influence on teen films, R Rated films, and moviemaking in general.  We give Roger Jackson "The Voice" and Kevin Williamson "The Screenwriter" their due time.  Zack goes frame by frame and realizes that we were watching the Unrated cut that was clearly advertised as R, plenty of extra juice and sound effects.  We talk about who killed who, and look into fan theories about the gay subtext in the film.  Zack also deep dives the December 1996 issue of Playboy magazine to find out what vests are in and out for winter.  Also what kind of component rack, receiver, laser disc player, and CD changer could get a lady interested in spending some time at a guy's apartment.

Forbidden Cinema - 102 - Scream

Welcome to spooky season in 2023 and welcome back to winter of 1996 as we look at the film that revolutionized horror and slasher films, Scream.
We take a look at the movie that was on Zack's top 10 for all time wanted to see but couldn't.  We talk about longing and nostalgia.  We look back at the time and welcome Queen Neve Campbell to the 3 timers club along with Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas.  In 100 years, we would not have predicted she would get in so early.
Wes Craven comes back with a bang and makes maybe the most perfect horror film of all time with Kevin Williamson who may be the best at writing teen drama.
I don't know how we have made 102 episodes and are just getting around to Drew Barrymore, welcome.
Come along as we dive into one of the most wildly anticipated forbidden films of all time for one of us.  It's a scream, baby... I'll be right back.

Forbidden Cinema 102 - Jade - Going Deeper

Welcome back,
This week we answer the questions nobody thought to ask about our coverage of Jade.  Zack dives deep on this one.  We uncover a surprising link between this movie and Basic Instinct.  We talk about the box office and business of this critical and commercial flop.  Zack gets disappointed when he realizes the "For Strippers Only" album in the iTunes library is research for a class Jenny is teaching, not a new career move.
We go from an article about sex in cinema in 1995 to a Playboy model to a sports star that literally has nothing bad about him on Wikipedia.  That's the kind of tangents you can expect.  We find a cringy article about HIV denial in the worst year of the epidemic in the same magazine as an article celebrating the activism, but questioning the books of Save the Children.  We also wonder why Brett Butler has interviews in both Playboy and Penthouse this month.
The fact of the podcast has got to be the career of SF cop, Kenny King, who plays Petey in the film.

Forbidden Cinema 100 - Jade

Are you even joking right now.  We just hit 100 episodes.
It's time for our most requested episode ever, the 1995 Joe Esterhas / William Freidkin collaboration with the guy from NYPD Blue, the femme fatale from The Last Seduction, and that guy from The Sopranos who has the awesome restaurant who I think did A Bronx Tale.
We hit up the least erotic and least thrilling erotic thriller of the 90s.  This thing is a train wreck, but we had so much fun.  Come along as we spend more than 2 hours breaking down a 94 minute disaster that is one of the most entertaining experiences we have had watching moves together.
Here's to 100 more!

Forbidden Cinema 99 - True Lies - Going Deeper

Join us as we deep dive the behind the scenes of True Lies.  There are Oscar winners besides Dame Jamie Lee.  We discover that Tom Arnold isn't as trash as we originally assumed.
This was the most expensive move ever made and is high on the list of the top grossing R rated films ever, but didn't make all that much money.
We also deep dive Dame Tia Carrere's 36yo newly single mother of 2 appearance in Playboy in 2003.  There are some wild things that happen, but nothing as crazy as the survey of Sex in the Office.  Look upon my works ye mighty and despair... the mid 2000's were more trash than you remember.

Forbidden Cinema 98 - True Lies

We are back and we are talking about True Lies.
Welcome to the podcast, Jamie Lee Curtis and Arnold.  How have we made it to 98 episodes without either of you getting on board.  Both of you will be back... see what I did there.
Jenny and Zack are a married couple who grew up in the most conservative purity culture church around and are now unpacking what that meant by watching the movies that were forbidden in our childhood (hint, Zack's parent's took him and his friends to see this for his 14th birthday).  Horrific violence against certain groups was fine, but there was some swearing and things got a little sexy.  Awkwardness ensued.

Forbidden Cinema 97 - Cruel Intentions - Going Deeper

Welcome back to our first deeper dive into the history and time behind Cruel Intentions.  It's been a while since we have done a Going Deeper episode.  Zack has got his research hat back on and Jenny has been drinking Rose.  Come along as we talk about the 2 adaptations of Les Liaisons Dangerous that were released back to back in the 80s.  Zack was today years old when he realized Cyrano de Bergerac was a real person.  It's almost like next week you are going to tell me that Toulouse Lautrec from Moulin Rouge was based on a real person.  We get into the box office.  We get into the 2000 MTV movie awards.  We talk sequels, and more sequels, and TV show pilots.  We somehow manage to completely omit the fact that the director of this film is one of the more prolific TV directors of the last decade and now only directs adaptations of romance novels starring the kid from Big Daddy and Friends.  This thing goes off the rails.  
None of us come out of this episode unscathed, but we are alive and ready to start recording weekly again.  Come join us.