Special Guest Archives - Have You SEEN This?

226 – Tough Guys Don’t Dance

Oh God! Oh man! Jen and Tim and Mets devotee David J. Roth square up with Norman Mailer’s demented neo-noir, Tough Guys Don’t Dance.

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Read David’s piece on a true American original, B-movie stalwart Wings Hauser. Did you know that he was in Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time? Well now you do!

Collider profiled the one and only ersatz Charles Bronson (or the most prominent and successful, we assume), Hungarian actor Robert Bronzi.

Hear Wings Hauser sing the concluding track for Vice Squad, “Neon Slime.” His vocals have the same gusto as his average film performance, as you might imagine.

How to Come Alive With Norman Mailer (the documentary Jen wanted to call “How to Be a Cool Fuckin’ Guy”) provides a breezy overview of the colorful life of the author.

On YouTube: Mailer comes out swinging at Gore Vidal on the Dick Cavett Show, and gets bitch-slapped back by Vidal, Cavett and author Janet Flanner.

Want more conversation about inexplicable auteur statements? Try our episode on a certain Amazing Movie!

224 – Valentino

Jen welcomes Darren Herczeg to help her rhapsodize about a movie even director Ken Russell didn’t like, Valentino!

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The wonderfully-named Phallic Frenzy gives Russell his due as an audacious filmmaker, and describes Valentino in complimentary terms.

See Nureyev fully commit to the bit by dancing “Swine Lake” on the Muppet Show in 1978.

The book on Fatty Arbuckle that Jen mentioned is called Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood, and it’s well worth a read for anyone interested in early Hollywood.

Can’t get enough Darren? Check out our collection of his appearances on the show!

217 – Phase IV

Tim and Jen invite Alex Rancourt of the Saucer Cinema podcast to marvel at Saul Bass‘s disquieting sci-fi dreamscape, Phase IV!

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View the alternate ending that should have been the theatrical ending to Phase IV on YouTube.

A couple of interesting side notes about the Oscar-winning faux documentary Alex mentioned, The Hellstrom Chronicle: it was conceived and executive produced by David L. Wolper, the TV stalwart who shepherded massively successful television miniseries like Roots and The Thorn Birds, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Additionally, Walon Green, the screenwriter perhaps best known for William Friedkin‘s sleeper masterpiece Sorcerer, co-directed and produced the film.

A quick web search proved that the busty wasp mentioned by Alex isn’t real, except perhaps in our hearts.

We alluded briefly to this article at Dennis Cooper’s blog discussing film treatments of LSD, with a fabulous collection of acid-related GIFs accompanying.

214 – Centurion

Several Species of English Actors Gathered Together in a Cave and Hiding From a Pict

Tim and Jen enlist Gaius of the wonderful Tribunate channel on YouTube to help unearth a Romans-vs.-Picts historical epic that vanished like the Ninth Legion, Centurion.

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Jen’s personal favorite video from Tribunate is this savage takedown of Cato, but this examination of Roman concepts of race and how radically they differ from ours is another great example of the high caliber of material from Gaius’s channel. Also the triggered reactionary crybabies in the comments are extremely funny. Finally, don’t miss this compilation of filthy Roman words!

If you perked up your ears when Jen mentioned Carry On Cleo, go check out our survey of the Carry On franchise, featuring the inimitable Bitter Karella!

210 – Hawk the Slayer

Tim and Jen welcome Rifftrax stalwarts Bill Corbett and Sean Thomason to discuss a cheapie high fantasy film that thinks it’s a spaghetti western, Hawk the Slayer!

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Bill and Sean have brought their Ringheads podcast to a close, but if you crave some Silmarillon chat, find it on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast platform.

The Rifftrax version of Hawk the Slayer is free with ads on Tubi, or you can secure your very own copy at the Rifftrax website!

In the Realms of the Unreal does not appear to be streaming as of this writing, but you can find out more about outsider artist Henry Darger at the documentary’s official website.

Also, don’t miss Bill’s previous appearance on our show to chat about the 1979 TV movie version of Captain America, starring Big McLargehuge aka Reb Brown.

202 – Aladdin

I spent three wishes to make sure I wouldn’t have to watch this.

Tim wisely stays far away while Jen hosts the lovable Worst of All Possible Worlds boys to chat about the worst of all possible musicals, Aladdin from 1990. Yes, it’s not the animated version, but it does involve Disney. Listen if you don’t believe us!

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The moribund website of the Prince Street Players remains online, in case you want to do a deeper dive on the organization responsible for this mess.

Behold the “I Want to be Ninja” lady, but be prepared to apologize to your Asian friends. And yes, she does appear to be milking her dubious viral fame.

Regarding the Barry Bostwick-featuring commercial Jen mentioned, Brian made up a Pepsi product, and Jen believed him! The commercial actually presented Pepsi Twist, with lemon.

Check out Tim’s Myst linking book set, and follow him on Instagram to see more of his amazing Lego creations!

200 – Disclosure

Tim and Jen welcome Alex Rancourt of the Saucer Cinema podcast to discuss a concentrated version of the political correctness panic of the 90s, Disclosure.

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If for some reason you need to subject yourself to the gross-out video Alex dropped in the chat while we were recording, here you go: Michael Douglas eats an oyster.

From 1995, this Vanity Fair article about Michael Douglas covers some of the production of Disclosure. Also highlighted are Douglas’s personal struggles at the time, including a reconciliation with wife Diandra (who’d file for divorce later that year).

If you just can’t get enough 90s tech references, check out this history of SiliconGraphics, the company that created a lot of the computer imagery in Disclosure. It’s a UNIX system! You know this!

For more Michael Douglas (dunno why you want more, but you do you), listen to our episode about The Ghost and the Darkness!

195 – That One Amazing Movie

K. Thor Jensen makes a triumphant return to the show to help Jen and Tim make sense of a nice young man’s three-hour-long passion project, That One Amazing Movie!

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See the movie for free with ads on Crackle, or rent or even buy it on Amazon!

Watch Deception on Demand, a short documentary laying out several grievances against Adler &Associates Entertainment, the entity which distributed That One Amazing Movie.

“The true story of how the grifters and con artists from Adler & Associates Entertainment hired O.J. Simpson’s lawyers, and spent a small fortune, futilely trying to intimidate, harass and rip-off a very determined filmmaker. “

Hear Thor talk about Sass Girls X, the novel (!) from the auteur who brought us That One Amazing Movie, on the I Don’t Even Own a TV podcast.

Listen to Thor’s first appearance on our show, to discuss a movie just as baffling as the one we talked about in this episode, Wonder Boy.

191 – Sorcerer

For audiences clamoring for Star Wars, Sorcerer was a bridge too far

Tim and Jen finally give the departed William Friedkin a proper sendoff with a discussion of his once-maligned masterpiece, Sorcerer. Guest Darren Herczeg provides his usual able assistance.

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To clear up an anecdote Jen related during the episode: she says that Paramount president Charles Bluhdorn freaked out when he spotted himself in the group photo of oil company executives in a scene from Sorcerer. The source of this story is screenwriter Walon Green, who describes Bluhdorn as having had a “shit hemorrhage” during the screening. However, a review of the offending scene reveals only other Gulf+Western execs, not Bluhdorn.

“To me, they looked like a bunch of thugs,” Friedkin said (as quoted in Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls).

Catch the documentary Friedkin Uncut on Tubi, where the man himself evokes Hitler in the first five minutes. We’ll miss you, Billy.

Want to hear about another Friedkin flop? The Guardian very much fails on its own merits.

173 – Lake of Fire

Jen and Tim welcome reproductive rights expert Mellie to discuss an exhaustive documentary on A BIG COMPLICATED ISSUE: Tony Kaye’s overview of abortion in the US, Lake of Fire.

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Looper has the rundown on Tony Kaye’s battle with New Line Cinema (and Edward Norton) over the final cut of American History X.

The Nation has a pretty good overview of the intertwining of anti-abortion activism and white supremacy in the United States.

Randall Terry is still alive, unfortunately, but Paul Jennings Hill, John Burt, John Salvi, and Norman Weslin are not.

Be sure to listen to Mellie’s first appearance on the show, where we picked apart the anti-abortion propaganda film The Silent Scream.

Want more discussion on reproductive ethics? Try our FREE episode on 1997’s Gattaca.