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John Adam Belushi was born in Chicago, 1949...and like so many bright lights of the counterculture, left us at a disturbingly young age, only 33 years later at the dawn of March, 1982. A candle burning at both ends, this somersaulting, volatile, pratfall prone comedian stole the spotlight wherever he went, in both personal and onscreen life, from Chicago's Second City to National Lampoon to a fabled stint with the original Saturday Night Live ensemble.   A sideline performing high energy schtick-based (but strangely both serious and more than competent) classic blues and soul covers with veterans of the scene went from local club dates to album releases, eventually resulting in an enduring modern era movie classic: The Blues Brothers. But an all too brief run in filmmaking was not without its own perils, and his personal indulgences were all too encouraged in the circles in which he ran.   After delivering a handful of off kilter (but towards the end, surprisingly good) films that showed there was more to the man than a juvenile, slovenly life of the party type, he was gone, leaving a short but memorable legacy that endures to this very day. Join us as we wrestle with a true live wire, the bombastic John Belushi! Weird Scenes Week 98 (6/1/23): High Voltage and Wired: The Life and Career of John Belushi https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Born in 1962 in Disneyworld territory, Orlando, Florida, Wesley Trent Snipes grew up on the mean streets of the Bronx, before shuttling back to Florida as a teen and then doing college out in California. After some awkward beginnings as a drug dealer in Miami Vice and the heavy in a Michael Jackson video (and losing out on a pair of high profile opportunities to the likes of LeVar Burton and Tymak), Snipes broke out in a brief but notable run of New Jack gangsta films for the likes of Mario Van Peebles and Spike Lee before making a name with smash hits like White Men Can’t Jump and an unexpected turn in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar...while simultaneously pumping out a surprising number of no budget direct to video affairs of varying quality. With a  wide ranging background in martial arts and a side hustle providing bodyguard muscle for celebs, he found a new career in high profile action films like Passenger 57, Rising Sun, Demolition Man and the Blade series...before running into a number of headline baiting legal troubles which resulted in a three year incarceration. Since then, he's been making a return to notable film roles with a very central character in the latest entry in Stallone's all-star Expendables series and Eddie Murphy's long overdue return to form, Coming 2 America.  Could Snipes, like a good fighter who's taken a few hard knocks, find himself on the upswing once again? Join us as we take on the rollercoaster career of the one and only Wesley Snipes! Week 97 (5/18/23): In The Court of Chaos: Up (and Down) with Wesley Snipes   https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast  

Caryn Elaine Johnson, was born in Manhattan in 1955. A Trekkie since childhood, she would eventually go on to a recurring (if oft uncredited) role on the successor series to that very show... Working an unusual, character based standup in the vein of Carol Burnett or Tracy Ullman, it was none other than Steven Spielberg who pulled her from handling hecklers to marquee lights with his The Color Purple, setting her on the road to a lengthy career in film, where she headlined a trio of interesting action comedies before making a name in such populist fare as Ghost, Soapdish, Boys on the Side, Girl Interrupted, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Made in America and Sister Act...and more interesting if seldom discussed efforts like Eddie, The Associate and what remains the definitive adaptation of Stephen King's sprawling postapocalyptic parable, The Stand. Since taking the lead chair on the popular daytime sociopolitical chat show The View a full decade and a half back, she's begun to further pursue a role in producing documentaries relating to black figures in history and entertainment.   Join us as we take on what most would agree to be the most unexpected subject in our hundred episode history, the inimitable Whoopi Goldberg! Weird Scenes Week 96 (5/4/23): Sometimes You’ve Just Got To Let One Go: The Atypical Career of Whoopi Goldberg https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Edward Regan Murphy was born in Broooklyn's dicey Bushwick district, 1961, to a transit cop and ill fated aspiring comedian. Raised by a single mother (after a lengthy stint with foster parents!) and idolizing the similarly minded 70's standup star turned film lead Richard Pryor, he rose to fame as a four year veteran of Saturday Night Live, becoming one of its most universally beloved alumni in the process.   Turning to Hollywood, he then became one of the earliest SNL cast turned film stars, eventually fathering a daughter with none other than 90's icon Mel B aka Scary Spice. One of the few to successfully navigate the strange transition from raunchy standup comedy to late night television fame through wildly popular, even decade defining action comedies, Eddie seemed to be on top of the world...before a string of flops that left his career devolving into the decidedly juvenile and embarrassing (if well paying) world of fat suit fart joke crap for the mentally challenged under the likes of Disney and DreamWorks.  Join us as we pull no punches with the meteoric rise (and decided fall) of famed funnyman and Hollywood headliner Eddie Murphy! Weird Scenes Week 95 (4/20/23): From Horse Laughs to Hollywood to Fat Suit Hell: The Rapid Rise and Precipitous Fall of Eddie Murphy   https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset came into this world in the latter days of WWII, in the Fall of 1944 to a Scotch GP and French lawyer cum housewife who biked her way into an airlift out of Occupied France and her new life in the rather rural climes of Surrey. A short modeling career led to roles in such disparate films (in quality as well as  type) as The Knack and How to Get It, Audrey Hepburn vehicle Two For the Road and Roman Polanski's Cul de Sac, launching her into a career in cinema marked by roles in such highlights as The Detective (with Frank Sinatra), Bullitt (with Steve McQueen), Le Magnifique (with Jean Paul Belmondo), The Mephisto Waltz (with Alan Alda) and Truffaut's excellent Day For Night, before settling into big budget all star oddities like the multi-director Casino Royale, Airport, the Albert Finney Murder on the Orient Express, Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (with George Segal), St. Ives (with Charles Bronson), The Deep (with Nick Nolte) and even Wild Orchid (with Mickey Rourke), smoking up the screen in a manner not altogether dissimilar to the previously covered Charlotte Rampling and earning herself both Golden Globes and France's Legion d'Honneur for her efforts.  Join us as we talk another of our favorite ladies of 70's cinema, the lovely and talented Jacqueline Bissett! Weird Scenes Week 94 (4/6/23): Class and Style: The Unusual Career of Jacqueline Bissett https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Born Francis Albert Sinatra in lovely downtown Hoboken, NJ, Frank so idolized 1930s swing singer and the man they coined the term "crooner" over, Bing Crosby, that he decided not only to emulate his hero, but to effectively BECOME him in the eyes of the American public.  And for all intents and purposes, he succeeded. Possessed of a lighter, more lyric tenor with an amazing degree of breath control, Sinatra, even before becoming a stylist par excellence (to this day, mostly unparalleled) matched his predecessor in wooing temporary wartime widows and proto-bobby soxers alike, and may in fact have topped his idol in building a tremendous following of mostly female fans.  They were the Elvises or Beatles of their day, only Frank, unlike the others, improved his craft throughout the 50s, becoming an American icon.   But his success wasn't limited to the world of music - like Elvis (who we also did a show on,) he further found himself drawn into the world of filmmaking, holding his own against some of the greats of his era and even producing and directing a few along the way. So join us as we delve into the life and career of the epitome of swingin' style, the one and only Frank Sinatra!   Weird Scenes Week 93 (3/23/23): Come Fly With The Chairman of the Bored - The Films of Frank Sinatra https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Manhattan’s own George Segal Jr. was an interesting actor, moving deftly between solid and quite serious dramatic roles to a career in far broader, if generally still intelligent comedies in the 70s.   One of the first "ethnic" actors of prominence to leave his name unchanged, he specialized in easily frustrated, angrily gesticulating types, lashing out at the vagaries of life and the world surrounding with arms flailing and temple blood vessels throbbing.  But it was almost always for a cheap laugh, and he always came off likeable in the end. After a stint in the army during the Korean War, he signed up to learn The Method with Lee Strasberg and wound up working bit parts in both film and television in the early 60’s, before kicking off a career that spanned everything from James Clavell's grim POW opus King Rat, war film classic The Bridge at Remagen, chilly 60's eurospy The Quiller Memorandum and the Ernest Tidyman scripted Burt Reynolds crime film Stick to classic (and often heady) comedies like The Owl and the Pussycat, Fun With Dick and Jane and Carbon Copy, where he costarred with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Glenda Jackson, Jane Fonda and a young Denzel Washington. Join us as we talk the surprisingly varied and many-faceted career of George Segal! Week 92 (3/9/23): George Segal   https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Clint Eastwood, Jr. was born into wealth in San Francisco, complete with in-ground pool and country club membership.  Despite being drafted into the Korean war, never saw a lick of combat, serving as lifeguard at Fort Ord for his entire stint in the military, all very much belieing his later "tough guy" image. Lambasted as a terrible actor by Hollywood filmmakers and acting coaches alike, he nevertheless managed to land a few walk on roles in classic 50s sci fi monster flicks and television westerns, based entirely on his looks. But by another huge stroke of luck, his role on TV's Rawhide got him a role in an Italian western when his costar turned it down...and that film and its sequel launched an entire genre. A trio of films with Sergio Leone and a 5 film run as maverick cop Dirty Harry spanned two full decades, making this very lucky fellow an actor, director and producer...and moreover, an American icon.   Giving right wing sacred cow Ronald Reagan one of his most trademarkable catchphrases and delivering the most unintentionally amusing bits of impromptu political theater ever recorded with his last minute "empty chair debate" at the 2012 RNC, Clint also delivered popular favorites like Every Which Way But Loose, Escape from Alcatraz, Kelly's Heroes, The Gauntlet and The Unforgiven...plenty of juicy backstory and cinema for us to dig into (and we do, in our own inimitable manner!) Join us as we alternately celebrate and have some well deserved laughs at the expense of the oft problematic but ever fascinating career of the inimitable Clint Eastwood, only here at Weird Scenes! Weird Scenes Week 91 (2/23/23): Clint Eastwood Makes Your Day   https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast  

Edward Regan Murphy was born in Broooklyn's dicey Bushwick district, 1961, to a transit cop and ill fated aspiring comedian. Raised by a single mother (after a lengthy stint with foster parents!) and idolizing the similarly minded 70's standup star turned film lead Richard Pryor, he rose to fame as a four year veteran of Saturday Night Live, becoming one of its most universally beloved alumni in the process.   Turning to Hollywood, he then became one of the earliest SNL cast turned film stars, eventually fathering a daughter with none other than 90's icon Mel B aka Scary Spice. One of the few to successfully navigate the strange transition from raunchy standup comedy to late night television fame through wildly popular, even decade defining action comedies, Eddie seemed to be on top of the world...before a string of flops that left his career devolving into the decidedly juvenile and embarrassing (if well paying) world of fat suit fart joke crap for the mentally challenged under the likes of Disney and DreamWorks.  Join us as we pull no punches with the meteoric rise (and decided fall) of famed funnyman and Hollywood headliner Eddie Murphy! Weird Scenes Week 95 (4/20/23): From Horse Laughs to Hollywood to Fat Suit Hell: The Rapid Rise and Precipitous Fall of Eddie Murphy   https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Born at the dawn of the talkies in 1930, Richard St John Francis Harris was born to a “flour merchant” in Ireland, where he intended to become a rugby pro.  With best laid plans derailed by a bout with disease, he decided to pursue a career in acting, only to find himself  rejected as "too old" at the whopping age of 25. Nonetheless, he perservered for over a decade before demanding - and receiving! - third billing against Marlon Brando on Mutiny on the Bounty and working with arthouse favorite Michelangelo Antonioni and Stateside auteur John Huston, before a starring role in the popular Camelot and a top 10 hit with the odd but much beloved "MacArthur Park"...despite the fact that he, self-admittedly, couldn't sing a lick. But it was in the 70's (and early 80's) that he delivered his most interesting work, a rollercoaster ride that went from the likes of A Man Called Horse, Juggernaut, the Cassandra Crossing and The Wild Geese to the lows of Dino DiLaurentis' Orca and the Bo Derek Tarzan the Ape Man.   Always a contentious sort and prone to the arch theatricality of his early stage work, join us as we discuss the odd but fascinating career of Richard Harris! Week 90 (2/9/23): Richard Harris in the 70's https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Harvard Literature major turned Biological Anthropology BA and medical school student turned author Michael Crichton penned no less than 26 novels...of which at least 9 were made into feature films.   Turning screenwriter, he quickly shifted chairs to direction, delivering several memorable films (and scripting and producing even more.) With interesting pictures like The Andromeda Strain, Coma, Looker and Runaway (not to mention popular favorites like The Great Train Robbery, Twister and, well, Jurassic Park), his background in medicine and overarching fascination with cutting edge technology played a major part in his work, either predicting or latching onto the first advances towards things like computer generated imagery, artificial intelligence, smart technology (particularly weaponry) and robotics in a series of well crafted efforts. Hearkening back to the glory days of science fiction, when new technologies, ideas and Imagineering of yet untapped vistas still recognized the inherent dangers of a flawed mankind meddling in things they honestly do not fully understand, no discussion of the science fiction genre would be complete without speaking to the films of…Michael Crichton. Week 89 (1/26/23): The Films of Michael Crichton https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Tonight, we’re talking to a modern day doom metal giant.  Originally working in a very different band and genre, Christian Hector and Daniel Droste ventured off into the rarified world of funeral doom…and transformed it into something all their own. With a focus on late 19th century whaling and nautical literature, particularly those tomes of a darker bent, they quickly drifted beyond the expected borders of the subgenre’s sound and focus with their third, clean vocalled and far more progressively inclined album, 2012’s The Giant, which so impressed us, we had Chris on the show to discuss its many merits. But after a well received followup with 2015’s Boats of Glen Carrig, there was a decidedly long silence that left fans wondering if they’d gone the way of far too many other doom bands of note…until now. Join us as we welcome back, after over a decade(!) Christian Hector of Ahab for a stiff pint of grog and a sea dog's tale well spun... Week 96 (Sun. January 22) - Chris Hector of Ahab (10 years on) http://www.facebook.com/ThirdEyeCinema https://thirdeyecinema.wordpress.com/ Twitter: @thirdeyecinema https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https://open.spotify.com/show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast  

The 1970s.   A turbulent and important time, marked by the decline and fall of the hippie movement that took the world by storm with the 1966 "summer of love" and introduced several generations to alternative religions and new age spirituality...often enough landing on some spectrum of the occult.   But the spirit of Woodstock and the ethos of peace, love and music had been subverted by a violent reaction from conservative forces, and together with a few grim and headline grabbing reality checks (Altamont, the Manson Family, the Weathermen and the iconoclastic discovery that so many of their new heroes and gurus bore feet of clay) combined with later disillusion brought about by political scandals, the seemingly endless (and ultimately failed) war in Vietnam, a plethora of self serving and destructive religious cults, drug casualties, the emergence of the serial killer and the failure of the idealistic commune lifestyle led to a very different tenor to the decade from the one that preceded it.   In short, the Age of Aquarius had revealed itself as the Aeon of Horus (if not the dawn of the Kali Yuga) in no uncertain terms, and with a shocking suddenness. As a reflection of the times, a widespread interest in Witchcraft and Satanism were all the rage, and cinema, from mainstream blockbusters like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist and the Omen series straight down to the level of adult film and even (if not most especially) the TV movie marketed to housewives and youngsters weekday afternoons, spoke to a new preoccupation with occultism.   So prevalent was all of this obsession with all things dark and dangerous that it very much defined the decade, far moreseo than any that preceded or followed.   Join us, as we delve into some of the best examples of what ultimately became a tidal wave of satanic terror, specifically limited to those centering on literal, if oft self styled cults of devil worshippers and their works... Week 88: Satan in the 70’s (a discussion of satanic cult films) https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Born in Paris in the early 1930s, Roman Polanski lived a life marked by many tragedies.    From seeing both parents taken away to the camps during the Nazi occupation of Poland and forced to live with a series of clandestine foster families to a later youth under the equally horrific oppression of Communist Russia and the Poland of the Iron Curtain, he came to the attention of the film community with his debut film Knife in the Water, quickly moving on to a series of British and American successes. But even then, tragedy struck, with his new wife and future child murdered viciously by the Manson Family, with all these experiences feeding into his grim, fatalistically existential narratives onscreen.  Later (rather compromised) court matters led to his being scapegoated and rendered fugitive, forced to continue his directorial endeavors in a handful of European countries not subject to extradition laws (a matter that returned to public attention in the early millenium.) His is a cinema marked by both Decadence and doom, grimly determinist and Kafkaesque regardless of genre or subject, from Hitchcockian narrative to spy thriller to outright horror.   Oft feted and nominated (and winning) laudatory awards both domestically and abroad (in England, France and Europe per se) and much discussed in critical circles, he nonetheless remains something of a controversial figure, most often due to circumstances entirely out of his control or driven by self-serving accusatory figures in the media, courts and even public opinion.  But do these accusations paint as clear cut a condemnation of the man as it may seem? Join us as we discuss the life and films of Roman Polanski, and decide for  yourselves... Week 87: Paranoia, Decadence and Dissolution – The Films of Roman Polanski https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Hail Hydra!  Immortal Hydra!  Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place! No, we're not doing another superhero cinema and television show, but making an apt metaphor about the neverending horror story that is MAGA and the pernicious spread of Trumpism in the corridors of American power.    Despite effectively cutting the hydra off at the head in the 2020 election, the movement continues unabated, aided, abetted and energized if not driven by a stonewalling collective of 51 malfeasants who, like a bunch of cut rate dimestore Gandalfs, declare "you shall not pass!" to any and every bill the American people demand, or that may actually alleviate all the financial crises and domestic terror incidents that beset us on an increasingly regular basis.   Why?  In the name of power.  At any and all costs, including the future of this country. Defaming the Constitution and the principles our Founding Fathers and a few foresight blessed men (like Teddy Roosevelt, with his muckraking and trustbusting Square Deal, FDR with his social program creating New Deal and Johnson's Great Society, which gave us such things as social security, medicare and medicaid, fair housing, integration and more), these atavistic corporate owned plutocrats stoop to one new low after the next, distracting, dividing and using every dirty trick in the book just this side of legality (and often not) to rig the game in their favor.  A minority seeking total control - including the right to your own body and destiny, romantic or otherwise - over the will of the majority.   And we remain apathetic, fighting amongst ourselves over petty "wedge issues", while the American conservative of old seemingly vanishes into history, and a literal cult of death and "burn it all down" nihilism driven by false narratives, false "theocratic" support, propaganda and social division-fomenting "talking points" takes its place.   If you're not part of the cult, whatever direction your politics lean, you have to know this is wrong, not to mention completely unAmerican. And Covid, "monkey pox", an ongoing invasion of Ukraine and longstanding supply chain issues resulting from the aforementioned (and a drunken ship captain clogging up the main sea based global shipping route for weeks on end), not to mention trying to clean up the dumpster fire the Trump "Presidency" has left us with, have given a new leader the most difficult year and a half in office in living memory, with no feasible route to correct it all.   Because of 51 selfish puppets, dancing to their masters' tunes and denying any corrective measures in the hopes of regaining total control...and ending the "Grand Experiment" our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us. Add in a rash of hate crimes around the nation, hitting one group or demographic after another, with and without military-grade hardware, from senior citizens to children, from malls to concerts to protest marches and 10K runs, right down to schools.  Even walking the streets of our cities, in broad daylight.  The body count rises, and they refuse to take action or allow anyone else to.   All in the name of power, and the nihilistic urge to "burn it down". After our Marlowe show a few weeks back, here we rejoin the audience with another impromptu get together, talking these and many other pressing issues afflicting the state of the union, and suggest what should be some simple solutions everyone can enact, to hopefully turn this sinking ship back on course...and away from this road to certain destruction and a resurgent fascism, not to mention a return to serfdom for all not among their ranks in power and riches. Then we'll wrap it all up by decompressing with some good laughs and banter about this, that and the other... Weird Scenes Season 11 Episode 2: State of the Disunion - Guns n Russians and the Neverending American Horror Story https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https://open.spotify.com/show/ 4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

Tonight, we’re doing something different.  Rather than tackling a genre, director or actor, we’re actually going to take on a fictional character as represented in film.   Raymond Chandler was a dual citizen of the UK and US who turned to writing when he lost his job as an oil exec in the Great Depression.  In addition to co-scripting Double Indemnity with Billy Wilder, Strangers on a Train with Alfred Hitchcock and writing The Blue Dahlia which starred Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, he wrote 7 ½ novels in his lifetime, and most of them were turned into film…some several times.  And the character?  Philip Marlowe. Some of these films were produced under different titles, or in established B-picture film series revolving around established radio detectives like The Falcon and Michael Shayne, others became much celebrated entries in the noir and neo-noir genre and high points in the filmography of big names like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum and Elliott Gould.  And with directors like Howard Hawks, Edward Dmytryk, Robert Altman and Michael Winner, we’re not exactly talking programmers here… Join us as we talk the films of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, only here on Weird Scenes! Week 86: The Hard Boiled Exploits of Philip Marlowe https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast

We’d talked the early, more progressively minded SF of Charlton Heston in a recent show, and the life and career of the ubiquitous Roddy MacDowall not very long ago.  One series of films notable for featuring both iconic actors in primary roles remained glossed over, however, despite spurring a personal revisitation of the original 5 film run after the MacDowall chat.  Unaddressed, that is, until now. Marked by a then relevant if somewhat naïve by modern standards allegorical exploration of race relations and nuclear brinksmanship, the series was a true cause celebre in its heyday, resulting in all sorts of spinoff items: MEGOs, action figures, comic magazines, paperback novellas, a popular book and record series, games, jigsaw puzzles and plastic models, even a short lived TV series.  Like the later Star Wars, the Apes were inescapable throughout the early to mid 70’s…then, just like that?  Utterly forgotten. Despite a post millennial attempt to revive the series in a disturbingly far lesser CG based trilogy of films, the Apes films seem locked in time, a 70’s concern that left a huge mark only to disappear, seemingly without trace. What happened?  How did such a force of culture defining cinema, rivaled only by the Bond series, smaller scale works like the Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman franchise and the brief popularity of blustery stuntman Evel Knievel for its sheer broad impact, simply drop off the radar, seldom if ever to be referenced again? And then, seemingly out of the blue, comes that 2011 reboot series… So join us tonight as we pick some nits off each other, and speak once again of those hoary days before Spielberg and Lucas turned cinema into a wasteland of brainless popcorn fare, and realize that 40 plus years back, this was about as lowbrow and brainless as things were ever likely to get.   My, how things have changed...  Week 85: Go Ape! The first major multimedia craze and how it disappeared into the vaults of time   https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast  

Born and raised in the Bronx, Stanley Kubrick started off as a photographer for magazines noted for such like Look, and that’s something that carried through in most dramatic fashion in his subsequent film career. Almost uniquely in Hollywood, he managed to move from totally self-produced outsider cinema to decades funded by more traditional channels…and yet otherwise entirely self-directed, produced, scripted and more.  The man managed to have a cottage industry for his films, allowing for more quirks and control over the final product than even much feted auteurist directors like Hitchcock have ever been able to claim.   And yet, for all that financial and distribution advantage and personal control, he really seemed to choose some questionable material to tackle, and while much feted with awards and accolades, delivered a stream of very rocky pictures, more head scratching if visually sumptuous misses than enduring hits.  His demanding nature led to many a conflict with his casts, and where most directors of his era easily produced twice if not three times as many films within the same span of time, he ultimately only dropped a handful of films, whose ultimate merit is all over the map. Ultimately, all he left us was a trio of awkward no budget noir crime films in the 50s, a few scandalous oddities in the 60’s and very early 70s, one dour historical that lacked either enough erotic or comic content to link it to the trend, a much beloved if unusual horror film of sorts and literally one film each in his two final decades: one attempt to tackle the then de rigeur Vietnam reminiscence and one seemingly Decadent erotic horror that attaches the expected spice to the tangled occult skein of films like The Order to the Ice Storm like loss of passion in a marriage and how a trip to the edge and near misses with realistic consequences (like nearly spending the night with an HIV positive partner) bring a straying couple back home to each other.   Join us tonight as we talk one of the most praised yet controversial and ultimately in most ways quite spotty directors in American cinema, the one and only Stanley Kubrick, right here on Weird Scenes.    Week 84: Questions Within Enigma: the films of Stanley Kubrick  https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast  

It's hard to believe in the modern age of sheer bombast and explosion filled CG lightshows for their own sake, but not that long ago, the world of science fiction, yes, even that of the American cinema, tended to be devoted to a very different purpose and aesthetic. Like their low paid visionary scribes from the likes of Welles and Verne in the 1800s to the pulps of the 20's and 30's and the edge of current science devotees and aspirationists of the 1950s, the science fiction authors of the 1960s and early 70's had far more in mind than a cheap hour or two of mindless escapism from an increasingly dreary corporatocratic nightmare world we've all come to accept as if it were predestined master rather than an out of control dog to be brought to heel. For a few decades in particular, a hard SF mix of utopian aspiration and dystopian commentary and warning about then-new trends arising in contemporary society informed nearly every instance of same, from the lowest of budget to the highest of the highbrow, from the critically feted to the mocked and hated.   Many of these names have gone on into legend: Orwell, Bradbury, Ellison, Ballard, Dick, Zelazny.  And many films built off or inspired by such literary works have held their place in pop culture circles: The Planet of the Apes films, 2001: A Space Odyssey...and many of the otherwise unrelated films we'll be discussing this evening, like Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Silent Running, A Boy and His Dog and Damnation Alley. So join us tonight as we speak of those hoary days before Spielberg and Lucas turned cinema into a wasteland of brainless popcorn fare, and realize just how many of the horrors warned against may already have come into being in our day and age, begging the question: why didn't we listen?  Come and see what answers await, as we talk the thought provoking dystopias of the counterculture era, right here on Weird Scenes! Week 83: SF with a message - the dystopic visions of the counterculture era    https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeirdScenes1 https://twitter.com/WeirdScenes1 (@weirdscenes1) https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast  

This week, join us as we speak to pioneering all-femme Japanese hard rock/heavy metal band Show-Ya! Dropping no less than 8 solid albums of smooth yet punchy keyboard and guitar driven hard rock leaning ever more towards metal between 1985 and 1990, bluesy frontwoman Keiko Terada and "the three Mikis" ("Captain" Nakamura, "Sun-Go" Igarashi and "Mittan" Tsunoda) alongside Satomi Senba on bass were so well beloved as to be tapped for a major Coca Cola campaign in the days when rock and metal were still considered "scary" persona non grata to mainstream society. Over the course of a mere 5 years, the unusually prolific band subtly shifted style from their very anime style early sound to something more akin to American metal and even a bit of the Hollywood Guns N Roses sound (on the English lyriced songs of Hard Way) before Terada departed for a successful solo career. Soldiering on for two further releases with fellow J-rock maiden Steffanie (Borges) and the punkier Yoshino, Show-Ya finally closed up shop in the 90's. But a 20th reunion tour of the original lineup in 2005 led to renewed interest in the band, inclusive of two successive sets of remasters (the latter with bonus tracks like the aforementioned Coke commercial, surprisingly catchy tune that it is), and by 2012 they were back in studio, releasing material that sounded surprisingly like their mid 80s heyday, and even an all covers album that features their takes on hits from nearly every great J-rock and J-metal band of the 80's and 90's, from Luna Sea, X and Kyosuke Himuro's Boowy to Loudness, Earthshaker, Glay and L'Arc en Ciel. Now partnering with Blizard's Nozumu Wakai as songwriting partner and producer, they've released an album that simultaneously sounds familiar and uniquely new in Showdown, which gets international release through Metalville this coming month. Join us as we have a brief if entertaining and decidedly good humored chat with Keiko Terada and "Captain" Miki Nakamura (plus surprise guest Mirai Kawashima of Sigh, of all people!) only here on Third Eye Cinema! Week 96: Show-Ya http://www.facebook.com/ThirdEyeCinema https://thirdeyecinema.wordpress.com/ Twitter: @thirdeyecinema https://thirdeyecinema.podbean.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/third-eye-cinema-weird-scenes-inside-the-goldmine-podcast/id553402044 https:// (open.spotify.com) /show/4s8QkoE6PnAfh65C5on5ZS?nd=1 https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09456286-8956-4b80-a158-f750f525f246/Third-Eye-Cinema-Weird-Scenes-Inside-the-Goldmine-podcast