Thank you all SO MUCH… but it’s time for me to roll.

It’s Thanksgiving, which I think is a perfect time to make this post. Because I’m very thankful and grateful for all support that I’ve received here while running FMR. I had a ton of excellent movie discussions, met a lot of great people online, learned a ton about movies, and had a truly, genuinely gratifying experience writing and being a blogger.

It’s undeniable now though that I have to move on. So I wanted to make an official post to announce it and take one last opportunity to thank you all.

Movies I Want Everyone To See: A Triple Scoop Selection from 1969

The western as a film genre went from being the most popular form of film making in the early days of Hollywood, to one of the least seen forms of story telling in contemporary times. Part of the reason was that television drained the western of new ideas and stories. In 1959 there were 26 western themed shows airing in prime time. Those are the days of three networks and three hours a night. Today they have been replaced by crime procedurals and reality shows. As the decade of the 1960s wore on, the western film began to collapse. Sure there were successes and and surprises but by the late seventies, only Clint Eastwood appeared interested in fashioning films centered in the traditional American Western period. Westerns rally every few years and achieve moments of greatness or nostalgia. In the year 1969, three westerns managed to make an artistic achievement, a populist surge and a satisfying trip down memory lane. From the final year of the most turbulent decade in American history, I want to share Three Movies I Want Everyone to See.

Movies I Want Everyone to See: Role Models (2008)

This is an easy one this week. There is no historical value, cinema language, or back story intrigue to make this a movie you should see. It is just funny as all get out with wiseacre talk, inappropriate life lessons and a cast of funny people who are just trying to entertain you for a couple of hours. If you are a fan of films like “I Love Man” or “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” then you don’t want to miss this treat starring the slacker gods Sean William Scott and Paul Rudd. This is dumb comedy done in a smart way and it has so many quotable lines that it could easily displace Caddyshack on the list of guy movies that guys will quote incessantly.

Catching the Classics: Goodfellas

Since 1998, I have been maintaining a list of movies that I wanted to see. Sometimes these are all-time classics that passed me by, sometimes they’re genre classics that interest me. The list is updated regularly and is currently more than 1700 movies long. Fogs has gone through and hand-picked several classic films for me to “fast-track” and review here. This is one of those films.

As far back as I can remember (sorry) the definitive gangster film was The Godfather. Even on the schoolyard it was known that was the film to show what it would be like to be a member of the mafia… even if we didn’t really know anything about it beyond the fact that there was, at some point, a Godfather involved. Then in 1992 came Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas, and it rapidly joined the ranks of iconic gangster films. It would be some time before I saw either film. In fact, The Godfather was the first film that I ever watched because Fogs was tired of pitching references and watching them sail casually over my head, ten years ago on a site that has long since ceased to be. Catching up with Scorcese’s film, the contrasts are easy to make.

New Episode of The (title pending) Movie Podcast with Tank and Fogs!!

Here we go everybody! It’s the latest and greatest (title pending) for your listening pleasure!

Four different movies to discuss this week. Tank and I each discuss “Ender’s Game” and “Thor: The Dark World”, and then Tank has us covered on “About Time” and “Free Birds”.

Then, in light of all the septuagenarians in film in recent weeks, Tank and I visit the Cinematic Senior Center and discuss our favorite actors and actresses over the age of seventy. It’s surprising how many big name actors have reached that milestone, and Tank and I discuss some of our faves!

It’s a great episode and you won’t want to miss it! As always, you can download it directly, here, or search for us on iTunes or Stitcher radio by looking for (title pending) or Tank and Fogs!

Movies I Want Everyone to See: The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)

I recently spent the weekend with some friends and a guy I know well, and have been friends with for more than thirty five years, had the audacity to suggest that the remake of this film was more entertaining than the original. I instantly dropped my jaw, exclaimed loudly that he had to be kidding and then proceeded to disagree in a condescending manner. I have to apologize for the tone, it was not called for and I would not want my friend to be angry at me because I mocked his preference for the 2009 version. I do want him to know and understand that although I liked the Denzel/Travolta film, it can’t really hold a candle to the original and that vigorous defense of the 1974 classic  begins now as I once more recommend a movie that I want everyone to see.

Catching the Classics: Annie Hall

Since 1998, I have been maintaining a list of movies that I wanted to see. Sometimes these are all-time classics that passed me by, sometimes they’re genre classics that interest me. The list is updated regularly and is currently more than 1700 movies long. Fogs has gone through and hand-picked several classic films for me to “fast-track” and review here. This is one of those films.

Woody Allen probably has the longest lead time for a director between my having heard of him and my having seen one of the films he directed. I’m fairly sure I first heard of him when I was a kid, seeing his name come up on occasion in the Academy Awards (why I was watching the Oscars when I was too young to understand any of the films is a question I cannot answer.) Yet the first time I watched a film he directed was earlier this year, with Manhattan Murder Mystery. I admitted this oversight at the time and got some gentle picking on for it and some not-so-gentle pushing to check out Annie Hall. Of course, I knew something of what to expect from the film. I knew it was a romantic comedy, and by reputation an unorthodox one. And I knew Woody Allen would be playing a neurotic New Yorker, because — Casino Royale aside — Woody Allen is pretty much impossible to picture as anything else. What I wasn’t sure on was how well I would appreciate the humor.

Movies I Want Everyone to See: Dead of Night (1945)

I think everybody loves the idea of sitting around a campfire, a dark living room or driving at night in the car and listening to a spooky story. We have been trying to entertain one another since the first primitive man came back from the hunt and shared his tale of the day with the rest of the tribe. I suspect that the first ghost story told was by the next guy, who in trying to one up the hunter made his story more supernatural in nature and more interesting as a result. Ghost stories and horror pull us in because they show something that we would not want to encounter in real life but don’t mind living through vicariously. Movies have attempted to frighten audiences from the beginning. One of the most vivid images that people have of silent films is Max Schrek in Nosferatu walking out of the shadows and revealing the horror of a vampire. Universal Studios was built by the monsters they showed in their films. Monsters are not the only kind of horror that early film makers tried to exploit. Psychological terror is a subject of many early films. It was natural that at some point the process of telling the stories would become part of the story itself. That’s where anthology films began to show up and up the ante with each succeeding tale. “Dead of Night” is maybe the first well know horror anthology and it is a “Movie I Want Everyone to See”.

Catching the Classics: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Since 1998, I have been maintaining a list of movies that I wanted to see. Sometimes these are all-time classics that passed me by, sometimes they’re genre classics that interest me. The list is updated regularly and is currently more than 1700 movies long. Fogs has gone through and hand-picked several classic films for me to “fast-track” and review here. This is one of those films.

A title can say a lot about a film, particularly when the film is titled The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (promotional material differs on whether “chainsaw” is one word or two; as the film itself uses two words, I’ll be going with that for the review.) It gives a setting, a plot, and a genre all in a few short words. The very title evokes powerful imagery even before one knows anything about the film. It’s the sort of title that would easily have helped the film get attention. Considering one of the interim titles was “Head Cheese”, things could have gone rather differently for it.

New Episode of The (title pending) Movie Podcast with Tank and Fogs!!

What’s going on people? Here we go with this week’s episode of (title pending)!

There was only one film on the docket for Tank and I this week, but it was a doozy. The shock comedy, “Bad Grandpa”. Does it deliver on laughs, or just serve to offend?

After, we preview the rest of the films of 2013 in our Holiday Season preview! Will these final two months salvage the rest of 2013? What films are Tank and I looking forward to the most? We break ’em all down for you!

It’s a great episode and you won’t want to miss it! As always, you can download it directly, here, or search for us on iTunes or Stitcher radio by looking for (title pending) or Tank and Fogs!