Now in our THIRD SEASON, we're still telling the stories that made us Entertainment Weekly's BEST FILM PODCAST OF 2022! The creative team behind HBO's monolithic TALES FROM THE CRYPT trade stories from THE MOVIE MAKING TRENCHES with fellow film makers about how exactly movies and TV shows get made. And especially what happens when film making craft unexpectedly turns to crap.
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S3E53: Standing Up For Standing In
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In this episode, we’re finally standing up for standing in. Well, our guess RON OSTROW is standing up for standing in. And it’s about bloody time someone did! Ron’s been acting for more than 45 years – on BROADWAY, in TV SHOWS and in FEATURE FILMS. You’ll find him in A FEW GOOD MEN, SPORTS NIGHT, THE WEST WING and THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE. O…
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Way, way back in season two, we sat down with screenwriter extradordinare, our good friend STEVE DE SOUZA. Steve kinda invented the MODERN ACTION MOVIE. He wrote the scripts for 48 HOURS, COMMANDO, STREET FIGHTER and, of course, DIE HARD. Die Hard set a new gold standard for action movies. If ever a movie, its hero and the actor hired to play them …
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Earlier this season, we had the absolute pleasure of chatting with SEAN CASSIDY, the son of actor TED CASSIDY and keeper of his dad’s flame. Sean does the horror convention circuit as SON OF LURCH. He really and truly does his dad proud! Ted Cassidy did something only a handful of actors can ever hope to achieve. Not only did Ted appear in iconic m…
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S3E50: Encore - Was Bill Gaines Actually God?
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There’s a bit of common wisdom that says, be careful when you meet the people you admire most. They can disappoint you profoundly and break your heart. Or they can exceed even your most heightened expectations and become gods in your mind. Or just plain old “God”. The creator of everything that matters. That’s how I felt about WILLIAM M. GAINES – p…
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The short answer is “The Dads From the Crypt Podcast“. One of the main reasons there’s a “How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast” is because there’s a Dads From the Crypt Podcast. I’ll dive into the story below, but one of the pleasures of podcasting – for me anyway – is watching other podcasters (especially ones I know) succeed. There are myriad reasons …
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S3E48: Brandon Routh's Been Thinking
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Our good friend Brandon Routh is one of those “thoughtful actors”. Some, by contrast, are more intuitive. They let their guts and gut instincts guide them and their creative choices. In most cases, their life choices, too. But, that’s another conversation for another day and another podcast. I’ve no doubt that had Brandon become anything else – a d…
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S3E47: Why REAL Movie Critics Matter
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Today we’re talking about criticism – and why REAL movie critics really do matter. Here’s the thing about criticism. If you can’t take it, you have no business being in show business. Show business is all about getting and taking criticism. There WILL Be Criticism! From the moment you put any sort of creative idea on the table – whether in the form…
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Don’t ya just hate it when soap gets in your eyes? Nothing burns quite like it. Today, we’re going to talk about ACTING – but a very specific kind of acting. The kind they do in SOAP OPERAS like THE GUIDING LIGHT, GENERAL HOSPITAL, ALL MY CHILDREN, AS THE WORLD TURNS. Or like in the one soap opera aimed at people like me, DARK SHADOWS. It really is…
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It turns out starting The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast set a lot of things in motion and opened a lot of damned doors. The most exciting of those newly opened doors is the opportunity to tell some mind-blowing stories in this medium that I have truly come to love. So, I started a little podcasting company. Costard & Touchstone Productions. The f…
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How to write like a genius… sounds easy enough! And the way our guest CHARLES FLEISCHER writes, he makes writing like a genius seem easy. Spoiler alert: it’s not. You probably know Charlie as the voice of ROGER RABBIT. He’s also in the TALES FROM THE CRYPT feature film DEMON KNIGHT and a kajillion other movies and TV shows. Or, you may know Charlie…
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S3E44: Is Show Biz Dead?
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If you’re a regular listener to this podcast – or, if you catch us regularly on our YouTube channel – and, by the way, we’ll never turn down a “like” there – you know that we’ve always got our finger on the movie and TV business’s pulse. Cos we always want to know. Is it alive? Is it dead? Is it dying? Between the pandemic and then the WGA and SAG …
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How can you not love movies? I grew up a movie lover. Movies – and the people who make them and appear in them – have shaped my life and the directions my life’s taken. Hell, one of the greatest joys of working on TALES FROM THE CRYPT was getting to work with some of the very people whose movies I adored. Like MALCOLM MCDOWELL, TOM HANKS, BUCK HENR…
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S3E42: The Next Wave
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One of the things we care about deeply here at the How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast is the future of movies and the MOVIE BUSINESS. Spoiler alert: it’s not in a very good way right this second. Nonetheless the next wave of filmmakers – like Leah N. H. Philpott and Jacob Leighton Burns, our guests in this episode – are looking for the swell that will…
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Join Gil and I as we catch up! In fact, this episode’s pretty much Gil and I just shootin’ the shit. But, to be perfectly honest, it’s some pretty interesting shit we shot! As you’ll hear, Gil is working on some extremely compelling projects. In The Beginning… When we started this podcast – three years and a hundred twenty-five plus episodes ago – …
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We’ve met a lot of talented film makers over the years. My friend ART SEVADA has made some remarkable shorts. His first was nominated at the CANNES FILM FESTIVAL! Art grew up outside of YEREVAN, ARMENIA as the Soviet Union wound down. Since moving to America (when he was a teenager), Art’s made movies, music, art and all sorts of artfully designed …
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S3E39: "When Bad Roommates Attack"
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I have a confession: My freshman year of college, I was a bad roommate. I wasn’t trying to be one, I just was. My roommate – BRETT GOLDSTEIN – and I were both “dramaramas”. Drama majors. We came from similar backgrounds. We had a shit-ton in common. The one difference? I was very social and Brett was shy. Whereas I could have tried to help him cure…
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S3E38: "My Old S'Ghoul"
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Forgive me if I plant an earworm in your head: Steely Dan’s “My Old School”. In honor of it being September (as this episode drops), I’ve chosen to haunt that part of my long distant past, back when I was a student at VASSAR COLLEGE. Or, as I think of it sometimes, “My Old S’Ghoul”. Actually, I enjoyed the hell out of college. It was the mid to lat…
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S3E37: Get Booped!
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In the mood to get “Booped?” You’ve come to the right place! In this episode, we deep dive into all things FLEISCHER STUDIOS with our guest MARK FLEISCHER. While WALT DISNEY captured an idealized, orderly pastoral world that flowed from Disney’s Midwestern roots, Mark’s father MAX FLEISCHER and his uncle DAVE FLEISCHER reveled in the Urban America …
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S3E36: How To Make A Crypt Keeper
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Here’s a stone cold fact: it is really, really, REALLY hard to create an iconic character like Tales From The Crypt’s iconic Crypt Keeper. For one thing, you can’t set out to create a character that will become iconic. That’s because it’s not up to the character’s creators, it’s up to you – the audience. It’s your embrace – how warm it is – how lon…
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S3E35: Beetlejuice Plus Crypt Keeper Equals Larry Wilson
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When Gil Adler and I took over HBO‘s iconic TALES FROM THE CRYPT at the start of its third season, one of our tasks was to reignite the series – or see it get cancelled. Crypt was a strange, hybrid creature. Today, talent moves easily from film projects to streaming TV projects and back. That didn’t happen in the mid-1990’s, when we made Crypt. The…
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Our good friend Roger Nygard makes his bread and butter editing and directing TV. Shows like Grey’s Anatomy, The League, Who Is America, Veep and Curb Your Enthusiasm. But, Roger’s passion – the thing that drives him creatively – is making documentaries. That’s part of what motivated him to write his new book “THE DOCUMENTARIANS: The Way to a Succe…
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Welcome to another in our series of “TALES FROM THE CRYPT” reunions. This episode’s guest – JOHN LEONETTI – isn’t just a great director of photography and director, he’s from one of HOLLYWOOD’S LEGACY FAMILIES. His dad FRANK LEONETTI was a sought after gaffer who helped light THE WIZARD OF OZ and SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. John’s brother MATT LEONETTI DP…
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S3E32 Spy Stuff
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Our guest today is both a friend and a co-worker. John Kiriakou is a former CIA officer. After 9-11, John was part of the CIA’s covert team tasked with tracking down Al Qaeda’s leadership. Abu Zubaydah In March 2002, Pakistani forces with CIA support captured the man we thought was Al Qaeda’s number three: a man with the nom de guerre ABU ZUBAYDAH.…
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S3E31: Shaun Of The Dead Fan Club
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We hereby call to order the first meeting of the How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast’s SHAUN OF THE DEAD FAN CLUB! How’s that for a SLICE OF FRIED GOLD? Leading today’s meeting will be our guest writer and entertainment journalist CLARK COLLIS author of the definitive (and only as far as we know) book about the making of Shaun Of The Dead, “YOU’VE GOT …
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S3E30: Exorcist Meets Crypt Keeper – The “Billy Friedkin Experience”
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The idea seemed so natural. Get WILLIAM FRIEDKIN – director of “THE EXORCIST” – to direct an episode of our little horror anthology TV show – “TALES FROM THE CRYPT“. It just so happened that RICHARD DONNER – director of another great contemporary horror classic, THE OMEN – was one of our illustrious executive producers. It made hiring Friedkin a no…
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As we’ve said here before, one of the very best parts of doing Tales From The Crypt (and there were lots of best parts) was getting to work with incredibly talented people. This episode features another TALES FROM THE CRYPT reunion – this time with comedian RITA RUDNER who starred (alongside her friend RICHARD LEWIS in the episode WHIRLPOOL (direct…
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S3E28: Is Charlie Fleischer Nuts (Or Is He Just Smarter Than Everybody Else)?
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You know how you meet someone – on the set of a movie – say TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT, and the first thought that hits you (after “wow, he’s a nice guy”) is “Wow – that guy is smart, too!”? That’s Charlie Fleischer! Being smart – especially that smart – has a lot of the same hallmarks as being nuts. Those kinda people tend to focus…
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S3E27: Tobe Hooper’s Dirty Little Secret
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Dirty little secrets… Show biz is filled to the brim with em. And Tobe Hooper’s dirty little secret? It might just could blow your mind… One of the greatest things about doing TALES FROM THE CRYPT – and there were lots and lots of great things about it – was getting to work with all the talented people we got to work with. There were a lot of pinch…
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S3E26: Killer Klowns v Crypt Keeper
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Killer Klowns v Crypt Keeper In this one, we talk CREATIVE SYNERGY. In this case, the remarkable synergy between our guests THE CHIODA BROTHERS, creators of KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE (celebrating its 35TH ANNIVERSARY). The Chiodas also create lots of other great MOVIE & TV work including some brilliant stuff for TEAM AMERICA, the SIMPSONS and …
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Everybody needs a good mechanic, am I right? Someone who understands what you have and what you might could do with it. Alas, not all mechanics are created equal. For a decade or so, I had a GREAT mechanic. Well, he wasn’t actually a mechanic, he was my agent. His name is Nick Mechanic but, most people called him just “Mechanic”. Willie Mo, Parts 1…
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Join us as we revisit a perfect example of How NEVER To Make A Movie, perhaps the worst dirty movie ever, CALIGULA (Roger Ebert certainly thought it was and who are we to argue?). How did this immortal fiasco happen? Didn’t all those famous actors like JOHN GIELGUD, PETER O’TOOLE, HELEN MIRREN and especially MALCOLM MCDOWELL know what they were sig…
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S3E23: The REAL Crypt Keeper
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The CRYPT KEEPER – the iconic host of HBO’S iconic TALES FROM THE CRYPT TV series – was just an animatronic puppet of course. But he completely represented everything about the show. He was and is the show’s “franchise”. But, if there was a “real” Crypt Keeper – a kind of Ground Zero for everything Tales From The Crypt – it was EC COMICS publisher …
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S3E22: The Reluctant Vampire Speaks!
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Let’s revisit our friend “The Reluctant Vampire”. MALCOLM MCDOWELL. When I was a kid, just beginning to acquire a “taste for cinema”, one of the first movies that gave me that taste was STANLEY KUBRICK’s “A CLOCKWORK ORANGE”. But, there was another Malcolm McDowell movie that struck me even more round about the same time: Lindsey Anderson’s “IF” (t…
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This very definitely is a “special episode” of the How NOT to Make A Movie Podcast. In the TV business, calling things “Special” has a long, rich history. “Special Episodes” are usually “relationship” episodes tied to family. Well, that’s exactly how we feel here at The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast – about our new SISTER PODCAST – THE DONOR: A M…
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S3E20 On Being Super, Man
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We talk a lot here about ACTORS and ROLES. How to cast certain roles and how to play them. When the role in question is a SUPERHERO (or a super hero), it changes the equation for actor and whoever’s hiring them. Some actors – like BRANDON ROUTH – seem almost fated to play certain roles – in Brandon’s case SUPERMAN. As a kid, he dreamed about playin…
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S3E19: It’s Dead Easy!
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Ever been haunted by a movie? “Tales From The Crypt Presents Dead Easy” is a movie that, to this day, still haunts us. The Harlequin character we created for “Dead Easy” had ‘franchise!” written all over him! He had “Great Movie!” written all over him, too. “Dead Easy” is the movie we should have made instead of “Bordello Of Blood”. It was the movi…
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S3E18: Stand Up Guy
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We first met comedian and podcast host Ken Reid when he invited us onto his podcast, the terrific TV GUIDANCE COUNSELOR. In addition to being a big “TALES FROM THE CRYPT” fan, Ted is a BOSTON-BASED STAND UP and a fantastic STORYTELLER. His approach to comedy is via story rather than jokes. That, I suspect, is where our minds all come together. Ken …
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S3E17: Barbie’s BFF?
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There are cultural icons and then there’s BARBIE. GRETA GERWIG and MARGOT ROBBIE’S movie is a brilliant reconsideration of that icon. But, a storyteller you’ve probably never heard-of helped shape our whole perception of that icon. Before there was Gerwig and Robbie, ANDREW GALLERANI was BARBIE’S BFF. From 1988 – 2015 (that’s 27 years!), Andrew dir…
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S3E16: Blind Ambition
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The last thing you’d ever think – if you read my friend TOM SULLIVAN’S bio – is that he’s blind. In fact, Tom is one of America’s most famous blind people. He’s written and produced movies & TV shows, sung THE NATIONAL ANTHEM at THE SUPER BOWL, and written more than a dozen books including IF YOU COULD SEE WHAT I HEAR and LEADING LADY. Tom wrote Le…
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S3E15: Son Of LURCH
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Even among iconic TV characters from the 1960’s, few remain as iconic as LURCH from THE ADDAMS FAMILY. As often happens when a particular actor fills a particular role, TED CASSIDY became synonymous with his creature. A little overly synonymous from Ted’s perspective. Today’s guest – Ted’s son SEAN CASSIDY (the “Son Of Lurch“) – reminds us that his…
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S3E14: When Crypt Went To London
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When Crypt went to London… It sounded like a GREAT IDEA! In many ways, it was a great idea: take HBO’s iconic “TALES FROM THE CRYPT” to LONDON for its very last season! The great? We got to hire actors like EWAN MCGREGOR and DANIEL CRAIG and STEVE COOGAN and ELIZABETH MCGOVERN. And we got to shoot in the coolest locations – actual CASTLES and other…
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E3S13: More Buried Bodies
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STORIES are a lot like BURIED BODIES – especially if you’re the one who buried them. Just like with a body, you can bury a story. Sometimes – in time – we forget about them. Meanwhile, there they sit. But, whereas bodies rot into nothing while buried, stories often gain heft and weight – and even significance. Some stories, just like ghosts, seem t…
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With a warm tip of the hat to the BBC’s wonderful, long-running classic show “Desert Island Discs“, we offer you the 5X2. Here’s the premise: you’re a passenger on a cool, futuristic spacecraft hurtling toward the far reaches of the cosmos. Your ride is first rate. It’s comfortable as can be. The food’s great! Almost everything has been done to mak…
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S3E11: A Demon Knight Sequel?
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On the one hand, this episode is a SEQUEL – to our first chat with ETHAN REIFF and CY VORIS, the long-time screenwriting team who wrote TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT. The horror audience now considers Demon Knight a CLASSIC. In our sequel, we’ll talk about why there’s never been a sequel to Demon Knight. From the moment it opened, its …
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S3E10 Hollywood Sized Balls
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We first met JACKIE GEORGE when we took over running TALES FROM THE CRYPT. Jackie worked for WARNER BROTHERS and SILVER PICTURES at the time (on movies like DIE HARD, RICHIE RICH and DEMOLITION MAN). That means she worked for our old boss JOEL SILVER. That took considerable balls. Hollywood sized balls. Jackie was Joel’s executive. Before that, she…
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S3E9 “A Comic Book Nerd’s Revenge”
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COMIC BOOKS have propelled many a film and TV career. Hell, various SPIDERMAN movies have kept various movie studios alive. DC COMICS was a pillar at WARNER BROS. The MARVEL UNIVERSE has made billions for DISNEY. And where the hell would we be if WILLIAM F. GAINES hadn’t taken over running EC COMICS from his dad in the late 1950’s. EC published tit…
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S3E8: “Demon Knight Payback”
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It’s time for a little Demon Knight Payback! Who’s fired now, kiddies? Thirty years ago, in 1994, alongside my creative partner at the time Gil Adler, I co-produced the now CLASSIC horror movie “TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT”. The movie opened on Friday, January 13, 1995. As often happens in the movie biz, as producers, we fired the or…
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S3E7: The Real Demon Knight
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Next year, in January, horror movie fans will celebrate the 30th ANIVERSARY of the movie TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT. The movie succeeded because it had a great script by CY VORIS and ETHAN REIFF (who also wrote KUNG FU PANDA). ERNEST DICKERSON brought both remarkable skills as a director and cinematographer, and a deep down love of …
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S3E6: “Rust Bust Disgust”
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We could also call this one “Rust Bust Discussed” since that’s what we’re going to do – update our earlier talk about New Mexico indicting actor/producer Alec Baldwin on manslaughter charges. ALEC BALDWIN, you recall, held the 1880’s prop gun on the set of independent western film “RUST” on October 1, 2012. When the PROP GUN fired during a rehearsa…
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S3E5 SNL ALUM (FINALLY) SPEAKS!
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Long before she became an adjunct lecturer at BROWN UNIVERSITY in its Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, my friend CONNIE CRAWFORD did something for which I envied her intensely. In 1978, She appeared on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. She acted in sketches and everything! She was one of five finalists in the “Anyone Can Host SNL” contest the…
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