Hot Date

1994 was a very busy time for 25 year old future Oscar winner Renee Zellweger.  She found work in six films that year - everything from a Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel to grunge classics Reality Bites and Dazed and Confused.  But it was Love And A .45 that gave her the opportunity to play her first lead role.  The lovers on the lam film also boasted the varied talents of Ally McBeal heartthrob Gil Bellows, Peter Fonda, ReAnimator's Jeffrey Combs, Rory Cochrane and David Lynch regular Jack Nance.  Dan and Vicky discuss the comedy thriller along with lots of recently seen including Bill and Ted Face the Music, 2020's The Witches, Woody Allen's Interiors, Michelle Pfeiffer starrer French Exit, 1976's original Rocky and Godzilla vs. Kong. Check out Hot Date 128:  Love And A. 45 and leave us some feedback.  Visit our website at hotdatepod.com.  

The 1951 noir No Questions Asked was a rarity for MGM.  The studio, mainly know for epics and musicals, steered clear of edgier material.  But when producer Dore Schary became head of production he had a clear goal of reproducing the success he had at RKO and rushed several noirs into production, the first being the New York set No Questions Asked.  The film stars Barry Sullivan, Arlene Dahl, Jean Hagen and George Murphy.   Dan and Vicky discuss the forgotten thriller along with some recently seen including The Empty Man, Thunder Force, Plague of the Zombies, Born Yesterday, early DePalma film Murder a la Mod, and Shoplifters of the World. Enjoy Hot Date 127 and leave us feedback.  Visit our website at hotdatepod.com.

Juzo Itami's 1985 film Tampopo, about one woman's search for the perfect ramen recipe, has become so popular over the years that the restaurant industry around the world adopted it's name for many of it's own ramen and Japanese establishments.  The film teams the director with his real life wife Nobuko Miyamoto, along with Kurosawa regular Tsutomu Yamazaki and Ken Watanabe, who would go on to be one of the most bankable Japanese actors around the world. Dan and Vicky discuss the culinary comedy along with several recently seen items like Zach Snyder's Justice League, Tenet, Hunter, Hunter, What's New Pussycat?, The Irregulars, and the Obama/Springsteen podcast Renegades. We also give a shout out to listener Edward Karam and discuss Dan's dip into the world of FunikiJam. Hot Date 126: Tampopo.  Have a listen, leave us feedback, visit our social media sites and drop by our website hotdatepod.com    

Based on the popular folk song of the same name by Mississippi born singer Bobbie Gentry, Ode to Billy Joe was a huge hit when released in the summer of 1976.  The film was the brainchild of Max Baer Jr., best known for playing Jethro Bodine in the popular 60's sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies.  When acting jobs became scarce after the cancellation of the show Baer put his focus on film production and made and starred in what was thought to be the most successful independent film of all time, 1974's Macon County Line, until The Blair Witch Project surpassed it in 1999.   Dan and Vicky discuss the Southern teen drama on this week's episode along with plenty of recently seen like The Dark and the Wicked, Allen vs Farrow, A Promising Young Woman, Raya and the Last Dragon and Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Check out Hot Date 125 and leave us some feedback.   Visit our website for all things Hot Date at hotdatepod.com 

The obscure 1962 film What A Carve Up!, retitled No Place Like Homicide! for it's American release, brings British comedians Sidney James and Kenneth Connor together in a comedy thriller with touches of vaudeville revue and murder mystery.  James was UK comedy royalty having been the star of the successful Carry On series of films while Connor first found success in radio and later joined James in the Carry On franchise.  Here they're bumbling buddies hoping to claim an inheritance while not getting murdered in the process. Dan and Vicky chat about the film, their feelings about cinemas reopening in New York City, trips to McDonalds as kids and so much more!  If you're looking for viewing recommendations, they discuss more Almodovar, Ken Russell's The Devils, WandaVision, and the baboon on the loose thriller Shakma among others.   Check out Hot Date 124:  What A Carve Up! and leave us some feedback.  Visit our website at www.hotdatepod.com

Renowned French director Claire Denis was shooting her dour  thriller High Life while nursing her dying mother. She credits the real life tragedy in her life for the somber, sometimes oppressive feeling that pervades the film. It stars Robert Pattinson and an international cast including Juliette Binoche (a Denis regular), Mia Goth, Andre (3000) Benjamin, and Lars Eidinger and was Denis's first English language film and her second true attempt at genre after 2001's vampire drama Trouble Every Day.   Dan and Vicky discuss the outer space weirdness of the film and it's obsession with bodily fluids!  Also on deck is plenty of recently seen including Saint Maud, Hounds of Love, Bava's Planet of the Vampires, Malle's Au Revoir Les Enfants and Vicky's deep and long dive into the films of Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar!  Don't miss it. Check out Hot Date 123 and leave us feedback on your favorite podcatcher.  All things Hot Date can also be found on our website: hotdatepod.com.  

Shot in 6 days for the super stingy price tag of $69,000, Kurt Neumann's Secret of the Blue Room, a remake itself of a German film, was enough of a success for Universal Pictures that they remade it twice in the span of eleven years.  Once in 1938 as a semi-comedy called The Missing Guest and again in 1944 as a musical called Murder in the Blue Room.  Dan and Vicky discuss this often forgotten thriller in Universal's 1930's spate of horror and suspense output.  They also talk about recently seen movies including Wonder Woman 1984, The Heiress, When A Stranger Calls, #Alive, Mortuary Collection, On The Waterfront and The King of Staten Island.    And in a special segment they pay tribute to late director Omid Nooshin of episode 121's The Last Passenger and remember the passing of Cicely Tyson, Cloris Leachman, Christopher Plummer and Hal Holbrook.  Check out Hot Date 122 and leave us some feedback on Apple podcasts.  Also take a visit to our website at hotdatepod.com and check us out on our social media platfo

2014's The Last Passenger was the feature directorial debut of British filmmaker Omid Nooshin and tragically his last.  After a long battle with depression, the ambitious and talented director, who was rumored to have snuck his way onto the sets of Eyes Wide Shut and Star Wars: Phantom Menace to observe filming, committed suicide in early 2018, leaving a wife and young child.  National Suicide Prevention Hotline : 800-273-8255. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ Dan and Vicky discuss the tightly directed The Last Passenger as well as a plethora of recently seen including films Possessor, Death on the Nile, Charade, 1963's The Incident, The Wolf of Snow Hollow and Spontaneous.   There's vaccine talk and Biden/Harris praise along the way too!  Have a listen to Hot Date 121 and leave us some feedback.  Check out our website at hotdatepod.com

Hot Date has reached another Top Ten episode - just what we do here every tenth podcast - and this time Dan and Vicky discuss their favorite all time male comedic film performances.  Spanning movies from the 20's to the 2000's, we hope you'll have a chuckle recalling these very funny men.  No names revealed here.  You'll have to listen to Hot Date 120! Your hosts will also get into lots of recently seen including some early Hitchcock, some screamers from Shudder, classic noirs and a few TV oddities.   Leave us feedback on social media and check out our website at hotdatepod.com.

Here we are at the end of 2020 taking stock of the strange and intense year that was.  There's lots of introspection, reflection, and depression happening.  So does Hot Date have the movie for you!  1973's Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole,  Elizabeth Taylor, Glynis Johns, and a bevy of wonderful British character actors, is a film adaptation of Welsh writer Dylan Thomas's tone poem. Dan and Vicky ring in the New Year with a discussion of this forgotten and unique experimental film from director Andrew Sinclair.  Also on deck is alot of recently seen including Netflix's The Prom, HBO's The Flight Attendant, several Hitchcock classics and recent horror films Relic and Becky.   Give a listen to Hot Date 119 and leave us some feedback on our social media accounts.  www.hotdatepod.com  

By all accounts a job for hire, The Blue Gardenia nonetheless benefited from having German director Fritz Lang at the helm.  On a tight 21 day shooting schedule, Lang and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca came up with shooting techniques that would save time while also contributing a sense of suffocating paranoia and intensity.  They are aided enormously by an able cast led by Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern and Raymond Burr and classed up musically be the appearance of Nat King Cole on the soundtrack and in a key scene. Dan and Vicky discuss the film along with a bunch of recently seen including films Come Play, Antebellum, Hitchcock's Family Plot, HBO's Superintelligence, the heist films of Michael Caine and TV shows like The Vow, The Undoing, and Masterpiece: 50 Fabulous Years.   Also hear from Dan about his recent Covid scare and what your hosts think about the news that Warner Bros. is releasing their entire film slate on HBOMAX! Check out Hot Date 118 and leave us some feedback on Apple podcasts

Before Norwegian filmmaker Andre Øvredal found acclaim with his festival fave The Autopsy of Jane Doe and box office clout with 2019's teen horror hit Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, he wrote and directed 2011's Trollhunter which won him acclaim both at home and around the world.  The found footage fantasy follows a group of college journalists getting to the bottom of Norway's best kept secret - the government sanctioned hunting of real live trolls!  Dan and Vicky discuss the quirky film along with plenty of recently seen like Night of the Lepus, The Pack, Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist, 1964's The Yellow Rolls Royce, 1936's Devil Doll, and Dan's visit back to theaters for the first time since March to see Blumhouse's Freaky.   Enjoy Hot Date 117: Trollhunter and leave us some feedback.  Check out our website for all Hot Date news! Info on Dan's latest acting endeavors: To The Bone reading www.theworkingtheater.org Nantucket Christmas Carol radio play www.whiteherontheatre.org  

Originally a screenplay titled Nightline, 1980's Don't Answer The Phone was shot under the title The Hollywood Strangler - perhaps a nod to director Robert Hammer's stated purpose to make a film exploring the proliferation of serial killers in the 1970's.  The eventual title was a bid to get the audiences that had made 1979's phone themed thriller When A Stranger Calls a success. Dan and Vicky discuss this notorious early eighties cheapie along with a bunch of recently seen including The Omen trilogy, Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor, this year's drive in success story The Wretched, Hitchcock's Topaz, 1973 oddity Fleshpot on 42nd Street and The Wicker Man.   BUT you must listen to hear the EXACT moment Dan and Vicky discover who won the 2020 presidential election!  It's right there, on the podcast, captured in the moment.  Biden/Harris 2020!! Hot Date 116:  Don't Answer The Phone brings the exploitation and the nomination!  Leave is feedback and visit our website www.hotdatepod.com.     

Released in 1932, Jewel Robbery flaunted the sexual chemistry between it's two leads, introduced marijuana as a comedic motif and had it's debonair criminal escape police capture at the end -- all things that wouldn't have been allowed only a few years later under the restrictive Hayes code.  The film stars William Powell and Kay Francis - their sixth film appearance together -- and is ably directed by William Dieterle (The Life of Emile Zola). Dan and Vicky discuss the film and lots of recently seen including 2019's Cats, 1957's Vincent Price vehicle The Story of Mankind, influential documentary Titicut Follies, and 1968's Corruption with Peter Cushing.  Check out Hot Date 115: Jewel Robbery and leave us some feedback.  Our website is www.hotdatepod.com 

At 73, Boris Karloff was looking for material that would finally give him the chance to show his range as a performer.  He knew he couldn't escape his reputation as a reliable box office horror star but he hoped for a role that would allow him to play more than the sympathetic monster.  1958's The Haunted Strangler, written for the actor by friend Jan Read, gave him that opportunity -- partly.  Dan and Vicky pay tribute to Karloff and this film, one many consider to be his best.  They also give us some of their recently seen including the films Swallow, Red Sun, Vivarium, Mark of the Vampire, Boys in the Band, Enola Holmes and the series Death Comes to Pemberly and Monsterland.   The Haunted Strangler is your Hot Date Halloween treat.  Enjoy the show and leave us some feedback.  Check out our website at www.hotdatepod.com

Courtesy of TriCoast Entertainment, Dan and Vicky review By Night's End from director Walker Whited.  The home invasion thriller, co-written by Whited and Sean McCane, stars Michelle Rose and Kurt Yue as a couple in trauma facing financial ruin and deep personal loss.  A violent intruder unknowingly offers them a way out but they must first fend off the intruder's cronies and survive the night.   By Night's End hits on demand services (Amazon, iTunes, DirecTV, FlixFling, Google Play, Vudu and AT&T) on Tuesday, October 6th.  For more information visit the film's website at bynightsend.com. Thanks for listening.  Leave us some feedback and check out our website at hotdatepod.com.

Your Hot Date hosts travel back in time to 1561 and the tumultuous return of Mary Queen of Scots from France to stake her claim to the English crown from her cousin Queen Elizabeth.  It's a story of sex, religious intolerance, and female empowerment told by two of the world's rising stars in Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronin, fledgling film director with a background in British theater Josie Rourke and House of Cards creator Beau Willimon.   Along with the Oscar nominated 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots, Dan and Vicky discuss lots of recently seen including Dave Franco's directorial debut The Rental, HBO' Coastal Elites, 1937's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1949 Bobby Driscoll thriller The Window, and the 1970 Sammy Davis/Peter Lawford film directed by Jerry Lewis (!) One More Time among others.  We also read some viewer mail responding to our 1980's themed Hot Date episode 110. Check out Hot Date 113: Mary Queen of Scots and leave us some feedback.  Visit our website at www.hotdatepod.com

At just under an hour, the 1934 murder mystery The Crime of Helen Stanley hardly overstays it's welcome.  It was the fourth film in the Inspector Steve Trent series with Ralph Bellamy playing the always able and ready gumshoe. This time he's investigating the murder of a famous, and infamous, movie actress who leaves a trail of suspects in her wake. Fitting that the shortest movie they've every discussed yields Hot Date's shortest podcast.  But it's still jam packed with lots of recently seen including 1969's Sweet Charity, giallo The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, and recent horror films 1BR and They Should Have Left.  Dan also sounds off on the New York Sports Club's customer service and Vicky tells us about her jaunt through Central Park and a very pampered kitty. Hot Date 112: The Crime of Helen Stanley.  Listen, give us some feedback, and visit our website at www.hotdatepod.com.   

SOUND QUALITY ALERT:  THERE WAS AN UNFORTUNATE HUMAN ERROR IN THE RECORDING OF EPISODE 111.  WE'D FIRE THE SOUND TECHNICIAN BUT HE'S ALSO YOUR CO-HOST.  SINCEREST APOLOGIES.  HOPE THE SOUND ISSUE DOESN'T DETRACT TOO MUCH FROM YOUR ENJOYMENT OF HOT DATE 111.      Dan  2013's indie comedy Dealin' With Idiots was a passion project for actor Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm).  Directed, co-written and produced by Garlin, the film employs the talents of comedic all-stars Fed Willard, Bob Odenkirk, Jami Gertz and Kerri Kenney among others to tell the mostly improvised story of a successful comic Dad trying to relate to the eccentric parents at his son's little league games.  Dan and Vicky discuss the film along with lots of recently seen including TNT's Snowpiercer and The Alienist and movies like 1968's Boston Strangler, 1957's Pal Joey, Hulu's recent Palm Springs, the teen horror film Countdown and epic Shudder doc In Search of Darkness: A Journey Into Iconic 80's Horror.  Have a listen to Hot Date 111: Dealin'

The Me First Decade.  The Decade of Greed.  The Yuppie Decade.  There are many names for the 1980's.  But the decade also represented an eclectic one for movies.  It was the decade that Hollywood really leaned in to the blockbuster after the successes of Jaws and Star Wars in the 70's.  It was the decade of bad hair and bad fashion.  It was the decade the film tastes of your Hot Date podcast hosts took hold.   So for their next Top Ten episode, Dan and Vicky countdown their lists of their favorite movies of the 1980's.  No surprise, Dan's list is horror heavy and Vicky's list is heavy on nostalgia for 80's music, fashion and style.   Have a listen and leave us some feedback or star rating.  Check out our website at www.hotdatepod.com.