A movie podcast of elimination rankings and deep dive reviews to determine what movies are worthy of preservation for all time, even beyond the end times!
Episodes
Monday Apr 21, 2025
Monday Apr 21, 2025
EPISODE 195: An American Original! – No apologies, no half-measures, all fire. (ft. Joe Buttice)
Episode Description:
This week, Jason is joined by Joe Buttice (Reel Spoilers) to lock and load a ranking of five films tied to the myth, the man, the cigar-smoking cinema warlord: John Milius. Whether writing frontier survival epics or directing operatic war fantasies, Milius brought a thunderous, unapologetic voice to American film.
Strap in for manifest destiny, surfboard theology, Cimmerian steel, and teenage guerrilla warfare.
Films Ranked:
- Jeremiah Johnson (1972, writer) – The loner as legend in a snow-covered survivalist western.\
-
Dillinger (1973) – Milius’s directorial debut, mixing gangster cool with mythic Americana.
-
Big Wednesday (1978) – A lyrical, wave-soaked ode to brotherhood and the end of an era.
-
Conan the Barbarian (1982) – Barbarism, Nietzsche, and epic vengeance in the Hyborian Age.
-
Red Dawn (1984) – Wolverines! Teenage insurgents defend America in a Cold War fever dream.
IN THIS EPISODE:
-
Joe defends Red Dawn as both fantasy and prophecy
-
Jason meditates on Big Wednesday as the most personal of war films
-
The complicated politics, masculine myth-making, and the man behind the bombast
No comments yet. Be the first to say something!