Maltin on Movies

Lou Diamond Phillips has an old-school, theater-based work ethic, which is why there’s almost nothing he can’t or won’t do—from appearing on The Masked Singer to imitating the look of Buffalo Bill Cody for his newest film Get Fast, now available on VOD. He doesn’t mind that people still talk to him about playing Ritchie Valens in La Bamba because he’s (justly) proud of the film and his performance in it, as you will hear. Leonard and Jessie also have a personal connection to this gracious and talented man.

Liam Neeson needs no introduction; his work over the past five decades speaks for itself. What you may not know is what a charming man he is…or how dedicated to his craft he remains after all this time. He says he still finds acting a source of wonder and discovery. His latest film, an action thriller called Absolution, opens today. Is it a great movie? Not in the same class as Schindler’s List, or even Taken, but worth seeing if only to watch the man at work. Leonard and Jessie feel lucky to have spent some time with him.  

The meanest-looking man on screen, the star of Robert Rodriguez’s Machete and its sequels, is perhaps better known Trejo’s Cantina and other food emporiums have revealed the truth: despite his violent background he has reinvented himself as a good guy and plays that role extremely well, onscreen and off. (He also headlines a new streaming movie, Seven Cemeteries.) Leonard and Jessie enjoyed meeting him (via Zoom) and hearing the story of how he accidentally broke into movies and wound up working with some of the biggest names in the business.

David Stenn has a good “day job,” writing scripts for television (like The L Word and Boardwalk Empire) but his passion is film history. He has funded restoration of films long thought lost or unavailable, including a recent “find” featuring Clara Bow. He is also the author of two definitive biographies, Clara Bow: Running Wild, first published in 1988 and Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow. They are both “must-read” recommendations, along with his passion project, a documentary called Girl 27 that is now available free of charge on YouTube. And if his face or voice seem familiar, it’s because he appears regularly on Turner Classic Movies.

Can it really be ten years since Whiplash put filmmaker Damien Chazelle on the map and earned J.K. Simmons his Best Supporting Actor Oscar? We interviewed the versatile actor in 2017 and his stories are worth hearing again. By the way, he remains a good luck charm for writer-director Jason Reitman, with a juicy role in his new movie Saturday Night. And Whiplash is also back on theater screens.

As the cofounder of Boston Light and Sound, Chapin Cutler has built movie theaters from the ground up and transformed unlikely spaces into pop-up cinemas. He’s been responsible for 70mm showings of new films by Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino and so much more. He and his wife Deborah run a family-oriented operation and populate their staff with diehard movie nerds who truly care about how a film looks and sounds. Leonard and Jessie are longtime friends and admirers of their work and welcomed this opportunity to ask him questions they never posed before.

Jon Burlingame knows everything worth knowing about music for film and television. He teaches the subject at USC’s Thornton School of Music, keeps up with current events and newcomers to the field for Variety, and has just published his seventh book, Dreamsville: Henry Mancini, Peter Gunn, and Music for TV Noir (BearManor Media). Like all of his work it is authoritative, well-written, and fun to read. Leonard and Jessie are longtime fans and friends and couldn’t think of a nicer way to spend an hour.

Haley Joel Osment should need no introduction to moviegoers of any age. He made an indelible impression in The Sixth Sense 25 years ago and became an overnight star, working with the likes of Michael Caine and Robert Duvall in Secondhand Lions and Steven Spielberg on A.I. Articifial Intelligence. After a break from filmmaking he returned to the scene as a versatile young character actor, appearing in such shows as The Boys, The Kominskey Method, and What We Do in the Shadows. He’s currently part of the ensemble in Blink Twice and hopes to do what Zoë Kravitz did: write and direct. As bright as he is unpretentious, Haley seems to have what it takes: Leonard and Jessie are rooting for him to succeed.

Our guest has been acting for most of her life and her credits include such memorable movies as Swingers, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Boogie Nights, Bowfinger, and The Hangover. In her latest film (which debuts today on demand), Place of Bone, she plays a tough, implacable frontier woman who wields a rifle with authority and intends to protect her teenage daughter at any cost. In October we’ll see her second effort as writer, director and star, the romantic comedy Chosen Family.  

If you don’t think sound editing and mixing is a creative process, think again! Our guests are both nominated for Emmy Awards for their work on the Apple+ miniseries Masters of the Air—and they might be identified as Masters of the Ear. They have created a soundscape that is the equal of a major Hollywood feature, as you’d expect in a high-profile show executive produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Steven Spielberg. Mike Minkler is also a third-generation soundman with three Oscars to his credit—so far—and was Leonard’s first guest when he started teaching at USC twenty-six years ago. Jessie is as impressed with our guests as her Dad.  

Colm Meaney makes a vivid impression whenever he appears on stage, screen, or television. (His latest, Duchess, debuts on digital today, August 9.) More people probably know him from the two Star Trek series in which he appeared—The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine—but we remember him best as the father in The Commitments and its follow-ups The Van and The Snapper. Leonard and Jessie were pleased to find that he shares our fondness for that trilogy from Irish writer Roddy Doyle as well. But there’s little he hasn’t done, from John Huston’s final film The Dead to Con Air  and an episode of The Simpsons where he played (what else?) a quintessential Irish bartender. He spoke to us from his getaway home in Majorca, Spain!

You’ve been entertained by Jim Cummings at some point over the last forty years whether you know it or not: he is the voice of Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Darkwing Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, and countless other cartoon characters. And like his hero Mel Blanc, he is not merely “doing” voices—he’s acting and singing his heart out. Leonard and Jessie are especially fond of his vocalizing as Ray the Cajun firefly, who croons “Ma Belle Angeline” in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. It was a pleasure meeting and chatting with someone we’ve both admired for years.

If his face is familiar, that’s because Raphael Sbarge has been working since he was a boy—in theater, television and film. His credits range from Murder, She Wrote and Risky Business to Fear the Walking Dead. More recently he has moved behind the camera, crafting documentaries like Only in Theaters, the story of Los Angeles’ beloved Laemmle Theaters chain. That’s the project that brought him in contact with Leonard and Jessie, who are happy to have him as this week’s guest.  

If you enjoy watching classic films you’re probably acquainted with Alan Rode, prolific author, commentator (on numerous DVDs and Blu-rays), and host (with Eddie Muller) of the Noir City Festival, an annual event in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. He also hosts and programs the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival every year in Palm Springs, California. He has several books to his credit, including a biography of character actor Charles McGraw and his magnum opus, Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film. He is a longtime friend of the Maltin family, so Jessie and Leonard had a grand time comparing notes on all aspects of film buffery.

An Oscar winner (for Mask in 1985) and multiple Emmy winner (for various incarnations of Star Trek), Michael Westmore carries a name that is synonymous with makeup in Hollywood. He’s proud of his heritage, which began with his grandfather in the silent-film era and flourished in the 1930s, when his father and uncles ran the makeup departments at virtually every major studio. He studied art history in college, then his uncle Bud took him on as an apprentice at Universal in the early 1960s and he unexpectedly (or inevitably) wound up in the family business. Mike wears his accomplishments lightly and for all he has done he remains delightfully down-to-earth.  

After starring in the TV series Royal Pains for eight seasons and appearing in recurring roles in shows ranging from Ally McBeal to The West Wing, Mark Feuerstein is ready to explode his good-guy image in the new MGM+ crime drama Hotel Cocaine. He’s never been so sleazy as this onscreen but as Jessie and Leonard quickly learned, in real life he’s a mensch who is devoted to his family and his craft. They all had fun during this fast-paced encounter, and hope that the feeling is contagious.  

Nick Stahl has been working in front of the camera since he was 13 years old and winning young admirers like Jessie because he’s so believable in every part he tackles. Mel Gibson chose him to costar in The Man Without a Face, which put him on a fast track to success. His widely varied credits include The Terminator 3, In the Bedroom, The Thin Red Line, andSin City. After a break he returned to acting and quicky landed guest shots on such series as Fear the Walking Dead and Let the Right One In. He can be seen in the recent VOD release What You Wish For.

This week we introduce you to two more Emmy contenders for their exceptional work. Cian O’Clery directed, executive produced and photographed) the heartfelt documentary seriesLove on the Spectrum, which shows how people with autism search for love just like all of us. Mac Quayle is a busy composer of music for film and television who has become a favorite of the prolific producer Ryan Murphy (Scream Queens, American Crime Story, Feud, et al) who already has an Emmy to his credit for Mr. Robot, for which he scored 45 episodes. His latest effort is The Great Lillian Hall, now playing on HBO.

This week, we’re meeting more fascinating people who are Emmy contenders for their work on high-end television, which nowadays has the production quality of feature films. An Emmy contender in the realm of limited series, All the Light We Cannot See has been adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by the brilliant writer Steven Knight. It draws on the talents of many people, among them our guests, sound man Craig Henighan, cinematographer Tobias Schliessler, and casting directors Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockman.  

The brilliant writer-director Steven Zaillian (Searching for Bobby Fischer) is a strong Emmy contender for his eight-part adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels, along with the collaborators we spoke to: composer Jeff Russo (an Emmy winner for Fargo), Oscar-nominated production designer David Gropman, and editors David Rogers and Joshua Lee. Even if you haven’t yet watched the series on Netflix it’s fascinating to listen to these creative people talk about what they bring to every film or show they take on.