Episode 160: It's back to the late 80s we go for the first film in our "Movies that didn't suck, based on TV shows" pairing with 1987's Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks comedic love-letter to one of the great detective shows of all time, "Dragnet!" Directed by Tom Mankiewicz (who helped write the story, along with Aykroyd), this film follows Joe Friday (Aykroyd), nephew of the Jack Webb character from the original series. As the tale begins, Friday's partner has retired and he's paired with 80s-hipster-equivalent Pep Streebek (Hanks) to investigate the burning of Hugh Hefner/Larry Flint amalgam, porn mogul Jerry Ceaser (Dabney Coleman) latest magazine run. Co-starring orignial cast member Harry Morgan as now Captain Frank Gannon, Christopher Plummer, Alexandra Paul, Jack O'Halloran, Elizabeth Ashley and the great character actor Kathleen Freeman, this film fairly shines with the love Aykroyd has for the original, all the while finding the humor to be had in a really good "fish out of water" story!
Our second Anime film in this pairing, as suggested to us by Twitter user @SleekyOT, is the next major anime film produced by Katushiro Otomo after Akira, 2004's "Steamboy!" Set in 1866 Manchester, England, the story follows James Ray Steam, 3rd generation inventor, as his insatiable curiosity gets him in the middle of a fight to control the power of steam after his grandfather, Lloyd, sends him a mysterious device known only as a "steam ball." The American dub features the voices of Anna Paquin, Alfred Molina, and Patrick Stewart as the men in the Steam family, plus voice actors Rosalind Ayres, Peter Lavin, Kari Wahlgren! And at the end, the trio reveal which two "Movies Based on TV Series (That Don't Suck)" films they'll be talking about for their next pairing!
As per a request by Twitter user @SleekyOT, this pairing focuses on anime, and you can't talk anime without talking the one film that caused a revolution in the United States when it came out on VHS in the early 1990s, 1988's "Akira!" Based on the 6-issue manga series by Katsuhiro Otomo (who also wrote and directed the film), this story follows Kaneda and Tetsuo, fellow bike gang members and sort-of friends, through life in Neo Tokyo. After Tetsuo (almost literally) runs across a strange elderly child, he is captured, subjected to government tests, and finds himself possessed of great psychic abilities. Unfortunately, they may be too powerful for him to control unless he can track down the mysterious Akira and learns control from him! The American dub of the film features the voices of Johnny Yong Bosch, Joshua Seth, and Wendee Lee. This film is about a third of the complete story in the manga, and was completed before the comic was, rather like Game of Thrones!
The second film in our second time-travel pairing is probably the first film that comes to mind when someone says "time-travel movies." It is, of course, the 1985 classic "Back to the Future!" Directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson, Claudia Wells, Marc McClure, Wendie Jo Sperber, and the first cinematic appearance of Billy Zane, this film is a romp with a heart of gold and a sub-text that really examines the essence of time-travel paradox and its effects! Plus, the trio read a tweet from a listener who suggested the film that will start our next pairing!
This is our second pairing of time-travel films, and we're starting with a film that casually examines the ultimate question of time travel: If you can go back in time and change the past, should you? Directed by Don Taylor and starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, James Farentino, Ron O'Neal, and Charles Durning, this film follows the U.S.S. Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which is somehow catpulted back in time to December 6th, 1941, the day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They have the means to stop one of the worst attacks on American soil in history. Should they? Will they? We won't tell you (you'll have to watch the movie for that) but we will tell you all about the production and how the film ended up being such a love-letter to the U.S. Navy that they've used it as a recruiting tool!
Episode 160: It's back to the late 80s we go for the first film in our "Movies that didn't suck, based on TV shows" pairing with 1987's Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks comedic love-letter to one of the great detective shows of all time, "Dragnet!" Directed by Tom Mankiewicz (who helped write the story, along with Aykroyd), this film follows Joe Friday (Aykroyd), nephew of the Jack Webb character from the original series. As the tale begins, Friday's partner has retired and he's paired with 80s-hipster-equivalent Pep Streebek (Hanks) to investigate the burning of Hugh Hefner/Larry Flint amalgam, porn mogul Jerry Ceaser (Dabney Coleman) latest magazine run. Co-starring orignial cast member Harry Morgan as now Captain Frank Gannon, Christopher Plummer, Alexandra Paul, Jack O'Halloran, Elizabeth Ashley and the great character actor Kathleen Freeman, this film fairly shines with the love Aykroyd has for the original, all the while finding the humor to be had in a really good "fish out of water" story! 
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