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The second film in our salute to the late Alan Arkin is the one that netted Arkin an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (it also took the award for Best Original Screenplay)! Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valarie Faris, 2006's "Little Miss Sunshine" chronicles a road-trip from New Mexico to California with what is, perhaps, the most dysfunctional family ever captured on celluloid. Young beauty-pageant contestant Olive (Abigail Breslin) has become the winner of a local pageant for Little Miss Sunshine thanks to a disqualification, and needs to get to the final competition in California. Accompanied by her would-be motivational speaker father, Richard (Greg Kinnear), her mother Sheryl (Toni Collette), her brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) who has taken a vow of silence, her previously-suicidal uncle Frank (Steve Carrell), and her well-meaning but out-of-touch grandfather Edwin (Arkin), the group sets off in a VW Microbus for the competition. They face repeated obstacles and setbacks along the way, but arrive in the nick of time for Olive to compete! The competition, however, doesn't go quite as everyone expected. The film also stars Chuck Loring, Paula Newsome, Dean Norris, and Bryan Cranston! Plus, the gents reveal which two horror franchise originals they'll be reviewing for Halloween 2023!

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This pairing salutes actor Alan Arkin, who passed away on June 29th of 2023. We begin with the film based on a Joseph Heller novel that now sits on several banned book lists. Directed by Mike Nichols and adapted for the screen by Buck Henry, 1970's "Catch-22" examines the absurdity of war in a truly satirical fashion. The film stars Arkin as Captain Yossarian, a B-52 bombardier who has grown completely disillusioned with the war against the Germans and the Japanese and is trying to get grounded. He no longer trusts his commanding officers, and begins observing the truly insane actions of those supposedly "in charge." The film feature a cornucopia of Hollywood stars, including Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, singer Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford, Buck Henry, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins, Paula Prentiss, Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, Bob Balaban, Norman Fell, Charles Grodin, Austin Pendleton, and Orson Welles! The film gathered so many World War II bombers, it features the largest private air force ever assembled, and the sixth largest in the world (after France) at the time!

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Part two of our look at how the social upheavals of the 1950s influenced Hollywood cinema, we move ahead to 1956 and a film that plumbs the depths of that society's xenophobia! Directed by Don Siegel, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" tells the story of Dr. Miles J. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), a physician who returns from a medical convention to his small town and discovers strange goings-on: People convinced their loved ones are not who they used to be, patients booking appointments and, the next day, canceling claiming they're feeling much better, and seemingly dead bodies with incomplete features appearing in various homes across town. After reuniting with his former love Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), Dr. Bennell is called to the home of two friends, Jack (King Donovan) and Teddy (Carolyn Jones) Belicec, who show him a body that has some resemblance to Jack. Through a series of investigations, Dr. Bennell and Becky discover that the threat is much more severe than even they anticipated, and they set about trying to escape the town, to warn the rest of the world about the impending disaster bearing down on the entire planet! Plus, the trio unveil a pairing dedicated to another actor the world lost in 2023!

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The 1950s, as a decade, was tumultuous in its own way, and that never appeared in cinema more strongly than in the science fiction and horror films of that time! With that in mind, we offer, for your listening pleasure, a pairing of films from those years which are more than they seem! First up, from 1951, a film that speaks to American's concern about the impact of the growing reliance on atomic power, both as an energy source and in our weapons. Directed by Robert Wise, in 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still," a visitor from outer space descends on Washington DC, and from it steps a figure who identifies himself as Klaatu (Michael Rennie). He is accompanied by a giant robot named Gort (Lock Martin), and informs those gathered that he will speak his mission only to the assembled leaders of all the nations of earth. After a misunderstanding which results in Klaatu being shot and captured, he escapes to wander among the people of the city. He meets Helen Benson (Patricia Neal) and her son Bobby (Billy Gray), and Helen's boyfriend Tom Stevens (Hugh Marlowe), and takes a room in their boarding house. After he and Bobby try to get in to see noted scientis Professor Jacob Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe), Klaatu reveals himself to Helen and the two of them go on-the-run to try to return Klaatu to his ship before Gort destroys the earth! A film with societal angst fairly seeping through every line, it sends a message of worry for the future of humanity through an entertaining look at first contact!

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