Special Guest: Allan Holzman Guest Co-Hosts: Father Malone, Chris Stachiw
Sci-Fi July rolls on with Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), Roger Corman’s ambitious space opera directed by Jimmy T. Murakami and written by a pre-Lone Star John Sayles. This wild interstellar remix of The Seven Samurai stars Richard Thomas as Shad, a naive farm boy turned cosmic recruiter who must assemble a team of eccentric mercenaries to defend his planet from the tyrannical Sador—played with ruthless relish by John Sayles.
Mike is joined by Father Malone and Chris Stachiw to dig into the film’s unforgettable cast of characters, James Horner’s rousing score (which sounds suspiciously like his work for Star Trek II), and the early visual effects work of James Cameron. Special guest Allan Holzman, the film’s editor (and future director of Forbidden World), offers behind-the-scenes insights from the golden age of Corman’s New World Pictures. Low-budget spectacle, recycled spaceship sets, and alien oddballs abound in this scrappy cult favorite.
In this special episode of The Projection Booth, John Sayles talks about his new film Go For Sisters, lessons learned working for Roger Corman, and the state of independent film.
In Go For Sisters, Bernice (LisaGay Hamilton) and Fontayne (Yolonda Ross) grew up so close people said they could “go for sisters”, but time sent them down different paths. Twenty years later, those paths cross: Fontayne is a recovering addict fresh out of jail, and Bernice is her new parole officer.
When Bernice’s son Rodney goes missing on the Mexican border, his shady associates all in hiding or brutally murdered, Bernice realizes she needs someone with the connections to navigate Rodney's world without involving the police… and turns to her old friend. The pair enlist the services of disgraced ex-LAPD detective Freddy Suárez (Edward James Olmos) and plunge into the dim underbelly of Tijuana, forced to unravel a complex web of human traffickers, smugglers, and corrupt cops before Rodney meets the same fate as his partners.
As much a story of relationships as a story of crime, Go For Sisters is a welcome return to the border for master filmmaker and two-time Academy Award nominee John Sayles (Lone Star, Passion Fish).
Special Guest: Allan Holzman
Special Guest: John Sayles