Weekend At Crombie‘s

Vol 7, Episode 12: Soul Man

It's 1986, and the way you can tell is because it produced this college comedy about a white law student who pretends to be black in order to qualify for a scholarship. Starring C. Thomas Howell and Rae Dawn Chong, who appeared to crash their careers on this one, but at least met each other and got married.

Vol 7, Episode 11: Searching for Bobby Fischer

It's 1993 and Steven Zaillian directs the tale of a young prodigy in a brave attempt to make chess cinematic. With a line-up that includes Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, Joan Allen, Joe Mantegna, Robert Stephens, William H. Macy, Dan Hedaya, Laura Linney and Tony Shalhoub, this cast goes deeper than a Sicilian Defense.

Vol 7, Episode 10: The Ascent

It's 1977, and Larisa Shepitko directs her final film about two partisans struggling for both life and soul in World War II Belarus. Naturally, hilarity ensues. A profoundly moving and beautiful film, it would nonetheless take a stronger spirit than either of our hosts possess to watch it more than once.

Vol 7, Episode 9: Fire and Ice

It's 1983, and this rotoscoped animation unites director Ralph Bakshi with legendary sword n' sorcery artist Frank Frazetta. The 80s were a prime time for low budget dark fantasy, and this reads like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Although, in this case, none of the protagonists ever chose to wear more clothes.

The Legend of Crombie‘s Gold 5.6: Megalopolis

We close the series with the tale of another futuristic city in the form of Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. The city of New Rome is torn between feuding oligarchs, and only one visionary can save us all. Coppola self-financed this film when the studios turned it down. So there's that. The Legend of Crombie‘s Gold examines a series of thematically-linked films - this time, we've chosen films that looked to the days ahead: the Future Is Now!