A Final Fan Dance: The Right Stuff (1983)

The pod is taking a slight temporal detour this week and covering The Right Stuff - a film that began its development during New Hollywood and was finished and released in the wake of the Heaven’s Gate debacle. Sam and Elena pontificate about whether or not this ambitious space epic retains the artistic spirit of the 70s or if it can’t quite achieve liftoff beyond merely ‘fun movie about the early days of the Space Race’. Topics include: the film's digressive structure, Philip Kaufman’s Pavlovian response to popcorn, and the charms of Dennis Quaid.