Remembering Jonathan Kaplan

The Movies That Made Me

SpectreVision Radio

Tv & Film, Film History

4.7 • 624 Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 93 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're remembering the late great director (and Trailers From Hell Guru) Jonathan Kaplan (1947–2025) and re-running our chat with the director of Over The Edge, The Accused, and many more. Jonathan took us on a journey through some of his favorite movies. Movies Referenced In This Episode The Student Teachers (1973) Night Call Nurses (1972) White Line Fever (1975) Truck Turner (1974) Heart Like A Wheel (1983) The Accused (1988) Over The Edge (1979) Modern Times (1936) City Lights (1931) Manhattan (1979) Some Like It Hot (1959) The Apartment (1960) North By Northwest (1959) Moon Pilot (1962) Mr. Billion (1977) White Heat (1949) The Wizard of Oz (1939) The Three Musketeers (1973) The Four Musketeers (1974) Superman (1978) Superman II (1980) The Three Musketeers (1948) Shane (1953) The 400 Blows (1959) 8 ½ (1963) Fellini Satyricon (1969) Richard (1972) Millhouse (1971) The Projectionist (1970) El Dorado (1966) The Shootist (1976) Woodstock (1970) Payback (1999) A Hard Day’s Night (1964) The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)Billy Liar (1963) Ford Vs Ferrari (2019) The Wild Bunch (1969) The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) Bad Girls (1994) Masters of the Universe (1987) Giant (1956) The More The Merrier (1943) The Graduate (1967) The Victors (1963) …And Justice For All (1979) Citizen Kane (1941) An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (1997) The Day of the Dolphin (1973) The Call of the Wild (2020) The Lion King (1994) The Lion King (2019) The Revenant (2015) Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Dr. Strangelove (1964) Hollywood Boulevard (1976) Day For Night (1973) Being There (1979) Bound For Glory (1976) Second-Hand Hearts (1981) Requiem For A Heavyweight (1962) The Night of the Hunter (1955) The Godfather (1972) The Godfather Part II (1974) The Student Nurses (1970) Valley of the Dolls (1967) Charlie’s Angels (2019) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Psycho (1960) The Oscar (1966) Barry Lyndon (1976) Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) Bird (1988) The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) American Sniper (2014) The Beguiled (1971) The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Fort Apache (1948) The Searchers (1956) Straight Time (1978) Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971) True Confessions (1981) Monster (2003) Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970) This list is also available on Letterboxd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My long time friend and colleague Jonathan Kaplan lost his battle with stage four cancer over the weekend.
0:10.5	So we thought this would be a good time to revisit the episode we did with him back in 2020.
0:15.3	It wasn't the highest profile graduate of Roger Horan Film School, but he was one of the most accomplished and talented.
0:21.1	He was particularly good at directing women.
0:23.3	Jody Foster won an Oscar for a performance on the accused, and Michelle Pfeiffer was nominated for Love Field.
0:28.4	He also did Heart Like a Wheel Over the Edge, White Line Fever, Bad Girls, Project X, high-end music videos, and 40 episodes of VR.
0:35.9	For some reason, he enjoyed name-checking me in his early movies and even named a gunsal after me, and the black exploitation classic Truck Turner, which started out as a vehicle for Lee Marvon or remember Mitch and ended up with Isaac Hayes. He was one of my first East Coast friends that I ever saw when I came to Hollywood. I saw him at a recording session, which he came out of, and he gave me
0:54.8	the secret of show business. Egos, egos, he goes, he goes, he said. I think for this conversation,
1:00.3	you'll get a pretty good idea of his personality. He was funny, he's self-aware, was sardonic.
1:05.8	I'll miss it and him. A career ree-evaluation is warranted.
1:12.2	Anyway, here's Jonathan.
1:22.3	This is The Movies That Made Me with your hosts, Josh Olson and Joe Dante. Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, how is this, how is this structured?
1:43.6	Well, you talk, we listen.
1:45.2	I talk.
1:45.6	I just start talking.
1:47.8	Really?
1:48.6	No.
1:49.6	No, it's a conversation.
1:51.4	What will happen is, he'll start, he'll start the recording.
1:55.8	And then we'll be talking, and then it'll sound to people who are tuning in,, oh my, they must have been talking for hours.
2:01.5	Right.
2:02.0	Because it's so relaxed and collegial and, you know, and so it's, you can just say anything you want about anything,
	...

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