The Cusack Cult Cast – Details, episodes & analysis

We'll we're here, 2022's Pursuit. As of the publishing of this episode, this is the last film in John Cusack's filmography. We originally started this podcast "About John Cusack" but in reality John was just a jumping off point for two best friends to meet up every week to talk about art and just hang out. At times the process was a slog, but never for a minute did it stop being fun. This podcast is by no means a "success" in the traditional sense. We're still nobodies toiling away at our art, but I think this podcast is a reminder of the only skill either of us have and that's our weird sense of seeing something through to the end, even if there are no immediate rewards visible. We're in it for love. We always have been, always will. Spellabee Forever. Keep your heart in it.

We are joined this week by one of our oldest movie buddies and spiritual 3rd mic, James. We have a great conversation about a surprisingly competent late stage John movie, Never Grow Old. A "revisionist western" (whatever that means) from 2019 starring Emile Hirsch and John Cusack. While it's thematically muddy, there is some real-deal filmmaking here and we're happy we got to share the experience with our friend. 

Dragon Blade is a fascinating piece of Eastern art featuring several famous actors from the West. The film is overall fun with a good nature to it. Jackie Chan brings a lot of heart to the film and John adds a welcomed charm.

A movie so forgettable that we forgot the title of the movie as we were watching it. 2014's The Prince is an embarrassing power fantasy and not much more.  And truthfully, I'm trying to remember what it was about a week later while writing this and I honest to god cannot remember. 13 more to go. 

EDIT: There's some sound issues from 27min-30min, sorry about that.

A bizarre viewing experience this week, 2014's Drive Hard is somehow charming in it's ability to subvert expectations, but also still at the whim of them which ultimately leads to it's downfall. But the film features two great performances from both John Cusack and Thomas Jane in an unexpected buddy action film.

If this podcast was a map to getting good movies to watch it'd be the worst map of all time. However, this week we we're blessed with a special film, 2014's Maps To The Stars. Possibly the best film we've watched in the later half of John's career.

I'm going to own up here and I say that I goofed. I spaced on uploading the podcast and by doing that I pretty much forgot everything about this movie. John plays a trained hitman or something? There's some bad people doing bad things? I don't know, man.