Adam Rifkin

Gosh, I'm really humbled by what you're saying because I really appreciate that.

You know, I wanted to really do this story justice because, you know, well, I want to say the director, Adam Rifkin, his mother, Michelle Rifkin, she was a retired television writer, but she was also a teacher for many, many decades.

Really? Yeah.

And she combined her love of teaching and her love of old Western films and wrote this script, and she entered it in 1986 in a PBS screenwriting competition, and she won.

He goes, 42 minutes.

I was like, I was like, this is a, this is like a two man stage play for a second there.

And, and, and it could be, and it, and you know, it's great, incredible thing that I wanted to mention that I actually haven't mentioned on any interviews yet, but, um, Malcolm, I'm sorry, uh, Adam Rifkin has a nephew, um, who wrote an adaptation, a book adaptation.

He combined the screenplay, his grandmother's original screenplay, and his uncle's film in Last Train to Fortune into a book, a novelization, and they're gonna publish it, and it's coming out.

We're gonna get to all our film reviews.

Then we have two back-to-back interviews, uh, with, uh, Director Lila McLaughlin from Don't Let Them Out, and my friend, my buddy Adam Rifkin, Last Train to Fortune, a Western.

It opens this weekend in New York, next weekend in LA.

So there you go.

Yes.

This is a double feature because we have another filmmaker whose movie opens today, actually, in New York, next week in Los Angeles.

Last Train To Fortune director Adam Rifkin joins us on the show, and he has a special guest with him that I wasn't told about.

[laughs]

Uh, I can't...

Is that the scene that he used? Um, our good friend, uh, Adam Rifkin made, uh, Burt's, what should've been his last film, I think he did like two or three small ones after that, but The Last Movie Star.

Mm.

And he's got some wonderful scenes where Burt today is dropped into a couple scenes.

I'm Niall Brown.

Director Adam Rifkin and actor James Paxton joined this episode of the podcast to talk about their new film, Last Train to Fortune.

Also starring Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, Bernadette Peters and Laura Murano, Rifkin's film is a comedy western that plays with the genre's well-worn tropes, but it does so with a good heart and good characterisation.

As I say in our discussion, it's like the type of film Disney would have made in the 1990s.

There we go.

Adam Rifkin, thank you so much for Mouse Hunt.

Hey, Mouse Hunt! Thank you for saying so.

And Detroit Rock City, boy, those are just great films, and I go back to them every once in a while just to enjoy them.

So I got to do a little of everything in the performance of that because there's almost a performance within a performance.

There's a performance that the actual character is putting on when he needs to make ends meet and he robs Malcolm's character at the train station and then So it was just, you know, as an actor, you always want something that's as multi-layered and well-written as this is.

And, you know, the script was written by Adam's mother, Michelle, and she just did such a fantastic job.

I mean, we really stuck so closely to the script.

And we're...

I mean, I know of at least two other Westerns, one by a, a buddy of mine, Adam Rifkin, who I just was conversing with on X. I said, "Hey, let's get you on the show.

Let's talk about it." There's a movie called The Fix opening this week.

Is that a Western?

So it's been years since I watched Psycho Cop Returns.

I remember it being a more comedic version by Adam Rifkin than the original, which I seem to be pretty tame if I'm not mistaken but overall it's an indie movie which I don't typically cover anymore because I've lost a lot of the like the interest in them to be honest I enjoy some people's indie movies you know there's still some out there that are making stuff I enjoy and there's still good stuff but I'm not willing to dig through a lot of the good stuff to check it out I meant stuff the stuff I don't like to check it out but there's certain directors I'll always watch like Brian Paulin or J.R. Brookwalter makes something or James Edwards you know there's certain people that I'm going to watch because I know that they have a track record that I always enjoy and there's certain directors out there that I know are putting a lot into their movies like Steve Rudinsky still and I mean if Dustin was still making movies I'd still be interested in that stuff but so I know there's people out there that are for the good cause and all that kind of stuff like that and this movie definitely is a movie coming from the heart it's not some like movie that the director's like well I'm just gonna cash in and do all you know what I mean it's definitely something that this director had to make Ron Atkins had to make and truly believes in this stuff.

Mixing the horror elements and being a little bit more hardcore and violent than some of the other Christian-based horror films, the Revelations and stuff that I've seen.

I mean, I could get a different crowd in here and stuff like that, but it definitely correlates to me with that realm of something.