Author Archives: Eric Thirteen

A moment in California surfer youth unexpectedly captures the imagination and attention of a nation. One film seizes it with the success of a franchise, the other can’t hold on no matter how many films are made.

Sort of made for TV movie day! Two films that are not what they seem. Director Fred Walton returns to Double Feature in When a Stranger Calls Back. Ventriloquist horror. Ideas so stupid they’re amazing. Voice throwing and camouflage. The strangeness of suspension of disbelief. An accidental 2010s horror film made in the early ’90s. Way too good for TV. Prom Night 2: Where’s the Colon? Terminator and The Prophecy ruined sequels being on Double Feature. Double Feature makes up facts. Making a film into a sequel after the fact. No one’s seen Psycho 6. The numbers game of film titling. Subject matter expertise. Horror zeitgeist and genre awareness.

Warning – Double Feature assumes you just watched these two films. This is not a conversation to provide an introduction to these movies. This episode digs into the most difficult questions posed by two disturbing documentaries. It’s up to an individual audience member to decide if they wish to watch the films, but it’s certainly a bad idea to listen to this episode without having seen them. With that in mind, taking two films of an increasingly extreme subject matter at face value. Having a conversation films ask you to have. When there’s no hope of going back. Using BDSM to trick people into doing farm work (and other low key crimes against humanity). Continue reading →

The reckoning. A giant assault of Massive Attack returns to Double Feature with This Must Be The Place and the original Get Carter. Eric tries and fails to not talk about Robert Smith. Using a real-life icon as visual shorthand. Killing Nazis was once normal, then weird, then less weird. Succeeding despite fulfillment. A movie about the character after their interesting story is over. Going back to killing work with Get Carter. The things you learn about Get Carter from Hollywood parties. The lack of violence in a 70s film. Not being able to kill your way to an answer. Watching pornographic films projecting in people’s homes. The Get Carter score and trip-hop. Not wasting time when you plan to kill someone. The inconsistent feel of vigilante justice in cinema. Michael does not advocate killing people, then throws a state execution grenade. Enjoy.

The written word comes to life don’t roll your eyes at me. Writers who specifically hurt one person, with and without malice. Always showing up and actually covering the movies, like Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals and Marc Forster’s Stranger Than Fiction. Curating film. Attacking the wall head on with Nocturnal Animals. Eric’s love of high fashion. Interpreting subtle casting choices. Superficiality, high society, and penetrating the defenses of the untouchable. Super brutal art drama. Stranger Than Fiction, or that one film where Will Ferrell is serious. Like Cold Souls and Waiter, but on Double Feature. Dying at a poetically-appropriate time. Bits from the Fight Club fire sale. Ignoring the question of free will because it’s never interesting. Not explaining the backstory in your meta-comedy. In hindsight, kale smoothies are kind of good.

Couples, long and short. Double Feature, hyping art and Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive and Amy Seimetz’s Sun Don’t Shine. Patrons, hyping Double Feature and not picking this week’s films. When in doubt, Tilda Swinton. The curse of immortality. The non-horror, non-vampire-movie vampire movie. Having a sense of scale. The repetition of everything except art. Companionship, perspective, genius, and nihilism. Comparing any given moment in time to the greatest moments in all human history. People kept together through murder. It’s probably not in our best interest to kill each other. Murder as a relationship test. Florida Man, the movie. Whether you sympathize with the person giving or receiving road head. Making films for little money. Festivals and additional content.