Episode Collection: Year 5

Double Feature Year 5 Finale

Double Feature Year 5 Finale

SPOILER FREE SHOW! The Year Five retrospective. Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails return with Came Back Haunted. Double Feature discontinues the mp3 feed, but will anyone seriously give a fuck? Making this show possible again. Pairs that were great, even if you don’t remember them. A followup on the Double Feature Kickstarter. Fears, coming to terms, and a lack of contingency plans. Enter the future! Completely fucking up the simple pairing of two films. A recent mistake. The very first 3D film. Lost films. Some answers regarding Ronda Bryne, Sean Bryne, The Secret and The Loved Ones. You didn’t see that coming. Eraserhead and other successes. Several invocations of David Lynch without a single additional mention of the Came Back Haunted video. Michael Koester does a great job. Emails: read some. The best films of all time of any film ever in so long as those films were on the show in the last 365 days. Alice forgets what his favorite movie of the year was. The Lexicon finally exists (and, although not talked about, you’ll notice Year 1 has vanished). Continue reading

RoboCop + Bicentennial Man

RoboCop + Bicentennial Man

Pauly’s Robot memorial show. Double Feature does whatever it wants. A rare look into Double Feature final episode runners up. Half man, half machine, all RoboCob. I’ll buy that for a dollar! Twitter. The life and times of the 1980s. Matt black police cars. The world of RoboCop. Far Cry Blood Dragon! How to Destroy Angels. Dystopia. Cars on Fire! The strengths and weaknesses of stop motion bot. ED-209. Robots replacing cops. Boardroom accessories. Murphy’s gore. A valuable lesson from RoboCop. The three directives. The three laws. Bicentennial Man. EL-P’s Stepfather Factory: Building Tomorrow’s Fathers Today. Everything Isaac Asimov. The fictional inventions of Isaac Asimov. Biochemical fiction. Why Robin Williams? The impact drill. Assigning a robot to make art. The ambition of Bicentennial Man. Why the machines should replace us. Continue reading

The Sessions + Moonrise Kingdom

The Sessions + Moonrise Kingdom

Opposing development. The one and only William H Macey solves a Double Feature problem. Ben Lewin, Mark O’Brien, and The Sessions. A serious conversation about this outlandish plot. John Hawks, humor, and playing someone with a disability. Sex surrogates. How is a sex surrogate different than a prostitute? Not the answer you were expecting. More tales from the sex industry. Double Feature finally talks about Wes Anderson. The selection of Moonrise Kingdom. Avoiding Wes Anderson. Roman Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, and Double Feature past. Michael’s take on visual treatment. Style, signature, substance. Camera rigs and a fond remembrance of handheld film. The mini-plays of Wes Anderson. Music – what’s happening here? Professional music consultant Michael Koester. An observation regarding John Waters. Continue reading

The Skin I Live In + The Future

The Skin I Live In + The Future

Refuse to let go! Antonio Banderas leads The Skin I Live In. Fixate on items, ask questions. Discovery and tiger men. Attention to detail. What will happen vs what has happened. The iconography of Eyes Without a Face. Surgery, abduction, intrigue! Awakening to villainy. Pedro Almodovar. Miranda July’s The Future. Miranda July revisited! Books, articles and nut jobs. Two people on a couch typing into their notebooks. Relatable. No matter how widely accepted, anthropomorphizing animals is crazy. A tough pill to swallow. Why resist? The greatest human invention of recent note. Never ever unplug. Continue reading

Palindromes + Female Trouble

Palindromes + Female Trouble

A completely fucked look at pregnancy and sexuality in America. Super young kids having sex. Dawn. Aviva. Henrietta Aviva. Many actors playing one character! Talking about the thing you’re supposed to talk about. Mama Sunshine’s house of horrors. Where to buy zip disks. Palindromes are like characters are like Palindromes. Jesus music and true believers. Richard is back! Are abortion picketers monsters? Divine creates some Female Trouble. Literally fucking yourself. The Female Trouble theme song! What this one should be known for. Mink Stole, Edith Massey, and the glorious Dreamlanders. Spending some time in the backyard. An ending you’d never expect unless you thought about it literally at all. Continue reading

Excision + The Loved Ones

Excision + The Loved Ones

Deceptively light-hearted naturalistic horror films. Accidental Mother’s Day double feature. Richard Bates Jr gets credit for creating Excision. Catching up with old friends. More old friends than you know what to do with. The return of the priest. Finish your equations! The deaf girl is ok being the deaf girl. How Michael finds these goddamn movies. Dream sequences. Pauline as an outcast. Why do we feel for Pauline? Identifying with the psycho. Parental unites. Surgery on stage. Holy fuck, The Secret. The Loved Ones and Sean Bryne’s debt to society. The saw is family. Australia, Wolf Creek and the splat pack. Heart-pounding tension. Sadism. Meanwhile, in the basement. Continue reading

Suspiria + John Carpenter’s Vampires

Suspiria + John Carpenter’s Vampires

Double spook-show. Living in a pitch black vacuum. Another satisfied cinematic customer. Dario Argento’s leading ladies. Reexamination of female empowerment? Associations between space and horror. Not that kind of space. Colored light and Dario Argento’s stage love. Camera work with a sense of humor. Using camera pans for laughs. The most notable Goblin score yet. Some insight into Argento and skepticism. James Woods in John Carpenter’s Vampires! A new era of Carpenter. Ongoing musical developments. The Baldwin role. Action, action, cross-dissolve. Vampires that shoot fireworks. What brand of unique vampire mythology? Favorite vampire death. The mother-fucker of all climaxes. Sure-fire ending. Continue reading

The Cell + Valhalla Rising

The Cell + Valhalla Rising

Two tense, emotionally strung out human beings discuss some trippy films. The last chance for the Double Feature Kickstarter. The Cell. Who’s a New Line Cinema actor and who’s a Tarsem Singh actor? The unsung heroes of The Cell. Dylan Baker rocks. Impressions of The Cell over time. The visuals. The Marilyn Manson. A permanently lingering scene. The masturbation cut. Mortal Kombat! BDSM suspension. Acid trips, deprivation tanks, and an invocation of Altered States. Tape sped time shifting. Grunge, paintings, and surrealism. Two people fail to pronounce Nicolas Winding Refn. Michael explains what the fuck is going on in Valhalla Rising. Two people who aren’t on acid, but might as well be. UFOs…or something. Blasphemy and spaceships. Alice pretends to understand Michael on Valhalla Rising. A Double Feature first, and perhaps a Double Feature last. Continue reading

Black Snake Moan + Monster’s Ball

Black Snake Moan + Monster’s Ball

Sex-fueld southern movies with racial components of varying degrees. Hip hop stars. What Double Feature can give you. Finally, the Double Feature secret. Who is this Craig Brewer guy? How do you describe Black Snake Moan? Not a tribute, not a throwback. Deceptive marketing that’s unexpected for not being THAT kind of deceptive. Morality, where’s the goddamn morality. Terriers died too quickly. Chaining your white ladies up in the house. Christina Ricci and the sex. What are the racial issues? Are there racial issues? Is the issues that Alice can’t see the racism? The infamous electric guitar thunderstorm scene. Why people have actually seen Monster’s Ball. The thing no one wants to admin to. Strip ’em naked! Marc Forster has made films. Terrible father movies. Letting it all roll off. Death row films (unfairly) support pacifism. Racial overtones. Undertones? Overtones? The ending of Monster’s Ball is so fucking cool. Continue reading

Maniac + Intruder

Maniac + Intruder

One-off slasher films. Horror movie comfort food. Additional content! Maniac. The old HGL blood feel. The first person look into a killer’s mind. Waking up in the bedroom of a murderer. Psychology, the real killer! The long con and a lengthy disguise. Behind the scenes as Tom Savini does it again. In a world of terrible 80s slasher films ending, a defense of Maniac’s final act. Intruder. Scott Spiegel. The Sam Raimi relationship. Influence. Things Ted Raimi tells you without telling you anything. Deaths in style! The first girl, the final girl. Something you never see anywhere else. Continue reading

The Warriors + Red Dawn

The Warriors + Red Dawn

Groups of kids who have no business kicking ass. Can you dig it is sampled on the song “The Rape” by the hip hop artist Cubbiebear. Warriors, come out and play! The all gang truce. Cops, troublemakers, and the DJ. The Baseball Furies and vest-infused dance-offs. Double Feature talks about the chase scene. What does The Warriors have to say about women in their universe? An excuse for violence and a reminder about romanticization. Red Dawn wastes no time. Why post-apocalyptica? Gorilla warfare. World War 2, the Cold War, and the fictional war. Do the toughest kids on the block really have to fight? Lack of close-ups. Continue reading

Eraserhead + Wild at Heart

Eraserhead + Wild at Heart

Extra long double David Lynch Kickstarter launch show number 250 party! Becoming Double Feature. Double Feature year six chat. The Kickstarter has a video! Eraserhead is the very thing you fear when talking about petting the white cat. Before David Lynch was verified. Not knowing if there’s an answer. Looking up era appropriate director photos. Comfort in ambience. Where does Eraserhead take place? The advantages of abstract storytelling. Interpretation of setting. Enjoying the ability to be put-off. A dream? It’s always a dream! Youth, death and sex. Young boys seduced by older women. What the pencil eraser factory means. The relationship between plot points and symbolism. How to decipher enigmatic movies. Wild at Heart and extroverted symbolism. Subtle characters. Inspiration from the time of Elvis. Metal. The changing portrayal of spending time in prison. Nicolas Cage does some kind of Nicolas Cage thing. The David Lynch type of woman. Subverting iconography. Irreverent editing! How you look when you change the ending. Continue reading

Moon + The Trip

Moon + The Trip

The friends you take on journeys through solitude. Moon, a film by Duncan Jones. David Bowie’s secret son. A look at Clint Mansell’s past. Accessible, catch pop scores. Moon as a tiny personal space film. Doing space differently. Space is fucking bright! The whatever device leads to enigmatic science fiction. Unraveling the twists. Sam Rockwell’s acting range. Siri, HAL, and the growing public interest in artificial intelligence. The HAL problem. What actors bring to a film before the first frame. Gerty, another example of a different take to a familiar sci-fi convention. The Trip invokes a culture shock on Double Feature. Unfairly lumping all british films together as if that’s helpful in the slightest. Starting at the surface. More than impressions. The treatment of food and life in The Trip vs food and life in Sideways. Returning home. Continue reading

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark + Sleepy Hollow

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark + Sleepy Hollow

Last will and testament films. Tributes to monsters of sound-stage cinema. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. Rebel against that morality club. Alice and Michael finally talk to each other about Elvira. The reality of goth chick valley girl. A deeper look at Elvir’s character. Another look at Vampire. Cassandra Peterson. Movie Macabre and horror hosting. Shock value. Elvira’s sex appeal and how she gets away with it. The misunderstood teenager. Michael met Alice at an IHOP. Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. Six degrees of Tim Burton. A darker, more sinister exception. The one off Christina Ricci. The cast. The Christopher Lee metal album. The origins of the Sleepy Hollow film. Film noir levels of convoluted plot. A more honest intentioned look at the Burton rehashing. Where it gets no better. The Headless Horseman. All things beheading. Science vs faith, I guess. Continue reading

Shame + I Saw the Devil

Shame + I Saw the Devil

Two sides of the same coin. Kickstarter incentives. Shame. One sheets! Aesthetics, subtlety and subtext. Sex clubs and violence. Speculate on all the things! Acting challenges. Differing accounts of what may have happened. The facts. Sissy and Brandon. Interpretation of characters and conflicts. Reading into it too much. Family and companionship. New York and The Standard. I Saw the Devil shows the killer. Blood in the snow. Contrast. Kim and Jang. What makes a monster? Moral ambiguity. Conditioning. Capital punishment. Alive enough to kill again. What are the important differences between a man out for revenge and the killer who wronged him in the first place? The spectrum of monsters. Humanism’s take on revenge and murder. Murder and rape are both terrible, but people will still argue about which is worse. Who saw the devil? Did revenge satisfy? Continue reading

American Beauty + Adaptation

American Beauty + Adaptation

Insecurity, self indulgence, and flowers. American Beauty. Seeing the hand of the writer. Icons. Rose pedals. Mena Suvari as Angela Hayes. The American Dream. I will sell this house today. The relationship between Carolyn Burnham and the audience. Homoeroticism. What happens at night. Lester’s new life. The family unit and the survival of the individualist’s dream. Unexpected optimism. Revelations on an island. Inspirational statutory rape. Ignoring statutory rape. Possible insights to Lester’s decision. Double Feature can’t overlook the floating bag. When an audience’s mass interpretation of a film change’s the film’s emphasis. Adaptation writer Donald Kaufman. Speculation on the Being John Malkovich tie-in. Donald Kaufman solves a longstanding Double Feature question. Machine vs Horse. Lower your standards. Adaptation proves the book is not always better than the goddamn movie. John Laroche is the most amazing thing ever. Why John Laroche is the most amazing thing ever. The Orchid Thief. Where is Charlie Kaufman? Unspooling in the hyper-meta final act of Adaptation. Where else do you end? Send us your Kickstarter incentive requests! Continue reading

Dirty Work + Pootie Tang

Dirty Work + Pootie Tang

Stand up comedians turned directors! An update on All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. Have people actually seen these films? Cliches that disappeared from popular consciousness. Note to self: you get raped in prison. Christopher MacDonald won’t leave Double Feature alone. Who or what is Norm MacDonald? The marketplace of sketch comedy. Chris Farley, Chevy Chase, and a strange new premise. Norm MacDonald Reacts to Things. Bob Saget completes dirty works. Heavy realizations. Fear of coping out in a dark comedy. Another idea for a Dirty Work double feature. Pootie Tang: Sine Your Pitty on the Runny Kine. Understanding Pootie Tang. Starting in accessibility. Who made Pootie Tang and why? Getting harder before it gets easier. Louis CK background, including a primer on Louie. What the studio did to the movie in editing. What’s Chris Rock all about? Satirization without mimicry. Where did the idea come from? Ebonics, Jivetalk, and none of that. What we can learn from Pootie Tangs’ silent song. What a movie in jibberish shows us about language and communication. Anti-Comedy, anti-humor, and the death of the punchline. Alice tells the Shaggy Dog joke. Continue reading

Duck Soup + Indie Game

Duck Soup + Indie Game

The four Marx brothers. The difference HD actually makes. The iconography of Groucho Marx. Where did the musical comedy go? The modern comedy troupe. The infamous face. Playing off Groucho. The influence of Duck Soup on comedy. Moments paid tribute to countless times. Why fixate on war? Indie Game: The Movie and digital distribution. The gaming economy. What’s exciting about small teams. Distinct art styles foster buzz and name recognition. The C Word. Sincere emotional connection to pixel art. Multiple roles you wouldn’t expect one individual to carry. Art in a vacuum, revisited. Great films aren’t the same as Favorite Films. The anxiety and stress that goes with small team development. The greatest feeling imaginable. Success and the inevitable return. Continue reading

Humanoids from the Deep + Mars Needs Women

Humanoids from the Deep + Mars Needs Women

Double Feature faces women in cult film, sci-fi and exploitation. The final hours of Michael’s Kickstarter. Monster or Humanoids from the Deep? Re-release and cash in! Dead dogs and dead humans. How to ruin a party, fill time, and get fucked. Ventriloquism as an aphrodisiac. The mysterious harp score. Keeping your audience in the dark. Barbara Peters, female director! Justifying a serious conversation about women for a movie that shouldn’t be taken seriously. How a target audience informs film analysis. The Bechdel test. What criteria do you use? The message is: Mars Needs Women. Larry Buchanan. Similarities and differences between the films of Edward D Wood Jr. Stock fucking footage. Ed Wood’s flower shop. A serious drama. What does Mars Needs Women think about Earth’s most desirable women? Coming for your women. Having sex with your women. Making babies with your women. What is this genre really talking about? Continue reading

Spy Kids 2 + Gremlins 2

Spy Kids 2 + Gremlins 2

Genetic experiments and incredible post-colon titles. Two films of unrestrained imagination. Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams. Alice gets his own correction. Reintroductions. Special effects. Returning actors, tupperware Banderas, and Ricardo Montalban. The progressive political system of Spy Kids 2. Humanity’s relationship with technology. Where Machete exists in the Spy Kids universe. The first digitally filmed movies. The main handful of digital camera you need to know. Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Michael’s evening at The Music Box. Why you should get to know directors. The themes of Gremlins 2. Breaking the 4th wall. Joe Dante’s blank check. Pleasing the critics. Continue reading

Freeway + Nothing

Freeway + Nothing

Better learning through coupling. Answering for Ghostbusters. Freeway: A perfect film for Double Feature. A weird film, and why it is what it is. Even more on Richard Elfman, Danny Elfman and The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. Robert Crumb and Little Red Riding Hood. Before Spider-Man and after Spider-Man. Matthew Bright and Artsploitation. Doing it the hard way. First time director, incredible cast. Executive producer Oliver Stone. The return of Keifer Sutherland. Keifer Sutherland’s biggest sell. Beautiful trashy Vanessa! Giving the benefit of the doubt. Always be yourself. How to determine if someone is a serial killer. How to never jump the shark. Freeway 2 and the oddity of totally authorized sequels. From the makers of Cube…Nothing. Where audiences will accept all forms of exposition. Star Wars tales. Science fiction dealing with the implications of it’s own devices. How infinite white space is done. Special effects exclusively through sound. Not telling The Story of Gary. Agoraphobia and the terror of the outside world. Learning vs escapism. If you could forget, would you? Should you? Drink your problems away. Continue reading

Kindergarten Cop + Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Kindergarten Cop + Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ivan Reitman produces every film, and Linda Hunt isn’t really in any of them. The humor of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop. Weird Arnold faces. Cullen Crisp. 90s moms, up to no good. Mommy and daddy issues. Who is you daddy and what does he do? A PG-13 take on R rated subject matter. The moral responsibility of Hollywood. If You Seek Amy. Detective John Kimball’s Ferret. Revisiting twenty year old franchises. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! An action comedy with action. A bit of Golden Girls History. Demasculinizing the Man’s Man. Standing up for a movie that’s no one’s favorite. THE THREE POINT SCALE. Before films could talk about gangs as more complex than simple monsters. Double Feature tries to figure out a real man. Mocking your role model. As I say, not as I do. The evolving role of masculinity in film and television. Continue reading

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly + Godzilla: Final Wars

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly + Godzilla: Final Wars

The final chapter in a series where Double Feature takes on two genres it was not prepared for. Years later, the return to Spaghetti westerns and kaiju (Japanese monster films)! The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Remembering where the dollars trilogy started. Michael pets the white cat. The approachability of film analysis. A defense of popular art films. The emotions the character defining titles take an audience though. What motivates western gunslingers? Who do they feel accountable to? Rugged individualism and the concept of trust. The unholy alliance. A getting away with pacifism in a violent western. Cowboys are allowed to cry. Appeal to the popular classic western genre. The most iconic standoff in cinema history. A anniversary monster world tour. Godzilla: Final Wars. Portraying Godzilla decades later. Double Feature discovers a secret Scientology allegory. Sure, why not add mutants. Japan destroys New York. The most destroyed cities in film. Atragon! Mothra, Anguirus, Rodan, Zilla, King Caesar, Hedorah, Ebirah, Kamacuras, Kumonga, Manda, Gigan, Monster X and Nilla. Where did Nilla come from?! Too cute to be bad. The future of Godzilla. Continue reading

Killer Klowns from Outer Space + Blood Feast 2

Killer Klowns from Outer Space + Blood Feast 2

Camp from the greatest of enthusiasts. Finding reality! An accidental revisit of year 1 format. The Chiodo Brothers. Big top guitar riff. Halley’s comet, Hale-Bopp, and the Heaven’s Gate cult. Two types of skepticism. Where’s our sequel? Making the difficult look easy. Making the easy look difficult. Shadowplay and magic effects. Selling simple effects. The horror! Floods of creativity. Making your audience think about your movie. A lightning quick Herschel Gordon Lewis primer. Strip away an era, remove a variable in understanding. The guts of Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat. Understanding the comedy of Herschel Gordon Lewis. A breakthrough in understanding. An understanding, but perhaps not a full understanding. A more redeemable look at gender. Is HGL becoming a better filmmaker? The towel of greater disappointment. Making John Waters work for you. The final chapter of a three year adventure. Continue reading

Thinner + Fright Night

Thinner + Fright Night

A Tom Holland double feature! One of the coolest things Stephen King ever did. Richard Bachman and Stephen King. Tiny kids and Godfathers. Getting Thinner in an elevator. High concept elevator pitch. Road head gypsy curse. Horror for regular people. The acne potato guy. The white man from town. Is it possible to create a serious treatment of the Thinner story? The moral of the story. A roadhead cover-up conspiracy. The ambiguous rules of Curse Pie. Fright Night shows sexy vampires are only part of the equation. The popularity of Fright Night in 1985. For the Nintendo Entertainment System! 8 bit score. Franchise stoppers. Vampire powers of seduction are honed skills, not super powers! If all else fails… Monsters and cannon. Terror in the Suburbs: It Never Gets Old Edition. Peter Vincent! Terrible old person makeup that gets worse upon each viewing. Successfully celebrating camp while becoming camp yourself. An evolving view on vampires. Mother skeptic. New Wave with guitars! Synth music cues. Ed Evil. Ghost cuddle. Continue reading

Paycheck + Next

Paycheck + Next

A spontaneous Phillip K Dick double feature looks into the past and into the future. Podcasting in an artistic vacuum. Back at Chicago’s Edgewater Beach Hotel. An all-star cast for what could have been a sci-fi blockbuster. Ben Affleck runs from a puzzle. John Woo and Hong Kong action films. HAMSTER DANCE. Buying into the objects. Positive looks at film continues with a potential future direction for Double Feature. Silly Hong Kong meets American Tech-Heavy Sci Fi. The influence of Minority Report. The lesser emphasized Phillip K Dick themes. Are you guilty before you commit a crime? Fixed destiny time travel. The Sacco and Vanzetti case. How you pitch Next to your friends. Going nuclear. Las Vegas magicians. Is next for you? The point of no return. At the heart of Next. Revisiting how long you can spend in a dream. An FBI agent in the real world. Designed to cop-out. Continue reading

The Ward + Darkon

The Ward + Darkon

A day in fantasy to help Alice think he’s not crazy. A modern John Carpenter film in The Ward. A familiar director and a band new writer. Seeing the style and technique again. Immediately identifiable as modern and 70s. The pulsing heartbeat of John Carpenter. One prolific director’s influence on films of today’s. Where’d the Casio keyboard go? Quick, pretend you were already a fan of Rob Zombie’s latest inspiration. Unnerving commentary. Another visual movie watching experiment you can try at home! Michael overcomes a pet peeve. Sweet Amber Heard. The Id, the Artist, the Seductress, the Aggressor, the Infant and the Protector. Another way to approach the twist. Every horror movie should have one good joke. Break your own rules to create scares. The kill room. Modern violence. A professional crew surrounding amateurs. Filming a documentary as a gift to your subject. The wench from Medieval Times. Humanizing the subject you thought was strange enough to film. A universe where your choices effect everything. Is being born in the wrong time nonsense? Being boring (and other qualities of world leaders). The actual skills Darkon sharpens. In character and out of character. Is it ok to check out from the real world? Continue reading

The Faculty + Jackie Brown

The Faculty + Jackie Brown

Black sheep, back to back: Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez direct two strange selections. The Faculty and the 90s. Teenage wasteland. What makes The Faculty edgy. Film making as a job. Why did Robert Rodriguez do The Faculty? Rebellion. Aliens and effects. Naked tentacle wonderment. The beginning of the CGI. Developing Planet Terror. Super 90s soundtrack, featuring a cast inclusive video from The Class of 99. The hyper 70s blacksploitation introduction of Jackie Brown. Quentin Tarantino, bringing people back. Another look at Tarantino’s dialogue. Chicks with Guns. Atypical casting and acting choices. Pam Grier! Forty year old ass-kicker. Ordell the weasel. Earning the boss. The strange line walked by a bail bondsman. Continue reading

Gummo + Pink Flamingos

Gummo + Pink Flamingos

Competing looks at trash culture. Gummo and Harmony Korine. Comparisons to Larry Clark and Kids. What are the similarities and why do they exist? Storytelling sans story. Michael tries to add artistic credibility to mumblecore. Filmmaking nihilism. Making an audience ask “Why?” Answering the dangerous question. Humanists consider the opposition. The best of the worst, the making of a hero. The power of your surroundings. Self-image. Finding Gummo in reality. The Zef side! Die Antwoord. South Africa. Pink Flamingos is sooo mainstream. The classic John Waters dreamlanders. The infamy of Pink Flamingos. An incredible film-generating attic. The allure of poop. Prime lenses fix your poor filmmaking. Stop giving a fuck and start making films. Moments of genius amongst the filth. The filthiest filth. Fucking a chicken to death o-screen. Surprise trial! Continue reading

Haywire + Centurion

Haywire + Centurion

The pre-existing Soderbergh narrative on Haywire. Why Alice is in love with Haywire. Amateur spy video. Gina Carano is out of everyone’s league. MMA fighters. Soderbergh’s casting methodology and why it rocks. Feminism and a man’s world. Spy film don’t give a fuck! Without training wheels. Why the camera does what it does. Neil Marshall still has more films. The items needed for Centurion. The Invisible Gorilla experiment. Alternate history. The flying tom tom flies back, bleeds on the snow. Brand new: Michael Fassbender! Olga Kurylenko as Etain. Etain as pure emotion. The fog, what’s in the fog!? Roman myth. Continue reading

Killapalooza 18: The Eye

Killapalooza 18: The Eye

The Eye films 1-5. Ghost stories. No Indian remake of The Eye. A big announcement from Double Feature – then, another announcement from Double Feature! Revisiting the historic Edgewater Beach Hotel. The Panic Room. What Killapalooza is about. The Eye. The Pang Brothers. The Chinese culture divide. Subtle treatment of ghosts. Unexpected types of suspense and horror. Sight. Making someone doubt their senses. Seeing for the first time. What do we really know about China? The Eye 2 walks it off. Why explain something if everyone’s already aware of it? The horror of what’s always been. The last necessary birth scene has already been filmed. Ghost drama. Putting the ghost shoe on the other foot. The Eye 3: The Eye 10: Is this even The Eye? Road maps and attention spans. A list of fables to try at home. The 2008 American remake of The Eye. American remakes of recent horror films. Remakes do not ruin the original. What the United States did with the Chinese source. Spontaneous Double Feature generation. The Child’s Eye – clearly part of The Eye franchise. What is this series about? Anxiously waiting for confirmation. The special abilities of children and dogs. Dog boys. Ghost dogs. Ghost Minecraft dog boys. A crack at 3D! Animal reaction shots. Cellular Memory pseudoscience. Continue reading

This Is Spinal Tap + Rock N Roll High School

This Is Spinal Tap + Rock N Roll High School

Live music that causes things to explode. This Is Spinal Tap as a Christopher Guest cult film. Faux-Documentary-Epic. All your bass are belong to us. Big bottom. Live Spinal Tap shows. Rob Reiner. it’s just like where you work! Band experience. Making it up, for real. Theories on born artists. Industry backed rock. The Ramones relationship with punk rock. Rock N Roll High School, accessibility and exploitation. The KKK took my baby away. A precursors to 80s scoundrel comedy. Whatever happened to P.J. Soles? Continue reading

Bellflower + Crash

Bellflower + Crash

The indie circuit show. Michael’s favorite spoiler from Bellflower. Oscilloscope Films. Adam Yauch. Purchase your own Bellflower car. The truth about the director/camera relationship. The SI-2k Evan Glodell built his custom DIY camera on top of. Mumblecore and back yard films. A generation of young filmmakers. What are we doing with our lives? Subjective armageddon. Bring your own apocalypse. David Cronenberg’s Crash. Cronenberg’s version of an adaptation. James Spader sex. Similarities in leads. Coming into our reality. A series of questions no one wants to ask. Dark sexuality, fun time sexuality, and sex in Crash. Contrasting the sex in Crash with it’s treatment in Bound. What does Cronenberg think about his audience? Passing up the acknowledgment of the outside world.  Continue reading

Dementia 13 + One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Dementia 13 + One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

A night with the crazies. Dementia 13. Psychosploitation. Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola and New World Pictures. Jack Hill’s involvement. Commentary infographic exploitation idea. WHITE CAT. Francis Coppola is a secret Double Feature director. Michael counts down the Psycho comparisons. The influence of Dementia 13 on slasher films. Early instances of female voice over narration. Pull of the Weaseling your way into the will. Why One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is such a hard show to do. Refusing the power of Jack Nicholson. Nurse Ratched and McMurphy. Why McMurphy always loses. What motivates Nurse Ratched. The role of women in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Oppressive women and women in prison. Electroshock, lobotomy, therapy and punishment. Questioning behaviorism. Gone fishing. The effect of the institution on the crazies. Continue reading

Galaxy Quest + The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai

Galaxy Quest + The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai

Double Feature returns to space! Galaxy Quest. Star Trek. Fandom. The human advantage. Michael appreciates humanity. I am not Spock. When skepticism brushes against cynicism. An appeal to excitement. My people make crazy choices in movies. Happenstance fame. The mind of Will Wheton. Irwin Allen’s Rock n Roll. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Buckaroo Bonzai isn’t a real person. THE SAND BEETLE. Using the new JEFF GOLDBLUM SANITY METER to rate Jeff Goldblum in Buckaroo Bonzai. The end credits / the trailer. Who’s in on the joke? Continue reading

The Artist + Barton Fink

The Artist + Barton Fink

Hollywood and the artistic process in an accidental John Goodman double feature. The awards. The wager of holding up silent films. Modern romance. Revisiting silent technique. How silent films are watched differently. Score as an alternative to the highly distracting sounds of your own body. How foley has changed score. Sound induced anxiety. How the transition to talkies is was different than trendy 3D. The role of women in comedy post-silent era. Barton Fink and the continuing understanding. Pulling the lid off s symbolism and significance in Coen Brothers movies. Steve Buscemi and Hotel Coen. From the gut. Hollywood. Barton and Charlie. Barton Fink and the common man. Mad Man Munt. Continue reading

Orphan + Insidious

Orphan + Insidious

Two horror films of the same era using children to incite fear. The magic that is Orphan. Piano moms. Scenes from the arthouse. Some people don’t like eye balls being squished…Alice doesn’t like children. Genuine relationships. Ghost cold and the skeptical father. Alcoholics Anonymous. The world’s most beautiful house. Bathroom mirrors. Defying expectation. Paintings. Esther is amazing. Sexuality and youth. Manipulating children. Using maturity to dodge cliches. A discussion on twists. Insidious and the sideshow. Patrick Wilson. Hammer Horror. Tongue-in-cheek-score. Coming back to scare shots! Yer kid is haunted. Mixing a mythos. Wide angle, wide shots. The visual of Insidious. EVP and modern technology. Continue reading

Jack Brooks Monster Slayer + Tucker and Dale vs Evil

Jack Brooks Monster Slayer + Tucker and Dale vs Evil

Old school…Canadian horror? Jack Brooks Monster Slayer and the Music Box Massacre. The meaning of “Canadian-American” film. The jungles of Canada. First time director Jon Knautz. Robert England could do anything, and he does horror. Foreshadowing via an actor’s known work. Score, for jokes and mysterious adventure! Eating the heart. Using practical effects to pay tribute. A unique distribution of action. Alan Tudyk as Tucker in Tucker and Dale vs Evil. Real tales from the south. The most interesting place in a scene. Confirmatory evidence. EVIL TEA. Cinematic elements that make a slasher movie scary. Why some people see a cabin and think vacation homes, while others see the same cabin and fear their lives. Continue reading

Buried + Pontypool

Buried + Pontypool

Trapped in a place. Micro budgets, micro titles. Different takes on the immersion of Buried. Film making exercises. How anyone can make a 90 minute film. The Buried title sequence. Getting the audience to tell the story. The tools. What is the root of the cynicism? Questioning motives. Pontypool. Stephen McHattie as Grant Mazzy. Shock Jocks. Sydney Briar is alive. The love of memes. Rebecca Black and the power of exploitation. Missing cat. Alternate takes post-viewing. Things that could be clues. Are you meant to solve Pontypool? Practical skepticism in real time. Breaking down. It’s terrifying, and it has to get worse before it gets better. THE MORPHEOUS EFFECT. Language. Continue reading

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari + The Cabin in the Woods

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari + The Cabin in the Woods

Double Feature barley makes it. Last minute from a tiny closet in the historic Edgewater Beach Hotel. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a silent film. German Expressionism through the eyes of Time Buton. Surreal, gravity defying sets. Explaining the Mystery Spot. An asylum for the cartoonishly insane. The origins of the twist, and the lesser cited origins of bookends. The mundane work environment of Cabin in the Woods. The physical layers of the film and what they represent. Dark art wolf make out party games. Mythology and roles. Joss Whedon’s refusal to throw away characters. Playing What-If. The bike looks like something it’s not. Commenting on the cynicism. Breaking the perfect ten, over and over. Nine Inch Nails’ Last. Continue reading

Spy Kids + Honey I Shrunk the Kids

Spy Kids + Honey I Shrunk the Kids

Film makers who you would think have no business making children’s films. The insane amount of star power in the original Spy Kids. Robert Rodriguez writing children’s movies for children. How to create an abundance of new sub-genres in a single stroke. Computer animation! Why a children’s film? A new Danny Elfman / Oingo Boingo song! The message of spy kids. Evil in disagreement: a fresh antagonist dynamic. Uncle Machete? How do you convince your friends to watch Spy Kids? Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! What ever happened to mad science? What the change in sci-fi and fantasy films tells us about science literacy. The terror in the backyard. Suspension of disbelief and the audience member that can’t play along. Rick Moranis as Wayne Szalinski. Honey I Blew Up the Kid. Honey We Shrunk Ourselves. The Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Premarital sex! Continue reading

Irreversible + The Woman

Irreversible + The Woman

Ladies night. Gaspar Noe’s Placebo video. The enthusiasm in eccentric filmmaking. Michael’s theory of self-indulgent French movies. Realizations in reverse. Cinematic mechanics in backwards storytelling. French extremism and, as always, brutality. Commentary on homophobia. When you know what’s coming.The last good thing you will ever know. Teaching the audience a humanistic lesson about murder. It’s so very good to have Lucky McKee back. Tension already. The Woman and the family. Where you don’t belong. Rooting for someone you’re afraid of. Finally, a case of justified violence? Forced alignment with uncomfortably terrible characters. Sexually shaming an audience. Bad gets worse, again. After the credits. The Woman’s a sequel?! Continue reading

Real Steel + World’s Greatest Dad

Real Steel + World’s Greatest Dad

Terrible dads. Two adults have a vulgar conversation about Real Steel. Characters and Lost reunions. A showcase of well used cliches. Misleading marketing. Down and out underdogs among underdogs. Some answers: what the fuck is going on with the “secret” in Real Steel. Late 90s soundtrack. Robot design. Who is Bobcat Goldthwait? World’s Greatest Dad. Writing to the lowest common denominator. Michael really hates Kyle. Bad made worse as a dark humor tactic. An audience’s sadomasochism. Smaller films filmed within the larger film. Vignettes and musical type videos. The return of MANDY LANE. A skeptically infused rant about Oprah, enabler of all terrible things. Where are the moral boundaries? The hard in justifying the means. Continue reading

Killapalooza 17: Piranha

Killapalooza 17: Piranha

Piranha films 1-5. Killer fish! An announcement that changes Double Feature forever. Another announcement that’s even more important than that. Double Feature: The longest running consecutive week-after-week show on the internet. The Edgewater Beach Hotel (is not haunted). The Double Feature lexicon goes online! The original Joe Dante Piranha. Eighties horror in the seventies. Nudity in the Piranha franchise. Joe Dante at the Music Box. The alternate takes on science in 80s science fiction films. Piranha, from lady parts to kiddie parts. James Cameron’s Piranha 2: The Spawning. Characters? Characters! Raising the stakes. The hokiest scene in the entire franchise. Recreating Piranha as a made for TV movie. Roger Corman making his own remake. Splat splat splat. Alexander Aja takes you from zero to bro in Piranha 3D. Alice reconsiders 3D. The flower duet. Love to hate. Girls Gone Wild. Christopher Lloyd! Piranha massacre. Immediate deaths and comedic timing. Water certified strippers in Piranha 3DD. Terrible sinful dirty. This misunderstood John Gulager. TV relics. Continue reading

The Iron Giant + My Neighbor Totoro

The Iron Giant + My Neighbor Totoro

Fantasy worlds that use giant friends to different means. Brad Bird and The Iron Giant. Trends in animation over time. A call for more interesting animation. Alice somehow thinks it’s a good idea to credit David Fincher for all 2:35:1 movies. Why you always end up following the Hogarth character. The family unit. Not just a stand-in for dad. The government doesn’t know everything. Alarmism throughout the decades. The lessons from a terrifying death robot. Rallying behind Vin Disel. Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, and Toho films. Tromo’s involvement in My Neighbor Totoro. Revisiting dubbing. What makes Totoro Alice’s favorite Miyazaki. Sickness in animation. The girls’ reality. Conventions of escapism. A fantasy world without conflict. Totoros, the Catbus, and various other creatures. Deconstructing the allure of the King Totoro. Continue reading

Bound + Strangers on a Train

Bound + Strangers on a Train

Symbiotic murder and crime. Murder, mystery and intrigue in noirland. More information about Larry Wachowski becoming Lana Wachowski. Why Double Feature is interested in Lana Wachowski. Bound contains the shortest Flying Tom Tom yet. Bound is goddamn sexy, and that’s awesome. Commendable boundary pushing. Voluntary sadomasochism, both metaphorical and literal. The afterglow. Do characters have to be realistic? Using sex to define a relationship. Montages in heist films. The Wachowski attention to detail. Object oriented filmmaking. Parallels with The Matrix. What’s Raymond Chandler doing on Strangers on a Train? Femme fatales in a movie that may not have femme fatales. Finding Hitcock’s signature. Humanism: why the wrongly accused works so well. What Alfred Hitchcock’s success says about the good in humanity. Thought experiments at parties. Twins, doubles, and dopple-gangers. Moral obligations. When do you call the police? Continue reading

Dark Star + Sunshine

Dark Star + Sunshine

Celestial bodies that aren’t Jane Fonda. Double Feature in space! John Carpenter’s first film, Dark Star. Who knows Dark Star is supposed to be funny? Carpenter and comedy. Making a film out of your trash can. Remembering the flower children. What if we sent spaced-out hippies into space? What Star Trek took from Dark Star. The director’s cut. Methodological skepticism. Skepticism vs paradoxes. Journeyman filmmaking. How Sunshine makes space feel massive. Giving life back to space. The living components of dying space. Overwhelming, inspiring awe. Democracy isn’t always the right answer. A breakdown of decisions and consequences. In defense of Trey. Suicide or murder? Sunshine’s Bear or No Bear moment that transition in to all anyone remembers about the film. Pinback and Pinbacker. Let’s talk about the core problems of a religious mindset! Is God really the problem? Why things are blurry. What created Pinbacker and what he represents. Continue reading

Rogue + The Innkeepers

Rogue + The Innkeepers

Splat time at Graceland Cemetery. Greg Mclean, Dimension Extreme. Movies in the cloud! Giant crocodile as the slasher. Television and horror. Adam Green and Rob Zombie have TV shows. Creating red herrings through overwhelming exposition. An unexpected cast has something unexpected happen to it. Coming up with your own problems when the killer won’t do it for you. Getting to know your characters as they make life harder for each other. Trigonomical death. Who is Ti West, really? The Innkeepers alongside The House of the Devil. What actually happened after Cabin Fever? The worst kind of horror movie. Alice and Michael have this skill. The 90’s aesthetic. Another use for humor. Oh hey skepticism! The unfalsifiable. Doing something different in the context of doing the same old thing. So glad to have that Ti West back. Continue reading

Cry-Baby + Roadracers

Cry-Baby + Roadracers

50’s throw-back films! Greasers. John Waters after Devine. A bit on Iggy Pop. Who is Traci Lords? A confused opinion on hatchet-face. Johnny Depp?! Entire budget of Cry-Baby: $12 Million. Depp’s average Pirates salary: $88 Million per film. Faux jazz lounge scene! Coupling and single characters. Drapes and squares. Bases and religious tattoos. The alphabet bomber movie. Is Cry-Baby a musical? Adaptations of adaptations. Courtroom scenes. Use the manhole! Roadracers: The Making of a Degenerate Hot Rod Flick. Showtime’s Rebel Highway series. An Invasion of the Body Snatchers metaphor. John Hawkes’ character. Building around icons. The long-awaited Roadracers DVD release! Continue reading

Party Monster + Heavenly Creatures

Party Monster + Heavenly Creatures

Friendships that famously end in murder. Party Monster, the real fake meta documentary story thing. A better reference for what became THE FLYING TOM TOM. The unreliable narrator in a meta universe. Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland. Iconic fictional personas and club drama. DJing. A living attraction. The perpetual motion machine of celebrity. The controversy that is Chloe Sevigny. The life and times of Marilyn Manson. The party monsters today. Heavenly Creatures against other Peter Jackson films. How Double Feature feels about Peter Jackson. Young girls and old girls. Men as the unappealing minority. Peer pressure vs enabling. The humanity of famous killers. What does the sexual relationship communicate about the characters? Violence without glory. Continue reading

Drive + Collateral

Drive + Collateral

The heroes and villains of LA crime. What Double Feature already knew about Drive. Nicolas Winding Refn: crazy person. The precision of Drive. Roadsploitation. A protagonist with no name. Modern day nuwave musicians and composer Cliff Martinez. Stripped down plot. Unconventional (and more realistic) relationships. The alpha male. The role of minimalism. The mysterious man’s actual past. Drive as a superhero film. Ill intentions. The superhero mentor. Violence! Bordering on surrealism. What audiences can handle. Collateral as an introduction to Michael Mann. Real people. The beginning of digital filmmaking. Why don’t people like Tom Cruise? A different look at jazz. Rooting for the villain. Who is Max? Continue reading

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane + The Poughkeepsie Tapes

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane + The Poughkeepsie Tapes

Starting year five with two films you can’t see! It’s true – All the Boys Love Many Lane. Why wasn’t this released? What would the boys do for Mandy Lane? Out of the closet atheist actor Amber Heard. Using the blunt force of a gun as your weapon. When no one else is around. When do you know? Manipulation. A found footage film that actually does what we always just pretend found footage films do. Predicting the financial success and critical reaction of The Poughkeepsie Tapes based on nothing but wild speculation. Characteristics of the water street butcher. B-stories. Continue reading