Episode Collection: Year 6

Double Feature Year 6 Finale

Double Feature Year 6 Finale

SPOILER FREE SHOW! The Year Six retrospective. A look back at the last 52 double feature pairs. Taking a break from Filmspotting jokes to make love to Battleship Pretension. Revising the official position on movie reviews. A tangent on the insightful career of Roger Ebert. Double Feature made a short film (without the help of Russ Meyer). The challenges of making a six chapter short film for Kickstarter. More regarding Alice’s involvement in Director’s Cut. Hannah Carter’s prop magic. The growing genre of films designed by the Internet. A defense for the most unexpected film-of-the-year choice. A conversation around this year’s Additional Content. Continue reading

The Lords of Salem + Machete Kills

The Lords of Salem + Machete Kills

Auteurs just outside the arthouse. Grindhouse contributors Rob Zombie and Robert Rodirugez! Audiences clamoring: It’s not the way I would have done it!! Stop looking for validation and start appreciating surprise. See inside the minds of insane people. The hidden alternate history of The Lords of Salem. Why Rob Zombie is a fascinating human. Films changing as they’re being filmed. The Rodriguez-Box-Office relationship. Using Machete Kills as the control for the experiment Machete conducted. A different approach. One unique idea to recreate the trailer magic. A a cure for cinema predictibility. Continue reading

Wrong + Upstream Color

Wrong + Upstream Color

The desperate methods audiences go to when attempting to fit the bizarre into a neat little box. Art, humanity, mystery and animals. Determining the world of Quentin Dupieux (Mr. Oizo)’s Wrong. How Upstream Color differs from the complex mathematics of Primer. Films you need to take notes or maybe draw a little flowchart to follow. Intentionally crafting rewards for repeat viewings. A rare love letter to found sound, sampling, and ambience. Using sound to help an audience link scenes. Building a motif – from notable scene to rewarding callback to critical theme. The thief, the sampled, and other double meanings. Alice Thirteen just wants to give Shane Carruth money to produce movies. Continue reading

Storytelling + Mister Lonely

Storytelling + Mister Lonely

Two filmmakers who love similar themes but don’t get along with each other. Pretending all films are totally approachable and that you’re not worried people on the internet will think you’re an idiot. Every week, Double Feature talks about two films as if they’re the best films ever made. Truth and fiction in Storytelling. Every story-writing workshop that ever happened. Sexuality and youth. The return of American Movie. A life of impersonation in Mister Lonely. Looking too deeply into a film. Harmony Korine at face value. When a movie takes the right path. Continue reading

Killapalooza 22: The Evil Dead

Killapalooza 22: The Evil Dead

The Evil Dead films 1-4. How an indie film that wouldn’t pass the film-class final became one of the most ifluential horror properties of all time. The power of rhythm and repitition. Aggrivated industrial loops (and other secrets Trent Reznor already knows). Continuity. When and why a film would strive to make sure the audience is uncomfortable – even as far as actively having a bad time. The possessed camera. Evil Dead and the nature of evil. How do you reconcile Evil Dead 2 with the original Evil Dead? What’s canonical. An unpopular opinion on Army of Darkness. The Ash Factor. Wild horses. Using the power of the remake for good. Continue reading

Akira + The Sky Crawlers

Akira + The Sky Crawlers

Double Feature and anime. A continued attempt to learn about film purely through immersion. What Akira has in common with previous films Double Feature has covered. The influence of Akira on live-action American storytelling. Biological technology in a cyberpunk way instead of a body horror way. Doing new and unfamiliar things with body horror. The introduction of commercial Japanese animation to the American youth market. An obsession with power. Changing forms. Future Tokyo, animated. The animation breakthroughs unleashed by Akira. Keyframes, limited animation and sound. The Sky Crawler’s vision of corporate-sponsored warfare. Quenching the (probably not real) human need for violence. Modern-day gladiators. A surprisingly realistic depiction of a type of warfare not often seen. An element of mystery is revealed. Anime’s fixation on childhood. Inspecting youth in military. Foreign animation and eroticism. Continue reading

Prom Night + The House on Sorority Row

Prom Night + The House on Sorority Row

Slasher one-off (non-franchise) films with cult standing. Year One of Double Feature is returning! Details within! Studios marketing a film differently with each home video release, essentially telling audiences it’s about something different now. Prom Night is watching a slasher film before “slasher” became a genre. The red herring. Consider: if it’s worth doing, it’s worth over-doing. How the 80s slasher film disrespects its audience, and how its audience came to love that. Horror films based on events and holidays. Another return of Mean Creek kids being mean as pranks go wrong. Revising the group lie / cover-up. Peer pressure and the pack mentality. Why the memorable slashers (Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, etc) are the least personal characters in their films. The all female cast of The House on Sorority Row. When you call for the police. Continue reading

Showgirls + Meet the Feebles

Showgirls + Meet the Feebles

Double Feature’s big announcement unveiled – an all new Kickstarter featuring a narrative Double Feature mini-series! An examination of show business through broken lenses. The success of Showgirls. Funneling the audience through embarrassment. NC17’s impact on marketability. The amazing things about Showgirls lost to time. How an audience boils a movie down to a single idea as years pass. A totally different perspective – why other audiences defend Showgirls today. Peter Jackson’s love of filth. Why Meet the Feebles should exist. The artistic role of an extreme. Making sacrifices to live at the end of a specturm. Continue reading

Ghosts of Mars + Giallo

Ghosts of Mars + Giallo

Blacksheep comebacks from horror giants. Continuing to find insight on two directors Double Feature knows front to back. John Carpenter’s enemies that can not be reasoned with. Loving a film the director himself can’t stand. Secret things you can do to get more fun out of a film. Pretending there’s a hidden scene where Jason Statham was put in a timeout. The space frigate genre. Pretending there’s an unreliable narrator. A flashback within a flashback. Audiences cheering on protagonists without thinking. Applauding for martian genocide. The real secret reason Ghosts of Mars is notable – Ghosts of Mars is the most accurate adaptation of the gaming franchise Doom. Revisiting Dario Argento’s influence on the giallo genre. Skeptics approach the elements of giallo, including the paranormal. Is Dario Argento’s film Giallo self-referential? A conversation about the sexual theme (or lack of) in the film. Where this killer falls in the pantheon of movie killers. The purpose Linda serves. Continue reading

John Dies at the End + The Man with the Iron Fists

John Dies at the End + The Man with the Iron Fists

Fuck you, rules! Convention-defying movies for the internet age. Trickle down auteurism. Going into a movie knowing nothing – how do you pitch films to people who don’t want to know about them before seeing them? The tendency of frequent movie-goes to develop a taste for the strange and extreme. Double Feature’s unconventional opinion is every movie is a “see it.” Revisiting Franz Kafka. Spoiling John Dies at the End. Appreciating the weirder path (scenic route!) to plot resolution. The Theseus Paradox. There’s no time to explain, aka Bear or no bear. Play along goddamnit; looking for plot holes ruins movies. The Balducci Levitation, SETI, and Deepak Chopra – tipping your hand to the Skeptical movement. Using the powers of skepticism for evil. The Internet is starting to write films. Eli Roth as a producer. Filmmakers pay filmmakers to proliferate auteurism. Hollywood gets out of the artist’s way. Larry Bishop, Quentin Tarantino, and The Man with the Iron Fists. The RZA plays pretend. The various clans and styles. Continue reading

The Wolf Man + Soylent Green

The Wolf Man + Soylent Green

The last of the Year 6 Universal horror and classic science fiction pairs. The cautious release of The Wolf Man in a post-war cinema. What did genre-horror look like the better part of 100 years ago? The metaphores of the Wolfman. An unlikely celebration of the inherit sexism in Universal monster films. Lon Chaney Jr, the lovable creep. Unintended meaning added over time. Today’s hippy fad-diets of California drive a culture to look more like the world of Soylent Green – no apocolyptic circumstances required. Human invention solves overpopulation. Nostalgia ruins human progress. Look forward. Things did not used to be better. Was the 70s better than today? No. No, it wasn’t. Celebrating cheery-picked memories. Modern cynacism is still cynacism. Continue reading

American Movie + Mean Creek

American Movie + Mean Creek

The consequences and triumphs of reducing human beings to caricatures. Fears of the midwest. Mark Borchardt’s process in American Movie. How first impressions, language, and appearance impact your impression of someone’s intelligence. Is Mark a skilled filmmaker or a hack? The best take-aways from filming Coven. What prevents Mark and Mike from being more noticed or successful? Mean Creek creates a challenging conversation. Alice would still turn Michael in to the police. Listeners request a reconsideration of the national bullying dialogue. Where is the line crossed in Mean Creek? What’s the morally correct position and why is it so hard to identify? Double Feature agrees to have an uncensored thought experiment that could change the fate of the podcast forever. Continue reading

Paranorman + Fantastic Mr. Fox

Paranorman + Fantastic Mr. Fox

Child-friendly stop-motion films that trick adults into being more succeptable. New and unexpected experiences adults can have while their guard is down. Appealing to adults without being a “dark” children’s film. Dark sensibilities and humor vs difficult subject matter. Paranorman tackles the salem witch trials. Tell a person they’re something often enough, they may just turn into that thing. The avoidance of stock characters in Paranorman. Judging books by covers (and other expansions on the Aesop learnings from Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D). Shooting on a Canon 5D DSLR camera. The next biggest innovation in filmmaking: 3D printing. The difference in filmmaking stop-motion techniques between Paranorman and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Wild speculation on Tim Burton and Roald Dahl. Exploring the theme of wild animals being true to themselves. Continue reading

Sharkboy and Lavagirl + Mulholland Drive

Sharkboy and Lavagirl + Mulholland Drive

On the 300th episode of Double Feature, Sharkboy and Lavagirl finally solve Mulholland Drive. First, a conversation about the Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (In 3D). Aesop’s fables! How to have the best conversation about Mulholland Drive. Right or wrong, do most people have the impression they understand this film? The David Lynch journey up to this point. Ground rules for the conversation. Bringing your prerequisits to the conversation. The alley person / the dumpster person / the bum behind the wall at Winkie’s. The tiny people. What we can learn from the espresso scene – do these guys know what they’re talking about? Shut it all down. The cowboy in a bible analogy. Seperating 50s loving David Lynch from a plot involving things from 1950. Challenging the endless loop / möbius strip conclusion. Rita and the most forgiven introduction of an amnesia device ever made. El silenco and the key. The vanish / switch scene. Revisiting the Sylvia North story. Michael proposes a theory. Using the film’s own rules mathematically for solving unknowns. A return to the dumpster person. Secular uses for biblical imagery in mysery solving. The David Lynch top ten clues. Another look at Club Silencio. Can Adam throw a wrench into an otherwise plausible theory? Adam is blow away by the world’s most talented actress, but other forces tie his hands. The ordered hit. Support for the fantasy. Continue reading

Conan the Barbarian + Blood and Bone

Conan the Barbarian + Blood and Bone

Men who are tanks box their way through cult genres when the original Conan the Barbarian squares off against Blood and Bone. Sword and sorcery takes on underground fighting! Arnold Schwarzenegger meets Michael Jai White! Exploring the early career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, bodybuilding governor extraordinaire. An earlier, stranger Arnold. Going on a quest to battle your way from orgy to orgy. When the time is right for Sword and Sorcery to return. Michael Jai White needs to take over the world. Viral acting and the YouTube generation. Blood and Bone as a genre experiment. Film writing games you can play at home. Continue reading

Hatchet 3 + Curse of Chucky

Hatchet 3 + Curse of Chucky

Two sequels from previous Double Feature franchises. Adam Green and all your friends from Hatchet return in Hatchet 3. Cameos become roles. The constant slasher resurrection. Adam Green’s thing (beside throwing blood on trees). Chucky out-lives the original slashers of the 80s. Surviving the remakes. The Curse of Chucky alternate realities. Choose your own adventure. Brad Dourif and franchise newbie Fiona Dourif. Modern horror in a conversation with classics. The practical doll. Chucky’s disadvantage. Gaining the upper hand. A scarier Chucky with each passing scene. Bold words about Curse of Chucky. No theatrical release. Continue reading

From Beyond + Class of 1999

From Beyond + Class of 1999

Midnight movies once again illuminate the room with their pale blue light. A listener request makes Michael sneaky. Stuart Gordon and the true third wheel. What about the lighting makes From Beyond feel like a midnight movie? Late night cinema warms the collective human heart. What we choose to address (and the importance of what is not addressed). Class of 1999, the followup to that other movie you didn’t see called Class of 1984. A future that never was. Double Feature considers what mankind’s bleak view of the future reveals now that we can look back on it. Continue reading

The Machinist + Dogville

The Machinist + Dogville

Darker dramas featuring protagonists played by actors Double Feature likes (but doesn’t often think about), who are in this particular instance obscured on the covers of their respective films by a thin brown material that is likely a fabric of some kind. Note: those are not necessarily the covers associated with this episode of Double Feature, as better selections may have been made. It’s also possible that this is being read in the future where cover art has somehow been deprecated, or in an environment that does not use art for some reason. Well, really the future is a kind of environment, so perhaps that’s redundant. If this is being listened to in a grim future where art is no longer a human concept, or is in some way banned, we’re glad you still have Double Feature. Hey, wasn’t Christian Bale in a movie like that? Continue reading

Killapalooza 21: Paranormal Activity

Killapalooza 21: Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity films 1-4. A premature Killapalooza, in hopes everyone comes along for the ride. The first in an already notable franchise. Another look at the low budget. The mysterious pool bots of Paranormal Activity 2. There is no Dunkin Donuts in California. Science and skepticism when facing ghosts and the sort. The amusing exercise of Imagining an actual demon. The Paranormal Activity Demand it! campaign. Prequels upon prequels. What are the scariest moments from the scariest installment? Back to the future. How to tell if the person using that MacBook is insane, every time. A somewhat spoiler-inclusive summary, and what the future holds. Continue reading

Near Dark + Wayne’s World

Near Dark + Wayne’s World

Cult films by female directors – two of them! Vampires and, well, Wayne’s World. A look at the non-romantic vampire movie. Trying to stay focused with so much Wayne’s World ahead. What’s so interesting about the absence of romance? The wile west, the road, and the Devil’s Rejects. Gangs. Teenagers and the family unit. The director of Near Dark. A look at the most successful SNL film of all time. Wayne’s World is pretty fucking fantastic, in all actuality. Everyone respects Garth, as they should. Building a setting you’d want to live in. An abundance of material. Continue reading

The Host + Monsters

The Host + Monsters

The internet’s favorite monster films! The Host, as in the Korean 2006 The Host. Pushing aside the usual monster treatment talk for politics and humanism. The confusing relationship between pacifists and the military. Understanding cultural comedy. Agent Orange and a more modern look into cautionary atomic commentary. Gareth Edwards’s 2010 shoe-string budget picture Monsters. Unintentional immigration commentary proves obvious to everyone but the filmmaker. How a tiny independent film dressed up as a blockbuster. Something you may have missed from the end of Monsters. Continue reading

Elvira’s Haunted Hills + Big Top Pee-Wee

Elvira’s Haunted Hills + Big Top Pee-Wee

Two television-first stars return in their back to back sequels. Unlikely stars for just as unlikely conversations about metaphysics and humanism. Cassandra Peterson refuses to take credit as Elvia in Elvira’s Haunted Hills, all these years later. Putting your newfound Universal Monster knowledge to the test. In the other feature, Paul Reubens follows up Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure just a few years later with Big Top Pee-Wee. Also, Penn and Teller Get Killed is on iTunes and Brendan Vance has things to talk about. Double Feature returns to the carnie with a non-drinking game and a variety of other more interesting things are discussed. How’s that sentence for a spoiler free plot synopsis? Continue reading

Drive Angry + The Weather Man

Drive Angry + The Weather Man

This insane thing called Cage Match brings you two Nicolas Cage films! Is Nicolas Cage a good actor? Is he in good films? Are bad films his fault? Someone does humanity a service by performing the experiment. Drive Angry and the death of 3D movies. The relationship between Drive Angry and Shoot em Up. The level of awareness. The less considered level of not giving a fuck about awareness. The Weather Man – even more subtle in context. Product placement and general airborne fast food items. What you’ve become while you weren’t looking. Can people amount to more than one thing? Continue reading

The Mummy + Logan’s Run

The Mummy + Logan’s Run

The Universal Monster and Classic Sci-Fi adventure continues! A longevity pair featuring two films about human vitality. What The Mummy’s really about. Boris Karloff and the skeptical eye. What a curse really means, and who’s afraid of it anyways. What sets The Mummy apart from Universal’s other classic monster films. Logan’s run, which is different than Silent Running and Blade Runner. The sex, the edits, and the Barbarella. Mortality and religion. There is no afterlife! A popular audience once again ignores the overt religious metaphor. Without God, who brings Cats to the Internet (answer: atheists). Continue reading

2001: A Space Odyssey + 2010: The Year We Make Contact

2001: A Space Odyssey + 2010: The Year We Make Contact

An icon of cinema gets paired up with the sequel you didn’t even know existed. Can what started as a cruel crowd-funding joke become more than Stanley Kubrick blasphemy? Spoiler: Yes! A newcomer’s take on 2001: A Space Odyssey. A contender for most parodied film of all time. Hal and Siri. Beauty, perfection, simplicity. The monolith as everyone’s favorite object. Everyone is afraid to talk about what the fuck happens at the end of 2001 – or, Double Feature is stupid enough to talk about what the fuck happens at the end of 2001. Analysis of the fetal acid trip. Previous, on what’s now a franchise. 2010: Is this really happening? Your options in creating the impossible. Popular opinion and the one line film review. Continue reading

The Brood + Xtro

The Brood + Xtro

Creepy monster science fiction. What lurks on Channel X? David Cronenberg’s early film The Brood. Psychoplasmatics. Where’s the scam? How Cronenberg creeps differently in The Brood. Another pause to consider body horror. Motherly themes. A creative and fitting take on the hero test. The thing is Xtro is funky scary. What else is Xtro up to? A collection of memorable what-the-fuck television moments. A world without that protagonist! Pre-internet viral speculation (ask your friends about that one). Other installments of the Xtro franchise. Yes, franchise. A past Double Feature connection. Continue reading

Friday + Metropolitan

Friday + Metropolitan

Surprisingly tasteful culture shock! Challenging yourself to expand your horizons. How Michael got into the Friday franchise. An only somewhat related conversation about Quentin Tarantino’s favorite films. Admitting an embarrassing truth to yourself. High society, deb parties, and places Alice could never go. Someone in 2014 references Deadsy. Who doesn’t love preschool? We need to talk about board games. How Cards Against Humanity manages to be awesome and the worst fucking on planet Earth. Apples to Apples speaks on behalf of all wasted time at every gathering that’s ever happened. Unique individuals with fascinating backgrounds based on difficult choices they’ve made all walk into a room, then miss the opportunity to share about any of that. The painful normality of the 1%. Continue reading

Django Unchained + Only God Forgives

Django Unchained + Only God Forgives

A new-ish movie double feature from two returning director/writers. The multitude of Django Unchained actors, including Quentin Tarantino himself. Everything about Django Unchained people miss while they’re thinking about how racially progressive they are. A look at Django in three character-centric episodes. Tarantino pulls out mid-orgasm. No one talks about Tarainto’s new man-filled universe. Nicolas Winding Refn returns to the insane. How to do you find the right questions for Only God Forgives? Inevitable comparisons to David Lynch. The visual style of Only God Forgives. The quiet man. The east and west have their own single feature. A conversation in themes. Making sense of the ending. Continue reading

Network + Pump Up the Volume

Network + Pump Up the Volume

Double Feature speaks to the masses. The resistance sticks it to the man. Sidney Lumet’s Network. Talking Aaron Sorkin and David Mammet. Sensationalism and the Death Hour. What would Diana’s vision truly look like? Articulating rage. The Mao Zedong hour. The corporate cosmology of Arthur Jensen. A downward path and striking close to home. The battle cry! The dry assassination via television. Fuck the FCC! Pump Up the Volume! Listening to people masturbate. The death of brand loyalty. The misunderstanding of intention. The responsibility of celebrity. The moral battle lines. High school pressure. High school fucking sucks, and the point really is just to get through it so you can start your actual life. Continue reading

The Frighteners + Memoirs of an Invisible Man

The Frighteners + Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Comedy does horror and horror does comedy. Two bizarre offshoots from unexpected directors. Peter Jackson, Robert Zemekis, and Marty McFly. Part Beetlejuice, part Drag Me to Hell. Jeffrey Combs of not just The Attic Expeditions. Long-haired Michael J Fox plays baseball. Psychics never really see it coming. What a real world with real paranormal would look like. The terror reaper. John Carpenter does a comedy with Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Handover the gimmick! The bubblegum. Stephen Tobolowsky chats with Sam Neil. Hiding the building and showing Chevy Chase. Once collective audiences have exhausted the vanishing exercise. The mind games you play as a child. Moving deeper into the theoretical. The heavy downsides of invisibility. Even food is depressing. Carpenter and the studios. Continue reading

Killapalooza 20: The Living Dead

Killapalooza 20: The Living Dead

The Living Dead film. George A. Romero’s six zombie films. Night of the Living Dead. The undead and the inevitability of human demise. Dawn of the Dead. Consumers and their shopping. Things people didn’t steal from Romero’s films. Day of the Dead. Man plays science. The next evolutionary step. Metaphores for metaphors. Land of the Dead. The dead strike back! An unpopular opinion. Shock and awe. Class warfare. Romero’s back with Diary of the Dead. Handicam vs found footage. In what universe? Film criticism via film. Media and news coverage. Romero does The Newsroom. Survival of the Dead. Educated horses. One of those wrong decisions. Finding a cure. Rebuilding society. What’s the point of living during the zombie apocalypse? Continue reading

The Muppet Movie + Follow That Bird

The Muppet Movie + Follow That Bird

The Muppets meet Sesame Street. A set of Jim Henson and Frank Oz classics. An unedited bit on Scientology. The Muppet Movie is not The Muppets (2011). Keeping a sense of timeless-ness. Celebrity appearances and musical numbers. A variety act. Representing The Muppets. A symptom of core values. Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird! Differences between the Muppets and Sesame Street. Subversive child programming. Great news – civil rights are inevitable! Being with your own kind. Taking the conversational bait. Opening a conversation on the evils of tribalism. A different take on tribal mentality. What Follow That Bird shares in common with South Park. The longest running thread on Double Feature. Not such a bad journey. The seedy carnival. A long awaiting up-next. Continue reading

Office Space + The Wages of Fear

Office Space + The Wages of Fear

A mundane workplace pair for all the Zachs out there. An exploration of all things Mike Judge. Someone please cast Aubrey Plaza as Daria. A higher-brow look at King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead. Your life as a fantasy epic. Special effects in a vanilla world. The low-brow surface of a commentary laced package. Everybody wants to talk about Idiocracy! A passing dismissal of hypnotheaphy. Someone does a Rebecca Watson impression. An extra careful treading of the suspension of disbelief. Combing the best of humanity. Strip the subtlety, then add another layer. Where you see respect for the audience. Revising a Richard Riehle classic. If Office Space really a parody of the office? The intersection of Clerks and cynicism. Cynical misunderstandings. Does Office Space create offices? Why do people cartoon cutouts exist in the real world? The common exercise in relativism is mostly useless. The Wages of Fear. Things that happen before the driving part you remember. Life before the oil company. Trapped and trying to get out. The infamous tension. Your looming fate. Continue reading

The Driver + Ms. 45

The Driver + Ms. 45

Two exploitation landmarks with quiet protagonists. Unintentional Double Feature themes. The Man Who Killed God. The Driver and colors. Obligatory Drive conversation. Bruce Dern strikes back. The Driver, The Player, and The Detective. What tips you off? Authority, and those who resist it. A criminal adherence to the law. Us or them! The Briefcase of Failure. A fearless chase. Walter Hill and The Warriors. Heroes of franchises past. The man and the silence. Ms. 45 and Abel Ferrara. Those dirty New York films. Punk fucking rock. Thana also strikes back. Miss forty-five as the strong silent type. How to get the entire audience off the boat. Phil doesn’t need to come back. Men, everywhere. Arguments about whether rape is better or worse than death are frivolous. When is the line drawn? Ok, right away, but when is the cinematic line drawn? Continue reading

Gone with the Wind + The Wizard of Oz

Gone with the Wind + The Wizard of Oz

A modern look at two classic Victor Flemming films. Brienna Krueger almost brought you a very different pair. One man’s involvement in two colossal cinema juggernauts. Gone With the Wind as an epic. Defining popularity in gross international profit adjusted for inflation. Maintaining precision and care for each individual scene. The color palette in Gone With the Wind. Scarlet O’Hara fights for independence – but will she know what to do with it when she gets it? Attempting to find themes in an epic. Independence, southern culture, and the evolution of struggles for equality. Ladies and land ownership. The imagination of the Wizard of Oz. The part no one talks about (but should). Creative first. Ignorance of the impossible. Painted backgrounds, practice effects, and a legacy still untouched today, the Flickchart problem. The perverse and dark humor. Munchkins! A perfect grindhouse film. The man behind the curtain. George Orwell meets Objectivism. Help your friends through a common cause by empowering yourself. Continue reading

Class of 1984 + Prince of Darkness

Class of 1984 + Prince of Darkness

Students discover the hidden truths of future and past. Alex Pardee, EL-P and Killer Mike. When things happened in 1984. Guns in the school! Why 1984 won’t be like 1984. A nation of criminals. Forgetting the growing left to do. Pacifists who don’t like spanking. Today’s children are tomorrow’s future. Where does a modern audience find the shock? The great twenty-first century bully awakening. Everyone was bullied, no one was the bully. Why kids are such little fucking assholes. Who is bad, and what kind of bad they are. Slipping into violence. Corruption via environment. How the ethical meet the unjustifiable. Marilyn Manson samples Prince of Darkness for his cover of Down in the Park. Alice Cooper gets more air time than Marilyn Manson. The old rock and roll. Classic carpenter? What you thought and what you get. Technology and religion. Donald Pleasence brings the gravity. Theoretical science for scams. Michael talks about quantum mechanics at a level he’s not supposed to comprehend. The quantum check. Counter-intuitive religious coverups. What’s the end game? Another bonus episode coming your way! Continue reading

The Prowler + When a Stranger Calls

The Prowler + When a Stranger Calls

Franchises be damned! The one-off slasher films. Michael does an awful thing. No one understands Double Feature. Joseph Zito. The Roger Corman Marvel films. Keeping the lights on (and other excuses to make art). World War 2. Advertising after the war. Parties? Not in my town! The identity of the slasher. How to not have a slasher franchise. The Prowler as a proper noun. Weapons. The look of The Prowler. When a Stranger Calls. The call is coming from inside the house, again. Karol Cane answers the phone. Implications of the camera. A breakdown of one of the most memorable and influential slasher scenes in the genre. A breed of scary films without scares. Alice finds yet another source of anxiety. Please, no one ruin vibration. When a Stranger Calls and genre-bending. The slow creep. Learning about your killer. Children return to ruin everything, but are thwarted the psychopathic anti-hero. The old cop and the sequel. Continue reading

Frankenstein + The Stepford Wives

Frankenstein + The Stepford Wives

Universal Monsters once again meet Classic Science Fiction. Creation, control, and man made monsters. Alice Thirteen talks about being the Executive Producer of the upcoming horror film Director’s Cut. Two incredible names and one never before seen project. Just what are the Universal Monsters films – and why are they important? James Whale and Universal Studios. Hammer Horror. The great depression. Franchise, franchise, franchise! Boris Karloff vs Bela Lugosi, round three! Humanity and style. The design of Frankenstein’s monster. German expression rears its 45 degree head. Directors you see in a graveyard. Creating size. Crushed by the monster. Double Feature revisits man playing god, only to discover Frankenstein is actually doing something more interesting. What you already know about The Stepford Wives. 1975 means an absence of jokes on the top of Nicole Kidman’s forehead. Katherine Ross, independent female. The Stepford Wives and activist feminism. Creating a monster and changing public opinion. An ending to do seventies sci-fi proud. Continue reading

Invincible + Mister Frost

Invincible + Mister Frost

A Werner Herzog warning. Trying to maintain accessibility. Invincible. Why Werner Herozog should be on Michael’s radar. A new troop. Someone listens to Alice about Udo Kier. Mixing Truth, fiction and documentary.. The New German Cinema via The French New Wave. Ah yes, the tv/film accessibility levels graphic! Can The Splat Pack teach us something about classy German cinema? What is Herzog known for? Unfair comparisons to filmmakers Double Feature is familiar with. The powerhouse that is Tim Roth. Another source of villainy. A unique look at pre-Hitler Germany on the cusp of WW2. Considering another aspect of are the sideshow. The supernatural! The important differences between frauds and the self-delusional. What if German had been lead by the occult? The VHS legend that is Mister Frost. What happens in the missing 1/3? Midnight video. Vincent Schiavelli! The brand new Double Feature Jeff Goldblum Crazy Chart graphic! Jennifer Jilbert, Jeff Goldblum historian. How crazy does the Goldblum get – and when. The devil or not. How do you know when the supernatural is real in a fictional world? Mr. Frost, tension, and the absence of violence. Science gets better, nonsense goes away, and the Earth is a better place for everyone. Continue reading

Creepshow + The Specials

Creepshow + The Specials

Comic book tributes by horror legends. The Additional Content is out! Getting in front of the camera. George A Romero and Stephen King. Tom Savini, comic books, and trashcan metaphors. The aesthetic. The lasting impression of Creepshow. Horror anthologies. The legacy. Alice talks about his time work on Marvel’s comics! Deciphering the relationship between Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt. A sequel, a bastard child, and 2009’s Creepshow Raw. Alex Pardee does things. The Specials. The increasingly popular works of James Gunn. Lollilove. Rob Lowe and Thomas Haden Church as people you recognize. Getting to the bottom of Doug. What’s up with the world’s smartest man? Comedic timing. Action figure unveiling. The state of superhero audiences. The game of heroes without powers. Continue reading

Cecil B Demented + The Royal Tenenbaums

Cecil B Demented + The Royal Tenenbaums

Diving right in to the pairing experiment. John Waters and Wes Anderson, best friends forever. Michael and Alice get excited about introduction to color theory! Cecil B Demented takes back the cinema. That punk metal resistance. The man who fought dogma and taboo sets his sights on the film industry. Kidnap, torture, and farce. The problems of cinema yesterday. Don’t hold back! John Waters raps songs. Go on, read that sentence again. Jerome Dillon. The Royal Tenenbaums introduces the cast. This time, with Baldwin. Redemption, take two. The Wes Anderson color palette. How to learn. Why color is more important than how important you probably think it is. Color coded characters. Break your rules and make your point. Continue reading

Tenebre + Secret Beyond the Door

Tenebre + Secret Beyond the Door

Two films that dramatize secrets. Dario Argento does something different with Tenebre. The music! The meta! The future! Commentary on horror cinema and literature. Invoking themes. Inspired by Fritz Lang. Secret Beyond the Door’s real secret is how to remember the fucking title. When the truth begins. The Bluebird fable. Alice tells the real Bluebird tale. A cautionary fable of feminine curiosity. Double Feature hosts struggle to emulate terrible women jokes, only to makes themselves too sick to go on. You know what else is sick? The bible. Rooms + Psychology. Helping the audience open their minds. Encouraging critical thinking in a crowd. Continue reading

Alice in Wonderland + It’s Such a Beautiful Day

Alice in Wonderland + It’s Such a Beautiful Day

Strange worlds via animation. The various versions of Alice in Wonderland. Inventing icons: how does Disney do it? Defining classics. The vault. Everything is a musical. Yesterday’s animation today. How escapism was once represented in animation. Former conventions in modern times. Franz Kafka. Being surrounded by death at all times. Building your blueprint around encounters. The pointlessness of living. Growing into adolescence. Appeasing a tyrant. American McGee’s Alice. Alice: The Madness Returns. Don Hertzfeldt’s It’s Such a Beautiful Day. Resistance to identification. The medium and the message. Do things with stick figures. Simplify! The intersection of minimalism and animation. What minimalism demonstrates. Changing perception instead of content. Continue reading

Killapalooza 19: Critters

Killapalooza 19: Critters

Critters films 1-4. The Crites. New quickest time to space record. Prison Asteroid Sector 17. The Chiodo brothers mystery. Emmet Walsh, Men in White, and the NuWave. Scott Levy returns. Charlie and the kid. Lep in the proverbial hood. That fuzzy family feeling. Close Up on a Photo and Photos of You. Critters 2: Not Quite the New Batch. Jokes written after filming wrapped. Critters subtitles. Terrance Mann, Lin Shaye, and Playboy. Critters 3. The Leonardo Dicaprio moment. The evolution of Charlie the hero. New weapons, same LA. Eat your heart out, Manhattan. Shadows of the Empire for Critters. Speculation on the sheriff. Kanas, Brad Douriff, Space and the Future. A ragtag group of characters trapped aboard a space frigate. Less Critters equals better Critters. Independent space dreams continue. Revising the highly demanded Killapalooza recap. Continue reading

Klown + Safety Not Guaranteed

Klown + Safety Not Guaranteed

Independent comedies with no Internet presence. Kids are the fucking worst. Casper, Frank, and Klown. Dirty men and dirty things. The Danish sitcom. Getting away with things in films. When is it so awkward that you might as well just end your own life. Crossing the lines. Safety Not Guaranteed. Some meme background. The tonight show, filling space, and the creation of a legend. That thing we’re not supposed to talk about. We’re all wondering. Enter Aubrey Plaza. Sincerity has become more unique than irony. Orchestrating a comedy without errors. Other films, please take note. Continue reading

Sneakers + eXistenZ

Sneakers + eXistenZ

Hacking and the spy genre. The influence of the film known as Sneakers. What Sneakers should be known for vs what it’s actually known for. Tron, Wargames, and the introduction of the home arcade. Life in the valley. Palo Alto and sound. Guess who’s coming to dinner! David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, Ben Kingsley, and…Stephen Tobolowsky? Anagrams and the polygraph. Dan Ackroyd Unplugged on UFOs. A guide to eXistenZ. A new classic has been uncovered! If David Cronenberg design electronics. Questioning reality as par for the course. Red herrings and other causes for suspicion. Jude Law under David Cronenberg (although not literally). Willem Dafoe, born to Gas. Naked Lunch 2: The Popular Videodrome. Double Feature tumbles down the meta rabbit hole. Continue reading

The FP + Hobo with a Shotgun

The FP + Hobo with a Shotgun

2011 Canadian exploitation films The FP and Hobo with a Shotgun. Robocop, Blooddragon, and 1980. An early thing Alice was wrong about. Trailers and comedy. Do it for the ducks. Reservations about The FP. The most impressive terrible dialogue. One intense asian hype man. Rambo, Rocky, and real fans. Grindhouse and Hobo with a Shotgun. A trailer unlike Machete. The Rodriguez inspiration. The Plague. Alternate history. Continue reading

Dancer in the Dark + Purple Rain

Dancer in the Dark + Purple Rain

A music heavy episode with Björk and Prince! The strange relationship a listener has with an artist. The brand Björk vs the person Björk. Artist packaging. A singer’s voice. Lars von Trier as a director and as a co-worker. Tension. Why handheld? Why not really handheld. The box. Direct instructions: put Udo Kier in everything, and do it now. Peter Stormare sings. Another Björk mystery! David Morse. The money, the lie, and the ethicacy. Dancer in the Dark is amazing, and, separately, a consideration on principles and message. Purple Rain has Prince in it! Just your normal, average guy. Morris Day and The Time. The ultimate foil. Sexism and genres. Rebecca Romijn, especially where you don’t expect her. What kind of heavy is Purple Rain. Making a movie to promote your album. Continue reading

Bartleby + Rebel Without a Cause

Bartleby + Rebel Without a Cause

Troubled individuals who can’t help be mix things up. Jonathan Parky, Herman Melville, and Bartleby the Scrivener. What’s the deal with Moby Dick? Phrases in American English. How was your weekend: I’d prefer not to. The office of Dead Letters. Dead letters as a metaphor. Forcing thought experiments into reality. Double Feature finally finds a real ghost. Crispin goddamn Glover. Morality, responsibility, and those that can not help themselves. Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause – or, as it is perhaps better known – James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause. Making friends in new places. Influence on everyone’s favorite road-based exploitation sub-genre, Roadsploitation. Dennis goddamn Hopper. A speculative conversation regarding the work of Robert Rodirguez. Playing chicken, even in Fast and the Furious. The parental units. Police and the general role of authority. Considerations of the 1950s. A quick word on repressed memories – you don’t have any. Continue reading

Clerks + Super 8

Clerks + Super 8

Two writer/directors return on Double Feature. Clerks as the beginning of the Kevin Smith catalogue. The Jersey films. Dante Hicks: some man’s every man. The independence…oh god, the independence. Dante’s terrible day gets worse. One hundred thousand films worth of dialogue. Unnatural chats with natural characters. The Smith writing style. Punk rock film making. Thirty seven dicks…in a row? The immense power of a filmmaker. Earned power, and what you can use it for. Clerks the Animated series. John Dahl, JJ Abrams, and Super 8. The long history of JJ Abrams. The television landscape. Where does the star power come from? The magic of childhood filmmaking. The magnificent train wreck. Watching kids make films. Production values! The tiny quiet performance. The alternate reality game. Spielberg, production, and the inevitable comparison. A short short film called “The Case.” Continue reading

The Killing Room + Triangle

The Killing Room + Triangle

Bottle films. In fact, fluorescent bottle films. Not the Triangle miniseries! Project MK-ULTRA. The Men Who Stare at Goats. The unwilling participant. Drugs, torture, and LSD. Clea Duvall, at it again. Double Feature reunites with Peter Stormir and Cloe Sevini. Once you’re in, there’s no way out. The test inside the bottle. An appeal to minimalism. Puzzle pieces. The differences between this and other bottle films. Standing out in a genre. Mystery over characters vs mystery over plot. An elaborate excuse. Increasing the feeling of mystery. Going into Triangle without knowing anything. Just what kind of Triangle is this? Unseeing what you’ve seen. A familiar film like no other. Hitchcock, but also The Shining! Corridors and mirrors. Piles of Sally. Record players, metaphors, images and more piles. Repetition and revisits. Birdies. Where the fuck did Heather go? Greek myth. What’s happening in Triangle. A chronological breakdown. All 70 something. How many loops, and which loop is which? Continue reading

Dracula + Silent Running

Dracula + Silent Running

A Universal monster film meets an influential science fiction film. A new adventure begins a new year of Double Feature. The very last holdover. Monte Legaspi is doing something interesting. Bella Lugosi’s dead. Before the days of don’t show the monster. What made Dracula an icon, and what made Bella Lugosi Dracula. The legacy of Tod Browning’s Dracula. Creep factor. Michael’s newfound love of Silent Running. Hanging out with the bunnies in the park. Bruce Dern: crazy person? Just how insane is nature? Sacrificing humanity. Every person’s limit. Tiny droids with tiny connections to To Browning. Finding out what makes the character tick. Relationship development and motivation. Caring about the environment. Double Feature finally gets some real producers! Continue reading