The Woman in Black + The Princess and the Frog

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
The Woman in Black + The Princess and the Frog

The Hammer and Disney journey ends with The Woman in Black and The Princess and the Frog. The new face of Hammer and Disney making A modern animated film. A pairing not based on racism. A scary ghost film. Legitimizing scares in horror. Period horror, not to be confused with Carrie. The bizarre genre of early 1900s property litigation paperwork films. The more recent history of Hammer. The Krimsey’s menu. What if Disney made a cartoon about Louisiana? If you make a cartoon character, you’re going to end up with caricatures, and it’s not necessarily racist. Probably. Maybe. A formulaic, classic Disney princess film with a black princess who gets her hands dirty and spends most of the film as a frog. A frog. The strategy of Disney characters, music, and plot. Alice’s sensitivity TED talk. Racism somehow survived two POTUS terms. Attacking individuals when voting doesn’t make a difference. The dangers of propaganda and distinction between hateful caricatures and innocuous ones. Acknowledging the time a film was made, not as an excuse, but to understand them.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno + Mother!

Posted on May 30, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
Zack and Miri Make a Porno + Mother!

A sexy Double Feature, courtesy of Kevin Smith and Darren Aronofsky, so strap in and strap on. What’s the opposite of a reward? Hatefucking? The stages and trajectory of Kevin Smith’s film career and audiences. The end of Phase 1 Kevin Smith via Zack and Miri Make a Porno. The impact of a film bombing. One man, one woman, and a porno. Does sex + a camera = porn? Coming down on the wrong side of questions. Snipping and tossing title phrases. Film title punctuation! Mother! Metaphorical actors, metaphorically fucking. Darren Aronofsky has sex with the Earth. Films that cannot work on a literal level. There is no sky pig. Beating Catholics. And beating the audience over the head to differing effects. Aronofsky’s film career trajectory.

Get On the Bus + Chan is Missing

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
Get On the Bus + Chan is Missing

Road movies with non-white casts. Spike Lee’s Get On the Bus and Wayne Wang’s Chan is Missing. Get on the Patreon. Spike Lee’s contemporaneous Million Man March film is a bottle film and road film. But it’s not a Circle. Spike Lee does not care for subtlety because he’s too busy being right about shit. Resolving your infighting so you can unite to fight the bigger, shared problem. Go watch Chan is Missing. Racism against Asian Americans is probably not getting fixed until we fuck it out of each other. The film that laid the groundwork for terrible, big, dumb Asian American films like Crazy Rich Asians. It was all about the journey. Surpassing Citizen Kane without getting any of the recognition for it. Chan is Missing is a perfect film with imperfect marketing. Forcing yourself to watch incredible films instead of thinking they aren’t relatable for you.

The Changeling + Gothic

Posted on May 16, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
The Changeling + Gothic

Horror, old and new. Gothic and The Changeling. Not the 2008 film. Or any of the other Changeling films. The spooky chair one and a definite article. Empty chairs that get lots of attention. Person vs House. Michael learns how to pronounce succession. The solid plots of old horror films. Choosing not to address the spooky stuff. Not giving the audience a release until the climax. Old school and modern risers. Production takes time. There are no answers to Gothic. Michael’s introduction to Gothic and terrible cuts of horror films. Eyeball nipples. Music that’s excited to be in the film. You cannot simply be told what Gothic is.

A Bittersweet Life + The Man Who Wasn’t There

Posted on May 9, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
A Bittersweet Life + The Man Who Wasn’t There

Films about characters driven by the absence of agency. Tokyo Drifter returns as Jee-woon Kim’s A Bittersweet Life. A loyal enforcer who fails to do his job by doing the moral thing. Flexing on ’80s street thugs. Dudes be fighting and toxic masculinity. Having the choice to escape and have a better life. Eastern versus Western mob movies. Passing up the chance for redemption. The Coen Brothers’ noir flick, The Man Who Wasn’t There. You know, for kids. A barber who cuts hair well, but does everything else wrong. Thinly-veiled stories about the film industry. Financing films and Alice’s life as a filmmaker. Grifters as inciting incidents. Good old dark grey-blooded Americans. The masculinity of the ’50s. Fate happens regardless of your actions.

Starman + Visitor Q

Posted on May 2, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
Starman + Visitor Q

Visitors from afar come to John Carpenter’s Starman and Takashi Miike’s Visitor Q. Observing humanity from a non-human perspective. John Carpenter’s Starman fits right in with his other early films. The original Jeff Bridges uncanny valley. Movies where aliens just try to get back to their spaceships and leave mankind alone. Everyone still remembers Run Fatboy Run. The significance and impact of Carpenter’s career and films. Takashi Miike is the best, even after over 100 films. Visitor Q forces the audience to accept everything it presents to them. Making as many films as Miike forces him to be an experimental filmmaker. Shooting film on early digital cameras to look like a home movie. Has necrophilia been on the show before? Making something as fucked up as possible to get people talking about it.

Ginger and Rosa + How to Talk to Girls at Parties

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
Ginger and Rosa + How to Talk to Girls at Parties

Rebellion as a way of life. Ginger and Rosa, plus Alice learns How to Talk to Girls at Parties in an Elle Fanning Double Feature. You can’t half-ass activism. Your daddy fucking your best friend is going to be your biggest problem. Is hysteria the more sensible response to impending existential threats? The unsustainability of hysteria. Golden daddy dick. Infighting over the plan when you have the same goal. The power of personal narratives. Everyone would quickly stop caring if aliens landed on Earth. Punks in England. Do The Punkest Thing. Absurd, horrible punk one-liners. How punk is going to be remembered. Resisting authority. When Nicole Kidman shows up, you know it’s a real movie.

Cam + Demonlover

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
Cam + Demonlover

The internet destroys society despite the magic healing power of sexual intercourse. The horrors of technology in Cam and Japanese anime tentacle sex in Demonlover. Sex for another purpose. Alice just covers the films with things he wants to talk about, like sex positivity. Camming is just a fun thing we do sometimes. Double Feature, like camming, uses Patreon. Michael isn’t actually a cam girl. All movies are bad, except ones that respect the audience’s intelligence. Using the empathy machine to take the audience along with the film. Demonlover makes Michael reflect upon child pornography. We want films to be full of Klaus Kinski, not victims. The Internet and exponential increase in technology. Deepfakes, censorship, and invasive technology. The Congress infiltrates another episode. Technology surpassed everyone’s ability to understand what they’re giving up to tech companies. Alice and Michael are upset about the harmful uses of technology.

Killapalooza 36: Ginger Snaps

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
Killapalooza 36: Ginger Snaps

Ginger Snaps films 1-3. A comprehensive look at all that is Ginger Snaps. Why Ginger Snaps deserves a Killapalooza despite appearing to be a trilogy. It’s Ginger Snaps Day! Sequels that have seen the original, but not each other. Fuck Kickstarter. Long live the Patreon. Werewolf movies always suck, except for whatever one you’re watching right now. And Ginger Snaps. A non-tired werewolf metaphor: promiscuity. Unassuming aesthetics. Making film about subtext. Not worrying about fanservice. Boldly choosing not to retcon and ending up with an airtight franchise. Is there a line between period remake and prequel?

Keep An Eye Out + An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn

Posted on April 4, 2019 by Alice Thirteen
Keep An Eye Out + An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn

Two filmmakers who seem to belong nowhere but are perfectly at home together. Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber 4, aka Keep an Eye Out. How the fuck did this great movie get made? The miracle of making a good movie. Making indescribably weird films. Authorities tripping over their feet in new and interesting ways. Hate fucking the audience because all film is boring. Watch the opening scene of Rubber. Jim Hosking’s An Evening With Beverly Luff Lin. Sometimes the film is just about the journey. Choosing the constraints to use in experimental film. How acting works. Vamping for an entire act. Resisting the standard rules of narrative storytelling. How to still be weird if you make weird film. Get weird.