Double Feature

Death in the family. The fallout of grief, loss, loneliness and isolation. It turns out Michael likes Alice’s double feature. The courage of The Eyes of My Mother pays off in a lengthy 2016 festival run covering basically everywhere a film could ever want to play. Making the unsafe bets as a filmmaker (and winning). Grief and the grotesque. How The Eyes of My Mother uses counter-intuitive editing to deliver on horror in an innovative and brutal way. Don’t Look Now and the layers of symbolism. What symbolism feeds the tone and what feeds the narrative. Continue reading →

A Double Feature Stockholm Syndome double feature. Dangerous cinema returns. When you put Helena in a box like you do (RIP Cubbiebear). The deeper issues actually at work in Boxing Helena are just regular issues but no one comes to movies where they live anymore. Helena the prop and the crazy man who has mommy problems. Between the panes strikes back. The central issues at the heart of the Patty Hearst story. Can Patty Hearst be both the victim of terrorism and herself a terrorist? Don’t miss the all new Additional Content.

A look at secret role China plays in big American films. Double Feature gets into the weeds on how blockbusters are assembled, from the creation of a bankable team to the financing and eventual distribution. America sees a martial arts niche and brings it to the United States. China loves American blockbuster action stars. Fake American films made by China. Imposter fake American films made by China that are actually made by Americans. The fake American companies funded by China that actually make the imposter fake Chinese rip offs of American films. Double Feature talks about The Meg because it’s easier. Where a cause or a symptom, streaming services play a role in the American devaluation of cinema.

A cynical look at technological progress. Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World. Just what kind of reveries is this about? A guy from Austin talks to an ex-Silicon Valley programmer about Werner Herzog questioning digital pioneers – and none of them have any answers. The problem of how to talk about future technological problems. An entire conversation about Idiocracy beyond “oh my god, it’s basically a documentary.” A society painted in shitty advertisements. The insane basic-income type ideas that will rule the future and how they compete with the vision presented in Idiocracy. Continue reading →

Horror non-horrors (which, it should be noted, is different than non-horror horrors). Alice Thirteen spares everyone else his own depression. Addressing the brilliant, frustrating, vital experience of A Ghost Story. Time’s flat circle doesn’t make it any less fucking sad. Michael Koester is the guy at the party who ate all the pie. It turns out there’s other stuff in A Ghost Story besides self-indulgent millennials and vegan pie. Maybe not on this podcast, but at least in the movie. What We Do In the Shadows: ok, so what is it we do in the shadows then? The many types of vampires, all living in harmony. Making special effects special again. Layers of comedy. Continue reading →

The contagion of madness. Blow Away, a film from a parallel universe where Jeff Bridges stars in Big Trouble In Little China and Tommy Lee Jones did time at The Rock. zMacro shots, they’re fucking everywhere. Being right inside the very bomb itself. Try to tell Blown Away it’s not getting away with exactly what it thinks it is. Go on, try it. Fatal Attraction spreads its wings. It varies but the smallest things. You never know how anything will change. The 90s erotic thriller by way of 1987’s Fatal Attraction. Warning: beware of falling mania. Unique traits of the erotic thriller genre, where that audience was before, and where the audience lives today. Continue reading →