The Shawshank Redemption + The Human Centipede 3

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
The Shawshank Redemption + The Human Centipede 3

Double Feature year 10 comes to its logical conclusion. The Shawshank Redemption and a quick word on Stephen King. Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, but not in a prison-bondage centipede kind of way. It turns out the Shawshank Redemption isn’t a movie about standing outside in the rain. Timeless elements of films with and without centipedes. The minimalistic appeal of a prison film. The Human Centipede 3 as the final sequence! A warden finds inspiration in cinema. Michael Koester, Human Centipede expert. Using a sequel to bring real world elects of a film’s reception and legend into the fictional canon. The percentage of American in the prison system, prison system, has doubled since 1985 they’re trying to build a prison! Continue reading →

Legend + Krampus

Posted on June 14, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Legend + Krampus

Monster worlds on sound stages! A young man must stop the Lord of Darkness from both destroying daylight and marrying the woman he loves. Well, pretty much that. How Legend is unlike anything else and maybe – just maybe – what it’s about at all. A magical place called Spooky Burbank that is actually called Magnolia Park. The former glory of Creature Feature and the always-glory of Tim Curry. Who needs an audience surrogate? Krampus and the inevitable countdown until Trick r Treat talk begins. A boy who has a bad Christmas ends up accidentally summoning a festive demon to his family home. The audience’s inexplicable need to try their hardest not to understand the tone of Krampus. Continue reading →

Jackie + The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Reifenstahl

Posted on June 7, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Jackie + The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Reifenstahl

Presidents and propaganda gets an epilogue! Discovers from looking at fictional adaptations of presidents’ lives and documentaries that are implied to carry the truth. People around the president. Finding more truth in fictional accountings. The desire of fictional narratives to find what feels like “the Truth.” Closer study reveals just how large gaps in knowledge are. Just what is propaganda? Judging an entire person’s life based on one thing they did decades ago. The power of filmmaking. Demanding moral choices from artists. Art that is clear on moral grounds vs art that is a valid use of time and resources. Film as the least rewarding bang-for-buck on the question of resources. Continue reading →

Director’s Cut + Everybody Wants Some

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Director’s Cut + Everybody Wants Some

Double Feature goes behind the movies! A look at the making, production, and intention of two movies with the name Michael Koester somewhere buried in the credits. Spot the hosts of this podcast within the background of these two movies. Alice Thirteen, executive producer of Director’s Cut, talks about a bunch of work other people did on Director’s Cut. After years of waiting for Penn Jillette and Adam Rifkin’s film, countless behind the scenes streams and footage, a multitude of festivals and various interviews, what’s still left uncovered? Results of the Director’s Cut experiment that you would never know by simply watching the film. Interesting artistic results discovered in editing. Michael explains what it’s like to be hired on as an extra for a movie. Petty film set issues that make it not that much different from your own job. The parts of film making that are truly magic, and how working a 16 hour day threatens to destroy them. Continue reading →

Scent of a Woman + S1M0NE

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Scent of a Woman + S1M0NE

Two Al Pacino films that tell us about humanity. Scent of a Woman as a film that was definitely of the time. Taking a stop down for the question of “how did this get made?” A prep school student needing money agrees to “babysit” a blind man, but the job is not at all what he anticipated. That’s right, Scent of a Woman is just The House of the Devil. In Simone, styled as S1M0NE – a producer’s film is endangered when his star walks off, so he decides to digitally create an actress to substitute for the star, becoming an overnight sensation that everyone thinks is a real person. How Simone predicts the 45th presidency and, perhaps more usefully, its supporters. Continue reading →

Basket Case + The Funeral

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Basket Case + The Funeral

Films about brotherhood from notorious 42nd street directors. What is (or was) 42nd street? The revival theater. Audience consent and the church of unacceptable behavior. A young man carrying a big basket that contains his extremely deformed Siamese-twin brother seeks vengeance on the doctors who separated them against their will. New York City, the 1930s. A powerful crime family is caught in a lethal crossfire between union organizers and brutal corporate bosses. Against this turbulent backdrop, the family’s three street-hardened brothers and the women they love are about to be plunged into a deadly confrontation with their enemies, with each other, and with their own dark heritage of violence, madness and murder. Continue reading →

Charley Varrick + The Nice Guys

Posted on May 10, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Charley Varrick + The Nice Guys

Rooting for bad people. How human conflict helps audiences enjoy the bad acts of bad people. Charley Varrick is a self interested man who doesn’t seem too bothered by everyone around him being shot, tortured, or meeting an otherwise terrible fate. When a small immoral act turns out to have been a big one, how does the responsibility of having committed it respond? Shane Black’s history of pulp’d fiction. The little American Pulp novel and the little Italian yellow novel. People love conflict! Successful conflict and its relationship to the fuck-you-ending. Rolling the bolder up Franz Kafka Hill. Continue reading →

Glen or Glenda + Fear of a Black Hat

Posted on May 3, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Glen or Glenda + Fear of a Black Hat

Yesterday’s movies with today’s progressive ideas. Two films that may have found an exploitation hook and used it for something socially positive. Edward D. Wood Jr.’s Glen or Glenda. LGBTQ politics from the 50s, as viewed today. An anthology film with several extra narrative devices and no short-form content. Repetitious stock footage and repetitious stock footage. Idea that think they’re clever and repetitious stock footage. The infectious enthusiasm and inspirations of a series of public failures. Who’s Afraid of a Black Hat? Not the Sundance film festival. Fear of a Black Hat and Public Enemies’ Fear of a Black Planet. The accidental dog whistle that keeps white folks dancing. Criticism that’s kept in-house. The case of public face and private face strikes again. How far can and should metaphor go? Continue reading →

Matador + The Apartment

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Matador + The Apartment

Problematic sex gets more problematic. First up is Pedro Almodovar’s film Matador! An ex-bullfighter who gets turned on by killing, a lady lawyer with the same fetish and a young man driven insane by his religious upbringing – these are the main characters in this stylish black comedy about dark sides of human nature. Second up, Billy Wilder’s movie The Apartment. The heat is turned up on office politics when a man allows his boss to use his apartment for romantic encounters. Sex ones. An apartment to have sex in. Continue reading →

Tragedy Girls + Ingrid Goes West

Posted on April 19, 2018 by Alice Thirteen
Tragedy Girls + Ingrid Goes West

Exploring two very different aspects of social media in modern society. Tragedy Girls as a commentary on branding. Set up a humorous device, overcome audience expectations. The narcissism potentially illuminated by social media as told through absurd extremes. Best of friends, stick together! Be your best self, even if that means stabbing your peers to death. Ok, maybe don’t do that. Ingrid Goes West, audience is hash-tag-blessed. The annoying sounds of Instagram. The evolution of the word “stalker.” Exposing the somewhat creepy Hollywood networking strategies no one is supposed to talk about. Begging to be literally followed. Society needs a stop-down two think deeper on wanted attention vs unwanted attention. Continue reading →