Tremors + The Fog

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
Tremors + The Fog

Environmental Disasters, Double Feature style. The return of lazy Sunday movies. Graboids, goddamnit! The elevator pitch for Tremors. The people of Pleasant Valley. Why the protagonists stick together. Southwestern Rock. A town full of stereotypes. The least informed weapon treatment to date. The rules of the game. The smartest moron. No Killapalooza. Tremors: The Series. Jamie Lee Curtis continues her reign of awesomeness. John Carpenter tricks you into remember liking his movies days after you’ve seen them. The Fog as a villain. Michael commits to The Happening. Those greedy people who didn’t want leprosy! Changing your movie after you finish filming. Finally: the new donation idea! Continue reading →

300 + Rambo 4

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
300 + Rambo 4

Action films with artistic vision. Why 300 and Rambo are getting Double Featured. Zack Snyder’s 300 needs defending, but from who? If your problem with 300 is historical accuracy, you have a lot bigger problems than 300. Frank Millier and comic book dialogue. How does this compare to Frank Ephialtes as a clever writing device. Totally fake Black 20 300 PG trailer. The actual 300 trailer. Nine Inch Nails 300 fan edit. 300 and Feminism. Dilios is a great warrior, but a terrible poet. Why 300 needs to have such a stupid ending. PREVIOUSLY ON RAMBO. Sylvester Stallone’s career. Sylvester Stallone as a director. One of the goriest films in Double Feature history. Not kidding, we’ll go ahead and type that again. One of the goriest films in Double Feature history. Meat chunks. Why all the gore?! What Alice sees in blood and guts. Continue reading →

Stage Fright (Deliria) + Phenomena

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
Stage Fright (Deliria) + Phenomena

Italian horror, back to back. Artsy slashers. Michele Soavi / Michael Soavi and StageFright / Stage Fright / Deliria. Soavi and Argento. Deliria as a slasher film. Irving Wallace. Slasher naming conventions. Station wagons. Cats in the cupboard. The italian giallo sub-genre. Is Stage Fright a satire? Merging art and stabbing. The comedic scapegoat. Peter the Director (played by Brandon). Why the psychologic and the supernatural so often go hand-in-hand. How do you show a mental breakdown on screen? A humanistic love of crazy people. Do insects have telepathic abilities? No. Easing you into the crazy. Italian dubbing. What a clapboard is for. The pros and cons of dubbing. Music and score. Prog metal. Simon Boswell. What the fuck is happening at the end of Phenomena? Continue reading →

Coraline + Little Nemo

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
Coraline + Little Nemo

Childhood nightmares. Fantasy retreats. The real names behind Coraline. Who is Henry Selleck? What’s a Neil Gaiman? Who killed Amanda Palmer? Building a world and playing around in it. The most rundown theater in Chicago. Grey world. Parallels to MirrorMask. Otherworld (button world). Stageshows! There’s dark, and there’s fucked up. The unexpected. Does Coraline have bad parents? Little Nemo gets a DVD release. The child in a flying bed from the NES generation. Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland in contrast to Walt Disney. A world without rules…or physics. Anti-authoritarianism. The Nightmare King. Continue reading →

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang + The Invention of Lying

Posted on July 29, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang + The Invention of Lying

Comedies that trick their audience into thinking. Films that flirt with but ultimately mock the lowest common denominator. When your narrator is reliable (but a bad guy). A party of characters. Calling out the hamster style. Calling out film gimmicks using narration gags. Pulp noir. Calling yourself out. Noir satire. Hollywood. Alice still hates LA. Bullets go through stuff. Michael explains Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Comedy as misdirection. Why The Invention of Lying is actually really amazing (hint: the bullshit low-IQ comedy is just a disguise). The return of the trojan horse. Who is being trojan horsed? What is being trojan horsed? Experiments with lying. Is lying ever morally justified? In a world without lies, religion doesn’t exist. Why Double Feature loves science, skepticism, and atheism. In a world where lying doesn’t exist, is the first lie immoral? All of the listeners are going to die. Continue reading →

The Shining + Bright Falls

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
The Shining + Bright Falls

Secluded environments and the dangers hidden within. No Stephen King! The Shining – a movie so talked about that even preparing to discuss it requires its own conversation. Widescreen vs fullscreen with Stanley Kubrick’s helicopter. The icons of The Shining. Brows, bathrooms and naked parts. A correction on penultimate. Does The Shining have a sense of humor? Various interpretations given to the film over the last several decades. Native Americans. Finding holocaust stuff. Possession vs influence. The cold war and cabin fever. Can it all be in his head? The American family. TV does not actually rot your brain. TWENTY MINUTE PSYCHIC ICE CREAM. Talking house. Justifying the last shot. What the fuck is Bright Falls? Alan Wake. The legacy of Twin Peaks. The small town. Rather than handing the audience answers…what are the best tools for solving the mysteries? Continue reading →

Reservoir Dogs + Desperado

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
Reservoir Dogs + Desperado

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez go back to back, once again! Two incredible films by incredible film makers. Why you always put Quentin Tarantino first. Tarantino’s signature. Quentin’s first scene. Well known strengths. Who is the rat? Non-linear story telling. Spectator cinematography. The trunk shot. The Vega brothers. Desperado, the Mexico trilogy, and the best opening scene of all time. Action set to an imaginary beat. Cheap filmmaking tactics. Accomplishing the impossible. Film school. Robert Rodriguez teaches you film making techniques for FREE. Quentin Tarantino…acts. Some stuff on Predators. What’s next for the carnival? Continue reading →

Double Feature Year 2 Finale

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
Double Feature Year 2 Finale

SPOILER FREE SHOW! The Year Two retrospective. Two fucking years of weekly Double Features. David Stieve has a Behind the Mask prize for you. Facebook chat. Where did all the interviews go? Honorarium. Vulgarity. Other people love The Spirit. More information on Dark City and Sway. How Double Feature is recorded. The Future of the Killapalooza. Alice still thinks the MC of the Music Box Massacre is a Jackass. The purpose of Double Feature. We hate James Cameron and LOVE Joss Whedon! The future of David Lynch on the show. Skeptics, atheists and…sometimes libertarians. Where do you get movies from? Pot and UFOs. Michael’s take on The Human Centipede. A Blair Witch theatre experience. Seriously, that Music Box Theatre host is a jackass. Drugs and birth defects. Repo vs The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A top countdown list from people who hate top countdown lists. Continue reading →

Mean Girls + Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
Mean Girls + Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Violent angry women! Fuck irony. There is nothing ironic about this Double Feature. These are two awesome films. Done. Why we wouldn’t change a single thing about Mean Girls. The outsider perspective. The absurdities of high school. Why Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron is the ideal conduit. Gossip! Anger! LOHAN VISION. The jungle metaphor. Mean Girls on religion. Abstinence. Becoming everything you hate. Evanston, IL. Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! as an example of everything Russ was about (and none of it at the same time). Meyer and nudity. The myth of Varla’s overwhelming hotness. Lori Williams is Billie, but she’s secretly Bam Bam. Haji is actually the hot one. The trailer. Overwhelming sincerity. Continue reading →

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind + Fight Club

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Alice Thirteen
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind + Fight Club

Two films about bottoming out. Insomnia. Actors who direct. Chuck Barris, Charlie Kaufman, and the Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. George Clooney likes to play CIA. Set design. Bleach bypass. Old Spice commercial. The Gong Show. Our secret CIA drone war with Pakistan. Is the Fight Club twist OK? A conversation for people who don’t care about the kitsch of Fight Club. Michael finally explains his Fight Club issues. Chuck Palahniuk. Hitting rock bottom. A better side of the Frankenstein myth. Film making techniques used to further the dirty impoverished tone of the movie. Homoeroticism! Continue reading →