Up! + The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Up! + The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

You don’t need to see Up to listen to this. Time for a lighter episode of Double Feature. The Original Up! by Russ Meyer, not the Pixar film! How was there seriously any confusion about that? Rob Zombie uses the chapters. The Russy Meyer body type. Who is this director anyways? Nudie cutie films. Feminism. Sexploitation. Revenge films. What separates Meyer’s films from pornography. Mae West. Was this ever sexy? Screenings of The Haunted World of El Superbeasto. What’s better in the suburbs than the city? 2D film. Rob Zombie’s world. The character, in and out of character. Layers of references. A brief history of Dr. Satan. The songs. Double Feature retires Rob Zombie…for now. Continue reading →

Pi + The Fountain

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Pi + The Fountain

The work of director Darren Aronofsky. Alice’s ongoing struggle with the caffeine. Don’t actually watch these films back to back. Recognizing the signature of Darren Aronofsky. Come on, Pi is a LITTLE silly. Clint Mansell. How do you even classify this score? Editing. Creating the grainy monochromatic look of Pi. What that look and feel accomplishes. Where does the skeptic come down on all this stuff? A fun game to play at home. Repetition. Having your tools without knowing their best use. Macro effects. Hair loss. Why The Fountain is the most notable film ever featured on this show. Why you ball your eyes out. What the actors have to pull off. Relating to the future. Mayan nonsense. The absence of sound. Color. The part of Aronofsky’s signature that’s been lost. Continue reading →

Let the Right One In + Interview With the Vampire

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Let the Right One In + Interview With the Vampire

Vampires! Why were these films such outstanding critical successes, and what can we learn from that? Using children as a mechanism to tell a mature story. Vampires as a medium rather than a plot outline. Eli’s guardian Hakan. The brutality of Let the Right One In. How the film treats violence. Vampire lore here and in other movies. Films that use the Let the Right One In philosophy. Unanswered questions. What Interview with the Vampire did for the genre. Anne Rice. What the bookends accomplish. Vampire theatre! No one better say anything about how silly this all is, ok? How scope impacts a film. Roadmap. Continue reading →

The Nightmare Before Christmas + The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
The Nightmare Before Christmas + The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Two films everyone is too pretentious to have a simple conversation about. Why people give you shit for enjoying these two fantastic movies. Stop motion and hand-making every inch of your frame. Why the old Tim Burton Batman films are way better than you remember. Oingo Boingo. Where you can acquire hours and hours of Nightmare Before Christmas music you never knew existed. Contrasting Nightmare with Corpse Bride. Patrick Stewart. A bit on Repo: The Genetic Opera. How Alice and Michael may be reps ensile for getting The Rocky Horror Picture Show booted out of Chicago. Drew Carey is awesome. The relationship between Science Fiction Double Feature and the rest of the film. Saving movies you know will be good for a terrible day. Hammer Horror. A listener comes through. Glittermouse at the Metro! New create feature at AwesomeStart.com. Fringe is fantastic. Continue reading →

A Clockwork Orange + Elephant

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
A Clockwork Orange + Elephant

Ultraviolence! A word on Batman: The Animated Series. The visuals in A Clockwork Orange. Whats interesting about the cinematography, at what that means to the average person. Malcolm Mcdowell. The components of Alex. Alice’s defense of arthouse cinema. The two things good art does. An extended conversations about the thought experiments and moral questions presented. What’s practical, what’s moral, and what’s fucking awful in each turn of the plot. Is fear of God a moral reason to not commit violence? Even this synopsis of conversation about Gus Van Sant’s elephant contains spoilers. Elephant is not a film about real life events! When it’s ok to modify the events of something that actually happened. Rapid fire Elephant info. A really important message for listeners in high school. Why next week’s Double Feature is such a mystery. Continue reading →

Escape from LA + Expelled

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Escape from LA + Expelled

One of these films invokes Hitler, and you’ll never guess which! Where are they now: Snake Pliskin edition. Why people hate Escape from LA. Sequels made a decade later. The difference between New York and LA’s antagonists. Hampster style. 90s and soundtracks. The three most ridiculous things in Escape from Los Angeles. Intelligent Design is as much Creationism as Ben Stein’s film Expelled is full of shit. Atheism – a pretty solid guess! Dispelling the idea of Why Not Teach Both Sides? ExpelledExposed.com. Disagreeing with tactics rather than message. What’s wrong with the interviews. Did the documentary succeed? Eugenics. ONCE YOU HITLER, YOU LOSE. The worst final showdown of all time. Continue reading →

Escape from NY + Religulous

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Escape from NY + Religulous

A return to crazy movies and documentaries about irrationality…sorta. Post-apocalyptic dystopia. Potential connections to watergate. Countdown. Steampunk. Where do all these littered newspapers come from? The components of an anti-action movie. The Escape from New York score. Wide shots. Where the personality appears. Play along. Snake Pliskin doesn’t give a fuck. Why continue the war? Seeing Religulous with a packed theatre of atheists. Larry Charles. The founding fathers were not christian. Returning to: Does satanism really exist? The two atheist hosts of Double Feature have a ton of problems with Religious. Big problems. Trying to get laughs anywhere you can. Bill Maher’s solution to religion. Deception and the thin lines of documentary filmmaking. The enemy of your enemy is not Double Feature’s friend. Continue reading →

Music Box Massacre 4

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Music Box Massacre 4

SPOILER FREE look back at Music Box Massacre 4. The Haunted House, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Old Dark House, Eyes Without a Face, May, The Facts in the Case of Mr. Hollow, Friday the 13th, Midnight Meat Train, Dead Alive, Phantom of the Paradise, Black Sabbath, Pieces, Jack Brooks Monster Slayer, The Exorcist. Arriving. What to expect. When do you bail? Live score! Remakes were just as rampant back then. The audience. Fear of finding out who a director really is. Seeing May again. Johnny Hollow. Finding Midnight Meat Train. Clive Barker. “The Way it Was Meant to Be Seen” is bullshit. Buy a better TV, you cheap fuck. Why people in Chicago boo Lionsgate. Revisiting Friday the 13th (Part 4). Joseph Zito. Brain Dead. The real Peter Jackson trilogy. Sleep Delirium. Ghost Cold. Apologies to Black Sabbath. Pieces and it’s relationship to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Fake trailers. The ultimate SAND BEETLE. Michael feels the Pull of the Weasel. Death curse! Why the Exorcist is actually a terrible film. Continue reading →

A Scanner Darkly + Total Recall

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
A Scanner Darkly + Total Recall

Philip K. Dick and false reality. Don’t actually watch these films back to back. Drug culture, crazy people, and character studies. Coping mechanisms. Maintaining control. Individual motivation. An explanation of the scene where Connie turns into Donna. Breaking down the end of A Scanner Darkly. The police state. The work of Paul Verhoever. Based on We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. Total Recall’s vision of the future. Cars and weaponry. The connections between Total Recall and Scanners. Examining cult status. Revenge of the sand beetle. Shortest time to WTF. Patching the plot holes. The various twists and eventual ending. Next Time: Music Box Massacre! Continue reading →

Duel + Vanishing Point

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Duel + Vanishing Point

Car exploitation films: Drivesploitation. Roadsploitation. Carsploitation?? Two road movies back to back. Exploitation 101. High concept. Steven Spielberg’s Duel and the origin of modern road horror. Where exploitation films come from. The 1960 Peterbilt 281 tanker truck. Briefly entertaining the idea of no driver. Getting your talking out of the way. Why driving makes for great suspense. Exploitation endings. The quest for modern road films. A prototypical exploitation example – how Vanishing Point came together. DJ Super Soul! Who is Kowalski? Production tales. THE ending. Coming up: Music Box Massacre. Continue reading →