Hard Rock Zombies + Loose Change

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Hard Rock Zombies + Loose Change

INTERVIEW w/ Rebecca Watson. Conspiracy day! Walmart’s bargin bin. 80s hair metal exploitation. Accidental bad film making. The fear of accidental bad film making. What we take for granted. How to watch exploitation films. Not realizing where your real plot is. Dylan Avery background. The various Loose Change editions. Retroactively fitting evidence. Anomaly hunting. Argument from ignorance. No unified theory of 9/11 conspiracy. Loose Change as a magic trick. Fire melting steel. Evidence denial. Eye witness testimony. Alice’s conspiracy voiceover. Why deceive? Sylvia Brown. What’s the harm? Are conspiracies ever possible? Continue reading →

Death of a President + What Dreams May Come

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Death of a President + What Dreams May Come

Alternate Reality. Channel 4. Mockumentary. Do you believe it? The tools of alternate reality story telling. Controversial political motivation. Inspiring real life killers. Alice’s problem with the American legal system. Severity vs evidence. Hinting at a twist. Is racial profiling racist? Is it effective? The Double Feature Year 1 Experiment. Trying not to ignore the bad elements of a film. The WDMC laundry list. Paint world. Bullshit landscape painting. When even the visuals fail. Walking through the art styles and mythologies. Hypocritical predictability. What would you need to do to save this film? Continue reading →

Melinda and Melinda + Double Indemnity

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Melinda and Melinda + Double Indemnity

New Studio. Casting Your Film Twice. Will Ferrell as an actor vs a centerpiece. Unintentional theatricality and satire. Self examination. Drawing different conclusions from the same elements. Alice takes you back to the black and white days. Billy Wilder. Classic films or XXX? The elements – crafting the look and feel of film noir. Why we don’t do symbolism on the show. The femme fatale. A return to blasphemy: classic film noir Double Indemnity recast by modern cult horror director Rob Zombie. Continue reading →

De-Lovely + The God Who Wasn’t There

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
De-Lovely + The God Who Wasn’t There

INTERVIEW W/ Brian Flemming. Why we don’t do a whole lot of musicals. Musical self examination. The mechanics of setting your musical apart. Defining a life by occupation. If you call out your gimmick, does that make using it ok? Hidden meanings of pop songs. Literal interpretation. The funniest parts of the bible! The bible vs the constitution. Nothing is written in the bible that wasn’t knowable by man at the time it was written. Where’s the divine knowledge? God is infallible, so why are there mistakes and contradictions in the bible? Extreme christian literalists – the more honest approach! Jesus and the underpants gnomes. How you know 40% of Americans don’t actually believe the rapture is coming. Brian Flemming disputes our definition of a snuff film. Copyright, fair use, and creative commons. Continue reading →

Killapalooza 4: Halloween

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Killapalooza 4: Halloween

Halloween films 1-9. Michael Myers. What is a John Carpenter? The origins of slasher films. Why Michael Myers kills. What makes him unique. Jamie Lee Curtis. The zombie advantage. Dr. Samuel J. Loomis. Things you expect. Things Halloween doesn’t do. The Hospital as a setting. Big man tiny weapon. How Halloween 3 happened. A change of opinion – is recasting acceptable? False Michael Myers. Terror at 35 mph. Does Halloween have to go supernatural? Going off the deep end. Druids and conspiracy. Potential, original intention, and how it ended up. Pulling a series back on track. Writeoff or Retcon? Believable levels of retroactive continuity. Redefining icons. Why the H2O ending is justified. The single most insulting piece of film. Rob Zombie is the man for the job. Learning from the past. The work print? A Rob Zombie lovefest. Endings. Continue reading →

Big Trouble in Little China + The Enemies of Reason

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Big Trouble in Little China + The Enemies of Reason

Alice does Michael a favor. WTF is Big Trouble in Little China? The exploitation formula. Why Kurt Russell wasn’t high on the set. Brilliant or an accident? The creatures on display. John Carpenter’s effects over the years. The lost dimension of packed theater reactions in the 70s and 80s. Dawkins playing Russell. The look of a Dawkins documentary. Astrology. The Barnum Effect. Cold reading. James Randi. Darren Brown. Sylvia Brown (not related). Michael gives Alice a live psychic reading. Deepak Chopra. How Spiritual leaders beat scientists. It’s hard to hate the gleefully ignorant. Debunking Homeopathy simply by explanation. THE SAND BEETLE. The mystery of therapeutic touch, solved! Continue reading →

Me and You and Everyone We Know + Primer

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Me and You and Everyone We Know + Primer

Why Spoilers? Funny or artsy? Art and pretension. Child Actors. ASCII. Titular line. Cinema’s first funny poop joke. Being overprotective of your children. Predators and sexuality. Does the film know what it is? How to talk about Primer. Establishing characters. Not dumbing down your film. A new method for creating a puzzle. Clever writing tricks. Breaking down Primer. Comfort film. Creating discovery. Minimalist writing. The mechanics. Ethics. HAMSTER STYLE. Paradoxes. Time lines. Personal gain. Interpretations. You can’t hold back technology. Continue reading →

Magnolia + Kinky Boots

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Magnolia + Kinky Boots

Addiction. VCR filmmarkers. Challenging scenes to film. Ensemble Casts. Events that didn’t actually happen. Urban legends. Alice ruins the magic. Meta. The performance and character of Tom Cruise. Casting and marketing. Three acts. Incredible pacing. The infamous WTF scene. This shit isn’t a dream. Potential trainwrecks. Drag as a component vs as a freakshow. Romance be damned! MIKE’S MAGIC STUFF. Will feel good films ever mature? Boot making montage. Background characters. Continue reading →

House of 1000 Corpses + Waco

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
House of 1000 Corpses + Waco

A word on Roadracers and Mean Girls. DVD menus. Enthusiastic directors. The first Rob Zombie! The work of Sid Haig and Bill Mosley. Working with and moving on from camp. Rainn Wilson. Good slow zoom? That bizarre sci fi TV style. Comfortable antagonism. No sense of danger. Enthusiastic film making. Who this film is actually for. What people think went wrong. Smaller roles. Music. The infamous scare shot. Rob Zombie’s impending legacy. Assuming prior knowledge. Non narrative, fact based style. Horrifying images. Double Feature gets to the bottom of Waco. An experiment in skepticism. When the severity of crime distracts from the question of guilt. Continue reading →

Touch of Evil + The Terminal

Posted on February 19, 2009 by Alice Thirteen
Touch of Evil + The Terminal

The film noir game. Directors cuts. The players. Noir takes across the decades. The original noir. Impact on women in cinema. The fat suit that ate Orson Wells. Long tracking shots. Breaking tradition. Only on Double Feature: Film Noir recast with modern director/actor groups. Robert Rodriguez’s Touch of Evil. The Steven Spielberg filmmaking formula. Visuals. Tom Hanks. Art vs Entertainment. Handling a bizarre premise. 9/11. Why the goat really upset Alice. The opposite of the ends justifying the means. Offbeat to feelgood in one scene! Rules. Continue reading →