DINNER PARTNERS with Christopher & Eric

Christopher and Eric kick off Back to School month, a quartet of episodes about the crimes endured by high school and college students as well as their loved ones. When Christian Aguilar begins his freshman year at the University of Florida in Gainesville, he's the first member of his family to attend college. But when he vanishes in the course of a single evening, his proud and devoted family vows they will stop at nothing to find the truth.  As Christopher and Eric serve up DEATH IN THE DORMS entitled "Christian Aguilar", episode 2 of season 1 on Hulu, they're riveted by this tale of devious and terrible revenge as old high school rivalries stalk the shadows of a promising new life.

There are bad movies and then there are truly terrible movies. But do any of them ever star Robert Duvall? Find out as Christopher and Eric bring you the second episode in a true crime pairing about the mystery of D.B. Cooper and his still unsolved skyjacking of an American airliner. Your hosts thought THE PURSUIT OF D.B. COOPER might make for a fun and frothy end to their True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival. Instead, they struggled to stay in front of their televisions while it played. Aside from a glimpse into the disastrous production that yielded this rightfully overlooked flop, Christopher and Eric explore the story they would have told about this confounding mystery and the relevance it still has to the American public.

After so many episodes of bloodshed and mayhem, Christopher and Eric bring their True Crime movie Time Summer Film Festival in for a soft landing. Here your hosts bring you a true crime pairing about one of the most talked about, argued about, debated about, and speculated about unsolved mysteries in American history, the mystery of D.B. Cooper. On Thanksgiving Eve 1971, a man claiming to be D.C. Cooper used a ransom note and a fake bomb to skyjack a passenger plane and rob the airline of a tidy sum in cash before allegedly parachuting to his escape. Or did he? THE MYSTERY OF D.C. COOPER on Max offers up a wild tangle of theories about who the real skyjacker was and where his hefty haul ended up. Too tangled, at times, for your hosts, who examine its strange cast of suspects with a skeptical eye. And what did Hollywood make of this incredibly bizarre story? Find out next week when Christopher and Eric discuss the 1981 film THE PURSUIT OF D.B. COOPER starring Treat Williams and Robert Duvall.

Pacific Northwest Nightmares continues. Christopher and Eric offer a frank and strong view about a made-for-TV movie that attempts to draw a connection between two of the region's most notorious serial killers. Despite a sterling performance by Cary Elwes as Ted Bundy, your hosts find little to admire in THE RIVERMAN, but much to dissect about the its real life subjects. Is this the story of an arrogant detective’s naked determination to hijack one investigation under false pretenses so he can solve a different case he failed to close years before? Or is it resume fabrication for yet another detective who falsely took credit for the success of an investigation he had nothing to do with in order to leverage his way into higher office and become a major player in right wing Washington State politics? Or is it both!? Find out as this true crime pairing about the Green River Killer concludes.

Don your waterproof slicker and pull on those thigh high rain boots. It's time for the storm drenched final leg of Christopher and Eric's True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival, Pacific Northwest Nightmares. Gary Ridgway was a predator so prolific and diabolical he became a household name. Better known as the Green River Killer, his decades long reign of terror in Washington State revealed police missteps, political machinations and an urgent need to embrace the humanity of sex workers before they became the victims of terrible crimes. Here, Christopher and Eric serve up the arresting Discovery ID special GREEN RIVER KILLER: MIND OF A MONSTER, the first in a true crime pairing that sets the stage for next week's viewing of THE RIVERMAN, a made-for-TV movie that attempts to draw a connection between Ridgway and another predator whose name haunts the Seattle area, Ted Bundy.

The Southern Sins portion of the True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival concludes with DEVIL'S KNOT, a screen adaptation of one the most widely publicized and divisive true crime cases in recent American history, the story of the West Memphis Three. But does this Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth big screen vehicle tell the story we came to hear? Your hosts Christopher and Eric have no shortage of opinions as fact meets fiction meets the constraint of a two hour studio film.

How have Christopher and Eric gone this long without discussing the Robin Hood Hill murders, the case that essentially gave birth to the modern day true crime genre? In this installment of Christopher & Eric's True Crime TV Club, they serve up THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE: AN ID MURDER MYSTERY, which encapsulates the dark saga of gruesome murder and rank injustice that divided a town and spawned several famous documentaries as well as a dramatic film adaptation. Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelly. How did these misunderstood small town youths become the West Memphis Three, a moniker that became synonymous with justice denied? Hint. The answer lies in a topic that never fails to bring your hosts to the boiling point, the Satanic Panic.

Southern Sins continues with the second in a true crime pairing. This particular installment of True Crime Movie Time presents a searing and disturbing cinematic look at a South Florida murder steeped in sexual repression, abuse and addiction. No stranger to controversy, director Larry Clark made a name for himself chronicling the lives of America's troubled and disaffected youth. So it's no surprise he turned his attention to the dark and twisted tale of Bobby Kent and the Florida teens who decided there was only one way to put a stop to Bobby's physical and psychological violence. BULLY is a gritty, unsettling and uncompromising look at a dark corner of America's youth culture starring a talented young actor, Brad Renfro, whose life was tragically cut short. But how does it hold up against the facts of the case?

Christopher and Eric kick off the Southern Sins portion of their True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival with this wrenching look at addiction and murder among a group of disaffected teens in the Sunshine State. Meet Bobby Kent, a popular and good looking weight lifter — and a bully so vicious his closest friends decided there was only one way to put an end to his abuse. This installment of True Crime TV Club serves up an old school episode of AMERICAN JUSTICE: Payback For A Bully, episode 5 of season 15.  (Remember Bill Curtis?) It's all set up for next week's discussion of the gritty and controversial film based on the case, BULLY directed by Larry Clark and starring the late Brad Renfro.

In their discussion of the 1973 film BADLANDS, Christopher and Eric wrestle with their own belief in artistic freedom while confronting a dramatized version of real life crimes that essentially rewrites history in its pursuit of artistic license. The directorial debut of American cinema icon Terence Malick changes the names to protect not just the innocent, but the guilty as well. While the movie claims to be inspired by the real life killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate (the reason we chose it for the pairing), their well-documented acts of sadism, torture and mutilation are excised, offering up a romanticized vision of two lonely outcasts whose crimes were mostly born out of misunderstandings and self-defense. Do filmmakers have more of a responsibility to the real life source material than was shown here? How reigned in should an artist feel by the facts of their source of inspiration? Christopher and Eric are only sure of one thing. Their final installment of Midwest Mayhem is one of their most provocative episodes yet.