DINNER PARTNERS with Christopher & Eric

Midwest Mayhem departs the big and dirty city and heads to the bleak countryside for its second true crime pairing, the disturbing story of Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate, two young killers whose gruesome crimes shocked a nation and inspired numerous film versions in the years that followed. In THE REAL 'NATURAL BORN KILLER', CHARLES STARKWEATHER (BORN TO KILL), available to stream on the Our Life You Tube Channel, we're given a by the numbers retelling of a horrifying killing spree that crossed the great plains of the Midwest. But Eric hears a story the producers aren't telling, the tale of a young woman who used as her weapon of choice, not just a gun, but a man desperate for her love and approval to exact her adolescent fantasies of revenge. We will complete our true crime pairing on our next episode when your hosts serve up a 1970's art house director's dramatic interpretation of these very crimes — Terence Malick's BADLANDS.

Some days your hosts think this podcast should be retitled THIS IS NOT THE MOVIE WE REMEMBER. Such were the feelings of both Christopher and Eric when they revisited what many consider to be a classic mafia film. If by classic you mean shot through with the dangerously self-assured, vigilante ethos of the Reagan years and a penchant for absurdly wild spectacle that throws history out the window. The True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival brings you THE UNTOUCHABLES, a bafflingly popular shoot 'em up that helped launch the career of a young Kevin Costner while giving the great Robert DeNiro precious little to work with. Did David Mamet really write this script? Did studio notes wreck what could have been a great film? Could one of its key sequences have been about ten minutes shorter if logic had been employed or pretentiousness curtailed? Christopher and Eric tackle these questions and more as the first true crime pairing in Midwest Mayhem comes to an exciting (or not) conclusion.

Christopher and Eric kick off the Midwest Mayhem portion of their True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival with an all new true crime pairing devoted to two of the most mythologized figures in the history of American organized crime. Thanks to its snarky European producers, the documentary ELIOT NESS VS. AL CAPONE offers vicious commentary about the so-called land of the free. (To our Chicago based Party People, we beg your forgiveness in advance. We don't write the documentaries, we just serve them up.) But Eric was surprised by the film's fresh insights into the personality of the crusading Eliot Ness while Christopher struggled to keep track of which real life figures were being captured by its overwhelming flood of archival footage. It's all a set up for next week's discussion of the wildly popular Brian DePalma film THE UNTOUCHABLES, a cinematic exploration of the storied clash between these two men and modern day legends.

East Coast Carnage wraps up the second half of another true crime pairing as the True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival continues its exploration of the Son of Sam killings. Spike Lee is one of our most skillful and accomplished filmmakers. He's also no stranger to controversy. But does his film SUMMER OF SAM inspire the wrong controversy and for all the wrong reasons? Forget David Berkworitz or the investigation into his hideous murders. This film uses its all-star cast and extensive running time to focus exclusively on the vigilantism and fear the Son of Sam killings inspired in the community and not the investigation. Does it work? Christopher and Eric have many opinions on the matter.

East Coast Carnage heads to the Big Apple and the Five Boroughs as Christopher & Eric's True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival continues. For the first time, Christopher and Eric tackle one of the most notorious serial killer cases of all time, the Son of Sam killings, which terrified the New York area during the late 1970's. As they serve up this episode of WORLD'S MOST EVIL KILLERS: DAVID BERKOWITZ, your hosts question the killer's alleged insanity and his supposed adherence to Satanic beliefs. Did this case give birth to a hideous panic that would sweep the nation a few years later, warping both reason and due process in the decade to come?

East Coast Carnage continues on Christopher & Eric's True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival with the second in a true crime pairing about the Boston Marathon bombings.  The Peter Berg directed  film PATRIOT'S DAY offers some of the closest parallels between fact and fiction your hosts have encountered yet. But the film's glimpse behind the masks of the diabolical men responsible for this horrific act inspired Eric Shaw Quinn to do some additional research, prompting a probing discussion into the nature of radicalization and evil itself.

East Coast Carnage,  the next chapter in Christopher & Eric's True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival, kicks off with the Boston Marathon bombing, a horrific act of terrorism that's still fresh in many of our minds. Even though they thought they knew the story, Christopher and Eric were unprepared for the emotional impact of MARATHON: THE PATRIOT'S DAY BOMBING, streaming on the recently renamed Max. How do you move past a trauma when the evidence of it is literally written on your body? That's just one of many harrowing questions tackled by this enormously powerful documentary. It's also the first in a true crime pairing that continues in our next episode with a discussion of the Peter Berg directed Mark Wahlberg vehicle PATRIOT'S DAY as we compare, contrast and serve up the facts with the fiction.

In the final episode of California Screaming month, we bring you an all new installment of Christopher & Eric's True Crime Movie Time. This time they're opening the vaults and blowing the dust off some ¾'' video cassettes — otherwise known as scrolling through pages on Paramount + — to serve up this creaky, sanitized and maybe-not-quite accurate TV movie, THE CASE OF THE HILLSIDE STRANGLERS. After the crash course in serial killer depravity offered by their previous episode on the notorious LA serial killers, how does this dramatization hold up? A serial spree killing investigation that incorporates romantic intrigue and the distraction of a young Billy Zane's questionable mustache and wig, it leads us into an interesting discussion of why some horrifying true crime stories get the sophisticated big screen treatment and some do not. Most importantly, find out what part of the country the True Crime Movie Time Summer Film Festival is headed to next!

A new "true crime pairing" in California Screaming month begins with this latest installment of Christopher & Eric's True Crime TV Club, serving up a two-part documentary special about the case that ushered in a new era of human depravity and horror in the City of Angels. In episodes 7 and 8 of season 4 of VERY SCARY PEOPLE: "The Hillside Stranglers Part 1 and 2", host Donnie Wahlberg channels his inner Blue Blood to bring us the tale of a terrifying, seemingly random murder spree that claimed the lives of a diverse cross section of the city’s innocent women before it unveiled a house of unspeakable horrors in middle of an often overlooked Los Angeles suburb. The stunning and seemingly unconnected array of victims as well as the media's response raises intriguing questions about LA's sense of itself as a city with fluid borders. Next week, they'll serve up the second half of this "true crime pairing" with a 1989 TV movie based on the case.

California Screaming Month continues with the second in a true crime pairing devoted to a killer who has become more phantom than human, more conspiracy than evidence. When Christopher and Eric first watched David Fincher's ZODIAC years ago, they were both equally awed by its technical expertise and a laser-like focus on its subject matter. But how does it hold up against the blizzard of facts about the case they served up in their last episode? In the latest installment of Christopher & Eric's True Crime Movie Time, they bring you the film that is widely regarded as acclaimed director David Fincher's masterpiece. While Fincher comes down hard on a single potential single suspect, which side do Christopher and Eric end up on? And is it the same one?