Released at the height of Twilight fever, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009) tried to launch the next big YA franchise — and fell flat on its face. We’re going back to the circus to ask why this fantasy oddity vanished into the shadows.

Based on Darren Shan’s bestselling YA novels, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009) follows teenager Darren, who stumbles into a hidden world of vampires and sideshow outcasts after making a fateful pact with the mysterious Larten Crepsley. Directed by Paul Weitz and starring John C. Reilly, Josh Hutcherson, and Chris Massoglia, the film arrived during Hollywood’s rush to capture the Twilight audience. Instead of launching a franchise, it struggled at the box office and quickly disappeared from the cultural conversation.

How Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant blends gothic vampires with carnival spectacle — and why it doesn’t quite work.

The challenges of adapting Darren Shan’s sprawling book series into one movie.

John C. Reilly’s surprising turn as a vampire mentor and the mixed performances around him.

The Machine’s breakdown of box office results and critical reception for the film.

A few unexpected tangents, including the strange timing of the YA vampire boom.

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Tags: Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, 2009, Weitz, Reilly, Hutcherson, Massoglia, Fantasy, Vampire, YA

A dystopian hotel, a crime gone wrong, and one very dumb movie with a basketball death match.

This week, the Machine delivers five thematically entangled transmissions for Hotel Artemis — from siege thrillers to pop culture-saturated criminals.

WHAT YOU’LL HEAR

Five thematically related films that echo Hotel Artemis’ dystopian setting, crime-laden plot, or ensemble structure

A nostalgic riff on The Purge’s original script and its budget-conscious premise

Safe space shootouts and worldbuilding fatigue in John Wick: Chapter 2

The politics and pressure-cooker dynamics of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13

Surfboards, scalpels, and Snake Plissken in Escape from L.A.

Tarantino fatigue and Disney references in Reservoir Dogs and Hotel Artemis

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Tags: Hotel Artemis, 5 For Theme, Dystopian Crime, Siege Films, John Carpenter, Tarantino, Safe Zone Settings

In near-future Los Angeles, the Hotel Artemis treats wounded criminals — but our hosts are more concerned with countdown etiquette, 3D-printed weapons, and where Jeff Goldblum keeps his tiny hand bomb.

What you'll hear:

Heist etiquette, countdown anxiety, and why masks should stay on — even in your sleep

Sci-fi tech that makes no ergonomic sense (looking at you, jade egg communicator)

The Trailer Game returns: glitches, rules, and a guess about California Dreamin

The Machine delivers our next destination… in bones

A cryptic clue about someone named Darren and the horror dimension he rules

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Tags: Hotel Artemis, Jodie Foster, Jeff Goldblum, Sci-Fi, Heist, Dystopia, The Trailer Game

What if your health insurance got you shot?

In Hotel Artemis (2018), Jodie Foster runs a secret hospital for criminals in riot-torn Los Angeles — but despite ten unbreakable rules, nobody seems to follow any of them, including the movie itself.

Set in the not-so-distant future of 2028, Hotel Artemis follows a covert Los Angeles hospital for criminals operated out of an abandoned art deco hotel. As riots explode in the streets over water shortages, the hospital’s no-nonsense nurse (Jodie Foster) tries to maintain order among a roster of wounded guests, including a bank robber (Sterling K. Brown), an assassin (Sofia Boutella), and a volatile arms dealer (Charlie Day), while her loyal orderly (Dave Bautista) enforces a strict code of rules. Written and directed by Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3, Rogue Nation), and featuring music by Cliff Martinez, the film was released in 2018 by Global Road Entertainment — a now-defunct studio that collapsed shortly after its debut.

What's Included:

Why Hotel Artemis feels like a sci-fi movie made entirely of side quests

A breakdown of its box office fate, failed franchise setup, and forgotten studio

How Jodie Foster reshaped her role — and nearly saved the movie

Rules, riots, and the case against record players in dystopias

Which cast members could pull off playing Dirk Pitt (spoiler: most of them)

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Tags: Hotel Artemis, 2018, Drew Pearce, Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sci-Fi, Action, Dystopia, Global Road

The Machine wrests control of the list and serves up five films that echo, challenge, or outshine Body of Lies (2008). From Cold War shadows to desert firefights, these movies test the limits of trust, tension, and espionage on screen.

A black-and-white classic spy story with Richard Burton and moral fallout

The beard-to-weight Oscar conspiracy of Syriana

Why Spielberg’s Munich lingers longer than expected

The controversy, urgency, and Jessica Chastain of Zero Dark Thirty

Sicario and the Fox News uncle tightrope — plus a Daniel Craig sidebar

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Leonardo DiCaprio side-sips a beer. Landen sprays beer out his nose. Somehow, that’s still more memorable than anything in Body of Lies.

This Mini-Transmission spirals from forgettable marketing into prop comedy, actor auditions, and the least effective interrogation techniques ever recorded.

Why Body of Lies has one of the most boring posters and marketing campaigns imaginable

Truman and Landen’s beer-soaked reenactment of Leo’s bizarre drinking habits

A live-read audition of “Cut the bullshit, give me the information. What do you know?” (with escalating chaos)

The Trailer Game: what the marketing promised vs. what the trailer actually delivered

The Next Movie Reveal: June 8, 2018, with a clue — “No guns, no cops, no killing the other patients.”

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What happens when you take a CIA thriller, strip it of personality, and add brown contact lenses? Body of Lies (2008) is the rare war-on-terror drama that forgets itself while you’re still watching it.

Released in 2008 by Warner Bros. and directed by Ridley Scott, Body of Lies stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a CIA operative running ground operations in Jordan and Russell Crowe as his remote, micromanaging superior. Based on a novel by Washington Post journalist David Ignatius and adapted by The Departed screenwriter William Monahan, the film aims to unpack the moral murk of post-9/11 intelligence work—but ends up lost in its own signal noise. While DiCaprio chases terrorists, navigates drone surveillance, and courts a Jordanian nurse, Crowe barks orders from soccer practice and derails every plan by phone. Though it opened wide and grossed over $100 million worldwide, the film was quickly forgotten—its high-caliber cast, serious subject matter, and prestige trappings fading into a blur of glassy spy thrillers and Sunday dad naps.

How Body of Lies tries to critique U.S. counterterrorism—and forgets to have a point

A full debrief on Ridley Scott’s technical precision, emotional frost, and Russell Crowe’s “dad weight” era

The accidental comedy of DiCaprio’s brown contacts, deleted Poseidon jokes, and a romance built on rabies shots

Follow Movie Memory Machine for weekly transmissions from the strangest corners of film history.

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Tags: Body of Lies, Ridley Scott, Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, 2008, Spy Thriller, War on Terror, Forgotten Movies

Why this movie may have inspired more dad dreams than actual fans

What do Brazilian fight scenes, video game sound cues, and a referee with a whistle have in common? This Mini-Transmission dives into the sonic mayhem of The Rundown (2003), plays the easiest Trailer Game of all time, and ends with a cryptic new clue from the Machine.

WHAT YOU’LL HEAR

A spirited debate over whether a jungle fight scene is secretly reffed by a whistle-happy sports official

A haunting PlayStation startup sound hidden in the score

The easiest (and most accurate) round of The Trailer Game yet

A nostalgic fall down the hill — and into Hot Rod comparisons

A cryptic Next Movie Reveal: “Trust no one. Deceive everyone.”

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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s first big shot at movie stardom came in The Rundown (2003) — a jungle action-comedy from a studio that couldn’t decide what it wanted.

This week, Movie Memory Machine digs into the awkward birth of a blockbuster franchise that never was.

In The Rundown (2003), Dwayne Johnson stars as Beck, a bounty hunter sent to the Amazon to retrieve his boss’s son — only to run into rebels, a tyrannical gold mine operator, and more fruit-based slapstick than expected. Directed by Peter Berg and co-starring Seann William Scott, Rosario Dawson, and Christopher Walken, this Universal Pictures release was engineered as The Rock’s theatrical coronation. But despite a massive marketing push and a “passing the torch” cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film underperformed — derailed by studio hesitations, misaligned expectations, and a leading man caught between personas.

Directed by Peter Berg and released by Universal Pictures, The Rundown (2003) stars Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Rosario Dawson, and Christopher Walken.

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Tags: The Rundown, 2003, Peter Berg, Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Rosario Dawson, Christopher Walken, action comedy, forgotten movies, early 2000s cinema