For our main topic of the week, we return to something we tried out last year to some success - a discussion of horror movies in that spooktacular-est of months, APRIL! (Hey, if you've filed your taxes you know what we're talking about). This time Jack discusses four movies - three of which Andrew has seen - and they go across the spectrum from Italian exploitation, 90's urban, 80's "slasher" (in name only), and late 70's true full-blown WTF surrealist work. Let's get scared!

1) Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980)

2) Bernard Rose's CANDYMAN (1992)

3) Clive Barker's HELLRAISER (1987)

4) Don Coscarelli's PHANTASM (1979)

Los Angeles. 2019. What about New Jersey. 2016. Hmm? How deep can one go into the world of what many consider THE science fiction film-noir hybrid in the history of the cinematic art-form? Blade Runner is cited as Ridley Scott's masterwork, loaded with visual splendor (via the great Douglas Trumbull and his team), and featuring Rutgetr Hauer at his Rutger-yest. But is it a movie that is, shall we say, *coherent*? What does it have to say about humanity or what it means to be a Replicant? Is Deckard a Replicant and, more to the point (this is not a question) who should care.

Andrew seeks to know all there is to know, and now you can insert Roy Batty's speech about seeing things here. Let's dive into the 1982 thriller-classic. If you want to let us know what you think of this movie, email us at [email protected]

(Vanglis music and clips via the movie, used under fair use)

First up on this new episode of the Wages of Cinema Jack and Andrew discuss the brief but (thank goodness) aborted plan by AMC to allow texting in theaters; a brief talk about The Magnificent Seven (remake) trailer and Westerns in popular culture; and then at 26 minutes in, Jack talks about some movies he watched in the past couple of weeks. What sort of movies? The range goes from a (sadly late) pop icon to Disney once again going into their collection for a new franchise, a lost piece existentialist despair, and a documentary on cine-maniacs.

(Jack's movies):

1) DISNEY'S THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016)

2) PURPLE RAIN (1984)

3) ELVIS & NIXON (2016)

4) THE STRANGER (1967)

5) BORN TO BE BLUE (2016)

6) CINEMANIA (2002)

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(Music feautring Duke Ellington via Public Domain; Prince and Christopher Walken used under fair use for analysis purposes)

First up on this new episode of the Wages of Cinema Jack and Andrew discuss the brief but (thank goodness) aborted plan by AMC to allow texting in theaters; a brief talk about The Magnificent Seven (remake) trailer and Westerns in popular culture; and then at 26 minutes in, Jack talks about some movies he watched in the past couple of weeks. What sort of movies? The range goes from a (sadly late) pop icon to Disney once again going into their collection for a new franchise, a lost piece existentialist despair, and a documentary on cine-maniacs.

(Jack's movies):

1) DISNEY'S THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016)

2) PURPLE RAIN (1984)

3) ELVIS & NIXON (2016)

4) THE STRANGER (1967)

5) BORN TO BE BLUE (2016)

6) CINEMANIA (2002)

https://www.facebook.com/wagesofcinema

https://www.twitter.com/wagesofcinema

(Music feautring Duke Ellington via Public Domain; Prince and Christopher Walken used under fair use for analysis purposes)

What happens when a director from Russia who's mostly only done music videos involving Go-Pro cameras that involve the word 'Motherf***er' in the title (no, really, look up Ilya Naishuller and you'll see what we mean) a $10 million budget, Sharlto Copley, and not just some of the guns and ammo and stunt-men game for anything (including having aforementioned Go-Pros)?

Well... I hasten to think of what else aside from Hardcore Henry, the latest 'Timur Bekmambetov Presents' feature (you remember him, right, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, class A work!) What did we think of it? We had some thoughts (not to mention, at the start, about AMC's Dolby Prime screens, which we almost saw this in... almost the key word).

Remember to email us with any thoughts or questions to [email protected] and you can visit us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Wages of Cinema Podcast.

The realm of time travel movies is all about the 'What if you COULD do this' scenario. We all think about this, what if you could make your life better or make more money or make this girl or boy fall in love with you, or stop an assassination from happening.

With Shane Carruth and his first feature film, 2004's Primer, he wasn't so much interested in the 'what if's as much as showing hardcore, honest-to-goodness scientific PROCESS. How does the procedure work to put together a box made out of metal and screws and electrodes and full of energy from car batteries (if that's what it takes) to make time travel possible? Is there a method to it? Should we even know about it?

Jack looks this week at this stone-cold science fiction take on the time travel scenario - a flip-side, one could say, of our previous Cinema Immersion Tank episode of Andrew's Back to the Future episode - and if it gets and deeper or more revelatory after 5 viewings in 5 days.

Sometimes when you try to talk about any art form, and particularly for movies and cinema, certain buzz words are hard to escape. One of those is 'pretentious'; the dictionary calls it "attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed."

Of course you can use some other words in place of it - overbearing, ostentatious, pompous, elaborate, extravagant, high-faluting - or say simply you've got your head up your butt. But let's talk about that head up the artist's butt - what is it doing there? How did it get there? What happens when an artist takes risk and skims the line between being for his or herself and disconnecting from an audience?

Jack and Andrew talk about the subjective use of the word, how it applies to cinema and various movies (it ranges from Fantasia, Terrence Malick's films like Tree of Life and Thin Red Line, to Shyamalan's Lady in the Water and The Happening to the blockbusters Prometheus and, yes, Batman v Superman). Should this even be a word for criticism? We get DEEP into it, folks! This is important! Oh, wait...

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On this illustrious 44th episode (first part) of the Wages of Cinema, we discuss at the top of the show some possible idea for future episodes from emails we received; at 9:20 there's some time to talk about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Disney and Gareth Edwards' trip into an anthology series which gets a trailer; at 26:20 we then get into a talk about the Richard Donner Superman, which Andrew watched for the first time, and it ends up coming back to the g-ddamn Batman v Superman; and at 44:30 Jack talks some movies he's seen in the past week.

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(music from John Williams' Superman theme used under fair use; other tracks are Vivaldi and Duke Ellington, public domain)

What's it like to work as a production designer? Or as part of the art direction crew? What do you do if you have to make sure Dominic Monaghan's on-screen jacket is there? Or do color correction for a commercial directed by a comedy mega-star? And what do all of these things lead up to seeking a career as a sketch comedy filmmaker - with feet deeply in Upright Citizen's Brigade - into a new series on YouTube?

You can ask Jeff Rabinak all these things, and that's what we're doing this week with the a man who has had many hats in the world of production: design, animation, editing, color correction, writing, directing, he (almost) does it all! Good conversation about things like going from Syracuse University to working on low-budget films in LA (and AFI school productions, which is completely fascinating), and finding your niche in the world of short comedy involving the likes of Voldermort and Bill DiBlasio!

Make sure to check out https://www.facebook.com/CruelChildrenComedy/ and at youtube.com/cruelchildrencomedy for all of Jeff's sketches now online

(clips used by permission).

Want to hear us talk about a giant slew of trailers? Well, that's what we're experimenting with this week! Check out the link here for more, and listen to this intro to hear what's going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecf45UzfcEg&feature=youtu.be