Trilogy in Theory

On this episode we are joined by actor Adam Guthrie to attend a cinematic party of CAN’T HARDLY WAIT and SUPERBAD. This extremely white pairing has oddly been inspired by the trailer for the Sundance hit DOPE which just went into wide release in America, and as you will see in our spoiler-free review of this film, there’s a lot more to it than just high school hijinks.

On this episode we celebrate our 150th episode by taking a journey within ourselves, which doesn’t get particularly deep as we just end up watching FANTASTIC VOYAGE and INNERSPACE. Those silly but classic films are inspired by what looks to be a new classic from Pixar in INSIDE OUT.

On this episode we take a look at the theme of revenge, something we know quite a bit about if you look at some of the movies we’ve made the other watch for this very podcast. In this particular instance we will be joined by guest Web Bist from the movie podcast IT'S TERRIFIC to watch anthology films filled with vengeance, such as the 1972 version of TALES FROM THE CRYPT going up against the George A. Romero/Stephen King collaboration in CREEPSHOW. This combination of vengeful short films has been inspired by the video release of the 2014 Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film nominee WILD TALES.

On this episode we return to Jurassic Park with the new release JURASSIC WORLD. Choosing the following double feature didn’t require too much thought, and some would say the same about watching the sequels THE LOST WORLD and JURASSIC PARK 3. So we instead reserve our deep thoughts for the footwear of Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt, pick on terrible child actors, and of course play a game of Hot or Not matchmaking with William H. Macy.

On this episode we look at films on talk show breakdowns. This comes naturally to us since we already have a failed talk show in this very podcast, so we watch two other gentlemen dealing with their own personal demons in the format. In Oliver Stone’s 1988 film adaptation of Eric Bogosian’s stage play, Bogosian plays Barry. A rude, contemptuous talk show host becomes overwhelmed by the hatred that surrounds his program just before it goes national.

Barry and Talk Radio go up against the shock jock Jack, played by Jeff Bridges in the 1991 movie THE FISHER KING, directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Richard Lagravenese. Here instead of a breakdown on air, we see the damage that can be done off air, as an offhand remark sends a listener into a restaurant with a gun, where he guns down a man’s wife and causes the husband played by Robin Williams to hide his grief by living in a fantasy world.

Heavy stuff, with strange doses of comedy make for a perfect double feature to followup new to video WELCOME TO ME.

On this episode we look at films set in small towns with big secrets. The 2007 action comedy HOT FUZZ from writer and director Edgar Wright stars Simon Pegg as an annoyingly straight-laced cop exiled by his less professional London colleagues to a small English village with very little crime… that is, crime that the townspeople recognize as crime.

Our second film is a mixture of a remake and a sequel to a 1976 horror film, sharing the same name of THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN. In this new 2014 version, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon delivers a funny, scary, and stylistically cool slasher film about a masked serial killer stalking a small town in Texarkana, and the townspeople who dread reopening this decades long wound of previous murders.

But first, a smaller film that we have been looking forward to in this summer of disappointing big budget kids movies in WE ARE STILL HERE. The writer and director of that film Ted Geoghegan joined us to talk about his fun new horror film.

So this episode exists because co-host Chris Maynard was wronged into unnecessarily watching The Human Centipede for the podcast. And now we are about to wrong you the listener with a War Machine vs. War Horse special looking at the entire Human Centipede trilogy. To make this undesirable cinematic act more palatable I have tried to make this as much of a clip show as possible, with a little help from my barking dog during the recording process leading to ample opportunities to spotlight creative work I actually like and promote another podcast @FromPage2Screen. But first a look at the third Human Centipede.

On this episode we look at Cameron Crowe's repeated professional meltdowns, some leading to more cinematic success such as JERRY MAGUIRE and then the familiar formula not working in ELIZABETHTOWN. Peter from Hydrate Level Four and the Original Remake podcast joins the show to see if Crowe's new film ALOHA is a remake of the charm of his earlier work or the missteps seen in his later filmography.

For the remake of POLTERGEIST we look at two other cursed properties in cinema that were eventually remade way back in 1999. Along the way we answer the very important question of whether or not Catherine Zeta Jones "owned it" in THE HAUNTING and explain what happens when two people really love each other in the HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL.

For TOMORROWLAND, we look at former animated film directors making the leap to big budget live action properties with Tim Burton’s very successful BATMAN going up against Andrew Stanton’s box office disaster JOHN CARTER. Hopefully with his new expensive summer film, Brad Bird continues to carry over his success from MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL.

GUEST: Josh Dotson from the podcast PROJECTING FILM helps us project the fortunes of TOMORROWLAND, and warns of the peril of Bat-Dancing breaking out again.