Invasion fantasies aplenty

Original air-date: 11 - 26 - 12

Having seen the aforementioned Red Dawn remake, I still have no idea how they made the North Korean invasion plausible, and neither did the movie! So, everyone is in a recession and "they" have some kind of electronic super-weapon? Hrm, ok. But then they invade...Spokane...and nobody stops them. But then they explain...something, and lo, the Russians are helping them, at least like six of them. But the movie itself? Ehhhhthbbbt. A useless enough action film with amusingly bad CG replacing PLA paraphernalia with *snicker* North Korean flags and Korean text. We had a good time talking about all the cultural underpinnings, though, so good?

DVD release highlights:
MIB 3, Paranorman, Berserk - Arc 1

In theaters nation wide this weekend:
Killing Them Softly

We heard music from:

1990: The Bronx Warriors, 1982 - Walter Rizzati
Mission to Mars, 2000 - Ennio Morricone
Black Hole, 1979 - John Barry
First Blood, 1982 - Jerry Goldsmith

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Red Dawn this Black Friday.

I really hoped to see the new Red Dawn this weekend to see how exactly the film could depict North Korea invading the U.S. Frankly, envisioning a North Korean invasion of a KFC in Sheboygan, Wisconsin would be a stretch. Apparently the invading nation was changed from the plausible China to North Korea in post-production, probably so MGM and potential investors wouldn't alienate all the labor they've exported to China (and the distribution rights they've just purchased there). But seriously, in what geo-political alternative universe would that make sense? I really want to see this now, just to parse out more hilarious America-WWIII logic.

We heard music from the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1992 - Various
Miami Connection, 1987 - Various
Lost Boys, 1987 - Various
Doom, 2005 - Clint Mansell
The Breakfast Club, 1985 - Various

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This podcast is slightly shaken, and a little stirred.

On tonight's show we discussed the damned-if-we-ain't-gonna-build-a-franchise latest installment of the Daniel Craig reBondboot Skyfall. I didn't really care for it. This whole new franchise has somehow consistently created high expectations without actually ever producing a reason for high expectations. This new Bond franchise has prided itself on "realism" and a distancing from the hokum of Connerys and Brosnans past, but has not produced a truly engaging entry and now, as of Skyfall, is fully immersed in building another franchise that will inevitably eat itself through schlock and self-reference. And! As if that weren't enough, Skyfall is itself attempting to be a metaphor on the relevance of Bond the agent and, by extension, Bond the franchise in the Information Age. How convenient that the film's answer is: "Yep! He's still relevant! Old-dog...heh heh, you know the saying!" I'm not sure I agree based on the circular nature of this iconography. Thbbbt.

We heard music from the following:

Patton, 1970 - Jerry Goldsmith
Commando, 1985 - James Horner/Various
Skyfall, 2012 - Thomas Newman
Dr. No, 1961 - Monty Norman

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Wreck-It Speakerbox

Original Airdate: 11 - 5- 12

Hey, well, whadya know, we saw a new movie this week - the video-game-crossover-retro-arcade film Pixar never made: Wreck-It Ralph. Meh. I'm really surprised something like this hasn't popped up before - a pastiche of stuff from video games old and new; I suppose no one except Disney could afford the rights to use all those franchises. The film wasn't just a cameo-athon of games old and new, but a newer story based on game culture, which conversely made the cameos a little pointless. Still, the smarter card was played and this was amusing enough to divert.

Most of the garrulous gaff from this week's show regarded the uber-news that is Disney buying LucasFilm. So, that happened.

We heard music from:

The Empire Strikes Back, 1980 - John Williams

Robin Hood, 1973 - George Bruns, Roger Miller

Tron, 1982 - Wendy Carlos

Grim Fandango, 1998 - Various

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Halloween Special 2012

Horrible, harrowing Halloween Special tonight, ghosts and goblins. We discussed narrative theory in horror, some of our favorite October movies, and tasty candies. This one is for the ages. Download this just in time to gather around a candle and welcome in Halloween tomorrow night.

We heard from the following, creepily:

The Sentinel, 1977 - Gil Melle
Blood Sabbath, 1972 - Les Baxter
The Curse of the Werewolf, 1961 - Benjamin Frankel
City of the Living Dead, 1980 - Fabio Frizzi
It! The Terror from Beyond the Stars, 1958 - Paul Sawtell
The Return of Dracula, 1958 - Gerald Fried
Vamp, 1986 - Jonathan Elias
Near Dark, 1987 - Tangerine Dream
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, 1971 - Nora Orlandi
The Omen, 1978 - Jerry Goldsmith
Halloween, 1978 - John Carpenter
"Tales from the Crypt," 1989 - 1996 - Danny Elfman
Suspiria, 1977 - Goblin
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents," 1962 - 1965 - Charles Gounod
Poltergeist, 1982 - Jerry Goldsmith
"Friday the 13th: The Series," 1987 - 1990 - Fred Mollin
"The Outer Limits," 1963 - 1965 - Dominic Frontiere, Harry Lubin
"The Twilight Zone," 1958 - 1964 - Bernard Herrman

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We've got one more week!

Original airdate: 10 - 22 - 12

Halloween is, as it turns out, still coming up. We have a lot of incoming projects: dance parties and trivia and the like, and I am swamped with other bullshit.

We heard music from the following:

Beetlejuice, 1988 - Danny Elfman
Wishmaster, 1997 - Harry Manfredini
Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors, 1987 - Angelo Badalamenti
Ed Wood, 1994 - Howard Shore
Cannibal Holocaust, 1980 - Riz Ortolani

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A Sinister show that will be Taken with pleasure.

Original Airdate: 10 - 15- 12

October is halfway over already. I am very sad, not having devoted enough time to my horror interests this month, but I still have a fortnight to rectify! A friend and I have been plumbing the depths of the Hellraiser franchise this 'ween season, and that has sufficed somewhat. Pinhead is becoming one of my favorite horror villain mainstays. Where Jason is a no nonsense, laborious murderer and Freddy is a showman, Pinhead is this hilariously pompous, pontificating windbag who speaks only in mordant one-liners. Incidentally, my favorite line of his is "Such exquisite stench!"

Anyway, we kinda got into the holiday spirit with this week's film, Sinister. Seeing previews, I convinced myself that this looked a little spooky. I suppose some parts were, and I thought the film had a gimmick and mythology that would serve it well, but the scares weren't always consistent and it dragged out way, way too long. A few bizarre moments that played for slower, more disturbing chills were a nice surprise, but they couldn't, ultimately, compete with that running time. It was good for a few jumps, though, if that's what ails you in these holiday times. - Gaffer

I saw Taken 2, which was more or less a medium-octane series of whacky instructions from Liam Neeson to Maggie Grace on how to get her mom back via the most absurd methods possible. Using your tiny secret cell phone to get your teenage daughter to come into the den of bad guys to save you instead of calling your CIA black ops homeboy and his posse of killer elites...well, just makes about as much sense as a hat full of assholes. Though I suppose when you get to be as old as Liam and you're still running around punching Turkish dudes in the face, you're probably not the best decision-maker out there. Luc Besson, I didn't really expect "better", but I did expect more logical...wait, no I didn't.  - Boom Operator

We heard music from:

Dellamorte Dellamore, 1994 - Manuel De Sica, Riccardo Biseo
The Virgin Suicides, 1999 - Air
Flesh for Frankenstein, 1973 - Claudio Gizzi
The Big Blue, 1988 - Eric Serra

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We judged a few movies and talked way more than normal...

Original air date: 9-24-12
We return this week with a brace of reviews for new wide releases: Dredd and The Master. The former was something of a pleasant surprise, taking a smaller and less drastically speculative glance and everyone's favorite totalitarian sturmfuhrer. This Dredd was less of a larger-than-life character and the film followed a more mundane (though still dangerous) situation in Mega City One. A few unnecessary visual flourishes didn't quite detract from the overall minimalist style and setting; this is something of a Die Hard with cooler guns, but neither technology nor the somewhat grounded, occasionally quirky vision of the future are really foregrounded above the pure exposition. Unusual, and cool.

The Master, however, was high art, by god, and predictable in that Paul Thomas Anderson idiosyncratic, uncomfortable-as-fuck spazz-out way. A few powerful scenes, fabulous acting, meticulous construction, and yet the whole thing was a somewhat empty ode to artistry. At least, that's how it felt. PTA's movies are always weird dialectical experiences to me: I'm impressed, but I never want to watch them again.

We heard music from the following:

Conan the Destroyer, 1984 - Basil Poledouris
Judge Dredd, 1995 - Alan Silvestri
Masters of the Universe, 1987 - Bill Conti

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We interrupt this broadcast, because our shit died.

Original airdate: 9 - 17 - 12
Still no movies to report on, because all the movies in theaters suck mammoth cock right now. Well, as I type that first sentence our laptop has died right in the middle of our show! Our equipment is hilarious. We had to awkwardly cram all our talking into about ten minutes after the music failed, so, um, ehh, good show?

Tonight we heard music from the following:

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, 1991 - David Newman
Bird with the Crystal Plumage, 1970 - Ennio Morricone
Judge Dredd, 1995 - Alan Silvestri

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The toys in this attic have nothing to do with Aerosmith.

Airdate: 9 - 10 - 12
We were fortunate enough to get a screening of Toys in the Attic, an American repackaging of In the Attic, or Who Has a Birthday Today?, the traditional stop-motion feature by Jiri Barta. This film is going to feel utterly bizarre and unpalatable to anyone unfamiliar with older stop-motion productions. It took a while for the whole experience to settle over me, but when it did, it was satisfying in a way 10,000 Pixar and/or DreamWorks turds never will.

We heard music from the following:

Robocop II, 1990 - Leonard Rosenman
Point Blank, 1967 - Johnny Mandel
Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 - Jocelyn Pook
"Forever Knight," 1992 - 1996 - Fred Mollin
Get Carter, 1971 - Roy Budd
We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, 1993 - James Horner

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Beasts of the radio dial.

Airdate: 8 - 27 - 12
This only film seen this weekend was Beasts of the Southern Wilds, a Tree of Life-y mythology-concerning tale from the swampy post-apocalypse (sans apocalypse) New Orleans wetlands ("The bathtub"). It was ok, not fully understanding its own relationship with mythology and discursiveness as much as playing with imagery and environment, but I'll applaud the effort.

We heard music from:

Cookie, 1989 - Thomas Newman
The House of Flying Daggers, 2002 - Shigeru Umebayashi
Enter the Dragon, 1973 - Lalo Schifrin
Six-String Samurai, 1998 - Brian Tyler
Serpico, 1973 - Mikis Theodorakis
The Island, 2005 - Steve Jablonsky

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Adios Tony. Thanks for some movies.

Airdate: 8 - 20 - 12
So, sad news (I guess). Tony Scott, director of films one has to have the attention span of a gnat to watch, leapt from a bridge in Los Angeles to his death, presumably because he was suffering from brain cancer and did not want to convalesce (ok, now the news is that the whole brain cancer bit is nothing but a rumor, so who knows). Anyway, we played music from his movies.

I had a chance to see a couple of movies this weekend: ParaNorman and The Expendables II. The former was a cute stop-motion romp and ode to zombie films, the latter was an extended episode of Family Guy with aging action stars. The difference between the action films of yore is that they were slyly self-aware; Expendables seemed to occupy the same head-space, but this sequel is a fucking over-the-top wankfest of in-jokes and/or one-liners. All sense of involvement is lost as every major action star is trotted out, given a gun, given some old references to make for what ultimately amounts to one big joke that is only mildly amusing once, if at all.

We heard music from the following:

Top Gun, 1986 - Various, Harold Faltermeyer
Crimson Tide, 1995 - Hans Zimmer
Days of Thunder, 1990 - Hans Zimmer
Beverly Hills Cop II, 1987 - Harold Faltermeyer
Zombi 3, 1988 - Stefano Mainetti

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We vote No!

Original Airdate: 8 - 13- 12
For reasons known only to god and sonny Jesus the Boom and I went to see The Campaign this weekend. I can't even remember the last time I went to the theater to see a comedy, because I hate them.  I know, grumpy grump grump, but seriously, nothing falls harder than a shitty comedy. A shitty action flick, horror film, or otherwise genre-dependant outing that fails usually has some redeeming features for the appreciating viewer. A bad comedy however, fails in every conceivable way, and even if you laughed the first time, if there's no tangible context or grounding to care, a bad comedy cannot be redeemed; it is a dead cultural artifact. Even as the film riffs on real world referents like the Koch brothers, Diabold voting machines, and other American political exigencies, they're just empty gestures to a system that merely exists and cannot be changed; the satire, if present at all, is nihilistic. But worst of all? The shit isn't funny.

We music heard from the following:

Backdraft, 1991 - Hans Zimmer
Heat, 1995 - Elliot Goldenthal
Flashpoint, 1984 - Tangerine Dream
Wag the Dog, 1997 - Mark Knopfler
Galaxy Quest, 1999 - David Newman

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Total Redux

Original Airdate: 8 - 6- 12
What is there left to say about the new Total Recall movie? It exists. Films are products of their historical boundaries, and remaking them often removes their entire contextual flair, replacing them with boring au courant-isms and leaving the skeleton of a plot to dryly limp around. Paul Verhoeven's 1990 film was not high art by any stretch, but what a movie: explosive, beyond-parody exploitation. There's a hooker with three tits, a killer Olson twin, fifty prosthetic screaming Arnold heads, a baby mutant poobah in a dude's belly...the new film has robots and Colin Farrell and a lot of rain. What will people of the future think of the cultural evidence of these two films? One is stupid and fun; one is stupid and boring. Alas.

We heard music from:

Tucker: The Man and His Dream, 1988 - Joe Jackson
The Illusionist, 2006 - Philip Glass
Demon Seed, 1977 - Jerry Fielding
The Specialist, 1994 - John Berry
The Proposition, 2005 - Nick Cave, Warren Ellis

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Who watches the Watch? Hopefully no one.

Original airdate: 7-30-12
For today's show we had a measly review of the not-worth-the-effort The Watch, but I suppose the big industry news is that Peter Jackson's The Hobbit is now, somehow, a trilogy. Besides the obvious moneygrab motive, I can only speculate as to why/how a 200ish page children's book is going to be inflated into three, presumably long, films. Internet scuttlebutt says Jackson wants to plumb what we aren't directly shown through The Hobbit's story - things which appear in the LotR appendices and which, I don't think, were known during the book's writing, Tolkien only exploding that particular universe much later. Diegesis, y'all! What worries me is that Jackson might be pulling a Lucas here - revisiting his own narrative territory with more money and fewer figurative demons to slay: the results are uninvolving at best. Is difficulty and/or censorship good for artistry? That's a controversial debate I'd love to not have right now.

We heard music from the following:

It! The Terror from Beyond Space, 1958 - Paul Sawtell
Total Recall, 1990 - Jerry Goldsmith
The 'Burbs, 1989 - Jerry Goldsmith

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Holy dead horse kickers Batman!

Original Airdate: 7 - 23 - 12
Let the hazing begin; neither the Boom or I were particularly impressed by The Dark Knight Rises, something that has already resulted in at least one Facebook brouhaha:

"I just unfriended you. Your comment was lame and I'm such a huge Batman fan I even saw the Adam West movie in the theatre."

Guess what, weenis? That's not an argument. If anything, it means your Batman obsession is so delusional that you won't brook any criticism, and going to bat (har har) for a flick in which Batman wrestles a rubber shark while dangling from a helicopter with a bomb isn't doing you any favors. But the gauntlet has been thrown down: the more desperately nerds cling to the untouchability of their favorite franchises, the more vitriolic they are going to get when you tell it like it is. I thought TDKR was bloated, long, and mostly uninvolving. Nolan only had a tenable connection between comic book outlandishness and the dark "realism" he used as an apology for it, but things really flew out of his hands on this one. Nolan's films were one of the (if not the) only attempts at comic book realism, as if such a thing is possible. Whether or not it worked was another matter, but I think it gave his franchise a bit of heft and tension in the first Batman film; credibility was stretched but mostly maintained in the second. But here, in the final piece to this triptych, nothing makes any goddamn sense, to the point where the part of your brain reconciling something you like to something that makes sense goes kerflooey. And on a minor point, I also felt like the film was politically offensive, a criticism also launched against The Dark Knight. But where TDK was a Bush/War on Terror apologia, TDKR is full-blown fascist glee intent of parodying any kind of Marxist/syndicalist type of organization as Anarchism criminality and horror; there's even a scene of undetermined significance evoking the French Revolution. So, Batman is Napoleon? I'm not saying this is a coherent political statement of any kind, but it doesn't have to be. Nolan has thrown his hand in with reactionary goobers like Frank Miller who have nonsensical critiques of movements like OWS just because they're cranky. Disappointing.

We heard music from:

Inception, 2010 - Hans Zimmer

Requiem for a Dream, 2000 - Clint Mansell

Breakin', 1984 - Various

The Bourne Identity, 2002 - John Powell

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A shorter show, but just as sweet.

Airdate: 7- 16 -12
After a kerflunkety start, wherein a microphone surprised us all by not working, we began today's show by discussing the Cheez-It and Mountain Dew-soaked news from Comic-Con, which we both disseminated with due skepticism and opprobrium. The Boom Operator handled all the movie watching this week, while I stuck to obscurity-drenched horror films available on Netflix Instant. Concerning Moonrise Kingdom, the B.O. felt the film grappled with the pros and cons of an established Wes Anderson iconography, and its merits are largely concurrent with your acceptance of said iconography. Sigh. Such is life.

We heard music from:

The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001 - Mark Mothersbaugh
Moonrise Kingdom, 2012 - Alexandre Desplat
Batman, 1989 - Prince

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RIP a few folks...

Airdate: 7-9-12
We've got a lot of deaths to catch up on: last week gender essentialist and shitty filmmaker Nora Ephron bit the dust, and this week mighty Ernest Borgnine, star of such films as Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders and Marty, ate his final double cheeseburger. We took the chance to reminisce on their adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable careers, before moving on to review this week's fare.

We both liked The Amazing Spider-Man, with severe caveats. It was almost like two films smashed together, one pretty decent, one lousy. The film certainly suffered under Raimi's shadow, and tried to emulate those films to its detriment. When the movie relied on its own ingenuous casting and high school angst, the results were better than expected. I was surprised and disappointed in equal measure. The other film reviewed (for some reason), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, was silly and boring and involved horse-surfing. Like you do.

We heard music from:

The Return of the King, 1980 - Glenn Yarbrough
Escape from New York, 1981 - John Carpenter, Alan Howarth
"Airwolf", 1984-87 - Sylvester Levay
Gattaca, 1997 - Michael Nyman

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Channing Tatum's Ass equals major web traffic.

Well, today starting off in that typical cuntish fashion...seriously, what is it with our Mondays? I arrive late and without cell phone, knowing that this digital castration will cause no small amount of irritation, and lo and behold, there's no way to contact the Boom Operator in the studio even though I'm roughly twenty yards away. Violent apoplexy ensued. Then on the air the B.O. shared a story of yet another battle with the downstairs vending machine. That shit got epic. We talked therapeutically for a while, easing this bad day out of our metaphorical caecum like a long, unyielding turd.

Boom dissembled Soderbergh's newest weenie-shaking Magic Mike with greater detail given to the sociological surroundings of the deliciously forbidden spectacle that is male objectification. The movie itself? Fairly flaccid. Also, we'll get more hits from this picture of Channing Tatum's ass than we will people wanting our podcast. Go Figure.


We heard music from the following:

Cowboys & Aliens, 2011 - Harry Gregson-Williams
Fitzcarraldo, 1982 - Popol Vuh
Fight Club, 1999 - Dust Brothers
Crumb, 1994 - Various Artists
Midnight Cowboy, 1969 - John Berry
Spider-Man, 2002 - Danny Elfman

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We really expected more...

We both caught Pixar's Brave this weekend, and both proffered the same unimpressed "meh, cute" in response. I probably boosted my estimation due to geeky proclivity for the medieval setting, but otherwise thought the movie started well and fizzled due to no strong narrative drive, instead falling to a pat homily, which didn't fit with the whole fable thing. The animation was up to Pixar's standards, I guess. The whole shebang was bested by the 7-minute short film La Luna by Enrico Casarosa that preceded it.

On the show we got off on insane, random tangents, like pioneering a new young adult book series about teen frankenstein fishermen, the tyranny of tool booths, and trouble with gum machines.

We heard music from the following:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 2009 - Mark Mothersbaugh
Mirror, Mirror, 1990 - Scott Campbell, Jimmy Lifton
Return of the Living Dead, 1985 - Various
Who Saw Her Die?, 1972 - Ennio Morricone
Brave, 2012 - Patrick Doyle

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Not much to say.

Another weekend where that rancid pile of goatfuck Madagascar topped the box office. Fuck you if you've seen it or used it as a babysitter. That is all.

We heard music from:

Van Helsing, 2004 - Alan Silvestri
Triplets of Belleville, 2003 - Benoit Charest
The Dungeonmaster, 1985 - Richard Band
Rock 'n Rule, 1983 - Various
"Batman: The Animated Series," 1992-1995 - Various

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Prometheus...the beginning or the end?

Howdy and how do, adoring public. I guess this week the big news is the ubiquitous deflation of Prometheus (called it). Most people were disappointed for reasons they couldn't quite put their fingers on. Personally, I put a gigantic finger on Damon Lindelof, the "Lost" co-tard, who has again shown his alacrity for creating a good idea and then sharting it down his leg with poor execution masquerading as existential ambiguity. As an Alien prequel, it's inconsistent; as a metaphor on myth and creation, it fails due to a lack of internal logic; as a postmodern pastiche of Stanley Kubrick and Scott's own oeuvre, it baffles; as a space-chiller, it occasionally succeeds; as a visual deployment of ideas, it works, but the parts do not make a compelling whole. Ridley Scott has entered a weird phase of his own postmodern cycle, couched within the existing cultural postmodernism, wherein he references and/or inadvertently parodies his own canon. Like a cocktail party guest who makes his greatest remark five minutes in, he can only stand around awkwardly, gesturing to his lauded moments with increasing desperation, unable or unwilling to move on.

The Boom Operator felt the film was serviceable, citing the use of non-digital effects and the admittedly great performance from Michael Fassbender, but was upset at the squandering of acting juggernaut Guy Pierce.

We heard music from the following:

Predator, 1987 - Alan Silvestri
Project Metalbeast, 1995 - Conrad Pope
Poltergeist II: The Other Side, 1986 - Jerry Goldsmith
Prometheus, 2012 - Marc Streitenfeld

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Biting ya through the screen

We return after a brief vacation in which the Boom Operator sojourned to America's weenie (fine, fine...Florida) ready to bring in da noise/funk, report on films we had seen, and kick off Season 3 of Tavern Trivia. Last week I caught Piranha 3DD, which, unlike its predecessor, was a pile of shit. Well, I'll elaborate: Piranha 3D was B-movie fun, a delectable pile of garbage with just the right amount of boobage and gore. Piranha 3DD doesn't even try: a fat-guy jumps on a pile of puke; a piranha swims up some girl's woo (because apparently she didn't notice) and then bites her lover's weenie, which he proceeds to slice off; a guy decapitates himself on plastic rope, his head lands betwixt a pair of silicone sweater-puppies and he is motor-boated posthumously. There's an art to trash, and just giggling with your friends about tits and splatter is bad, not because it's low-brow, but because it's lazy. The Boom Operator saw Men in Black III and offered shrugs.

We heard music from the following:

Men in Black III, 2012 - Danny Elfman

"Fraggle Rock", 1983-1987 - Various

Batman, 1989 - Danny Elfman

Back to the Future, 1985 - Alan Silvestri

Legend, 1985 - Tangerine Dream

Jaws 3D, 1983 - Alan Parker

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An older repost from a time where we forgot

So, we're back after an off week (for the Gaffer, at least), and it seems like literally nothing has come out, and certainly nothing but gnats on The Avengers' shit, money-wise. I mean, goddamn Battleship? I'm still in awe of that. Look for Candyland in 3D and Imax next Friday. Tim Burton also shat out his 28th Depp/Carter project; a friend of mine had this to say about it: "Dark Shadows might not have felt so godawful if it wasn't pretty good at first. Then it jumped off the rails, off a cliff, into a boat, that sunk. But nobody had a chance to drown because everything exploded." Well said. Oh, new Wes Anderson and Men in Black movies are upcoming, so that's happening. You should listen to the show this week, is basically what I'm saying, if only for the part where I am urged by the Boom Operator to google and recite the definition to "rusty trombone," a phrase that I dropped without knowing its meaning. Oh dear.

We heard music from the following:

Dark Shadows, 1966-1971 - Robert Costella
Buckaroo Bonzai, 1984 - Michael Boddicker
Cat People, 1982 - Giorgio Moroder & David Bowie
My Neighbor Totoro, 1988 - Joe Hisaishi
Men in Black, 1997 - Danny Elfman
Swamp Thing, 1982 - Harry Manfredini

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Pirates, Rainbows, and visual feasts.

The Boom Operator watched and thoroughly enjoyed the new Aardman Animations film Pirates! Band of Misfits, which provoked our perennial discussion and preference for tangible, non-digital effects ad nauseum. We also saw the obscure and soon-to-remain-obscure Panos Cosmatos film Beyond the Black Rainbow, one of the weirdest films ever made, and a true masterpiece of retro-futurist artsanity pastiche: Kubrick, Tron, Tarkovsky, THX 1138, Dark Star, Jodorowski and Kenneth Anger set to a Valerie Collective soundtrack and a mescaline addiction. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I can't recommend this film at all, and I can't recommend it enough. That's one for the vault.

We heard music from the following:

Blade Runner, 1982 - Vangelis
Cutthroat Island, 1995 - John Debney
The Hobbit, 1977 - Maury Laws
Irreversible, 2002 - Thomas Bangalter
Monkey Island Series, 199x - Various

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Here's a show that you won't forget, unless you take that pill...

Another dreary week where neither of us could be arced to see any of the new releases. With such future-Criterion contenders as Think Like a Man and Hasbro's Battleship, who can blame us? For an alleged critic on a show allegedly meant to digest film culture, I certainly do hate much if not all of its representations as they appear in wide release every feel. It's not just that the movies coming out are bad; I find them beneath even consideration, perhaps an idiosyncratic (OK, fine, snobby) view, but in my mind, really becoming appreciative of film involves an archival mindset of digging and exploring the many frontiers not found or represented by the production machine in Los Angeles. If and when you do that, how in the motherfucking fuck can something like the 2012 The Three Stooges even be worth your time or interest except in the most abstract way?

Anyway, we spiffballed our way around two hours of tonight's show on varying topics. It got so obtuse I can barely remember what was going on, save we talked about the upcoming monolithic (in every sense) Prometheus. Have you guys seen the ad campaign behind this? Somebody wants to be Kubrick real hard, but then, I'm anti-hype.

We heard music from the following

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004 - Jon Brion
Gone Fishin', 1997 - Randy Edelman
My Name is Nobody, 1973 - Ennio Morricone
The Omega Man, 1971 - Ron Grainer
Planet Earth, 2006 - George Fenton

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Lockout, The Raid, and Facebook.

Pack it up, pack it in, this Drive-in Speakerbox blog is about to begin. This weekend we were blessed by the unexpected presence of the much-hyped Indonesian martial arts actioner The Raid: Redemption. Bullets flew almost as fast as the fists and the techno-whumpy score. It was intense, and lacked the obviously-choreographed "delicacy" of most films of this ilk. The action was hilariously brutal and had an accompanying sense of unease and tension I don't usually experience from watching face punches. Lockout, on the other hand, was as forgettable a film that I'd watch and forget on Netflix Instant except that I just saw it in the theater, as I've ever seen. Save for the delightful (and dreamy!) Guy Pearce, all I can really say about Lockout is that it was a movie. Oh, and the special effects looked like scenes from the 1994 computer game System Shock.

We heard music from the following:

The Beyond, 1981 - Fabio Frizzi

Karate Warrior 2, 1988 - Stefano Minette

Lost in Translation, 2003 - Various

Teen Wolf, 1985 - Miles Goodman

Day of the Triffids, 1962 - Ron Goodwin

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Moby Lick in the house!

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Everything we talked about tonight is based on mediocre books.

Of the bevy of films seen this week, I actually hated Hunger Games the least, not because of its particular merit as a film, but because of its lack of certain characteristics as a blockbuster; mostly this had to do with the filming of certain scenes - little or no sound, quick, jerky editing, instances of real emotional maturity. It must be said, though: the cave scene was monstrously lame. The Lorax epitomized everything wrong with children's films: spazziness, randomness, a lack of emotional involvement, an "extreme" grandparent...fuck all that. It's the emotional involvement thing that really irks: films in which nothing sad happens (or, rather, can happen) can't really have the power to truly uplift either. Don Bluth, where have ye gone? And Mirror, Mirror? Well, people like The Princess Bride, so I guess they shouldn't hate this; it certainly didn't have the ridonkulous preponderance of Tarsem's other films, so there's that.

We heard music from:

Yellowstone, 1994 - Bill Conti

Gladiator, 2000 - Hans Zimmer

Dutch, 1991 - Various

The Jetsons, 1990 - John Debney

Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1959 - Bernard Herrmann

Robocop, 1987 - Basil Poledouris

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Bombs, Flops, Tanks...know your lingo people.

(Original Post date 3-19-12)

Hello my duckies, and welcome to another entry in the divine codex of The Drive-In Speakerbox. Podcasts are still being repressed by the brutal regime known as MediaFire, so you probably won't be able to listen in until KXUA has been purged and/or we at the show move our account off-site.

The misanthropy in the air was positively crackling; both the Boom Operator and I were in the grips of a mighty malaise, sweaty with anger and eager to discharge our unhappiness upon the general public. Our biggest bone to pick this week was the conflation of the idea that a film is a "bomb" or "flop" because of its critical reception rather than its box office performance, the two often becoming as interchangeable to casual moviegoers as they are to the gold-hoarding caricatures called producers, who seemingly disavow any large-budgeted film if it does not quintuple its earning potential in the first weekend of release. Neoliberalism, you win this round...

No movies were reviewed this week, as we are steeling ourselves for the blockbuster bukkake of arrows known as Hunger Games, a book series I don't entirely fear or despise, despite some transparent similarities to the loathed Twilight series (a girl and her two suitors, ooh, whichever one will she pick?!), but we'll see.

We heard music from the following:

Bloodsport, 1988 - Paul Herzog

Moon, 2009 - Clint Mansell

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1990 - John Du Prez

A Goofy Movie, 1995 - Various

The Last Airbender, 2010 - James Newton Howard

The 13th Warrior, 1999 - Jerry Goldsmith

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A great show, fueled by rage.

(Original Post date 3-12-12)

Oh, bless his heart, the Boom Operator was having a time this week: meltdowns abounded, which means today's show was an ass-kicker...not like any of you can even listen the the goddamn podcasts with Mediafire's lawyers clutching tightly to our musical content like so many caricatured tycoons. It's hard to be the little college radio station that could sometimes.

It was a sad week, actually, as we received word of the passing of comic legend Jean Giraud (Moebius). I actually broke the news to the Boom on-air, causing in a secondary meltdown. I don't think Moebius had worked in a while, but the man was responsible for an incredible portion of the artistic miens of science fiction visual art in film and print for the last 40 years. He'll be remembered.

The B.O. went on review John Carter of Mars, which he said was surprisingly fun before lamenting its predicted fiscal failure.

We heard music from:

X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes, 1963 - Les Baxter

Body of Evidence, 1993 - Graeme Revell

The Fifth Element, 1997 - Eric Serra

Time Masters, 1982 - Various

John Carter of Mars, 2012 - Michael Giacchino

Tron, 1982 - Wendy Carlos

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Project X....I can't believe this exists.

The Boom Operator was privileged to see a true titan of cinematic history this week, Project X, a movie about some dickhead who throws a party, and also about how that party is big. But this seems somewhat pointless to mention, particularly when Ralph McQuarrie, the man responsible for the principal artistic outlook of the Star Wars Universe (at least before Lucas decided green-screen bukkake of racial caricatures was the right direction) died last week.

We heard music from:

Bedknobs & Broomsticks, 1971 - Irwin Kostal

Creepshow, 1982 - John Harrison

Star Wars trilogy, 1977-1983 - John Williams

Vision Quest, 1985 - Tangerine Dream

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, 1991 - David Newman

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It's that time of year again sukkas.

It's the end of February, which means the Oscars are approaching and the time for our annual blaxploitation special is at hand. Ooh, we made it funky, dropped a few beats, put a l'il stank on 'em, and sent them out to sensuously massage the ears of a grateful public. In between seriously groovy musical diversions from 70s heavy-hitters Quincy Jones and Curtis Mayfield, we discussed the controversial history of the genre and the lingering influence it had on the careers of Samuel Jackson and Quintin Tarantino, to name a few. And, blegh, speaking of funky...we also had to review a truly cloacal film, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. I don't even know why this was a Ghost Rider film at all, as it bears no resemblance to its shitty precursor, or even the comic franchise as a whole; it just happens that a fireskull monster appears after Nicolas Cage clearly goes off his bipolar medication. And seriously, this contained some of the best Nic Cage-ing since "Not the bees!!!" and it still wasn't watchable. This is unacceptable.

We heard music from the following:

Across 110th Street, 1972 - J.J. Johnson
Supafly, 1972 - Curtis Mayfield
Roots, 1977 - Quincy Jones & Gerald Fry
Barry Gordy's The Last Dragon, 1985 - Various
Cleopatra Jones, 1973 - J.J. Johnson

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The Nantucket Corn-bucket

A precipitous snowy day turned into a dreary, drizzling mess before today's show - an appropriate forecast rejoinder to tomorrow's Valentine's Day, that saccharine baby of a holiday America should've aborted before grew up to be the sanctimonious, spoiled attention-whore we coddle out of guilt and social pressure. Yes, I'm single, why? We did our best to serve you soft-skulled suckers the gooey, love-jaculate you yearn for through music from several (sarcastically) romantic films. Maybe I'm just cynical because the film I saw this week was Asghar Farhadi's A Separation, which I expect to win the meaningless Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for its sheer emotional brutality. It was a wonderful film, but ye gods, let's just say don't watch it on a weekend that your lithium prescription hasn't been renewed... or you'll be fucked...which is, ironically, what most of us won't be this Valentine's Day. Woe.

Tonight we heard music from:

Big, 1988 - Howard Shore
The Karate Kid, 1984 - Bill Conti
Indecent Proposal, 1993 - John Barry
Blue Valentine, 2010 - Grizzly Bear
American Beauty, 1999 - Thomas Newman

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If we just wiggle our hands, anything is possible.

We were both grumpy today. And how. The seethe was palpable in the air, and we did our best to harness it for good radio comedy. Up on review this week were the "Stop calling me, Harry Potter" Dan Radcliffe-helmed Woman in Black by Hammer Horror(!) and the young super hero archetypal angstgasm chronicle Chronicle, which started strong and fizzled in the second half due to the prescribed arc the writers were determined the film follow. Shame, but it was a good attempt at tapping into the comic book mythologies we're already so used to. As for Woman in Black, the Boom Operator was marginally-impressed with it as a chiller. I've been a huge fan of the book/stage play/1989 BBC film since I was a wee scared kiddie, so I'll probably catch this before too long.

We heard music from the following:

127 Hours - A. R. Rahman
28 Days Later - John Murphy
Ladyhawke - The Alan Parsons Project
Hawk the Slayer - Harry Robertson
Blue Velvet - Angelo Badalamenti

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We're trying not to go insane folks...

Sour moods abounded on this last show of January, in which we suffered yet another technological meltdown. The day in which I and/or the Boom Operator greet the next software malfunction with a genuine psychotic break and thereafter lay waste to the studio with a rusty piece of rebar is soon approaching. Anyway, we started the show with the delectable (and hard to assemble) soundtrack to Hobo with a Shotgun, a nice bit of postmodern musical patchwork. It was a typically scatterbrained show: topics ranged from the treachery of Netflix to the penile-regurgitation scene in the recent Piranha 3D. We ended with reviews of Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method and the Oscar-fellating Hollywood meta-wank The Artist, which followed Hugo's trend of self-congratulatory cinematic historicism. Le meh.

We heard music from:

Hobo with a Shotgun - Various
Brick - Nathan Johnson with the Cinematic Underground
Tokyo Godfathers - Various
Big Trouble in Little China - John Carpenter
The Artist - Ludovic Bors
Terminator - Brad Fiedel

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A timely podcast for a change.

After a bit of trouble getting started (we forgot the magical hard drive that contains all our scores), we began to cobble together this week's show from old podcast sound clips and scraped-together scores we happened to have on-hand; much like the film Frankenhooker. After seeing a retrospective today over at Cinemassacre.com, I demanded the Boom Operator play the score to Supergirl, the second-dumbest film Peter O-Toole has ever been in. This provoked waves of nostalgia and an incipient boner as I remembered my crush on a young Helen Slater. We got off on a tangent about how film trailers have become more "filmic" than the actual films they precede. How very Baudrillard! We concluded by reviewing the Beckinsale-bootyganza: Underworld VII: The Requickening, and Soderbergh's action-film-as-dowdy-realism Haywire. Both films got a firm, distended thumb in no particular direction. They exist.

We heard music from:

Supergirl, 1984 - Jerry Goldsmith
Electric Dreams, 1984 - Giorgio Moroder
The Dark Crystal, 1982 - Trevor Jones
Pitch Black, 2000 - Graeme Revell
The Informant, 2009 - Marvin Hamlish

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1 - 9 - 12 Catch up

The Gaffer and I are going to just post this freaking episode online so you can get it. We're behind on our web post, so for all you podcasters, we're sucky, we know, we'll do better. 2012 has just kept us so busy with action, adventure, groupies, fame, fortune and all that noise...so we have'nt been around computers that much.

So anyway, here's last weeks show. Look for this weeks show to be posted soon.

-Boom

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We're getting back up to speed.

Another catch up podcast for January while we acclimate ourselves to 2012. This one is chock full of angsty movie reviews no less. Tune in!

We heard music from the following:
Risky Business - Tangerine Dream (1983)
Bird on a Wire - Hans Zimmer (1990)
I Heart Huckabees - Jon Brion (2004)
Kundun - Phillip Glass (1997)
The Constant Gardener - Alberto Iglesias (2005)

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Worst of 2011 Roundup!

We are so late on this podcast it's not even funny.
Our web game has been inexcusably lacking lately. So we're sorry damnit. DOwnload this show, cause it's two hours of non-stop ranting about why 2011 is the beginning of the end of Hollywood.

Dig it.
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