Episode 11 - 28 - 11

 A bevy of reviews this week! We had our hands full talking about new releases, as well as paying tribute to the late, occasionally great Ken Russell, who passed away early this week after a varied career. We managed to trot out some of the scores to a few of his films, then got down to the business of reviewing Take Shelter, Hugo, The Muppets, and, mournfully, Twilight Colon Breaking Dawn Hyphen Part One Ellipsis the last of which caused the Boom Operator to have a pretty amusing meltdown, for obvious reasons. The worst part about all this Twilight horseshit is that it ISN'T OVER. We still have to endure another year of billion-dollar-earning mediocrity before the chalking off this turgid franchise and moving on. Other than that, the films we saw last week were pretty good. We're both happy to see the Muppets back in action. There's just something about those tactile puppeteering effects that trump CG every time, but that's a rant we've trotted out far too often.

Altered States - John Corigliano (1980)
Women in Love - Georges Delerue (1969)
Gothic - Thomas Dolby (1986)
The Lost Boys - Various (1987)
The Muppets - Various (2011)

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Episode 11 - 14 - 11

Talk of the Hunger Games trailer lead us (somehow) to a space-themed show for this episode, along with discussions of the dystopian gladiator genre ala Battle Royale, Rollerball, Running Man, et al. I've read the Suzanne Collins novels, which have been one of the bigger Young Adult novel crazes of the last couple years, and they're meh-grade, breezy beach novels. But as I've said before, moderate novels often make good cinematic adaptations, so this/these film(s) might be something worth considering. The rest of the show was largely spent heckling the Boom Operator for my making him watch the cinematic trollathon that was Human Centipede II. My, but this film was a gem to behold, the filmic equivalent of "2 Girls 1 Cup" in its existential pointlessness and snickering repugnance. The Boom Operator stomped around and ranted for the entire duration of the film, which included inky blasts of diarrhea, a centipede suppository, and a fetal curb-stomp, among other things. I happen to be one of the few people who thinks that Dutch pervert (is that redundant?) Tom Six is actually a mordant comedian who is absolutely in on this filthy joke, and having a lot of fun telling it. And lest you were wondering, Human Centipede III is in pre-production...

Event Horizon - Micheal Kamen & Orbital
Solaris - Sound clip from new, Edward Artemiev old
Battle Royale - Various 2000
Running Man - Harold Faltermeyer
Sunshine - John Murphy

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Episode 11 - 21 - 11

Wow, what a Monday this was. Thank the great demon lord this is a short holiday week because the Boom Operator had an audible meltdown due to crankiness-induced aphasia, but other than that we dolled out practiced cynicism with due alacrity, taking down Lars Von Trier's teenager-in-a-black-turtleneck film Melancholia, a decent flick with a decent concept housed in a whingey lugubriosity befitting a high school freshman who just went off his lithium. It was a frustrating film that obviously cribbed from Tarkovsky's Solaris and The Sacrifice, influences I'm impressed that Von Trier has. Personally, I blame Twilight for the overall feeling of gloom pervading our persons and, indeed, the entire nation-state. Thanksgiving break can't come soon enough for us. We gabbed about muppets and upcoming DVD releases including, I shit you not, a movie called Antfarm Dickhole, which is about, um, well, what it advertises. Again, I blame Twilight. - The Gaffer

Berserk - Susumu Hirasawa (1997)
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey - David Newman (1991)
Black Belt Jones - Luchi DeJesus (1974)
21 Grams - Gustavo Santaolalla (2003)
Broken Flowers - Mulu Astatke (2005)

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Episode 11 - 7 - 11

The Boom Operator and I must have been hopped up on goofballs for this podcast, because things got weird. We were fresh from our Halloween break and had a bevy of reviews to catch up on. We caught Real Steel, that Hugh Jackman movie that looked like a hybrid of Over the Top and Robot Jox. I can get behind throwaway entertainment when it involves robot punches, but that smug little kid ruined the movie for me. I spent the last hour of the movie wanting the robots to beat that little bastard into liquid with their giant robot fists. We went on to consider the reasonably spooky Paranormal Activity 3, and then the Boom Operator went solo on In Time and Tower Heist. The lackluster film season doesn't look to be stopping soon, so check out future podcasts for ample vitriol.

Die Hard - Michael Kamen (1988)
Escape from NY - John Carpenter (1981)
Ferris Bueller's Day off - Various (1986)
Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure - "In Time" (1989)

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Halloween Special 2011

(Sorry this is late, we swore we posted this right after airing it, but I'm an idiot and forgot to click "post")

Here it is: the Halloween special that our entire radio year pinnacles toward. We had a surprising lack of guests on the show, with the exception of perennial ghoul Grim Gravesly, who shambled in and chided myself and the Boom Operator for our awful puns (my personal favorite was Die-agra). But, for the most part we focused our 3-hour special on the music, stopping only to discuss some horror movie tropes, like how arbitrary and random it is to kill Boogeymen like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger when their survival is inevitable. We also discussed horror genre trends, how we moved from psychological, heterodoxy-driven films to slashers, and the newer trend of voyeuristic "torture-porn". Halloween Tavern Trivia falls this Wednesday, and you don't want to miss that. Trust me.

Ed Wood - Howard Shore (1994)
Candyman - Phillip Glass (1992)
Bone Eater - Chuck Cirino (2007)
Tenebre - Goblin (1982)
The Frighteners - Danny Elfman (1996)
Friday the 13th - Harry Manfredini (1980)
Ghostbusters 2 - Various (1989)
Scanners - Howard Shore (1981)
Return of the Living Dead - Various (1985)
The Horror Of Dracula - James Bernard (1958)
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires - James Bernard (1974)
Transylvania Twist - Chuck Cirino (1989)

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Episode 10 - 17 - 11

This is the last episode before our Halloween special; can you feel the Eldritch particles in the very air we breathe?? I thought so. In this podcast we discussed the "occupy" movement and would-be populist Michael Moore's attempts to capitalize on it. I did a quick review of George Clooney's The Ides of March to cap off this political diversion: meh. Then we delved back into ghosts and ghoulies: the new Hellraiser film is out, straight-to-DVD, and the first not to star Doug Bradley as Pinhead. This is obviously a lamentable attempt to keep the copyright for a still-planned remake; I'm sure it's terrible. The Boom Operator and I watched John Carpenter's gut-churning classic The Thing in preparation for the new prequel/remake (premake?). We expected to be disappointed by the CGI and the basic premise (to ruin some of the ambiguity of the first film) and we were, but not quite to the extent that we hated it.

We heard music from the following films:
Alien Resurrection - John Frizzel (1997)
Predator - Alan Silvestri (1987)
The Day the Earth Stood Still - Bernard Herrman (1951)
The Thing - John Carpenter / Ennio Morricone (1982)
The Thing - Marco Beltrami (2011)

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Episode 10 - 10 - 11

Can you feel the ambient horror permeating the sepulchral October air? The Boom Operator and I certainly can: podcasts, parties, and Tavern Trivia are all being primed for the following weeks, and all are going to be immersed in the spooky spirit of the times. We tried to slowly seep into the October horror mien with music from John Carpenter who, his flaws notwithstanding, composes his own eery, electro-minimalist scores. Later I ended up going on a tangent about Jesusween. Goddamn Jesusween is a thing, y'all! Apparently some Christians, who I guess regard Halloween as occultish, Satanic, or otherwise totally awesome, are starting this Halloween alternative where healthy treats and Bibles are handed out instead of candy. I guess they need more reasons for people to laugh at them. Anyway, my favorite part of this show was playing music from the old LucasArts game Grim Fandango, which we both love. Our time-honored Halloween Special will air October 24th, Tavern Trivia is October 12th, and Beat Bachs' Halloween Dance Party is October 28th. This is an exciting time to be alive.

We heard music from the following:
28 Days Later - John Murphy (2002)
Big Trouble in Little China - John Carpenter (1986)
Corpse Bride - Danny Elfman (2005)
Grim Fandango - Peter McConnel (1998)
Magic - Jerry Goldsmith (1978)

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