Mighty Movie Podcast

A review for Hour of the Wolf, which airs on WBAI 99.5FM in New York.

What happens when your TV set can only bring signals from local station WEVL? Turkish director Orçun Behram explores the mayhem in the surreal, political body-horror film THE ANTENNA, and talks with us about how it came to be.

Death abides, but not often easily. In BURNING GHOST, a young man ferries lost souls to the afterlife, until love distracts him from his mission, while in A WHITE, WHITE DAY, a policeman investigates the possibility that his recently deceased wife was having an affair. Listen to the latest episodes of HOUR OF THE WOLF in the archives at wbai.org!

In a startlingly bold experiment for ToB, we've decided to take the first twenty minutes of the classic(?) Bela Lugosi horror(?) film, SCARED TO DEATH, and treat it to a daringly new concept in film analysis, one that's never been seen before and certainly has absolutely no connection to MST3K or CINEMATIC TITANIC or RIFFTRAX, or anything like that. (And if there appears to be resemblance, well, we came up with it first and our lawyers are going to be in touch with all of those guys in the morning, believe you me.)

A few notes:

• This was Bela Lugosi's only color film, not that it did him much good.
  
  
• Keep in mind that this is a video file. We've adjusted the compression to make it as small as possible, but it'll still take a bit longer to download.
  
  
• Because of the file size, the video quality will be a bit scrubby -- particularly on larger screens -- but should be good enough.

And we'd love to actually finish the rest of the film, so if you like what you see, give us a holler and let us know!

Some thoughts on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek.

Review of Laika's Kubo and the Two Strings.

Let's not mince words about this: THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN is a goofy movie, a Mexican horror-fest with rubber bats, balsa wood coffins, poorly choreographed fight scenes, and a "hero" (the star of THE BRAINIAC, actually) who caps off practically every scene by coming close to wetting his pants. It also happens to be a surprisingly good-looking film, with cinematographer Victor Herrera ripping whole reams from the German expressionist playbook for his set up. Which makes for an unusual ToB episode in which Andrea Lipinski, Kevin Lauderdale, Orenthal Hawkins, and Dan Persons explore the paradox between production and content as much as they explore the film's copious flaws. Click on the player to hear the show, or right-click the link to download.

Ever wonder what your cats do when you're not around? Sorry to disappoint you, but likely they climb up on the couch and go to sleep. Ever wonder what kind of film Syfy runs when nobody's watching? Very likely it's ICETASTROPHE, a virtual non-entity of a natural disaster movie in which a meteor somehow manages to put an isolated mountain town under a deadly deep freeze and nobody, not even the people being frosted over, cares.

Come join the Temple of Bad team of Orenthal Hawkins, Andrea Lipinski, Kevin Lauderdale (whose formidable editing kung fu saved this show from slipping into the "Lost Episode" category), and Dan Persons as they slap themselves in the face (not to keep warm, just to stay awake), and take on a film that makes your basic snowman look like an icon of flamboyant excess.

Oh, sure, anybody can look at a ROBOT MONSTER, a BIRDEMIC, a XANADU and say, "Wow, that's stinky." It takes next-level insight to take on the likes of PATCH TOWN, an ambitious tale of a grown up Cabbage Patch doll breaking out of the gulag-like factory where he's enslaved to find the little girl who loved him many years ago.

In facing the German-expressionist production style of a Tim Burton, a Sovietesque mise-en-scene, a bit of Cronenberg body-horror, and lashings of Danny Elfman-like musical comedy(?!), the regular Temple of Bad team of Andrea Lipinski, Orenthal Hawkins, Kevin Lauderdale, and Dan Persons bring all of their kung fu to this admittedly impressive and frankly weird, weird, weird exercise in dark whimsy, and prove they are up to the challenge. 

Click on the player to hear the show, or right-click the title to download.

Soooo much to cover in one, brief segment! First, I look at the French animated film APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD, and how it takes on the genre of steampunk in a way few steampunkers dare to consider. Then I have some belated thoughts on the entertaining comic book movie, DEADPOOL, and highlight a standout performance in the gory Turkish(!) horror film, BASKIN. Finally, I celebrate the documentary that celebrates the artist Chet Zar, I LIKE TO PAINT MONSTERS, and alert retro-horror fans to the delights of a new homevid collection, THE AMERICAN HORROR PROJECT, VOLUME 1. Then it's time for light lunch, but that's outside of your realm of interest, isn't it?

Click on the player button to hear the segment; right-click the link to download, and in all cases, SPEAK OUT AGAINST TRUMP.

Here's a curious thing: A fun, funny, action-packed animated family film that just by happenstance strikes at the very core of the ugliness behind the presidential campaign of a certain, stubby-fingered, orange-American. Couldn't have been by design, not with production schedules for CG animation being what they are, but there it is: ZOOTOPIA -- anthropomorphized animals against Trumpism. Couldn't have come at a better time.

Also in this review, my take on near-future hipster comedy CREATIVE CONTROL, and Terrence Malick's introspective KNIGHT OF CUPS.

Click the player to hear the review, or right-click the link to download.

2016 marks the 40th anniversary of the film that changed the entertainment industry as we know it, the film the rewrote the rules on action entertainment, that dazzled audiences with its innovative special effects, that forever lodged in popular culture the notion that exciting adventures awaited audiences a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

Oh, wait a minute... STAR WARS debuted in 1977. In 1976, we got the Dino De Laurentiis remake of KING KONG, the film that did absolutely nothing for the industry, special effects, or the public's gas shortage-ravaged attitudes. Come join Kevin Lauderdale, Orenthal Hawkins, Andrea Lipinski, and Dan Persons as delve deep into this gorilla-shaped turkey, and try to get the world's biggest monkey off their backs. 

(Sung to the tune of Maniac):

A Satanist who can zip out of chains.
He is suave, and he's smart, and clumsy.
He gropes all the chicks, and eats his victim's brains,
Everybody says he's eeeee-vil.

He gets burned at the stake, but is feeling no pain.
He knows it's just a matter of time,
Three hundred years in fact, that he's coming right back,
To suck out brains with his big, floppy tongue.

He can freeze you with a look,
But you'll just look like a schnook,
'Cause you should have known by now:

He's a Brainiac, Brainiac with some style,
And to eat your brains is the thing that makes him smile.
He's a Brainiac, Brainiac who's intense,
And his vengeance really don't make no damn sense.

Yes, in a long-delayed but well-worth-waiting-for Temple of Bad, Orenthal Hawkins (who brainstormed the soulful ballad above), Andrea Lipinski and Kevin Lauderdale, and Dan Persons take on the goofy Mexican horror film, The Brainiac. Bad makeup, crappy sets, and ridiculous effects rule the day! Click on the player to hear the show, or right-click the link to download.

"The Machine, Dan? The Machine? Surely you must mean Ex Machina, the dark, sensual drama about a young programmer falling into the thrall of an eerily human-like android, the film that grabbed so much attention earlier this year. That's the film you're talking about, right?"

No, no I'm actually talking about The Machine, another film entirely. But in an curious way, I'm talking about Ex Machina as well, because it turns out there are some interesting parallels between the two films, in sufficient quantity that I think it's well-worth discussion. Click on the player to hear my review, or right-click the link to download.

You know, we've always considered as our prime mission an elevation of the level of discourse in movie podcasts. Much like Cahiers du Cinema, we seek to enshrine the world of film as a true artform, analyzing the efforts its creators' invest in fulfilling their unique visions,  and exploring how the results serve to elevate humanity's understanding of itself and the universe.

And then a film comes along that features a group of astromauts on a mission to discover if there's life on Uranus, and all that goes out the window. A Danish/American co-production starring that ambulatory hunk o' granite, John Agar, Journey to the Seventh Planet is a film whose supreme silliness only starts with the sophomoric opportunities offered by its central premise. Come join the Temple of Bad team of Andrea Lipinski, Kevin Lauderdale, and Orenthal Hawkins as they take on a tale that isn't satisfied with giving filmgoers a giant, mutant, cyclopean rat when a giant, mutant, and quite noisy, spider, plus a bevy of women in filmy negligees, can be thrown in as well. Click the player to hear the show, or right-click the link to download.

This is a real "watch this, not that," segment this time. Self/less was the "serious" opening last weekend -- directed by overt stylist Tarsem Singh, starring Ryan Reynolds and Ben Kingsley -- and the worst sin that could be levelled at it was that it was kind of stoopid. But then, the weekend also saw the debut of a couple of more compelling releases: Jellyfish Eyes, a family film send-up directed by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami; and the delirious Korean noir comedy A Hard Day. Only thing to do is to give 'em all their due and leave it to my listeners' good judgement. Click on the player to hear the segment, or right-click the link to download.

You can be forgiven. If your first thought when you hear the phrase, "found-footage mockumentary" is a sincere wish that somebody should have released a Web virus long ago to wipe every copy of The Blair Witch Project off every server on Earth, that's certainly understandable. So I'm aware of the risk I'm taking by going on record to say that The Midnight Swim -- a moody, enigmatic found-footage ghost story about three sisters discovering the ominous mystery surrounding the lake that claimed their mother's life -- demonstrates there's still something new and moving to be discovered in this debased genre. Click on the player to hear my review for WBAI 99.5FM's Hour of the Wolf, or right-click the link to download.

Okay, right, yeah, sure, sure: Inside Out is a wall-to-wall wonder, good news for anyone who despaired that the animation studio, Pixar -- after numerous missteps -- had lost its mojo, and who, frankly, would've rejoiced in any glimmer of the ol' Pixar verve now. It's better than that, far better. But while you're alternating between laughter and tears ('cause that's what Pixar does), you may not realize how much of a tightrope walk this metaphorical tour of a young girl's psyche is. I explore the challenges faced by the film's creators in my review for Jim Freund's Hour of the Wolf. Click on the player to hear the show, or right-click the link to download.

No life is forever, not even that of the man who played immortal vampires, mouldering corpses, and psychotic satanists. Christopher Lee had so permanently placed his mark on the world of fantastic film that his death this past week sent a shock wave through film fandom, so assured were we that he’d always be around to bring his wit, gravity, and class to the likes of Dracula, Saruman and Kharis.

In the wake of his loss, Cinefantastique contributors Ted Newsom, Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons got together to reminisce about encounters with the legendary actor, share some famous and not-so-famous anecdotes about his work and life, and evaluate his contribution to the worlds of horror and fantasy. Click on the player to hear the show, or right-click the link to download.