Movie Meltdown - Episode 172

Well... there's not much else to say... except - ZARDOZ!!! So start listening...

But amongst all of the insanity, we also bring up... Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the tabernacle scene, floating heads, half the audience was high, The Exorcist 2, Mulholland Drive, what will the afterlife be like?, a brilliant Monty Python sketch, Star Trek, Titus, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Planet of the Apes, nude photographs of Burt Reynolds, everything but the kitchen sink, James Bond, green bread, Kenneth Branagh, man diaper, Aladdin, religion, The Man with the Golden Gun, Men in Black, a Zardoz hot air balloon, sci fi themes, The Lady from Shanghai, wrestling grandma, inflatables by..., Darby O'Gill, Deliverance, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Doomsday, George Lucas, The Time Machine, Wild Wild West, killed by The Full Monty, Enter the Dragon, Wizard of Oz, hairy Connery, a movie having legs, an unnecessary wedding dress, Jack Kirby, Electric Zardoz, Princess Leia, riding horses, Krypton, The Avengers, Jonestown, DVD vs. theatrical, Excalibur, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and The Lord of the Rings meets The Beatles.

Spoiler Alert: Just watch "Zardoz" before listening... then you'll understand (well, sort of).

"What the hell did I just watch?! You just watched Zardoz."

Movie Meltdown - Episode 171

This week we welcome special guest co-host comedian Alysia Wood. Listen as we discuss comedy, movies, and lots of other amazing tangents including... a brain is a noodle, genetically Texan, shark infested waters, Louisiana, do we have to be nice to people?, draining all your spinal fluid, on Codine for three weeks, Magnolia, and now there’s mice, Seattle, collecting all the phones, potato soup with rubber chunks, bargain dental work, Louisville, explaining how jokes work, doing meth with a medical background?, Los Angeles, wearing a bulletproof vest, drinking eight glasses of water, Hot for Teacher, making fun of mom, jumping qualities of education, there’s a lot of ellipsis, fat ugly or gay, Lewis and Clark, Jaws, ballet, Verizon suits, love comedy... hate jokes, laughing at the poet, a TSA training video, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, vibrating and punching you in the crotch, dying of lung cancer, spoofing bad 70’s action flicks, Bar-B-Q, a women’s health care provider, Arachnophobia, studying comedy, Botox, Dangerous, ADD, jump scares, riches to rags, racist in the name of Jesus, necessary awkward silence, Draw Something, shady deals, jumping from the balcony, boys picking on girls, a deeper layer of honesty, failing Spanish,do not tell your mother, hitting the Blockbuster, ziplining, Mad Max, come out of the closet or get plastic surgery, planning for debt, a nuclear thunder clap, attempting to move to New York, cocksucker was not on the list, you ruin everything, pity laugh, Cracker Jack modeling, Mitch Hedberg, Netflix, Hopatcong New Jersey, street jokes, you’re just a hooker, Titanic, and I never started it... but I’ll fucking finish it!

“Neurosis is definitely a big piece of the puzzle.”

Plus look for Alysia’s CD “Princess” available on iTunes, Amazon and many other outlets. Just go to http://princesswood.com for links to her album, upcoming tour dates, and that fancy multi-tiered mailing list.

Movie Meltdown - Episode 170

This week we tackle a juggernaut of the film world... TAXI DRIVER. A movie that has massively worked it’s way into the pop culture. But in re-watching it, we realize the bad-ass and cool associations it has today, may be misguided. So we try to dig in and see what’s really going on with the film and the character of Travis Bickle.

And while planning our trip to Harry Dean Stanton Fest, we also mention... Emma Stone, the guy from The Strokes selling you guns, ...and we got stuck with Molly Ringwald, Scorsese from above, Lexington Film League, Ally Sheedy, The Last Picture Show, How I Met Your Mother, for every generation there is a redhead, Keitel super powers, morbid self attention, The Madison Dance, sleeping with Elvis, a mix between The Wire and Sesame Street, subconsciously sabotaging yourself, studying the movements of a crab, Super, a man OF the system, Bugsy Malone, A Band Apart, Moonlighting, closer to Britney Spears then Sid Vicious, the creepiest thing you’ve ever seen, the returning Vietnam veteran, and are movies responsible for the way they are perceived??

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen Taxi Driver yet, you need to realize how much you are just like the others... cold and distant.  

“This is just the perfect storm of cinema.”

Travis Meltdown artwork by Amy Wiedl. She is available for commissioned work, so e-mail her at: amywiedl@gmail.com

Movie Meltdown - Episode 169

This week, the gloves (and the earrings) come off as we prepare to do battle with The Thing! In this, The Thing Super Special, we address things all Thing-related including our Sofa Theater feature: The Thing (2011) as well as how it relates to The Thing (1982), The Thing from Another World and the novella “Who Goes There?”. Including comments on...the clothes question, selective memory, Tom Woodruff Jr., the darkness of The Thing, Howard Hawks, “Who Can it be Now?”, blowtorches in the Antarctic, the Brad Pitt of Norway, a super-nice military, traffic in the Antarctic, fighting the cycle of remakes... and the REAL reason you can’t trust The Thing. (P.S. - Just a note... let the credits play on The 2011 Thing.)

And while we cover several new and better ways to watch the Star Wars prequels, we also discuss... Inserts, a thinner Bob Hoskins, klaus kinski as a condiment, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the right time to introduce your kids to your favorite movies, Jessica Harper, Berkley needs her medication, NCIS, Malfoy in stage age make-up, a businessman is evil, The X-Files, having Topher Grace re-edit your movie, my discourse on Leadbelly and grits, the two-part breakdown of Richard Dreyfuss’s career, Tarantino, stupid things white people do, Veronica Cartwright, planet of the kittens, Aliens vs. Predator, pulling up in front of the house and honking the horn, bursting into song, Windows, a triple entendre, putting a lot of letters together that don’t go together, piercing your dogs ear, graphic, loving Showgirls, the nicest world ever depicted in film, beetle orgy, watching Batman each week on TV, we need an enemy from the outside, like Newman in Basic Instinct, killing myth, hot pie charts, the ancient conflict between graduate students and scientists, homemade pizza and The Muppets, getting bored with nudity, Thor is a closetfest, Fez as a detective, and talking smack about Firefly... just don’t do it.

Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for things all Thing-related such as... The Thing (2011), The Thing (1982), The Thing from Another World and the novella “Who Goes There?”. You have been warned.

“There should be more action pictures about grad students.”