Revenge Wires

     This week- two men on missions of redemption, both with accents Dave can't understand. 

     After a nice long prison term, Di is summoned to find out just how a bunch of government drones are being burned from the inside out before the coronation of Empress Wu. Based on one of the most significant detective novels of all time and with fights choreographed by the brilliant Sammo Hung, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Di renjie: Tong tian di gou)has an impressive pedigree that it would take some massive bungling to mess up... 
     Finally coming home after his time in the Army, Richard has a little business to clear up with his brother's friends. Arguably Shane Meadows' best work to date and with a powerhouse performance by the great Paddy Considine, Dead Man's Shoes is a heart-wrenching tale of revenge and guilt. 

     All that and Kevin gets smug in his better choices, Tyler demanded all his best lines be removed, and Dave idly runs a fork around an outlet. Join us, won't you?

EPISODE 170- REVENGE WIRES

Chained Mystery

     This week things return to normal with another strange double feature.
     What happens when an old beloved franchise takes a decade in development with an up and coming screenwriter, a cast that is nearly perfect, one of the worst directors of all time, and a studio that gets cold feet just before production? Scooby-Doo! In their first live action outing, the gang goes to Spooky Island to find out just what is happening to make the young people with attitudes leave as upstanding super strong citizens. 

     Remember when Samuel L Jackson actually acted? Remember when Christina Ricci wasn't just doing semi-horror bio pics for Lifetime? RotP remembers... we celebrate those days with Black Snake Moan. What else is an old poor farmer in the deep South supposed to do when he finds an unconscious nymphomaniac in a ditch except take her home and chain her to the radiator?

     All that AND Tyler reveals the first of four landings on The Staircase to Tylerdom, Dave tries to get others to better appreciate an animated series, Kevin just doesn't have time for either of their shit. Join us, won't you?

Episode 169- Chained Mystery

Better the Second Time Around

     We draw remake month to a close the only way we know how, by asking the age old question, is the remake ever better? Well, yeah, sometimes but what about these four examples? MAYBE! 

     We skinny dip through the last film before John McTiernan lost his shit to paranoia... The Thomas Crown Affair. Can the 90s make work a daring heist film about a bored billionaire work better than the 60s original about a bored millionaire? 
     Can people eating fish really improve on another try? Does dipping it in meta and gleeful nudity soaked in gore bring it to a new edge? Or do Piranha 3D lose their teeth?

     Can you really out Vincent Price Vincent Price? Does making it less Scooby-Doo and more Ghostbusters actually bring the terror home or does the 1999 House on Haunted Hill stand empty?

     Finally, we can't go a week lately without a little Lillard and Thirteen Ghosts. Reworking the original gimmick in a nice touch but going full nu-metal in every other way possible. Don't throw stones at ghosts in glass houses, they don't like it.
     All that and Kevin sees things man, Dave corrupts youth and innocence, and Tyler does it all for the glory of fap. Join us, won't you?

Episode 168- Better the Second Time Around

Don't Throw Matches in Wax Houses

     Remake Month Continues! Our hive mind grows stronger as without any consultation we decided now is as good a time as any to make up for our shameful shunning of Vincent Price and also celebrate Dark Castle Entertainment...
     First up... a remake of a pre-code film. Vincent Price is a brilliant wax sculptor who repopulates his museum with wax-coated corpses after a tragic fire leaves him unable to work.
     Then... the second remake of the first remake. Paris Hilton refuses to be left behind and evens up with the same number of Price films watched. When a group of... friends? No, that's not right... Enemies? Closer but not quiet it either...  Meddling tropes? That's the one. When a group of meddling tropes shows up at a field to camp before trying to scalp tickets to the game of the year, they get more wax based shenanigans than they bargained for. 
     A double shot of Houses of Wax. Join us, won't you?

   Episode 167- Don't Throw Matches in Wax Houses

 

Flies in the Ointment

     Two parts Mad Science, one part Vincent Price, one part Jeff Goldblum, shake over ice, garnish with some New Flesh and...REMAKE MONTH CONTINUES!!!

     This week a double shot of good intentions brought to ruin by insane self experimentation for giggles. 

     When a man's wife smashed his head in a hydraulic press, there's a lot of explaining to do.

     When you are one for two with imploding baboons, drunkenly testing on yourself is not a normal step in development. 

     Two house flies enter, two monstrosities exit! Why won't mild mannered scientist stop being reckless while standing on the bleeding edge?

     All that and Tyler says a thing that will ruin us all, Kevin likes to watch, and Dave fails to grasp the physics. Join us, won't you?

Episode 166- Flies in the Ointment

Do Not Forsake Me

     Remake Month rolls along with a two pack of men doing what they feel is right, despite everyone around them telling them to walk away...

     Gary Cooper puts to bed the cowboy archetype he had created 23 years earlier in The Virginian. Marshal Will Kane has just married and left his the job. Tragically, as soon as his gun and star are placed on the desk, word arrives that the outlaw who once held the town in his control has been released and is coming for Kane. Covered in controversy at release, one of the first films entered into the United States National Film Registry, a constant source of endless inspiration for so much that followed it. 

     Sean Connery picks up a trucker hat and shotgun to enforce new frontier justice. Federal Marshal William O'Neil is assigned to a mining outpost on the Jovian moon Io. The environment is unforgiving, the conditions are brutal, the work is hard, the shifts are long... but the pay is significant. All productivity records are shattered under the current management. Everything appears to be going as well as possible... until the miners begin to have violent, delusional, psychotic episodes. As O'Neil begins to investigate, who will stand with him when he could hurt their profit? The first film to use Introvision, a front-projection technique which allows effect elements to be combined in camera, that would be the industry standard until the adoption of digital compositing.

     This week High Noon and its spiritual offspring thematic remake Outland. Join us, won't you?

Episode 165- Do Not Forsake Me, O Space Darlin'

Concrete Playground

     This week we kick off Remake Month with a documentary and it's fictionalized offspring.
Stacy Peralta shines the light on the group, which he was a part of as well, which changed the sport forever with the invention of slide and aerial skateboarding. Tons of  vintage footage and contemporary interviews bring immediacy to Dogtown and Z-Boys.

     Peralta didn't stop there, writing the screenplay for the film version. When a skate shop owner sees the value in newly created polyurethane wheels, a group of young people from the rough side of town will get their chance at fame, fortune, and escape but first they will be Lords of Dogtown.
     Join us, won't you?

Episode 164- Remake Month: Concrete Playground