247 Scanners

Matt and Mark review the Chronenberg cult classic Scanners this week. A nicely stylized B-movie with decent production and a well crafted premise, scanners falls a bit short. With too much plot, the machinations and motivations of the characters are archetypal at best, implausible at worst. There are hints here of what Chronenberg would become and its refreshing to go back in time and see a classic director in the rough. Unlike Advanced Dungeons and Dragons psionicists rules for combat however, the Scanner "mind fights" are not only cathartic but at times spectacularly visceral.

Download: 247 Scanners

246 Over the Edge

This week Matt and Mark review the 70's teen rebellion film "Over the Edge". Despite its teen crime hyperbole, the film brings insight into the corportizing of the American family and it's dehumanizing affect on community and landscape. While such a movie could have fallen flat, Over the Edge is deftly executed with a cast of competent teenage actors and careful direction. Introducing a young Matt Dillon and packed with an iconic set of 70's rock n' roll (Cheap Trick, The Ramones, and Van Halen), Over the Edge has stuck in the collective memory.

Download: 246 Over the Edge  

245 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

After a three week hiatus, Matt and Mark are back with an epic review of Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me. A discussion which comprises the entirety of the Twin Peaks mythos (including TP: The Return), we set the stage and dig deep into the cinematic debut of the ultimate cult television drama. Matt confesses that FWWM was his introduction to Laura Palmer's world, which despite the obvious spoilers, had little effect on its appreciation. Filmed on location and Matt and Mark's actual high school (Go SHS Panthers!) and adjacent neighborhoods, the film is particularly evocative and fun. A definitive cult film, head into the Black Lodge and enjoy.

Download: 245 Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me

244 Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie

Shot Mark and Ivy Matt finish out our docu-athon this week with the dispassionate Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie, narrated by William Shatner. Its lack of emotion coupled with a minimalist straight forward narrative is argued to be its drawback, while Matt argues the opposite. As an engineering project, Trinity and Beyond takes the viewer through the lab bench proving grounds of the Pacific and Nevada as the United States hones the weaponry which re-defined geopolitics. As a hardware nerd, the film offers quite a bit (or at least as much as it can in 90 minutes), however as a passionate member of the human race, there's little to glom onto .

Download: 244 Trinity and Beyond

243 Crumb

Continuing with the docs this week, Matt and Mark review the cult documentary Crumb from 1994. Less a film about the man and his art, its fulcrum is Robert Crumb's dysfunctional upbringing and its creative aftermath. What Robert Crumb channels is the artistic byproduct of his autobiographical torture, accented by interviews with his neurotic/psychotic brothers. While funny and witty, Crumb in the end fits the asshole artist stereotype, going to prove that turmoil and resentment often offers the best muse.

Download: 243 Crumb

242 Exit Through The Gift Shop

The week(s) Matt and Mark are still in full doc mode and review the Banksy film Exit Through The Gift Shop. A meta-documentary of sorts, Bansky deconstructs the art hype machine with the human graffiti equivalent Thierry Guetta, an OCD film maker turned street artist. A film so deftly wrought, the ability of the viewer to discover the edge of the hoax and the beginning of reality is seamless. Banksy sets fire to the trash heap of post-modern philosophical mental masturbation and lights his cigarette with it.

Download: 242 Exit Through the Gift Shop

241 Grizzly Man

This week Matt and Mark discuss the indifference of survival and nature's cruelty when we discuss both United Airlines contract of carriage and the definitive Herzong documentary Grizzly Man. Tim Treadwell created an anthropamorphized fantasy world in the Alaskan Tundra where he spent 13 summers with Earth's most fearsome carnivores, the North American Grizzly. Passions exceeded pragmatism and in the end, Tim paid the price inhabiting his self-created world. An interesting character sketch the likes of which we rarely see on film.

Download: 241 Grizzly Man