The Wages of Cinema

Before we get to the TWO MINUTE MOVIE MILE, Jack and Andrew talk about the latest trailer for Batman v Superman and (hot off the presses) Independence Day Resurgence. Here is the latest (Jack has a marathon starting with Room: 1) CREED (2015) 2) CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014) 3) THE GOOD DINOSAUR (2015) 4) SKYFALL (2012) 5) TRUMBO (2015) 6) AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015) (Andrew rewatc...

When you're a storyteller, it helps more than anything to know the tools you're going to use and always use them to their utmost capabilities. Whether it's choreographing laser-sword fights (not lightsaber, that's copyrighted apparently), putting someone into deep space (with some painterly inspiration believe it or not), or letting an actor go off about a dream he/she had the night before, Carlos...

"In the not too distant future..." (you know how it goes) How has this show, which lasted for over 10 years on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States change pop culture? How has making fun of the schlockiest of schlock changed how we look at movies in general? Can we ever deal with the fact that Manos: The Hands of Fate translates to 'Hands: The Hands of Fate'? Or how absolutel...

What do the hottest day of the summer in Brooklyn and the final night for polite (but some homicidal) Canadians have in common? Is a guy who announces that the gas will stay on in a calm, direct voice have a connection with Mr. Senior Love-Daddy? How funny can things like race and the apocalypse be? What is the process of things ESCALATING in this world? These questions and more are pondered by Ja...

Before the 2MMM, we talk about some comments regarding our previous 'List' episode and what we (or Jack) got wrong with the Man for All Seasons Christian-mythology. With the Two Minute Movie Mile, Jack sees a lot of new movies (plus two maybe not-so-great Nicolas Cage ones), and Andrew watches a Lucio Fulci movie and a Spike Jonze movie and... not too much else (it's one of those months with littl...

What makes for a spy movie? Does it just have to have SPIES, or do they have to be, you know, DOING things? Like espionage or missions or in total intrigue? Is NORTH BY NORTHWEST a spy movie? What about Argo? Captain America: The Winter Soldier? And what was up with Hitchcock adapting Sabotage from the novel The Secret Agent but not adapting The Secret Agent from some book called Sabotage (we're s...

How does one live a moral life? What does God have to do with how you live? Do you say what the Almighty says? What if there is no God... but just in case there is, you may want to take care - whether that's believing (or not) in divorce and the sanctity of the Pope, or killing someone, or working with Alan Alda (remember, if it BENDS, it's funny - if it BREAKS, it's NOT funny!) Today Jack and And...

We get right into it with the movie this week, as there have been a LOT to talk about: new releases go really to Jack and Andrew talks some horror (as Jack does too, this was covering the last week of October, after all), but then some animation (of varying qualities), a documentary about a making-of movie, the weirdest time travel movie ever, two or three French films (viva la France!) including...

Sometimes you can't just limit yourself to one thing - and we don't just mean by just being an actress or a singer or musical performer or a cosplayer or costume designer or (hopefully soon) writer... no, we mean that if you have a Facebook page for yourself, you go all out and put ACTOR-SINGER-NERD right in the title, as Miss Maya Murphy does on her page (link below). Maya is a woman of many hats...

What is a 'horror' film? How do you define what horrific means, or what the style is or tropes? What characters make up a horror movie? Can a horror movie be a war film, or visa-versa? How does comedy work into it, if it can? Have certain characters dated over time? And what about that Cloverfield monster tickles Andrew so much? Is tickles the right word? This may seem like a far-reaching and broa...

So, we want to talk to you today about ducts. And children. Do your ducts have children in them? No wait, let's start over. Simple enough: Andrew watched Terry Gilliam's take on Orwell, Kafka and nightmares of the modern world, and Jack watched the adaptation of John Wyndham's 'The Midwich Cuckoo's'. 1) Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL (1985) 2) Wolf Rilla's VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)

So, let's get back to what we love talking about - MOVICINEFILMOGRAPHIA! Sorry, we sometimes do make up words... First, the guys start off with a discussion on the 3rd (and final) Star Wars trailer for Episode 7, and other episodes and their special editions. Then it's time for the 2 minute movie mile, where Jack and Andrew talk about the films they've seen in the past two weeks - some new release...

Local Vocal is happy to present our first conversation with a published author! This being Matthew Catania, who's first novel, THE DOLOROUS ADVENTURE OF BROTHER BANENOSE, has been published and is now available via Booktrope publishing. Listen as we talk with Matthew (who you may have previously heard on Episode 13)about the influence of The Name of the Rose and Rocky & Bullwinkle, Monty Python, t...

What makes a horror movie 'overrated'? Or any movie, for that matter? Expectations? Hype? The general audience consensus seems to be a big part of it. Also, what happens when years pass after watching a movie, and you feel different about it and it may not hold up well over time. On this episode, Jack and Andrew discuss a group of horror movies - from classic Universal to Italian Giallo and the sl...

This week on this episode of 'The List', Jack and Andrew ask some important questions of their movies. Such as: are all British children creepy? Is Klaus Kinski the most intense actor in the history of cinema? What does sex have to do with the Governess Miss Giddens and the little boy Miles? Did these native people in South America work for scale? What does it mean to really frighten and to really...

LOTS of horror talked here, in large part by Jack, and ranging from new releases to classics (Karloff, Corman, Michael Powell and John Landis on this one) and obscurities by well-known directors, plus two documentaries and an entry from the good ol' folks from Tromaville, New Jersey. (Oh, and there's Belle de Jour as well - not a horror movie, but what can you do, it was in the block!) Follow us o...

Jack and Andrew first talk about the fact that this is Columbus Day (that this was recorded on) and why there aren't more movies about this Columbus guy, then a brief discussion about a recent screening of Rifftrax's MIAMI CONNECTION (which they previously saw for 2MMM). Then on to the movies, with largely new titles and two action classics from John Woo. Stay tuned for part 2, with a block of HOR...

And now for part 2 of the continuing series with THE REPRESENTATIVES – now with the man behind the page of all the plays, STAN RICHARDSON. Who is Stan? How does he write so many plays – and get them produced – each year? How did he meet and become a pupil of Edward Albee? Jack talks with Stan about this and more; the effects of politics and current events on plays; Twin Peaks and serial killers; w...

If you heard episode 2 of the Local Vocal series with actor and director Matt Steiner, then you heard about the theater group THE REPRESENTATIVES. To say their productions are unconventional is putting it lightly, as the masterminds behind the group, Steiner and playwright/director/producer Stan Richardson, create three productions (at least) a year, often combining multi-media – film and special...

You may be at a podcast called the Wages of Cinema but, you might ask, what sort of ‘wages?’ Can they buy you sex? How about the sex comes free? Maybe you’re a perv and should go away some place else! Maybe we’ll throw in a sandwich on the way out… Ok, strange intro. How about… back in February, Jack and Andrew had a discussion about SEX in cinema. We return with another discussion about this, but...

The LIST this week gets epic. How epic? Two films that altogether run a total of 3 ½ hours (maybe longer), and have a connecting thread: two historical films about figures you may have heard of (or not, as case might be), and both directed not only by actors, but the actors in question – Richard Attenborough and Warren Beatty – won Oscars in back-to-back years for their long-gestated triumphs (it...

Jack and Andrew return, once again, NOT for the last time (far as we know, we don’t control the sponsors…) Time for more movie talk, but before the movies that they saw this week, Jack brings up the latest sound-bytes that seem to be coming out of that fount of movie-geekdom, Quentin Tarantino, and his comments about streaming and taping from TV on VHS in ‘I Lost it at the Video Store’. The 2-Minu...

It only took 26 episodes (give or take a few), but Jack Gattanella and Andrew Birchenough present their very first LIVE presentation! Here's a question: what are THE important animated movies ever made? Or more specifically, how many came from Walt Disney studios alone? Are they only for kids - what about adults? Over the course of an hour (and then some), Jack and Andrew look to find the 10 (real...

Sure, it's the Wages of Cinema - but we have a limit for our 'cins', right? Long ago, when young men wore flannel and young women were catching up on episodes of My So-Called Life, people could walk into a theater, pay the $5, and get the crap knocked out of them by seeing something they hadn’t seen before – such as, in 1995, a serial killer movie that had a grisly, nasty, dark-black-brown-hued vi...

Two men know what they want out of life. One will become a major league baseball player – a rookie at the age of 40 – and defy any odds to be nearly the greatest the game ever saw – and the other will become an obsessive over intelligent life off the Earth that’s come to seek him (and others) out, and he may just have to go to them at the rendezvous point. Oh, and both characters are named Roy. As...