Movie Meltdown

Movie Meltdown - Episode 487 (For our Patreon "Horror Club") This week the horror club meets to discuss Await Further Instructions. This 2018 movie is directed by none other than… Johnny Kevorkian. And it starts off seemingly as an awkward holiday family gathering - but quickly turns into a high-concept horror scenario that crosses over into everything from xenophobia, black goo, national pride, television devotion, religion and biomechanical invaders. And while we realize we all just want a turkey pizza, we also bring up… The Curse of La Llorona, Detective Pikachu, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Universal Monsters, The Midnight Hour, Legacies, an exercise in the concept, you watched a lot of Cronenberg, empathy, sleeveless shirts, The Twilight Zone, breathing and pulsating, Compliance, the vaccine, politics on Twitter, death machines all around, dated references, Harry Potter, toxic masculinity, the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures, this is a metaphor that 60 years too late, follow the lead

Movie Meltdown - Episode 486 This week we kick off a new running series where we focus on sci-fi movies. Listen as discuss the 1960 Italian feature Atom Age Vampire. The poster is awesome, the trailer is amazing... but does the movie itself hold up as a science fiction classic? And while we realize we’re still just geeks digging through our uncle’s video closet, we also address… FunFlicks, The Orville, Larry Cohen, Veronica Lake, dressed up in a trench coat like she's a spy, Ursula K. Le Guin, she’s clearly wildly in love with this wooden man, I do really like mad scientists, I am always kind of defined by my worst joke, Lethal Weapon, relationship bonding, back when we kept our geekdom in the basement, humor is valuable partly because it allows us to say the things we can't say, suffering against suffering, Rod Serling, there’s a great progressive shot of her face, Star Trek: Discovery, the Los Alamos Isotopes, it's unleashed a primordial malevolence, I’m freaking right the hell out, Hiroshima bottles, your

Movie Meltdown - Episode 485 This week the Super Series wraps up a huge chapter in the Marvel cinematic universe. Join us as we try to talk through coming down off the Endgame high as well as what all of this has meant to us over the course of these last 22 movies. And while we realize we’re bringing in our own real-world anxieties, we also cover… satisfying bows, the reluctant hero, you’ve been tricked through movies, doesn’t interact much with people, you took that to the face, like a literature review, otherly anxiety, the ancient one, just how Thanos intended, pitchforks and torches, huge for a long time, it’s not just a story… it becomes more, super serum, Back to the Future 2, science and mystic having this argument, I feel like the whole world’s on the same page now, band-aids all over the universe, real-world emotional reactions and experiences that you might not have had otherwise, staying a stone, you deal with sorrow through anger, they carry so much weight with them now, a paragraph of dollar sign

Movie Meltdown - Episode 484 This week we welcome artist Winona Nelson. Winona studied classical realism and art for the entertainment industry at the Safehouse Atelier in San Francisco, then worked as a concept artist at Flagship Studios and Planet Moon Studios. She now works as a freelance in illustration, concept art, comics and fine art. Her work has been seen in gallery exhibitions in Connecticut, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York City. As usual, the Meltdown perspective looks at how our guest was inspired and influenced by film and other media. And what we learn is Winona didn't begin the way most of our movie geek guests... her path starts a little differently... but of course still leads to crossovers into movie fandom - and eventually her own terrific art. Then Winona sits-in for this week's Sofa Theater discussion of Interview with the Vampire. The book was instrumental in her youth, so what does she think of the often maligned movie? And as we realize sometimes playing with magnets -

Movie Meltdown - Episode 483 This week we discuss sci-fi storytelling from it's early appearances and ideals to it's grander, overarching themes. And as we realize the life we are living is a cautionary tale, we also address… Sputnik, Rod Serling, Black Mirror, blast proof doors, there's always a dystopian element, THX 1138, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Fifth Element, find a way to do this fake version of what I’m so obsessed with, Fellini in outer space, Star Trek, George Clinton, Project Blue Book, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Night Stalker, that's what they were fighting against... the negative elements of space society, raised on movies and television, Metropolis, A Cure for Wellness, Shakespeare, that is the nature of the beast, Logan's Run, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, mini movies or broken up gigantic movies, we're rewriting our genetic code, getting into the mind of a Morlock, Kurt Russell, The Day the Earth Still Still, mocha-flavored people, Metallica Through the Never, Robert Zemeckis, it’s a li

Movie Meltdown - Episode 482  This week we talk with Dick Starr, an artist whose work has been featured in numerous galleries, horror and tattoo magazines, books, album covers and comics around the world. But if you look at Dick’s work, it’s very obvious that he’s a fan of movies… specifically horror. So listen as we discuss trying to make a name for yourself in the ever-changing art scene, watching gory horror movies from a very young age and - jerky. Which if you don’t know Dick, might seem like an odd tangent. But as it turns out… it ties very nicely into all the other aspects of his life. And as we reminisce about when going into a video store wasn’t for novelty purposes, we also mention… They Live, waiting to get your pictures back, Mad Magazine, Stan Lee, the frontman of the band, Halloween, the Green Goblin face, and I remember my mom not being too thrilled, that is where it got to be just too much of a risk, horror mashup art, Wes Borland, WolfCop, digital blood, Antonio Pantoja, people just end up gi

Movie Meltdown - Episode 481 (For our Patreon "Horror Club") This week the Bastion Chapter of the Horror Club meets to watch a lesser-known werewolf movie. But little do they know that they’ve been duped by the old Wolf Girl bait and switch. Instead they are exposed to Tim Curry, sideshow performers, little people stripping, Grace Jones, a work-at-home scientist, Iceman and some disturbing nether regions. And as we realize there is no method to this madness, we also cover… Ash vs Evil Dead, Santa Clarita Diet, LEGOS, The Rookie, Gary Daniels, I have half of He-Man, creepy lurking in the woods, appetite for terror, Bruce Dickinson with black hair, Monster Fighters, it looks like a deformed thumb, Bob Fosse, fighting deadites, the dog was knocking on the door, Lucy Lawless, and they all come with one extra hand, they had me at werewolf, Shawn Ashmore, Magic Mike, eating flesh, the sadness of his masculinity, this movie was definitely worth a dollar, growing a dog, geeky Ozzy Osbourne, building a haunted castle,

Movie Meltdown - Episode 480 This week some previously absent members of the gang are reunited to go on adventures at The Lexington Comic & Toy Convention! So listen as we discuss seeing celebrities, buying cool stuff and just what is the right criteria for being a supervillain. And as we obviously prove that we are not infected by a smart amoeba, we also bring up… Val Kilmer, Stan against Evil, the entire Scream movie franchise, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Fightworld, The Umbrella Academy, Adam Copeland, hardcore Doctor Who fans, the surf channel on Pluto, Robert Sheehan, haphazardly slapped together, Bring ‘em Back Alive and Tales of the Gold Monkey, Jon Cryer, Elijah Wood, wants to become some kind of tree spirit, I was training him to be a tough little squirrel, Belle and the burrito, Neve Campbell, there was literally flailing, Jan-Michael Vincent, hoodie Spider-Man, Forged in Fire, Douglas Adams, everything that happens will get me to where I need to go, dude put on your big-boy britche

Movie Meltdown - Episode 479 This week we are joined by semi-regular cast member... and at this point, a member of the Meltdown family - DOUG JONES!! And this week Doug joins us for our Sofa Theater discussion of Waking Ned Devine. And while we realize both the guest and the cast seem to crash through people's boundaries, we also address… Count Orlok, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Better Things, What We Do in the Shadows, the AFI awards, Guillermo del Toro, Star Trek: Discovery, Mira and Paul Sorvino, the Hallmark Channel, The Shape of Water, Christina Ricci, coming up with a caper, The Candy Shop, the tubby blue guys… with weird white wigs, Ann B. Davis, squeezing faces, movies with rubber monsters in them don't often make it to a 13 nomination night at the Oscars, I've never seen a surge like this last year ever before, being a criminal mastermind, Mimic 3, you’re just not watching it right, it should inspire whatever you need that day, thriving in life, snitches get… thrown into the ocean, I’ll be your Joan

Movie Meltdown - Episode 478  The "Super Series" is back as we come out of our post-snap hiatus to discuss Captain Marvel. And as we begin to wonder if ever we were somehow involved in “the Budapest thing”, we also mention… Grendel's insatiable, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Aquaman, Spider-Man: Far from Home, SHAZAM!, Venom, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Legion, Kingpin, Idris Elba, Street Fighter 2, the Tesseract Cube, Guardians of the Galaxy, Samuel L. Jackson, all those Kirby illustrations done in full scope, it's all absolutes, keep your omega villains omega, James Gunn's 'The Suicide Squad', the finger snap is everywhere in culture now, watch out for time vortexes, listening to vinyl, creating his own mythos, Bag of Holding, Brie Larson, I think there is a total difference to comic book movies, The Killing Joke, my head just exploded I’m like… man, I don't know what's going on now, Cushing's disease, Daredevil, I'm too grown to like accept this scene, snarky and dry, maybe that's their

Movie Meltdown - Episode 477 This week we ask the question - can you turn any “property” into a theme park attraction? And as we realize that this is all an interesting psychological experiment - being conducted on us, we also cover... Newt Scamander, Idiocracy, The Wire, The Warriors, James Cameron, hey look it's a wild Gabor, Back to the Future: Part 2, a symbol of corrupt pseudo justice, Bring ‘em Back Alive and Tales of the Gold Monkey, The Journey: Absolution, they are transported to another realm because of solar eclipse occurred, he goes above and beyond filmmaking, the magical British Jack Hanna, I don’t care for his things, but I like him, that was a funny moment when I established myself as an idiot American, Isaac spoke to me, it just looks like Land of the Lost with a little extra money, Benedict Cumberbatch, how many weird pop stars did they create out of 80's soap opera dudes, I love my therapist... he died, so now I've got Marc Maron, it gets my entire mouth envolved, what Nargles look like, I

Movie Meltdown - Episode 476 It's the annual award ceremony of The Meltdown Awards! Listen as we discuss all the nominees and announce the winners from the 2018 films and performances voted on by our listeners! And as we make use of our dollhouse sensibility, we also bring up… unnecessary creepy smiles, it hits the nail on just so many heads, it's very hermetically sealed, this is one of those times… when everybody meets in the same spot, they're still kind of unpacking whatever kind of weirdness is going on in that guy, it’s mostly electronic, an impressive feat in filmmaking if nothing else, now she's in so many things and I'm never let down, it’s kind of like this master class in editing, that was like the only time in a theater in this last year, where everyone was like ‘Oh f***!!’, this thing could have been a huge mess but they kept it together, it really helped him make his name as a director, I feel like that was a very 90s haircut for that character, devoid of humanity, it's the classiest of all meat

Movie Meltdown - Episode 475 This week we start off talking about the current convention culture and how artists fit into that situation - or don’t... and eventually, we end up discussing the differences in the generations and how that all affects the future of the world. This conversation runs the gamut! And as we start to realize that fandom is all relative, we also address… The Commuter, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a convincing Irish accent, Tonks from Harry Potter, Ron Howard, we have so much information coming our way that we're all on autopilot, a short in stature Melkor carrying a red American Heart Association tote, that level of greed and Industry does not go away, your weird physical idea of yourself, who uses a pager where's my flip phone, old men action stars, it's the fault of the way we consume media, what was the song that was playing when that kid saw that lawn mower that was eating that guy, Ready Player One, rebooting Bozo, Liam Neeson, I presume it is IOS friendly, the glorious Wonder Woman

Movie Meltdown - Episode 474 (For our Patreon "Horror Club") This week the horror club reconvenes to discuss André Øvredal's 2016 film The Autopsy of Jane Doe starring Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch and Olwen Kelly. And as we realize we are all living in a shared horror universe, we also mention… Blumhouse Productions, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Jimsonweed, The Shining, I get that that's a weird thing to find in somebody's basement, an old-timey narrator telling us about an animal’s adventure, morbid yet squeamish, Happy Death Day, within the confines of horror movies and cop dramas that's kind of how it works, Bewitched, infinite loop, you're shoving your head somewhere you don't need to be put in your head right now, the logistics of how things are going down, drugs ‘n Voodoo s’all you need, slow build, mottled face appears, putting peanut butter on a lion’s lips, I have no mercy... I don't care... just kill people, when the cat growled, interior not matching the exterior, Jabberjaw: the Movie, once you ge

Movie Meltdown - Episode 473 This week the Meltdown Gang decides to hang out and discusses some of the things they've watched lately. And while we plan our upcoming puppet musical, we also cover… Bad Times at the El Royale, Russian Doll, Green Room, Revenge, Labyrinth, Hail, Caesar!, Another Day, Another Time, John Cusack, picking apart old horror tropes, King Arthur and the knights of the round table, Catherine O'Hara, it’s very seamless the way they Incorporated all together, Patrick Stewart, bought some foam a couple of weeks ago, all these hidden things that you were supposed to have caught but maybe didn't, David Bowie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, painful self-surgical scene, Eugene Levy, you are a genius… and a madman, love of old Hollywood, there’s a lot of speech comedy, Channing Tatum, some of the most gnarly bloody movie deaths I’ve seen in a while, Coralie Fargeat, The Dark Crystal, it's like really fun... despite being like super violent, Natasha Lyonne and just a lot of Schitt's Creek. “It is a ni

Attack of the Killer Soundtrack 55 This week we are joined once again by composer Erich Stem as we play and discuss all the 2018 Oscar nominees for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.  And while we try to decide how many tracks feature stand-alone-ish-ness, we also bring up… Wynton Marsalis, grooves, chord progressions and sound effects, a different artistic purpose, Hans Zimmer is actually the kind of person that he studied, reminiscent of past songwriting styles, the background music to an Ambien commercial, stuttering racists, no style no finesse definitely no subtlety, The Shape of Water, Harvard rap groups, something that is separate from the crowd, Philip Glass, Quincy Jones, that big Hollywood influence coming out, it's hard to say when you talk about original music and you're actually orchestrating the music of a prior composer, The Weeknd, James Bond, a composer with a jazz background versus a composer with a classical background, using traditional instruments, a relic of a bygone musical per

Movie Meltdown - Episode 472 This week we return to our annual series The People Who Died… as we pay tribute to just some of the celebrities we lost in 2018. Including some personal stories of our own interactions with a few of the dearly departed. And while we wonder if we’ll be considered a phenomenon had the lasting effect on generations of people, we also address… the wheelchair in Forrest Gump, Eighth Grade, The Henson Studios, Anjelica Huston, they recreated that corner of the street from police photographs, playing a permutation of the same roll, it’s as much a history lesson and a performance, we'll have these weird little moments of serendipity in life, he's not the kind of guy would let a little thing like a typhoon and stop him from making his movie, everybody’s Grandpa,William Peter Blatty, editing that was unconventional for that era, the next Exorcist, if you’re not here… you’re material, an architect who helps restore old churches, felt pressured into doing the scene, The Prestige, there's so m

Movie Meltdown - Episode 471 This week we kick things off with special guest J. Todd Anderson, the man who has been drawing storyboards for EVERY Coen Brothers movie since Raising Arizona! Then the Meltdown Gang sits down to discuss the most recent outing from the Coen Brothers - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. While we ourselves realize we might be as eloquent and well-spoken as an Elizabethan backwoods guy, we also mention… the Cleveland Browns, wedding cakes, Tom Waits, Superman with George Reeves, an unsung, amazing actor, straight out of Looney Tunes, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alfred Hitchcock, this is how he led a nation, Liam Neeson, 8mm, George Clooney, the book goes out to all the keys, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Tim Blake Nelson, Gene Autry, 90% heavy breathing and groaning, death in every form is just out to get everybody, James Franco, they're very specific and all I have to do is draw and get it right, Stephen Root, the Evil Dead camera effect, the specter of death is hanging over all of us,  Brendan Glee

Movie Meltdown - Episode 470 This week the Meltdown Gang gets together to create an audio culinary dish made of stacked layers of movie geekdom. Listen as we add layer after layer of geeky content... like a good lasagna. And eventually, we'll discuss a very specific - "bad lasagna". And while we fight off nazis and vampires, we also cover… The Predator, Derry Girls, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Leave No Trace, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Clue, Red Eye, The Drive-in Movie Channel, The Howling Man, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, R.L. Stine, hiding in the abbey, sit down giant Pikachu, have another chili dog, six or seven other people tied to chairs with similar cuts on their arms, has opened up a whole new world of possibilities to keep me from doing real things, we have the VHS, a weird fake spider book, Christopher Plummer is... fine, the old traditional scrolling through all the streaming apps, a peoples-worth of remains, Rachel McAdams, during the Depression these two brothers moved to town, it's prob

Movie Meltdown - Episode 469 (For our Patreon "Horror Club") This week the Meltketeer Horror Club reconvenes to discuss the 2018 psychological horror film Delirium starring Topher Grace, Patricia Clarkson and Genesis Rodriguez.   And while we realize all we really want is Fruity Pebbles delivered to our doorstep, we also bring up… Shutter Island, Sunset Boulevard, bringing in outside contractors, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, such an obtuse bad guy, It's a Wonderful Life, a tongue in a jar, the Home Alone sequel, Venom, nobody was there really, how long had those been there… who’s using them, trend filmmaking, never trust an indoor pool, does she have no concern for her own well-being, your dad’s a serial killer… but your brother’s also a serial killer, making mix CDs, build your own torture chamber, split personality, Black Klansman, how many sets of handcuffs are we walking around with, that guy from Dear John, being a super sweet psycho, the asylum had a really nice gym, a dog riding around on an electric scoo