Author: Max&Mike

Welcome to “Cooking with Max, Mike; Movies,” and another in our culinary series “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm!” You know, when preparing your favorite invertebrate dish, many people overlook the humble termite. Now, most of your haute cuisine recipes tend to focus on the more exotic insects, like the sago grub or the bamboo worm but we at this podcast think that the termite is a taste treat whose time has come. High in oil, they’re great for frying, with a delicately nutty taste. This batch we have here have been fed exclusively on Indian Snakewood, which gives them a marvelously complex flavor palate, and have spent their days bathing in a mild soy sauce/rice wine mixture. Today we’ll be frying them up in sesame oil for a tasty treat that can’t be beat! Ohohohoho, pardon my little quip. This dish should pair well with today’s movie, “Renfield”, whose protagonist prefers his arthropods and arachnids tartare, which is a perfectly acceptable way to enjoy them, other than the fact that they may tend to crawl off the plate, but to each their own! Yes, Mr. Renfield, played by Nicholas Holt, enjoys his six-legged friends as snacks, while his “master” Dracula, played by Nicholas Cage, prefers to spend his days munching on scenery. Enjoy, and bon appetit!

Poll question: what part, if any, of standard vampire lore strikes you as particularly silly/odd/dumb. Exemption: Stephanie Meyers’ sparkle ponies.

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Yee haw! Welcome to another rootin’ tootin’ ready-fer-shootin’ episode of “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm!” Dang, will y’all listen to them children of the night? They make some right purty music don’t they? We got us some good ol’ ‘MURICAN vampires this week, ‘cept’n they don’t rightly call themselves vampires, do they. Nope, these here are Freedompires! Well, that’s what they should be called on account they’re all bit-in-the-U-S-of-A, homegrown bloodsuckers. We got us some favorites of that there James Cameron fella, like Lance “Born to Play a Vampire” Henricksen, Jeannette Goldstein, and F’in’ Bill Paxton hisself! So set a spell, have a shot of moonshine, and listen on up. Good eeeeeevening and yee-haw!!

Poll question: What setting/culture/genre would you most like to see vampires plunked down into?

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We’re back! In this week’s episode of “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm!” we are discussing that most terrifying supernatural creature: the Willem Dafoe. No one knows how long the Willem Dafoe has haunted the dreams of humankind but people everywhere are horribly fascinated by this creature of myth. In Japan, he is known as “Dafoe Willem.” In France, they warn their children about “Le Willem Dafoe”; in Germany, peasants used to whisper tales of “Der Willem Dafoe.” Why is this blood-freezing creature of legend so prevalent? Why do so many superstitions tell us that he cannot enter a dwelling if there is a pink-painted Hostess Twinkie nailed to the door? Why does he fear an autographed copy of any Nora Roberts novel published before 1998? How does he subsist only on chocolate-covered escargot? We may never know . . . but we do know that he stars in this movie as a much less frightening creature, a strange actor who may or may not be a simple vampire, in this fictionalized story of F.W. Murnau’s filming of his most famous hit, 1922’s “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.” Join us and LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU! IT’S WILLEM DAFOE! Ha ha ha, gotcha!

Poll question: which do you enjoy more: supernatural monsters like vampires or science-based monsters like mutants or aliens?

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In this week’s installment of “I Vant To Vatch Your Feelm!”, we’ve got a movie that’s got a certain level of Fame. Starring Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon, and once again never using the “V” word, this movie follows two Scary Monsters, two real Diamond Dogs, if you will and their struggles with immortality, or lack thereof. Catherine Deneuve is a Queen Bitch and has set her sights on a real Jean Genie, Susan Sarandon. Susan, one of the Young Americans, can’t tell if Catherine is just a Space Oddity or something more sinister. Perhaps Catherine is running out of Golden Years and just wants Susan to answer the question: Is There Life on Mars? Catherine’s current lover, the Man Who Sold the World is going through some Changes that may lead him from Ashes to Ashes, and is no longer a Sweet Thing. But Susan is a true Rebel Rebel and will not go quietly. What is the ultimate fate of these characters? The answer can be found in this episode’s Sound and Vision. By the way, did I mention David Bowie is in this movie? Huh. Must have slipped my mind. Oh well, doesn’t matter. Let’s Dance!

Poll question: Are you a fan of vampires in movies? Why or why not?

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Well, last week in our series “I Vant To Vatch Your Feelm!”, we were knee-deep in the 70’s and this week, with “The Lost Boys”, we are hip-deep in the 80’s, as well as waist-deep in early appearances by later stars. We’ve got Keifer Sutherland, way before he got all “24” on us. We’ve got Edward Hermann, years before “The Gilmore Girls.” We’ve got both Coreys, Feldman and Haim, two legendary fixtures of the 80’s. We’ve got Alex Winter slightly before he became Bill S. Preston, Esquire. We’ve even got Jason Patric, long before he . . . um . . . well, I’m sure he did some other stuff after this, right? We’ve got Diane Wiest, before she did EVERYTHING. And best of all, we have my close, personal friend Barnard Hughes (who I met once when I was 12). What a movie! All this cast would need is a bunch of blood-drinking supernatural beings . . . and I have the most extraordinary coincidence to report! So how does this movie hold up? Did it ever? Join us in Santa Carla and find out!

Poll question: What under-used folkloric monster deserves its place on the silver screen? Leave a comment or call our monster-mashing hotline at 617-398-7266.

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What is happening, all you (checks notes) jiving turkeys? We are (checks notes) keeping on truck-in with our groovy series “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm” with this week’s (checks notes) funkley entry “Blacula.” Let us give you (checks notes) the skinny on this (checks notes) slamming, whoops, I mean, slammin’ flick, while we head out in our (checks notes) shaggin’ wagon and hit the road in search of our next jive-talking (hah, didn’t need my notes for that one) movie. Hey, Mike, don’t (checks notes) bogart all that Bumpypux cereal! Yes, as you can see I have extensively researched the classic slang of the 70’s and can now seamlessly work it into conversation. “But Max,” you might say, “didn’t you live through the 70’s? Wouldn’t you already know all the cool slang?” Well, elegantly coifed but naïve listener, I did indeed live through the 70’s but at no point could I be considered cool. Golly! But don’t let that detract from our discussion of “Blacula”, one of the best-known of the Blaxploitation movies of the 70’s . . . or is it? We’ll try to let you know, and we (checks notes) ain’t just woofin’! Wait, was that a real phrase? It was? Seriously? Huh . . .

Poll question: Who do you think is the worst cinematic vampire? Leave a comment or call our Emergency Blood Donation hotline at at 617-398-7266

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Good eeeeeeeevening! Welcome to our latest series: “I Vant to Vatch Your Feelm”, a series devoted to das Vampir, no, dammit, the Vampyre, no, that can’t be right . . . VAMPIRES. Got it? That’s the spelling and that’s what we’re calling them. Vampires appear in many, many cultures in many different forms and in NONE of the cultures that matter do they sparkle. Let’s make that clear right now, ok? No sparkling from anything even vaguely resembling one of the nosferatu. Sure, most vampire movies deal with the Big D (no, not Dunkin. Why would you even think that?) but there are quite a few movies where no one mentions Captain Opera Cloak, or if they do, it’s in an . . . unusual manner. We’re focusing on the more off-beat, maybe slightly non-standard vampire movies and we’re starting off with an entry from that well-known horror film director . . . Jim Jarmusch? Hah? Ok, that’s different. “Only Lovers Left Alive” is indeed a vampire movie, despite the fact that the “V” word is never used once. Check out Tilda Swinton as she once again shows she can do anything, and Tom Hiddleston who . . . made me ask myself some deeply personal, searching questions . . . cut that out, you damn sexy Limey! Give a listen and see what’s got us all leather pants, I mean, interested!

Poll question: who’s the coolest vampire? Dracula? (and which one?) Lestat? Celine from “Underworld”? Vampire Bill? Comment or call hotline at 617-398-7266

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