Your Unusual Double Bills

johnny_ultimate

The double bill: a lost artform, one could say. And I'm not talking about showing Batman Begins and The Dark Knight back-to-back. I mean very different films that curiously compliment or contradict each other when shown together: whether it's thematically, stylistically, generically or whatever. Double bills from the same franchise or by the same director are unwelcome here. Films from diverse eras, regions and talents are encouraged.

So, if you were to programme a double (or triple) bill on these grounds, what would you pick? Some examples.

Sunset Boulevard & The Artist - both deal with the same era: that awkward transition from silent to sound in Hollywood. Both couldn't be more different though. Oddly enough, the older film remains far more bitter & cynical, whereas The Artist comes across as more romantically nostalgic and revisionist. Both feature towering performances, however.
Make it a triple: throw in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries for a curious but radical contrast (starring a genuine director of classic silent cinema coping with aging), and see how The Artist took a few cues from an early dream sequence in WS.

The Aviator & Millennium Actress - Two extremely cine-literate but very personal stories through modern history. Both are stylistically brave, with frequent nods to all manner of classic film. The Aviator is 'based on true events' of Howard Hughes' life, but Millennium Actress takes inspiration from a number of sources (particularly the life of actress Setsuko Hara) but keeps it fictional to allow some artistic license and impressive flights of fancy. Kon's film is more crowdpleasing, but both are complex and stylish pieces of work.
Make it a triple: consider Tetsuya Nakashima's rainbow-hued but extremely bittersweet Memories of Matsuko for a fictional biopic realised through extreme, occasionally Disneyified stylisation.

The Chaser and Se7en - Two films that subvert and distort the serial killer genre to giddy effect. Both are grimy and disturbing film, and they share a keen awareness of audience expectations and genre norms. The execution is radically different, but the results are equally fruitful.
Make it a triple: Silence of the Lambs, for another serial killer film with a deeply unusual yet playful streak.

Your turn!

mike65

Bring back re-issue double bills!

Every Which Way But Loose and Planet of the Apes, Monkeys and Humans - but which is smarter?

krudler

The Rocketeer and Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. Both have stylised versions of the 30's, Nazis, rocketmen and a dogooder hero pilot, one is a lovingly made 90's underrated classic the other a much maligned 2004 curiousity.

e_e

During a long day last year I decided to go to see both Film Socialisme and The Guard.

The flat out worst film of 2011 versus the most ridiculously overrated. Argh not the best way to spend an afternoon/evening.

Mickeroo

I saw Starsky & Hutch and The Passion of the Christ back to back in the cinema. That was an interesting day.

I've mentioned this before but a good double bill for me is 24 hour Party People and Control. Both set around the same events but with a main focus on two different characters, obviously they're quite different in terms of tone but I think they both complement eachothere very well.

CiDeRmAn

Well, I'll champion High Noon followed by Outland.
The former needs no introduction, Gary Cooper being the hero up against the guys in the black hats and a terrified town population.
Outland is the same story, a reimagining from the 80's, the stuff Connery did after Bond and before the Untouchables.
He made some odd films there, Zardoz anyone?, but Outland is a straight translation of the High Noon story to a mining colony out on Io, in orbit around Jupiter.
It's pretty good stuff, Peter Hyams directs, looks good, cast is great and well worth a view.
Love to see it on the big screen though, 80's scifi, out side of the popular ones, never seem to have gotten the airing they deserve.
That said, a Bluray is coming, here's hoping it's a nice transfer, with a few extras.

That_Guy

I've done two double bills this year.

Carnage and The Grey: Was an interesting mix of films really. I had planned to see The Muppets afterwards but Carnage over ran so I opted for The Grey instead. From a light hearted romp to Liam Neeson running away from wolves. Was an interesting journey from a sitting room in a small apartment to the Arctic with ravenous wolves. Diverse.

The second one was last weekend actually.

The Raid and The Dictator: From ass kicking, gun touting super cops vs a gang of thugs to your man who played Borat being rather sexist for an hour and a half was again quite an interesting mix.

Neither of these double bills complimented each other very well but each was quite decent in their own little way.

Kess73

Two that mesh very well together for me are The Seventh Seal and Seven Samurai.


There are some very similar themes running through the films, a similar sense of humour, and the same willingness to sacrifice in order to gain/restore honour.

Honour through loss. Life for death. Death for life.


Even the endings have similarities with the final scene of The Seventh Seal s

howing the party of seven (if one includes Death), who are now the dead, being watched by Jof who was saved from Death by the actions of Block

.

Whereas the Seven Samurai

ends with the villagers who were saved from death (the Bandits in this case) being watched by the remaining Samurai as those Samurai pay respect at the simple graves of the fallen who gave their lives to shield the villagers from the certain death that would have come at the hands of the bandits.

Oh yeah the number seven pops up in both as well. :P

me-skywalker

Inception and Shutter Island

Lets just forget they have the same lead.

While on the surface both couldnt be further from each other; a heist movie vrs a thriller. If one was to look at the trailer or the story they would see nothing to resemble each other. But both have a nature to unravel our brain with images and events of surreal and psychological nature.

But both delve deep into the human mind, Inception quite literally. Both wrestle with the power and the limitations of the mind and our subconcious. Our ability to control our subconscious or our weakness to let it control us, what we use it for, what others use it for and most importantly how we cope with the world.

Both our protagonists are fraught with vulnerabilities and weaknesses that even we as an audience are unsure to believe what they are saying and what is happening infront of us is the truth.

I could watch both films back to back or front to front easily complimenting and contrasting each other.

Now lets remember how brilliant Leo was in both.

Fysh

I ended up seeing Fase 7 and The Divide pretty much back to back last year and they worked quite well that way - both dealing with similar themes (apocalyptic circumstances and how they affect a small group of people trying to survive) but both taking different narrative and tonal approaches. Where The Divide is a claustrophobic, tense and relentlessly grim affair, Fase 7 is more of a black comedy. While both deal with world-changing developments, each has different outcomes which substantially change how their characters respond to circumstances.

I think that The Terminator and Demon Seed would make a good double bill. Both have a common theme in terms of technology overtaking humanity and/or rendering it obsolete, but the themes they explore along the way and the narrative approach they take are quite different - one's a story of scientific research with appalling repercussions for those involved, the other is a story about a war for all humanity and how each side would try to use their assets. One's a psychological horror film, the other is a tense action thriller. And yet, both of them can be described as "man vs machine". (If you want to make it a triple, you could throw in the original Ropocop and make the "man vs machine" conflict an internal character issue, with high farce as the tone and "The electric frankenstein" as the overarching plot").

FishBowel

You only live once - Henry Fonda
You only live twice - 007

krudler

28 Days and 28 Days Later
hehe

GAAman

A double bill that popped into my head was The Truman Show and THX 1138

While both address the same idea they do so in very different ways. Truman is the subject of the entire world watching him in a strictly controlled environment tailored just to himself. THX1138 on the other hand is a minuscule cog in a much larger controlled environment. Both have accepted this control in their own way (One aware the other not) and have up to a certain point functioned in it.

Similarities do not end there, when both start using their free will the system comes down on them resulting in manhunts and attempts to reign them in again. One of these films is a light enough take where the control is almost (If not) romanticised whereas the other is a dystopian, bleak future.

Could be an interesting after movie discussion, no?

MakeEmLaugh

Trainspotting and A Clockwork Orange.

Both are adaptations of British novels. Both deal with a gang of anti-social youths. Both are narrated by a character who undergoes a change throughout the film, becoming more alienated from his old 'friends' in the process.

The scene in which Spud and Tommy discuss their relationship problems in Trainspotting takes place in a nightclub featuring the same style writing on the walls as the Korova milk bar in A Clockwork Orange.

ziedth

I love doing WWII or Vietnam movie doubles. Something a bit different each like Saving private Ryan and shindlers list.

You can't beat two balls to the wall action films. When I can get a good version of the raid for example I can't wait to watch it with Ong Bak.

OldeCinemaSoz

The local second run house in rathmines used
to do some terrific ones...

now i'm going back a bit with the following but
it really was an afternoon matinee...

GOLDFINGER paired with FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (the later
an under 12s with an adult) :eek:

careful now, i'm not that old BTW...

second run houses in the '70s were at the whim of the
cinema centre first run houses back in the day, bye the bye.



Anyhow...

besides creating my own VHS double bills in the early '80s for all the lads
with such dirverse content such as doubling ZABRISKE POINT
with SS EXPERIMENT CAMP, etc...

the real cinema ones were...

The Curzon pairing THE FRENCH CONNECTION with THE POSEIDON
ADVENTURE (revivals retained as they used to say).

SURVIVE! top ending the remake of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
Talk about chalk and cheese!

21 HOURS AT MUNICH tail ending the giallo classic TORSO.

ZOMBIE FLESHEATERS playing for one week only UNCUT during
the Summer of '83 in The Astor with, god forbid, EAT MY DUST?!?!

The Green used to cut lumps out of their double bills to fit the time slot; MAGNUM FORCE paired with THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES was worse cut for time than an ITV transmission...

I do go on...

Sorry.

CiDeRmAn

Once Upon A Time In The West followed by Akira, that'd be cool, best movie villain Henry Fonda against type as Frank, the Killer and his battle of wills and bullets with Harmonica, followed by one of the most iconic anti-heroes of modern cinema, Kaneda and the climactic battle with Tetsuo.

Also cool would be Airplane, the Zucker bros triumph, followed by Drag Me To Hell, both funny but for entirely different reasons.

"Frightened?"
"Yes"
"First time?"
"No, I've been frightened lots of times...."

SVG

I love double bills. I tend to watch films in pairs so I like to find good matchups.

One of the most interesting ones I've done lately was a double bill of 2012 and Russian Ark. Both featured arks and were about preserving culture and humanity but they did it in such different ways and to such different results that they made a good compare and contrast. One was global, the other was confined to one building. One was full of cgi, the only special effect in the other was one camera and some careful choreography. One did not make me care as I saw people being killed, continents being destroyed, cute animals in peril; the other had me so sad just watching a crowd of people file out of a building. One had me thinking that maybe, just maybe, humanity/John Cusack wasn't worth saving; the other convinced me that it was (humanity at least, still not sure about John Cusack).

You can probably guess which is which. All I'm saying is if you must watch 2012, maybe consider following it up with Russian Ark.

Padraig Mor

I'll plump for an actual double bill - the 1973 UK release of Don't Look Now and its "supporting feature" The Wicker Man. Both ignored on release, both now recognised as classics; and both bloody great!

mike65

OldeCinemaSoz wrote: »

The local second run house in rathmines used
to do some terrific ones...

now i'm going back a bit with the following but
it really was an afternoon matinee...

GOLDFINGER paired with FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (the later
an under 12s with an adult) :eek:

careful now, i'm not that old BTW...

second run houses in the '70s were at the whim of the
cinema centre first run houses back in the day, bye the bye.



Anyhow...

besides creating my own VHS double bills in the early '80s for all the lads
with such dirverse content such as doubling ZABRISKE POINT
with SS EXPERIMENT CAMP, etc...

the real cinema ones were...

The Curzon pairing THE FRENCH CONNECTION with THE POSEIDON
ADVENTURE (revivals retained as they used to say).

SURVIVE! top ending the remake of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
Talk about chalk and cheese!

21 HOURS AT MUNICH tail ending the giallo classic TORSO.

ZOMBIE FLESHEATERS playing for one week only UNCUT during
the Summer of '83 in The Astor with, god forbid, EAT MY DUST?!?!

The Green used to cut lumps out of their double bills to fit the time slot; MAGNUM FORCE paired with THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES was worse cut for time than an ITV transmission...

I do go on...

Sorry.

Quality stuff! I've seen a few including a late show double bill of
Death Race 2000 and er Emmanuelle 2 :eek: DR 2000 was the 2nd film so it was just a question of not falling sleep during the heavily edited soft focus pap of a slinky slut in Hong Kong.

One I didn't see but remember for its sheer oddness was Shivers (1975) and Genesis In concert (1974). Who came up with that!?

My own favourite is Death Wish and The Warriors which was from 1980.

FishBowel

How about double bills with the original movie along with its musical version?

I am a camera
Cabaret

Anna and the king
The king and I

Philadelphia story
High society

spacecoyote

Many many years ago I remember there was an international cinema day.in my local cinema you could see any movie for £1,yes it was in the times of the punt.

I went to see beavis & butthead do America & the fifth element.

Was a very satisfying day for a young teenager, toilet humour followed by super sci-fi & milla jovovichs bewbs

FishBowel

Killer diller
Driller killer

Technocentral

Baise-Moi followed by The Care Bears Movie.

Manco

Yojimbo and A Fistful Of Dollars.

pearsquasher

Flipper

Twister

these actual billed on the same week and the Savoy frontage did look sort of funny!

Manchegan

Padraig Mor wrote: »

I'll plump for an actual double bill - the 1973 UK release of Don't Look Now and its "supporting feature" The Wicker Man. Both ignored on release, both now recognised as classics; and both bloody great!

Or Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbour Totoro.

OldeCinemaSoz

mike65 wrote: »

Quality stuff! I've seen a few including a late show double bill of
Death Race 2000 and er Emmanuelle 2 :eek: DR 2000 was the 2nd film so it was just a question of not falling sleep during the heavily edited soft focus pap of a slinky slut in Hong Kong.

One I didn't see but remember for its sheer oddness was Shivers (1975) and Genesis In concert (1974). Who came up with that!?

My own favourite is Death Wish and The Warriors which was from 1980.

Ha mike! You're being kind!

Cut to sheds i think you mean!

Mike Litoris

Christmas about 15 years ago at my ex's house her old man had a huge collection of videos. After dinner the double bill was Schindlers List followed by Fletch Lives.

While Shindlers List is brilliant, and Xmas aint a good time for it, the idea that using Fletch as an antidote to all that sadness was tragic and funnier than the film.:p

roanoke

Dazed and Confused followed by American Beauty. An interesting combo because the Lester Burnham character in AB is fairly close in age to the teens in D&C and seems to have had pretty much the same teenage experience (which he reverts back to during his midlife crisis).

charlie_says

Take Shelter

The Lives of Others


Just off the top of my head, that was a cracking double bill. Much satisfaction of two hearty and meaty film dinners in one sitting