The darkness under the bridges
October 4, 2010 1:47 PM   Subscribe

Give me suggestions on interesting movie combinations!

Last night my friends and I watched Lars von Trier's Antichrist and directly after that The Bridges of Madison County. This made for a great viewing of the latter with a lot of scary dark undertones being added to Eastwood and Streep's love story. After the success we've decided to continue the concept and would like suggestions. What would be good movies to combine, where the first one would give new unintended meaning or feeling to the next one? Some sort of thematic closeness is needed I suppose, although in this case it was sufficient with the quite broad 'relationship between man and woman', together with a huge difference in tone and genre.
posted by pica to Media & Arts (43 answers total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
I watched The Business of Fancydancing and Battle Royale back to back, and found they informed each other in pretty surprising ways--although they're very different, I thought both are ultimately about who we feel loyalty to, and why.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 1:53 PM on October 4, 2010


For some time at Green Park station there were two movie posters side by side: The Perfect Man and, next to it, The 40 Year Old Virgin.

So that's my recomendation, I guess
posted by MuffinMan at 1:56 PM on October 4, 2010


- GODFATHER and BUGSY MALONE - gangsters
- REPO MAN and SOUTHLAND TALES - Floating car in LA
- HARVEY and DONNIE DARKO - Imaginary rabbits (or HARVEY and FIGHT CLUB)
- BRAZIL and CITY OF EMBER - Post-apocalyptic worlds cobbled together
- AIRPLANE and ZERO HOUR - Same script; one comedy, one drama
- I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL and CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAQUEL - same terrible movie about a sociopathic little bastard as part of a trio that ruins everyone's life around him and doesn't really feel sorry for it
posted by Gucky at 1:58 PM on October 4, 2010


I have a knack for quite accidentally picking sequential movies that have the same actor in minor or major roles. It often makes for some interesting carryover from the previous role, my all-time favorite being To Wong Foo followed by Blade. "Like my nails? Eat stake!"
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 2:00 PM on October 4, 2010


You'll want to read this question.
posted by ODiV at 2:00 PM on October 4, 2010


Also, EATING RAOUL and CHOPPING MALL -- Reoccurring characters
WALL-E and RUNAWAY (with Tom Selleck) - Robots run amuck
WESTWORLD and STEPFORD WIVES - Robot people
PERMANENT MIDNIGHT and GREENBERG - Ben Stiller as terribly unlikable people in LA
posted by Gucky at 2:05 PM on October 4, 2010


Walk the Line and Walk Hard - the latter is mostly (but not entirely) a parody of the former
posted by mhum at 2:09 PM on October 4, 2010


If I understand the question, it seems to me the obvious pairing is Hamlet (any, although I dig Branagh's version) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:10 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


After watching Bubba Ho-Tep my mind decided that it was part of an unintentional triptych with Repo Man and another movie I had yet to see.
I still have not found the third movie, but I find these two movies complement each other nicely.

(If anyone knows what the third film is, please memail me and then kindly get out of my head.)
posted by Seamus at 2:11 PM on October 4, 2010


I once did a doubleheader consisting of Lost Highway and Sleepless in Seattle, which makes Bill Pullman in Sleepless really creepy and you start to get pretty scared once Meg Ryan decides to dump him.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:13 PM on October 4, 2010


The Duellists and The Princess Bride (in that order). Swordplay.

Casablanca and Barb Wire (in that order). Seriously. Stop laughing.

Zero Effect and They Might Be Giants. Mystery. Loneliness.
posted by elendil71 at 2:14 PM on October 4, 2010


I've also wanted, for a while, to have a marathon of romantic road movie/crime spree films, e.g. Gun Crazy, Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, Wild at Heart, Natural Born Killers.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:15 PM on October 4, 2010


THE SEVENTH SEAL and BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY
posted by .kobayashi. at 2:24 PM on October 4, 2010 [3 favorites]




What would be good movies to combine, where the first one would give new unintended meaning or feeling to the next one? Some sort of thematic closeness is needed I suppose, although in this case it was sufficient with the quite broad 'relationship between man and woman', together with a huge difference in tone and genre.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure & The Bicycle Thief
Fail-Safe & Dr Strangelove
The Sound Of Music & Dancer In The Dark
The Wizard of Oz & Return To Oz
posted by burnmp3s at 2:32 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


My favorite unintentional "double feature" is Killing Zoe followed by Before Sunrise, in which a young Julie Delphy has a very curious adventure across the two films.

I also find that Over the Edge and River's Edge play off of each other well thematically. It's an especially curious link, in that Over the Edge was written but not directed by the director -- but not writer -- of River's Edge.

Watching The Long Goodbye before watching The Big Lebowski will give you a whole new take on the latter. (And possibly a whole new take on Elliot Gould.)
posted by eschatfische at 2:38 PM on October 4, 2010 [2 favorites]


Jack Lemmon is funny: Some Like It Hot
Jack Lemmon is uptight: The Odd Couple
Jack Lemmon is sad: Glengarry Glenn Ross
Jack Lemmon is old: Grumpy Old Men
posted by phunniemee at 2:39 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


After Hours and The Wizard of Oz (The former explicitly refers to the latter and seems modeled on it.)

Play It Again, Sam and Casablanca (This is an obvious choice: the latter is a very explicit homage to the latter.)

Crumb and Ghost World (By the same director; the subject of the former seems like a real-life version of Steve Buscemi's character in the latter.)

My Dinner with Andre and Metropolitan (Both are conversation-driven movies where the main characters are shamelessly upper-class but countercultural Manhattanites who think they have the whole world figured out. Maybe the latter is what the characters in the former would be like when they got older and more jaded? The latter is charming but not a very good movie, while the former is my favorite movie of all time.)

You might want to look through the thread about "a specific crazy/independent lady vibe" in movies. You could watch a couple of those together.
posted by John Cohen at 2:39 PM on October 4, 2010


Once upon a time in Ohio, back in the early 90's when I was just a wee little thing, I saw a double feature--101 Dalmations and Terminator 2. The adorable puppies made me really hope the world wasn't destroyed by evil robots, cause puppies should never be annihilated. This really happened. For some reason, I was very ok with the combo. Maybe it's because my mom made milkshakes when we got home.

Have to agree with the suggestion above of Harvey and Donnie Darko, too. I watched DD first and I found Harvey TERRIFYING!
posted by chatongriffes at 2:45 PM on October 4, 2010


AIRPLANE and ZERO HOUR - Same script; one comedy, one drama

A few months ago they actually showed these back-to-back on TCM, although they showed Airplane first, when they should've shown Zero Hour first, because it made the latter seem comedic at times when it shouldn't have.

So if you haven't seen Airplane in a long time, or ever, watch it again after Zero Hour. The writers of Airplane actually bought the rights to Zero Hour so they could satirize it without worries of legal entanglements, although they also incorporate other movies like "Airport."
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 2:52 PM on October 4, 2010


Any of Clint Eastwood's "man with no name" Westerns...

* A Fistful of Dollars
* For a Few Dollars More
* The Good, The Bad & the Ugly


... and Eastwood's deconstruction of the Western, Unforgiven.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:59 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


The Nutty Professor [the original] and The Fly [the remake] - scientist experiments on himself
posted by Joe Beese at 3:00 PM on October 4, 2010


All About Eve -----> Opening Night ------> All About My Mother

I haven't seen it in movie lit, but I seriously could not be more convinced that Cassavetes watched All About Eve obsessively before making Opening Night, and that Almodovar obsessively watched Opening Night before making All About My Mother. The connections aren't totally obvious if you read the synopses, but thematically you can't miss it when you watch them. One builds on the next.
posted by heatvision at 3:03 PM on October 4, 2010


Mad Max, The Proposition : In Australia, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
posted by LucretiusJones at 3:03 PM on October 4, 2010


I love burnmp3s suggestions. Especially Pee Wee's Big Adventure + The Bicycle Thieves and the sound of music + dancer in the dark.

Here are some I've tried before to a group of people with some success, and some I've been wanting to :

The Saddest Music in the World and The Ladies Man.
The Big Knife and The Shape of Things.
Broadcast News and The Front.
Zabriskie Point and The Misfits.
Valerie and her Week of Wonders and Nathalie Granger.
Fronteir of the Dawn and Blue Velvet.
Modern Romance and Eyes Wide Shut.
The Limits of Control and (when its out on dvd) The American.
Whirlpool and Nightmare Alley.
The Exiles and Mala Noche.
posted by MPnonot3 at 3:04 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


Nihilism and club drug culture, and emblematic of their decades: I find Saturday Night Fever and Trainspotting are surprisingly well matched.
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 3:09 PM on October 4, 2010 [3 favorites]


Tommy Boy and Glengarry Glen Ross - salesmen under pressure
posted by Joe Beese at 3:12 PM on October 4, 2010


2010: A space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange
posted by gyusan at 3:20 PM on October 4, 2010


I'm going to suggest Hamlet (agreeing with Branagh's version) and Disney's The Lion King.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 3:22 PM on October 4, 2010


When I was driving home from a trip to Oregon wine country yesterday I passed a drive in that was showing a double feature of The Warriors and Machete, and immediately regretted that it was 3pm and I couldn't stay around for the movie that night.
posted by pdb at 3:49 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


The original Transformers movie and Heavy Metal. Great 80s animation, great music. Both age really well.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 3:59 PM on October 4, 2010


A friend of mine once observed that the misbegotten big screen version of Lost in Space becomes much better if you imagine that it is not a movie with Matt LeBlanc but rather a movie starring Joey Tribbiani. By the same token, I once speculated on the blue that John McClane's shift from beaten and bloodied and freaking out guy-in-over-his-head in Die Hard to invulnerable and unfazeable action hero in Live Free or Die Hard makes much more sense if you treat LFoDH as a sequel to Unbreakable.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:07 PM on October 4, 2010 [3 favorites]


Veronica Guerin and The General
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:25 PM on October 4, 2010


This is more of a complimenting triple-feature: Serpent and The Rainbow, followed by Jacob's Ladder, and finish it off with Naked Lunch. The world just won't seem right for days afterwards.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:46 PM on October 4, 2010


Triple feature!
1. Godfather
2. Empire Strikes Back and/or Return of the Jedi
3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Each of these is at its root a story dealing with a young person's learning how to grapply with a looming, corrupt/evil/bad father figure.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 5:15 PM on October 4, 2010


Primer and Back to the Future
posted by hot_monster at 7:33 PM on October 4, 2010


'Tess' and 'Hardly Working' were a double bill on the sign of a rep cinema in a Woody Allen film, which I think was Annie Hall?
posted by ovvl at 8:39 PM on October 4, 2010


The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars (IV), and Harry Potter (1).

Because they're all the same story.

Protagonist is living a boring existence with his/her aunt and uncle, becomes wrapped up in a magical world, is granted a power, fights an evil force with his/her band of misfit friends, and is granted accolades in the end for bravery and courage.
posted by phunniemee at 9:01 PM on October 4, 2010


American Psycho followed by The Machinist.
posted by lhall at 9:46 PM on October 4, 2010


Goodfellas and My Blue Heaven. Not only does My Blue Heaven pick up where Goodfellas left off, but both movies are based on the life of Henry Hill.


Raising Arizona and No Country for Old Men. There are some visual quotes in the latter, and both movies feature a relentless character who may not be human.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:20 PM on October 4, 2010


Response by poster: Seems like many very good suggestions. I realized though that what we're particularly looking for are the ones where the combination gives rise to absurdity. Extra bonus for those.
posted by pica at 7:24 AM on October 5, 2010




Well, Dr. Strangelove is essentially The Sum of All Fears with a sense of humor.
posted by Grafix at 1:21 PM on October 5, 2010


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