Second Features – Details, episodes & analysis

The story behind the North Korean kaiju film Pulgasari is so incredible it's in danger of overshadowing just how interesting the film is itself. In this episode we are joined by Travis Workman, Associate Professor of Korean Studies at the University of Minnesota, to try and cover both the making of Pulgasari and what it might all mean. His chapter "Parodies of Realism at the Margins of Science Fiction: Sin Sang-ok's Pulgasari and Jang Jun-hwan's Save the Green Planet," in Simultaneous Worlds: Global Science Fiction Cinema, forms the basis of the discussion.

North Korea has an official YouTube channel! You can find it here.

Do get in touch with us via Twitter - @secondfeatures - or by email - secondfeaturespod@gmail.com - if you have any feedback or suggestions. We would love to hear from you! Please also leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen.

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Yes, it's Second Features, and we're back with a long-awaited episode with Dr Pete Turner of Oxford Brooks University, where we talk Robocop (1987, Paul Verhoeven) and watching inappropriate films when we were underage. Who watched the worst possible film at the youngest age: Pete, Laura or Adrian? Listen to this discussion to find out!

You can find the article Pause and Rewind: Memories of Age-Inappropriate Film Viewings in the 1980s here. You can also follow the project Memories of Underage Film Viewings in 1980s UK on Twitter @FilmMemories80s.

Do get in touch with us via Twitter - @secondfeatures - or by email - secondfeaturespod@gmail.com - if you have any feedback or suggestions. We would love to hear from you! Please also leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen.

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In this episode we go in search of Dracula's treasure with a Mexican masked wrestler and Dr Dolores Tierney, head of Film Studies at the University of Sussex. You can watch El Vampiro y el Sexo with English subtitles on Archive.org if you want to play along at home.

Dolores wrote an excellent article on this film for the journal Porn Studies which you can find HERE, and the book chapter referred to in this episode can also be found HERE.

Do get in touch with us via Twitter @secondfeatures or our email secondfeaturespod@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! Please also leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen.

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In this episode we are joined by Dr Adam Locks as we enter the sweaty world of bodybuilding and witness the birth of a Hollywood legend care of the fascinating documentary Pumping Iron (1977, George Butler & Robert Fiore).

The documentary can be streamed via Amazon Prime, and the other documentary we mention, Raw: The Making of Pumping Iron, is available on YouTube.

You can get in touch with us via Twitter @secondfeatures or our email secondfeaturespod@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! Please also leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen.

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For this episode we are exploring the wild world of Turkish exploitation cinema with the help of Dr Iain Robert Smith. If, like Laura, you have ever struggled to get through The Man Who Saved the World (Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam, 1982, Çetin Inanç), perhaps this deep dive will help encourage you to have another go!

You can find the film in full, with English subtitles, on YouTube

Ed Glaser's really great short documentary can also be found on YouTube

This article on The Guardian is also pretty helpful: "Attack of the killer Jedi! The bizarre story of Turkish Star Wars"

Here's a great review from Michael Brooke, who saw the restored version on its UK tour

You can get in touch with us via Twitter @secondfeatures or our email secondfeaturespod@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! Please also leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen.

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Join us and our special guest Professor Melanie Williams of the University of East Anglia as we discuss a somewhat forgotten 1960s classic! Be warned however, that some of the songs from Smashing Time will get stuck in your head for days...

If you would like to find out more about the 1960s British Cinema project mentioned in the show you can find their fascinating blog here: 60sbritishcinema.wordpress.com

You can get in touch with us via Twitter @secondfeatures or our email secondfeaturespod@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! Please also leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen.

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Stagger out of your hibernation pod and join us in a dystopian Polish future world where all men have been wiped out as the result of an experimental chromosome bomb. In an underground world run entirely by women, what are two guys from an extinct age supposed to do? Listen to this latest Second Features episode on Sexmission (Seksmisja, Juliusz Machulski) to find out! To understand this unique post-apocalypse we are joined by Michal Oleszczyk, a teacher in film at the Liberal Arts department at the University of Warsaw.

You can get in touch with us via Twitter @secondfeatures or our email secondfeaturespod@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you! Please also leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen.

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Just what exactly is a feminist slasher film, and do these two fit the bill? Get your pyjamas on, order yourself a pizza, lock all the windows and doors and then join us and our guest Dr Alice Haylett Bryan as we dissect Slumber Party Massacre and Slumber Party Massacre 2 and try to figure this out!

You can get in touch with us via Twitter @secondfeatures or our email secondfeaturespod@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you!

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Join us for a blood-soaked discussion on this classic video nasty, an American remix of two equally classic Japanese films Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (both 1972, Kenji Misumi).

Our guest this month is Dr Jonathan Wroot, an expert in Japanese cinema, and he gives us a fascinating overview of the history of this film, the original Lone Wolf series and its brother-in-arms, Zatōichi. Along the way we talk hip hop, blood pressure, Andy Warhol and killer penises. Just a regular episode of Second Features.

You can contact us by email at secondfeaturespod@gmail.com or on Twitter @secondfeatures

Please remember to leave us a review or rate the podcast on your app of choice!

Reading List (generously supplied by Jonathan):

A review (Jasper Sharp, 2001) of Sword of Vengeance, scenes of which appear in Shogun Assassin

A feature article (Robin Gatto and Tom Mes, 2005) on Kenji Misumi, who directed the footage that appears in Shogun Assassin

FrameRated review of the Lone Wolf and Cub film series by Remy Dean (2020) including the different DVD releases

Derek Johnston’s research paper on the transcultural impact of Lone Wolf and Cub

And so you can hear RZA talk about Wu-Tang Clan far more eloquently than Adrian can:

Wu-Tang’s RZA Breaks Down 10 Kung Fu Films He’s Sampled

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This month we discuss the Roger Moore-starring The Man Who Haunted Himself, which leads to us talking about eyebrow acting, James Bond (naturally), safari suits and knitwear modelling. We also welcome Dr Carolyn Rickards to tell us about her involvement in the AHRC-funded project 'The Eastmancolor Revolution and British Cinema, 1955-1985)', and the striking use of colour in this month's film.

You can read Dr Rickard's excellent chapter "The Rise and Fall of the Colourful Corporate Fantasy in 1960s British Cinema" in the book Sixties British Cinema Reconsidered

You can find out what Dr Rickards is up to currently by following her on Twitter: @caz_rickards

The Eastmancolor Revolution and British Cinema, 1955-1985 also has an excellent blog: eastmancolor.info

You can email us at secondfeaturespod@gmail.com with any feedback on this episode, or with suggestions for future shows.

You can also contact us on Twitter:

Dr Laura Mayne - @LauraJaneMayne

Dr Adrian Smith - @retroramblings

The Man Who Haunted Himself is available on blu ray from Network

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