Shabcast 31 (Chatting ‘Species’ with Josh)
Happy April 14th to you all. The Shabcast is back once again (slightly more structured and sobre than last time), featuring the return of one of my favourite semi-regular guests, our very own Josh. This episode is a tie-in with his last essay, and features the two of us chatting about Species (1995), perhaps the very definition of a movie that is really interesting despite being pretty bad. Josh’s redemptive reading is fascinating, and we also ponder such imponderables as why people like Ben Kingsley and Forest Whitaker agreed to be in it, why cars explode when they crash in movies, and why this film goes out of its way to feature a scene where Natasha Henstridge stares bemusedly at a stuffed fox. Plus there are the usual digressions. H. R. Giger, dinosaurs, Captain Kirk, Avital Ronell, etc.
Download the episode here. Beware spoilers and triggers.
Also, here are some links to things we mention:
Here is the Vimeo video comparing Species to David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
And here‘s the (excellent) article about how and why Kirk is misremembered, by Erin Horáková at Strange Horizons.