School Of Movies

[School of Movies 2022] Our summer commissions season continues. It's surprising that this show has been going as long as it has only covering a handful of Pixar movies. So this one will be welcome to many listeners. Putting the original 2004 film in perspective, it was incredibly important as a touchstone for what became the age of superhero blockbusters. It has so many significant elements that Marvel applied to their works (appropriate since this is to date, the best Fantastic Four movie!) So, fourteen years later the sequel takes place fourteen seconds after the first while we've all gotten a lot older.  Next week two films focusing on the same real life event: Man on Wire (2008) and The Walk (2015). The former is a documentary about the man who walked on a wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the latter is the Robert Zemekis dramatization of that fairly astonishing heist. We recommend both.

[School of Movies 2022] Five years after our show on the 1982 original (which you will now find next to this on the podcast feed) and coincidentally falling on the 40th anniversary of that film, we look at the follow-up, directed by Denis Villeneuve. Astonishingly, considering its seminal position in film history the Ridley Scott original was treated dismissively by our parents and grandparents. It fell to Gen-Xers to rediscover it on video in the early 90s to really elevate its status. The wonders a Director’s Cut will do for those first impressions. And 2049 followed suit, garnering a surprising level of disinterest despite being magnificently crafted, insanely scored, impeccably performed and beautifully photographed. But again, in home format, this one has been gaining traction. And if it is the last Blade Runner film, then the duet currently in existence work together supremely well, for reasons we delve into here. This episode was a commission for Parker. We’ve been wanting to cover it for years, but it

[School of Everything Else 2022] The initial trailers for this one had me groaning. We were still pre-Birds of Prey movie so it was easy to assume the touchstone for this one was the first Suicide Squad movie, plus extreme cartoon violence and crudity. Well I was right about the second two! Turns out this is one of the smartest, most psychologically explorative of DC's vast back catalogue of superhero TV. Primarily because it is framed first as a relationship drama, second as a comedy and third as a DC world. But even with that lowered priority and an emphasis on wild chaos there is still the flavour of authenticity about the vast majority of the characters. This writing and production team have paid attention. And crucially, after teasing us with an early on meeting and lightning chemistry between Harley and Ivy in Batman: The Animated Series way back in 1993 we finally get to see them cultivate a close friendship onscreen... At least it *would* be ONLY a close friendship if this were Disney. So thank goodne

[School of Everything Else 2022] This is our second show on Kamala Khan. The first was all the way back in 2017 when we talked about her first comic miniseries. I've re-released that show on the podcast feed so these two can be companion pieces.  The Disney+ miniseries delivered almost exactly what we had been hoping for all these years. A bright, funny, courageous Pakistani-American girl hero. Instantly iconic and clearly in love with all things Marvel.  We did not expect the drama to be quite so naturalistic and poignant, the family to be so much more interesting than the interdimensional shenanigans or the gut punch of the 1947 Partition of India which stands as the centrepiece. This real life event created millions of immigrant refugee stories and generational hurt across a cultural divide which exists to this day.  Also the soundtrack is amazing! Guests: Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew of Cinapse Chris Finik @finmonster09 who assembles New Century's TV Tropes Pages and who writes fanfic (including a Dark Tower /

[School of Everything Else 2017] This is a reupload of our 2017 show discussing the first series of Ms. Marvel comics. It works as a great companion piece to our show on the 2022 MCU TV series.  In 2013 a brand new Marvel character was introduced to the world, one who is very reminiscent of classic Peter Parker, a goofy, hapless, sweet-natured teenager who just wants to help people. She's also the world's premier, headlining Muslim superhero, and very much due a movie or TV series to bring her to mass popularity like those who came before her. In tonight's episode we are joined by Alasdair Stuart, owner of Escape Artists and long-time comic-book expert, to enthusiastically discuss why the younger generations are already loving Kamala Khan, and why she's so important in the grand scheme. You don't have to have read any of her comics, but by the end of this you will want to.  Guest: Alasdair Stuart of Escape Pod

[School of Everything Else 2022] There are two things about Star Wars that seem endemic, inextricable from the process of engaging with the multitude of stories that have emerged over the many years since 1977. One is that we always seem to return to Tatooine. It ties in with the fact that Star Wars plays on nostalgia. Even as early as 1983's Return of the Jedi they were bringing us back to that sand planet only actually named out loud at the tail end of The Empire Strikes Back. That movie also continued the long procession of Death Stars. But if we accept that these touchstones will mean that many people's first Star Wars will feature Tatooine, we can accept that this nostalgia and going back to that feeling when you were a kid, and could get excited about all sorts of things, that's the source of its power. George's movie was itself based on his own nostalgia for spacefaring adventure, cowboys and samurai.  The other element that one must accept if one is to be at peace with Star Wars is that as that multit

[School of Movies 2022] This is an exploration on the more personal, less studio-based films of Thor Ragnaraok and Love & Thunder director Taika Waititi. Most of you won't have seen all of them, and that is okay, you should listen to this episode in its entirety anyway. The show will give you more details to look for when you get to watching them. 03m: Eagle vs. Shark (2007) 25m: Boy (2010) 41m: Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) 59m: Jojo Rabbit (2019) All of them have many factors in common, but the unifying factors are parents not being around, and lonely boys going through a transformative journey.  There is dark, offhand humour, spectacular immaturity, sudden unexpected pain and loss, and resolutions that are as soothingly healthy as they are oddball. Altogether, Waititi is one of the most riveting directors of our time, and it brings us a lot of joy to study his repeating themes along with you. 

[School of Movies 2022] This one hit us mere hours after the finale of Moon Knight. It has been six years since the first Doctor Strange hit in late 2016. To the point where the dangling threads of that film are ignored, because Stephen has made four more appearances since then, and been instrumental in deliberately instigating The Snap. But even that is mostly pushed to the side as this film becomes the follow-up to the first Disney+ Marvel TV show, WandaVision. And the handling of that factor by dream director for many; Evil Dead and Spider-Man-helmer Sam Raimi has caused this to become one of the most polarising of MCU movies.  We needed several months to think hard about it, and this is what we really wanted to say. Many thanks to our brilliant guests for lending perspective and also putting into understandable words how time and dimensional travel seems to work within Marvel's Earth 616 (movies and TV not comics).  Guests: Chris Finik @finmonster09 who assembles New Century's TV Tropes Pages and who writ

[School of Movies 2022] Two films about dinosaurs as a metaphor for our own existential fear of extinction. We've held back on talking about the second film, released in 2018 because I was waiting on the onscreen consequences of the big decision at the end. While some folks considered Fallen Kingdom to be the worst in the franchise (I even saw a video declaring it the worst movie ever made - clearly somebody who has never seen Swamp Shark) we actually quite like it. Don't get us wrong, it's dumb as a sack of hammers, but there are qualities that win it points with us that the other sequels don't have, not least of which is the director of the Orphanage, one of the finest ghost stories ever put to film, Juan Antonio Bayona. After that I tell Sharon all about the third movie (we keep all spoilers for that section). One could say Jurassic Park needed no sequels, but when has NEED ever factored in when the prospect of a billion dollars was on the table?

[School of Movies 2022] The third in the Rage Cage trinity, released less than a month after Con Air, this movie saw our boy Nick set against John Travolta, who was at the time flying high on the success of Pulp Fiction a few years previously.  The premise of "Good guy wears bad guy's face" is completely nuts for a start, but what it allows us to see onscreen is two extremely intense actors performing as both a wackadoo international terrorist-for-hire and the broken, obsessed FBI agent hellbent on revenge. Science and physics are utterly abandoned in favour of comic book logic, but the proceedings remained nonetheless a slick bullet ballet just oozing with star-power as the two leads try to out-weird each other.  Action maestro John Woo had only just begun to direct films for a western audience (following Hard Target and Broken Arrow) but this might be the most fondly remembered. Guests Hollywoo Actress  Maya Souris @Mayasantandrea Jason "Chewie" Slate @TheManaPool

[School of Movies 2022] The Rage Cage Season continues, as Nicholas transforms himself into a statuesque Army Ranger from Alabama with a mullet (as We Hate Movies would say) to beat the band! It's had to imagine from every movie he was in before and since but here he's a combination of the peace-making soft  tones of Jesus and the spin-kicks of Chuck Norris.  Handed a severe sentence after defending himself and his pregnant wife from literally the worst man in the world, Cameron Poe is sent home after eight years in jail. Unfortunately he is put on a plane with superstar celebrity convicts renowned for their violent crimes. And when they inevitably take control of the plane, leaving Cameron in a sticky position he is faced with a choice; get off when prompted and get back to his family or stay and try to do something good. The resultant film is riot of explosions, glossy action cinematography and highly memorable, equally quotable dialogue. For this episode we brought in the Franchise Killer podcast (from our

[School of Movies 2022] This is the start of our Rage Cage Season, celebrating the span of twelve months between Summer 1996 and Summer 1997 when Nicholas Cage was somehow the hottest action star of the age. He's quite appealingly low-key in this one, relative to the next two; Con Air and FACE/OFF. This is Michael Bay's best film. That's not hyperbole, it really is, in terms of how well-executed each set-piece is, how the momentum holds you without wearing you down, memorable performances, sympathetic characters and how the drama and human interaction functions surprisingly well.  I also consider it Sean Connery's swansong. Not his last film, but his last great film, as well as a backdoor Old Man Bond farewell. In fact, while you're listening to this episode you'll hear how the text of this film actively supports this being quite literally the same guy we saw in Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, all the way up to Diamonds are Forever.  Guests: Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew

[School of Everything Else 2022] A long-awaited visit to the first of Disney's new Star Wars TV shows. Weirdly we haven't had that many requests to talk Mando, but with Obi Wan launching this week and in the wake of the turbulent response to The Book of Boba we decided to journey back to the first and delve into what it did extremely well.  We divided the eight episodes into three movies, loosely paralleling Sergei Leone's Dollars Trilogy with A Fistful of Beskar, For a Few Credits More and my personal favourite... The Good, The Bad and The Ugnaught. With us are two people who had literally never seen an episode of Mando before signing up for guest duty, so we get their fresh perspective without spoiling what comes later.  Next week we begin the 'Rage Cage Season' as we explore the very brief period in the late 90s when Nicholas Cage was the hottest new high octane action star around! Three shows over three weeks as he gets madder and madder, The Rock, Con Air and FACE/OFF.  I have spoken. Guests Brenden Agne

[School of Everything Else 2022] A risky venture on Marvel's part. More than one might imagine. This is a character who is mostly known in the comics as a street-level supernatural vigilante (somewhere between Batman and Blade) and from a meme where that nerd Dracula owes him money. But more than that, in this TV miniseries, he's a Jewish superantihero played by a Guatemalan, directed by an Egyptian, and penned by the writer of the cursed 2015 Fantastic Four reboot that everyone forgot. And it deals chiefly over everything else, even the mythology... with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). And when you get to the end, after all the theatrics and horror, after all the mummies and costumes and screaming and creepy cults, the abiding memory is a pair of distinct and sympathetic performances from Oscar Isaac. The Moon Knight is almost incidental!  Join us now as we talk the ups and downs of this strange journey. Indiegogo for "The Bludgeoning": https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-bludgeoning-working-title#/

[School of Movies 2022] One of the biggest films of the year, celebrated for its dark beauty and mature themes. If you loved Matt Reeves' The Batman chances are the vast majority of moviegoers and critics are in the same boat. I'm not in that boat. I'm on a tiny little raft made of twigs and optimistic delusion, drifting off towards a whirlpool leading straight down to sea-Hell, surrounded by electric sharks and mecha-jellyfish. For many reasons this was a miserable experience for me, but the last thing I wanted to do was moan about it or tread on anyone's toes for liking it.  So I crafted what I hope is a really entertaining episode that actually looks back over all of the Batman movies. It gets meta, because that's what this series is; a perpetually shifting cultural statement on how to make darkness, vengeance and crimefighting appealing. And next week, as a companion piece, I have something I made about Batman a long time ago that a lot of you won't have heard.

[School of Movies 2022] Daft bunny with amazing wife *may* have dropped a safe on a cartoon-arms dealer... An absolutely one-time deal, just like Lord of the Rings and Titanic, this perfect melding of live action and beautiful hand-drawn animation convincingly interacting in 3D space, coupled with a whip-quick hilarious script as well as the kind of combination of studio properties that just never happens any more. Disney don't take part in those Ready Player Ones or Space Jams, and it was crucial that the masters of western animation in the 20th Century hand over the keys to their kingdom, circa 1947.  But even the above description sells short how skilled the actors were, whether painted or not, how they sell the world via dry delivery, and how Bob Hoskins unexpected mastery of physicality in the role stems from Chaplin and Keaton. This thing is a masterpiece containing masterpieces. And we are here with our buddy Dan to talk about the many levels of special you discover revisiting as a sharp-eyed adult. Gu

[School of Movies 2022] I could just have told you folks not to see this one, but the whole world appears to have gotten the memo on that. I could also have just ignored it, but Harry Potter was important to a LOT of us in the past (and still many now) so a reappraisal of where the hell the Wizarding World sits today, and how we got to this place was in order. It turned into a lengthy investigation as to just how many things can go wrong and how many problematic people have to be involved with your production before you pull the plug. This one delves into what plot is there, but frankly there's nothing to spoil that ain't already wrecked. 

[School of Movies 2022] Back at the turn of the century Dreamworks were going after Disney hard. The first lasting challenge to the mouse monopoly of animated cinema in the west involved a similar hand-drawn traditional style to match their 90s Renaissance. Notably that was a period of amazing achievement following mediocrity, thanks in no small part due to Dreamworks very own Lord Farquaad, Jeffrey Katzenberg.   The four films in this soon-abandoned endeavour were The Prince of Egypt, which did gangbusters, horse-botherer Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, the box office pirate shipwreck, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, and this one, released in 2000, about a pair of ne-er-do-well conmen finding the fabled lost Aztec city against the disturbing backdrop of the arrival in Mesoamerica of Francisco Cortes. But all of these were releasing at the dawn of the Shrek Age, and they themselves represent a now-fading culture conquered by merciless superior technology.   Guests: Mackenzie & Nathan Eastram  @KenzieP

[School of Movies 2022] A cult British classic made in 1987, set in 1969 and an utter failure at the box office. With the advent of affordable videos in the 1990s this one later became very popular with students who warmed to its story of two out of work actors living in ridiculous squalor. It's insanely quotable and darkly funny if you have the corresponding frequency of humour (I think I'm going to use this term in future. It's not a binary thing and that misconception is used all too often as a limp shield for crappy comedian behaviour). Richard E. Grant plays Withnail, a persistently drunken, excessively verbose drama queen. Paul McGann play's "I" (whose uncredited name is Marlowe) a mousy, skittish neurotic afraid of being attacked by a hostile world of beefy, aggressive men.  Together the pair of them borrow Withnail's Uncle Monty's cottage in Penrith and have an impromptu holiday to escape their troubles, only to find they have brought them along too. They are pitiful wretches and we should loathe them

[School of Movies 2022] A trio of films that are considered by many to be the crowning glories of Don Bluth's oeuvre. He was one of the only serious competitors to Disney in the last two decades of the 20th Century that they had dominated, in terms of what constituted animated cinema in the west.  We take a documentarian approach to how he started, and cover the flourishing of the next few years, breaking off at their high point, actually beating Disney at the box office. After this it was a slow decline of valiant attempts and disappointing failures, making films that evoked the elegant, classical stylings of Cinderella, Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty when the public wanted Toy Story, and Disney were experiencing their 90s Renaissance.  This one gets dark and hard, even more so than you might imagine, if you're familiar with the sometimes disturbing nature of this body of work. But it's utterly fascinating if you can push through that.  Guest: Kat Essman @Kat325