School Of Movies

[School of Movies 2023] This, folks, is arguably the greatest adaptation of one of Roald Dahl's books made to date. Taking everything that was great about the 1988 book (one of his last, only followed by Esio Trot, The Vicar of Nibbleswick and The Minpins) and one of the abiding favourites for many kids and previously-kids who aren't entirely sure if they have truly grown up yet. It's about a schoolgirl who develops telekinetic powers that she uses to banish a truly horrific headteacher. But that is merely the skeletal plot, there is so much there about being lonely, being neglected and abused and using your frustrations for something positive (making this the Anti-Carrie). And that was conducted in the beloved Mara Wilson and Danny DeVito film from 1996.  But in turning this thing into a successful West-End musical Tim Minchin added some truly memorable, frequently brilliant songs, a whole sub-plot about a story Matilda is weaving together, even more significance for the role of Miss Honey (played with aston

[School of Movies 2023] Many would call this period the crowning glory of Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki in particular. The maturity and refusal to pull his punches that came with the rich, dark and complex Princess Mononoke illustrated that when it came to humankind's strained, abusive relationship with Nature itself, that bloodshed was an inevitability, He followed this up with a personal favourite of mine, Spirited Away in 2001, but we have a dedicated show on that coming at the very end of this series. 1997: Princess Mononoke (1m 45s) 1999: My Neighbors the Yamadas (51m 30s) 2002: The Cat Returns (1h 4m 30s) The other two are oddities; Yamadas was from Isao Takahata (of Grave of the Fireflies and Balls of the Raccoon) and it's a significant departure from all other Ghibli movies, in terms of animation style and content, being based heavily on a Japanese comic strip about family life. And following that we have Ghibli's only sequel to date, though tonally quite different from Whisper of the Heart, The Cat retur

[School of Everything Else 2023] The greatest brawler series in the history of video games. If you haven't yet had the pleasure of playing one of the four Streets of Rage, even if beat-'em-ups aren't your thing you owe it to yourself to investigate the sheer *craft* of these classics.  Beginning with the original in 1991 and refined to magnificence with the second in 1992. They need to be looked at in conjunction with their contemporaries like Double Dragon (1987) the excellent Final Fight (1989) and Turtles in Time (1992) as well as looking forward down the chain of influence to Scott Pilgrim (2010), Fight'N Rage (2017) the recent Battletoads (2020) and the sublime TURTs nerdgasm Shredder's Revenge (2022). As we go through the history of how these were made, by surprisingly small teams with focus on sound design, music, rhythm and variety a picture is formed of a creative ethic. They're also colossal fun!  That is until you hit the North American release of Streets of Rage 3 (1994) which becomes a nightmare

[School of Movies 2023] This is one you almost certainly won't have heard of, but will be happy you found it through School of Movies. It's the tale of a young man named James who has grown up in a post-apocalyptic bunker, raised by his loving parents and wondering what's outside. One night a raid by the cops results in his "parents" being carted off to jail, as it turns out they kidnapped him as an infant and hid him here. Now he has to come to terms with the real world and the awkward fit of his new family and potential friends. Thing is though, he's a colossal nerd for Brigsby Bear. That long-running TV show about a space-faring teddy with a surprisingly deep lore for James to obsess over. However, double-twist... Brigsby was never shown on TV because it was being created by his kidnapper-Father (played by Mark Hamill). Undaunted, James sets out on a personal quest to finish the story for himself. In an unusual show setup we examine the film through two contrasting lenses. Firstly from a long-time fan whos

[School of Movies 2023] I think this will be the only piece I create about Oppenheimer (2023). You definitely do not have to have seen it and I won't be saying anything that could be considered a plot spoiler. This is dark, upsetting, heavy and much shorter than our usual Main Event shows. It was intended to be an After School Club, but in the inception it grew and expanded in gravity, density and ferocity, and while there is an aspect that feels self-destructive, I consider it important enough to release to the whole world. Let history decide.

[School of Movies 2023] Impressive, silly or impressively silly? Those are just three of the possible responses to this 1997 theological legal thriller with overtones of several flavours of horror, including paranoia, demonic and financial.  It's the forked tale of a hotshot Florida lawyer named Kevin who has never lost a case, despite representing cartoonishly villainous defendants. He is recruited by a swanky New York legal firm, headed up by a devilishly charismatic fellow with a deep, dark secret. Can you guess what it is? This was a commissioned show for Greg Downing and it was great fun finally getting our teeth into this overblown Paradise-Lost-meets-Pelican-Brief panto, starring a wildly overacting Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves and a breakout tormented-wife role for a young Charlize Theron.

[School of Movies 2023] The Wachowskis are back! This time in producer capacity with their friend James McTeigue who wend on to direct The Raven, five episodes of Sense8 and (our personal favourite, the critically panned but hugely enjoyable, blood-spattered throwback) Ninja Assassin.  In an alternate history dystopian Britain, a young lady named Evey Hammond is rescued by a shadowy figure in a mask who calls himself V and seeks to fight back against their tyrannical oppressors. This is an adaptation of one of the most celebrated graphic novels of all time. Alan Moore originally spun this out over several years in the early 1980s, depicting our country as a near-future, fascist police state that was a cautionary tale to those living under the iron fist of the Thatcher regime. Our guest, Victoria has read this book repeatedly and is able to delineate with truly fascinating insight, the powerful changes made for this 2006 movie.  You will also find out quite a lot about Guy Fawkes and his part in the conspiracy

[School of Movies 2023] One of the most significant and influential anime movies of all time. Absolutely instrumental in inspiring a big chunk of The Matrix in terms of aesthetic and pondering, metaphysical philosophy. This began as a single-volume cyberpunk manga series written by Masamune Shirow between 1989-1991. That was adapted into the 1995 movie which is the focus of this episode. After that came a bunch of television we are not touching, a sequel focused on the character of Batau, named Innocence, which we recommend, a re-envisioned remaster called 2.0 which swaps the janky 90s CG and green aesthetic for janky 2000s CG and amber aesthetic. Then a bunch more movies and TV and manga. And then in 2017, American studios who always seem to keep making the same mistakes when they adapt anime directly into live action filmed a giant mistake in 2017. The Scarlett Johansson movie is actually better than it could have been, but it makes a fine talking point as comparison between the attitudes and approaches to

[School of Everything Else 2023] This is quite an extraordinary case. A Netflix show released in two chunks of five episodes apiece, six months apart, back in 2021. 93% fresh with professional critics. And if you sit down and watch it, this is the best Masters of the Universe story ever told.  And EVERYBODY HATES IT!  Seriously, go check YouTube and get bombarded by the scorn and bile. Observe the 38% audience score. Try finding ANY positive analysis from the fans. It might get easier with time, (especially as a lot of folks only watched the first episode and then reacted with outrage, and many did not catch the second half of the series after all those months) but when we put this episode together our decision had to be to NOT second-guess all the people who loathe this show, and their reasons for hatred. Some cold hard facts about it: He-Man is killed in the first episode. From that point on, Eternia is in trouble, and that could have dire, far-reaching consequences. The focus is on Teela, Prince Adam's for

[Digital Gonzo 2013] The 150th episode of Digital Gonzo. This was a one-off show inspired by the episode of Community 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'. It's a sit-down gaming session conducted over Skype with myself as Dungeon Master and my guests as a team of adventurers. For this one we were using the flexible, simple ruleset of Advanced Fighting Fantasy by Graham Bottley which itself stems from the gamebooks of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Deathtrap Dungeon) and detailed in the starter book Dungeoneer. This is the first of the two adventures within that book. I wanted to bring you guys something different, in the style I have honed over the years so there's music and sound FX as well as a hefty chunk of silliness and getting into character. The lengthier fights have been edited for pacing but you're mainly missing a lot of dice rolls. The team that begins this story comprises of the following. Thrale Copperhelm: A tough-as-nails dwarf, played by Neil Taylor of GameBu

[School of Movies 2023] The final main feed instalment of our Coen Brothers series goes out with a double-bang of exceptionally gripping Westerns. No Country for Old Men (2007, written by the recently departed Cormac McCarthy) is a tense game of cat and mouse. Josh Brolin discovers a drug deal gone very wrong and walks off with the money, and Javier Bardem plays the dead-eyed Terminator slowly but surely closing in on him. This whole case is followed by Sheriff Tommy Lee Jones who is scratching at his head to fathom the trail of violence he is witnessing. And in True Grit (2010) the second adaptation of the 1968 Charles Portis novel, a brand new Hailee Steinfeld, aged 13 commands a grizzled old frump of a bounty hunter played by Jeff Bridges to help her track down her father's killer and see justice done. It somehow manages to surpass the classic John Wayne version in every way. And both of these were influences on my own writing. If you want to hear what we have to say on the remaining Coen Brothers films yo

[School of Movies 2023] This was a whimsical period for Ghibli, they tried a few new things, and established one or two absolute mainstays.  1991: Only Yesterday (1m 50s) 1992: Porco Rosso (11m 50s) 1993: Ocean Waves (25m 10s) 1994: Pom Poko (41m 10s) 1995: Whisper of the Heart (59m 40s) There's a disarmingly frank and sympathetic story of a schoolgirl hitting adolescence wrapped in a Hallmark movie about returning to your rural home town after the big city has crushed your spirit. Conversely there's a high school romance about a doormat crushing on a girl who thinks only of herself. Then there's two of the most abiding and beloved of their canon, in the tale of a high school girl who likes a musical boy which winds up being a powerful statement on creativity, and then there's the World War II pilot who was turned into a pig. But he's much rather be porcine than  fascist.  And finally, an ecological parable starring enormous raccoon testicles! 

[School of Movies 2023] Lin Manuel Miranda's first big break into the off-Broadway musical scene. This 2021 movie adaptation, directed by Crazy Rich Asians-helmer Jon M. Chu is a squeaky-clean but heartfelt tale of the upper east side of Manhattan and its proud, passionate, talkative, motivated yet frustrated population of first, second and third-generation immigrants. It's a story of inheriting the dreams of your parents and trying to reconcile forging your own path.  This one has been a long while coming. We wanted to do a show on it as soon as the cinema release, but since that was just after Lockdown ended it was unlikely many of you folks could safely make a screening. And we wound up recording it last winter, but since it's such a heights-of-summer movie I've waited until now to release it. This week I needed something to lift my spirits, since Sharon has been confined to the bedroom in a self-imposed COVID quarantine. It made the final show unexpectedly painful to put together, but worth all the blood,

[School of Movies 2023] We covered the first film in May 2019 just before the third hit theaters, and since then they have shaped up to be four of the finest action films ever made. They boast laser-focused attention to choreography, physical genius, artfully photographing long, unbroken takes with astonishing lighting and otherworldy music. All of it revolves around a firestorm of a performance from Keanu Reeves, himself experiencing a deserved renaissance. The fourth film ends on a definitive and deeply satisfying melancholy note. So, while the series itself limbers up for all manner of spin-offs, sequels, prequels, TV shows, video games, reboots and action figures, let us take stock of what made this quartet special.  'John Wick Turbo' has been a re-editing project, where I sought to trim away a little of the second film's world-building, adjust the third film's pacing and dial back the fourth film's runtime, bringing all of them to the 101-minute sweet spot of the 2014 original. And talking about this pro

[School of Movies 2023] This one was a long time coming. There's a solid argument to be made that to set the tone for the planned DC Cinematic Universe all the way back in 2012, around the time Avengers was doing gangbusters by brazenly copying the Marvel formula by building up the characters the general public don't know yet *before* throwing Superman and Batman at us again. But since Green Lantern was terrible in 2011 Warner Bros. clearly concluded they needed to establish a foundation of superheroes everybody knows *then* do a Justice League, THEN introduce us to those new superheroes in a way that feels more like a spinoff than a build-up. They did not have the faith that these costumed icons could carry a movie without Batman. So, accordingly this film that now seems to be closing out that first protracted attempt has (at least) two Batmans! Against expectations, considering the nightmare production, the lead actor's disturbing real life crime spree and the extremely muddled tone and story, I actually en

[School of Everything Else 2023] The DC Animated Universe marathon watch, which began all the way back in 2020 as Lockdown started continues! And this is a show Sharon and I had never sat down to watch before, so it was almost entirely new to us.  I knew this was pitched as "What if Batman was Spider-Man?" but I did not know the circumstances of how that premise came about. Warner Bros. wanted an animated series about a specifically *young* Batman. Toy marketing indicated that kids would engage more with a teenager than they would with a man in his thirties. The double-bind was that Kevin Conroy's Batman, as established in this continuity didn't don the cowl until well into adulthood.  It was this information that Bruce Timm and company conveyed at a meeting with the studio heads. Then when asked to think of a way around it "What if Bruce Wayne was old and got a younger person to wear the suit and do all the superheroics?" was put on the table. Then they had to dream up an entire show to fit with that premise

[School of Movies 2023] For many years we have been planning a show or a series of shows on the Disney live action + CG remakes. The plan was to start with the 2015 Cinderella (or even the 1994 Jason Scott Lee version of The Jungle Book, thence to 101 Dalmatians with Glenn Close) and we would watch every single one of them, and talk about the good and the bad.  But over time, having covered the details of all of the originals in our Disney animated series, the job itself grew insanely huge and exhausting, with so little to say that wasn't already being said by every film pundit on YouTube (because Disney gets you maximum clicks). Luckily this one came along, 8 years into the remake period that boasts both high points and low for the whole concept.  By absolutely NO means anywhere near the level of the small original 1989 film with its $40m budget and its changing of the world of cinematic animation in a way that would not be matched and diverged from until Toy Story and then Shrek, there are still definitely

[School of Movies 2023] Another ton of fun for the summer as we go back to the most unkillable series of all time. You kill this thing and it will come right back, walking out of the explosion to cool music. If this franchise has any enemies they will be friends the next time we see them. Did I say friends? I meant FAMBLY! What we have here to start with is an edited, supercharged version of my first impressions of F9 (one of the very first movies I got to see when cinemas reopened in summer 2021).  After that is my brand new talk about 2023s Fast X which brings Jason Momoa to the barbecue. We look at the recurring issues as the series moves from era to era and zero in on how they may have shot themselves in the foot in terms of the drama that this Nos-Opera hit the big leagues with. 

[School of Movies 2023] This is the second and third instalments of the Shazam Trilogy, we covered the first back in 2021. Now The Rock will assure you that Black Adam is nothing to do with Shazam, but we have comics that say otherwise. We start with my 2022 first impressions of Black Adam having just returned from the cinema, originally put out as a Patreon Exclusive. Then we follow up with a brand new section where I tell Sharon about Shazam's last movie, at least with this cast and format.  What we said back when we talked about the original still stands, kids grow up, but also grown actors do and say regrettable things that impact the metatext of otherwise simple sci-fantasy action films.  Coming this weekend to the Patreon bonus feed, we talk about one of my favourite movies starring the Rock, one where he gets knocked all over the place and comes off better for it; The Rundown. 

[School of Movies 2023] Most of you will probably already know how much I care about both the comic book character of Hellboy and the magnificent Guillermo del Toro movie adaptations from 2004 and 2008. However, considering its dismal box office of $55m (on a budget of $50m) and its dismal critical reception (17% RT) statistically speaking most of you did not see the 2019 reboot, and even fewer of you enjoyed it. Directed by Neil Marshal (The Descent, Centurion, Dog Soldiers) and starring everyone's favourite big red violent uncle David Harbour, this as an alternative to the proposed third movie by Del Toro should have been a new beginning. Instead it was a wretched embarrassment and a blight upon the mythology.  This episode starts with a condensed and abbreviated edit of my 2019 first impressions followed at the 44 minute mark by a very special guest. Not their first appearance on the show but definitely their most impassioned so far, Willow Shaw has entered the arena... and they have things to say about ho