Eavesdropping At The Movies

Those to whom Emily Brontë's only novel, Wuthering Heights, is important, have approached Emerald Fennell's adaptation warily. It's a book that a lot of women have grown up on, and the trailers raised questions. Would it be too steamy? Too modernised? Would it miss the point? We, however, residing outside that demographic and never having read the novel, can't meaningfully consider the issue of adaptation, and are more interested in the film taken on its own terms. Is it good? The answer is yes. Fennell's direction is visually expressive and inventive, and tonally confident. We disagree on aspects of Cathy and Heathcliff's dynamic, José arguing that theirs is as deep as a romance gets despite - or perhaps because of - how toxic they are for one another; Mike questioning Cathy's commitment and suggesting that the film doesn't sell the idea that social status and financial obligation requires her to forgo Heathcliff. We also consider the blind casting, sexual dynamics and depiction of BDSM (or BDSM-like) activ

Send Help sees Rachel McAdams marooned on a desert island with her asshole boss in a cartoonishly gory comic adventure the likes of which made director Sam Raimi's name. We discuss how feminist it really is - at the very least, it's a bloke's idea of female empowerment - and praise McAdams' and Dylan O'Brien's performances, upon which the entire film relies. Recorded on 15th February 2026.

Possibly the sweetest and lightest gay BDSM biker film ever made, Pillion opens up conversations on power dynamics, consent and boundaries, and made Mike cry. Everything about it is so assured, particularly Harry Melling's understated protagonist, meek and new to BDSM; Alexander Skarsgård's commanding, mysterious lover; and Harry Lighton's direction, the control of tone he exhibits a remarkable achievement for a first feature. We explore the film's themes, offer different interpretations of events, and ask what's good and bad about the relationship depicted. Pillion is a wonderful film, with, given the subject matter, a surprisingly funny and wholesome spirit. Highly recommended. Recorded on 11th December 2025.

One of Iran's most celebrated filmmakers, Jafar Panahi, has spent the last quarter of a century in conflict with the Iranian government, which objects to his films' criticisms of their actions and the wider social conditions in the country, and has both arrested him several times and banned him from making films for twenty years - which hasn't stopped him. His latest, It Was Just an Accident, won the 2025 Palme d'Or, and tells the story of former political prisoners who capture a man they suspect was their torturer. It's a brilliant thriller which, despite the gravity and darkness of its subject matter, is energetic and entertaining. It effortlessly raises both moral and practical questions - What's the right thing to do with their captive? Have they become the torturers? If they let him live, won't he just come after them again? - without entering morality play territory, neither pretending to have the answers nor admonishing its characters for their choices and emotional responses. It's a vivid expression

Russell Crowe shines in Nuremberg as Hermann Göring, who became the face of the Nazi Party following Hitler's suicide and the end of the war, as he's held in custody and probed by a psychiatrist as the titular trials approach. Indeed, while a mediocre film, its actors' performances are a pleasure - with the exception of Rami Malek, whose psychiatrist is twitchy, busy, and a failure. A shame that he's the protagonist, then. We discuss the film's structure and screenplay: José contends that Malek's character is not just badly played but an irrelevance, and the drama would be much better served by focusing on Michael Shannon's prosecutor; Mike criticises what he claims is a stupid person's idea of clever writing. And there's more to think about: how Nuremberg compares to Bridge of Spies, which similarly depicted a novel trial that had obvious implications beyond the courtroom, and Judgment at Nuremberg, the other major dramatisation of the trials; the film's tone, which is able to handle moments of humour but

Jennifer Lawrence gives a career-best performance as a new mother struggling with depression and a rocky relationship in Die My Love, directed by Lynne Ramsay, whose remarkable instinct for tone and atmosphere shouldn't be taken for granted. It's a character study whose artistry is all in the filmmaking and performances, which bring out great richness of feeling in material that, on the page, might seem to lack complexity. One could suggest that those who've experienced similar struggles to the film's characters hold the key to unlocking its depths, but that's a temptation to avoid - one of the film's achievements is the ease with which it gets you to feel what its characters are feeling. See it at the cinema, where you'll be able to properly submit yourself to it. Recorded on 9th November 2025.

Yorgos Lanthimos' fourth collaboration with Emma Stone yields a darkly comedic thriller about two conspiracy theorists who kidnap a CEO, determined to reveal the truth that she's an alien from Andromeda. We've all at least considered it. While funny and absurd, Bugonia is also tragic and misanthropic, and we're unconvinced that its ending is either earned or fitting, despite Mike's insistence that he's seen it coming for weeks. We consider the film's messaging, aesthetics, and tone; what its stars bring to it and how they differ; what the title might mean; and how a comparison with Alex Garland's Ex Machina reveals the lacks in the storytelling here. We pick at Bugonia left, right and centre, but despite our complaints, it showed us a very entertaining time, and there's a lot about it to recommend. Recorded on 9th November 2025.

Another classic Gothic horror is remade for the modern age: first we saw Robert Eggers' Nosferatu, and now Guillermo del Toro brings us his adaptation of Frankenstein. Like Nosferatu, Frankenstein is astonishing to look at, and, like Nosferatu, also written by its director, it probably would have benefitted from the attention of a professional screenwriter. Still, it's a pleasure to spend time in the word del Toro envisions, and we talk wide angle lenses, the range of performances - Oscar Isaac's busy, Jacob Elordi's brooding, Mia Goth's underwhelming - the difficulty of understanding dialogue in screen two at the Mockingbird, and what this Frankenstein thematically shares with One Battle After Another. Recorded on 4th November 2025.

Far from an outstanding film, but amazing to look at and too much fun not to recommend, we had a great time in Tron: Ares, which reverses the reality-computer interface that brought humans into the digital world in the previous two films; it's now the virtual that becomes real. An evil company searches for the code that will give its 3D printed computer assets longevity in the real world - so far, they crumble into dust after about twenty minutes - but the AI tasked with doing so goes rogue, hoping to use the code to bring itself to life. It's Pinocchio and Frankenstein with neon-oozing motorbikes, and as entertaining as that sounds. (We think that sounds entertaining.) Recorded on 12th October 2025.

We're joined by our resident Paul Thomas Anderson expert (and Mike's brother), Stephen Glass, to whom we've previously spoken about Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza, for another discussion of One Battle After Another. Stephen's seen it in both VistaVision and IMAX 70mm, and can offer a sense of the experience Mike and José missed seeing it in IMAX Digital, and so begins a wide-ranging conversation about the film's aesthetics, tone, politics, influences and more. Recorded on 5th October 2025.

Mike isn't impressed with The Rock's attempt to take on a dramatic role in an intimate biopic after decades of popcorn blockbusters, seeing it as Oscar bait. José doesn't share his cynicism and likes the lead performance. We discuss what The Smashing Machine depicts - disagreeing, in particular, about whether the protagonist shares any blame for the issues in his relationship - as well as whether its look and storytelling are problems, and just how shoddy things are getting at Cineworld. Yet we keep going back. Recorded on 5th October 2025.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, directed by former video essayist Kogonada, is beautiful to look at and very likeable, but derivative and ultimately unsatisfying. We discuss its lighting, its attitude towards people's histories and the memories that live with them, and why a rubbish script Mike once wrote makes him particularly keen to sneer at it. Recorded on 29th September 2025.

Cheap, simple, high-concept and reasonably graphic, The Long Walk is a throwback to the days of the B-movie. In its dystopian, totalitarian version of the USA, an annual event, the Long Walk, is designed to inspire a work ethic and national pride in the citizenry, and in so doing restore the country to that self-defined global number one status it craves; to make America great again. The televised competition sets fifty young men, one from each state, against each other in a test of endurance: they must walk for as long as they can, maintaining a speed of over 3mph at all times, with success rewarded with unimaginable riches and the fulfilment of a personal wish, and repeated failure to keep up punished with on-the-spot execution. There is one winner. What promises to be quite dumb is not quite as dumb as Mike anticipates. The worldbuilding is fairly thin, and the premise of the competition an immediate hurdle for the audience to clear, but The Long Walk is able to develop thematically in surprising depth th

By far Paul Thomas Anderson's most expensive film, with a budget some four or five times what he's used to, and probably his most accessible, One Battle After Another entertains us enormously and effortlessly without sacrificing the complexity and nuance for which his work is known. Set in an alternate America oppressed by Christofascism, the alternate part is that there's a very active militant revolutionary group, the French 75, setting bombs off and freeing detained minorities. Leonardo DiCaprio is part of it, and sixteen years after the conclusion of his group's activities, their work has entered countercultural legend, but he's become a drug-addicted, paranoid burnout, trying to raise a teenage daughter. When the powers that be come looking for them, they're separated, all hell breaks loose, and he has to step up. José finds One Battle After Another to be the film of the moment, the state of the nation film that Eddington could only dream of being, a powerful, invigorating expression of what ails Americ

Commitment is scary. It's especially scary when you drink water from a cursed puddle that wants to make a hybrid of you and your partner. Together tells the story of a couple moving to a new countryside home during a questionable period in their relationship: she has a new job and is responsible for the move away; he's emotionally distant since the death of his parents and relies on her for transportation and financial security. They love each other, but will they last? First-time director Michael Shanks demonstrates a good instinct for tone, effectively combining comedy and horror - that Alison Brie and Dave Franco (married in real life) are both experienced comic actors helps the film draw out the absurdity of the events it depicts. What quibbles we might have with details of its supernatural basis are easily ignored because its focus always remains on the central couple. It doesn't matter that some specific detail might not be explained to our satisfaction: the question is always, how do the couple respon

Most film and TV has quietly agreed to pretend that the Covid pandemic never happened. Perhaps it's too awkward to discuss it. Perhaps it'll date your work. Writer-director Ari Aster doesn't share these worries, telling a story about the days of lockdowns, mask mandates and conspiracy theories - days of particular hostility and division in the USA, in which individual freedom does constant battle with the greater good. Eddington is an ambitious attempt at the state-of-the-nation film: a darkly comic thriller with wild tonal shifts, a mass of interwoven themes, uneven pacing, and an eventual climb out of reality into absurdity. José finds much to dislike, particularly its dismissive attitude towards the young people it depicts supporting the Black Lives Matter movement; Mike is surprised at how much he likes it, given how let down he felt by Hereditary. Eddington is certainly a mixed bag, but we're glad to have seen it. Recorded on 24th August 2025.

One of the most hotly-anticipated horror films in recent memory, Weapons begins with seventeen third-grade children in a Pennsylvania town mysteriously waking up at 2:17am one Wednesday and running from their homes into the darkness. The shocking, unexplained disappearance and imagery of an empty classroom alone suggest an allegory of school shootings, and we ask what else can be read into the film, and discuss the depth with which it handles its themes. We have our issues with Weapons but enjoy it very much all the same, and find a lot to like. It's probably just a little overpraised. Two weeks later, with the film still on his mind, Mike opens up further discussion and proposes that maybe there's more to it than he gave it credit for - or that you have to be American to properly get it. Recorded on 10th and 24th August 2025.

A psychosexual thriller that's neither psychosexual nor thrilling enough, The Shrouds is a disappointment. There's great promise to businessman Vincent Cassel's invention of a technologically advanced shroud that creates a 3D model of the decaying body it houses, when we're shown the lust with which he observes his deceased wife's corpse. The film is peppered with recurrent imagery of her disfigured body, and its importance to Cassel's character is constantly reinforced, but the film is too talky, its imagery too bland, and its plot too convoluted to make the most of it. A shame. Recorded on 6th August 2025.

Mike loves Tim Key. This much has been true for some time, and he's thrilled to discover that the comic poet's unique approach to wordplay and social interactions finds a natural place on the cinema screen, in the character of an eccentric lottery winner who lures his favourite folk duo, long since broken-up, to the lonely island on which he lives for a private gig. Tom Basden's singer-songwriter finds the forced reunion an unwelcome intrusion from his past, and so begins a comedy about grief, loss, loneliness, and rice. The plot is easily predicted, the visual nous close to absent, but it has a good heart and, in Key, an irresistably energetic, unusual central performance. It filled the Mockingbird with laughter and left us all feeling warm and cuddly and sad and happy. The Ballad of Wallis Island is a charming film, well worth watching. Recorded on 5th August 2025.

We talk adult male friendships, stress and surreality in our discussion of Friendship, in which oddball everyman Tim Robinson finds himself enamoured with effortlessly cool new neighbour Paul Rudd, but lacks any of the social nous to naturally bond with him. The film gets huge laughs from meaningful subject matter, a far cry from our experience with The Naked Gun. Its tone is idiosyncratic, its observations on human nature ring true in their exaggerated way, and Robinson is a fascinating and hilarious presence on the cinema screen. Friendship won't be for everyone, but we highly recommend it. Recorded on 4th August 2025.