School of Movies

Horror is a Spice

[School of Everything Else 2024]

This is a special episode I've been planning for many years, ever since the notion that 'Horror' as we know it is largely a marketing construct, and that stories that deliberately jab at our Fear-response can be found pretty much everywhere.

This is why I decided to go with my favourite metaphor; food) and hone in on the precept that Horror is not a story type, but a spice (or indeed a series of differently flavoured spices with differing properties) that can be sprinkled in lightly or ladled in heavily to produce wildly varying results.

This would be why de facto Horror film series' like Friday the 13th don't frighten me in the slightest, but Shallow Grave, which would be classified as a Thriller in cinematic terms, chilled me to my core, and why the most frightening film I ever saw isn't in the Horror genre at all!

We and our guests work our way up the scary Scoville Scale (the Screamville scale) to establish some genuinely thought-provoking new, fresh and flavourful perspectives, accompanied by some of the greatest and most spine-tingling movie music of all time!

FELLAS... Is it Gay to...?

[School of Everything Else 2024]

This is a very special episode, and might be a lot of folk's favourite of the year.

What is a “FELLAS…” scenario?

It feels like most of us will have encountered them in the wild as we doomscroll our way through the doldrums of the Misinformation Age. Simply put, it’s when a man asks other men if it is in fact gay to do something in particular, OR it is when a man (and a very cis man at that) makes an empirical statement pronouncing something in particular that a man shouldn’t do as now the act of a gay man. Invariably these somethings in particular are laughably commonplace and the aversion to them is rendered tragicomic as a result.

These turn up in our Discord channel, usually in the 'Bad Reviews Against Humanity' thread. Discord members Tripas, Alejandra Vargas, Chris Finik, Greg Downing, Selfproclaimed, Toby Skeels-Jungius and TransientModeLincoln worked diligently to compile several years worth into one organised list. And we brought in the now-16-year-old Willow Shaw to help us read them all aloud.

Avatar: The Rise of Kyoshi

[School of Everything Else 2024]

This was a commissioned show for Self AKA Selfproclaimed. Ever since The Legend of Aang wrapped in 2008 there have been comics expanding upon what followed the defeat of Fire Lord Ozai. This, however, was a pair of books; 'The Rise of Kyoshi' and 'The Shadow of Kyoshi' detailing what occurred four centuries prior to the adventures of Team Aang.

And the 2019-2020 release of these two novels, penned by F.C. Yee with consultancy from co-creator of Avatar Michael Dante DiMartino was met with wild adulation. Both books have astronomical five star reviews on Amazon, with more than 9K ratings corroborating that.

What I personally got from the books was a lot more of a mixed bag. There is amazing potential here, however, not all of it was fulfilled. Luckily we also have longtime friend of the show Nama Chibitty on, to counterpoint my hang-ups.

And this episode launches on the same day as School of Movies unveils the second in our series of short story anthologies, written by members of the community. 'Shared Footprints on Crossed Pathways' is the follow-up to 'The Lights from Distant Bonfires' in 2022. This collection sees legendary public domain characters like Sherlock Holmes, Winnie the Pooh, Zorro, The Phantom of the Opera, Captain Nemo, Cthulhu, Minnie Mouse, Don Quixote, Scheherazade, Tarzan and King Kong meeting up and examining one another's worldviews. Each story given a beautiful illustration by Nama's sister Bunny Boughamer.

The paperback is available here

Gonzo Adventures: The Tower of the Sorcerer

[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 GameBurst
Lastern Darkfire: An elf fresh out of the forests, played by Mark Reay of The A.I. Bots
Kellis Payge: A human mage from the city watch of Chalice, played by Sharon Shaw of School of Movies
Harron Brondyn: A sarcastic thief played by Matt Ramsey of Do Try This at Home

Focus is on character and story over action and complex systems, almost closer to an audio drama than the recording of a game. The guest soundtrack for this week is the original World of Warcraft OST by Jason Hayes, Tracy W. Bush, Derek Duke, and Glenn Stafford. Many thanks to my guests, who played brilliantly and went easy on me in my first-time role as Dungeon Master. The combat rules were still being learned by all of us, also Gonzo is an adult podcast and we use adult language in this. 

And thank you all for making this one of the warmest, smartest, funniest communities on the internet for 150 episodes of Gonzo.

F9: The Fast Saga / Fast X

[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. 

New Book: The Lights from Distant Bonfires: 18 Gothic Tales (Promo)

In case you didn't catch this at the end of the Company of Wolves show yet, Sharon, myself and even Willow have helped put together an anthology of Gothic tales written by members of the School of Movies community.

It's available to buy right now on Amazon and if as many of you as possible buy it at once, talk about it on social media, (and if you want to be extra specially helpful leave us an honest, positive review when you've finished and recommend it to friends) that should help it get some visibility.

It's called "The Lights from Distant Bonfires" and we've been preparing it for many months now. These stories are stirring and spine-tingling and should conjure up haunting images to dwell on this Fall. We are keeping the price low and selling the paperback at cost to get it into as many trembling hands as possible. 

USA Edition

UK Edition 

The 14 Authors:
Lincoln Alpern, James Batchelor, Nama Chibitty, Greg Downing, Jesse Ferguson, Chris Finik, Nick Jaragosky, Hanna Peregrine, Alexander Shaw, Sharon Shaw, Willow Shaw, Maya Souris, Alejandra Vargas, Bradford Yurkiw

10 Possible Futures

[School of Everything Else 2020]

This is a special episode deliberately timed to around the American Election and not far off the official Brexit from Europe. It's a time of great anxiety, so we wanted to give ourselves and our listeners a dose of perspective.

So I've collated ten different types of future seen in movies, and I've ranked them from the very worst to the very best. That way we can talk them all through in order, starting with horrendous scenarios that make what we're experiencing right now maybe not quite so utterly apocalyptic in our minds. And we finish on visions of unity, cooperation and progress that might give us something to hope for.

Guests:

Hollywoo Actress  Maya Santandrea @Mayasantandrea

Brendan Agnew of Cinapse  @BLCAgnew

Jesse Ferguson of Recorded Tomorrow @TheDapperDM

Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg

Wrestlemania XXX

[School of Everything Else 2018]

Do not adjust your phones, you are reading this one correctly. Despite barely ever mentioning wrestling in over eleven years of podcasting we are now doing an epic-length show on what for newcomers might be the most instantly satisfying event in WWE history.

This isn't a show for wrestling fans (though you lot will get a kick out of it anyway) it's for people who aren't familiar with wrestling and have never really seen the appeal. We started watching these superbowl-style annual extravaganzas this year as a way to spend Sunday and take our minds off the awful shit that's happening in the world with some athletic soap opera, and this one in particular was a high point.

So pick it up on blu ray and watch it with friends, then listen to why it's so strong as an example of sports entertainment. OR listen to our show first (though we will spoil who wins each match) and we will talk you through what we've learned over these past months.

With us is a longtime fan and something of a wrestling historian to keep us on track whilst not wildly diverging, so we can all focus on why Wrestlemania 30 rocks!

Guest:

Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg

Raising a Geek Child: Vol. 2

[School of Everything Else 2018]

We're back for the second part of this series (we may do another in the future, it really depends which parents want to contribute their experiences). 

We have an even broader range of guests and questions, with geeky children ranging from toddlers to tweens. 

 

Guests

Jesse Ferguson father of Connor aged 10 & Erin aged 15 

James Batchelor father of Freddy aged 20 months (Bond & Beyond)

Matt Wardle father of Scott aged 12 (New Century)

Brittanie Boe mother of Hailey Boe aged 8 (BeBoldGames)

And Mike Hearn father of Lily aged 8 & Violet aged 3 (Walter the Wicked)

Raising a Geek Child: Vol. 1

[School of Everything Else 2018]

The first of our two recorded shows on this subject so far. This was commissioned back in 2017 and Sharon and I began preparing copious notes on how we'd raised Lyra. Those notes became the beginnings of a sprawling self-help book which we planned to turn into audio. Then eventually we accepted that the subject was too big and far too important to just rely on our take. 

So we pulled together two round table sessions with parents of geeky children. I go into detail on how that definition works at the beginning, but as it stands these interviews are packed with honest accounts and experiences that might help any number of parents out there. Whether you already have children or are thinking about having them or never want to have them at all but are interested in how the geekier parent might handle it, this show is essential listening.

Guests

Brendan Agenew, father of Marian, aged 1 (Cinapse)

Neil Taylor, father of Mikey, aged 3 (TheKidDogg)

Gary Blower, father of Imogen, aged 8 (GameBurst)

Sharon Shaw, mother of Lyra, aged 9 (New Century)

I'd also like to promote another geek Dad; Andy Robertson, who is running a project designed to help parents concerned about video games and technology: https://www.patreon.com/geekdadgamer