School of Movies

Psycho

[School of Movies 2024]

For this rather special episode, we firstly welcome to the show for the first time, director Alfred Hitchcock, as we examine his most famous and most revisited film, Psycho (1960). This became the wellspring from which modern-day detective thrillers emerged. But it also has tangled roots in Horror and the grubby stepchild of its sub-genres, the slasher. While other films like Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter (1955) and John Lee Thompson's Cape Fear (1962) -both weirdly starring Robert Mitchum- were also hugely important, Psycho was less about the stalking killer as it was a torrid dive into the swampy waters of their mind.

Deriving from a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, who lived down the road from Ed Gein as he was being arrested for trying to make a woman-suit, this story, along with Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs (1988) assisted greatly in the lurid, pulp sensationalism of the twisted deviant killer-man-in-a-dress mythology. Despite quiet, clear, firm, researched and experienced protestations from trans folk and their allies who keep having to remind the world at large that they aren't toilet-lurking monsters.

We also look at the stunningly ill-advised shot-for-shot remake of the Hitchcock film, directed in 1998 by Gus Van Sant. Superficially, these are exactly the same film, but the devil is in the details. Next week we will be returning to Bates Motel with the far less well-known, but actually pretty good Psycho II, which more pronouncedly paints Norman as a victim.

Godzilla Minus One

[School of Movies 2024]

If New Empire is the best Kong film, this one qualifies for us as the best Japanese Godzilla film. Kaiju fans are being blessed with an embarrassment of riches in this era (check out the charming and dazzling animated Ultraman Rising for even more of this) and there has never been a better time to wrap your head around why this enormous nuclear lizard is such an enduring icon in his home country.

Journeying back to the 1954 original Gojira, this film re-stages those events in different ways that even more deeply parallel a nation reeling from the mass-traumatic aftermath of World War II. Right now these people are at zero in terms of ability to cope, and Godzilla is set to slam them back even further to minus one (I didn't come up with that, some YouTube channel obsessing over his toughness stats did, but it's rather good).

And yet, while this could be another funerial and mournful lamentation of death and destruction, and abandonment by our leaders, the disgraced kamikaze pilot at the centre doesn't so much have to regain his honour as recognise the value of his own continued existence. This film is life-affirming and helmed by my favourite Japanese director who isn't Hayao Miyazaki; the magnificently gifted and humane Takashi Yamazaki (Lupin III: The First, Stand by Me, Doraemon 1 & 2, Dragon Quest: Your Story)

Guest:

Dan Hoeppner  @MightyMegatron0  of Leftover Army Monsters

Kong X Godzilla: The New Empire

[School of Movies 2024]

Fixed the title on this one, to both distinguish it from 2021s Godzilla vs. Kong, AND to give the rightful prominence to the Great Ape whose movie this most definitely is. Willow suggested the original title would be as misleading as "Loki x Thor: Ragnarok".

This is my favourite of the new MonsterVerse films, by a narrow margin, considering Godzilla II: King of the Monsters is still absolutely magnificent. Just like that 2019 entry, it's also one of my favourite films of the year, for reasons I will elaborate upon in depth here.

Rejoining us for this Hollow-Earth saga of deposing one of several gorilla dictators we've seen on the big screen this year is the chap who knows more about kaiju films than I know about not treading upon the sensitive tootsies of Godzilla fans, who will hopefully be happy to hear we will be back next week for the incredible new Japanese film, 'Minus One'!

Guest:

Dan Hoeppner  @MightyMegatron0  of Leftover Army Monsters

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

[School of Movies 2024]

The initial and glowingly positive reviews are coming in for Transformers One this week. It's the first entirely-animated Transformers movie since the infamous Optimus-Prime-slaughtering 'The Transformers: The Movie' in 1986, and I am happy and hopeful for the future in that regard.

But what of the state of the live action films? The fifth and final Michael Bay-directed mess was The Last Knight in 2017, which did almost HALF the box office of the obscenely successful Age of Extinction in 2014. Then came Bumblebee in 2018, very purposefully different in tone from the leery MacGuffin hunts of the Bay films. It made less again, despite being the only one with heart and soul.

Then in 2023, this seventh entry sought to split the difference with a return to the MacGuffin hunt and big, noisy robot battles of the earlier entries, but with an injection of the humanity and spark of Bumblebee.

This episode contains a bonus; the previously Patreon-exclusive exploration of my re-edits of the five Bayformers. What, if anything can be saved from that towering mountain of extremely lucrative scrap!?

Deadpool & Wolverine

[School of Movies 2024]

One of the biggest films of the year, and the greatest success for the MCU... which weirdly seems to avoid going anywhere near Earth 616, instead acting as either a swansong for the X-Men series, begun in the year 2000, or possibly a phoenix-cry. It really depends on how Marvel handles the Mutants in the next few years.

However, as a focused distillation of some of the greatest strengths of those 13 movies this one succeeds where so many others fail, not by being eye-rollingly insincere, as many publications have asserted disapprovingly, but by balancing (not always magnificently) the snarcasm and fourth-wall assault and battery of the irrepressible Deadpool, once again using humour to mask his pain and anxiety, and the impeccably serious and authentic Hugh Jackman, playing the ruin this Wolverine's life has become entirely straight.

It's a grower and  a shower. In a year otherwise mercifully cape-free, it straps on the spandex in the most form-fitting of ways.

Guests:

Jesse Ferguson of Recorded Tomorrow @TheDapperDM 

Chris Finik @finmonster09

Almost Famous

[School of Movies 2024]

This one is special on a level I am going to find challenging to articulate in a medium as clumsy as the written word. It is a show that has been promised for well over a decade, it took me four recording sessions and a protracted edit over the month of August. It is so densely and richly layered that I would put it in the same category as our shows on Guillermo del Toro and the Lord of the Rings (ironic, since that was the book the writer/director used to convince his mother Alice Crowe that rock music wasn't all just sex and drugs).

This is the fourth film from Cameron Crowe, after Say Anything, Singles and Jerry Maguire, and you will hear in this show just how much his autobiographical experiences and outlook on the world influenced and resonated with me in the late 90s and early 2000s, in a way that has absolutely informed upon not only my character, personality, writing, editing and philosophy, but the way I engage with music itself. Put simply, this movie goes beyond masterpiece and becomes an experience like no other.

Grab your biggest clamshell headphones, get away from the hustle and bustle of the modern world, and immerse yourself in a time period most of us were not present for. A time between the late 60s and early 70s when art and commercialism were engaged in war for our collective attention. One would nourish our spirit, the other would fixate upon our money. This is the story of a 15 year old boy who somehow convinced Rolling Stone Magazine he was a credible music journalist and went on tour with some of the greatest rock bands who have ever mounted the stage.

And it is, on so many levels... True.

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.

Star Trek: Prodigy

[School of Everything Else 2024]

This was a commissioned show for Tylor and Chris Finik. It covers the first two seasons of this animated show which can be found on Netflix, Paramount+ and Nickelodeon. You can listen to the whole thing without fear of anything being made worse, and we keep a lot of secrets and surprises under wraps since statistically most of you won't have seen this.

On first inspection it might seem like Star Trek for Babies or Star Trek: Rebels, however, spend some time with it and you'll find a show that is not only a splendid introduction to this seminal mythology, but a fine new way of looking at The Federation from the outside, wrapped around some exceptional and emotionally-driven character-focused science fiction.

The short of it is, seven young misfits on the run in a stolen Federation starship prototype. There's a threat coming from the future and they have to get the warning to Earth in time. What they become is exemplary of what intergalactic peacekeeping could be, in the hands of those who have not yet been morally compromised. It's excellent and you will have fun hearing why.

Dazed and Confused

[School of Movies 2024]

What is a "hangout movie"?

It's a film that concerns itself far less with telling one grand, overall story of one or two people's development or journey, and far more on literally spending time with the ensemble cast of characters. In this show I draw the comparison between the characters we see here and animals in a safari park, but I don' mean they are simply placed there for our amusement, and don't matter. What I mean here is that we are experiencing a world based on memory and authentic experiences being described to us through the medium of what might be a dopey comedy where nothing happens.

It is the last day of school in Texas 1976, America is at a fragile place and the young people, following the mess of the Vietnam war, the betrayal of their government and under increased scrutiny from adults just itching to banish them from Civilisation if they so much as inhale a wisp of pot smoke. This is Richard Linklater's second film, his first under the critical eye of a studio with financial priorities... and it is a sweltering, comforting place to return to, filled with characters both lovable and scummy, jut trying to party before life breaks them.

It also has one of the top five curated soundtracks of all time.

Damsel

[School of Movies 2024]

This is a special show for Chris Finik. It would have been a relatively straightforward endeavour for Sharon and I to delve into this one. It's a story that feels familiar and contains many of our very favourite elements; A betrayed lady thriving on her own untapped resourcefulness with help from a chain of women begun long ago, a dragon with an AMAZING voice and a Royal Family squatting on an exploitative predatory system that all needs to be burned down. Plus, we love Millie Bobby Brown.

But we went one further, twisting around to examine the novelisation by Evelyn Skye, based on the early screenplay by Dan Mazeau. Both versions are lacking in certain departments, which the other compensates for... but there's some crazy business that folks who have only seen the film on Netflix will definitely want to know.