Episodes
Friday Aug 18, 2023
Devil’s Advocate
Friday Aug 18, 2023
Friday Aug 18, 2023
[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.
Friday Aug 11, 2023
V for Vendetta
Friday Aug 11, 2023
Friday Aug 11, 2023
[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 to blow up Parliament in the early17th Century, and why even though he and his companions failed, their bungled plan still has deep, historical significance.
Guests:
Victoria Luna B. Grieve: @VixenVVitch
Friday Aug 04, 2023
Ghost in the Shell
Friday Aug 04, 2023
Friday Aug 04, 2023
[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 the presentation of what seems like the same story but is actually quite different.
Friday Jul 21, 2023
No Country for Old Men / True Grit
Friday Jul 21, 2023
Friday Jul 21, 2023
[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 you can catch our Patreon-excusive After School Club shows on The Man Who Wasn't There, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, Burn after Reading, A Serious Man, Hail Caesar, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Tragedy of Macbeth.
2007: No Country for Old Men
2010: True Grit
Friday Jul 07, 2023
In the Heights
Friday Jul 07, 2023
Friday Jul 07, 2023
[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, sweat and tears.
Guest:
Nama Chibitty @namathenerd
Follow Nama's sister's art: Bunny_the_Artist
Friday Jun 30, 2023
John Wick: Chapters 2/3/4
Friday Jun 30, 2023
Friday Jun 30, 2023
[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 process allows us to really get granular about the impressive strengths of each.
Friday May 19, 2023
Heckboy
Friday May 19, 2023
Friday May 19, 2023
[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 how their beloved Hellboy was treated here.
Friday May 12, 2023
O Brother, Where Art Thou? / Inside Llewyn Davis
Friday May 12, 2023
Friday May 12, 2023
[School of Movies 2023]
The Coen Brothers season continues with Part IV here, and we picked two of the most musically focused for a double-bill of hapless singers wandering America.
The first is arguably the most high-profile and broadly celebrated film, which comes at the end of their golden age. Their eighth movie, O Brother is an ambitious retelling of Homer's Odyssey, set in the 1930s dust bowl and concerning three escaped prisoners on a treasure hunt. It's a screwball comedy, closer in tone to Raising Arizona than something like Fargo. This mix of Americana was received with adulation by the Academy, and the bluegrass music at its core became a brief travelling sensation.
Inside Llewyn Davis however, is from 2013. Thirteen unlucky years after their peak, and by this time they were indie darlings again. It concerns Oscar Isaac's titular character based on the careers and music of certain Greenwich Village folk singers from 60s New York. Llewin is reeling from the death of his singing partner, and his travels take him from conflict to conflict as he tries to find his place. It's a fine example of a grower movie, since when we first meet him he is appallingly selfish and obnoxious and doesn't seem to change, to the point where he seems to circle back around to where he literally started. But as with Lebowski, the more you watch it, the more you listen, the more of an impression this restless, lonely ghost of a man will leave.
2000: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2013: Inside Llewyn Davis
Friday Apr 14, 2023
The Big Lebowski
Friday Apr 14, 2023
Friday Apr 14, 2023
[School of Movies 2023]
Part III of the Coen Brothers series. In 1998 they pulled together what might in fact be their most beloved film for fans of their oeuvre. Definitely the most eminently quotable, by virtue of a script that is almost a musical in terms of how often phrases and lines are repeated and reprised, layering absurdity upon each scenario and impeccably delivered by an astonishing cast. It follows a California layabout named Jeffrey Lebowski who is mistaken for a local philanthropist of the same name. Chaos ensues.
Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, David Huddleston, Steve Buscemi, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Elliott, Peter Stormare, John Turturro and Tara Reid all play eccentric characters in this sly parody of a film noir kidnapping mystery. One where pretty much everyone is far less competent than they are pitching to the world. It's a real "No One Knows What They're Doing" scenario, as FilmJoy might say.
Some folks are baffled as to why it's so vociferously beloved, so we have attempted to convey that here. Sharon and I rambled like crazy over two delirious recording sessions, and I wound up trimming out 45+ minutes of utter crap that isn't worth saving for a Cutting Class. This is why mere synopsising and vaguely commenting on why a scenario is funny does not constitute critique for me. Luckily, what remained in place, and what I was able to editorialise after the fact, I am proud of.
Next time around, a double-bill of period musicals, both of which also contain John Goodman SCREAMING!
Friday Mar 31, 2023
Fargo
Friday Mar 31, 2023
Friday Mar 31, 2023
[School of Movies 2023]
Part II of the Coen Brothers series. This 1996 film was the point where they hit the big leagues. Showered with awards and nominations, Joel and Ethan were placed alongside great and classic directors by the establishment.
The story itself is one of a bungled kidnap, a bag filled with cursed money and the needless murders that take place as a result of seeking it. It's a frosty noir, set on the snowbound roads between Fargo, North Dakota and the twin cities of Minneapolis-Saint Paul. A weasel of a car salesman arranges for the kidnapping of his own wife, and from that atrocious act, calamity radiates.
The local sheriff on the case is Margie Gunderson, played by Frances McDormand, whose genial, mumsy attitude hides a sharp, observant detective brain. And it is from her perspective that we observe with bewilderment the cluttered mistakes of daft, greedy men.
Next time around we go bowling with The Big Lebowski. More kidnaps, more bungling, more greed, less murder.