School of Movies

The Sea Beast

[School of Movies 2023]

A Netflix-distributed animated film about bounty-hunting pirate whalers hunting giant ocean kaiju. A plucky girl trying desperately to live up to the great death of her parents whose ship was borne down to the briny depths. A hardworking himbo on the cusp of questioning exactly why all this loss of life seems to be so necessary to keep civilisation afloat. A desperate sea captain on the verge of retirement watching his work of years come undone and blaming it all on one massive red beastie. 

Easy comparisons with How to Train Your Dragon have been made, but you have to get under the harpoon-fletched scaly hide of this leviathan to find that it goes to places Dreamworks and Disney won't. 

This is a Commissioned show for Chris Finik, and it was an absolute pleasure to discover this one on his suggestion.

The Coen Brothers: Part 1

[School of Movies 2023]

This is the start of a Director series that will run throughout the year, focusing on the complete works of Joel and Ethan Coen. Now in their mid-to-late-60s these two have been making quirky, dark films about stolen money and mysterious strangers for forty years. 

We begin with their first five stories of philandering spouses, struggling artists, uncomfortable criminals, screwball kidnapping and absurd industry.

1984: Blood Simple

1987: Raising Arizona

1990: Miller's Crossing

1991: Barton Fink

1994: The Hudsucker Proxy

And we will be back in a month or so, to visit Fargo, North Dakota as they hit their heyday.

The Fantastic Four

[School of Movies 2022]

For years this seminal, game-changing Silver Age comic book has seemed damned-near impossible to adapt into a movie, with all four efforts failing resoundingly at getting major audiences to care about Marvel's First Family. And yet Pixar did it twice with the serial numbers filed off and the clear vision of Brad Bird.

So Sharon and I look back on those movies, two that we've covered in the past just based on their own merits (2005 and 2007) and two others whose productions deserve delving into (1994 and 2015), and we compare them against the comic itself from various periods (Lee & Kirby, Byrne, Simonson, Morrison, Waid, Straczynski, Hickman) and not only speculate on how they could fit into the MCU, but celebrate their characters (along with Doom, Silver Surfer and Galactus) in a way that film has been unable to, at least to date. This episode took a hell of a lot of research and is richly prepared for all of you.

Our shortlist of recommended reading is as follows...

1. FF #48-52 ('The Coming of Galactus', 'This Man, This Monster', The Black Panther debuts)

2. FF #262 ('The Trial of Reed Richards')

3. FF #334-346 ('Into the Time Stream')

4. 1234 (Limited 4-issue series)

5. Vol. 3 #67 - Vol. 1 502 (4-issue 'Unthinkable' arc)

6. #538-543 ('Civil War')

7. #570-572 ('Solve Everything')

The Muppet Christmas Carol

[School of Movies 2022]

This is a movie we covered already, back in the winter of 2011. But back then I was really just getting warmed up, and it was a comparative show with the Robert Zemekis version from 2009. But huge thanks to my guests back then who always bring the insight; Taylor Nova and Matt Ramsey. 

This time we delve deep into both the Dickens book and why the Henson version hits all the notes exactly right, as well as the recent and long-awaited restoration of the 1992 film (with the missing song performed by Meredith Braun now back in place) on its thirtieth anniversary. And accompanying us this time are a pair of veritable Muppet experts who run their own dedicated podcast on these ageless furry anarchist entertainers! 

Settle in for a genuinely epic journey through one of the greatest Yuletides stories ever told, being retold in perhaps the greatest way possible.

Guests:

Mackenzie Eastram  @KenziePhoenix of Rainbow Connection @MuppetsPod

Nathan Eastram @bertnerdtram These two also of Video Game: The Movie: The Podcast  @VGTMPodcast

It’s a Wonderful Life

[School of Movies 2022]

Perhaps the oldest film we have covered as a Main Event show to date, as well as one of the most significant from that era. Frank Capra's seminal Holiday classic is often dismissed as syrupy fluff by those who haven't yet seen it, or misremembered as light comedy by those who caught it in fragments over the years without sitting down to really take in what it's saying.

It's neither of those things, and the greatest tragedy is how searingly relevant this 1946 post-war exercise in picking up the pieces of a nation still is. Sharon and I have been earmarking it for the SOM treatment for many years, but always putting it off as too heavy or too daunting, and also too beloved to cover in any way that wasn't 200% satisfying for all. 

Luckily Chris Finik came along with a shred choice of Commissioned show, and now you all get to listen to what it sounds like when we pull out all the stops.

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

[School of Movies 2022]

We've been planning Narnia shows for many years. This was a very special book series to me as a child, informing on my worldview and writing. It was also the first long-form live action fantasy series I watched on television, as the BBC production which ran from November 1988 to December 1991 adapted four books over three 6-episode seasons. I always wondered why they stopped at The Silver Chair. Later I began to understand the kind of scope and budgets and potentially thorny territory that the remaining three stories would entail. The quaint, very British project was already more ambitious than anyone would have expected. 

After that were many long years of waiting for a cinematic incarnation (not counting the insanely cheap and rushed 1979 animated version). The achievement and success of New Line's Lord of the Rings films at the same time as Warner's Harry Potter imbued Disney with a desire to seek out its own epic fantasy series to bring in all the dollars. 

While compared unfavourably with Weta's perfectly magnificent Rings Trilogy it is frankly amazing that the director of the first two Shrek films was able to achieve something in this 2005 film which both surpassed my experience of reading the book, and even my loftily-soaring imagination of what the events could look, sound and feel like. We will be covering the duet of films that followed in 2008 and 2010 and lingering cancellation of the seven-part series next year. 

Guest:

Nama Chibitty @namathenerd

Early Commissions 2023

This is a quick lowdown of what we have coming up in the next few weeks, along with official notification that the window for our Early 2023 Commissions Season is opening up right now.

So if you have an episode you want crafted by us, the standard price for a film is $150 with video games and TV shows scaling that amount, depending on the hours we will have to invest. 

Get in touch via Patreon Messenger, Discord, Twitter or email, and have a very happy holidays. 

Superman: The Animated Series

[School of Everything Else 2022]

Following the tremendous critical and commercial success of the first ever dedicated  animated Batman show, the same creative team turned their eyes to his sunny counterpart, the original, archetypal superhero, the last son of Krypton.

It's always more challenging creating a successful, beloved Clark Kent than it is a Bruce Wayne. People like the brooding and the darkness. By contrast it is natural to be mistrusting of someone who purports to be so utterly GOOD all the time. Surely there's an angle. Look how naïve he is. What if he turned bad? Unfortunately this last prospect is the Superman story we keep returning to in pop culture. Because we can understand why someone would wield supreme power as a conquering weapon.

This, however is THE definitive Superman. Christopher Reeve is no doubt the most wonderful, memorable, impeccably performed live-action Kal-El, but this show which ran for three seasons from 1996-2000 is most definitely the place to go to find the *context* for Superman. A world based on the comics that the creative team love and have actually read! A rogue's gallery that aren't all just Lex Luthor and General Zod, and the finest Lois Lane we may ever see.

This Animated Series is a gift. 

Guests:

Toby Jungius @TJungius of Through the Wind Door

Kevin Veighey @KevinTimeGeek86 whose Let's Plays on YouTube can be found here

Riddick

[School of Movies 2022]

Nine years after his Chronicles, Richard B. Riddick is sat upon his iron throne, the crown hanging heavy, too many pie suppers since he was at his physical peak and too many wenches left in wordless ecstasy, sloughing around his greasy bedsheets. 

This is the story of how he gets easily tricked, shot in the back, left for dead on a barren planet filled with beasties designed exclusively to kill you, and soon after making a four-legged friend, he becomes beset by not one, but two separate groups of rotten mercenaries. 

Possibly the yellowest film you will ever witness, Riddick (2013) is what happens when one attempts to return to one's roots after an age of hubris. Does it succeed?  

Next Week: Superman - The Animated Series.

The Chronicles of Riddick

[School of Movies 2022]

After knocking it out of the park on the first try with Pitch Black, David Twohy and Vin Diesel limbered back up four years later with a complete change of pace, scale and even sci-fi sub-genre. If you look at Pitch Black as The Hobbit, then where they took the series next was their Lord of the Rings.

However, there is a world of difference between what went into the expansion and historical goings-on of Professor Tolkein and the Conan-the-Barbarian-in-space that Riddick metamorphosed into. Suddenly, rather than a dangerous prisoner he became the chosen one of a massacred world, destined to avenge his people against a rampaging horde of death-worshipping necromongers! 

The results of these changes were frequently frustrating and marginally absurd!