School of Movies

Secret of NIMH / American Tail / Land Before Time

[School of Movies 2022]

A trio of films that are considered by many to be the crowning glories of Don Bluth's oeuvre. He was one of the only serious competitors to Disney in the last two decades of the 20th Century that they had dominated, in terms of what constituted animated cinema in the west. 

We take a documentarian approach to how he started, and cover the flourishing of the next few years, breaking off at their high point, actually beating Disney at the box office. After this it was a slow decline of valiant attempts and disappointing failures, making films that evoked the elegant, classical stylings of Cinderella, Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty when the public wanted Toy Story, and Disney were experiencing their 90s Renaissance. 

This one gets dark and hard, even more so than you might imagine, if you're familiar with the sometimes disturbing nature of this body of work. But it's utterly fascinating if you can push through that. 

Guest:

Kat Essman @Kat325

Mario Kart

[School of Everything Else 2022]

Lunatic eats strange fungus, throws reptile carcases and banana peel out of his car. Everyone cheers! 

One of the most beloved of game series, the racing title that prides itself on accessibility (most of the time) and appeal to all ages, with a consistently high bar of quality (imagine if every Sonic game had that) and a lasting appeal that both piques nostalgia and makes us excited for the future.

What began as a multiplayer sequel to vintage SNES launch title F-Zero became a flagship Nintendo showcase of their core Mario-related characters. We look at the development history and how the series has evolved over thirty years, the gambles that didn't pay off, the elements we now take for granted and the key aspects that make it work so well. 

What's abundantly clear is that everyone has a different favourite and everyone has at least one example in the series that they just bounce off. We eschew discussion on the obscure arcade games, the remote control car for your mansion, and the Switch DLC rollout, as that won't be finished for years, but we DO talk about the phone-based Tour (2019) and its microtransaction-plagued experience.

For this epic show we played through every cup, and tried every multiplayer and battle mode in Super Mario Kart on the SNES (1992), Mario Kart 64 (1997) Super Circuit for GBA (2001) Double Dash for GameCube (2003) DS (2005) Wii (2008) 7 for 3DS (2011) and 8 for Wii U and Switch (2014). And yes, we do talk about Tour for phones (2019).  

The other unexpected and fascinating side of the show to pay particular attention to, which didn't become apparent until the edit is how Nintendo advertised each game over three decades. Their approach and audience changes over time and you can really hear that in the commercials. PLUS the whole thing is peppered with music that will evoke good times. 

Guest:

Nama Chibitty @namathenerd 

Bound

[School of Movies 2022]

We continue an unexpected year of diving into the back-catalogue of The Wachowskis. Speed Racer is on the way, and this right here is a dark little neo noir about stealing from murderous mobsters.

It's all claustrophobic labyrinthine interiors, black and white, red and green with overtones of German expressionism. Bill Pope the same Director of Photography as the first three Matrix films, Don Davis who likewise handled scoring detail, and Zach Staenberg as editor *and* Joe Pantoliano playing a total dirtbag makes this in many ways feel more like The Matrix than the fourth movie. 

Also this is a steamy lesbian romance and this is VERY not safe for work! 

Guest:

Victoria Luna B. Grieve:  @VixenVVitch 

Sing & Sing 2

[School of Movies 2022]

This was unexpected... followed by yet more unexpectation.

When I first saw the teaser trailer for the original film, all the way back in 2016 I thought the dancing pig picture would be inane and perpetually irritating, only to find out from trusted critics that there was way more below the surface. And they were right, I loved it immediately. Ever since then we've been promising to do a show.

So, now we've finally got around to it, as the commission escorted to the front of the line this cheery, toe-tapping, occasionally melancholy film about the drive to perform. And we were surprised yet again with what we found. Not all of it fantastic when scrutinised. 

And since the sequel launched in theatres the same week we recorded I followed up with a completely separate section starting at 1h 2m, detailing to Sharon how the sequel develops on the original. Even though everything we found wasn't peachy-keen we still recommend seeing both movies as they are rather lovely. 

Street Fighter

[School of Movies 2022]

Picture the scene; It's late 1994 and young teens who have thrown a thousand hadoukens in arcades and on home consoles throughout the early 90s finally get to go to the cinema and see their favourite characters battling in live action.

The casting seems superficially solid. Jean-Claude Van Damme is at the peak of his career path, Raoul Julia was wildly entertaining in the Adams Family movies and The Locomotion... is a catchy tune performed by Australian soap star Kylie Minogue... and we don't recognise most of the others so they must be accomplished martial artists. Surely this one is an easy win. 

In later years this movie became a celebrated campy classic, its often ludicrous lines quoted ad nauseum. Let's look at the experience of actually sitting down and watching it with a critical eye. 

Guests

Hollywoo Actress  Maya Santandrea @Mayasantandrea

Jason "Chewie" Slate @TheManaPool

Akira

[School of Movies 2022]

Your eyes do not deceive you, we are doing anime this week. Ironically the only other Main Event show we've done of this ilk is Kiki's Delivery Service, which emerged the year after this film and replaced it as the most expensive Japanese animated cinematically-released production of the era. You wouldn't think it, comparing that sweet tale about an enthusiastic girl who gets burnout in Stockholm to this cyberpunk epic.

As striking today as it was in 1988, this is a film of vital importance that is stunning to witness. A harsh, thrilling journey through an alternate 2019 civilisation on the brink of explosion. Roving gangs of biker clowns make war in the streets as wrinkled old psychic children face down a furious, embittered and hellishly powerful teenage boy. 

If you've never seen it, find the highest quality transfer, turn out the lights and switch off your phone. This is one for the ages. 

Hawkeye

[School of Everything Else 2022]

Bouncing back from What If? Marvel came out swinging with a street-level Christmas crime caper. This served the dual purposes of finally giving the least-loved Avenger some substantial spotlighting, and ghosts of his past to deal with, and introducing us to a brand new Hawkeye in the form of Kate Bishop.

Hailee Steinfeld was offered the role the moment she walked into casting director Sara Halley Finn's office. Kevin Feige had seen her in Bumblebee, Spider-Verse, Dickinson (and hopefully Edge of Seventeen, which is splendid) and knew already that she had the charm and pep and serious acting chops to be a young Avenger.

But is this six-episode miniseries the ideal place for her story, or did it get lost among the scrabble for screen time from some seriously charismatic appearances?

Guests:

Greg Downing of Through the Wind Door @MightyGregDoge

The Matrix Resurrections

[School of Movies 2022]

We come to it at last, maybe the final Matrix film directed by a Wachowski. Though this vein of property is worth too much money to the IP-owner to leave unmined.

Representing a refinement and evolution of the philosophies laid down two decades ago. This film was launched a week after Spider-Man: No Way Home and just before Christmas Day, due to a prior arrangement with HBO. This dismal decision, coupled with Lana Wachowski's revised approach to both storytelling and action led to this film being both critically panned and rejected by audiences everywhere. Par for the course on Matrix sequels.

However, some folks absolutely adored the tale that was being wound back on itself and then forward into the future. At the time of recording the only other show that we had in the can was the 2019 one on the original, so this represents a close-out of the series through the lens of diving back in to reassess, as we then proceeded to Reloaded, the Animatrix and Revolutions. 

Next week: Hawkeye

Guests:

Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew of Cinapse

Victoria Luna B. Grieve:  @VixenVVitch 

Alexa Vargas @Plutoburns whose YouTube channel is here

The Matrix Revolutions

[School of Movies 2022]

The least-loved, most-hated, and in consequence least-explored of the Matrix saga finally gets the School of Movies treatment. The 1999 original is turned on its head here, resulting in a film that almost seems the inverse of everything that got us fired up in the first place. But it was a necessary refocusing in order to expand outwards from Morpheus' dogmatic vision of "Us vs. Them". 

Philosophically this lands in a healthier place, even if so much of what we see feels mismanaged, awkward, stalling for time and sometimes downright annoying. We go all-out here to clear away the debris of the original conclusion and lay bare the depth of thought beneath. 

Next week we close out with what might well be the last Matrix movie. Certainly the last steered by a Wachowski. 

Guests:

Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew of Cinapse

Victoria Luna B. Grieve:  @VixenVVitch 

Alexa Vargas @Plutoburns whose YouTube channel is here

Mackenzie Eastram  @KenziePhoenix of Rainbow Connection @MuppetsPod and Video Game: The Movie: The Podcast  @VGTMPodcast

The Animatrix

[School of Everything Else 2022]

A very solid argument could be made for this being a movie, and thus being in the "Everything Else" category being erroneous. However, the focus of this episode is the trans-media endeavour that The Matrix series became. 

It straddles four films, a PS2 game named Enter The Matrix, an MMORPG named The Matrix Online and this anthology of nine short animated films, and it is ALL official story canon. The only release which doesn't quite fit this is The Path of Neo, another PS2 game which fills in the blanks of Neo's journey towards fulfilling the prophecy of The One, and while most of it probably happened the end is a direct departure, or at least an abstraction of the narrative. 

So that's what powers this discussion, and The Animatrix is absolutely worth watching now, though as you will hear it is not only surprisingly violent and grim at times, but the shorts vary in depth rather significantly.

Next week we conclude the original Trilogy with the Matrix Revolutions

Guests:

Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew of Cinapse

Victoria Luna B. Grieve:  @VixenVVitch 

Alexa Vargas @Plutoburns whose YouTube channel is here

Mackenzie Eastram  @KenziePhoenix of Rainbow Connection @MuppetsPod and Video Game: The Movie: The Podcast  @VGTMPodcast