School of Movies

Minority Report & War of the Worlds

[School of Movies 2020]

To date Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise have worked together twice in their careers. And since they were two dark future-shock movies that were released close together in the early 2000s we figured we'd cover them both as a double-bill. 

It's fairly extraordinary what a different world we are seeing here, than just a few years beforehand in the 90s. And in particular the age of terror paranoia of War of the Worlds now feels like a distant memory, what with everything happening at this moment. Like looking back on the cold war during the age of terror. 

So these are both pretty grim, and we decided to pep them up with some fun moments for you, including a look back over Cruises' family-averse portfolio, and rather more talk of penguins than I think *anyone* expected. 

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

[School of Movies 2020]

What existed for years as an ongoing project for Stanley Kubrick became one of the only treehouses he let his friend Steven in on. Eventually Stan decided his approach alone could not ideally shape A.I. for the screen, and that this story needed Spielberg to direct. Stan offered to play producer.

And then he died.

So Steven picked up the pre-production art, concepts and development, including the Robin Williams footage directed and recorded by Kubrick himself, abandoned what script existed and wrote one himself for only the second time. He then made a dark fairy-tale about humankind and our robotic children whom we both neglect and abuse. It ends up a requiem for a self-destructive civilization that could not overcome their fear and anger. And at the heart of it is a little robot boy who has been irresponsibly programmed to love one human mother forever. 

Of all of Spielberg's films to give a second chance at absorbing the depths and the shadows and the heartbreak, *this one* may top them all.  

Guests

Chris Chipman of The Chipman Bros Tangent @The Chippa

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

[Digital Drift 2015]

The second 2015 re-release from our dino season. You can go back to the separate School of Movies Archive podcast feed that a lot of people don't know about, but it has more than 200 of our pre-2017 shows. On there you'll find our episodes on Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World and at some point in the future we'll tackle Fallen Kingdom. 

This one is a weird and tonally dissonant path, relative to the original masterpiece. We uncover the movie of the book that Michael Crichton was pressured into writing after the success of the first movie, the content of which was largely scrapped for what Sharon magnificently dubs in this episode “Benny Hill with dinosaurs.”

Guests:

Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg

James Perkins of The Digital Fix

Schindler's List (Hook & Jurassic Park Revisited)

[School of Movies 2020]

A long time ago, around late 2013, Sharon and I recorded a shortish piece on Hook. It was just before Robin Williams passed, and so the file sat in our archive, unreleased, along with the one on Mrs Doubtfire. We just didn't want to be scornful of something he had done during that period of shock and mourning. Eventually in 2015 we combined that section with a new one on the 2003 Peter Pan to make a comparative show, and it did not compare favourably. I put that down to us really liking the Jason Isaacs version and nobody else seemingly giving a stuff. 

Anyway, we went back to Hook for our year of Spielberg, now with the blu ray in hand and a deeper appreciation of Steven's aims. And you know what? We really liked it this time. And this was again before I read up on the weird, staggered production woes this thing had. I can recommend a video called "Yesterworld: The Troubled History of Steven Spielberg's Hook: A Classic That Should Have Been."

We also went back to Jurassic Park to see if it holds up five years on from our Main Event show on it. Turns out not only is it still one of my favourite films of all time, but I found a way to watch it that makes it even better!

And all this is two spoons of sugar to help you prepare for what we have to say about Schindler's List. A film that in 2020 disturbed us to our very core, and left me so shaken that I noticed something in my voice during the edit that I've never heard before. We kept it short so that the heaviness would not overwhelm us or you. And we understand if you would like to skip this one. Hook and Jurassic Park run up to 43 minutes in.   

Jurassic Park

[Digital Drift 2015]

Way back when Jurassic World was released (and we were all excited for what might have been the first really good Jurassic sequel) Digital Drift as this show was known at the time, put out one of our best episodes ever, on the 1993 original. So this is both a re-release and an essential, restored component of the Spielberg season. 

Still as fresh and endlessly entertaining to us as it was decades ago, this film is rarely out of our re-watching rotation, and as such I know it frame by frame and word by word.  We take you through every scene and get to the bottom of why this is such an appealing, evergreen and effective movie. 

Guests:

Joshua Garrity of Cane and Rinse

James Perkins of The Digital Fix

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

[School of Movies 2020]

The man in the hat is back, and this time he's brought his father. What could have been a much goofier, hapless escapade, diffusing the focus of Raiders, turned out to be the most personal journey for Henry Jones, (Junior and Senior).

There's a real thrill to be had from the idea of picking up a search that has spanned thousands of years and racing the Nazis to this immensely symbolic artefact, which itself contains a tricksy definition of what Eternal Life entails. This film is a masterful example of Spielberg being able to keep exhilarating momentum while maintaining a close hand on personal, familial relationships. 

Guests

Chris Chipman of The Chipman Bros Tangent @The Chippa

James Batchelor of Bond and Beyond  @James_Batchelor

Empire of the Sun

[School of Movies 2020] 

The Steven Spielberg season continues with this 1987, semi-autobiographical account from author J.G. Ballard of his time as a boy caught up in the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in World War II.

Since we get this conflict from a child's eye view there's a strange energy to proceedings, as our pampered urchin Jamie cannot fully comprehend what's going on as he bounces from one adopted set of guardians to another. All he knows is that he's lost his real parents, he loves fighter pilots and he is going to have to struggle to survive.

Brendan Agnew of Cinapse  @BLCAgnew  

Mary and Max

[School of Movies 2020]

This one is so obscure that it didn't quite make $2m at the box office, so we are going to assume the vast majority of you haven't seen it and will shape our show around that. It's also heavy and alarming at times, despite its cosy art style as a stop-motion Australian animation with a quirky, twisted sense of humour.

It tells the tale of a young girl named Mary who fights the depressing doldrums of 70s suburbia by becoming random pen-pals with a nervous man in New York named Max. After an initial panic attack, Max (played with chameleonic natural intensity by the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman) gets into the swing of elaborating to this curious child many of his habits and reflexive responses, which are later diagnosed as Aspergers.   

And what the film becomes is a sharing of mental and societal hangups, helping us as an audience understand what living with these heightened sensitivities might be like. And our sponsor for this one asked us to bring in the two shrinks to help us along the way.

This episode was commissioned by Chris Kelly

Guests:

Dr Hunter Mulcare @realhuntermmm  

Amy Donaldson of @TwoShrinksPod

Labyrinth

[School of Movies 2020] 

One of our favourite movies of all time. And so dense and richly layered in the kind of fantasy mirroring reality themes that we thrive on. In fact it is so beloved and so twisty and turny, as well as being bittersweetly painful due to the passing of David Bowie that we've been putting it off for years! Fortunately commissions season often makes us finally push the button on that kind of project and that was the case here.

Sarah is a spoiled 14-year old who is asked to look after her baby step-brother Toby. Instead she petulantly wishes him snatched away by goblins, an act she immediately regrets. The stage is then set for her to traverse the labyrinth which represents the deceptively ever-changing landscape of her maturing psyche, as she journeys to get Toby back. And all the while she is observed and hounded by Jareth the goblin king, who of course is more than what he first appears.  You can't take anything for granted here. 

This episode was commissioned by Maya Santandrea

Guests:

Hollywoo Actress  Maya Santandrea @Mayasantandrea  

Mackenzie Eastram  @KenziePhoenix of Rainbow Connection @MuppetsPod  

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

Knives Out

[School of Movies 2020] 

A strange house, a family hiding all kinds of secrets, and an old and rich patriarch found dead. But things are never what they seem here, and if nothing else can be known for certain, this guy was a hugely successful writer of mysteries. 

This is a modern masterpiece: A murder mystery that confounds so many of the established moves of the genre, that it hides another story entirely within its framework. A combination of tight writing, lavish sets and an absolutely stellar cast propel this one into the stratosphere.

This episode was commissioned by Edward Burke

Guests:

Victoria Grieve  @VixenVVitch  

Hollywoo Actress  Maya Santandrea @Mayasantandrea  

Chris Chipman of The Chipman Bros Tangent @The Chippa 

From Sequentially Yours  Kaoru Negisa  @Moonpanther22 

and Debbie Morse  @bastet8300