Eavesdropping at the Movies

Francis Ford Coppola's classic 1979 war epic, once renovated already in 2001's Redux, now sees a second altered version, restored in 4K from the original negative, 40 years since it first came out - Apocalypse Now: Final Cut. And what an extraordinary film it remains. José has endless praise for the genius work of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro - this film defines painting with light - and in th...

A film that jogs memories for Mike, as in the process of revisiting Fight Club he realises what an impact it had on him as a teenager. David Fincher's outrageously stylish and visceral story of a generation of dispossessed men finding purpose in violence has only increased in relevance in the twenty years since its release, drawing comparisons to incels and school shooters, but it also leads Mike...

The film that introduced Marlene Dietrich to America, Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel tells the tragic story of a man who gives up everything for love. Emil Jannings is delightfully pompous and uptight as Professor Rath, a schoolteacher charmingly disarmed by Dietrich's seductive cabaret star Lola Lola. The two marry, but unable to change and consumed by jealousy, Rath loses his status, digni...

We love Lulu Wang's comedy-drama The Farewell, about a Chinese family that knows their grandmother, Nai Nai, has cancer, but keeps it a secret from her. Awkwafina brings humour and sensitivity to the American-raised granddaughter who argues that her family is in the wrong, and although the film opens up questions of cultural differences, it's remarkably even-handed, refusing to judge or criticise...

Ad Astra sees a withdrawn, isolated Brad Pitt take to the stars as Roy McBride, an astronaut in search of his father, and with him writer-director James Gray shows us stunning imagery and brings us brilliantly into McBride's suppressed mental state. José is head over heels in love with the film's epic feel, its exploration of universal human problems, the way in which it imagines a human race that...

J-Lo runs the show and steals every scene in Hustlers, Lorene Scafaria's crime flick about a team of strippers who run a scam to steal from Wall Street traders and CEOs. Its style, energy and representational strategies impress us, it drew an audience to Cineworld that we aren't used to seeing, and we discuss how it fits into what we decide to call "state of the nation cinema", films that brazenly...

A gentle, somewhat meandering podcast to follow a gentle, somewhat meandering film. Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir talks of artistic development, the vigour of youth, life without money worries, and the complications of love, all through a soft camera and subtle performances. It's a film that refers to and respects art, that remembers the past fondly, and that leads José to explain the Portuguese conc...

Ne Zha, a Chinese animated film, holds the record for the biggest box office in a single market (having made over $700m in China), but Mike isn't that impressed with it, comparing it to the likes of Ice Age. José had a better time, though asks himself why he overlooks some of its more questionable elements, including a rather homophobic running joke that just doesn't go away. But there's a certain...

Adapted from the 1944 novel of the same name by Anna Seghers, writer-director Christian Petzold's Transit behaves to some degree like Shakespeare in modern dress. The story follows a German man, Georg (Franz Rogowski), escaping facist-occupied Paris to Marseille, and there encountering other refugees, forging connections and affections with them, making arrangements at consulates for passage and v...

Following 2017's It, the characters are 27 years older, the events of the first film mere memories, and the effects are more thrilling than ever. But it leaves us feeling much the same as its predecessor - despite fantastic production values, wonderful monster design, and attempts to delve into interesting themes of trauma and the scars with which it leaves us, it's, well, kind of stupid really. R...

Considered by some to be his best film, Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious comes to the MAC in a beautiful 4k restoration. We explore its sumptuous close-ups, complex characterisation and smart, effective editing, which elicited big responses from the audience, and José tells us about Ben Hecht, the film's screenwriter. Recorded on 8th September 2019.

It's probably fair to say that Pedro Almodóvar's films seem to be made specifically for José. It's in every detail: the locations, eras, sexuality, ways of life, attitudes, class, love of cinema and countless other aspects of Almodóvar's ouevre speak to José on a deep, intimate level. He's watched every one of his films time and time again, and he considers Pain and Glory, which he has already see...

There's a remarkable female gaze in Animals, Sophie Hyde's adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth's novel, and a wonderful sense of insightful observation in the world occupied by and behaviours of the two friends whose stories it tells. Mike, who'd been anticipating it keenly since seeing the trailer, feels a little shortchanged by the triteness of the larger themes on which the film builds and the rel...

Mike has seen 2019's remake of The Lion King, and it sends him into a state of deep woe. José hasn't, and is glad Mike took the bullet for him. Recorded on 19th August 2019.

Mike feared it might be the most tasteless film ever made. José doesn't look forward to Quentin Tarantino films. But we both came away from this fantastical reimagining of a near-mythological era of Hollywood history having had a great time. Tellingly, for a film that exceeds two and a half hours, we both felt the time fly by. Tarantino's love for and expert knowledge of Hollywood and cinema infor...

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. If there's a clunkier title out there, we'd like to see it. The first standalone film in the Fast & Furious series, and the first Mike's seen at all, while José gave up some years ago, after seeing the first two. But José liked the trailer, and coerced Mike into accompanying him, which means that Mike now gets to force José to do something he doesn't want to...

Cold Weather is a mumblecore crime thriller, if it is indeed possible to conceive of such a thing, which it must be, because Cold Weather is one. Gentle, leisurely, and with a close focus on character relationships and foibles, it's a pleasant and surprisingly engrossing film, more evidence of the reliability of MUBI's curation. Never has a brother-sister amateur detective duo been so laid back. J...

The Matrix, the Wachowskis' groundbreaking, iconic sci-fi, is twenty years old this year, and we catch a one-off screening of its 4K restoration. Mike can't believe he's old enough for a film he watched as a kid to have a restoration, but this is the world we live in. Or is it? Well, what an experience The Matrix remains. None of its pleasures have diminished with time, and with the benefit of the...

We're still with MUBI and grateful for the opportunity to see O Fantasma, directed by João Pedro Rodrigues: a film José had heard of and been encouraged to see by various friends, but hadn't quite come his way until now. He thought the film was only a few years old and could now kick himself for having waited twenty years to see it. José thinks it a masterpiece, Mike doesn't; though the film being...

Pickings are slim at the cinema at the moment, so it's MUBI to the rescue. We chose Border almost at random, our criteria being only something that looked interesting and would still be on rotation by the time we released the podcast. And what a fascinating film we picked. Border is a Swedish art film that reeks of mud, pain and isolation, but with a sense of fantasy and irony that render it a cur...

Following a break during which José has been exploring Argentina and Mike has been exploring John Grisham films, we reconvene with Toy Story 4, the latest in Pixar's iconic animated children's series. Mike's seen it once already and is keen to revisit it. José asks questions of the film's messages, seeing the toys as faithful slaves, desperate for owners, and discarded once their value is exhauste...

José returns from a week at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, just in time to see Venice crumble in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the latest injection of plot development to the Marvel series. It hits him in the gut and the film doesn't recover, José seeing a lack of respect and intelligence that colours the entire experience for him. Mike, on the other hand, doesn't particularly care for buildings, an...

Following his critically acclaimed documentaries about Formula One legend Aryton Senna and troubled jazz singer Amy Winehouse, Asif Kapadia turns his inquisitive lens to Diego Maradona, arguably the greatest footballer of all time, and a man who moved rapidly from the slums of Buenos Aires to worldwide fame, winning the World Cup with Argentina and leading declining Italian club Napoli to two leag...

A horror movie that cleverly inverts one or two tropes of the genre, we ultimately feel Ma is less than the sum of its parts, but worth a look nonetheless. Director Tate Taylor is clearly very good with actors, and every performance here is pitched well, but he doesn't have such an aptitude for building tension or developing psychological creepiness. The writing doesn't help him - while Mike insis...

But for its astonishing visuals, we don't have much time for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a rather boring, incoherent film with an aspect that is at best lazy and at worst offensive. But it does look pretty! Wait, as Mike says, for its home media release, and capture yourself some lovely screenshots. Mike's review of 2014's Godzilla: https://writingaboutfilm.com/2014/05/20/godzilla/ José's revi...