Eavesdropping at the Movies

The sequel to 2015's Ant-Man maintains that film's lightness of tone, happily comic sensibility, and fabulously enjoyable visual effects. So often today we take exceptional effects work for granted but the conceptualisation and realisation of the images in Ant-Man and the Wasp make you notice, make you remark upon them. We had a great time. We find room for nitpicks, of course, with José expressin...

A mega bumper double podcast today, as we see Mission: Impossible - Fallout twice and incorporate both discussions into one episode. Long story short, we had tons of fun both times and you should see it. We both adore the visual storytelling and the elegance of the action. We fawn over gripping sequences which evoke silent cinema. We discuss in depth the idea of Ethan Hunt as a moral character, so...

We are joined by Celia Nicholls, another former Warwick student, for a discussion of Paul Schrader's First Reformed, a careful drama following a Protestant minster's personal crises and relationships with his parishioners and community. Comparisons with Robert Bresson, informed by Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film, are drawn; we consider how trite or meaningful we find the film's moral quest...

A tight yet sprawling high-concept thriller, Hotel Artemis features glorious performances from Jodie Foster and the wonderful cast that surrounds her, surprising pathos and a beautifully built world. José expounds upon his love for Foster and explores the details of her performance here; Mike discusses what makes the world-building so effective and elegant. We'd have liked to have seen stronger, m...

The Rock is the action star of the moment and despite Skyscraper's lacklustre title, we enjoy his latest vehicle a lot. It's mechanical, predictable, corporate, obvious, and not even shot and edited that well, but we don't really care. It features a gem of a setting, a great central performance from an enormously likeable star, depicts disability in a remarkably sensitive way, generates decent thr...

After a fourteen-year wait, the Incredibles are back! We discuss how well the comedy is directed, how full of ideas the action is, and our love of Edna Mode and the mad baby. José finds food for thought in the conceptualisation of the antagonist, while Mike makes sure the animation, somehow so often overlooked in animated films, is given its due. And we discuss the imbalance in the treatment of th...

We only thought of it in this way after we finished the podcast, but Sicario 2 is the best movie for watching on a plane we've ever seen. It's pacey, entertaining, catchy, and entirely insubstantial. José discusses some issues he has with the film, including how many Mexicans it's happy to kill while keeping every American alive, and the lack of tension in scenes that are crying out for it - Mike...

We go deep on Hereditary, occult/folk horror, and indeed horror in a wider perspective with guest contributor and horror guru (Mike's words) Dr. Matt Denny from the University of Warwick, a film scholar with a particular interest in precisely the milieu Hereditary occupies. (He's also a former student of José's who was an undergrad alongside Mike, so it's not all down to his credentials.) He bring...

Perhaps we lack the specific horror fundamentals that would open Hereditary up to us, but we find it a muddled, almost adolescent film - a particular disappointment given it's also an engrossing family drama with a brilliant central performance from Toni Collette. Our conversation includes considerations of the compositions and props, including repeated imagery of miniature models of the family's...

Jurassic World returns with The Orphanage and A Monster Calls director J. A. Bayona in charge, transforming the colourful knockabout thrills of the previous instalment into a volcano disaster-cum-Gothic horror film. We both love the heightened drama of the mansion half of the film and how Bayona finds new life in what has, over the last 25 years, somehow become somewhat stale imagery of reanimated...

The all-female reboot of the Ocean's franchise sees Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett leading a team of women to infiltrate and rob the Met Gala. We discuss how the heist failed to meet our expectations, the weak integration of Ocean's personal motivation, and the underwhelming displays of glamour, but we find things to like, including Anne Hathaway's performance in particular and how the film dep...

A classic returns to cinemas for its 50th anniversary and we receive it in rather a muted fashion. José's never seen it on the big screen and Mike's never seen it at all, so it's an interesting experience for both, but both come away with reservations. Much of the discussion revolves around context. 2001: A Space Odyssey was first released in 1968 and our repeated use of the phrase "of its time" b...

We find much to mull over in Solo, which José finds the best Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back and Mike finds overlong and depressingly dull. Our discussions take in the merits and flaws of the film's visual design, its relationship to the saga's history and fans, Ron Howard's earnestness, the way the film builds a lawless world to develop and reconfigure Han Solo, and how on Earth an $...

Charlize Theron stars in Tully, Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody's fourth collaboration as director and screenwriter, as a mother of two with a third on the way, heavily put upon and struggling financially and personally, who hires a nanny to help her out at night. We find room for both praise and criticism, José in particular singling out Reitman's direction for his ire and Mike disappointed in the...

We turn once again to curated streaming service MUBI for João Moreira Salles' essay film, In the Intense Now, which combines archival news footage with home and amateur film to explore brief but fiery sociopolitical moments with a first-person, personal tint. It looks at four events: May 68 in France, the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, the March of the One Hundred Thousand in Brazil, all of whic...

This week we go arthouse and discuss Xavier Legrand’s first feature, Custody (Jusqu’à la garde), though 'arthouse' perhaps only in the sense that it’s subtitled. In some ways, the film is shot in a realist style, halfway between British kitchen sink drama and the Dardennes' more leisurely, microscopic style. The film revolves around a couple in the process of divorce battling for custody of their...

Jose has been obsessed with 120 BPM and was very keen to hear what Mike, who is much younger and not gay, thought of it. Is his obsession due to purely personal reasons – the film seems to reflect a part of his youth – or is the film actually as good as he thinks it is? Is it a niche film or does it have meanings and feelings to communicate to a broader audience? Is the movie really great or is it...

The first part of Marvel's ending to the unendable story wallops us with two and a half hours of punching and planets. Mike is even more gullible than usual. Jose stays cynical and rightly so. The film leads to discussions on whether we can actually find themes in it, the leaps of faith necessary to buy into it, the way in which we can't help but buy into the story logic in the way we talk about i...

One of the stupidest films we've seen for a long time, but was it fun? We discuss its lazy and crass writing, the treatment of its female star, its lack of balance between entertainment and boredom, missed opportunities, and just how many people we think died. Recorded on 23rd April 2018.

A boxing film that opens with its climactic fight and develops drama in its aftermath. We find Journeyman disappointingly contradictory - a showcase of performance, writing, and observation, executed with no cinematic nous or flair. Paddy Considine lacks credibility as a world champion boxer, but captures beautifully the impotent rage and misery of such a star physically and mentally diminished. H...

A young adult romance with a twist, Love, Simon gives gay teens a high school movie with a decent budget and aimed at a wide audience. We both have mixed feelings on it, but find it a well-meaning and substantially positive film. We discuss some shortcuts it takes - the use of a queeny character to render Simon more acceptable, the setting in upper middle class suburbia making Simon's sexuality th...

Jose can't handle the bad costumes, pap morality, and smug tone. Mike considers the age of the intended audience a mitigating factor but largely agrees. A Wrinkle in Time inclusively opens the big-budget Hollywood fantasy film to new audiences, but while we agree on the positivity of that aim, we find the film flawed and overly simple. The film invites comparison with The Wizard of Oz, but as Jose...

A Quiet Place is a deceptively simple horror film that finds a surprising degree of variety in its premise: the planet is overrun with monsters that cannot see but hunt by sound. We marvel at its creativity and technique, and indeed, the way it silenced the audience. We talk over its performances, its ending, the way it manipulates and moves characters to generate threatening situations, the intel...

A low-budget psychological thriller, Unsane is a less involving film than its subject matter and star deserve. Claire Foy is extraordinarily powerful as a paranoid prisoner of mental trauma inflicted on her by a stalker and bureaucratic malfeasance, distressed, knowing, sarcastic, resistant. The film fails her in other areas but is an intriguing experiment nonetheless, and we find much to discuss,...

Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs is a stop-motion story of the utmost beauty and wit. We discuss its cinematography, compositions, lightness of touch, allegorical relationship to reality, and place in Anderson's body of work. We also reserve particular praise for Bryan Cranston's vocal performance and Alexandre Desplat's score. Recorded on 1st April 2018.