Return to Form

Welcome to Calcutta, or is it Versailles? The boys wade into Marguerite Duras’ woozy chamber play - oozing with promiscuity and desperation - and ask that crucial existential question, are we nearly there yet?

Colonel Kurtz, I presume? This week, the boys deploy to Vietnam for Francis Ford Coppola’s psychedelic exegesis on violence, horror and despair. Is it more myth than movie - and how does war make monsters of us all?

Ever get the feeling you're in the wrong city, or maybe just the wrong genre? A bubbly Parisian dancer (Juliette Binoche) swaps apartments with an uptight Manhattan shrink (William Hurt) while a brooding arthouse auteur (Chantal Akerman) tries her hand at directing a fluffy screwball rom-com. What's the worst that could happen? To make sense of this 'perfect failure' the boys are joined by friend...

'How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?' So goes the famous tagline to Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of Nabokov's wildly controversial novel of 1955. This week, the boys met IRL to ask why Adrian Lyne bothered to do it again in 1997, taking a madcap detour via the motorways of the male gaze.  

What's love got to do with it? Pedro Almodovar's chilling drama about two comatose women and the men who watch over them gets Owen and Ralph animated about desire, trauma and yes, repressed heterosexuality.

If ‘hell is other people’, then what is a commune exactly? Thomas Vinterberg — divorcee, director, dogmatist — sets his sights on a radical moment in 1970s Denmark, asking how far we’ll go to give up the things, and the people, we love.

Two moments in Portuguese history, 850 years apart, form the elusive backdrop to this dreamlike tale. The Jester by José Álvaro Morais navigates breakups, blackmail and a battle for independence. Owen and Ralph are provoked by this arduous gem to talk politics, art and failed revolutions, with a side order of Jean-Luc Godard's Hélas Pour Moi and Chris Marker's Grin Without a Cat.

It’s loved. It’s loathed. It’s rarely clothed. This week, the boys get hot under the collar discussing Paul Verhoeven’s salacious ‘masterpiece’, Showgirls.

Owen and Ralph are joined by special guest Daniel Neofetou to discuss Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House, a comic horror bursting with visual effects and the hungry ghosts of war. They discuss the film’s formal experimentation and take a charming detour via Twin Peaks.

This week, there’s ennui on the menui as the boys take on Humanité - Bruno Dumont’s intensely bleak police procedural from 1999. But did video kill the Eurostar? Tune in to find out.

Ida Lupino’s concise parable on marital deception was a source of unexpected empathy for the boys. Well worth your divided attention.

This week, Owen and Ralph enter the exuberant dreamworld of Fellini’s 8 1/2 - a belly-busting feast for the senses. But did the boys overindulge?

Dim the lights as Owen and Ralph take a trip down David Lynch's turn-of-the-century mystery noir. Re-assessing their adolescent Lynch obsessions they find a new compassion behind the confusion. Sweet dreams.

As a little extra Owen and Ralph peer into the pink and gold interiors of Ariane Labed’s 2019 short Olla. A dose of dark comedy, female empowerment, and deep feelings.

This week, Owen and Ralph share some extremely constructive thoughts on a well-intentioned yet gruellingly shallow portrait of late art critic John Berger.

Male bonding, professional rivalry, a clash of ideas - but enough about Owen and Ralph, this week they discuss Krzysztof Zanussi’s subtle character study on the friendship between two scientists whose lives have taken divergent paths.

This week, Owen and Ralph get down and dirty with Gaspar Noé's 2015 erotic psychodrama, Love. A film with balls, and heart, and a lot, lot more.

In response to unfolding events in America, Owen and Ralph watch a historical documentary about the civil rights movement, including a layman's intro to the films of the LA Rebellion movement. We encourage people to donate to this aggregate of bail and memorial funds https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd

Owen and Ralph give a sort of semi-enthusiastic yee-haw for Bacurau, the ‘weird western’ from Brazilian directors Kleber Filho and Juliano Dornelles. A town under siege. A bloody standoff. An opioid crisis. Oh my.

In this first episode, Owen and Ralph take one small step for nobody in particular, and penetrate the pulsating red walls of High Life. Sometimes referred to as 'daddy Issues in Space', other times as 'ASMR Scientist with a French Accent Harvests Your Sperm', veteran director Claire Denis serves up a compelling yet flawed vision of intergalactic pain and punishment.