School of Movies

[School of Everything Else 2020] This show was recorded back in 2019 not too long after the remake of the 1998 game was released (in fact it was before the free DLC emerged) so there will be speculation regarding when Capcom would naturally proceed to a remake of Nemesis (which at the time of release is due out in a matter of days). This was one of my favourite games of the 1990s, and the remake i...

[School of Movies 2020] I was six years old in 1986 when Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh released this hit musical adaptation of the 1909 Gaston Leroux Gothic novel. Far too young to appreciate it, and yet, thanks to a double cassette tape they brought back and many long periods in my bedroom building things with Lego it became a production that was very special to me. And then in 2004...

[School of Movies 2020] This began life as a commissioned show for a PC game called The Stanley Parable, which we had never played, and on our run-through proved to be infuriating to us on many levels; mechanically, aesthetically and philosophically. We were sent back to play the Beginner's Guide, which was even worse, throwing Sharon into frustrated tears.  So we requested from our sponsor that h...

[School of Movies 2020] Our year of Spielberg continues. Prior to Jaws in '75 he directed Duel and The Sugarland Express, and after it came Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941. We talk about all of these on our Quick Review Patreon bonus feed, but we are saving the Main Event shows for the ones we have a LOT to say about. In 1981, a year after The Empire Strikes Back, Steve collaborated wi...

[School of Movies 2020] The immediate question will be "Hang on, where's the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" show? Why are we starting on Film Two? I'll go into detail on why in my intro, and we will hopefully do a show on Fantastic Beasts 1 in the future, but right now THIS is on the table. The Magical World is at its lowest possible ebb. It's hard to say whether The Cursed Child or this...

[School of Everything Else 2020] A game I have a 25-year history with, just starting and stopping over and over like Groundhog Day (as I will detail in the opening of the show) and have now finally concluded my staggered, protracted journey with. In the UK during the 90s things were not as richly abundant in terms of readily available JRPGs (again, I'll detail this), so Chrono Trigger was yearned...

[School of Movies 2020] It's going to feel like we're teasing you with our cast-in-stone No Anime rule. However, there are various factors at work here. 1. This has an American writing team, so it's closer to Avatar and The Dragon prince. 2. It had a great first episode which we watched to decide whether we could talk about the rest. 3. It has an amazing cast. 4. At 8 quick episodes it's about the...

[School of Movies 2020] I am continuously baffled with the dearth of teenage vampire films. It sounds like a trope, but can you really name that many where the focus was on teenagers becoming vampires as a metaphor for being a teenage outcast, and disconnected with both the world of adults and that of the childhood just left behind? Twilight, a bit. Near Dark, kinda? On TV we had The Vampire Diari...

[School of Movies 2020] Our Winter commissions season begins with this cult classic fantasy from 1988. Largely dismissed at the box office, Willow found a home market of kids who grew up wearing out their VHS copies, and will still talk of it today with misty-eyed affection. This was one of those movies that kept me going between the hibernation of Star Wars and the emergence of Lord of the Rings....

[School of Movies 2020] Throughout this year we will be covering the films of Steven Spielberg in Main Event shows as well as Quick Reviews. And we figured we would start with a bang with a transformative work from 1975 that may not have been the first summer blockbuster, but definitely started the trend of the event movie that everyone goes to see and talks about, one that that grew with Star War...

[School of Movies 2020] The Star Wars Saga draws to a close for the third and (not) final time. We got to see how J.J. Abrams was at finishing rather than beginning, and my guests and I were presented with the task of somehow making a show that would be satisfying to a lot of different people going through wildly different responses. What we came up with may surprise you. And it culminates in a ne...

[School of Everything Else 2019] In a bid to search for the best in everything I recruited James Batchelor to journey back to the three films with which I started my movie podcast career in earnest. Back in 2010 that took the form of a raw torrent of frustration and derision, but I'm trying to save that for the deserving. Instead, this time round, my enthusiastic colleague and I have found the bes...

[School of Movies 2019] In this episode we cover both the 1982 Jim Henson movie and the 2019 Netflix series; Age of Resistance. You can listen to our podcast first, it will make both better.  One of the most striking, extraordinary and dignified attempts at the fantasy cinema of the 1980s, the original movie was massively important to few, but Sharon was among them.  There was absolutely no ration...

[School of Movies 2019]   This was the film that convinced me though theatrically-released hand-drawn animation is gone that the future is in good hands all the same. John Musker and Ron Clements made their Disney directorial debut all the way back in 1986's Great Mouse Detective. They then followed that up with a double-whammy of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, forming the foundation of the 90s r...

[School of Movies 2016] This was a show we recorded way back in 2016, that simply couldn't wait the three more years it would take to bring us up to date. Dan was not available this time round so we brought in some anthropomorphic animal specialists in his absence. This was a movie that kind of came out of nowhere and delighted pretty much everyone by having a lot more going on below the surface t...

[School of Movies 2019]   It appears to be decreed that Disney must sandwich every princess film in their animated classics canon with one that is either accessible to the whole family (like Zootopia) or one that at least suggests it will appeal to male-coded interests. In this case Wreck-It Ralph with all those video games (that girls love too) and Big Hero 6 with all its superheroes (that girls...

[School of Movies 2019]   The Disney series continues, and in fact this run of four episodes (including the re-release of the 2016 show on Zootopia) marks our project finally coming up to date, since we began this way back around the time Frozen was being released. We will of course return in years to come with another stretch of episodes on Ralph Breaks the Internet, Frozen II, Raya and the Last...

[School of Movies 2019] The saga of The Shining continues with a new generation being hounded by the very eldest. This is one of those movies that nobody really expected. The original decades-old novel and film are at war with one another, and this drastically belated sequel is the battle-ground. Yet what transpires harmonises both in a supremely confident fashion.  And hardly anybody saw it. So i...

[School of Movies 2019] The Kubrick season concludes with arguably his most celebrated film (the only other contender being Space Odyssey). This is the one we set out to talk about, but we had to try our level best to understand the men behind it as we did so. Making this a continuation of our Stephen King adaptations series where we compare the book and film (including IT, Pet Sematary and at som...

[School of Movies 2019] The Kubrick season continues with his creations from the 80s and 90s.  First, a harsh, black vision of the experiences of United States Marines in the Vietnam War. Beginning with their training at the hands and barking yell of the apparently lone  Gunnery Sargent Hartman. Then a confused meander through various areas of the war-torn country, searching for meaning that does...

[School of Movies 2019] Stanley Kubrick Season: Part 1 of 3 Last year we covered the work of Guillermo del Toro, this year we were only going to do The Shining after being asked to do Kubrick many times. But the raft of research and hard work that went into simply covering the context for that movie led to us talking about not one but six of his films. What unfolded as we recorded these sessions o...

[School of Movies 2019] After the pantsing of Tim Burton with this year's Miss Peregrine main event and Dumbo Quick Review we decided for Halloween to go back to one of our favourites of his.  This one is not very popular, a lot of people consider it a mess, and they're correct, but it's a mess that we enjoy greatly, and one that delighted Lorin who was a first timer here. It's a dark, twisted, wi...

[School of Movies 2019] Just in time for the sequel we examine this perky black comedy about life after the end of the world. At present there isn't too much in the way of deeper readings of the escapades of Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock, so we took that as something of a challenge. Recruiting two shrinks last heard on our Inside Out episode we examined each of their behavioural p...

[School of Movies 2019] This turned out to be one of the most gruelling ordeals for us in terms of lead-up, viewing, preparation, recording and editing. This is an intensely divisive film with smart, decent people who dislike it and smart decent people who love it. And the last thing we want is to divide and clash.  We DO however have to account for how this film made us feel, which is not great a...

[School of Movies 2019] This is every Friday the 13th movie made so far, excluding Freddy vs. Jason (which we covered in our Nightmare on Elm Street series). So that's Friday the 13th (1980) then Part 2, III (in 3D), IV: The Final Chapter, V: A New Beginning, VI: Jason Lives, VII: The New Blood, VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, Jason X and Friday the 13th (2009)....