School of Movies

[School of Movies 2023] Most of you will probably already know how much I care about both the comic book character of Hellboy and the magnificent Guillermo del Toro movie adaptations from 2004 and 2008. However, considering its dismal box office of $55m (on a budget of $50m) and its dismal critical reception (17% RT) statistically speaking most of you did not see the 2019 reboot, and even fewer of...

[School of Movies 2023] The Coen Brothers season continues with Part IV here, and we picked two of the most musically focused for a double-bill of hapless singers wandering America. The first is arguably the most high-profile and broadly celebrated film, which comes at the end of their golden age. Their eighth movie, O Brother is an ambitious retelling of Homer's Odyssey, set in the 1930s dust bow...

[School of Movies 2020]  The first anime we have ever covered on a Main Event show (if you listen to our 2017 Scott Pilgrim episode you'll find it starts with a lengthy explanation as to why), but depending on how anime fans react to this one we might do more. It's a simple tale of a little witch who moves to the big city to start her own business. Kiki is goodhearted and well-meaning but faces ma...

[School of Everything Else 2023] This is actually the fourth of an ongoing series of Zelda episodes begun all the way back in 2010 when we had a guest-filled clip show covering every title from the NES original to the then-latest instalment, Spirit Tracks on DS. After that came Skyward Sword in very early 2012 after its release on the Wii, then in 2017 when Breath of the Wild emerged, we did a thi...

[School of Everything Else 2023] This episode coincides with the Switch and PS4 release of the Pixel Remasters of the first six games in this legendary, long-running RPG dynasty. Part 1: Where do you start with a series that has a game called Final Fantasy X and a game called Final Fantasy XII and a game called Final Fantasy X-2 and only one of those is an actual sequel to the other? Not only do w...

[School of Movies 2018] This time we go deep and we go long. Tarzan is for me one of the absolute greats of the Disney canon and so rarely talked about with the reverence of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, so this time that's what we did. It's been hugely influential on my writing and stands as maybe the crowning spectacle of the marriage between 2D characters and luscious 3D backdrops uti...

[School of Movies 2023] A long-planned return to a far-too-often overlooked Disney animated classic released quietly in 1995. A passion project of Jeffrey Katzenberg that wound up being helmed by Kevin Lima, director of Tarzan and later Enchanted. From the outside it seems like a fun finale to the 78-episode syndicated wacky animated show 'Goof Troop', but as it turns out, this one hit way closer...

[School of Movies 2023] Part III of the Coen Brothers series. In 1998 they pulled together what might in fact be their most beloved film for fans of their oeuvre. Definitely the most eminently quotable, by virtue of a script that is almost a musical in terms of how often phrases and lines are repeated and reprised, layering absurdity upon each scenario and impeccably delivered by an astonishing ca...

[School of Movies 2023] We've reached the point of  1985, where Studio Ghibli was officially founded. This episode covers the first three films released under this official new banner.  1986: Laputa - Castle in the Sky (5m 20s) 1988: Grave of the Fireflies (18m 20s) 1988: My Neighbor Totoro (37m 05s) The first of these, Castle in the Sky bears a striking, clearly-inspirational tonal and aesthetic...

[School of Movies 2023] Part II of the Coen Brothers series. This 1996 film was the point where they hit the big leagues. Showered with awards and nominations, Joel and Ethan were placed alongside great and classic directors by the establishment. The story itself is one of a bungled kidnap, a bag filled with cursed money and the needless murders that take place as a result of seeking it. It's a fr...

[School of Movies 2023] This has been a long time coming. You've all been so good and respectful when it comes to not bombarding us with requests for anime shows that we decided to treat you collectively, and finally push the button on the one studio whose body of work is the first thing most people think of when it comes to prestigious films in this medium. Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 and h...

[School of Everything Else 2023] As the new movie approaches, Sharon and I journey back to one of our favourite childhood animated shows. Beginning in 1983, this was a joint collaboration between Toei Animation in Japan, Marvel Productions in America and DND Entertainment.  It was an attempt to string a loose narrative together of a bunch of teenagers transported to a mythical realm full of D&D sc...

[School of Movies 2023] The first 72 minutes of this one, focusing on the trilogy of feature films from 2002, 2006 and 2010 was originally published on our Patreon bonus feed in early 2020 (the ten year anniversary of seeing them together on the big screen for the last time). Then, unexpectedly filming during the pandemic, the fourth film Jackass Forever emerged, and we were able to follow up with...

[School of Movies 2023] The concluding second part of this detailed puppet exploration. We finally reach Guillermo del Toro's exceptional antifascist version of the story wherein things might not be so cut and dried as "Do everything you're told by adults". We also get to bring in discussions of all the other movies we watched along the way, in order to get a better handle on the screen life of th...

[School of Movies 2023] It seems like 2022 was the year of the little wooden boy, with THREE new Pinocchio movies released. There was the Robert Zemekis-helmed live action remake of the Disney classic, Guillermo del Toro's darker, fascist-challenging Netflix stop motion film, and there was the Pauly Shore dub of the Russian one that gained memetic notoriety. So Sharon and I went back and didn't on...

[School of Movies 2023] I would say you don't have to watch the film to listen to this show. I go deep into the themes and principles of the story, which means talking about the plot at length, but I don't spoil the details of the grisly, violent and scary scenes, thus hopefully preserving a lot of their impact. A brilliant engineer, toy designer winds up the sole caregiver for her niece after a t...

[School of Movies 2023] This is a pair of Patreon After School Club episodes, covering the second and third instalments of the Venomverse.  Back in 2018, after I recorded my initial After School Club on the original Venom movie (which was subsequently released like this on the main feed) I outlined its various strengths and weaknesses and what a messy, daft underachievement it was. But then Venom...

[School of Movies 2023] This is our second attempt at a film that might mean *everything*. We had a go at recording on this 1997 Robert Zemekis sci-fi about attempting to decode alien messages all the way back in 2014. The discussion broke down soon after that opening section which crams a whole universe into our minds. Fortunately for us and you, this became a commissioned show (Many thanks to Ex...

[School of Movies 2023] One of our all-time favourites, so little-seen or talked about that it's debatable as to whether we are looking at a Cult Classic or not. And one of the reasons we've held off for so long on talking about this 1997 black comedy about a hitman attending his ten-year high school reunion is that we were waiting for it to be rediscovered. And that hasn't happened, neither has i...

[School of Movies 2023] A commissioned show by Parker. This is our first Paul Thomas Anderson main event show, and it is a grimy, sticky dive into the black heart of the vampiric nature rewarded by pursuing The American Dream to the exclusion of everyone else's success. Daniel Plainview starts out as a grim, silent nobody scratching for silver in California's dirt. He discovers oil down there and...

[School of Movies 2023] A Netflix-distributed animated film about bounty-hunting pirate whalers hunting giant ocean kaiju. A plucky girl trying desperately to live up to the great death of her parents whose ship was borne down to the briny depths. A hardworking himbo on the cusp of questioning exactly why all this loss of life seems to be so necessary to keep civilisation afloat. A desperate sea c...

[School of Movies 2023] This is the start of a Director series that will run throughout the year, focusing on the complete works of Joel and Ethan Coen. Now in their mid-to-late-60s these two have been making quirky, dark films about stolen money and mysterious strangers for forty years.  We begin with their first five stories of philandering spouses, struggling artists, uncomfortable criminals, s...

[School of Movies 2022] For years this seminal, game-changing Silver Age comic book has seemed damned-near impossible to adapt into a movie, with all four efforts failing resoundingly at getting major audiences to care about Marvel's First Family. And yet Pixar did it twice with the serial numbers filed off and the clear vision of Brad Bird. So Sharon and I look back on those movies, two that we'v...

[School of Movies 2022] This is a movie we covered already, back in the winter of 2011. But back then I was really just getting warmed up, and it was a comparative show with the Robert Zemekis version from 2009. But huge thanks to my guests back then who always bring the insight; Taylor Nova and Matt Ramsey.  This time we delve deep into both the Dickens book and why the Henson version hits all th...

[School of Movies 2022] Perhaps the oldest film we have covered as a Main Event show to date, as well as one of the most significant from that era. Frank Capra's seminal Holiday classic is often dismissed as syrupy fluff by those who haven't yet seen it, or misremembered as light comedy by those who caught it in fragments over the years without sitting down to really take in what it's saying. It's...