The Cineskinny

EIFF kicks off this week and we've two more films from the programme to preview: Passages and Scrapper.  And in honour of the blistering love triangle at the heart of Passages, we discuss our favourite love triangles on screen, which means we get talking about two hilarious and very sexy screwball comedies from 1940 starring Cary Grant: My Favourite Wife and The Philadelphia Story. TIMESTAMPS: Scr...

It looked unlikely for a moment there, but we're delighted to see Edinburgh International Film Festival, one of the world's longest-running film festivals, return for its 76th year. We dig into four films from the programme, including Afire, the latest film from German master Christian Petzold, and Bette Gordon's feminist classic Variety, from 1983. TIMESTAMPS: EIFF is back – are we excited? (1:30...

This week, Peter, Jamie and Anahit (plus a remote assist from Lewis!) discuss the tale of one of the most pervasive and powerful forces even unleashed on the world, plus some film by that Inception lad about a sad scientist in a funky hat. Yes, it's Barbie and Oppenheimer, together at last – recorded in a real hurry to really give it that 'sugar rush, existential crash' vibe. Vive le cinema, and p...

Two much-loved film franchises with ageing action stars charge into cinemas this week. Tom Cruise is back as super-spy Ethan Hunt to battle an omniscient AI in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 and Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones, who's on the hunt for the Dial of Destiny with the help from Phoebe Waller-Bridge. We also take a look back on the best films of the year so far with the help of...

This time, Wes Anderson rolls into Asteroid City with every actor you've ever heard of, Annie Ernaux narrates some of her archive video to mixed results, and we have a Solstice-inspired chat about Folk Horror.  Elsewhere, Anahit talks about aesthetic hospitals and Jamie shares his beef with a particular cinema chain who shall remain nameless. Classic Cineskinny, 10/10. TIMESTAMPS What We've Been W...

We dive into the Spider-Verse with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The question is, can this sequel live up to the brilliance of the previous film? We also take a look a the glossy Chevalier, a sweeping costume drama based on the early life of French composer Joseph Bologne (aka Chevalier de Saint George), who was the first European composer of African descent. And off the back of Chevalier,...

This week, we discuss the hyper-stressful work drama Full Time, the ubiquitous Local Hero, and a collection of films about, ahem, smart-mouth city folk going to the countryside. Also, Anahit finds Zorro in Corstorphine, Jamie plays 'Defamation Bingo', Lewis recommends a YouTube banger, and Peter gets interrupted by a motorbike. Twice. Recorded at EHFM, Summerhall: https://ehfm.live TIMESTAMPS: Wha...

Peter, Jamie and Lewis decamp to a meeting room for an old school pod full of fun times, serious film discussion, and a weird hissing that mostly goes away. We discuss the excellent Return to Seoul, namecheck some of our favourite pop cinema franchises, talk a lot about a giant half-man half-ant, and get the lowdown from Jamie on Alchemy Film Festival in Hawick. TIMESTAMPS Alchemy Film Festival (0...

Polite Society is a martial arts comedy family drama. Sick of Myself is about two massive narcissists. Renfield is 'the worst film Jamie's reviewed on the podcast'. All this energy, and more, in a neat 48 minutes. Get ready for a high-octane, sweary and chaotic speedrun through the cinema, answering such questions as 'which one is Nosferatu?' and '*how* much for a non-working toy camcorder from th...

In a genius bit of Bank Holiday scheduling, we're delving into the recent past for Jamie's chat with the excellent director Carol Morley. We discuss Carol's career, her new film Typist Artist Pirate King and the role of Jane Campion in getting it off the ground, and Carol's work in spotlighting the great Muriel Box. Apologies for the audio on the intro, we were not in a bin – we were in a meeting...

This week, the gang discuss the latest work by everyone's favourite staid purveyor of kicking people's heads in, John Wick. We also discuss the surreal and spooky Filipino action-comedy-drama Leonor Will Never Die, and talk about a few more films making exciting innovations in the field of Fightin' At The Movies. In case you hadn't guessed, Anahit was away this week, and it turns out Peter had a b...

Anahit's written a book! BFFs is about the radical potential of female friendship, so your best podcast pals are here for a pals' chat about a pal's book (except for Jamie, who is waylaid on another project we'll tell you about later...) Elsewhere, we take a big ol' honk on Hello Dankness, the latest from mash-up nouveau-agitprop legends Soda_Jerk, ahead of its Glasgow Short Film Festival screenin...

Glasgow Film Festival is nearing its close, so we've asked two of our favourite critics, Iana Murray and Rory Doherty , to join us to share their favourite films of the festival. We also review Sanctuary, a kinky chamber piece starring Christopher Abbott as a hotel heir who’s become reliant on regular bouts of humiliation, and Margaret Qualley as the dominatrix who clearly relishes making her clie...

In hilarious fashion, BlackBerry chronicles the rise and sharp decline of the world’s first smartphone. We down with writer-director and star Matt Johnson while he was attending the UK premiere at Glasgow Film Festival to discuss the film. ----more---- Jay Baruchel plays the naive inventor of the BlackBerry, Mike Lazaridis; Only Sunny in Philadelphia’s Glenn Howerton is fantastic at Jim Balsillie,...

We've broken away from our usual recording schedule to visit the Glasgow Film Festival, which is currently in full swing.  One of the most exciting films to emerge from the programme this year has been How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Daniel Goldhaber’s ticking time bomb thriller following an idealistic group of young people drawn from all across America who gather in Texas for a bout of sabotage on a k...

GFF is back, so The Cineskinny team take a large dive into the 2023 programme. We’re blowing up pipelines, we’re taking breezy trips to Madrid, we’re Liking Movies – here we Glas-go again, etc etc Glasgow Film Festival runs 1-12 March, get full details and tickets at glasgowfilm.org TIMESTAMPS: How To Blow Up A Pipeline review (4:10) I Like Movies review (15:05) Ramona review (26:00) Skin Deep rev...

The Cineskinny returns with news of Hirokazu Kore-eda's new film Broker, a chat about the weird and wolf-filled world of mockumentaries, and a whole bunch of fun movie chat... TIMESTAMPS: What We've Been Watching - 2:25 Broker review - 7:45 Mockumentaries (Culloden, Popstar, This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show) - 18:35 What We're Looking Forward To - 36:30 Thanks to Hippodrome Silent Film Festival fo...

Back once again, the team review Alice Diop's award-winning Saint Omer and Georgia Oakley's Section 28 drama Blue Jean, before ripping into Margaret Thatcher for a good 20 minutes via a discussion of noted 'normal country' Great Britain. We're talking hauntology, male dance troupes, light-to-mid gangsterism, Bill Nighy shouting into the distance, and films that can make even the saddest amongst yo...

We kick off 2023 with a pair of excellent new releases – the *incredible* Nan Goldin documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and Tár, starring the excellent Cate Blanchett. The gang also take a dive into Artificial Intelligence in cinema with some help from a Mr. ChatGPT, Jamie and Anahit talk about the new official 'Best Film of All Time', and Peter has some fun with puns. TIMESTAMPS: What W...

After our *proper* 2022 round-up, the gang takes a slightly more chaotic look back on the past year. We've got Barry Keoghan chat! We talk about The Northman! We put together a whole '2022 in film fashion' retrospective! The 'fits! The knits! etc etc Big festive fun from the whole gang – we were all a bit ill and woozy when we recorded this one, and you can tell... Read more about The Skinny's Fil...

It's that time of year again. Anahit, Jamie, Lewis and Peter are rounding out 2022 by running through The Skinny's top ten films of the year, which include a few titles we didn't get to review on the pod, like Licorice Pizza, Happening and Nope.    TIMESTAMPS: Licorice Pizza - 2:46 The Worst Person in The World - 11:20 Happening - 14:04 Hit The Road - 20:52 The Banshees of Inisherin - 24:36 Nope -...

On this week's episode, Jamie, Anahit, Lewis and Peter go on a festive rampage through some of their favourite Christmas movies. Cue a surprising amount of violence, the spectre of communism, the invention of the hula hoop, song and dance numbers, and just one reference to The Muppets Christmas Carol. Well, there was always gonna be one... TIMESTAMPS: What We've Been Watching - 1:30 Klaus - 11:40...

In this special bonus mini episode of THE CINESKINNY, we're going back to August, and our review of the incredible new film Aftersun which hits cinemas this weekend. It's amazing, go and see it. Jamie, Anahit, Lewis and 'Friend Of The Pod' Xuanlin Tham discuss the film, by Edinburgh-born director Charlotte Wells and starring Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio. This initially went out as part of our EIF...

On this week’s pod, Peter Jamie and Anahit go long on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and discuss everyone’s favourite elfin film boi, Timothée Chalamet, ahead of his new film Bones and All. Elsewhere, Jamie tries and fails to get his colleagues to watch Georgian fable What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?, Peter gets annoyed with James Corden, and Anahit tells us all about *checks notes* Looney...

Jafar Panahi's a legend. On this week's tech-afflicted episode of The Cineskinny, the whole gang crowds into a meeting room to discuss the excellent No Bears, and celebrate the Iranian director's incredible 'post-filmmaking-ban' run of films.  Before all that, we review Billy Eichner's Bros and Henry Selick's new stop-motion movie Wendell and Wild. Peter goes off on a tangent about fish, the room...