Two Friends Watch

This week's subject is a movie neither of us could make heads nor tails of. Marjane Satrapi's "The Voices" has a killer premise and boasts a virtuosic performance from Ryan Reynolds as a man whose pets command him to kill - which makes it all the more unfortunate that it seems to be so tonally inconsistent and confused. 34 mins

This week we look at another box office bomb, Equilibrium. A fairly standard movie where Christian Bale impersonates Keanu Reeves and battles a totalitarian emotionless system. This really is a complete rip off of the matrix. Some good fight scenes though plus this movie uses a professional dog impersonator. 40 mins

This week's movie episode, we discuss a movie as masterfully put together as it is harrowing and difficult to watch. Lynne Ramsay's "We Need to Talk About Kevin," adapted from Lionel Shriver's novel of the same name, boasts terrific direction and performances in service of a deeply discomfiting character study. 34 mins

Snoop Dogg is a popular face of a particular culture. A well established rapper and icon but what is he like as an actor? Awful, but he's not alone. He and Wiz Khalifa drag the audience through a hour and a quarter of terrible acting, awful script, and horrid misogyny. Listen to this weeks podcast as Daniel mostly laughs and Andrew mostly cries through this abomination of a movie. 30 mins

On this week's episode, we cast our gaze back to the twilight years of the studio system and one of the most pleasant and enjoyable westerns ever made. We both found ourselves entirely in love with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in particular its iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. 28 mins

Another episode, another attempt from Andrew to win Daniel over to the cult of John Carpenter! This week, we're looking at his surprisingly warm and humane sci-fi romance "Starman" from 1984, a film that met with success in the post-Star Wars sci-fi boom with its Spielbergian echoes of E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 35mins

There are exceptionally few times when a random movie pick will leave you in tears of laughter. This is one such time. Andrew and I have never really encountered a movie like this before. It's main premise is to take a serious old martial arts film (Tiger and Crane fist), and use ridiculous dubbing and green screened characters to create a hilarious parody of old Hong Kong Martial arts films. Word...

After the larky Disney animated comedy version of Mesoamerican civilisation last week, we decided it was time on this week's episode to have the pendulum swing as far as possible in the opposite direction, with our discussion of Mel Gibson's unflinchingly brutal Mayan pursuit movie Apocalypto. We found a problematic and flawed film that nevertheless has a lot to admire about it. 36 mins

In the last decade or two 2D animation has really died out. Disney was the leader in this style  but on the back of Frozen's HUGE success I suspect they too have moved on. One of their final films in 2D animation, The Emperor's New Groove, is one hell of a film to end on. Fantastic characters, cast, and story come together to make this a film that both of us would recommend to everyone. A must see...

This week's episode brings with it a spot of conflict! Andrew discovers to his horror and dismay, that his beloved goofy 80's action-fantasy-comedy Big Trouble in Little China left Daniel utterly cold. We spend half an hour trying to arrive at some sort of a reconciliation. 33min

If you go to pretty much any popular list like "100 greatest movies" or "Movies to watch before you die", you are fairly likely to find this movie in the top 10. This film is incredibly popular and for good reason too. An entrancing story, wonderful characters, and brilliant cast is topped of by narration by Morgan Freeman himself. What more can you really need in a film? 44 mins

100th EPISODE SPECIAL! Yes folks, we've actually made 100 of these now. Where does the time go? To celebrate, we wanted to do a show that encapsulated everything we love about Two Friends Watch - which, for starters, would have to involve Star Wars. Unfortunately, we seem to have run out of Star Wars movies, so instead we thought we'd tackle Mel Brooks' inspired 1987 parody of the franchise, space...

We often give "found footage" movie a hard time. Most times they come off as cheap, rushed and lazy. The biggest criticism being "why is the bloody camera still running during all of this!?". Troll Hunter is a rare gem. It uses the shaky-cam effect to further the films atmosphere; detract you from the less than perfect special effects; and lull you in to a sense of realism. All of this is topped o...

On this week's episode, we take a look at one of the all-time great remakes. The 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers does justice to, and arguably improves upon, the original Don Siegel classic, featuring stellar performances from a top notch cast and some of the creepiest ever sound design. 39 mins

Two young people once read a book called  They Saw It Happen.  One was the director Ole Christian Madsen and the other was the writer Lars K. Andersen. After they met and realised they shared a passion for the story of Flame and Citron, they spent years researching these WW2 resistance heroes to create this wonderful film. In this weeks episode Andrew and I look at another lesser known film and wo...

On this week's episode, we take a look at the movie that bucked the traditional distribution system for movies and emerged all the more noteworthy for it, but it's a remarkable film no matter how you come to watch it. Cary Joji Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation is a sobering look at the plight of African child soldiers, made all the more powerful by the unsentimental direction and top-shelf performan...

I remember waiting eagerly for this movie to be released. What I watched was concentrated disappointment. There were some good moments in this film but as a whole I really didn't care for it. 39 mins

So an important point to note, THIS PODCAST HAS A SPOILER SECTION. It is well marked and you are well warned when we will move into it. It occurs around the 25:30 mark.   Merry Christmas everybody! As our present to you all, we've made good on the promise we've been making all year and done a special, all-singing, all-dancing bumper episode on the film one everyone's mind right now - Star Wars Epi...

There's a new Star Wars movie just now hitting theatres, and everyone's terribly excited about it. Well, we watched the seventh Star Wars feature film, and we all agreed it's garbage - deplorably crass, mercenary bullshit that plumbs depths of pointlessness even the prequel trilogy never fathomed. We dare you to disagree. 52 mins

A farce is something that I would consider difficult to get perfect. Comedy is such a diverse and varied taste that it would be nearly impossible to suit everyone. This film is a bad farce. Missed jokes, slow punchlines, and a very weak story has resulted in a movie that very few people would like. 31 mins

Taking a break from the testosterone-fuelled insanity of The Warriors last week, we change things up with a rather earnest and sentimental comedy, albeit one livened up by Kevin Smith's trademark flair for vulgarity. We enjoyed Chasing Amy a lot, although some of its treatment of LGBT issues, which were perhaps more transgressive in 1997, now seem rather dated. 49 mins

A classic of its time, The Warriors had to contend with real gang violence during filming. Gang problems pursued the movie into the cinema with many gang going to watch the movie upon release and fighting other gangs inside the cinema. Although this movie really hasn't aged well in certain aspects, it has stood the test of time to remain an action classic that can still be enjoyed today. 35 mins

On this week's Two Friends Watch, we take a gander at the oldest film we've covered on the show to date: 1951's George Pal-produced "When Worlds Collide." Although very much a relic of its time and somewhat unreceptive to modern standards of criticism, we found there was some considerable entertainment value to be had. 46 mins

I stumbled upon this movie many years ago and although it has a few redeeming features overall it's a bad movie. It centres around a group of three friends who go of on a wacky adventure to find some lost treasure. One can't get a girlfriend, one can't keep a girlfriend, and one can't let go of his youth. Watch as only two out of the three character arcs actually get resolved throughout this rubbi...

On this week's episode, we take a look at one on the best action thrillers ever to feature almost no action: 1990's "The Hunt for Red October," which may actually be the last time Sean Connery was cool. 38 mins