School Of Movies

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Synopsis

Super in-depth analysis of movies (and occasionally TV, and video games). Hosted by veteran podcasters Alex & Sharon Shaw with different guests for round-table chats every week.

Episodes

  • The Suicide Squad

    20/08/2021 Duration: 01h24min

    [School of Movies 2021] Militarized slaves are sent to an island to clean up a violent mess with plausible deniability. An instant hit with both audiences and critics on release, this 2021 film is the realization of the John Ostrander-era of the Suicide Squad/Task Force X concept that actually first appeared as far back as 1959 (prior to Marvel's Silver Age of The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and The Avengers. And yet it faltered at the box office, due to several reasons. Being R-rated in the middle of a pandemic, the sour taste of the 2016 David Ayer film, the absence of Joker and let's not discount an abundance of dark superhero satire in TV and movies, which this feels like. By all rights, fans of The Boys and Invincible should have turned up in droves, and yet that association may have worked against the film in the end. This episode is simply me telling Sharon about the experience of watching the film in the cinema for the first time, augmented by further thoughts as I mulled it over in the interim days

  • Aquaman

    13/08/2021 Duration: 01h40min

    [School of Movies 2021] By far and away Warner's highest grossing superhero film of the DCEU so far*, this one had the global market sewn up with a dazzling, epic ocean-hopping fantasy quest. Dismissed as 'dumb' by the critics, Aquaman is nonetheless one of my very favourite superhero films, and on today's show we go into detail as to the thriving ecosystem that exists just under the surface.  The pandemic, and constant studio shake-ups have definitely hurt the DC brand (sadly including The Suicide Squad which we're covering next week). But at least this one and Wonder Woman proved that DC could find success beyond endless Batman, Superman and Joker movies. *Aquaman $1.1b / Batman V Superman $873m / Wonder Woman $822m / Suicide Squad $746m / Man of Steel $668m / Justice League $657m / Shazam! $366m / Birds of Prey $201m / Wonder Woman 1984 $166m / Zack Snyder's Justice League $70m Guests: Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew of Cinapse Jerome McIntosh of GameBurst @JeromeMci

  • Shazam!

    06/08/2021 Duration: 01h32min

    [School of Movies 2021] Our Summer season of DC spotlighting reaches Captain Marvel. This was a big change for the recent movies, eschewing the epic scale of gods among humans and focusing on a regular kid imbued with the power of the gods. Part 1980s coming of age movie, part found-family drama, part weirdly disturbing villain origin. And unlike most other superhero movies this one has an unusual time limit on it as a series, which is why we recruited some very particular guests this time around. https://franchisekillerpod.podbean.com/ Guests: From the Franchise Killer Podcast: @FK_Podcast David Schmitzer Irena Schmitzer Rhys Paine

  • Birds of Prey

    30/07/2021 Duration: 01h46min

    [School of Movies 2021] One of our very favourite DC universe movies, added to the towering collection of three dozen shows we've covered in the past (and yes I do list all of them). Criminally underviewed and undervalued, and launched mere weeks before lockdown began in early 2020, this is a crazed cult crime caper for the ages. A collection of disparate, separate, embattled women all find that their aggressors lead to one place.  It's filthy and violent and only one person has a superpower which gets used once. This was Margot Robbie's treasured project that couldn't be more different from 2016's Suicide Squad.  [Next Week: Shazam!] Guests: Hollywoo Actress  Maya Souris @Mayasantandrea Victoria Luna B. Grieve: @VixenVVitch  Jerome McIntosh of GameBurst @JeromeMci

  • Loki (Season 1)

    23/07/2021 Duration: 01h17min

    [School of Everything Else 2021] A time-bending, space-bending, reality-bending miniseries about an unrepentant villain who did a colonialism on account of his upbringing in a society that was founded on precisely this principle. And an introduction to yet another Marvel leading lady who has been kidnapped, gaslit and abused for most of her existence and definitely deserves better.  Loki has been a frustrating watch for many and a source of relentless joy for others. The slew of fan art that has dotted our Twitter feeds suggest people are getting a great deal of spicy satisfaction from the chemistry. But the slew of hot negative takes, also suggests it once again disappointed fans.  Our show on what we found out at the end was the first season is quite special for a number of reasons, so listen closely. Guests: Victoria Luna B. Grieve: @VixenVVitch  Theo Leigh of The New Century Multiverse Jerome McIntosh of GameBurst Jesse Ferguson @TheDapperDM from the Recorded Tomorrow Podcast

  • Black Widow

    16/07/2021 Duration: 01h46min

    [School of Movies 2021] Two years have passed since we were last in the cinema watching a Marvel movie. It feels like an astonishing amount of time, and a lot of you folks will have watched on Disney+  This one has been a long time coming, kicking off Phase 4, despite the core concept of Natasha Romanoff's solo outing being ideally placed in Phase 1, prior to Avengers (perhaps instead of Iron Man 2), or Phase 2 when Avengers proved she was big-screen dynamite (perhaps instead of Thor 2) or Phase 3 where after all the years of lollygagging DC beat Marvel to the leading lady post by almost two years (even though this could have been ideally placed instead of Ant-Man 2: Featuring The Wasp). As it stands, Black Widow serves many masters, and is about more than simply Natasha herself. It's a fitting send-off and a welcome introduction all at once.  Guests: Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew of Cinapse Mackenzie Eastram @KenziePhoenix of Rainbow Connection @MuppetsPod

  • Pump up the Volume

    09/07/2021 Duration: 01h41min

    [School of Movies 2021] A movie nobody has seen, but we want to tell you about. A movie that was barely released in the cinema, on VHS, DVD and now Blu Ray. A movie unavailable to legitimately stream anywhere. A movie about a pirate radio station speaking truth to power and making silenced voices heard.  This one came out in 1990, it's directed by Allan Moyle who was behind Times Square (1980) and Empire Records (1995). The three films, spread across fifteen years all speak of disaffected kids, cast aside by a society they aren't able to comfortably slot themselves into, and their subsequent means of rebellious self-expression. They're all worth watching (with Empire being the lightest and easiest to underestimate).  You should absolutely listen if you haven't heard it, because we have effectively adapted the story for radio. And because this movie is so punk, once you've listened we did find a way you could then watch it Pump up the Volume at Archive.org 

  • The Shadow

    02/07/2021 Duration: 02h03min

    [School of Movies 2021] This might be the worst superhero ever. Not the movie, I'm sure there are a bunch out there more poorly constructed. Some of the sets and costumes and Jerry Goldsmith's score are great. I'm talking about The Shadow himself, especially now, and especially to me personally. Welcome to a post--Burton-Batman world that might be the 1920s, 30s or 40s. A gangster-laden New York presided over by a millionaire who dresses up at night and prowls the streets with his guns and his mocking laugh. From the director of Highlander, and the star of The Cat in the Hat, Alec Baldwin embodies the worst qualities of Batman, the worst qualities of The Punisher and the ignorant racism of Golden Age comic books.  For this episode we brought back on the folks from the Franchise Killer podcast, since this one definitely didn't get a sequel, for reasons we'll go into. Side note, as always it's okay to like this movie. It's entertaining as hell. The guy is just a massive tool!   https://franchisekillerpod.po

  • War for the Planet of the Apes

    25/06/2021 Duration: 01h56min

    [School of Movies 2021] Back in 2014 we began a journey through the many movies of the Planet of the Apes franchise. We began with the original quintet made in the late 60s through the 70s. Three of those are pretty great, two of them are meandering and lose the thread of what the simian analogy was getting at in the first place. After that we covered Tim Burton's mess of a blockbuster which ruined my 21st Birthday! And then we began on the 2011 reboot with Andy Serkis as Caesar, an extraordinary chimpanzee born in the modern era. We followed that with a show about the then-just-released sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Now, many years later we have returned to finish what is one of the low-key best sci-fi trilogies in cinema history. A journey from birth through childhood, maturity and fatherhood all the way to messianic saviour. But unlike their predecessors these three always remember that central tenet; The apes are us... and always have been.

  • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

    24/06/2021 Duration: 01h30min

    [Digital Drift 2014] Continuing the story of Caesar and his new tribe of intelligent, simian compatriots we rejoin earth ten years after the close of the last picture. It is a quiet, overgrown world of dilapidated buildings being reclaimed by nature, separated pockets of humanity scrabbling to survive and one group of apes living in peaceful seclusion in the redwoods close to San Francisco. We accompany you on a journey through discovery and loss, betrayal and loyalty, and actions led by hope and fear. In doing so we take in some truly stunning performances in what constitutes a triumphant thematic remake of the worst of the previous films; Battle for the Planet of the Apes. This is how that one should have been done. This show, and its predecessors were recorded in the summer of 2014. It would be seven long years until we reconvened to finish off the new Apes Trilogy.

  • Rise of the Planet of the Apes

    24/06/2021 Duration: 01h52min

    [Digital Drift 2014] Ten years after the Burton version surfaced, spluttered and sank, this came out of seemingly nowhere, surprising everyone. Set up as an alternate prequel to the premise of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes, Rise answered the question of “How could this actually happen?”. In marketing terms it serves as a reboot, beginning its own new series which then branched off from the original five movies into its own circular arc.  One thing I found while editing this show together was that I didn’t have many clips I could use. This is, as I came to realise, because this movie is a masterpiece of visual storytelling. Everything you need to know is conveyed far better in terms of what you’re looking at, both in terms of its ape and human stars. Director Rupert Wyatt is at the top of his game here, James Franco and John Lithgow pull off rarely valued, powerful performances and of course Andy Serkis takes centre-stage embodying one of the finest collaborations between performer and digital artist

  • Stand By Me

    18/06/2021 Duration: 01h20min

    [School of Movies 2021] NOTE: War for the Planet of the Apes will be released next week, along with the archived episodes on Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  Four 12-year-old boys on a hot Labor Day weekend in 1959 walk from their small town of Castle Rock to find and report the body of a young man hit by a train. What follows is a touching drama about the betrayal of the adult world, and the importance of standing by those whom nobody else will stand by. Back in 1982 Stephen King took a break from supernatural horror to write Different Seasons, a book of four short stories. The Body, which was adapted into this film in 1986 by Rob Reiner, Apt Pupil, adapted by Bryan Singer in 1998, The Breathing Method (which should probably stay un-adapted, but is apparently is an announced project with Doctor Strange helmer Scott Derrickson) and Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption, which wound up as one of the greatest films of all time.  This is a double-bill collaboration between us and the Old Kids M

  • Murder on the Orient Express

    11/06/2021 Duration: 02h03min

    [School of Movies 2021] The second cinematic adaptation of the 1934 mystery by Agatha Christie. When this first emerged in 2017 there was a bit of a sniffy outcry from the press. Why does it even exist? Why re-adapt a book that already had a 1974 film by Sidney Lumet and was a key episode of the David Suchet serials? Since the long-running British TV show and the 40+ year-old movie exist, that should be enough for any potential new audience member! After watching this gobsmackingly sumptuous epic, shot on glorious 65mm film by the always-meticulous Kenneth Brannagh, with a soaring score by Patrick Doyle and a cast so delicious you'll have no room for pudding... we respectfully beg to differ with those critics.  The first 42 minutes of this episode are spoiler-free. After that we delve into the many characters and their motivations. We recommend you see the film first, but if you can't or don't want to, the rest of the show shouldn't really ruin your eventual enjoyment of it. Full disclosure; This show was

  • Special Announcement: Fireside Alliance

    10/06/2021 Duration: 10min

    A fresh collaboration that School of Movies is involved with.  This notification is also going out across The New Century Multiverse and Patreon.  Come on over and join us in the Discord chat.  https://www.firesidealliance.com/

  • The Cell

    04/06/2021 Duration: 01h52min

    [School of Movies 2021] This one was recorded a long while ago. It's pretty extreme and not for the squeamish. A serial killer thriller from the year 2000 with the customary sub-genre-ingrained fixation on stomach-churning detail.  Where it strays more into our wheelhouse is that the plot revolves around a social worker who dives into people's minds and wanders around looking for clues. This drove Sharon bonkers as all ethical practices were cast aside, and the core of this episode is her trying to hold it together as the film gets dumber and more misleading. It was directed by Tarsem Singh, who has an eye for striking visuals. He directed Immortals, Mirror, Mirror and a movie nobody saw but is extremely good (and actually has a heart, unlike this), called The Fall. We really hope he one day gets to bring his jaw-dropping art-gallery flair to something people can love, because THIS film in particular is not a worthy showcase for his talents, nor those of the frequently splendid Jennifer Lopez. The Leftove

  • Metal Gear Solid

    28/05/2021 Duration: 02h10min

    [School of Everything Else 2021] This show was recorded a long, long time ago, pre-pandemic, and has been in cryo-storage, waiting to be unleashed. It's all about the 1998 seminal classic, Metal Gear Solid by visionary, genius, dirty old gimmer and maddening eccentric Hideo Kojima. It was an absolute linchpin of my formative years in gaming, and to my mind has only been bettered in the rest of its series dramatically speaking with Snake Eater. For this show I went to the absurd lengths it took to acquire the GameCube remake "The Twin Snakes", allowing me to not only appraise that maligned shift in engine and ramped up post-Matrix style, but also to make a serious statement on the importance of not only remakes but remasters, and in continuing them down the line of machines, as lack of backwards-compatibility leaves more and more titles in an unplayable state for the average gaming enthusiast. We go into the innovative metatextual gameplay, the crazy characters and foreboding, yet satirical atmosphere as we

  • About Time

    21/05/2021 Duration: 02h35min

    [School of Movies 2021] Richard Curtis has only directed three films in his career. Usually he relegates himself to writing and producer roles, and you can always tell when you're watching one of his movies. Certain recurring character types and themes keep re-emerging. The first directed was Love Actually, the second The Boat That Rocked, but this third and reputedly final effort is genuinely a cut above everything that came before. It's not without its issues, as we will go into on the show. Painfully British, painfully white, painfully upper-middle-class, and imbued with an adoring yet patronising view of woman. But it has a huge heart. It's a time travel story that really gets how the philosophy underpinning its story can absolutely apply to our own lives, devoid of quantum physics. It also has one of cinemas all-time best Dads in it, in the shape of Bill Nighy. So we recruited the same time travel expert who helped me with my own book on that tricky subject, to help us discuss what about this film wor

  • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

    14/05/2021 Duration: 01h43min

    [School of Everything Else 2021] This show was recorded back in 2020 not too long after the remake of the 1999 game was released, so there will be speculation regarding which direction Capcom will take the series, rather than a focus on Resident Evil VIII (which at the time of release was launched just days ago). This was to Resident Evil 3 (the sequel to one of my favourite games of the 1990s) in a way that its remake is to the remake of Resident Evil 2 (one of my favourites of the 2010s). And it was a pivotal moment for both the original and the remake, when Capcom took the series in a direction that began like the cautious survival horrors of the previous decade but then evolved into crazy action. And our discussion is about how that seems like an inevitable path once again, and why this cycle might not be that bad. This show is being released after well over a year of pandemic, though recorded at the beginning. It remains the biggest in my lifetime, and people are scared. So there's still a certain str

  • The Falcon and The Winter Soldier

    07/05/2021 Duration: 01h52min

    [School of Everything Else 2021] Marvel's second TV show directly tying in with the MCU. What are we calling this now? As I write these words cinema is in a chrysalis, having gone to hide in there the moment James Bond looked like he might get another mission. And yet Falcon as a TV show is legitimately "Cinematic" in its presentation. I mean the dictionary definition of the word.   But then, so is a lot of TV now. And WandaVision was the most Televisual a show could get, by design. And there's something frustrating for everyone who invested in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Defenders shows, or those three who liked the way Inhumans was done. All this TV that purported to be part of this universe but was in fact filmed in a sealed pocket, unable to have any ramifications upon the wider saga.  Whatever name gets conjured (still waiting on what that Lion King remake can be defined as) Falcon is an incredibly gripping six episode miniseries that retains the feel of the latter Captaon America films. But there's

  • Raya and the Last Dragon

    30/04/2021 Duration: 01h37min

    [School of Movies 2021] Disney tries its hand at a South-Asian fantasy, and what do you know, we really like it. Daniel Floyd returns as we talk about the first of the animated classics series which was not launched exclusively to theatres, but also Disney+ for a preview for of $30 / £20 Quite apart from everything else that makes this a difficult sell for people living on their own, or in households where only one person likes Disney. However, so much of this being created at home by various Disney artists while on lockdown breaks all kinds of new precedents and makes this one rather special.  Stonespring Maidens can be had in paperback form The New Century Multiverse Podcast  Guest Daniel Floyd of New Frame Plus  @DanFloydPlus

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