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A tartalmat a Eavesdropping at the Movies, Jose Arroyo, and Michael Glass biztosítja. Az összes podcast-tartalmat, beleértve az epizódokat, grafikákat és podcast-leírásokat, közvetlenül a Eavesdropping at the Movies, Jose Arroyo, and Michael Glass vagy a podcast platform partnere tölti fel és biztosítja. Ha úgy gondolja, hogy valaki az Ön engedélye nélkül használja fel a szerzői joggal védett művét, kövesse az itt leírt folyamatot https://hu.player.fm/legal.
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Parenting comes with a lot of expectations, but have you ever stopped to ask where they come from? On this episode of This Is Woman’s Work , we unpack the myth of “the good mother” with Nancy Reddy , author of The Good Mother Myth . Nancy shares her personal experience of confronting the unrealistic ideal of motherhood: endlessly patient, always available, and completely selfless. She hilariously and heartbreakingly debunks these outdated ideals, rooted in flawed mid-20th-century research by figures like Harry Harlow and Dr. Spock. Nancy explains how bad science from the past continues to haunt modern parenting, creating pressure, guilt, and shame for today’s mothers. But this conversation is about more than debunking myths—it’s about empowerment. Because when you prioritize what matters and let go of perfectionism, you’re not just doing woman’s work—you’re modeling it. Connect with Nancy: Newsletter: https://nancyreddy.substack.com/ Book: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-good-mother-myth-9781250336644/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/nancy.o.reddy/ Essay: I Was Promised That The “Golden Hour” Would Make Me A Mom: https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/04/golden-hour-c-section-bonding-attachment-baby-friendly-hospitals.html Related Podcast Episodes: 126 / The Parenting Map with Dr. Shefali 090 / Unmasking Modern Motherhood with Katherine Wintsch 155 / Executive Motherhood with Ashley Quinto Powell Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music…
433 - Juror #2
Manage episode 452794051 series 1952570
A tartalmat a Eavesdropping at the Movies, Jose Arroyo, and Michael Glass biztosítja. Az összes podcast-tartalmat, beleértve az epizódokat, grafikákat és podcast-leírásokat, közvetlenül a Eavesdropping at the Movies, Jose Arroyo, and Michael Glass vagy a podcast platform partnere tölti fel és biztosítja. Ha úgy gondolja, hogy valaki az Ön engedélye nélkül használja fel a szerzői joggal védett művét, kövesse az itt leírt folyamatot https://hu.player.fm/legal.
A film whose brilliant conceit is so simple and compelling we can't believe we've never seen it before, Juror #2 tells the story of a juror whose responsibility it is to assess the guilt of a defendant who he knows is innocent of murder - because it was the juror who did it. Summoned to serve on a jury and quickly recognising the details of the case, Nicholas Hoult's Justin realises that the deer he hit with his car one dark, stormy night was in fact the defendant's girlfriend, for whose supposed murder he is on trial. So begins a morality play of sorts, Justin wanting to do the right thing and keep an innocent person from prison, but unwilling to expose himself as the real, if accidental, killer. It's a film that sets two institutions, the family and the court, at war. Justin's wife has a baby on the way, and is there any wrong that can't be justified by the protection of the family? We discuss this in the particular light of director Clint Eastwood's reputation as a lifelong conservative, Mike suggesting that the distrust the film shows towards the legal system, a government institution, has precedent in Eastwood's other work, but its critique of the sanctity of the family is surprising and invigorating. Juror #2 is a thoroughly engrossing exploration of a terrific idea, and you'll take its questions home with you long after it ends. What would you do? Are you sure? Recorded on 18th November 2024.
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440 epizódok
Manage episode 452794051 series 1952570
A tartalmat a Eavesdropping at the Movies, Jose Arroyo, and Michael Glass biztosítja. Az összes podcast-tartalmat, beleértve az epizódokat, grafikákat és podcast-leírásokat, közvetlenül a Eavesdropping at the Movies, Jose Arroyo, and Michael Glass vagy a podcast platform partnere tölti fel és biztosítja. Ha úgy gondolja, hogy valaki az Ön engedélye nélkül használja fel a szerzői joggal védett művét, kövesse az itt leírt folyamatot https://hu.player.fm/legal.
A film whose brilliant conceit is so simple and compelling we can't believe we've never seen it before, Juror #2 tells the story of a juror whose responsibility it is to assess the guilt of a defendant who he knows is innocent of murder - because it was the juror who did it. Summoned to serve on a jury and quickly recognising the details of the case, Nicholas Hoult's Justin realises that the deer he hit with his car one dark, stormy night was in fact the defendant's girlfriend, for whose supposed murder he is on trial. So begins a morality play of sorts, Justin wanting to do the right thing and keep an innocent person from prison, but unwilling to expose himself as the real, if accidental, killer. It's a film that sets two institutions, the family and the court, at war. Justin's wife has a baby on the way, and is there any wrong that can't be justified by the protection of the family? We discuss this in the particular light of director Clint Eastwood's reputation as a lifelong conservative, Mike suggesting that the distrust the film shows towards the legal system, a government institution, has precedent in Eastwood's other work, but its critique of the sanctity of the family is surprising and invigorating. Juror #2 is a thoroughly engrossing exploration of a terrific idea, and you'll take its questions home with you long after it ends. What would you do? Are you sure? Recorded on 18th November 2024.
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440 epizódok
Minden epizód
×1 439 - The Brutalist 1:54:15
1:54:15
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1:54:15We visit BFI Southbank for a 70mm screening of The Brutalist, Brady Corbet's epic period drama. It's a super-sized film - 215 minutes, not including the intermission - and it deserves a super-sized podcast, for which we're joined, as we occasionally are, by Mike's brother, Stephen, who's already seen the film once. It's an extraordinarily complex, subtle and absorbing film that draws on countless themes and parts of history in telling its story of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and architect who escapes to America and finds a wealthy client enamoured with him. We dig in to the film's themes with breathless enthusiasm, and talk sex, racism, the immigrant experience, long takes, rape, capitalism, doing things for effect, art, aspiration, jealousy, the value of 70mm, and much more. José describes The Brutalist as his film of the year; Mike ponders whether he likes it more than the Robbie Williams monkey movie. Recorded on 28th January 2025.…
"Steven Soderbergh's making a horror film from the perspective of the ghost" turns out to be a sentence specifically designed to appeal to Mike, who has been looking forward to Presence for ages. (José struggles to remember the film's title, even moments after having seen it.) But part of that pitch is deeply misleading. Presence's trailers were loaded with quotes from overeager horror publications that praised the film's fear factor, which leads to a little confusion when the final product is revealed to be a family drama that, despite the ghost whose eyes we see everything through, isn't even trying to scare us. And that's great! We just didn't realise that's what we were in for. What Presence gives us is a compelling exercise in film form and storytelling that constantly maintains our interest and which we thoroughly enjoy, but which sadly disappoints us in a variety of ways - though only a few of which we agree on. What interests Mike about the film's camerawork and handling of its invisible, point-of-view character leaves José unimpressed; Mike doesn't get what José does out of the critique of modern masculinity. But despite our disagreements and disappointments, we enthusiastically recommend Presence as an experiment worth experiencing. It's intriguing, efficient, and original - and there's very little like it. Recorded on 24th January 2025.…
Nicole Kidman gives a compelling, vulnerable performance in Babygirl, as a woman for whom sexual satisfaction requires her to relinquish the power she otherwise projects throughout her life, and who begins an affair with a much younger man she finds herself unable to resist. Unfortunately, that's the only significant thing to recommend about the film, which we find superficial, badly thought out, and most crucially of all for Mike, nowhere near steamy enough. It's good fun to discuss, though, and gives us opportunity to reminisce about sneaking into films we weren't allowed to see when we were kids. Stick around to learn José's Looney Tunes technique for fooling the ticket guy. Recorded on 23rd January 2025.…
The third film in Pablo Larraín's trilogy of iconic women, following 2016's Jackie and 2021's Spencer, Maria shows us the final week of the life of opera singer Maria Callas, who at the age of 53 is experiencing delusions, hallucinations, and the fear that her once-perfect singing voice has abandoned her. Mike isn't familiar with Maria Callas; José is (despite worrying before we started recording that he wouldn't have much to say when expected to explain who she is). No familiarity with her is required, however, to enjoy the film. Larraín's elegant direction, Steven Knight's intelligent screenplay, and Angelina Jolie's extraordinary, subtle performance combine beautifully to explore Maria's ego, fears, and passion. Maria's delusions, in which choirs fill town squares, orchestras back her in her apartment, and a fascinated journalist follows her around Paris chronicling her memories, are evident throughout the film... everywhere but in song. She knows all too well that her voice is leaving her, she hopes for and needs its return, and ultimately, the film renders her struggle with it a fight to hold on to life itself. It's sympathetic, understandable, and beautiful. Maria is the best film of Larraín's impressive body of work, and features perhaps the best performance of Jolie's. See it. (We also discuss Robbie Williams, because Mike saw Better Man, the Robbie Williams monkey movie, and is desperate to talk about it.) Recorded on 21st January 2025.…
Writer-director Robert Eggers, whose reputation for aesthetically rich, deeply-researched and idiosyncratic horror precedes him, has long been working on a remake of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, the 1922 German Expressionist classic whose influence has been felt in the horror genre for a century. It's a big fish to try to take down, but it's source material that feels like it exists especially for him - how does he do? Very well, as it turns out... although, in classic fashion, we manage to talk around what a fantastic time we had by concentrating on our criticisms. Ignore them until you've taken yourself to the biggest cinema you can to see it - it's an experience you should have. Then come back and listen to us discuss the debt Eggers' Nosferatu owes to the colour tinting processes of the silent era, how the second half gets bogged down in tropes and plot, the delineation between sex and love, the pressure to be accessible, whether horror needs to be scary, and the important lesson we learned from Shrek Forever After. Recorded on 2nd January 2025.…
You wait for ages for a film about a group of people sequestered in a room, questioning each other, keeping secrets, and repeatedly voting, and two come along at once. But while Juror #2's protagonist wrestled with his conscience, Conclave's Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, has little trouble consistently acting out of principle - sadly, many of his colleagues vying for the Catholic Church's vacant papacy don't share his clarity. Conclave is a marvellously entertaining mystery and thriller, a chamber play in which Fiennes' performance is a complex and deeply felt standout amongst a number of engaging, if less rich, star turns from Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini. We discuss whether the film is an advert for the Church, how it engages with religion, the striking visual design, liberalism vs. conservatism, representations of gender and nationality... and that magnificent twist. Spoilers within! Recorded on 1st December 2024.…
A film whose brilliant conceit is so simple and compelling we can't believe we've never seen it before, Juror #2 tells the story of a juror whose responsibility it is to assess the guilt of a defendant who he knows is innocent of murder - because it was the juror who did it. Summoned to serve on a jury and quickly recognising the details of the case, Nicholas Hoult's Justin realises that the deer he hit with his car one dark, stormy night was in fact the defendant's girlfriend, for whose supposed murder he is on trial. So begins a morality play of sorts, Justin wanting to do the right thing and keep an innocent person from prison, but unwilling to expose himself as the real, if accidental, killer. It's a film that sets two institutions, the family and the court, at war. Justin's wife has a baby on the way, and is there any wrong that can't be justified by the protection of the family? We discuss this in the particular light of director Clint Eastwood's reputation as a lifelong conservative, Mike suggesting that the distrust the film shows towards the legal system, a government institution, has precedent in Eastwood's other work, but its critique of the sanctity of the family is surprising and invigorating. Juror #2 is a thoroughly engrossing exploration of a terrific idea, and you'll take its questions home with you long after it ends. What would you do? Are you sure? Recorded on 18th November 2024.…
Hugh Grant brings his idiosyncratic brand of English charm to the world of horror in Heretic, in which he isolates and tests the faith of two young Mormon missionaries. It's a film that leaves you asking all sorts of questions, such as, "did anything he was up to actually make any sense?", but for a horror film so heavy on the dialogue and relatively light on the scares, it's fabulously enertaining throughout - a real achievement of direction and writing. See it! Recorded on 17th November 2024.…
We enjoyed the first. We didn't care for the second. Does the third bring back the fun? No, not really. Recorded on 17th November 2024.
Ridley Scott returns to Gladiator after more than twenty years, telling a story that's broadly the same, but neatly picks up from the original too. Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal in the central role, and we discuss whether he has the movie star charisma to match his indie film credentials; we also talk action, visual effects, Denzel Washington's Iago figure, the trope of the gay villain, and more. Recorded on 15th November 2024.…
2019's Joker, which gave the iconic supervillain an all-purpose mental health disorder, a tragic origin story, and a name - Arthur Fleck - was never meant to have a sequel. But it made a billion dollars, so Joker: Folie à Deux is here. And, being a jukebox musical based primarily on show tunes from the mid-20th century canon, we ask who it's for. The first film took risks in eschewing so many trappings of the comic book genre; did the filmmakers hope that their audience would respond similarly to further experimentation? Or is it a means of punishing an audience they attracted but loathe? If the film hates its audience... well, so does Mike, which might explain why he got on with it. José, on the other hand, liked the first film, and is happy to see more of Joaquin Phoenix and hear those classic songs. Joker: Folie à Deux is far from a great film, not that close to a good film, and doesn't have much of interest or intelligence to say about its themes - but it's fascinating that it exists. Recorded on 7th October 2024.…
Francis Ford Coppola's long-awaited passion project, Megalopolis, self-funded to the tune of $120m, has finally arrived. We love it. It's wild, imaginative, earnest, and beautiful. We discuss and decry some of the criticisms of it we've already seen while coming up with some of our own - how could we have known that an octogenarian might hold some rather traditional views? - in between breathlessly enthusing about what captivated us. Megalopolis is hardly a perfect film but it's a visual treat and a fantastic cinematic experience. Don't let the naysayers' sniping turn you off. Indulge! Recorded on 30th September 2024.…
A welcome new instalment in the Alien franchise, which has moved between genres and directors, remained popular for over four decades, and offered fascinating expansions of its internal mythos, Alien: Romulus moves with the times to give Generation Z the opportunity to die in space. It goes like the clappers, orchestrates loads of entertaining, tactile action, and is unbelievably good-looking. It's also underwritten, arguably overstuffed with reference to previous films in the series, and features one of those entirely uncontroversial and ethically pure reanimations of a deceased actor through CGI and other technologies. Perhaps after seeing the muted responses to the ideas on offer in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the series has decided to seek refuge in the cloying bosom of nostalgia - but we differ on how excessive it is, while enthusiastically agreeing that Romulus is great fun, and easy to recommend. Recorded on 19th August 2024.…
One of cinema's most infamous disasters, Caligula was conceived by producer Bob Guccione, the founder of Penthouse magazine, as an explicit, expensively-made adult film, about the rise and fall of the titular Roman emperor. In pursuing this, Guccione removed director Tinto Brass during post-production, so that he could have hardcore pornography shot and inserted into the film. On its release in 1979, Caligula was critically savaged on both moral and cinematic grounds, confiscated by police in some countries, banned in others, and the cause of lines that stretched around the block. It has remained an artifact of cult interest ever since, and the subject of occasional attempts to reconstruct it in a form that reflects something approaching its creators' original visions - to whatever extent their visions agreed with each other. Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is the most thorough of these reconstructions by far, benefitting from the rediscovery of 96 hours of original material, which had been rushed out of Italy and hidden during the film's release. Opening intertitles claim that every frame of art historian Thomas Negovan's cut is previously unseen. It's long been wondered whether there's a great film within Caligula; although we don't think The Ultimate Cut demonstrates that there is, it's entertaining and striking, and offers an idea of what might have been. Recorded on 18th August 2024.…
Deadpool 2 put us in such a foul mood when it came out in 2018 that we threw away our podcast on it. It was too toxic to publish. Fortunately, Deadpool & Wolverine, the third in the series, didn't have such an effect on us - even José found some things to compliment about it. Perhaps it's the relative diminishment of Marvel since its peak in 2018, when it was reaching the climax of the story it had been building for a decade, that makes Deadpool & Wolverine work as it otherwise might not - its jokes about the X-Men joining the MCU at a low point really landed, for example. It's far from perfect - Ryan Reynolds' schtick remains smug, and the film tries to have it both ways, delivering snarky commentary on the sorts of things films like this do, then discarding the snark when it wants to do them itself. But it's pacey, energetic, full of intense action with a delightfully cartoony attitude, filled with so many attempts to make you laugh that some of them are bound to work, and featuring a pair of enjoyable, charismatic villains: Matthew Macfadyen's Mr. Paradox is a marvellously hammy presence, while Emma Corrin's Cassandra Nova's slight physique and genteel demeanour make her telepathic abilities all the more threatening. Recorded on 9th August 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
After a long time off, we return with M. Night Shyalaman's new thriller, Trap, in which Josh Hartnett's doting dad, Cooper, takes his daughter to see her favourite pop star at a massive arena gig, but finds himself surrounded and hunted by the FBI. We discuss the ways in which Shyamalan gives Cooper opportunities for escape but closes them off; the unusually disappointing lack of imagination and expression in some of the visual design and shot selection (something we're used to finding so interesting from Shyamalan); the attempt to sell a psychological background to Cooper, which is somehow neither intelligent nor daft enough; the production of the music and Saleka Night Shyamalan's performance as Lady Raven; Mike's fickleness in choosing whom to root for; and José's joy at seeing Hayley Mills. But despite picking at flaw after flaw, as we always do, we had a great time in Trap, and recommend it. Recorded on 9th August 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
Denis Villeneuve's epic adaptation of Dune makes its first appearance on the podcast in the form of the second film in the series - we saw the first when it came out but never podcasted on it. With the lore in place, the scene set, and the characters established, Dune: Part Two is free to develop romance, engage in action, and tell the story of the construction of a messiah. It's beautiful, exciting entertainment - as long as you can remember everyone's names and what their magic powers are and what they're up to and why. José feels no such issues keeping track of Part Two's various story elements, but Mike hasn't done the homework and finds that the film isn't going out of its way to help him. But no matter! The imagery on offer is astonishingly pretty, reassuringly expensive, and tuned for maximum visual impact - though we wonder how poetic it is, and ask ourselves to what extent the imagery in Villeneuve's other work lingers in the mind, despite its premium sheen. We also discuss the degree to which we feel Part Two really feels like it's buying in to its more supernatural elements. It tells a story of prophecy, visions, and unlikely fates, but, Mike suggests, also offers mechanisms and plausible explanations for things we see, arguably favouring its scepticism to avoid putting off an audience unwilling to go along with the otherworldly. Whether you care or not, whether you can follow the details or not, there's no reason to not see Dune: Part Two on the biggest and best screen available. For the visual design and production alone, it's value for money - that the rest is good is a lovely bonus. Recorded on 3rd March 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
Wim Wenders finds inspiration in Japanese public lavatories in Perfect Days, a slice of life drama about Hirayama, a janitor who finds quiet happiness in his routine of travelling from public convenience to public convenience cleaning, photographing trees in the park, being welcomed at restaurants by proprietors who fetch him his usuals, and reading books before bed. We discuss Wenders' delicate touch and observational eye, Kōji Yakusho's central performance, for which he was named Best Actor at Cannes, how small moments indicate whole avenues of a person's life, and the film's theme of connections between the individual worlds in which we live. Recorded on 18th February 2024.…
Writer-director Andrew Haigh's romantic fantasy, All of Us Strangers, flows beautifully from scene to scene, inviting the audience to question the reality of what they're shown but seldom requiring them to - it's about the feeling it creates. It's a film about isolation, building and rebuilding connections, how the past reverberates, and in particular, experiences of growing up gay in the homophobic society of the 1980s. Its themes are universal and easily understood, but people who share those experiences will identify with it more closely than most. We discuss the complexity and natural feeling of the protagonist's conversations with his parents, who carry with them, alongside love for their son, those homophobic attitudes; the way scenes flow into each other; how letting go of those questions of what and how things are real allows us to get the most out of the film; and we ask those questions anyway. We also take the opportunity to revisit the ending of The Zone of Interest, discuss audiences proudly displaying their dislikes, and have another think about The Holdovers with that in mind. Recorded on 6th February 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
Is the world right, or is Mike? Argylle, Matthew Vaughn's new spy comedy, has received terrible reviews and is bombing at the box office - but Mike thinks everyone else is wrong, taking it far too seriously, and missing the parody. José is more in tune with the vox populi, finding the film a slog, Henry Cavill's hair ugly, and Bryce Dallas Howard ill-cast. But we find concord when it comes to the film's action scenes, and we discuss the transitions between Cavill and Sam Rockwell, Howard's look and movement, Mike's continuing complaint about the peculiar look of British visual effects, and more. Recorded on 4th February 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
Writer-director Cord Jefferson's debut feature, American Fiction, combines satire with family dynamics to fairly charming, if visually uninspiring, effect. Jeffrey Wright's Thelonius is a novelist forced into a leave of absence from his teaching position, whereupon he returns to Boston and reconnects with his family, from whom he's distant. He's also furious that his latest manuscript has been rejected for not being black enough, and that what "black enough" means involves every negative stereotype of black people and culture imaginable. But when he sarcastically writes such a novel to shove society's attitude in its face, it's taken seriously by the white literary elite, who shower it with praise. From the trailer, Mike was expecting more focus on the satire, and more energy à la Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You. It's a surprise, then, that American Fiction spends so much time developing the family drama, but not an unpleasant one, and José finds that aspect the film's most interesting. We consider the idea that the film uses the family story to practice what it preaches, offering a story about black people that doesn't require them to be black in order to justify its existence - it's a universal story about distanced siblings, a mother with failing health, and broken marriages. And we discuss the film's ending, or lack thereof, in which the inescapability of the culture that demands stereotype is emphasised at the expense of a satisfying, earned conclusion to the story we've been told. American Fiction doesn't create a single artful image, and that ending is disappointing, but the film is also interesting, absorbing, and funny. Worth a look. Recorded on 2nd February 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
We find Maestro, Bradley Cooper's latest actor-director star vehicle, which dramatises the life of iconic conductor Leonard Bernstein, to be dishonest, illustrative, and superficial Oscar bait. We also find it cinematically ambitious at times, with great production values - not many films of this type are being made with $80 million budgets. A mixed bag. Recorded on 1st February 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
Alexander Payne evokes the Seventies in form and aesthetic in The Holdovers, a comedy-drama about the students and staff forced to stay at a New England boarding school over Christmas. It exudes charm and, over time, warmth, as the frosty relationship between student and teacher thaws, Payne handles the meandering tone beautifully, and it's full of good jokes. For José, it doesn't quite reach the level of the best in its genre; for Mike, it's a good genre film elevated by some mysterious cinematic alchemy he doesn't understand. Recorded on 26th January 2024.…
The Zone of Interest is a title that accurately reflects the film it adorns: it's a term used by the Nazis to euphemistically address the 40 square kilometre area surrounding the Auschwitz concentration camp, conspicuously refusing to mention the factory of death it enclosed, conveying a culture of at best wilful ignorance of and at worst tacit complicity with the Holocaust. Similarly, Jonathan Glazer's film is conspicuous in its refusal to show us the interior of the camp (with a notable exception, which we discuss), instead keeping its attention on the surrealistically normal country house with which it shares a wall, which is occupied by the camp's commandant, Rudolf Höss, and his family. The film is not interested in imagery of suffering, torture, and death: its subject is the culture and mentality of those who administrate and benefit from it. There's a huge amount to discuss in this thought-provoking film, and we reflect on our own experiences visiting Auschwitz, now a museum and memorial, in so doing. Our key insight from visiting, something obvious on paper but not clear until we were there, was the industrial nature of the camp, in which it used its victims up for the labour they could extract, allowing them to starve to death as the energy content of their bodies diminished, and replacing them with a steady intake of others. The film conveys some of this in the businesslike manner in which Höss's job is conducted - it's all phone calls, meetings, conferences, folders, agendas. And we discuss Höss's wife, Hedwig, and her complicity; the soundtrack, which beds the film in a constant hum of machinery and movement from the camp, and the ending, which offers a surprising and effective flourish that grounds everything we've seen in documentary reality. Recorded on 21st January 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
As José describes, the Expendables films set Jason Statham up as the logical inheritor of the action hero crown formerly held by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme and so on - and true to his status as such, Statham has many rubbish films under his belt. The Beekeeper is the latest, in which we learn of a programme of state-sponsored vigilantes - the Beekeepers - who act on their own terms, when something goes awry, to protect the hive that is the USA. That the film is trash doesn't mean it's not fun, and Mike had a good time with the story's daftness, the obviousness with which its cogs turn, and the action, which, while far from brilliant and heavily reliant on sound effects, is also intense and entertaining. José decries the film's politics, dumbness, and use of British actors in so many of its American roles. Recorded on 16th January 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
Yorgos Lanthimos' latest absurd comedy, Poor Things, creates a wonderful confluence of themes, all through the lens of Bella, a grown woman with a child's brain, experiencing the world anew and detached from emotion. We discuss Bella's attitude to the world she encounters, the men who try to control and cage her, Lanthimos' idiosyncratic visual style and comedic sensibility, the examination of the nuances of sex, what Mike finds lacking in the brothel scenes, and more. Recorded on 14th January 2023.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
Hot on the heels of Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, which cast the titular rock & roll icon as the victim of a life controlled by his manager, comes Priscilla, written and directed by Sofia Coppola, which tells a similar story of a life controlled - but here, Elvis is the culprit. in 1959, 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu meets 24-year-old Elvis during his military service in West Germany; by 1963, she's moved in with him at Graceland, his famous Memphis estate. But the romantic life she desires is kept from her. Priscilla is as rich an experience and as rewarding in conversation as we could have hoped for. Coppola intelligently and insightfully weaves together themes of unequal power dynamics, in which pleasure is withheld; the societally-defined roles of men and women and how they harm those who enforce them upon themselves; the significant age difference between Elvis and Priscilla, especially exacerbated by her youth; why and how beauty is constructed; and so much more. Its gaze is a female one, and a particular one at that. It understands the appeal of Elvis to Priscilla, the world in which she becomes involved and the men for whom it's maintained, and the ways in which it deceives her, restricts her, and leaves her disillusioned. A marvellous, complex film. Recorded on 9th January 2024.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
In 2002, Tony Leung and Andy Lau starred in the Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs, which Martin Scorsese remade in the US as The Departed; twenty years on, the inspiration flows in the opposite direction, Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street a clear reference point for this fictionalised tale of real-life stock market manipulation, deeply embedded corruption, and the growth of a multi-billion-dollar company from meagre beginnings on the back of scams, confidence, appearences, and lies, with Leung starring as charming, oleaginous company founder and Lau as the anti-corruption official on his tail. We had terrific fun in The Goldfinger. Which isn't to say it's a perfect film. We have our issues. The imagery could be more expressive - though director Felix Chong (another Infernal Affairs alumnus: he wrote the trilogy) clearly has an eye for visual impact, and there's lots to be impressed by. We'd like to know why Lau's corruption investigator believes that chasing Leung's CEO is worth the disruption and danger to his family, beyond simply justice. We'd like any similar insight into what drives Leung, beyond simply greed. And if it is simply justice and greed, we'd like it to be better sold, bigger and brasher. We'd like the clash between the two to be more explosive. And the rather pat ending induces eye-rolling. But never mind all that. The Goldfinger is an entertaining and exciting tale of the rise and fall of a business empire that lived and died based on the fundamental corruption of the system and interests that built and supported it. Recorded on 30th December 2023.…
Hayao Miyazaki, the legendary Japanese animator and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, who has previously announced his retirement three times, tells us all that The Boy and the Heron (as it's titled in most of the world; How Do You Live? in Japan) is really, honestly, for real this time, I'm super serious, his last film. His longtime producer, Toshio Suzuki, has already cast doubt on this new claim, but for now, here we have Miyazaki's final film, which tells the story of Mahito, a young boy in wartime Japan, who loses his mother in a fire and is evacuated to his aunt's countryside estate, whereupon he meets a talking grey heron that promises that his mother is alive. José sees The Boy and the Heron as a masterpiece of cinema, a film that does things that other films have forgotten to do, a doorway to thinking about life, loss, and worlds within worlds. Mike... didn't really get on with it, but he puts it down to taste and maybe mood - any objection he has can be equally levelled at things he loves. We easily agree that Miyazaki's and Ghibli's reputation for visual design and craft holds, with image upon image here that dazzles. As for what it all adds up to? Take José's side. It's better to like things than be bored by them. Recorded on 30th December 2023.…
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Eavesdropping at the Movies
Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz star as lovers, business partners, and rivals, in a motorsport biopic that's much more about the drama off the track than on it. In 1939, Italian racing driver, team owner, and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari founded the car manufacturer that would become one of the best-known and most prestigious marques in history; Ferrari the film tells the story of events in 1957, with the company in financial difficulties and his wife, Laura, distanced from him as they grieve the recent loss of their son, Dino. She tolerates Enzo's dalliances with mistresses, as long as he's home before the maid arrives - but his second family is secret from her. Mike sees an opportunity to right his wrongs from our podcast on Ford vs Ferrari, aka Le Mans '66, in which, he declares, he overfocused on insignificant details, while José rightly and happily enjoyed the big personalities, charming and interesting central friendship, and entertaining, dramatic races... by suggesting they've switched seats. José finds the cultural specificity of the time and place in which Ferrari's set lacking, criticising missed or misunderstood nuances, and is let down by Driver's blankness in key scenes opposite Cruz, whose brilliant performance subtly conveys Laura's richly complex competing feelings. Details schmetails, counters Mike: here we have a big brooding drama about deep interpersonal clashes, grief, loss, power struggles and ambition, centred around an actor with fake grey hair and a faker Italian accent - what's not to love? As with Ford v Ferrari, we both enjoyed Ferrari. It's just that one of us did so with a big, beaming, untroubled smile, and the other with a raised eyebrow that said "hmm". Recorded on 27th December 2023.…
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