[School of Everything Else 2025] All the way back in 2017 I put together an absolutely EPIC musical journey through the first eight years of the MCU, from Iron Man all the way up to Doctor Strange. So much time has passed since then (cue many gifs of Matt Damon drinking from the wrong Grail) and Marvel has not followed my sound advice about allowing each hero (and maybe a villain or two) to retain a theme that reprises with every subsequent appearance. However, that does not mean there haven't b...
Mar 07, 2025•2 hr 52 min•Ep. 528
[School of Everything Else 2017] NOTE: This is an archival episode from many years ago. Recently the excellent YouTube series Every Frame a Painting asked members of the public if they could hum any of the music from the Marvel films. Unsurprisingly they couldn't come up with anything. There are a few reasons for this, that I go into on the show, but this presentation right here is crafted to allow everyone to explore the music that has come so far. We laser-focus on the core melodies, the hero ...
Mar 06, 2025•3 hr 59 min•Ep. 527
Hello there folks, this is your official notification that the School of Movies Summer Commissions season window is now open. And it’s a special case this time around. Originally this run was meant to pay for our second family vacation, the last one being back in 2017. We’re going to Italy. But the week after we booked it our landlord of nine years dropped the bomb on us that he needed to renovate our home, so we’re out by the end of March with all the moving costs and the sudden spike in rent t...
Mar 05, 2025•3 min•Ep. 526
[School of Movies 2025] The second and third parts of the original Trilogy of Muppet movies made while Jim Henson was alive, voicing Kermit and taking a heavily active role in production. The former from 1981 is a jewel heist that brings the anarchic furry ones to England, populated by only polite people (a trope which causes the two of us endless amusement) and very much concerns itself with pushing puppetry magic tricks on the big screen to their limits. This one, directed by Jim was in the im...
Feb 28, 2025•2 hr 24 min•Ep. 525
[School of Movies 2025] We round off Groundhog Month with a time loop movie that explores with even more depth how being stuck in a single day would effect a person's outlook on life, their philosophy and their actions. Taking its cue from the early script idea for what became the Bill Murray classic, we begin by observing a man named Niles, already locked in his time loop, from the point of view of Sarah. She then gets dragged into a loop of her own and finds herself trapped as Maid of Honour f...
Feb 21, 2025•2 hr 37 min•Ep. 524
[School of Movies 2025] This is not a Horror movie (or rather, it qualifies enough for that genre in terms of certain expected tropes and elements, but that is not its mode of conduct, and for people expecting conventional Horror, there's a lot more there in its place). That's what should have been on the poster and promotional artwork, and in the trailers, and threaded through the interviews and general marketing speak surrounding this film. Though doing so might have hurt its 25x multiplier as...
Feb 14, 2025•2 hr 37 min•Ep. 523
[School of Movies 2025] One of history's abiding classics, and one of the oldest films we have ever covered on this show, the 1939 Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland is joined here with several key points of comparison to establish why it really hold up. We've already recorded a whole episode on the dark, late sequel, Return to Oz (1985) though it does get mentioned here, as well as Jon M Chu's 2024 cinematic adaptation of the first act of the Wicked stage musical. But we also invoke the origina...
Feb 07, 2025•2 hr 51 min•Ep. 522
[School of Movies 2025] We’ve been holding this episode back for a special occasion and it seems like 2025 'The year of Joy' is the time to finally crack into one of the richest and most universally gratifying films in history. A hundred years from now, people will still be watching this film, It’s a Wonderful Life and The Shawshank Redemption. Accompanying us in this time loop journey from mundane resentment to confusion, to panic, to exploitation, to emptiness, to the nadir of self-destruction...
Jan 31, 2025•2 hr 53 min•Ep. 521
[School of Movies 2025] The first Dungeons & Dragons movie emerged in the year 2000, wildly underachieving in every department; characters, story, screenplay, costumes, technical proficiency, directorial flair, casting, scope, music, awareness of what it was adapting, sense of humour and dragons! All of these things were straight-to-video grade. It was, in effect the anti-Lord of the Rings, a year before that masterpiece-containing-masterpieces raised the bar impossibly high. 23 years later,...
Jan 24, 2025•3 hr 36 min•Ep. 520
[School of Movies 2025] In the name of joy, this year we are looking back across every Muppet movie we haven't yet covered, starting right here with the original 1979 film. For perspective, Jim Henson had made two successful TV shows up to this point, the well-known Muppet Show, which began in 1976 and was in the middle of its third season when this was being made, but before that, a weird series of little black and white skits called "Sam and Friends" which aired beginning in 1955. We recruited...
Jan 17, 2025•2 hr 48 min•Ep. 519
[School of Movies 2025] An extremely long-awaited show on a game-changer of a blockbuster movie. The first Pirates film, released in 2003 before Lord of the Rings had completed brought the world many things: A fantabulous extravaganza of practical effects, combined with a surprisingly light smattering of digital VFX that would be leaned into a lot harder later down the line, The notion that the swashbuckler could still do big business (the hidden caveat was that Johnny Depp being strange absolut...
Jan 10, 2025•2 hr 24 min•Ep. 518
[School of Movies 2025] We begin the new year as we mean to go on; joyfully. This is a commissioned episode for Alejandra Vargas. Back in 1994 Jim Carrey was having the most amazing year in cinema that he would EVER have, pretty much redefining what people wanted with madcap comedy for that era. Rubber-faced and bellowing catchphrases. This thing should have aged terribly after more than thirty years. But it hasn't, in fact it feels like a key precursor to the superhero boom round the corner, wh...
Jan 03, 2025•2 hr 41 min•Ep. 517
[School of Movies 2024] You don't need to know a single thing about Ultraman to love this film. We brought in Kaiju and Sentai expert Dan Hoeppner to educate us along with you, regarding the history and cultural background of this character, but the film itself, viewable on Netflix is an absolutely perfect starting point. It is a smashing standalone story about the son of Ultraman, who grew up to be not especially great in the role himself, and instead pursued his mother's passion, becoming a ba...
Dec 27, 2024•2 hr 13 min•Ep. 516
[School of Movies 2024] Mostly overlooked when released in cinemas in 1983, it took nearly a decade for Ted Turner to realise this thing was funny as hell, authentic, heart-warming, and a little dark and twisted, only to then screen it hundreds of times on his many networks until America was both in love with the movie and thoroughly sick of it! Meanwhile the rest of the world is unaware of its existence, and Sharon and I as the only two Brits in on this Yankee secret would like to both illumina...
Dec 20, 2024•2 hr 42 min•Ep. 515
[School of Movies 2024] A story ripped straight from the pages of Golden Age comic books, as dastardly gangsters and Nazis on the rise seek out a secret rocket pack that has fallen into the hands of a well-meaning, square-jawed chap who accidentally becomes something of a superhero. Starring a moustache-twirling Timothy Dalton, a luminous Jennifer Connelly, along with Billy Campbell, Alan Arkin and Paul Sorvino, this is a favourite of many of our listeners and was commissioned by Sarah Montgomer...
Dec 13, 2024•2 hr 40 min•Ep. 514
[School of Movies 2024] This is an exceptionally long-awaited episode for us. One of the very first films discussed on our very first episode, way back in April 2007, mentioned repeatedly in the intervening 17 years, and promised over and over. Now we finally reach it, one of the most special and meaningful films to us. It was directed by Danny Boyle after 28 Days later but before Slumdog Millionaire. It very overtly draws inspiration from Aliens and 2001, it stars Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, M...
Dec 06, 2024•2 hr 52 min•Ep. 513
[School of Movies 2023] [This was originally released in the summer of 2023. We have subsequently seen every inch of Oppenheimer... we stand by what is said here.] I think this will be the only piece I create about Oppenheimer (2023). You definitely do not have to have seen it and I won't be saying anything that could be considered a plot spoiler. This is dark, upsetting, heavy and much shorter than our usual Main Event shows. It was intended to be an After School Club, but in the inception it g...
Dec 05, 2024•28 min•Ep. 435
[School of Movies 2024] Nolan-Vember comes to a close as we handle possibly his most emotionally-driven film. Drawing heavily from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Contact (two films we've already covered) Nolan presented the most populist blockbuster version of the speculative possibilities of what happens when a human being goes tear-assing into a black hole. This is very much our wheelhouse when it comes to the philosophical quandary of Stay or Go, regarding an increasingly uninhabitable planet Eart...
Nov 29, 2024•2 hr 48 min•Ep. 512
[Digital Gonzo 2012] NOTE: This is a reissued episode from over 12 years ago. Please forgive the lower production values and boneheaded things I say. The epic conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s game-changing Dark Knight Trilogy. It’s definitely not as straightforward as film two in the series because many people hate this film already, and an equal amount adore every inch of it. It’s a tricky balancing act since so much of the most well-crafted and exceptional elements have already been discussed...
Nov 29, 2024•2 hr 41 min•Ep. 511
[School of Movies 2024] Nolan-Vember evolves to a whole new stage of the man's career, as following the billion-dollar success of The Dark Knight in 2008 he became a household name. This 2010 film, after The Prestige, just four years earlier garnered a mere $109m at the box office totally flipped the landscape of possibility in cerebral blockbuster cinema. It netted an astonishing $839m, signalling to Hollywood that here was an auteur who could open a summer movie that wasn't based on comics or ...
Nov 22, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 510
[Digital Gonzo 2012] NOTE: This is a reissued episode from over 12 years ago. Please forgive the lower production values and boneheaded things I say. Part two of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. Following the powerful set-up of Batman Begins, the production team pulled out all the stops to deliver an epic crime thriller in the style of Michael Mann’s Heat. This is a story of a city in turmoil and a police force struggling to keep order, up against the ruthless mob. At the center are Batm...
Nov 22, 2024•2 hr 43 min•Ep. 510
[School of Movies 2024] Nolan-Vember continues with Christopher's fifth film. Now, you would think, following the momentous success of Batman Begins, his period piece about feuding magicians that remains one of his best tricks to date would have been a stellar success... Wolverine's Hugh Jackman versus Dark Knight Christian Bale, and for the low, low price of $40 million; this is a recipe for insane box office gross from the man who would eventually go toe to toe with the plastic pink lady and s...
Nov 15, 2024•2 hr 42 min•Ep. 508
[Digital Gonzo 2012] NOTE: This is a reissued episode from over 12 years ago. Please forgive the lower production values and boneheaded things I say. Finally we get to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. After eight years away from cinema screens, and multiple stalled attempts at relaunching the franchise, Warner Bros knocked the Bat out of the park with the best film so far and arguably the most compelling and mature adaptation of Bruce Wayne and his alter-ego. Many aspects are discussed a...
Nov 15, 2024•2 hr 47 min•Ep. 509
[School of Movies 2024] Kicking off Nolan-Vember with a tale of obsession, revenge and the untrustworthy, ephemeral nature of memory. Things play out in nonlinear fashion as Nolan executes his second film with the deft surety of a man who can see the final arrangement within all the misaligned frames. Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, a man afflicted with a rare brain disorder that resets his short-term memory every five to ten minutes or so, with his mid and long-term memories almost completely ...
Nov 08, 2024•2 hr 53 min•Ep. 507
[School of Movies 2024] A perennial Halloween favourite for our family, this was Tim Burton's Sophomore effort, after his debut with Pee-Wee's Big Adventure but before he became a Hollywood Titan with Batman (starring Beetlejuice). And I know we give him a hard time a lot, as a purveyor of populist Goth chic to the masses, but when he hits right you get this movie. And it really does hold up after three and a half decades. Possibly because it's so much fun and so child-friendly that new generati...
Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 506
[School of Everything Else 2024] This is a special episode I've been planning for many years, ever since the notion that 'Horror' as we know it is largely a marketing construct, and that stories that deliberately jab at our Fear-response can be found pretty much everywhere. This is why I decided to go with my favourite metaphor; food) and hone in on the precept that Horror is not a story type, but a spice (or indeed a series of differently flavoured spices with differing properties) that can be ...
Oct 25, 2024•3 hr 48 min•Ep. 505
The window for our Winter Commissions season is now open. Coming up this October we have shows on the first two Psycho films, (as well as touching on the ill-advised Gus Van Sant 1998 remake of the Hitchcock original.) Then a long-planned episode discussing the Horror genre in a new light. And finally on Halloween, we got us a hot, steaming bowl of Beetlejuice. Following that we have Nolan-Vember, from the makers of Cloon-June. Sharon and I will be talking about four of his films on the Main Eve...
Oct 24, 2024•2 min•Ep. 504
[School of Movies 2024] This was a commissioned episode for Dean R who was very keen for us to examine this 1983 follow-up to the 1960 classic. This film brings back Anthony Perkins after Norman has served his time and behaved well in crazy-jail, with the 'Mother' persona seemingly dormant. But now we, as the audience may find ourselves strangely onside with the mild-mannered, respectful man, seemingly genuinely trying to go straight, and surrounded by people who want to give this multiple-murde...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 503
[School of Movies 2024] For this rather special episode, we firstly welcome to the show for the first time, director Alfred Hitchcock, as we examine his most famous and most revisited film, Psycho (1960). This became the wellspring from which modern-day detective thrillers emerged. But it also has tangled roots in Horror and the grubby stepchild of its sub-genres, the slasher. While other films like Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter (1955) and John Lee Thompson's Cape Fear (1962) -both weir...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 502
[School of Movies 2024] If New Empire is the best Kong film, this one qualifies for us as the best Japanese Godzilla film. Kaiju fans are being blessed with an embarrassment of riches in this era (check out the charming and dazzling animated Ultraman Rising for even more of this) and there has never been a better time to wrap your head around why this enormous nuclear lizard is such an enduring icon in his home country. Journeying back to the 1954 original Gojira, this film re-stages those event...
Oct 04, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 501
