Marking the culmination of a long-running project for Matt, who has spent much of the last year watching most of Disney's animated movies, this episode focuses on the animated movies of Disney. In addition to that, Matt and Ed talk about Ian McShane going Game of Thrones , pitch a Disney take on the gunpowder plot, and the ways in which Disney's corporate elements make it surprisingly willing to take big risks. Show Notes 00:00:00 - 00:12:23 - Intro & Discussion of the week's news.00:12:24 -...
Aug 03, 2015•56 min
As promised back in the Burt Lancaster episode, Matt and Ed follow-up quickly with an episode of one of the most electrifying and frustrating actors in film history, Eddie Murphy. In addition to discussing his origins as a standup and on Saturday Night Live , they talk about his meteoric rise in the 1980s, his absolute nadir in the mid-'00s, and the reason behind his anticlimactic return to SNL earlier this year. Show Notes 0:00:00 - 0:00:46 - Intro0:00:47 - 0:55:45 - Profile of Eddie Murphy0:55...
Jul 27, 2015•57 min
Spurred on by the Star Wars panel at Comic-Con, where J.J. Abrams and others placed a strong emphasis on the film's use of practical effects, Matt and Ed decided to discuss the history and current state of special effects in cinema. Amongst talk of how CGI affects audiences and why it can harm actors' performances, they talk about the trailers shown at Comic-Con for films they probably won't see, whether the Emmys mean anything, and get sidetracked by Arrested Development , because they're only ...
Jul 20, 2015•58 min
After a few weeks away from it, this week finds Matt and Ed returning to their ongoing series of artist profiles with an episode dedicated to a firm favourite, actor/producer Burt Lancaster. In addition to discussing the best and worst of Mr. Lancaster's career, they talk about his physicality, his knack for playing complex and morally ambiguous characters, and his willingness to take risks. They also come up with the ultimate Michael J. Fox film, and pay tribute to the excellent film website Th...
Jul 13, 2015•50 min
We aren't able to provide a full episode this week as we had initially planned due to a scheduling conflict. However, since we've been away for a few weeks and there are stories that Matt and Ed want to talk about, we have prepared this minisode for your delectation. In this short, sharp chat, they talk about the continuing success of Jurassic World , which continues to eat records like an Indominus Rex chomping on people, the news that Ava DuVernay has passed on directing Black Panther for Marv...
Jul 06, 2015•19 min
In this Very Special Episode, Matt and Ed convene in the same bloody room for once to celebrate the 100th episode of Shot/Reverse Shot! To mark the occasion, they took questions from listeners via Twitter, Facebook, and in person and endeavored to answer as many of them as possible. With such a broad brief, the episode encompasses everything from their favourite cinemas, snacks, scores, and actors, to in-depth discussions of Hollywood's odd unwillingness to cast gay men in leading roles and the ...
Jun 25, 2015•1 hr 29 min
Much like everyone else on Earth, Matt and Ed went to see Jurassic World this weekend and they had a lot of thoughts about it. After talking about the death of Christopher Lee, they delve into their feelings about the first Jurassic Park , the deficiencies in Jurassic World 's script, and why they on balance like the film even if they have massive problems with it. Show Notes: 00:00-15:54 - Intro & discussion of the week's news. 15:55-57:10 - Matt and Ed discuss Jurassic World .57:11-1:01:58...
Jun 15, 2015•1 hr 2 min
On June 20th, 1975, Jaws was unleashed upon American audiences for the first time, in the process changing how people viewed the ocean, and how studios viewed the summer, forever. To mark this momentous occasion, Matt and Ed sit down to talk about the influence that the film has had, the ways in which it feels both part of the New Hollywood movement and separate from it, and how it relates to the work of Henrik Ibsen. And, of course, why they both really love it. They also ponder whether a remak...
Jun 08, 2015•1 hr
This Friday sees the start of Sheffield Doc/Fest , one of the biggest and best documentary festivals in the world and a favourite of this show. Unfortunately, for the first time in years, neither Matt or Ed are able to tend this year due to other commitments and the Atlantic Ocean, respectively. To commiserate, they talk about what they love about Doc/Fest, then use that as an opportunity to talk about different strains of documentary filmmaking, such as activist docs like Blackfish and rock doc...
Jun 01, 2015•1 hr
Historians will no doubt mark May 17, 2015 as the day the sixties died, as it was on that day that AMC's Mad Men ended its stellar seven season run. Matt and Ed felt that they had to mark the passing of a great show by discussing its phenomenal writing, directing and acting, as well as its significance as a key text in the ongoing American television renaissance. They also find time to talk about their individual disappointment about Tomorrowland and Pitch Perfect 2 , and their shared sadness ov...
May 25, 2015•57 min
This week, like a couple of Billy Pilgrims, Matt and Ed are looking backwards and forwards simultaneously as they talk about nostalgia, and how it has informed films like the marketing behind the recently released Mad Max: Fury Road and the forthcoming Jurassic Park and Vacation sequels. They discuss the unstable nature of nostalgia, which can bring fans onboard or completely alienate them if it isn't used correctly, how some films manage to subvert nostalgia in interesting ways, as well as the ...
May 18, 2015•54 min
In the fourth SRS Artist Profile, Matt and Ed look at the work of Ang Lee, a filmmaker who has worked in multiple genres, on multiple continents and in multiple languages over the course of his career, creating a body of work which is incredibly diverse yet distinctly his own. They discuss the reasons why his early films, which dealt with cross-generational conflict and Taiwanese identity in the West, made him the perfect choice to direct a Jane Austen adaptation, his ill-advised venture into br...
May 10, 2015•59 min
Spoiler Warning: This episode contains discussion of specific plot points in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but also of a crucial plot point in the Civil War comics which may be a spoiler for the forthcoming Civil War film (but then again may not). If you want to avoid the Civil War spoilers, then please skip this timecode: 31:30-33:00. A new blockbuster has arrived so the world sent up the SRS signal and Matt and Ed answered the call.(If you're wondering, the signal is a silhouette of Jeff Bridges dr...
May 04, 2015•38 min
Inspired by the very entertaining documentary Jodorowsky's Dune , about one of the most fascinating and influential films never made, this week's episode revolves around films that only exist in the minds of their creators, or in some magical pocket dimension where all possibilities happen at once. In exploring the topic, Matt and Ed talk about films that were made at some point but had a potentially more interesting version somewhere in their development, films that never made it past the scrip...
Apr 27, 2015•45 min
After a punishing week that saw the release of a trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , a teaser for the trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , a trailer for Fantastic Four: This Time We'll Get It Right, We Promise and, of course, the Internet-breaking trailer for S tar Wars: The Force Awakens , Matt and Ed decided to sit down and talk about the state of movie marketing today. In addition to freaking out a little bit over seeing Han and Chewie on screen again, they discuss th...
Apr 20, 2015•51 min
For their latest artist profile, Matt and Ed decided to discuss the work of Susan Sarandon. As well as talking about her breakthrough as Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and career highlights from the '80s and '90s, they talk about what the different roles she has played say about sexism in Hollywood and how her choices both play into and challenge it, whether or not her work in an Adam Sandler vehicle can be classified as a transgression against the Orthodoxy, and Ed describes the near br...
Apr 13, 2015•58 min
Following the news that John Williams will not be composing the score for Steven Spielberg's forthcoming Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies , Matt and Ed decided to talk about long-running and significant creative partnerships in film. As well as director/composer combinations like Spielberg/Williams, Hitchcock/Hermann and Kitano/Hisaishi, they discuss what working with the same editor from film to film gives a director, how working with the same actors can allow filmmakers to plumb new depths, a...
Mar 30, 2015•56 min
Partly inspired by news of a new, 300 -fied version of Romeo & Juliet, but largely because they're both fans, this week finds Matt and Ed talking about cinematic adaptations of the works of William Shakespeare. In addition to discussing good adaptations and bad adaptation, traditional adaptations and adventurous adaptations, they discuss their own personal relationships with Shakespeare's work, including a brief digression on theclassic '90s Disney series Gargoyles , the reinterment of Richa...
Mar 23, 2015•58 min
In a break from the usual format, this episode of Shot/Reverse Shot isn't based around any particular theme. With no central topic to discuss this week, Matt and Ed instead discuss some of the big stories of the week including the death of Terry Pratchett, the rapidly expanding Ghostbusters universe, HBO's The Jinx , and some film about wars among the stars. They also try to figure out a way of proving once and for all just how tall Vince Vaughn is.
Mar 16, 2015•52 min
Inspired by the spectacular lack of success of Andy and Lana Wachowski's Jupiter Ascending , this week's episode is given over to films that failed and failed big at the box office. After discussing the aforementioned space opera and the Wachowskis' other flops, Matt and Ed talk about some of the biggest money losers ever, how hard it is to determine how much money a film actually lost, and what factors can make a film fail.
Mar 09, 2015•57 min
We're saying goodbye to the residents of Pawnee, Indiana this week as Parks and Recreation ascends to sitcom heaven. Matt and Ed talk about what made the show so special, how jumping forward three years helped make the final season so strong, and offer up their favourite episodes, jokes and characters from one of the deepest benches in sitcom history. They also pay tribute to Harris Wittels, a writer for the show and prodigiously talented comedian who passed away suddenly just prior to the final...
Mar 02, 2015•53 min
Shot/Reverse Shot have got sunshine in a bag this week because Matt and Ed are talking about the work of Clint Eastwood. In between discussing French documentaries and struggling to say "Joe Pesci," they delve into Eastwood's status as an icon of the Western genre, the merits of American Sniper (and the toxicity of the debate surrounding it), and lay into Jersey Boys with a passion and intensity alien to anyone involved with that film.
Feb 22, 2015•1 hr 3 min
With the Academy Awards mere days away, Matt and Ed discuss why exactly they care about the Oscars, especially since they both occasionally hypocritically dismiss them as not really meaning anything. In so doing, they talk about the real commercial and artistic impact that an Oscar nomination can have, wonder if the Academy secretly hate Martin Landau, and talk about some of the odder wins/snubs in Oscar history. They also try to predict who will win on Sunday, foolishly. Notes: - Here is the ar...
Feb 15, 2015•47 min
Considering the ongoing controversy surrounding Ava DuVernay's civil rights drama Selma and its relatively minor deviations from history (as well as the ongoing non-controversy surrounding Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game and its multiple, egregious deviations from history) Matt and Ed decided to ask why historical inaccuracy is so often used as a criticism against works of fiction, where exactly the line between inaccuracy and artistic license lies, and wonder if Dave Lister holds the real tr...
Feb 09, 2015•35 min
This week, Matt and Ed ponder why it is that so many film series are able to produce two good-to-great films, then fumble it when they have to make a final film to round out the trilogy. What is it about third films that makes them so prone to failure, and why do some series manage to avoid those pitfalls? They try to answer those questions, though not without deviating into an apoplectic rant about Return of the Jedi.
Feb 01, 2015•37 min
In the first of what will become a monthly feature, this episode finds Matt and Ed discussing the career of director Richard Linklater, the veteran of American independent cinema who is currently the toast of the town thanks to the critical and commercial success of Boyhood . To add a structure to this episode and all future artist profiles, the boys have picked five of Linklater's films to focus on, each of which falls into a specific category: Breakthrough, Most Successful, Oddity, Dud and Cro...
Jan 28, 2015•52 min
December saw the release of the third and final film in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, a series which saw the man who turned a series of dense books into three fairly swift films do the opposite by transforming a short, snappy novel into three bloated epics. As fans of Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, not to mention his pre-LOTR work, who were disappointed by the Hobbitses , Matt and Ed decided to sit down and talk about the two trilogies in depth in order to figure out where the second trilo...
Jan 19, 2015•1 hr 9 min
Happy New Year! We're back and we're looking forward to what lies on the horizon in 2015 in our traditional preview. We talk about the films we're excited about, the ones that we're curious about, and the ones that are sure to dominate the cultural conversation for weeks and months at a time. We also highlight some TV shows that we're excited about, and offer (hopefully) tantalising glimpses of what we have planned for the podcast itself in the year ahead.
Jan 12, 2015•1 hr 14 min
2014 was a great year for cinema and a pretty good one for Shot/Reverse Shot. The same kind of terrible films got released that somehow get green lit every year, but you seemingly couldn't move for interesting, intelligent and entertaining films in pretty much every genre and at most budgets. Meanwhile, we put out more episodes than we ever have before, completed our Alternate 100 project, and sought to push ourselves and the format of the show as much as we possibly could. We've got great plans...
Dec 22, 2014•1 hr 50 min
And now/the end is near/and so we face/the final top ten. Yes, our year-long journey through the undervalued and under-appreciated comes to its close and while we didn't exactly save the best for last - all 100 films could really be considered the best, really - we certainly go out with a great selection. We discuss time travel, basketball and (arguably) Jack Nicholson's best performance, and try not to get distracted by thoughts of Willem Dafoe in Morrisons. Enjoy, and remember: pimp-slapping P...
Dec 15, 2014•1 hr 31 min
