Apparently there's an election coming up. To celebrate(?), Matt and Ed talk about films and television shows that tackle the world of politics, examples of overtly "political" filmmakers, and their favourite insults from The Thick of It . 00:00:00 - 00:09:24 - Intro & News 00:09:25 - 01:00:10 - Matt & Ed talk about politics in film and television 01:00:11 - 01:06:39 - SRS Recommends & Outro
As a spooky Halloween treat, Matt and Ed are talking about the iconic monsters that formed the core of Universal's stable of creature features in the 1930s and 40s (including Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolf Man), and the influence they continue to exert over the subgenres that they helped to define. They also talk about the cinematic peak(?) of Dana Carvey's cinematic career, the end of Vine, and why you (yes, you!) should be watching The Good Place . 00:00:00 - 00:20:21 - Intro &am...
After a few weeks working on episodes separately, Matt and Ed are reunited this week to talk about Ed's trip to New York, the week's news, and the many instances where great directors have delivered absolute stinkers. Here is The Ringer article that end mentions during the News section.
With Ed off gallivanting around Broadway like some cosmopolitan dandy, the reigns for this week's episode are in sole possession of Matt, who decides to get a little weird. As a tribute to one of their favourite podcasts You Must Remember This , Matt presents his own version of the show, forgoing an engaging history of bygone Hollywood, for the unusual tale of Tinseltown's failed attempt to make a sequel to 2000's smash hit Gladiator . Without giving too much away, it's an incredibly strange tal...
Last month, Ed made a flying visit back to England in order to attend the first annual London Podcast Festival at King's Place in London. He's joined by Zoë Jeyes , the Comedy Programmer for King's Place and producer of the festival, to discuss how the festival came together, the great shows they saw (including, but not limited to, Bullseye , Judge John Hodgman , The Moth and Little Atoms ), and to extol the virtues of Hollywood Handbook, in a segment that will make almost no sense to anyone who...
After a short break caused by a) Ed being on holiday and b) Matt accidentally sleeping through a scheduled recording session, the boys are back with a vengeance in this extra long, extra punchy episode, during which they discuss the films they are most looking forward to between now and the end of the year. They also catch up on some recent news, ponder the falls from grace of Johnny Depp and Mel Gibson, and come up with possibly the best band name of all time. 00:00:00 - 00:25:07 - Intro & ...
It's been ten years since the release of Guillermo del Toro's haunting fairytale Pan's Labyrinth , a film which was hailed as a masterpiece almost as soon as it debuted and whose reputation has only grown over time. To mark the occasion, Matt and Ed discuss the film's many good qualities, debate its legacy, and what impact it had on del Toro's career. They also get excited about the films debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival, Ed reminisces about the time he got to meet del Toro an...
In a direct sequel to last week's discussion of how bad Suicide Squad is as a film in its own right, but also a spiritual sequel to our episode on the state of the modern blockbuster, this episode finds Matt and Ed using Suicide Squad as a prism through which to explore the worst tendencies of modern blockbuster culture, and how it is emblematic of a moribund summer movie season. They detail how hard it is for a film to turn a profit these days, why foreign box office is so rarely a saving grace...
Matt's back from his holidays and the boys are a little punchy, as evidenced by the way that they turn what was meant to be a brief preamble about Suicide Squad into the focus of the entire episode. In between detailing why Captain Boomerang is the most useless character ever and trying to parse the murk of David Ayer's vision, they find time to discuss the BBC's list of the 100 best films of the 21st century so far , rekindle Ed's fear of rhinoceroses, and forget that Spectre exists. 00:00:00 -...
It's been 50 years since Star Trek first entered the public consciousness, and five decades later, Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future is in surprisingly rude health. With the recent cinematic release of Justin Lin's Star Trek Beyond and slow drip of news about the forthcoming TV show Star Trek: Discovery , Ed sits down to discuss the series' various incarnations with writer and playwright John Hunter. In addition to discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the franchises and the reason fo...
Following on from last week, in which they talked about the films of 1986, Matt and Ed spend this week digging into two of the biggest hits of that year: Tony Scott's Top Gun and James Cameron's Aliens . In addition to talking about the influence that the two films had on the blockbuster format (whilst also being unlike most contemporary blockbusters), Matt reminisces about an unusual Top Gun -adjacent present, and Ed disparages his 14 year old self's taste in movies.
This episode serves as a double celebration since not only is Shot/Reverse Shot 150 episodes old, but it's Ed's 30th birthday. As is traditional, the birthday boy gets to choose the topic, and Matt and Ed spend this installment of the show discussing the films of 1986, a year that brought us C. Thomas Howell being menaced by Rutger Hauer and pretending to be black (though not in the same film), competing movies about animated mice, and surprisingly few sequels. And, of course, one Edwin Davies. ...
Inspired by HBO's The Night Of , Matt and Ed spend this episode talking about the many varied ways in which law enforcement officials have been depicted in film and television. From slapstick dunces in silent movies to embodiments of systemic corruption, from dedicated public servants to sociopaths with authority, they run the gamut. They also discuss the ways in which England international games are like season two of True Detective , gawk in wonder at the complete implosion of the Divergent fr...
The Ghostbusters reboot opened in theaters this week to decent reviews, solid box office, and the wailing of bitter man-children. Matt & Ed weigh the pros and cons of the Paul Feig-directed version before segueing into a broader discussion about the crisis afflicting Hollywood blockbusters, as big-budget franchise after big-budget franchise has failed this year. In addition to all this, Matt shares an adorable story about making his own Ghostbuster unform as a child, Ed tries to come to term...
This past Saturday, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom, Jr. and Phillipa Soo left the cast of the Broadway show Hamilton , a wildly successful musical which has grown in prominence and cultural heft over the past year, to the extent that their departures were given the same treatment afforded to news surrounding popular TV shows and films. Since this represents an important transitional moment for the musical, Matt and Ed thought it would be a good time to take stock of the Hamilton phenomenon, the...
Last Sunday HBO aired the finales of the sixth season of Game of Thrones , the fifth season of Veep , and the third season of Silicon Valley . Since the first two shows went through triumphant transitional seasons and the third is just really funny, Matt and Ed decided to talk about this uncommonly good block of programs. Warning : There are plenty of spoilers for all three shows. They also pay tribute to several more luminaries who passed away this week, speculate on which video games Yasujirô ...
ESPN's 30 For 30 strand has been producing great, fascinating documentaries about significant sporting events and athletes for years now, but the series may have reached its pinnacle with Ezra Edelman's seven and a half hour, five part miniseries about the life of O.J. Simpson. Encapsulating Simpson's football career, marriage, murder trial, slide into obscurity and eventual trial for burglary and kidnapping, Edelman's film also stands as a breathtaking examination of race, gender and celebrity ...
Following a week of terrible sadness in the real world, this week's episode is about finding solace in art and entertainment. Matt and Ed discuss times in their lives when art helped them cope with heartbreak, bereavement and wrenching change, create a fictional Canadian basketball team, and try to describe one scene from Up without crying. They also pay tribute to Anton Yelchin, a hugely promising young actor who did a lot of great work in a tragically short period of time, and who deserved the...
After discussing disastrous movies last week, Matt and Ed talk about Disaster Movies this week. Specifically, they contrast the more human-centric stories of the genres '70s heyday against the inhumanity of the '90s force of nature entries into the genre, and the out-and-out disaster porn that has come to define so much of blockbuster filmmaking over the past decade. They also talk about Larry David maybe bringing back Curb Your Enthusiasm , the complexity of the Jack Frost series, and wonder wh...
Inspired by the Internet's less than Zen response to the announcement that Star Wars: Rogue One is undergoing reshoots, a story which has inspired some of the most furious handwringing since the last round of Star Wars rumours, Matt and Ed talk about why reshoots are not necessarily a bad thing, then go on to discuss troubled film productions in general; the ones that produced classics, the ones that resulted in forgotten films, and the ones that fall somewhere in between. They also reminisce ab...
In this slightly delayed episode, Matt and Ed complete their Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll trilogy with, funnily enough, an episode on Rock & Roll. They discuss films about musicians (both real and fictional), movies starring musicians, and take plenty of time to talk about the notorious 2000 gangster movie Honest , starring three quarters of All Saints and a Nazi lobster. They also pitch ideas for the latest Halloween film, reminisce about their youthful misunderstandings about Spinal Tap,...
The second part of the Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll trilogy finds Matt and (an intensely sick and croaky) Ed discussing representation of drug use in film and TV, how cinema reflects shifting attitudes to different substances, and the ways in which Requiem for a Dream and Reefer Madness are basically the same film. They also discuss the slew of TV cancellations that occurred last week, imagine a crazier version of Easy Rider than the one we have, and Matt discusses the less glamorous side of the ...
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers for Captain America: Civil War and some elements of the Civil War comic crossover event. We interrupt your regular scheduled programming to bring you a rare film review episode (we will do our episode on Drugs next week). Like much of the rest of the world, Matt and Ed saw Captain America: Civil War this weekend and it created an Iron Man/Captain America-style split in the Shot/Reverse Shot team in which one of them liked it more than the other. They work thr...
Marking the beginning of a new trilogy of tangentially related episodes, this week's show is all about sex in cinema. Matt and Ed run through the history of sex in Hollywood and the varying levels of censorship that have been applied to it, discuss what makes for good and bad sex scenes, and ponder the particular peccadilloes of major filmmakers. They also come up with a few killer band names, bemoan the untimely demise of Indiewire , and compare their respective abilities to survive in a zombie...
Completing the diptych started with last week's episode on Heroes, Matt and Ed are talking about villains in film and TV this week. What makes a great villain? Is it compelling psychology? Physical attributes? Being created by David Lynch? They discuss all of these factors and more. In addition to the main topic, Matt and Ed talk about the sudden death of Prince, anxiously anticipate the sixth season of Game of Thrones (and offer up in a baffling metaphor involving David Hasselhoff), and specula...
After a technical difficulties-induced break of two weeks, Matt and Ed are back in full force with a rundown of the big stories coming out of CinemaCon, the furore over AMC's (swiftly abandoned) plan to allow texting in screenings, and favourite examples of creative TV edits. The main topic this week is Heroes in cinema, and encompasses a discussion of superheroes as Greek Gods, the differences between "classic" Hollywood heroes and the antiheroes of noir and the 1970s, and what traits make for ...
To mark the end of the first season of American Crime Story and the second season of Serial, Matt and Ed sit down to discuss True Crime in film and television. In addition to talking about some of their favourite works of documentary filmmaking and creative non-fiction, they ponder the snobbery that exists around the genre, the difference between true crime as exploitation and true crime as activism, and investigate the reason for its sudden resurgence. They also discuss Batman v Superman 's ter...
It's Easter, so now seems like as good a time as any to discuss cinema's relationship to religion. Over the course of this episode, Matt and Ed talk about specific directors who have explored religious themes in their work, the ways in which Hollywood has courted or ignored religious audiences over the past century, and why exactly The Passion of the Christ was such a hit. They also talk about the backlash against Batman v. Superman (and the backlash against the backlash), the death of Garry Sha...
Inspired by the release of 10 Cloverfield Lane , which no one knew about until mere weeks before it was due to come out, this week's episode is all about secrecy, and the problem of maintaining a sense of surprise when it comes to filmmaking. Could someone make a film completely in secret and release it to the world the same way that Kendrick Lamar released an album unannounced? What's the best way to sell a film without ruining it? Is Dave Stewart from Eurythmics a serial killer? All of these q...
To commemorate the release of Hail, Caesar! , which hit UK cinemas this week, Matt and Ed offer their thoughts on the film before going on to discuss the work of Joel and Ethan Coen more generally. In between talking about the brothers' pet themes, their relationship to classic cinema, and the notion of "moral authority" in their films, Matt describes a fever dream that maybe involves Dolph Lundgren, reveals an inside scoop on Harry Styles' acting experience, and the two discover/half-remember t...
