[Digital Drift 2015] The Marvel Cinematic Universe reunites the whole team and then adds some more heroes and super-antagonists for good measure. Can such an immense collection of colourful personalities possibly be threaded cohesively into an even more elaborate juggling act that matches the original? Once again we go deep on the characters, outlining what this means for the history and how it functions as a film. Joining Sharon and I once again are Joshua Garrity of Cane and rinse, Jerome McIn...
Jan 10, 2015•3 hr 33 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] As we gear up for Avengers: Age of Ultron, we look back on the only film focusing on one of them that we haven’t yet reviewed. So let’s delve into Ang Lee’s Hulk, one of the first HUGE Marvel movies and one that strove to be oh-so-grown-up. If you love these shows support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexandershaw
Jan 09, 2015•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] Returning to the welcoming bosom of Marvel, Sharon and I take a good hard look at the 2003 attempt at bringing The Man Without Fear to our screens. Fox rather unwisely competed with Spider-Man at the time, leading to a rather troubled production, hence the hastily cobbled-together millennial rubber bouncy jumping action and the vast disparity between the somewhat nonsensical theatrical edition and the little-seen but more naratively-sound director’s cut. And then of course t...
Jan 08, 2015•2 hr 54 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] We round out the series as it stands right now. The events of the film itself as the action thrill-ride it was originally intended take a back seat to what it ultimately became, with this poignant farewell to Paul Walker. Neil Taylor returns for what may have been the most challenging film to express our feelings about in words. If you love these shows support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexandershaw Guest: Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg...
Jan 07, 2015•2 hr 39 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] We reach the point when everything really slots into place and the F&F series reaches its potential at long last. This is one of the most astonishing, enjoyable movies about cars and family that you will ever see. Neil Taylor of GameBurst is back on the team again. We’ll roll on over again in a couple of weeks to cover the seventh movie and close this out for now, but this has been one revelatory road trip for us all. If you love these shows support us on Patreon: https://ww...
Jan 06, 2015•2 hr 35 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] We’re back as the F&F series cranks into gear and becomes what it was meant to; a series of heist movies with a colourful, lovable cast of recurring characters and amazing stunts. This was a case of all the pieces finally slotting into place. Enter The Rock as a powerhouse of a lawman named Hobbs, finally giving the films an antagonist worthy of Toretto. Re-enter Roman, Tej, Han, Gisele, Leo, Santos (played by Don Omar, who sang on several pieces of music accompanying the se...
Jan 05, 2015•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] Continuing our road trip through the F&F series, we get to the detour away from the main cast that was initially shunned by audiences but in retrospect is rather excellent as a stand-alone movie. We move on to the return to the main cast that was initially embraced by audiences but in retrospect is dour and uneventful. Find out what drifting REALLY means. If you love these shows support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexandershaw Guest: Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg...
Jan 04, 2015•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] We’re joined by Neil Taylor of GameBurst to review two movies from one of his very favourite series. When we recorded this first show we hadn’t yet seen 5 or 6 (Sharon hadn’t seen 3 or 4 either) so it’s something of a discovery process for us. Find out over the course of the next few episodes if we’re just middling on the car porn, jiggling auto-floozies and machismo-masking-vulnerability or in fact if we end up flippin’ LOVING The Fast and the Furious. If you love these sho...
Jan 03, 2015•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] Here’s the second part of our analysis of the Twilight saga. There’s some really silly and occasionally genuinely troubling material in here, but also some surprisingly heartfelt moments that caught us offguard. If you love these shows support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexandershaw
Jan 02, 2015•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2015] To coincide with the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, Sharon and I went back to the source material with a pair of shows we’ve been sitting on for a year! We had to put Pinocchio on hod for this one but he’ll be back in two weeks. In this initial volume we review the first three installments of the Twilight Saga. It’s my theory that these books and films are the Nickelback of the literary and cinematic worlds, hated on general principle. Partly because in the eyes of many th...
Jan 01, 2015•2 hr 32 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] This is the first impressions review of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. Next year we will be covering all three movies with a deeper focus on production in our Extended Edition podcasts. If you’ve just joined us for Digital Drift you can of course hear the reviews of the Lord of the Rings and first two Hobbits on the Digital Gonzo section of the podcast feed. It’s been hard-going for some of us to say a last goodbye to the Weta films. The fact that they’ve divided aud...
Feb 01, 2014•2 hr 6 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Gonzo 2013] Welcome back to the ninth part of the Middle-earth series of Gonzo podcasts. To any newcomers, the first episode was a prologue, focusing on the books and the animated films, the next six were two-part super in-depth reviews of the Lord of the Rings films, following that was a first impressions round-table of the then just recently viewed theatrical edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a tone we will be reprising with its follow-up, and the eighth was a Sound of Gon...
Jan 31, 2014•3 hr 37 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Gonzo 2012] For the first time in our series we cannot look at the film we are delving into in retrospect of the entire trilogy or with the deeper familiarity with its creation that the extended edition extras grant us. So this is a first impressions round-table with as much as possible on what we thought about the inaugural installment in the new Hobbit Trilogy. For those who haven’t heard the Digital Gonzo Lord of the Rings podcasts, I heartily recommend you go back and listen to the ...
Jan 30, 2014•3 hr 57 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] To kick off a discussion about “nanar”; that is movies that are so spectacularly bad that they wrap right the way round into great we bring you the podcast reviews of Troll and Troll 2. This also constitutes our Halloween Spooktacular and gives you all something fun to listen to while taking shelter from the GamerGate debate. Troll was a daft fantasy horror movie made in 1986. It’s hard to say who it’s aimed at because it’s too scary for small children and too silly for anyo...
Jan 29, 2014•2 hr 30 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] The Transformers road trip has lost all but one lone, solitary truck, powering on through a new leg of what may be a never-ending journey. Yes folks, I did end up going to see Transformers 4, and on this show, Sharon asks me all about my experience. Is this a new lease of life for the series? A soft reboot, ditching the former human cast members in favour of all-new ones and setting aside awkward frat comedy for the dilemma of a struggling family. [Sounds great.] Still writt...
Jan 28, 2014•2 hr 46 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] Our road trip with the autobots veers off the beaten track and onto a superhighway full of exploding guns and alien car invasion. In a series defined by its crapulence this may actually be its lowest point. Billed by some as a return to form on its release in 2011, which prompted the question from others; “What form?” and from still others “What form will our destructor take?”. We’ll tell you what form in this very podcast. If we sounded like we were in pain on the last epis...
Jan 27, 2014•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] Our road trip with the autobots continues. We hit a bumpy road as the writer’s strike of 2007 looms. Fortunately this movie proved that you apparently don’t even NEED writers and that a triple-A blockbuster action movie could be sloppily thrown together without discernible structure or coherence and still rake in more than its predecessor. Just cast your eyes over the image I’ve used for this week’s podcast. Ask yourself “A: What the hell were they thinking? and B: Why did e...
Jan 26, 2014•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] Every now and again I’m reminded on Twitter or the forum that you guys love this show best when we review something we absolutely love. Our passion for it is palpable and in many cases infectious enough to get people who have yet to see the movie in question to finally take the plunge. This point usually comes up when I mention that we’re reviewing something awful. In this case Michael Bay’s Transformers movies. But there is a silver lining to the critical thunderstorm you’r...
Jan 25, 2014•2 hr 6 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] This kicks off a surprisingly thorough series of podcasts focusing on the Transformers franchise. I actually said I could barely get one show out of this as there was no high point that I really connected with to balance the many lows. However these toys and the animated show and movie were a huge part of my childhood and that gave me more than enough to engage with. I’m sure there will be many comic, Beast Wars, Animated and Unicron trilogy fans out there who would want me ...
Jan 24, 2014•2 hr 27 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] This is it. Alex’s 400th podcast. And what better way to celebrate a broadcasting career like this than with something lovingly crafted, and beloved by its small but enthusiastic fanbase? This summer everyone fell in love with Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel. Journey back fifteen years to a very similar performance in a lost film to be found and absolutely treasured. The Iron Giant was one of the final hurrah’s for 2D cell animation at the end of a decade that marked a major ren...
Jan 23, 2014•3 hr 56 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] The second in our trilogy celebration of Alex’s 400th podcast. This time we’re talking about another of the best films of 2014; The Lego Movie. Arguably the most potent cocktail of inventiveness and pure joy in an animated movie since the original Toy Story. Deceptively child-friendly, especially after a slew of sporadically funny Lego games, and prone to assumptions of being nothing more than an enormous toy commercial this is in fact a far richer experience than your usual...
Jan 22, 2014•3 hr 42 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] This is the tenth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe podcasts. We talk at length about the transition from obscure Marvel comic to breakout success, how the characters differ across the mediums taking many detours into the depiction of female and black characters in comic book movies, the inspired soundtrack, the hilarious, often touching performances, the detail-filled worlds and of course the vibrant, fun-filled rollicking space adventure now finally earning recognition. Thi...
Jan 21, 2014•3 hr 55 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] We conclude the Planet of the Apes series for now with the 2014 follow up to Rise, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. 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, 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 woods close to San Francisco. ...
Jan 20, 2014•2 hr 39 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] Ten years after the Burton version surfaced, spluttered and sank this one came out of absolutely nowhere, surprising everyone. Set up as an alternate prequel to the premise of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes, this movie answered the question of “How could this actually happen?”. In marketing terms it serves as a reboot, beginning its own new series which has now branched off from the original five movies into its own circular arc. One thing I found while editing this sh...
Jan 19, 2014•2 hr 2 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] 2001: Planet of the Apes Some 28 years after the original quintet closed out, and after over a decade in development limbo being passed from writer to director like a hot potato, crossing the paths of some of the most significant of Hollywood players the reboot/remake/reimagining of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes was ultimately rushed to the screen with Tim Burton at the helm and the kind of slapdash, thrown-together approach that stifles overall vision and creative fr...
Jan 18, 2014•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] 1971: Escape from the Planet of the Apes 1972: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes 1973: Battle for the Planet of the Apes The remaining three movies from the original series of five get the Drift treatment. Again we went in having never seen any of them and reviewed them immediately following our first watch. So our emotions are raw and reactions pretty strong. Escape turned out to be a 70s flavoured political thriller, not unlike a small scale Winter Soldier which we watche...
Jan 17, 2014•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] 1968: Planet of the Apes 1970: Beneath the Planet of the Apes For newcomers to the series, all eight movies of which will be reviewed over the coming weeks here is a brief breakdown of events. 1. Universe A: The first five Planet of the Apes movies spanning the period between 1968 and 1973. Planet of the Apes / Beneath the Planet of the Apes / Escape from the Planet of the Apes / Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. You can also include t...
Jan 16, 2014•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] We round off our X-Men series with a discussion about Days of Future Past. Further proof that you can have a complex, sci-fi blockbuster which the audience doesn’t need to fully understand in order to become one of the highest grossing movies of the year. If you haven’t yet seen my explanation of the multiple timelines in the X-Men movie chronology check it out on YouTube. “Days of Future Past Explained [X-Men Movie Timeline]“ I’ve included it at the end at the 01.13.30 mark...
Jan 15, 2014•2 hr 32 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] This one kind of came out of nowhere. Since Wolverine hasn’t been an enjoyable and compelling lead since 2003 with X-Men 2 it was a surprise for him to suddenly reclaim his onscreen presence a decade later after we’d had a new Spider-Man, two new Hulks and two new Supermen, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America the rise and fall of The Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider and the entire Dark Knight Trilogy. Wisely avoiding tying this in too heavily with the established X-Men continuity thi...
Jan 14, 2014•2 hr 56 min•Ep. 1
[Digital Drift 2014] This time we dive deep into the best X-Men movie and actually one of the very best superhero and comic book movies of all time. What started as a Magneto spin-off got combined with a reboot and turned into a flashback/prequel/period piece/James Bond homage/romantic drama/reboot for the series. With all those goals to accomplish it’s a wonder it turned out as well as it did. It’s not without its flaws, but the strengths on display are myriad and powerful. We discuss the shapi...
Jan 13, 2014•3 hr 38 min•Ep. 1
