EPISODE 190 – THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO / SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS / MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4 – GHOST PROTOCOL
Gareth and myself take an in-depth look at three blockbusters, one of which is great, the other good and the third just rubbish. Yep, it’s reviews of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4: GHOST PROTOCOL. Running time: 46 minutes and 24 seconds – 44.6mb Listen [...]
Episode 188 – Our Fifth Year Anniversary / ANONYMOUS / IN TIME
Here it is our Fifth Year Anniversary Special! Includes such items as banter, witticisms, back-talk and reviews of ANONYMOUS and IN TIME. As well as our favorite filmic picks from the past 187 shows, thoughts on Steve Jobs, the end of the film camera and the Most TFT Film of All Time.
Episode 184 – ATTACK THE BLOCK
Want to understand the recent Riots in England Dear Listener? Than you must must must start with Joe Cornish’s brilliant sci-fi kitchen-sink action dramedy ATTACK THE BLOCK.
COLOMBIANA Can’t Stop
As CONAN THE BARBARIAN represents the nadir of chaos cinema with its unfocused camerawork evoking nothing but a lazy director, Olivier Megaton’s COLOMBIANA represents its potential, finding purpose in the rapid cutting and manic energy that defines the End of Cinema.
Episode 183 – RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES / WORLD ON A WIRE / THE KILLING
It’s almost too much action for one show Dear Listener: Gareth and I disagree more than a little bit on RISE OF THE PLAENT OF THE APES, cannot disagree for reasons that are obvious about Fassbinder’s WORLD ON A WIRE and explore a novel take on Stanley Kubrick’s THE KILLING.
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES: You say you want a revolution
I’ve never felt cognitive dissonance like reading my Twitter feed this week—but maybe that was all the cold medicine—seeing nonstop (and counterintuitive) raves for Rupert Wyatt’s blockbuster RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Episode 181: CAPTAIN AMERICA / THE ROCKETEER / BEGINNERS / COWBOYS AND ALIENS / Special Guest: Zaid Abu Hamdan director of Bahiya & Mahmoud
Episode 181 – Gareth and I watch COWBOYS AND ALIENS so you don’t have to.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER: That’s Entertainment
The only thing more tiresome than Marvel’s latest Shakespeare tragedy is the postmodern elevation of trash/pop/camp—a useful experiment, like shaving your head— so I won’t say Joe Johnston’s CAPTAIN AMERICA: WORLD-FRIENDLY SUBTITLE is a good film.
HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS 2: Childish Things
As half-films go, David Yates’ HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2, FILM 8: ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET VOLDEMORT lurches from scene to setpiece like it’s Daniel Radcliffe’s awkwardly effortful performance.
Episode 180 – HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 / PROJECT NIM / TABLOID / Special Guest: Jordan Bayne
Episode 180 – Incredibly we get Gareth to see another Harry Potter film – listen in for the thrilling result. No seriously, listen in. It is thrilling. Eight films worth of thrilling.
Episode 179 – TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON / Final Cut Pro X / Special Guest: Terry George and THE SHORE at the Palm Springs Shortfest
Episode 179 – Gareth and I have slight disagreement over the amount of visual imagination in the Michael Bay film TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON.
The Other Guys – “Green Lantern” Review
Is it possible for a three hundred million dollar film to be an underdog? Consider the evidence:
Episode 178 – SUPER 8 / Special Guest: William Eubank at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival
Episode 178 – We get another report from the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival including an interview with director of LOVE William Eubank and some thoughts on the end to the myth of redemptive violence in the Summer blockbuster SUPER 8 are proferred.
Episode 177 – The 2011 Seattle International Film Festival / TABLOID / HOT COFFEE / X-MEN: FIRST CLASS / Special Guest Carl Spence
Episode 177 – We get Jett’s dispatches from the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival including an interview with artistic director of the fest Carl Spence and brief thoughts on Errol Morris’ TABLOID and the must-see doc HOT COFFEE.
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS: Birth of a Nation
I guess X-MEN: FIRST CLASS was set in the ‘60s to better reflect Matthew Vaughn’s thoughtless patriarchal identification, because it damn sure wasn’t about civil rights, the Cold War, liberation, or the Holocaust, weighty abstracts whittled into icons, the better for Vaughn to pretend his film has some deep, world-historical meaning
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST
It isn’t simply that I like DEAD MAN’S CHEST better than CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, that my sui generis brain chemistry arbitrarily prefers squid-pirates to skeletal specters and sexy rogues to straight-laced do-gooders, thought that’s certainly true.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
While the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise started with a fun, fresh take on a notoriously stale brand of box office poison, eight years and two directors later, the plastic surgery is finally catching up to it.
THOR: Norwegian Wood
If you only see one small-town American story with an Oedipal skeleton enveloping space and time and prehistoric beasts this summer, please, for the love of all that is cinematically holy, make it Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE, because Kenneth Branagh’s nominally Norse still-life THOR is so cosmically incompetent
Episode 173 – FAST FIVE / Special Guest: Jack Gill
In this week’s show Gareth and I mull over that great summer action film FAST FIVE and have on as a special guest an award-winning stunt coordinator from the movie Jack Gill.
Episode 166 – HANNA / Sidney Lumet
In this week’s show Gareth and discuss the delightful, (for a film so consumed with violence), HANNA and mourn the passing of perhaps the greatest of U.S. directors Sidney Lumet.
Episode 164 – SUCKER PUNCH / Elizabeth Taylor / TOPSY-TURVY
In this week’s show Gareth and I discuss in some detail the new ‘video games as movie’ SUCKER PUNCH, the work of Elizabeth Taylor and one of Mike Leigh’s few period pieces TOPSY-TURVY.
Episode 163 – BATTLE: LOS ANGELES / LIMITLESS / The iPhone Film Festival
Is BATTLE: LOS ANGELES the most important film of the year so far? Gareth and I think so and say why in this episode. Also discussed are the Bradley Cooper vehicle LIMITLESS and the new iPhone Film Festival.
Episode 161: UNKNOWN / Glenn Kenny on SHUTTER ISLAND
Here it is – we investigate TAKEN 2, aka UNKNOWN, and special guest film critic Glenn Kenny talks about a film that had a profoundly personal effect on him: SHUTTER ISLAND.
THE EAGLE: Love, Honor, and Obey
You could blame the monumental waste of Kevin Macdonald’s THE EAGLE on CENTURION‘s release last year, which preemptively renders its successor both outclassed and unnecessary, if the bulk of its ineptitude didn’t reside in the script. Yes, Jamie Bell heroically tries to balance an ensemble led by a statue and filled out with Donald Sutherland’s paycheck [...]
