A space for me, Daniel Swan, to talk about the things I love in moviedom. This'll include news, reviews, musings, rants and raves. Whenever possible it'll be with my wonderful wife, Tiffany B, who brings a deliciously level-headed viewpoint to discussions, entirely separate to my fanboy ravings.
God only knows how we’ve reached 150 episodes. Which is a wonderful segue into talking about Dogma: Kevin Smith’s most goddiest film. • Telling the story of a woman disillusioned with her faith getting coerced into a holy mission by one of God’s right hand angels, Dogma got Kev in a lot of trouble when it was released because Catholics have as much of a sense of humor about their religion as ISIS. • It’s got a great subject, and money, and a cracking cast. It should all fall into place nicely, right? I remember it being really good, and memory is never wrong, right? Is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of a woman who hates organized religion a mite less than I, Tiffany B. Through our exploration of the film we chatted about the effectiveness of yawn reviews, double bubble permissions and reference a cartoon that you won’t guess in a million years. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen all of the films or none of the films, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
It’s Kevin Smith’s birthday today! Happy Birthday to Kevin Smith! Let’s celebrate by continuing our deep dive into his back catalog and sharing the episode that, in all likelihood, we’re going to be the nicest to him about. • Chasing Amy is the one, for me. The film that took my Smith-ffection to the next level. Watching this film, young Dan was overjoyed to see Kevin Smith continue focusing on comic books and sweet dialogue as he had been doing with his previous films, but adding in relationship melodrama and much more Ben Affleck. What more could anyone ask for? • And so, with my heart full of that fear that comes with rewatching films you really liked for the first time in ages, I pressed play on Chasing Amy. Having watched it, is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of a woman harboring a nuclear bias against the female lead, Tiffany B. Through our exploration of the film we chatted about the sexual arena being the hottest arena, Tasmanian Devil sex and perms, perhaps? • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen all of the films or none of the films, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
Continuing our journey down Kevin Smith’s rabbit hole, we find ourselves in the heady days of 1995 with Kevin’s follow up to Clerks where he attempted to spoil all the good favour he’d earned with that indie classic by making a studio dud. • Mallrats will always hold a special place in my heart, as it was the first Kevin Smith film I saw, thanks to a Christmas gift from my now-brother in law. He earned cool points that day for buying me an 18 certificate video (VIDEO) when I was only 15 or 16, but the journey he set me on with that film was worth even more. • My teenage brain was bursting with happiness watching these characters talking about comics and girls with equal parts eloquence and crassness. But watching it now, with my old, wizened adult eyes… is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of my very own suitorette, Tiffany B. Through our exploration of the film we chatted about wearing your obese dad’s suit, how many godamn kids these days are named Pilot, and giving girls a chance so you can get into their parnts. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen all of the films or none of the films, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
Kevin Smith will always have a special place in my heart. I fell in love with his films as a teen, and my respect for him has endured to my adulthood. • But even for a Kevin Smith fan such as I, his more recent efforts have been… lackluster. So I thought it would be a good idea to relive the glory days by delving into his back catalog to wash away the taste of Yoga Hosers. • It starts, fittingly, at the beginning, with Clerks. It was made with very little money and even less studio interference, but it produced a film that put Smith on the map and had people raving about him as a paragon of the indie film scene. But is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of a fine looking woman who makes great lasagne and doesn’t cheat on me, Tiffany B. Through our exploration of the film we chatted about the correct pronunciation of the title for English people, how the film is really just Shakespeare in a way, and how relieving it is when a teacher shows up in a school play. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen all of the films or none of the films, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster”, “Funny how?”, “Now go home & get your fuckin' shinebox!” Goodfellas is not bereft of iconic moments. • It’s one of those films, along with Scarface, that I’ve found a lot of blokes who aren’t massively into films love. Speak to any Tom, Mick or Darren and ask them what film they like watching when they’re knocking back cans of Tenants Super before going out on the lash, they will likely mention Goodfellas. • But it also has the critics’ adoration. The film is hailed as an all time classic of cinema, the high point of Martin Scorcese’s storied career, and the definitive cinematic look at organized crime in the US. But is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of my own coke-addled, coiffured trophy wife, Tiffany B. Through our exploration of the film we chatted about angsty teen rebels, not liking things that gangsters don’t like, and why Road to Perdition is a better gangster film. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen all of the films or none of the films, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
I love love, I’ll make no excuses for it. I love romantic films. I love seeing two hot people fall in love and be all cool and fun and sexy and then do a kiss. It’s like sports films: the formula is so well worn because it’s fantastic when it all works. • One of cinema’s most enduring love stories is that between Jesse and Celine in the Before Trilogy. Told over 3 films and 18 years, the story tells of them meeting, and chatting, and meeting, and chatting, and there’s a boat at one point. Basically they love to talk and they love each other. • The trilogy is part of the Criterion Collection, which lets you know how worthy and fancy it is. To quote the CC website: “Attuned to the sweeping grandeur of time’s passage as well as the evanescence of individual moments, the Before films chart the progress of romantic destiny as it navigates the vicissitudes of ordinary life”. Yeah, but are they any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of someone just as romantic as I, but sometimes a little more eye-roll-ish at rom coms, Tiffany B. Through our exploration of all 3 films in this one podcast, we chatted about how women and men have biologically-enforced personalities, the wonderful work of Ariane Labed, and a cruel cinematic April Fool’s joke. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen all of the films or none of the films, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
Some films have premises that are so outlandish you have to check whether they’re science fiction. This film, the latest from Short Term 12 director Destin Daniel Cretton, focuses on a black man who sits on death row, having been wrongly convicted of murder. And yet there’s no laser guns or hover bikes. Go figure. • Released last year, it’s based on the memoirs of lawyer Bryan Stevenson, a man who has dedicated his life to fighting injustice for people on death row and who will make you feel much less proud of what you’ve managed to achieve in your life to date. But is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of our resident literary expert Tiffany B, so she can tell me why the book is SO MUCH BETTER OH MY GOD. Through our exploration, we chatted about mustaches that can stop traffic, Alabama being a dystopia and being so against the death penalty that you’ll kill anyone who disagrees with you. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
After a long delay due to illness, we are back, to pay a debt. I won our Oscar prediction contest, and as such got to pick the next film that we’d watch and do a Flix on. So I picked Tron Legacy, because I’m a good husband. • Tron Legacy is the 2010 sequel to the groundbreaking 1982 original, starring Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, Garrett Hedlund and Daft Punk’s incredible soundtrack. • With Disney+ being unleashed unto the world, it’s the perfect time to revisit this ‘classic’ (legally I have to put the inverted commas there), and ask myself, after many years of listening to the soundtrack but not watching the film, is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of a woman who fell asleep when we first went to see the film in the cinema, Tiffany B. Through our exploration, we chatted about euphemisms for nerd, people railing against God for abandoning them, and Daft Punk’s sideline as lullaby writers. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
The Oscars are imminent, and like previous years Tiffany B and I have been busily watching as many of the contenders as we could. And we’ve done a really good job, you guys. Seriously, you should be proud of us. • And what we found was… much like previous years. The Academy has held resolutely to their long held opinions that women can’t direct, if a film makes you laugh too much it has to be disqualified, and if any film celebrates the magic of Hollywood then it has to be nominated for Best Picture. • For each category Tiffany and I share what we think will win, what we’d like to win and, for the big ones, who we would have liked to be nominated and who that snub would replace. There’s maybe more opinions in this episode than any Flix we’ve yet done, and I had a blast doing it. • There are only the mildest of mild spoilers for a couple of films, so you can listen without fear that we’ll spoil the ending of Corpus Christi or For Sama. • Cheers!
#Flix 139: Cats aka “That moment will stay with me" • I’ll start this by saying I’m more of a dog man, myself. My own dog, Baxter, is one of the purest sources of joy in my life, so I’m going to be a little biased against a film centered on his natural enemies. • I’d seen the trailer to Cats, I’d read some reviews, I’d felt the brow of the world furrow with confusion. I knew what I was going into when I bought a ticket for Tom Hooper’s latest. But I’m a man who believes that people who pass judgement on films they haven’t seen are cowards, and if I wanted to have an opinion, I needed to witness this cinematic curiosity. But we all know what curiosity did to Cats. • I am a man who had loved films that the critics hated. This podcast is built upon opinion being king, and opinion is deeply personal. So I went in with a mind as open as I could muster. But did I like it? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of a woman who loves dogs maybe even more than I, Tiffany B, to chat about words that rhyme with 'bookcase', BBC’s new can’t miss reality show, and feline witness protection. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
Martin Scorsese dissed Marvel films last year. Dissed them hard. Luckily for him, as much as I am a ride-or-die MCU fan, I’m also professional AF, so I was able to put my personal feelings to one side when discussing his new pile of bullshit, The Irishman. • Telling the story of a professional hitman, the film covers decades in the life of Frank Sheeran, utilizing top notch de-aging technology to allow Robert De Niro to play him at all ages. The technology is also used in a lot of Marvel films, and used a lot better IMO, but that’s neither here nor there. • It’s been nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. But is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of a woman who is allergic to films over two and a half hours, Tiffany B, to chat about Hulk Hogan, riding feminist horses so long you get saddle sore, and challenging Robert de Niro to a fist fight. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
We’re living in a time where the rich are super duper rich, and the poor are crazy poor. It’s a sad state of affairs that doesn’t get explored a huge amount through film, not least of which because a lot of the studio executives that green light these films are part of the super duper rich club, and they don’t tend to come off too well when this kind of thing is brought up. • Cue Parasite, a film from the director of The Host, Snowpiercer, and that Netflix film from a couple of years ago about the genetically modified super pig. This film delves into the wealth gap, but takes the wonderful choice to make it just as funny as it is depressing. • It won the Rotten Tomatoes Award for being the best reviewed film of 2019, which is high praise indeed. But what did I think? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of our resident expert on the subtleties of the Korean class system, Tiffany B, to chat about being simultaneously confused and impressed by symbolism, the longest morse code message in history, and how some actresses are just so damn park. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
There were thousands of films released between 2010 and 2019. Thousands. What kind of monster would ask his friends to pick their favourite 3 of them? Sorry, what kind of monster with two thumbs would ask his friends to pick their favourite 3 of them? This guy! • Tiffany B, Jen, Sara and I sat around on NYE to discuss these picks, and revel in a decade of wonderful cinematic delights. • All of the discussions are spoiler-free, so you can listen worry-free. In fact, it seems like there’s not really any reason at all to not listen. So stick it in your ears! • Cheers!
2019, eh? What a great year for film. Except if you’re reading this historically, in which case… 2019, eh? The year Disney plunged the dagger into the heart of the cinema industry with their monopolising of family entertainment. What a terrible year for film! • In the midst of this though, there were some incredible films released. Who am I kidding? You’ve listened to the previous episodes, you know that Disney films were front and center for me, I’m suckling at the teat, they’ve got me hooked on their cinematic heroin already. But beyond that, and beyond me, what other films would people pick as their absolute top three of the year? • Tiffany B, Jen, Sara and I sat around on NYE to discuss these picks, and revel in a year of wonderful cinematic delights. • All of the discussions are spoiler-free, so you can listen worry-free. In fact, it seems like there’s not really any reason at all to not listen. So stick it in your ears! • Cheers!
Star Wars is done and we’ll never get another film from this franchise. That’s the cold hard facts of the matter and I can’t help you if you don’t believe me. All we have to remember this 42 year old franchise is this, the third installment of the 3rd trilogy that makes it the ninth film overall but only if you don’t count Rogue One or Solo. • It had the tough job of chronologically following the most divisive Star Wars film of all time, The Last Jedi, a film loved by critics, liked by most fans, disliked by some other fans, and hated with the burning passion of a thousand exploding suns by a small minority of mouth breathers. So how do you follow that? How do you make everyone happy? By bringing in JJ Abrams. Again. • So far, it hasn’t worked, as the critics have not taken to it in the same was as they did with The Last Jedi. But screw the critics, what did I think? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of someone who’s even more passionate about the Wars of Star than I, annual Flixer Aaron, to chat about Kylo Ren being emo, Adam Driver making a bargain with the fine people at ILM and the cutest Star Wars buddy movie coming to Disney+ soon. • There's a spoiler-free section (as if you haven’t seen it already), followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
The more I hear about Nazis, the less I like them. Just bloody numpties, aren’t they? All that hating? And murdering? And wanting to bring about a golden age of blonde people when they’re being led by a brunette? Yeah, not for me thanks. Smell you later, Nazis! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out! Or rather, maybe do! • Taika Waititi agrees with me. The writer/director of Thor Ragnarok, What We Do In The Shadows and Boy (which I would definitely recommend) has decided to officially join the anti-Nazi brigade by making a film all about them, and without delving into spoilers too deeply, they don’t come off too well. The story of a young Nazi boy who wants desperately to join the Hitler Youth, and is encouraged to do so by his imaginary friend who looks like Adolf Hitler, Jojo Rabbit is a comedic satire of the 1940s (and maybe, if you look hard enough, today). • Some people have heralded it as a highlight of the year, others have dismissed it as an anemic criticism of National Socialism. But what did I think? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of someone who’s just as firmly anti-Nazi as Taika and I, Tiffany B, to chat about cute kids, disliking the quality of being deliberately annoying, and wanting people to be Jewisher. • There's a spoiler-free section (even though the film came out over 40 years ago), followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
And as Halloween draws to a close (a couple of weeks ago) we at Flix bid a joyous farewell to films designed to scare the bejesus out of you for another year. To commemorate the end of the season, I decided to go out with a bang and watch a film described by many as the scariest of all time. • The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a 1974 film co-written and directed by Tobe Hooper. It follows the adventures of a quintet of young people as they venture off the beaten path in rural Texas, and meet some of the locals. But will the locals be happy and welcoming, or nasty and murdery? The answer may surprise you. • It’s held up as a classic by critics and audiences alike, but is it any good? I mean, it’s from ages ago, so probably sucky, right? Not a patch on the remakes? Right? Guys? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of someone who’s just as excited to be rid of Halloween, Tiffany B, to chat about concern for Marilyn Burns, the downsides of shooting for 30 hours straight and being shocked at outstanding old man makeup. • There's a spoiler-free section (even though the film came out over 40 years ago), followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
It’s Halloween, which means the scary films come out to play. I am, as has been well documented, a baby when it comes to matters of horror, so the Scream franchise appeals to me greatly. Horror-lite, if you will. • So I decided, to celebrate the witching season, to review all of them. All four of these blood-soaked, self-referential, metafictional bastards. There’s a lot of implausible murders, a lot of tips of the hat to other films, and a lot of dead teens. • But are they any good? Have these 90s staples held up to today’s scrutiny, or are they lost to the rubbish heap along with Blockbuster, floppy disks and that screensaver that was a maze? • To help me decide, I enlisted my fellow horrorphobe, Tiffany B, to chat the saga of Gale and Dewey, Ursula the Sea Witch and the most valuable papers in existence. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
Ok fine. You’ve all been clamouring to hear what the official Flix word on Joker was. I get it. It’s a film that has dominated movie discussions ever since it was announced, and will continue to do so. There were several stages to this: • The film is announced: “A Joker origin story? Wha?” The first image is released: “No purple and green? Wha?” The trailer is released: “This actually looks pretty amazing. Wha?” The first reviews come in: “It might inspire angry young white people to commit atrocities when historically they’ve needed no such inspiration? Wha?" The film wins the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival: “So this is this year’s Roma? Wha?" • But as we all know, there can be no true discussion of this film without Flix getting in on it. So here we are and here it be. Is this film worth all the hype? • To help me decide, I enlisted the funniest person I know, Tiffany B, to chat clowns, misery and a subtle smokey eye. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
I don’t dig on horror films too much. The feeling of terror is one that carries none of the thrill it does for others. Terror is terror, and should be avoided like phone conversations and gin based cocktails. But for reasons that escape me, I found myself drawn to It when it came out in 2017. The trailer was great, the clown stuff is creepy, and I was rewarded with a top notch film. Scary, sure, but rooted in character and meaning. • So now we’ve got the 2nd installment, where the kids I grew to know in the first one have now become Hollywood adults. All of them. Even the weird one who didn’t leave their home town is played by the Old Spice guy. • But as we all know, attractive people don’t necessarily make films good. I mean look at Ocean’s 12. So is this worth your while? • To help me decide, and give me strength, I enlisted the help of Tiffany B, someone I know is even more of a fraidy cat than I am. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
As a man terrified of death, I often find myself drawn to cinematic examinations of it. If I stare into the abyss (with my hand held tight by a great movie) for long enough, then maybe I’ll start to see some comforting logic unfurl to soothe me on this bleak and meaningless rock hurtling through space. • One of the things that helps push back the darkness is my love of bao. I love the cloud-like dough, I love the intensely tasty insides, and I love that they fit neatly in your hand. I love bao. Especially on screen. No other food will make me food horny quicker. • So to find this, a film that deals with mortality, and also is set amongst a Chinese family which means that delicious-looking food is never far away, is a rare treat indeed. But, bao aside, is it any good? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of Tiffany B, someone else who both gives my life meaning and makes me food horny. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
It’s always trepidatious jumping into a film series after the first one. Will I be able to keep up? Will there be plot points that don’t make sense to me? In the case of Hobbs and Shaw however, technically the 9th installment in the car-based Fast and the Furious series, I think I might be ok. • It’s The Rock and Jason Statham saving the world through punching. There are still cars, but much more emphasis on the aforementioned punching. Men, cars, robots. There’s nothing these guys can’t punch. But is the high level of punchery indicative of a high level of quality? • To help me decide, I enlisted the help of a woman as fast as she is furious, Tiffany B, and a couple of Flix first-timers, Jen and Sara. Because who better to review the latest film in a series aimed at the teenage boy in all of us than 2 married couples who’ve seen hardly any of the preceding films? • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
He’s a pervert, occasionally abusive to women, puts actors in danger and I’m confident that if I spent more than 10 minutes in his company I’d find him to be a little much, but god dammit Quentin Tarantino knows how to throw a film together. • From his attention grabbing debut with Reservoir Dogs, his films have always had energy and controversy and Sam Jackson. His latest, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, has no Jackson, and plenty of controversy. But is it any good? • To help me decide, I grabbed Tiffany B, got her to pop her shoes off, stared at her bum for a bit, then cut her ear off and got chatting. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
4th films are often pants. For every Rocky IV or Fury Road, there's an X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Catcher, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or even, god help us, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. • It's a long list of crud, that many film franchises have avoided being on simply by sticking with 3 films. But not Toy Story. They said 'to hell with it, no one's asked for this, everyone loves the original trilogy, but we're so confident with these characters that we're going to wheel them out for a number 4’. • Was it a terrible idea? Is the film more Thunderball than Endgame (which is technically the 4th Avengers film)? Tiffany B joins me to work out whether the film is FOURmiddable or FOURgettable. • Cheers!
My wife and I went to a bar with our dog, Baxter, and got into a conversation about the best Disney songs of all time. It was a typical, fun, light-hearted conversation that many people might have. And then I went and ruined it. I grabbed my bag, grabbed the dog, grabbed my wife and ran home. I knew, in my heart of hearts, that this conversation would make a fun little 30-minute episode of Flix. We made our picks, we had some laughs, and because we'd had a couple of drinks, we were both absolutely fine with singing. So listen to this podcast, tell us what YOUR GoldSilverBronze of Disney songs is, and be thankful you're not married to someone who will yank you out of a fun night out to run home and record a podcast. Listen and love!
And then Endgame finished, and I caught my breath, dabbed myself dry from tears and other stuff and pondered to myself: "What's next?” • Well, it's this. Spider-Man: Far From Home. It's the film with the unenviable task of following the 2nd biggest film of all time, at a time when it's still fresh in people's minds (indeed in certain places people can still watch it in cinemas). And how do you follow such a behemoth? Well, by bringing in Jake Gyllenhaal, because when has that ever been a bad idea? Aside from Prince of Persia. • To provide the level headed response to such a film, and to comfort me through the fact that, having seen this film, I find myself in an MCU desert, where no other films have been confirmed in their release dates so I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO ANYMORE, is Tiffany B, the true hero in all of this. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
A review: • "SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human—working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it's my job—and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car. It is 146 minutes long, which means that I entered the theater in the bloom of youth and emerged with a family of field mice living in my long, white mustache. This is an entirely inappropriate length for what is essentially a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls" - Lindy West • But it can't be THAT bad, can it? To help me decide, I enlist the help of the best woman I know, Tiffany B, to see if the women presented in this film are worthy of the feminist labels they've been carrying around since 1998. • There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! • Cheers!
Ok guys, here it is. It feels as though my life has been building to this film for some time now, and to have seen it and experienced it now leaves me somewhat deflated. No need to look forward to it anymore, because I've seen it. I feel like someone emerging from a nuclear fallout shelter to gaze out upon a decimated planet and wondering, "now what?" If you'd like to put a smile on my face, to give me some level of meaning in this meaningless desert, you could do a lot worse than listening to this. It's me roping my wonderful wife Tiffany B into chatting about Endgame with me, and discussing its pros and cons. We laugh, we ponder, we get angry, and we get emotional (Tiffany keeps her shit together, I do not). Give me 90 minutes of your time, on a commute, on a morning walk, or when you're having a deep bath. Show me that life AE (after Endgame) is worth living. There's a spoiler-free section, followed by a spoiler-filled, so if you've seen the film or not, there's something for you to listen to! Cheers!
Typical. You wait for decades for a decent Captain Marvel film, and two come along in a few months! But this is, of course, nothing to do with Marvel's Brie Larson-starring behemoth. No, this is DC's Zachary Levi-starring hopefully behemoth, a film that hopes to emulate the empowerment young women felt when watching their Captain Marvel destroy spaceships without breaking a sweat, and empower young men to have the confidence to foil muggings, busk and fake their way into buying beer. Higher faster further indeed. Whether you've seen it or not, there's something for you, so have a listen!
It takes a lot to get Tiffany B and I excited about a horror film. There've been scant examples of us actually leaving the house in order to see something that's deliberately setting out to scare us. Us was one of those films. We'd seen Get Out and loved it, we'd seen a crackerjack trailer and loved it, we also watched some Key and Peele and really enjoyed it even though there was a strong likelihood that it would have zero bearing on the film. Did we go in with expectations too high? Maybe. But a lot of the early reviews seemed to suggest that expectations couldn't possibly be too high. Get 'em higher, the reviews seemed to suggest. And so, with expectations grazing the clouds, we plunged into the world of rabbits and jump suits and those bloody golden scissors. Whether you've seen it or not, there's something for you, so why wouldn't you have a cheeky listen on the way to work? Listen and love!
D-U-M-B-O! D-U-M-B-O! D-U-M-B-O! D-U-M-B-O! He's D! Directed by Tim Burton. He's U! Unlikely to win an Oscar. He's M! Mixed reviews. He's B! Blessed with a pretty great cast. He's OoooooooOOOOOOooooooo! Tiffany B joins me to find out whether cinema's favourite pachyderm is worth all the pachydough they spent on the film. Whether you've seen it or not, there's something for you, so why wouldn't you have a cheeky listen on the way to work? Listen and love!
The MCU is back. After what seemed like years of time but was actually closer to 8 months, we are back in the comforting bosom of the multi-billion dollar grossing behemoth. Marvel have done that Marvel thing of grabbing a director (or in this case, pair of directors) whose largest film to date cost the same as the average Marvel wig budget, and told them that as long as they bring a keen eye for characterisation and moments of nuance in amongst the destruction, that the crazy action will kind of take care of itself. And so it is Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden who have been brought into the limelight, along with their star, Brie Larson, to wage a war on the Skrulls, on Thanos, and on insecure arseholes on the internet who can't help but equate a female-led superhero film with their own castration. It's a tough job, but as someone who's married to someone like me, I know that women are pretty comfortable with tough jobs. That tough-job-haver herself, Tiffany B, joins me here to add her opinion, and her adoration of Annette Bening. Whether you've seen the film or not, we've got something for you. Listen and love!
Most of the time you watch films and they’re in the right language, but then sometimes the film is in another language and you have to read the film. It’s tricky, because you can’t look at people’s faces as much as you’d like because you’re looking at the bottom of the screen where the writing is. Sounds rubbish, right? But here’s the thing. Some people love them! Some people love them so much in fact that they nominate them for the Best Picture at the Oscars! Outrageous, right? They’re not even in English! Roma is one such film. Alfonso Cuaron’s black and white ode to his childhood maid/housekeeper/servant is making every reviewer in the world kiss it’s butt with big, vague lips. Is it all that and bag of tortilla chips? To find out, I enlisted the help of MY housekeeper Tiffany B. I felt her insight would be SO important in this endeavour. #representation Listen and love!
Newsflash guys: Back in the bad old days, people didn't like each other simply because of the colour of their skin. They looked at the amount of melanin in that person's skin, and if it disagreed with their paint colour chart, they were super mean to them, up to and including murdering them. That kind of mean. Obviously that never happens anymore because we're all cleverer than that, but that's why we're so lucky that films like Green Book are made, to remind us of how racist people were when the film was set... I want to say 250 years ago? To decide whether this film, starring MAhershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, was any good I chatted with the biggest Mahershalady (it's what his fans call themselves maybe) Tiffany B. Listen and love!
I needed an oasis of geekery in the midst of all the award season movies. I put up the geeky signal into the sky, and Aaron Sosa swooped in to save the day. Here, we detail which films have piqued our curiosity, which we're not too fussed about, and which film we're not sure will even be released. Listen and love! And let us know which films YOU'RE looking forward to this year!
A lot of people's gods don't like gay people. It's strange to think of an omnipotent deity concerned with where you like to put your tongues and hands and gonads. Seems like there'd be bigger fish to fry. But sure enough, a lot of people's personal gods just find it abhorrent to lay with another of your own gender. For those looking to make the change for gay to not gay, helpful people provide camps where you can go to rid yourself of the compulsion to do naughty things with naughty parts that look like your naughty parts. And I assume they're all happy places, right? Because people are getting closer to god? Or does it not generally work out that way? Well, you can find out in Boy Erased! I'm joined by my wife, Tiffany B, to discuss the film, and by necessity religion in general. It's a real positive discussion, honest. Listen and love!
Power struggles. Fancy costumes. Very well spoken meanness. All these are hallmarks of period dramas. But along comes a film like The Favourite (check the spelling, yanks), which dares to step away from convention in two main areas. 1 - This film is funny. 2 - The leads are... WOMEN! I know. Not content with taking our jobs, taking our Senate seats, and taking our balls, now they've come for flouncy costumes and being funny. THOSE WERE OUR THINGS, YOU XX CHROMOSOME ARSEHOLES! Still, it'll keep Tiffany B happy at least. Whether you've seen The Favourite or not (and you should, it's won Golden Globes now), this is an appropriate podcast for you to listen to. At least the beginning! Listen and Love!
Aquaman, Aquaman, does whatever an Aqua can Talks to fish, they're his allies Can rock the boat, make it capsize Look out! Here comes an Aquamaaaan. Is Aquaman terrible? Does something smell a bit FISHy with the film's quality? Is it a wasted opporTUNAty? Do the filmmakers need to go back to SCHOOL? Should they have left the filmmaking to SALMON else? Is it just a load of CARP? Are they GILLty of making a bad film? Is it a SOLEless mess? Is it aTROUTcious? Or are these just FISHious rumours and it's actually good? To help me find out, I'm joined by my own little mermaid, Tiffany B. Listen and love!
I wish I may I wish I might On this star I wish tonight I want some things from films in 2019 I want them now I want them all and I don't care how Merry Christmas!
How many Spider-Men is too many Spider-Men? We've already seen 3 separate cinematic Peter Parkers swing and web and suffer and chafe since 2002, and in that time we've all become pretty well versed in the trials, tribulations and travails of the wall crawler. So how to bring out another Spidey film without it seeming rote and played out? You have a Spider-Man film that isn't about Peter Parker! Yeah, Peter shows up anyway (3 different Peter Parkers in fact), but the familiar story beats are swept through and rejiggered in a way that give you a different angle on the classic character. But this isn't Peter's film. It's Miles Morales' time to shine. But how shiny is he? To discuss, I am joined by the supercool Spider-Gwen to my genetically altered pig, Tiffany B. Listen and love!
Feminism. What's it all about REALLY? Is it a vindictive plot to emasculate the male population with snide comments and the wiggling of little fingers? Is it an attempt for them all to gain access to our bathrooms so they can ogle us when we drop our trousers and underwear to our ankles when we wee in a urinal? Or is it, as Steve McQueen asserts in Widows, his latest movie, women having to clear up after men have made lots of mistakes? As a man who is currently on a 32-year hot streak of making mistakes, I have to say I'm not too upset if that last one is true. Starring Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez, and co-written by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Widows tells the story of a group of women forced to pull of a heist to steal the money to cover the debts their criminal husbands died with. Joining me to discuss this is the clearer of the bulk of my mistakes, Tiffany B. That's right, a woman on a podcast! Welcome to the future, fellas! Listen and love!
It's a testament to the power and importance of Stan Lee, that even I, an absolute nobody making a movie podcast that no-one listens to, feels the need to pay tribute to him in some way. This is what I came up with. Joining me, as ever, is the Joan Lee to my Stan Lee, Tiffany B, who gamely suffers through my fanboying in silence, as is her role in these podcasts sometimes. Listen and love!
Guns are obviously awesome. They look exciting, they sound loud, and you can spin them around like a cowboy and put them in a holster and you look like the coolest person in the world. The issue with them, and something that a lot of people overlook, is that using a small explosion to propel a chunk of metal at incredible speeds can also be quite dangerous, because if the aforementioned chunk of metal comes into contact with something softer than it, like human bones or human organs or human skin, then it'll just smash right through them. In some extreme cases, when the metal smashes through these key components of human beings, the human being struggle to be alive anymore. Which is a long winded way of saying that I don't know how to make an introduction of a film about a policeman shooting an unarmed black man funny, so maybe it can just be weird. Joining me is Tiffany B, who will endeavour with me to make the actual podcast discussion interesting and not depressing. I spew vitriol about teenage girls for a while, so that's something! Listen and love!
Tiffany B loves gothic horror stories. So to redress the balance caused by dozens of comic book films, sometimes it's nice to dive into the world of top hats, formality, grisly murder, and ghosts. And this one's made by Guillermo del Toro! It can't possibly be bad, right? Join Tiffany B and myself as we delve into this rich visual feast and work out whether it goes bump in the night, or yawn in the early afternoon. Listen and love!
Spider-Man may well be my favourite character in all of fiction. I carry a lot of love for that awkward teenage klutz. And a decent amount of love filters through osmosis to his supporting cast, including Mr Venom. He is arguably the most famous rogue in Spidey's extensive and celebrated gallery. But can he stand up on his own? Or without Peter Parker, is he just a pile of goop on the floor? To answer this, I enlist the help of my very own She-Venom, Tiffany B. Listen and love!
Isn't it strange to watch a film featuring widespread racism in this day and age? I can barely remember people being racist, and I'm old. Luckily for us, Spike Lee comes through to remind us of the bad old times, and the progress we've all made as a species, with this historical document of black people not having the best time of it against the terrors of the Coo Clucks Clan. Listen and love!
When will it end? When will you be sufficiently entertained? When will Tom Cruise get to stop trying to kill himself? When is enough enough for you monsters? Just let him rest.
Netflix is a hassle sometimes. If it only gave you a choice of 8 films to watch at any given time, you'd watch a ton of stuff you'd never heard of before, and choose what you wanted really quickly. But it shows you 8,000 films and asks you to wade through them to find the gem you want. But then sometimes, as you're sweeping through like a searchlight looking for escaped prisoners, you come across something that you haven't seen in ages but have very fond memories of. And then you ask your wife if she's seen it, and she says no, and so you press play and you watch it and then you record a podcast about it, and then you post it and write a thing about it and you kind of run out of ideas but if you just keep typing it'll make sense eventually, right? RIGHT?!
Tiffany B encouraged me, I think knowing how cool I am, to catalogue every rating I had given to films through Flix and my instagram account. I did it, I loved it, and I wanted to talk about it, because there's some odd decisions in there. It's not my place to judge past Dan, but I think maybe I'll lay off the hooch before reviewing things in future.
We live in a funny world. We live in a world where a film has been made about Ant-Man (both the Scott Lang and Hank Pym incarnations), the Wasp, Goliath, Ghost, Sonny Burch and Agent Jimmy Woo. There is no character too obscure for the MCU to sweep up in their all-encompassing sperm whale-esque hoovering of comic book history. I'm sitting in wait for Armless Tiger Man to show up in one of them, but until then, I must content myself with this, the 20th installment in the feature-length, multi-million dollar TV series called the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Will it be the first stinker? Probably not, but maybe. We've got 11 minutes of spoiler-free chat for all the Brits who have to wait until August to see it (thanks, World Cup) and plenty more spoiler-filled chat for everyone else in the world. Listen and love!
It's not 2004 anymore. There's a lot of great superhero films out there. So what can Brad Bird do to keep The Incredibles at the top of the pile? We try to ramble as little as possible here, which leads to a tight 40 minutes of chat. If you haven't seen the film yet, there's still some for you! But if you have seen it and want to discuss (or rather, listen to others discuss) the finer points of this film, listen on! Listen and love!