Podcasts about Branagh

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this wrap-up episode, we reflect on our journey through Shakespeare's King Henry V by examining three distinct productions that bring the play to life in unique ways. We begin with Kenneth Branagh's 1989 Oscar-nominated film adaptation, renowned for its realism and cinematic approach. Next, we delve into the 2022 Donmar Warehouse production starring Kit Harington, which frames Henry's leadership through a modern lens. Finally, we discuss the 2012 Shakespeare's Globe production with Jamie Parker, which offers a more traditional yet energetic take on the play. By comparing these interpretations, we explore how different directorial choices and performances can influence our understanding of the play's themes, characters, and historical context. Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander. For updates: join our email list, follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod or visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com You can support the podcast by becoming a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone, buying us coffee, or by shopping our bookshelves at bookshop.org/shop/shakespeareanyonepod (we earn a small commission when you use our link and shop bookshop.org). Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree. Works referenced: Branagh, Kenneth, director. Henry V. Performance by Derek Jacobi, et al., Curzon Film Distributors, Ltd., Samuel Goldwyn Company, CBS Fox Video, 1989. Shakespeare, William. Henry V. National Theatre Live, https://www.ntathome.com/henry-v. Accessed 2025. Shakespeare, William. Henry V (2012). Shakespeare's Globe, 2013, https://player.shakespearesglobe.com/productions/henry-v-2012/. Accessed 2025.

I was delighted to talk to the historian Helen Castor (who writes The H Files by Helen Castor) about her new book The Eagle and the Hart. I found that book compulsive, and this is one of my favourite interviews so far. We covered so much: Dickens, Melville, Diana Wynne Jones, Hilary Mantel, whether Edward III is to blame for the Wars of the Roses, why Bolingbroke did the right thing, the Paston Letters, whether we should dig up old tombs for research, leaving academia, Elizabeth I, and, of course, lots of Shakespeare. There is a full transcript below.Henry: Is there anything that we fundamentally know about this episode in history that Shakespeare didn't know?Helen: That's an extremely good question, and I'm tempted now to say no.Helen told me what is hardest to imagine about life in the fourteenth century.I think it's relatively easy to imagine a small community or even a city, because we can imagine lots of human beings together, but how relationships between human beings happen at a distance, not just in terms of writing a letter to someone you know, but how a very effective power structure happens across hundreds of miles in the absence of those things is the thing that has always absolutely fascinated me about the late Middle Ages. I think that's because it's hard, for me at least, to imagine.Good news to any publishers reading this. Helen is ready and willing to produce a complete edition of the Paston Letters. They were a bestseller when they were published a hundred years ago, but we are crying out for a complete edition in modern English.Henry: If someone wants to read the Paston Letters, but they don't want to read Middle English, weird spelling, et cetera, is there a good edition that they can use?Helen: Yes, there is an Oxford World's Classic. They're all selected. There isn't a complete edition in modern spelling. If any publishers are listening, I would love to do one. Henry: Yes, let's have it.Helen: Let's have it. I would really, really love to do that.Full TranscriptHenry: Today I am talking to the historian, Helen Castor. Helen is a former fellow of Sydney Sussex College in Cambridge. She has written several books of history. She is now a public historian, and of course, she has a Substack. The H Files by Helen CastorWe are going to talk mostly about her book, The Eagle and the Hart, which is all about Richard II and Henry IV. I found this book compulsive, so I hope you will read it too. Helen, welcome.Helen: Thank you very much for having me, Henry.Henry: You recently read Bleak House.Helen: I did.Henry: What did you think?Helen: I absolutely loved it. It was a long time since I'd read any Dickens. I read quite a lot when I was young. I read quite a lot of everything when I was young and have fallen off that reader's perch, much to my shame. The first page, that description of the London fog, the London courts, and I thought, "Why have I not been doing it for all these years?"Then I remembered, as so often with Dickens, the bits I love and the bits I'm less fond of, the sentimentality, the grotesquerie I'm less fond of, but the humour and the writing. There was one bit that I have not been able to read then or any of the times I've tried since without physically sobbing. It's a long time since a book has done that to me. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it, but--Henry: I'm sure I know what you mean. That's quite a sentimental passage.Helen: It is, but not sentimental in the way that I find myself objecting to. I think I really respond viscerally to this sentimentalising of some of his young women characters. I find that really off-putting, but I think now I'm a parent, and particularly I'm a parent of a boy [laughter]. I think it's that sense of a child being completely alone with no one to look after them, and then finding some people, but too late for a happy ending.Henry: Too late.Helen: Yes.Henry: You've been reading other classic novels, I think, Moby Dick?Helen: I'm in the middle of Moby Dick as we speak. I'm going very slowly, partly because I'm trying to savour every sentence. I love the sentence so much as a form. Melville is just astonishing, and also very, very funny in a way I hadn't expected to keep laughing out loud, sometimes because there is such humour in a sentence.Sometimes I'm just laughing because the sentence itself seems to have such audacity and that willingness to go places with sentences that sometimes I feel we've lost in the sort of sense of rules-based sentences instead of just sticking a semicolon and keep going. Why not, because it's so gorgeous and full of the joy of language at that point? Anyway, I'm ranting now, but--Henry: No, I think a lot of rules were instituted in the early 20th century that said you can and cannot do all these things, and writers before that point had not often followed those rules. I think what it has led to is that writers now, they can't really control a long sentence, in the sense that Melville and Dickens will do a long sentence, and it is a syntactically coherent thing, even though it's 60, 70 longer words. It's not just lots of stuff, and then, and then. The whole thing has got a beautiful structure that makes sense as a unit. That's just not obvious in a lot of writing now.Helen: I think that's exactly right. Partly, I've been reading some of the Melville out loud, and having just got onto the classification of whales, you can see I'm going very slowly. Those sentences, which are so long, but it's exactly that. If you read them out loud, and you follow the sense, and the punctuation, however irregular it might be in modern terms, gives you the breathing, you just flow on it, and the excitement of that, even or perhaps especially when one is talking about the classification of whales. Just joyful.Henry: Will we be seeing more very long sentences in your next book?Helen: I think I have to get a bit better at it. The habit that I was conscious of anyway, but became acutely so when I had to read my own audiobook for the first time is that I think I write in a very visual way. That is how I read because mostly it's silent.I discovered or rediscovered that often what I do when I want to write a very long sentence is I start the sentence and then I put a diversion or extra information within em dashes in the middle of the sentence. That works on the page because you can see spatially. I love that way of reading, I love seeing words in space.A lot of different kinds of text, both prose and poetry, I read in space like that. If you're reading to be heard, then the difficulty of breaking into a sentence with, whether it's brackets or em dashes or whatever, and then rejoining the sentence further down has its own challenges. Perhaps I ought to try and do less of that and experiment more with a Melvillian Dickensian onward flow. I don't know what my editor will think.Henry: What has brought you back to reading novels like this?Helen: I was wondering that this morning, actually, because I'm very aware having joined Substack, and of course, your Substack is one of the ones that is leading me further in this direction, very inspiringly, is discovering that lots of other people are reading and reading long novels now too. It reminded me of that thing that anyone with children will know that you have a baby and you call it something that you think only you have thought of, and then four years later, you call and you discover half the class is called that name. You wonder what was in the water that led everybody in that direction.I've just seen someone tweet this morning about how inspired they are by the builder next door who, on the scaffolding, is blasting the audiobook Middlemarch to the whole neighborhood.Henry: Oh my god. Amazing.Helen: It's really happening. Insofar as I can work out what led me as opposed to following a group, which clearly I am in some sense, I think the world at the moment is so disquieting, and depressing, and unnerving, that I think for me, there was a wish to escape into another world and another world that would be very immersive, not removed from this world completely. One that is very recognizably human.I think when I was younger, when I was in my teens and 20s, I loved reading science fiction and fantasy before it was such a genre as it is now. I'm a huge fan of Diana Wynne Jones and people like that.Henry: Oh, my god, same. Which one is your favorite?Helen: Oh, that is an impossible question to answer, partly because I want to go back and read a lot of them. Actually, I've got something next to me, just to get some obscurity points. I want to go back to Everard's Ride because there is a story in here that is based on the King's square. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but early 15th century, the story of the imprisoned King of Scotland when he was in prison in England. That one's in my head.The Dalemark Quartet I love because of the sort of medieval, but then I love the ones that are pure, more science fantasy. Which is your favorite? Which should I go back to first?Henry: I haven't read them all because I only started a couple of years ago. I just read Deep Secret, and I thought that was really excellent. I was in Bristol when I read it quite unwittingly. That was wonderful.Helen: Surrounded by Diana Wynne Jones' land. I only discovered many years into an obsession that just meant that I would read every new one while there were still new ones coming out. I sat next to Colin Burrow at a dinner in--Henry: Oh my god.Helen: I did sort of know that he was her son, but monstered him for the whole time, the whole course of sitting together, because I couldn't quite imagine her in a domestic setting, if you like, because she came up with all these extraordinary worlds. I think in days gone by, I went into more obviously imaginary worlds. I think coming back to it now, I wanted something big and something that I really could disappear into. I've been told to read Bleak House for so many decades and felt so ashamed I hadn't. Having done that, I thought, "Well, the whale."Henry: Have you read Diana Wynne Jones' husband's books, John Burrow? Because that's more in your field.Helen: It is, although I'm ashamed to say how badly read I am in medieval literary scholarship. It's weird how these academic silos can operate, shouldn't, probably don't for many, many people. I always feel I'm on horribly thin ground, thin ice when I start talking about medieval literature because I know how much scholarship is out there, and I know how much I haven't read. I must put John Burrow on my list as well.Henry: He's very readable. He's excellent.Helen: I think I can imagine, but I must go into it.Henry: Also, his books are refreshingly short. Your husband is a poet, so there's a lot of literature in your life at the moment.Helen: There is. When we met, which was 10 years ago-- Again, I don't think of myself as knowledgeable about poetry in general, but what was wonderful was discovering how much we had in common in the writing process and how much I could learn from him. To me, one of the things that has always been extremely important in my writing is the sentence, the sound of a sentence, the rhythm of a sentence folded into a paragraph.I find it extremely hard to move on from a paragraph if it's not sitting right yet. The sitting right is as much to do with sound and rhythm as it is to do with content. The content has to be right. It means I'm a nightmare to edit because once I do move on from a paragraph, I think it's finished. Obviously, my editor might beg to differ.I'm very grateful to Thomas Penn, who's also a wonderful historian, who's my editor on this last book, for being so patient with my recalcitrance as an editee. Talking to my husband about words in space on the page, about the rhythm, about the sound, about how he goes about writing has been so valuable and illuminating.I hope that the reading I've been doing, the other thing I should say about going back to big 19th-century novels is that, of course, I had the enormous privilege and learning curve of being part of a Booker jury panel three years ago. That too was an enormous kick in terms of reading and thinking about reading because my co-judges were such phenomenal reading company, and I learned such a lot that year.I feel not only I hope growing as a historian, but I am really, really focusing on writing, reading, being forced out of my bunker where writing is all on the page, starting to think about sound more, think about hearing more, because I think more and more, we are reading that way as a culture, it seems to me, the growth of audiobooks. My mother is adjusting to audiobooks now, and it's so interesting to listen to her as a lifelong, voracious reader, adjusting to what it is to experience a book through sound rather than on the page. I just think it's all fascinating, and I'm trying to learn as I write.Henry: I've been experimenting with audiobooks, because I felt like I had to, and I sort of typically hate audio anything. Jonathan Swift is very good, and so is Diana Wynne Jones.Helen: Interesting. Those two specifically. Is there something that connects the two of them, or are they separately good?Henry: I think they both wrote in a plain, colloquial style. It was very capable of being quite intellectual and had capacity for ideas. Diana Wynne Jones certainly took care about the way it sounded because she read so much to her own children, and that was really when she first read all the children's classics. She had developed for many years an understanding of what would sound good when it was read to a child, I think.Helen: And so that's the voice in her head.Henry: Indeed. As you read her essays, she talks about living with her Welsh grandfather for a year. He was intoning in the chapel, and she sort of comes out of this culture as well.Helen: Then Swift, a much more oral culture.Henry: Swift, of course, is in a very print-heavy culture because he's in London in 1710. We've got coffee houses and all the examiner, and the spectator, and all these people scribbling about each other. I think he was very insistent on what he called proper words in proper places. He became famous for that plain style. It's very carefully done, and you can't go wrong reading that out loud. He's very considerate of the reader that you won't suddenly go, "Oh, I'm in the middle of this huge parenthesis. I don't know how--" As you were saying, Swift-- he would be very deliberate about the placement of everything.Helen: A lot of that has to do with rhythm.Henry: Yes.Helen: Doesn't it? I suppose what I'm wondering, being very ignorant about the 18th century is, in a print-saturated culture, but still one where literacy was less universal than now, are we to assume that that print-saturated culture also incorporated reading out loud —Henry: Yes, exactly so. Exactly so. If you are at home, letters are read out loud. This obviously gives the novelists great opportunities to write letters that have to sort of work both ways. Novels are read out loud. This goes on into the 19th century. Dickens had many illiterate fans who knew his work through it being read to them. Charles Darwin's wife read him novels. When he says, "I love novels," what he means is, "I love it when my wife reads me a novel." [laughs]You're absolutely right. A good part of your audience would come from those listening as well as those reading it.Helen: Maybe we're getting back towards a new version of that with audiobooks expanding in their reach.Henry: I don't know. I saw some interesting stuff. I can't remember who was saying this. Someone was saying, "It's not an oral culture if you're watching short videos. That's a different sort of culture." I think, for us, we can say, "Oh yes, we're like Jonathan Swift," but for the culture at large, I don't know. It is an interesting mixed picture at the moment.Helen: Yes, history never repeats, but we should be wary of writing off any part of culture to do with words.Henry: I think so. If people are reporting builders irritating the neighbourhood with George Eliot, then it's a very mixed picture, right?Helen: It is.Henry: Last literary question. Hilary Mantel has been a big influence on you. What have you taken from her?Helen: That's quite a hard question to answer because I feel I just sit at her feet in awe. If I could point to anything in my writing that could live up to her, I would be very happy. The word that's coming into my head when you phrase the question in that way, I suppose, might be an absolute commitment to precision. Precision in language matters to me so much. Her thought and her writing of whatever kind seems to me to be so precise.Listening to interviews with her is such an outrageous experience because these beautifully, entirely formed sentences come out of her mouth as though that's how thought and language work. They don't for me. [chuckles] I'm talking about her in the present tense because I didn't know her, but I find it hard to imagine that she's not out there somewhere.Henry: She liked ghosts. She might be with us.Helen: She might. I would like to think that. Her writing of whatever genre always seems to me to have that precision, and it's precision of language that mirrors precision of thought, including the ability to imagine herself into somebody else's mind. That's, I suppose, my project as a historian. I'm always trying to experience a lost world through the eyes of a lost person or people, which, of course, when you put it like that, is an impossible task, but she makes it seem possible for her anyway and that's the road I'm attempting to travel one way or another.Henry: What is it about the 14th and 15th centuries that is hardest for us to imagine?Helen: I think this speaks to something else that Hilary Mantel does so extraordinarily well, which is to show us entire human beings who live and breathe and think and feel just as we do in as complex and contradictory and three-dimensional a way as we do, and yet who live in a world that is stripped of so many of the things that we take so much for granted that we find it, I think, hard to imagine how one could function without them.What I've always loved about the late Middle Ages, as a political historian, which is what I think of myself as, is that it has in England such a complex and sophisticated system of government, but one that operates so overwhelmingly through human beings, rather than impersonal, institutionalized, technological structures.You have a king who is the fount of all authority, exercising an extraordinary degree of control over a whole country, but without telephones, without motorized transport, without a professional police service, without a standing army. If we strip away from our understanding of government, all those things, then how on earth does society happen, does rule happen, does government happen?I think it's relatively easy to imagine a small community or even a city, because we can imagine lots of human beings together, but how relationships between human beings happen at a distance, not just in terms of writing a letter to someone you know, but how a very effective power structure happens across hundreds of miles in the absence of those things is the thing that has always absolutely fascinated me about the late Middle Ages. I think that's because it's hard, for me at least, to imagine.Henry: Good. You went to the RSC to watch The Henriad in 2013.Helen: I did.Henry: Is Shakespeare a big influence on this book? How did that affect you?Helen: I suppose this is a long story because Richard II and The Henriad have been-- there is Richard II. Richard II is part of The Henriad, isn't it?Henry: Yes.Helen: Richard II. Henry, see, this is-Henry: The two Henry IVs.Helen: -I'm not Shakespearean. I am. [laughs]Henry: No, it's Richard II, the two Henry IVs, and Henry V. Because, of course, Henry Bolingbroke is in Richard II, and it--Helen: Yes, although I never think of him as really the same person as Henry IV in the Henry IV plays, because he changes so dramatically between the two.Henry: Very often, they have a young actor and an old actor, and of course, in real life, that's insane, right?Helen: It's absolutely insane. I always separate Henry IV, parts I and II, and Henry V off from Richard II because it feels to me as though they operate in rather different worlds, which they do in lots of ways. My story with the Henry ad, now that we've established that I actually know what we're talking about, goes back to when I was in my teens and Kenneth Branagh was playing Henry V in Stratford. I grew up very near Stratford.At 15, 16, watching the young Branagh play Henry V was mind-blowing. I went a whole number of times because, in those days, I don't know how it is now, but you could go and get standing tickets for a fiver on the day. More often than not, if there were spare seats, you would get moved into some extraordinary stall seats at-- I was about to say halftime, I'm a football fan, at the interval.Henry V was the play I knew best for a long time, but at the same time, I'd studied Richard II at school. The Henry IV plays are the ones I know least well. I'm interested now to reflect on the fact that they are the ones that depart most from history. I wonder whether that's why I find them hardest to love, because I'm always coming to the plays from the history. Richard II and Henry V actually have a lot to show us about those kings. They bear very close relationships with a lot of the contemporary chronicles, whereas the Henry IV ones is Shakespeare doing his own thing much more.Particularly, as you've just said, making Henry IV way too old, and/or depending which angle we're looking at it from, making Hotspur way too young, the real Hotspur was three years older than Henry IV. If you want to make Hotspur and how-- your young Turks, you have to make Henry IV old and grey and weary with Northumberland.Back in 2013, the really intense experience I had was being asked to go for a day to join the RSC company on a school trip to Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey at the beginning of their rehearsal process, so when David Tennant was playing Richard II and Greg Doran was directing. That was absolutely fascinating. I'd been thinking about Richard and Henry for a very long time. Obviously, I was a long way away from writing the book I've just written.Talking to actors is an extraordinary thing for a historian because, of course, to them, these are living characters. They want to know what's in their character's mind. They want to know, quite rightly, the chronological progression of their character's thought. That is something that's become more and more and more and more important to me.The longer I go on writing history, the more intensely attached I am to the need for chronology because if it hasn't happened to your protagonist yet, what are you doing with it? Your protagonist doesn't yet know. We don't know. It's very dramatically clear to us at the moment that we don't know what's happening tomorrow. Any number of outrageous and unpredictable things might happen tomorrow.The same certainly was true in Richard II's reign, goes on being true in Henry IV's reign. That experience, in the wake of which I then went to see Henry IV, parts 1 and 2 in Stratford, was really thought-provoking. The extent to which, even though I'd been working on this period for a long time, and had taught this period, I still was struggling to answer some of those questions.Then I'd just had the similarly amazing experience of having a meeting with the Richard II cast and director at the Bridge Theatre before the Nicholas Heitner production with Jonathan Bailey as Richard went on stage. That was actually towards the end of their rehearsal process. I was so struck that the actor playing Bolingbroke in this production and the actor playing Bolingbroke in the production back in 2013 both asked the same excellent first question, which is so hard for a historian to answer, which is at what point does Bolingbroke decide that he's coming back to claim the crown, not just the Duchy of Lancaster?That is a key question for Bolingbroke in Richard II. Does he already know when he decides he's going to break his exile and come back? Is he challenging for the crown straight away, or is he just coming back for his rightful inheritance with the Duchy of Lancaster? That is the million-dollar question when you're writing about Bolingbroke in 1399.It's not possible to answer with a smoking gun. We don't have a letter or a diary entry from Henry Bolingbroke as he's about to step on board ship in Boulogne saying, "I'm saying I'm coming back for the Duchy of Lancaster." The unfolding logic of his situation is that if he's going to come back at all, he's going to have to claim the crown. When he admits that to himself, and when he admits that to anybody else, are questions we can argue about.It was so interesting to me that that's the question that Shakespeare's Richard II throws up for his Bolingbroke just as much as it does for the historical one.Henry: Is there anything that we fundamentally know about this episode in history that Shakespeare didn't know?Helen: That's an extremely good question, and I'm tempted now to say no.Henry: When I left your book, the one thing I thought was that in Shakespeare, the nobles turn against Richard because of his excesses. Obviously, he really dramatizes that around the death of Gaunt. From your book, you may disagree with this, I came away thinking, well, the nobles wanted more power all the time. They may not have wanted the king's power, but there was this constant thing of the nobles feeling like they were owed more authority.Helen: I think the nobles always want more power because they are ambitious, competitive men within a political structure that rewards ambition and competition. The crucial thing for them is that they can only safely pursue ambition and competition if they know that the structure they're competing within will hold.The thing that keeps that structure rooted and solidly in place is the crown and the things that the crown is there to uphold, namely, particularly, the rule of law because if the rule of law starts to crumble, then the risk is that the whole structure collapses into anarchy. Within anarchy, then a powerful man cannot safely compete for more power because an even more powerful man might be about to roll into his estates and take them over. There have to be rules. There has to be fair competition. The referee is there on a football pitch for a reason.The king, in some senses, whether you want to see him as the keystone in an arch that supports a building or whether he's a referee on a football pitch, there are reasons why powerful men need rules because rules uphold their power. What goes wrong with Richard is that instead of seeing that he and the nobles have a common interest in keeping this structure standing, and that actually he can become more powerful if he works with and through the nobles, he sees them as a threat to him.He's attempting to establish a power structure that will not be beholden to them. In so doing, he becomes a threat to them. This structure that is supposed to stand as one mutually supportive thing is beginning to tear itself apart. That is why Richard's treatment of Bolingbroke becomes such a crucial catalyst, because what Richard does to Bolingbroke is unlawful in a very real and very technical sense. Bolingbroke has not been convicted of any crime. He's not been properly tried. There's been this trial by combat, the duel with Mowbray, but it hasn't stopped arbitrarily, and an arbitrary punishment visited upon both of them. They're both being exiled without having been found guilty, without the judgment of God speaking through this duel.Richard then promises that Bolingbroke can have his inheritance, even though he's in exile. As soon as Gaunt dies, Richard says, "No, I'm having it." Now, all of that is unlawful treatment of Bolingbroke, but because Bolingbroke is the most powerful nobleman in the country, it is also a warning and a threat to every other member of the political classes that if the king takes against you, then his arbitrary will can override the law.That diagnosis is there in Shakespeare. It's the Duke of York, who in reality was just a completely hopeless, wet figure, but he says, and I've got it written down, keep it beside me.Henry: Very nice.Helen: Kind of ridiculous, but here it is. York says to Richard, "Take Herford's rights away and take from time his charters and his customary rights. Let not tomorrow then ensue today. Be not thyself, for how art thou a king, but by fair sequence and succession?" In other words, if you interfere with, and I know you've written about time in these plays, it's absolutely crucial.Part of the process of time in these plays is that the rules play out over time. Any one individual king must not break those rules so that the expected process of succession over time can take place. York's warning comes true, that Richard is unseating himself by seeking to unseat Bolingbroke from his inheritance.Henry: We give Shakespeare good marks as a historian.Helen: In this play, yes, absolutely. The things he tinkers with in Richard II are minor plot points. He compresses time in order to get it all on stage in a plausible sequence of events. He compresses two queens into one, given that Richard was married to, by the time he fell, a nine-year-old who he'd married when he was six. It's harder to have a six-year-old making speeches on stage, so he puts the two queens into one.Henry: You don't want to pay another actor.Helen: Exactly.Henry: It's expensive.Helen: You don't want children and animals on stage. Although there is a wonderful account of a production of Richard II on stage in the West End in 1901, with the Australian actor Oscar Asche in it, playing Bolingbroke. The duel scene, he had full armour and a horse, opening night. It was a different horse from the one he rehearsed with. He gives an account in his autobiography of this horse rearing and him somersaulting heroically off the horse.Henry: Oh my god.Helen: The curtain having to come down and then it going back up again to tumultuous applause. You think, "Oscar, I'm wondering whether you're over-egging this pudding." Anyway, I give Shakespeare very good marks in Richard II, not really in the Henry IV plays, but gets back on track.Henry: The Henry IV plays are so good, we're forgiven. Was Richard II a prototype Henry VIII?Helen: Yes. Although, of course, history doesn't work forwards like that. I always worry about being a historian, talking about prototypes, if you see what I mean, but--Henry: No, this is just some podcast, so we don't have to be too strict. He's over-mighty, his sense of his relationship to God. There are issues in parliament about, "How much can the Pope tell us what to do?" There are certain things that seem to be inherent in the way the British state conceives of itself at this point that become problematic in another way.Helen: Is this pushing it too far to say Richard is a second son who ends up being the lone precious heir to the throne who must be wrapped in cotton wool to ensure that his unique God-given authority is protected? Also describes Henry VIII.Henry: They both like fancy clothes.Helen: Both like fancy clothes. Charles I is also a second son who has to step up.Henry: With wonderful cuffs and collars. He's another big dresser.Helen: And great patrons of art. I think we're developing new historical--Henry: No, I think there's a whole thing here.Helen: I think there is. What Henry does, of course, in rather different, because a lot has changed thanks to the Wars of the Roses, the power of the nobility to stand up independently of the crown is significantly lessened by the political effects of the Wars of the Roses, not at least that a lot of them have had their heads cut off, or died in battle, and the Tudors are busy making sure that they remain in the newly subjected place that they find themselves in.Henry then finds to go back to Hilary Mantel, a very, very able political servant who works out how to use parliament for him in rejecting those extra English powers that might restrain him. I do always wonder what Richard thought he was going to do if he'd succeeded in becoming Holy Roman Emperor, which I take very seriously as a proposition from Richard.Most other historians, because it's so patently ridiculous, if you look at it from a European perspective, have just said, "Oh, he got this idea that he wanted to become Holy Roman Emperor," but, of course, it was never going to happen. In Richard's mind, I think it was extremely real. Whether he really would have tried to give the English crown to Rutland, his favorite by the end of the reign, while he went off in glory to be crowned by the Pope, I don't know what was in his head. The difference with Henry is that the ambitions he eventually conceives are very England-focused, and so he can make them happen.Henry: Is there some sort of argument that, if the king hadn't won the Wars of the Roses, and the nobility had flourished, and their sons hadn't been killed, the reformation would have just been much harder to pull off here?[silence]Helen: I wonder what that would have looked like, because in a sense, the king was always going to win the Wars of the Roses, in the sense that you have to have a king. The minute you had someone left standing after that mess, that protracted mess, if he knew what he was doing, and there are arguments about the extent to which Henry VII knew what he was doing, or was doing something very different, whether or not he knew it was different, but there was always going to be an opportunity for a king to assert himself after that.Particularly, the extent to which the lesser landowners, the gentry had realized they couldn't just rely on the nobility to protect them anymore. They couldn't just follow their lord into battle and abdicate responsibility.Henry: Okay.Helen: That's an interesting--Henry: How much should we blame Edward III for all of this?Helen: For living too long and having too many sons?Henry: My argument against Edward is the Hundred Years' War, it doesn't actually go that well by the end of his reign, and it's cost too much money. Too many dukes with too much power. It's not that he had too many sons, he elevates them all and creates this insane situation. The war itself starts to tip the balance between the king and parliament, and so now you've got it from the dukes, and from the other side, and he just didn't manage the succession at all.Even though his son has died, and it really needs some kind of-- He allowed. He should have known that he was allowing a vacuum to open up where there's competition from the nobles, and from parliament, and the finances are a mess, and this war isn't there. It's just… he just leaves a disaster, doesn't he?Helen: I think I'd want to reframe that a little bit. Perhaps, I'm too much the king's friend. I think the political, and in some senses, existential dilemma for a medieval king is that the best of all possible worlds is what Edward achieves in the 1340s and the 1350s, which is, fight a war for reasons that your subjects recognize as in the common interest, in the national interest. Fight it over there so that the lands that are being devastated and the villages and towns that are being burned are not yours. Bring back lots of plunder. Everybody's getting richer and feeling very victorious.You can harness parliament. When things are going well, a medieval king and a parliament are not rivals for power. An English king working with parliament is more powerful than an English king trying to work without parliament. If things are going well, he gets more money, he can pass laws, he can enforce his will more effectively. It's win-win-win if you're ticking all those boxes.As you're pointing out, the worst of all possible worlds is to be fighting a war that's going badly. To fight a war is a big risk because either you're going to end up winning and everything's great, or if it's going badly, then you'd rather be at peace. Of course, you're not necessarily in a position to negotiate peace, depending on the terms of the war you've established.Similarly, with sons, you want heirs. You want to know the succession is safe. I think Edward's younger sons would argue with you about setting up very powerful dukes because the younger ones really-- York and Gloucester, Edmund of Langley and Thomas of Woodstock, really didn't have much in the way of an estate given to them at all, and always felt very hard done by about that. John of Gaunt is set up very well because he's married off to the heir of the Duke of Lancaster who's handily died, leaving only daughters.Henry: That's the problem, isn't it, creating that sort of impact? John of Gaunt is far too rich and powerful.Helen: You say that, except he's unfeasibly loyal. Without Gaunt, disaster happens much, much, much earlier. Gaunt is putting all those resources into the project of propping up the English state and the English crown for way longer than Richard deserves, given that Richard's trying to murder him half the time in the 1380s.Henry: [laughs] For sure. No, I agree with you there, but from Edward III's point of view, it's a mistake to make one very powerful son another quite powerful son next to-- We still see this playing out in royal family dynamics.Helen: This is the problem. What is the perfect scenario in a hereditary system where you need an heir and a spare, but even there, the spare, if he doesn't get to be the heir, is often very disgruntled. [laughs] If he does get to be the heir, as we've just said, turns out to be overconvinced of his own-Henry: Oh, indeed, yes.Helen: -specialness. Then, if you have too many spares, you run into a different kind of problem. Equally, if you don't have a hereditary system, then you have an almighty battle, as the Anglo-Saxons often did, about who's actually going to get the crown in the next generation. It's a very tricky--Henry: Is England just inherently unstable? We've got the Black Death, France is going to be a problem, whatever happens. Who is really going to come to a good fiscal position in this situation? It's no one's fault. It's just there wasn't another way out.Helen: You could say that England's remarkably-- See, I'm just playing devil's advocate the whole time.Henry: No, good.Helen: You could say England is remarkably stable in the sense that England is very unusually centralized for a medieval state at this point. It's centralized in a way that works because it's small enough to govern. It's, broadly speaking, an island. You've got to deal with the Scotts border, but it's a relatively short border. Yes, you have powerful nobles, but they are powerful nobles who, by this stage, are locked into the state. They're locked into a unified system of law. The common law rules everyone. Everyone looks to Westminster.It's very different from what the King of France has been having to face, which has been having to push his authority outward from the Île-de-France, reconquer bits of France that the English have had for a long time, impose his authority over other princes of the realm in a context where there are different laws, there are different customs, there are different languages. You could say that France is in a much more difficult and unstable situation.Of course, what we see as the tide of the war turns again in the early 15th century is precisely that France collapses into civil war, and the English can make hay again in that situation. If Henry V had not died too young with not enough sons in 1423, and particularly, if he'd left a son who grew up to be any use at all, as opposed to absolutely none-- what am I saying? I'm saying that the structure of government in England could work astonishingly well given the luck of the right man at the helm. The right man at the helm had to understand his responsibilities at home, and he had to be capable of prosecuting a successful war abroad because that is how this state works best.As you've just pointed out, prosecuting a successful war abroad is an inherently unstable scenario because no war is ever going to go in your direction the entire time. That's what Richard, who has no interest in war at all is discovering, because once the tide of war is lapping at your own shores, instead of all happening over there, it's a very, very different prospect in terms of persuading parliament to pay for it, quite understandably.You talk about the Black Death. One of the extraordinary things is looking at England in 1348, 1349, when the Black Death hits. Probably, something approaching half the population dies in 18 months. If you're looking at the progress of the war, you barely notice it happened at all. What does the government do? It snaps into action and implements a maximum wage immediately, in case [chuckles] these uppity laborers start noticing there are fewer of them, and they can ask for more money.The amount of control, at that stage at least, that the government has over a country going through an extraordinary set of challenges is quite remarkable, really.Henry: Did Bolingbroke do the right thing?Helen: I think Bolingbroke did the only possible thing, which, in some senses, equates to the right thing. If he had not come back, he would not only have been abandoning his own family, his dynasty, his inheritance, everything he'd been brought up to believe was his responsibility, but also abandoning England to what was pretty much by that stage, clearly, a situation of tyranny.The big argument is always, well, we can identify a tyrant, we have a definition of tyranny. That is, if a legitimate king rules in the common interest and according to the law, then a tyrant rules not in the common interest, and not according to the law. But then the thing that the political theorists argue about is whether or not you can actively resist a tyrant, or whether you have to wait for God to act.Then, the question is, "Might God be acting through me if I'm Bolingbroke?" That's what Bolingbroke has to hope, because if he doesn't do what he does in 1399, he is abandoning everything his whole life has been devoted to maintaining and taking responsibility for. It's quite hard to see where England would then end up, other than with somebody else trying to challenge Richard in the way that Henry does.Henry: Why was he anointed with Thomas Becket's oil?Helen: Because Richard had found it in the tower, [chuckles] and was making great play of the claims that were made for Thomas. This is one of the interesting things about Richard. He is simultaneously very interested in history, and interested in his place in history, his place in the lineage of English kings, going all the way back, particularly to the confessor to whom he looks as not only a patron saint, but as in some sense, a point of identification.He's also seeking to stop time at himself. He doesn't like to think about the future beyond himself. He doesn't show any interest in fathering an heir. His will is all about how to make permanent the judgments that he's made on his nobles. It's not about realistically what's going to happen after his death.In the course of his interest in history, he has found this vial of oil in the tower somewhere in a locked drawer with a note that says, "The Virgin gave this to Thomas Becket, and whoever is anointed with this oil shall win all his battles and shall lead England to greatness," et cetera. Richard has tried to have himself re-anointed, and even his patsy Archbishop of Canterbury that he's put in place after exiling the original one who'd stood up to him a bit.Even the new Archbishop of Canterbury says, "Sire, anointing doesn't really work like that. I'm afraid we can't do it twice." Richard has been wearing this vial round his neck in an attempt to claim that he is not only the successor to the confessor, but he is now the inheritor of this holy oil. The French king has had a holy oil for a very long time in the Cathedral of Reims, which was supposedly given to Clovis, the first king of France, by an angel, et cetera.Richard, who is always very keen on emulating, or paralleling the crown of France, is very, very keen on this. If you were Henry coming in 1399 saying, "No, God has spoken through me. The country has rallied to me. I am now the rightful king of England. We won't look too closely at my justifications for that," and you are appropriating the ceremonial of the crown, you are having yourself crowned in Westminster Abbey on the 13th of October, which is the feast day of the confessor, you are handed that opportunity to use the symbolism of this oil that Richard has just unearthed, and was trying to claim for himself. You can then say, "No, I am the first king crowned with this oil," and you're showing it to the French ambassadors and so on.If we are to believe the chroniclers, it starts making his hair fall out, which might be a contrary sign from God. It's a situation where you are usurping the throne, and what is questionable is your right to be there. Then, any symbolic prop you can get, you're going to lean on as hard as you can.Henry: A few general questions to close. Should we be more willing to open up old tombs?Helen: Yes. [laughs]Henry: Good. [laughs]Helen: I'm afraid, for me, historical curiosity is-- Our forebears in the 18th and 19th century had very few qualms at all. One of the things I love about the endless series of scholarly antiquarian articles that are-- or not so scholarly, in some cases, that are written about all the various tomb openings that went on in the 18th and 19th century, I do love the moments, where just occasionally, they end up saying, "Do you know what, lads? Maybe we shouldn't do this bit." [chuckles]They get right to the brink with a couple of tombs and say, "Oh, do you know what? This one hasn't been disturbed since 1260, whatever. Maybe we won't. We'll put it back." Mostly, they just crowbar the lid off and see what they can find, which one might regret in terms of what we might now find with greater scientific know-how, and et cetera. Equally, we don't do that kind of thing anymore unless we're digging up a car park. We're not finding things out anyway. I just love the information that comes out, so yes, for me.Henry: Dig up more tombs.Helen: Yes.Henry: What is it that you love about the Paston Letters?Helen: More or less everything. I love the language. I love the way that, even though most of them are dictated to scribes, but you can hear the dictation. You can hear individual voices. Everything we were saying about sentences. You can hear the rhythm. You can hear the speech patterns. I'm no linguistic expert, but I love seeing the different forms of spelling and how that plays out on the page.I love how recognizable they are as a family. I love the fact that we hear women's voices in a way that we very rarely do in the public records. The government which is mainly what we have to work with. I love Margaret Paston, who arrives at 18 as a new bride, and becomes the matriarch of the family. I love her relationship with her two eldest boys, John and John, and their father, John.I do wish they hadn't done that because it doesn't help those of us who are trying to write about them. I love the view you get of late medieval of 15th-century politics from the point of view of a family trying to survive it. The fact that you get tiny drops in letters that are also about shopping, or also about your sisters fall in love with someone unsuitable. Unsuitable only, I hasten to add, because he's the family bailiff, not because he isn't a wonderful and extremely able man. They all know those two things. It's just that he's a family bailiff, and therefore, not socially acceptable.I love that experience of being immersed in the world of a 15th-century gentry family, so politically involved, but not powerful enough to protect themselves, who can protect themselves in the Wars of the Roses in any case.Henry: If someone wants to read the Paston Letters, but they don't want to read Middle English, weird spelling, et cetera, is there a good edition that they can use?Helen: Yes, there is an Oxford World's Classic. They're all selected. There isn't a complete edition in modern spelling. If any publishers are listening, I would love to do one. [chuckles]Henry: Yes, let's have it.Helen: Let's have it. I would really, really love to do that. There are some very good selections. Richard Barber did one many years ago, and, of course, self-advertising. There is also my book, now more than 20 years old, about the Paston family, where I was trying to put in as much of the letters as I could. I wanted to weave the voices through. Yes, please go and read the Paston Letters in selections, in whatever form you can get them, and let's start lobbying for a complete modernized Paston.Henry: That's right. Why did you leave academia? Because you did it before it was cool.Helen: [laughs] That's very kind of you to say. My academic life was, and is very important to me, and I hate saying this now, because the academic world is so difficult now. I ended up in it almost by accident, which is a terrible thing to say now, people having to-- I never intended to be an academic. My parents were academics, and I felt I'd seen enough and wasn't sure I wanted to do that.I couldn't bear to give up history, and put in a PhD application to work with Christine Carpenter, who'd been the most inspiring supervisor when I was an undergraduate, got the place, thought, "Right, I'm just going to do a PhD." Of course, once you're doing a PhD, and everyone you know is starting to apply for early career jobs, which weren't even called early career jobs in those days, because it was a million years ago.I applied for a research fellowship, was lucky enough to get it, and then applied for a teaching job, utterly convinced, and being told by the people around me that I stood no chance of getting it, because I was way too junior, and breezed through the whole process, because I knew I wasn't going to get it, and then turned up looking for someone very junior.I got this wonderful teaching job at Sidney Sussex in Cambridge and spent eight years there, learned so much, loved working with the students. I was working very closely with the students in various ways, but I wasn't-- I'm such a slow writer, and a writer that needs to be immersed in what I was doing, and I just wasn't managing to write, and also not managing to write in the way I wanted to write, because I was becoming clearer and clearer about the fact that I wanted to write narrative history.Certainly, at that point, it felt as though writing narrative history for a general audience and being an early career academic didn't go so easily together. I think lots of people are now showing how possible it is, but I wasn't convinced I could do it. Then, sorry, this is a very long answer to what's [crosstalk] your question.Henry: That's good.Helen: I also had my son, and my then partner was teaching at a very different university, I mean, geographically different, and we were living in a third place, and trying to put a baby into that geographical [chuckles] setup was not going to work. I thought, "Well, now or never, I'll write a proposal for a book, a narrative, a book for a general readership, a narrative book about the Paxton family, because that's what I really want to write, and I'll see if I can find an agent, and I'll see if I," and I did.I found the most wonderful agent, with whose help I wrote a huge proposal, and got a deal for it two weeks before my son was due. At that point, I thought, "Okay, if I don't jump now, now or never, the stars are aligned." I've been a freelance medieval historian ever since then, touching every wood I can find as it continues to be possible. I am very grateful for those years in Cambridge. They were the making of me in terms of training and in terms of teaching.I certainly think without teaching for those years, I wouldn't be anywhere near as good a writer, because you learn such a lot from talking to, and reading what students produce.Henry: How do you choose your subjects now? How do you choose what to write about?Helen: I follow my nose, really. It's not very scientific.Henry: Why should it be?Helen: Thank you. The book, bizarrely, the book that felt most contingent, was the one I wrote after the Paston book, because I knew I'd written about the Pastons in my PhD, and then again more of it in the monograph that was based on my PhD. I knew having written about the Pastons in a very academic, analytical way, contributing to my analysis of 15th-century politics. I knew I wanted to put them at the center and write about them. That was my beginning point.The big question was what to do next, and I was a bit bamboozled for a while. The next book I ended up writing was She-Wolves, which is probably, until now, my best-known book. It was the one that felt most uncertain to me, while I was putting it together, and that really started from having one scene in my head, and it's the scene with which the book opens. It's the scene of the young Edward VI in 1553, Henry VIII's only son, dying at the age of 15.Suddenly, me suddenly realizing that wherever you looked on the Tudor family tree at that point, there were only women left. The whole question of whether a woman could rule was going to have to be answered in some way at that point, and because I'm a medievalist, that made me start thinking backwards, and so I ended up choosing some medieval queens to write about, because they've got their hands on power one way or another.Until very close to finishing it, I was worried that it wouldn't hang together as a book, and the irony is that it's the one that people seem to have taken to most. The next book after that grew out of that one, because I found myself going around talking about She-Wolves, and saying repeatedly, "The problem these queens faced was that they couldn't lead an army on the battlefield."Women couldn't do that. The only medieval woman who did that was Joan of Arc, and look what happened to her. Gradually, I realized that I didn't really know what had happened to her. I mean, I did know what--Henry: Yes, indeed.Helen: I decided that I really wanted to write about her, so I did that. Then, having done that, and having then written a very short book about Elizabeth I, that I was asked to write for Penguin Monarchs, I realized I'd been haunted all this time by Richard and Henry, who I'd been thinking about and working on since the very beginning of my PhD, but I finally felt, perhaps, ready to have a go at them properly.It's all been pretty organic apart from She-Wolves, which was the big, "What am I writing about next?" That took shape slowly and gradually. Now, I'm going to write about Elizabeth I properly in a-Henry: Oh, exciting.Helen: -full-scale book, and I decided that, anyway, before I wrote this last one, but I-- It feels even righter now, because I Am Richard II, Know Ye Not That, feels even more intensely relevant having now written about Richard and Henry, and I'm quite intimidated because Elizabeth is quite intimidating, but I think it's good, related by your subjects.[laughter]Henry: Have you read the Elizabeth Jenkins biography?Helen: Many, many years ago. It's on my shelf here.Henry: Oh, good.Helen: In fact, so it's one of the things I will be going back to. Why do you ask particularly? I need--Henry: I'm a big Elizabeth Jenkins fan, and I like that book particularly.Helen: Wonderful. Well, I will be redoubled in my enthusiasm.Henry: I look forward to seeing what you say about it. What did you learn from Christine Carpenter?Helen: Ooh. Just as precision was the word that came into my head when you asked me about Hilary Mantel, the word that comes into my head when you ask about Christine is rigor. I think she is the most rigorous historical thinker that I have ever had the privilege of working with and talking to. I am never not on my toes when I am writing for, talking to, reading Christine. That was an experience that started from the first day I walked into her room for my first supervision in 1987.It was really that rigor that started opening up the medieval world to me, asking questions that at that stage I couldn't answer at all, but suddenly, made everything go into technicolor. Really, from the perspective that I had been failing to ask the most basic questions. I would sometimes have students say to me, "Oh, I didn't say that, because I thought it was too basic."I have always said, "No, there is no question that is too basic." Because what Christine started opening up for me was how does medieval government work? What are you talking about? There is the king at Westminster. There is that family there in Northumberland. What relates the two of them? How does this work? Think about it structurally. Think about it in human terms, but also in political structural terms, and then convince me that you understand how this all goes together. I try never to lose that.Henry: Helen Castor, thank you very much.Helen: Thank you so much. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Book Vs. Movie: Death on the NileThe 1937 Agatha Christie Novel Vs the 2022 Kenneth Branagh film. Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile has long been a fan favorite, combining romance, betrayal, and murder aboard a glamorous steamer cruising the Nile River. In 2022, director Kenneth Branagh brought the classic mystery back to the big screen with an all-star cast and a modern flair. But how faithful is this adaptation to the original 1937 novel?Branagh (who returns as Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot) updates the cast of characters from the source material and discusses the racial politics of the time more. The director also adds to Poirot's backstory, including his facial hair and past romances, which are not in the book.  Between the original novel and the film — did we prefer one over the other? Have a listen to find out!In this episode, the Margos discuss:Agatha Christie & her character of Poirot The differences between the book and the movieThe cast includes: Tom Bateman (Bouc,) Annette Bening (Euphemia Bouc,) Kenneth Branagh (Poirot,) Michael Rouse (Private Laurin,) Alaa Safi (Corporal) Letitia Wright (Rosalie Otterbourne,) Sophie Okonedo (Salome Otterbourne,) Gal Gadot (Linnet Ridgeway,) Jennifer Saunders (Marie Van Schuyler,) Dawn French (Bowers,) and Susannah Fielding as Katharine. Clips Featured:“Entrance of Jacqueline”Death on the Nile (2002 trailer)“Champagne Toast”“Hammer, Gadot & Branagh”“The last scene”Music by Patrick DoyleFollow us on the socials!Join our Patreon page “Book Vs. Movie podcast”You can find us on Facebook at Book Vs. Movie Podcast GroupInstagram: Book Versus Movie @bookversusmoviebookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D's Blog: Brooklynfitchick.comMargo D's Instagram “Brooklyn Fit Chick”Margo D's TikTok Margo D's YouTube: @MargoDonohueMargo P's Instagram: @shesnachomama Margo P's Blog: coloniabook.comMargo P's YouTube Channel: @shesnachomamaOur logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine 

Book Vs. Movie: Death on the NileThe 1937 Agatha Christie Novel Vs the 2022 Kenneth Branagh film. Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile has long been a fan favorite, combining romance, betrayal, and murder aboard a glamorous steamer cruising the Nile River. In 2022, director Kenneth Branagh brought the classic mystery back to the big screen with an all-star cast and a modern flair. But how faithful is this adaptation to the original 1937 novel?Branagh (who returns as Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot) updates the cast of characters from the source material and discusses the racial politics of the time more. The director also adds to Poirot's backstory, including his facial hair and past romances, which are not in the book.  Between the original novel and the film — did we prefer one over the other? Have a listen to find out!In this episode, the Margos discuss:Agatha Christie & her character of Poirot The differences between the book and the movieThe cast includes: Tom Bateman (Bouc,) Annette Bening (Euphemia Bouc,) Kenneth Branagh (Poirot,) Michael Rouse (Private Laurin,) Alaa Safi (Corporal) Letitia Wright (Rosalie Otterbourne,) Sophie Okonedo (Salome Otterbourne,) Gal Gadot (Linnet Ridgeway,) Jennifer Saunders (Marie Van Schuyler,) Dawn French (Bowers,) and Susannah Fielding as Katharine. Clips Featured:“Entrance of Jacqueline”Death on the Nile (2002 trailer)“Champagne Toast”“Hammer, Gadot & Branagh”“The last scene”Music by Patrick DoyleFollow us on the socials!Join our Patreon page “Book Vs. Movie podcast”You can find us on Facebook at Book Vs. Movie Podcast GroupInstagram: Book Versus Movie @bookversusmoviebookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D's Blog: Brooklynfitchick.comMargo D's Instagram “Brooklyn Fit Chick”Margo D's TikTok Margo D's YouTube: @MargoDonohueMargo P's Instagram: @shesnachomama Margo P's Blog: coloniabook.comMargo P's YouTube Channel: @shesnachomamaOur logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine 

Kenneth Branaghs second film he directed involves a weird neo-noir almost pulp-like thriller where Branagh and Emma Thompson must figure out a murder from their past lives. Robin, who is only in three fairly short scenes, is playing a psychiatrist named Doctor Carlisle Cozy.

This... episode... is for YOU! Grab your scissors and your faux American accents as NostalgiaCast continues its "Bucket List" season of '90s favorites with a hypnotic look back at DEAD AGAIN, starring Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, and Robin Williams. Listen as Jonny and Darin recount their history with Branagh as actor, filmmaker, and connoisseur of Shakespeare, and how his attempt at a bombastic Grand Guignol neo-noir murder-mystery with a supernatural bent will either bore you or leave you mute with fear. 

In this episode we are joined by mystery novelist Eloise Corvo! She regales us with stories about horrors on the hiking trail and explains how the original Scooby-Doo TV show is a lot like Agatha Christie -- and it's not because Ms. Christie liked Scooby snacks. She also dishes about her upcoming book OFF THE BEATEN PATH -- a brand new cozy mystery coming soon to a bookstore near you. Get out your Halloween candy (or your favorite Venetian pastry!) and join us as we guess on A HAUNTING IN VENICE! You can follow Eloise online to find out exactly when her book is available online at www.eloisecorvo.com, on Instagram @eloisecorvo, or on TikTok @author_eloisecorvo. What's the worst Halloween party you've ever been to? Come on over to the Cluedunnit Patreon (patreon.com/cluedunnitpodcast) and share your favorite story of Halloween gone terribly wrong! We watched Kenneth's Branagh's 2023 film, A HAUNTING IN VENICE.  You can also find us on Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cluedunnit/id1582713330 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PLXRlrkJFBTE6eE97YPwQ Overcast: You'll need to login with your Overcast account, but once you do, we're at https://overcast.fm/itunes1582713330/cluedunnit YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cluedunnitpodcast Follow us on the socials and let us know what you think!  Facebook: @cluedunnitpodcast   Instagram: @cluedunnitpodcast

In this episode, our host Sarah Travers is joined by Alan Branagh, Founder of Alchemists Forum.

The Shed, a relatively new multidisciplinary arts institution in Manhattan, has already made a habit of presenting buzzy theater productions — including the current, sold-run of "King Lear" starring Kenneth Branagh. Artistic director Alex Poots talks about how that show grew out of a years-along rapport with Branagh, and how the Shed's theater work fits into the broader landscape of Broadway and New York theater. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom Holland appeared on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and with a drum roll announced that Spider-Man 4 officially begins shooting next summer. This information is coupled with an announcement from Sony that the release date is July 24, 2026. 20th Century Studios President Steve Asbell sat down with The Hollywood Reporter recently to discuss the future of their filmmaking division under Disney. Asbell seemed to Mirror other disney subsidiaries with it's assurance that a focus on franchise films is the path of the future. They will likely continue franchises such as Avatar, the Alien-verse, and Planet of the Apes, plus Kenneth Branagh's Agatha Christie mystery adaptations will continue though it's not clear if Branagh is attached. Among other films discussed were a Master and Commander prequel, Something with Die Hard, the next Predator movie (two are coming out and one is a secret), and the possibility of a Speed 3.  Writer Steven Knight has left the Rey Star Wars movie. Knight replaced the original screenwriters just last March, but this looks to be another delay to the development of the film. Notably Knight has been busy, working on the screenplays for the Peaky Blinders feature film, an upcoming biopic starring Angelina Jolie, and several tv series. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is still slated to direct the future Rey movie. Venom: The Last Dance stumbled a bit in its choreography during last week's release in the U.S. with a $51 million dollar opening, but danced to success globally for a total $175 million including $46 million in China, which is the best superhero movie opening in that country since 2019. Sony is pleased with these numbers and well they should be, as the movie did take the top spot over Smile 2, which fell 59 percent. Universal's Oscar baby Conclave opened to $6.5 million, which tied it with The Wild Robot's fifth weekend's earnings. And the Andrew Garfield/Florence Pugh romantic drama We Live in Time came in fifth with $4.8 million. While promoting Robert Zemeckis' film Here, Paul Bettany confirmed that production begins on the Vision series in 2025. Chris Hemsworth is in talks to star in Disney's upcoming Prince Charming movie with Paul King attached to direct. AppleTV+ has unveiled a new trailer for Severance season 2. Severance will premiere on the streamer on Jan. 17, 2025, followed by an episode every Friday through March 21 for a 10 episode season. Ahead of its season 6 debut in December, drama series Virgin River has been renewed for a seventh season at Netflix. With the early renewal, Virgin River becomes Netflix's longest-running current original scripted series. An action comedy film adaptation of retro video game Oregon Trail is in early development at Apple. Will Speck and Josh Gordon are attached to direct and produce. EGOT winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul will provide original music and produce via their Ampersand production banner. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the movie will feature a couple of original musical numbers Michael Cera, William H. Macy, and Emilia Jones have joined the cast of Paramount's The Running Man. Netflix has renewed its animated series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft for a second season. The pickup was a relatively quick one, coming just two weeks after the eight-episode first season premiered. First images have surfaced from Spider-Noir, the Amazon series that will star Nicolas Cage in the title role. Sources tell Deadline that a new English-language Squid Game series is in the works at Netflix, with David Fincher coming on to develop it. Sony Pictures announced that Jumanji 3 is set to hit theaters Dec. 11, 2026. Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan starred in the first two films and are expected to return, as is director Jake Kasdan, who helmed both features.

Here is a compilation of the reviews I did with Movie Dumpster for Bram Stoker's Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Kenneth Branagh. Both movies were produced by Coppola. His Dracula movie is a modern classic while Branagh's Frankenstein is often forgotten. This is probably fan's favorite two part episode so I thought it would be fun to stitch it together!

‘Stranger Things’ Coming to Broadway in March, Branagh to Play Lear in New York, Baldwin and Christopher to Lead ‘Love Life’ at Encores Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines every Monday through Friday. Any and all feedback is read more The post Today on Broadway: Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024 appeared first on BroadwayRadio.

Now, you knew we'd get into this sooner or later. There are those actors who are known for their work with The Bard.Kenneth is one of those. In this episode, we discuss all the work he has done in the canon - SO FAR.We've got YEARS (hopefully!!) of more work coming from this incredible artist!!!To send us an email - please do, we truly want to hear from you!!! - write us at: thebardcastyoudick@gmail.com To support us (by giving us money - we're a 501C3 Non-Profit - helllloooooo, tax deductible donation!!!) - per episode if you like! On Patreon, go here:  https://www.patreon.com/user?u=35662364&fan_landing=trueOr on Paypal:https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=8KTK7CATJSRYJWe also take cash!   ;DTo visit our website, go here:https://www.thebardcastyoudick.comTo donate to an awesome charity, go here:https://actorsfund.org/help-our-entertainment-communiity-covid-19-emergency-reliefLike us? Don't have any extra moolah? We get it! Still love us and want to support us?? Then leave us a five-star rating AND a review wherever you get your podcasts!!

Chiudiamo la stagione con un episodio in cui il filo conduttore è un po' più visibile. Se Sergio, infatti, torna a parlare del suo amato Shakespeare raccontando di "Troppo rumore per nulla" (soprattutto nell'adattamento cinematografico di Kenneth Branagh), Silvia parla di Sylvia Beach, volume Bao che racconta la vita della fondatrice della storica libreria Shakespeare & Company di Parigi.Non male come chiusura, ci diciamo da soli, ma attendiamo i vostri commenti e vi aspettiamo a luglio per la terza stagione!---Qui tutti i link:https://oldmanaries.it/index.php/potrebbe-piacerti/https://silviacolaneri.it/potrebbe-piacerti/---Per contattarci:Pagina Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/potrebbepiacertiAccount Instagram: @potrebbepiacertiSergio: https://www.oldmanaries.it - Instagram: @OldManAriesSilvia: https://www.silviacolaneri.it - Instagram: @Silosa

Welcome back to "Say What's Reel" with your hosts Dom Cruze, Q, and ILL! In this episode, we're diving into the action-packed world of espionage with our review of "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit." Join us as we analyze the thrilling plot, exhilarating action sequences, and stellar performances from the cast. From intense spy missions to high-stakes suspense, we'll break it all down for you. Don't miss out on our in-depth discussion and insightful commentary. Hit that like button, subscribe to the channel, and share your thoughts in the comments below. Let's uncover the secrets of "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" together! #JackRyan #MovieReview #SayWhatsReelJack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a 2014 American action thriller film based on the character Jack Ryan created by author Tom Clancy. It is the fifth film in the Jack Ryan series and the second reboot thereof. Unlike its predecessors, it is not an adaptation of a particular Clancy novel, but rather an original story. Chris Pine stars in the title role, becoming the fourth actor to play Ryan, following Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck. The film is directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars alongside Kevin Costner, and Keira Knightley.Find the Say Whats Reel CrewSay Whats Reel Socials - https://linktr.ee/rmhproductionsDOM CRUZE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itzdomw/Q Twitter: https://twitter.com/King_QuisemoeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/king_quisemoe/iLL - https://twitter.com/illest_thrillerWe hope you enjoyed the video and the content we put out here at Say Whats Reel Thank you for watching!

By pairing down and leaning into atmosphere, in performance and direction, Branagh delivers his best Poirot adaptation so far. Read more at: https://scottsself-indulgentmovieblog.blogspot.com/

Whenever there is a film that demands the discussion of the Fake Nerds, be it an older one worth re-visitation or brand new, it ends up here in the Fake Nerd Cine-Files!This is our review of the latest Poirot film. A Haunting in Venice is written by Michael Green and directed by Kenneth Branagh, based on Hallowe'en Partyby Agatha Christie. Ben, Sparkz, and Brandon are back together to discuss Branagh's latest outing as the famous detective Hercule Poirot. They're very excited to get into what makes this the best of Branagh's films with the character so far. There's a lot to praise in the style of the film, the characterizations and performances, and the spooky vibes of classic horror. Enjoy the conversation!Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/m2cuzWkz19o*This episode was originally recorded on November 10th, 2023 and withheld in support of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.Fake Nerd Podcast is an audio podcast where we offer a more positive take on pop culture with news, reviews and interviews from the likes of Marc Guggenheim and Andrea Romano. Find us at ITunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. linktr.ee/FakeNerdhttp://www.fakenerdpodcast.com/https://twitter.com/FakeNerdPodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/fakenerdpodcast/https://www.facebook.com/fakenerdpodcast/FakeNerdGuys@gmail.comPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/fakenerdpodcastTeepublic: https://www.teepublic.com/user/fakenerdpod ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

With the third entry in Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot series, "A Haunting in Venice," the director and star of the franchise has put out his best effort.  Slimmed down, darker, and oh so moody, it is the work of someone who is clearly feeling more comfortable with the role(s).  Let's discuss...

This week on The First Run, it's people falling out of buildings to their doom week on the big show. First up, Chris and Matt discuss this year's Palm d'Or winner, ‘Anatomy Of A Fall', a court room drama that is praised for its standout performance by Sandra Hüller as a woman accused of killing her husband. Did she? Didn't she? Does it matter? Then Chris gets his Poirot itch scratched as Branagh returns to direct and star in ‘A Haunting In Venice'. After an okay first film, a dull second, is this the end of the gondola for Branagh's series? There's the gravity-defying review of the big releases on Physical Media, featuring the Streaming and Straight to DVD Picks of the Week! Then Matt and Chris close out the show by playing another round of everyone's favorite fill-in-the-blank game, TFR Libs, featuring Timothy Chalamet, David Fincher, and more! 00:00-13:23: Intro/ Anatomy Of A Fall13:24-20:47: Physical Media Picks20:48-28:20: A Haunting In Venice28:21-45:36: TFR Libs45:37-46:40: Wrap Up Theme music by Jamal Malachi Ford-Bey

Happy Halloween from Stuff I Didn't Write! Join us for a spoooopy Halloween episode where we're joined by special guest Charlee to discuss Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (not the Branagh movie...but also, the Branagh movie). We chat about the various adaptations (including the original adaptation), what prompted Frankenstein's iconic imagery, and the prevalent themes throughout the ages. This episode contains mild language.Support the showCreditsHosts: Emily Kearney-Williams and Kyra SeegmillerTheme song by Mixkit

It's Halloween season, so today we're bringing you a spooky Halloween special all about Kenneth Branagh's latest Poirot film, A Haunting in Venice, which is based on Agatha Christie's 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party.The film joins Poirot (played by Branagh) as he navigates the narrow streets of creepy post-war Venice. Soon Poirot finds himself embroiled in a horrifying murder mystery at the home of Rowena Drake, a famous opera singer whose daughter Alicia tragically fell from her balcony and drowned in the canal below. After Rowena Drake holds a séance with the famous medium Joyce Reynolds (played by Michelle Yeoh), guests are horrified to find Reynolds brutally murdered after she hints that she may know the truth about the mysterious death of Alicia Drake.In today's pod, we talk spooky hallucinations, haunted houses, creepy children and ghostly bees. We'll also be offering up our opinions of Branagh's Poirot and Tina Fey's Ariadne Oliver, and chatting about the (very loose) source material and how the book compares with the film.Join us as we discuss all this – and more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For their 132nd episode, two non-mustached critics, two mysterious dads, and two sleuth teachers, Will Johnson and Don Shanahan, welcome back frequent guest Cati Glidewell of The Blonde in Front back for the final week of three new release episodes of the podcast. Circling back to September, Cati and Don descend into Italians waters to follow Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot character for "A Haunting in Venice." Is it the best of Branagh's three Poirot movies so far? Get a clue of your own and tune in. Come for the shared challenge and stay for the mutual love and respect for the fun movies encapsulate. Enjoy our podcast!https://www.instagram.com/cinephilehissyfit/https://www.instagram.com/casablancadon/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CinephileFitwww.RuminationsRadioNetwork.comwww.instagram.com/RuminationsRadioNetworkTwitter: RuminationsRadioNetwork@RuminationsNProduction by Mitch Proctor for Area 42 Studios and SoundEpisode Artwork by Charles Langley for Area 42 Studios and Soundhttps://www.patreon.com/RuminationsRadiohttps://everymoviehasalesson.com/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this week's episode, I take a look at the movies I watched during fall 2023. We also have a brief digression about historical inaccuracies in crossword puzzles. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of CLOAK OF WOLVES, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of CLOAK OF WOLVES for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: OCTWOLVES The coupon code is valid through November 8th, 2023, so if you find yourself wanting to get caught up before CLOAK OF EMBERS comes out soon, why not start with an audiobook? TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello everyone. Welcome to Episode 172 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October the 22nd, 2023 and today we're going to talk about the movies I saw in autumn 2023. We also have a brief digression about historical inaccuracies in crossword puzzles. Before we get into that, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon is for the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves for 75% off at my Payhip store with this coupon code: OCTWOLVES-that's OCTWOLVES and that will also be in the show notes. The coupon code is valid through November 8th, 2023. So if you find yourself wanting to get caught up before Cloak of Embers comes out before the end of the year, why not start with an audiobook? Now let's have an update on my current writing projects. I am 44,000 words into Cloak of Embers, which only puts me in Chapter 6 of 22 so far. So I think we would have to split up some of those chapters into smaller ones. I think Cloak of Embers is going to be the longest book I write in 2023 and I'm hoping I can get it out before American Thanksgiving at the end of November, though it might be long enough that it will slip to December, but we will see. In audiobook news, since I recorded the last episode, Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer is now available. You can get it at Audible, Google Play, Kobo, Chirp and all the usual audiobook stores. Brad is hard at work on Dragonskull…what is the next one? I don't remember off the top of my head. That's how many Dragonskull books I've written. I can't remember the title was off the top of my head, but Brad is hard at work on the seventh one, which is Dragonskull: Wrath of the Warlock, and so hopefully we can get that out before the end of the year. 00:01:56 History Lesson via Incorrect Crossword Puzzle Clue Now for a brief digression into historical inaccuracies in crossword puzzles. Recently, someone I knew was working on a crossword puzzle, and one of the prompts was “Sacker of ancient Rome”-three letters across and the answer was “Hun” and that is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! The Huns never sacked Rome. The Huns did, however, sack a lot of the Western Roman Empire. In the 400s AD, the Western Roman Empire had entered its final decline, with a lot of its foreign territory getting carved up into new barbarian kingdoms. The Huns were a group of Eurasian nomads and were indirectly one of the causes of the collapse of the Western Empire. Their migration west had inspired a lot of terrified tribes to flee west as well to get away from them. Those terrified tribes became the barbarian invasions that overran much of the Western empire, but the Huns were still coming from the east. Under the leadership of their king Attila, the Huns became even more formidable, capable of taking walled and fortified cities, which was traditionally difficult for nomadic horsemen to do. Anyway, the Romans and their Visigothic allies had previously repulsed the Huns at The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 AD. Attila returned the next year and essentially destroyed northern Italy and his army pushed towards Rome. Emperor Valentinian the Third sent envoys to meet with Attila at the River Po and one of those envoys was Pope Leo the First and no one knows exactly what happened next. According to one story, when Atilla met Pope Leo, he saw Saint Peter and Saint Paul flanking the Pope in all their holy radiance with drawn swords in their hands, promising Attila that he would die if he entered Rome. So impressed was Attila that he turned his army around, left Italy, and Leo was credited as the savior of the city. The truth is probably somewhat more prosaic. Attila's army was running out of supplies, since Italy had already suffered a couple of bad harvests before Attila had burned down most of the northern half of the peninsula, which as you can imagine, did not help. In addition, a serious disease, probably dysentery, was spreading through Atilla's army. The Eastern Roman Emperor had sent an army of his own to attack the Huns' current homelands in central Europe on the Danube, and until Attila to go deal with that problem. Another account says that Atilla's advisers feared that Attila might suffer the same fate as the Visigothic Alaric, who died shortly after sacking Rome a little over forty years earlier. There is a good chance that Atilla was superstitious in a way it is hard for the modern mind to grasp, but until the start of modern science and the universities in the Middle Ages, people generally did not distinguish between natural and supernatural causes for events. Considering Alaric's fate might not have been that outlandish for Attila when it came to his calculations. Pope Leo was also a man of great intelligence and charisma. Perhaps he simply pointed out all these facts to Atilla and the Hunnic king, knowing that he was overextended and potentially in serious trouble, decided that the possibility of divine wrath was an acceptable face-saving excuse to turn around. We'll never know what happened at that meeting, but whatever the reason, Attila turned his army around and left Italy without attacking Rome. The new Eastern Emperor had stopped paying tribute to the Huns and Attila planned to deal with him next, but he died of a nosebleed on his wedding night in 453 AD. Attila's sons immediately embarked on a civil war with each other and the Hun's empire fell apart in short order. So the Huns never sacked Rome. Granted a lot of other people did, in fact sack Rome in the 400s AD, but the Huns never did. And that crossword puzzle annoyed me so much that I just spent the last five minutes talking about it! 00:05:24 Main Topic: Autumn 2023 Movie Reviews Now on to our main topic, the movies and streaming shows I watched over autumn 2023. We are well in fall now, with winter just over the horizon and that's means it's time to discuss those shows and movies. As always, we will start from my least favorite and work up to my favorite. So we'll start with The Flash, which came out in 2023. This movie very famously failed at the box office, and it's not hard to see why. It's like the CG artists finally had their revenge on Warner Discovery for being overworked and underpaid because a lot of the movie's CG looks like something a beginner might crank out in an older version of Unity or Daz Studio. Plus there's all these various serious crimes that the lead actor has been accused of, which makes the main character rather less likeable. Also The Flash, like many modern movies, simply cost way too much money to make, which meant it had to make big money to earn back a profit. If your movie cost $50 million to make, a $200 million return is good news. If it costs $220 million, you're in big trouble. To be fair, the movie was not without its good points. The Flash realizes he can run faster than the speed of light, which means he can travel back in time and attempt to save his mother (since she was murdered earlier), unfortunately doing so breaks the space-time continuum and threatens to destroy Earth and Flash tries again and again to set things right. Michael Keaton does well as an older Batman, and Supergirl was pretty cool. There are also several genuinely funny bits in the movie. However, the movie leaned hard into two of my least favorite plot devices: time travel and the multiverse. The problem with time travel and the multiverse is that with an infinite number of alternate versions of the characters, the stakes ultimately become meaningless. I think it also shows how the superhero genre film has kind of run out of gas. Instead of telling new stories and new plots, all the multiverse movies are just churning up slightly alternate versions of old characters and stories. It's like playing a computer game you've already finished but making slightly different choices this time, like playing as a fighter/mage instead of a fighter instead of a thief/mage, or something. Overall grade: C- Our next movie is Black Adam, which came out in 2023. I think this was slightly better than the Flash, though not by very much. There is a somewhat complicated back story involving the Council of Shazam, wizards, a demon possessed crown, and a magical champion. In the modern day, the story takes place in the nation of Kahndaq, which is clearly meant to evoke modern Egypt and Iraq. Kahndaq is currently ruled by a British mercenary company called Intergang, but don't worry about them. They just disappear halfway through the movie without any explanation. The leader of the resistance against Intergang is an archaeologist named Adrianna, and her son Amon, who is the kind of annoying kid who uses words like “neo-imperialist occupier” with a straight face while outrunning mercenaries on his skateboard. Anyway, Intergang is looking for the evil magic crown and Adrianna tries to stop them. In the process, she actually releases Teth-Adam, the champion of Kahndaq, from his tomb. Adam annihilates the mercenaries chasing Adrianna and then tries to come with term with the fact that he's been asleep for the last 5,000 years. Now that would have been a more interesting movie: a superpowered Bronze Age warrior wakes up and tries to come to terms with the modern age. Or he decides that the decadent modern age needs enlightenment to reach proper Bronze Age warrior values. Instead, we get the Justice Society (I assume they're the store brand/Sam's Choice version of the Justice League), who show up to fight Black Adam. Unfortunately, after they convince Black Adam to stand down, the Crown's evil magic wakes up and chooses a host and only Black Adam can save the world. Like the Flash, this movie had its strong points. The CG was a lot better than in Flash, and Dr. Fate was an interesting character. So was Hawkman. Unfortunately, like The Flash, the plot didn't make much sense and relied too heavily on hooks to the rest of the DC universe. But on the plus side, no time travel. Overall grade: C Next up is Haunted Mansion, which came out in 2023. This movie flopped at the box office, but it wasn't that bad for a movie about a Disney ride. It wasn't a scary movie. It was a scary movie in the tongue-in-cheek way that jack o' lanterns are scary. Like, the original purpose of a jack o' lantern in Iron Age societies was apparently to keep malevolent spirits at bay during the harvest. That was serious business back then, but now it's sort of play acting to entertain small children. Haunted Mansion is the same kind of tongue in cheek scariness, overlaid with quite a bit of comedy. The plot centers around a bitter and disillusioned former ghost hunter hired to use his ghost camera to take photos of spirits at a haunted house. The ghost hunter goes along with it, hoping for a quick payday, but quickly becomes ensnared in the curse surrounding the Haunted Mansion. He then has to team up with a crazy professor, a fast talking priest, a medium with good Yelp reviews, and a widowed doctor and her precocious son to defeat the malevolent Hatbox Ghost who rules over the ghosts of the Haunted Mansion. I am not, generally speaking, a big fan of the Disney corporation. But I am told that the movie has many Easter eggs referring to the original ride for people who appreciate that kind of thing. The movie didn't do well in theaters, but I expect it'll have a long afterlife on streaming. Overall grade: B- Next up is Men in Black 3, which originally came out in 2012. The original Men in Black was a near perfectly constructed science fiction comedy. Men in Black 2 was good, but not quite on that level and I think Men in Black 3 falls at about the same ranking. In this one, a lethal alien named Boris the Animal breaks out of a secured lunar prison and embarks on a rampage of revenge against Agent K. To facilitate his vengeance, Boris steals a time travel device and goes back to 1969 to kill a younger K at a critical junction in the timeline. Once Agent J realizes what has happened, he obtains another time jump device and goes back to fix things. As I've mentioned many times before, I don't really like time travel stories. However, this one works because it's pretty funny. To make the time jump work, you literally have to jump off a building of sufficient height to trigger the device. The other comedy parts are good, and Josh Brolin does a pitch perfect impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones as the younger agent K. Overall grade: B Next up is Men in Black International, which came out in 2019. I'd heard bad things about this movie, but it was actually quite enjoyable. Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth star as Agent M and Agent H. Based on the movie's advertising, I thought Agent M would be an almost tediously infallible Girlboss character with Agent H as her dimwitted sidekick. Fortunately, this turned out not to be the case and both characters had considerably more depth. Agent M is a nerdy probationary agent who desperately wants to prove herself while Agent H is a charismatic, somewhat lazy hedonist who always manages to pull off his assignments in the end. Agent M's and Agent H's first assignment together is to bodyguard an alien royal who promptly gets himself killed by two mysterious shapeshifting assassins. As things go haywire in the aftermath, the agents realized that the royal had a dark secret, and there's a traitor somewhere within the Men in Black. I thought it was an entertaining movie and probably should have done better than it did. Agent M and Agent H make a great comedy duo and they were also excellently funny bits. Liam Neeson was also good as Agent T, the commander of branch office, and there are no time travels or multiverses in this one. Overall grade: B+ Next up is Ahsoka, which came out in 2023. I would say Ahsoka is good but unfinished, since only two of the major plots get resolved and in such a way that it sets up future adventures. I realized the other the other day that Star Wars is the American equivalent to Doctor Who. The similarities are remarkable. One, both are long running sci-fi franchises. Two: but they're definitely not hard science fiction. Three: both are under the stewardship of large, ponderous, frequently ineffective organizations (whether Disney or the BBC). Four: both have spawned a vast maze of tie in novels and comics and games. Five: both have fandoms that act like religions, complete with a crazy fringe and six: and like religions that break into warring factions, both have fandoms that decide upon a particular era or releases the best one and argue vociferously about which part of the franchise is the best, with almost the same fervor as people arguing about whether Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, or John Calvin had the correct interpretation of the Bible. This isn't to be glib, but to know that the same self-destructive tribal instinct that humanity exhibits in politics and religion also seems to appear in far less serious arenas like football supporters and science fiction franchises, or even in something as silly as game console brands, as a single glance at an online argument about the respective merits of the Xbox and PlayStation will demonstrate. Anyway, that was a philosophical digression. Back to the Ahsoka show. It was better than I expected. Once again I thought that Ahsoka would be another tediously infallible Girlboss type character, but she was nothing like that. Instead she made several serious mistakes, faced enemies who were stronger than her, and had to learn and adapt and grow to survive her challenges. In other words, a compelling protagonist. All the performances from the actors were good, especially the late Ray Stevenson. His Baylan Skoll character really stole Episode 4, and if this was destined to be Mr. Stevenson's last performance, at least it was a great one. Diana Lee Inosanto was great as Morgan Elsbeth, who asked to be one of the single most competent villains in all of Star Wars- evil, but she gets results. I also really liked the way the lightsaber duels are presented. They seem more like something out of a samurai movie. The combatants are careful of their footing and their stances, only to explode into some motion, rather than the more acrobatic flipping and spinning around in the prequel movies. I have to admit, in the publicity stills for the show I kind of thought that the show's version of Grand Admiral Thrawn looks sort of like Elon Musk transmogrified into a Smurf, but that was just a bad angle. Combined with his voice and mannerisms, Lars Mikkelsen's performance as Thrawn really works. I suspect Mr. Musk only wishes he had this version of Grand Admiral Thrawn's air of gravitas and authority. The show ends on sort of an Empire Strikes Back style cliffhanger. I hope the story will continue, but I have my doubts. Disney wasn't in great shape even before the writers and actors' strikes, and I wonder if the company is simply going to run out of financing for ambitious projects like Ahsoka. One more point: the soundtrack by the Kiner family was A+ work, with the Japanese style musical motifs for the lightsaber duels, the long, ominous horns from the Night Sisters, and the blasting pipe organ from when Thrawn makes his return. Overall grade: B+ Next up is Collateral, which came out in 2004. This is a superb neo-noir thriller. Jamie Foxx stars as Max, a hapless LA taxi driver who picks up Vincent, played by Tom Cruise, who claims to be in town to secure signatures for a real estate deal. Vincent offers Max $600 to drive around for the night and in need of the money, Max agrees, except it turns out Vincent is actually a hit man in area to kill five targets, and when Max realizes what is happening and tries to bail, Vincent forces him to continue. I really like this one. Tom Cruise's perpetual intensity works very well in the villain role, and the psychological duel between Max and Vincent was compelling to watch. Vincent claims that his targets are bad people who deserve their fates. But once Max figures out that Vincent's final target most definitely does not deserve her fate, the race is on to save the target's life. The movie did have the overused trope where the LAPD gets mad the FBI is taking over their case, which was a thing even way back in Die Hard. In fact, that was a major plot point in Die Hard, now that I think about it. In real life, the FBI's interaction with local law enforcement mostly involves providing consulting and lab services and local law enforcement is actually often eager to hand a troublesome case over to the Feds because it then becomes somebody else's problem. I also thought the soundtrack seemed a bit off in the first half of the movie, but those are minor quibbles. Collateral was a thoroughly enjoyable thriller. Definitely recommend if you like the genre of film. Overall grade: A. That brings us to the last movie I saw this autumn and I think it would tie with Collateral for the favorite thing I saw this fall and that is A Haunting in Venice, which came out in 2023. This is the third of Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot movies. I really like the first one he did, Murder on the Orient Express, but I thought the second one he did, Death on the Nile, was only so-so, which was disappointing because Death on the Nile is, in my opinion, one of the best of the Hercule Poirot books. But A Haunting in Venice is on par with Orient Express. The movie takes place in 1947 and Hercule Poirot, soul-sick and weary after the horrors of World War II and all the depths of human evil he has seen in those cases, has decided to retire in Venice. His friend Ariadne Oliver (Agatha Christie's self-parodying author insert in the Poirot novels) turns up to ask him to help debunk a medium preying upon a grieving mother. Poirot immediately demonstrates the medium is a fraud, but soon afterwards someone tries to kill him, and a few minutes later the medium herself is killed. It's then up to Poirot solve the case, even as the suspects become increasingly convinced that supernatural powers are behind the killing. This movie also had one of my favorite plot devices from the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie: the rationalist detective confronted by a seemingly supernatural mystery.  Branagh's provision of Poirot is darker, rather more angsty than the book version, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Tina Fey was also an excellent choice to play Ariadne Oliver. Overall grade: A. So those are the movies I saw this autumn, and check back towards the end of winter, when we'll do a winter 2023-2024 Movie Roundup episode. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. It really does help. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

We apply stringent deductive reasoning and logical examination to our GUY Kenneth Branagh's latest detective story. Are we finally figuring out Branagh's casting choices? Did Jed get too spooked from this Halloween tale? Plus: who should be in the next Poirot tale?

Welcome to Watch. Review. Repeat. This is the podcast where two best friends discuss the latest in film and television and then do it all over again the following episode! Colton and Andrew reunite with Hercule Poirot in Kenneth Branagh's third Agatha Christie adaptation, 'A Haunting in Venice'! 00:00:00 - Intro 00:06:46 - Colton's Fun Facts About 'A Haunting in Venice'! 00:13:52 - 'Harry Potter' Dumbledore Actor Michael Gambon Dead at Age 82 00:16:42 - Writer's Guild of America Votes to Lift Strike After 148 Days Writer's Strike 00:24:52 - 'The Exorcist: Believer' Official Trailer 2 00:38:28 - 'Castlevania: Nocturne' Main Trailer 00:42:45 - 'Rebel Moon' Official Teaser Trailer 00:51:13 - 'Maestro' Official Teaser 00:56:55 - 'The Killer' Official Teaser Trailer 01:00:05 - 'The Bikeriders' Official Trailer 01:05:24 - 'Thanksgiving' Official Teaser Trailer 01:10:53 - 'The Fall of the House of Usher' Official Trailer 01:18:03 - 'A Haunting in Venice' (Non-Spoilers and Recommendation) 01:46:30 - 'A Haunting in Venice' (Spoilers) 02:06:14 - Listener's Corner ('Reptile', 'The Flash', 'The Little Mermaid') 02:12:36 - Catching Up With Andrew (Baldur's Gate 3, Broken Air Conditioning, 'Castlevania: Nocturne', 'The Haunting of Hill House', Baby Bennett Update, Mythos and Heroes by Stephen Fry, 'Ahsoka') 02:20:59 - Catching Up With Colton (The Quarry, 'Claim to Fame', 'Star Wars Rebels', 'X-Men: The Animated Series', Babyklok Tour, Nothing But Thieves w/Kid Kapichi, Royal Blood, Wedding Anniversary) 02:42:05 - Conclusion/Outro Visit our website! Support us on Patreon! Thank you for listening, and please send any feedback to watchreviewrepeat@gmail.com! Intro/Outro Credit: Mechanolith Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Like a full moon occurring on Halloween, this year our annual Spooktacular episode coincides with our 100th episode. How exhausting to think about! To commemorate this occasion, we dust off a movie we've kicked around covering for years, dunked in a vat of eels and amniotic fluid, and brought it to horrible, horrible life. That's right, it's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Kenneth Branagh's turgid adaptation of the classic sci-fi / horror / sin against God novel. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris go back in time to discuss Hollywood's brief infatuation with prestigious horror movies based on literature, the film's tendency to deliver dialogue as though it's playing to the last row of the balcony, and Branagh's inability to keep the damn camera still. We also make a suitably sour cocktail to mimic the sensation of being brought back to life by the jolt of a swarm of electric eels. SHOCKING, isn't it? Continue reading →

Like a full moon occurring on Halloween, this year our annual Spooktacular episode coincides with our 100th episode. How exhausting to think about! To commemorate this occasion, we dust off a movie we've kicked around covering for years, dunked in a vat of eels and amniotic fluid, and brought it to horrible, horrible life. That's right, it's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Kenneth Branagh's turgid adaptation of the classic sci-fi / horror / sin against God novel. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris go back in time to discuss Hollywood's brief infatuation with prestigious horror movies based on literature, the film's tendency to deliver dialogue as though it's playing to the last row of the balcony, and Branagh's inability to keep the damn camera still. We also make a suitably sour cocktail to mimic the sensation of being brought back to life by the jolt of a swarm of electric eels. SHOCKING, isn't it? Continue reading →

Kenneth Branagh continues to direct himself as Hercule Poirot in his ongoing project to make Agatha Christie's classic whodunnits all about him. A Haunting in Venice has less focus on the process and nuances of investigation than its predecessors, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile - and those already felt the need to punctuate the procedural with action, lest the audience get bored - but shows just as much interest in Poirot's story, at the expense of the suspects' and victims'. It's safe to say that these adaptations are not what they could, or should, be. Branagh enthusiastically uses dramatic angles and camera movement; wonderful to see but for the fact that he does so with little motivation, failing to create with them the effects and mood that he could. The casting disappoints José, who looks to these sorts of films for the stars of yesteryear who fill the ensemble, bringing their histories and personas to their portrayals of the snooty dowagers, nervous accountants and so on; here, no such stars are present. A few current names pepper the cast list, but most of the players that this whodunnit hosts form a who's who of "who's that?" We're already into diminishing returns with Branagh's Poirot series, the films increasingly missing the point of their genre - how can the audience play along with the mystery and marvel at the intricacy of its solution when we're rushed past the details in favour of hearing about the detective's inner life yet again? Mike found an element of that to like back in Murder on the Orient Express, but even a heart as large and generous as his can find no room for it any more. It's simply not good enough. Recorded on 11th October 2023.

We're back with a new episode! We dove into Death on the Nile, the 2022 Kenneth Branagh adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel, and wow do we have thoughts. We get right into it, covering the character of Poirot and how we rank Branagh's version compared to the previous two we explored on the podcast. We talk about the fundamental elements of the detective, and consider why we felt this movie missed the mark. We discuss the lack of connection we had to varying degrees, and wonder how much of it had to do with the “style over substance” approach and how it seemed to cater to a general audience. We did, however, admire the costumes and production design (despite the terrible CGI), thought the actual mystery part was adapted well, and believe the attempts at color conscious casting were at least partially successful. We also agreed that the actors did great work with what they were given, but wish these production studios did more to vet the histories and behavior of who they cast. Katy gets her Marvel movies mixed up, Carrie quietly drops some Cleopatra facts, Maddy questions the historical accuracy of balloon releases, and Mack breaks down the patriarchy (it's not about horses). We wonder why every modern hero needs traumatic backstories, enjoy the addition of lesbians, discuss actors who feel weird in period pieces, and ask Mack to answer the age-old question, “Why do men suck so much?” We also cover bullet sizes, Jurassic Park, the Bryan Cranston Effect, dance floor humping, and unions. Listen to hear an incredible Branagh Poirot impression! “Every decision they made was the wrong decision.” - Carrie TW: Anti-vax views, cannibalism, colonialism, racism, appropriation of ancient and modern Egyptian culture, vore. Mentions of Armie Hammer, Russell Brand, Gal Gadot, Johnny Depp Show Notes: The Adam Sandler SNL vacation video Maddy mentioned can be found here. Carrie would like to apologize for calling Emma Mackey Emma Corey multiple times. The actress who played Jackie is definitely Emma Mackey and she is an incredible talent.

Chris and Taylor review the mystery film, A Haunting in Venice, produced and directed by Kenneth Branagh from a screenplay by Michael Green loosely based on the 1969 Agatha Christie novel Hallowe'en Party. It serves as a sequel to Death on the Nile (2022) and is the third film in which Branagh reprises his role as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The ensemble cast includes Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, and Michelle Yeoh.Follow us on:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepotentialpodcast/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepotentialpodcastTwitter: https://twitter.com/thepotentialpodSupport us on Patreon:patreon.com/thepotentialpodcastThanks to our sponsor: AURAAura:Get a 14-day free trial of Aura for individuals, couples and or their family by going to aura.com/potential  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome back, Cultists. Wherever Stoker's Vampire Count goes Shelley's Modern Prometheus soon follows.  Released two years after Dracula, Coppola returned as producer and tapped Shakespearean Wunderkind Kenneth Branagh to direct. Attempting to repeat the success of Dracula to mixed results. So please join your Horror Hosts for their dissection of 1994's Gothic Horror film, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein! Dissection Topic https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109836/?ref_=ext_shr Dark Tidings https://deadline.com/2023/09/ketchup-entertainment-hellboy-the-crooked-man-jack-kesy-1235543207/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/09/movies/venice-film-festival-winner-poor-things.html https://bloody-disgusting.com/the-further/3779150/new-boxlunch-exclusive-merch-roots-for-horror-hometeam/ https://hasbropulse.com/products/transformers-collaborative-universal-monsters-frankenstein-x-transformers-frankentron Vault Of Darkness https://maryshelley.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-shadow-of-the-mountain Misfits - Walk Among Us https://www.discogs.com/master/105458-Misfits-Walk-Among-Us Misfits - American Psycho https://www.discogs.com/master/8096-Misfits-American-Psycho Doc Frankenstein: The Post Modern Prometheus https://a.co/d/7NoyTo2 Unholy Sacrament https://untp.beer/XJv9v Theme Music  https://tridroid.bandcamp.com/album/crimson-shadows #frankenstein #kennethbranagh #maryshelleysfrankenstein #helenabonhamcarter #robertdeniro #tomhulce #aidanquinn #ianholm #johncleese #maryshelley #patrickdoyle #rogerpratt #classicmonsters #classichorror #gothichorror #horrorcinema #monstermovies #itsalive #gothicliterature #horrorliterature 

Josh is joined by Agatha Christie Correspondent Fred Kolb to discuss Kenneth Branagh's third Christie adaptation, “A Haunting in Venice!” They discuss the ways in which Branagh improved upon his first two entries in the franchise by changing the feel of the movie to something approaching the horror genre, the performances from the cast that included Tina Fey, Jamie Dorman and Kelly Reilly, whether the mystery unfolded in a compelling manner and much more! Spoilers start at 38:00!

The Trial of Traynor concludes with the latest Branagh-helmed Agatha Christie mystery — A HAUNTING IN VENICE (2023)! We also receive a letter from Hercule Poirot himself who reveals a strange new clue in the Mystery of the Missing Wheel... VOTE FOR TRAYNOR'S GUILT BY CLICKING HERE! Then, go follow him on Letterboxd :) - Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, or our Letterboxd HQ at @austindangerpod. Send us a letter or voicemail at austindangerpodcast@gmail.com and we'll share them on our episodes. If you tag your reviews with "austindangerpod" on Letterboxd, we'll find them and also share them on the show! Follow Kev & McKenzie on Letterboxd. Listen to Kev's other podcast, Ammonite Movie Nite! Listen to McKenzie's other podcasts The Criterion Connection & ON LYNCH. NEXT WEEK: Our brand new possessed spooky wheel brought us a film out of left field — WILLARD (2003) - Episode Chapters: (00:00:00) Intro + AMC Cocktail Event (00:09:22) A HAUNTING IN VENICE Main Discussion (00:47:26) Popcorn Notes + Final Thoughts (01:09:15) I Love Gooooold (01:10:41) There You Are, You're Over There! (01:16:31) The Mysterious Letter… (01:19:09) The Spooky Wheel?!

Time to tally up the results of the MAM 2023 Summer Movie Draft. Who came out on top, and what were the best movies to pick? Plus, we dig into the third of Branagh's Hercule Poirot movies with A HAUNTING IN VENICE. Should they keep making these, or end it here? VIP talk this week is ALL-TIME FLOP time with TITAN A.E. Subscribe at madaboutmoviespodcast.com/vip

This week, nobody can pronounce anything correctly as the whole team gathers in the War Room. Da7e and Katey have both seen Dumb Money (about the GameStop short squeeze) and give it a little review. The gang attempts to help a listener with documentaries in Vulture’s Movie Fantasy League, then Patches and Da7e have seen […]

“A Haunting in Venice” is the latest Agatha Christie adaptation centered around the famed detective Hercule Poirot. Is it actually scary? Where does is rank among Branagh's other Poirot movies? How does it compare to other whodunnits? Tune in and all questions will be answered…

For this week's main podcast review, I am joined by Giovanni Lago & Brendan Hodges to discuss the latest film from Kenneth Branagh, his third Agatha Christie adaptation, "A Haunting In Venice" starring Branagh, Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Dornan, Kelly Reilly, Camille Cotton, Jude Hill & Riccardo Scmarcio. With a gothic horror twist on the whodunnit genre, Branagh reprises his role as Hercule Poirot for a third time, but after the mixed to negative reactions to "Murder On The Orient Express" and "Death On The Nile," what did we think of this latest one from the Academy Award-winning filmmaker? Tune in as we discuss the themes, ensemble, visual aesthetics, and more in our SPOILER-FILLED review. Thank you, and enjoy! Check out more on NextBestPicture.com For more about Regal Unlimited - https://regmovies.onelink.me/4207629222/937isfrg New subscribers can use code REGALNBP23 for 10% off of Regal Unlimited for the first 3 months Please subscribe on... SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/nextbestpicturepodcast Apple Podcasts - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/negs-best-film-podcast/id1087678387?mt=2 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7IMIzpYehTqeUa1d9EC4jT YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWA7KiotcWmHiYYy6wJqwOw And be sure to help support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month at https://www.patreon.com/NextBestPicture

For this "Quick Screen" episode, Michael checked out the brand new theatrical film "A Haunting in Venice". What are some of his thoughts on this dramatic mystery film that is based on an Agatha Christie story and is the third Poirot film directed by Kenneth Branagh starring Branagh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, and Michelle Yeoh? Check it out and see! Be a part of the conversation! E-mail the show at screennerdspodcast@gmail.com Follow the show on Twitter @screennerdspod Like the show on Facebook (Search for Screen Nerds Podcast and find the page there) Follow the show on Instagram and Threads just search screennerdspodcast Be sure to check out the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Goodpods, Overcast, Amazon Music or your podcast catcher of choice! (and please share rate and review!) Want to be a guest or share your thoughts on the podcast? Send me an e-mail! Thanks to Frankie Creel for the artwork --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/screennerdspodcast/message

'urcule Poiroh is back on the big screen this week. To celebrate, we are heading to Egypt, kind of, to enjoy Branagh's second Christie adventure.  Featuring: Egypt care of Croydon and British Accents care of Brooklyn.  More Pauls! https://facebook.com/ogtpod https://twitter.com/ogtpod We have a Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ogtpod – sign up for exclusive content for as little as $1 a month. Listen to Salt's show Jen and the Film Critic with OGT guest and deep friend Jen Blundell here! Like d&d? Want more Pauls? Into nerd shit AND jokes about bums? Why not check out our d&d actual play podcast, Quest Fantastic?  https://shows.acast.com/quest-fantastic link.chtbl.com/questfantastic RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/61d8e6b335501c0012b6c367 Goodman's EP 'Future Music' is out now! Find out where you can stream and purchase here: Future Music by Run//Phase (songwhip.com)

Qué nos gusta un buen menú de cine en salas y plataformas. En este episodio celebramos la vuelta de Nanni Moretti con ‘El Sol del futuro'. Charlamos con el autor italiano y también con Pablo Larraín por el estreno de ‘El Conde', su sátira con Pinochet de vampiro. Además, Kenneth Branagh vuelve a la carga 

you can watch this episode on ⁠http://youtube.rtownpod.com⁠ or on ⁠http://spotify.rtownpod.com⁠if you want to see this week's top 5go to ⁠http://www.rtownpodcast.com⁠ Headlines: Burning Man fiasco Rich guy city Enrique Tarrio sentenced to 22 years for Jan 6. Jimmy Buffet dies Movies Coming Out This Month: Equalizer 3 The Inventor A Haunting in Venice (third installment in Branagh's Hercule Poirot film series) Expendables 4 The Creator Saw X This week in history: 490 BC Greek Hoplites defeat Darius' Persian army on the plains of Marathon. Pheidippides runs to tell all of Athens, they won, then dies. 1877 The great Sioux warrior Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted at age 36 by a soldier at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. 1939 Britain declares war on Germany after the latter invades Poland 1951 The first transcontinental television broadcast in America is carried by 94 stations. 1957 Arkansas governor Orval Faubus calls out the National Guard to bar African-American students from entering a Little Rock high school. 1972 ”Black September,” a Palestinian terrorist group take 11 Israeli athletes hostage at the Olympic Games in Munich; by midnight all hostages and all but 3 terrorists are dead. 1972 Mark Spitz becomes first Olympic competitor to win 7 medals during a single Olympics Games. 1975 President Gerald Ford evades an assassination attempt in Sacramento, California. 1976 Viking 2 lands on Mars and gets first close up full color images of surface 1998 Google founded Advice:  My girlfriend of about two years hit me recently and I don't know what to do about it. This was so out of character for her and have never known her to express anger physically before. We were arguing, and the fight spun out of control. I was standing behind her talking loud and she spun around and slapped me. After the slap, I just sort of stood there, absolutely speechless. She gasped and then walked away for a minute, but came back really quick apologizing profusely. We hadn't been drinking or anything, just a hard argument. She apologized for hours and seems genuinely contrite and is as upset about the whole situation as I am. Should I stay or should I go? I won't tolerate an abuser. If she did it once, she could do it again.

On this SPECIAL EDITION of The Movie Podcast, Daniel and Shahbaz are joined by Academy Award-Winning Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker), and Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos (Belfast) of Kenneth Branagh's A HAUNTING IN VENICE. The film is as the sequel to Death on the Nile (2022) and Murder on the Orient Express (2017) in which Branagh portrays the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, the fictional Belgian detective created by writer Agatha Christie. A Haunting in Venice is set in eerie, post-World War II Venice on All Hallows' Eve. Now retired and living in self-imposed exile in the world's most glamorous city, Poirot reluctantly attends a séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets. The film opens exclusively in theatres September 15, 2023.Watch and listen to The Movie Podcast now on all podcast feeds, YouTube, and TheMoviePodcast.caGet a whole month of great cinema FREE on MUBI: mubi.com/themoviepodcastContact: hello@themoviepodcast.caTHE MOVIE PODCAST ON ET CANADA!THE MOVIE PODCAST MERCHANDISE NOW AVAILABLE!FOLLOW USDaniel on Twitter, Instagram, and LetterboxdShahbaz on Twitter, Instagram, and LetterboxdAnthony on Twitter, Instagram, and LetterboxdThe Movie Podcast on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Discord, and YouTube

Michael Hoffman's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream came at the end of a big decade for Shakespeare adaptations in general. Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet starring Mel Gibson was released in 1990, and other hit adaptations would follow - notably Kenneth Branagh's celebrated Much Ado About Nothing in 1993, Oliver Parker's Othello, starring Branagh and Laurence Fishburne, in 1995, and Baz Luhrman's huge hit Romeo + Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in 1996, a movie that made ten times its 14 million dollar budget. So when A Midsummer Night's Dream, often cited as the most popular Shakespeare play ever, hit early in summer movie season of 1999, it was basically a sure thing, especially given its stellar cast. However, grossing just 16 million dollars, it barely made money on its 11 million dollar budget. Compare that to Romeo + Juliet or even Much Ado, which made 43 million on a less than 6 million dollar budget, and A Midsummer Night's Dream has to be seen as a dud. It was met with a very mixed (but largely approving) critical response, but what did we think of it? This week, John and Joey welcome accomplished Shakespearean actor, director, and producer Steven Sabel to talk about it. Steven is also the host of Don't Quill the Messenger, a podcast exploring the Shakespeare authorship question.

Chatting With Sherri welcomes back award-winning Cinematographer Roger Lanser! Roger Lanser  After many years as a Loader and Focus Puller he became camera operator to DP Peter Hendry on many ABC dramas such as Patrol Boat, Captain Cook, and Boy in the Bush where he met acclaimed British actor Kenneth Branagh.  Kenneth asked him to come to England and film the British comedy Peter's Friends. Over the years he went on to do eight feature films for Branagh including three Shakespeare's, and the big screen opera Mozart's The Magic Flute in 2006 for which he won the Australian Cinematographer's Society; Cinematographer of the Year!  In Australia he did  Australian films such as The Cliff Young Story, Till Human Voices Wake Us, Charlie and Boots, and Strange Bedfellows, these last two with Paul Hogan. Roger has had the opportunity to work in the USA where he shot a comedy feature called A Weekend in the Country with Jack Lemon and Betty White and has photographed many USA co-pro tele movies here in Australia. He has been the cinematographer on three series of the very successful Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries based in Melbourne as well as, Miss Fisher and The Crypt of Tears, which Roger shot in Morocco and Melbourne, premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and opened in Sydney and Melbourne to booked out screenings.   

In this episode, we chat about the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare.“The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, often shortened to “Hamlet” is one of Shakespeare's most quoted plays. It was written between 1599-1601, and is his longest play. The play is set in Denmark, where Prince Hamlet's uncle has taken over the throne by killing Hamlet's father, and marrying Hamlet's mother. This play features on many shortlists for literature for GCSE + A-level, but how will we find it (as first time readers of this play)? Listen to find out! In this episode we discuss several different stagings of the play, including the 1996 version with Kenneth Branagh, the 2009 version with David Tennant, the 2018 version with Andrew Scott, and the 2016 RSC staging with Paapa Essiedu, which are all available online, although we're not sure we can recommend all of them **cough** Branagh **cough**. Content WarningsDeath, SuicideSupport the showP.s If there's a book you want to recommend to us to read, just send us a message/email and we'll pop it on our long list (but please read our review policy on our website first for the books we accept).Social MediaWebsite: https://teachingmycattoread.wordpress.com/Email: teachingmycattoread@gmail.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/teachmycat2read/Twitter: https://twitter.com/teachmycat2read?s=09Tumblr: https://teachingmycattoread.tumblr.comYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFXi9LNQv8SBQt8ilgTZXtQ

The newest episode of We Are Not Amused is now live! Join Tressa and Taylor as they once again discuss “Much Ado About Nothing,” but this time a film adaptation and a stage adaptation. Enjoy as we compare and contrast these two different mediums of the same text, discuss the multiple future Harry Potter characters, spend a fair amount of time relaying the infamous paint scene, and, oddly, talk about “Beetlejuice” for a bit too long. Also, if you hear water running in the background, apologies for that, but the cats must have water.

Benoit Blanc is back on the case in Glass Onion, and we bear witness to his brainstorming!  Then Dead Again asks if murder and past lives are mutually exclusive.  Here's another clue for you all… listen to this episode! #glassonion #knivesout #benoitblanc #danielcraig #deadagain #kennethbranagh #emmathompson

All aboard, listeners! This week, we're looking at Kenneth Branagh's recent attempts to take on Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot with 2017′s Murder on the Orient Express. Directed by and starring Branagh as the French investigator, the film assembled a gobsmacking assemblage of stars (from Michelle Pfeiffer to Judi Dench to Penelope Cruz to Johnny Depp) … Continue reading "225 – Murder on the Orient Express"

n this episode, we form a mutual admiration society around a CenterForLit hero: Sir Kenneth Branagh. We talk about his directorial principles on the topic of film adaptation, why we think he's great, and why some people disagree with us. Conversation ranges from Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing to Cinderella and Branagh's Agatha Christie ambitions. Join the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/333790777396633Shop BiblioFiles: www.centerforlit.com/the-bibliofiles-shopWe love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing i.andrews@centerforlit.com, or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.

Over on Waypoint I've spent about a month looking back at Sid Meier's Gettysburg and teaching the game to the rest of the crew (with varying levels of success). But since I was already hip-deep in 90s Civil War culture, Troy and I decided it was time to tackle one of the films that we've been intending to discuss for years: 1993's Gettysburg, directed by Ron Maxwell and bankrolled by Ted Turner. There are a lot of issues with Gettysburg. It's evasive on the subject of slavery, wanting both to ennoble is white Union heroes by reminding us that theirs was an army of liberation but to not think too deeply on who was being liberated or from what. Because it is also a product of Lost Cause traditions where the conflict was predominantly one about culture, or as the foppish British observer in this story declares, the root of the conflict is the “different dreams” of its antagonists. Not pictured: the Confederate dream. It's also a very incomplete military history of the battle of Gettysburg but this really stems from the decisions author Michael Shaara made with his novel The Killer Angels, which finds its central narrative drama in James Longstreets' prescience that Robert E. Lee is marching the army into a decisive defeat while on the Union side the story is told from the perspective of characters who do recognize the stakes and the dangers and have the agency to rise to the moment. It's the stuff of a great war novel but not of a comprehensive military history, and so Gettysburg ends up being a film where Union command is effectively invisible. However, within those choices Gettysburg remains, as Troy says, one of the all-time great battle films. The murkiness in which decisions are made, the clarity of a commander's intentions to his subordinates, the places where the rubber of generalship meets the road of combat… all of this is brilliantly rendered in Gettysburg and, for me and Troy, maintains it as a favorite even for all of its manifest flaws. We also decided that this episode, because it's so directly in dialogue with a ton of work I'm doing over at Waypoint and on streams there, is one we'd just make public instead of reserving it for the Patreon. Troy and I love having these monthly chats for our backers (and our last one on Knight's Tale and Marie Antoinette was another favorite) but here it felt like a useful place to show how we set these discussion about history movies in the context of all the other work we do as critics and professional strategy nerds. And by the way, after having tackled some heavier films of late, next month we're giving ourselves a break with Branagh's Death on the Nile as well as the 1978 version. Troy is trying to convince me to watch the Suchet one was well, and while Suchet is basically to Poirot what Jeremy Brett is to Sherlock Holmes, I've been warned that version is not one of the better Suchet adaptations. But we will at least be alluding to it in that conversation, even if we are focusing on the 2021 and ‘78 versions.