Eavesdropping At The Movies

The winner of the 1971 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Vittorio De Sica's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis tells an aching story of doomed love within a wealthy Jewish community in Fascist Italy. The 1938 racial laws, enforcing the segregation of Italian Jews, have just been introduced, but the titular family's titular garden offers insulation from the rising tide of fascism - for a while. Mike finds the film's love triangle somewhat banal, but is impressed with the subtly observed way in which the central characters allow themselves to remain comfortably ignorant of the increasingly hostile and dangerous Italy beyond their walls; comparisons to frogs in saucepans abound, not to mention the present-day normalisation of absurd corruption and violence in the Greatest Country in the World™. José is more keen on the romance, but still, the film's sociopolitical side remains our focus. We consider the film's use of physical space, the ways in which the Jewish characters can navigate it without being suspect

We're enraptured by a musical neither of has seen before, 1932's Love Me Tonight, starring Maurice Chevalier as a charming and roguish Parisian tailor, and Jeanette MacDonald as a princess he falls for. Its soundtrack is peppered with Rodgers and Hart classics, and its stunning audiovisual design is endlessly experimental, expressive and exciting. In amongst our swooning over the film's many pleasures, we find time to discuss the careers of Chevalier and director Rouben Mamoulian, discuss what makes it a uniquely American form of fairytale, and examine the fascinating censorship and production records made available on Kino Lorber's special edition Blu-Ray. Recorded on 23rd October 2020.

Fourteen years have passed since Sacha Baron Cohen's first tour of the USA as Borat, his friendly, clueless, and decidedly un-PC Kazakh journalist. Borat gave his unwitting participants, real people who didn't know that he was a character, space and encouragement to display their bigotry, sexism, racism, and stupidity - now he's back to do it again, in a world in which bigotry, sexism, racism and stupidity are no longer deemed necessary to hide. Sexism in particular is this film's bedrock, the film introducing a daughter, Tutar, who Borat didn't know about, and when she stows away on her father's trip, he decides to offer her to Mike Pence as a token of Kazakhstan's friendship. Women are chattel, and the only objection raised when Borat decides to give the fifteen-year-old Tutar breast implants is that he can't afford them. Women's role as playthings for men, and the society that refuses to allow them control over their bodies, shape almost every scene, including a debutante ball, a conversation with a Chris

The second feature-length computer-animated film ever made, after Pixar's groundbreaking Toy Story, Antz is an oddball. A public feud between Jeffrey Katzenberg and then-CEO of Disney, Michael Eisner, led to Katzenberg founding Dreamworks SKG and subsequently feuding with Pixar's John Lasseter, who was making the suspiciously similar - and ultimately more successful - A Bug's Life. Pixar is the historically more successful and well-regarded studio, and the direct comparison between these two films usually sees Antz considered inferior, but Mike's long been fond of it, and in revisiting it we discuss both how far it shows us animation has come in the last twenty years, and its many qualities, including its rather grown-up tone and references, imaginative and expressive visual design and cinematography, and witty dialogue. Oh, and we try to work out how children think. Recorded on 18th October 2020.

Jacques Tati's masterpiece, 1967's Playtime, is an extraordinarily ambitious work of visual comedy and social satire. Mike's been keen to see this for fifteen years or more, knowing of its reputation for detailed visual design and the 70mm cinematography that shows it off, waiting for the right moment. José, when Mike suggests we watch it, thinks he's seen it many years ago, but soon realises he was probably thinking of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, Tati's rather more charming comedy of fourteen years prior, so it takes him a while to get into Playtime's rather more offbeat gear. And he is ultimately a little cold to the film, though not immune to its appeal and pleasures, while Mike loves it unconditionally. In a somewhat alternate, near-future Paris, the plot, such as it is, follows two characters: Monsieur Hulot, the character Tati played in several films, as he stumbles through a France he finds unfamiliar and devoid of humanity; and Barbara, an American tourist visiting the city. In approximately six fairly

One a great masterpiece of cinema, the other a cultural icon of its day, we compare and contrast Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner with Nora Ephron's technologically updated remake, You've Got Mail. We discuss how each film treats its conceit of two people who dislike each other unwittingly falling in love over anonymous correspondence, the former film's couple hating each other less vitriolically, the latter giving us more insight into the details of their messages; the latter making their story the entire focus, the former handling it as the main part of a range of stories that take place amongst its characters. We consider whether James Stewart's Alfred and Tom Hanks's Joe are nice people, and what the films' endings have to say about them and the women they fall for. José focuses on the films' approach to class and power, praising The Shop Around the Corner's portrayal of working people and decrying You've Got Mail for barely even seeming to notice its uncritical acceptance of corporate power.

A corrupt police force intersects with the glamour of Hollywood in L.A. Confidential, the tightly-plotted neo-noir that won the Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress in a year dominated by Titanic, and established the status and careers of Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kevin Spacey. Over twenty years since its enormously successful release, does it hold up? We discuss its basis in the real history of L.A. and its sense of place, whether the screenplay deserves its plaudits, how it functions as a noir and more. Recorded on 27th September 2020.

Horror tropes pervade I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Charlie Kaufman's oddball drama about a girl doubting her relationship, but it can't be considered a traditional horror. Instead, it turns these tropes inwards, likening a controlling, toxic relationship to an isolated, threatening, haunted house. It's a fascinating and brilliant idea, but despite the film being well-observed and intriguing, it's not engaging enough, and offers little opportunity for confident interpretation. Mike has little sympathy for its developing surreality; José wants more humour. Still, it's an ambitious, interesting film, and worth delving into. Recorded on 27th September 2020.

Birmingham's full-size IMAX cinema closed in 2011, having proved unprofitable (the independent venue it became, the Giant Screen, closed four years later for the same reason), so it's off to the Manchester Printworks, home of the second-largest screen in the UK, for our second viewing of Tenet. We ask whether the full IMAX experience is worth it, Mike comparing the feeling of the images offered to those he saw in Dunkirk and The Dark Knight; José argues that it's detrimental to the film to be exhibited in different cinema formats, as shooting in IMAX's 1.43:1 aspect ratio, where the film is supposedly best seen, with the knowledge that it'll be cropped for conventional cinema screens for its wide release and home media, means that artistic, interesting composition is impossible - you can't compose well for two frames at once. Mike suggests that an easily overlooked pleasure of Christopher Nolan's cinema is turning his films over in your own head, playing with the logic, asking questions of it and trying to u

After a long wait and three delays, Christopher Nolan's latest high-concept blockbuster, Tenet, has finally arrived in British cinemas. This description is a spoiler-free zone, but the podcast is decidedly not, so tread carefully before you listen: We spill every secret the film has to hold. The ones we could figure out, anyway. Following our revisitation of five of Nolan's massive flicks - the Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar, and Inception - we're keen to see how Tenet fits amongst its brethren. We consider, as we have done repeatedly, Nolan's action direction, the aesthetic design, the tone, the concept that drives everything, how it's explained, what we love, what let us down, and, well... to detail anything further would be indecent. Mike is gobsmacked by it, finding brilliance in some of the film's execution, though is keen to make more than a few criticisms. José is much colder towards it, dismissing it as no more interesting than comic books for children - can Mike's enthusiasm rub off on him? Tene

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael gives us the opportunity to reflect on a woman who, for José, stands above all other popular film critics, and whose work has always remained resonant. Pauline Kael effused about, excoriated, and defined an era of cinema and the culture that surrounded it, and changed the way films were written about. Through interviews with other critics, filmmakers and her daughter, Gina James, What She Said tells the story of Kael's life, work, philosophies, and controversies. And not very well. The documentary doesn't ask interesting enough questions about Kael's life, glossing over areas that just beg to be explored, such as the relationship that produced Kael's daughter, which is handled only with a cursory line of superimposed text. José finds fault with the use of Sarah Jessica Parker to recite excerpts of Kael's reviews, feeling it to be wasted time; Mike argues that we're here because of her work, so it's sensible to include examples of it, and the use of appropriate film clip

An ambitious, large-scale Netflix production, The Old Guard throws special ops, behind-enemy-lines-style action together with intriguing superhero-style mythology. Charlize Theron leads a team of immortal warriors, ranging from hundreds to thousands of years old, who find themselves on the run from corporate and military-industrial pursuers. José is captured by the film from the beginning, his love for Theron's action stardom and the film's mysterious setup pulling him in; Mike takes an age to warm up to it, his inherent suspicion of all things Netflix keeping him wary. But when the story develops its romantic side, he softens, and both agree on what the film does best: the defiant declaration of love from one man to another, surrounded by armour-plated, heavily armed police. The Old Guard approaches representation of different sexualities and ethnicities in heartfelt, open ways, and the prospect of sequels that develop that further - perhaps even a universe - is promising. Ultimately, José loves The Old Gu

Could we have found a Christopher Nolan film that José actually enjoys? We explore the brilliantly imagined and executed Inception, a heist movie set inside the human mind, talking up the intelligence and creativity with which the central concept is used, the elegant and effective intercutting and structure, and the noirish, expressive romance that underpins the entire affair. We've had some disappointments with Interstellar and the Dark Knight trilogy, but Inception was just the antidote. Boy, are we fired up for Tenet now. Recorded on 14th August 2020.

We finish off Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises, the most entertaining and enjoyable of the three films. In a Gotham free of crime thanks to the draconian Dent Act, passed in the wake of Harvey Dent's murder at, so the story goes, the hands of Batman, who hasn't been seen since, the intriguing, intimidating, revolutionary figure of Bane arrives to terrorise and occupy the city. A recluse since the events of The Dark Knight, the threat of Bane gets Bruce Wayne back in his cowl, but he finds he's met his match. We again question the film's politics, Mike arguing that its fascism isn't so much particular to this series as a core component of Batman in principle, and that maybe the most a Batman story can do is ignore it, rather than fix it. Its aesthetics come back into focus too, in its cinematic style and militaristic sensibility, José taking issue with both, though he loves the opening set piece. He finds a new appreciation for Michael Caine, and we take pleasure in the new additi

Having established a muted tone in Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan's Batman series receives a welcome injection of flair in Heath Ledger's Joker, the villain and main attraction of 2008's The Dark Knight. Ledger's Joker captured imaginations and helped the film to a billion dollar box office gross, back when hitting that milestone was rare. José, as with Batman Begins, never got The Dark Knight, while Mike was so hyped for it that he saw it twice in IMAX before its official release. We discuss what holds up today and what doesn't, what the appeal is, the 70mm IMAX cinematography, how and why the film became a cultural meme, and what ideologically drives it. Recorded 5th August 2020.

Planet Earth is dying, dust storms are wiping out crops, and all-American single dad, former NASA pilot and corn farmer Matthew McConaughey is our last hope for survival. A "ghost" appears in his daughter's bedroom, appearing to communicate by affecting gravity, and decoding the messages leads our hero to discover the last remnants of NASA, their observations of a wormhole near Saturn, and their journeys through it to planets that might be able to sustain human life. Eventually convinced of the plan's value and necessity, McConaughey agrees to lead a mission through the wormhole himself, leaving his family behind, but hoping to rescue them in the long term. Mike was moved and surprised by Interstellar upon its release in 2014, but on this second viewing moves significantly towards José's unimpressed response, wondering whether it was simply the novelty of seeing new things to which he responded so positively. He compliments the film's scientific literacy, but complains that its dedication to incorporating sc

Cineworld's reopening brings socially distanced screenings of past hits while the studios figure out their strategies for new releases, and with the highly anticipated and imminent release of Christopher Nolan's new sci-fi, Tenet, his previous blockbusters are once again showing. José chooses Batman Begins, hoping to understand what he didn't get when he first saw it in 2005, and why it matters. To Mike's generation and demographic, Batman Begins is, if not a great film, an important one, as its muted aesthetic and attempt to render Batman and Gotham as plausible entities, capable of existing in the real world, signalled a significant difference from the outlandishness of both previous and contemporary comic book adaptations, and its tone conveyed a seriousness of purpose - how honestly or successfully is up for debate - that contributed to the idea that superhero films could begin to be taken seriously and even considered as Oscar contenders. And, although his previous three films had all been successful, B

Our exploration of William Friedkin ends almost where it began, with his second collaboration with Tracy Letts, who, following the adaptation of his second play, Bug, adapts for the screen his first, Killer Joe. A key film in Matthew McConaughey's career, one of the first in what would become known as the McConaissance, Killer Joe sees his seductive, charming romcom persona repurposed to threatening, chilling effect in the ugly world of trailer parks and contract killing. We discuss THAT scene with the chicken leg, and compare and contrast it to THAT scene with the crucifix in The Exorcist, asking what might be outrageous about one but not the other. We ask what we're missing in Letts' screenplay that others see, and José argues that Friedkin has throughout his career been drawn to second-rate source material - material that here is unquestionably elevated by the cast, who are almost all excellent and believable, in particular Gina Gershon, of whom demanding things are asked, and Juno Temple, who carries wit

No exploration of William Friedkin would be complete without The Exorcist, 1973's iconic horror about a little girl possessed by a demon, and so watch it we do. We watch the theatrical cut, which Mike's excited to see, since the only one he's seen before is "The Version You've Never Seen", the extended cut released in 2000, and he finds this version superior, with better pacing and fewer distractions. José has always had a significant problem with the crucifix scene, and we go into why, and he argues that the film exhibits a desire to shock above all else that is typical of Friedkin. Mike argues for the sympathy we feel for Father Karras and his centrality - Max von Sydow's Father Merrin is in theory the eponymous exorcist, but is that actually the case? And we think over much more besides, including the thrill of the special effects, the disparity between how Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells is used and its subsequent iconic synonimity with the film, whether the film should be clearer about the boundaries of i

As likeable as it is incoherent, Jade oozes style and steaminess. David Caruso's assistant district attorney, searching for the killer of a businessman, finds himself delving into a world of kink, prostitution and power, in which Linda Fiorentino, his former lover, is embroiled. William Friedkin's attraction to the taboo is at home in the world of the erotic thriller, but as enjoyable as Jade is, it's a film you watch with one eye on its substantial problems. It's a film in which everything is done for effect, and damn the consequences - especially the final twist, which turns the film's sexual liberation and power dynamics on their head, for no good reason. Still, it's a film we were both happy to watch twice, and as superficial as it may be, that surface is highly polished and glossy. Recorded on 23rd July 2020.