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PODCAST

School of Movies

Alex & Sharon Shaw

Super in-depth analysis of movies (and occasionally TV, and video games). Hosted by veteran podcasters Alex & Sharon Shaw with different guests for round-table chats every week.

tv & film

All Episodes

01:48:29

Star Trek: Discovery

School of Movies ·

2024/02/09

[School of Everything Else 2024] We initially started watching this 2017 Paramount TV series just for some back-story context on a pair of commissioned podcasts we have upcoming on the first two seasons of the sister show about the crew of the Enterprise; 'Strange New Worlds'. As it turns out, after a rocky start, Discovery is really excellent in its own right and we wolfed down the first four seasons. So, this is a largely spoiler-free round-table discussion on those seasons, to give you folks who

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01:49:26

Strange Days

School of Movies ·

2024/02/02

[School of Movies 2024] It's always a risk, setting a sci-fi dystopian movie only a few years from filming. You're going to make predictions about how the world might look and operate, with new technology or sociological and political upheaval within a time period so immediate that it's the difference between the launch of the Sony PlayStation and the PlayStation 2 But we are currently living in a dystopia increasingly left to the devices of the dumbest of AI, and many of us are wondering "How the

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01:17:29

Prey (2022)

School of Movies ·

2024/01/26

[School of Movies 2024] After decades of very patchy sequels and spinoffs to the 1987 sci-fi classic, Predator, we finally get one that is not only worthy of, but in many ways surpasses its stealthy action-beefcake-slasher source. So far we've had Predator 2 (1990), Alien vs. Predator (2004), Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), Predators (2010) and The Predator (2018). But this one takes note of there frequently being a woman of colour on the cast of the previous movies and this time put her front

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02:19:19

Undertale

School of Movies ·

2024/01/19

[School of Everything Else 2024] This is one we have been planning and looking forward to for a long, long, LONG time. One of the most significant indie video games of all time, and for our child, maybe their favourite forever (up against Minecraft and Stardew Valley). In a gaming marketplace overflowing with charming retro-styled games with a dark, absurd sense of humour veiling heart-breaking stories about coping through pain, loneliness and grief, this one shines out as an inspirational beacon

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01:54:00

Gravity Falls (Show 6: Episodes 37-40)

School of Movies ·

2024/01/12

[School of Everything Else 2024] Part 6 of 6 We come to it at last. The final episodes of one of the greatest animated shows ever gifted to TV. And we pulled out all the stops this time, because it's bittersweet to say goodbye again. Originally I planned to get this whole season discussed in one sit-down session, considering how much ground we had covered back in Season 1 with two sessions. But in the end a second was essential. What we have here is that unplanned final session with Kaoru &

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01:56:31

Gravity Falls (Show 4: Episodes 21-36)

School of Movies ·

2024/01/05

[School of Everything Else 2024] Part 4 of 6 Back in early 2020 (pre-pandemic even) just as Disney+ had launched, making this show super-accessible to everyone at last, we recorded three podcasts on the first season. Now we are finally back to talk about the second and final season and one of the most satisfying, bittersweet endings of any television series, and I am not being hyperbolic with that statement. Dipper and Mabel Pines are a pair of tweens who have to spend the summer in the strange

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02:26:48

Wakanda Forever

School of Movies ·

2023/12/29

[School of Movies 2023] This is one of the hardest episodes we have ever had to record. I'm not dealing in hyperbole when I describe the shockwave that rippled through our house when we found out that without the slightest warning Chadwick Boseman passed away in the night. He represented, for want of a better term a great responsibility. And much of these few hours is spent talking about that impact. On top of that, there were elements of the film that bothered both of us, and our guests, but the

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02:01:01

Tokyo Godfathers

School of Movies ·

2023/12/22

[School of Movies 2023] One of only FOUR movies directed by the all-too-soon-departed anime darling Satoshi Kon (along with Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Paprika), this is by far and away his most heartfelt, funny, camp and soulful tale, and it is most definitely Christmassy in nature, considering it concerns three impoverished homeless people and their desperate attempts to protect and ferry back to her parents a holy infant, so tender and mild. But as well as being a fair and compassionate

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02:04:26

Gravity Falls (Show 3: Episodes 13-20)

School of Movies ·

2023/12/21

[School of Everything Else 2020] Part 3 of 6 The third of three shows on Season 1 of Gravity Falls. Season 2 will be covered in 2021. We round off the first batch of episodes with a showcase of villainy, as a crazed piglet who holds small-town America in his thrall seeks unlimited power for himself. And on the other side of the reality curtain, a chaotic yellow triangle man hatches his schemes. There's also a hilarious take on boy bands which was in fact creator Alex Hirsch apologising to his sister

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01:41:17

Gravity Falls (Show 2: Episodes 7-12)

School of Movies ·

2023/12/20

[School of Everything Else 2020] Part 2 of 6 The second of three shows on Season 1 of Gravity Falls. Season 2 will be covered in 2021. We return to one of the best animated series' to grace the TV screen. A rich, hilarious, fast-paced puzzle-box of twisty mysteries and subversive, genre-savvy capers. Tween twins Dipper and Mabel Pines are staying with their Grunkle Stan for the summer, at his combination gift-shop and rube-trap. But strange things are both out there in the woods, and inside the

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02:29:50

Love Actually

School of Movies ·

2023/12/15

[School of Movies 2023] If you love Love Actually this show is for you. If you hate Love Actually this show is for you. If you consider Love Actually to be kind of a mixed bag and there's actors and/or scenarios in there that you really like and yet some of the characters behave in awful ways that the film doesn't judge as awful, but overall it seems to have its heart in the right place, this show is for you. And if you've never seen Love Actually... then this show is for you. What we have done is

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02:10:13

Final Fantasy VII

School of Movies ·

2023/12/08

[School of Everything Else 2023] The first global blockbuster hit in this long-running series from Squaresoft. As we noted before, the excellent Final Fantasies IV, V and VI were not released in Europe (neither were I, II or III) until long after this one, and it was utilising the power of the PlayStation, so this really was the introduction to what a modern-day cinematic RPG video game could be, for an entire generation in 1997. Playing it today, there are a number of drawbacks, some of which

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01:44:15

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 6: Spirited Away

School of Movies ·

2023/12/01

[School of Movies 2023] Arguably director Hayao Miyazaki's finest hour, and by extension the peak of composer Joe Hisaishi and for Studio Ghibli in general. This one is almost too easy to either sing the praises of, or to dismiss because it was so popular. Disney distributed it in America, and it made $395 million, which might make it the most successful theatrical release for an anime movie. By contrast, My Neighbours the Yamadas two years prior in 1999 made $11 million on three quarters the

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01:58:40

Green Lantern: The Animated Series

School of Movies ·

2023/11/24

[School of Everything Else 2023] This is the good stuff. Look no further than the 2012-2013 one-season 3D animated show for the absolute best Green Lantern experience. Co-Created Giancarlo Volpe of Avatar and Bruce Timm, one of the key figures in the beloved and critically acclaimed classics of Batman: The Animated Series, along with the connected Superman, Batman Beyond, Justice League Unlimited, all of which constitute a true encapsulation of the DC comic heroes. What we have here is the archival

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01:49:05

Green Lantern (Revisited)

School of Movies ·

2023/11/17

[Digital Gonzo 2013] This is a special, re-edited, re-release of a classic episode of Digital Gonzo. Back in 2013 we talked all about Green Lantern, under the impression that Warner Bros. & DC had big plans for superheroes over the next decade. And while they have genuinely given more heroes an airing, audiences seem to only be interested in The Bat and the Joker, (oh, and Aquaman, because he has laser-sharks). So, what this is is a pared-down and pacier version of the first part of that show

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01:28:05

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 9: When Marnie Was There

School of Movies ·

2023/11/10

[School of Movies 2023] A strange period for Ghibli brings us to the end of our current run, still with the closing triumph of Spirited Away (2000) to cap this body of work off, as well as this year's The Boy and the Heron paving the way for a future tenth instalment. What we are looking at is the last film from Isao Takahata (who died only five years later) the visually resplendent as well as distinctive Princess Kaguya, which is my favourite of his works, but still has one glaring bad decision

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02:18:10

Rings of Power (Season One)

School of Movies ·

2023/11/03

[School of Everything Else 2023] We all knew this would happen eventually. No Intellectual property that has been known to rake in a billion dollars for a single movie will ever be left alone to stand in glorious completion. Whomsoever holds the rights will use them. Some folks expected a (potentially very misguided) attempt at making the entire Silmarillion for television, or for Amazon to do what it seems likely Warner Bros. eventually will with Harry Potter and just re-tread the books we've

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01:57:10

The Nightmare Before Christmas

School of Movies ·

2023/10/27

[School of Movies 2023] An absolute landmark in terms of stop-motion animation within cinema. Conceived in the early 80s by Disney animator Tim Burton and manifesting first in an 11-minute poem after the style of both A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas from Doctor Seuss. That was developed into this oddball story of a pale loner of an outsider (who is also wildly popular because of course he is, this is Tim Burton). The skeleton king of Halloween

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01:59:54

The Howling ”Trilogy”

School of Movies ·

2023/10/20

[School of Movies 2023] For our Halloween Spooktacular episodes we begin with a compilation of three After School Club shows, covering the first three of the eight instalments in the Howling franchise. However, despite two of them being from the same director (Philippe Mora) and two of them involving the writer of the original book (Gary Brandner) I struggle to think of three films that feel less like each other in a series. The incoherence and absence of any connective tissue or even thematic

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01:14:22

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 8: Arrietty

School of Movies ·

2023/10/13

[School of Movies 2023] With the grandfather of the studio, Hayao Miyazaki retired and his son Goro not warmly welcomed by the fans, there was now an enormous question mark over the future of Ghibli that persists to this day. Luckily, there was still amazing talent to be found within their walls. Hiromasa Yonebayashi (better known as Maro) made his directorial debut with one of our faviourites, which positively cries out for watching in HD, The Secret World of Arrietty. It's the tale -adapted from

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