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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

02:33:20

Final Fantasy VI

School of Movies ·

2023/10/06

[School of Everything Else 2023] There are many reasons why this 1994 instalment in the long-running Square franchise winds up high on lists of the very best RPGs of all time. It is an ensemble piece with an immediately engrossing story and endearing, growing party of misfits, oddballs and freaks. The concept of an oppressive, evil empire messing with powerful magic to secure its dominance isn't new at all, but rarely does a single self-contained game tell such a world-spanning tale with no one

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01:25:57

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 7: Howl’s Moving Castle

School of Movies ·

2023/09/29

[School of Movies 2023] Having now won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Ghibli was facing the retirement of one of their absolute linchpins. Hayao Miyazaki wanted to go out with a bang, so adapted another favourite book of his. Howl was popular, but readers had things to say about changes that were made. After that, his son Goro Miyazaki tried his hand at being a director in the elder's absence. adapting another treasured childhood fantasy, which was declared the worst Ghibli ever upon launch (we

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01:42:06

Matilda: The Musical

School of Movies ·

2023/09/22

[School of Movies 2023] This, folks, is arguably the greatest adaptation of one of Roald Dahl's books made to date. Taking everything that was great about the 1988 book (one of his last, only followed by Esio Trot, The Vicar of Nibbleswick and The Minpins) and one of the abiding favourites for many kids and previously-kids who aren't entirely sure if they have truly grown up yet. It's about a schoolgirl who develops telekinetic powers that she uses to banish a truly horrific headteacher. But that is

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01:17:09

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 5: Princess Mononoke

School of Movies ·

2023/09/15

[School of Movies 2023] Many would call this period the crowning glory of Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki in particular. The maturity and refusal to pull his punches that came with the rich, dark and complex Princess Mononoke illustrated that when it came to humankind's strained, abusive relationship with Nature itself, that bloodshed was an inevitability, He followed this up with a personal favourite of mine, Spirited Away in 2001, but we have a dedicated show on that coming at the very end of this

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02:11:04

Streets of Rage

School of Movies ·

2023/09/08

[School of Everything Else 2023] The greatest brawler series in the history of video games. If you haven't yet had the pleasure of playing one of the four Streets of Rage, even if beat-'em-ups aren't your thing you owe it to yourself to investigate the sheer *craft* of these classics. Beginning with the original in 1991 and refined to magnificence with the second in 1992. They need to be looked at in conjunction with their contemporaries like Double Dragon (1987) the excellent Final Fight (1989)

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01:51:59

Brigsby Bear

School of Movies ·

2023/09/01

[School of Movies 2023] This is one you almost certainly won't have heard of, but will be happy you found it through School of Movies. It's the tale of a young man named James who has grown up in a post-apocalyptic bunker, raised by his loving parents and wondering what's outside. One night a raid by the cops results in his "parents" being carted off to jail, as it turns out they kidnapped him as an infant and hid him here. Now he has to come to terms with the real world and the awkward fit of his

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28:03

The First Hour and Seven Minutes of Oppenheimer

School of Movies ·

2023/08/25

[School of Movies 2023] I think this will be the only piece I create about Oppenheimer (2023). You definitely do not have to have seen it and I won't be saying anything that could be considered a plot spoiler. This is dark, upsetting, heavy and much shorter than our usual Main Event shows. It was intended to be an After School Club, but in the inception it grew and expanded in gravity, density and ferocity, and while there is an aspect that feels self-destructive, I consider it important enough to

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01:36:10

Devil’s Advocate

School of Movies ·

2023/08/18

[School of Movies 2023] Impressive, silly or impressively silly? Those are just three of the possible responses to this 1997 theological legal thriller with overtones of several flavours of horror, including paranoia, demonic and financial. It's the forked tale of a hotshot Florida lawyer named Kevin who has never lost a case, despite representing cartoonishly villainous defendants. He is recruited by a swanky New York legal firm, headed up by a devilishly charismatic fellow with a deep, dark

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01:35:52

V for Vendetta

School of Movies ·

2023/08/11

[School of Movies 2023] The Wachowskis are back! This time in producer capacity with their friend James McTeigue who wend on to direct The Raven, five episodes of Sense8 and (our personal favourite, the critically panned but hugely enjoyable, blood-spattered throwback) Ninja Assassin. In an alternate history dystopian Britain, a young lady named Evey Hammond is rescued by a shadowy figure in a mask who calls himself V and seeks to fight back against their tyrannical oppressors. This is an

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01:40:23

Ghost in the Shell

School of Movies ·

2023/08/04

[School of Movies 2023] One of the most significant and influential anime movies of all time. Absolutely instrumental in inspiring a big chunk of The Matrix in terms of aesthetic and pondering, metaphysical philosophy. This began as a single-volume cyberpunk manga series written by Masamune Shirow between 1989-1991. That was adapted into the 1995 movie which is the focus of this episode. After that came a bunch of television we are not touching, a sequel focused on the character of Batau, named

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01:46:55

Masters of the Universe: Revelation

School of Movies ·

2023/07/28

[School of Everything Else 2023] This is quite an extraordinary case. A Netflix show released in two chunks of five episodes apiece, six months apart, back in 2021. 93% fresh with professional critics. And if you sit down and watch it, this is the best Masters of the Universe story ever told. And EVERYBODY HATES IT! Seriously, go check YouTube and get bombarded by the scorn and bile. Observe the 38% audience score. Try finding ANY positive analysis from the fans. It might get easier with time,

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02:56:58

Gonzo Adventures: The Tower of the Sorcerer

School of Movies ·

2023/07/26

[Digital Gonzo 2013] The 150th episode of Digital Gonzo. This was a one-off show inspired by the episode of Community 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'. It's a sit-down gaming session conducted over Skype with myself as Dungeon Master and my guests as a team of adventurers. For this one we were using the flexible, simple ruleset of Advanced Fighting Fantasy by Graham Bottley which itself stems from the gamebooks of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Deathtrap

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01:36:44

No Country for Old Men / True Grit

School of Movies ·

2023/07/21

[School of Movies 2023] The final main feed instalment of our Coen Brothers series goes out with a double-bang of exceptionally gripping Westerns. No Country for Old Men (2007, written by the recently departed Cormac McCarthy) is a tense game of cat and mouse. Josh Brolin discovers a drug deal gone very wrong and walks off with the money, and Javier Bardem plays the dead-eyed Terminator slowly but surely closing in on him. This whole case is followed by Sheriff Tommy Lee Jones who is scratching at

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01:20:46

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 4: Porco Rosso

School of Movies ·

2023/07/14

[School of Movies 2023] This was a whimsical period for Ghibli, they tried a few new things, and established one or two absolute mainstays. 1991: Only Yesterday (1m 50s) 1992: Porco Rosso (11m 50s) 1993: Ocean Waves (25m 10s) 1994: Pom Poko (41m 10s) 1995: Whisper of the Heart (59m 40s) There's a disarmingly frank and sympathetic story of a schoolgirl hitting adolescence wrapped in a Hallmark movie about returning to your rural home town after the big city has crushed your spirit. Conversely

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02:27:41

In the Heights

School of Movies ·

2023/07/07

[School of Movies 2023] Lin Manuel Miranda's first big break into the off-Broadway musical scene. This 2021 movie adaptation, directed by Crazy Rich Asians-helmer Jon M. Chu is a squeaky-clean but heartfelt tale of the upper east side of Manhattan and its proud, passionate, talkative, motivated yet frustrated population of first, second and third-generation immigrants. It's a story of inheriting the dreams of your parents and trying to reconcile forging your own path. This one has been a long while

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01:59:27

John Wick: Chapters 2/3/4

School of Movies ·

2023/06/30

[School of Movies 2023] We covered the first film in May 2019 just before the third hit theaters, and since then they have shaped up to be four of the finest action films ever made. They boast laser-focused attention to choreography, physical genius, artfully photographing long, unbroken takes with astonishing lighting and otherworldy music. All of it revolves around a firestorm of a performance from Keanu Reeves, himself experiencing a deserved renaissance. The fourth film ends on a definitive and

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01:44:31

The Flash

School of Movies ·

2023/06/23

[School of Movies 2023] This one was a long time coming. There's a solid argument to be made that to set the tone for the planned DC Cinematic Universe all the way back in 2012, around the time Avengers was doing gangbusters by brazenly copying the Marvel formula by building up the characters the general public don't know yet *before* throwing Superman and Batman at us again. But since Green Lantern was terrible in 2011 Warner Bros. clearly concluded they needed to establish a foundation of

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01:46:55

Batman Beyond

School of Movies ·

2023/06/16

[School of Everything Else 2023] The DC Animated Universe marathon watch, which began all the way back in 2020 as Lockdown started continues! And this is a show Sharon and I had never sat down to watch before, so it was almost entirely new to us. I knew this was pitched as "What if Batman was Spider-Man?" but I did not know the circumstances of how that premise came about. Warner Bros. wanted an animated series about a specifically *young* Batman. Toy marketing indicated that kids would engage more

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01:43:05

The Big Mermaid

School of Movies ·

2023/06/09

[School of Movies 2023] For many years we have been planning a show or a series of shows on the Disney live action + CG remakes. The plan was to start with the 2015 Cinderella (or even the 1994 Jason Scott Lee version of The Jungle Book, thence to 101 Dalmatians with Glenn Close) and we would watch every single one of them, and talk about the good and the bad. But over time, having covered the details of all of the originals in our Disney animated series, the job itself grew insanely huge and

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01:56:20

F9: The Fast Saga / Fast X

School of Movies ·

2023/06/02

[School of Movies 2023] Another ton of fun for the summer as we go back to the most unkillable series of all time. You kill this thing and it will come right back, walking out of the explosion to cool music. If this franchise has any enemies they will be friends the next time we see them. Did I say friends? I meant FAMBLY! What we have here to start with is an edited, supercharged version of my first impressions of F9 (one of the very first movies I got to see when cinemas reopened in summer

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