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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

01:49:00

G.I. Joe

School of Movies ·

2025/07/04

[School of Movies 2025]Maybe THE most American of children's properties from the 1980s, G.I. Joe began life as a big doll that boys could dress up for war, but as public sentiment turned against the conflict in Vietnam, Hasbro nudged their chunky action figure towards more of an adventure brand. Then in Reagan's 80s, Joe was relaunched as A Real American Hero, the first massively successful multimedia campaign designed to sell toys through cartoons and comics. But following that period of relative

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02:46:32

Richard Donner's Superman

School of Movies ·

2025/06/27

[School of Movies 2025]All the way back in 2013 when Man of Steel was coming out, I covered the four Christopher Reeve Superman movies on a single podcast with dutiful guests Taylor Nova and Paul Gibson. I recently re-listened to it in the run-up to James Gunn's Superman and I was flabbergasted at how much my attitude had changed; specifically to the first two films directed by Richard Donner and steered with confidence and the contributions of an amazing creative team. I was dismissive,

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02:29:38

Final Fantasy VII: Remake

School of Movies ·

2025/06/20

[School of Everything Else 2025]It was a long time coming. The remake itself has been mooted as far back as the early 2000s, and the wait for it was half of my life. But then, when this astonishing game finally landed in 2020, a time when we all needed to escape to other worlds, I found myself paralysed with indecision within the game, unable to move for metatextual reasons. Finally returning to it in 2025 I was able to play through and savour the experience with Sharon and Willow watching along

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01:58:49

Searching

School of Movies ·

2025/06/13

[School of Movies 2025]An absolutely fascinating 2018 movie where the challenge for the filmmakers was to confine themselves only to a computer screen and the various apps and websites, embodying John Cho's frantically worried David Kim as a blinking cursor, scouring the internet for any trace of his missing teenager Margot. None of this would be anywhere near as riveting if they didn't hook you early with a small, personal tale of a fragile, happy family, made familiar in digital home movies. The

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02:14:18

RRR: Rise, Roar, Revolt

School of Movies ·

2025/06/06

[School of Movies 2025]One of the most astonishing action epics in cinema history, and almost nobody who saw it managed to do so in the cinema! At least in the West. This historical epic, popularised by Netflix plays extremely fast and loose with the facts, reimagining the lives of two of India's most celebrated revolutionaries to have intersected. RRR tells the story of Komaram Bheem, a man of the Gond Tribe who is searching for a little girl taken from his people by despicable English Colonial

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02:20:50

The Super Mario Bros. + A Minecraft Movie

School of Movies ·

2025/05/30

[School of Movies 2025]Two of the most successful films of the 20s, both of them built on the winning formula of bewildered people from the real world being plunged into an alternate dimension which allows them to encounter pleasingly recognisable elements from the video games that general audiences like, on their way towards assisting with deposing a tyrannical warmonger. The problem for us is that Super Mario Bros. is a long-running and beloved series of platformers, kart racers and RPGs, whereas

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01:54:23

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

School of Movies ·

2025/05/23

[School of Everything Else 2025]Neurodivergent elf seeks party for spell-gathering, demon-slaying and appreciating life a whole lot more... Despite our longstanding NO ANIME rule (which nevertheless still allows us to occasionally do shows on the movies we love within that medium, and you folks have been good as gold insofar as overprescribing anime shows when you know it will overwhelm us with volume) this commissions season saw us so in need of emergency funds that we opened the door to not one

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01:39:52

1000xRESIST

School of Movies ·

2025/05/16

[School of Everything Else 2025]Chances are you have neither played nor even heard of this 2024 sci-fi indie game. We hadn't, and as we proceeded through a tale of a dystopia where everyone is cloned from the same person, yet has their own distinct name, outfit and personality, we couldn't see exactly why Hollywoo actress Maya Souris commissioned it... And then we got to Act 3. The prospect of watching this as a Let's Play went out the window. I have never seen a video game justify its medium so

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01:55:03

Delicious in Dungeon

School of Movies ·

2025/05/09

[School of Everything Else 2025]This is a commissioned show for Chris Finik, The Jonin Monkey, Banzai Tree and Sixblazer. We recruited Willow as a guest, since they were immediately smitten with this 24-episode first season. We heartily recommend you cast aside your worries and just delve into this podcast episode, regardless of having seen the show or not. While you will find out things that are going to happen, we can't spoil the show for you, only make it richer with more texture to get

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01:14:11

Secret of Mana

School of Movies ·

2025/05/02

[School of Everything Else 2025]One of the most beloved 90s RPGs, and one of the few on Super Nintendo that was released in the UK. So, while I envied Americans for getting Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV and VI, Earthbound and Breath of Fire, THIS ONE was my first actual big console RPG. And it has problems; real playability issues that make it hard to recommend for everyone in the 20s. You'll find Mana fans who say that these don't matter, but they absolutely do. A fine comparison I came upon

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01:42:51

The People's Joker

School of Movies ·

2025/04/25

[School of Movies 2025]After the harsh, oppressive atmosphere of I Saw the TV Glow we turn to an altogether funnier tale of trans discovery with Vera Drew's semiautobiographical, anarchic reshaping of DC's Clown Princess of Crime. From the painfully normalising cornfields of Smallville, Kansas comes a child who asks their alarmed mother "Was in born in the wrong body?". The only possible response to this is of course sessions at Arkham Asylum with Doctor Crane and a prescription of Smilex to chase

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02:59:17

I Saw the TV Glow

School of Movies ·

2025/04/18

[School of Movies 2025]As soon as we saw this thickly atmospheric, Lynchian lucid nightmare from 2024, Sharon and I knew we had to do a very particular show on it. Since the entire context is trans-anxiety which the majority of cisgender people may find impenetrably mystifying we needed an all-trans/enby/non-cis cast of guests to walk us through the significance. On the surface it is a story about a chap named Owen who is lonely and isolated child of the mid-1990s, meeting lonely, isolated Maddy

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44:31

Do A Powerbomb

School of Movies ·

2025/04/11

[School of Everything Else 2025]This was an unexpected burst of sheer joy, and we urge you all to seek it out for yourselves. It's a graphic novel, comprising a 7-issue comic book miniseries about wrestling. We had never read a book written by Daniel Warren Johnson before, but now we're hooked and ready to guzzle down everything else this champ achieves. Lona Steelrose was just a little girl when she witnessed her mother tragically perish in the ring. Now, because of this very tragedy that

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01:43:42

Empire Records

School of Movies ·

2025/04/04

[School of Movies 2025]A cult favourite hangout movie about working in a CD shop in the mid-90s. This one was directed by Allan Moyle, who previously helmed another music-centric, coming-of-age teen drama that should have been way more of a hit; Pump Up the Volume (1990). Statistically almost none of you have seen this, as it's the kind of movie you need a good friend to sit you down with after hearing that you've never seen it, and immediately declared "We're watching this!" Well, we are that

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01:42:26

A Space for the Unbound

School of Movies ·

2025/03/28

[School of Everything Else 2025]A charming 16-bit style indie adventure game, set in suburban Indonesia in the 1990s. This begins cosy, deliberately evoking the familiar, and swiftly becomes strange and mysterious with a story of loss and grief and loneliness at its core; an ache longing to be relieved. The gameplay involves exploring the town and getting to know the locals, jumping inside their minds to find out what their abiding internal conflicts are and help them deal with these. There is an

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01:45:54

Crow Country

School of Movies ·

2025/03/21

[School of Everything Else 2025]A marvellously authentic and creepy modern Survival Horror in the convincing style of a PlayStation One title from the mid-90s conversely featuring inflections of more contemporary scary games. This one is available on Steam and Switch and PS4 and Xbox Series X. There is an abandoned theme park to explore and mysteries to uncover, as we structure this episode into three sections. GREEN FINE: Means you can hear about the basic setup and still go in completely fresh if

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01:26:07

Resident Evil 4

School of Movies ·

2025/03/14

[School of Everything Else 2025] One of the most beloved, instantly-transformative, replayed, re-released, and critically acclaimed games of all time... and would you believe until preparing for this show, that I wasn't massively fussed about it? But this year I have been replaying all of the original games sequentially, and after the first era of fixed-camera tank controls transitioned into the action-spectacle of 4 I was blindsided by how many fresh aspects of the gameplay and world that I

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02:58:45

The Music of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Vol. 2

School of Movies ·

2025/03/07

[School of Everything Else 2025]All the way back in 2017 I put together an absolutely EPIC musical journey through the first eight years of the MCU, from Iron Man all the way up to Doctor Strange. So much time has passed since then (cue many gifs of Matt Damon drinking from the wrong Grail) and Marvel has not followed my sound advice about allowing each hero (and maybe a villain or two) to retain a theme that reprises with every subsequent appearance. However, that does not mean there haven't been

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01:52:10

The Music of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Vol. 1

School of Movies ·

2025/03/06

[School of Everything Else 2017]NOTE: This is an archival episode from many years ago. Recently the excellent YouTube series Every Frame a Painting asked members of the public if they could hum any of the music from the Marvel films. Unsurprisingly they couldn't come up with anything. There are a few reasons for this, that I go into on the show, but this presentation right here is crafted to allow everyone to explore the music that has come so far. We laser-focus on the core melodies, the hero

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03:04

Summer 2025 Commissions Season

School of Movies ·

2025/03/05

Hello there folks, this is your official notification that the School of Movies Summer Commissions season window is now open. And it’s a special case this time around. Originally this run was meant to pay for our second family vacation, the last one being back in 2017. We’re going to Italy.But the week after we booked it our landlord of nine years dropped the bomb on us that he needed to renovate our home, so we’re out by the end of March with all the moving costs and the sudden spike in rent that

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357 results

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