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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

02:26:54

The Abyss

School of Movies ·

2021/11/26

[School of Movies 2021] The first all-new show for the James Cameron season, and it's a doozy. You may have heard stories about the troubled events of the shoot, and what the actors and crew were forced to go through by their hard taskmaster of a director. Or you may not have. Many people, especially in their 20s or below might never have seen or even *heard* of this 1989 film, sandwiched between Aliens and Terminator 2, since it would appear Cameron himself has been trying to keep it buried at the

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01:58:36

Aliens

School of Movies ·

2021/11/13

[Digital Gonzo 2012] NOTE: This episode has been significantly re-edited, and I would say improved for its 2021 overhaul. The original 2012 show can be found on the School of Movies Archive feed. James Cameron took the helm from Ridley Scott, and made this sequel into something that complimented and expanded upon the masterful original. With more of a Sci-Fi action feel, the director of Avatar, the two best Terminator films and Piranha II: The Spawning chose to focus on humorous machismo, strong

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02:00:13

The Terminator

School of Movies ·

2021/11/12

[Digital Drift 2015] NOTE: The James Cameron season begins! And rather than making you go back and root through the School of Movies Archive podcast feed for the shows on some of his very best films, we are re-releasing The Terminator and Terminator 2 that we recorded for Digital Drift in 2015. Along with this I have done an extensive re-edit of our 2012 show on Aliens for Digital Gonzo. That will be out tomorrow. Coming up in the next few weeks, intermitting with our show on The Eternals and

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01:52:40

The Eternals

School of Movies ·

2021/11/11

[School of Movies 2021] This one came out surprisingly contentious. What was originally, seemingly set to be Marvel powering back into Phase 4 with a new group of superbeings now that The Avengers are on garden leave, actually turned out to be quite a risky endeavour. It's a Space-Odyssey-scaled combination of metaphysical rumination, mature interpersonal relationships, deliberately diverse casting and a hot property award-winning Chinese, female director with a very personal pitch. It's also got

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02:18:44

Castlevania (Netflix)

School of Movies ·

2021/11/05

[School of Everything Else 2021] One of the best shows on Netflix and one of the finest animated series, very specifically tailored for an adult audience. Castlevania achieves, philosophically speaking, what so many other lesser shows set out to accomplish and find themselves still wanting. It's surprisingly softly spoken, mostly concerned with establishing and developing characters. It's dark and sad and seductive and consistently funny. It's about power-plays and loneliness. And the soul of

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02:21:04

Interview With the Vampire

School of Movies ·

2021/10/29

[School of Movies 2021] One of the most expensive, vampire films ever made. This first adaptation of Anne Rice's Chronicles ran on star power, lavish costume and set design and a potent strain of existential crisis. It's the tale of Louis, a mourning, bereaved widower who in his despairing malaise meets a sleazy, charismatic, sociopathic vampire named Lestat. For reasons we will go into, Louis decides eternal life would be a splendid idea at this point. Neil Jordan directs the hell out of this

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02:20:18

Candymen

School of Movies ·

2021/10/22

[School of Movies 2021] This show is about both the 1992 original, based on the short story "The Forbidden" by Clive Barker and directed by Bernard Rose, AND the 2021 film directed by Nia DaCosta which shares the name but is in fact both a remake and an in-world sequel. We decided to gate off all discussion of the new film for the second half of this show, so you can listen to the first half without fear of learning too much. However, both are now available for rental and we would sincerely suggest

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01:44:01

What If? (Season 1)

School of Movies ·

2021/10/15

[School of Everything Else 2021] For the first time ever, a direct MCU production really threw me. We've had underachieving films in the past, like the listless Thor: The Dark World, the dramatically unexplorative Ant-Man and The Wasp and starting out with a really serious challenge for our flawed hero before dropping the PTSD ball in the third act with Iron Man 3. Thanos was troublingly handled in Infinity War and a year of imbecilic agreement in the myopic viewpoints of a sympathetically-cast

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02:06:08

No Time to Die

School of Movies ·

2021/10/08

[School of Movies 2021] We hadn't planned on doing this one so early, but by the time I walked out of the cinema I wanted to finish off the quintet with the same flourish and passion as this film does. It impressed the hell out of me, and then did the same for Sharon. And when we began recording neither of us knew what the other thought, which creates an unusual frisson. No spoilers in these notes. But I honestly suggest you see the film before listening. One of our listeners has never seen ANY Bond

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57:46

Spectre

School of Movies ·

2021/10/07

[School of Movies 2015] NOTE: This is a remastered episode, re-released for 2021. Unlike Skyfall, where I made a handful of tweaks, this one received a heavy edit. Almost an HOUR of the original show was devoted to speculation on what Sony/MGM/EON/Danjaq would do with the *next* Bond film. At the time Daniel Craig seemed to have had enough, and it was very much a possibility that Spectre would be his last outing. Ergo pretty much everything we said is now irrelevant. So I streamlined the

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02:04:27

Skyfall

School of Movies ·

2021/10/06

[School of Movies 2015] NOTE: This is a remastered episode, re-released for 2021. It's a little tighter, less waffle, more music. The Craig era, previously discussed back in 2011 gets the royal treatment and we talk Sam Mendez, Roger Deakins, Thomas Newman, Javier Bardem, Ben Wishaw, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Her Majesty, Queen Dench. Skyfall stands as a divisive, yet extremely high-quality instalment in the long-running series, with small-scale, personal stakes and a narrative that

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01:57:40

Quantum of Solace

School of Movies ·

2021/10/01

[School of Movies 2021] As I say at the end of this episode, there's a reason why going back to cover these first two Daniel Craig Bonds has been so rich and gratifying for us. Back then they were building a character. Since then, to a degree with Skyfall and definitely with Spectre it has been a case of nudging that more textured character into a comforting template with certain accoutrements that the specific actor brought with him. And to a degree that has meant stripping away some of that

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01:54:20

Casino Royale

School of Movies ·

2021/09/24

[School of Movies 2021] To coincide with the long-awaited release of No Time to Die we decided to go back to the beginning of Daniel Craig's career as 007. A decade ago I covered the first 22 Bond movies with James Batchelor and Gary Blower, over three mammoth episodes, covering each era. That took us all the way up to Quantum of Solace. But Sharon wasn't on those, episodes and we only had so much time to cover each movie. Plus I'd like to think we've gotten better over the years. So this one is

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01:57:40

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

School of Movies ·

2021/09/17

[School of Movies 2021] One of the first huge blockbuster movies made by a western studio with a largely eastern cast, this one really underlines my abiding contention that "Superhero" is not a genre, and neither, as it turns out is "Martial Arts". Would we say Boogie Nights was a "Sex Movie?". Genre is an increasingly blurry construct to help marketers and those who want to know what to watch. Luckily for us all though this particular Martial Arts Superhero movie is fantastic. Once again, we urge

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02:53:43

Castlevania (The Video Games)

School of Movies ·

2021/09/10

[School of Everything Else 2021] An iconic series of games that has run since 1986 but never really resonated with mass audiences the way that Mario and Sonic did. These are the tales of vampire hunters and the creatures of the night that stand between them and (usually) Dracula. They have gone through many phases, and we cover each of them here in this mammoth, epic and thoroughly comprehensive show. First there are the side-scrolling whip-and-jump titles from the NES onwards through the SNES and

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02:44:37

Batman: The Animated Series

School of Movies ·

2021/09/03

[School of Everything Else 2021] One of the greatest, most influential TV shows of all time. We watched the whole thing on blu ray, and not only does it hold up, it still surpasses most Batman media. Oftentimes lynchpins like this are hyped and oversaturated to the point where they can hardly live up to the cultural expectations, but this one really does. The first season was a HUGE run of 65 episodes which spanned a year from September '92 to '93. The second season was a more conservative 20, which

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02:14:54

Free Guy

School of Movies ·

2021/08/27

[School of Movies 2021] Since this theatrically released movie, based on no particular existing IP barely made a couple of hundred million dollars in its first fortnight, statistically speaking that means the majority of you won't have seen it. That's why we're giving you a deep dive episode, delving into the subtext that a lot of folks either took for granted or missed entirely. And far from spoiling the story we hope it actually makes it even better for you. The short of it is, what if one of the

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01:24:24

The Suicide Squad

School of Movies ·

2021/08/20

[School of Movies 2021] Militarized slaves are sent to an island to clean up a violent mess with plausible deniability. An instant hit with both audiences and critics on release, this 2021 film is the realization of the John Ostrander-era of the Suicide Squad/Task Force X concept that actually first appeared as far back as 1959 (prior to Marvel's Silver Age of The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and The Avengers. And yet it faltered at the box office, due to several reasons. Being R-rated in the middle

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01:40:35

Aquaman

School of Movies ·

2021/08/13

[School of Movies 2021] By far and away Warner's highest grossing superhero film of the DCEU so far*, this one had the global market sewn up with a dazzling, epic ocean-hopping fantasy quest. Dismissed as 'dumb' by the critics, Aquaman is nonetheless one of my very favourite superhero films, and on today's show we go into detail as to the thriving ecosystem that exists just under the surface. The pandemic, and constant studio shake-ups have definitely hurt the DC brand (sadly including The Suicide

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01:32:53

Shazam!

School of Movies ·

2021/08/06

[School of Movies 2021] Our Summer season of DC spotlighting reaches Captain Marvel. This was a big change for the recent movies, eschewing the epic scale of gods among humans and focusing on a regular kid imbued with the power of the gods. Part 1980s coming of age movie, part found-family drama, part weirdly disturbing villain origin. And unlike most other superhero movies this one has an unusual time limit on it as a series, which is why we recruited some very particular guests this time

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