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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

144:09

The Shawshank Redemption

School of Movies ·

2026/01/23

One of the most passionately beloved movies of the 1990s, and indeed all of film history, it is peculiar that while you will meet people who haven't seen this film, you will never meet people who don't like it and gleefully tell you so. The fact that when Shawshank first emerged it was largely ignored or made fun of for having a convoluted name, and lost almost every award it was nominated for to Forrest Gump (coming next week) is remarkable in retrospect.It really only hit and became abidingly

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112:36

The Truman Show

School of Movies ·

2026/01/16

[School of Movies 2026]Truman Burbank lives a charmed existance, residing on a little island town that is distinctly old fashioned and twee. In reality, Truman's every movement is being broadcast to the viewing planet, and has been since his infancy. But Truman is beginning to suspect something is up, and his unseen father figure Christoph (compellingly played by Ed Harris) is working hard to restore the show to its comforting routine. A surprisingly abiding dramatic sci-fi classic from the late

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127:37

Casablanca

School of Movies ·

2026/01/09

[School of Movies 2026]'The Lies of Casablanca'. That was going to be my original title for this episode. When I got to sit down and watch this impeccable film on the big screen, it struck me how often the main characters lie; to each other, to themselves, to us... and yet we as the audience are almost always in the advantagous position of being able to clearly discern each lie. So, Sharon and I delved into a true classic, venerated throughout the second half of the 20th Century, but now somewhat

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134:46

Heat (1995)

School of Movies ·

2026/01/02

[School of Movies 2026]One of the greatest thrillers of the 20th Century, we recorded this show on the 30th Anniversary of Michael Mann's crime epic. This is most definitely NOT a film to watch in twenty-minute chunks on your phone at work! It is a masterfully crafted presentation of the tension between professionalism and emotion, punctuated with ferocious gunfire and transcendant, eliptical music. It is a one-time head-to-head between two of the most celebrated actors of that age, Godfather

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172:29

The Force Awakens Revisited

School of Movies ·

2025/12/26

[School of Movies 2025]It has been ten years since Disney relaunched Star Wars in the cinema, delivering what felt like a special globally-unifying grand, historical event... that a bunch of Star wars fans complained felt too much like the 1977 original special globally-unifying grand, historical event. J.J. Abrams has proved over the years that he is far better at restarting big, exciting new worlds off with a bang (as he did with Mission Impossible and Star Trek before this) rather than somehow

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97:11

A Christmas Carol (2009)

School of Movies ·

2025/12/19

[School of Movies 2025]Jim Carrey plays Ebeneezer Scrooge in this unsettling adaptation (sometimes intentionally so, sometimes not). Here, we get to talk about what was possible in this performance capture version that has been done nowhere else, making it strange and special and awkward and precious. Continuing our season of going back to the start, we resurrected the Robert Zemekis incarnation of the perennial yuletide Dickens classic (which we covered back in December 2011 in conjunction with

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144:23

Die Hard

School of Movies ·

2025/12/12

[School of Movies 2025]This is another revisit to one of the first films we ever covered, way back on Digital Gonzo at Christmas in 2010. The quintessential Holiday movie for those who want violence and swearing with their jingle bells. But if you go back and watch all five films (the final low-point didn't even exist when we covered this before) you will find some exceptional strengths in this one alone that all relate to precisely how it was constructed. A creative team that didn't realise they

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163:58

Back to the Future Part III

School of Movies ·

2025/12/05

[School of Movies 2025]We return to the format of the first film, trapped in a specific, focused time period, lovingly recreated for modern audiences. The big obstacles to be overcome are both based on the ticking clock point-of-no-return, and are unexpectedly and deeply personal for our protagonist. This one is Emmet's movie. While Marty still has to learn a harsh lesson about whether other people think he's chicken or not, he is on a rescue mission and this third film puts Doc Brown front and

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167:26

Back to the Future Part II

School of Movies ·

2025/11/28

[School of Movies 2025]A sequel where the plot is hugely influenced by one of the original cast members playing hardball for a higher fee and getting left off the project should not be this great, and yet here we are. Likewise, the whole first act being set in the (then) faraway future of 2015 was almost entirely only there to fulfil promises from the end of the first film (even if Marty and Jennifer being in the timeline twice actually doesn't even make sense). How is it still wonderful? A second

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165:03

Back to the Future

School of Movies ·

2025/11/21

[School of Movies 2025]Teenager from 1985 accidentally winds up in 1955 and meets his parents as teenagers, endangering his very existence. Bob Zemekis and Bob Gale made time travel immense and exhilarating, yet fun, intimate and personal, wisely choosing to focus (in a way that was rare at the time) on the everyboy hero's family relationships. And to illustrate quite how the alchemy of casting and crew was so key, they got several weeks into the original shoot with a completely different actor for

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142:31

Falling Down

School of Movies ·

2025/11/14

[School of Movies 2025]This is a commissioned episode for our hardworking Pez-loving Discord moderator Mike Hasko. It's a relic from 1993, a period just after the Cold War and not too long before the War on Terror, and the focus is on a middle-aged, white, American, divorced, straight, cis, male office-worker who one boiling hot Los Angeles morning decides that he has had enough. The man known throughout most of the movie by his personalised license plate as D-FENS (played with vigour by Michael

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108:15

Dead Talents Society

School of Movies ·

2025/11/07

[School of Movies 2025]In an unprecedented show-type for us, what we have here began life as an After School Club commission by Tylor Long. Before it could be released it got upgraded to become a full Main Event show after this wonderful, darkly-funny, warm-hearted ghost story got included in our Discord Halloween watch-along. The premise is familiarly bureaucratic, and simple enough for little kids to understand; In the afterlife ghosts must work to scare the living in order to be remembered. The

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65:11

The Crow

School of Movies ·

2025/10/31

[School of Movies 2025]Several years ago, Sharon and I recorded an After School Club on this 1994 film, the botched production of which took the life of its young star Brandon Lee. We were scathing and derisory, having never much liked it (and the awful DVD transfer did it no favours) whilst expressing contempt for director Alex Proyas (I, Robot, Knowing, Gods of Egypt). But this time (actually a year ago on its 30th anniversary) with Willow in tow, in conjunction with watching the appalling

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127:45

Adapting Frankenstein

School of Movies ·

2025/10/24

[School of Movies 2025]"Adapting is like marrying a widow; You respect the memory of the husband, but at some point you gotta get it on." - Guillermo del Toro. In preparation for GDTs long-awaited take on Frankenstein we delved into some of the most significant onscreen versions of Mary Shelley's book. Taking our cues from the excellent piece by Overly Sarcastic Productions we recruit Gothic enthusiast Willow and together as a family talk you through the story, referencing different movies

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135:20

Sinners

School of Movies ·

2025/10/17

[School of Movies 2025]Topping lists for film of the year, this is the first Ryan Coogler-directed film that is his own. Not a comic book adaptation like the Black Panthers, not a legasequel like Creed and not a direct real life account like Fruitvale Station. This one puts Ryan on the map as a genuine visionary and master of his craft. Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1932. Twin brothers, Smoke & Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) after returning home with stolen money from gangster

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116:29

Django Unchained

School of Movies ·

2025/10/10

[School of Movies 2025]An absolutely blistering black revenge fantasy by a white guy at the top of his game. Aside from the name, some repurposed music and the presence of carnage, this has nothing to do with the 1966 Sergio Corbucci spaghetti western, Django. What it does present us with is a deep immersion in the ugliness and inhumanity of slavery in the pre-Civil-War American South from the perspective of a freed black man and an increasingly disturbed German gentleman as they hunt bounties

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156:37

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty & 3: Snake Eater

School of Movies ·

2025/10/03

[School of Everything Else 2025]This is a follow-up to our 2021 episode on the legendary 1998 original PS1 Metal Gear Solid. This time I have brought in Willow to explore the two major PS2 instalments. We begin with what feels like creator Hideo Kojima answering the impossible question as to how to improve upon his first masterpiece (which goes so far beyond the two MSX games as to leave them feeling like prototypes) by trolling the fanboys who wanted a power fantasy. In the most audacious

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158:06

Transformers One

School of Movies ·

2025/09/26

[School of Movies 2025]A bold new direction for the transforming robotic life forms. Fully digitally animated, with no need of Shia Lebeouf or Marky Mark, specifically an animated film theatrically released for the first time since 1986, and for the first time neither Peter Cullen nor Frank Welker is lending their voice to proceedings, despite this being an origin story for both Optimus Prime and Megatron. Instead Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry step up to lend unexpectedly Shakespearean

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119:21

KPop Demon Hunters

School of Movies ·

2025/09/19

[School of Movies 2025]This one came out of nowhere after seven years of development and production at Sony Pictures Animation. Yet after all that, Sony execs had zero faith in its success, so they sold it (along with all sequel rights in perpetuity) to Netflix for the modest budget of $100 million and then a nominal $20m that they could call profit. Then it broke the goddamn internet! For many reasons that we will go into, this one hit just right with a huge audience, and is now the basis for

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109:51

Thunderbolts*

School of Movies ·

2025/09/12

[School of Movies 2025]Time for a surprisingly good Marvel that meant a lot to a great deal of people... and still somehow underperformed. This thing was brewing for years, from as far back as the second Disney Plus show, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, back in Lockdown 2021. The original comic premise was simple enough; have a manipulative scumbag assemble a super-team of disguised villains in the absence of The Avengers. However, this team is only mildly superpowered, and are wildly

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366 results

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