Eavesdropping At The Movies

A horror movie that cleverly inverts one or two tropes of the genre, we ultimately feel Ma is less than the sum of its parts, but worth a look nonetheless. Director Tate Taylor is clearly very good with actors, and every performance here is pitched well, but he doesn't have such an aptitude for building tension or developing psychological creepiness. The writing doesn't help him - while Mike insists that the film's premise is full of potential, it's not built upon very successfully. But Octavia Spencer is brilliant as the central villain, eliciting laughs and jumps at will, and her Ma is an engrossing character, if a bit reliant on cliché. José points out the film's concentration on women, male characters being secondary, and its interesting inversions of gender tropes, in particular a very male gaze: the objects of desire, men are disrobed and splayed out for Ma's pleasure, and the camera doesn't shy away from displaying them. Unfortunately, the film seems to have aimed for its 15 rating, sometimes appeari

But for its astonishing visuals, we don't have much time for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a rather boring, incoherent film with an aspect that is at best lazy and at worst offensive. But it does look pretty! Wait, as Mike says, for its home media release, and capture yourself some lovely screenshots. Mike's review of 2014's Godzilla: https://writingaboutfilm.com/2014/05/20/godzilla/ José's review of 2014's Godzilla: https://notesonfilm1.com/2014/05/18/godzilla-gareth-edwards-usa-2014/ Recorded on 3rd June 2019.

A musical biopic that understands its own music, that uses its songs not necessarily when they’re chronologically appropriate but when they fit emotionally and thematically, Rocketman beautifully and energetically tells the story of Elton John’s rise to and struggles with fame. Taron Egerton is notable for his work in the Kingsman films, but here he is given a true star role, imbuing his Elton with attitude, presence, and a bolshy walk. And, for the two of us in particular, it does us the great favour of giving us a new appreciation for the music, helping us realise that each of us has always taken both it and Elton’s cultural importance for granted. The film is produced by Elton, functioning as a sort of autobiography, and although this justifiably raises questions of authenticity, honesty, filtering and bias, the film and man are so likeable, and the way in which it depicts his lowest points so open, the film completely sells its story and depiction of Elton’s character and those around him. (Though, as Jo

Ridiculously, relentlessly, laugh-out-loud funny, we had a brilliant time in Booksmart. It's a last-day-before-graduation high school comedy about two girls determined to finally have some fun having been bookworms their entire lives. José loves the central relationship between the straight and lesbian best friends, Mike loves the empathy and openness the film shows towards every one of its characters, deliberately constructing them at first as high school archetypes so that it can go on to reveal their hidden depths. Booksmart is a simply brilliant comedy with tons of heart and you will have a fantastic time. Don't miss it. Recorded on 3rd June 2019.

First they killed Keanu Reeves' dog, and in revenge, he killed everyone, and it was brilliant. Then they had to make two sequels, and they couldn't come up with a very interesting story. But the action was still world class. Or was it? Recorded on 19th May 2019.

For the first time, Eavesdropping at the Movies is talking about television... or is it? Game of Thrones spent eight years and countless millions of dollars in pursuit of cinematic production values, visual spectacle, and the world's unquestioning fealty and attention. Is it television? Is it film? Is it something in between? How can we even talk about it if we can't define our terms? Well, after 73 episodes, HBO's epic, brutal, violent, sexy, melodramatic fantasy has finally reached its conclusion, and everybody's been watching. José's been watching it since it started. Mike's been watching it since last month. Did it end well? What made it interesting to watch? How did it change over the years? What of Podrick? All these questions and more might be answered in this spoilerific conversation. Recorded on 20th May 2019.

A big one. The Marvel Cinematic Universe closes a chapter - kind of - with Endgame, a three-hour behemoth that concludes stories that have been told over 21 films in 11 years. It's elegiac, both of its characters' fates following the end of Infinity War, and of itself, offering a good deal of fan service to its vast, devoted audience, some members of which have grown up knowing nothing other than the MCU as the dominant mode of cinema. We take our time to discuss it in a two-part podcast. The first part is, as usual, recorded upon our return from the cinema, the film still ringing in our ears. We saw it in a packed screening, the room filled with excited fans from whom the film elicited exactly the vocal and rich emotional responses that bring such occasions to life. Though three hours is a demanding duration by anyone's standards, and could certainly be seen to speak to a certain self-importance, the film makes very good use of its time, particularly in the opening hour, in which we are given copious time t

Despite a wonderful central performance from Willem Dafoe as Vincent van Gogh, one that earned him an Oscar nomination, and some beautiful imagery, At Eternity's Gate leaves a sour taste in the mouth. It's a film with a contemptible view of the rural folk it depicts, some overly distracting visual design (particularly an effect that renders the bottom third of the frame out of focus for long periods of the film), banal talk of personal philosophy, and ultimately, no interesting perspective to offer on van Gogh. Recorded on 26th April 2019.

Todos somos marineros (in English, We’re All Sailors) was partly inspired by a workshop in which a group of students spent eight hours discussing the opening line of The Merchant of Venice, and a news story about three Russian sailors left stranded in a Peruvian port due to the sudden bankruptcy of the company they worked for. Writer-director Miguel Ángel Moulet developed a story about just that predicament, a story in which two of the sailors are brothers attempting to find their place in the world, stranded in the coastal city of Chimbote, able neither to go home nor to establish a stable life in Peru, living in limbo, tentatively making connections with the locals. Moulet is a graduate of EICTV, the Cuban film school, where José visits and spends a few days teaching every year, and this is how we come to bring this podcast to you, José having been screened Moulet's debut feature recently and keen to share it with us. We're far from the first to see it, the film being on the festival circuit and already ha

The latest of Disney's CGI-driven remakes of its classic hand-drawn films, Dumbo features a rather cute elephant with too little screen time and two abysmal child actors with far too much. Tim Burton is on paper the ideal director to mine the circus setting for visual and situational surreality, splendour, and threat, and to a degree he does, but in comparison to the work that gave him his signature - Beetlejuice, the Batman films and Edward Scissorhands - Dumbo is milquetoast to say the least. It's a film of rote sentimentality and far too little humour, clumsily treading that weird Disney line of plagiarising its own classics in the name of reimagining them, and despite a flourish here and there, and the best efforts of Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito to inject their scenes with life - and the considerable cuteness of the cute little cute elephant - its emotional sterility and lack of imagination are summed up in the way it concludes by setting Keaton's mad futuristic circus entirely ablaze, a pointless cli

Mirrors and doppelgangers and dual meanings and symmetries abound in Jordan Peele's Us, in which a family of four is terrorised one evening by a family of four identical copies. Like Get Out, Peele's 2017 debut, Us is hyper-aware of its genre's ability to make use of bold metaphor to offer coded commentary on social issues. We find more room for a variety of interpretations in Us than in Get Out, and our conversation ranges from talk of race and its importance or lack thereof, consumer culture and materialism, cultural items and icons, including and especially Michael Jackson, someone who embodies duality better than perhaps anybody, the 1986 charity event Hands Across America and the competing ideas conveyed by its imagery, and far more. We also find the time to discuss and praise Lupita Nyong'o's incredible pair of central performances, creating two fully embodied characters, the technicality of her physical acting always perfectly evident but never distracting. She's extraordinary. We have our problems w

Jonah Hill's directorial debut is a small, charming hangout movie about LA skater culture in, as the title suggests, the mid-90s. For Mike - who sees comparisons with This is England and Skate Kitchen - it's somewhat unoriginal, if entertaining and engrossing, but José completely falls in love with it. It's certainly worth your time. Links to things mentioned in the podcast: Mike's piece on verticality in Phantom Thread - https://writingaboutfilm.com/2018/12/01/verticality-and-the-academy-ratio-in-phantom-thread/ Charlie Lyne's video essay on frames and containers - https://vimeo.com/219270731 Charlie Lyne's Twitter thread on vertical frames - https://twitter.com/charlielyne/status/1117079647370432513 Recorded on 14th April 2019.

José’s enjoyed three weeks in Cuba and the Dominican Republic and wants to return with a nice easy watch. Shazam! obliges. The latest DC movie follows a teenage orphan given the ability to transform into a thirty-something Action Man at the shout of a single word. It's light, colourful, a little corporate but what can you do? It's just what a jetlagged man needs. Recorded on 7th April 2019.

We visit 1949's romantic drama The Passionate Friends, a favourite of previous podcast guest Celia, who describes it as "what would have happened if they'd had the affair in Brief Encounter". It offers a complex story of love and relationships, characters who want different things from their relationships and a love triangle that gradually shifts and changes over many years. Mary (Ann Todd) loves Steven (Trevor Howard), but refuses to marry him, wanting to belong only to herself, as she puts it; instead, she marries Howard (Claude Rains), a successful banker who gives her security, stability, social status and affection. Dramatic irony, shifting affections and a sensitivity to the subtleties of love and relationships create a fascinating and beautiful film. There's a lot to discuss, including and especially the unconventional Howard - in any other film he would be an obstacle to the romantic couple's true love, but here, although he has villainous aspects, he is revealed to be as three dimensional a characte

A young girl from a tight-knit family in Norwich gets a shot at her dream, joining the WWE, the glamorous home of professional wrestling. Parental pride, sibling rivalry, and a lot of hard work ensues, as do great performances generating a lot of laughs. We're not that keen on some of the clichés - very little happens that you wouldn't expect, and some of the scenes take a long time to get there - but we like the male-female rivalry, the way Vince Vaughn and Nick Frost light up the screen, and of course, the fact that a big promotional corporate movie for Americans starts off in a tiny living room in Norwich. Recorded on 14th March 2019.

A tweeny sci-fi based on a manga, Alita: Battle Angel tells the story of a young cyborg found on a scrapheap and given a new lease of life by a kindly doctor. She doesn't remember who is she or where she came from, but takes to the dystopian world around her, finding excitement and energy in it, quickly realising an aptitude for combat and inclination to explore, and developing a relationship with a young man who seeks escape to a floating city that promises a better life. Oh, and she's completely CGI in a live-action world. Neither of us is too enthusiastic about the film, though José is far less interested in it than Mike, who finds things worth praising, particularly how Alita's attitude to her body can be read in terms of transgender experiences. But the world-building is weak, relying on simple tropes, and Mike decries the sequel set up, convinced that the story it's likely to tell could and should have been a part of this film. We vaguely agree that the action is enjoyable, José holding the reservation

It's taken ten years but Marvel has finally branched out into films about heroes who aren't white guys. Following last year's Black Panther, Captain Marvel introduces Marvel's first female protagonist, Carol Danvers, a young woman caught up in conflicts between worlds and the mystery of who she is. José is enraptured by the film's visual beauty, Mike by its cat. Its mid-90s setting is mined for tons of laughs, as is Samuel L. Jackson's lively, witty performance. Neither of us is too convinced by Brie Larson, sadly, who lacks the charisma to truly sell her role, but the cast and storytelling that surround her more than compensate. Quite apart from the very obvious gender dynamics at play, other intelligent, interesting themes are brilliantly interwoven into the plot, giving the film real substance and emotional punch. It's occasionally a little too transparently right-on, some moments of sisterhood rather unsubtle and even cringeworthy, but other scenes intended to inspire female empowerment truly soar. It's

Remaking his own film, Hans Petter Moland brings us a revenge thriller, starring - who else? - Liam Neeson as a model citizen turned remorseless killer on the trail of those responsible for his son's murder. Sounds like typical Neeson fare, but Cold Pursuit leaps between dramatic and blackly comic tones with verve, and offers something much more interesting and original than you're likely to expect. We find lots to like in it, including its magnificent lighting and compositions, interesting and welcome inclusion of a group of Native American characters, as well as a commentary on their relationship to the very whitest America there is (the film being set in a Colorado ski town), and some surprisingly tender moments between adults and children, and people in love. We highly recommend it, it's a huge amount of fun! Recorded on 3rd March 2019.

In response to José's excursion into the world of Michael Curtiz a few months ago, Mike has picked four films of his own to discuss, the first being writer-director Dennis Gansel's 2008 high school drama Die Welle (The Wave). Based on the true story of a 1967 social experiment, Die Welle follows one week in a high school in which, as an exercise intended to teach his pupils about the methods and dangers of fascism, a teacher creates a fascist movement, named The Wave, that rapidly spirals out of control. Die Welle is first and foremost remarkable for convincingly depicting the seductive aspects of fascist movements, such as the shared symbols that engender group unity and, indeed, simply the positivity of being a member of a like-minded group. Mike compares it to Starship Troopers, claiming that it doesn't just argue its case but actually makes it work on its audience - rather than seeing why The Wave is appealing to the kids, you feel it too. José discusses what sets it apart from your typical high school m

The film noir to end films noir, Billy Wilder's classic crime drama Double Indemnity made its way to The Electric in Birmingham for a one-off screening, where a packed cinema ensured a great atmosphere. Mike, as usual, hadn't seen it, while José is very familiar with it, even having taught it before. Mike didn't entirely click with it, though he's able to appreciate much of what makes it a classic. Perhaps the stylistic and thematic elements that identify film noir are so perfectly employed by Double Indemnity that it leads to an ironic, detached mode of viewing - the genre, though it has existed since its inception, is strongly connected to its classical era of the Forties and Fifties, and has been parodied and pastiched more than most, burdening the film with unfair baggage to audiences not in that frame of mind. José, on the other hand, relishes the chance to see it with a paying, enthusiastic audience, finding that he notices different details and appreciates the film differently outside of an academic s