Today’s pick is very bad. Can you guess what it is?

At the Flicks

2024: Advent Calendar — Day 7

In this show, we discuss the decline and fall of the Summer Blockbuster season. What caused it, who we blame and what is the future for the traditional Summer Movie Season. Our Movie reviews are Peter Rabbit, Tomb Raider and I, Tonya. Following the positive feedback on our caustic look at Movie news last month, we continue this month with three more news items that fell under our cynical gaze.

We give the answer to the quiz question we set last month, and Jeff set another annoying brain teaser for this month to test your movie knowledge, or patience.

At the Flicks Podcast

003: Tomb Raiders

This month, At The Flicks asks, (and answers), the weighty question, "What is the future of cinema"? 
Our reviews this month are Ready Player One, A Quiet Place and Isle Of Dogs. 
New this month are our recommendations of what else is worth watching if you enjoyed the three films under our review microscope.

004: Ready Quiet Dogs

In this month’s At The Flicks, the team discuss some of their favourite cult Movies. At least one of them is a choice you wouldn’t expect! Our cult movies cut a meandering path through time and genre, from 70’s disco, via 80’s French noir thrillers to end up at a 21st century animated Japanese bath house. We hope you enjoy the journey? Our reviews this month are Avengers Infinity War, Deadpool 2 and Breaking In. This months Podcast is a superhero laden show, which upsets at least one of our presenters! Also included are our recommendations of what else is worth watching if you enjoyed the three Movies under our microscope.

As usual, our Movie news section takes a rather irreverent look at what you can expect to see in cinemas next year. This month’s News section includes a scoop, before we finish with another tough Movie question for you.

005: Latvian Stick Superheroes

In this month’s, "*At The Flicks*", we conduct our very first interview. We sit down with Phil Cook, former manager of the now, sadly demolished Odeon Cinema Cheltenham. Phil recounts details of his time as front of house manager, in the 90's and early 2000's! He talks about the technical challenges of projecting movies from reels of actual Celluloid! Meeting the cast of Harry Potter and a number of humorous stories detailing the complexities of running a cinema and dealing with the cinema going public. Listen out for his hilarious run in with the local newspaper, over enhancements to the art-deco sculptures that adorned the front of the cinema. We hope you enjoy the interview as it moves from, Area 51 alien conspiracy theories, to management outrage at putting women in boxes and ends with a confused, time travelling cyclist materialising at the start of a feature presentation? We had a lot of fun recording this feature and we hope you find it an enjoyable listen. 
The "*At The Flicks*" team would like to thank Phil for his time and for letting us use him as our interview guinea pig!

006: Solo Jurassic Odyssey

Welcome to the very first At the Flicks, “Short”. Shorts, are created by the At the Flicks team as additional movie related material, that did not fit into the format of the main monthly Podcast. These Shorts, are brief single topic discussions on subjects that are very close to our movie going hearts. Unlike the monthly podcast there is no set delivery date for Shorts. As we think of an idea for a Short we will record and publish it on our SoundCloud page as soon as possible.
We hope you enjoy this first short, in which Jeff tries to to convince Graham and Neil that they really should see more Horror films. Jeff uses the 1973 movie “The Legend of Hell House” as an introduction to the genre.
We hope you enjoy our new venture into more spontaneous Podcasting.

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007: The Legend of Hell House

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And we're back!!! It has been a long month as we desperately looked around for films to review. With just the odd one on Prime and Netflix, we had to have a team meeting to come up with a review idea. Such meetings drag on when Neil says "it must be foreign language". So Jeff swore at him in Welsh. Meeting abandoned.

We tried again a few days later.  That meeting started well. Graham said let's look at the film's of Christopher Nolan (as Tenet "almost" opened around that time). Then Phil threw in "I have a foreign language film idea". Jeff accused him of being brainwashed by Neil and the meeting once again descended into chaos and abandonment once again. 

Third and final meeting. Graham, the peacemaker, said let's all pick a film we always meant to see but never got around to. It meant Graham could have a Nolan film, Neil and Phil could have foreign language and Jeff and Darren could make their own choices.

096: Last one alive, please turn off the lights

We are proud and honour to present to you our latest podcast.

A few weeks ago, we talked to retired school teacher and first time film maker Gary Janks (proving you are never too old). His film, Chasing Mandela’s Rainbow is an examination of the modern day South African education system. At the heart of the film is the question – were Nelson Mandela’s very high education ideals realised?

Gary answers that question through three very different students :

Phendulani – a high achiever, both in the classroom and on the sports field. A potential future leader, but will the system give him the intellectual skills he needs?

Andile – Keen to learn. Unfortunately the poor rural area where she goes to school may not have the funds or skills to develop her education.

Mahlatse – A complex boy. He has the knowledge but will his extra curricular activities hurt his schooling?

It is a deeply moving and thought provoking film. If you are interested in watching this incredible movie, a link to rent it is below. Also, below are more details on the film and the various film festivals it has appeared in.

This was a revealing interview for the At The Flicks team. Chasing Mandela’s Rainbow opened up a whole new world for us and we were all deeply moved. As the Toronto Times said about the film, “Life in Mandela’s South Africa has been an unrelenting struggle against utopian hope – and painful reality”.

If you watch the film, please let us know what you think. If you have any questions for Gary, we can forward those on for you.

098: Chasing Mandela's Rainbow

Our examination of the politics of Rambo continues with the fourth in the series, simply titled Rambo. Uniquely, this film steps away from American involvement in foreign conflicts to look at the struggles of the Karen people in Myanmar.

In reality it is a brutal struggle and that is certainly reflected in the film. Without question. it is the most violent of the series. The team and Elijah look at why and along the way address some of these questions

- Why are the team watching different versions of the film?
- Who were the original directors short listed to make the movie and why did Sylvester Stallone ultimately take on that role?
- What are the penalties for watching this film in Myanmar?
- What line of dialogue from the film became a rallying cry for the Karen freedom fighters?

All of this and more interesting facts are addressed on the podcast. However as usual in these discussions (especially since we never meet face to face any more), we broaden our discussion to other related topics – more simply put, we talk about weaponry and hunting. Please bear us during these sections – we need this social interaction!

On a more serious note, Elijah tells us some real stories about missionaries and some of the hardships and dangers they have to face.

Despite its political relevance, Rambo is a film that split the team. What are your thoughts on this feature, please let us know.

Thanks for listening and as always, stay safe.

100: Rambo IV

Welcome to our push-me, pull-you show. The one where we have our final push back at 2020, as it disappears in the rear view mirror, and our pull forward to what is coming in 2021.

We start off with something new and something you, our fantastic listeners can get involved with. A quiz, but no ordinary quiz. Here you pit your wits against the might of the At The Flicks team (my money is on you listeners).

After that we have some sadness and fun with 2020 (yes we know there isn’t much fun to be found there, however thankfully we did manage to uncover some buried near Neil’s almost forgotten sense of humour). 

The sadness is our obituary section, where each of the five contributors to the show, Darren, Graham, Jeff, Neil and Phil talk about someone whose passing had an effect on them. 

After that we give out our annual movie awards. As with last year, Graham pushes to the head of the class to give out his award for the Best Mel Gibson film of the year. By doing this he still hopes to get a part in The Mel’s next movie. 

Then we look forward as we talk about the movies we want to watch (hopefully in a cinema) during 2021. Since we recorded the show, there have already been films which have been rescheduled. Life moves pretty fast. So while we are confident some of our choices being released, we wouldn’t bet our GameStop shares on everything opening.

W couldn’t have a month end show without a Dash from Darren. Just a couple this time because of everything else we are fitting in. One of which is so memorable Graham and Neil have sworn never to watch it, despite glowing reviews from Darren and Phil.

Next month we will return to our normal format. We have even found some films to review. Until then, settle down with our latest show, in which both tears and laughs flow freely.

Enjoy and stay safe.

150: Awards Show – 2020

Come and join us At The Flicks. Three friends of a certain age who still enjoy the movies would like to share their passion with you. With the benefit of their advancing years, they are reviewing films new and old, to prove there is really nothing in cinema that hasn’t been seen before?