A film Mike was doing his damndest to avoid seeing but eventually agreed to, Babylon is an epic period comedy-drama about the excess and industrialisation of Hollywood in the '20s and '30s, and an epic bomb at the box office. Its aesthetics, characterisations, use of race and class, vulgarity, set pieces, bizarre ending and more are up for discussion. Did Mike have as terrible a time as he anticipated?

Recorded on 29th January 2023.

387 - Babylon

We look at another supposed love letter to cinema, Empire of Light, which stars the beautiful Dreamland Cinema in Margate as the titular Empire, the best-developed character in an otherwise lacklustre film. Its themes of racism, patriarchy, mental illness and cinema as escapism form more of a patchwork quilt than a tapestry, and the film is thin throughout. Still, it did the job of activating our memories of cinemagoing and working in cinemas, which we discuss, and despite his knowing it shouldn't have, the story worked emotionally on Mike. It's really not good though.

Recorded on 1st February 2023.

389 - Empire of Light

After a few months off, during which Mike has forgotten how to record podcasts - sorry about the audio early on - we're back for Barbenheimer weekend. Never mind your Infinity Wars, this is the crossover they said would never happen, and the clash of tone between joy-of-pink Barbie and sin-of-man Oppenheimer, coincidentally released during the same weekend, has unexpectedly and charmingly reignited the public's interest in going to the pictures. The question isn't, "which one will you see?", it's, "which one will you see first?"

And we picked Barbie. Our screening was packed with young girls typically unaddressed by the biggest releases, and this film does a great job of correcting that. José describes its treatment of patriarchy as a fact as one of the most radical things he's seen, and it's a sign of where we are culturally that it can be, and that every joke and piece of commentary the film builds upon it is implicitly understood by an audience the film treats as intelligent.

Yes, Barbie's a toy advert. Yes, you're always aware that every joke at the expense of Mattel and Barbie's cultural footprint has the company's stamp of approval. Yes, Mike brings up Jean Baudrillard. (He's such a Ken at times.) But it's also witty, ironic, self-knowing, and really good fun.

Recorded on 21st July 2023.

393 - Barbie

The second half of our Barbenheimer double bill takes us to the BFI IMAX in London to see Oppenheimer, the complex story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's infamous role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, the creation and use of which changed history. Writer-director Christopher Nolan, as he has done increasingly over his career, makes extensive use of IMAX 70mm film to tell the story, but as well the spectacle and landscape we're used to it showing off, here it's devoted to the intimate.

We're joined by Mike's brother and previous guest Stephen to discuss the film, and consider the use of IMAX for close-ups and portraiture, as well as the story's structure and how the editing and music create pace, the film's implicit attitude towards Communism, whether Florence Pugh is treated unfairly, the way in which black-and-white footage is used to convey a shift in perspective, how the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are handled, the Stan Brakhage-esque imagery that conveys the radical sense that all matter is energy waiting to be unleashed, and much more. For José, it's Nolan's best film. It certainly deserves to be seen on an IMAX screen.

Recorded on 23rd July 2023.

394 - Oppenheimer

José enjoys the examination of contemporary relationships in Ira Sachs' Passages, a Paris-set romantic drama in which a marriage is disrupted when one partner begins an affair with a friend. Mike thinks that the characters' problems aren't real problems and that if the unfaithful partner just grew up then everything would be fine.

Recorded on 5th September 2023.

395 - Passages

One of the great concert films, if not the greatest, receives a 4K restoration four decades after its release, and comes to our local IMAX Digital screen. Talking Heads were huge at the time that 1984's Stop Making Sense was released, and José loved their music, but something about the film didn't appeal to him, and he never saw it. Though Mike is familiar with the band, he only knows a couple of Talking Heads songs and didn't expect to ever get around to seeing the film, so what a way to experience it.

The restoration is beautiful and the huge IMAX screen shows it off spectacularly. We discuss the ability of celluloid to capture rich, textured imagery that digital acquisition formats have never matched; David Byrne's captivating presence, handsomeness, and exuberant movement; the film's cinematic style and what puts it above other concert films; the racial composition of the band, both the core members and additional musicians, and what it may or may not reflect about American culture of the time; and more.

We're absolutely sold on Stop Making Sense's greatness, and, even forty years on from its release and the height of the band's popularity, immediately grasp why it's still held in such high esteem. See it at the cinema.

Recorded on 27th September 2023.

397 - Stop Making Sense

David Fincher's precise, controlled direction is a perfect match for Michael Fassbender's precise, controlled performance in this lean but complex story of a botched assassination, revenge, and the hitman's attempts to reassert precise control over his life.

We discuss the world in which The Killer is set and the way in which its title character operates, lives, and sees his place within it; the functions we see in its premise of a murderer-for-hire bored with his job, be it a critique of capitalism or a satire on work; the many names he assumes and what we take from the fact that they're all drawn from sitcoms; the extraordinary audiovisual craft that we're used to seeing from Fincher and thankfully not inured to; how the film uses noir and thriller tropes and where it might overplay them; the film's obsession with process and procedure and why Mike likes playing it more than watching it; and more.

The Killer is a brilliantly conceived and assembled thriller filled with cinematography and editing to admire, and a lot to chew on despite its slight appearance. See it.

Recorded on 14th November 2023.

404 - The Killer

For our discussion of Ridley Scott's new historical epic, Napoleon, we have the privilege of being joined by Paul Cuff, a film historian and expert on the Napoleonic era in cinema, including and especially Abel Gance's Napoléon from 1927, about which he wrote A Revolution for the Screen: Abel Gance's Napoleon. Together, we ask whether Scott's film has anything to say about the man whose life it depicts - and if so what? - whether its ahistoricity matters, and how substantially it fleshes out its characters and the events and relationships dramatised.

Recorded on 26th November 2023.

405 - Napoleon (2023)

Nicolas Cage plays a meme. Not just in real life any more, but now also in Dream Scenario, a quirky fantasy in the mould of Charlie Kaufman and Woody Allen, although nowhere near as funny. Cage's biology professor starts appearing in countless people's dreams for no obvious reason, blankly observing the events within, and soon becomes a minor celebrity - but as his presence in the dreams grows more active, public opinion turns on him.

Dream Scenario flirts with a variety of themes of modern society, such as fame, celebrity, cancel culture, power dynamics in academia, male ego, and the grammar of social media - arguably without meaningfully committing to any of them, but equally arguably avoiding the pitfalls that doing so might create. It dramatises the difference between who a public figure of opprobrium actually is and who the version of that figure is in the minds of the public that reviles him, depicting its angry mob with a mix of horror and amused fascination, but also refuses to indulge in cancel culture whining, explicitly critiquing the anti-woke world of the likes of Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. (An additional and crucial detail of the film is that, unlike people at the centre of similar real-life pile-ons, Cage's professor has done nothing to instigate the hatred - his presence in people's dreams and behaviour within them is entirely without explanation.)

Dream Scenario is an interesting film that builds on the infamous memeability - memeness? memeitude? - of its star to explore observations and nuances of modern, hyper-online, highly personalised culture. With all that said... we wish it were funnier.

Recorded on 27th November 2023.

406 - Dream Scenario

Paul King, the director of Paddington and Paddington 2, brings us Wonka, another reimagining of a British children's classic. Roald Dahl's beloved 1964 novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, has been adapted twice: once in 2005 by Tim Burton, but most memorably in 1971 by Mel Stuart, with Gene Wilder as eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka. It's from the 1971 version that Wonka takes some of its cues (including musical ones), but in the service of that most 21st-century of cinematic artefacts: an origin story.

Within, discussions of: What we make of the world in which Wonka is set, one in which institutions purportedly in place for the public good are instead supportive only of corporate power; the reinterpretation of the Oompa-Loompas as a wronged people whose representative is out to retrieve what was stolen from them; Mike's dissatisfaction with CGI and visual effects in British films and the production of the vocals in Wonka's songs; José's opinion on Timothée Chalamet's career and (apparently) uneven face; whether this film really benefits from its sentimental backstory and overtones; and how chocolate is best enjoyed.

Recorded on 11th December 2023.

407 - Wonka

A new, low-budget, Japanese-produced Godzilla movie takes us by surprise. Toho, with whom the series began in 1954 and who have produced over 30 Godzilla films since, have given Godzilla Minus One a wider release than usual, and we're glad of it. Unburdened by the lore and worldbuilding of the Legendary Pictures MonsterVerse films, writer-director Takashi Yamazaki tells a story of Japan's post-World War II depression, a spiritual and blood debt a pilot feels for shirking his wartime duty, and a community brought together in defiance of both a culture that treated their lives as expendable, and of course, a monster attacking their city.

Godzilla Minus One looks sensational for a film of its budget - reported to be under $15 million - and while hitting all the beats you'd expect of a blockbuster, arguably exhibits a subtly different pace and style of storytelling than Western audiences are used to, Mike suggesting that it gives an audience tired of having relentlessly convoluted cinematic universes foisted upon them a change in cinematic attitude for which they're hungry. It's not a perfect film - some of the performances let its emotional moments down, and there's little you can't see coming - but Godzilla Minus One is thoughtful entertainment that's really worth seeing at a cinema.

Recorded on 17th December 2023.

408 - Godzilla Minus One

Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz star as lovers, business partners, and rivals, in a motorsport biopic that's much more about the drama off the track than on it. In 1939, Italian racing driver, team owner, and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari founded the car manufacturer that would become one of the best-known and most prestigious marques in history; Ferrari the film tells the story of events in 1957, with the company in financial difficulties and his wife, Laura, distanced from him as they grieve the recent loss of their son, Dino. She tolerates Enzo's dalliances with mistresses, as long as he's home before the maid arrives - but his second family is secret from her.

Mike sees an opportunity to right his wrongs from our podcast on Ford vs Ferrari, aka Le Mans '66, in which, he declares, he overfocused on insignificant details, while José rightly and happily enjoyed the big personalities, charming and interesting central friendship, and entertaining, dramatic races... by suggesting they've switched seats. José finds the cultural specificity of the time and place in which Ferrari's set lacking, criticising missed or misunderstood nuances, and is let down by Driver's blankness in key scenes opposite Cruz, whose brilliant performance subtly conveys Laura's richly complex competing feelings. Details schmetails, counters Mike: here we have a big brooding drama about deep interpersonal clashes, grief, loss, power struggles and ambition, centred around an actor with fake grey hair and a faker Italian accent - what's not to love?

As with Ford v Ferrari, we both enjoyed Ferrari. It's just that one of us did so with a big, beaming, untroubled smile, and the other with a raised eyebrow that said "hmm".

Recorded on 27th December 2023.

410 - Ferrari

Hayao Miyazaki, the legendary Japanese animator and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, who has previously announced his retirement three times, tells us all that The Boy and the Heron (as it's titled in most of the world; How Do You Live? in Japan) is really, honestly, for real this time, I'm super serious, his last film. His longtime producer, Toshio Suzuki, has already cast doubt on this new claim, but for now, here we have Miyazaki's final film, which tells the story of Mahito, a young boy in wartime Japan, who loses his mother in a fire and is evacuated to his aunt's countryside estate, whereupon he meets a talking grey heron that promises that his mother is alive.

José sees The Boy and the Heron as a masterpiece of cinema, a film that does things that other films have forgotten to do, a doorway to thinking about life, loss, and worlds within worlds. Mike... didn't really get on with it, but he puts it down to taste and maybe mood - any objection he has can be equally levelled at things he loves. We easily agree that Miyazaki's and Ghibli's reputation for visual design and craft holds, with image upon image here that dazzles. As for what it all adds up to? Take José's side. It's better to like things than be bored by them.

Recorded on 30th December 2023.

411 - The Boy and the Heron

In 2002, Tony Leung and Andy Lau starred in the Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs, which Martin Scorsese remade in the US as The Departed; twenty years on, the inspiration flows in the opposite direction, Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street a clear reference point for this fictionalised tale of real-life stock market manipulation, deeply embedded corruption, and the growth of a multi-billion-dollar company from meagre beginnings on the back of scams, confidence, appearences, and lies, with Leung starring as charming, oleaginous company founder and Lau as the anti-corruption official on his tail. We had terrific fun in The Goldfinger.

Which isn't to say it's a perfect film. We have our issues. The imagery could be more expressive - though director Felix Chong (another Infernal Affairs alumnus: he wrote the trilogy) clearly has an eye for visual impact, and there's lots to be impressed by. We'd like to know why Lau's corruption investigator believes that chasing Leung's CEO is worth the disruption and danger to his family, beyond simply justice. We'd like any similar insight into what drives Leung, beyond simply greed. And if it is simply justice and greed, we'd like it to be better sold, bigger and brasher. We'd like the clash between the two to be more explosive. And the rather pat ending induces eye-rolling. But never mind all that. The Goldfinger is an entertaining and exciting tale of the rise and fall of a business empire that lived and died based on the fundamental corruption of the system and interests that built and supported it.

Recorded on 30th December 2023.

412 - The Goldfinger

Hot on the heels of Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, which cast the titular rock & roll icon as the victim of a life controlled by his manager, comes Priscilla, written and directed by Sofia Coppola, which tells a similar story of a life controlled - but here, Elvis is the culprit. in 1959, 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu meets 24-year-old Elvis during his military service in West Germany; by 1963, she's moved in with him at Graceland, his famous Memphis estate. But the romantic life she desires is kept from her.

Priscilla is as rich an experience and as rewarding in conversation as we could have hoped for. Coppola intelligently and insightfully weaves together themes of unequal power dynamics, in which pleasure is withheld; the societally-defined roles of men and women and how they harm those who enforce them upon themselves; the significant age difference between Elvis and Priscilla, especially exacerbated by her youth; why and how beauty is constructed; and so much more. Its gaze is a female one, and a particular one at that. It understands the appeal of Elvis to Priscilla, the world in which she becomes involved and the men for whom it's maintained, and the ways in which it deceives her, restricts her, and leaves her disillusioned. A marvellous, complex film.

Recorded on 9th January 2024.

413 - Priscilla

The Zone of Interest is a title that accurately reflects the film it adorns: it's a term used by the Nazis to euphemistically address the 40 square kilometre area surrounding the Auschwitz concentration camp, conspicuously refusing to mention the factory of death it enclosed, conveying a culture of at best wilful ignorance of and at worst tacit complicity with the Holocaust. Similarly, Jonathan Glazer's film is conspicuous in its refusal to show us the interior of the camp (with a notable exception, which we discuss), instead keeping its attention on the surrealistically normal country house with which it shares a wall, which is occupied by the camp's commandant, Rudolf Höss, and his family. The film is not interested in imagery of suffering, torture, and death: its subject is the culture and mentality of those who administrate and benefit from it.

There's a huge amount to discuss in this thought-provoking film, and we reflect on our own experiences visiting Auschwitz, now a museum and memorial, in so doing. Our key insight from visiting, something obvious on paper but not clear until we were there, was the industrial nature of the camp, in which it used its victims up for the labour they could extract, allowing them to starve to death as the energy content of their bodies diminished, and replacing them with a steady intake of others. The film conveys some of this in the businesslike manner in which Höss's job is conducted - it's all phone calls, meetings, conferences, folders, agendas. And we discuss Höss's wife, Hedwig, and her complicity; the soundtrack, which beds the film in a constant hum of machinery and movement from the camp, and the ending, which offers a surprising and effective flourish that grounds everything we've seen in documentary reality.

Recorded on 21st January 2024.

416 - The Zone of Interest

Alexander Payne evokes the Seventies in form and aesthetic in The Holdovers, a comedy-drama about the students and staff forced to stay at a New England boarding school over Christmas. It exudes charm and, over time, warmth, as the frosty relationship between student and teacher thaws, Payne handles the meandering tone beautifully, and it's full of good jokes. For José, it doesn't quite reach the level of the best in its genre; for Mike, it's a good genre film elevated by some mysterious cinematic alchemy he doesn't understand.

Recorded on 26th January 2024.

417 - The Holdovers

Writer-director Cord Jefferson's debut feature, American Fiction, combines satire with family dynamics to fairly charming, if visually uninspiring, effect. Jeffrey Wright's Thelonius is a novelist forced into a leave of absence from his teaching position, whereupon he returns to Boston and reconnects with his family, from whom he's distant. He's also furious that his latest manuscript has been rejected for not being black enough, and that what "black enough" means involves every negative stereotype of black people and culture imaginable. But when he sarcastically writes such a novel to shove society's attitude in its face, it's taken seriously by the white literary elite, who shower it with praise.

From the trailer, Mike was expecting more focus on the satire, and more energy à la Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You. It's a surprise, then, that American Fiction spends so much time developing the family drama, but not an unpleasant one, and José finds that aspect the film's most interesting. We consider the idea that the film uses the family story to practice what it preaches, offering a story about black people that doesn't require them to be black in order to justify its existence - it's a universal story about distanced siblings, a mother with failing health, and broken marriages. And we discuss the film's ending, or lack thereof, in which the inescapability of the culture that demands stereotype is emphasised at the expense of a satisfying, earned conclusion to the story we've been told.

American Fiction doesn't create a single artful image, and that ending is disappointing, but the film is also interesting, absorbing, and funny. Worth a look.

Recorded on 2nd February 2024.

419 - American Fiction

Is the world right, or is Mike? Argylle, Matthew Vaughn's new spy comedy, has received terrible reviews and is bombing at the box office - but Mike thinks everyone else is wrong, taking it far too seriously, and missing the parody. José is more in tune with the vox populi, finding the film a slog, Henry Cavill's hair ugly, and Bryce Dallas Howard ill-cast. But we find concord when it comes to the film's action scenes, and we discuss the transitions between Cavill and Sam Rockwell, Howard's look and movement, Mike's continuing complaint about the peculiar look of British visual effects, and more.

Recorded on 4th February 2024.

420 - Argylle

Writer-director Andrew Haigh's romantic fantasy, All of Us Strangers, flows beautifully from scene to scene, inviting the audience to question the reality of what they're shown but seldom requiring them to - it's about the feeling it creates. It's a film about isolation, building and rebuilding connections, how the past reverberates, and in particular, experiences of growing up gay in the homophobic society of the 1980s. Its themes are universal and easily understood, but people who share those experiences will identify with it more closely than most.

We discuss the complexity and natural feeling of the protagonist's conversations with his parents, who carry with them, alongside love for their son, those homophobic attitudes; the way scenes flow into each other; how letting go of those questions of what and how things are real allows us to get the most out of the film; and we ask those questions anyway. We also take the opportunity to revisit the ending of The Zone of Interest, discuss audiences proudly displaying their dislikes, and have another think about The Holdovers with that in mind.

Recorded on 6th February 2024.

421 - All of Us Strangers

Wim Wenders finds inspiration in Japanese public lavatories in Perfect Days, a slice of life drama about Hirayama, a janitor who finds quiet happiness in his routine of travelling from public convenience to public convenience cleaning, photographing trees in the park, being welcomed at restaurants by proprietors who fetch him his usuals, and reading books before bed. We discuss Wenders' delicate touch and observational eye, Kōji Yakusho's central performance, for which he was named Best Actor at Cannes, how small moments indicate whole avenues of a person's life, and the film's theme of connections between the individual worlds in which we live.

Recorded on 18th February 2024.

422 - Perfect Days

Denis Villeneuve's epic adaptation of Dune makes its first appearance on the podcast in the form of the second film in the series - we saw the first when it came out but never podcasted on it. With the lore in place, the scene set, and the characters established, Dune: Part Two is free to develop romance, engage in action, and tell the story of the construction of a messiah. It's beautiful, exciting entertainment - as long as you can remember everyone's names and what their magic powers are and what they're up to and why.

José feels no such issues keeping track of Part Two's various story elements, but Mike hasn't done the homework and finds that the film isn't going out of its way to help him. But no matter! The imagery on offer is astonishingly pretty, reassuringly expensive, and tuned for maximum visual impact - though we wonder how poetic it is, and ask ourselves to what extent the imagery in Villeneuve's other work lingers in the mind, despite its premium sheen. We also discuss the degree to which we feel Part Two really feels like it's buying in to its more supernatural elements. It tells a story of prophecy, visions, and unlikely fates, but, Mike suggests, also offers mechanisms and plausible explanations for things we see, arguably favouring its scepticism to avoid putting off an audience unwilling to go along with the otherworldly.

Whether you care or not, whether you can follow the details or not, there's no reason to not see Dune: Part Two on the biggest and best screen available. For the visual design and production alone, it's value for money - that the rest is good is a lovely bonus.

Recorded on 3rd March 2024.

423 - Dune: Part Two

After a long time off, we return with M. Night Shyalaman's new thriller, Trap, in which Josh Hartnett's doting dad, Cooper, takes his daughter to see her favourite pop star at a massive arena gig, but finds himself surrounded and hunted by the FBI.

We discuss the ways in which Shyamalan gives Cooper opportunities for escape but closes them off; the unusually disappointing lack of imagination and expression in some of the visual design and shot selection (something we're used to finding so interesting from Shyamalan); the attempt to sell a psychological background to Cooper, which is somehow neither intelligent nor daft enough; the production of the music and Saleka Night Shyamalan's performance as Lady Raven; Mike's fickleness in choosing whom to root for; and José's joy at seeing Hayley Mills. But despite picking at flaw after flaw, as we always do, we had a great time in Trap, and recommend it.

Recorded on 9th August 2024.

424 - Trap

Deadpool 2 put us in such a foul mood when it came out in 2018 that we threw away our podcast on it. It was too toxic to publish. Fortunately, Deadpool & Wolverine, the third in the series, didn't have such an effect on us - even José found some things to compliment about it.

Perhaps it's the relative diminishment of Marvel since its peak in 2018, when it was reaching the climax of the story it had been building for a decade, that makes Deadpool & Wolverine work as it otherwise might not - its jokes about the X-Men joining the MCU at a low point really landed, for example. It's far from perfect - Ryan Reynolds' schtick remains smug, and the film tries to have it both ways, delivering snarky commentary on the sorts of things films like this do, then discarding the snark when it wants to do them itself. But it's pacey, energetic, full of intense action with a delightfully cartoony attitude, filled with so many attempts to make you laugh that some of them are bound to work, and featuring a pair of enjoyable, charismatic villains: Matthew Macfadyen's Mr. Paradox is a marvellously hammy presence, while Emma Corrin's Cassandra Nova's slight physique and genteel demeanour make her telepathic abilities all the more threatening.

Recorded on 9th August 2024.

425 - Deadpool & Wolverine

One of cinema's most infamous disasters, Caligula was conceived by producer Bob Guccione, the founder of Penthouse magazine, as an explicit, expensively-made adult film, about the rise and fall of the titular Roman emperor. In pursuing this, Guccione removed director Tinto Brass during post-production, so that he could have hardcore pornography shot and inserted into the film. On its release in 1979, Caligula was critically savaged on both moral and cinematic grounds, confiscated by police in some countries, banned in others, and the cause of lines that stretched around the block. It has remained an artifact of cult interest ever since, and the subject of occasional attempts to reconstruct it in a form that reflects something approaching its creators' original visions - to whatever extent their visions agreed with each other.

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is the most thorough of these reconstructions by far, benefitting from the rediscovery of 96 hours of original material, which had been rushed out of Italy and hidden during the film's release. Opening intertitles claim that every frame of art historian Thomas Negovan's cut is previously unseen. It's long been wondered whether there's a great film within Caligula; although we don't think The Ultimate Cut demonstrates that there is, it's entertaining and striking, and offers an idea of what might have been.

Recorded on 18th August 2024.

426 - Caligula: The Ultimate Cut

A welcome new instalment in the Alien franchise, which has moved between genres and directors, remained popular for over four decades, and offered fascinating expansions of its internal mythos, Alien: Romulus moves with the times to give Generation Z the opportunity to die in space. It goes like the clappers, orchestrates loads of entertaining, tactile action, and is unbelievably good-looking. It's also underwritten, arguably overstuffed with reference to previous films in the series, and features one of those entirely uncontroversial and ethically pure reanimations of a deceased actor through CGI and other technologies. Perhaps after seeing the muted responses to the ideas on offer in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, the series has decided to seek refuge in the cloying bosom of nostalgia - but we differ on how excessive it is, while enthusiastically agreeing that Romulus is great fun, and easy to recommend.

Recorded on 19th August 2024.

427 - Alien: Romulus

Francis Ford Coppola's long-awaited passion project, Megalopolis, self-funded to the tune of $120m, has finally arrived. We love it. It's wild, imaginative, earnest, and beautiful. We discuss and decry some of the criticisms of it we've already seen while coming up with some of our own - how could we have known that an octogenarian might hold some rather traditional views? - in between breathlessly enthusing about what captivated us.

Megalopolis is hardly a perfect film but it's a visual treat and a fantastic cinematic experience. Don't let the naysayers' sniping turn you off. Indulge!

Recorded on 30th September 2024.

428 - Megalopolis

Boy oh boy, there's a lot to talk about, and the word of the day is denial. Specifically, Mike's unspoken, subcutaneous, existential denial that 1995's Jumanji is crucially meaningful to him, because how else can you explain the tension in the air as he grapples with the simple question, "Do you recommend the new Jumanji?" Ironic, really. The new Jumanji depicts characters who are forced to confront harsh truths about themselves, and in doing so forces Mike to confront the fact that he can talk about Jumanji for an hour with very little prompting.

And that new Jumanji provides a surprising amount of food for thought. We discuss how the film uses and satirises videogames, how much it made us laugh, the Jonas Brothers, Mike being a sucker for a happy ending as usual and José rolling his eyes, the stereotypes from which the central characters are built, how the film has its sexist cake and eats it, the ways the stars play off each other and suit their roles, aspects of performance, the muddled nature of the world and fundamental change in the characters' relationship to it, how much harder it is to play videogames than it is to watch films, moviegoers' over-investment in films from decades past, and last year's Power Rangers movie.

And it's a name-heavy edition of the podcast, with Jose getting names wrong left, right, and centre, and a final, authoritative correction of our pronunciation of Jia Zhangke's name. (Thanks to Sam and Jessy Stafford for their contributions.)

Recorded on 16th January 2018.

34 - Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Following his critically acclaimed documentaries about Formula One legend Aryton Senna and troubled jazz singer Amy Winehouse, Asif Kapadia turns his inquisitive lens to Diego Maradona, arguably the greatest footballer of all time, and a man who moved rapidly from the slums of Buenos Aires to worldwide fame, winning the World Cup with Argentina and leading declining Italian club Napoli to two league championships. Kapadia's film beautifully and economically tells his story, making understandable and human the dark side that accompanies the success, including an illegitimate son, his infamous addiction to cocaine, and perhaps less well-known, his association with the Camorra, the Neapolitan crime syndicate.

Mike has never really "got" these kinds of documentaries, and José is more than happy to oblige him with his impressions of what they do, and in particular what this one does so well. It is not just about the man but about the times, places, people and cultures that were the environment of his life. Maradona is rendered deeply human as the film details the grip that not only the Camorra held on him but also his football team, Napoli's president refusing to sell him at his request, a capitalist demand for the value he holds, and then, when he is used up, this once-idolised, deified icon of Napoli is unceremoniously discarded, left to quietly slink away as his former worshippers turn on him - and all the while, the human cost to Maradona is incalculable, his extraordinary level of fame extraordinarily difficult to cope with, his descent into deeper drug dependence tragic and his punishment for beating Italy at the World Cup brutal. The film draws an important and poetic distinction between Diego and Maradona, as described by Fernando Signorini, his former fitness coach at Napoli: Diego is the youngster from the slum who loves to play, has insecurities and worries, and is, as Signorini says, "a wonderful boy"; Maradona is the star, the mask that cannot show any weakness, and an unpleasant counterpart to Diego - but without Maradona, Diego would still be in those slums. What the world has always seen is Maradona. What Kapadia shows us is Diego, hidden away, a victim of his own success, further and further buried but, nonetheless, always present.

We also talk a little about Amy, Kapadia's 2015 documentary, which Mike has watched recently as José's suggestion and truly loathed, finding it as exploitative and demon-feeding as the media frenzy it depicts and decries. José believes that Mike is too moralistic, but Mike disagrees, and that's where we leave it.

But! Diego Maradona. It's a truly great documentary, complex and rich, subtle and tragic, beautifully, smoothly edited, and featuring plenty of thrilling footage of one of the greatest footballers of all time doing the things that gave him that reputation. It's fantastic. Don't miss it.

Recorded on 20th June 2019.

155 - Diego Maradona

We're still with MUBI and grateful for the opportunity to see O Fantasma, directed by João Pedro Rodrigues: a film José had heard of and been encouraged to see by various friends, but hadn't quite come his way until now. He thought the film was only a few years old and could now kick himself for having waited twenty years to see it. José thinks it a masterpiece, Mike doesn't; though the film being clearly aimed at a gay male audience might help account for it, and it speaks to José deeply.

Following Sergio (Ricardo Meneses), a very handsome young garbageman in Lisbon, perpetually horny and on the hunt for sex, O Fantasma is feverish sex dream of a film, a reverie, that evokes the feeling of horniness, of being up for sex but having no one with whom to find release. What starts as a hunt eventually turns the hunter into the hunted. We discuss how the character of Sergio seems to have no filter and no fear. He lives in a homophobic culture fraught with danger but is free. The sexual situations seem to take on the form of a dare and, even in the most potentially dangerous encounters, Sergio's glance seems to say "I'm not afraid of you and it could get sexual if you want it to". We discuss how the film's story is structured differently to a conventional narrative: there is a conveyance of a certain kind of sexual dreamscape. The various episodes might not cohere in terms of plot but do come together in the film's conveyance of atmosphere and feeling.

We note how for an earlier generation this would have been an X-rated film due not only to its subject matter but to its explicitness. We also remark upon the film's real queer gaze that is also a gay male gaze; something worth distinguishing. We compare the film to the New French Extremity films of the era but also note that where they possessed had a harsh kind of crudeness, O Fantasma is very stylised. José finds the film unusual and beautiful, with extraordinary images that are really potent and poetic. 

Sergio feels his desires in a culture in which he's allowed none of them. Yet this is a film that celebrates a full spectrum of desires, the freedom to desire and to act on one's desires. O Fantasma is a film that will confirm every homophobe's worst views of gay men - and that partly its strength. It's a film that is made in and asserts freedom. Sergio's gaze is radiant, subversive, and defiant.

If you're a gay man interested in film, this is unmissable. 

Recorded on 30th July 2019.

159 - O Fantasma

We conclude our dalliance with Jean-Pierre Melville with 1970's Le Cercle rouge, a heist film with an impressive cast of Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volonté, and Yves Montand. We discuss how genre conventions operate in the film - the shortcuts an understanding of genre provides allow details to make the difference, Mike suggesting that it all comes out through character relationships and quirks.

In discussing Le Cercle rouge, we think back on what we've learned about Melville's style, themes and interests. For Melville, emotional attachment is dangerous and makes one vulnerable; it's a rather bleak outlook, but José argues that his films aren't without their romantic aspects. Mike remarks upon the way in which Melville's style has been interpreted and appropriated by the filmmakers he influenced, noting that the vivacity with which, for instance, Quentin Tarantino effuses about Melville is not reflective of Melville's films themselves, which are slower and more pensive than you might be led to expect. To José, it's existentialist cinema through and through, and, naturally, he loves it.

Recorded on 10th April 2020.

224 - Le Cercle rouge

"I have this romantic idea of the movies as a conjunction of place, people and experiences, all different for each of us, a context in which individual and separate beings try to commune, where the individual experience overlaps with the communal and where that overlapping is demarcated by how we measure the differing responses between ourselves and the rest of the audience: do they laugh when we don’t (and what does that mean?); are they moved when we feel like laughing (and what does that say about me or the others) etc. The idea behind this podcast is to satiate the urge I sometimes have when I see a movie alone – to eavesdrop on what others say. What do they think? How does their experience compare to mine? Snippets are overhead as one leaves the cinema and are often food for thought. A longer snippet of such an experience is what I hope to provide: it’s two friends chatting immediately after a movie. It’s unrehearsed, meandering, slightly convoluted, certainly enthusiastic, and well informed, if not necessarily on all aspects a particular work gives rise to, certainly in terms of knowledge of cinema in general and considerable experience of watching different types of movies and watching movies in different types of ways. It’s not a review. It’s a conversation." - José Arroyo.

"I just like the sound of my own voice." - Michael Glass.

Eavesdropping at the Movies

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