Eavesdropping at the Movies
Two friends, Jose Arroyo and Michael Glass, chat immediately after watching a movie, sharing their unrehearsed, meandering, and enthusiastic thoughts. They aim to capture the communal experience of cinema, comparing their reactions and interpretations. The podcast is well-informed, drawing on their extensive knowledge of cinema and experience with various film types.
Episodes
480 - Cabaret
Half a century since its 1972 release, Bob Fosse’s Cabaret remains startlingly sexy, funny and politically unsettling. We admire Liza Minnelli’s extraordinary star-making performance, the film’s distinctive choreography and cinematography, and how the Kit Kat Klub, and the numbers performed within, chart the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Berlin. We also consider its unusually liberated treatment of s
479 - The End of Oak Street
The End of Oak Street puts Mike in mind of the sort of disposable but likeable films he watched on video as a child, although they didn't tend to cost $85 million to make. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell conspicuously apes Steven Spielberg with a family, a suburb, a dinosaur invasion, a large pile of poo and a lot of 1980s nostalgia. We debate whether the film’s derivativeness, charmless per
478 - Spider-Man: Brand New Day
We've tuned out of Marvel on the podcast for a little while, but one of the eternally entertaining superheroes, Spider-Man, reignites our interest with Brand New Day. With Doctor Strange having cast a spell at the end of 2021's No Way Home to make the entire world forget Peter Parker, for reasons that Doctor Strange presumably cast another spell to make us forget, Peter, newly isolated, returns to
477 - The Odyssey
Realising his dream of shooting an entire film on 70mm IMAX stock, Christopher Nolan adapts Homer's ancient Greek poem The Odyssey, a vast mythological epic and one of the foundational works of Western literature. We haven't seen it in full IMAX but IMAX Digital, the pretender to the IMAX name that nonetheless offers the best screen in Birmingham, which for three hours immerses us in the story of
476 - Disclosure Day
Steven Spielberg returns to science fiction with Disclosure Day, an ambitious alien thriller that consciously recalls Close Encounters of the Third Kind, still one of his defining films fifty years on. We marvel at its extraordinary visual storytelling, virtuoso camerawork and sense of cinematic wonder, while asking whether its ideas about conspiracy, religion, the media and empathy are as sophist
475 - Exit 8
Most videogames that receive cinematic adaptations are big - the likes of Uncharted, Minecraft, Sonic the Hedgehog and Resident Evil, all of which have been adapted, some several times, are among the biggest games in history, and their cinematic versions are typically intended to be blockbusters. Exit 8 is not. It is an independent Japanese game made by one person, turned into a low-budget, high-c
474 - Rose of Nevada
Seven years ago, we disagreed with the thrust of what Mark Jenkin's Bait had to say about the world as it is and as it ought to be, but appreciated its expressive strength. It was a film with substance. You could grapple with it. Rose of Nevada broadly conveys the same messages, but, as they derive primarily from the film's setting and less so its plot, is less forceful and argumentative about the
473 - Project Hail Mary
In 2015, Matt Damon found himself stranded on Mars in The Martian, an adaptation of Andy Weir's novel of the same name, and had to improvise unlikely solutions in order to survive and get home. In 2026, Ryan Gosling finds himself stranded in outer space in Project Hail Mary, an adapation of Andy Weir's novel of the same name, and has to improvise unlikely solutions in order to save Earth and get h
472 - Sirât
Sirât is all about tone, and the time it takes to establish it. It begins with an array of massive speakers being set up in a desert, and over the next several minutes, we experience an outdoor rave, the music trance-inducing, the ravers moving freely and in their own worlds, as we gradually narrow our focus on an out-of-place father, Luis, and his young son, who we learn are searching for his dau
471 - The Secret Agent
We've previously seen Bacurau, writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho's last film, which we loved, and find The Secret Agent a similarly fascinating depiction of political corruption and persecution in Brazil, though much more grounded and fleshed out, particularly given the historical setting in 1977, at which time Brazil was subject to a military dictatorship. To José, who grew up in Franco's Spa
470 - Wuthering Heights (2026)
Those to whom Emily Brontë's only novel, Wuthering Heights, is important, have approached Emerald Fennell's adaptation warily. It's a book that a lot of women have grown up on, and the trailers raised questions. Would it be too steamy? Too modernised? Would it miss the point? We, however, residing outside that demographic and never having read the novel, can't meaningfully consider the issue of ad
469 - Send Help
Send Help sees Rachel McAdams marooned on a desert island with her asshole boss in a cartoonishly gory comic adventure the likes of which made director Sam Raimi's name. We discuss how feminist it really is - at the very least, it's a bloke's idea of female empowerment - and praise McAdams' and Dylan O'Brien's performances, upon which the entire film relies.
Recorded on 15th February 2026.
468 - Pillion
Possibly the sweetest and lightest gay BDSM biker film ever made, Pillion opens up conversations on power dynamics, consent and boundaries, and made Mike cry. Everything about it is so assured, particularly Harry Melling's understated protagonist, meek and new to BDSM; Alexander Skarsgård's commanding, mysterious lover; and Harry Lighton's direction, the control of tone he exhibits a remarkable ac
467 - It Was Just an Accident
One of Iran's most celebrated filmmakers, Jafar Panahi, has spent the last quarter of a century in conflict with the Iranian government, which objects to his films' criticisms of their actions and the wider social conditions in the country, and has both arrested him several times and banned him from making films for twenty years - which hasn't stopped him. His latest, It Was Just an Accident, won
466 - Nuremberg
Russell Crowe shines in Nuremberg as Hermann Göring, who became the face of the Nazi Party following Hitler's suicide and the end of the war, as he's held in custody and probed by a psychiatrist as the titular trials approach. Indeed, while a mediocre film, its actors' performances are a pleasure - with the exception of Rami Malek, whose psychiatrist is twitchy, busy, and a failure. A shame that h
465 - Die My Love
Jennifer Lawrence gives a career-best performance as a new mother struggling with depression and a rocky relationship in Die My Love, directed by Lynne Ramsay, whose remarkable instinct for tone and atmosphere shouldn't be taken for granted. It's a character study whose artistry is all in the filmmaking and performances, which bring out great richness of feeling in material that, on the page, migh
464 - Bugonia
Yorgos Lanthimos' fourth collaboration with Emma Stone yields a darkly comedic thriller about two conspiracy theorists who kidnap a CEO, determined to reveal the truth that she's an alien from Andromeda. We've all at least considered it.
While funny and absurd, Bugonia is also tragic and misanthropic, and we're unconvinced that its ending is either earned or fitting, despite Mike's insistence tha
463 - Frankenstein (2025)
Another classic Gothic horror is remade for the modern age: first we saw Robert Eggers' Nosferatu, and now Guillermo del Toro brings us his adaptation of Frankenstein. Like Nosferatu, Frankenstein is astonishing to look at, and, like Nosferatu, also written by its director, it probably would have benefitted from the attention of a professional screenwriter. Still, it's a pleasure to spend time in
462 - Tron: Ares
Far from an outstanding film, but amazing to look at and too much fun not to recommend, we had a great time in Tron: Ares, which reverses the reality-computer interface that brought humans into the digital world in the previous two films; it's now the virtual that becomes real. An evil company searches for the code that will give its 3D printed computer assets longevity in the real world - so far,
461 - One Battle After Another - Second Screening
We're joined by our resident Paul Thomas Anderson expert (and Mike's brother), Stephen Glass, to whom we've previously spoken about Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza, for another discussion of One Battle After Another. Stephen's seen it in both VistaVision and IMAX 70mm, and can offer a sense of the experience Mike and José missed seeing it in IMAX Digital, and so begins a wide-ranging conversatio
460 - The Smashing Machine
Mike isn't impressed with The Rock's attempt to take on a dramatic role in an intimate biopic after decades of popcorn blockbusters, seeing it as Oscar bait. José doesn't share his cynicism and likes the lead performance. We discuss what The Smashing Machine depicts - disagreeing, in particular, about whether the protagonist shares any blame for the issues in his relationship - as well as whether
459 - A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, directed by former video essayist Kogonada, is beautiful to look at and very likeable, but derivative and ultimately unsatisfying. We discuss its lighting, its attitude towards people's histories and the memories that live with them, and why a rubbish script Mike once wrote makes him particularly keen to sneer at it.
Recorded on 29th September 2025.
458 - The Long Walk
Cheap, simple, high-concept and reasonably graphic, The Long Walk is a throwback to the days of the B-movie. In its dystopian, totalitarian version of the USA, an annual event, the Long Walk, is designed to inspire a work ethic and national pride in the citizenry, and in so doing restore the country to that self-defined global number one status it craves; to make America great again. The televised
457 - One Battle After Another
By far Paul Thomas Anderson's most expensive film, with a budget some four or five times what he's used to, and probably his most accessible, One Battle After Another entertains us enormously and effortlessly without sacrificing the complexity and nuance for which his work is known. Set in an alternate America oppressed by Christofascism, the alternate part is that there's a very active militant r
456 - Together
Commitment is scary. It's especially scary when you drink water from a cursed puddle that wants to make a hybrid of you and your partner. Together tells the story of a couple moving to a new countryside home during a questionable period in their relationship: she has a new job and is responsible for the move away; he's emotionally distant since the death of his parents and relies on her for transp
455 - Eddington
Most film and TV has quietly agreed to pretend that the Covid pandemic never happened. Perhaps it's too awkward to discuss it. Perhaps it'll date your work. Writer-director Ari Aster doesn't share these worries, telling a story about the days of lockdowns, mask mandates and conspiracy theories - days of particular hostility and division in the USA, in which individual freedom does constant battle
454 - Weapons
One of the most hotly-anticipated horror films in recent memory, Weapons begins with seventeen third-grade children in a Pennsylvania town mysteriously waking up at 2:17am one Wednesday and running from their homes into the darkness. The shocking, unexplained disappearance and imagery of an empty classroom alone suggest an allegory of school shootings, and we ask what else can be read into the fil
453 - The Shrouds
A psychosexual thriller that's neither psychosexual nor thrilling enough, The Shrouds is a disappointment. There's great promise to businessman Vincent Cassel's invention of a technologically advanced shroud that creates a 3D model of the decaying body it houses, when we're shown the lust with which he observes his deceased wife's corpse. The film is peppered with recurrent imagery of her disfigur
452 - The Ballad of Wallis Island
Mike loves Tim Key. This much has been true for some time, and he's thrilled to discover that the comic poet's unique approach to wordplay and social interactions finds a natural place on the cinema screen, in the character of an eccentric lottery winner who lures his favourite folk duo, long since broken-up, to the lonely island on which he lives for a private gig. Tom Basden's singer-songwriter
451 - Friendship
We talk adult male friendships, stress and surreality in our discussion of Friendship, in which oddball everyman Tim Robinson finds himself enamoured with effortlessly cool new neighbour Paul Rudd, but lacks any of the social nous to naturally bond with him. The film gets huge laughs from meaningful subject matter, a far cry from our experience with The Naked Gun. Its tone is idiosyncratic, its ob
450 - The Naked Gun (2025)
The Naked Gun is rebooted with Liam Neeson in the part that was once Leslie Nielsen's, and he shows just how hard comedy can be. We discuss everything the film gets wrong. If only they'd asked us for help.
Recorded on 4th August 2025.
449 - Bring Her Back
YouTubers-turned-directors Danny and Michael Philippou demonstrate a real eye for visual design and an ability to create imagery to truly disgusting effect in Bring Her Back, in which Sally Hawkins plays a foster parent whose daughter's death leads her to search for answers in the occult. The filmmaker twins are 32 years old, which, perhaps unfairly, leads us to ascribe the film's lack of depth an
448 - Jurassic World Rebirth
The seventh instalment in the Jurassic Park (now Jurassic World) series, Jurassic World Rebirth might be the first of the sequels to really come close to capturing the kind of wonder, excitement and horror that the 1993 original offered. That might be in part because it cribs liberally from it, with both moments and entire sequences closely evocative of their 32-year-old counterparts. But there's
447 - Superman (2025)
DC, which for the best part of two decades has failed to put together a cinematic universe of comic book adaptations to rival Marvel's MCU, regroups and goes again with director James Gunn in charge of what will be known as the DCU - and what better superhero to introduce the new brand than the original: Superman.
David Corenswet's performance and physique are extremely appealing, recalling an er
446 - F1
Hollywood collaborates with the FIA, the motorsport governing body, to try to convince us that Formula One is not, in fact, televised Microsoft Excel, but actually very exciting indeed. To this end, it brings in accomplished genre action director Joseph Kosinski, star Brad Pitt, and every cliché under the sun. And it's great fun.
There's hardly anything realistic about this story of a sixtysometh
445 - Riefenstahl
In the 1930s, Leni Riefenstahl infamously directed two propaganda films, Triumph of the Will and Olympia, for the Nazi Party. For the rest of her life, which ended in 2003, she denied knowledge of the regime's crimes, including the Holocaust. In 2016, her heirs gave her estate, which included a vast collection of personal documents, correspondence, and film and tape recordings, to the Prussian Cul
444 - Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
A wide-ranging discussion follows the release of the final Mission: Impossible film... perhaps. José doesn't believe that they'll stop making them, nor does he want them to, but he is glad that Tom Cruise appears to be hanging up his boots - he's just too old now. While he reflects on Cruise's career and stardom, Mike's watched every Mission: Impossible film in anticipation of The Final Reckoning,
443 - Final Destination Bloodlines
The slasher series without a slasher returns for its sixth instalment, fourteen years after we last saw it. Where Halloween gave us Michael Myers, Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger, Final Destination made death the villain - perhaps more accurately, Death, but we never see a cloaked man wielding a scythe. Where the figure of the slasher killer could, in
442 - Sinners
Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler, is a horror musical set in 1930s Mississippi, shot in part on IMAX 70mm film, starring Michael B. Jordan as a pair of identical twins who return to their hometown for a new start, only to encounter vampires. It's as ambitious as that sounds and full of ideas and culturally specific nuance, and José loves it. Mike doesn't.
We discuss how the music dra
Eavesdropping at the Movies: In Conversation at the University of Warwick
What a joy! We were delighted to be invited to the University of Warwick Film and Television Studies department for a conversation with James MacDowell about Eavesdropping at the Movies: how it began, why we do it, what we get out of it, how we make it. We hope you enjoy what was an enormously satisfying hour and a bit in which we had the privilege to discuss our practice of film criticism with an
441 - Ne Zha 2
Over the last couple of months, Chinese children's fantasy Ne Zha 2 has quickly, and arguably quietly, become the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time, and the first animated film to gross over $2 billion. It's hard to keep up with the records it's been breaking - but can we keep up with the plot?
No is the answer, but we readily accept that younger minds, and minds more in tune with Ne Zha 2'
440 - Mickey 17
After a little time off, we're back at the cinema to see Bong Joon Ho's sci-fi comedy, Mickey 17, in which Robert Pattinson dies. Repeatedly. Leaving Earth on a spaceship seeking to colonise an icy planet, Pattinson's Mickey is an "Expendable": a disposable worker given lethal assignments, regenerated by a biological printer, and sent out to die again. But when the 17th version of Mickey fails to
439 - The Brutalist
We visit BFI Southbank for a 70mm screening of The Brutalist, Brady Corbet's epic period drama. It's a super-sized film - 215 minutes, not including the intermission - and it deserves a super-sized podcast, for which we're joined, as we occasionally are, by Mike's brother, Stephen, who's already seen the film once. It's an extraordinarily complex, subtle and absorbing film that draws on countless
438 - Presence
"Steven Soderbergh's making a horror film from the perspective of the ghost" turns out to be a sentence specifically designed to appeal to Mike, who has been looking forward to Presence for ages. (José struggles to remember the film's title, even moments after having seen it.) But part of that pitch is deeply misleading. Presence's trailers were loaded with quotes from overeager horror publication
437 - Babygirl
Nicole Kidman gives a compelling, vulnerable performance in Babygirl, as a woman for whom sexual satisfaction requires her to relinquish the power she otherwise projects throughout her life, and who begins an affair with a much younger man she finds herself unable to resist. Unfortunately, that's the only significant thing to recommend about the film, which we find superficial, badly thought out,
436 - Maria
The third film in Pablo Larraín's trilogy of iconic women, following 2016's Jackie and 2021's Spencer, Maria shows us the final week of the life of opera singer Maria Callas, who at the age of 53 is experiencing delusions, hallucinations, and the fear that her once-perfect singing voice has abandoned her. Mike isn't familiar with Maria Callas; José is (despite worrying before we started recording
435 - Nosferatu (2024)
Writer-director Robert Eggers, whose reputation for aesthetically rich, deeply-researched and idiosyncratic horror precedes him, has long been working on a remake of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, the 1922 German Expressionist classic whose influence has been felt in the horror genre for a century. It's a big fish to try to take down, but it's source material that feels like it exists especially for hi
434 - Conclave
You wait for ages for a film about a group of people sequestered in a room, questioning each other, keeping secrets, and repeatedly voting, and two come along at once. But while Juror #2's protagonist wrestled with his conscience, Conclave's Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, has little trouble consistently acting out of principle - sadly, many of his colleagues vying for the Catholic Chu
433 - Juror #2
A film whose brilliant conceit is so simple and compelling we can't believe we've never seen it before, Juror #2 tells the story of a juror whose responsibility it is to assess the guilt of a defendant who he knows is innocent of murder - because it was the juror who did it.
Summoned to serve on a jury and quickly recognising the details of the case, Nicholas Hoult's Justin realises that the deer
432 - Heretic
Hugh Grant brings his idiosyncratic brand of English charm to the world of horror in Heretic, in which he isolates and tests the faith of two young Mormon missionaries. It's a film that leaves you asking all sorts of questions, such as, "did anything he was up to actually make any sense?", but for a horror film so heavy on the dialogue and relatively light on the scares, it's fabulously enertainin
431 - Venom: The Last Dance
We enjoyed the first. We didn't care for the second. Does the third bring back the fun?
No, not really.
Recorded on 17th November 2024.
430 - Gladiator II
Ridley Scott returns to Gladiator after more than twenty years, telling a story that's broadly the same, but neatly picks up from the original too. Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal in the central role, and we discuss whether he has the movie star charisma to match his indie film credentials; we also talk action, visual effects, Denzel Washington's Iago figure, the trope of the gay villain, and more.
429 - Joker: Folie à Deux
2019's Joker, which gave the iconic supervillain an all-purpose mental health disorder, a tragic origin story, and a name - Arthur Fleck - was never meant to have a sequel. But it made a billion dollars, so Joker: Folie à Deux is here. And, being a jukebox musical based primarily on show tunes from the mid-20th century canon, we ask who it's for. The first film took risks in eschewing so many trap
428 - Megalopolis
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 breathlessl
427 - Alien: Romulus
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'
426 - Caligula: The Ultimate Cut
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 19
425 - Deadpool & Wolverine
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 h
424 - Trap
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
423 - Dune: Part Two
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, exciti
422 - Perfect Days
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 t
421 - All of Us Strangers
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 homophob
420 - Argylle
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
419 - American Fiction
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 rej
418 - Maestro
We find Maestro, Bradley Cooper's latest actor-director star vehicle, which dramatises the life of iconic conductor Leonard Bernstein, to be dishonest, illustrative, and superficial Oscar bait. We also find it cinematically ambitious at times, with great production values - not many films of this type are being made with $80 million budgets. A mixed bag.
Recorded on 1st February 2024.
417 - The Holdovers
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
416 - The Zone of Interest
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 Gl
415 - The Beekeeper
As José describes, the Expendables films set Jason Statham up as the logical inheritor of the action hero crown formerly held by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme and so on - and true to his status as such, Statham has many rubbish films under his belt. The Beekeeper is the latest, in which we learn of a programme of state-sponsored vigilantes - the Beekeepers - who act on their own terms, when
414 - Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos' latest absurd comedy, Poor Things, creates a wonderful confluence of themes, all through the lens of Bella, a grown woman with a child's brain, experiencing the world anew and detached from emotion. We discuss Bella's attitude to the world she encounters, the men who try to control and cage her, Lanthimos' idiosyncratic visual style and comedic sensibility, the examination of the
413 - Priscilla
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 move
412 - The Goldfinger
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-dolla
411 - The Boy and the Heron
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, bu
410 - Ferrari
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
409 - Next Goal Wins
In something of a return to the sort of film that made his name, Taika Waititi co-writes and directs a quirky, charming comedy-drama set in Polynesia. Next Goal Wins adapts the true story of the American Samoan football team (and the 2014 documentary about it that gives this film its title), famously one of the worst teams on the planet, who begin the film in despair following their 31-0 world-rec
408 - Godzilla Minus One
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-Wor
407 - Wonka
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 c
406 - Dream Scenario
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 mor
405 - Napoleon (2023)
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 de
404 - The Killer
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
403 - Killers of the Flower Moon
Based on true events, Killers of the Flower Moon tells a story that invokes the foundational genocide upon which the USA was built, but has its own peculiarities. The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe and unusually the owners of their reservation in Oklahoma, became extraordinarily wealthy in the early 20th century upon finding their land gushing oil - but in pursuit of their riches, the white
402 - Saw X
Mike's favourite horror series, which fizzled out in 2010 after seven annual instalments, has been resurrected in fits and starts over the past few years, and if future sequels can maintain the quality of storytelling of Saw X, we want to see more of them. José still doesn't understand the appeal of the gore and torture, but accepts that it's part of the landscape here; what neither of us expects
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