Shows / Eavesdropping at the Movies
Eavesdropping at the Movies
"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…
Episodes
Eavesdropping at the Movies487 - Clayface
Based on a Batman supervillain who, despite making his first comic appearance in 1940, is relatively little-known, Clayface shows us how a handsome, successful…
Eavesdropping at the Movies486 - Fatherland
The third film in Paweł Pawlikowski's historical trilogy, after Ida (2013) and Cold War (2018), Fatherland follows one of the defining authors of the twentieth…
Eavesdropping at the Movies485 - Verity
We love a good thriller, and Verity is one... depending on your expectations. It's reliant on three excellent star performances, Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson…
Eavesdropping at the Movies484 - Digger
Tom Cruise is great fun to watch as a boisterous Texan oil magnate in Digger, an ambitious satire from Alejandro González Iñárritu. It's a risky film, which we…
Eavesdropping at the Movies483 - It's My Time
Birmingham's Mockingbird Cinema hosted the European premiere of Chinese comedy-drama It's My Time, about a troublemaking old lady who enters the world of…
Eavesdropping at the Movies482 - Coyote vs. Acme
In 2023, Warner Bros. announced the completion of Coyote vs. Acme, a family film in which Looney Tunes' Wile E. Coyote, still desperately and valiantly chasing…
Eavesdropping at the Movies481 - Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Horror is surely the most deconstructed genre in film, the slasher the most deconstructed subgenre therein, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma may be the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies480 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies479 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies478 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies477 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies476 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies475 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies474 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies473 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies472 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies471 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies470 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies469 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies468 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies467 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies466 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies465 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies464 - Bugonia
Yorgos Lanthimos' fourth collaboration with Emma Stone yields a darkly comedic thriller about two conspiracy theorists who kidnap a CEO, determined to reveal…
Eavesdropping at the Movies463 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies462 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies461 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies460 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies459 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies458 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies457 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies456 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies455 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies454 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies453 - The Shrouds
A psychosexual thriller that's neither psychosexual nor thrilling enough, The Shrouds is a disappointment. There's great promise to businessman Vincent…
Eavesdropping at the Movies452 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies451 - Friendship
We talk adult male friendships, stress and surreality in our discussion of Friendship, in which oddball everyman Tim Robinson finds himself enamoured with…
Eavesdropping at the Movies450 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies449 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies448 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies447 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies446 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies445 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies444 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies443 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies442 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the MoviesEavesdropping 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 Movies441 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies440 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies439 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies438 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies437 - Babygirl
Nicole Kidman gives a compelling, vulnerable performance in Babygirl, as a woman for whom sexual satisfaction requires her to relinquish the power she…
Eavesdropping at the Movies436 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies435 - Nosferatu (2024)
Writer-director Robert Eggers, whose reputation for aesthetically rich, deeply-researched and idiosyncratic horror precedes him, has long been working on a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies434 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies433 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies432 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies431 - 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.
Eavesdropping at the Movies430 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies429 - 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…