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 Movies428 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies427 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies426 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies425 - 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 &…
Eavesdropping at the Movies424 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies423 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies422 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies421 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies420 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies419 - American Fiction
Writer-director Cord Jefferson's debut feature, American Fiction, combines satire with family dynamics to fairly charming, if visually uninspiring, effect…
Eavesdropping at the Movies418 - Maestro
We find Maestro, Bradley Cooper's latest actor-director star vehicle, which dramatises the life of iconic conductor Leonard Bernstein, to be dishonest…
Eavesdropping at the Movies417 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies416 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies415 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies414 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies413 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies412 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies411 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies410 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies409 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies408 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies407 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies406 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies405 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies404 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies403 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies402 - 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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies401 - A Haunting in Venice
Kenneth Branagh continues to direct himself as Hercule Poirot in his ongoing project to make Agatha Christie's classic whodunnits all about him. A Haunting in…
Eavesdropping at the Movies400 - The Nun II and The Exorcist: Believer
For our 400th episode we indulge in a pair of horror sequels, both heavy on faith, possession, and Christianity. One is part of a modern universe of…
Eavesdropping at the Movies399 - The Creator
We heartily disagree on The Creator, a sci-fi film directed and co-written by Gareth Edwards, who made his name with Monsters in 2010, which he made largely by…
Eavesdropping at the Movies398 - The Old Oak
The Old Oak, possibly Ken Loach's final film, is his least challenging for some time, and that's perhaps why it's an easier watch than normal. A northern…
Eavesdropping at the Movies397 - Stop Making Sense
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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies396 - The Equalizer 3
Denzel Washington returns for the third and final instalment of the Equalizer trilogy, in which former government assassin Robert McCall devotes his time and…
Eavesdropping at the Movies395 - Passages
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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies394 - Oppenheimer
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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies393 - Barbie
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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies392 - Rye Lane
Rye Lane follows two new friends, both reeling from breakups, as they spend a day together walking the streets of London and getting into scrapes. It's a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies391 - Creed III
Michael B. Jordan makes his first feature as director in his third Creed film as star. Creed III sees a retired Adonis Creed living comfortably with his wife…
Eavesdropping at the Movies390 - Knock at the Cabin
Like his previous film, Old, M. Night Shyamalan's Knock at the Cabin is an intriguing, self-contained, efficient thriller - although not nearly as satisfying…
Eavesdropping at the Movies389 - Empire of Light
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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies388 - The Fabelmans
Steven Spielberg's long-awaited semi-autobiographical reminiscence of his childhood is here, and it's perfect. Too perfect. José swoons over the way The…
Eavesdropping at the Movies387 - Babylon
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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies386 - Tár
Cate Blanchett's performance as the title character is the highlight of the otherwise unutterably deflating Tár. What begins as an unexpectedly captivating…
Eavesdropping at the Movies385 - Till
We disagree on Till, which dramatises the events surrounding the infamous lynching of Emmett Till, a black fourteen-year-old boy abducted, tortured, and shot…
Eavesdropping at the Movies384 - Avatar: The Way of Water - Second Screening
We take a trip to London to see Avatar: The Way of Water again, this time on the biggest screen in the country at the BFI IMAX, in high frame rate and 3D. We…
Eavesdropping at the Movies383 - Matilda the Musical
The stage musical adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1988 novel, Matilda, about a young girl with hyperintelligence, telekinetic powers, uncaring parents and a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies382 - Corsage
An icon across continental Europe though barely known in the UK, the life of Sisi, or Sissi - Empress Elisabeth of Austria to you - has been dramatised often…
Eavesdropping at the Movies381 - Avatar: The Way of Water
A mere thirteen years after the release of the highest-grossing film of all time, its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, arrives to a cinematic landscape that…
Eavesdropping at the Movies380 - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
There's an unwelcome element of particularly American and ill-fitting barbarism in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a film that we hoped would be cleverer…
Eavesdropping at the Movies379 - The Old Dark House
José gave an introduction to the MAC's screening of The Old Dark House, a 1932 comedy horror directed by James Whale, focusing on queerness. James Whale was…
Eavesdropping at the Movies378 - The Menu
The Menu is a smörgåsbord both of scenes, its plot dropping ideas as soon as it picks them up in its rush to entertain, and of styles and genres, with black…
Eavesdropping at the Movies377 - Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The sequel to the best Marvel film by far has to deal with tragic circumstances - the star of the first, Chadwick Boseman, died at the age of 43 in 2020. His…
Eavesdropping at the Movies376 - Bros
We wanted to like Bros more. Co-writer and star Billy Eichner jumped at the chance to expand the boundaries of the wide-release Hollywood rom-com to tell the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies375 - The Banshees of Inisherin
Playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh, best known in cinema for his breakthrough comedy-drama In Bruges and, most recently, the critical and financial…
Eavesdropping at the Movies374 - Amsterdam
We indulge in a caper inspired by a real-life attempted overthrow of the US government - no, not that one. The Business Plot of 1933 was alleged to have been…
Eavesdropping at the Movies373 - Smile
Trauma as metaphor has become a trope of horror in recent years, and Smile features it more bluntly than you've ever seen. We discuss its messaging…
Eavesdropping at the Movies372 - Don't Worry Darling
Don't Worry Darling, Olivia Wilde's second feature as director, after Booksmart, which we loved, is an irredeemable mess of a psychological thriller. We pick…
Eavesdropping at the Movies371 - Beast
The absence of presence that is Idris Elba, who we'd like to like one day, stars in Beast, a Jurassic Park knock-off that pitches him against both his distant…
Eavesdropping at the Movies370 - Nope
Nope, Jordan Peele's third film as writer-director, following his zeitgeist-capturing Get Out and complex, ambitious Us, invites its audience to speculate on…
Eavesdropping at the Movies369 - Bullet Train
David Leitch, who directed the surprisingly enjoyable Hobbs & Shaw, delivers another surprisingly enjoyable action comedy. Bullet Train is set upon the…