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 Movies308 - Old
Reminding José of 1970s auteur exploitation movies and Mike of The Twilight Zone, M. Night Shyamalan's Old confines its characters, and most of its action, to…
Eavesdropping at the Movies307 - Space Jam: A New Legacy
1996's Space Jam is beloved of people Mike's age throughout the Western hemisphere, despite basketball's limited reach beyond North America - it was a Looney…
Eavesdropping at the Movies306 - Fast and Furious 9
What began twenty years ago as a series of car chases and races has since spiralled out of control into an action behemoth encompassing ten films, a TV series…
Eavesdropping at the Movies305 - Black Widow
Marvel's triumphant return to our cinemas is... a film that fills in a plot hole nobody cared about for a character who not only should have had a standalone…
Eavesdropping at the Movies304 - French Exit
An offbeat, gentle, surreal, intriguing and slightly camp comic drama, French Exit is a pleasant surprise for us both. Michelle Pfeiffer's widowed heiress…
Eavesdropping at the Movies303 - The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard
The sequel to one of the first films we discussed on Eavesdropping at the Movies, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard reunites Samuel L. Jackson's hitman, Ryan…
Eavesdropping at the Movies302 - In the Heights
Before Lin-Manuel Miranda shot to fame in the mid-2010s with Hamilton, he had already enjoyed success with his 2005 musical, In the Heights, with a book by…
Eavesdropping at the Movies301 - Come and See
We explore Come and See, a 1985 Soviet film whose reputation precedes it - it's regarded as one of the greatest war films of all time. In 1943 Belarus, a young…
Eavesdropping at the Movies300 - A Quiet Place Part II
A Quiet Place Part II picks up moments after its 2018 predecessor ends, its characters desperate for refuge from the terrifying predators hunting them. Seeking…
Eavesdropping at the Movies299 - Cruella
Disney's latest update of its back catalogue sees Emma Stone bring punk rock to Sixties London in Cruella, a beautiful, stylish, but clunky affair. Like…
Eavesdropping at the Movies298 - Witness for the Prosecution
Billy Wilder directs this adaptation of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, a courtroom drama concerning a man on trial for the murder of an old…
Eavesdropping at the Movies297 - Spiral
Cinema is back! And to celebrate, we see the new spin-off of the Saw series, Spiral, which... is not a good film. But it gives us much to think on, especially…
Eavesdropping at the Movies296 - And Then There Were None (1945)
We explore René Clair's adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel of - in the US - the same name, And Then There Were None. In terms of quality, it's nothing to…
Eavesdropping at the Movies295 - Suspiria (1977) and Suspiria (2018)
We explore Dario Argento's Suspiria, his 1977 horror classic, and its loose remake by Luca Guadagnino, from 2018. We've never seen either, although Argento's…
Eavesdropping at the Movies294 - The Two Popes
Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce star as the previous and current Popes respectively, in The Two Popes, an imagined biopic that uses their personas and…
Eavesdropping at the Movies293 - Promising Young Woman
We're joined by returning guest Celia, on the phone from Canada, to discuss writer-director Emerald Fennell's unusual revenge thriller, Promising Young Woman…
Eavesdropping at the Movies292 - Affair in Trinidad
Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford star in Gild- sorry, Affair in Trinidad, Hayworth's first film upon her return to Hollywood after four years away, and a blatant…
Eavesdropping at the Movies291 - Sound of Metal
A film that offers a beautiful evocation of community, as Riz Ahmed's drummer suddenly loses most of his hearing and joins a retreat for the deaf, Sound of…
Eavesdropping at the Movies290 - Godzilla vs. Kong
The fourth entry in Legendary's MonsterVerse, the first crossover in the series, sees a journey to the center of the Earth and Hong Kong made the playground of…
Eavesdropping at the Movies289 - The Trial of the Chicago 7
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, riots erupted when thousands of anti-Vietnam War protestors clashed with police. Seeking to crush the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies288 - The Father
Anthony Hopkins is magnificent as The Father's title character, an old man losing his grip on reality to dementia, in debut director Florian Zeller's…
Eavesdropping at the Movies287 - Minari
A gentle drama about Korean immigrants making a life for themselves in 1980s Arkansas, Minari's tone is consistently light, despite some of the upsetting…
Eavesdropping at the Movies286 - Zack Snyder's Justice League
In 2017, Justice League, DC's answer to Marvel's continuing Avengers crossovers, flopped. Director Zack Snyder had left the film several months before release…
Eavesdropping at the Movies285 - Nomadland
Frances McDormand and a cast of non-professional, real-life nomads unite to explore the life of the modern American itinerant in Nomadland. We consider the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies284 - Judas and the Black Messiah
The story of a civil rights activist who deserved a biopic long before now, told from the perspective of the man who killed him. Fred Hampton chaired the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies283 - Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
Ethics and truth in the land of documentary come under the microscope in our discussion of Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father. Filmmaker Kurt…
Eavesdropping at the Movies282 - Lapsis
First-time writer-director Noah Hutton imagines, in Lapsis, a near-future gig economy dystopia that isn't that different from our own. Unable to pay for his…
Eavesdropping at the Movies281 - The Day of the Locust
An expensive flop in its day, The Day of the Locust maintains a cult intrigue for its critique of Hollywood and descent into madness. It's new for both of us…
Eavesdropping at the Movies280 - A Sun
We explore a wonderful Taiwanese film that Netflix forgot it had, A Sun. An intimate yet epic drama about the effects of a single mistake that reverberate…
Eavesdropping at the Movies279 - Rocky - Part II: The Rocky series
Our two-part discussion of Rocky concludes with a look at the entire series of eight films, including the two Creed movies. It's a series that's deeply…
Eavesdropping at the Movies278 - Rocky - Part I: Rocky
In this first of our two-part discussion of the Rocky films, we look at the film that began the series almost 50 years ago. There's a lot about 1976's Rocky…
Eavesdropping at the Movies277 - News of the World
Why this film was made... is rather beyond us. News of the World invokes the era of fake news in name only, its premise - following the Civil War, a former…
Eavesdropping at the Movies276 - The Birdcage
Mike Nichols and Elaine May, whose partnership in the 50s and 60s helped define American comedy, collaborate on a film for the first time in 1996, as director…
Eavesdropping at the Movies275 - The Garment Jungle
A pro-union, pulpy noir in 1957, not long after the House Un-American Activities Committee was at its height, is nothing to be sniffed at, even if its stance…
Eavesdropping at the Movies274 - Citadel
John Smith's 16-minute short, Citadel, gives voice to the City of London - Prime Minister Boris Johnson's voice, specifically. Filmed during the first few…
Eavesdropping at the Movies273 - Suzaki Paradise: Akashingō
A young, destitute couple seek survival and stability in Yuzo Kawashima's 1956 drama, Suzaki Paradise: Akashingō (in English, this subtitle is given as Red…
Eavesdropping at the Movies272 - Cool Hand Luke
A key film in Paul Newman's career that gave us one of cinema's most iconic lines, Cool Hand Luke is known to both Mike and José - but previously seen by…
Eavesdropping at the Movies271 - Soul
Occupying some similar thematic terrain to Coco, Pixar's 2017 masterpiece, Soul uses an afterlife-bound journey with a tight deadline to explore what it is…
Eavesdropping at the Movies270 - Wonder Woman 1984
Despite a couple of charmingly enthusiastic performances from Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig, Wonder Woman 1984 disappoints, betraying what the title character…
Eavesdropping at the Movies269 - Small Axe: Education
Small Axe ends with what, based on his 2014 profile in the Guardian, we take to be a tale partially inspired by Steve McQueen's own childhood. In Education, a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies268 - Small Axe: Alex Wheatle
The theme of assimilation is given a fascinating twist in Alex Wheatle, the fourth Small Axe film. While Mangrove and Red, White and Blue, in particular…
Eavesdropping at the Movies267 - Small Axe: Red, White and Blue
Another Steve McQueen rendition of a true story, Red, White and Blue examines institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police, as did Mangrove - but from the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies266 - Mank
José hasn’t seen a worse film from David Fincher than Mank, a contentious biopic of Herman J. Mankiewicz, the screenwriter whose collaboration with Orson…
Eavesdropping at the Movies265 - The Palm Beach Story
Do English people get Preston Sturges? Is his work all it's cracked up to be? These questions are on the table as we tackle The Palm Beach Story, a film Mike's…
Eavesdropping at the Movies264 - Small Axe: Lovers Rock
Small Axe continues with Lovers Rock, a stunning musical set in a house party in the 1980s. Hit follows hit on the soundtrack, and José in particular is blown…
Eavesdropping at the Movies263 - Small Axe: Mangrove
Small Axe, Steve McQueen's remarkable anthology of five films made for the BBC, begins with Mangrove, a dramatisation of the 1971 trial of the Mangrove Nine, a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies262 - A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
You find us in reflective mood, as we reflect upon a reflective Swedish comedy, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. Hopping…
Eavesdropping at the Movies261 - The City Without Jews
1924's The City Without Jews, an Austrian silent film adapted from Hugo Bettauer's enormously successful novel of the same name, published two years earlier…
Eavesdropping at the Movies260 - The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
The winner of the 1971 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Vittorio De Sica's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis tells an aching story of doomed love within a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies259 - Love Me Tonight
We're enraptured by a musical neither of has seen before, 1932's Love Me Tonight, starring Maurice Chevalier as a charming and roguish Parisian tailor, and…
Eavesdropping at the Movies258 - Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Fourteen years have passed since Sacha Baron Cohen's first tour of the USA as Borat, his friendly, clueless, and decidedly un-PC Kazakh journalist. Borat gave…
Eavesdropping at the Movies257 - Antz
The second feature-length computer-animated film ever made, after Pixar's groundbreaking Toy Story, Antz is an oddball. A public feud between Jeffrey…
Eavesdropping at the Movies256 - Playtime
Jacques Tati's masterpiece, 1967's Playtime, is an extraordinarily ambitious work of visual comedy and social satire. Mike's been keen to see this for fifteen…
Eavesdropping at the Movies255 - The Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail
One a great masterpiece of cinema, the other a cultural icon of its day, we compare and contrast Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner with Nora Ephron's…
Eavesdropping at the Movies254 - L.A. Confidential
A corrupt police force intersects with the glamour of Hollywood in L.A. Confidential, the tightly-plotted neo-noir that won the Oscars for Best Adapted…
Eavesdropping at the Movies253 - I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Horror tropes pervade I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Charlie Kaufman's oddball drama about a girl doubting her relationship, but it can't be considered a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies252 - Tenet - Second Screening
Birmingham's full-size IMAX cinema closed in 2011, having proved unprofitable (the independent venue it became, the Giant Screen, closed four years later for…
Eavesdropping at the Movies251 - Tenet
After a long wait and three delays, Christopher Nolan's latest high-concept blockbuster, Tenet, has finally arrived in British cinemas. This description is a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies250 - What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael gives us the opportunity to reflect on a woman who, for José, stands above all other popular film critics, and whose…
Eavesdropping at the Movies249 - The Old Guard
An ambitious, large-scale Netflix production, The Old Guard throws special ops, behind-enemy-lines-style action together with intriguing superhero-style…