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 Movies188 - Bait
Shot in black and white on a clockwork camera from the 1970s, the hand-development of its 16mm film resulting in scratches and unpredictable changes in…
Eavesdropping at the Movies187 - Gemini Man
Gemini Man lacks charm, wit, originality, intelligence, any real sense of understanding how to shoot action... but it's a technological showcase, and with 3D…
Eavesdropping at the Movies186 - Neither Wolf Nor Dog
It's enormously disappointing that Neither Wolf Nor Dog is as bad as it is, because its subject - Native American life in a society built upon a land that was…
Eavesdropping at the Movies185 - Don't Look Now
Neither of us has ever seen classic British thriller Don't Look Now before, though we're keenly aware of the esteem in which it is held. And it's fair to say…
Eavesdropping at the Movies184 - Judy
José reminisces about Judy Garland as a feature of his childhood, a constant presence on his family's television, and as a person who took on different…
Eavesdropping at the Movies183 - The Mustang
A captivating performance from Matthias Schoenaerts as a long-time inmate in a Nevada prison gives The Mustang its heart and emotional centre. The story of an…
Eavesdropping at the Movies182 - Rojo
In the mid-Seventies, Argentina was terrorised by the Triple A (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance), a far-right death squad that disappeared countless people…
Eavesdropping at the Movies181 - Laurel and Hardy - Twice Two, County Hospital, and Way Out West
The Birmingham chapter of the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society shows a few of their films every year at the mac, and this year sees them screen two…
Eavesdropping at the Movies180 - Joker
It's as though we've seen two different films, with José bowled over by Joker's social commentary, Mike bored and annoyed by its perceived self-satisfaction -…
Eavesdropping at the Movies179 - Rambo: Last Blood
Donald Trump's vision of Mexico as America's terrifying, criminal neighbour to the south finds a home in Rambo: Last Blood, a film in which a journey to Mexico…
Eavesdropping at the Movies178 - Downton Abbey
Ideologically hideous and cinematically not even trying... we hate Downton Abbey. Hate it. But José especially so. Recorded on 29th and 30th September 2019.
Eavesdropping at the Movies177 - Apocalypse Now: Final Cut
Francis Ford Coppola's classic 1979 war epic, once renovated already in 2001's Redux, now sees a second altered version, restored in 4K from the original…
Eavesdropping at the Movies176 - Fight Club
A film that jogs memories for Mike, as in the process of revisiting Fight Club he realises what an impact it had on him as a teenager. David Fincher's…
Eavesdropping at the Movies175 - The Blue Angel
The film that introduced Marlene Dietrich to America, Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel tells the tragic story of a man who gives up everything for love…
Eavesdropping at the Movies174 - The Farewell
We love Lulu Wang's comedy-drama The Farewell, about a Chinese family that knows their grandmother, Nai Nai, has cancer, but keeps it a secret from her…
Eavesdropping at the Movies173 - Ad Astra
Ad Astra sees a withdrawn, isolated Brad Pitt take to the stars as Roy McBride, an astronaut in search of his father, and with him writer-director James Gray…
Eavesdropping at the Movies172 - Hustlers
J-Lo runs the show and steals every scene in Hustlers, Lorene Scafaria's crime flick about a team of strippers who run a scam to steal from Wall Street traders…
Eavesdropping at the Movies171 - The Souvenir
A gentle, somewhat meandering podcast to follow a gentle, somewhat meandering film. Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir talks of artistic development, the vigour of…
Eavesdropping at the Movies170 - Ne Zha
Ne Zha, a Chinese animated film, holds the record for the biggest box office in a single market (having made over $700m in China), but Mike isn't that…
Eavesdropping at the Movies169 - Transit
Adapted from the 1944 novel of the same name by Anna Seghers, writer-director Christian Petzold's Transit behaves to some degree like Shakespeare in modern…
Eavesdropping at the Movies168 - It Chapter 2
Following 2017's It, the characters are 27 years older, the events of the first film mere memories, and the effects are more thrilling than ever. But it leaves…
Eavesdropping at the Movies167 - Notorious
Considered by some to be his best film, Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious comes to the MAC in a beautiful 4k restoration. We explore its sumptuous close-ups…
Eavesdropping at the Movies166 - Pain and Glory
It's probably fair to say that Pedro Almodóvar's films seem to be made specifically for José. It's in every detail: the locations, eras, sexuality, ways of…
Eavesdropping at the Movies165 - Animals
There's a remarkable female gaze in Animals, Sophie Hyde's adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth's novel, and a wonderful sense of insightful observation in the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies164 - The Lion King 2019
Mike has seen 2019's remake of The Lion King, and it sends him into a state of deep woe. José hasn't, and is glad Mike took the bullet for him. Recorded on…
Eavesdropping at the Movies163 - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Mike feared it might be the most tasteless film ever made. José doesn't look forward to Quentin Tarantino films. But we both came away from this fantastical…
Eavesdropping at the Movies162 - Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. If there's a clunkier title out there, we'd like to see it. The first standalone film in the Fast & Furious series, and…
Eavesdropping at the Movies161 - Cold Weather
Cold Weather is a mumblecore crime thriller, if it is indeed possible to conceive of such a thing, which it must be, because Cold Weather is one. Gentle…
Eavesdropping at the Movies160 - The Matrix
The Matrix, the Wachowskis' groundbreaking, iconic sci-fi, is twenty years old this year, and we catch a one-off screening of its 4K restoration. Mike can't…
Eavesdropping at the Movies159 - O Fantasma
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…
Eavesdropping at the Movies158 - Border
Pickings are slim at the cinema at the moment, so it's MUBI to the rescue. We chose Border almost at random, our criteria being only something that looked…
Eavesdropping at the Movies157 - Toy Story 4
Following a break during which José has been exploring Argentina and Mike has been exploring John Grisham films, we reconvene with Toy Story 4, the latest in…
Eavesdropping at the Movies156 - Spider-Man: Far From Home
José returns from a week at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, just in time to see Venice crumble in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the latest injection of plot…
Eavesdropping at the Movies155 - Diego Maradona
Following his critically acclaimed documentaries about Formula One legend Aryton Senna and troubled jazz singer Amy Winehouse, Asif Kapadia turns his…
Eavesdropping at the Movies154 - Ma
A horror movie that cleverly inverts one or two tropes of the genre, we ultimately feel Ma is less than the sum of its parts, but worth a look nonetheless…
Eavesdropping at the Movies153 - Godzilla: King of the Monsters
But for its astonishing visuals, we don't have much time for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a rather boring, incoherent film with an aspect that is at best…
Eavesdropping at the Movies152 - Rocketman
A musical biopic that understands its own music, that uses its songs not necessarily when they’re chronologically appropriate but when they fit emotionally and…
Eavesdropping at the Movies151 - Booksmart
Ridiculously, relentlessly, laugh-out-loud funny, we had a brilliant time in Booksmart. It's a last-day-before-graduation high school comedy about two girls…
Eavesdropping at the Movies150 - John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
First they killed Keanu Reeves' dog, and in revenge, he killed everyone, and it was brilliant. Then they had to make two sequels, and they couldn't come up…
Eavesdropping at the Movies149 - Game of Thrones
For the first time, Eavesdropping at the Movies is talking about television... or is it? Game of Thrones spent eight years and countless millions of dollars in…
Eavesdropping at the Movies148 - Avengers: Endgame
A big one. The Marvel Cinematic Universe closes a chapter - kind of - with Endgame, a three-hour behemoth that concludes stories that have been told over 21…
Eavesdropping at the Movies147 - At Eternity's Gate
Despite a wonderful central performance from Willem Dafoe as Vincent van Gogh, one that earned him an Oscar nomination, and some beautiful imagery, At…
Eavesdropping at the Movies146 - Todos somos marineros
Todos somos marineros (in English, We’re All Sailors) was partly inspired by a workshop in which a group of students spent eight hours discussing the opening…
Eavesdropping at the Movies145 - Dumbo (2019)
The latest of Disney's CGI-driven remakes of its classic hand-drawn films, Dumbo features a rather cute elephant with too little screen time and two abysmal…
Eavesdropping at the Movies144 - Us
Mirrors and doppelgangers and dual meanings and symmetries abound in Jordan Peele's Us, in which a family of four is terrorised one evening by a family of four…
Eavesdropping at the Movies143 - mid90s
Jonah Hill's directorial debut is a small, charming hangout movie about LA skater culture in, as the title suggests, the mid-90s. For Mike - who sees…
Eavesdropping at the Movies142 - Shazam!
José’s enjoyed three weeks in Cuba and the Dominican Republic and wants to return with a nice easy watch. Shazam! obliges. The latest DC movie follows a…
Eavesdropping at the Movies141 - The Passionate Friends
We visit 1949's romantic drama The Passionate Friends, a favourite of previous podcast guest Celia, who describes it as "what would have happened if they'd had…
Eavesdropping at the Movies140 - Fighting with My Family
A young girl from a tight-knit family in Norwich gets a shot at her dream, joining the WWE, the glamorous home of professional wrestling. Parental pride…
Eavesdropping at the Movies139 - Alita: Battle Angel
A tweeny sci-fi based on a manga, Alita: Battle Angel tells the story of a young cyborg found on a scrapheap and given a new lease of life by a kindly doctor…
Eavesdropping at the Movies138 - Captain Marvel
It's taken ten years but Marvel has finally branched out into films about heroes who aren't white guys. Following last year's Black Panther, Captain Marvel…
Eavesdropping at the Movies137 - Cold Pursuit
Remaking his own film, Hans Petter Moland brings us a revenge thriller, starring - who else? - Liam Neeson as a model citizen turned remorseless killer on the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies136 - Die Welle
In response to José's excursion into the world of Michael Curtiz a few months ago, Mike has picked four films of his own to discuss, the first being…
Eavesdropping at the Movies135 - Double Indemnity
The film noir to end films noir, Billy Wilder's classic crime drama Double Indemnity made its way to The Electric in Birmingham for a one-off screening, where…
Eavesdropping at the Movies134 - If Beale Street Could Talk and Moonlight - Second Screening
We return to Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk, his sumptuous romantic drama set in 1970s New York, for a deep dive, and take the opportunity to…
Eavesdropping at the Movies133 - It Happened One Night
It's Valentine's weekend and we take a romantic trip to The Electric Cinema to see It Happened One Night, Frank Capra's 1934 romantic comedy that is one of…
Eavesdropping at the Movies132 - If Beale Street Could Talk
Achingly romantic and visually rapturous, If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins' adaptation of James Baldwin's 1974 novel of the same name, utterly bowls…
Eavesdropping at the Movies131 - Green Book
It's already being portrayed as the film that will undeservedly win Best Picture for its cuddly, comfortable, comedy-drama version of American racism in the…
Eavesdropping at the Movies130 - Glass
Concluding a trilogy two decades in the making, Glass brings together the characters of 2000's Unbreakable and 2016's Split in an unconventional superhero…
Eavesdropping at the Movies129 - Vice
Adam McKay brings the confrontational, fourth-wall-breaking style he employed in The Big Short to a story of lust for power, hidden agendas, opportunism, and…