Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, This Just In is a subset of the fortnightly The 250 podcast, looking at notable new arrivals on the list of the 250 best(and the 100 worst) movies of all-time, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.
This time, Sylvain White’s Slender Man.
Filed under: The Bottom 100, This Just In | Tagged: discussion, exploitation, films, horror, imdb, internet, memetic, Movie, slender man, tragedy, worst movies ever | Leave a comment »
It’s time for the latest Scannain podcast!
This week, I join Alex Towers from When Irish Eyes Are Watching, Grace Duffy and Jay Coyle to discuss the week in film news. It is a fun film discussion; Alex, Jay and I have all seen The Favourite, while Grace, Jay and I have seen A Christmas Prince. Along the way, Alex discusses a seasonal viewing of Batman Returns, Grace contemplates Free Solo, and Jay discusses Vertical Limit and Love, Simon.
In film news, the podcast was recorded hot on the heels of the announcement of the nominees at Golden Globes, also discussing the international distribution of The Hole in the Ground and the success of The Favourite at the British Independent Film Awards.
The top ten:
New releases:
You can download the episode here, or listen to it below.
Filed under: Movies, Podcasts! | Tagged: a christmas prince, alex towers, batman returns, free solo, grace duffy, jay coyle, love simon, the favourite, vertical limit, widows | Leave a comment »
Bird Box is a fascinating contemporary horror movie.
The stock comparison will be to something like A Quiet Place, another contemporary horror movie that plays a fairly standard set-up with a high-concept twist. In A Quiet Place, the characters were stalked by monsters that could not hear them, and so they had to move without generating any sound. In Bird Box, the characters find themselves confronted by supernatural monsters that drive any person who looks at them completely insane, often to the point of self-destructive suicide.
Carry on regardless.
However, Bird Box feels decidedly more abstract than A Quiet Place, more lyrical and more metaphorical in its construction. It was often difficult to read a strong central allegory into A Quiet Place, to see it as anything more than a very effective old-fashioned horror film that very effectively literalised one of the central tensions for horror movie audiences; the desire to scream with the need to keep quiet. Bird Box does something similar, effectively creating a horror movie where even the characters themselves must close their eyes when the scary parts happen.
However, there is much more going on in Bird Box, perhaps even too much. The central premise of the horror movie lends itself to any number of varied (and possibly contradictory) readings about the insanity of the modern world and the need to protect the family from chaos that might at any moment encompass them. Bird Box is an ambitious and effective horror, one that applies a variety of tried-and-tested horror formulas to bracing social commentary.
Life is anything but a dream.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: a quiet place, bird box, film, horror, Movie, netflix, review | Leave a comment »
It’s time for the latest Scannain podcast! Apologies this time, as I have a bit of a throaty cough on it. I try to keep it under control.
This week, I join Jay Coyle, Luke Dunne from Film in Dublin, Grace Duffy and Scannain editor-in-chief Niall Murphy to discuss the week in film news. As usual, we talk about the top ten, the new releases, and what we watched this week. Jay made one last effort to get his mileage out of Filmstruck, and proved himself “down with the kids” by watching Cam and Searching. Luke delved into gay and exploitation cinema, with a healthy helping of Suspiria. Grace watched a pair of surfing documentaries on Netflix. Niall reopens old wounds with Batman vs. Superman and introduced his son to the original Wreck-It Ralph.
In film news, this week marked the passing of a number of industry legends, including Nicholas Roeg and Bernardo Bertolucci. We also discuss the five Irish films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, along with the new Arc Cinema opening in Navan. Because Niall is here, we also have some interesting facts about the composition of the top ten.
The top ten:
New releases:
You can download the episode here, or listen to it below.
Filed under: Movies, Podcasts! | Tagged: grace duffy, jay coyle, luke dunne, niall murphy, robin hood, scannain, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms | Leave a comment »
If the stock comparison to The Killing of a Sacred Deer is The Shining, then the obvious comparison to The Favourite is Barry Lyndon.
It is a stock comparison, bordering on facile. After all, there is a world of difference between Yorgos Lanthimos’ story of two women competing for the attention of Queen Anne and Stanley Kubrick’s story of the rise and fall of a roguish Irish gentleman. However, the similarities are striking. Both are eighteenth century period pieces that boldly eschew the conventions of period dramas. Both The Favourite and Barry Lyndon rely heavily on natural light and repeatedly draw the audience’s attention to the nature of the narrative of constructed.
You Only Live Weisz.
However, the most striking point of comparison might be thematic and philosophical rather than simply literal or textual. Just as The Killing of a Sacred Deer explored the collapse of a family unit through the prism of decaying masculinity in a manner that recalled The Shining, the world of The Favourite is defined by its study of power, pettiness and pomposity. As in Barry Lyndon, the fickleness of comfort and the arbitrary nature of security are a recurring fascination for The Favourite, which meditates repeatedly on how precarious such positions can be.
The Favourite is a story of cruelty, both human and natural.
A Stone-Cold Schemer.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Emma Stone, film, Movie, non-review review, oliva colman, queen anne, review, the favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos | Leave a comment »
White Boy Rick struggles to articulate what it is actually saying.
The basic premise of White Boy Rick is quite clear from the outset. The film is set in Detroit. Barring a coda, the bulk of the action unfolds in the four years following on from 1984, during Ronald Reagan’s second term. Although the President himself is not directly discussed in the context of the narrative, there is an early conversation in which two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and one member of the Detroit Police Department ruminate upon Nancy Reagan’s famous “just say no” appeal.
Ricked off.
White Boy Rick is an earnest and well-intentioned movie exploring the consequences of the so-called “War on Drugs” in eighties America, and the manner in which that campaign was both fruitless in terms of its nominal objectives and actively harmful to the communities in which it unfolded. White Boy Rick attempts to position itself as a tragedy about a young man – the eponymous character’s age is something of a recurring battle cry – who happens to get wrapped up in something much bigger than his own circumstances.
Unfortunately, White Boy Rick struggles to construct a strong and engaging narrative around this central thesis statement, repeatedly stumbling in trying to graft the character’s arc and decisions to the broader social commentary that it wants to make. The result is a deeply frustrating film that squanders potentially interesting subject matter.
Daddy’s home.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Detroit, eighties, film, Matthew McConaughey, Movie, non-review review, reagan, review, War on Drugs, white boy rick, yann demange | Leave a comment »
It Takes You Away is a strong contender, along with Demons of the Punjab, for the strongest story of the eleventh season of Doctor Who.
It Takes You Away plays as an allegory. It is something of a fairy tale. It is perhaps the closest that the eleventh season of Doctor Who has come to feeling like a fairy tale, particularly given the conscious choice to root The Woman Who Fell to Earth in a more gritty and grounded universe. It Takes You Away seems like it could have been commissioned during the Moffat era, a lyrical meditation on the idea of loss and mourning. It Takes You Away is a story about needing to let go of trauma, rather than holding on it or carrying it inside.
Reflections and symbols.
To be fair, It Takes You Away is not perfect. There are still some minor pacing issues, particularly with how long the episode takes to get to the meat of the story; there is a sense in which It Takes You Away is three stories stitched together, with the middle segment particularly inessential. There is also the same over-reliance on weirdly specific and overly detailed nonsense techno-babble and mythology that stood out in episodes like The Ghost Monument or The Tsuranga Conundrum.
Still, It Takes You Away has some big ideas, a clever execution, and a strong central theme upon which both might be placed.
Mind the gap.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: antizone, base under siege, Chris Chibnall, death, doctor who, frog, Gallifrey, Lore, monster, moths, mythology, surrealism, the doctor, theme | 3 Comments »
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an amazing Spider-man movie.
There is no other way to describe it. Into the Spider-Verse is a clean lock for the best superhero film of the year, neatly leapfrogging the superlative Black Panther. Into the Spider-Verse is also the best animated film of the year, placing comfortably ahead of The Breadwinner or Incredibles 2. In fact, it seems fairly safe to describe Into the Spider-Verse as the best feature film starring Spider-Man since Spider-Man II. Even that feels like hedging, and would be a very closely run race.
Just dive on in.
Into the Spider-Verse is a creative triumph. It is a fantastically constructed movie, in virtually every way. The film’s unique approach to animation will inevitably dominate discussions, and understandably so. Into the Spider-Verse is a visually sumptuous piece of cinema that looks unlike anything ever committed to film. However, the film’s storytelling is just as impressive if decidedly (and consciously) less showy in its construction. Adding a phenomenal cast, Into the Spider-Verse is just a film that works in an incredibly infectious and engaging way.
Into the Spider-Verse does whatever a Spider-Man movie can. And then some.
Suits him.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, anxiety, archetypes, comic books, Comics, continuity, creativity, diversity, familiarity, film, modernity, Movies, reality, review, spider man, spider-man: into the spider-verse, storytelling, the kids are lit | 6 Comments »
Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and this week with special guest Aine O’Connor, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturday at 6pm GMT.
This time, Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s Cidade de Deus.
Over three decades in the eponymous Brazilian slum, lives intersect and collide amid poverty and criminality. A young by named “Rocket” tries to navigate – and account for – the fickle winds of chance in a turbulent urban environment.
At time of recording, it was ranked the 20th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: aine o'connor, brazil, Cidade de Deus, City of God, Fernando Meirelles, latin america, olympics, rio, The 250 | Leave a comment »
Creed II is a much better sequel than Rocky IV deserves.
At the heart of Creed II is the grudge match that fans of the franchise had been anticipating since the core concept of this “legacy-quel” series was first suggested. Adonis Creed in the ring against Viktor Drago. The son of Apollo Creed squaring off against the son of Ivan Drago, a generational rematch of the bout that cost Apollo Creed his life in Rocky IV. Adonis Creed is haunted by the name that he inherited from a father that he never met, and so it seems only reasonable that his film series would circle back around to allowing him closure on this.
A Rocky Road Less Travelled.
There is an irony in all of this. One of the central themes of Creed was the challenge of this spin-off movie franchise existing in the shadow of the original beloved Rocky series. Co-writer and director Ryan Coogler rose to that challenge, and created one of the great franchise success stories of the twenty-first century. As a result, it occasionally feels like Creed II is not so much fighting to escape the shadow of Rocky IV as much as it is wrestling with the weight of Creed.
Creed II is a solid and sturdy sequel to Creed, although not a superior one. It isn’t necessarily the sequel that Creed deserves.
To the Viktor, the spoils…
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Cold War, creed, creed 2, creed ii, film, michael b. jordan, Movie, non-review review, r eview, reocky balboa, rocky, Russia, sylvester stallone | Leave a comment »
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