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New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 3, Episode 19 (“Hell Money”)

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Darren

I’m back on The X-Cast this week, covering Hell Money with the great Carl Sweeney.

This is an interesting one. Everybody has their own personal underrated favourites, whether in film or on television or in any other media. Pieces of art on which we feel much more strongly than the consensus, and in which we see a bit more than our fellow audience members. In my case, this is true of quiet a few episodes of The X-Files, typically episodes that meet with a shrug from the collective audience, but with which I’ve fallen head-over-heels in love. Hell Money is one of those episodes.

The truth is in here. You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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84. Touch of Evil (#241)

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and this week with special guests Charlene Lydon and Grace Duffy, 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, Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil.

A murder in a small border town stokes local tensions, as Ramon Miguel Vargas finds himself drawn into an investigation overseen by Police Captain Hank Quinlan. As Quinlan pursues his lines of inquiry, Vargas quickly comes to realise that his would-be partner is not what he appears to be.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 241st best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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New Podcast! Scannain Podcast (2018) #37!

Posted on October 5, 2018 by Darren

It’s time for the latest Scannain podcast!

This week, I join Jason Coyle, Ronan Doyle and Graham Day to discuss the week in film. As usual, we talk about the top ten and the new releases, as well as what we’ve watched this week. In this episode, Graham gives us a peak at upcoming cinematic delights including First Man and Mandy, Ronan discusses the underrated emotional appeal of Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again, and Jay expounds upon his controversial “automatic four star film theory” as it relates to directors like Jeremy Saulnier and S. Craig Zahler.

We also talk about the best ways to celebrate a cinematic Halloween in Dublin, looking at both the Season of the Witch at the Lighthouse and the Horrorthon at the IFI, discuss the recently scheduled release date of The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid, and the revelation that Russian bots have been stirring dissent around Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi.

The top ten:

  1. The Little Stranger
  2. Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation
  3. Mile 22
  4. Christopher Robin
  5. The Nun
  6. Crazy Rich Asians
  7. A Simple Favour
  8. Black ’47
  9. The House With A Clock In Its Walls
  10. Night School

New releases:

You can download the episode here, or listen to it below.

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100. Inception (#14)

Posted on September 29, 2018 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, 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 every Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode thrown in.

This time, Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

Dom Cobb is one of the best extractors in the world, an artist who sneaks into people’s dreams and steals their secrets. However, after one botched job, Cobb is approached by a mysterious industrialist with an ambitious proposal: inception. If Cobb can plant an idea in his chief rival’s head, Cobb can finally go home to his long lost family.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 14th best movie of all-time on the Internet Movie Database.

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New Podcast! Scannain Podcast (2018) #36!

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Darren

It’s time for the latest Scannain podcast!

This week, I join Jason Coyle, Grace Duffy and Ronan Doyle to discuss the week in film. As usual, we talk about the top ten and the new releases, as well as what we’ve watched this week. In this episode, we discuss the appeal of Tony Scott’s (arguably) underrated late film Domino, which Jay claims as a cinematic classic and Ronan watched while hung over. We talk about the true horror lurking in Ghost Stories. We debate whether Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation is a Sacha Baron Cohen show as a horror movie.

We also talk about the films that the “young ones” will be watching as part of the back-to-school programme at the Irish Film Institute, the ongoing Dublin Festival of History and the first look deal between Element Pictures and Fox Searchlight that speaks to the viability of Irish film as award fare.

In terms of the top ten, there’s in-depth discussions of both Black ’47 and The Little Stranger, all four panelists having seen those films.

The top ten:

  1. Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation
  2. The Predator
  3. Christopher Robin
  4. The Little Stranger
  5. Mile 22
  6. The Nun
  7. A Simple Favour
  8. Crazy Rich Asians
  9. Black ’47
  10. The House With A Clock In Its Walls

New releases:

You can download the episode here, or listen to it below.

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New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 3, Episode 17 (“Pusher”)

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Darren

I’m back on The X-Cast this week, to cover a very special episode. Pusher is host Tony Black’s favourite episode, and we recorded this close to his birthday. So no pressure, then.

Pusher has long been a favourite of mine as well, a crackerjack suspense-filled episode from the powerhouse team of writer Vince Gilligan and director Rob Bowman. It’s an episode that works very well both within the confines of The X-Files itself and beyond. Even more than Soft Light, it is an episode that informs a lot of Gilligan’s core themes and ideas going forward. There is a surprising amount of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul to be found in the episode, for example.

The truth is in here. You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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New Podcast! The Pensky File – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 4, Episode 10 (“Our Man Bashir”)

Posted on September 27, 2018 by Darren

The Pensky File will return…

Thrilled to join Wes and Clay over at The Pensky Podcast for another episode of their look at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The dynamic duo are fast approaching the midpoint of the fourth season, one of the greatest seasons of television in the Star Trek canon and probably one of the greatest twenty-odd episode seasons of television ever produced.

I was particularly excited to join the pair for a discussion of Our Man Bashir, an episode in which Bashir and Garak become embroiled in a life and death struggle while playing out one of Bashir’s spy fantasies. My position on Our Man Bashir is pretty out there, but I genuinely believe that it’s one of the best episodes of Star Trek ever produced. Do I manage to convince Wes and Clay? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Along the way, we discuss everything from the popularity of James Bond in America, to the evolution of Julian Bashir as a character, to the economics of the holosuite to Avery Brooks’ distinctive performance style. It was, as ever, a huge pleasure and privilege to join the two for the discussion.

You can find more from The Pensky Podcast here, and listen to the podcast by clicking the link or just listening below.

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99. Rang de Basanti (#195) – Indian Summer 2018

Posted on September 22, 2018 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Giovanna Rampazza and Babu Patel, 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 every Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode thrown in.

This year, we are proud to announce Indian Summer, a fortnight looking at two of the Indian films on the list. We hope to make this an annual event. This year, we’ll be covering Rajkumar Hirani’s PK and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti. This week, we’re discussing the second of those two films, Rang de Basanti.

A documentary filmmaker Susan travels to India in order to produce a documentary about the daring Kakori Train Robbery in August 1925. While there, she strikes up a friendship with an unlikely group of listless young students who are looking for purpose and meaning within their own lives.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 195th best movie of all-time on the Internet Movie Database.

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New Podcast! Scannain Podcast (2018) #35!

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Darren

It’s time for the latest Scannain podcast!

This week, I join Jason Coyle and Ronan Doyle to discuss the week in film. As usual, we talk about the top ten and the new releases, as well as what we’ve watched this week. In this episode, the celebration of Agnès Varda continues, dovetailing into the release of her new film Faces Places. We also discuss the Toronto International Film Festival, the masculinity of Clint Eastwood, the strange reception of A Wrinkle in Time and the appeal of the classic Disney animated canon.

We also mark the passing of Irish film critic Stephen Coffey (who wrote under the name of Gar Cremona). Details of the memorial service can be found here, and his books are available for sale here.

The top ten:

  1. King of Thieves
  2. Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation
  3. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
  4. Christopher Robin
  5. BlacKkKlansman
  6. The House With A Clock In Its Walls
  7. The Predator
  8. Crazy Rich Asians
  9. The Nun
  10. Black ’47

New releases:

You can download the episode here, or listen to it below.

 

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New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 3, Episode 16 (“Apocrypha”)

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Darren

I’m back on The X-Cast this week, to cover the second-part of the late third-season mythology two-parter Apocrypha.

Picking up where Piper Maru left off, this conclusion finds Mulder and Scully continuing their separate investigations. Mulder is chasing down the missing tape from Anasazi, The Blessing Way and Paper Clip while Scully is dealing with the fallout from the assassination attempt on Assistant Director Walter Skinner that brings her face-to-face with the man who killed her sister. Justice, legacy and guilt are all major preoccupations, tying into the broader themes of the season as a whole.

Once again, a pleasure to substitute in for Tony Black as host of The X-Cast for an episode, and absolutely thrilled to be joined by the great Christopher Irish from The X-Files Lexicon.

The truth is in here. You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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