the m0vie blog

New Podcast! The TARDIS Crew – “Torchwood – Children of Earth (Part 1)”

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Darren

I was thrilled to be invited to join the great Ben and Baz Greenland for an episode of their podcast, The TARDIS Crew.

The guys are doing a retrospective deep dive on Russell T. Davies’ last tenure overseeing the Doctor Who franchise, and asked if I’d like to talk about any of his specific work on the show. I was delighted to get the chance to talk about Torchwood: Children of Earth, which stands out as not only the best that Torchwood has ever been, but belongs in the conversation as one of the best pieces of Doctor Who ever made. It’s a fun and freeform discussion, that we split into two parts for ease of listening.

You can listen directly to the episode below or by clicking here.

Filed under: Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: britain, children, death, future, Great Britain, jack, kids, podcast, russell t. davies, society, the tardis crew, torchwood, torchwood: children of earth | 2 Comments »

New Escapist Column! On the “John Wick” Movies as a Love Letter to Stuntwork…

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the upcoming release of John Wick: Chapter 4, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the action franchise.

In modern Hollywood, the John Wick movies stand out from a lot of their competitors by embracing a very practical and material philosophy, leaning heavily on in-camera effects for maximum impact. However, the films are more than just a showcase for stuntwork as one of the industry’s most undervalued artforms. They are also an argument for stunt work as an artform unto itself, particularly in the way that they emphasis the importance of action as a means of storytelling and the way in which they frequently place their stunts in the context of more broadly-accepted forms of artistic expression.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: art, ballerina, ballet, buster keaton, charlie chaplin, history, hollywood, in the frame, john wick, Keanu Reeves, Performers, silent cinema, stunts, stuntwork, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “Shazam! Fury of the Gods Proves that Lightning Doesn’t Always Strike Twice”

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie and television reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which was released in cinemas this weekend.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Comics, david f. sandberg, dceu, escapist, review, shazam!, shazam! fury of the gods, superheroes, the escapist | Leave a comment »

280. Apocalypse Now (#53)

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week with special guests Alex Towers and Brian Lloyd, 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 second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This time, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

In the midst of the Vietnam War, Benjamin Willard is given a special assignment. He is tasked with taking a patrol boat up the Nung River in pursuit of Colonel Walter Kurtz. Kurtz has apparently gone completely rogue, no longer responding to directives from command. Willard is instructed to terminate Kurtz’s command, by any means necessary. However, as Willard journeys deeper into the country, he finds himself drifting further and further from reality, embracing some sort of primal insanity.

At time of recording, it was ranked 53rd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alex towers, america, apocalypse now, Audio, brian lloyd, film, Filmmaking, francis ford coppola, marlon brando, martin sheen, Movie, podcast, psychedelia, season, trip, vietnam, Vietnam War | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Colonial Fears of “Shazam!”

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Shazam! Fury of the Gods this weekend, it seemed as good a time as any to take a look at the superhero sequel.

One of the interesting things about Fury of the Gods is the way in which it seems like it is in conversation with the earlier films in the DCEU, lifting several cues directly from films like Man of Steel, Wonder Woman, Batman v. Superman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. In particular, it’s a film in which the existential threat is inherently nostalgic, the fear of an imagined past intruding into the modern world and overwriting it.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman v. superman, colonisation, fears, invasion, man of steel, nostalgia, shazam!, shazam! fury of the gods, wonder woman, zack snyder's justice league | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Use of Violence in “The Last of Us”…

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist earlier this week. With The Last of Us wrapping up its first season, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the show, and in particular the way that the show tells its story.

The Last of Us is, in many ways, a study of violence. It’s a study of brutality and horror. What makes The Last of Us so interesting is the way that it chooses to portray such violence and brutality. Indeed, the show is remarkably restrained in its depiction of graphic on-screen violence. Instead, the show’s cinematic language focuses on the idea that violence ultimately wounds both perpetrator and victim. In many cases, it’s the people left behind who have to carry that with them.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: hbo, in the frame, joel, perpetrator, storytelling, the escapist, the last of us, victim, violence | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Complicated Seventies Nostalgia of “Poker Face”…

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Darren

We’re launching a new column at The Escapist, called Out of Focus. It will publish every Wednesday, and the plan is to use it to look at some film and television that would maybe fall outside the remit of In the Frame, more marginal titles or objects of cult interest. With the end of the first season of Poker Face last week, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the show.

Poker Face is obviously designed as something of a seventies throwback. The show is very obviously a hybrid of classic seventies television like Columbo and Kung-Fu. However, there’s more than simple nostalgia at play within the series. Poker Face is a show about grappling with the memory and legacy of the seventies, of understanding why these stories resonate in the modern world. It has a nuanced and complicated relationship with the era from which it draws, which makes for compelling television.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: 1970s, charlie cale, cynicism, economy, memory, natasha lyonne, nick nolte, nostalgia, out of focus, paranoia, poker face, Rian Johnson, seventies, the escapist, vietnam, war, watergate | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On Phase 4 as Marvel’s Midlife Crisis…

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Darren

We’re thrilled to be launching a fortnightly video companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch every second Monday, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel. And the video will typically be separate from the written content. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This week, with the recent launch of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we took a look back at Marvel’s Phase 4, trying to make sense of one of the shared universe’s most disjointed and uneven phases.

Filed under: Movies, Television | Tagged: age, Comics, demographics, films, imperial phase, in the frame, marvel, mcu, meaning, midlife crisis, Movies, phase 4, popularity, success | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On The Finale of “The Last of Us”…

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of The Last of Us at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Sunday evening while the show is on, looking at the video game adaptation as the show progresses. This week, the show’s finale.

The Last of Us wraps up a phenomenal season with a decidedly small-scale season finale. Look for the Light is one of the shortest episodes of the season, and is remarkable for its tight focus and narrative efficiency. The series remains tightly focused on Joel and Ellie, building to a climax that is at once tragic and inevitable. The result is a very satisfying wrap-up to a very impressive debut season.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: agency, autonomy, ethics, finale, hbo, morality, the escapist, the last of us, themes | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Baseline Competence of “Star Trek: Picard”…

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of Star Trek: Picard at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Thursday morning while the show is on, looking at the third season as the show progresses. This week, the season’s fourth episode.

No Win Scenario is basically competent, which makes it the best episode of the third season by default. In many ways, No Win Scenario demonstrates the ceiling that this approach places on quality, assembling a variety of familiar elements in such a way that manages to successfully remind the audience of much better films and television shows. It’s disheartening that this is the third season’s best self, that it’s greatest accomplishment is a reminder of things the franchise did better elsewhere.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.