the m0vie blog

New Podcast! The Recap – “We Finally Got Some Real Action and Answers in The Rings of Power…”

Posted on October 6, 2022 by Darren

We’re thrilled to be launching a weekly multimedia podcast at The Escapist, called The Recap. I’m hoping to be a regular fixture of it, stremaing live every Tuesday evening. 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, we took a look at the splurge of recent news from Marvel Studios, including new trailers, new writer announcements, the first big reveals about Deadpool 3, directorial departures, and streaming shows that are becoming movies. We also caught up with our opinions on Rings of Power, House of the Dragon and Andor. It’s a fun discussion. Check it out.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: andor, Blade, deadpool 3, house of the dragon, marty silva, Movies, nick calandra, podcast, rings of power, Television, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 8, Episode 21 (“Existence”)

Posted on October 6, 2022 by Darren

The X-Cast is covering the eighth season of The X-Files. This is one of my favourite seasons of television ever, in large part because it’s a season that manages to build a convincing narrative and character arc around a very challenging production reality, and in doing so forced the show itself to evolve and change. I’m thrilled to join Carl Sweeney, Kurt North and Cathy Glinski for a discussion of the episode that draws the curtain down on the season as a whole.

Existence is an interesting episode of television. It is the season finale, and so closes out what is a phenomenal season of television in a way that is mostly satisfying. However, it’s also somewhat debatable how effective Existence is as an episode in its own right. It’s a very satisfying finale, but it’s also somewhat clumsy in how it delivers its various set-ups and pay-offs. Still, it’s an episode that is very efficient in doing what it needs to do, its relative simplicity arguably making it much more effective than the various season and series finales that would follow.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: carl sweeney, catherine glinski, chris carter, david duchovny, existence, gillian anderson, krycek, kurt north, mulder, scully, shipping, Skinner, the x-cast, the x-files, william, x-files | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On How the Streaming Era Has a Writers’ Problem…

Posted on October 5, 2022 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, we took a look at one of the more under-explored and unspoken issues facing the so-called “streaming age.” In an era where there is so much content, and so much content derived from intellectual property that major corporations protect so severely, where are these studios going to find the writers and storytellers to guide these series? One of the more interesting shifts in television over the past decade has been a slow creep away from the idea of it as a writers’ medium, but that shift comes with a surprisingly high cost.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: andor, craft, directors, marvel, mcu, medium, rings of power, she-hulk, showrunners, star wars, streaming, talent, Television, writers | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 8, Episode 14 (“This Is Not Happening”)

Posted on October 5, 2022 by Darren

The X-Cast is covering the eighth season of The X-Files. This is one of my favourite seasons of television ever, in large part because it’s a season that manages to build a convincing narrative and character arc around a very challenging production reality, and in doing so forced the show itself to evolve and change. I’m thrilled to join Kurt North for a discussion of the episode that effectively closes out the second act of the larger season.

There is a solid argument to be made, at least in the context of the original television run of The X-Files, that This is Not Happening is the last truly great episode of The X-Files. The eighth season is unique in the show’s history for having a very clear three-act structure across its twenty-one episodes. This is Not Happening is positioned at the bridge between the second and third acts of the season, marking the return of David Duchovny as Mulder. It is a very elegiac and mournful episode of television, thoughtful and introspective, moving the season confidently into its endgame.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: david duchovny, death, ending, gillian anderson, kurt north, mulder, reyes, scully, show, the x-cast, the x-files, this is not happening, x-files | Leave a comment »

The Mondaylorians – “Andor Episode 4: Mrs Doubtfire in Space!”

Posted on October 4, 2022 by Darren

This week, I had the pleasure of stopping by the podcast The Mondaylorians, hosted by Niall Glynn. I was thrilled to get to talk about the fourth episode of Andor, Aldhani.

It’s a broad and fun discussion, one full of tangents that place Andor in the context of the larger Star Wars franchise and pop culture in general. What is it that makes Andor stand out from shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett, comparable to She-Hulk and Moon Knight. We also talk about the way in which Andor harks back to George Lucas’ original idea for Star Wars, pasting a science-fantasy veneer over both a loving homage to the pop culture of his youth and a biting piece of social commentary. It’s a good chat.

You can listen below, click the screenshot, listen directly at this link or even listen to back-episodes of The Mondaylorians here.

Filed under: Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: andor, cassian andor, Diego Luna, star wars, streaming, Television, the mondaylorians, Tony Gilroy | Leave a comment »

306. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (-#52)

Posted on October 3, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Raymond Creamer, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Troy Miller’s Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.

Years before they embark on a cross-country roadtrip, lovable idiots Harry Dunne and Lloyd Christmas strike up an unlikely friendship in high school. However, they quickly find themselves drawn into their principal’s sinister scheme to embezzle money by exploiting the school’s students to create a privately-funded special needs class.

At time of recording, it was ranked 52nd on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: ableism, cinemythology, comedy, comedy prequels, Dumb and Dumber, dumb and dumberer, gags, jim carrey, jokes, podcast, prequels, racism, raymond creamer, Sketch comedy, spoof, The 250, The Bottom 100, the farrelly brothers, troy miller | Leave a comment »

304. Speed 2: Cruise Control (-#97)

Posted on September 24, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Jason Coyle and Richard Drumm, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Jan de Bont’s Speed 2: Cruise Control.

SWAT team member Alex Shaw decides to take his girlfriend Annie on a luxurious ocean cruise, planning to propose to her. Fate has other plans, in the form of mysterious terrorist John Geiger, who has a score to settle and a score to pull, hijacking the liner and setting it on a collision course for disaster. Soon enough, it isn’t just Alex and Annie’s relationship that finds itself careening out of control.

At time of recording, it was ranked 97th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: 1997, award, blockbusters, failure, Fox, jan de bont, jason patric, Keanu Reeves, podcast, sandra bullock, Speed, speed 2, speed 2: cruise control, success, The Bottom 100, titanic, water, water tanks, willem dafoe | Leave a comment »

305. Batman Begins – Batman Day 2022 (#126)

Posted on September 17, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Alex Towers and Phil Bagnall, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins.

Following the death of his parents, billionaire Bruce Wayne finds himself struggling for a way to make sense of the world. Studying under the mysterious Ra’s Al Ghul, Wayne vows to devote his life to a war on crime itself. However, on returning home to Gotham, Bruce very quickly discovers that something very sinister has taken root in his home city.

At time of recording, it was ranked 126th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: afghanistan, alex towers, america, batman, batman begins, Christopher Nolan, iraq, phil bagnall, podcast, The 250, violence, war on terror | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Appealing Fandom of “Star Trek: Lower Decks”…

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist last week. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Lower Decks, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+ in the States and on Amazon Prime in the United Kingdom. The second episode of the third season released last week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.

It’s very obvious that Lower Decks is being written by Star Trek fans, andthe show operates in a fairly comfortable register of trusting that its writers and audience know (and care) enough about the franchise that it can effectively race through familiar Star Trek tropes, turning the standard conventions of the franchise into a loving joyride. The Least Dangerous Game is a light episode, but a fun one. It is fast on its feet, and moves with enough charm that it never collapses under its own weight.

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

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: fandom, Klingon, klingons, Lower Decks, Martok, star trek: lower decks, the least dangerous game | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Rings of Power” and Post-Golden Age Television…

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of The Rings of Power this weekend, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at what is effectively the biggest television show in the world, and what it says about the current state of television.

For the past twenty years, American television has gone through an era described as “the Golden Age”, one rooted in moral ambiguity and uncertainty in shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and The Shield. These were morally complex stories about difficult protagonists that invited the audience into murky liminal spaces. As such, it is interesting that The Rings of Power exists in marked contrast to that paradigm. Instead, it offers a very clear-cut black-and-white worldview.

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