the m0vie blog

292. Jai Bhim (#249)

Posted on July 23, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, 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, T. J. Gnanavel’s Jai Bhim.

When a tribal woman’s husband goes missing in police custody, she has no option but to turn to a civil rights lawyer named Chandru. Eager to help his client find her abducted husband, Chandru stumbles upon a web of police brutality and violence that extends far deeper than he initially expected. What Chandru uncovers will change Indian society forever.

At time of recording, it was ranked 249th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: caste, caste system, courtroom drama, dalits, india, irulars, jai bhim, mystery, podcast, social justice, suriya, tamil nadu, The 250 | Leave a comment »

291. Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition (#—)

Posted on July 16, 2022 by Darren

So this week, Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

When a mysterious entity appears at the edge of Federation space, Admiral James Tiberius Kirk finds himself recommissioned as commander of the Starship Enterprise. When his former Science Officer, Spock, is summoned from across the cosmos by the creature’s psychic cries, the crew find themselves on a desperate mission to save Earth from a creature that exists beyond human comprehension.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: counterculture, gene roddenberry, god, horniness, horny, kirk, manson family, parenting, podcast, psychedelia, sixties, spock, star trek, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The 250, v'ger | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Top Gun: Maverick”, “Thor: Love and Thunder” and the Rise of the Anti-Legacyquel…

Posted on July 11, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of both Top Gun: Maverick and Thor: Love and Thunder recently, it seemed like an opportunity to unpack what might be described as “the rise of the anti-legacyquel.”

The term “legacyquel” emerged in the middle of the last decade to describe a new kind of franchise film, one that allowed an aging cast to gracefully hand over the series to a younger generation. For a few years, it seemed like this might offer a sustainable model for Hollywood’s future. However, recent years have seen a very firm rejection of this approach, with Maverick and Love and Thunder serving as two very recent and very high-profile examples of stories about an older generation seemingly welcoming a new generation of heroes, only to take back control at the climax of the story.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: all-new and all-different, Jane, legacy, legacyquels, maverick, Next Generation, sequels, thor, thor: love and thunder, tom cruise, top gun: maverick | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On The Rise of “the Fakeout Death”…

Posted on July 10, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist during the week. With the most recent seasons of both Stranger Things and Obi-Wan Kenobi playing the same familiar trick, it seemed like a good time to talk about one of my bugbears in modern pop culture.

In recent years, it has become customary for piece of popular culture to indulge in a phenomenon best summarized as “the fakeout death”: a beloved character dies, the audience feels sad, and then they are magically restored and resurrected. It has become ubiquitous in the past five or so years: Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, The Book of Boba Fett, even the recent Scream movies. Pop culture feels incredibly reluctant to kill off any characters with any popularity, and the result is part of the reason so many of these franchises are stagnating.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: death, fan favourites, fans, franchises, infantalisation, Obi-Wan Kenobi, pop culture, star trek, stranger things | Leave a comment »

290. Network (#219)

Posted on July 9, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley, 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, Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky’s Network.

Howard Beale is a veteran newscaster on a struggling network. When he is given his two weeks’ notice, Beale threatens to shoot himself live on the air as his final broadcast. The television journeyman becomes a media storm and ratings sensation, as the network eagerly seeks to capitalise on what could be a once-in-a-generation phenomenon.

At time of recording, it was ranked 219th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: america, Bryan Cranston, capitalism, ciara moloney, dean buckley, donald trump, exploitation, faye dunaway, Fox, fox news, hippies, media, money, ned beatty, Network, networks, Oscars, Paddy Chayefsky, Peter Finch, power, ratings, reagan, Sidney Lumet, Television, the sundae, yuppies | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Strange New Worlds” Became Unconvincing “Star Trek” Karaoke…

Posted on July 7, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. The first season finale broadcast today, and so it seemed like a good opportunity to look at the culmination of these ten episodes.

Strange New Worlds has spent most of its first season riffing on familiar Star Trek narratives, offering retreads of classic templates. A Quality of Mercy takes the concept to its logical conclusion, and throws the cast of Strange New Worlds into a remake of Balance of Terror. Unfortunately, this becomes an extended argument about why Strange New Worlds is inherently inferior to Star Trek, with the show making a very literal and very aggressive argument for its own irrelevance while treating the larger franchise as a fetish object.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Balance of Terror, escapist, Quality of Mercy, star trek, star trek: strange new worlds, strange new worlds | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “Thor: Love and Thunder is a Fun but Ungodly Mess”

Posted on July 5, 2022 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie 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 three-minute film review of Thor: Love and Thunder, which is in theatres this weekend.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 3mr, chris hemsworth, review, taika waititi, thor, thor: love and thunder, thor: ragnarok, three minute reviews | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Thor as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s One True Superhero…

Posted on July 1, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the looming release of Thor: Love and Thunder, it seemed like as good an excuse as any to take a look back at the character of Thor within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and what makes him unique within the shared universe.

Interestingly, Thor is perhaps the only major character within the shared universe who feels like an old-fashioned superhero rather than a product of the military industrial complex. This is particularly apparent within Kenneth Branagh’s Thor and Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, both of which are essentially stories about Thor being exiled from or rejecting the structures of Asgardian society. The result of all this is interesting. In a universe where so many heroes are defined by their relationship to the armed forces, Thor actually feels like a superhero.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 9/11, escapist, in the frame, militarism, military, superheroes, the escapist, thor, thor: ragnarok | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Strange New Worlds” Offers “Star Trek” by Way of “Alien”…

Posted on June 30, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. The ninth and penultimate episode of the first season released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.

All Those Who Wander is an interesting genre experiment, effectively providing an intersection between Star Trek and Alien. It’s an interesting approach, and very much in keeping with how the franchise has approached other iconic works of science-fiction. However, it also demonstrates the limitations of the approach taken by Strange New Worlds, which seems frustratingly uninterested in what it means to juxtapose the humanism of the Star Trek franchise with the bleak nihilism of the Alien franchise.

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

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: alien, genre, gorn, science fiction, star trek, star trek: strange new worlds, strange new worlds | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How the Third Season of “The Umbrella Academy” Captures the Pandemic Aesthetic…

Posted on June 27, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of the third season of The Umbrella Academy last week, it seemed like an opportunity to take a look back at the show.

The third season of The Umbrella Academy is not about the pandemic, but it stands as an interesting cultural marker of the moment. The show’s production has obviously been impacted by pandemic restrictions, with a lot of shoot on closed sets with a tight cast, and a recurring sense that the show’s world has become empty and withdrawn. While the third season of The Umbrella Academy is not explicitly about the pandemic, it is the rare genre show that manages to translate the experience of the pandemic into a more general mood or tone.

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