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362. Halloween Kills – All-o’-Ween (#—)

Posted on January 13, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Joey Keogh, this week with special guest William Bibbiani, 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.

This year, we are running a season looking at the films in the Halloween franchise. So this week, David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills.

Michael Myers has returned to Haddenfield, and the town is not prepared. As Laurie Strode is rushed to hospital, fire fighters scramble to extinguish the flames consuming her house. However, something more primal is unleashed. As the serial killer murders his way through the suburbs, Haddenfield descends into an all-consuming madness that might prove just as dangerous as any masked killer.

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: america, brutality, crisis, horror, Jamie Lee Curtis, joey keogh, laurie strode, masculinity, mob, nihilism, podcast, slasher, streaming, The 250, violence, western, william bibbiani | Leave a comment »

361. Halloween (2018) – All-o’-Ween (#—)

Posted on January 6, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Joey Keogh, this week with special guests Charlene Lydon and Bren Murphy, 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.

This year, we are running a season looking at the films in the Halloween franchise. So this week, David Gordon Green’s Halloween.

It has been forty years since the night that Michael Myers came home. The killer is in custody and Haddenfield has seemingly recovered from that horrific crime. However, not everybody has been able to move on from those events. Laurie Strode is still haunted by the horrific attacks, convinced the serial killer is lurking in the darkness, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

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: america, bren murphy, charlene lydon, danny mcbride, david gordon green, fascism, final girl, halloween, halloween (2018), horror, horror genre, Jamie Lee Curtis, joey keogh, John Carpenter, legacyquel, liminal spaces, michael myers, nick castle, slasher, trump, violence | Leave a comment »

351. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers – All-o’-Ween (#—)

Posted on October 28, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Joey Keogh, this week with special guest Peter Keenan, 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.

This year, we are running a season looking at the films in the Halloween franchise. So this week, Dwight H. Little’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.

It has been ten years since Michael Myers’ rampage through Haddenfield. For that decade, the killer has lain dormant. However, during a routine transfer, the innocuous mention of Myers’ last surviving blood relative stirs the slasher from his slumber. Myers makes his way towards Haddenfield, and towards his innocent young niece: Jamie Lloyd.

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: america, culture, dwight h. little, evangelicals, franchise, halloween, halloween 4, halloween 4: the return of michael myers, halloween iv, horror, joey keogh, michael myers, moustapha akkad, peter keenan, politics, religious right, sequels, slasher, stabbing, stranger danger, violence | 1 Comment »

347. On the Waterfront – Leaving Cert 2023 (#187)

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Conor Murphy, this week with special guest Donald Clarke, 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.

This September, we are running a season looking at the films on the Irish Leaving Cert English Curriculum. So this week, Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront.

A down-on-his-luck former prizefighter, Terry Malloy finds himself doing oddjobs for the local union boss Johnny Friendly. When one of these jobs ends with dock worker Joey Doyle thrown to his death before he was due to testify to corruption within the union, Terry begins to question and doubt his involvement. A burgeoning romance with Joey’s sister Edie gradually awakens Terry’s conscience, throwing him into conflict with everything that he has ever known.

At time of recording, it was ranked 187th 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, blacklist, Cold War, communism, conor murphy, donald clarke, education, elia kazan, english, history, huac, leaving cert, leaving certificate, leonard bernstein, marlon brando, on the waterfront, Russia | Leave a comment »

342. 12 Years a Slave (#182)

Posted on August 19, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Lee Murkey, 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, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave.

In 1841 New York, Solomon Northup is a free man. While his wife and family are away, Solomon earns his way as a travelling musician. However, two conmen take advantage of his trust, drugging him and selling him into slavery. Transported to Louisiana, Solomon finds himself stripped of all the rights and comforts afforded a human being. Through twelve years of brutality, horror and violence, Solomon struggles not only to survive, but to live – and to hold on to some vestige of his humanity in the process.

At time of recording, it was ranked 182nd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: 12 Years a Slave, academy awards, america, Barack Obama, chiwetel ejiofor, donald trump, history, John Ridley, lee murkey, lupita nyong'o, Michael Fassbender, podcast, racism, Slavery | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Myths and Lies of “Barry”…

Posted on May 31, 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 Barry this week, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look the show’s final season.

Barry is a show about Hollywood, but it is also a show about America. It is a show about mythmaking and self-delusion, about the stories that people tell themselves to feel better and about the stories that are told about people to make everybody else feel better. It’s a black comedy about a hitman who becomes an actor, but over the course of its four seasons it evolved into something decidedly more complex and compelling. Like Succession, it is a show that speaks perfectly to the current moment, holding a mirror to a nation in crisis.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: america, american history, Barry, Bill Hader, delusions, fantasies, hbo, hollywood, lies, myths, out of focus, prestige television, Season finale, wow | 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.

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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 Last of Us” As A Study of Evolving Masculinity…

Posted on February 21, 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 sixth episode.

The sixth episode of The Last of Us, Kin, is steeped in the iconography of the western: there’s a frontier town, two indigenous characters, and even a horse on the railroad tracks. However, there’s also a sense that Joel and Ellie have reached the end of their push westward, their journey from Boston to Jackson. In that sense then, the show explores the legacy of the western in American consciousness, particularly the genre’s archetypal portrayal of masculinity. What does it mean or Joel to be a man or a father? How does that reconcile with the image he has cast for himself as a cynical and weary outlaw? Can he move past that?

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: america, coming of age, ellie, fatherhood, joel, masculinity, the escapist, the last of us, violence, western | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” as a Parable About the Legacies of Interventionism…

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it seemed like a good opportunity to look at the movie’s thematic preoccupations.

Quantumania is something of a frustrating jumble of a movie. However, there are some interesting ideas nestled within it. Most engagingly, Quantumania feels like a movie that is about the legacy of foreign interventionism, dropping its characters into a strange realm that was forever altered by the pragmatic alliances made decades earlier. It’s a film about whether characters that call themselves heroes owe any obligation to help those less fortunate, particularly when that suffering is a direct consequence of earlier choices and actions. Quantumania doesn’t necessarily say any of this particularly well, but it tries.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: allegory, america, ant man and the wasp, ant-man and the wasp: quantumania, comic books, in the frame, metaphor, politics, quantumania, the escapist, War on Drugs, war on terror | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Poker Face” as Must-See Mystery Television…

Posted on January 26, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this week. With the release of Poker Face on Peacock this week, I got to review the first six episodes of the show.

From director Rian Johnson and actor Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face is a love letter to seventies television. It’s obviously indebted to shows like Columbo or The Rockford Files, but it owes just as much to classic wandering hero narratives like Kung Fu and The Incredible Hulk. It’s a glorious and thrilling piece of television, that is both a love letter and an update to the medium’s rich history.

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