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371. Poor Things (#246)

Posted on March 23, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Deirdre Molumby and Ciara Moloney, 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 week, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things.

Bella Baxter is a most remarkable young woman. Although she has the body of an adult woman, she also seems to possess the mind of a child rapidly developing and growing. Under the guidance of her adoptive father Godwin Baxter and his assistant Max McCandless, Bella tries to navigate the complex and contradictory Victorian soiety, learning much about humanity – and herself.

At time of recording, it was ranked 246th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: barbie, Emma Stone, european, Filmmaking, formalism, frankenstein, gender, identity, imdb, lily gladstone, Oscars, podcast, poor things, sex, sexuality, Succession, The 250, This Just In, Yorgos Lanthimos | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” as a Story of Love In the Time of Capitalism…

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Darren

We’re launching a new column at The Escapist, called Out of Focus. It will publish every second 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. This week, we took a look at Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike’s Last Dance.

In interviews around the film, Soderbergh has returned time and against to thirties romances as a point of reference, and it shows. Magic Mike’s Last Dance is movie very firmly tied to the traditions and roots of those classic romances, right down to making the butler a supporting character. As with a lot of Soderbergh’s recent films, Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a movie fascinated with commodification and globalisation, in particular the idea of the packaging and selling of intimacy and emotional connection. It’s a film about sex, power and money – and the intersection of those three things.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: capitalism, Channing Tatum, commodification, Magic Mike, magic mike's last dance, money, pleasure, power, recession, salma hayek, sex, Steven Soderbergh | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “White Noise” and the Human Death Drive…

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of White Noise on Netflix, it seemed like a good opportunity to discuss Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s classic postmodern novel.

White Noise has long been considered unadaptable. However, Baumbach zeroes on a consistent throwline that guids his weird and eccentric adaptation through its various shifts and turns. White Noise is fundamentally a story about death. It is about the way in which so much culture – sex, media, consumerism – is designed as an effort to drown out the encroaching and inescapable sense of mortality. Baumbach presents a broad and cartoonish exploration of man’s inability to grapple with that universal certainty. In doing so, he tells a strangely moving story.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: adaptation, awards, column, consumerism, death, don delillo, in the frame, netflix, Noah Baumbach, Oscars, sex, white noise | Leave a comment »

288. 365 Dni: Ten Dzień (365 Days: This Day) (-#47)

Posted on June 11, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Grace Duffy and Billie Jean Doheny, 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, Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes’ 365 Dni: Ten Dzień.

Having survived the attempt on her life at the end of the previous film, Laura is to be wed to local mafia boss Massimo. However, the couple soon find their relationship tested, particularly with the arrival of a sexy gardener named Nacho. Laura flees Massimo into Nacho’s waiting hands, but quickly discovers that there is a far more sinister game at foot, and that not all of the players have revealed themselves.

At time of recording, it was ranked 47th 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: billie jean doheny, bottom 100, erotic thrillers, film, grace duffy, materialism, netflix, podcast, sex, streaming, The 250 | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Moon Knight” Suffers From the Sexlessness of the MCU…

Posted on April 13, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Moon Knight, which is streaming weekly on Disney+. The third episode of the show released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.

Moon Knight very obviously wants to evoke a particular sort of old-fashioned romantic globe-trotting adventure, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Romancing the Stone or even The Mummy. It is arguably part of a recent attempted revival of the subgenre, including Jungle Cruise and Lost City of D. However, the show’s attempts to tap into this sort of classic odd couple romance demonstrates the limits of the weird insistent sexlessness that define so many modern blockbuster stories. Moon Knight manages the seemingly impossible, in that it makes Oscar Isaac seem sexless.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: chemistry, moon knight, moon knightcaps, Oscar Isaac, romance, sex, sexuality, Television, the escapist | Leave a comment »

273. It Happened One Night – Valentine’s Day 2022 (#241)

Posted on February 12, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Ciara Moloney, 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, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night.

Wealthy heiress Ellie Andrews has married playboy “King” Westley agaisnt her father’s wishes. Hoping to reunite with her lost love, she absconds and finds herself on a night bus with recently-fired reported Peter Warne. Even drunk and unemployed, Warne can smell a story. He decides to join Andrews on this unlikely adventure, and sparks begin to fly.

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

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: academy awards, ciara moloney, clark gable, claudette colbert, corniness, Drake, Frank Capra, heat 2, it happened one night, Oscars, podcast, production code, romantic comedies, screwball comedies, sex, sublimation, The 250, the hays code | Leave a comment »

222. Fa yeung nin wah (In the Mood for Love) – Chinese New Year/Valentine’s Day 2020 (#239)

Posted on February 13, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Stacy Grouden and Luke Dunne, The 250 is a fortnightly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, a Valentine’s and Chinese New Year treat. Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love.

Sixties Hong Kong is in a state of transition. Lives overlap in the densely populated city, as the Chan and Chow families move into the same building. Over time, Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow come to suspect that their spouses are having an illicit affair. This act of betrayal draws the two strangers closer to one another, even if neither seems entirely sure where this intersection will take them.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 239th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: Movies, The 250 | Tagged: chaste, China, Hong Kong, in the mood for love, longing, love, luke dunne, pandemic, podcast, romance, sex, stacy grouden, The 250, time, wong kar-wai | 1 Comment »

211. The Wolf of Wall Street – Summer of Scorsese (#142)

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Jay Coyle and Darren Mooney, with special guests Luke Dunne and Aoife Martin, 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.

This time, concluding our Summer of Scorsese with his most recent film on the list, Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

Martin Scorsese is one of the defining directors in American cinema, with a host of massively successful (and cult) hits that have shaped and defined cinema across generations: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, Kundun, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, Hugo, The Irishman. The Summer of Scorsese season offers a trip through his filmography via the IMDb‘s 250.

Jordan Belfort developed a reputation as one of the most amoral stockbrokers working in the financial industry, wearing the name “the Wolf of Wall Street” as a badge of honour. Belfort is afforded the chance to tell his own side of the story, of the gaudy excess and tasteless indulgence that defined the industry for so many years.

At time of recording, it was ranked 142nd on the Internet Movie Database‘s list of the best movies of all-time.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: aoife martin, capitalism, complicity, excess, gangsters, goodfellas, greed, jason coyle, jay coyle, jonah hill, Jordan Belfort, Leonardo diCaprio, luke dunne, margot robbie, martin scorsese, Matthew McConaughey, money, morality, power, scorsese, sex, summer of scorsese, the wolf of wall street, Wall Street | Leave a comment »

Of Death Stars, Sarlaccs and Sexting: The Curious Sexual Energy of “Star Wars”…

Posted on December 12, 2019 by Darren

At its core, Star Wars is a Jungian, Campbellian and Freudian story about what it’s like to grow up.

This is perhaps most obvious within the original trilogy. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back is ultimately about the realisation that your parents will eventually and inevitably fail you. Star Wars: Episode VI – The Return of the Jedi is about growing up and learning to make peace with them anyway. Of course, the individual films frame these core themes through their own lenses. Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens reframes that adventure so it centres on people who have rarely had the opportunity to anchor such a story. Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi asked what that meant in 2017.

Naturally, this coming of age story is framed in terms of adventure – young characters discovering that they are part of an epic mythology that guides them towards confrontations with ancient and incredible evils, often learning hidden truths about themselves and their destiny. There’s a reason that the Star Wars franchise has come to be associated with the “monomyth”, distilling the hero’s journey into something with a story with universal resonance. It is a story about what it feels like to grow up.

It is also, inevitably, very much about sex. And in some very interesting (and quite eccentric) ways.

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Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: caves, coming of age, freudian, growing up, jungian, monsters, online dating, sex, sexting, sexuality, star wars | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Voyager – Q2 (Review)

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Darren

Q2 is an episode very much in keeping with the ethos of Star Trek: Voyager, particularly at this point in its run.

It isn’t just the strange nostalgia that permeates the episode, opening with an extended oral presentation from Icheb on the heroic exploits of James Tiberius Kirk from the original Star Trek and extending through to the unnecessary return of a beloved recurring guest character from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Nor is it the awkwardness with which Q2 affects a half-hearted compromise in its final act, with the series paying lip service to the fact that its omnipotent (and mostly friendly) guest star could get the crew home with a click of his fingers, while refusing to do that because it would break the series.

“Q2 ratings are way up!”

The essential Voyager-ness at the heart of Q2 is much more profound than all of that. It has to do with how the series treats is returning guest star. Q has been a part of the Star Trek universe dating back to Encounter at Farpoint. John de Lancie has been a recurring guest star on the franchise for thirteen-and-a-half years. Although de Lancie has aged relatively well, and although suspension of belief easily allows for it, even Q himself seems much older between his first and last appearances in the television franchise.

However, Q2 takes a character who was introduced as an immortal and all-powerful trickster god in The Next Generation, and transform him into a stressed middle-aged parent by the end of Voyager. This is a very Voyager approach to characterisation and development. It is how the series has approach many of its characters. In Caretaker, Chakotay was a rebel, Paris as a rogue, and Neelix was a free-wheeling trader; within the show’s first season, all of those rough edges have been filed off. The decision to do that with a character who is effectively a trickster god speaks a lot to the central philosophy of Voyager.