storytelling | the m0vie blog

421. Snow White – Ani-May 2025 (#—)

Posted on June 1, 2025 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week with special guests Luke Dunne and Ciara Moloney, 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 week, Mark Webb’s Snow White.

In a magical kingdom, an evil queen plots the murder of a beautiful young princess, who is forced to flee into the woods and find shelter with the most unlikely of allies.

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

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Filed under: The Bottom 100, This Just In | Tagged: 2025, adaptation, agency, audience expectations, celebrity PR, characterizations, Christopher Nolan, ciara moloney, cinema, conspiracy theories, creative collaboration, cultural implications, cultural significance, disney, evil queen, female agency, film artistry, film critic, human experiences, imdb, Irish diaspora, luke dunne, mark webb, Mary McDonough, PhD completion, podcast, polarizing reactions, production history, Rachel Ziegler, representation, snow white, social issues, socio-political dynamics, storytelling, The 250, The 250 podcast, themes, tom cruise, traditional characters | Leave a comment »

420. How to Train Your Dragon – Ani-May 2025 (#198)

Posted on May 25, 2025 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week with special guests Deirdre Molumby and Graham Day, 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 week, Chris Sanders’ and Dean DeBlois’ How to Train Your Dragon.

On the island of Berk, the Viking settlers have found themselves engaged in a war against dragons spanning literal generations. Hiccup, the son of the town chieftain, struggles to find his place in a community that doesn’t value his unique strengths and attributes – he wonders whether he will even be manly enough to hunt and kill dragons. However, a chance encounter with a fallen dragon named Toothless leads Hiccup to question everything that he thinks he knows about dragons.

At time of recording, it was ranked 198th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: animated film, animation industry, animation quality, Astrid, character development, character dynamics, connection, deirdre molumby, dragons, dreamworks, empathy, father-son relationship, friendship, gender representation, graham day, hiccup, How to Train Your Dragon, identity, imdb, IMDb top 250, legacy, live-action adaptation, personal growth, podcast, production challenges, sequels, storytelling, thematic elements, themes | Leave a comment »

419. Sinners (#—)

Posted on May 18, 2025 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week with special guest Lee Murkey, 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 week, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.

Twin brothers Smoke and Stack return to the Mississippi Delta from Chicago, bringing with them money and booze. The duo plan to open a juke joint for the local community, and set about preparing for the launch. Little do the pair realise that something sinister is stalking through the night, lurching towards their speakeasy, drawn by the siren call of the blues.

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: This Just In | Tagged: america, Andrew Quinn, black identity, capitalism, complicity, cultural significance, Filmmaking, hollywood, iconic director, IMAX technology, imdb, indie filmmaker, lee murkey, Lee Murky, Ludwig Göransson, money, race, ryan coogler, Sinners, storytelling, The 250, vampires | Leave a comment »

410. The Predator – All-ien 2024 (#—)

Posted on February 1, 2025 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Jess Dunne, this week with special guest Craig McKenzie, 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 week, Shane Black’s The Predator.

These mysterious big game hunters have been coming to Earth for generations, hunting the most dangerous game of all. However, when an alien civil war finds its way to Earth, a band of decommissioned army officers find themselves serving as the last line of defense between the planet and a bigger threat than they would have ever dared imagine.

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: Podcasts! | Tagged: Andrew Quinn, character dynamics, Craig McKenzie, dark humor, Darren Mooney, eugenics motif, film, film analysis, Fox, franchise, imdb, jess dunne, Mental Health, podcast, postproduction, production challenges, reshoots, Shane Black, societal discussions, storytelling, The 250, the predator | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Recap – “Succession and Barry Are Masterclasses in Series Finales…”

Posted on May 30, 2023 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, with the ending of Succession, Barry and Ted Lasso, it seemed like a good opportunity to ruminate on what it means to actually end a long-running series. What is is that makes a finale compelling and effective?

Filed under: Television | Tagged: ambiguity, Barry, conclusions, endings, finale, season finales, storytelling, Succession, ted lasso, the escapist, the recap | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Into the Spider-Verse” as a Postmodern Superhero Remix…

Posted on May 29, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse this weekend, it seems like as good an opportunity as any to take a look back at Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Into the Spider-Verse is arguably the best superhero movie of the previous decade. A large part of the film’s appeal is that it is a superhero movie built around the understanding that its audience has seen other superhero movies and understands the classic beats of the superhero origin story. As such, it can speed them up and slow them down, iterate over them and subvert them, using the audience’s familiarity to create a postmodern meditation on the very idea of Spider-Man.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Conventions, in the frame, meaning, memes, memetic, Narrative, pop culture, postmodern, rhythm, sony, spider man, spider-verse, storytelling, tropes, viral | 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 “Ant-Man” Movies as the Most Marvel of the Marvel Movies…

Posted on February 13, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the upcoming release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and the way in which these films – for better and worse – feel like the statistical mean of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Part of what in interesting about the Ant-Man movies is how little they actually adapt from the source comics, largely marginalising characters like Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne in favour of porting over out-of-continuity characters like Hope van Dyne. They deliberately structure themselves to avoid key character and plot beats from the comic book franchise, and so offer the purest distillation of the adaptation storytelling of the comic book film franchise. The Ant-Man franchise is the Marvel Studios franchise that feels most generic, most cribbed together using the studio’s narrative shorthand.

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

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: ant man and the wasp, ant-man, ant-man and the wasp: quantumania, characters, comic books, continuity, in the frame, Marvel Studios, mcu, paul rudd, storytelling, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Why That Episode of “The Last of Us” Wasn’t Filler…

Posted on February 3, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. This week saw the broadcast of Long Long Time, a spectacular episode of The Last of Us. While the episode was almost universally praise, there was some criticism that it was “filler.”

This is an interesting argument, in what it reveals about modern pop culture and what it misses about the art of storytelling. Long Long Time is thematically essential to The Last of Us. It’s an episode that establishes the actual meaningful stakes of the story, beyond the plot mechanics that spur the narrative forward. It’s easy to miss in an era where spoilers are considered a huge issue, where media is designed to be consumed at multiples of its intended speed, and where recap culture has reduced storytelling to lists of plot points. Nevertheless, it’s important.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: filler, in the frame, long long time, media literacy, storytelling, Television, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Poker Face” as an Argument for Episodic Television…

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist during the week. With the recent release of the first four episodes of Poker Face on Peacock, it seemed like a good opportunity to consider the show as a rare example of high-profile and prestigious episodic television.

For decades, episodic storytelling was the default model for American television. Around the millennium, mainstream shows started to shift toward serialisation, a trend accelerated by the arrival of streaming. Most modern prestige shows are heavily serialised, effectively telling a single narrative over the course of an entire season. Poker Face rejects this structure, embracing a “case of the week” format. However, the show is more than just an example of the potential of episodic storytelling. It’s very much an affirmative case for it.

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