Succession | the m0vie blog

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 What Makes a Great Series Finale…

Posted on June 14, 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 recent wrap-up of shows like Barry and Succession, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at what makes a great television finale.

Interestingly, from The Sopranos to The Leftovers, one of the hallmarks of a truly impressive television finale is the way that it leaves room for the audiece. After all, television shows involve considerable investment from viewers, and offer a chance for the audience to really get to know and understand the characters and the themes of this world. The best of these finales are clear endings to the story being told, but which leave room for the viewer to reach their own conclusion about these characters and their journey.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: arcs, audience, Barry, endings, finale, out of focus, Succession, Television, television show, the escapist, the leftovers | 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 How “The Green Council” Captures the Intimacy of a Coup…

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of House of the Dragon at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Sunday evening while the show is on, looking at the Game of Thrones prequel as it progresses from one episode to the next.

The Green Council is an interesting episode of House of the Dragon because it very deliberately fragments the shows already tight ensemble. Unfolding in the immediate aftermath of Viserys’ death, The Green Council is an episode about the mechanisms of securing power while trying to minimise the chaos in the aftermath of such an event. It’s an episode that cleverly foregrounds all of the show’s core themes in interesting and ambitious ways.

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

Filed under: Television | Tagged: alicent, coup, house of the dragon, Misogyny, paranoia, patriarchy, Succession, the green council, thriller, violence | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Scheduled Programming – “Succession (Season 3)”

Posted on December 22, 2021 by Darren

Scheduled Programming is a podcast looking at modern television. I was thrilled to be invited to join host Baz Greenland for a discussion of the third season of Succession.

Succession is one of the best shows on television at the moment, and it was fun to get to discuss what makes this show about horrible people doing terrible things so compelling, how wonderfully constructed it is, and how it manages to make wealth and excess seem strangely isolating and lonely.

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

Filed under: Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: baz greenland, brian cox, drama, greed, hbo, money, podcast, power, scheduled programming, Succession, Television, wealth | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! “Knives Out” and the Suggestion that the Rich are Not So Sharp…

Posted on December 6, 2019 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at Escapist Magazine this evening. This one covers something that I’ve wanted to talk about for a little while, which is the interesting aspect of this year’s recurring theme of class warfare that runs through works as diverse as Joker, Hustlers, Ready or Not, Succession, Parasite and Knives Out.

To be fair, it is not unusual to see this sort of tension playing out on the big screen. After all, American cinema has long been fascinated by working class con men and hucksters getting one over on the wealthy establishment. However, what distinguishes the recent crop of media exploring this theme is the recurring suggestion that the wealthy are not especially sharp. Historically, the rich have been portrayed as canny and suave – often dangerous adversaries because of their ruthlessness and relentlessness. What is interesting about the class warfare dimension of this year’s films is the way in which money and success often seem to have coddled the wealthy leaving them surprisingly naive and foolish despite their arrogance and privilege.

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