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266. Spider-Man: No Way Home – This Just In (#8)

Posted on December 22, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week joined by special guests Graham Day, Luke Dunne and Bríd 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 second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This time, Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Peter Parker returns home from a school trip to discover that his deepest secret has been revealed to the world: thanks to the villain Mysterio, now everybody knows that the teenage is the vigilante known as Spider-Man. Peter races to put the genie back in the bottle, but discovers that his plans might have unforeseen consequences.

At time of recording, it was ranked 8th 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: brid martin, culture, fandom, graham day, jon watts, luke dunne, marvel, Marvel Studios, Movies, podcast, spider man, spoilers, The 250, Tom Holland | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On What Three More “Spider-Man” Movies Might Mean For the MCU…

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With reports that Sony have plans for another trilogy of movies built around Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, it felt like a good time to reflect on what that might mean.

After all, most Marvel Cinematic Universe properties seem to be content with trilogies. Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans tapped out after three films. There is some suggestion that directors James Gunn and Peyton Reed may be done with their properties after completing their third films. So it’s interesting to imagine a world where Tom Holland has headlined six solo Spider-Man movies. What challenges might this pose for the Marvel Cinematic Universe? What opportunities?

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: escapist, in the frame, sony, spider man, Tom Holland | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Why Tom Holland Not Knowing What’s Happening in “Spider-Man 3” Would Be a Bad Thing…

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Darren

I published a new column at The Escapist this evening. With all the debate about what Tom Holland does or doesn’t know about Spider-Man 3, I thought it was worth unpacking what that says about modern movie production.

It seems likely that Holland is just playing with the press, riffing on his familiar goofy persona. However, it’s also entirely possible that Holland doesn’t actually know what the movie he’s been shooting for eight weeks is about. Given the way in which actors have talked about working with Marvel, a lot of that material is handled in post-production, so it’s possible for an actor to have no idea of the context of the scene they’re shooting, who they’ll be appearing with, and what will actually be happening on screen. That is a problem.

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

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: film production, spider man, spider-man 3, spoilers, Tom Holland | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Escapist Movie Podcast – “The Devil All the Time, Antebellum, Mandalorian, and Pushbacks”

Posted on September 19, 2020 by Darren

The Escapist have launched a movie podcast, and I was thrilled to join Jack Packard and Bob Chipman for the fourth episode, primarily discussing The Devil All the Time, Antebellum, the trailer for the second season of The Mandalorian, and the changes to the release schedule after the releases of TENET and Mulan.

You can listen to the episode here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts!, Television | Tagged: antebellum, baby yoda, mulan, Robert Pattinson, TENET, the devil all the time, the escapist movie podcast, the mandalorian, Tom Holland, yoda | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Devil All the Time

Posted on September 15, 2020 by Darren

The Devil All the Time demonstrates that the adjective “novelistic” isn’t always a compliment.

Writer and director Antonio Campos is clearly aiming for an epic sweep to The Devil All the Time. The film unfolds over the course of several decades, following several intersecting lives in rural Ohio in the space between the end of the Second World War and the height of the Vietnam War. This is a tale that spans generations, with an impressive density. Small characters get huge arcs, dramatic twists hinge on chance encounters, and a large amount of the film’s plot is delivered by way of folksy omniscient narration.

Holland of the Free?

It is easier to admire The Devil All the Time than it is to appreciate it. Campos has drawn together a formidable cast to tell a story that explores a host of big ideas about small town life. The Devil All the Time clearly aspires to be a piercing study of religion, sex and violence in the American northeast. The film maintains an impressive atmosphere, in large part due to Campos’ moody direction and the work of Lol Crawley and the rumbling soundtrack from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans.

However, nothing in The Devil All the Time has room to breath. There are so many elements competing for narrative space that even films two-hours-and-twenty-minute runtime feels overstuffed. Characters are never allowed to stew or develop in a way that a story like this demands, instead reducing the movie to a series of plot points and thematic observations delivered in a rich and moody manner, but without any real substance to bind them all together.

Book ‘im.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: american gothic, Antonio Campos, epic, film, Movie, non-review review, Ohio, religion, review, Robert Pattinson, rural america, the devil all the time, Tom Holland, violence | Leave a comment »

36. Spider-Man: Homecoming – This Just In (#–)

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Darren

Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney host This Just In, a subset of the fortnightly The 250 podcast looking at notable new arrivals on the list of the 250 best movies of all-time as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: Homecoming.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: jon watts, marvel comics, shared universe, spider man, spider-man: homecoming, Tom Holland | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Impossible

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Darren

The Impossible looks and sounds fantastic. It is very well put together by J.A. Bayona. Cleverly opting to use practical effects wherever possible, and shooting on a gigantic water tank, Bayona provides a visceral experience worthy of any blockbuster disaster movie. Indeed, were The Impossible based on fictitious events, it might be enough to make it a powerful and emotional film. Unfortunately, as the film is so desperate to let you know (placing “true story” captions at the beginning and the end of the movie), The Impossible is based on the true story of a tsunami that caused untold damage to Thailand displacing up to 60,000 residents.

Without spoiling anything, The Impossible ends with the shot of a plane crossing the ocean, a voyage home. There’s no real sense of any of the lasting consequences of the truly horrific disaster that befell the countries in the Indian Ocean.

It’s a washout…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Bayona, christmas, ewan mcgregor, film, Impossible, Indian Ocean, JA Bayona, Juan Antonio Bayona, Movie, Naomi Watts, non-review review, review, Thailand, Tom Holland | 7 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Fright Night (1985)

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Darren

I have a soft spot for the original Fight Night. It feels like an affectionate slice of pulp nostalgia, harking back to a simpler time in cinematic horror. It rejects the growth and expansion of the slasher subgenre to focus on the original celluloid monster. As a result, Fright Night offers a conventional vampire story, told in a decidedly unconventional manner. While it is occasionally just a little bit too cheesy and too dated for its own good, it’s hard not to enjoy the conscious callbacks to an older time.