Midweek Mention Episodes

Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Edward Norton and Angela Bassett teamed up with director Frank Oz for a classic 'One Last Job' type setup in heist movie THE SCORE (2001). Solid if predictable with decent pacing, it's that stellar cast which sets it apart and Brando is suitably curious in his final on-screen performance. We discuss the hilarious muppet based on set hostility and Edward Norton's recurring roles playing people pretending to have disabilities. We love to hear from our listeners! B...

Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review, where this week we're saddling up and riding into the gritty world of Clint Eastwood's 1992 revisionist Western, Unforgiven. Unforgiven is not your typical Western shoot-'em-up. It's a film that questions the myths of the Old West, presenting a tale steeped in moral complexity and the harsh truths of frontier justice. Eastwood directs and stars as William Munny, a notorious outlaw and killer who's left his violent past behind for a quiet life with his chi...

Today, we're venturing into the icy depths of the Cold War in an episode of Bad Dads Film Review that promises to be both chilling and thrilling. Let's dive deep into "K-19: The Widowmaker". This one isn't just a film – it's an experience. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, this gripping drama, led by Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, takes us aboard the Soviet Union's first ballistic missile nuclear submarine. They called it K-19, but due to its string of unfortunate events, it became notoriously dubbe...

Writer and producer George Miller spent nearly a decade attempting to bring his adaptation of Dick King-Smith's novel The Sheep-Pig to the big screen, eventually teaming with co-writer and director Christopher Noonan for 1993's BABE, the story of a pig who wants to be a sheepdog. Completely timeless with moments of sweet sincerity balanced against the movies desire to stay true to the animals perspective and its theme of animals needing a purpose other than to be eaten, James Cromwell steals th...

This is going to take some imagination because it is a very subtle movie but IDIOCRACY (2006) asks us to visualise a world in which America is in danger of becoming a dry, polluted wasteland ruled by a crude reality tv star who cannot pronounce the word ‘nuclear’ properly, where corporations manipulate and corrupt a vulgar, angry and willfully ignorant population using a combination of fake news and pseudo-science. Mike Judge's angry and very stupid comedy polemic has an inherently cruel and un...

Welcome back to another roaring episode of Bad Dads Film Review, where the stakes are high and the dinosaurs are... well, life-sized! Alright Dads, we're hopping in the time machine today, not to the era of neon shirts or cassette tapes, but much, much further. We're going to an island where the impossible becomes possible: the magical, the mythical, the legendary – Jurassic Park. You remember the first time you heard that resonant T-Rex roar, right? Or the shimmering ripples in the glass of w...

Welcome back to another thrilling episode of Bad Dads Film Review! Fellow Dads, it's time to cozy up, perhaps with a cup of your favorite brew, as we immerse ourselves in the captivating world of Sherlock Holmes, with a spotlight on one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's cheekiest tales: "The Red-Headed League." Imagine answering an advertisement because of the color of your hair! Jabez Wilson, a straightforward pawnbroker, finds himself caught up in such a bizarre scheme. At first, it all seems innoc...

Welcome back to another rhythm-infused episode of Bad Dads Film Review! Fellow Dad aficionados, dust off your giant suits and get ready to groove, because this week, we're diving headfirst into the world of concert films with the iconic "Stop Making Sense." Directed by Jonathan Demme and showcasing the inimitable Talking Heads, led by the always dynamic David Byrne, "Stop Making Sense" is not just a concert film—it's an experience. Filmed over four nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in 1983...

Welcome back, listeners, to another edition of Bad Dads Film Review! This time, your favourite crew of Dad film buffs is taking a deep dive into the world of minimum wage, crazy co-workers, and the chaos of the service industry with the 2005 comedy, "Waiting..." Directed by Rob McKittrick and starring Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, and Justin Long, "Waiting..." provides a behind-the-scenes look at the antics and dramas of the staff at Shenaniganz restaurant. From the servers who mess with rude cust...

ONCE WERE WARRIORS (1994) is Lee Tamahori's adaptation of the first instalment of a powerful drama exploring the lives of the Māori Heke family. An unflinching and often brutal depiction of the effects of alcoholism, domestic violence and extreme poverty, Temuera Morrisson garnered critical acclaim and went on to become an international star but he is ably supported by Rena Owen, Cliff Curtis and especially Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell who delivers a moving performance as tragic eldest daughter Grace, ...

Today, your trusted team of Dad cinephiles is standing at attention to revisit a classic courtroom drama that remains as sharp and relevant as ever – A FEW GOOD MEN. Directed by Rob Reiner and written by the renowned Aaron Sorkin, "A Few Good Men" invites us into a military courtroom where young Navy lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise, is tasked with defending two Marines accused of murder. Kaffee faces off against the intimidating Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, played by the legendary J...

Inspired by the recent testimony of respected former defence official David Grusch, who confirmed before a congressional comittee that the US has been operating an extra-terrestrial crash retrieval and reverse engineering programme for decades, Dan chose the 2001 sci-fi K-PAX for us to cast our eye over. Iain Softley brings an adaptation of Gene Brewer's 1995 novel telling the tale of "prot" (Kevin Spacey), committed to the Psychiatric Institute of Manhattan and placed into the care of wearied ...

Welcome back to another episode of Bad Dads Film Review! Your favourite crew of film-loving Dads are back, and this time we're buckling in for an unsettling ride with the chilling thriller, Misery. Directed by Rob Reiner and based on the novel by Stephen King, Misery plunges us into the terrifying ordeal of a successful novelist, Paul Sheldon, played by James Caan. After a car accident in a remote area, Paul finds himself 'rescued' and held captive by his biggest fan, the deranged Annie Wilkes,...

When a city gang member decapitates the statue of a local deity, villager Ting (Tony Jaa) is sent to Bangkok to return the stolen head to it's rightful owners. That's pretty much it for plot but it's a classic action movie set-up with a distinctly Thai flavour; astonishing stunts achieved without the use of wires or computer imagery using the brutal Muay Thai style of fighting, all flying elbows and knees. Breath-taking from start to finish. We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean w...

Dan takes us back to a time he remembers fondly, the fabulous 50's and the birth of the boomer generation who single-handedly solve racism in Gary Ross's 1998 fantasy PLEASANTVILLE. I'm being unnecessarily cynical because on the one hand this is an entirely original fantasy with a great concept and unique visual style, a stirring Randy Newman score and beautiful themes about the power of self-expression but on the other it's a movie that seeks to address segregation and racism in a town populate...

Seemingly emerging with many of his career trademarks already on display, THIEF (1981) is writer and director Michael Mann's film debut and features the auteur's usual meticulous attention to detail and commitment to realism in this terrific crime revenge thriller. When strictly freelance diamond heist expert Frank's fence meets an untimely demise he is forced into a meeting with mafia boss Leo (Robert Prosky), who persuades him to undertake one last, lucrative job. Somehow feeling fresh despite...

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Bad Dads Film Review! We're your trusty band of Dad cinephiles, here to discuss, dissect, and occasionally disagree over the best and most interesting films the cinema world has to offer. Today, we delve into the murky world of drug cartels and moral ambiguity with Denis Villeneuve's gripping thriller, "Sicario". "Sicario", a 2015 action thriller, takes us into the heart of the US-Mexican border's brutal drug war. Emily Blunt gives a powerhouse perfor...

Obviously you've seen hundreds of movies in which a fame weary Elvis Presley didn't die and in fact switched places at the peak of his stardom with an impersonator, the real King of Rock and Roll instead winding up in a convalescence home with a cancerous lump on his penis alongside an African American John F. Kennedy, skin dyed by the C.I.A. and with portions of his brain replaced by sand, teaming up to fight the mummified remains of an Egyptian Pharaoh but BUBBA HO-TEP is the best and least ty...

Tune in as your motley crew of Dads voyage through the vast universe of cinema, sharing their thoughts, theories, and endless dad wisdom. Today, we are setting our sights on the cosmos with the intriguingly futuristic film, "2010: The Year We Made Contact". As the sequel to Stanley Kubrick's pioneering "2001: A Space Odyssey", this 1984 sci-fi thriller directed by Peter Hyams carries the torch forward, exploring humanity's relationship with the unknown. The narrative picks up nine years after t...

Today, we journey back to the 18th-century Vienna with the remarkable cinematic masterpiece, "Amadeus". This 1984 film, directed by the virtuoso Milos Forman, is an opulent dramatization of the imagined rivalry between two of history's most influential composers - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. From a screenplay penned by Peter Shaffer, based on his own stage play, Forman constructs a lush tapestry of jealousy, divine talent, and the human tragedy tied to both. We marvel at the t...

Ridley Scott's terrific depiction of the events of the Battle of Mogadishu kicks off Operations week as we watch 2001's BLACK HAWK DOWN. I thought I was being so clever picking this, with the disastrous events of Operation Gothic Serpent in which US troops extracted General Mohamed Farrah Aidid from the Somali capital at a terrible human cost providing the backdrop to a memorable scene of impromptu battlefield femoral artery surgery. If I'd patted myself on the back any harder at the idea of pic...

Gripping legal procedural ARGENTINA, 1985 continues the Dads education in the South American countries cinema following our earlier viewing of THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES and this shares some similarities with that dazzling crime drama not least of which is star Ricardo Darin. Public prosecutor Julio César Strassera (Darin) reluctantly finds himself making the government's case against the former leaders of the military junta for crimes against humanity, as Argentina's nascent democratic government...

CHILDREN OF MEN (2006) is Director Alfonso Cuarón’s gloomy sci-fi masterpiece set 18 years after all women have suddenly and inexplicably become infertile. Whilst the rest of the planet is shaken by the death of the youngest person on Earth, Theo (Clive Owen) finds himself reluctantly drawn into escorting Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) who might be carrying humanity’s last flicker of hope through an England divided by a refugee crisis and an austere authoritarian government. Gripping and grim in equa...

Peter's Number themed week begins with his first ever viewing of Miloš Forman's highly influential and multi Oscar winning ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, a 1975 psychological drama about recidivist Randall P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) who thinks riding out his sentence in an Oregon State psychiatric hospital will be easier than a stretch in a prison work farm and immediately finds himself engaged in a power struggle with sadistic Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), the seething passive aggressive...