Movies Episodes

Srinivasa Ramanujan, the well known Indian mathematician, had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, yet he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. He also loved movies with numbers in the title and would have been right at home with this weeks TOP5 content. Continuing the number theme was the RON HOWARD 2022 American biographical survival fil...

Denzel Washington once again collaborates with Antoine Fuqua to bring us THE EQUALIZER. A preboot-remake-aquel of the 1980's tv series, Denzel brings his usual dry wit and charisma to this tale of the OCD suffering Robert McCall who becomes embroiled in a war with Russian gangsters after intervening on behalf of Chloe Grace Moretz's child prostitute Alina. The Mark Twain quote that starts the movie invites us to superimpose some substance on McCall's violence-soaked quest for retribution but all...

Bad Dad Peter has recently spent some time with his children in the USA and having sampled the finest our cousins from the other side of the Atlantic have to offer, he thought he'd recognise the high watermark of American culture, the film offerings of the Disney company, for this week’s show. Our top 5 Memorable Disney Moments features a broad spectrum of Walt's offerings. It would be easy to dismiss the latest Disney Pixar movie as being a shameless TOY STORY cash-in and just like any normal a...

Our Disney themed week begins with a review of 1960's SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. After their ship is wrecked on a deserted tropical island, a family is forced to make a new home whilst simultaneously fending off a menagerie of dangerous animals and evading a band of cut-throat pirates. For many, this story will occupy a special nostalgic place in their heart and it's true that the plot and incredible production design still impress, whilst the presence of the great John Mills compensates for the pai...

Do you like fruit? Of course not but we tell our children we do because we want them to believe the ridiculous lie that fruit is real food, and that is what's important. I have an apple pretty much every day, that's how sound I am. We discuss the use of fruit in films and given their myriad of uses - mainly for smashing into during car chases or f****g - there is a lot to choose from. Legendary British comic book writer Warren Ellis co-created a three issue DC Comics series called RED that inspi...

Stanley Kubrick's cinematic treatise on violence and free will, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), gets the Bad Dads treatment as we tackle the story of Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell), leading his gang of droogs and getting ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence accompanied by the bliss and heaven of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Controversial, sexually violent and disturbing and that's just our review. We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely de...

The Top 5 Movies Set Over a Single Day or Night sees us chatting about those movies taking place in up to or under 24 hours, or in one case, 25 hours. Watch out time loop movie enthusiasts, damp squib Reegs is here to stop you bending the rules. Ever since I'd heard about EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022), a martial arts comedy with a mind-bending concept from The Daniels, whose SWISS ARMY MAN delighted us with its mix of absurdity, vulgarity and profundity, starring the legendary Michell...

Based very loosely on "The Golden Man" by Philip K. Dick, NEXT (2007) tells the story of Chris Johnson (Nic Cage), cursed with the ability to see 2 minutes into the future, except for when the plot demands it. Using his gifts to make modest wins in Las Vegas casinos and hiding behind the façade of being a cheap stage magician, Johnson finds himself reluctantly drawn into solving a terrorist plot by FBI agent Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore). One of the stupidest movies ever made, and I mean that a...

Things get off to a flying start this week as we discuss the Top 5 Slow Motion moments: mind melting special effects, hilarious comedic scenes, big drama and a load of excellent nominations from our listeners help conclude this now completely rejuvenated section of the show. Huzzah! We like to think we offer a broad spectrum of reviews, reflecting our various interests and love of all different genres of film. One area we haven't really tackled is the romantic comedy which led Dan to choose Netf...

Danny DeVito’s blackly comic THE WAR OF THE ROSES (1989) charts the disintegration of a marriage as Barbara and Oliver Rose try anything and everything to drive each other out of the shared marital home during a vicious divorce battle. Capitalising on the obvious chemistry between leads Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas as well as their shared cinematic history in 80's romantic comedies ROMANCING THE STONE and THE JEWEL OF THE NILE, director Danny DeVito chooses to frame the story by having hi...

Cinema has had a long relationship with cigarettes, starting in the early 1920's right through to the 50's where your favourite star was almost certainly aggressively hawking their product directly to you in their latest film as well as hacking up globs of green and brown sputum in between takes. Legislation and the momentum of social opinion saw a dramatic decline in depictions of smoking on screen over the years but let's face it, if you ever want to establish your character is tense or hedoni...

When pseudocidal proto-emo Harold meets his opposite, manic pixie Grandma Maude, at a funeral, both will enrich the others’ lives in Hal Ashby's 1971 black comedy metaphor about the circle of life. Harold is obsessed by death, Maude by life and a blink and you'll miss it shot in the final third of the movie adds extra depth and context to its message. Bud Cort's muted, subdued and often monotone Harold is the yin to Ruth Gordon's spirited and energetic yang, and the movies pitch black sense of h...

The sandwich is one of humanities greatest discoveries, along with the wheel and RollBot, the robotic toilet paper valet, so we sat down to chat about them. Perhaps it's the sheer variety of fillings that you can put in between two pieces of bread which inspired us but there's a real assortment of unusual choices this week; once we get on a roll, it becomes difficult to wrap things up. Ever since my youngest discovered Paddington I've been quietly chuckling about pairing Alejandro González Iñárr...

The last few weeks Top 5 discussions have included Dinner Scenes and Hitchhikers and understandably that's seen us talk about THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974), one of the most influential horror movies of all time. Director Tobe Hooper together with co-writer Kim Henkel establish fundamental and often repeated conventions of the slasher sub-genre such as the Final Girl trope, the connection of sex with death and physically imposing masked men chasing people wielding blunt instruments in this m...

With the Dads decimated by a combination of birthdays, studying and paddle board salesman conventions it's left to Peter and Sidey to bring us the epic conclusion to the strong Puppet theme which has taken over this week’s show. Starting with the Top 5 Puppets, naturally, the guys are on hand to discuss some rarely featured films and tv. Listen in, or don't, there's no strings attached and it's all very heart felt. Sorry. All you have to do to emotionally reconcile with your son is saw your own ...

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (2004) began life as a straight parody of Bruckheimer style action movie tropes before morphing into something more satirical after the commencement of the Iraq War, and successfully captures the sardonic fury of those who accused the US of pursuing recklessly jingoistic and interventionist foreign policies in the wake of 9/11, whilst simultaneously spearing the hypocrisy and vanity of the narcissistic Hollywood liberal elite and their self-interested and superficial v...

We start with a complete lack of intro this week but don't worry it won't be too long before we settle into our usual bland patter as we discuss the Top 5 Hitchhikers. Expect a few stories from seasoned traveller Dan, having somehow once found himself in the Belgian Congo after draft dodging, or perhaps some other stuff that he did actually say. LION (2016) is a biography of Indian-Australian entrepreneur Saroo Brierley which tells the amazing journey of his reunification with his family, 25 yea...

George Clooney explains how to be a Jedi to Ewan McGregor in director Grant Heslov’s debut feature, satirical war movie THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS. Reporter Bob Wilton (McGregor) investigates the New Earth Army, a branch of the US military tasked with advancing America's interests by exploiting the paranormal and the psychic. A stellar cast and a smart Coen-lite script gives us some funny moments but the tone wavers between screwball and scathing and sometimes misses both targets. Think Fear and...

The rest of us were only too happy to derail Dan's well-thought out hitchhiker themed week in order to produce a hastily assembled and confused tribute of sorts to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, starting with a discussion of the Top 5 Queens. BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (2018) is a biopic of Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), charting his journey from talented and ambitious baggage handler Farrokh Bulsara in the 1970's to frontman of arena rock band Queen, culminating in a recreation of their triumphant and ...

Garth Jennings's adaptation of THE HITCHHIKERS'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY starts much like the source material, when the Earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, before veering off on a contrived and underwritten love triangle which makes this 2005 sci-fi comedy only moderately successful. Hapless Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) and his friend, the experienced galactic journalist Ford Prefect (Mos Def), find themselves aboard a stolen spaceship piloted by two-headed Galactic...

Train week starts with a discussion of the Top 5 Dinner scenes because of course and because we've compiled a list of Top 5 Trains already. I can't even be bothered to type the various meal based puns I was going to dish up to you in lieu of anything interesting to say to introduce this topic. We're on the record as being fans of the slow shuffle rather than a raging, furious flail - I'm talking zombies just to be clear here - but Yeon Sang-ho might just convince us otherwise with TRAIN TO BUSA...

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III picks up immediately after the cliff-hanger ending of the second movie, with Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) receiving a letter from a stranded but happy Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), after a freak burst of lightning struck the DeLorean. Discovering that Doc was killed a week after writing the letter, Marty travels back to The Old West in 1885 to rescue his eccentric friend... For such a beloved franchise, the BACK TO THE FUTURE series has always carried some ideas that...

A frequent highlight of putting the podcast together is reading Reegs' episode notes. He really does have a gift fir that kind of thing. Anyhow, he's off on holiday for a few days a left the notes to me. I can only apologise. The topic for discussion for our top 5 is INSECTS. Reegs has a particular dislike of wasps, but I think we can all agree that the real idiots of the insect world are mosquitoes. Sadly none of those feature in the segment, but we do find room for spiders, praying mantis and ...

Wouldn't it have been fun to review THE FLY (1986) and also the 1958 original version? I guess we'll never know, having only found time to cast our critical eye at the DAVID CRONENBERG remake. There's no messing about as the movie immediately throws the two main characters together at some kind of nerd convention. I'm a fan immediately getting on with the story and not wasting precious time with wearisome world building. We've got a podcast to make and efficient story telling such as this is a b...