Review Episodes

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 Net...

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 Iñár...

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 ye...

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 tha...

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 ...

Dan had at least three different attempts to define a Top 5 this week proving just how desperately in need of rebooting this part of the show is, finally settling on the Top 5 Bands for us to discuss. DAY SHIFT is Netflix's latest exclusive and is produced by the 87Eleven team, creators of the JOHN WICK franchise and the recently reviewed on this very podcast NOBODY. Stunt coordinator JJ Perry makes his debut with this action comedy in which pool cleaning vampire hunter Bud Jablonski (Jamie Fox...

Steve Martin apparently worked on the script for L.A. STORY for seven years before he and director Mick Jackson brought this romantic fantasy comedy to the big screen in 1991. Martin plays Harris K. Telemacher, a depressed weather presenter, trapped in an unfulfilling relationship with his socialite girlfriend and disheartened by the superficiality of the Los Angeles scene. After being dumped by his girlfriend and receiving cryptic relationship advice from a freeway sign he begins to fall for Sa...

This week’s themed content sees us discussing those people whose job it is to enforce the law as we start things off with a rigorous interrogation of the Top 5 Police Officers. Will a thorough application of the rules prevent us from hearing about one dad's favourite Traffic Warden? Sidey chose Hannes Halldórsson's 2021 gay buddy action spoof COP SECRET for us to review this week and we are awfully glad he did. Whilst investigating a mysterious criminal organisation which has been breaking into...

Produced and directed by prolific Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To, PTU: POLICE TACTICAL UNIT (2003) spawned a multi film franchise about which none of us knew a thing. When Sergeant Lo (Lam Suet) has his service weapon stolen during an altercation with local gangsters putting his dreams of promotion at risk, uncompromising Sergeant Mike Ho (Simon Yam) of the PTU gives him until dawn to recover it, but their situation starts to become more complicated when a local gang leader is murdered. Set in a H...

The word 'myth' refers to a society's collective stories, often involving Gods and the heroes that have offended them and Bad Dad Peter Andre has us thinking all about them and their cinematic representations and influences this week, as we kick things off with the Top 5 Mythical Characters. THE NORTHMAN is the second Robert Eggers film we've reviewed in recent months, after the deranged and often unpleasant THE LIGHTHOUSE and sees the director taking on the Hamlet origin story in what I hope i...

Based on a 1998 Frank Miller comic book which in turn was inspired by the 1962 Rudolph Maté sword and sandals epic THE 300 SPARTANS, 300 (2006) is Zack Snyder's very loose retelling of the events of the Battle of Thermopylae taking place circa 480 BC and I don't really think I can reasonably cram 1 more number into this sentence before it loses any semblance of aardvark. Gerard Butler plays Leonidas, master chocolatier and King of the Spartans, the most feared and formidable of all forces in an...

As my work involves sitting at a computer for long stretches and watching films requires even more screen time, what I don't really need in my life is yet another sedentary activity which is a shame because I really enjoy playing video games. This week we celebrate entertainments biggest industry, though you wouldn't know it given how little attention is devoted to video gaming in popular media. And you wouldn't really know it when you listen to us either as we try to avoid any computer game ref...

Would it be fair to describe us as Podcast Royalty? No, probably not. But that didn't stop us trawling our way through the top 5 topic of Kings and Queens. A particular film franchise making its possible top 5 debut this week. Our main feature this week was overshadowed by some Oscar night slap shenanigans. King Richard was Will Smith's ticket to gold statue glory. But have you actually seen the movie? If I recall Mr Smith was somewhat of a certainty for the Oscar nod. We cast our vote on the m...