Equal parts Brideshead Revisited, The Talented Mr Ripley and Kind Hearts and Coronets - a dash of 2000s public school aesthetic - two oversaturated white boys - the joy of Rosamund Pike and Richard E Grant - 1 cup filthy bathwater. This week’s episode features a deconstructed Saltburn served on a bed of disappointment and with a sharp finish of new Harry Potter casting news.

#saltburn #barrykeoghan #jacobelordi

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This week we’re joined by musician and producer James Berkeley to dive deep into the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Not the James Cameron blue people Avatar, though we do immediately get into a heated discussion of whether that was any good.

From the original series to the ill-fated M. Night Shyamalan bomb to the recent Netflix series, there’s a lot of ground to cover. You might think there’s no way to link the cult classic Nickelodeon animation to National Treasure and Aliens, but you would be wrong.

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Making a film entirely in one shot is surely one of the most masochistic exercises a filmmaker can undertake. And yet they persist!

We cover everything from Hitchock’s classic Rope that mimics a single shot, the experimental and painfully boring foray into digital of Russian Arc, all the way through to the mainstream blockbusters of Birdman and 1917.

Eventually we get to the work of Philip Barantini, the current master of the form with his film Boiling Point and recent Netflix limited series Adolescence dominating headlines.

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With Kirstie Alley, John Travolta and Bruce Willis as the voice of a baby, Look Who’s Talking was the surprise smash hit of 1989. But does it hold up as a masterpiece of cinema, or is its legacy tarnished by a series of increasingly bizarre and poorly thought-through sequels? To potentially find out some of the answers, listen to this week’s episode, safe in the knowledge that we also spend a good amount of time talking about Con Air.

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Damien Chazelle makes films about three things: music, filmmaking and toxic people single mindedly achieving their dreams while the rest of their lives crumble around them. Whether it’s an abusive jazz mentorship, a quest for a spot on the walk of fame or whatever the hell was going on in Babylon, there’s more than enough here to fulfill the Far From Ideal quota.

Featuring a special guest appearance by Caroline Ullman.

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Tarantino’s most recent film takes him fully into his dude-bro podcast guy era. Featuring: cool cars, movie stars, movie stars driving cool cars and a bizarre revisionist history of the Manson murders in which Sharon Tate is at best a featured extra. We touch on Jackie Brown, Four Rooms, Inglorious Basterds and The Hateful Eight and wonder with so many memorable characters why Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood’s most memorable is a dog.

With meta-textual hyper referential filmmaking sometimes if you throw enough shit at the wall you end up with a wall covered in shit.

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Fresh off this year’s Berlinale, Hannah takes us behind the scenes of Berlin’s premier film festival. We dive into all the hard hitting topics: the joys and existential horrors of networking, the mystery of “market screenings” (sadly not a cinema supermarket hybrid) and Berlin’s bleak February weather. In spite of that description, the podcast is still slightly more fun to listen to than Tolstoy.

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In 2024, M. Night Shyamalan lured moviegoers in with the slick and exciting trailer for his latest directorial misfire, Trap. Featuring the pop sensation that is Saleka Shyamalan, Kid Cudi cosplaying as Lucius Malfoy, and Josh Hartnett swinging for the rafters as a serial killer who seems to embody every Myers-Briggs personality type at once.

Perhaps the real trap isn’t just the one set inside the arena—but the psychological prism through which we attempt to make sense of a chaotic and indifferent universe. Or maybe it really is just the cops in an arena.

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The rip roaring ride that was the 97th Academy Awards has come and Hannah is hearing about it all for the first time! The sweep for Sean Baker and Anora, the history-making moments for Flow (first Latvian winner), Paul Tazewell (first black man to win Best Costume Design) and Emilia Perez (worst speech ever). We absolutely don’t cover it all this time because another two hour episode would be egregious but we certainly cover some things a bit.

Featuring very special guest Ilana Francis.

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In this week’s very special episode we look ahead to the 97th Academy Awards. The highs, the lows, the nominees, the snubs and we answer the two very important questions: who will probably win and who should actually win.

In one of the weirdest awards seasons in recent times we show remarkable restraint in how little we continue our criticisms of Emilia Perez from last week and astonishing commitment to ignoring the documentary and short film categories.

Featuring very special guest Ilana Francis.

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@FarFromIdealPodcast on YouTube