Fuds On Film

With the publicity machine for Ready Player One kicking into gear, we though it time to look at some films that have based themselves on the ideas and aesthetics of video games, while not being based directly on them. To that end, listen now as we run through the ups and downs of Disney's Tron and Mamoru "Ghost in the Shell" Oshii's Avalon. It's a thing you can do, that's for sure. Full show notes at http://www.fudsonfilm.com/tron-and-avalon/

With Sam Rockwell firmly in the awards frame for Three Billboards, we thought it was as good a time as any to take a look at some of our favourite films of his. Join us as we discuss Lawn Dogs, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Matchstick Men, Choke, Moon, and Seven Psychopaths.

Improbably, we've survived 2017 and now plough on into the brave new year of film, covering Three Billboards Outside Of Ebbing Missouri, The Last Jedi, Jumanji, Bright, and The Foreigner. We also catch up with It and mother! for your listening pleasure. It perhaps doesn't demand your attention, but it will sit with its hand raised until you let it into your brainspace. Please let it in. It's cold outside.

It's the quintessential martial arts move, with a charismatic lead, excellent fight choreography and cinematography. But are we talking about Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon, or Jean-Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport? The only way to find out is to listen to our latest episode! Or, y'know, have a functioning brain. Full show notes at http://www.fudsonfilm.com/enter-the-dragon-bloodsport/

Today we will be continuing our discussion of the works of the legendary Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli. While not as prolific a director as Miyazaki under the Ghibli banner, Isao Takahata's works are more varied in style, and some are strikingly distinctive. Full show notes at http://www.fudsonfilm.com/isao-takataha/

We’re dangerously close to requiring new calendars, so that can only mean it’s time for us to review our year in cinema, giving you the highlights and the lowlights of 2017. There’s also the small matter of December’s output to get through, so we’ll also give you the lowdown on Murder on the Orient Express, Justice League, Paddington 2, and The Disaster Artist. Full show notes are available at http://www.fudsonfilm.com/films-of-the-year-2017/

When Infernal Affairs was released in Hong Kong to great commercial and critical success it was immediately snaffled up for a Western remake, as was very much the style at the time, becoming of course The Departed. We thought we'd take this opportunity, fifteen years after the original's release and a rather less rounded eleven after the Western adaptation to see how they both hold up. There's a better than evens chance we'll get into spoiler territory here, so if you haven't seen one or t'other of these excellent films we heartily recommend that you slap on the pod-breaks and watch them, and come back to us when you're good and ready.

In an unavoidable change to our regularly scheduled episode, we are bringing you instead a bit of a retrospective of some of our favourite reviews from the start of the second year of our podcast. If you're relatively new to the podcast, we hope you find this informative, and if you've been with us from the start, firstly, thank you, and secondly we hope you enjoy this walk down memory lane, or feel free to instead contemplate something beautiful for an hour and a half. We're looking again at Gods of Egypt, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, The Deer Hunter, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Star Trek VI: The Final Frontier, and Kubo and the Two Strings.

We investigate the qualities, of the lack of qualities, of Lucknow Central, Ghost Story, The Death of Stalin, and Thor: Ragnarok in this latest podcast episode. You should listen to it, or we will be ensaddened.

Continuing on from our look at journalism in film, we narrow down the focus to war reporting, with Oliver Stone's Salvador set during the El Salvadorian civil war, and Volker Schlöndorff's look at Lebanese civil war reportage in Die Fälschung. Join us as we examine how the stress of the battlefield affects those assigned to report on it.