The Rewind Movie Podcast

“The streets are awash with drugs you can have for unhappiness and pain, and we took them all.” We’re heading to the murky hinterland of Edinburgh with Danny Boyle’s visceral 1996 sophomore feature Trainspotting.

Erudite, sallow twenty-something Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) has chosen not to choose life - he’s chosen something else. Heroin. He injects his days away at the den of his dealer, Mother Superior (Peter Mullan), with motormouthed James Bond aficionado Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller), and hard-luck idiot Spud (Ewan Bremner) - much to the dismay of his ball of lager-swilling machismo mate Begbie (Robert Carlyle), and the straight-laced Tommy (Kevin McKIdd). As Renton’s efforts to kick his habit lurch between success and failure, the unsustainable pursuit of the next high draws him, and everyone around him, into an increasingly desperate stew of violence and sickness.

A defining totem of the brief, cringeworthily christened Cool Britannia era, which saw filmmakers, writers, artists and musicians benefit from a sense of renewed ambition as the financially straitened 1980s gave way to the optimistic 1990s, it’s reputation persists as a punky hit with a killer soundtrack and an iconic poster that flew out of the doors of Athena’s in regional shopping centres across the country. But is that reputation at odds with the dour, challenging material? Join Gali, Devli, Patrick and Matt as they dive into a massive, pristine convenience with brilliant gold taps, a seat carved from ebony, and a cistern full of Chanel No. 5.

If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com. For specially designed merchandise, movie shirts, posters, and our famous Bingo Trope Totes and a poster based on this week’s episode cover image, head to DevlinDoesDrawing on Teemill. 

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Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair. The LV-RMP series continues to explore the Ridley Scott sequel universe with 2017’s Alien: Covenant.

The crew of an intergalactic colonisation vessel is jolted from hypersleep by a catastrophic freak event while it is under the control of the ship’s android, Walter (Michael Fassbender). Reluctant to return to the chambers, overmatched new Captain Oram (Billy Crudup) decides to follow a bizarre human voice signal, mysteriously emanating from a nearby planet - one that seems an even more perfect habitat than their distant destination. There, they find the remnants of the disastrous Prometheus voyage of a decade before, namely Peter Weyland’s personal android David (Fassbender), who has seemingly been using his time to develop his sinister new interests.

On the heels of the mixed reaction to his return to the seminal franchise which he spawned, Ridley Scott and team return to the series’ original setup of a naive and increasingly desperate crew faced with the vicious indifference of instinctive horrors they are not equipped to face, albeit intertwined with the grandiose existential questions of his previous outing. Join Gali, Devlin, Patrick and Matt as they tackle what will seemingly be Sir Ridley’s last outing in the universe he created - including flute fingering, sick bay slipping, whiskey sipping and spaceship shower shagging.

If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com. For specially designed merchandise, movie shirts, posters, and our famous Bingo Trope Totes and a poster based on this week’s episode cover image, head to DevlinDoesDrawing on Teemill. 

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“Remember what we told you. You keep your eyes open. They're everywhere.” We’re popping in for a quick blood rave with 1998’s Marvel Comics adaptation Blade.

Titular daywalker Blade (Wesley Snipes), otherwise known as Eric Brooks, stalks the streets to hunt and kill vampires, driven by a thirst for revenge after his mother was bitten before going into labour, cursing him with a bloodlust that he slakes with a serum administered by his ornery father figure/weapons maker Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). When the undead, bratty upstart Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) starts challenging the established vampire hierarchy and attempting to raise an ancient blood god, Blade teams up with a recently-bitten haematologist to infiltrate the gang and kill Deacon - but the wily bloodsucker has his own plans…

Preceding the first big screen X-Men movie by 2 years, and the establishment of the now-all-conquering MCU by a decade, British director Stephen Norrington’s gritty, violent, stylised picture stood in sharp contrast to the increasingly daffy Joel Schumacher Batman movies, turning a tidy profit on a moderate budget and helping lay the groundwork not just for future Marvel adaptations, but also the leather dusters and techno-fuelled kung fu that The Matrix would send stratospheric before the decade’s end. But, does Blade still deliver the goods? Or will Gali, Patrick and Devlin end up ice skating uphill trying to defend it?

If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com. For specially designed merchandise, movie shirts, posters, and our famous Bingo Trope Totes and a poster based on this week’s episode cover image, head to DevlinDoesDrawing on Teemill. 

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Final report, the commercial starship Nostromo. We return to our LV-RMP series to talk about the seminal sci-fi horror that started it all: Ridley Scott’s imperious 1979 original ALIEN.

Gali, Devlin, Patrick and Matt step in to the laser egg room for the origins of the series, as we meet jaded space truckers Captain Dallas (Tom Skerrit), 3rd Officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), and technicians Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) aboard an earthbound mining ship. Diverted by what seems to be a distress beacon, they allow into their house one of the single most terrifying and iconic monsters in cinema history, unleashing a horror that continues to resonate some 4 decades later.

We discuss the alchemy behind the film’s creation, to try to unpack how this disparate collection of humans created such a perfect organism, and talk about what the film has meant to us over the years, and how it inspired not just a 40-plus year series but an entire galaxy of imitators and descendents.

If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com. For specially designed merchandise, movie shirts, posters, and our famous Bingo Trope Totes and a poster based on this week’s episode cover image, head to DevlinDoesDrawing on Teemill. 

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“Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?” We engage stealth mode with legendary Hong Kong director John Woo’s second Hollywood feature, Broken Arrow.

Cocky, veteran US Air Force pilot Major Vic "Deak" Deakins (John Travolta) absconds with a pair of nuclear warheads from an intentionally downed experimental fighter jet, leaving his erstwhile co-pilot and chippy younger mentee Captain Riley Hale (Christian Slater) with the task of pursuing him through the Utah desert with the assistance of the scrappy but overmatched local park ranger Terry Carmichael (Samantha Mathis) to try to prevent a catastrophic international incident.

John Travolta continues his post-Pulp Fiction career renaissance with this Graham Yost (Speed)-penned action thriller, a modest hit on release in the jam-packed blockbuster schedule of 1996 that weaves together the era’s headline fixations of political paranoia, post-Cold War nuclear chicanery, and pre-9/11 domestic terrorism, in a Simpson/Bruckheimer-adjacent package of explosions and manly-man posturing. Childhood aficionado Matt discusses the film with occasional appreciator Gali and first-time viewer Devlin, as they discuss the lost art of conference room lighting, a stacked roster of cranky middle-aged character faces, the Great Christian Slater Leading Man Experiment, and much, much more.

If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com. For specially designed merchandise, movie shirts, posters, and our famous Bingo Trope Totes and a poster based on this week’s episode cover image, head to DevlinDoesDrawing on Teemill. 

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Checkmate. Come join the Rewind Movie Podcast as we celebrate our Independence Day with Roland Emmerich’s 1996 sci-fi action spectacular.

A drunk crop duster pilot with a painful memory of extraterrestrial abduction; an overqualified cable TV repairman and his elderly father; a hot shot Air Force ace, his exotic dancer girlfriend, and her cutesy kid; and a war hero President with faltering approval figures are among the sprawling cast that finally receive a definitive answer to the question, ‘are we alone in the universe?’. The response comes courtesy of on-screen devastation the likes of which audiences had never seen before, as the 90s disaster movie arms race went nuclear and then some.

German director Emmerich’s 3rd Hollywood feature tapped emerging megastar Will Smith, quirky character actor-turned-recently-minted summer movie favourite Jeff Goldblum, and versatile leading man Bill Pullman for lead roles, surrounded them with a murderer’s row of familiar supporting faces (including an inexplicably deployed Randy Quaid), and dropped them into a maximalist effects-laden extravaganza that led to extraordinary financial success. But, is it actually…good? Gali, Devlin and Matt tussle with the tentacles, position our pieces, and call our mothers. And our housekeepers. And our lawyers. Actually, forget the lawyers.

If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com. For specially designed merchandise, movie shirts, posters, and our famous Bingo Trope Totes and a poster based on this week’s episode cover image, head to DevlinDoesDrawing on Teemill. 

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To celebrate the 30th anniversary of SPEED (1994), we decided to pull our discussion from the archives to give all you wildcats another ride on that infamous bus, that terrifying elevator and...the slightly forgettable train, ENJOY!!!

POP QUIZ HOTSHOT. We’re careening through the unfinished highways of Los Angeles with Jan de Bont’s explosive debut feature SPEED, courtesy of a listener request.

After thwarting an elaborate exploding elevator hostage situation, bomb disposal expert Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) finds himself targeted by the enraged madman responsible (Dennis Hopper). The game? A bomb on a city bus. Once it goes above 50 mph, the bomb is armed. Drop below, and everybody goes kaboom. In the right place at the wrong time is passenger Annie (Sandra Bullock), deployed as emergency driver after the unfortunate regular Sam takes a stray bullet.

After establishing himself as one of the premiere popcorn cinematographers of his era, de Bont set the charges for his directorial career with this runaway hit. Firmly establishing Bullock in the upper echelons of Hollywood, and cementing a post-Point Break Keanu as an action cinema superstar, the film transcended its Die-Hard-on-a-bus origins to become one of the biggest grossers of 1994. But, can those analogue nineties thrills survive in the modern era? Join Gali, Devlin, Patrick and Matt as they hop aboard and hang on tight. Big thanks to listener Matthew Pinder for his selection!

If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com. For specially designed merchandise, movie shirts, posters, and our famous Bingo Trope Totes and a poster based on this week’s episode cover image, head to DevlinDoesDrawing on Teemill. 

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Welcome to The Open Slate! Ever sat through the credits and wondered what a stand-in stands on? Or whether the Base PA plays baseball? In this series, we sit down with working film industry professionals from across the departments for unvarnished, honest, practical conversations about how and why they joined the movie business, how they contribute day-to-day to the creation of cinema, and how they maintain their careers in a high-pressure, highly sought after field.

Episode 5 explores someone who didn’t attend Leeds Met University, but is, as chance would have it, from Leeds (Leeds Leeds) - Lev Watach , a Cast Assistant, Cast Coordinator, and Assistant Director whose credits list boasts adventures with Indiana Jones and Han Solo among major productions for some of the biggest studios in the world. Patrick accompanies Lev on a tour through his career, from the early days cooped up in a cinema projection room, a brave move to Vancouver in search of a big break, via hand doubling Benedict Cumberbatch, on his way to becoming one of the most trusted cast assistants in the country.

Special Mentions:

www.unorthodoxroasters.co.uk

https://www.youtube.com/@ValVerdeBroadcasting

Head over to our Teemill store for merchandise, movie shirts, art prints, stickers, totes and more. If you’d like to support the podcast, a review or a quick rating on your platform of choice is the best way you can help us get the word out and keep the conversations flowing. 

Get in touch with us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and if you'd like to submit a request, correct our constant mispronunciations, or have a chat about whatever is on your mind, you can email [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

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Do not adjust your calendars - Matt and Devlin have jumped the gun by six months with this Halfway to HalloRe’ewind double bill - a very special episode where we pitch to horror film agnostic Patrick two tenuously connected 1980s slashers in the Canuxploitation sequel-in-name-only Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II and the Spanish-American co-produced mayhem of Pieces. 

In Devlin’s choice Hello Mary Lou, the vengeful spirit of a would-be 1950s Prom Queen escapes containment in then-modern-day 1987 Hamilton High, seeking a vessel through which to ruthlessly reclaim her position atop the social totem pole, and seek out the jilted boyfriend who was responsible for her fiery public death - now the high school principal played by Canadian icon Michael Ironside. Pairing Nightmare on Elm Street-esque, phantasmagoric practical effects, Catholic sexual repression, and teen high melodrama, this film came relatively late in the slasher cycle, and emerged as a cineliterate magpie of the decade’s tropes.

Matt’s pick Pieces sees a chainsaw-wielding maniac seek out pretty women to carve up and reconstruct into a corpsey jigsaw on a college campus in a suitably sleazy example of the relatively early days of the slasher subgenre. A mysterious madman, ludicrous giallo-aping death scenes, buckets of gore, and foxy undercover tennis detectives mark a wild cult classic from the video nasty era.

Judge Patrick (residing) assesses the films’ merits and the pleas of the panel, as Devlin and Matt make their case to get fresh eyes on some springtime slashing.

Head to rewindmoviecast.com for an introductory essay by Matt! And as always, merchandise and movie shirts, hoodies, totes and more are available at devlindoesdrawing.teemill.com, including our new Slasher Tropes Bingo artwork.

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Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? We delve into the murky, rain-soaked neon streets of 2019 Los Angeles for Ridley Scott’s seminal 1982 sci-fi slow burner Blade Runner.

Retired replicant hunter Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is pulled back into duty when four illegal synthetic humanoids are reported to be loose in the sprawling, polluted megalopolis. Led by the enigmatic Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), the creations seem to have developed an emotional range that their kind was never built for, and seek fundamental answers from the genius founder of the company that made them. Questions also plague the downtrodden Deckard as he falls for the tragic, beautiful replicant Rachael, and the true nature of his brutal task becomes murkier than ever.

An infamous flop on release, saddled with studio-mandated edits and voiceover narration, the film’s reputation was salvaged by a 10 year anniversary recut that cemented its place as a visually resplendent, influential work of importance. But questions raised during its release by a mixed, occasionally hostile critical community, continue to swirl around the film, as even the primary creatives express conflicting opinions about the answers. Join Gali, Devlin and Matt as they set down their noodles and take on the case.

Thanks to listener James for the suggestion! If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com. For specially designed merchandise, movie shirts, posters, and our famous Bingo Trope Totes and a poster based on this week’s episode cover image, head to DevlinDoesDrawing on Teemill. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.