The School of Movies Archive

[Digital Drift 2014]

This is the first impressions review of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. Next year we will be covering all three movies with a deeper focus on production in our Extended Edition podcasts. If you’ve just joined us for Digital Drift you can of course hear the reviews of the Lord of the Rings and first two Hobbits on the Digital Gonzo section of the podcast feed.  

It’s been hard-going for some of us to say a last goodbye to the Weta films. The fact that they’ve divided audiences far more than the original trilogy exacerbates the isolation that comes with this. Experience the wrath and ruin of dragon fire. Watch an obscene amount of gold drive an essentially decent dwarf to insanity. Witness five pages of battle written by Tolkein get fully expanded into a war among the species’ of Middle-earth. Feel the loss and grief of these events from the many perspectives beyond just that of Bilbo Baggins as the scope of this project hammers home. 

Guests:

Chris Eason of GameBurst

James Batchelor of Bond and Beyond

Glen Watts of the Digital Drift community

[Digital Gonzo 2013]

Welcome back to the ninth part of the Middle-earth series of Gonzo podcasts. To any newcomers, the first episode was a prologue, focusing on the books and the animated films, the next six were two-part super in-depth reviews of the Lord of the Rings films, following that was a first impressions round-table of the then just recently viewed theatrical edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a tone we will be reprising with its follow-up, and the eighth was a Sound of Gonzo celebration of the music of Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings scores.

If you are filled with apathy about these films or boundless spite towards their creators, these are not the podcasts for you. We like them.

Guests:

Chris Eason of GameBurst

Sharon Shaw of School of Movies

[Digital Gonzo 2012]

For the first time in our series we cannot look at the film we are delving into in retrospect of the entire trilogy or with the deeper familiarity with its creation that the extended edition extras grant us. So this is a first impressions round-table with as much as possible on what we thought about the inaugural installment in the new Hobbit Trilogy. 

For those who haven’t heard the Digital Gonzo Lord of the Rings podcasts, I heartily recommend you go back and listen to the first seven shows. They’re an incredibly in-depth and detailed exploration of a film series I place above all other cinema. For those looking for a negative review of the Hobbit, you’d better stroll on and search elsewhere. We do call the creators on the flaws we’ve found but this is pretty much a Weta love-in once again. Also this is the first of this series where we fulfill our voracious need to swear so those with little children listening, be warned. 

Guests:

Sharon Shaw of School of Movies

Chris Eason of GameBurst

James Batchelor of Bond and Beyond

Paul Gibson of Gonzo Planet

[Digital Drift 2014]

To kick off a discussion about “nanar”; that is movies that are so spectacularly bad that they wrap right the way round into great we bring you the podcast reviews of Troll and Troll 2. This also constitutes our Halloween Spooktacular and gives you all something fun to listen to while taking shelter from the GamerGate debate.

Troll was a daft fantasy horror movie made in 1986. It’s hard to say who it’s aimed at because it’s too scary for small children and too silly for anyone over the age of nine. It has inflections of Gremlins and Poltergeist but none of the style or craftsmanship. There are plenty of surprising and appealing nuggets of fun to be had amongst the weird “troll-menaces-apartment-block” plot and some disarmingly canny performances to boot, but ultimately this was one of those films made to be forgotten.

Until Troll 2 came along in 1990 that is. This isn’t a sequel of any sort. It was originally going to be called “Goblins” and the name was changed so as to purposefully be confused with the mildly successful Troll. Now that’s the sort of creative pedigree that makes us sit up and take notice. Dig even further into this green gloop and you’ll find it is one of the most incompetently constructed movies ever, with every single scene botched in some way and some world class overacting and delivery by the hysterical cast. The short of it is; Family goes on a house exchange to a town in Utah named “Nilbog” turns out it’s full of goblins. They like to eat people after turning them partly into vegetable matter. Also the boy has the Shining or something. Clickety clack.  

It has in recent times been rediscovered and cherished by a select group of fans celebrating its sheer badness. A documentary by its now grown up child star; “Best Worst Movie” was made in 2010 and is available on Netflix UK. In it we re-acquaint ourselves with the oddball cast reflecting back on when they took part in this extraordinary project. The brilliant review podcast “We Hate Movies” won’t cover Troll 2, because in their words, what are they going to say that’s funnier than anything within this film? We had to at least try since in the UK this is not infamous and is barely even known. That’s an injustice we’d like to redress.

Don’t worry about seeing these first. Listen to the show to get a feel and then track down the R1 double DVD set if it sounds like your thing. 

It also leads to a discussion about nanar film and whether or not it is possible to make one on purpose, with a wonderful little inspirational piece on that subject from The Idea Channel, which you should be watching every week. 

[Digital Drift 2014]

The Transformers road trip has lost all but one lone, solitary truck, powering on through a new leg of what may be a never-ending journey.

Yes folks, I did end up going to see Transformers 4, and on this show, Sharon asks me all about my experience. 

Is this a new lease of life for the series? A soft reboot, ditching the former human cast members in favour of all-new ones and setting aside awkward frat comedy for the dilemma of a struggling family. [Sounds great.] Still written by Ehren Kruger and now starring Mark Wahlberg [Oh Jesus Christ!]. The autobots are now a hunted, endangered species, thanks to their heroic genocide of their own people in the last movie, done in the name of protecting us humans, with our interminable capacity for greatness. Plus it has the dinobots [No it doesn’t]. And Optimus is seriously suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [Nobody ever mentions it]. Is this better or worse than the first three? Find out right now. 

I do something with Michael Bay halfway through that will surprise you. 

Next pit-stop we are rejoined by a full cast as we delve into the best depiction of these bots in any medium, the animated show, Transformers Prime. Even if you haven’t seen it, have no immediate interest or don’t want it spoiled we still suggest you listen as the depth, subtlety and character focus we describe in detail will surprise and delight you, leaving everyone wondering why that can never be their big screen representation.

[Digital Drift 2014]

Our road trip with the autobots veers off the beaten track and onto a superhighway full of exploding guns and alien car invasion. In a series defined by its crapulence this may actually be its lowest point. Billed by some as a return to form on its release in 2011, which prompted the question from others; “What form?” and from still others “What form will our destructor take?”. 

We’ll tell you what form in this very podcast. If we sounded like we were in pain on the last episode we can assure you it was just the preliminary wave of agony. This one actually made my heart hurt as well as my brain. 

We wished for Megan Fox to return, that’s how bad it got. 

As for plot? The moon landing in 1969 was in fact a secret plot to find a thing and… weird, CGI Kennedy face. I can’t even carry on beyond that first minute. Spock is in this. A robot Spock. A robot Spock that actually manageress to defile and spin on its axis one of the greatest lines and greatest sentiments of one of the greatest sci fi movements of all time. Optimus is not only laid low in this, he is in fact unwittingly depicted as John Rambo in First Blood, only in a context far closer to Rambo III. His obvious post-traumatic stress disorder sidelined and ignored in favour of robot carnage and the American flag. A violent juxtaposition of lost themes and soulless jingoism.

It would be churlish to call this film “Evil”, it would also fall somewhat short of the mark in describing what a blight upon the world it is. 

Guests:

Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg

[Digital Drift 2014]

Our road trip with the autobots continues. We hit a bumpy road as the writer’s strike of 2007 looms. Fortunately this movie proved that you apparently don’t even NEED writers and that a triple-A blockbuster action movie could be sloppily thrown together without discernible structure or coherence and still rake in more than its predecessor. Just cast your eyes over the image I’ve used for this week’s podcast. Ask yourself “A: What the hell were they thinking? and B: Why did everybody let them get away with it?” And that character and his brother are just two of the issues that slaughter any enjoyment and engagement you might have felt.

This is not a movie for watching, it’s a movie for laying down and avoiding. It’s a terrible experience from beginning to end. Even fans of the original tend to dislike this one. However we’re out to establish WHY it’s so awful.

Joining us for this leg of the journey is Mike Hearn of the webcomic “Walter the Wicked” who kindly put together some special artwork for the show. Neil Taylor of GameBurst also returns for further punishment. 

 Guests:

Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg

Mike Hearn of Walter the Wicked

[Digital Drift 2014]

Every now and again I’m reminded on Twitter or the forum that you guys love this show best when we review something we absolutely love. Our passion for it is palpable and in many cases infectious enough to get people who have yet to see the movie in question to finally take the plunge.

This point usually comes up when I mention that we’re reviewing something awful. In this case Michael Bay’s Transformers movies. 

But there is a silver lining to the critical thunderstorm you’re about to hear. Firstly this initial 2007 movie turned out to be a lot more of a mixed bag than we were expecting. It has some genuinely uplifting and well managed moments as well as one or two dryly delivered performances that suggest character of the kind you’d find in good movies. We’re actually pretty positive for a while. Now granted that iceberg tip of quality is sitting atop a mountain of mishandled garbage and yes of course we delve into that one with a metaphor for the viewing experience that will haunt your cinema visits.

However it’s actually very important that we maul pictures like this every now and again. Without the lows and the shadow the brightness and the highs will never be as intense and purifying. Michael Bay’s Transformers sequels in particular are a parallel for the depressing filth of our lives, a soul-devouring mire consuming us from the ankles up that we need to escape with the wings of the Avengers, the Lego Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy, basically anything with Chris Pratt. 

Without these inexplicably crowd-pleasing doldrums the journey’s end as we come to rest in the warm glow of Transformers Prime has a great deal less meaning. So fill your gas tanks folks, this is going to be one crazy road trip to remember. We promise you by the end you’ll be glad you came along. 

Guests:

Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg

Andy Rodriguez of the Digital Drift community

[Digital Drift 2014]

This kicks off a surprisingly thorough series of podcasts focusing on the Transformers franchise. I actually said I could barely get one show out of this as there was no high point that I really connected with to balance the many lows. However these toys and the animated show and movie were a huge part of my childhood and that gave me more than enough to engage with.

I’m sure there will be many comic, Beast Wars, Animated and Unicron trilogy fans out there who would want me to cover those shows as well but listen for the next few weeks and you’ll see we actually run the gamut on as much Transformer lore as we could muster without going insane.

For this first outing we take a look at the original animated series incarnation of the shape-shifting robots, a movie commissioned to sell a new wave of toys but actually created by a small team of dedicated Transformers fans who really wanted to do something special. Much like the 2007 TMNT movie this one was disregarded by adults for being a cartoon and performed feebly at the box office, while the live action versions which came later drew in massive crowds of dads and kids.

It’s daft and incoherent and when disassembled makes barely a lick of sense but it has a soundtrack that can only be described as rad, and it’s still cherished by many people as it meant something to them, not least because of the death of Optimus Prime, a move that took Peter Cullen’s classically inspiring portrayal of the character 21 years to journey back to permanent fixture. Joining Sharon and I are Neil Taylor of GameBurst and Ryan Astley of Exient games. 

Next week we begin to assess the Bay films and see if they were really all that bad, but this week… Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong! 

Guests:

Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg

Ryan Astley of Exient Games

[Digital Drift 2014]

This is it. Alex’s 400th podcast. And what better way to celebrate a broadcasting career like this than with something lovingly crafted, and beloved by its small but enthusiastic fanbase?

This summer everyone fell in love with Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel. Journey back fifteen years to a very similar performance in a lost film to be found and absolutely treasured. The Iron Giant was one of the final hurrah’s for 2D cell animation at the end of a decade that marked a major renaissance for Disney, on the cusp of a new age of 3D animation.

The mid 1950s and the sleepy town of Rockwell, Maine is visited by an alien behemoth. A titan of iron, innocent and inquisitive, found and befriended by a young boy and the cause of alarm and violent aggression from an America living under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. It’s funny, clever, sweet, beautiful, tragic and ultimately as life-affirming as it gets, so naturally hardly anyone saw it. Warner Bros were in the process of dismantling their animation division and pratfall comedy Inspector Gadget was playing next door with the marketing clout of Disney behind it so there was no contest really. Ironically Warner not being too invested in the sale of this thing to America granted the creative team all manner of freedom to make the film they really wanted to. 

Our team of intrepid explorers fight the red menace of apathy and delve into the Giant’s metal frame to root out every riveting detail, Dan Floyd of Extra Credits, Joshua Garrity of Cane and Rinse and The Animation Archives, Jerome McIntosh of GameBurst and Nama Chibitty of the Digital Drift Community.