The School of Movies Archive

By Alex ShawTV & Film

The School of Movies Archive episodes

February 03, 2016 Congo
[School of Movies 2016]
In 1993 Steven Spielberg directed the movie Jurassic Park, adapted from the book by Michael Crichton.
It was a wildly successful family blockbuster.
Immediately all studios began a mad dash to replicate that formula.
Paramount believed they had cracked it with this film in 1995, written by Crichton in 1980, featuring a cast of genuinely talented actors and seemingly going for an Indiana Jones-discovers-King-Solomon's-Mines-with-rabid apes vibe. However, the results, as you will hear, fell so short of Jurassic Park that Congo is barely in the same medium. Less a movie and more a confused 110 minute commercial advertising a product you can't work out but probably has something to do with diamonds or laser guns.
This episodes was commissioned by Maureen Foley (who guests) and Nick, and features Neil Taylor and Brenden Agnew.
Guests:
Brendan Agnew of Cinapse
Maureen Foley of New Century
Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg

2 hr 13 min
February 02, 2016 We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story
[School of Movies 2016]
On this sad, grim, dark week... here's a stupid movie about cartoon dinosaurs that get smart eating magic cereal!
Obviously we'll get political and angry later on, but right now I think what everyone needs most of all is to laugh together, so here you go.
This animated movie was released on Thanksgiving 1993, produced by Steven Spielberg, surfing the dinosaur craze of his own Jurassic Park, but actually put into production several years before and mismanaged the whole way. It's a higgledy-piggledy mess of half-thought-out ideas and pandering to kids that the meddling executives clearly see as adorable little morons.
It's John Goodman's first voice role, it's confusing and cringe-worthy, sickeningly sweet and occasionally alarmingly horrific for no good reason. It has a song that will stick in your head and not a shred of logic in any of its 72 minute run-time. And this is one of the funniest shows we've done, so kick back, forget about how awful 2016 has been for a little while and let us take you back to a simpler time, 1993.
Guests:
Harrison Brockwell of Talk Film Society
Brendan Agnew of Cinapse
2 hr 21 min
February 01, 2016 The Purge + Anarchy + Election Year
[School of Movies 2016]
This is our show about the initial three Purge movies (I can assure you of more to come).

The premise is pretty simple. In an alternate timeline America has ruled that on one night of the year every crime (including murder) is legal. Over time this has done wonders for their economy and is celebrated by the overtly patriotic, the rich and the insanely bloodthirsty, but proves an annually terrifying span of hours for the poor, the homeless and the vulnerable. This premise raises many practical questions which we ask throughout the show.

We cover, in turn, the home invasion thriller The Purge (2013) and its sequel, dark, urban chaos sci-fi, The Purge: Anarchy (2014), followed by nail-biting political thriller, The Purge: Election Year (2016).

We are of course releasing this in a time of great unrest for America (and the watching world). We figured rather than placating you with pink, fluffy distractions we'd cover some fairly savage dystopian satire.

2 hr 25 min
January 31, 2016 The Halloween Series
[School of Movies 2016]
This is a deep dive into the 1978 classic, that became the model for the slasher sub-genre. It's also a scorching critique of the kind of BAD slasher that came about afterwards when lesser directors than John Carpenter misinterpreted what made this film so effective, such as 1981s Halloween II.
It's also a damning of the repulsive 2007 remake by Rob Zombie, a tonally confused mess of the most horrible things imaginable stirred into an inhuman slop.

And we finish talking about Jamie Lee Curtis' character Laurie Strode and how the unappreciated seventh film, Halloween H20 presents an excellent evolution and conclusion of Strode's story.

We are joined by Kaoru Negisa, Debbie Morse and Brendan Agnew for this Carpenter hat-trick for 2016. Check out our shows on The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China too.
Guests:
Kaoru Negisa of Sequentially Yours
Debbie Morse of Sequentially Yours
Brendan Agnew of Cinapse
2 hr 19 min
January 30, 2016 The Blair Witch Series
[School of Movies 2016]

The Spooktacular continues as we look at three different ways of telling effectively the same story.
1999. The Blair Witch Project: An incredibly low budget found footage movie that took the world by storm.
2000. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2: A cash-grab meta-movie slapped together by a confused studio hoping to capitalise on unexpected success.

2016. Blair Witch: An in-world sequel to the original released to immense derision to an audience sick of remakes and reboots.

Sharon and I go in hard and tackle each film in turn. You get the raw responses from the first two as we watch and then account for their craftsmanship and how they make us feel. The third I saw at the cinema a few days before this review and Sharon hadn't heard anything about it so you get to hear about it fresh along with her. Major spoilers for all three in turn so leave off when you don't want to hear what happens.

We both recommend you see the original, we can't advise seeing the second, as we both found it atrocious, and Alex actually really recommends the third, but with the caveat that most critics panned it so his is the minority experience.
1 hr 44 min
January 29, 2016 The Rocky Horror Picture Show
[School of Movies 2016]
This is the 1975 adaptation of the stage musical written by and co-starring Richard O'Brien. In it, a straight-laced, white-bread American couple end up stuck in a Gothic castle full of strange people, presided over by the outrageous Doctor Frank N. Furter. It's a hilarious, toe-tapping musical which has developed a cult following over the years and means a great deal to a lot of people. It's also a bit of a mess and reviewed terribly when it first came out and bombed. In this episode you'll almost certainly find out new things about this influential oddball.

This is a birthday present for our dear friend Maureen Foley who has a serious crush on Tim Curry, especially in stockings.
Guests:
Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg
Kaoru Negisa of Sequentially Yours
Ian Hopwood of A Year of Steam
Megan Hopwood
2 hr 26 min
January 28, 2016 Kubo and the Two Strings
[School of Movies 2016]

This is one of the films of the year. A Japanese fable delivered in stunning stop-motion by American studio LAIKA, the team behind Coraline, ParaNorman and Boxtrolls.
Every single one of you needs to see it.

Joining us are animation experts Joshua Garrity of Cane and Rinse and Jerome McIntosh of GameBurst. Among other things we discuss the climate for animated films and what it takes to make a hit, which this, tragically, despite its beautiful direction, tight, well-delivered script, vibrant, fun characters and playful yet heartrending score, is not.

Guests:
Joshua Garrity of Cane and Rinse
Jerome McIntosh of GameBurst
2 hr 22 min
January 27, 2016 Big Trouble in Little China
[School of Movies 2016]
The second of our commissioned shows, this time we delve into John Carpenter's underappreciated (and downright ignored on release) mythical, gangland, kung-fu adventure Big Trouble in Little China.
Kurt Russel (clearly having the time of his life) stars as the obnoxiously macho Jack Burton, self-styled cowboy hero who gets caught up in a kidnapping involving an ancient sorcerer, warring gangs and elemental magic he couldn't possibly understand.
We explore the cultural implications of this being made in 1986 and the mooted remake starring The Rock.
Guests:
Neil Taylor of TheKiddDogg
Brendan Agnew of Cinapse
Kaoru Negisa of Sequentially Yours
1 hr 53 min
January 26, 2016 Zardoz
[School of Movies 2016]
This is an unexpected episode covering an absolutely batshit mental experimental film from 1974 directed by John Boorman.
It's set in a dystopian future with the standard class divides and extreme violence, but with so many ridiculous decisions in design and direction delivered in an extremely po-faced, allegedly satirical fashion.

Sean Connery is a mean enforcer who was supposed to spend his life running down unruly farmers and molesting the womenfolk, but he goes on a journey to find out who the mysterious Zardoz is. There's a floating stone head, there's boner-fixation, there's people in plastic bags, people with drawn-on moustaches, green bread, psychic powers, and speaking gibberish. Sean Connery wears the pictured costume of gunbelt lingerie with hairy nonchalance and at one point for no reason at all squeezes into a bridal gown.

It's a film to watch whilst slightly drunk with friends but not heavily stoned on your own.

But first listen to our take on it so you know what to look out for and crucially what the hell is going on!
1 hr 7 min
January 25, 2016 Unbreakable
[School of Movies 2016]
We continue our Shyamalan season with his follow-up to The Sixth Sense, a story about a security guard who realises he's been Super his whole life.
Since this came about in 2000 it was ahead of the age of the superhero and arguably made some in-roads to legitimising the new wave of comic book to screen adaptations.

Samuel L. Jackson joins Bruce Willis to deliver an everyday hero and a delicate man looking for their places in the world.

This was the first commissioned work we have done, as we were originally only going to cover The Sixth Sense but patreon supporter Nick Grugin rates this as a favourite of his, so you have him to thank for what we came up with.
1 hr 32 min