The School of Movies Archive

By Alex ShawTV & Film

The School of Movies Archive episodes

January 24, 2016 The Sixth Sense
[School of Movies 2016]
This is the first of two episodes covering the brief period of time when M. Night Shyamalan was suddenly an amazing new director.
Sharon and I go deep into this wonderful, delicate, tense, terrifying, heartbreaking ghost story including some really arresting colour theory.
2 hr 1 min
January 23, 2016 Suicide Squad
[School of Movies 2016]
DC continue their epic campaign of not being able to pull together a cinematic universe that many people enjoy being in.
There has been much said of Suicide Squad already and backlash across the board. If critics are critical they get it in the neck from one crowd, if they praise it they get it in the neck from the other crowd, if they vocalise their view that it's a mixed bag they get a heady cocktail of flak from BOTH crowds.

So here's a mixed bag for you.

This film is empirically botched in the edit. It most definitely has problems of tone, structure and characterisation and has clearly and manifestly been mismanaged by too many executives unsure of exactly what film they wanted.

I'm going to say the people who enjoyed it are capable of overlooking those problems or consider them to be more than made up for by the good stuff.

Bob "Moviebob" Chipman joins myself, Sharon, Brenden Agnew and James Perkins to look at what the hell happened here.
Guests:
Bob Chipman of Geek.com
Brendan Agnew of Cinapse
James Perkins of The Digital Fix
1 hr 59 min
January 22, 2016 Star Trek Beyond
[School of Movies 2016]
We are back to talk about the latest Trek movie, one which is being hailed as the best for many years by some and "Still not good enough" by others.

We start off with the question "Why do people hate J.J. Abrams?" because I think it's worth discussing before we get into the first of the alternate universe movies not directed by him.

After that we look at many aspects of this confidently delivered classic spacefaring adventure, rounding off by ranking the thirteen Trek movies.

Rejoining Sharon and I are Brenden Agnew and Kaoru Negisa, and they are joined by newcomer to the show Eric Jones.
Guests:
Kaoru Negisa of Sequentially Yours
Brendan Agnew of Cinapse
Eric Jones of Waxing Cinematic

1 hr 53 min
January 21, 2016 Star Trek Into Darkness
[School of Movies 2016]
This second foray into New Star Trek is hard to get a balanced view on. Those who liked the 2009 reboot found a movie of similar energy and vibrancy but with more flaws, those who hated the new continuity had more of the same to rage about, especially as it turned out to be a not-so-secret remake of Wrath of Khan. Into Darkness reviewed well with an 86% freshness rating but when people talk about it, usually it's in a negative context.

Alex starts off with a monologue that compares the strengths of both new and old films. This is followed by some lengthy discussion on where they went wrong from everybody else.
Guests:
Kaoru Negisa of Sequentially Yours
Brendan Agnew of Cinapse
Joe Simpson of Anfield Index Movie Night
Aaron LaCluyze of Card Advantage
1 hr 58 min
January 20, 2016 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
[School of Movies 2016]

This show covers the 1982 classic and probably most widely loved of the original six Star Trek movies (maybe the first ten... maybe the first thirteen!) With Leonard Nimoy no longer with us, composer James Horner no longer with us, not to mention DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Ricardo Montablan and who knows who else will follow as 2016 continues its scything away of our heroes, this is a bittersweet experience to watch now.
Guests:
Kaoru Negisa of Sequentially Yours
Brendan Agnew of Cinapse
Joe Simpson of Anfield Index Movie Night
Aaron LaCluyze of Card Advantage
1 hr 22 min
January 19, 2016 Ghostbusters: Answer the Call
[School of Movies 2016]
To get a really good meta conversation going wherein we still managed to focus on the movie for what it was rather than what we wanted it to be we recruited Bob "Moviebob" Chipman.

Maybe the most anticipated follow-up since Star Wars and maybe the least wanted reboot, New Ghostbusters had some enormous boots to fill and an immense amount of people to prove itself to.

Considering one of the possibilities mooted since 1989 and the deflating balloon that was Ghostbusters 2 was Adam Sandler and his wretched cronies squeezing into the overalls to bust ghosts with all the enthusiasm and respect for the source material that they brought to Pixels this movie could have been far, FAR worse!
Guests:
Bob Chipman of Geek.com
1 hr 56 min
January 18, 2016 The Thing
[School of Movies 2016]
John Carpenter's remake of The Thing from Another World, based on the novel Who Goes There was woefully unappreciated on initial release, for reasons we will go into on this show. It has, over the next three decades become a sci-fi pop-culture classic, unblemished by greedy meddling studios desperate to wring every penny from nostalgia. Even the remake/prequel, while slavishly loyal to the aesthetic and tone of this one and not endeavouring to actually be *about* anything isn't all that bad.

Joshua Garrity of Cane and Rinse and Neil Taylor of GameBurst consider it one of their all-time favourites and in this show you'll find out why it's still so effective.

This episode exists thanks to Nick Grugin, one of our patreon sponsors buying us a new mic when ours broke. For that show of generosity and faith in our work we are doing one of our first request shows and if you would like something similar done for something you love then this episode has all the details on how you can sponsor us to do an episode. Our weekly movie podcast will continue to be free for everyone and you can back us on patreon like the other awesome people who support this show, but we're also freelance podcast reviewers now.
Guests:
Neil Taylor of TheKidDogg
Joshua Garrity of Cane and Rinse
1 hr 58 min
January 17, 2016 Independence Day & Resurgence
[School of Movies 2016]
In this episode we talk about the first film from 1996, the sequel from 2016 and the state of Britain post-Brexit.

It's thematically resonant with current events since the angle of the first movie is "We can succeed together" and the angle of the second seems to be "Look at these pretty, young people as they save the day for America."

Be sure to check out Bob Chipman's YouTube episode of Really That Good on the first Independence Day, it is superb.
1 hr 42 min
January 16, 2016 Masters of the Universe (1987)
[School of Movies 2016]
This time around Sharon and I take a look at a movie nobody asked for a review of and that most people are either unaware of or just plain dislike. The 1987 attempt to bring He-Man to the big screen.
Eschewing a land of swords and sorcery blended with crazy technology in favour of running around American suburbs at night dressed like utter plonkers this film was presented with the task of making space barbarian He-Man real and relevant to teenagers in the 80s. It fails, but it fails spectacularly and earnestly which, for us is enjoyable to watch.
So out with the old Masters of the Universe and in with Gwildor, (the exuberant wizard-dwarf), Blade (the guy with the blades), Saurod (the guy who gets killed) and Karg (the over-designed glam metal housecat with a hook for a hand), in with Courtney Cox and in with Kevin! And VERY much in with bored-looking, pleasant-berserker; Dolph Lundgren's He-Man and ranting, gloating, aggressive Frank Langella's Skeletor.
Whether you have fun watching the movie or not you'll probably have fun with us here.
1 hr 23 min
January 15, 2016 Warcraft: The Beginning
[School of Movies 2016]
This is a troubling film for us. My overriding feeling on leaving the theater was not just being pissed off and disappointed, but angry at many of the decisions taken that will leave general audiences cold to this, and unless it does gangbusters overseas will greatly reduce the chances of a sequel that could correct these oversights.
But then again, the Transformers movies are increasingly more vile and poorly received, yet clean up worldwide and continuously break a billion, so you never know for sure.

This is a game series and a concept that is important to a great deal of people. It was more important to show everyone else why they should care as well rather than placate fans of the lore.

Join Sharon and I with Glen Watts as we discuss what went wrong that resulted in a critical mauling. There are still definitely elements we like, but they are bogged down in a lot of stuff we don't, and that people don't respond well to in general.
Guest:
Glen Watts
1 hr 55 min