Truth & Movies: A Little White Lies Podcast

You may know Little White Lies from our weekly Truth & Movies podcast, but we also make a magazine, and its 80th issue is currently on shelves. Inside, we explore an alternative history of British cinema with a list of 100 mould-breaking movies, and on this special episode, host Michael Leader is joined by special guests Will Fowler, curator at BFI and co-author of new book on the underground British visual culture, The Bodies Beneath, and Rowan Woods, who works for British Council and BFI, to delve into the British cinema, past, present and future. LWLies editor, David Jenkins, is also in the mix, with each panelist bringing two of their favourite British films to the table.

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Young love and break ups are the flavour of the day on this episode of Truth & Movies, as the MCU goes to the EU in Spider-Man: Far From Home and Hereditary writer/director Ari Aster heads to rural Sweden for his solstice-set freakout Midsommar. Michael Leader, David Jenkins and Adam Woodward offer their thoughts on these new releases, while in Film Club we trace the folk horror genre’s origins back to Michael Reeves 1968 masterpiece Witchfinder General.

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It’s Beatles week on Truth & Movies, as Michael Leader samples Danny Boyle’s crowd-pleasing fantasy comedy, Yesterday, with a little help from his friends David Jenkins and Sophie Monks Kaufman. Later in the episode, the podders revisit the Fab Four’s breezy big screen debut from 1964, A Hard Day’s Night. Before that, we enter the bizarre realm of Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, an absurdist ghost story about a killer dress.

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The toys are back in town. On the show this week, Michael Leader, Anton Bitel and Caitlin Quinlan team up to offer their thoughts on two new releases from opposite ends of the genre spectrum. First up is Toy Story 4, which sees Woody, Buzz and co reunite for one last adventure (probably), before the T&M gang turn their attentions to the reboot of the cult 1988 slasher Child’s Play. And in Film Club, the pint-sized serial killer gets another run out in 2004’s Seed of Chucky.

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Joining Michael Leader in the studio this week are Carl Anka and Adam Woodward, two ’90s kids and self-confessed football fanatics who accordingly are well placed to discuss director Asif Kapadia’s latest celebrity exposé, Diego Maradona. Before that we take a look at Men in Black: International, starring Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson as the slick-suited galaxy defenders, and, in Film Club, the original – and still best – Men in Black from 1997.

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Like a mythical bird rising from the ashes, the X-Men return to our screens this week hoping to undo the damage caused by 2016’s Apocalypse – but does Dark Phoenix catch fire or simply fizzle out? Michael Leader, Simran Hans and Kambole Campbell are on hand to help you decide whether it’s worth the trip, while also offering their thoughts on Sebastián Lelio’s muted midlife crisis drama, Gloria Bell, starring Julianne Moore and John Turturro. Lastly, the classic Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets is reappraised ahead of its 70th anniversary re-release in our Film Club.

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After the dizzying highs of the Cannes Film Festival, Truth & Movies comes back down to earth with a thud this week. Michael Leader, Hannah Woodhead and Adam Woodward are on hand to wade through the murky CG waters of Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, a colossal misfire which kicks off the summer blockbuster season with a whimper, before things take a decidedly more enjoyable turn with Olivia Wilde’s triumphant teen comedy Booksmart. There’s no Film Club this week, but we’re back to our regular scheduled programme next.

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Looking beyond the main competition, Michael Leader is joined by special guest Charles McDonald to offer a publicist’s perspective on the ins and outs of the world’s glitziest film festival. In a little over three decades of attending Cannes, Charles has worked with everyone from Jim Jarmusch and Lynne Ramsay to Ken Loach and here reveals how the festival – and the movies themselves – have changed down the years.

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Once upon a time in Cannes... Quentin Tarantino returns to the Croisette with his hotly-anticipated ninth feature, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as an ageing TV star and his stunt double sidekick respectively. We’ve got our own A-list double act in the form of Michael Leader and Adam Woodward to offer their reaction on that, plus Bong Joon-ho’s blistering social parable Parasite, both of which are serious Palme d’Or contenders.

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In our latest dispatch from Cannes, Michael Leader and Hannah Woodhead recap the best of the weekend’s action. Tales of forbidden female desire, crises of faith and nautical purgatory abound in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life and Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse respectively – all major new works which have successively raised the bar at this year’s festival.

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