353 – The Northman

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Writer-director Robert Eggers, who previously wowed us with The Lighthouse, returns in style with a brutal, bloody Viking epic, based on Amleth, the figure in Scandinavian legend that inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It’s the first of his films to see a wide, mainstream release and large-scale ad campaign to match, and it’s perhaps for that reason that it is in some sense less demanding that its audience put the work in to understand and interpret it – although there remains plenty of room for that, and it’s in a different league to the blockbusters with which it’s competing. It’s a film to put down what you’re doing right now and see at the cinema – it’s vicious, atmospheric, and beautifully shot, and you won’t regret seeing it where it’s meant to be seen.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

352 – Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

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Upon revisiting our podcast on the previous entry in the Harry Potter-adjacent Fantastic Beasts series, The Crimes of Grindelwald, we find that we could virtually have copied and pasted its content for our discussion of The Secrets of Dumbledore. It’s again less than the sum of its parts, a fantasy adventure with some charms, several good performances, but incoherent storytelling, and too little that convinces us to get invested in the characters’ lives and the fate of the world they seek to save.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

351 – Morbius

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Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has given us a charming Venom origin story, a rather less charming Venom sequel, and now another film about a well-intentioned man inadvertently possessed by something that demands he feed on humans. In Morbius, Jared Leto’s brilliant scientist finds a cure for the blood disease that has tormented him and his best friend throughout their lives – except that it comes with a side of vampirism.

In short, Morbius is not a success. José describes it as what people who claim to hate Marvel, which has produced some very good films, truly do hate. It’s as blunt, CGI-laden and uninvolving as that kind of criticism implies. Mike tries to be fair to it – the hallway bit isn’t too bad – and we agree that there’s one actor to like in it, although we disagree on which one that is. José accuses the film of failing to appreciate that one thing a star should deliver is physical appeal; Mike accuses José of shallowness.

But as fun as it is to tease José, Morbius is not a fun film to have to sit through in order to get to do that. One to avoid.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

350 – Deep Water

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Director Adrian Lyne, who made the Eighties his erotic, thrilling playground with Flashdance, 9½ Weeks and Fatal Attraction, returns with the erotic thriller Deep Water, his first film in twenty years. Repeatedly delayed and eventually denied a cinema release due to COVID, it’s available on Hulu in the US and Amazon Prime everywhere else, and is easy to recommend – until the last act kicks in.

José contends that Ben Affleck has never been better as the quietly but increasingly jealous husband of a wife who publicly and aggressively displays her unfaithfulness to him – as whom Ana de Armas gives a star-making performance. We discuss their interplay and how it grounds the film, as well as the use of setting and lighting – that dank, grimy shed in which he spends time with his snails, buried within the vision of his perfect mansion, is a wonderfully expressive metaphor for Affleck’s character. We put the film’s mixed reviews down to its abysmal ending, which Mike finds it hard to ignore, but don’t let them put you off enjoying this otherwise fabulously entertaining, extremely watchable thriller.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

349 – The Worst Person in the World

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A Palme d’Or-nominated millennial comic drama from Norway, whose lead, Renate Reinsve, won Best Actress at Cannes last year, The Worst Person in the World explores universal themes of how to find a direction in life, our expectations of our own lives and others’, falling in and out of love, and how to handle the twists that life throws our way. But it speaks to José and Mike differently.

To the older of us, it’s a great film, one that articulates its themes with complexity and develops its characters expressively. To the younger – a millennial, to whom it should speak more directly – it’s a film that’s difficult to connect to, that occupies an emotional register to which he doesn’t relate. We discuss that register, the ways in which the characters behave and respond to one another, the use of chapters to structure the story and narration to tell some of it, and the imagination and life of certain scenes. Many of The Worst Person in the World‘s qualities are obvious, but we don’t agree on its greatness. As they say in Norway, c’est la vie.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

348 – X (2022)

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Referential and reverential of classic slashers from decades past, Ti West’s X is likely just the sort of thing the dedicated horror fan wants to see – but to Mike, it’s a pretty unsophisticated and tedious imitation of much better films, and to José, it’s unpleasant, racist, sexist, and ageist. But on the plus side, no film has made him – a man who is decidedly not delighted by being frightened – jump and yell with the kind of regularity and energy that X inspired, which really livened things up for Mike. Unfortunately for you, José won’t be watching it a second time, and if you can’t drag him along, it’s not worth it.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

347 – Ambulance

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In the high-concept mould of Speed and Unstoppable, Michael Bay’s Ambulance gives us an ambulance, hijacked by bank robbers, that isn’t allowed to stop moving. It’s a real throwback to the era of genuine stunts, cars flipping over on fire, helicopters flying under bridges, and charismatic villains – with much less charm than you’d like, insultingly mechanical use of archetypes to manipulate your feelings, and low expectations of its audience. We discuss how well or badly it balances its actors, tells its story, uses its milieu to offer a portrait of the society in which it’s set, and more.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

346 – The Batman

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The latest in a long line of Batman reboots, The Batman claims the definite article for itself – and deserves to. Richly shot, dark, romantic expressiveness spilling from every frame, The Batman leans in hard on bringing the noir of the source material to the screen with unabashed sincerity. It’s the best Batman film of them all.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

345 – Death on the Nile (2022)

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The latest in a long line of star-studded adaptations of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, Death on the Nile sinks without trace under the weight of Kenneth Branagh’s all-consuming ego. Failing to understand that one of the pleasures of such films is the attention given to the impressive cast, he instead gives his focus entirely to his own performance as Poirot, engaging in mythmaking and heroics at the expense of everybody else. In its limited capacity, the focus on Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express worked for Mike – here, there’s no defending it.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

344 – Uncharted

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Having gone through fourteen years of development hell, the first of Sony’s planned videogame adaptations arrives – Uncharted, starring Tom Holland, turns the famously cinematic action-adventure treasure-hunting puzzle-solving games into surprisingly enjoyable action-adventure treasure-hunting puzzle-solving cinema.

Well, “famously” is relative – Uncharted is an enormously successful blockbuster series with which Mike is familiar, but José didn’t even know there was a series on which the film was based. With the benefit of his experience, Mike discusses how the film adapts five games’ worth of material and the expectations he had, and we consider the characters’ relationships and personal stakes, conceptualisation of the action, the similarities and differences to Indiana Jones, and Antonio Banderas’ villain.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.