One Sensational Shot

Is Anakin the Chosen One? - Local Trouble Star Wars Podcast

We launch a new format for Local Trouble, our Star Wars podcast. We'll be tackling a different topic each episode. We start by looking at the origins of the Chosen One in the prequel scripts and what the new generation of filmmakers seems to be doing with it in the Disney era. Is George Lucas's six film narrative cycle dead and buried? 

Let us know what you think – get in touch on Twitter, Facebook, and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes.

Oscars So Trite (Except the Good Bits) - The Evening Glass Podcast

You probably stayed up all night long watching the highs and lows of 2019's Academy Awards. But even if you did that already, you probably have some opinions on it, right? 

Perhaps you think the winner of Best Picture didn't deserve it. Perhaps you're wondering why only the media seem to even care about it anymore. Perhaps you're wondering why YOU even care about it anymore.

Or maybe you just think it's time to take it out to the nearby field and shoot it in the head.

Whatever your opinion of the Oscars, we have similar things to say about it in our rant. I mean, podcast. 

Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, leave us a review on iTunes, follow us on Spotify, and check us out on Instagram and eBay.

Preview of the Year 2019 - The Evening Glass Podcast

When VHS was king, we weren't so proud or so wealthy or so cognisant of copyright law that we wouldn't take the opportunity to dub the rental the night before it went back to the library. Even the most sophisticated cineaste requires multiple viewings to properly parse the subtleties of the text at hand, and paying cash money to rent Mannequin Two: On the Move more than once was sufficient grounds to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act (1983). With that in mind, since comedy's Aidan McCaffery was already at O.S.S Ealing to offer his reflections on 2018, of course we held him back another hour to find out what he's looking forward to in 2019. Our business manager calls it "maximising return on investment". Aidan's legal counsel calls it "false imprisonment". While the courts take time to decide, here's what to watch at the cinema in 2019.

Review of the Year 2018 - The Evening Glass Podcast

We preface a new season of The Evening Glass by looking back at a 12 months so impressive it took 13 just to catch up - the kinda year where it's only when you're sat post-Chrimbo adding Cold War, Hostiles, Firsts Man and Reformed, M:I:6, Spider-Verse and Leave No Trace to a top 10 of increasing numerical inaccuracy that you remember, hold on, Three Billboards and Phantom Thread were in 2018, too!

Fletcher's joined once again by comedy's Aidan McCaffery to take us through this rare vintage and its subsequent Academy Award nominations. It's easy to hold the Oscars at arm's length - and we probably do - but, in fairness, an institution which has overlooked male American directors in nine of the last ten ceremonies, but which has also honoured David Lynch literally a third of the time, can't be all bad. Plus, this time Spike'll be there!

Groundhog Day – The Electronic Labyrinth Podcast

Ramis and Murray complete their magnum opus...and them promptly fall out for the rest of their lives. We consider what makes Groundhog Day so special, for better and worse.

Let us know what you think. You can get in touch on Facebook, Twitter and please do leave us a review on iTunes. We’re also available to follow on Spotify now, if that’s your thing.

Revisiting an 80s and 90s TV Christmas - The Evening Glass Podcast

Has the office Christmas party left you hungover and even more jaded that you'll never get that promotion because NOW your boss has seen you dance the macarena with a half-rolled cigarette and fully vomit stained H&M shirt?

Then allow yourself to nussle into the sweet bosom nostalgia, which is always calling like a siren's song.

We all know the 80s and 90s were better as kids. No Christmas debt. No responsibilities. And a wealth of terrestrial Christmas movie premiers to look forward to.

Films that were released theatrically almost a decade ago (E.T.) and films that you discovered for the first time and immediately imprinted with, for no reason other than it was on tele on Christmas Eve and you could STAY UP for it (Cliffhanger).

We go back in time, a cruise the TV Guide to see what we were all watching, and what we had the VCR set for. A big thanks to the people at http://ukchristmastv.weebly.com/ for their exhaustive historical listings, and to all the wonderful human beings who recorded films and Christmas, and then uploaded the announcers and ads to YouTube. You are heroes.

Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, leave us a review on iTunes, follow us on Spotify, and check us out on Instagram and eBay.

Happy Holidays. 

Some Kid Looking For His Mom: Twenty Years of Boogie Nights - The Electronic Labyrinth Podcast

In the 20th year since its UK release, Fletcher is joined by comedian and Paul Thomas Anderson fan Aidan McCaffery to discuss perhaps the best Hollywood film of the '90s, Boogie Nights.

Twenty minutes after turning off the mic, word reached us that Kurt Longjohn himself, the greatest sleight of hand magician in the world, Ricky Jay, had passed away aged 72. In my two decades as a cineaste, Jay's been an ever-present - first, at home, with stacks of tapes, watching and rewatching him in back-to-back pictures with Paul Thomas Anderson and, as part of David Mamet's repertory, turns in Homicide, Heist, House of Games. Soon, out at the flicks, Mystery Men and, of all things, Heartbreakers. Later, there was Gus van Sant's Last Days and, of course, a cameo in the best film Kit Nolan's ever made, The Prestige. Jay even has an episode of The X-Files devoted to him.

Enjoy the issue, and let's raise a glass to Ricky and a life well-lived.

The Predator or: John McTiernan's Fortune and Shane Black's Folly - The Electronic Labyrinth Podcast

With levels of anticipation we haven't felt since some other soft reboot we were also looking forward to, Shane Black's The Predator has arrived, and gone. 

We catch up on what you get for $123.3 million these days, allowing for inflation and on-going negative productivity growth worldwide. We're still not quite sure. 

So naturally, we also look back to John McTiernan's 1980s commando-cum-science-fiction-cum-slasher-cum-horror-cum-muscle movie, Predator.  

John McTiernan, we miss you. 

BlacKkKlansman and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes - The Evening Glass Podcast

'By Any Means Necessary', we emerge from the cinema to talk about Spike Lee's latest Joint, which offers a chilling, if not darkly amusing look into white supremacy during the 70s. Or, you know, any time.

In any case, Topher Grace also has a good role in it, so we've used the opportunity to launch 'TSS Watch' - a feature that allows us to keep up with the cast of one of our favourite prime time sitcoms from the 2000s.

Luke continues his DVD A-Z with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. A spoof/parody movie which predates Airplane! by two years and still gets an awful lot right. (Side note, you can hear us talk about the Zucker's classic parody pic right here).

Let us know what you think. You can get in touch on Facebook, Twitter and please do leave us a review on iTunes. We’re also available to follow on Spotify now, if that’s your thing.

Missions Impossible! - The Electronic Labyrinth Podcast

A sixth Mission: Impossible provides the only opportunity needed to inaugurate Moviebrat maestro Brian De Palma into the Electronic Labyrinth as Luke and Fletcher discuss the entire franchise, from its beginnings in the big budget boom of '90s television adaptations to a latest instalment which enthralls and infuriates equally. In a bumper issue, there's time also to discuss that other hardy spy perennial (yes, you guessed it, Johnny English), and the state of blockbuster franchises in general. At almost two hours, we'd wondered whether to artificially Kill Bill this sucker into a two-parter after the fact, but when we heard Empire magazine was devoting two three-hour podcasts to Chris McQuarrie alone, we thought, screw it. Enjoy!