Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 41 - Autumn/Winter 2013 Preview

With a fairly moribund summer fading into the rearview mirror, now is the perfect time to look ahead to the films coming out over the next three months. Taking a scattershot approach to the Autumn schedule, by which I mean talking about the films we're actually a little bit interested in, Joe Gastineau and I take in potential blockbusters, Oscar hopefuls and ribald comedies, while pondering whether or not Orson Scott Card is engaged in a Producers-style scam involving the Ender's Game adaptation, and accidentally pitch the scariest film ever made.

As always, you can stream the podcast using the link below, or preferably (from our point of view) you can subscribe using iTunes. If you choose the later, please rate it and leave a review because it helps us to get more listeners, and also gives us something to obsess over. Speaking of which, you can also Like us on Facebook, assuming that you do.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 40 - The Wire

This week on Shot/Reverse Shot, Joe and I tackle a subject close to our hearts: HBO's epic examination of the drug trade in Baltimore/keen dissection of the corruption of American institutions The Wire. Over the course of a long, free-flowing conversation, we try to get to grips with what makes the show such a brilliant example of what television can do, why it is so atypical for series in the first place, and offer our thoughts on why it is considered to be one of the, if not the very greatest television shows ever made. We also talk about the show in some considerable detail, so beware of spoilers.

This episode was actually recorded last summer but kept getting delayed to a frankly ludicrous degree,. It's basically our The Day the Clown Cried, but more about the decline of the American city and less about clown-enabled genocide. Please bear that in mind if we make any comments which seem weirdly anachronistic in the more enlightened future of 2013. (It also has the now-abandoned Top Ten feature at the end, so is a touch longer than the episodes we usually do now.)



As always, you can stream the podcast using the link above, or preferably (from our point of view) you can subscribe using iTunes.   If you choose the latter, please rate it and leave a review because it   helps us to get more listeners, and also gives us something else to  obsess  over. Speaking of which, you can also Like us on Facebook, assuming that you do.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 39 - Top Ten Season Finales

To commemorate the imminent and no doubt violent end of Breaking Bad, a show which we have discussed at some length in the past on Shot/Reverse Shot (and which we will talk about even more in a special episode that will air after the series ends), we've decided to look back at our favourite Season Finales and presented them in a nice, neat Top Ten list. It's a whistlestop tour through gritty crime dramas, British sitcoms and comedy masterpieces, but it's also littered with spoilers. Tread lightly.

As always, you can stream the podcast using the link below, or preferably (from our point of view) you can subscribe using iTunes. If you choose the later, please rate it and leave a review because it helps us to get more listeners, and also gives us something to obsess over. Speaking of which, you can also Like us on Facebook, assuming that you do.

Film Review: Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013)

It was only an act of legal chicanery that changed the rather innocuous name of The Butler to its more ungainly official title Lee Daniels' The Butler (though it's still relatively svelte compared to his earlier film, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, a title which is still being used as a punchline four years later) but it resulted in one great irony: despite putting his name in the title, The Butler barely feels like a Lee Daniels film at all. That's not to say that it completely lacks his stamp. Many of his past collaborators show up in roles both big (Lenny Kravitz, Cuba Gooding, Jr., John Cusack) and small (Mariah Carey), and it maintains the odd mixture ribald humour and melodrama that has characterised his previous work - a balance best illustrated by a scene in which Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) and his wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) receive tragic news whilst kitted out in ridiculous disco attire. Yet it largely lacks the irreverent, bizarre fizz that has made him such a divisive and fascinating filmmaker.

Film Review: Blue Jasmine (2013)

During his creative peak in the 1980s, one of Woody Allen's greatest strengths was his ability to write complex and captivating female characters. It helped that most of them were played by the incomparable Mia Farrow, and their creative partnership produced some of the best work either has ever done; he wrote great characters and she brought them to sparkling life. After their relationship ended in 1992, Allen still seemed capable of writing great roles for actresses, but they became less varied, falling into a handful of archetypes that could be enlivened by great performances - such as a never better Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite - but they were also flatter and less alive than many of his best. His latest, Blue Jasmine, marks a startling reversal of the trend, offering one of his most complicated characters and one of the best performances of Cate Blanchett's career.

Film Review: After Tiller (2013)

Forty years after Roe v. Wade, the abortion debate continues to rage throughout America, with fierce and angry rhetoric coming from both sides. Depending on where you stand on a woman's right to choose, the media and politicians all but force you to view the other side as either religious nutjobs or psychotic baby murderers, while the other side are compelled to view you in the same terms. It's an atmosphere that limits genuine discussion while promoting acts of extremism such as the murder of George Tiller, one of only a handful of doctors qualified to carry out late-term abortions in the United States. While Tiller is not the subject of Martha Shane and Lana Wilson's After Tiller - the clue is in the title - his death and the political and social landscape that made it possible form the backdrop to a film about the four remaining doctors legally allowed to carry out abortions in the third trimester, as well as the people they treat.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 38 - Adulthood

Following a summer hiatus necessitated by Joe going off and getting hitched, Shot/Reverse Shot returns with a vengeance this week with one of our leanest, most focused episodes to date. Continuing our journey through the Ages of Man, one begun in Childhood and which then struggled through the awkwardness of Adolescence, we now turn our attention to Adulthood. Along the way we tackle the post-collegiate funk, crises both quarter- and mid-life, and the class consciousness of Adam Sandler's work. It's an episode as varied as Adulthood itself, and a surprising solid one considering we haven't done this for quite some time.

As always, you can stream the podcast using the link below, or preferably (from our point of view) you can subscribe using iTunes. If you choose the later, please rate it and leave a review because it helps us to get more listeners, and also gives us something to obsess over. Speaking of which, you can also Like us on Facebook, assuming that you do.