Time Babble

This week we’re babbling about The Butterfly Effect (2004) starring Ashton Kutcher as a very, very troubled individual, with more suppressed trauma than you can shake a large stick at, but who unlocks the ultimate party trick: time travel via wibbly-wobbly journal reading.

Instead of using this power to, say, invest wisely in the stock market or prevent global disasters, Evan decides to fix his own messy past, one ridiculously awk...

Hey Babbler!

This week we are babbling about River (2023), directed by Junta Yamaguchi, known for his earlier cult hit Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020). This film once again showcases his knack for turning high-concept sci-fi into intimate, character-driven storytelling.

We clearly love this film, so you may well (you will) hear us gush with praise, as we reluctantly take it all apart and put it back together again. Like a be...

Hello dear Babbler and welcome to our next (or previous?) episode. 

This is also, rather excitingly, the first episode recorded live and completely uncut. Gasp! at our grammatical heresies. Swoon! over our incoherently repetitive and rambling digressions. Thrill! at the moment one of us needs to take a ‘Time Babble comfort break’.

This week we bring you Je t’aime, je t’aime (1968) directed by Alain Resnais. Our film is all about Cl...

Welcome, dear Babbler, to Series Five!

We’ve been away on extended leave (although much less than 100 years - we’re looking at you Blunden), but we start this series with a genuine classic in the shape of The Amazing Mr Blunden. 

We’re babbling about the original 1972 version directed by Lionel Jeffries, where everyone politely agrees to solve a murder mystery with Victorian manners. It’s a charmingly spooky British film where ghos...

This week we’re babbling about the cinematic masterpiece The Lakehouse (2006) starring Speed lovers Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.

Our film charts the almost-nearly-romance of a sincere, but deathly dull couple separated by time. Well, separated by two years in actuality. Not that long in the grand scheme of things, you’d think? And if it really was love, we’re sure the most romantic thing to do would be to wait a bit. But do the...

This week we are babbling about a film that needs no introduction.

Which, in a way, is an introduction in itself. But what of it? What do you want from us? Consistency? Clarity? If so, maybe this isn’t the podcast for you… Or is it?

Anyway, rambling philosophical questions aside, The Terminator was created (stolen?) in 1984 by a pre-Smurf obsessed little Jimmy Cameron, and features buns of all kinds: Mr Big Buns (obvs), and the two...

Episode latest the to welcome and hello.

This week we’re babbling about the extraordinary Happy End (1967), a deliriously wonderful film, directed by Oldřich Lipský. It’s a delight from end to beginning, as we explore one man's journey from death/birth to birth/death.

Mostly dismissed as a throwaway piece of lightweight fluff on release, the film now stands shoulder to shoulder with its more arty brothers and sisters as an equally ...

This week we’re babbling about I’ll Never Forget You (1951).

The film is a curious mix of sci-fi, noir and costume drama and was directed by Roy Ward Baker of Hammer and Amicus fame. It stars TYRONE POWER (possibly the best name on planet earth) as a man out of time, forever longing to go back and hang out with his ancestors during the ‘Age of Reason’.

And so with a flash of lightning, back to a glorious technicolour 18th Century w...

This week we’re babbling about Terror at London Bridge (1985). The film is also known by the ever so slightly better title of Bridge Across Time and was originally a TV movie directed by the unfeasibly named Egbert Warnderink Swackhamer Jr!

The film stars the legend that is David ‘The Hoff’ Hasslehoff as a troubled cop, trying to forget a traumatic incident from his past. Specifically, a rogue incident with a can opener and a tin o...

Welcome one & all, to Time Babble Series Four!

To kick start this new series we invite you to join us in our attempt to change the course of world history. And when ‘we’ say ‘us’ we mean the protagonists of our ’their’ film…

This week we are babbling about LOLA (2022), which was made when the world was still in lockdown, and the great plague was rife.

The film was directed by Andrew Legge, and stars Emma Appleton alongside Stef...

Hey groovy cats! Strap on your time belts and join us for the final episode of Series Three. Do we have a treat for you! 

Well, when we say treat, we really mean: here is a film that no one can quite remember. And that film is Dimension 5 (1966), ‘directed’ by Frank Adreon and starring ‘old blue eyes’ himself, Jeffrey Hunter. The film was part of a series of made-for-television features, although some of them did sneak into cinemas...

This week we have a special bonus episode for all you Babblers, as we venture nervously out into what is regularly described as the ‘real world’, for a live time travel theatre experience at the Leeds Playhouse. The Time Machine (2023) is a three person play, created by the Original Theatre company, starring George Kemp as George, Amy Revelle as Amy, and Michael Dylan as Michael. Clever stuff.

ENJOY the palpable sense of FEAR of yo...

Clasp/cuddle lovingly your existential fear and dread tightly to your chest, and join us, as we explore one of the greatest films ever made: Wild Strawberries (1957), written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The film stars many of Bergman regulars; Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Ingrid Thulin, a small yet memorable cameo from Ming von Sydow, and Clive Dunn.

The film follows Isak Borg (masterfully played by Victor Sjöström) over...

Yo Cyberpunks! Have we got a chaotic treat for you! Prepare to be dragged screaming into The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo (1987), an acid lucid dream of a film from legendary filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto. 

This was one of Tsukamoto’s very first films and was originally created as a theatre piece. We have no idea how this would have been possible, and can only dream that a time machine would transport us back to see the theatre production...

Happy Easter nerds!

This week we’ve gone into EASTER OVERLOAD with the psychedelic stop-motion classic Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971).

This TV special was created by the ‘almost definitely not’ drug-crazed minds of Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin. Between them they are responsible for literally millions of seasonal classics, including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and Frosty the Snowman (1969).

It’s a fun-filled hour of eg...

Bonjour..!

This week we are babbling about Camille Redouble (2012), written and directed by Noémie Lvovsky, who also stars in the lead role. The film is a loose remake of Peggy Sue Got Married and makes a perfect double bill with last week’s episode. It takes the basic premise of Peggy, but moves the now into the 2000s and the then into the 1980s.

It’s a beautiful, more thoughtful version of the story and Noémie turns in an astonis...

This week we’re babbling about nostalgia-fest Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Kathleen Turner as Peggy Sue, in a dazzling lead performance. It also features another couple of Coppolas: the overacting, nasally-challenged-Nosferatu himself, Nicolas Cage, as Peggy’s childhood sweetheart and soon to be divorced husband, alongside future award-winning director Sofia Coppola, as Peggy’s little s...

Get ready to board the next flight to whenever!

This week we’re babbling about the Czech time travel classic Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea / Zítra vstanu a opařím se čajem (1977) directed by Yindřizich Polák.

The film is a lighthearted comedy with quite heavy overtones and tackles that age-old problem of a group of those pesky futuristic Nazis, who want to travel back in time to help Hitler win the Second World Wa...

Ding! Ding! All aboard! 

Next stop, the Time Babble Christmas Special!

This week we’re babbling about Last Train to Christmas (2021), starring Michael Sheen, playing twelve versions of Tony, a troubled nightclub impresario, Cary Elwes as his bottoms popped off, not-alcoholic not-brother, together with a host of other characters that may, or may not exist.

On the last Christmas Eve train from London to Nottingham, Tommy/Tony jumps f...