The Unbreakable Movie Chain

Hello and welcome to this first Off The Chain episode of The Unbreakable Movie Chain. This time out we chat Denis Villeneuve’s epic Dune 2, Alex Garland’s horrifying Civil War and Dev Patel’s kick-ass directorial debut Monkey Man.

Also, there’ve been two scary nun movies (one good, one bad) and two lesbians-on-the-road crime movies (one good, one bad) for us to delve into!

But wait,...

Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Mila Jovovic? That’s right, Ed’s showing his age by banging on about Captain Planet again as we try to make sense of Luc Besson’s whacky sci-fi adventure The Fifth Element. Featuring the human torso, classic farce and Chris Tucker being far, far too much.

Also

• Treasure hunting in CEX
• Sick day films
• Hate-watching Eli Roth movies

“It’s not nourishing,...

Get ready for a twist! This week we’re covering our first M. Night Shyamalan movie:  2000’s real-world superhero flick, Unbreakable. All seems to be going well until Ed starts picking at the threads. Featuring shattered bones, shoddy parenting and vaguely-defined superpowers!

“None of it makes a drop of sense.” - Ed

“M. Night Shyamalan has got a gift when it comes to...

Brum brum brum. Fasten your seat belts, we’re off drag-racing around Southern California with one of the stupidest movies we’ve ever had the pleasure to absolutely rinse over a couple of pints. That’s right, it’s the The Fast and The Furious. Featuring: Cars, babes, and other things fourteen year old boys like to stare at.

“Vin Diesel is this juvenile petrolhead Fagin with all these...

Take the phone off the hook and the plastic off the couch! This week we’re opening up our cosy, black and white existence to the seductive danger of colour. That’s right, we’re covering one of Ed’s all time favourites… Pleasantville. Featuring: the warm greeting, proper nutrition and, of course, safe sex.

Also:

• Poor Things
• The joys of the National Trust
• Did Gould’s Mum enjoy Sal...

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

I don’t think we’re in our cupboards anymore! This week, we’re strapping on our ruby slippers and hitting the yellow brick road to find out if there really is no place like home. That’s right, it’s time for a certified classic… we’re watching The Wizard of Oz! Featuring apple fights, homesickness, and “I want” songs!

A w...

“If you dream, dream big”. This week we’re taking one last look at the studio system, this time it’s Vincente Minnelli’s multiple Oscar-winner The Bad and the Beautiful, from 1952 – a tale of Hollywood ambition and betrayal starring Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner. Featuring eavesdropped phone calls, drunken starlets and OSCARS!!

Also:

Festive comfort watches

Ho ho ho! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Now that the festivities are out of the way, it’s time to pull the Movie Chain crystal ball out of the attic, and gaze upon the wonders that 2024 promises to inflict upon the movie-going public. Turns out there’s a lot to get excited for, including new offerings from Bong Joon-Ho, Jonathan Glazer and Yorgos Lanthimos.

But first we have to cut a pa...

Checking in? This episode we're feeling the heat and peeling back the wallpaper to take a look at the Coen Brothers' early masterpiece, Barton Fink. What's in the box? It may look like a long one, but the last 15 minutes of this ep are dedicated to a spoilery Saltburn stand-off.

Also:

Napoleon, The Peasants and some tough truths about 2001: A Space Odyssey.

"The Common Man is a choir of Fishmongers" - Gould

"That's what his job...

"Howdy!" We’ve cleaned off the Alabama mud from our last time out, and we’re heading to the bright lights of The City of Angels to take in David Lynch’s fevered Hollywood nightmare, Mulholland Drive. Armed with Lynch’s own clues/red herrings. Informed by the wild theories of internet obsessives. We do our very best to get to the bottom of this enigmatic puzzle box of a movie… one that placed 8th on the BFI’s greates...

Welcome to Alabama, land of guns, grits and the electric chair. Don’t accidentally confess to any murders while you’re here, or it’s death row for you... and if you don’t have a fast-talking New York lawyer for a cousin, you’re a goner. That’s the predicament we find ourselves in this week as we take a look at cult 90s courtroom comedy My Cousin Vinny. Featuring mud, inappropriate courtroom attire and Ba...

Sometimes dead is better. For this week’s episode we’re continuing our dalliance with the undead as we peak from behind our hands (at least, the more squeamish of us did) at the 1989 version of Stephen King’s most horrifying novel… Pet Sematary. Featuring terrible parenting, inevitable roadkill and the most adorable zombie in cinema history.

Also

• Killers of the Flower Moon
• The joys of film festiv...

What’s your favourite movie monster? This week we’re shamelessly jumping on the Halloween bandwagon to bring you a special bonus episode… counting down our all time favourite movie monsters. Will we agree on what constitutes a monster? Gould can barely agree with herself!

Also

• Which actor pops up no fewer than three times during this discussion?
• Gould has a bet with herself.
• C...

It’s alive!! This week we’re getting down and dirty with the resurrection men to retrieve bodies for reanimation, then sitting back to watch the horror unfold in James Whale’s 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein. We all know that Frankenstein’s the doctor and his creation’s the creature, right? But which one’s the monster? We try to untangle this conundrum while examining the film as an early example of queer cinema, be...

What did you watch this summer? We’ve been on our holidays and we came back with so much to talk about that we decided to put our highlights (and lowlights) in a special bonus episode. Kicking off with a long overdue discussion of the summer’s biggest hits, Barbie and Oppenheimer, we then take a whistlestop tour of the best, the worst, and the weirdest films we watched over the summer. Featuring subway breakdowns, c...

Hold onto your butts! This week we’re off on prehistoric safari through Jurassic Park – featuring Laura Dern’s lopsided running, Samuel L Jackson’s severed arm and Jeff Goldblum’s bare chest. Will we be consumed by our nostalgia for childhood dino-thrills? Only one way to find out!

Also

• Giving up on bad movies
• Gould’s controversial thoughts on Scorsese
• Past Lives and Scrapper

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