Eavesdropping at the Movies

By: Jose Arroyo and Michael Glass
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  • Summary

  • "I have this romantic idea of the movies as a conjunction of place, people and experiences, all different for each of us, a context in which individual and separate beings try to commune, where the individual experience overlaps with the communal and where that overlapping is demarcated by how we measure the differing responses between ourselves and the rest of the audience: do they laugh when we don’t (and what does that mean?); are they moved when we feel like laughing (and what does that say about me or the others) etc. The idea behind this podcast is to satiate the urge I sometimes have when I see a movie alone – to eavesdrop on what others say. What do they think? How does their experience compare to mine? Snippets are overhead as one leaves the cinema and are often food for thought. A longer snippet of such an experience is what I hope to provide: it’s two friends chatting immediately after a movie. It’s unrehearsed, meandering, slightly convoluted, certainly enthusiastic, and well informed, if not necessarily on all aspects a particular work gives rise to, certainly in terms of knowledge of cinema in general and considerable experience of watching different types of movies and watching movies in different types of ways. It’s not a review. It’s a conversation." - José Arroyo. "I just like the sound of my own voice." - Michael Glass.
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Episodes
  • 434 - Conclave

    434 - Conclave
    Dec 4 2024
    You wait for ages for a film about a group of people sequestered in a room, questioning each other, keeping secrets, and repeatedly voting, and two come along at once. But while Juror #2's protagonist wrestled with his conscience, Conclave's Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, has little trouble consistently acting out of principle - sadly, many of his colleagues vying for the Catholic Church's vacant papacy don't share his clarity. Conclave is a marvellously entertaining mystery and thriller, a chamber play in which Fiennes' performance is a complex and deeply felt standout amongst a number of engaging, if less rich, star turns from Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini. We discuss whether the film is an advert for the Church, how it engages with religion, the striking visual design, liberalism vs. conservatism, representations of gender and nationality... and that magnificent twist. Spoilers within! Recorded on 1st December 2024.
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    35 mins
  • 433 - Juror #2

    433 - Juror #2
    Dec 2 2024
    A film whose brilliant conceit is so simple and compelling we can't believe we've never seen it before, Juror #2 tells the story of a juror whose responsibility it is to assess the guilt of a defendant who he knows is innocent of murder - because it was the juror who did it. Summoned to serve on a jury and quickly recognising the details of the case, Nicholas Hoult's Justin realises that the deer he hit with his car one dark, stormy night was in fact the defendant's girlfriend, for whose supposed murder he is on trial. So begins a morality play of sorts, Justin wanting to do the right thing and keep an innocent person from prison, but unwilling to expose himself as the real, if accidental, killer. It's a film that sets two institutions, the family and the court, at war. Justin's wife has a baby on the way, and is there any wrong that can't be justified by the protection of the family? We discuss this in the particular light of director Clint Eastwood's reputation as a lifelong conservative, Mike suggesting that the distrust the film shows towards the legal system, a government institution, has precedent in Eastwood's other work, but its critique of the sanctity of the family is surprising and invigorating. Juror #2 is a thoroughly engrossing exploration of a terrific idea, and you'll take its questions home with you long after it ends. What would you do? Are you sure? Recorded on 18th November 2024.
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    32 mins
  • 432 - Heretic

    432 - Heretic
    Nov 28 2024
    Hugh Grant brings his idiosyncratic brand of English charm to the world of horror in Heretic, in which he isolates and tests the faith of two young Mormon missionaries. It's a film that leaves you asking all sorts of questions, such as, "did anything he was up to actually make any sense?", but for a horror film so heavy on the dialogue and relatively light on the scares, it's fabulously enertaining throughout - a real achievement of direction and writing. See it! Recorded on 17th November 2024.
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    36 mins

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