Movie Banter

Avatar Yourself A Merry Little Christmas! An epic Christmas special, featuring our very own Nativity acted out for you, dear listener, praise for Avatar, aka, Dances With Smurfs (or is it 'Smurves'?), plus a mammoth discussion of the best Christmas films of all time as voted for by you, the podcastees, and latest reviews of recent releases Nativity! and A Christmas Carol. All that, plus a festive special of the quiz In This Week In Movie History. And Christmas greetings from us all!

A bumper episode - we cover New Moon (terrible), The Box (weird), and Law Abiding Citizen (more fun than it should be). Paul somehow conjures up the idea of giant mechanical spider porn, Jon turns an intended compliment into something a bit creepy, and Jen gets worked up over vampires, but probably not how you expect. We've also got an interview with journalist and podcasting legend Andrew Collins, This Week in Movie History, and Desert Island Flicks covers "best box movie" because the idea amused us.

Paranormal Activity comes under the MB spotlight this week, together with discussing the Twilight phenomenon (proper review of New Moon next time), and the second half of our interview with screenwriter David Bloom. We also narrowly skirt a libellous discussion about Silvio Berlusconi, talk about Crank 2, Tropic Thunder, The Prestige, and Stuck, plus This Week in Movie History, and Desert Island Flicks covers best "found footage" movie.

We're one year old! So an epic podcast with 2012 and a discussion of the best disaster films on Desert Island Flicks. Plus reviews of Harry Brown and The Men Who Stare At Goats, a morbid This Week In Movie History, a slamming of film publicists on Newsdesk, and your many lovely birthday wishes and film recommmendations. Week off next week, and if you're after part 2 of the interview with Donkey Punch screenwriter David Bloom, we bantered so much we ran out of room, so next time. Roll on Movie Banter, year 2!

An exclusive interview with Donkey Punch screenwriter David Bloom, plus Jon & Paul review An Education, 9 and Cold Souls. Plus the Movie Banter Newsdesk, reports on Mel Gibson's growing brood, Joss Whedon's take on the Terminator series, a discussion on the relative easiness of CGI, and Desert Island Flicks features best actor playing themselves. This episode also includes some of the worst links you will ever hear, but we're proud of them.

A bumper week for our 50th, as we cover Saw VI, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Triangle, and Bottle Shock. We also muse on the possibility of a British Saw film, the genius of Terry Gilliam, Paul somehow mixes up laughing and vomiting, In This Week in Movie History, Desert Island Flicks (this week: "best horror franchise"), and an interview with comedian Phil Butler. Oh, and when Paul mentioned the movie "Unlawful Entry", Jenny barely stifled a laugh so filthy we had to edit it out, but think of that when you hear the title and it'll hopefully make you smile.

It's the Movie Banter Autumn Quiz! Play along at home, as quizmaster Paul pits Jon and Jen against each other with eight rounds of fiendish/not-so-fiendish questions. Who was meant to play Dirty Harry? When did Bond drink Martini stirred not shaken? What happened in this year in movie history? How many films can Jen think of starting with the letter A? Who Framed Roger Rabbit? What About Bob? And other questions...

Paul, Jon and Jenny float away on Up, through weather which is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, before landing in a Couples Retreat, and taking the Transsiberian to Eden Lake. Along the way there are some diversions via Jon's bizarre operating hours, the potential of a dialogue-free animated movie, Paul's confusing toilet story, and much more. This week's Desert Island Flicks is "best Pixar movie".

Paul, Jon and Jenny dig into the brains of Zombieland, try and debug Surrogates, theorise on Creation, and suffer Pandorum. Along the way we get distracted by the idea of a Zombie cannon, Jenny's shrine to Chris Pine, trailers that ruin movies, DVDs given away in newspapers, and muse on how zombifying The Crying Game might have livened it up a bit. Also In This Week in Movie History, and Desert Island Flicks covers our favourite zombie movies.

Paul, Jon and Jenny review an epic 50 films in 50 minutes, being the top 50 as voted for by IMDB users. Includes: Paul & Jon saying "Meh" to Jenny's doubt over Goodfellas; attempts to pronounce foreign language titles like Shichnin no Samurai and C'era una voila ina da West.

Paul, Jon and Jenny lavish praise on Away We Go and Fish Tank, heap scorn on Gamer and the prospect of the forthcoming Love Happens, and banter tangentially about toilet-based romantic comedies, best pregnancy films in Desert Island Flicks, what the writers of The Pink Panther 2 did next, a squirrel in Paul's garden mistreating its nuts, In This Week In Movie History, plus your emails and tweets via twitter, which are always welcome.

Dorian Gray's the main movie up for discussion this week, together with Adventureland, Ocean's 11/12/13, Brassed Off, and more. We've also got a new feature based around mis-describing films, together with regulars This Week in Movie History and Desert Island Flicks, which this week sees us picking our favourite Patrick Swayze movie.

A packed episode, as up for bantering are District 9, 500 Days of Summer, Funny People, and Julie and Julia. Desert Island Flicks focuses on best film about food, and of course This Week in Movie History. [Apologies for a couple of moments of mobile phone interference in this episode. Won't happen again.]

This week Paul, Jon and Jen banter their way through The Final Destination, including ideas on where to take the franchise given that the makers have clearly run out of steam. Also reviewed are The Hurt Locker and Broken Embraces. Desert Island Flicks covers the best modern World War 2 film, and This Week in Movie History centers around the third installment of a certain time-travelling film.

The Inglourious Basterds (Jon & Paul) return with The Time-Traveler's Wife (Jenny) to face The Ugly Truth about all these current releases, plus Coco Before Chanel, I Love You Man, and, via some godforsaken tangent, The Princess Diaries 2. Plus This Week In Movie History, Desert Island Flicks featuring the best Tarantino film, and plenty of emails from you to read out - of which more are always welcome. So drop us an email about anything movie-based.

One last special before holidays are over and normal service resumes. Paul, Jon and Jenny take a loving, bantering look at the Back to the Future trilogy - everything that makes them classics, the quirks, the deft touches, and the mistakes. We've got an interview with a Delorean owner, and Jen has a rather disturbing theory as to how Doc's time-travelling train is powered.

An experimental episode - a special "6 degrees of separation" edition, where we try and work our way from Frank Sinatra to Justin Timberlake through interlinking movies, together with the usual doses of banter about everything that crops up en route. No doubt you can get there quicker than we did - let us know your routes!

This week the focus is mostly on cautious praise for GI Joe and less-cautious taking to pieces of The Taking of Pelham 123, plus a chat with comedian Patrick Monahan, and Desert Island Flicks is "favourite John Hughes movie."

Plenty to banter about this week - movie-wise Moon, The Proposal, and The Game, also Twitter, age gaps between costars in movies, whether sequels should stand alone or be tied closely to their originals, Desert Island Flicks covers "most consistent franchise", and more.

Paul and Jon look at some upcoming movies including Inglourious Basterds, Shutter Island, Iron Man 2, District 9, Avatar and The Lovely Bones. Plus the usual waffle, tangents, natterings, or to give it another word, banter.