At The Flicks

Today’s pick is a Netflix animation feature. Can you guess what it is?

Today’s pick is a family gathering which turns into a comic horror. Can you guess what it is?

Today’s pick is a British black & white classic. Can you guess what it is?

And so our short Halloween season draws to a close.  Before we return to our crypt, we have one more treat for you. Niall Browne from Movies In Focus joins us to discuss what would make his perfect Halloween triple movie bill.  He selects a very diverse and entertaining trilogy of vampire films. We have  - Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Terror – probably the vampire film that started it all. Niall talks about a very special screening he attended last year which featured an orchestra accompaniment  - Dracula Prince Of Darkness – Hammer’s Dracula sequel which brought back Christopher Lee.  Why this one out of all the canon of Hammer movies?  Niall relates a very personal story as to why he made this selection. - John Carpenter’s Vampires – A film that is like a fine wine.  It gets better each year.  John Carpenter’s style, James Woods acting and of course Carpenter’s excellent music score.  What’s not to like? All that remain for us to say is have a very happy Halloween and we will see you At The Flicks Bye fo

Recently Graham and Jeff recorded a podcast about the science fiction films of Stephen King.  That podcast will shortly be available as part of Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe series – thanks Jo for inviting us to participate. One of the comments made during the recording was “you’re wrong” (frequently said to us) “Stephen King is horror not science fiction”.  On such statements worlds turn.  We thought it would be an interesting idea to turn the discussion 180 degrees.  Are Stephen King’s science fiction stories actually horror ones in disguise? An even better idea was to turn that into a podcast for At The Flicks as part of this year’s Halloween series. That’s it, a novel way to reuse our ideas but from a different perspective. Now for the sake of clarity we would say we have not duplicated Jo’s show, this is just a subset of titles told in a very different way.  We talk about the following - Carrie - The Dead Zone - Firestarter - The Running Man - The Lawnmower Man - The Stand Graham and Jeff discuss

What’s better than one Carry On Streaming a month? You guessed it – two!  Velcome to our annual Halloween Carry On Streaming special for 2024.  Dec is back to tell us what’s best on the various streaming channels for this spooky channel.  And being the second streaming of October it’s only fitting we release this on the second night of our Halloween specials. This year Dec’s selection is mainly scary movies (and who doesn’t love them).  Netflix comes out on top with a few original movies that are well worth watching – we rate Don’t Move and Time Cut very highly indeed.   Of course, it wouldn’t be Dec if he didn’t recommend at least one subtitled TV series to annoy Jeff, so this year he picks two.  Of the two we think Don’t Come Home is truly terrifying.   But we don’t stop at streaming – there are also a few radio recommendations for you.  Danny Robins has a special Uncanny for the season and Jeff tells us a real-life ghost story connected to that show.  You’ll have your light on all night after listening

Welcome to the start of our annual Halloween season. Halloween is famous for its tricks and treats. So, for regular listeners to the show, we start off with a treat, a Phil and Jeff movie review. It’s the box office hit of the season, Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which has just been released on streaming (and is still showing in cinemas if you fancy the big screen experience). Before you check out this comedy horror, why not give our spoiler free review show a listen? A note of caution, it proved to be too scary for Graham who refused to go into the cinema. As you would expect from a Jeff and Phil review, there will be extreme viewpoints, ramped up to 11, for this show. Phil believes Tim Burton is a sell out and this is just another commercial example, while Jeff calls it a 2024 masterpiece and Tim Burton’s most personal feature in years. In fact, Jeff acclaims this sequel as better than the original. Those are fighting words in some circles! Apart from talking about the film itself, the fat

Our Autumn Carry On Streaming show has finally arrived! Not just a show, more life counselling guidance.  Host Declan is back, giving you something to be entertained by as the nights draw in and the constant rain dampens everyone’s mood.  To make this selection, Dec spent his Summer wading through the mire to make sure we only recommend the very best.  Shows you may have missed from earlier in the year such as Ripley, The Gathering and Dark Matter.  Or, if you are up to date, what’s hot for the season.  There’s BBC’s excellent comedy drama Ludwig starring David Mitchell or the latest Slow Horses from Apple TV with Gary Oldman once again on top form.  And that’s just a taster of what we discuss.  How about that for a starter?  And if all this isn’t enough,  Dec’s Halloween streaming selection is coming very shortly. At The Flicks – we only recommend the best.  See you very shortly for our spooky spectacular.

Way back in episode 220, we spoke to American novelist and journalist Jared Feldschreiber about his excellent novella Reckless Abandon. One of the strengths of the story is how it weaves real life and fictional characters together in its tapestry. One of those real-life characters who crosses the pages is legendary actor Dustin Hoffman. It is well known that Dustin Hoffman is something of a perfectionist, always looking to attaining excellence in his work, and driving others to do the same. This has led to some critics calling him difficult to work with, yet his technique has produced incredible performances in such films as Rainman, The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy. It’s also true that not everything he has done has been successful; that’s what happens when you take risk. Some of those less successful films contain some incredible Dustin Hoffman performances that are sadly not as well known as that found in his more successful work. Recently we have been talking to Jared about this very topic and coll

The At The Flicks team have often been referred to as Brats (ok, just one member in particular), so when Darren suggested we review a movie called Brats, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. It is not however our origins story.  Instead, it is a documentary about the mid 80’s movie brat generation, told by one of their own.  Actor turned director Andrew McCarthy (who appeared in St Elmo’s Fire and Less Than Zero), felt that the term movie brats, as coined by writer David Blum, was something of a put down.  While it’s certainly true that the article that coined that term was less than flattering about that unique generation of actors, for many of us at that time, a “movie brats” movie was something to seek out and savour.  For Andrew McCarthy, both the director and essentially on-screen narrator, Brats became a voyage of self-discovery as he revisited both the past and other members of the so called Brat Pack.  He chats to Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore and Ally Sheedy amongst others.  What emerges is a fa

The hot horror movie ticket this Summer has been Longlegs, a film directed by Osgood Perkins (son of Anthony), which stars Maika Munroe and Nicolas Cage.   For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a serial killer movie (which becomes something much darker as it progresses), set in the early 1990s.  Ah, I hear you say, doesn’t that sound like the Oscar winning Silence Of The Lambs? Indeed, there are some similarities. To investigate this connection further and of course review the movie, we sent in our intrepid FBI team.  There’s agent Jeff, the cynical one whose seen it all before, then there’s agent Phil, certainly our Fox Mulder and finally there’s agent “let’s hide under the bed as it’s too scary”, or as we know him, Graham.  Yes, Graham had decided even though this is a pop-up review show, there is no way he was going to pop up from behind the sofa to watch this!  That left Phil and Jeff, who you will not be surprised to learn had very different opinions on this one (do they ever agree?).  Their miss

It’s been a long time since we revisited the classics with Elijah (the last one was show 174 where we talked 60’s Bond). It’s way past time we returned to that fascinating series and our return is SUPER. Yes, we are talking Superman The Movie (1978) starring the late, great Christopher Reeve. A film so big we also had to bring in the talent that is Niall from Movies In Focus. Not only is Niall a fan of this film, he has previously discussed it with the film’s legendary director Richard Donner. So, we have three fans in Niall, Graham and Jeff and newbe Elijah who had never seen it before (but, in an interesting contrast, is a fan of Zack Synder’s take on the story). The scene is set for a fascinating discussion on a superhero from yesteryear. Just what will you learn listening to this podcast: - Who else was up for the role of Superman - How Brando jokingly described how he was going to play the role to Richard Donner - Who else was in the frame to write the music which has gone on to be one of John W

On previous episodes we have spoken to Phil Foster aka Phil The Bear about his fascinating series of director profiles. That’s where Phil watches all of the films linked to a major director and writes an in-depth article analysing both their career and their output. Following the article being published, we at At The Flicks then bring a small team together to discuss the work and the director in question with Phil. That approaches changes with this profile. Rather than take that holistic approach, we asked Phil to rate his top five Martin Scorsese features based on his rewatches. We wanted a top five and that’s what we got. So over six upcoming episodes we will discuss those five top selections. Wait, I hear you say, why six shows for five films? Well, after talking about the five (in reverse order) we will have our usual show to discuss the director and their career. So, who is the first director for this new format? It is the colossal talent that is Martin Scorsese, and, trust me listener, it was a

Let’s start with a big thank you to you, all our listeners. The previous show, our rather explosive Challengers review, has proven to be a great download success. The confrontation between Jeff and Phil has proven so popular we have made the controversial decision to go back into our archives and expose a review we thought we couldn’t release. Asteroid City. Regular listeners know that Phil and Jeff very rarely agree, especially when a Wes Anderson film is involved. This one got so heated we thought we could not inflict it upon you. However, after the feedback we have received from our Challengers show and some extremely clever editing from Graham (resulting in a few nights without sleep), we present to you our latest review show. As you will expect, Phil is once again championing the talent that is Wes Anderson, while Jeff is fully hyped ready to attack what he calls self-indulgence. In fact, he didn’t say just use that expression, he also said ****** *** ******, words we cannot print, let alone broad

Welcome to our new format At The Flicks review show. The big change is that we now concentrate on one film per show, not five. Don’t forget, we are mainly senior citizens and reviewing five at a time was just proving too much for us in our advanced state! Especially when you factor in all the toilet breaks we have to have when watching in the cinema (except Neil who has his own catheter). Also, these shows are going to be far more random (who said, “what’s new there”?). So we are calling them pop up review shows – you never know what film we will review next – a new release, a classic or something you have never heard of or when. Some months we could have three reviews, other times none. Apart from the shows being a lot shorter, we want to do something other movie review shows don’t. We will sometimes bring in an expert on the subject matter of the movie we are discussing for their take, or we may want to emphasis some aspect that most reviewers are missing, or, and most likely, where we have very dif

Welcome to the second of our shows which discuss the James Bond films of the 1960’s – a time when the ever-innocent Neil thought Pussy Galore was a gang of cats As a reminder back in 2020 we had a number of episodes with our American friend Elijah discussing these very Bond films.  Elijah had never seen a Bond film before we started that series and it was interesting to get his perspective of a series of films that are over 50 years old.  Judging from the correspondence we received, those shows were a hit with you, our listeners.  To conclude that series we were going to bring in a James Bond aficionado to give us his view on those auspicious beginnings for James Bond.  A big thank you to Jon Yates for his time and knowledge in the episodes which follow. In this second episode, we talk John Barry, Ken Adam and George Lazenby.  We also give Jon a challenge to design his personal choice of a 60’s Sean Connery Bond film that never was. Like the films we hope our sometimes-irreverent talk amuses and entertain

Welcome to the first of a two part discussion about the James Bond films of the 1960’s – a time when Graham was young. Followers of the show may remember that back in 2020 we had a number of episodes with our American friend Elijah discussing these very Bond films.  Elijah had never seen a Bond film before we started that series and it was interesting to get his perspective of a series of films that are over 50 years old.  Judging from the correspondence we received, those shows were a hit with you, our listeners.  To conclude that series we were going to bring in a James Bond aficionado to give us his view on those auspicious beginnings for James Bond.  A big thank you to Jon Yates for his time and knowledge in the episodes which follow. In this first part of our analysis, we talk the beginnings of the James Bond franchise, Sean Connery and the wonderful ladies who became the Bond girls. Like the films we hope our sometimes-irreverent talk amuses and entertains you. A brief word about Mr Jon Yates.  Not

Welcome to the latest edition of At The Flicks.  Back by popular demand is another of our Carry On Streaming episodes, hosted by the very knowledgeable Declan (and his two assistants Jeff and Graham). So, if you plan to spend Easter in front of the TV catching up on what you’ve missed since Christmas or looking for something new, then this is the show for you.  And what an exciting line up Declan reveals. You can catch up with such recommendations as: Mr Bates Vs The Post Office – which Declan called out as unmissable in our Christmas show, and how right he was. Blue Eyed Samurai – an adult animated series on Netflix, and not, as Jeff says, “for the kids”. The Rise And Fall Of Boris Johnson – Relive the Conservative party glory days, with a very satisfying ending While coming up at Easter or just after:  Dark Matter – another highly acclaimed Apple TV sci fi show  The Tattooist Of Auschwitz – A powerful true story from World War II Ripley – Netflix have produced the latest screen version of Patricia

Welcome to the latest edition of At The Flicks – this is one where we try something different for our movie reviews. Regular listeners to the show will know that contributor Darren is a wrestling aficionado, what he doesn’t know about the sport isn’t worth knowing.  As for the rest of us, you could write our knowledge on the back of a 2nd class postage stamp.  The exception to that is of course Neil, who is often seen about town in a series of flamboyant costumes some of the more outlandish wrestlers would wear.  However, fighting is the furthest thing from his mind when he is in his gear!  I digress and apologise for the image I have now imparted.  Back to the show and Darren’s challenge.  He asked (well, instructed), Graham and Jeff to go watch The Iron Claw without reading anything about it beforehand.  After which he could chat to us about Von Erich family and their unique story.  The dynamic duo followed Darren’s instructions (not easy for this pair of overage lefties) and went to see the film “cold”.

Welcome to our first “official” show of 2024 – the one where the review team look back on the year that was, picking out their personal favourites. Remarkably for such a show, most of the lists are very different.  Let me elaborate by team member: - Phil – picked a list he knew would mostly annoy Jeff (and it worked) - Neil – Found his way to the cinema this year, or at least to his remote to watch his selection on streaming - Jeff – A different list to most of the others – and where no subtitles allowed - Graham – A considered list with a very left field entry included - Declan – A smorgasbord of subtitled entries - Darren – A very different list to the others (although regular listeners of Darren’s video store shows shouldn’t be surprised) How do you top that?  Simple – the combined At The Flicks films of the year.   This year there are 7 films in the list (because Jeff, who compiled the selection wanted to make sure he had at least one of his choices there). Regular listeners to the show should have n