Podcast Episodes

La La Land: novelists make this mistake too

Season 4 Episode 408

What on earth can novelists learn from a musical? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot. Cinematically, this is a beautiful film, there's oodles of subt…

3 years, 2 months ago

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Groundhog Day: groundhog day groundhog day

Season 4 Episode 407

Valerie and Melanie are both happily surprised (relieved?) to discover that there's much more to this movie than meets the eye. How did Harold Remis …

3 years, 2 months ago

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Skyfall: m is for mother?

Season 4 Episode 406

In this episode, Melanie's study of subtext has revealed something odd (and slightly uncomfortable). It seems that, according to Skyfall at least, M …

3 years, 2 months ago

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Back to the Future: plot holes, schmot holes

Season 4 Episode 405

Back to the Future has plot holes. There, we said it. Does it matter? Nope. We've watched this film dozens (hundreds?) of times and only saw the hole…

3 years, 3 months ago

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Storm Boy: hugh jackman v. the pelicans

Season 4 Episode 404

The Australian film, Storm Boy, uses a very complex story structure. It's nonlinear, with a framing story and flashbacks...definitely not for the fai…

3 years, 3 months ago

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Whiplash: why the villain has a point

Season 4 Episode 403

There are plenty of great reasons to study this film and chief among them is that it's a terrific example of why the antagonist in a story must have …

3 years, 3 months ago

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Coraline: a horror story?

Season 4 Episode 402

Neil Gaiman is a master storyteller and his novel, Coraline, has been a favourite with young readers for two decades. The film version is a dazzling …

3 years, 3 months ago

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Home Alone: wanna bend the rules?

Season 4 Episode 401

We're kicking off a brand new season with a holiday classic. Home Alone might feature a 10-year-old in the starring role, but the writing in this fil…

3 years, 4 months ago

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Our Best Advice: beginnings/endings + sequences

Season 3 Episode 311

To wrap up Season 3, we're doing a rundown of everything we've learned in the past ten episodes about the beginnings and endings of stories (and how …

3 years, 4 months ago

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Lost in Translation: wtaf?

Season 3 Episode 310

This is one strange movie. While we can understand it from an intellectual level, and we can deconstruct it (and yes, it won lots of awards), Lost in…

3 years, 4 months ago

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