Eavesdropping at the Movies

Most videogames that receive cinematic adaptations are big - the likes of Uncharted, Minecraft, Sonic the Hedgehog and Resident Evil, all of which have been adapted, some several times, are among the biggest games in history, and their cinematic versions are typically intended to be blockbusters. Exit 8 is not. It is an independent Japanese game made by one person, turned into a low-budget, high-concept, Japanese horror film. And most cinematic adaptations of videogames are not very good. The medium has a long history of failing to translate well to film. Exit 8 makes a success of the transition, finding plenty of space in the slight source material to tell a story about routine, fear of change, and personal improvement. We discuss what makes the adaptation work and where it might not, think through the story's internal logic, and, as we did with Godzilla Minus One, remark upon the film's visual quality given its small budget, asking where all that money goes when Hollywood spends ten times the amount to achieve the same results. Exit 8 is a welcome surprise, particularly to Mike, who really thought it'd be rubbish. Recorded on 27th April 2026.

In 2015, Matt Damon found himself stranded on Mars in The Martian, an adaptation of Andy Weir's novel of the same name, and had to improvise unlikely solutions in order to survive and get home. In 2026, Ryan Gosling finds himself stranded in outer space in Project Hail Mary, an adapation of Andy Weir's novel of the same name, and has to improvise unlikely solutions in order to save Earth and get home. It's fair to say that we're on familiar territory here, but who cares when it's this entertaining? Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, known for gloriously imaginative and daft comedy, manage the competing tones in Project Hail Mary beautifully, moving easily between wacky discovery, dramatic reveals, and earned sentimentality, and never failing to show care and an instinct for the value of the image - some shots are breathtaking. Like Weir, they're unafraid to cannibalise their previous work in search of useful ideas, reworking the monkey thought translator from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs into a computer that allows Gosling's reluctant hero to communicate with Rocky, the alien he meets. In this and elsewhere throughout, Project Hail Mary shows the same reverence for scientific inquiry and application of intelligence to problem-solving that The Martian did, which is a pleasure in itself. There's a huge amount to like here, at least until the long and excessively detailed ending, which sadly drags things down a little. We urge you to see Project Hail Mary while it's in cinemas - it's a massive crowd pleaser and one of the most satisfying experiences we've had at the pictures in a while. Amidst all this, we also discuss Gosling's particular brand of stardom and place in the Hollywood hierarchy in comparison with Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet, between whose names José feels Gosling gets smothered. Recorded on 1st April 2026.

We're joined by our resident Paul Thomas Anderson expert (and Mike's brother), Stephen Glass, to whom we've previously spoken about Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza, for another discussion of One Battle After Another. Stephen's seen it in both VistaVision and IMAX 70mm, and can offer a sense of the experience Mike and José missed seeing it in IMAX Digital, and so begins a wide-ranging conversation about the film's aesthetics, tone, politics, influences and more. Recorded on 5th October 2025.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, directed by former video essayist Kogonada, is beautiful to look at and very likeable, but derivative and ultimately unsatisfying. We discuss its lighting, its attitude towards people's histories and the memories that live with them, and why a rubbish script Mike once wrote makes him particularly keen to sneer at it. Recorded on 29th September 2025.

By far Paul Thomas Anderson's most expensive film, with a budget some four or five times what he's used to, and probably his most accessible, One Battle After Another entertains us enormously and effortlessly without sacrificing the complexity and nuance for which his work is known. Set in an alternate America oppressed by Christofascism, the alternate part is that there's a very active militant revolutionary group, the French 75, setting bombs off and freeing detained minorities. Leonardo DiCaprio is part of it, and sixteen years after the conclusion of his group's activities, their work has entered countercultural legend, but he's become a drug-addicted, paranoid burnout, trying to raise a teenage daughter. When the powers that be come looking for them, they're separated, all hell breaks loose, and he has to step up. José finds One Battle After Another to be the film of the moment, the state of the nation film that Eddington could only dream of being, a powerful, invigorating expression of what ails America and what it means to resist. Mike is more cynical, seeing an element of mockery in the revolution that has no apparent intention to end and is carried out over generations. We love the easygoing style of filmmaking that Anderson seems to have grown into, comparing it to the rigid formality of his early work, and finding that he has a talent for action cinema that's never quite come out before. We also discuss the film's themes of youth and ageing, parenting, the Christian right and more. One Battle After Another is an unmissable film, the kind that fifty years ago would have defined America's national conversation. Cinema no longer holds that level of cultural cachet, sadly, but One Battle After Another is a powerful, energetic, and very funny reminder of what film can do at its best. Recorded on 28th September 2025.

Most film and TV has quietly agreed to pretend that the Covid pandemic never happened. Perhaps it's too awkward to discuss it. Perhaps it'll date your work. Writer-director Ari Aster doesn't share these worries, telling a story about the days of lockdowns, mask mandates and conspiracy theories - days of particular hostility and division in the USA, in which individual freedom does constant battle with the greater good. Eddington is an ambitious attempt at the state-of-the-nation film: a darkly comic thriller with wild tonal shifts, a mass of interwoven themes, uneven pacing, and an eventual climb out of reality into absurdity. José finds much to dislike, particularly its dismissive attitude towards the young people it depicts supporting the Black Lives Matter movement; Mike is surprised at how much he likes it, given how let down he felt by Hereditary. Eddington is certainly a mixed bag, but we're glad to have seen it. Recorded on 24th August 2025.

A psychosexual thriller that's neither psychosexual nor thrilling enough, The Shrouds is a disappointment. There's great promise to businessman Vincent Cassel's invention of a technologically advanced shroud that creates a 3D model of the decaying body it houses, when we're shown the lust with which he observes his deceased wife's corpse. The film is peppered with recurrent imagery of her disfigured body, and its importance to Cassel's character is constantly reinforced, but the film is too talky, its imagery too bland, and its plot too convoluted to make the most of it. A shame. Recorded on 6th August 2025.

We talk adult male friendships, stress and surreality in our discussion of Friendship, in which oddball everyman Tim Robinson finds himself enamoured with effortlessly cool new neighbour Paul Rudd, but lacks any of the social nous to naturally bond with him. The film gets huge laughs from meaningful subject matter, a far cry from our experience with The Naked Gun. Its tone is idiosyncratic, its observations on human nature ring true in their exaggerated way, and Robinson is a fascinating and hilarious presence on the cinema screen. Friendship won't be for everyone, but we highly recommend it. Recorded on 4th August 2025.