In the Mood for Podcast: Episode 31

EPISODE 31: Natural Disasters

[1:27:20]

You can Listen online or

Download MP3

(Right click... save as)

It's Episode 31 of In the Mood for Podcast, a British-based film podcast hosted by Calum Reed of Ultimate Addict and Pete Sheppard of In the Mood for Blog. The new year starts off with a minor tragedy, as our first recording of the podcast was lost due to a technical glitch. We reconvened later for round two, however, so you can listen to us vent our concerns about Tsunami-drama "The Impossible," retirement home melodrama "Quartet," indie dramedy "Celeste & Jesse Forever," and the relatively drama-less "Playing for Keeps." We also look ahead to the new Terrence Malick film, "To the Wonder," before offering our oscar predictions (announced tomorrow!) in all of the major categories. 

Discussed on the podcast: 

Opening Segment: Discussing the trailer for the new Terrence Malick film, "To the Wonder"  [2:55 - 10:30]

*Preconception Corner*

Reviews of: 

• "The Impossible"
• "Playing for Keeps"
• "Quartet"
• "Celeste & Jesse Forever"

[16:50 - 56:35]

Closing Segment: Predicting the Oscar nominations, announcing a contest, and revealing what the loser will be forced to endure next week [56:40 - 1:19:35]

*Shag, Marry or Kill?*
*The Watson Factor*
*The Poupaud Range*

Intro Music: New theme music!
Outro Music: Bonnie Tyler, "It's a Jungle Out There"

Quartet (2012)

Quartet

Directed by Dustin Hoffman

Starring: Dame Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly, Sheridan Smith, Michael Gambon

Grade: C+ [56]

“Quartet”is also a film desperate for us to laugh at old people behaving less than appropriately to each other, the key difference being that – for at least the first half – it’s consistently hilarious, with Billy Connolly in particular flaunting the comic chops we've known he's had for decades now, and Dame Maggie doing what she so often does well, in perhaps as sullen, loaded and nonexclusively comedic a way as she has done for quite some time. Harwood manages to keep this story ticking along well for the first two acts, until M. Smith’s diva is required to vehemently defend her instincts, and then abandon them, in what feels like a really sloppily-conceived chain of events. We know where this is going early, but that doesn’t prevent the last act feeling like such a shoehorned retread of the film’s opening establishing jokes and celebration of old age as a precious, self-evaluating phase in life. There’s a touch of cloying sadness lumped in there, too, but the film has developed so much goodwill by then that it’s difficult to say that the wheels fall off entirely. On this evidence Hoffman is unsurprisingly an actors' director: this cast is having a ball, and they're resoundingly infectious.