Broad Appeal

It is said that every Irish person remembers where they were when crusading journalist Veronica Guerin was killed. But when the Cate Blanchett movie about Veronica was released, it seems that not enough people remembered to go to the cinema… Despite being a Jerry Bruckheimer/Joel Schumacher Hollywood production, the film has some estimable Irish credentials: authentic Dublin locations, an impeccable accent from Cate… and Brenda feckin’ Fricker as her Mam!!! Not so much a “bad” movie as a horribly worthy one, it does feature small pleasures like Colin Farrell’s sexy neck tattoos and Cate’s Princess Diana hairdo. Brian learned a lot about the Irish underworld, but Seán still can’t get the maudlin sounds of “Fields of Athenry” out of his ears. Saint Veronica, pray for us!! Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

It is said that every Irish person remembers where they were when crusading journalist Veronica Guerin was killed. But when the Cate Blanchett movie about Veronica was released, it seems that not enough people remembered to go to the cinema… Despite being a Jerry Bruckheimer/Joel Schumacher Hollywood production, the film has some estimable Irish credentials: authentic Dublin locations, an impeccable accent from Cate… and Brenda feckin’ Fricker as her Mam!!! Not so much a “bad” movie as a horribly worthy one, it does feature small pleasures like Colin Farrell’s sexy neck tattoos and Cate’s Princess Diana hairdo. Brian learned a lot about the Irish underworld, but Seán still can’t get the maudlin sounds of “Fields of Athenry” out of his ears. Saint Veronica, pray for us!! Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Category is: Greatest Living Actress. For all the Meryls, Juliannes and Sally Kirklands, there's another whose name gets on that list. She's Galadriel, she's Carol Aird, heck she's even Bob Dylan! She's Cate Blanchett. Brian is a sucker for a plummy mid-Atlantic accent. Seán is hesitant. Or is he? He really can't remember, either way he saw the CHARLOTTE GREY trailer way too many times. In her breakthrough role as Queen Elizabeth Numero Uno, Blanchett has notes of Streep, a hint of G. Jackson and that certain mouthfeel of a full-bodied Aussie that only an Antipodean lends to a legendary Anglo Saxon. ELIZABETH is not subtle, but it gets you drunk, perks you up and makes you feel a little sexy. And isn't that all you want in a Shiraz and an Actress? Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Category is: Greatest Living Actress. For all the Meryls, Juliannes and Sally Kirklands, there's another whose name gets on that list. She's Galadriel, she's Carol Aird, heck she's even Bob Dylan! She's Cate Blanchett. Brian is a sucker for a plummy mid-Atlantic accent. Seán is hesitant. Or is he? He really can't remember, either way he saw the CHARLOTTE GREY trailer way too many times. In her breakthrough role as Queen Elizabeth Numero Uno, Blanchett has notes of Streep, a hint of G. Jackson and that certain mouthfeel of a full-bodied Aussie that only an Antipodean lends to a legendary Anglo Saxon. ELIZABETH is not subtle, but it gets you drunk, perks you up and makes you feel a little sexy. And isn't that all you want in a Shiraz and an Actress? Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Crazy has many meanings, and in SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY it’s what young wife Laura (Julia Roberts) discovers her husband to be when he obsesses over the arrangement of hand towels or the alignment of canned goods. But hubby Martin (Patrick Bergen) is more than just slightly OCD: he’s a violent psychopath and Julia must fake her own death to escape him. In her first big starring role after her breakout success, Julia is a woman in jeopardy - putting on aliases, wigs and even a fake mustache all in hopes of starting a new life in Smalltown, USA. At the centre of the the implausibly schematic scenario, a very youngJulia dampens her usual brightness to play a woman traumatized by fear - but learning to fight back. Drink your V8, Shelby! Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Crazy has many meanings, and in SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY it’s what young wife Laura (Julia Roberts) discovers her husband to be when he obsesses over the arrangement of hand towels or the alignment of canned goods. But hubby Martin (Patrick Bergen) is more than just slightly OCD: he’s a violent psychopath and Julia must fake her own death to escape him. In her first big starring role after her breakout success, Julia is a woman in jeopardy - putting on aliases, wigs and even a fake mustache all in hopes of starting a new life in Smalltown, USA. At the centre of the the implausibly schematic scenario, a very youngJulia dampens her usual brightness to play a woman traumatized by fear - but learning to fight back. Drink your V8, Shelby! Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

When the 21st century bourgeoisie are lined up along the barricades and made to pay for their crimes, Julia, Ryan Murphy and (most of all) Elizabeth Gilbert better hope that our proletarian overlords are feeling particularly generous. EAT PRAY LOVE was a pre-credit crunch piece of best-selling self-help travel porn that had the misfortune to be made into a film once the world had gone tits up. You know you’re in trouble when even America’s Sweetheart struggles to make a protagonist remotely relatable. Julia slurps spaghetti, mouths mantras, and basks in Bali, all to… find herself? Get over a divorce? Fulfill an insanely generous book deal? No one knows and no one cares - except Seán who has found the latest entry to round out his syllabus for The Cinema of Repugnance. This execrable oddity just barely avoids torpedoing the goodwill Julia has accrued over all those years. But as they say, “If you don’t accept me at my bougie-est, you don’t deserve me at my Brokovich!!” Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

When the 21st century bourgeoisie are lined up along the barricades and made to pay for their crimes, Julia, Ryan Murphy and (most of all) Elizabeth Gilbert better hope that our proletarian overlords are feeling particularly generous. EAT PRAY LOVE was a pre-credit crunch piece of best-selling self-help travel porn that had the misfortune to be made into a film once the world had gone tits up. You know you’re in trouble when even America’s Sweetheart struggles to make a protagonist remotely relatable. Julia slurps spaghetti, mouths mantras, and basks in Bali, all to… find herself? Get over a divorce? Fulfill an insanely generous book deal? No one knows and no one cares - except Seán who has found the latest entry to round out his syllabus for The Cinema of Repugnance. This execrable oddity just barely avoids torpedoing the goodwill Julia has accrued over all those years. But as they say, “If you don’t accept me at my bougie-est, you don’t deserve me at my Brokovich!!” Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Science has proven that Julia Roberts’s smile shows more teeth than any other human’s (except possibly Brian’s). Is this the key to her movie star longevity? Quite possibly they got her her start. But something more must have kept this woman in our hearts for so many years. NOTTING HILL attempts to answer this question and many more. An awkward Brit bookshop-owner (Hugh Grant) is unexpectedly snogged by a movie star who seems very much like Julia Roberts (Julia Roberts). What follows is the most self-consciously meta romantic comedy of all time in which one movie star plays herself and the other pretends not to be.a movie star. Julia/Anna may be just a girl standing in front of a boy, and this may be just another formulaic Richard Curtis joint, but there’s enough commentary on stardom here to fuel a dozen monographs by Richard Dyer. Grin and bear it! Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Science has proven that Julia Roberts’s smile shows more teeth than any other human’s (except possibly Brian’s). Is this the key to her movie star longevity? Quite possibly they got her her start. But something more must have kept this woman in our hearts for so many years. NOTTING HILL attempts to answer this question and many more. An awkward Brit bookshop-owner (Hugh Grant) is unexpectedly snogged by a movie star who seems very much like Julia Roberts (Julia Roberts). What follows is the most self-consciously meta romantic comedy of all time in which one movie star plays herself and the other pretends not to be.a movie star. Julia/Anna may be just a girl standing in front of a boy, and this may be just another formulaic Richard Curtis joint, but there’s enough commentary on stardom here to fuel a dozen monographs by Richard Dyer. Grin and bear it! Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

What do you get when you combine ultra violence, a political metaphor and a kick-ass heroine? The answer? A Seán Film. Also known as STRANGE DAYS, from the mind of visionary director Kathryn Bigelow and bonkers ex-hubby James Cameron. The year is 1999. People are scared. They're jacking in to a weird bootleg neuro-hardware called SQUID. And like the internet, it begins as a bit of fun, then becomes porno and ends up as a toxic, racist, hate-dump. Only (sexy!) Ralph Fiennes and a kung-fu kicking limo driver mom (who was also once a waitress?) known as Angela Bassett can save us all from getting totally fucked up! In the midst of it all, a flawed but fascinating commentary emerges (dreamed up by two white millionaires) about the institutional violence of the LAPD in a post-Rodney King world. STRANGE DAYS is a miasma of brutality and brilliance, excess and truth. Angela saves not only the movie, but our future. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

What do you get when you combine ultra violence, a political metaphor and a kick-ass heroine? The answer? A Seán Film. Also known as STRANGE DAYS, from the mind of visionary director Kathryn Bigelow and bonkers ex-hubby James Cameron. The year is 1999. People are scared. They're jacking in to a weird bootleg neuro-hardware called SQUID. And like the internet, it begins as a bit of fun, then becomes porno and ends up as a toxic, racist, hate-dump. Only (sexy!) Ralph Fiennes and a kung-fu kicking limo driver mom (who was also once a waitress?) known as Angela Bassett can save us all from getting totally fucked up! In the midst of it all, a flawed but fascinating commentary emerges (dreamed up by two white millionaires) about the institutional violence of the LAPD in a post-Rodney King world. STRANGE DAYS is a miasma of brutality and brilliance, excess and truth. Angela saves not only the movie, but our future. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Sometimes the worst films make some of the best conversations, and boy, did Brian loathe VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN.  We can spread the blame around: Eddie Murphy's ego, the insistent racial stereotyping (of African-Americans AND Italians!), the half-dozen writers who couldn’t decide on a tone, or even usual maestro of horror Wes Craven who was clearly having an off-day. In fact, the only person not culpable is Angela Bassett, once again showing full commitment when battling the ludicrous and the undead. Listen to Seán explain vampire arcana to Brian, who seems misguidedly to be looking for plot consistency in a mid-90s horror comedy. The stress of the undertaking is so high that our hosts find themselves corpsing in ways that would typically be left on the cutting room floor. P.S. Eddie Murphy is a jerk. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

Sometimes the worst films make some of the best conversations, and boy, did Brian loathe VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN.  We can spread the blame around: Eddie Murphy's ego, the insistent racial stereotyping (of African-Americans AND Italians!), the half-dozen writers who couldn’t decide on a tone, or even usual maestro of horror Wes Craven who was clearly having an off-day. In fact, the only person not culpable is Angela Bassett, once again showing full commitment when battling the ludicrous and the undead. Listen to Seán explain vampire arcana to Brian, who seems misguidedly to be looking for plot consistency in a mid-90s horror comedy. The stress of the undertaking is so high that our hosts find themselves corpsing in ways that would typically be left on the cutting room floor. P.S. Eddie Murphy is a jerk. Clips from the film presented according to fair use policy. Podcast Theme: "Pipeline" by CyberSDF (https://soundcloud.com/cybersdf/tracks).

There are few actresses who have the level of commitment and intensity of Angela Bassett - both for every role she's in, as well as to that hunky husband of hers. And while Auntie Angela may be giving regal fish and smashing box office records everywhere in Black Panther, there is a whole lotta history to this woman's career. In 1995, following her iconic breakthrough as Tina Turner, it was #1 box office hit WAITING TO EXHALE that positioned Miss B. as a woman to be reckoned with. This film that launched a thousand .gifs is not unlike the kind of “women’s picture” like Joan Crawford used to make: Angela journeys to a place of strength, Loretta Devine is homely, Lela Rochon is horny, and Whitney, well poor Whitney is a TV anchor or something? Ready? Breathe...and exhale (shoop shoop)