School of Movies

[School of Movies 2026]

John Hughes is widely regarded as a superb screenwriter. Quiet and intense, yet prolific. 35 of his swiftly-emerging scripts where made into films, and with several of his mid-80s efforts he caught a sympathetic perspective on specifically teenagers. At the time these were Gen-X, but still to this day, The Breakfast Club in particular (one of the 8 movies he directed himself) speaks through time and untimely death, to young people generations beyond his. Now, in our own School of Movies, we are celebrating some of the absolute best of his work.

Fiendishly simple: Five schoolkids are forced by a hard-nosed vice principal into a library detention to waste their whole Saturday. They are all regarded as open books to this man, conforming to typical high school stereotypes. However, as they start to talk amongst each other, hidden depths and pains are revealed that defy assumption. It's funny and frustrated, smart and sad and invigorating, and it's a lo-fi masterpiece of a bottle-episode.

[NOTE: For medical reasons I am being forced by my doctor to take a week off work and rest. However, to maintain this season of John Hughes we have a quintuple-bill of After School Club discussions on previous works of his. After that we have the long-promised Planes, Trains and Automobiles to keep our Thanksgiving date, and then Ferris Bueller's Day Off, culminating in a double-bill of Home Alone & Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Hopefully by then I'll be long-recovered.]

This week's After School Club: Willow's Creepy Horrorfest V

Next week: Weird Science and The Vacation Series

[School of Movies 2026]

An absolute classic that somehow gets better with age. When we were younger it felt like this big, brash popcorn-munching, flag-waving smash hit. It's all slick style and 80s cool, worshipping impressive military hardware and visual pizzazz, right? As time went on it became the acknowledged introduction to the world, for one of its genuine movie stars. Then as we got older there emerged more of an appreciation for both the simplicity and the sheer craft of this, Tony Scott's most beloved blockbuster.

But as Sharon and I went further still, a palpable melancholy began to take hold. The director is gone, along with Iceman Val Kilmer, Stinger James Tolkan, Sundown Clarence Gilyard Jnr, and Viper Tom Skerritt. A renowned pilot and aerial photographer Art Scholl died in the filming of this. If you stay after the credits of this episode there's a song in there with deeper, tragic meaning than we always assumed. And as the years slip by, and more and more from this era pass away, something more profound settles in when viewing a film that seems to be about flying awesome planes, but focuses in its back half on coping with grief in a painfully masculine high-pressure environment.

This week's After School Club: Willow's Creepy Horrorfest V

Next week: The Breakfast Club

[School of Movies 2026]

My favourite werewolf film, and one I watched at far too young an age (So, I'm pretty messed up, but I love movies). Just in time for Halloween we have this frightening, sometimes shocking yet consistently, darkly hilarious and occasionally extremely sexy tale of two Yankee college boys pitching up in Yorkshire, and a very unfriendly pub filled with paranoid and superstitious locals, only to find themselves out on the moors under a full moon, closely encountering the local wildlife.

Considering the script for this 1981 film was written 12 years earlier by the young director John Landis, it is surprising, considering how well-crafted this is- to hear that virtually nothing about the original screenplay was altered, even after they clashed with the censors over the obscene violence (though they were more worried about the sex).

You also get truly World Class creature FX from the legendary Rick Baker being given an unusual amount of time and money to make this beats and its victims look nightmarishly real in the most fascinating ways.

This movie had as profound an impact on my work as Coppola's Dracula (1992). Listen for yourselves in the new trailer for my Castlevania-inspired Lady Dracula story, Castle of the Moon at the end.

Where Can I Get This?

The Audiodrama on Bandcamp = $10

Paperback = $9

Kindle Version = $6

It brings me great pleasure to bring you my Castlevania-inspired Lady Dracula adaptation, completed at long last, and now, here with a transportive and intensely evocative trailer.

You can officially pick this story up in various forms. You don't have to have read or listened to any other New Century stories (though if you have, judging by the reception, you'll love it even more, for reasons I shall not spoil here.)

Where Can I Get This?

The Audiodrama on Bandcamp = $10

Paperback = $9

Kindle Version = $6

HUGE thanks to everyone involved with this project who worked so hard on delivering one of our best productions to date.

And of course, once you've experienced it, please do take a minute to rate and review it on Amazon. It boosts the chances of detection on an otherwise invisible work of literature.

[School of Movies 2026]

The original Rocky series comes to a close... twice.

For the longest time, sixteen years in fact, fans of the first entries in the saga of this good-natured fighter were disappointed by the fifth film. It took things out of the ring, stole all of his family's money and gave him brain damage. The result is a return to the chilly streets of Philadelphia and a tug of war between the son who needs him and the surrogate who can continue the boxing career he is now denied. But there's still merit to be found in this messy search for self-esteem.

However, in 2006, Stallone returned with a little more stuff left in the basement. I've seen some lists that classify Rocky Balboa (2006) as a mediocre entry only a smidge better than the previous. This baffles me like a right-hook from inside a baby carriage! It is the first one I saw, so I had nothing invested at the time, I didn't know who Adrian was, nor what her absence would feel to those who grew up with her around. But as a meditation on grieving, unresolved rage and a final climb up a Sisyphean mountain to prove this old man can still go the distance, it is a rousing triumph, and my abiding favourite.

This week's After School Club: The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Next week: An American Werewolf in London