[School of Everything Else 2025]
It was a long time coming. The remake itself has been mooted as far back as the early 2000s, and the wait for it was half of my life. But then, when this astonishing game finally landed in 2020, a time when we all needed to escape to other worlds, I found myself paralysed with indecision within the game, unable to move for metatextual reasons.
Finally returning to it in 2025 I was able to play through and savour the experience with Sharon and Willow watching along. It is magnificently chaotic and chaotically magnificent. How could a remake which goes so much further than the simple graphical and musical polish we were all hoping for still manage to knock it out of the park, despite the inherent need to drag old players out of their comfort zones and somehow impress upon new players, the meaning and significance imbued into every moment and character?
On this show, following on from our 2023 episode on the 1997 original, Sharon and I do our best to elaborate on these mountainous strengths. Even if you've never played any version, this may help you appreciate why the game is so beloved. This episode also contains a segment submitted by Hanna Peregrine.
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2:29:38
Searching
[School of Movies 2025]
An absolutely fascinating 2018 movie where the challenge for the filmmakers was to confine themselves only to a computer screen and the various apps and websites, embodying John Cho's frantically worried David Kim as a blinking cursor, scouring the internet for any trace of his missing teenager Margot.
None of this would be anywhere near as riveting if they didn't hook you early with a small, personal tale of a fragile, happy family, made familiar in digital home movies. The opening of the film rivals Pixar's UP in terms of soft-hearted appeal and devastating loss until you're fully on board and wholly behind the salvaging of the strained father-daughter relationship that remains. But the formerly exciting information superhighway is now an intimidating labyrinth that devours people's lives whole, and Margot may now be beyond David's reach.
This was a commission for Greg Downing and we firmly suggest you watch Searching before listening to our show. But don't wait, don't put it on hold. Go find it now. Track it down like a cybernetic sleuth and experience one of the most innovative indies of the past decade.
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1:58:49
RRR: Rise, Roar, Revolt
[School of Movies 2025]
One of the most astonishing action epics in cinema history, and almost nobody who saw it managed to do so in the cinema! At least in the West. This historical epic, popularised by Netflix plays extremely fast and loose with the facts, reimagining the lives of two of India's most celebrated revolutionaries to have intersected.
RRR tells the story of Komaram Bheem, a man of the Gond Tribe who is searching for a little girl taken from his people by despicable English Colonial Governor Scott Buxton. Worried about the human tsunami inbound, Buxton's awful wife brings in Police Officer Raju to intercept and catch Bheem alive. BUT in Shakespearean fashion, the two under assumed identities unknowingly become firm friends, and as it turns out Raju is secretly trying to climb the ranks and gain access to guns for a revolution, and the best way to do that will be to stop his new brother-in-arms and bring him in for execution.
It is a rip-roaring tiger-tale of unbound ferocity, mixed with a refreshingly gentle take on male bonding. It is also of course rather troubling in its political and cultural implications, which we will elaborate upon in this firestorm of a podcast.
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2:14:18
The Super Mario Bros. + A Minecraft Movie
[School of Movies 2025]
Two of the most successful films of the 20s, both of them built on the winning formula of bewildered people from the real world being plunged into an alternate dimension which allows them to encounter pleasingly recognisable elements from the video games that general audiences like, on their way towards assisting with deposing a tyrannical warmonger.
The problem for us is that Super Mario Bros. is a long-running and beloved series of platformers, kart racers and RPGs, whereas Minecraft is a creative building block survival indie hit gone corporate phenomenon, that wound up dominating the 2010s to the point of being used as a teaching aid in schools. These are VERY different kinds of games... so why are their movies the same?
This show combines my 2023 first impressions After School Club on the Mario movie, and new recordings where Sharon and especially Willow (the catchment audience) talk about both of them.
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2:20:50
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
[School of Everything Else 2025]
Neurodivergent elf seeks party for spell-gathering, demon-slaying and appreciating life a whole lot more...
Despite our longstanding NO ANIME rule (which nevertheless still allows us to occasionally do shows on the movies we love within that medium, and you folks have been good as gold insofar as overprescribing anime shows when you know it will overwhelm us with volume) this commissions season saw us so in need of emergency funds that we opened the door to not one but two beloved recent series'.
However, while we instantly found Delicious in Dungeon to be captivating, funny, charming, hilarious and nerdy in the most appealing easy-sell way possible, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End was much more of a slow-burn. And while we came out the other side appreciating many of the subtleties there were some glaring creative decisions which actively ruffled our feathers.
So, to ensure this would be talked about with passion and enthusiasm in a way that would help us see the best in it, we brought in a brace of guests who gave us the lowdown on both the show and the manga. Many thanks to our extremely patient backers for this episode; Tylor, Banzai and Painter47
Guests
Alejandra Vargas
Bradford Yurkiw
Super in-depth analysis of movies (and occasionally TV, and video games). Hosted by veteran podcasters Alex & Sharon Shaw with different guests for round-table chats every week.
UK