School of Movies

[School of Movies 2026]

The original trio of Gore Verbinski Pirates films have become sacred cows to millennial movie commentators on YouTube, spoken of in hushed tones alongside the likes of The Prequel Trilogy and Shrek. Back when I was in my twenties, I absolutely loved that first one and had a great time at the second, it was only the third (one of the first films we reviewed in the early days of Digital Cowboys) that threw me for a loop.

What we've done here, following our effusive 2025 show on Curse of the Black Pearl is reconvene with Maya and Brendan, and in some cases go back for only a second viewing of that second movie, to watch with contemporary eyes that have seen a thousand VFX extravaganzas in the two decades since.

This was a mammoth undertaking for the filmmakers, and in this week's show and next week's we zero in on where the film's strengths are still seaworthy, and where they sink like a stone.

Alex's Audiodrama: Panther Soul on Bandcamp

Maya's Book: Realm of Kings on Amazon

Guests:

Hollywoo Actress  Maya Souris @Mayasantandrea

Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew of Make Me Watch It

This week's After School Club: Cutthroat Island

Next week: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

[School of Movies 2025]

NOTE: This episode was originally released in 2025, a year before we covered the sequels in 2026.

An extremely long-awaited show on a game-changer of a blockbuster movie.

The first Pirates film, released in 2003 before Lord of the Rings had completed brought the world many things: A fantabulous extravaganza of practical effects, combined with a surprisingly light smattering of digital VFX that would be leaned into a lot harder later down the line, The notion that the swashbuckler could still do big business (the hidden caveat was that Johnny Depp being strange absolutely must be present) Keira Knightley as a leading lady, Gore Verbinski as a major director, the supposition that audiences would flock to cinematic adaptations of Disney park rides (they won't, just this one. See above regarding Johnny Depp) and Geoffrey Rush as an all-time iconic big-screen presence embodying the most consistently enjoyable pirate of all time.

But there's more going on, beneath the frothing surface, a fantastically witty, urbane and efficient script by Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, one of the greatest scores ever composed (in a shockingly short amount of time) and Orlando Bloom's character actually being quite good, especially when held against Jack Davenport's Lawful Neutral Commodore James Norrington.

This was a commission for Lincoln Alpern and features clips from the best audiodrama I've ever composed; Panther Soul, and the first chapter of the brand new Dracula adaptation Castle of the Moon.

Guests:

Hollywoo Actress  Maya Souris @Mayasantandrea

Brenden Agnew @BLCAgnew of Make Me Watch It

[School of Everything Else 2026]

This is a commissioned show for AJ. We recorded it several months ago, but banked it until the long-awaited release of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. It is an independent, serialised concept musical, released across nine digital EPs from December 2022 through to December 2024 by Jorge Rivera-Herrans (who also plays Odysseus, amongst others).

And this took a certain portion of the Internet by storm, garnering fan projects to animate each of the songs, all of which you can find assembled here in one 2h 22m work of collaborative passion made on one iota the budget of Nolan's IMAX titan.

Willow showed this to us on Christmas day and the music and handling of the many characters really stuck with us. This is the most excited I've been about a musical since Hamilton and the original Moana.

Statistically, almost none of you have heard this, so we specifically crafted this show to introduce what Jorge and company achieved here and hopefully get a bunch of new people with these catchy-ass songs bouncing round their heads. This is DreamWorks' Prince of Egypt and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas to Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods & Kings and his Robin Hood.

This week's After School Club: Ulysses 31

Next week: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

[School of Movies 2026]

Following on from the sunny and heartfelt success of James Gunn's 2025 Superman we have the scrappy follow-up by Craig Gillespie, detailing the lifestyle of Kal-El's cousin. Gillespie most likely got the job after two filmic accomplishments in spotlighting grubby, depressed punk girls who nobody likes except the audience; I, Tonya and Cruella.

Sharon and I went all out on this, reading the source book, 'Woman of Tomorrow' by Tom King & Bilquis Evely, which itself draws structural and thematic inspiration from specifically the Coen Brothers adaptation of True Grit by Charles Portis. What we are able to do is outline clearly where the film differs from the book and where the book differs from both film and original book to create this turducken of revenge.

This episode is totally worth listening to, even if you haven't seen this box office bomb that everyone we talk to seems to like and everyone we don't know personally seems to despise.

This week's After School Club: Aquaman 2: The Lost City

Next week: EPIC: The Musical

[School of Movies 2026]

After the 2022 failure ($226m on a $200m budget) of Lightyear to succesfully spin-off from the main Toy Story franchise (and we did a show about that at the time), they went back to the billion-dollar well that is the direct link to so many warm feelings across multiple generations.

And here they finally tackle the issue of tech, tablets (and the strangely absent phones and even video games) and their role in drawing modern children's attention away from their traditional toys. This felt like it was a long time coming and (especially after covering WALL-E for MA.I.) I had built up in my head a hard-hitting critique of not only losing our kids to glowing screens, but losing ourselves.

And from the glowing critical acclaim this has received across the board (92% freshness and 95% audience score) I appear to be wildly out of step with contemporary critics and cinemagoers. I have... some things to say.

This week's After School Club: Toy Story Shorts

Next week: Supergirl (2026)