Silver Screen Queens
334 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 16 ratingsMelissa Savage and Katie Molloy met in film class, and haven’t been able to stop talking movies ever since. Each week they watch a movie and review it, stopping to make plenty of nerdy references along the way.
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Episodes
234: Suburbicon
November 07, 2017 20:00 - 41 minutes - 23.5 MBGeorge Clooney’s latest directorial effort dropped with barely a lick of publicity, but it has Oscar Isaac in it, so we decided to see what it was about.
233: Thor: Ragnarok
October 31, 2017 20:00 - 1 hour - 34.8 MBWe’ve only been waiting all year for Taika Waititi’s quirky entrée into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it’s finally here! Also, tickets are now on sale for our screening of STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.
232: Geostorm
October 24, 2017 20:00 - 39 minutes - 22.8 MBAhead of THOR: RAGNAROK, cinematic pickings are pretty slim. Our choices were THE SNOWMAN, or this B-grade disaster flick by screenwriter and showrunner Dean Devlin, starring Gerard Butler as an engineering genius trying to save the world from the climate change-solving satellites he designed and installed on the International Space Station. How could we resist that description!?
231: Happy Death Day
October 17, 2017 20:00 - 34 minutes - 20.5 MBThis micro-budget horror comedy re-working of GROUNDHOG DAY appears to be the sleeper hit of Halloween 2017. A college student must live the last day of her life over and over again until she finds her killer.
230: Blade Runner 2049
October 10, 2017 20:00 - 50 minutes - 28.1 MBWe’ve have long thought the original BLADE RUNNER was overrated and over-long, but we couldn’t miss the 35-years-later sequel, because it was getting some great reviews and it was helmed by Denis Villeneuve, director of the excellent ARRIVAL. We went in hopeful.
229: Battle of the Sexes
October 03, 2017 20:00 - 46 minutes - 26.6 MBIn 1973, women’s number one Billie Jean King played former Wimbledon men’s champion Bobby Riggs in a highly publicised tennis match. At a time of surging overt bigotry, it’s a pertinent reminder of the battles that have been fought before, and need to be fought again.
228: American Assassin
September 26, 2017 21:00 - 36 minutes - 21 MBOne of the Silver Screen Queens is a Teen Wolf fan, so naturally we watched this Dylan O’Brien starrer about a boy with a tragic past (you’ll never guess who has to die in service of this tragic back story!) recruited to carry out super-secret CIA missions under the tutelage of Michael Keaton (in scenery-chewing mode).
227: mother!
September 19, 2017 21:00 - 33 minutes - 18.6 MBWe haven’t always liked Darren Aronofsky, but his latest collaboration with Jennifer Lawrence has been drip-feeding us intriguing trailers and spooky posters for months, so we wanted to give it a go.
226: It
September 12, 2017 21:00 - 48 minutes - 28.1 MBStephen King’s 1986 novel about a killer clown gets the big screen treatment (following the cult 1990 TV mini-series). One of us was eagerly awaiting this, the other braced herself, gritted her teeth and made it through.
225: Girls Trip
September 05, 2017 21:00 - 47 minutes - 26.8 MBA sleeper hit of the American summer, GIRLS TRIP features an all star cast and a fun HANGOVER meets BAD MOMS vibe. Of course, as the all-star cast was black, in Australia, we had to wait two months to see it in cinemas.
224: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
August 29, 2017 21:00 - 44 minutes - 25.2 MBLuc Besson is back with another sci-fi epic based on a series of comics and featuring a world where the International Space Station has morphed into the Interplanetary Melting Pot. It stars hipster darlings Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne, and features a sweet cameo from Rihanna, but it has not had good press, or box office.
223: Logan Lucky
August 22, 2017 21:00 - 43 minutes - 24.4 MBSteven Soderbergh’s latest film had an insidious marketing campaign that meant we saw the trailer every time we went to the cinema in the last few months. Unlike many films, however, each time we saw the trailer, we liked it more. It hits a number of our special interests: heists, Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and fast cars, so we went in with some excitement.
222: The Big Sick
August 15, 2017 21:00 - 41 minutes - 23.8 MBA sleeper hit of the summer, this film has had great word of mouth, so we had to check it out. Real life couple Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon collaborated on the script, based on a crisis they dealt with early in their relationship. When Emily is struck with a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself dealing with her parents, while also managing his Pakistani family’s traditional expectations and building his own comedy career.
221: Atomic Blonde
August 08, 2017 21:00 - 36 minutes - 21.2 MBCharlize Theron stars as an ass-kicking British spy in this thriller whose slick, shiny trailers took the internet by storm earlier this year. Tired of waiting for a female James Bond to fall in her lap, Theron secured the rights to Antony Johnston’s graphic novel The Coldest City and made it happen for herself. The film is directed by former stuntman and part-time John Wick director David Leitch and set in Berlin just days before the Wall came down.
220: Dunkirk
August 01, 2017 21:00 - 45 minutes - 26.5 MBThe new Christopher Nolan movie, aka the Harry Styles movie, is out and it actually looks good. Based on the evacuation of British troops from the beach of Dunkirk in 1940, the trailers show a pretty, patriotic flick featuring Tom Hardy as a Spitfire pilot and Mark Rylance as an old dad volunteering his boat for the war effort.
219: The Beguiled
July 25, 2017 21:00 - 42 minutes - 24.7 MBSofia Coppola’s latest film won Best Director at the recent Cannes Film Festival (making her the first woman director to win the award), and has had some good word of mouth. We haven’t always loved Coppola’s films, but we decided to give it a go when we saw the stellar cast.
218: Baby Driver
July 18, 2017 21:00 - 33 minutes - 19.7 MBOne of the more interesting directors working today, Edgar Wright is back with this passion project. It’s had some great reviews, and has been popular with audiences, so we were excited to watch it.
217: Spider-Man: Homecoming
July 11, 2017 21:00 - 45 minutes - 26.6 MBSpider-Man is having his third reboot in 15 years, but this time he is…coming home [geddit]…to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We have our reservations, mostly related to the shabby treatment of Andrew Garfield, but we went in with open minds and our faith in Marvel’s ability to entertain us.
216: The Promise
July 04, 2017 21:00 - 42 minutes - 25 MBA small film about the Armenian Genocide that dropped at Cannes in 2016, THE PROMISE attracted our attention because it stars Oscar Isaac. Shot on a tiny budget, and working around still-sensitive governments, THE PROMISE brings the story of this little-discussed piece of history to audiences through a long sweeping romance about a young man yearning to be a doctor.
215: Transformers: The Last Knight
June 27, 2017 21:00 - 1 hour - 41.7 MBWe watch the fifth Transformers movie so you don’t have to!
214: Cars 3
June 20, 2017 21:00 - 39 minutes - 23 MBPixar’s Cars franchise has never been a hit with critics, but kids have long enjoyed the antics of Lightning McQueen, and made him one of the biggest-selling toys on the market. When we began seeing trailers a few months back promising the kid equivalent of a “gritty reboot” to the franchise, we were intrigued. Lightning McQueen is now a veteran race car, and he’s finding it hard to keep up with the new kids on the block. When an accident puts him out of action, he must find his way back to t...
213: The Mummy (2017)
June 13, 2017 21:00 - 45 minutes - 26 MBUniversal is attempting to make a ‘Dark Universe’ happen, and they are starting with this remake of The Mummy. Most people our age have fond memories of the 1999 movie of the same name, so how does this high-octane Tom Cruise-led remake stack up?
212: Wonder Woman
June 06, 2017 21:00 - 54 minutes - 31.5 MBWe’ve waited a long time for this: Wonder Woman has her own live action film. The DC universe did not fill us with confidence in the lead-up to Wonder Woman’s release, but the reviews were good, so we crossed our fingers and showed up on opening night.
211: Life
May 30, 2017 21:00 - 47 minutes - 26.7 MBA few weeks back we saw LIFE, an ALIEN ahem tribute, starring Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal. While the movie itself was unoriginal and clichéd, we had a LOT of fun talking about it.
210: John Wick: Chapter 2
May 23, 2017 21:00 - 32 minutes - 20.2 MBJohn Wick was a sleeper hit in 2014, so the team has scrambled to put together a sequel that’s longer, louder and freer of dog violence. If you liked the first one, this offers more of the same, without trying to get clever about it. The fight choreography and stunt work is well worth the price of admission.
209: Alien: Covenant
May 16, 2017 21:00 - 49 minutes - 29.5 MBRidley Scott returns to the Alien universe, with a sequel to the 2012 prequel PROMETHEUS. It features good performances from Michael Fassbender and Katherine Waterston, but it doesn’t add anything to the legacy of the early films.
208: Colossal
May 09, 2017 21:00 - 38 minutes - 22.7 MBOtherwise known as ‘that Anne Hathaway movie where she discovers she is controlling a giant kaiju with her mind’, Colossal lured us in with its fantastic poster, and gave us plenty to think about with its interesting take on what seemed like a silly premise.
207: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
May 02, 2017 21:00 - 1 hour - 34.7 MBMarvel’s fun space franchise is back. We liked the first one, but not enough to be over-excited about its sequel. Pleasingly, it addresses some of what we thought were weakness in the first movie, with a stronger story and less mean humour. While it isn’t perfect (why so little Rocket and Groot?!), it is good fun and, as with most of Marvel’s output, even an average Marvel flick means a fun night at the movies.
206: Get Out
April 25, 2017 21:00 - 45 minutes - 25.2 MBDue to Australia’s interesting (cough racist cough) film distribution system, we didn’t get GET OUT for nearly two months after it became the sleeper hit of 2017. We finally watch it, and see whether it lives up to they hype. See it (at a cinema, seriously, trust us on that) before you listen to this episode.
205: The Fate of the Furious
April 18, 2017 21:00 - 1 hour - 34.5 MBWe generally enjoy The Fast and the Furious movies, and after the emotional high of Furious 7 there was no way were missing the eighth instalment. Unfortunately, the pudding has now been over-egged, and the result is this over-long outing that struggles to recover from the loss of the Dom-Brian dynamic, despite the brilliant supporting cast.
204: The Lego Batman Movie
April 11, 2017 21:00 - 32 minutes - 19.2 MBWill Arnett’s Lego Batman was one of the highlights of 2014’s THE LEGO MOVIE, and thanks to a thousand internet memes, now he has a solo spinoff film. Unfortunately, what was a great gag in service of a larger movie, loses something when it has to carry an entire movie. The entire project smacks of a desire to cash in on a phenomenon, and it suffers from the lack of proper story development.
203: Beauty and the Beast
April 04, 2017 21:00 - 36 minutes - 20.7 MBTale as old as time…song as old as rhyme…you know the rest. For our generation, the 1991 animated Beauty and the Beast is a classic. Not just ‘good for an kids movie’, it was wildly successful at the box office, became the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture and won Oscars for its score and title song. Now that the kids who watched that film have grown up and have kids of their own to take to the movies, Disney has remade it in a live action version starring Emma Watson, whos...
202: Iron Fist Season One
March 28, 2017 20:00 - 1 hour - 49.7 MBThe latest instalment of Marvel’s Netflix ‘Defenders’ shows is out, and it’s the most controversial. Since its announcement, Iron Fist has provoked a strong reaction; even more so after it cast a non-Asian lead. Friend of the show Jamie joins us to review it, and we discover that whitewashing is the least of its problems.
201: Loving
March 21, 2017 20:00 - 47 minutes - 26.6 MBThe film commemorating the story of Richard and Mildred Loving has finally reached Australia (only three months after its domestic release…). Unfortunately, it doesn’t pay quite the tribute these trailblazers deserve. While the film seems to have an honourable approach to the facts of the case, and the Lovings’ lives, this has the effect of toning down the drama and missing some of the broader importance of the story.
200: Kong: Skull Island
March 14, 2017 20:00 - 42 minutes - 24 MBPodcast patron saint Tom Hiddleston has a new movie out, so obviously we were there for it. A B-grade King Kong flick with an A-grade cast and production values, Kong: Skull Island lives up to the awesome Apocalypse Now-inspired trailer that got us excited a few months ago. Newbie director Jordan Vogt-Roberts shows a deft hand, managing well-integrated CG and gorgeous visuals while keeping the big-name cast in check to deliver perfectly-pitched performances. It’s nothing you haven’t seen befo...
199: Logan
March 07, 2017 20:00 - 44 minutes - 24.4 MBHugh Jackman’s last outing as Wolverine promised a gritty, adult movie about the end of the world, and with good support from Patrick Stewart and director James Mangold, it does what it says on the tin. Is it the saviour of the superhero genre it’s been made out to be? No. But it is trying something different, and drawing on broader film influences that suit the perpetually grumpy Logan, while giving us a bittersweet story about caregiving and passing the torch.
198: 13th / Oscars Post-mortem
February 28, 2017 20:00 - 46 minutes - 25.7 MBWe review Ava DuVernay’s Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary, and find that it’s worth seeing, if a little fast and furious. It presents some very serious information in an accessible and palatable way, is beautifully shot and made, and will help you show receipts the next time you’re faced with white folks claiming racism is over. It does, however, have a little of the feeling of a history class, and as it gets closer to its run time it does tend to skip over some of the more interesting thi...
197: Oscar Week 2017
February 21, 2017 20:00 - 58 minutes - 32.8 MBWe’re huge Oscar fans, so ahead of the 2017 Academy Awards we talk through the nominees, speculating about likely winners and nerding out over the technical categories.
196: Manchester by the Sea
February 14, 2017 20:00 - 41 minutes - 23.7 MBWe went to see this feeling a little conflicted, not wanting to support Casey Affleck or his alleged treatment of some of his female co-workers, but we didn’t feel like our Oscar preparation would be complete without it. It’s pretty good, if a little well-worn, and the story could do with some better structuring, but the cast are great, it looks amazing and it will hit you in the feels.
195: Hidden Figures
February 07, 2017 20:00 - 31 minutes - 17.7 MBThis already-beloved film tells the story of three black women mathematicians, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughn, all of whom contributed to the US space program in significant ways. It is a sweet, fun historical picture with broad popular appeal. While we didn’t love it as much as we hoped we would, it is well worth your time, especially if you’re looking for something the whole family can enjoy.
194: A United Kingdom
January 31, 2017 20:00 - 39 minutes - 22.3 MBAfter a promising debut with Belle, Amma Assante is back with another little-told piece of black history. The real-life story of Seretse Khama, a prince and ruler of Botswana, and his white English wife Ruth Williams, it features the excellent David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike and makes the most of its glorious African location. Unfortunately, like Belle, it suffers a bit from under-done pacing and storytelling.
193: Jackie
January 24, 2017 20:00 - 51 minutes - 30.6 MBNatalie Portman’s second Oscar campaign is afoot, for this portrayal of former US First Lady Jackie Kennedy in the minutes and days following her husband’s assassination. The acting is top notch, and some moments in the film are extremely effective in capturing shocking, traumatic grief, but it does start to drag towards the end, as the amount of material struggles to fill it’s short run time.
192: Moonlight
January 17, 2017 20:00 - 36 minutes - 20 MBThis gentle, beautiful film has been generating a lot of buzz, and it’s absolutely justified. It’s the story of a boy, Chiron, dealing with some pretty tough circumstances and overwhelming feelings as a child, a teenager and as a young adult. Born to an abusive, addicted mother, and in love with his (male) best friend, this immersive story puts you right in Chiron’s shoes, delivering a transportive experience.
191: La La Land
January 10, 2017 20:00 - 33 minutes - 18.5 MBThe early awards season favourite LA LA LAND arrived in Australia on Boxing Day, and being big musical fans, we were there for it. While it isn’t the masterpiece some people seem to think, it does have its moments. It is helmed by the technically dazzling Damien Chazelle (WHIPLASH) and features the talented John Legend in a small role. It’s let down, however, by the lack of singing and dancing skills of its otherwise charming and charismatic leads.
190: Moana
January 03, 2017 20:00 - 30 minutes - 17.6 MBDisney’s latest animated adventure finally arrived in Australia on Boxing Day 2016, and we were first in line to see it. It turns out, however, that we kind of disagree on this one, apart from the magnificence of The Rock, who puts in a star turn as the demi-god, Maui. It’s fun, cute and you should definitely take your kids to see it over the holidays, but it’s probably not the same modern classic that Frozen has become.
189: Lion
December 27, 2016 20:00 - 41 minutes - 23.9 MBWe caught an early screening of Nicole Kidman’s latest Oscar bait. This movie has some good elements (the acting is excellent, and it’s not only Kidman who should be in contention), but is let down by un-engaging storytelling. It’s notable for its focus on the story of the adoptee rather than his parents, and doesn’t shy away from the more problematic aspects, but would have benefitted from a more dynamic structure.
188: Live Episode: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
December 20, 2016 20:00 - 33 minutes - 19.5 MBThe long-awaited Star Wars spin-off film has arrived, so we decided to watch it with an audience. This gritty film really focuses in on the ‘war’ part of Star Wars, following a band of rebels as they steal the plans to the original Death Star in the days before the beginning of STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE. Recorded live at Palace Cinemas in Canberra; special thanks to Daniel ‘Jelly’ Farrelly for the sound production.
187: Queen of Katwe
December 13, 2016 20:00 - 45 minutes - 25.5 MBDisney Princess Lupita N’yongo uses her power for good, teaming up with the legendary Mira Nair to tell the story of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi’s rise from the slum of Katwe to chess master. It’s an inspirational kids sports movie with a twist, featuring the extraordinary talents of Ms N’yongo and David Oyelowo, and it’s well worth your time.
186: Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life
December 06, 2016 20:00 - 1 hour - 47.4 MBAnother of our occasional ventures into television as we cover the Gilmore Girls reunion show. There’s something nice and comfortable about hanging out in Stars Hollow, with all your quirky faves. It may be problematic, but at least it’s a problematic fave. Don’t forget our live ROGUE ONE episode! Canberra, 16 December, 2016
185: Arrival
November 29, 2016 20:00 - 39 minutes - 23 MBThis Amy Adams/Jeremy Renner sci-fi has been getting great word of mouth, so we check it out. If you haven’t seen it yet, we recommend you do so before listening to this episode, because it really is best enjoyed unspoiled.