Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson reluctantly returns for more of those yellow mischief-makers in #2's 'Minions & Monsters', which provides kids with a quick snapshot of early film history and little else of value. He raves about the third film in the chart, Olivia Wilde's chamber drama 'The Invite', which he says is distinguished by Wilde's direction, terrific performances and an enormously witty screenplay from Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. James also covers StudioCanal's 4K UHD Blu-ray release of Russell Mulcahy's 1986 film 'Highlander', which arrived on the 29th June and celebrates the film's 40th anniversary.
Guests: Chad Kennerk,James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson thought he was in for a treat with #2 Supergirl, starring Milly Alcock. But it is disappointingly tedious, with lots of fighting and killing and a surprising 12A certificate, given that it deals with alcoholism and sex trafficking. #27 Blue Heron, a Canadian film about childhood trauma, is highly regarded by some. But James found it self-indulgent, abtruse and unfathomable. He was keener on Netflix's romcom Voicemails for Isabelle. It looks great, has a super soundtrack, winning performances and boasts dialogue so effervescent, he would happily watch it again for that alone. It's the sort of film that makes you happy to be alive. In the Hand of Dante, also on Netflix, stars Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese and more but is two films in one, with an intriguing modern thriller weighed down by a plodding medieval biopic. It's half a masterpiece, half a disaster.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson says that, despite the heatwave, box office was up 72%, thanks to #1 Toy Story 5. Maintaining the franchise's fantastic quality, it is vastly amusing but also perhaps the most moving of the films. With a plot about the damage screens are doing to children, it has a joyful score, new characters and a stellar voice cast. At #12 is Virginia Woolf's Night & Day, with Haley Bennett an astronomer suffering the social mores of the day. It's a very loose adaptation, with plot, class and language all making it seem more modern. Although kinetic, it feels redundant, despite a great central performance. James wondered why it was made at all. He did, however, enjoy Netflix's Office Romance with Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein. Goldstein, famous from Ted Lasso, co-produced and co-wrote this romcom, which is silly and predictable but also an entertaining romp.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson was intrigued but not overly excited by #1 Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg's first sci-fi film since Ready Player One. Emily Blunt plays a TV meteorologist dreaming of better things who shows signs of ESP and can suddenly speak foreign languages. A spiritual companion to Close Encounters, it gets ever weirder, taking in AI, religion, quantum physics and more, but is essentially a chase movie. At #12 is Tuner, which is the best and most entertaining that generic cinema can get. Leo Woodall stars as a piano tuner with incredible sensitivity to sound who finds he has another talent. Dustin Hoffman steals every scene he's in. You can see where it's all going, but it's a most engaging film. On Amazon Prime is the horror film Over Your Dead Body about a dysfunctional couple harbouring murderous intentions. It is an 18, deservedly so, but is also very funny.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson found #1, the horror spoof Scary Movie shouty and exhausting, emerging despairing for humanity. The brief trailer, however, is quite funny. #13 Savage House feels like a Jacobean tragedy but is an original, supposedly a satire on our own times. Starring Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy, it's supposedly a black comedy but the tone left James depressed. It is well made, with excellent production values, but while grotesque, it is not funny. However, he does recommend Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix. Starring Sally Fields, who is on excellent form in her 80th year, it is a funny, touching movie set in an aquarium, with Alfred Molina voicing a wise octopus. Set in a timeless backwater full of eccentrics it has real heart and is frequently very funny.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson is rather mystified by the success of #1 Backrooms, with Chewitel Ejiofor. A horror film based on a web series, it baffled James, unaware of its precedents but people are loving it. James was much more taken with #9 Power Ballad with Paul Rudd. Written and directed by John Carney, it's even better than his earlier films such as Once and Sing Street. Peopled with interesting characters and with witty dialogue and great music, it reduced James to tears. Ladies First, on Netflix, is an English-language version of their first French-language film. Starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike, it's about a womanising liar who wakes up in a parallel universe which is a matriarchy. With echoes of Mel Gibson's What Women Want, it's witty and well acted but is more farcical fantasy than satire.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
After watching #1 Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, James Cameron-Wilson says he's exhausted by all these fantasy franchises. The effects are impressive but the plot seems redundant and he was extremely bored. Not so with #8 Finding Emily, the best romcom he has seen in quite some time. Produced by the team behind Love Actually and Bridget Jones, it's about a student trying to find a girl he clicked with, only for the search to go badly awry. Humming with great Curtis-esque lines, it has an engaging freshness and feels very real. After a brief mention of Hen, in which a hen observes Greek life, James discusses The Wizard of the Kremlin, starring Paul Dano and Alicia Vikander, about a filmmaker who becomes an adviser to Putin. On various platforms, it has an air of the Europudding.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson urges us to see #7 The Christophers, Steven Soderbergh's virtual two-hander with Ian McKellan and Michaela Coel. About the children of a famous painter trying to get a forger to finish some of their father's canvasses, it benefits from superb acting and a magnificently witty script. Although a theatrical experience, it is a thing of beguiling beauty and is very funny. At #64 is Life Hack, another movie in which computer screens are depicted on the big screen. But this tale of an attempted heist by hackers set in the world of bitcoin carves out its own genre and deserves to be caught in cinemas. James continues his exploration of East German DEFA films with the 1966 banned movie Trace of Stones. Depicting life in the GDR in the 1960s, it seems uncontroversial now, though hardly flattering, and its home video premiere is accompanied by three documentaries.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson finds #3 The Sheep Detectives a bit of a curate's egg. An anthropomorphic fantasy, families will take the astonishingly animated sheep to their hearts in a plot worth of Agatha Christie but the acting is annoyingly hammy. Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard & Soft is a concert film directed by James Cameron. Often hard to hear the lyrics, it is perhaps one for her fans. Out on Blu-Ray is Lynne Ramsay's Die My Love. Robert Pattinson is sidelined by Jennifer Lawrence's impressive performance as a depressive mother becoming increasingly irrational. An important film which juggles realism with the nightmarish, it is almost a character-based horror film.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson says that #1 The Devil Wears Prada 2 has taken 85% of the first film's total in just 3 days. Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway have reunited, along with much of the behind-the-camera talent. It's a formulaic and superficial pleasure but has plenty of laughs. James thinks Primavera, about the composer Vivaldi, is one of the best films of the year: it is showing in select Picturehouse and Curzon hardtops. He feels everyone should watch Netflix's documentary The Plastic Detox, which he says has changed his life. It's full of good humour, despite its message about the toxic chemicals in plastics which alter our hormones. It's horrifying but educational and actually made a massive difference to six formerly childless couples who were the detox guinea pigs. He advises everybody to give a wide berth to the awful Greenland 2: Migration, an apocalyptic thriller with Gerard Butler.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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