Second Take Cinema

A franchise built on parodying existing franchises, 1996's Scream was a much needed shot in the arm for the very tired and essentially dead slasher genre when it released and it introduced the world to one of the most iconic slasher's in cinema history in Ghostface alongside one of its most iconic final girls with Neve Campbell's Sydney Prescott. But how does the original Scream hold up today, after all of these years (and sequels)? Jamie and Rory discuss it in this new episode of Second Take Cinema! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Widely recognised as having saved the Star Trek franchise from certain doom, The Wrath Of Khan finds its strength in being a film that strips back its budget and instead relies on tight scripting, iconic (if over-the-top) performances and escalating tension and winds up with a more successful outcome than its predecessor. How does it hold up all of these years later though? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Telling the true story of Jordan Belmont and the schemes that earned him the titular moniker, this is our first visit back to Martin Scorsese-land since we covered Goodfellas right back at the beginning of the show. Will this movie fare better with Rory than Goodfellas did? The boys discuss the film and the moral implications associated with telling this sort of story, which seems to thread through a lot of Scorsese's work.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1994 remains perhaps the biggest year of Jim Carey's career, seeing the release of 3 of his biggest hits all in one year; Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (see previous STC episode!), Dumb & Dumber and perhaps the most risky of the three ventures: The Mask. Based on a comic book and produced by New Line Cinema, the movie takes the source material in a more comedic direction and blends a weird sense of disturbing fantasy, real-life mundanity and cartoonish comedy under the guiding hand of director Chuck Russell (A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Blob). The question is, how does the movie hold up more than thirty years' later? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A huge Merry Christmas from Second Take Cinema and all of us here at Impala Films! We celebrate this week by reviewing a movie that holds a nostalgic place in Jamie's heart. Of the many screen adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol that there has been, Jamie contests that this 1970 Albert Finney vehicle is the best of the bunch. Will Rory agree? Do you agree? Let us know! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love Actually is usually regarded as one of the best Christmas and romantic movies ever but, in recent years opinion has been turning on the film with many acknowledging that the films idea of "love" is often misplaced. So who better to weigh in on this discussion than two fat guys? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A British-made New York gangster movie, a period-piece AND it's a musical!? How is that supposed to work? Oh, and one other thing...the cast is entirely made up of children. Yep, children. That's the unusual concept at the centre of Alan Parker's odd British musical-comedy Bugsy Malone which tells the story of a man caught up in a battle of rival gangs determined to wipe one another out and vying for control of a powerful new weapon; the "splurge gun." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A classic movie that launched Audrey Hepburn into a cultural icon and even spawned a 90s soft rock hit, almost everyone recognises Breakfast At Tiffany's, even if they've never actually seen the movie. Jamie first saw this movie as a teen and introduces it to Rory for the first time. Does the movie deserve its cultural reputation or is it all fanfare with no substance, and can certain poor decisions in this movie be reconciled with modern values? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the show Jamie and Rory go back to one of the scariest sci-fi movies of all time, described as a "haunted house in space" Alien launched a franchise that remains one of the most well-known in Hollywood, but it all stems from humble beginnings. Jamie and Rory discuss some of the more disturbing themes of the movie and take a look at some of the filmmaking techniques used to bring the Nostromo to life.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jamie and Rory review the classic action movie "Die Hard" widely regarded as an excellent movie, Jamie has to come along with his usual contrarian take and isn't too enamoured by the movie. The boys discuss the reasons behind this and whether or not Die Hard could work with another action hero in the lead.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The third season of Second Take Cinema continues and, since HAUNTED is currently on a break we're continuing to share it with all of our Patreon supporters. In the first episode of the season we discussed the landmark superhero movie "The Dark Knight" and this week may give you tonal whiplash as we're reviewing "Come And See" a harrowing, haunting and relentlessly bleak Soviet movie from 1985 that follows a young Belarussian boy who gets caught up in the Nazi invasion of his country.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Second Take Cinema returns for a third season of movie discussion beginning with the epic "The Dark Knight." A movie that became an instant classic and along with Iron Man sparked the second wave of the superhero craze that we're recently seeing the come-down of. Jamie and Rory look back on this 2008 film to see how it holds up, does it still hold the same meaning and power as before or has the passage of time taken some of the shine out of The Dark Knight. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is it! Our long journey to cover all of the films in the Elm Street franchise comes to a close not with a bang but with a whimper as we look at 2010s "A Nightmare On Elm Street" which failed to breathe new life into the franchise. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A decade in the making, 2003's Freddy vs Jason saw the two slasher icons going at it and represented the end of an era; the final time Robert Englund would play Freddy Krueger on the big screen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The lovely folks at Enigma Releasing kindly offered us the chance to do an early review of their new movie The Last Front. Already available in the United States, The Last Front releases in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on November 1st. Starring Iain Glenn (Game of Thrones) this World War I period drama tells the story of a small Belgian village that is set upon by a passing group of Germans who accuse the village residents of harbouring an anti-German resistance gang. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Often cited as a dry-run for Scream two years later, franchise creator Wes Craven returns to his most infamous creation to deliver a new tale which makes use of meta-narrative and self-referential winks to the audience. Does this first attempt at a meta horror movie from Craven hold up 30 years later? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So this is how it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper. Freddy left the 80s and entered the 90s with a particularly weak entry in the franchise in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. That's not to say there isn't anything interesting to be found here; brightly lit, very colourful and with jokes lifted right out of Looney Tunes, this film more than any other displays the ways in which Freddy had become watered down and commercialised for the mainstream audience. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thus begins what many would consider the downslope of the A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise with 1989's part 5: The Dream Child. Returning from the previous movie, Alice (Lisa Wilcox) begins experiencing strange Freddy Krueger-tinged dreams whilst she is awake. Around the same time she discovers that she is pregnant. Could the two things be related? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Dream Master is the highest grossing film in the A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise (excluding crossover movie Freddy vs Jason) which is a remarkable achievement considering how fraught with problems the movie's production was. A Nightmare On Elm Street's 4th entry is a film that, by rights, really shouldn't work; its elements are too disparate, it began shooting without a script, the producer and director who consistently at loggerheads and it had a turnaround time of less than a year after the third one...and yet, somehow, A Nightmare On Elm Street 4 has that "X Factor" that makes it feel much more entertaining and cohesive than it has any right to be. At least, that's Jamie's take on this film, but will Rory agree? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our voyage through the A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise brings us to the third entry; Dream Warriors, which many consider a high point in the franchise's success. Heather Langenkamp returns as Nancy Thompson to do battle once again with Freddy Krueger who is haunting the nightmares of a group of teens residing in a mental health centre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.