You Have Been Listening To…: Part II

It is the third weekend of a personal hiatus from the radio. There will be no more reviews by me of any kind on Dublin City FM 103.2 till May. But here’s a round-up of links to the previous editions of Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle and a list of the films we discussed on each one if you’re eager to explore the back catalogue.

DECEMBER

Review of 2018 (A Quiet Place) + TV Choice Die Hard 2 + Classic Home Alone

Review of 2018 (Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Goldstone) + TV Choice Spectre + Classic Duck Soup

Review of 2018 (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, The Old Man and the Gun) + TV Choice Skyfall + Classic Home Alone 2

Preview of 2019 (Once Upon A Time in Hollywood) + TV Choice Edge of Tomorrow + Classic The Great Escape

 

JANUARY

BumbleBee + TV Choice John Wick + Classic Blade Runner

Stan & Ollie + TV Choice In the Line of Fire + Classic Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Glass + TV Choice Speed + Classic Heat

Vice + Oscars 2019

 

FEBRUARY

Happy Death Day 2U + TV Choice The Social Network + Classic Tom Jones

Cold Pursuit + TV Choice La La Land + Classic The Taking of Pelham 123

 

MARCH

The Aftermath + TV Choice Hunt for the Wilderpeople + Classic The Third Man

Fighting with my Family + TV Choice Boyhood + Classic The Italian Job

Classic The Enemy Below + Classic The Woman in the Window

Notes on Fighting with my Family

Fighting with my Family was the catch-up film of the week much earlier today on Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle.

Stephen Merchant is the decidedly unlikely writer/director of this sports comedy-drama about the cheesy world of wrestling, which is fixed not fake as Nick Frost is quick to point out. Frost and Lena Headey are the proprietors of World Association of Wrestling, based in Norwich, but their children Florence Pugh and Jack Lowden have the chance to hit the big-time when they try out for the WWE during a London event. But coach Vince Vaughn only takes Pugh with him to Florida for SEAL/NXT training. As the Goth Pugh struggles with the talentless bikini babes being more popular than her with the wrestling audience the embittered Lowden spirals into drink and rage back home. And that is where Merchant’s name on proceedings becomes curious. A wonderful dinner party where Frost and Headey try and fail to impress the classy parents (Merchant and Julia Davis) of Lowden’s girlfriend is pure Merchant, but then the sports drama surrounding such sequences is a familiar tale differentiated only by the theatrical nature of the sport depicted in training montages.

Listen here: