Boxing Day is a major movie day in Australia. Fiona and Nick talk you through their pick of the releases.
01:24: VICE. Christian Bale bulks up and adopts the smirk of Vice-President Dick Cheney, in a scathing depiction of the White House mover and shaker, by the makers of The Big Short. Does it amount to much more than an impersonation? Nick and Fiona discuss.
07:45: The Wild Pear Tree is the new film by Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Fiona is a fan of this 3-hour story, which is also about personal vices, in a far less showy way than, well, VICE.
09:39: Nick is not very enthusiastic about Nutcracker and the Four Realms, or The Grinch
10:14: Nick rewatched one of his favourite films, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Spoiler: It held up to a second viewing.
11:04: There's another Mary Poppins out on New Years Day. Nick didn't love it and somehow didn't realise it was going to be a musical (Fiona doesn't believe him).
12:42: Fiona seizes another chance to rave about her favourite film of the year, Cold War, which is in cinemas on Boxing Day.
15:14: Pawel Pawlikowsi, director of Cold War, joins Fiona to talk about his parents, whose own complicated relationship informed his film, and about how he manages to make his films, his way, despite trying political circumstances at home in Poland.
33:51: With holidays on the way, Fiona and Nick recommend movies and TV shows worth streaming at SBS On Demand:
- Fiona's first pick: melancholy dark comedy saga about Chinese society and bureaucracy, I Am Not Madame Bovary
- Nick urges you to binge the wonderful comedy about terrible people, You're The Worst
- In recommending I, Daniel Blake, Fiona realises that she has a thing about melancholy sagas about society and bureaucracy
- Nick is happy to report that Search Party is still available and ready to binge over summer
- Fiona is going to rewatch Pedro Almodovar's Volver over summer
- And just for something completely different, Fiona recommends the realism of Amal Escalante's The Untamed, and the way it weaves in the supernatural element of an alien sex monster. Yes, you read that correctly.
