Reviews of Frankenstein and The Mastermind, and a chat about some of our favourite cinematic heists.

This week, we take a peek at Plainclothes, a new thriller/romance about a cop whose job involves the entrapment of gay men, which he feels somewhat conflicted about as he himself is secretly gay. We also take a look at Good Boy, an American indie horror about a dog who's trying to save its owner from a supernatural threat.  And with Halloween approaching, we recommend the horror films to catch on the big screen and the small screen at home. TIMESTAMPS: What We’ve Been Watching: The Wiz, Transformers: The Movie (1:42) Plainclothes review (11:37) Good Boy review (26:32) Horror film recommendations: Perfect Blue, Night of the Living Dead, Black Phone 2, V/H/S Halloween and more (37:20) Recorded on location at Jamie's flat in Shawlands, Glasgow. Get us on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd  @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Intro and interstitial music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Reviews of One Battle After Another and Urchin, and a look back on some of our favourites from our first 100 episodes.

This week, we’re off to a very near-future Tokyo for Happyend, in which a bunch of clubbing-mad high school teens turn rabblerousers when their headmaster installs a sinister surveillance system in their school, which mirrors the darkening political situation unfolding beyond the school gates. We also take a look at the documentary Power Station, which sees an artist couple try to tackle the fuel poverty crisis in their local community by turning their street into a literal and metaphorical power station.  Power Station opens the community-minded Take One Action film festival, which leads us on to discuss some of the other film festivals coming to Scotland over the next wee while, from the Glasgow Youth Film Festival to a touring programme of highlights from the London Film Festival. TIMESTAMPS:What We’ve Been Watching: The Horse Whisperer, The Guns of Navarone, Weapons, Raising Arizona and The Secret Garden (1:05)Happyend review (13:14)Power Station n review (36:54)Smaller film fests: Take One Action, LFF on tour, IberoDocs and GYFF (37:40) Recorded on location in the Codebase meeting room with the lovely chairs. Get us on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd  @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Intro and interstitial music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

The gang talk comfort watches, discuss films of the year so far, and spend a surprising amount of time discussing Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie.

While Peter, Anahit and Ellie are off covering the various other festivals happening across Edinburgh this August, Jamie has been attending the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which kicked off in wonderful style on 14 August with Sorry, Baby, the debut feature from Eva Victor, who writes, directs and stars in the film. Sorry, Baby seemed to go down tremendously well with everyone at the opening. On the day after that opening, we sat down with Eva Victor to discuss the film. Have a listen below. TIMESTAMP How it felt opening the Edinburgh Film Festival (2:40)The initial idea for Sorry, Baby (5:40)The female friendship at the heart of the film and working with Naomi Ackie (7:25)How online comedy videos prepared Victor for her first feature (9:02)On choosing the film's non-chronological structure (10:51)Choosing to leave Agnes's assault off-screen (17:31) If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials! Follow the team on Twitter @ptrsmpsn @anahitrooz @jamiedunnesq @lew_rob_, get us on TikTok @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Recorded on location at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Our Edinburgh International Film Festival preview, taking a closer look at three films – The Golden Spurtle, Islands, and Zodiac Killer Project

In this episode, the team was bowled over by Dreams, part of a new arthouse trilogy by Norwegian writer-director Dag Johan Haugerud called The Oslo Stories Trilogy (not to be confused with Joachim Trier's similarly named Oslo Trilogy). The other two instalments - Love and Sex - are released later in August. Dreams got us talking about our favourite trilogies in general, from the first three Toy Story movies to Richard Linklater's Before... films via Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy. We also squeeze in a review of stop-motion film Savages, the long-awaited new work from Belgian director Claude Barras, best known for his bruising coming-of-age animation My Life as a Courgette.  TIMESTAMPS:What We’ve Been Watching: Female Perversion, Legally Blonde the Musical, Safe and Lena Dunham's new series Too Much (02:44)Savages review (15:23)Dreams review (27:52)Movie Trilogies: What are they, and which ones do we love? (46:25) Recorded on location in the Codebase meeting room with the lovely chairs. Get us on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd  @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Intro and interstitial music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Reviews of James Gunn’s Superman and biopic/doc hybrid The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, plus a Karlovy Vary Film Festival recap.

We visit the freshly-reopened Filmhouse in Edinburgh, reviews of 28 Years Later and Pavements, and a first look at the Edinburgh Film Festival programme.

Owing to there being a dearth of great films out in June, we've ditched our usual format and for one week only we're doing a 'call-in' show. We asked our listeners to send in questions and voice notes, and they sent in loads, quizing us on myriad subjects, from sexiness in film to our ideal directors' dinner party to which film characters would make for terrible flatmates.  TIMESTAMPS: "They’re adapting the Cineskinny into a major motion picture - who would play each of you in the flick? Jamie, you cast Anahit; Anahit, you pick Ellie; Ellie, you choose Jamie." From Peter Simpson (1:33)"When Harry Styles said that Don't Worry Darling really felt "like a movie", what do you think he meant? What other films really feel like a movie??" From Rho Chung (11:38)"Do you think it's cooler to be a director who hones in and does one thing really well (Wes Anderson (debatable lol but ygm), Tarantino etc), or one with RANGE (Danny Boyle for example)" From Phoebe Willison (19:20)"What about 'best and/or worst film you've watched with your parents?" From Carmen Paddock (34:47)"What's your dream directors' dinner party (pick 3, living or dead) and what film would you put on for everyone afterwards?" George Sully (43:18) Get us on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd  @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Recorded at Ground Floor, Leith – ehfm.live Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Jamie catches up with John Maclean to discuss the director’s new film, the Scottish samurai western Tornado.

On the latest episode of The CineSkinny, we take a wild trip with a ruthless tycoon (Benicio del Toro), his deeply moral daughter (Mia Threapleton) and his Swedish tutor-cum-secretary (Michael Cera) in Wes Anderson's breakneck espionage comedy The Phoenician Scheme.  We come back down to earth with the urgent and enraging documentary The Encampments, which takes us inside the Palestine solidarity campus encampment at Columbia University that became a focal point last spring in the fight against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And inspired by The Encampments and the upcoming SAFAR Film Festival, each member of the team recommends a great Palestinian film. TIMESTAMPS: What We've Been Watching: Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean; Julia & Julia; Taskmaster; Feel Good (1:40)The Phoenician Scheme review (12:08)The Encampments review (32:05)Palestinian cinema: It Must Be Heaven, Gaza mon amour, 5 Broken Cameras (48:52) Get us on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd  @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Recorded at Ground Floor, Leith – ehfm.live Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  

A clip from our new Scottish music interview podcast, with the piper, composer and instrument-maker Malin Lewis.

We dig into the world of film’s premier fancy lad Wes Anderson, plus reviews of Magic Farm and Good One.

On this week's pod, two hot, hot movies. First up, Sinners, Ryan Coogler's sexy Southern Gothic vampire flick set in Jim Crow-era Mississippi. It's got two Michael B Jordans, it's got epic musical sequences, it's got exquisite period detail, it's got spit sharing, it's got a smart and thorny race analogy at its heart, it's got great actors bringing their A game, it's got wonderful post-credit scenes and, did we mention, it's got two Michael B Jordans.  Similarly sexy and sweltering is Motel Destino, a neon-lit tropical noir from Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz. And inspired by Sinners, the team choose their favourite films set during parties or big nights out where things go off the rails. TIMESTAMPS: What We’ve Been Watching: Blue Velvet, April, GFT's Derek Jarman and Chantal Akerman retrospective, Manhunter (2:20)Sinners review (13:42)Motel Destino review (31:28)Theme: Nights Out Gone Awry (Carrie, Festen, The Invitation, Coherence, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) (41:36) Get us on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd  @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In a change to our usual format, we review only one film this episode: the French coming-of-age film Holy Cow. Set in Jura, in the east of France near the Swiss border, it follows a wild 18-year-old lad who has to grow up fast and learn how to make some award-winning Comté after a family tragedy. The rest of the episode sees Peter, Anahit, and Jamie discuss what they’ve been watching on the big and small screen recently, from Black Bag and a Jacques Tati classic to Adolescence and White Lotus via a goofy-sounding show we're pretty sure Anahit has made up. TIMESTAMPS: What We’ve Been Watching: Movies (Black Bag, Uptown Girls, Playtime) (2:14)Holy Cow review (17:08)What We’ve Been Watching: TV (Adolescence, White Lotus, Paradise) (25:34) Get us on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd  @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

We review Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 and Gints Zilbalodis’ Oscar-winning animation Flow.

On this edition of The CineSkinny we take a look at two of the most anticipated Scottish films of the year. First we review On Falling, the deeply impressive feature debut from Edinburgh-based director Laura Carreira.  And fresh from his second feature Tornado having its world premiere at Glasgow Film Festival, we have an interview with John Maclean who talks about westerns, samurai films, and the challenges of indie filmmaking in Scotland.  Elsewhere there are a couple of great film festivals (Glasgow Short Film Festival, HippFest) we wanted to give shout-outs to, and we take a look at some filmmakers who are attempting different distribution models that involve taking their films on intimate tours of the country. We also briefly chew over the Oscar results. TIMESTAMPS: What We've Been Watching: Walking & Talking, Disney Channel original movies, Common Side Effects and more (1:49)On Falling review (14:18)GSFF, HippFest, The People's Joker and Hundreds of Beavers (32:30)Interview: John Maclean on Tornado (50:10)Oscar chat (1:07:50) Get us on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd  @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Our preview of Glasgow Film Festival 2025, with reviews of absurd comedy Peacock, music doc Peaches Goes Bananas and lo-fi animation Boys Go To Jupiter.