Podcast Episode 25 - This Is The End / The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

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Albatross Applesauce: A Film Blog and Podcast

TV & Film


Welcome back, loyal listeners.  In this podcast, Andrew and Phil talk about the new Seth Rogen-James Franco-Jay Baruchel-Jonah Hill-Craig Robinson-Danny McBride vehicle, "This Is The End."  This horror-comedy is a refreshing take on the somewhat stale Apatowian comedies that have glutted the multiplex for the past several years.  Our aforementioned lovable goons find themselves faced with none other than The Apocalypse, and they must make gut-wrenching life or death decisions, such as who gets to eat the last Milky Way.  Open your ears and your mind to try and guess the song parody that Phil sings at the beginning of this episode.  "This Is The End" kept Phil and Andrew laughing and they hope you tune in to decide if this film is worth your $10+ box office dollars.The usual suspects...You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below:For the 'AA' Criterion Corner, the dynamic duo review "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", a sumptuous Technicolor cinematic feast from 1943 that has been championed by such contemporary directors as Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson.  The film is also considered by many to be the greatest British film ever made, so naturally, Phil and Andrew had to review it.  Legend has it that Winston Churchill himself tried to stop production of this wartime tale.  The film follows 40 years in the life of the titular character, a stiff-upper-lip British soldier.  As you history buffs know, when this film was released, London was getting blitzed by the Nazis, and "Blimp" portrays a supporting German soldier character in a highly sympathetic light.  This enraged Churchill, but it's a credit to the British democracy that filming was allowed to continue, and now we have a great film as a result.  Overall the film examines the shift in British military values from the Boer War to World War II, and poignantly shows how Blimp's tactics of fighting a "gentleman's war" became obsolete in the face of the Nazi terror.  This is another film we hope you check out, although it couldn't be more different from "This Is The End"!A silly hats party, perhaps?Tune in next week for the second half of this episode when Phil and Andrew review a seminal film by the Coen Brothers and a recent documentary by warrior-poet, Werner Herzog.