The Learned and The Learner

More from The Cinematologists Podcast All episodes →

1. 

   3 Oct 2025 · 1 hr 14 min

   PTA's latest, Redford reflections and some big podcast news

   We are back! Season 22 kicks off with a stellar, loose, multi-layered, melancholic, heated and nervy, shambling odyssey of an episode, which befits the central discussion, centred as it is around the release of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. The timing of the release of the new PTA is fortuitous as he is a filmmaker that we have circled around over the years, given my love for the filmmaker, as well as his place in contemporary American cinema. It’s also good timing as the film has found itself lodged at the centre of film discourse in so many ways since its release last…

2. 

   31 Jul 2025 · 1 hr 52 min

   The Cinematologists Present: Students on Screen

   This special episode of The Cinematologists is a contribution to the Students on Screen project convened by Dr Kay Calver and Dr Bethan Michael-Fox, to coincide with a special issue of Open Screens they have edited, which explores screen representations of students across a plethora of Global screen media forms. On behalf of The Cinematologists, Neil contributed a paper - drawing from his decade-old doctoral work - on representations of film students in anglophone cinema, and put together this episode, which is both a dissemination of and critical artefact of, the special issue. For this…

3. 

   21 Jul 2025 · 1 hr 32 min

   Terrence Malick (w/John Bleasdale)

   For the final [main] episode of this season, the 21st, we are delighted to welcome writer and podcaster John Bleasdale ( Writers on Film ) to the show, to discuss his excellent book on Terrence Malick, The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick . Neil talks to John about his approach to research and interview/archive given the glaring lack of a central subject's voice, Malick and John's own relationship to the big themes around philosophy and faith, the power of understanding Malick's later period work anew through the lens of [auto]biography, and the ways that Malick's…

4. 

   11 Jul 2025 · 1 hr 28 min

   Pavements (& Videoheaven w/Alex Ross Perry)

   Welcome friends. Thanks for stopping by and welcome to the many new free subscribers that have signed up in the last few weeks. A very special thanks to Helen , Bluetrue , R.J. MacReady , & sukhveer kang for becoming paid subscribers. I really do appreciate your support. Postcards should be coming your way anytime (if you haven’t yet DM’d me your address, please do that if you want a little physical media token of my gratitude). Subscribe now I’m working on a couple of longer written pieces, to be published next week. These are articles that have been on my mind for a little while and I…

5. 

   10 Jul 2025 · 47 min

   On being Audio-Viewers: A response to FilmStack Challenge #4

   This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit dariollinares.substack.com Welcome friends, It’s been an somewhat frustrating uneven week of film watching and writing. London’s recent heatwaves have nudged my daily routine into what has become a typical summer cadence - work kicking off around 6am and tapering off by early afternoon. It’s a strategy to placate my internal productivity tyrant: my focus is aided by the cooler mornings by 2pm I’ve kinda reached the limit of writing energy. This week though, the humdrum churn of life-admin has thrown a wrench into that flow. Those…

6. 

   27 Jun 2025 · 1 hr 48 min

   Ryan Gilbey (It Used to be Witches)

   With the podcast half-way through its tenth year it is a privilege to welcome back a former contributor to the show - read his piece on Clueless for The New Statesman that coincided with his previous appearance on the show - and long-time champion of The Cinematologists, Ryan Gilbey. Ryan's return is to promote and discuss his new book, the astoundingly good, It Used to be Witches: Under the Spell of Queer Cinema, published this month (June 2025) by Faber. Around the release date, I (Neil) sat down in Cinema 1 at the Barbican in London to discuss the book, the form(s) of Queer Cinema, Ryan's…

7. 

   13 Jun 2025 · 1 hr 19 min

   Tornado (w/director John Maclean)

   A decade ago John Maclean made his debut feature, the brilliant Western Slow West (2015).It followed a run of brilliant short films and music videos, as well as some of the late 90s and early 2000s most distinctive music during his time in the Beta Band. Tornado - Set in the rugged landscape of 1790s Britain, Tornado (Kōki) is a young and determined Japanese woman who finds herself caught in a perilous situation when she and her father’s (Takehiro Hira) travelling puppet Samurai show crosses paths with a gang of ruthless criminals led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) and his ambitious son Little Sugar…

8. 

   28 Apr 2025 · 1 hr 18 min

   Crime, Genre, Class, Race, Gender

   We're back with an episode featuring just Neil and myself discussing a cinematic topic we both are invested in: The crime/heist genre. The core of this chat is an examination of how the structures of the genre intersect with social, racial, and economic contexts in four specific films. Sparked by our shared admiration for Justin Kurzel's The Order, we trace the lineage of socially conscious crime narratives from classic noir to contemporary thrillers. We consider genre cinema's desire to convey a sense of prestige - think of the notion of elevated horror - and revisit some of the core…

9. 

   11 Apr 2025 · 1 hr 44 min

   The Doors & Val Kilmer (w/filmmaker Mark Jenkin)

   In late March 2025 we screened Oliver Stone's 1991 epic myth of 1960s America, The Doors, at Newlyn Filmhouse at the invitation of regular Cinematologist, filmmaker Mark Jenkin. The conversation following the screening covered Jim Morrison and the band, 1960s America, Vietnam, film form and the longstanding influence of the film on Mark's work, up to and including his new film, Rose of Nevada, due for release later this year. A few days after the screening news came of Val Kilmer's death and that prompted a rejigging of the release schedule for the podcast, so that Neil and Dario could talk…

10. 

    28 Mar 2025 · 1 hr 27 min

    Polish Filmmaker Wojciech Has w/Michael Brooke

    As part of this year's Kinoteka Polish Film Festival, currently running in London, Michael Brooke has curated a complete retrospective of the criminally under-known Polish director Wojciech Has. The retrospective, starting from the 1st April 2025 and featuring screenings at the BFI and the ICA, contains Has's short and feature film work in gorgeous restorations. There are talks and events around the films, and the ICA has an exhibition of Polish film posters which is unmissable if you're in the vicinity. For this episode, Neil talks to curator Michael Brooke about Has's life and work, and…