Above the Title: A Colin Farrell Podcast Cole Bradley

This week, we are taking a look at 2020's The Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie's return to his trademark type of ensemble crime films after a decade of franchise fare and a movie that one of your cohosts thinks is the worst thing we've ever discussed on the podcast. Topics include: the diminishing returns of Ritchie's whole deal, this movie's rancid racist and nationalist politics, the dying art of studio fanfare, and the weird legacy of Colin's "pull up your pants" performance in this film. Plus: he's not very good in this, but we still go long on the career of star Matthew McConaughey.
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This week, the great Stuart Elmore joins us to talk 2019's Dumbo, a somewhat misbegotten entry in Disney's attempts to remake their animated classics and, to date, Colin's last starring role in a major studio film. We get into our feelings on director Tim Burton and his body of work, the complicated history of the original, Disney's monstrous 2019 and the broader wave of live-action remakes, and the difficulties of integrating subversive or progressive ideology into works released by major conglomerates. Plus: Stuart, no stranger to tackling full actor filmographies himself, prods us to answer the question we've been dancing around for weeks: what is going on with Colin's career and why does he keep snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?
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This week, the great Johnny Buse joins us to discuss Steve McQueen's 2018 Windy City heist epic Widows. As anyone who's seen it knows, this movie is a very rich text, and as this is a Colin Farrell podcast (and with two Chicago boys on the recording), we mostly focus in on his subplot regarding a contested alderman race for a South Side ward, and the film's broader understanding of Chicago's political structure, racial tensions, and social boundaries along neighborhood lines. But we also do touch on other aspects of the film at large, including its misbegotten Oscar chances, the star-studded cast and how it plays with their receptions, the legacy of Chicago in film, the cosmopolitan concerns of an English television series being remade in the United States, that one scene where Michelle Rodriguez makes out with a stranger, and, of course, a Viola Davis Mount Rushmore.
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Here on Above the Title, we're completionists. We've made the pledge that we are going to discuss every Colin Farrell performance of the 21st century. And if that means we have to talk about a 40 minute Game of Thrones knockoff ad for a quartz company that never mentions quartz, well, that's the task we've set for ourselves. But you, dear listener, you have not made this pledge. You have a limited time on this Earth and are under no obligation to listen to this discussion. The subject is Legend of Cambria. The guest is Jeff Sweeney. We have fulfilled our obligation and wash our hands of whatever choice you make with this information. Godspeed.
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This week, the great Justin Stillmaker returns to the show to close out our look at Colin's run of prestige projects in 2017 with the misbegotten but still Oscar nominated legal drama Roman J. Israel, Esq. The sophomore film from Nightcrawler writer/director Dan Gilroy, the film stars the god Denzel Washington as the titular lawyer, a civil rights activist struggling with a crisis of faith, and Colin the corporate lawyer he inspires to action. We get into Colin's penchant for taking unremarkable supporting roles in higher profiles of this ilk and his difficulties connecting with strong directors, and discuss the film's well intentioned but misguided politics, its muddled narrative resulting from post-production woes, and its frankly shameless similarities to Michael Clayton, a film originally pitched to Washington and written and directed by Gilroy's older brother. But mostly, we are here to valorize Denzel, the man all three of us think might just be the best movie star of all time.
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This week, the great Jake Mueller (Cinebums) returns to the show to talk Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled. A remake of the Clint Eastwood/Don Siegel film of the same name, the film stars Colin as a Union soldier in the waning years of the Civil War who is injured and taken in by a Confederate girl's school and all the sexual tension and various romances that follow. We talk the film's racial and gender politics and its complicated reception, along with our broader feelings on Coppola, the remaining context from the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and the wildly different approaches between this film and the original. Plus: two difficult, contentious Rushmores on two of our absolute favorite actresses.
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