The Departed 2006 Review starts with a cranberry juice and a disagreement about how to pronounce Scorsese. So, a fairly disciplined opening by Born to Watch standards. Whitey, Dan, and Gow head to Boston for a film where everyone's lying, nobody can answer their phone without making things worse, and Mark Wahlberg seems to have been given a script made up entirely of reasons to tell people to piss off.

Leonardo DiCaprio is Billy Costigan, a cop sent undercover into the crew of Boston crime boss Frank Costello. Matt Damon is Colin Sullivan, Costello's man inside the police. The two blokes are looking for each other, and the longer it goes on, the more you wonder how either of them manages to get through a day. Billy looks like he's about to have a heart attack every time his phone goes off. Colin could sell you a used car while you're standing next to the bloke he stole it from.

And then there's Jack. Nicholson plays Costello like a man who's worked out that everybody in the room is too frightened to ask him to settle down. He can make you laugh and then make you feel a bit crook for laughing. You can see why the boys have so much fun talking about him. You can also see why a film with this many good actors turns into a fight over who steals it. Wahlberg comes in swinging, Alec Baldwin sweats like Dan, and Ray Winstone manages to look like the last person you'd want to see coming through a doorway without raising his voice.

Vera Farmiga gets plenty of love, too. Madolyn has the misfortune of meeting both Billy and Colin, which gives Farmiga some terrific scenes and gives Whitey a question he can't let go. How many psychiatrists are there in Boston, and how have these two dickheads managed to find the same one? It's the kind of thing you'll happily go with on your first watch because you're too busy trying to remember who knows what. Come back to it a few times, and you start wondering how she manages her appointments.

That sends the boys back to Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong thriller that gave The Departed its two-mole setup. It's a cracking idea for a movie. Give both sides a bloke on the inside, make both of them good at their jobs and see who cracks first. Moving it to Boston also gives Scorsese an excuse to put this particular collection of actors in rooms together and let them get on each other's nerves. The accents are a discussion in themselves. We're three Australians arguing about how to say the director's name, so naturally we feel qualified to weigh in.

The big question is whether this is the Scorsese film you'd have given him the Oscar for. Whitey's glad he finally got it and can still think of a few he'd put ahead of The Departed. Fair enough, but put this on late at night and see how easy it is to turn it off. You know who's working for whom. You know what's coming. And somehow you're still sitting there watching two blokes with mobile phones, thinking one of them really ought to hang up.

Then there's the rat. Dan's seen the film about 15 times, and that final shot still gives him the shits. So, in Film School for F-Wits, he takes aim at directors who spend a whole movie making a point and then get to the end and decide we could use a picture. You've got to hand it to Scorsese. In a film featuring DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson and Wahlberg, the performance we’re still arguing about belongs to a rat that gets a few seconds of screen time.

So grab a cranberry juice and spend a couple of hours in Boston with Whitey, Dan and Gow.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION and tell us who steals the film, which Scorsese movie you'd have handed him the Oscar for and whether you'd give that rat the arse.
If you're doing your homework for next week, we're staying in 2006 and finally getting around to Bond with Casino Royale.

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Our Blade Runner 1982 Review takes Born to Watch into a future where it never stops raining, everyone needs better lighting, and Harrison Ford gets absolutely belted at work. Whitey and Damo revisit Ridley Scott's science fiction classic to ask whether its extraordinary world still delivers an equally extraordinary movie. There are replicants, questionable police procedures, suspiciously fresh family photographs and one enormous question hanging over everything: is Rick Deckard actually human?

For both hosts, the relationship with Blade Runner started with expectations the film had absolutely no intention of meeting. When you grow up loving Han Solo, another science fiction movie starring Harrison Ford sounds like a guaranteed good time. Damo even headed to the cinema expecting something closer to Star Wars. Instead, he got existential dread, artificial humans and a detective who spends considerably more time getting punched than saving the galaxy.

Revisiting it now brings a different appreciation. Whitey and Damo find themselves drawn into the atmosphere, the moral questions and a city that feels exhausted before the opening investigation even begins. This is a future built on the bones of the past, with ageing buildings, crowded streets, and noodle bars that look far more inviting than the job prospects. Whitey would happily order dinner there. Taking Deckard's job is another matter entirely.

The world itself earns some of the episode's strongest praise. Neon cuts through the rain, advertising looms overhead, and light creeps through rooms that seem permanently allergic to sunshine. The boys discuss how the cinematography and production design make the setting feel tangible, dirty, and lived-in. Vangelis' score adds another layer, blending so closely with the atmosphere that Damo questions where the music finishes and the surrounding world actually begins.

Then there is Deckard, supposedly the bloke you call when dangerous replicants need tracking down. Damo runs through his fighting record and discovers a fairly alarming pattern: he keeps losing. Zhora, Leon, Pris, and Roy Batty all make his life difficult. Whitey enjoys having a vulnerable, battered leading man, but Damo reckons any argument that Deckard is secretly a superior artificial human needs to explain why he is so physically hopeless.

That opens the door to the episode's biggest discussion. Whitey unpacks the unicorn dream, Gaff's origami and the possibility of implanted memories. If somebody else knows what Deckard dreams about, what does that suggest about his identity? The boys consider the clues without pretending the question has a simple answer. Another complication is that different cuts change the experience, and these two have not necessarily watched the same version.

Roy Batty brings a different kind of uncertainty. Whitey and Damo explore his desire to live, his final act of compassion and the uncomfortable possibility that the hunted demonstrate more humanity than their hunter. Rutger Hauer's rooftop scene gets its moment, alongside a discussion about whether calling these killings "retirements" makes them any less brutal. Rachael's memories and Deckard's treatment of her add further questions about identity, empathy and behaviour that has aged poorly.

Naturally, this remains Born to Watch, so the philosophical discussion shares space with some deeply necessary nonsense. Complaints include questionable hairstyles, a photo machine that apparently sees around corners, and a trailer that seems determined to show half the movie.
Daryl Hannah's performance as Pris gets attention, as does the spectacularly poor decision to add unnecessary gymnastics when your opponent is already struggling. Sometimes finishing the job should take priority over showing off.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly weighs magnificent filmmaking against a deliberate pace, while the conversation also makes room for Blade Runner 2049 and the original's many versions. Can a film be visually astonishing and still leave you wanting more momentum? Whitey and Damo wrestle with exactly that. Add the Snorbs Report and Damo's Kickass Credit Song, "LA Summer", and there is plenty here beyond the unicorn debate alone.

JOIN THE F WITS
Is Deckard human, which cut do you prefer, and does Blade Runner get better every time you watch it?
Send us a message, leave a voicemail and share your take.
Follow Born to Watch, leave a review and send this episode to your favourite science fiction obsessive.

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Our Scream (1996) Review takes Born to Watch into Woodsboro, where answering the phone is dangerous and throwing a party during a killing spree apparently makes perfect sense. Welcome to the movie review podcast where we do not take the movies or ourselves too seriously. This time, Matt welcomes longtime listener and horror enthusiast Sean Hopkins, the movie lover behind @Moviedad16, for a Halloween double shot with Ghostface.

With the usual crew less enthusiastic about horror, Matt has recruited someone who knows this film backwards. Sean first saw Scream at thirteen on a trip to the cinema with his dad, and he promptly became obsessed. Once the VHS arrived, repeat viewings became practically compulsory. Decades later, that enthusiasm remains, making him the perfect guest to revisit a movie that turned horror trivia into a potential survival skill.

For Matt, this is another trip back to his cinema-going prime, with the added perspective of introducing Scream to his own family. Their shared affection sets the scene, but nobody gets a free pass. Loving a film and questioning its increasingly ridiculous decisions can absolutely happen at the same time, especially when there is a bloke wandering around a supermarket dressed like the town’s most wanted murderer.

Wes Craven's direction and Kevin Williamson's screenplay give the conversation plenty to chew on. The boys explore a slasher that understands the clichés, openly discusses them and still finds ways to make its characters stumble straight into trouble. Is knowing the rules enough when everyone keeps breaking them? And can a movie take the piss out of horror logic while occasionally relying on exactly the same nonsense?

The opening sequence gets plenty of attention, with Drew Barrymore's performance, the escalating phone calls and the horror quiz setting an unforgettable tone. Sean remembers sitting in the cinema convinced his movie knowledge would have helped him survive. Matt brings a slightly more practical suggestion: stop chatting to the threatening stranger and call the bloody police. Sometimes the smartest answer is refusing to play the game.

The cast discussion covers Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott, Courteney Cox's determined Gale Weathers, David Arquette's well-meaning Dewey and the memorable supporting players. Matthew Lillard sparks a particularly entertaining difference of opinion, with Sean praising his personality and best lines while Matt questions some of his bigger acting choices. Rose McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, Skeet Ulrich and Henry Winkler also come under the Born to Watch microscope, with nobody escaping a little scrutiny.

Randy's video shop expertise opens the door to some proper nostalgia. Sean recalls dreaming of a job recommending movies, while Matt reflects on owning a video shop and learning to identify films from customers' gloriously vague descriptions. It is a reminder of when choosing your Friday night entertainment involved shelves, cover art and a conversation with someone who had probably watched far too many trailers.

Then comes Question Time, where Woodsboro's common sense takes a beating. Why are certain people sharing space at the police station? Why does nobody screen the calls? Where are the parents? And why is everyone so relaxed about attending a party while a killer is on the loose? The garage sequence also gets investigated, with serious doubts about a door's lifting capacity and the wisdom of choosing a cat flap as an escape route.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly balances appreciation for the opening, pacing, movie references and party finale with complaints about convenient timing, questionable behaviour and an ending that arrives awfully quickly. Along the way, the conversation detours into cinema etiquette, noisy teenagers and why Sean prefers his horror screenings with as few other people as possible. Apparently, surviving Ghostface is one thing, but surviving a chatty cinema is another.

The show also returns to 1996 with Fargo, Kingpin, Barb Wire, and The Frighteners, plus the usual quickfire nonsense. Whether you grew up renting Scream or discovered it through the sequels, join Matt and Sean for laughs, nostalgia and affectionate nitpicking.

Listen now, follow Born to Watch, leave a review and share this episode with the mate who reckons they know every horror rule. Then ask them whether they would actually survive Woodsboro after dark, without their phone, their parents or a working escape plan.

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