The Empire Film Podcast

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's The Extraordinary Miss Flower is part-concert film, part-performance art piece inspired by the life of its subject, a woman called Geraldine Flower. When she passed away a few years ago, her daughter Zoe discovered a number of letters, written over the years by suitors of Geraldine's, which painted a picture of a wildly charismatic, enigmatic and magnetic woman. Zoe's close friend, Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini, and Zoe's husband, the musician Simon Byrt, were inspired by the letters, and thus 2024's album, Miss Flower, was born. And, not long after that, Forsyth and Pollard's film, which combines performances from Torrini and her band, with interstitial pieces featuring a host of famous faces reading aloud the letters, and Caroline Catz as the extraordinary Geraldine Flower. And in this Empire Podcast interview special, Chris Hewitt is joined in the podbooth by Zoe Flower, the film's producer and daughter of its subject, and Catz for a frank and fascinating conversation in which the word 'extraordinary' is said quite a lot. Enjoy.

This week's episode of the BSME Awards-nominated Empire Podcast had better not be the episode that the BSME Awards judging panel listens to ahead of voting, or our nomination might be rescinded. Which is to say, chaos reigns as Chris Hewitt returns — eventually, after being waylaid by a McQ&A — to the hosting chair, and is joined by Helen O'Hara, James Dyer and, for a limited time only, Nick de Semlyen to talk about movies only they love, the week's movie news including the new Superman trailer, and review Final Destination Bloodlines, Hallow Road, and The Marching Band. Oh, and there's a spelling bee that exudes some serious little D energy. Our guests this week are the wonderful pairings of Matthew Rhys and Rosamund Pike, stars of the blistering new psychodrama, Hallow Road, and Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, directors of the riotously entertaining new Final Destination movie, Bloodlines. Enjoy! Vote for us!

It's another cracking episode of the (freshly award-nominated) Empire Podcast this week, folks, as Helen O'Hara slips into the hosting chair and tries to wrestle James Dyer and Alex Godfrey into shape as they talk about changeable movie titles, great actor/director pairings, Alex's favourite teen movies, the week's movie news including Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on the film industry, The Long Walk and Highest 2 Lowest trailers, and review The Uninvited, The Extraordinary Miss Flower, The Surfer, and The Wedding Banquet. That last movie also provides us with our guests, as Chris Hewitt sits down for an incredibly fun chat with its stars, Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran. [22:12 - 44:11 approx] Have a listen, you won't regret it. Enjoy!

It had to happen: the Empire podcast has finally gone to hell — quite literally in this case, as this particular show is episode 666. Perhaps appropriately, James is in the driving seat for this one, embracing this demonically anointed episode to bring you such thematically-relevant discussions as a Mount Rushmore of movie Satans and an off-topic discussion as to why subtitles are also the devil’s work. But that’s not all, because while Chris isn’t here in body, having hopped over to Ireland for a few rounds of golf, he is here in spirit, not least of all as he interviews all of this week’s guests, specifically three of the Thunderbolts — Hannah John-Kamen, Wyatt Russell and David Harbour (approx 57:36-1:13:09)— Another Simple Favour director Paul Feig (approx 11:21-23:48), and Ryan Coogler (at the very end) in a little tease of our Sinners spoiler special episode, which is available now on the Spoiler Specials subscription feed. Joining James and Helen this week is John ‘The Nuge’ Nugent, who does his best to justify his three-star review of Thunderbolts*, plus we review Another Simple Favour, Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, and Die Hard in the Docklands film Cleaner.

It was foretold by the Ancient Ones: The Convergence (or Gunvergence, if you will), the day on which three absolutely slamming action movies will be released at the same time in the UK (albeit on different formats), ushering in a new era of sweaty dad bods, car chases, and many scenes where people die in a hail of bullets. And that day is today, folks. April 25, which sees the release of Gareth Evans' HAVOC on Netflix, Christian Gudegast's Den Of Thieves: Pantera on Prime Video, and Gavin O'Connor's The Accountant 2 in cinemas across the country. The Convergence has been keeping our Chris Hewitt going for some time now, and he gets to sit down with the directors of all three films on this week's episode: Evans at 22:24 (approx), O'Connor at 1:03:23 (approx), and Gudegast at 1:39:48 (approx). But that's not all. Chris is joined in the podbooth this week by Helen O'Hara, James Dyer, and Beth Webb to run their eye over the week's movie news (sadly, last week's Fantastic Four trailer fell through the cracks), review the aforementioned action holy trinity, and tackle a whole bunch of Mount Rushmore scenarios in our listeners' questions section. And yes, we're very aware that we forgot to mention Close Encounters. Anyway, enjoy! ALL HAIL THE CONVERGENCE!