Happy Sad Confused - Edgar Wright, Vol. III

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

Edgar Wright returns to the podcast with a big change of pace that truly delivers, his new psychological thriller, "Last Night in Soho". Don't worry this is a spoiler free chat! Plus Josh and Edgar talk a classic comedy comfort movie and whether a James Bond film would be up the filmmakers' alley. Don't forget to check out the Happy Sad Confused patreon here! We've got exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! For all of your media headlines remember to subscribe to The Wakeup newsletter here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

D.C. high volume, Batman. The Dark Nights definitive DC comic stories adapted directly for audio for the very first time. Fear, I have to make them afraid. He's got a motorcycle. Get after him or have you shot. What do you mean blow up the building? From this moment on,

none of you are safe. New episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, Sad, Confused begins now. Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, Filmmaker Edgar Wright embraces his dark side with Last Night in Soho. Hey, guys, Josh Harowitz here.

Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Back on the podcast, Mr. Edgar Wright, we love ourselves a great filmmaker who just seemingly always delivers and sometimes in the most unexpected of ways this latest film from edgar right like his last one baby driver which was definitely a change of pace from what we'd seen before well similarly last night in soho i think it's going to excite audiences audiences and surprise audiences in the best possible way fear not this is a spoiler free chat with edgar um having seen this movie um i am so happy that i was not spoiled going in and certainly i'm not going to

ruin it for you guys. This is a film that has a lot of unexpected fun twists and turns and yeah, it's best seen with, with frankly, just the broad strokes. And basically the broad strokes are this. This is a film that is about a young woman who, a fashion, aspiring fashion designer who moves to London to go to school and seemingly visits the past, 60s London, 60s, Soho specifically and starts to kind of become embroiled with some dastardly deeds of the past. What is real? What is not? What is dream? What is truth. Those questions shall be answered when you actually see last night in Soho. Wow, what a tease. What a tease. It is a great film. It is led by Thomas and McKenzie, who you might have seen in Jojo Rabbit, among other things.

Annia Taylor Joy, former guest on the podcast, as well as Matt Smith and Terrence Stamp and Diana Rigg, sadly in her last performance, but it's a great one. So yes, this is a great film to dig into, and Edgar is one of those filmmakers that is just a delight to chat with. I've been talking to Edgar Wright since not quite Sean of the Dead Times, but I think I met him back when Hot Fuzz was coming out, and seemingly every couple of years I got a chance to catch up with him and just revel in just our mutual love. a film and he he is one of those guys that has like an encyclopedic brain of film he is up there

with like the Scorsese's and the Tarantino's when it just comes to like film knowledge and it's so cool to see him access it in different ways as he tackles different kinds of projects whether it's the comedies like the cornetto trilogy or scott pilgrim or baby driver or now this kind of psychological thriller slash horror film that has as much to owe to the likes of De Palma and Argento as any other filmmakers. So, yeah, that's my rave about last night in Soho. This is a film that's really stuck with me. I got a chance to actually do my first in-person Q&A with Edgar the other night in Brooklyn.

That was a blast. I missed those so much. We got a chance to go to Bam Brooklyn Academy of Music. It's screened or sold that audience there. They love the film, by the way. And afterwards, Edgar and I chatted about the movie. of those guys. That was a spoilerific conversation that sadly, unless you were there, you will never hear. But the next morning, I chatted with Edgar for the podcast. So if you hear

us refer to last night in Brooklyn, it's not a spinoff of last night in Soho. It is simply what we experienced here in New York. So that's the main event on today's podcast. Plus, a fun comfort movie. Edgar chose he went the parody route. We haven't had like a naked gun airplane movie. He didn't quite go that route. He went top secret. Mad respect for that one, the great Val Kilmer's film debut in that film. You'll hear us dig into that. Plus, Edgar's thought on James Bond. James Bond just keeps coming up on the podcast. I mean, I'm bringing it up, admittedly, but for good reason. Filmmakers love Bond, and we're now in kind of a transition period. And I know Edgar loves some Bond, so I think you'll find those comments on what he thinks about

the future of James Bond. Very interesting and amusing. Let's see. Other stuff to mention. Well, happy to say over on the Patreon page, we just shot our newest episode of Game Night. I can't quite reveal the guests for you yet. But this is, I'm not going to say my favorite one yet because that would just disparage some of the other great ones. But this one exceeded my expectations. This has some newbies in it. So folks, I've actually never, like, corresponded with in real life, if Zoom can be considered real life. And they just so delivered, it's a trio. of young actors, I will say, young up-and-comers who actually didn't know each other prior to this Zoom night, this Game Night, Game Night over Zoom, rather. Anyway, that should be coming in just a matter of days. As always, all the Game Night episodes are available on patreon.com slash happy, sad, Confused. Remember, you can watch the video episodes, video versions of Happy Sad Confused there, like Edgar Wright,

et cetera, but you can also watch our fun game nights over there. So check it out if you are so in. inclined. Other things to mention. Oh, finally, at long last, I know you guys have been itching, or at least some of you have been itching to see my chat with Timothy Chalameh and Zendaya for Dune that is about to drop any day now, definitely this week on MTV News's YouTube page and MTV News's social media feeds. I will, of course, promote that on my social media feeds, Joshua Horowitz. So look forward to that. That's a really fun, great chat with two of my favorite young actors. Other things to mention. I want to plug a movie that's like a much

different kind of a thing than we've been talking about, but I meant to mention it in a recent episode and I want to give it some props because it's a special piece of work by another friend of the show, an early, early podcast guest on the show, actor Fran Kranz, who has made his directing debut and writing debut, I believe, in a few. feature with the new film Mass. This is kind of a chamber drama. Four great actors in a room discussing kind of a horrific event that they all have suffered through in different ways and arguing and agreeing and just working through it. And it's just a really powerful piece of work that showcases some amazing performances in it.

Ann Dowd is getting some awards attention, Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Burnie. Those are the four actors, and they're all stellar. So happy for Fran, who you may remember from Cabin in the Woods, a lot of TV work. He's just a great kind of character actor. He's done some stage work. I saw him on Death of a Salesman years ago, and he's a good guy, and I'm happy for him that he's embarking on this new part of his career. So, yeah, it's definitely a weighty piece of work.

You have to be in the right frame of mind for it, but give it some attention. It's, I believe it's out on VOD and in theaters right now. Seek it out if you're so inclined. I think that's all the stuff I want to mention before we get to the main event. Yeah, I think so. For now, I'll mention that last night in Soho is coming very soon to a theater near you. It's a great movie to see with a big audience, October 29th, just in time for Halloween. So, yeah, without any further ado, let's throw to my...

my chat with friend of the show, frequent guests, but he is always welcome here. Me and Mr. Edgar Wright. Mr. Edgar Wright, back on the podcast in Zoom box form. I'll take it, though, because I got the human experience last night. We had a fun Q&A in Brooklyn. Obviously, this is a relief for you, obviously working for audiences. Did you have a chance to show this to many audiences the last year what have you been doing with this Edgar um I guess well yeah I guess actually I like the Sparks brothers movie which I only got to go to one sort of public screening of it with Ron and Russell you know most of the press for that was like I was doing

it by Zoom but then with last night and so we went to Venice and Toronto and I did fantastic first and the London Film Festival and then last night I was in Brooklyn with you with but that and that was great because it felt like a you know, like a regular Q&A with an audience that came out on a Sunday night and it was really special. I mean, I think that's the thing is in this in this time that we're in as kind of cinemas are coming back. I mean, I don't think, I hope I don't take things for granted anyway, but I really don't take things for granted now. Just being, watching the film on a big screen with an audience is like it's always special, but now it's more special than ever.

Yeah, I feel like I've discovered human emotion. I didn't realize still existed in this aged body in these times when I, yes, these communal experiences, which obviously you and I just are so part of our souls. It's really, I do find these experiences that much more powerful. It's been a long road for this movie. It's been a long road for many movies, but this one, you know, this one, you've kept on ice for a while. you wanted in theaters, as it should be. Talk to me about the last year.

Like, was there anxiety thought, like, oh, God, is this going to end up on Peacock on a Tuesday night? Like, was there ever any consideration that this could go down a different road? Or were you adamant and was the distributor adamant that this was the way it was going to happen? Well, if that discussion was ever had, I never heard about it. They were smart enough to keep you out. Well, I think to be honest, actually, focusing Universal, who, you know, financing, are distributing the movie,

they felt the same way as we did is that it deserved to see the big screen. And so, like many movies that sort of got going to push into, you know, earlier, we didn't finish the film until Christmas last year. So it's original release date, like we wouldn't have made anyway, but cinemas were, I guess that's when cinemas was sort of open because tenant was out. But we weren't finished because the pandemic had basically put us on hiatus for six months. Got it. And so we didn't finish it until Christmas last year. And then originally it was scheduled for April. But in the UK, cinemas were not open in April at all.

They didn't reopen until May. And we just thought this feels like more of a, I get to say fall. I always feel weird saying fall, autumn for me. But it's more of a fall movie and autumn movie. they just felt like the kind of movie that should be out in October the kind of movie for when you know the nights are getting longer and colder

that's when you should see this movie so so when the opportunity came up to put it back where it would have been in the first place in October in time for Halloween great it literally has a Halloween disco scene in the movie so it's perfect perfection

this is you know we talked I think the last time on the podcast among many filmmakers we've talked about it was Brian De Palma at that time you had never met Brian Still haven't met Brian? No, I still haven't. I feel like he's probably going to be one of those people I never meet.

And we have lots of mutual sort of contacts and stuff. I've never met Brian DePama, no. So, I mean, look, I know probably every different journalist that interviewer is going to bring up a different inspiration for this film, because there's a lot. The truth is, obviously, it all feeds into this and all of your work. But for me, seeing this, this is,

there's some department in there. There's, it's clearly, you know, like many great filmmakers, Hitchcock, De Palma, love playing with doubles, mirrors, duality. DuPama was always, I always enjoyed how, like, he could make kind of the grotesque beautiful and the beautiful grotesque. And I feel like there's elements of that in here.

Was he on your mind much at all in pre-production and production and post? Yeah, I think all of those, both Hitchcock and DePama, of course, and also Michael Powell as well, who maybe didn't make as many, you know, Michael Powell made lots of different types of movies, but when he does make films that are like thrillers or psychological horrors, I mean, Black Nassus isn't quite a horror film, but it's in that realm.

And I think what those filmmakers are all having common, and listen, but I want to stress, I'm not putting myself in the same bracket here. I don't want to take away to be like, Edgar Wright puts himself in the same sentence as Hitchcock. But what I like about those films is that they take on that pure cinema, idea where there are sort of moments in the movie where they become sort of truly operatic and expressionistic and they're not necessarily taking place in an entirely real world but because you're hopefully under their spell you kind of go with it into a different realm and that was always

the idea with this movie and another directors as well that do this brilliantly like some of the Dario Argento films do this really well and um and also even you know other people who had an influence on it in terms of like even Antonioni or like just things where sort of like you you once you get into the rhythm of the film sort of hopefully it's cast its spell on you right and then and then within this movie you're not giving too much away but in the latter half of the movie Thomas and McKenzie's character has not slept and i sort of on top of everything else which is happening to which is a lot there's something where when you get get sleep deprived, you become, like, manic in a way where just like, even just tiny things feel

like they're about to drive you kind of insane. And it was sort of in that, in the finale of the movie, you're in that zone. And this poor girl is kind of on this, on this sort of journey, but on top of that, she's sort of sleep deprived. So, and kind of, she's, she's super naturally switched on and is kind of hallucinating. So, but I like those, there's, there's movies. movies like like Narcissus or like, you know, De Palma's like Dress to Kill or Psycho, Frenzy, they sort of like kind of enter this like other realm where it's not quite the real world,

it's sort of like this kind of pure sort of cinematic nightmare, you know. More than any of your other films, this one, I think, benefits from knowing as little as possible going in. And I know that's been important to you to preserve the surprises of this. of this? Has it been difficult? Like, what do you want, like, an audience to know, ideally, going into this film? Well, I think, you know, I think what you can gather from the trailers is a good sort of set up in terms of, you know, young girl comes to London in the modern day. She's obsessed with the 60s. She has a sort of gift to feel like these visions

much more strongly than your average person. And in her dream, she starts to go back to the 60s and seemingly inhabit the body of somebody that used to live in her house. Whackiness ensues, yeah. Yeah, no, yeah, exactly. It's funny, I mean, like, because of the nature of the kind of film this is, it's probably the, I don't mean this is a knock,

it's the least funny of your movies, I'm good, to say. But, like, is that almost like a weight off the shoulder? It's like, that's one less thing to worry about. I don't have to worry about, like, it's been 35 seconds in the script or in the film, they need to laugh. Yeah, it was always designed as that. And I think I said this in the Q&A last night that I'd always wanted to do something.

I mean, it's not really a straight horror film. It sort of builds into that. It's more like a sort of psychological thriller for most of it. But it certainly builds into sort of operatic horror, I guess. And I'd always wanted to do something in that realm. But it was also about finding a. subject matter that scared and disturbed me because I felt if it was something that that was something that didn't, I feel if you're making a horror film and you're making it about something that

doesn't scare you on any level, then you're probably doing it wrong. Seems like a weird thing to go to work and sort of be complacent about it. So with that in mind, there are some sort of heavy themes in the movie and, you know, it's much darker material than anything else I've done. And I guess I never worried about, like, whether there are any gags because I just wanted to sort of honor the material in a way or where it was coming from. And, and, you know, as part of that, as much as like the, the filmmakers that we talked about is really also just the area itself, you know, in terms of like, what's the real inspiration for sort of last like, it's just like that particular part of London and how sort of compelling and disturbing it is

an equal measure. It's funny, in retrospect, when, you know, whenever we have these kind of conversations, you try to come up with the links throughout the work, and I'm sure it's been cited over the years, but this one even, like, cements this kind of theory is, all of your work is so grounded in very specific locations, you know, whether it's the town in hot fuzz, the pubs in the world's end, you know, you change location in baby driver, but then took advantage of Atlanta, and this could only be, I mean, look, there's a version of this, I'm sure, in other, towns that have neighborhoods that have elements of soho in london but um pugal in paris maybe exactly well you could you know not 42nd street in new york anymore though no i was saying last night there are

uh yeah i mean the the ghosts are there but not not not now um but is that something that's always struck you of like i don't really know what the question is here but i i guess the how much that adds to all of your work in terms of finding a tangible grounding of a location. I think the grounding of it on one level, A, for the movie, if you're grounded in a real location, then it helps the sort of the fantastical surprise. And on a sort of practical level for me,

it's also something that I'm just more invested if I'm honoring the location in a way. So when like with Baby Driver, I initially written the script to be in Los Angeles, because we couldn't afford to shoot in Los Angeles Atlanta came up as a, as like an option, but to sort of double Los Angeles, double Atlanta for Los Angeles, I was like, ah, that means to just rewrite it for Atlanta. Right. And immediately, as soon as I did, it just made me more invested in being there because it was more interesting to me.

And I think, you know, we shot all of the Soho scenes in last night in Soho itself, but I think if there's been a meeting early on where they're saying, oh, there's no way we can shoot in the actual Soho, that's impossible. We're going to have to fake it in other places. I probably wouldn't have done the movie. It just sort of just, I don't know. There's something where having some grounding and something real really helps when the movie itself is going to sort of become more surreal.

Well, and especially when you're talking about this film in particular, which is about the ghosts and the walls metaphorically of like just feeling the bones, the history in an environment, this more than anything, you want to feel that. absolutely i mean it's it's something where you know the the neighborhood and you know like many places in new york as well it's easy to walk around with just your sort of blinkers on and not think about the history at all but i think about it a lot and you know and uh i do think about you know what walls have seen and what has happened in places and whether you know the there's any like psychic residue of events left behind and you know i'm not like i'm not like any i'm not gonna get

into dan acroyd kind of like sort of like but i do i mean even without any scientific basis in fact i would believe that if if a murder happened in a room there would be something left behind you know that definitely feels like i i i believe that idea and it would certainly it's interesting there's a thing like in some in some kind of areas in the UK, there have been like places where serial killers are, it's two sort of places where, like, Fred and Rose West, who are these infamous serial killers in the mid-90s, like terrible, terrible crimes, or committed in their house. And afterwards, the house was, bulldozed down, and they created a memorial garden at its place. So the house was just, once the

police and the, you know, the kind of, you've done their forensic work, it was just gone, like obliterated and replaced with a memorial. Real Garden. And in London, there was another serial killer, equally infamous, Dennis Nielsen in the early 80s. And he killed, I think, more than 10 people in his flat in Crouch End, which is quite a bougie, fancy area of London. That flat still exists. Because some estate agents said, well, let's not be so hasty. It's such a good location. It's such a good location. We can still wear this place out. And I spoke to somebody the other day who knew somebody who had been shown that flat without being given all of the information. And so, and they were said, hey, this is a great price for this flat.

I said, yes, yes. I mean, it's like, sort of it's got some history, you know, like behind that. But it is interesting that though, you know, to me, that's something that's just fascinating to me of like what's left behind. Yeah. um just like in the air it i i i think about it a lot and you know where i where i live in of london is this an apartment building which is is is all new but it's on the site of a former hospital and i remember mentioning to my director friend joe corner she did at the block and he said he goes oh you're living in that place that used to be i shouldn't say the name of the hospital

but he said uh i said yeah and he goes he goes oh lots of ghosts i was like as it does don't say that. It's like a knee flat. He goes, yeah, but it's on the site. So, I don't know. I kind of guess I, myself and my friends think about this stuff a lot. Yeah, moving to the Poltergeist House next, never over an Indian burial ground, right? Talk to, let's talk a little bit about your house. That still looks like a nice house, though. It does. I'm beautiful. The neighborhood is beautiful. I once actually went on a hike down and it's in like Agora Hills. I swear to God, I went on a hike in Agora Hills. And when I was walking back on this hike, I saw this view and I sort of said, I said, this looks really

familiar. And I went back home and I like said, that's, ah, it was a shot from Poltergeist. It was literally the scene where, oh, God, what's his name? Creighty Nelson and James Karen are standing on that hill and where he says about, oh, we just moved the gravestones. And he points down to the development. I was thinking, oh, my God, it's that place. I was like standing there. I knew I knew it from. somewhere. And as soon as I got back to my laptop, I sort of like Google it and it was like found the shot. Now I want to go back and watch Poultergeist for the 100th time. Let's talk a little bit about your amazing cast. So you've got Thomason McKenzie, who's just been killing it

the last few years, as is Anya Taylor Joy, Matt Smith used to perfection. But I'm curious also the more esteemed elder statesman women of the cast, last performance of the great Diana Rigg, she's fantastic in this, Terrence Stamp. Knowing you as I know you and how much you love the lore and the history of cinema, how hard is it for you to have someone like Diana Rigg and Terrence Stamp and just ground the set to a whole

with just asking them a thousand different questions and stories? I think the thing is try and get that out of the way when you first meet them or you know, I just do rehearsals and stuff. Right. So, you know, I because obviously once you're there you know, there is

I never quite get over the fact of like Terrence Stamper's on the set or Diana Riggas on the set or Rita Tushingham is on the set. And that's, you know, like just I mean, I noticed that there were other, I'd sort of got those out of my system because I met them before

and asked them a lot of those questions. But sometimes I would, the crew would, they would want to ask something, but they, they didn't feel like it. For example, the camera assistant on the movie, Lewis Hume, his granddad, shot all of the Avengers. And we went in the room with like Diana. And I said, have you mentioned, have you mentioned to Diana that your granddad is Alan? And he goes, no, no, I don't want to bother her. I was like, Diana. Lewis is Alan Hume's grandson.

She goes, oh, I love Alan. And then they started, and then they started talking during a break for like the next 25 minutes. And he was like, oh, thank you for that. I was too nervous to say it myself. So, you know. Do you have any better in yourself? And then I'm the kind of person, though, on a separate level. I'm the kind of person that then grinds work down to a whole, well, I never do.

But like between set-ups, then I'm looking up like Lewis's granddad on IMD who shot like, Return of the Jedi for your eyes, only. But one of his grunts, I said, your granddad shot Toby who. was life force? Oh my God. And then he was just like amazed that out of all of his credits, the Avengers, like, I think he did Gandhi maybe, or he definitely did

like some big movies. Definitely Return the Jedi and for your eyes only, but I wanted to talk about, let's talk about life force. That's the one that jumped out. Nostalgia plays a big part of this film. I'm curious for you. Are you someone that

holds a specific time period in filmmaking? as like, what are you most nostalgic about? What's the era that you put on a pedestal? Well, I think we were talking about this last night. I think it's actually Mark Commode who pointed this out to me that people are always obsessed by the decade just before them. I think that's very true because I was born in the mid-70s.

I'm very obsessed with the 60s and partly because my parents were there, not that their stories necessarily help at all. But like, and then I guess 70s as well, like in terms of that would be more like the things that I would be aware of when I was very young but I was too young to see

and certainly even as a five year old aware that there was a film called alien that I was not allowed to see and or even seeing a poster for like Friday the 13th again a film that absolutely I was not going to be seeing any time soon but I think

I think you tend to kind of sort of I tend to be fascinated by the just because it was like immediately before me and it's such a fascinating, even just if you just chart all arts, but whether it's film, music, fashion, if you just chart from 1960 to 1969, the shift is enormous and it's just so fascinating to look at, even if you just look it at within the Beatles, just the Beatles that exist in 1962 and the Beatles that split up in 1970, what are like, it feels like six lifetimes. Right.

in like, you know, like, sort of eight years. It's extraordinary. So it feels, I mean, and I feel like I can kind of like sort of pinpoint like stuff in, in those decades, maybe in the 60s and 70s, a lot more in terms of when things would be, like from just seeing films or music being able to pinpoint in a way that I couldn't do. I feel like whenever like it gets to like the years like 2000s or 2021, there's sort of just this, apart from other things, there's not sort of enough kind of pinpoints of particular things for me to really be

able to, I find it very difficult to, very good with dates, like, from, like, sort of before me in a way, or even when I was sort of growing up, but, like, sort of this, this century, I feel is much more difficult to pin down. And I wonder if, like, do you think in 30 years that people will be saying, like, oh, the 22 of those 40s, exactly, you know, I agree, maybe. I have the power to time travel you to the set of any film, Edgar. What's the film you want to be on the set of going back into history? That's a good question. I think I'd like to be, I'd like to witness a Busby Berkeley musical being shot.

I think that would be amazing to see. I mean, I'm sure it would probably actually the reality of it would be far more disturbing in terms of the work hours. I'm not sure I-80 would have signed off on a Busby-Burton shoot. I mean, I think they did on the Busby-Burton films. They did. It was in the days before the unions, and they used to shoot, like, crazy, 32-hour days

or something insane to the point where people are passing out. I was going to say, like, three more people broke their back today, but we got the shot. Well, I think there was a thing. I read a biography about him where, you know, it wouldn't necessarily be the greatest working conditions. But it would still be an amazing thing to witness, like, a musical like that, like a sort of Busby,

Berkeley or like a Gene Kenning musical. So to go back in time and be on the set of gold diggers of 1933 or like singing in the rain or an American in Paris, that would be pretty amazing. So as you know, I've been asking people for comfort movie picks the last year and a half since we needed comfort more than ever. I knew this was opening Pandora's box with you because you could probably list off 10,000 different ones.

I don't know if you saw Simons. Do you know what Simon, your buddy Simon's? What did he pick? What do you think he picked? What would your guest be? Like Raiders of the Lost Dark? No. He actually went...

Door of the Dead. He went with Day of the Dead. Ah. See, I would call that Obama, Day of the Dead. Like, Dawn of the Dead would be my Sunday afternoon film. Day of the Dead is a lot bleaker. That's quite a weird... Maybe it says a lot about Simon.

Yeah, I was going to say maybe he was in a weird headspace that day. Your pick, delighted... I can give you some context for this as well. Give it to me. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I'm not going to say what happened, but, like... maybe about 10 years ago, something really terrible happened to me. And it was just awful.

And there was no, I didn't really know how to deal with it at all. And it was just something sort of person was just like a horrible thing. And it was one of those things where the only thing to do is one of my friends, Michael McCall happened to be in town. And I said, will you come over and just be with me? And he goes, of course, man, whatever you need. And I said, let's just watch funny movies. So I know that in times of comfort, I know exactly the four films.

I watched in a row and it was the one thing that could raise me out of like a really bleak moment was watching and I'll come to the one we at yeah class it was like this is spinal tap um airplane blazing saddles and top secret and even though I was in the bluest bleakest bleakest I'd ever been I still laughed and it was like those films raised my spirits and like suddenly when you're watching this one thinking everything in the not everything's that bad At least we've got these films to make us laugh, right? Yeah, at least we have Omar Sharif picking up fake doggy poop, but it's not fake. Sorry, Omar.

Well, the reason I picked Top Secret is it's one that I feel like the other films are such, so well regarded, and especially in the case of Airplane, Blaises, have it's, like, massive hits. And Top Secret is, like, maybe a bit more of a Curate's Egg in terms of, I don't think it was like a really a hit at the time, and there are reasons for that as well, which are, fascinating in their own right. But I guess because of that, I feel ownership over it, where it's a film that when it was,

I think I watched it for the first time on VHS and then when it was on TV, I recorded it. And once I'd recorded it off the TV, I just watched it again and again and again. And it's that thing where there was, it's so dense with gags that movie. And there's so much going on.

It's just like such a glorious, like, a glorious idiosyncratic sort of film and also something that's, here's the reason that the Zuckers and Jim Abrahams is made by the same team that did Airplane. And in fact, Airplane had been a massive hit. And then they had made police squad on TV,

which got cancelled after six episodes, because it required people to actually watch the show and not just have it on in the background. So then, but then top secret is their follow-up to airplane and they're shooting it in the UK and I think Paramount Finance it and they clearly have like a big budget

because they're coming off the back of a mega hit. And when you watch the movie, I mean, there are so many set pieces where they would never spend that much money on a comedy now, like the underwater fight scene at the end, which is astonishing, and astonishingly made

the incredible, like, Swedish bookshop scene with like a backwards wana where basically Peter Cushing in one of his final roles, I think, is playing, they go to a Swedish bookshop where it's like the resistance are going to be there where it's like a contact in the resistance and if you haven't seen the film

there's like basically the whole shot is shot backwards so I have a Swedish girlfriend by the way I never shown her this same maybe she'd find it borderline offensive but they're essentially saying that people speaking English backwards sounds like Swedish so you know the shot starts with like Peter Cushing and the magnifying glass by his eye and then pulls it away and he's got a massive prosthetic

you know that that's the first joke But then the shot carries on, and it's one shot, but they've, and I think on the Blu-ray, you can watch it going forwards, because it keeps getting more and more impressive, like they go, they're trying to, Peter Cushing has got books that he's trying to put onto the shelves, and Val Kilmer is like throwing them back into their, onto the bookshelves, but in reality, if you watch it being filmed, somebody is pushing the books off and he's catching them. And then also all the dialogue is backwards, so the Swedish and the movie is then going, Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. It's really, really great. And there's so much stuff in this film. It's just so jam-packed with great songs. Like, it opens with a beach boys parody called Skeet Surfing. You know, I wish they all could be double barrel guns.

It's just, now the thing is, the reason it flopped, and I actually did a Q&A with David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrams. Their theory on why Top Secret didn't do it. as well as airplane, is with airplane, they basically remade, or I think they had written the script based on a film called Zero Hour. And they'd done it so closely that I think Paramount were forced to give credit to the writers of Zero Hour

because essentially they've done a semi remake. But it had the kind of bones of like a classic airport disaster film. However, top secret is sort of doing two things at once. It's on one hand, it's like a World War II French resistance movie. And on the other hand, it's an Elvis movie. And, like, in reality, there is no Elvis, like, fighting in World War II as part of the French resistance.

And even the timescales don't seem to quite add up in terms of, it's like during the Cold War, but they're definitely like the Nazis. And, like, Elvis is sort of like, the Elvis that's in the movie is more of, like, a late 50s, early 60s Elvis. I mean, he would be a 60s, a. 60s Elvis figure who happens to sing Beach Boy's song. So it's sort of like in a way that maybe baffled some audiences but delights me, they just threw the kitchen sink into this movie.

Well, it definitely feels like, yes, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no. I was going to say it definitely feels like that second movie after you have the juice of the first movie and you can kind of like go for broke and like throw a lot of crazy shit at the wall and have the budget. And I love also that like, and I'll make sense that you would appreciate this because like, You know, so much comedy gets, you know, crapped upon for being kind of lazy filmmaking. And this is the exact opposite.

This is just like, as you mentioned, the underwater fight and the cushioning scene. These are like ambitious, this is ambitious, loaded, dense filmmaking. And to the day, we don't see that much in comedy made like this. Yeah. I think the thing is that a lot of care was put into it. You could say the same about Mel Brooks as well. It's certainly Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. are sort of made very sort of high level in terms of production.

And I think maybe later, once you get into the scary movies and all of the kind of the other ones that followed, you know, then they're kind of just going for the cheapest options possible. And then it feels like you're watching, like, you know, a kind of D-list kind of S&L sketch or something. But like top secret is like, you know, they have Peter Lamont, the actual Bond production designer doing it. So, like, the set pieces are just kind of absolutely wild.

And I think, again, it's like, if you tried to make that film now, you would only be able to make it off the back of a mega hit. It's a sort of similar thing with American wealth in London, which is a different movie. But John Landis is making American wealth in London on the back of Animal House and the Blues Brothers, like, big, big hits. So he sort of kind of has, you know, he sort of writes his own check in terms of... So when you look at that movie, it's like, wow, the production values are so really,

good. It's like, that's what happens when, you know, you kind of, I mean, I definitely, you know, I definitely, when I watch Trump's Secret, I love it for that. And the thing is, if there's anything that's kind of slightly a bit left field about it, but like, those are reasons to love it more. And I think it's kind of grown in stature as something where all it wants to do is make you laugh and it has nothing else on its mind whatsoever. Yeah, it's a great pick. who has not checked out top secret, it is a fantastic one. Val Kilmer's film debut, if nothing else.

Apparently there's a shot in the movie. At the time when he was making top secret, he was dating Cher, Val Kilmer. I read that, yeah, yeah. And in the prison cell, do you see that? There's a picture of Cher on the wall. I got to say, my favorite joke, by far, is one that's really lo-fi

is when Val Kilmer's Nick Rivers gets thrown into prison and, you know, there's a dissolve, and then you see that on the wall, he's, like, done the chalk marks and there's, like, you know, like, sort of, what do you call this thing? The tally, like, four strikes and a fifth.

Yeah. So there's four strikes in the fifth, and there's like, and there's four of them. So he's doing the, you know, that last one. And then his lawyer comes in, he goes, oh, thank God you're here. I've been here 20 minutes already. That's my favorite joke in the whole movie.

It's just like, because it's just so brilliantly set up and it's so dumb and just the idea that he would chalk off each minute. that are the psychag of the giant phone in the foreground. Glorious. Let's bounce around some random stuff

as we speak today. Have you caught up with Bond? Have you seen the newest no time to die? I do. I'm a good friend to Carrie, actually. And I went to the premiere, the royal premiere, which was really sort of thrilling. And in a weird way, and I said this to carry the other day,

is that what was even more exciting was actually seeing it with a real audience. audience. I went to see it again on a Saturday morning, like 12.30, and it was absolutely packed. You have to understand that in the UK, a James Bond film coming out is the equivalent of England being in the finals. It's such like national pride for Bond. It's like when we get a fast and furious movie. It's like when we all come together. Isn't it? Yes. I mean, it is, it is, um, have a barbecue. It's funny that all of those films end with barbecues now, don't they?

Corona's, Corona just has sponsored those movies, basically. Surely the end of, like, the 10th one is they have to have a barbecue in space. Surely that has to be the end for the 10th one. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, you know, like just, so I went to see it like on a Saturday morning with a full, full house. And I think that made me even weepier than being at the premiere. just I got a bit kind of misty-eyed even at the trailers. Usually all the things like,

my one pet hate about the cinema experience is when they put too many adverts in front of a film. And when, especially when it's Bond, if it's something that they know is going to be a big one, like Star Wars or Bond or Harry Potter, you have to sit through like half an hour of adverts. But strangely, maybe it was because I was just so happy to be in a completely packed house. Even the kind of the advert asking me to buy a gift card

kind of made me a bit misty-eyed. how dark a year it was. It's like, have you considered buying an Odean gift card? I missed you. I missed you. Have you daydreamed of what your take on Bond would be? I'd talk to some amazing filmmakers. Like that literally the time, like, no one, they'll know.

It's the one franchise for them that I can bring up. And they're like, oh, yeah, I would, I need to do that. Well, it's funny. I mean, I do know Barbara Broccoli and stuff. So it's like, these are things that sometimes I've shared with it. But I think the thing is that what's interesting to me is I think Daniel Craig has so made an indelible stamp on that franchise that I think you have to go in a slightly different direction because I don't think there's anything to be gained by continuing in the same vein. And I would certainly think that it would be interesting to sort of try and, I mean, I do have a take, whichever they ask me, I'll definitely pitch it to them. So I'm not going to say it on the podcast.

But I do think that when I sometimes see some of the names being bandied around, I can't quite see it in terms of, to me, they feel like Daniel Craig, too. Tom Hardy, I love Tom Hardy, but why do you do Tom Hardy after you did Daniel Craig? It's kind of... I agree. Listen, this is not a knock on Tom Hardy or Michael Fastbender. But when I hear their names banded about it saying, to me, that's too similar to Crave.

Because we've just seen, like, we've just seen a really great tough bond. I mean, honestly, I think, you know, it wouldn't be a bad, my theory is that the bonds have got to be like dark chocolate, milk chocolate. And I think you've got to alternate. Here's my bond theory. Dark chocolate, Sean Connery, milk chocolate, Roger Moore, dark chocolate, Timothy Dalton, milk chocolate, Pierce Brosnan, dark chocolate, Daniel Craig.

It's crying out for another milk chocolate one. That's my theory. No one wants to be milk chocolate. It's not as sexy. No, but it's tasty and everybody loves it. who doesn't like milk chocolate you're not going to turn it down when it seems

so Barbara calls you up and says in two years it's time to reboot Bond you'd be interested I mean she has my email okay fair enough where are you at I mean she hasn't seen

by the way Barbara and Michael actually helped out on last night in Soho because you know they had to sign off on the Thunderball poster so weirdly enough at the end of the movie, you do see the 007 an Eon logo because they were very helpful in terms of,

you know, because I do know them, I was able to go to them and saying, hey, I'd like to use the Thunderball poster in the movie, can you make it happen? And so they did, so thank you to them. Where are you at in terms of the... Weirdly, the second movie in October to have the 007 logo in the credits.

Look, take half of their global box office. You should be a happy man. I take a tens of their global box office. Are you kidding me? It's made in the UK. In the UK, it's made 70 million pounds in the UK already. Like, I think Skyfall made $100 million. So it's made 17 million pounds in a pandemic. That's extraordinary.

The upcoming slate, I know you've been, the baby driver, two script exists, I believe. I don't know if is running man still on the slate? Like, what's occupying? What are you noodling with? Where do things stand on those two? Well, the tricky thing is like, there's a couple of things. There's one, like, I think the pandemic sort of knocked all of the chess pieces off the board just in terms of whatever, whatever schedule there was kind of like, sort of like disappeared,

like, you know, 18 months ago. But also there's an element where I really, like, haven't, because I've been promoting these two films for like 10 months and actually, like, once the movie's out, I'm just going to take a sort of chance to sort of clean the desk. and I have about four or five great things in development and most of which have like written scripts and some of them are a bit more premature like sort of you know the running man is not something that like a single word has been written yet

it was actually maybe prematurely announced a little bit so and also you know there's been a massive regime change at that studio so etc etc so on top of that I have this thing having like nearly made a movie that I did didn't make. And having done interviews for that movie, I just feel like going forward, I just feel superstitious about talking about any movie that's not actually in the can. And I feel like that's a good like rule to impose upon yourself to just like, don't, don't jinx yourself basically. So I always like every interview ends with like, so what's next?

And I'm like, well, A, I don't know. And even if A, I don't know, this is, I'm telling you the answer. A, I don't really know exactly which one is next. And B, even if I did, I probably wouldn't say. Well, let's end on talking about one other film that's not yours. Have Anya or your buddy George Miller tipped you off on Furiosa? Do you get to be a warboy in this one? Are you getting a cameo? I mean, I would love to go down and visit.

I remember talking to George about, I'm not sure whether he's still doing the Mad Max sequel as well. I know at one point he was talking about, doing two back to back. I'm not sure whether that is happening. But the Furiosa thing and the idea of being a prequel, I've known about for a while. And it was actually, it must have been, it was literally a couple of days before the lockdown in London. The last person I saw for dinner was George Miller. And it must have been like, maybe it was the day before the lockdown. because I remember even at that point, even though the government in the UK had not said we're

locking the country down. I remember being, he came to watch last night in Soho in London, we went for dinner afterwards and there was like nobody else in the restaurant. So I had this very surreal experience of talking to another director about my film and also a real doctor about the pandemic. George is still a, you know, still has his, you know, he's a practicing, or when he's not practically, he has his license, he's still Dr. George Miller. And, but he did say, like, he did say,

forgive me if I told this story before when we were talking about Sparks, but like, yeah, he did say, like, he goes, hey, what was Annie's Hay, what was Annie's Hay, the jury like to work with? And I said, oh, she's amazing. She's a star. He says, wow, I've been thinking about Furiosa, and I said, stop, you found her.

I did say that. And I want Anya's agents to know that I'm coming for that commission. Just anything. All the percentages. One percent of that, half the gross of bond. I didn't know how I qualify for the gross of bond, but I'll take it, man. Congratulations, man, on this one. It was, you know, unexpected in the best possible ways and a true thrill to see

in a theater with an audience. I know people are going to take this one. We can see that they already are from, as evidenced, last night in Brooklyn and the other screenings you've had. Last night, Brooklyn, that's the sequel. There you go, spin-offs. You just run it out to other filmmakers. You get Spike to do his.

just have everybody do their local town. Thanks as always for the time, man. Congrats. Thanks, Josh. Lovely to talk as ever. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressure to do this by Josh. Hey, Michael. Hey, Tom. You want to tell him? Or you want me to tell him? No, no, no. I got this.

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