Kermode & Mayo’s Take - BEST OF 2022, TOM HANKS AND MARIANA TREVINO, OBITUARY

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

Mark and Simon take a look at the best bits of Kermode and Mayo’s Take this year including highlights from Rowan Atkinson, Jeff Goldblum, Charlotte Rampling – as well as the biggest reviews like Top Gun Maverick, Elvis and Everything Everywhere All At Once. PLUS Simon interviews TOM HANKS and MARIANA TREVINO about the upcoming  comedy-drama ‘A Man Called Otto’. They also reflect on those we have lost this year in the world of Film and TV, including Robbie Coltrane, Angela Lansbury, Olivia Newton-John and Sidney Poiter among others. EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.    Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts   To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With banking packages from Scotia Bank, you can put money back in your pocket. That's how Marcus was able to invest in everything he needed to launch his podcast. About his pets. Welcome back to PetGas. Visit ScotiaBank.com slash welcome offer. Scotia Bank conditions apply. Hello, well, here we are again. It's that weird time of year between Christmas and New Year. I always think it's like the space time continuum. It goes on forever. Is it Thursday? Is it Tuesday? Is it our passport? Have I eaten that amount of peanuts?

Anyway, no, it's cashews. There's some kind of Christmas-y's cashew or walnuts. You never eat a walnut, man. Christmas comes. And I have to have unsalted peanuts, which really are no joy. You don't eat salt. Well, I'm trying to have less salt, you know, but Christmas is a time for salt. It is. That's the trick. Salt on the roads, salt on the peanuts. Anyway, we're here to provide some distraction

from the relatives, the peanuts, and the endless rounds of monopoly, if that's a conventional game. How has it been? Have you managed to do that? Have you managed to? Monopoly would not, we have a table full of board games, which child three has provided,

but he's always more enthusiastic about playing them than anyone else in the whole world. That in fact, anyone else in the whole world, that's right. And because I've been talking, my voice has gone back to where it was just a couple of weeks ago. She's very angry. You're going to be off-gradeatis, it's right, tomorrow.

Yeah, I know. Anyway. So, we're going to bring you here, a montage, because it's the season of montages. It is. It's the season of greatest hits by which I mean, like, compilation albums. Yes. But also, great, it's radio. And now, we bring to you a montage of the best bits from the show this year. You're going to hear reviews from some of the biggest blockbuster successes this year, such as Top Gun Maverick, Elvis, everything

everywhere, all at once, plus interviews with Jeff Goldblum, Charlotte Rampling and Rowan Atkinson, but as well as these magnificent highlights from 2022, I also got to interview Tom Hanks and Marina Trevino for a man called Otto, which isn't out until early January 2023. But we got time with him over Christmas, so we wanted to share it with you today, because if you get a chance to talk to them, then you're not going to say, no, thank you. So, let's hear it then, starting with Mark's review of everything everywhere, all at once. What else is out? Oh, everything, everywhere, all at once is live as a title.

It's brilliant, isn't it? Although, I have to say for ages, it was being referred to a friend of mine, seen it, and really liked it, and they kept calling it everything, everything, everywhere, all at the same time. And so every single time I say the movie title now, I have to kind of correct myself everything everywhere all at once. So this is a really inventive movie

that's been in the, it's been a bit of press recently because Jamie Lee Curtis took to social media to say that their movie was kicking Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness, both, you know, because it was doing well at the box office and it cost 25 million. I think Dr. Strange cost around about 200 million. And so Jamie Lee Curtis said, you know, competitive golly, yes, although she didn't say golly, she was very, she was very, you met Jamie Lee Curtis, right? Because you interviewed Jim in the course of the movie. You interviewed him for the Delayne Halloween movie. So it's a multiverse movie that does something interesting

with the idea of the multiverse. Remember when we were talking about Dr. Strange, the multiverse of madness last week, and I said, well, it doesn't really advance the idea of the multiverse, although it does have some, some internet, I think Elizabeth Olson is the kind of heart and soul of that movie, actually, although Dr. Strange is in the title.

In the case of this, Michelle Yo is a Chinese American woman who runs a laundromat with her husband, Waymond, who is smiling and happy, but their marriage seems to have gone south. They don't appear to have the spark that they once had. And she is ground down. They are facing an audit by the IRS, character played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who tells them looking at their accounts. This does not not go. And they have to get through the audit. And she also is facing a problem with her father is visiting and she's always felt that she disappointed her father. And their daughter is somebody with whom she seems to have lost contact.

You can't say the thing that she really needs to say, which she needs to say, I love you instead. She says, oh, you're getting fat because she can't think of the right thing to say. The daughter is in a long-term relationship with a girlfriend that she can't think of the right thing to say. The daughter is in a long-term relationship, but the girlfriend that she can't tell her father that his granddaughter is gay because she's somehow in barrisome. Everything has kind of reached this point of stasis. She gets into a lift in the tax office,

and suddenly, Wayman, who is usually very placid, turns to her and says, right, I'm not your husband. I'm another version of your husband from a multiverse. There are infinite numbers of multiverses, and we've been searching for somebody to fight this rising threat, which is going to wipe out, or, and you are the only person that can do. We know that you're the person, and you have a choice. You're going to get out of this, lifting you, and I either go right to the jams, because

I said, or you can go left into the tax audit office. First, she thinks this is not why you behave like this. Very rapidly, it becomes apparent that actually she is living in a completely different reality. The production team in their hilarious way have chosen a clip that is absolutely dialogue-free. Oh, good. Because when stuff starts to happen, suddenly the film starts to leap through different genres. So you're going to talk us through it, like you did with Dr. Stone. Shall I do that? Shall I talk us with a... Okay, so I'm going to talk you through the clip.

So essentially, once the multiverse thing starts to happen, the film starts to genre hop, often like in a really kind of, you know, bafflingly kaleidoscopic way. As our central character discovers that there is more to life, often like in a really kind of, you know, bafflingly collider-scopic way. As our central character discovers that there is more to life than laundry and taxes. Here's the clip. So, they're in the tax office. That's a... a trunction being battered against a part of office furniture. Michelle Yo is about to engage in a full on

martial arts fight sequence. She's good. With a wooden spoon and a trowel, which is the wooden spoon has just been destroyed. She's now throwing a laptop, which has just been struck into two pieces. Rubbish laptop. Use the top. Marshal Lads action happening in the tax office.

She's hitting him with a computer keyboard. Which nearly took her eye out. Yes. Ariel, there's some wire work. Oh, she hit him on the head. She hit him on the head. I mean, I don't think we're doing full justice to what's happening here. Well, what can you do? You can't just play it with any of these.

I know. Okay, there are two people having a bitch. And now slapping each other. She's slapping each other. She's slapping each other. I'm like, hours. LAUGHTER My destiny. LAUGHTER

And that's a clip from Elvis. I'm delighted to say that one of its stars is Tom Hanks. Can there be more than one star of a movie called Elvis? Wouldn't it be Elvis? That would be Austin Butler? Yeah. That's kind of like, there's... How many stars are in a movie called Jesus of Nazareth?

There's really only one. And that's kind of like... Is that you next picture? Wouldn't that be great? Yeah, I think we have something to add to that saga. I think the greatest story I've ever told has not been totally told yet. So we'll add a little bit more to it.

Yeah, have you ever been in a biblical... No, I can't say they've come after me for the robes and sandals thing. The last time we spoke was for Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. It's January 2020, which is very, you know, feels like an eternity, yes, ago. And you told us in that interview, this two shall pass. So we had that, we had that conversation. And then shortly afterwards, you went to Australia, this is relevant to what we're talking about. And you and your wife got COVID. And I wondered if you had to remember those words yourself. And because we didn't know very much about it at all. Now that was, we were six days away

from starting filming of what would have been, I think, a different version of our Elvis movie. I mean, we were reading the stories that everybody else would, and in fact, we had had this the month before we were in Australia, and the health officials came around and spoke to all of us Americans about this thing that was on the horizon, that was beginning to spread out

of Asia and out of China, this thing called COVID. And then when we happened to contract it, it happened in more or less a wink of an eye, and she got it first, and then I came down with it about 12 hours later, and then down for the count for the better part of 11 days. So that first blast was, it wasn't a wipe threatening luckily to us, but it was debilitating. Hello, Jeff.

How are you? Hello, Simon Mayo. I'm fine. Thank you. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for doing this. I was just about to tell you that I'm very excited to be here and to see you because I

discovered you and Mark on my YouTube, on my telephone that I had in my pocket right here, and I've watched many hours. I keep going from one to another. I keep binge watching your broadcasts and your reviews and your conversations. I love them. I love what you're doing and I'm thrilled to see you in the flesh

and actually be here with you. Well, I don't think I've done an interview of a 21 years which has started in a more promising way. If that means the arc is going to be a dramatic, we're not only down to going. Well, I spent all morning listening to your records and wondering when the next album might be along the way. Anyway, you're not here to talk about your record. So kind to say that.

Well, we'll talk about it whenever you want, but thanks, you're a jazz fan. I have become a jazz fan through reading Michael Connelly books and reading about Bosch. Isn't that interesting how you can get into jazz from a fictional character? In terms of pretend fictional worlds, where are we? So, with 30 years on pretty much from Jurassic Park, where are we in the story of the Jurassic Universe? Let's see if I can sum up as much as I know. It was now, I guess, in real time, right? Because my character seems to have aged exactly

that a literal amount of time, 29 years ago, or something. The events in Jurassic Park, if you've seen that, happened where they built a park, where they displayed dinosaurs, and I said, bad idea, et cetera, et cetera. And now, since the last one, if you've caught up with the world movies, these trilogy of Jurassic World movies, whose architect was Colin Travaro, who might have nothing but admiration and affection for,

he was, I think, terrific. Who's directed this? He directed and wrote the first one in the dress world, and he wrote the second one, J.A. Bayonet directed that one. I was in it for those little, those little scenes, as you may have seen. And then this one happens in real time,

four years after what happened in the last one. And dinosaurs are now all over the world. Watching Top Gun Maverick, I laughed, I gripped the edge of my seat, and at one point to my eternal shame, I found myself crying. LAUGHTER At an emotional bonding scene

between two people chewing the scenery, and I think it's got under my skin. Is that a Val Kilma moment you're talking about? No, I actually I thought the Val Kilma moment was very moving. That was where you were crying. No, it wasn't. It was later on. No, during the Val Kilma moment I thought this is interesting.

They've judged this really well because that could have been, it would have been really easy to get that completely wrong and they didn't. I thought they judged that really well. And the cinema that I was in, there was absolutely harsh during that scene, which I thought was done really well. I love Jennifer Connelly. I think she has a fairly underwritten role as the Sassy Bartender, who sort of the love interest

in the absence of Kelly McGillis, who apparently wasn't invited to this particular party. But in the end, it works because like the jets, it's a spectacular piece of machinery and I don't say that in a bad way because I love fairground rides, I love carnival rides and I love them when they do the thing that they meant to do and I went into Top Gun with no emotional involvement and it got me in the fields. You know, it was pulling at my heart strings. I was a little bit in love with Tom Cruise in a strange way because he was just like,

how are you so, he does this thing with his face, which obviously I can't do, but he moves bits of his face around and little parts of you die inside. It's, and he's and he's 60 in July. It's just, yeah, which is just terrifying. So it did the, and it really was one of the movies that says to you, this is why going to the cinema is different from sitting at home watching Netflix. I mean, I saw it on an iMac screen,

and if you're gonna go and see it, and everybody will, it's gonna be a massive hit, it's gonna be huge. Go and see it on the biggest possible screen turned up loud and because it's a spectacle it is a mechanical spectacle but just because it's mechanical doesn't mean it doesn't get on to your skin and I just in the end I just went okay I give up. I like it. Yes it is a fantastic film. Clearly the key test is what Mark thinks because not he's not just the film critic, he's also heard an Elvis aficionado. Well, this is what he thinks.

Well, we kind of preempted this a little bit last week when you said three words and I said it is ace. So this is Bazelerms' biopic of Elvis and his relationship with Colonel Tom Parker, who was interesting enough some years ago, a couple years ago, when Tom Hanks was about to go off and make this film. And he said, I'm going to play Colonel Tom Parker. And I said, who was neither a Colonel nor a Tom nor indeed a Parker, a line which I have to say appears almost verbatim in the film. I'm not suggesting for one minute credit for certain. Yeah, because I must have heard it from somewhere else. If, if it does it anyway.

So it's about Elvis's relationship with Tom Parker and Tom Parker narrates the story much like and you made this observation when you were talking to Tom Hanks. It's like Salieri narrating the story of Mozart in Amadeus. Carlton Parker is a carnival hawkster. He's got a voice in his performance by Tom Hanks, which is somewhere between Elmaphad and Bellegosi's Dracula. And he sees Elvis at the Louisiana Hayride, which is the clip that we just heard.

And basically, he sees dollar signs. He sees his future. And he then, you know, wrestles Elvis to him. They make the deal on a Ferris wheel because you know his background is in dancing chickens and in carnivals and in that stuff. And he says look you know you come with me and I will make you a star and he will take 50% of everything. That sequence that we just heard is absolute dynamite and it's the it's the moment in the film when you can almost feel the whole of the audience exhale and go okay we're safe because Austin Butler absolutely nails that

performance he walks out wearing the you know the pink suit the pink pegs and there's the you know there's the get a haircut cry from the crowd and then he starts moving and the way in which he moves and huge credit here to a movement coach, Polly Bennett, the way in which he moves just completely captures the electricity of Elvis's performances and you said to me yourself that electricity was the word that you thought of when you saw that Louisiana. Like it's being passed through him. Yeah. And it really is an uncanny moment, but it's also a moment that tells you, okay, this is

fine. We have this nail. Bear in mind a lot of people in the past have kind of, you know, have done performances of Elvis. So, you know, with its Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's Elvis or whether it's, you know, Michael Shannon in Elvis and Nixon, we've seen a lot of people attempting to capture Elvis on screen. You know, you know, Val Kilmer is the kind of spectral Elvis in true romance. It's very, very hard to get beyond something which is, which is simply a caricature. Actually, I think that

Kurt Russell is not bad at all, but this isn in a whole different league. I mean, this is it absolutely. It's like watching the spirit move somebody. The story then moves on from that to cover the rest of the career. We see Parker basically using national services as a way of controlling and neutering Elvis's power by the time he comes out of the army. He's essentially been controlled, he's fed into this series of anemic Hollywood movies and the film itself then kind of takes the style briefly of those kind of anemic Hollywood movies because one thing that Lerman does is he plays with form all the time. You have done this work before, haven't you?

Uh, no actually, I'm new to the company. Ha ha ha. You've never done house-doting before? No. Not as such. But please don't worry. I have a house too. Well, I used to have a house, so all this is very familiar territory. Oh, here, let me. I'll get that. For you. I'll get that. For you.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Let me. Oh, dear. I'll just... Well, I know you used to call us every day. If you wouldn't mind doing the same. Absolutely. My pleasure.

I have a good holiday, Mrs. Colstad Bergenbatton. Batton. Bye. And then it's a clip from episode one ofatton. Batton. Bye. And then he's, it's a clip from episode one of Manverse's B. Ronackinson. Hello, how are you? I'm very well, thank you. Very nice to be here. Very nice to see you. And how do you think Manverse's B. works as a piece of radio audio drama there?

Well, I have to say, yes, having just listened to that, how surprised that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. So that's good. But no, overall, it wouldn't work well at all. And it's a piece of radio drama because there's a lot of dialogue in the first episode, and there's a lot of dialogue in the last episode and very little in the sort of seven episodes and in between. So introduces to Trevor, who is the character we heard there.

Yeah, Trevor Bingley, he's a guy, he's a sort of a new-ish character for me, I suppose. He's one of the nicer people I've played. I regard him a much nicer person than same as the being, and not quite so smug and awful as Johnny English is. So I think he's a slightly more, I would like to claim, maybe I'm wrong, three-dimensional character, compared to some other characters that I've played. He's a genuinely nice man. I think he's a sort of middle aged older man

who's obviously lost his job. We don't know why, although we discover some reasons why he's lost other jobs in the past later in the series. And he's got an ex-wife and he's got a daughter with whom he's trying to arrange a holiday. And the very week that he's supposed to be going on holiday with his teenage daughter, he manages out of the blue to get a job, which is a job as a house sitter. He's never done house sitting before, as that clip might have indicated, so he's manifestly under-qualified for the job, and he's got to just work it out. So he's house

sitting for this very wealthy couple who live in a very splendid house full of very splendid objects, and he's there, hopefully, for the following week, but they actually come back early from the holiday for reasons that will become clear. And you haven't mentioned the B. I haven't mentioned the B. No, no, I haven't mentioned it because actually what I've just described was the starting point in terms of our script writing, I suppose. It started off as a house sitting project, you know, and it was called actually House Sitter. And then, but then we decided that a very, you know, engaging and interesting catalyst for whatever comedy and nonsense that we wanted to happen in this house during Trevor's

house sitting, we thought would be created by introducing a B. So basically the middle seven episodes of the show is a battle between Trevor and this B. And as I say, the show was called House Sitter and then Netflix in their wisdom. They like a title that tells the story of the show more bluntly and crudely than the word House Sitter, which was deemed to be slightly more oblique and they wanted something more direct so we ended up with man versus B which is a good title I think and it certainly tells the story. Was it the story and the confrontation between the man and the B that created Trevor or had you thought of Trevor and then found a story for him which which came for him. Ah, that's a good question. Now, I think we started with the B in that story

and then I was sort of tasked with the job of creating a character that could work in this context. And also very importantly, have the other dimension of the fact that he's got a daughter and an ex-wife and he's a nice guy, guy having to negotiate basic family issues and family challenges and problems at the same time as trying to hold down this job of being a house sitter and fighting a B.

And it just requires someone who wasn't as a two one or two dimensional. Happy Nord Christmas. Protect yourself whilst Christmas shopping online and access all the Christmas films from around the globe! Plus, when you shop online you'll have to give websites your card details and other sensitive data like your personal addresses. Those websites should already have their own encryption built into their payment systems, but to be

on the safe side you can use a VPN to ensure that all data coming to and from your device is encrypted. Even if you're using an unsafe Wi-Fi, you'll still be able to shop securely with a VPN. And you can access Christmas films only available overseas by using streaming services not available in the UK. To take our huge discount of your Nord VPN plan, go to nordvpn.com slash take. Our link will also give you four extra months for free on the

two-year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box. Hi, esteemed podcast listeners, Simon Mayo. I'm Mark Kermot here. I'm excited to let you know that the new season of the Crown and the Crown, the official podcast, returns on 16th of November to accompany the sixth and final season of the Netflix epic Royal Drama series. Very exciting, especially because SuperSub and Friend of the Show Edith Bowman hosts this one.

Indeed, Edith will take you behind the scenes, dive into conversation with the talented cast and crew from writer and creator Peter Morgan to the crowns Queen Elizabeth in Melda Staunton. Other guests on the new series include the Crowns research team, the directors, executive producers Suzanne Mackie and specialists such as voice coach William Connaker and props master Owen Harrison. Cast members including Jonathan Price, Selim Dor, Khalid Abdullah, Dominic West and Elizabeth DeBickey.

You can also catch up with the story so far by searching the Crown, the official podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe now and get the new series of the Crown, the official podcast first on November 16th. Available wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Mooby, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From my connect directors to emerging otters, there's always something new to discover, for example. Well, for example, the new Aki Karri's Macchi film Fall and Leaves, which won the jury prize at Cannes, that's in cinemas at the moment. And if you see that and think I want to know more about Aki Karri's Macchi, you can go to movie The Streaming Service and there is

a retrospective of his films called How to Be a Human. They are also going to be theatrically releasing In January Priscilla, which is a new Sophia couple of film, which I am really looking forward to since I have an Elvis obsession. You can try Mooby free for 30 days at Mooby.com slash Kermed and Mayo. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash Kermed and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. So that I think we're virtually done apart from Thor. Thor, love and thunder. And it is Thor Thor. It is Thor. It's the fourth Thor. So Thor, love and thunder. You said I'm Thor, if they wear a thaddle, silly. That's the one Tom Hiddleston. So this is the sequel to Thor Ragnarok. Once again directed by Tyker with TT who curled the script with Jennifer Cateen Robinson.

It opens with a scene of Christian bailed him. It's Gore losing his daughter in the desert, then finding himself in what appears to be an outtake from the flowerpot men, or in the night garden, in which he falls out with his God and declares, this is my vow, all gods will die. Therefore he becomes the God butcher. Call the God butcher, which to be honest,

if you were offered that as a role, you go, yep, that sounds good. We then cut to Corg, humorously retelling Thor's story so far. Lots of simulator in jokes about, he lost his brother again, and then again, and then enjoying a classic Thor adventure in which he accidentally destroys a temple in a sequence that looks like a very badly CG rendered version of a heavy metal video

with some muppets. The main thing is he is still pining for Jane, a character we all forgot about some time ago, is now battling against stage 4 cancer, but who thanks to a convoluted plot twist inspired by Jason Aaron's mighty Thor strips, finds herself united with Thor's reconstructed hammer which is sworn to protector and reconstruct itself in her presence. thereby turning her into mighty Thor, who is a female version of Thor, you've seen the film tell me if this is wrong, a female version of Thor while Thor played by Chris Hemsworth misses both her and the hammer who is with her, but has now been replaced by his axe storm

breaker. Yeah, I mean, it's not that confusing. Here's a clip. So that's the X-Girlfriend, is it? The old X-Girlfriend. Jodie Foster. Jane Foster. The one that got away. The one that got away. That means a skate.

Yeah. Yeah. Must be hard for you to see your X-Girlfriend and your X-Hemmer hanging out and getting on so well. Would you up to bro? Go to daddy. getting on so well. What you up to, bro? Come to daddy. Come on. Come on.

Hey, baby, what are you up to? Hey, that's just calling you. You got nothing. Another visual clip. Another visual clip. So the gag is he's calling the hammer and then his ax comes up. You see, his ax is like an axe. His axe is his axe.

No, no, his axe is jealous of his axe. That incidentally is a gag that will run throughout the whole film. Thor treating his hammer like his old girlfriend, and his axe like his new girlfriend. And that's basically the tone of the whole movie, the kind of, you know, knowing jokes about, hey, we're making a superhero movie, but we know we're doing it. So, you know, we're making lots of jokes about it. Therefore, you know, I got characters dressed as gods, but they talk like they're in an episode of Friends

because we're very, very postmodern. And then the plot is that the children of new as God, a stolen by Gore, who incidentally looks exactly like the nun from the nunjuring movies. So from now on, it's going to be quiet, quiet, quiet, bail. I thought he looked like Voldemort, really. A little bit of Ray Fines, that's what he looked like.

Okay, so somewhere between the nunjering and Voldemort, but not OO, that's an interestingly new creation. And then in true Doctor Who fashion, he, the God Butcher, he's got to get to the gates of all eternity where he can make one wish that will be the wishiest wish that anyone ever wished, incidentally, he just wished, I wish I was omnipotent and had endless wishes. Anyway, so Thor then announces that he says, I'm gonna get together again, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top,

top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, and he says it top, top, top, he says it like that in a way that sounds exactly like Boris Johnson. We're recording this on a Wednesday. I have no idea how that joke lands, but that's what he sounds. That's true. There is that general feeling that is there at the moment, but by the time you get this, you might not be. Maybe not be. Anyway, they head off into a, into space in a fairground ride boat, which is pulled by screaming goats, comedy screaming goats, because hey kids, internet memes about screaming goats are cool. Even I thought, hang on a minute, that's past, it's tell by date. There are rubbish jokes about beatboxes,

rollerblading, catchphrases, catchphrases. I don't know the joke about, oh, we're superheroes, gotta have catchphrases, oh, you know, eat my hammer. Well that work, you know. Then there's loads and loads of smuggling cameos from Matt Damon, Sam Neill, Melissa McCarthy, as bad actors in the new, new Asgard theme park history of Thor. Then there's a comedy sequence, an extended comedy sequence

in some secret God lair, where Russell Crowe turns up as Zeus. Doing what I think is meant to be a Greek accent. I thought it was Italian. Sorry, I think is meant... Well, Zeus is Greek, right? I know, but he might have spent some time. But he sounds like Jared Leto. Oh, oh. He sounds like Jared Leto.

He goes, yeah, you know, I'm a Zeus. I got a thing with the blah, blah, blah. And then there's a joke about women feigning at the site of Chris Hemsworth, Mr. Happy. The CGI is unspeakably poor. The whole thing looked like it was, it would probably improve from motion smoothing. It was, at times I was reminded, there was an article in Sinifantastique magazine back in 1974, 75, that described Flash Gordon, the soft porn remake of Flash Gordon as the best-mounted turd we have ever seen. And I thought that bits of Thor Love and Thunder looked like a

rubbish CG remake of those bits from Flash Gordon. Now look, here's my problem. It's one thing for the Marvel audience to get bored with the Marvel Universe. It is quite another thing when the makers themselves don't seem to care about it either. I mean, yes, there are LGBTQ plus friendly subplots. So what? That should be a minimum requirement. That is not a reason to exist or a badge of merit. Also, the unearned sentimentality about illness and then a completely fatuous thing about, you know, love-trumping vengeance. about illness and then a completely fatuous thing about, you know, love-trumping vengeance. Also, existing in a world in which everyone makes a big deal about sacrifice,

but sacrifice doesn't mean anything. When the character will reappear very, very shortly, I thought the whole thing was soul-sockingly wrong. I mean, I love hunt for the world of people. I kind of enjoyed Thor Ragnarok. This proves that my concerns about JoJo Rabbit being wildly overrated were... Correct, it doesn't prove that. One thing I thought was interesting, there's a joke in which Jane is explaining astrophysics. And she makes a joke about interstellar,

but before that she says, did you see Event Horizon? I thought, well, great. At least somebody has noticed that Event Horizon was the precursor to Interstellar. Other than that, I thought it was absolute bolder dash and I really sat there thinking, I've had enough of this now. I have really, this is so tired and so,

if you're gonna do it, do it. Don't just do two hours of sarky. Only not be making making a superhero movie, but we're being funny about the act. Hahahaha. It just stopped. Stop it. I thought it was, I thought it was absolute rubbish. I want to discuss the Silver Surfer's sequel.

Yes, and we've already discussed it. They want you. Yeah, but it's a boring part. I'm tired of being the girlfriend. Listen. Here's the twist. It's a reboot. Okay, Silver Sur tired of being the girlfriend. Listen. Here's the twist. It's a reboot. Okay, Silver Surfer dies and the girlfriend takes over.

This is exactly what people want right now. High concept, feminist, lady-led superhero movie. All right, they are gonna go nuts over this. Are you serious? You want me to play the Silver Surfer. She wants me to play the Silver Surfer. Yeah, I sure do. I would even pay to see it. And they're ready to write you a blank check.

Who's directing? A hot new British filmmaker. Directed Grimes videos, his name escapes me. Babe. The RMAVEP is not happening. All right, don't worry. I'll make sure they pay you out. The new Skylantic series, RMAVEP, und, und delighted to say that it's star and executive

producer, Alicia Vikander, joins us somewhere. I'm not quite sure where you are. We can see pictures of you, Alicia. Where are you? I'm in France at the moment. Well, it's very nice to see. I last spoke to you for Lara Croft. Mark first spoke to you when you were marrying into the Danish Royal family. Yes I remember that. I'm shocked that

you remember. I gave you a Kermod Award for Best Actress which was a statue of me. I very very much remember it. I remember I was so shocked that I was invited to your program and I was really honored back then. It was, you know, right in the beginning when I haven't done many interviews at all, I think. I think it must have been one of my first interviews in English, probably. What did you do? What did you do without a war? That statue of Mark. I mean, I can't imagine. I'm sure it's on a mantle piece. I'm sure it's front and center. I think it's hopefully should show up pretty soon because I literally moved. I mean we've had this country house for a while but quite recently we finally moved into our main house.

So hopefully it's going to show up when I'm unpacking years of things that have ended up in stores. So you've lost it. That's why I'm listening. No, I hope not. So that's all a very long time ago and you're slightly more used to interviews in English, I think. So take us take us to the beginning of the story of a firm of it. I mentioned that you're a producer on this. So you're on board from the get go. Just explain how you got involved with it. Well, I've been a huge admirer of Olivier Sias for many years and we met about six years ago now and we connected over the love of film and filmmaking and over the years we continued to meet when we passed through the same city. And so it was once again, I was in Paris and we had lunch and then he brought up this idea

that he was going to do, well, a re-imagination of a bit his film. And I think I probably had a similar reaction to maybe a lot of other people who knows work. I was like, oh, he's gonna go back and touch, you know, an extraordinary film of his that he's already done and intrigued to just understand what he meant with that. And then, you know, he started by, you know, giving me an idea of telling me that he wasn't finished,

I guess, without world. He asked me if I was interested to be part of it. And I think I immediately just just said, yes, I wanted to be part of his project and also been so curious to wonder what it's like getting to work with his dialogue specifically. So when I said yes, he just went back and said, okay, then I'm going to start writing. So I had a bit of a similar experience as the audience now, I guess. I kind of had a new episode coming in every few weeks. And in that sense, I was invited by him to kind of be

part of the process or you know obviously he is the writer and main and only creator of this but it's been wonderful to kind of have him inviting me to be part of discussions and throughout the entire process about the series and the meaning of it. And then of course putting together a team. When he said he wasn't finished with it, when he wasn't finished with the idea in the world of Ermive, what can you explain a bit, what he meant by that? He, of course, is quite not just open but quite vulnerable in a wonderful way, opening up about his own past and his love and not only for love and for cinema but also for a specific person,

but of course had a relationship which is Maggie who played the main part in Amoebape in 94 and by that I think he said, this is the ghost that has followed me and it's not only the ghost that inhabits cinema but also real life. And he also said that that series actually came about just as kind of a blip in him preparing for another much bigger film. And he said it was the only kind of creator

because it was bored and He was waiting for finance to come together. There was no money there and he was like I'm never gonna get to do this thing So now I'm here with my friends and I have this idea and he wrote it in like I don't know a few days And I think they shot it for like 20,000 euros and He said then it became like one of those films that people still today want to talk to me about. And I almost don't know how and why it happened back then. But then it became one of the biggest films of my life. And in that sense, I kind of want to go back now and I'm more aware of what it is and what I want to continue to say. Hi, we wanted to properly introduce ourselves because you know we're going to be neighbors and everything so. Okay, bye.

Are you always disenfriendly? I'm not unfriendly. Okay, you're not. No, no, no, no. You're not unfriendly. Every word you say is like a warm cuddle. And that is a clip from a man called Otto. It stars Tom Hanks as Otto O-T-T-O. O-T-T-O. And Mariana Trevino as Marisol. M-A-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R- Marisol M-A-R. Ah, that's so well.

The only Marisol I've ever met in my life is you, yeah. You spell your name all the way through the film, that's why I spell it. Right, that's what the A-U-T-U. And Mariana, you don't get to spell your name. Oh, no. But I love the name because it has the word Sol. And it's in the name and Sol in Spanish is Sun.

So I thought always that I was nice little. You are a bright source of life and enlightenment. As indeed is this film, you made a grand man cry. So thanks. Tom, tell us about the film and how you got involved in it. Well the original Swedish film, the man called Uva, is gorgeous, beautiful. We saw it six years or so ago. Oscar nominated.

Yes, yes, for best film. And, you know, rightly so, Ralph Lawsgord, who played Ova, I was watching him as I'm competitive and I'm jealous. And anytime I see somebody, you know, just tear apart a magnificent role, I'm in awe. But there was also that thing of, there is a lesson that America go through here and absent some contrabences of living in Sweden, socialized medicine and forced retirement, what have you. But I thought if, and my wife read actually verbalized it before I did, she said,

we have to make this movie in America and you have to play this guy because starting at the very bottom of one's existence and having their life completely altered by this burst of sun, sunshine that moves across the street, the worst thing that he wants, but the best thing that can happen to him. Mariana, same for you. How did you, how did you come to this movement? I was so lucky. I don't know what I did. Good. So they sent me a, a, a good thing from above. No, seriously, this has been obviously a life-changing experience internally for me. I've had the lifetime honor to act with one of my favorite actors for my whole life and to get to see what a wonderful person he is. And be a recipient like this closely of his enormous soul

in the genre and everything that he pours from it. You must understand she saved us. This audition came off. That was so, we watched it three times. Rita said, you have to see this. We watched it three times and it was Mariana, just through the magic of looking at us through the lens and playing this test scene, we were blessed. We just said, well, there she is. There's Marisol and I'll come about. And if you are from the Spanish-speaking world, you know exactly who's who. Yes. So it is a formidable presence in the Mexican sentiment theater.

Yeah. So yes, absolutely. So very well known in the Spanish-speaking world. But this is your first Hollywood film. Yes. And your first Hollywood film and your opposite Tom. Yes. Not bad. your first Hollywood film. Yes. And your first Hollywood film and your opposite Tom. Yes. Yes. Not bad. I don't know who for.

Yeah. To put it, because your relationship is really at the heart of the movie. Can you explain, Mariana, how you impact on Otto's life? That was life. Well, you know, we kind of, I love the first scene because it's the truck coming clumsily into the neighborhood. And that's actually what happens.

They're moving it. Yeah, they're moving it. The family of Mexicans is moving across the street. This is the last thing that Otto wants. Yeah, he's like, ah, it's going to be noisy. It's going to be this and that. I don't know. But we come like that.

It's very symbolic because we come bumping into everything, not being able quite to fit. And he helps us fit the truck into the place. So this whole interchange in the beginning is great and symbolic because this is what we do into his life, combaging in, you know, tumbling into all these resistances and all these rigidity in Otto's life. life and and hopefully the just making way into and making a heart space necessary for processes that we both have because Marisol also has unfinished processes just like Otto has and I think they meet both ways. I interviewed Frederick Pacman for the book back in 2014 something like that and I remember

reading the book and thinking okay this is going, this is going to do very well. But can you explain Tom? Why is Otto the way he is? Because he was over in the original book. Why is he appears to be superficially, he's just grumpy, but it's much more profound. There's so much there about the rules. I think what I got from the movie and then we both read the book and just took everything out of it and put it in our pockets for every day on the said,

oh, I know what he does here. And I know why he does that. He has lost, I don't want to overuse this, but he has lost his faith in the future. When Sonia, his wife, was with him. Every day was a pleasure. Every day was something to learn. She brought color to his life.

This is like stuff that comes from the screenplay. But what I took away was as long as she was there, tomorrow is going to be fine. And she's not there anymore. So he's lost. He has no desire to see tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be a pain in the butt. And even more so, because first nobody

follows the rules on his street. He's the only guy who cares about the rules. And then this person keeps knocking on his street. He's the only guy who cares about the rules. And then this person keeps knocking on his door to either ask for something or ask about him or remind him of something to eat. And he does not want to have to deal with this. He's all over. And a Bachmann's novel, although very much rooted in the way Sweden but the deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal.

The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal.

The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about the deal. The deal is about also the cynicism that goes along with loneliness. Of, I'm done. I've got no one else to go for. That has to be combated. And you can't, at the end of the day, I don't think you can do it alone. It has to come by way of outside, almost acts of God. You know, a tornado comes into the street and it levels everything and everybody's equal. Or this Mexican lady moves across. She is the tornado. Yes, she is the tornado. She is.

You and your family are tornadoes, but it's worth to say it's a very profound film, but it's funny. There's a physicality to your role, physicality to Otto as well. Because you're very pregnant through most of the film and when Otto slams the door in your face, you put your foot in your face, you put your foot like a little bit. But you're putting up with nothing. You don't put up with anything? Yeah, no. I mean, because you know, where it's, and this comes out in the film, I mean, you need a lot of energy and kind of will force to settle into another country and to make a space within a society that, whether you know, rules and you have to kind of will force to settle into another country and to make a space within a society

that whether you know rules and you have to kind of go through them and bend along with them to settle and keep on with your life and build a space for yourself. And this requires a lot of, you know, force. So it's kind of like the foot in the door like, okay, I'm here. I'm part of the conversation because we're all cohabiting and we're all conversing this reality together. And I think also the fact that she's pregnant, she's about to give a child.

I love that we give a space to the image of the mother because we all come from a mother. It's such an act of bravery and just there's a Spanish word for giving birth, which is alumbramiento, and it's giving light. No, light is a, this is a theme to this. What did you tell me this for? Remake the moving. Oh, well, of course. There's no, there's no more formidable force of nature than a mother who wants to tell

you something. No, that's what you bring light to your world, whether you like it or not. Yes. And on the physicality, Tom, just becoming auto, there is, he's a very upright man physically and morally as well. Could you just explain a little bit about how, how you become auto and what we see when we see him? He does not move without a very specific purpose. The way he does his rounds,

he's doing it from a place of great authority and some degree of moral outrage at the same thing. I felt he carried his discontent in his pace, in his gate, in his shoulders. I think the only time you actually see auto sort of relax his in moments of hopelessness where he's just so beaten, so tired, you just finally sit down and it's shoulder sag.

What thing that did come out of it is if you look at this carefully, both auto and Marisol knock on doors the same way. There's not kind of like, are you home? Not like that. It's like, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come. That's what, outside of pounding with your fist. It's literally like, I'm here, open the door,

I have something to tear. That's why auto desert is well, but finally goes around and starts knocking on it. You think the glass is gonna give way. You mentioned your wife being a producer on the end. And composer of the song. At the end of the song. Right, the song at all.

Exactly, and your son Truman is in When there's sort of flashbacks to you guys when you meet for the first time. Is that a first? That's a first thing. You know, we didn't go in that direct I wouldn't be surprised if Rita big producers movie just so she could get the song Mark Mark Forster is the guy who literally he brought all these possibilities to the director Yeah, the director's piece me. He says can't Truman play you as a young person and it's a well You know Truman wants to be you know wants to be a Behind the camera you'd have to ask him if he wants to hit the marks until the truth and do all that so they he worked

We were ambivalent about it said, you know not an easy. That's not an easy ask So he worked, we were ambivalent about it. Not an easy, that's not an easy ask. Although for market was because we looked exactly the same at the age of 26. So there was a DNA kind of like blood harmony that went into A sense of the body language. What I love about the actor who played young author, I won't say my son Truman, is that he brought a kind of

like gaillessness to it. He brought a kind of like almost like a need of how wonderful it is that this lady is looking at me. And he actually said that one day to us. I said, hey, you can approach it. I don't know, I'm just gonna think that how lucky I am that this girl is looking at me. I said, oh my God, you've actually said something

so perfect that I'm gonna take that with me as well. He is like dangles the possibility of a future, whereas auto, old auto, is all done. I'm all finished, no fear. And I thought that's kind of like a perfect young and old. This feels like a very unusual, I know we said it's your first Hollywood picture, but it feels like I'm in Pittsburgh,

or do I have to move to New York? It feels like a very old-fashioned film. There are no superheroes in it. There are no car chases. I mean, there are some action scenes and so on. But it's almost like a film that isn't made very often. Would that be fair? Well, yes.

I mean, it's like going back to the basic practices of being with each other, you know, the neighborhoods. I mean they have changed with time as well. I grew up in a neighborhood where I played with my neighbors still, but that has changed. My sisters' kids don't play with their neighbors anymore because we have been become more fragmented as societies and the nuclear families become more inside and there's less of sharing in a community that I have observed that. So it's kind of going back to that because the neighborhood is symbolic of a whole country and as a whole globe.

I mean, you know, we live in community. This is how we are made. We are made to coexist and to learn from each other and to learn through the others about ourselves. And this is the way we were made as human beings. Otherwise, it would be different. I hear in the UK, I see these row houses. We're the cult, you know, where they're locked right next to each other. Yeah, it was muse houses. Muse, well, you know, where they're right next to each other. And that was muse houses?

Muse, well, you know, just like you're going to like, there's like what have the semi-detached. You know what? Do they all know each other? I mean, does the neighbor, if you share a wall, do you know the person intimately? Do you, or do you keep some brand of safe distance because we don't want to become too involved in it?

Our neighborhood, this neighborhood in a man called Otto, is like so many races to be suspicious of your immediate neighbors. So let's be careful because we might come to blows over something in the future. Yeah, and yet what it left me with was, it only kept me on the journey home, was it felt it reminded me of it's a wonderful life. Okay. It had the same spirit to it.

Even though it has sadness and has light heartedness, but that's how it occurred to me. Do you think that's... I could, I'm outside of angels, you know, and heaven and all that stuff. I don't know that, no. But you know, it is, it is an aspect of a, the community realizing that if we don't help, and that could George Bailey, no one will.

And so the people decide we're going to bend together and save this guy in this very specific time of crisis that he's going through. And that it happens, yeah, it does happen in a man, man called auto because there's one, there's one actually I remember reading and saying saying I don't I don't know how that works and it's when I go inside and I won't answer the door and Marisol is outside saying come on come out let me know what's going on how come and it doesn't just separate us it hurts her because she knows that it's better to belong to something bigger than just yourself

And that I think that's very much part of the some people call this I think the most impossible thing to do is to make a capra-esque movie because Capra was a genius in understanding you incorporate Human behavior not plot devices, you know There's all sorts of kind you can put a hat on a hat in a scene and make everybody understand, oh, here's where you're supposed to feel sorry for the people.

He didn't do that, certainly not in its wonderful life and he didn't do it enough a lot of other films, but I don't think Mark Forster does it either. He refuses to be manipulative or fake. And right at the time, Tom Mariana, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. I want to have you in here to you.

Thank you, you knew it. Hey, let's root for 2023. Come on. time. I would have been happy to get you. Thank you. Thank you, you knew it. Hey, let's root for 2023. Come on. Yes. I think there's hope out there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. progress. Please be alert, the trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. So now we've never done a big kind of tribute section on the program because we didn't have the freedom before. But we thought it might be an interesting idea just to mention some of the people who died this year and acknowledge what their contribution has been and just a little salute as they have left us. So we'll do the, I mean, this is in no particular order. I'm just mentioning some of the folks.

And can we also point out, because I think this is worth pointing out, we are recording this on the 21st. If we might miss them, people... No, I'm not saying that as a joke. I'm saying it as a serious thing. That, you know, it's... If something happens between the 21st and when you're listening, that's why we didn't exactly know. And I say that because news only just broke about Mike Hodges dying, which, who is obviously

there's a really important figure, so explain, because he's not on our list. So, well, Mike Hodges is, was a, a is, was a really fine director. He made Get Carter, which I had the great privilege of writing the sleeve notes for the recent BFI 4K reissue. His filmography is really extraordinary. Flash Gordon is in the middle of it. And I had the privilege of interviewing him during lockdown because I think Flash Gordon was reissued.

I think it was briefly in Cinemas and there was, I think there was a new print of it. And he was talking about, I said to him, you know, look, when you look at your filmography, which includes things like Black Rainbow, Coupier, I'll sleep when I'm dead, get Carter, Polp. And then in the middle of it, Flash Gordon, how did you end up doing Flash Gordon?

He said, I have no idea. He said, Dino D. Laurentis, who was the guy who produced flash Gordon, said to him, one day they were having a meal whilst he was making it. And he said, Dino, why did you ask me to do this? I mean, I'm, Dino D. Laurenti said, Mike, I like your face.

And he said, that was the only answer he ever got. That was what Dina Dila Rente said. Anyway, he was a great conversation this. He was working on a film which I wonder whether it was finished. Anyway, he was a great British filmmaker, Get Carter, I think is still one of the absolute classics. And when they had that Michael Kane auctioning off his stuff recently, one recently a few months back now, there was so much Get Carter memorabilia posters, signed albums, all that kind of stuff. I mean, it is a real milestone

of British cinema. So Angela Landsbury, who of course, who has a fleeting, but significant cameo in Gloss Onion, which you know, you would see, but it is very breathy, but it is there. David Warner, Ivan Reitman, can I just stop very quickly about David Warner, because David Warner, who is, you know, filmography is extraordinary. I made a straw dog's documentary. And of course, David Warner is in straw dogs. He's also, he's brilliant in time bandits. And in the moment, he has probably the most famous scene in the moment.

But anyway, he was in relation to that straw dog's documentary. David Warner is one of those, I mean, you know, he's an extraordinary actor. and with an extraordinary CV. And anyway, I had made the straw dogs documentary, so I spent a lot of time thinking about David Warner. Ivan Reitman, in Monika, Vitti, creative Italian cinema, Robbie Coltrane, Hagrid Nundz on the Run, KGB Man in Bond and Angelo Badlamenti. Well, Angelo Badlamenti is a particular personal thing because I know forgive me for having,

for repeating stories which I've told before, but if I can't do it now, then when, Maholand Drive started life as a television pilot and the pilot then got canned, but it was going to be relaunched as a film. Well, of course, famously, it not only got relaunched as a film, it got relaunched as a film, which many people considered to be David Lynch's finest work. I think it was at the top of the site in San Paul of the best films of the first 10 years of the century. So I interviewed

Angelo on stage at the Edinburgh Film Festival at the point when they were working on Mulholland Drive and it was somewhere between being a TV show and being a film. And of course, Angelo Madeline Mente is in the from a heat to appears on screen in Lynch's films quite often, but he is the person who gave Lynch's films that atmosphere through his music, which is broadly speaking, a lot of suspended chords, a lot of... You know what a suspended chord is, yeah. Yes, fine. Do you want to... Yeah, just in case anyone doesn't, I'm sorry, but so a suspended chord is a chord that sounds like it hasn't resolved. It sounds like it's on, you have a major chord, you know, blown, then you have a minor chord

which has got a dropped third and it sounds sad, it just does, and then you have a suspended chord which is a chord that sounds like two things slightly buzzing against each other and it needs to resolve, it needs to go somewhere else. And Angela Baddler Mendte's work, his music work, he uses a lot of suspended chords. But he did this absolutely brilliant thing. And I will remember this for the whole of my life. He was on stage with a keyboard. And I was just interviewing him about his process

and about how he writes and how he works. And I said, can you tell me how you would set about writing the Twin Peaks music, for example, because I ended up writing the sleeve notes for the firewalk with me soundtrack, the request of Angela's office? And he did this thing and it's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen. He's subsequently done other versions of it that you can find on YouTube, but he sat at the keyboard. And he said, well, you know, I'll be sitting here at the keyboard and then David would stand beside me

with his hand on my shoulder and he'd go, we're in the woods. And Angela would go, I got these woods. Mmm, and then David would go, and it's slightly darker woods. It's a moor. He said, and then there's something, there's something moving in the woods.

And then Angela would move his hands up the cube once. It's an angel. And he literally, he did this routine of David Lynch. And he did a brilliant impression of David Lynch, talking him through the construction of the key themes for Twin Peaks. And it was breathtaking. And I was nominally interviewing Angelo, but you must have had this same experience.

You ask somebody a question and then you just get out of the way. You literally, you just sit back and in that moment, and I don't think he'd done it before because if I remember correctly, he said after doing it, I really enjoyed that, I must do that more.

And now if you go to YouTube, you can actually find a video of him pretty much doing that same thing. I'm not saying I invented it. I didn't invent it. It was just. And I did a lot of those things at the Edinburgh Film Festival, having composers like, you know, how sure, Carth Burwell would come on and would talk through their scores and how they would, but Angelo Badlamenti describing how he worked with David Lynch is one of the fondest memories I have. And he was, he was lovely, I messaged him a few times over the years, he would always reply, you know, generously and he was just a fantastic composer. Well, have we lost this year? Wolfgang Peterson, Das Boot, Olivia Newton John, James Khan, Sonny Kulioni, of course, Ray Leotter. Yes, he was also, we talked, of course, Ray Leotter. Yes. He was also... We talked about him when we talked about Blackbirds.

We did. I mean, obviously not, he's the most important, it's not, he's that. No, although he's a significant role. Yes. And the Shilnikl, who's a Lieutenant, who has, you know, who's placed not only in entertainment history, but in political history, is really, really important because, you know, it is impossible to understate culturally

how important the return to her role was and just not a con. Well, because it was an African-American woman in a mainstream science fiction, but seen by everybody TV series in an important crucial central role. I mean, there's all the stuff about the Kirk and Hera Kiss being a really, really, you know, groundbreaking piece of talent, but she was famously told by somebody really significant what you're doing is really, really important and it's absolutely right. And she continued to be proud of that rightly so, because it was just, you know, when Star Trek started, one of the things that Jean Roddenbury was trying to do was to make something that was culturally, socially, relevant, and boundary

pushing. In fact, he told the story once that he had wanted the Enterprise crew to be completely evenly divided between men and women, and the studio stopped him. They said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Which is kind of weird, isn't it? I was going to mention Shelby Dean just because she was at the beginning of her career, and we mentioned that she was in Triangle of Sadness. And then you interviewed her co-star, and Matthew Finless had just gotten to say, of her career. And we mentioned that she was in Triangle of Sadness. And the new interview to her co-star and Matthew Finlayson just got into it. So she'll be doing it, who's

surely destined for Stardom, had her life not ended so abruptly. I saw Triangle of Sadness at the weekend. It was a little difficult to reconcile with the vibrant on-screen personality having left us already. Anyway, just mentioning her William Hart. Wow, of course. And of course, as I have said many times, I'm sorry to go on about this. So my favorite movies include broadcast news in which William Hart is absolutely extraordinary. And Ken Russell's altered states,

there is a scene in altered states in which William Hart does this, it's like an almost uninterrupted monologue. And he's talking about his character is searching for the essence of human existence and he's drunk and he's in a party, which a whole bunch of stuff is going on. And Ken Russell had said that they were told that they were not allowed to change or cut or lose one line of the script. So he said to William Hurt, he said, okay, what you have to do is you just have to do the whole thing really fast. The whole movie has to be fast. Otherwise, we're going to be here with three hours. And the scene of William Hurts doing the thing about the human soul is a real

thing, you know, tangible and blah, blah, blah. And I'm going to find the which I can't say was a phrase that I would repeat to Ken over and over again and sometime later Ken's partner, Lisi, gave me a thing with that written on it, which is a line delivered by one of my favorite movie things of all time as delivered by William Earth. Also, we lost this year. We've mentioned it's a wonderful life quite a few times in the last couple of weeks. Virginia Patton, who was Ruth Deakin Bailey, a couple of weeks, Virginia Patton, who was Ruth's day in Bailey, Leon Vitale, Rick Parnell, spinal tap. Sorry, I'm just looking through this extraordinary list of... I'm sorry, I know this is a thing, I know Christmas is the time for looking forward and looking backwards, but I mean it's...

Yeah, I had... Yes, sorry, kept there. No, it's just a really, really extensive list, it's just giving me a sudden... Yeah, he's any more extensive than normal, but you know, of course not. You look at the talent that's gone Marilyn Bergman, Irene Carrot very recently, meatloaf. I'd forgotten that he died as well. And of course, I'm a meatloaf fan.

I loved Rocky Horror and I love back out of hell. And when my good friend, Matt, O'Casey made a documentary about meatloaf a couple of years ago, I turned up in it. And a whole bunch of people said, I never had you down from Meatloaf fan. And it was like, why? Meatloaf is so in my wheelhouse or ballpark. I mean, it was proper theatrical— And using a fight club as well. And in fight club, yeah, it's a very fine rolling fight club. One of our correspondence by Hamichikir said,

people don't appreciate how extensive Meatloaf's filmography really was some great, some forgettable, but all with a particular panache. Kirstie Ali, Peter Bogdanovich, who you and I had interviewed not so long ago because he'd done the documentary about Buster Keaton. Luis Fletcher,. Louis Fletcher. And Louis Fletcher, who is a...

And now, I should say this because it's important. So Louis Fletcher, of course, you know, famously won the Oscar for one flip of the Cookusness. If you've ever seen Louis Fletcher's acceptance speech for one flip of the Cookusness, it's perfect. There was a lot of controversy about that role and about the thing. And she said, you know, the whole thing about, you know, you like me, you really like me, that's beach.

Well, Louise Fletcher said, you know, I'm really glad to get this award because it tells me you really hate me because of the role of the judge. Of course, Louise Fletcher was also in ecstasy to the heretic and did her very best to keep a straight face even whilst having to read that nonsensical dialogue. Someone who we also lost this year, Sydney Portier, just a reminder that there's a fantastic documentary, I think it's on Apple about Portier,

which is just if you're any doubts about his importance, you're talking about African-American actors making a huge difference. The Sydney Portier story is quite astonishing. Where is that on Apple? I think it's on Apple. It's also on the BAFTA site to look at for the BAFTAs. It's a really, really, really good. And he was, because of where he came from, he was

allowed to be knighted. So I think he had one of the honorary knight-tards. But anyway, it's really... Oh, I didn't know that. It's more importantly, the first black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Lead role as Homas Smith in Lillysville. Anyway, it's just, I mean, where to start? Did you ever interview him? No.

Quote, he is a man of great depth, a man of great social concern, a man who is dedicated to human rights and freedoms. That's Martin Luther King Jr. on Sidney Quattro. And Hesh, we lost, but also you'll probably want to see something about Doug Trumbull. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm sorry to just to flag up the people that I had met. I mean, obviously, there are so many,

and we could talk individually about any of these. I mean, at least, but Anne Hesh, you had an extraordinary acting career. But Doug Trumbull directed, you know, one of my favorite movies of all time, Silent Running. And that was a film that affected me so profoundly when I was a child. I can't tell you what an extraordinary effect it had on me. Anyway, Tromball had a very truncated career as a feature film director

because he had a very hard time in Hollywood. In the case of Silent Running, I think it was five pictures that were made for limited amounts of money and that was a fairly good experience. His next film was a much more difficult experience in which a key member of the cast died towards the end of filming and the film company basically didn't want him to finish the film

what they wanted to do is to collect the insurance. Anyway, the whole thing did finally get finished, but it left Trumble with the feeling that he was pretty much done with feature film directing. What he was interested in after that was because he had come from a background in sort of experimental and experiential film projection. His father had worked as a special effects guy on the Wizard of Oz and had worked on the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz, right, with the scariest things in the Wizard of Oz. So he had been a real pioneer of high frame rates and all that stuff that ended up becoming part and parcel

of the current collage of cinema. But he did the VFX work on Blade Runner and I made a documentary about Blade Runner and when we started doing it, I said, can I please meet Doug Trumbull? Because I'm a love Blade Runner and I love the effects in Blade Runner, but I just love to meet Doug Trumbull.

So anyway, we went out to Doug Trumbull studio in the middle of nowhere and I spent, I interviewed him for about an hour and then I spent another hour with him just talking about his career and Silent Running, which ended up writing a small book about and asking him to show me stuff from his archive. And it was, he was a giant, an absolute giant of cinema and so much of what happened later on in terms of the way in which, you know, cinema developed was to do with work that Trombl had done. And I just think it's a real shame

that he didn't direct more features, but if you leave behind silent running, I mean, wow, it's like, you know, it's just a work of genius. I love that film. And he did this brilliant thing. I said to him, I said, you know, one of the things that always troubled me about silent running, well, it didn't trouble me at the time, but it troubles me afterwards is, you know, they're walking around on the spaceship outside and there appears to be gravity, but it's interesting that you didn't put in a line about, oh, we'll turn on the gravity field, and Dr. Amble went, yeah, I know. And I went, it's also interesting that a botanist And I went, it's also interesting that a botanist doesn't realize that the problem with the plants is that they don't have sunlight.

But then I thought, well, it's because by that point in the narrative, he's kind of lost the plot. And don't you come and say, yeah, fine. I just don't know it was brilliant that somebody who is really, really technical understood that his film wasn't about science. It was about the emotion of it and yeah, okay, none of that stuff made any sense. And... Well, would that not?

Okay. Doesn't bother me. Bruce Dern said in the whole of his career, he worked with two geniuses. One of them was Alfred Hitchcock and the other one was Doug Trumbull. Well, that's the end of this particular take. There's more stuff that's dropping all the time as I'm sure you're aware, but I'm sure you're thinking,

being a Vanguard Easter is such a good value that maybe I need to just, for the new, one of my new year resolutions should be to tell my friends. Yes, I mean, I would tell friends if I had any.