Kermode & Mayo’s Take - David Oyelowo on Government Cheese + Mark’s verdict on The Studio

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you. It’s time for the Take team to take stock of our first quarter, so this week we’re looking back over the first three or so months and putting our affairs in order: deciding whether to tighten our belts or loosen the purse strings, cut some salaries or dish out a few tasty bonuses. We’re bringing you a Quintessential First Quarter Recap of all the best bits from the year so far—including interviews with Ashley Walters & Erin Doherty, Jesse Eisenberg & Kieran Culkin and Brady Corbet—and a chance to hear moments from Mark’s best reviews like the previously Vanguardista-only ‘Santosh’. And there’s still plenty of brand new stuff for you in today’s take too. Our guest is David Oyelowo, who you’ll hear in conversation with Simon about his new Apple TV+ series ‘Government Cheese’. In this surreal 60s-set California comedy-drama, David plays Hampton Chambers, a father and former burglar trying to go straight after his release from prison and make his fortune in a crazy world. By popular demand, Mark and Simon will also be reviewing The Studio—the Hollywood film industry satire starring Seth Rogen as a spineless executive trying to make serious cinema and serious money... and possibly failing to do either. Plus we’ll be ‘treating’ you to the Laughter Lift as usual (you thought you’d managed to avoid that this week didn’t  you? Oh no, the hilarity never stops.) Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Quarter 1 highlights: 05:46 David Oyelowo Interview: 31:07 The Studio Review: 49:10 Laughter Lift: 01:04:33 You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey Mark, I can't believe they've remade Snow White. What a classic, the Dark Forest sequence. Scarier than anything in the exorcist. Scard me for life. Not as scary as the Dark Web, however, but luckily you can stay safe from all the spooky stuff lurking there with NordVPN. It will protect you online with encryption and alerts to guard against hackers. No more poison apples then, or dodgy fishing pages.

Will it make me the fairest of them all? Well it can let you switch your virtual location in a hundred and eleven different countries so you can watch movies from all over the world. That's close enough. Oh hey I can even download the NordVPN app for an extra layer of protection on my phone. That'll be handy for online banking. That's right. Unwrap a huge discount on NordVPN by heading to NordVPN.com slash take. Plus with our link, you'll get an extra four months free on the two-year plan and it's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. Check the link in the description. Hello, Simon Mayo here. And Mark Cumberurn here. Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra

episode every Thursday. Including bonus reviews, extra viewing suggestions, viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas, plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in Questions Shmestians. You can get all that extra stuff via Apple podcasts or head head to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices. There's never been a better time to become a Vanguard Easter. Free offer now available wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a Vanguard Easter, we salute you. Mark, you're looking particularly tip top, can I say? Thank you very much. Do you know why I'm looking particularly tip top?

My guess is it's your new health regime, which has taken its toll, but also has led to, yeah, it's taken its toll because you're exhausted, but you, your exercise, uh, your diet, uh, everything has just improved enormously over the last couple of days. And so that is why you're feeling tip top. No, the reason is that you and I are on holiday. So, um, just, just to be absolutely clear, we're not technically here. This is the one week we've gone off, but we have recorded a show in advance of going off, which has got loads and loads of fabulous stuff in it, although will be lighter on new cinema releases than usual because we're not actually here. Yes. Mark, you know how podcasts work in as much as they're not live.

They're all pre-recorded. Yes, they're all kind of recorded ahead of time. I do understand that, Simon. Thank you very much. I would solve the problems of Ibsen's P again by doing it on the radio. The tape is edited and then the tape is sent to everyone's individual personal tape player, which is then spooled up and then they get the yellow leader just so it's the right place. So that when they press play, our voices appear as if by magic. That's how it happens. Will Barron Yes, but we're still on holiday.

Will Barron Oh, yeah. Will Barron Truth in advertising and all that nonsense. I'm just flagging it up. I'm just saying that you've got a full show. It's a packed show. I'm just flagging that up. Will Barron And we have some tip top reviews from the nation's number one film reviewer. Yes. Who's Mark, who's on holiday. Oh, is that me?

That's me. Yes, you are definitely here. Special guest, a few list of contributions as well. We're also looking at the studio. Yes. Which is Apple TV's new comedy with Seth Rogen. Of which I have now seen all, and I think you've seen the first two, is that right? I've seen the first two, just started.

Fandabby Dozy. Just started the third. And it's one of those. My reaction when I saw the poster and Seth Rogen, who's been on this show before, last time with Charlize Theron, and we'd had a whole thing about how you pronounce her name because he pretended that he didn't know, you know, and all of that. But Seth Rogen for me can be hit or miss. Anyway, you can find out what we think of the new Apple TV show, The Studio. And can I just say that in the episodes that you've seen, you've already heard him mispronouncing Charlize Theron's name because they should say Charlize Theron. And indeed, pronunciations of famous people's names is one of the recurring things, certainly

the first three episodes. It is. Also, David Iiello is going to be on the show, stars in Government Cheese, also on Apple TV, plus in Take Two, it's a reissue special looking at some incredible reissues, Mark. Yes, extraordinarily in this week that we have gone off, there are reissues of Miss Congeniality, Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, Pride and Prejudice, and well, it's now Pink Floyd Pompeii 2025, which is a souped up reissue of Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii. Oh, and if you don't subscribe, that seems like a pity. Well, it does because the take legacy is not at your instant fingertip. That's the

issue. Anyway, also we have the return of our beloved guessing game, our beloved guessing game, accents, schmacksense. Six actors doing their best at pretending and we all have to guess where the hell they're supposed to be from. It's always very good fun. But you'll hear from Ashley Walters and Erin Doherty about adolescence because we're bringing you highlights from the quarter. Brady Corbett talking about The Brutalist and Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin amongst the familiar names and voices that you're going to be hearing from. Just to be clear, so we are recapping some highlights from the first quarter of the year. Is this because we've gone past, oh, I see. Yes, fine. I get it. I understand. I understand. Now

it's all crystal clear. You just said that at the beginning. I would have been fine. The great thing also is about having another chance to hear Ashley Walters and Erin Doherty, obviously people can just go back and listen to the whole thing, is that it's one of those very few shows where even though the show Adolescents is now out and is dominating conversations all around the world and the stars are still doing the interviews. Normally all the interviews are done before it comes out, but no, that's not true. Jack was at number 10 Downing Street and all the actors are still talking about it because it's the year's must watch, as indeed you all know about.

Mark, also you're going to be reviewing a few things as well. Yes, we'll be recapping my reviews of I'm Still Here, Dog Man, The Brutalist and Santosh, which featured in take two. As I said, if you were just listening on take one, it's a very good reason to listen to take two because Santosh is really, really worth a watch. And there just seems to be something about Stephen at the moment. He's like the most energizing actor in the country and no one has a bad word to say about him.

He's a fantastic actor and clearly a great scriptwriter and a great bloke. So as two people who've worked with him on A Thousand Blows and on this show, what is it about Stephen Graham? What has he got? For me, it's kindness. Like he is just the most generous one of him and Hannah, his wonderful wife and production partner. Like they are matriarch. But with Stephen, it's a kindness. He wants the best environment for everyone. He knows that only good work comes from that

and he invests his time in creating that soil, if you will, and he's benefiting from it himself. But also it's about community, it's about uplifting others, it's about climbing the ladder and looking down and sticking your hand out for other people. It's about uplifting others. It's about climbing the ladder and looking down and sticking your hand out for other people. It's everything and I just genuinely believe that only good things come from that. It's like a beautiful karmic cycle and he is just at the center of this thing. But the point is kindness. That's all I can kind of put it down to.

Agreed, agreed. He gives. He just gives, you know. And I think, you know, you said with the comic cycles, like, it all comes back to him. I mean, look, we have to be honest, in this industry, there aren't that many clean hearts, you know, and his is pure, and he's such a good friend before anything else, and such a wonder to work with,

and you know, he just keeps on giving. So he deserves everything he gets, and there's never a wonder to work with him you know he just keeps on giving so he deserves everything he gets and there's never a bad word said about him because there's no bad words to say it's just as simple as that really great guy and also he's phenomenal at what he does so that helps as well like so when you're in front of him you're just like trying to soak it all up anyway but yeah he's just I think parents will find adolescence terrifyingly brilliant but they will be asking themselves questions. I wondered if you both asked yourself how you would have coped with social media when

you were a teenager? Tough one. I mean I'm so glad I had like a long period of time without it to be honest. So I can understand what life was like before but I do wonder you know and sometimes feel sorry For for kids that have grown up with it. It's become like a you know an extra arm for a lot of kids I mean some of my kids my young daughter I kind of held back for years getting a phone because she's been asking for a phone since she was seven Yeah, she's 10 now just about to go into secondary school So I thought all right This is the right time to do it and already it's become an extension of her

You know her life and and that's scary. It's scary to see but it's part of life You know and I like I was alluding to before I just think dialogue is important You know, I'm always talking to her about who she's talking to and you know The sort of stuff that she's looking at and monitoring that yeah, how would you have coped? I was I have no idea. I feel so grateful. I literally kind of just missed it. Our thing was MSN, like coming home and talking to people. But even then, it was for a little amount of time and then you'd be present in your home. I think what this show is so brilliant at highlighting is actually that you can go up to your room and there's a whole world in there like via this thing. It's quite a daunting prospect for our younger generation.

Paul Maties Corbett has described The Brutalist as, this is a quote, he said, a film which celebrates the triumphs of the most daring and accomplished visionaries are ancestors. And the project, he said, that is closest to his heart and family history. Whilst you're watching it, it is very tempting to think this must be based on a real story because it does, it kind of has that feel to it, although it is a work of fiction. On the one hand, there is an element of the fountainhead in it, the Aymarand novel, which was filmed in late 40s with Gary Cooper as an architect who would rather destroy a building than accept that changes have been made to his design.

It's a very, very famous book and a famous film adaptation. On the other hand, there's an element of Once Upon a Time in America, because it is an epic tale of immigration, of people being in America where dreams are meant to flourish, but actually the American way of life has a strange effect on them. And this is shot by Kobe's regular DP, Law Crawley. It's shot in VistaVision. The way VistaVision works is it's 35 mil stop, but you shoot horizontally and then you you anyway complicated process, but it means that it's got a, you know, a grand, a grand feel to it. And a lot of people will be interested in, you know, which format it is that they see it in when

it's projected. And Kobe said that the reason they did this was it was the best way to access the period of the film. And it's beautifully production designed. It's got great music. I read a couple of reviews of it because it's been premiered a while ago now. And there was one negative review which said it is an idea for a movie about ideas. And I think that phrase is interesting because I think that if that's not a criticism, it is full of ideas. Exactly which idea is paramount, I think that if that's not a criticism, it is full of ideas. Exactly which idea is paramount, I think, does depend on the viewer.

I mean, you could say it's about art versus capitalism. It's about anti-Semitism and Israel and Zionism. It's about love and jealousy. It's about admiration and assault. It's about the difference between patronage and patronization and, you know, to take the title of the film, Brutalism and Brutality. And it is about an America in the past,

but he's also about the America of today. And as I said, there's the Oscar talk for Adrienne Brody. I think Felicity Jones nearly steals the show. I mean, considering that she's, her screen time is much less, I mean, I think she, her presence in the film is quite devastating. There's a thing, if you've seen the poster, one of the posters for it has a statue of Liberty

turned upside down, because when he gets off the boat, he looks up and he sees the statue. And just because of the angle of the thing, it looks like it's upside down. You know, you could maybe read that as, you know, it's Liberty turned on its head or, you know, the world turned upside down. I think the most remarkable thing is about it. Firstly, it's, it's a very inexpensive movie. The budget for it is apparently 9.6 million.

Now I know there's been some scuttle recently about use of AI and I haven't really followed it. And honestly, I'm not that interested. I mean, but this is a $10 million movie that's expansive and has that vision and it's extraordinary that it got made for that much. It's also, it is long, but I confess that it did not feel long to me.

I don't know that all of it works, but certainly there is enough going on that, I mean, you spend a lot of the movie thinking, what is this actually about? And I think that's a debate that will rage for a long time afterwards about what you actually take away from it. But I thought it was a genuinely heartfelt

take away from it. But I thought it was a genuinely heartfelt and really well-crafted film that managed to be full of ideas, even as I said, that negative review saying it's an idea of a movie about ideas. I think it is a movie of ideas. And I think that he's found a way of telling this story. I think it's his most accomplished feature. Your movie comes out at a time when immigration and immigration is at the very heart of an awful lot of political conversation around Europe and particularly in the US at the moment. Your movie will be seen as part of that conversation, won't it? It has some very strong things to say about the role of the other and

what they bring to us in inverted commas. Yeah, I mean, you know, in 2017, of course, there was a different immigration crisis that was happening at the time. And so, I mean, sadly, I think that this film could be released at any time and it would still be relevant. And I try to choose material and themes that will never not be relevant because I never know when these movies are ultimately going to get made when I finish writing them. And I certainly don't know when people are going to watch them. I don't know if they're watching them this season, next year, or a hundred

years from now. So I think that sadly history, as we all know, repeats itself and that this is in a very, very ugly cycle that our film is trying to explore how, what, you know, how do we get here? As you look to storytelling in the future and your next movie and so on, Brady, what have you learned about how useful or otherwise AI is to the filmmaking process? And should we be excited or should we be scared about what it brings to moviemaking? Oh, I mean, the answer is absolutely both. It depends on how it's being handled. If it's being handled ethically, then it's fantastic.

And if it's being handled unethically, I mean, then it's extremely nerve wracking. In our case, what was of the utmost importance to Felicity Adrian and myself was representation. So we wanted Hungarians to be able to watch this film and have the Hungarian dialogue be absolutely flawless. So Adrian and Felicity still had to learn how to speak Hungarian for their roles, but we used the technology to dialogue, edit vowels, consonants, and certain aggressive sounds to remove anything that would give away in their

Hungarian dialogue in English or American accent. And so, you know, I think it's very exciting technology. Also Adrian and Felicity own their own vocal models in perpetuity. So you know, no one can use it without their permission. And the company that worked on it is an extraordinary company called Respeacher based out of Kyiv, Ukraine. And this was a manual process. So, you know, I think that there's an automatic assumption that it's eliminating jobs as opposed to creating jobs. But you know, many, many engineers were working on this and it was, it added an additional seven or eight people to the sound team.

So that's what they do. So they sew the dog's head onto the man's body. So he's dog man, part dog, part man, all hero. But obviously because he's got a dog's head, he's a very good cop. But if you he pines after a ball, and if you throw a piece of paper, he will go and chase that. And if a squirrel turns up, he will be distracted. So meanwhile, the evil cat is doing all this evil stuff. And Dogman keeps arresting the evil cat, which keeps escaping. And then the evil cat tries to clone himself because he figures

that if there are more of him than one, that will be good. But he gets the instructions wrong and instead of cloning himself, he makes a little version of himself who is very childlike and innocent. And then the big cat tries to teach the innocent childlike cat to be evil, but that doesn't work. And then there's a whole bit in which he tries to revive the dead body of an evil telekinetic fish called Flippy using this thing called Living Spray. But that goes wrong because the Living Spray manages to bring the entire factory that it's in to life.

So then you've got the evil telekinetic fish, you've got the walking buildings, you've got the evil cat, you've got the dog head and the tele, the evil telekinetic fish, you've got the walking buildings, you've got the evil cat, you've got the dog head and the man, and then you've got the little cat who isn't evil. And anyway, that's, that's, so that's the beginning of it. So like Captain Underpants, it's, you know, it's really entertainingly anarchic fair. I was really baffled about what the BBFC would make of it, because some of it, there's a bit in it in which the little innocent cat says, Pippi Ty A, Flippy Flipper, which is like, okay, fine. We know what that's referencing. So,

I was looking at, yeah, I thought it was too. So, the BBFC, God bless them in their straight faced way, contain, it's simple very much much as violence. Robots engage in fights, because there's a robot, there's a great big robot version of the little cat is in the big thing and then the dog man is in a big robot thing. Robots engage in fights and throw each other to the ground. Characters also shoot cannonballs and laser weapons at each other. Okay, that's fine. Threat and horror. An army of beastly buildings go on an evil rampage in the city, destroying cars and streets in their wake. Threat is often accompanied by comedy and has quick reassuring outcomes, one of which is a bit when the mayor says, let's just ignore the fact that

the whole city has been destroyed. And then language, bad language is very mild, but and jerk, and there is mild rude humor, such as a robotic weapon being named the Butt Sniffer 2000 and a cat calling a woman poo poo head. Now, I'm sorry. Is that a PG or is that still going through on a you? I think it's a you. I mean, honestly, it's one of those, I actually think it's a you.

Let me just check this. I think it's a you certificate. But the thing is, what's really funny is when I turned up to see it as a friend of mine who I would sort of see at screenings and he's very kind of, you know, very across this sort of stuff, he said, oh, he said, Mark, so you came in specially for the Dogman. So he knew exactly what he was getting. And then Van and I sat in the back row at Universal, and I started laughing in that really serious. When I was a U-certificate, a very mild threat, violence,

rude humor, language, and upsetting scenes. We sat in the back and I started giggling. I laughed more during Dog Man than I have in many an alleged live-action comedy. If you've got kids who want to go and see Dog Man and you're a parent who's going to take me, think of it's a used to get animation, believe me, there are more laughs in Dog Man than there are in plenty of things that you've gone to see

as kind of, you know, grown up comedy films. Obviously, if you know the day, Bill Gates, if you know the Captain Underpants thing, you know the whole point is it's kind of, it's this absurdist, anarchic, unruly comedy. But I thought it was genuinely funny and I'm now, this is something I wouldn't say very often to producer Simon the Great Redactor. Thank you for insisting that I did Dog Man, because actually in a strangely tough week, it was a little ray of sunshine.

You'll be asufferable now, I think. So at what stage did Kieran enter your mind as the perfect person to play Benji? Right after I wrote this scene that took place on the monument where his character calls up all these characters on the monument, I wrote it at the library and my sister was watching my kid that night.

And so when I got home late, I showed my sister the scene that I had written that day. And she said, there's only one person in the world who could play this part and it's Kieran Culkin. So you cast him because your sister said so? Yeah, she's super smart. She's super smart with this kind of stuff and she watches a lot.

I don't watch anything. So a lot of times she's my, you know, link to the outside world. Presumably you'd seen Kieran in various shows. No. No. He's never seen me in anything. Didn't audition.

I would have auditioned too. I don't know why. Why? Because I like auditioning because then you at least got to see me do the part and then go, well look, it's not going to be... Oh my God. Well if I show up on set and I'm doing something and you don't like it, I'm like, well you should audition me then.

Like, if I audition and you cast me, then you know what you're getting. There's no actor in the world you'll find who will say something like this really I must be aware that no actor wants to say cyber actors say they don't want to audition I like auditioning I think it's kind of fun and at least if I get the part then you know you'd have I know why you hired me as opposed to like some buddy told you that you need to hire me I feel this that we're in a continuation of the film a little bit yeah yes this is perfectly normal behavior it It's just not.

Can you picture anybody else doing it? Like is the question I would have. No. Exactly. But how did you know if you haven't seen my work? And we met like twice in passing. I just know you are. You're in the world.

I know who you are. Yeah. But you nearly dropped out of the picture, Kieran. Yeah. Because? Oh, that was just because I was just coming off a succession. And I remember during that season, I had to be away from my family for like eight days.

And I was like hard, but manageable. And then later that season, I had to be away from them for 11 and I thought I was going to like die in a hotel room. And I was like, okay, that's my rule, eight days. And then because of scheduling, whatever, I saw that like, I was going to have to be away from them for 25 days, which is a huge leap. And I had to like wait, why am I doing this movie days, which is a huge leap. I had to wait,

why am I doing this movie? Creatively, I want to. I love this movie, but why am I doing it if it's going to break me as a person, take me away from my family? There was that. Then I went, well, I should probably stick to my rule. I tried and thankfully failed. Mason- Yes. I'm Still Here, which is the new film from Walter Salles, Brazilian filmmaker, cornerstone of the Brazilian rebirth period that came after 1995. The film, as the BBFC description said, contains strong threat, 15 for strong threat. It is really powerful, really gripping, and it moves between these two registers of, on the one hand, quiet, loving, friendly domesticity, and on the other hand, oppressive political, friendly domesticity, and on the other hand, oppressive political horror. And it moves back and forth between these two registers brilliantly. And I think that what it does is it creates the sense that these two things are living side by

side. That you can have a society in which apparently normal life is going on, but at the same time, a kind of murderous, corrupt regime is wreaking havoc. And yet, when you walk the streets, there are still families talking to each other and people enjoying life. Now, the film may be 138 minutes long, which by today's standards isn't particularly long. It got a 10-minute standing ovation at Venice. I know that film festival ovations are always a weird one, but this was absolutely, completely deserved. Fernanda Torres is magnificent. She is absolutely magnificent in the central role as somebody who is sort of moved into activism by the search for what has happened to her husband after they took him away. But it never becomes histrionic, it never becomes anything other than human. She is a wife, a mother, a fully rounded character. It's not just a

sort of political cipher. There is also an appearance at the end of the film by her, by Fernando Torres' mother, Fernando Montenegro, who has a brief cameo as her in later life. I think I'm right saying she was the first Brazilian actress to be nominated for a best actress, I think for Central Station. There is this extraordinary moment in the film in which it really feels like what you are watching is generationally important. There's a score by Warren Ellis. I'm a huge fan of Warren Ellis's work with Nick Cave. They did the soundtrack for things like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward, Robert Ford, and also Warren has done soundtracks on his own like Mustang. But this is one of his very best works. I think it's one of the films of the year. I mean, for many people, it would have been one of

the films of last year because obviously it opened for Oscar consideration and in America last year. But it's brilliant. It's so gripping. The story it tells is, and also the story it tells is really contemporary because although it's a historical story, as I said, it has at its heart this idea of the appearance of normality going on whilst this completely corrupt regime is essentially wreaking havoc. And yet it's possible to not see it unless you delve beneath the surface and to do so is very, very dangerous. So it's called I'm Still Here. It has a brilliant set of performance. It has a great score. It's wonderfully directed by Walter Salles. I would recommend everybody go and see it. So Shahana Goswami is Santos, who we meet just as her husband, a policeman, a constable,

has been killed in a riot. He's been hit by a stone or a brick and he has died. She's effectively destitute. There's really no pension or insurance to speak of. But she is told that there is a government scheme of compassionate employment, which is a program under which she can take on her husband's job. So she can become a constable and step into the role that he was fulfilling because she is now without means of supporting herself. So she takes his uniform home, which she's given. She scrubs out the blood. She has a moment of anguish and pain, and then she goes in to become a constable and to work as a policewoman. One of the first cases that she gets is of a man whose young daughter has disappeared. He's a low caste person. Obviously, the caste system is very important.

Consequently, his case is ignored, not least because he can't fill out the forms. He doesn't know how to do the right thing. So she, new to the job, thinks, well, I'll help him. I'll help him do the forms. No, no, new to the job, thinks, well, I'll help him, you know, I'll help him do the forms. No, no, go to the cobbler. The cobbler is the guy who fills out the forms, fills out the complaints. But then when the girl's body is found, the community accused the police of doing nothing. And she very soon finds herself in this weird position in which

she's trying to do the best job possible, but she is facing a huge amount of hostility from the community around her. Bear in mind, her husband was killed in a riot. She's then mentored by an older policewoman who shows her the ropes, and she decides that she's going to take this case seriously. So she finds the murdered girl's phone. She discovers messages from a boy or a man who was obviously pursuing her. She sets out to track him down. I think it's a remarkable film for a number of reasons. The first one is that it really manages to get under the skin of an extremely divided society in a manner that is very dramatically engaging. No matter how much or how little you understand about the divisions within the society, the

drama makes them very clear. You see the world through Santoshi's eyes. As a result of that, you know as much as she knows and you feel that you are discovering the world through her. Now, obviously, if for example, a writer like Jack Thorne is listening, you'll go, yeah, this is writing 101. The person who doesn't know is sent into a world and they discover it. There's a reason that that's a motif that recurs again and again through narrative drama because it works. I was completely immersed. This is a world in which there is so much

grassroots hostility towards the police in which somebody is trying to do the right thing, appears to have found a guiding light, appears to be somebody who is making a difference, but in the process learns that justice is a very blunt tool and it is not wielded with much precision. So at times this is like a really tense police procedural. More importantly, you get a vibrant picture of this very delineated world in which the people at the bottom of the ladder are, they are very vibrant and very present. I mean, this made me think about Sister Midnight. I know in the, in the, in the, in take one, we had some negative feedback about Sister Midnight, which as I said, I didn't share. I thought it was fabulous.

I think it really, really takes you into a world in which you have to feel that you're in it for the drama to make any sense. I did. It will have proper distribution, but it will have proper distribution in art house cinema. Yes, you will have to look for it, but believe me, it is worth it. I yes, you will have to look for it, but believe me, it is worth it. I mean, there's a reason that there's been so much buzz around it. It is because it is a really, really fine piece of work and you will not be disappointed.

Well, as highlights packages go, I thought that was one of our best. It was. It reminds me of the review of Oliver Stone's Alexander. Do you remember this? It was the review in, I can't remember which newspaper it was, and it was the film that saw Colin Farrell. And the review said, there are many highlights to this movie. Sadly, they are all in Colin Farrell's hair. That is very good. Maybe it wasn't quite that good. Okay, Mark, so what do we have coming

next? Next, David Iiello and my review and your review as well of the studio. After this. If you don't know about flyer deals on Instacart, this message is for you. Flyer deals are like strolling through your favorite store looking for deals, but you're scrolling your phone. And maybe you're in bed. Because getting delivery doesn't mean you have to miss deals like you'd get at the store,

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Shopify is the place to go for e-commerce. It's packed with AI tools for product descriptions, photography and page headlines, and others to help create social campaigns and emails. And best yet, Simon, best yet, Shopify has world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. Turn your big business idea into big bucks with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.co.uk slash take. shopify.co.uk slash take. Hi there, Mark.

Do you know why hiring the right people quickly is so important? Well, the world of weekly film podcasts is so breakneck that when a vacancy comes up, we need to fill it fast. Good thing that there's Indeed sponsored jobs then when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. We need to fill it fast. Good thing that there's Indeed Sponsored Jobs then when it comes to hiring. Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites.

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Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a £100 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash curmode mayo. Just go to indeed.com slash curmode may Mayo right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Now this week's guest is David Aiello.

For many of us, his seminal portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the things he's most well known for. But of course, that is just the tip of his acting iceberg. He was amazing in Queen of Catway, so many other roles. He was great in Silo, even though he was only in it for a couple of episodes, which was a bit of a shame. Anyway, he's back with Government Cheese, where he plays convicted burglar Hampton Chambers, who tries to restart family life after release from prison. It's not that simple. As you can imagine, here's our conversation. Son, can I get you some breakfast? I eat food from Mother Earth.

Not the government. You fixed the refrigerator. Harrison, I know this is hard, but I'm here trying to make things right. Too late. It's never too late. We're a family and you need to start treating me with respect. Now both you and Einstein are going to be in charge of yard work. Astoria, I'm going to take over the kitchen duties and we're going to start having dinner

together as a family. Clear? Clear as a spring day, Pops. Dinner's at six. Okay. And that is a clip from a new show on Apple TV Plus called Government Cheese. Its star is David Aiello, who's also the executive producer. Hello, David. How are you? Nice to talk to you again. Nice to talk to you too. I'm very well, thank you.

Last time we spoke, you were in Tarzana, I believe. Yes. And it was just coming out of COVID and everything was being done from home. Are you in Tarzana at the moment or where do we speak to you? I'm in London at the moment. I still live in Tarzana, but yes, I'm in London talking up government cheese. Yes. Can you explain the title? Because I feel as though it means something in America, but it might not mean as much to the UK. What is government cheese?

Yeah, I can do that. And you're right. It is specific to America. Government cheese is a government-subsidised food. It's processed cheese that, much like the rationing that happened in the Second World War with powdered milk and powdered eggs and things like that, similarly they had government cheese, which went on to be a food that was also part of the Second World War in America, but then went on to be provided for low-income families, a lot of who were African-American families, and they turned this fairly basic processed cheese into a delicacy with things like grilled cheese sandwiches

and macaroni and cheese. And so, as it pertains to the show, it symbolizes making something out of nothing, which is very much a theme in the show, especially around my character, Hampton Chambers, who starts off in prison, has this spiritual epiphany while in there, which leads him to invent a self-sharpening drill,

which is gonna be the means by which his family is gonna attain a better life. And he goes on this journey of realizing it's not going to be quite that simple. Okay. So you've been involved with this project for quite a while. I think it was a short film back in 2019. Just give us a kind of a Genesis story as to how you got involved with this. Exactly right. 2019, Paul Hunter, who created the show and whose life this is based on, I'm playing a version of his father in government cheese, and he grew up

in the San Fernando Valley in the 60s and 70s. And he presented me with this script, which was full of fantastical themes and surreal plot lines and this spiritual journey and it was this beautiful sort of rose tinted glasses rendition of what his life was like growing up as one of two boys with his father and mother in the San Fernando Valley and I just find it just incredibly unique. But at that point, it's a short film. Okay, fine. It's not like anything I've read before. Let's spend four days shooting it. And it turned out to be something that not only I thought was unique, it was well received to the degree that Apple came along and were prepared to go the road with us in turning it into a TV show.

And the tone of the show is very interesting because it feels to me, on the one hand, instantly familiar and incredibly rare. I think something that I've never seen before. So I feel kind of as though I'm part of the story, but I'm still trying to work out what on earth is going on. Is that, is that what I'm expected to feel? It's certainly what we set out to do for it to be both fresh and familiar all at the same time. To see a black family in the sixties is not something unusual on film. You know, I've been part of a lot of projects that have done that very thing, but they are always about

civil rights and black struggle. And I personally haven't seen a black family represented in that part of the world, in the San Fernando Valley in California, a place I've now lived for 18 years. And I certainly haven't seen that demographic in this tone that is more reminiscent of something, say, Wes Anderson... Yes. ...would make in terms of that kind of fantastical, surreal, deliberately quirky, not only in terms of tone, but the characters as well and their characteristics.

So, the combination of all of those things in one place, let alone the fact that from episode to episode, we kind of play with lots of different tones So the combination of all of those things in one place, let alone the fact that from episode to episode, we kind of play with lots of different tones and forms of storytelling because it's this rose-tinted remembrance of a time gone by. And, you know, also just having fun with the form

and with the storytelling components. So exactly as you say, it was something I hadn't seen before and that was partly why I wanted to lean in. And the colors are very Wes Anderson, aren't they? You know, there's one bit in episode three where your wife is rearranging cushions essentially. Yeah.

But that it's so Wes Anderson, all of that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a celebration of that kind of filmmaking, which is steeped in whimsy. And, you know, I think what that provides is a forum for presenting themes that are both comedic, but also meaningful all at the same time, because you hopefully have put the audience in a state of going somewhere that seemingly is imagined, and then they start to see themselves represented in it. You know, I liken the Chambers family to the Adams family in a sense. They share that kind of quirky out there vibe and then

you go, oh, hold on, I have an uncle like that or I'm a bit like that or my mum's a bit like that. And I think that's what that kind of storytelling allows for. Mason Hickman So your family is a black family, which kind of defies expectation, it seems to me, particularly, as you say, based in the tail end of the 60s. It's like they're a family that's cut off from everything else because if I've got the dates and geography right, the Manson family are just up the road at the time that this is being shot. So there's the rest of the world that's happening and then there's Hampton Chambers family that's happening.

Yes, that's incredibly astute and correct of you. We literally shot in some of the, the rocky parts of Chatsworth that the Manson family camped out in, we were literally right there. That's exactly where they were at that time. And yeah, the Valley, even now is it's somewhere that's a bit removed. If you want to meet with someone who lives in Santa Monica or on the west side or what's following you say, oh, you want to come to the valley. There's always this kind of eye roll of, oh gosh, you're all the way out there. So it is a kind of cut off

place. The light is slightly different there. It's why there are a lot of studios there. It has its own kind of magical quality. It's LA's giant suburb, as it were. And we literally shot in those places because that's where Paul grew up. He still lives in the valley. A lot of the valley still looks like it did back in the 60s. So we capitalized on the fact that it's not that much changed. One of the reasons why this show feels so different, I think people will get a handle on in the first three minutes, I would say, when there are more references to God, Yahweh, the Bible, miracles, Jonah, than I think I've seen on any British show in years. You clock up those references all the time.

And I said to my wife, we were watching it. This is an American show. This is very much an American show. Can you just explain a bit about the role of parables and omens and religion in telling this story? Because it certainly, it seems to me, is one of the things that makes it unique. Yes. No, it's very, very baked into what the story is. My character, Hampton Chambers, has a very specific relationship with faith in general but God or Yahweh as he likes to call him specifically, which is that he is someone who very much likes to have control of his own life.

What prison comes along and does is brings along this revelation that he needs to cede control to a higher power. And in doing that, there are these parables that come along that one could put down to coincidence. Are they imagined? Are they real? But they all feel like moments in which God is trying to get his attention and that manifests in an actual flood, not unlike the one that you have in the Bible or him actually being swallowed by a fish, not unlike you have that you have in the Bible, or him actually being swallowed by a fish, not unlike you have with Jonah and the whale. Even towards the end of the show, there's a sort of death and resurrection moment, all of which are moments where no

matter where you are on the religious spectrum, I think we've all had moments where we've been at a fork in the road and you're looking for a sign, so to speak. We are just more, far more overt with the fact that he's looking for a sign and the fact that he sees one that he's either guided by or running away from. So does that make this magic realism? I don't know if you run a million miles from that, but it feels as though that's the territory that we're in, magical realism. Would that be fair? I think if one is looking for a definition, which has been the fun part of doing this show,

is we've been trying to find ways to put words to what we've actually made. And I think magical realism would be, you know, if you think of a film like Pan's Labyrinth, for instance, that is a film that I think beautifully illustrates how the imagined and the real can intersect in ways that feel imperceptible, especially from a

storytelling point of view. So yes, I think that would be a pretty good way to quantify it. How do you go about getting the balance between specific and universal? How do you make it specifically this story about this family at this time, and yet here we are in the UK watching it and it still applies to us. And are they up against each other, the specific and the universal? I don't know, how do you make those work together? My experience is that the more specific you are,

the more universal it becomes. So you can't really focus on being universal because that I think is when you water things down. If you're trying to please everyone, I think you end up pleasing people, not to the degree that you might if you were being more specific. And so that's what really helped with this. The fact that a lot of what we were doing was based on the youth of our show's creator.

And he's a seminal music video director, a brilliant artist, a visionary in his own right. And so many of his ideas, like a lot of the best artists I've worked with, whether they are writers or directors, his vision was singular. And I think that's the way you get to work. That kind of breaks barriers, is groundbreaking, moves the form forward. The chances are it's not going to be for everyone

is the reality, and that's fine. But because it's rooted in a family, which, you know, no matter the levels of function or dysfunction you come from, when it comes to a family, you will see elements of your own life in this very specific family, even if the place is very alien to you. And that has been, you know, my experience of people's interaction with it. That's what. Yeah. You have to say your family in this TV show are so fantastically indifferent to you. It sort of warms the heart. As they should be. I mean, you know, Hampton is a very, is a very specific character. He's equal parts selfless and selfish, I would say.

You know, he's someone who clearly loves his family, but shows it in very odd ways. And you could even question if that's the case by some of the behaviors he exhibits. And I find him incredibly flawed and therefore incredibly human all at the same time. But there is a goodness in his heart. There is a goodness to what he's

ultimately trying to do, but his path to it is where a lot of the drama comes from, a lot of itself inflicted. I was reading an interview that you gave, I think it was in The Independent. This is while you were starring in Coriolanus. And you said, and I suspect this was very knowing, but you said, I'm paraphrasing, but you say, yes, it's very intense. It would be nice to do a comedy next. Now, my guess is you knew exactly what you were doing. But to go to government cheese from Coriolanus, that's quite a jump, isn't it? Well, I had already done government cheese before. Oh, there you go. So you did know what you were doing. I did Coriolanus. No. And that's indicative of what I try to do. You know, I'm always looking for the palate cleanser. If I've just done something

incredibly intense, I'd love to do something a cleanser. If I've just done something incredibly intense, I'd love to do something a bit lighter. If I've just done something lighter, maybe it's time to sort of loosen it up a bit. That's not necessarily how it plays out because, you know, I can't just wave a magic wand and the projects that fit that criteria are what get greenlit. But no, after Coriolanus, I definitely needed to not be doing anything Roman or warrior-like after that run. But yes, government cheese for me is a very lovely thing to be talking about and to be engaging with, having done Coriolanus, because it does give me the opportunity to show a lighter side, a more irreverent side, and is also something that I know I haven't done anything quite like

this before. And that's always fun to be able to show a different side of yourself to the audience. I think the last time we spoke was in 2021 for The Waterman, which you directed, in which you give a very unfair attack on country music. I remember we had a little conversation about that at the time. And at the end of the interview, you said, I'm going to go and listen to some country music. And I thought, no, I think David, you're lying.

I don't think you're going to change your opinion on, you've got a lot of country music up in Bakersfield and so on. Any softening there? I did go and listen to some more country music and it did not change my opinion, unfortunately. So yes, I remain the same. Okay. Are you going to direct again soon? Did you fancy doing more of that? I am going to direct again.

I can't tell you what it is, because it's not yet announced, but probably the next time I talk to you, it will be because I've directed something very unlike The Waterman. Right, what kind of thing? You can't help yourself, can you? No, of course not. Okay, what would be the opposite of, how would you describe the waterman? I guess that would be a magical, a fantastical, magical realism. Well, if you were going to direct the next John Wick film,

that would be different. Well, it's definitely not that. Okay, all right. What do we see you in next, David? Well, you're going to see me in a film called Newborn, which is me back to something more dramatic. It's a psychological thriller. I guess it sort of shares themes with government cheese, but in a very different way. It's a guy coming out of seven years of solitary confinement and trying to find an emotional path back to being a functioning human being with his family. And then I'm working with Idris Elba on an adaptation of Chinua Chébé's novel Things Fall Apart, which we're doing with A24 and we're going to do that as a mini-series. And then I've got a show with the BBC called Biafra about the civil war in Nigeria towards the end of the 60s into the 70s.

So is that all you've got going? I mean, wow. I know, I know. I really need to get my act together. In the meantime, we watch Government Cheese on Apple TV Plus. David Aiello, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking to us today. Thanks, Simon. Always great to speak to you. Thank you. And that was the always enlightening and entertaining David Aiello talking about government cheese. Mark, I know you have a very busy filming and television schedule, but have you got to see any of government cheese yet? I haven't yet, but having listened to that interview, I will check it out immediately

because it sounds very interesting. David is always a stamp of quality. There are some actors and others will spring to mind who are your particular favorites. You go, okay, if that actor is featured somewhere, it's a guarantee of quality. It is. I would include in that category Toby Jones, who I think is exactly the same. If Toby's in it, there's going to be something worth watching. And also, always worth interviewing as well. He said in the interview, I'm not sure if it was in the final cut, but he said he will do things.

We were talking about drama and the crisis of paying for shows because I'd said that Mr. Bates in the post office lost money for ITV despite dominating. Yes, astonishingly. Yeah. I mean, that's from ITV. That's from Kevin Leico, he's office lost money for ITV despite dominating. Yes, astonishingly. Yeah. I mean, that's from ITV. That's from Kevin Leico's daily drama at ITV. Because it didn't travel. He said, you know, I'll do stuff for less money and I'll do stuff for free if it's a really small independent.

So that's why a Toby Jones appearance means that he's thought about it a lot. And he's still, and if he's in it, then it's worth watching. Yeah. Even if sometimes he's nasty and scary. I remember interviewing him once and I'd been ill and I knew he was coming in to talk to us and I thought I'm going to have to watch this cause he's a barbarian sound studio. No, it wasn't, but he was a nasty.

Was it a barbarian sound studio? No, it wasn't, but he was a nasty person, like really, really creepy. And it was like creepy Toby Jones and not really nice Toby Jones. Anyway, he can do pretty much anything. But anyway, we should, anyway, David A. Yello, thank you very much indeed for talking to us. And that's on Apple TV plus. As is Seth Rogen. I think it says Seth Rogen on the poster, doesn't it?

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, yes. That's right. And the studio, introduce us to it. So having not yet seen Government Cheese, but I have seen all of the studios, some of which is embargoed because obviously it's in the middle of the series at the moment. You say the poster, which film is the poster invoking, Simon? I think I've just seen like an icon on the television. I don't think I've seen a proper poster for it. The poster image is, I think, clearly the Sting, which is the film from 1973 that won the Oscar for best picture, beat the Exorcist.

I'm still bitter about it. So this is a Hollywood studio satire. It's on Apple TV, created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. The best way of describing it is that it's a series that takes its lead from the player in a particular, well, there is one particular connection. So Brian Cranston features prominently in episode one, and then at the end of the thing, which this is some of the stuff which is under embargo,

but he is prominently in episode one as the head of a studio whose name is Griffin Mill. Now, the name Griffin Mill is familiar because that's the name of the character that Tim Robbins plays in the player. The weird thing was that when I was watching it and he said, Griffin Mill, I went, oh, isn't that the name of the character from the player? And then I did a bit of Googling around. They said, but there's the connection is, I believe the connection is simply a nominal connection, although clearly it is linking it to the play, whether or not you have to take the Brian Cranston is the character that Tim Robbins turns into. I think that's up to you because, but anyway, so he's called Griffin Mill. So that means that they had in their mind,

the player when they were doing this. So he is Griffin Mill, Seth Rogen is Matt Remick, who in the first episode, because I think you've seen the first two, basically climbs up the greasy pole to land the job as head of continental studios, to which he is appointed by Griffin Mill. So the whole thing about his character is he loves movies,

he loves celluloid, he loves auteurs, he wants to make cinema. And he is told, well done on getting the job. And now here's the really, really good news. We've got the rights to do the Kool-Aid movie." And he goes, what? He said, yeah, it's amazing. What do you think about that? We've got the rights to do the Kool-Aid movie. And he has to say, yeah, that's a great idea. And then the rest of that episode is basically to do with how having replaced

Catherine O'Hara's character who's now being pushed off to the side, he's coming to head the studio up on a wave of being a filmmaker and somebody who loves auteurs and loves salons, loves all that stuff. But the first thing he has to do is to make the Kool-Aid movie. So in the stuff that you've seen so far, and obviously the stuff that if people have started watching, I think we talk about the first couple of episodes, we're not plot spoiling anything. Essentially, there's a very funny gag, which is that he's trying to figure out a way of how we're

going to get a name, a tour director to direct the Kool-Aid movie. It's a terrible idea, but I have to do it because the studio needs to make money. Then he has a meeting with Martin Scorsese, played by Martin Scorsese. Who they call Martin Scorsese. The name is said in different ways. There is also a funny thing about Buscemi Buscemi, because at one point they have a... Anyway, Martin Scorsese, as we know his name is actually pronounced, is pitching a movie which is about the Jonestown Massacre. And he says, yeah, it's dark, you know, it's got all this, but all of America is there and, you know, and in the lead role, we want Steve Buscemi, Steve Buscemi, Steve

Bahawee, and there's a long gag about how you pronounce the name. And then you see this thing happening in Matt's face, which is that he realizes that the Jonestown Massacre is the film which ends in everyone taking the Kool-Aid. And then he gets the idea that maybe this is the solution to his problem, that he can have a name auteur, Martin Scorsese, he can give him umpty thrumpty million dollars, he can give him final cut, but the only thing he needs him to do is that he needs him to change the title of the film from Jonestown to Kool-Aid.

And Martin Scorsese kind of goes, okay, I can live with that. Now, I don't know about you, but I actually thought, I found that the setup in those first two things surprisingly entertaining. And of course it is Scorsese being Scorsese and it is Bussemi, Buscemi, Buschemi, Buschami, however you want to say

it. And actually I think that there's even a gag in the thing about the mispronunciation of the name being a deliberate thing. I thought that stuff was really funny. Do you want to hear a little clip and then I'll get your view and then I'll tell you about more. Here's a clip from the studio. Being the head of Continental is the only job I've ever wanted. I'm honored, obviously, to be one of the people that gets to choose, which movies get made and which ones don't. That's huge.

I got into all this because, you know, I love movies, but now I have this fear that my job is to ruin them. The job is a meat grinder. Prestige films and box office hits, those are not mutually exclusive. We can do both, and we will do both. Matt, I get it. You want to make great art and make a billion dollars doing it. Well, guess what? That never happens and you're going to screw everything up trying to make

it happen. And then he does. And then he does, whilst at the same time still loving movies, still loving O2, still loving celluloids. So, tell me what a lot of the new comedy stuff really quite tricky and don't find it funny at all. Occasionally, you know, you're laughing inside. But I think I was laughing inside and outside because I think Seth Rogen is on very good form. It feels like a very, very knowing script. In the first episode, someone I think Seth Rogen says, yes, who knew perverts make good films? Okay, that's

been layered. It's in a particular context. But I thought it was really, really good. And I think it's probably one of those shows where the more you know about it, the funnier it becomes. And we talked about, is back to the adolescence conversation about the one where everything is taken in one shot. There's a fantastic conversation about that. Cause episode two is called the one. I think is, I think is where it appears to be filmed in. It's all about the idea of doing a scene in one shot. That episode does feel as though it's done in one shot, even if it isn't.

What you have there is Sarah Polly playing Sarah Polly as the director who's having to pull off this particular complicated shot at the time that the sun is going down. So Sarah Polly playing herself throughout the rest of the series. You have Ron Howard playing a version of himself, which is not quite the version of Ron Howard that perhaps you'd expect. Charlie's Thrawn, as we know, Theron, Theron in the thing. Then as the series goes on, Antony Mackie, Olivia Wilde, Nicholas Stoller, Parker Finn. Also, the main characters, you have Katharine Hollen as this very, very loud and abrasive marketing executive, Ike Barron-Holz as Matt Underling, which does mean, well, the series has now created an awards thanking joke that I suspect there is a name that you will hear being thanked at award

ceremonies at the next batch of award ceremonies that will be an in-joke about the studio. Here's the main issue. It is quite often the case that movie studio satires that are by their very nature made in and around and of and with movie studios can be very smug. And often when you see, okay, fine, you know, this level of people involved, you know, these are actually the people that Scorsese playing himself and it's Ron Howard playing himself and it's Sarah Polly playing herself and all the rest of it. Okay, is it actually just going to be people slapping themselves on the back about how great they are? One of the great things about the player, which is a wonderful one of the best lines in the player that people still miss is, who let Adam Simon on the lot? Now that is a really, really insider movie joke. Because if you know Adam Simon, as I do, the fact that there is actually a joke about, and I want to find out who let Adam Simon on the lot is particularly funny, but it's only funny for a fragment of the audience. But it's also, it's a throwaway joke that most of the audience

won't know who Adam Simon is. And therefore that joke won't be particularly funny, but there's plenty of other stuff in it that is funny, even if you're not sort of immersed in movie stuff, you could still watch the play and still enjoy it. And I think that that is a remarkable achievement. In the case of this, the broadest hits, like for example, when we get to the episode in which the Seth Rogen character, they watch a movie that's been made by Ron Howard. It's the new Ron Howard movie. And this is very funny thing. They're watching the movie and it goes half an hour into the movie. They're all loving it. It's like, is that any Mac is in it? It's got all this stuff. And then an hour into the movie,

oh, it's all going really, really well. And then another 90 minutes into the movie, blah, blah, blah. And then it goes two hours into the movie and it ends with this spectacular sequence. And it's really, really fab. And they all stand up and they applaud. They go, oh, no, no, the movie's still going. And then it cuts to 45 minutes later and they're all asleep. And there's a whole thing at the end of the movie that Ron Howard has done this other thing, but none of them can tell him that the end scene in the movie, the bit that goes on for 45 minutes after the film he's made, which is it has to come out because he's Ron Howard and because they can't do it. So that's actually a sort of very well-constructed and funny joke in which Ron Howard plays a version

of himself that is both Ron Howard, but is also a kind of comedic re-imagining of what Ron Howard is. And there's actually a joke about Ron Howard. He's a really nice guy. Really? I've heard that he can be absolutely horrible. There's another episode when Seth Rogen's character

finds himself at a party with a bunch of doctors and gets into this argument about making movies is as valid as important as curing cancer. And it's toe-curlingly embarrassing and excruciating. But the reason I think it works is that if you remember the player, the character that Tim Robbins plays in the player is basically horrible. The Griffin Mill character in this is fairly irredeemable. But the character that Seth Rogen is playing, he isn't horrible. He does love cinema.

He does love celluloid. He does love auteurs. The problem is he has no spine whatsoever. And therefore when he says that thing that you heard in the clip, you know, I thought I was here to make movies, I realized that I'm here to destroy them. The reason that the series manages to sustain your interest is it's not that he's just some horrible guy. He's somebody who does indeed dream of making great art, but can't because he's far too attached to being the head of the studio and being the person who's in charge of all these productions and

being the person who gets to choose which movies get made and which movies won't get made, even though he's told at the beginning that the movie that is going to get made is the Kool-Aid movie. We all know that Hollywood runs on slime, but the fact is that the series doesn't centre on someone who runs on slime. It centers on someone who is drowning in a river of slime, but the fact that they themselves aren't the slime, but they are spineless and cowardly and- Inesufferable. Well, yes, insufferable, but insufferable in a nerdy, nebishy way that makes their company all right. You can sort of understand

why they're making these terrible decisions. Then later on there's an episode in which you see them all tying themselves up in knots about whether something that they're doing is racist or could be conceived as racist or could be perceived as racist and they're constantly rewriting it, and then they end up shooting themselves in the foot by doing something which they don't even notice that they've done, but they do in passing and that has terrible results. I remember the thing that Terry Gilliam always said, which was that famous phrase that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Gilliam always said that the more people you get in the room, the more the thing that you're trying to make becomes something else. And it's never as good

as the thing you were trying to make. And one of the things that this does is it's got a lot of people in the room and none of them know what it is that they're trying to make. They've just, what all they're doing is that they're all covering their backs in the, in the, in the, in the, in the Warner, the thing when he's on set with Sarah Polly. And what he desperately wants is for Sarah Polly to take him seriously and to like him and to sort of appreciate him. But as a result of him being there, he basically destroys the film just by the process of him being there. So there is pathos in it. So there's all these in-jokes, there's all these knowing cameos, and there's all this sort of very smart stuff. And then there's, as I said, there's this

awards thanks thing, because the Golden Globes episode is particularly good. But it works because there is a pathos at the heart of it. It works because at the heart of it, there's a schlubby guy who probably was a complete movie nerd when he was young, and has now been handed the job in which, as he has discovered, his job is to destroy everything he loves. And that is what makes it work. And if you didn't have that, it would just be insufferable. And you mentioned Tim Robbins a number of times.

And as I mentioned when we were talking about David the Yellow, Tim Robbins is also in the silo, also on Apple television and is spectacularly nasty. He's very, very, very good. And I should say, I interviewed Tim Robbins a couple of times. I did a long interview with him for a film for retrospective and I interviewed him for the Shawshank Redemption doc and he was lovely. Absolutely lovely. But not in silo. Not in silo. I know he's acting know, there's something not right about him. Uh, anyway. Okay.

Excellent. That's the studio and that's on Apple TV. Plus big thumbs up from me. Um, it's the ads in a minute, Mark, but first now with our mood completely changed, we're going to step, uh, with gay abandoned once more into our lift of laughter, that sounds very loud to me. I can't perform over that. Hey, Mark, more bad news.

Yes. Bad news from HQ. What's going on with this music? I don't know. Maybe it's to cover the fact that the jokes aren't very good and has gone away again altogether again. Okay. Anyway, I'm going to perform this in into the silence into the abyss. In fact. away again altogether, again. Anyway, I'm gonna perform this into the silence, into the abyss, in fact.

Okay. Hey Mark, bad news from HQ. The good lady ceramicist here indoors found out I was cheating on her after she found all the secret letters I was hiding. Oh no, how sad, I hear you say. Oh no, how sad. Yeah, she got really angry and said,

she's never playing Scrabble with me again. Hey! Very good, that was nicely saved. A very annoying thing happened this morning, actually just before we started doing this. Someone just called my phone. They sneezed, coughed, asked if I had a cough sweet, blew their nose, then hung up. I'm so bored of these cold calls. Like I said, it's barely a bit of music would have helped.

Hey, Mike, I'm not sure if you knew this about me, but did you know I trained as a horse whisperer? How does that work? I hate you ask. How does that work, Simon? I'll show you. Horse. Okay, flights on Air Canada. How about Prague?

Ooh, Paris. Those gardens. Gardens. Amsterdam. Tulip Festival. I see your festival and raise you a carnival in Venice. Or Bermuda has carnaval. Ooh, colorful. You want colorful. Thailand. Lantern Festival. Boom. Book it. How did we get to Thailand from Prague? Oh right, Prague.

Oh boy. Choose from a world of destinations, if you can. Air Canada, nice travels. Okay, we're back with our efficiency downsizing dismissal section. We realize it might not exactly be what you were hoping for, but some tough decisions have had to be made, Mark. We've had the wheat and now inevitably we get the chaff. You asked for it.

You're going to get it. You'll be hearing reviews of Flight Risk, Y2K, Captain America Boring New World, and your very grumpy guests. Yes, grumpy old Mike Lee. Hurrah. So there is this weird subplot in it, which Harrison Ford is this very compromised president. And I was thinking, oh, okay, well, maybe I'll find something interesting in here. But no, not at all. So there is this weird subplot in it which Harrison Ford is this very compromised president and I was thinking, oh, okay, well, maybe I'll find something interesting in here.

But no, not at all. I just felt, okay, I'm watching a film about a bunch of characters. I don't really remember the backstory of them and I don't really care. And there are some great cast members and there's a sort of political story going on and all these things that I should be interested in, but I just don't care because it's just fly, fly, crashy, crashy, get hit by a rocket and a missile. There's a bit when they're trying to avert a military standoff between two nations around the sacred island, the island that's the thing, the hand sticking out of the water.

It's the two flyy things having to stop the jet fighters from shooting down. You're just watching it going, but they're all indestructible. They're all indestructible. It doesn't make any difference. There is no consequences to any of this at all. I don't know that it's the worst of these films. There are some ideas in it and Harrison Ford is trying to do something with that character, but I just found it absolutely impossible

to get interested in it. And the writing is at very, very best functional and at very worst. There's one gag in it, which is good. There's one gag in it, which is good. There is one gag in it, which is good, in which somebody delivers a sort of a little speech to another character to make them do something. And then there's a pause and the character goes, did you speech write that? He goes, yeah, he wrote the end. It was quite funny. And that was, that was the one gag that I, And then there's a thing at the end

that makes you go, oh, really? It's revealed very early on that Marky Mark's character is bald. And apparently, and I only know this from news stories that I've looked up subsequently, apparently he didn't want to wear a bald cap. He wanted to actually have his head shaved to be bald, which is ironic because it looks exactly like

he's wearing a bald cap. I mean, he literally looks like Bobo the Clown. It could not look worse if they had slapped a big condom on his head and then painted it brown. It is the worst, most unconvincing baldness I have ever seen. And the fact that apparently he really did shave his head so he really doesn't have hair and it really isn't, you know, a bald cap is genuinely astonishing. So even the baldness is badly done. Anyway, once they're up in the air, for all the violence, for all the tension, for all the up in the air action, for all the comedic baldness, it never gets off the dramatic starting blocks. I mean, Tofa Grace, Michelle Dockery, they're unremarkable. Wahlberg is the worst he has ever been. And I mean, I find this hard to say because I used to love Mark Wahlberg. I absolutely loved him in Boogie

Nights for which he's apologized incidentally. But you know, the daddies homes and all the rubbish that he's done, this is the worst performance he has ever done. And it's also one of those things about in this movie, the very best performance of anyone on screen is someone who isn't on screen. Like for most of the movie, there is a voice of someone who is not on screen, and that person acts everyone on screen off the screen. It is an absolutely terrible film, really badly directed by somebody who we know can direct and who has been endorsed by the White House to officially go and make Hollywood bigger, better and all the rest of it, which actually means go spy on those commies and tell me what they're doing. So, welcome to four

years of hell. If that went on the poster, that would actually work, wouldn't it? That would actually be quite welcoming. Let's talk about something else that I just realized that you've got a movie to talk about, which is far more exciting. Yes. Well, it's the second Rachel Zegler film of the week, Y2K. And this one was shot only two years ago in 2023, as opposed to three years ago in 2022. I sat there watching this thinking that I think this is one of the worst films I've ever seen. I just think in terms of, I can't imagine how this ever got out of a development. We've been talking about how hard it is to develop films, how hard it is to get them. I can't imagine how this film was pitched in a room of living people

and the living human beings when, yeah, that'll be a good idea. Then we'll make that. That will be a really good idea. That'll be really funny to do a thing about the Y2K bug was a real thing. And there's lots of jokes about Limp Bizkit and Tamagotchis. And then there's a lot of- Do you remember the film we saw with- what's his name from Nirvana? Dave Grohl's band. Remember that? Yes. The Dave Grohl horror movie.

Dave Grohl came on the show. Yeah, that's right. And then they go, they record a thing and then it turns into a horror movie and it's a slasher movie. You know, you go, okay, well, all right, it was rubbish, but, you know, sort of, but this, it is really like, I'm sorry, who the hell is this intended for? Who is meant to be the audience that will find this funny? It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

And also the fact that it's just so hamfistedly done. I mean, I love gore and I like, you know, comedy horror when it's funny and horrifying. This is unfunny and just horrible. And I was genuinely shocked that a film this bad could have been made in this day and age. It is also really, really unfortunate that poor old Rachel Ziegler, who as I said before, I think is really good and really talented, has not one but two very, very poor movies out in the same week. Although I suppose it's like, well, if you're going to have to, you might as well get them both out in the

same week because no one's going to go and see this film. No one is going to go and see this film. No one is going to see this film. And if they do, they will be sorely disappointed, because if they're old enough to get in, they're too old for the film. We can see you sitting on a sofa. Where are you speaking to us from? Central London. It's very nice of you to spend some time with us. Thank you very much indeed. Mike, introduce us to your film, please. Introduce us to the hard truths of your movie. Mike, introduce us to your film, please, to the hard truths.

Should I try and move it closer? No, no, it's not a question. It's a double question. I'd rather not a double question. I'd rather not answer that question, I'm sorry. Okay. Marianne, could you introduce us to Pansy, your extraordinary character at the heart of it? And that's the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team was Jen, Eric, Josh, Vicky, Zach, Heather and Sal Saperstein.

The producer was Jem, the redactor was Simon Poole. If you're not following the pod already, good heavens above, we've told you about that. Please do so wherever you get your podcast. Mark, what is your film of the quarter? I think so far it's I'm Still Here, which is remarkable. We'll be back next week. Oh, and there's a take two, of course, landed alongside.