Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Emilia Pérez: Have We Found the Film of the Year?

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

This week, Simon and Mark interrupt Ben Wheatley’s breakfast (sadly not Wheaties) to about his new comedy horror miniseries ‘Generation Z’, which sees an army truck crash outside a care home, infecting the residents and leaving four teenage friends to deal with the deadly consequences. Mark also weighs in on the show, as well as giving his take on ‘Emilia Pérez’, Jacques Audiard’s musical-comedy, which looks set to be an Awards contender, and sees a Mexican lawyer offered an unusual job to help a notorious cartel boss retire and transition into living as a woman; ‘The Room Next Door’, Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar’s full-length English-language debut following Tilda Swinton as a dying journalist trying to reconnect with her best friend; and ‘Venom: The Last Dance’, the third instalment in the Tom Hardy-starring superhero franchise, which sees Eddie Brock and the symbiote Venom go on the run when they are hunted by both of their worlds. Another tasty week of cinematic nourishment at The Take! Plus, get your tickets to our Live Christmas Spectacular here: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): Emilia Pérez Review: 08:31 Ben Wheatley Interview: 29:42 Generation Z Review: 44:58 The Room Next Door Review: 50:50 Venom: The Last Dance Review: 56:47 You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo 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

When Henry III chose his royal advisors, he ended up with some very untrustworthy power grabbers, which led to poor management decisions, rebellions and at least one person in prison. Why didn't he use Indeed? Well, Indeed wasn't around back then, but it is today. Indeed is the ultimate hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed Data, and matching technology that helps you find quality candidates fast. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. When I was hiring, I didn't use Indeed either, and the process was very slow and stressful, so I wish I had. Join more than 3.5 million

businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a £100 sponsored job credit to get your job's more visibility at indeed.com slash dynasty. Indeed.com slash dynasty. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Is that da da da? Da, da, da. I don't love you, you don't love me. Da, da, da. Isn't that what it is?

We had a long conversation about this quite a few years ago, as I recall. Because there was a famous German singer, as I recall. There was a famous German singer who then was also famous for recording a big kind of pub sing-along tune who was basically Trio. Do you remember all that? I remember. I'd forgotten they were called Trio. But I do remember that I remember we had a conversation about it and it turned out to be one guy, which is why he was called Trio. In that case, I've got absolutely no idea. But da da da. And then I remember reading

an erudite article about whether it was referring to da da. I think he was just taking the mickey. Yes, I think it was. Anyway, I hope you missed me enormously by looking at someone else. I did miss you enormously. Ben did a very fine job holding the fort, but of course, as he himself said, you cannot come close to the magnificence of Mayo. Okay, all right. I'm prepared to accept that. I was throwing lemons into a fountain in Nice. Why? When you were recording the show, because I was in Nice and the playgrounds were shut because it

was raining. I was there with grandson one, although I don't have to say that because there is only one. I was there with Oscar. Is he the one? Chucking lemons. He's the one. This guy wanders up and starts talking and he's a Scottish guy. And I said to him, well, we're only here because the playgrounds are shut. If they shut the playgrounds in Scotland because it was raining, then they'd never be open. So we had a little chat and he said, I think I know you, don't I? Anyway, so we had a chat about the radio and podcasts and films and that kind of stuff. Anyway, at the end of the conversation,

he says, my brother was the lead singer of the Bay City Rollers. No! And who passed away. Yeah. Les McKeown. Les McKeown and who passed away a few years ago. And so this is Ronnie, his brother, who I said we were discussing the Bay City Rollers whilst throwing lemons into a fountain, which sounds like a song by the Ink Spots. Why were you throwing lemons into a fountain? I don't say because the playgrounds were closed.

Well, because this fountain was surrounded by lemon trees and they were falling off. And so we thought it would be aimless fun to throw lemons into the fountain. Oh, I see. It's not like there's some kind of tradition of, you know, when three people meet and one of whom is related to a Bay City roller, we must throw lemons into. There is now. OK, there is now. Go to Nice, find the brother of a 70s pop band and throw lemons.

And any 70s pop band will work. And it was very showbiz week because I also had a coffee with Hugh Pym, BBC's health editor. So that was quite an exciting thing. Did you not have a coffee with Bruce? I flew back to do Bruce. Bruce Springsteen is on, so we're speaking on Wednesday and Bruce, it's Bruce Day today. So the interview is going out today.

So you've done it already? Yes. How did it go? How was he? Uh, he, well, he's 75 and it's genuinely astonishing and quite inspirational to think that it's possible. And one of the great things about Bruce is I am a fan anyway, but he is age, he looks age appropriate.

You know, I don't know whether he's had any work. It doesn't look as though he has. He just looks amazing for 75. And is it that he doesn't eat after four o'clock? Is that, did you say that was his trick? Yes. What he's certainly has one meal a day. I think he eats at four o'clock.

Right. But he, so he looks fantastic, you know, to, to be that age and to only do shows that are three and a half hours long is incredible. And so there's a documentary, which is on Disney Plus, which comes out today, being Friday, which is called A Road Diary, Bruce Brings It In The East Street Band. And it's terrific. I mean, if you're a fan, it's just, you know, it's fantastic and hugely enjoyable. In fact, it's my film of the week. That's it. Thank you for listening. This has been a Sony production.

Yes, because I don't actually have one, but if I did have one, I would say, if you like Bruce, then it's a fantastic watch. Did he ask after me? Let me think. He said he wanted to come and do one of his onstage things with you, but you were a bit busy. So I'm afraid it didn't work out this time. There's a moment in the interview where he starts singing Night Shift because it's by the Commodores, which he does on stage. And it's one of those kind of show stopping moments. But he all of a sudden, as Bruce Springsteen's in a room in Claridge's hotel, singing to me. So I thought that was

particularly enjoyable. Died and gone to heaven. Well done. That's on Greatest Hits Radio, by the way, if you want to hear that, because it's gone out a couple of days ago. So what else, apart from that film, what are we going to be concentrating on particularly? We've got a fantastically packed show. We have Amelia Perez, which is a new film about which there's been a huge amount of interest and awards interest. We have a review of, excuse me while Mark gets into the thing. We have Venom, The Last Dance, which is the third in the Venom series. We have The Room Next Door, which is the new

Almodovar film. And we have a review of Generation, are we saying Generation Z or Z? We're saying Generation Z, aren't we? To go with our special guest. Who is Ben Wheatley, who has been on the show many times before and we haven't talked to him about television because he ain't done television before. But he's been on a whole number of times and we always enjoyed talking to Ben. So, Gen Z. That's basically what it is. What are our premium subscriber extra bonus reviewers going to hear? Extra bonus reviews of The Homie, which is a really fascinating film I loved, and The Front Room, which is a new horror film from the Eggers Brothers, but not that one.

Mason- Also, the weekend watch this TV of the movie of the week, Not List, where you find all the best and worst movies to watch over the next few days. Questions, Schmestchens. You can get all of it via Apple Podcasts or head to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices. Seven day free trial. I mean, this is incredible stuff. And if you are already a Vanguardista, as always, and slightly out of sync, we salute you. Duncan White, who's in Plumstead. Dear Ariel and Ursula, please read this out in your best appalled from Alesbury voice. Okay. Okay. An email from Duncan White. I write having had to pause last week's pod when I heard Mr. Simon Mayo describe Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue as

ridiculous and the most disappointing tourist attraction of all time. How dare he honestly has Mr. Mayo in all his years never visited Brussels and seen the tiny mannequin pea, a symbol of the city so underwhelming that one could be more impressed by turning 180 degrees and seeing better crafted lager wine dispensing versions in the souvenir shop which faces this utterly forgettable and overhyped piece of utter lunacy. Your loving Vanguard Easter Duncan White from Plumstead. Yeah. Well also the Bon Scott statue in Australian Perth is also pathetic. We have done pathetic statues, but yes, I agree. The Little Mermaid is better than the mannequin P, which is pathetic.

But what is the mannequin P? I don't even know what that is. It's a statue of a little boy having a waz. Oh, I see. I thought you meant like it was a statue of a P. I thought like a little man. Someone having a P. Okay, fine. It's just when I hear the word P, I don't automatically go for the lowest common denominator. I go for, okay, fine. Now I see. Now it makes sense. Okay. Well, first review time. And I could just tell from the

inflection, I think, in your voice that this is a review. I mean, I always listen particularly carefully to your reviews. And then at the end of the show, I listen back to them again, just so I can absorb and inhale them. But I think everyone needs to stop what they're doing, stop it, put it down, put it away, and listen to what Mark has to say about this film. Because it sounds as though it might be big. Yes. So this is Emilia Perez. A couple of weeks ago, we had Joke of Foliaudur, which gave us a crime movie, comic strip, musical hybrid, which as you probably know has gone down very badly with a large section of the audience. It looks like it's on course to lose a ton of money.

Now, we have a French trans crime cartel musical written and directed by Jacques Odier, who won a Cézanne BAFTA for Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Profit. This is inspired by Boris Raison's novel Écoute, which I haven't read. Odiya originally developed it as an opera libretto, set largely in Mexico, although shot largely in France. Zoe Saldana is Rita, a lawyer defending clients that she knows to be guilty. After she gets one of them off the hook, she gets a phone call that says, does she want to be rich? If so, come to a new stand now. She goes to the new stand where she is promptly kidnapped and winds up in the truck of a feared cartel leader, Minita's terrifying cartel leader. What does he want?

He says, well, to listen to what I want is to accept that you'll do it. So she listens and she hears that what he wants is to become a woman. He wants to have gender reassignment surgery and become the true self that she therefore always knew herself to be, to turn away from the beast that has been on display that had to be there to survive. So Rita accepts, sets up the operation, relocates Manita's wife, played by Selena Gomez, and the kids to Switzerland, helps construct the myth that Manita is dead. Four years later, she's in London at a swanky restaurant, and she meets a successful business woman called Amelia Perez. Here's a clip. And in that moment, she recognizes that Amelia is the person that she met four years ago.

And at first she thinks that Amelia is there to kill her, to wipe out the last trace of her previous identity so that she can completely escape the past. But no, Amelia wants her help again. She wants her help to move her kids back to Mexico and install them in her house with their mother, where she will pose as their aunt. And all this plays out against the backdrop of thousands of people disappearing due to cartel drug trafficking violence. So on paper, the story sounds like a mashup of Dog Day Afternoon, Sicario, M Butterfly and Mrs Doubtfire, which really absolutely should not work. The fact that it does is a testament to the audacity of the production and also to Carl

Sofia Gascon, who plays that central role of Emilia Perez and is absolutely brilliant. She along with Saldana, Gomez and Adriana Paz, who plays Epifania, shared the award for best actress at Cannes, where the film also won the jury prize and the soundtrack award, which went to score composer Clemente Ducol and songwriter Camille. It is really quite breathtaking feat. I mean, it swings from scary crime drama. I mean, genuinely scary crime drama at the beginning when she's kidnapped and taken to meet the crime boss. To domestic melodrama, somebody who is in a house with their kids, the kids don't know that this is a parent, they think it's an aunt.

To a nail-biting thriller at one point and also a weird thwarted love story, all played out with songs. Now, as with Joker Folie a Deux, I think for me it's the collision of genres that makes the music elements work so well. I mean, at one point I was watching it thinking of Leos Carracks' genre-bending films like Annette and Holy Motors and actually to some extent Polar X. The song set pieces are terrific and crucially they draw us into the world of the drama rather than taking us out of it. If you remember when we were talking about Joke of Folio, you asked the director Todd Phillips whether somehow the songs leavened the dark elements. He said, no, no, no, they amplify them. Well, in this

particular case, what the songs do is that they sweep us along with the drama so that this thing that actually sounds like it shouldn't work at all really, really does. I mean, the best thing about it is you find yourself forgetting just how audacious the story is and simply going with it. I knew very little about it going in. Obviously, people will know more about it because you don't just go to the cinema to see something blind. But I really thought this is an example of the way in which storytelling is changing in the modern moment. It felt like the old constraints had lifted and the gloves were off, and a story could go wherever it wanted,

and cinema was up to it and the possibilities of the future are wide open. I genuinely had one of those senses that I did not expect any of this and I'm completely swept up with it. I love musicals anyway, but I just love the way in which it takes all these different elements and throws them all together and it works and it works because it works emotionally. On an emotional level, you absolutely engage with the characters and it's a very fine piece of cinema. People are currently talking about it as a big awards contender, which is interesting to see whether any of that actually plays out because it's definitely one of the most exciting films of the year.

Just to be absolutely clear, when we first meet the crime boss, is that Carla Sophia as well? Yes. And is very, very scary? Really, properly terrifying. When you look it up on IMDb, it has the word comedy in there. Yes, I know. And it's a weird thing. I've seen the word comedy thrown around. It doesn't sound like a comedy the way you're talking about.

No, I mean the definition of comedy has become so stretched recently that when they were talking about that film, you know, My Favorite Cake, that was described as a comedy. And I'm sitting there thinking I don't understand the definition of this as comedy. I mean, I think that it's in the broadest possible sense because it's, you know, the Golden Globes have musical and comedy. I would not use the word comedy to describe it. There are elements in it that are witty and funny and brash and satirical but I would not call it a comedy. I would call it a melodrama with songs. Well, it sounds though that may well, just my opinion, it could be a contender for a movie of the week.

I mean, obviously all movies that are on here are contenders for movie of the week. Box Office Top 10, by the way, Ben Wheatley is on the way to talk about zombies and comedy and TV. Box Office Top 10, surprisingly, starting at number 10, which I think is the first time that's ever happened, and that is the Out Run. Bravo for the Out Run. Yeah, you and I both really like this. It has prompted a huge amount of discussion about films in the Orkney Isles and also very particularly Papa Westry. But it's, I mean, great performances. It's really good that it's done well. It's really good that it has found

the audience that it has because it's a, you know, it's a difficult film. It's a film about addiction, overcoming addiction, but I think it does it very well. Number nine, number 13 in America, My Hero Academia. You're next, clumsy title in my opinion. Yeah, this wasn't press screen. It's a Japanese animated superhero film, which is a spin-off of the manga series. They didn't show it to us because basically they're not primarily interested in it as far as film critics are concerned. It won't be here next week.

Grandson, number one, had his first cinema experience when we were on holiday and we went to see Ponyo. What a marvellous experience. I love Ponyo. It was great. I love Ponyo. The substance is at number eight. Absolutely thrilling.

I was really, really pleased that child one went to see it and rang me breathless as Child One came out of the cinema to tell me just how fantastic they thought it was. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is at number seven here, number four in the States. Seventh week in the charts. It's done pretty well. I think once everyone got over the initial shock of thinking, oh, they've done a Beetlejuice sequel, it'll be worse than the original. I think some people have been pleasantly surprised by it. Actually, no, it's pretty decent and I liked it. It was much better than I expected. I didn't go in with high expectations.

Six here and six in the States. Joker, Folly Adur. This just basically flags up how dangerous it can be to make a musical because Joker Folliarder is crashing out of the charts. It's had some horrible reviews, but more importantly, it's had some very, very disappointing box office. And studios are going to look at it and go, well, why did that happen? It happened because they made a musical and I it's it's you know that's that's the difference. I like it and both you and I think it's better than the first one. It's it's just not found its audience at all. When you say crashing out to the charts it is at number six. Number six in its third week is crashing out of the

charts. It's I mean it's it's done better outside of the states but it's not gonna wash its face. They're going to lose money on it. Number five here, number three in the States, Terrifier 3. Yeah. I mean, so the discussion was it's not Terrifier. It's not Horrifier. It's Grotesquifier.

I mean, it does exactly what people expect a Terrifier movie to do. I don't have much interest in it. But this, when you consider how much this cost and how well this has done, this has basically wiped the floor with Joker Folly Adur. So, you know, horses for courses. Transformers colon one, is it number four? Number eight in America. Wrongly described the first Transformers movie I've liked because actually I liked Bumblebee, but I thought this was great. I mean, it was, it was a really good animated Transformers movie that reminded you. I know somebody wrote in and said, you said they're for kids.

Well, I'm 50 and I love Transformers. You go, yeah, but that's the big kid in you, loving Transformers. I mean, it's an animation that remembers that this is a toy and then has an adventure with it. Number three is The Apprentice, a new entry. Now Matt from Washington, DC, while at the Fantastic Film Festival in Austin, Texas, this past September, my wife and I snagged tickets to one of their famous secret screenings. The audience in the theatre audibly groaned

when Sebastian Stan walked out and introduced The Apprentice. His pre-film speech was apologetic and slightly pleading, asking the audience to give it a shot. However, when he left and the lights came down, almost half the audience walked out. Apparently in protest that a movie about the second most hated man in Austin even exists. And then he adds, the most hated man is Senator Ted Cruz. But they shouldn't have walked out and Sebastian Stan shouldn't have been apologetic. We saw a gritty, sensationalistic movie about how two despicable people became even more so. Biopics sometimes suffer because the arc of someone's life is not the arc of a traditional movie plot. Life and history go on, unlike in a movie. So The Apprentice

doesn't entirely hold together, reminding me more of the HBO produced behind the candelabra than a traditional movie. But the acting was spectacular. Sebastian Stan could have played his Donald Trump like a caricature and for laughs, but he imbued Trump with sympathy and humanity while still not excusing the horrible things he has done. Jeremy Strong might be a whole other realm in acting, conveying Roy Cohn's villainy within seconds of appearing on screen, whilst also showing his complications and ultimate vulnerability. If Marvel money lets Sebastian Stan continue to act in a small, weird, and excellent movie like The Apprentice, and especially A Different Man, then I guess long live Marvel. Down with the Nazis, especially on November the 5th, Matt, Washington, DC. Thank you for that email. I'm certainly aware of the phenomenon of people just not wanting to watch

a movie about Donald Trump, and I understand that, and particularly the moment that we are. I like the film, and I was kind of pleasantly surprised because the word out of Cannes hadn't been great. Jeremy's strong performance is fabulous, and I do think that the way in which the arc of the story works as a ghost story, as the writer director was describing it, they said essentially it's about the ghost of Roy Cohn inhabiting the body of Donald Trump. Again, I'll just remind you that Trump truthed this absolute hateful screed about these people are human scum and how dare they, and they made all this stuff up and it's all not true.

I'll just repeat in brief what I said last week is that he particularly objects to the portrayal of him as a rapist. As we know in the E. Jean Carroll case, the jury was absolutely clear and the judge has been absolutely clear that Donald Trump, for legal legal purposes did indeed rape E. Jean Carroll. There are umpteen outstanding cases and charges of sexual assault against him. If you watched the news recently, you will have seen that Donald Trump described January 6th on which a violent mob assaulted the Capitol, beat up police officers, and people died. He described that as a day of love.

It's no surprise that he doesn't as a day of love. So it's no surprise that he doesn't know the difference between love and violence. He thinks they are the same thing. Therefore, of course, that scene in which the character played by Sebastian Stan rapes his wife, which is based on a deposition that Ivana gave during their divorce case in 1990. She subsequently walked it back when he was standing for, going to run for president. That of course it has the smack of authenticity about it. Absolutely. A vile and depraved human being who is currently neck and neck with the president soon. Yeah, it's, it's entirely possible. Who knows LA heggarty on our YouTube channel says Mark Kermode deep state puppet.

There you go. So that's what you are. Okay. Thank you. LA heggarty. Number two, number two is smile too. Um, so this comes from Colin Scott in Chesterfield. Simon and Mark still love the show, just back from my local where I've taken in a viewing

of Smile 2. I did write in after the first Smile and was given pretty short shrift from Mark about my problems with the film and its message around mental health. I was wary of going for the second film, but made my decision after the excellent interview with Naomi Scott and how infectious her enthusiasm for the project was. For the positives, she really is excellent and conveys all of the varying struggles her character has been through. The scene towards the end of the film in her apartment was brilliantly creepily choreographed. The start of that routine very much reminded me of the creepy Doctor Who episode, Blink, whether intentionally or not. Also, I found the setting helped ease

my problems from the first film. Alas, the ending undid so much of the good work of the previous 95%, which seemed like a shame to not stick a landing that wasn't both a little daft and also created unnecessary plot holes. Last point would be, I'm genuinely not sure how much the jump scares actually scared me and how much they're just unbelievably loud. Up with Naomi Scott and down with cheesy What's It related man babies. Toodle pip. Thank you, Colin Scott. That's smile2at2. Colin, I think I recall your email and I didn't mean to give it short shrift because if I remember correctly, it was to do with the depiction of mental health in the film. And if it sounded like I was giving it short shrift,

then that's a fault on my part. I really enjoyed Smile too. I think that her performance is fantastic. It's awards-worthy, which of course it won't get any awards because horror films don't win awards. That's just how it works. And I liked the end, actually. I thought the end was a good,

dark joke. But I like the film very much. I thought it was really great Friday night popcorn fair. I agree with you that sometimes you don't know, are you jumping because that bang is particularly loud. But actually, as I said when I was reviewing it, the construction of those scenes reminded me of Halloween and of John Carpenter's masterful use of a very simple gag, but done very well. I got that from Smile 2. Number one is The Wild Robot, Andy from Huddersfield. This weekend, my wife and I took our five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son to see The Wild Robot. There were some things I was expecting.

It's beautifully animated, the voice cast are wonderful, and it's genuinely funny. But what I wasn't expecting was that I would leave the cinema emotionally drained and almost unable to speak. Animated films are great at metaphors for what it is to be apparent. I always thought that Toy Story was the high watermark, but this outshines even Toy Story 3. Roz, the robot of the title, becomes a mother and realizes that her programming is insufficient to complete the task she has been set, to care for something completely dependent on her and so she must adapt. As I sat in the cinema with my son on my lap, I found myself having to stifle audible sobs and dig my nails into the palm of my hand to stop myself shaking with tears.

When this magnificent story finished, we were walking out as a family. I thought I'd hidden just how much the film had affected me. And then my daughter turned and said, Daddy, were those happy tears? I looked down into those eyes full of innocence and empathy. And suddenly I was back to that moment five years ago when she first looked at me and turned me into Roz with programming so inadequate to the task. Then I thought about all the things that will come next. All I could say to her, tears welling in my eyes again, was a whispered, mostly. The wild robot held up a mirror to me as I suspect it will to every parent who sees it because we teach them to fly so they can fly away from us, our task complete.

All we can hope is that we did it well enough that they might fly back from time to time. All the best. James Morell of Vanguard Easter. Thank you, James. Sorry, that was not Andy from Hunter. This is Andy from Hunter. So that was James Morell. Andy, thank you, James.

I didn't write that. Yes. This is Andy from Anderson. So that was James Morell. Andy says, it's a long time since I've heard a UK audience clap at the end, but last night it happened. Dr. Neema Gadri in Liverpool, DreamWorks really delivered with this film a fitting final chapter for their in-house animation studio. While I haven't read the original book, I couldn't help but notice echoes of the iron giant in the storyline, together with all the influences Mark highlighted. The stunning animation also brought to mind Castle in the Sky from Studio Ghibli's early days, and there was more than a nod to the great plateau and its ancient robots from the Zelda Breath of the Wild video game."

So that is our number one new entry, The Wild Robot. It's really nice to hear people having these kind of responses to it. I mean, The Wild Robot, it's a very good film. A couple of people mentioned Robot Dreams, which we have reviewed here on the show. You can go back and find it in the archive, which of course is a really fascinating film. And the films to which it refers, I think, Wally and obviously Silent Running, which is in the back of it. But the thing that I liked most about the film is the way it looked. I just, it had a kind of,

like I said, the aesthetic of it was somewhere between hand-drawn Disney and Ghibli. I thought it was a real feast for the eyes, but it's just lovely to hear people having those kind of emotional responses to it. How wonderful to live in a world in which you can go to the cinema with your kids and have that kind of profound emotional response. I think that's just absolutely lovely. Thank you for all the emails. Correspondence at Kermann and Bader.com. Back in a moment with Ben Wheatley. Also, Mark is going to be reviewing what haven't you done yet that you are going to do before? There is a new film by Almodovar, which is called

The Room Next Door. And also we have a review of Chek's notes to find out what it is because his brain is, oh yes, Venom, the last dance. That's why my brain disengaged. Tom Hardy, yes, it's a Tom Hardy movie. Okay, we'll be discussing that. Back in just a moment with some Ben Wheatley. This episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI is the place to discover ambitious films by visionary filmmakers, all carefully handpicked so you can explore the best of cinema streaming anytime, anywhere. So Mark, what can people find on MUBI this October? Well, one of the highlights in October is Occupied City, the Steve McQueen film. This

is an extraordinary portrait of World War II Amsterdam, which uses testimony from World War II, but interspersed with footage from modern day Amsterdam to create this really kind of strange disparity. I really like the film. I think you did too. That is Occupied City, which is on Mubi UK from October the 11th. You can try Mubi free for 30 days at mubi.com slash Kermade and Mayo. That's m-u-b-i dot com slash Kermade and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. Hey, Simon and Mark here.

This show is brought to you by NordVPN. I'm feeling a bit spooked, Simon. Why is that, Mark? Bad actors. You've been watching The Room again. No, not that kind. I'm talking about the kind that hang out online and steal your data. Oh, well, it's completely coincidental, but Nord have just the solution for that. Sure, public

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The link is in the podcast episode description box. Hey Mark, I find that I've been thinking recently about merch. Merch? Yes, merchandise, especially all those goodies we have for sale online. You know, branded mugs, t-shirts, water bottles, you name it. The torch, the director's chair, the full works.

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Sign up for a £1 per month trial period. Can't we fix this? Shopify.co.uk slash. Curmode. All lowercase. All lowercase. I mean, what is wrong with Kermode and Mayo? Why can't it be Mayo just for once? That's easier to spell curmode. They've gone for shopify.co.uk slash, let's say it together, curmode. Okay so this week's guest is Ben Wheatley. We've had him on the show before of course, but never for a TV series because he hasn't done one before. This is Generation Z, a zombie comedy horror, which is now streaming on Channel 4. You'll hear all about it with our chat, Ben Wheatley,

after this clip. What's she doing here? I had to tell her. You couldn't keep your mouth shut for 10 minutes? Well look, he really didn't want to tell me, but he was basically defenseless. Are you covered in blood? No, a little piece of work, Steph. You know that. Where is my Nan?

We can help you find her, but we need to stick together. What they're saying on the news is only half the story. It's not a new strain of COVID, it's much worse. We just saw a woman eat her own mother. Yeah, that happened. There was a face she fell on the old woman's brains. Okay, all right. It's a chemical weapon or something. There was a crash.

Right, in her brains. Yeah, well, they were all out. Stop, what crash? A paint truck. It wasn't a paint truck. Now that's a clip from Generation Z. It's a new series, a new TV series from the pen of Ben Wheatley, who's also directed and produced, and Ben joins us. Are you in Canada, Ben? I am in Canada, in Winnipeg, yes.

It's very nice of you to join us. And I think this is the first time we've interviewed anybody who's actually having their breakfast at the moment. What are you eating? I'm eating, um, am I allowed to advertise? Yes. Kellogg's bran flakes. Right. Okay.

Which is delicious. Yeah. Well, that's my plan. Yeah. So we should say right at the very beginning that Mark is obviously also part of this conversation, what with him being the leading contributor to this show, but he hasn't seen any of the series I have. But Ben, in your own glorious words, introduce us to what I think is your first original series for television. Yeah, Generation Z is a horror TV show that's

set in this town called Danbury, which is a kind of reflecting all of the UK kind of thing. And there's a chemical accident spill as they're outside the town, and it becomes infected with this virus, which does very horrible things to the older members of this community and pits the whole community against each other. So is it only the old that become zombies? I've seen two episodes and it appears to be that, I mean, everyone can get infected. It is only the old people that become zombies. It's basically the weapon is aimed at the old, but it can affect everybody. Right. Okay. And so after the crash,

and it's fantastic because we get to the crash immediately and then we go to the various care homes that are within a few kilometres and then stretching further and further apart. But very quickly, because we know it's you, we get to what I think is the point of all of this. I think it's in the first episode we're talking about Brexit and we're talking about COVID. Just tell us what the idea behind Generation Z is in this series. Well, I mean, I wanted to make, I think horror in general works best when it reflects the times that we're in.

I don't think horror ever exists in a vacuum. So I wanted to have those elements in it because it's all around us, you know, and it's very hard to kind of, I think you need to kind of leaven genre stuff with something that's real so that we have, the audience has something to grasp onto. So it does look at those things, but it's not the sole focus of it. It's not like an essay about those things, but they are things that are happening to the characters within the show. I particularly enjoyed the teenage, because the old folk, we know who some of them are. So Sue Johnston is there, Anita Dobson is there, Johnny Vegas is there, Robert Lindsay is there.

And as I've just finished watching Sherwood, when Robert Lindsay turned up, I was automatically suspicious and booed him actually, every time he came on. But you're writing for teenagers here. And to my ears, it sounded absolutely fantastic and absolutely spot on. Have you written specifically like this with teenagers? Because it sounded really good to me. Because of course, I'm very close to being a teenager. Yeah, I've never written for characters that young really. And that was part of the joy of the show for me, like the chance to write for those characters. But also a lot of it is to do with, I use a lot of improvisation

and kind of work very closely with the performers. So I had a really brilliant team of younger actors for that stuff. So that all bounced off. And also I'm a dad who's got, around period I wrote it had a teenage son. So not to say I don't anymore, he could just got older as time went on. But so I kind of I remembered it. And he said one of those things when you're writing is, you know, obviously you think about your own teenage years, but things are the same and yet they're utterly different.

So it's trying to make sure that you don't settle into an old man remembers. Mason How different was it getting an idea on television through Channel 4, getting funding as opposed to making an indie movie, which is what we associate you with. I mean, basically it's three indie movies joined together in a way. So that's what I felt about it. And it was sitting in the wheelhouse of Kill List and Sightseers and Down to Eris.

So in a way that how it was produced and made and the energy of it was like those movies. Working on television is brilliant because you get a much broader canvas, you know, the scenes, the quieter scenes and the more character-based scenes that you'd never get to do in a movie because the real estate of the time of a movie is always fought over so much, you know, everything has to be propulsing forward. There's, you know, there's no, no, no space for any fat, but in, in TV, you can spend time with the characters a lot more.

And that's one of the, something I've been moving towards for, for a few years. You know, I'd been involved in development of TV shows for, for last 10 years, you know, but this is the first one that's, that's come through. How much of doing that is partly in reactions to obviously, because the film you made beforehand was Meg too, which is a great big sort of you know thunderous spectacular production and that must be one of the things in which you have the least room to move you have the you know the most stuff that has to be done it feels to me like you have a an affinity with having the the control and the space that you would get from an independent production and also

from a tv series i mean is that in stark contrast to Meg too? I try to make sure that everything I do is very different from the last thing I did. Meg, in some ways, you're restricted in terms of maybe the script, the story of that has to go through a lot of hands But but the technical side of it and the the actual action it is all very handmade and very particular So it you get freedoms and you you give up some freedoms and you get other freedoms you know you get the freedom to build huge sets and and to Indulge in insane action. Whereas on say Generation Z, there's lots of action, but it's like, it's much more practical. And you know, we didn't have hardly any CG in the show

in the end, not because I'm such as purist, but just we couldn't afford it, you know. So you end up having model work and forced perspectives and lots of prosthetic effects. That's all great fun. It's just like back to basics, filmmaking and back to horror basics, basically. And I wonder whether everybody said yes to you, Ben, because the cast list of the established actors is fantastic. Almost like the first thing Sue Johnston does is bite the nose of somebody. It's all very glorious and everything.

But they looked as though they were having a great time. That was the first scene with Sue. And I never met her before. The script went through and she went, yep, do it. Yeah, I'm on. And so there was no kind of wooing and letters and phone calls and stuff. It was like in meetings. It was like, yeah. And then I sit, I walk on onto the set and there's Sue Johnson lying on the ground,

ready to bite someone's nose off. It was just brilliant. You know, and I was such a fan, you know, we never missed Enders or Brookside in the eighties and nineties. It was religious in our household. We watched all that stuff. To meet Anita Dobson and basically to meet Robert Lindsay. You see, I don't have that Sherwood reaction. I'm still Wolfie Smith and GBH. That's my main touchstone for Lindsay. Yeah. Once you've seen Sherwood, you won't like him anymore. I think that's... That's probably why I'm avoiding it. But the old folks, once they've been bitten, they feel great, don't they?

It's like cocoon, but not in a good way. They kind of ravage everybody. It's basically cocoon, yeah. Cocoon meets threads. It meets Scooby Doo. It's my pitch. I just like to say, having not yet seen this, cocoon meets threads in which Sue Johnson It means Scooby Doo is my pitch. I'd just like to say having not yet seen this, Cocoon meets threads in which Sue Johnson

bites somebody's nose off. That's it. I'm on. I mean, just put that as the public's, everyone will watch. There's a great scene between two of your teenagers, Ben, where one of them confronted with some terrible zombie induced mayhem. One of them says, what are we going to do with it? The other one says, well, film it.

So then that's their answer to everything. When they go into every scene, they get out their phone and they're filming this thing. Yeah, I think that's a reality, isn't it? I don't think it's just teenagers that do that either. I think it's everyone. I think that the phone culture is totally embedded. And I don't think we did it enough really in the show,

but it's like when you walk down the street in London, it's like everyone's just looking at phones and you don't really see it in movies or TV so much. It's almost like the viewing culture has to catch up with what's happening in the real world, I think a bit more. But I think we're still trying to deal with it, deal with phones and texting and all that stuff in a cinematic way. We still haven't quite got the language of it yet. There's a scene earlier on where Robert Lindsay is talking to one of your younger actors and he says, you know, we've got to question everything. And then the younger actor says, oh, conspiracy theories. And he goes, no, they're the first things that we have to question. And I thought,

oh, okay, I like the way you're writing this. I think there's a thing that you hear a lot, which is like, I did my own research. And that's usually a precursor to someone saying something really insane. And I think that the dangers, I think the actual, the thought of it is right. You've got to do your own research, but you've also got to, it's something that I remember from history lessons at school. It's like primary sources, isn't it? You've got to make sure that you're looking at where you're getting this information from

and breaking it down and who's got something to gain from it. And I think if anything could be taken from the experience of COVID, it was like being dropped into a world where nothing made any sense and it was very hard to find the truth. I think we're still reeling from that period. There's a question about the nature of zombies, if indeed that's what they are, because your zombies are talking zombies. They're not George Romero zombies. They appear to have a conscience and they appear to have emotions. These bitten and ill old people aren't quite the same as the zombies we might have seen before.

No, I mean, I think I love the zombie genre a lot, but I've been thinking about it for a while, you know, and it's that the zombie genre is really a kind of way of doing the Civil War film, but not having to feel bad about shooting your neighbors is the way I always think about it. And when I saw the Civil War, the film, it felt like a zombie film with no zombies in it. It had that vibe to it. And I think that it's also a genre that's about the well killing the sick. And when you start to look at it like that, it becomes more and more uncomfortable.

The premise of the old eating the young is kind of a bit reductive. I wanted to give those characters a voice. It's not black and white between there's not good guys and bad guys in this, it's shades of grey. They're having an experience and they're trying to deal with it. They're inside them, they're normal and good people, but they're trying to deal with a virus that's taking over their consciousness and their bodies. Yeah. In fact, when Alex Garland was on the show, we talked about Civil War. There are times when it resembles a zombie film, and you can tell that he knows exactly what he's talking about.

Yeah. Well, he's 28 days later, isn't he? But it's also like COVID felt. I had all the tropes that we've always seen. It's almost like the zombie films were a primer for that. And you know, zombie movies got lots of stuff right and lots of stuff wrong. I think there should have definitely been some scenes with people banging pots in some of the Romero movies and thanking the people that the emergency services, there should have been more of that. Do you think that the zombie genre is just

infinitely regeneratable? Because I remember Kim Newman saying that there are certain horror icons that they last forever because they always reflect the particular time that they come from. Particularly if you look at the Romeros, you know, the 1969 is about racism, the 1970s is about consumerism, by the 1980s, it's to do with vivisection. Do you think that zombies are one of those horror creations in which they are always specifically to do with the period that they come out of? Should be. I mean, I think they're elastic because they're the basic anxiety of them, which is people, humans transformed and who've got, you know, designs

on consuming you and eating you and killing you. I think that's, that never goes away. And I'd say they were folk horror monsters first, but then cinema horror monsters after like Wolfman or the vampires or whatever, you know. I always remember Clive Barker saying that all great horror monsters are in fact wish fulfillment. And he said in the case of zombies, it's like, yeah, okay, they're terrible, but at least there's life after death. That's the silver lining, isn't it? Ben Wheatley's new show is on Channel 4's Generations Ed.

Ben, we appreciate you spending some time with us and you can now go back to another bowl of brand-new food. I thought, am I allowed to eat while I'm being interviewed? But now it's ended, I can actually have something to eat, so it's good. Ben, thank you very much indeed and thanks for talking to us. Since that interview was recorded, Mark has of course watched the entire series, so he now knows precisely what he's talking about. I hadn't noticed before, but of course it does make sense.

When he made the analogy between a zombie movie being a civil war movie, so you don't have to feel bad about shooting your neighbor. I did find that interesting. I've never heard anyone make that comparison before. Yeah. I mean, Ben is very, very smart and he knows his genre well. So look, just very quickly, as you heard from that, the story is it's set in Danbury, which is a UK every town chemical spill unleashes an infection which Wheatley calls a weapon in that interview, which initially

turns the residents of the local retirement home into lively flesh-eating zombies. It then turns out that because it's to do with how effective your immune system is, it can infect the young, but the young basically don't survive it, whereas the elderly do. The comparison that you used with Cocoon and that he used with threads, it is basically Cocoon goes to hell, or more accurately, Cocoon goes to hell, meets threads, and attack the block via Scooby-Doo. I think that actually all those elements work well together because alongside the kind

of the OAP zombie outbreak, you've also got, as you said in that interview, a very well observed group of teenagers who, and I think this goes back to Attack the Block, a film about which I think I was wrong when it came out. I think it's a much better film than I gave it credit for. I think that thing about the way in which they then have to deal with the plague whilst also dealing with all the other things about being a teenager. There's love and there's lust and there's friendship and there's betrayal. When you get to episode four, episode four for me was the motherlode, there is a particularly marvelous moment in

which they have to break off from fighting the army of the undead in order to do their geography A-level, which I think was really, really well observed. Robert Lindsay is the old rebel who may be a savior, but he is like an advanced version of Wolfie Smith. I think all that stuff about they pull out their phones and at one point there's this brutal thing, I go, why are you filming this? It's because that's what happens. The incident is passed off as a virulent strain of COVID. There is stuff about the wake of Brexit. And there's the stuff about, you know, questioning everything, particularly conspiracies.

I'm really glad you honed in on that. But that point that he makes about civil war and the Alex Garland connection about, of course, he understands that connection, I think is really evident there. As I said, for me, episode four was the point at which it was like, okay, fine, I know we've had this discussion about if you say something gets good in episode four. No, no, it's good up until then. But episode four was the point at which everything really comes together. There is some very dark material. It's good up until then, but episode four was the point at which everything really comes together.

There is some very dark material. There's some very dark material. At one point about an old man having been infected going back to visit his family. There is a really chilling depiction of tables being turned. Actually reminded me of the scene in Clockwork Orange in which Alex gets beaten up by the tramps. He talks about with their feeble rookers and horny old claws, it was old age having a go at youth. I actually thought there was an element of that in here.

I mean, Wheatley's right. It is in the well house of Kill List, Down Terrace. He has done stuff in television before, but this is the first series that's completely his. I think he relished the expanded canvas. I think he loved the fact that there was space to do more character development to just have those incidental moments. Because obviously in Meg 2, aka Jason Statham, Shark Puncher, it's not really about character development. It's about Jason Statham punching a shark. And I do feel that although I mean, I enjoyed Meg 2 very much, that this kind of felt like puncher. It's not really about character development. It's about Jason Statham punching a shark. I do feel that although I enjoyed Meg Too very much, that this felt like

Ben stretching his arms. I enjoyed it. Like I said, episode four, that's the big one. Mason- So look out for that and your comments once you've seen it, correspondence at KevinOBair.com. Ads in a minute, Mark, but hey, let us hold hands and step once again with Gay Abandon into our much loved laughter lift. Hey, Mark, why do teenagers hang out in odd numbers? Because they literally can't even. There you go. See, you're a comedy genius. I do think you should have said because they literally can't even there you go. See you're a comedy genius But I do think you should have said because they literally can't even

Sorry It was a little frosty at home at the moment as it always seems to be in the laughter lift The good lady ceramicist her adores is going Absolutely loopy and all over one silly missing piece of her 5,000 piece puzzle that she's almost finished. She's absolutely climbing the walls. What an overreaction. How does she think I feel? I'm missing 4,999 pieces of mine. Anyway, the weekend did really badly, Mark. I was in the bank and an old lady said to me, excuse me, young man, I wonder if you could check my balance for me. That'd be ever so kind dearie, if you wouldn't mind.

So I pushed her over. Oh well, we don't need the music. See, did you notice how the music crashed just at the moment at the punchline, just to underline the comedy moment? Anyway, what are you going to be reviewing a little later? I'm going to be reviewing the new Elmodovar film, The Room Next Door and Venom, The Last Dance. Tom Hardy, yes, of course, very important, on the way. I'm Matt Lewis.

And I'm Dr. Alan Orianaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions,

and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History, a hit on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day. You might know me as the creator and host of the How To Fail podcast, but I want to tell you about a new podcast I've made. How To Write A Book is for anyone who wants to get their story out there. Fronted by a bestselling author, a super agent, and a

powerhouse publisher, this 12-week masterclass will take you right through from developing an idea to nailing the plot. If you want to get all episodes at once and completely ad-free, subscribe now. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so we have a brace of reviews. Then some interesting thoughts about our live show coming up. Correspondence at Koenamer.com, a couple of tickets still available. But first of all, abrasive reviews, Mark. Thrill us with some serious content. And can we just start by saying, abras means two. I used to think that abras meant a whole bunch,

but abras means two. Yes, abrasive pheasants, I believe you've used it. Exactly. You used it completely correctly. So, a brace of pheasants, I believe he's referring to. Exactly, you used it completely correctly. The Room Next Door, which is a new film by writer-director Almodovar, who goes by just that single name, Pedro to his friends, adapted from a novel by Sigrid Llanes, which I haven't read. Apparently, the first Spanish film to win the Golden Lion at Venice.

This stars Tilda Swinton, who of course worked with Ahmed Abbar on the arresting shortly human voice. I think we interviewed her for that when that came out because I think that was during lockdown. Anyway, she plays war reporter Martha who has terminal cancer. Julianne Moore is her friend Ingrid, who has just written a book about death, but hasn't seen Martha in a while. She hears that she's ill. she goes to visit her at the hospital and then at home, and tries to encourage her to be positive even when the experimental treatment that Martha has been taking fails. Here's a clip. These are for you.

You are a darling. And I brought you a couple of books. Oh, thank you. You want something to drink? Oh, I'd love some tea. Herbal tea if you have it. Sure. I'll put these in the vase.

Okay. And all of this is for you. You have to finish all of it. Wow, well I will do my best. I love fruit. Not a particularly insightful clip, but you hear the two of them talking. Anyway, so, Martha initially wanted to refuse treatment. She now asks Ingrid to accompany her on holiday to a beautiful retreat where at some point she will take her own life and she wants her

friend to be in the room next door when she does so, hence the title. Right. And one of our has talked very specifically about the film. He's called for euthanasia to be legalised worldwide, says that the movie is clearly in favour of euthanasia. He says, quote, it's something we admire about the character of Tilda. She decides that getting rid of the cancer can only be done by making the decision she actually makes. So she finds a way to reach her objective with the help of her friend, but they have to behave as if they were criminals. And part of the film is indeed about the precautions Ingrid has

to take to avoid becoming an accomplice and being on the wrong side of the law. The film also has a thread about a man played by John Turturro with whom both women have been intimate and who is now consumed with despair about humanity's inaction on climate change. Again, Amaravar says, we have to stop this denying of the danger. The planet is in danger. Climate change is not something neglectable. We have to pay greater attention. In interviews, he said it is about those things. It's about euthanasia, it's about climate change, and it's about the law. But what it's really about, or at least to me, is something much more archly theatrical. Some of the dialogue does sound like a theatre play. You remember the alienation device of the human voice in

which you are very specifically shown that this is a theatrical construct. It is every bit as colour coded as a lot of us most self-consciously designed films. The white of Tilda Swinton's hair against the red of Julianne Moore's, the greens and blues of the furniture in the rental house, which literally looks like Frank Lloyd Wright made a sci-fi film. The red of the lipstick that is applied in extreme close-up, the green of the woodland, even the colour of the snow, which leads us into James Joyce and the dead and John Huston's film. At one point, they watch Buster Keaton's Seven Chances, the thing about Buster Keaton running away from the potential brides and being chased down the hill by a rock. There's a lot of references

to other things. I think one of the things it's about is the way in which art, film, music, books, whatever, sustains us up until the point that it doesn't. One of the things that Tilda Swinton's character talks about is that having almost lost the taste for the things that she loved. I think it's about the secrets and lies of friendship and estrangement, generational divides, estrangement between parents and children who don't know each other. I mean, it's an odd film, and at times it feels very performative. The house is this series of bits that are bolted together, and actually, weirdly enough, that's kind of what the drama feels like a little bit. It's a series of rooms that are adjacent to each other and yet only kind of connected in a very tenuous way,

particularly the last act which swings into police procedural and involves a dual role that reminded me of Swinton's co-starring with herself in The Eternal Daughter. But it's eye-catching. The production design is very eye-catching. Another lush score by Alberto Iglesias. Those things keep us engaged even when the drama moves, I think, rather unevenly from one room to the next. When some of those rooms are anything but next door to each other, I mean, bits of it do seem weirdly detached. So I don't think it's one of Elmodova's best, but I was never bored. I just wanted to be slightly more emotionally gripped, I think. Now in a brace, there are two.

That was one, here comes the other. And the thing about Tom Hardy is I do think that he is usually, whatever you're about to say about Venom, he's usually a very charismatic performer. And in take two, in fact, we've got a conversation about Tom Hardy's best performances or people's favorite Tom Hardy performances. I remember when he did Jack and Ori. Do you remember this? A few years ago.

I never saw it. Was it good? It has to be said that there are some people who went so, they were so excited. They almost had an accident waiting for it. Here is Twinkle-eyed, unpredictable, wild, crazy Tom Hardy reading bedtime stories. Oh yeah. Hugely popular. You can probably find them online. I'm sure there's none there, but he is a fairly amazing actor. Anyway, the key thing is Venom, The Last Dance. I think we already know you don't like it. That's what I'm thinking. How do you know that?

Because of the way you referred to it when we were discussing what's coming up. Anyway, let's find out if I'm completely wrong. So Venom, The Last Dance, the third in the Marvel Venom series, but the fifth in the Sony Spider-Man universe, which includes Morbius and Madame Web, both of which were absolutely pant, follows on from Venom and let there be Carnage, the latter of which was directed by Andy Serkis, who was originally going to direct this, but then was busy with Animal Farm, which he's really been working on for quite a long time, although he does still have a key role in this. So this is in fact the directorial feature debut for Kelly Marcel, the British filmmaker who I admire and like very much who wrote the previous installments,

but also wrote Saving Mr. Banks and Fifty Shades of Grey. So, you know, she's a versatile filmmaker. Yes, they're contrasting films there, I think you could say. Exactly. So, Tom Hardy is Eddie Brock slash Venom, the guy who is the host for the oil slick style head-eating monster, whom he has now grudgingly befriended. Eddie and Venom have become the key to freeing some monstrous underworld overlord from the eternal prison in which he is locked. And he has now sent these big, gribbly beasties to find Eddie in order to do the unlocking. So, Eddie and Vanim have to make their

way across the US, sometimes hanging onto the side of a plane, and sometimes on horseback. Here's a clip. Gordon's alive. Goodness knows what's happening there. Yeah, I know. It's an audio clip, but it should be said, I know when the people heard it, that as the horsey thing was going on, that's Venom, because that's basically Eddie and Venom talking thing. And you. That's Venom, because that's basically Eddie and Venom talking. You went, Gordon's alive. It did sound very Brian blessed, I thought. It didn't occur to me. Anyway, so there's that. Then Recy fans is a washed up hippie taking his wife and kids in a camper van to Area 51, which is finally being decommissioned.

They pick up Eddie, he refuses to go back on the space horse, and they sing Space Oddity to him. The film has a lot of comedy musical sequences, another of which involves a disco update of Dancing Queen. Reece tells Tom Hardy, Eddie, that he believes in aliens, and Eddie doesn't tell him that he knows there are aliens. In fact, he's got an alien in it. Meanwhile, Chuyo Chalazhifor is Rex, who was a soldier, his tracking venom. Juno Temple, the great Juno Temple, who I love, is Dr. Payne. He was involved in experiments with those symbiotic life forms. There's a lot of people involved in this that I like very much. The accusation is always that if something has people in it that I like, that I like the film.

I confess I've never really understood the venom thing. Although, Carnage, which I saw, if you remember, I saw it in 4D because I had to see it on a Friday morning and the only screening that was on was the 4D. So I saw it in the shaky chair, splashy water, blowy, windy thing. And I don't know why it was fun. It was messy, but it's fun. Compared to this, Let There Be Carnage was positively Shakespearean in the sturdy construction of its narrative. This really is a bunch of unrelated set pieces, some of them funny, some of them quirky, some of them irksome, edited together apparently not on an Avid, but in a tumble dryer. I mean, it's like somebody just put

all the scenes into a washing machine and just put it on fast spin. I mean, Carnage made no sense, but it was a sort of, it made no sense, but it was a joyride. This is more like a 12-lane pile-up. It is an absolute car crash of a film. Now, that's not to say that bits of it aren't entertaining. I mean, Tom Hardy arguing with himself, with Venom, can be funny. But it's made on the principle that if you throw enough, to use Nancy Pelosi's word, if you throw enough poop at the wall, then some of it is going to stick. And there is a lot of poop here. And I mean a lot of poop. The gag when Ritchie Farnes sings Major Tom, you know, Space Oddity, is a one line joke that takes up an entire scene. The dancing alien in Vegas, that's something that would have been dropped from Mamma Mia as having been, yeah, okay, no, we're just indulging ourselves.

At times, it plays like a kind of infantile kids' film. I was imagining 12-year-olds being excited just by the sheer number of monsters, but of course, as with the previous instalments, it's a 15. So there are jokes about anal probes and public urination and a very deliberate melon farmer, which seems to have been put there either to ensure that it gets a higher rating or to say, hey, we've got a higher rating, we can say this. This is the BBFC's description,

which is actually the most coherent description of the film. A man bonded with an alien entity becomes the prey of secret organisations and monstrous creatures in this sci-fi fantasy sequel. Although the tone is often comic, action scenes are intense and occasionally bloody." Kelly Marcel has confirmed that this is the closure of the Eddie Venom arc, but the film does definitely set up a key character to be developed in future films. I stayed to the very end, and mean, the very end after four billion people had been credited for working on the VFX around the world. Yes, there is going to be more, probably in a different direction. I can't say that that fills me with any sense of delight at

all. So the Venomverse continues? The world in which venom exists continues and the particular symbiotic buggy life form will return as they used to say at the end of James Bond films. Alright, okay. Alright. So in take two for subscribers, a conversation about Tom Hardy's back catalogue apart from Jack and Ori. Here's an important word from Jim Roberts from Thorverton just outside Exeter. BSC from Plymouth Polytechnic. National Cycle Proficiency Pass, age nine at Exeter JLC. Now I don't know what it stands for, but it's got a proper off-road cycle

track, says Jim, and runner up in the 1975 Boys Table Tennis Competition at Countess Weir 100 Club. They, that's like his CV. Okay. Wasail and good cheer, dear doctors both. Long, long time listener. I have downloads from the noughties when you said we could keep the episodes forever, but first time emailer. Thank you for the

kind rundown of the various train services from London on Sunday the 8th of December in last week's show. A bit surprised the service through Exeter was not mentioned as I thought Mark would be on it heading to deepest Cornwall and a carriage would have been set aside for fans, merch, autographs, curmode worship and so on. However, the good lady banker, fount of all film knowledge, cineast, regular contributor to the show Her Indoors and I, have secured front row seats and hope against hope to win the cushion." Okay, which obviously is the ultimate prize. We'll be traveling up from Exeter, banking 180 miles towards the furthest distance traveled, but we'll then be checking out the London Christmas lights and staying overnight. As the hotel is 200 yards away, it hardly helps. Therefore, please

check with the great redactor, who is of course actually in charge, whether you have to do all the travel on the day to win, or will the cushion just end up in the envious arms of a gap year traveler from New Zealand who is lodging in London and just happens to be wandering past the Prince Edward Theatre that day and needs to shelter from the rain. We serious competitors need to know. Ding dong merrily to you and the lovely production team. A big warm Christmas hello to Jason. Please let it be the special guest on the 8th. Jason, you're certainly invited. And up with the cup of good cheer. Love the show, Steve, Jim Roberts. Which is a very lovely thing. The redactor has ruled though. I have these in capital letters. Have you seen the ruling?

No, go ahead. The redactor rules that to win the cushion, all travel must have been specifically for the live show. You cannot happen to be in London when the show is on. You cannot be working in London but from Australia and claim the prize. However, if you took up our suggestion to do a little bit of shopping in the morning and then watch the show in the afternoon, that will be considered a valid. The primary purpose of the visit was the

Christmas Spectacular at the Prince Edward Theatre on December the 8th. Terms and conditions apply. Travel documentation may have to be presented for verification. So, in HMRC terms, your journey to London must be wholly, solely, necessarily to see us, but you can have secondary fun on the side. Secondary fun on the side sounds a little bit racy. I'm not sure if... I just meant shopping. I think so.

I meant a little light shopping. You can check online if there are any tickets. I don't know, it might be sold out, but check online because there may well be one or two scattered hither and thither. That is the end of Take 1. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment Production. This week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh, Vicki, Zachy, Bethy, Jimmy, Simon E. Pooley, being the redactory. Mark, your film of the week is? Amelia Perez, absolutely. Don't forget, Take 2 has already landed and is available for your edification if indeed you're a Vanguard Easter.

We'll talk soon.