Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Is this the darkest ROBIN HOOD adaptation ever? + BILL PULLMAN

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show - a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. This week’s special guest is Hollywood stalwart Bill Pullman, who across the decades has starred in Independence Day, Spaceballs, David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Sleepless in Seattle and many more. This time we see him in Everybody Digs Bill Evans, where he plays the father of the titular jazz legend. He chats to Simon about father-son stories, jazz, and how working in black and white changes his acting. Mark will review Everybody Digs Bill Evans next week, and in the meantime we’ve got a packed show with four big screen releases up for the Good Doctors’ judgement. We’ve got Late Fame, a New York set indie about an aging former poet (Willem Dafoe), who is surprised to find his work reappraised by a group of young bohemians. Then there’s Leviticus, an Australian conversion therapy horror from the producers of The Babadook and Talk To Me, and Supernature, a love letter to nature documentary shot entirely on Super 8. And finally, following our interview with director Michael Sarnoski last week, the wait is over for Mark’s verdict on The Death of Robin Hood. All that plus an especially groan-inducing Laughter Lift, and all your top correspondence, including some great What’s On bulletins this week. You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. 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] EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Our Christmas Movie Spectacular is back! It’s in Bristol this year on Sunday 6th December. Don’t miss it! Here’s the link for tickets: https://www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo Film Suffolk: linktr.ee/ouatis Ikea Knightley https://iwittr.com/wiki/page/Ikea_Knightley Timecodes: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:09:06 Late Fame review 00:18:15 Box Office Top Ten 00:30:20 Bill Pullman interview 00:44:54 Supernature review 00:53:25 Laughter Lift 00:55:16 Leviticus review 01:02:36 The Death of Robin Hood review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some evil thing happened here. Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. It's not a coincidence. One after the other. In the same house. Is this bad luck or something more sinister? The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. A long simmering what took you so fucking long to get here.

From Sony Music Entertainment, this is What Happened to the Harrisons. I'm Amy Dempsey Raven. What Happened to the Harrisons is available now on The Binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to the Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, ad free. Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra episode every Thursday, including Bohn, 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, Schmestians. You can get all that extra stuff via Apple podcasts or 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. All right, all right. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. Who said that? That was, I've been here and I've been going to go, all right. Mungo Jerry. Mungo Jerry. Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm going to start this program, as I promised you, we would do yesterday. You did promise that. I did promise. We were together at an event and I said the two things we are going to discuss at the beginning of this program are, number one, 40 years of broadcasting fun, a celebration. of Simon Mayo in Belfast, which you're going to give us full details of. And the second one is Ovalteen Ice Cream. So let's begin. Well, firstly with context, we were at the book launch of Mirosayal's new book, Vigilante. There it is.

It's a great cover. It's a great title. And it was a very, very good event. It was terrific. So firstly, 40 years of broadcasting fun, Simon Mayo, a retrospective in Belfast. You brought this up before. I asked you for details. you were sorely lacking in specifics.

Yes, that's right. It turns out to be the Belfast International Arts Festival. Fabulous. And on a particular day, which I'm now just checking... Oh, for heaven's sake. You knew this was happening and you didn't prep it. I know, I know, I know. It's in October.

Anyway, yes, they wanted to do... They wanted to do a 40 years of broadcasting retrospective chat. So that's exactly what's going to happen. But it's like it's not free or anything. You actually have to pay money. And it's going to be you interviewed about your 40 years of broadcasting fund. Yes.

Starting with hospital radio? Well, I don't know. I suppose I'll start with hospital or it might start with my mother working for the BBC or I don't know. Who knows what it's going to do. But at this point, as I think I mentioned to you before, kind of wonder if anyone is going to be there at all

because, you know, is it that interesting? I don't know. When is it, Simon? It's in October. Okay, so here's what we're going to do, because next week, on September the 11th, at the Dears Head in Belfast, the Gang of Three,

will be bringing their rocking rendition of the Gang of Four's entertainment to town. And so I will instruct, when we get to the Encore, because if you remember, the Gang of Three play entertainment from beginning to end, and then for an encore,

due to a suggestion by you, we play a version of Cliff Richards. It's so funny how we don't talk anymore. And we do still do that at the encore. And at that moment, I will instruct everyone in the doubtless packed crowd to go to see Simon Mayo's 40 years of broadcasting fun in October. I found it. Here we go.

It's Saturday, October 24th at 6pm. So you can come and then go and see a movie afterwards. Yeah, it'd be great. Queen's Film Theatre. The QFT. The QFT, which is the best cinema in, well, in a very large expanse of space. I love the QFT. That's where I do Cine Magic.

Well, if you're, you know, so if you're anywhere near, that would be great to see you. Okay. Just as a reassurance. Fabulous. It's not going to be empty. But now on to the main subject. Just to mark your diary, in that case. Gang of Three next Friday, Simon Mayo in October.

And now moving on, Oval Teen Ice Cream. Who would have thought? Yes, absolutely. Never even heard of it. Didn't even know what Oval Tene tasted like. But at this book launch, they delivered small little cones of ice cream. And it said it was Oval Tene ice cream. And I took it to be polite, really.

And also, because the woman who was serving it said, it'll change your life. And I thought, that's quite a high bench mark, really. But she was right. It was astonishing. Literally, these things were about, you know, that yay high. So, like six inches high or something. And there's a tiny little cone with a single screen. of Ovalteen ice cream in it. And the minute it hits your tongue, your entire body goes into,

oh my word, this is the most delicious. Why have I never had? I have not had such an ecstatic experience with ice cream since I first discovered salted caramel. Well, what's interesting is I don't like salted caramel and I avoid it at all times and in all places. But we both liked this to the extent that I'm now going to sell my house and just invest the money in Oval Tate ice cream so I can eat it all the time. Okay, so later, when we finally get to talk about a movie, Mark is going to be reviewing these films. We've got a really mixed bag this week.

We have late fame, which is a kind of indie-spirited movie starring Willem Defoe. We have Leviticus, which is a new horror movie with its feet in the ground, but it's head in the supernatural. We have Super Nature, which is a brilliant new nature documentary, all shot on Super 8. We have The Death of Robin Hood. We had the director of that film on last week's show, Mark Zonoski. And our guest for this week's show is Bill Pullman, who stars in the jazz-tastic. Everybody Diggs Bill Evans, which is out next week.

But Bill Pullman has been in so many films that you've seen. But he's rarely the star. In fact, he's not really the star of this film. But he is in so much really good to get a chance to speak to Bill Pullman, which you'll hear fairly shortly. Take two, Ma'an? Again, and even more eclectic smorgasbord, we have the incommer, which is a strange, indie-spirited, weirdy sort of folk comedy.

And from America, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. What? I'll explain when we get to it. Is that two films? Yeah, exactly. Like teenage death and sex. I can't my asthma. Yes, it's two films.

Isn't a smorgasbord by definition eclectic? Yes, I would. probably, what is it when you say the same thing twice? Tortology? Tortology. Tortology. No, that's, no. Oh, I don't know.

This is such impressive, so impressive from two professors. You can get take two ad free by heading to our Patreon page. I had this smorgasbord. It was all the same stuff. Search Kerman and Mayo, Patreon, and you'll find us. Everything is very straightforward. Tortology is absolutely right. We were right first time.

So tortology is when you say, Like it's a singly unique thing. You should, no, it's, you know, yeah, right? I'm just going with that. Yes, absolutely. An email here from Richard from Spain. Mark and Simon, I've been away all summer, so apologies for the lateness of this email.

I'm only now catching up on your July episodes. You mentioned a listener who'd seen Leo Woodall watching his own film at the cinema and that you'd met actors who seemed unable to remember much about films they'd recently made. Yes. There is actually a scientific term for this. I'm not quite sure that scientific is the right word, but anyway, it's called the Zyganik effect.

That's the Zyginic effect. In the 1920s, psychologist Kurt Lewin noticed that waiters could remember complex orders perfectly until the bill was paid, after which the details vanished. His student, Blumer Zygernick, for it is he, investigated and found that we retain information better when a task is unfinished. often forgetting it once it's complete. That's why Cliffhanger TV episodes stick in our minds and why an unfinished email nags at you until you finally hit send. Up with Flying Kraufs.

Hmm. Peter from Germany and female pipe smokers. Before I go, I owe Mark an apology for some physical harm that I caused him a few years back. What was this? In 2003, I sent you an email about Pirates of the Caribbean and you read it out. Well, I read it out, I think.

The flippant nickname I gave Kira Knightley, comparing her to a Swedish furniture store, somehow stuck, and Mark used it for years, and Benedict Cumber Patch didn't really like it. So sorry, Mark, for the dead arm you got from Benedict. I think that one was mostly my fault. So is that, that's the origin of that, because I kept saying, we didn't make it up,

it came from an email. Wow. But you don't do it anymore because it's inappropriate, and she's a good actor. Exactly. So very good. Anyway, so I'm not sure that, so it is called the Zyginic effect. So it's something that people have studied. Whether that counts as a scientific term, I'm not at all sure. But Richard, thank you. So if you find it problematic to remember jobs that you have completed as opposed to jobs that are half done, then that is the Zygernic effect. Right. And that's why so many of the things that I'm working on are half completed, because I don't want to forget them. That's absolutely right. Okay. Correspondents are. Kodomo.com. What are we reviewing here? What goes first? Late fame. So this is the new film from

screenwriter Sammy Bouch, whose name has come up a few times in the past few weeks. She was the writer of Coyote v. Acme. Remember the film that the studio tried to bury as a tax write-off, who was Oscar-nombed for May December, both of those films, very well written, as is this. So, late fame. Inspired by a posthumously published novella by Arthur Schnitzler. Now, you will know the name Arthur Schnitzler, right? Yes? No. Okay. Viennese modernist, whose novel Traum Novel was the basis of Stanley Kubrick's last and worst film, and I'm sorry, I'm not having anything of the reappraisal of Eyes Wide Shut, and this is much better than Eyes Wide Shut. It is directed by Kent Jones, who was the director of that documentary Hitchcock Truffaut. Producer credits include

Christine Vashon, Martin Scorsese, so it's a very high-caliber role call. Willem Defoe, William Defoe, who many moons ago came on the show and was an absolutely terrific guest. Remember he came on to discuss Antichrist, and he was just brilliant. We had a very, very good to and fro with him. Anyway, so he is Ed Saxburg, who is a postal worker in Manhattan, leads, heads down, getting on with his job existence, he meets his local pals in the bar, plays Paul, fails to pick up the phone to his sister, who keeps ringing to tell him that their brother is generally unwell. One day he is accosted outside his apartment by this wealthy NYU grad hipster, Myers, played by Edmond Donovan, who says that he is the center of a poetry movement called the Enthusiasm Society, and they revere Ed Saxberger as a god. Because years and years ago, many decades ago, he published a volume of poetry called Way Past Go, which was pretty much ignored. And he then moved on and just became a postal worker. But this is now their Bible. This is going to be the late fame of

the title. So this group of hipster poets, they're anti-mobile phones, they're anti-lethargy, modern disengagement, they want to shake up the world with their exciting poetry and essays, and they adore Saxberger. They are all rich nincompoops, but flattery is a very powerful thing, and soon he finds himself coming to their meetings and agreeing to front a happening which they are going to launch for their manifesto. Here is a clip. You're Ed Saxberger, the Edsperger, right? The poet. That was a long time ago. You were brilliant.

You wrote a masterpiece. It's as if the poems were written yesterday. They're moving. They're scathing. They're timeless. We all think so. My whole group. Your group?

We're an artistic community of poets and artists, intellectuals. Unlike those posers over there, they're addicts. How do we? No, the phone. We reject technology as much as we can. It rocks them, right? Everybody's sitting that you better watch out. These pretentious.

Like a dandy. I've been feeling very inspired since we spoke. He has airs. Fancy. You know, rich kid. Stopped writing poetry? Years ago. I work at the post office.

A man of letters. I guess you could say that. I love that. He's a dandy. Rich kid, yeah. So, honestly, I could listen to Willem Defoe reading the phone book, but he's great in the lead. He's as this kind of legend who never was and suddenly is. But he has this very low-key performance, which is brilliantly counterpointed in the other main lead by

Greta Lee, who plays Gloria. I know you're a big fan of Greta Lee. We both think she's terrific. So she's Gloria, who is this mysterious vamp who believes that there is no greater calling in life than to be an enjeune, but who's got this kind of very high-camp exterior, which marks internal chaos.

And Ed is initially mesmerized by Gloria, particularly after seeing her do this cabaret act. She does this cabaret song, which is kind of like this Lele von Stubb's-style cabaret number that she performs to this bar of men, all of whom are just completely mesmerized by her presence. But like his life, her life is kind of an act. She's sort of hiding behind this exterior.

And the fact that these two performances balance themselves out so well, one very big, one very small, is really the heart of the film's kind of melancholy appeal. I mean, it's about missed opportunities, it's about the search for fame or infamy and about the illusion of finding it. A lot of it is about the number of it is about the number of, of authenticity because this kind of hipster poet, you know, rich kid, dandy artists,

every single word that they spout is just to me like cheese grater on the ear, but you know that you've heard. They are incredibly annoying. Incredibly annoying. Yes. But they are suddenly taking him seriously. And having been ignored all his life as a poet, all the guys that he spends time with don't even know that he's a poet.

In fact, there is one incredibly moving scene in it in which he gives one of them a volume of his poetry, the guy never knew he was a poet, and then takes it back, realizing that it was a mistake. And one of his friends, the real friends he has says, what, you think you're too good for us? And he says, yes, because suddenly the attention has got to him, and suddenly he sees this kind of this version of what his life could have been. And it's a kind of old-school, a very old-school 70s feel to it, very kind of documentary. The cinematography is White Garfield, and it feels very real. The locations feel very real. The actions feel very real.

It's whimsical and ruminative, and it's often very funny. I mean, particularly in the way in which those poses look, the way in which they dress the ridiculous hats indoors, Simon. There are hats indoors moments that literally made me so many. But as you know, just because a film has irritating characters in it, doesn't mean that the film is irritating because the film is laughing at them. I mean, look, I thought it was a bitter sweet treat. I really enjoyed watching it.

I knew nothing about it for, and except that, you know, Willemphoned and Greta Lee. I suspect that it will wander in and out of cinemas as largely unnoticed as the main character seems to wander in and out of bars. But I also suspect that for those people who get to see it, and it's a film with a lot of breathing space. I mean, it is ruminative. It is genuinely ruminative, but I thought it was really rather charming.

and I enjoyed it very much. I was wondering, because at one stage, William Defoe was going to come on the show, also Greta Lee was going to come on the show. Anyway, it didn't work out. Oh, for late fame? Yes. Okay.

What was interesting about it is that in general, late fame is usually considered better than getting fame early because you're an established person. You know who you are. You know where you're going. So it doesn't mess with your life. The suggestion of this film is late fame can also mess up your life because you start thinking things and believing you're going to be a star,

even if you're actually in your early 70s. Yes. And also the crucial thing is, although it's called late fame, he's not famous. He is famous to a group of seven annoying people. And it is, I mean, everyone, everyone I think will understand that thing about you did something years and years and years ago and everyone ignored it. And then suddenly this group, no matter how annoying they are, suddenly tell you that it was brilliant. You know what it's like. If somebody comes up to you in the street and says,

what's your most overlooked book? Of all the books you've written, which is the one that you're most proud of that gets the least attention? TikTok, oh, it's fine. If somebody came up to you and said, I love TikTok, it would be a bigger compliment

than if they complimented your best-selling book, you know? And I think the film taps into that in a really charming way. I wonder if anyone who listens to this, who is a poet, finds that the representation of poets in general in films is incredibly annoying because the poets that I know, and I do know two or three,

are just ordinary, decent people who you would very happily spend time with, but poets in movies are always fantastically bearded hippies who you run a million miles from. Well, the point is he was a poet and he's a nice. I mean, look, in real life, I'm good friends with Simon Armitage, who is the nicest person you could imagine.

I mean, honestly, and a classic example of one of those things, you could sit next to Simon Armitage on a park bench, and it would take you a very long time before he told you he was the poet laureate. Yes, okay. So let us know, if you are indeed a poet and listen to this show, what do you make of the way poets are represented in general in movies? Correspondence at carbonammer.com. Do we take an ad break? Because still to come after this ad break, which I'm looking forward to very, very much. We're going to do the box office top 10, Supernature, Leviticus, Logan Hood, that one. And my interview with Bill Pullman all on the way.

Some evil thing happened here. Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. It's not a coincidence. One after the other. In the same house. Is this bad luck or something more sinister? The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. A long simmering what took you so fucking long to get here.

From Sony Music Entertainment, this is What Happened to the Harrisons. I'm Amy Dempsey Raven. What Happened to the Harrisons is available now on The Binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, ad free. Here we go with the box office top 10, beginning at 21. De Gaulle resistance, De Gaulle resistance, which you were talking about reviewing last week. It has some very good reviews in general.

Dear Winston A. Charle, says Paul. The good lady English teacher, her indoors, was finishing up some marking last night ahead of the new term. So I thought I'd pop along to the light in Stockport to see de Gaul. I very much enjoyed the buddy comedy between Simon Russell Beale and Simon Abkerian, and Shobis North London will now always be linked in my mind with the phrase, I adore Amsterdam. But I found myself unengaged by the film itself, which I thought was a bit lacking in subtlety and with a curiously disengaged subplot.

Also, I'm not one for complete historical accuracy, but hadn't the Russians been in the war for about six months at the point when Churchill exclaims, we are not alone anymore after hearing about Pearl Harbor. When will we get the buddy comedy between Churchill and DeGal that we all deserve? Says Paul, tinkety-tonken up with Anglo-French cooperation. I don't know about the chronology of that. Someone will certainly look it up.

Paul, thank you. The buddy comedy thing is interesting, though, because the film definitely leans into that. As I said in silhouette, the Churchill and DeGault in this quite often resemble Laurel and Hardy. you know, one sort of retund, the other thin as a pencil. And there is the thing in which the guy says, that de Gaulle guy looks like he's got a banana-shaped head. So there is a lot of that. And there are moments in which he looks like Jacques Tati in Mon'Encle.

But I really enjoyed resistance much more than I thought I was going to. And I'm actually very much looking forward to the second part, which comes out in September. Okay, which is now. Oh, he's now. September is now. We're in September. I'm so sorry.

It's coming out soon in that case. Very, very, very soon. So I only listened to your opinion, but also the FT gave it a fantastic review. Oh, did they? Okay. Yeah, definitely want to see DeGault Resistance. Into the 10, then at 10, Toy Story 5. I mean, still hanging on in there. We've had a lot of emails from people who liked it a lot more than I do,

and I do understand that. My guess is because the school holidays are done, that it will be done as far as the 10 is concerned. Yeah, but we had a good run. Very good run. Number nine is one night only. which I mean I'm actually slightly surprised it's even gone into the chart now admittedly Callum Turner is a big draw I just checked incidentally on odds checker yesterday he's now dropped

to second place in the next bond stakes I know this is all it's all non-sacus because it's all you know it's all just just betting on stuff but one night only it's not it's not his fault but it's it's it's not funny um which is a shame because it's it's It's directed by Will Glock, who, as we remember, because Will Glock came on the program, Will Glock as the guy who directed the Peter Rabbit movies, which isn't disliked very much. But turns out to be a very, very good guy, but not a very good movie. Number 80 is Port Patrol, the Dino Movie. Again, two dinosaur movies in the charts at the moment.

This is the one that isn't the end of Oak Street. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone 25th Anniversary Edition is at number seven. Yeah, so this is them doing the Potter reissues. and it's, I mean, it's so strange to remember that you and I were doing this show at Five Live when the first Potter movie came out. And do you remember what the question you asked me was? Because I'd seen it and you hadn't at that point. And you said, I've got one question for you.

Can you remember what the question was? I cannot remember what the question was. You said, what does the quidditch look like? Oh, okay. Back then, because before we'd ever got used to the idea of seeing, you know, people flying, around on broomsticks with a, with a ball with wings on it. That was your, that was your leading questions. I've got one question for you.

What was the quidditch like? Well, because it was such a great invention. Yeah. And I had it in my mind what it would look like. So I did, but you know, kind of a filmmaker would look at that and think, okay, that's going to be quite a challenge. Yeah, yeah. So it was the, and I remember that I was looking forward to, was it,

where did it stand? Lord of the Rings. You were... I'm not sure there was a kind of Lord of the Rings Harry Potter thing going on for a while. I loved Lord of the Rings. I loved Lord of the Rings. And I was very, very agnostic on the subject of Harry Potter until we got to Alfonso Quorum

taking over. Yeah, absolutely. Number six is the end of Oak Street. This is the dinosaur movie that isn't the Paul Patrol movie. Dinosaurs in suburbia makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Makes less sense than Ewan McGregor's accent, but I enjoyed it. I mean, I think it's nonsense.

I saw somebody, somebody said, oh, Mark Khammer, absolutely hated end of Oak Street. No, I didn't. No, I absolutely didn't. I enjoyed it very much. But as I said, I went to see it with Sanjeev, and we came out of the screening, and Sanjeev said, I have one question.

Why does this film exist? Number five in the US, and five here as well. It's The Dog Stars. Here's James in Rains Park. Dear Statler and Waldorf, thank God I saw the dog stars before I listened to Mark's review. Mark is missing the whole point. I think you can't watch that film without being reminded of the loss Ridley Scott suffered late in life.

Tony Scott and his absence are in every frame and in two sequences in the plane in particular, centering on a decision Elodie's character keeps mulling over. What else to say? Visually beautiful, wonderful central performances. I wish it had been a TV series because the running time flew by and I could have watched another few episodes. Yes, it's derivative in parts, but Scott is using conventions we're familiar with to say something personal about loss and risk.

resilience and being grateful for what we have while we have it. That's James. And Emma says, I was amused by Mark's criticism as the characters keep talking about their feelings. Given their isolation, that always seemed to be, seemed the point to me, rather than mere exposition. I did agree that the Alice and Janney section felt as though it belonged in a different film. Overall, I think the filmmakers traded something beautiful and distinctive for something more conventional. So that's dog stars, which is at number five. Okay. Well, those are both much more positive responses than I had. I was having a conversation yesterday with one of the people who was at Mirrah's book launch about what my main issues with the film was. And I said, the thing about it is it's a very incidental mid-range Ridley-Scott movie, but quite often Ridley-Scott, an incidental mid-range is a lot better than what else is out there. And I think that that thing about, you know, you've overlooked the personal tragedy. I should say that I did have a conversation with Ridley Scott about alien and about what some people had interpreted

alien as being in terms of personal biography. And Ridley expressed to me quite strongly that he really didn't like people doing that at all. I'm not saying that his personal stuff doesn't lead into the films, but he was, no, this is a science fiction film about an alien coming out of something. That is what it is about. And I don't like people trying to tie that to something else. I know that Ridley himself quite often shies away from that stuff. Incidentally, just because a filmmaker shies away from something doesn't mean it's not in there. And I'm very glad that you found that in it. I just think that this is a field that has been too thoroughly plowed to be interesting again. And as I was saying yesterday, I had this conversation.

My main problem was I just read Cormant McCarthy's The Road. I know that's been out since 2006, but I read it because my son gave it to me as a father's day present. And I have to say that in the wake of reading the road, any post-apocalyptic vision seems diminished. And more cheery. Number four is Coyote versus Acme. Which I enjoyed very, very much. And I'm thrilled to see that it's in the charts. And as I said, the screenwriter of that is the screenwriter of late fame, which we were

just talking about. And bear in mind, this is the film that the studio tried to bury. They wanted it to be written off as a tax law. rather than have it out in cinemas. And what utter foolishness? The UK top three is the same as the American top three. Number three. Insidious, colon, out of the further.

Still haven't seen it. Why not? Press screened. And there was a bank holiday on Monday. Make some time. Has anyone sent an email? No, they haven't. No one cares.

It's a kind of operatic chance. Number two is The Odyssey. Why are we still going up? I don't know. Number two is the Odyssey. Okay, right. Overflow Car Park or what? Yeah, there's more an overflow car park.

Also, Spider-Man Brand New Day is the UK's number one film. Okay. And is it still very, very number one? How many bazillions has it taken? Many bazillions, I imagine. It's only just number one from Odyssey, just taking about 300,000 more. I was yesterday again at Miros Seyall's book launch.

You think we've mentioned this enough. Mark Miller was there. Mark Miller, a brilliant author. And we was talking to him about just how remarkable the success of that and how excited people have been about going to see that film, which is, you know, it is astonishing just how well it's done. Spider-Man's total take is 92-mill and Odyssey is 79. So that's where they stand at the moment. It's pretty incredible. more of your takes, as Mark mentioned in the Overflow Carpark in Take 2.

Search for us on Patreon to get that and this with the other all ad-free. Special guest time after this. So special guest time, we get, I think, a first opportunity to talk to Bill Pullman. Fantastic. Who's been in so many movies across the decades. Spaceballs, 1987. Funny that that's not the one that leaps. immediately to mine, but well done.

I thought you were going to leave with Independence Day, but no, you led with Space Balls. Well, I mentioned it because it's going to come up again because he's in a new Space Balls movie, which we'll talk about in the interview. Sleepless in Seattle, playing Meg Ryan's fiancé, which I've forgotten. Malice, the last seduction while you were sleeping. Independence Day, of course, President Thomas J. Whitmore, he also played the prayers in the follow-up to Independence Day. He also played the prayers in 1600 Penn on TV.

So strictly, that's the third term, the illegal third term. So I can't talk about that. And Spaceball's, the new one is going to be around next year, I think. Anyway, he is about to start. Well, he's filmed. Everybody digs Bill Evans. He plays Bill Evans' father, and you'll hear my conversation with Bill Pullman after this clip from the film.

Then this, I'd ask Bill to write a few words about Scott. in their association, but not surprisingly, he simply could not. So let me characterize the album, Dustus. L.P. serves as a permanent reminder of not only how much, but also why. Scott LaFarro will be deeply missed by Bill Evans. And indeed by everyone who ever heard him play. Isn't that nice? That's something. And that is a clip from Everybody Diggs Bill Evans.

one of its stars is the great Bill Pullman. Hello, Bill. How are you, sir? Very good. Very good, Tom. Very, very nice to see you. Very nice to see you. Introduces to everybody digs, Bill Evans.

Some people, the jazz fans will know who Bill Evans was. A lot of people will not. Just introduce us to the movie and where you fit into the story. Bill Evans was somebody that I was not really aware of before I began to get, think about, get involved with the project, but have since appreciated his uniqueness. and as a musician friend of mine said, we all thought that the sky was from another planet, and clearly he had his own signature with Miles Davis

and doing kind of blue, which was this hugely important jazz album, and he was played with Miles. But then this particular story is about an aspect of his life that's in around June, 1961, when he had set up with a trio, with Paul Modian on drums and then particularly Scott LaFarro on bass and they had a two week.

I think I'm getting this right, but I'm just saying what I remember, but I could be way off, but two weeks in June, and after the first week, people said, this is really a special combo that something's happening here. We better try to get some live recordings

and they did two albums out of there, but on Sunday at the Vanguard was one and waltzing for Debbie. as the other one, but that Sunday at the Vanguard was, you know, for, I've always been told jazz people and just audio people say that was one of the best live recording, largely because of this relationship between Bill and Scott, you know, 23-year-old and he was, and Bill was older then, and Bill was on junk, and Scott shied off at it, and somehow his, the way they interacted together with that, Bill's kind of a passive guy about, you know,

doesn't like confrontation, but Scott, what does? And I think, you know, he had to kind of, Bill had to play in a way that showed Scott that he was fine, you know, that he could do everything. And, but 10 days later, two weeks, Scott LaFaro had a car accident and killed and died. And that threw Bill into a deep dive. and, you know, nobody wanted to be in his company.

And at a certain point, his last refuge was to go to Florida, where his parents had retired to, and the least likely people that you'd want to, you know, go cold turkey with, and who never would ever acknowledge that anything was wrong. And it's this strange interlude that they have, it's in the center of the movie that's... So you play... Harry Evans, Sr., he plays father.

We should say that Bill Evans is played by Anders Danielson Lee, who's actually a GP in Oslo, which I've found amazing. When he's not acting, he's a GP in Oslo, which is astonishing. Anyway, when you're not acting, you're on Montana ranches and stuff, so you're other things to do. So you play his father, and as you say, the contrast between your lifestyle and his is very strong. Tell us about the relationship between his father,

played by you and Bill played by Anders, because it's a very interesting relationship, and I'm wondering how much of the kind of guy Bill was, came from his father. Oh, yeah, gosh, that's a, you know, they both like golf, so, and Harry Jr. like golf, and they would golf together, but I don't know how much they really had,

but in common, but, you know, by the time, 1961's, you know, Harry Sr. was very aware that the world had acknowledged his son as a genius. And Harry, his own ego, about what has happened with him in his life and the fact that he could afford to go into retirement and have enough money to come to live in Miami, though you, you know, it kind of leaks out that he's just barely making it. And so who is he? to himself when he's up again when he's in the presence of bill you know and in the world being behaving that is so i think you know he's one of those guys that like sometimes i have friends that don't you know are uncomfortable that i've gotten some notoriety you know my hometown and things and

they'll often say i don't care who you are you know because here we're all the same but it is kind of an you know there's a little chip on a shoulder a little bit But he does have this incredible opening out to Bill that happens in the course of the movie. He drinks a lot. He does that. He does like his time in the bar, and he does like singing barbershop quartet stuff, you know, for part harmony stuff. And that makes him, you know, that's a bad combination, drinking and singing.

It goes fine. Up to a point. And then not so much. I love the scenes where you're listening to him play the piano and then the latest record comes out. It's a fantastic, even though everything is all messed up, it's a fantastically tender moment. Whatever else has happened and whatever water has gone under the bridge,

I thought that was very powerful. I'm so glad you pointed that out. I find it phenomenal that Grant Yee could make that all. Is it the director? Yeah, the director, yeah, because I think of, you know, know, what are we going to do? It's kind of like watching paint dry. You're listening to people listening to music that you're told as very astounding music. And it sounds, and the guy, and you're just putting the needle down on the vinyl and then watching everybody's reaction. Like, it sounds like a

recipe like for people watching paint dry or something, but it ends up being a really signature moment in the movie. Yeah. Maybe it's Grant G's document, because he's a documentary maker, and I think he did videos for Radiohead, so he knows about how to film music. And I should say the opening five minutes is a whole piece played all the way through, and it's absolutely captivating. Yeah, there must be his background covering Joy Division,

Radiohead, all those musicians, you know, where the people's appreciation of music, has to be part of that story, you know, what their music does to people and Bill's music to his parents, what does it do to these people that are least likely to appreciate it in some ways? It's 1961 and the movie is in black and white. Quite a bit. Yes.

Yeah, that's right. There are some flash forwards which aren't. I apologize if this is a dumb question. But knowing that it's in black and white, does that change the way you? perform or act or dress you know there i didn't think it would but then i saw the monitor and they turned the monitors to black and white and you know there was something really uh like a timefold where i immediately saw clothing that i was wearing in a whole kind of flash backwards to you know when i was growing up in 1961 and seeing a lot of black

and white pictures and things still. But yeah, there's a lot in this movie. It would think this is the reason why these movies will never be seen because it has addiction, it has black and white, it has all this, it has people listening to music. And you think, this is a recipe for disaster, but somehow this movie seems to come together and create its own kind of effect on people that watch. it stays with you. The tone of the movie stays with you long after.

It's finished. And it comes from a book called Intermission by Owen Martell. And that word intermission is an interesting one. I think it's picked up in the film where I think the line is sometimes an intermission is part of the music. Yeah. I thought that's very interesting because that's why I think this film works because it's sort of like an intermission in his life that he actually can't, for most of the film,

he can't play because he's in. grief. And I just love the idea of an intermission. But that actually is part of the music. Yeah. Yeah. That is something that his mom tells him, you know, Lori Medcaf's character. That's where the line came from. Now, I think it's terrific. And I didn't have any Bill Evans' music in my catalogue, but I downloaded those two albums that you mentioned beforehand, just to try and understand and be a part of this story. Because when he's at the piano, everything is fine. It's like a... soon as he steps away from the piano, his life is chaos. Yes, isn't that? That's another revelation

that he himself has. I have a good musician friend who had seen him at town hall, and I said, wow, town hall at the time was, it's a big venue for a jazz musician. Why did everybody want to go? He said, all the musicians had to come and watch it, you know, all the big name people. And I said, what was it? And he just moved his index finger up and down. He said, the touch, that the way he, Bill Evans touched the keys was like something they had never seen before. And to be able to decipher that in a big venue and to feel, he probably couldn't see his fingers on the keys, but they could just feel that touch was so specific and so indomitable. You know, and then my friend said he went backstage afterwards to meet him and shook his hand,

and realized that his hand was swollen. And to imagine having, and it could have been from the drugs or it could have been kidney failure. And my brother was a doctor. I was asking him about it. But to still have the touch with that affliction couldn't be killed. So from your point of view, this is a father-son movie. And I think, if I'm right, coming next is a real father-son movie.

because you're in a movie with your son. Right. Would that be right? Space balls. Space balls. The new one. The new one. Okay.

Yeah. So what do we, what was that like working with your son? Are you in scenes together? Yeah, we have some scenes together. Yeah. It's, but he has quite a bit by himself or without me there. There's other people. But, yeah, and, you know, we were in Australia for four months and, you know, we lived 10 minutes

apart from each other and did a lot of food together. And it was very trippy. And last year, he was 32 when he made the movie. And I was made my first movie, space balls, first full-length movie where I was 32. So there was some synchronicity there that was kind of trippy. Do we see you on the stage in the UK? Because you did the Cherry Orchard in Stratford. Are you keen to come back or is that it?

No, I've done all my sons at the old Vic, and I did a West End play called Madhouse. So I had been doing Broadway plays every once in a while, but in the last 10 years, I've only done those plays in England. So there's something about... Excellent. We'll keep coming back. Oh, thank you. Bill Pullman, a pleasure to meet you. Thank you very much for talking to us.

Ah, thank you. Thank you. Bill Pullman talking about everybody digs Bill Evans, which is the name of one of his albums, as I think we mentioned. Mark hasn't seen it. You'll be reviewing it on next week's show. Yeah, I'm seeing on Monday,

and I'm really looking forward to it now as a result of hearing that interview, which I thought was terrific. Incidentally, I thought Bill Pullman had a bit of Tom Waits about his voice there. And I am just amazed that he's cool enough to get away with using the phrase, synchronicity was kind of trippy.

I don't think I used the word trippy in anything, But maybe if you're in your 70s, it's kind of something that was fine. Also, just worth underlining, it sort of went in passing, I think, at the beginning of the interview. Anderson-Nielsen Lee, who's the actor who plays Bill Evans, puts in a very good performance, is actually mainly a physician. He's a GP in Oslo, which is genuinely amazing. And in an interview that he was doing promoting the film, he was asked about future projects, and he didn't really seem to have any, which suggests that maybe he's still going to be,

mainly a GP in Oslo. Imagine how weird that would be, right? If you go to the cinema and see, I haven't seen the film yet, as I said, I'm going to see it on Monday, and you watch this film about a jazz musician struggling with addiction, and then you've got a bit of a cough,

you go to the GP, and you go, sorry, weren't you behind the piano the last time I saw you? I mean, it's got to be weird. And, of course, famously, Hank Wangford was a gynecologist. Yeah, but it was Bob,

Bob Chisholm or something, wasn't he? I don't know. Samuel Holt. Samuel Holt, apparently. There's also a very, in the film, there is a slight on the Welsh. Because, yeah, Bill Evans, so Harry Evans, Sr., which is who Bill Pumont plays, is from Welsh descent. And he says to his son, the Irish, you have to be careful, this is my paraphrif, the Irish are taking over. Kennedy and his clan are taken over the country, but there's no Welsh.

It's because we're lazy. So there you go. Okay. Well, look forward to seeing how that plays. Yeah. It's not me saying it. That's right. Bill Pullman.

So now, am I correct in saying that the next film is Supernature? You are? What are we're going to talk about? Yes. See, when I saw Supernature, there are two things that, the first thing that plays in my head is by Soroni, yes, which was apparently written by Lena Love. but uncredited at the time. Really?

Yes. So Supernature was kind of like a disco synth track. Doodle it. Doodle it. Doodle it. So is that in it? No. And the thing that came before, which is I think what inspired the record, was a book of nonsense by Lyle Watson called Supernature in which he was basically,

it was all about science and the supernatural, obviously. And if you put, and why if you put, if you make a pyramid, out of paper and you put a razor blade in the middle of the pyramid it sharpens itself. Plot spoiler, it doesn't, but it's all that, it's all that kind of.

Remember that. No, so this is called Super Nature for a very specific reason. Right. Which is a film about nature which is all shot on Super 8. Okay, that makes more sense. Exactly.

So it is a huge collection of footage shot by people around the world. It is essentially a different... I was funny because I was interviewing the director who came in MK3D. And it's not a nature documentary, although that would be a kind of shorthand for what it is. So what happened is? Some years ago, I've spoken about this before. There was a thing called the straight eight film competition, which Ed Sayers, the director, set up.

And this is that the short filmmakers would make a film edited in camera on a reel of Super 8. And then they would then send it in. And then if the film got chosen, because it'd then be produced. And if it got chosen, they would see it for the first time at. the festival. And it's a brilliant competition and people discovered that somehow working with Super 8 kind of unlocked something creative in short filmmakers. And Ed Say's became really, really interested in the way that Super 8 works. In the same way I think that, you know, Mark Jenkins became absolutely fascinated by 16 mil and the clockwork cameras. So for this project,

what he was trying to do was to capture the diversity and wonder and also endangerment of nature in a new way. So what he did was he sent out a series of Super 8 cameras, old school Super 8 cameras, do a range of contributors, like 25 different countries. Some of them knew about Super 8, some of them were experiencing it for the first time, and said, look, film stuff around you, but also film yourself filming the stuff. So we've got two different things going on. So you have, some of the people are renowned photographers and people who've, you know, done a lot of nature photography before.

Others are people who are completely new to this. and what they want is the nature, but also the process of capturing it. There are also then these kind of audio voice notes, which are in a range of different languages, and they're all then brought together as a kind of collage by Ed Sayers, who also provides a kind of linking, it's not quite narration, but everything is brought together.

So you have this extraordinary array of footage. I mean, it's everything from, vast deserts to coral reefs and tiny bugs and huge mammals, land, sea, sky, everywhere around the world the thing that unifies them all is they are all shot on Super 8. Here is a clip. It's like it reset something in your brain. You feel part of things again. It's not about the filming. It's about changing your state. It was like these old cameras were compelling us to record. It feels like listening to your deepest thoughts.

As creatures great and small, we're supposed to be helping each other. So essentially, then took all that footage, put it together in this collage, which questions our own relationship with nature, our own relationship with ourselves, what it means to be a human on this planet, what it means for this planet to be in crisis. And as I said, I interviewed the director, for MK3D. And he was talking about the fact there's something about

the tactility of Super 8 that enabled both the filmmakers and the audience not just to see the world on the film, but to feel it. There was something tactile about what Super 8 did.

And we talked a lot about, you know, we've all got very used to the idea that you can have an incredibly high-deaf nature documentary nowadays.

It'll be an IMAX cinema, pin sharp resolution, extraordinary cinematography of names nature as you've never seen it before. This is going completely the other way because Super 8 footage is, we all know what Super 8 looks like.

Usually Super 8 is accompanied by the word grainy, you know, grainy super 8. But it's to do with using that lo-fi thing to go beyond showing something to making it more abstract and experiential. And I would say that Supernature, as I said,

it's not a nature documentary as such. It is a kind of audiovisual tone poem. And it's all held together by the voices and there's an original score by Isaac Andrew Hamilton Ayers and there's some sound effects in there. But they're all fairly gentle and kind of abstract. There's none of that. You know, we were talking about one of the big nature docs recently and I said the thing that bothered me was there was this harumphant score that was literally telling you to be impressed every second. You don't get a

that here, what you get is this kind of bittersweet, rather melancholy, also very beautiful film about the world around us and about how fragile it is, but also how weirdly resilient it is and about our relationship with it. And tied into that is also stuff about personal loss, personal family loss, your relationship to your family and to your relatives and to the wider tribe of people and the world around you. The problem is I know that when I start talking about this, I sound like I'm doing a kind of pastiche of some sort of great big, you know, pantheistic oogabuga stuff, which I tend to be kind of quite cynical about. But honestly, I watch supernature in a real trance. I loved it. There is something.

about the medium. And what I love is it's a film that understands the medium. It is a cooperative thing and all these different people all making these films and then sending them back. But there is something that binds them together in the tactile medium of super eight. And at a time when we have become quite used to, and I think oddly quite inured to, majestic nature documentaries, it was really good to see something that for me was a profoundly cinematic experience because I felt that I was, as Ed Sayers said, you ought to. I wasn't looking at this world. I was feeling it. I thought for a moment you were going to use the word trippy again. I'm sorry, but it wasn't quite trippy. I don't think I could get away with it.

I don't think I could not least because, as you probably know, my attitude to any, I mean, trippy relates to, you know, sort of hallucinogenic experiences or whatever. And my attitude to all that is run for the hills. Yes. A very wide. suggestion, I think. Apologies for slowness when it comes to my bafflement. The email from Richard from Spain at the beginning of the show

when he signed off up with flying crofts. Oh yes. It was a typo. And a quick check of the Urban Dictionary, Crof lies, a mistaken spelling of crow flies by film review critic Mark Kermode. Mark used to think

Krof flies crow flies was spelt crow flies. So this is one of your... Where are you reading that from? The Urban Dictionary, which was sent to me by the redactor. Wow, okay, fantastic. Yeah, no, that is absolutely true. I did think for a long time there was such a thing as crof,

and I only found out that there wasn't when I asked a teacher how you spell crof. And he said, what are you talking about? I said, you know, as the crow flies, and then the whole class laughed at me. All of which teases us up nicely for some more laughter as we... A communal laughter, as we head into the laughter lift.

Oh dear. That's the most laughter you're going to hear. It is. Mark, what do you call a heavy horse who can not only deliver your bottles of beer, but also make timeless g-funk hip-hop beats? I don't know. Dr. Dre. Oh, yes, okay.

Yes. Very good. Very good. Mark, I recently made a joke about discovering the good lady's ceramic sister who indoors is on dating apps. I'd like to make it very clear that she's never subscribed to any of these apps

and also that I would never be unfaithful to her either. I love my house very much. My house favorite. Okay, that was less successful than Dr. Dry. That's a bit like what do you call a drama who's lost his girlfriend, homeless, right?

What do you call a hippie's wife? Hipper? Mississippi. Still to come, Mark Reviews, Leviticus and the death of Robin Hood. Well, that was fun. Okay, so now on with... You sounded so unconvinced when you said that. No, no, no.

Well, that was fun. No, I enjoyed the ads. If indeed I got some ads, but if I'm a subscriber, I didn't get any. And it was just like a beats pause. Right, okay, fine. But otherwise, it was very good. Anyway, what else is out? What else is new and interesting?

Leviticus. which is a new horror movie. It is, I mean, I suppose fully describes it a queer antipodean coming-of-age horror thriller from writer-director Adrian Kirella, which is billed on the advert as from the producers of Talk to Me and the Babadook, okay, which is set in the bar fairly high. So this premiered at the Midnight Strand in Sundance of January. Exec producers include Mia Vaskovska, who appears in a key maternal role. You've got two school kids,

Naman Ryland, who are living in a town in Victoria. They are more than just friends. They are secretly in love with each other. But when one of them sees the other kissing the pastor's son, he outs him with terrible consequences. And the family and the community call in a deliverance healer. Deliverance healer is played by Nicholas Hope, who is something of a legend among cult film fans

because it was the lead of bad boy Bubby from many years ago. So the healer performs a ritual which sends both boys into a sort of paroxysm of exorcism like convulsions after which the rails come off because it seems that what the ritual has done is cause the participants to somehow split, to become bifurcated and to be haunted and then hunted by visions of the thing they desire the most, namely each other. Here is a clip from the trailer. Indecency.

Lust. Desire. It has to go now. Look at the light. You're okay? You see anything that looks like me? I'd go near it. So, as is always the case with horror,

we talked about this a lot when people talked about the emergence of elevated horror. You know, it's about something. Horror is always about something. And the out-of-world, the out-of-this-world supernatural elements equate to something which is horribly down to earth. In this case, the very real and very dangerous problems of homophobia and the process of the real-world gay conversion therapy, which is a subject which has previously been addressed by movies like there was that brilliant Desire Acovan film, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which is absolutely about that.

So gay conversion therapy, which has always be used in inverted commas, is cruel, dangerous and as potentially deadly as any of the supernatural curses in this film of Leviticus. Incidentally, Leviticus obviously refers to the title of the biblical book, which is often cited by conservative religious people as being one of the places where you can find evidence that homosexuality is prohibited. So in filmic terms, this kind of came on like a cross between it follows the Dave Robert Mitchell film. And Lucas Don't's close. I mean, both of those are films that I really, really like.

The former is a weird sort of supernatural tale of teenage sex and death, which inverts the standard tale of the hook. And the latter is a drama about two young boys who are more than close at school. And as a result of that, they experience the people around them, reacting to them in a way which causes one of the, them irreparable harm. And it's about the way in which people's responses to you can be really, really dangerous. I think this has the genuine tenderness of the latter with the creepy thrills of the former. It also had, I mean, it's interesting, they say, you know, from the producers

have talked to me. I think it had something of the gritty team milieu of talk to me. Because in that, that's a film in which there's this kind of supernatural party game of holding onto this mummified hand, which connects you to the spirit world, which is actually a way of talking about addiction. It's a way of talking about becoming addicted to substances or to alcohol and the way in which teenagers are using this as a way of getting out of their heads. I thought this was a very smart film. It's part of that. There's a great wave of kind of new queer indie horror at the moment includes teenage sex and death at Camp Measma, both of those movies, both of which I know you love. I mean, it is interesting that having spent decades sort of covertly subverting the idea of gender and sexual.

and all that stuff. So indie horror is now doing it much more overtly. And, you know, it's almost as if indie horror is kind of bursting proudly out of the closet. But it's talking about things that it's always talking about, has always been talking about before. But it's just in a way it was always done before kind of much more kind of undercover of night. The director has talked about wanting to make, in inverted comes, queer social horror with strong Asian influences. And actually one of the titles that they cite is a tale of two sisters, which is a film that I really, really But I thought this was terrific. I thought it was yet another example of the way in which horror can talk about things that are very, very down to worth and often mundane and depressing, but talk about them in a way which is quite electrifying.

And I understand that it will, you know, it will resonate differently with different people. But it's, I think we're in a, we're in a fantastic age of horror at the moment. And I thought this absolutely tapped into that. It's about something. There are things in it that are chilling, things that have got great ideas. And I thought it did them really, really well. This is a good week this week. It's only a matter of time before someone posts an online comment

just saying how much you hate all modern horror and it's not as good as the old days, even though there's absolutely no evidence. No evidence for that at all. Okay, that's Leviticus. When you've seen it, please let us know. Correspondents at codemot.com. Let us find out some things that are on,

either the cinema or cinema adjacent. First one is the Chipponam Film Club, look. Hi, I'm Terry, one of the directors, of Chippenham Film Club. We are building on the success of our 2004 festival with an expanded program and we'll be screening between Tuesday the 8th and Sunday the 13th of September. We've a brilliant selection of films and events. We kick off on Tuesday with the Oscar-winning Brazilian political drama I'm still here. The curtain comes down on Sunday with a

romantic French comedy Amelie which is 25 years old this year. Tickets and festival passes are available through our website. Go.uk. Hello, Simon and Mark. This is Matthew from Film Suffolk. Our new anthology feature film, Once Upon a Time in Suffolk, is showing at the cut in Halesworth

on Saturday, the 12th September, 7pm start. There's a Q&A afterwards and more screenings to come in the east of England region. It's made entirely by volunteers and it's really good. So come along and check it out and thank you for the shout-out.

Very good. That was Matthew from Film Suffolk. Before that, Terry, from the Chipponham Film Club. So last week we were talking about the death of Robin Hood. It's out this week so Mark can talk about it. Okay, yes. So Michael Sonofsky interview from last week. If you've missed it, do go back and listen to it.

Because I thought he was terrific, wasn't he? I thought he was really, he gave complete answers in full sentences. He'd really thought about the movie, and I thought that was great. So he was the writer-director of the cult hit pig and the sci-fi horror prequel, Quiet Place Day 1. So this, Death of Robin Hood, is inspired by the 17th century basketball. Robin Hood, His Death, which itself apparently was based on the last six stanzas of, is it a guest of Robin Hood?

And the tagline for the film is he was no hero. And on the basis of this, boy, he wasn't. So set in 13th century England, shot as it happens in Ireland. And he said that at the beginning, most of the places they were going to show had been sort of washed away in storms. There is a lot of stormy murks. So huge action is Robin Hood, not a hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor, but a cutthroat bandit whose past is absolutely dripping in blood.

He has lived long enough to know about the legends that have grown up around him, one of which incident is repeated to him quite early on by a young woman whose family he has slain and who promptly becomes the latest inhabitant of his growing graveyard of victims. And this opening section, which is very violent, is absolutely steeped in blood and murk and mud and squalor. And at times it reminded me of that film, the Northman, you know, the Viking thing,

the scene which they have the raid on the village, when you can't quite see what's going on, but it all appears to be absolutely horrible. And it's, you know, mist and misery and mud. And so, hats off to the DP, I think Pat Scholar of Death of Robinhood, for putting you right. So it is like being faced down in the mud and the blood. And Robin is clearly longing for death. Sinovsky was saying that he's looking for a good death, a violent death, which he almost finds after his fellow bandit,

known as Little John, this is Bill Scars God, brother of Alexander, cousin of Stellen, and a son of Robin, I believe we established that. Amazing family they all are. What an amazing family they are. Their Christmases must just be an absolute hoot-an-nanny. Enlists him to steal back the farm that he stole and reclaim his wife and child. And it's something which does not end entirely well. Here is a clip. It will be a mighty battle.

One for the stories. They're strongly. I come from an old family. They say from Viking Blok. There's a story that wants their elder for the Fort of Bear. It will be a mighty battle, Robin. How many are there? Four. Five.

Together we can vest them. We'll likely die. But they don't likely die. What happens is that Robin is mortally wounded and taken off to the Priory of St. Clemens, which is on a remote island where his real identity is a secret. There are sort of hints of Avalon

about this island because the whole thing there's a big change. I mean, there's a change in tone, there's a change in aspect ratio, there's a change in lighting. This is a somewhat kind of ethereal world in which everything seems to be a lot brighter than before. You can actually see what the hell is going on

because in that first half, that first section that you're talking about, it may well have been bloody and terrible, but I couldn't see because it's so dark. I had it on maximum brightness. I was sitting in a darkened room and I could tell that an old man with white hair and a beard was stabbing another person with the same kind of hair, and it sounded very gory. But until they

actually get to that island, all you are aware of, as you could hear in that clip, was that a Swede and an Aussie are struggling strongly, I think, with what I guess is a Yorkshire accent. But, you know, I think they were struggling. Anyway, but at least we, as soon as we get to that island, we can follow what's happening. We can see people and who they are and what they're doing. Yes, I mean, I have to say this is a film that was designed for the lighting of cinemas, not designed for the lighting of home viewing on a laptop. And the sort of the center of that new glowing light is Jody Comer's priorist. You said to the director last week, you said there is a real sense of peace that arrives with her arrival.

You said she sort of brings something. Do you want to just say something about what you meant by that, about her? her bringing a sense of peace to things. Well, it's such a contrast, deliberate, in terms of what has gone before, dark, stabby, deathy, almost impossible to follow. And then we're sort of in some kind of heaven, really, on this island. And so I think this is a bit that I've mentioned to Michael was that when Jody Comer says, would you like me to pray with you, you kind of think, well, of course I would,

because you seem to be the exact opposite of everything that we have seen so far. So if there is any redemption to be found, it's going to be with someone like you. Here it is, exactly. So she has a kind of ethereal presence. So will he find redemption there or will the past partly in the shape of Noah Dup's wounded young man who turns up a little bit later on catch up with him? Now, there was a joke that you made, which was a very good joke, is that this ought to be called Logan Hood, because there is clearly a comparison in the fact that Hugh Jackman in this

lead is there is a comparison with the role that he plays in Logan, which is the 2017 James Mangold film, in which, you know, you've got the aging Wolverine and Charles Xavier and they're, you know, they're wrestling with the past. And they are both in their twilight years. And they are at once legends and outlaws. And that tagline, he was no hero. It was certainly been applied to that. So I think Logan Hood is very good. And I wish I had made that joke, but you did. So I'm going to credit you with it. I also suggest. I was really reading a script, obviously, but yes. Was it in the script?

Yes. The joke, Logan Hood was in the script? I'm afraid so. Okay, but you know, credit with credits to you. I'm going to credit you with it. So I suggested to Michael Sinovsky that I saw in this both a hint of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven and Andrew Dominic's assassination of Jesse James

by the coward Robert Ford. He loved that, yes. And I was delighted that he said, well, we talked about both of them, but particularly assassination of Jesse James, which is really important, because assassination of Jesse Jones, which is the best film of the year that it came out,

is now considered to be a master piece. He's absolutely a film about somebody living with their own legend and sort of waiting to embrace their own death. And there is a lot of that in this. And I was really delighted that Michael Snowsky said, yeah, absolutely that was a touchstone for it. There's also, I think, a bit of, you know, the Lamort d'Artu, you know, the Mallory thing, which John, when John Borman did Excalibur, right,

Scalibor is all bright and shiny and mythical. And this is all dark and doomy, but also mythical. And it is a story about stories. It is a story about the way in which we tell stories to each other and the role that stories, why legend, why print the legend, why do we need legends, why do we need to tell stories about things that aren't true? And actually, the film leads to a very interesting conclusion about what the nature of telling stories that aren't true might be.

And that is accentuated by the use of Jim Gingley's strident folk singing, which we talked about in the interview and is right there in the DNA of the film, the way in which these kind of folk songs are fed into the soundtrack of the film. Because folk is all about storytelling. It's all about storytelling. That's what it does. There are some... It's a bit like the way Danny Boyle used...

that kind of music in the latest 28 years. You know, in his edition, it's not just that something that's on in the background. It's right front and center. Right front and center, because it is actually the narrative that's happening. And that musician, his name is, it's spelled Jim and then it's G-H-E-D-I. And did he pronounce it? Is it G-D-D-E-D-I? Is that how he pronounced it when he's, anyway, check him out because he's really, really interesting.

and the music is a very, very big part of the film. There are some issues. You've already raised one of them, which is if you put Hugh Jack, if you put the two Antipodeans who have played Robin Hood in recent memory, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe in a room and got them to speak as Robin Hood

and then said to somebody who's grown up on these islands, where are they from? I would be very interested to know what the answer was. His accent is more consistent than Russell Crow's. It is. Which was, frankly. awful. Yeah, because it changed. My guess is that they completely ignored the truth about Robin Hood, which, as I said, last week's program, is that it should be a Nottingham accent, that he fought the

sheriff of Nottingham. Yes. The king is waiting, you know, the king is wicked, and we're waiting for Sean Connery to come, and he wears tights and all that and he's a fox. And he's a fox. That's right. of his he's a fox. Absolutely, all of that. But I think they obviously just said, okay, let's do a northern, how it sounded to me, being a southerner, it sounded like, let's do Yorkshire.

Well, let's do a kind of a Yorkshire, Lancashire, let's just be in from the north of England. That's where we're going to pitch it. And I think that's where he tries to stay. Yes. I think it speaks highly of the film that even though the accent clanged on my ears and it really did,

it didn't put me off the film. I kind of was, you know that old thing about you condemn, was it you condemn your enemies for crossing their knife and fork, but you forgive your friends for eating with their hands. Well, in terms of accents, this is a film that is eating with its hands, but I didn't mind because I thought there was enough that was going on that was intriguing and interesting,

that I kind of got over the accent problem, which sort of reminds me a little bit why the Russell Crow Robin Hood bothered me a lot more because I was much, much less invested in the story. It does help that the cast includes Jody Kamaer and Noah Dup and Murray Bartlett and more. And they're all terrific. I should say just that Murray Bartlett's Leper character, I was going to mention it in the conversation with Michael Sonoski last week. But we kind of ran out of time.

But he is great and it's actually a very important role. Well, he's sort of the moral heart of the film. and also, as with all of these characters, he's not quite what he appears to be, and it's to do with the stories that you are telling about who you are or who you might have been or who you may be in the future. And he plays an absolutely integral role in the discussion of what storytelling is doing. So, it's a hard movie to warm to. It's a hard movie to like, but I think it's an easy movie to admire, and I think it'll be a very hard film to forget, because I have to say that since I saw it, I have thought about it quite a lot.

So it's a troublesome experience, and it's a, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, and Odyssey and stringing a bow, which is of course such an important part of that myth, and then stringing a bow in the death of Robin Hood. It's exactly the same. Apart from the bows in Robin Hood are a lot easier to string. Yes. Yes. But anyway.

Yes. But very interesting. And don't wait for it to be on a stream. If you're interested in it, see it in a cinema where you might be able to understand the first half hour. Basically. Otherwise, no chance. That's it for this week.

this has been a Sony music entertainment production this week's team, Dom, Eric, Josh and Heather, the redactal of Simon Paul. In Take 2, we're directing you to the overflow car park for more chat about current film releases. And if you've enjoyed what you've heard so far, there's plenty more waiting for you over in Take 2 such as Five Question Film Club. Three questions, Majesty. And questions, Schmestians, in which this week were asked for a list of actors who could play a retired James Bond. And don't forget people in Bristol and beyond. We will be at the Bristle Beacon on December the 6.

Tickets are on sale via the link in the show notes. You can get both takes ad-free. Just search Come into Mayo Patreon and join the church. Mark, that's the end of the parish notices. Mark, what is your film of the week? Well, can I just urge everybody to, if you're not already, subscribe to Take 2, because there is a really good film which I'm going to cover in Take 2 called The Incomer,

which I really, really liked. But in this week of four releases, which I've discussed, and all of which I've found very positive things to say about, I'm going to go for Super Nature. the Super 8 documentary about our relationship with the natural world. That's my film on the week. Take 2 has landed adjacent to this particular take. Thank you for listening.

We'll be back next week.