Kermode & Mayo’s Take - JOSH BROLIN and AUSTIN ABRAMS talk Whalefall

Episode Date: October 15, 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. With Simon Mayo off on the Marrakech Express, Simon Poole, AKA The Redactor is stepping into the breach to host the Take this week. After 15 long years his moment in the limelight has finally come, and by God is he milking it for all it’s worth. How will he measure up to Mayo? There’s only one way to find out… Simon Poole also interviews our special guests this week: Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams. They talk Whalefall, a new survival drama adapted from Daniel Kraus’s acclaimed novel about—yes—accidentally falling inside a whale. Come on, we’ve all done it. They discuss the film’s stomach-churning underwater peril, plus we hear some on-set anecdotes about Josh’s literally churning stomach whilst filming No Country For Old Men. And, of course, Simon couldn’t let the interview go by without a question or two about The Goonies… We’ll get Mark’s verdict on Whalefall too, alongside two more new releases: Forgotten Island, an animated adventure about lifelong friendship and unquiet spirits, and Street Fighter, which brings the iconic video game franchise back to the big screen. Plus, we’ll take our customary spin through the Box Office Top 10, sample a healthy serving of your correspondence, and collapse with pure hilarity once again in the Laughter Lift. Will Simon Poole hand back the keys when Mayo returns? Only time will tell. Thanks for listening to another top Take. 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 Timecodes: Forgotten Island review 00:12:09 Box Office Top Ten 00:18:36 Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams interview 00:39:10 Whalefall review 00:53:46 Laughter Lift 01:01:28 Street Fighter review 01:04:06 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh, hello, I'm Simon Mayo. And I'm Mark Kermode. I love Autumn, Mark. It's the perfect excuse to stay in and settle down on the sofa to watch films. Maybe we could do a job swap and I could do it all year. Simon, film criticism is not just watching films. No? No, there's research, there's analysis, there's writing, there's broadcasting. Fair enough. But while you're busy doing all that, wouldn't it be nice if somebody else was taking care of some of life's more stressful jobs?

What, you mean things like your pension? Precisely. Well, that's where Vanguard's managed personal pension service comes in. If you're ready to save for retirement, but you don't want to choose and manage your own investments, Vanguard can do it for you. They'll pick your funds based on how you feel about investment risk and when you plan to start taking money from your pension.

Then they keep your investments on track by adjusting them over time so you're always invested at a level of risk that's right for you. So you can relax and watch all the films Mark has grafted so hard to review. view. Careful. And Vanguard manage your personal pension with the added reassurance of updates along the way. Search Vanguard managed personal pension to find out more. When investing, your capital is at risk. Tax rules apply. Now, Mark, I don't know why all these trendy podcasters need to sell such tat in their online shops these days. You'd have thought the show would have been enough for them. I mean, look at this teetow.

Simon, I think that's our shop you're browsing, isn't it? Oh, so it is. Actually, those Kermin and a Director's chairs are very nice, and it's all incredibly slick and easy. That's probably what confused me. That's because it's powered by Shopify. Shopify is where you go to start your business. Everything you need to start selling is included and ready from day one, which means our top production team can concentrate on, well, whatever it is that they do, while Shopify does all hard work, because Shopify handles the setup and checkout, you have more time to focus on growing your business and the tools to do it. And Shopify checkout helps more customers finish their purchase. Then when they come back, their details are already saved.

One tap, and they're done. Simple. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business, so go make it one. Start your free trial at Shopify.com.uk.uk slash take. Start your free trial at Shopify.com.com.uk slash take. Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra episode every Thursday. Including bonus reviews. Extra viewing suggestions.

viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas. Plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in questions, 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. One thousand episodes. You will take holidays.

compilation shows and being taken off air because of David Cameron or cricket or something. Between two and five awards. He can't remember exactly how many. One television series. Just the one for some reason. It was COVID. Give it a rest. Redacting thousands upon thousands of words on a win. Giving concise advice on how to use Snapchat. Exciting and or discovering some of the best dad jokes in the world. He's the man of a thousand voices in hot takes and cold comfort. All of them the same. And ruling with an iron fist.

He's finally taking his chance. He's evolved from producer Simon to his final form, the redactor. And now, meaning we don't have to find and replace the presenter's first name in the script. It's your host, Simon Poole. Hey, Mark. It's finally happened. That is the very definition of binging your part up. So just to be absolutely clear to the listeners of what has happened is that Simon Mayo has gone away.

Unwisely. You know he's riding on the Marrakesh Express. And because we are so cheap, right? Well, look, I did an extensive piece of research. with the audience and decided that the best possible host when Simon's not here is me. Okay, and how, just how extensive was that audience research? It was thousands and thousands of respondents over an extended. No, how many was it actually?

I, um, I just kind of looked in the mirror. And you said, I pointed up myself. So just to be clear. Yeah. So, so welcome to Kermode and Mayo's take. Yes. The world's top film show, Mark. Yes, it's Kermodin Pools' take.

And you're literally in the presenter's seat. You're in the podcast central. Podcast Central. Theobles Road. Some of my favorite films up behind me? Yes, you've decorated your office with images of... A little bit of Mison Sen. Exorcist 2, The Heretic.

The best one. The Melania documentary. Amazing. Battlefield Earth. Based on a true story. Sex and the City. Sex and the City too. Yes.

Yes. And the hottie and the naughty. With its fantastic moral message. Thank you for your attention to detail. And now, just because I'm clearly, because the way that this works, and just so you know the way that this works, is that Simon Mayo would drive the show.

Yeah. Like literally would be in charge of everything. My role is the critic. And so you are now, you have your hand on the tiller. Yes, I do. And it's, I tell you what, I speak for the whole producer community of the world who look through a double glazed glass and say, I could do that. Why is he saying that? Why is he doing that? Why isn't he stopped? Well, now we're about to find out how easy, he slash hard it is. How do you think it's going so far? I think it's going fine so far, but we haven't got to the first junction yet.

Okay. I also need to point out that, you know, for ages and ages, I had to apologize for the fact that my roof was being replaced. And I said, sorry if there's any noise. Well, the roof is fixed, as you know, as you know, before that, during the there was the boiler. But now they're digging up the road outside because they're retarmacking the road. So if you hear any crashing and banging, it's not me banging my head against the side of the studio. It's the fact that they're now dismantling the road. Understood. On which I live.

Roof expenditure, one of the most annoying household expenditures, because you can only really see it if you've got a drone or you're flying in an aircraft. And nobody comes around and says, ooh, your roof looks nice. I'm going to have look at my roof. Okay, good. Well, look, I just want to get serious for a moment, Mark, because we've worked together for 15 years. Is it that long? It's 15.

It's 15 years. I had one child. I've now got two. I started off as a producer, and now here I am kind of running the show. And I just want to say, it is such a privilege to work on this. And we don't often talk about this,

like take a step back and talk about it. But it is an amazing show to work on, not least because you're okay to work with. Simon's okay to work with. But the audience, I think, are the best audience in the world. And every time I go through those emails on a Monday, I am staggered, astounded and delighted by the new ideas and the new angles on films and not films that they send in. I think it's a real privilege to be right in the middle of it and to work with you and to work with Simon, because I think our people are special. You see, I don't know whether You see, it's very hard to judge whether this is a sarcastic walk up

up the path to a punchline or whether what you're trying to do is ingratiate yourself with the audience. We've got plenty of punchlines coming up. There's no punchline. I just wanted to say that. They're great. Are you doing laughter lift? Yeah.

Right. It's a cracker today. Just so everyone knows, you write the laughter lift anyway. So for the first time, you're actually going to write and present laugh the lift. That's correct. There'll be no sandbagging. There'll be no exasperated size as punchlines approach. Are you going to cut my microphone off? Enough of that. Let's see. What are you reviewing today? Well, we've got a packed show. We have the new street fighter, the latest adaptation

of the very successful video game. We have Forgotten Island, which is a Zip-Zang Boom animation, and we have Whaleful with your special guests. Yes, they are Josh Brolin, of, let's count them off, no country for old men, Sicario, Milk, Avengers, Dune, etc., etc., etc. And Austin Abrams of weapons and resident evil fame. They talked to me about their new film, Whaleful, as well as the Goonies, and indeed if Josh enjoys acting, more than having the squits. You can hear that a little later on.

I'll tell you what, Mark, I'm looking forward to your review of... Later, Mark. I just wanted to say that... I wish you. Good luck. With that, I'm excited to learn whether it'll be a aura type situation, but I've got a lot of feeling a lot of people will be saying, Oh no! After you've given us your review, stay with us to hear Mark's verdict on that film.

What do you think about that production, Mark? Do you recognise any of those sounds? So much, so much product. Well, I imagine, because as you know, I'm not a video game player, I imagine that those are sounds from the original Street Fighter video game. Indeed sounds from the original Street Fighter game by Capcom, I think. which I used to play in the Tivoli arcade in Hirm Bay in the 80s. Can't wait to hear if this is finally a good street fighter film.

I'm not sure. Just looking at your face. I'm not quite sure that's going to be the case. A movie reviews and take two, Mark? Take two, the influencer project, which is sold as coming from the creators of the Blair Witch Project, which is only sort of partly true. And 25th anniversary, which is shocking, of the others,

the 25th anniversary reissue of the others, So revisiting that Chiller Classic, that 12A certificate, genuinely frightening movie. I can't wait to hear about that. I showed it to my family about six months ago, and they absolutely loved it, so I can't wait to talk about that. You can get Take 2 ad free by heading to our Patreon page. Just search Kermodomeo Patreon, and you'll find us. It really is worth it. And to celebrate, I've hacked the system, and I'm offering a 90% off code that runs until Sunday.

So that code is Redact 90. R-E-D-A-C-T-90, and it runs until Sunday. I'm so confident that once you've enjoyed our extra exclusive content, you'll stay. Mark, we're back on Christopher. Oh, dear. So you'll remember our Spaceman became a travelling thread. It was banned in South Africa in the 70s on that album, because the South African authorities thought it was blasphemous.

We've had an email here from Roger. Dear Mark and Simon and the world-class production team, Big tick. Yeah. You're going to have to stop reading out the world-class production team stuff if you're actually presenting the program, right? You have to get yourself into it. It's them or us.

He speaks the truth, right? You can't be on both sides. You can't be a filmmaker and a film critic. You can't be a presenter and the production team. For the purposes of this program, you have to be snarky about the production team. That's a good note. I'm going to start that again. Dear Mark and Simon, and then he says something which clearly isn't true. Long-term listener, several-time emailer, as yet, never read out her. Hi, Roger.

I'm currently spending a lot of time driving to and from my late father's house, sorting through a lifetime decumulation of stuff, and as a result, I've been catching up on the podcast. I particularly enjoyed the recent discussion about Christopher, or Christopher Blur, as I call him, whenever Lady in Red appears. When my eldest son was about four, we had a Christmas compilation CD. That's got to be now, exclamation mark the Christmas album, because there is no other. The spaceman came travelling came on. He immediately disappeared behind the sofa saying, I don't like it. At first we assumed this was remarkably advanced musical judgment. We later realised it was the spooky noises at the start of the song

that genuinely frightened him. Now age 26. If it comes on at Christmas, one of us will say, turn it off, he'll be scared. So there you have it. Not just a terrible song, a song that literally scared children up with good stuff. Hello to Jason.

Are there spooky noises? Well, I asked a musicologist friend, what could possibly have terrified a four-year-old child. And I had this response. It's too long, but I'll give you the highlights. So it's ambiguity. Synthesizer sounds don't resemble familiar instruments. So children generally prefer sounds they can identify.

Lack of rhythmic certainty. So the introduction drifts rather than establishing a strong beat. High sustained tones, long-held notes in the upper register. As you'll know, Mark from your book. Long-held notes in the upper register are often used in film scores to create tension, mystery, or the sense that something unusually is about to happen. There's also large reverberant space in the production, expectation and delay, and then lyrically, it's a cross between a Christmas carol, a science fiction story and a supernatural visitation narrative. So to an adult, the central conceit is intriguing, but to a child, it contains unsettling elements. So mysterious stranger arriving from the sky, nobody understands what's happening, story unfolds in a dreamlike way, repeated references to a message that will only be understood in a millerable.

years suggests something vast and incomprehensible and so on and so on. But mainly, Mark, it's the key. Principally and D minor. Oh, the saddest of all keys. Just the saddest of all keys. There we go. Yeah, I think the main problem is that it's a song by Krista Berg. I think that's the, that's the biggest underlying issue with it. Yes, that is the biggest underlying issue with it. But I'm not sure a four-year-old would have achieved a kind of cultural, knowledge to make that judgment. I'm not sure. I think you can listen to a Christopher

song at any level of educational development and know immediately the smell of cheese. I mean, I think, anyway, I'm glad, I'm glad we broke it down. I'm glad we broke it down. Musicologically, speaking. Spaceman came traveling. This is the place to come. So something that hopefully doesn't terrify four-year-olds, Mark. Tell us about the forgotten island. What a seamless segue that was. Okay, forgotten island. Big, noisy, colorful dreamworks animation, written directed by Joel Crawford and Juanel and Juan HANuel, pardon me, Macardo. Voice cast includes her, H-E-R, Lisa Suburano, Dave Franco, Jenny Slate, a bunch of other people. So in the Philippines, two misfit kids meet and bond at school.

They are Joe and racer. They are chalk and cheese, best friends forever. One is an anarchic agent of chaos. One is studious and nerdy. Both are outsiders because they've actually, they meet outside the headmaster's office where they've both been for very different reasons. So there is some kind of very moving opening scenes. We see them growing up together. They're absolutely, you know, inseparable. We hear stories of the magical world of Nakhali, which they're told about by an adult figure. This is a land of monsters and magic,

which is apparently entered through an elusive portal, which one could search for for the whole of their lives. They do search for the portal, but they don't find it until their last night together, where one is going off to study at Caltech, the other is going to be stuck serving fast food, at which point, suddenly the magical, talismanic thing appears that opens up the hole and they get swept into a whole new world. Here is a clip from the trailer. Do you want to be best friends? Cool. I've never had a best friend before. Me neither. Want to come over to my house and hear my Lola stories? Let's go. Once upon a time, there was a magical Santa Claus.

Look! No way. Bright portal opened up. Oh, wait, what? We can't. This is nice! And boom, next thing they are in the magical world. So the film is a very weird mash-up of different elements.

It's got the animation style ranges from, you know, the kind of Lilo and Stitch animation that we're all kind of quite familiar with, to something which looks a little bit like demon slayer Moogun train. And then the themes of it swing from, on the one hand, it's like a coming of age story and coming of age bonding rituals. And then there's a whole other thing going on, which is like eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, which is about memories and about what happens when you have your memories

and what happens when somebody else steals your memories and whether or not identity is formed entirely by memory. So on one level, it's a story about best friend children growing up together and then spending their last night together before they're separated. Weirdly enough, I was at Act 1 in Acton over the weekend because they just did their fifth birthday. And I did an onstage with Walter Merch about American graffiti. And of course, American graffiti is the classic, this is their last night together. And after this, some of them are going off to college.

And of course, as we know, you know, it's kind of end of innocence. So on the one hand, it's that. on the other hand, is this kind of actually quite visually daring tale of identity construction, and it's got some genuinely scary creations in it that make it not fit for the littlies. It's weird because the BBFC certificate is PG, and it's officially PG for threat, violent, injury, detail, language, dangerous behavior, and rude humor, for which I can only say kids that I don't know they're born if that's what PG is. It says under threat and horror on the BBC advice, a demonic cross.

creature menaces characters in sustained sequences of tension, to which I can only say, yes, that does happen. And it is, I think, genuinely quite scary. I don't mean that in a bad way, because I think it's because, you know, I think animation is designed to do all these things. And if you've got scary monsters, they're designed to be scary monsters. They are probably scary. And of course, I grew up anyway watching Ray Harryhausen movies, which had, you know, like big, scary stop motion monsters. So I'm all for that. I'm just saying it's absolutely not for the at least. It was quite an expensive animation and it doesn't look like it's a box office hit, which is a shame because anything that's got an original IP nowadays is sort of is to be lauded

because if you want to make an animation that makes its money back now, what you do is you do something which has got an IP that everyone's familiar with, or what you do is what Disney are doing, which is that you do a live action remake of an already existing, you know, Disney animated. I mean, because that's weirdly the only way in which you can guarantee to make your money back. So I lured the fact that it's original. It takes some big swings. It doesn't hit all of them. It's kind of incoherent in places.

And there are times that you sense that it's kind of getting away from itself. But I enjoyed it and I thought it was kind of big and rumping and vibrant and kinetic enough that I was never bored by it. But I'll be very interested to see who it plays to. Because as I said, it's too scary for a very young audience, but it might not be, it might find itself falling between two stools of, you know, I can't figure out exactly who it is owned at. So parents should definitely use a little bit of caution if your little ones are, get scared easily. Yeah, go to the BBC website and read their breakdown, which gives you a pretty full analysis of everything that's in it. But all I can tell you is, look, me, 63, grow up on horror movies,

all the rest of it, there is a demonic sort of presence in this film, which I found genuinely creepy. I mean, like genuinely properly creepy in the way that there was stuff in Demon Train that I thought was genuinely properly creepy. I agree with you. I think children should be scared from time to time. I don't think you should write them. Yeah, it's good for you. Character building. Yeah. After the break, we've got the box office top 10, the laughter lift. It's a cracker this week, Mark. Street Fighter and my chat with Wailful stars, Josh Brolin and Austin Adams.

And a quick reminder, there are only a few tickets left for our Christmas special, with which this year is at Bristol Beacon on December 6th. Head to the address on the show notes for the chance to appear in a table read with Mark and Simon of some classic abridged Christmas movies. That's the first Mark's heard of that. So that's December the 6th at 7pm. We'll be back after these exciting, important and useful words. Oh, hello, I'm Simon Mayo.

And I'm Mark Kermode. I love autumn, Mark. It's the perfect excuse to stay in and settle down on the sofa. for to watch films. Maybe we could do a job swap and I could do it all year. Simon, film criticism is not just watching films. No? No, there's research, there's analysis, there's writing, there's broadcasting. Fair enough. But while you're busy doing all that, wouldn't it be nice if somebody else was

taking care of some of life's more stressful jobs? What, you mean things like your pension? Precisely. Well, that's where Vanguard's managed personal pension service comes in. If you're ready to save for retirement, but you don't want to choose a manage your own investments, Vanguard can do it for you. They'll pick your funds based on how you feel about investment risk and when you plan to start taking money from your pension. Then they keep your investments on track by adjusting them over time so you're always invested at a level of risk

that's right for you. So you can relax and watch all the films Mark has grafted so hard to review. Careful. And Vanguard manage your personal pension with the added reassurance of updates along the way. Search Vanguard managed personal pension to find out more. When investing, your capital is at risk. Tax rules apply. Hey Mark Kermode, fancy a fun, quickfire quiz. I thought you'd never ask. Great. How do you protect yourself from spoilers?

We never watched the end of the film. Well, a bit impractical, but fine. How do you protect yourself from getting wound up by noisy cinema goers? There's no need. I'm a very tolerant man, as you know. How do you protect yourself from getting bored of the exorcist? It's impossible. Anyway, shall we start this fun quiz? What's more fun than being well protected? Okay, is that part of the quiz?

I'm doing the questions, thank you. How do you protect yourself from online scams? Ah, finally, a sensible question. NordVPN's next-gen antivirus blocks, scams and fishing before they reach you, fake text, dodgy links, your account is locked emails, same app as the VPN, one tap, the biggest protection in the game. Correct, upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app, to NordVPN.com slash take to get an exclusive NordVPN deal plus four months extra risk-free.

Welcome back. It's the UK box office top 10, Mark, and it's a farewell this week. 13 weeks in the top 10. It's UK number 10, still number nine in the States. It's the Odyssey. Goodbye, The Odyssey. Yes, I don't think there's anything left to say about The Odyssey, other than that if you haven't seen The Odyssey yet, what are you doing? Because regardless of what you think of it, it is one of the most important films of the year. I've seen it a couple of times now. And I think it's worth going to see for the Samantha Morton sequence alone. And I've said it before, and I will say it again, I am now absolutely convinced that Samantha Morton is going to win best supporting actress for her performance in The Odyssey. I'm absolutely sure of that.

You got money on it? No, no, no. I'm never, I'm never betting money on it again because after that, the horrible humiliation of winning bad. Accumulator gate. Yeah, no. Yes, Accumulator gate. No, that was God telling me not to bet, and so I'm never ever going to do that again. I've just, it's not just that her performance is great. There's just something, but I feel like it's the right moment. So there we go. I've probably now completely jinxed her chances. Number nine, it's Digger at US number eight.

This is probably Diggers last week in the top ten. That means it lasted two weeks. For a film which cost $165 million, it was green lit at 125, but it probably ended up costing it $165. That is very bad. ad. And it's actually kind of disappointing because the film has really divided people. The people who like it really, really like it. Some people really, really hate it. I didn't really hate it at all. I didn't like it. I think it doesn't work. I think it pulls itself together in the third act,

but I think it's got fundamental flaws. But as you will know, because you put it in the script last week, the good lady professor her indoors wrote an impassioned defense of it on social media, which ended up saying, Kermode, you're wrong, because that is literally how she refers to me, Kermode, you're wrong. So on Thursday, we're recording this show on Wednesday. Tomorrow, we are going back to the New Lynn Film House to both watch it together, not least because I suspect that's the last time we're going to get to see it, because it's not going to be in cinema as very long. And whatever reservations I have about it, I would say this, you probably do need to see it because it is a big, important, interesting film. And if you're going to

see it, you need to do it now because it's not going to be around very long at this rate. I have to say, the correspondence on this one generally has been favourable into the show. Yes, it has. And it may also be an age thing. Guillermo del Toro absolutely thinks it's an age thing. I can't lie about it. I didn't think it worked. But the good lady professor her indoors thought it was, she said she thought it might be a great movie. And in the past, she has been right, for example, she was right about AI, but I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt and I'm going to go back and see it at the New Lynn Film House tomorrow with her. And, you know, and we'll see. But honestly, go and see it, people, go and see it because it is worth seeing it to have an

opinion on it. So just you were talking there about the failure of it commercially. So let's have a recap. It's directed by Oscar-winning director Alejandro Gonzalez Inari 2. It's got Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hula, John Goodman, Jesse Plemons, budget of 180 million and another 100 in marketing, more than Top Gun Maverick. Story by Jess Butterworth of Jerusalem, Faye. Yes. And it's going to lose Warner Brothers, $245 million. Yes, that sounds about right.

Sounds a bit spursy. Okay, that's a football joke, which I don't get, but I kind of think I think do because of Simon Mayo. I mean, it is astonishing how much it cost and how badly it's done at the box office. And I've seen a lot of people say, there was a Guillermo del Toro, I put a thing which said, if you see Digger, you will want to, you will want to beat critics up with your bare hands. And I do, you know, I understand the thing about the film, the film needs to be, needs to be defended by people that like it. Critics haven't killed it. It's not the critics that stopping people going to see it. Honestly, the worst thing about Digger is the trailer,

because the trailer is profoundly off-putting because the trailer does not know how to sell the film. And I think that is their big issue. It's not just that the, because the critics have been divided. They've been generally kind of not great, but they've been divided, but there have been some people, I think Robbie, for example, really, really liked it. The biggest problem they had is that the trailer made the film look like either what on earth is that or I definitely don't want to see that. I think the trailer is a disaster. I completely agree. Also, I agree with you. I didn't know what the spoilers that they were worried about were, that we weren't supposed to mention. No, it was like, so which part of this are we not allowed to talk about? I think

it would have been much better. I saw somebody put a thing on social media, which said, the minute they just start allowing whole clips of Digger to be put online is the point at which interest in it will pick up, because anything other than that trailer. I think you can probably assume there's a bit of F. Remdung's effect in there, bit of distancing. That's not a spoiler, surely, is that what they were talking about? Because they were kind of four or five different twists in there, if that's what they were. I don't know.

None of them were twists anyway, because everything is set up at the beginning. I mean, literally, the curtains go back at the beginning. It's like, it's not a twist. The debate continues in the overflow car park of love in take two. Number eight in the UK, nowhere in the US. Sean the Sheep, the Beast of Mossie Botten, been out for four weeks.

Absolutely loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. big fan of Shaw and the Sheep. If you're a fan of sort of non-verbal comedy, old school kind of slapstick, it's just terrific. I love it. New entry at number seven, it's the uprising. This is the new Paul Greengrass film, which he was talking to Simon about last week. In fact, the interview was so long that we split it over take one and take two. It's always great to hear Paul Greengrass talk about these films. I don't know that the uprising works as well as it should do. Simon certainly liked it more than I did. I am very interested in the story of the Peasants' Revolt, the Presidents' Uprising. But I think the film itself is slightly confused. I think the problem with the film is it doesn't quite know what question it's asking. And Paul Greengross said in the interview, the best way to make a film is to have a question that you're asking,

and the answer to it is the film. And I still don't know what question it was asking. But there are things in it that are good. I think the whole Robin Hood thing is an absolute red herring and should just be a good. Here's Alex Addison, dear Mark and Simon. After listening to your review, an excellent interview with Paul Greengrass. It was very good. We went to see the uprising on Sunday.

I liked it. The husband wasn't so keen. Too much shouting and violence for him. Looking past that, what I found fascinating is that more than 600 years after the event, the film's general premise felt very current. I think Simon is right. The rulers at the time had a giant database of personal information, which they used to control the masses.

Tech bros, anyone? The message I took away was how powerless we still are. In 1381, no one gave us stuff about the people. the common people, and they don't now. For me, the only jarring note was the ending. It gave hope, while I take a more nihilistic view. Kind regards, Alex. Yeah, I think that's perfectly fine. I think the fact that there was two of you, one was going with it, one wasn't, I think that's fairly, that's going to be fairly common. And I do think it's an important, it's an important story. And I think that thing, the point that Simon made about the first thing that they do is effectively

sack a data centre is exactly right. And Paul Greengrass had clearly thought that through, because when he said it, Paul Greengrass went, yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Number six in the UK, sense and sensibility. I like this more than some other critics did. I thought it was actually a really enjoyable adaptation. I laughed, I cried, I thought George Mackay was fantastic, and I thought it had just enough dirt under its fingernails to give it a bit of grit, but it was still kind of uplifting, and yes, I enjoyed it very much.

At UK 5, US6, the Social Reckoning, another new entry. Dear Woodward and Bernstein, the film desperately wanted to be all the president's men, but lacked any real menace or peril, making it hard to care about the outcome. As Mark said, Mr. Mahogany shouldn't have been second-choice director. He should have been the choice after everyone else said no. The cast was strong, particularly the leads, but Betty Gilpin was badly wasted.

In Fincher's hands, this might have been gripping. Great writer? Poor director. The constant time shifts were irritating, the dialogue overcomplicated, and the attempted humour rarely landed. The clumsy Francis slash Jeff, will they, won't they subplot, was especially weak.

What I wanted was a deeper examination of Zuckerberg, genius mastermind or awkward nerd, overwhelmed by the monster he created. Instead, there was very little beneath the surface. The best thing about the film was spending two hours in air-conditioned comfort away from the Indian summer heat of downtown Los Gatos. From Mark Woodruff. Thanks, Mark. I mean, it is interesting that he, Sorkin is a much better director than he is a screen, a much better screenwriter than he is a director. And as he said, when he said he was his own second choice, I agree. I think he should have been his own sort of fifth, sixth or seventh choice.

I also think that the music, the more I think about the music in social reckoning, the more it's not just that the original score for social network was so great. I think it's just that the music this time around is so overladen, so explanatory, so leading you through, that it makes the thing seem cheesier than it is. I liked it more than that email suggests, but I didn't like it as much as Simon Mayo did. it has pretty much tanked. I mean, when you consider this is its first week and the amount of publicity it had,

the fact that it was on all the news shows like it was on the Today program, opening at number five is not good. So it's following on the heels of digger, I mean, it's not quite in the same financial aspect as that, but following on the hills of the gig, it is a hotly anticipated movie. That has absolutely not set the world on fire.

And I do think that it's, Sorkin needs to write, but he needs to get somebody else to direct. And number four, it's Resident Evil, been out for four weeks now. Yeah, and doing very well. And we had a lot of interesting correspondence about whether or not it is about something. We had a great email last week with somebody explaining a kind of really, really kind of complicated reading of what the film is about. And I think it's great fun that people are getting that. I just enjoyed it.

And I thought, as we'll see later on, anything when you're doing an adaptation of a video game is a difficult thing to do. But I thought Resident Evil actually got it right. Three here, four in the US, Heart of the Beast. And this I don't get at all. I mean, it's like, yeah, Brad, he's got a dog. Okay. It's just that. It's literally just that.

And then somebody wrote in, I think it was when we did the last, you know, Hot Takes Cold Comfort thing. And somebody said, yeah, well, unless you've actually been stranded in the wilderness with a dog, you haven't got any right to really. review this movie, which mine was, okay, fair enough. If you've actually been stranded in, if you're actually a combat veteran who was stranded in the wilderness with nothing but a dog, then I will take your criticism over mine. For the rest of us, it's just Brad Pitt and a dog. Sometimes that's enough. And sometimes it isn't. Two in the UK, two in the US. It's Verity.

Which I enjoyed. I thought, I mean, I thought it was fun. I mean, it's, you know, from the pen of the Nick Sparks do Nostjure. Colleen Hoover continues to write books that are turned into hit movies. I mean, it's ripe and it's over-cooked and it makes no sense, and it's absolutely got one foot in the old school straight to video,

erotic thrillers camp, although it's got an A-list cast. And I thought it was fun. It was just weird that last week, it opened at number one when Digger opened at number four. And, you know, it's, it is, things

are really being shaken up at the moment in terms of what actually ends up taking money, which incidentally brings us to the number one spot. And I'm just going to preempt you on this. The number one spot is Other Mummy. And I would have reviewed Other Mummy, were it not for the fact that the national press show of Other Mummy, which was booked in, was cancelled at the last moment. So we were all told, yes, you're going to see the film, you're going to be able to review it. And then literally at the last moment, they said, oh, no, we're canceling the screening and we're not replacing it with another screening. So it was withheld from the critics. So I haven't seen it.

You, however, have. So, Simon. I just went to the cinema. I just went to the cinema. I paid my money. Curse and Canterbury. Friday lunchtime. You weren't watching eight other films as part of the national press screening.

But as you continue to big your role up, not only are you presenter. You are now critic. Well, look, I'm not a film critic. I'm just an interested amateur. But what I'd like, shall I, shall I have a go? And will you, can I have a masterclass? Yes. So Other Mummy is the latest from director Rob Savage,

who you may remember from hosts, the screen life horror, which took place entirely on zoo. Which I loved host. Loved host. And as everyone did, and released over lockdown in 2020, and we all loved it. He also made Dash Cam a year later. And the solid, I think we thought it was solid,

the boogie man in 2023. Yeah, slightly ruined by. you for you by the overzealous security at the screening with their big powerful torches. Oh yes. God, that's right. There was a security guard, literally shining his torch. Ruining the vibes. Amongst the aisles to make sure nobody was filming anything. With his massively powerful torch. This stars a terrific Arabella Olivia Clark as eight-year-old daughter Bella. Jessica Chastain is Ursula Martin, Bella's mommy, and indeed the titular

other mommy. That isn't a spoiler. We learn this quite early on. Jay Duplass, in the well-meaning mess slash stubbly sad, optimist type character he's so good at In this case, he's stepdaddo, Russ Martin, Bella's father and Ursula's husband. The story is based on incidents around the house by Josh Malamon. I'd not heard of that before, but it is based on that. Martin family life seems to be under strain. Bella begins encountering a strange presence in her home. A supernatural figure, she calls Other Mommy, because it looks exactly like her mother.

We opened to an epigraphic attributed to Erebus, the Greek primordial deity of darkness, which says humans have one thing that demons don't, being alive. and that is what demons covet most. Here's a clip. Hey, sweetie. You're home. I had a lunch break. I thought I'd come home and eat with you.

Where's dad? She fell asleep in the office. I'll go get him. Let him sleep. He needs his rest. Cookie dough ice cream for lunch. What kind of mother would I be? How about scrambled eggs?

I'd bet that for breakfast. That's right. I forgot. How about pasta? Your favorite. Do you want to know something silly? Yes. Sometimes I think about when you and I were one person.

Do you remember that? So I was a baby in your tummy. Do you remember where you were before that? No. You were in my heart. We learn very quickly that the encounters with other mommy have been going on for a while before we join the story, but they begin to become increasingly disturbing.

At first, the adults dismiss it as imagination, but as the encounters become more disturbing, increasingly impossible to explain, Bella's family is forced to confront the possibility that something genuinely malevolent has attached itself to their lives. So the underlying what if is what if the thing every child fears is that their parent isn't their parent anymore. So you can think about Coraline, Jordan Peels, Us, and of course invasion of the body snatchers. So the good things. It's a cracker of a performance by Arabella Olivia Clark, Savage Country. up an initial atmosphere of a kind of fairground queasiness, and I was hoping that that was going

to build up and build up, but it doesn't. And of course, Jessica Chastain is doing her best to ring meaning out of the script. You can kind of see why she signed on a bit, but unfortunately, for me, this felt like putting a Ferrari engine in a Ford focus. The problem is that the atmosphere Rob Savage creates in the first act is far more interesting than the story that eventually emerges from it. What begins as a genuinely unsettling piece of domestic horror just gradually turns into a procession of jump scares, loud, stabby, musical stings, increasingly convoluted mythology. And I did think about a video that I'd seen by, it was Matt Stone and Trey Parker, South Park. I had that famous rule about storytelling. If the words connecting your

scenes are, and then, you're in trouble. They should be connected by, therefore, or but. This felt like an and then then then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. So for me, that's what stopped the tension building. It was quite frustrating because there is a good film in there. And he's obviously a talented filmmaker. I thought we were genuinely heading for an upsetting fairy tale. But it just was much more conventional of that. Okay. So here's my question.

Do you understand, having seen it, why they pulled the national press show? Yeah. It's rubbish. Oh, okay, fine. So you wouldn't have shown it to critic either. No, I think it just tips over into the critics. I'm just going to tear this a new one. So let's let's let the people decide. Okay.

And to be fair, the screening I was in was about half full at lunchtime on a Friday, if that's a bellwether of how well this is going to do. I mean, obviously it's going to do well. It's at number one. Well, hey, listen, you know, it opened at number one. My feeling about it is this. I think that I'm having not seen the film, having heard your description of it, it doesn't sound terrible.

It sounds like some of it works and some of it doesn't. However, pulling the national press show at the last moment is a major mistake and if I was the filmmaker, I would be really, really cross about it because, as I said, I haven't seen it yet, and I will catch up with it. I suspect that it will drop like a stone. It's number one now. I suspect that everybody went to see it in the opening weekend, and then it's because the word about it isn't good.

But honestly, distributors, booking in a national press show and then pulling it is literally like saying, we think this is a stinker. It's worse than not putting it in the diary at all. It is. It is. If you just don't show it, fine, fair enough. Don't book a screening and then pull it because it just looks like you're panicking. All right. Still to come, Mark, reviews of these films. Still to come, reviews of what we're doing. A street fighter and whalefall with our special guests. Yeah, it's Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams. And you can hear that after these messages.

Welcome back. Our guest this week are the stars of the forthcoming film Whalefall. Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams. Mark, it's almost embarrassing to read some of these. Films out why everyone knows who Josh Brodin is, don't they? The Goonies, no country for old men, milk, W, or Dubia, how would you say that? Wicario, Hale Caesar, Avengers Endgame, Weapons, Dunn, Part 2. And then Austin Abrams, you might know him from The Walking Dead, or if you're a fan of Euphoria on HBO. Wolfs, a very, very annoying name for a film that. And Weapons, of course, which he was terrific in, and then Resident Evil still in the UK top 10.

They start together in the new film, Wellful, based on the novel by Daniel Krause. You can hear my chat with them after this clip from the film. I think you're kind of scaring them a little bit if you want to slow down. You know I met this biologist once. Said that sperm whales have a vocal fold. Very strange. Her theory was that baby whales use it to cry out to their mommies. You know, the day you were born, you cried so hard, you popped a little hole.

your lung. Anyway, baby sperm whales, quick crying when they grow up, just like you, they still have that hole in their larynx, totally asymmetrical so they can eat squid all day long. But really, they could be making the loudest scream in the sea. That would get those lovers attention, don't you think? That was a clip from whalefall, and I'm joined now by Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams, Jay and Mitt Gardner in the film. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Introduce us to your characters

and the world of the film. Sure. I mean, my character's name is Jay. He's someone that is, you know, kind of when you meet him, he's like recently lost his father did cancer and they had a really tumultuous relationship where I feel like he always,

but he always wanted to be closer. Yeah, and then kind of goes, you know, I don't know how much I should say, but he, like, kills himself so that he doesn't have to go through, like, the rest of the process of dying from the cancer, and then my character goes and tries to find him in the ocean. I feel like that was a terrible description of it. And then it gets to all by a will.

I don't know. It's hard to describe it. Josh, tell us about the ornery Mitt Gardner. Is that what you thought? Ornery, yeah. I think he is desperately in love with his son and unable to express that in a way that his son can really take it in and understand it. Do you know what I mean? I think he comes from a very old school mentality that has more to do with poking, you know, to display affection than something that I think he could understand.

So, yeah, and the fact that his father is always with him, whether he when he was living or after he dies, the whole reason why he goes down is not only to look for his bones or a, which is impossible, but goes down to where he knows he jumped off the boat to try and save face in some way or try to understand him in some way. I mean, that's the thing with tension,

is that you carry it with you and tell, I mean, the best thing that could have happened to him is get swallowed by a whale and have to be in a life or death situation in order to have this redemptive moment with his father. Actors are often told, I think, to find things they have in common with the character. Did either of you find time trying to find things that you didn't have in common for the role? Because Josh, your character is a massive presence in the film, but he's not on screen all the time.

I'm interested in Austin how you played against essentially. not much when you're in the whale. I'm interested in how you'd, it's quite an unusual narrative structure, how the two of you worked together, planned the role, planned the collaboration. I can't necessarily say what was planned just because it was more,

I feel like, intuitive to a degree. But I mean, there was certainly an understanding of kind of like, if you're talking about kind of like the flash, the memories of, when we were together, there definitely was like an understanding of like, okay, where's Jay at, especially after just having that flashback and the audience just seeing that. And like, where's he at in terms of like how he's feeling about his father, you know,

because the whale base becomes like a symbol of that and whatnot. So that was important to keep in mind where the character was at. But yeah, I can't say it was, there was a lot necessarily planned, at least between the two of us. I think it was a lot of feeling things out. But we talked about family a lot. In the beginning, we talked about our own experiences with our own family. And then we just let it be. You know what I mean?

And then it just happened. I read your memoir from under the truck preparing for the interview, and I was hoping you were going to talk a little bit about that as a father and as a son. and what you drew from your experience for that world? It was inevitable that it brought all that stuff up and even stuff that I didn't necessarily feel like I wanted to think about or wanted to had to work on with my dad or my son. And my son and I talk about it. My dad and I don't necessarily talk about it.

But, you know, there's always, there's a generational thing that we blame. And we go, you know, they're from a different generation. That's why they're it. But, and that's not always the case. It's not, it's just when you miss, there's nothing worse because society has put on you that you're supposed to connect more with your family than with anybody. And that's not necessarily, obviously the case because I've had so many mentors in my life that are father figures that now as an older person, I look back and I go, oh, my dad did good, man. I gave my dad such a hard time when I was a kid because I was like all full of fire and all that

and he was like, hello out. When you were in the Cito rats running around at that time in... Mm-hmm. Yeah. Did you find yourself going back to the novel to help you build the character? Because we have actors on who, like Olivia Coleman, for example, never does any background reading at all,

Everything just comes from the script. But Daniel Krause's novel is obviously a gold mine of like... Gold mine. Yeah. He was just calling it. Yeah, I mean, like, Austin lines like, it's 17 years of being met Gardner's son, the expectations and disappointments,

all of it on his back one more time. It's like those notes must have been exceptionally helpful when you were. Certainly, certainly. I mean, especially for Jay, because Jay isn't, he's not, he's not the best with his, expression, you know, which is, I feel really important for the story. I feel like he's trying to find his voice, but that's a big part of like why him and his dad are missing the whole time, missing each other.

So it was really helpful to have the book and to be able to have his kind of thoughts and have a deeper understanding of like what he's going through. Not to say that you follow whatever exactly or something, but it's nice to have that as a place to like jump off from. If the film deals obviously with extreme circumstances, and I think it's a spoiler to say that you spend much of the film inside a whale. Don't don't think. What interested you more about the project,

the survival story or the emotional reckoning underneath it all? I mean, all of it. All of it. It was the combination of the both of them. I mean, just this insane thing of make a movie about someone being inside of a whale and how the hell are you going to do that? And then adding this like really deep personal story about, you know, just like a father and son, which is really it's, I mean, it is father and son in this movie, but for me it translates, I feel like to anyone. I don't know if you ever have that, do you ever, I don't know if you have that relationship with someone like in your life, in your family where it feels like it's like you have such a deep love for them, but you're just not connecting.

You know, it feels like there's kind of like. It was with my dad, who was definitely a man's man. X-Forces, firemen from another generation, a wartime baby, you know, taught me how to saw wood and change plugs. And, you know, we were fine doing that kind of stuff. But I don't think men, certainly of my vintage, would think about exploring those emotional realms with their father. He would have just said, why are you asking me that?

Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Because the expression was through the things that he passed down to me. Yeah, yeah. His knowledge and his emotions and the way he was in the world. Yeah.

You know, I think that's what this film is about really, isn't it, inheritance of stuff? Yeah, definitely. I feel like, you know, inheritance of kind of the things that he struggles with, you know, and then how that then affects Jay, you know, and then he feels kind of stuck inside maybe his dad's idea of what he should be. and feels trapped. Or rebellion of. You know, you go the other direction.

Yeah. And you resist everything. So it's also a movie about how to get out of your own way. Yeah. Where are you making it? Where are you poisoning your own cup? Do you know what I mean? And you go, there is something that's valuable here.

But because you're so reactive, you're not seeing the value in something. And it's finding that balance. How am I getting in the way of expanding or growing or deepening in experience because of some cosmetic behavior that I can't get beyond? You know? Which I've definitely experienced. Both sides of it. Yeah.

You described in your book acting as a borrowed life. Do you still feel that way? Borrowed life in that you're borrowing somebody else's life. and you're filling it with the color of your own personal experiences. You know, people say, oh, do you lose yourself in a role, which I think is foolish. You know, it's like you use your own experiences and you bring it to. It's like you have a hollow shell of this character, even in this. And you're like, what am I bringing to it?

You know, how do I fill it? You can't help but fill it. You know, so. And that's, it's especially with this, so uncomfortable, because I'm looking at my relationship with my son. I'm looking at my relationship with my father. You can't not do it. You know, otherwise you're not doing your job.

Otherwise, go, you know, go be a plumber. Go, you know, do not think about those things. Think about copper. PVC pipe, you know, which I have total respect for. But it's like you don't have to do that. Why am I putting in this pipe? who's going to poop differently? How do I help them get through that moment?

Do you sound like you're enjoying your work more than you did in 2006, where you described... You said you had diarrhea on the set of No Country for Old Men, and you enjoyed that more than the acting. Has that changed? I put that in the book. Did I really? I think I did.

Yeah, you went 12 times in a day, and you thought it was 12 times. But that was a bit of exact. You know, when you write, you exaggerate a little bit. But yeah, I was sick that day. I remember it. I remember the little house. Somebody gave me a little house.

I had a little house right in Santa Fe. It was really cool. I miss those times, man. I don't miss diarrhea so much, but I miss those times where you were like, you weren't making a lot of money. And not that it's not about the money, but it's small,

and we didn't think no country was necessarily going to be some film that was lauded as 20 years later that people are still talking about. It was a cute little with a guy with a funky looking haircut that was, you know what I mean? You know, and these little guys that made these funky little films. And then you finish and it comes out. And I feel that way about this movie. And I'm not paralleling it. I'm just saying that when I saw that, I felt the same way about weapons.

You see a movie and you go, what? for real? Obviously, I have no vision because I didn't see it. I think this is a special movie, but not what I just experienced. When I saw weapons, it was like, wow. And I feel the same way about whalefall. But I did feel that way when I read this book. I really felt, I mean, you described it early on. I mean, I was sobbing at the end of this book. And I wasn't sure exactly why, which was even better. Something's just speak to you, don't I? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, last question, a selfish question from me. A few years ago, I took my two small children to the Oregon Coast, and we went to Astoria and Cannon Beach on a Goonies pilgrimage, and we took them to the museum there where you can have them blissfully locked up for a few minutes in the jail. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. That's funny.

I can show you some pictures. That's funny. Is it talking about in He's not? Is it strange knowing that something you made as a teenager, and it comes across in under the truck, that you didn't really know, like, I mean, Spielberg was there and it was kind of a fun film, but something that people are still talking about

so affectionately 42 years later, is that strange? Is that a strange feeling? You've become part of other people's family histories? That's strange. It is strange. Is it strange? And then it bought, I don't know if it was the case when you went there. I don't think so, because I think it happened more recently

where they bought that house, and that house now looks exactly. They've transformed it back into exactly what it looked like when we did the film. You know what I mean? So the fact that it's like in the zeitgeist, it's like part of people, and not only just with one generation, with several generations now. You know, I don't like admitting it, but it's the truth that I showed my kids the movie recently. And I don't like that my kids, they never really knew what I did until that moment. You know, they were like, why does everybody keep coming up to you and saying, hello?

I was like, I'm just a super friendly guy, you know? And then I showed them Goonies recently. They didn't necessarily know it was me, but it's so fun watching. It just has this enlightening moment. It's just golden pupils, you know what I mean? It's cool. I know you have to leave you. You're getting all uncomfortable.

I'm getting a nod. Are you getting a nod? From an administrator. Right on. Thanks, man. All right. Thank you so much, guys. You too.

Austin, Josh. Terrific film. I have a great time there. Thanks, buddy. Thank you. Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams talking to me about their new film Whalefall. It's quite disconcerting, Mark, when you're doing those interviews, because I've attended dozens of them.

But until you're in the seat with the lights and a man there winding you up, giving you five minutes and two minutes and one minute, it's a real art. There's like a real performance element to it, which, of course, Simon does extremely well, but it was all new to me. What do you think? Okay, so just to quickly recap what you just said, so Whalefall, Austin Abrams is a scuba driver, J, for Jonah, we imagine. who goes searching for the remains of his dad, played by Josh Brolin, who has jumped off a boat to his death in the opening act.

As I said, it's not a sport. It happens at the beginning. The dad was ill, didn't want treatment. The son has got these unresolved issues. And while searching for the remains, Jay is swallowed by a sperm whale and then attempts to escape. So it's an adaptation of a novel by Daniel Krause, which I haven't read. You called it a gold mine. So the novel is great. Novel's really good.

You have it there. Okay. Kraz also shares a screenwriting credit with director Brian Duffield, who made that Caitlin Devere film No One Will Save You, which I like very much. No One Will Save You was remarkable for the fact that it had five words of dialogue. There's also, I was put in mind of J.C. Chander's All Is Lost, which is Robert Redford shipwrecked at sea after his boat gets hit by a big crate that's floating in the sea. That had a whopping 51 words.

This has more than either of those, although it's hardly dialogue heavy, it leans more into monologues, most of which are spoken through underwater breathing apparatus, which I have to say has a kind of Bain-style kind of... But it doesn't matter if you don't understand everything that's being said, because the thing is, the path that is trod by the film is very generically familiar. So there is a survival movie format, which goes, someone trapped in a deadly situation is basically visited by the ghosts of the past and through conversation with the ghosts of the past sort of finds the way out of the current situation.

So it requires the person to be externally trapped, unresolved inner conflict, near-death experience, and that causes them to find the resolution of the inner conflict that then allows them to escape the external conflict and then they go back into the world, usually physically damaged but spiritually enriched. So if you think about something like Danny Boar's 127 hours, that is absolutely that format. And the thing with this is, this does adhere to that format in very textbook fashion. Young man, unresolved father issues swallowed by whale while looking for his father's remains, and while in the belly of the beast revisits fights with his father during which he learns the lessons his father tried to teach him, and then uses those lessons to survive.

Now, the first thing I did when I came out of the film was I did the, has anyone ever survived in the belly of a whale? And the internet tells me that, no, that hasn't happened because there's no breathable air and the corrosive acids would break you down in five seconds. However, my friend and colleague Tim Roby said, yeah, but no astronaut has ever survived what Sandra Bullock survived in gravity.

That doesn't mean it's not a good film, to which the answer is, yeah, fair point. Whether this is a good movie is a matter of debate, and it kind of depends on how you define good. My main question is this. Is it about a whale, or is it about a father and a son? And I think that unlike Jaws, you know, I always said Jaws is not about a shark,

and Stephen Spielberg said it is about a shark, okay? Unlike that, this wants not to be about a whale. it wants to be about a father and son, but I think it's actually about a whale. Now, you from that interview, think it's about inheritance and stuff, to use the phrase which you so eloquently, it's about inheritance and stuff. I think it's about the mechanics of becoming whale food for better or worse. And I think we should discuss this because I think the stuff inside the belly of the beast is a strange mix of absurd and claustrophobic.

So on the one hand, there's the absurdity, which is that there's light everywhere because the plankton is lighting up, which is very convenient, so you can actually see what's going on. But it's also, I just don't know whether I believe that any of this could actually happen. That's the absurdist stuff. On the other hand, I believe it well enough because I'm watching it on a big screen, and I'm getting a complete claustrophobic panic attack because I need to get out of the belly of this whale,

because I am absolutely terrified about being trapped in confined spaces. And yes, during the course of the drama, the whale does become an embodiment of the dad, becomes an embodiment of the unresolved issue which has swallowed this young man and from which he must escape, incidentally, in a sort of slightly jawsy fashion. But I think that it is still about the whale, and I think that that's the problem with it for me, is that for me, it is a film about a boy who gets swallowed by a whale that has a bunch of father-son stuff in it that is probably in the novel

and is probably more powerful in the novel. But when it comes to the film, it's about being whale food. Now, I would like to hear what you think. I think this, your mileage will vary. I think if you think about your dad a lot and things that he taught you And if your dad has passed away relatively recently, as mine did, I found that part of the story quite emotionally resonant. There's definitely, I mean, he's not a, he wasn't Mick Gardner, but he certainly was from a similar generation.

And I think that brought me quite close to that story. I agree, I think that the adaptation of the novel is not entirely successful and does not convey some of the emotional depths that you get from Daniel Crown. novel, who's a terrific writer, by the way. He wrote No, which is a terrific. A Shape of Water. Yeah, and the book is, I found the book very emotionally resonant and I agree with you

on the inside the whale bits, the psychopaths squid I thought was unintentionally comic. Is that in the book? And in the novel, in the novel, it just dies quite quickly. Okay, fine. It doesn't keep coming back. It is not, no.

It's not a kind of sequence of battles to the death inside the belly of the whale. So I thought that was not entirely successful. I think the sound design's good, the score is good. I think the inside the whale's belly actually was, in terms of the craft of it, was successful. I think Austin Abrams is a terrific actor, and I think he's conveying deep panic, I think, was really good. Yeah, he is a good, but he is really good. And I enjoyed it. I think I called it terrific at the end of the interview.

I'm not sure. You did? Like on reflection. I think it's terrific. I think it's a good, solid film if you like, you know, scrungy, wet, claustrophobic environments and a bit of a by the numbers farther and some story running alongside it. All right. I think it's, you know, it's worth it if you like that kind of stuff.

But it is, no matter what it may think it is, and no matter what the book may be, it is about being swallowed by a whale Yeah, it is Yeah The sperm whale The father of the sea As it's known For better or worse

For better or for worse All right Well that was whaleful That's out on Friday And it's rated 15 For strong threat Injury detail And an extremely violent squid

So It's time now Mark To have a whale Of a time In the laughter lift Right Four jokes in here By the way Mark

See if you can spot The listener one Okay ready I think you're going to say if you can spot the jokes. Okay. Oh, hey, Mark. Hey, what's the difference between a roll of Andrex and a pair of curtains? Um, I don't know what's the difference between a roll of Andrews?

I knew it was you, dirty boy. Oh, I see. Oh, hey Mark. I saw my doctor yesterday as I had a nasty little rash on my posterior, so I showed it to him. But he completely ignored me and kept scanning his shopping through the self-checkout. Sorry, run that one by me again. I saw my doctor yesterday as I had a nasty little rash on my posterior, so I showed it to him, but he completely ignored me and kept scanning his shopping through the self-checkout.

Right, okay, fine, now we're going on, yes. And you've actually brought along your own laughing. Well done. Oh, hey Mark. Digger's been inspiring a lot of discourse this week and last. It stars Tom Cruise, of course. I'll tell you what I know about Tom Cruise. Very little.

Okay. Come on, not bad. Is that the listener joke? Oh hey Mark Not sure if you knew this about me But inspired by my love of the game Street Fighter I recently started a karate dojo In my hometown called Paul Contact Karate

Initially I hired four teachers But the demand was so high That I had to hire a fifth Mark Even then I had too many students signing up So I asked them to put in extra hours Now I've got one two three four five Sensi's working over time Was that the listener email

No, the listener email was it, was it that one? It was. Okay, I thought it was the Tompsey. That was Kateane Jones sent that in. Okay, well done. That was the ringer. Very good. Come on, they're good. Everyone in the studio loved it, didn't you guys?

Give me another little chuckle. Yeah. They're doing double thumbs up, Mark. Well, I've never heard it called that before. All right, still to come, Mark's review of Street Fighter and some What's Ons. We'll be back in a minute. Right, welcome back, everybody. I tell you what, all of that stuff that you've just heard about,

Definitely go and buy it and or make use of it if it's a service. What do you think? Yes, I endorse these messages, whatever they were. So, Street Fighter is out this week, Mark. There have been other iterations of this. Tell us about the new shiny Street Fighter movie. Yes, well, I should start by saying, I have never played the game of Street Fighter, but you have.

You're a bit of an aficionado. This is, I believe, the third live-action feature-length Street Fighter film. So originally, the Felipe brothers were going to do this, and then they went off to do Bring Her Back instead. So it went instead to Cato Secura, who was best known for collaborations with Eric Andre and maker of that film Bad Trip. So the plot, if we can call it that, opens in the, is it 93, estranged fighters,

Riu and Ken Masters are recruited to enter the World Warrior Tournament, but the tournament is going to bring a whole bunch of elements together in which they'll all have to face their demons or something. The point is it's not plot heavy. I think that's fair to say. Plot is not the biggest part of all this. What it is is it's big, noisy, shouty, punchy, And for me,

I mean, bear in mind, because I don't play video games. So I'm thinking, like, when I was a kid, on Saturday afternoon, you used to watch World of Sport, right? And they had a wrestling thing on World of Sport, in which you'd have wrestlers in, like, masks. And there was one guy called The Exorcist,

and there was another guy called Giant Haystack, and didn't wear a mask, but he wore a costume. And they would hit each other for like half an hour, while little old ladies with handbags would sit in the front row and shout at them. And then if you fast forward, a few years, we get to things like Night of the Bloody Apes, which was a video nasty thing,

which was a Mexican wrestling movie, which is people in costumes hitting each other, but just with the kind of video nasty trapping around it. And then fast forward to this, in which there's a dazzling assortment of international fighters in mask and a ton of CGI effects hitting each other for two hours, while old fart film critics like me sit there watching it and trying to think of a new and interesting. way of saying that video games don't really translate to the big screen, but at least this is better than the one that had Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue, and the one after that, which was ranked 44th in Rotten Tomato's 100 worst films reviewed of the 2000s. I mean,

this is better than that, but that is a low bar. Here's a clip. Who's y'all gathered here are the world's best fighters. I'm a street fighter We'll be drowned The world champion I'm street Not a warrior anymore You're a side show

My business is a surprise Shut that TV I'm Ken Masters This is your shot at redemption To my business as a Are you gonna show? I'm on now It's not one of combat

Maybe it's Ken's turn to be champion Or maybe not So essentially It's an 84 minute squeezed into just over two hours It looks like a live action version of a kind of comic strip manga, feels like a very extended pop video with banging music, smashy, bashy, punchy action, and jokes. Lots of jokes, only some of which land. Now, to be fair,

in the screening that I was in, there was a few people who were laughing a lot at the jokes. They were laughing at the camp humour, and they were generally being swept along by the kind of garrishly coloured action of it. I wasn't one of them, because despite all the kind of kinetic set piece stuff and everything being cranked up to 11ty stupid, the problem for me, is. I never knew or cared about or, you know, got involved in the story or the characters and therefore never felt any pain and therefore no gain. I mean, yes, there is some swishy fight choreography. There is much flashy, bashy direction in the style of somebody like McGee. And you really, you couldn't accuse the film of not trying really hard to be distracting. But I mean,

in terms of narrative development, it makes the masters of the universe film look like Citizen Kane, it will almost certainly find an audience, and I'm not one of them. And more than once, I found myself kind of drifting in and out of it and just losing track of which fight sequence was going to the next one. Because the thing is, all the fight sequences seem strangely inconsequential, which I suppose is due to the fact that it comes from a video game in which all the fight sequences are essentially inconsequential. The other thing that's weird is that all the bits that visually echoed the video game. There were certain sections in which the camera will pan along, like you can imagine it on a

video console and the action moving and you're going through certain levels. All it did really was remind me that cinema is not the best place for interactive video narratives to play out. I mean, every now and then people get it right. I think Resident Evil does a pretty good job of getting it right. I didn't enjoy this. I think it is the best version of this that we've seen. absolutely aware that there will be people who like the original, like you, for example,

who may well really enjoy that part of it. As a film, it pretty much left me cold, but it wouldn't surprise me if it finds its audience. I'll probably go and see it. Yeah. But then is that, is that the problem? Because older fans who are familiar with the IP, traditionally are much harder to get into cinemas. They're quite happy to sort of wait for streaming. So I don't know. I don't know. It's weird, isn't it? This way the studios pick their IP and all this, the money they put behind it. Yeah, and I don't know how much affection there is anymore for Street Fighter.

I just don't know because I'm not that audience. I know, I mean, I'm sure you're a fan of the game that the previous incarnations on screen, the live action inclinations, have not been good, right? No, they're all rubbish. Rubbish. fine. And this is probably the top of that pile, but as I said, that is a very,

very low bar to pass. Yeah. The ticket tracking for it, pre-sales running about half of what Mortal Kombat 2 sold at the exact same point prior to release. So, you know, so maybe interest has just simply dried up.

Yeah, yeah. I do remember watching World of Sport on a Saturday afternoon with my grandparents. The wrestling then, it sounds like it was infinitely more entertaining in this film. Yeah. Cat Weasel.

He was another one. Cat Weasel. I do, but I do remember there was literally a character called The Exorcist. And the funny thing about it was... Kendo Nagasaki. But the Exorcist seemed to have fundamentally misunderstood who the Exorcist was because the Exorcist wrestler was the baddie. It was one, there was quite a transgressive wrestler called Adrian Street.

He used to wear sort of glam rock, some androgynous costumes, yeah. And then Giant Haystacks would always just come on and just plow, plow everyone down. What was his real name? Nick McManus. Giant Haystacks, I can't remember. Big Daddy was Shirley Crabtree. That's right, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you got Rollerball Rocko. Rollerball Rock. He was another one. Davy Boy Smith. Those were the days. All right. Before we finish. we've got four, Mark four, Watson's.

Excellent. So first of all, there's a special screening of one of your favourites. Hi, Simon and Mark. It's Ryan here from the team at Earth in Dahlston. On Sunday 18th of October, we're screening one of Mark's favorite films of last year, Rose of Nevada, with a live score performed by the Cornish Sound Unit, featuring the films director Mark Jenkin and his collaborator Dionne Star. Tickets are available via the Earth website and Dice,

and you can also visit the BFI website for details of further screenings elsewhere throughout October. And as always, we'll put a link to where you can get your tickets. That will be fabulous, because Rose and Laval with a live score is really, really terrific. Yeah, it does sound special. And here's Ian Wheelan.

Hello, Mark and Simon. I'm here to tell you about the extraordinary production of the Grand Central Cinema Club Lights Camera Mayhem. A joint production between Mangelfared features and Arklight Theatre Company, It's based on Alan Nolan's best-selling book. Yes, it's a play, but it's also a cinema-adjacent musical theatrical extravaganza.

It's fun for kids of all ages, even older balding ones like me. Let me set the scene. Dublin 1937, the golden age of the silver screen. Movie-loving kids, the Grand Central Cinema Club, are as to hide Hollywood Princess Dottie Bright. Because this pampered princess of a child movie star is in danger of being. been kidnapped by the Chicago mob. It runs for four shows only at Dublin's amazing Civic Theatre

on the 17th and 18th of October 2026. And the good news is, all the tickets are free. But of course, booking is essential. For more details, visit the Red Line Festival website or get your tickets from civic theatre.i.e. I mean, 10 out of 10. It sounds fantastic. Well delivered.

By the way, you've got to see. see it. If you're listening to this, head on, head to our YouTube channel and have a little look. That is 10 out of 10. That's the best we've ever had. Can you top that? Correspondence at Kermuda Mayo.com. Here's a message from the Bath Film Festival. Our 36th annual festival kicks off on Friday, October 16th, with a screening of Martin McDonough's new film, Wild Horse 9. We've also got exciting premieres, Olivia Coleman in Wicker, Paul Gimati and Julianne Moore in the debut. We've got Cannes Prize. winners like Fjord, Fatherland and Minotaur. And one thing we're really proud of at the Bath Film Festival is that it is F-rated. That means that 50% of the films are directed by women.

Total of 40 films, loads of exciting events, and you'll find all the details at filmbath.org.org. Fantastic. Sounds good, that, isn't it? Wicker, the debut? Very good. Might head down there myself. I hope they're coming on December the 6th if they're in Bath.

Oh yes. So they can roll onto the show. They can exactly, yeah. And finally, some Dutch horror. Harlem. No, not that one. The original Dutch one is having its very first horror film festival beginning the 19th of October. It runs all week across the city.

Screenings include Haxon, Friday the 13th. Hello to Jason. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, West Craven's Scream, and even the second greatest film ever made. The Exorcist. Tickets are on sale. via the website, harlemhorrorfilmfilmfellifestival.com. That's Harlem with two ways, by the way, the Dutch way.

Just in case Mark is wondering what the greatest film ever made is, the correct answer is Badlands, Mark. It's Terrence Malick's Badlands. It's a good call. It's a very good call. It's a good call. It's not bad. I think we've reached our quota of Exorcist mentions in this week's show. So thanks everyone who sent those videos in. If you want us to publicise your screening or your special event,

send us a video to correspondence at Kerr Mode and May. dot com. That's it for this week. This has been a Sony music entertainment production. This week's team was Dom, Eric Josh, Heather and Avi. The redactor was Simon Poole. In Take 2, we're directing you to the Overflow car park of love. For more chat about current film releases, giving you some film suggestions. This week's film, this is about usurpers. Films about usurpers. I'm not quite sure how that got through. Mark, what's your film of the week? Well, it's a funny week. It's not a great week. But I would say in the week that it's not a great week, Forgotten Island, probably.

Next week, Mark will be reviewing Clayface, Ali G, who is I? I will. Fatherland? Yes. I've got the T-shirt. Look, girls on top, sent me a freebie. My first freebie. 15 years, my first freebie.

Fatherland, making Mariantoinette, Clara and the Sun, and Tad on the Magic Lamp, and all rivers spill their stories to the sea. It's a pack show. You'd be a busy boy. That's eight reviews, Mark. An octo take. It's crazy. You can't possibly watch it.

It's crazy. We're going to have to have a discussion. I think. Yep. That's it from me, and that's it from Mark.