Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Josh O’Connor, La Chimera, Love Lies Bleeding, The Idea of You & The Fall Guy

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

This week, man of the moment Josh O’Connor is in the studio to chat to Simon about his leading role in ‘La Chimera’, Italian auteur Alice Rohrwacher’s period fantasy drama about a British archaeologist who becomes involved in an international network of stolen Etruscan artifacts during the 1980s. Mark gives his take on various new releases including ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, the latest offering from Kermode fave Rose Glass, which sees Kristen Stewart play a reclusive gym manager who falls for an ambitious bodybuilder only for the pair to become embroiled in the former’s violent criminal family; and ‘The Idea of You’, an Anne Hathaway-starring romcom that sees a 40-year-old single mum begin an unexpected romance with the 24-year-old leader singer of the biggest boy band on the planet. The big review of the week is 'The Fall Guy’, a Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt-starring action comedy, which sees a battle-scarred stuntman spring back into action when the star of a big studio movie suddenly and mysteriously disappears. Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): 06:20 – Love Lies Bleeding Review 12:36 – Box Office Top Ten 25:02 – Josh O’Connor Interview 42:24 – The Idea of You 48:46 – What's On May 55:23 – The Fall Guy You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh Mark, you know I've been spending a lot more time in Denmark recently. Yep, the bakery date is in the calendar still. Well, it being a Nordic country and everything, I found the perfect solution to streaming all those lovely films and TV shows that we review whilst I'm there. What on earth would that perfect solution be, Simon? Well NordVPN, of course you see it's Nord, Nordic. You don't know it yet. I get it. Moving on.

With one click NordVPN can change my device's virtual location so I can access all the content I need when I'm abroad. I can now watch poor things whether in London or Paris. Why even wait until you're on holiday? You can do it right now and access content in over 61 different countries unlocking all this content for less than a price of a pano raisin a month. Pano raisin. Pano raisin. To take our huge discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com slash take.

Our link will also give you four extra months for free on the two year plan. Now, back to the show. ["The New World"] When I was small and Christmas trees were tall, we used to love while others used to play. Don't ask me why, but time has passed us by. Someone else moved in from far away. Now we are tall and Christmas trees are small and you don't ask the time of day. But you and I, our love will never die, but guess guests will cry come 1st of May. We're recording on the 1st of May. The apple tree that grew for you and me is one of the Bee Gees classics.

Do you love this song? I don't know what it is. It's not meaningless songs in very high voices. It's made by the Bee Gees. I don't know it. Could you sing it for me? It's a lovely song. Could you give me a little bit of the... Not with a voice like this. Oh yeah, so no, I've been coughing all night.

Shall we explain to the audience, and I'm delighted to be able to say this, but welcome to the show in which Simon Mayo is on steroids. Yeah, it's true actually. So last week we did the show and then after show, I just deteriorated enormously. It was quite a stressful record, as it turns out. And by the end of The Greatest Thits show, my voice had just gone. So then I was off work Thursday, Friday, because I couldn't speak. So I'm on antibiotics and on steroids. And you know how when you take, this is all GP recommended, obviously, you know when you take a tablet, normally they don't taste of anything and you just sort

of take a glass of water and you knock it back, right? These steroids, I have to take eight all at once. Well, not all at once, you know, eight at the same time. And they are the most revolting tablets of all. I don't know what they're made from. They're actually made of steroids, but you know, it's the most disgusting. I never knew steroids tasted so good. What do they taste like? But I have got amazing muscles. So what is the taste?

With the steroids, you're going to turn up in a review that we're going to do. So what does it taste of? Food that's gone off, basically. Doesn't taste of pumpkin oil. It's just really, really disgusting. So even if you're, even if you're drinking them with, if you're swallowing them with coffee or something like that, the taste, I still have steroid in taste in my mouth now. That's how grim it is. But anyway, if it's making me better then...

Mason- But is it going to, is it going to make you super puff? Are you going to have that? That was one of my favourite phrases. I think it was some Douglas Adams. He said he had biceps that looked like two Volkswagen's parking. That's definitely Douglas Adams, isn't it? Yes, I actually now look like Josh O'Connor, our guest for today's programme, when he's playing tennis. That's exactly how I look. Ripped. Completely ripped. And it's just from a couple of days of taking these steroids. That's exactly how I look. Ripped. Completely ripped. And it's just from like a couple of days of taking these steroids. It's amazing really. And Josh O'Connor is

on the show because he's in to talk about a new movie. And he's not talking about his tennis film, although that does come up in the conversation. But he's talking about a little kind of indie Italian Anglo film called Lacchimera. Anyway, he's a great guest. You'll hear from him later. What else are we doing? Did he mention me? Because, you know, I mean, I've been a fan of his for ages. I didn't get to interview him. Did he ask after me? Did he say hi? Actually, no, you didn't come up in the conversation and he didn't say to say hi. But let's just assume that he just thought it didn't need to be said.

Thanks Josh. Thanks Josh. Yeah. Thanks Josh O'Connor. Well, he's heading for the big time basically. Yeah. I think he's hit the big time. He's played Charles. Yeah. Coming up on the show, reviews of The Fall Guy, The Idea Review, which is certainly a

new Al Hathaway film, and Love Lies Bleeding, which is super pumped and features steroids. Excellent. Which I'm sure will become a recurring subject. By the way, if you're a member of the medical section of our church, I'd love to know why some tablets taste revolting. That's what I want to know. Maybe they make them taste revolting so you don't think, oh, I'll do that. It's a nice thing. All I know about steroids is that when you give them to the cat or the dog, they get a new lease of life. Like if you've got a cat or a dog that's got some kind of, you know, thing, and then the vet says, oh,

we're going to have to put them on a course of steroids. And the next thing you know, your cat is out mousing every day and your dog is, you know, leaping in and out of the sea. Well, look out North London because I should be out prowling and killing wildlife as appropriate. In our extra takes, which has landed alongside for the Vanguard Easter, our weekend watchlist, TV Movie of the Week thing. Couple of bonus reviews. What are they, Mark? A Red Herring, which is a new documentary.

Also, it's the reissue, 25th anniversary reissue of Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace, the film for which you and I went to Hollywood to see for the first time. What an amazing experience that was. One frame back, his film's about stunt performers. Questions, Shmesschens will be here. More from Josh O'Connor, because he was so good, we've split him into two. Baby Reindeer will be discussed because Mark has watched all of that. You can access all of this joy and happiness via Apple Podcasts or head to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices. If you're already a Vanguardista, as always, we salute you. Joel says, can we just point out to the listeners that before we came on air, we had to do a thing

with the video camera because you just did salute and we had to do a thing with your video camera because it had a setting on it. If you gave a thumbs up or a salute, your video camera automatically superimposed fireworks over you. And we spent about 10 minutes figuring out how to turn it off. This is because I interviewed Vicky McClure for this podcast, which you'll hear a couple of weeks time, I imagine. And all the way through the interview, big thumbs up emojis kept on appearing at the side of my screen, at the side of her screen. And

being a professional, she doesn't mention it, but it was very off-putting. So I think my kids have probably been saying it. Anyway, I've got some emails here, but I don't think I'm going to, I think we're going to come back to them because Love Lies Bleeding is, it looks like it could be a top film and there's some correspondence about that. So why don't we get stuck into that. Mason- Okay. Okay. So Love Lies Bleeding, which is the new film from Rose Glass, who made Saint Maud, which you remember was my favourite film of a few years ago, I think it was 2020. I said at the time that she was an electrifying, thrilling new voice. I also knew at the time that if you have a film like Saint Maud, it's a going to hard act to follow.

Well, she has followed it and then some. New film is co-written by her and Veronica DeFilska. I did an onstage with her at the BFI, but the BFI IMAX actually weird because they're currently taking a bit to doing a bunch of electrical stuff at the BFI. And she's great. I mean, she's a really, really great filmmaker. This is set in 80s America, shot in Albuquerque,

so, you know, Breaking Badland. Kristen Stewart, who is great, is this gym manager, Lou, Louise. She works her days among the bodybuilders and the jocks. Into the gym comes Jackie, played by Katie O'Brien, who you may know from The Mandalorian. She's the communications officer. I interviewed her because I did a program about bodybuilding on screen. And she's on her way to a bodybuilding competition

in Las Vegas. She's also on the lookout for work and a place to stay. And it is clear from the outset that there is a spark between Jackie and Lou his clip. Is this your place? No, I just work here. Okay. You're looking pretty good in there. Yeah? You got some pretty serious lines going. Jackie! There you are.

Ladies. If that's alright with you, Lou. Hey, wanna go grab a drink right now if you want to come with. Thanks. I'm good here. If ever there were two guys going to get the brush off, it was them. Yeah. They haven't, uh, what's the phrase? They haven't read the room or the parking lot in this case. So they start to have a relationship, which is powered to some extent by the fact that Lou gives Jackie steroids, which apparently she got from you, Simon Mayo. So, you know, you're kind of part of this plot. Meanwhile, Jackie gets a job at a gun range, which is run by Lou's estranged father,

played by Ed Harris with the scariest hair I have seen in a film in quite some time. Lou Senior is clearly bad news. Dave Franco's JJ is bad news and unpleasant. And somehow you know this whole thing is going to turn into a kind of Tinder box. Now if St. Maub was a kind of slow burn portrait of loneliness and obsession with a killer sting in its tail, this is like a brilliantly visceral sucker punch of a film. It's tactile, it's physical in the Cronenbergian sense. Absolutely sensational in its impact. I mean, I remember just recently we reviewed Drive Away Dolls. This is actually the lesbian action romance that is anarchic

and subversive rather than just a film that's pretending to be all of those things. I mean, on the one hand it's about women's power, it's about women becoming physically strong and that alarming the men around them. The film's been playing in the US and I think particularly with what's going on in the US at the moment, the US needs to see a film like this. It's also a sweaty, passionate love story. It's a tale of lust and violence and love and heat and dust and muscle and steroids. It's also a kind of videodrome style body transformation fantasy. If like me, you're a big Cronenberg fan, you do think all the way through Long Live the New Flesh. There's a thing in the brood, this thing, psycho-plasmics, which what psycho-plasmics does is it takes your

internal rage and externalises it and turns it into something physical. There's a version of that going on in the film. Also, Rose Glass has always been interested in dance. This is to some extent a musical. There's a lot of pumping period music, but also the way in which when people are doing bodybuilding posing, it is like dancing. It's almost like invoking really. The way in which she shoots it, the way in which, when people are doing bodybuilding posing, it is like dancing. It's almost like invoking really. And the way in which she shoots it, the way in which she shoots the skin, the flesh, the muscles, the positions of the body is really like watching somebody filming dance. Christian Stewart, I know Clas D'Astel's Maria Persil shopper, Spencer,

absolutely brilliant. Again, demonstrating that she's got real range. I still incidentally think she was great in the Twilight movies and I'm never going to forget that that was where I first was introduced to her. But of course, it is significant as well that she was in the Cronenberg film just recently. And so she's kind of in this swamp anyway. Great chemistry between her and Katie O'Brien who is equally terrific on camera. But I do think that the star of the film is Rose Glass. Confidence just oozes from every frame. She's confident enough to be playful. There are playful nods to things like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, there's psychedelic

expressionism, the film sort of turning itself inside out. And I genuinely, genuinely thought this is just sensationally entertaining. I'm thrilled. It's like proper, full-on visceral cinema that reaches out from the screen and grabs you. And I think it's terrific and I think you'd really enjoy it, particularly since you currently have a head full of steroids. Mason- Also, psychedelic expressionism isn't a phrase I've ever heard before. So maybe I need to go and see it for that very reason. You'll love it. It's great. I would be amazed if anything gets the kind of praise that Love

Lies Bleeding has just received. Anyway, hang on for that. Correspondence at Kamenomeyo.com. Still to come, Mark. What are we going to do next? The new Anne Hathaway film, The Idea Review and The Fall Guy, which is in cinemas, including IMAX. Also, we're going to be talking to Josh O'Connor back in just a moment. This episode is brought to you by the curated streaming service MUBI. Mark, for our wonderful listeners who already have a MUBI account and for those who might be thinking about getting one, could you please tell us what films they can enjoy this May?

Certainly Simon. This month MUBI are launching their CAN takeover. You know how much I love CAN. And in honour of the CAN film festival, which kicks off this month, here is a selection of what they have available to stream in the UK. They have Annette, which is the Leos Carracks musical with music by Sparks, which is absolutely wonderful. And have Annette which is the Leos Carracks musical with music by Sparks which is absolutely wonderful and Tokyo Guard which is the film by German director Wim Wenders who travels to Tokyo to explore the world of one of his cinematic heroes, Yesujira Ozu. That's Mubi's Cannes takeover series, what else?

Well there's also Voilá Varda which is a look back on some of the best of the famous French director. There's Cleo from 5 to 7, Le Bonheur, Vagabond, The Gleaners and I and The Beaches of Agnes. You can try Mubi free for 30 days at mubi.com slash Kermit and Mayo. That's m-u-b-i dot com slash Kermit and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. Well hello there, Simon and Mark here to tell you about Indeed. Yes, Indeed is driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search match with Indeed. If you need to hire then you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million

global monthly visitors according to Indeed data. And if you're busy watching all of this week's film recommendations and you have no time, then you can use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging, so you can connect with candidates faster. But Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 75% of employers claim Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other online job sites. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching

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You need Indeed. Indeed. And we're back, unless you're a Vanguard Eastern, in which case we just sort of rolled seamlessly onwards. The box office top 10 brought to you by our friends from Comscore movies. Whenever we need a top 10, we ask our friends at Comscore and they say, sure, have these. Number 38, American Society of Magical Negroes. As I said when we talked about last week, it's an interesting idea and it's probably an interesting idea for a short film, but it really does struggle to sustain a feature.

It's just not coherent enough to work. There is a good satirical idea in there, but it's not a feature idea. Someone called Uber from our YouTube channel said, caught this last night. Very enjoyable, full of laughs, good acting, but probably didn't do its main cause justice until the penultimate scene. Its focus seemed to pull away from its initial premise to a standard rom-com, which was a shame. It wasn't wasted time, wouldn't avoid it completely, but at the same time I wouldn't rush back to see it. Number 26 is ISS.

I kind of enjoy it because I like the idea about single location. A bunch of people stuck in a space station, terrible things happen on Earth and suddenly the people in the space station are turned against each other. It's kind of like the thing in space. I enjoy it. Steve Ledbetter, also on our YouTube channel, says, a decent pretender to 2010 with Roy Scheiner and Helen Mirren. And I think John Lithgow was in that as well.

I think I'm right. Is that the one with the... Didn't Arthur C. Clarke write that? It's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, Steve Ledbetter says, tensions were high. It taught me to count backwards from 10 to one in Russian. So clearly I've watched it too often.

I don't think I've ever seen 2010. The thing that 2010 is most famous for is that my very good friend Nigel Floyd always quotes, there's a phrase that Helen Mirren used, she says, piece of pie. She means piece of cake, but it's a mistranslation and she says piece of pie. And so whenever Nigel is going to say piece of cake, he says piece of pie as a nod to Helen Mirren in 2010. Number 19 is Ordinary Angels. Which is okay. I mean, as those kind of faith-based films go, it sort of keeps the faith generally to the background. Although I do think that the main thing it tells you is that the American

healthcare system needs addressing very seriously. Interesting email from the Reverend David Meldrum in Cape Town, formerly of London and Edinburgh. Dear Reverend Doctor and Right Reverend Doctor, listening since the beginning, oftentimes emergency mailer, I was reminded in this week's take of something that's been nagging at me for a long time. Mark reviewed Ordinary Angels, a film which holds no attraction for me whatsoever. I appreciate that for some people and other media of this nature, I aimed squarely at a particular kind of Christian that they're important. I also know that film companies market films at specific target markets. I find it though deeply patronising. I am a

Christian. It's generally considered a compulsory prerequisite for my job, what with him being a reverend and everything. As Mark is rightly fond of saying, you get from a film what you bring to it. Because my faith is important to me, it informs my watching of films, often not consciously, but it's there in the air I breathe, like my marriage and family life and other central parts of who I am. I don't want or need a film tailored to my perceived needs by a Hollywood marketing department. I want good films. My faith has been informed and shaped by all manner of films, none of them with this faith-based sector. I think of Pan's Labyrinth and Trainspotting,

amongst many others. Martin Scorsese's Silence was a profound and thought-provoking film about faith adapted from a great novel, and was not, as far as I can recall, described as faith-based, presumably because it asks challenging questions of and about faith rather than simply using faith as a marketing tool. Down with lazy film marketing, right-wing fundamentalists, wing nuts and all the other bad stuff, and up with having your worldview shaped by surprising and challenging art of all types. Reverend David Meljum. That's a good email, don't you think? I do. Where does the Reverend David Meljum preach? Because I would like to go to one

of his sermons. He sounds like my kind of guy. Okay. It's going to be a while, but I'm going to get myself to Cape Town because I would go to one of those sermons. Yeah, that sounds pretty good, Dave. If you preach like that, then if you're one of our listeners in or near Cape Town, seek out the Reverend David Meldrum because he sounds like a good kind of bloke. Number 15, Boy Kills World. And speaking of being punched in the face, Monkey Man is at number 10, number 12 in the States. Mason- And as I said, weirdly, these two could be a very, very exhausting, Charles O'Copley double bill. It's more face

punching than anyone can deal with. Is it the second Twilight film in which they go to? Because she has to be disturbed because when she's disturbed she gets visions of Edward. So she goes to the cinema to see a film which is called Face Punch, Let's Do This. I think that's the second Twilight film. You have an encycledic knowledge of that genre. Number nine here, number nine in the States is Dune Part Two. This is, you know, I think we're all now going, okay, come on, can we have part three? Because we want the thing in which it becomes apparent to everybody that, you know what, he's not the Messiah. It's just a very, very bad thing is going to happen. Yeah.

Number eight, new entry. Now this is either spy times family code, colon white, or you don't say the times because as you told us, it's silent. So it's spy family code white. What is it? See, I suspect that's the case. I suspect it's the second of those by family code. Why I haven't seen this, this is a Japanese animated spy action comedy film

and I imagine that that's A.Z. but then I am basing that on the fact that Linda Marek told me that this is what happens when you have a title with an X in it that you don't say it because the kids wouldn't. And number seven is Ghostbusters Frozen Empire. She isn't getting any better but it has been in the charts now for six weeks and this demonstrates why we keep getting these films because it doesn't matter how poor they are. All that matters is that they've got the word ghostbusters in them and a couple

of, you know, appearances by, you know, Oh yeah, there's the guy who I thought was great in the film in the previous century and they just continue to make money. Number six is Abigail, number five in America. So Abigail came out the week that we were off and I said, I was going to go and see it over the weekend and I lied to you. But the reason I did was, and there is a reason, I was going to and then I watched an episode of Baby Reindeer and then I lost an evening because I just did all of Baby Reindeer. No, no, but you're going to benefit from the fact that I did it because we are going to

talk about Baby Reindeer in take two, but that's what happened. I literally couldn't get off the couch. I did all seven episodes. Godzilla Kong, The New Empire is at five. Jason- Well done. You are learning. You are down with the kids. It's Godzilla Kong, not Godzilla X-Kong. Mason- At number four in the UK and number four. Jason- It was interesting because when this came out, you said, I think this is going

to be one of the films of the year. It is certainly one of the talking point films of the year. I have now had three separate conversations with people, one of whom absolutely loved it, one of whom absolutely hated it. And one of them, it was going to go and see it again because they had only realized halfway through that it wasn't the film that was advertised in the trailer. I do think this, I think it's a really interesting film. There are great, great things in it. I think the trailer miss sells it.

And I think that's one of the problems. It's not a Marvel movie. I mean, it's obviously with everything that's going on in America at the moment, it kind of looks closer to a documentary, but you know, I have some reservations about it, but I think it is going to carry on being a talking point. Yes. Kung Fu Panda 4 is at three. And there will, you know, there'll be Kung Fu, Kung, Kung Fu Panda 4. Kung Fu Panda 4 is at three. And there will be Kung Fu Panda 4. Kung Fu Panda. I would pay to see that franchise.

Trying Hard Panda volume five, we'll look forward to that one. And number two is Back to Black. See again, I've had conversations with people about this and I know it's not a documentary and if you want a documentary, the Asif Kapadia dog is out there and I think it's very good. As a pop biopics aficionado, I think Back to Black is fine. I don't think it's great, but I don't think it's terrible. I think it's got a very, very good central performance. I think the most remarkable thing about it is how unremarkable it is. And I mean that as in it's not bad. It's, you know, it's full of chubby moments, but then, you know, so is the

buddy Holly story and you know, so are all the films I've said. I think it's funny and it has done pretty well at the box office. So despite the fact that there was all this stuff before it came out, you know, people were outraged and tabloid newspapers were faffing about it. It's done fine. It's done fine. It's just fine. Number one here, and number one in America as well, is Challengers. Starring Josh O'Connor, who you'll hear from very shortly, Anna says, last night I went to see Challenger's packed

cinema in Edinburgh. I was slightly sceptical as I'd seen the trailer for it on previous cinema trips and thought it looked a bit naff. After hearing Mark's review of my partner seeing lots of rave reviews on TikTok, we decided to go and see for ourselves. As a 22-year-old girl, I think I'm probably the target demographic for this film, but I simply couldn't get over the silliness of it. The changes in camera angles, the intense close-ups and the backing music that cuts in and out of the last scene was just ridiculous. Thanks for the show. You entertain me on my way to hospital every Friday. I'm a medical student, not ill." Anna, thank you for the clarification. Liz Handley says, This is not a romance. Yes, it's a juicy love triangle, but one that's purposefully teased into existence by Tashi, played by Zendaya, to chase a higher peak experience.

Peak experience in this film answers the question, what is sport even for? It's not winning, it's living. Sport here is a vehicle to induce a primordial, life-affirming yelp which Tashi achieves twice in the film. This vaunted state is possible only in motion, whether interpersonal or on the court. These characters twist and turn, love and hate, with a back and forth that makes heavyweight boxing look tame. To be at the peak of their powers, they need each other to be tangled in a mix of aggression, competition, jealousy and desire." There's lots more from Liz, but she likes it. So that email is from who?

Liz Handley, who then talks about it being a yummy love triangle. Glistening, sweaty, sexy version of tennis. Okay, if you're not a professional film critic now, you need to give up whatever it is that you're doing and become a professional film critic now. I mean, that's brilliantly written. And yeah, I wish I'd said all of that. That is a really, really good description of the film. She also says, never has a half smile been so devilish and winning as that of Josh O'Connor's. It is the centrifugal force between one to the other that escalates and heightens. Anyway, and so on.

So it's fantastic. Anyway, and you'll hear from Josh O'Connor. Yeah, I feel very, very insufficient now. Mark, you are sufficient for all our needs. Can I just say that? I'm Kenoff. Look, look, look what I got given as a present. To Ken Dahl.

Oh, right. To Ken Dahl telling me that I am Ken Dahl. Well, that's a very, very lovely thought. And, and leads us as it's slightly whimsical into the laughter lift. What a, what a lovely thing this is going to be. Hey Mark, um, I was in a pub in Showbiz, North London last week. A B flat, an E flat and a G flat walked in. The barman says, sorry lads, we don't serve minors. I already don't believe this. Thank you. It was a fun evening actually. Aunt Beatrice was back from her travels across Africa. She was full of anecdotes and travel advice.

Do you know how you get down from an elephant, dearie? She said. I said, no, I don't. She said, well, you don't. You get down from a goose. So we're back into Christmas cracker land, I think. I wish she'd stayed in Africa. I got her back though.

Aunt Beatrice, I said, what do you call a Frenchman who's being mauled by a lion? No idea, she says. Clawed, I said. No need to groan, Mark. You can relax. You can stay positive. Just think in 3026 years, life will either be really good or really bad. Don't worry, you won't be there to know. It's 50-50. Thank you very much. Got there in the end. Back in a sec. Hey, it's Ben Bailey-Smith here, Substitute Taker and this episode is brought to you by Better Help. Now a lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. If I had

an extra hour slotted into my day I'd actually get through a question, shmestchens, you know, it's I can never quite fit the extra shows in. We all live busy lives these days and everything seems to move at a hundred miles an hour so how do we know what to make room for? Like how do we know what's really important when our lives are happening so quickly? Therapy can help you find what matters to you and if you know what matters to you you can do more of it. Isn't that why we're really here? If you're thinking of starting therapy give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online and it's designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule.

With over a thousand therapists in the UK already, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a wide variety of expertise. And our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash curmode. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash curmode. John Stewart is back in the host chair at The Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast.

The Daily Show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports, and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and Welcome back. This week's guest is the delightful Josh O'Connor, Charles in the Crown, of course. Lawrence Durrell from The Durrells on ITV. He's having quite a moment. He starred in many of Mark's favourite films, God's Own Country, Only You, Challengers, we've been talking about as well. Anyway, he's come on to talk about a film, which I think you talk about is going to come out next week. Mark will be reviewing it next week.

You'll hear him talk about his character Arthur. The movie is La Quimera, and you'll hear from Joshua Connor after this clip. like art, traffickers, predators, but they're just tiny cogs in the wheel at our service. One day the rust will eat them away. Nothing will be left. And that is a clip from La Chimera. Did I get that right? Yes, you did. Starring Josh O'Connor. And I'm just puzzled over the pronunciation because I've always said like, not that I use the word very often, but I've always said shimmerer. But because this is Italian, this is a hard C.

Yeah. Well, I don't know if it's because it's Italian. I've just been told that's how it is. Okay. Yeah. I guess so. I mean, I think- Is your film so you can pronounce it any how you like? Yeah. I'm pronouncing it La Quimera. La Quimera, okay. And La Quimera is, right, so I'm reading this, obviously, a she-goat from southeast, obviously this is Greek mythology, composed of different animal parts, usually depicted as a lion with

the head of a goat protruding from its back, occasionally depicted with dragon's wings and a tail that might end with a snake's head." Which would be the worst description of the film because there's sort of nothing about that. But I did the same, you know, when I was researching the film, you know, one of the first things I did was like, what sort of, what the hell is a chimera? And I did exactly the same thing and found the exact same description, which it is. But it also means, and more importantly for the film means, a chimera is a sort of an idea of a utopia, of like something that you desire, essentially. So it's a...

The description of this kind of hybrid beast does come from the Etruscans, which is also an aspect of the film, but really it's like an almost, it's something that you comprehend as being utopian. Okay, so don't go and see Joshua Connor's new movie if you think it's going to be some kind of marvel film. Yeah, it's not that marvel with beasts and ancient creatures. You'll be severely disappointed. You will be.

So let's find out about the film itself. I just want to talk about the director first of all. And again, I need to get the pronunciation right, she's Italian. And it looks like Alice Rohrwacher, but it's Alice Rohrwacher? Yeah, perfect. Okay. And you love her. You love her work.

So tell us about Ilicia and why you wanted to work with her so much. Well, so the story goes that I have a younger brother who doesn't, as far as I know, often go to the cinema. But he would, as a kind of sweet way of engaging with me, would kind of call me and say, I went to the movies. But oftentimes it would be sort of standard and exciting, but standard movie going experiences. And one day he called me and said, I've gone, I just went to cinema and I saw an Italian film, which piqued my interest. And he said he loved it. and it was called Happy as Lazaro.

And so I went, I think the same day or the day after to see the movie. And Happy as Lazaro, if you haven't seen it, is, I think, a masterpiece in its kind of magical realism, but feels grounded in truth and in elements of spirituality and faith and themes that I'm drawn to anyway. And so I became obsessed and within a couple of days I'd watched The Wonders, her film previous to that, which is also magical, Corpo Chaleste, which was her first feature. Her short films. And I wrote a letter. And I wrote this letter saying, Aliche, I'd love to work with you. You're fantastic. Are you in a habit of doing that kind of thing?

Not, no, not really. I mean, I like writing letters, but not- Doesn't she live out in the woods somewhere? Well, this is the problem. So then I wrote this letter and called my agent saying, how do we get this to Alice? And they were like, good luck. She doesn't have an agent. No one knows where she lives. But I got some intel that she lives in Orvieto. Or no, I think initially in Umbria, which is a massive part of Italy.

So I sent a letter entitled Alice Rorvaca, Italy, posted it. And then I sent another one, which was ridiculous. And then I sent it to Umbria, again, with this notion that someone would see it at the post office and know someone who knows someone who knows. And they get the whole movie. I know anyway, she never received the letter. And then just by chance we met up. So that's a disappointing movie. That wouldn't work plot wise. Yeah, it wouldn't work plot wise. It wouldn't be thrilling.

No, she needs to, she needs an ancient postie to be delivering that letter. And she goes, oh right, I'd already cast someone, but no. But no. Yes, exactly. What would have been perfect is if we'd made our movie and then years later she'd received the letter. Okay. That's even better. That would have been nice too.

I'm going to write this one down. So you play Arthur, who's a British archaeologist. Tell us about him, because the way you've just described her past work would, I think, help illuminate why you wanted to play Arthur and the kind of film that this is. So tell us about him. Well, Arthur is, as I say, he's an archaeologist, British archaeologist. At the beginning of the film, he's just been released having spent some time in prison. In the 80s, and actually years prior to this, but in the 80s, it was rife in Italy. This idea of the tomborelli, which is tomb raiders, and not

in the sense that we know. Literally, people going around in Italy, going to older Truscan tombs, which are readily available, particularly in Umbria and Lazio region. They're digging up these tombs and finding these beautiful ceramics and objects. And then they would sell them on the black market to, you know, the British Museum, Metropolitan Art Museum, very notable art museums and history museums. And so it was big business. And in our film, Arthur is this British, sort of failed archeologist really, who has found his home in Italy through his fiancee, who prior to the film has died.

And he's in this kind of strange void between the real world, the life he leads, and the void, the afterlife, the unseen, which is where his fiancee, Benjamina, is. And he's feeling this pull to the afterlife, and this kind of question of what he's doing, is it right? And I can go into great length about that, but the Etruscans essentially buried themselves with all their worldly possessions because they thought it was an aspect of their soul.

And so the idea of digging up an aspect of their soul is problematic. It's blasphemy. Yeah. Yeah. Why were you in prison? For stealing. For doing precisely. Yeah.

For doing that. Yeah. So my understanding is when you looked at the script, you thought that there was something otherworldly about the script. You talked about magical realism in relating to her previous work. So did you think this was magical realism as well? Yes. Although, I mean, it's interesting.

So Arthur has a very- Because it could be the way you're describing it. Yes. And Arthur has this very particular skill, which we see in the movie, and Hélène Louvard, the cinematographer, and Elitché kind of manipulated this with the way that they shot the movie. But Arthur has a very particular skill where he can, he takes a stick and he can sense, like divining rods, but he can sense the void. And so it's definitely magical realism.

Of course, when you work with Aliche, there is this feeling that anything is possible and that actually there's nothing magical about it. Everything feels incredibly real. And so, you know, everyone in her films, they're all local. They're non-professional, they're plumbers, they're electricians in the village. Oh really? And they've been in all of her movies and they pop up everywhere.

So the grimy scavengers you hang out with? Yeah. I wouldn't say that to their face. No, no, don't. Two of them are farmers, one of them's an electrician, one of them's the best plumber in Lazio, according to him. So, you know, they're beautiful souls and great people. But you know, I went and met someone who does water divining, is that what we call it?

Yeah, I suppose so. And there's nothing, you know, the idea that you can divine out Etruscan tombs and souls to them is very real. And so, whilst it is magical realism, there's also a sense that it's, that the unseen is as real as the seen. To English ears, your Italian sounds fantastic. To English ears, maybe. To Italians, I don't know. So why did they want you?

You would think that they might have cast in Italian. Well, yeah. I mean, the character is definitely English. And there are elements of sort of, I think it's very funny and humorous that he speaks Italian but not brilliantly. It sounds great. Yeah. And it sounds good. And I spent a very long time working on my Italian,

and it was an important part of the role. And so I got to a stage where it was reasonably, even the Italians think it was possible. How did you live while you were making this film? In my camper van. Now, I read an interview with Isabella Rossellini who plays the woman who would have been your, she was the mother of Benyamina. Of my fiance, yeah. She lived in a hotel, she said it was a bit primitive, but it was nice.

I kind of think primitive for Isabella Rossellini is going to be fine. Yeah, it was fine. So why didn't you stay there? Why are you in your campervan? Well- You're Josh O'Connor, come on. Well, I really like my camper van. That's the first thing I should say.

To me, it's luxurious. I mean, it kind of is the nicest camper van imaginable. But also, and I was in Italy and it was, I think sometimes people jump from, you know, that thing of reading an interview and it's like Joshua Connor lived in his camper van during the making of Lake Merah and then I think people think it's some sort of method thing. It's not. It was really nice and Aliche had this great spot.

And also, Aliche lives truly on the side of a hill, is completely self-sufficient, grows her own vegetables. You know, when I arrived there, I was parked up on Lake Bolsena, it's idyllic. And Aliche would come in the mornings with vegetables from her allotment and her garden and meat from her neighbor and milk from her neighbor. You know, it sounds more far-fetched than it actually is when you're there. I loved it. Mason- See, when you talk about that, it reminds me of, you say it's not method, but it's the kind of approach that Daniel Day-Lewis would have. So I think you're the new Daniel Day-Lewis. Will Barron- I mean, I'd take that. Great. If that's what it needs.

Mason- But your preparation. I was reading this in Wall Street Journal magazine. It's got you on the cover. Looking fantastic. By the way, you'll see why I'm mentioning this. They introduce you, right? Very hunky photographs. The new outlaw, British actor, Josh O'Connor, starred as a, and I'm quoting here, a Ted Dibley uptight Prince Charles in the crown. Then Zendaya asked him to tennis. What's a Ted Dibley uptight Prince Charles? I don't Then Zendaya asked him to tennis. What's a Ted Dibley uptight Prince Charles? I don't know. I haven't read this. I've looked it up. I can't find any reference to Ted Dibley.

Is that a relative of Vicarov? That's where Google takes you, obviously, but Ted and Dibley are both in lowercase. So I don't know. It must be an American thing. It must be an Americanism. I don't know what that means. In that, they're talking about the challenges, obviously, but they're talking about the thing that you have in common with tennis players, and you're not particularly interested in

tennis, is your obsession with process and preparation, and that you have a scrapbook. This is where I was going with the Daniel Day Lewis thing. In your process and preparation, that's part of the campervan and living out there, did you have a scrapbook for this? I did, yeah. What's in your scrapbook for Lucky Mirror? For Lucky Mirror, there is, it's probably the most substantial scrapbook I've ever made for a film. Maybe alongside God's Own, yeah, it all started with God's Own Country. Francis

Lee, who's very brilliant, kind of came, was suggesting all sorts of things for me to do on that film, one of which was this scrapbook, and I've kept up for pretty much every job. Lackey Mare's one is full of drawings and of Etruscan pots and tombs, and there's all sorts of very ornate Etruscan designs that I've got. There's a poem, an Italian poem. There's a few other poems, a Mary Oliver poem that I love for it. When you're a kid, you make a scrapbook on holiday. This is an old fashioned scrapbook. It's not an online scrapbook.

No, no, no. This is you're cutting things out and sticking them in. Yeah. Cutting them out, sticking them in. There's other things, I have pieces of material from the ground, so like moss, and I've got a very particular type of glue where you can stick dirt into it. The dirt's really interesting because the dirt is so diverse in colour, depending on which region of Italy you're in. So it's a book of mud and fauna and fauna. It's a fantastic idea. Do your fellow actors find it intriguing?

I don't know. It's actually a very private thing. So I often don't, I mean I certainly don't show anyone it. It's just for you. It's just for me, yeah. Josh O'Connor's new movie is La Quimera and it's fantastic. Josh, thank you very much indeed Adiv, for coming in. And we look forward to all your future work.

Mason-Hillman That really is the first part of the Josh O'Connor conversation, because he was fascinating. As you can tell from that, he's just got loads of interesting things to say. Since recording the interview, Mark, I worked out what the Wall Street Journal have done. It's in lowercase TED-Dibbly, uptight Prince Charles. He didn't get it, but I showed this to Matt, Greatest Hits Red, and he read it out. When you read it out loud, what they're trying to say is they're trying to do aristocratic English. So it's supposed to be, he said, Ted Dibley uptight Prince Charles. But by putting the hyphen in the middle, you're completely taken away anyway. So I think it was Wall Street Journal's fault and not mine. Are we saying-

Yes, Ted Dibley. Ted Dibley, of course. Anyway, so you haven't seen Lac Lucky Merrill yet, have you? I did, I did think as he said, was it, is it a character from Vicar of Dibley? Cause what else could it possibly be? Yes, Ted Dibley. I mean, it must be. Anyway, so I think you haven't, you haven't seen Lucky Merrill yet. No, no, I'm reviewing it next week. I'm going to, I am a huge Josh O'Connor fan. I'm,

and I think he's. I mean, we were talking about his processing comparing him to Daniel Taylor. I don't think that's a foolish comparison at all because I think there's a reason that he is as good as he is in films and it's because he does the prep and he's a really good actor and he works really hard. I could listen to him talk all day. I think he's great. I think he's just great. Yeah. I just love the idea of him writing to Alice Rorvaca, Italy, and expecting it to get anywhere. Anyway, so now- But what was brilliant about that story is the punchline, which was,

she didn't get the letter. I know. That's why it doesn't make the movie, I think. So anyway, look, if you're not a Vanguard Easter, if you are a Vanguardista, you can hear the second part of that interview anyway. If you're not a Vanguardista, it's worth getting on board, just to hear the second part of Josh O'Connor, because he's got lots of interesting things to say. We just talked for a long time, much to the annoyance of his people. But then, he had been late, so I wasn't too upset about that. Anyway, so Lacky Mary will be reviewed next week. What have we got for this week?

Mason quite good premiere, but now straight to prime video. This is the new sort of, Rob come from Michael Showalter, who's actor, director, comedian, who's best known for directing The Big Sick, which I really, really liked and The Eyes of Tammy Faye for which, did you interview Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye? Oh, that could well be the case. I've interviewed her a couple of times. Yes. And I think one of them would have been for that. Yes. So many famous people and it's, anyway, so good director. This is adapted from a novel by Robin Lee, which I haven't read, but which has been dismissively described as Harry Styles fan fiction. The script is co-written by Jennifer Westphel to coerce on just kissing Jessica Stein.

And so Anne Hathaway and Nicholas, I think it's Galitzine, I'm sure everybody's shouting his name at me, but I think that's how it's pronounced. Latra of whom was a jock in that brilliantly raucous LGBT high school satire Bottoms, which we got a lot of mileage over. What did the title mean? Anne Hathaway is a 40 year old single mom art gallery owner, Slenn, who, due to her ex's uselessness he's run off with a younger woman, ends up having to take her teenage daughter to Coachella. He has bought a VIP meet and greet ticket for the boy band August Moon, who the daughter

used to love. But now they think that August Moon are so seventh grade. But then when Slenn accidentally walks into the trailer of Hayes Campbell, who is the sort of Harry Styles-ish, heartthrob of the boy band, they're all heartthrobs, she thinks it's the loo because she's told her that the VIP toilets are over there, over by those trailers, and she goes into the trailer. She thinks it's the loo. It's actually his trailer. She doesn't notice that he's a pop star.

He immediately takes a shine to her. Not least because she doesn't immediately notice that he's a pop star. He then turns up at a gallery, buys everything in the gallery and then gets her to take him to, I think it's Glendale to see if he can buy something. When she says, what are you doing? Here's a clip. I feel like I don't meet people like you very often. Most people think they already know me.

Hayes Campbell. It's not me. I don't know. You didn't seem to care. And for what it's worth, I think we met in a very interesting way. I think you're smart and you know, you're also just, you're hot or whatever. Hot? Or whatever. So I guess what I'm doing here is trying to get to know you better.

Well, I do appreciate your honesty. Just in case anybody didn't hear, whilst we were watching that clip when he said, I guess what I'm doing here is, and Simon Mayo interjected, being annoying. Which is, on the way that, it's kind of the point, right? Is that he's a young guy in a boy band and she's a grown woman and she says to him, I'm old enough to be your mom. And he says, yes, but you're not my mom. And then one thing leads to another. And when it does, the fact that she is older than him causes everybody

to lose their minds. The fans, the ex-husband, the daughter, and the media. She's told to stay off media. There's one pretty thing where she opens a computer and there's a headline, Hayes called a cougar and a picture of the two of them together, and she screams and slaps the laptop shut, which did make me laugh. And she says at one point, look, I fell for the idea of you. At which point, of course, if you're a member of that society, everybody applauds and leaves, although it's on streaming service, so you'd only be leaving your own house. So no point in doing that. It's not on a par with Big Sick.

You know, it is absolutely cheese on toast. And I think that, um, that clip gave you a sense of it, which is why you said out loud, what I'm doing here is being annoying. However, it does have a point, which is why are people so alarmed by the older woman romance? I mean, you know, think of every single film you've seen in which it's a 40 year old man and a younger woman and nobody bats an eyelid. So behind the fluff and the cheese and the nonsense, there is something going on and

there is some decent stuff about the fact that she realizes that it can't work, but she swept up in the idea of it. It's also got some good lines. There's a couple of things I did laugh at. There's a moment when her daughter says, mom, why would you break up with a talented, kind feminist? Do you know how she got made as a t-shirt? Did I not warn you? People hate happy women. And another thing, which is a headline in which she's being called Yoko 2.0. I mean, it is fluff. But if you think about Anne Hathaway's recent projects,

she was in Eileen, she was in Mother's Instinct, she's in this. I mean, you cannot accuse her of not walking the full length of the counter. And I think the fact that this has gone to streaming is probably exactly right. It's a kind of sweet natured rom-com with a bit of an edge because the thing that it's saying is why is this such a terrible thing? And I actually quite like the idea that the central character knows from the outset that it's not going to work. The film is still got a kind of fairy tale fan fiction thing element and actually weirdly

enough from a narrative point of view, they're quite clever about how they work that out. But it's fluff, but I was kind of charmed by it in an odd way. I mean, I love, you know, I love rom-coms anyway, and I love a bit of cheese on toasties, always good. And I like it on Hathaway. So yeah, he's good. You can stream it on Prime. Okay, very good. Now, our What's On feature has become a monthly feature, just so we're condensing everything. So here comes our May edition of What's On. This is, as I'm sure you will be aware by now, where you send us information about anything interesting, of a cinematic nature that's happening near you, something that you want

to promote. Anyway, if you're a recent subscriber, if you just joined us and you've got no idea what we're talking about, here are a few of our listeners telling you stuff. Hi Simon and Mark, this is Phil Edwards from the Manchester International Crime and Justice Film Festival, which runs from the 8th of May to the 15th of July at Manchester Metropolitan University. Our programme includes Andrew Haig's L'Innone Pite, French urban drama Les Miserables, not that one, and the UK premiere of The Mute, S'il a Le Quai, a documentary in which survivors of the 1965

Indonesian massacres speak for the first time. All screenings are free and are followed by a Q&A with invited experts. For more information and to book tickets go to crimeandjustice.uk. See you at the movies. Hello Simon and Mark. This is Michael, programmer for Dundead, a horror and cult film festival based in Dundee, Scotland, from Thursday 16th to Sunday 19th of May. We've got previews and premieres of some of the most exciting new horror films, including the UK premiere of Spider Horror Sting and a retrospective strand themed around slasher films in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. All our details can be found on DCA's website dca.org.uk.

This is Richard from Keno Short Film Festival, Manchester, which grew out of Mark's favourite Hello Simon and Mark, Peter Blandon returning again and I want to tell fellow listeners MCR tickets available at www.GenoFilm.org.uk Hello Simon and Mark, Peter Blundon returning again and I want to tell fellow listeners all about the Romford Film Festival which is taking place 24th to 28th May at Premier Cinema in Romford. The programme will contain shorts and features from across the world including the whole day of horror on the Saturday. And for counter programming on that day, if horror is not your thing, we'll be screening the longest ever 250-minute cut of Once Upon a Time in America. Info and tickets can be found at romphodfilmfestival.com. A little bit different this. My name is David Wood and I'm in a band called Alchemy Relived,

where we play rock songs featured in well-known films, including Local Hero, Air, Comfort and Joy, Destroyer, I, Tonya, Pot Fuzz, Metroland and An Officer and a Gentleman. Our next show is going to be at the Arches venue in Coventry on Friday 3rd May. Tickets and more can be found at our website alchemyrelive.com. So, Phil Edwards from Manchester International Crime and Justice Festival, Michael from Dundead Horror Cult Film Festival, Richard from Keno Film Festival, Peter Blunden from Romford Film Festival, David Wood from Alchemy Relief. That's the general thing. Thank you very much indeed for all the information. If there is something happening near you for what comes after May, well, that'll be June.

Send your audio trailer. I mean, it says here 20 seconds, but I don't think anyone took any notice of that. It's like saying to Mark, you've got two minutes to review a film. No chance. So this could be anywhere in the world. It doesn't just have to be in the UK. Send it to correspondents at kermannamao.com. And we'll be back. Go on.

Two quick points. I really wonder which track they're playing from North, in general. I wonder whether they're going for, you know, Love Lift Us Up, or whether they're going for like Tush or like Treat me right or something like that. And the second thing is the Arbons. Well, I mean, I've got a copy of the officer and gentlemen soundtrack on vinyl and I, and I just, I love all of it. So any of them is fine. The other thing is the Arbons cinema. And I have checked this with John Ronson. It didn't make this up. It's absolutely true.

You come out the Arbons cinema at 11 o'clock at night, you would get chased through Hume by packs of wild dogs. That was a cinema. Back in just a moment, what's your next review going to be, Mark? It's the Fall Guy. So we just wanted to tell you about what our friends at Rooftop Film Club are up to. As you know, they are London's king of outdoor cinema. More than just a movie with rooftop experiences located at Bussey Building in Peckham and Roof East in Stratford.

Sit back, relax, get cosy in a blanket and use the QR code on your seat to have food and drink delivered directly to you. They're playing all the award-winning films like Past Lives, Anatomy of a Fool, All of Us Strangers, but also classics like Interstellar when Harry met Sally, and more recent films like Challenges and Fall Guy. Rooftop Film Club offers memberships for as little as £25 per month. That's not all, as a Vanguard Easter you get 2 for 1 tickets on a Wednesday with the code THETAKE24.

That's T-H-E-T-A-K-E-24. Visit Rooftop Visit rooftopfilmclub.com. This ad for Fizz is only 25 seconds long, but we had to pay for 30. Those leftover 5 seconds shouldn't just disappear, right? It's kind of like what happens to your unused mobile data at the end of each month. Except that Fizz, your unused data from the end of the month rolls over, so you can use it the next month. Hey, you paid for it, so keep it. Try the other side. Get started at fizz.ca. If you need for it, so keep it. Try the other side.

Get started at phys.ca. If you need some time to think it over, here's five seconds. Certain conditions apply. Details at phys.ca. Correspondence at cobenomeo.com, a very useful email. Here is one from Terry Hurley in Staines. Then he says, that's the town of Staines, not my living conditions. Hello Marcus of the House of Drongoli Frong and Simon the Master of Dinkley Drys. In the past, Marcus has often been known to extract the urine of certain fantasy and science

fiction films by satirizing them with fake narration in the style of In the Land of Fingery Bangs, In the Time of the Third Age of the Generation of Morangy Flitsop and so on. Little did I know that the narration at the beginning of Rebel Moon 2, which we've already established, well Rebel Moon 1 was terrible, but anyway Rebel Moon 2, the narration surpasses any such Mickey takes. A few more tweaks and the whole film could have been a Monty Python classic. Yours Terry Hurley. Okay.

So here is the narration from Rebel Moon 2. of Dagus, the fierce nemesis. In the Colosseum of Pollux, the wayward general Titus. And on the planet Charan, Darien Bloodaxe and his lieutenant Milius. In an ambush on the floating docks of Gondival, Korah triumphed over Admiral Noble, leaving his shattered body on the rocky coastline. The victorious warriors returned to Velt to collect their pay. The threat of a dreadnought extinguished. Or so they believed.

Guaranteed that when Sir Anthony Hopkins got to the bit about the Coliseum of Pollocks. He said, is this, is this right? Am I supposed to say this? I mean, that was astonishing, wasn't it? I kind of want to go and watch Rebel Moon 2 now. No, no, I don't. I don't want to. You know, I mean, well, I quote your line about Rebel Moon. You said it's the most unoriginal, original screenplay you'd ever come across. Yes. Well, you know, we'll talk about Phantom Menace in take two. And it got a lot of flag appropriately for that long scroll, which has got so much narration in it. But in comparison,

I'd prefer to read a scroll than hear Sir Anthony do that. The Coliseum of Pollux, that is really, wow, spinal tap time that is. Anyway, Terry, thank you very much indeed. Okay, so let's get you another movie review. What are we going to see now? Okay, The Fall Guides, which is in cinemas, including IMAX. Some people may remember 80s TV show with Lee Majors as a stuntman. I think he moonlighted as a bounty hunter. Anyway, this is very little in common with that.

This is directed by stuntman turned director David Leitch, who played a key role on John Wick and then went on to do Tom McBlonde, Deadpool 2, Bullet Train. Directed by a script by Drew Pearce whose credits include writing and directing Hotel Artemis, for which I think you interviewed Jodie Foster about that, although you've interviewed so many celebrities it's kind of hard to remember. Ryan Gosling is Stuntman Colt Severs. His main gig is doubling for a movie star Tom Rider played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. A stunt goes wrong. He's injured. He retreats into silence. He abandons the movies and he turns his back on his girlfriend. It's this camera operator, Jodie, played by Emily Blunt. Fast forward,

I think it's 18 months. She's now a director working on a science fiction action adventure called Metal Storm. This is going to be her big break. He's parking cars in a Mexican restaurant but he gets a call from the producer, Gail, played by Hannah Waddingham, who said, oh, you'll need it. And Jodie's asked for you. And he says, well, I've retired from the movies. I don't do this anymore. She says, no, no, but she needs you. You're the only person who can save it. So he goes, okay, fine. Cause he thinks this is the chance to get things back on track. But when he gets to the set, he discovers that he hasn't been asked for by Jodie and in fact she's kind of surprised to see him as a clip.

I'm going to be sick. You got this, you're the one. Why are you going to say that? You've done this a million times. And so have you, you know you just jinxed it. You just jinxed it! Dan, I need to drive it in the car now please, the tide's coming up. Thank you so much, appreciate you.

Is that Jodie? Yes, it's Jodie. Did she say something about me? Stop it, your face, stop it. Stop it. I'm going to be sick. I'm going to be sick. I'm going to be sick.

I'm going to be sick. I'm going to be sick. I'm going to be sick. I'm going to be sick. I'm going to be sick. I'm going to be sick. While that clip was playing, Mark, I just checked on IMDb and the Jodie Foster interview was for Money Monster in 2016. Oh, right, right, right. That's what it was for. Okay, fine, fine, fine. All right, so. That's what it was for. Okay, fine, fine, fine. Carry on. All right, so, turns out that the star, Tom's gone missing.

Gale thinks that our man, Colt, can stand in for him to save the movie, but Jodie, who hadn't asked for him to be there, is really sore because he went silent on her. So, clearly, the two of them put together again. She's now the director, he's the stuntman, so she decides that she'll punish him by getting them to do loads and loads of scenes in which he's set on fire and thrown against rock because she can. And if you've seen the trailer, that's the sort of set up. There was talk of adapting the Fall Guy way, way back. I think about 10 years ago, McGee and Dwayne Johnson were sort of meant to be doing it.

I don't know what would have happened with that. What I can tell you is I doubt it would have been half as much fun as this. The film's been described as an homage to stunt people. It's in the Guinness Book of Records already because it has got the most cannon rolls for a car. It's got eight and a half cannon rolls. I think the previous record was like eight or something. Cannon roll is when you have a thing which knocks the car over and then it flips and rolls and the, you know, the stunt action stuff is good. I saw a screening of it in the IMAX cinema in which one of the stunt guys was there. And when everybody else walked off the front, he literally leapt over the IMAX rail and

did a stunt. Apparently they had a crash pad waiting from the other side, but the entire audience, the entire audience gasped. And they did make a big thing about it's time to get Oscars for stunts, which I agree with. However, the main attraction isn't all the big explosives, although that is done well. The main attraction is Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. If you saw the Oscars, they were the funniest thing at the Oscars. They were doing that pairing because they were kind of the rivalry between Oppenheimer and Barbie. And they were quite good as a doubleheader. And quite often

those kind of Oscar, you know, two people together being funny, they don't work. But in the case of them, they do. And the reason is they've got good chemistry. I mean, they are funny. And if you've seen the trailer, that is the film. Unlike in the case of Civil War, in which the trailer makes it look like a very different film, the trailer for The Fall Guy is exactly what the film is like. I mean, it's absolutely popcorn fun. It's got very little depth. I came out afterwards and somebody, another critic went, well, that was terrible. I said, what do you mean it was terrible? He said, well, it's just terrible. It didn't make any sense. It was badly written. And it was like, have we watched the same film?

And people often say, you know, if you're a critic, do you have to have your faculties turned off to enjoy something which is just popular? No, I mean, I saw it in the iMac screen. It was big, it was explosive, it was loud. But the thing that I really liked about it was the central chemistry between those two. Hannah Waddingham is absolutely enjoying chewing the scenery and that's really good fun. It's slightly too long, but you know, what isn't nowadays.

And I, I came out of it going, well, that was, that's exactly the thing that I wanted it to be. It was big, brash, noisy, funny, and at the center of it, you know, a pair who have real onscreen chemistry and you know, that's what you want from a popcorn blockbuster. I'm sure it'll do really well. Mason- Excellent. So, the full guy is out. That is the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. And this week's team was Lily, Gully, Vicky, Zachy, Mattie and Bethy. The producer was Jem and the redactor was Simon. Mark, what is your film of the week?

My film of the week, by a million miles, is Love Lies Bleeding, and I want everybody to go and see it and make it a hit. Thank you very much indeed for listening. Don't forget, take two is already available. It has landed alongside this very podcast.