Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Peter Sohn, Elemental, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One & Name Me Lawand

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

An emotional interview with Pixar director and voice over, Peter Sohn, about his latest film ‘Elemental’. During the interview Peter opens up to Simon about why this film is particularly close to his heart. Mark reviews the seventh film in the Mission Impossible franchise, ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell and Rebecca Ferguson, plus a new heartfelt documentary ‘Name Me Lawand’, which shows us the world from the point of view of a migrant whose life was transformed by a school for the deaf in the UK. Plus Mark and Simon cover this week’s Box Office Top 10, What's On and the ever-hilarious laughter lift. Time Codes (relevant only when you are part of the Vanguard): 10:05 Name me Lawand review 23:41 Box Office Top 10 38:38 Peter Sohn interview 53:25 Elemental review 57:29 Laughter Lift 00:31 Mission Impossible review 01:14:22 What’s on 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

With banking packages from Scotia Bank, you can put money back in your pocket. That's how Marcus was able to invest in everything he needed to launch his podcast about his pets. Welcome back to PetGasd! Visit ScotiaBank.com slash welcome offer. Scotia Bank conditions apply. Do you feel older? Well, I've got so much more stuff than I did in my 50s. So I've got this, a bag that you gave me,

which says, Spread Mayo not hate. I was looking for a bag. That's saying Spread Mayo not hate. I wasn't looking for that. I was trying to find an L this bag, and a clash bag, and all those kind of things to put your discs in That was the only one that I could find that would I get on time all the others would like deliver by Christmas

So for context I stayed at Simon's last night as I would usually do on a Tuesday and having just celebrated a birthday And your 70th birthday. Yeah, here are the presents that I was presented with, the bag that said, spread mayo, not hate. Vinyl copy of, so you'll be powering the darkness, which brilliant. Tom Robinson, band, I can't believe it. Tom Robinson, band, I can't believe it. Comes with the original stencil. How about that? Which says at the bottom, this stencil is not meant for spraying on public property.

Which means, you can imagine management, we did it. We did it. We did it. We did it you can imagine management. We did it, put that in. Immediately spread. Gang of thought, entertainment. Top news, I'm currently working on a band called Gang of Three in which me and my friend Simon Booth and A&O are going to play the whole of entertainment from beginning to end. Yeah, well, whether people like it or not,

another a steep purchase, can I say, by myself. The Green Day album, which is this means a lot to me because it took you know this because you would, you would, you would, it's why I bought it. Yes, you were texting with the good lady professor, her in charge. She didn't tell me about Green Day, I just saw it and thought, I know you went to see Green Day. I did, I did. And I took Child 2 and then Glen Matlock came up and I went, Child 2, this is is Glen Matlock and child, too, went, who? Exactly, because they know nothing. It's very young kids.

And then this, which is the Sparks New Masterpiece, spectacular New Masterpiece, which is the girl is crying in her latte, sad. And I also got this fantastic Sparks t-shirt which I'm wearing. So I was absolutely cock-a-hoot, but my favorite thing is spread mayo, not war, not hate. Not hate off leads to more. Hate and war, in fact, is an out of track of the first class out.

So you'll be able to suck you. Thank you. That was really lovely. And, yes. And you gave me a curry last, a jackfruit curry. Jackfruit Biryani. Wow. That jackfruit tastes like meat. Well, it was actually chicken, but I thought, let's just call it very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very these lovely sausage, anyway, they make them as close as they can, they're cannibals, they're made of people. That's why I can't guarantee that it wasn't that. But anyway, it was a particularly fine. But also, we got you on an eating day. You did, yes. So, you know, it's today, isn't it? How's that Danish going?

Should I hide the Danish? No, I can just listen to you. I'm out. But the thing is, if you're not on an eating day, if I sit and eat a Danish, is that? No, my willpower is, you know, you set me and me and your mate from Grace hits radio. Matt, we're doing the same thing,

which is that we find it easier to do the three- To have nothing. To have nothing, yeah, because the idea of having 600 calories is like, I've referenced, like, if 200 idea of having 600 calories is like, oh, for every sake, if 200 calories of end-game beans and you lose the will to live, would you consider five and two, not 18 for five, and only 18 for two? Or maybe just eat for one. Anyway, how am I looking?

Impeccable and fabulous. That's what we're here. Slimline and gorgeous. Fantastic's what we're here. Slim line and gorgeous. Fantastic. Is that enough praise? Yeah, that's good. I'm sorry, I wasn't here again last week.

You had other stuff to do. I did. By the way, thanks very much for everyone who's got in touch about the top quality merchandise, which is available by the website. Now available in Australia and in the United States of America. Wow. And a feel as though, it's a real statement piece.

You wander out through Texas, for example. You got this with a Vanguard Easter cool water bottle because you probably need one in Texas at the moment. It's drinking from mine now. It's delicious. Mmm. Is that particular? It's kept the ice so cold. Really? That makes it particularly. The ice out of your fridge.

Yeah, that's also that's also true. Anyway, so the merch is very, it can get sold out occasionally. We will restock but now available to listeners in Australia and America. What are you going to be reviewing? A whole bunch of stuff, namely Le Wond, which is a terrific documentary. Measure what? Name me Le Wond.

Name me Le Wond. Okay, yeah. A dead reckoning part one, which is the Mission Impossible movie and Elemental with our special guest is the director of Elemental. His name is Peter Sone, and you'll hear from him,

and we'll discuss elemental and very moving interview. It is actually, I think it's the only interview I have ever done, probably ever, but certainly for this show where the where the interview he tears up, not through rage at the inadequate questions, but just because of the emotional content. My life has come to this. I'm saying that the room talking to this idiot. Correct. That often happens, but it's never reduced anyone to tears. Anyway, so we'll talk to Peter Sohn in this particular take. And in the extra takes, more of this complete nonsense, we can watch list, we can not list. Five which are great. And three you'll hate bonus reviews including smoking causes coughing and the damn don't cry

Pretentious moire is currently mark Carmo 16 mark, 15 a lot of people missed this last week Due to the fact I had to catch plane also they missed the laughter lift because I had to catch plane in the shortened Redacted versions one frame back is films with motorcycle stunts Inspired by the incredible Tom Cruise. The real Tom Cruise really leaping off a real mountain on a real motorbike. Yes, you can support us via Apple Podcast so you can head to extra takes.com for all non-fruit related devices. And take it all over you decide is the most Mark Kermot program that has ever been made, which is White House Plumbers.

Details on that in take two if you're already a Van Gogh East, as always. We salute you. We do. Rooftop film club just need to mention this. They've released some rather special tickets this week. Have they? Yes, they have. They've released them off of a rooftop.

We've curated a weekend of movies at their Peckham site on Saturday the 19th and Sunday the 20th of August. There's a whole day of science fiction, a day of romcom, special exclusive intros recorded by us before each film. Incredible extra time. They're amazing. We recorded them right here in the studio. Saturday's science fiction days back to the future arrival and interstellar,

which you have to say is... That's quite the triple bill. Sunday's wrong com day, not in heel, you've got mail and when Harry met Sally. Quite the triple bill. There's nowhere else to go from there. Roof Top film club has comfy deck chairs, iconic London views, irresistible food and drink at the bar. I hear the bar is great. I hear the bar is really good.

And open now. Head to Kermitomeo.com to get your tickets. Also still offering our list. There's two for one tickets across their London sites on Wednesdays throughout their summer program. Just use the code TheTake at checkout to redeem that offer. Are we getting a cut of the bar takings? Or we do because we have talked the bar up. We have raised the bar. We do because we have talked the bar up. We have raised the bar. E-mails, right? Correspondents to Correspondents at COVID-A-May.com. Well, there you are. Richie says, on the subject of films that should have finished earlier, can I throw in

10 Cloverfield Lane, please? But, oh, there are spoilers ahead. It's a 10 psychological thriller where the overarching question is, can John Goodman's character be trusted? Has the world ended outside? Is the air poison, or is he lying? The moment that Mary Elizabeth Winstead leaves the bunker and takes her first breath,

is the perfect moment to cut to black, leaving the truth ambiguous and left of the audience to interpret the actions of the characters. I, in fact, did this when I showed the film to my parents. Instead, we have a ridiculous alien out of nowhere fight scene that makes no sense at all and completely destroys the incredible tension of the rest of the film.

Well done for flagging up the spoiler alert. Yeah, well, he does say spoilers ahead. Oh, he does say spoilers there, sorry. That's why I said, when I said, sorry, I just, I was briefly zoned out. All right, can you let me know when you're sounding out in the future? Take a little chunking down with lying misogynist influences

facing trial in Europe. Thank you, Ritchie. Very good. Paul Baxter and Chester. Dear doctors, on the subject of films that should have finished before the ending that was released, the one that always irritates me is the original invasion of the body snatches.

I believe the ending was supposed to be when Dr. Bennell is on the freeway, screaming at motrists. They're here already, your next, your next, which is perfectly in line with the paranoid tone of the film. The ending that the studio demanded be added and the framing scene added at the start suggests that everything is going to be okay and changes the whole mood of the film completely. Just imagine the mist. If after the troops arrived, they actually turned out that David was a poor shot and had missed his son in the car. What a terrible, terrible, miserable film the mist is. But somehow brilliant. And no, no, it is brilliant. I mean, it's the most depressing

ending of any film ever of all time. Yes, but it's astonishing that they went through with it. Also, it is a Toby Jones film, Hello to Toby Jones. And if you watch it in the black and white version, it's even more haunting. Paul says, Hello to Jason, and up with a diversity of hair colors, apart from mousey-colored comovers on top of orange faces. All right, I can't imagine what you're talking about there.

Correspondents at COVIDaMau.com, tell us something that is out and interesting. Name me LeWond, which is a documentary by Edward Lovelace. It is a story about a boy's struggle to find his voice. So LeWond is a Kurdish boy whose family left Iraq when he was five. They were hoping to find a better life. They spent long period of time in a refugee camp. The one was born deaf and his communication skills were very, very limited until he arrived in the UK and was enrolled in Derby's Royal School for the Deaf. And here he started to flourish. He had this kind of radical change in which he learned to sign language and he started to be able to express himself and Ed Love Lace captures this.

He worked on this documentary over a period of years and he he learned signing as well so that he could communicate and so the the documentary is a real labor of love and in it we see the fortunes of this young boy change and we see him come out of his shell and he and he smiles and he smiles lights up the room and I mean it's really transformative and then just when it looks like everything is on track, the home office begin proceedings to deport him and his family saying that they don't have the right to be here. So what then happens is it turns into, I mean in the most literal sense of the word it's a fight for his future.

So I don't really remember, but some years ago, I reviewed a documentary about Edwin Collins, called The Possibilities Are Endless, which is that after Edwin Collins had had his stroke, he was finding his way back to his life with the help of Grace Maxwell, his partner and, you know, soulmate. And I said the thing about that documentary is it's basically, it's a love story. It's a love story first and foremost. And you just, you know, the connection between those two people is brilliant.

And one of the things that Edward Lovelace says is that documentaries should have all the possibilities of all the genres of cinema, you know, you know, action and drama and melodrama and all that sort of stuff. So one of the things that his film has tried to do is to use sort of expressionistic visuals to take us inside the world of its subject. I'm going to show you a very brief clip which just gives you a hint of what I'm trying to talk about them. We'll talk about a little bit more. Have a

look at this. So obviously if you're listening to this podcast, what you're not seeing is the clips of him signing, telling his story, telling about how he used to be bullied, how he's now finding himself and finding his own personality, and really starting to express himself. And I interviewed the director on stage at the BFI, and one of the things he talked about

was the Julian Schnabel film, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, and the way in which that film had sort of attempt it to drama, but it's a drama based on a true story of it's in a book, that was attempting to take you into the experience of the central character, and he talked about that as being like one of the things that he uses a reference point for this. I think this is, it's really terrific. I have cited this thing so many times before about Roger Ebert saying that, you know, cinema is a machine for creating empathy. And if you want proof of that, look at Namila one. It is a film that absolutely tells a true story with a subject at the center

of it, who is actually amazingly cinematic. I mean, you just saw in those brief clips. You don't know what I mean about when he smiles. Yeah, absolutely. It's like a young Timatee Shalamet, that's what he looks like. Actually, yes, but way more like 10, 11, 12, yeah, exactly. And he's got this incredibly engaging, for one of the things about this interesting, about cinema, is the way in which cinema attempts to catch the emotions by looking at people's faces in the terms of the read people's faces.

And I think he has an amazingly expressive face. Anyway, this is a terrific documentary. It's a really, really fine film. I can't recommend it enough. And I mean, obviously there are things in it that are dark and difficult, but it is a really moving, ultimately uplifting story.

I would just advise anyone to seek it out because it really does that thing about showing you how cinema can show you someone else's experience and tell you a story that will enrich your life. And is it cinematic? It is cinematic. And I would, if you can see it on the big screen, do, because it's, as I was trying to say with that clip,

so much of it is to do with the way in which the film, and a very expressionistic way, attempts to capture his experience. And if you said, when Mark was saying, if you're listening to this as a podcast, you thought, well, of course, I'm listening to it as a podcast. It's because the show is also on YouTube. She's also all on YouTube. Which would seem like a good moment to unbox Simon.

Have you got the car-bobbox that you were given? Yes. Yes. So, we were going to unbox this last week, but you couldn't be bothered to get here. No. What is it, Simon? Oh, no idea. It looks like a set of scales. A set of scales, especially for me in the studio. This is from YouTube. Oh, right. Hold it up to the camera for the people on the radio. I'm going to take it out of his shiny, hold

up to that camera apparently, calling it a Lily, Lily who's hiding in the corner and thinks we can't see her, but we can. Lily is actually hiding in the studio all the time. It says presented to Kermit and May has taken for passing 100,000 subscribers on Super YouTube. There we go. There you go. So that's why I was saying, you know, what do we do with it?

I'm gonna take this home and put it with all. We have to share all the stuff. Like all the other awards that we have, we have to share it. You get six months of it. I get six months of it. Yeah. We're gonna put it up in the office,

apparently we're not taking it home, so there we go. But I might just take it home. Name me LeWon, go see it, I get six months. Yeah. We're going to put it up in the office, apparently. We're not taking it home, so there we go. But I might just take it home. Name me LeWand, go see it, it's fab. Okay, and if you want to see more of that clip, it's also on the YouTube version of this particular show. Over 100,000 subscribers. Apparently so. Still to come, Mark, what are we going to be reviewing?

We're going to be reviewing a Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One and Elemental with our special guest. Who is the director of that Pixar movie, Peter Sone. We're going to be back before you can say, what could be said at all, can be said clearly. And whereof? One cannot speak. Thereof. One must be silent.

Ludwig Vickensdain, who is a beery swine, who was a slush, the slagful. Michael. Hi, esteemed podcast listeners, Simon Mayo. I'm Mark Kermot here. I'm excited to let you know that the new season of the Crown and the Crown, the official podcast, returns on 16th of November to accompany the sixth and final season of the Netflix epic Royal Drama series. Very exciting, especially because SuperSub and Friend of the Show Edith Bowman hosts this one. Indeed, Edith will take you behind the scenes, dive into conversation with the talented cast and crew from writer and creator Peter Morgan

to the crown's Queen Elizabeth in Melda Staunton. Other guests on the new series include the Crowns research team, the directors, executive producers Suzanne Mackie and specialists such as Voice Coach William Connaker and props master Owen Harrison. Cast members including Jonathan Price, Selim Dor, Khalid Abdullah, Dominic West and Elizabeth the Bikki. You can also catch up with the story so far by searching the Crown, the official podcast, wherever you get your podcast.

Subscribe now and get the new series of the Crown, the official podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe now and get the new series of the crown, the official podcast first on November 16th. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Happy Nord Christmas. Protect yourself while Christmas shopping online and access all the Christmas films from around the globe. Plus, when you shop online, you'll have to give websites your card details

and other sensitive data like your personal addresses. Those websites should already have their own encryption built into their payment systems, but to be on the safe side, you can use a VPN to ensure that all data coming to and from your device is encrypted. Even if you're using an unsafe Wi-Fi, you'll still be able to shop securely with a VPN. And you can access Christmas films only available overseas by using streaming services not available in the UK. To take our huge discount of 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. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee.

The link is in the podcast episode description box. And yes, welcome back. If you had the ads and if you didn't have the ads. I'll be back. We're back. Oh, sorry. You just you just drop straight in. I think that's the way to be. And there is a new social media engine, which is called threads, which is part of the Instagram Zuckerberg Twitter killer. Twitter killer idea. So we will have a COVID-19 presence right there. So by the time this...

By the time this drops, it threads is out. Yeah. So threads. If you've gone to threads from wherever, or if you've just on threads as well as everything else, then COVID-19 may as take, we'll be there. We have our presence there right now. If you've gone to threads from wherever, or if you've just on threads as well as everything else, then COVID-19 may as take, we'll be there. We have our presence there right now. What will our threads handle me?

COVID-19 may as take. Is it at COVID-19 may as take? Is it, we're looking into it. As it hasn't been launched, we don't really know. Because we're recording this on Wednesday. But both you and I have downloaded the app, because it hasn't downloaded yet, because it won't download until tomorrow,

but we've got a thing which says, standby. Yes. So it's on the way. So there will be, however you have to do it, if you're on thread, look for it, come and amaze take, because we'll be there.

And even if you don't want to ever use it, just use it to annoy Elon Musk. Yes. That seems like a very sad story. Because literally download it just to annoy the stench of Musk. And here's an email from Eve Aura aged 29 and 2 thirds. Mark and Simon, this is the second email I've written

to you, the first was many moons ago, expressing an ill-timed bout of altitude adjustment like Ramosti's syndrome on a plane, whilst rewatching, perhaps for the 10th time, the film Notting Hill. Whilst I was thrilled to hear Simon read out my email in his wonderful dulcet tones, my big joy was being able to ring my dad, my initiator into the church and tell him at last, I had finally made it. My dad, David Betts, had already had his own email

read out on your show, detailing a trip to his local cinema in 1979, age 17, with a pal and giving fake birthdays to try and get into see Alien. Excellent. So you have to learn your birthday. How old are you? Where were you born? He passed the rigorous policing by the cinema attendee, but Alassie's pal did not. Oh no!

My dad left him to it and went to see Alien anyway, which is exactly what you do. What's that exactly? So how did he fail? Since he had one job. my dad left him to it and went to see Alien anyway, which is exactly what you do. Exactly. So how did he fail? You can one job. Since joining, maybe he looked like he was 12, isn't it? Yeah, but that never stopped them. Since joining my dad's pu, your podcast has been the soundtrack to many shared moments in my life with my dad.

Long-distance up the M5 for University Open Days. Hours spent in the kitchen learning how many garlic cloves to put in a curry, spoiler if it's under six you're doing it wrong. Really? And sleepy sunshine soaked afternoons in the garden over long summer holidays. My dad was an enormous movie fan so mine and my sister's film education was a serious endeavor. He gave us heroes like Princess Leia, the Dread pirate robots, very good. Edward and Jake Blues, Sam Gamji, Wally, John Keating and of course, Ellen Ripley. Very good.

I will change in late 2018 when my dad was diagnosed with a rare chronic cancer. It is a pain like no other watching someone you love grows sick, but we shared a lot in the almost five years that he was unwell. My sister, Maz, is wedding, then two years later my own, countless movie nights, Twilight evenings with my sister turning over vinyl like pressure stones, and one final is the plural of vinyl vinyls. Vinyls? Okay, sister turning over vinyls like pressure stones, and one final trip to the cinema to see Avatar the Way of Water. He died on April 19, 2023, shattered our hearts completely.

To quote the wonderful Andrew Garfield on the loss of his own beloved mum, the quote, I hope this grief stays with me because it is all the unexpressed love I didn't get to tell her. And we told my dad every day just how much we loved him. My dad's life was one so woven with stories and melodies and color that it means I can't spend an hour without thinking of him because he is in everything that brings me joy. What a gift that is to leave the people you love. When I hear you both, I hear my dad and all the wonderful gifts he gave us sincerely. Thank you. you and as always keep up the good work

from Eve Aura, as I said, 29 and 2 thirds. By the way, you want the killer? The killer's in the PS. Oh yeah. Tomark, I took my dad as my plus one to see the Dodge Brothers, play the Bath Festival several years ago. No. I was the slightly annoying young woman filming your performance

for the entire festival. After the show my dad met you first and stole my opening hello to Jason line. He left me his Dodge Brothers t-shirt and it's one of my favorite possessions. Oh thank you. Oh wow. I was just saying I hope we were good. We were given that email. I was given that email to read at the top of the show and I said can can we, it's a very important show, open the show up now. It's a very important email. Can we give it some heft by leaving it just a little bit? Anyway, it's a very lovely email. The detail about turning over vinyls like precious stones.

That is, there is something about vinyl records that is exactly like that, isn't it? They are, they're artifacts that are imbued with. I have my father's 78s collection. And that is, you know, it is, it is like a sort of living breathing embodiment of the stuff he love because he collected 78s and jelly roll, Morton records. And I, you know, I love those. Also, they're very tactile and they have a smell and they have a hefty. Yeah, and with 78s, I have a hefty.

You know, you could take someone's head off with a 78. They're really, really heavy. Back in my radio, Nottingham days, I produced a show of dance music from the 20s and 30s. And all the music was on 78. I didn't present it. It was a guy called Ron Stevens who presented it. And I had to put them on, cue them up and so on. And then when I'd played them, I'd put them on the floor. And I had a wheelie chair like this one.

And there were a couple of moments when I wheeled the chair back and just heard that cracking sound, which let you know that that very rare vinyl, that 78 disc, which he'd had for like 60 years. That's good. That is because the one thing about those, they don't flex. They just crack absolutely. They just crack. Absolutely. You first crack. Okay. Streamers, box office top 10,

at number 18, La Cinda Caliste. Which I thought was a very interesting film. Isabel Upera is the star of it. It is based on a true story, the story at which I did not know. So it's a political drama, but for me it was very much carried

by Oopair, who is utterly convincing in the lead role. And number 10 in the UK, Satya Premki Kata. So not press green. I've got that right. It's not press green. So if anyone's seen it, please send us an email and let us know. And same for number nine, which is going on, on J3, number eight, number five in the state's transformers rise of the beasts. Of all the transformers movies, it's the second best. So it's not, you know, it's not bumblebee, but it's not the Michael Bayes.

Seven in the UK, seven in the state is the flash. So this is really started to sink fairly fast. This is number three in it's, sorry, this is the third week and it's number seven and underperforming appears to be the way of the way of the blockbusters at the moment. We'll talk about this more. We talk about Indiana Jones, but yes, it's definitely on the way down. James in London on the subject of the flash. Dear flash and ha! I recently listened to Mark's instance. I recently listened to Mark's instance. Paul Dinson, exactly.

To Mark talking about the flash and wanted to refute his remark on being surprised that a film the size and with the budgetary scope of the flash has some of the shonkeys VFX he has seen. Yes, okay. Is this from a VFX artist? It is. I work. It's very interesting. No, fine, go ahead. I work in a VFX he has seen. Yes. Is this from a VFX artist? It is.

I work. It's very interesting. No, fine, go ahead. I work in a VFX and animation company in London. And without going into a Commodian rant, because I know you like your correspondent short. Yeah. Thank you. I can tell you that the VFX industry is in a bit of a mess.

To get work, the VFX companies bid on a project. They all try to come in under each other's bids. For the larger studios, the marvels and DCs of the world, the bids come in a lot lower, mainly because they have more projects in their pipeline. So the VFX companies are betting on potential repeat work over a longer period of time, but accepting much less payment. This has a massive negative effect as a team which should have say 10 artists working on it, only have two. Meaning double or triple the workload and longer working hours with no overtime for those two artists, all on the same short schedule. Bad. The other issue is something which I am going to have to

refer to as pixel-fudging. This is where the studio slash client will request erroneous, repeated, and just stupid changes to the shots, just because they don't really know what they want. Up until the last minute, this could be changing the entire third act, doing alternative versions of shots, so they have a choice, or coming up with new shots because the script wasn't finished in time. It is mental.

Put these two problems together together and you can have, quotes, shonky VFX in mainstream blockbuster films. Not because the VFX company or the dedicated and talented artists are trying to do a bad job. They're just overworked, understaffed and tired of taking their pixels in a French way. Tickety-tonk, down with the Nazis and up with Freddie Mercury, James in London.

So, yeah. So, while, whilst you're absolutely right, it looks, from our point of view, the consumer, it looks chunky. That's the explanation to why it might be so. Yeah, no, here's the thing that what they're saying is that it is chunky and the reason it is chunky is because there's too much work for too little money being asked to be done, including all that stuff. And it is, it is absolutely true. If you're a VFX artist at the moment, you're in the most ponacious position. You're at the sharp edge of this. I mean, I don't really remember. There was a thing a few years ago when people turned their Twitter icons green because

it was in support of VFX artists who weren't able to be unionized because they're all over the place and being paid tiny amounts of money to do really, really important work for very, very expensive movies. And the turning the Twitter icon green thing was this is what you get if you don't have VFX artist, you have just a blank screen. It is absolutely true that the VFX industry is treated really appallingly by an industry which, you know, absolute, which eats money, and yet somehow seems to want to do this stuff, you know, in a way that doesn't reflect the artistry and the hours that are put into it. And the reason I say it about the flashes, if you're throwing all that other money around, spend the money on getting, on allowing VFX artists to do it properly

and be properly renumerated. I mean, you remember, if this all goes back to Life of Pi, when Life of Pi was an Oscar-winning movie, and at exactly the same time, the VFX industry was being, you know, threatened because it's there at the sharp edge of it. They are at the sharpest edge of, you know, when the industry decides to turn the screws and say, who can do this cheapest and fastest? That's how I happen to see them. It does seem astonishing. And we mentioned it.

A stone floor, you know, the last Jurassic Park movie, which suddenly looked a little bit shonky. This bit, and you're absolutely right in the flash where you just, oh, really? And where it is so important, it is genuinely baffling to the cinema co. You say, well, this is obviously gonna, we know this isn't real,

we know this is gonna have special effects, VFX in it. You have to get, you know, obviously you spend the money on getting the right director or the right cast, if that's what you think, you know, Ezra Miller is, but you have to spend the money on that, because it lives or dies by the end of the time. And I think the very interesting point there is the fiddling around until the last minute,

changing the third act chain, you know, so can you just fix this? Can you just fix that? And the most astute comment there was asking for changes because they don't know what they want. And my only comparison for that is as a journalist, the worst thing you can have, and I haven't had this for many years, is an editor who doesn't know what they want, but just keeps sending a piece back and asking you to change it because they don't know what they want. And you as the freelance journalist who's just getting paid the wants for doing it, writes the piece four times, and you know it was fine the first time around. So no, if chunky VFX are rarely the fault of the VFX artist and almost always the fault of the studio,

the studios who do not treat the VFX industry with any respect at all. James, thank you very much for the email correspondence at Kermadame.com. Forgot the email. It's us. UK number six, foreign America is no hard feelings. It's like it appeared in a time warp from another age when risky business was still in the cinemas. Five here, nine in the state's asteroid city.

Four here, six in the states, the little mermaid. I don't quite enjoy that. Three in the UK, eight in America, Ruby Gilman, teenage cracker. I thought it was good fun. We have any emails about Ruby Gilman. We don't. I thought it was good fun,

a good sort of coming of age story that was well done and I loved the animation. Number two here, number two in the state, Spider-Man across the spiderverse. Filterific, number two in its fifth week, take that, the flash. Child three went to see it, he just sent me a one word, which I think message which just said amazing or fantastic. Amazing, I really loved it.

Amazing, absolutely loved it. And number one here, number one in the States, Indiana Jones and the Dialogue Destiny. Yes, Simon Wulkden, eventually. I saw Indiana Jones and the Dialogue Destiny yesterday at the cinema. It feels like half-raders of the Lost Ark and half-Mumma Mia, here we go again.

Unfortunately, not the better halves of either of those films. But for action and knowing references, it passes the cut and shut test. Mike says, through my parents' divorce when I was a teenager, this, in the Anagents, is the character I watched on screen more than anyone else. I didn't escape into books, I escaped into the well of the souls. I didn't go into this film wanting a rip-roaring action movie, I went in to say goodbye to an old friend and hoping, just hoping, he and I found some closure. After a fictional lifetime of leaving destruction in his wake, he was old, he was finally defeated not by

Nazis or cults but by time, just like the rest of us. I think James Mangle did a very good job of giving the character an ending and slowly during the film shifting the balance of action to Phoebe Wallerbridge so you could see the importance of youth. Harrison Ford deserves real credit for getting closer to the heart of the character than ever before. The final scene called back to Raiders was very well done, especially given the clear heart break that the character has suffered. Daniel O'Donnell, but not that one, says Dear Henry Jones and Toby Jones, just back from

a showing of the new Indiana Jones Indiana Jones, I think, with my son and we both absolutely loved it. Been a huge fan of the series since Raiders convinced my ten with my son and we both absolutely loved it. Been a huge fan of the series since Raiders convinced my 10-year-old self to become an archaeologist. However, once I discovered it wasn't actually never-ending whip-cracking, globetrotting adventures, I soon changed my mind. This last instalment was probably not necessary, even after the shambles of Crystal Skull, but it hit all the right notes of old fashioned fun for an indie fan like me. I find it highly amusing that people, and I think Daniel might be looking at me here, that people have a problem with the third act of this movie when face melting angels

and magic cups that can cure gunshot wounds were all okay previously. Mark referenced the old cereals that these are based on and these always mixed preposterous, shonky mysticism with the pulp. So no one should be surprised. Anyway, love the show Steve, hello to Jason Downwithnatsis in disguise or otherwise. I did say when I was reviewing the film, yes, the final act is not so much FFS, but no, not so much WTF as OFFS, but it is true that in a series in which it's angels melting Nazi spaces and most recently communing with space aliens in the lost city of Akatar, whatever it was. You can hardly go Well, I'm sorry. That's any more preposterous than that. Although it is it is utterly preposterous. Yes. I did think it was

It was preposterous. It's of another of another scale of the scale It was preposterous of another scale. Of the scale. So, interestingly, although it's number one, of course, all the news reports are that, I mean, this is the headline from Deadline, Indiana Jones, the dial of Destiny's, 82 million plus five day total, is not far from the July the fourth disaster

of Superman Returns. And so what they're all saying is, yes, it's gone in number one, but it has underperformed in terms of what a film that that expensive should have done. I mean, this was close to 300 million. And the general allegation being thrown around is, it doesn't have enough in it for the under 40s, that they haven't done anything to attract the new audience and that nostalgia, well, you know, we are the target audience for this film.

And you thought, it's all right. But for that, I mean, as we mentioned before, we saw it the day after we saw Mission Impossible, which we were talking about in the minutes. It's a five star movie, and this in comparison was really not up to snuff, really. I don't think, anyway, but it's perfectly fine. It's a three star.

I mean, it's got two star reviews, it's got four star reviews and we're saying it's kind of in the middle. It's in the middle. It's fine. You know, it is exactly what it is. And I would say it's the old Indiana Jones movie. What do you, what did you expect? Tim Gatwood Warner on our Facebook page, Indiana Jones and the film of utter tediousness have felt every minute of its overinflated runtime. This should have been a fast-paced 90 minutes, 1950s Saturday morning serial. Instead we get a turgid, overlong cash in. Well, I think that's a little harsh, but anyway.

Once you've seen any of those movies or any of the new stuff, let us know about it. Correspondents at Kermit of Mayo.com. More in a moment. is or any of the new stuff, let us know about it. Correspondents at Kermit at Mayo.com. This episode is brought to you by Mooby, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From myConnect directors to emerging otters, there's always something new to discover, for example. Well, for example, the new Aki-K Karri's Mackey film Fallen Leaves, which won the jury prize at CAN, that's in cinemas at the moment.

And if you see that and think I want to know more about Aki Karri's Mackey, you can go to Mooby the streaming service and there is a retrospective of his films called How to Be a Human. They are also going to be theatrically releasing In January Priscilla, which is a new Sophia Coppola film, which I am really looking forward to since I have an Elvis obsession. You could try Mooby Free for 30 days at Mooby.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. Metro links and cross links are reminding everyone to be careful, as Eglinton Cross-town LRT train

testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Email here from Ian Inferum. Dear, not been in the top 100 boys' names since 1996 and Ditto. Is that us? This is from Ian Inferum. Oh, so presumably. Maybe he and Mark and Simon, and none of those, they're not trendy anymore.

Chad. What is now? I know Buck Wheat or something. I don't know. I wish to take issue with Mark's rant last week where he derided, quote, conspiracy theory wing nuts. Yeah. The issue is not over bashing conspiracy theories. Go for it comrades. The issue is that as a fan of Aaron Salkins, the West Wing, I am a wing nut. It is what we are called. See the excellent West Wing weekly podcast. So, sorry, so West Wing fans are called wing nuts. Wing nuts.

I also suspect that the intersection of the true wing nuts and conspiracy theorists contains an extremely small number of people, most likely zero. So if Mark could find another infective, we would be most grateful. Okay. I didn't know that that that what you're a huge Westwing fan. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Did you know that Westwing fans were called wing nuts?

I don't think I did. I do know about the Westwing weekly podcast, which is, which is fantastic. Okay. I don't think I knew it was a wingnut. Okay. So, but conspiracy theory wingnut, if you look up wingnut on the, you know, urban dictionary wingnut, ideological extremist from either side of the political spectrum, who unquestioningly repeats any and all propaganda and or conspiracy theories propagated by their side of the political spectrum no matter how unlikely. So that was the context in which I was using it,

but it sounds like we need to use another word because I don't want to say conspiracy theory West Wing fans, because West Wing fans are on the side of all that is righteous and good. I think that is true. And the other day I I played Brothers in Arms on Greatest It's Radio at Drive Time. And the opening, which is six and a half minutes,

I think six minutes 40. And that piece of music was used in the two cathedrals episode, which I think is the one of Westwing, where Martin Sheen is enraged with the Almighty because his secretary and wonderful woman has been killed in a car crash and he rants at God in the cathedral, stubs as cigarette as an act of defiance. And that whole thing has got brothers and arms by

diastrates going on underneath. So he's full of wonderful, wonderful things. So you need, do you need an alternative to wingnut. Conspiracy theory what? Yes, we need another word to explain, because the other, I mean, Peter Jackson used to, his film company was called wingnut because I think when he was at school, that was his nickname, but yes, so we need another word that doesn't mean

West Wing fans or Peter Jackson, something to describe. Okay. People who think that airplanes leave chemtrials, which they don't. I guess today's the director of the new Pixar film Elemental. His name is Peter Sone. It's early work includes 2009's short partly cloudy, 2015's good dinosaur. You might also recognize his voice, because he's a voice over artist as you're about to hear.

He's a meal in Ratatouille, squishy monsters, university and socks in light ear. Anyway, you'll hear my chat with Peter Sone after this clip. Come on, you don't like my limbs, seeping? Anyway, June Loom is coming, and you just got to be my date! Because check it out! I'm all grown up! And I smell good! Ow! My queen! Sorry, buddy.

I want to know what you think? Wait! I got one! Come on! Go to the festival with me! You never leave this part of town! That's because everything I need is right here! And that's a clip from the new Pixar movie Elemental. across that bridge. And act of God or an act of God. And that's a clip from the new Pixar movie Elemental. I'm delighted to say I've been joined by its director and co-writer Peter Surnhalo. Peter, how are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Is it exciting now this moment in a director's life, you know, when your new movie, which I think has been like seven years in the making, is about to be launched? I mean, are you confident how you feeling? It's a big bag of emotions, you know. There is excitement, there's pride, there's fear, there's

anxiousness, there's just so much going on. Each one of those things hits you at different times. What does your gut tell you? My gut tells me that I'm just super proud of all the work that this crew did. It's easy to say about a crew doing work, but they gave so much of themselves, and so I'm really proud. I'd like to do this in order, so that when people come in and they watch your movie, of course, before your movie starts,

there is the famous Pixar short. Yes, so tell us what we see, first of all, because it is, of course, delightful. Just tell us the first thing that we see. Yes, and the first thing is a short called Carls Date, and it takes place from characters from the movie up, and it pushes something that, you know, is very emotional for us at Pixar because of how much of the heart

of that original movie centered around this love of Carl Frederickson's life. And then right after that comes our film. Yes, and so just to say it's a lovely, just way of saying, thank you to Ed Asnah, who's passed, of course. Yes, that's right. And am I right in saying that in the original up, the famous scene with all the balloons? Yes.

That was you. Yes, that's right. The director just asked, there were no script pages of it, and we need to figure out how to lift this house up with balloons. And I spent some time with, you know, just drawing late into the night. You're just drawing, drawing all these ideas, and then I presented it to them. I found this piece of music

and to try to make it more lifty if possible, but that was it, you know, lifty music. Yeah, so introduce us to Elemental, then, and the interesting, very personal ideas, behind us, just take us into your film. Yeah, I mean, it's this wild, fantastical world of elements, you know,

and making characters out of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air, and, you know, centering on this Fire family and this young woman that grows up in this city and how this Fire woman connects with this Water Guy. And it connects to my life in terms of my parents, where immigrants that came to a new city and I thought this metaphor of these diverse elements totally connected to that. And then I also married someone that wasn't Korean. I'm Korean and that caused a lot of trouble in my family. My grandmother's dying words were like, Mary Korean and she passed away

and it was just this, it caused a lot of culture clash. And that really inspired these fun ideas of how these different elements could mix or not mix. So just on the element thing, did you at all ever think of, because you've used the traditional elements, there are of course 118 elements in the periodic table. Did you ever think of doing hydrogen, helium, lithium,

and burn? Yes, oh my gosh, how it started was in school, I would look at that and it looked like an apartment complex to me, those blocks and everything. And I would make fun of copper and like, be careful of helium, they're gassy, you know, all these little characters became something. Once we got to the radio active world, boy, those characters were really difficult to start making fun of. And so I wanted, I wanted a gateway and sort of boiling it down, but yeah, there was definitely H2, whoa, you know, characters and all of that.

So can you just give us an insight before you know, characters and all of that. So can you just give us an insight before you get into the characters that you've actually used, the process of you having that idea. Yeah. And in over that seven year process, do you go to someone and say, how about this? I mean, this is your second directorial picture. What happens in the Pixar process? How does it get made? And so this one was an unusual path. Usually you're pitching three ideas and one gets selected and then becomes developed. This started off from an anecdote of my parents and thanking them in New York. And that emotional moment, a lot of the folks there, Pixar said, hey,

that's your movie. And so it was sort of like already got on a path. From there, it's just so lonely work of research and trying to develop the world and the characters to a certain sort of rough state. Then once that rough state, you get to it, that's when you start pitching that more and more. That's when it becomes sort of the show. And you are pitching the heart of it. And the main question that was at that time was, what if Fire and Water could fall in love? That was the

question that was hopefully intriguing enough to get people on board. And then it did. And more people got on board, writers and story artists. And we started developing the story. Then soon after that, you would build a screening. And then you would show the studio a rush, a rough version of the movie. And then if that had enough potential to it, then you would start get ramping more artists to start building the film out. And then you would do that process again and again and again of building up these rough reels, exploring different ideas and exploring the characters and trying to find the fun and the emotion of it until you get to a place where they lock it down, and then you really essentially go Hollywood where it's the virtual sets are being built, virtual lighting and virtual characters are being made and you're recording actors

and you're really building it up from there to give the final product. So was it always going to be, some people will have been struck by the way you described the story and it obviously has elements of the Romeo and Juliet story. Was that always, if you're gonna do a Fire and Walter story, is that always gonna be the heart of it? Yeah, it was the beginning. It was that first little circle, I mean, the first little nugget of this thing, but because the heart of it was thanking my parents,

it formed a triangle. It was a love story between a young woman and a guy, but then a daughter and a father and that became the main core and everything grew out from there. So at the beginning of the movie, the fire parents arrive in element city. So is that kind of your folks arriving in New York? My parents were not married when they came separately and so there was but it was definitely trying to honor. You know, we talked to so many other on crew members of their stories too, and it was about honoring all of that. So in your movie, why have the fire parents left their home and come to?

I don't know, it's... There was environmental dangers for them that really forced them out of their home and their identity essentially. Now I've only seen the film once once and I didn't have the ability to pause, obviously, because I'm seeing it in a proper theater. Yeah. Is the father wearing like metal trousers? Yes, he is. Yes.

Yeah, most of all the characters, all the clothing is made of metal. Yeah. You must, I guess this is kind of film that will repay a second watch just to see so many of your jokes that we might miss. Yeah, there are so many ideas jam packed into this film, which is a great reason to see it in the theater. There are so many details that you know, we made for the big screen and so you could catch them. But yes, there's a lot of a lot of story going on in the background. So, Ember and Wade are the two characters of the heart of this story. Wade is a drip, as other people have said, really, but we like him,

and we love Ember, of course, she's very fiery. Character, tell us, because you're a voiceover artist yourself. You're a voice artist, and we've heard your voice in other movies. So you know instinctively what you're looking for. What did you want these characters to sound like? There are two pieces there. Each one was a character performance that were very specific and then an elemental aspect. And the first thing for Ember, you know, wanting someone that could be fierce and strong, but then also tender with a father character so that

you can... Those were the stakes of the film, was this love for the father. So I needed that, but then, you know, the Leoleus, what I found with her, that was interesting, elementally was she has a smoky voice and that sort of added that piece of it, you know. For Wade, we needed someone that could not only just be empathetic and reach out with their voice to be emotional,

but also to be cool and go with the flow. Not only that, he cries a lot in this movie. He's water, of course. He's leaking everywhere, and how do you find fun with someone like with that much tearing up? And Mama Dew did that incredibly, both by allowing us to be vulnerable enough for us to jump with him, but at the same time have a lot of fun. Obviously, in a kind of a reaction film, you're looking for chemistry between your two lead characters. Is it different in a Pixar film?

Is it different in animation? Yes, it does have to be that chemistry, which you're hearing. Yes, it does have, you really are hunting for that chemistry. It's done slightly different because you're matching voices together. And you're hearing it and trying to craft it. They didn't record together ever during this time. Because it was COVID, and so they were separate.

And so there's just a lot of work to just record them differently, put them together, and find that electricity. But it's manufactured in that way. But you are pushing each performer to reach out toward each other. It was ironic, this whole film is about connection, yet the pandemic forced us to not connect, but the whole game of animation is trying to create electricity,

a frame by frame, and it was the same with the dialogue. How much more difficult did the pandemic make this film? I hated it. I asked Simon it was the worst. So much of this kind of work is collaborative. Yeah, being split like that was, but there was nothing else to do. We had to do it, and the Pixar tech folks really found a way to allow us to get as close as we could. Remember there was a period in lockdown when everybody thought that animation was going to be the only thing that we'd see because of course the animators were very busy because they could keep carrying on them. And they did. And they really did. And the hours spent on just moving frame-by-frames

was all we could do. I was wondering watching this and knowing that it was a lot of it came out of your history and your story. How much of you you put into Ember. And also how much of your father goes into her father because that father is one exhausted man. He runs that store from first light till last thing before he goes to bed. Is that your dad? It is my dad, Simon.

I will cry in front of you the more I talk about. I lost him during the making of this thing. And, you know, he had a cough. That's what took him away. And the fact that Bernie is coughing the smoke out definitely hits me in a new way every time I see it. But, you know, his work ethic was the thing that I'm so proud of. He came to this country with that work ethic. And he just, he started as a hot dog cart guy in Manhattan. He made nothing and he built this life for us with that. And those hours that you mentioned was his life.

We rarely saw him and any time he had the chance to do anything, he took us to the movies. But he was asleep through every movie we ever saw because he had worked so hard. Am I right? Just saying I think you lost both parents. That's right. Yes, yes, do it.

It was, I'm still going through it. Which must make this movie, I mean, it has an impact for everyone who goes to see it. But for you, this is incredibly personal. It is. I never thought it would be. And, you know, these films take a life of their own, and they start

speaking to you. What was crazy was it started speaking in dark ways after I lost my dad who was the first and you had to find light again. You're just in the darkness. And you know, this whole movie was it's intent was always to be hopeful, you know, and but there was moments where hope was gone, you know, and then you find it again. And then, surprisingly, when my mom, you know, went and finishing this film, definitely, is tied to some piece of closure, for sure. So, if this film took seven years, we need to see some more work from you. We can't wait to another seven years. Have you got other projects in that? You explained the pixel process earlier. Have you got other things in the pipeline that we're going to see?

I definitely have ideas that I've gone on, but boy, this has been such an emotional, I've just been like, I could use a break. So maybe some more elements. Yeah, maybe, yeah, that would be great. Peterson, thank you so much for your nice. Thank you Simon. Oh yeah, it's been great to talk to you too. Thank you for the great questions. Peterson, a director of Elemental. Anyway, we mentioned YouTube earlier and if you go to YouTube, you can see Peter talking.

And being visibly moved when talking about some of the subjects in the... I think it's just rare for someone's personal story to become part of the interview but it absolutely because it was absolutely woven into the immigrant experience of America. It seemed okay to go there and I didn't know that both his parents had passed but I think he was I think he was happy talking about it because it was relevant. Oh yeah yeah. To the story. Yeah. Well I think that interview is one of the perfect examples of I

feel I Like the film much more. I'm not that I disliked it But I like it much more after hearing him talk about it So as he said it plays out in element city different elements live alongside each other There are four elements as you pointed out in the real world. There are many more I'm surprised at that point you didn't give him a signed copy of it. How do you know that I didn't? I was, of course, tempted to, but I thought that would have been unprofessional. Itch, which is soon to be coming to Opera

Holland Park. Opera Holland Park. Did you give him tickets for that? Just a few weeks. If he was still around, I think he would have probably enjoyed it. So Firegirl, Ember has always thought she would take over a file the shop, Waterguy Wade falls in love with her, can they be together, can fire and water be together? There are clear parallels with Inside Out in which we have the personification of personality traits like the Numskulls thing, you know, working inside the head. He has cited elsewhere films like Guess who's coming to dinner, Moonstruck, You've Got Mail, Analy, Big Fat Greek Wedding, Big Sick as particular influences on his, you know, on his

romcom elements. And yet, the thing about this is that, yes, there is a romantic comedy in there, but he himself said the heart of it was a thank you to his parents. And actually, I think that's the bit that works the best. So on the one hand, there's the metaphor of the diversity of elements as real life diversity. You know that thing when he said his grandmother said, marry Korean. He said it and then I didn't. I didn't. I was like, no. And the idea of the immigrant diaspora, clearly very, very personal.

Some of the stuff for me that doesn't work quite so well is I mean, I'm not entirely sure that the way in which the personification of the water guy and the fire guy, it just didn't click for me in the same way that inside out did. I thought inside out was the best film I saw that year. I spent a lot of

time worrying about the design of the water and the design of the fire. So in fact, I found the romance between those things. Although I think the metaphorical underpinning is solid, I found that didn't work quite so well. But what does work well is the stuff between her and her father. stuff between her and her father. And I found myself moved to tears, particularly in the final act, I'm going to give him a way, but there is a scene in the final act, which I just found myself welling up. And I was thinking when he said the heart of it was thanking my parents, because that is in the film called Elemental, that is the strongest element. And so if the stuff across the elements didn't work quite so well for me, the stuff within the family worked really well.

And hearing him talk about it, that kind of makes sense. Because when he talks about the influences for the other elements, he's talking about other films. When he's talking about the parent. When he's talking about the parent stuff, he's talking about himself. And it's interesting that in that interview,

the stuff that he's really moved by is talking about, I mean, when you're talking about the thing about losing both parents, and he said, my father had a cough. So when the father coughs the smoke, he said every time I see it, it's a particular, and then he talked about it at one point, it took him to a very dark place.

And that kind of made sense to me because hearing that I went, oh, okay, that's why when I was watching the film, the stuff that was going back there, the romance, fine, but it's not classic Pixar, but the stuff between her and her father is also worth saying that Carl's late is lovely, because the simplicity of it, the short film at the beginning, the little brief one where we go back into the world of the world.

The simplicity of it is just, that's the treat. And I think that sometimes in this, the stuff about the romance, there are complexities about why can't fire and water, but the I don't quite there doesn't quite work for me But the stuff between her and her dad absolutely worked and as I said did did make me cry What amazing calling card though, which is why I mentioned it at the start to say you know that bit in up that everyone remembers One's favorite bit with the balloons that was you that was people so Quite incredible and hopefully won't take him another 70 years before we get another movie from him by the way and we will be discussing Mission Impossible.

Yes. Later on. Just a moment, his podcast. Simon Peg will be a guest on next week's program. So we've got, we're spreading the Mission Impossible fun. Yes. Because there's a lot of fun to spread. Yes.

But adds in a moment, Mark, but let's not waste another opportunity to step again into our laughter list. That's not. Which we missed so much last week. Oh dear. I found last week was such a drag without the laughter lift. So let's put that right. Somehow the show skipped along for me. I was listening to some of my top YouTube tracks to keep me occupied when I was a car there in Denmark. which reminds me, why did this is a joke that works written down and not out loud? Why did YouTube's lawyer refuse to send them an invoice?

I don't know. He was working pro bono, but it's bono. And this is pro bono. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Anyway, another joke does work. You'll never believe it, Mark. I was in a pub in Shobys, North London last week. Bono and Edge walked in and the barman looks out and says,

not you two again, not knock. Who's the interrupting Bono interrupting? Oh, no, Dorstress, Katosy. I said the good lady ceramicist, her indoors out to the super, I mean, I obviously didn't because she's not going gonna do that kind of thing. Also she just say no go yourself. I sent the good ladies ceramicist her indoors out to the supermarket last week. She was using that go not well. She was using my custom you to sat nav. She still hasn't found what she's looking for.

I should really send it back. The streets have no name but it is better than the Bonnie Tyler sat nav. It keeps saying turn around and every now and then it falls... It falls apart. I thought you were going to say that you ended up lost in France. Well, that's also... That would have been a better joke. No, turn around and every now and then it falls apart.

That's... And then you ended up lost in France. Okay, well, let's add that in. All right, and then you ended up lost in France. What's still to come? Mission Impossible, dead, wrecking part one and then you ended up lost in France. What's still to come? Mission impossible, dead-wrecking part one. Back after this. Lost in France.

Unless you're a Vanguardista in which case, you're so charming when you make an effort. And we'll be back after this. Get holiday ready at Real Canadian Superstore. Will you find more legendary ways to save than any other major grocer? Until December 13th, you'll get a free PC turkey when you spend $300 or more.

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Correspondent at Kerminamayah.com. I just say one other thing about that piece on an interview is it is so sorry just because I've been thinking about it a lot and I've been about the fact that that interview really made me think more warmly, no pun intended about the film. Particularly when it's animation and it takes so long to do. The idea that the spark of melancholy or mournfulness can be kept alive throughout the process. It's almost more extraordinary than the U-Rite of Drama and then somebody films it and it takes, don't you think there is something really remarkable about how many versions of the finished scene they must have gone through and yet it's still also catches him. The fact that his instant response,

because obviously when you do these interviews, you know, it's question I was expecting, he's the answer you're expecting. When I asked him about the impact of COVID and lockdown, the way he just jumped in and said, I hate it. I absolutely hated it. And we've asked similar questions to other actors

and directors, but that was really passionate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, really was. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, no, no, no. Very, very fine interview. Well, thank you. He's a very, very fine director. really was sorry to interrupt. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no is it? Is it a, is it an end slash? No, there was what was the other thing you said it was a, I know it was cuby thing. A cuby thing, yes.

No, so it's a major thing, dead reckoning part one. Dead reckoning part one or just MI7, if you want to be easy. So just to say the beginning of this, you and I saw this together on consecutive nights, we saw Mission Impossible Dead reckoning part one and Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny. And you have already said that one of the things with Indiana Jones and the dial of Destiny is it's seeing it the day after you saw Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 tough, tough.

So, um, MI goes AI. This, oh, very good. Thank you very much. So the, the setup is put that in your observer. Thank you very much. Um, you know so you make it the opening line. That's my suggestion. You know, I'll do that Simon. Okay, very good. Okay, so I don't want to do anything that spoils the film, but essentially what happens is this time, in the past, Ethan Hunter's gone up against, I mean, most recently he was

having to save the world from nuclear bombs and there was a thing before that with, anyway, so this time, their enemy is an artificial intelligence that has developed its own awareness. It has become self-aware and it is viral and it is out there infecting loads and loads of computers. In the pre-credit sequence, because this being a mission impossible thing,

we start in a submarine, which is in the barring straight, and there is a weird thing with a kind of key, a sort of strange key that looks like a kind of like a cruciform shape. And then from there, we go, there's a desert thing, and there's a chase across the desert, and there's a shooter, and the desert, and there's a finety thing, and then there's amps to dam, and this is all before the titles come up. But essentially, the enemy that they are a finety thing in them, there's amps to dam and this is all before the titles come up. But essentially, the enemy that they are up against is everywhere and nowhere, baby. Thank you, Ron.

You got the everywhere and it's everywhere and nowhere, baby. That's where you're at, Silverlionny. And the one thing that you and I said afterwards was, this is, we're gonna see a lot of this in the future, aren't we? The AI is gonna be, it's the new multiverse. It's gonna be, it's the new multiverse. And in the same way that, you know, we'd all seen a bunch of movies in which,

everything's happening multiverse, now we're gonna hold some bunch of movies in which they're AI. So what he has to do, it's a very, very new threat, but it has a very, very old fashioned key. And in a weird similarity, very new threat, but it has a very, very old-fashioned key. And in a weird similarity, not echo of, because, you know, in a weird similarity to Indiana Jones and the Dahl of Destiny, the key has two parts. And when the two parts are brought together, something extraordinary will happen, but nobody's quite sure what. And everybody wants to own the

entity, not to destroy it, but to own the entity because it has the power of it can control truth as we know it. So it's a great big AI viral entity that there is a physical key that is in two parts, the two parts that round about in the world, everyone wants to get hold of it. And in order to do this, our team will have to chase, hither and thither and yarn. And yarn, both near and far, I'm going to play a clip because the clip, the clip's from sort of fairly late on in the movie, but it is a sequence that everybody has seen because it's been very, very heavily tailored

and we'll talk about it afterwards. Featuring Simon Pegg, who is going to be your guest on next week's show from Mission Impossible Dead Racketing Part 1. Just... Jump? Yeah! I'm here. Benji doesn't work like that. I'm not that high. There's... There's ledges sticking out everywhere. I'm gonna hit them before the parachute even opens. He's...

Benji, even if I could get the parachute open, I don't know if I can make it across the valley and intercept the lens safely on a moving... DREAM! Do you copy? Yes! I copy! Look, I'm just trying to help you! Okay, I need you to take a step back and pull yourself together because I am under a lot of pressure right now.

So Simon Pegg will be your guest on next week's show. And Simon Pegg is in a car and Tom Cruise is on a bike on top of a cliff. On top of a cliff, a big rocky cliff with a great, big, dropy, dropy jump in front of him with lots of jaggedy jaggedy rock sticking out. Now, this is not a plot spoiler because there has been so much coverage about this and everyone has seen the little feature at. What Tom is going to do is to jump off the cliff on a motorbike in order to intersect with a train, which is where the final act of the film is going to play out. And the stunt was done six times, and all six times it was done by stuntman Tom Cruise. And if you've seen the piece of it,

if you haven't seen the piece footage before, it's incredible. It's just, I mean, it is, and that is day one of the production. Oh, that was the very first day. That's the first day I did not know that, okay. So it's a ramp and all the rest. Oh, that was the very first day. That's the first day. I didn't know that. Okay. So it's, you know, it's a ramp and all the rest of it, but it is actually Tom Cruise on an actual motorbike actually jumping off the top of this thing and then actually falling

and then actually opening a real parachute actually. And then he does it six times because after he's done the first one, he says, I think I let go of the bike a bit early. Yeah, it just, He just keeps doing it. So here's the thing, you know that when Tom Cruise does an action movie, he is going to go the extra mile. And we were talking before about, whether he'll be remembered in decades to come as one of the great superstars

and one of the things he will be remembered for is, are you not entertained? How much more can I do? In a previous mission impossible film, there's a scene in which he broke his ankle because he was doing his own stunt. But this really is, I mean, even just watching that, that little thing. And of course, there's a moment when the director of a director, Christopher McCory is watching it on the thing. And then Tom lands safely. And somebody hugs Christopher McCory because they obviously wanted Chris before he goes, obviously,

what an example. I think he was, please let this go, right? Please don't let something terribly wrong happen. So as far as the rest of it's concerned, it is the usual mission impossible stuff. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean, it's the plot is kind of a lot of joining the dots stuff. AI is not new, but it is absolutely of its moment. We're all sort of very concerned about, you know, the robot overlords taking over. So there are sequences

involving Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsefoust. There is a teaming up with Haley Atwell's light-fingered grace, who is a thief, and there is a sequence. Haley Atwell related to Winifold Atwell, the pianist. thief and there is a there's a sequence. Haley Atwell related to Winifred Atwell, the pianist. You'd have to ask her. Did you ask Simon Pegg? What do you do? When you ask Simon Paul, you could look it up.

And so there's a again, talking about stuff that's in the trailer, there is a there's a terrific chase sequence down the Spanish steps. They actually had the premiere of the film by the Spanish steps in which they're in a very little fiat and they're handcuffed together. Again, weirdly enough, kind of oddly mirroring scenes that are in, I'm not saying, but mirroring scenes that are in Indiana Jones and the Darl of Destiny, but they're much better.

But, well, certainly done much more Indiana Jones and Darl of Destiny once you just enjoy the old fashion. You know, look, it's Harrison Ford and somebody else and they're in the thing. But what this wants you to do is be absolutely on the edge of your seat. Because there's one of the things I like about this film and it succeeds. And it succeeds. Is that there is a kind of caper quality to it. So the stuff with the little cars going down those streets, it's kind of got an Italian job feel to it. There's a lot of screw ball

comedy interaction between, you heard a little bit of it there with Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg, and it was Simon Pegg says, I'm under a lot of pressure that cuts back to Tom Cruise on the top of a mountain with a motorbike. But what makes the film work, also there is a terrific performance by S. Mouralis who was so chilling in Ozark, which I absolutely loved, who here is Gabriel,

who is described as the entities chosen messaged. Do I have I said that it's called the entity? I don't think you have. I have a case. So the AI is referred to. It's referred to earlier on as the entity. They say, it's a thing.

We'll call it the entity. And part of me goes, please don't call it that because that is a silly name. And every time they say the entity, slightly cringe because it is a bit of a silly name, isn't it? Yeah, I suppose it is, but it's this kind of film. So they can't call it Brian, can they? Well, if they had called it Brian. Okay, so my reservations would be that, you know, there is a bolt together, quality to the plot,

you know, the set pieces and the central thing is called the entity, which I think is a bit silly. And then there's a kind of, don't look now, so I'll chase through Venice. And then there's a brilliant performance by Pompomontioff, who is this largely silent assassin called Paris. But what the film does and is edge of your seat, nail biting, pulse racing, blimey charlie, I can't believe how exciting this is. And you and I sat there and we watched it and it's too, you know, it's too much as, but it's genuinely

feels like 90 minutes. Wow. And of course, it's part one. So here's the verdict. Firstly, you get to the end of part one, you think, I want to watch part two right now. I have been here for two and a half hours and I want to watch part two right now. I have been here for two and a half hours and I want to watch part two right now. All the action adventure stuff is done. It's really, really well done. I mean, the stuff with, you know, with the cars chasing through the little streets, I mean, we've seen this stuff many times before, but it's done brilliantly. It's really, really nail biting. When we get to the final sequence, which is the motorbike parachute train sequence. And again, if you've seen the trailer, you already know that apparently very early on, they said to Chris McHory and Tom Cruise said to each other, what do you want to do? And Tom Cruise said, I want to drive

a, you know, I want to drive a motorbike off the edge of a cliff. And Chris McHory said, I want to do something with a big train. They did both of those. It was slightly more explicit. I know. I just don't want to get bitty. Okay, then it's in the toaster. Is it? Okay, so what did he say then? After Tom Cruise said, I want to drive a motorbike off a cliff. What do you want to do?

Chris McCwory said, I want a crash a train. Okay, fine. And if you, like me, I mean, Beggars of Life is a film starring Louis Brooks that the Dodge Brothers of a company for years and years and Beggars of Life finishes with a train going over the edge of a cliff. And because being back then, they got a real train and they really threw it over the edge of a cliff. And you can still go to where that train, and the wreckage of it is still out there in the desert after all these years,

that film was made almost a century ago, and the wreckage of the thing is still here. And of course, there is a train sequence in Indiana Jones at the Temple of Doom. The finale of Mission Impossible Dead Racketing is I think one of the most audaciously tense action set pieces I have ever seen. And I was, and you could test to this, I was genuinely on the edge of my seat. My fingers were digging into the seat and

I was actually thinking, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop because what it does is it goes and then you do a thing, you go, wow, and then it does a thing and you go, wow, and then it does another thing and you go, wow, and then it does that eight or nine times. And I started to hyperventilate. I was at, and I know that you mentioned this, but I write notes all the way through. So I've got, this is a loosely book with scribbles because some critics need a torch to, oh, I don't do it with you now. No, no, no, you just write blind. I just write, yeah, so I just have the thinning my lap and I just write as I'm walking

with the thing and I use my, fine, So I've got 15 pages of notes on it. The very last page of my notes, they might tweet a picture of this. Literally, I can't hold up the camera because it's simply an expletive which is about your hat. Yes, it said fruitcake my hat scrolled in a trembling hand that because I was just yes, and then we both came out of it and we went

Wow, it's completely brilliant. It's just I mean the phrase breathtaking doesn't begin to describe what the what you know I know all the way through the action piece is a good and the, and the, the screw ball comedy is good and the caper stuff is good and the plot is silly and, you know, in the tape self-destructs in five seconds, which, at one point, they go into an analog safety room that is offline because that's where the entity can't get them and every time somebody says the entity, I slightly, it doesn't matter. None of that matters. It's, it is so exciting. It is absolutely thrillingly exciting to the point that I lost the ability

to write coherent notes and simply wrote an obscenity. Do you think the BBC will have a light-endity department in the future? Almost certainly. They will. Can I just say, I know we're, look, also, and this comes up in the interview, Simon Pegg, which you'll hear next week.

How incredible. So we're all talking about AI now. It's a bit AI, it's everywhere. They made this, they made this, this is a pre-COVID conversation. That, so Chris McQuarrie was onto this story in a long time. No, that's absolutely right.

More mission impossible. More mission impossible. Did you tell Simon Pegg that I, because I, he asked what you thought, and I said that you'd written that about his hat and he thought it was hilarious and within 30 seconds he told everyone I wouldn't be surprised if he told Tom Cruise what you want to do with your hat. So we'll find out. But it was great wasn't it? It was absolutely fantastic. Right, let's do this week's a listener correspondence. It opens on Monday. We should say that

that the mission was to open on Monday. Mission impossible. It was on Monday. Don't go and see it like on Friday night. No fruit can't get out before that. Exactly. It'll be dialed up destiny. So sound of Friday. Exactly. So correspondence, carbonabed.com, if you'd like to tell us about stuff that's on like this, for example. fantasy-family adventure film in the vein of Hong Kong flicks and Spielberg movies from the 80s and 90s. It's a horror-adjacent but not a scary film at all, and as its name suggests, it's set against the backdrop of the Hungry Ghost Festival, which is celebrated by Chinese diaspora worldwide. Hungry Ghost Diner, which is predominantly in Cantonese and Haka Chinese languages, explores our folk beliefs, ghostors mythology and Chinese food culture.

I wanna see Hungry Ghost Diner. Yes, thanks to Wijun Cho, who was, that was great. It sounds fantastic. If you're a director, you wanna tell us about your film. Come on, you know, you can just send us a voice. Yes, I want to see that. Correspondence at curbadamao.com,

that's the end of take one. This has been a Sony music entertainment production. The team was Lily Hamley, Ryan Amira, Sancia Panzer, Gully Tekele, Scala O'Malley, Michael Dale, Hannah Tulbet, Simon Pull, being the red actor in chief. Mark, what is your movie of the week? Well, you know, look, I love name me LeWand. I liked Elemanfall, but F my H, M I seven, TTFN. F my H, MI7, TTFN.