Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Rowan Atkinson, Elvis, The Black Phone, Man vs. Bee, and Wings of Desire

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Mark and Simon are joined in the studio by comedic genius Rowan Atkinson to chat about his new comedy Netflix series ‘Man vs, Bee.’ Mark reviews the highly anticipated ‘Elvis’, Ethan Hawkes new horror, ‘The Black Phone’, ‘Man vs. Bee’ and Wim Wenders 1987 classic ‘Wings of Desire’ - about an angel who wonders the streets of Berlin observing its residents.  Plus, What’s on World, the Box office chart and more.  You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or find us on our social channels.  Show timings: 13:03 Last Week’s Streamers  16:25 Black Phone Review  22:43 Box Office Top 10  35:12 Rowan Atkinson Interview  49:49 Man Vs Bee Review  54:11 Elevator Jokes  01:00:16 Elvis Review  01:11:33 What’s On A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production.  Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts  Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-daycare  money-back guarantee! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Something else. Here, Mark. I've only just realised that this is a gag. It's like an earmark. It's an earworm. It's an ear. It's Simon. So here we go with another fabulous take podcast,

and I'm in an empty studio, but I'm not an empty studio, because there's lots of very important technicians. But you're not here. No, I'm not. I'm, because I don't live anywhere near London. And as people who read the news may have known, it's been quite difficult to get into London this week. What with one thing and another? I think I heard a union leader and also a boss saying,

I don't think you're going to London. Well done for getting a village of the Dan reference into the opening minute of the show. That is brilliant. Plus I balanced it by having a union leader and a boss, just even though we don't need to be balanced. Just for the sake of, for the sake of for everybody in this hardcore centrism, which I'm still committed to. And may I just remind everybody since you brought it up that the new version of the Midwitch Cook-Hooz is currently available to watch.

And we've reviewed it here on Cumber to Mayors Take. You can go back and watch the review again. But do check the series out because it's really good. And if you're feeling in there, I don't think you're going to London mood. It's definitely a good way, a good thing to watch. I can see you on my screen. It's like, it's like peak lockdown. It is. Now, apart from me being in a studio, you're back in your cupboard. Yes, I am. I do notice that you've got a very carefully curated image there with various busts of

Elvis. Yeah, so I've got big Elvis over here. And then I've got little wiggling Elvis here. Wiggling Elvis dances. This is great for radio. Wiggling Elvis has got articulated hips and he dances when the phone rings. So it's because it's an Elvis week. And we're all feeling an Elvis week.

Right, yeah. Articulated hips, is that what they are? Yeah, they're articulated hips. It's literally, it's a telephone. I've got it in America. So when the phone rings, rather than the phone ringing, Elvis does a little dance. Now, so in the, since I spoke to you last,

you got stuck at home and I got a grand kid. So congratulations, congratulations. I did mention this on one of the takes that we had. I forget how many takes that we had, but I know it's, it's a strange thing. So I flew to Copenhagen and got there just in time and then Baby Oscar turns up and It was all rather fabulous and now I've got about 6,000 photographs, which I show you know the cabbie cabbie's Driving me in and he says you're right. I said yes Do you want to see a picture of my grandson? You know not really?

You know, but that doesn't that doesn't matter So I still show him anyway. I'd just like to point out that when we, when we started this recording, in order to sink it up, we both had to do a clap. And you said, yeah, that's the only clap we're going to get. And I just like to say, you've just had a grandchild Oscar. And that's the only Oscar you and I are ever going to get. Oh, well, let's, let's not, let's not assume that. I still have confidence in the cinematic universe into which we can we can disappear. I also notice you're wearing a modern love as t-shirt. I am. Yeah, because you

can never have too much Jonathan Richmond. I was feeling a little bit down in the dumps earlier on in the week and I put on I'm a little dinosaur and I suddenly my whole life felt better. Well, also the the pollen count needs all you know, you need to fight back with the modern and herself. Are you suffering from hay fever? I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I started it. So you literally gave your hay fever to me. Thanks very much for that Simon.

I don't think it works like that. Well apparently it has worked like that because I was never allergic to anything before I was 40. Then I got hay fever. Now I'm allergic to penicillin. I'm allergic. There's a whole list of things I'm allergic to. It all happened when I turned 40.

Right. Well, I still think that's medically questionable, but maybe you just become paranoid since you turned 40. Maybe it's that. Maybe a hypercundria. That would only work if you assumed that I wasn't paranoid before 40. And anyone who knows me will tell you that's not the case. I was one of the people who in the 1980s would never make a phone call from my flat. I would go to a phone box in case the phone was bugged. Oh, okay. Yes, that was delusional behavior. But anyway, but it's all right now. So here we go with another take. And as far as your concern, what's coming up on the show today?

Well, I'm going to be reviewing Elvis, the new movie by Baz Lerman, which is why all these Elvis busts are around. A black phone, which is a horror movie, there is a reissue of wings of desire. And man versus B is coming to our home screens, which means our special guest is... He's going to be Rowan Atkinson, who's going to be here, and then you're not here, so you can take part, but I'll have to waive you in or something like that. I'll have to say, Mark, over to you, and then you can come in, but I'll have to wave you in or something like that. I'll have to say, Mark, over to you, and then you can come in with your top questions. In that very spontaneous way that we learnt to do so well during lockdown. I was going to run through the box office top 10.

And then you say, and as if that wasn't enough, I said, do that line for you. And as if that wasn't enough. Okay. On Monday, there is going to be very well. Take two in which we'll be expanding your viewing in our feature, one frame back, which gives you some further watching related to one of this, this week's releases, and in this case, it's Basil Ehrman's Elvis,

which has been mentioned quite a lot already. Mark will be picking a film about starring or with Elvis as one of its themes. And I can see on the script, it Mark responds and I just like to say, I can respond at this point. I have three words to say, Baba Ho Tepp. What does that mean? It will explain it when we get to Elvis's Jason.

Also, take it or leave it. You decide a word of mouth on a podcast feature. Mark will be taking a look at Bill Hader's Barry, which you send in loads of people saying you've got to watch Barry. So, Mark has watched Barry. Send your suggestions for great cinema adjacent stuff that we might have missed a correspondence at curbadama.com. And we've now built up quite a little B-Sew bank of must-see reviews of great stuff to

watch on streaming services. So, sign up to Extra Takes, an Apple podcast, to dig into extra stuff to make you sound very clever in front of your friends. Or if you prefer a different platform, you can head to a different platform. ExtraTakes.com, I think, should sort you out for that. And if you're already a Vanguard Easter, as always, thank you very much indeed for subscribing. Now, matters arising. Very important email from Dr. Yuri Gupta,

Blue Belt, Taekwondo, Grade A piano, and popcorn specialist, though as you're about to hear, Mark, he's quite good at something else as well. Okay. Dear smart, mask, and road map. In answer to the good doctors call for good doctors that work through tiny holes. Yes.

I write as a heritage listener and member of the small but significant interventional radiology corner of the congregation, aka image guided surgery. Keyhole surgery is Oso 2001 and interventional radiology, IR to its friends. Now you see, I thought IR is international rescue because I used to have the strap when I had the uniform on. I had a strap which had IR on it, so that means international rescue. But now, if I'm wearing the uniform, people are going to say, hey, you're something to do with interventional radiology.

Anyway, it's the new kid on the block. Rather than operating, says Dr. Yuri Gupta, through a capacious keyhole, we work through a pinhole two millimeters across, and do so with our patients awake and under local anesthetic. The radiology image guided bit refers to the use of real-time video X-rays that we used to navigate through arteries, veins,

bile ducts, and ureters, ureters, something like that. Using, they'll be the small, shiny tubes of muscle through which urine passes through the kidney and the bladder. And using tiny wires and plastic catheter tubes, using lots of fancy kit and a few X-rays, we can open up, you haven't fainted yet have you? No, I'm still here.

I'm still here. Okay. We can open up blocked blood vessels and block off internal bleeds, all viewed in glorious monotone, four by three X-ray vision on a big tele. Sometimes patients want to watch the procedure in real time, quite why I wouldn't have the first idea. And we'll show them how a wire can be teased past the blockage, how an angioplasty balloon inflates and how blood is now flowing where a moment early, there was only a trickle. You could say we are projectionists of a dynamically created personalised piece of cinema

with real world outcomes, all of which is rather clever. And even though I work with it every day, frequently strikes me as really quite incredible and often magical. A big shout out to all radiographers and nurses that are part of the team. Thanks for all the littering, Dr. Yuri Gupta. Would you choose to watch, if you are having this,

you would watch it on a screen? Yeah, absolutely, because the thing is, if you watch it on a screen, somehow it makes it, it gives you a distance from it. If you look down at the site of pointy things going into your body, then pass out. But if you look at something happening on a screen, then it has that, you know, that air of distance, it's cinema. I'd start, you know, looking at the camera angles and wondering about the lighting.

And as you said, you know, four by three, an interesting format to be using. I'm also be thinking, we are getting very close to the point that somebody is going to be able to get an entire crew of people to shrink them down to microscopic size and inject them into the bloodstream, like in the movie. And... Was that Dennis Quay? Who did that? Dennis Quay did do that, but other people did it before Dennis Quay did it. Okay. Yeah, well, maybe that's just around the corner. And maybe Dr. Yuri Gupta will be one of the first to get involved. This from Jacob in Andover. I've been a fan of the new show as well as your previous incarnations for a while now,

while certainly not a heritage listener, not even close, I regret to inform you, seeing you transition to this new take has been marvellous, and I devoured eagerly every show you've put out so far, which isn't really a boast given that you've only done six. I suppose that's also true. I intend to listen to these podcasts at work much to the sugar-own of my co-workers, who must hate me bursting until after your frequent witticisms almost all the time. I'm no cine-file, but Marx takes on the newest films genuinely delight me. They're well spoken, well crafted and meticulously put.

Simon equally never fails to make me laugh and his constant interjections make for some of the best radio and podcast material I've ever consumed. Can I just go and say, what was the adjective he used about your interjections? Well spoken, well, crap. No, that was me. Constantly never felt. Constantly. Constantly. Constantly. Make for some of the best podcast. Yeah, make for some of the best podcast material. I'm also a night. I'm a bit of an introvert, so I don't tend to spend as much time with my family, especially my mother, as I'd like. My days off are generally spent sleeping, listening

to music and doing all the boring mundane trials of everyday life. For this week, I told my mum to sit down and we'd listen to your podcast together. Specifically, last week's Jeff Goldblum episode. My mum has come to quite love you too, and was a huge fan of Mark's secrets of cinema series, but hasn't dipped her toes into the podosphere as yet. Well, guess what? We loved it. We laughed, we owed at some of the new films on offer, and we reminisced over our own individual experiences relating to cinema. From Mark's escapades with a screwdriver to Simon's well-timed laughter lift, we enjoyed the hour and a half immensely.

It gave us an excuse to spend time with one another again and was generally just very wholesome. I think we need to put that on the poster, generally very wholesome. So thank you, you two, and all those behind the scenes that make the podcast possible, his to many more takes with my mum. I'm Jacob from Andover, by the way,

and hello, and goodbye. So I can't remember what I did with a screwdriver. I can't remember. I mean, I'm sure it was something that ended very, very badly indeed. I think it was hilarious, whatever it was. It might have been using thinking that a screwdriver was a chisel, which Mr. Benbo put me straight on when I was at school. Some like that. Yeah. Now, last week we were talking about spider head. Yes. Which I have watched, but though I realized as I was coming in today, I haven't finished it, which almost certainly tells you everything exactly.

Exactly. It's never a good sign, never a good sign, particularly with all those things going for it, Joseph Kaczynski, Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller, whom you interviewed about incidentally a correction because I was listening back to last week's show. I said Joseph Kaczynski and Miles Teller who worked together on top gun and then I said Miles Teller when I met Joseph Kaczynski. So if anybody noticed, sorry, it was my mistake. As you were. You've corrected yourself. So Joel, this says, Hi, doctors, I'm Joel Trinidad, your biggest fan from the Philippines.

So he's Mr. Trinidad, but he's in the Philippines. Fantastic. Saw Spider-Head on Netflix last night and thought I'd share my thoughts on it. In Triegging premise, gorgeous visuals, a cracking soundtrack, surprising twists, great performances, particularly from Chris Hemsworth,

who looks like he's having the time of his life. Regrettably, it seems to lose the courage of its convictions in the final act, devolving from thought-provoking drama to low-rent Hollywood action blockbuster, featuring out-of-place comedic flourishes and some of the least convincing punches in cinematic history. Still, Joel concludes a fun watch overall. However, Hugh McKenna says Spider-Head was woefully underwhelming, if interesting at first, before deteriorating into a shambles in its final act. And Aurora says Spider-Head is quite boring. As a long time Chris Hemsworth fan, I fell asleep while watching it. He also is a, as a, as a Peter Trish in the scene with him reading the NEMJ, the New England

Journal of Medicine, made me laugh out loud because he definitely didn't look like any kind of doctor. It's interesting that you, that you would think Aurora that a doctor has a particular look, but I, he does, Chris Hemsworth has that kind of flickery smile, which he uses just to reassure you that everything is going to be fine. But I think the keyword there was boring. I mean, I've obviously got this final third still to come where it all either falls apart or it becomes a shambles or whatever. But now I'm sort of thinking maybe I'll go back to it, but I was just rather bored.

Well, it's interesting hearing those emails partly because it kind of reassures me because what I said was, firstly, tonally, it can't quite decide what the tone is and that's why the thing about ill-fitting comedy. There is comedy, because it's satirical, but it's not entirely sure how satirical it wants to be and how serious it wants to be. The second thing is, as we said when I was reviewing it, it all falls apart. It does. It felt like if it had been a short film,

they might have gone away with it. But as it was, it just felt like it was pulling in three different directions before finally just falling over its own shoelaces. And I think it's particularly interesting that one person was bored, one person fell asleep and the third person, you hasn't yet finished it. If John Ronson were here, he'd say,

it all fell apart. And then he would have said, you've been watching Spyderhead written by me. He's my favourite person, I think. Hello John. Hello John, I hope you still listen to the podcast. My G is the master of his own podcast. So tell us something that's interesting that is out and that is new. Yes. So the black phone, which is a horror thriller adapted from a short story of the same name

by Joe Hill. So he's directed by Scott Derrickson, who made exorcism of Emily Rose, which is an interesting film, also sinister. And the first Dr Strange movie, he would, he'd started work on the second Dr Strange on Dr Strange Strange the Multiverse of Madness, but he left you to creative differences and then Sam Raimi took the project over and it became a very different film. So this is a script that Derek Sinan and C. Robert Cargill had originally written

for somebody else to direct, but when the Dr Strange project fell apart, this kind of became a passion project for him. So this was the thing that he didn't want to make creative compromises, but this is what you wanted to do. So set in the late 70s, a number of children in a suburban town go missing and the local legend is that they've been taken by the grabber. Cactical Finney played by Mason Thames has a sister Gwen who has psychic dreams, which her father basically tries to beat out of her in a kind of carry-like way.

You know, your mother had this same thing and it drove her mad and your dreams are just dreams. And then Finney is taken by the grabber played by Ethan Hawke, his eclip. I know you're scared and you want to go home. I'll take you home soon, sister. I got to be upstairs for a while. Something's come up. What? Never mind what? Someone's coming. I'll scream.

If someone's upstairs, they'll hear me. With the door shut, no one can hear anything down here. I sound proofed it myself. So shout if you like, you won't bother anyone. They try to touch me, I'll scratch your face. And whoever's coming, we'll see you in Asquire. This face?

So he finds himself in a soundproof basement room with a disconnected phone, the black phone of the title, which mysteriously rings sometimes. And on it, he seems to hear the voices of previously taken children, giving him instructions on how to escape. One of the things that they say is that they don't immediately know who they are. The first one says, I don't remember my name. It's the first thing you lose. So we don't know where the voices are coming from or what they represent.

And we also know that the phone is meant to be disconnected. There's a touch of stranger things in this. In the fact that it's a retro story of a small town, you know, kids being terrorized by an initially unseen force, although the references here are 70s rather than 80s. There's a long conversation at the beginning about going to the drive-in and whether Texas Chainsaw Masquerade is a better film than a Bruce Lee movie than Enter the Dragon. There's also something of the feeling of Annie Muskeiti's it. It's a 15-stificate movie. There's one sequence in it in which there is a young person in a yellow Mac in the rain

on a bike, which seems to have been put there very specifically as a kind of look. This is the sort of Stephen King territory that we're in. And it's not groundbreaking, but it is very well done. And it reminded me groundbreaking, but it is very well done. And it reminded me of two things. Firstly, what an inventive director's got directing can be. There was a very nice touch when they're dramatizing the voices on the phone

and that you see what appear to be apparitions of the sources of the voices in a way that kind of reminded me of the orphanage and also of Devils backbone and both of which are films that I respect very much. And it felt to me like that had a kind of a similar influence here. I also think the way that the dreams or are they visions are done is very effective in which we see Gwen actually walking into her dreams and walking through them in a very kind of physical way. That kind of, you know, it's a, it's a dream sequence, but it has a really down to earth

physicality. Also, very smart use of needle drops, which range from pink floids on the run from dark side of the moon to sweets, fox on the run, which I haven't heard in a movie for a very, very long time. It was very impressive that that turned up. So I thought it was a pretty solidly done, you know, horror thriller. It, it wears some of its references on its leaves, but it also has its own originality. And it, it was just interesting to discover the backstory of that this happened because Scott

Derrickson was working on something else. He didn't want to change his vision of it. He walked away and he did this instead. And this does feel like it's made with passion and with a great deal of creativity. As I said, it's not groundbreaking, it's not going to change the world, but it is very solidly done and has a good creepy atmosphere. And Ethan Hawke is creepy, and the young players are all very, very good. So it's well done, horror-chiller. And it's called the Black Phone. Yes, it is. I'm just checking.

Still to come, I'll be reviewing Man vs B, Wings of Design and Elvis. All that plus the laughter lived here and lots of Ronaqas. Great. Happy Nord Christmas! Protect yourself whilst 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-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.

Highest team 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 crowns 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 first on November 16th. Available wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Mooby, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From my Codic directors to emerging otters, there's always something new to discover, for example. Well, for example, the new Aki Karri's Mackey film, Fallen Leaves, which one the jury prize it 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 movie 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 new so for a couple of films, 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. And welcome back. Just before we leave the commercial sphere, this is an extra mention for the economist who we were doing an advert for, because I just, do you need a bit of cheering up Mark? Always, always. Well, in the new issue, okay, it's got, the headline is, a new thought COVID was bad. And then

under, right, and then underneath it, it says, the origin of the black death, and there's a whole article. And then there's a photograph of an old painting and underneath it in very small letters, it says, bring out your dead. In other words, we're into the realm of multipythin. So some people spotted that. I just think what value we provide. So even though it's not an economist week, I don't think it is. I'm still mentioning it. It is. Have you read the article? And if so, does the black death or the plague still exist in in any form? Let me read the last line, though the stakes are lower than in the case of COVID, the debate on the Black Deaths origin is just as fraught. In other words, it's just about where

it came from. So I don't think we need to worry about the Black. We've got enough to worry about. Thank you very much. Without the Black Death. So yes, correspondence at KonaMode.com, box office top 10 at 19, everything went fine. Which I think is a really well done film. I really like the performances. It's a story about a daughter who is asked by her father to assist him in dying. Francois Ozone, I think, is a terrific director. And I think the reason it works as well as it does

is because of how low-key it is, because it never sort of succumbs to Melodrama or anything like that. I think it's well done. I should say the top 10 is courtesy of Commscore at number 10 in the UK. Vikram, which is a Telago language Indian film. If you are a regular list of Scarler Radio, which is a station that is close to both your heart and mind-seymour,

you will have heard several tracks from the soundtrack of Vikram because it's got a very good soundtrack, which you can hear on Scala Radio between one and three every Saturday. Yes. And what comes after that, Simon? Well, I do two hours of essential albums. I haven't played anything from it because obviously you have. Also on Greatest It's Radio Drive Time, we haven't been featuring anything from that soundtrack.

Okay. Not at the moment. Okay, but you have been doing a lot of entertainment and turn their overdrive, right? That's true. I don't appear to have a number nine on a second. Okay, and a second. No, no, no, no. Down to near an area. Down to near a new Abbey. Yeah, well, as we've already discussed, nothing new about it at all.

And if you want to watch singing in the rain, you can do that on many streaming services, right? I mean, it's down to an Abbey.'s what down to Nappy always was. It's just this time half the cast go abroad while the other half read. Number eight in this country, six in America, the bad guys. I mean, nothing further to add than it's done better than I expected, and it's a, you know, it's a kids cartoon which starts off with a long joke about pulp fiction. Seven Sonic the Hedgehog too is in number nine. Finally on the way down again you know it's been in the charts for ages and baffles me as to why it's done as well as it has because I think it's you know one of the more irritating Jim

Carey films but hey you know it's a it shows what happens when people are aware of a brand name. UK number six, US number seven, everything, everywhere, all at once, all the time. It is really heartening that at a time that Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, which we were talking about before, we were talking about Scott Derrickson originally being, you know, to help that and then he stepped away and then Sam Raimi took over. And that is a great big Marvel multiverse movie. And then here comes this scrappy little $20 million independent multiverse movie. And it just wipes the floor with it.

And also it manages to do very well at the box office. Now, I know it hasn't taken as much money as Dr. Strange, but when you, when you do the sums on how much it costs and how much it's made. It's, I think, it's the absolute winner. And it has a fantastic soundtrack by Son Luxe, which we've been playing regularly on Scarlett Radio. Is that right? It is. It's really good.

And then Dr. Strange, is it, is it number five? Which is fine. I mean, it's a Sam Raimi film, but it costs a massive amount of money. And, you know, it's nothing like as inventive as everything everywhere, all at once. So you're going to have to have a very good reason for making a multiverse film. You really are. Because I have had enough of them. Number four in the UK, good luck to you, Leo Grande, Stephanie in, in Leo Grande.

Leo Grande. You did a Leo Grande. Leo Grande. Stephanie in Welling Garden City. Whilst the acting, quality, humor, and overall storyline of the film were covered in Mark's review, I was rather surprised that what I considered to be one of the most important and resonating themes

of the film wasn't mentioned, that of body confidence. I felt the way this was approached in the movie and covered throughout the film was powerful in moving. Nancy's Frank dialogue on how she perceives her own body was consistently honest and touching. The final scene where she looks at herself in the mirror with no clothes on was incredibly admirable of Emma Thompson and put across such a powerful message to everyone out there who struggles with body confidence.

Simon Riches says the casting of Emma Thompson and Darryml Kormack works really well as both provide believable character performances. Katie Brandt's script was very well constructed believable characters across four acts. Her background of both comedy and theology comes across well in the script. An excellent balance of humour and pathos directed skillfully by Sophie Hyde. Sophie captures the essence of each scene without being crass or exploitative. With a runtime of one hour and 40 minutes, it was an excellent film to get away from current insanities. Unlike Nanny McFeed, though, I'm not sure this is a film I could watch with my two grown-up daughters. Definitely a recommended watch for those that want to be entertained with a bit of stimulating social commentary. I love to Jason, that's from Simon Riches. So number four, good luck to you, Leogrand.

I like the film very much. I think the two central performances are very good. I think it's a very funny script, if stage-y. And I think there are times that the film feels like a stage production. And what I said when I was reviewing it was, they're two very, very good performers, but I never forgot that they were performers. So that slightly didn't ring true, but that's not a problem. I still very much enjoyed the film. On the subject of the first email about body positivism, actually one of the reasons I didn't

mention it was because there'd been so much coverage about it. It was almost starting to sound like the only reason that Goodluck to Julio Grande was an interesting or important film was because it had an example of body positivism in what was mentioned. And I think all that stuff is true, but I think actually the film is much more than that. That's not to say that that isn't an important part of it, but it was just a little bit like, okay, find that's what's been talked about, that's what's made the headlines. And there's so much more to it than just than just, you know, what happens

at the end of the film when Emma Thompson looks at herself in the mirror, which is a strong and positive image and I'm very glad that's there. But the film is about a lot more than that and it's funny and it's kind of touching and it's got some very insightful moments in it. And I think the two central performances are very well done. As I said, I think it's slightly stagey, but that in itself is, that's the only criticism I have of it. Number three is Lightyear, number two in America. Dear Roger Ramjet and General Brass Box. I'm a heritage listener. I've been with you on the Long Hall from Radio One. Wow. I took our son Archie to see Lightyear on Saturday with four other boys for his eleventh birthday party. Back in 1995, I took myself to see Lightyear on Saturday with four other boys for his 11th birthday party.

Back in 1995, I took myself to see Toy Story as no one wanted to see a computer animated movie with me. Yeah, remember that time. I remember that time. I remember going to see the very first one because it was a PG and child one who was four hadn't seen a PG before. And it was because of the tortured toy. Yeah, yeah, anyway, kind of for you. Which is still actually quite scary. I was such a mess after Toy Story 3 that we had to wait till the cinema emptied before I could leave.

In Australia, it was released when I was out to here, pregnant, waddling around full of hormones. That day we'd watched a double bill of the first two, then went to three as a near release. Still one of my best movie-going experiences. I love the characters, really enjoyed sharing them with Archie. He would ask for Buzz Rocket to be put on when he was little. Toy Story 4 would have been fine if it had been chopped into a short as it's overlong and soures. What was the perfect trilogy? Have only watched it twice, teeth grinding through all of it beyond disappointed. So back to lightyear. The text at the beginning seemed innocuous enough, but under reflection was obviously shoe-hawned in afterwards. I agree with Simon's child 3. In 1995 there is no way this movie would have been released. Aside from the LGBTQ plus storyline,

the style of the movie and the language used just does not fit into 1995 parlance. No buzz I'm your father is completely rewritten much like you've been jealous of my look since 4th grade from Monsters Inc. Do they think we've not been watching these movies on hard repeat and we won't notice? Then we get to them all being stranded on the planet with the complete infrastructure to support community in the ship. A community that minds resources lives in modular housing, eats, frees, dried foods, but can support IVF, unless they also carried turkey based

as a standard equipment. The 10-year-old loved it, but I can live without seeing it again. There were some funny lines, thank goodness, is it Dale's tools? Is that how you say? I imagine so, yes. And Tyker with TT bringing some much needed liberty. The best thing about it was Sox the Cat.

Anyway, that's from Maddie. And just one more from Max. Quick one on your point regarding Lightyear in the inferred contradiction that its visuals are far more advanced than whatever movie would have inspired Andy back in 1995. Surely in the context of the Toys to Reuniverse, Lightyear is a live action film rather than an animated one. Either that or an exceptionally good remaster, just a thought, well without getting extremely meta. Max, thank you. Lightyear, that is a throw.

Yeah, I mean, I've had a number of people tweet me to say, well, the problem is, Lightyear is not a Toy Story movie and you shouldn't judge it as a Toy Story movie. It's a different thing and you can't judge it as that. So let me be absolutely clear. Light Year is a film named after a character Buzz Light Year whom we only know through Disney Pixar's Toy Story films. So Light Year, the Disney Pixar film called Light Year, named after Buzz Light Year from the Toy Story films, is a Toy Story movie. It's just not a very good one. And I think it's completely disingenuous to argue. Somebody sent me a thing. I don't even know whether it's true.

They sent me a picture of something they said, I'd seen this outside my cinema. And it was a notice which said, we would like to warn people in advance that that light year is not a toy story movie. It is a, an adjacent thing. And but it's, you know, I'll tip, so please don't come and asking us for money back when you've seen it. And complaining that it's not a toy story movie. It is a, an adjacent thing, but it's, you know, artib, so please don't come and ask us for money back when you've seen it and complaining that it's not a toy story movie. I understand exactly what is meant by that, and I don't know whether that was true, whether that was a, that was a gag, but it is a toy story movie. It is an inferior toy story movie in the same way that, you know, spin-offs from, you know, we were talking about somebody actually pointed out when I said, you know, in Star Wars, you're going to get somebody doing, you ever see that angle poised lamp?

You ever wonder what the backstory of it was? And somebody said, we're going to get the Pixar angle poised lamp, which somebody else pointed out. No, we had that first. That is the first Pixar film is the angle poised lamp jumping movie, which is absolutely true. It is a toy story movie. It's just a bad one. And it is the first toy story movie that had me utterly, emotionally unengaged. Of course, I just wanted to say,

of course there are things in it to enjoy, like the design because it's a Pixar film. When have you ever seen a Pixar film that wasn't beautifully, I wateringly well designed? That's not enough. Top Gun Maverick is at number two, I think we probably established up. It's very good.

Yeah, on that. And the UK number one is the same as the US number one. It's Jurassic World Dominion. This from Simon Brown in South End on C. Did Delofer Soros and Tracerotops. This was a crushing bore. Only redeemed somewhat by the jaw-droppingly awful dialogue. Jeff Goldblum was without doubt the shining highlight delivering his one-liners with a pithy, knowledgeable wink to the audience.

At one point Campbell Scott's Lewis Dodgson, who was clearly trying to channel Mark Rylance from last year's Don't Look Up, turns around to one of his subordinates and asks, what do we do when we are scared? We follow through, he answers, cue hoops of laughter for myself and the good lady here indoors. It would seem that it would seem that dropping the colon from the title was an inappropriate move as all the nutrients and goodness that initially existed from Stephen Spillberg's 1993 classic have been removed

or simply recycled in this case. Simon, on Jurassic World Dominion at number one. Yeah, I mean, it's, we discussed this when it came in. It is all over the place. Jeff Goldblum is easily the best thing in it because Jeff Goldblum could frankly just stand there and read a phone book and make it sound dramatically engaging. A lot of people have pointed out that, you know, you were talking about the visual quality of light year. But one of the strange things about dominion is that it's not visually brilliant. In fact, there are a couple of moments in it that are visually a little bit shonky. It does

just feel like, you know, like the final Star Wars. It's just, here's a bunch of bits from all the stuff that you like before. Nice to see the old cast and the new cast back together again, but that's pretty much it. Yeah. So that is the, that is the number one movie in the UK and the number one movie in the US. Now, comedian actor, writer and CBE joins us now. This is a man who has created some of the world's most hilarious and iconic characters in British film and television. He is Mr. Bean, star of Black Adays, been in bond creator of Johnny English. star of Black Adays being in Bond, creator of Johnny English. That amazing scene in Love Actually. The voice of Zazu in Lion King, Meg Ray, the list goes on. I'm Delighted. Ron Atkinson is going to join us in the studio in just a moment to talk about his new Netflix series, Man vs B.

We'll get stuck into the interview after this clip. You have done this work before, haven't you? No, actually, I'm new to the company. You've never done house-lifting before? No. Not as such. But please don't worry. I have a house too.

Well, I used to have a house. So all this is very familiar territory. Oh, here, let me. I'll get that. For you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Let me. Oh, dear.

I'll just do. Well, I'm just a callous every day. If you wouldn't mind doing the same. Absolutely. My pleasure. I have a good holiday, Mrs. Coldstad Bergenbatton. That's it. And then he's, er, it's a clip holiday, Mrs. Colstad Bergenbatton. Batton. And then it's a clip from episode one of Manverse's Be Rowan Atkinson. Hello, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you. Very nice to be here. Very nice to see you. And how do you think Manverse's Be works as a piece of radio, audio drama there? Well, I have to say, yes, having just listened to that, how surprised that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. So that's good. But no, overall, it wouldn't work well at all as a piece of radio drama, because there's a lot of dialogue in the first episode,

and there's a lot of dialogue in the last episode and very little in the sort of seven episodes in between. So introduces to Trevor, who is the character we heard then. Yeah, Trevor Bingley, he's a guy, he's a sort of new-ish character for me, I suppose. He's one of the nicer people I've played. I regard him a much nicer person than Samus DeBean, and not quite so smug and awful as Johnny English is. So I think he's a slightly more, I would like to claim, maybe I'm wrong,

three-dimensional character compared to some other characters that I've played. He's a genuinely nice man. I think he's a sort of middle aged older man who's obviously lost his job. We don't know why, although we discover some reasons why he's lost other jobs in the past later in the series. And he's got an ex-wife and he's got a daughter with whom he's trying to arrange a holiday. And the very week that he's supposed to be going on holiday with his teenage daughter, he manages out of the blue to get a job, which is a job as a house sitter. He's never done house sitting before as that clip might have indicated,

so he's manifestly underqualified for the job and he's got to just work it out. So he's house sitting for this very wealthy couple who live in a very splendid house full of very splendid objects and he's there hopefully for the following week, but they actually come back early from the holiday for reasons that will become clear. And you haven't mentioned the B.

I haven't mentioned the B. No, no. Well, actually, I haven't mentioned it because actually what I've just described was the starting point in terms of our script writing, I suppose. It started off as a house sitting project, and it was called actually house sitter. And then, but then we decided that a very, you know,

engaging and interesting catalyst for whatever comedy and nonsense that we wanted to happen in this house during Trevor's house sitting we thought would be created by introducing a B. So basically the middle seven episodes of the show is a battle between Trevor and this B. And as I say, the show was called House Sitter and then Netflix in their wisdom. They like a title that tells the story of the show more bluntly and crudely than the word House Sitter, which was deemed to be slightly more oblique, and they wanted something more direct. So we ended up with man versus B, which is a good title. I think it certainly tells the story. Was it the story and the confrontation between the man and the B that created Trevor, or had you thought of Trevor and then found a story for him?

Which came for... That's a good question. Now, I think we started with the B in that story and then I was sort of, you know, tasked with the job of creating a character that could, you know, work in this context and also very importantly, have the other dimension of the fact that he's got a daughter and an ex-wife and he's a nice guy having to negotiate basic family issues and family challenges and problems at the same time was trying to hold down this job of being a house sitter and fighting a B and it just requires you know someone who wasn't as a two one or two

dimensional. The starting point for me was a sketch we did in not the nine o'clock news, an old sketch show, which some may remember from a long, long time ago. It was this sort of strange, sort of fuzzy black and white video of a kidnap victim. It was a guy who'd been kidnapped. And this was the video that he was sending to his parents in order to get them to pay the ransom to have him released. And he was just a very, very sweet man who just talked about how good his kidnappers were at making scrambled eggs and they added a ragano and some amazing herbs. And he thought they were the best scrambled eggs that he'd ever had.

Anyway, it was that idea of someone who easily gets distracted and was just a genuinely sweet man. So that was what we thought we needed, and that's, I suppose, is what I've tried to create. Very unusual to have 10 second episode, 10 minute episodes. 10 seconds would be unusual. Yeah, hopefully they feel like 10 seconds. Yeah, so was that always the idea?

Was it going to be a whole movie to start with? Well, to be honest, we created a story and the idea of 10 minute episodes for a different platform. And they said, no, no, we don't want that all, we can't afford it or something. And so we were left with this idea of 10 minute episodes, which were crafted to be episodes and to try and have cliffhanger moments at the end of each one, to try to get you to go on to the next one, to engage you sufficiently. And so we were hunting around him and we went to Netflix and they embraced it with enthusiasm. And we were slightly worried because we thought, well, 10 minutes of search, you know,

I'm aware that Netflix deals in things that are episodic, but they tend to be 45 minutes or an hour, not 10 minutes. But Netflix were very happy with that. I think they'd done some 10 minutes, but Netflix were very happy with that. I think they'd done some very short form things previously. Anyway, they weren't remotely phased by that. But the good thing is you can watch them all one after another in the traditional Netflix way, just wait a little, come on. And of course, to be honest, in terms of the writing and sort of conceiving of it, we have regarded it as a movie. You know, we've regard it as a whole, because it is, in fact, someone used the word serial the other day, which of course is exactly what it's a serial, which actually you don't hear people use that word very often.

Now they tend to just say series, but it is an old-fashioned serial in the sense that it's a story. It's a narrative that is over 10 episodes. Mark, from your attic. So you mentioned serials, which obviously is an old cinematic staple. I mean, you know, cereals were absolutely the backbone of cinema. And I know that you're a fan of silent cinema. And I want, I'm, silent cinema is a big thing for me. I play in a band who accompany

silent movies. I've worked with Neil Brand for years and years. I wonder whether when you're writing something like Man vs. B, do you go back and watch classic silence? Do you watch Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin? Or are they still your primary reference points? I mean, not consciously, you know, when preparing Man vs B, I didn't go back and watch anything in particular, or try to reinvigorate to my appreciation of all those folk, because I absolutely loved the world of Chaplin and Keaton. But to be honest, I haven't gone back and consciously looked at stuff, but I'm aware that I've been educated in them.

You feed on your knowledge without being aware of where your knowledge has come from. I'm aware of it being in a sort of a long standing tradition, entertainment tradition. And the reason why they did it is because it works, is that people do enjoy it, and they do enjoy getting to the end of, even though ours are exceptionally short,

maybe even in, I don't know, how long were, you know, what was the one realer? It's a, that must be 15 or 20 minutes, isn't it? It's variable, and obviously comedy shorts, you know, what was the one realer? It must be 15 or 20 minutes. It's variable. And obviously comedy shorts, you know, could often be very short. Also, I think it's interesting that, you know, you're talking about the central character being three-dimensional and, you know, we have some dialogue at the beginning and he has a backstory. He has the wife and the daughter who he wants to go on holiday with. And there's always this kind of discussion about Chaplin versus Keaton, that Chaplin being the sentimentalist

that you feel paythos for, Keaton being much more the guy gets knocked around or is much more physically expressive. And I think it's interesting that you're talking about the character being more rounded and moving away from Mr. Bean almost seems to be a move from Keaton to Chaplin. Keaton to Chaplin, okay, yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of, well, that's the kind of analysis that I would expect from you, Mark, and I think it's very wise and very perceptive and I'm afraid it's totally unconscious from my point of view. I certainly wasn't

aware of saying I really like to be a bit more chaplainous in this series, but if we've ended up that way that doesn't seem to be a bad place to be. When you were in your school film society back in the day, is it true that you were a projectionist? Yes, I was the guy because in those days if you wanted to show a film in a school you had to hire a 16mm print on three or four reels and you had to be, someone had to be in charge of the projector and to stick it up in the in the school hall and to show the film to the school and you had to change the reel every 20 minutes and And that was my job, which I shared with a friend of mine called Haddie-Rickaby.

But there was also an offshoot of my projectionist job, which was the sixth-form film society, when we were allowed to get a different kind of film, which wasn't just the guns of never-own, but it could be something more esoteric, the battleship, Potemkin and all that sort of stuff. And one of the things that we got of which I had never heard before we got it was, I must say, who loads holiday?

A Jack Tatty movie about a man going on holiday, I think in 1949 films and that, you know, it's a very particular kind of quite slow, you know, very unlike the early silent movies, really, it was, it's quite a slow, deliberate French style of comedy, which I absolutely loved and I'd never seen anything quite like it in my life. And the pace of it was interesting because in silent movies, things tended to move reasonably fast. But Jacques Taty always took his time. Jokes could take several minutes to develop before your very eyes. And very often you could see the joke coming as well

that actually you could see it. You could hear it trembling over the horizon long before it actually appeared and you could see it, you could hear it trembling over the horizon long before it actually appeared and you could appreciate it. It was just an amazing style, a filmmaking which I, again, I hope I haven't just copied it, but was undoubtedly a partial inspiration for what we tried to do with Mr. Bean. May I throw into that that if we're on the subject of Jacques Tatier and we're talking about Man vs B, that if we're going to make it comparison,

it's probably more likely with play time, because the whole of Man vs B plays out in this ultra-modern, reflective surfaces house, and actually the architecture of play time is a kind of, is a similar gag, sorry to be the, you know, the film ball, but that's the connection that I would make. No, no, no, no, sorry, no, no, no, no, and I didn't mean to have played any criticism of your analysis earlier because that, because I think it's, it's absolutely excellent.

And I think you're right, it's a sort of stranger and a strange land, that, you know, that's the feeling of playtime. It is, is a guy who's in, who's in an environment with which he is out of step. And there's no doubt that Manverse's B does have a bit of that because clearly that house and the objects that are in it that Trevor Bingley is placed in which Trevor Bingley is placed, that it's not his world. We're going to talk more in take two, but can I ask you just briefly if you're Cameron, is the B funny? Because I think the bee is, I think that obviously it's a CGI bee. But I've never thought of a bee as a comedic animal. I think your cereal makes it thus.

He is entirely computer-generated, and therefore, obviously, we could make him as animated and as comic or as humanoid as we wanted to. We couldn't make him smile. We could make him laugh. We could make him. But we decided not to do any of those things. We wanted to keep him as a bee, keep him as a sort of neutrality, but it's interesting if you have seen some human characteristic in there. Comedy timing, I think. Comedy time.

Oh, well, that's quite easy to generate, at least on a computer. In order to invest the bee with an attitude, it can be down simply to the music you play when you're looking at him. And so, yeah, we've tried to sort of invest him with a human character like presence without making him remotely human, I suppose. There's going to be more with Rowan in take two. We have some listener questions which we're going to get to but for the moment Rowan at Kingston can be seen in Man vs B on Netflix all episodes are up Rowan. Thank you very much. Thank you Did you mention everything that you wanted to mention mark

in a man vs B? Yeah, I mean just just a few thoughts which which were, I mean, it's interesting to think about your serial, which does take us back to the kind of early days of cinema and obviously so much of what's happening in man versus B is a kind of slapstick comedy, which again is absolutely where silence cinema is rooted. That thing about you can watch it as a movie.

I mean, I actually pretty much did because, you know, obviously, as Rowan said, you know, you watch it on Netflix and it will roll on to the next one. I think there is a virtue in breaking it up because I think that because of the way those 10-minute sequences are constructed, if you do just watch them back to back to back, I think it's actually probably a less enjoyable experience than enjoying them as 10-minute segments.

The other thing is that that thing about the central character being more sympathetic, you know, what I was pretentiously saying, you know, more chaplain-esque. And I've read a lot of reviews in which people have said, you know, not like Mr. Bean because, you know, more human. But what that kind of highlights is how much the Mr. Bean character is actually on the edge of horror. And I've always thought this thing about there is a very thin line between comedy and horror, things which are scary and things which are funny often come very close to each other. And as the central character in Man vs. B descends into battling with the B, I think we do tip back over into that,

you know, because the behavior is completely psychotic. And of course, my natural reaction is to, is to please don't knock that statue over, please don't put that. And we're, incidentally, we know at the beginning that all this is going to happen because the program starts, the film starts with a montage because he's in court and he's been found guilty of doing a bunch of terrible things, destroying property, destroying artwork, stealing cars. And then what happens is it flashes back and we see how this happens. And the way it happens is that he's going to do something which he doesn't know how to do. He doesn't know how to look after the house. Nobody would know how to look after that house. The instruction manual

wouldn't even begin to cover all the things that you have to do. But he is diverted from that very simple course by the fact that he becomes obsessed with the B. And rather than just doing what an actually normal sympathetic character would do, which is just live with the B, the B drives him to such distraction that by about sort of 60 minutes in, we're talking about, and we see this at the beginning, so again, I'm not giving away a plot spoiler, he's taking an electrical saw to the side of a vintage sports car. So there is almost certainly his Really, really belongs to row it

So there is that kind of you know, it is psychosis and my own personal feeling is that there is a virtue in that being in 10 minutes segments, rather like a serial in which, you know, it's like Tom and Jerry. Tom and Jerry, in those short segments, you could, the kind of the madness of what's going on makes sense. But if you try and expand that into a 90-minute thing, it becomes fairly relentless. So my advice would actually be the 10-minute segments thing does make sense. And it is actually beneficial to the humour because that kind of that level of slapstick if you just have it as a single watch can become quite relentless. And just fascinating to talk to him because I have never interviewed him before, I don't think, and just to see someone working through the engineering and the structure of the comedy and the movie was fascinating, I think.

Yeah, and I think the thing that I mean, anybody who's ever seen slapstick comedy be created knows that it is, and I don't mean this is a bad thing, it is a very mechanical process. It is a logistics process. The timing of comedy is absolutely ruthless, and the timing of physical comedy is like circus acrobatics You have to make it look like it's completely happening on the fly, but it has to be worked and machine-tooled To go like that and it was interesting that You know that kind of that that idea that You know if you're if you're somebody who's interested in mechanics, if you're interested

in cars and projectors and all those sort of things, the mechanics of physical comedy are absolutely mechanical in the best sense of the word. You can't just take a sl- there's- here we go. You can't be slapped dash about slapstick. Hey, hey, thank you very much. Very good. And there'll be more with Rowan in take two. But it's the ads in a moment, Mark, I know you love those very much. I love them. First, it's time once again to step into our laughter lift.

Is it really? Yes. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Hey, Mike, just popping down to basement level minus six here at Take HQ. It's where they keep the more obvious posters and has the cleanest toilets. Just before we get there, I wanted to tell you how my week has gone. It was very hot, obviously, since we last spoke, wasn't it? Scorching. I popped out to the ice cream van last week, and I saw Adam Ant in the queue ahead of me.

Yes, Adam Ant, he asked for a standard vanilla. I think that's good. But obviously he just said standard vanilla. It was all flat actually, Mark Adam and myself were the last customers of the day, but as the ice cream van drove off, it crashed. The whole area was coned off. Obviously there's a slight delay. I think it's because Mark isn't here.

There's a slight delay in him reacting to the comedy, but it might just be that he doesn't find it funny. Anyway, the good lady ceramicist there indoors has quite an unusual way of keeping cool in hot weather, Mark. She likes it when I blow cold air on her when she's too hot. Personally, I'm not a fan. Also, as you know, a child one and his partner, so there's partner one, I suppose, had a kid at the weekend, which makes it grand child one. Anyway, the reason I'm mentioning is a few hours before

I rang the hospital to find out if there was any news. And by switchboard error, I got put through to the local cricket team. How are they doing, I said? Well, I was told, there are four out already, and the first one was a duck. We just ignore for the fact they don't play cricket in Denmark. I don't think.

And if they did, they certainly wouldn't use the term a duck. No, that's probably true. And if you do play cricket in Denmark, can you let us know at Corresponders at Kerbinomeo.com What's still to come, Mark, as far as your concern? Well, the big news is that we're going to be reviewing Elvis, which is the new Baz Lerman film that will be coming up in the very near future. And we'll be back after this. Okay, and we're back. So, oh, look, this is a very good email, Mark from the great Martin

Rosen, guardian, guardian cartoonist. This email is, it's a couple of paragraphs long, will be studied by future media students in my opinion. Okay, ready? Okay. So, Martin, thanks very much for the email. Simon Mark, as the original occupant of by future media students in my opinion. Okay, ready? Okay. So Martin, thanks very much for the email. Simon Mark, as the original occupant of cartoonist corner, I must count as a heritage listener,

but moving rapidly on really enjoying the podcast, which I still listened to on Fridays, to Levin trying to tease glimmers of humor out of the fathomless depths of human despair and folly for Saturday's guardian cartoon. Now that, as a a sentence is very lovely. Well, painting in the background of a Downing Street seller just now, I had marked referred to Toy Story moving from being a trilogy to a quadrilogy.

I think quadrilogy is probably the academic study of quadrrophemia, with extra points for deconstructing Sting's dismal performance as the Bellboy. But otherwise an excellent discipline for any aspiring good doctors. The correct term for a sequence of four plays, books or whatever, is a tetralogy. A tetralogy. A tetralogy. I'm just reading from my tea. No, that's what I'm talking about.

Sorry, sorry. It's a tetralogy, as in tetrahedron, a four-sided three-dimensional geometrical construction, as any fool knows. Sorry, but by definition, pedantry is always right by definition, which is what makes it so annoying. Mark, their Martin says, on another matter entirely, our daughter dragged us along to top gun maverick, despite neither me nor my wife having seen the first one, too busy raising said daughter and a brother at the time. Thought it was great, if a bit like a church service it was so crammed with filmic rituals,

echoes, triggers, cliches and all the rest, but confected in a thoroughly satisfying way, like a good and redemptive funeral, the purpose of which is to make you feel magnificently sad and therefore better afterwards. I write as a hardened and fairly vociferously public atheist and keep up God's work. Best is for Martin Rosa. What a lovely email. I've just had word in my headphones. Yeah.

Flynn, who works on the show, where would we be without her? Flynn's dad directed Quadrothenine. So no, Frank Rodham. Is Flynn's dad Frank Rodham? She's Flynn Rodham, so that makes it absolutely certain. Wow! And you didn't know. Wow! I had no idea. I interviewed Frank Rodham. I had absolutely no, I mean, this is a while ago, but I had absolutely no idea. Here you go. That's astonishing news. What a top fact, but I had absolutely no idea. There you go. That's astonishing news. What a top fact, but we can still be rude about sting,

I think. It is dancing. It's terrible dancing in that film. That sequence was shot in the Southgate royalty when sting does the ace face terrible dancing. Anyway, so that's a top fact and we're learning something. What a showbiz program this is. And speaking of showbiz, and as I look at the screen, because Mark is on a very big wide screen here in the studio,

I can see a bust of Elvis over your left shoulder, and it looks. And here we've got Elvis. I also have little Elvis here. And there's little Elvis. This is little dancey Elvis. Okay. So we have big, big buster Elvis and Little Dancey Elvis. And the reason for this is, of course, we're about to talk Elvis, which, if you're listening to our previous podcast, I was going to say last week, and I guess that kind of works. But Tom Hanks was on the show talking about being Colonel Tom Parker.

Anyway, the whole construction was all about the new Baselurma movie, Elvis. You'll hear from Mark reviewing it after this clip. Come on, you gotta get on in. The party announced, shall I narrate you? Come on, let's go. He's a young singer from Memphis, Tennessee. Give him a warm, hay-ride welcome

to a Mr. Elvis Presley. Get a haircut, butt a Mr. Elvis Presley. Get a haircut, butt a cut! In that moment, I watched that skinny boy transform into a superhero. Where you make a recalculate, you make a school, you may have a pink hat like, but don't you make no butter,

smooth, smooth, baby, don't make a baby home, baby, don't you make a better smooth, man, baby. Don't matter, baby, ho, man, you ought to play half. Why are it the wiggle? The one damn girl's won't see you wiggle, move, man. Now, I just realized that I introduced the clip, which is not the way it's supposed to happen. So I apologise to him, I'm pretty fine. For the first time.

Taking away his essential role. However, that was a rather delightful clip from Elvis. And when I went to see it, as I might have mentioned when Tom Hanks was on, I thought, well, I really enjoyed it. But clearly, the key test is what Mark thinks because not he's not just the film critic, he's also an Elvis aficionado. Well, this is what he thinks. Well, we kind of preempted this a little bit last week when you said three words and I said it is ace. So this is Bazelurms' bio-pic of Elvis and his relationship with Colonel Tom Parker, who was interesting enough some years ago, a couple years ago, when Tom Hanks was about to go off and make this film. And he said,

I'm going to play Colonel Tom Parker. And I said, who was neither a Colonel nor a Tom, nor indeed a Parker, aligned which I have to say appears almost verbatim in the film. I'm not suggesting for one minute credit for certain. Yeah, because I must have heard it from somewhere else if it does it. Anyway, so it's about Elvis's relationship with Tom Parker and Tom Parker narrates the story much like and you made this observation when you were talking to Tom Hanks It's like Salieri narrating the story of Mozart in Amadeus Colonel Tom Parker is a carnival hoxster. He's got a voice in his performance by Tom Hanks which is somewhere between Elmufud and Bell Legosi's Dracula,

and he sees Elvis at the Louisiana Hayride, which is the clip that we just heard. And basically, he sees dollar signs. He sees his future, and he then, you know, wrestles Elvis to him. They make the deal on a Ferris wheel, because, you know, his background is in dancing chickens and in carnivals and in that stuff. And he says, look, you know, you come with me and I will make you a star and he will take 50% of everything. That sequence that we just heard is absolute dynamite. And it's the moment in the film when you can almost feel the whole of the audience exhaling go, okay, we're safe. Because Austin Butler absolutely nails that performance. He walks

out wearing the, you know, the pink suit, the pink pegs. And there's the, you know, there's the get a haircut cry from the crowd. And then he starts moving. And the way in which he moves and huge credit here to a movement coach, Polly Bennett, the way in which he moves just completely captures the electricity of Elvis's performances. And you said to me yourself that electricity was the word that you thought of when you saw that Louisiana A-Ryze. Like it's being passed through him. Yeah. And it really is an uncanny moment, but it's also a moment that tells you, okay, this is fine. We have this nail. Bear in mind, a lot of people in the past have kind of, you know, have done performances of Elvis. So, you know,

with its Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's Elvis, or whether it's Michael Shan and Elvis and Nixon, we've seen a lot of people attempting to capture Elvis on screen. I mean, a Val Kilmer is the kind of spectral Elvis in true romance. It's very, very hard to get beyond something which is, which is simply a caricature. Actually, I think the Kurt Russell is not bad at all, but this isn't a whole different league. I mean, this is it absolutely. It's like watching the spirit move somebody. The story then moves on from that to cover the rest of the career we see Parker basically using national services as a way of controlling and neutering Elvis's power by the time he comes out of the army. He's essentially been controlled. He's fed into this series of anemic Hollywood movies and the film itself then kind of takes the style briefly of those kind of

anemic Hollywood movies because one thing that Lerman does is he plays with form all the time. Then there's a 68 comeback special as it's known now, of course it wasn't known as that at the time. There are dramatic liberties taken with the fact that what Colonel Tom Parker wanted was a Christmas special, what Elvis wanted was something very different and the way that they do this in the film is that they kind of press those things together so that Parker is literally sitting there watching Elvis in black leather going, when's the snow, you know, when's he gonna, when's he gonna do, here comes Santa Claus.

And then the Vegas years, which is when Parker basically gets his favorite dancing chicken to pay off his gambling debts and he locks Elvis into this residency in Vegas, which is meant to be weeks, ends up being years and all the time kind of preventing him from breaking frame in just as much as Michael Cullionion in the Godfather He is trapped in a gilded cage from which he cannot escape I Thought the film was honestly fantastic as somebody who is an Elvis bore I had and I knew that you had really liked it,

I had gone in thinking, okay, the problem is that the factual liberties and all that stuff is going to bother me. Well, firstly, they didn't because I think that the script is both very literate in its subject and also adventurous in the ways that it should be. It's like it's not afraid to play a familiar tune in a different way. The second thing is, I think that it has all the best elements of Lerman. I think it has the kinetic musical madness of Mulan Rouge. I think it has the turbocharged irreverence of the great Gatsby. The Shakespearean tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, I mean Tom Hanks was talking about, you know know, the being false stuff and Prince Hal in that relationship.

And also the kind of the what all of it madness of Australia. And I think that by turning everything up to 11, rather than making it a sort of surface project, what Lerman has managed to do is to get under the skin of his subject. There were so many times when I was watching it thinking, okay, they won't do that and they'll sidestep that. And then realizing that the film had done it, the film had managed in a kind of blitz-cree kaleidoscope fashion to get all those elements that I was bothered about in there, whilst also moving, all these other moving parts for everybody

who wasn't particularly interested in those minutiaid details. I think that the script does a very good job of rooting Elvis' inspiration in, you know, firstly, scenes of him at church, feeling the spirit moving him. Big one of Thornton doing Hound Dog upstairs at Club Handy, Little Richard being a flamboyant inspiration. When we got to the end of it and there's that little drop of men with broken hearts, I genuinely found myself asking, how could that have been better? And, you know, I don't say this lightly because I'm somebody who, you know, as we know, we've talked about before, has a sort of fairly ridiculous infatuation with getting the Elvis story right, with doing it properly. And I think the real genius of this is that it's a fantastically kinetic movie. It's exciting and it's thrilling and it's got music, which is ancient music, but in a

modern setting. And often, as you heard in that clip, the Louisiana Haywright clip, suddenly getting this kind of this modern edge to it and tying it up with a modern musical tradition. But I also think it fundamentally gets it right. Now, it helps that my version of Elvis story seems to align quite closely with Basil Ehrmann's version of the story. But I thought, I mean, I was really astonished by how good I thought it was, because I had gone in with so much baggage, and I kind of sat there going, all right, come on, you know, do your best. And they did. And they did, honestly, I mean, I rang you immediately afterwards, didn't I?

I came out of the screening and I rang you and I said, it's fantastic. There you go. And that is what people want to hear. Scott Thomas on this email, dear one for the money and two for the show. I was lucky enough to see a preview of Elvis in the presence of the cast and production team at the beer filerce month. Overall, it's a hugely enjoyable romp, though there were times I thought it would career off the rails,

not a bad metaphor for its titular subject himself. Lerman's trademark fast cut pop video style means the early years come across as a slightly too cartoony for me, though that delivery perfectly fits the later section where Elvis' Hollywood years are examined and discarded. Therefore, was the first third of the film is certainly an invigorating and visual audio rush, and the songs are astounding mainly Austin Butler as Elvis, but also an electric performance from Alton Mason as Little Richard. It doesn't convey much about the characters of Elvis or

anyone else around him, apart from Tom Parker. Hanks plays Parker with seductive evil and prosthetic aided grotesquery, like a combination of Darth Vader and the Emperor from Star Wars. I was initially worried that such a much love star would try and humanize the man, but far from it he's portrayed as a loathsome monster. Well, I would say reference to that. I don't think that's necessarily the way Tom plays the role.

No, at all. And I'd like to add two things. Firstly, in reference to the Cartoonie thing that you said about the first third, the film very specifically makes reference to the young Elvis reading comic strips and being fascinated by comic strips. And I think the film there is doing exactly the same

with its format as it is in the moment in the point when we get into the Hollywood years and it sort of becomes this anemic Hollywood movie. And then when it gets into Vegas, we get into split screen, which is obviously taking its inspiration from the, you know, the Elvis on tour film, as far as the Colonel Tom Parker thing is concerned, I don't think he does come across like that. I think he's given just enough weedling pathos to make us understand how it is that he got to the position that he did.

And I think it was very interesting, when we go back and listen to the Tom Hanks interview, in which Tom Hanks said that they specifically rethought the character after Hanks had a conversation with Priscilla, you know, Jerry Schilling, who said, no, he wasn't just a monster, he wasn't a monster at all, he was actually very charming. And I think that Hank does get that. Once you've seen Elvis, let us know and this discussion can continue. Next week, Correspondence at CurveDameo.com. Quick bit of what's on. This is where you email us a voice note if you can about your festival or special screening

from wherever you are in the world. Send it to Correspondence at CurveDameo.com.. This week we start with Ants Salmon from Auckland, New Zealand. Hi, Mark and Simon. I'm Ants Salmon from New Zealand and my daughter Georgie Salmon is an aspiring actor. Her first drama series has just been released on YouTube. It's called Here If You Need, a dark comedy that deals with themes of loss, friendship and netball. Despite multiple COVID delays, it got funding, it got made, and biased dad says it's really very good. Hello Simon and Mark, this is Phoenix Cinema East Finchley, inviting everyone for our class six season this summer. We're showing Vampire on the 3rd of July, Big Pocket on the 17th

of July, Wings of Desire on the 31st and Paris Staxes on the 13th of August. Simon and Mark, this is Karin Rajindasorni, the director of the Blue Orchid Hotel's London Indian Film Festival. I'd please say that the festival runs from next week, the 23rd of June, right through to the 3rd of July, and will will be showing our films at Cinemas across London, including the BFI South Bank, Barbican, Cinemalumea, Rich Mix, etc. So that was Antsammon from Auckland promoting his daughter's drama series here if you need Zalan from the Phoenix Cinema East Finchley in London, Mark's favourite cinema or one

of them. And finally, Cinemal from the London Indian Film Festival, promote your stuff at Correspondence at Kermitomeo.com. Now, in to take two, by the way, which will come with you, it'll arrive, it'll drop in. What will it do? It'll appear. It'll do a U2 album on Monday. There'll be more Ron Atkinson. Wings of desire, we're going to put there, because that's the end of take one.

Marketing people don't get enough praise, they always tell us. Anyway, so thanks to Call and Abbey, production management in general, all-round stuff was Lily Hamley, videos on our tip-top YouTube channel, a by Ryan O'Mira. I always think the great O'Mira and Sancho Panzer.

At that point. Johnny Socials was Jonathan Imiere's studio engineer with Josh Gibbs, who's had a great time. Flynn, who is Frank? Is the assistant producer Hannah Tool, but is the producer and the redacted assignment pool, although he hasn't turned up because he says he's stuck on a train. But hey, we don't believe him. Mark, what is your film?

Oh, I don't even, okay, I'm going to believe him. Mark, what is your film? Oh, I don't even... Okay, I'm gonna do this. Mark, what is your film of the week? Your film of the week is Elvis. Badum. Am I right? Am I right, yeah. Thank you very much, Deed, for listening.

If you'd like to subscribe, we would love you even more and take two, we'll be with you on Monday. You