Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Snow White: Mark’s Verdict

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you. The much anticipated ‘Flow’ is first on the review slate this week. The Oscar-winning animation follows the story of a solitary black cat, displaced from its home by a huge flood in a world now devoid of humans, who finds refuge on a boat with a crew of other animals who must work together to survive. Plus The Alto Knights—the new gangster flick where Robert De Niro as 1950s New York Mafioso Frank Costello squares up to, erm, himself as rival Vito Genovese—and of course Snow White—the live action remake of the 1937 Disney classic. Our guest this week is the fabulously French auteur director Francois Ozon, who’s chatting with Simon about his new film ‘When Autumn Falls’. Set amidst the crisp and golden vistas of Autumnal Burgundy, and featuring lots and lots of extremely chic knitwear, the film follows doting grandmother Michelle—whose family life is thrown into turmoil by an unfortunate accident involving some mushrooms. But was it an accident? All is not as cosy as it seems, and the dodgy  fungi aren’t all that’s toxic about this situation... Another week of top takes and high-quality witterings from the Good Doctors—not to mention correspondence from you lot. Don’t miss it! Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free): Flow Review: 07:52 Francois Ozon Interview: 27:49 When Autumn Falls Review: 39:23 Laughter Lift: 48:40 The Alto Knights Review: 53:31 Snow White Review: 01:00:12 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, March is upon us, Mark. What hair-themed movies can you think of? Why? Well, I'm feeding matters of March hair here. Actually, where does that phrase come from? It's a breeding season thing, but beyond the etymology, I'm ready to spring down rabbit holes in the internet. Of course. Well, NordVPN can take you there. You can unlock films and global content with a single click

by switching your virtual location in 111 countries. So you can watch Alice in Wonderland, Peter Rabbit, Jojo Rabbit, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Watership Down. And I can say do it all safely, guarding against hackers and using public Wi-Fi securely. And NordVPN is the fastest VPN on the market, providing smooth streams, oh, Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the rabbit with the big teeth, no lags or buffering. Unwrap a huge discount on NordVPN by heading to NordVPN.com slash take Oh, Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the rabbit with the big teeth. No lags or buffering. description. Mark?

Simon. You know Simon Brew? Yes, very well. From Film Stories magazine. Fabulous guy. Oh, good chum. He describes himself as editor, author, broadcaster, Costner fanatic, editor of film stories, the founder of Den of Geek back in the day.

Anyway, he did a message on Blue Sky this morning, which said, coffee and a rogue banana knew you'd want to know. And he always posts about coffee. But the rogue banana thing is very interesting. I'm sure we've got someone in the Vanguard here who can explain what it is about the banana. You buy them and they're slightly green, so you don't want to touch them. Green, green, green, green. You look away and then you look back and it's already rotting and it's going to taste disgusting. Yeah. Other fruit doesn't behave this way. It seems to me that a banana has a little bit of an attitude problem.

It's a bit of a diva in fruit bowl and it goes, look at me, look at me, look at me. Look at me. Oh no, I'm already washed up. But it's obviously down to bio. What is the, what is in the chemistry of a banana, which makes it behave this way? There is, there is something, isn't there about a banana which makes it behave this way. There is something isn't there about a banana with other fruit that somehow the rotting cycle

is connected. Eddie Izzard did this whole routine about the bowl of fruit all going, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, it's out of the room, rot, rot, rot, rot. And there is something about if you have a banana that's gone off, it somehow exudes ferrum or something or other, the fruit around it rots instantly. Also, avocados, which I know you don't like, but that's your problem. But also, what is that dark gunk which emerges

when you've opened an avocado like five minutes too late? And it's like it's threaded with evil. I mean, we're gonna talk to Francois Ouson a bit later. And- One of my favorite directors. One of my favorite directors. Well, and there's a thing, we can talk about mushrooms later, but a lot of the film revolves around picking mushrooms.

And if ever any proof is needed that mushrooms are the food of the devil. Francois Auzon will be in the movie. Le shoppignon. Anyway. Do you know that joke? Do you know that joke? How do you know when your dustbin is full of toadstools? I don't know.

Please explain. There's not mushroom left. Okay. You could submit that to the laughter lift. No, I think it's pretty good. So later, Mark is going to be informing you about a number of films, for example. Well, Flow, which is the animation that both you and I have seen. I don't think it's a plot spoiler to say that both you and I are big fans of it. Disney Snow White, which is the animation that both you and I have seen. I don't think it's a plot spoiler to say that both you and I are big fans of it. Disney's Snow White, which is the new version of Snow White. The Alto Nights with Robert De Niro times two. And well, it's actually Quand vient l'automne, isn't it?

When autumn falls. And I've seen it, there are various translations of it with our very French director. Yes, of course. Our special guest is the director of this film, There are various translations of it with our very French director. Uh, we be unsure a nother invitation special and a real as it does a film monster for so I was on a dog is gonna be easy. La calc I could pay me to leave a don. Does he increase this week? Uh, Santosh, which is great.

So do do do do if you haven't subscribed yet, believe me, you're going to want to hear take two because Santosh is really, really great. I would have reviewed it in take one if we had space, but we don't. It's a packed week. And Y2K, which isn't. If I was Sir Sanjeev Bhaskar, I would now instantly come up with a podcast idea called Sanj Tosh, in which Sanjeev Bhaskar tells you what he thinks is rubbish about the world. Would that work? I think that would work. It might just be one episode. Anyway, all the other stuff that you get. Also, the whole bank catalogue of bonus joy, including all our awards reaction specials anyway, it's all a lovely thing and all you have to do is to sign up. Everything

is straightforward from there. An email from W David Lichty. It's a W full stop, but then it's David Lichty. That name rings a bell. Have we heard from W David Lichty before? I don't know. He sounds as though he might be important. Anyway, this is what he says, would you mind spelling out the URL for iWitter, please? I Googled it last week and on page after, because this is because we were talking about the re-emergence of iWitter, which was around as a little site so that you could see where listeners to this podcast are around the world.

And then it disappeared because it was a labor of love and presumably it was costing someone a lot of money. Anyway, and it's reappeared. I'm just going to call him W. He Googled it last week and on page after page of the search results, okay, I Googled it last week and on page after page of the search results was given nothing remotely connected unless I expanded the search, at which point I was only offered a few million Twitter options. I really asked because on my first try, instead of searching, my browser was redirected to one of those sites that tries to take over your computer with a fake loud alarm and a

thing telling me I'd been dangerously compromised and it was shutting my system down. Touch nothing. Now, if anyone else gets this, turn off your computer regardless of the ill-intentioned instructions, turn it back on and reopen your browser with a new window. Do not call, email, text, click a button or link in any way and don't in any way contact the site. If you do none of those things, it's all bark and no bite, but still alarming and annoying. Anyway, I used to use the old app here and there and would like to rejoin, but it's a minefield out there and I must be spelling it wrong

to come up with either nothing at all related to the show or a bomb. Okay, so I am approaching this carefully then because some people were indeed spelling it wrong, but my understanding is that it's lowercase i and then witter but without an e. So it's i-w-i-t-t-r dot com. Yes, and I have literally just logged onto that and I am looking at what looks like the iwitter.com app. Right. Although it

does say check in, contact the doctors, I'm not sure how that works. Yeah, that's it. And tell the community and then congregation corner, 744 members in 44 countries, iwittr.com. The map is great actually, because it does, do you remember when we, it appeared that we had one listener in North Korea who then disappeared? That's right. You have to say that's kind of a, that was a very, very scary thing. According to this map, hello to our two listeners in Iceland, our one listener in, where is that, is that Ghana? I think that's Ghana.

Two in the Isle of Man. Two in the Isle of Man. Yeah. One in Israel. 24 in Ireland. So anyway, it's a fantastic map anyway. So obviously be very, very careful how you get there, but it's iwitter.com, I-W-I-T-T-R. Be careful and follow W. David Lichty's instructions. Correspondence at codofmao.com. Anyway, let's start with movie of the week.

Okay. I don't know. I honestly don't know that it's going to be. I'm just guessing that it might be. Yes. So Simon is referring to the Latvian animation flow recently made history when it won the Oscar for best animated feature, having also been nominated for best international feature. I think you saw it as did I, Simon,

because it was part of the BAFTA contenders. Part of the BAFTA screenings, yeah, absolutely. So it is directed by now Gince Zilbalodis and it is co-written with Matis Kazza. And the comparison I'd make straight away is, do you remember Michael Dudokdovitz, the red turtle, which actually turns 10 next year, which is terrifying, which is a film that I loved, done entirely without dialogue, although the soundtrack is a huge part of the storytelling. It's about somebody shipwrecked on an island,

and then the turtle washes up, and then the turtle sort of turns into a person, and it's this wonderful fable. So this is a magical realist, almost hyperrealist in style story of a cat who we meet in a forest and who is caught up in a huge flood which then engulfs the land. And the cat ends up in a boat with a dog. Is it called a capybara? Is the sort of the beaver-like thing is a capybara, right? Sounds about right.

Yeah. A wounded secretary bird, a ring-tailed lemur, and together they voyage through this world of water, encountering the remnants of ancient civilizations which are now sort of being laid low by nature in revolt. Apparently, in 2012, there was a short film called Aqua about a cat overcoming its fear of the ocean. Apparently, the premise of Aqua serves as the basis for Flow, although honestly, if you've seen Flow, that is really only a starting point. I know that you're a big fan of it. I think there are things to discuss. The first thing is, at times, it's a bit like the incredible journey, you know,

mismatched animals on an incredible trek. At other times it's like a melancholic philosophical meditation on life, the universe and everything, and about our relationship with nature and you know, great, there's a bit of an ozymandias in it, isn't there, you know, great civilizations rising and falling.

And like the animals in the story, I think the film can be playful. It can also be deceptively profound. How would you describe the animation style? Because the way in which they move, it has an almost photo real, like a kind of hyper real quality, doesn't it? Yes. Therefore, I am going to run out of words here to describe it because, is it not that? I guess it's not photo realist, but it's okay. Not being an animator. No, no, no, sure. I'm going to completely fail. I mean, you kind of have to, I mean, just watch the trail

if you can. But yeah, I'm going to need an animator to describe precisely. After a while, in fact, like two minutes, they're real animals. You're not watching an animation, you're watching a real-life drama. There's something about the way that they move, which is just absolutely uncannily real. The soundtrack plays a big part. I know they worked for a long time on the music and the soundtrack, and they used actual recorded sounds to get the animal sounds right. The film, it's rated U for very mild threat, Then it says threat and horror on the BBFC thing. It is for everyone, but it is also true that within that, in inverted commas, very mild threat, there is real drama.

There is real sense of danger. There's the cat going overboard and being in the water. When the first wave comes, when the water first appears, you first see these deer running away and then the water comes, it's incredibly dramatic. I mean, it's a sort of dream of a movie. And I said magical realist, hyper real style. You do feel that you know all these characters, you could reach out and touch them. They're living three dimensional lives.

And I mean, I thought it was genuinely magical. You were a fan, right? What was the BBFC's phrase? They said, new certificate for very mild threat. My assumption was it's a post-apocalyptic film because everybody's dead. So if you just put that to one side. Well, everyone's gone. That's the point. Rather than dead, everyone's gone, right? But they've been raptured. They've all gone to heaven. No, no, no, no. But I'm just saying that it's not a film which is full of dead bodies. Everyone's gone, that's the point. Rather than dead, everyone's gone, right? But they've been raptured, they've all gone to heaven.

No, no, no, no, but I'm just saying that it's not a film which is full of dead bodies, it's a film in which the world has been, it's a world of water. In the world, who did that? New music. World of water, and you're swimming against the tide. That's right. This is very surreal reviewing. Anyway, yes, it is a world of water. Yes, I guess it is supposed to look apocalyptic, but the world has kind of recovered itself and everything is sweet and lovely because there are no people to spoil it. So, it's an animal adventure that takes place. But I think it's absolutely beautiful and

completely captivating and thrilling and moving. And poetic, right? It's like, it is like a film poem, like a tone poem. And it's, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's captivating. And it's one of those classic examples of a U-certificate film in which U really does mean universal. It is for everyone. Yeah. And I think it's, it's interesting that both you and I are struggling to describe the visuals and your solution was right. Watch the trailer, it's like that. Yes, exactly. And animators, please inform us of the precisely correct terminology to use the style of flow. Will it be movie of the week?

You'll have to hang around for a bit or fast forward to the end, whichever you fancy. Box Office Top 10, kind of in a moment, but just some, some emails about adolescence, which we were talking about because Erin Doherty and Ashley Walters were on the show. This has to be the most talked about TV show of the year. I would think everywhere you look and on talk shows and on radio four and places that there's lots of conversations that are happening and they're happening because of adolescence.

I think it's the first show of the year where you have to see it just to join in the conversation, really. Stephen Duggan in Wicklow in Ireland. Simon and Mark, I'm writing to you following your discussion last week about Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham's extraordinary drama Adolescence, in particular the moment when you both rightly ascribe the power of the writing to the empathy that underpins the portrayal of every character and which in turn makes each episode not only compelling but truthful. I was the, in quotes, very kind listener who wrote to Jack's agent, Rachel, following his appearance on Desert Island Discs in 2021, suggesting that he might be autistic.

At the time, I was going through my own process of reflection and discovery, leading to an official diagnosis of autism. And although I agonized about sending that email because I didn't want to intrude or to seem like a crank, I'm very glad that I plucked up the courage to do so as not only did Jack himself reply that same evening, but we remained in touch while he went through the process of getting a diagnosis himself. Most especially because Jack has since become a passionate and vocal advocate for the neurodivergent community. I'm writing not to pat myself on the back, however, but because perhaps the most persistent prejudice which still remains about those of us with autism is that we are incapable of empathy. Even Simon Baron Cohen, who devised the AQ test for autism, once described it as, quote, an empathy disorder, though he has since retracted that view. The truth, as ever,

is more complex than that. Like Jack, I too am a writer, and though lacking even a modicum of his talent, I have found that my autism is in fact central to my ability to create believable and sympathetic characters. While autistic people may often lack cognitive empathy, the ability to read social cues, or the unspoken signals which people pass between them, particularly in groups, many autistic people have extremely well-developed affective empathy, which is the ability not only to recognise but to share in others' feelings and emotions, quite literally sometimes to feel their pain or distress.

You both rightly ascribe the power of Jack's writing, whether in adolescence, toxic town, best interests, or the myriad of TV shows and movies that the hardest working man in show business has penned, to his ability to empathize with and then communicate the emotional truth of characters from every walk of life. In doing so, Jack is not only showing himself to be among the very greatest writers currently at work across these islands, but he's helping to shatter the last and most persistent of myths about autistic people, dating back to Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and even now being perpetuated in all those films and TV shows which routinely present autistic characters as purely logical or unfeeling. For this, Jack deserves the thanks of the entire neurodivergent community,

and although I'm still very loathe to disturb him, given that he may well be writing his next television or film masterpiece, I can also confirm, as Simon said, that he is indeed an extremely nice man. Regards, Stephen Duggan, here with Clo. Very good, very good. Absolutely, and also fascinating, and this is one of the emails that I think I might remember because I was not aware of the fine tuning of the emails that I think I might remember because I was not aware of the fine tuning of this conversation that Simon Barron Cohen had come up with an empathy disorder as a phrase, a phrase that she doesn't believe in anymore. And the difference

also between cognitive empathy and affective empathy seems to me particularly fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much for that very, very well written and very, very clearly explained email. And it is, again, it is a credit to adolescence that is provoking this kind of response. I think when you said it is going to be one of the most talked about TV series of the year, I think it's going to be one of the most talked about TV series of the decade. I mean, people are talking about it as one of the greatest pieces of television ever made. And I don't think that's completely hyperbolic. I think it is affecting people exactly as it intended to do. And it's raising, it is beginning a conversation rather than presenting a solution.

And I think that's a great thing. Chris says, good morning, William and Stevie. I was watching Adolescents on a whim last weekend and I couldn't take my eyes off it. I recommended it to friends and family as I waded through and had a glass of wine as I went. After two and a half episodes, I retired and that might be the wine Chris, by the way, and wondered whether I might have been overplaying how engrossing and well judged I thought it was on first viewing. So thank Jason for your review. I picked up the next morning, ratifying and contravening held opinions since the 90s,

which I don't quite follow. But anyway, I am now watching it second time with a good lady, Saramsis Therandoors. And it's one of those shows which is absolutely, it's like The Last of Us, watching that again, you pick up on all kinds of things which you missed and is even more astonishing the second time around. The good lady professor said, you've seen this, haven't you? And I said, yes. She said, well, I'm going to go upstairs and watch the first episode and I didn't see it for four hours. Literally, that was it. Wow. That's a heavy hitter if you watch the whole thing in four hours, as you did, I think. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah.

We're almost in the chart, but at number Chateau Blu Nunn 1983, Sister Midnight is a new entry. Kindar Stolen says, saw this tonight. Good cinematography cannot save a plodding and nonsensical plot. The film is a bore with very few redeeming qualities. Takes a while to get going and then just becomes bizarre and a yawn fest. Not sure what others see in this that I haven't. Someone who appears to be called J. Lewis. Stunning cinematography, great soundtrack, but otherwise no real sense of narrative or character development. A triumph of style over substance in my opinion. It's just Midnight. Yeah, I couldn't disagree more. I think it's fabulous. I think it's really fabulous. It's one of my favourite films since Midnight. I couldn't disagree more. I think it's

fabulous. I think it's really fabulous. It's one of my favourite films of the year. I think Karing Kandari has done a great job. I think it's got a Keaton-esque sense of deadpan humour, which I think perhaps is being missed. I think it's a subversive tale about somebody trapped in an arranged marriage who just refuses to accept the strictures put upon her by society. I loved it. I mean, I would happily go and watch it again tomorrow. Again, it's a demonstration of the fact that people's responses to films are distinctly personal. In The Lost Lands is at number 13. It's not distinctly personal. In The Lost Lands is, oh yes, it's that film again. And I'll try and be, I'll try and be interested in it.

No, no, sorry. My head is just going to sleep. Uh, number 10 we're finally in the box office. Top 10 is, uh, Opus Jonathan says, dear, take this and take that. I wanted to thank Mark for his review of Opus swimming contrary to the tide of critical, heavy disapproval. I went to see it last night with the lady clarinetist Erwin Dawes at the local Everyman with the trepidation that a film with an IMDB score

of less than five out of 10 induces. Happily, I thought it was engaging throughout with tension and humor, even if the premises are a tad silly. John Malkovich is hilarious as the pompous and reclusive megastar whose manic narcissism meant you could believe he might do anything to anybody around him if his ego feels the slightest knock. There are so many aging rockers still going in the world, and good luck to them, that I don't think his supposed aging stardom or geriatric gyrations should stretch audience credulity too far. I pictured him as if Elton John had gone through the black lodge in Twin Peaks and emerged

in Utah. For Friday Night Entertainment, it should rank as one of those solid three and a half out of five star films, wishing you both fine weekend, Jonathan, on Opus at number 10. Yeah, I love the idea that basically what he's playing is Elton John having gone through the lodge at Twin Peaks. That's fantastic. I mean, I think the key thing is the casting and performance of John Malkovich is utterly preposterous and that for me is why it worked because it was completely ludicrous, which

that character has to be. But I, as I said, just before the film started, I said, oh, I'm looking forward to this. A friend of mine said, really, have you seen the reviews? I said, no, because I didn't read the reviews in advance. And then I surprisingly enjoyed, I didn't know that that continued to be a critical, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought, not least because the Malkovich thing was so ridiculous. Number nine is The Monkey. Again, this is the thing about comedy and horror. If it strikes a chord with you, I

think The Monkey is great. We had a couple of people write in who didn't like it at all because I think they didn't get the register. Incidentally, that's not a criticism. If you don't get a film's register, it's not a criticism of you. The film isn't working for you and heaven knows. I have a tin here for comedy. But I really enjoyed The Monkey and I laughed at the gory gags and I thought it was a superior adaptation. I liked the director very much. Mufasa the Lion King, number eight. So that's a hit. Yeah, it's still doing it. And we'll come back to this later on when we talk about Snow White, about whether or not a very recognisable IP is enough to give something this kind of

legs. Mason- Last Breath is at number seven, that's a new entry. Toby- Yeah, so this is a dramatisation of a story that was previously told as a documentary. And when I was reviewing it last week, I said, because I'm very claustrophobic, the whole idea about being trapped underwater with your oxygen supply running out, 10 minutes, I find panic-inducing in the extreme. I wasn't sure whether it needed to be dramatized because the documentary told the story pretty well, but wasn't sure whether it needed to be dramatised because the documentary told the story pretty well. But clearly it is working to some extent with an audience.

Dog Man is at number six. Doing very well and I'm very pleased that the producer made me go and see it because I was going to give it a swerve. I'm very glad I didn't. Captain America Brave New World is at number five. As we say every week, was there a worse time for a film to be out there under the banner of Captain America will save everything? UK's number four is Marching Powder. Number three is Black Bag.

The new Steven Soderbergh, hot on the heels of the other new Steven Soderbergh, which was only a few weeks ago. And it's almost like a chamber drama, but it happens to be a spy thriller, an espionage story about people, with all the great espionage stories, about people lying to each other in rooms. I enjoyed it. I thought it was preposterous and it doesn't make any real sense, but as a genre exercise, it was very tactile and enjoyable. Someone who appears to be called GeoFawn says, as if Agatha Christie had reworked Tinker Taylor Soldier Spire. And I think the term exercise describes the film very well. I had the same feeling with presence. I haven't seen the film, so I don't actually understand

this. Yeah, that's the one before, which was literally like six weeks ago. It's an email from Zoe. I'm going to bail out of this halfway through because I think it's a bit spoiler-tastic. But anyway, Zoe says, this movie was just okay. The anticlimactic ending undermines and unravels all of the efforts made in the first act. It was rushed, poorly written and ham-fisted. You just spent all of this effort convincing the audience that Fassbender is this elite level master spy of whom all of his colleagues are aware, and yet the mole who simply confesses and cracks under pressure like some 1950s

Bond villain couldn't conceive that a weapon placed on a table by said elite master-level spy would be… You've got to be very careful because this is very spoilery. There you go. I've already… Well, you should see the second half. Well, you know, again, and I don't say this flippantly, this really does demonstrate how much individual responses

to movies vary due to, you know, dependent on individual tastes. And I always come back to the thing that all you can do is you can say, this is how I responded to a film, but there is no right and wrong answer. I enjoyed it much more than you did by the sound of it. So, thank you. Yeah, so if you're going to send us stuff, if it involves giving away large chunks of the movie, best save yourself some time, I would think. So, thank you.

Bridget Jones, Mad About the Boy is at number two. All over the place, structurally scrappy. I mean, a complete mess of a film, but I laughed, I cried, and that's what I wanted. And the UK's number one is Mickey 17. I can't not do it now. So there we go. Explain, explain, explain. Oh, Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine. Which is what you did last week when you said, every time you hear Mickey 17, do you think of... Tony Basil. Yes. So, Tony Basil. So, I enjoyed it. I

thought that it was unlikely to really strike a chord with an audience because as with the best of Bong Joon-Ho's stuff, it's so genre twisty that you go, sorry, which genre are we in at the moment? But delighted to see that it's hanging on in there in the number one spot and good because, But I'm delighted to see that it's hanging on in there in the number one spot and good, because Bong Joon-Ho is a really exciting director. Of course, pretty much everybody who listens to this show will have gone to see Parasite. This isn't Parasite. This is like the host or Okja, which of course is the other Bong Joon-Ho creature feature, which is very significant.

But I'm really pleased this has done well. Okay, so that's the box office number one. Bong Joon-Ho creature feature, which is very significant, but I'm really pleased this has done well. Okay, so that's the box office number one. We'll be back in just a moment unless you're a Van Gogh-Dieter, obviously. Mark will be reviewing The Alto Nights, Disney Snow White and When Autumn Falls because our special guest, auteur guest, Monsieur François Hausson on the way. Hi there, Mark. Ozone on the way. Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates

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something. No, I mean the opposite of red flags. Yeah, the positives we look for in a partner. You know, everyone has their different needs, right? And if you're not sure what your personal green flags are, therapy can help you identify them, actively practice them in your relationships, and build your own green flag energy. I've used BetterHelp, right? And therapy has definitely helped me identify

negative and positive patterns in my own behavior. And that's strengthened me and really given me the tools I need to focus on the positives and seek them out in others. With over 5,000 therapists in the UK already, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise in mental health. So discover your relationship green flags with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com This week's guest is French director François Ozan. He made 2003 Swimming Pool with Charlotte Rampling and We Fam, a film with a who's who of France's foremost

actresses Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve and so on. He's back with When Autumn Falls, a drama about Michelle whose plans for a summer with her grandson go out of the window after, well, a mishap in the kitchen. We spoke earlier this week. You'll hear our conversation followed by Mark's review. And that is a clip from When Autumn Falls, directed, produced and co-written by our guest François Heusson. François, hello, bonjour sir. Bonjour. Ça va?

Ça va très bien. I'm fine. And where do we find you today, François? Where are you? I'm in my office. I'm working on my new project, a new film I will shoot in two weeks in Morocco. Mason Hickman Okay, which I want to ask you about at the end of our conversation.

But your new film for us is When Autumn Falls. We just heard a clip from it. Can you introduce us to the story, please? Can you introduce us to When Autumn Falls? autumn falls. It's the story of an old woman, a grandmother, who spends her retired life in the countryside in Burgundy, a place I loved as a child where I spent many holidays. This woman has many toxic problems with her daughter, who is coming for the autumn holidays to let her son for the holidays and everything goes bad. Yes. And you used the word toxic, which is a very interesting word. So we should say

Michel, who is the lady you're talking about, played by Anne-Méven Vincent, something of a legend in France. And at the beginning of the film, she goes out with her friend, Mary Claude, played by Josiane Balasco, to harvest mushrooms. So whenever, in my experience, whenever mushrooms are picked in a film, there is always trouble, always, always trouble. So if you can tell us just a little bit of what happens after she has picked these mushrooms. I think the relationship between the mother and daughter is very often poisoned relationship.

I had in mind for the start of the film and all old memory of my childhood, my grandaunt picked up some mushrooms in the forest for a family dinner and everybody was sick. Some of them at the hospital except her because she didn't eat. She just cooked but didn't eat. And I love this story as a child because I had the feeling that maybe my grandaunt tried to kill all the family. And as a perverse child will become a director, it was a great inspiration.

And it's all, the mushroom is an interesting metaphor for as you go through the film, what is below the surface? You know, you think everything is okay and then you realize it isn't. And I was particularly intrigued because you think you know which way the film is going. And then Michelle, Ellen Vasson, seems to, even though the police are saying,

it's okay, this thing happens, she seems to wonder herself whether it was an accident or not. So what's going on there? It's a good question. I wanted to show a woman who knows she doesn't have so many years to live anymore, and she wants to take benefit of the last years of her life. She's very pragmatic. She prefers to see the reality she wants and she prefers to hide some elements of her life and maybe dark elements. She puts all the dust under the carpet. What is important for her is to have a good time with her grandson she loves. And it's the opposite of her best friend, Marie-Claude,

who feels guilty of the situation, feels guilty about her son. Michelle is very strong. She can be a monster, but at the same time, she wants to survive and her life was not so easy. So, she wants to take a good time with the last years of her life. There is, and I don't want to give too much away, people will need to see this film, to see it in all its glory. And Autumn in Burgundy does look particularly magnificent. There is a mysterious death that happens relatively early on in the story. And you clearly made the decision, Francois, to leave things unexplained. The feeling that, and the characters in your film seem to think that it's better not to know some things. Lies are easier than the truth.

Yes. I think it was something I decided during the process of writing the script. I didn't want to show everything. I wanted to let some holes in the film and let the audience think what they want and to imagine maybe something darker than what I project. I have, of course, as a script writer, everything in mind. I know exactly what happened, but I decided not to show everything, especially the scene on the balcony, because we are in the point of view of Michelle. Michelle was not there.

So you know, you are like her. What happened? Do you want to know or not? And Michelle decided not to know. She preferred to turn the page. And it's a new life which starts even if it's after the death of someone. She wanted to keep in on living. I decided Francois that I didn't want to know either.

I decided I was happy with not knowing. That's good. You are like Michel. I am like Michel. You are a survivor. Have you always wanted to work with Ellen Vincent? I mean, you've worked with so many great French actors. I don't think you've worked with her before. Yes, I did once in my film, By the Grace of God. She had a small part. She was already a mother.

I loved to work with her and I wanted this time to give her a lead character to let her having all the film on her shoulders. And what I like about her, she assumed her age, you know, she's more than 80 years old and she's still beautiful. She didn't make plastic surgery, which was important for me because I wanted a real face with real expressions. And it's not so easy to find a real expression with the French actresses who are old. And Michel and Hélène trust me. When she read the script for the very first time, she said, it's my story. She lives in Burgundy.

I said, only the first part of the film, not the second part. I said, yes. It is still unusual in the UK, maybe it's different in France, to see stories of women in their 70s and 80s at the heart of a story. This is their story, it's not off to the side. Yes, it's fascinating because they had a past, they had a long life. So there are many stories to tell and sometimes just to make a close-up on their face. It tells many stories, the wrinkles, the beauty of the wrinkles. It was something I really wanted to show in this film. But sometimes as the daughter played by Ludovine Sagne and the grandson, when they find out what those stories are as regarding Michel, they don't like them.

They might have stories to tell us, but we might not like what we hear. I made many research about children who lived with a mother who had a difficult past. It's quite difficult to live with such a mother, to accept their life. I think it's in the case with everybody, with your parents, you have to assume that your parents had a past, had a sexuality. And as a child, sometimes you have to fight against that. It's the case of the character of Ludivine, the daughter. She's not able to forgive her mother.

That's why she's suffering so much. And I think sometimes you have to accept your parents as they are with their past and you have to forgive them to be what they are. It's the only way, I think, to grow up as an adult. Mason- We spoke to Ridley Scott on the show a few months ago, just when he was making Gladiator 2. And the rate that Ridley makes films is astonishing. He's a veteran director, of course, but he seems to be speeding up. At the start of our conversation, Francois, you were saying you're working on it, you're shooting on a new film. You seem to average one film a year, which is an extraordinary thing. How is such

a thing possible? I don't know. It's just a pleasure. I love to make movies and very often the economy of my films are quite small. It's not so difficult to finance, especially this one, which is a low budget, lowest budget than Ridley Scott movie. And I think the system of cinema in France is very virtuous and hopefully this one was very successful. So now it's quite easy for me to make the next one. And that's what I like.

I love to make movies. I love to spend time with actors. The process of editing is fascinating for me. And the next one, I hope it will be nice. I don't know yet. I'm preparing the film, but it's quite exciting. How many stories do you have in your head, Francois, that you still want to tell? How far ahead are you? You know, I have no problems to find stories. Stories are everywhere around you.

You know, you tell me your life, maybe it will be possible to make a film about it. If I read the newspaper, there are so many stories. The problem is not to find the stories. The problem is to be sure you want to be involved in that story. You must trust your unconscious and follow your instinct. That's what happened with my work. When Autumn Falls is a fantastic film, I enjoyed it very much. Francois Auzon, thank you very much for your time. Merci, Monsieur. Thank you to you.

He was fantastic. I really enjoyed speaking to him. The way he said holidays is the way I'm going to say it every single time. Monsieur Oulers' holiday. I have to say I'm very jealous because I've been an Ozone fan right back to the days of the short film, Regarde le Mère, which I think I introduced on Film 4 Extreme some years ago. I love his movies. I love sitcom Under the Sand, Swing where you referred to eight women, summer of 85. I am very jealous that you had that conversation. What a fantastic voice. I could listen to him talk all day. I thought autumn in Burgundy looked like a mighty fine place to wear a chunky jumper. First thing to say is that When Autumn Falls is released in some other English speaking territories as When Fall is Coming, because of course,

in America, fall means, I know exactly, in the original is Convient L'Automne. So, a great conversation there. And I think in a way, the conversation raised all the key points. One of the first things to say is, I love the fact that Ozone was remembering a story of his own grand aunt accidentally poisoning the whole of the family. Yes, trying to get rid of these ties. Of course, of course, of course. So that's that. You said yourself, whenever you see mushrooms, you start to think this isn't going to end well, this means trouble ahead. I was thinking with the mushrooms thing, I immediately started thinking about phantom thread. When I see mushrooms I think of fairy tales, I think of fables. I don't mean as in unreal, what

I mean is having some kind of underlying mythical quality. We're all aware of the thing that there is something magical about mushrooms. Also, I thought it was a lovely analogy about mushrooms. It's hidden under the was a lovely analogy about mushrooms, it's hidden under the ground, you don't really see it. Like so much of Ozone's work, this is, firstly, it's centred on women characters and his movies have pretty much regularly done that. In the same way as Todd Haynes, he has a one-foot in melodrama and one foot in realism. But his films are consistently about secrets, about deceits, about the stories we tell each other, both deliberately and accidentally.

It was lovely again at the end of that interview when he said, when you're doing this, you have to rely on instinct. You have to trust your subconscious. And when you're watching us on film, you have to listen to the film's subconscious. So what's the film about? Well, it is, as he said, about an older woman's toxic relationship with her daughter.

She accidentally, in inverted commas, feeds her daughter poisonous mushrooms, having had a sort of falling out with her over, you know, there's a long standing thing which is revealed. And as a result of it, the daughter thinks that she tried to poison her and says, you can no longer see your grandson and this comes as a great heartbreak to it. So firstly, Alain Vincent is fantastic in the key role. Again, I love the fact that Ozone was talking about the real expressions, you know, the real expressions of her face. I mean, that Ozon was talking about the real expressions of her face. You can watch her face endlessly. The idea that she prefers to hide some elements of her life, that there are some things that are sort of, that's the true of the whole film. It's about what's below the surface. I also thought it was fascinating that Ozon said, Michelle can be a monster and she wants to survive. I was thinking,

is she monstrous? Does she have a monstrous side? Of course, the reason you ask that is because the whole point is that she comes to wonder whether or not she did feed the mushrooms to her daughter on purpose. We see her having a conversation with a doctor, we think it is, in which she said, well, there was no intent. And she said, well, I don't know, maybe there was maybe on some subconscious level she did it. And this, of course, as I said, brought me back to Phantom Thread in which there is the repetitive poisoning, which they both sort of understand what's going on, but they don't say it out loud.

And then you referred to later on, there's an event that happens in a flat in Paris, to later on there's an event that happens in a flat in Paris in which Ozone deliberately doesn't show us what happens. How much does Michelle know about Mary Claude's ex-con son? Does she know something? She's turning a blind eye to it? Is she doing that because it suits her? Is it because she doesn't know? Again, Ozone leaving those holes, as he said, I leave these holes in the narrative. Those are the things that you fall through and those are the things that make his films fascinating. I mean, I was thinking also, remember in Anatomy of a Fall, when the whole thing is you never know, you never absolutely know what happened. What you have to do is you have to make a decision about how much you want to know. I thought it was lovely when he compared you to the central character saying,

you're like her, you're a survivor. I thought that was very, very astute. So for me, this is part and parcel of an ongoing Ozone project, which is that you make films that leave the audience with an area of doubt that they then fill in themselves. I should say, I think in the great Ozone catalog, this is an incidental work. If you had to pick the five Grey Ozone films, I don't think you'd pick this. But it is interesting that even when making an incidental film, at least in my opinion, he makes something that's so fascinating. And so the more you think about it, the more there is to think about. So yes, I mean, visually beautiful, as you have said, fantastic performances. But the great thing is that what he wants you to do is he wants you to ask yourself questions about the stories that we

tell ourselves. And I thought when you said, I decided that I didn't want to know, I didn't need to know, I think that's the engagement. So I think people who go and see this knowing Ozon's work anyway will get exactly what they expect but that is no bad thing. The bit that I felt less happy with, which you don't need to go into detail, is the supernatural. There is a kind of a hint of supernatural going on there, which I thought. Okay, but the question is, is it is there or is it just in her imagination? It's a beautiful film. One other thought, he does make a movie a year and he's talking about the

budget and obviously these are small budget movies. I wonder if this is going to be the way movies. I wonder if this is going to be the way a lot of cinema goes. This is just a random thought based on various AI conversations that we have had and that I've had elsewhere. The money involved in making this kind of film would be hard to make any other. This is a film to be made by proper actors with a proper script and a proper crew. It might be that a multi-billion dollar Marvel film can be done using AI, but AI isn't going to get involved in this sort of film. I think I might be completely wrong. Mason- Yes, no. I tend to agree with you. I think that actually, in that case, if what happens is that more attention is brought

towards this kind of film. And you'll remember a while ago, there was the whole thing about Putnam saying what you think you can't make anymore is a mid-range movie. But it may well be that that is the future. I mean, I know a lot of people who are independent filmmakers who are finding it incredibly hard, incredibly hard to make one, two million, three million budget movies, because even that money is hard to come by. But if you listen to the archive of this show, week after week after week, the stuff that we're really interested in are those films. The Marvels, not so much.

I had a conversation this week, I'm going to keep this vague, with someone who is involved with making films. Okay. Who said that, I mean, maybe you may well have heard this kind of stuff going on, and maybe everyone else knows about it, but I hadn't heard this conversation, which is a completely aboveboard company that is taking the blacklist scripts. So these are good scripts, but they're not being made. This company is taking a blacklist script, going to the screenwriter and saying, we will make your film using AI. We will pay you the going rate. Here's half a million or whatever

it is. But we want to make your film. No actors will be involved, nothing at all. We're just going to make it entirely with AI. So the choice for the writer is, do I take this money and the film, there is a version of my story or do I risk it just not being told? Yeah, well, I mean, yes, I mean, Jason Isaacs sent me and they sent you as well, a little short show reel, I think it's about three minutes long, which says none of these scenes exist. And it's a series of scenes of, you know, talking, stuff, all of which has been generated by AI. Jason said it was quite terrifying. I suppose it is, but we have to deal with the fact that that is increasingly becoming a possibility. I don't believe at the moment, and it may be just

because I'm behind the curve, I don't believe that an AI could have made when autumn falls. Will Barron More of which to come, of course, you can get involved correspondence at kodama.com. And after that kind of slightly gloomy analysis of the future, what we need, Mark, is a laugh. Unfortunately, we're not going to get one because it's the laugh. Let's see how we go. Okay. First of all, an email from Bob Simon, because I did a very, very funny copywriter joke. And Bob says, you said that those in copywriters corner would be rolling in the aisles. However, the good lady copy editor over the other side of the room commented that she found herself trying to think of a way to

improve the copy editor light bulb joke. Because of course that's what they would do. They wouldn't laugh because they would, no, no, no, they wouldn't do that. I can think of a slightly better version. Oh, thank you. But anyway, Mark, I was remembering this week, that awful time when the good lady ceramicist here indoors looked me in the eye and told me the darling six year old boy sitting between us wasn't actually mine. You really need to pay more attention at school pick up, she said, which then reminded me of the time when she got really angry with me for wanting to swap seats on a plane because

I was sitting next to a screaming baby. Apparently it's frowned upon if the baby is yours. That was a joke that did cross over the signals about half a mile away before coming into the station. Speaking of which, pints, liters, gallons, cubic meters and quarts, I shouted at her, which I think speaks volumes. On the way, Mark will be talking about the Alto Knights and Disney's Snow White after this. What's up, Mark? All's well. How about you? Well, I've been thinking about that cushion that we gave away at our live show. Yeah. That and the pencil case. Imagine if we had a load more that we needed to shift. Imagine the riches. Every bottom or pencil case. Imagine if we had a load more that we needed to shift. Imagine the riches. Every bottom or pencil case in the country would be graced in some

way by our presence. Mason- Well, when you put it like that, we should have used Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide from people selling compasses to comfy cushions. Mason- And it covers all your sales channels from a shop front ready POS system to its all-in-one e-commerce platform. It gets you selling across social media marketplaces. Oh, and it's full of the industry leading tools ready to ignite your growth. Shopify gives you complete control over your business and your brand without learning new skills in design or coding.

And thanks to award-winning help, Shopify is ready to support your success every step of the way. Sign up for a £1 per month trial period at Shopify.co.uk slash curmode. Hey, it's Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of Dinners on Me, and I've got something very cool coming your way. I cannot wait for this. I sat down with none other than Ty Burrell, also known as my brother-in-law, on Modern Family for 11 seasons, and let me tell you, when we get together, it's impossible to stop laughing.

You're gonna love this episode, and of course, you're gonna love Ty, because honestly, he's the best, and who doesn't love him? And thanks to Airbnb, we got to record in the coziest little Opry Ski Cabin in Utah, complete with takeout from one of Ty's own restaurants, Beer Bar. So picture this, two old friends, a crackling fire, some seriously good food, and a whole lot of tea spilling.

Yes, meaning that we gossiped, but also we spilled our tea. Anyway, I can't wait for you to listen. So here we go with an email from Andy Mosley, who signs off by saying, and love the show, Steve, Andy Mosley, 337th in Mechanic Chase Park run out of 342. Good for you, good for you. I used to listen regularly to your wittering on daily commutes, says Andy.

But. And while out running till the world shut down in early 2020, both these routines promptly ceased. It has taken me quite a while to start catching up again, but you now both accompany me on weekly park runs and I'm slowly catching up with events. For reference, Mark is currently in a friend's spare room on 64 beats per minute while his kitchen is refitted. So as you can tell, I'm still in the pre-decimalization era. However, this is not the main reason for the email. A little over 10 years ago, I wrote to you an email asking for recommendations of 15

films rated 15 to get my oldest daughter for her 15th birthday. I was delighted to hear it read out on air whilst in the middle of the Great North Run and to hear the debate it sparked. In turn, she was very excited when I played her the podcast clip of you discussing this when her birthday finally came around the following February. Well, that teenage girl is now a grown woman and on Monday, March the 24th, it will be my huge privilege to walk my daughter down the aisle to be married. Her mom and I are both immeasurably proud of the intelligent, generous, kind-hearted young woman she has become. And I am sure

there will be a little dust in the eye as I pass the hand of our daughter to her future husband. But it was his choice, so he'll have to live with it. And so I think it was there. Well done. Brutus. There's another one of those moments. And so to the point of this email, Sophie still has her 15 DVDs, Pan's Labyrinth was a favorite, and still tells people the story of being the subject of national debate, sort of. Therefore, as a wedding gift to the soon to be Mr. and Mrs. James Hunt. Therefore, as a wedding gift to the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. James Hunt. Now, I'm not sure that's really going to fly in the 21st century, Andy, but anyway, I get the meaning.

I thought it would be nice to present them with a recommendation from you, good doctorship selves, for a film to either start them off on wedding bliss or to see them through many years of life's ups and downs together. To make sure I don't miss any response to this, I will now be listening to your podcast Tenet Style, switching between the latest to drop and the oldest in the post-virus bank catalogue that I'm working through. Even if this email doesn't make it to air, any message you could send in return wishing Sophie and Jamie well as they start their future together – I know it would raise a squeal of delight on the day. I am so out of touch. I have no idea what the current festival signoff

is so I will revert to the classics. Love the show, Steve." Very good. So Andy, first of all, we wish Sophie and Jamie all the very best for their life together and a very happy wedding. All the very best. Congratulations. Congratulations. And a film recommendation to see them through many years of life's ups and downs together. So I suppose a movie which has marital ups and down, I'm not sure about that. I'm just going to say Father of the Bride.

I'm going to go for a matter of life and death because I just think that that is the film that The Good Lady Professor and I have watched together more than any other, and it has seen us through many, through good times and bad. There you go, Andy, 337th in the Cannock Chase Park run. The people that you finished ahead of will still be looking up to you and feeling very jealous. Correspondence at KermanaMoe.com. Right, De Niro time. Yes, twice. The Alto Nights. This is Robert De Niro boldly going

where he has gone before, this time twice. So, dual role of mob bosses, Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, based on true events, crime drama, written by Nicholas Blejji, best known of course for Goodfellas. Directed by Barry Levinson, diner, Good Morning Vietnam, Bugsy, Wag the Dog, and written by Pledgy as I just said. Film is narrated from the point of view of one of these, Frank Costello, looking back on his life. And at the beginning, an associate of his former childhood friend, Vito,

An associate of his former childhood friend, Vito, shoots him in the head, literally shoots him in the head. Amazingly, he survives and decides that now is probably the time to get out of the life. The narrative then spirals back to tell the story of Frank and Vito, the former diplomatic, you know, political, the latter a hothead. As kids, they left school together early, got into bootlegging. When Vito had to disappear, Frank was left in care of the empire, but then World War II intervenes, return is delayed, he comes back, everything is changed. Frank is semi-respectable, has led a period of calm in the world. Vito is into drugs once his empire back. So here is a clip of Robert De Niro arguing with Robert De Niro.

Yeah. You're going down a very dangerous road. You know that. And we ain't been down dangerous roads before. All of a sudden we can't go down dangerous roads. This is a road that I'm not going down because you're gonna take us all down. This is not the way You know, there's just another time you're gonna get pinched. But don't forget you're a racketeer You're a gangster. Come on All of a sudden you want to be half in half out half a racketeer You can't have it both ways you read the ring or you're out and with you half in a half out that don't mean you Ain't gonna get caught the same way I could get caught or I could go down. It's the same thing. Come on, don't be naive. We don't control this, somebody else does it. This is a death sentence.

And so obviously tensions broil between them, leading up to the shooting, which is where we began, and then the rest of what comes after. So apparently the idea for this film dates back to the early 70s. It was initially entitled Wise Guy, and of course, Bletchy's original book, Goodfellas book, was Wise Guys. Got passed on by Every Major Studio, finally greenlit a couple of years ago, three years ago. It is solid, seen it all before, but I kind of enjoy this gangster fare directed by Levinson. It doesn't have any of the kind of cutting cruelty of Scorsese's gangster films. It's a 15 certificate. It's a lot more black comedy. There's a lot of, don't give me no respect,

kind of Matthewisms, very handsomely shot by Dante Spinotti. And whilst it was on, it was perfectly enjoyable. My main question is this, and I'm sure there's a good answer for it, why is Robert De Niro playing both the roles? I mean, the thing is, in both of the roles, his face looks like it's covered in prosthetics, and I imagine it's prosthetics, but everything is digital nowadays, whatever, but you know, both of them, they're slappy performances. And in the scenes that they're together, there's quite a lot, one of the characters has got hat and glasses,

not least to distinguish that Robert De Niro from the other Robert De Niro. I mean, actually the real transformation in this is Cosmo Jarvis, who is I think, unrecognizable in every film, but that's because he's a brilliant actor. So while I'm watching this, I think while I'm enjoying this, I didn't know this story and it's, I think, unrecognizable in every film, but that's because he's a brilliant actor. So while I'm watching this, I think while I'm enjoying this, I didn't know this story, and it's well written, of course it's well made, but it's very high pedigree, very high caliber. But why? I mean, it's not like they're twins. Okay, they're flip sides of the same coin. They

grew up together, and one's a bit like this, and the other's a bit like this. But why is Robert De Niro doing the same thing? Now, of course, there's the famous story that Peter Sellers played all the roles in Strange Love because he discovered he got paid per role rather than per film, which I'm sure is partly a joke anyway. But there was a weird thing here, which was like, you remember seeing Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together on screen in Heat. They'd been in Godfather series before, but never in the same scene because of the time period. But now you've got Robert De Niro on screen with Robert De Niro. The only actor who can be on screen with Robert De Niro is Robert De Niro. And so at times it felt like a TV project, partly because it is a very,

very well-worn tropes. I mean, the story is not uninteresting. Like I said, I enjoyed it whilst it was on. And I laughed quite a lot because quite a lot of them go, yeah, what do you think? All that sort of the gangster dialogues. I mean, nobody does it better than De Niro. He's doing one of them in a higher voice and one of them in a lower voice, but it's, you know, there's an awful lot of, what are you, you gotta shoot the guy, you shoot the guy in the head, but you shoot the, you gotta put a bullet in the head, but he's not dead, what are you,

there's an awful lot of that going on, which I enjoyed. I suspect, however, that in two weeks time, it will be gone from my head completely. And I am left somewhat baffled as to why it is that De Niro is doing both roles. And I suppose part of the answer is the old Jurassic Park thing, you know, your scientists were so busy figuring out whether they could, they didn't stop to wonder whether they should. Because when we were listening to the clip, that sounded like a Robert De Niro monologue. That's what it sounded. Well, you know why Simon?

Because, yeah, because it was. It is. And sometimes that devices work, you know, it was it Tom Hardy who did the Cray twins? Yeah, but they're the Cray twins. Fine. They're the Cray twins. They're two people who are twins. You know, but you know that the people who criticize, just to go back to the one

camera thing, the one doing a one-er, that some people said, okay, well, it's just a bit show-offy. It doesn't really add to the story. Not true in the case of adolescents. But I wonder if this sounds a little bit like that, because you're saying why there's no reason for it just to be Robert De Niro. Maybe they're doing it just because they thought they could do it. But isn't it distracting to think I'm now watching a dialogue between the same person? Yes, it is distracting because I'm looking at the scene going, I wonder how they did, who he holds the door open for him, and then there's a scene in which they hug each other. And I'm just thinking, I don't need to be distracted. Surely, I mean,

there's enough unemployed actors in the world, get one of them. Yes. And I suspect, I'll be honest with you, I suspect that the answer is vanity. I suspect that the thing that may, because this is, like I said, this is a very workaday story that we have seen a million times before. And I suspect that the reason they gave Robert De Niro both roles was because it was a way of attracting Robert De Niro to the role. There's no dramatic reason for it at all. And like I said, you can go, well, they're two sides of the same coin. Are they? So now I want to, so we're going to talk about Disney Snow White. So Mark will do a review. Yes. I've got a very interesting email from someone who was involved in the production. Okay. So what we'll do is we'll play you to get us in the mood. Yes. We'll play you a clip from

Disney Snow White. Then we'll talk about Will from Gloucester and then Mark can reply to it. One of the films that is out this week is Disney's Snow White. Here's a clip. To honor the day I was born, my father named me Snow White. Snow White. This is his kingdom. He taught me to be fearless, fair, brave and true. But she changed everything. Please show mercy. Find his home and burn it to the ground. You were saying? Cut that out, cut that out. You're not singing while I'm here. Okay. So Disney's Snow White to be reviewed in a moment. Will from Gloucester, dear evil queen and old hag.

I don't mind being either of those. I worked on Snow White for the calendar year of 2022. I have watched with a heavy heart since then at how the film has become a political punch bag, particularly in the US and how falsehoods have been allowed to proliferate and go unchallenged. I wish to clarify a few points that may be of interest to you and your listeners. Based on a paparazzi photo of Snow White with seven characters who appeared not to be dwarves, it was reported that the film would not feature Doc Sneezy Happy Dopey et al. This led to an avalanche of criticism that the film had in quotes, gone woke and should be banned, boycotted and even remade in quotes correctly.

Unsettlingly much of this ire seemed to be generated from the fact that not all of those featured in the leaked photo were Caucasian, echoing the reaction from some at the casting of Rachel Ziegler in the title role. I don't think it's a spoiler to reveal that the individuals photographed were simply other different characters, the bandits. Another rumour circulated that this band of seven were to be branded magical creatures which stoke the flames further. This has an equally simple explanation. The animated classic from 1937 sees Snow White encounter a friendly group of rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, deer, and bluebirds in the forest, and it is these cheerful critters that Monica refers to.

Shortly afterwards, Peter Dinklage made some comments on a podcast with Mark Maron. I respect Mr. Dinklage enormously and few are better placed to opine, but I would say again that the final film is what should be judged. A subsequent statement from Disney that the studio was going in a different direction with the miners, as they were known internally, was widely, deliberately misinterpreted as bowing to criticism, a reactionary change in approach and the film became viewed as a production in crisis. Your listeners may be reassured to know that the film was, of course, always going to feature these classic characters, and the plan was always that

they would be rendered using a blend of motion capture and CGI. The production was also in open and ongoing discussion with organizations like Little People of America, who served as advisors on the film. The net result of these creative decisions in the finished film I leave open to audiences. My own view is that making a distinction between the dwarves of Grimm's fairy tales and fantasy lore with equivalents to fairies, sprites, and goblins and little people slash those with dwarfism is a shrewd and important one. A film should be judged on its own merits. Everyone is entitled to their opinion once the film has been seen. But I find the venom, hostile prejudgment

and right-wing bile being directed at Snow White see the number of zero-star reviews on Letterboxd and elsewhere. Before it has even been released, deeply troubling, especially having now seen the film and found it to be a wholesome tale of kindness, community and resilience that deserves to have broad family appeal. Yes, the leading actress authored some social media posts about Donald Trump that were perhaps not in her or the film's best interests, but I suggest that the glee with which the film has been declared dead on arrival and the motivations behind that movement should be taken with a pinch of salt and I hope to have provided some important context here. Tiggity-tonk and down with advanced condemnations and poorly informed pylons,"

says Will from Gloucester. That's the preamble. Yes. Well, also some context here. We're recording this review on Wednesday morning. The review embargo hasn't lifted yet, so I don't know what other critics are saying. Although you will have seen that actually yesterday, Variety reported that the initial first reactions to the film from a screening in the US were unbelievably positive, saying, you know, one of the best live action adaptations. So, you know, that was reported yesterday. I don't know what other critics are saying about it. So just for context, this is part of Disney's ongoing

kind of going back through its animated back catalog, doing either live action or photo realist versions of the films, you know, whether it's Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King, obviously that's not live action. It's all photo realist. Lilo and Stitch, I think is next. It's directed by Mark Webb, who 500 Days of Summer, two of the amazing Spider-Man picks.

Script by Erin Cressida Wilson, Secretary, which I loved, Fur, the Anna Arbus thing, Chloe, about which we had an email last week. Stars Rachel Zegler. One of two films that Rachel Zegler is in out this week, and of who I have to say I'm a big fan, stole the show in Spielberg's West Side Story.

She was the best thing about Ballad of Somber Birds and Snakes. She's soon to be, I think, in the in a Vita in the West End, I think that's right. Also Gal Gadot who I thought was great as Wonder Woman, ranked by Forbes as the third highest paid actress of something in 2020. Mandy Moore, who did the choreography for La La Land, did the musical sequences. So a very, very good pedigree. Also, as that email pointed out, all the criticism has been, you know, go woke, go broke. But the fact is, it's a film with colourblind

casting, with a message which is very kind of, you know, the people against the power structures, it's a female empowerment narrative. And of course, the story that we're always told is that, well, Mark, you just like films because you agree with their politics. And all the politics of this are politics that I'm sort of broadly on board with. Therefore it does disappoint me to say that I think it's quite bad. And I'll explain why. As you'd expect from, I mean the script had a lot of rewrites, but Erin Crested Wilson's name is there and this reimagined Snow White as a far more active agent in the story, her name is

Snow White now because she was born in a snowstorm, so she was a survivor from the beginning. She's tough. Her main role is not to fall asleep and wait for Prince Charming's long kisser, but rather to liberate the once happy kingdom that before had a kind of whole socialist ethos to it, which has now been taken over by this oligarch capitalist queen who's stolen the bounty of the land for her own reward. There's one sequence in here that kind of looks like a small-scale version of the Peasants' Revolt. I mean, it looks more like kind of Les Miserables than Snow White, and fine for that. Stepping into Prince Charming's tits, we have a sort of Robin Hood's tight played by

Andrew Burnap who fights in the name of the king to restore the king. So not Prince Charming. Then there's a mix of older new songs, Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Whistle While You Work, Rubbing Shoulders with the new songs. I don't think it's that surprising to say that to my ear, the new songs aren't patched on the old songs, but then there's the thing about, you know, where the good things go, which could have been a song, honestly, that Woody Guthrie could have done, or Timothy Chalamet could have performed in, you know, No Direction Home. So the weird thing is that all that messaging, I mean, I have no problem with that. I'm kind of on board with it. And yet, almost everything about the film

is inferior, despite the massive problems and archaic sensibilities of the original. And, you know, we've seen Snow White reboots, we've had Snow White and the Huntsman and all that sort of stuff. This has been a very long time coming. I did an interview with Rachel Zegler in 2022 about something else when she was in the middle of filming this. And then of course, there was the early trailers and all that derision that was talked about in the, you know, in that email. The problems of these firstly in terms of, okay, if the miners is the term that was being used in the, you know, in the internal discussion. Yes, I understand it's a combination of physical and CGI. From a design point of view, it just doesn't work because what they've done is they've tried to create characters who have a close similarity to the design of the cartoons and yet are

somehow manifested and kind of photo realist. So whereas the problem with The Lion King was that lion looks really, really real, so why is it talking? In the case of this, I'm sorry, that design just doesn't make any sense. You're either going to go for the cartoon originals or you're going to do something different. I just don't get what it's trying to do. It doesn't work. It doesn't work on screen. And it raises again, the issue of why are we doing this? Why, I mean, are we revisiting it so that we can tell the story in a different way? Well, that's fine.

But then if what you're doing is taking, I mean, whatever you think about the narrative of the original Snow White, the Seven Dwarfs, I mean, it is visually extraordinary. It is an extraordinary animation. This is not. On the plus side, I do think Rachel Ziegler gives it her very, very best shot and she nearly saves it. But she doesn't. And when she doesn't save it, it becomes quite terrible. And I wish the film was as good as her, her performance, and it isn't.

And I want to be able to, you know, to embrace a positive response to it, but I can't. I will be honest with you. I sat there thinking, as I have done with a lot of these reboots, this would be so much better if it didn't exist. And I'm really sorry, I'm not saying that out of any kind of, you know, I take no pleasure in it at all,

because as I've said, there are a bunch of people in it who I think have done good work, but I think from a design level, particularly the design of the miners, as you were saying there, is just no. It looks like they've gone through umpteen iterations before arriving at something that just can't decide exactly what it's trying to be, whether it's live action or animation or somewhere in the middle. I think the songs, I mean, look, we all know I have a tin here for songs and hands up, I didn't get the thing

with the greatest showman. So it's no surprise therefore that I might say the same thing again, but I didn't think those memorable songs weren't there. And I just, I mean, it'll do fine. It'll do fine. I have a friend who took their young daughters to see a preview and they said, oh, yeah, it was okay. And bear in mind, these are sort of youngsters who usually their reaction to any film would be, it's the best thing I've ever seen because they're young and

excitable and their reaction was, it's okay. I think the variety story about the first reactions are amazing. I think that's just whiffle. I don't know- It does sound as though- Go on. The listening reviews will be very interesting, particularly if you go with six, seven, eight, nine, 10 year olds for whom this is clearly intended. Yes, and I think it-

What they make of it. I think they may well enjoy it enough, but I think that that's what, that's the best it will get, is that they may well enjoy it enough. Well, the purpose of Willie Gloster's email was that the film should be judged on its own merits. And that is entirely correct. Exactly.

I'm really glad that you opened with that email and incidentally, well, it was very well written and very well argued and I'm really, really glad that you were, you know, that we read it out first. Believe me, I wish I liked the film. I don't. And I think, as I said, with a heavy heart, I think at best it looks like Ziegler is going to pull it out of the, you know, out of the bank. And at worst it is, and I don't use this lightly, terrible. So is your message to Prince Charming that ridicule is something that he should be afraid

of? That was a long walk. That was a long walk up a short platform. I ran up the platform. I ran up it. You told me you had Prince Charming instantly. I'm thinking ridicule is nothing to be scared of. Because he's not Prince Charming, he's Prince Charming. Prince Charming. Ridicule is nothing to be scared of. Because he's not Prince Charming, he's Prince Charming. Prince Charming Ridicule is nothing

to be scared of. You don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do? This has been A Sunday Music Entertainment production. This week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh, Vicki, Zachy and Heather. Producer was Jen, the redactor was Simon Paul. If you're not following the pod already, clearly ludicrous. Do so wherever you get your podcast. Mark, what is your film of the week? Well, if you're not a subscriber, subscribe now because you're going to want to hear about Santosh because that is my joint film of the week with Flow. So the movie is as discussed so far.

Flow. It's Flow. However, you might need Take Two to enjoy everything in all its glory. Take Two has landed adjacent to this particular podcast. Thank you very much for listening.