Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Taron Egerton, Thor: Love and Thunder, Brian and Charles, Black Bird, Futura

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Simon interviews actor and singer Taron Egerton best known for his work in the ‘Kingsman Franchise,’ and ‘Rocketman’ about his role in Apple TV+ new drama series ‘Black Bird – based on true events about a convict trying to help catch a serial killer. Mark reviews the much anticipated ‘Thor: Love and Thunder,’ new British robot film ‘Brian and Charles’, ‘Black Bird,’ and documentary ‘Futura’ - Exploring what boys and girls from age 15 to 20 think about the future, through a series of interviews during a long journey across Italy. 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: 00:08:59 Brian and Charles review 00:17:28 Ad break 00:18:21 Box Office Top 10 00:32:32 Taron Egerton interview 00:47:32 Black Bird review 00:53:37 Elevator Jokes 00:55:13 Ad break 00:59:15 Futura review 01:02:21 What’s On 01:04:23 Thor: Love and Thunder review 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. I kind of like you whistling at the beginning. Really? Yeah, last week. Hang on. Ah-hoo! Is that COVID sneeze? No, it's a hay fever sneeze.

There was a theory that when microphones? No, it's a hay fever sneeze. There was a theory that when microphones are on, you don't sneeze. Well, you're just... Well, that, you know, the boratory tested that, didn't it? So, what is that sneeze then? It's hay fever. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm absolutely positive.

Why don't you take this? Because we're in a... There's us two and this... No, no, no. Lily on cameras. She's in the corner. She's kind of safe. I have tested negative, you know, I am absolutely... When did you test negative?

This morning. Do you think it still works? Are you still negative? Maybe you've got something on the way up. Or maybe it's hay fever, and I should have taken my period on for it. Okay, I'm just slightly... Are you nervous, Lily?

She said no, I mean, very meekly, but she said, she's not. But then she's hiding behind the camera. I gave her a scowl, which was, no, I'm perfectly fine. I just, sorry, that was literally just a hay fever sneeze. Do you not get hay fever? I used to. And then, and what sold it for you?

Age. I think you just, as you get older, you just tend to say, I used to have doctors notes at all kinds of things, just streaming all the way through the exam season, streaming, streaming, streaming all the way through. That's streaming. That's just the old sense of the word. I just want the general public to hear this.

These were the texts that I received from you on my birthday. Okay? Right. So you're happy birthday, by the way? Yeah. Right. Okay. So here we go.

Having a clear out of DVDs, what you do with old BAFTA discs. I guess you'd keep them But I want to get rid so I said you cut them in half you went and then chuck them said right EO Yes, and then several hours later. Oh Sorry meant to say happy birthday. Didn't that. Yeah, that's not actually what it said Sorry meant to say happy birthday. Okay, that. That's not actually what it said. Sorry, meant to say happy birthday. That's okay. So what's wrong with that? Because what happened was you were texting me about the most unbelievably, I got a text

from you. I thought, oh Simon's texting me to say happy birthday. You would literally text me. You know, there's a worse example of that. My dad once rang me on my birthday and asked me something to do about the train set. I feel as though this is a therapy session where people who've forgotten your birthday, and I'm now in the aftermath of the fact

your dad forgot your birthday once. He's not there, well. You are quite literally speaking in the aftermath of it, but you texted me on my birthday about something that wasn't happy birthday. Well, and then, I'd forgotten it was your birthday,

then I remembered and I sent you a text, is there a problem there? No, it's fine, Simon, no, it wasn't happy birthday. Well, and they, I'd forgotten it was your birthday. Then I remembered and I sent you a text. Is there a problem there? No, it's fine, Simon. No, it's fine. Should I scroll back to September the 21st and see if you sent me a text? Go ahead. Oh, I can't be bothered.

I'm sure you'll find that I did. It'll take me way, way too long. Yeah, and you have to scroll through all the texts of all the people that text you to wish you happy birthday. I had a nice day. Thanks for asking. I did ask. But I obviously didn't ask at the right time.

So you have to, is this like April full? You have to do it before midday. Yes. Is that kind of this? Yes. Okay. That's exactly what it is. Is this going to well-known in your house that, you know, this is a bad thing if you forget

Mark's birthday? Well, nobody in my house has forgotten my birthday. I think it is. I think it is. I think it is. I think it is. I think it is. I think my birthday. I think because they know. Dave Norris and Julie sent me a lovely bottle of Japanese whiskey. Right. You want to stay next week? I think I was just like, I'll find my name. I was sitting at home in Narnia last night and I was watching Ozark.

And it was one of those episodes of Ozzark where suddenly, darling out of nowhere randomly kills somebody, which she just damn it, darling. And I get a text from you going, shall I lock the door? Are you coming? Yeah, that was the third text that I was saying, are you coming? I'm sorry, that was because I happened not to have come into London. If I come into London now, I am in detail, although I'm trying not to overstay my welcome. Well, anyway, I feel like I have overstayed it. Already. We're only four minutes in. Okay.

On my time. On your time, okay. And you've already outstayed your welcome. Thank you. Before we start, here's one from Matt Etheridge on Twitter. Lovely to hear. Take Kravitz, showing he's a member of the Kermit and Mayo Witter Takement family during final practice 3 on Skye's Formula One coverage of the British Grand Prix. Here we go. very good. Excellent. But from a editorial point of view, I'd have had a word there, because

if that makes no sense in the context of, what? Skies formula one coverage. Why did you say top-com average? Top-com average. Why did you do that? Makes no sense. But anyway, we appreciate that. Thank you, Matt, for sending that in. It's like a meme. Anyway, coming up on the program today, a whole bunch of interesting things. For example, Mark, what are you doing? I'm going to review Brian and Charles, Thor Love and Thunder, Futura, and Blackbird, which brings us to our special guest. Yes, he's Taran Edgerton. Plus, we'll run through the box of his top 10. And if that wasn't enough, on Monday, there'll be another take-two in which we'll be expanding your viewing in our future one-frame back, which gives you some further watching, related to one of the

weeks releases. In this case, it's Robot Films, in the context of Brian and Charles, right up your street. It is. Robot Films is something I could talk about for a very long time, but I know I'll get stopped. And in Take It All Leave It, you decide your word of mouth on a podcast feature. Mark will be taking a look at the boys on Amazon Prime, send your suggestions for great streaming stuff that we might have missed to correspondents at KermitMair.com.

Let's face it, there is so much stuff that everybody has to miss because there's so much great drama out there. That this word of mouth thing is very, very useful. So sign up, extra takes on Apple Podcasts to dig into all the tip-top stuff to make you sound clever in front of your friends, or if you prefer a different platform, head to extra takes.com. Ed Freshwater, you remember Ed? Yes, yes.

Hello, Ed. I'd love you to hear from you. Stinky pants and so on. Obviously, loving the new show, Mark and I had caused a hump when you said, this is a quote from you, Mark. What you don't know about sport wouldn't fill the back of a postage stamp. What I don't know. Surely what you wouldn't.

No, I do know. Wouldn't fill it. Yes, yes, I'm sorry, I misspoke. Or what you don't know would fill something far larger. Or what you didn't know, you don't know. Ed, you're quite right. I wouldn't fill an unspecified area. Yes.

What I meant was what I know about sports wouldn't fill the back of a postage stem. So I'm sorry, that was just me having a brain fart. Ed says you used to be quite pedantic about these things. Used to be, but now have outsourced it to your listeners. Anyway, I loved hearing the minions rise of crew review. I laughed so hard and nearly fell off my bike while out training for our fundraising bicycle ride through Wales in August.

Can you plug the team-kip efforts to make life better for kids around the world? All the stuff is at teamkip.co.uk and Team and Kip both have capital letters. It's a year since we lost our dear Kip, but we can let you know that there's a new member of the church in Newborn Nook, Little Arlo, was born a few weeks ago to the sound of who knows where the time goes. So we entered the world saying hello to Fairport Convention. Couldn't be more on-brand. Much love, sticky pants and down with the Nazis, Ed Freshwater. Isn't that great news? Well. So welcome, Arlo. Ed, thanks very much indeed.

Sandy Denny, isn't it? It is, yeah. By the way, an interesting thing, just before we get to Brian and Charles, from child 2 this week, something happened that has never happened before. Go on. Right. So she says, I'm going to go and see Elvis. So she's going with a house mate, going to see Elvis. She then rings, having just got out the cinema

and said how completely brilliant it was. Fabulous. Charts who is very smart. Really, really, really loved it. And then she said, I think I'm going to go and see it again. And I said, okay, fine. Anyway, about two hours later, she calls. She said, I'm just going to the cinema again. Fantastic. So she was fantastic. So how does never, ever happened before that a film affected us so much. I mean, I think here's the thing. She didn't really know much about Elvis and there's a whole, let's face it, there's a whole generation, a couple of generations

for whom all of that 50s and 60s stuff is like ancient history. Why would they know about it? That's brilliant. So, but that was the impact of the film. That is fantastic. And we'll get to some more. Very good. We'll get to some more Elvis correspondence later.

Anyway, Ryan and Charles sounds like it's the least robotic title for a movie of all time. Well, it's also the least robotic title for a movie of all time. Well it's also the least robotic movie. So it's a touchingly absurdist comedy drama from David Earling Chris Haywood who wrote it and also starring it. And it's about an eccentric inventor and this ramshackle robot. So David Earling is Brian. He lives in a remote cottage in the Welsh valleys where he spends his time knocking out mad cappinventions. Here is a clip from very early on in Brian and Charles. My infamous inventions pantry, such a cow shed, pine cone bag, it's basically just a plain bag with pine cones glued onto it. Ping pong, pick it pong, ping pong pie.

This is basically a puzzle. Okay, my worth. And try to sell to self-ridges. Uh, knife. Eggs. Green rope. It's literally just a bell. The even of eggs in. It's an egg bell.

Anyone want to eat butter? No, turn it on, it'll suck me out of the helmet. See how dirty his glasses were? Absolutely filthy. With largely a visual clip again. We are doing that quite a lot. So anyway, that's him in his infamous inventions pantry. And he also makes a flying cuckoo clock

so that anybody in the village wants to know the time they can just look up and go, oh look, there's Brian with his clock. And he invents troll and nets for shoes. Anyway, one day he goes, he sees some fly tipping and he discovers a fly-tipped mannequin head. And the next thing is he gets a washing machine,

track the washing machine and the mannequin head into his workshop and comes out with a robot, robot that is named Charles and then adopts the surname Charles Patrescu. And he says, hello, I'm Charles Patrescu and I'm Charles Patrescu. I'm Charles Patrescu. The name that he's seen therefore, the robot likes it. And Brian immediately thinks, okay, well, we should probably keep Charles a secret because the locals may not react entirely well. So they spend their days playing darts, dancing, cooking cabbages, riding bikes, having pillow fights.

There's this kind of montage of them having a great time together to the turtles happy together. Great sound. And then Charles Watch is a television series about travel and he wants to go to Honoloupe Loop. And then, so it's all very idyllic and and then adolescence doons, and Charles starts to behave like a slightly stroppy teenager and becomes more and more difficult, and Brian then has to become more and more parental. Now the point is, Charles is a mannequin's head with a big boxy washing machine body wearing a shirt and two arms coming out of me. It just looks absolutely chaotic all over the place.

So the first thing that the film manages to do is it actually manages to make you believe in Charles as a sentient being. With this kind of slightly max-head-romy glitchy voice. Hello, I'm Charles Patrescu, but you do buy into it as being him as being a him, the fact that it's a him. Second thing is this began life as a radio internet show and then a stand-up act, which then gave birth to a short film, which was 2017. Short film was very well received. This is then turned into a feature. In the short film, there's not a huge amount of jeopardy. It's just the two of them together and at one point they fall out and Brian takes Charles off to live under a tree and then he's reunited with him and that's the end of it. In the

case of this, because it's a feature, they have to up the ante. So there is a local bully and bonfire builder called Eddie, who's family terrorised the neighbourhood. And then there's Hazel, played by Louise Breley, who's a woman who lives in the village. She lives with a domineering mother and a parrot. And she's clearly sort of the, she's clear kindred spirit to Brian, but it's Charles, who says, you know, you should ask her to go for a walk by the lake. And here's the thing, it sounds like it shouldn't work at all, but it really does, and it works for a number of reasons. The first one is that there is something

very, very charming about the DIY comedy, about this ridiculous-looking robot that you come to believe in as a sentient thing. The way that it moves, I mean, people don't concentrate enough on how much physical comedy is really complicated. And a very sort of, it looks a bit like, you know, in Wallace and Gromit, the wrong trousers, you know, the whole thing about the trousers

are completely oversized. Well, there is something of that about the way in which Charles' body is configured. Also, there's something very unsinnical about the film because it's about loneliness and it's about being on your own and it's kind of about having an imaginary friend who then becomes a real friend. And if you compare this to, you know, there's lots of films about AI companionship. And we particularly recently, because of course AI companionship has now become a real thing in the real world, people in particular for the elderly and, you know, this is kind of being outsourced to artificial

intelligence. But there is something really charming about that idea of somebody who's very lonely, could very, very creative mind, with a bit of a mad cat mind, but it's kind of desperate for companionship. And that companionship then manifests itself with, I mean, he's like Caractica's pots, you know, in Chitichitibang Bang,

he's always sort of making these kind of weird inventions. They don't quite work, but they kind of work like the hair cutting machine that he goes off to the fairground that everyone forgets about me, old bamboo being in Chitichiti Bang Bang. So there's that, but there's also the charm of the slapstick comedy, the slapstick comedy being the specter of Charles walking around talking to this, I said this slightly max

headroom voice. And then the whole thing has got this kind of cinematic grandeur that it's in this remote cottage which is out among the valleys and the hills, which kind of gives it, you know, there's some kind of essentialist charm to it. What's essentialist? I'm not probably using the word wrongly. It feels like there's something quite primal about it. I mean, on one level,

it's like an archetypal story about somebody being lonely in a world in which they are completely alone, and therefore they, I mean, it's the Frankenstein myth, isn't it? It's the, you know, in the same way that Victor Frankenstein gets a whole bunch of mismatched body parts, puts them together, breathes life into them, and then he's terrified by what he's done, and immediately sends his creation off into the world. That's from Constine. That's from Constine, Frederick. Ah, yes, that's right.

Fraul Bluka. You say the Brian Laltine, the one in the story, really. So it is a version of that story, which is a very familiar story, but it's done, I think it was done really well. I thought it was really touching and really funny. it was done really well. I thought it was really touching and really funny. The relationship between Brian and Hazel is beautifully observed. But the figure of Charles has that kind of childlike loneliness that I associate with silent running and then developing into adolescence. And also, you can read more into it. You could see it as an analogy for, I mean, I think anyone who's had an older relative

who has been affected by Alzheimer's will also see echoes. I mean, obviously, this is a personal thing. You take from movies what you bring to them. And I, obviously, I bring that to movies quite a lot now. But I just thought it was very funny and very touching and very charming and very DIY and very, very homegrown in a way that kind of, I mean, weirdly, it had me thinking of With No La Nile, although it's totally very different, but it did have me thinking of With No La Nile,

that same kind of way of, you thought, this film couldn't have been made anywhere else. Anyway, I thought it was really lovely. It's called Brine and Charles and it's in cinemas. Still to come on this particular take mark. I'll be reviewing Thor, Love and Thunder, Futura and Blackbird. All that plus the laughter lift, am I chat with Taren Edgerton after this. an Edgerton after this. Hi, I'm Steve Podcastle, and I'm 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 November to accompany the sixth and final season of the Netflix Epic Royal Drama series. Very exciting, especially because SuperSub and Friend of the Show, Edith Bowman, hosts this one. Indeed, Edith will take you behind the scenes, dive into conversation with the talented cast and crew, from writer and creator Peter Morgan to the crown's Queen Elizabeth, Emelda 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 propsmaster Owen Harrison. Cast members including Jonathan Price, Selene Daw, Khalid Abdullah, Dominic West and Elizabeth DeBickey. 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. Happy Nord Christmas. Protect yourself while

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To take our huge discount of your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash take. Our link will also give you four extra months for free on the two-year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box. This episode is brought to you by Moubi, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From my connect directors to emerging otters, there's always something new to discover, for example. Well, for example, the new Aki Karazaki film Fallen Leaves, which won the jury prize at CAN, that's in cinemas at the moment. And if you see

that and think I want to know more about Aki Karazaki, you can go to Mubi, the streaming service, and there is a retrospective of his films called How to Be a Human. They are also going to be theatrically releasing In January Priscilla, which is a new Sofia couple of film, which I am really looking forward to since I have an Elvis obsession. You could try Mooby free for 30 days at Mooby.com slash Kermed and Mayo. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash Kermit and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. Welcome back. Just a final thought on Brian and Charles. Is there any, which I haven't seen? Is there any hint of, because you were saying it's a little bit reminded you of With

Mel and I? Is there any essence of Frank's side bottom in there? Just the way you were talking about it reminded, just made me think. Oddly, I hadn't made that connection. I mean, there's a touch of Ricky Jovey's, and that's because there is a connection between one of the key creators who has worked with Ricky Jovey's on a series of things.

I hadn't made the Frank's side bottom connection, but just a tone, that's both. No, yeah, yes. Maybe it's just a tonal reference to your review rather than actually the content of the film. Here's the connection. They're both very odd films that I like and have a similar slightly tragic comic tone to them. So yes, so yes, thank you. So the box office top 10. Yes Number 42 Tigers, yeah, which I liked very much

Okay, that's fine. Oh, so we actually say anything else. I thought you were about to read an email But no, the email is about nitrum. So let me say very quickly. So Tigers, which is a story at true story About a teenage Swedish footballer who is signed up to a club in Italy and he goes there and he suffers mental health problems and the industry is completely geared to worrying about whether his body is in perfect shape but absolutely pays no attention to his mental health at all and I don't know anything about football we already discussed this. What I know about football wouldn't fill the back of the postage stamp but I thought it was a, very well told story about mental health issues and, as I said, based on a true memoir.

Number 10 in the UK, not in the chart in America is Nitram. Now, this is an extraordinary email, I think. And again, makes me feel reassured about our extraordinary listeners. CB is how it's signed. So CB, thank you for this, Jens. He says, long time lurker, first time emailer, for obvious reasons, I wanted to thank Mark for reviewing Nitram this week.

Just as Jacinda Ardern would not use the name of the Christchurch shooter, and Justin Curzl chose to reverse his protagonist's name, I will take the same approach at a respect for the dead and their families and not use the name of the man who masquered 35 people in Tasmania, actually, before I read the rest, he just give us a reminder about Nitram. The story is of a young man who's known as Nitram, which is a nickname given it's a reversal of his actual name.

And it is basically the story about how his life becomes more and more out of control. He is clearly suffering from emotional and mental health problems. He finds himself increasingly isolated with access to money. And then at a crucial moment in the drama, he walks into a gun shop and buys an armory of weapons. And what I thought the film was about, and I think this is what the writer thought as well was, the insanity of how easy it is to act for people to access weapons, which turn what would be a personal problem into a national international tragedy. So CB continues.

Thank you. So that's sort of, in case you missed it last week, that's kind of where the movie is. Tasmania says CB is a small place. So it's hard to have lived there in the 90s and not have some connection to the horror that occurred. I have the incredibly dubious claim to fame of having met Nitram on a number of occasions. I funded my university days waitressing in the only five-star hotel in Hobart at the time. Nitram was a regular at the restaurant, along with Helen Harvey, the millionaire Ares, he befriended, and who picked up the tab for their time. Nitram was a regular at the restaurant along with Helen Harvey, the millionaire Ares, he befriended, and who picked up the tab for their meals.

Nitram's behavior and conversation was socially inept and often completely inappropriate. He made us all uncomfortable. Some of my colleagues would beg the matrady not to put him in their section. Even in those brief interactions, I could see that the man was disturbed. So how anyone could genuinely look him in the eye and sell him semi-automatic weapons and ammunition is beyond me. Like Mark, I found the single most chilling and sickening scene in the film is where Nitram makes his deadly purchase so easily. This email is so, so it feels so particularly timely based in what's happened in the last few days.

My ex-boyfriend's father was a counsellor for the Tasmanian police force at the time of the Port Arthur massacre. So I heard about the trauma it caused those poor families first on scene. Many of them undoubtedly still carry the mental scars 26 years later. So I can understand why so many locals didn't want the film made and can only assume that they haven't seen it. So they did not appreciate the filmmakers intent and message. This is not a sensationalized exploitative film. It is a considered and cautionary tale. We must not shy away from these horrors but remind ourselves how they happened in an effort to ensure they never happen again.

My father headed up the team of legislative drafts people who captured the new gun control laws immediately after the massacre. I remember the long nights he worked and appreciating how important his work was. I'm so proud of him and glad we had a government who responded so swiftly and firmly. So the stats at the end of the film which indicate the watering down and deterioration of these laws over the years made me so sad and angry. As we watch, more gun-fueled atrocities unfold in the US. It makes me wish that Nitram could be compulsory viewing there. Every country has thousands of Nitrams. The only difference is whether we enable them or not. And then CB signs off up with love and kindness down with Lacks gun control laws. And I thought that's such an extraordinary email. I mean, right

to the heart of someone whose family was involved intimately in this story. Yeah. I mean, I have almost nothing to add to that other than thank you for saying that as eloquently as you have done. And I absolutely agree that what the film is about, and I said this one reviewed've reviewed it, is the most horrifying scene is when the young man at the center of the film walks into a gun shop and is sold weapons. Number nine in the UK, number 14 in America,

everything everywhere, all at once. The little movie that can, and the multiverse movie that shows Marvel, you know, this is what you should really be doing. Number eight, you got the right pronunciation of this last week. I think it's jojogeo. Jojogeo translates as long live and prosper.

It's Indian Hindi language family comedy drama. I haven't seen it. If anyone has, please let us know. Number seven here, nothing in America, not charted in America. A good luck to you, Leo Grant. Has it opened in America? Well, if it hasn't, that's why it's not charted. That will probably be it, because I don't think they count piracy. I think it's fun. I like it. I think the performances are great. I love Emma Thompson. I think it's doing lots of things that are

interesting. My only reservation is that it felt staging and that it does feel like performances. But I've spoken to a number of people who've been to see it and have really enjoyed it. And particularly found that it deals with subjects that could be awkwardly dealt with in the cinema, but with great humor and great, you know, great Joua De Viv. Number five in American number six in the UK, the Black Phone.

So I was really impressed by it. I mean, it's based on a short story by Joe Hill, who of course is, you know, genetically connected to Stephen King, but I thought the film itself has connections to things like Stranger Things. I think Scott Derrickson does a good job of telling the story in a way which is dramatically engaging and visualizing things that are happening in people's heads or maybe they're not happening people's heads, maybe they're happening in their dreams, maybe they're happening in reality.

And it's got a couple of really creepy moments in it. I liked it. Lightyear is it number five? The more I think about it, the more I dislike lightyear. Number four in American, number four in the UK, Jurassic World Dominion. Notable largely for Jeff Goldblum's Strange Delivery, which always is exciting, but other than that, it is a series of set pieces that you have seen before, bolted together to create the illusion of entertainment for a certain amount of time with some shonky CG, although another film that we're going to talk about coming up later on this show puts the shonky CG of Jurassic World's Dominion in the shade.

Okay, well, number three, Top Gun Maverick! Nothing on that. Okay, now Elvis Presley, to be discussed with the Elvis movie, box office number two, in the UK number three in America, already established that child two has seen it twice already, which is fantastic. So Simon, the allotmentier, nurse and runner in Leon C. Weirdly, the films that come to mind while watching Elvis with the documentaries about Amy Winehouse and Ed and Sennhe. As if could probably take about. In those films, I found myself willing

them to make a different decision. Don't go with those people, don't get in that car, even though I know they did, and the consequences. In this movie, I wanted Elvis to choose how to make his music and dress how he wanted. But Parker won. A lot of great music was lost and Elvis died young and lonely. That's it Simon. Rahim from Oxford, heritage listener, first time writer. I went to see Elvis on the weekend and I now want to be Elvis. Fair enough. I saw the film with my sister, we both knew little about the King before entering the

cinema. Like many people of our generation, our image of Elvis came via the later Las Vegas years and the impersonators. I thought the film did an amazing job of taking us back to the period of the 1950s, and I now feel I understand why Elvis made such an impact and became the icon that he did. We have both been sharing, enjoying and singing Elvis's music in the day since, but my question is about the more disturbing themes of the film, which have been less discussed on the show until now. Just before the Hall of Mirrors and Ferris wheel scene,

there is a moment when the kernel is considering Elvis, and the word geek flashes on the screen. I don't remember this. Is Bazzleurerman saying that Tom Parker turned Elvis into a geek? I'd like to hear what the good professor thinks about this. No, can I? Well, let me first paragraph. The darker themes of the film and disturbing parallels with Nightmare Alley. In your interview with Tom Hanks and your review, you said you didn't think that the Colonel was a completely sinister character, but we all saw a villain who exploited Elvis in the worst possible way.

Yeah. So on the subject of that, I think the implication is that Parker sees Elvis and sees him as another circus act that he can exploit. He does come out of the pieces of villain, but what Hank's does is play him as, people often say this, in order to play that kind of character, you have to find a way of liking them. The person who's acting them has to find a way of finding a way in, and that's what they do. Can I just read you this? This is a text from Sanjeev of this parish who had been in touch with me after I had reviewed it to say that he'd been ill and he hadn't been able to go but. So he sent me this text. Saw the bad film last night. I thought it was sensational.

The best embodiment of Elvis on screen, sorry Sanji, if you object to me reading this out bit late say that now. Austin Butler managed to hear every movement marked to a quite starting degree, especially on performance sequences that I know so well. The clever mixing of him and real Elvis ended up believing more than straight forms. It was treating that and always unapologetic, heightened, basalurmon film. Elvis was never played like a caricature, which is almost always to a degree the case, casting a people like me. It's brilliant, the kernel seems to waver between Peter Laurie and DeCalfmann's like from Taxi

and Hank's performance in the Lady Killers. But it was, you know, I thought, now listen, I'm an Elvis board and I know my Elvis. I bow down in front of San Jeaves' knowledge of it. If San Jeaves says it's good, it's good. And if child two went twice, you got the whole market. It's completely across the board. That's fantastic.

Number one is minions, the rise of grooves. I just laughed all the way through when the minions were on screen and every minute that the minions weren't on screen, I was just like, okay, I don't care about the other stuff. I don't care about the plot. Just bring me the minions were on screen and every minute that the minions weren't on screen, I was just like, okay, I don't care about the other stuff, I don't care about the plot, just bring me the minions back. And I have been going, ever since I've been going, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. I don't care.

It's just, I was thinking about breaking the planks with the head, and going to go, bonk, bonk, bonk, the other guy. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. And then picks Kevin up and goes, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Nick says, I'm writing to apologize profusely to anyone who attended the 515 screening of Minions 2 on its opening day at the view in North Finchley. My very own child one was among the so-called Gentle Minions, whose dignified appearance, suit, tie and shades, masked, entirely undignified behaviour.

I was informed that this involved every code violation imaginable, including liberal throwing of bananas and popcorn at the screen, and at fellow patrons. Needless to say, I was appalled. There can be no greater crime than to know the church's commandments, as the boy most certainly does, only to break them willfully and consciously. He may have been one of many, but that most certainly does not absolve him of individual responsibility. No cinema goer should have to endure such terrible screening conditions, particularly not young kids who might be going to the pictures for the first time. I would be grateful for any suggestions for suitable penance. He has already been banned from further cinema outings with his mates, and has

been subjected to a screening of Fritz Lang's fury to learn about the dangers of the mob mentality. As the sins of the son are not to be laid on the father, I would be grateful for anonymity, although I have just said it first name, I think that's probably okay, but his name, and then you've given me his name. So I'm not even going to mention his name just in case. But anyway, so this, this is interesting because everyone, Liste, will have seen and been maybe slightly puzzled as to this, these shots of very smartly dressed, usual teenage boys going into a cinema and then some cinemas actually banning them from going.

And from what our correspondent here is saying is that his son, so I was thinking, what is this all about? But clearly the throwing of the nose and the throwing of popcorn at all times during the movie. So that's what it's about and that's why they're banned. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I'm old and I don't understand this and I can't pretend to have a solution to it. But seriously, if you go to a minion's movie and you throw things and you misbehave and you mess up, what is a family film and what will have young young viewers some of whom might actually be genuinely scared by your antics some of who might be

encouraged to think oh this is how we behave in the cinema don't don't I mean minions is really funny and sweet and innocent slaps that come, don't make it about you. It's not about you. It's about minions being funny. Correspondence at kerbenabaya.com. I guess this week is a British actor and singer who made his name in 2014's Action Comedy Kingsman, the Secret Service. It's appeared in Testament of Youth alongside Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy in Legend. He starred as Eddie, the Eagle Edwards, in the 2016 Biographical film. He voiced Johnny, a mounting gorilla, in the 2016 animated musical film Sing and of course, of course.

He starred as Sir Elton John in Rocket Man. Now he's playing the lead in Apple TV plus his Blackbird alongside Paul Walter Hauser and the late Ray Leotter. You can hear my chat with Taran Edgerton after this clip. I talked to some of the guys. They said the prosecutor, Beaumont. He's trying to prove something with you. Who's what? That he's not part of the machine. I'm not part of the machine.

I was. My family. Your mother's family. Tell me there's a way out of this. Not a quick one. You'll get five years. Fuck. Four with good behavior.

The low end of the sentencing guidelines is if you take the plea, you get two years. They're not going to give you two years. And that's a clip from Blackbird. It's a new TV show from Apple TV Plus. One of its stars is Taren Edgerton. I'm delighted to say that Taren joins us. Hello, Taren. How are you?

Hi. Good morning. Nice to see you, son. Very nice to talk to you. I hope your phone is on silent because, as we recording this, Prime Minister has just resigned. So you'll get lots of messages from news organizations and friends. But anyway, just checking you to the nearest okay. Yeah, I can.

I am dimly concerned that the notifications on my device are going to go crazy. But let's see how we go. Yes, well, let's concentrate on Blackbird, which is this extraordinary new TV series from Apple TV plus. How would you describe it? Psychological thriller. Is that the neat way of talking about it? I suppose, yeah, in a kind of, you know,

in a neat little box with a ribbon on, I suppose you'd call it a psychological thriller, true crime drama, but yeah, I don't really know. I think what Dennis did with the writing is quite, well, I mean, I absolutely fell in love with the script, which is why I did it, but I do think he does something a little bit different with the true crime genres.

He, you know, has a very specific angle on the story. He's telling, which is based on fact. Yeah, it's hard. It's sort of hard to describe. So the Dennis you're talking about is Dennis LeHane, who is a bestselling writer, of course, Shutter Island and Mystic River, amongst many others. He was like, I think what is called now the showrunner, it's basically his gig, this whole series. Yeah, absolutely. He kind of has final say on pretty much everything. The concept, which, as

I say, is based on fact, was taken to him. And I think initially he was he was reluctant and didn't really know what his angle was. The story is, in a nutshell, about two prisoners, I play a guy named James Keane, who received a 10-year sentence for dealing large quantities of cocaine in the possession of firearms. A few months into his sentence, the FBI offered him the opportunity to transfer to a maximum security prison

and befriend a serial killer who, or a suspected serial killer, who was threatening to get out on a technicality, on a peel. And that really happened. So that's the basic premise of the show. What Dennis saw in it is the opportunity to tell a story about two, actually rather ugly characters on a different places on the spectrum of toxic masculinity. One who's kind of beyond redemption and one who's not. And so that's kind of the basic principle. And Jimmy Keen, he's the one that is within shot of some kind of redemption.

And the man who isn't is Larry Hall, played by the extraordinary Paul Walter Hauser. Can you explain what it's like acting with Paul because he puts in another extraordinary performance? Paul was always my favorite for the role. I had the privilege of being involved in some of the conversations about who would play that role and Paul was always my favorite. I'd seen Richard Dule and what I loved

about him in that was that he was able to be both very very active as the protagonist of the story, but has this incredible quality of being very passive throughout it. And I felt that was something that was very very important for the part of Larry, because although he is, you know, I suppose if you wanted to draw this archetypes, he would be, you'd call him the antagonist, but there's more to it than that. Then he has this sort of extraordinary quality of manipulation and kind of affected innocence. And I just loved Paul as an actor and thankfully he wanted to do it.

And I think his performance is quite extraordinary actually. Being opposite it is unnerving because to see an actor so unashamedly and bravely grab the bull by the horns as it were, of playing someone who says and has supposedly or possibly done terrible things, it's unnerving to sit across from, but he is amazing in the show, I think.

Certainly in the first few episodes, we end up thinking, hang on, am I just thinking he's guilty because he's weird? And we have learnt to be very mistrustful of that kind of reaction, but that's what your show is making us feel. And that's what the cops are thinking as well. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the setup of the show is, you can't really trust what this guy says. In real life, he had confessed to crimes that he hadn't committed and you get the impression that he also has this quality of narcissism where he quite enjoys

the attention to. Yeah. Why is your character Jimmy Keen? Why is he chosen as the prisoner to go and and befriend Larry Hall? In real life he was a kind of possessed of a fairly extraordinary skillset. He's a very very sort of charming charismatic guy but was also a high school athlete who also had some martial arts training. His ability to to be in any kind of social situation and thrive I think that initially drew them to him but it was also a very dangerous situation and I think that initially drew them to him, but it was also a very dangerous situation. And I think they also felt they being the FBI, the FBI representative to approach them, that he'd be able to defend himself should things turn ugly.

Did you get to meet him? Yes, he actually cameos in the final episode of the show, and he's a producer on the show too. So he is involved, yeah. Right, okay, I'm gonna go back and watch the final episode. So it's here if I can spot him, yeah. It's here if you can spot him, yeah. Okay, I'm gonna go back and watch the final episode. So it's if I can spot him, yeah. Yeah, see if you can spot him, yeah. The show takes you into some pretty dark places. Does that affect you at all or are they just words and it's a scene and you're just being completely professional? I think

more than anything, I think had you asked me about anything else I would I have done. I would brush off any idea of kind of not being able to shake off the scenes of the day. That's just me personally. I know some actors feel differently, but I've never felt that thing where you know, I can't forget who I am, or I can't reconnect with myself. But I think just by virtue of the subject matter, when you are spending your days in a prison in New Orleans talking about the avi-worst things imaginable, yeah, it definitely doesn't put you in a great frame of mind. Also as well, I think there are certain parts of playing my character. There are a couple of moments of quite, quite ordinary violence that are particularly

nice to do and definitely leave you feeling a bit like when you're a kid and you get in scrap and you just feel horrible and hollow afterwards. It feels a bit like that I think. I've said on the program before sometimes I feel very uncomfortable when it's another serial killer or someone who might be a serial killer and those the people who killed a girl's and women as is traditionally the case. But I think what works with Blackbird is the fact you're telling the story in a completely different way because it is a prison drama and you're trying to get the story out of the person who probably did it, maybe he didn't do it. It's just a whole different angle. Well, what appealed to me about it was that although it's a show essentially about exactly as you say toxic masculinity and this incredibly ugly side of male-ness, when I read it I felt it was completely without glamour, glory or sentiment and actually what it was doing

was exploring, yeah I don't know that it presents a definitive answer but it explores why men make terrible decisions that have awful consequences in the world and you know that sounds quite grand but it is what appealed to me about it and I think you know Jimmy has to strike up this relationship with Larry who is you you know, pretty beyond redemption. And what Jimmy, you know, all of his skills as Charm and his charisma, they don't, they're not enough. And actually, what he has to do is what that relationship forces him to do is to be introspective and to look at himself and to reflect on his own behavior and something about that process kind of breaks in really, without saying too much,

each sort of dances with the devil and doesn't quite come back, I think. There would appear to be some physical training for you, Taron, here you look pretty ripped in this show. Yeah, so the real guy was in good shape, but for me, as much as, you know, there's always an appealing challenge in doing something like that,

I particularly threw myself into it this time because I felt it had a direct, it was sort of directly connected to the guy and who he was. When you meet him, he's this kind of swaggering, almost thug-ish narcissist who begins a journey through this encounter and through this mission. And I felt that his physique, the something of his alpha male quality and his narcissism really that felt to me, it just felt like I should be in very good shape for it. A Ray Leotter plays your father. In what I imagine is his last role because he passed away in May.

What was that like working opposite him? Presumably, was he unwell while you were filming? Could you tell that? No, no, no. I mean, the character he portrays is in Ailing Health, and I raised somebody who certainly when I worked with him kind of maintained the quality of energy of what his character was experiencing. I wouldn't describe him as method. He wasn't sort of unapproachable or sensational about it. And so, yeah, so he, although he wasn't in poor health that I could tell at the time, his character was, it's a strange feeling because I now, I now don't want to commodify my relationship with Ray to sell our show because it did have, he did have a profound effect on me.

because he did have a profound effect on me and I do feel actually that I've watched it and I do feel it's some of the work I'm most proud of, but I'm hesitant to sort of speak it up too much because it sort of feels in bad taste. It was extraordinary working with him and I do think he's absolutely amazing in the show, very proud to have worked with him. You were saying earlier that you were involved in the discussions as to who might play Larry Hall, because your credit is credited as an executive producer. How did that come about? And what powers did that give you?

It didn't really give me powers. I mean, as a lead actor and something, you always afforded the freedom to, well, I, it might, you know, afforded the freedom to comment on different elements of the creative process. I suppose being a producer made me feel a little more validated when doing that. It's not all of us, you know, it would be remiss to sort of give the impression that all

of a sudden I'm, you know, doing anything other than my job, which is to, you know, be the central character. But I was, it did mean that I was more involved with general creative conversations that didn't just pertain to what I was doing with my performance. And I enjoyed it very, very much, but it came about simply because I read the script, I thought it was an extraordinary piece of work, and I felt greedy, really. I wanted to be as close to the kind of creative nucleus of it as I could be. All the way through the series, Taran, in the way you look and the way you hold yourself,

it's reminded me of somebody, and I couldn't think who it was. And right at the end, I got it. I imagine you've seen Terminator 2. Well, Robert Patrick, who plays the T-1000, you look like him. Well, do you know what? I love that because I think that's the character that I'm playing. I think that's how he wants the world to see him. I think those references are the references that would have appealed to him.

I think he does have that view of himself as being this kind of having this suit of armor and being invulnerable and being impervious. The show is about those layers being stripped away, and him being exposed for what he is, which is, you know, like everybody else, a little boy underneath it all. Matthew Vaughn, who's directed you many times, has said that you and Hugh Jackman basically are the only people who can be big action heroes and musical stars, and of course you've worked together. That's pretty good company company don't you think? Yeah it's lovely company I mean I don't know if it's true I mean what you does is

is what you does and you know he's in the big leagues and he's lighting up Broadway as we speak I certainly you know I'm drawn to a bit of song dance but I'm had a far more amateur-ish level load. So, and are you the new Wolverine? That's the talk. No, it was an unfortunate thing that I did it. I did an interview and it's happened to me so many times. I've been asked about it so many times over the years. And my answer is always, you know, if the opportunity came along, I'd be really interested in it.

What a great thrill that would be. And I did have a general meeting at Marvel about three or four years ago, but those two sound bites have been unfortunately spun into a story that is just untrue. So I think beyond this interview, I'm going to decline to comment on those things because every time I do it, it spirals out of control. I will never, I guarantee I will never ask you that question again, Taryn, but thank you so much for talking to us. Blackbird is new on Apple TV plus Taryn Edgerton, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking to us today.

Taryn Edgerton speaking to me a couple of days ago. Do you enjoy that interview more? Well, I have no idea Simon, because of the way this show has been done, we're recording this on Wednesday and you spoke to Taryn on Thursday. So I don't know what I thought about. You don't know how. Well, I don't know. Do you imagine me? I imagine Cubmall. Now, I imagine he was great. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to nail talk about the show, having not heard what he just said about it. So forgive me if I contradict.

But let's just say what a great interview. What a great interview. Because he will be won't he? Blackbird, premieres on the 8th, Friday and that the first two episodes go up and then the rest are weekly based on an autobiographical novel in with the Devil, a fallen hero, a serial killer, and a dangerous bargain for redemption by James Keane, which I had not read, and I imagine you hadn't either. No, but it's quite... That information is there, and it's in the title sequence, and actually is quite revealing. It is. Developed by Dennis Lehan, Lehan O'Lehan.

Lehan. I think it's Lehan. Lehan, who's the writer behind Mystic Reverse, Chatter Island, Gone Baby Gone. Taran Edgerton, who stars as James Keane, also produces. He's a drug dealer. He gets himself into a 10-year stretch after having done a deal that goes wrong. Ray Leotter is his ex-cop father who is ill

and tells him that he might not make 10 years. So when James is approached in his prison by the FBI to transfer to a hellish facility where they want him to befriend a convicted serial killer to find out where the bodies are buried, he takes the deal because it's a horrible place to go to, but he needs to get out fast because otherwise he thinks he might not see his father

on the outside. Paul Walter Howes of the great Paul Walter Howes is the convict who has confessed to serial killings, but he's also suspected of being a serial confessor rather than a serial killer. Somebody who just obsessively confesses to crimes or fantasizes about crimes that they didn't actually commit. And in another thread we see Greg Keneer as the cop

who brings him to justice in inverted commas or at least thinks he does because at the point that we meet this story, there is doubt over the confessions that got him convicted and an appeal pending that could put him back outside. So the setup is essentially, therefore, that Taren Edgerton's character has to invagal his way into the confidence of Paul Walter's character and find out where the bodies are buried in the understanding that they might actually not be, because we, the audience, don't know exactly what happened

or whether or not the character is a phantasyster, whether the character is a killer. And now I've seen the first three episodes, I think you've seen all six. It makes for very gripping drama. I mean, the two central characters don't meet until episode three. And so there's a terrific job before that of building the backstory towards putting them finally in the same room together, where the conversations then have to start happening about, you know, exactly what's going on. You know, is Paul Walter-Haus's character a fantasist?

Is he somebody who just has absolutely grotesque dreams? Is he somebody who believes that he's done things that he hasn't done? Or is he actually very cleverly covering his tracks by confessing to things that he did do but in a way that makes him appear that he is a serial confessor even though he's behind bars, but he has an appeal coming up. I thought Edson's terrific. I think he's a really talented actor. I mean obviously, you know, I loved him in rocket man but the physical transformation that he undergoes for this is enormous. It's not just that he's incredibly ripped and balked up but the way in which he walks, the cockiness of his character and the way

in which he walks, it's essentially in prison drama and it is worth saying that certainly all of I've seen and I think you've seen the whole of the series now. It is, it is all to do with what happens basically inside, you know, the, the, we, it's not a film which is revisiting crime scenes and really, no, grizzly, grizzly. I mean, I mean, and, and worth just underlining that point, because as I've said before, I don't like serial killer stuff, particularly when they seem to enjoy the killings of women. And if you're going to tell a story like this, if you tell it from inside the prison and try to work out what the story is, that seems to be a much more edifying way of telling us. Absolutely. Paul Walter-Hauser, who we interviewed on Covid-19 and

the Maze Home and the Same at Service during lockdown, is terrific. We've seen him playing fans this before. You think of him in Itonia, in which he's the guy who thinks that he's a specialist. There's that, you know, the interview, you're a specialist. I'm special. I'm special. I'm not. But you're not. I am. But you're not. We've also seen him play characters who are wrongly convicted. Think of Richard Joule,

in which he is accused of a crime which he didn't commit, because he seems weird, because he seems strange, because he seems like a misfit. He's somebody who just looks like they fit the profile. And I think what he does here is he does a brilliant job of leaving us genuinely uncertain as to what's real and what isn't.

He has a hard to describe this. He has a real talent for talking whilst appearing to be looking off into the distance and seeing something that we're not seeing. You know, he has a way of externalizing the idea of imagining something. You look at his face and you can see him, you can see the inner workings of his mind or his character's mind, which is a real talent. I don't know how he does it, but it's a real talent. I knew nothing of the story before I went in. I hadn't heard of it at all, and I think that's probably the best way to go into it.

Very well written and well played. And I thought it was fairly discreet with the areas that you just talked about. Ray Diosch is very moving as his father and the third episode is dedicated to. Yes, at the end it says dedicated to the memory of Ray Lios. And it is a very moving performance, this kind of fragile character whose whose desperation. I mean, there is a terrible, you know, there's he makes a mistake quite early on and you can see he's racked with guilt about the mistake that he's made

Because he suddenly realizes that he's done something and he's playing a man at the end of his life as well Precisely so that's blackbird and it's on apple TV plus it's the ads in a minute mark But first it's time once again to step into our laughter lift laugh to lift. Oh lord. F***. First floor, telephones. Gents ready made suits. Shirt, socks, ties, hats, underwear and shoes going up. Hey Mark, I've got a Donald Trump joke for you. Oh good. Why did Donald Trump smash so many plates against the wall? I don't know. He

wanted to seem tough on China. Hey! That's good! Let's get that original. Let's not be too hard. On the former guy, we all lose our rag from time to time, don't we? For example, the good lady's ceramicist, her indoors, got really annoyed with me this week. I kept interrupting her on Tuesday, which was a very warm day. She was doing some admin on her ceramics website, very good by the way. You wouldn't believe it, Mark. She threw her keyboard against the wall and the parts flew everywhere. That's when the shift really hit the fan. I said, I said calm down. Calm down the good lady ceramic sister indoors. You should learn to embrace your mistakes. She then gave me a hug. So it was all fine in the end.

What's still to come, Mark? I don't know, because I'm not on the right bit of script. It's a page 11. The page 11 thing. The magic falling away. You read out for me. Okay, I'll be reviewing Futura and the big releases of the week, including Thor, Love and Thunder, which I really, really loved.

We'll be back. I didn't say Adlib, I just said Read It. We'll be back after this. And welcome back, by the way, again, apologies for the lack of Christian bail on last week's program. Because he, because he, because he bailed. Well, exactly. That was the thing. I should, in the little announcement, I should have said the bad news because he bailed. Well, exactly, that was the thing. I should, in the little announcement, I should have said the bad news is Christian Bailed and that was, that was the,

let's pretend that it's last week. So Simon, who's our guest? Well, I'm very sorry to announce that Christian Bailed, bang in the table still is not a good thing. That was fine. Traditional. Before, before the next reviews, an anonymous email. Traditional. Before the next reviews, an anonymous email.

OK. Titled, Motion Smoothing. I've just watched the first episode of Stranger Things with my lovely pregnant wife and her parents after a very long and stressful week of work. Escape artist, cats, building work, building work, and hopeless kitchen people and whatnot. The combination of Chippy T and Stranger Things on a Friday night with the family was the

carrot dangling at the end of my week, a big juicy carrot, a big juicy carrot that would take me out of my grind for a couple of hours, but no. And at this point, I thought he was going to say, did the last episode have to be two and a half hours long and the penultimate episode, an hour and a half long? And why is that whole Russian sequence of the story there because it's utterly non-sense? No, there's a strange of things. How much more strange could it be? Yes. Anyway, it's not about that at all. Anonymous continues. Samsung had cast a spell over my father-in-law. A wonderful chap and a pavera find judgment in everything from cars to drills and everything else. But for optimum viewing settings for home TV enjoyment, it seems Vecna, who is the

main bad character in Stranger Things, had transmogrified into a TV salesman one day and held him in a trance-like state while pin-sharp pictures of hummingbirds feeding or melting butter or European football danced across his eyes and ended in his wallet hovering out of his pocket with no cake bush insight to bring it back to Earthcake Bush being the much repeated musical reference in Stranger Things. Did you just say there was a thing on rag lift in Macconey when Stuart Macconey said, did you know that running up that hill got some on one because of Stranger Things? Yes, everyone in the world knows what I'm talking about. The TV is incredible for nature documentaries, the TV is not incredible for retro 80s horror

dramas. I did not engage with it properly for one second, so please a commodity and rant about motion smsmoothing for me and for no other reason than to make me feel better. I'll make sure not to listen to future episodes of your podcast while my father-in-law helps me paint our new walls. He's a very good bloke like that. Take the tonk if we're still saying that, and if not, great work, not changing in a world of constant, blooming change. Anyway, so just explain why our anonymous corresponded is in such a bait. Yes, well, I mean, I have to say I've never experienced it. My telly doesn't do it, but motion smoothing is it's a frame interpolation thing. And it puts... Okay, so when you're converting

the frame rate of films to television, it's to do with a conversion thing. Basically, what your television does is it takes two frames and it imagines what would be between them and it somehow recreates an interpolated frame in order to smooth the motion. And everyone says it looks terrible and don't just take my word from it. You know, people like Tom Cruise have all said, find out how to turn it off on your television and turn it off.

And the advice is very simple. Just go to the internet, put in the make of your television, and turn off motion smoothing and do it. Because it is a stupid idea, as I said, I've never suffered from it, because why the hell would I? But people who are properly good filmmakers and film directors are against it. Correspondent at Kermanomeo.com if you'd like to get involved with that, what else is out, what else should we be looking at?

So Futura, which is a documentary co-directed by three directors, Pietro Vacello, Francesca Munzi and Elitio Ruvaccia, who made happiest lots of road, which I really loved. They set out in 2019 to speak to young Italians about how they envisage their future. What their hopes are, their dreams are, how they feel about Italy, how they feel about the world, what plans they are, how they feel about who they are now, who they have been, who they wish to be. It almost accidentally, because of when they started filming, also then became a film about the pandemic, because suddenly the people that they're speaking to are trapped within lockdown and the pandemic changes the world. And so it's a very interesting document, almost accidental document, of how

a generation felt about what had happened as a result of the pandemic and how outlooks have changed as a result of it. Some of the answers are about professions. A lot of the boys want to be footballers, a lot of the young women have plans to become beauticians. Some of them are political, are feeling that politicians don't care or understand about young people. Some of them are to do with national identity. Some people say, this is the best place in the world to grow up.

Others say, I can't do anything here. I need to move away. There's a lot of stuff about class, about people from different backgrounds having different aspirations. So on the one hand, you hear stuff about, you know, developing skills and you know working with the land or you know learning cosmetic skills on the other hand you've got people literally discussing

Abstract philosophy because it's what they happen to have been studying at the same time so it cuts right across social boundaries and it deals with social media, you know some some good, some bad, stuff to do with family. One of the things it's very touching about it is more than one young man says that what they want to do is to find financial stability for the mothers who have sacrificed so much for them. That actually occurs more than once. It's not a very coherent picture. It's obviously sort of, you know, scatter shot and you know, even when I was just doing that kind of, that run down to me, I can hear people going, well, I was, you know, those stereotypical

when I see, you know, boys going towards football, young women going towards being putishans, that's what, those are the answers that are given. That's, you know, that's just what actually happens to come up in the film. There are a couple of piercing moments of insight. And one of them is this, one of the interviews says, and almost casually, they're talking about

what their parents' generation did things that they were kind of crazy and that they were wild and they were rebellious and, you know, maybe that was great, maybe it wasn't, but they were frightened of some things and fear was a good thing. And one of them then then says but fear isn't what it used to be fear nowadays has become anxiety And it was like one of those thunderbolt moments when you go amidst this morass of voices saying things a lot of which seem In consequential some of which seem scattershot some of which seem suddenly there is this

Boom moment of, I thought that's one of the most profound things I've heard recently. Fear isn't what it used to be. Fear nowadays has become anxiety. And in the midst of everything that's going on, I thought that was really profound. And the movie is Futura and its Incentimals. A quick bit of what's on now. This is where you email us a voice note about your festival or special screening from wherever you are in the world. You email yours to correspondentsacurbido.com. This week we start with Conrad. Hi Simon and Mark Conrad here from Movie Ubleyette to encourage everyone to check out iconocon

this weekend. an online convention featuring many film-related panels, including me celebrating the 30th anniversary of Candyman, talking with director Bernard Rose and actor Tony Todd. Visit iconoconononline.com or search for Iconocon on Facebook to find out more. Thanks. Hi Simon and Mark, this is Mark Cosgrove, cinema curator at Watershed in Bristol. What connects David Lynch, Greta Garbo and Tywin Ease Action movie, The Sortsman of All Sortsman? And the answer is, Cinema Re Discovered Festival of course, which takes place in Bristol 20th to the 24th of July. Go to watershed.co.uk for more information. See you in the cinema.

So that was Conrad from Iconicon and Mark from cinema. The great Mark Cosgrove. Really discovered. I like the way he paused to let us answer the question. He did. He just sent us. Mark is a very good friend and the watershed is a beautiful cinema and yeah that's how lovely to hit. How lovely the he sent that in. Also how lovely to hear about the how lovely the, that you sent that in. Also, how lovely to hear about the, the anniversary screening of Candyman. That sounds great.

Yes. 22nd audio clips, please. I mean, if it's 30, it's fine, really. It's fine. Send it to correspondence, a carbona-mail.com, couple of weeks up front, that'd be very nice. And we'll boost your numbers if we can. So that I think we're virtually done,

apart from Thor. Thor, love and thunder. And it is Thor Thor. It is Thor Thor. It's the fourth Thor. So Thor Leven Thunder. You said I'm Thor, if they wear a thaddle, silly. That's the one, Tom Hiddleston. So this is the sequel to Thor Ragnarok. Once again directed by Tyker with TT, who'd corrode the script with Jennifer Cate and Robinson. It opens with a scene of Christian bailed him, losing his daughter in the desert, then finding himself in what appears to be an outtake from the flowerpot men, or in the night garden, in which he falls out with his God and declares, this is my vow, all gods will die.

Therefore, he becomes the God butcher. Call the God butcher. Which, to be honest, if you were offered that as a role, you go, yep, that sounds good. We then cut to Corg, humorously retelling Thor's story so far. You know, lots of, sort of, simulator in jokes about, he lost his brother again, and then again, and then enjoying a classic Thor adventure

in which he accidentally destroys a temple in a sequence that looks like a very badly CG rendered version of a heavy metal video with some muppets. The main thing is he is still pining for Jane, a character we all forgot about some time ago, is now battling against stage 4 cancer, but who thanks to a convoluted plot twist inspired by Jason Aaron's mighty Thor strips, finds herself united with Thor's reconstructed hammer, which is sworn to protector and which reconstructed itself in her presence. Thereby turning her into mighty Thor, who is a female version of Thor, you've seen the film tell me if this is wrong, a female version of Thor was Thor played by Chris Hemsworth

Mrs. both her and the hammer who is with her, but has now been replaced by his axe stormbreaker. Yeah, I mean it's not I mean, it's not that confusing. Here's a clip. So that's the X-girlfriend, is it? The old X-girlfriend. Jodie Foster. Jane Foster. One that got away.

The one that got away. That means a skate. Yeah. Yeah. Must be hard for you to see your X-girlfriend and your X-hammer hanging out and getting on, so you know. Would you up to your bro-girlfriend and your ex-hema hanging out and getting on slip-hole. What you up to, bro?

I got to daddy. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Hey, baby. What the fuck? Hey.

That's just calling you. You know what? I was just calling you. You got nothing. I was just calling you. You got nothing. Another visual clip. Another visual clip.

So the gag is he's calling the hammer and then his axe comes up. You see, his axe is like an X. His axe is his X. No, no, his axe is jealous of his X. That incidentally is a gag that will run throughout the whole film, thought treating his hammer like his old girlfriend and his axe like his new girlfriend.

And that's basically the tone of the whole movie, the kind of knowing jokes about, hey, we're making a superhero movie, but we know we're doing it. So, you know, we're making lots of jokes about it, therefore, you know, got characters dressed as gods, but they talk like they're in an episode of Friends because we're very, very postmodern. And then the plot is that the children of New Asgard, a stolen by Gore, who incidentally looks exactly like the nun from the nunjuring movies. So from now on, it's going to be quiet, quiet, quiet, bail.

I thought he looked like Voldemort, really. A little bit of ray finds, that's what he looked like. Okay, so somewhere between the nunjering and Voldemort, but not ooh, that's an interestingly new creation. And then in true Doctor Who fashion, he, the God Butcher, he's got to get to the gates of all eternity where he can make one wish that will be the wishiest wish that anyone ever wished incidentally, he just wish, I wish I was omnipotent and had to end this wish. Anyway,

so Thor then announces that he says, he says, I'm going to get together again, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, and he says it like that in a way that sounds exactly like Boris Johnson. We're recording this on a Wednesday. I have no idea how that joke lands, but that's what he sounds like. That's true. There is that general feeling that he's there at the moment, but by the time you get this, he might not be.

Maybe not be. Anyway, they head off into a, into space in a fairground ride boat, which is pulled by screaming goats, comedy screaming goats, because hey kids, internet memes about screaming goats are cool. Even I thought, hang on a minute, that's past, it's tell by date. There are rubbish jokes about beatboxes, rollerblading, catchphrases, catchphrases, I don't know the joke about,

oh, we're super heroes, gotta have catchphrases, oh, you know, eat my hammer, well that work, you know. Ah, then there's loads and loads of smuggling, knowing cameos from Matt Damon, Sam Neill, Melissa McCarthy, as bad actors in the new Asgard theme park history of Thor. Then there's a comedy sequence, an extended comedy sequence in some secret God lair, where Russell Crowe turns up as Zeus, doing what I think is meant to be a Greek accent.

I thought it was Italian. Sorry, I think is meant, well, Zeus is Greek, right? I know, but he might have spent some time. But he sounds like Jared Leto. Oh, oh, I see. He sounds like Jared Leto. He goes, yeah, you know, I'm a Zeus. I got a thing, and with the blah, blah, blah.

And then there's a joke about women feigning at the site of Chris Hemsworth, Mr. Happy. The CGI is unspeakably poor. The whole thing looked like it was, it would probably improve from motion smoothing. It was, at times I was reminded, there was an article in Sinifantastic magazine back in 1974, 1975 that described flesh Gordon, the soft porn remake of Flash Gordon as the best-mounted turd we have ever seen. And I thought that bits of Thor, Love and Thunder looked like a rubbish CG remake of those bits from Flash Gordon. Now look, here's my problem.

It's one thing for the Marvel audience to get bored with the Marvel universe. It is quite another thing when the makers themselves don't seem to care about it either. I mean, yes, there are LGBTQ plus friendly subplots. So what? That should be a minimum requirement. That is not a reason to exist or a badge of merit. Also, the unearned sentimentality about illness

and then a completely fatuous thing about, you know, love-trumping vengeance. Also, existing in a world in which everyone makes a big deal about sacrifice, but sacrifice doesn't mean anything when the character will reappear very, very shortly. I thought the whole thing was soul-sockingly wrong. I mean, I love hunt for the world of people.

I kind of enjoyed Thor Ragnarok. This proves that my concerns about JoJo Rabbit being wildly overrated were overrated. Correct. It doesn't prove that. One thing I thought was interesting, there's a joke in which Jane is explaining astrophysics. And she makes a joke about interstellar. But before that, she says, did you see Event Horizon? I thought, well, great, at least somebody has noticed that Event Horizon was the precursor to Interstellar.

Other than that, I thought it was absolute bolder dash and I really sat there thinking, I've had enough of this now. I have really, this is so tired and so, if you're gonna do it, do it. Don't just do two hours of sarking. Oh, I'm not be making a superhero movie, but be be funny about it.

Yeah. It just stopped. Stop it. I thought it was, I thought it was absolute rubbish. The only thing, the only thing this nonsense, the only thing I would agree with you on is that kind of line about, are you saying that you're bored

with what you've created? That I agree with that thing. Really, you're taking the Mickey app, this thing, which I thought we were supposed to be taking seriously. And I do get that, but I thought it was laugh out loud funny. I think Tyco with TT is, is. Did you think it was laugh out loud funny? Yes, yes.

You think the jokes about catchphrases were not incredibly tired? I did laugh. I'm not saying it. I'm not saying it's great. What did you laugh out loud about? This is an inquis not saying I'm not saying it's what did you laugh out loud about? I'm not this is an inquisition. I'm just saying I enjoyed it. When did you laugh out loud? Give me a joke that made you laugh out loud. I can't remember. You can't remember. Because it didn't happen. Mark. I'm telling you I laughed out loud a number of

times. I enjoyed it the way James King and a bunch of other people enjoyed it. You didn't. And that's fine. I also like Joe Joe Rabbit and I think Tiger with Titi's is. I like Tiger with Titi very much in the past. I think this is absolutely. The more I think about it, the more angry it makes me. I think it's terrible. I think it's genuinely properly terrible. So we could do a spoil everything episode next week. Once you've seen Thor Love and Thunder. Or you could not see Thor Love and Thunder. You could all go and see Brian and Charles

and make the world a better place. Because we're not discussing that on the spoil everything features. So Thor Love and Thunder, go see it. Tell us about it next week and we'll put it in a spoiler pack section. Although I think you've sported most of it. Yes, another film in a universe where nobody ever does anything of any consequence because there are so many reset buttons. I mean, at the beginning, and that's the end of the program.

Sorry, which one is just Guardians of the Galaxy? All one stuff was in the family. Cameras by Teddy Riley, videos on our tip top YouTube channel by Ryan O'Meara, Johnny Socials was Jonathan Imiere. Stilu and studio and studio was Josh. Flynn Rodham is the assistant producer, Hannah Tulbid is the producer and the red actor was Simon Pulle who turned up this week. Mark, what is your film of the week? Brian and Charles. We'll be back next week. Take two, we'll be with you on Monday. you on Monday.