Kermode & Mayo’s Take - The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Highlights and Lowlights so far this year

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

This week Simon and Mark are away so instead we have a clip episode for your viewing pleasure featuring interviews with the likes of Ramy Youssef and Emma Stone, Denis Villeneuve and Hans Zimmer; and reviews of everything from ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ to Madame Web. Enjoy listening to some of the best The Take has had to offer these past few months! Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): 2:08 The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, Universal) 4:57  Scala!!! (Jane Giles, Ali Catterall, BFI) 8:35 Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, A24) 12:19 All of us strangers (Andrew Haigh, Disney) 15:42 Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, Disney) 21:19 Ramy Youssef and Emma Stone 25:21 Denis Villeneuve and Hans Zimmer 31:02 Cate Blanchett 35:12 Cillian Murphy 42:13 Kung Fu Panda (Mike Mitchell, Universal) 45:42 Godzilla x Kong The New Empire ( Adam Wingard, Warner Bros) 47:11 Madame Web (SJ Clarkson, Columbia Pictures) 50:49 Driveaway Dolls (Ethan Coen, Universal) 53:59 Ghostbusters Frozen Empire (Gil Kenan, Columbia) You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Right, Mark. Up next, that was another ad for NordVPN. Well, seeing as we've done so many riveting ads for NordVPN, how shall we make this one stand out, Simon? Surely everyone, and I mean everyone who listens to this show already knows about the benefits of NordVPN. Well, that's a good point. I mean, we could say that by using NordVPN you can access films in regions outside of your own, would that work? Well, that is a good point, but I think we have already done that. What about mentioning that NordVPN can act as your cyber bodyguard, your virtual Kevin

Costner? Yeah, we've definitely done that because you made that joke before. Okay, how about this? NordVPN can save you money on a range of online purchases by switching your virtual location. We've done that too. You're just being difficult. I'm just telling you what we've done. What about just mentioning the huge discount that our listeners can get?

Yeah, and again, how many times have we said huge discount? Make up a new jingle? Okay, all right, go ahead. Actually, I think we could just keep it simple and say this. To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash take. Our link will also give you four extra months 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.

The simplicity is everything. Go to NordVPN.com slash take for the best discount, which is huge, and get four extra months on the two-year plan. Simple as that. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're actually on a mini cruise this week. We are. We're seasick. We decided to give you some revision. Actually, this cruise is actually taking in Child One's wedding, which is a very, very lovely thing. Yes, congratulations.

To which we're all invited. Over the next hour or so, you can brush up on your pain, your scarlet, your hagg, your poor things, even your keen. Bill Murray. Your Cohen, your Mitchell, Clarkson and Winger. And your Murphy, your Villeneuve and Zimmer, your Blanchet and your Emma Stone and Robert Youssef and your Dickens, sort of. All of which is to say, you're going to get the best of times.

The worst of times, very good. A little bit of wisdom, a bit of foolishness, a soup song of belief, a large portion of incredulity, a bit of light, a bit of darkness, not much hope. You're a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. And a fair bit of despair to fill your dark heart. And all of that is just in Mark's review of Ghostbusters Frozen Empire. In this bit, you're going to hear Mark's five best films so far. I've done my reverse order best films of what you'd like to think of the first quarter of

the year, unless you're an accountant in which it's Q4. So let me first say here is some of the also rands. Occupied City, which I loved, June Part 2 which loves, Silver Haze with Fantastic Four by Vicky Knight, Immaculate which is the film that the first omen wishes it could be, Someone's Son which is a really really moving film about homelessness, Priscilla, Caley Spany we were just talking about in Civil War last week, Late Night with the Devil which has just proved to be a huge hit and The Iron Claw. But my top five in reverse order of movies out in the first quarter of the year, or the fourth quarter if you're financial. At five, The Holdovers. At four, Scala! Exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark. At three, Zone of Interest. at two, All of Us Strangers, and at number one, Poor

Things. The Holdovers, which is the new drama from Alexander Payne, who was the guy behind the election about Schmidt, Nebraska, and perhaps most celebratedly, Sideways. Oh no, no, I was praying to the God I don't even believe in that your mother would pick up the phone or your father would arrive in a helicopter or submarine or a flying saucer to take you up. You see, I love that. I love the fact with that line about, you know, I end up praying to the God I don't believe in that your father would turn up in a helicopter or a flying saucer, my father's

dead. Or a submarine, yes. And it's, in a way, so what happens is obviously, you know, because of everything you're learning about the drama, you know that what's going to happen is during the course of the drama, they're going to find things out about each other. They're going to discover through this kind of crotchety interaction of these people thrown together,

each dealing with their own personal feelings that they are going to find some way of, you know, getting under each other's skin. So the format may be unsurprising, but there is nothing unsurprising about just how good and just how enjoyable this is. I know this sounds like a strange thing to say, but it feels like the kind of bittersweet, character, dialogue-driven piece that they just don't make anymore. If you walked into a cinema knowing nothing about this and knowing nothing about Paul Giamatti or anyone and you just started watching it,

you would think you were watching a film from 1970. I mean, that's, it's not just to do with the look and texture of the film, it's everything about it is like the kind of film they just don't make anymore. Do you remember when David Putnam said he was going to stop making movies directing because he thought it was no longer possible to make the kind of mid-range intelligent drama that wasn't a big action blockbuster and it wasn't the tiny and then he said that actually George Clooney was making the kind of films that he thought you couldn't make anymore. The central trio, they're great. The performances are really, really good, really engaging and charming. At times it's hilarious, at times it's heartbreaking.

It is never less than utterly engaging. At the end of it, and I saw it in a room with just a few people, I promised this is what happened. The film finished and the lights went up and we almost, in chorus, all turned to each other and went, why don't they make films like that anymore? Wow, okay. And it's so, and I know, and what I don't want that to make it sound like is, because I don't believe in the thing about films aren't as good as they were,

because I actually think cinema is now, you know, probably as good as if not better than it ever was. But there is something about the character dialogue driven, bittersweet, I say, you know, hilarious and heartbreaking, all those things. And it's just lovely. It's just absolutely lovely. Now I remember, so I'm the age, I'm 60 now.

When I was a kid, I used to, you know, love going to late night cinema. Obviously during the 80s, most of the time I was in Manchester and the cinema there was the Arbor. But I would go to the Scala when I was down. I remember for example, going to a slasher all nighter with my friend Simon Booth. It was six slasher films back to back.

You know, you start at about 10 o'clock and you end up six o'clock in the morning. I remember going there to watch, there's a film called Thunder Crack. Scarlett used to play Thunder Crack all the time because technically because it was a cinema club, they were able to play films that didn't have BBFC certificates.

And I remember sitting there watching Thunder Crack, thinking we are all going to get arrested. It cannot be legal to be watching this. And what Scarlett, exclamation mark, exclamation mark does is it blends archive images, footage, clips from some of the movies, and then interviews with people like John Waters, whose movies, you know, Pink Flamingos and all that stuff were a kind of staple of the Scala, with patrons such as Mark Moore, Alan Jones, obviously, Ralph Brown, you know, from Withnall and I,

who used to work in the coffee bar. So, one of the things that the Scala was famous for in the King's Cross Scala was the Scala Cat, okay? The story of this is in the film, but the Scala Cat would prowl around the cinema. And people would be watching things at like three o'clock in the morning. Some people would be awake, some people would be asleep,

some people would, you know, wouldn't know why they were there. And the Scala Cat would jump on you and completely out of nowhere. The seats were fiercely uncomfortable, which is actually quite good if you're watching it all night because it was a thing that would sort of stop you from falling asleep.

In the course of the documentary, you discover that in the history of the Scarlet, there's things like Iggy in the Stooges and Lou Reed being photographed for album covers at Scala. We hear about its key role as a venue, key role in punk and then new romanticism. The most important thing, however, is this.

I was somebody who, I loved the Scala. I loved the kind of the mythology of it. I loved the way in which it was kind of, it was a home from home for misfits. And what the film does is it has all these accounts of people, you know, many from the LGBTQ plus community talking about how they could be whoever they wanted to be when they were there.

Wherever you were in your evolution, whether you were somebody who was, it was the way you dressed or the way you acted, the way you behaved, there was something about the Scarlet that they didn't care. They genuinely didn't care. It was a come one, come all, you know, we're going to show this weird selection of movies and you're just going to enjoy it. And it's the documentary is funny and wild, but it's also serious because it does talk about how this was a hub of inspiration.

There was a number of people who were there who, who then went on to do really, really good work, you know, become whether it's podcasters or filmmakers or musicians or there was something happening. And if you're an aficionado, obviously it hits all the bases, there's all the stuff about you know, the weirdness of the building, the whole process of getting the tickets, the strangeness of the films, the brilliant interview with John Waters about when they got you know, they got taken to court for showing Clotwick Orange and you know, and him talking about, oh, that's a badge of honor if they take you to court for showing Clotwick Orange and, you know, and him talking about, oh, that's a badge of honour if they take you to court for showing stuff.

I loved the doc. I just thought it was great. I thought it was really, really great. So the film takes place around the edges of the Holocaust, is probably a way of describing it. The sound is really important because you don't see the atrocities in the camp. You hear them. You hear them as a sort of background noise,

something that's happening just beyond the edge of the frame, but you don't see it happening. Glaser has talked about this and said, it's like what's happening in the camp is almost the other film or arguably the film. That this is all going on beyond the frame. And there's also a very, very sparse score by Mikhail Ive and I love their work.

I think Mikhail Ive is a really interesting composer. But they wrote music for the film that was then hugely pared back. I think for the thing that's really, well, I mean, there's so many things about the film that make it powerful. One of the things, apparently, Jonathan Glazer set cameras in the house. He described it like in the way they would do in Big Brother, so that when the people were acting in the house, they could do a lot of it, you know, moving around quite naturally within the house.

So there's almost a kind of documentary feel sometimes to the way that the acting happens. But it's also a very, very studied, very precise, the frame is very particular, the way in which things are framed. It's not, there's nothing kind of casual or handheld about it. It's all very, very formal. I think the best way of describing it, it's like a study of looking away. It is a portrait of life going on in inverted commas,

normally side by side with something that is absolutely unspeakable. And I was reminded of, I went to Berlin, I'm going back to Berlin quite soon, the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, which is going back to Berlin quite soon, the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, which is this strange thing when you walk into it and there are these low walls, it's like a maze, you walk in and the walls are very, very low down and then suddenly the next thing you know is that the walls are really big and you've walked into this

thing that you're completely trapped by but you almost didn't notice it was happening. And the juxtaposition of kind of quotidian life and unspeakable horror is what's happening in the film. It's also a portrait of kind of seeping, growing corruption that, you know, a man whose whole life becomes the simple mechanics of killing. And there's a scene later on in which he talks about You know, he looked at a room of people and all he could think of was, you know how how fast could they be could they be killed and It's a film about complicity and the I think the fact of its horrible everyday quality makes it even makes it worse You know people talk sometimes about you know, the banality of evil, which is the great for it

I don't I don't think this is the banality of evil. I think it's the kind of screaming silent horror of indifference or callousness. And I was reminded of when Son of Saul came out, one of the interesting things about Son of Saul is because it's all shot very close on the central actor's face, the atrocities of the camp, you do see them, but they're glimpsed at the side, to the side of the frame. And Claude Landsman talked about how that was, you know, possibly a way of, you know, the fact that you can approach this subject

through fiction and drama. And I think maybe it's, maybe you can only look at something this terrible from the side, you know, it's like sometimes you can't look at something straight on, maybe looking to the side of it is actually more powerful. And I do think it's really important that these stories continue to be told and it continues to be brought back into your immediate consciousness. Christ, you know who you remind me of?

Who? You look just like my dad. Our central character goes back to the place where he grew up and he appears to meet his mum and dad, played by Jamie Bell and Claire Thoy. And it's very natural, but they are his age. They are the age they were when he lost them. And then they talk and they engage and they sort of talk about the strangers of the situation, but that's not the primary source of their conversation. What they're really talking

about is reconciliation and things that aren't, you know, they're still haunting them in the past. And while that's happening, his relationship with this person who turned up at his front door is starting to blossom. So it's about grief and longing and memory, which in theory are all the things that were in the horror film we talked about earlier on, Baghead, which in theory are all the things that were in the horror film we talked about earlier on, Baghead, but aren't. They're just there as like words. But here, it really is about that. And it's about the way that desire can make something real, can make something tangible.

It's also, and I think this is crucial, it's about the need to move on. It's about how the past can haunt you, can enchant you, but can also trap you. In the end, we all know that the past is to be lived with and not in. Andrew Haake, who was so articulate in that interview, made Weekend, which there may be a companion piece element this 45 years, which as you said, it wasn't that Tom Courtney talked, you know, about the ending. He talked only about the ending. He talked almost exclusively about the ending. It was an entire interview about the end of the film. What Andrew Hay gets so brilliantly is human longing, human desire, human interaction,

the way in which all those things are expressed physically as well as verbally. The performances in this film are exquisite. I mean, I think when he was talking about the casting and the way that you have to make sure that that relationship works with that person and then that relationship has to fit with it, the way everything tessellates, you think, I don't know how you'd ever get the movie cast. And you're thinking in such, and yet it's absolutely right. The scenes between Claire Foy and Andrew Scott, you think when she looks at him, he's a grown

man and she says, you were just a boy. It's heartbreaking. I mean, it's absolutely heartbreaking because- And she's the one, just picking up on the, always on my mind, she's the one, when it's playing on the radio, she sings along to it. And she's obviously singing that to her son. And that's why it acquires a whole different meaning. I think that, I can't imagine anybody watching All of Us Strangers and not being touched. The fact that you told that story. The fact that you told that story.

It just seemed to be a relevant thing to say that sometimes these things happen and you can't really explain what's going on. And his response was, so many people have told me similar stories. So many people have come up to him and talked about it because, and this is the key to it. It is a film that touches an essential truth in all of us, that we all understand longing, loss, grief, and the fact that the past can haunt you. And as I said, you live with the past, but you can't live in it. Stone plays Bella Baxter, a reborn 19th century woman

under the paternalistic care of the, yes yes it is a real word, Frankensteinian. I'd never said it before. No, it really is. Yeah. Surgeon, Godwin Baxter, played by Willem Dafoe with lots of Frankenstein makeup, whom she calls God, short for Godwin, but obviously God. Works both ways. Father God going on, okay?

He appears to have gifted her with the rapidly developing brain of a baby. In the novel, there are different tellings of the story. There are all these kind of competing accounts. The film changes that and it makes it solely her perspective. You see the world through her eyes. And I think that one of the ways that you see this most clearly is that the film exists in an artificial world. It's all shot on sets. I mean, brilliantly shot by Robbie Ryan. Fantastic productions. I mean, breathtaking production design. They have created a world which is not quite, I mean, it's surreal. I mean, there are surreal creations in it. There are animals with different heads and all that stuff going on. But the world itself is it's kind of everything

slightly off kilter, everything slightly as if you're seeing the world through the eyes of the central character. So it's a sense of artifice and it is, it sets within sets and I think that works really well. It is anarchic, it is comedic, it's often hilariously twisted and very bawdy. I was reading a couple of people trying to sort of get their heads around how to describe it. And there was an American publication which said, well, you know, it's all these things. And then Empire used the phrase bat, which is just like, yeah, you know, on some levels it is like, as I said to you after I'd seen it, it's absolutely bonkers. Mark Ruffalo's portrayal of Duncan Beddoburn, which I think everybody thinks is a very, very strong contender for an Oscar, is laugh out loud. I mean, he's one of the best comic performances,

this kind of pompous, prattling idiot who takes Bella off. And an upper class Brit. Yeah. Which is, I don't think I've seen him do that before. No, but also just the sheer pomposity of the way he's like, oh, I have to take Bella Baxter, I've taken you, and you've been made love to by the best in the business and all that stuff. And then of course she goes off and finds.

It is worth saying, it is one of the features that is remarkable for the fact that in no way villainizes or vilifies its central heroine character for having an adventurous sex life entirely on her own terms. I mean, it is such a trope of sort of modern cinema, modern storytelling that if that's the case, somehow you will be judged for it. She absolutely isn't. She absolutely isn't. She may leave a trail of broken idiots like the Mark Ruffalo character, because he can't cope with the fact that she

doesn't think he's the most wonderful thing in the world. This actually relates weirdly enough to the disappearance of Shear Height. His character is the kind of person who would have thrown the Height Report in the river, as he throws her books in the river, because how dare she be reading? He would have felt emasculated. He would have felt seriously emasculated. And there is a serious thing going on. Emma Stone said in that interview, it's a woman who doesn't have shame.

And she said this before, the woman who doesn't have to deal with shame. When I asked Lanthimos about it, he said it's about a woman who has a second chance, a human being who has a chance in the world, someone who hasn't been moulded in a very specific manner to perceive the world in a certain way. He described it as a story of somebody who's a 28-year-old woman who has lived a life that obviously hadn't been fulfilling, who is basically given a clean slate, this relates to what Emma Stone said, the chance to start again, the chance to be creator and created, the chance to write your own destiny. And I think the fact that it does all of that stuff in a way that is anarchic and bawdy and ironic, but also it's funny and it's moving. I mean, I really, really enjoyed it. I've

now seen it three times. And the first time I saw it, I was a bit like, what on earth is going on? It was like, really? Wow. And then the second time, I think I thought, okay, now I'm getting more of the sort of the serious undertone and all the rest of it. The most recent time I watched it, I just thought it was hilariously funny. And it was very interesting that he says in that interview. The minute I read it, I knew it was a comedy. Because all of Lanthimos's stuff, they have to hit you on an emotional level. They have to elicit a response that you can't resist. I mean, I thought it was terrific. Simon? Simon McDonough Mark's review of Poor Things, now available to watch

on Disney+. The Holdovers is widely available to buy or rent as is the Zone of Interest. All of Us Strangers is also on Disney Plus. I think that's a very interesting line up, even if you came to the incorrect answers. Which quarter will Civil War go into? That will go into quarter one or quarter two, depending on how you're feeling. If you're financial, it's quarter one. Sorry, I asked. After the financial, it's quarter one. Simon McDonough Sorry, I asked. After the break, best of the

interviews. Simon here from, well, the podcast you're currently listening to. Mark Willis From here. Simon McDonough Yes. And I'd like to tell you about Uber One, a membership to save money on Uber and Uber Eats. Mark, what do you spend most of your time doing? Watching films to review on this podcast. Okay, but how do you get to the screenings? I travel there.

And what do you do to ensure you don't let out loud belly rumbles during the quiet moments of the film? I eat food before. Well, what would you say if I said you could save money on both traveling and eating food? I'd say Simon, sorry, that can't be done in a single place. Well, Mark, thanks to Uber One, it can be done. Uber One is a membership to save money on Uber and Uber Eats. On top of that, you can get member perks and benefits like a year of Disney Plus included.

With Uber One, you get zero pound delivery fee. You also get savings on Uber rides and five percent off your Uber Eats deliveries when you sign up for an annual membership. A year of Disney Plus included as well? Wow. Join Uber One now to save on Uber and Uber Eats. This episode is brought to you by the curated streaming service Mubi. Mark, for our wonderful listeners who already have a Mubi. Mark, for our wonderful listeners who already have

a Mubi account, and for those who might be thinking about getting one, could you please tell us what films they can enjoy this April? Mark McClendon Well, for all comedy fans, the funny ha ha film group is streaming on Mubi UK from April the 1st, including Yannick, which is the Quentin Dupuyen movie, which was shot in secret in just six days. That's streaming on Mubi UK from April the 5th. And Tony Erdman, which you will remember me reviewing when it came out. I absolutely loved it. That is now streaming on Mubi UK and it's really, really darkly hilarious and uncomfortable and wonderful.

That's movies funny haha series. What's on offer beyond the world of comedy? You remember Perfect Days, the Vim Vendors film, we reviewed that. That is available. Won the Best Actor award at Cannes this year and is a huge favourite among Vim Vendors fans. Some Vendors fans are saying it's one of his best. That's streaming on Mubi UK from April the 12th. You can try Mubi free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash Kermit and Mayo. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash Kermit and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. Welcome back. In this bit, what a lineup.

Another chance to hear from Denis Villeneuve and Hans Zimmer, who are talking about Dune Part Deux. But first, Emma Stone and Ramie Youssef. When we did this film, I refused to watch 101 Dalmatians. I said, I can't have that in my head for poor things. So many times. I just wanted to have a kind of like a clean poor things. I think that's fair.

I don't even, yeah, I don't even hang out with Dalmatians. So when you saw the script Ramie, because I'm intrigued because so much of this is coming out of the screen. It's so visual, it's so stylized. What did you, what was it that made you think, no, no, I'm going to drop everything and I'm going to be in this film? Well, it was so funny.

And I think I'm such a fan of Yorgos and I can't imagine that I would, as a fan of watching the films, I didn't think I would ever really understand a Yorgos script. I thought that he was going to send me something that looked like a manifesto or something. Because Killing of a Sacred Deer, Dogtooth, these are, like, movies that are such a huge part of why I love film. Uh, but part of why I love them is because they kind of transcend the page and they become this experience that you can feel. So he said he'd send me a script, and I'm like,

I don't even know what this is gonna look like. Uh, and then I read it and I was like- It was just like white pages with writing. It was with writing. So it did look- It actually looked like a script. Similar to a regular script. I was like, I'm sure it's going to be on parchment,

but it was white. It was not parchment. But it was so funny. It was so clearly a comedy, and that really excited me. We have to talk about Bella Baxter. So just, would it be fair to say she's a full grown baby at the beginning? I guess that would be fair. Yes, it would be fair. But she's also developing in a way that no baby would ever develop. I mean, she's, what do you say? She's

gaining 25 words a day. Her hair is growing rapidly. She's kind of more of a creature than a literal baby. In my mind, I see her as like a metaphorical sort of, people have compared it to Frankenstein, like a kind of, the way she walks, the way she talks, I guess does feel like a toddler in the beginning, but then it sort of evolves into a place where she's just kind of her own invention.

Also, cause Willem Dafoe looks Frankensteinian, I don't know if that's even a word, and he's the guy who's put you together. So that'll be why they end up. Well, I think that, Romi, you had such a good answer to this yesterday about the mirror and the mirror on men, like what the, you know, that she is herself in every circumstance. She's forthright, she's honest, she says exactly what she wants and needs, she sees no reason not to.

And the reactions of the different men in her life to her agency, her growing sense of agency, is very interesting and kind of like a, I don't know, a study on, what did you say? Like how they react is. Yeah, I mean, I think the Bella character and the film, it's a very mirror-like where, you know, what you get out of it is kind of where you're at.

You know, she's just curious and she's growing. And then, you know, these men are kind of seeing where they're at with their own desire for control and how they are with... And their own egos and... Yeah. Yeah. Need to possess. What is rehearsal like with Yorgos Lethimos?

Scary. Yeah. Was it scary for you? Yeah. It's, yeah, it's... I felt scared. I felt fear. Why? A lot. for you? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, I felt scared. I felt fear. Why?

A lot. Because you got so nauseous? Yeah. I was, I got dizzy because we did a lot of spinning stuff. I get dizzy easily. And so he wrote a fake doctor's note. I wrote a doctor's note. He was no longer allowed to do the spinning exercises. From a doctor that doesn't exist, but I thought maybe your ghost wouldn't know and so I sent

it to him, brought it in and then he made me spin more. Despite the very real doctor's orders. Yeah. Is that when the Dalmatians come in at that point? No, no, no. He can't watch that. It's Dalmatian free. It's a lot of theater games. It's a lot of, we're saying our dialogue in certain contexts of games,

but then we're not using it in a sort of straightforward rehearsal way where we're blocking and discovering things about our characters. We're really just discovering each other and bonding in that way so that by the time we get to set, and I think it's really useful, by the time we get to set, we just feel kind of free and open with each other

and then we can experiment and discover as we're shooting. This time at last we have a almost normal release. Yes, it was surprisingly quite well received for a small independent production. I think one of the things which I truly enjoyed, and Denis will probably say I'm wrong, but is that when we made it, our hearts were like teenagers, except we had the knowledge of experience of having done some work, so we could feel it like the way we felt it when we first read it, but we had the mental technology to actually go with it.

What did you feel when you first read it? It was one of my, it sort of was, it helped me through a lot of teenage angst problems, you know, the fierce, the mind killer part. I thought it was absolutely, it was absolutely, as a teenager, it was one of my favorite books. It was one of the most important books. And I think we were standing on the Waller Brothers lot

when you very quietly said to me, have I ever heard of a book called Dune? And I sort of went, you know, like when little dogs get a little mad and they do that thing? I think I scared you a little. When you were the same age, when you were reading the book, did you feel similarly to Hans? How did it make you feel?

It felt, this book felt home. It's like, I tell you, when you read it at the beginning of your teenage years, and you used to follow this young man that is trying to consolidate his own identity, and a young man that will, a young boy that will finally find home in a foreign culture is something that absolutely moved me at the time.

When Paul is lost with his mother in the desert and he said, that could be a good place to live. I remember, I was like, I don't know, I strongly identify, not with the messianic part of the character, but with that quest for identity and that love for how open he was to someone else called another culture and the way Frank Herbert described this culture, the Fremen culture, all the details of it and how it was linked with biology and the study of ecosystems, which are topics at the time,

the science that I was really interested by. There was a precise moment in my life where I was at crossroad. It was either cinema or biology. True cinema, obviously, but it's like the study of life is at the center of the book, and it's something that I really adore. And I love the idea that as I'm writing the screenplay, shooting, and is doing the sound design, the music design,

and that we merge together. And it's like super important because there's a dialogue between the music and the movie that is operated by him being inspired by the image and the book that elevates the movie. It's not... Let's say that Hans is not contaminated by the screenplay, which is very important.

He's inspired by the book. And I wanted all my team to always go back to the book. In a perfect world, I would rather not have any screenplay to make this book. It would have been impossible to make the movie, I mean. But I love the idea that at least with one of my collaborators, I can go this way. Just read the book and compose music.

So if we follow that through, are you already composing for the next film? For Dune Messiah? Have you started on that? Sort of. A couple of days ago, Denis is on a plane. I'm sending him something, which I just couldn't stop, and I was sending him something, and I didn't get an answer within five minutes on a 10 minute piece, and I saw the email boss, oh, don't even bother listening to it,

I know it's terrible, you know, and I'm paraphrasing now, but you know. I laughed because I said, Ants, I'm in the plane, I didn't have even the time to listen to it. Because Ants, if you give him a compliment, he's, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you don't say, no, no, no, but it was a beauty. It was a stunning piece. It was very strong.

And I did, but I didn't have the time to listen to it. I think that will always be, I mean, obviously Dune was one of the hits of the year and in a fantastic cinematic moment. But I think that interview will always be one of the hits of the year and in a fantastic cinematic moment. But I think that interview will always be one of my favorite interviews, just because you got the sense that they were still talking to each other about what's happening next and about the music and about Hans Zimmer. You could argue the greatest cinema composer of this particular era feeling very insecure

that Niamh Filnouve hadn't replied with his latest suggestions for Dune Part 3. I thought that was really charming. Not only that he did it, but he fessed up that he did it. Also, I love the way that he talks about, you know, Denis Villeneuve just sidled up to him and went, you ever read Dune? Do you want to buy a watch? After the break, you're going to hear from Killian Murphy and Kate Blanchett.

Hey, it's Ben Bailey-Smith here, Substitute Taker, and this episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Now, a lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. If I had an extra hour slotted into my day I'd actually get through a question, smestheens, you know, I can never quite fit the extra shows in. We all live busy lives these days and everything seems to move at a hundred miles an hour so how do we know what to make room for? Like how do we know what's really important when our lives are happening so quickly?

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of a brand new reality show. These kids would have to build their own society from scratch. And if this sounds like Lord of the Flies to you, well, it was meant to. We were on this mission together. We were going to prove to the world that we could make a better society than adults could. I'm Josh Gwynn, and I want to know what this wild TV

experiment was really about. Split Screen, Kid Nation, a six- Quarter 2, Quarter 4, Quarter three, quarter two, quarter four, quarter five special. Another chance to hear some very special guests now, starting with Kate Blanchett, who joined me, in fact joined us, because we were both together. Thank you for remembering that. To talk about being on stage with Sparks. After Kate, you'll hear from good old Cillian Murphy. If I've got the history of this right, Kate, it's another one of the films which is, although it's not about COVID, obviously came about because of lockdown in as much as it gave

you a lot of time to talk to Warwick Thornton. We all had long conversations with people over laptops and so on. Did this emerge out of lockdown? Will you look back on this as something that happened because of it? Yes, I think so. I mean, you know, obviously it was an intense and difficult time for millions and millions of people and we don't wish it on ourselves again. But we are quite stupid as a species.

But it was a very fruitful creative time, I think, because we weren't concerned with outcomes so much. We were more interested in dialogue and process. I think we're seeing that brought to bear on the cinematic fare that's come out in the last 18 months. I think they're very particular films, very unique films that don't seem to be made from the same cookie cutter. And so the conversation with Warwick and I and my partner, Andrew Upton, began late night,

rambling conversations where we found points of connection, obviously coming from all being Australians, but yet having very different cultural experiences. But yet we were interested in the overlap. And one of those was the Catholic Church, which of course, I've always been. My father died when I was quite young and I turned to the Catholic church, even though I wasn't Catholic, for the ritual, for the symbol and the hope that the great hand of God would come down on my shoulder and he'd say, it's all right, he's playing golf, you'll see him in 70 years. And that didn't happen. And so I then flung myself into nature. And so there was so much overlapping that Warwick and I had. And then he quite with a lot of trepidation, I think, and it was a great act of trust said,

I've got this project, which I haven't looked at for 15 years. And I wrote it when I was quite angry. Would you and Andrew take a look? And we loved it. We felt it was incredibly angry. Would you and Andrew take a look? We loved it. We felt it was incredibly haunted. It was mysterious. It had a central protagonist who was silent. The landscape, which we all love so much, and I think that's why there's so many incredible Australian cinematographers, the light, the landscape in Australia is just so unique. It was a huge character in the film, so it felt like a no-brainer.

But yes, it absolutely came out of conversations and lockdown. And where did you find Aswin Reed, the new boy of the title, Kate? Because obviously it is one of those films that if you get the wrong kid, it's not going to work. Oh, look, talk about late night discussions with Warwick. Four months out, he was saying, sis, I was calling and said, if we don't find this boy, we don't have a movie, what are we going to do?

And we had an extraordinary casting director who also cast another film that we co-produced, which was called Shader. And so great the casting directors, their work has been recognized much more in the industry because it's such an important role. But he's a kiri-kara boy from the border of Western Australia and Northern Territory, so he was taken off country,

never been on a film set before. And within 24 hours of being on that film set, he knew what a Dolly Grip was, he knew how to hit his mark. I mean, he learned more in a week than I have learned in 30 years in the film industry. His facility was extraordinary and his curiosity, he's an incredible mover. But it was a massive responsibility to all of the boys. It always is when you work with children, but these boys in particular. And it was, I can't tell you, I found it so heartwarming the way they supported one another because the physical demands on Aswan were enormous. And to watch him rise to that occasion, and also he just has this incredible magnetic

presence. Warwick sent me, with great relief, a video of him dancing in the red dust of central Australia. And he said, we found him. If you're ready to go, Kylian, we're ready to go at this end. Let's do it. Okay. I know how much you love these interviews. I like talking to you guys.

Do you remember the last time you gave me the Spanish Inquisition? I do. I do. Because we were trying to find out whether you were in... The next Batman. The next Batman. And you said... I can't say anything. I can't say anything. And Simon said, are you in the Batman? You said, I can't say anything. I can't say anything. And he asked you a third time. And you said, look, I've signed a piece of paper. Which means you're in it.

Oh did I? You did. Wow what a pro. It was honestly it was it was like Frost Nixon all over again. Was there any stage in the filming process where you get a kind of a suspicion I mean obviously it's a Chris Nolan film so it's going to be great and the cast is extraordinary and the story is amazing do you get any sense of how great it's going to be great and the cast is extraordinary and the story is amazing. Do you get any sense of how great it's going to be at any stage? Oh gosh, no. I think that would be the kiss of death if you ever had thoughts like that

making a film. I know from having worked with Chris for 20 years now and being fortunate to work closely with him that he's a very, very special filmmaker. But this was a very unique project for him. And, you know, we knew it was a tough subject matter and it was an awful lot of story to wrangle into a three-hour movie. And it was a huge undertaking, kind of Herculean really, in terms of the actual production and trying to shoot it in 57 days. But no one ever anticipated this, you know, that it would connect the way. in terms of the actual production and trying to shoot it in 57 days. But no one ever anticipated that it would connect the way. On paper, a three-hour R-rated movie about a physicist doesn't have blockbuster written all over it.

But somehow it proved that formula wrong. You have said that it was one of the best screenplays you have ever read. So clearly when you got the pages you knew it was special at that point. Oh yeah, I really did. I'd never read a script written in the first person. That was my first experience of reading that. So it's very unique. For example, So for example, let's say I walked into the room and I spot straws, you know, I'd never experienced that. So I knew that it would be this subjective piece of storytelling and I knew that that put an awful lot of responsibility on my shoulders, which was wonderfully terrifying or terrifyingly wonderful.

Okay, maybe you're hinting at this thing,ylian. Can I ask you about how you become Oppenheimer? Because if I'm right, he was a frail man. He was a slight man. Can I ask you about the physicality of becoming Oppenheimer? Yes, he was very, very slim, almost kind of emaciated all his life. Just kind of naturally like that. I mean, he didn't eat either, so that didn't help. He existed on cigarettes and martinis and occasionally an olive, I suppose, here and there. But it was, that was the way he was.

He was very frail physically and, you know, this giant brain and this huge intellect. And that silhouette was quite iconic, you know, with the hat and those high waisted pleated trousers and that sort of tailoring. And then it also changes the way you walk, it changes the way you carry yourself, and it changes you in relation to other people. So that was important. That was one aspect of the prep for sure. Killian Murphy, which probably gives me another excuse to put on social media that fantastic picture of Killian from back in the day with his favourite uncles.

That's right. It is a photograph that was taken in the, well, just up the West end of London, wasn't it? It was outside, what's it called? Eggerton House? Wogan House. Wogan House. As it is now. We just got him into very big trouble because you had interviewed him about Inception and then you'd asked him about the Batman films and he said he couldn't tell you whether he was in one or not because he'd signed the piece of paper and you went, so you are.

And he was, oh! And then he agreed to pose for that photograph and he's got like a satchel. He literally looks like we're sending him off to school. Yeah, maybe we picked him up after school. Taking him out for a burger for a treat. Anyway, terrific chap and we talk to him anytime. After the break, a thousand apologies because it's the worst films of the year so far in quarter three.

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slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer. So welcome back. You know when you're clearing out the fridge and you find a long lost tin of something and before you rinse it out properly, you pop it in the recycling and you give it a crafty little sniff. That's what we're about to do. A crafty little sniff of some of the worst films so far in this particular quarter. Well it's been a funny old year. I didn't mention actually in my favorites, I should have also mentioned Your Fat Friend,

which is just brilliant. Genie Findley documentary and Godzilla Minus One, which we were talking about last week, which is a great thing that should also be in the also rands. But when it comes to the movies that are not so great, it's, I mean, I have to say, they were less terrible films than they were great films. There was lots of very good films. There was a few terrible films, but not awful. So in reverse order, at number five, Kung Fu Panda 4, why is it there? Oh no, I know why it's there. It's there to make money, that's all it's there for. Even Jack Black sounds fed up. At number four, not Godzilla minus one, but Godzilla

X Kong or Godzilla Kong, according to the American New Empire, because for a film that's got that many big monsters hitting each other, it really should be better. At number three, and some people might feel this should have been higher, the great superhero flop of the first part of the year, Madame Web, which really was very, very poor indeed, and then became almost a joke when the lead actor was on

Saturday Night Live. She said, oh, I'm here and you will have seen me in these films, but no one's seen Madame Webb, which the answer is quite a few people did and it was bad. However, it was pipped to the post by driveaway dolls because driveaway dolls should have been so much better. It's one thing Madame Webb being rubbish. It's one thing, Madame Webb being rubbish. It's one thing, Kung Fu Panda being rubbish. It's one thing, Godzilla X Kong new empire being rubbish. Drive away dolls has no right to be as bad as it is. It's absolutely head scraping the awful

and bad films are made worse when they should have been better. It is of course outflanked to the number one spot only by Ghostbusters Frozen Empire. Bill Murray! Bill Murray! Can we apologize? Actually that was awful. People would jump. They're doing their shopping and they don't expect a sudden surge in volume. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sure that our top production team can ride it out. It's nice to look at because the fact of the matter is that nowadays, animation, mainstream animation, it's extraordinary what you can do.

The problem is that I don't think anyone thinks that just nice to look at is kind of a reason to exist. New characters are okay. The old characters, they do feel tired. I mean, even Jack Black, and I think even in that clip, it sort of feels like Jack Black doing the old Jack Black schtick. And I love Jack Black.

You know, I mean, I love School of Rock, and I really like High Fidelity, and I do find him funny, but all the time I was watching it, I could just imagine him in the voice booth, just them going, yeah, Jack, just do the thing that you do. If the script was sharper or funnier,

and if the gags were better, maybe you wouldn't notice, but it does feel like a lot of it is just a bunch of people in recording booth just doing some shtick and then them animating around it. The other thing is, I may be misremembering this, I've never been a huge Kung Fu, Kung Fu fan, Kung Fu fan. That sounds like another film altogether. I do think that the early Kung Fu Panda films had some, there was something going on beneath

the surface. There was some sort of, you know, it's about more than just, you know, kicking butt and taking names. This really doesn't, I mean, you remember the Kung Fu TV series? Okay, when it was like, there was something going on, they'd always have a, you'd always say, just before he either broke a barn door down or knocked everybody out, he'd say, you know,

the tree that bends will this, but the tree doesn't. Yeah, it was sort of like an anti-imperialist message, I think. Was it anti-imperialist? I think so, wasn't it? Maybe I just imagined that. No, it was usually just anti-fighting before fighting. Well, I mean, you say fighting is wrong, but then, you know...

War is stupid and people are stupid and people who start wars are really stupid. So why do we have it? And the simple answer is it is completely monetary. I mean, the film opened in the US earlier this month, but the franchise passed the $2 billion mark. So it means it's up there with Shrek and Madagascar in terms of the DreamWorks properties. Although apparently, the China opening was rather soft. Even before the film opened, Katzenberg was talking about, oh yeah, there's going to be

another two. And the directors have talked about, yeah, it's a trilogy. Everything's a trilogy. Every single thing's a trilogy, every single thing's a trilogy. So the best thing about the film is at the end of it, there's a tenacious D cover of Hit Me Baby One More Time. Which is fun because Jack Black does that rock voice, but that plays over the end credits. So the best bit of the film is when it finishes.

It's fine, but it's very mechanical and it does just feel like a cash machine, you know, grind the handle this end and money will come out the other end. And apparently there are another two coming. So it's the Easter holidays. So yeah, you know, and I'm sure very, very undemanding viewers that just want stuff, you know, color and action. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Kung Fu

Panda 4. It's just not really, it's not inspiring, is it? Is it not? I haven't seen it, but you know. No, but just the Kung Fu Panda 4. If I've got a six-year-old, I might. Police Academy 6. Okay. I mean, obviously there comes a certain number beyond which you should not go ever for any reason. There is a plot, but it's preposterous tosh and it makes no sense and it doesn't even try to make sense. What it does is, in the way that we were saying before with Ghostbusters, when it was like

blah blah blah Bill Murray, blah blah blah Bill Murray, in this, it's stuff, stuff, stuff, rawr! Stuff, stuff, stuff, rawr! And that's all that happens. It's like, literally, big monsters appear, and they look up at the sky, and they roar, and every now and then a death ray comes out of their mouth. Entire cities get destroyed. Rio flattened in about five seconds. No one cares. No one cares. And you don't think, there must have been 400 people in that building that just got trodden. No, no. No one cares. And you don't think there must have been 400 people in that building that just got tried. No one cares at all. And the reason is because it has no weight. The whole thing looks like a video game. The visuals are shonky CG and then some, it's just endless swinging and bashing. And if you compare this to, and I know it's a crass comparison,

perhaps if you compare this to Godzilla minus one, right? Godzilla minus one, it's got weight, it's got heft, it's got beauty, it's got grace. This is literally, it's just like Super Mario does Godzilla. Dan Stevens has fun, Rebecca Hall keeps a straight face, Brian Terry Henry does the jokes. Apparently, there is a possible sequel on the way. But it's like, what else can you do? Which letter of the alphabet? If they've used V and X. Godzilla Z. Godzilla Z Kong. Okay, that'll work. Godzilla Z Kong. That does sound like a... Should we pay for that? Sounds like someone's elaborate name. Okay, Godzilla Z Kong. It's probably someone in the phone book. So she foresaw something, but can she change it? After an incident happens with a bird,

it turns out that she can possibly change the future as long as she acts fast enough. Meanwhile, Ezekiel, played by Taraheem, is haunted by visions of a group of women who are bringing about his demise. He knows this is happening in the future, but using high-tech wizardry, he gets pictures of their faces, takes them back to what they would look like now, because he knows what they look like in the future, but he knows what they look like now. They're just teenagers teenagers played by Sidney

Sweeney who was great in reality. So that's what O'Connor Izzbama said. They are going to become killers who will bring about his demise. So therefore he tracks them down using this high tech stuff at a point where all their paths cross. And you know, so origin story sounds like fun, because you know, interesting ideas to people in there that I like isn't fun at all. Apparently, it costs somewhere between 80 and 100 million dollars. That is 10 times as much as Godzilla minus one cost. And yet this looks like, if you showed the two films and said, which one of these cost

100 million, which one of these costs 10, you'd have it the other way around. Because to say that the visuals are shonky is to understate the level of, wow, is that really up there on the screen? That was considered to be possible at the point that it left the effects houses. The storytelling is on a par with Morbius. It's absolutely somewhere between pathetic and perfunctory. I mean, largely perfunctory, but just occasionally you just go, oh, absolutely not. There are some comic book movies which have got this kind of thing about they sort of self-referentially refer to themselves and, you know, kind of make

fun of the source or make jokes about the source. Nods and winks and all that kind of stuff. This just seems careless in the sense that it looks like nobody who made it could care less about what they were doing. And I'm sure that's not true. I'm absolutely certain that whilst they were making it, the people who were making it wanted to make something good. And I, you know, the email said what I want is a good rant. I mean, I'm afraid you're not going to get one because it's just disappointing to see

something that lands so lamely. I mean, there's one scene in it which Cassie's figured out her heritage, the thing back in Peru. So she goes to Peru, which apparently is the size of a postage stamp because she arrives in Peru and literally standing there is the person that she's looking for. Hello, I'm in Peru. That's reassuring.

I mean, more likely to find Paddington Bear. The action sequences are just a bunch of CG visuals, none of, I mean, some of which look, I mean, to say they were televisual, I mean, television now looks so fabulous. Many of them just kind of look very computer gaming. The dialogue is terrible. I mean, I'm not very smart.

But even I felt my intelligence was being insulted by some of it. And the whole thing is a setup for something which I'm pretty certain we're never going to see. So it's like a setup for something that we didn't need to, you know, we're not going to see the next one, so we didn't need to see it this time. And you just end up thinking, okay, well, it's the film which makes the joke. I mean, it's about clairvoyance, And if only Dakota Johnson had been clairvoyant enough to see how this was going to work out,

then perhaps you could have gone back in time and not made it. There's nothing worth ranting about it. It's just very, very poor. I mean, very, very shoddy and messy and foolish and uninteresting. And the worst thing about it is that you keep wanting it to get good. And you know, Dakota Johnson, you keep wanting it to be good and then it's just not. When they wrote it, they wrote it together as a way of spending time together and they described the project as deliberately, playfully trashy. I think a better word would be terrible. They've cited as influences

Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, Bad Girls Go to Hell, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Go Fish, But I'm a Cheerleader, and the works of John Waters as reference points. All of those films, incidentally, are films that were shown at the Scala and I would recommend that people see the Scala documentary. Scala! I would recommend that they do that rather than see this, because all of those movies are more interesting than this. This is the least fun I have had with a Coen-associated movie since Burn After Reading, a film with which this shares an inexplicable fascination with the comedic potential of

sex toys and artificial Mr. Happies. In fact, the film is dedicated to Cynthia Plastercaster, the specter of whom looms over the plot. I think- With Cynthia who? Cynthia Plastercaster. Look her up, I don't know. Somebody who used to take plaster casts of aroused famous persons. Mr. Happy, yeah. In fact, there is a very interesting story about

Cynthia plaster caster, but this is probably not the moment for it. So the key gag is, you know, odd couple road movie shtick. One of the women is kind of uptight and repressed. The other one is out there and verbose, and we're supposed to find the chalk and cheese relationship kooky and fun against this wacky backdrop of severed heads and labyrinthine plot twists and exploitation style sex parties and orgies. In fact, it's just great because it's trying so hard to be smart and funny and wacky and crazy and it just reminded me of those kind of... It's closer to the Tarantino grindhouse project stuff than it is to the sharp satire of the

Coens. The dialogue is meant to be smart. At times it reminded me of the dialogue for the counselor in which you could almost hear the clatter of the typewriter writing the dialogue that was then going to be just simply read off a page. The pacing is meant to be wild and reckless. It is in fact uneven and bumpy like the car. The whole thing might be fun late night to a stoner audience, to the same kind of people who enjoy the Cheech and Chong films, but sober and tired a few hours after having stayed

up to watch the Oscars and then done our fantastic Oscar Shmoska broadcast, it was a chore. It's 83 minutes long and I felt every single one of those 83 minutes. And the fact that it is absolutely jam-packed with famous persons, Minnie Feldstein, Colin Domingo, Matt Damon in the final act just adds to the general sense of a smug vanity project that exists because hey, the people that made it wanted to make a wild and crazy time. And it's perfect example of the more fun you had making a film, the less fun anyone had watching it.

And on that basis, they must have had an absolute ball making this. And that is drive aways. It is. So I'm thinking, I've watched the trailer and I'm thinking I'm going to go in with an open heart. It's fine. Go ahead. You get the new lot, then you get your old faves, you know, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson. So, like a bunch of old characters from the old films, and a bunch of new characters from the old films. And so, the Spenglers, they're back in the firehouse, they're busy busting ghosts, and Kamana Jani's character sells Dan Aykroyd an orb, which he got from his grandmother's house, which turns out to be a psychic key or maybe a prison and unleashes

havoc which the Ghostbusters are going to have to stop. Every ghost they ever caught is going to be unleashed and everyone's going to die. And then Walter Peck is back trying to stop them, trying to shut down the firehouse, you know, like all those years ago. And then Phoebe is being told that she's too young to be ghostbusting and then she sort of becomes involved with a departed soul with whom she has a connection. Is this the whole plot? That's a really interesting question. Is this the whole plot? That tagline is about, you

know, everything's going to be unleashed and you know, blah, blah, blah. Is this the whole plot? Here's how the plot works. It's literally like they just took everything and just went just throw it at the wall and see if any of it sticks at all. I mean you know that thing about victims, well what you mean they were scared to death? I mean bored to death certainly. You've got some stuff, you've got some monsters, you've got some famous characters that you loved years ago, you've got some actors more recently you loved in other projects, and Bill Murray. And the way it works is, it's just like, we saw all this stuff, there's all this stuff, there's a monster bit there, and then there's a thing, then there's a joke, then there's a little bit about, oh, you know, young relationships and difficulties, and then there's another bit,

supernatural chase through city, ghostbuster vehicle in pursuit, huge damage. Bill Murray! Attempts to shut down a container, awakening of some ancient force, something else, there's a sight of a new monster. Bill Murray! Oh, there's a live person, but they can be dead for two minutes, and they can come back so they can be a ghost, and then there's that guy that we liked before in the bi- Bill Murray! Every time Bill Murray turns up, it's just like Bill Murray doesn't do anything, isn't funny, doesn't in any way do anything of any consequence. But it's just like they're going splat splat splat splat. You remember what we were saying about quiet quiet none, right? This is like boring boring boring. Bill Murray. And halfway through, I just thought if you to call the writing perfunctorily mechanical would

be to insult many perfunctorily mechanical things like U-bends in sinks that are quite useful. We're not going to tell you where you can see those films because that would be unnecessarily cruel and there are better things to see. That's it for this week. Thank you very much indeed. We'll be back next week post-wedding and full of joy and vim and vigour and Mark will be tip-top and healthy and well and not.

But haven't I done well? Yes, Mark, you've done very well. Thank you.