Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Ti West, Maxxxine, Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi & Kill

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

This week’s guest is director Ti West, who is on the show to tell Mark all about ‘Maxxxine’, the hotly-anticipated third instalment of his cult horror trilogy made in collaboration with its star... Mia Goth, which sees the action taken to the adult film scene in seedy 1980s Hollywood. With Mark and Ti geeking out over all things horror, the chat is just too good to cut it down, so head to Take 2 for more! Mark also gives his thoughts on the film, as well as reviewing ‘Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi’, a feature-length extrapolation of the popular manga and anime set in a football training academy, which explores the origin story of football prodigy Seishiro Nagi. The big review of the week is ‘Kill’, an Indian action-thriller, which sees a pair of commandos face an army of invading bandits on a train trip to New Delhi. Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): 07:50 – Blue Lock The Movie – Episode Nagi Review 14:06 - Box Office Top Ten 28:29 – Ti West interview 40:21 - Kinds of Kindness Review 50:39 - Kill Review You can contact the show by emailing correspondence@kermodeandmayo.com 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: podcastadsales@sonymusic.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Look for new value programs when you shop at Loblaws, like Hit of the Month. So you get the best deals and low prices on amazing products every month. And did you know? PC Optima members save more. For exclusive offers and members-only pricing, just scan and save. And don't forget in-stock promise, where you can count on great offers being in-stock or get a rain check. Discover more value than ever at Loblaws, in-store and online. Conditions apply. See in-store for details. Well, here's the thing, because this show then will land on Thursday, so some people will be listening to this on election day. And a lot of people will be listening to it when they know everything. And so they know a whole lot more than we do. So, but let's assume.
Starting point is 00:00:57 Yes. Oh, I just want to give you an update, by the way, for a general election in these parts, because I'm sitting at the spare room window and I can see my street. And at the moment, it's completely empty, which is exactly correct, because that is the way the election has been in the street. We have had one pamphlet from the incumbent MP, one pamphlet from an organisation in favour of world socialism, who were advocating that I spoil my ballot paper by scrolling world socialism now. Yes, very good.
Starting point is 00:01:30 And nothing else. Literally nothing else. Nothing from any other party at all. There are no posters. There are no signs. It's like the whole thing isn't happening outside of these streets, which is really weird. That's the update from Lake Wobegon. That spoiling your ballot paper as a vote for world socialism is a technique, as I've said before, that dates back to, in my memory, the 1980s, in which the RCP, the Revolutionary Communist Party, who were the Revolutionary Communist tendency, but then had a tendency to become a party, said that rather than standing a candidate, which was too expensive, they were just going to take any spoiled ballots or indeed no votes as a vote for them, which meant that in their
Starting point is 00:02:11 own heads, and this is so brilliant, in their own heads, they won by a landslide. Fantastic. The spoiling ballot thing, which is a constructive thing to do, at least you're turning out and doing something. There is a story and obviously the redactor will want to put some birdsong in here, I imagine. The Liberal Democrats often tell the story of somebody who went to the polling station, took the ballot paper, and against every single name wrote, apart from the Liberal Democrat candidate. And it was agreed that that was a vote for them because it was a vague statement of preference. So you know,
Starting point is 00:02:52 I know somebody who during that RCP thing in Manchester apparently spoiled their ballot paper by writing stuff, the RCP. Anyway, it's far more constructive to put an X and let's hear it for the stubby pencil and the fact that Putin can't do anything about the way you vote, which is a very, very good thing. Toby That gives you great pleasure, doesn't it? The fact that it is an un-interferable system. There is a piece of paper, there is you in a box and there is a pencil, which brilliantly is usually attached to the box by a piece
Starting point is 00:03:21 of string. Mason That is true. And if you want to use a pen, you can use a pen. So it's just that they provide the pencil. So there you go. On the show today, what do we have lined up ready to go? We've got an international show. We've got Blue Lock, the movie, episode Nuggy. And I know that you are completely up on this football
Starting point is 00:03:39 obsessed manga, aren't you, Simon? I'm looking forward to finding out more about it. We also have Kill, which is a film which absolutely does what it says on the tin, and Maxine with our very, very special guest. Oh, I'll do it because I did the interview. Sorry, usually you would do that. No, no, no. I'm still...
Starting point is 00:03:57 Well, you've done the interview, so I should at least mention the fact that our guest this week is interviewed by Mark and it's Max... How do you pronounce XXX? I Mark and it's Maxine, how do you pronounce triple X? I think you just say Maxine, but it is Maxine. Maxine Tywest. So a horror-tastic, nerdy interview coming up. Plus for premium and Vanguard easters, what are we offering? Again, still doing our world trip, we have The Nature of Love, which is a Quebecois, French Canadian movie and a reissue, a 50th reissue of the conversation
Starting point is 00:04:26 Francis Ford Coppola's classic from the early 1970s. Mason- Also our recommendation feature, The Weekend Watch, is a TV movie of the week. Best and worst movies over the next three days. I think there's some Thai West in our part two as well in our special premium edition. And one frame back, which this week is films about the adult film industry. You get ad-free episodes of Ben Baby Smith and the Mones Shrink the Box, Larry David, Tommy Shelby, Chandler Bing. All those episodes are there. More in-depth character analysis dropping every week. Plus, we answer your film and non-film related queries and indeed quandaries in questions,
Starting point is 00:05:00 shmestchens. You can get all that via Apple Podcasts or head to ExtraTakes.com for non-fruit related devices. If you are already a Vanguard Easter, as always, we salute you. Lipsyncing, it's the future. Oh yeah, correspondence at coandamer.com. Tom in London says, Dear, here's a clip and our guest today are, you may recall I wrote to you last year about Simon and Mark both having reached peak popularity in the mid 1970s and also as baby names. Haha. Well, there's been an update and not a reassuring one. When we last spoke, I said that there were 207 Marks born in England and Wales in 2021 and 107 Simons. Well, the data for 2022 is out. 193 marks and just 88 Simons.
Starting point is 00:05:49 A lot has declined in Britain recently, but not at these rates. Marks are down 6.8%. Simons have plunged nearly 18% in a single year. At this rate of decline, the last measurable entire Simon will be born somewhere in England and Wales in 2044. It's just 20 years away. According to the best data I could find, a Simon born in 2044 is expected to be 82.1 years old. I think I can say this with absolute certainty that based on science, Simons will become extinct in England and Wales in the year 2126, 102 years from now. Still, you had a good innings. Marks fare slightly better,
Starting point is 00:06:32 with the last one being born in 2098, by which time we'll probably all be riding worms around space deserts. I saw a documentary about it. Those last few Marks will live forever, ready to repopulate a whole planet of marks somewhere else in the universe at a future date. And then he says, tinkity-tongue and down with Nigel's, not a single one born in 2022. That's an interesting payoff. I kind of think that if your name is in the Bible, you'll be fine. You'll live forever, unless you're Balthazar or Jezebel or Boaz or Beelzebub or something like that. But I think we're timeless. We might be unfashionable, but there's
Starting point is 00:07:10 a timeless quality to us. Mason- Do you think there is anyone who's actually been named either Balthazar or Beelzebub recently? Mason- No, though. I do have a friend who, whilst talking to the local registrar person to register the name of their newly born baby, she said, have you ever said no to a baby's name? And he said, yes, one was for and the other was Satan. So quite why anyone would want to. It's a pop trivia question. Which 1970s pop hit introduced me, and I'm shocked by this,
Starting point is 00:07:44 introduced me to the word Beelzebub. It's really, really obvious. It was number one for like 10 weeks and it's six minutes long and it was the first time I ever heard the word Beelzebub. And I said to my friend in school, what's that word? And he said, Oh, I've seen it written down Beezelbub. It means the devil. Mamma Mia, let me go. Exactly. And so on.
Starting point is 00:08:04 So I have Queen to thank for that. They also introduced me to the paintings of Richard Dad, but I'd never heard Beelzebub until my friend said, yes, Beezlebub. I sense agitation on behalf of the production team wishing us to get on with a movie. That seems to be your moment. Well, Blue Lock the movie episode Nagi, which is something about which I knew very little in advance. So apparently, Simon, there is a football game going on at the moment and I hear that England had been playing
Starting point is 00:08:31 apparently boringly, but now apparently not boringly. Is that correct? There's a tournament. Didn't we suddenly do some amazing overhead shot in the last minute of something or other? Yes. England are blessed with a player called Jude Bellingham who is probably the best player in the world. Therefore, we can pull it out at the last minute sometimes. But by the time you hear this podcast, maybe it will all have fallen apart. So, football is a lot of things, but I have never really understood the excitement of it. It was originally a manga by Minoyuki Kaneshiro called Blue Lock, which was serialized in the
Starting point is 00:09:12 Weekly Shonen Magazine since 2018, spawned an anime series in 2022. One of the best-selling manga series of all time. The Japan national team finished 16th in the 2018 World Cup. The football union hires this guy called Ego, whose plan is to discover a brilliant striker through the Blue Lock training program. Now, this is the quote, the craziest and most intense soccer anime is finally becoming a movie. Finally. We meet Nagi from the title at school. All he wants to do is play video games, zone out.
Starting point is 00:09:49 He doesn't want to exert any effort. He doesn't want any hassle. He bumps into a rich kid, Rio, who knocks his phone out of his hands and he's then amazed when he catches it on his toe. He says to him, look, you're a natural born soccer player, so I don't want to play soccer. It's like it's hassle. But he says, look, come with me. They start playing and it turns out they're a genius pair. They are recruited for the Blue Lock Academy where coach Ego is looking for that magical ingredient. They've got 300
Starting point is 00:10:14 candidates and it's basically what it's described as extreme survival of the egoist. It's a kind of squid games type series of challenges in which the players must test their mettle in a series of matches and it becomes like niche and existential warfare. So it's directed by Shunsuki Ishikawa and essentially it is a series of absolutely mind-bending set pieces in which what the characters are actually doing is playing football, but what's happening on the screen is, the screen is freezing. And you remember that bit in the Sherlock Holmes movies, when Sherlock Holmes imagines in his head all the incredible moves that he can do in a fight. Because there was one line in one of the Sherlock Holmes movies that said he was quite good
Starting point is 00:10:57 at fighting and then Guy Ritchie turned this into a thing. So you'd see a whole sequence in which Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Jr. would imagine the fight that he was about to have. Remember that? It's all flooding back slowly. I'll take that as a note. A slow flood. So, in the case of this, there are these internal monologues going on as these characters are
Starting point is 00:11:19 playing football. And it's like watching an animated football match that has been put together on a cocktail of speed and mushrooms and then being smashed about the head by the original manga. It is intense, breathless stuff about the birth of the ego and the death of the id and the way in which somebody must overcome this. It's all in the space of somebody passing a football from one area to another. People don't score goals in this film so much as tear a hole in the space-time continuum. The ball will take five minutes to go from their foot to the back of the net, during
Starting point is 00:11:57 which there's this whole guys, it's like this universe bending, existential weird stuff. Now I'm sitting there watching this and okay, fine, if you're familiar with the series, you'll know what it is. I hadn't seen the series before. I read a little bit beforehand just to get up to speed. My head was completely scrambled. All the more so by the fact that it's a film and yet about two thirds of the way through it stops.
Starting point is 00:12:20 There are all the credits which go on for about four minutes. Then it starts again, then it stops. then there's a bonus episode and it starts again and then it stops. And I only knew it had finished because the lights went up and the curtains came across the screen because I had no idea. So is it cinema? It sounds very tiresome. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:12:40 I don't quite know what it is. I mean, it's incredibly popular and it will, you know, people, there is a desire for people to go and see it. I'm not entirely sure why it's in the cinema because to me it seems like it's an anime series but just done bigger and louder on a big screen. That said, I was never bored. I was quite often baffled. Some of the animation is really, it's like a series of still images with movement between
Starting point is 00:13:03 them. I know before we were saying, you know, animation is just a series of still images arranged to create the illusion of movement. This is a series of moving images arranged to create the illusion of stillness. It's absolutely not for me. I was never bored. There was stuff in it that was really kind of like, wow, you know, that's very impactful, to use a word that no one's meant to use. I don't know what, I mean, I saw Demon Slayer and that made much more sense as a movie. I could understand why the Demon Slayer movie was in cinemas. It's like, okay, fine, this is a cinematic experience. This felt to me like something that happened to be in the cinema. But I kind of enjoyed it in a
Starting point is 00:13:42 weird, what on earth was that about way? And I would love to hear from somebody who is a fan of the Manga Ranavi anime, tell me whether there is a substantial difference with it being moved into the cinema. Because quite a lot of it, I sat fairly slack jawed going, what is going on? Mason- Okay. So if you can give us a primer on this, correspondence at kerbidamer.com and we'll use the best ones on next week's program. Coming up in just a moment, we'll do the Bogg's Office Top 10 and what are you going to do? We have a review of a very, very stabby, punchy Indian film called Kill and we have Maxine,
Starting point is 00:14:18 the American film with our special guest. Who's your guest? Well, he's our guest, but you're talking to Ty West on the way. Well, now this episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI is the place to discover ambitious films by visionary filmmakers, all carefully handpicked by real people who really know movies. Mark, what's coming up
Starting point is 00:14:45 in July on Mubi? Well, Mubi have a new series dedicated to one of our favourite actors, Lea Sardou. It's streaming on Mubi UK from July the 12th. You can dive into some great performances by her. They've got Crimes of the Future, The Feature from David Cronenberg from 2022. That's streaming on Mubi UK from July the 12th. The Beast, the Bertram Bonello film in which she co-stars with gorgeous George Mackay, which as you know, I absolutely loved, came out of reeling. That's streaming on Mubi UK from July 19th. Will Barron Any other favorites in there of ours? Will Barron
Starting point is 00:15:15 Yes, there's Horde by Luna Carmoon, who when we reviewed this when it came out, I said, I think she is a brilliant new screen talent with great performances, really worth seeing. Two of our films of the week there. You can try Mubi free for 30 days at mubi.com slash KermodeMeo at m-u-b-i dot com slash KermodeMeo for a whole month of great cinema for free. What do we have here? Oh, it's an advertisement from Better Help Therapy. That's because KermodeMeo's take where I sometimes step into Mark's patent leather wingtip shoes, it's brought to you by BetterHelp. You know I'm no stranger to stress and anxiety and for me sometimes it can be overwhelming and in those moments I can't tell you how important it is to have someone to talk to, someone you can share with you know. Therapy is such a safe space in terms of getting things
Starting point is 00:16:04 off your chest. And then to figure out how to work through whatever's weighing you down. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, it works with your schedule, so you can get access to BetterHelp when you need it most. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a registered therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. There's over a thousand therapists in the UK already. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com
Starting point is 00:16:30 slash curmode. That's better, h-e-l-p dot com slash curmode. So now we have our box office top 10 brought to you by our friends at Comscore. Are they friends though, Simon? Are they friends or are they robot overlords? Well, they might be both. You never know which of your friends is actually a robot overlord anyway. Are you a bot? Well, I'm not. All I can say is when I sign into YouTube, I'm simon5333XLPT01 and that's the giveaway. I'm slightly disturbed that the Boggs Office Top 10 actually starts at 10. Yes, I know.
Starting point is 00:17:12 I don't think it's ever done before. So rather disconcertingly at number 10, it's If, but not that one, it's a new one. So this is, I think this is the final moment of it in the top 10. As we've said, it's fine. I think it could have been better, but it's fine and it's done very well. The Garfield movie is at number nine. Just shocking. How did it do as well as it did? Well, it was half term. Number eight, Horizon, an American saga. Simon Briggs in Amsterdam, grade 7 clarinet. Yes. Dear Argel Fagel and Dragon, I've not seen Horizon colon and American Saga Chapter 1, but saw this screenshot of someone trying to book tickets. The only occupied seats are seven solo seats in an otherwise very empty 165 seat cinema. Right.
Starting point is 00:18:00 I feel this may tell us a lot about the film. Not only is it unpopular, it's very unpopular with couples. No one is willing to see it with a friend in case the friend judges them for seeing such a bad film. Keep up the fantastic production, presenting and contributions all." And then Simon signs off by saying, take a detour and down with octogenarians being in charge of the world. and down with octogenarians being in charge of the world. So before you talk about Horizon and American Saga, can I just mention in passing old people? Mel Brooks, 98. David Attenborough, at Wimbledon this week, 98. Jimmy Carter, 99. So you can be incredibly old and still completely charged. Yeah. Well, we should remember that Mel Brooks recorded what I think was actually the best original song in a movie last year. He wrote and recorded, There Was Nothing Like the Coffee at the Automat. For that film which came out last year, that means if he's, do you say
Starting point is 00:19:03 he's 98 now? He would have been probably when they made the film 96. That is one of the best movie songs I have ever heard, written and sung by Mel Brooks. By the way, if you look up, Simon Briggs says Grade 7 clarinet. David Attenborough, I'm just mentioning these, his full titles. David Attenborough, O. GCMG, CH, CBO, CBE, FRS, FSA, FRSA, FLS, FZS, FR, SGS, and FRSB. More acronyms than we have on this program and they're all attached to the fantastic David Attenborough. FFS, WTF. Wow.
Starting point is 00:19:44 Exactly. Anyway, Horizons at number eight. I mean, I think I'm disappointed by Horizon because I wanted it to be better than it was. I think that there is something preposterously presumptuous about making a film that's three hours long in which the story really doesn't start. You have three separate strands. I mean, I admire the idea of doing a great sweeping epic western, but I just think that for after three hours, you really need to do more than just set up the remaining movies. They talked about there being three or four in the series and there are some wonderful things on the screen, but I can't see them getting beyond the second one, theatrically to be honest. I think
Starting point is 00:20:23 that by the time we get to the third one, if there is a third one, it will be straight to streaming. Mason- It's number three in the States anyway, number eight here. Number seven, Jatt and Juliet 3. Carly- Yeah, so not press green, but Indian Punjabi language romantic comedy, which is as it says here, and you'd never guess this, it's the sequel to Jatt and Juliet and Jatt and Juliet 2. Mason- Number six, number nine in America is Kinds of Kindness.
Starting point is 00:20:46 Well, I kind of feel like I ought to hand this review over to you, Simon, and say, give me the full, because you and I feel very differently about this. I think it's a, I really enjoyed it. I think I compared the humor to Bo is Afraid, which I know you really didn't enjoy either. And I think in order for the order for the program to have balance, I should say that I thought it was terrific. I thought it was really kind of head scrambling. As I said, when I interviewed Robbie Ryan, the cinematographer, I started off by saying, what on earth was all that about? But I found that dyspeptic humor, because it's from the same guy
Starting point is 00:21:20 with whom Yorgos Lanthimos wrote things like Dog Tooth. I thought it was great. You found it fairly intolerable. Yeah. Well, it's like if you really hate heavy rock music, I wouldn't send you to Wembley tonight to review ACDC. Yes. Although you might be able to go, okay, I can appreciate that there's talent there. So I don't like Kafkaesque absurd movies. That's just not what I like. So therefore I found it a challenge to get through, but I can still appreciate that Jesse Plemons et al. put in amazing performances.
Starting point is 00:21:58 I would rather lie in the middle of the road than watch again. But, you know, it's just not for me. Is that going on the poster? I'd rather lie in the middle of the road than watch it again. And on the other side, you know, at number five is the bike riders. So, you know, that's outselling kinds of kindness. Yeah. I mean, I like the bike riders and it's done much better than I thought because as you know, when I reviewed it, I compared it to Catherine Bigelow's The Loveless and I thought that it would struggle at the box office, but you know, have a sort of ongoing
Starting point is 00:22:32 cult life. But yeah, no, it's, I think it's really good and really stylish. And if it makes one other person go and see The Loveless, then that's a good thing. You're a fan of bike riders too. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was, I thought it was great. And so much to admire. Again, it's probably not the movie you think it is if you just base your views on the poster, but fantastic performances from all the three, the lead three actors. Bad Boys Ride or Die is at number four here and in the States? hugely successful financially. I don't understand the ongoing desire to have more bad boys movies, but if they keep making this kind of money, that's what we're going to get. Number three here, five in the States, Calkey at 2898 AD. You're going to say not press
Starting point is 00:23:19 screened I think. Yeah, not press screened. So this is Indian Tlugan language epic science fiction film. I'm going to go and see this over the weekend and I will give you a report next week. Jason- Ross has seen it already. So he says, Kalki, 2,898 AD is the first movie in a proposed cinematic universe set in a dystopian future earth with strong ties to Hindu mythology. And although it runs a solid three hours, its breezy nature and impressive attempts at world building mean it didn't feel its length. Being the most expensive film to ever come out of India, this movie had some huge expectations to overcome,
Starting point is 00:23:56 and it mostly succeeds. Visually, it's very appealing, sitting halfway between Mad Max and Star Wars, and the plot is vaguely similar to Children of Men, but is quite tonally inconsistent, choosing seemingly random moments to switch between intense violent scenes and wacky high jinks, which can get quite jarring. It also reminded me quite heavily of Elysium, Neil Blomkamp's follow-up to District 9, but while neither of these films are exactly subtle in their messaging, I prefer Kalki as its mythological elements are more interesting than the scattershot approach to social reform that Neil uses in Elysium.
Starting point is 00:24:31 Still, I would recommend it wholeheartedly as it offers a look at what the Tolugu speaking film industry would do if told to make a Dune-style science fiction epic. What they've made is a whole lot of fun. Tolugu, if you're wondering, is the language native to southern India and spoken by 96 million people. Mason- Fantastic. Well, that's good because that has set me up for it. I'm going to see it on Saturday. Excellent. Jason- Number two is A Quiet Place, day one. A couple of emails on this. Dear Akko and Paul Koj, this is Joe in Wiltshire. I completely agree
Starting point is 00:25:03 with Mark when he said he wasn't scared like he had been for parts one and two, but disagree where he said it might be a problem and that the gimmick has run its course. While it cannot give audiences the same heart-in-mouth feeling of fear the first film did, the second and third instalments have each contributed to the lure of this world, each building on part one. I'd argue this spin-off is just as stressful, just as tense, just as nail-biting. There was a genuinely unique story presented here by Michael Sarnowski. I'm struggling to think of any other disaster slash apocalyptic film where a protagonist is in the same health predicament as Sam. How that alters her perception of the invasion and how we respond to her as a character.
Starting point is 00:25:46 At no point did I think going into this film it would scare me. Instead, I went in wondering how a new set of characters were going to cope with a new environment. Then Fiakra says, I imagine a lot of potential viewers see this as a film perfectly suited to home viewing, but this would be a mistake. Not because it needs to be seen on a big screen. It doesn't. But because of the surreal and unique experience of sitting in a deathly quiet auditorium for a hundred minutes. And I mean that in a good way, not in a Predator 2018 way. You could feel the tension. Heavy, hear every shift of bum in seat, sniffle of tear, sharp intake of breath. At one point a viewer knocked over a metal water bottle. The sudden silent shift
Starting point is 00:26:31 as everyone around them tensed and then the silent relief as everyone relaxed again was with a humour laden exhalation. But not one word was uttered before the credits rolled." So anyway, that's a thumbs up for Quiet Place day one, number two. You know, it's great to hear people having those responses to it. It's also great to hear that it is indeed quiet in the audiences down everywhere because the same thing happened in the screening that I was in. And in the quiet moments, it is very quiet, which is also funny because the trailer is the loudest trailer I've seen in a very long time. There's an interesting thing here, which was, if anyone noticed, last week, this show usually
Starting point is 00:27:05 drops at midday on a Thursday. Last week it dropped at two o'clock. One of the reasons was because the embargo on the review for Quiet Place Day One was nine o'clock Eastern Standard Time on Thursday. That was pretty much the time that you were able to go and pay to see a preview of the film, particularly in America. They had held it back to the last possible moment. And usually when that happens, it means that the film company don't have a ton of faith in the film. I mean, unless it's a James Bond thing and they're doing it in the very last moment because they know
Starting point is 00:27:33 it's going to be the biggest thing ever. Anyway, I think we were all pleasantly surprised by the fact that the film did still work. I think it works because of Lupita Nyong'o, who I think is terrific. I don't know that there's another of these in the franchise that would hold up, but I think this does what it does. It's not scary. I think that is a weakness because I think that A Quiet Place movies actually should be scary, but it is very tense and it's got a great performance by Lupita Nyong'o and it does indeed make the audience go quiet. Mason- And as we mentioned for the very first movie, and we've mentioned a few times since,
Starting point is 00:28:09 to be in my local flea pit and for that to be completely silent. Because I was really, really concerned that it was going to be a riot with people eating Mexican food. Mason- Did even the drug dealers go quiet? Mason- It was incredible. It was complete silence throughout that whole opening sequence. And I thought, okay, fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, so Quiet Place is at number two. Inside Out 2 is at number one.
Starting point is 00:28:34 And we've had a ton of emails from people telling us the profound experiences that they've had with Inside Out 2 and both parents and parents and their children and children and their parents equally. So it has managed to pull off a remarkable trick, which is to take the more complicated part of growing up adolescence and talk about that in a way that clearly speaks directly to the audience. My concern was that this time there were perhaps too many characters and it was too confusing. Evidently not. I mean, the audience response speaks for itself. Now, it's the ads in a minute, Mark, but I'm delighted to say that it's time to step once again with confidence and certainly a jaunty demeanour into our laughter list.
Starting point is 00:29:20 Hey, Mark, the Good Lady ceramicist here indoors is diversifying into a different craft. It's very exciting. We may have to call her the good lady origamiist for her indoors also. Although things didn't get off to a great start, she came downstairs with an armful of her new creations and missed the bottom step completely. I just sat there and watched it all unfold. I'm not sure if you've heard about my very specific style of shoplifting for the purposes of this joke, Mark. But the good lady origamiist, her indoors, said she'd leave me if I stole another kitchen utensil from John Lewis.
Starting point is 00:30:00 It was a whisk I was willing to take. I'm quite sure why it's John Lewis, but still I suppose they do sell whisk. Because we think they won't sue, that's why. Unfortunately, I got arrested, charged and hauled up in front of the beak for my crimes. She said she was going to email me the details of my punishment. Unbeknownst to her, I'd stolen all the punctuation marks off her court laptop. So I'm expecting a long sentence. That was a long time coming that joke wasn't it?
Starting point is 00:30:28 It was. It was. But I thought the others were pretty good actually. That joke was definitely one of those jokes that is arriving at the station, but it pulls into a siding for a while and just does a little bit of maintenance before finally arriving on platform one. Watching it all unfold I thought was very good. Any other still to come Mark? Well, we've got reviews of the Indian thriller Kill and Maxine with that. And I'll do it with our special guest who I interviewed, Ty West on the way. Peyton, it's happening.
Starting point is 00:31:02 We're finally being recognized for being very online. It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo. All time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions, if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second, then join me, Hunter Harris, and me, Peyton Dix, the host
Starting point is 00:31:20 of Wondry's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the b-sides, don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise.
Starting point is 00:31:46 Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad free by joining Wondry Plus and the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. Wish you were a better investor? Then stop wishing and start listening. With Dynamic Funds On The Money podcast series, you'll get timely insights to help you become a savvier investor. From retirement planning and investing to the latest market trends, the On The Money with Dynamic Funds podcast series covers it all. Get On The Money. Search On The Money with Dynamic Funds and follow today. Welcome back, unless you're a Vanguard Easter, in which case you've been away. This week's guest is director Ty West.
Starting point is 00:32:41 His new film Maxine with three Xs is the third installment in his series starring Mia Goth after Pearl and X and is released on July 5th. We'll hear from Mark's chat with Ty after a clip from Maxine. Maxine. Your agent tells us you're quite a popular name in adult film and entertainment, is that correct? Yes ma'am. I'm curious, did you always want to be in that line of work? I always wanted to be famous. So if you don't mind me asking, why come here and do this?
Starting point is 00:33:22 Well, I've always had a larger vision for myself. Realistically, porn can only take me so far. I'm going to be 33 years old pretty soon and in hardcore women, it's like bread, not wine. I'm not where I want to be yet. I want the good life. Ty West, welcome to the program. So we met this character first in X. We had the prequel in Pearl.
Starting point is 00:33:47 Introduce me to the world that we're in in Maxine. Well, this is an evolution of the character because we find her in Hollywood, which is sort of where she hoped to always be from the beginning. But now that she's actually there, it's not all it was cracked up to be. And she's kind of hit the ceiling of how far she thinks she can go in one genre of filmmaking and she's trying to transition into another. And that's kind of when we catch up to her. There's a great sense of the feeling of the time. As somebody who started watching movies in the seventies and absolutely loved watching movies in the 1980s, I'm seeing a lot of sort of nods to
Starting point is 00:34:24 films that I love. There's a bit of cruising in there. There's some of Dario Argento's gloves. There's a kind of glow to it. Tell me about getting the feel of that period right. Yeah, that was a big part of, you know, all three movies was to kind of, one of the connective tissues throughout the trilogy was how cinema of the time is affecting the characters. And so to set it in the 80s, it was no different in the sense that I was trying to represent, recreate an era and represent an authenticity to that. But I was also trying to represent, you know, kind of what media and what films of the time felt like. And so as horror movies are concerned, because it was a sort of
Starting point is 00:35:00 a whodunit kind of noirish story, having elements of jallow and this sort of neo-noir feel. I just love all that stuff. It was a way to not repeat ourselves and to tell a different kind of story within the same franchise, as if people like to call it. It feels like in each of the three movies, you've kind of stretched the envelope a little bit further, and particularly in terms of the development of the central character. Did you feel like each time it was, let's push it a little bit further and expand the
Starting point is 00:35:31 world? I certainly felt it on this one. The first two were contained stories, and we made them back to back. Aesthetically, with Pearl, I knew we were taking a pretty big swing, but going in a sort of Technicolor style direction. And I wanted to try to match that in the third movie. And one way to do that was with the scope of the movie, is to leave the farm from the first two films and leave it like way behind and go into a big
Starting point is 00:35:55 metropolitan area. So it was very ambitious to do that, but that was certainly on purpose. Will Barron Do you have an audience in mind? I mean, I used to write for Fangoria magazine, and there's a moment in the film in which we see a front cover of Fangoria. So, okay, the horror crowd are obviously on board, but do you have a wider audience in mind? Yeah. With this movie, there's a lot of people out there that say, oh, I don't watch horror movies, and they have the stigma against it. And then if you say to them, well, what about The Exorcist, or what about The Shining, what about Rosemary's Baby? They say, no, no, no, not those. Those ones are fine. But you know, horror movies and Joe, and then you start to list
Starting point is 00:36:26 more movies and you realize people like more horror movies than they think that they do. They've just seen a couple that they didn't think were good or were too violent or too whatever, and then they've kind of put it all in a box, which is really on brand for what this story that I'm telling in the third movie is about. But, you know, I think a lot of times people think
Starting point is 00:36:43 that they won't like a movie and if they give it a chance, they will. And with this trilogy, each movie is very different. So if X is a little too much for you, maybe Pearl isn't. And if Pearl is too weird for you, maybe Maxine isn't. And that's kind of the fun of it. But I don't think you need to be a horror fan. You'll know when to close your eyes if you're going to be afraid of violence.
Starting point is 00:37:04 You see it coming, you know? And so I think that if you're just a fan of movies in general, this trilogy is very cinema focused and I think there's a lot to be had there that's not just the scariness for lack of a better term. There's a scene in it in which a central character has to have a face mold made in order so that prosthetic can be built. Obviously, if you've seen the previous films, you already know that this will have happened.
Starting point is 00:37:30 It becomes a horror scene because the idea of having your entire face enclosed. I remember when I was a kid seeing a picture of Linda Blair being made up by Dick Smith and the straw so she could breathe. That whole thing about the background of the process of making a film is something you seem to really relish in this. You really like taking the audience behind the curtain and going, okay, well, you know, you love your monster, this is how it's actually made. Tell me a little bit about that.
Starting point is 00:37:59 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a big part of making this trilogy, and even starting with X, was to really focus on like the craft of trilogy and even starting with X was to really focus on like the craft of filmmaking. And so with X, to have it be a story about characters making a movie within a movie, particularly a movie that's meant to be like erotic when you see it, but when you see how they make it,
Starting point is 00:38:15 it's completely clumsy and ridiculous. That's a way to kind of let the audience in and see behind the curtain. But the character is still trying to make a good movie. And so when you start to see that and you relate to that, then maybe you have a little bit more perspective on what I'm trying to do in the film. And so to take that into Maxine is for people who like horror movies or people who like movies that are made and the sort of magic of the movies and things like that, to kind
Starting point is 00:38:39 of let you see how it's done and then to try to have a new perspective on that, to try to make a stylistic scary sequence out of a behind the scenes process of making films. And so, you know, and then Mia also, she went through a lot of that in making X because we had to, you know, do life caster and everything for that. So there's kind of a fun, almost meta nature to the three movies and how they relate to one another. Tell me about Mia Goth, who I've never met. I remember seeing her in Nymph Maniac and the Survivalist very early on, and I followed meta nature to the three movies and how they relate to one another. Mason Yeah, I mean, she's a very fearless performer. When we met on X, she was kind of in a moment in her career
Starting point is 00:39:26 where she really wanted the challenge of playing like the lead of a movie, and she wanted the burden of having to carry that, and she was very adamant about, you know, I think wanting to be seen how she saw herself in a way. And that was great for the character of Maxine because it was like, well, this is kind of what I wrote, you know, and so she was a perfect fit for that.
Starting point is 00:39:45 And she just wanted the challenge of having to play the two parts and being just beat up by the process of doing that. She loved it and she embraced it. And when we did Pearl to sort of evolve and make a totally different character out of that and to work on every shot in the movie and be there nonstop, she was really up for that challenge as well. And so, that dedication and that confidence is very inspiring and is very fun to work with. And then just, she's a very unpredictable performer. And so, by the time we made Maxine, she knows the character as well or better than I do at that point. So, I'm really just watching her experience things as Maxine, and I'm just trying to capture and wrangle that more than anything else. There's an amazing held smile at the end of Pearl, which always reminded me of the final
Starting point is 00:40:33 shot on Bob Hoskins at the end of The Long Good Friday when he's in the back of the car and you can see the whole movie play out on his face. And that smile has now almost become a meme in and of itself. What were the difficulties of doing that? Because that smile is held for, what is it, it's three minutes or something. During the course of that, you see so much going on in that wordless performance. Jason Suellentrop Yeah, it's funny. I mean, that has traveled so far and I think rightfully so. But basically what happened was when we were filming that, I knew that I wanted
Starting point is 00:41:07 to do a freeze frame. I wanted her to smile and then I would freeze frame and that would kind of match the opening of the movie, freeze frame. But I didn't know at what point I wanted to freeze frame. So when I said we're gonna do this shot, you know, we'd rehearsed and we talked about, okay, you're gonna smile and hold this up and stay the line.
Starting point is 00:41:22 I'm gonna let it run a little bit longer because it might be like a freeze frame the moment you smile, or I might wanna just like wait a beat to see when the right moment is to freeze it. And I just wanna let you know, I'm gonna let it roll for a little bit longer. And I thought I'd let it roll for an extra like 10 seconds or something like that.
Starting point is 00:41:38 And that would be awkward to be honest with you, but it was like, when you're freeze framing, you wanna make sure you have the footage to do it. So anyway, we did that, and I was watching her for about 10 seconds, and she was holding the smile. And then I thought, well, I'll just wait another five seconds because I don't think I need it, but it's kind of interesting to watch her.
Starting point is 00:41:53 And then that turned into another five seconds, and it turned into another five seconds. And then I was just so intrigued by watching her try to hold the smile, I started seeing things change in her. I started to see the performance that ended up in the movie and she started tearing up and crying. And it was so like compelling to watch
Starting point is 00:42:11 that I just let it go for about two and a half minutes. And as that was happening, I was like, I can roll the credits over. Like I could see the ending of the movie while it was happening. And so we did that and then I finally cut and we just did it that one time and that was it. You know, it was a very spontaneous moment that has really become kind of defining of the movie and of the trilogy
Starting point is 00:42:31 in many ways. It's a great moment. In this, she has to do an audition in front of Elizabeth Tabiki, who we sort of told is a scary director figure. And faking auditions on camera, I imagine must be one of the most difficult things to do anyway. Tell me about that scene and working with Elizabeth DeBakey who becomes this kind of, who sort of becomes a mentor, but a scary mentor. Well, I mean, a big part of the opening of Maxine and that audition scene was, you know, here we are taking a character from X who has wanted to be famous and it's been very
Starting point is 00:43:03 important to her. It's one thing to say that, but it's another thing wanted to be famous. And that's been very important to her. And it's one thing to say that, but it's another thing to actually be talented. And so I wanted to start Maxine with, she made it to Hollywood, the opportunity is now in front of her, but I'm not just telling you that Maxine is like, she's just all pompous and puffed up saying, I can be famous.
Starting point is 00:43:21 She has to actually prove herself. And so it was very important to me to have a sequence in which she did prove herself to be very talented. So that the context for the movie was, if she gets the opportunity, she is capable of doing it and capable of doing it especially well. Because you had to also believe that Elizabeth Bickey was gonna take a chance on a newcomer.
Starting point is 00:43:37 And so, as absurd as that scene may be in its moments, it is actually very important to like the context of the film so that you understand basically every dynamic that follows. And so that was very important stylistically and then thematically. And then of course, it's great opportunity for Mia to kind of do what Maxine's doing. And then for Elizabeth, I think it's a moment for her to really get a grasp on what Maxine is capable of and to say, I believe in this person enough to take a chance to do something kind of provocative and cast them in the movie, but also I don't want to regret this decision and cast someone that no one else wants me to cast. And so seeing her make that decision,
Starting point is 00:44:22 I think is also very integral to the whole story itself. Tye West talking to Mark about Maxine. There'll be a bonus in our take two. Well, even more fascinating conversation with Tye West and Mark. I did find that conversation about the final shot absolutely fascinating. And how, I don't know, does that happen very often? I would imagine it's extremely rare where they take it once and that's the shot that makes it in and it's such an important and iconic moment in the movie. Mason- I mean, of the trilogy, it's the end of the second, it's the end of Pearl and he's right, it has become the defining image of the trilogy. And it is quite remarkable and
Starting point is 00:45:00 hearing that it was, I love the idea that he said, I'll just hold it for like 10, 15 seconds and then basically three minutes goes by and it has, I love the idea that he said, I'll just hold it for like 10, 15 seconds. And then basically three minutes goes by and it has become iconic because the smile goes from being a smile into something that's like a kind of silent scream of terror, which is really, really perfect for Pearl and actually leads us very nicely into Maxine. So as you probably heard from the interview,
Starting point is 00:45:24 I like Maxine very much. The tagline is Hollywood is a killer. It opens with a Bette Davis quote, which is, in this business, until you're known as a monster, you're not a star. I mean, Bette Davis was full of those kinds of things. So in X, Mir goth's character was making a 70s porno movie in a Texas farm and then the farm owners turned out to be kind of Ed Gein style monsters. In Pearl, it was the prequel in which Goth expanded the secondary role that she played in X, the title character who dreams of becoming a star. So now, the 80s, she's gone to Hollywood, she dreams of becoming a star, but she's actually got an audition
Starting point is 00:45:59 for this. It's the sequel to a horror movie. Elizabeth Bender, who is the director, who seems scary, but as I said, becomes a bit of a mentor. Meanwhile, LA at this period is being terrorized by the Night Stalker and Max Eaton's life story seems to intersect with history. Then we have this character played by Kevin Bacon, who basically looks like Jay Gittes out of China, Jack Nicholson with a plaster on his nose. At first, you're not quite sure what role his character plays, but he's having such good fun. He's absolutely eating the movie up and really, really enjoying it.
Starting point is 00:46:38 Each film is very good at its period. The 70s exploitation of Stanley Lloyd of X, the Hollywood glamour of Pearl, and now the sort of neon VHS aesthetic of Maxine. At times watching this, I was reminded of the texture of Prano Bailey Bond's film, Sensor, which is in a very, very different world, but it's about the VHS video nasties era and it does have a similar texture to it. As I said, there's loads of non- What does that mean, similar texture? It means, you know, if you watch a movie from the 80s, you can watch five seconds of it
Starting point is 00:47:09 and you know it's from the 80s. And it's to do with the way things are lit. It's to do with the way the movie looks, the way the movie sounds. There is a very particular sound to it. And one of Ty West's great talents, he sort of referred to this in the interview, is he worked very hard Ty West's great talents, he referred to this in the interview, is he worked very hard on making a world in which movies are influencing the characters. It's like the characters are living in the world of movies. This is very, very cine-literate. This is a movie which is made by somebody who knows and loves cinema. I think it's for people who know and love cinema. If you're a fan of Abel Ferraris, Miss 45 or Brian De Palma's body double or, you know, any of those films, you'll enjoy the references.
Starting point is 00:47:50 But crucially, that's not the point. In fact, the thing about the self-referentiality, it's done so well. And so this isn't the main point. There is even a sequence that plays out in the Psycho Mansion, which is on the universal backlog which was built for Psycho 2. Normally, you can't do that. You can't reference Psycho, that is just far too on the nose. But the thing is, the film's doing it so well that he goes, yeah, no, that's not what we're doing.
Starting point is 00:48:16 We're doing something else. It was really, really brave and clever to do that in a way that doesn't make you think, oh, for heaven's sake, you can't go there. Mia Goth is terrific. I mean, as she has been in the previous movies, the role has a touch of showgirls about it. I mean, if showgirls had been any good, and there are, I think, hints of Verhoeven's aesthetic in there. It's also very interesting that the film is a reminder of, in the 1980s, there was this
Starting point is 00:48:43 absurd anti-Satanist panic in the mid-80s. This absurd anti-Satanist panic. People complained that Hollywood was run by devils and that rock music was backmasking and it was all full of satanic messaging. Once again, as there has been all the way through the series, there's a lot of stuff in Maxine about right-wing, nutball, lunatic Christians who are literally worshipping the devil in the series, there's a lot of stuff in Maxine about right-wing nutball lunatic Christians who are literally worshipping the devil in the name of God. And I think it's not coincidental that strikes such a chord with what's going on in America at the moment.
Starting point is 00:49:16 What is going on in America at the moment? I forget. I can't possibly say. But you know, like literally those lunatic right-wing Christian nationalist nutballs who are taking away everyone's freedoms and doing it in the name of God in a way which is I think absolutely despicable. Great use of pop songs, opens with a Bette Davis quote, closes with Bette Davis eyes, and absolutely doesn't skimp on the squeamishness. It was funny when Ty West said, you'll know when to look away. Yeah, you will know when to look away. But if you're like me, a fan of Splatter,
Starting point is 00:49:51 you are not going to be shortchanged. I had a terrific time with Maxine. I thought it was great. Mason- Well, I was happy to hand over to you for a little bit of horror chat there. Okay. And there's going to be more with Ty West in take two, by the way. We'll be back in just a moment to lighten the load away from splatter and gore. What are you going to be reviewing, big thing, to put the world on notice. If you answer when your thirst calls, Sprite's for you. Sprite's for the makers and creators, the visionaries putting in the work to build their dreams.
Starting point is 00:50:34 Whether you're shooting a cinematic masterpiece on your phone, filling notebooks with sketches, or up all night turning your bedroom into the booth, thirst is everything. Obey your thirst. Right. The Frankies were a picture-perfect influencer family, but everything wasn't as it seemed. I just had a 12 year old boy show up here asking for help. He's emaciated, he's got tape around his legs. Ruby Franke is his mom's name.
Starting point is 00:51:06 Infamous is covering Ruby Franke, the world of Mormonism, and a secret therapy group that ruined lives. Listen to Infamous wherever you get your podcasts. Before we continue with entertaining email reading and Mark reviewing, Mason-London, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New
Starting point is 00:51:30 York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New
Starting point is 00:51:38 York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, The New York Times, has asked you to rate, rate us five stars on Apple and Spotify. Everyone does it. The reason that they do it is because the algorithm notices and bumps you up the chart, something like that. Therefore, it all becomes more noticeable. What we're asking you to do is rate us five stars, obviously, so that we can use it on the show, give us the most absurdly, overwhelmingly pretentious, fulsome review of what we're doing.
Starting point is 00:52:16 That way we feel good. And also the algorithm goes, wow, these guys are amazing. I'm going to make it more noticeable. Because the algorithm doesn't have a sense of humour or sarcasm. Jason- No, and we've all worked for people like the algorithm. So, the best ones that we get will be read out on the pod, obviously. So, think of the glory. So, five stars and then a really ridiculously embarrassing positive review. Thank you very much. So his correspondence at Codemare.com, Rebecca says, a fun medical fact relating to toothache, which has been discussed quite
Starting point is 00:52:50 a lot on Take Two. The biggest cause, apparently the biggest cause of paracetamol overdose is toothache. Rebecca, and I imagine she's speaking to some kind of knowledge, says, ibuprofen and similar drugs are also very good for dental pain. Try these instead. I'm not saying that this, I'm just saying that this is what Rebecca tells us. So always talk to your GP or pharmacist if in any doubt. Liam says, long-term list at FTE, all that garbage, on the subject of your recent discussions about mediocre movies with amazing endings. Whenever I watch films with my mom, we have a 20-minute rule because she's so picky. If after 20 minutes a film, in my mom's opinion, isn't over a five out of 10 situation, we turn it off and find something else. Now, I really loved Whiplash and I thought it
Starting point is 00:53:44 would be my mom's cup of tea. When we put it on, it barely passed the 20 minute test, but she seemed interested enough to keep it on. Throughout the film, it was the typical mum huffs and sighs of boredom, each followed by me saying we could turn it off and her reply of, no, no, it's fine. When the final scene in the, because there and Miles Teller starts drumming his heart out to gain JK Simmons' respect, I started talking to Mum about what to watch next, which was followed by a swift slap to the back of my head and shut up, I'm really enjoying this. It's now one of her favorite films, says Liam. Thanks for the wittering, guys. And then he signs off, down with underfunded public
Starting point is 00:54:33 services and up with women smoking pipes. My mum was one until I was born. I'm reading this thinking Liam's mum sounds like a movie waiting to be made. So she smoked pipes until, I mean, you could argue that she should have stopped when she was pregnant, really, rather than stopping when you were born. So she's a pipe smoker. And then her reaction to you talking in the climax of a film is to smack you around the head. How old are you, Liam, at this point? And was it like a light-hearted affectionate slap around the head? Because it sounds like it's really vicious in the spirit of the film. Did she smack you upside your head?
Starting point is 00:55:13 Oops, and indeed upside your head. So anyway, who do you not want to go and see a film with Liam's mum is the answer. I do. I want to go and see a film with Liam's mum is the answer. I do. I want to go and see a film with Liam's mum. That sounds absolutely excellent. Somebody starts talking, just smack them. Yeah, but also you wouldn't talk to her, would you, you know, in the climax of the film? No. Or even the denouement, which is of course entirely different.
Starting point is 00:55:38 So Liam, thank you. Correspondence at KevinOMay.com. Okay. Time for a kill. I've been intrigued by this. Yeah, kill. Hindi language, Indian action thriller comes on like the raid meets train to Busan, but without the zombies. The tagline, this journey is one way. And boy is it. So written and directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhatt. Lakshya is army commander Amrit who finds himself on a train with his beloved Tameka who's played by Tanya Manik Tala. She's unwillingly engaged to someone else, so their love is secret. Also on the train are a gang of knife-wielding thieves led by Raghav Jayo who start robbing
Starting point is 00:56:17 everyone and then turn towards kidnapping, which they realize might be more profitable. And therefore our hero and his buddy must save the day. And the way they must save the day is by killing pretty much everyone who isn't one of them on the train. So the title card, Kill, appears midway through the movie. So a whole bunch of stuff happens, right? And then something really bad happens that turns our central character into a killing machine. And at that point, the word kill comes on the screen. And then the film does exactly what it says on the
Starting point is 00:56:57 packet. So it's a splendidly overcooked mix of heart torn melodrama romance and stabby punchy action. And it is very punchy, very crunchy and very stabby. Almost everyone gets punched and stabbed at least once and they usually keep going. Um, I really enjoyed it. I mean, it kind of moves like a bullet. It's not, you know, it's not the raid and it's not trained to be some, but then very few things are. But I went, as is always a favourite thing on this show, I went to the BBFC site after
Starting point is 00:57:31 watching it. And here's the BBFC's description. This intense frenzied and unflinching Hindi language action drama in which an army commando battles ruthless criminals on train contains brutal scenes of graphic violence and gory injuries throughout. This is not a plot spoiler, this is the BBFC description. The plot can't be spoiled by this. People are beaten, stabbed, slashed, and shot in prolonged and sustained scenes accompanied by blood spurts and blood in the aftermath of injury. Knives are dragged through wounds. A person is partially decapitated, a character's head is set on fire and another person's head is crushed by repeated blows from a fire extinguisher. These scenes emphasize blood and injury
Starting point is 00:58:14 and are often sadistic in intent. Yeah, well, that I think is what you were just referring to as a five-star review. It was, look, you go to see a movie called Kill, okay? You know what you were just referring to as a five star review. It was, look, you go to see a movie called kill. Okay. You know what you're going to get the thing you do. It's like going to see John Wick. You know, anyone goes to John Wick and goes, well, that was a bit stabby, punchy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:35 It's John Wick. So this is, as I said, you know, it's Ray train to Busan, bit John Wickie on a train, bit wickety wawaw. And there, and like I said, moment halfway through when it's like, okay, and now we are just going to kill everyone. I, I really enjoyed it. I had a really good time with it. If the election, the general election in the UK, if it hasn't gone your way, if you feel as you're listening to this slightly despondent, it sounds like you should go and
Starting point is 00:59:05 see this film. It sounds like a feel-good, kill-everyone film. Could that be right? Well, remember to vote first. You remember to vote first. That's very, very important. Whomsoever you vote for, democracy is a hard one. Right? Remember to vote first and then go to the movies.
Starting point is 00:59:29 And watch Kill. Frank Gardner, BBC security correspondent. Great Frank Gardner. Yeah, he's great. Not a great film reviewer, as I recall. And he writes novels. No, you're right. But he writes novels, doesn't he? I mean, we all write thrillers, but you know, Frank does it as well. He tweeted yesterday, he said he's worked in many, many countries where you can't vote or maybe the people who can vote is very restricted.
Starting point is 00:59:58 Or even that the people who can vote, when they vote, it actually counts for absolutely nothing. So definitely get out there, pick up the stubby pencil and flourish it in the way that John Wick would flourish a paperback novel before pushing it into someone's face. Then use your stubby pencil. But use your stubby pencil not to attack anybody, because it's also tied with a chain, obviously, to the booth. But to mark an X next to the person that you think deserves to represent you, even though they might not have sent you any election material at all. Don't hold it against them.
Starting point is 01:00:37 Anyway, that's the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. It's been an election special, obviously. This week's team was Lily Gully, Vicky, Zachy Matty, and Bethy. Produced by Jemi, the redacted Simon Poole. Mark, what is your film of the week, Maxine? My film of the week is Maxine and I would advise everyone to go see X, Pearl first, you know, you can see them all streaming and then Maxine. Do we not watch Pearl and then X? Chronologically, the films are Pearl, X, Maxine, but in terms of the series, it's X, Pearl,
Starting point is 01:01:05 Maxine. And I think they're designed to be watched that way. Take Two has already landed and is available for the Vanguard Easter. Thank you very much indeed for listening. We'll talk to you very shortly in A Brave New World.

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