Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Will Jurassic World Rebirth turn Mark into a Rantosaurus? + David Cronenberg

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Vanguardistas have more fun—so if you don’t already subscribe to the podcast, join the Vanguard today via Apple Podcasts or extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. In return you’ll get a whole extra Take 2 alongside Take 1 every week, with bonus reviews, more viewing recommendations from the Good Doctors and whole bonus episodes just for you. And if you’re already a Vanguardista, we salute you.  Our very special guest this week is a body horror legend; director of ‘The Fly’, ‘Videodrome’, ‘Crash’ and many more genre classics... the one and only David Cronenberg. He talks to Mark about his new film ‘The Shrouds’. Written in the aftermath of his wife’s death, it imagines a technology that allows those who have lost loved ones to watch their interred bodies decompose in real time. He and Mark discuss the meaning of art, his unique approach to moviemaking, and why we are allowed—and encouraged—to laugh about this most serious of subjects.   Mark reviews ‘The Shrouds’ too, plus two more of this week’s brand new movies. ‘Hot Milk’—a woozy summer psychodrama starring Fiona Shaw, Vicky Krieps and Emma Mackey—and of course this week’s gigantic blockbuster, Jurassic World Rebirth. What does Mark make of it—roaring success or bound for extinction? Listen up to find out + the Box Office Top 10 and excellent correspondence on what you’ve been watching this week on the big and small screen.    Timecodes (for Vanguardistas listening ad-free):  Hot Milk Review: 10:02  BO10: 18:20  David Cronenberg Interview: 29:38  The Shrouds Review: 43:51  Jurassic World: Rebirth: 55:21    You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo  Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey   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

Oh hey, this is Simon. This is Mark. I'll give you a pretty penny, Mark, if you can name any film festivals that are on the horizon in June. Transylvania Film Festival, Film on Film with the BFI, Tribeca, that's three pretty pennies, you know me? An esteemed critic like yourself cannot be in all those places at once, but you can get pretty darn close to it with NordVPN. Saving on travel and jet lag to unlock the best films from around the world sounds pretty good. But it's not only that, Mark. No, you can log on to public Wi-Fi anonymously, leaving no

way for hackers to get your data even when you're streaming. And even better, you can get it across multiple devices. So whatever you're using to stream the best of this year's new films from around the world, you're covered and you are protected. With NordVPN, you can travel the world faster than a private jet minus the carbon footprint. you are protected. Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra episode every Thursday. Including bonus reviews, extra viewing suggestions, viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas. Plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in Questions Shmeshtian.

You can get all that extra stuff via Apple podcasts or head to ExtraTakes.com for non-fruit related devices. There's never been a better time to become a Vanguard Easter. Free offer now available wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a Vanguard Easter, we salute you. Paul Sharp, who works at Bondi FM in Australia. Dear Smashy and Nicey, please jump into your proverbial DeLoreans and hopefully enjoy a demo jingle I created to help transport your show back to the pop-tastic 80s. Here we go, dear. With Mark Kermit and Simon Mayo. I'm going to give Paul Sharp the gig.

Okay, top of every show. This is because, at the start of last week, I'd found the jams, or I'd been sent the jingle package from Radio 1, kind of, 87, 88. And it sounded very LA and very 80s. So that is Bondi FM's Paul Sharp making us a special jingle. I don't see any reason. Why don't we just say, look, we're going to start with that until someone makes something that's better.

I think it's great. Do we have to pay? I feel as though he's given it to us. Excellent. Okay. Well, we'll take that as a gift. When you said you found the jams, you said that jams are the company that made all the jingles for most radio stations. So all your jingles were made by the jam? Yeah. He says, happy to refine it if you dig the vibe. I definitely dig the vibe, but how would you possibly refine it?

But also, how do you know if someone digs your vibe? Because I've just told you. Does that mean you like it? Yes. The vibe is the same as the groove. Are you with the groove? I don't need that fascist groove thang, but I am with the groove. Is the vibe and the groove the same thing? Do you vibe within the groove or do you groove whilst in the vibe? I had a friend called John whose perennial question was vibes. What he meant was,

what do you think? So he do something, then you go vibes. Why did, well, that makes no sense at all. He was asking you what the vibes were, you know, like Brian Wilson. What's the vibes? Yeah. If you're Brian Wilson and you're a genius and you've taken an awful lot of hallucinogenic substances, then you can say vibes. Where did your friend John come from? He was a trumpet player in Bad Manners. Okay, in which case he has no excuse, I'm afraid. Absolutely none excuse.

Lip up fatty and all that, as the rest of my case. Later in the show, by the way, Mark is gonna be entertaining us, thrilling us indeed, with the vibe and the groove of these films. Yeah, we have reviews of Hot Milk, which is a question which I know you will ask me at some point, and what does the title mean, and I will struggle to explain it. We have Jurassic World Rebirth,

in which the Jurassic World franchise is reborn, and The Shrouds, with our very special guest... Who is David Cronenberg? Who spoke to you because of various matters? But anyway, so that's the David Cronenberg, the Mr. Cronenberg. He has a vibe, he has a groove, and Mark will be tending to both. Did he enjoy the experience, do you think? It was actually, it's a very moving interview.

I mean, I found it very moving because I'm a huge David Cronenberg fan, so I found it very emotional speaking to him. And I think he tolerated my emotion very well. And in the Vanguardista groove, what are we talking about there? Two reissues, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which is an animation classic back in cinemas, and also Hearts of Darkness, a filmmaker's apocalypse, which is perhaps one of the best known modern making of documentaries. It is the documentary about the making of Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and it is up there with Burden of Dreams and Hamster Factor as one of the great modern movie documentaries.

Mason- Plus all the other extra groovy and vibey stuff which you get every Thursday, and the whole back catalogue of grooves is available as well. So you remember last week and the week before we were talking about, oh, it's so expensive to go to see a film in Milton Keynes with a family. More expensive than it would be to go to the BFI IMAX. Ross Fuller says, in response to last week's email concerning a cinema in Milton Keynes doing away with child tickets and charging a staggering £22.50 per person to see How to Train Your Dragon, I would like to give a shout out to my local, the Curzon Community Cinema in Clevedon near Bristol, where two adults and two children cost a rather more reasonable £26.

Not only that, the child ticket actually covers anyone under 30. Wow. And is a mere £5.50. So that's very, very interesting. There are very few benefits to being 29, but if you go to Clevedon and the Curzon Community Cinema, you can get in for five pound 50. Granted, says Ross, the screen is smaller than your average four by nine D wall to wall floor

to ceiling super mega multiplex screen. But it is more than made up for by the brilliantly restored Art Deco setting, the armchairs and sofas on the balcony, the incredible collection of cameras and projectors on display throughout the building, and knowing you are supporting a building with a very strong claim to being the oldest continually running cinema in the world.

I've had the joy of taking my three children there to see films ranging from Dog Man to My Neighbor Totoro, and he has loved it every time. We wouldn't get to do this if it were three times the price. We would just stick to streaming services and why wouldn't we? Anyway, so that's very reasonable. Very good. James in Leeds, you'll guess where this is going. After listening to Daddy Rob's correspondence regarding the eye watering cost of a trip to his local megaplex, I felt compelled to

give a shout out to my local independent who elegantly demonstrated that it is really, really is possible to do things differently. The amazing Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds run Hyde and Seek, a regular strand aimed specifically at families with younger children in which they show a very tasteful mix of family friendly films, both classic and modern. Saturday screenings have free crafts beforehand and Sunday screenings are autism friendly. Best of all, the majority of screenings are pay what you can with prices ranging as low as £2.50 and free tickets available on request, no questions asked. Even younger viewers are catered for with regular BYOB, bring your own baby screenings, babies going free, grown up tickets are capped at $6.50. The picture house is a proper cornerstone of the local community, a shifting mix of students,

younger professionals and older established families and is always packed. It goes to show that a model based on warmth, inclusion, accessibility and community building, words that are actually banned in America, One based on maximum extraction of profit, who'd have thought it? Tinkety-tongue, hello to Jason, up and down with all the usual from James in Leeds. So there are models. I appreciate the multiplex are based entirely differently. They have to make their money entirely differently. But if you are fortunate enough to live either in Clevedon or in Leeds or somewhere else that has a community minded cinema, then you can go in for 30 quid or so.

Yeah, I mean two things on that. You may not notice this, but one of the photographs of you and I that regularly gets recycled if for some reason we turn up in the papers, which obviously isn't that often, but if it does, the picture that they often use is a picture of us that was taken when we were at the Hyde Park, the cinema, which is such a beautiful place. I know this because we look so much younger in the photographs. I don't think I'm even wearing glasses because we did a couple of events there and it was absolutely lovely. The best ever ticket price bargain that I ever got in my entire life was the Phoenix in East Finchley during half term when I was a school kid.

They did for one pound, as it was then, a ticket for the whole week. Every day they showed two films back to back and it was Ealing Comedy. So it would be like, To Feel Thunderbolt, Man in the White Suit, Passport to Pimlico. These are double bill. And I went every single day for half term, five days, saw 10 films for a pound. That's good parenting, that is. For a quid, the kid is safe in the dark, being entertained. Absolutely. And I remember really clearly,

this really weird thing happened. I was standing outside the cinema and this old bloke came up to me and he said, what are you going to see? And I said, I'm going to see a man in the white suit. And he said, oh yeah, what certificate is it? And I said, it's a you certificate. And he said, well, you mind your own business then

and walked off. I mean, Finchley is a weird place. I never understood the joke. That story could have gone in many, many different ways. Finally, before some hot milk, Janey and Birchington, How the Other Half Live, we've just booked to see F1 at the lovely Grade 2 listed Carlton Cinema in Westgate-on-Sea down here in East Kent.

And it's cost us 14 pounds plus a five-pound booking fee, not per person in total, which leaves a bit of spare cash to head along to Staples Stores Bakery, which easily surpasses Juno, which is my favorite in Denmark, for quality. And yes, I've been to both. By the way, you should try Anderson and Maylard next time you're over there. Okay, that's almost as it goes. Anderson and Maylard.

Yes, which is definitely not pronounced that way, I would imagine. But thank you, thank you, Janey, for the tip. Correspondence at Curbidemo.com. Can I say before we proceed? Yes. We're recording this on Monday, it's half past nine at the moment. The temperature in the room that I'm in, you've got air conditioned Croatian gorgeousness. The heat, I mean, I'm actually in t-shirt and shorts, which I don't normally believe in for broadcasting purposes, because it's like wrong. So I've got no shoes and socks on, just shorts and a t-shirt, and it is almost unbearable. So if you can take over just for a while, that'd be great. So hot milk then, that's just what I don't need.

Yes, hot milk, which is a sort of unsettling psychodrama sprinkled with this kind of seething eroticism, but largely undercut or overpowered by a sense of dread and repressed resentment. So it's adapted from a novel by Deborah Levy. I haven't read the book, and that will be important later on. Written and directed by Rebecca Lenkowich, I hope that's the correct pronunciation. She was apparently the first living female playwright to have her work produced at the Olivier stage in the National Theatre.

As a screenwriter, she's known for co-writing Eda and Disobedience and writing She Said. Now, this is her directing as well. So Fiona Shaw, who I love Fiona Shaw, is Rose, this cantankerous wheelchair-bound woman with chronic moving pain, nonspecific pain that moves around her body. Doctors are at a loss to cure it, and it's kind of hinted at that maybe it's psychosomatic,

maybe it's to do with some form of neurosis rather than anything physical. There are hints of possible trauma in her past or of some kind of unresolved guilt. Emma Mackey is Sophia, who's her daughter, and she's in her 20s. She's an anthropology student. She's meant to be working on a master's, but it doesn't really seem to be going anywhere because she spends most of the time caring for her mother, who bosses her around. They are bound for Spain, where there is a private clinic which might potentially be able to help Rose, although honestly she doesn't seem to be capable of being helped. When she's in Spain, Sophia meets Ingrid, played by Vicky Creeps, who of course most people will remember as being magnificent in Phantom Thread. She's glamorous, she's mysterious, she turns up on a horse, she rocks a headscarf, she's sexually liberated, and an emotional entanglement begins. But the

fact is that she is every bit as spiky and as odd and as unstable as Rose. Meanwhile, Rose is being tended to by a doctor played by Vincent Perez, and an enormous amount of money who is, you know, he's looking after him. She says he's really nice and she says, yeah, you're paying him 25,000 pounds. No wonder he's nice. And relationships between everybody grow more and more strained. Here is a clip. Isn't she lovely?

Do you think you'll ever marry, Fia? There is a reason why the man is called the groom. It's an ominous title. Is that yours? Yes, you. Does that handbag belong to you? Rose. He is unbearable even at a distance. I love that phrase, unbearable even at a distance.

At the beginning of that, you heard the sound of a barking dog, which during the course of the movie becomes absolutely incessant. All the way through, there is this sense of everything boiling, simmering, just getting ready to all kind of... I think the performances are really good. I think the performances are really well judged. They're understated. They're well played.

The film itself is very ethereal and elusive. Now apparently, if you have read the book, there are sections in the film in which the film is taking a punt at putting very complex ideas in the book on screen. And I know some people who've read the book who think that that doesn't particularly work. I haven't read the book. And having not read the book, I thought that what it did was created an atmosphere that I felt completely involved in. I mean, as I said, it's mysterious and elusive. It has an ending that has proved quite divisive, again, particularly for those familiar with the source novel, of which I'm not familiar. I mean, what I thought was, I went into it

knowing nothing about it other than the title. And because I was kind of, because every time this happens, then you go, actually, why don't you just ask me, what does the title mean? My guess is that hot milk is, I'm guessing here, because I think hot milk is revolting. It's sort of reassuring, isn't it? To start with. Oh, that's interesting. So warming milk in, you know, you put it in hot chocolate or, you know, cocoa, bovril, does anyone have bovril? Not at this temperature, they don't. Anyway, but you know, so at lower temperatures is calm and reassuring, but once it's hot, it's not much, it's kind of spoiled. I don't know. Okay. Well, I think that that's actually very insightful because I think, well firstly, I think obviously

when you think of milk, you think of mother's milk and I think because there is a sort of there is this central mother daughter dynamic going on, I think that is part of it. Some of the atmosphere of the film is like, do you remember the Maggie Gyllenhaal film? I think you interviewed Maggie Gyllenhaal for it, The Lost Daughter, or did you interview Olivia Colman? No, it was Maggie. Maggie Gyllenhaal. So I think there is a sort of similar kind of dynamic going on there. But I think that thing about, I think what hot milk is, it's like, you're right, it's

the thing about the difference between warm and hot. Warm milk is reassuring, but hot milk is simmering and bubbling over and implies that something is going sour, implies that something is going wrong. Anyway, all of these things are ideas that are in the film. And I think, obviously, the film takes its inspiration from, as I said, a novel that people very much respect. But as somebody who did not see, did not read the novel, just watched the film, I was really gripped by it and I love the performances, particularly Fiona Shaw, I have to say, but I think all-

She's always great. Yeah. Literally, it's one of those things. It's like you see her in something, you think, okay, that's going to be fine. We're going to be fine. She's just going to be great. She's going to hold everything together and it's going to be really, really good. Anyway, I very much enjoyed it. I think that comparison with The Lost Daughter is tonally helpful, because if you liked the tone of The Lost Daughter, I don't think this is quite as immediately easy to fall in with as The Lost Daughter is,

but I think it's very, very well made, definitely demonstrates that she's not just a great writer, she's also a very, very good director, and three great performances. And the sound of the barking dog, which is like the sound of the fire under the stove, under the pot on which the milk is boiling. Interesting. And I remember the Maggie Chilin Hall interview because I told her that I thought Peter Sarsgaard was hot in her film, which she was very pleased to hear because

they're married. They're married. So she said, I will enjoy telling him that. And then Peter came on the show a few nights ago and I told him that. And he seemed to be suitably chuffed because although he's younger than us, he's at an age when to be told you're hot by anybody is a cool thing. Yes.

Although if I tell you right now, you're hot, I just mean you're sweltering and having to wear shorts. I'm just wondering whether there's a, it's that kind of one o'clock in the morning trade-off. Do I have the window open and then hear everything that's going on outside, but we get cooler air or to keep the windows shut? So I could open the door to the rest of the house, and then we hear what's going on in the rest of the house, but I'll be cooler.

But then the audio quality will be less good. So I am, at the moment, I'm suffering for our art. You're suffering for our ears? Yes, that's right. Thank you. Because audio quality is the only thing that counts. And always remember, I suffered from my heart. Now it's your turn.

Box office top 10 this week. Well, as I said, it's Monday, it's now quarter to 10. So we're recording this before the chart comes out. So we've guessed the top 10, which I think- This is completely made up. But I think this is great. Amadeus is at number one. I mean, I don't know how that happened. Anyway,

but it's sort of it's based on this is the way a lot of radio stations back in the day did their chart. They've kind of made it up as they went along. At number 10, at number 10 words of war. Yeah, well, it's well done for it going in for the top 10. Has it? Has it? Well done for it going in for the top 10. Has it? Has it? I've got no idea. Your interview is still available and that was, I thought was a really terrific interview.

It's a story that I'm ashamed to say I did not know better and watching it made me want to go and find out more. And of course it features in a supporting role, but in a very key role. Hello to Jason Isaacs. Number nine from the world of John Wick, Ballerina. I enjoyed bits of it. I enjoyed watching some of the action sequences, and I enjoyed... Anne de Armas liked very much,

Kenanenu liked very much. It is a mess, but there it is. The salt path is at number eight, so we think. Jason Isaacs now in the top ten twice on in this made up chart. Mission Impossible, the final reckoning, a colon and a hyphen at number seven, first out, second out. Oh, third out. Wow. Number six, Lilo and Stitch, the and being an ampersand, which is my favorite piece of punctuation. And did you did you explain to me why an ampersand is called an ampersand? It's and, per se, and, and of itself, and. And it's an ET, it's the letters ET in italics.

That's how the construction appeared. There we go. And that's kind of more interesting than doing a live action. Elio at five. Which I liked, apparently not generally liked, and certainly at five it's not taking the charts by storm, but I thought it was very strange and the plot is all over the place and the narrative is quite hard to follow. But I did think, as I said before, I have never taken hallucinogenic drugs, but there

were many moments watching Elio and I thought this is probably what it's like. How to Train Your Dragon is at four. If I had to choose between watching this and watching the original animation, it would just be a, it's a no brainer. But obviously, you know, people are going to see, because How to Train Your Dragon is such a great story and the books that it's based on are great. So of course it's doing well, but I think if you reissued the cartoon, the animation in, in cinema, it would have done justice or maybe not. I don't know. 28 years later, is it number three? Well, you know,

the conversation will continue and the really great thing about it is, I mean, I really enjoyed it. So did you. The every day, every week since I've, since I see it, I have to reconsider what I think about the end. And I think that one of the most astute things was the email that we had last week in our spoiler, spoiler special, which I was one, which said, of course, in that world, no one ever knew, which I think was a really good thing. Yeah. M three and two point zero is at number two, confusing me. Okay, may I say something, which is many people on our YouTube channel, which I'm very glad that people watching the YouTube have been saying, why does he keep calling it M3gen?

It's pronounced Megan. It's not pronounced M3gen, it's pronounced Megan. So let me explain something. It's written M3gen in the same way as Fant Fourstick. And if I find a joke ridiculously funny, I will keep doing it until the end of time. And the more you ask me not to do it, the more I will do it. Although you did agree not to use silly names for actors. Yes, because I was, because somebody said that's actually unfair. Daniel in Clapham, I've just seen Megan 2.0 thought the first was fine, but was a horror

comedy lacking in scares and laughs. The second is less Chuckie 2, more Terminator 2 meets Megan Impossible, which I quite like. That's very good. It gives up even pretending to be a horror franchise and goes for an action comedy adventure. It has a ludicrously over the top plot on a par with the last Mission Impossible film. It's almost Megan versus the entity, but overall, despite a few laughs, it's only mildly entertaining, fair again and quite forgettable. Thank you, Daniel.

And number one is F1 the movie, F1 colon the movie. Ben Vost says the name, because we were talking, I think we call is F1, the movie, F1 colon, the movie. Ben Vost says the name, cause we were talking, I think we called it F1. Yeah, you were calling it F1, which I thought was brilliant cause the kind of F1. Yes, okay, that makes it sound a little bit too raunchy. But Ben Vost says the name around here for F1 is FUR, mainly because it's written F1

and then it has the R with a circle, which is the sign for a registered trademark. Okay. So if it's F1 with an R, then that does indeed make it fur. Fur? Very good. Let's call it that. That'd be good. Dear Sterling and Juan Manuel, second time emailer. Rul C. Brand from Amsterdam writing in F1 the movie. that was a good laugh. Nobody told me it was a comedy. This is Dutch comedy.

But seriously folks, as an F1 fan. Dutch comedy, it's no laughing matter. For many years with a rapidly waning interest, I just had to see it. My expectations were quite low having read the premise beforehand thinking, really? A washed up old-timer racing car driver is paired with a rookie? How original. Surely there are screenwriters that can come up with something better than that. Apparently not. A 30 year hiatus explaining a modern Formula One steering wheel in one

minute. At some point, I really laughed out loud for some of the ludicrous plot twists presented in this pompous vehicle. Pun very much intended. And I really think they weren't going to go for the romantic angle, but spoiler alert, they did. I give it two stars, and one of those stars is a sympathy star for the action sequences. In my humble opinion, the movies Grand Prix and Le Mans remain the gold standard for executing a proper racing film. Kind regards and greetings from Amsterdam.

Thank you, Rool. Okay. So, fur slash F1 slash grand days of top Thunder pre rush gun maverick. Yes, not an original thought in its head. It's interesting when you talk about plot twists. No twists. I genuinely believe that you could show somebody the first 10 minutes of that film and go, tell me how the rest of the film goes, and they would absolutely do it. I enjoyed it much more than I had thought I was going to because Brad Pitt does that thing about turning up and being Brad Pitt. It is a recycled, ragtag bag of bits of other films, but it's done with a great deal at Milan.

And it absolutely proves that Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt, movie star. And as I said last week, Tom Cruise looks like he can't do enough to please you. And Brad Pitt just looks like, you know, as many people pointed out, as Shania Twain says, so you're Brad Pitt just looks like, you know, as many people pointed out, as Shania Twain says, so you're Brad Pitt. That does impress me. Yep. Yep.

Zoe Ball once called me an agent looking like an aging Brad Pitt, which I thought was only positive. Yeah. Well, I'd be considering because Brad Pitt is now an aging Brad Pitt. Zoe Ball thought you, yeah, somebody should say to Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt, you look like an aging Brad Pitt is now an aging Brad Pitt. And if Zoe Ball thought you, yeah, somebody should say to Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt, you look like an aging Brad Pitt. Gaz Jacobs, just seen F1, the movie, at our Locallodion. The film shows a half decent representation of the politics and rivalries within F1 teams.

The racing footage isn't too bad either. Belief has to be suspended a couple of times, especially when they're trying to pass off Brand's hatch as the Spanish Jerez circuit, where Sonny has his Formula One career ending accident. Footage of Northern Irish driver Martin Donnelly's real life accident at the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix was used in the film. Martin received a thank you at the end. I know this because this email has got footnotes. Mason Hickman Okay, wow. Jason Vale And the fact that the character wouldn't have been black flagged, another footnote,

which means you have to return to the black flagged, another footnote, which means you have to return to the pits. However, throughout the film, something was hanging around in the back of my head. During Mark's review of the film, he stated that as we meet Sonny Hayes, he's participating in low rent races. Really, says Gaz, low rent? Now whilst I do understand that most people are oblivious to any form of motor racing other than F1, when it comes to circuit racing races such as Rolex Day-Turner 24-hour and the Le Mans 24-hour,

they are far from low rent. Millions of dollars in euros will be spent by manufacturers and private individuals trying to win these races. The prototype in GT racing provides a path to driving careers for The prototype in GT racing provides a path to driving careers for talented drivers that just don't have the immense wealth or luck to be at the lofty heights of F1. I hope that some may see that footage and investigate further and discover a further world of motorsport where trackside tickets are less expensive. So thanks to Gaz Jacobs for his email. Sorry for mashing it all up, but later in the later in the email, he does talk about F2, F3 and F4.

So there are footnotes and there are lots and lots of it's like a thesis, you know, with different numbers of stars for each each one of them. But thank you for the work and effort, guys. I appreciate that a star. If you're now you're free of Vanguard Easter, you don't get any ads. But if you are about to get the ads, what you need to know is that Mark is about to talk to David Cronenberg. Excite me for this interview. David Cronenberg has made some of the films that have been the most important films in

my life. Films like The Fly, Dead Ringers, Crash. I've been watching his movies since I was a teenager. I have been reading about his movies in Vangoria magazine since I was a teenager. And I have interviewed him a few times in the past and he has never been anything less than one of the most intelligent filmmakers I have ever met. Okay, so standby for David Cronenberg. This is an advert for Shopify. Mark, do you remember when we started this podcast? I do. Plunging into a world of subscribers, ads, merchandise, a lot to get done, a lot of different hats to wear. And hats to sell, of course. That's where the ad hook comes in. For millions of businesses

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Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. So our guest this week is the aforementioned David Cronenberg, icon of body horror, but a director with many talents and stories to tell. His latest film is The Shrouds. Mark spoke to him about it. You'll hear the conversation after this clip. How dark are you willing to go? I'm okay with dark. When they lowered my dead wife into the ground in her coffin, I had an intense, visceral urge to get into the box with her.

It was so strong. I couldn't stand it that she was alone in there, and that I would never know what was happening to her. It wasn't a literary or an intellectual thing. It was right here pulling me hard. That's a clip from The Shrouds. I'm very pleased to say that we're joined by David Kronenberg. David, welcome to the program. Firstly, congratulations on the film which has haunted me since I saw it. The interesting thing is, at the center of it is a device, a shroud, that enables people who have lost loved ones to see the bodies of their loved ones decomposing in

real time. Which sounds like a very morbid idea, but our central character says no. To me, I find it reassuring. And I wonder if you could say something about the fact that a film called The Shrouds, although it is about grief, is not simply about grief. Well, I think a full-length feature film that's only about one emotion or one, let's say, human mode would be rather boring. Ultimately, it'd be like playing one note on the piano. So if you think, as I do, that all the purpose of

all art is to examine the human condition, the human condition is quite complex and fluid and constantly changing. So I can't imagine only dealing with grief in a movie. I think that would be for changing the possibilities of your art. So to me, it's the emotional jumping off spot to explore all kinds of things, including technology, the vagaries of human emotion and the complexity of humor. The fact that I think because I think we have evolved to have

a sense of humor as a survival mechanism, a movie without humor is not fully human as far as I'm concerned. That's why I think the movie is also funny. Different audiences I've found find it more or less funny. I think part of it was the Cann Cannes Film Festival audiences are very strange, unusual audience. There's subtitles, there are a couple of versions of subtitles. Then of course, there's the glamor.

Can we laugh at Kronenberg's movie there? He is sitting there in a tuxedo looking very serious. I mean, is it okay to laugh at his movie? The answer is yes. In fact, you must. Yeah, that's why a movie is a little universe, and it has to have a lot of things in it to be a fully convincing, vibrant, alive universe. That question about whether we're allowed to laugh is also put more acutely into focus by the fact that as people will know, you made the film after losing your wife and it

was dealing with the issue of grief which you were dealing with. You've said very specifically, it's not catharsis, it's not to do with working through, it's just to do with using your life experience for your art. Is that how you feel about the shrouds? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there is a school of thought that feels that art is,

in basis, a therapeutic endeavor for humans, and I completely don't think that at all. It's more like play. So like, well, why would you make a movie about the death of your wife if you weren't going to be grieving and sobbing and curled up in the fetal position all the time while you're on the film set? The answer is that it's not an attempt to kill, it's an attempt to play with

the events and facts of my life to create something that's different, that's alive, that's exploratory, and that does help me understand what life is, what it is like to be a human being on this planet at this time. Humor is a huge part of that. If you want your characters to be completely alive, you have to have humor. They have to have, even if they are saying things that are funny, that they don't realize are funny, but the audience does,

have to count this humor. I had to say because, of course, the facts of my wife's death in 2017 are somewhat known and that the movie is about that loss on a certain level. But as I've said many times, as soon as you start to write the screenplay, you're writing fiction, you are creating characters who don't really exist,

but they insist on existing if you're lucky, and then they push you around and they start to say things that you didn't really expect them to say, and they start to do things you didn't really want them to do for your narrative, and you have to deal with that. But underneath that, it's very exciting because it means that they're alive. And at that point, then, you are writing fiction. You are not writing autobiography.

Of course, every work of art is autobiographical in the broadest sense because it comes out of your culture, out of your education, out of your mentality, out of your reading or your movie going, whatever it is. So it's very unique to you and it becomes in that sense, always autobiographical. But on the more specific idea of this is almost a documentary, no, this is not that. This movie is not that.

You've always had a great relationship with actors. I remember when Jeremy Irons won his Oscar, basically saying that it was his work with you on Dead Ringers that had gotten to that point. Several very strong performances here, but at the center, Manson Cassell and Diane Kruger in not one, not two, but technically really three roles. Yet you have always said that you don't really rehearse with actors. Is that still true because the performances seem to be very confident?

Yeah, it's completely true. In fact, Diane was quite shocked when she came to the set because there was no scheduling of the rehearsal. She had expected what is called in theater and she was calling it a table read. Basically, you sit around the table with your actors and you read the script, they all read their lines and you discuss the dynamics and so on. And I told her, I said, you know, I tried that once on the fly and I found that it was completely useless because by the time we got to the real set with the real costumes and the space and everything, the dynamics of everything

changed and everything that we had worked out in the rehearsal became completely irrelevant and useless and I thought therefore I would never rehearse again and I never did. But she would obviously had had that experience and expected it and I said we'll go on the set in the morning, and it'll just be me and you and the other actors, and the cameraman, and the script person, and that's it, nobody else. We will block the scene.

We will find out how to move through the scene. That is the first time I actually hear my lines of dialogue, if I remember myself, the first time I've heard them spoken, is when we're blocking the scene on the day that we're actually shooting it. My feeling is that casting is a huge part of directing, and it's a very un-examined part of

directing because it's not very glamorous. But I say to young filmmakers, casting is half the battle. You really have to be careful about who you cast in your movie. So I was saying to Diana, I trust your instinct, your intuition that you will understand this character and you will start to understand how the dialogue should be delivered inside.

Now, I know that she and Vansalm did a lot of work together, doing line readings together as actors usually do, partly to help them memorize the dialogue, but also to get the rhythms between them, establish and so on. But honestly, it worked really well. For Diane, I made one or two takes, that's it. I don't have to do more.

Same with all the other actors. They really understood the characters very deeply, and it spent more time with them than I had, and they were great. It was a very efficient, lovely shoot with lots of surprises for me as a director. Once again, I have not yet encountered the need to rehearse. I was talking to Paul Schrader, we were at dinner together at the Toronto Film Festival,

and he said to me because he was talking to a couple of other people, rehearsal is everything. And I said, well, Paul, for me rehearsal is nothing. It's worse than nothing. I think it's the structure. You find your own way of working, and if he found it, he obviously has had success with his directing and it works for him. The other interesting collaboration that's long-standing for you is obviously with Howard Shaw,

your composer. I recently wrote a book about film music and I interviewed Howard and he was very forthcoming talking about his relationship with you. I asked him how he spoke to you about the films. He said, well, we talk about the themes. That's what we talk about. We don't talk about the story and the plot and the narrative and the thing. He said, we talk about the themes, that's what we talk about. We don't talk about the story and the plot and the narrative and the thing. He said we talk about the ideas. And I wondered whether in a way,

just talking to Howard about the ideas of the music, does it refine for you what the idea of the film is? Oh, well, it definitely can. Yeah. I mean, even as much as talking to the production designer, Carol Spear, in this case, who I've worked with for almost half a century, believe it or not, will also force me to think in great detail about what's going on in the movie. You expect that from your costume designer and from your cameraman when you start to discuss lighting. With Howard, it's a fairly abstract discussion, whereas with the cameraman,

it's maybe not so abstract. Because music is very difficult to talk about in concrete terms. For me anyway, I'm not talking about, yeah, it'd be good to have an oboe here instead of a flute. So we do talk about what we've always talked about, which is what is the music really doing in this movie? Why is it even there?

And we consciously avoid having the music underscore exactly what is going on visually. So early on, we felt movie music tends to just underscore what is already there. So if it's a scary scene, you get scary music. If it's a romantic scene, you get romantic music, action scene, action music, and so on and so on. And we thought music could do something

a lot more interesting. It could be an absolutely other plane of emotion or discourse. It could almost be like another character in the movie. And yes, I mean, all of my collaborations helped me understand the movie that I'm making. Another thing that I say to students is, you probably aren't going to be good at everything. You're not

maybe going to be good at costumes and music and lighting and dial-up. And in that case, you accept that you have these crevices of non-intelligence, and you will find really great people who can fill those crevices with their knowledge and experience and understanding. You need those collaborators, you want those collaborators, and they will all help you understand what the movie is that you're really making. Are you working on another project now?

I had been working on a script that's based on my novel Consumed, the one novel that I've written. Robert Lantos, Canadian producer who worked with me many times before, really wants to make that movie. And I'm enthused by his enthusiasm. I wrote the movie, what did the book end, 2014 or 2011? I can't even remember. I thought maybe it was no longer relevant to me what I had written, because it was very much of the time that I was writing.

But he did encourage me to reread my own novel, and he did encourage me to reread my old script for Crimes of the Future, which I had written 20 years before. He seems to be very good at that. So I read my book and I was surprising myself because I'd forgotten a lot of things that were in there. I thought, well, this is actually not bad at all.

You have your doubts. If everything works out, I might be making a film of Consumed, my novel. It's very interesting to be adapting your own novel for the screen. There are many filmmakers who've done that. I've never done that. I have adapted the work of other wonderful writers like Burroughs,

and John DeLillo, and J.G. Peller, and so on. But to do your own is kind of a surreal meta type of experience. I'm looking forward to continuing that. And if the script turns out to be something that everybody feels is a viable project, then it might go ahead. I mean, it wouldn't be cheap. It would take place in four cities and had a rather large scope. And these days, we're an independent film that would be basically an art film.

That might be too much these days to find out. I have no idea that would be for my producer really to explore and to conquer. That's the art of the producer. I'm aware that our 20 minutes is coming to an end, and I want to say firstly, I really hope that you do make the film. The thing that's important to me is I started watching your films when I was a teenager, and I've spent most of my life watching your movies and I've had conversations

with people about, you know, what are they about? Well, they're about body horror and they're about this and they're about that and blah, blah, blah. The thing I want to say to you is, and even when we're dealing with The Shrouds, which obviously is a film which is wrapped in the idea of grief, your films have made me really happy and I really hope you keep doing it. Well, that's probably the best review I really hope you keep doing it. Well, that's probably the best review I've ever had. Thank you. Thank you, Mark.

Thanks very much. Great to talk to you again. Good to talk to you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. David Cronenberg speaking to Mark about his new movie, and because you are so immersed in his work, he clearly really appreciated what you said at the end there. Well, it's funny, I was listening back to it. I hadn't realized quite how emotional I got about

it because I do, I have lived most of my life with his films. He's in his 80s now and the body of his work has been with me for most of my sort of film going off. And I love those movies. I absolutely love them. And I always remember, you know, very early on, you know, if you wanted to win an argument about horror, you just quoted David Cronenberg because he was always, his films have always been about ideas and that's what I love about them. And he was always the great, eloquent horror film director. He's kind of transcended genre very much now

because I think that although he came from horror, he's gone into many different areas with Maps of the Stars and Dead Ringers. But anyway, it was just lovely to speak to him and that was great. But it was also, what was interesting about it was that it was, because it was very insightful and wise in as much,, because you'd mentioned the fact

his wife had died and all the times that he was saying that it wasn't cathartic, I thought it definitely was. I haven't seen the film. I just listened to the interview. But when he talked about, I think the phrase he used was playing with the events of his life. That to me sounds like a sifting process from which you get understanding. And that to me sounds like catharsis. So I know he says that it's not, that absolutely is not what it was. It sounded to me as though, you know, what you said about just because you made the film doesn't mean that you understand it. I wonder if in, you know, in the fullness of time, he will think that actually there was some therapy going on there. That's the wrong word, actually, but catharsis is

the right word. In a way, this leads me nicely into what I'd like to say in the review, which is that I think the act of making a film and watching a film is very different. What you take from a film is one thing, and what you put into it is a different thing. So I cannot speak for Cronenberg and his experience, but what I can do is say that, we prefaced that interview with that little clip from the film in which the thing is,

how dark are you willing to go? And on one level, this is very dark. I mean, the story is, Vons-en-Cassellis Karsh, he was a businessman behind Gravetech Company, typically Cronenbergian Company, who developed this technology in which when someone dies, their body can be put in a shroud, that their loved ones are then able to watch

those bodies decomposing, you know, because of the technology of the shroud. And Karsh has lost his wife, she is now part of the Grave Tech project, and he finds solace in watching the decomposition. He finds it reassuring, even though his doctor tells him at some point, grief is rotting your teeth. He's also close to his wife's identical sister,

also played by Dan Kruger, and he has an AI assistant named Honey, who appears to be a third incarnation of that same character. That was a triple role that I was speaking on. And then there's a sort of plot, a narrative plot, which is that Gravetech gets hacked and we open up this whole sort of conspiracy thing, you know, who's hacked it, why have they hacked it, what's the point of a hack. And there is this sort of strange mystery, which is that he is starting to notice that

there are strange growths appearing on his wife's decomposing body. So now look, that as a film made by somebody who has lost their wife and has expressed the grief of that is about as dark as you can get. And I think that when the film played at Cannes last year, some of the response from critics was bamboozled because it was interesting in that interview, David Cronenberg said people didn't know if they were allowed to laugh at certain things.

It was really interesting when he talked about comedy is really important because humor is part of a survival mechanism. And I love the fact that he said that because that idea about horror and humor and grief and humor, all those things makes it there is a survival mechanism. And he sort of said, we have evolved humor as a survival mechanism. So in terms of where this sits in Cronenberg's oeuvre, forgive me for using that word, but there is no other thing, he returns constantly to themes which have interested and obsessed

him throughout his life. And those are themes of identity, of what it means to be human, of the divide between the body and is there a soul? Is there a different thing or are we simply part of the body? He's often talked about films like The Fly, which is really a film about aging. It's not a film about turning into a fly. It's a film about the body changing and the body mutating. The videodrome thing, Long Live the New Flesh.

He is really, really fundamentally interested, fascinated by the human condition in which we are born and live in a body that then fails, or maybe failure is, you know, it then ceases and then goes into the next one. And that is what is going on here. Now, the previous film he referred to, they're crimes of the future. I felt like that was kind of a rehashing of old ideas. It was just going back to old Cronenbergian riffs

and rehashing them. I mean, the script had been around for a while, as he said. In the case of this, I don't think, I think it's the opposite. I think it's reinventing those ideas. And I felt the thing that made me, and that was why I used that word at the end of the interview, made me happy was I felt like it was creating. It was creating new material, new life, new ideas, new things to think about. As I said, all his films are about ideas. People used to say, oh, he's made films with exploding heads, and he's made films with, you know, yeah, but that's not what they're about. Those are metaphors. Those things are metaphors. They are ideas made flesh.

That's what he was doing. But they're just really a mechanism, a narrative mechanism to get you into a discussion of much, much deeper things. What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be dead? What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to miss somebody's physical presence? So I thought it was strange and elegiac

and occasionally absurd absurd deliberately so. People may laugh at it or with it or they may roll their eyes or they may do as some did in Cannes and just not get it. But I've seen it a couple of times now and I think it takes a crushing experience of loss and uses it as a starting point for a film which is actually ultimately uplifting. And it's proof that, you know, even at this advanced stage of his life,

Cronenberg is as lively and as nimble with his ideas as he ever was. And can I also just say, as you heard him talking in that interview, there is a man that talks in whole sentences. I love his films and I'm a big fan of the Shrouds and I definitely hope that the new film happens. Your favorite David Cronenberg films discussed in our one frame back feature, which is in take two for subscribers.

And if, as David and Mark have said, humor is a survival mechanism, we have reached the last 30 seconds of our existence. Because this, in inverted commas, a laughter lift. Oh dear. Hey, Mark, do you remember when we both worked at Radio 1? There was that really irritating boss who kept interfering with things, getting on our nerves all the time. And he got really annoyed when I shortened his name to Dick,

especially as his name was actually Steven. That's kind of okay. Mark, some bad news. I'm afraid I've been ejected from the showbiz North London Vietnamese Sandwich Club. Which is infuriating. I've absolutely no idea what I did to make them ban me, which is a good joke. Hey, hey, I get it.

Okay. Anyway, I see it's Jurassic World Rebirth next, Mark, which reminds me, did you see the news this morning? A fossilized dinosaur fart has been discovered. No. It's a real blast from the past. I have to say that's got a much better reaction than I was expecting. But Mark, sell me on your review of the last film that you're going to be reviewing today. I'm going to be reviewing Jurassic World Rebirth. Hey, dinosaurs are back.

OK, I consider myself animated and excited. That's on the way. Hey, so what did you want to talk about? Well, I want to tell you about Wagovi. Wagovi? Yeah, Wagovi. What about it? On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you about Wagovi. Wagovi? Yeah, Wagovi. What about it? On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No.

Just ask your doctor. About Wagovi? Yeah. Ask for it by name. Okay. So why did you bring me to this circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers. You know, with the chair and everything.

Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name. Visit wagovi.ca for savings. Exclusions may apply. Lion tamers, you know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wigofi by name. Visit wigofi.ca for savings. Exclusions may apply. This episode is brought to you by Dazon. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are

in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on Dazon, starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at dazon.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. So, before we get to dinosaur business, here's some swimming trunk business from Greg in Southwark. Okay. Not a French swimming pool anecdote, but the recent chat put me in mind of an old school friend who was on a German exchange at age 14 to the delightful town of Lubeck in a very

hot June, sometime in the 1980s. Yes. On the Saturday, his host family decided to take the young lad, let's call him Luke, because that's his name, to the delightful seaside resort of Trabermunde, a short drive from their home. He packed a small bag, popped his very 80s, very Bichoud trunks on under his shorts, grabbed a towel and a novel and off they went. At lunchtime, the German host said that they were off to get something to eat and would he like to come? Yes, please, says Luke, imagining that a delicious beachside currywurst and bruchten,

and bröchen, beg your pardon, were on the cards. Without a second thought, he jumped up from his towel and followed along, still wearing the aforementioned snog-fitting Speedos and nothing else because he thought he was getting some beach food. It was only when they passed the beachside fast food stalls that Luke realized that perhaps he might be a tad underdressed. When the beach resort town stopped really being beach resort town and just becoming a town, the awful reality descended upon him. They had to pop into a supermarket first,

as Mutter needed to pick up a few things, and then onward they went to their favorite Bavarian restaurant. The Germans are tied in shirts, shorts, and shoes, and Young Luke in his trunks. No one said a word as they sat down and ate what must have been the most awkward and slightly surreal meals the proprietors had ever witnessed. Needless to say, Young Luke is still pretty much traumatized by this event, which he describes as literally a nightmare. Yes. And he hasn't been back to Germany since. Literally.

Literally. It does sound like I had a terrible dream last night. I dreamt that we went to the local curry house and I was only wearing my pants. That's what happened to Luke back in the 1980s. It's just not right. No, but he didn't realize. No, no. Poor lad. But then, you know, so nobody should wear Speedos.

I think it's the grown-ups' fault for saying, no, I think you need to just pop on a t-shirt or something like that. Anyway, Greg, thank you. Correspondence at KonaMeo.com. Dinosaurs are back. Take it away. Jurassic World Rebirth 12a for Moderate Threat, Violence and Language. This is the sequel to Jurassic World Dominion, the fourth Jurassic World film, the seventh

Jurassic movie. Stars Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manu Garcia, Rufus, Ed Skratt, loads of people. Script by David Kep, spelled Kwep, but pronounced Kep apparently, who co-wrote the original Jurassic and did Lost World, directed by our friend Gareth Edwards, who made the micro-budget monsters pretty much in his bedroom, did all those special effects in his bedroom after having sort of shot the film Verite style,

did a very good job, I thought, with the mega budget Godzilla. Rogue One. Kicked around town with Rogue One, but I still quite like the film. Yes. Made the creator. Now, did you, we interviewed him for the creator, didn't we? We did, we did indeed, yeah. I think that was a very interesting film. It was big budget, science fiction movie, very interesting. So, there's been a lot of stuff about how he wasn't the first choice for Jurassic World rebirth, but was considered a safe pair of hands, not least because he's proved himself so incredibly

adept at mixing visual effects with live action footage, almost sort of, as I said, almost verite down to earth live action. So after Dominion, which was the very definition of Ho and indeed Hum, this is a rebirth in inverted commas. New characters. It doesn't include previous characters from the sequels. New setup, new storyline. Plays out in a world in which dinosaurs are dying out and no one cares anymore.

There's an early scene which has these commuters who are annoyed. They're in a city and they're annoyed because a dinosaur has escaped from a zoo. And what they're annoyed about is that it's holding up the traffic as it's dying. No one cares about dinosaurs. The only place that dinosaurs are still thriving, because they've all fallen apart, is this equatorial area where the climate and ecosystem is good for them. And the area is strictly banned for all visitors for obvious reasons, because every time you put humans and dinosaurs together,

bad things happen. So the script has to contrive a reason to send a bunch of people to go into this banned area. The reason is a company has figured out that it can make a cure for heart disease if it manages to get blood samples from three different dinosaurs, one waterborne, one land-based, one airborne. Okay? That's the setup. So Scarlett Johansson is this badass who's making a fortune putting the mission together.

They got Dino Specialist who wants the world to benefit from his discoveries rather than the farmer companies. Then you've got adventurers and sort of mercenary types. What are we missing? Oh, we're missing a family. So en route to this area that they're not allowed to go to, they pick up a shipwrecked family, including an annoying boyfriend who just happened to be in the area.

Yeah, right. So what they have to do is they have to get the blood by shooting a hypodermic syringe into each of these, you know, water-borne, airborne, land-borne. The hypodermic then, after it's got the blood, shoots out a capsule that then produces a parachute and then parachutes down with the blood sample, often happening, coming right into their hands. They must do this on land, on sea, and in the sky, whilst every now and then making quips like, well that just happened. Here's a clip from the trailer.

On the island we're headed to. Two dozen species have survived there alone. The theme park owner is at experimental work, leaving only the worst ones here. I don't see that every day. Forever. So you see what I mean about stuff happens then you don't see that every day. You don't see it ever. Maybe we should make this quick. Blah, blah.

Now two things. Firstly, I saw this at a premiere screening in which the audience went nuts. They cheered, they laughed, they whooped, they did the whole thing. And I say that because I think that I need to have that upfront because I didn't do any of those things. So the first film, I mean, it's so hard to think back to this, but do you remember the first time you saw Jurassic Park? Yeah. First time we saw it, it actually gave us the impression of walking with dinosaurs. It was like, wow. However, in the world in which this film is

set, the world has become completely bored with the thing about dinosaurs. And honestly, I think as audiences, so have we. And so have the filmmakers to the point that it's not just dinosaurs now. It's mutated dinosaurs. It's the Distortus Rex, which incidentally, the reveal of which has already been spoiled by the publicity. So for a film which says it's a new start, new characters, new storyline, and is called Rebirth, it's strange how much of this, just the overriding sense is we have seen all of this before, but crucially, we cared about it more. So all the usual beats are there, you know, big dinosaurs, ensemble cast of misfit characters,

sinister corporations doing sinister corporationy stuff, people getting picked off by the dinosaurs which were rides but aren't rides anymore. What they reasoned is firstly any of the memorable dialogue of the first film, you remember the first film, all the stuff about chaos theory, you remember all the brilliant stuff about your scientists were so busy wondering whether they could, they never stopped to wonder if they should. All that stuff, clever girl, all those brilliant things, nothing like that here. Instead, the characters are paper thin. The plotting is, I mean, when they explained the mission, it was like, oh, come on, that

is just Thunderbirds. The shipwreck family, the computer game goals, even the sort of big farmer is baddie stuff, it all just felt like, okay, yeah, and the next beat and the next beat and the next beat, and then the dinosaurs, which are now basically just big screen roaring monsters. The only potential surprise being the reveal of the stuff, which we've kind of already seen.

I read a thing in which the script writer said that what he wanted to do was get back to the tone of the original Jurassic movies. It doesn't. What it does is remind us how much more, particularly the first movie, how much more exciting it was the first time and how the sense of awe that we got the first time. All those reaction shots, which the people looking up and suddenly seeing like a whole field full of dinosaurs or the dinosaur in the tree or the first time that the T-Rex eye and the all that stuff, it's gone. Now on the upside, it's better

than the last installment, which isn't saying that much. And Gareth Edwards is a very, very good director who proves himself very capable. And I think he gets the very best out of what is, honestly, a shonky script. But compare that to what he did with Creator. You liked Creator, right? Yeah, I know, absolutely I did, yes. And it had loads of interesting things in it. It didn't all work, but it had loads of interesting things

and some things that you really hadn't seen before and some ideas that you didn't expect. And it was adventurous and it went to strange places. This feels like, do you remember there's a thing in, it's one of the early films in which there's like dinosaur fast food, you know, because they were at the theme parks and there's dinosaur themed fast food.

And this basically reminded me of that, the processed samey hugely saleable, utterly forgettable. It's like the Big Mac of Jurassic movies. If F1 is a bucket of popcorn movie, then this is basically a Big Mac with fries movie. It was funny because I was watching it and I was thinking, I don't know whether you remember, there was a film of Fast Food Nation in which Bruce Willis does this thing about processed burgers. He says, yeah, it's a sad fact of life, but if you're going to eat processed burgers, the truth is we all have to eat a little from time to time.

I did think watching this, it's going down well with the crowd. I can hear it. They are literally whooping and cheering. And when stuff happens and missions, they are all, bear in mind, it's a premiere crowd. Many of them are just excited to be there, but it was clearly playing well with them. It will clearly take a ton of money. It is better than the last instalment. Edwards has done a really, really good job with a very shonky script. And at no point was I interested at all.

The last Jurassic film I saw, I remember because we discussed it, being almost embarrassed about how poor the CGI was. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was quite early on and there was a chase in I thought that's the one thing that you have to get right. You know, you even if the script is terrible, if I don't believe the dinosaurs, there really is no point in coming to this place. That wasn't the case with this. Okay, that's part of the reason with that is I do think that Gareth Edwards knows how to do visual effects in, you know, VFX in real world settings that look real. That is one of his great talents. And I think he's the star of this show because I think he's directed it as well as it is

possible to direct that script. It's the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production this week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh, Heather, producer, Jem, redactor, Simon Paul. If you're not following the pod already, please do so because it's kind of rude to have got to this point and you're not even following us. Mark, what is your film of the week? Well, I'm delighted to say my film of the week is The Shrouds. And I'm also delighted that Cronenberg was talking about making the next film. You know, long may he continue, long live the new flesh.

Take two has landed adjacent to this very entertaining podcast. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you very soon.