The Rest Is Entertainment - Prop Auctions, Celebrity Bodyguards & Football Chants

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

If you had the money, would you like to own a piece of Hollywood history? What are the most expensive props and movie memorabilia ever, and is there etiquette for who can take iconic items with them when the cameras stop rolling? Football chants are often creative, catchy but are they ever really original? Reviews. Are star rating accurate and how much do critics hate giving a rating? Just some of your questions answered on this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment. The Rest Is Entertainment AAA Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to our Q&A episodes, ad-free listening, access to our exclusive newsletter archive, discount book prices on selected titles with our partners at Coles, early ticket access to future live events, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestisentertainment.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestisentertainment. The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Visit Sky.com to find out more For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Assistant Producer: Aaliyah AkudeVideo Editor: Charlie Rodwell + Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Producer: Joey McCarthySenior Producer: Neil FearnHead of Content: Tom WhiterExec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Sky. And when we say friends, we mean friends with excellent taste in television. Absolutely. And diving into my never ending TV list is so seamless. Sky does all the hard work for me by bringing whatever I want to watch across all my apps and channels into one place. Now let's not forget the blockbuster shows they bring us, Gangs of London, Day of the Jackal. All the different apps all in one place. I like to say effortless input, exceptional output. Do you like that?

Love it. They keep us entertained and give us plenty to talk about. They do. And let's be honest, we love a good chat. We do, Marina. That's why I love voice search. It's like having your very own TV assistant just say what you're in the mood for and boom. I've just got into the habit of saying Glenn Powell into my remote and Sky will pull up everything he's in. It's like magic. Yeah. If I know Sky in a few years, Glenn Powell will literally walk into your room. So be really careful what you say. You know Glenn Powell, he will. Yeah. For now, stick to Telly Discover More at sky.com.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman, live from Morocco. I say live. How are you Marina? I'm very well. I mean, I'm jealous in London is all I can say of your Morocco, John. What's the weather like? I forget London. I forget what it's like. Tell me about the old town. It was all right at the weekend and it's taken a dive. But that's okay. That's okay.

I'll be back very soon though. I'm back for the BAFTAs on Sunday where House and Ames is going to lose once again. Excited to see who we lose to this time. Well it's always sunny on this podcast, Richard. Oh, that's true. Yeah, it's always sunny on this podcast. And we're about to get into some questions by the way, I should say tomorrow we've got a bonus episode for our members that you can join at the rest is entertainment.com and it's 50 years since the launch of Monty Python's flying circus. And we're going to start a little series on that kind of amazing

moment in comedy and where it spooled off into, which I think will be lots of fun. We got some fun little stories in there, haven't we? Yes, we most certainly have. But now, let's get into some questions, shall we? I have a question for you, Marina, from James, who has not given us a surname. He will be formally fitted with one by you. I have a question from James Lexington here. Let's say he's from Nampdwich. Thank you, James. James says, back in the 80s and 90s it seemed like most big Hollywood movies had a song to go with them. Who can forget

such classics as Back Dance by Prince, Adam's Family Groove by M.C. Hammer and Everything I Do by Bryan Adams. Unfortunately not me, says James Lexington. The trend seems to have declined in recent years and only James Bond films seem to have their own song. Is this a sign of change in the media business or just a bit of a lull? Hello, James. I think that what you're talking about is what's officially was called a tie-in song because obviously movies have always had music in them and well once they were an oral medium and there were songs in 50s and 60s movies that became sort of successful things like Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's or lots of Elvis ones like Jailhouse Rock things like that.

Unchained Melody was a movie called Unchained and that became one of the biggest selling songs of all time and lots of different versions. The Beatles obviously did their whole sort of you know they did Help, they did Hard Days Night, Yellow Submarine and then something like The Graduate I mean those amazing Simon and Garfunkel songs I think there are five or six of them.. Mrs Robinson, Sound of Silence, Scarborough Fair, but Mike Nichols was just a huge fan of Simon and Garfunkel and managed to persuade Clive Davis, I think, to let them write a couple for the movie and then in the end they did more. But you are right that the formal tie-in started in the 80s with the summer blockbuster trend, when everything

sort of needed to be a blockbuster. But it weren't really stratospheric with Ghostbusters with that Ray Parker Jr. It weren't Gangbusters with Ghostbusters with that Ray Parker Jr. song. That one had the benefit, which I think is brilliant, of explaining the film's premise. The lyrics explain the film's premise, which is quite helpful. I love that. Because, well, there was lots of sitcoms, don't forget, in the 80s, where they would explain the whole story in the theme.

Different strokes. Different strokes is a classic one. We can't get into, that's another separate question. If you want to do theme tunes that explain the whole story, we could do that. Very happy to do that. Actually, they were a significant part of a promotion. But obviously, it was something significant part of a promotion. But obviously, it was something like Ghostbusters, where it is actually explaining the premise

of the film and it's constantly playing on the radio. That is amazing for you. But remember, this is where MTV really takes off. And so you can have videos with footage from the film because they're an official song. So they were basically an advert for the film and consequently the studios paid for these things and then they did take a share of the profit. So there are certain things that I don't know you think of something like Eye of the Tiger, which we so closely associate with Rocky, that didn't even get appended to a Rocky movie till Rocky III.

But sometimes it was so dominant that the tagline derived from the song because that moment, that emotional moment where it happened like say dirty dancing, I've had the time of my life. The tagline is you'll have the time of your life. Officer and a gentleman, it will lift you up where you belong. So yeah. But then you get all these other ones. And the nineties again, you have these huge songs, some of which are sort of slightly

bizarre. Like one of the trivia questions that my husband often tries to ask me, because you know you have your occasionally you have a trivia question and you just there's a sort of synaptic failure and no matter how many times you've been told it you can't quite remember. Yeah. And he always- Oh, go on, ask me then, ask me, see if I can get it. From what movie is I Don't Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith, the tie-in song?

Oh, I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing. I think it's Armageddon. It is, but there's no... I mean, I would like to miss almost all of Armageddon. I suppose if you're destroying an asteroid, then you don't wanna miss it. No, you don't. Is that the loose tongue in there? I think that's the loose tongue. Anyway, it was a huge song and there were certain things like as you mentioned that Brian Adams song. I mean, by the way, if memory serves, they thought that was rubbish and they stuck it on the end of the movie. You don't see that

at the big romantic climax or whenever it is like in the way that in something like Pretty Woman, you know, when they're parted, you do hear the rock set, it must have been love playing and it sort of, again, it's sort of almost ventriloquizes what's happening on screen. But you don't see that Brian Adams song, it played over the titles. I don't think they thought it was any good. It does have video from the footage from the movie and the video, but it became absolutely massive. And it just stuck on the top of the charts in the UK and in America for a very very long time. It does become much less fashionable in the 2000s. Things like hip-hop were very big and you weren't going to put that on a movie for some reason. They were just very, you know, they're very risk-averse.

They do things like this. Although Cudio had a huge hit with Gangster's Paradise from Dangerous Minds. Again, another example of the song being much more enduring than the movie. Oh my God, I watched that again the other day, by the way. Culturally, Dangerous Minds is... I don't think it would get greenlit these days. How did you have time to re-watch Dangerous Minds? I just wanted to see how much of a cringe it had become in the changing narrative of racial politics. And I would say that quite a big one is the answer to that. They've dropped off for reasons which is that MTV is a nothing now. I mean, it was such a big part of when I was growing up and the idea that you could have this stuff playing

all the time, basically an advert for your movie and that every time it was played on the airwaves, you thought about the movie because you maybe knew the video as well because you knew it was so up. This doesn't happen happen anymore and so it's one of those pieces of what had become marketing that has become cut as you say the whole thing about who gets the Bond song is a big big deal and it's it remains part of that specific franchise's marketing and this is why you get all the best people to do it you get you know Adele or Billie Eilish or whoever it is, because it still remains this kind of prestige thing. But for other reasons, you don't mind your music being used, but there's none of that cultural purchase and there's none of the kind of symbiotic form of marketing for both your music and for the movie that used to happen. So it just

doesn't exist in the same way anymore. Dua Lipa had a Barbie one, didn't she? A lot of the Barbie ones were pretty big. Yeah, it's just not quite, but it's not the same as what it used to be because you just don't have that MTV angle. The MTV with the big video that, yeah, with Will Smith and Tommy Jones in the middle of it that remains as famous as the movie. You know, of course, Ray Parker Jr. who wrote the Ghostbusters theme, you know who successfully sued him? Who? For ripping off his song? Huey Lewis. Oh yes, I did, Ray Parker Jr. who wrote the Ghostbusters theme, you know who successfully sued him for ripping off his song?

Huey Lewis. Yes, I did know this. Yeah. Yes. I want a new drug. He sued, there was an out of court settlement. Huey Lewis was never allowed to talk about it. And then he did talk about it.

And then Ray Parker Jr. tried to sue him back. And that's the 80s for you. Ray Parker Jr. versus Huey Lewis. That was the Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson of the 1980s. Yeah, it meant almost as much. It meant everything. Right, Richard. Andy Hunt says, I've been wondering how football chants work. Who writes them? How are they distributed to other fans on paper, website or word of mouth, like a Sammerstat operation. Also does

anyone have any football or other sports chants under copyright? This is a question that occurs to all of us. I thought rather than us answer it, you know Adam Hurry, he does the brilliant football cliches, social media accounts and the incredible podcasts as well, which if you don't listen to, you must do. I thought this would be a perfect question for him. So I asked Adam and here is his answer. Adam Hursey Hi Andy, Adam Hursey here. Very happy to explore this underappreciated cultural process. Football club message boards have long been littered with tales of honourable but futile attempts to get Football Chance started about a new cult hero, but they're often to the tune of a relatively mainstream pop hit from

any time in the last 50 years. But since football fandom is basically predicated on jealousy and one-upmanship, the easiest and most effective way to establish a new chant amongst a fanbase is to steal it from a rival club, which in turn will have been stolen half a dozen times already, and almost repurpose it with complete lack of shame. As for the distribution, it has to be completely organic. It has to be a word of mouth success spreading itself through the blocks and rows of a stadium. If you print out the lyrics and hand them out, don't even think about doing that. As for copyright issues, no artist is on record for suing a set of football fans for performing a chant based on their work, but at the same time it does feel like a landmark

legal case waiting to happen. So are football chants carefully workshopped from scratch, like a proper song, or are they just endlessly re-appropriated and cannibalised between fan bases to the point where nobody really knows what's original anymore. Turns out it's a bit of both. Oh, I love that. Thank you so much, Adam. I always think, you know, obviously he's right. Lots of them are sort of Nick from other places and that, I think it was St. Pauli in Germany, he did that, you know, I love you, I love you, I love you, and then I will follow, I'll follow that one, which is so weird. It's from like a kind of 50s musical that just

gets taken up and everyone else tries it. I always think the best, and I didn't know where it came from, the absolute, my favourite, creatively my favourite ever football chant, not kind of as a clever pun or anything like that. It's just how did they come up with it? It's the Colo Tori, Yaya Tori Manchester City chant. It's just so extraordinarily unlike anything else and so, and work so beautifully. And there must be someone sitting at home in Manchester just going, but that was it. I was the I literally I did that. That was me. I was the first person to say it. I was the generator. I was the original generator of that one. Do you know which musical You'll

Never Walk Alone is from? Yes, it is from Carousel. Yes. You know, the old Jeremy Corbyn chant, which of course is Seven Nation Army. And it was, oh my God, this is amazing. This is Jeremy Corbyn. But it was, it was old Michael Van Gerwen. It was a Michael Van Gerwen darts chant. And before that would have been something else. We said, oh, Bobby Zamora of Fulham. Oh, that is global. That one. That's global. They have the US as well. That's gone everywhere. There's one, you know, the tune to Rotterdam by the Beautiful South. You think, how is that happening?

To taking Rotterdam by the Beautiful South and turning that into a chant. But they do. Question for you, Marina, and also a first for the show. We have our first three-time questioner. Crikey. Other people have, listen, they've got to raise the game because this guy said three Chris ship is back and he asks I'm a big guy. He gets asked if you play rugby a lot and as a primary school teacher. It's a primary school teacher That's good My mom was primary school teacher God's people. He says I could do with some extra money My fiance would like me to apply for Taylor Swift security team cause a lot going on here, isn't there a Chris ship?

Now, what do we get so many questions answered? There is a lot. I've immediately got an alarm bell ringing there, but hang on. Okay. And he says, what does this entail, joining Taylor Swift Security Team? What does it take to be a servability bodyguard at the highest level? All right. Well, we'll get onto Taylor in a minute. And what I hope your fiance isn't trying to tell you, but almost all bodyguards, close protection officers, CPOs or whatever these days have had a career in the military and the police. It is not enough to simply have been an enthusiastic nightclub bouncer

or a primary school teacher. So you probably have to have that. I don't know. Have you been to any primary schools recently? Convention and precedent says that you probably will have had a career in one of those things. And you've probably left those things because it can be much more lucrative doing this. And by the way, at the top end, I spoke to someone who actually I happen to know who runs something like this and you can get upwards of 5,000 pounds a day, upwards. But if you're looking after big celebrities, but for the, but I mean for the era's tour for Taylor Swift, she had, I think there were 150 CPOs and she had four with her at

all times. Her security costs an absolute fortune. So I think she spends something like 12 or $13 million a year just on that. Okay. So there's a lot of money in it. But Chris, you're not going to see your fiance very much. Because you're working all the time. You're working very difficult shift patterns. If you're going to be Taylor's bodyguard, you're going to be away for like a year at a time practically. But also you have really tough stuff to deal with. You saw the situation in Vienna where she had to cancel three nights of her era's tour when there was a terror attack foiled. Last weekend Lady Gaga did a huge concert in Rio and there was clearly a significant terror threat at that, which by the way, she says she's found out from media reports,

I saw. So doing the job well is harder than it may seem. And another story that is sort of becoming live once more is that awful story about Kim Kardashian when she was in Paris and she was staying in this very very expensive place. Those burglars got in, tied her up, put her in the bath, all the jewelry was taken. I mean it's obviously the most intensely traumatic experience and the more that's going to come out more and more, you know, it's coming out over the course of this week and next week in this court case in France. Now the bodyguard there went off to a nightclub with I think Courtney and Kendall and she

was on her own and yeah, they fired their security after that. But yes, I think that's quite significant. There is always a difficulty with a bodyguard between, in terms of keeping your principles safe and kind of squaring that with their desire to engage with fans or to be in the public eye, you might often have to not notice quite a lot of bad things that they do. You might be accused online of being the father of one of their children's, again with one of the Kardashians, Kylie Jenner, I think people suggested that her bodyguard was a father of her baby, he isn't. But these guys often go on and they, quite a few of them now have quite big TikTok

careers and a lot of following and they make quite a lot of money just from talking about their work or saying that they can't talk about their work. But I would say it's a very, very, to do it properly, there is a high turnover normally by the way with celebrity bodyguards. The guy I was speaking to was saying to me there's a really high turnover because people feel like you become comfortable with a principal and then you stop. Just like Kevin Costner says, you know, he can't get too close to Whitney Houston because then he can't protect her properly. He was right, wasn't he?

Maybe he was, Richard. Maybe he was. Actually, if you look at Taylor Swift, it's quite unusual. Her security team does stay with her. She's pretty loyal to her people in general, Taylor Swift, but she works phenomenally hard. She is almost always working. She has obviously spent the last however many years traveling a lot. So I think Chris, your fiancee would not see you very often, but it is, it could be very, very lucrative, but it is also very dangerous. It's really constant vigilance, especially now when the threats are so different to what they ever were. I mean, there's so much terrorism now and terror threats associated with these kind of soft target cultural events.

So I would say it's a pretty, I'm not sure quite how drawn to the job I would be. Yeah. Unless Chris's fiance is Taylor Swift and she's saying, I will see more of you. Well, that would be, that would certainly be a revelation for our podcast, Richard. Listen, Chris is going to slide into Taylor's DM. So I've had three questions on the rest is entertainment. You know, that's going to impress her. I think Chris can I say, you know, glamorous though it sounds and lucrative though it is please continue being a primary school teacher. Cause it's very, very useful. I know it's not as lucrative and I know it's just as dangerous, but it feels more powerful

in some ways. In many ways it does. Now on that note, Richard, shall we go to a break? I'd love to. This episode of The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Sky, where you can catch up on brilliant shows including season one of Poker face before season two arrives on the 8th of May I think I went on record in series one of this saying it was my favorite television series of the year. You loved it Absolutely. I loved it so much

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And we'll take you through the whole story from Snowden's early career in the CIA and the NSA, to his life in exile in Russia. So to hear more search for The Rest is Classified wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back everybody. This is something we get a load of questions on is auctions, auctions of movie props, I suppose any form of memorabilia like that. Obviously, we know that people really want them and then they're kind of high value items. So what rules are established on sets for people not to take them? Do they have to go through security scanners? I'm so sorry, you seem to have Thor's hammer in your pocket and you're going to have to put that back.

No, I was just pleased to see you. It's interesting because years ago there were no protocols at all. There's that famous story of someone who went to a fancy dress party dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi and sort of rented the Obi-Wan Kenobi costume from Angels and Bermans in London and discovered it was actually Adda Guinness's real costume. So these things were out on the open market. Now they're much more lucrative and people sort of understand, I think, that there's money to be made. Ronny O'Sullivan in the Snooker tournament last week when he had the cue that just wasn't working for him, and they're saying, will he throw it away? He said, no, I'm not going to throw it away because the merchandise people want it. If I could, okay. Everyone understands that everything

has a price and the prices you can get for some movie things are extraordinary. I think the biggest ever price, $28 million for the We slippers from the Wizard of Oz. So, you know, there's an awful lot of money out there. There's a few of those pairs out there. There's maybe three or something and they've all gone for ridiculous amounts. And again, because in any movie, but you know, you're going to get through more than one pair of slippers and you're going to get through more than, you know, one version of every prop. I wanted to talk about it this week, funnily enough. There's an incredible auction. It started yesterday,

but it's on today as well. You've just about got a chance to look at it. So it's from Julien's auctions.com. That's Julian with an E and it's American really, but it has everything from the very early days of television, from things like Gunsmoke and stuff like that, all the way through to you've got ER, you've got stuff from mad men, you got stuff from the Sopranos and I took you through some of my favourite things, things, the stuff that I was tempted to bid on. I mean, some of this stuff is going for crazy money. They had a Lieutenant Colombo nameplate, you know, like the desk plate. Oh my God, you would love that more than anything.

I know. What's the reserve on it? Yeah, $1,500. So you're like, okay, they had his number plate as well was up for grabs. Okay, you don't drive, but the nameplate for the desk, I can't believe you don't want that. Well, listen, I'd like it. I'm not going to spend $1,500 on it. I'd rather think, I can think of people who could use that $1,500 more than Julian's auctions. There's an amazing poster for one of Jessica Fletcher's books. The book is The Corpse Swam by Midnight and it's on the wall of her office and it's all framed up. And that is currently $600, 13 bids on that so far.

Oh, that's so cool. Oh, I've got to look at this catalogue. Oh, it's amazing. You literally go through and just go, yeah, I want that. Ingrid was looking at it yesterday and she goes, yeah, I want that. Ingrid was looking at it yesterday and she goes, they've got Hawkeye scrubs from MASH and you know, they've got this. And she goes, you didn't tell me they had some of Alexis's dresses from Dynasty. I was like, of course I should have led with that. Of course I should have led with that. They got set stuff from Mad Men. They've got these amazing speakers from Mad Men. The thing that's going for the most at the moment, they've got all

the furniture from Frasier's apartment and they've got that iconic coffee table, you know, with the sort of ball legs. And at the moment that's going for $60,000. Oh my God. There's two things that are on for a bigger reserve, but no bits as of yet. One is an entire Wonder Woman costume. You've got the corset, which in itself is $100,000 to $200,000. You've got the boots, which are $30,000. There's a lot of steel in it though. Yes, to be fair. And with the tariffs, actually, you're making money on it. And the headband

is $30,000 as well. The most expensive thing there. Well, firstly, they've got Norm and Cliffy's Bar Stools from Cheers. You've got to have the pair, by the way. You've got to have the pair. You've got to buy them in a pair. Don't break up the set. They have a reserve of $20,000 each, but they also have the Cheers front door, the original front door of Cheers Tavern, you know, with the Cheers sign in it. And that's on for a guide of $125,000. Oh my god, my dream of a basement bar in my house would be fully perfected if I were able to install that on the entrance to it.

Well they've even got interesting like photos, sports memorabilia photos from the wall of Cheers which you can bid on. Honestly they all have these things and again these are taken from prop masters, all sorts of things where people didn't know they were worth any money. Actors will sometimes take things home with them. When the BBC closed down, everyone was taking the signs from the walls. So by and large, if you're on a set and you're a member of a set, you're allowed to take stuff home unless it is a particularly valuable thing that might be needed for a second series or a second run or a follow-up, in which case the props masters will keep it. There comes a point there when the prop masters got this store full of things.

Ten years later, everyone else has moved on and they still sort of got them and they kind of own them. So it's a complete mix. Some sets, they wouldn't even dream of something that's there being particularly valuable. Some the prop masters own everything, some of the production owns everything, some of the actors will take things home. But at that point, they're sort of available to go to auction. But this particular site, you'll keep going through.

They've got like a military trunk from MASH. They've got some amazing things from so many different shows here. They've also got, by the way, some of the furnish from the Cosby show. And they've had quite a few bids on that. They've got Roseanne's sofa. So it's very, very American heavy. So different things for different shows, but certainly after a statute of limitations,

I think it is yours to sell. We once did a pre-titles thing on Pointless on the set of the Queen Vic. And I said very politely, could I take a beer mat? And they said said of course I could. So I've got a Queen Vic beer mat at home and I've got a BBC green room sign. Did you literally just prize it off the walls? No, they slid out so they could be easily put inable again and yeah, by the time the BBC and there was literally nothing there. If you turned up, it was like England during

the war when they took all the signs down to foil the Nazis. Or when they storm a presidential palace when there's been a coup. Yes, exactly. And they nicked Saddam Hussein's paintings of a horse and things like that. It's like House of Games. You can't know what can ever... I've got the House of Games decanter is the only one I've got. It's the only one where you can't really see my face. But if a show is ongoing, it's very hard to get any props from it at all because they will keep everything. But you know, Fraser's apartment is not going to be used again. So whichever prop master owned those things is now quits in. Marina, a question for you from Ian Jones. Ian says, it is commonplace for professional

reviews of film, TV, theatre, music books to headline a star rating, usually one to five stars. Is this star rating purely a decision of the reviewer in question or do they have a list of criteria to apply in order to provide an element of consistency in a publication's reviews? Oh, Ian, I love the idea that it might be very scientific and based on a complex system. The history of star ratings is actually quite interesting and they started in travel guidebooks because it was like a really easy way right back at the sort of turn of the 19th century and then the Michelin restaurant guide. I think they used to just give it a star, one star if it was like a good restaurant and then eventually it evolved into this whole three star system. But about a hundred years after they started in sort

of travel guides and things like that, but only in one or two literary magazines. I thought it was quite interesting that your question said that books are rated like that because actually even now we don't see books really rated with the star system very much. They did it in a few right back at the beginning of all this. But in the end, I think people sort of feel it somehow sort of unliterary to do that and that there's a sort of certain high-brow bias that just means that slapping some stars on something, their thoughts are too complicated for that to happen. But around the same time, you know, like sort of, I don't know, like the

1920s or whatever it was that they started doing, a couple of literary magazines were doing this. The New York Daily News, they had a film critic called Irene Thurer and she started a system in the New York Daily News and they said, oh, we're going to do this. They kind of announced it with a bit of fanfare and they had three stars. By the way, her three stars only meant like, it's quite good, it's very good or it's excellent. So there was no sort of like, yeah, really nice. But again, it just didn't weirdly take off that much in the US, that it was actually in a very high-brow thing in France, in Cahiers des Cinémeurs, which is their sort of very kind of, you know, like all French things to do with film was very high-brow. But they did it in a very sort of thorough way. And they used to ask lots and lots of critics for

their views. And then they would sort of make a melange of it. You see I'm using a French derived word. And they sort of sublimated that into a star system. And if they really hated your film, the critics in general, you got a bullet. But then Sight and Sound magazine, Roger Ebert, the famous film critic, now he started doing it and he had, he did four stars and there was a sort of thumbs up and a thumbs down and what have you. And nowadays we, you know, five stars, they appear. What's interesting is that they appear in the headlines, the stars appear in the headlines so you can really easily see. And some critics do empty stars. You know, that thing that people say on Amazon, like I wish I could give this product no stars

because Amazon, you have to give one star on Amazon. But I spoke to Peter Bradshaw about this, he's a film critic in the Guardian, and he's one of those people who he's like reviews I absolutely love. So I, you know, Peter, I'll be honest with you, there's quite a lot of those films I'm not going to go and see, but I just want to read his review of them. You know, he's such a sort of weathermaker in the industry, actually, if you talk to people. So that's part of it. There's reasons for I spoke to him and I said, how do you feel about stars? Because you know, there's a lot of critics who say, again, my views are too complicated and they shouldn't be reduced to stars. Now he says, I'm one of those quite unusual ones.

I love them. I'm solely responsible for what I put above my reviews. And they're based on my sort of personal critical judgment, but as it is expressed in the text beneath. But then there isn't some scientific system where you think, oh as it is expressed in the text beneath, but then there isn't some scientific system where you think, oh, it's got to about 60% here, I'll give it three stars. He says, in the words of the late great film theorist V.F. Perkins, these judgments cannot be objective, but they can and must be rational. And the reason he really loves them is because he says they make you take a clear position. There's a lot of sort of broad-sheet, very upscale critics who feel that they can sort of obfuscate with whatever they write and

it can go on a long time. And especially with something like a big popcorn movie where you just sort of attack it for this or that. It forces you to take a position that matches ideally the text below it and it makes you actually get off the fence. It's relatively recent that they've always now appear in the headline. That's the difference that you'll see it in the headline digitally and then you'll know immediately. And there is a big draw, you know, sorry, if I see Peter's given something one star, then I want to read it as much as if he's given it five stars, then of course I want to read it. But there's something of a joy. You want to read it?

I said, I want to read the review,'ve got to see read films. No, I want to read the review, Richard. I certainly don't. If he's given one star, I'm not going to go and see the film unless it's so cataclysmic that I feel like it's epoch defining cataclysmic and I've got to see the one star movie. By the way, I've seen quite a few of the one star ones anyway, for various different reasons. I like Peter Bradshaw sitting at home now going, oh, this is lovely. Marina's been so nice about me. And then you go and, you know, if I see a five or a one above it then I'll read the review. Other than that, you know what, not for me.

I will read all of his because as I say, I like to go, it's a destination read. It's like people who write about television and you realise that you know Clive Jones used to write about television when you think I don't care less whether I've seen the show or not. I just, I'm enjoying the experience. And I feel like that about his reviews. So, but yes, in general, I think some critics can be feel that too high brand to have to do it, but now all have to do it. Um, but we don't see it on books, which remains somewhere where we don't really see it.

But book reviews are not a huge deal. And book ratings are massive. You know, the Amazon ratings, the good read ratings and things like that are absolutely huge. And it's, it's, you know, people are slightly obsessive about them. And when I say people, I mean me. But it's fascinating on Amazon because just the way it was, if essentially, you know, you think if gosh, if my book was four out of five, that would be pretty good. Most books sort of settle somewhere around

4.2, 4.3. And if you're above 4.5, this is like the greatest thing that's ever happened. It's quite easy to be above 4.5 if you've got like 18 ratings, because somewhat like some obscure film history, but that I might have, which is really good, but not that many people bought it or liked it, but it's very well done. Can I ask you something about Goodreads and the way they get, you know, a book that I know hasn't yet come out has got a rating on that is that, sorry, I know we're jumping off I know hasn't yet come out has got a rating on that. Sorry, I know we're jumping off here, but do people send those books out to people that they feel

are Goodreads posters in order that you get a good rating before the book is even released? Yeah, they'll send it out on NetGalley, which is a way, if you're a voracious reader and you want to get books early, NetGalley will often let a thousand people read. So my books in the States, certainly like a thousand people will be able to read it before it comes out and they will provide early feedback. And it can be incredibly important to some books because the idea of if you get some star ratings behind you, the Amazon algorithm is kinder to you. So lots of books will send them out to lots of people and will say to NetGalley reviewers, please

read it. You must review it. You must give it a star rating. And by the way, they never say you must give a five or four. Because if you look at these things, people are very, very good and they'll just say, look, I was sent it for free and I appreciate that. How do they make you do that? Can they compel you to do it or they just, that you may not get things in the future? You may not get things in the future. Exactly, exactly that. If they feel like you're deliberately, if you're giving everything five out of five, they just, again, they'll be like, this is not working for anybody. It's a neat thing to get on that, that netgalley thing and the people who do it take it very seriously. And you'll often see the earliest reviews or the longest reviews because they're netgalley people who are used to doing this

and who take that star rating very, very seriously. And then later on the star ratings, as you say, the early numbers, if J.K. Rowland brings out a book or if some political figure brings out a book, the early ratings are always so minuscule because they get review bombed in the first week. Everyone gets it one star. And so you'll look, but then actually as the weeks go by, you see what people actually think about the book because the moment you've got 40,000 reviews, then those first kind of boring review bombers are absolutely meaningless. Right. I think that about wraps us up for today, Richard. Yes, we have a bonus episode coming out though, don't we? In fact, probably a couple of bonus episodes on this subject, 50 years of Monty Python coming up. And we wanted to talk a bit about them, but also about the individuals

in them. So how it began, what it was like, and then where it went. We can sort of tell almost a lot of the story of British television and British show business via the members of Monty Python. So that's what we're going to attempt to do. Georgie Tunny If you going to attempt to do. If you want to listen to those, you can sign up and become a member at therestisentertainment.com. But if you don't want to, we will, as always, see you back with a main show next week. See you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. Well, that brings us to the end of another episode of the Restless Entertainment brought

to you by our friends at Sky. I have been catching up on The Last of Us recently, such a gripping watch. Absolutely right. The critics are fairly unanimous. It's dark and intense, brilliantly done, they're all saying, especially on your sky glass with its high quality screen. Yeah, even those very low lit scenes, every flicker, every detail, it really pulls you in. One minute you'll be stretched out on the sofa,

the next you'll be gripping the cushion, and that is not a euphemism. The picture quality really just brings everything to life from the comfort of your living room. It feels properly cinematic, like the room fades away and you're in the thick of it. Until the clicker show up, then it feels a bit too real. Well, that's when you reach for the blanket.

The perfect night in. Couldn't agree more, so for anyone wanting to upgrade their screen time, head to Sky.com and check out Sky TV. I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst turned spy novelist. And I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist. And together we're the hosts of The Rest is Classified, where we bring you brilliant stories from the world of spies. This week, we're talking about one of the most significant stories of the 21st century, Edward Snowden,

and how he orchestrated the biggest leak of classified secrets in modern American and British history. Snowden revealed that the American government was mass collecting data on its own citizens. And it was really the first time that Americans and so many others around the world understood the extent of the US government's mass surveillance.

That's right, it's a story I covered at the time. And it so really gets to wider questions about what privacy means, how technology has changed our lives, and what the government and companies can do with data we might've thought was private. And we'll take you through the whole story from Snowden's

early career in the CIA and the NSA to his life in exile in Russia. So to hear more search for the rest is classified wherever you get your podcasts.