Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. Kate
Speaker 1: Jings watches hundreds of films every year for her job
Speaker 1: programming feature films at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and
Speaker 1: because she loves them. Today she's bringing you her five
Speaker 1: favorites from twenty twenty five. There's Leonardo DiCaprio. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's also Heist's Collaborative Theater as Film PTSD but funny,
Speaker 1: and there's Porridge. It's Thursday, December twenty five and Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2: Kate, welcome to seven AM. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: coming on the show.
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: All Right, movies of the year, let's kick things off.
Speaker 3: What is first on your list?
Speaker 4: Okay, the first one is Paul Thomas Anderson's film One
Speaker 4: Battle after Another, which I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Is topping like every single list.
Speaker 5: At the moment, bringing justice to the vigilante group known
Speaker 5: as the French seventy five. We are here to award
Speaker 5: Steven lot of Job with the Medal of Honor.
Speaker 3: This is a total epic from him.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know his films are kind of epic
Speaker 4: and scope, but this one is you know, it costs
Speaker 4: a huge amount of money, but it's essentially about a
Speaker 4: group of like leftist radicals. They're breaking out immigrants from
Speaker 4: kind of ice like containers, going.
Speaker 3: To create a show an announce.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of bombs, there are a lot
Speaker 4: of car chases. It's an incredibly enjoyable film, like it's
Speaker 4: just a film you want to see at the cinema
Speaker 4: on the biggest screen possible. But it's also of course
Speaker 4: very political and very politically minded and kind of a
Speaker 4: prescient film for the times.
Speaker 1: Very important to keep your cap shunted like this so
Speaker 1: you don't accidentally detonate your charge.
Speaker 2: And you said that the film is pressing in terms
Speaker 2: of the current political climate, So what do you think
Speaker 2: it gets right in terms of understanding the political landscape,
Speaker 2: the growing far right, the deepening political divides in the US,
Speaker 2: but you know, also in a lot of the world.
Speaker 4: Well, it's very much about this polarized society. And we
Speaker 4: saw it also with the film like Civil War that
Speaker 4: came out earlier this year, about this kind of growing
Speaker 4: distrust in the government and in political systems and in
Speaker 4: the law, and a kind of radicalization of people that
Speaker 4: you wouldn't really expect to be kind of becoming radicalized
Speaker 4: Like it does feel like an activist film. I mean,
Speaker 4: it is also still like a big budget car chase film,
Speaker 4: but there is something kind of solid to it, I think.
Speaker 2: And it's also the latest collaboration between Paul Thomas Anderson
Speaker 2: and Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead. He composed the music for
Speaker 2: this film.
Speaker 6: Talk a bit about the scot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's his sixth score with PTA, which is interesting.
Speaker 4: I mean, he does so many films, but he just
Speaker 4: seems to have such a incredible connection with Paul Thomas
Speaker 4: Anderson and Johnny Greenwood has just put together.
Speaker 3: This beautiful score.
Speaker 4: It's very like discordant piano and percussion and like blasts
Speaker 4: of synth, and it really matches the energy, the frenetic
Speaker 4: energy of the film. I'd be very surprised if it's
Speaker 4: not Oscar nominated.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, let's move on.
Speaker 2: What is your second pick?
Speaker 4: The second one is the mastermind the new Kelly ry
Speaker 4: Cup film, which actually has quite a lot of connection
Speaker 4: to one battle after another. You wouldn't think that you
Speaker 4: know a Kelly Rye Cup film. You know, she makes
Speaker 4: kind of these pretty intimate, small, low key films. Generally,
Speaker 4: I love her work so much and this is a
Speaker 4: heist film, it's said in the early seventies, but it
Speaker 4: is also about this growing kind of despondency and like
Speaker 4: political apathy.
Speaker 3: You don't look like cops, Saint James.
Speaker 6: We've been told that you're mixed up in this robbery.
Speaker 3: I sure don't know how you got down this for
Speaker 3: you got the wrong idea.
Speaker 4: I'm afraid you get set against the backdrop of you know,
Speaker 4: the expansion of the Vietnam War and protests on campus
Speaker 4: in the States. But at its core, the film is
Speaker 4: about a man who is kind of this middle class
Speaker 4: guy who just manages to skate through live He's played
Speaker 4: by Josh O'Connor, and he becomes quite obsessed with these
Speaker 4: paintings in the local art gallery, like a large museum,
Speaker 4: and he puts together a heist with a couple of
Speaker 4: guys who should not be doing this kind of work.
Speaker 4: So what we see is this like very hapless guy
Speaker 4: on the lamb attempting to evade capture.
Speaker 5: It's a big life changing opportunity for me, but I
Speaker 5: don't have to run a workspace and purchase tools, which.
Speaker 6: I don't have.
Speaker 3: That sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And this is real, it's real somewhat coincidentally, I'm sure,
Speaker 2: being released in the context of the recent actual heist
Speaker 2: of the Loof.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if only it was as meticulously planned as that
Speaker 4: Louver Highest. And what I wish had come out of
Speaker 4: the Louver situation is that it had really made everyone
Speaker 4: rush to see The Mastermind at the cinema, And sadly.
Speaker 3: I don't think it did, but it should have. It
Speaker 3: should have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the box office straw was just one point
Speaker 2: four million, despite a lot of very good reviews. So
Speaker 2: what to make of that?
Speaker 3: It is kind of a small film.
Speaker 4: I don't think people are ever really rushing out to
Speaker 4: Kelly Reiker films at the cinema. They should be, she
Speaker 4: makes beautiful films. It's hard to market a film like this,
Speaker 4: and with films going straight to streaming, I think that
Speaker 4: that is, you know, just a rising ish. I mean,
Speaker 4: people still are going to the cinema. I'm never going
Speaker 4: to say cinema is dead, because it just keeps coming back.
Speaker 2: In some ways, you would think that this one, you know,
Speaker 2: might be kind of more that way in clin purely
Speaker 2: because it is it's a highest film. Highest films are fun.
Speaker 2: People like to go out and watch them. So how
Speaker 2: does this film sit I suppose within that canon.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, it's the most hapless heist you've ever seen,
Speaker 4: but it's very funny. It's no like Roofifi, it's no
Speaker 4: Lesser Ruge, it's not even like Oceans eleven, you know,
Speaker 4: but it's probably my favorite.
Speaker 1: Coming up a debut director and a cult favorite.
Speaker 2: Kate, we're chatting about your favorite films of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: What's next on the list.
Speaker 4: The next one is Sorry Baby. It's by Eva Victor
Speaker 4: and it's their directorial debut and they also they wrote
Speaker 4: directed start in It really impressive for someone who has
Speaker 4: only made like kind of two camera pieces like.
Speaker 3: On their phone.
Speaker 4: That's kind of what Eva Victor came up during COVID
Speaker 4: times of like making these front facing camera videos that
Speaker 4: were very funny and put them on Twitter. And now
Speaker 4: they've got this like film that played at can What
Speaker 4: are you up.
Speaker 3: To this fine evening?
Speaker 6: I was wondering, do you have like stuff that makes
Speaker 6: a fire? Why do you need it? My friends and
Speaker 6: I we're going to make like hart Dogs hard dogs
Speaker 6: sounds good. I'm sorry, we only bought two hot dogs.
Speaker 4: It's essentially about this woman who is she's teaching her
Speaker 4: a college. It's told in four chapters that have been
Speaker 4: sort of rearranged, so we're not dealing with a linear
Speaker 4: timeline throughout the film, which matches the emotional state of
Speaker 4: the character reckoning with an assault that occurred. They were
Speaker 4: assaulted by a trusted individual during their time as an
Speaker 4: undergrad on campus and have now become like a professor.
Speaker 6: I know this is hard to talk about.
Speaker 3: It doesn't feel that you know that.
Speaker 6: We know what you're going through. We are women what.
Speaker 4: At the same time, it is a very funny film.
Speaker 4: It's beautifully funny, tender film.
Speaker 2: That is a very hard line to walk though between
Speaker 2: comedy and that kind of content you know about sexual
Speaker 2: assault and PTSD.
Speaker 3: But you think it kind of.
Speaker 2: Manages to, you know, move between those kinds of emotional poles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really do.
Speaker 4: And I think the reason why I've put it into
Speaker 4: my top four of the year is it's not because
Speaker 4: it is just the like the best film that came out.
Speaker 4: It's that even Victor has taken something that's discussed so
Speaker 4: much in kind of print media and on screen and
Speaker 4: in television. I see so like I see hundreds and
Speaker 4: hundreds of films all the time, and I see a
Speaker 4: lot of films about these this kind of subject, But
Speaker 4: when something like this comes along, it's like, Oh, there
Speaker 4: are new ways of telling these stories. There are these
Speaker 4: really authentic ways of telling these stories that you might
Speaker 4: not want to be hearing about anymore, you might not
Speaker 4: want to be seeing anymore. But it is a kind
Speaker 4: of deeply affecting film.
Speaker 7: Missus Ward, what when I asked who has been a
Speaker 7: victim of a crime?
Speaker 3: Did you raise your hand?
Speaker 6: No? I realized I shouldn't share it.
Speaker 3: So you're unable to share the crime.
Speaker 7: It is frankly my worst night, Meredith, to tell this
Speaker 7: whole rooms strangers about the thing that happened to me.
Speaker 7: So that is the reasoning as to why I did
Speaker 7: not decide to continue having my hand raised.
Speaker 2: Thank you, okay, And so your fourth pick is from
Speaker 2: a cult favorite director.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this one is Mike Lee's film Hard Truths. I
Speaker 4: adored this film. I really love Michaele's films, but this
Speaker 4: one is his best film in quite a long time.
Speaker 3: She's rude, man, I've been harassed people all day. I'm
Speaker 3: sick to death with it.
Speaker 4: It stars Mary and John Baptiste, who was in his
Speaker 4: film Secrets and Lies from nineteen ninety six, and I
Speaker 4: think she did like the score for another film of
Speaker 4: his career, Girls, and she plays this ultimate sour pause.
Speaker 3: Her name is Pansy.
Speaker 4: She is a woman who is just like moving through
Speaker 4: the world having like problems with everyone, Like she can't
Speaker 4: go to the grocery store, she can't buy furniture without
Speaker 4: like absolutely letting it rip, and she can't go to
Speaker 4: the dentist without saying something hideous to the dentist. Married
Speaker 4: to this husband who is kind of beaten down essentially
Speaker 4: by her extreme depression and anxiety.
Speaker 3: I'm really selling this film, aren't I.
Speaker 6: What's the thing?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like hard if a film is amazing
Speaker 2: with an unlikable main character, Like how do you kind
Speaker 2: of get past that and start to enjoy whatever the
Speaker 2: particular beauty of this film is.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's like it's in the title. People
Speaker 3: can't stand them, cheerful, grinning people.
Speaker 4: But she has this sister who is like full of
Speaker 4: light and love and has these two daughters who are
Speaker 4: just like every scene with them is just absolute joy,
Speaker 4: Like it's beautiful to witness, and like that is how
Speaker 4: the film works because we are not constantly stuck in
Speaker 4: Pansy's world, like we see that something else exists and
Speaker 4: could exist for her as well, because it's her family.
Speaker 4: And the filmmaker John Waters included it in a recently
Speaker 4: best of films and he just said the greatest thing
Speaker 4: about it, He said, a wretched experience I'll cherish forever.
Speaker 3: That's just ideal.
Speaker 4: But it is like I had lots of laughs in
Speaker 4: this films, like it's a very dark comedy and this film, so.
Speaker 2: There were fourteen weeks of rehearsals and then a kind
Speaker 2: of just a six week block of filming, which it
Speaker 2: feels to me a little reminiscent of how a play works.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he's made a lot of like you know,
Speaker 4: he made all these television dramas as well, and that's
Speaker 4: how he made them in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 3: That's how Michaeley works. He brings in a cast.
Speaker 4: He doesn't do normal auditions, and then he gets everyone
Speaker 4: in a room and sort of he has a basic
Speaker 4: idea of the film and then gets everyone to kind
Speaker 4: of help devise it with him. So it's a really
Speaker 4: collaborative effort. And you very much see that play out
Speaker 4: on screen.
Speaker 2: Great, well, it sounds like the themes here are political, personal,
Speaker 2: dark but funny.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, look that cinema in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: In a nutshell, I.
Speaker 2: Think coming up how to make the perfect bowl of porridge?
Speaker 2: And there's an honorable mention, Kate, tell me about your
Speaker 2: final pick.
Speaker 4: There is an Australian document entry I needed to mention.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a very late contender for the end
Speaker 4: of the year release, but it's called The Golden Spirtle
Speaker 4: is by Constantine Costi, who it's his first feature doc.
Speaker 4: He's actually known as an opera director and he really
Speaker 4: brings that drama to this film, which is a documentary
Speaker 4: about a porridge making competition that is on in the
Speaker 4: Scottish Islands every year.
Speaker 2: Incredible, incredible three.
Speaker 3: Ingredients, water and oatmeal and salt.
Speaker 7: How hard can it be? The most perfect rounded bull
Speaker 7: of porridge is a marriage of all these things together.
Speaker 4: He and his team followed a couple of different contenders
Speaker 4: in this porridge and porridge making competition and it's very
Speaker 4: beautiful because it's you know, we see a lot of
Speaker 4: competition documentaries and this one is sort of elevates that
Speaker 4: because it's gorgeously shot. The cinematography is beautiful. But we
Speaker 4: also meet this like all of the inhabitants of this
Speaker 4: very small town of Carbridge in the Highlands, and so
Speaker 4: we meet the people who live there and who kind
Speaker 4: of are propping up this porridge making competition.
Speaker 3: You know, Christopher Guest could.
Speaker 6: Never and what oats will you be using?
Speaker 3: Why would I want to tell you?
Speaker 6: Other people would get to know.
Speaker 4: It's just a really warm film to watch and if
Speaker 4: you love kind of just looking at the Scottish landscape,
Speaker 4: you can also just go in for that.
Speaker 3: You don't even need to love porridge.
Speaker 2: Well I do love porridge and I would love to
Speaker 2: know what makes a world champion worthy porridge.
Speaker 4: Yes, well you'll have to wait and see, is it.
Speaker 4: Do you use your own bore water? That's what one
Speaker 4: guy brings in. Yeah, these people are really intense about
Speaker 4: their porridge.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for chatting with me about
Speaker 2: it all.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much.