Speaker 1: Look out. It's only films to be buried with Hello
Speaker 1: and welcome, dear, films to be buried with crue and family.
Speaker 1: This is show producer and editor Buddy Peace, just checking
Speaker 1: in on behalf of your regular show host and intro
Speaker 1: deliverer Brett Goldstein. Now, Brett is currently on assignment with
Speaker 1: a number of plates spinning and all manner of engagements
Speaker 1: to engage in, So allow me to welcome you into
Speaker 1: this wonderful two part special episode. So as you'll likely
Speaker 1: be aware of by now, a particular point in the
Speaker 1: year which is untethered by rigid diary dates and annual
Speaker 1: locked in plans, a round up of the previous year's
Speaker 1: films takes place, and it is my great pleasure to
Speaker 1: reintroduce Brett's companion in this quest folks. As always, Brett
Speaker 1: is joined by show friend and long term contributor Nish Kumar.
Speaker 1: We've lost count of how many times exactly Nish has
Speaker 1: died on this podcast, but here we are. Nature finds
Speaker 1: a Way. It's a lovely and of course super enjoyable
Speaker 1: journey through a past year of cinematic goodness mixed in
Speaker 1: with so many other fun ingredients and references and sub references,
Speaker 1: and maybe even some sub sub references, but all in
Speaker 1: all a perfect opportunity to join the two in celebrating
Speaker 1: some memorable moments in the year just gone. Extra audio
Speaker 1: and video is over on the Patreon page at patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash Brett Goldstein, which is very much worth
Speaker 1: your time check out. If you are of a supporting nature,
Speaker 1: Thank you so please enjoy Nish and Brett in the
Speaker 1: first of two episodes, the second of which is dropping
Speaker 1: next week.
Speaker 2: Enjoy hello and welcome to films to be buried with.
Speaker 2: It is I Brett Goldstein and I am joined today
Speaker 2: Bayers sixth time, seventh, who who can count? Eighth? He's back,
Speaker 2: He's he's he's a toilet n He's a mis report,
Speaker 2: He's a tour us. He's wanted deader alive. He's he's
Speaker 2: a menace to society. But he spelled it properly because
Speaker 2: he's like that. He's uh, he's a he's a good boy.
Speaker 2: He's the bad boy of comedy. He's a lover. He's
Speaker 2: a fighter and he will call your prime minister or
Speaker 2: your president. Account Please we to the show. He's one
Speaker 2: of the great He's back. Once again like the Renegade Master.
Speaker 2: Here he is fresh from his pressing podcast. Here he's back.
Speaker 3: Show this Guma three four jamming power to the people.
Speaker 3: The more and more years that we do this, the
Speaker 3: morea more abstracted, the morrible. The introduction becomes sort of
Speaker 3: beat poetry as you as you try and frantically incorporate
Speaker 3: things that you've you may or may not have heard
Speaker 3: me say in the last twelve months.
Speaker 2: Niss God, it's nice to see you. How the listeners
Speaker 2: at home were out and about? Where you are right now?
Speaker 3: I'm currently in Melbourne, Australia, where I am about to
Speaker 3: where I'm about to start a run of shows at
Speaker 3: the Melbourne Comedy Festival and then do on Australian tour.
Speaker 3: I've been on the road for a while now, so
Speaker 3: I was in America and Canada.
Speaker 2: I saw you in America. Yes, so this has been
Speaker 2: doing his American tour. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Arguably we should have done this when we were in
Speaker 3: the same city.
Speaker 2: It would have made sense. Tell tell the Tell the listeners, hello, listeners,
Speaker 2: Tell them about your America. How do you find touring America,
Speaker 2: particularly with your particular brand of spicy comedy. I went
Speaker 2: to see this in Brooklyn. Yes, it's Brooklyn the home crowd. Sure,
Speaker 2: but boy, he said some things that I was like,
Speaker 2: this is an edge Lord. I'm watching edge Lord comedy
Speaker 2: right now. Couldn't believe it. Oh, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: Get me on at the Bathership, Get me on at
Speaker 2: the Mothership. It was an excellent show. And those of
Speaker 2: you who haven't seen it yet, you must go see
Speaker 2: a show. But take protection because someone's getting pregnant. That's
Speaker 2: all I say. Tell us, how you how has it been? Well?
Speaker 3: What I would say is it was nice to do
Speaker 3: my first and probably last American tour. It was an
Speaker 3: exercise that might as well have been subtitled Bang goes
Speaker 3: the Visa. Yes, Yes, especially considering there was a very
Speaker 3: positive New York Times review that was also I would
Speaker 3: describe as unbelievably accurate.
Speaker 2: That in terms of what was in the show. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it wasn't great to have it written in print. Was
Speaker 2: it's all well and good saying this stuff. But when it's.
Speaker 3: Written to yes, yeah, so I've been doing that to all.
Speaker 3: It was an interesting time to be in the United
Speaker 3: States of America. To be honest with you, it was
Speaker 3: interesting time. To be in Canada just because I think,
Speaker 3: you know, there's a decent chunk of my partner's family
Speaker 3: as you know, that lives out in Canada. And I
Speaker 3: will say it's as angry as I've ever seen Canadians. Really,
Speaker 3: it's as angry as I thought. It's angry that I
Speaker 3: thought it was possible for Canadians to be, oh wow, angry.
Speaker 3: But I guess if your next door abra is like
Speaker 3: sort of threatening invasion, it will cause even the more
Speaker 3: mild manner of people. Even Mike Myers is angry. That's
Speaker 3: how bad things have got you upset.
Speaker 2: Austin Powers, Yeah, Wayne's throwing a fit over there, absolutely serious. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was brought him out of retirement though, which it
Speaker 2: swings aroundabacks, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's yeah,
Speaker 2: like on the one hand, yes, it's the end of
Speaker 2: the world, but I never had he's doing a great mask.
Speaker 3: He's doing a great elon musk. He's doing a phenomenal
Speaker 3: Elon musk on Saturday.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the shows were great.
Speaker 3: And I was asked by several people when we were
Speaker 3: doing this podcast, and I said Today's and I said,
Speaker 3: we'll get gig there. I'm afraid that it's a little
Speaker 3: bit busy making a film with j Lo. Well, I'm
Speaker 3: in New Jersey, you're in Melbourne. But tell us about
Speaker 3: your tell us about your year. It's been a year
Speaker 3: since we've seen you. Probably, Yeah, you've been touring America.
Speaker 3: You've started, Have you start? Did we talk about you
Speaker 3: started it? Or will you into it?
Speaker 2: You have your show This Saves the UK and the
Speaker 2: UK Saver the UK and on your excellent podcast because
Speaker 2: he's like toilet thish, but for it is it's like
Speaker 2: toilet nih but you can walk around with it.
Speaker 3: But should we even bother explaining that or at this
Speaker 3: point I think at this point the unfortunately, the like
Speaker 3: stacked layers of in jokes that exist only within these
Speaker 3: specific editions of this podcasts not even it's not even
Speaker 3: an a joke that occurs week to week on the
Speaker 3: show a year. But that the problem is now it's
Speaker 3: so late it's almost difficult for me to unpack the
Speaker 3: start of why you would describe my UK news podcast
Speaker 3: as toilet dish But for your ears, I don't We
Speaker 3: don't even have time to go into what Koybe was.
Speaker 2: We don't even have time. Brat no, no, one knows.
Speaker 2: Still to this day, historians are mulling it over.
Speaker 3: My year has been I've done a lot of stand
Speaker 3: up comedy. I've been touring my show Dish Don't Kill
Speaker 3: My Vibe, which I'm going to record in May in
Speaker 3: the Hackney Empire. Depending on when you're listening to this
Speaker 3: or when this goes out, what will I do with
Speaker 3: that recording?
Speaker 2: Hudos?
Speaker 3: At this point, I'm amassing quite the Prince vault of
Speaker 3: recording record. I'll do something. I'll do something with that
Speaker 3: recording at some point.
Speaker 2: You know something from a performance point of view, Actually,
Speaker 2: I may be serious for a minute. In your show,
Speaker 2: which was what is it an hour and a half
Speaker 2: ninety minutes, you are high octane from start to finish,
Speaker 2: very very high energy shouting. Now, it never dipped. It
Speaker 2: was hilarious. It was brilliant for ninety minutes straight. But
Speaker 2: it's you're a ten for ninety minutes. Yes? Is that
Speaker 2: easy for you or is that something that you have
Speaker 2: to like? Do you have to do something before and after?
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean? How do you maintain
Speaker 2: it and not lose your voice and all that shit?
Speaker 3: I did some voice coaching just to try and maintain,
Speaker 3: like maintain my voice through the tour. And also I've
Speaker 3: discovered this thing, Brett. Let me just make sure I've
Speaker 3: got the pronunciation right. X x cher cheese a x
Speaker 3: chur cheese exercise. I don't know if I'm going. I
Speaker 3: think it's an Italian word. I think it's an Italian word.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. Going.
Speaker 3: And so I've started doing some of that this year
Speaker 3: specifically to help so that I could like help with
Speaker 3: my breathing in physical and physical energy levels yet so
Speaker 3: that I can maintain them, because sometimes on the US tour,
Speaker 3: I was doing ninety minutes, stopping the show, finishing the show,
Speaker 3: sitting backstage half an now, and then doing ninety minutes again.
Speaker 3: So I have spent quite a bit of time maintaining
Speaker 3: the sort physical side of my energy levels a bit
Speaker 3: more this time.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I've been been doing a lot of touring.
Speaker 3: Been in the States, been in Canada, been in Australia,
Speaker 3: New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Any places in America where your a particular brand of
Speaker 2: edge lording didn't work or where you were.
Speaker 3: Late clarified when Brett says edge lording, I have not
Speaker 3: gone al right, this is not it's not kill nish
Speaker 3: kill toilet.
Speaker 2: This it's irony.
Speaker 3: You know, if you're a you know, maybe a progressive
Speaker 3: or to the left of the political spectrum. It's been
Speaker 3: a difficult time, and I would say some of my
Speaker 3: frustrations at those difficulties have boiled over into my work,
Speaker 3: perhaps more so than they have been previously. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: been it's been a really fun The Tory has been
Speaker 3: great and the shows have been really fun.
Speaker 2: Was there anywhere where it didn't land? I imagine? Not honestly, No, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there were so.
Speaker 3: What we did two gigs in Austin on one night,
Speaker 3: and I was on dangerous ground in Austin anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'd arrived at Austin hoping to find the Richard linklater
Speaker 3: dream of Austin. But what I've arrived into is the
Speaker 3: kind of tech pro nightmare. But the two shows that
Speaker 3: Austin I did got moved very late to bigger rooms,
Speaker 3: like within the same comedy club, and so at the
Speaker 3: last minute we shifted them in the you know, you
Speaker 3: know me, Brett, My one thing is profit before experience.
Speaker 3: So this was definitely this was definitely my decision and
Speaker 3: not an administrative error made by my American management, you
Speaker 3: know me, profit before anything else, and so we then
Speaker 3: having profit, then we then went from having two sold
Speaker 3: out shows in ninety seat room to then selling like
Speaker 3: a few, like quite a few more tickets in a
Speaker 3: three hundred seat room. And it meant that a couple
Speaker 3: of people arrived later on, and I would say some
Speaker 3: of those people left almost immediately, like almost immediately or
Speaker 3: almost immediately, almost immediately. I don't know whether I don't
Speaker 3: know whether it was the phrase celebrity homophobe adulled by
Speaker 3: dementia or history's worst white South African, but one of
Speaker 3: those two phrases, one of those two phrases immediately sent
Speaker 3: them to the exit door. But like the rest of
Speaker 3: the tour was amazing, and actually some of the best
Speaker 3: gigs were in I guess you would call them blue
Speaker 3: cities in red states, so like Democrat voting cities, but
Speaker 3: that were in Republican states, because I guess those are
Speaker 3: the people that feel most connected to you, Those are
Speaker 3: the people that feel very connected to the viewpoints that
Speaker 3: let's not be around the bush hate speech that I'm
Speaker 3: espousing on stage right.
Speaker 2: Yes, now, what I did really love about your show
Speaker 2: because I listened to your podcast twenty This in your
Speaker 2: Ears and twenty This Stays the UK. Often. The problem
Speaker 2: with your podcast is, you know, it's very it's very topical,
Speaker 2: and it's about what's going on in the world, and
Speaker 2: it's fucking bleak. Oh my god. I listened to it.
Speaker 2: I listened to it and I'm like, Jesus, give me
Speaker 2: some hope something, and you almost never do, but in
Speaker 2: your show, in your live show, and incredibly uplifting and
Speaker 2: powerful and moving and sort of positive ending that I
Speaker 2: was not expecting. And it was really really lovely, and
Speaker 2: I almost want you to spoil it for the listeners,
Speaker 2: but I guess they've got to come see you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would, yeah, come yeah watch the show on
Speaker 3: you know whatever disgraced video platform.
Speaker 2: I've managed to.
Speaker 3: Sell it to whatever whatever short form web content app
Speaker 3: that I'm gonna hindenburg in the next twelve months.
Speaker 2: You can see it on Airbnb. I think you sided
Speaker 2: it's in the corner.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely I'm definitely trying to shift it to like
Speaker 3: red Tube.
Speaker 2: I've been talked. I'm in deep talks with you, Pawn.
Speaker 2: It's a very nice nis tell me this what oh
Speaker 2: hang on. Oh nice, fuck I've forgotten. Oh nice, right
Speaker 2: when you've got to Australia as well. No, you've died.
Speaker 2: You're dead again. You're dead again? How did you die? Oh? God?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I don't want to get too morbid,
Speaker 3: but I mean, based on some of the content of
Speaker 3: the show, I guess you could say fucked around and
Speaker 3: found out. Based on some of the content of my
Speaker 3: stand up show, a supporter of a particular political leader
Speaker 3: decided to take matters into their own hands and seek
Speaker 3: violent reprisal for comments that I've made about the glorious leader.
Speaker 2: Having seen the show, this doesn't surprise me. Well, never mind,
Speaker 2: never mind. Maybe you'll have a nice time in heaven.
Speaker 2: Maybe you come back. We'll see.
Speaker 3: How was your year, Brett. Oh you did a lot
Speaker 3: of touring. You did a lot of touring, did a
Speaker 3: lot of touring. You had the time of your life.
Speaker 3: I toured three fourteen months.
Speaker 2: I believe I loved it. I loved touring America. Actually
Speaker 2: I really loved it. I loved being with my welch
Speaker 2: who opened for me. Hilarious, hilarious. It was really good.
Speaker 2: It was good. I really enjoyed it. I would do
Speaker 2: it again. I would like to see it again. It's film.
Speaker 2: The film, The film of it is excellent. I've seen
Speaker 2: you know. That's very kindness. Thank you should be Should
Speaker 2: we talk about the fact that you're making a film
Speaker 2: with Jaylo or I think you can talk about it,
Speaker 2: but I don't think I can say much about it experience.
Speaker 3: I don't think you're you're not allowed to say anything
Speaker 3: about it, And if anything, you don't have to say
Speaker 3: anything for there's not really anything to say. It's just
Speaker 3: what I would say is I have a whole section
Speaker 3: of my camera roll that is just photographs I've taken
Speaker 3: of people after I told that you were making a
Speaker 3: film with Jaylo.
Speaker 2: It is mad. There's no getting round. It's absolutely mad.
Speaker 2: It's matt every day I'm like, this is mad. Yeah,
Speaker 2: every day, it's really mad. This is mental. I can't
Speaker 2: believe it. It's very exciting. The idea of you being
Speaker 2: in a film with Jelo is very exciting. It's very
Speaker 2: exciting to make to make this film. Yeah, she's very
Speaker 2: very very good to me actor, very good.
Speaker 3: Also, we know from out of sight she's one of
Speaker 3: the great movie stars of our age. Like that outsite
Speaker 3: is one of the all time great movies and performances.
Speaker 3: And we've got you've got to film coming out in
Speaker 3: consecutive years. And so I've seen the first one, but
Speaker 3: I haven't seen the second one. But I can tell
Speaker 3: you right now, I've got my next two troubling bonders
Speaker 3: lined up. One percent have my next two troubling bonders
Speaker 3: lined up.
Speaker 2: I believe you were the test screening for all of
Speaker 2: you that my sister was at. And I believe that
Speaker 2: when asked if anyone had an issue with the film,
Speaker 2: she said, I don't want to see my brother go
Speaker 2: down on someone. Is that right? Yeah? That is that's
Speaker 2: word for word.
Speaker 3: What happened. That's word for word, what happened. I was, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we were at testing.
Speaker 2: It didn't cut it. They didn't cut it.
Speaker 3: Very small screening room in London where just a small
Speaker 3: group of people had gathered to give whatever feedback they
Speaker 3: thought about the film. And I was sat with your
Speaker 3: sister and as soon as the film I did anyone
Speaker 3: got any feedback? How straight up, I absolutely didn't need
Speaker 3: to see that. Good move, good movie. She was a
Speaker 3: complimentary about the film. Yeah, good movie, But I think
Speaker 3: you have to take it as a double compliment like
Speaker 3: she enjoyed the movie in spite of the fact that
Speaker 3: she had to watch you.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, let's talk about enough with the traveling boners.
Speaker 2: Let's talk what are we here for in this? We're
Speaker 2: here to do early, arguably early. Our films are twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four now very early. It's early for us. I
Speaker 2: think now time has passed this twenty twenty four. We've
Speaker 2: tried to catch up on everything. We've given it some space,
Speaker 2: some time to Breathe was twenty twenty four a good
Speaker 2: year for film?
Speaker 3: You know, the more years that we do this, as
Speaker 3: I increasingly become more visibly decrepit and haggard and you
Speaker 3: remain frozen in amber like a Jurassic Park mosquito, the
Speaker 3: more I realized that this almost like cinema is obviously
Speaker 3: has its issues in terms of getting people to go
Speaker 3: to the movies.
Speaker 2: And you know, we keep hearing box. Obviously it's up Box.
Speaker 3: Obviously it's a down the Barbenheimer year, everyone's like we're back.
Speaker 3: Then this year everyone was saying we might. We're not
Speaker 3: fully back. We're like half back. Our ankles are back
Speaker 3: into the cinema. The rest of it's not back. But
Speaker 3: the more we do it, the more you realize that
Speaker 3: the hopeful thing in all of this is people are
Speaker 3: still making great, great movies. Yes, And it's almost a
Speaker 3: question of like, where is like mainstream studio cinema that
Speaker 3: are people going to see big studio films. That's almost
Speaker 3: the question that we should be wrestling and arguing about.
Speaker 3: But actually, at kind of independent cinema at a much
Speaker 3: smaller price point, it feels like the picture is much rosier.
Speaker 3: There are lots of smaller movies getting made and they
Speaker 3: are making money and people are going to see them.
Speaker 3: And also, I do genuinely think that I do honestly
Speaker 3: think that some like a thing like letterboxed is really helping.
Speaker 3: I'm as cynical as anybody about a kind of news
Speaker 3: social media fans, but I genuinely think letterbox is helping
Speaker 3: create a new generation of film nerds who want to
Speaker 3: watch films and talk about them and discuss them amongst
Speaker 3: their friends. Yeah, and you know, it's sort of encouraging
Speaker 3: people to go back and watch older movies because that
Speaker 3: whole four favorites thing they get people to do. It
Speaker 3: encourages you to you know, like one of the things
Speaker 3: that I've noticed with the four Favorites, thing is like
Speaker 3: Cassavetes is like really really like having a kind of
Speaker 3: renaissance in terms of film lovers. And I think partly
Speaker 3: that's because fans of his movies are listing them in
Speaker 3: their letterbox top four and you consistently see things like
Speaker 3: Opening Night or Women on the Version of Nerves Breakdown
Speaker 3: like popping up in people's lists, and is it's making
Speaker 3: people go back and watch old movies as well. And
Speaker 3: I think I do genuinely think that that is something
Speaker 3: to celebrate.
Speaker 2: What's your thought?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I have no idea. I could barely
Speaker 3: even do four from this year. Just before did this show,
Speaker 3: I texted you saying, can we do a Top twenty?
Speaker 2: And you said, nah, I really struggled. I made you
Speaker 2: do that because I had to do it and I
Speaker 2: hate it. Yeah, right, But I was like, I'm not
Speaker 2: going back.
Speaker 3: Do you not think that like in a year where
Speaker 3: and I mean we're only talking about one of these
Speaker 3: movies because as per Brett specific instructions, we remain where
Speaker 3: died to tie completely to UK cinema release or UK
Speaker 3: VOD release feel Brexit at.
Speaker 2: Least between January first December thirty first in the UK. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Nosferatu does not count. Came out New Year Day. No,
Speaker 2: No Brutalist does not count. Came out twenty fourth January
Speaker 2: in the UNI. Yeah, it's a nightmare.
Speaker 3: We're at the very least in a year talking about
Speaker 3: a movie that we will talk about Anora, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever it is. I think a six to
Speaker 3: seven million dollar movie that has you know, made fifty
Speaker 3: sixty million dollars and won an oscar and you know that,
Speaker 3: and it's doing very well. There's been there's been a
Speaker 3: real spate of lower budget films that people are going
Speaker 3: to see. I think it's just encouraging movie studios to
Speaker 3: put real money and marketing money behind those kind of
Speaker 3: what we've lost is those mid budget movies, you know,
Speaker 3: like a movie like like Heat or The Insider or
Speaker 3: something like those kind of sixty seventy million dollar movies.
Speaker 3: That's the thing that we've lost and maybe we won't
Speaker 3: get back. But people are still finding ways to make
Speaker 3: really brilliant and interesting films. And when you look back
Speaker 3: at the films that came out between those two dates.
Speaker 3: In the United Kingdom, brexit means brexit. You do realize
Speaker 3: that there's a staggering variety of work that's being done,
Speaker 3: and a lot of it is really, really incredible. And
Speaker 3: already we know for next year that there's already been
Speaker 3: you know, at least five or six stone Cold bangers
Speaker 3: that we've already got in the can. For this year,
Speaker 3: we're also awaiting I think a new Ryan Coogler movie.
Speaker 3: With weeks from a new Ryan Coogler movie. We're so
Speaker 3: close to a new PTA. God, I can I can
Speaker 3: almost taste that new PTA film sensation. I can feel
Speaker 3: it on the tip of my tongue, you know. So
Speaker 3: like there's movie, there's good movies getting made, and I think.
Speaker 2: It is just about it.
Speaker 3: We've just we've just lost that kind of mid budget
Speaker 3: studio movie. Everything is now either ten million dollars or
Speaker 3: two hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2: But like COORL.
Speaker 3: Jefferson when he won the adapted screen Playoffcar for American
Speaker 3: Fiction said, you know, he put out a kind of
Speaker 3: open plead studio saying, look, this was a ten million
Speaker 3: dollar movie. You can make twenty of those for one
Speaker 3: two hundred million dollar movie, So why not throw some
Speaker 3: money into throw some money into that pot. But of
Speaker 3: the films that we made. There were a lot of
Speaker 3: good movies last year. There were a lot of really
Speaker 3: great movies.
Speaker 2: Well, let's do some questions and at the end, whenever
Speaker 2: the end comes, we'll do our top ten. The end
Speaker 2: has has to come within at least three hours. Brett
Speaker 2: it and I've got to make a film. They can
Speaker 2: done twenty five minutes. We haven't done any of it.
Speaker 2: So right, what's the first film you saw in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four?
Speaker 3: I strongly suspect that you and I have the same
Speaker 3: answer for this. It is poor things, Poor things. It
Speaker 3: was poor thing. Yeah, that was a big, very very
Speaker 3: early UK release, and loved it, really good movie.
Speaker 2: I loved it too, and I was slightly I felt
Speaker 2: sort of sorry for the filmmakers and for Emmerstone when
Speaker 2: suddenly they were people were saying, this is a film
Speaker 2: about pedophile, isn't it, Because it's a grown woman with
Speaker 2: the brain of a baby. But there's also a film
Speaker 2: where a man has bubbles that come out of his head.
Speaker 2: And it's also a film in which this baby, if
Speaker 2: it is a baby, can talk within two days. And
Speaker 2: then it's like, I don't think we're dealing with a
Speaker 2: world of extreme logic here, and I don't think she's
Speaker 2: a baby.
Speaker 3: I also think you have to consider whether or not
Speaker 3: you think the filmmaker is saying that these are good men,
Speaker 3: which I would strongly say I don't think this. I
Speaker 3: don't think this movie has is enforcing a moral code
Speaker 3: on any of its characters. I'm not sure you're supposed
Speaker 3: to come away from it thinking, well, I'll tell you
Speaker 3: what those guys are really like.
Speaker 2: Ruffalo is a really solid dude. Yeah, he's great in it.
Speaker 3: R He's funny, two phenomenal performances. I mean, Emma Stone
Speaker 3: is just she's the best, Like, she's the best anything.
Speaker 3: She can do anything, She's genuinely funny, and she can
Speaker 3: carry a film like like this almost single handly. But
Speaker 3: the supporting cast in this particular instance was really really
Speaker 3: Sammy Lovely to see Lovely, to see Jared Carmichael pop up.
Speaker 3: That was a real nice treat for the comedy fans.
Speaker 3: And Ruffalo. That's as good as Ruffalo's been in a
Speaker 3: long time. And I love seeing petty, unpleasant Ruffalo because
Speaker 3: I think there's something inherently likable about him as an
Speaker 3: on screen presence. I think watching him go full like
Speaker 3: shit Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: I thought it was fantastic.
Speaker 3: Can I just insert a brief We don't need to
Speaker 3: talk about it any more than this, but I would
Speaker 3: just say that I went into Poor Things having seen
Speaker 3: the trailer, knowing that I was going to have a
Speaker 3: great time. I was very skeptical of the other your
Speaker 3: gas Stone collaboration because I'm not a huge fan broadly
Speaker 3: of anthology films, because I always feel that you go,
Speaker 3: you think one of those was great, one of those
Speaker 3: was fine, one of those was rubbish, or the worst
Speaker 3: version is where you go and you think, I'd actually
Speaker 3: have liked to watch a feature based on one of
Speaker 3: these films I thought as a as an anthology film experience,
Speaker 3: Kinds of Kindness was incredible, and I thought it was
Speaker 3: really bleak, really funny in terms of a single joke,
Speaker 3: and I wouldn't I don't want to spoil it because
Speaker 3: I actually don't. I think a lot of people saw
Speaker 3: Poor Things. I'm not sure a lot of people saw
Speaker 3: Kinds of Kindness. There is a kind of single joke,
Speaker 3: and this sort of gives you an idea of the
Speaker 3: tone of the movie. There's a single joke involving a
Speaker 3: car crash, and it is one of maybe the funniest
Speaker 3: thing I saw in a film last year, maybe just
Speaker 3: as a stand like as a single standalone joke, the
Speaker 3: car accident in Kinds of Kindness is my favorite single
Speaker 3: joke of the year, and just I was totally pleasantly
Speaker 3: surprised by how much I enjoyed that movie. If I
Speaker 3: was to describe it in a pithy movie post of
Speaker 3: Paul quote, I would describe it as being mar Bergman's
Speaker 3: I Think you Should leave.
Speaker 2: That makes me want to see it now. It was,
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: It was for the for the fans of Tim Robinson
Speaker 3: and ing mar Bergmann. Somehow it's sort of it was
Speaker 3: like a sort of you know, it was almost like
Speaker 3: an existentialist black comedy sketch show that really zoned in
Speaker 3: on some of the great frigilities of masculinity in the
Speaker 3: male ego.
Speaker 2: And you know, the cast is fantastic.
Speaker 3: Anything Jesse Plemons is in is immediately elevated by his presence.
Speaker 3: Stone and your Gooss are moving towards Scorsese Deniero territory
Speaker 3: in terms of actor director collaborator Scoot Aise Digabrill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll allow it. I'll allow it? Yeah, allow it?
Speaker 2: What is I allow it? What's the film that scared
Speaker 2: you the most in twenty twenty four? Well, I listen.
Speaker 3: We try, we try where possible to keep politics out
Speaker 3: of our conversations about cinema. But there were some good
Speaker 3: scary movies that I watched last year. I really enjoyed Heretic.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed Heretic.
Speaker 2: Hang on was that last year? Yeah? I really, I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed Heretic. I love. The best thing about Heretic
Speaker 2: is that I've got to change my list now, you
Speaker 2: fucking I love Territic. All right, this changes everything. Give
Speaker 2: me a second. You know what, I am going to
Speaker 2: one hundred percent confirm that that's the case. It was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: twenty fourth November. Fuck, well, that ruins my top ten.
Speaker 2: Somebody's got to go. Sorry mate, Oh I feel bad
Speaker 2: about that, but there you go. Okay, we're back. I
Speaker 2: thought Heretic was great. I thought that Hugh Grant was fantastic,
Speaker 2: and I thought Heretic did explored the very, very horrifying
Speaker 2: premise of how scary it would be to be stuck
Speaker 2: in the house with Richard Dawkins. That is a real nightmare.
Speaker 2: No one, no one you don't.
Speaker 3: You don't want to be at a party and get
Speaker 3: cornered by someone who is too enthusiastic about their atheism,
Speaker 3: much less be locked in a house with them.
Speaker 2: So I really liked about Heretic. There's a moment right
Speaker 2: at the end, at the very very end spoiler skip
Speaker 2: ahead if you've not seen Heretic. At the very very end,
Speaker 2: the girl gets out and the other girl had talked
Speaker 2: about like how she saw that she would she would
Speaker 2: be a butterfly or something, right, and the butterfly lands
Speaker 2: on her, and for a second you're like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is really cheesy. There's the butterfly, like the friend says,
Speaker 2: and then it halve cuts in the butterfly isn't there,
Speaker 2: and you go, oh, yeah, this is what faith is.
Speaker 2: It's such a good ending. Yeah, yeah, it is a
Speaker 2: good ending. Yeah it's it's a really good ending. It was.
Speaker 2: It's a really fun performance from Hugh Grant. They're really great.
Speaker 2: They're girls in it.
Speaker 3: The girls are really really great in it. I thought
Speaker 3: it was really I thought it was really fun. I'm
Speaker 3: sure we will talk in some detail about the substance
Speaker 3: so we can return to that. But more than anything else,
Speaker 3: the scariest film that came out last year was The Apprentice.
Speaker 3: That is the scariest movie. That is the most deeply
Speaker 3: significant horror movie of the year. Trump begins the first
Speaker 3: way like it. If we must frame things exclusively in
Speaker 3: superhero movie terms, it's the Donald Trump origin story. It's
Speaker 3: a lot about it's a lot about his relationship with
Speaker 3: Roy Cone. It's got an incredible performance by Jeremy Strong
Speaker 3: as Roy Cone, who is one of the like truly
Speaker 3: great American villains of all time and you know, has
Speaker 3: been depicted in things like Angels in America, and you know,
Speaker 3: is the kind of this Movi posits the idea that
Speaker 3: he is the sort of intellectual foundation for Trump and
Speaker 3: trump Ism, and he sets up what Trump is. I
Speaker 3: also thought it had a very very excellent performance from
Speaker 3: Sebastian stan as Donald Trump. He's brilliant in it, and
Speaker 3: it could so easily have veered into chricture, and it
Speaker 3: only does at the end, but it does in a
Speaker 3: very very controlled way. And you watch him, you know,
Speaker 3: especially when you know how films are made, it's quite
Speaker 3: extraordinary to watch the growth of that performance over the
Speaker 3: course of a movie. Because I don't know whether they
Speaker 3: shot that chronologically, maybe they did. Sometimes filmmakers do that
Speaker 3: to help the performance, but even if they did, you're
Speaker 3: going sort of day to day and you're having to
Speaker 3: kind of build this performance that all the verbal tics
Speaker 3: that escalate over the course of the film kind of
Speaker 3: assemble themselves into the kind of Donald Trump character as
Speaker 3: it's presented at the very end of the film. And
Speaker 3: I thought it was a really really you know, an
Speaker 3: incredible two incredible performances. But it's I watched it after
Speaker 3: the election, and it's the scariest and bleakest film that
Speaker 3: I've seen because of that.
Speaker 2: But it was a really really brilliantly made film. It's brilliant.
Speaker 2: I watched it before the election. It's it's brilliant, and
Speaker 2: it's it's good because it does like it's quite sympathetic
Speaker 2: or empathetic or whatever. Like in the beginning of the
Speaker 2: film you sort of feel so for him, like it's
Speaker 2: quite yeah, well done, and then in the end you
Speaker 2: feel sorry for Roy come like it's not going on
Speaker 2: in it. It isn't what perhaps if you haven't seen it,
Speaker 2: like it isn't this sort of just angry film that's
Speaker 2: really horrible about horrible people. It's actually like quite a
Speaker 2: layered emotional portrait. It's good.
Speaker 3: It's neither hatchet job nor I've never know how to
Speaker 3: pronounce the word hagiography, hagiography, whatever that word is. It's
Speaker 3: not uncritical propaganda, but it's not unempathetic filmmaking. It's not
Speaker 3: pure rage, and in a sense it's empathy is actually
Speaker 3: what makes it more successful in its criticisms, because it's
Speaker 3: trying to understand him as a person. But when it
Speaker 3: comes the conclusively comes to are, this is an awful person.
Speaker 3: And you know, there is some pretty there's some pretty
Speaker 3: staggering stuff in there that you know, is particularly in
Speaker 3: terms of his sexual assaults and the allegations around those.
Speaker 3: There's some pretty staggering stuff in there in terms of
Speaker 3: what it depicts. And you know, there is just an
Speaker 3: incredible point in it where they're talking where he's talking
Speaker 3: to Roy kind about what they're going to accept in
Speaker 3: terms of a settlement because they've been accused of racist
Speaker 3: housing policy, and Roy Cone just goes, well, obviously you're
Speaker 3: going to have to settle because the housing policy is racist,
Speaker 3: Like you know, it's racist, and it was there was
Speaker 3: something really weird about watching somebody even though you're watching
Speaker 3: a fictionalized movie, and the character that's saying all of
Speaker 3: this is Roy Cone, one of truly one of history's
Speaker 3: great racists. Like there's something really like oddly like reassuring
Speaker 3: about watching someone actually say yeah, yeah, but what you
Speaker 3: were doing was incredibly racist. Just realize it, like you
Speaker 3: very rarely, like we keep watching news reports with people
Speaker 3: like talking around like describing things as being a Roman salute.
Speaker 3: And there was something like something oddly like the felt
Speaker 3: it felt quite sort of I felt quite relieved to
Speaker 3: actually hear it, so we go, yeah, yeah, but that
Speaker 3: it was racist, lend properties to black people.
Speaker 2: What was your scariest film? I think it was The
Speaker 2: Teacher's Lounge. Did you see that the teachers didn't see it?
Speaker 2: Tell me about the Teacher's Lounge. It's one of them.
Speaker 2: Films reminded me of the film full Time. Like it's
Speaker 2: really small. It's probably set over a week in a school,
Speaker 2: and it's this teacher and she's nice and she's a
Speaker 2: good teacher, and she's kind and she says inspiring things
Speaker 2: and stuff. But it's just this really interesting, like tense
Speaker 2: drama because someone stealing in the school and she thinks
Speaker 2: she sees one of the women that worked there steal
Speaker 2: and she reports the woman and then everything fucking goes
Speaker 2: spirals and the woman has a kid at the school
Speaker 2: and the repercussions of her trying to do the right thing,
Speaker 2: and it turns out she might have done the wrong
Speaker 2: thing and maybe it wasn't morally the right thing to
Speaker 2: do because this woman needed help, and you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, Like everything. Kind of the reason it's like
Speaker 2: horror film is because she's constantly her intentions are entirely pure,
Speaker 2: but she might be causing terrible things and kind of
Speaker 2: ruining people's lives and then is trying to fix it.
Speaker 2: And it's like a thriller. It's really tense and so
Speaker 2: stressful and kind of relatable because you go, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: just keep your maud. I guess the lesson that just
Speaker 2: fucking don't do anything. Don't do fucking anything, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: a nice positive message, don't do anything. It's not worth
Speaker 2: good movie. That good movie. I've got to watch that.
Speaker 2: That sounds great? Yeah, you love you love this, you'd
Speaker 2: love it. It's politics with a small p. You'd love it.
Speaker 2: What's the film that made you cry?
Speaker 3: The most well, here we are our favorite question of
Speaker 3: the year, the two men who are too incorrectly quote tough.
Speaker 3: I will say that before I say my main answer,
Speaker 3: I will tell you this.
Speaker 2: I actually don't. I actually don't think I've told you this.
Speaker 3: I've learned a very important lesson this year, which is
Speaker 3: you have to constantly be confronting your own emotions, because
Speaker 3: if you don't constantly take inventory of your emotional state,
Speaker 3: you will find yourself weeping at the Robbie Williams Monkey
Speaker 3: film because like maybe Monkey, I don't want to get
Speaker 3: too heavy in this, but like my grandmother with whom
Speaker 3: I'm very close, is suffering from dementia, and I think
Speaker 3: I've spent so much of the last couple of years
Speaker 3: trying to like ge my mum up, who is the
Speaker 3: primary caregiver and who is doing a lot of the work.
Speaker 3: You know, there are caregivers that we're very fortunate that
Speaker 3: we're able to finance, and we're very lucky as a family,
Speaker 3: and lots of families that are going through this aren't
Speaker 3: able to do that. So I know how fortunate we are.
Speaker 3: But my mum is of the family. The kind of
Speaker 3: primary caregiving I think I've spent so much time trying
Speaker 3: to like emotion support her that I don't think it
Speaker 3: had ever occurred to me that I was really sad
Speaker 3: that my Grandma's not really there anymore.
Speaker 2: I think I was. I think I was.
Speaker 3: I think I spent so much time like focusing on
Speaker 3: what I've just said to you, which is we're such
Speaker 3: in such a fortunate position that we can help as
Speaker 3: a family. And also I've been like trying to like,
Speaker 3: gee my mom up and say, look, it's she's in
Speaker 3: her nineties, She's lived an amazing life, like this is
Speaker 3: very sad, but also if she hadn't lived this long,
Speaker 3: she wouldn't have got to see all her great grandchildren.
Speaker 3: All this kind of stuff that I keep telling myself.
Speaker 3: And then there is a bit in the Fucking Robbie
Speaker 3: Williams Monkey Movie where Alison Steadman, who is playing his grandma,
Speaker 3: says to the Robbie Williams monkey, the start of a
Speaker 3: story she's just told a second ago, and the Robbie
Speaker 3: Williams monkey looks at his mum, and his mom looks
Speaker 3: at the Robbie Williams monkey, and it's like one of
Speaker 3: those movies where it's like it's quite an od. The
Speaker 3: nose depiction of this often a moment where someone repeats themselves.
Speaker 3: There is a real danger in films if you repeat yourself,
Speaker 3: someone will be like, but that's the end of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like if you have a son of your
Speaker 2: dead said it twice.
Speaker 3: Smash cut to her in a bathrood mumbling about the wall. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we know what was going on. But as soon as
Speaker 3: soon as the mum looked at the Robbie Williams Monkey
Speaker 3: I immediately burst into tears and it was like, it
Speaker 3: was probably the single moment that made me cry the most.
Speaker 3: Always be constantly taking an inventory of your emotions.
Speaker 2: That would be my tip for everybody.
Speaker 3: Because otherwise you will weep under Robbie Williams Monkey film.
Speaker 3: You will get concerned looks from other people at the
Speaker 3: Robbie Williams Monkey film.
Speaker 2: It's such a sweet monkey. I get it about your grandma,
Speaker 2: but the film that actually Williams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also like you know, the monkey's relationship with
Speaker 3: his grandma is quite similar to my relationship with a grad.
Speaker 3: Like I was always quite in trouble upon with everyone
Speaker 3: except my grandma really my whole life. So it's like
Speaker 3: there is some other autobiographical residence. That being said, the
Speaker 3: film that made me cry the most was All of
Speaker 3: Us Strangers, and All of Us Strangers made me worry
Speaker 3: so much that I had to ring out my beard
Speaker 3: because so much water.
Speaker 2: Over the film's running time.
Speaker 3: By the end, I was like, it was like I
Speaker 3: was trying to wring the moisture out of an incredibly
Speaker 3: sodden sponge. That's what my beard was like at the
Speaker 3: end of that movie.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to give you a different answer because
Speaker 2: that is also I want to talk about that film
Speaker 2: for another cos that is true. Me and Mavis went
Speaker 2: to see All the Pustrangers and we cried so much.
Speaker 2: I cried so much in that film, probably all the
Speaker 2: way for it. But the other film that made me
Speaker 2: cry the most, it's also one of my favorite films
Speaker 2: of the year, was My Old Ass. My Old Ass
Speaker 2: is a masterpiece. And if you haven't seen it, don't
Speaker 2: let that title mislead you into thinking it's not an
Speaker 2: incredibly moving, beautiful film. My Old Ass is magic. It's
Speaker 2: a magical film. I think it's so good. I think
Speaker 2: I put it in the category of like School of
Speaker 2: Rock and things like that. Where you go this sort
Speaker 2: of film sounds like you've seen it before, you've seen it,
Speaker 2: you know what it is. It's done so beautifully and
Speaker 2: it's actually really deep, but it's like a fun, high
Speaker 2: concept idea. And the idea is a nineteen year old
Speaker 2: girl takes acid, takes mushrooms with their friends and meets
Speaker 2: herself as a thirty nine year old in a sort
Speaker 2: of like time travel. So she spends the night with
Speaker 2: herself as a thirty nine year old self who is
Speaker 2: different and less fun and has more issues than she has,
Speaker 2: and it's like, what happened to you? And she says,
Speaker 2: whatever you do, avoid this boy. And then this boy
Speaker 2: comes into the young girl's life and it's really funny
Speaker 2: and it's really fun, but boy, it's fucking beautiful and
Speaker 2: moving at the end of it. What a brilliant film.
Speaker 3: One of the other misleading things about it is that
Speaker 3: it's an Aubrey Plaza movie, when in fact she's in
Speaker 3: it maybe three times. Yeah, she plays the older version.
Speaker 3: And it's set in a really beautiful part of the world.
Speaker 3: It's like these the Lakes in Muskoka, about a couple
Speaker 3: of hours outside Toronto, And I actually only know that
Speaker 3: because my partner's family are all from there, her mum's family,
Speaker 3: and so I've been around that part of the world.
Speaker 2: It's really beautiful.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's got all of the elements of teenager
Speaker 3: leaving home to go to college in Toronto. So she's
Speaker 3: going to be a few hours away, she's moving, she's
Speaker 3: leaving home, but it's about her, like her relationship with
Speaker 3: her parents, her relationship with her friends, but it's framed
Speaker 3: by these conversations that she has with herself twenty one,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one years in the future. And I think Brett,
Speaker 3: I can see you relating to it because obviously, if
Speaker 3: you encountered yourself in twenty years time, your first instigrape
Speaker 3: to try and get off with yourself and feel your ass.
Speaker 2: And also the girl who plays the lead, whose name
Speaker 2: is Mazes Stella, Yeah, wonderful good. Yeah, she's so good,
Speaker 2: and it's so I don't know how to describe it.
Speaker 2: The thing that I thought was really great about my
Speaker 2: old ass is it's made by a woman who is
Speaker 2: not known to be and the way that the young
Speaker 2: girls talking it felt so real and natural and yeah,
Speaker 2: you know where it's like, I don't know how to
Speaker 2: write that stuff. It's always risky writing young people and
Speaker 2: making him sound cool or you know, it felt. I
Speaker 2: don't know how she captured it. I'm sure she let
Speaker 2: them improvise and do stuff, but her and her two
Speaker 2: friends feel so real and she's so charming and funny,
Speaker 2: and it's such a like find. It's when them performances
Speaker 2: go like, what a find this is. Although I'm sure
Speaker 2: she's done millions of things before that, but.
Speaker 3: It's definitely got the feeling of, you know, something like
Speaker 3: Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's bo like that, like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: this is the first This is probably a person We're
Speaker 3: going to see a lot of movies yeah, down the years,
Speaker 3: and it will always be nice to remember that this
Speaker 3: was the kind of first time you saw them. Because
Speaker 3: it's such a such a charming film. The high conceptness
Speaker 3: of it is handled so lightly but in such a
Speaker 3: well executed way. Aubrey Closet is not in it as
Speaker 3: much as opposed to suggest, but when she is in it,
Speaker 3: her final speech, which again for a movie like this,
Speaker 3: it creeps up on you. The final speech, and we
Speaker 3: won't give anything away about it, but it is an
Speaker 3: absolute show stopper. Like it's an extraordinary It's a fantastic
Speaker 3: piece of writing and performance because the plotting of it,
Speaker 3: the way that it leads you towards twist, maybe is
Speaker 3: a misnomer, but the kind of revelation of everything that's
Speaker 3: been underpinning the conversations between the older and the younger
Speaker 3: versions of the same girl is such a kind of
Speaker 3: explosion of emotion.
Speaker 2: And it is a real Weepye.
Speaker 3: The end is a real And I know that we've
Speaker 3: lost all credibility down the years with the listeners of
Speaker 3: this podcast, because you and I seem to like have
Speaker 3: a cry because we go to the shops and see
Speaker 3: a packet of crisps that looks at and we're capable
Speaker 3: of investigate anything with emotional depth and seeing elements of
Speaker 3: our own lives reflected back to us in it. And
Speaker 3: we really are the boy who literally cried wolf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you will cry my own but you will cry.
Speaker 2: You will cry and mildness. I do have to say
Speaker 2: for the record when I say Mazie Stella is a
Speaker 2: real find. She did do one hundred and nineteen episodes
Speaker 2: of Nashville before this. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's her debut,
Speaker 2: but we.
Speaker 3: Are the ultimate film boys, the ultimate film boys. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what you've done in television.
Speaker 2: If it's a film, we don't care.
Speaker 3: I definitely talked about this on this show. But after
Speaker 3: I saw Inola Holmes on Netflix in the lockdown, I
Speaker 3: said to Amy, my partner, boy, this lead actress is
Speaker 3: quite the fine and I was like, that is Millie
Speaker 3: Bobby Brown from Stranger Things? What planet do you live on?
Speaker 3: Planet movies?
Speaker 2: Baby? Thank you? Now, what is the film that you
Speaker 2: loved that maybe not everyone will, but you don't care.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a banger.
Speaker 3: Well, here's what I would say, Brett, what do I
Speaker 3: like in films? Films about a sad, dysfunctional man being
Speaker 3: sad and dysfunctional. And there were a few, There were
Speaker 3: a few films that conformed to that very specific genre type,
Speaker 3: but none of them conform to it more bleakly than
Speaker 3: the film Queer.
Speaker 2: It was another.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's we got double duty your goss and we
Speaker 3: got double duty Gradanino. And I'm sure we will return
Speaker 3: to Challengers because obviously we know the question everyone's waiting
Speaker 3: for is sexist all of the year? Spoiler alert. My
Speaker 3: tennis racket was pointing to the heavens. Let's come back
Speaker 3: to it. But we'll come back to it. We'll come
Speaker 3: back to it.
Speaker 2: In this nothing makes me happier than when the is
Speaker 2: hitting political comedian of our generation. That's a that makes
Speaker 2: me proud.
Speaker 3: I feel that you and I pull each other down
Speaker 3: to each other's levels.
Speaker 2: So for you, it's not good for me.
Speaker 3: I will make you talk about the Donald Trump movie
Speaker 3: as a horror movie.
Speaker 2: I will force you to do that.
Speaker 3: And you will also force me to pretend my pictuses
Speaker 3: a tennis racket when I watched Challenges. Queer is a
Speaker 3: film based on a book by William S. Burrows and
Speaker 3: is set in Mexico City with a sort of Sojian
Speaker 3: into Ecuador, and it's basically about it's a book that
Speaker 3: is based on burrows experiences of being in Mexico City
Speaker 3: and the kind of community of American gay immigrants that
Speaker 3: find themselves living in that part of the world at
Speaker 3: that time. And you know the in the process of this,
Speaker 3: he kind of is out there having kind of of
Speaker 3: one night stands with men in the city. He ends
Speaker 3: up meeting a guy called Eugene Allerton. The character is
Speaker 3: called William Lee that Daniel Craig plays, and it's essentially
Speaker 3: a story about him trying to sort of fully express
Speaker 3: his emotional love for this man. And you know, he
Speaker 3: can kind of express himself. He express his sexual impulses physically,
Speaker 3: but not emotionally, and it kind of other than that.
Speaker 2: Not a lot really happens.
Speaker 3: And it's about mood and tone, and it's about loneliness
Speaker 3: and yearning. And it's set in Mexico City, but really
Speaker 3: it's set inside the mind of the protagonist. And it's
Speaker 3: a fantastic performance and it's an incredible film about feeling
Speaker 3: lonely and alienated from your own emotional self and your
Speaker 3: own body.
Speaker 2: Really, wait, is this the film he most related to?
Speaker 3: No, Daniel Craig has way too much sex with people
Speaker 3: at this movie for me to relate to him. But
Speaker 3: it has it has things that sometimes annoy me in films,
Speaker 3: which is anachronous uses of music. You know, there's Song's
Speaker 3: Been It by Prince, There's an incredible Shinado cant of
Speaker 3: cover of All Apologies by Nirvana. There's a brilliant, brilliant
Speaker 3: use of a New Order song when he's taking heroin
Speaker 3: that it might just be that might be my scene
Speaker 3: of the year. And it's a film about feeling disconnected
Speaker 3: from your emotions, feeling disconnected from your body. You know,
Speaker 3: it's also a film about what you turn people into
Speaker 3: when you don't let them live openly the way that
Speaker 3: they want to live, and like the pressure is exerted
Speaker 3: on you by society. William Burrows is also not a
Speaker 3: great guy. I think that is putting it very, very mildly,
Speaker 3: and it explores the kind of complexity of his character,
Speaker 3: and you know, the whole thing is feels set in
Speaker 3: someone's consciousness and it has that feeling of a dream
Speaker 3: in the best possible way. Scenes kind of bleed into
Speaker 3: each other at point the logic of what you're watching
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to track from moment to moment, as sometimes
Speaker 3: trying to retrace the steps of a dream don't track logically.
Speaker 3: And I thought it was just beautifully made, incredibly sad.
Speaker 3: I know that a lot of people didn't like it,
Speaker 3: and I also know that very few people went to
Speaker 3: see it based on its box office, but I think
Speaker 3: it's a really I thought it was a very special
Speaker 3: film and a very very special performance from Daniel Craig,
Speaker 3: and I am sort of thrilled that we are in
Speaker 3: this post James Bond era where he is going back,
Speaker 3: you know, before James Bond he was in Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: like he was in like them.
Speaker 2: He's in that like haneive.
Speaker 3: Kureeshi movies, like he was in The Mother and he
Speaker 3: was like a theater actor as well and friends in enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And that's not to say that he hasn't you know,
Speaker 3: been doing interesting work this entire time. And that's not
Speaker 3: even to say that his James Bond films are not great,
Speaker 3: because some of them are really good. But I definitely
Speaker 3: feel like this like older version of Craig, and it
Speaker 3: really plays on the fact that he is simultaneously and
Speaker 3: has always been haggard and beautiful, Like even when he's
Speaker 3: a younger man, he's both beautiful and wind swept, and
Speaker 3: it's very sad and very sexy. And then it ends
Speaker 3: up you know, it has one of those kind of
Speaker 3: flashboward sequences where the character has have been aged up
Speaker 3: with prosthetics, which again, there's so many things about this
Speaker 3: film that I would normally say are things that designed
Speaker 3: to irritain me that I absolutely loved and I really
Speaker 3: thought it was a very beautiful film about sadness and
Speaker 3: alienation and loneliness and how to attempting to kind of
Speaker 3: push through all of your defenses, some of which, in
Speaker 3: the cases of these gay men in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 3: are put in place because of societal and legal prohibitions,
Speaker 3: but some of them that are also put in place
Speaker 3: because of their own kind of emotionally close off natures.
Speaker 2: What year is it's set. It's set in nineteen fifty right, interesting.
Speaker 3: I thought it was a really really fantastic movie. Again,
Speaker 3: great Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score, and also again
Speaker 3: like a point of interest for all of us is
Speaker 3: It's written by Justin Kuritzkiz, who wrote Challenges as well,
Speaker 3: and who is again for the parasocial film fans amongst
Speaker 3: us is the partner of Celene Son, who wrote Past
Speaker 3: Lives who We Love. Yeah, I think it's the most
Speaker 3: aggressive and again we'll come back to Challenges, But it's
Speaker 3: the most aggressive version of one for them and one
Speaker 3: for me that I can think of in the last
Speaker 3: few years. In terms of like Gwandandina, it felt like
Speaker 3: Challenges was a film designed to be seen by big audience,
Speaker 3: and I loved it. For that, but Queer felt like
Speaker 3: a very very dark, bleak, personal piece that has a
Speaker 3: really profound understanding of what it means to feel lonely.
Speaker 2: I loved it. Yeah, okay, really good. What was your
Speaker 2: film that people didn't like? My hot take of the
Speaker 2: year is Joker Too? Joker Fully ad, which was absolutely hated, hated,
Speaker 2: badly received. I think it's like twenty Toms or less.
Speaker 2: People hated it. They're furious. I didn't go and see
Speaker 2: it because I thought I didn't love Joker one, and
Speaker 2: I thought I don't want to see Joker two. I'm
Speaker 2: in no way excited about this. That's where I am currently.
Speaker 3: I didn't watch it because I thought I don't want
Speaker 3: to put myself through that again.
Speaker 2: And everyone hated Joker Too. They hated it. And then,
Speaker 2: and I hate to say, I watched it on a plane,
Speaker 2: but I did watch it on a plane because we
Speaker 2: were doing our films of the Year, and I thought,
Speaker 2: you know what, I've got to do my due diligence.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a good boy. I have to watch
Speaker 2: all the films. So I watched Jaka two and it
Speaker 2: blew me away. I think Don't is a fascinating even
Speaker 2: if you don't like it. It is fascinating because it's like,
Speaker 2: I think it's one hundred and thirty million or something.
Speaker 2: It is a very expensive film in which your man,
Speaker 2: Todd Phillips, the rights director, is going fuck you, he's
Speaker 2: giving he's just saying fuck you for two and a
Speaker 2: half hours. And it is so fascinating because it is
Speaker 2: like a film made to tell you you're wrong for
Speaker 2: enjoying Joker the way that you enjoyed it. You know
Speaker 2: that we talked we've talked about it a lot with
Speaker 2: Fight Club, this idea with Fight Club, that Fight Club
Speaker 2: is this great film that got kind of co opted
Speaker 2: by the wrong people. And we've always talked about like,
Speaker 2: would David Fincher if he could, would David Fincher want
Speaker 2: to say to the people that saw Fight Club as aspirational?
Speaker 2: Would he want to say, you're wrong, that's not the
Speaker 2: point of the film. You're missing the point of the film. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he wouldn't. He wouldn't get involved, you know, he
Speaker 2: leaves it. Joker Too feels like an incredibly expensive way
Speaker 2: of Todd Phillips saying you're wrong for how you enjoyed Joker. Okay,
Speaker 2: and it's like, I want to spoil a bit of
Speaker 2: it for you, but like it's good, by the way,
Speaker 2: it's not boring, as in it's like, you know, he's brilliant.
Speaker 2: The acting's very well made, very well crafted, and the
Speaker 2: acting is very good. But it is set in prison.
Speaker 2: Joper is in prison and we are following the court
Speaker 2: case in which he's having to prove if he's insane
Speaker 2: or not. And he's representing himself, and there's musical numbers,
Speaker 2: and he meets Lady Gaga and there are these musical
Speaker 2: numbers in which he's not a good singer and she's
Speaker 2: she is a good singer, but like they're kind of
Speaker 2: not great musical numbers, like they're in their heads or whatever.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of none of it is it's almost
Speaker 2: like anti entertaining, like it's trying, because it's also going like, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, bros that love Joker, you know what you
Speaker 2: don't like musicals, here's fucking an hour and a half
Speaker 2: of musical numbers that aren't even good that you and
Speaker 2: then he in the end. This is the big spoiler
Speaker 2: where I was like blown away, is that he represents
Speaker 2: himself in the end as Joker dressed up as Joker.
Speaker 2: And in the end, so the whole film is this
Speaker 2: kind of nothing's happening, you know, no action, there's been
Speaker 2: no violence, nothing has happened, and you're kind of waiting
Speaker 2: for Joker to explode and kill everyone or do something unbelieved,
Speaker 2: you know, and he doesn't. And in fact, what happens
Speaker 2: at the very end is in his big sort of
Speaker 2: show stopping speech to the courtroom, he kind of confesses nothing.
Speaker 2: He says, I'm nothing. It was all just an act
Speaker 2: because I'm a lonely, fucking loser, and that is the end.
Speaker 2: It isn't like and then he turns into joking kills everyone.
Speaker 2: He goes, I'm a fucking nothing, pathetic loser. And then
Speaker 2: he goes to meet Lady Gaga, who was in love
Speaker 2: with him, and she goes, no, I've fancied you when
Speaker 2: I thought you were like the Joker, but you're just
Speaker 2: a fucking sad loser and I'm not interested. And that
Speaker 2: is it. That's what happens in the film. It doesn't
Speaker 2: then resolve and he goes, oh no, no, really, I'm
Speaker 2: a tough guy Joker. He literally goes, I'm a pathetic
Speaker 2: loser nobody, and he doesn't get the girl because he admits,
Speaker 2: and then something does happen, but at the very end,
Speaker 2: but that's I'll leave that for you. But it is
Speaker 2: like you keep waiting. The film is almost toying with you, like,
Speaker 2: don't worry the thing you want to have is going
Speaker 2: to happen, and it doesn't. And it's so interesting, and
Speaker 2: part of me is like, a it's sort of bold
Speaker 2: that he's just gone, fuck, He's burned the house. It
Speaker 2: is such a huge like I'm burning this whole thing
Speaker 2: to the fucking ground because I don't like what it became.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, part of me goes, isn't
Speaker 2: that the Joker, Like that is the most Joker thing
Speaker 2: of all to go because the whole thing with the
Speaker 2: Joker is I want to watch the world burned, like
Speaker 2: people don't laugh. The Joker isn't fun. Yeah, So Joker
Speaker 2: too is like Joker two is like you want a
Speaker 2: Joker film, here's a Joker film. It's not fun, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to burn it all to the fucking ground. Wow,
Speaker 2: it's fascinating.
Speaker 3: The thing that's interesting to me is that, which so
Speaker 3: I'm posing this just as a question to you. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of things you've said in that movie where
Speaker 3: it feels a bit didactic, but also it has like
Speaker 3: it's such as contempt for its audience, actively angry with
Speaker 3: its audience, and angry with its characters. Now, those are
Speaker 3: all of the things you don't like in films. Yes,
Speaker 3: but I don't like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, Well, except I think that Wack in
Speaker 2: Phoenix is such a good actor that you are sympathetic
Speaker 2: empathetic to him all the way through because he's just great.
Speaker 2: I think it has it doesn't hate its characters. That's
Speaker 2: a really good question. I don't think it hates its characters.
Speaker 2: I think it hates its audience, and that's interesting. But
Speaker 2: I don't think I think it likes him. I think
Speaker 2: it feels him, and it likes the prison guard like
Speaker 2: it's there's some it's very well made, like it's made right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I think it does hate. It hates a certain
Speaker 2: huge part of its original audience, and it wants to
Speaker 2: tell me right, and you're right. Normally I wouldn't enjoy that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm interested in that. I think because it's because it's
Speaker 2: so unusual, and so it's like a two hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty million dollar films. He's burned the fucking house down.
Speaker 2: Like if this were a small indie film, you might go,
Speaker 2: what's the point. But he's got studio money to make
Speaker 2: the biggest film of all time and what he's done
Speaker 2: with it is gone. It's it's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: For Brett was doing the reverse piece fees into the
Speaker 3: camera whilst making your fart noise.
Speaker 2: It's wild and it's not boring, like it's well made.
Speaker 2: I was never bored, but it is a It is
Speaker 2: just sort of you don't see. I don't think I've
Speaker 2: ever seen anyone spend that much money telling people to
Speaker 2: go fuck themselves. And I've got to admire that. You've
Speaker 2: got to admire that. Well, you've got to that.
Speaker 3: I will say that you talking about it has for
Speaker 3: the first time made me want to see the second
Speaker 3: Joker movie because I hated the first Joker movie. I
Speaker 3: hated it, but not I didn't hate the politics of it.
Speaker 3: I actually didn't. I wasn't particularly troubled by any of
Speaker 3: the I thought, if anything, the politics of that movie
Speaker 3: were just like, we need better financing for mental health facilities. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I thought.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't have a problem with that side of it.
Speaker 3: I hated it on its own terms as a piece
Speaker 3: of filmmaking. I really didn't make it at all, And
Speaker 3: so I thought, well, I'm not going to see the
Speaker 3: second one. But I am intrigued by this idea of
Speaker 3: Todd Phillips kind of being at war with his audience,
Speaker 3: and you know that that's that's an interesting thing to do.
Speaker 3: And like you say, it's definitely way more interesting than
Speaker 3: it was a two hundred million dollar comic book.
Speaker 2: And whether whether it's whether it's right or wrong, or
Speaker 2: good or bad, I don't I could argue all the
Speaker 2: sides of it. It's definitely interesting. It's definitely not what
Speaker 2: anyone wanted for Joker too, except you, and I admire
Speaker 2: that what is the film that means the most to
Speaker 2: you because the experience you had seeing it?
Speaker 3: Okay, So I would definitely say for me this year
Speaker 3: it was watching monkey Man was a really really special experience.
Speaker 3: It was probably also my favorite action movie of the year.
Speaker 3: It probably the Hotel attack is probably my favorite kind
Speaker 3: of sequence of the year. So, like, I don't know
Speaker 3: dav Hotel, I've never met him, but I went to
Speaker 3: the premiere of Monkey Man in London, just as a
Speaker 3: I don't know how to say this famous Brown. I
Speaker 3: was there in my capacity as famous Brown.
Speaker 2: You got it.
Speaker 3: Listen if it goes you in monkey Man, You've got
Speaker 3: Monkey Man. I don't mind being on the famous Brown
Speaker 3: media list. And so I went to see it with
Speaker 3: a couple of my other friends who were also you know,
Speaker 3: famous Browns, and I watched it in screen one at
Speaker 3: Picture out Central, which is one of the great cinema screens.
Speaker 3: It's one of the great cinema screws. I've ever been
Speaker 3: to it in the whole world. And I went to
Speaker 3: watch it and I was sat with I was sat
Speaker 3: either side of me. I was sat with my friend's
Speaker 3: nick esh and Bishop and we watched the movie and
Speaker 3: there was a point in the movie where for no reason,
Speaker 3: bony M starts playing. And the only reason that is
Speaker 3: there is there is like a generation of South Asian parents.
Speaker 3: There are like as in our parents that are just
Speaker 3: weirdly fucking obsessed with bony M.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3: I have no idea. I don't know why it is.
Speaker 3: Brian Adams is like massive in India. I don't know
Speaker 3: why it is. This is like weird things that have happened,
Speaker 3: like culturally, like bits of Western culture that the idea
Speaker 3: is really embraced. And for some reason, a specific generation
Speaker 3: of South Asians embraced Bondy m And I think that
Speaker 3: the Bonya moment and all of us laughing at the
Speaker 3: Bonya moment crystallized why I think that was such a
Speaker 3: special experience, because that film felt like it was made
Speaker 3: by brown nerds for brown nerds, and I watched it
Speaker 3: with Brown nerds as a Brown nerd. It just felt
Speaker 3: like and again I've never met dev it just felt
Speaker 3: like one of us had made a film, like someone
Speaker 3: who shared so many of our life experiences and perspectives
Speaker 3: on things had made a film that was a representative
Speaker 3: of the things that we grew up watching, the action movies,
Speaker 3: the kung fu movies, you know, even up to things
Speaker 3: like like it feels very John WICKI, especially when he
Speaker 3: wears the suit and tie at one point. We all
Speaker 3: grew up loving these kind of Western action films that
Speaker 3: largely had white actors, or Eastern action films that had
Speaker 3: East Asian actors in them, and so it felt like
Speaker 3: he had taken it all of the elements of our
Speaker 3: childhood and put them into a movie for us to watch.
Speaker 3: And I watched it with you know, people who I
Speaker 3: really love who also had the same experience with me.
Speaker 2: It was the you know, it was the brown nerd
Speaker 2: dream and you turn into your fairs cat. It's all
Speaker 2: gone a bit John Wiki, isn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's also it's a banging movie. It's a banging action movie.
Speaker 3: The action scenes are great. Dev is so like movie
Speaker 3: star handsome in it. It's also got a really interesting
Speaker 3: sort of political subtext. They gain has been slightly sanded
Speaker 3: down because they did have they did change the they
Speaker 3: in the grade. They've changed the coloring of one of
Speaker 3: the parties to try and I think it just visually
Speaker 3: distance it from what it is, which is a critique
Speaker 3: of the Hindu Nationalist ruling party in India. And I
Speaker 3: think that they've they've changed that party that I think
Speaker 3: that there was a hope maybe that it would help
Speaker 3: secure it, get it as secured as a released in India,
Speaker 3: which I don't think it still officially did. But in
Speaker 3: any case, it's an incredible action film, and you know,
Speaker 3: I like action movies regardless of their political affiliations. But
Speaker 3: this was a rare one that actually was trying to
Speaker 3: have a diga, you know, was and was also using
Speaker 3: the iconography of Hindu Like. So one of the other
Speaker 3: things that we all grew up with, if the British
Speaker 3: southdy nerd community is partially oxygenated, certainly the Hindu chapter
Speaker 3: of it, by the fact that when we were kids,
Speaker 3: our parents to try and like get us into Hinduism
Speaker 3: would buy us these Arma chad thra cover comic books,
Speaker 3: which were graphic novels based on Hindu mythology, and so
Speaker 3: we all read comic books based on Hindu mythology. And
Speaker 3: that's another really important element of Monkey Man, because Monkey
Speaker 3: Man is steeped for a movie that is, you know,
Speaker 3: ostensibly criticizing Hindu nationalists.
Speaker 2: Is Monkey Man a real comic from that or made
Speaker 2: up for this film.
Speaker 3: It's taking Hanuman, which is the kind of monkey god
Speaker 3: from the Ramina and using the imagery of that as
Speaker 3: being like using the imagery of that to build like
Speaker 3: an action movie persona around. So it is very much
Speaker 3: steeped in Hindu mythology, and it is critical of Hindu
Speaker 3: nationalist politics, and all of that makes it sound terribly worthy,
Speaker 3: which it isn't. It's just an absolutely banging action film.
Speaker 3: And you can go why and have absolutely no concept
Speaker 3: that any of that's going on. But for the if
Speaker 3: you know the circumstances in India, and also if you
Speaker 3: grew up on comic book Hindu indultrination, and whether or
Speaker 3: not it's left any religious belief in any of us,
Speaker 3: it's really open to debate. But what it has left
Speaker 3: us all with his love of comic books, I think
Speaker 3: our parents were trying to turn us into Hindus and
Speaker 3: now we're all just like experts.
Speaker 2: That's why you love.
Speaker 3: Like my friend Nikos who I was at with, literally
Speaker 3: wrote a Spider Man comic last year, Like he literally
Speaker 3: wrote a Spider Man comic, and it's like it was
Speaker 3: a movie by brown nerds for brown nerds. And the
Speaker 3: fact that I was able to watch it in a
Speaker 3: room of brown nerds, some of whom are my best friends,
Speaker 3: made me so happy and I was so thrilled about it.
Speaker 2: What I really liked about that film is I love
Speaker 2: that death Hotel made himself John Wiki, Like I really was, like,
Speaker 2: I know, he want to do action film was never
Speaker 2: getting cast in him. And not only did he prove
Speaker 2: himself as an action hero actor. Like he's fucking brilliant
Speaker 2: in it, and he looks great in it. But that
Speaker 2: is some seriously good directing. I can't believe it's his
Speaker 2: first film. There's a sequence in the middle of action
Speaker 2: sequence that's like one of the great action sequences, and
Speaker 2: I don't know how he did it, and I don't
Speaker 2: think it was a big budget. It's really impressive. I
Speaker 2: think he's got shut down in COVID all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2: It's an incredibly accomplished Oh a nightmare. He broke his
Speaker 2: hand at one point.
Speaker 3: They had to move the whole they had to move
Speaker 3: countries at one stage, Like it was a complete it
Speaker 3: was a complete nightmare.
Speaker 2: It's very good.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he's a very good movie. What's your answer
Speaker 3: for this question?
Speaker 2: I think my answer to this and I'm sorry again.
Speaker 2: This is the second film I watched on a plane,
Speaker 2: which is bad because I don't really approve of watching
Speaker 2: films on the plane. But I really hope that the
Speaker 2: listener will forgive me because I'm very busy and I'm
Speaker 2: really trying to see all the films, and sometimes sometimes
Speaker 2: I just had to watch him on a plane. All right,
Speaker 2: but I do it the best I can put my
Speaker 2: it's really close to it, mon might really last. We'll
Speaker 2: do the best I can. And I know it's not optimal,
Speaker 2: but the fact that I love these films on a
Speaker 2: plane means how amazing these films must be. Anyway, this
Speaker 2: film and the reason I'm pigging this one at this
Speaker 2: particular thing is I saw the TV Glow. I love
Speaker 2: the film. I saw the TV Glow and the film
Speaker 2: itself is very dreamy. It seems to exist in the
Speaker 2: state just before you fall asleep. There's a kind of
Speaker 2: tone to it, a sound to it, a kind of
Speaker 2: somnambulence some yeah, yeah, that word. And I watched this
Speaker 2: film at like three in the morning on a plane
Speaker 2: where I was almost half asleep, and I was, so
Speaker 2: should I should I start? Because I was just like,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to see this film. I thought I'd
Speaker 2: fall asleep, you know. I just started to see if
Speaker 2: it's interesting. And I didn't fall asleep, but I was
Speaker 2: lying down, like I wasn't lying down. I was like
Speaker 2: leaning back, trying not to like I was half asleep
Speaker 2: to start it, and I got lost in this film,
Speaker 2: the film that feels like a dream. I was like
Speaker 2: in a near dream state watching that dreamy film in
Speaker 2: the sky, you know what I mean. And I in
Speaker 2: a way, I was like, I think this might be
Speaker 2: the perfect way to watch this film. I loved it,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to say this, I found it really interesting.
Speaker 2: I saw the TV glow and I had a theory
Speaker 2: about what it was about. And then later I read
Speaker 2: up about it and it's lots of people saying how
Speaker 2: it's a film about the trans experience, and I found
Speaker 2: that really interesting and I see that, but it completely
Speaker 2: worked for me in a different way. I thought it
Speaker 2: was about something else, and I am sure all of
Speaker 2: these things can exist, but for me, what it was
Speaker 2: about was, amongst other things, was this idea of having
Speaker 2: something inside you that is special, but the fear of
Speaker 2: ever taking the risk and showing that. And so it
Speaker 2: so in a way, it was like, there's this guy
Speaker 2: and he makes friends with this girl at school and
Speaker 2: they love this TV show and the girl, the girl
Speaker 2: basically says to him, we're special, like we don't belong
Speaker 2: in this small town. We're better. There's something inside you
Speaker 2: that's very, very special, and she runs off to go
Speaker 2: and be that special thing. And he doesn't because he's scared,
Speaker 2: and he spends his whole life essentially hiding and staying
Speaker 2: where he is. And at the very end of the film,
Speaker 2: he sort of is so frustrated by his small existence.
Speaker 2: He cuts himself open and inside he sees a light
Speaker 2: and it is like proof you really are special, you
Speaker 2: have this special thing inside you. And then he sews
Speaker 2: it up and he ends the film by apologizing to
Speaker 2: everyone for screaming. Yeah. And so for me, I found
Speaker 2: it interesting when I read about the trans thing. I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, how fascinating, because to me it also
Speaker 2: worked as just a film about not exploring whether it's
Speaker 2: trans or whether it's anything. You're you're being brave enough
Speaker 2: to live your full self, which I suppose is the
Speaker 2: same thing. Yeah, I thought that was absolutely correct.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm so pleased that you enjoyed this movie,
Speaker 3: because this is absolutely one of my films of the year.
Speaker 2: I thought it was so special.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, it is, as you say, these two teenagers
Speaker 3: in the late nineties who are become obsessed with a
Speaker 3: TV show called The pink Opake. Yeah, and basically everything
Speaker 3: that you said is the kind of plot of the movie.
Speaker 3: And there is real argument about whether the ending is
Speaker 3: supposed to be sad or happy.
Speaker 2: I found it heartbreaking.
Speaker 3: I've read other people talk about it saying, no, it's
Speaker 3: actually the fact that he gets to see that he
Speaker 3: was still.
Speaker 2: Special inside his whole life.
Speaker 3: And that's actually an argument that it's a happy ending
Speaker 3: that he didn't it didn't kill the fact that he
Speaker 3: lived like that didn't kill the.
Speaker 2: Part of him that was so magical and special.
Speaker 3: And so the first thing to say about this movie
Speaker 3: is that when I watched it, it was me and
Speaker 3: a bunch of children in the cinema. I never felt
Speaker 3: more like I was a teacher, like marshaling a school
Speaker 3: field trip in my entire life. And the movie starts
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking, like, what are these kids getting out
Speaker 3: of it? Because the pink Opake, the fake TV show
Speaker 3: within the film.
Speaker 2: Is so bad. And I think it's more.
Speaker 3: I think it's an accumulation of more of TV shows
Speaker 3: than I think it is initially because I think it's
Speaker 3: filled things like Charmed that are also part of it,
Speaker 3: But it's so referencing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even
Speaker 3: down Yeah it had yeah, yeah, it has that definitely
Speaker 3: that that sort of mystical kids TV thing. But the
Speaker 3: font of the Pinko Pake's credits is similar to the
Speaker 3: Buffy font. And there is and again for Buffy fans
Speaker 3: who watched this movie, I don't want to spoil it
Speaker 3: for you, but there is a one single shot Buffy
Speaker 3: cameo that is absolutely incredible, Like there's an actress who
Speaker 3: turns up from Buffy just for one scene and I
Speaker 3: I'm given to understand. So, and there is a Buffy
Speaker 3: reboot coming, and Chloe Show, the director of Nomadland, is
Speaker 3: supposed to be involved in it. I would say I
Speaker 3: would insist on them signing Jane Sheenburn, who directed this film,
Speaker 3: to direct some of that Buffy or certainly be involved
Speaker 3: at a kind of executive producer level, because this woman,
Speaker 3: like It's Lake, is a Buffy fan, and so I
Speaker 3: and the thing that I loved about because I think
Speaker 3: this might be the film that I related to the
Speaker 3: most this year, and it's the great the best thing
Speaker 3: about films. Every year we talk about this. At some
Speaker 3: point one of us makes reference to your favorite quote
Speaker 3: of all time, which is rogerie but describing cinema as
Speaker 3: the great big empathy machine. And this movie is a
Speaker 3: perfect example of that, because I don't know what the
Speaker 3: trans experience is.
Speaker 2: I've never lived that.
Speaker 3: I've read books about it, I've listened to albums about it,
Speaker 3: but I don't know what that experience is viscerally, that's
Speaker 3: not my life. But I do know what it means
Speaker 3: to be a sad kid in a small town, Like
Speaker 3: we know that, you know, like we know that, and
Speaker 3: we also know what it means to try and drown
Speaker 3: that sadness in fictions and to use someone's art as
Speaker 3: a way of managing the deep sadness you feel by
Speaker 3: becoming obsessed with these shows and like almost wanting to
Speaker 3: escape your own reality so much that you sink into
Speaker 3: a completely different world. Like I remember as a kid
Speaker 3: watching things like Buffy and feeling like when it started
Speaker 3: I was in Sunnydale, it was it was immersive to me.
Speaker 3: And the way that they like so Owen is the
Speaker 3: kind of protagonist and Maddie is the person that he
Speaker 3: meets and befriends, and she tapes the pink opake off
Speaker 3: television again, such a generationally specific experience. That's why I
Speaker 3: was fascinated by all these kids watching it because it's like, well,
Speaker 3: I didn't have Sky, So my friend used to have
Speaker 3: to tape shows off Sky for me, and so she
Speaker 3: tapes a pink opake for him and writes on the
Speaker 3: VHS things about the episode. And that kind of fandom
Speaker 3: of a show is something I know about so well.
Speaker 3: And I also know that sometimes the fandom of those
Speaker 3: shows was a way of me distracting myself from being sad.
Speaker 3: And so I have that kind of feeling of empathy
Speaker 3: for it, and then it brings me to confront the
Speaker 3: idea of what maybe it might be like to have
Speaker 3: gendernice for it. So it's something that through the through
Speaker 3: my own experience, it pushes me to be more of
Speaker 3: an empathetic person because I know, I don't know what
Speaker 3: that experience is, but I know what that sadness is.
Speaker 3: And so you suddenly, through our lives, we've been transported
Speaker 3: just for a second into the emotional life of someone
Speaker 3: who's lived that experience, and we meet we're all getting
Speaker 3: to meet in the middle through this really magical and
Speaker 3: special film. And so he's the kind of manifestation of
Speaker 3: that rogery but idea of cinema as the empathy machine.
Speaker 2: And I really think.
Speaker 3: This is such a beautiful and special special film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed, I'd agreed. And I also think there's a
Speaker 2: moment in it where quite late in it where he
Speaker 2: watches the Pinker Peg again and thinks it's shit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's such a sad but it's like it's on him.
Speaker 2: It's like a real like he's giving up on meaning. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like the show was always the show. And there's an
Speaker 2: argument where don't go back and look at stuff from
Speaker 2: when you eat because you'll be disappointed. But it's also
Speaker 2: like he's giving up on the beauty of it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's meant to him. Yeah, great movie, really, really so good.
Speaker 2: I'd really urge everybody to go and watch that film.
Speaker 2: I think it's really spectacular.
Speaker 1: So that was the first of a two parts special
Speaker 1: with Nish and Brett. Check back in next week for
Speaker 1: more giddies and greatness, the perfect conclusion to this double feature.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out the Patreon page at patreon
Speaker 1: dot com. So that's Brett Goldstein, where you get extra
Speaker 1: chat and video at various tiers and otherwise. If you
Speaker 1: fancy leaving a note on Apple podcasts, that would be
Speaker 1: lovely too, But make it a review of your favorite
Speaker 1: film much more fun and it can be like the
Speaker 1: reviews section of movie where people use huge words and
Speaker 1: big phrases like ostentatiously directed and ardently relished and so on.
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you so much to Niche for
Speaker 1: his time and the presence on the podcast. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Scrubia's Pip and the Distraction Pieces Network, thanks too. And
Speaker 1: this is where Brett thanks me for editing and producing
Speaker 1: the podcast, so I say it is a pleasure. Thanks
Speaker 1: to iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network for
Speaker 1: hosting the podcast, and thanks to Adam Richardson for the
Speaker 1: graphics and Lisa Lidin for the photography. Catch us next
Speaker 1: week for part two, the conclusion to the absolutely untime
Speaker 1: frankly Early Films of the Year twenty twenty four special
Speaker 1: featuring nish Kumar. But that is it for now. I
Speaker 1: hope you're all very well and in the meantime, have
Speaker 1: a lovely week and now, more than ever, be excellent
Speaker 1: to each other. SI