Speaker 1: Look how his only films to be buried with. We're
Speaker 1: back baby, Hello and welcome to a new load of
Speaker 1: films to be buried with. My name is Brett Goldstein.
Speaker 1: I'm a comedian, an actor, a writer, a director, a
Speaker 1: paper merchant, and I love film as the great Roomy
Speaker 1: once said you were born with wings? Why prefer to
Speaker 1: crawl through life? If you can see Oppenheimer on an
Speaker 1: Imax screen? Why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2: Do?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Fair enough for me? I agree.
Speaker 1: Every week I'm invite a special guest over. I tell
Speaker 1: them they've died. Then I get them to discuss their
Speaker 1: life through the films that meant the most. Of the
Speaker 1: previous guests include Barry Jenkins, himesh Patel, Sharon Stone, Mark Frost,
Speaker 1: and even Bled Clambles. But this week it's the brilliant
Speaker 1: legend that is Adam Buxton. Remember you can watch all
Speaker 1: of Ted Lassos seasons one to three and all of
Speaker 1: Shrinking Season one on Apple TV. Plus head over to
Speaker 1: the Patreon at patreon dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein,
Speaker 1: where you'll get an extra twenty five minutes to chat
Speaker 1: with Adam. We talk about secrets, he tells me his
Speaker 1: favorite beginning and ending to a film. You get the
Speaker 1: whole episode uncut, adfree and does a video. Check it
Speaker 1: out over at patreon dot com Forward slash Brett Goldstein. So,
Speaker 1: Adam Buxton is fucking amazing. I've been trying to get
Speaker 1: him on the podcast since I started it, and I
Speaker 1: was very grateful he gave me his time. We recorded
Speaker 1: this a while back on Zoom and I've been holding
Speaker 1: on to it for a special occasion to release it.
Speaker 1: You all know him from the Adam and Joe Show
Speaker 1: and his writing and his comedy, and of course he's
Speaker 1: hugely influential and incredible podcast the Adam Buxton Podcast. He's
Speaker 1: one of my heroes. I've admired him since I first
Speaker 1: saw the Adam and Joe Show back in the day.
Speaker 1: He was an absolute delight to spend time with. And
Speaker 1: I really think you're going to love this one. So
Speaker 1: welcome back everyone. That is it for now. I very
Speaker 1: much hope you enjoy episode two hundred and sixty of
Speaker 1: Films to be Buried With. Hello, and welcome to Films
Speaker 1: to be Buried With. It is me Brett Goldstein and
Speaker 1: I am joined today by the inventor of YouTube, the
Speaker 1: inventor of radio, the inventor of TV acting, the inventor
Speaker 1: of film acting, the inventor of podcasts, and the inventor
Speaker 1: of walking with dog, and the inventor of being her
Speaker 1: husband and father and book writer and editor and songwriter
Speaker 1: and live performer and hero and legend. He's alive. He's here.
Speaker 1: We can't believe it, can you? I can't, But he is.
Speaker 1: Check it out. It's really him. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: It's the brilliant Adam Baxton.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much. Ah, what a trait to have you, Adam.
Speaker 2: How's it going. It's good man. I mean, you're right,
Speaker 2: I did invent all those things you did.
Speaker 1: I was thinking it tell me.
Speaker 2: But you know the problem with being the inventor of
Speaker 2: things is that because you're right at the front, part
Speaker 2: of being an inventor is getting everything wrong. And then
Speaker 2: everyone who comes after you improves on all those things
Speaker 2: and does them properly agreed to. But still nice to
Speaker 2: have invented so many things, yeah, I mean you sort of.
Speaker 1: Did though, right, I mean you know that, you know that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you go to better again. And I started
Speaker 1: all this, but as inconsistently you invented YouTube, then you
Speaker 1: invented radios, then you invented double X, and then you
Speaker 1: invented podcasts.
Speaker 2: The one thing that I genuinely feel that me and
Speaker 2: Joe Cornish got to a little bit before other people
Speaker 2: was doing parodies of TV shows and films with toys.
Speaker 2: And I'm not claiming that we were the first people
Speaker 2: ever in history to have done that. That would be
Speaker 2: incredibly stupid and hubristic, but I feel like we were certainly
Speaker 2: some of the first people to do it in that silly,
Speaker 2: snarky adult way, for better or worse. And I think
Speaker 2: we predated robot Chicken by yes, a little bit. But
Speaker 2: then robot Chicken came out was so brilliantly technically and
Speaker 2: comedically realized that we were instantly overshadowed, and people assumed
Speaker 2: I think that we kind of ripped them off, which
Speaker 2: was not the case.
Speaker 1: No, you would have angered. And also I feel like
Speaker 1: you also invented like filming in shops, like doing stuff
Speaker 1: with real people in shops.
Speaker 2: No, I believe candid Camera did.
Speaker 1: No, we did, no, Thank you agreed to disagree. Oh, also,
Speaker 1: do you know what else you invented? I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this. I hope this doesn't make you said, but
Speaker 1: I think that you also invented talking about grief openly,
Speaker 1: and like everyone who follows your podcast, which I think
Speaker 1: is everyone who has podcasts. You know, when your father died,
Speaker 1: it was such a big part of it, and then
Speaker 1: with your mother as well, like it, like following your
Speaker 1: you very openly talking about your mental health and about
Speaker 1: your grief, and the complicated way you talk about your
Speaker 1: dad is really you were the first person to do that.
Speaker 1: You're probably the reason everyone's banging on about everything now.
Speaker 2: I triggered the over sharing friends, so your fault. I
Speaker 2: inadvertently made people's problems worse by having that focus far
Speaker 2: too much on the things that in my father's time
Speaker 2: people just got on with and tough dout.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I definitely didn't invent that, but it certainly
Speaker 2: felt as if one of the nice things about podcasts
Speaker 2: was the time to talk about those things without it
Speaker 2: being excruciating. I mean, maybe it's I always worry that
Speaker 2: I talk about those things too much. Still, I am
Speaker 2: genuinely conflicted about sharing and ruminating in that way too much.
Speaker 2: I think you've got to find a balance. But on
Speaker 2: the other hand, It's so nice to be able to
Speaker 2: have long form, friendly conversations with people in a way
Speaker 2: that you never really could on TV or on radio.
Speaker 2: I don't think where there's such a pressure to keep
Speaker 2: things moving and no dead air please, no awkward pauses,
Speaker 2: and so anyway, it's nice to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: I'm worried that. I mean, one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: keep this podcast going is I'm like, I don't think
Speaker 1: we have these conversations anywhere else, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: As in, when do you sit for an hour an
Speaker 1: hour and a half with someone face to face another
Speaker 1: conversation in life? I don't.
Speaker 2: It's true, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean. We've had to invent podcasts to
Speaker 1: have proper conversations.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you ever put stuff like particularly when you're like
Speaker 1: having your walks and you're, you know, clearly thinking through
Speaker 1: something and talking about it out there? Do you listen
Speaker 1: back to it or do you just send it off? Like?
Speaker 1: Do you ever regret it? Do you ever go a fuck?
Speaker 1: I feel shamed that I said all this stuff and
Speaker 1: put it out in the world. Or are you like
Speaker 1: always at peace with that's done and this out? Oh?
Speaker 2: Man, I'm never at peace. I'm always feeling as though
Speaker 2: I'm cringing constantly at the person I have been and
Speaker 2: the person I am. It's a you know, it's a
Speaker 2: process of evolution, isn't It's never ending. You're just constantly
Speaker 2: kind of revising and updating and hoping that you're gradually
Speaker 2: learning lessons. But yeah, I cringe the entire time. I
Speaker 2: feel because people say in the creative industries right like,
Speaker 2: you're supposed to go with your instinct. People are always
Speaker 2: telling you just go with your instinct. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: my instincts are shit on loads of things. And sometimes
Speaker 2: when I make a conscious decision like what does your
Speaker 2: heart tell you, buckles, what are you instinctively feeling about
Speaker 2: this decision? And I'll go, I'll go with that, I'll
Speaker 2: be true to myself. And then afterwards I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I hate myself. I should never have done with that.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is a clue to a whole other
Speaker 2: raft of issues with my own self esteem and my
Speaker 2: own relationship with myself and the degree to which I
Speaker 2: struggle with a certain amount of self loathing. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's a constant balancing act between the bits I like
Speaker 2: about myself and wanting to listen to those and the
Speaker 2: bits I really don't like about myself and trying to
Speaker 2: tell the difference between the two. Okay, that's a long
Speaker 2: I do know any answer to your question.
Speaker 1: I do know what you mean, particularly in terms of
Speaker 1: self esteem and stuff. And I was thinking this the
Speaker 1: other day. You tell me from your side, if you're
Speaker 1: someone with like self esteem and self likely, right, but
Speaker 1: you are objectively if you take your emotions out of it, objectively,
Speaker 1: you're very successful, and you're kind of beloved. And there
Speaker 1: are certainly large, large numbers of people who you can
Speaker 1: find evidence of. You can find, you know, essays written
Speaker 1: about you, like people love you, right, But has that
Speaker 1: had any effect on your self esteem or self likely
Speaker 1: or do you just go these people are mad and wrong.
Speaker 2: Funnily, if I don't think they're mad and wrong, and
Speaker 2: it really does cheer me up. And every now and
Speaker 2: again I'll see people in real life who come up
Speaker 2: and say very sweetly and sincerely to me that they
Speaker 2: enjoy the podcast. And part of me is always you know,
Speaker 2: there's always that small voice in your head that's saying yeah,
Speaker 2: But that's because I edit to the podcast heavily and
Speaker 2: present the version of myself that I want to present,
Speaker 2: and that's part of the exercise of the podcast on
Speaker 2: some level, a colossal, vain effort to kind of manage
Speaker 2: the way I come across. But that's only part of it.
Speaker 2: I do think that there's a lot of my genuine
Speaker 2: self in there as well, and it is really encouraging
Speaker 2: when people connect with that and enjoy that, and it
Speaker 2: has cheered me up certainly. On occasions when I'm really
Speaker 2: staring into the abyss, I am able to sometimes rationalize
Speaker 2: and say, look, you're not such a brilliant, you know,
Speaker 2: manipulator that you've managed to fool all these people. There
Speaker 2: is something worthwhile about it.
Speaker 1: There's too many hours of your stuff, like if you
Speaker 1: if it was all so curated, you'd have given it
Speaker 1: away at some point, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That have been cracks, Yeah, I mean, but but you're
Speaker 2: always thinking. In dark moments, you do tend to think like,
Speaker 2: you know, you think about the people that don't like
Speaker 2: what you do so much, yes, and those are the
Speaker 2: you find yourself agreeing with.
Speaker 1: Them completely completely.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. You think, oh, yeah, they've
Speaker 2: they've got the measure of me.
Speaker 1: You know, you do you do stand up? A stand up?
Speaker 1: The one guy in the fourth row with his arms
Speaker 1: folded looks miserable. Everyone else is laughing, and you think
Speaker 1: he knows Yeah, exactly, he knows the truth.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But it's weird, isn't it, Because they're because they're
Speaker 2: not even though you have that, you afford them that
Speaker 2: level of respect in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I don't like those people.
Speaker 2: I don't like people who dislike me. I don't want
Speaker 2: to hang out with them. I much prefer people who
Speaker 2: do like me. So I have to remind myself of
Speaker 2: that as well, you know, I have to remind myself, like,
Speaker 2: you know, those people that you pay attention to who
Speaker 2: criticize you, are they really the kind of people that
Speaker 2: you want to impress? And most of the time they're not. Really.
Speaker 2: They're people that I don't really, I wouldn't really get
Speaker 2: on with. We just see the world differently, and that's
Speaker 2: why they don't like what I do. So I have
Speaker 2: to kind of make peace with that.
Speaker 1: Well, let me cheer you up with some news that
Speaker 1: I forgot to tell you at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what's happened?
Speaker 1: You're dead?
Speaker 2: I'm playing I'm playing along with your acting rooms. This
Speaker 2: is the part of the podcast I enjoy when you
Speaker 2: and your guests start acting.
Speaker 1: Will make it longer? Make it longer? Ah, yes, because
Speaker 1: you're an actor.
Speaker 2: Oh god, what's that? What's up?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 2: What's up? Man?
Speaker 1: Oh shit?
Speaker 2: Did you've suddenly gone off? Freddy?
Speaker 1: Did your agent tell you anything specific about this podcast
Speaker 1: or just what? Did you own? Just said the time
Speaker 1: and day?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: Ah? Man?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: Ah? I don't know you well enough to just sort
Speaker 1: of say this. Do you know what I mean? I
Speaker 1: don't want you to feel like this was like a
Speaker 1: prank or I set this up. But I have some
Speaker 1: news and what's happening? Man, I don't tell me. I
Speaker 1: don't know how did a dog? Oh god? You have
Speaker 1: a dog as well? What?
Speaker 2: And a wife and got some kids? I think you
Speaker 2: can be straight with me. Do you think okay before
Speaker 2: I tell you? Do you think that they would miss
Speaker 2: you if you weren't around. I guess this will help
Speaker 2: me with this next. Not the dog. No, I don't
Speaker 2: think the dog would notice. I think the dog would
Speaker 2: be fine, But the wife and kids. You think it's
Speaker 2: going to be an issue for if you weren't around.
Speaker 2: Just I'm not saying what a couple of the kids,
Speaker 2: one of them will be fine.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, so it's sort of fifty to fifty on
Speaker 1: the wife, kids and dog. Well, the thing is, you're
Speaker 1: you've died. You're dead.
Speaker 2: Oh no, man, I knew it was going to happen
Speaker 2: at some point.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm so sorry. How did you die?
Speaker 2: Well? I died in o bleak future. Where have you seen?
Speaker 2: This occurred to me the other day. Actually went a
Speaker 2: while back during the pandemic and we went to see
Speaker 2: a film. Maybe I won't say the name of the
Speaker 2: film because I don't want to be down on it.
Speaker 2: I know it's a film that a lot of people enjoyed,
Speaker 2: but I didn't enjoy it. And when we came out
Speaker 2: of the multiplex, it was the first time we'd been
Speaker 2: to the cinema in about, you know, a year and
Speaker 2: a half or something. It felt like it was a
Speaker 2: long time, and it was quite a dispiriting journey to
Speaker 2: the cinema in all sorts of ways, because everything was
Speaker 2: only just beginning to open up. It was pretty bleak.
Speaker 2: We went to one of the malls in Norwich and
Speaker 2: half the shops were shuttered out of business and it
Speaker 2: looked kind of like a scene from one of the
Speaker 2: zombie movies, one of the Day of the Dead movies,
Speaker 2: you know. And the only shops that were still open
Speaker 2: were things like selling phone cases and sweet shops and
Speaker 2: mobility scooter shops and vape shops. And it was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: I'm getting strong apocalypse vibes from this from this mall, Like,
Speaker 2: this is when it comes down to it, this is
Speaker 2: what modern humanity feels is most necessary in a pandemic
Speaker 2: is mobility scooters, sweet shops, fate fight shops, and phone
Speaker 2: case shops. Yeah, And then we went to see this film.
Speaker 2: In the film, I didn't like that.
Speaker 1: Was there a paintball? Was there a paintball table, table
Speaker 1: selling painte There.
Speaker 2: Have been paintball that would have been that would have
Speaker 2: cheered me up, But no, there was no paintball. There
Speaker 2: was an arcade as well. The arcade was doing great business.
Speaker 2: I was like, how's that good? In the pandemic? Just
Speaker 2: all the buttons and knobs covered in COVID anyway, But
Speaker 2: it occurred to me as we were coming out of
Speaker 2: the movie that maybe one day they'll just have walk
Speaker 2: in euthanasia centers as well, a bit like the film
Speaker 2: Soilent Green.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, it's a lovely idea.
Speaker 2: And I thought you could have two exits from the cinema.
Speaker 2: You could have one exit back into the mare, and
Speaker 2: the other exit was just go straight to the euthanasia center,
Speaker 2: and then you can in Soilent Green. Edward g. Robinson
Speaker 2: lies in the you know the film soil and Green, Right, Yes,
Speaker 2: have you seen it?
Speaker 1: I actually haven't seen it, but I know what Soilent Green.
Speaker 2: Is, right, Okay, Yeah, So it's a film. It's an
Speaker 2: amazing film and incredibly prescient in all sorts of ways.
Speaker 2: And it's about a future that's horribly overpopulated and there's
Speaker 2: climate catastrophe and food shortages and all sorts of stuff
Speaker 2: that we're frightened about in our modern time. And there
Speaker 2: are regular riots over food shortages in these overcrowded cities,
Speaker 2: and the government sends out these kind of you know,
Speaker 2: diggers with big scoops on them, and they just shovel
Speaker 2: up all the rioters and dump them in the back.
Speaker 2: It's incredibly bleak and dystopian, but brilliant. But the scene
Speaker 2: that really made such an impression on me when I
Speaker 2: saw it as a youngster, was this scene where this
Speaker 2: old guy has finally had enough of living in this
Speaker 2: horrible nightmare society and in this overcrowded world. In Soilent Green,
Speaker 2: you have the option as a citizen to go and
Speaker 2: just euthanize yourself. And you can go into a walk
Speaker 2: in center and it's the only place in this horrible
Speaker 2: city where there's space and where people treat you properly
Speaker 2: as a person, so they welcome you. It's like going
Speaker 2: to a fancy hotel. Everyone's nice to you, and they
Speaker 2: lead you to a lovely, comfortable room and you lie
Speaker 2: down on the bed and it's a bit like an imax,
Speaker 2: a private imax, and they project all these beautiful images
Speaker 2: of what the world used to be like before it
Speaker 2: got totally fucked, and it's all beautiful shots of nature
Speaker 2: and streams and animals, gambling and beautiful fields. And then
Speaker 2: gradually you slip under because they administer the lethal injection.
Speaker 2: So I was thinking, yeah, that's probably what males will
Speaker 2: be like in Norwich, and I'd say years you'll have
Speaker 2: the option to just go to the euthanasia clinic, and
Speaker 2: depending on what film you've seen. They'll project in amongst
Speaker 2: all the images of how beautiful the world was, they'll
Speaker 2: probably be outtakes from the film that you just saw,
Speaker 2: bits from yeah, bloopers just to cheer you up as
Speaker 2: you're slipping under, and also extra bits with you know,
Speaker 2: Taigawai t t doing wise Cracks with Ryan Reynolds, And
Speaker 2: that's how I died. I was in one of those
Speaker 2: euthanasia centers.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if they did do that in
Speaker 1: the middle you're describing where they're selling a phone cases
Speaker 1: and vapes, I think i'd go straight.
Speaker 2: There, Yeah, because they probably have like as you're going in,
Speaker 2: they'd probably they'd have vapes and stuff like that there
Speaker 2: as well, and they'd have like grabbers, and they probably.
Speaker 1: Have sort of very beautiful people at the door, like welcome,
Speaker 1: come here. I mean, it's it's a pretty good idea.
Speaker 1: How old would you like to be when you choose
Speaker 1: to go in this euthanasia Benny, It's.
Speaker 2: Going to be fairly soon, okay, because I don't want
Speaker 2: to get too old now, because from what I've seen
Speaker 2: of old age so far, I'm not not massively in favor. No,
Speaker 2: I mean I say that I'm being glib. Part of
Speaker 2: the process of becoming Buckle's two point not and trying
Speaker 2: to upgrade is coming to terms with growing older and
Speaker 2: with old age. And actually, I really don't want to
Speaker 2: face it in the same way that my mom did.
Speaker 2: She never really made peace with getting old, and it
Speaker 2: always made me sad to see her sad about being old.
Speaker 2: You know, she was very upbeaten lots in most ways,
Speaker 2: but every now and again she'd just look in the
Speaker 2: mirror and she'd kind of I could see the shadow
Speaker 2: coming over her. She hated it. She's like, I hate
Speaker 2: being old. I hate being old. Obviously I get it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be like that myself. I'm really
Speaker 2: hopeful that I can realign.
Speaker 1: What's the answer, like in an ideal because I think
Speaker 1: about this a lot. In an ideal world, if you
Speaker 1: are your very very best self, what are you meant
Speaker 1: to be thinking? Then when you are old, when you
Speaker 1: are objectively out, are you meant to be thinking? This
Speaker 1: is great? I'm so old, I can't move and I'm
Speaker 1: in pain all the time. What are you like? What's
Speaker 1: the what's the sort of acceptance happy version of that?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I guess you're just in a state where you're appreciating,
Speaker 2: you're grateful for all the things that are still available
Speaker 2: to you, even if they are very much more limited
Speaker 2: than they used to be. That's the thing, is like
Speaker 2: your your choices are compromised as you get older, and
Speaker 2: it's a process of coming to terms with that and
Speaker 2: being grateful for the things that you still have. But
Speaker 2: I am encouraged by things like the film that Julian
Speaker 2: Temple made about will Co Johnson being diagnosed with cancer.
Speaker 2: A few years back. Will Co Johnson, who was a
Speaker 2: guitar player in the band Doctor Feel Good and he
Speaker 2: ha certain point, was diagnosed with cancer and it was
Speaker 2: a pretty bad diagnosis, like they only gave him a
Speaker 2: few months or something, and his friend Julian Temple, the filmmaker,
Speaker 2: did this documentary about him. It's called The Ecstasy of
Speaker 2: Wilco Johnson, and he was just suddenly after the initial
Speaker 2: shock of the diagnosis, he was just transformed into someone
Speaker 2: who is ecstatic about the time that he had left
Speaker 2: and how he was suddenly able to appreciate in kind
Speaker 2: of minute and very intense detail, everything that he could
Speaker 2: still appreciate about life, and what an amazing world. It
Speaker 2: was in lots of ways as well as being a
Speaker 2: difficult place. And I've heard that from a few people
Speaker 2: who get terminal diagnoses, not saying obviously everyone responds the
Speaker 2: same way, but some people do. They suddenly, suddenly there's
Speaker 2: a kind of relief at being set free from the
Speaker 2: constant worry about your own mortality and how it's going
Speaker 2: to play out, what the end will be like, like
Speaker 2: how much time do you have left? What's going to happen?
Speaker 2: And how are you going to buy the farm? All
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. Suddenly it's gone, and all you
Speaker 2: have to do now is make the most of the
Speaker 2: time you have left. And of course that's what we
Speaker 2: should all be doing all the time, and we all
Speaker 2: know carpe d and blah blah blah. But actually real
Speaker 2: life gets in the way, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: I've had this conversation a few times. But you tell me,
Speaker 1: I would love to know the day I'm going to die?
Speaker 1: Would you? If I could tell you you've got this loan.
Speaker 2: Well that's a bit like have you gone and got
Speaker 2: a DNA test?
Speaker 1: No, will that tell me when I'm going to die?
Speaker 2: Well, it'll give you. It might give you a fair indication.
Speaker 2: Oh god, it depends on the kind of DNA test
Speaker 2: you get. If you just get a test about like, oh,
Speaker 2: my family, part of my family came from the Netherlands
Speaker 2: or something, then that's a different one. But I think
Speaker 2: you can get pretty accurate tests about like what kind
Speaker 2: of medical conditions are you prone to? What is it
Speaker 2: likely that is going to happen to you? In that way. Obviously,
Speaker 2: it's still totally random, because you know, there's accidents and
Speaker 2: all sorts of other things that might happen. Nothing is
Speaker 2: set in stone. And even if you are genetically predisposed
Speaker 2: to certain conditions, those are just switches that might be flipped.
Speaker 2: They won't necessarily be flipped, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want that in my head. I don't
Speaker 1: want you maybe have this disease coming. Yeah, I'm like
Speaker 1: to tell me the day, this day, you're going to
Speaker 1: get hit by a burst this day. I don't even
Speaker 1: have to tell me how I die, just to tell
Speaker 1: me because exactly the thing you're talking about. I've thought
Speaker 1: about this a lot. If you tell me I've got
Speaker 1: fifty years to live, I will carry on much as
Speaker 1: I am now. If you tell me, I will be
Speaker 1: dead in two years. I'll probably change if you you
Speaker 1: know what I mean Like, I'll probably be like, well
Speaker 1: I don't with that fucking thing, and you get me like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would change, I do.
Speaker 2: But then wouldn't you be from a practical point of
Speaker 2: view if that was me though, I'd then be thinking, yeah,
Speaker 2: but how am I gonna die?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 2: In two years? Is it going to be a slow builder?
Speaker 2: But my starting and to start going down a hill
Speaker 2: nine months beforehand? Is it going to be sudden? You know?
Speaker 1: Well, that's the fun bit. You don't know that in
Speaker 1: this game.
Speaker 2: You just know the day we already have the fun
Speaker 2: bit in that case, we already have. The fun bit
Speaker 2: is not knowing and living as well as you can.
Speaker 2: In case, that's the theory, isn't it.
Speaker 1: How often do you worry about death?
Speaker 2: Well, in one way or another, quite a bit, I
Speaker 2: suppose always or more recently, oh no, always been quite
Speaker 2: a warrior, okay, and grew up in the eighties, you know,
Speaker 2: was ten years old in nineteen eighty and lived through
Speaker 2: years of really acute anxiety about nuclear war, which a
Speaker 2: lot of people of my age can relate to, I think,
Speaker 2: and a lot of films that came out around that time.
Speaker 2: The day after and Threads the day after was the
Speaker 2: one nineteen eighty three, which they showed on ITV like
Speaker 2: three weeks before Christmas. It was I've looked up the
Speaker 2: director and he turns out to be someone who he
Speaker 2: directed Star Trek four, The Voyage Home. Oh wow, so
Speaker 2: he didn't just do he didn't just do super bleak
Speaker 2: nuclear war stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, the guy who made Threads made La story
Speaker 1: to Steve Motosil Really, yeah, what I like? What a career? Wow?
Speaker 2: That's crazy. Yeah, but yeah, the day after absolutely scared
Speaker 2: the shit out of me and made me think a
Speaker 2: lot about nuclear war.
Speaker 1: What do you think happens that after you day?
Speaker 2: I mean, I haven't had any proof that anything happens.
Speaker 2: I'm always looking for it. I'm very much open to
Speaker 2: all sorts of possibilities. I'd really like to see some ghosts.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen any yet. My wife reckons she's seen ghosts.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure she was drunk. And everyone I know,
Speaker 2: all the friends that I have who swear that they've
Speaker 2: seen ghosts, I don't really trust them in that respect.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me one of your wife's ghost stories.
Speaker 2: They're kind of secondhandy. There was one about now can
Speaker 2: I tell you? It's all stuff like, oh, I saw
Speaker 2: an old guy in a coach. Now that you've pinned
Speaker 2: me down, I can't even tell you what they were.
Speaker 2: I think she maybe she maybe she just believes in
Speaker 2: a general way. In ghosts, it's usually things like the
Speaker 2: ghost stories that I've heard from people that I'm close
Speaker 2: with are things like they're pretty crap.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's either someone standing at the end of the bed
Speaker 2: where you just think you were asleep, you obviously asleep,
Speaker 2: or you were half awake and did you know that
Speaker 2: when you were in that state, it's very easy to
Speaker 2: see all sorts of things that can be easily explained
Speaker 2: by being half asleep. So it's usually things like that.
Speaker 2: There was one story a friend of mine told me.
Speaker 2: He swears that the pedal bin or is it a
Speaker 2: pedal bin, Well, it's no, it's a bin with you know,
Speaker 2: a sort of swiping, rotating flippy thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he.
Speaker 2: Reckons the rotating flippy hatch was just spinning round and
Speaker 2: round and round and wouldn't stop. And there was no wind,
Speaker 2: the doors were closed, nothing like that, and it was
Speaker 2: just around and round and round. But even that, you know,
Speaker 2: even that, I just think, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Well, you don't believe there was a ghost in the bin,
Speaker 1: just flipping the flipping bit.
Speaker 2: There might have been a big rat. Well, I got
Speaker 2: news for you, buddy boy. There's a heaven, a real one,
Speaker 2: and you are welcome there. They're huge fans. They welcome
Speaker 2: you in with open arms. And this filled with your
Speaker 2: favorite thing. What's your favorite thing?
Speaker 1: Music? It's filled with music. Everywhere you go music.
Speaker 2: I mean it would be, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1: It really loves it. It's mostly gospel, and it's great.
Speaker 1: And everyone's there that you love, and they're all excited
Speaker 1: to see you. There's Bowie, he's excited to see you.
Speaker 1: He's like, I've heard you all your stuff, and you're like,
Speaker 1: get the fuck out of here, me too. And then
Speaker 1: everyone wants to talk to you, but they won't talk
Speaker 1: to you about your life through film. The first thing
Speaker 1: they ask you, what's the first film you remember seeing?
Speaker 1: Adam Baxton first film. I was really trying to think
Speaker 1: hard about this. It would have been something, it would
Speaker 1: have been a sort of Disney thing. We were heavily
Speaker 1: on board with the Disney program in the seventies when
Speaker 1: I was growing up. I was born in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: so some of the first things I remember seeing maybe
Speaker 1: on TV, things like The Jungle Book and Chitty Chitty
Speaker 1: Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, things like that. But then I
Speaker 1: think we started going to the movies, and it would
Speaker 1: always be my mum that took us because she was
Speaker 1: a film fan as well. Towards the end of the seventies,
Speaker 1: and seventy seven was the big year that I have
Speaker 1: proper memories of for the first time, so I would
Speaker 1: have been eight, well seven eight. We went to see
Speaker 1: Pete's Dragon, I remember, and I thought Pete's Dragon was
Speaker 1: pretty good because I hadn't seen I don't think i'd
Speaker 1: seen cartoons and live action blended in that way before,
Speaker 1: so I was well impressed. Pete Dragon is the film
Speaker 1: Me and my sister Every weekend we're allowed to get
Speaker 1: a video out of the video shop, and I think
Speaker 1: for about two years, every weekend we just got out
Speaker 1: Pete Draggon.
Speaker 2: Wow, love Pete Draggon. Was it good because I don't
Speaker 2: think I've ever seen it again.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's wonderful. I mean it's weird.
Speaker 2: Pet Dragon is a very badly nice the dragon.
Speaker 1: Lovely Dragon, very sweet, he's a nice dragon. And he
Speaker 1: also goes invisible and.
Speaker 2: Not like far right, No, he turns out he's really
Speaker 2: heavily racist far right dragon.
Speaker 1: I think he's quite liberal. He's quite out of mind.
Speaker 1: There's a Hillbillies. They're the bad guys, Barbara, Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: very good. Lovely songs critically reviled incorrectly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it probably doesn't stand up if we
Speaker 2: were to watch it now. But then there was The
Speaker 2: Rescuers that year as well, lovely, which I liked quite
Speaker 2: a lot, with a plucky female heroine. I believe I'm
Speaker 2: right in saying unusual for the time, lady, ma'am. And then,
Speaker 2: of course, I don't know if you've heard of Star Wars. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like a farm boy. He makes friends with a bin.
Speaker 2: They go on adventures flippy bin. Okay, yeah that's good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the bin can talk. And it was good, I thought.
Speaker 2: And we went to see that, and that was I
Speaker 2: suppose one of the more one of the more like
Speaker 2: maybe the first sort of grown up ish film that
Speaker 2: I had seen. And a very memorable trip to the movies,
Speaker 2: you know, and then getting out. I remember getting out
Speaker 2: into the foyer and they didn't have any merch at
Speaker 2: that point. I think it was still early days for
Speaker 2: Star Wars. So we saw it January seventy eight, I
Speaker 2: think we were living in Wales at the time, and
Speaker 2: my mom drove us down to London and we went
Speaker 2: to see Star Wars in Leicester Square and it was
Speaker 2: incredibly exciting and yeah that I don't think they had
Speaker 2: the toys at that point. They hadn't started doing all
Speaker 2: the merchandising properly. The only thing you could buy was
Speaker 2: a soundtrack, and so I begged my mum to buy
Speaker 2: the soundtrack, not really understanding what a soundtrack was. I
Speaker 2: thought a soundtrack would be all the sounds of the film,
Speaker 2: just the talking and the whole film. Yeh, yeah, the
Speaker 2: audio of the film I'm looking at exactly, because that's
Speaker 2: the bit I wanted. I was like, I just wanted
Speaker 2: any way to retain moments of the of the film
Speaker 2: and the characters, and basically what I wanted was a
Speaker 2: video of it, but obviously there was no such thing
Speaker 2: in them days. So we got the soundtrack and it
Speaker 2: was incredibly disappointing to find out that it was just
Speaker 2: the music, even though obviously the music's good, but that's
Speaker 2: not what I wanted at that point. I wanted the talking.
Speaker 1: Forgive me. If you've ever talked about this, and I
Speaker 1: haven't heard you talk about this or written about this.
Speaker 1: You did loads of really good Star Wars sketches do
Speaker 1: we call them short films with toys and what not
Speaker 1: over the years. Have you ever met George Lucas? Has
Speaker 1: he ever seen these? Have you had any feedback from
Speaker 1: George Lucas?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I definitely haven't. I don't know if
Speaker 2: Joe's met George Lucas in his film Travels. It's possible.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's met Spielberg, hasn't he So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can't remember if he's met George Lucas or not.
Speaker 2: But Joan never tells people in the film world what
Speaker 2: he used to do. I think he's a bit ashamed
Speaker 2: of it. I think he feels like he has to
Speaker 2: keep that secret. They find out that he used to
Speaker 2: take the piss out of Hollywood with Star Wars toys,
Speaker 2: then he'll be thrown out of the film club.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how it works? Yeah, okay, amazing. So when you
Speaker 1: saw Star Wars and all these things. Did you think
Speaker 1: I just love this? As in, did you think I
Speaker 1: want to be in this, I want to be part
Speaker 1: of this, or I just love this.
Speaker 2: The idea that you could be in it wasn't anywhere
Speaker 2: near my head in nineteen seventy eight, as a eight
Speaker 2: year old film was totally magical. There was total total
Speaker 2: separation between the entertainment world and real life, no crossover whatsoever,
Speaker 2: which is why things like It'll Be all Right on
Speaker 2: the Night, which was a TV show that showed kind
Speaker 2: of bloopers mainly from TV but occasionally, thrillingly, they would
Speaker 2: show bloopers from feature films that they somehow got hold of.
Speaker 2: And I was addicted to that show. And it was
Speaker 2: a special occasion show, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 2: was like they would have it at Christmas time or
Speaker 2: on public holidays, you get another dose of It'll be
Speaker 2: all Right on the Night. And it felt so magical
Speaker 2: and thrilling to get a glimpse of behind the scenes
Speaker 2: glimpse of these films being made, you know, and any
Speaker 2: time that because they didn't really have behind the scenes
Speaker 2: stuff that much. It started to happen in the eighties
Speaker 2: there was a behind the scenes thing that they showed
Speaker 2: on TV about Indiana Jones, about Regis the Lost Arc,
Speaker 2: and that was incredibly exciting. But yeah, you know, there
Speaker 2: was no way that you could be a part of
Speaker 2: that world. It was totally separate. You'd never see any
Speaker 2: of those people. You'd never meet anyone who was involved.
Speaker 2: I didn't know anyone who was in the film industry,
Speaker 2: and certainly my parents didn't.
Speaker 1: What did you want to be in when you were
Speaker 1: like a teenager?
Speaker 2: I mean on this answer, is a space bank like
Speaker 2: an astronaut, right? Or sweet shop owner?
Speaker 1: They were?
Speaker 2: They were my two favorite things, space and sweets. I
Speaker 2: was like, well, ideally it would be great to go
Speaker 2: to space. Probably that isn't going to happen more realistically.
Speaker 2: Maybe I could get some kind of corner shop and
Speaker 2: then I would have access to the sweets at any time.
Speaker 1: What about the you know those ice cream space ice
Speaker 1: creams you get? Was that the perfect crossover of the
Speaker 1: lollies shaped like rockets? You mean, I don't but them too,
Speaker 1: but you know that you could buy like dry ice cream,
Speaker 1: which is what astronauts eat.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that would have been amazing. I never
Speaker 2: had any of those. Well, you've got that to look
Speaker 2: forward to. What is the film that scared you the most?
Speaker 2: Do you like being scared? I like being fun scared, right,
Speaker 2: but I don't like being, you know, really scared, Like
Speaker 2: the Horrible Fear films were things like The Day After. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what really genuinely scared me the most. And the
Speaker 2: other night I was watching TV and flipping around and
Speaker 2: my wife went up to bed, and then I came
Speaker 2: across Chernobyl the Lost Tapes. Oh, that's the documentary, the
Speaker 2: documentary that the TV series was based on. Basically, they
Speaker 2: just I didn't realize that they'd lifted wholesale whole sections
Speaker 2: of the documentary and dramatized them essentially. And I came
Speaker 2: across the bit where I'm laughing but it's it's bleak laughter,
Speaker 2: the bit with the fire fighters in the hospital before
Speaker 2: they realized that they're totally ravaged by radiation and they
Speaker 2: haven't started getting ill. Oh my god, it was it
Speaker 2: was just it's beyond horror. It's beyond That's the thing
Speaker 2: is like, real life offers up things that are so
Speaker 2: much more vividly horrific than anything you could imagine, And
Speaker 2: in my mind it sometimes makes horror a little bit
Speaker 2: redundant in that way, you know what I mean. Also
Speaker 2: with true crime, I'm quite literal minded. So even on
Speaker 2: a show like poker Face, which I love Natasha Leone,
Speaker 2: which she's great, but it's a true crime thing, right,
Speaker 2: so it starts with a murder every week and then
Speaker 2: she sort of solves the murder. Even that you know,
Speaker 2: it's mainly played for laughs. It's quite light, but I
Speaker 2: just go, oh, no, that's so sad that person was murdered.
Speaker 2: And I'm not suggesting that I'm so sensitive and everyone
Speaker 2: who loves true crime they're not sensitive like I am.
Speaker 2: I think that most people are just able to distinguish
Speaker 2: between and to compartmentalize, right, disengage certain sensitivities when they're
Speaker 2: watching movies. But I've never really been able to do that,
Speaker 2: so I don't like that. But fun Fear Alien is
Speaker 2: the big thing. That was the one that I had
Speaker 2: to wait a long time before I saw as a youngster,
Speaker 2: but ever since it came out, I remember not being
Speaker 2: able to sleep and going and finding my mum and
Speaker 2: she was watching film eighty I think, I mean, I
Speaker 2: can't remember if the film came out in seventy nine
Speaker 2: or eighty, I'm not sure, but anyway, she was watching
Speaker 2: Barry Norman's film review program and he was the best
Speaker 2: ever movie the film movie reviewer on TV. I think
Speaker 2: I saw a clip of him the other day. He's like, wow,
Speaker 2: he was great.
Speaker 1: Normal.
Speaker 2: Anyway, he was reviewing Alien and they showed a clip
Speaker 2: and I was just completely mesmerized because it seemed and
Speaker 2: indeed it turned out when I finally saw the film,
Speaker 2: like four or five years later, when I was finally
Speaker 2: old enough, it seemed real. Everything about it seemed real,
Speaker 2: and it still seems real now. I saw it the
Speaker 2: other night. I was flipping around and it came on,
Speaker 2: and it's so well directed, and the actors are so good.
Speaker 2: The rhythm of it, it feels very naturalistic and documentary style.
Speaker 2: It's brilliant.
Speaker 1: And the.
Speaker 2: Soundscape, what do you call it, the kind of audio work,
Speaker 2: the sound stuff, the sound stuff, it's really good. All
Speaker 2: these kind of slightly musical noises and bubles, and it's
Speaker 2: half like synthesizer stuff, half kind of machine hums, all
Speaker 2: very sinister. It's constantly bubbling away, and all these things
Speaker 2: creates such an amazing atmosphere. Plus of course the central premise,
Speaker 2: which is a creature busting out of your stomach. So
Speaker 2: that's so horrific. That kind of body horror really frightens
Speaker 2: me in the same way that that Chernobyl footage, you know,
Speaker 2: looking at stuff like that, it's very upsetting. Real illness
Speaker 2: and body stuff gets to me. All that kind of
Speaker 2: David Crone type stuff I find very very unsettling. But
Speaker 2: Alien got the balance right, like it was dealable with,
Speaker 2: but still very very shocking and frightening.
Speaker 1: Alien's got that thing I keep talking about. So I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with because I think we don't have it enough
Speaker 1: in like Hollywood films, And maybe it was just it
Speaker 1: was a lot of films in this seventies, it seems,
Speaker 1: but like Spielberg used to do it and Scorsese did it.
Speaker 1: This thing you're talking about of atmosphere, it's partly the
Speaker 1: sound stuff, but it's also like maybe it's a bit
Speaker 1: improvised in the dialogue, like it just feels like people talking,
Speaker 1: You're not catching everything everyone's saying. They feel like a
Speaker 1: real crew who've been hanging out too long. It doesn't
Speaker 1: feel polished. It's a bit dirty, spagging gray good choice, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Truckers in Space, Truckers in Space. What is the film
Speaker 1: that made you cry the most? Are you a crier?
Speaker 1: You're a crier?
Speaker 2: Oh man, Yeah, I am a crier. And it's getting
Speaker 2: worse and worse, and I'm very easily triggered. The other day.
Speaker 2: It's not the film that makes me cry the most,
Speaker 2: but the other day again, it was one of those things.
Speaker 2: It's a modern phenomenon. I think of the of the
Speaker 2: kind of multi channel age when you're flicking around and
Speaker 2: you're not kind of prepared for certain things, and suddenly
Speaker 2: you come across films either that have a strong emotional
Speaker 2: resonance for you or things that you just weren't ready for.
Speaker 2: Suddenly you're confronted with these moments. And we came across parenthood.
Speaker 2: The Ron Howard loved me, and I suddenly realized, like,
Speaker 2: oh shit. I think most of my ideas about what
Speaker 2: it would be like to be a parent were formed
Speaker 2: by parenthood. So when did that come out? Like end
Speaker 2: of the eighties and I was a Yeah, I was
Speaker 2: a teenager in late teens, nearly twenty I saw parenthood.
Speaker 2: I was many years away from becoming a father myself.
Speaker 2: But it really resonated with me, and I think it
Speaker 2: was one of the first times when I understood a
Speaker 2: little bit about what it must have been like for
Speaker 2: my parents having children. And I do think there's lots
Speaker 2: of quite good stuff in there that is still relatable.
Speaker 2: But the bit that we came across when we were
Speaker 2: flicking around we found Parenthood was the bit where Joaquin Phoenix,
Speaker 2: who was at the time like beautiful and young, twelve
Speaker 2: years old or thirteen or something like that. He's got
Speaker 2: lovely floppy hair. Anyway, he is the He's playing the
Speaker 2: son of Diane Weist, and she is divorced in the
Speaker 2: film from her husband, and the husband doesn't really he's
Speaker 2: moved on. He's got a new family. He doesn't really
Speaker 2: want to have anything to do with his old family.
Speaker 2: But the son played by Joaquin is having a bad
Speaker 2: time at home. He wants to reconnect with his dad
Speaker 2: and spend some time with his dad. He's fed up
Speaker 2: with being with Diane West so he gets on the
Speaker 2: phone to his dad and his mum is sort of
Speaker 2: over in the corner watching him and saying, I don't
Speaker 2: think you should phone your dad. He's like, I am
Speaker 2: going to phone my dad. I want to see my dad.
Speaker 2: So he phones up and his dad's just totally not interested.
Speaker 2: He's busy, He's like, how do you get this number?
Speaker 2: He's just totally cold with his son. And it was
Speaker 2: I just came apart. I just it was like someone
Speaker 2: had just turned on a tap and I just started crying.
Speaker 2: I don't know why my parents didn't get divorced in
Speaker 2: that way. I mean they separated, who knows. I found
Speaker 2: it hard to understand where my response was coming from.
Speaker 2: But it was so heartbreaking this scene.
Speaker 1: Was it was it like a fear of your children
Speaker 1: feeling like that. If you didn't have that.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean it was it was
Speaker 2: really mysterious. I think it's just it was a brilliant
Speaker 2: performance by Joaquin. It's so sad what this guy on
Speaker 2: the phone to his dad and his dad doesn't want
Speaker 2: to know. Oh my god, sorry, I'm going. I'm going again.
Speaker 2: So that really made me cry. But other films that
Speaker 2: always set me off are Remains of the Day. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: because that's dad's stuff, right, So anything with Dad's watch
Speaker 2: out forget it that just reaches right in and tears
Speaker 2: your soul out. And oh enough said, have you ever
Speaker 2: seen that Nicole hillof Senna's film Oh Yeah, with Julia
Speaker 2: Louis Dreyfus and James Gandelfini. Yes, from twenty thirteen. It
Speaker 2: was like his last film, No, no, yeah, one of
Speaker 2: them surely yeah, Julia Louis Dreyfus. She's a single I'm
Speaker 2: reading from the synopsis. Single mother Eva enjoys her professionalism massuse,
Speaker 2: but is worried as her daughter is about to begin college.
Speaker 2: She meets Albert played by James Gandolfini and discovers that
Speaker 2: he's her new friend's ex husband. Anyway, she forms this
Speaker 2: friendship with James Gandolfini's character and they get really close,
Speaker 2: and then they fall out over something. He feels that
Speaker 2: he hasn't been honest with her and he doesn't want
Speaker 2: to see her anymore. And she goes around and tries
Speaker 2: to apologize and say, listen, this is silly. You know,
Speaker 2: we got on so well. I'm really sorry, and he
Speaker 2: just won't. He won't take the he won't take her apology.
Speaker 2: I mean you can hear. I am just a total
Speaker 2: disaster area as soon as I come in any kind
Speaker 2: of proximity with these themes and these moments in these films,
Speaker 2: it's like I'm being electrocuted or something and I cannot
Speaker 2: I can't keep I can't keep it together. And Julia
Speaker 2: Louis Drivers in this film is amazing. She's so good.
Speaker 2: There's one bit where she's so sad that James Gandelpini
Speaker 2: doesn't want to be friends with her. She can't believe it.
Speaker 2: She's heartbroken and and I come apart every time.
Speaker 1: Is it the is it the friendship of it, or
Speaker 1: is it the fact that he's not she's not forgiven?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's all those things. It's just it's just
Speaker 2: very deep, kind of elemental stuff, things that are painful,
Speaker 2: really painful and sad, you know, and and when you
Speaker 2: see them so well evoked. I think also there's a
Speaker 2: kind of sentimental part of me that gets very emotional
Speaker 2: when you see anything good, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like we see something that's done so well, when someone's
Speaker 2: you see a great performance and someone captures something very true,
Speaker 2: it's really moving.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the band?
Speaker 2: I'm laughing. I'm laughing because me and my wife had
Speaker 2: such a massive row about it. I picked it as
Speaker 2: our Christmas Day movie with the whole family, thinking that
Speaker 2: it was going to be a hoot because I really
Speaker 2: liked in Bruges. I thought, they've got the gang back
Speaker 2: together again. It's going to be great times like in Bruges.
Speaker 2: And we watched it. My brother and sister were over
Speaker 2: and we watched it with the kids, like I've got
Speaker 2: teenage children. My daughter probably too young really to have
Speaker 2: seen it at fourteen, although she took herself off to
Speaker 2: bed fairly quickly, but the rest of us watched the
Speaker 2: whole thing and oh my god, it was such a bummer.
Speaker 1: It's such as such a massive bummer.
Speaker 2: And then my wife at the end of it, because
Speaker 2: she was she wanted to watch Top Gun Maverick again.
Speaker 2: We've seen Top Gun. Maras we seen Top Gun Maverick.
Speaker 2: She's like, it's so good. I was like, I know,
Speaker 2: I loved it too. It was great, So let's watch that.
Speaker 2: That's what Christmas is about. Christmas is about Top Gun Maverick,
Speaker 2: not fucking branches of in a sherry. I was like,
Speaker 2: come on, in Bruges, they've got the gang back together again.
Speaker 2: It'll be fun. We don't want to watch Top Gun Maverick.
Speaker 2: We only to see top We saw it two months ago,
Speaker 2: so we struggled through branches of inn sharing, and my wife,
Speaker 2: just when it was finished, she just sighed this kind
Speaker 2: of deep disappointed, existential sigh and said, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go to bed now. And then my brother and sister
Speaker 2: very slowly got up off the sofa and sighed as well,
Speaker 2: and they said, yeah, I think we'll think I'll go too.
Speaker 1: May Christmas everyone, maybe.
Speaker 2: Yes, thanks for that. I see tomorrow we probably have
Speaker 2: to get the train fairly early tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So anyway, were you were you sweating all the way
Speaker 1: through it as you realized this isn't the fun I
Speaker 1: promised everyone.
Speaker 2: First twenty minutes, I was thinking, smack, it's a smash,
Speaker 2: look at it. And my wife was even saying, oh
Speaker 2: my god, it's so beautiful. Look at it. Wow, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, yep, you bet Buckles has picked a winner.
Speaker 2: It's an absolute peach, and it's got a bit of
Speaker 2: substance to it, you know, top gun Maverick, that's all fine,
Speaker 2: you can only have so much escapism. We're going to
Speaker 2: wrestle with some real themes here in the beautiful Irish countryside.
Speaker 2: But then then when fingers started being chopped off, it
Speaker 2: was like Oh fuck.
Speaker 1: What is the film that is not critically acclaimed? People
Speaker 1: don't like it, but you love it unconditionally.
Speaker 2: Cocktail Wow. Cocktail is not a film that I would
Speaker 2: ever recommend to someone as a great piece of cinema.
Speaker 2: But I do love it, and I have seen it
Speaker 2: quite a few times. And I didn't see it all
Speaker 2: that long ago again for about the sixth seventh time,
Speaker 2: maybe I went to see it in nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 2: when it came out because I was a cocktail bartender
Speaker 2: at the time at a place called the Chicago Pizza
Speaker 2: Pie Factory in Hanover Square in London, and it was
Speaker 2: the first time. I started out as a busboy there
Speaker 2: clearing plates and doing all that, and I graduated to
Speaker 2: cocktail bartender and they took us. The bar manager took
Speaker 2: us to see Cocktail when it came out because he said,
Speaker 2: we've got to raise our game because TGI Fridays was
Speaker 2: a big thing in the West End restaurant cocktail world
Speaker 2: because they did all the flare, they did all the
Speaker 2: stuff that they do in cocktail, throwing stuff around, spinning
Speaker 2: bottles and all that kind of stuff, and we didn't
Speaker 2: really do that at our restaurant. But the bar manager said,
Speaker 2: we've got to start doing that. That's what people want,
Speaker 2: got to start chucking glasses around. So off we went
Speaker 2: to see cocktail to pick up some tips and aside
Speaker 2: from the glamorization of heavy drinking and the world of
Speaker 2: cocktail bartending, both of which I was quite heavily invested
Speaker 2: in and a fan of. You know, Tom Cruise is
Speaker 2: pretty good. Say what you like about that guy, but
Speaker 2: he is not short of raw charisma, true, and he's
Speaker 2: fucking good. And also Elizabeth Shoes, she's no slouch either.
Speaker 2: She's fantastic. And then Brian Brown also very good, underrated
Speaker 2: actor and his character is very funny. Brian Coglan Cogland's law.
Speaker 2: I found on the Internet the other day a list
Speaker 2: of all the Cogland's laws from Cocktail, Drink or be
Speaker 2: Gone Drink or be Gone Cogland's law. Never show surprise,
Speaker 2: never lose your cool. Never tell tales about a woman.
Speaker 2: No matter how far away she is, she'll hear you.
Speaker 2: Cogland's law. Anyway, I love cocktail. And also you've got
Speaker 2: lots of beautiful locations. He goes off and he's a
Speaker 2: bartender in Jamaica or Barbados or somewhere for a while,
Speaker 2: and it's all very stupid and aspirational and goofy, But
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: Did you do poetry and get really good at flipping
Speaker 1: stuff at Chicago Pizza Bay Town? No?
Speaker 2: And no, okay. One of my first efforts to do
Speaker 2: some flare and flip some bottles ended up with me
Speaker 2: smashing a large plate glass mirror behind. So that was
Speaker 2: a sad time. And then soon after that, I slipped
Speaker 2: and brought down a giant stack of glasses, like a
Speaker 2: tower of highball glasses. They all smashed and then I
Speaker 2: landed on top of them. Palms out. Ah, I landed
Speaker 2: on this big, jagged glass pile. I still I still
Speaker 2: have a scar across my left hand from the giant
Speaker 2: wounding up from that. So no, I was pretty cack handed.
Speaker 2: How many ists did you get? Must have been a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: The thing is that I was fairly anaesthetized with alcohol
Speaker 2: at the time. It was a busy Friday night shift
Speaker 2: and we would occasionally drink booze while we were at work.
Speaker 2: This was at a different restaurant by that time, so
Speaker 2: it didn't hurt that badly. And then I went to
Speaker 2: the A and E during the shift and they stitched
Speaker 2: me up and then I went to meet everyone after
Speaker 2: the shift in the bar in Soho are like, hey, hey,
Speaker 2: I got loads of stitches. Amazing, let's get some shots.
Speaker 1: What is the film that you used to love but
Speaker 1: you've watched it recently and you've thought I don't like
Speaker 1: this anymore? Well, probably The Breakfast Club, great answer. So
Speaker 1: that came out in nineteen eighty five and I saw
Speaker 1: it on my birthday, and actually, you know what is
Speaker 1: this is also the answer to another question that you
Speaker 1: had in your list, which is what's the film that
Speaker 1: had the most meaning to you because of where you
Speaker 1: were at and where you saw it. So this is
Speaker 1: the answer to both of those questions. Well, let's hear
Speaker 1: you're doc.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw it on my sixteenth birthday, seventh, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty five, that's when it was released in the UK,
Speaker 2: and it really spoke to me very directly about the
Speaker 2: intolerable pressure that I felt being exerted on me by
Speaker 2: the adult world, and the extent to which adults didn't
Speaker 2: understand what it was like to be a young person
Speaker 2: because their hearts had died, you know, but when you
Speaker 2: grow up your heart dies, and I felt like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that is fucking true.
Speaker 1: That is so true.
Speaker 2: When you grow up, your heart dies. And the only
Speaker 2: people who still understand what it is like to feel
Speaker 2: are young people, and no one really understands what it
Speaker 2: is like to be young except John Hughes and the
Speaker 2: cast of The Breakfast Club. And it was just like
Speaker 2: NonStop emotion. It's just this emotional rollercoaster laughs, incredible laughs,
Speaker 2: ha hahaha, and real sadness at some of the struggles
Speaker 2: that the characters were going through their difficult home lives
Speaker 2: and not being able to measure up to their parents'
Speaker 2: expectations and things like that, and not doing well in exams. Yes,
Speaker 2: I can relate to all this stuff. And then also
Speaker 2: loved Ali Sheedy. She played a kind of gothy nerd
Speaker 2: girl who I very much fancied and just thought, I
Speaker 2: love you, gothy nerd girl. And at the end when
Speaker 2: John Bender played by Judd Nelson, he's the kind of
Speaker 2: yob bully character in the film, who it turns out
Speaker 2: is only a yob bully because of his horrible, abusive
Speaker 2: home life, so he's not that bad, actually, it turns out,
Speaker 2: and he ends up being the kind of emotional center
Speaker 2: of the film. Anyway, his life is changed by this
Speaker 2: momentous time in detention with these other guys in the
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club, and they all acquire a new understanding for
Speaker 2: each other's problems. And then when John Bender goes out
Speaker 2: after Detention is finished, and he's got his walkman on
Speaker 2: and he's listening to Don't You Forget About Me by
Speaker 2: Simple Minds, and he punches the air and it frees
Speaker 2: frames and it's hey, hey, hey hey. And then that
Speaker 2: summer nineteen eighty five, I was on holiday. I went
Speaker 2: on holiday, and it was kind of the first time
Speaker 2: I went on holiday without my parents, and every time
Speaker 2: we went to a disco they were playing well it
Speaker 2: was it was I Want to Dance with Somebody by
Speaker 2: Whitney Houston and Don't You Forget About Me by Simple
Speaker 2: Minds with the two big floor fillers. So it was
Speaker 2: just kind of like year zero for my intense emotional
Speaker 2: self absorption, and it felt incredible, And I think I
Speaker 2: ended up seeing the film about four or five times.
Speaker 2: I will take everyone I knew we have you seen
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club? Oh, I'm going to take you to Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2: I think it's important for your emotional development. So we
Speaker 2: went seen that. But then about four or five years ago,
Speaker 2: again flicking around on the TV, it's The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2: I thought, oh yeah, give that a watch, and it
Speaker 2: was very painful.
Speaker 1: It's unbearable. I used to love it too. They are awful,
Speaker 1: all of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, awful, aren't they. I mean I still got some
Speaker 2: there's still shreds of sympathy for some of them. I
Speaker 2: mean it's sort of heavy themes that it's dealing with
Speaker 2: suicidal thoughts and abuse and all sorts of things, but
Speaker 2: it's juxtaposed with this very casual, weird sort of harassment, sexism, homophobia,
Speaker 2: all this stuff kind of right up against each other,
Speaker 2: you know, which to be fair to. It is kind
Speaker 2: of what things were like in those days. And I
Speaker 2: guess a lot of those things haven't gone away completely,
Speaker 2: though we think about them differently. And you know, even
Speaker 2: at the time, I think I thought some of those
Speaker 2: things were a bit weird, Like it was weird when
Speaker 2: Ali Sheedy's character goes off and gets a makeover and
Speaker 2: then comes back and they've turned her into a sort
Speaker 2: of conventional girly girl with a bow in her hair
Speaker 2: and makeup and stuff. And we're supposed to be delighted
Speaker 2: because look, you've turned her into just a standard girl.
Speaker 2: But it was obvious to me, like, no, she was
Speaker 2: way better before when she had dandruff and she was
Speaker 2: all gothy. But yes, it was the thing that was
Speaker 2: most painful, I think was just the level of self
Speaker 2: obsession that was being celebrated, and I thought, oh, that
Speaker 2: makes sense that my intense kind of self absorption was
Speaker 2: being validated by this movie, not only validated, but made
Speaker 2: legendary and celebrated.
Speaker 1: You know, were you worried that your heart had died?
Speaker 2: Well, No, I knew that my heart hadn't died, and
Speaker 2: I was I think I felt sorry for my parents.
Speaker 2: I think I just thought, God, I got them to wrong.
Speaker 2: Obviously their hearts hadn't died. They were just I know
Speaker 2: that they were. They were just trying to do their best.
Speaker 2: And this idea of what adults were like was so off.
Speaker 2: It was way off. There was no real empathy there,
Speaker 2: and I know why there wasn't, because the point of
Speaker 2: the film was to make young people feel good about
Speaker 2: themselves and to validate their angst as teenagers. Fair enough,
Speaker 2: but I don't know the messages I got from it
Speaker 2: were all way off, So.
Speaker 1: Hang on, that's your answer to film used loved love anymore?
Speaker 1: And the film that means the most of you is
Speaker 1: the experience of seeing it.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, because because at the time it was so incredible.
Speaker 2: At the time, it was everything to me. I loved
Speaker 2: it and I loved it. Every single time I saw it.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, great, it's this bit. Oh
Speaker 2: brilliant is this bit? I love this bit? And I
Speaker 2: loved all the funny lines and yo, aha we have
Speaker 2: my dubage and all that brilliant love it.
Speaker 1: What about related to what's the film you most related?
Speaker 2: I mean probably Woody Allen films. I think the first
Speaker 2: time I saw Annie Hall in my late teens. I
Speaker 2: think it was the first time they showed it on
Speaker 2: British TV around about nineteen eighty seven, when I would
Speaker 2: have been sixteen or seventeen, and that felt very much
Speaker 2: like something I hadn't seen before, and I just thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's I think I see the world the same way.
Speaker 2: And also the fourth wall breaking that Woody Allen does
Speaker 2: in there, and just a general sense of like what
Speaker 2: kind of person do you want to be? Do you
Speaker 2: want to be? One of those people who's got everything sussed.
Speaker 2: Do you want to be one of those kind of handsome,
Speaker 2: successful people or do you want to be one of
Speaker 2: the kind of sensitives, slightly screwed up people or not? Like,
Speaker 2: do you want to be those people? But who are you?
Speaker 2: And who's your gang? And I thought, well, if it's
Speaker 2: a choice, I'm definitely with the sensitive, screwed up people
Speaker 2: and I'm against the handsome, got it all sorted people.
Speaker 2: And that's sort of what I took from from that film.
Speaker 2: And also just obviously I'm kind of hesitant now because
Speaker 2: because talking about Woody Allen is colored by so many
Speaker 2: other things that we think of when we think of him,
Speaker 2: and accusations and allegations and all this miserable stuff that
Speaker 2: is now inextricably linked to him. But back then, of course,
Speaker 2: there was none of that. When I was watching it
Speaker 2: for the first time.
Speaker 1: Annie Hill is fucking amazing. Ye.
Speaker 2: Annie Hill is a fantastic show, and she's amazing in it.
Speaker 2: She's like, it's one of those when I say, Diane Keaton,
Speaker 2: her character, that's the blueprint for so much modern comedy,
Speaker 2: you know, when you think of brilliant comedians like Julia
Speaker 2: Davis and Kristin Wig and people like that. When you
Speaker 2: think about brilliant female comedy performers, a lot of them
Speaker 2: are drawing from that Diane Keaton energy that I'd certainly
Speaker 2: never see before seeing that film, and just the intelligence
Speaker 2: that she radiates, and the oddness and being able to
Speaker 2: zero in on very small details about the way people
Speaker 2: behave while being very lovable, you know, being someone that
Speaker 2: you could easily imagine just falling in love with and
Speaker 2: becoming obsessed by. You know, so everything about it rang true.
Speaker 1: Great answer, Adam Buxton, what's the sexiest film you've ever seen?
Speaker 2: Sexy? Sexy films? Well, The Name of the Rose has
Speaker 2: this scene in it where Christian Slater playing a young oh,
Speaker 2: that one that encounters a young feral peasant girl in
Speaker 2: a in the kitchen of a monastery. And when is
Speaker 2: it set. I don't know really exactly when The Name
Speaker 2: of the Rose is set, but olden times. And it's
Speaker 2: a very very sexy scene. He gets seduced by this
Speaker 2: girl and she doesn't even speak, she doesn't even say anything.
Speaker 2: She does is make sexy peasant feral noises and he
Speaker 2: just lies there while she takes off his habit and
Speaker 2: gives him a jolly good seeing to, and he can't
Speaker 2: He's got this look on his face like he doesn't
Speaker 2: understand what's happening and he can't really believe what's happening
Speaker 2: to him. And it's very good.
Speaker 1: Would that be your your dream version of how you
Speaker 1: lost your.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be a monk and I get seduced by
Speaker 2: a sexy, feral peasant.
Speaker 1: Girl who doesn't speak, who.
Speaker 2: Crucially doesn't speak, doesn't give me a hard time. That's
Speaker 2: my ideal woman. That's a joke, by the way, Irony.
Speaker 1: That is a really good answer that has not come
Speaker 1: up before. What's her name the lady? Because she was
Speaker 1: then in she was in the Christians Layer, the one
Speaker 1: with Travelter and Christmas later.
Speaker 2: She's called Valentina Vargas. I'm looking her up now and
Speaker 2: the name of her character is just the girl, the.
Speaker 1: Girl, the silent girl. Really good answer.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was there was a few around then,
Speaker 2: you know. It was things like it was things like
Speaker 2: that and oh god, what's the French one? Betty blue
Speaker 2: blue source of stuff. Yeah, and you could smoke when
Speaker 2: I saw that as well, like smoke in the cinema
Speaker 2: and after that first sex scene, everyone in the cinema
Speaker 2: lit up a city and everyone laughed.
Speaker 1: That's great. There's a subcategory to this question, traveling boner
Speaker 1: is worrying why dons a film you found arousing that
Speaker 1: you weren't sure you shared? Dad in Bucks?
Speaker 2: Well, probably The Man Who Fell to Earth directed by
Speaker 2: Nick Rogue, and that features David Bowie, obviously, and it's
Speaker 2: a science fiction film about a an alien man.
Speaker 3: Who comes to Earth and he's looking for technical solutions
Speaker 3: to the problems that have afflicted his home planet. They've
Speaker 3: run out of water, so he's got to try and
Speaker 3: find some way of getting some water and bringing it
Speaker 3: back to his planet, and.
Speaker 2: He does that by becoming a millionaire, applying all the
Speaker 2: amazing technical know how that he has to some of
Speaker 2: the Earth's problems and building companies that will make him
Speaker 2: rich so that he can take some water back home anyway.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, there is also some quite saucy sex
Speaker 2: going on with Rip Torn who is in there playing
Speaker 2: a teacher, like a college professor, sleazy college professor who
Speaker 2: has relationships with some of his students. And I first
Speaker 2: watched The Man Who Fell to Worth with my mum
Speaker 2: aged around eleven or twelve or something, and I was
Speaker 2: by that time. I was a big Bowie fan already,
Speaker 2: but I didn't know anything about the Manufeld to Earth.
Speaker 2: I saw it in the TV Times it said Manufeld
Speaker 2: to Earth starring David Bowie. Science fiction brilliant. I love
Speaker 2: science fiction, love Star Wars, and I was just imagining
Speaker 2: this film that was like, but you know, Zaevid riding
Speaker 2: around with robot friends and some lasers. Slippy Bin, Yeah,
Speaker 2: flippy Bin, maybe singing with the bin and having laser fights.
Speaker 2: It's like, fucking hell, It's the perfect film. And my
Speaker 2: mom was like, oh, David Bowie. I like David Bowie. Yes,
Speaker 2: I like Space Odyssey. That's a good song. Isn't that
Speaker 2: a space oddity? Mum? She's like, yes, let's watch The
Speaker 2: Man Who Fell to Earth? So we sit there. He
Speaker 2: watched The Man Who Fell to Earth and it's fucking weird.
Speaker 2: And there's this really long, weird sex scene with rip
Speaker 2: Torn quite near the beginning of the film, juxtaposed with
Speaker 2: shots and Xavid's character watching sort of Japanese no theater
Speaker 2: in a sushi restaurant or something with lots of shouting
Speaker 2: and animal noises in between shots of ripped torn rolling
Speaker 2: around with this much younger woman in a bed and
Speaker 2: taking photographs of each other. It was very awkward. Sat
Speaker 2: there with my mom. She's sipping her wine and none
Speaker 2: of us is, you know, not saying anything at all.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I want this film to be over.
Speaker 2: But I was quite turned on. And then later on
Speaker 2: in the film there's another excruciating sexy with Bowie Bowie
Speaker 2: and Candy Clark where you get to see Jayevich's toja
Speaker 2: as well. Not I don't think it's the nicest shot
Speaker 2: you could wish for of Janevich's Taja, but there was
Speaker 2: something sexy about that. Bowie's very beautiful in that film,
Speaker 2: so it was quite a It was quite a sexy
Speaker 2: roller coaster for young buckles.
Speaker 1: How would you reshoot his taju in a way that
Speaker 1: would be more flustering? Do you think?
Speaker 2: Hmmmm?
Speaker 1: Is the lighting the angle? What you Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was a low angle, blue light.
Speaker 1: Cold in the studio.
Speaker 2: Do you think I think he could have done with
Speaker 2: a fluffer? It was very It didn't look its best.
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, thank you for sharing that. That's an excellent answer.
Speaker 1: What is objectively, objectively the greatest of all time might
Speaker 1: not be your favorite, but it's the pinnacle of films.
Speaker 2: Well, out of the films that I have seen, and
Speaker 2: I you know, I haven't seen all that many films.
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot, but my film knowledge is by
Speaker 2: no means complete, and there's so many foreign films I
Speaker 2: haven't seen, which I have to get round to. I'm
Speaker 2: fairly mainstream. But out of the films I've seen, I
Speaker 2: think the one I keep thinking, oh my god, I
Speaker 2: think that's sort of perfect is Paths of Glory. Stanley Kubrick.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, wow. Never come up on.
Speaker 2: This nineteen fifty seven, and everything about it is brilliant.
Speaker 2: It's short for a start, right, so it's I think
Speaker 2: it's eighty something minutes, and it's incredibly tight and smooth
Speaker 2: and relentless. But there's no fat on it whatsoever. It's
Speaker 2: like he's just trimmed everything. So it just barrels from
Speaker 2: one scene to the next without feeling rushed or anything.
Speaker 2: It's but it's just like, well, I don't need to
Speaker 2: have any chat there, We'll just move to this next scene. Okay,
Speaker 2: So these guys are going to be so if you
Speaker 2: haven't seen the film, it's about set in the First
Speaker 2: World War in France, and it's a general who decides
Speaker 2: that he's going to tell his troops to take this
Speaker 2: important German position, but it's a total suicide mission. There's
Speaker 2: no way that they're going to It's called the Ant Hill,
Speaker 2: this position that they need to take. It's heavily fortified,
Speaker 2: and all the attempts that they've made to try and
Speaker 2: take this position have failed. Loads of men have been killed. Anyway,
Speaker 2: he just sort of casually announces this has gone on
Speaker 2: too long. I want your guys to attack the Ant
Speaker 2: Hill and take it by tomorrow afternoon. So let's sort
Speaker 2: this out once and for all. And so then you
Speaker 2: have Kirk Douglas's character, who is the commander of this division,
Speaker 2: and he has to carry out this order and they
Speaker 2: have a go at taking this position and they are
Speaker 2: immediately beaten back and loads of them are killed, and
Speaker 2: then the general decides that he's going to court martial
Speaker 2: loads of them for coward. There's more to it than that,
Speaker 2: but anyway, so that's the basic premise, and it ends
Speaker 2: up just being this really extraordinary illustration of the madness
Speaker 2: of war. You probably think war's great. Yeah, it turns
Speaker 2: out it's not that good, and actually there's loads wrong
Speaker 2: with it, and actually the people in charge of war
Speaker 2: often have a fairly shaky grasp of what it entails
Speaker 2: for the people actually fighting it. All of this was
Speaker 2: news to me, but fucking hell, it's amazing. And the
Speaker 2: performances as well, are really weirdly out of time. I
Speaker 2: think you often get that with Kubrick films, though, and
Speaker 2: it reminds you what a you know, what a very
Speaker 2: talented director can do is get these performances from talented actors.
Speaker 2: And so you've got these performances from Timothy Carey. I
Speaker 2: looked up some of the names of the actors, Timothy
Speaker 2: Carey and Wayne Morris as these characters who feel totally
Speaker 2: real and naturalistic and completely out of time. You know,
Speaker 2: you think of the average film from nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 2: and most of the time the acting is going to
Speaker 2: be very stiff and mannered and very not naturalistic. But
Speaker 2: this is totally different. I mean, it's a combination. You've
Speaker 2: got some scenes and some bits of acting in parts
Speaker 2: of Glory that are more stagy and conventionally dramatic, but
Speaker 2: they're always punctuated by these strangely modern feeling moments and performances,
Speaker 2: and it builds to this incredible climax, this court martial
Speaker 2: and the result of the court martial and then a
Speaker 2: coder that's talk about moments that make you cry, Impossible
Speaker 2: to watch without just dissolving afterwards with these with all
Speaker 2: these soldiers on a break from fighting, sat in a bar,
Speaker 2: and this German prisoner of war young woman is kind
Speaker 2: of pushed on stage and they all start kind of
Speaker 2: mocking her and jeering at her because she's a German
Speaker 2: and they're all French soldiers. And the whole atmosphere of
Speaker 2: this scene has charged with menace and threat. You know,
Speaker 2: you feel like either they're going to attack her or
Speaker 2: something bad is going to happen. And also she's so
Speaker 2: frightened and vulnerable. And then she starts singing, and they
Speaker 2: all just go quiet and listen to her singing this
Speaker 2: sort of German folk song, and even though it's this
Speaker 2: German song that she's singing, suddenly you know they're all
Speaker 2: connected with their humanity and fucking hell, it's amazing. And
Speaker 2: she's played the woman who sings the song by Christianne Harlan,
Speaker 2: who became Kubrick's third wife and ended up you know
Speaker 2: that that was the last time that he married, so
Speaker 2: she was married to Kubrick for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: It's such an extraordinary film.
Speaker 1: It's a very very good answer, mister Buxton, and there's
Speaker 1: never come up before, and I'm grateful, so big points.
Speaker 1: You get ten points for that. See, so we're done
Speaker 1: with Grey. You finally started scoring. What what what is
Speaker 1: the film you could go or have? What's the most
Speaker 1: over and over again?
Speaker 2: Well, probably Alien it's sort of perfect, but also up
Speaker 2: there is I think with Nela and I Nice, I've
Speaker 2: seen that a lot. I think I've probably seen that
Speaker 2: once a year or so since it came out. And
Speaker 2: that holds up pretty well. I mean I showed it
Speaker 2: to my kids the other day and they were a
Speaker 2: little bit mystified. But it is very funny. It's quite
Speaker 2: specific with nell Well, it divides people. I think it
Speaker 2: mystifies younger generations. And I I met this guy in America,
Speaker 2: an actor whose name I won't say, but successful actor,
Speaker 2: and he didn't like it at all. He was like,
Speaker 2: oh no, I didn't think that was tall funny I
Speaker 2: was like, what are you insane? That's one of the
Speaker 2: funniest films ever made. I mean, I think there's some
Speaker 2: people who love it, some people who just doesn't speak
Speaker 2: to them at all.
Speaker 1: I don't like to be negative for too long about you,
Speaker 1: But what's the worst film you ever saw?
Speaker 2: Well? I struggled with this. The film that popped into
Speaker 2: my head when I was trying to think of the
Speaker 2: worst film I ever saw was Long Shot with Seth
Speaker 2: Rogan and Charlie's they on I love that film. Well,
Speaker 2: people did love that film, and it got great reviews.
Speaker 2: And that's why I hesitate because I like all the
Speaker 2: people involved with it. I love Charlie's. There are like
Speaker 2: Seth Rogan, like the writers, like the director, and I
Speaker 2: saw it had great reviews and I thought, oh, brilliant,
Speaker 2: I'll watched that. And it was when my mum was
Speaker 2: still alive, but it was towards the end of her
Speaker 2: life and she was staying with us, and it was
Speaker 2: just one of those things. I think that a big
Speaker 2: part of people's appreciation of films is just circumstance, and
Speaker 2: you know what kind of mood you were in when
Speaker 2: you saw a film, and that's why you can recommend
Speaker 2: a film that you really love to a friend, but
Speaker 2: there's no guarantee they're going to get what you did
Speaker 2: from it, because who knows what kind of mysterious forces
Speaker 2: were at play when you saw it and when you
Speaker 2: connected with it. So it just missed the mark. It
Speaker 2: was just the wrong film at the wrong time, watching
Speaker 2: with my family and watching with my mom and expecting
Speaker 2: a kind of funny, irreverent, romantic comedy thriller and then
Speaker 2: finding this incredibly foul mouth. It was just non stop,
Speaker 2: like I don't mind swearing, but I have to be
Speaker 2: ready for it, and it was non stop fuck shit, motherfucker,
Speaker 2: and then really gross jokes Seth Rogan wanking at one
Speaker 2: point and then chizzing in his beard, and then and
Speaker 2: you know, my mom, my old mom sat there. Luckily
Speaker 2: she was fairly addled by that point and didn't really
Speaker 2: know what was going on, but it was very awkward.
Speaker 2: And then there's a sex scene, talking of sex scenes,
Speaker 2: sex scene with Rogan and Charlie's Thoran and she's and
Speaker 2: you know, she's playing this kind of strong, self possessed
Speaker 2: character and she's on all fours and she says, do
Speaker 2: me from behind and choke me a little, and I
Speaker 2: was like, is this what we've come to? Is this
Speaker 2: a strong woman?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's an argument for another day. Is it a third
Speaker 2: wave feminism? But it was just at the end of it,
Speaker 2: it was a bit it was a bit bad. She's
Speaker 2: been a sharing So you've.
Speaker 1: You've spent a lot of time over the years on
Speaker 1: the sofa with your mom with the traveling boner. This happened.
Speaker 2: That's a good phrase.
Speaker 1: Yeah, consistently throughout your life.
Speaker 2: On the sofa with my mom, the traveling boner.
Speaker 1: You're in comedy, You're very funny, But what is the
Speaker 1: film that made you laugh the most? Adam Buxton?
Speaker 2: Well, God, so many, you know, with Nell and I
Speaker 2: and Spinal Tap and Bride'smaids. That scene on the plane
Speaker 2: I'm always talking about with Kristin Wig when she's hammered.
Speaker 2: I think that's maybe one of the funniest comedy performances ever.
Speaker 2: But overall, with everything that it means to me and
Speaker 2: how well it stands up, I think Galaxy Quest right film,
Speaker 2: because we watched that the other day and we got
Speaker 2: some members of my extended family together and everyone was
Speaker 2: kind of bummed. Out when we saw it. We wanted
Speaker 2: to show them something that would cheer them up a
Speaker 2: little bit, and I said, I think Galaxy Quest might
Speaker 2: do the job. And I hadn't seen it for a
Speaker 2: bit saw it when it came out in two thousand
Speaker 2: and For anyone who hasn't seen Galaxy Quest, it's kind
Speaker 2: of a Star Trek spoof about the cast of a
Speaker 2: Star Trek type TV show who are on the convention
Speaker 2: circuit and then they run into some real aliens who
Speaker 2: think that they are a real heroic crew of a
Speaker 2: real spaceship, and the aliens asked them to come to
Speaker 2: space and help them out with a problem they're having,
Speaker 2: and it's just so funny. And who's oh, it's Tim.
Speaker 2: Tim Allen is the Kirk character, and then you've got
Speaker 2: Sigourney Weaver who is the sidekick. And there's lots of
Speaker 2: quite good jokes about you know, gender stereotypes and racial stereotypes.
Speaker 2: But for nineteen ninety nine, which is when the film
Speaker 2: was made, they're fairly the touch is fairly lightd you know,
Speaker 2: if you made those same jokes now, those notes will
Speaker 2: probably be hit a lot harder. And actually the lightness
Speaker 2: of it is quite nice, I think, and it's so
Speaker 2: it's kind of a brilliant film. But the thing for
Speaker 2: me that turns it into this work of comedy genius
Speaker 2: is a performance by one of the blokes that plays
Speaker 2: one of the aliens, the Thermians, and he's like the
Speaker 2: head Thermian and he's called Mathsar and he's played by
Speaker 2: this actor called Enrico colin Toni, who I hadn't really
Speaker 2: I don't think i'd seen him anything else. And he
Speaker 2: still pops up, he does bit parts here and there,
Speaker 2: but Enrico colin Toni does this amazing voice for Mathsar.
Speaker 2: And I saw a documentary about the film the other day,
Speaker 2: fairly new documentary which I really enjoyed, and it turns
Speaker 2: out that Enrico colin Tony was channeling vocal exercises that
Speaker 2: actors sometimes do and they're just kind of, oh, doing
Speaker 2: weird things with their voices, and he was thinking, well,
Speaker 2: if I deliver my lines with these kind of weird
Speaker 2: vocal exercise intonations and cadences, then maybe that might be
Speaker 2: the character kind of thing. So he does that, and
Speaker 2: he just makes every single line into this piece of
Speaker 2: jazz with all these surprise unexpected cadences and little ecstatic yelps,
Speaker 2: and then he.
Speaker 1: Is kind of talking like this the whole time.
Speaker 2: And it's magical. And then that, plus he does this
Speaker 2: sort of goofy grin, so everything he says he's smiling,
Speaker 2: and all the rest of the Thermians the aliens are
Speaker 2: all grinning the whole time as well, and they move
Speaker 2: around like thunderbirds puppets with their hands ahead of them,
Speaker 2: up and down as if they're being puppeteered, and fucking hell,
Speaker 2: it's funny and it works so well and it still
Speaker 2: holds up brilliantly. Plus it's a film with real heart.
Speaker 2: It's got a great premise which they do justice too,
Speaker 2: and they see it through. It's really brilliantly paced, and
Speaker 2: it's a celebration of kind of fan culture before people
Speaker 2: really thought about all that sort of stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: nerd culture, before nerd culture became slightly wearisome. But it's
Speaker 2: about how much fans care about these things and how
Speaker 2: much they're invested in them, and wouldn't it be amazing
Speaker 2: if the two worlds collided, And it's so sweethearted and
Speaker 2: brilliantly done.
Speaker 1: It's sort of perfect in it that film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, flawless. Well they're doing a TV show of it, now,
Speaker 2: are they? I didn't know that, I thought so. I
Speaker 2: don't know. Well, everything's on hold because of the writers strike,
Speaker 2: but I thought that they were doing a TV version
Speaker 2: of it, which is hard to imagine. I don't know
Speaker 2: how that would work.
Speaker 1: But Adam Buston, you have been amazing and wonderful and
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful for your time. However, when you went
Speaker 1: through walking them all in a few years, and you're
Speaker 1: walking past the vape shop and the mobile phone case
Speaker 1: shop and the tray of people trying to sell paintball experiences,
Speaker 1: and you thought, do you know what, this isn't familiar
Speaker 1: all this? And you saw the very pretty people standing
Speaker 1: outside of the very shiny door and they were gesturing
Speaker 1: to you come in and come in, come in, and
Speaker 1: you looked up and at the top it just said
Speaker 1: you there, Naisier and you were like, I'm you. And
Speaker 1: you walked through the door and they sit you down
Speaker 1: on a lovely bed and they were like feeding you grapes.
Speaker 1: It's like on this big scot big Imax screen and
Speaker 1: you were watching Alien and all your favorite film, Midnight
Speaker 1: Run was on and the airplane scene from Bridesmaids, and
Speaker 1: you're having such a lovely time and you don't even
Speaker 1: notice while you're there that someone sticks a little injection
Speaker 1: in your vein. You don't even notice because I've been
Speaker 1: such a nice time. And then you sit there and
Speaker 1: you see images of fields, lovely fields and grass in
Speaker 1: the sun.
Speaker 2: And then suddenly and Ryan Reynolds and doing bands.
Speaker 1: Doing some bloop of stuff, someone tripping over a bit
Speaker 1: of the set and laughing, people laughing. They can't get
Speaker 1: through their lines, they're laughing so much. And you can
Speaker 1: see a bit from with Nell and I they're laughing.
Speaker 1: And I walked past. I'm in the mall. I'm like,
Speaker 1: fucking know, and I'm carrying around my coffin, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm like. And I'm like, is anyone seeing Buckles?
Speaker 1: Anyone seeing him? And they go, yeah, I think he
Speaker 1: went into that shop called euthanasia. And I'm like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: he hasn't as he you know we know what that means,
Speaker 1: don't you. And they were like, what, we haven't been
Speaker 1: in there. Well, you're not getting phone cases in there.
Speaker 1: I said, follow me, we go in, we find you dead.
Speaker 1: Look at that. He's absolutely dead. The thing is they've
Speaker 1: the stuff they've pumped into you has made you swell
Speaker 1: so much, so much more than I was expecting. So
Speaker 1: you're much bigger than the coffin. So I get a
Speaker 1: lot of the mill workers, I said, come and help me.
Speaker 1: We get a load of axes. We start chopping you up,
Speaker 1: chopping up, chopping up, chop up your boy into lots
Speaker 1: of little bits. We pilot it all into the coffin. Scotshcush,
Speaker 1: you're all in there. It's really rammed in there. There's
Speaker 1: only enough room in that coffin for me to slip
Speaker 1: one DVD into the side for you to take across
Speaker 1: to the other side. And on the other side it's
Speaker 1: movie night every night. What film are you taking to
Speaker 1: show Bowie and all the other musicians in music Heaven
Speaker 1: with all the music when it is your movie night, Adam.
Speaker 2: Bust please, Well, that's that's a really tough question. Obviously.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you like some titles that I'm thinking? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously there's Galaxy Quest. I haven't known that
Speaker 2: to fail. That's so far not let me down.
Speaker 1: Oh you're thinking of it also in terms of in
Speaker 1: the same way your's in the Share and disaster. You're like,
Speaker 1: I'm having to watch.
Speaker 2: I'm in Heaven with David Bowie sat around and the
Speaker 2: Prince and all the in my parents all that stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I think that would I haven't known that to fail.
Speaker 2: Galaxy Quest is an absolute peach. I do love the
Speaker 2: documentary about Apocalypse Now parts of Hearts of Darkness. That
Speaker 2: is like one of the greatest documentaries ever made, with
Speaker 2: some amazing moments in it. That's a film that I've
Speaker 2: watched a lot over the years and shown to many people,
Speaker 2: and they have enjoyed it as much as I have.
Speaker 2: But sometimes what you're looking for is just a kind
Speaker 2: of fun, stupid film that is gonna not scramble anyone's
Speaker 2: head too badly. They can just watch it and it's
Speaker 2: fun and it's a little bit exciting and a little
Speaker 2: bit dramatic and then everyone's okay at the end of it.
Speaker 2: And a good example of one of those films is
Speaker 2: Breakdown with Kurt Russell nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: I love Breakdown.
Speaker 2: Breakdown's great, It's absolutely terrific. JT. Walsh one of the
Speaker 2: all time great character actors, playing a bad guy who's
Speaker 2: on he goes and well, he's menacing Kurt Russell and
Speaker 2: his wife played by Kathleen Quinlan. They're on a road
Speaker 2: trip out in the wilds of the American West, I think,
Speaker 2: and their car breaks down and these and mayhem unfold.
Speaker 2: But it's brilliantly tight, well paced mayhem with a very
Speaker 2: satisfying day new More And if you like the River Wild,
Speaker 2: which I personally very much do, then you will enjoy
Speaker 2: a breakdown.
Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent choice. You've made a lot of excellent choices.
Speaker 1: I'm giving you another temper. You're giving you thirty points
Speaker 1: for this, thirty two. Actually, Adam Buxton, I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: to you. I really I feel very honored to have
Speaker 1: spent this time with you. Is there anything you would
Speaker 1: like to tell people to look out for, to read
Speaker 1: or to listen to coming up from you in the
Speaker 1: next few months. Nope, right, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: doing this.
Speaker 2: No, not really. I mean, you know, I'm just piddling
Speaker 2: along with my stupid life, and I've been taking some
Speaker 2: time off to try and do some more writing in
Speaker 2: a more you know, in the usual kind of memoirsh way,
Speaker 2: or in the same sort of way that I did
Speaker 2: with my first book. Ramble book, writing about you know,
Speaker 2: life and death and parenthood and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And I've been trying to make some music to put
Speaker 2: out on an album. That's been sort of fun. This
Speaker 2: a couple of a couple of good things so far,
Speaker 2: but it's going fairly slowly. Things generally go slowly in
Speaker 2: my creative life. And I've been recording new episodes of
Speaker 2: the podcast, which should start going out. I don't know
Speaker 2: when this lair, but they should start going out in
Speaker 2: September twenty twenty three. More interesting and you know, genial
Speaker 2: people that I'm talking to. And yeah, very grateful for
Speaker 2: my lot, Happy to be able to do what I do,
Speaker 2: Grateful to anyone who pays it any attention whatsoever. And
Speaker 2: thanks so much for having me on. I hope I
Speaker 2: haven't been too meandering and weepy.
Speaker 1: You were wonderful. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Have a good day, Thanks man.
Speaker 1: Good dates. So that was episode two hundred and sixty.
Speaker 1: Remember to watch Ted Lasso and Shrinking on Apple TV
Speaker 1: Plus head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward Last Break Ghost Team to the Extra for twenty
Speaker 1: five minutes of chat, secrets and video with Adam go
Speaker 1: Japple Podcast give us a five star rating, but write
Speaker 1: about the film that means the most to you and
Speaker 1: why my neighbor Marien Love's reading it. It makes their christ things.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful and it's really appreciated. I really hope you're
Speaker 1: all well. Welcome back. I hope you've been having a
Speaker 1: nice summer and everything's okay. Lost of love to you all.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Adam for being so great
Speaker 1: and giving me his time. Thanks to Scruby's PIP and
Speaker 1: the Distraction Pieces Network. Thanks to Buddy Peace for producing it.
Speaker 1: Thanks to iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network
Speaker 1: for hosting it. Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics
Speaker 1: at least Alive Them for the photography. Come and join
Speaker 1: me next week for the biggest guest of all. No spoilers,
Speaker 1: you'll have to wait, but you are going to fucking
Speaker 1: love it. So that's it for now. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: have a lovely week, and please, now more than ever,
Speaker 1: be excellent to each other.
Speaker 3: Backs back back back backs as boys, as body back
Speaker 3: backs as backs, back back base back fs A b
Speaker 3: B back back back