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Speaker 1: I've got the popcorn, a drink, I've snuck in some Maltesers,

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Speaker 1: and Ben's got the movie.

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Speaker 2: Yeah I do, indeed, and what a movie it is.

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Speaker 2: So we're talking about the Robbie Williams biopick Better Man.

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Speaker 1: Which we're giving tickets away and in season double pass

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Speaker 1: sometime before nine this morning.

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Speaker 2: Oh well, listen up every weekday. You want to get

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Speaker 2: your hands on these tickets. And so I got to

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Speaker 2: be honest with you. I went into this not being

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Speaker 2: the biggest fan of Robbie Williams. The only song of

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Speaker 2: his that I really liked was probably rock DJ because

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Speaker 2: it's just such a banger. The rest of his stuff

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Speaker 2: is ballads, okay, and to take that stuff you can

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Speaker 2: just miss me with the take that stuff. Not interested

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Speaker 2: at all. And so I went into this movie going, wow,

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Speaker 2: is it really going to be for me? And especially

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Speaker 2: because a lot of these musical biopics in recent years,

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Speaker 2: you know, they're a bit of a dime a dozen.

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Speaker 2: Bohemian Rhapsody was good, Rocketman was pretty good. Back to

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Speaker 2: Black About Amy Winehouse not so great. The Bob Marley

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Speaker 2: one was pretty average, and so you know, I kind

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Speaker 2: of a bit over the format.

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Speaker 1: Some of them are glossed all very glossed, very glossed over.

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Speaker 1: You don't really get the interesting.

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Speaker 2: Now, you don't expect it. You don't get the gritty

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Speaker 2: reality of some of these stories, because that's the reality

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Speaker 2: when you know you're negotiating with an estate or you're

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Speaker 2: negotiating with a record label and you're trying to get

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Speaker 2: the right when you're trying to get the rights to

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Speaker 2: use the music because music licensing costs, you know, can

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Speaker 2: cost millions of dollars, so you know you're not going

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Speaker 2: to put in all the warts and all of the

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Speaker 2: story if you need to license the music, and so

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Speaker 2: usually the trade off is you get a pretty sanitized biography.

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Speaker 2: And that was certainly the case with Freddie Mercury and

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Speaker 2: Elton John, who is still alive obviously in this case

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Speaker 2: with Robbie Williams, he's very involved in the project and

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Speaker 2: he's always been sort of bloke who is self deprecating.

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Speaker 2: He's take the mickey out of himself. He's very open

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Speaker 2: about that, and so and you see that in the film,

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Speaker 2: Like there is definitely some aspects of this movie where

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Speaker 2: you go, geez, you know what, they haven't really pulled it.

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Speaker 2: He here, they are not trying to make him look

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Speaker 2: like a hero, but the one thing they do make

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Speaker 2: him look like is a monkey. And so this is

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Speaker 2: what separates Better Man from all of the other musical

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Speaker 2: jukebox films. Robbie Williams is a computed generated chimpanzee. Like

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Speaker 2: I'm talking Planet of the Apes level.

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Speaker 1: Just couldn't find the right man for the past.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well there's a got a different act of voicing

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Speaker 2: the young Robbie Williams, but then he does his own

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Speaker 2: voice of this chimp in later life. And you know,

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Speaker 2: a Robbie Williams biofilm where he is a chimpanzee could

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Speaker 2: be the worst thing that you've ever seen.

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would think.

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of Yeah, it's the variation of

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Speaker 2: outcomes here is absolutely huge. It's the biggest risk in

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Speaker 2: cinema in twenty twenty four, without a doubt in my mind.

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Speaker 2: But it comes from the greatest Showman director, Michael Gracie,

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Speaker 2: an Australian director, and it was his idea because he

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Speaker 2: heard rob Robbi Williams once say you know what, sometimes

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Speaker 2: I feel like a performing monkey, and he's like, you know,

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Speaker 2: what let's tap into that, and amazingly it works. It

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Speaker 2: is so effective. Right from when Robbie Williams is a

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Speaker 2: little monkey as a kid growing growing up in Stoke

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Speaker 2: on Trent in England, he's a bit of a he's

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Speaker 2: a bit of the odd one out with the other kids.

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Speaker 2: He dreams of being an entertainer like his old man

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Speaker 2: has the same kind of dreams, a sort of as

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Speaker 2: an amateur comedian and krooner in the local leagues club.

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Speaker 2: And so Robbie Williams has those kind of dreams, doesn't

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Speaker 2: fit in. Eventually gets auditioned for one of the five

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Speaker 2: positions in Take That, gets the gig and his dad

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Speaker 2: had abandoned him, comes back into his life. So there's

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Speaker 2: lots of you know, daddy's son issues there going on

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Speaker 2: as well. Finds immense fame with Take That at a

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Speaker 2: very young age in his teens, goes off the rails

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Speaker 2: with Booze, gets kicked out of Take That, you know,

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Speaker 2: sort of Gary Barlow's kind of the superstar of Take That,

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Speaker 2: and Robbie Williams is, you know, the one who's just

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Speaker 2: kind of the fat monkey as well. Robby Williams is

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Speaker 2: the only monkey and Weirdly, no human in the film

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Speaker 2: ever acknowledges that he is a monkey, that he's a talking.

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Speaker 1: Monkey, so you soon start to forget he's a monkey.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's the most bizarre thing about it. The CG

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Speaker 2: effects are so realistic you just go okay, you just

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Speaker 2: accept it. And there are some wonderful musical numbers in

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Speaker 2: here as well. Take the take that slash rock DJ

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Speaker 2: montage is phenomenal, one of the best musical numbers I've

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Speaker 2: ever seen on screen. They shot it over four days

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Speaker 2: on Regent Street in London, hundreds of extras like it

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Speaker 2: is absolutely bonkers. The level of production of this film, and.

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Speaker 1: Much of it was made in Melbourne.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it's technically class as an Australian film,

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Speaker 2: Australian directly, and it's an interesting story. Like what I

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Speaker 2: will say is the pacing of the film probably gets

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Speaker 2: a bit bogged down in the second half, when you

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Speaker 2: know he's really kind of in his booze addiction phase.

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Speaker 2: He does get a bit competitive. You know, he wakes

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Speaker 2: up every day, he hits the bottle, not much happens,

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Speaker 2: you know, so that kind of goes on for maybe

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Speaker 2: a little bit too long.

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Speaker 1: Monkey Money too too much monkey and.

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Speaker 2: Around and but you still have, you know, this incredible

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Speaker 2: story of redemption. A guy who's kind of fallen on

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Speaker 2: hard times and it's only you know, his kind of ego,

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Speaker 2: his desire to you know, win the love of his

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Speaker 2: father and also deal with his own inner demons, his

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Speaker 2: own insecurities that he's not good enough because of his

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Speaker 2: dad leaving him. That is driving Robbie Williams to succeed.

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Speaker 2: And you know, as a solo artist, the level of

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Speaker 2: success that he had, you know, just absolutely absolutely crazy.

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Speaker 2: And you see all of that as this chimpanzee is

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Speaker 2: you know, is in front of a huge crowd at

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Speaker 2: Leeds of you know, sixty thousand people. There's there's even

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Speaker 2: an actor in there playing Liam Gallagher and there's a

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Speaker 2: little interaction between between Robbie Williams at Oasis which is

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Speaker 2: hilarious and in real life Robbie Williams challenged Liam Gallagher

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Speaker 2: to a fight at the brit Music I remember that,

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Speaker 2: which is so there's some fun little history moments there

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Speaker 2: for people who've not just only followed Robbie Williams but

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Speaker 2: followed British music over the past twenty years. And the

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Speaker 2: singing with Robbie on board is just phenomenal.

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Speaker 1: So how many bananas out of five do we give it?

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Speaker 2: I'm going to give this three and a half very

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Speaker 2: enjoyable bananas. This is probably, i reckon, the most enjoyable

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Speaker 2: movie that's out on Boxing Day this year.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic So to fully eaten one half eaten banana from

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Speaker 1: ben o'she On Better Man Robbie Williams. Thanks Ben. We'll

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Speaker 1: catch you again in twenty twenty five with another year

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Speaker 1: of movies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely have a great Christmas in the years