Amanda Seyfried… as a Mancunian?

Earmark. What do the films Die My Love, I'm still here and it was just an accident all have in common.

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This is a setup for another of those terrible laughter lift jokes, isn't it? Which I thought we'd done with for another week.

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No, this is no laughing matter.

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Okay, go on.

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Well, not only are they some of your favorite film recommendations from last year, but they're also all films you'll be able to stream anywhere in the world when you travel abroad. Even in Geo locked territories.

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How's that then?

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Because with one click, NordVPN can change your device's virtual location so you can access all the content that you need when you're abroad.

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And it only applies to those three films you named. That seems odd.

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episode is brought to you by mubi, the global film company that champions great cinema. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover.

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Yes, and coming to MUBI in the UK this February, we have the brilliant Sentimental Value by Joakim Trier. We reviewed this when it came out. He's the guy who directed the Worst Person in the World film, did really well at Cannes, won the Grand Prix, bunch of European awards and is now nominated for nine Academy Awards and eight BAFTAs. I think it's fantastic, I think it's really moving, really exciting, really funny, but also insightful. And I think Joachim Trier is one of the finest directors working today. It's definitely one of the best films around at the moment.

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To stream the best of cinema, you can try mubi free for 30 days@mubi.com kermodanmayo that's m u b I.com kermitmayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguardista and get an extra episode every Thursday, including bonus

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reviews, extra viewing suggestions, viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas, plus your film

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and non film questions answered as best we can in questions.

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You can get all that extra stuff via Apple podcasts or head to extratakes.com for non fruit related Devices.

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There's never been a better time to become a Vanguardista. Free offer now available wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a Vanguardista, we salute you. Well, it looks as though you've gone around to Ali's place again, because you're in the attic there with a couple of guitars.

2:18

I've moved in, having roof work done, and so I've moved in here, basically.

2:45

Wow. Roof work. There's a thing that goes on forever. Costs you at least £30,000 and no one knows the difference.

2:51

Yeah. Hey, listen, how are you?

2:58

Not amazing, has to be said. Yeah.

3:02

I'm impressed that you've turned because you. I got a message from you last night that said, I really don't know whether this is going to be okay, because you've got.

3:06

I. Yeah, I mean, it's a combination of a really weird cough and insomnia, so. And obviously, one. One feeds into the other. No, last night I'd had this, like, this coughing spasmod, which. Which was.

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Which was looked.

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I probably looked as I was possessed by the devil. And indeed, back in previous generations, I would probably been exorcised immediately.

3:31

Did you know that in. In the history of exorcism, one of the. One of the symptoms of demonic possession is hiccuping? Because there was a pope who hiccuped to death.

3:39

Wow.

3:51

And they. They concluded that he was possessed by demons who had caused him to hiccup to death. So a coughing spasm may be a sign of demonic possession, but had you started hiccuping, we definitely would have called Father Karras.

3:52

Yeah, yeah. No, I had. I haven't done that. I had a. A grandmother who was the only person I have ever come across who. Who called them hiccups, which is how they were originally. How it was originally written. Yeah. But hiccough. It's not a hiccup, is it? It's a hiccup. Hiccup Sounds like it's some kind of country duel.

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But no, it was.

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This was. That's how she said it. Oh, you've got an attack of the hiccups, which is very strange, that country jewel thing.

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Weirdly, of course, hiccuping was what the. The Buddy Holly vocal style was always referred to, you know.

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Right.

4:39

That was always called the Buddy Holly's hiccuping style, which then, of course, became the default for early rockabilly and.

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Very excellent. And in fact, we should now spend an hour playing some early Buddy Holly.

4:46

We should do. I've got Buddy Holly 78s. Do you know that I've got a couple of Buddy Holly 78 I bought in record fairs, like years and years ago and I have no idea whether they're valuable, but, but I'm just very proud of having them.

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In general, 78s tend not to be. No, but I reckon if you had an Elvis 78, that's going to be worth something.

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I mean, the collector's market is weird because there's all these things that everybody thought for ages and ages was really valuable and now it turns out that nobody cares anymore, so. So it just isn't. But I, I do like the Buddy Holly 78 because it's just a, it's just a, you know, it's a big chunk of stuff. We were the, the Dodges once got offered the possibility to do a 78 RPM version of. We had an album that we recorded at Sun Studio and it was 10 tracks. And they, this, this person who was doing this said, I can do you five 78s with, you know, a track on each side so you could buy the whole album as a collection of 78s. We went, wow, that's amazing. How much would it cost? He said, around 200 pounds each and you'd have to pre sell them all in advance.

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Wow.

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So we said no.

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Okay. And speaking of Elvis, we both had quite an Elvis y week. We did in, in different ways. When do we get to talk about

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the Elvis isn't epic. Elvis Presley in concert is out next week. I did Baz on stage at the IMAX for the IMAX presentation. And you spoke to him for Greatest Hits.

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Yeah, and it was, I'm sure you've got some fantastic photographs, but he, he's, he looks the most Hollywood producer director that you've ever seen in your life.

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He's dressed to impress. He's dressed to impress.

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Yeah. Mirror fronted Ray Bans, a fur jacket, an Elvis T shirt and lots of medallions.

6:28

Yeah, yeah, it was. There's a man who leads with the front foot when it comes to style.

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Did he, did he surprise you with any conversational?

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No, because the thing was, I was just, it was fairly short introduction and they said to me, look, you know, we've only got like 10, 15 minutes. So, you know, I said, if 10, 15 minutes, I'll ask him one question and then he'll speak for 10 or 15 minutes. And that's pretty much what happened.

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Because I, because I said to him, if you get a chance. Because he said, oh, I know Mark. You know, he was one of the first to like my stuff, you know.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And so. And I said, if you have a chance when you're. When you're talking to him, make sure that you say how important it is that the film finishes with Bono reading his poem about Elvis. Because Mark really not enjoyed that bit. But you must say how important it is. And I'm sure Mark really liked it,

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but I knew he would do it

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just because, you know me to the moment and all that stuff.

7:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for trying to set me up for that. No, that didn't happen.

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So we talk about it next week.

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Yeah, talk about next week. Which I'm really looking forward to because, you know, plot, spoiler. I thought it was fab.

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Yeah.

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Plot, spoiler.

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I also thought it was fab. I didn't see it in imax, which I would quite like to. I sent a message. I sent a text to Sanjeev and he said he'd seen it, obviously, and he's going to go and see it in imax just because. Why wouldn't he?

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Yeah, it's a burning hunk of love in imax.

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A hunk, a hunk of burning love. When we talk about films for this week.

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Yes.

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What are you going to be reviewing?

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Well, it's an absolutely packed show. Okay. So, I mean, obviously we're in award season, so we have reviews of the Secret Agent, which is shaping up big as a big awards contender. If I had legs, I'd kick you. Which I know you've seen as well. Waste man and good luck. Have fun, don't die. Plus, yes, our very special guests, it's

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Amanda Wright, Said Seyfried. And explain that. Basically, it's Amanda Seyfried and director Mona Fastfold talking about Testament Van Lee. However, having looked up the right way to say it, as you'll hear in the interview, it still sounds wrong to say Amanda Seyfried, which is how she does the. Like her name to be pronounced, but it just does sound like.

8:22

Right.

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Said Fred.

8:46

Right side.

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Yeah. Anyway, it's one of the more unusual films that you're going to see this year, I would think. It's all about the founding of the Shakers. Bunch of crazy folk.

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It's a musical.

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Well, yes, sort of.

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Anyway, we're reviewing it next week because it's not out until. Until next week. So there's a hunk of Hunk of Burning musicals next week.

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Okay. But we can talk around it.

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We'll talk around it, yeah.

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When we get there. And in take two, what you up

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to take two, there's another film release, Cold Storage, which is a sort of science fiction horror satire from writer David Kep and from the small screen, Small Profits, which is the new Mackenzie Crook series.

9:18

Did you.

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You said, did he come into Greatest Hits? Yes, yes, he did.

9:33

Yes. Well, there's so much talk about small Profits. I suspect a lot of people will have seen the whole thing via iplayer, but I think it's probably on episode three. I think if you're just watching it normally on Monday night on BBC2, plus all the extra stuff. Five Question Film Club will pick a film that's on free view or streaming and then tackle the five essential questions which either I say all together or individually.

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Which I say you say individually.

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Individually. Plus, as Waste man is out this week, we'll have further discussions on your top prison dramas. That's in one frame. Back Questions in which we answer the question which is the best recent film about death and grief and loss and families and denial? Is it Hamnet, Goodbye June or H is for Hawk? I mean, okay, I mean, you'll have to listen on for. For context, because how do you make sense? How do you even begin correspondence@codemay.com Alison Cardiff. Hope you're both well on the subject of seeing films when you're too young. In the late 80s, my mum was doing a film degree looking after my sisters, and I kept her rather busy, so she sometimes got quite close to deadlines and just had to watch whichever film she was studying asap. One evening she struggled to get me to sleep and the only way she could get me to settle was on the sofa next to her. She was studying Nosferatu, the 1922 version. She waited until I was asleep and clicked play. Except I wasn't asleep. I lay there in silence, knowing I was getting away with something terrible. I was four years old. I mean, it's. I mean, I know it's 1922, but it's still not the kind of images that you need.

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No. Nightmarishly creepy. Nightmarishly creepy.

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Unlike one of your previous correspondence, I'm not sure I can claim to be anything other than a wrong and but I can confirm it remains one of my favorite films. Down With Baddies, Tingly Tonk and so on. Thank you, Alice and Parkage McGrath. I think I've got that right. Dear Freebie and the Bean, one of your correspondents mentioned people going to see Hamlet thinking it was Hamnet. Yes, it's not quite the same thing, but an adult education class that I teach art to were Booked by another tutor to see Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen at the Abbey Theatre here in Dublin. When discussing it before they went, they said they hoped it was as good as the film version where Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze have a right good old time.

11:23

Very good.

12:03

I said nothing. Thank you. Parkage is that. I think that's an Irish first name, so it could be pronounced any old way, but.

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And can I just do your pronunciation correction? Because as she used to say, she's not. She's not. She's not Demi more. She's Demi more because she's not half of anything.

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Okay. I suspect that might be the least significant of the things that I got wrong because I'm hoping that Parkage is roughly an appropriate approximation of your name. Correspondencecodermayer.com okay, let's do a movie that's out.

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Okay. So you will have heard a lot of buzz about Secret Agent, which is a new film from Brazilian writer director Clayburn Mendoncefiglio, whose back catalog includes Aquarius, which is a film I reviewed on the show here, which I really, really loved. So this has got right at the heart of it. Wagner Mura, who apparently first Brazilian to win Best Actor at Cannes, went on to win a Golden Globe, is one of four Oscar nominations that the film has. Others include Best International Feature and Best Film. So the first thing to say about Secret Agent is how to describe it. The tagline description is a neo noir historical political thriller, which doesn't even begin to describe just how strange and unpredictable it is. I mean, I was thinking you might. When I was watching it, I kept asking myself, what genre is this? Because it's very, very hard to pin down. Some people have compared it to, for example, Walter Salas. I'm still here because it's about life under a corrupt dictatorship, but it's also about responsibility and masculinity and weirdly, the complexities of academic funding and I would argue the rise of strongman popularism in contemporary polit. Set in 1970s Brazil during the military dictatorship, begins with Wagner. Moore's character pulls into a gas station in this little car, and the gas station's in the middle of nowhere and on the ground is a dead body with some cardboard over it. And nobody is saying anything about the fact that there's a dead body there, least of all the guy running the gas station. I'm going to play you a clip, but I'm going to translate the clip in advance so that you can understand it. So basically, the garage guy says, you want me to fill her up. Looks up to the body, says, don't worry about that. It's okay. You want to fill her up? And he says, yeah, fill her up, but what about that? The garage guy says, oh, it happened last Sunday. Poor devil came with a knife to steal oil cans. River Aldo, the night guy grabbed a 12 gauge, shot him in the face and chest. He never got up again. He got what he deserved. But don't worry, you're a customer. That's nothing to do with you. Okay, here's the clip. So basically the guy in the car is a widowed professor who's returning to his hometown. Receive. And he moves into a place that we only gradually come to realize is a kind of refuge for political dissidents. And it's overseen by Donna Sebastiano, brilliantly played by Tanya Maria, who's the kind of matriarch of the community. And he's a. He's a former academic. Apparently somewhere in the past he cr. He crossed a corrupt minister. He adopts a pseudonym, Marcello. He gets a job in the local identity card office and he starts searching for records of his. His own deceased mother, of whom there are no records. He has a son who is completely obsessed with the idea of seeing Jaws after having seen a poster for it. And his father in law runs a cinema. Meanwhile, in what appears to be a completely separate narrative, a severed leg has been found within the belly of a shark. Whose leg is it? Where did it come from? This is in real life. And then there's a third strand in which a corrupt official hires two hitmen to track and kill the professor for reasons which are initially unclear but are obviously motivated by hatred and revenge. So apparently the script for this was partly written when the director, who grew up in this area, was making pictures of ghosts. A documentary which we're going to talk about next week, that's. That's out next week as a movie release. And key scenes in the film play out in the projection booth of this cinema. So there's a lot of cinema going on in the background of it. In fact, one of the things that's happening is that there's a. There's a very famous horror movie from the 1970s which is playing which is terrifying audiences. The whole thing is shot on vintage lenses, which give it the feeling, the kind of the atmosphere of a film from the period that it's set in. So it has that kind of 1970s thing hard baked into it. And in fact, the director did a season at the Lincoln center in America, which was movies that he was inspired by. Which included Point Blank investigation of Citizen Above Suspicion, Spielberg's Close Encounters 20 years. So there was a bunch of movies that were kind of that were feeding into this vision. Also, apparently the story of the severed leg is a real thing because apparently there were newspaper reports at the time that this severed hairy leg which had been found, had gone on the rampage and was terrorizing people. And it became, was a news story. And it was a news story that allowed the news agencies to cover up for the fact that genuine horrible violence was happening by kind of putting it under one of these kind of these mad sort of, you know, local mythology stories.

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So was the story that this leg on its own.

17:59

On its own popping around the leg? Yes, precisely. And there is a moment in the film in which we actually see that brought to life, as I said, in terms of this thing about what genre are we in? One moment it's a political thriller. One moment it's a thing about university funding. One minute it's a father and son drama and then in one section it is a sort of mocked up B movie style recreation of a hairy leg terrorizing local residents. And all these things are going on at the same time. There's also a final feature appearance by Udo Kia, who's got a fantastic. It's only a small Romy. I think it would, you know, almost count as a cameo, but a. But a brilliant final appearance. Here's the thing about the film. It sounds from my description like it should not work at all. And one of the most difficult things about it is it's very, very hard to describe because it works brilliantly. And I can't quite figure out why. A lot of the time, you know, movies settle into a particular groove, a particular genre, a particular. Okay, I know what this is saying. I know why it's saying. I know how it's saying it. The thing with the Secret Agent is it never does that. And the argument, I suppose, would be that actually the way in which we experience real life is a myriad of things going on at the same time, all of which appear to be from different moods. But the real genius of it is it doesn't play like it is disconnected. In fact, quite the opposite. I watched it with a good lady professor, her indoors, who suddenly at one point said, this has turned into a drama about university funding. And of course then she got very excited, but she was, you know, each to their own. Each to their own. But the brilliant thing about it is it is completely engrossing and it keeps you on your toes and you absolutely you believe in the characters you love the characters you live in this world and this world with all its things going on. I then I listened to an interview with Fagnor about when he was talking about what he thought the film was about. And he said, you know, definitely for him, one of the things that it's about is about masculinity, and it's about this kind of strongman politics, you know, politics of dictatorship and what happens to. To people's lives under dictatorships. Like I said, that whole early image of the dead body just lying on the ground. And incidentally, when the police do turn up, they don't turn up to deal with the dead body. They turn up to interrogate the guy driving the car, who they're sure must have done something wrong, and they can extort money from him. So it is about the madness of life under a corrupt political system. In fact, weirdly enough, at one point I thought of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, which I'll mention again later on, Brazil isn't called Brazil because it's set in Brazil. It's because of a tune, you know, the watercolors. Brazil. Anyway, but that whole thing about if you live in a system which is completely corrupt, everything around you seems to be mad. Honestly, it. It is. It's an extraordinary film and it's got a brilliant central performance. And I think it's great that it's received such universal acclaim because it really demonstrates that cinema can be as adventurous and ambitious as it wants. And audiences will go with it because audiences are much smarter than a lot of the mainstream Hollywood production line imagined, presumably.

18:01

It's funny.

21:18

There are moments of real black comedy. There are moments of absolute tragedy. There are moments that are kind of, you know, sentimental, like, what's that phrase? All human life is here. And it is.

21:19

I mean, you can't reanimate a leg and get it to go off on its adventures.

21:31

No, that is looking absurd. Yeah, but. But absurdist as opposed to absurd.

21:35

And ironically, in a few short moments, you're going to be doing, if I had legs, I'd kick you. So that kind of continues the theme. Waste man, good luck, have fun, don't die. And our special guests are director Mona Fastfold and Amanda Seyfried Dibner, who will be talking about their new steeplejack film, the Testament of Anne Lee. We'll also have the UK and box office here and over there, featuring recaps of everything that's out in the UK cinema. And of course, that laughter lift, which Mark is already. I can see from the lines on his face, is already delighted at the prospect. Now, this segment has been brought to you by Vanguard. With International Women's Day taking place in March every year. Today we're taking a moment to highlight some of the women in film who inspire us on the show.

21:41

And we've chosen two incredible directors to talk about because as you may have heard Kate Winslet talking about recently when she came in to chat about her directorial debut, there is a real lack of female directors out there and the industry is crying out for more.

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So this week our pick is the fantastic Lynne Ramsey, director of Mark's favorite film of last year, Die My Love. She's one of the most exciting directors out there. Mark will explain why she's so special.

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I remember seeing Lynne Ramsey's first feature film, which was Ratcatcher, and I was just knocked out by it and I've loved it. Every single feature she's made since then. Morvin Calla, her next film, which actually wasn't a hit, but is now being kind of widely reassessed, is thought to be a masterpiece. We need to talk about Kevin. That was my favorite film of the year that that came out. You were never really here, which I think you and I both loved. And then most recently, Die My Love. She has a real poetic sensibility. She is fearsomely independent. She makes films the way she wants to make them. She doesn't bow down to anyone else's pressure, and she has her own unique vision. I think she is one of the greatest filmmakers currently working.

22:54

Now, aside from obvious natural talent, great directors can be great because they have the time, confidence and knowledge of experts in the film industry handling the details.

23:32

That'd be nice. And are you suggesting that our top production team are holding us back from greatness?

23:42

Oh, no, not at all. Imagine if you could have the same thing with your finances.

23:47

Go on.

23:53

Well, at Vanguard, they do. Vanguards Managed ISA is a stocks and shares isa, but Vanguard's experts manage your investments for you.

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So whoever you are, be it an Oscar winning director or one of the 60% of women who say that lack of confidence or knowledge stops them investing, the Vanguard Managed ISA could be a great starting point for you to get into investing with confidence.

24:03

Just search Vanguard Managed ISA to find out more. When investing your capital is at risk, tax rules apply. This data is sourced by Vanguard. Okay. Box office top 10 this week at 13. Looney Tunes.

24:15

The Day the Earth Blew up, which I enjoyed. I mean, I. I really enjoyed Daffy Duck and Porky Pig fighting against Space aliens via bubblegum. I thought it was fun.

24:34

Number 10 is Avatar Fire and Ash.

24:44

Ninth week on release. A staggering amount of money taken. And so I think, yeah, a palpable hit, although I thought it was really dull.

24:46

Whistle is number nine here and nowhere over there.

24:55

Kind of so. So horror movie, kind of unmemorable. Doesn't surprise me that it's. It's only gone in at number nine. It's sort of okay. It's possible.

25:00

Zach from Seattle, Washington, a state of America is how he signs. Hello from across the Atlantic. I've been a listener for over a decade, going back to my wonderful years of living in London. I kept you in my ears as life brought me back across the Atlantic to my origin city of Seattle, many weeks. Your witterings are one of the few gasps of sanity I can enjoy as the world swings erratically from chaos capital K to wicked capital W, seemingly having entered its late stage goldblumium era. And so it is with great pleasure that I may finally be able to write in with some helpful notes on a fairly American topic. Okay, Basketball terminology.

25:10

Right.

25:48

Okay. In the latest pod, during Mark's review of Whistle, he's searching for the words to describe the winning act of point scoring in basketball. Yes, he begins at first with net before pivoting to basket. While basket is colloquially correct, here the technically correct and therefore the best kind of correct is field goal, as in the player has just scored the winning field goal. Okay, so there you go, Tinkity tonkin. Down with closed minds, cowardice, and those who fear themselves. Up with all. Up with the unusual and proud and all that kind of good stuff.

25:49

The thing from Seattle, the thing that I have gleaned from watching movie and bear in mind, I know nothing about basket basketball other than what I've seen in movies, is that as long as your feet have left the ground at the point that the timer runs out, the, you know, the ball flying in the air and then going to the, you know, can take as long as it wants. And of course, whenever they do it in movies, it takes five minutes because they go into slow motion. See everybody looking at it, you know, But I think that's how it works.

26:23

Yes. Anyway, basket's fine feel. Goal is worth remembering. Number eight is stitch head, which I enjoyed.

26:48

I thought it was kind of. It was amiable, amiable, fun.

26:57

Number seven is Hamnet, number 16 in America.

27:01

Yeah. Sixth week in the charts, still doing very well and obviously shaping up as a big awards contender. We'll talk about this more later on But I, I think Jesse Buckley is a dead lock for Best Actress now, certainly at the BAFTAs. And I would also say at the Oscars.

27:04

Number six here, number five in America,

27:17

Zootropolis 2 again, 12th week. Just, just. It's the gift that keeps giving that, that there.

27:19

Amanda Seyfried UK number five, number 11 in America is the Housemaid, which I'm,

27:27

I'm honestly astonished at how well the Housemaid has done. I mean, I really had no idea that it was going to have this kind of success. So that just goes to show, critics don't know nothing.

27:33

Send help number four here and there.

27:45

Yeah, this is the Sam Raimi sort of horror satire adventure survival romp, which I thought was terrifically good fun. I mean, I saw it at 10 o' clock on a Monday morning and I spent the whole of the rest of the day with a smile on my face because I enjoyed it so much.

27:47

Crime 101 is a new entry at number three.

28:02

This, to me is a terrific heist movie. I thought it was, it was a really, really well put heist film and I love a good heist film. I mean it refers back to a bunch of movies that I like. People have made kind of comparisons with Heat, but I think it refers back. I mean, obviously there's a whole conversation about Bullet in it, but I thought was really well done. It does that thing that you really want a heist movie to do. You get all the mechanics, all the plot mechanics, all that stuff, but you also get character development and it's about something. And I think it is about something. The value that we put on things and how we assess our own success. I thought it was a really smart film.

28:05

Adam Farand says Dear Bullet and the Thomas Crown Affair Long term list of Vanguard Easter Multiple time emailer I write this having just seen crime 101 in only my second visit to the cinema so far this year. I went in expecting a fairly passable thriller with some big names and enough intrigue to fill a couple of hours on a Sunday morning. What I got was without doubt one of the best films I've seen in a long time. I'm so pleased Hemsworth, Ruffalo, Berry, et al are all on point. And it would be remiss of me not to mention this superb score from Blank Mass that perfectly complemented the film in every way. I look forward to seeing what's next from Bart Leighton if and, and if anything in 2026 can top this. Thank you, Adam. Okay, that's.

28:38

I'm really pleased. I'M really pleased about that.

29:21

That's number three in America as well as over here. Nick says. Mark Ruffalo takes another step closer to his Colombo destiny. That would, that would be fun, by the way, if you want. And seeing him as a cop, if you get a chance to see Task, which is a cop show that he's. Which is absolute, I'm sure it's going to come back for another series. I saw it on Sky. I think it's hbo. I think they have it at Sky Atlantic. But Mark Ruffalo and Task is a TV highlight for sure. And number two, but number one in America is Goat.

29:24

This is more basketball. So Ago aspires to be the greatest of all time.

29:59

Yes.

30:04

Basketball plays animated sports comedy. It's my friend Van Connor, who's a critic. He pointed out that it's basically Airbud meets Zootropolis, and he's quite right. I mean, it, it's colorful to look at, but there's, there's not. I mean, I'm not interested in the sport and I'm not particularly interested in this particular rendition of it. I mean, it's, it's Sony Pictures Animation and it isn't K Pop Demon Hunters. So it's all right. I mean, I'm surprised it's done as well as it has. But then again, I said I was absolutely staggered that Housemaid has done as well as it has.

30:04

So a number one in the UK and number two in America is Wuthering Heights. Yes. We must have correspondence in adverted commas. Yes. First of all, an English lecture courtesy of Sue Sorenson, B.A. m.A. Ph.D. in Literature, Third Prize for Poetry, 1979 Saskatchewan Writers Guild Awards. And she's from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

30:38

Great.

31:05

Dear Charlotte and Emily, those critical of the casting of a white Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff in the new Wuthering Heights are jumping to conclusions. While scholars have raised the possibility that Heathcliff might have arrived in Liverpool from Africa or otherwise been a person of color. Emily Bronte's novel never mentions Africa. And while Heathcliff is called Six Times a Gypsy, it is nearly always in dialogue from characters who hate him. Nelly, our primary source of information, says only that he has black hair and black eyes. Catherine's eyes are also black. Nelly tries to comfort Heathcliff with the idea that maybe his quote, his father was Emperor of China and your mother was an Indian queen. I wonder if readers have taken literally Bronte's liberal use of the adjective black. She often means dark or sinister, not a skin color. If we accept that Heathcliff is described unambiguously as anything. We ignore the challenging narrative structure of Wuthering Heights. There is no reliable narrator. First we listen to Lockwood, the outsider, the only person who overtly describes Heathcliff's skin color. Quote, a dark skinned gypsy in aspect, in dress and manners, a gentleman. Yeah, end of quote. Lockwood seems objective, although his reliability is frankly debatable as anyone else's in this strange, fantastic book. The majority of the novel has Nelly narrating the story to Lockwood. And within Nelly's story are retold conversations from the considerable past. So Emily Bronte herself doesn't tell us anything about Heathcliff's ethnicity. Since not a single character says he is black, it's more likely he's Romany. Heathcliff's place of origin might be almost anywhere in Southeast Europe or Asia. All we have are hints. Yours in close reading, Sue Sorensen. So I think that's very, I think that's very interesting. But if, but my, my point would be if his place of origin might be almost anywhere in southeastern Europe or Asia, he's not going to look like Jacob Elordi. And if he is a dark skinned gypsy in aspect, he's not going to look like Jacob Elordi. But anyway, I, it's nice to be schooled on these things. Yes.

31:05

I mean, the only thing I would say this. There is definitely a thing in the novel in which somebody speculates that he might be Laska L A S C A R and I looked that up and that is a sailor from India or Southeast Asia. But it is all, it is all absolutely speculative. But thank you for that very, very thorough and very informed thing. But I, I still agree with some of the, that from all of those things, I don't think he looks like Jacob at lawy.

33:12

Yes. Do you, have you seen that poem from a long time ago, Whitey on the Moon?

33:39

No.

33:45

It's a fantastic poem and I'll look up an appropriate moment who does it. Very famous African American poet and it's all about Whitey, whitey on the moon. So I just thinking think of this as Whitey on the moor because, because you know, if whatever he is, he doesn't look like that. Anyway.

33:46

Is YT on the moon from like 1916? Is it from like, so the time of the Harlem Cultural Festival when, when there was a whole bunch of stuff about, yeah, they, they might be sending a man to the moon, but they're not fixing anything down here.

34:04

It's exactly that.

34:16

Okay, fine.

34:17

So, so that was YT on the moon. And this is YT on the Moor. Marianne Mitchell from where? In Hertfordshire. Born in Yorkshire, where actually it's dry and sunny quite often. Mark and Simon, if you're a purist, you'll wince at how freely the film rewrites the novel, but if you approach it as a heightened pantomime style riff on the story, it's an enjoyable, visually lush couple of hours. Yeah, some rewrites work. Dropping the clunky Lockwood framing is a mercy others land far less. Well, transforming Nelly from a tough, gossiping Yorkshire servant into a refined, drifting companion removes a key emotional anchor. Many characters are unrecognizable. From Earnshaw, recast as a Dickensian villain to a bizarrely kink leaning Joseph Thrush Cross Grange becomes an absurdly opulent Barbie mansion and the second half of the novel Kathy's Daughter Hat and the generational tragedy is completely deleted. As you mentioned last week, Mark, that is almost always the case. And yet every so often a line from the original text slips through and the final scene with Heathcliff's famous cry of anguish moved me deeply. Not because of the film's story, but because it briefly captured the soul of the book. Book that I adore. Jimmy from not so Sunny Scarbados Dear Sturman Drang and Gary Strang. Mark used the words preposterous and ridiculous at least once in his review. Yeah, and it is preposterous, ridiculous, overwrought, overripe, bonkers, melodramatic, histrionic and absurd. So essentially every 19th century Gothic novel.

34:17

Yeah.

35:47

In our screening, many of the scenes involving fish fingers, barking women, and a completely redacted tractable opening sequence that thankfully wasn't in 3D was greeted with titters from the rest of the audience, whilst one particular pop up book was met with loud laughter and cheers. I also love the claustrophobic set design and the lurid color palette. They reminded me of Hammer Horror and Mario Bro Mario Barber with the costumes, particularly Margot Robbie's wardrobe, seemingly inspired by Grimm's Fairy tales. Despite all this energy, I left the film feeling slightly underwhelmed, mainly due to the chemistry between the two leads. Margot Robbie is an exceptional actor. Jacob Elordi is an exceptional actor. But sometimes two rights do make a wrong and I never felt as though the two characters embodied the mutually destructive elemental force required for the story to emotionally resonate with me. It felt more like spells of mild moorland drizzle than Hurricane Heathcliff. Martin Clunes, on the other hand, absolutely crackles. Yes, like a roaring log Fire.

35:48

Star of the film. The star of the film.

36:47

Playing the grotesquely genial father. How ought to be grotesquely genial? It's absolutely right. Often funny, frightening and utterly pathetic. A shout out also to the wonderful soundtrack that accompanied our drive home from the cinema. Love the show, Steve. From Jimmy. And speaking of Martin Clunes, dear Violet Swirl and Anita Bush, third time emergency emailer, medium term listener. Your podcast is without a doubt my favorite. In our house, it's referred to as just the podcast. When I knew that I was going to be in Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights.

36:49

Hang on, hang on, hang on. This is from Martin Clunes.

37:24

It is, yes. There was.

37:27

We said speaking of Martin Clunes, I think. I didn't mean to think about it. This is from Martin Clunes.

37:30

It is. When I knew that I was going to be in Emeril Fennell's Wuthering Heights, there was in amongst the excitement of getting the gig, a tiny cloud in my mind. Oh, no, I'm going to land on your desks. Simon's going to say it's not like the book. And Mark's going to say I chewed the scenery and then get cross about Nativity 3 again. But no, no, thank you very much indeed for the kind things that you say. And Simon, yes, I really did enjoy myself to the max. This is my favorite bit of the email from the first phone call with Emerald to my last shot of the film. Lying still, trying not to blink with a mouthful of vomit, waiting for Margot Robbins to kick me in the head. It's been a total joy. And now. And now a kind mention on your podcast. The job really is the gift that keeps on giving. Imagine that, lying on the floor, mouthful of vomit presumably concocted by props, waiting for Margot Robbie to kick you in the head. Life is good. May your tongue be tinked and up with everything. Still loving the show. Stephen, please say hi to Jeremy. Best wishes, Martin Clunes.

37:35

That. Well, that's brilliant. And as we did say, he is the absolute star of the film. He's, you know, he's, he steals the show.

38:37

Redactor Simon correctly points out that it's Gil Scott Heron. Of course it is. Who did Whitey on the Moon, right? And it was 1970.

38:48

Thank you. Well, there we go. It wasn't a bad guess, was it? You know, so it's, it's worth looking

38:56

it up because it is infectious and because I'd seen it, like sometime this year. That's why the whole Whitey on the Moor thing seem to Be relevant. But Gil Scott Heron was a genius. And before we, before we move on, Craig Pickup says, with regard to your recent discussion on the latest telling of Wuthering Heights, I think an honorable mention should go to the. The fact that at one time the hulking, swarthy Yorkshire brute was portrayed by the Peter Pan of pop himself, Cliff Richard. I, I appreciate it was on stage rather than film, but I'm not sure there's been an odder casting since Tom Cruise played six foot five Jack Reacher. And I think we can play this. Cliff Richard is Heathcliff adored by audiences across the country. The full record breaking stage performance is now yours to own on this stunning

38:59

video which also features exclusive footage of

39:51

Cliff Richard shot on the Yorkshire moors. Heathcliff, a unique video experience. I'm sure that's right. I'm sure it is unique.

39:53

You've done it again.

40:11

But Cliff was shot on the Yorkshire moors. That sounds like a tragedy that we haven't. That's been underreported, hasn't it? I. The great thing about Cliff Richard Seedcliffe was the critics said it was, you know, catastrophically terrible and it, it sold out. You know, it was, was like. Yeah, it was, but it wasn't.

40:13

Wasn't the same. True of we will rock you.

40:32

Yes.

40:33

All the critics said it was catastrophically terrible and it ran for 10 years.

40:34

Yes. And I don't think Cliff, see, Cliff was quite as strong as that. But anyway, yes, you're right. If, if Cliff Richards played Heathcliff then Jacob Elordi is fine.

40:37

Yeah, exactly.

40:48

Doing it. Although Cliff is swarthy.

40:49

Is he? I think so.

40:53

Anyway, there'll be plenty more of that. And Martin, thank you very much.

40:55

David Essex is, you know, would be a better choice, surely.

40:59

Yes, yes, I think that's. That would be great. Anyway, correspondence@kevin.com Also, if you are in the film, like Martin Clunes or if you're a star of any film and you want to just give us the inside nod on any of these films, get in touch correspondenceodemo.com we're going to be back very shortly with if I had Legs I'd kick you waste man. Good luck. Have fun, don't die. And our special guest, Mona Fastfold. And Amanda Seyfried Truman is going to be talking about her new TV show Indoor League in which she leans against a bar with a pint of bit and a pipe, watching contestants compete in traditional pub games such as darts, bar billies, shove hapenny and cribbage. If that's not correct, then we need a new researcher. Yeah, Mark. Now, I've been thinking about the early days of our show just a little bit recently.

41:02

Okay, go on. When we first started out, we didn't

41:53

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41:56

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43:49

Now. Our guests today are the director and star of the Testament of Ann Lee, Mona Fastvold and Amanda Seyfried. I should say probably at this point that I was very surprised to find Mona in the interview because I hadn't been told that she was here. So I had geared the whole thing around Amanda. But it's fine if a director turns up. Obviously she's almost the best person. Yeah, tell you about the origin of the film. But anyway, it's Mona and it's Amanda Seyfried. You'll know. Fast forward as obviously as the director of the Sleepwalker, the World To Come and as co writer of the Brutalist alongside her husband, Brady Courbet, Amanda Seyfried, fresh from the box office hit with the Housemaid, which Mark is still puzzling over.

43:57

Yeah.

44:40

Not to mention Girls and Mamma Mia. In 2008. It's a very, very unusual film best described in words, which you'll hear after this clip from the movie.

44:40

For those new here who are unaccustomed to a woman preacher,

44:51

Come nearer to me. Christ's spirit first appears as a man, but has reappeared to fulfill the promise of the second coming as a woman, our mother, Ann.

45:00

I have seen a chosen people waiting for us in America. We will plant a great big tree with deep and solid roots.

45:26

And that is a clip from the Testament of Ann Lee. I'm delighted to be joined by Amanda Seyfried and the director, Mona Fastvold. Welcome.

45:40

Thanks. Thank you.

45:48

Thank you very much for talking to us. First of all, Amanda, I need to apologize for, like most people in this country, pronouncing your name wrong in every movie that you've ever been in.

45:49

That's okay.

45:57

Until now. So I'm hopefully. We're absolutely. Right now.

45:58

Yeah. I don't even hear it anymore. It's okay. My sister says it differently, so what does she say? Seyfried?

46:03

Okay.

46:09

Like an idiot. No, I'm kidding. No judgment.

46:10

No, really.

46:12

Okay. But we'll still. But anyway, maybe Mona, you start as it's. As it's your film. Introduce us to the testament of Annie, how you came across this story and why you wanted to make this film.

46:13

So not a lot of people know the story of Ann Lee. I discovered. When I discovered her, I thought perhaps that she was a familiar figure in American history and that people would, you know, were taught about her in school and that perhaps you even knew about her here in England and Manchester as well. And that just because I was Norwegian, I hadn't. This was a part of American history that I just skipped. Then it turned out that most people just really didn't know much about her at all. The only relationship people had to the Shakers were their extraordinary design, the box and the brooms and like the beautiful, you know, staircases and the houses they built. So when I discovered that the Shakers were. It was a religious community in the late 1700s led by a woman who preached equality between gender and race in a time where women had zero autonomy. And she was the leader of the religion and she believed herself to be the female Embodiment. Of Christ. And not only that, but she also led their worship through ecstatic song and dance. I thought, well, this is incredibly cinematic. This woman crossed the ocean, fought, you know, stood steady, fast against prosecution over, you know, her entire life. And then built the largest utopian society in American history with complete equality. This is a story to tell, especially now.

46:24

So, Amanda, had you heard of Ann Lee? I hadn't heard of her before this film.

47:54

Same? Yeah. It's interesting. It's very niche.

47:59

So when you sent the script, what do you think?

48:01

Well, I know Mona, and we've worked together and we've known each other for a long time. But through working with her, like, it's very clear that we have a great rapport. And really such an ease in the way we work together. And when she brought her own story to me, you know, I understood the passion. So it was so. It clearly electrified her. And the way she talked about it was like she. And she does say, like she had this urgency to tell the story. And I felt that. And I. So I just had this innate trust that it was going to be okay. Even though it felt like a colossal challenge on everyone's parts. But I believe that she would get the greatest crew. I believe that she was gonna tell the story unlike anyone else would ever have the balls to. And I wanted to be a part of that. And I knew that it was gonna be transformative for me as well. Because when do you ever get a chance to play this kind of person in the world?

48:03

Transformative in what way?

49:07

You know, when you're just really terrified of something and you do it anyway? That kind of proving to yourself your capacity can make you walk through the world a little differently.

49:09

Why was it terrifying?

49:20

Everything was foreign about it. It was a foreign accent. Very foreign to me. The dancing, very foreign. I didn't understand it. I needed to embody it like it was based on my survival. And so it needed to be a second, like, a part of, like. It needed to feel like I was born with these movements. I needed to sing in a completely different way. And I needed to lead. And I needed to have this. I needed to believe in myself in a way that I thought maybe I didn't. But then I realized I did. But I just learned a lot through the process. The process was about a year total. And I just. I knew that it was a challenge and I needed. At the age that I was. And I knew that it was gonna take a lot of sacrifice. Cause I did have two kids at the time and a family That I needed to kind of leave for a little while. And, yeah, I just didn't want to let Mona down either. And I didn't want to let the legacy of Ann Lee down. And I wanted to. And I knew that this was people's way in. Most people's way into. Ann Lee was gonna be this vehicle, and I needed to portray her in. In a way that really honored what she did in her life and what she created. It's an undertaking of. It was the undertaking of my life. Like, I don't see this. I don't have that much faith right now that I'm gonna have this kind of challenge for a while. So we'll see.

49:23

Actors speaking in different accents is actually obviously part of what you do in every. Every different film, but seeing you speak in a Manchester accent was something else. I thought. I thought you nailed it. Was it difficult?

50:44

Thank you. Yeah, it was. It was the hardest part of the job.

50:56

The hardest part of not. Never mind the dancing and the ecstatic utterances, none of that. It's.

50:59

No matter how much I spoke in that accent, it never felt like a part. It was a part of me. So that was. I was always, always fighting with myself, especially the first half of the movie. I had a lot of second guessing, but it was just.

51:03

It was.

51:18

It's funny that that is where the challenge lies for me, is in those kinds of accents. Like, give me an Irish accent. I would have fared a little better.

51:19

Okay, well, I thought you fared 100% correct.

51:29

I thought it was.

51:32

We'll say all thanks to Maxine Peake then.

51:32

Okay. Yes, Mona. Was it always going to be. I mean, is it. I was going to call it a musical. It's.

51:34

It is the musical. I would say it is.

51:42

That's okay. Yeah, it's okay.

51:44

You can call it.

51:46

Or maybe he didn't want to call it a musical for so long, and Brady was like, babe, it's a musical, it's a musical.

51:46

But, yeah, no, it's Brady Corbett, who's your other half.

51:51

Who.

51:54

You wrote it together?

51:54

We wrote it together, yeah. No, I mean, I almost see it more as an opera now. In a way. It's one piece of music. The entire film, really. Even if it's an improvisational singer's breath work that's coming slowly, peeking through and some chime through a dialogue scene, or there's, you know, it started out with this idea of really. Of minimalism, only the. Only the voice, only, you know, physical movement, percussion. And then it grew and became richer and richer as we worked on it. And we started bringing in instruments and sort of with the idea of the music being sort of almost a connection to the divine. For them, it had to be musical. They worshiped through ecstatic song. And so they would break into song and dance.

51:55

Can I ask you about that?

52:43

Because ecstatic song and dance is not something that most people engage in in their normal life.

52:44

Can you explain they do at the club?

52:49

Okay, so what is it that they. What is it that they describe what it is when we go to a Shaker meeting? What is it that we see when they start their singing and they start their uttering and their moving? What is it that we're looking at?

52:51

So in the beginning in Manchester, in the early days of Shakerism, they would do meetings, like sort of prayer circles. One person would stand and confess their deepest, darkest sins. They would then be comforted and forgiven. And it would often lead to shaking and, you know, trashing, throwing themselves to the ground. Then that on would develop into communal, sort of improvised dance party that would last sometimes for days. And they would scream and sing and dance.

53:06

It's like they were high or possessed.

53:41

Yes, but it's not possession in this sort of. It's, you know, like, it's not the way that I interpreted it based on what I read. And the research I did was that it was quite joyful. I didn't want it to have this sort of, you know, speaking in tongues in this sort of procession, like way. But more of this, we were more inspired by improvisational movers and improvisational singers. Improvisational singers, for example, like Maggie Nichols, who comes and does this incredible solo in the film. There's a journey, and there's like. There's a specific sort of performance journey in that. So I gave her very specific directions as to what her journey was, that you're taking this person's pain and his sin and his suffering, you're pulling it into your body and you're helping him letting go of it, and you're kind of releasing it together. So it's about. It had a. It's not just, oh, here, I'm going to go and make some crazy sounds, or I'm going to go and make some crazy movements.

53:43

I guess a lot of people will be watching this, Amanda, and wonder, would it be impossible to have the gender and race equality which was manifest in what the Shakers believed in without the no children, no sex, no fornication thing? Which clearly is a problem if you're trying to recruit. Was it possible to have the good. I mean if you say you are the second coming of Christ, you're making it quite easy for people to attack you, aren't you?

54:41

Yeah, I don't. I think that nothing, nothing. She had no doubt in her mind and she had no. I don't think she ever questioned her faith and where she. Where she found herself in the world. Which is another very attractive part of playing someone, playing Ann Lee, because it was completely unwavering, which is very, very rare to find in somebody. And it looked a bit like madness to me until I understood why. You know, the depths of her trauma obviously are directly related to the heights that she reached in her own world.

55:09

So did she want people to have no children so therefore kind would inevitably just die out?

55:53

I think it really just was about the. That's the thing. It's like in some ways it doesn't make sense because it's just like how are you to going continue? I think she would have loved for this kind of society to continue the utopian society, these ideals. But I think what she saw as evil came from sex. And the evil that took over her life, the taking of her children away, that was evil. And she understood that sex can lead to just. Just complete suffering. And she wanted to remove any possibility of suffering. And with that removed a lot of ego. Because when you take away sexuality and piece that part of yourself, you're more likely to not be distracted because it becomes such a distraction. And to really be present is to remove that option. And it does make sense in that way. But in terms of keeping the movement alive.

55:58

Yeah.

57:04

I mean they would adopt kids in. People would come in with their kids. But if you fell pregnant while you were a shaker, you were removed from or you would have to make decisions. It makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways. Celibacy is a powerful thing because it does take away options and it does keep you clear headed.

57:04

When Breaking came on the show to talk about the Brutalist, everyone was amazed at how much money he managed to make the film for in terms of how small the amount of money was. You've done it again though, haven't you on this movie? I think you've done it for like 10 million. Is that. I mean how easy was it to get it made?

57:25

It was impossible to get it made, of course. I mean it's. We were, we were in the middle of production when we went to premiere the Brutalist Inventor. We didn't have the benefit of the success of the Brutalists while making this film at all quite the opposite, actually. At the time, most people told us that the Brutalist was undistributable. So it was.

57:43

What do they know?

58:05

Yeah, ha ha. No, it was really so. But what we did have the benefit of was working making the Brutalist, we definitely learned even more about being scrappy, finding good solutions or having great partners in Europe and Eastern Europe that we work with. So, you know, and for me also really turning to old fashioned filmmaking techniques is a way of expanding this world. So with the Testament of Ann Lee, which is something we spoke about on the Brutal list, we didn't end up using it, but I was very excited to bring back traditional matte paintings, for example. And so we looked all over the world and found this wonderful artist Lee took, who is one of the few matte painters left, and we started working with him in pre production. And that was a great way of growing the world to do, you know, to start to have me able to have, you know, wide expansive shots of Manchester and New York and to use smaller sections of builds and then, you know, paint the rest beautifully hand painted and then married with VFX and then adding subtle movements to it and sort of so using those techniques. And you know, both Rady and I are quite, you know, obsessed with analog methods and old, you know, filmmaking methods. So for us to like shoot on 35, then shoot our effects on 35, you know, then scanning it back and then printing it out again so that all the grain structure would make sense and be this, be unified is really. There's just, it's so exciting to me because I sometimes really struggle with big CG builds. You know, it's like I feel like this is a computer that made this and I mean there's hundreds of people worked on it as well, but maybe also that there are hundreds of people who worked on that versus imagine is one person painting it. And then there's a small team of two or three people working on me at the VFX team. So we're all just working closely together, going back and forth and saying, oh, we need to mimic the bow of the lens here in the correct way. And this light isn't hitting quite correctly here on this window frame. Can you add a tiny. A bit more, paint a bit more on that? It's just that's, that's the back and forth.

58:06

Mona, Amanda, thank you very much indeed for your time. Thank you. Mona Fastfold and Amanda Seyfried talking about the Testament of Ann Lee. What I love about that very, very long answer that Mona Gives at the end of that interview is the. The part of the production team was doing her nut because she kept on because time was up and according to her timing and was saying it was, you know, that kind of wind up.

1:00:32

The. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:00:55

The finger in the air, going around in circles. Wind up, wind up.

1:00:56

I don't think.

1:00:58

I'm not the one talking. This is the director of the movie. I am not going to stop the director absolutely telling me about the film so you can take it up with her later. But, you know, good luck with that.

1:00:59

And also great to hear somebody sort of championing old fashioned, you know, matte painting backgrounds. Those, those skills which. She's right, they, they have horribly fallen, by the way. But actually they look great and there's a reason for doing that stuff in camera. It's. It's really impressive.

1:01:09

So you're going to review this film next properly next week?

1:01:27

Yes.

1:01:30

Just so it's. It's the. It is. I found a very weird film and I. Do you remember when Paul Fig was on.

1:01:33

Yes. And you said.

1:01:44

And his last round said it should have been a musical and it wasn't. And you agree. I think this is a musical that shouldn't have been.

1:01:46

Well, I have to say I disagree with you, but partly because I got a text from you after you'd seen it and you said, have you seen it? And I said, no, not yet. And you said, did you know it was a musical? And I didn't. But then because I'd had your text, I did. So I was ready for it. I can't imagine what it must have been like going to see it and suddenly bursting into song without knowing it's like that convers.

1:01:57

Is it Terry Jones and Michael Palin. Where, where in Holy Grail. And Michael Palin, as a sort of gruff Yorkshire businessman says, cut that out, cut that out. You're not seeing him while I'm here. And I, I think the reason is

1:02:20

that one day all this will be yours. What, the curtains? Exactly.

1:02:38

That's exactly, exactly. So I did. One of the dissertation things that I did back at uni was about religious radicalism in the. From the English Civil War. So this is obviously not the same century.

1:02:41

No.

1:02:52

But as the English Civil War, bakers, the Shakers, the Baptists, the Anabaptists, like crazy, crazy people, all thought the world was about to end. All thought Jesus was coming back. It's absolutely fascinating. And I just, I, I found that the music and the dance was too. West End. Was too. I thought it got in the way of the story. But anyway, we can discuss that problem.

1:02:52

Yeah, well, I think we'll have a very interesting discussion about it next week because I. I felt very differently and I have to say I really liked the film. I was really surprised. Surprised by it. But. But let's. We'll talk about it when we review it fully next week.

1:03:12

One question. The Manchester accent, I thought sounded spot on.

1:03:22

Yeah, there was a. There was a couple of bits in it in which it didn't quite ring true, but. But they're so passing because honestly, it's a tough thing to do and I. I think the, The. The best thing I can say is I completely forgot that she was doing an accident. There was a couple of things that were just like not quite there, but for heaven's sake.

1:03:27

Also speaking of things that weren't quite there, I mean, when you see it, let us know what you think. Obviously there is a conversation on the boat going over from Manchester or Liverpool to, To. To the promised land where one of the Manchester shakers talks about a journey that she'd been on and said it was one and a half kilometers journey. One and a half kilometers. I don't think anyone in Manchester speaks. Spoke in kilometers. And having looked it up, they kind of. Kilometers arrive in with the French Revolution kinda at the end of the 18th century. So I think that was. And I had this question, tell me if I did the right thing. I was gonna. It was. It obviously would have sounded petty as a question to raise it. And then I thought, shall I mention it at the end when we finished recording, by the way, there weren't. They didn't use kilometers in Manchester then or now. Anyway, I decided not to because I thought it would be churlish.

1:03:44

I think you're right. I think it would have been churlish and I think you're right not to because I didn't even notice it. I mean, I think if it. If it. Indeed, I'm surprised that I didn't notice it. But I think it's a great interview and I really liked hearing them talk about it. And she's obviously very, very passionate about it. And of course it would have been one of those things, as, you know, if somebody says to you, I love your hair, your glasses are great, jackets fantastic. Trousers are really brilliant. Love you shoes. Don't like the belt, but the shoes are amazing. The only thing you hear is don't like the bel. And if you'd done that interview and then you left by going, incidentally, I just want to say they didn't use Columbus's. I think that would have, you know,

1:04:46

one line from the interview to remember for next week. And I'm saying this almost as an aid memoir to myself. Amanda Seyfried says it talking about Ann Lee. It looks like madness to me.

1:05:18

Yes.

1:05:30

Brought on by trauma of losing her children. But I think that's something to. That we should discuss next week when we.

1:05:31

And it's definitely something that the film internally discusses. It is definitely an idea that is

1:05:38

in the film Testament to Van Lee then will be reviewed and comes out next week. But there is something you can review. Yes.

1:05:43

If I had legs, I'd kick you. Am I right in thinking that you saw this?

1:05:51

You're not right.

1:05:54

I'm. Beg your pardon. It's Simon Poole, who I had the conversation with immediately before the show, who'd seen it. So this is the new film from Mary Bronstein, who made her name back in 2008 with the indie hit Yeast, which was a kind of mumble core feature with Greta Gerwig. Anyway, so this stars Rose Byrne, who so far for her performance in this has won a Silver Bear and a Golden Globe, is both BAFTA and Oscar nominated. The bookies have a second favorite to Jessie Buckley. I think this is going to be Jessie Buckley's year. So she plays Linda, who is a psychotherapist whose daughter has an eating disorder, meaning she has hospital visits every day and is currently needing to be fed through a tube. Linda is struggling to keep up with the hospital appointments and to hold down her professional commitments while her husband is away gallivanting around as a ship's cat. And when she turns to her own colleagues for help and support, in this particular case a colleague played by Conan o', Brien, he offers her very little in the way of help. Here's a clip.

1:05:55

Tell me not to do it.

1:06:55

Just tell me what to do.

1:06:56

I don't think you want me to tell you what to do.

1:06:58

You know what to do.

1:07:02

No one will tell me what to do. I'm supposed to know how to fix this.

1:07:03

I'm supposed to know how to fix her.

1:07:06

What is it you think it's your job job to fix?

1:07:08

She has to weigh 50 pounds by next week. Dr. Spring said that's a gain of 2.5 pounds.

1:07:11

Right.

1:07:16

Each day is supposed to be 2,500

1:07:16

calories in compensating for her resting rate. At 1800 calories burned, that's got to be at least 80% of each meal

1:07:18

for seven days plus the tube. And that's if she just lays still

1:07:24

all day, and if it doesn't, then something about not getting the tube out and reassessing the level of care.

1:07:26

I mean, I would like you to

1:07:32

get a good night's sleep.

1:07:34

Sleep.

1:07:36

Which, of course, is the one thing she isn't going to get. Not least because the roof of their apartment, ceiling of the apartment has collapsed due to a flood, meaning that they've been moved. Her and her daughter have been moved to a. To a motel where her life. I mean, she's at the end of her tether. She's having to keep up with all this stuff. She having to deal with all this stuff, and everything is starting to unravel. The only thing that offers any kind of respite from it is a bottle of wine and perhaps something a little bit stronger. Meanwhile, while at work, her needy clients are becoming more and more needy, including one who at one point turns up with a baby and then leaves, literally leaving her holding the baby. So at the center of this drama is Rose Byrne. She's right in the middle of this kind of. Right. Tide of rising panic, you know, when we were talking about Uncut Gems and the way in which. It's kind of like a. Almost like a panic attack of a movie.

1:07:37

Absolutely, it is.

1:08:28

And in this, you're right in there with Rose Byrne. She's trying to placate her daughter, who. And this is the smartest thing. We don't see the daughter through the whole drama to the very, very end. We don't see the daughter. We see her point of view. We see Rose negotiating the world around her, but we don't see the daughter. So the daughter is effectively this kind of void at the center of the movie, this vast hole into which Linda is pouring all her anxiety, her guilt, her frustration, her sen. Of failure. Because deep down, as you heard in that clip, she blames herself for everything, which I think is what, regardless of the circumstance, something that any parent will understand the thing about in the end, it's all your fault. And, you know, it's all your fault. And Roseburn has got this brilliant kind of anxious smile, this kind of that. Somewhere between the smile of Tour Guide Barbie in Toy Story 2, you know, can I stop smiling now? Or like a Stepford wife who looks like they're about to turn into Terminator. And watching this character firefighting day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute, second to second, I was reminded this happens more and more as I get older. There's a. There's an Elvis Costello song. I think it's the first song. I don't. I think I know it's the first song on My Aim Is True, which has got that line, why do you want to be my friend when I feel like a juggler running out of hands? And that thing about a juggler running out of hands, which is such a great phrase, is exactly what she's doing. So the film, it's. It's funny at times, darkly comedic, but it's also panic inducing in that way that, you know, laughing and screaming are very close to each other. You don't know whether to laugh or shriek at times. I was reminded of that kind of. Did you see Night with Amy Adams? Did you see that film?

1:08:29

Don't think so.

1:10:22

Was from awards season. From. From last year. Anyway, it's a Mariel Helen and I thought that had a kind of equally unhinged socio. Horror element about the terrors of motherhood and how that can drive somebody to madness. But as I said right there, the combination of this amazing performance by Rose Byrne and this really audacious directorial decision to, okay, let's not show the daughter, which kind of leaves you in the. When you describe it again, as we were saying before about secret A, you think that's not going to work. Look, you can't sustain that for the length of a feet, but you can. And not only can you, but you very quickly fall into, okay, this is fine. Because what it is, is it's creating this kind of absence at the center of this drama into which everything is being poured. I thought. I thought was terrific. And I thought for the second time this week, it's one of those films that's very hard to describe because it's easier seen than said. Because in the end, that is the genius of cinema, is that there are some things about cinema that is very, very hard to put into coherent words. Even though that is literally my job. What I can tell you is it's engrossing, it's funny, it's dark, it's got a great central performance, and it works really well.

1:10:23

Interesting to hear Conan o' Brien on that clip. Does it.

1:11:34

What, What, What's.

1:11:39

What's he like?

1:11:40

He's like a perfectly good. If you didn't know it was Conan o', Brien, you wouldn't know it was Conan o'. Brien.

1:11:41

I mean, when you. Because you'd mention it, then you hear

1:11:45

his voice go, well, it's clear it's Conan o'. Brien. Yeah, yeah. But no, no, he's. So. He's playing her sort of therapist supervisor in this slightly supercilious way. And he did. He does it. He does it very well.

1:11:48

If I had legs, I'd kick you. And when you see it, please let us know what you think. Correspondence.com adds in a minute. But first, it's time to skip joyfully with gay abandonment into the lift of laughter.

1:11:57

Oh, goody.

1:12:11

Taking on.

1:12:12

Here we go. Here we go.

1:12:12

Mark, had a bit of a moral quandary yesterday. Okay. I was walking along the rather bougie streets of showbiz, North London. Yes. And I spotted a wallet. No ID, just £50 in cash. What to do? So I thought to myself, what would Jesus do? So I turned it into wine and cheers.

1:12:13

That's good. That's good.

1:12:33

That's all right, isn't it? I had an unexpected twist at the end. Very good, Mark. As we mentioned, new Elvis documentary coming out soon, to be discussed next week. I can't wait. I know you can't wait to be able to discuss it. I love Elvis. Not as much as you do, obviously, but my obsession is causing a little bit of conflict at home. You know who said to me this week? Simon Mayo, now is the time to stop quoting Elvis songs every single time we speak. Otherwise, I'm leaving you. I said, okay. It's. Yeah, it's now or never.

1:12:34

And it's just. I love the way that. Again, the. You can hear the joke coming up the drive. Incidentally, there's at least three possible punchlines you could have done to that. Of course.

1:13:08

Hunka hunka burning love.

1:13:19

I thought you're gonna go for. It's all right, Mama, but there we go.

1:13:20

And Mark, what is the difference between an Indian and an African elephant?

1:13:24

One of them's got bigger ears than the other one.

1:13:28

No, silly Mark. One of them's an elephant. Oh, hey, commas are important.

1:13:30

Commas are important.

1:13:37

Very good. In our next section, Mark will be reviewing waste. Man. Good luck. Have fun. Don't die. That's two separate pictures. I'll be back after this.

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For more Valspar pros, head to Lowe's today and talk to a pro rep about saving time and money on your next job with Valspar signature paint exclusions apply. See valsparpro.com for details. So an email here into our mailbox correspondencervinmo.com from Jake in Exeter. Dear Plosive and sibilant Africa, always enjoy your discussion on accents. I wonder if you've played which we've just done. Of course, yes. Manchester, by the way. I do. I am not a Mancunian. Mark isn't, but obviously studied there and I. So when you. If you are a Mancunian, once you've heard Amanda. So Fred's accent, do tell us what you think.

1:15:11

Yes.

1:16:02

So we get an absolute, absolutely gospel truth on that. Anyway, always enjoy your discussion and accent, says Jake. I wonder if you've ever played the pronunciation game where certain words or phrases can sound like completely different sets of words in another accent.

1:16:02

No, I haven't played that.

1:16:16

Now, some of these is quite difficult. Jake says, try it with Mark. Ask him to say tin tin.

1:16:17

Tin Tin Tin Tin.

1:16:23

He's a Yorkshireman explaining that something is not in the tin. Get him to say beer can, as in can of beer. That's beer can.

1:16:26

Beer can.

1:16:32

He's just said bacon in Jamaican patois. Okay, that works. Oh, I see.

1:16:34

Oh, I see. Funny. Yeah.

1:16:39

Say mamma mia.

1:16:41

Mamma mia.

1:16:42

A Scouser telling their mother they've arrived home. Home. And then bizarrely, ask him to say space ghettos in a 1930s New York Chicago cop accent.

1:16:43

So say that again.

1:16:55

Ask him to say space ghettos in a 1930s New York Chicago cop act. I mean, New York and Chicago, completely different. So choose one of those.

1:16:56

Okay. And what. What's with the words I'm saying?

1:17:06

Space Ghettos.

1:17:08

New York. New Yorker. Spice Girls.

1:17:12

You Spice Girls in Glaswegian.

1:17:16

Space girl. Oh, see, actually, that's not bad. That's good. I've only just got Tin. Tin Tin. I've only just got it in. It isn't in the tin yet. Tin. Tin, Tin.

1:17:19

So, Jake, thank you. I've never played that game. Never been aware of the game, but thank you very much. I'm sure there are many other examples which will come flooding into our inbox. Tell us about another movie that's.

1:17:28

I just say the. The one that was always. It was always cited by. That is. Say these three words together. Okay? And the first word is A, I, R. And the second word is H, A, I, R. And the third word is L, A, I, R. Say those three words together.

1:17:39

Air, Hair and lair.

1:17:55

No, no, but just say them together. Air.

1:17:57

Hell.

1:17:59

Air. Air.

1:17:59

Lair. Oh, I see.

1:18:00

That's posh talk. Yeah, the posh talk.

1:18:01

That was the emerald fennel greeting.

1:18:03

Air, Hell. Air.

1:18:06

Okay, very good. Tell us more if you have them. What else is out then?

1:18:08

Waste man, which tough British prison drama from writers Euan Doren and Hunter Andrews. And Biff Biff. Winning director Cal McMau. I think that's the pronunciation. Forgive me if that's wrong. That's McMau. Apparently. This was originally set up as an A24 distributed film to be directed by the Safdie brothers. And we're just talking about Safdie's just a minute ago. But a lot has changed since then. It is now a gritty Brit pick in the tradition of films like Scum, both the TV and the. And the film version, or Stardust Up. Those productions provided early feature lead roles for Ray Winstone and Jack o', Connell, respectively. On this, the. One of the producers is Phil Barentini. Now, Phil Barentini, of course, boiling point, adolescence. When his name is on a project, you know it's going to be worthy of attention. So the film stars David Johnson, whose credits include Rylane, Alien, Romulus, and more recently, the Long War. He was last year's winner, I think, of the BAFTA rising star. Although this was. I think this was shot in 2024. So he's Taylor. He's in prison, we learn, for manslaughter. Although he seems to be very gentle and quiet, keeping his head down, medicating self. Medicating his way through the days with this kind of heroin substitute that he's buying from the inside dealers whose hair he cuts in in return. He has a son on the outside from A partner who refuses to speak to him because of his conviction. With him, he longs to reconnect. Out of nowhere he discovers that he's up for early parole because prisons are overcrowded. And he is one of the kind of people that they want to get out because the prisons are overcrowded at almost exactly the same time. When he's told basically, just keep your nose clean for a few weeks, you'll be out. He suddenly gets a new cellmate who's an aggressive loudmouth called D, played by Tom Blythe, who was Coriolanus Snow in Hunger Games, Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Billy the Kid in the TV series. Here is his introduction to his new cellmate.

1:18:12

Mate.

1:20:08

You got a new cellmate.

1:20:13

It's not here yet.

1:20:27

When's it going to be here? We're three staff down. You'll get it when it arrives. Two days in my low shot and no nothing. And you lot can't even get my on time. You might run right in your pals over there.

1:20:28

Take the.

1:20:39

I want the rest.

1:20:41

Yeah,

1:20:42

So he's this brash, obnoxious, obnoxious chancer. He basically takes over the cell, he moves in, sets himself up as the new dealer in town to the annoyance of the old guards with whom, you know, our character has been dealing. So the question is, can the guy keep his nose clean whilst he's sharing a cell with this agent of chaos? More importantly, can he deal with the fact that his new cellmate is a manipulative snake who's going to play on his weaknesses and basically get him into a position whereby he has to do things that he doesn't want to do. So the territory may be familiar, that idea about the kind of the brutalizing nature of life inside the inmate trying to stay clean but succumbing to the necessities of survival behind bars. But there is something fresh and invigorating about this and I think it's largely to do with the chemistry between the two leads because this kind of this almost sub dom relationship at the heart of the drama really works well. You know, one of them is kind of big, sort of innocent, puppy eyed downcast, and yet we know, not that innocent. And then the other kind of wild eyed, crazy agent of chaos sucking all the air out of the room, you know, taking up all the space and the way that it's shot. The cinematographer is Lorenzo Lavrini. It gets that thing about the claustrophobia of life inside is, you know, everything is small, cells, corridors, you feel all the Time that you're trapped. It's. The casting is exceptionally good. I mean, you really do believe that you're in the presence of hardened criminals with the, you know, the, the kind of the various secondary characters who are, you know, some of them are sympathetic and some of them are terrifying. Some of the resilient, downtrodden, desperate, hopeful. Again, you do believe that they are all who they are, who they are acting as. And a lot of it is to do with a kind of that clanging sound of life in prison. And you know, when the new arrival turns up in the cell, it's like suddenly our anti hero is in a cage with a wild animal. And the thing that's interesting about the film is it doesn't paint anyone with a single brush. So even the hardest characters have got a sympathetic side and even those with a softer side have, you know, the ability to be tough. I mean, it's interesting because in the third act I was thinking about a prophet and prophet, which has got that really, really harrowing scene in it in which our character has to do something which he has to do in order to survive. And it's, you know, again, that launched an acting career. And so I think this is a, this is a great showcase for its stars. It's a timely reminder that, that the current prison prison system is not geared to rehabilitation. It is really geared to incarceration and just dealing minute by minute with. With problems. And I thought that it had. I mean, it's interesting. There have been a number of prison dramas over the years that have been great career launches. I mean, in this case, you know, both these actors have got quite a lot of work under their belt, but it is a really good showcase for them. I think it was a tough and engrossing drama in a genre in which it is possible to fall into cleav cliche. And I didn't think this did.

1:20:48

And that is called Waste man.

1:23:58

Waste man.

1:24:00

Certificate 15.

1:24:01

Yeah, no, I think it's certificate 18. I actually wrote down, I've wrote down the BBFC guidance, which is somebody wrote and say 18 for very strong language, strong violence and drug misuse.

1:24:02

Okay. Correspondence@kevin.com if you want to contribute at any time and in any way. Time for a quick what's on. Hello, Mark and Simon, this is Jack Davison from Photographer's Parapet. I recently released my debut short film, A is for Ant, which is a surrealist journey through a children's Alphabet book. It was made in collaboration with my friend Shona Heath, the Oscar winning production designer of Poor things. The film is now available to watch online for free and it was made with all audiences in mind. So please sit your children, grandparents and dogs down to watch it. Thank you. Thank you. Fantastic. Well, also, because how many times do you get a message like that where clearly they're just after literally everybody?

1:24:14

Yeah, good, great. Thank you.

1:24:58

A is for Ant and Jack Davidson. Send us the note. If you think there's something that you'd like to share with us that's movie related or movie adjacent, send your Voice Note to correspondencevidomayer.com what is. Okay, so one more film with the

1:25:00

intriguing title of Of Good Luck, have Fun, Don't Die. My friend Julie Edwards, the photographer, has been at Berlin because I'm just back from Berlin and she said that the maddest red carpet event that she did was the the Berlin screening of Good Luck, have Fun, Don't Die. Stars of that film include Sam Rockwell, Haley Lee Richardson, Michael Pena, Zazi Beats, Asim Chowdhury, Tom Taylor and Juno Temple. And when they did the photo call on the carpet, they were doing Kung Fu Kicks. And you know, the pictures are really, really great. So it looks like it was a kind of a terrific. Yeah, it's written by Matthew Robinson, who wrote and directed the flawed but quite interesting Ricky Gervais comedy the Invention of Lying. And it's directed by Gore Verbinski. Now, Gore Verbinski is best known as the director of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. He also helmed the I didn't like the. The American remake of the Ring. He did the high concept western flop the Lone Ranger, featuring the now particularly unfortunate pairing of Johnny Depp Depp and celebrity cannibal Armie Hammer.

1:25:15

Wow.

1:26:17

Yeah, that didn't age well. And the psychological horror flop, A Cure for Wellness. Hello to Jason Isaacs, of which the whole thing about it was that, I mean, it did very badly, but it was a thing where you kept waiting for the twist, then you realize that the twist was that there wasn't a twist. Weirdly, however, Gorvinsky also did the award winning animated feature Rango. So maybe he ought to be sticking with animations a bit. This is his best live action film. Although that is a low bar as you can tell from the films I've just mentioned. So here's the setup. Norm's Diner in LA. 10 past 10. Everyone is glued to their mobile phones. No one is doing anything other than looking at their mobile phone. Suddenly, Sam Rockwell bursts in, dressed from head to foot in a mix of plastic and wires, holding what appears to be a Trigger device and looking like he's got an explosive elusive vest. He says this isn't a robbery. I'm from the future. And everything is about to go really, really wrong. Thanks to everyone's addiction to screen time and the arrival of AI, he has been here before. This apparently is his 117th attempt to assemble the right group of patrons from this particular diner to start the revolution and head off the disastrous future that he has come from. But the chances are are most of the people he chooses will die in the attempt. Here's a clip from the trailer. There's some that's about to come down that I can't prepare you for.

1:26:17

It's going to try to give you

1:27:46

everything you ever wanted.

1:27:47

But in the end, it will all be a lie. Are any of you even listening to me? I trap to tell you that things do not go well for you in the future. Bring out the toys to the. But tonight we got a shot. There is a perfect configuration of people in this diner that can save humanity.

1:27:49

What you gonna do before we all go?

1:28:13

What happens if we fail?

1:28:17

I really don't like to say it out loud. It's kind of a morale killer. So the group that's intriguing.

1:28:21

Yeah, exactly. It's a good setup. So the group that he assembles includes Ingrid, who is a sort of depressed young woman who appears to have an allergy to the. To the modern world, to the Internet and to phones. You've got a couple of teachers whose pupils have all become addicted to their mobile phones and who are now passing apparently advertorial messages between each other and behaving like mindless zombies. And then you've got a character played by Juno Temple, who is a grieving mother whose son has been cloned after a school shooting and is now spouting smiley messages from our sponsors. Other hot button topics included in the script have the blithe acceptance of school shootings as simply routine and the ruining of real life relationships through the arrival of VR headsets. So the trailer sells this as being from, quote, a completely unhinged gore bint. And the film wants to feel unhinged. And I think the budget is only around about $20 million. Consider that the Lone Ranger cost $250 million. It was a huge flop, incidentally. So it has certainly got the right to claim that it's got a bit of, you know, indie anarchy about its spirit. However, despite the promisingness of the premise, despite the fact that I like a lot of members of the cast and it sounds like, oh, you know, it's wild and crazy. Completely unhinged. I think, honestly, completely unoriginal would be more honest because although it's fun and there are things in it that are passingly fun, it's nothing like as anarchic and out there as it wants you to believe. In fact, all the unhinged and inverted commas ideas in it have all been thoroughly road tested elsewhere in a string of films and TV shows. So most obviously, the idea of social media turning everyone into zombies, I mean, and AI being about to destroy the world is a subject that's been discussed in, well, pretty much every film, television show, radio show, podcast. I mean, I remember you. Was it two years ago when the Mission Impossible, you know, the AI was the bug and you said, this is it. We're suddenly going to get a wave of movies about the evils of AI do you remember saying that it was like two years back?

1:28:27

Yeah, yeah.

1:30:46

Okay. So I think that's. That's kind of done the idea of the Sam Rockwell character coming back from the future back to change the present and therefore, you know, change the past and therefore save the future. Okay, so that's lifted to some extent from the Terminator also very clearly in this case from 12 Monkeys. And the design of this owes such a lot to 12 monkeys. The character, the suit that Sam Rock was wearing could have come straight off the set of 12 monkeys. In fact, act the. One of the posters for the film is clearly an homage to the. The one sheet of the Brazil poster. So there is a lot of Terry Gilliam in this. There is an awful lot of Terry Gilliam in this. The thing about having a character who's allergic to phones and the Internet, I mean, again, it's very reminiscent. One of the key plot strands from Better Call Saul, which was way, way back, in which Chuck, the brother of Saul or Jimmy has this electromagnetic hypersensitivity. And there's the whole thing about is it real or is it actually just. Is it psychosomatic? The story of the. The child brought back and, you know, and saved from death, who now is producing advertorial content, owes a huge debt to that. Well, there's a couple of Black Mirror episodes. There's. There's Be Right Back from season two, in which there's, you know, you can interact with a deceased person through AI and there's also actually more recent, I think it was series seven, that one Common People in which somebody has a brain implant that connects them to an Internet server and in order to keep paying for the thing to work they turn into somebody reciting advertorial content. There's also a huge amount of Post Matrix. Is this real or is this Memorex stuff going on? There is a long standing archival debt to Cronenberg's Videodrome and more recently Spielberg's Ready Player One. In terms of the, the virtual reality setup, there are some scary animated toys that I thought literally one of them has walked off the set of Toy Story. Most significantly, there is a very unhealthy dose of Everything Everywhere all at Once. The success of which probably explains why this exists now because you can almost imagine the pitch meter in which they said, you know, okay, well look what happened with Everything Everywhere all at once. We're going to make Everything Everywhere all at twice. Tish, thank you. I was very proud of that joke. And if, and if they didn't, you.

1:30:47

Can you say it again, please, because I think it's worth repeating.

1:33:17

Look at the success of every. Everything Everywhere all at Once. Well, we're going to make Everything Everywhere all at twice.

1:33:20

Boom.

1:33:27

Thank you.

1:33:27

Excellent.

1:33:28

And as I said, they didn't use that pitch in the, in the sales meeting. They really should have done. None of that is to say that it isn't fun. There is stuff in it. It's fun. I like Sam Rockwell. I like some of the ideas. However, it is an 89 minute movie squeezed into 135 minutes, many of which should have been lost in the end because the fact is that Verbinski has never done, you know, brevity or subtlety ever. It was. It's not surprising to learn that this actually began life many, many years ago as a 26 page TV pilot that then ran out of steam, but was then revived as a feature idea which then languished in development until. And this I read in an interview, I think it was in Deadline. The producer told Deadline that somebody said it's really reached a point where Matt said, unless we make this now, the time is actually going to pass us by. I think the time has passed you by and I think this is passing fun, but it's not as good as any of the things that it reminds, that it reminded me of, that it rips off. It's not. It is a very corporate idea of what an anarchic production looks like. And the last 25 minutes of it are just hogwash.

1:33:28

And that's the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team was Jen, Matt, Matt, Eric, Josh, Heather and Dom. The redactor was Simon Poole. And if you're not following the pod already, please do. So wherever you get your podcast, please come and join us on Patreon, where Mark and I hang out all the time.

1:34:41

All the time.

1:34:57

We just, we're there with all our swinging friends. I'm using that in the kind of musical sense.

1:34:58

Yeah, well done for clarifying that.

1:35:04

Okay, Mark, what is your film of the week?

1:35:06

Well, it's two films of the week this week because we're in that. That period. My two films of the week are if I Had Legs, I'd Kick you, you and the Secret Agent, both of which are terrific.

1:35:08

We'll be back next week. Head to Patreon for all the good stuff. And a quick hi to new Ultras, Peter Smith, Anthony Smith, Luke Regan, Nicholas Stein and Ida Larson. You're all very welcome. I. I'm going to. Because I'm allowed to bestow a year's Ultra membership to the correspondence of the Correspondent of the Week. And I think I was going to give it. I mean, obviously, obviously. I can't really give it to Martin Clunes because that would be unfair because he doesn't need it.

1:35:18

Yeah, he's Martin Clunes. He's successful enough. He can pay.

1:35:48

Exactly. So, Sue Sorensen from Winnipeg, Manitoba, who's our PhD in literature woman who gave us a little tutorial about Wuthering Heights back in about 20 minutes ago. Okay. So, Sue Sorensen, you have won the Ultra membership for being Correspondent of the Week. If you think you can be next week, correspondence@kerman and.com take two has already landed.

1:35:51