Are we in for a MOAN-A from Mark about live action remakes?

0:00Simon Mayo: Now, Mark, I don't know why all these trendy podcasters need to sell such tat in their online shops these days. You'd have thought the show would have been enough for them. I mean, look at this tea towel. Simon, I think that's our shop you're browsing, isn't it? Oh, so it is. Actually, those Kermode and Mayor director's chairs are very nice, and it's all incredibly slick and easy. That's probably what confused me. That's because it's powered by Shopify. Shopify is where you go to start your business. Everything you need to start selling is included and ready from day one, which means our top production team can concentrate on, well, whatever it is that they do.

0:34Simon Mayo: While Shopify does all the hard work, because Shopify handles the setup and checkout, you have more time to focus on growing your business and the tools to do it. And Shopify checkout helps more customers finish their purchase. Then when they come back, their details are already saved. One tap and they're done. Simple. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at shopify.co.uk slash take. Start your free trial at shopify.co.uk slash take. From athletic stuff like a full court pickup game, swish, to athletic stuff like a half mile stroll.

1:12Get those steps in. Head to Sierra or Sierra.com for the brands you want at the prices that let you do it all. From athletic to athletic, Sierra's got it.

1:20Simon Mayo: Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguardista and get an extra episode every Thursday. Including bonus reviews. Extra viewing suggestions. Viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas. Plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in Questions Shmestions. You can get all that extra stuff via Apple Podcasts or head to extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. 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

2:06Simon Mayo: hot diggity hot diggity hot diggity hot who is that that's like an old movie hot diggity hot diggity hot diggity yes what about no diggity no it's hot diggity it's like No, you're right. Yeah, but... It's like a 1950s Hollywood musical, which just came to me as I was feeling particularly hot diggity. But you appear to be in a public convenience somewhere. I mean, it looks very beautiful, but... How dare you say that? I spent an hour setting this shot up. I am in the guest house Brunstein in Oberadorf in Bavaria. Since I am here because the Dodges are playing, you know, we accompany silent movies.

2:47Simon Mayo: so we're going to accompany beggars of life tonight just across the way we're currently in bavaria but the place we're playing which is and get this the biggest opera house in austria wow it's called the fest spielhaus l and it is the biggest opera and we have sold it out and uh because we're very big in bavaria slash austria i keep being told to not confuse the two of them and uh so yeah so i'm here and so i've come to this place in order in order to set it up and make everything look nice. And I spent an hour setting up this shot. And if anyone's watching the video, you will notice it looks like the Grand Budapest Hotel, which I was very, very pleased with.

3:24Simon Mayo: And then when Josh, our brilliant engineer, came on, he went, wow, what an amazing, it looks like the Grand Budapest Hotel. And I said, great, brilliant. Then you come on, you tell me, I look like I'm in a toilet. Well, it's the windows with their smoked glass. Those aren't windows. Those are panels. That's panelling. That's panelling. Okay. Windows, crucially, you can see through. As they say - So you're in Austrian Bavaria? No, at the moment, you know, at the moment I'm in Bavaria. And then when I leave here, I'm going to go across the stream. And then I will be in Austria. And that's where the Festspielhaus L is.

3:58Simon Mayo: And then I will come back to Bavaria, which is where the festival is, technically, to stay the night. See? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The last time I was there was for the World Cup when it was in Germany, 2006. and I think I was there I was there too I came do you remember I came out um for to do the movie reviews and I walked did you remember this I was there you forgot the first the first day when I left the hotel all I remember is genuinely seeing a man in lederhosen holding a stein of beer and it was if you'd shot that for a movie you would be laughed out of town because nobody wears lederhosen holding a pint of beer or a you know a liter yeah except they did now i want to ask you something but you may you may keep this until take two you interviewed pete townsend since i last saw you yes that's that's absolutely true yeah we did it at opera holland park um it was a fundraiser for terence higgins trust and uh it was it was absolutely fascinating i also found out why he wanted me to do the interview oh okay because he was a big fan of scarla radio which has now become magic classical and we and his his wife is rachel fuller who's a composer and scarla used to play the animal requiem which rachel fuller uh composed very uh fine piece of music and because we did that he he and then he wanted to find out what happened to scarla so i said it became magic classical slightly different music brief and all that kind of stuff so we ended up talking about that wow yeah and did did you talk to him about the uh the quadrophenia opera the quadrophenia ballet pardon me yeah so it was there as um on passant really it was there as part of the a bigger cultural conversation he'd brought along four pieces of well not four pieces of music there were two pieces of music and two soundscapes which he wanted people to listen to and as it was kind of his people to come to see him we let him do that okay and also also since i last saw you you also interviewed sir christopher nolan you've just been interviewing everybody yeah also uh on the christ nolan two members of the specials uh because there is a kind of a final specials album live from the cathedral uh which is coming out this friday i.e today if you're listening to this on friday which is a really great recording and a reminder what a fantastic band they were uh and chris chibnall who's the doctor who's doctor who showrunner and the guy who invented broad church you know and so on so yeah it's been it's been quite interview heavy uh but but fantastic and the chris nolan chat was just something that it was it turned out to be quite difficult to make it happen but we did make it happen and people will hear that interview next week uh to go with the movie release but it's always a thing it's quite a thing to have an audience with chris nolan so yeah it's very good my most exciting thing that happened to me was that when I arrived in the airport yesterday in Munich, as I arrived in Munich, I got a notification that KLM had finally found my bags that they lost in Croatia 10 days ago.

7:13Simon Mayo: Can they send them to Munich? No, they've sent them to Cornwall and they'll probably be there by the time I get back. So well done, KLM. Yeah. Hot Diggity is an American popular song by Al Hoffman and Dick Manning, published in 1956 recorded by perry como perry como not from a musical at all but a hit for perry como we like to keep down with uh current musical trends uh later um when we get to down to the business end of this thing mark will be reviewing some great films or some average films who knows let's i'll be reviewing some films uh which include evil dead burn which is the latest in the still ongoing evil dead series rosebush pruning which is a very strange film with uh Callum Turner, who, as you know, is bookies favourite to be the next James Bond, and the live action Moana with our very special guest.

8:02Simon Mayo: We have the director of that Disney reimagining, Thomas Kale. You can get take two ad free by heading to our Patreon page. Just search Kermit O'Mo Patreon and you'll find us. The normal place for correspondence is correspondence at kermitomeo.com. Sarah in Bristol. Hello, St. George's and Bristol Beacon. Long-time listener, second-time emailer. The first one not read out, but there were far better emails than mine about Eye in the Sky. Very humble, Sarah. Back in 2015, I bought myself a birthday treat of a ticket to see The Movie Doctors in Bristol. I was very excited as I've been listening to your wittering since Radio 1 days.

8:39Simon Mayo: Four days before the show, I slipped not one disc, but two. Ooh, it hurt. A lot. So sitting on a wooden chair in St George's was not an option. I was not happy. so here i am 11 years later delighted to buy a ticket to see you both this december in the much larger venue of bristol beacon thank you for bringing your show out of that there london town down with interfering on red cards and up with chiropractors two different worlds brought together again there by sarah in bristol uh yes christmas show who'd have thought we'd talk about christmas with 33 degrees being yeah current temperature in this room here now we we're previewing the sort of top class correspondence we get in questions which comes at the end of take two yes so why not give it a try so this is just like a little taster this is from michael marshall okay science writer for new scientist and co-author of a book with alice roberts if that gets me any cachet he says which it certainly does dear ripley and newt long time listener, first time emailer.

9:45Simon Mayo: I just heard your question, Shmeschen, about inappropriate hospital viewing choices, 28 days later, really, in brackets, and thought, I can top that. 13 years ago, the good lady special needs tutor her indoors and I were waiting for a room on the labour ward of a London hospital. It was late on a Saturday during a brutal heatwave, and she was understandably apprehensive about the imminent business, the way Michael says it is, of being cleft in twain. which I think is an unfortunate turn of phrase. In the corner near the ceiling, a TV was tuned to film four. Seeking distraction, we looked up only to find they'd chosen aliens, specifically the early dream sequence in which Ripley, in a hospital bed and looking decidedly fecund, has an embryonic parasite erupt from her chest.

10:35Simon Mayo: The good lady, while appreciating the irony, was less than delighted. Then we heard a small yelp. Across the room, another expectant parent, who looked barely 18, had gone ashen and clammy. I nipped to reception and suggested that, unless they fancied doubling the Labour Ward as a mental health unit, they might consider switching to Dave. Happily, all ended well, and on the 15th of July, it's our daughter's 13th birthday. If you read this out, could you wish Libet a happy birthday? Okay, Libet, happy birthday. Down with orange fascists and up with neurodivergent women. Hello to Jason, et cetera, Michael Marshall.

11:09Simon Mayo: Very good. i mean very good but no one under any circumstances if they're responsible for what comes out of a television in a hospital should be putting on alien or aliens or anything similar it should be mary poppins or toy story or something no that was too emotional oh i don't know what's the what's the uh what would be perfect a local hero or padding paddington there you go Paddington is exactly the thing. That's what you need. I did an onstage thing with Simon Brew recently from Film Stories, and he was wearing a magnificent T-shirt which said, I communicate mostly through obscure science fiction references.

11:53No, he said, I communicate, yeah, that must have been it.

11:56Simon Mayo: I communicate through obscure science fiction references, mostly, which I thought was a lovely T-shirt. Very good. Correspondents at covenomero.com. Tell us about a movie that is out. Rosebush Pruning, which is a name to juggle with. This is a bourgeois satire of a rich dysfunctional family eating themselves alive in exotically sunny climes. It's directed by Brazilian filmmaker Karim Ainuz. It is written by Ethmis Filippo, who's the Greek writer, who is best known to moviegoers for his collaborations with Yorgos Lanthimos. So he's worked with Lanthimos a number of times. And I think one could say that this film comes on a little bit like Lanthimos Lite.

12:41Simon Mayo: So if you remember, Yorgos Lanthimos made that weird thing, Begonia, which was an unlikely remake of a South Korean sci-fi comedy called Save the Green Planet. Well, Rosebush Pruning is an equally unlikely remake of a 1960s film, Fist in the Pocket, which is an Italian movie that in 2008 was entered into the annals of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's list of, get this, 100 films that have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978. Wow, pithy. Pithy. All I can say is I don't think that any similar such accolade will be bestowed upon rosebush pruning. So in Fists in the Pocket, it's about a young man with epilepsy who plans to kill his dysfunctional family.

13:37Simon Mayo: And it's sort of darkly comedic. So in this new movie, in rosebush pruning, Callum Turner, who we saw most recently in Rose of Nevada, I think was absolutely brilliant in Rose of Nevada. Him and George McKay, I thought were terrific together. He is Ed. He's an American who in very clockwork, you know, orange fashion is our kind of humble friend and narrator who will lead us through the drama. From him, we learn that his family moved from New York to Catalonia, where he now lives with his brother's sister and controlling blind father. The last of whom is played by Tracy Letts. According to family law, their mother was torn apart by wolves in a nearby forest.

14:18Simon Mayo: And now they visit the site of her tearing apart because there was no body found. And they put sacrificial animals there in order to appease the wolves, in order to protect anybody else from being torn apart by wolves. And this is something that our narrator tells us makes no sense at all. He also thinks and tells us quite frankly, that his entire family are vacuous and self-serving except for his brother, Jack, who is played by Jamie Bell, who is apparently the only one of us who should survive and who brings his new girlfriend, Martha played by Elle Fanning to dinner in one of the most excruciatingly horrible dinner scenes you can imagine in which Tracy lets, because he is blind, says, describe her for me.

15:07Simon Mayo: Here is a clip.

15:12Martha is blonde, very white, medium build, blue eyes.

15:22Simon Mayo: And her handbag, what sort of handbag does she have? It's Bottega, I think. I think it's Bottega. Anna, is it or is it not Bottega? Yes, yes, it is Bottega. Jack got it for me as a gift. And her bosom? Because I was... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Her bosom? Yeah, no. I can't understand why it's wrong for me to ask about her bosom. And that's just the beginning of the excruciation. always worth remembering instantly that Tracy Letts, not just a very great screen actor, but also of course the author behind Bug and Killer Joe and you know, anyway, terrific writer. And the other voice, the primary voice you heard there is Riley Keough.

16:10Simon Mayo: So as for our main character, the Callum Turner character, he's this kind of wannabe fashionista and he narrates everything. Like, you know, in American Psycho, there's the whole thing with Patrick Bateman saying, I give the impression of, if you looked at me, you would have the impression that somebody was there, but actually there isn't. The whole thing is an illusion. There's nothing there at all. And you do get that with this, this kind of absolutely deadpan narration that there is nothing behind it. And the look of the film is, it all takes place in this sort of rich, modernist, glassy house setting with this kind of detached, posh lifestyle, which reminded me a little, do you remember the way the house looked in Parasite?

16:51Simon Mayo: Do you remember it all like, there was there was not a single non-shiny surface in it and everything seemed you know like and in fact in the case of this they are all parasites feeding upon each other and the film is shot by elaine louvar who is one of the great cinematographers of our time it really kind of gets every drop of cinematic excitement out of the idea of just how detached everything looks there's also a little bit i think of the kind of the the arch sexual satire of that film infinity pool the brandon cronenberg uh film which i like very much it's a kind of setting in which sex is weaponized and commodified and everything is is an illusion and an obsession but whilst i'm saying that the film reminded me of those movies i have to say it isn't as good as or as memorable as any of those films what it is is it is very peculiar i mean the sense of peculiarity is definitely heightened by the fact that the the the central character ed's narration is so deadpan even as what's going on on screen sort of swims with bodily fluids and violent perversions and sort of really unspeakable dental care and comedic self-harm.

18:01Simon Mayo: Yes, really. And just all manner of kind of fall of the house of Usher, sort of incestuous depravity. In fact, the title comes from Ed's admission because he says at one point, his sister says, I know what turns everyone on. He says, you don't know what turns me on. And she says, well, nothing turns you on. He says, that's not true. When I was pruning the rosebush, I became very turned on. So on one level, it is kind of fall of the House of Usher family collapsing in on itself. On another, it's upmarket salt burn. It's kind of salt burn for the art house crowd, you know, portrait of the lives of the rich and famous in which a taste for blood is frankly the least of everyone's problems.

18:39Simon Mayo: Some of it is entertaining. Some of it is fun in a bizarre way. Some of it is way too on the nose for its own good. I mean, there's a subplot involving Pamela Anderson, which I think struggles to rise above the level of silliness. And some of it, frankly, is completely up itself. Crucially, I think it isn't anything like as clever as it thinks it is. That said, I wasn't bored, not least because it's a very good ensemble cast and they are all playing it, you know, to the max. And everyone in the cast seems to be happy to throw caution to the wind as the drama wants to be outrageous. I just don't think it is as outrageous as it thinks it is.

19:22Simon Mayo: And the whole film is bookended by these 70s style titles. And there's this pumping electro soundtrack with Matthew Herbert at the helm. And that's got more than a hint of Gaspar Noe. So whilst I was watching it, I thought, okay, fine. I'm enjoying this. I am entertained. I think in the end, it is pretty unmemorable. And I suspect that if you ask me about it in two weeks' time, the thing I'll remember is it's like Yorgos Lanthimos light. But there are good performances in it, and I think it will come and go very fast. It doesn't sound like it's one for me, Mark. I don't think it is. I don't think when they were making it, they thought, I wonder what Simon Mayo thinks of this.

20:00Simon Mayo: That's correct, if indeed anyone has ever thought that at all. Coming up after the break, Evil Dead Burn, Moana, and our special guest is director of that film, Thomas Kale. You'll hear all that in just a moment.

20:15Simon Mayo: Hey, Mark Kermode. Fancy a fun quick-fire quiz? I thought you'd never ask. Great. How do you protect yourself from spoilers? Well, you never watch the end of the film. Well, a bit impractical, but fine. How do you protect yourself from getting wound up by noisy cinema goers? There's no need. I'm a very tolerant man, as you know. How do you protect yourself from getting bored of the exorcist? It's impossible. Anyway, shall we start this fun quiz? What's more fun than being well protected? OK, is that part of the quiz? I'm doing the questions, thank you. How do you protect yourself from online scams?

20:49Simon Mayo: Ah, finally, a sensible question. Nord VPN's next-gen antivirus. Blocks, scams and phishing before they reach you. fake text, dodgy links, your account is locked, emails, same app as the VPN, one tap, the biggest protection in the game. Correct, upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app. Head to nordvpn.com slash take to get an exclusive NordVPN deal plus four months extra risk-free.

21:21Simon Mayo: Sierra has all the best active and outdoor brands you need. From athletic stuff, like a full-court pickup game, swish, to athletic-ish stuff, like a half-mile stroll. Get those steps in! And for morning hikes up the mountain trail, good pace, to nighttime ghost stories from the camping chair. What a twist! Whatever level of active, Sierra loves it all. Head to Sierra or Sierra.com for the brands you want at the prices that let you do it all. From athletic to athletic, Sierra's got it.

21:58All right.

21:59Simon Mayo: Now, before we get to our guest, Reese, age 19 in the Isle of Wight. Yes. I've been a longtime audience member of you both, Mark, since the film review and Simon from Radio 2. and I wanted to write to say thank you for the impact you've had on my life. Cinema became a real comfort to me during difficult periods with my mental health and discovering your five live show felt like finding the perfect partnership. Mark's passionate, honest love of film combined with Simon's warmth, professionalism and humour. Whether it's fiery rants or enthusiastic praise, the show brought lightness to my days and made me feel less alone.

22:34Simon Mayo: It became a kind of regular check-in that helped keep me grounded and it's played a huge part in sparking and sustaining my love of film. I'm now in a much better place and I wanted to thank you for making such a difference and helping keep that passion alive every week. I also recently saw Blue Heron at the BFI and was deeply moved by its intimate storytelling, natural performances, and exploration of memory and family. It's my favourite of the year so far. Thanks for everything. What a lovely email. Isn't that nice? What a really nice – well, thank you so much. So it's, you know, that's a really, really kind email.

23:11Simon Mayo: I'm really glad you enjoyed Blue Heron. But thank you for taking the time to say that. Box office top 10 at number 11. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. It is pronounced Nirvana. No matter how it is spelled, it is pronounced Nirvana. Okay. Okay. But if you just look at it, it's Nirvana. Yeah, but I'm telling you it's pronounced Nirvana and I've seen the film. Okay. Dear CN Tower and the Rivoli, I absolutely loved it. I'd never seen the show before beyond the update day sketch, but this was the funniest film I've seen all year. I can't remember laughing this hard in the cinema. The Gonzo guerrilla style filming and public interactions constantly had me wondering, how did they film that?

23:52Simon Mayo: Sending me down a rabbit hole afterwards and making me want to watch it all over again. What really stood out was the variety of comedy from sharp banter to fourth wall breaks powered by a joyful, chaotic energy that never lets up. The hangover scene is still making me laugh days later what i loved most was how warm it felt despite the public antics it never seemed mean-spirited more like everyone was in on the joke at its heart it's a genuine celebration of friendship no big gestures just two people chasing a ridiculous shared dream and that's uh number 11 i think that's that's all very fair i had a conversation with um jack howard the other day and jack is a friend of mine he's a he's a friend of mine he's a young filmmaker and he's like less than half my age.

24:36Simon Mayo: And he absolutely loves this film. He's seen it three times. And one of the things he loves so much about it is the fact that the way in which it's interweaving old footage from when they first did the thing with the new footage, because the time traveling stuff. And he said, but he said, he said, I listened to your review. And I said, Oh, what did you think? He said, I don't think you've ever sounded older. And I think that's completely valid. I think it's absolutely valid. And in fact, I said this when I was reviewing it, that I was very aware of the fact that there were whole things about it that I simply wasn't, I was simply watching thinking I am confused by what is going on.

25:09Simon Mayo: And, um, I, I, I am very much of the feeling that if I saw it again, now kind of in tune with what it is, it would look, it would look like about, I mean, I didn't dislike it as you know, I reviewed it last week. I said, there are things in it that are funny, but I just found a lot of it unsettling. But Jack did say, He said, you have never sounded older in your life. And I absolutely take that. And I don't think there's a problem with that. You know, we're not pretending to be hipsters. You know, we're not pretending to be 30. And if someone plays you a song that's currently popular with 16 year olds, it won't be, you know, you should not pretend to go, oh yeah, I know all about that.

25:46Simon Mayo: Yeah, I absolutely agree. Because we are who we are and that's it. We are who we are for better or worse. The richer for poorer. number 10 is scary movie number nine in america yeah well hopefully it'll be out of the top 10 next week so alpha is number nine so this wasn't press screened this is uh indian action thriller if anyone's seen it send us an email let us know backrooms is at number eight number seven in the states done very very well as has obsession so backrooms and obsession are still there in in a top 10, which has some very, very big budget movies in it, demonstrating that it is still possible to make small movies with a very good idea and do well with them.

26:28Simon Mayo: Jackass Best and Last is number seven, number eight in Canada. Yes. So I told you that the good lady professor, her indoors, said that she laughed for about an hour after your contribution to my Jackass review was, oh dear. And I don't think that there's any way that you would enjoy it at all. And I, you know, there are things that I have a really big problem with, mainly the sick and the poo, which I just can't be doing with. But I do think of all of the jackass films, it's the one that I enjoyed the most. And I do think that there is something going on there in the center of it about male friendship, but there is also the sick and the poo.

27:05Simon Mayo: Disclosure day is at number six, number five. How are you feeling about disclosure day now? uh well it's only a few weeks ago i feel the same as when i saw it but is it is it is it living in your mind or is it doing what it's doing no no some some scenes are i mean the final the the final 20 minutes definitely does and there are a few scenes that um that are particularly spielbergian the one wet the one in the chase where you see um a reflection in the knife i I thought that was fantastic. So there are various bits and pieces. And my opinion hasn't changed in the month since I saw it. Okay. Because the interesting thing that I'm finding about it is the more I think about it, the less I think about it.

27:51Simon Mayo: I mean, I think, as I said at the time, I think Spielberg is a master director. It's like Christopher Nolan. It's like he's not going to drop the ball. You're going to get brilliant things in it. But the more I think about Disclosure Day, the less I think about Disclosure Day. and I do think it's going to go into the annals of incidental Spielberg. Incidental feels a little harsh, but... No, no, as I'm saying, the point I'm trying to make is I'm liking it less as I get further and further away from it. I'm not disliking it, I'm absolutely not disliking it, but it's really not staying in my mind.

28:28Simon Mayo: Obsession is at number five, number six in America. Child One saw it. Oh, and? Tell me. I thought it was the scariest film he's ever seen. Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I think it's terrific. I think it's a really, really terrific film. It's got a proper substance to it. It is about something. I mean, it's a creepy movie. It's a monkey's paw thing. It's a careful what you wish for, but it's a film about control and domestic abuse all wrapped up as a kind of an exciting horror movie, which is really, really scary when it needs to be scary. I just think it's great that it's done as well as it has.

29:04Simon Mayo: I think it's such a good film. Supergirl is at number four here and number four over there. Okay. Emails or resaving them? Yes, in the Overflow car park, I think. I mean, there's lots of stuff on these movies. All right. Well, let's save the Supergirl stuff for Go. I mean, as I said, I saw it. I did it and I reviewed it in last week's chart. And I think that she is really good. And I wish the film had been better because I kind of feel like, like it's, it, it, it's, it's a tough gig when the movie isn't as good as the central performance. Number three in the UK, number 10 in America is The Invite.

29:49Simon Mayo: Interesting that it's our top three and just making it into the top 10. yeah that doesn't surprise me though because when when when we were talking about it last week there was the thing about it's absolutely a kind of it's a it's a film with the sort of spirit of a european 1970s movie or the kind of movie that you could make in america in the 1970s but you can't make nowadays anyway current ben painter in sherborne um i felt fortunate to see the invite in the cinema and I'm glad it received a theatrical release rather than going straight to streaming which is something that Olivia Wilde was absolutely 100 % committed to which is why it has happened like that the screening wasn't busy yet the audience became complicit guests at the dinner party sharing in a discomfort that left us unsure where to look what to say or even whether to laugh the performances make every relationship feel authentic echoing dynamics many of us have witnessed or experienced.

30:46Simon Mayo: Much of the humour arises from unspoken irritations, the small grievances that go unaddressed until they become something more damaging. As the film builds to its satisfying denouement, it explores fear of consequence and the inevitability of personal change sharply counterpointed by a character for whom reinvention is imposed rather than chosen. Experiencing something similar myself, I found this especially affecting. For me, this distinctly adult film in the british sense suggests that while it's easy to laugh at its characters those apparent caricatures often mask complex unspoken circumstances when one facade finally drops perspective shifts from ridicule to understanding giving the film a lasting emotional generosity it is an exceptional film says ben well lasting emotional generosity i suggest that's maybe the best written email that we're going to get this week that is that is no that is beautifully written.

31:43Simon Mayo: I mean, I think it's more scabrous than that. I think it's, you know, it has got a sort of soft heart in the end, but I think for the most part of it, it is that kind of, I mean, actually, weirdly enough, I suppose it's generically connected to Rosebush Pruning in as much as it's a bourgeois satire of manners. But I do think it's fascinating that it is an adult film in the best sense of adult, not in the sense that the Americans use the word adult, meaning porn. It is a film for grownups. And I thought it was really funny. I love, I do really, I mean, you talked about this, the sound design of people talking across each other, but you can actually hear what they hear what they're saying.

32:27Simon Mayo: And that was a very much a kind of, you know, Robert Altman, Woody Allen sort of thing, which, which we were all kind of used to. And it is interesting watching that film now, how completely out of step with modern american cinema it looks and yes you know it's it's the sort of movie that you just can't make anymore and how just i mean i know this is a minor point we have discussed it before how terrible that in america the the word adult means porn you know there are things that are adults which are just grown up you know and and this is a grown-up movie you know so yes but then you have to remember that in america the the the films most films if not nc-17 which is the you know, the exceptional category are for grownup audiences are rated R, which anyone can go and see.

33:16Simon Mayo: So an R rating is anyone can see the film as long as a parent or guardian says they're okay. And you go, okay, well, that doesn't work, does it? The reason that your cinema is so infantilized is that you have an entire system built around the idea that a four-year-old should be able to go and see an adult film in the true sense of the word adult. And that's why you have an infantilized culture and an infantilized cinema number one in america and number two here is minions and monsters so let me zip through um yes please do and please please tell me nice things because because i'm i'm i'm so i feel so positively about minions and monsters i just want to hear good things matt and deb in mac that's how they signed it my wife and i took ourselves to see the new Minions movie at the Independence Cinema in Macclesfield yesterday and what fun it was good cine literate riot of a film that seemed to be made for Mark himself by Pierre Coffin the gibberish is always understandable how do they do that and Coffin is clearly the heart of the film what DreamWorks would do without him I don't know he's essential for the franchise going forward I think you mean in the future who else can do what he does looking forward to revisiting the film to understand it better man Matt and Deb Robin Hancock's picture this Yes, an excited drive to the airport for an amazing holiday.

34:35Simon Mayo: My son and I in the car listening to this week's episode in Chuckling at Mark's review of Minions. We arrive at our airport parking just before the end of the review and switch off the car. We jump out, grab our bags and head to reception. After a short while in a rather packed bus, it takes us to the terminal. Now, it may not have been the best idea that my phone was on the loudest setting. However, having found our spot on the bus, I pulled out my phone to read a message, not knowing the podcast was still running. Cue the loudest fart noise ever. Being the centre of attention on a crowded bus wasn't in the plan for the day, but hey-ho, what a start to the holiday.

35:11Simon Mayo: We chuckled all the way to the plane. Thank you for your wonderful programme and, of course, all dues to the brilliant production team. Robin Hancocks. Chris in Durham. Dear Mr. Tumble and Mr. Tumble Dryer. I'm not quite sure what to make of this email. Does Mark agree that it's both misleading and unconscionable to deliberately narrow the window of a movie to focus only on its subjects, more palatable events while stopping short of any controversial aftermath? I am, of course, referring to Minions and Monsters. Set in the early 20s and with a biological imperative to seek out and serve the world's most evil tyrants, the movie deliberately ends just before the Minions served Mussolini in 22, moving on to Stalin in 24 and inevitably Hitler from 1933.

35:55Simon Mayo: Emitting this chilling coda feels like a cynical yellow washing of history. I'm imagining that's a humorous email. Yes, I'm imagining it's a humorous email as opposed to an email that goes, to use one of my favourite phrases, straight to the heart of the periphery. Yes. Anyway, so that is Minions and Monsters at number two. I just loved it. And you loved it too, didn't you? It's not just me. You loved it, right? I did and I sat there knowing that you would love it um it's just one because as I said last week you see it and you within 10 minutes you think no no I've got to come back and see this because I might be getting I mean you probably got them all but I was getting one reference in two one reference in three and then the jokes are so fast you think no I need to come back to just enjoy everything there it's just a demonstration that the hit rate of comedy in it is just fantastic and it does make you realize that we sort of sometimes get used to just accepting that comedies aren't as funny as they need to be and then you see Minions and Monsters and you go okay look at that it's it's airplane levels of bang bang bang bang bang jokes and the slapstick in it is just sublime and the cinema stuff is yeah it was it was it was made for me and I loved your interview with Pierre Coffin and if people haven't heard that go back and listen to it on the on the podcast because it was terrific uh and the number one movie uh in the uk number two in america is toy story 5 about which you've yeah i mean i i'm not a fan but it's doing terrifically well and uh so clearly the toy story franchise still has legs and lots more correspondence uh later in the overflow car park um also stuff on supergirl and minions and monsters and so on Anyway, that's in take two available via Patreon and stand by because we have a special guest next.

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39:01Simon Mayo: So our guest this week is American theatre, film and TV director Thomas Kale, Best known for his Broadway hits in collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda in The Heights in 2008, got a nomination for a Tony. Hamilton in 2015 won a Tony Award for that. Also on Broadway, Lombardi and Magic Bird. He got an Emmy for the Fox Live broadcast of Grease Live, also for the film adaptation of Hamilton, which is on Disney+. us. He was executive producer and director for Foss Verdon and the historical drama We Were the Lucky Ones from a couple of years back. Also the co-creator and director of the hip hop improv group Freestyle Love Supreme, which also features, of course, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

39:46Simon Mayo: And now Moana, working again in collaboration with Mr. Miranda for the new live action adaptation of the film. You'll hear my chat with Thomas Cale after this clip from the film.

40:01who you are. The stories are true. The story has just begun. Beyond our reef, an evil darkness has found us.

40:17Simon Mayo: Moana, the ocean chose you. Find Maui. Restore the heart of Te Fiji and save us all.

40:34Maui, demigod of the wind and sea. Hero of men. Huh? So it goes like this. Maui, shapeshifter, demigod of the wind and sea, hero of men. Ah, women. Women too. Men and women. Thank you.

40:52Simon Mayo: That's a clip from Moana. I'm delighted to say it's directed. Thomas Kale is with us on the show. Hello, Thomas. How are you? I'm very well. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for talking to us on the show today. I love the set that we have here. I feel as though I'm almost on one of your islands. Well, we got your email, so we wanted to make sure that happened. Absolutely. Tell us how you got involved with this. I mean, in many ways, you were the obvious person to pick, but how did you get involved with this film in the first place? So in 2014-15, when I was working on Hamilton alongside Lin-Manuel, He would disappear every now and then up into his dressing room and I would I would be out in the house And I say has anyone seen Lin?

41:33And then I go up there and I'd hear him, you know, banging on the keyboard I was like Lin, that's not our show. He's like, I know I know he was writing Moana at the same time. He was writing Hamilton. That must be very annoying Well, he's he's a dear friend, but I do like it when he finishes the work The problem is he was kind of done with Hamilton at that point So I guess he was doing both homework assignments, but he would grab Hamilton cast members and have them do demos So I just, I heard it along the way. You know, we were just kind of, we're together all the time. I obviously had nothing to do with that original film other than I bought a ticket and cheered when I sat in the theater.

42:04And then, you know, all these years later when the opportunity came up, I actually didn't hear about it first from Lynn. Someone from Disney reached out to me and Lynn was excited that they were talking to me. And I guess hadn't said too many terrible things when I wasn't in the room. And then I sat down with Dwayne in March of 2023, so a little more than three years ago. And that was my first time meeting Dwayne. And it felt in those first few minutes that we were just, we were on the same frequency in terms of what we're interested in doing. You know, I'm someone who comes from the theater. And the great Peter Brook talked about how making theater is like writing messages in the melting snow.

42:36And so I've made some stuff that's lasted for a while, and I've made some stuff that went away after a weekend. But eventually, it all goes away. And there was something about this opportunity to make something that was lasting and could endure with this story with human beings that really made me sit up straight. I was very interested in that idea. And the notion that we could have this kind of transposition, again, because I work in the theater, the idea of doing a revival where text is the same or similar, but the interpretation of it is what allows it to be new and fresh. It's how I grew up.

43:11I mean, I grew up both watching them and I've made a few of those in my career. And it just, I don't know, it felt like a new mountain to climb. I'm someone, if I dig a big hole and everyone says, good, go dig another hole. I was like, no, I think I'm going to go swim. Then I go swim and I go diving and I go, great, it seems like you're pretty good at diving. Do you want to dive again? I was like, I think I'm actually going to go see if I can break that rock. I don't really, I don't want to do the same thing twice. I want to, I tell a lot of the same stories in different, you know, in different places.

43:38I think I'm chasing the same thing. And this story had a lot of that too. Who are you? What if the that you think you are is different or dissonant from what's inside of you? What do you leave behind? And what happens within a family and a community if it starts to change and you don't know where you fit in? I mean, those things are sort of rife throughout the stuff that I've made.

43:57Simon Mayo: So when you'd had the conversation with Dwayne Johnson, do you call Lynn then? Or do you call, or at what stage do you say, hey, they're asking me? Well, I mean, I don't know that it's every day, but Lynn and I talk probably about 500 to 700 times a year. So some days it's three times, some days it's none, but Lynn and I are in constant conversation. So Lynn was like tracking my movements on the way to the meeting. I mean, so he was very aware of what was going on. And, and so I, I talked to him within 30 minutes after the meeting. So you can find, follow your iPhone. He's got one of those tracking things.

44:32You know, it's actually, I think it's in my ankle now, you know, he must have put it there at some point during the Heights. But yeah, I just talked to him. And then I also said, And however this works out, I really am someone, I really just enjoy the conversation about the possibility of making something. And sometimes the world says, yes, you can do it. And sometimes someone else makes it. But I just, it was really nice to get to meet a fellow traveler. I mean, one of the beauties of this business is that you can bump into people you've never met. I don't know that in lots of bingo cards you'd have Dwayne Johnson and Tommy Kail necessarily.

45:04But when we started talking, I thought, oh, he's just been in that part of the forest and I've been in this one. but we've been after a lot of the same things and this movie felt like a chance to converge can I ask you about the casting of Moana of course um because obviously that's so crucial

45:17Simon Mayo: and I was thinking about how to ask this and then I came up in the lift this morning with Moana did you really yes and so that's a kind of take your breath away moment so just explain how long it took you to find her in an engaging process I'm sure but tell us how you found her can you even believe that she exists. I mean, I, you know, she's 19 years old now. I met her when she was 16. She submitted a tape. There were 32 ,000 people that put their hands up to try to play. How many? 32 ,000. Okay. And I saw a tape that had come through our casting director on this. I've worked with for years and years, Bernie Telsey and Tiffany.

45:55And, and I also, they've known me long enough to know, I mean, all the way back to in the Heights. And I mean, I've done probably, I don't know, a lot of things, 10 things with them. I don't want to know any, I don't want any spin on the ball. If you're putting folks in front of me, that means that you obviously think there's something there, but don't tell me who you're favorite. Like, that's not interesting to me. And I don't want to have anything when I watch. So, you know, I sat down on my computer and I pressed play and she was seeing how far I'll go. And the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

46:20And I thought, oh, I've had this feeling before. I've had this feeling when I met Debbie Diggs or Pippa Sue or Leslie Odom. That's a useful tool to have. Yeah. Well, you know, that's a biological reaction. It is a biological reaction. And I think that there's something about getting older where you're able to quiet out the static and really listen to what the transmission is. And one of my favorite things is when you get to see something before the world has seen it. And I've had the great honor of having this happen to me with some folks where I've been in a little rehearsal room. And I had a feeling that when you put that in front of a group of people, something was going to happen.

47:02And when I first saw Catherine sing, and I saw her storytelling, and I saw the light in her eyes, and I saw the way that she approached it. This was, again, a tape. This was before I'd said anything to her. I saw what her instincts and her impulses were. I just thought, can we set—she was in Sydney and I was in New York. I said, I'd like to Zoom with her because I want to now see in between those elements. And then we started talking. And I thought, oh, she's going to look at Dwayne and go, I got you. That's fine. I just thought there was no blinking. She was both bold and also empathetic. And her sense of humor was kind of sly.

47:34She's the seventh of eight kids. So you can't really put one past on her. And she was unafraid. And then she came to New York about four or five months later. And she walked in the room. And everything we hoped to be true was confirmed. and I think when you're about to make something of any size and scale, you want to really be breathing the same air and so obviously that was the next logical step and I mean, I knew it early and then it was just affirmed all along the process.

47:59Simon Mayo: It was Catherine Lagaya, is that how you say it? Yeah, Lagaya. So, but she has to do, she has to be a particular, not only does she have to be the woman that we've seen in the original show, but she has to fill the screen and she has to be fearless but there's still the Disney princess thing which she has to be as well. And she has to sound amazing when she's singing. That's a lot of qualities that she has to hear. Well, yeah, I mean, she's, and as this particular, she's the daughter of the chief. And so what you know is there's gonna, there's something that has to come along with that. So she has to technically, she has to act, she has to sing, she has to dance, she has to swim.

48:36She has to be underwater doing things. She has to be interacting with animals, both there and not there. She has to be opposite Dwayne Johnson. She has to be opposite, you know, the rest of this company. She has to be in front of 200, you know, people in 100 degree weather in the village that we set, you know, set up. It's almost an impossible thing that anybody could do that. And in fact, I said to Catherine many times, I said, you were in high school six months ago. The distance from high school to this is a steeper climb than you will ever have to make in this business. Because anything you do after that, you've had the high altitude training of making this film.

49:13which asks all of you. And again, and we said this not glibly, you can say you're doing Moana, but until you cast Moana, you're not doing Moana. You have no chance. And then we met her and we had a chance. She gave us a chance to do that. And she's in basically every inch of this movie too. I mean, this is not someone who comes in for 20 days of shooting. This is someone who's there day in and day out. And I watched her much like the character because we started shooting chronologically in the village. So we did all that early stuff first. And we weren't always chronological, but we did start there.

49:45So everything when she's finding herself, am I, could I, singing How Far I'll Go, that was the first 12, 15 days of shooting. And I think that you feel some of her evolution throughout the course.

49:57Simon Mayo: So we came out of the lift, and I followed her and her entourage down the corridor to where you're filming. And as soon as she saw the poster, she said, oh, I'm home. Don't make me cry in front of people. Okay. You know, interestingly, that's okay. You know, we just came from Sydney, which is her hometown. And I said it was both a homecoming and a coming out. Like watching that country put their arms around her was quite profound for me. And as we were flying together to London, I said, have you been here before? She said, yeah, I went once in high school right before I started this three years ago.

50:37I mean, the fact that the last time she stepped on this soil, that's who she was. And now she comes back and says, I am home in that regard, is moving. And she's really special.

50:48Simon Mayo: Was there a moment in the filming and the creation of this movie when you thought, okay, it's now its own thing? Of course, there was the original text, but where it sort of became its own movie. You know, yes. And I think it was initially for us. because when you're standing in the village and you're standing around ten Fale and 200 Polynesian actors and it's really a hundred degrees or 40 degrees I think I thought yeah yeah it's you you realize you're doing something that has never existed even if the text is the same even though this this original film it which we love just as much as everybody else is our guide in our blueprint seeing those bodies move choreographically there's a moment in where you are, where Moana sings for the first time, so here I'll stay.

51:35And seeing the work that Tiana and the choreographer had sort of laid onto this company, you felt something. And seeing Catherine at the tip of this triangle, out in front, this stepping into that moment and her seamlessness and her confidence there was really something to behold. So that was a moment, that was day three of shooting. Yeah. Do you think there's an extent to which Disney live action films get judged before anyone has seen them? Well, I don't. I mean, I don't judge them. I will say there's certainly people, because of their affection for the original, that want to make sure that something was honored.

52:14And so I understand that. And we we approach this again, not afraid of what we were doing, but trusting what we were doing. And, you know, the reality is this, you know, this film existing in this way, the way it celebrates and memorializes culture, to be back with Lynn's music and to be with this score and these characters, you know, to quote Catherine, it feels like going home. Both for me and I think for so many of us. I think that's what this movie means. That's why it stayed with people. That's why these songs have been in people's heads for 10, 11 years now. Because it, you know, song gets inside of you and it transports you.

52:51It takes you back. It's like that moment in Ratatouille when the critic eats the food, right? Like, that moved me deeply when I saw that the first time. That's a great sequence. Because that's it, right? Like, it's grandma. He tasted that and he was back with his grandma. Whatever life had meant up until that point, and you get away from that, and it connects you. And I think music does the same thing.

53:10Simon Mayo: There is a moment at the end of most films, actually, now, where there's a line in the credits that says, no part of this film may be used by AI to train AI and so on. Is your approach to AI as a creator and a producer and a director and a musician as well, is it a useful tool or is it a creative threat? I mean, I see these, you know, these conversations as they evolve. And I would like to continue to illuminate and be educated on this. I heard that Steven Spielberg is going on like a summer long learning about AI so he can answer the question. I heard him say that. So, which I was like, oh, yeah, like there is an opportunity to deep dive coming out of the other side of this.

53:53I think the idea of using something as a tool to support human invention and human creation is interesting to me. I will say like when we made our final crawl, you know, the credits, I asked our post supervisor, I said, how many people are credited in this film? And she said it's 2 ,944. 2 ,944 human beings made this movie. Wow. those shots that you see of Takah were made by an artist. They were made by somebody. They were created. That one shot, you know, they might have worked on that one shot for months and months and months, hundreds of iterations, you know, and that's not an exaggeration.

54:30And so when I think about that, you know, as a responsibility that I was able to work on something that provided work and sustenance for families, for 2 ,944 people over this process of the three years of making it, films are made by, you know, by real people and real people doing jobs from catering and laundry to creating the effect shots, you know, to driving trucks. Like these are, you know, these are people working and those skills are ones that I want to celebrate that, you know, that we can come together and make something. But Dwayne Johnson's wig is real and not special effects. That is a real wig.

55:08And I asked if I could wear it today, but he said no. Thomas Kale, a privilege to speak to you. Thank you very much indeed for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you for your questions. It was fun.

55:17Simon Mayo: Thomas Kale talking about Moana. I hadn't met him before, but we had a good time. And it was a fantastic start to, because you're in the hotel for about half an hour, 40 minutes, to just go in the lift and then this entourage appear with Moana in the middle of it was, I thought, okay, this is a good way to start the day, I think. I should also say that we didn't hear it then, but at the very beginning of the interview, he says, Tommy. And you say, I'm not Thomas. He said, no, Tommy. He says, but if you put it on the post and then it's Thomas. But he was, he was very much Tommy, wasn't he? well in when i was doing the doing the prep for it it felt as though it was both but it's a bit so when i did the christopher nolan interview i call him sir christopher at the beginning and then afterwards you become more casual a bit like your majesty and then whatever it is you have to move into you know so it was it just it's on all the blurb it talked about thomas kale yes Yes, because that is his name.

56:16Simon Mayo: That is his name, yeah. So if he wants to be Tommy, then that's fine. But I went with the given name as I had it on the sheet of paper. So let me leap in here because I kind of feel that I was very pointedly, backhandedly cited in that interview. I don't think so. Nope. Okay. So this is live action remake of the 2016 animated adventure Moana. Last year, or whenever it was, yeah, it was last year. We had a live action version of How to Train Your Dragon, in which the beefiest character who was voiced in the animated version by Gerard Butler was played in the live version by Gerard Butler. And we said, isn't it funny that Gerard Butler in real life actually looks like Stoic the Vast?

57:03Simon Mayo: So now we have a live action version of Moana in which the beefiest character, who's voiced in the animation by Dwayne the Rock Johnson, is played in the live version by Dwayne the Rock Johnson, who also produces and is very much the sort of driving force. And we're all going, isn't it amazing how much Dwayne Johnson actually looks like the animated character? You've also got Jermaine Clement back as the giant, you know, villainous treasure hoarding crab. Now, factual stuff first. This is the latest in Disney's ongoing mission to extend the sell-by date of their back catalogue by, I have to say, largely, pointlessly remaking all their animations with, in inverted commas, real people, albeit real people, in inverted commas, augmented by enough CG and special effects that, you know, what actually is live and what is animation is becoming increasingly blurred.

57:59Simon Mayo: I was having a conversation with a critic friend of mine on the way out, because we were talking about the animation of the sea. One of the things I talked about when I was talking about the film the first time around was the way in which the sea was done was fantastically. And of course, actually when the sea opens and all that stuff, there's a huge amount of animation in it. There's a huge amount of animation with the monsters. So the breakdown between live action and animation, I mean, if you see Avatar, you're effectively watching an animated film that happens to have real people in it. Anyway, anyway.

58:29Simon Mayo: So this is directed by TV and theatre graduate, Thomas Tommy to his friends, Cale. And you asked him in that interview, very pointedly, do you think that these live action remakes get prejudged by critics? And he, in his reply also, which is a very generous reply, but also quite pointedly cited Anton Ego from Ratatouille, who is the critic in Ratatouille who does the thing with, I mean, I know he cited him in the context of the bit when he has the thing which takes him back into his past. Okay. But so you were both doing that. So I think it is hard, nay, impossible to improve on the original animated Moana, which I remember when it came, I raved about it.

59:17Simon Mayo: I mean, I thought the whole thing, you know, this Polynesian teenager's quest to save her homeland, it's got eye-watering visuals, it's got earworm songs, it's got this heart swelling message about respecting the past and hoping for the future. And it's got all those mad scenes in it. The scene with the Kakamora pirates, you know, the ships look like something out of Mad Max. And then the whole thing with the, with the fire, fiery lava thing, which I mean, I remember because the BBFC certificate was PG for mild threat. You're going, that's mild threat. It was absolutely terrifying. So, you know, all of that is back here and is as animated as it was before.

59:59Simon Mayo: But I went back to my written review of Moana, my Observer review of it, and I finished that review with the following. I'm going to quote myself, but there's a point to it because it's kind of self-reflexive. I said, this film is an animated fantasy, but as 2016 comes to a close, one could be forgiven for wishing it was real. Now, you know that expression, be careful what you wish for. So what I actually meant was the way things were in 2016, you wish the story of this thing was real, but I wished for a real version of it. And, you know, like becoming a real boy, it is now in inverted commas real.

1:00:40Simon Mayo: And I will say this, of all the pointless Disney live action remakes, and bearing in mind what I've said about live action and animation are very close together anyway, this is the best. And I was trying to figure out why as I was watching it, because I really enjoyed myself watching it, okay? And I thought, it's a number of things. Firstly, the story and the songs are indestructible in just the same way that the songs of Abba are indestructible in Mamma Mia. There is something that is so hardwired into the very essence of the Moana story that it would be hard to mess it up. And this doesn't, and it doesn't even come close to messing it up.

1:01:23Simon Mayo: in response when you said to um to thomas tommy to his friends um you were asking him about this thing about you know how do you how do you tell a story again that's been so successful and he said well you know when it comes to theater you're always basically doing another version of a story that's what it is and he said i tell a lot of the same stories in different places which i thought was a very sort of smart phrase and then he went on to say that the point is it's to do with the key themes being universal. Who are you? What if the thing you think you are is different or dissonant? What happens when you're in a family and you don't fit in?

1:01:59Simon Mayo: And those are fairly indestructible, timeless themes. So put broadly, this does no harm to the original. And more importantly, it is often almost as enjoyable as the original, almost. it does help that Dwayne Johnson in the flesh is, I mean, for a start, I love Dwayne Johnson. I mean, I just think he can do no wrong. He's fantastic. And you see him in the flesh and you go, that's it. You are like a cartoon character, but real because he's so, you know, everything, he's an incredible physical performer. He's a really physical performer, but that really helps. It also helps that Catherine Loggia, who's, oh, I hadn't realized she's, so she's the daughter of Jay, who's actually a fairly well-known actor, has been to Star Wars and things.

1:02:55Simon Mayo: He's fantastic. And what did he say? 32 ,000 applications. Yeah. And you go. I mean, astonishing. And I found his, when he said he had that biological reaction to someone appearing on the screen, he's fantastic. Well, no wonder. because she's great. I mean, she is really good. And I don't know how, I mean, I, you know, I did these figures. I don't know what you would do with 32 ,000 applicants. I mean, I presume sort of most of them don't even get past the application stage, but they found the right person. So they already had the right person in, in the, in the form of Dwayne Johnson, who, as I said, he's kind of the driving force anyway.

1:03:31Simon Mayo: And then she's terrific. She's got a great presence. She's got great voice. She's really good. And he had this biological reaction. And against my better judgment and the prejudging, which you sort of cited in the interview, I laughed and I cried and I thought, okay, it's working. Now, does it top the original? No. Does it undercut it? No. I'm doing the thing which you hate. I'm asking myself questions. You're interviewing yourself. I'm interviewing myself like everyone. Do we need it? Absolutely not. Did I enjoy it? Yes. And will other people enjoy it? Yes, they will. And honestly, right now, that I think matters more than anything.

1:04:22Simon Mayo: So against all my inherent grumpiness and my fundamental belief that you don't need to remake these animations in live action i thought it was pretty good well i'm glad you i'm glad you liked it um and it it occurred to me that i was the perfect person to go and do this interview because i have never seen the original no not never seen the original because it's like when your kids it depends how old your kids are you you either watch it like a thousand times as the redactor has because kids are of that age um but if they if i had no reason to see if there wasn't an interview to go with it then i would have missed it so i missed the original moana so this is my first time seeing it on the big screen wow and i just picking up on the point that he made towards the end that obviously the ai conversation is going to be a part it's going to be with us forever and every movie now has that line and every audiobook has that line but that's an incredible number of people 2 944 people are credited on this film and earned hopefully a decent wage working on this movie which obviously has got some computers and everything uh involved in it and as he said he needs to learn a lot more and if spielberg needs to go away and learn a lot more then obviously we all do but that's a lot of people it is real people making a real film and also the film will be seen by a lot of people buying real real tickets to go to real cinemas.

1:05:53Simon Mayo: So as you have always said, regardless of what any critic thinks of anything, anything that gets people into cinemas is a good thing. So yeah, thumbs up, reluctantly. Correspondence at co-demand.com. And now with a great sense of liberation, we step into our gaudy laughter lift. Here we go.

1:06:18Simon Mayo: What a great piece of music this is, by the way. It is. Mark, did I tell you about our exciting new neighbour here in Showbiz North London? No. He's made an absolute fortune in supplying technology like iceboxes, chiller cabinets and the like to homes and restaurants. OK. He's a fridge magnet.

1:06:40Oh, and I should tell you, Mark,

1:06:44Simon Mayo: things aren't going quite so well at home again. OK. I suppose you're not going to be surprised to hear, but the good lady ceramicist there indoors says that I don't respect her privacy. At least that's what it says in her diary anyway. She got really angry and she said, and another thing, please, will you stop your incessant Monty Python references? Please don't tell me again that my mother was a hamster and my father smelt of elderberries. Don't do that ever again. Seems reasonable enough. Will this be a five minute argument or the full half hour I said Hey And I was out of the house What's still to come Mark as far as you're aware Evil Dead Burn Next

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1:08:36Simon Mayo: an email from john in london dear clownfish and blue tang after hearing your discussion about older french films often ending with the simple fin and not le fin which we haven't had explained just yet i couldn't help but think of a rather jarring end card used in the swedish version of finding dory following the film's emotional climax the camera pulls back from marlin and dory to reveal the vast empty ocean thomas newman's beautiful score perfectly captures the journey of love family and companionship that we've just experienced then one word fades into view it's the swedish equivalent of the end and the word is in english slut pronounced in swedish sloot there it is there is the end card wow uh and wow so it's pronounced sloot and on trains before you get to the look this up before you get to the final stop it often says slut station sloot station so that's where you're gonna end up anyway so thank you very much yes that would be slightly um off-putting and judgmental john thank you correspondents of covenaway.com what else is out you've mentioned evil dead burn i think yeah evil dead burn latest evil dead uh outing uh directed and co-written by sebastian vanacek produced by bob tapper and uh and sam ramey so this follows uh if freddy alvarez's evil dead and lee cronin's evil dead rise so it's it's either the sixth film in the series or the third film in the reboot chapters depending on what you're sort accounting is zero.

1:10:13Simon Mayo: So the taglines, every family has its demons and also family is the root of all evil. Good taglines. Yes. Very good. Shame about the rest of it. So the official setup for evil dead burn is following the death of a mother's son, a family comes together in a secluded house. The gathering becomes a family reunion from hell as members gradually turn into deadites. Here is a clip from the trailer.

1:10:41Simon Mayo: William, my sweet boy. I won't give anything for us to be together again.

1:10:53Our grandfather believed the devil would return if anyone read from the Book of the Dead.

1:11:10the whole family can be reunited

1:11:17Simon Mayo: wow you get the general idea yes so so just to get you know it gets up to speed so because i have a great love of and affection for evil dead so the very first evil dead movie was cut by the bbfc was then released on video it was hauled through the court on obscenity charges the bbfc the first reports when they first saw it one of the examiners felt that they had been physically assaulted by the film and was just appalled by it firman james firman who was then head of the bbfc understood that it was a comedy and actually i think was probably would probably have been all right with passing it uncut but it got impounded under the opa before the introduction of the the Video Accordings Act.

1:11:55Simon Mayo: And it got some section two things. It famously went to court in Snaresbrook where they won a case against it, arguing that it actually wasn't obscene, but because it was impounded with a bunch of other things, it got tied up with the OPA, which is kind of ridiculous because it is a comedy. I mean, it was always described by Sam Raimi as the three stooges with blood and guts for custard pies. So then Evil Dead 2 upped the budget and clarified the comedy. I mean, basically it revisited the original set pieces in slightly more spectacular fashion, but clarified much more than it was a comedy. Army of Darkness, which is Evil Dead 3, dropped the ball completely.

1:12:32Simon Mayo: Series should have ended there, which it sort of did for a while. And then Returns from the Grave, Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead, which sort of stripped away the comedy and played things with a kind of fairly straight post-torture porn bat. And I went back to my review to remind myself what I thought. I said it was nasty, but oddly and fatally not frightening. An endurance test that somehow lacks the joie de vivre that perversely underwrote the original. Then you had Evil Dead Rise, which, you know, spamming a cabin of the original becomes, you know, dismemberment in a tenement, which is kind of fun in a cheese gratery sort of way.

1:13:10Simon Mayo: But again, not scary. And let's never forget that the thing with the first Evil Dead was it was funny, but it was really scary. And maybe you had to be there at the time, but it was really genuinely scary as well as funny. As for this, despite a sort of half-hearted attempt to wrap a spousal violence, family dysfunction subtext onto what's essentially a series of wincy set pieces, it's noisy, loud, and I really regret having to say this. I thought it was depressing. I went in at the end of a long day wanting to be delighted. You know, new Evil Dead movie. Great. It's quite a small cinema. I'm going to be quite close to the screen.

1:13:54Simon Mayo: You'll get Evil Dead stuff. And I came out feeling genuinely dispirited. In fact, um, one of the distributors, God bless them, who I had only ever communicated with on email, came up and introduced themselves to me and said, hi, I'm sorry. And I said, oh, that's nice. Did you enjoy the film? No. Oh. And it was, it was as if my longstanding love of horror had been taken away from me and had the sort of life snuffed out of it. I mean, the thing is, it ups the nastiness, but it lacks any of the slapstick fun that's always been the sort of strongest card of the series. There's way too much plot. There's way too many characters.

1:14:34Simon Mayo: There's way too little air of celebration. The main problem is the palette of the film is ugly. It is ugly and grimy. And it's closer to that. I mean, I know you're not a horror fan, so you won't have seen a lot of these films, but there was a point when the torture porn thing was happening, which was a phrase that one should only ever use in inverted commas, like video nasty, in which suddenly every single movie you were watching was a kind of green, gray, brown sludge looked like kind of rusting feces. It just, there was just something unpleasant. I can't imagine why I didn't like it. Exactly.

1:15:06Simon Mayo: But, but the thing is that wasn't true of the original, which was like bold and colorful and particularly evil dead too. Now, Now, occasionally you do get shots that specifically quote the signature shot from Evil Dead, in which, because they didn't have a Steadicam, they got a camera and put it on the middle of a plank of wood, and they ran through the woods doing that with a plank of wood. So you get these incredible shots of rushing along. It's like very, very shonky Steadicam. And those shots were the things that sort of defined the Evil Dead. Now, you do get those shots here, and you also get a kind of physical visceral visceral kind of oomph to it all but the weird thing is that all that served to do was remind me how much more fun it was when I saw these shots done probably worse because they were done you know sort of done much more on the fly and yet with a sense of joy and it's it's this I mean the violence that the on-screen violence is wincy I mean it's you know it's fish hooks in the face and it's razors and things being stuck in your ear.

1:16:12Simon Mayo: And there is an unhealthy and unpleasant amount of licking drool and dribble and faces being pushed into. I mean, as I'm saying, it sounds, it sounds more fun than it is. Not to you. I understand. No, no, no, no. But, but, but understand that there is a certain, I mean, I can hear me here saying this and going, Oh, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well watch that faces pushed into squishy other faces, but it's just generally a bit ucky on the plus side it's you know some of the some of the direction has a kind of anarchic physicality and you know a sense of bodies being smashed this way and that and you know that of gravity go you know a bit a bit inception-y and spider walk-y but none of that made me feel any sense of joy and i think the thing is that outside of a few set pieces.

1:17:04Simon Mayo: I mean, there is one thing with an old woman and a Stanna stairlift, which is quite funny. I mean, that is a gag. It is a gag set piece, but for most of it, it doesn't have any of the nimble wit of the evil dead. It just has this sort of sense of lumbering nastiness. And I found myself, I mean, it's funny because the poster evokes drag me to hell or, you know, send help. I mean, both of which had a real sense of fun to them. This just wants to be headbanging. And I found myself getting bored and I found myself getting increasingly annoyed that it wasn't entertaining me. And I was, you know, you just kept thinking in the original, there's that brilliant scene in which a character literally with white eyes goes, we're going to get you.

1:17:50Simon Mayo: And it's really terrifying. And in this, everyone's just yelling and screaming. And it's, you know, the original was terrifying and hilarious. And this is neither. Correspondence at codeofmail.com if you see that or any of the other films that we're talking about thank you very much for the what's-ons that you're sending in some of these are audio some of them have visual let's get to it and here's Frankie going first. Hi Frankie from the Neighbors of Hercule podcast here we're hosting a double bill screening of the best Peter Ustinov Poirot films Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun at Picture House Central on Sunday the 12th of July.

1:18:29There will also be a live podcast recording with special guests. Tickets are on the Picturehouse website. We'd love to see you there.

1:18:35Simon Mayo: Thank you, Frankie. Nicely recorded. Very good. Secondly, here's Catherine. Hello, Simon and Mark. It's Catherine here from Dr Jazz and the Cheshire Cats Big Band. On Saturday the 11th of July, we're presenting a big band movie music concert at the beautiful Art Deco Stockport Plaza Cinema, with music ranging from the golden age of Rogers and Astaire right up to Whiplash. It will be loads of fun and will be finished before the football starts. Tickets are available from the Stockport Plaza now. Yeah, it's a very good point to anyone because England play their next game on Saturday evening. Anyone who's got something planned or a big show or something, they're all having to make slight adjustments.

1:19:15Simon Mayo: Catherine, thank you very much indeed and thanks to Swell Village. More details on our show notes. That's it for this week. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh and Heather. the producer was dom and the redactor was simon paul in take two we're directing you to the overflow car park for more chat about current film releases and if you've enjoyed what you've heard so far plenty more waiting for you over in take two where we head to the overflow car park for extra reviews i think i've said this already and the five question film club plus questions shmestions in which this week we're asked what films do i love that mark hates and why do the lights remain off for the entire credits sometimes but not always you can get take two ad free along with the full back catalogue and the chance to vote on future episodes by signing up to our patreon you just search kermit of mayo patreon and join the church mark what is your film of the week what do you think it is

1:20:09i think it's going to be moana it is moana boom and don't forget people of bristol uh we will be

1:20:16Simon Mayo: at the bristol beacon on december the 6th if you can bear to think about christmas tickets are on sale via the link in the show notes and we'll be back next week with uh so i'm not here next week but ben bailey smith will be doing a far better job although the interview that i've done with christopher nolan that will be going out next week and mark's review of the odyssey mark has seen the odyssey i have seen the odyssey so i won't be here to pronounce and i probably signed a thing that means i can't say anything about it until it comes out i have i have two words to say about the Odyssey that I think don't break the embargo.

1:20:51Simon Mayo: Okay. Samantha Morton. Can I say peak cinema? Would that break the embargo? I think they'll let you do it. Okay. Well, that's my review in two words. So that's next week, Mark's review of the Odyssey, Chris Nolan interview, and Ben is going to be here. I will bestow a year's ultra membership to our correspondent of the week, which I will say, let's say Sarah in Bristol, who will be coming to the show in December and who missed out last time because she'd fallen over and slipped two discs. So she's had enough pain. So we'll give her a little bit of fun by giving her a year's ultra membership. Such joy that we can pass out.

1:21:35Simon Mayo: Thank you very much indeed for listening. Take two has landed alongside this one.

1:21:47Simon Mayo: Sweetgreen. Maple glazed, roasted, and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweetgreen's fall harvest is back on the menu, and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweetgreen app.