Does WILD HORSE NINE beat BANSHEES? With MARTIN MCDONAGH

0:00Simon, we need to talk about Christmas. No, we don't. Please. Well, the Kermode and Mayo online store does. Black Friday's nearly here. Christmas is coming. We need to know what we've got in stock.

0:09Simon Mayo: I know what we've got in stock. Do you? Yes, things with our names on. Although in fairness, it may surprise you that I'm not actually in charge of it. That's a relief. The people who are in charge use Shopify, which is probably why the whole thing works. And the Shopify mobile app means the top production team can manage things like inventory, customer support and payments wherever they are. Shopify makes it easy to launch a store and start selling without needing to be an e-commerce expert. And if you're thinking of starting a business, now's a pretty good time to get it up and running before Black Friday when more people are already shopping and ready to buy.

0:44If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to shopify.co.uk slash take to start your free trial.

0:50Simon Mayo: Go to shopify.co.uk slash take today to hear your first... Shelly Jensen was about to retire early after selling her veterinary practice for millions. But a moment of vulnerability became a way to take away her rights. Don't you see how destroyed I am as a person? Her husband fought to save her before Shelly lost her freedom forever. This is a life or death matter. My wife's life is at stake. From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is free Shelly Jensen. available now on The Benj.

1:54Simon Mayo: wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a Vanguardista, we salute you.

2:13Simon Mayo: I'll be with you in a minute, Mark. Okay. Just want to go through that and then check that. I'm just joy scrolling. it's a new it's a new thing and then if you've it's never it's never it's never happened before yeah i just want to just do uh check that out the sun has risen on a brand new day anyway you're very welcome to our latest podcast brought to you with joy in in our hearts a skip in our step and our hats at a jaunty angle and vivek ramaswamy on a train to nowhere and this is very good because i was in copenhagen at the weekend and um i went you know we did some halloween and some they're crazy about halloween crazy about trick-or-treating it's like it's in a hollywood movie but anyway um that and but i i came back very very sad because uh not just leaving family behind but also the app that you need to use for the metro yes um it's very it's a very good high tech system and you basically swipe yourself in and swipe yourself out it could not be easier but on the i think it's called reichs core or something like that which makes it sound like a fascist secret police uh company but anyway i probably mispronounced it but anyway it's something like that um and then on the then when you open it to go to go and swipe and check in it just says who you are and what they have about you and mine just says in the top left hand corner, Simon, and underneath it, pensioner.

3:54Simon Mayo: And that's it. That's it. That's all I amount to. That's the whole thing. It couldn't put anything else in there. Wow. Just discriminatory language, which I'm going to, I feel very strongly about the Reichs Court now that they've, although it's a very good app and it makes you traveling ridiculously easy, I find it offensive. Simon, pensioner. Yeah. Wow. And I'm afraid that's how I'm going to be. This is going to be all emails to next week's show. We'll reflect that in some way. I was in Belfast. Apart from that, things are good. I was in Belfast over the weekend, and I was doing the Cinemagic thing.

4:34So I was introducing the Devils first, and then I was on Friday. And then on Saturday, I did Cinemagic, and I introduced Jason and the Argonauts. But I did this on stage with Brian Henry Martin. and in the middle of course they they pulled up the little video from you insulting skiffle oh

4:49Simon Mayo: yes well you did a very nice hi everybody here's simon for my evening and um and so they asked me if i could contribute to yours so i think it was a very warm-hearted thing but i have a question the one that we yeah your question was why does all skiffles sound the same yes it's not really a question is it simon that's more it's got a question mark at the end yeah has it right okay that's more like those things when you're sort of in you know political meetings in the 1980s someone will go uh point of order point of order which wasn't a point of order just so they could say something rude under the guise of it being so yeah my question to you why does all skiffle music sound the same and then what did you say i said it doesn't all sound the same you just need ears to hear the differences.

5:33Fairly.

5:34Simon Mayo: Very good. Yeah. Anyway, so I've done with traveling for a while. So let's just stick in the UK and bring all our top listeners another fantastic edition of the take because it's a joy filled show. It's a joy filled show. As far as I'm concerned, everything is five stars this week. Everything is five stars. Well, okay. Well, let's see how we go. What are the movies that you're okay. They're all joint movies of the week. Yeah. Okay. So in take one, it's absolutely packed. I play Rocky five stars. Um, Godzilla, of Minus Zero, five stars. Yes. La Bola Negra, five stars. And Wild Horse Nine, five stars with our special guest.

6:09Simon Mayo: Five star writer-director Martin McDonagh. And I think there's some of them in take one, and we put some of them in take two as well. That's how substantial it is. What are you doing in take two, by the way? In take two, we're reviewing Ramayama, Rise of a Legend, which is brilliant because this is a Hindi language movie which has been properly press screened so many times. something comes up and I go, well, it wasn't shown. This has been properly pressed screen. So we have a full review of all three and a quarter hours of it. You can get Take Two ad-free along with all the other exclusive stuff by heading to our Patreon page.

6:44Simon Mayo: You just search Kermit O'Meo Patreon and you'll find us there, all desperate and keen but joyful. Before we get going, Saturday afternoon wrestling came up on last week's programme and it continues on this week's programme. an email from Ian Bushby. Okay. Dear Rollerball Rocco and Dynamite Kid, further to recent correspondence regarding Brian Glover's pro wrestling career as Leon Aris, the man from Paris. Yes, that's right. I would like to add a story that my dad, who was also called Brian, and also from Barnsley, was very fond of telling. Perhaps due to the fact that the original Leon Aris was actually French.

7:25Simon Mayo: He was billed as speaking no word of English. This is Brian Glover, clearly did. I have no idea why this was the case but perhaps late in 1960s Yorkshire it was seen as being in some way exotic anyway when the original Mr. Aris failed to show and Brian stepped into his shoes he was still billed as speaking no word of English this worked out fine until his match began and Brian slash Leon snatched his opponent in a headlock and then proceeded to bellow in his best broad Barnsley accent so this is me how's the like that then presumably shattering the illusion of mr harris's lack of anglais for all eternity hang on he was speaking english in the unlikely event that this get reds that this gets read out and the good dr m is unable or unwilling to produce an example of broad barnsley well it wasn't but it was me just being you know roughly aiming at that in that direction you were You were vaguely in the right postal district.

8:28Simon Mayo: It wasn't Southern. No, exactly. I would like to direct any interested listeners to the Les Kellett versus Leon Aris match on YouTube for a marvellous example of both said accent and how entertaining Brian Glover was as a wrestler. Keep up the good work. Also, Paul Dykes says, the recent memoirs of Saturday wrestling on ITV and Brian Glover's wrestling career prompted me to write in. If you ever happen to visit Brompton Cemetery in showbiz West London, you can find Brian Glover's grave on which he's described with wonderful economy. I don't know if you can, I will read this out as well. Okay. That is Brian Glover's grave.

9:10So it says underneath, it says wrestler, actor, writer in that order. That's it.

9:18Simon Mayo: Brian Glover, 1934 to 1997, wrestler, actor, writer. Wonderful economy, as you say, Paul. And one for Mark. If you go further into the cemetery, you can also find the grave of another supporting player in horror films, Ernest Thessiger, most famously Dr. Pretorius in The Bride of Frankenstein. Wow. There you go. Wow. The cruise, the next Wittertainment cruise, should probably visit Brompton Cemetery, don't you think? That'd be fantastic. How do we cruise to the cemetery? We can do anything that we wish, basically. Can we? Okay. Then Paul says, tinkety-tongue, down with the Nazis and beware the moon, lads.

10:01Simon Mayo: Which I have to say. That's Brian Glover in American Werewolf in London. Oh, right. That's true. Because they go into the slaughtered lamb. And they are. And everyone stops talking. Everyone stops talking and he misses his dart. And Rick Mayle is in that room. Rick Mayle is one of the people in the pub. Yeah, absolutely. And the guy who walks into the pub is the father of Mary Woodvine, star of Mark Jenkins movies. So many tangled webs to have a look at. Exactly. And explore one more time. Correspondenceofcoveredmail.com, thank you for getting in touch. And Mark, thank you very much for this. By the way, can I just say before, this is throwing ahead, I think it's normally referred to.

10:49Simon Mayo: There is a laughter lift contribution later on, which at quarter to seven this morning had me laughing out loud in the kitchen. I was genuinely. Was it from Child 3? No, no, no. I believe it was from the redactor. I mean, he nicked it from somewhere, presumably, but it wasn't from Child 3. But it's, I think, I hadn't heard it before, but it was. Okay. It's very funny. So it's a first anyway, and it's coming up. Anyway, what's out there? What's worth looking at? Okay. So La Bola Negra, Black Ball, which is the Spanish entry for international feature film at the Academy Awards, third highest grossing Spanish production in the country, takes its title and inspiration from unfinished work of the same name by Federico Garcia Lorca and by a play entitled Piedra Oscura, the Dark Stone by Alberto Canagera.

11:42And now, incidentally, I'm going to apologize in advance for all my pronunciations, because everyone knows that my pronunciations are famously terrible.

11:49Simon Mayo: I could do it in a Brian Glover Barnsley if you want to. Yeah, let's not do that, okay? Okay. So the screenplay is co-written by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrosi. Three interconnected stories that play out respectively in 1932, 1937, 2017. In the first, a wealthy young man in Granada attempts to gain membership of the local casino where he is blackballed. Literally, they vote by either putting a white ball or a black ball. I didn't know that's where black ball came from, into a thing. And he is blackballed by the committee for not being masculine enough, basically for being gay. In the second story, set during the Spanish Civil War, a village trumpeter, Sebastian, is forced to join up with the nationalists and he is put in charge of a prisoner who faces the death penalty with whom he has a connection.

12:49And then in the third, which is in nearly the modern day, this former playwright receives news of an inheritance from a grandfather he never knew because the grandfather was estranged from his mother. and the inheritance then provides a connecting thread which draws all the stories together in the form of a famously unfinished play by a literary hero whose queerness was once hidden but is now seems to be the kind of key to unlocking the heart of his creativity i'm going to play you a clip but obviously the clip is not in english i'm going to translate for you what happens in the clip initially there's a nurse and a soldier by wounded man's bedside how is he fine, he's out of danger, he's scared of blood, he faints when he sees it.

13:34That's silly. How do you know? He told me he's very nice. Here's the clip.

14:00He said it. He's nice.

14:31and transcendent via this kind of camp musical extravaganza that appears apparently out of it. I mean, there is a lot of stuff going on in a way that oddly reminded me of Ken Russell. Now, obviously, I've been thinking of Ken Russell quite a lot recently because of the devils, but my suspicion is that Ken would have absolutely connected with this film and really, really understood its language. So one minute we're in mired in this kind of bloody fog of war. And the next you're in a sort of outrageous cabaret scene. And then you're in this very, very modern full on sexual encounter. And then the next minute, there are two people who even just by looking at each other are in a threatened situation.

15:14And it really shouldn't work. It really shouldn't come together. It should feel contrived and overworked and overwrought. And the fact that it doesn't, I mean, despite it, it is quite long. And I think occasionally it's running time is a little bit indulgent, but it does hold together surprisingly well. I mean, yes, the narrative is episodic and unwieldy. And there are times I think that maybe a tighter edit wouldn't have hurt, particularly in the final stages in which I think It sort of overstates its case. It gets a little bit on the nose. But it does play as a really coherent story, which it really shouldn't do.

15:55I was reading some stuff about the making of it, and the cinematographer explained that there was a decision not to make a distinction between the different time periods in terms of the way in which the frame looked. So sometimes if you've got three different time frames, like what maybe something will be in black and white something will have a blue wash on it something will look a bit cp so you know where you are they haven't done that at all what they've done is they have relied entirely on and this is a direct quote from the cinematographer audio visual language mise-en-scene and camera movement which sounds like okay that's a very nice theory but it's not going to work but it does in practice you know exactly where you are at every point in the story there's a the use of music is terrific and i think the way in which the music works really does hold it together.

16:44It certainly gives it this kind of keening, semi-operatic, emotional heart. And it's also got this ability to kind of meld a very modern pop sensibility with something historical. Again, this brings me back to Ken Russell. The constant thing that Ken was always doing was listening to music from the past and thinking about it in the present, looking at design from the past and thinking about it in the present, taking situations from the past and thinking about them in the present. And I mean, it's really interesting because there was on more than one occasion, I kind of felt that the, I felt my critical faculty groaning while my heart went with it anyway.

17:28And I think, I think it's one of those films when at some point you have to decide whether you're going to go with it or not. And I did, and I'm glad I did because I did get swept up in it. I'm not sure that it's quite the masterpiece that some people think it is. I mean, some people who like it think it is the best film of the year.

17:47The people who love it have really, really taken it to their heart. The one thing I would say about it is this, for everyone applauding the theatrical adventurousness of Digger and the way in which all the theatrical conceits of Digger work, this is much more nimble, but it is doing something that is ultimately much cleverer and much more emotionally intuitive. And I mean, I actually think that if you put this next to Digger, although I guess Digger is taking some very, very bold swipes, very bold swings, you put it next to this and you go, okay, no, but this is actually doing something which is much more engaging and much more radical.

18:33And it literally cost a tenth of what digger costs so it's not perfect by any means but there is so much in there to like and so much including um late in the day appearances by very famous people who i didn't know were in the film in advance and i won't because you know because it was kind of it was a moment where oh um so there is an awful lot of stuff going on and not all of it works but But the stuff that does, does work. And it pulled me in and kept my attention, even when my critical faculties were going, this should not work. This should be just all over the place, but it isn't.

19:12Simon Mayo: Remind me about Mise-en-Cenne, which you mentioned. It's really just to, I mean, so this is the kind of the great film. What exactly does Mise-en-Cenne mean? Somebody once described it to me as this. They said the dust in the air. I said, what? it's the world of the world of the of the of the scene it's actually what's literally on screen so but when people talk about the mise-en-scene what they mean is the world that the film is actually showing you and quite often it's that that's what it means it means literally all you're doing is you're changing the world but you're not changing the way in which the camera is focused on that well what you're changing is the editing and the movement but not to be very blank about this.

19:54You're not doing this section is in black and white. This section is underlit. This section is overlit. That's how you know where you are in the film, which would be a very standard way of distinguishing between time periods.

20:07Simon Mayo: In just a moment, Mark reviews I Play Rocky, Godzilla Minus Zero, Wild Horse Nine. Martin McDonough is our very special guest. And back in just a moment, unless of course you're a top person, in which case we'll just carry on.

20:24Hello, I'm Mark Kermode. I'm Simon Mayo. Simon, do you ever Google yourself?

20:29Simon Mayo: No, I know who I am. Yeah, very good. But if I did, I would obviously learn about my highly anticipated new novel called Notice Number Six. Very good. Nice plug. The point I'm trying to make is that the internet knows who you are too. Your address, phone number, and all sorts of personal information can end up online because data brokers collect and sell information about us. That's where your spam calls and scam emails come from. Which explains a lot about my inbox. Exactly. And this is where Incogni comes in. Incogni helps remove your personal information from the internet by contacting data brokers on your behalf.

21:05Their removal engine automatically sends removal requests to over 420 data broker sites. And it doesn't just do it once. It keeps going back because these brokers recollect your data even after they've deleted it. It can't remove the take, can it? So nothing can remove the take. But with Incogni Unlimited, their exposure scanner can find where else your information is showing up online. And if you find something you want removed, Custom Removals lets you submit the link and Incogni handles the process for you.

21:33Simon Mayo: And our listeners can get 60 % off Incogni with the take. Just go to incogni.com slash take and use the code take at checkout.

21:49Simon Mayo: out okay it's box office top 10 time at number 11 and number 22 in america is mark kermode and ken russell's the devils 4k restoration now uh you did a full review of this last week and it was a movie of the week when in a way this is a separate sort of issue but what did you is that what you were expecting is it has it overachieved underachieved oh it's over it's a it's done it's done terrifically well so in america also when it when it opened it was um number 11 in the charts which is which is really kind of remarkable and the figures that they got in for it the friday to sunday gross was 220k it was 75 screens and it had the highest screen average of any new release at 2 ,972 pounds i mean yes it's it's it's done brilliantly and it's but in so in the uk this is better than you thought it would do i thought it was going to do well after it had done as well as it did in america and there's been so much press about it i mean it's i i'm i'm delighted by how much attention it's got that's the thing that surprised me but by the time we find you know it finally opened by the time we finally got to the opening weekend and it was selling out every i mean the prince charles is selling out pretty much every single screening speaking of which okay jordan littler says uh mark and simon uh wow what an experience i saw the devils uh packed out monday night screening at the prince charles cinema there we go 35 mil i'm genuinely amazed that this was made in 1971 and i hate to say it but it feels like nobody makes films like this anymore.

23:34Simon Mayo: I mean, that's probably true. Yeah, it is. Incredibly provocative and bold with stunning performances, beautiful costumes, an utterly astonishing set design. The sheer scale, ambition, and vision is awe-inspiring. Oliver Reed is electric, delivering every line with that brilliant, knowing, almost mischievous smile. Vanessa Redgrave matches his magnetism with her own collection of unhinged cackles and wide-eyed stares as she undergoes her brutal ordeal. She does. it's lustful violent dirty mean bleak and beautiful angry at god religion power and wealth it's a film about innocence desire corruption and the cruelty of people who utilize those things as a weapon uncompromising outrageous and completely unafraid to offend it's a movie a real movie mark you were right it's incredible i suspect mark you wrote this but jordan thank you very much so i i My suspicion is you agree with everything in there.

24:32I do. I mean, I don't know that it's angry at God. I think it's angry at religion. And it's the sort of the debasement of that. I mean, the key thing is that there are two things going on. One of them is the whole, as I said, the pantomime of blasphemy. But the other thing is Grandier finding his faith. And I actually do think it's a very spiritual film. And I know, I mean, you know, Ken had converted to Catholicism many years before. and Ken did have a relationship with the Almighty in a very personal way. But I mean, I agree with everything else you said. I mean, I think the thing about it is a proper movie experience.

25:13And one of the people that we interviewed for the documentary for Hell on Earth, who's this kind of leading Catholic theologian who had taught the devils over the years and had been a great champion of Ken's work and talked a lot about the spirituality of it, which is something which sometimes gets overlooked because it's got such an outrageous reputation. But I think that is an element of it.

25:38Simon Mayo: Will it disappear next week or do you think it's going to carry on going? It wouldn't surprise me if it carries on doing the kind of business. Honestly, there are so many screenings that are selling out in the US. It's a word of mouth thing, isn't it, as well? It really is. And in the US where they were, they were meant to be doing the, the, the screenings for whatever it was, what one week for the 35s that now has been extended indefinitely until they stopped selling tickets because it's just, it's, it's growing. It's a, it's a word of mouth thing. It's absolutely that. And, you know, and Ken would have been so delighted, not least because a huge amount of the audience is young.

26:14It's, you know, it's a young audience. It's not old farts like me. It's young people, which is just great. Into the 10 for real. At 10, Other Mummy. Yeah, I didn't think this was going to be in the top 10 because I thought it was going to have dropped out. And as we know, Simon Poole reviewed it because they didn't do the press screening. They had a press screening and they pulled it at the last moment. And Simon Poole's review was meh.

26:35Simon Mayo: Verity is at number nine, number 10 in America. So much more fun than it should have been. I mean, I really enjoyed it. Yes, it's ripe. Yes, it's ridiculous. But it's entertainingly ripe and entertainingly ridiculous. the two uk films which don't turn up in america and number eight sean the sheep the beast of mossy bottom so i had a great conversation in uh belfast with paul my great friend who is uh a language expert and what he doesn't know about the way in which you know if you can talk to him for ages about the english language and the way in which accents and all that stuff work and and construction of language and it's wonderful he loves sean the sheep because he loves the fact because it's non-verbal but there's this brilliant thing where they've got the farmer like that and and all you need is the intonation i had a great conversation with paul about just how much it was possible to understand what somebody was saying without the use of words but just the use of intonation street fighter is it number seven that's what it says in the tin forgotten island is at six which i enjoyed um we've had some interesting correspondence about the the scary threatening elements of it and how they have been dealt with in different territories uh wildwood number five in the uk number two uh in canada yeah just want to flag this there's been um quite a lot of comment on the youtube channel saying why haven't you reviewed wildwood i did review Wildwood.

28:06I reviewed Wildwood in T2. And if you're only watching the YouTube channel, then you don't get T2. But if you're listening and of course being one of our fabulous subscribers, you get all the good stuff, including my review of Wildwood, which I really, really liked. And as I said, my child one went to see it and came out and was absolutely skipping down the street with amazement at how great it was clay faces at four and three over there really enjoyed it really enjoyed it thought it was really terrifically good fun i didn't know anything about the character at all i didn't know anything about the i don't think i even knew when i went in that it had a comic book origin i just i all i'd seen was that japanese poster of the face being pulled down but i thought it was good fun uh here's the other british film

28:55Simon Mayo: which is doing well here and nowhere else, I imagine, but certainly not as far as the American box office is concerned. But who cares? Number three is Ghosts, the possession of Buttonhouse, last week's number one. I wonder what the Americans would make of it. What do you think? Do you think they'd get any of it? No, I don't think so. I mean, even though I wasn't completely in the Ghosts groove, I have seen enough and spoken to, you know, and we've spoken to, when you talk about Paddington, you're talking about the same kind of groove that Ghost is in. So they might get some of it, but I think it would be a little, and I suppose they get the cinematic references, which are like the Goonies and so on, but I don't think they get it.

29:43Simon Mayo: What do you think? I don't know. I mean, I had never seen the TV series at all. As I said when I reviewed it before, the film makes no concession to that because it kind of just thinks you'll just keep up, you know, just keep up, it'll all be fine. But there is never a point in which it's explained why one of the characters isn't wearing trousers. In fact, at one point, somebody asks why he isn't wearing trousers and he says, ah, and that's it. That's all you get. if you are an American we know that we have many listeners in America you just have to glance at the iWitter app to see quite how many so if you have managed to see it without having seen the British TV show let us know what you thought Paul has written in the notes there is an American adaptation of the series very popular did you know that?

30:32no just renewed for its fifth and sixth seasons in which case they might get

30:39Simon Mayo: they might get it they probably have the equivalent, let's face it, of the Tory MP found with his trousers around his ankles. So maybe they will get most of those references. Ryan in Abingdon. This is about the number two movie, Primetime. Dear Decoy Dan and Billy Bate, last week Mark reviewed Primetime from the point of view of someone who knew nothing about Chris Hansen or to catch a predator. As someone who was aware of the show and the climactic event of the movie, here are my thoughts. The film just didn't do it for me. It was all very matter of fact, and I didn't feel I gained much more insight than I already knew.

31:15Simon Mayo: This film is based on a newspaper article and directed by a man who normally does documentaries. And it shows. The occasional ventures into the psychedelic and the strong performances aren't enough to elevate it from mediocrity. But I can see how if you knew nothing about the show, you would find it more intriguing. This film got a slow international rollout, presumably because they thought non-US audiences wouldn't know who Chris Anson is and not be interested in the movie. However, it seems to me people who have never heard of Chris Hansen are the people who will get most out of this movie, because I think that's pretty much everybody.

31:48Simon Mayo: So, Ryan, thank you very much indeed. I mean, I think Mark's point of view was probably that of most viewers in this country that they'll be interested in the subject, but they won't know who Chris Hansen is. No, I knew nothing about him. As I said, when I did the review, I mean, I went back and then found out the stuff after seeing the film. But when I was watching it, it was much more of a kind of psychedelic fantasia than a you know than a biopic or a true crime story and i thought it worked really well as that um i thought that the i thought r pats's central performance was great it did remind me of christian bale in uh american psycho and i liked the film but i think you may be right that the less you know about the source the more you enjoy the film because i didn't go in with any preconceived all i knew about the film was the poster which is r pats looking threatening in a suit In which case, I mean, maybe this is the release times, but it's number two here, number 31 in the States.

32:44Yeah, but that's because it's been and gone. Okay. It opened a while ago, yeah.

32:49Simon Mayo: So we've got it a whole lot later. A whole lot later, yeah. Okay. And number one is Wicker. And number four in America. What a strange film. What a strange film. Kirstie says, Dear Bib and Bass, possibly Bass, being a crafty woman of a certain age and certain non-conformity i obviously went to see wicker i loved it the fairy tale setting the grubby medievalism the modern language i felt that it wasn't the lovely wicker husband that made the women dissatisfied and the men jealous it was the fact that a person that they looked down on was happy and thriving when fisherwoman says love seems more than a burden than a prize she is talking about inverted commas love that gets the village approval when you have the collar around your neck it's the striving for approval from the village especially other women that ruins the bottle washer's wife and makes them want to ruin this happiness of the fisherwoman she remains fisherwoman because she is never defined by a man nor a father nor a husband with an occupation um i shall redact most of this line the joy of her was deeply touching as a reference to what happens at the end and the villagers got the woman they deserved up with sentient handicraft and down with judgment and jealousy that's kirsty no one wicker i think that's that's everything you say there is correct you are absolutely right that it's not it's not the husband it's the fact that that that the the fisherwoman has found happiness outside of the approved neck brace thing yeah absolutely that's that that's completely right i really like the film i and uh and the more i think about it the more strange and weirdly wonderful it is and again it's always great to be describing a movie which even as you're describing it you're thinking because i remember when i said in any way he's made of wicker and you went what because you said is are there any wicker man well there is a wicker man but he isn't he's a live man actually made of wicker and it's just it it works surprisingly well and it's olivia coleman's just great isn't she she's just great in everything uh kirstie thank you very much for the email, correspondence at kerberdemo.com.

35:00Simon Mayo: More unmissable discussion of current movies in take two, and we'll be back after these exceptional missives from products of great joy.

35:12Shelley Jensen was about to retire early after selling her veterinary practice for millions. But a moment of vulnerability became a way to take away her rights. Don't you see how destroyed I am as a person? Her husband fought to save her before Shelley lost her freedom forever. This is a life or death matter. My wife's life is at stake. From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is free Shelley Jensen. Available now on The Benj. Greetings, it's Mel Gedroich here, host of Where There's a Will There's a Wake, the podcast that laughs in the face of death. Yes, that's right. Celebrities plan every detail of their dream demise, from the funeral playlist to the buffet at The Wake.

35:55and our recent live funeral shows in an actual church delivered plenty of deliciously dark surprises. So if you've ever wondered what Mark Watson's final meal would be or how Phil Wang would like to be remembered, you're in luck. Watch and listen to Mark Watson's funeral now, exclusively on Amazon Music and don't miss Phil Wang's Cracker of a Funeral coming on the 12th of November. See you on the other side.

36:23Simon Mayo: so our guest today is the oscar-winning writer and director martin mcdonough whose films include imbruge three billboards outside ebbing missouri and the banshees of in a sharon which is the last time he was on the show his new film wild horse nine stars john malkovich and sam rockwell as two CIA agents sent to Easter Island shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup. It sounds extraordinary and you'll hear more in just a moment. And you'll hear part one of my conversation with Martin after this clip from the film. Girls, can I ask you something? How do you like your new president, your new left wing president?

37:07What did I say about before, Chris?

37:08Simon Mayo: Yes, we like him. Everybody likes him. Not everybody. That wouldn't be true. Well, enjoy him while you can, ladies. And what's that supposed to mean, enjoy him while you can? I'm not saying nothing. I'm just saying enjoy him while you can, that's all. And who the are you? The CIA? We are the CIA, actually. We're totally the CIA. We're not the CIA, obviously. Yes, we are, I swear. He's just being shy. We came down here to destabilise your democracy, and it is going great. And that's a clip from Wild Horse Nine. Martin McDonough, welcome back to the programme. How are you? I'm very good, Simon. Good to speak to you again.

37:52Simon Mayo: Do you feel quite chipper when it comes round to promotion, or does part of you inside die? Maybe because I only make them every four years. I kind of enjoy all this. You know, it's fun when you've got a good one and you like talking about it, and it's and you're sort of working with malkovich and rockwell doing this sort of stuff it's it's really sort of joyful yeah and filming where you were filming must have been extraordinary which we'll get to in just a moment i have to say before before we get any further we were talking about you with aaron sorkin last week oh yes because he has uh he's written and directed uh the social reckoning as you know yeah i know he's very protective of his words because he's a wordsmith and I quoted him I quoted you to him because when we spoke about Banshees I said to you what would happen if Brendan Gleeson or Colin Farrell came up to you and said I want to change this line I want to change this word and you said basically I'd tell them to f off because I am the best writer on set and I said to Aaron are you are you like that and he smiled and I kind of got the impression that he was really but he just didn't want to say it are you still the same Martin do you still have that uh that attitude that approach yeah I mean I don't know if I would ever say f off to Colin or Brendan because they could both beat me up but um but I I would gently insist um I I even though I am very much the same way this is the first film that I wanted to have a bit more of an improvisational sort of feel um so so I was much more open with John and with Sam to have them riff on the dialogue, on the scenes.

39:32And I think there's probably at least one ad lib in almost every scene, which I think helps keep it sort of feeling fresh and gives them the feel that they have worked together for years and years, as the story dictates.

39:46Simon Mayo: So why did you have that approach for this movie? Is that just something that emerged organically from their relationship? No, it was sort of more, I think, coming from me, like trying not to be quite so, you know, prissy or I mean, I do obviously care very much about the perfect line and the perfect scene structure and all that stuff. but i i just wanted to just loosen up and see if it worked um as well as the previous ones and and it did keep it fresh and you can only do it do that with actors as amazing as as john and sam and steve you know yeah the story aaron talking told was on this first set which was um a few good men and jack nicholson wanted to change a line and he hated the line as it changed as it was changed but it was jack nicholson so of course you're going to say yes anyway wild horse nine is where we are.

40:40Simon Mayo: We start in Santiago, Chile, 1973. Introduce us to your movie, Martin. Yes. We start off in Santiago, and then we go to Easter Island following John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, who are two CIA men who are down in Chile just before the military coup there to sort of orchestrate that coup, which is what the CIA did. One of them is in ill health and has always wanted to go to Easter Island. So within a few minutes, we get down there and hang out with them for a bit as they get into various kinds of trouble. And there are plot machinations that begin to ensue. And it's a funny film. They're brilliant together, but things kind of get twisty and dark as the film goes on.

41:38Simon Mayo: Which I think we've come to expect, Martin. We'd be disappointed if they didn't get twisty and dark. I guess it's my wheelhouse. Yeah. Why are we on Easter Island? What's the journey to that? Because if I've got this right, it is officially the most remote populated place on Earth. Yeah. Why did you choose there? Probably for that reason, you know, just give the production troubles to it. I guess it was a combination of the mystery of the Moai, of the heads that are there, the cinematic nature of them and the island itself. I went there 15 years ago to see if there was a story, if it could be a character in a story, and discovered it was, but had to work through various iterations of the story to find this one.

42:28And it was only when I thought about the CIA and what they did in Chile that everything kind of came together. But like in a David Lean film maybe, I like the idea of taking an audience to a place. And we did that with Bruges and it was beautiful and it was characterful. So it was a similar sort of vibe here.

42:47Simon Mayo: So the location came first and the story came second. Can you explain what the earlier versions were? Because I'm intrigued as to how we ended up with two CIA agents. Because I think earlier versions were like father and son. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was always sort of two guys, which I guess is what I sort of do. But yeah, when it was a father and son, the father was always in ill health and was usually going to Easter Island as a sort of bucket list kind of thing. And the reason for them being on Easter Island, Rapa Nui specifically, was never quite, never quite was realized, I guess. It could have been anywhere to a degree.

43:33But it was the, you know, Rapa Nui is owned and run by Chile. And when I thought more about that, that's when the CIA aspect came in. But I think the remnants of them being a father and son has remained in the two characters.

43:51Simon Mayo: Just on the CIA element of it, I was a student in the late 70s. So it doesn't come to me, it doesn't come as a surprise at all to know what the CIA were up to in Santiago as they were up to bad things elsewhere. I mean, really, really shocking what the CIA were doing. as you kind of uncovered that part of the story i would have thought from your point of view it gave an energy um uh to where this story was heading because what what happened in chile in 73 was so awful no wonder that some of the people involved with it are having second thoughts yeah whether or not they did in real life i don't know um but um it definitely i think i think this is sort of my most political film and there was an anger to it as I was sort of writing it and thinking back on what they did.

44:44And I don't think any of my films have had an anger before. At the same time as it's, you know, very funny, it's funny because Malkovich's character, who is having these sort of regrets or feelings of guilt, etc., becomes free to just tell the truth. And there's something very funny in that, but very dark and dangerous when you consider what he's been up to with the CIA through the years.

45:15Simon Mayo: Yeah. And I wonder if part of the edge, Martin, comes from the fact that many people will be thinking, as I was thinking, that the CIA might be heading straight back in that direction now. Yeah. I mean, history seems to keep repeating itself in stupider and stupider ways, I think. I don't know if it's the tragic thing, but the shocking thing is that they don't seem to hide what they're up to as much as they did in the 70s, you know. I feel that they were, you know, knew how evil or wrong this was back then. I don't know if they have that sense anymore because of who they're run by. On the casting of John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, Sam, you've worked with a lot.

45:56Simon Mayo: I think, did you write this part for him? Is that right? This was written for Sam, yeah. All three of the films I've done with Sam were written for Sam. And forgive me if this is a dumb question. I've always thought John Malkovich, extraordinary actor. Is he scary? Because he comes over to me as scary most times. I was terrified when I had my first Zoom with him. I thought he was going to bite my head off. Well, he is then. I don't know why he would, like bringing him a really good part. I don't know why I thought he'd be a jerk. But he's a gentleman. He's so well read. He didn't need to tell him about the chilly coup because he'd done like a stage performance about it in the past.

46:37Didn't need to tell him about the JFK conspiracy stuff because he'd done a play about that. He's just a proper, he's a genius actor, but he's just a proper gent along with it. And you realise that he's so good an actor that he's made us think that he's this dangerous, edgy psychopath.

46:59Simon Mayo: Yes. And he's not. Dangerous and edgy and all of that. And yet in a lot of the, some of the most powerful sequences are when he is silent. And there is a, there's a sadness to his eyes that I don't think I've seen before. Yeah, yeah. And that's the heart of the film, really, I think. The times when John's on his own contemplating what he's done and where he is in life. And he's a Catholic, too, so there are all those elements to it, you know. But, again, there aren't any actors, I think, who could, when seemingly he's doing nothing, he's smoking a cigarette or staring out of the window. So we read in what he's doing, you know, just a lifetime of regret and sorrow.

47:51Simon Mayo: The word indigenous comes up quite a lot. In a way, I wonder if it did in 1973. But anyway, can you explain how you use that word? It's wonderful because it is like a dividing line and you can speak to it. But can you just explain how it's used and how useful it was to you? Yeah, we use it a couple of times because some of the less right wing characters use it as they naturally would in a locale like Rapa Nui. Now, John's character is not of that ilk. So them using a word which these days we would describe as PC or woke or whatever, obviously he's going to take umbrage at that. Whether or not, you know, that's placing something from modern days onto 73, maybe, but I don't care.

48:53Simon Mayo: But it's a film in 2026. So that's where we're working. Is it the belief of those who live at Rapa Nui on Easter Island, Martin, that the heads, the Moai, are sacred? Is that the belief? Yes. And does that make getting permission to film there, particularly a Martin McDonough film, difficult? It means that we wanted to make sure that the council who run Rapa Nui, we wanted to make sure that they, despite the subject matter of the movie, that we were completely respectful about filming around the Moai, how they'd be presented in the film and how the whole of Rapa Nui would be shown. So we gave them the script and they didn't have any issues with that.

49:48Their main thing was to show the island in a good light, which is what we're always going to do anyway, to show as beautifully as we possibly could. But to also make sure that they understood we respected everything they wanted in terms of filming near or around the Moai. So we always had like an archaeologist from the council with us at every shoot. We could only have like two, like the actors and a couple of camera people near the Moai at any one time. But I liked all that. None of it was made us feel we had one hand tied behind our back. It just allowed us beautiful access to those areas. and we came away, you know, I think they knew how much we respected them and the feeling was sort of mutual, I think.

50:43Simon Mayo: You can hear more from Martin in take two because it was one of those interviews which sort of ran on a bit, which is a lovely thing because you normally have, as we've explained a few times, people hassling you, giving you one minute, come on hurry up uh kind of references and we and and we didn't have that so i was a little bit indisciplined maybe and we ran beyond our allocation but he's always he's always fascinating to talk to because he cares so much i mean the way he was talking about filming uh on easter island on rapper new he was just you know he he thought that added to the the to the achievement of the film the fact that they worked around although you know this isn't disney so they could have raised some issues, but it wasn't because they, you know, they were respectful and yet they were doing a Martin McDonough film.

51:33Simon Mayo: Anyway, what did you think of where we were here? Well, it's interesting. So the two things that come to mind are obviously, you know, Imbrug and Banshee's Inner Share, and both of which were cited by him and you in the introduction, actually both of which do feed into this. So as you said, set in the period immediately before the CIA orchestrated coup in Chile in the early seventies, which as you said, terrible thing. So John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell are, Chris and Lee, a pair of CIA agents, taking a brief break from destabilizing governments to go to Easter Island, Rappaniri, which, as you said, I didn't know this, the most remote populated place on Earth.

52:12Great. And he describes it, Martin McDonough describes it as becoming a character in the story, this kind of peaceful backdrop to the anger of the story. And so Malkovich's character has always wanted to see the big heads, as he refers to them, the big heads. And he's in ill health. He's looking back on his life and a career which has involved some pretty shady dealings, including crucially, he has some kind of insider knowledge of the JFK assassination. Meanwhile, his protege, played by Sam Rockwell, is there to accompany him. But it also soon becomes clear that they're not both going to be coming back from Easter Island.

52:51This is the place that he wanted to see before he died. And he seems to have fixed on this remote idyll as a place to draw everything to a conclusion. So, like Banshees of Inisher, and it's a tale of intrigue set on a remote island, like In Bruges, it's a story of two men with a lethal past going to a picturesque location where one of them has an appointment with eternity. so it's you know it's a mix of black humor i mean it easily passes the six laugh test i mean i think i laughed six times in the first five minutes because martin mcdonough does know how to do a scabrously hilarious line um but it's got something else which is that it's got a it is mournful it is melancholy it's got you know you talked about sadness and regret and i think that's right i i I did an onstage interview with John Malkovich, who wasn't scary, incidentally, but I had the same feeling before I met him, was, is he going to be scary?

53:53Yes, yes. And he said that, I asked him what the film is about, meaning not what it's about, but what's it about? And he said, it's about grief. And he was worried because he thought that was a hard subject to sell, which I agree with. It would be harder if the film itself wasn't as funny as it is. And the fact that it doesn't come on like a film about grief. I mean, in some ways it kind of comes on like a, like a greatest hits, you know, Martin McDonough returning to themes, which he's done before making gags of the style that he's done before. So there's a sort of familiarity there before you start to really unpack what it is about, which as I said, he said, it's, it's grief.

54:35Um, the period detail is amazing i thought you know you could you could smell the cigarette smoke on the on the non-natural fibers there's a real tactility to the example didn't you think it was like the the well the the world did feel like this was 1973 yeah but i also thought that was it that became because we

55:00Simon Mayo: start in chile there's a few moments where we kind of start there and then pan out uh if and you can tell from the fashion and the smoking that we're absolutely there. And because it's a historical event, this is a specific thing that ties it to the 1970s and 1973 means that you know exactly where you are and why you were talking about these particular subjects, which is why I asked about the word indigenous, because I don't think people used it that much in 1973. Well, he does actually say to me, doesn't he? You're very young to be using that word. And there's a whole discussion about, you know, why that word is being used.

55:35So as for the performances. Okay. Malkovich is great. I think it's really, everyone's talking about Malkovich getting an Oscar nomination. I think that's, that's pretty much a dead cert. I think that a nomination is due to Sam Rockwell. Do you remember that when, um, Christoph Waltz won his best supporting actor Oscar and he did that weird speech, which started weird and then it got very good, but he went supporting actor, best supporting actor. And everyone thought, oh, he's going to go off about best lead actor. And he went, no, not supporting actor, best supported actor. I think that what Sam Rockwell is doing in this film is supporting Malkovich's performance to get the very best out of Malkovich.

56:19And Malkovich described this to me. He said, it's like watching somebody at SeaWorld feeding very small fish to a shark. you've got to be very careful not to lose a finger and that was how he described sam rockwell's performance i think what rockwell is doing it's a lot less showy um and i think malkovich's performance is terrific but i think that he is really doing the supporting in as much as he is absolutely supporting that that that lead performance um it's it's interesting i saw the film with a legend of indie cinema distribution who loved it and said that they hoped that it would do as well as it deserved to do, whilst also maintaining exactly the same anxiety that Malkovich had, which is that the melancholia and the grief may put people off.

57:12But my instinct is that it won't. My instinct that there was enough laughter. I mean, I know it's, It's a black comedy, but there are laugh out loud laughs in it. And there is enough of that, that when it gets to the real heart of the matter, that it's okay because you've sort of been led. Does it concern you at all that people might be put off by the subject matter?

57:41Simon Mayo: No, I hadn't really thought about that because, to quote public image, anger is an energy. Yes. and he says it's his angriest film and that gives it an energy and because you don't really know it's about you you don't really know it's about grief not really until the end you go okay yes i can i can see why malkovich would have said that i understand that but the but the um and also you might it's within five minutes if you didn't know who was the director of the film going in you go this is a martin yeah yeah it's that film he does yes um and you could have put um the cast of in Bruges into this film and it, you know, so I don't think, yes, on reflection it's about grief, but you're so busy laughing about, was it gay cheese and countries that have cheese?

58:34Simon Mayo: Wow, where did that come from? It's just, you know, it's just one of those wonderful lines. So there's enough distraction and the heads, the big heads, the moai are so astonishing in the setting. So it gets under your skin and then on reflection, they could have been two businessmen who have done terrible things. They could have been two bad fathers or a bad father and son who've been reminiscing on crimes that they've committed. So I think you get that at the end, but I don't think you go, oh, let's go and see this film about grief. I think you're going to see a Martin McDonough film with Rockwell and Malkovich.

59:09There's one thing, the darkest laugh for me in the film, I'll tell you the line because if people haven't seen it, It won't make any sense out of context. But the line when Malkovich says, I still got it. Do you remember when that happens? And I did. I laughed out loud. And then I felt ashamed of myself for laughing.

59:28Simon Mayo: No, he's clearly relishing it, isn't he? He's clearly having... Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He said he loved doing it. And, you know. And Martin McDonough clearly loved making it. I mean, it is lovely to hear filmmakers who really appear to have enjoyed it, isn't it? Yeah. So there's more with Martin McDonough. in my indisciplined way, there's a second part, which means there's a bonus for Take Two. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But if you're just a Take One-er, then you've heard the essence of what Martin has got to say. No, Simon, no, no. If you're a Take One-er, you are missing something. You need to subscribe to Take Two immediately so that your life is full for the full Martin McDonough interview and the review of Wildwood.

1:00:09Simon Mayo: Yeah, I was just trying, you know, in the joyful spirit of the episode, I thought I would just be... Oh, okay, yeah, fine. I would just be generous. Everything's wonderful. Everything's wonderful. Yeah, exactly. Okay, thank you very much indeed. So that is the latest Martin McDonough film, Wild Horse Nine. And if you're not a take-tour, I did ask him about the title, and to be honest, it sounded as though he doesn't really know. He said, I don't know what the nine is. Yeah. Did you? I don't quite believe that. there are wild horses on the island that's that we get but number nine yeah i once interviewed william friedkin about cruising and i said okay so who is the killer and freaking went i don't know wow um okay so as though that you know you might often we do an interview and it's you know sad and it's difficult and so on and we need the laughter lift we need to get to the laughter lift but we're already feeling joyful so this is like this is the definite uh icing on the cake and made me laugh out loud whether it makes you laugh out loud here we go here we go the laughter lift that's actually going to make you laugh see now i've got a second i've got i've got second thoughts i've got doubts bragged with insecurity but when i read this to myself at quarter to seven this morning it was really funny just coffee for sustenance thank you someone just dipped it just at the right moment because they didn't want to miss a single syllable mark yes simon i'm not sure if i've ever told you about my various and plentiful phobias okay no you haven't i've been diagnosed with a very unusual one a chronic fear of a chronic fear of giants it's called fifiphobia

1:02:05was that was that the laugh out loud one that was my laugh out that was it that is funny yeah

1:02:10Simon Mayo: is funny if i phobia i like it because it's a pan-generational uh joke i also have a phobia of speed bumps but i'm slowly getting over it yay i also have a phobia of sausages and the good lady ceramicist here indoors is a pessimist so that's something we have in common we both fear the worst written joke. Yes, I can see it. I can see it. Finally, I also suffer from an overwhelming fear of reclining armchairs going back, oh, way back, really. Oh, I see. That's the joke. Going reclining armchairs going way back, really. Yeah, fine. So you started strong with Fee-Fai-Foe-Fum. I should have reversed the order.

1:02:54You should have done. You should have led up to that. You should have started with the armchair, which is the least funny one then gone to the fear of the worst and then moved to

1:03:03Simon Mayo: fifa pho fun no fifa phobia that's that's the thing you know that's the line anyway i personally found it enormous but maybe i was i had so much joy in my heart that this was just tipping me over into the world of hysteria what like it like an armchair it was tipping you backwards very good nicely worked uh still to come mark reviews i play rocky and godzilla minus zero uh and a what's on as well and in take two more questions some more from martin mcdonough this week's question by the way asking us what our favourite australian films are so hello to all our australian listeners you just search comad and mayo patreon and join us over there you can get both takes ad free plus our exclusive fortnightly extra show take ultra what a joy for some very few actually

1:04:03Simon Mayo: okay here we go this is uh to correspondence at kirbano mayor.com steve hall b eng ons gmice i don't know i should have looked that up g mice he's he's a bachelor of engineering honors and a g mice he's in cheadle near stockport are you looking it up before we continue because it'd It'd be nice to know what he's qualified. Capital G-M-I-C-E. G-M-I-C-E. Sounds like an Otto-An hit from the 1980s. No, Google doesn't seem to know. Hold on. Oh, G-M-I-C, a graduate member of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Okay. Thank you. He's one of them, and he's a Bachelor of Engineering. VLTL, Vanguardista, fifth-time emailer, read out once.

1:04:48Simon Mayo: Simon has referred several times to Mark enjoying a Stein in Bavaria. As a veteran of Munich beer pilgrimages, I must respectfully correct him. After years of making the same mistake, a weary bartender explained that the one litre glass found in Bavarian beer halls is called a mass. M-A-S-Z. A stein is a similar stoneware tankard, often with a lid. So Mark was enjoying a mass, as in midnight mass. Whether he finished it, of course, is another matter. down with orange dictators up with decent people and hello to jason best wishes steve paul yeah excuse me i have never never had an unfinished beer no right i suppose well if it was a litre that's a really yeah would you have gone on what about a second litre a second mass well no but i mean i just just the one because you know i wouldn't get a second litre because you know that's that's but also that's a gentleman of a certain age thing isn't it Why don't we, but we should, we should know this.

1:05:51Simon Mayo: I mean, so Steve, thank you very much indeed. We certainly do stand corrected. I have never heard of this word. No. So never, ever go to a Munich beer hall and ask for a Stein. You ask for a mass, probably you just ask for a beer and it will appear in a mass. Steve, thank you very much indeed. Correspondence at codamero.com. If you want to correct us about anything, obviously, what else is out there? I play Rocky. So this is the new movie from Peter Faraday. Do you know about this film? Have you heard anything about it? I've seen the poster and that is it. Cool. So Peter Farrelly, formerly best known as one half of the Farrelly brothers, you know, Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, something about Mary.

1:06:27And then more recently, Green Book, which in true driving Miss Daisy fashion won the Oscars. Yeah. It's just like, really? Okay, fine. Anyway, so this is another awards contender telling the story of the making of another awards contender, The 1976 was won in 77 Best Picture Oscar winner Rocky. So for that movie, apparently, and again, I didn't know this until the scene of the film, Sly Stallone became the first person since Orson Welles to be nominated for Best Actor and Best Screenplay at the same time. Oddly, he didn't write this screenplay. This screenplay is by Peter Gamble, and the official story is that Stallone has not been involved in this at all.

1:07:14there were conflicting reports that the fact that either he was okay with it, but they said it's probably better not to be involved because it'll look, therefore, like it's sort of author. Anyway, his name isn't on it. Anthony Ippolito, who did a... Do you remember that thing, the offer on television, the thing about the making of The Godfather? Did you see that? I don't think I did. No. Okay. Well, the person who plays Al Pacino in that is the lead in this, doing yet another very convincing version of a 70s screen icon. So he is Sylvester, nay, Mike Stallone, who we first meet as a struggling actor who realises that the only way he's going to get a decent part is he has to write one for himself.

1:07:56He calls himself Mike because at this point he has a bit of a lisp and he says saying Sylvester, you know, makes people laugh at him and there's a lot of stuff about him trying to make his voice clearer. So he does indeed write a screenplay in the form of Rocky, which is this underdog boxing movie that becomes a hot property, but a hot property as long as he doesn't play the title character. The producers, Charles and Winkler, they want a name, as does Stacey Letts' studio exec, who is a kind of composite studio exec, a kind of composite bad guy who just has expensive meals and says no to everything.

1:08:29But Stallone holds out for the role, despite the fact that he's got a pregnant wife, a rent overdue apartment. He's even had to sell his beloved dog in order to make ends meet. Sold his dog? Yes. Yeah. Sold his dog? That's the beginning of a story, which then resolves itself later on in the narrative.

1:08:53Simon Mayo: He buys it back? Possibly. I haven't seen it. I don't know. Okay, fine. Sex with a car? Let's not speculate. So, I mean, the script hits all the beats. all the beats that we know about you know Stallone failing as an actor the fact that he then signed up for this softcore film that was then later re-released as Italian Stallion attempting to write his own screenplays seeing this boxing match which I didn't know anything about which was a boxing match with Chuck Wepner and Ali in which basically what everyone is impressed by is that the other guy the guy who isn't Ali doesn't go down for 15 rounds everyone thinks he's going to get knocked out in the first round, but it's not that he's going to win, but it's that he's not going to go down.

1:09:42And that then inspiring him to write this kind of underdog boxing movie, and then refusing offers of thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars to take the script away from him and give it to somebody else, because he constantly repeats the title line, I play Rocky. Here's a clip. There's only one Sylvester, Sylvester Stallone.

1:10:07Acting's what I live and breathe for. I'm gonna tell it to you straight. Not everybody gets to have their dream. I'm not getting any parts. I'm gonna have to write a script for myself. I like this more than anything you've ever written. There's something big here. You wrote this in three and a half days. Yeah. This is freaking good. Here's the thing. I play Rocky. That's the phrase that comes all the way through. And he does sound like him, doesn't he?

1:10:43Simon Mayo: Does he talk like that all the way through? Yeah, that is how Sly Stallone talked. Absolutely. Okay. I mean, I've interviewed him. That is how he talks. That's absolutely his voice, yeah. And I thought the performance was terrific. I thought it was kind of uncanny. So here's the thing. as with Green Book, Peter Farrelly's direction is nuts and bolts stuff. I mean, it's, which is actually not unlike the job that Abelson, the director of Rocky did on Rocky, which they got him in because it was made on the cheap and they needed somebody who could, you know, bring the thing in fast. And then it became a huge runaway success.

1:11:18So all the story points are boldly laid out. They're all underlined, you know, Stallone sleeping on the street, befriending the dog, having to sell the dog the father who always always down on him tough love like you heard them there a little bit of a clip there with matt dylan um writing the screenplay for rocky in three and a half days after watching that underdog fight the the lure of hollywood to sell it but him not doing it because i play rocky and that's the whole thing and like the fight that did or didn't inspire i mean there's there are there are sort of various versions of how how much that story is actually true about that particular fight.

1:11:57What you have here is an uplifting underdog narrative that Farrelly knows how to milk for every emotional beat. I mean, even if you're not a Rocky fan, I mean, everyone has sort of seen Rocky. Even if you haven't seen Rocky, you've seen clips of it enough that everyone kind of knows Rocky. And the film does really make you feel that you're rooting for this punch bag character. This guy, he's had the bejesus beaten out of him. I mean, life is really kicked into the gutter, but he refuses to go down, which is kind of the whole theme of everything. It's like, yeah, you can keep coming, but I'm not going down.

1:12:31And the film, it's cheesy and manipulative, but it works. And it adheres to that old, you know, the old Liberty Valance thing, print the legend. It is very much printing the legend, but it's a good legend. It's a really good story. I mean, it's an underdog story about an underdog story that then became this massive success. My one question is this, if you compare it to The Offer, I know you haven't seen The Offer, but The Offer is a very good series about the making of The Godfather. I don't know that this is any more cinematic. And in fact, in a way, this could be like a TV film about the making of Rocky.

1:13:12but i whilst i was there in the cinema it worked absolutely and you come out of it you know feeling that you could probably run up those steps and and do the rocket have you ever done that in uh no anyway fine so you come out of it feeling a little bit like you know you know the kind of the punchy character and i would i spent the final 10 minutes crying my eyes out and i had a conversation with um with dave norris about this who said to somebody absolutely absolutely loved it you know because it was it's it works it works it is it is button pushing and and it's it's not it's not particularly cinematic but it's just a really really good story and it's impossible not to end up absolutely rooting for the guy who then triumphs by not going down i've run up the escalator at Hoban.

1:14:04Does that count? No. It's a big escalator. Is it?

1:14:10Simon Mayo: Yeah. It's one of the biggest. Yeah. Do you think, do you think that Rocky would have been the same if at the end of it, he'd run up the escalator at Hoban? I think it would have been a more impressive result because it goes on for longer. Okay. And the steps are big. Okay. I speak as a pensioner. Okay. yes Simon Pensioner also also I think selling your dog I think most people would go homeless before they sell their dog I think you would sit on the streets with your dog that's what you would do you would not sell your dog he has already slept on the streets with his dog it is a big emotional moment in the film it is it is a really big emotional moment in the film it's the it's the moment at which he's broken yeah but he can fix it he can fix it by not selling his dog he could nick another dog or something like that i feel that you're going straight to the heart of the periphery but never mind uh anyway uh i play rocky thank you correspondents and conema.com we have a what's on for you uh this week this comes from barney take it away barney hi my name is barney pelce coles i'm the film programmer for uk jewish film and i'm really excited to share with you the news about the uk jewish film festival which is coming to london from the 5th to the 15th of november including at the phoenix which i know as one of Mark Kermode's favourite cinemas.

1:15:26Simon Mayo: And then we're on tour around the rest of the country until the 3rd of December. We've got an amazing line-up of films. We've got world and UK premieres, including films from the UK Jewish Film Factory. It's a festival for everybody. It's all about the diversity of Jewish life. If you want to find the full programme, go to ukjewishfilm.org or follow us on socials at UKJewishFilm. Barney, thank you very much indeed. Always glad to support that. 5th to the 15th of November. It's Kermode, by the way, and not Kermode. Thank you for picking that up. You're going to send in a video. Just please make sure you pronounce the presenter's name.

1:15:54Simon Mayo: You're sort of roughly right. But apart from that, Barney, tip top. Thank you very much indeed. 5th to the 15th of November. Send your videos to the usual address, correspondence at Kermitomeo.com. That's Kermitomeo.com. Right, Godzilla. Let's talk about Godzilla minus zero. So where to begin? So the original Godzilla, the original Japanese Godzilla, was inspired by the legacy of Japan's experience of American nuclear power. Well, first through, obviously, through the bombings at the end of the war, which is the only time nukes have been used. But later from the... Can I say that's true as we're sitting here.

1:16:35Exactly, which is why, as of recording this, that is true. But then all the stuff at Bikini Atoll in March 1954, because, in fact, I don't know whether you remember, but a long time ago, So the BFI did a release of the original Japanese version of Godzilla, which had on it that short documentary about the Japanese tuna fishing boat, Lucky Dragon 5, whose crew were contaminated with nuclear fallout from the US testing at Bikini Atoll. and that along with the sort of elements of things like beast from 20 000 fathoms were the things that fed into the original story of godzilla when when toho were putting it together that was kind of the basis of the story and then that all gets kind of subsumed when it's then redone for the american market and a lot of that thematic stuff gets taken out so that version that's the beginning of it and the original spawned a guinness world records breaking longest continuously running film series apparently having been in ongoing production since 1954 with hiatuses of various lengths um but apparently in the guinness book of records so in 2023 we had godzilla minus one do remember me reviewing that i do okay takashi yamazaki and for my money that was one of the one of the best of the series i really really enjoyed it that played out in the wake of world war ii guilty kamikaze pilot who encountered the lizard in 45 at the end of the war he was seeking redemption by facing up to his own demons and by developing a a new family and the minus one thing because we had a long discussion about this the minus one symbolized japan's quote japan's lowest point after world war ii and the emergence of godzilla making things even worse so the minus one is like that's how bad it is that was a huge hit um both domestically and around the world so now you get the sequel to that which is apparently the sixth installment in the reiwa era, which starts with Shin Godzilla in whenever it is 2015, but Toho again, once again, helmed by Takashi Yamazaki and scored by Noki Sato.

1:19:00So they've really got, they've got the old band back together again. And this time the director has said that the title represents Godzilla minus zero, as opposed to Godzilla minus one, zero represents the people trying to climb back up to a state of neutral everyday life, that being the zero. So set in 1949, two years after the emergence and defeat of Godzilla in the previous thing, people rebuilding their lives, many of the scars of the past. Again, we have the pilot who has married Noriko, survived the original attack. They now are raising an adopted daughter with support. And then the director of the large-scale disaster response bureau, who works with a whole bunch of people, they are preparing for future threats, which arrive in the form of a giant flying lizard that seems to have emerged from a meteor site that has spewed out gelatinous material that then sucked in earth creatures and created this hybrid monster, which is then named Ghidorah, later to become King Ghidorah, when it blossoms into its full three-headed form, which people will know about from the previous films.

1:20:18So everyone is powerless against this huge, big, multi-headed beastie until Godzilla reappears. And the scientists realize that if they can get these two kaiju to fight each other, then one of them will kill the other one. And then the one that's done the killing will hopefully be so injured that they can then kill him. I'm going to play you a clip from the trailer. Again, not in English. So what you're going to hear is this. It starts off with the thing which says, two years passed. We didn't finish the job like we thought. You saw it. Godzilla was blown to bits. Fight fire with fire. She is a forecasting prodigy because it's to do with the weather.

1:20:55May I suggest a plan B? I don't think I have time left. If something happened to you as well, what would become of Hakiko? Commence Operation Narukami. Here's the clip.

1:21:32So I watched this with my very good friend Rory, who, like me, is kind of very interested in the whole mythology of all this stuff. And we had a conversation about it afterwards, in which we had pretty much the same feeling was, by its nature, this doesn't have the purity of the original Godzilla narrative, in which basically the giant lizard is the embodiment of the atomic legacy. I mean, it works like that. As soon as you start introducing three-headed space lizards, of course, it's going to become more about big monsters hitting each other. What is impressive, however, is that for all the monstrous spectacle, of which there is tons, I mean, there are big monsters and they are fairly spectacular, is just how much the director manages to keep the focus on that original theme of atomic destruction, atomic fallout, grief, loss, guilt.

1:22:24I mean, yes, the visuals are spectacular and they feel like they have weight and heft, but so do the themes. I mean, the Americans come out of it as utterly opportunistic and venal. When Ghidorah first appears, they offer some planes and bombs, but not pilots. and we see them, you know, re-de-calling the planes in a way, which is, yeah, we're not flying these things. That's you. We also understand that they're there because they want to know what this new thing is because they want to be able to weaponise it and presumably exploit that understanding. There is a weird, very fascinating sort of post-the-fly subplot going on as well, a kind of body horror thing with one of the characters developing this genetic bond with Godzilla, which further kind of blurs the lines about, you know, there aren't goodies and baddies in these things is it the whole thing is it becomes an embodiment of something that that means different things and there's a very smart interplay in terms of the characters about what we know about their motives and then actually what we find out about their motives there's gonna there are there are hidden things going on in the interpersonal stuff that work really well i mean the you know the the monsters may be the the big flying lizards but there are some very, very reptilian things going on with the human characters as well.

1:23:43I thought the whole thing was very gripping, very entertaining, also thought-provoking, occasionally heartbreaking. I mean, I really enjoyed it. It's not as good as Godzilla minus one, but that's kind of by its nature. It doesn't have that purity. But I was really swept up in it. And I mean, I'm old enough to remember the 1998 Roland Emmerich Godzilla and thinking, oh, this is the end of the world. And I thought Godzilla Minus Zero was terrifically good fun and, you know, big monsters, but big themes too.

1:24:18Simon Mayo: Excellent correspondence at carbonomaya.com. Should I be worried about the body horror bit? Because that's not my thing. No, no, no, no. It's not yucky at all, but it is, you know, transformational. Okay. Let us know what you think. Please get in touch. That is the end for this week. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team, Dom, Eric, Josh, Heather and Avi. The redactor was Simon Poole, who is not on holiday this week, which is a remarkable thing. In take two, we're directing you to the Overflow car park for more chat about current releases, giving you some film suggestions related to one of this week's new releases, which is Wild Horse 9.

1:24:51Simon Mayo: Don't forget we're in Bristol in December. Mark, what is your film of the week? I think my film of the week, and it's a very good week, I think my film of the week is Wild Horse 9. join us next week we'll have Rupert Grint and Ty West on the show to talk about Ebenezer thank you very much indeed for listening there is another take which has landed alongside this one