Discount Code: WOODALL (ft. guest, James McAvoy)

15:30Chris Hewitt:That's good. That's good. It'll end the same way. That's a compliment. Wow. Wow. What? That's a threat. What? That was so dumb. Are you saying he's going to be stabbed like 30 times? Oh, my God. this man has come in to do work experience and you threatened him with death

15:48John Nugent:yeah he signed a waiver he signed a waiver we can do whatever we like to you legally it's all fine

15:54Chris Hewitt:we're indemnified Sam did you sign a waiver did you read the small print Sam Sam as your lawyer no you did not Sam give her give her a single pound then you can retain her services as your lawyer and then that saves you from being murdered by us which is good in English law you can't consent to murder You can't consent to murder? Who would consent to murder? I mean, I'm just saying if you want to, you can't. You know, like that cannibal case a few years ago. Yeah, oh, right, that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, speaking of Scream, the core four. The core four from Scream 5 and 6, whose names we all know.

16:36Mindy and Chad?

16:38Chris Hewitt:Mindy and Chad, Samantha Carpenter and her younger sister Jenna Ortega Jenna Ortega the core four who are burned into our brain I guess so because it was only three in the original Screams wasn't it really? Well was it really? Dewey and Gale and Sidney Dewey wasn't part of the core group until Scream 2 and neither was Gale really yeah like they weren't the main characters until Screams 2 and 3 really got going for it

17:08John Nugent:But that's one of my suggestions. Two of the main characters turn out to be the killers. So, you know. Yes. Yeah. There is that as well. Okay. Dorothy. The Tin Man. The Cowardly Lion. Oh my God. And the Scarecrow. That's solid. That's very solid. From Wicked.

17:25Chris Hewitt:From Wicked. Yes, that's exactly right. This is a really good question because there's lots of great movie double acts and there's lots of great movie trios. But a quartet, that's rare, I would say. Like The Avengers is six. Yeah. Yeah? The Fantastic Four is... How many is in Fantastic Four? Depends if you can't. Rocks. I love rocks. Five with the robot, I guess. Five with the robot. Yeah, we're not counting Herbie. Herbie can get the fuck. I would dismantle Herbie in the heartbeat. Wow. And laugh as I did so. It's very dark, this podcast. Yeah. Well, I think once we threatened to kill the worker, all bets were off at that point.

18:07Chris Hewitt:Sam have you ever seen The Wicker Man excellent stuff alright so I think that that settles this question right I think we've answered that question to everybody's satisfaction I think so yeah and I'm sure there are many many wonderful quartets that we've missed and overlooked so please let us know on social media social media platform of your choice because the Beatles films aren't out yet so oh that's a good one and they are a fab four plus John they are a fab four yeah yeah yeah Hard Day's Night. I mean, they have made movies. That's true. Yellow Submarine. Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean you can discount them.

18:44Chris Hewitt:Haven't seen them?

18:45John Nugent:Never will. You should.

18:48Chris Hewitt:I'm the original Blue Meanie. You should. Wow. And he drops that reference? You contain multitudes. I honestly, I can't fathom you at times. I refuse to learn anything about the needles. The needles? The needles. The needles. I refuse to beat the needles. Oh, God. Sounds like the porn version.

19:14Chris Hewitt:Oh, dear Lord. And then you drop out the blue mini. Honestly, I cannot bother you at all. Anyway, we've answered that question to everyone's satisfaction. Keep me up next week. I might go back to Instagram because that yielded a huge ton of questions.

19:28John Nugent:Oh, wait, I'm not on next week. I'm away. You're going on holiday? it's now a bad time to point out that I'm also up next week oh my god well this is bad on so many levels it's just you and Sam hey Helen murdering Sam

19:45Chris Hewitt:live on the podcast alright anyway you're alone next week apparently oh yeah okay well yeah all by yourself I'll just prepare my favourite Les Mis solo then and be all ready

19:59John Nugent:pretending we're beside you do you want to Do you have like cardboard cutouts of us? No. No? No, that would be terrifying.

20:09Chris Hewitt:How about life-sized dolls? Life-sized robot doubles. Someone's going to be like,

20:13John Nugent:this is what it's like not to be interrupted. This is glorious, the power. And another thing.

20:21Chris Hewitt:45 minutes of content spread over three glorious hours. We now begin chapter five of Women vs. Hollywood, The Fallen Rise of Women in Film. And now we turn to twats. Helen what platform are you choosing next week for your question I will you'll be answering yourself that's right let's say Instagram since you've already suggested it Instagram alright HelenO84 yes it's super catchy do that thing where you're on the stories and you go on your stories and you go hey ask me a question and then people go boom here's a question shit loads of questions yes good idea alright good stuff and now we've sorted that out.

21:04Chris Hewitt:Should we take a little break? Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's take a little break. Charles is off, everybody. No. Back in a few minutes or seconds. All right. Welcome back. Welcome back. We're in part two of the show now. What did you do during the break? Oh, I had a great time. It was amazing. We were all together. We all went and had a great time without you. You were still here. I wonder why you left for four and a half hours. Well, having fun. Anyway, while you guys were over four and a half hours, I was rounding up all the movie news that happened in the last week or so. Oh, thank goodness.

21:36It took three minutes. I was going to say.

21:39Chris Hewitt:Yeah, there's not a lot of movie news going around at the moment. We are recording this a day early because of my schedule. So if something happens, massive happens in the world of film, tonight or tomorrow, then we might be able to get back and talk about it. But for the time being, the pickings are slim, I'll be honest. but last week we talked about Ryan Gosling signing on to star in a new film from the Daniels, their first film since Everything Everywhere All at Once, hoovered up all those Oscars. And then almost immediately, once the podcast was up, came a story saying he's pulled out for such any reasons.

22:15Chris Hewitt:But I want it. It's a real shame, isn't it? Yeah, that just felt like a good... Such a good fit. Yeah, a good pairing. I think from what I've heard or from what the scuttlebutt seems to be, it's just like you say scheduling. I think he's still filming Star Wars, the Starfighter. Is he? I think there may be some additional photography going on that has just conflicted because they want to start filming this new Daniels film in the summer. Oh, okay. And it's just a… Well, that's an interesting thing. So Ryan Gosling, he's now a huge, huge star. He is becoming mostly a very, very dependable, bankable presence.

23:00Chris Hewitt:Project Hail Mary is now past$400 million and counting at the global box office. So if he drops out of your movie, you have a bit of a problem, don't you? Who do you replace him with? Who has the same kind of pool? Who has the same sort of cachet? Leo Woodall. Okay, thanks.

23:21John Nugent:Thanks, James. Whoa, that's a... Apparently, that's the solution to a great many problems in Hollywood at the moment. Is it? Just chuck in Leo Woodall. Yeah, he can do anything. He's a chameleon, is he? Can he? Yeah, he's like, yeah, it's like Marcus Brody. Like, he'll fit in. He knows all the native customs. With any luck, he's got the grill already. Exactly that. With any luck, he's got the part already. What are you basing this on? Just curious. I mean, I like him in tune. Apparently, he's a dead ringer for Aragorn, so I reckon he could do this as well. No one is a dead ringer for Aragorn. Stuart Townsend.

23:54Isn't a dead ringer for Aragorn.

23:56Chris Hewitt:Not anymore. We'll get to that in a second. We'll get to that in a minute.

24:00John Nugent:So you're rejecting Leo Woodall.

24:01Chris Hewitt:I am. I like Leo Woodall. He's a good actor. We've had him on the podcast. I'm sure we'll have him on the podcast again. But no, I don't think you're casting Leo Woodall to replace Ryan Gosling. So you have a Ryan Gosling-shaped hole. How do you fill it? You fill it with Chris Evans, I think, is what you do. Oh, this is a grey man.

24:20John Nugent:It is a grey man. Straight trade-off. 100%. But I do think that they have a... It's not the same energy, but I think they have a comparableness. No, I think Evans is a bit more bro-y than... He's not quite as glib as Brian Gosling. He hasn't quite got the sense of humour. He can be glib. He can glib his way out of a... I think he can glib.

24:39Chris Hewitt:I don't know about that. Evans went into space and sunshine and everyone wanted to kill themselves. It was Project Hail Mary. No, it was really sad when he died. Oh, spoiler alert for that. I was trying to tiptoe. Spoiler alert for the 19-year-old movie. 19-year-old movie. Oh, my God. Anyway, I don't know that Evans, since the MCU, has had the same sort of profile. I don't think he's hit it as big. His batting average isn't as good as it once was. So I don't know that he's necessarily the draw that he might have been four or five years ago. I mean, the same principle might apply, but Hemsworth is funnier than Evans, I think.

25:17John Nugent:Yeah, I think that's fair. So if you're going for comedy... But he has a very different energy to Gosling. Like, it's more significantly different than Evans, I would say. Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. But yes, he's very good at comedy.

25:31Chris Hewitt:Can we throw a prat into the mix? James, would you just... Well, if I must...

25:40John Nugent:Open goal, open goal.

25:42Chris Hewitt:Chris Pratt? No? No one? He's got the same kind of, I think he's got the same sort of impish charm as Ryan Gosling. No?

25:51John Nugent:Yeah, but he doesn't have the same sort of hangdog appeal, I think. Gosling's energy is absolutely distinct. I don't think anyone else quite has that exact combination of sort of charm, good looks, slight hangdogishness. Yeah, I think... Self-deprecation kind of a thing. Right, yeah, all of those things. Gosling's very good at deadpan, isn't he? He's very good at deadpan, yes. He's got that sort of Buster Keaton-y, sort of like, you know, expressionless comedy. Well, he does reaction shots superbly. Yeah. Whereas I think Pratt's slightly more sort of facially articulate and kind of clownish. Which is not to say that Gosling is facially inauthentic.

26:31Actually, if we're talking about the Chrises, Chris Pine, I would say, has the most Gosling energy of all the Chrises. And we're talking about the wrong ones first. Yeah, but it's draw.

26:40Chris Hewitt:It's draw. It's draw. I don't know about draw, but there's a dry kind of wit. There's a sort of aptitude for cardigans. It just feels like he's got more of the gosling-ness to him. Alan Partridge was, can I shock you? I actually don't care who plays this role. Because I'm more excited by the Daniels. That's what I'm really excited by. These are directors who made a film about a farting corpse and made it amazing. So they can... I feel like it's almost like they're the draw, for me at least,

27:18John Nugent:if not for the studio who are putting millions of dollars into this film. Well, then just for ease on the poster, just think of the designers, Daniel Kaluuya, and then it's just the Daniels. Oh, that's nice. Oh, there you go. And then it's done. Daniel Craig. Daniel Craig. Kaluuya. Any Daniel, really. Radcliffe. Craig. All of them. All of the Daniels. and they could just say at the top all of the Daniels and that's the whole That would be so meta Every Daniel everywhere all at once No one working on the film cannot be called Daniel or just in the interest of gender Daniel Daniel Okay you got us back there It could be like Godzilla X Kong It could be just Daniel X Daniel Daniel X Daniel I'm fully on board This should happen Okay great That should happen

28:01Chris Hewitt:Very well done everybody Alright So John you don't care about that casting decision but Well Do you care about who plays Aragorn? Oh, surely I do. Yes. Oh, surely I do my liege. I don't know why I went, why did you do that? Why I said surely. Verily. Verily. Forsooth I do. For truth. Good sir. Yes, yes, yes. Well, I think this is something that we had suspected or had heard rumored for a while. Where's this come from? For a while, but yes. This is the news. Andy Serkis was interviewed recently. We're talking about The Hunt for Gollum, by the way. Lord of the Rings, The Hunt for Gollum. the Lord of the Rings spin-off okay sort of mid-cool and he was interviewed and was asked about Aragorn because we have some returning cast in this but he's Aragorn Aragorn is Aragorn Viggo Mortensen which is confusing because that's a place in Spain Aragorn is a place in Spain Aragorn's a place wow

28:56John Nugent:and Aragorn is a spider

28:57Chris Hewitt:yeah so you know it's awful cool anyway now we're all caught up okay and Viggo is the Sorrow of Moldovia yeah Exactly right. Is Mortensen a place? It could be. Probably.

29:10John Nugent:It's a circus. Anyway, yes, so this is, I don't know. I don't know how to feel about this. I feel a bit sad. In case anyone didn't get it,

29:21Chris Hewitt:the news is that Viggo Mortensen is not returning as Aragorn. No. According to director of the film, Andy Serkis. And he would know. And he would know. You would hope. He's got an inside track. But he is playing Gollum. Ian McKellen is playing Gandalf. Elijah Wood is playing Frodo. So there is a bit of a mini rings reunion happening, just not with Viggo Mortens, which is confusing because he did say that Viggo Mortens was interviewed about this a couple of years ago and was like, I actually would be open to coming back to this character. I think maybe that was then. But it's changed his mind.

29:54John Nugent:He doesn't feel like it. And the scuttlebutt, the rumor, however unfounded, was that Leo Woodall, the chameleon, is potentially being parachuted in to open doors in Aragorn. Literally parachuted in. Yeah, we will have to see him open doors before we can really judge how Aragorn he is. Wet hair, open the door. Absolutely. I mean, the thing is, if you've got Ian McKellen, there's going to be a lot of CGI heavy lifting one would imagine, or this makes no sense at all. So at that point, the age discrepancy between Leo Woodall goes away. The question is, Is Leo Woodall Viggo Mortensen? And the answer to that...

30:34That's a no. It's no. You deepfake Viggo's face onto Leo Woodall's body. I mean, no disrespect to Leo, but I guess that's an option. It seems disrespectful to Viggo. I'm not suggesting it. John is. I didn't suggest it either.

30:48John Nugent:John wants him to sort of mo-cap Viggo. I don't want that at all. That's what he's asked for. That sounds horrible.

30:54Chris Hewitt:Helen, are you mad about the boy? Look, he was okay in that film. It was a nothing role. I do think he's good in Tuner, which we'll be talking about in a few weeks. Spoiler for that review. I mean, look, does this need to exist? Absolutely not. Could it be good? It's possible. Are we all okay with Aragorn being recast? I don't know if we'll know that until we see the new one in front of us. I think the answer is no, but every day is Christmas Eve, right?

31:23John Nugent:Surely the obvious answer here is Stuart Hansen. I feel like that would be somehow hard. bring it all back right Vigo the story I heard is and the thing that may have put Vigo off returning is that he is now the age that Ian McKellen was when they made the first film no wow and I guess maybe somebody put it in those terms to him and then he was like oh god let me just go in a corner and turn to dust but that you know it has been a little while I'm not surprised and time has passed for Stuart Townsend too so you know and how old is Aragon supposed to be like 170 or something I think he's only meant to be about 80 at this point, isn't he?

32:02Yeah, he's not super old. But I do think that, like, I think Gandalf and Frodo should be relatively small parts in this film. They should be kind of bookends, whereas Aragorn is going to... He is the one who is hunting for Gollum. Canonically, he is hunting for Gollum. They may have a couple of elves with him or something, but he's the guy who is meant to be hunting for Gollum at Gandalf's request to find out the history of whether this is the One Ring. This in the book takes place before he comes back to Frodo.

32:34Chris Hewitt:At the beginning, before they all go off and throw a ring into a volcano. So basically, there's like 17 years pass in the book between the party and Frodo being given the ring. And then starting the actual quest. Wow, that was a hell of a party. Wow, how long was I out? It's just like the hangover part four, isn't it? Yeah, it begins with Aragorn just calling someone going, we fucked up. Then it was a tiger. Yeah, and having become suspicious of the ring, basically, when Bilbo leaves it behind, that's when Gandalf starts looking into it. You must hunt for Column. Yeah, kind of. Interesting. Okay.

33:09So I think, I understand why Viggo Mortensen might not want to do all of that again and be, you know, facially de-aged or whatever for an entire film.

33:20Chris Hewitt:He strikes me as someone, Figo, who just, I mean, he had that experience. Obviously, it's an experience that he treasures very, very much. And it's a very, very meaningful one to him in his career. Yeah. But if you look at the stuff he's done since. He hasn't been chasing blockbusters. Yeah. So, I think he will be, yeah, I think this is a good decision for him. And also, yes, you're right, at his age, his knees might not stand it. thankfully casting has already happened for the most part on Matt Reeves The Batman Part 2 and this week it was confirmed I imagine in the same interview that Andy Serkis has been talking about everything that he will be returning to play Alfred in that in all his free time from making another movie how is he going to do this?

34:08echo I don't know echo location not echo location what do you call it when you're in two locations at once? cloning

34:15Chris Hewitt:cloning he could do his mocap thing right he's got this imaginarium stage and he could just play himself I think he's been in like so you're suggesting that a mocap Andy Serkis directs the Hunt for Gollum while the real one goes to Star as Alfred is that how you see this working? I'm suggesting that someone playing Andy Serkis in mocap directs Hunter Peter Jackson dresses up as Andy Serkis and directs the Hunt for Gollum. Yeah. Right? I'm on board. He's like, I can't do the accent. I can't get the voice right. And then Andy Serkis goes to the Batman part two. Done. Done. This is incredible. Done deal.

35:03That's not what I was saying

35:03Chris Hewitt:but that's a better solution than what I was suggesting. Which I was suggesting that he plays he stays on the set of Hunt for Gollum in mocap and then plays himself. So just during breaks. Yeah, like he beams himself into the set of the Batman part two and Robert Pattinson has to act opposite a hologram. Essentially, like a hologram of Andy Serkis. Oh, a hologram of Andy Serkis. Yeah, that would be absolutely amazing. So you're saying that Alfred should go the Jarvis route and become a full-on hologram butler? No, no, Helen. No, listen to what I'm saying. It kind of sounds like that's what you're saying.

35:37Chris Hewitt:No, Andy Serkis. I know this is a difficult concept, but bear with me. Andy Serkis the human being is a hologram Alfred the character he's playing in the Batman part 2 is solid so solid and is Alfred wearing like the pyjamas has he got like the dots on he's a hologram he can wear whatever you want are they on the holodeck at this point like how does this work

36:03John Nugent:and the person playing him is Leo Woodall obviously

36:09Chris Hewitt:who's playing Peter Jackson and who's directing it. Right, this makes perfect sense. This makes perfect sense. Thank goodness you've cleared that up. Okay, great. I was just going to mention the other sort of news story that we've heard, which is that there is circling going on. And one of the circles that is going on right now is Bradley Cooper circling the role of writing, directing, and starring in the Ocean's prequel. Ocean's 10 or whatever. So, you know, he has form at Warner Brothers, I guess it kind of makes a certain amount of sense. He's pretty cool. he looks nice in a suit I don't know what else you need for an Oceans movie but that seems like those are big a heist I mean yeah I'm sure it'll be a heist yeah something like that do we know anything else about this at this point in time well this is all because Lee Isaac Chung was going to make it and then stepped away they're still trying to get it shooting before the end of the year that's buzz this is all buzz rather than confirmation the plot remains under wraps there is a script the most recent one by Carrie Solomon that's always helpful but you know we don't know is this still with Margot Robbie was supposed to be in this at one point is that still this is the Margot Robbie Ryan Gosling one that Jane Roach was going to direct and then that just fell apart

37:22John Nugent:they're all Robbie in this one

37:24Chris Hewitt:because it's a high school yeah this is the Lucky Chat production this is Margot Robbie already set to star in it so yeah it's Margot Robbie Bradley Robbie Ryan Robbie and of course Leo Woodle Robbie this podcast is sponsored this week by Leo Woodle. Do you have a Leo Woodle in your life? If not, then get in touch with us and we can supply you with Leo Woodle. Use the office discount code WOODLE to get 50 % off your Leo Woodle this month. That's exciting. That's exciting. Good news for Bradley Cooper because I loved Is This Thing On but it, let's be honest, tanked. It did not do well at the box office like really not well at the box office and it was ignored by the Oscars completely.

38:09Chris Hewitt:In fact, every award ceremony ignored it. So he's bouncing. Good to see he's bouncing back. Absolutely. Needless to say, he had the last laugh. Anything else? Real quick. Bong Joon-ho has announced his next movie. I'm a big Bong head. And yeah, his next film is an animated film called Ally. You know, Bong Joon-ho loves weird little pig creatures and this is the latest in his weird little pig creature films. Yeah, duology, if you like. Well, trilogy? If you count Mickey 17. Mickey 17, you're right, you're right. Had some weird little pig creatures. This is a blue little ocean-based pig creature.

38:52Or a piglet squid, apparently. A piglet squid. A piglet squid. So they've released the first still of this movie, which is being animated by lots of good people, including people who worked on Toy Story. Excellent. British animation and VFX company D-Negg who've done lots of good work. And there's a production designer from Klaus which is the Netflix film which I really like.

39:21Chris Hewitt:I still haven't seen that. Good movie. Very, very good movie. Yeah. Worth watching. Maybe I'll watch it this Christmas. Yeah, that's kind of all I know about it. It's sort of about this strange little piglet who wants to appear in a wildlife documentary. don't we all that is that is mainly what I know but it's out in 2027 looks really fun shall we have a guest okay shall we have James McAvoy hurrah good because he's the only guest I have we love James McAvoy on the Empire podcast he of course is an amazing amazing actor name your favourite James McAvoy film going now John X-Men Apocalypse wow I couldn't give a straight face wow Oh my God.

40:06Chris Hewitt:Unbelievable. All right, go. Split. Split. All right. Atonement. Okay. James? Dune! He's not in Dune. He actually is in Children of Dune, the sci-fi miniseries. That doesn't count.

40:20John Nugent:It doesn't count. Favorite James McAvoy, go. Oh, I don't know favorite. I'm going to say starter for 10.

40:27Chris Hewitt:Starter for 10. Oh, good movie. Sam? Atonement. Atonement. Sam says atonement. I'm sorry the answer I had on my card was X-Men First Class. But nevertheless, he's been in so many things we love over the years. He's been on the podcast many, many times. And we love talking to him as an actor. And I loved talking to him as a director this week because he is making his directorial debut with California Scheming, which is a drama about two young boys from Dundee who want to become rappers. This is, when was this? 2000. Early 2000s. Early 2000s. and they are laughed at, sneered at by the music industry because of their Scottish accents and they hit upon a capital idea.

41:11Chris Hewitt:They will pose as American rappers and pull the wool over the industry's eyes and this is a true story. It worked until it didn't and then the wheels come off very, very quickly. This is a terrific debut from James McAvoy. We'll talk about it in the reviews section in just a few minutes But right now you're going to hear James McAvoy, who popped into the pod booth itself, to have a chat with me about a great many things, including, of course, making his territorial debut and getting chased as a young boy around Scottish housing estates. Enjoy. James McAvoy, director of California Scheming. How are you?

41:48Chris Hewitt:Very well. Thanks for having me. Good, good, good. Glad you're here. How does that feel to hear that, director of California Scheming? It is... I'm getting used to it. It's been a while now. But there were times where, like the first time I saw the edit of the film with the titles and chyrons or whatever they're called on it, and it said, directed by James McAvoy, I was like, that was kind of nuts. And then there were times where it was really scary when people were like, you know, give us your vision. What's your vision for the film? Which I hate. I hate it when people go like, I don't hate it when they ask that.

42:25I hate it that it's sort of accepted that it's a thing you have to have. I'm like. you have all the answers see the script that we've been working on for two years that's the vision we're going to do that and so what they want is generally what people want is what films is it like what's it going to look like is it going to look like what films is it going to look like that's generally what you're getting asked did you do a mood board nah I hate it I don't want to do a mood board the mood board's in my head and and it's in how I communicate with the crew and my HODs and all of that but quite a few people were pushing for me to make bibles and all that and I think it's just to make them reassure everybody else that I will have something I have something in my head I mean is there a sense as well

43:06Chris Hewitt:that because you are an actor and the performances in this are incredible that people just assume that you'll have the acting sussed that's going to be fine but maybe the facial side as well yeah I think you're right I think you're right and I had a lot of people yeah I think I feel like a lot of people were just asking me a lot what's your vision what's your vision what's it going to be like tonally what's it going to be like visually what's it going to be like this that and the next thing and I'd be like I think I've told you what it's going to be like but they want to see it in a mood board or in a bible and they want to see googled pictures from other films and I'm like I'm not doing that I'm not I don't want to be inspired by other people's art I want to be inspired by the time I got my heart broken when I was 14 because that's truer to me and even if I make something that does look like the same shot from some other film 20 years ago in South Korean cinema.

44:00That'll be because it just looks like that, not because I've ripped it off on Google.

44:05Chris Hewitt:But how do you convey that then to, say, a DP? How do you go up to your DP and go, I want this to look like when I got my heart broken when I was 14? So what did I, like James Rhodes, his amazing DP, he and I spent quite a bit of time together, and he was actually quite, I remember when I met him he was the first EP that I met who was like giving me a hard time about the script and he was like yeah what does that mean I don't get that what's that all about and I thought well this is good he's interrogating the material also he was a really experienced concert like live music performance concert photographer oh perfect so it was great for us but I was saying to him like we knew I had this thing right when I was growing up I could have just googled this and googled Wild West movies but I didn't I tried to talk and use my words, right?

44:57Which is, which frustrates some people in the business. But I said to him, when I was growing up, growing up in a council estate, it felt wild. It felt, it felt, I didn't feel that the world was small. Even though I had few, the artistic opportunities were limited and opportunities in general were limited. My horizons felt huge and the sky felt big and it felt like big country. You know the film, big country? Yeah, I do, yeah. It felt like the Wild West. it felt like getting a chase getting chased by people in my council estate felt like life and death and felt like like dukes of hazard making it to the county line if I got there was a massive valley in between the two schemes a scheme for anybody who doesn't know is a council estate a council scheme scheme one and scheme two I lived in scheme one there was a massive valley or a glen and through the middle of it at the bottom was a burn a stream and I knew if I got to that burn, I managed to leap that burn, it's like I got across the county line and I was free, I was safe.

45:59Do you know what I mean? And it was like, that's what it felt like. It felt like the Wild West in some ways. And so we decided to make Dundee, the council estate, anamorphic, widescreen and try and go for quite big, epic shots of what is a council estate. And then when we get to London, change to spherical and make it much more claustrophobic and tight whereas you'd maybe think if they go to London the world opens up we went the other way so we started big and huge and epic and anamorphic and we went tighter and more claustrophobic and spherical when we got to London so that was like I feel like that's a really good way of describing a visual sort of language that we want to use for the film all I got was yeah but what's your vision though I'm like I just told you not from my DP he totally got it but everybody else is like what's your vision you just want pictures from other films that's what you want to see you want to mood board

46:52Chris Hewitt:before we before we get into that did you ever get caught in the chase yeah totally I got my I mean in Scotland I don't want to use the C word but yeah I got my C word kicked in as we would say in Scotland a lot by a bunch of wee fannies or wee bams or other terms that we use for ne 'er do wells were you ever I used to love getting a chase were you ever the chaser though were you ever the chaser sir? No, I don't think so. It's a long time ago, you can admit to it now. No, I don't think so. I mean, maybe at high school in a kind of light-hearted kind of, I know these wee fannies want to chase, so I'll give them a chase.

47:33Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's 12-year-olds and I'm 15 or something like that, maybe. But never with violent intent. Why were you

47:40Chris Hewitt:chased? Because in the movie Gavin is I mean, Jesus, my heart bled for him from the first minute. the casting of this I want to talk about that in a second as well the casting of this is absolutely spot on but the moment you see him it's just this this little boy lost who doesn't quite belong in that world and you can see him he's really struggling with social interactions and then obviously when success comes he goes off the rails slightly but you can see why he would be chased why were you chased? because I wanted to be chased I would get chased because I would provoke the chase I would provoke I would you know I can see that you know when you got when there isn't a lot right you know they say like what do you have when you've got nothing you've got sex and music right you've also got getting chased and I would me and my mates would often like try and find older kids to wind up to get chased from would you want your mouth off yeah yeah yeah totally absolutely my special move is where I had a special move I had a special move which I would vote I would if they were really close to me, I'd find a fence and I would vault the fence and they would vault it right after me and then I would immediately pivot and vault back over it the way I'd come and they would generally be exasperated by that and not have the dexterity to catch up.

49:01That was my signature special move in Drumchapel. It was the double pivot vault. Can you still do it? Yeah, I can. Give me a low enough fence and I will evade you like no other.

49:13Chris Hewitt:We can lower this desk. This is a movable desk. Maybe we'll do that at the end. Jace James out of here. Let's talk about the casting of this. I want to talk about you directing as well and kind of your journey towards becoming a director. But the casting spot on Seamus and Samuel and this are phenomenal. And the wider cast as well. Lucy Halliday and Rebecca Murrell absolutely bring it home as well. It was a long search, but also a quick search because Samuel was the first person you saw. Sam was the first person that I ever met as a director casting an actor and I think the reason we saw him because he was going to go to South Africa to do a job I was going to Germany to do a job right and we wanted to get the cast nailed down quite far in advance because we you know they had a lot to do they had a lot to learn yeah they had a lot of you know hip hop kind of dexterity to acquire they had to skateboard board they had to do a lot of stuff so we wanted to get them nailed down early and and also we knew that chemistry was going to be important yeah almost more important than the two actors being individually the best actors yeah the best chemistry was going to be the most important thing but yes sam came in absolutely blew me away and then similarly seamus too came in blew me away and it was just really going to be if they had chemistry or not i tried a lot of actors and tried a lot of combinations of actors to find this chemistry and seamus and sam were front runners like massively anyway and this is no disrespect to anybody else that came in and auditioned you said we're all brilliant just it's about sometimes being right for the part even though you're brilliant you might not be right for the part and also having the chemistry when finally put Seamus and Sam together who were the two of the front runners they kind of cancelled each other out and it wasn't it actually wasn't very good and I was like oh no oh no this is a disaster and I think they went the second time and they were brilliant what changed I think the first time I didn't do anything I just did that classic thing the directors do which is I don't know why it's not working I think we'll go again and so we went for another take and they were brilliant and I think what was happening on the first pass because I watched it I've got it on tape was they were just a bit they were both a bit like oh god you're good oh god you're on my level now and it's like oh you're maybe are you better than me?

51:37am I as good as you? I might need to up it here I might need to up it and they were both kind of thinking the same thing they both got a bit shocked by the quality of the other performer and then the second take they did it they both just fronted up and they both went to another level that they hadn't achieved yet so that was it was amazing watching that but Lucy Hannity first tape I saw she was the first tape I saw for that role and I was there was somebody else that came in actually who was really close but I was like I think it's going to be her

52:06Chris Hewitt:yeah weirdly Rebecca Mirrell who plays Tessa that role was the only role that we invented the only role that we created and that was really difficult like there was a couple of people who could do it but they were maybe like too old for the role or the wrong chemistry the wrong kind of background and nobody was really doing it to the point where me and the writers were kind of going have we created a crap role here have we written something really bad we think it's really good and then Rebecca came in and absolutely blew us away and she's so entertaining and gets so much so much vivacity I think that to go up against the two boys who've got a lot of ammunition the two performers Seamus and Sam who play Gavin and Billy they've got a lot of ammunition to give some barnstorming big performance how Lucy and Rebecca stand up to them is unbelievable really and I don't know how they do it but it's about screen presence and it's about internal life energy as well.

53:10It's not just about the writing and all that. It's about them as performers just being absolutely present and not withering in the face of these quite overwhelming performances from Seamus and Sam.

53:22Chris Hewitt:I always think that auditioning both sides is about faith, right? So you are seeing people, I don't know how much Samuel and Seamus read and how varied their audition was. they taped and then they both auditioned in person twice were they doing varied scenes were they running the emotional gamut because that is something as a director you have to kind of take on faith a little bit right yeah I was definitely making sure they could do it and I was quite forthright and I was quite brutal with Seamus on his first audition because I could tell he was like he was he Seamus didn't do the best job in his first edition but he was still the best actor yeah but I was like I also need you to do the best job so make sure you do the best job when you come back as well and he did and he was incredible and he blew me away and I don't know what the reason for that was I'm not casting any aspersions and there was it wasn't lack of professionalism or anything like that just something I could tell he was going to be the best actor he just he just he just needed to come in and hit it on purpose and he did he did and I was quite I remember the email I sent I don't know if it was an email or I sent him a voice note or I sent him a video or something like that through his agent I remember being pretty brutal and that's sort of like what you need you need to be able to as an actor anyway I think you need to be able to take notes like that and and not whether take them and thrive on them and live from them and because really you know some of the best notes I've had are an audience leaving in the middle of a stage performance do you know what I mean that's my note I don't need another note after that when did that last happen that happened in oh 1983 no that happened that happened a few times on stage yeah and look I'm not saying that every you know not everything's for everybody but they might have a trend to catch you know when an audience ain't loving something you know what I mean and it's like it's a strong note anyway the harsh the harsh notes are sometimes the best ones I don't know why I was saying that to you you were saying it's an act of faith it is faith but I was definitely putting them both through the ringer to make sure I could get you know there was as little faith as needed as possible in that decision this journey of yours as we said at the beginning you know to being James McAvoy director of California Scheming I know this started really this movie started for you about three and a half years ago.

56:04Chris Hewitt:But were you thinking about making the leap up before that? Yeah, I've been thinking about it for a long time. I should have probably done it in my 30s, but I was busy with, you know, having kids and actually earning money as an actor, which is not to be sniffed at. It doesn't happen all the time for most actors. And I don't earn anything as a director. So there was that. And then just waiting for the right story and desperately wanting to tell stories about people from lower income backgrounds that are still movies, not just gritty independent film. And if there is a semantic sort of difference there, it's that for me.

56:42I wanted to make a movie about these guys. Oh, it's there from the beginning with the chase scene. Yeah, do you know what I mean? So that was when I was waiting for the right thing. I didn't necessarily need it to be Scottish either, but I'm really glad that the first thing that satisfied that desire was Scottish because it felt amazing being there, telling that story it felt like I think this film isn't breaking a lot of like it's not tearing up the rule book in terms of narrative it's a narrative we kind of know it is a sort of success story that has a bit of a secret tragedy at the end

57:16Chris Hewitt:yeah and we kind of know what the structure of the film is also the nature of musical biopics is that you quite there is often a kind of a troubled artist somewhere along the way and all that yeah yeah yeah but it's a deeply kind of personal and to me authentic movie because it just feels like it feels like what my childhood was like a lot as well and what coming out of my childhood and trying to find my way in the business as an actor in those early years of 1920 21 and the much less sensational path that I've had to walk that is not worthy of making a movie but where they had to sacrifice their authenticity and their integrity to get where they wanted to get I've definitely had to walk that line for 30 years so coming from where I come from and walking the path that I've had to walk for 30 years this film feels incredibly personal to me Has walking that path got easier over the years?

58:07Yeah, because it's previously in younger days or earlier days you know, you're dangled the thing that's dangled in front of you is you can have this you can have success if you do this and you don't know you've got no experience to know that well I don't need to do that, I'll be alright if I don't do that so the quandary is there I generally fell on the side of backing myself and doing what I wanted to do. But now it's very easy to make those decisions because I just go, cheers mate, heard it all before, thank you very much. I've had a nice career up until now and I've pretty much stayed true to myself.

58:38But there is a constant, there is a pull to, at times, sacrifice something of your authenticity and integrity. And I think that's fine, by the way. Honestly, I'm like, get what you want to get and do what you want to do. Sacrifice whatever you want to sacrifice to get what you want. But at some point, you're going to need to pay the price and you might not have enough change in your pocket to pay that price and you're going to be really hurt. Or maybe you will have enough change in your pocket because maybe for you the price isn't that high. Maybe those things aren't so important to you. So it's not like everybody's got to stay true to themselves.

59:11Everybody's got to remember where they're from. Everybody's got to have integrity. You don't. Do what you want. But sometimes people get hurt because they can't pay the price for the decisions they've made. you know

59:23John Nugent:yeah

59:23Chris Hewitt:did you come close to losing it all losing your soul back in the day back in the early back in the did you come close to making that sacrifice no the only the big big big big moment for me was sort of after having done the whole campaigning thing very early in my career for basically for Forrest for Last King of Scotland yeah yeah and for the film as well but really we were like pushing him so hard and he deserves everything he got then going back a few years later to do it all again for atonement and I was like I can't do this can't do it and there was a lot of pressure on me to do it and I was just like it's just soul destroying I can't I can't I don't mind I'm an actor I don't mind put a spotlight on me I will dance monkey dance right you'll leap over a desk if you have to shaking hands and dancing monkey dance to get votes and stuff this feels awful yeah on that note it's been a pleasure as always if I lower the desk can I interest you in a double pivot yeah yeah man my special move yeah alright James McAvoy it's been a pleasure thank you cheers okay that was James McAvoy director of California Scheming and he is also in the film briefly very good as well isn't he Hells Bells he is yeah I had a nice time with this so like you say it's the two Scottish rappers played by Samuel Bottomley and Seamus McLean Ross who go down to London you know they're auditioning they're sending in they're they're sort of calling up record companies are sending in tapes and they just keep getting nowhere until the day they decide to pretend that they are californians that they like no d12 like they're on the whole scene and then they're just they just happen to be here in the uk and everyone is sort of intrigued they sort of suddenly seem to get the success that they've been chasing and then it's a matter of how long can they keep up the facade.

1:01:18Yeah. This is based on a true story. So people out there, probably not Sam, who's too young, may remember it happening, may even have seen them, you know, or heard the site. I didn't, I didn't remember this, but like, I'm guessing people in Scotland, people up near Glasgow, might have a better recollection of these. Or Dundee, sorry, yes, may have a better recollection of Sybil, Syllable and Brains, which was their nom de rap. Because one's called Billy

1:01:45Chris Hewitt:and one's called Gavin Bain. Gavin. So Gavin Bain was brained and silly billy. Sillable.

1:01:51John Nugent:This is the Scottish equivalent of rhyming slang, presumably. It is, James. Yeah. And yeah, and it's just quite, it's an interesting film. I thought it was very charmingly performed by McLean Ross and Bottomley. I thought it was a really solid direction from James McAvoy, just in terms of, you know, as a first film, he's got a real feel for, obviously, like the time that they grew up and the place that they grew up and the characters themselves. I just think it feels a bit by the numbers, even though it's based on a true story, which I had no knowledge of, I sort of felt I knew what was coming in the script.

1:02:30You know, it felt quite sort of planned out almost, you know, or certainly familiar beats to this kind of story. People who have, you know, made a ridiculous lie like this don't tend to end well in films like this and so i sort of kind of was waiting for certain things to happen and they kind of did happen on time so even though it's based on true story i find it kind of predictable in a way that i was disappointed by but everything else about it i find really quite charming i find that the you know the music was good the the performance was good um just the sense of place and time and you know the excitement of getting on like music TV and selling records and being on the radio and everything that used to happen before the bottom fell out of the music business like everything else.

1:03:17You know, it's all kind of there and it's really well portrayed and I really, really enjoyed all of that. I thought McAvoy's little acting role was actually really good as well. He reminds you why he's a star and sort of swaggers in and chooses up proceedings for a few minutes at a time, you know?

1:03:31Chris Hewitt:Yeah, he dominates the scenes he's in. He really does. But without doing much. No, no, not at all. He's not glory hogging for himself at all. I think it gives real, you know, real room for these two young actors to shine and to create this sense of, you know, lifelong besties and buddies who are suddenly put, you know, their relationship is put under real, real pressure because one of them, Billy, has a girlfriend back home, Lucy Halliday. And so he doesn't necessarily want to keep up the facade forever when they're sort of in this situation where they kind of get caught up in their own hype and don't quite know what to do about it.

1:04:09So I thought that kind of side of things was great and really enjoyed it. But yeah, overall, it feels like a sort of high three to me, which I think is what we've given it.

1:04:18Chris Hewitt:I actually might be in the four category. Okay. I think this is a very, very promising debut behind the camera from James McAvoy. As is often the case when you have an actor turning director, the performances are absolutely excellent across the board. The main two guys, Samuel Bottomley and Seamus McLean Ross, who will be on next week's episode of The Interviews, an absolutely raucous, unhinged interview I did with them, which I had to record on my phone, so hopefully we'll make the sound quality work. They are terrific together, and the film doesn't work if you don't buy into them. I think it may be because in real life there was a bittersweet ending to the tale.

1:05:07Chris Hewitt:The movie switches tones in the last half hour or so, but the first hour for me was joyous just watching these two guys kind of trying to game the system and come up with this way around things. So yes, very much enjoyed it. For me, we gave it three. I'd go slightly higher. Helen would go slightly higher, but also within the confines of three. Three stars in for California Scheming. Next up, James, a horror film about a podcast.

1:05:37John Nugent:I can only suspend my disbelief so far. Such a thing could not exist. However, writer-director Ian Tewson has made his movie debut with this. This is Undertone, and it is an A24 horror film about a podcast. It stars Nina Kiri as Evie, and it is, to all intents and purposes, a one-woman show. She is basically the only person in this film. Her mother, played by Michelle Duque, is in it, but she is non-verbal and essentially almost comatose in a bed throughout the entire film. So it's basically just her. And she runs a podcast, or she does a podcast called Undertone, with her friend, Justin, played by Adam DeMarco, or rather the voice of Adam DeMarco.

1:06:18John Nugent:And it's a supernatural podcast where they look at mysteries and scary things that have happened in the world via the internet. and they come across an email with 10 distinct audio files in it. And those audio files seem to show the, is it possession? Is it something else? Certainly supernatural activities happening to a married couple. And the way they explore this mystery is by listening in forensic detail to the individual audio files and trying to pick out what's going on. So you've got sort of scary noises. You've got kids' nursery rhymes being played backwards for hidden messages. and the whole film essentially revolves around this very sort of simple performance of her talking into the microphone in that way that well hopefully we're doing at the moment that sort of asmr slightly sonorous very closed studio sound where it feels very intimate with the voices in your ear so you feel very close to the action in this um and an interesting device is that she's moved back to her mother's house her mother is terminally ill she's dying it's sort of palliative of care uh and because she is there with her mother she's in a different time zone to justin so when they record the podcast they do it at 3 a.m which is what we do when we can't get a studio booking but they have to do it by necessity so you have kind of that slightly scary night time we feel but really the actual horror story here is quite simple and on paper it's not really that good but what makes this stand out is the extraordinary audio mix which you'd hope for a podcast-related horror film, right?

1:07:44John Nugent:And for someone who spends a lot of my time listening to, well, let's be honest, Boyd, do lips, Max, but who listens to audio all the time, there's something about this I found quite triggering, like, kind of scary, just, like, really crept into the back of my mind, because this was made for, I would think,$500 ,000, so absolutely nothing. Tewson shot it in his own childhood home. Like, it's really, really low budget, but the Atmos mix is fucking off the chain. Like, the... Exactly that, yeah. the 3D placement of very unnerving sounds from clicks and groans to music, nursery rhymes, even sounds that just feel incongruous like they shouldn't be there.

1:08:21John Nugent:And she even makes really good use of the absence of sound. Like there's a noise cancelling thing as well where you have that complete silence. And it's really, really unnerving. And the way it's shot is also kind of very discordant. There's lots of Dutch angles in it and rotating camera work. It's really, really unnerving. In a way that, honestly, I think the closest thing to it really was probably like Blair Witch Project, where it has that slightly low vibe. Wow, that's high praise. But genuinely, this is a really fucking frightening film. It's incredibly unsettling, creepy, unnerving. When I finished watching it, I was in that kind of weird liminal space where you're just not quite sure what's real and what's not real, and you're kind of looking around for noises and things.

1:08:59John Nugent:But yeah, this creeped me out massively. John, you reviewed this. You gave this four stars. Yes. I think it's probably a three-star horror film, but with an absolutely four-star sound mix, if that makes sense. Yeah. Because I think the sound is the hero here. It's the main star of this film, and it's incredibly effective. I slightly disagree, because I think the way it's shot is also really, really a part of this, because there's a lot of moments where she's sitting at the table with her noise-canceling headphones on, so she can't hear if anything creeps up behind her, which really upset me. And there's just black space behind her.

1:09:37You know, the shooting of the film is often like through doors or there's like just blank spaces or dark shadowy corners in the frame almost all the time. And you are sitting there waiting for the inevitable twitch of movement or, you know, sudden shift in the shadows or something to emerge from the darkness. And it is, you're doing all the work in this film. I mean, honestly, I'm surprised it was even 500 ,000. I think most of that did go on the sign mix. I think you're right because it is so, it feels like a movie where he's gone, how could I make, you know, a movie as cheaply as possible that no one can take away from me that I can just really show what I can do and then done that.

1:10:22You know, he's made it, he's made a virtue of all the constraints that he's working with. But the fact that there is just so much empty space around her all the time freaked me the hell out. but you're doing all the heavy lifting of scaring yourself I think as you watch this movie and but you will you will be scared

1:10:42Chris Hewitt:imagine how you'll feel next week when you're in the studio on your own surrounded by empty space I'm just going to turn all the lights up to maximum and that thing that's behind you right now don't worry about that I wouldn't worry about it I'm sure it'll be totally fine he's here all the time oh sorry I was talking about John John you reviewed this film you gave it four stars yes so yes yes I think I agree with that? Yes. It's interesting. I wonder how I will feel about it if I watch it like on a laptop. I think this is a film that really benefits from like a big screen booming 3D sound sort of surrounding you.

1:11:20It's a profoundly unsettling experience in the best possible way. How does it compare to something like

1:11:27Chris Hewitt:whenever I heard the plot, it sounds a little bit like maybe there's elements of barbarian sound studio a little bit yeah i think that's that's that's a good sort of point of comparison especially in the way that it sort of descends into a kind of ambiguous madness as the film goes on like it doesn't feel like both of those films don't really resolve in a way that is like straightforward and i think that might some people might trip up at that um but i i really like that uh i also like that it's it's basically a film about catholic guilt uh which as a you know lapsed catholic i'm i'm i'm here for i always love a bit of catholic guilt um you know that there's a very scary virgin mary statuette that keeps popping up um it's a different different saint i think but it's terrible oh is it okay i'm so fucking disturbing you really are lapsed yeah it's been a while no it's just very very effective and yeah I do really think you need that big grand cinematic experience to fully appreciate it from a podcasting point of view is it accurate podcasting or is it like the people from Halloween David Gordon Green's Halloween who record an interview by waving a recorder at someone from 20 feet across the room this is something that drives me out

1:12:49John Nugent:to be fair with the only thing she doesn't have a pop shield but other than that other than that spot on I thought I think the pop shield is the big thing for me it's not like nobody wants this where they don't even wear headphones and I'm like for fuck's sake you're off mic oh my god

1:13:05Chris Hewitt:I was fine with this Only Murders in the Building I mean I stopped watching it because I thought the show was going downhill but also the way they record podcasts just gave me the conniptious no absolutely not absolutely not yeah I don't know how their sound mix works but it does I love Only Murders still anyway good this is scarier than Only Murders in the Building scarier than Only Murders in the Building All right, four stars then for Undertone. John. Yes. François Ozon is back. Oui. He's back, back, back. Il est retourné. Il est retourné. Il est retourné. Avec une… L 'étranger? Non? L 'étranger.

1:13:42Chris Hewitt:L 'étranger? L 'étranger. L 'étranger? L 'étranger? Oui. She said, yeah. No, no, that was a mistake. Oh, you made a mistake. Helen made a mistake. Wow. Oh, my God. I mean, I'm a last Duolingo player as well. So I don't know. Yeah, I very much had to watch this with subtitles. But yes, The Stranger. The Stranger, yes. Yes, Francois Ozan. Francois Ozan's latest film, which is an adaptation of the classic Albert or Albert? Albert. Albert Camus. Camus, yes. Carry on, follow la Camus. The classic novel by Albert Camus. too much on the too much on the ooh you're going to say English knickets in a second you're going to go your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries or whatever it is I always get that wrong and I'm such a big python fan Albert Camus and his famous 1942 novel The Stranger which I read as a teenager and I think a lot of people read as teenagers it's a classic existential angst existential angst exactly it's like the world means nothing and it's all meaningless kind of book um and there's been a couple of attempts to bring this book to to the screen it's quite a hard film to adapt um i think this is probably the best possible version of that book you could make for the big screen it's uh it's very faithful um you know sometimes word for word i think the script is but also tries to bring it up into the modern day in a way i mean the book is so it's set in yes what's it about and who's in it let's let's start with that let's start with that it's uh it's set in the 40s it's set in in french algeria so this is algeria when it was still part of france it's a french colony um and there is a man called museau uh who in this is played by uh benjamin voicine um i think voicine is french for neighbor um it is so it's benjamin neighbor benjamin neighbor he'd be known here uh so merceau is a man who seems very indifferent to life very nonchalant he he is essentially like what does it matter what does what does anything matter he is the embodiment of the word buff yes um and we we meet him going to his mother's funeral and he doesn't seem to show any emotion at his mother's funeral.

1:16:10He just smokes a lot of cigarettes and drinks a lot of coffee, basically very French. And then... Well, that's a stereotype, John. Come on, man. He literally does that. Yeah, they all do. Yeah. That's fair. Okay. And then he just carries on with his life. He meets a beautiful woman and starts, you know, dating her. Goes to the cinema, just sort of carries on with his day. Then on the beach one day, he shoots an arab man in cold blood five times and then the the second half of the book and the second half of the film is essentially his trial for murder uh where he is questioned on his indifference towards life why he seems just so sort of and and the book is and the film is sort of trying to show the absurdity of this trial where he's it's more shocking that he shows indifference to his mother's funeral and less shocking that he murdered an indigenous man in cold blood um and and what ozon is doing very well well first of all he shoots it all in black and white it looks beautiful it's very crisply shot there's amazing like contrast and shadows and light and that really sort of like hammers hone this this this sense of of you know indifference this sort of angsty mood and atmosphere.

1:17:32And Benjamin Voisson, really impressive in this role, as just being like, he's not inhumane. He's not totally a sociopath, but he has this very strict sort of sense of life where he just doesn't care. If he thinks it doesn't matter, he will show no sort of emotion. He shows no remorse for this murder. he just he he is not interested in in in sort of a standard set of morals essentially um it's a very slow burn sort of film it's very thoughtful it's incredibly french um uh you know not a ton happens in in in a lot of ways if if you're not familiar with the book maybe you know you you you should read the book first.

1:18:21I think it's really worth reading. But I was just very enamored with it. I thought it was really impressive. It's very dark and very French.

1:18:32Chris Hewitt:Very dark and very French. Très bien, as they say. Très bien. He is a good neighbor in this one. Yes. What did we give it? Four stars. Four stars or quatre étoiles. Très bien. Oh, okay. my apologies to all our french listeners for the way john just mangled the french language and also our stereotypes pardon yes yes very sorry very very desolate very very very desolate indeed uh all right last uh but not least but probably least is the rom-com you me and tuscany which was once called Helen Italiana. And that is a better title. I think they're both quite bad. I think you're quite bad. Wow, harsh.

1:19:23Yeah, so this is the new film from director Kat Koiro who did bits of She-Hulk. She did Marry Me, which I quite like because I like J-Lo and Rock Kong.

1:19:32Chris Hewitt:Owen Wilson and J-Lo, yeah. It's written by Ryan Engel and Kristen Engel. He did things like Rampage and Non-Stop shop before now, which may explain why the script is so mechanical. This stars Halle Bailey as Anna, who is this woman in New York. She's been kind of just getting by since the death of her mum sort of derailed her dreams of becoming a chef. And she's just kind of still dealing with her trauma and her grief and not really moving on with her life. And one night she meets a dishy Italian man in a bar, and they get talking about his house in Tuscany, and he encourages her to take the trip she always planned to take to Italy and, you know, go and cook some Italian food in Italy.

1:20:19And she's like, you know what? I'm going to go to your town. It sounds awesome. And then she gets there, and the hotels are full, so she basically lets herself into his house because she knows it's empty and decides to take it over. And then through a series of events, everyone thinks she's his fiancée, and she doesn't disabuse him of this notion, which is a real problem when she falls in love with his wife cousin who's been raised like his brother, who is Michael, played by Regé John Page.

1:20:45Chris Hewitt:Who's an Englishman raised in Italy. Raised by Italians. Who still has his English accent. Yes, but can also speak Italian. But can also speak Italian. Not too badly, as far as I could tell. Helen, you speak a little bit of Italian. Si. What is Italian for while you were sleeping but without the coma? Yeah, well, it's you, me, and Tuscany is the answer to that. Yeah, it's not even that good. And I like both these stars, I really do. But this is not even Netflix level. Like the contrivances and the situations and the ridiculous like, you know, furniture that kind of keeps throwing them together and that keeps delaying her inevitable coming clean to the family is just so badly done in this film.

1:21:35And the characterization is pretty bad. And the fact that the film is very, very kind of small C conservative, that it doesn't even, you feel like it was made to start off with that she had a one night stand with this Italian guy in New York. But I think the moment I knew this film was going to be bad was when she didn't sleep with him. And I mean that not because I think she should have been shagging him around herself, but because then I knew this film was going to pull its punches at every possible moment and it was going to fail to give its characters any real depth or any real reason not to be together or any real impediment to the big romantic finale.

1:22:14And that's kind of what it keeps doing. It keeps like shying away from giving them any character depth or interest whatsoever and not really allowing them to kind of grow as people. And look, they do their best, I think, with what they're given. Both of them, you know, are orphaned and they sort of bond over that. And there's some nice little moments in the quieter scenes. But there's so much stupid shit around that that it's really hard to get past. And look, I know that the romance genre and many other comedy and kid genres do this a lot, which is to stereotype countries and areas out of all recognition.

1:22:54But I really just do find it quite offensive, you know, that everybody in Italy owns a vineyard or a little trattoria and like everybody lives in a small hillside town. I mean, I know this is in Tuscany, but even so, you know, give us a city once in a while. You know, it's just catering to the lowest possible common denominator. Oh, Europeans have smaller cars than Americans. Ha ha ha. What the fuck? It just, like, let's move on, people. But it's like the way when, you know, in kids' movies, when somebody comes to the UK, they instantly fall in with the aristocracy. Have you noticed this? It's this level of narrative complication.

1:23:32And I think it's bad. So I genuinely, I really went into this looking to have a nice, stupid rom-com time. I am here for a nice, stupid rom-com. But this insulted my intelligence with its stupidity.

1:23:47Chris Hewitt:Five stars then for you, me, and Tuscany. And we gave us two, right? we gave it two stars yeah okay two stars then for you me and Tuscany and on that note that is it for this week's Empire podcast join us next week for more film related fun when Helen will be joined by nobody just Helen in an endless void of existential angst I mean maybe I could get some of the other staff to join me I mean yeah we could probably do that okay I'm sure that can be arranged that or the existential French Langs. Oh, yeah. Or the Carpo Cutouts of me and James. Tempting. It is. So tempting. So tempting. Andy Serkis in a mocap suit.

1:24:30Chris Hewitt:That'd be amazing. Leah Woodall, 50 % off. And either Brian Cox. Amazing. Fuck off. Who will be making his directorial debut with Glenn Rothen, which is exceedingly Scottish. an exceedingly Scottish film from an exceedingly Scottish man or Jack Rayner who is the star of Lee Cronin's The Mummy it'll be one of those on the main show the other one will be in next week's episode of The Interview so keep them peeled for those as well but in the meantime all that remains is to say goodbye to my three colleagues of such lethal cunning as Logan Roy once said I love you but you are not serious people goodbye to James Dyer goodbye Chris goodbye John Nugent goodbye au revoir ademà oh my god he's really big enough yeah that chouette has taught you well it's goodbye from Helen O 'Hara ciao a tutti what?

1:25:37what I'm

1:25:38Chris Hewitt:what? how dare you Reggio Sean Page is allowed to be Italian and I'm not he's Reggio Sean Page have you seen him? I mean look at him walk around him I mean that's that's fair I married an Italian I'm allowed to you know you did you did marry an Italian yeah yeah it's fine just like you me and Tuscany just like so many ways so he also owns a vineyard and a hilltop villa I don't think I think this is why you don't like the film because they took so much of your life of my life that's right yeah very very much so the wanting to be a chef super into cooking yeah that's me Fall in love with someone's cousin?

1:26:17No, I mean, I guess he's someone's cousin. He is someone's cousin. Yeah, not someone I'd previously, you know.

1:26:22Chris Hewitt:And you, Helen, correct me if I'm wrong, you have a small car. I do have a small car. Oh my God. Everything is falling into place. They stole my life. Or as they say in Italy, Plaza. That's not what they said. And on that note, it's goodbye for me as well. There's just one thing left for me to do this week. Sam get running pal no Chris no it's time for the ritual oh god what we're not paying him

1:26:58John Nugent:no murder Pax the bone arrow

1:27:00Chris Hewitt:yes Pax the wicker man John what's your implement of choice I'm not participating Sam how fast are you I guess we'll see I guess we'll see we'll give you we'll give you a 30 second head start how does that sound great All right. Thanks for listening. See you next week. I'll be in prison. Bye.