The Shameless Plug: Another Odyssey Odyssey

9:43Nick de Semlyen:Yeah, the Cyclops doesn't drop an F-bomb.

9:46Chris Hewitt:Fuck off! He drops a lot of stuff. Yeah, he drops stuff. But he doesn't drop an F-bomb. But anyway, listen, you guys, by the time this is going up, you will probably have come out with your first screening of the Odyssey. So we don't want to go into details about the film too much. There will be a spoiler special. Nick and I and a couple of other people are going to be doing an immediate reaction Odyssey Spoiler Special Part 1 of 2. Immediately after this, in fact, shameless plug, I ask you about the time you spent with Chris Nolan, Nick, for a couple of reasons. One, doing what we do. When we do stories like this, in-depth stories, then obviously I have the podcast as well on top of things.

10:23Chris Hewitt:Sometimes you'll find yourself in conversation with, most often a director, but sometimes it could be an actor as well, repeatedly, many, many times during the writing of a feature. And then for me, when I go on to the podcast, I'll do spoiler specials with stuff. I remember doing Destin Daniel Cretton for Shang-Chi and I interviewed him a bunch for the magazine and then a bunch for the podcast and the last time I spoke to him he was like, I'm not you again. I had that with Jerry

10:50Nick de Semlyen:Seinfeld for Bee Movie. I interviewed Jerry Seinfeld on multiple continents. We talked about bees so many times and then eventually we were done with the magazine coverage and James was like, right, we want to do a bee quiz online. You have to do it, Nick, because you've done all the Bee Movie stuff and I went into the hotel suite in london and jerry seinfeld with questions about bees and he looked at me and went not you again and you could tell he meant it i think he meant it i will say just a daniel crappin was

11:15Chris Hewitt:was kidding but i also remember jim mangold for i think it might have been the wolverine or logan uh i interviewed him for like the fifth time and he went god damn it you would have i told you enough about this movie weirdly weirdly with all that time we've just found that i genuinely feel

11:29Nick de Semlyen:like we've only scripted the surface yes because a he's so secret and careful let's say he says i'm not secret. What does he say? He has a word that he uses about it. Protective or something. I don't know. He has very firm lines in his mind of what he wants to talk about.

11:44Chris Hewitt:You may have noticed he's one of the few directors who has not done a spoiler special.

11:47Nick de Semlyen:Yeah, he doesn't love explaining why he's done things or anything like that, but he is fascinating. But genuinely, there is so much in this movie is so packed with performances and moments and just on every level, all the craft stuff. And there was one point where we talked for almost 10 minutes about the axe heads. There's a very condensed version of it in the current issue, but he talked about why he decided to go for six rows of axe heads with them two crossed, and that was not a decision he came to lightly, and there was a massive thought process behind it, and he changed his mind on it. So I think his AD talked him into doing the way you see it in the film.

12:27Nick de Semlyen:But yeah, he definitely thinks about everything.

12:31Chris Hewitt:He keeps us quiet, yeah. Because a couple of times, so I didn't do it, I spoke to him for the podcast for the Odyssey, and I just thought he's not going to want to talk spoilers at this point. And I did bring up a sequence later in the film, and he was very careful about talking about it. Because twice we went into the room with him for the podcast before, I think it was for The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar, and went, okay, can we talk spoilers? And he went, I'd rather not. And so we had to kind of pivot. And we respect that, obviously, that is his process. Maybe as time passes, he will feel more free about talking about some of his choices in the Odyssey because I'm really, really intrigued by some of the changes he makes to the source material, some of the things he does, the way he futzes with time is really interesting.

13:17Chris Hewitt:There's a lot of stuff we'd love to talk to him about. But I was just intrigued by how long you had with him because on the cover, you say three days with Christopher Nolan. So were you living inside his house and he just didn't know? One day that he knows of.

13:31Nick de Semlyen:No, it was, well, if you want to crunch the numbers, my friend, two days on set and one day in LA speaking to him and being at the sound mix and all of that stuff. So I'm not even including the day at Syncope. So it was actually four days. Well, yeah,

13:46Chris Hewitt:but that was for the other issue. Three and a half days, nine and a half weeks. Nine and a half weeks. We should have really,

13:51Nick de Semlyen:yeah, we should have put all of this on the cover as cover lines just really complicated. Oppenheimer style calculations. But yeah, I think three days is fair and I believe we were the only people to be on set of this film which was very cool we kind of approached him very early on when this film was announced and kind of pitched what we wanted to do and how excited we were about this film and yeah it was amazing now as we've kind of finished it all like it's our own kind of odyssey of covering this film I feel kind of amazed that it all worked out even better than I'd hoped in terms of what we actually got to do.

14:28Nick de Semlyen:But yeah, to get to go on a Christopher Nolan set is pretty amazing because he's out there. You know, he gets his movies in under schedule. Like this was meant to be 100 days and I think 93 or 91 or 93. So he shaved like a week off the schedule, but he shoots so fast, but doing really complicated stuff, but everyone knows what they're doing. And so I think Tom Holland compared his crew to like Navy SEALs because they just are so good and so fast and they're doing things that people haven't done before.

14:57Chris Hewitt:I think you'll find that a lot of people who are involved in things like production and line producing and just the day-to-day logistics of a movie, I've discovered this over the years, a lot of them come from the military. So they leave military service where obviously everything is incredibly detailed and synchronized down to the last second and they go into the film industry and that is a transferable skill set. I remember speaking to a line producer on No Time to Die when I was on set in Jamaica, of all places. And he was saying, yep, it's absolutely the same skill set. And it's the same approach.

15:34Chris Hewitt:And you wake up and you go, everything's, you know, and you marshal this incredible crew in the same way you marshal your troops.

15:41Nick de Semlyen:But at the same time, they have all of that. But at the same time, they're adapting. And they don't, if it's raining, if the weather is not what they wanted or expected, they don't stop and wait. They just go and shoot for it. And so, yeah, in Scotland, they had the boats out on the beach, the three big boats that you'll see in the film. And the weather had been horrific, but they had just gone out in the boats. And Emma Thomas described it as sporty weather, but she said people had been throwing up and they just went out anyway. And it really adds to the texture of the film that they're out there in this crazy weather and it's out in the elements.

16:13Nick de Semlyen:But yeah, they were really happy they had just captured. One of my favorite shots in the film is you see dolphins swimming past the boat. And that was just something they captured on the fly. And you can only get that if you go out onto the actual ocean. So they were really happy that they had just got that shot just before I joined them. Amazing.

16:30Chris Hewitt:Just a couple of last things, very, very quickly. Your opening line, Christopher Nolan is flinging thunderbolts. It's true. But that's kind of, that's your, you repeat that, don't you? You repeat that motif throughout the different sections in your feature.

16:44Nick de Semlyen:Yeah. I mean, it just felt right. I mean, you know, there's a bit of that in the film itself, I think, with the, you know, the Travis Scott stuff, certainly, of the repetition and the rhythm of that. So I kind of wanted to lean into that a bit with the writing of it and make it feel a little bit mythic.

17:01Chris Hewitt:We don't often talk about this, but how do you approach, because sometimes I'll approach a feature and I will try to have the last line in some way marry up to the opening line or reflect the opening line or be an inversion of the opening line. And your last line, spoiler alert, is prepare for thunder. so you know is that a deliberate thing when you write your opening line do you have your last line in mind or do you get to the last paragraph and you go fuck I don't have a last line what can I do do I try and link it back to the opening section yeah what's your process

17:33Nick de Semlyen:to pull the curtain back yeah it was more with this one it was more like fuck what am I going to write it was one of those where I didn't know what the last line was going to be and I got there but then it kind of it seemed right to have the circularity of like going back to the beginning and you know

17:46Chris Hewitt:you don't want to do that

17:46Nick de Semlyen:every single time because then it becomes a cliche and maybe it already is a cliche but it felt right with this one. So come back loop around, thunder and lightning but yeah sometimes when I write I know what the ending is going to be before I've started writing it and you're kind of you have the beginning and the end and then you're sort of trying to get there.

18:05Chris Hewitt:How soon do you have your openings? Because I remember you writing a piece on Scott Pilgrim versus the world and you had your opening which was about the Edgar Wright cocktail. Edgar Wright Martini I think it was and you had your opening like weeks maybe even months before you wrote the piece is that kind of how you work do things pop into your head or are you a fly guy on the fly guy

18:30Nick de Semlyen:if there's something that jumps out to you and you keep thinking about then that's probably the place to start I don't know if you have the same thing but certainly I spent that day on set and the one thing I kept thinking about was how cool it was that he was doing going Zeus and doing the lightning so i was like that's such a great detail it's so perfect and also it's it's something only we could put in a piece because you're aware that everyone else is going to be writing pieces on the odyssey but if it's something that you have personally seen and no one else has then it's a great way to open because it's going to feel original but um yeah the the scott pilgrim one was a bit convoluted maybe it was i can't even remember now where that came from but yeah we found out there was a recipe yeah so we decided to structure the whole thing like like making a

19:12Chris Hewitt:cocktail yeah but um i've got um i'm writing an upcoming cover feature it's not the one you do think uh that's later but uh i'm writing an upcoming cover feature and i have i've only done one of the interviews for this with this film and i have an opening in my head but i'm not sure about it and obviously that that that might change as i do more interviews for this movie i speak to more people and then information might come into my brain and the way i work is i i am quite on the fly and i tend to sit down and you know think okay blank page now what do i do uh i'm not a rigorous structuralist chris nolan would shit if he saw my process but but this one i have on the fly i do but this one i have an opening in my head but i'm not sure about i'll talk to you off mic about it but um but uh but yeah it's it's it is interesting because sometimes that does happen sometimes you do get something in your head and you go, that's the opener.

20:10Chris Hewitt:That's why I'm starting this feature. It's nice when it happens.

20:12Nick de Semlyen:I mean, yeah, to be honest, when I came back from the set that day in LA, the first set visit, I went back to the hotel and I got my notes up and I basically came up with a structure. And obviously that changed over time, but the opening was essentially there.

20:26Chris Hewitt:Yeah.

20:27Nick de Semlyen:That was it. It's a great feature.

20:28Chris Hewitt:It is a fantastic feature. Nick, although I would never save his face, is a genuinely brilliant writer. Thanks. You can pick up his books as well. Wild and Crazy Guys and The Last Action Heroes in all good bookstores. I was just on a thing with, I was just on a trip to Pompeii and bumped into, and hung out in fact with Anthony Bresnikan who also writes for our publication. And he was saying that he had been somewhere recently and had seen your book in a hotel.

20:56Nick de Semlyen:That's nice.

20:57Chris Hewitt:I wanted to take a picture of it. Did he buy it?

20:59Nick de Semlyen:No, he's bought it already. But it was in a hotel and he was very, very happy

21:03Chris Hewitt:to see your book in the wild. And I love that. when I see your books in the wild I get a real kick from hiding behind other books you're very kind man

21:09Nick de Semlyen:I run ahead of you I run ahead of you and put them in the hopes that you'll buy one but you haven't yet but um no because you keep

21:15Chris Hewitt:giving me free copies

21:16Nick de Semlyen:yeah damn it I know mistakes one last thing about the Odyssey

21:19Chris Hewitt:Nick yeah three covers yeah Matt Damon Tom Holland yeah Anne Hathaway explain yourself um

21:28Nick de Semlyen:to be honest that was something Christopher Nolan like we agreed on really early and Christopher Nolan really liked the idea of us doing multiple covers. And to be honest, it was a film that really lent, not every film does, but when a film is really epic, and this is based on one of the most epic stories of all time, and it has a huge cast and it has many A-list stars in it, how do you fit them all on one cover? And so we pitched, we actually pitched five and we ended up with three. You know, that was just to do with the art that was out there. And it's interesting because we kind of were pitching these covers before we knew who everyone was playing.

22:02And, you know,

22:03Nick de Semlyen:I knew that Samantha Morton with Cersei a while back, but it was reported that that was Charlie's Varon for a very long time. Yeah. So no one even knew. And so we didn't know for sure who everyone was in the film, even though we knew that. So you're kind of like guessing how many covers we'll end up with. But no, we ended up with three and it's a family affair. It's the dad, the mom, and the son. And it's really cool. I'm really happy with them.

22:28Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Fantastic. And it's on sale right now as well for the next one. I should mention the subscriber cover as well. Yes, I don't have it to have.

22:38Nick de Semlyen:Chris Lupton, our great creative director, assigns those and they're inspired by whatever is on the newsstand cover, but he commissions artists and it's always original art and it's something really cool that only Empire subscribers get. It was really interesting. Christopher Nolan was very involved in these, which is unusual for a director, but he personally provided references for us, pulled references for us from the film of storm scenes in the boat. and so we then gave that to Paul Shipper who did both of our Odyssey subscriber covers he did the Trojan Horse last year which I heard Christopher and Ellen really liked and yeah he was very involved so he's a very hands-on director in every way and we experienced that second hand

23:21Chris Hewitt:amazing amazing alright you still have time to pick it up we do not have a lot of time at the moment Nick we are running out of time so we're not going to be able to do our usual exhaustive trawl through the magazine and the features section but it's a good one it's a good one but I'm going to read out what the features are and you can talk to me about what you want to talk to me about alright so we can pick stuff out to dwell on so we have a feature on Jane Schumbrunn's teenage sex and death at Camp Miasma which is intriguing we have a feature on Pressure Pressure which is a film about how a meteorologist had to make a big call on D-Day, when to start the D-Day landings.

24:09Chris Hewitt:So that's coming out soon in the UK. What else we have? We have a feature on the long-delayed, but finally nearly here, Coyote vs. Acme, which is exciting. That's kind of an oral history of that. We have a feature on the end of Oak Street, which is David Robert Mitchell's new movie. and we have a really interesting one, Nick. Maybe this is where you want to start. Yeah. On a dream... How would you describe this woman? A dream coach? A dream specialist? A dream weaver.

24:41Nick de Semlyen:And how she interacts with actors. To quote Garth Marenghi, Hollywood's dream weaver. Yes. Yeah, this kind of came about organically because we've been talking to actors and the name of this person, Kim Gilliam, she calls herself a creative coach. who works with dreams and the unconscious. And her name kept coming up when we were talking to actors. And it became clear that, you know, I talked to Josh Brolin last year for The Running Man.

25:07Chris Hewitt:Yeah.

25:08Nick de Semlyen:And he brought her up and he said that she changed the entire way that he acts, that he approaches acting. And basically, you know, it's a whole, well, you can read the piece to get more details, but essentially we talked to Jane Campion, we talked to Will Poulter, we got Josh Brolin, and we talked to Kim Gillingham herself and talked about this new type of acting that she's kind of pioneering, where you're tapping into your own subconscious and bringing that into your performances. And so it's a really fascinating piece, I think. And Hayley Campbell wrote that. She's an amazing writer. Funnily enough, Kim Gilliam was an actor herself, and you can see her in Seinfeld as the hand model.

25:49The hand model that George Costanza asks out.

25:54Nick de Semlyen:I don't remember that episode, I'll be honest. So she's in Friends as well, as one of Joey's ex-girlfriends. But it's a really fascinating piece, genuinely. And it's sort of changing how actors act. So that's a really good read.

26:06Chris Hewitt:Okay. And Josh Brolin is also in another feature. He is in a feature about Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars, which is written by Ian Freer.

26:16Nick de Semlyen:That's a great read, yeah. Josh Brolin is being very candid. Ridley Scott is on incredible form. He tells Ian, No action scene is challenging for me, dude. are you fucking kidding it's easy and it's like genuinely he's like that all the way through this interview he's on fiery form and it's a blast I love talking to Ridley Scott he's amazing the man gives zero fucks I've never talked to him there's a legend in the Empire Office that when you interview Ridley Scott he tries to catch you out by pretending he's forgotten something and he does it every time

26:44Chris Hewitt:he challenges your film knowledge yeah is this true yes and no it doesn't happen every single time and it might just genuinely be him kind of forgetting stuff but I think that's how it's been interpreted that he is are you fucking

26:59Nick de Semlyen:kidding me dude

27:00Chris Hewitt:that he's he's checking your bona fides yeah and then if you come up with the answer he goes okay yeah yeah I respect you yeah you know dude where's my car okay let's go for that

27:11Nick de Semlyen:game respects game it does very much respect game so just to blast through a few other things I mean genuinely it's a shame because I think this is an absolute banger of an issue but I would say that but yeah we talked to not only David Robert Mitchell director of the amazing it follows about his new film The End of Oak Street but we also talked to J.J. Abrams about that because he's

27:30Chris Hewitt:producing and that's a really really good read that's by Jamie Graham See the fact that J.J. is involved in that makes me wonder if it's a Cloverfield movie

27:39Nick de Semlyen:in disguise because it was originally

27:42Chris Hewitt:called

27:44Nick de Semlyen:Flowerfell Street or

27:47Chris Hewitt:Flowerfell Avenue or something like that which is kind of Cloverfield adjacent and then in fact there's a bad robot thing the fact that J.J. Abrams it's been a long time since we had a Cloverfield movie Do you think that's going to be a big twist? Are the dinosaurs going to be aliens? It might be a big twist like how does this Are the dinosaurs ghosts? The dinosaurs might be alien ghosts so how does it the premise of this movie is that a normal suburban street is somehow transported back in time right to the time of the dinosaurs and so Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway and their kin and other neighbors as well who I imagine get picked off pretty quickly have to somehow fight back against the dinosaurs and presumably try and find a way home.

28:27Chris Hewitt:So you're asking yourself, what's done this? What's triggered this time tunnel type thing? Might it be a Cloverfield experiment? So I'm just saying, I'm throwing it out there. Don't be surprised if this turns out to be a Cloverfield movie in all but name. I think it's going to be a Super 8 sequel.

28:46Nick de Semlyen:Oh my God. Super 10. Who knows? We'll soon find out. We will. There's a fantastic piece by Beth Webb on teenage sex and death at camp miasma, a film I'm still recovering from. I think I saw her about two months ago, but I'm shook. And Beth talks to director Jane Shumbrun. If you've seen their previous film, I Saw the TV Glow, then you'll have some inkling of what to expect from this film. It's very out there, but they are really interesting. And there's an incredible story about this film. Also talks to Gillian Anson. and Hannah Einbinder. So that's a really, really, really great read. And then that's the feature section, I think, unless I've missed something.

29:28Nick de Semlyen:Yeah, pretty much. That's it. But that is stuffed with goodness. Alex Godfrey, our features editor, spoke to Nicolas Cage for your section.

29:37Chris Hewitt:He did. All right, so I'm going to mention three things in my section, which is the final cut section. It's the best section in the magazine, obviously. And acceptor substitutes. and Spider Noir has been out now on Prime Video for a few weeks now but we decided to hold back this interview with Nicolas Cage for this moment to make sure that everyone was au fait with it everyone who wants to see Spider Noir has seen Spider Noir and Alex spoke to Nick Cage for a very in-depth examination of Cage's fascination with film noir and spiders and what not and there's a startling opening image here as well and it's a really really fun interview

30:16Nick de Semlyen:Alex has interviewed Nicolas Cage many times and it's always a treat. It's always a great read when the two of them get together. A great Paul quote from Cage, you plunge into the abyss and you call up the cauldron. Which I heard you saying earlier. You were talking about lunch. But yeah, I mean, only Nicolas Cage could say something like that and it sound cool. It wouldn't work for me.

30:39Chris Hewitt:Yeah, he makes it work. It's terrific.

30:42Nick de Semlyen:There's something really cool in your section, very unusual for the Corin Hardy film Whistle do you want to explain what that is

30:49Chris Hewitt:yeah so Corin Hardy you'll know him if you listen to this podcast you know he's a friend of the podcast and a lovely lovely guy his film Whistle came out a few months ago and in a year that is I think a real banner year for horror films obviously you've got Obsession you've got Backrooms you've got you know things like at the moment Evil Dead Burn you've got things like Hocum it's been a cracking cracking year for horror Whistle, I think, was a little overlooked. It's a really effective slasher film with a twist. And it has a couple of death sequences in it that are genuinely unlike anything I've ever seen before.

31:26Chris Hewitt:And one of them is a character is killed in a car crash, but there's no car. So the concept of Whistle is that characters are essentially killed by their future deaths. So when they hear the death whistle, their future death will find them. And in this case, it's a character who is fated to die in a horrible car crash. But we don't see the car crash happening. We see the effects of the car crash happening to this person in real time. And this is a, I'd say, 95 % practically achieved sequence that is quite eye-popping and spine-shattering. And Corrin sat down and opened his archives and gave us concept art and unseen stills, behind the scenes things and really walked me through step by step how he and his team pulled off this incredible sequence.

32:22Chris Hewitt:There's some other astonishing sequences in this movie as well. So if you haven't seen Whistle, check it out because if you're a gore-hungry killhound like I am, then you will find a lot to satisfy you in this movie.

32:35Nick de Semlyen:And it's a really great article. It's a very unique thing and it's great when And, you know, sometimes when you know the filmmaker, you can get them to open up their archive and you get hold of stuff. And the art in this piece is really, really fantastic. And it's very cool. Very unique. You have a ranking on football movies. We do. We do. Can I read you a response from a reader to this? Damian Matthews. RE football movies in your August edition. How about Marvelous 2014 with Toby Jones? finally a positive kind amusing story about the brilliant people working behind the scenes who care so much for the sport their clubs and each other and no hooligans

33:15Chris Hewitt:so what do you what do you think of that have you seen Marvelous with Toby Jones I have seen Marvelous with Toby Jones it didn't it didn't spring to mind immediately it wasn't on the list that we discussed the panel and myself it's got the word Marvel it does maybe I think I put it in the Marvel ranking I'm not sure but yeah this is one I wanted to do for a little while and it was just finding a panel to do it was tricky and obviously the World Cup is just about to finish so we thought this is perfect timing so let's try and make this work nobody at Empire likes football except for me and so luckily some of our freelancers are massively into it so we were able to make this happen

33:55Nick de Semlyen:but yes anyway that's enough about my section there's other great things

33:58Chris Hewitt:in there as well but first word Beth section obviously John's section the review section is amazing gives you all the reviews you could possibly wish to read What's the lead review this month? I have no idea. I'm on a different page.

34:09Nick de Semlyen:Disclosure Day. Disclosure Day. Steven Spielberg. We've got the Bear Season 5. Five stars for that, which I really need to check that out and catch up with that. Yeah, and the Bond game. I want to give a shout out to the Bond game, which I just played, and it's a banger.

34:23Chris Hewitt:The Bond game. But in Beth's section, let's pick three things out from Beth's section. First word. And the first thing to pick out, obviously, is Resident Evil. Sack Craigers. Resident Evil, which I haven't seen but I'm hearing amazing things about. This is his adaptation of the classic survival horror game. A game, Nick, I've actually played and completed. One of the few.

34:48Nick de Semlyen:Yeah?

34:48Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Which one? First and third. I completed both. You haven't played wrestling

34:52Nick de Semlyen:but the second one's the best.

34:53Chris Hewitt:No, I've played the second but I never completed it.

34:54Nick de Semlyen:Oh, okay.

34:55Chris Hewitt:All right.

34:57Nick de Semlyen:Yeah, I played the latest one a few months ago in Basingstoke for some reason. Anyway, enough of that.

35:04Chris Hewitt:I am extremely excited for this. Zach Craig is obviously hot off weapons

35:08Nick de Semlyen:and he tells us that this film has a lot in common with Mad Max Fury Road and that's all I need to hear. Bring it on.

35:16Chris Hewitt:I spoke to the Johns as they are called the directors of Game Night and Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves and the sorely underrated Vacation, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly about their new movie Mayday which sees Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds thrown together in a buddy action comedy that takes place in the Russia of 1987. And that's going to be on Apple in about two months or so. And that was a really, really fun interview. I love talking to those guys. They are very, very cool indeed. And we talked about how they have a penchant for putting characters into seemingly impossible situations and then having fun finding their way out again.

36:01Nick de Semlyen:A penchant, you say? A penchant. We talked to Irvin Welsh about Trainspotting the musical. You're fucking kidding.

36:07Chris Hewitt:Three words I never thought would be in the same sentence. I am fascinated by this. I keep seeing the adverts on the tube for Trainspotting. Jesus Christ. Raj. Are you right? Yes. I mean, it seems like an unusual choice for a musical.

36:25Nick de Semlyen:It's a bit Vera Drake, the musical, isn't it? But why not? Why not? Why not? And train spotting is very on brand. It's surprising, it's shocking. Let's see. I'm keen to see it. I know a few people from the team are going on opening night to check it out. So I am intrigued to hear what they think.

36:43Chris Hewitt:How'd they go to the baby on the ceiling? Is there a song where Baby sings, I always knew that d*** was going to f*** some d***.

36:53Nick de Semlyen:Oh my God. Oh my God. There's a great piece, Video In Demand, where we investigate the resurgence of VHS. When was the last time you watched a VHS tape?

37:06Chris Hewitt:No. It's coming back. It shouldn't. Get a VHS player ready. This isn't like final. No, it's coming back. It's clearly worse. There were video stores coming back. People are, it's, you know, Gen Z are loving it. This needs to stop.

37:19Nick de Semlyen:Anyway, we talked to the people who were going nuts for VHS. I have very fond memories of, you know, I had a Jurassic Park. on a videotape that was circulating in the school and I always thought it was a cut with extra scenes that weren't in the finished film which I don't think is true. Nick, you fool. I think I got confused but I remember that that videotape was so exciting it was in a blue and white striped case and I was just so excited by it. But anyway, video is coming back that's just a fact you're going to have to deal with that. John Nugent went on another set this one didn't have Brendan Fraser on it but did have a giant animatronic hippo for the film Hungry.

37:59Nick de Semlyen:and John spent quite a bit of time with the sound of electronic hippo there's a picture of him with it at the front of the magazine but it's a very very entertaining piece I think John was invited to put his head into the hippo's jaws but he didn't do it

38:14Chris Hewitt:Beth spoke to Pedro Almodovar which is very very cool for his new movie Bitter Christmas so you can hear Helen O 'Hara's ears perking up Christmas does this mean I can feature this in Bah Humbug you never know you never know but that's cool Pedro in the pages of Empire Magazine and finally this month's How Much Is A Pint of Milk is the great American comic actor and star of the forthcoming movie La Dink Jake Johnson and he is a great improviser and very very funny guy and as you'd imagine this is a funny very funny pint of milk oh hey Nick should we take a quick look at contents what's your best line in contents what's your favorite line in contents written by of course a genius

38:59Nick de Semlyen:my favorite thing about contents is the advert for an Odyssey watch oh damn you I was wondering why Matt Damon was wearing it in the film

39:07Chris Hewitt:but it all makes sense the Hamilton X Odyssey watch that's a nice watch

39:11Nick de Semlyen:and it's a lovely watch and it's so the hands of the minutes and the hour are swords I mean this is classy AF

39:18Chris Hewitt:it's a classy joint also it says in collaboration with Christopher Nolan and it gives you his signature so now we can take that signature and we can forge Christopher Nolan's signature and we can gain access to his millions.

39:29Nick de Semlyen:Let's not do that. Let's not do that. That'll make him upset and we don't want to do that. This is not admissible in court, by the way. Okay. I've checked. Podcasts are not admissible. But yeah, no, this is a very nice watch and if a DC user had been wearing one of these, maybe he wouldn't have been 20 years late to get home. Anyway, contents. Are you really asking me what my favorite one of your jokes is? Yeah, go on then.

39:49Chris Hewitt:You're asking me to read this page. Have you read it? Yeah. A while back. Yeah. I'll be honest, Nick. this is not my best content

39:57Nick de Semlyen:I like the bit where you said yes chefs but it's no it's

40:02Chris Hewitt:solid no I'm not even sure it's solid I'm not even sure it's solid it's disappointing well let's talk more about it yeah let's talk more about that and know more about this issue because we have run out of time we have to go on another Odyssey Odyssey right now and do a spoiler special so all that remains Nick is for me to tell people where they can get this issue where can they get this issue Nick shops thanks just shops go into a greengrocer it'll be there go find it Dorothy Perkins does that still exist

40:28Nick de Semlyen:if you buy all three of the covers please send us a photo and it would it would it would make our day but yeah collect them all why not

40:37Chris Hewitt:collect them all send us photographic evidence of your three covers it would be a heroic feat yes but yeah

40:44Nick de Semlyen:go out and find it and online good luck finding the one you want online you can go to greatmagazines.co.uk

40:51Chris Hewitt:and you can buy it online there so that's good news agents evil news agents virtual news agents all good and if you don't already subscribe to Empire Magazine you can do that by going to empireonline.com you can also sign up for the Empire VIP Club which will get you access to some of the incredible events that we hold as well plus a magazine subscription plus access to Empire Plus our brand new subscription podcast channel which you get all kinds of things as well or you can just subscribe to Empire Plus on its own as well so exciting hey while we're shameless you plug in I might as well say we're also doing a live show a live podcast September 5th King's Place Saturday September 5th King's Place part of the London Podcast Festival tickets are now on sale kingsplace.co.uk so if you want to come along and see the giggling idiots in action come along tickets are on sale buy them now Nick you coming?

41:46Chris Hewitt:I'll check my diary yeah if I see a giant horse outside King's Place I'm going to tell him not to drag it in it does not end well but anyway on that note

41:55Nick de Semlyen:I wonder if horses have ever hidden

41:56Chris Hewitt:inside a giant man

41:57Nick de Semlyen:it's food for thought

41:59Chris Hewitt:this is why I like you Nick you ask the question Seth nobody else thinks so who else dares to

42:03Nick de Semlyen:we're all thinking it but only I say it actually you've reminded me Chris we have a summer blockbuster subscription offer on at the moment free issues of Empire for three pounds yeah head to greatmagazines.co.uk forward slash Empire or scan a QR code

42:17Chris Hewitt:Nick this is incredible shameless plugin I'm loving it this is the most shameless yet

42:21Nick de Semlyen:that's a genuinely good deal

42:23Chris Hewitt:that's a genuinely good shameless plug I liked it and I enjoyed this episode it was fun yeah

42:28Nick de Semlyen:I enjoyed it too

42:29Chris Hewitt:yeah alright

42:29Nick de Semlyen:get back in my horse yes and then you can wheel me to the next next year

42:33Chris Hewitt:yes we're just staying here it's fine okay you stay exactly where you are it's good okay

42:39Nick de Semlyen:other people are going to come and join us in two seconds let us know but if you read the issue I hope you do please let us know what you think which bits you like and which bits you want us to change we're always interested in feedback so message me or message Empire on socials

42:53Chris Hewitt:Yes, indeedly, indeedly. Okay, that's it. There's one last thing I want to leave you with, which is the revelation, I think it might have been in the last Odyssey feature that you wrote, Nick, that Chris Nolan came close to directing Troy. Yeah. And this was 20-odd years ago. And then obviously he directed Batman Begins instead and Wolfgang Peterson ended up directing Troy. But now here he is directing the Odyssey, which might be his best movie to date, certainly we've given it five stars we love it and it just reminded me of that old classic saying Nick if at first you don't succeed Troy Troy again thanks for listening see you next time bye bye