Win A Date With Jason Voorhees (ft. guest Emerald Fennell)

32:20In the Mummy 4. See, now we've broken Becky. Look what's happened. This podcast is carnage. Anyway. Oh, dear. Good stuff. Anyway, Radio Silence are making it. It's going to be great. That's exciting. Now, Mummy movie is happening again. We're all excited about that, aren't we, folks? We are. We are. Okay, just don't come at me with your mummy skepticism. I have no time for it. It is a good movie. I love it. Jimbo, do you have mummy skepticism? Yes, I prefer Daddy's. As in Daddy's home. Sure, sure. Daddy's sauce. Are you sure? I think you may have backed yourself into a corner. You wouldn't interrogate that.

33:01So rather than a new Mummy movie coming out in May 2028, you would rather have Daddy's Home 3. Reuniting Mel Gibson and whoever else is in it. Oh, you don't really care. As long as Mel Gibson's in it, you're happy as Larry. Oh God. This has gone horribly wrong. I mean, if I had said I don't want the Mummy, I want a Daddy, like that would be something. but you're just you know you're just on the hiding to nothing Ellen you have transferred your whole digger crown to James very nicely done I guess that's appropriate for archaeology you call it archaeology so Mike Flanagan this is a big shock is about to direct a Stephen King adaptation surely knows next he'll tell us he's doing Poe or something and this doesn't make any sense at ground Poe he is going to direct can you guess what it is?

33:54do you know what it is? I know what it is I have no idea three guesses okay I'll narrow it down for you okay it's been adapted before The Tommyknockers incorrect okay is it Needful Things? also incorrect I wish that'd be cool actually has it been adapted previously as a film? yes and a pretty good one oh really good one oh it's not going to be The Shining correct Thank you Is it misery? No I'm out of guesses But your first three letters Were right Oh I don't think that helps me Really? Yeah The first three letters Of misery Are the same three letters As the main word Of this movie There's only one other letter I can't Oh the mist The mist Oh that is a good adaptation Do you think this will Have a happy ending?

34:49Do you think about Ha ha ha a happy ending I can barely even do you know what I'm so fucking traumatised by the ending of The Mist that Frank Darabont did that I can't even say it out loud without suffering you've forgotten that happiness exists genuinely and I've said this before I've never felt more bleak coming out of a film than I did coming out of that you just wander around like in a funk just it's so dark have you seen Daddy's Home 2? literally the same ending I wish but I'd be fascinated to know what he'll do with the ending of this because I feel like at this point, if you don't have a really bleak ending, it's going to feel like a cop-out.

35:24It's not going to feel like a cop-out. It is. The original novella does not have a bleak ending. Does it not? It literally ends on the word hope. I mean, it's a dark ending and that they're probably still all going to die, but there is a note of hope in the future for the survivors of The Mist. Yes, yes, James, exactly like Rogue One. Not very like Rogue One. Well, it ends on the same word. Yeah, it does. Okay, that's true. Yeah, so does Shawshank Redemption. Okay. All right. Are you surprised that he's remaking The Mist? Because A, The Mist wasn't that long ago, and B, it is widely considered to be one of the better King adaptations by Frank Darabont.

36:01I am surprised. I would have... I mean, he's become so synonymous with King adaptations, but even before that comes along, he's going in a completely different direction doing the new Exorcist movie. And you sort of think, I don't know, if you were going to do any of the King stories even after he's doing the Carrie show I don't think The Mist would be the one that would be top of my list I would have gone like Needle Things or Thinner you know one of the ones that like that was not a good adaptation exactly hasn't already had Frank Darabont behind it it does seem like this has already been covered yeah but did you watch The Mist TV show at all I did not I watched all of that it got cancelled so it didn't get a proper ending.

36:48But it wasn't very good. But it was... What did it do? It was mainly them going from house to house dodging the mist. But yeah. It was right. I didn't see it. I didn't see it. But this is interesting. Flanagan's talked openly about wanting to make the Dark Tower which is of course King's magnum opus and would be huge and epic and would require many, many films and probably TV shows as well to do it right which they of course did not do. Catastrophically so. When they made it for the big screen a few years ago with... It's not a film. That is a show. But I think that's also why he has not made that.

37:21It feels like this is something that Apple should be all over. Because the Dark Tower will require so much money and a significant commitment of seasons. I feel like Apple are the only people who are likely to take that one. That's true. Well, he is trying to make films. So we shall see what happens with that. But yeah, we'll keep an eye on it. He's making the new Exorcist for us. So he won't get around to this for at least a couple of years. Isn't he also on Clayface as well? No, he wrote Clayface. He wrote it, okay. Yeah, James Watkins is directed that. But there you go. That is very, very exciting indeed.

37:54Very, very exciting now to end the movie news section because we lost, this week, we lost James Van Der Beek, Dawson himself from Dawson's Creek. I think this is a very dictionary definition of gone too soon. From cancer at the age of just 48. Jeez, I really don't know. Yes. And Bud Court, star of the classic movie Harold and Maud, who was 77. Yeah. Very sad. Very sad. A massive cult figure and a massive figure in 70s cinema, Bud Court, of course, just because he was in things like Harold Maud and MASH and Brewster McLeod and, you know, all of those, and then kind of had a second career, I guess, as a star of, I don't know, transgressive films, I guess, you know, things like, but I'm a cheerleader.

38:48Even a supporting role is Romero in Coyote Ugly. But, and yeah, I mean, I think for an entire generation of millennials, I think that the loss of James Van Der Beek is deeply felt this week. So, yeah, but like 48, no age at all. Oh my God, it's just, it's nothing, is it? And he leaves behind such a legacy, not only in terms of his acting career, because obviously Dawson is his big, big role, but he was in things like Varsity Blues and the B in Apartment 23 playing himself, which was a hilarious turn. He was so good in that, yes. I loved it. Rules of attraction. He was so good, yeah, of course.

39:32but he just seems like he was such a beautiful like soul the way that he seemed to kind of handle his cancer diagnosis and the kind of fight against it alongside his family he's got like six kids just tragedy all round yeah it's awful absolutely awful James Fangerbeek and Bud Court who passed away this week let's finish off the news section now by talking about the new issue of Empire, but not at length as we used to do because we obviously have a dedicated show that does that. It is called The Shameless Plug, of course, but what will it be shamelessly plugging? Helen, tell us. Well, this is the Masters of the Universe issue, which is the film on the cover, and Dan Jolin has the whole story about that and has spoken to all the people involved to find out about their bodybuilding routines, I guess.

40:28I actually haven't read that feature yet, but it looks really good. Well done me. We've got Ready or Not 2, Here I Come, which is very exciting. Still should lose the two. They should lose the two. I agree with you. You don't shout out when you do it height and seek. You don't shout Ready or Not 2, Here I Come. You just shout out Ready or Not. Why are you telling me? Anyway, we also have a look at the incredible medical drama, The Pit, which is off the freaking charts. Great. We have The Magic Faraway Tree, which Alex is extremely excited about. James McAvoy is talking about his directorial debut, California Scheming.

41:04And we have the story of the most depressing film ever made that isn't called The Mist, Threads. Oh, yeah. A film that Sam Toy put on for us, Chris and James, once on a Saturday night. He invited us over to his house and put on Threads for us to watch. And we had to watch an hour of comedy and eat an entire chocolate pavlova in order to rebalance ourselves afterwards. Good God. It was an ordeal. But it's an incredible fuck. What the fuck? What the fuck, Sam? Still love you, though. Yeah, absolutely. Because Bill Bailey, wasn't it? We watched Bill Bailey. It was Bill Bailey. It's seared into my brain that.

41:43What a night. Yeah. Is Threads more depressing than The Mist? I honestly think it's up there. It's really up there. Well, The Mist is mainly depressing at the very end. Exactly. It's not depressing throughout. Whereas Threads is just like one battle after another, if you will. Because it's set in Sheffield. Because it's set in Sheffield when a nuclear war happens and basically wipes out civilization and then they're still in Sheffield and they have to try and survive or whatever in the aftermath. It's horrible. I don't believe The Mist has a character in the credits. Woman urinating on herself.

42:20Woman urinates on herself, yeah. Oh, dear. It could do. And in fact, if you're making a movie and you don't have a character called a woman, you're leading on herself. What are you doing? What are you doing? Is The Mist more or less depressing than Win a Date with Tad Hamilton? It's more depressing than Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. Even though I know you think she picked the wrong guy, it's still more depressing. All I'm saying. All I'm saying. What else is in the magazine? Rennie Harlan. I spoke to Rennie Harlan for Big Old Feature, trawling through his career, directing spectacular set pieces.

42:51and there are other amazing things in the magazine as well. I don't have a copy to hand right now. You're just going to have to take my word for it. But that is available right now in all good, evil and virtual newsagents. Rush out immediately and buy it. Consume it and then prepare yourself. Live a monastic life for the next two weeks whilst waiting for the episode of The Shameless Plug to drop in which I discuss the issue in depth with Nick De Semlian, the editor of Empire. that is what you must do so there you go that is your job right shall we have a guest let Emerald Fennell who of course was the director of Promising Young Woman and then Saltburn and now she's back back back with Wuthering Heights or open quote marks Wuthering Heights close quote marks as it is presented on the poster and that might indicate that this is not a hugely faithful adaptation of the classic novel by Emily Bronte.

43:53Emily Bronte. Well done, Chris. That English degree really paying off. I had a 33 % chance. Crushed it.

44:04It was either her or Charlotte Bronte. Or, come on, bring it home, Chris. Come on. You've got it. Jeremy Bronte. And Bronte, come on. they're in and around Banbridge Banbridge my hometown is Bronte country it's Bronte country according to the tourist board can't move for Brontes lousy with them you can't throw a stone in Banbridge without hitting a Bronte that's the truth were they ever in Banbridge it's hard to tell but we claimed them anyway so that's good anyway Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights which is about Kate Bush running up that hill and now she's made this new version starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi and it's all rather steamy and there's lots of rumpy-pumpy, isn't there, Hell's Bells?

44:56There is some rumpy-pumpy, yes. Yes. And I spoke to Emerald Fennell all about it and asked her a little bit about, you know, her choices in making this film. All right. This is what we're about to hear. I'm excited. I'm excited to listen to this and learn more. And she was wearing a very cool sort of heavy metals inspired t-shirt that says the Bronte sisters in like sort of like Megadeth font. It's pretty cool. That does sound pretty cool. We'll be back in a second for more explosive revelations from that interview. Here is Emeril Fennell talking to Hell's Bells. Enjoy. This is a passion project for you and has been since you were a teenager, I believe.

45:33Is that right? Definitely. Well, I mean, I first read the book when I was 14 and it just completely obliterated me, you know. It has the most upending effect on you. And after Salt Burn, I knew that the thing I wanted to make afterwards would be emotionally connective and physically connective. I like movies that make you feel, and it's why I love the cinema in particular. I like people going to experience movies together and feel things together. And so whenever I was thinking of that kind of visceral experience, I just kept going back to the thing that made me feel that way, and that was Wuthering Heights.

46:24So tell me about the process of adapting it, because obviously you've lost the entire sort of second generation that the book has and kind of focus in a little bit more on Cathy and Heathcliff. But, you know, what were you looking for? Did you go back and sort of, you know, go line by line or was it very much like starting from that feeling and that overarching takeaway? Well, the first thing I did was wrote down everything. I read Wuthering Heights, You know, since I first read it, I'd read it many, many times, but I probably hadn't read it, reread it in a couple of years. And so the first thing I did was write down everything I remembered, whether it was lines of dialogue or whether it was, you know, just feelings or scenes, anything like that.

47:08And then when I reread the book, I was able to kind of work out what was there and what was wish fulfillment or what was a kind of completeness. And so part of it was kind of trying to approximate the feeling that the book had given me as much as the book itself. because I think the reason that, of course, we've done away with the second generation and with Lockwood as well, the kind of the first sort of narrator, the first framing narrator, is you only have two hours. You've got approximately two hours. And to turn something is like gargantuan. Yeah. There's Ruthering Heights into that. You have to consolidate characters.

47:53You have to make decisions. You have to choose the particular thread. and this book is massive and it's deeply personal to everyone who reads it and it has so many stories within stories as so many it has so many different ways of telling it and i knew that that i couldn't i couldn't encompass all that it is in one thing but what i could do was sort of you know i could show what it meant to um an extremely sort of um emo 14 year old girl you know that's what that's what it that's i was like i can do that's what i can do and that's why it's an inverted commas you know i can't possibly say that this is a you can't make an adaptation actually you can only make a response so that's why Kate Bush's song is such a great adaptation you know and it's why like Balthus's illustrations are so good it's actually you can't really you can only do your own you can only really do your own thing on it I think do your own thing on it yeah and let the record show just for listeners that you are wearing all black at the moment so you're you know you're wearing the emo torch and can I just do a shout out to the Literary Emporium, who is a young woman who makes these unbelievably cool thrash metal Bronte sisters band t-shirts.

49:21It is my favourite thing in the world. It's an excellent t-shirt and I will be looking it up as soon as we finish. So thank you. But yeah, so tell me then about casting. Now, obviously you've worked with both of these people before, albeit mostly Margot as a producer rather than as your star, but casting Jacob based on the book cover resemblance I thought was fascinating. So first of all, people are going to want to look up this edition. Do you remember anything about which edition of Wuthering Heights this was? I've been trying to find it because I think, I thought it was at my parents' house in my old bedroom and that I couldn't find it.

49:59I'll be able to kind of do an internet troll, but what it was is it was a sort of you know slightly I would say um what's the word like um misguided in the sense that it was sort of like a romantic bodice ripper it was sort of windy and she was wet you know she was sort of busty running across the moors and he's like holding on to her and he has his hair and the wind and his sideburns and and you know it was just when Jacob was in Saltburn obviously the 2005 sideburns were all the rage and he came out and it was just like and that there was that feeling of like oh my god that was the that was the sort of that was my first sort of romantic awakening was sort of heat clip and of course because i'm because i was 14 that's kind of also that this sort of i suppose that yeah the sort of cover had sort of made itself imparted almost the book and in the same way that like the song has and then the other movies have that's another thing that I think is really important for me when I make films is I can't ever forget the like relationship that things and people have to an audience or like you know like none of us are going to things without a prior our own complicated inner prior relationships you You know, so every time you're sort of looking at casting or music or whatever, it's about, yeah, it's sort of always about sort of trying to like trigger those feelings that people give you.

51:43And I think that, you know, Jacob just had that, that sort of, it's that Byron-esque, it's the Byron-esque anti-hero look, isn't it? that I think Lord Byron basically based on himself and his own face. But, you know, I just, for me, it's always about like an emotional connection and what people make me feel. And so it was the same with Margot. You know, Cathy in the book is 18. And as people have been sort of quick to say, she's sort of not blonde. But the thing is about Margot is what I wanted to do was, Cathy's a star. she is a star that's what she is she is elizabeth taylor that's who i was thinking of with this movie i was thinking elizabeth taylor and richard burton like who are those unbelievably huge like megawatt charisma machines and that's because that's what kathy is she's a star with no one to look at her and when nobody looks at her she loses her mind and so the thing about margot is she brings all that with her not only is she unbelievably gifted as an actress and she really is she's exquisite but but she also has she has that aura as well and and and people who come to this movie have a you know they know who she is it's sort of mad to not it's mad to try and discount that and so it's always about saying like what if it was you know a margot robbie although of course Margot is the nicest person in the world, but in the middle of nowhere.

53:19That then gives you the kind of information you need before even she opens her mouth in a funny way. So it's always that stuff. And for the rest of the cast, it's just people I'm obsessed with, essentially. Fair enough, really. Yeah. So was it always those two? It just came together pretty quickly in that case? I don't well the thing is it is these sort of it's like but it's also like passing feelings too because when I was making Saltburn I only ever do one thing at a time so I'm not working on multiple projects but what I do have a like imaginary worlds that I live in and I live in for years and Wuthering Heights has been one of those now for you know whatever 25 years and and so it's always kind of a nebulous thought you know when I saw Jacob I was like it's a kind And if it's an, oh, that's interesting.

54:14Why are those sideburns, which at the time on like boys at the time when I was young, I was like, ew, why is it this man now that I'm having that feeling? And I was like, oh, it's my sort of 14 year old girl self. And so that's kind of what happens. But really then I just write the script. Everything is a very specific stage for me. So I was living in the world and then I write the script and then I, and I don't think about casting. And then, and then the moment that it's finished and I look at it and I look at the kind of way that I want to make it and who I feel would be right then, that's the kind of moment.

54:58But with Margot, I never asked her because I sent it to her as a producer purely because we've worked together three times and I didn't want to, I didn't want to, I wasn't, I didn't want to put her on the spot. Because of who she is, I didn't want to ask her to be in my film and for her to feel kind of obliged. And so luckily she volunteered. I think she says the same actually about that. Talk to me about your costumes and your production design because they are wild. There is so much colour here. There is so much texture. there is you know broken glass and flesh walls and all sorts of craziness um where how you know how did that come together was that a gradual process or was it did it just get wilder and wilder wilder as you went no it's all very considered and very kind of um a lot of a lot of sort of detailed conversations when it comes to things like that i mean the thing for me firstly is that you know emily bronte was a visionary genius and and the thing about visionary geniuses is that they are connected in a way that other people aren't and there are very very few of them and they transcend time and space and that sounds extremely wanky but i don't know how else to describe it because i don't know how else you could be william shakespeare or emily Bronte and be able to have such an immediate profound effect on people so many hundreds of years later.

56:35Because there are novels that you enjoy, there are plays that you enjoy, and there are ones that tell you about what it is to be a person. And so when it comes to Emily Bronte and it comes to adapting her work, she was a poet in many ways more than she was a novelist. and she was out of her time and so she lived in an imaginary world she and her sisters and her brother lived in an imaginary world to the extent that when she went briefly to teach at a girl's school nearby she's she was so distressed because she didn't have time to live in her imaginary world that she her father brought her home because she she really thought she would die And so we're thinking about...

57:20for me it didn't feel kind of right to make something that was just reflective just an approximation of the time in which he was living or the time in which the book is set, which is 50 years before, because it's not that. It's not actually... It sort of didn't feel right. So what I had to do instead was say, if the root of the Gothic is emotional, purely emotional, what does the emotional landscape look like here? It's not just the emotional landscape of Yorkshire, but it's the emotional landscape of... Wuthering Heights, the place, and Thrushcross Grange, the place. But the thing that I always held was the kind of the centre of this to me, is the centre of this story is nature and one's true deep nature and what happens when you don't let that nature kind of be.

58:23And so at Wuthering Heights, the place, me and Susie had a lot of conversations and work with so many different people from, you know, special effects to create the rain and the mist and then the kind of animal handlers. So we had real horses and then, you know, Nicola Turner, the incredible sculptor, to create a place that felt like nature was always interrupting it. So, you know, it was in script that the rocks that surround it are kind of coming into the house. And then as things, as time passes, the house is kind of being pulled apart by these sort of tumorous growths that Nicola made for us out of horsehair.

59:04And then you go to Thrushcross and it's the opposite. It's nature contained. It's taxidermy. It's Cathy's skin made into sort of beautiful silk panels. It's hands, it's a disembodied hand holding kind of beautiful natural artefacts. It's a place that has taken in great pains to make nature palatable. And so, you know, whether it's corsets, whether it's, you know, props, like the bridle or the dong collar, everything in this film is about constraining nature and what a damaging effect that has on us all. And so those are the kind of conversations we always have. They're emotional, I think, and they're expressive.

59:47And that's why it's such a joy. What kind of, you know, were you watching things, you know while you were like in pre-production and putting it all together were you sort of just looking for kind of colors and tones and ideas i think not really it's more that i it's more like everything and i think it goes back to other heights is we all have a kind of taste we all have a sort of a thing that that gets us going and you know so for this film of course we were looking at the old kind of hollywood the old studio soundstage melodramas and what they made us all feel that kind of like a vast emotion so it was like obviously looking at gone with the wind and we make reference to that and but then also looking again at like burton taylor looking at who's afraid of virginia wolf looking at the night porter dirk bogard and charlotte rampling one of the most troubling films of all time but also kind of you know very much is it's in a kind of shares a world dark world with with um you know kathy and heathcliff um you know always powell and press burka always always derrick jarman always peter greenway yeah always and then for pleasure you know i always i will it will always be i mean you know it's boring but important kind of stanley kubrick and and and steven spielberg and alfred hitchcock i like to make movies for an audience it means a lot to me that they're engaged in it like that's what i want to do i'm not trying to make something even though i think my my films i hope are very very personal um maybe to a sort of degree that is sort of slightly exposing sometimes um i i want to make things for people in a room and so i always head to them and then like obviously sophia coppola is you know watching her work and what she's done for so many of us to make us know that you can make stories about women for women and they can be vast and beautiful and troubling you know she's just a forever kind of hero of mine but you know then I'm looking at like Julia Davis too and those kinds of people, you know, transgressive women across the board.

1:02:07Well, thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you so much. All right, that was Emeril Fennell talking about Wuthering Heights. It's now time to delve deep into the movies that are out this week in the multiplexes and indeed on your sofa plexes. Let's talk about Wuthering Heights to begin with. Let's rank the Brontë sisters. Helen, Emily, Charlotte, Anne, or would you go Anne Emily Shortland? I'll be honest I haven't read The Tenet of Wildfell Hall so I know it's real long but James we found a book that Helen hasn't read surely not yeah and it is The Tenet of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte why didn't you read it?

1:02:46it's real long and I don't love the Brontes to begin with you don't love the Brontes to begin with? I'm more of an Austin gal Snapshack marry the Bronte sisters I mean that's Like, it would be, come on, no. I've obviously snubbed Anne. Yeah. You'd shag Emily because she's clearly unstable and you'd marry Charlotte. Correct. Why are we not killing any of them is because they're already dead. Yeah. Well, she said snub. Snub. Snub, shag, marry. Is that the genteel version? That is what I used to do at school and I don't like any other version. I will not have them. You don't like fuck, marry, kill?

1:03:20No, snub, shag, marry. It's very chaste. It's not that chaste. There's a lot of shagging going on. That's true. And there's a lot of shagging going on in Wuthering Heights as well, isn't there? Becky, talk us through this movie. Tell the good folks what they can expect. There is some shagging in this movie. I was led to believe it was wall-to-wall romping. Right. I bought 10 tickets for the weekend. That is not correct. I'll get a refund. It's very long, and I would say that the shagging...

1:03:58The film is very long, and I would say that the shagging takes up a relatively brief percentage of that quite hefty runtime. When the sex is on screen, it's pretty good sex. I liked the bit with the bridle, and there's about a 10-minute montage section between... Section. between Heathcliff and Cathy where they are shagging in various different places all over the moors and I was like, yeah, this is doing the job this is horrific I need you to give me a time code so I can skip this bit when I go to see it of course, because you're a very chaste man chased into the screen, chased out the screen he only plays marry, marry, marry that's what Chris is interested in Anyway, tell folks who don't know what Rutherford Heights is, and that may or may not include myself, what this is and who are Heathcliff and Carrie?

1:05:01Who are they? What's going on? On a kind of windy moor. This is very gothic. It's very windswept. This is near Sheffield, right? Yes. This is clear post-threads. Yes. That's a good question. Yeah, it's actually set in the nuclear winter just after threads. This might explain why the moors are so windswept, right? It's in nuclear winter. A young girl is being brought up by her father, who is a drunken gambling lout, played by Martin Clunes, and her companion Nelly, who's another lady, but not as much of a lady as Cathy is. And then one day, dad brings home a young boy. Oh. He's been out drinking again, and he defends this young lad, and he brings him home to be Kathy's pet, essentially.

1:05:51She teaches him how to read. She's a bit mean to him for a little while. This is Heathcliff. Is he played by Jacob Lordi at this point or is he not yet? He is not. Owen Cooper at that point. Owen Cooper at this point. Oh, from adolescence. Yes. And Charlotte Mellington is the young Kathy and she's great. Right. I think all three of the kids are really good. Who plays young Nellie, please? Young Nellie is Vineguyen. Vineguyen. And Hong Chao is obviously the grown-up Nellie. Amazing. Really good cast. They grew up then to be Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie. Correct. And there's lots of sexual tension.

1:06:24There is. And at that point, she's like, well, I can't marry him because he is poor. Ew. Is this poor man propaganda again? Gross. No, not really. No. Very much not. No. Because first of all, he goes off and gets rich when she spurns him. And second of all, he's a terrible person. no to be fair she is also a terrible person alright spoiled brat very entitled a new neighbour moves in next door Mr Linton is played by Shehzad Latif yeah okay with his ward who's played by Alison Oliver yes and is it his ward or is it his sister in the book it's his sister now it's a ward okay oh we'll get to this in a second about the deviations from the sacred text deviation is the word for this movie okay Kathy, even though she is madly lustfully in love with Heathcliff, is like, he is not the right match for me.

1:07:21And she accepts Mr. Linton, the rich man down the road, his proposal. And then she immediately thinks, no, I've made a horrible mistake. But it's too late. Heathcliff has already left. And so she enters into this very unhappy marriage with the nice man down the road. But she's very unhappy because she wants wild Heathcliff. And then Heathcliff comes back and he's rich and he's got a tan. And he's shaved off his beard. And he's got a slutty little earring. Yeah. Slutty earring. It's very slutty. And then they decide they need a 10-minute montage of lots of shagging all over the moors. And then it all ends very tragically.

1:08:01Right. Okay. And my understanding is that the book by Emily or Charlotte or Anne Bronte was, you know, because it was all this time. Yeah. So you couldn't use words like engorged. Or chumescent. Or chumescent or loquescent. You couldn't use words like that. So it was quite, you know... Finger bang. Beckett dark.

1:08:24Unbelievable. Oh, God. This is a proper podcast for proper people. Is it? Why did you invite me?

1:08:37Yeah, Emily Bronte wasn't much given to using the term finger banging when describing Heathcliff and Cathy. More is a pity. More is a pity. Very good. And am I right in thinking that Emeril Fennell has taken some liberties then? Yeah, but I kind of feel like that's the liberty that, you know, previous adaptations have also taken with this text because, you know, there is a sexual undercurrent to their relationship. That's kind of baked in and I understand leaning into that a bit. It's a choice, but it's a choice that I understand. There are so many other choices in this film that I do not. And look, Emerald talked about this a lot in the interview and I get that this is what she's going for.

1:09:21She's going for this emotional interpretation of how she felt as a 14-year-old reading the novel for the first time. And I think that's what she's got. I think the quotation marks are earned. Yes. And I think, you know, equally in the other direction, I think the skepticism and in some cases outright hostility of fans of the book has also been earned. Agreed. It's been quite divisive, this one. Performance is good? Yeah, I didn't have any issue really with the performances. I mean, I think the casting we can quibble with, but the actual work that these actors did, I think is very good. Yeah, I largely agree with that.

1:10:04I think on the whole, they are very good, actually. I think Jacob Elordi again puts in a really brilliant performance. I'm continuously impressed by him. He's much more than just a pretty face. And he's got that real kind of looming presence. Yeah, he's kind of like by necessity, he kind of bends over her at all times to talk to her. And so it is almost like one of those illustrations of, you know, when Dracula's leaning over the top of someone and it's almost... Dracula loved to lean. Yeah. Paul Paulman would have been a great Dracula. And, you know, there are quite valid questions about the casting of Jacob Elordi, but I think his performance is very good.

1:10:49I think everybody else is pretty good, including the kids, actually, which I think is important because that's your entry into these characters. I would say that Margot Robbie is spectacularly miscast. and the character of Kathy from the book is meant to be this kind of dark-haired, wild teenager and you just don't get that with Margot Robbie. Not because she can't play that, but that's just not who she is. And actually, as the film goes on and Kathy does become a little more adult and a little more kind of damaged, really. I think that Margot Robbie does a better job. But at that beginning, when you first sort of meet her as a young woman, I was really struggling to kind of set aside my disbelief.

1:11:46Yeah, they're both weird choices, I think, for those roles. But I do think she's very good in portraying that kind of someone who cannot help but lash out at everyone around her. I thought she was really good in those moments. in particular. But yeah, it's a weird cast for a film. But they do good work. I think Martin Clunes is actually fantastic. He's so good. Of course he is. He's Doc Martin, for God's sake. I shouldn't have been surprised. He demands a dependable pair of hands. But listen, we've got to wrap this one short. But it sounds very, very interesting indeed. This has been, as I said, a very divisive movie.

1:12:24Critics, it seems, are giving us either five stars or one star. There is no in between. So naturally, we've given it three. Three stars then for Wuthering Heights. Next up, Jimbo. Yes. Give us the Crime 101 101 please. The 101 on Crime 101. This is Bart Layton's new film and it is a 90s throwback crime thriller set in the mean streets of LA. It's based on a novella by Don Winslow and Chris Hemsworth, Thor himself, plays Mike Davis and he's a jewel thief who has many, many rules to what he does. He's very professional. He leaves no evidence but crucially he doesn't hurt anyone either. He's a very serious professional.

1:13:03Take his job very seriously, like us. And he's working on a series of heists alongside the 101, which is the Pacific Coast Highway. So this isn't like... I've driven on it many times. Right, so have I. So it's like, it's Crime 101. It's not like the Beginner's Guide to Crime. It is Crime on the 101, right? So it's geographical. And he is being hunted by Lou Lubeznik, played by Mark Ruffalo, a.k.a. The Hulk. And he's a police officer who has put together the idea that all of these crimes are being pulled off by one guy. And it's his MO that he's very meticulous and he doesn't kill anyone. So he has a hunch.

1:13:35And God damn it, he will follow that hunch through. Meanwhile, good old Mike has his eyes on a final score to get out of the business for good. And then of course he meets a lady played by Monica Barbaro and falls in love. But still plans to pull off his final heist and he involves an insurance broker called Sharon Colvin played by Halle Berry. And wouldn't you know... AKA Storm. Indeed. Or Catwoman. And Shifty Barry's in the wings. Shifty Barry? Waiting to mix things up as well. So, you know, there's a lot going on here. And his character from Eternals. And his character from the Eternals. Whose name we all know.

1:14:12We all know it and we shouldn't say it. We shouldn't. We shouldn't say it. Even though we all know it. That's absolutely right. We're so familiar with it. So, it's... Look, if I was an absolute hack, I'd call this Reheat or something like that. Because it does... Hang on, hang on. You are an absolute hack. God damn it, you're right. This is Reheat. It's Michael Mann light. I mean, it's a little bit light. It wants to be that. And do you know what? So on the one hand, it's incredibly slick. The cinematography is beautiful. And it starts with this incredible inverted nighttime shot of the LA sort of freeway system.

1:14:43It's just stunning. And it sounds really reductive, but it's like a proper grown-up film. And we don't get many of those. And that's actually quite delightful. It makes you think you're in the cinema back in the 90s again, which is, you know, fun. So that's really good. I actually really enjoyed some of the performances of this Halle Berry in particular I think is great Shifty Barry is great in all things but in this in particular he doesn't have another name that is literally just his name this is two hours and twenty minutes so it is Crime 140 not Crime 101 and it's okay is it a little too long maybe but I think there's only for one reason and I think like the heist in this and it's not it's not an action heavy film they don't throw in car chases although there is a really good motorbike chasing it but they don't throw in action sequences for the sake of it because that's not what this is about it's trying to get into the psychology of it all it's trying to lean into the character in the same way that he does and this is my only issue with this film i felt like the character work was too light it was too shallow it was too skin deep and i felt like i never really knew these characters i think you can get away with it with him with hemisworth's character mike because he's supposed to be a little bit of a mystery man he doesn't really talk about his past he's quite you know you're not supposed to really get into his head but i didn't buy mark ruffalo's character either what I really didn't you fool all of them I just thought were just a little bit thinly sketched and I wanted to I wanted to feel their motivations I wanted to get them and really I was projecting fucking Ruffalo's character from Task onto him in this because it's basically the same character generally speaking even though Hannah and Macaulay these two are not it's a lot of fun sort of going backwards and forwards between this kind of cat and mouse thing and like I say it's a proper grown up thriller type film and it's pretty good it's pretty good Ben Travis lover of all things gave this three stars Helen I think I think that's low.

1:16:26I think that's a little harsh. I had a really good time with this and I was not hyped going in. I was like, this should be no more than 101 minutes. What the hell? I'm here for an extra 39. I was not pleased sitting in the cinema and yet I had a great time. And I think it is because it is a growing up thriller of the kind we don't get anymore. It's proper actors playing proper characters. I like the way that the film kind of gradually and quite slowly actually wove them all together and how they eventually crossed paths because initially it's really not clear how these people are going to cross paths and if they're going to cross paths in some cases and I really really like the kind of slow build and the way that it set that up I thought the love story with Monica Barbaro was going to be a little bit of a side issue and underserved I think it was a little bit but it ended up being more satisfying to me than I feared at one point in the film I liked that Chris Hemsworth was trying to play a man with no game.

1:17:25He was doing it so badly. No, I thought he did a good job. He's a bit shy. I mean, but he's like, you know, he's got trauma in his past. He looks like Thor. Yes. Even handsome men can be shy, James. So, yeah, I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed Mark Ruffalo trying to do yoga. I enjoyed the film's attempts to convince us that Mark Ruffalo is not sexy, which several of us agreed coming out. We thought that was Pedro Pascal originally playing the Ruffalo role. That also would have worked. It would have worked. Yeah. We all came out of the screen and we were like, they keep trying to tell us that Mark Ruffalo isn't sexy.

1:18:02Did you see him sat without a shirt on just then? Did you? Did you see him? Anyway, so I just thought everybody was like doing good stuff. I had a really nice time. Competence porn, right? Hells Bells. It is competence porn, but it's like really well. And if you're going to try and be another movie, try and be heat. I mean, that's a good, you know, Don't try and be like Van Helsing. Try and be like a good movie. Do you know what I mean? I don't know why that's not what came to mind. That was quite the ones we pull up on. I don't know why that's what came to mind. Good advice. So yeah, I had a lovely time.

1:18:33Yes, yes, yes, yes. I agree with everything. I've upbraided Ben to his face in The Office Forgiveness 3. I think it's incredibly harsh. This is, you know, I'm a sucker for a great crime thriller. And I think this is a great crime thriller. I think we've eaten well this year with this and The Rip. and Bart Layton is a guy who doesn't direct a lot of movies it's been a few years since American Animals which was his last film and before that was The Imposter so he's like the he's like Pennywise he sleeps for 27 years and then he wakes up he makes a film whereas Pennywise just rips the arms of children anyway it's not a lot like Pennywise it wasn't the greatest analogy I'll be honest but anyway I thought this was terrific really really great characters character work as well from the cast and I thought it was genuinely tense and unpredictable when you know it brings certain characters together in certain situations I was I was on the edge of my seat I wasn't sure who was going to walk away from certain encounters and so yeah I thought it was terrific I would give this four but Ben who loves all films has decided that this is a three star film so you want to shout shame shame shame shame shame shame on Ben three stars in for Crime 101 Hellspells hello Carn Hardy has returned with Whistle you know how to review Whistle don't you?

1:20:06just put your lips together and say hey this was fun great three stars in so yeah this is this is Daphne Keane starring as a girl who's just moved to town strikes up a friendship with Sophie and Lisa's character and becomes part of a bunch of young people at her high school. This is a high school set horror. And then she discovers this well, it's an Aztec death whistle. There's no getting around it. There's no getting around it. And you know what they only decide to do? They decide to blow it. Of course they do. And you know what's going to happen? They're all going to die unless they can find a way to reverse the curse.

1:20:46Reverse the curse? reverse the curse they do it with rhyme because that would be amazing that would be amazing this has a good supporting cast as well I just want to mention that like Michelle Fairley is in there Nick Frost is in there there's some like nice people that you know and like as well as obviously the great Daphne Keane I just really enjoyed this so it's kind of got a final destination energy meets it follows maybe yeah a little bit of that so it's kind of like your death is coming for you and it is going to find you and you're basically screwed and I think that was kind of cool and it made for some interesting depictions.

1:21:21Death doesn't look the same basically for everyone as you'll sort of see when you see this and I thought that was a really clever way of doing it. There was a little bit of plot armor in the sense that like you see one person's death early and then it takes a really long time for them to reach them which didn't make a lot of sense to me if I'm honest but you know there were some things like that I was like I'm not sure what your rules are on a few things like that. I think the rules are the movie has to be longer than 30 minutes. Yeah, I think that's it. But like, do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like there was, you know, some deaths come very fast and some deaths, like, seem to really take their time.

1:21:56Yeah, I'm going to do a spoiler. In fact, I've done half a spoiler with Corinne already and I want to do, that is what I'm going to ask. I'm going to ask about the rules and the order in which people are picked off. Weirdly, it's the order in which they appear on the credits. What? But the entity can't know that. It can't know who's number one on the call sheet. So anyway, I'm intrigued. I have a theory about The Order, by the way. Do you? Yes, but I'm not going to say it because it would be a spoiler. Do you? Oh, I'm intrigued. Spoiler special me. But what I'm saying is, I still, like, that's my nit to pick, basically.

1:22:29But I did have a really good time with this because it feels like a throwback. It feels, like I say, very much rooted in, like, early Final Destination movies. And, like, some of the energy between the group is quite scream to me. It recalled scream quite a lot. So it just felt like the sort of 90s, early noughties kind of a horror movie. And then, you know, there's lots of little references, not terribly hidden. I'm not giving anything away here to even earlier horror. Like, Corin basically shouts out a lot of his favorite directors in little ways throughout the film, which I quite enjoyed because I'm a nerd.

1:23:02So I just had a good time. I thought it was fun. I don't think it's going to, like, change the world. I think it's a very kind of traditional, you know, horror movie. but I had a nice time watching it. We'll say it has some spectacular kills. Oh my God. One of them in particular, I genuinely couldn't watch. Really? Yeah, there was one I had to look away from. I was like, I can't. Which one? Mind me, at me. Yes. Oh, that one. That one. Yeah, it was awful. It was so drawn out. You're like, oh God. Just no. Yeah. Yeah. it's good stuff I really liked it works well on a podcast as well so that's good yeah it's really gnarly like really gnarly but as you say it's quite it's quite traditional in its set up I thought it was interesting the way it is very much confined to this high school it's very school set it's also worth noting there is a mid credits yeah definitely for you all want to watch stick around for that yes stick around yeah it's a lot of fun vibe wise reminded me quite a lot of smile as well but definitely with that like if Crime 101 is the kind of 90s style crime thriller this whistle is very much the kind of yeah late 90s early noughties like horror throwback but in a way that doesn't feel really cynical and just trying to play into nostalgia it feels like Corinne Hardy is actually paying homage to it and it felt authentic Because the kids feel quite now.

1:24:39They feel quite woke, frankly, compared to their predecessors in the 90s and early 90s. That's true, that's true. But just the style of the filmmaking, I had a great time, really liked it. Yeah, same here. Karin, of course, is a friend of the podcast, so I should recuse myself from talking about this. I had a great time with it. I think it's really, really stylistically directed as well. and some of those kill scenes are worth the price of admission alone. I hope, because I know it didn't do that brilliantly at the US box office over the weekend, but I hope that it makes enough of an impact when it hits streaming, etc., that this could become a bit of a franchise.

1:25:21And perhaps, this is a more serious movie than I think, when you're saying Final Destination, we all think about how that franchise essentially became a comedy, Nightmare on Elm Street became a comedy as it went on, but the initial episodes, the initial entries in those franchises were very, very serious and tonally very, very dark. And I think this echoes that very much so. Yep, I had a really good time with it. We gave us one. Three stars. Three stars in for Whistle. Finally, Hells Bells, the President's Cake sounds delicious. You might think so. You might think, oh, a film about cake, what could be more delicious and lovely than that?

1:25:58And who doesn't love presidents? Well, quite a few people these days. But this is a film written and directed by Hassan Hadi, and it is set in Iraq in 1990. So this is a time when, obviously, there were sanctions against Iraq. The Iraq invasion of Kuwait had happened. The Iraq war was kind of, you know, gearing up. Saddam was still a thing. Saddam was very much still a thing, to the point where the people of the country were mandated to celebrate his birthday. He's the president of the president's cake, in case that hadn't become obvious. He is the titular president. And so our heroine, Lamia, who is played by Benin Ahmad Nayef, who is a just fantastic performance, just an incredible character, loved her to death, who lives on basically kind of like a swampland, like a marshland in a hut with her Bibi, her granny, played by Waheed Thabet Kraybat.

1:26:54I apologize for my pronunciations. She is, you know, her name is drawn out of a hat. in her class at school to bake the president's cake. And this is a massive crisis because they do not have the money to bake a cake. They do not. But failing to do so is literally pretty much a crime. It will certainly lead to them being... They have a teacher who will dob them in. They have a teacher who will dob them into the regime for failing to celebrate the president's birthday. So this kind of sets off a sort of odyssey where she's basically sent into the big city to try and find the ingredients to make a cake.

1:27:33And of course, like inflation is running, shortages are everywhere. There are some good people who help them. There are also some very bad people who will not help them. And it is kind of an odyssey to make a cake to find sugar and flour and butter and everything else. It sounds like a really cute idea for a video game that you play in like 40 minutes on your mobile. You would think it is cute. It's not a cute one. I find the basic premise very stressful because they are just, you know, they're in poverty. And this is a huge, essentially existential crisis for this little family unit. First of all, there is the genuine and very real threat of criminal sanctions if they fail in this ridiculous task.

1:28:16And also, you know, they are sort of alone in a big bad world that is not out to get them specifically, but might just hurt them along the way. So it's quite a tough watch. But again, Lamia as a character is just so wonderful. I loved her so much. I wanted nothing but good things for her and I was incredibly invested in her journey. So that's, I guess, what kind of gets you through. That's what you have to focus on in this film. So it's pretty heartbreaking. I'm going to be honest with you. It is pretty heartbreaking. It's beautifully made. It's incredibly well performed. Just great, great child performances, particularly from Nayef Islamia.

1:28:55This is a good year for kid performances. Non-professional actors whether it was My Father's Shadow last week or Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight I can never say the title of that film and now this as well. And Wuthering Heights as well. And yeah, I just want to shout out as well Sajjad Maham, Kasim Assaid her friend who kind of helps her out they're both fantastic. Yeah, it is pretty wonderful but it is a tough watch. I'm not going to lie about that. I don't know what we've given it. It feels to me like an easy four. Yeah. But yeah. Four? Yeah, I think four. It's been three stars for everything else this week.

1:29:33Yeah, let's say four. Four candles. Yeah, I mean, look. What? On the cake? No, I understand what you're saying, James. Nothing but modern up-to-date references on the Empire podcast. It's just, you know, I don't want to make light of the cake, all right? The cake is a big deal. So that's all I'm saying. Cake is a made-up drug. Cake affects the part of the brain known as Shatner's bassoon. You're all monsters. Well, I'll talk about topical references. Yeah, that's true. But mine was a little bit worse than your two Ronnies wasn't. But okay. Anyway, we gave this one I'm saying four stars. Four Helen stars.

1:30:14I would concur with that. I think this is an absolutely terrific movie. Go and seek it out. If you can in, I'm guessing mostly the arthouse plexus around the president's cake. Four stars then for that. And anyway, on that note, that is it for this week's Empire Podcast. Join us next week for more film-related fun when we'll be joined by Fagnamura and Kleber Mandonka-Filho, who are the star and badly pronounced director of, respectively, The Secret Agent, which is the big Brazilian bombshell that's threatening the Oscars. so very very excited about that and there will be other people in the interviews as well we'll be doing an episode of the interviews I don't think there's one this week but next week there will be so keep them peeled for lads it's going to be very very exciting indeed but anyway until then until we meet again until that auspicious occasion it is goodbye and happy Valentine's Day and happy Friday the 13th to my three colleagues of such lethal cunning sadly those two will never meet when they're Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day they just seem set in their ways destined to never meet like ships in the night I don't know you could watch My Bloody Valentine you could watch that you could watch Valentine which has got Angel Out of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer in it and doesn't My Bloody Valentine remake have Dean Supernatural in it maybe I know it's in 3D important the Friday the 13th remake has Dean or Sam oh my goodness it's all coming together it's all coming together but anyway goodbye to James Dyer goodbye Please listen to my slutty little podcast Please listen to either this Or any other Multiverse you carry the name Goodbye to Becky Dark Goodbye, thank you for having me No problem Goodbye to Helen O 'Hara Toodaloo Toodaloo And it's goodbye for me I am off to win a date with Tad Hamilton And this time I'm not letting him go Thanks for listening See you next time Bye bye