Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Is Zoe Kravitz Born to Direct?

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

This week Mark is joined by another Take fave Ben Bailey Smith to talk all things cinema. Mark also gives his take on a swathe of new releases, including ‘Kneecap’, a comedy-drama based on true events that sees fate bring together a Belfast teacher and two self-confessed down-and-outs – the real musicians playing themselves – to form a hip-hop trio that rises to global fame; ‘Between the Temples’, which sees a cantor in a crisis of faith have his world turned upside town when his grade school music teacher reenters his life as his new adult bat mitzvah student; and ‘Blink Twice’, a psychological thriller and actress Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut, which sees two cocktail waitresses invited on a dream vacation to a tech billionaire’s private island, only for strange events to leave them questioning their reality. A great week in new releases! What will be Mark’s pick of the week? Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): Kneecap Review – 05:20 Box Office Top Ten – 13:52 Close to You Review – 26:30 Between The Temples Review – 35:20 Blink Twice Review – 41:00 You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everything to play for is taking on its biggest challenge yet. We've had two parters, we've even had three parters. This is a four parter and the reason why we're giving it four podcasts is it's probably the greatest individual rivalry in Premier League history. Yes, Arsene Wenger versus Alex Ferguson. We've bitten off more than we can chew. What it reminds me of, I saw a video on social media the other day of a python having swallowed a duvet The vets were trying to get the duvet out of the python I thought that is like me and Colin having to skip over FA Cup finals because there's so much to talk about when it comes To Wenger and Ferguson doubles trebles pizza round the face It has everything if you want to listen to the podcast equivalent of a python

Swallowing a duvet, follow everything to play for on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge seasons early and ad free right now on Wondry Plus. Mark, you know, those, those two things I learned from listening to you last week on last week's show. What was that? Firstly, hello Ben. And I'm worried about what these two things are. No, they're both positives.

I think the first is definitely positive. The first is that I need to watch Trap just for the lols. I think that's one thing I learned for sure. Well, you need to watch the first half of Trap. You need to watch the first half and then what you do is the minute M. Night Shyamalan actually turns up on screen, that's when it all starts to go to pieces and that's when you leave. Right, right. That's the cusp. Okay, That's good to know. What is it with his films that always seems to be this sharp jumping moment in so many of his movies?

Look, I think the weird thing is I think he can be really good and I think he can be really bad. And sometimes he can be really good and really bad in the same film. The salient point is he is still continuing to have the possibility of making really, so every time there's a new M. Night Shyamalan film, I always think, okay, well maybe this will be the one. I mean, I liked old, I know a lot of people didn't. Anyway, how are you Ben? Ben Thurman I'm good. I'm good. I'm really good actually. I'm excited to be here because, you know, the other thing I learned from last week, I think is that you don't seem to take holidays anymore. I mean, when it back in the day when I was jumping in for Simon, I was never with you. I was, they'd always put

me off with a lesser critic. And now whenever I do it, I've always got the main math. You know, the thing is, I kind of, I'm not allowed out of this cupboard that I'm recording in. That's it. I just kept it here and just fed. You've seen Silence of the Lambs, you know, it puts the lotion on its skin. That's it. That's how it works. They drop down a bucket with some food and some lotion and I just do what I'm told. People need to understand what it means to be part of a Sony music production.

Well, you know, we've got, I feel like it's an interesting week this week. I really do. Yes. What have we got to look forward to? Well firstly, can I just say Ben, the implication in that statement is that there are some weeks that aren't interesting weeks, so take that back. Yeah, but it's not your fault though. It's not your fault. It's cinema's fault. It's cinema's fault.

Come on. It's cinema's fault. Some weeks there's not a lot of great movies out. Well this week there is a lot of interesting stuff. So we have reviews of Blink Twice, Between the Temples, Kneecap and Close to You. This is all in take one. And also for the Vanguard we've got... Two other movies. There's a reissue of Pulp Fiction, which is 30 years old, which like every reissue which makes me feel really old.

And Cuckoo, which is a new sort of horror thriller. I saw Pulp Fiction when it came out, which means I must have seen it. I must have cheated my way into the cinema because I would have been 15. Yeah, Ben, I saw Pulp Fiction when it came out and I didn't have to cheat. They just looked at me and went, yeah, yeah, you're obviously a news. You're fine. Keep moving. We also have- Have you brought children with you? Can we see how old they are?

We've also got a recommendation feature, a weekend watch list. A weekend not list. It's the best and worst movies to watch over the next three days. One frame back this week is the best Jason Schwartzman movies. You get ad free episodes of Shrink the Box, that's mine and Amon's show, with all our in depth character analysis dropping every Tuesday plus we answer your film and on film related queries and quandaries and questions smestians and you get all of this via apple podcasts or you can go to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices and if you're already a vanguardista always, Mark. We salute you. Salute you.

Isn't it? Salute you. We salute you. We salute you. Um, here's a thing from Graham in Newcastle who is clearly on the ball. He says, uh, dear Hannah and Gabby unofficial. I'll take official if it's going Evan Dando correspondent, Vanguard Easter and two time lemon heads, emergency mailer hearing that Ben was

presenting Mark again. I just wanted to make you both aware that Evan Dando is touring the UK in October as fans of all rock Americana. I highly recommend giving the Jay Hawks a listen. Hello to Jason and the wonderful production team from Graham. Should we go? That's a good shout. I didn't know. Well, this time That's a good shout. Should we go?

Well, this time we have to because last time we were so close and then yet so far. Last time we didn't discover it till after the thing. Literally I got home and there was a text from you said, Mark, the Lemonade to play or Evan down there is playing Southampton. Yeah. It was like when? And I was randomly there. Yeah. Yeah. But nevermind. Next time.

It was nice. It was, it was, it was kind of okay going on my own. Cause you sort of just make friends right at gigs because everybody is there for the same reason you don't. Well, I suppose that makes sense. You're a friendly and lovable guy. I just, people just look at me and think I'm cross. And you're the last seat on the left.

Yeah. Don't bother me. As ever correspondence at Kermode and Mayo.com. All right, let's get into our first film review. Mark, what do we got? Yeah. So kneecap. Have you heard of the Irish rap band kneecap? You know what, when I got invited to come back and follow Sanjeev this week and saw the list of films, I got incredibly excited because about a year ago, an author friend of mine, Guy, we were sort of working on trying to adapt a book of his.

And we were thinking about actors and people who might fill certain roles. And he said, I think I've found the perfect actor for this character. I don't know if he's an actor or not. And he sent me this music video by an Irish band called Kneecap, who I'd never heard of at the time. And I watched it and it was incredibly cinematic. I'll send you a link to it because it's phenomenal. And I think it's a real sort of precursor to what came because I think a lot of people were surprised that they suddenly had a movie, but actually they've been making cinematic

music videos for some time. I went to see these guys in Glastonbury, just gone and they are, well, they're something else. They're something else. I mean, this is described as the mostly true story of the rise of Necap, who are trio from West Belfast, who play themselves in the film. I'm a big rock biopic fan and it's always interesting when people play themselves. This was apparently the first Irish language film to play Sundance, where it won the audience award after they turned up in an OUC Land Rover. It then premiered in Ireland at Galway where it won best Irish film, best Irish language film and the audience award.

And it's the Irish entry for the best international feature at the 97th Oscars. So, it starts with Liam getting arrested, refusing to speak English to the police and he and his friend Nisha have been encouraged to speak Irish, partly by the latter's father Arlo, who we learned was a Republican paramilitary played by Michael Fassbender, who may or may not be alive. Anyway, music teacher JJ is called in to translate in the police cell because he speaks the language and he and his partner are involved in the campaign for the Irish Language Act that recognizes Irish as an official language in Northern Ireland.

So JJ takes Liam's notebook and when he reads it, he takes it out of the cell because he's got some incriminating stuff in it. When he reads it, he realizes that they're rapping in Irish and the lyrics are largely about drugs and sex and the police, but they have real popular potential. And because although these two seem to be troublemakers and inverted commas, they're also really smart. They've got a way of mixing personal history with political rhetoric to iconoclastic effect. Here's a clip. You've heard of intergenerational trauma, right? Right. Our history? Our history has become our biology. It's like the trauma our ancestors suffered

has inserted itself. Has actually inserted itself into our genetic code. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological reverberations. Reverberations. Reverberations. ADHD. O-D-D.

The troubles. The troubles? The troubles? I've got troubles. So the apparently respectable music teacher gets him into his studio. He provides the beats, they record a track, the track touches the nerve. They start to gig. They need him on stage with them. But he says, well, I'm a teacher. So he starts wearing a balaclava and calling himself DJ Provi.

Meanwhile, Liam starts dating a Protestant girl who likes him to shout Chuckie R. Larr during moments of intimacy. And meanwhile, the band get targeted by a group calling themselves radical Republicans against drugs who threaten to Burn Down Their Studio. Despite the balaclavas and the barbwire and all that stuff, the politics are very satirical. The band themselves have said that they're ceasefire babies. This is a quote, they said, we're able to joke about these things that were once traumatizing for people in our community. Every side of the community can take a joke. We don't give people enough credit that people know how to have a laugh.

They've also said it doesn't take much to court controversy in the North. And of course, both they and the film have been controversial. Although the overall message is broadly communal. And they've talked about bringing people together and celebrating the Irish language. There was one interview with them in which they said, we have more in common with working class people in Belfast, whatever side, and divide them, rich people in Dublin, and then start talking about workers revolution. So the film is written and directed by Richard Pepeat, who is a non-Irish speaking, as they describe him, Englishman. This is not the first time an Englishman has made money

out of Irishmen, making his feature debut. And as befits the story at its core, if the film is raucous, it's unruly, it's endearingly shambolic, the onscreen subtitling, because it's largely Irish language, is done with wit. The whole thing's got a lot of energy to it. It's got a bit of a train spotting vibe.

There's one moment when they've taken some ketamine, which is then described onscreen via stop motion animation, which is quite inspired. Now there are some people who will hate them. I mean, I have friends in Belfast who I know wouldn't go and see this and plenty of you would love it. The band are surprisingly good at playing themselves and that's not something to take for granted.

I mean, you know, let us not forget that a very famous chef, Gordon Ramsay was in the film playing himself and he was absolutely terrible at it. In the great pantheon of pop biopics, I think this is definitely one of the more distinctive offerings. I mean, I'm a huge fan of good vibrations and I like the way that good vibrations is kind of completely kind of, it's, okay, this is where, this is the situation that this story comes out of, but actually it's all to do with the music. And in the case of this, it's very likable if sometimes headache inducingly shambolic. I mean, it is like exactly as you'd expect from the music. It's very, very in your face and it's very easy to see why it is that it's become a real festival audience award winner, which is always a kind of, it's the things

that win audience awards at festivals, that always tells you a lot about what the film's like. Are you going to go see it, Ben? Ben Hulme I saw it last night at the Notting Hill Gates cinema. Jason Vale Oh, Ben, you've seen it. I'm sorry, I didn't realise you had. Ben Hulme It's okay. No, I mean, it was a special preview. I had no idea that I thought it was out on this day when you're hearing this podcast,

the Friday, if you've got this podcast at that point. I actually managed to see it a couple of nights before. Listen, I was already a massive kneecap fan and the wave of energy and positivity around this film matches what's going on with their music. The timing of it is brilliant for them. They're increasing their following massively. I looked around the cinema and it was such a range of ages and people and different backgrounds. I was sort of pleasantly surprised by how busy it was and how varied the audience was. And I have to say, I enjoyed it immensely from start to finish. And the the train spotting reference that he said, I literally thought the, I, the, the word train spotting entered my head as soon as DJ Provi dived into that bin. I thought he was just going to keep going, you know, when he goes to retrieve the acid

tabs. Then come back up holding it. I really thought it, cause it really felt like a nod to train spotting. And you're right. That the sort of chaos and, and, and, and energy of train spotting is definitely within it. I laughed all the way through and at the point in your moments hit me as well. The shambolic nature of it, I think didn't take away. It sort of added to it. And, um, No, but it has to be, the story has to have that, that sense to it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, I loved it. Honestly. Start to finish. Well, there we go. What a, what a nice note to open on. And I'm so, I'm,

I'm so glad that you saw it. I didn't know that you had. So hooray. What have we got still to come? Still to come, we have reviews of, uh, oh, well, blink twice between the temples and close to you. So we can look forward to all of that after this little ad break. visionary filmmakers all carefully handpicked. Now Simon, you are a literary fellow. I am a doctor of letters because it was one of those Warwick University... Buy one, get one free. Put a hat on, wear a cape. Well, you will be delighted to hear about the latest issue of Mubi's Notebook magazine. Notebook is a print-only magazine that's devoted to the art and culture of

cinema. Created, prepared and published by MBI, comes out twice a year, and a yearly subscription includes a surprise just for Notebook subscribers. And shipping is always free. Issue five, a do-it-yourself themed edition, is available now with a beautiful cover designed by How To's John Wilson. Try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash Kermode and Mayo. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash Kermode and Mayo for

a whole month of great cinema for free. Hey, I'm Gillian. And I'm Patrick. And together we make the podcast True Crime Obsessed. If you love documentaries the way we love documentaries, you might be interested in our show because we recap all the documentaries that you're watching. We've covered just about every true crime case you can imagine. We're talking the hatchet-wielding hitchhiker,

the Ted Bundy tapes. What else? The Turpin 13. Yes. With the amazing sisters who basically tell the story, the girl in the picture. Yes. All the documentaries you love to talk about

with your friends, we're your friends now. We're the friends you talk about that stuff with. Yeah. We're true crime obsessed podcasts. Stitch with us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And we are back. Unless you're a Vanguardist or a course. We never went anywhere. It's time for the box office top 10. Mark at number 10 is Borderlands.

Which is rubbish. It's just rubbish. This is a video game adaptation, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's a kind, that's a polite way of describing it. Oh really? Wow.

All right. Avoid. Here's someone who's seen it, Richard Purdom. He says, Dear Mark and Ben, I recently watched the recent Borderlands film. As someone who isn't a huge fan of the games I went in with low expectations, just hoped it would pass the time. And it did, technically, in the same way that a cavity search would pass the time. Time would definitely pass. The clock showed later coming out than it did going in, but none of it was enjoyable. And I wouldn't necessarily want to repeat

the experience. Yours, Richard Purdom. I think that sums that one up. UK and US number nine is Stree 2. Which wasn't press screened. This is Women 2 Terror of the Headless. It's a Hindi language, comedy horror. If anyone's seen it, please let us know because I'd love to know what it's like. Okay. UK number eight, US number four is one of your favorites, Mark. It's Twisters. Yeah, oh no, there's some Twisters. Plural, because it's a sequel. More Twisters. That's literally it. Yeah, and somebody said, yeah, but they did that with Alien and Aliens. Yeah,

but the difference is Aliens actually had a different story. Whereas Twisters, it's just, you remember Twister? It's that, but more. Okay. The UK and US number seven is Inside Out 2. Have you seen this, Ben? Yeah. And I had, you know, I was listening to you and Sanjeev talking about it last week and you said something about, you know, the adolescent experience and families returning to watch it when their kids were older. That was my exact experience. So Inside Out, the original, I watched numerous times with my kids when they were much smaller. It's one of the greatest films,

greatest family films of all time, I would say, one of them. So it's a tough act to follow. However, going in to watch Inside Out in the cinema, Inside Out 2 with teenagers was a really interesting experience. It really felt like it completed something for us. Of course, it's not Inside Out. Nothing could be Inside but I, I found it profound in another way. Um, because it felt like we'd grown with the film. So, and clearly from all the mail we've had loads and loads of people have had that experience. So it is, there's no question that it's absolutely it's finding its audience

and it's doing what it set out to do, which is a remarkable big time. Uh, UK six and USA is the aforementioned trap. Got an email on this from Christopher, who says, I wouldn't see trap with the good lady animal welfare expert, her indoors, which helped to serve as a reminder that when watching a film, everyone sees different things within it from their own unique perspective. However, in this case, it would appear that one of us had been watching a completely different movie entirely. When it got to the scene where Cooper speaks to Lady Raven on their own, my wife turned around to me and said, wait, was he the killer? This surprised me as it seemed incredibly obvious up to this point that he was the killer thanks to a mix of his actions and the narration

of Lady Exposition herself, Hayley Basil Mills. It turns out that she had misinterpreted the film from the get-go. She thought that the police that were at the concert were fake police that were set up to allow the real serial killer to kill as many people in the auditorium, and that Josh Hartnett's character was trying to work out who the killer was and stop him using his firefighting skills with his subsequent behaviour up to that point and attempt to try to get into the mind of the killer and find him before he could carry out any more crimes. Even the more obvious scenes where he scolded a woman with chip bat to evade detection and an earlier

scene when he was checking his phone wasn't enough to realise that he may not be the nicest guy. It really wasn't until it was completely spelt out that he was a rotter that it finally dawned on her what the film was really about. It turns out that everyone approaches a film differently, but some of us create a completely different narrative to what the makers of the film are expecting us to. Anyway, we both enjoyed it. Wow. Well, listen, look, good for you.

I love the idea that you can completely re-imprint the film in your head. I'm sorry to do the first Exorcist reference. I remember Bill Blatty telling me that one of the worst reviews he got for The Exorcist was somebody who said, well, we meet this guy at the beginning of the film in Iraq and then he's never seen again. And Bill Blatty went, he's literally the exorcist.

There's like this, I don't know what else I can say. That's who he is. He's, you know, he turns up at the end and he performs the exorcism. It's the same guy. I feel like Christopher's wife needs a right to reply here. I hope we hear from her next week because this feels like the classic one-upmanship in the marriage.

It even ends by saying, I also discovered my wife not only hasn't seen the Sixth Sense, but doesn't know what the twist is. I feel like we should hear from her. Well, in that case, there's a real treat ahead. Fantastic. What will happen is she'll watch the sixth sense and go, Haley Joel Osmond is a killer. I think she needs Haley Mills in every film she watches, but let's wait to hear from her. UK number five and US six is Despicable Me four. Bottom.

I find exactly. Thank you. I find Minions funny. I'm not going to take it back. UK four and the US number five is the 15th anniversary edition of Coraline. So fabulous to see it doing so well on its anniversary reissue. There is a, an exhibition at the BFI. If you're interested in it, which is all about the magic of stop motion and you know, stop motion is fabulous. And it's just, it's properly weird. I mean, it's a kid's film, but the button eyes are just scary.

Terrifying. Um, uh, the UK is number three and the America's number two is Deadpool and Wolverine two for the price of one there. Just a staggering amount of money, which is literally, I mean, it's, have you seen this bit? No, I just couldn't be bothered Mark. Honestly, I watched Endgame and I, that, it was called Endgame. And I was like, that's it, great.

I'm done. That's the Endgame. It was literally called Endgame. And now here we are many years later with people playing around in the rubble and every now and then saying a rude word. Well, not every now and then every other word saying rude word. My friend Van Conner, who is the target audience for this film, said that he really enjoyed it. So, you know, there we go.

Fair enough. UK's number two and America's number three is it ends with us. Which I was actually pleasantly surprised with dealing with a difficult issue, but doing it in a way which is very, very accessible. And I'm a big Blake Lidley fan and somebody pointed out last week, was it the first time in, oh Sanjeev pointed it out, was it the first time that a husband and wife had the number one and number two in the box office? And the UK number one and US number one is Alien Romulus. Got a couple of emails on this. Charles Dodd says, dearest doctors, just left after watching a midday screening of Alien

Romulus and thought I'd share my views with you good cells. Well, I went into this with high hopes that they might nail it this time. I have to say I left the cinema with a heavy heart. It was an interesting enough set up, the utter unbelievably aside, but from the moment they decided to shoehorn in a legacy character, for me, it started to come undone. Nod after nod after nod to classic lines and classic setups only made me wish I was actually watching Alien or Aliens instead. And when said character gives us the exposition of how we got here, I found myself thinking

that actually sounds like a good film. Why didn't they make that instead? There are a few decent ideas and interesting setups. Zero gravity, acid blood being the main one, but the absolutely bonkers final act, another nod perhaps this time to Alien Resurrection, was so obvious that when it arrived I held my head in my hands. It also completely derails the whole thing. Lighting, tone and feel would be a better way to service us fanboys rather than this

continual checklist that takes away from the experience rather than adds to it. Let's hope this ends here. Enough is enough. Charles Todd. Enough is enough is on a separate line, by the way. It's the end game. End game. Charles Todd. And Christoph from Birmingham says, Alien Romulus is definitely one of the better recent installments of the franchise. I found the human-android interactions more interesting than all the struggles with the Xenomorphs, which seem to largely consist of opening and closing doors at just the right or wrong time. By adding more backstory and explanations, and by essentially repeating visuals from previous instalments with better CGI, the films are becoming less and less scary than

the original, which is so engaging because of everything that the audience and the crew of the Nostromo don't know. That's from Christoph. So, it's almost a positive. I think it's definitely a game of two halves. The good stuff is many of the effects are very, very physical. Caley Sparney is very good and a very good stand in physical when he weaver. It's definitely true that he knows how to direct a tense set piece. And there is a lot of stuff in this that Osadette to don't breathe. The downside, the legacy character thing done with, you know, through the miracle of computer graphics is really stupid. Not least because it's that particular character. You might as well have just got somebody wearing a William Shatner mask that's gone a bit melty and gone, you know, or even had like a talking

skull. You don't need to do it, so that's completely pointless. It doesn't make any sense. Outside of two central characters, the characters are pretty dispensable. But it's much better than the Prometheus stuff, which all that ooga-booga backstory about engineers and Oasis was all destined and it was, no, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. It wasn't. The whole point about the original film was it wasn't destined. They arrived there because they misread a beacon. And then it turned out the company was sending them there. That's the, you know, anyway. So, but I, I, as a, as a cinematic experience, I enjoyed Romulus. It makes no sense.

And the legacy character is really annoying, but other than that, I think it's got some good, good set pieces in it. Yeah. And they still can't do mouths, right? They need to just stop until they can do mouths. Was like watching the first Final Fantasy film. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

When you can get somebody to do that, probably, honestly, the mouthwork on that character is absolutely catastrophic. All right. Well, listen, while we're having a laugh, let's try and keep it going because we're going to go into the ads in a sec, but you know what time it is. It is time, Mark. It is. To kick off our shoes and socks and flounce like Theresa May in a wheat field. Ooh. Merrily into our laughter lift.

I'm laughing already. Hey, Mark. Hey. Hey, did you notice, did you notice that Michael J. Fox appeared on stage with Blandus's answer to Sterility Coldplay at Glastonbury back in June? Yeah, I was there. He must have loved being over it so much that he's stayed in the UK ever since. It's incredible. I swear, I swear to you, I saw him in my local florists this week. At least I think it was him. He had his back to the Fuchsias.

I really wondered where that was going. It was a very, very long walk up a long and rinding. Yeah, surprising. You wouldn't expect that from the redactor would you a long setup. Anyway, it's not going well at home, Mark. It's not going well at all. The good lady, company co director, her indoors said if I keep keep on making lemon heads puns, she'd leave me. I said, that's a great big note. I don't know why you're so down about it. She said, I've only just noticed you're doing it again. I said well, it's about time Also, I'm not very popular with the kids at the moment My daughter was doing a history homework at the end of last term and asked me what I knew about Galileo

I said he was a poor boy from a poor family anyway mark So brush through that one. What is still to come? The wreckage of your career after making that Queen Gatot so terribly. Yeah, for sure. That's why I always have to reference the redactor. It's not me. Well, coming up next, we're heading towards a review of Blink Twice, which you were going

to go and see, but you haven't seen yet. And we also have a review of Between the Temples. But before that... Close to You. Join us right after this, unless you're a Vanguardist, or in which case there's not going to be any break at all, so don't worry. Hello again. Now, we are talking about Close To You after this clip. When you think about us back then, what was it for you? I was in love with you. I figured that was obvious. What was it for you? You were my best friend and you're the person I thought I was. I felt so much and I felt confused sometimes. It should be said that this movie actually comes out next week, not this week. I saw

it last week. Mark, you've seen it as well. What did you think? Here's the thing that's most obvious to say about this. The film has this very Indie Verite feel about it. Because of the use of improvisation, the dialogue feels very, very natural. It almost feels at times like we're eavesdropping on real conversations. eavesdropping on real conversations. The situation obviously, to some extent, mirrors Paige's own life experiences. But there are two stories going on here. One of them is about a trans man going back to meet his family and the family either dealing with or not dealing with his identity. The other one is a story about two people who had a connection when they were young, meeting later in life when their situations have changed for both

of them, and yet feeling that there is something going on. Now, my suspicion is that actually the latter of those two stories is really the heart of the story, probably for the filmmakers, I would think. And if that part of the story works, a lot of it is to do with Hillary Barker, who is one of the, it was just fantastic in it. I mean, the fact that, the fact that her, that her character is deaf and that he's never referred to or made an issue at all, it's just part of the character is sort of completely in keeping with the film. And I, I do think that, that a way, I got the feeling from the film

that that was really the core to the story. The other side of it, which is the story about somebody going home and then having to deal with their family. The mother says, I keep wanting to refer to my little girl and I keep getting that wrong. And then the father who has this great conversation about my son is back home. And then the insufferable brother-in-law who just can't help but pick a fight. All those conversations felt really real, really heartfelt, really personal, and really kind of drawn from experience. Now, I think the thing to say, therefore, is that there are two different things going on in the film,

and at different parts of the film, they work better or worse. There were certain times that I felt that the love story needed to be developed more, or not even the love story, the kind of the rekindled story needed to be developed more, or not even the love story, the rekindled story needed to be developed more. But of course, the stuff that strikes home is that stuff about going back and having those conversations with the family in which I thought the way

in which it was negotiated, that it's really the fact that they're trying to get their heads around who Elliot Page's character is, who Sam is, was really convincingly done to the point that certain sections of it, I know a lot of it is due to the improvisation, but certain sections of it just felt like they've literally put a camera in a room with two people who are actually having this conversation,

which I think is, I mean, you're an actor, Ben, you tell me whether, whenever you see something that looks really naturalistic, the chances are it's actually much, you know, it takes a lot of rehearsal to seem that natural. What did you think? Yeah. I mean, I suppose the answer, the, the, the response to that thing of like more rehearsal is, is kind of yes and no, because when you have something like this, that is improvised. Um, I mean, I remember doing a scene in the, in the series of a boiling point, the movie, um, uh, for the BBC. And, uh, I was on a blind date with the head chef and they made sure I didn't

even meet her until the cameras were rolling to give it that awkwardness, you know, so sometimes there's actually zero rehearsal and I wouldn't be surprised if some things in this were completely unrehearsed to get those real reactions. As I understand, there was parameters of discussion, but then the dialogue was in front of us. And actually, let's say, hats off to Dominic Savage, who obviously has a sort of track record of being able to get that kind of atmosphere completely right on camera with the I Am series. I think the point is we take it for granted that if something looks naturalistic and something looks improvised, it was easy.

Actually, I think completely the opposite. Oh yeah, 100%. Completely the opposite. Yeah, the hardest thing to do. Do you agree with me about there being, about there being essentially two stories, one of them, the coming home story, but the other story being the, the kind of rekindled story, man, I felt like it was two films almost at times, you know, like I could,

I could easily watch either of them. Um, and they did sort of work. Um, the two, the two side by side. But I agree, I think the home stuff was more explosive in a way and I just learned more. I think it's a fascinating film in that I would recommend everybody to see it because there's so many people still who, you know, it's difficult to understand. I think they find it difficult to understand, maybe not as bad as the, like you say, the insufferable brother-in-law, but the trans experience, you know? So I think it's an incredibly helpful film alongside everything else. And that can often mean like, oh, like, oh, so well-meaning and, you know, it's like too,

too on the nose or too preachy. But I didn't get that from it at all. It just felt honest and raw. I don't think it felt preachy. I don't think it felt preachy at all. I do think it felt structurally unbalanced, but I don't think it ever felt preachy. Yeah. Yeah.

And then perhaps that is because you have two stories, which could be standalone films or episodes, you know? And I'm not sure that that ever fully married up almost, you know, almost as if literally Sam had to have a reason to leave that house, you know, there'd be a big blow up. He would leave and therefore he'd be able to, we'd be able to see the other film with him and his long lost love. But it was, their relationship was beautifully done as well and you're 100% right. And I think she's great. I think Hillary Bark is really, really good. Hillary Bark, she was in The Sound of Metal, wasn't she? Yeah, she is. Yeah. Yeah.

And, uh, sound of metal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sound of metal. Yeah. That thing, when she first sees Sam and the kind of the reaction on her face to seeing him is absolute genius.

Yeah. It's so important as well, because didn't you think when you were watching Sam stare at her, my first thought was like, Oh, he's just staring at a woman, you know, a woman. And it was like, almost it was like a little bit unsettling. Yeah. So her look back when she realized he's staring is everything. She's got to tell us so much with that look. It was genius.

Yeah. Yeah. No, really, really well played, really well played. Interesting movie. All right. Well, listen, we are going to take another short break. But after that, Mark, what have we got to look forward to in our last reviews? Between the Temples, which is an angsty comedy, and Blink Twice.

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Reserve your ride as soon as you book your flights. To all the planners, now you can reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. See Uber app for details. Okay, welcome back. We are talking about Between the Temples, Mark. Yes. American indie comedy co-written and directed by Nathan Silver. This played well at Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca. Silver made Thurst Street, Great Pretender, Cutting My Mother on Television. He cites Rainer, Werner Fassbender, Douglas Serk, Nick Ray, and Pasolini as influences, which is basically, okay, fine. Watching this, however, I was reminded more of the nervous energy of that brilliant 2020 comedy Shiver Baby, which I absolutely loved. So this stars Jason

Schwarzman, Carol Kane, and Dolly DeLeon. Dolly DeLeon was the person who stole the show in Triangle of Sadness. So Schwartzman is Ben. He's a cantor in upstate New York who's lost his ability to sing in the temple. His wife and author died a while ago. He's fallen apart. He lives with his two mums, played by Carolyn Aaron and Dolly DeLeon, who want him to find a new partner. They keep trying to fix him up with the rabbi's daughter. Then he meets Carol Kane's Carla, who he recognizes because she used to be his music teacher. She doesn't recognize him because the last time she saw him he was just little Ben. She wants him to tutor her for a late life bat mitzvah, which at first seems mad because he's lost the ability to sing, but they strike up a kind of old couple relationship. They are both wounded and or bereaved.

They're both suffocated by the situations and their families and they're both searching for some kind of redemption. Here's a bit of the trailer for Between the Temples. Your mother has decided to have her bat mitzvah, and I'm gonna give it to her. This is classic Carla. What's the song? Hilarious, mom. You can sing. I heard you sing.

I can sing, but I can't sing. Come on. You got a big voice in there. Oh! That's the voice. That's the voice. She might be able to handle this. Rabbi, if anyone can do it, it will be her.

Carla just taught me that music is the sound you make. I want you to be happy. It's okay to be loud and to be sloppily. So this is shot by Sean Price Williams, who has worked with the likes of Alex Ross Perry in the Safdies. This is shot on handheld 16mm, so it has that kind of textural, which I always think of as a textural 70s feeling. Very loose-limbed, very indie. I was thinking at times of at least the sort of the comically morbid mood of Harold and Maud. There's a very smart double role for Madeline Weinstein who makes the most of two small parts. And there are scenes of absolutely toe-curlingly

excruciating family dinners, in which that thing about tragedy and comedy colliding, you know, equaling absurdity is really well done. The title, of course, is a pun, you know, so between the temples. So between the temples meaning, you know, in the middle of Euphora, but also between the temples because the whole thing is playing out within this kind of religious thing about moving towards a Butn Mitzvah. And in the same way as when you hear that title, there is both a groan and a grin involved in that pun. The same thing is true with the film. That it's, you know, on the one hand, that pun tells you something that the film is about, the personal, private, existential, religious, inner outer nature of the comedy. And it also tells you that it's a, it's sort of, it's a groan inducing pun. I mean, I liked this.

I'm not quite sure that I liked it quite as much as its most ardent admirers. I think there are certain things it gets wrong. But overall, I liked, I mean the thing that I really liked about it was the family dinners, or the friends and family dinners, in which it's just that comedy of awkwardness, which when it's done right, I don't know why we enjoy watching it, but there is something about watching people having a really, really hard time, which can be very, very funny. And there is also a real sweetness at the center of its story. I think it's a little indulgent. And it's not shiver baby, which I think is kind of the high watermark of this kind of thing. But it's pretty solid between the temples.

About force majeure, would that be up there for awkward? Force majeure is, in terms of that, the excruciating awkwardness, for anyone who hasn't seen force majeure, there's the whole thing about, at the beginning, a husband lets his family down really badly, and then the whole of the rest of the film is, what's he going to do about it now? And I mean, that, Oh, that's breathtakingly hard work. It really is. Um, I feel like this week, at least, you know, none of the films have outstayed their welcome in terms of runtime. Sometimes you, you look at the films and you think, Oh my gosh,

there's one that's two and a half hours long. Why? So, um, I feel that that's a positive this week. And then it comes and goes. Have you seen the new cut of Caligula, which is nearly three hours long? And I was fascinated listening to you and Simon talking about that. I, I'm actually tempted to watch it. It's so mad that that film has had so many different guises. And they finally found one that maybe works. Yeah. You really should see it because it proves that Malcolm McDowell is not crazy.

And that's what he thought he was doing all along. And it's so great to hear Malcolm McDowell finally be happy with a version of Caligula. I kind of feel like he, oh, you know, he, he deserves it. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm going to check it out for sure. But next time I've got three hours to spare.

Okay. So we're into, here's a challenge, it's a blink twice. The family friendly movie that I'm looking forward to watching. Directed by Zoe Kravitz, you know, who's acting credits, the Divergence series, Fantastic Beasts, X-Men, Fury Road, Spider-Verse, Big Little Lies, Batman, Lego, Batman, everything. And now directing. Co-wrote this with E.T. Fagenbaum. This was originally entitled Pussy Island and had its title changed after basically the distributors were told that they couldn't distribute the movie with that title.

And there are some very interesting articles. You can go and look about why that title, why Zoe Kravitz stood by that title for so long and then finally agreed, okay, we're going to change it. So stars Naomi Ackie, who is fab in everything and Channing Tatum, who is fab in some things, this being one of them. So this is a sort of post-Me Too get out thriller with a touch of promising young woman, smattering of glass onion, a whiff of white lotus, and a whole heap of my word, Zoe Kravitz really can direct, can't she? So Naomi Ecke is Frieda. She's waitressing a function for Channing Tatum's billionaire tech mogul,

Slater King. Now, when we think billionaire tech mogul, okay, We think Elmo, right? We think Elmo Musk. So smug, creepy, quasi-fascist, narcissist with no people skills, or as Rian Johnson added in Glass Onion, also stupid. So Slater appears to be only some of these things. He was, we learned very early on, he was canceled after nonspecific abusive behaviour. He's done a great big apology and is now in therapy with Karl McClelland's Rich. And when Frieda and her friend Jess, Alia Shulkat, get behind the velvet rope, they meet Slater and he takes a shine to her and he invites her to his private island with her best friend and says, hey, come and have a great time. Here's a little bit of the trailer. Slater King, let's get to the question

that everybody is dying for you to answer. Where have you been? I guess I just needed to disappear for a little while. So I sort of bought an island. An island? Mm-hmm. It's a great place to bring friends. Nice to meet you, Freda.

We're going to my island for a few days. Do you guys want to come? Ha ha ha! Did we just jet off to a billionaire's island with a bunch of strangers? He's not a stranger. He's spoiler king. I can't tell you how healing it's been just to disconnect.

Fonds, please. Wait, for real? It's just better without the fonts. So even from hearing that, you're thinking it's not a good idea going off to a billionaire's island because what we all think of is- What could possibly go wrong? Yeah, you know, Jeffrey Epstein on whose plane Donald Trump is currently flying around. Anyway, at the island, they meet a group of boorish, apparently harmless tech bros played

by the likes of Christian Slater and Haley Joel Osmond, who we mentioned just earlier on. They get given their own rooms. The rooms come with designer perfume and designer clothes. In fact, it turns out that all the women who were on the island, who have all been invited there for this party, are all wearing the same perfume and designer clothes. They have the days around the pool where every time they put down a glass, it's filled up with champagne and then the nights dining on gourmet food and taking designer drugs.

And Slater seems to like Frieda and there's a rivalry between her and Sarah, Adriana, who's fresh off several seasons of a show, which is a hot babes survivors show. But there's a general feeling that something's wrong. And that feeling is best described, as I mentioned, sort of get out. That feeling is best described as that Ira Levin feeling, you know, the Stepford wives feeling. When you start to feel there's something wrong here. Actually, Ira Levin is, of course, the great father of all this stuff. And then it's kind of that the whatif social commentary genre that follows. Now, the film opens with this weird trippy out-of-focus close-up of a frog, a small frog, and it's full of images of snakes in

grass, which are both kind of metaphorical and real. This is like Eden, there's a snake in the grass, but also they're real snakes and they're actually intrinsic to the plot. We know it's all going to go bad, but what's smart is that when it does, the fantastical elements of the plot are completely fantastical, but the underlying truths are very real. The underlying truths about predation, the underlying truths about men, the underlying truth that rich guys are creepy and that private islands are not a good idea, they are not idyllic, they tend to be there so that people can do things outside of what civilised society would allow. The best thing for me is that the film doesn't pull its punches, and when it comes to tales of predation and entrapment and drugging and coercion, there is nothing sugarcoated about the truth and the film absolutely doesn't see any need

to sugarcoat its own turns. Great performances, real spark. There's a lot of kind of brittle wit beneath the kind of emerging horror. The design is great. The needle drops are of course as smart as you'd expect. But here's the best thing, directorially the film just bristles, it pops. It's got over saturated colors, these

hallucinogenic flashes. For me, this is kind of, this is Cronenbergian and I don't mean David Cronenbergian, I mean Brandon Cronenbergian in terms of, it reminded me of Infinity Pool. It has a similar kind of underlying, really deep-cut, awful, you know, reality when you peel away the glossy surface is really horrifying. It's got that same level of dark satire about it, and it is satirical, and you know, all the best satire is horrifying. Also, there is a crossover in terms of the central themes of this, an infinity pool. You go on holiday and you start to question your mind and you start to question your memory and you start to wonder what's real and what isn't. A really, really well-directed and well-written thriller

from somebody who was clearly a you know, a natural born filmmaker who apparently can do anything. And I really enjoyed it. And I really thought, wow, that's a filmmaker's film. Was that her debut? Yeah, feature debut. Yeah. It's incredible. I mean, straight out of the pack, straight out of the can, that's your feature debut. You go, the pack straight out of the can. That's your feature debut. You go, wow. That's impressive. And I'm going to go and see it tonight.

You're back of that review. Ben, I think you're going to really enjoy it. I can't wait. And that with that Mark is the end of take one. Um, but, but what's your film of the week before we go take a wild guess. I mean, just from the, all the energy you that, it's got to be Blink Twice. And that's why you're so good at this job. It is indeed Blink Twice. Oh, I'm glad. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team

was Lily, Guy Lizzacchi, Vicky, Matti and Bethy. And the producer was Gem. The redactor was Simon Paul. So we are going to get into take two for all the Vanguardistas. If you're not one, we'll see you at the same time next week. But thanks for being with us. No Ben, no Ben. If you're not one, subscribe now and be one because you don't want to miss take two. Yes, sorry, I've got to do the hard sell. It's got Cuckoo, it's got Pulp Fiction, It's got you and me doing questions.

It's got Lemonhead stuff. There's so much amazing stuff. Honestly, if you thought this part was good, it's nothing compared to what's in take two. Now that is what you call a professional sell. I'm so sorry. It's incredible. I can't believe you said, if you're not a Vanguardista, we'll see you next week. He went straight past that one open goal.

Please, please subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Okay, I'm going to go off and really listen to that Elon Musk and Donald Trump conversation. I enjoyed that much, Lee. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. We'll see you in take two.