Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Megalopolis: "The Cinematic Equivalent of Toothache”

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

This week’s guests are Saoirse Ronan and Paapa Essiedu, who are on the show to tell Simon all about their addiction recovery drama ‘The Outrun’, which sees Ronan star as a young woman fresh out of rehab, as she returns home to the wild Orkney Islands after more than a decade away. The pair discuss everything from their characters’ chemistry to Stephen Graham’s influence on Ronan’s performance – and there’s even more in Take 2! Mark also weighs in on the film, as well as giving his take on various new releases, including ‘My Old Ass’, which sees a girl’s 18-birthday magic mushroom trip bring her face-to-face with her wise-cracking 39-year-old self. And brace yourself for one of Mark’s finest hours of criticism with his take on Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited ‘Megalopolis’. You’ll be replaying this one, that’s for sure. Another great week at the Take! Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): My Old Ass Review – 10:19 Saoirse Ronan and Paapa Essiedu Interview – 32:58 The Outrun Review – 46:47 Megalopolis Review – 56:52 We're doing a LIVE show: Kermode and Mayo's Christmas Movie Spectacular - December 8th at 2.30pm at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. Tickets are selling fast at www.fane.co.uk/kermode-and-mayo 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] And to find out more about Sony’s new show Origins with Cush Jumbo, click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, this is Mark. I want to share a secret with you. I've always wanted to watch Densautis van on Denmark's public TV station DR Oh and also that broadcast of Michael de doctor vits that dot to Rouge on France TV And you know what helps me get to do all of that Nord VPN wherever I am I can pop Nord VPN on and bingo I can switch my location to a hundred 111 countries and unlock rare films and global content in the process. Not only that, but all of that watching is safe with encryption, threat protection and dark web alerts to guard against hackers and secure public wifi.

And by the way, forget any others, NordVPN is the fastest VPN on the market, providing smooth streams with no lagging or buffering, and it can be used on 10 devices. To get a huge discount on your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash take. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. The link is in the sunshine, at the low-key end, having a very nice birthday. Thanks for the card. You don't even do hello anymore. You literally, you just start like mid-sentence.

Hello Simon. Hi, and thanks for the card. I was sitting in the sunshine and I noticed there was a record shop. This is in Halesworth. This is a second hand record shop. As you can see on the wallpaper behind me, it's got a lot of 45 RPM, seven inch discs on assorted labels. Are they bring full of action? Well let me show you what I got. All of this cost me three pounds. Okay.

Excellent. So sound and vision, David Bowie. Wow. What's on the B side of that? What's on the B side of sound and vision? Is it, be my wife? A new career, a new town. New career in a new town.

Right. Okay. Hothouse flowers. Wow. And a picture cover. Dave Edmonds, Queen of Hearts. Fantastic. Hang on a second. Here we go. Already jukebox ready. Simon and Garfunkel, Mrs. Robinson. Brilliant. With the hole punched out in the middle and the funny little widget-y plastic thing that always falls out. Procalharum, White A Shade Of Pale. That's a good jukebox standard.

And hit. Now this is what I mentioned. It says, Hot Love by T-Rex. When I found this, I thought, this is actually my copy. Because when I bought this with Woodland Rock and the King of the Mountain Cometh, typical kind of hippie title, I wrote on the white paper sleeve in that kind of flowery writing that everyone used in the 70s. And I thought this is actually my copy. And then I noticed that it actually belongs to, or used to belong to Denise, I think it's Denise Foreman or Feretta Fan or something like that. I can't read because the handwriting is very bad. So if you're a listener and that's roughly like your name, Hot Love by T-Rex, I bought

it. So, and I got all of those for three quid, which I think is pretty good to be perfectly honest. I love a seven inch single. I used to buy ex-Dukebox singles in the local news agent and they used to be 25p and they were a variable quality obviously because they were ex-Dukebox. And what they'd do is they'd get a new batch in like once every three weeks. And when the new batch would come in, it would have like initially would have

like, you know, slayed and Alvin Stardust and the rebats and it was great. And then you'd, you'd buy like, you know, one of them, cause you have 25 P a week to spend on records. And then by the time you got to the end of the month, you were going, I don't know, maybe I'll get Neil Sadaka, you know, I don't know, because I don't know who that is, but I need to buy another record. And then the next batch will come in and then it'd be more Slade and more Rupets and more mud.

But they all had the same thing that you've just got them with the hole punched out in the middle and the little sort of three pronged plastic thing that you stuck in. Because you've actually got a jukebox. Yeah. But how are you going to punch out the holes for the ones that haven't got the holes punched out? I have a drill bit, an appropriately adapted jukebox drill bit, which drills out the middle of a record.

Have you really got that? Yeah. You've really got the bit. That's amazing. I don't know how to use a drill particularly, but I can probably have a go. As long as I get the middle sorted, then that's fine. But you've got to get it right in the middle. Otherwise he goes, well, well, well, you know, anyway on the show,

this is all very, very good. I'm going to do a little edited montage of me doing the drill out of the seven inch records. I'm going to send it to you just to show how you just ask you. Did I miss your birthday? Yeah, that's all right. Happy birthday. You get to a certain point and you get, I know, I mean, it gets, I mean, you just, that's a used to them. Can I just ask you, did I miss your birthday? Yeah, that's all right. Happy birthday. You get to a certain point and you, I know, I mean, you just, it's fine. That's a bit rubbish of me.

It's fine. It doesn't matter. I'm just incredibly ancient and that's just the way of it. You didn't ring me and tell me I'd missed it. Well, that felt a little bit needy. Well, it just never stopped you in the past. On the guest list today, we have some very exciting people, which I'll mention in just a moment after Mark tells you about the movies he's going to natter about.

It's a really interesting week. We have My Old Ass, which is a coming of age comedy. Is that ass as in donkey? No, in the American sense of ass, meaning behind. My old ass, that means my old behind. My old backside. It's a little bit unsavory. My own bottom. Yes. Megalopolis, which is the film that Francis Rolcopola has been planning, working on for

the best part of 40 years and in which he's invested 120 million of his own dollars. He sold a winery in order to make this a very, very big film. And The Out Run with our very special guests. Yeah. very, very big film. And The Out Run with our very special guests. Yeah, well, it's Saoirse Ronan's film and you may well have seen the posters with her with turquoise hair really looking into the sky. So Saoirse Ronan and Papa Asiedu are both going to be talking to us about The Out Run. And as we've said many times, we watch Saoirse in absolutely anything. So it's always very good to talk to her. Saoirse and Papa will be with us a bit later on. In our premium bonus subscriber section, what happens there as far as you're concerned?

We have extra reviews. We have Dragon Keeper, which is an animated fantasy, and we have Never Let Go, which is a horror movie, not to be confused with Never Let Me Go. Okay. The TV movie of the week, Watchlist Not. Let's shrink the box, all the ad free details about that. Plus we answer your film and non-film related queries and quandaries, questions, shmestchens. You can get all of it via our Apple podcast. Head to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices. Seven day free trial. That is a seven day free trial and you can download so much in seven days. That's going to sort you out for the year. And if you're already a Vanguard Easter, as always,

we salute you. Very exciting news about our Christmas spectacular. And I've got a long list of things here, Mark, that we're doing. But essentially what you need to know is, all you need to know is this. Prince Edward Theatre, down in London, December the 8th, half past two, it's a matinee, it's our show at Christmas. I mean, that's kind of- Can I just say, before you go any further- That's sort of it, really, yes. The Prince Edward Theatre, that's a proper theatre.

Yes. We are literally- Not a fake theatre. No, we're in the West End, Simon. Is that right? Okay. That's what I'm saying. It's a spectacular, it says here evening of festive filmic cheer, but it's half past two. So unless it goes on for 12 hours, it's a spectacular afternoon of festive filmic cheer. I mean, people have heard of Sherry Christmas. Spectacular.

They know what we're going to do. Okay. We'll say it's a spectacular night. It's our past two. It's the final of the world cup of Christmas films. Don't know how that's going to work out. Quizmaster Kermode's Christmas quiz. What's going to happen in that? You know?

I don't, because I'm just doing, Simon Poole is working me with his foot. He's working on it now and he said that apparently they've got a plan. They said they think they're going to make it a bit mastermindy and he was literally as we were talking this morning, he was workshopping a pun about Magnus Kermagneson, which is a joke for all our listeners from a previous century. There must be an Icelandic Isle of Man crossover somewhere there. I presume so. Yeah.

Okay. So there's that. Now also, we'll do a festive laughter lift. I think amongst the many top ideas I'm going to have is we should ask the audience for their jokes that are better, like an extended cracker sequence. But definitely, if you're going to come, please come with the greatest joke you've ever heard. And then we can put them all in the laughter lift and see what happens. Okay.

Very good. Very good. They can text them to us or something from the theater. We can suddenly put up a text number and say, if you've got an exciting joke, text this number. And then suddenly your phone will just be filled. No, you can go out, you can have a microphone, you can run out amongst the people. Oh, you mean the laughter lift, you actually want to get the audience to say the jokes. Tell the jokes because they'll tell them better than I do. So let's get them.

It's an interactive experience. How about that? Wow. Also, a big sing-along with the Rathbodes. I don't know, can we say they used to be the Swingles singers? They used to be the Swingles singers. Anyway, top vocal combo with lots of Christmas jingles and singing live Christmas jingles, you just have to be there. I mean, imagine the embarrassment when you get to our pass two and you're sitting at

home thinking, I could have been in the Prince Edward Theatre. What you do is you head to fan.co.uk. That's F-A-N-E dot co.uk slash Kermode hyphen and hyphen Mayo. You're in there. Both our names are there. It's so easy. fan.co.uk slash Kermode and Mayo, all via our socials, X, Insta threads, Facebook, that kind of thing. First come first serve, see you London in December for the afternoon, starting at half

past two for an evening of festive filmic cheer. Is that right? Yes, that's right. An evening of festive cheer in the afternoon. Ben says, gentlemen, having listened to The Witcherings of Your Good Cells for at least three years now and frequently bringing you up during cinema-based discussions with my good friends, I've discovered recently that all this time they've believed that I've been referring to one man, Kermo de Mayo,

with the D in between Kermo and Mayo. I think similar in pronunciation to Tancuil de Mayo. Even the good lady private tutor who listens to the both of you with me whilst we clean the house, believe that I was listening to the voice of the great Kermode Meo and just some random nameless contributor alongside. Well, in so many ways. Although, yeah, it doesn't feel like that. I'll leave it up to you, Ben, to decide who's, anyway. So that's weird that people should think we're one person. I mean, manifestly there are two voices. And clearly you say Mark and I say Simon and Kerma de Mayo is not one person. Tell me about a film before Simon Poole starts shouting at us that we've been going on too long. Okay. So My Old Ass, which is the first, an ass in the American sense, this is the first

of two Aubrey Plaza films out this week. This is written and directed by Megan Park, who played Grace Bowman in the TV series Secret Life of the American Teenager and directed The Fallout from 2021. So Maisie Steller is Elliot, who is a young queer woman who is about to leave her rural home and head off for a new life in college. One evening, she and her friends decide to go to a nearby island because they live by water to do shrooms. Whilst high, she meets, or she at least hallucinates, an older woman, played by Aubrey Plaza, who tells her, I'm not just an older woman, I am your older self. And this older self seems less than enthusiastic

about the future that awaits. Here's a clip. Tell me something good. Something good. Why are you struggling to find something good from the future? This is good. You're gonna be psyched.

Okay, tell me. That you are a PhD student. Yeah. No. What? You're joking. But I don't want to tell you in what because I want you to have something to look forward to. Look forward to? Yeah. Did you just tell me I'm in my 40s and I'm still in school? 30s. 30s.

So, future Elliot is very vague on details. And she says, I don't want to tell you stuff about it because I know, you know, if it's time traveling, if you tell, I don't know how it works and, you know, butterfly effect. But the one thing she does do is to warn the present version of herself that she should avoid a particular boy. And anyway, Elliot doesn't really believe any of this has happened because she was stoned at the time. But then, very quickly, she meets the boy that her future self had told her to avoid. She starts to wonder what on earth is going on. It's a simple idea. It's a simple time-traveling fantastical idea, or maybe it's just a hallucination.

The thing is, it's done with real tenderness and wit and insight. We know that the whole thing is probably a dream because the whole setup is she goes to this island, they get off their heads on trumes, and she's hallucinating. But we also know that since this is a time traveling story conceit, I don't know, maybe it's real. Usually in these things, even if something is a fantasy, there is an element of reality involved in it. The really smart thing is that even as we have this very fantastical conceit that she is somehow meeting a future version of herself when stoned, even as those potentially bizarre elements come

in, the film absolutely keeps its feet on the ground. It is a down-to-earth coming-of-age story with completely believable characters that you know and you like and you want the best for. I think the two central performances by Maisie Steller and Aubrey Plaza are really good as two bickering halves of the same person. You were just talking about people confusing you and me as two halves of the same person. Well, in this case, it works really well. Even when the younger version points out that the older version looks nothing like her, their teeth don't look the same. She's clearly not the same person, and they make a gag about it. Also, although it is a comedy film, and it is, it's funny, it's very, very poignant. And it's poignant in the way, and this will ring a bell for you, it's poignant in the same way that Ted Chang's The Story of Your Life, I think that's the name of the

thing, which the thing that was filmed as a rival is poignant. It's time-travelling, but it's got a heart. It's got a real tender heart to it. I found it really charming, really moving and beautifully, quietly subversive. I was really surprised because I knew nothing about it except for the title, which as you said, well, that's a bit off. But no, I think it's really good and I think you'd really like it too. It's called My Old Ass. Mason- Okay, still to come, Mark's going to be reviewing lots of top stuff.

Most importantly, it's the Box Office Top 10. Also, we talked to Sir Sheronan and Papa Asiedu. But first, this. Hi, this is Mark. Longtime listeners will remember that a few years ago, I reviewed French filmmaker Coralie Farja's striking feature debut, Revenge, a retina scorching horror thriller with real feminist bite.

Earlier this year, Farja'sar's long awaited second feature, The Substance, bowed at Cannes, where it went down a storm with Fajar winning the Best Screenplay award. A body horror thriller from a director who cites Cronenberg, Carpenter, Lynch and Hanukkah as key influences. The Substance stars Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid and Demi Moore in what's been called her finest hour

with Time Out comparing a performance of that of Isabelle Aijani in possession. I can't wait to see the film, which Mubi are opening in cinemas on September 20th. Visit trythesubstance.com for showtimes and tickets. And as always, you can try Mubi for free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash Kermode and Mayo. That's Mubi.com slash Kermode and Mayo for a whole month of great cinema for free. So what's it like to buy your first cryptocurrency on Kraken? Well, let's say I'm at a food truck I've never tried before. Am I going to go all in on the loaded taco?

No, sir. I'm keeping it simple. Starting small. That's trading on Kraken. Pick from over 190 assets and start with the box office top 10, everyone's favorite feature as they listen along and wonder what they're going to see this week. The Box Office Top 10 at 15, The Dark Knight. So another one of these.

You were talking last week about all the Batman that are back. Yes, the Batman reissues. I mean, Dark Knight, as I said, is generally considered to be the great one of the Chris Nolan trilogy, although I still think that Batman Begins has a personal edge for me just because it was so astonishing when I first saw it. Number 10, It Ends With Us. And that looks like that's the end of It Ends With Us top 10 run, although it's been in the top 10 for seven weeks.

It was done much better than some of its critics predicted. Speaking of which, the critic at number nine. Great performance by Sir Ian McKellen. I think the film itself is compromised and it does look like it was fiddled around with after its initial assembly, which indeed it was. But still, I think- Ian McKellen's great. Ian McKellen is really great. And Mark Strong with hair, that's very good. Ian McKellen is great. Ian McKellen is really great. And Mark Strong with hair, that's very good. Deadpool and Wolverine at number eight.

Yeah, I mean, it's taken a staggering amount of money. This is its ninth week in the top 10. I don't know what else to say about it other than this is where we are. This is where we are. And if cinemas are full because of it, then that's exactly, exactly. If it's, but if it's filling cinemas out, then fine. 200% Wolf is at number seven. We reviewed this on, I think on take two last week. This is the sequel to 100% Wolf, which either you or I hadn't seen or

couldn't remember. Um, I didn't get this at all. Uh, I thought it was kind of okay. I wondered whether the fact that I couldn't remember or hadn't seen 100% Wolf made any difference, but I went on the website and it said it stands alone and I didn't think it did, but I'd be interested to know if anyone took very young kids and enjoyed it. Number six, Despicable Me 4. 11th week in the top 10. The minions just keep making people laugh. Number five is Interstellar. Just explain why this is back around.

The 10th anniversary and what does it tell you about Christopher Nolan that he has two reissue films in the current top 10? Although actually, no, he doesn't because Dark Knight is 15. Okay. So what does that mean? He's in the chart. He has one, but in the chart, yes. 10th anniversary reissue of, you know, visually dazzling, narratively a bit all over the place, owes a lot to Contact, but I've seen it four times and I've never bored of it.

Yeah, I was thinking of Contact. No, I wasn't. I was thinking of cocoon. Okay, that's a different thing. It begins with C and it's one word. So this is because Ben Wheatley's new zombie TV series, Ben Wheatley is going to be on the show soon. And I was watching Generation Z where old people attack young people. And it's basically, you know, cocoon. Well, it's not like that. It's sort of a nightmare version. Cocoon goes to hell. Anyway, Ben Whitley will be on the show at some stage soon.

So, yeah, so Interstellar, Edward, who's a long-term listener and a first-time email. I finally watched Interstellar for the very first time on Friday on its 10th anniversary reissue of My Local Multip multiplex a decade late, but the impact was profound. When it was first released a decade ago, I was still a kid. Cinema was a luxury in our house and we rarely bought DVDs, but I did have a radio and I used to listen to your old show back on the BBC every week.

Here are your interview with Christopher Nolan about Interstellar not only inspired an enduring love of sci-fi, but put me on a mission that one day I had to see it on a cinema screen. Ten years later, I wasn't disappointed. In a world now dominated by space opera and superheroes, Interstellar's emotional depth is refreshing. Characters grapple with love, loss, and scientific dilemmas such as colliding spaceships, black holes, and the fate of the universe. It's a, get this, it's a Tarkovsky adjacent philosophical Odyssey, which I've never occurred to be before. It's as much that as it is a tremendous punch the air blockbuster. Not since watching cinema parodies, so have I been so moved by a movie. It was worth the

wait. Love the show, Steve. And hello to Jason Isaacs Best, which is Edward. Jason sent me a birthday greeting. That's just making me feel even worse. By a text. Can I just say, before anything else, the two really memorable, well, many memorable scenes from Interstellar, the one that you love the most is the one which is the jump cut from Matthew McConaughey driving away from- Having said farewell to his daughter. And he said farewell to his daughter and it just cuts to the space travel.

And the second one is just before they go into the black hole that just remind me how do black holes work? Well, I've got a piece of paper and a pencil. I still didn't understand it. Even after that explanation, that's the trouble. Anyway, and of course, how fantastic for people like Edward who can go and see it. It's one thing to see it on your television, but something else to see it where it should be seen. Made to be seen on the big screen. I saw it in the IMAX some years after its first release in IMAX. I think it must've been off a print and it just looked amazing. I mean, it looked absolutely astonishing. And my other favourite moment

is I've been looking for you forever. Bye. Anyway, it's a great film. It is. I could have finished half an hour sooner. Is the line from Matthew McConaughey, I've just had an idea or I've just worked out how to get out of this or something, and then it carries on for another half. Anyway, number four in the UK, it's not in the American chart, is Lee. I'm really glad this has done well because it's a challenging subject. It's a labor of love for Kate Windsor. We'll talk about labor of love for Frances Wille Copley a little bit later on in the show. And I think she does a brilliant central performance. I admire the film very much. We had a slightly, well not lukewarm,

very negative email about it last week. I know it's not for everybody, but I liked it and I'm glad to see that it's done as well as it has because it is a challenging subject. Somebody photographing the atrocities of World War II. So, Lisa, number three in this country, six in America, is the substance. This is a new entry. We've had the biggest response to this movie, I think, than anything we can remember. Certainly in recent years. So, absolutely huge response. Brilliant. Gerard Blair. So, we'll do some in take one and some in take two. Okay. Okay.

Gerard Blair in Portsmouth. I just come out of viewing the substance. Reckon the director watched Brian Younes' Society and thought, good film, but the final act is a little bit restrained. Barney says, it's as if David Cronenberg directed an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the most unhinged film I've seen since Terrifier 2. I loved it. Capital letters. Jack in Bristol. It has been my most anticipated film of the year and is now my favorite film of the year.

I am obsessed with the substance. It's the first time I've been utterly breathless during a film since Titane back in 2021. Yes. We're not back there again. It's so absurdly grotesque and entertaining and it nails its theme so well that while watching, I found myself wondering whether the reality is really any less grotesque than the film itself. Someone who I think is probably Issa, possibly Issa, but it's two S's, so I'm gonna say Issa. Okay. Hello Demi and Margaret, as in more and quality. I just got out of the substance

and I'm smiling from ear to ear. It's absolutely bonkers and gory and smart and I loved it. Although my daughter is too young for films of this sort, that might be an understatement. It gives me hope that as she gets older, she'll have a wealth of fantastic, groundbreaking female directors to broaden her horizons. Juliette Ducournau, is that right? Have I got that right?

Yes. Yeah. Lynn Ramsey, Celine Siemer, and now Coralie. And again, you did say this last week, Coralie Farge? Farge. I can't believe I'm asking you for a pronunciation. Just to name a few of the recent batch. My daughter

already has a properly dark side. And I think one day she'll love this film. By the end of it, I had a huge smile on my face was properly horrified in the best possible way. I had a long miserable week and have been feeling quite low lately. This film cheered me up and pacified my soul. The power of cinema never ceases to amaze me. I do think, Issa, when she says, my daughter already has a dark side, I just find that very interesting. That email is beautiful for two reasons. First, he pacified my soul, which I take it as a reference to John Carpenter saying after he saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he pacified his soul because he went and slept like a baby. And my daughter has a dark side, which I believe is a reference to one of the greatest lines of all time written by the

brilliant Nora Ephron for When Harry Met Sally. You don't have a dark side. I have a dark side. You know what a dark side is? If I read a book, the first thing I do is I read the last page. That way, if I die before I finish it, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side. That is pretty good. I'm so thrilled. Hang on, hang on. Before you go. But there's more. Yeah, there's one more. Well, I mean, there's lots more, but just one more for now. Katie Shipley, 25 meter swim badge, BA on youth and community work, owner of more firming moisturizers than I'm willing to admit. That's a fantastic qualification.

Katie says my brain is full. I love films, but don't watch horror as a general rule and can find them disturbing, upsetting, gruesome, and often voyeuristic. Except the substance has confirmed what I've suspected for a little while, that I actually do enjoy horror films made by women and that women make the best ones. The substance made me really reflect again on female directed Saint Maud, The Babadook, Jennifer's Body, The Relic and Raw. These films all show that for women, horror lies in our every day, in our inner thoughts and the drip, drip, drip of our cultural messaging. Women who make horror add substance, if you

excuse the pun, to it. They add depth and nuance and they add insight that can come from no other place than their lived experiences as a woman. I cannot recommend this film highly enough and hope that through the gore, oh my goodness, so much gore, its power will be seen and felt by others too. Katie, thank you. So that's it. That's it for now. Now you can go. Well, yes, yes, and thrice yes. And incidentally, on the thing about the rise of women directing horror at the moment, I wrote a piece for The Observer, and it must have been a decade ago, about exactly this subject.

And it's just been wonderful how the explosion of women working in this genre has really found an audience. So firstly, the great delight is, I'm so pleased that people are enjoying and celebrating this film in the way they are, because this is really what horror at its best is about. It's not a negative genre, it's a really, really positive life-affirming genre. I'm really glad somebody mentioned Brian Usner's Society,

which of course is the film, kind of the urtext behind all of this in terms of the special effects, Screaming Mad George's special effects for that film were amazing. Brian Usler always talked about, he said, it's not sadism, it's surrealism, it's plastic reality. That, of course, is very Cronenbergian. But this is definitely, Carly Frazier has said, it's her film. It stands in its own right. It's so full, it's a feast of horror. It's so full of metaphors made flesh. It's so scrungy. It's so jaw-dropping. It's just, yeah, bonkers, but in a brilliantly organized way. I'm just delighted, delighted, delighted to hear people enjoying it so much.

delighted, delighted to hear people enjoying it so much. This for me is like, this is music to my ears. This is what horror cinema is about. That level of enjoyment that you're getting, I'm just, I'm so thrilled. And also I've been reading these news stories about people walking out, which is great. It's just, you know, people walking out of films again. Hooray.

Yeah, I'm not sure that's a good thing. I want, you know, if you pay your money, you will actually stay to the end. But anyway, just in my corric role here, Johnny Vaughan, thank you for downloading. An Ur text. Explain. Well, yes, the sort of, you know, the original, like for example, in the case of American Graffiti, the Ur, as in you are, of course. Yeah, the Ur text of American Graffiti is a film that George Lucas made when he was

at USC, and it's a short film called The Emperor, and it's the film that then really was the kind of inspiration for American Graffiti. So it's like what is an Urtext? Well it's the sort of original, you know, the origin, the lodestone, the place where it's sort of, which oversees everything beyond it. Why is it Ur? I don't know. It's just the phrase, the Urtext. I mean, I'm not making this up.

In fact, I can give you an example of when it was used fairly recently by Walter Murch. Walter Murch. Walter Murch. Go on. Walter Murch. Yeah. Walter Murch, the sound designer and editor who worked with Francis Ford Coppola. I've just checked it out. Anyway, go on. What does it say when you checked it up? Prefix meaning original earliest primitive from the German you are out of. Yeah. Okay, that's what I mean. So out of, okay, hypothetical primitive language, a living prefix in English. Thank you very much indeed. Mr. Merch, what does Mr. Merch say?

Well, he was talking about the urtext of a film that he was, I was interviewing him about the conversation and he was talking about the thing behind it. So I was just defending myself as you were talking to me as if I was an idiot who just made up a noise, like the ointment. No, no, no, no, no, I just think sometimes we go, what? What? What? Anyway. Speak No Evil is at number two. Yeah, which I really enjoyed. I really, really enjoyed

Speak No Evil. I mean, it's a remake of a Danish film, which is darker in its conclusion. But the thing I like about Speak No Evil, interestingly enough, the people that made Speak No Evil, about Speak No Evil. Interestingly enough, the people that made Speak No Evil, it's the same director who made Eden Lake. Apparently Eden Lake was the film that inspired the original Danish version of Speak No Evil. It's like the films are in dialogue with each other. I really enjoyed it. I loved the third act. And number one in the UK and number one in the States as well. So Verily, it is a massive hit. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. It was much better than I expected. And I

really enjoyed it. And I thought it was one of Tim Burton's best movies in a very long time. And you know, thumbs up from me. I know some people didn't like it, but I thought it was terrific. Jason Vale Sir, Sharonan and Papa Asyedu are on the way. But first, Mark, you have to get into the laughter lift before we get to the good bit. You got to have this bit. So here we go. Not a great week, Mark. I'm afraid the good lady, Ceramicsis Therion-Dorz, has finally left. Apparently I'm, quote, unbearably insecure. Oh, no, hang on. That's the door. She's back from the coffee shop, I think. I'm incredibly tired, though. I'm so tired of trying to figure out what equals 86,400 seconds. I think it's time to call it a day.

Anyway, I am. Now this is a spectacular example of a joke that works for me on this page that won't work for you. But if you visualize this joke, I'm tired and I'm furious. Mark. Furious that I can't write out one, a thousand, fifty one, six, and five hundred in Roman numerals. In fact, I M L I V I D. Okay. So I'm livid.

No, I got there. I didn't need the gloss. I got there with the I M L I V I D. But the thing was the amount of concentration involved pretty much prevented it from being funny. Grandchild is over at the moment and the good lady ceramicist said it was my turn to put the baby down.

So I said, silly baby, all you do is poo and wee and cry. I just say Oscar is not a baby. And if you're gonna make jokes about Oscar, I'm going to have a problem. So I refuse to read any more. You just made the joke, Simon. You're literally arguing with yourself. I just realized that and so that's not going to happen again and I can only apologize to Charles. Like Jim Carrey and me, myself and Irene, you're literally having a rant with yourself. Yes. Don't you ever do that? Aren't you ever furious with yourself and end up punching

yourself in the face? Oh, all the time. All the time. All the time. Okay. Saoirse Ron long-awaited vacation. You can earn points almost anywhere, and they never expire. Treat your friends or spoil your family. Earn them on your adventure and use them how you want, when you want. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Learn more at mx.ca.com. Terms apply.

Okay, now this week's guests are Saoirse Ronan and Papa Asiedu. Saoirse stars in the outrun as recovering addict Rona returning to her hometown on the Orkney Islands after leaving rehab. Papa Asiedu plays her former lover, Danin. In the course of the conversation, they make a few references to Nora. The Nora they're talking about is the German director, Nora Fingsheit. We'll hear from Papa and we'll hear from Saoirse after this clip from the Outrun. So how have you been? I'm good.

How's your job? Oh, I mean, I got that promotion. How's your job? I mean I got that promotion. Oh wow. Big boss man now. Got an assistant. Office? Tiny one. You seen anyone or anything?

Yeah. And that is a clip from the Out Run. I'm delighted to say I've been joined by our stars, Sush Ronan and Papa Asyedu. Sush and Papa, thank you very much for talking to us. How are you doing? We're well. Really good. How much do you love Days of Promo? It's honestly my favorite pastime.

More so than cold water swimming, more so than eating. Mason- Yeah, Papa, I noticed you haven't actually answered that question. Jason- Yeah, that's almost on purpose. Yeah, it's great. It's great. But genuinely, really excited to talk to you because I love this podcast. Mason- Well, that's very kind of you. Thank you very much. It's fantastic to have you on. Introduce us to your characters. There are so many things to talk about with this film, which I enjoyed enormously. If you get a chance, you have to see it in the cinema. Saoirse Mpappa, introduce us to your film. Saoirse, do you want to go first?

Saoirse Mpappa Sure. Our movie is called The Outrun. I play Rona, who is the central character who we follow over the course of about eight or nine years. She comes from the Orkney Islands. She moves down to London when she's in her early 20s, dives right into the East London club scene, finds her circle of friends, falls in love with Papa's character, Damon. And then we gradually start to see her spiral. Her relationship with alcohol becomes more and more unhealthy and in the process of that getting worse she loses everything and

everyone close to her and dear to her. We follow her then through her sort of rock bottom and her recovery that follows and the second half of the movie is very much about the healing process and the kind of life that comes after addiction. Paul, but tell us about Danin. Yeah. So as, as Serge just said, Rona and Danin are together in the London part of the movie, which we flash back to incrementally during the film. And yeah, I think in this movie, you see a whole lifespan of a relationship from the early giddy, energized, exploratory, turbocharged section of a relationship where

everything is exciting and the idea of going out and getting messed up and everything is just part of the forlory of new realms. And you see that develop into something that becomes more substantial, and then eventually you kind of see the downfall of the relationship where it feels like the two of them are battling to overcome this third party, which is Ronas addiction. And how would you describe this? I get this question from you, Papa. How would you describe the relationship together? You've given us kind of like the bare bones, but what is it that you see in each other? You know what, I think it's a really deeply felt relationship. It doesn't feel surface at all. It

feels like a relationship, definitely in the genesis of it, which is based on something that feels very elemental DNA deep between them. Even though they come from very different backgrounds and do different jobs, have different lifestyles to something about each other that allows them to complete one another. But the relationship, I suppose, ends up being characterised by a fight to stay with each other, a fight to keep hold of each other, a fight to continue being in contact with each other. And that's what we wanted to focus on, that fight, that effort to stay together. You're a producer on the movie with your other half, Jack Loudon, and I think the story starts in COVID and lockdown and he hands you the book.

Is that where this began? Yes, it is for Jack and I. He had visited the Orkney Islands a few years before and since then he had had the outrun on his bookshelf. He finally read it in lockdown and as soon as he finished it he handed it to me and he said, I think this is the next role that you have to play, not just as an actor but as a person because he is aware of my own relationship as a sort of bystander, a person who has watched a loved one go through this particular experience or a

form of it and he knew that it was something, you know, as someone who's very close to me that I would need to do at some point. And it felt like the right time. And I think it wasn't a coincidence that during the pandemic, it was such a, you know, it was a completely surreal time, but it was also quite helpful I think to re-examine what was important to you and who you wanted in your life and how you wanted to spend your time. And I think ultimately that's what the Out Run is about.

It's sort of re-evaluating what life means to you and actually what can give you a natural high without having to turn to a substance. As one of the producers on the film, did Papa audition for you? You were in charge of casting presumably? I wouldn't say I was in charge of casting, but I definitely had a hand in it and I had a say over who was going to get the role because, you know, thankfully Nora acknowledged the fact that it was very important that I had not only a good working relationship with someone, but I got on with them as people and the energy and the chemistry was right.

I don't even want to call our meeting with Papa an audition. It just felt more like this was the person we wanted from the very beginning and we were just sort of going through the motions. But I always knew I wanted it to be you. And we had never met before, we actually read together. And it wasn't ever a question of like, can this actor do this job? It was more, will that energy exist between us? And I feel like it did instantly, which is exactly what we needed. I think wherever there was darkness in the movie, we also wanted to have light. And it was really important that there was an element of sort of fun and

joy between the two of us, which we just found instantly with one another. So, Papa, is that how you remember it? That you just had this conversation and it was not really an audition, it was just a conversation, but you got the job. The whole conversation. We made a great sense for the job. But yeah, I mean, yeah, we were working. But yeah, what I remember was, you know, like sometimes with auditions, you really feel the kind of weight of judgment or expectation or there can sometimes be a coldness that people mistake as fashionism on the other

side of the table as it were. But with this from the very, very, very first minute, there was a huge walk and there's a huge availability. And obviously for what we were doing, we kind of just like played around with some scene nets, which were, yeah, and you know, it's kind of the worst thing in the world to like do a scene immediately with someone that you don't know, which is like, okay, full enough, or, you know, break up, you know, that's kind of like the worst thing you can ask of anyone. But, and there was, and we met on Zoom as well, which makes it even harder, you know, we were literally on Zoom as well, which makes it even harder.

You know, we were literally on opposite sides of the world, but like, yeah, I just remember like an incredible wall of availability and play. It was like really, really playful. And we kind of took that, I think, into our relationship on camera, on set, which doesn't make it feel that way. And especially in the moments where it, you know it is a bit more intense or sad or emotional, or whatever, to continue that kind of philosophy of prey, or knowing that the person opposite you is as interested in that as you are, dream.

You both mentioned alcohol, and Saoirse, I'm intrigued by the whole acting drunk routine that you have to do. I have routine, that's the wrong word, but I know you've done Blitz with Stephen Graham and you've mentioned him and his incredible performance in The Virtues, which is one of the most astonishing performances I've ever seen. Yes. How do you begin to approach the role of someone who has such a problem with alcohol? I spoke to a lot of people who have been through it themselves. And, you know, there are so many people in my life of different ages who are either at the beginning of that journey or they're only new to recovery or they've been sober for a very long time. And one in particular who's someone I'm close to straight away said, if you want to watch

the most accurate portrayal of someone when they're drunk and like red haze drunk, watch Stevie Graham in The Virtues. And I did and it was my sole reference that was the only thing really in terms of another performance that I drew from. And I told Stephen that when we didn't get any scenes together in Blitz but I had to find him and be like, you've been very important to me for a long time and you're even more important to me now so thank you. I think you're watching someone who has a very deep understanding of that experience and I do in a different way. I've seen it. And so to embody that, I needed to connect, I think, with someone else's performance and that was my way in. So I'm eternally grateful

to him for being so brilliant in that show. Mason- And once you're up in Orkney, there's a scene, it's a sort of an unremarkable scene really. But you step outside of a building, so we're up in Orkney, one of the Orkney Islands, and you step out of a building where there's a party celebration, you've got your orange juice and the kind of the island shop guy steps out and talks to you and he clearly has spotted another addict and that idea that addicts can spot other addicts I found extraordinary. Yeah, and I think that's another really interesting element to this portrayal of this story is that it's also showing the community and the togetherness that can

come from going through an experience like that. I mean, it's something that if you haven't been through it yourself, you'll never really understand and how much reckoning you've had to do with yourself. And to do that with another group of strangers, to be more vulnerable than you've probably ever been in your life, and most of us will ever be with anyone. It binds you to that experience and the strength that it takes to, you know, recover from something like that. And, and he's in recovery himself. And, you know, he, again, kind of felt like a guardian angel in a way.

I was speaking to someone who really knew what they were talking about. And there was no, with anyone who was in recovery that we had in the movie, they didn't indulge in it. It was very sort of matter of fact, the way they spoke about it. They also, many of them had a sense of humor about it because I think they probably got to the point where they were like, if I don't laugh, I'm going to cry. So they weirdly have this very, I don't want to call it a healthy relationship, but they've had to look at themselves warts and all. And I think that's given them an awareness and a sort of groundedness that a lot of us probably

lack. Mason Hickman We appreciate the time that you spent with us today,se and Papa. Thank you so much for talking to us about your movie. Thank you. Saoirse Ronan and Papa Asiedu, that's just part of our conversation. It was a conversation that went on longer than I was expecting, so we're putting the rest of it in take two. What a good reason to subscribe. But anyway, partly, but also it was just, we were supposed to do it at one time and then the only time we could then try and rearrange it was quite late at night. We lost all sense of time. You can kind of hear my voice. I'm slightly more tired and exhausted, but they're just fascinating. And there's so much to talk about in the film.

And there's lots of techno and there's her headphones and the music she's listening to is very important. Her hair colour is very important. And the way the whole, what I wanted to get on and talk about and you, I think what I liked about it is it's a fairly manic first half and then as she gets further north and more remote, the storytelling calms down. Anyway, there'll be more with Saoirse and Papa in part in take two, but the outrun is their movie. And may I just say Papa, thank you very much. We're big fans too. Yes, yes. He did say he was a big fan of the show. So we love Papa. Very nice. So the film's adapted from a novel by Amy Liptrot. If anyone's interested, there is an

article in The Guardian just recently by Amy Liptrot called The Outrun. My real life as an alcoholic played out on the big screen and it's about what it's like to see your life turned into a movie. It's a very interesting kind of, you live this story as a book and then you live it as a film and it's it's anyway, it's an interesting thing. So it's directed by Nora Fingshied, who's obviously was referred to in that interview. She made System Crash, which is a film which I really, really liked. And if you if you have access, go back and listen to our review of System Crash, because it was we did that on come to the Mayo

show. And I thought it was a terrific movie. This is a film about addiction on the one hand de Mayo show and I thought it was a terrific movie. This is a film about addiction on the one hand, about the way that someone can become engulfed by addiction. The only escape from that is by isolating themselves from the world in which their addiction has flourished. Simon, you were just talking about the first half of the movie is very different to the second half of the movie. And in this particular case, the story takes our central character to the Orkneys, which is about as far away as you can get. And then in fact, like off an island, off an island. Now, I haven't been to the Orkney Islands. I have been to Shetland. So I do to some extent, we did the Shetland Film Festival for 17 years, so I do to some extent understand that

thing about being in a place when you feel like you're at the world's end, you're away from everything. There is nothing beyond you but the sea and then Norway, eventually. I think that one of the things that the film does is to capture that sense of physical displacement and the way in which when physically displaced, it enables a kind of form of reconnection. There is one particularly joyous scene of swimming. In fact, the author makes a cameo in the film during a swimming scene. But there is a scene which you talked about, about her going into the water. And you really feel that what you're doing is seeing a character come to life by being washed in the sea, by immersing themselves in the briny, by being just completely engulfed by this other thing. So I think Saoirse Ronan's performance is super committed. It also is impressively lacking in melodrama. It was very interesting talking about Stephen

Graham or Stevie Graham, as I'd love to be able to say in the book. Our mates. In The Virtues, I think that speaks volumes. I also think stylistically the film, I mean, if you've seen System Crash, you kind of know what this directory is capable of. There's also, I think, a stylistic echo there of a film called For Those in Peril, which is a George McKay film, again set way up, and a sense of the location of the distance of the loneliness, but also how loneliness can make unexpected if communal bonds. That thing when you were talking about expected if communal bonds. And, you know, that thing when you were talking about the experience of people who've, you know, endured addiction saying, you know, if I don't laugh, I'm going to cry.

And I think a lot of the film is on that kind of that borderline. I mean, also, incidentally, terrific performances by Saskia Reeves, Stephen Delaney. I mean, you know, there are so many things to kind of commend, but in the end you come back to, making any film about addiction is a tough ask. Making any film that basically says to the audience, come with us on a journey that will involve the central character removing themselves from, you know, from a world which is very kind of,

you know, obviously cinematic and throbbing, you know, party and all that. And they are going to go to the ends of the earth in a very kind of hurt talky way. And you're never going to feel that you're lost in that, I think is quite the challenge. And I think they've done a pretty impressive job of it. I never, the most impressive thing is I never thought it succumbed to melodrama, and heaven knows there are enough chances for that to happen. And I suspect that people with knowledge of the subject will think that it's an authentic portrayal.

I suspect that that's the case. I don't know definitively, but I say it has the smack of authenticity about it. And I felt that more so as well after reading that article that was written by the author of the source book. Will Barron You've got a chance to see the virtues. You should definitely do that because the Stevie Graham, Stevie Graham reference, I mean, I remember interviewing him about it. It is just one of the, you just think this guy is an acting, this guy is actually, this guy is drunk. But obviously that's not true. It obviously was an astonishing performance.

But most also intriguingly, the producers of this film. So that is Saoirse and Jack Loudon, her other half, and there may well be other producers, say this is the first movie that's been shot in the Orkneys. Is that right? And that's astonishing. I mean, I haven't gone through to check, but that's what they say, that there has never been a movie that has been shot in the Orkneys. Whether they meant that or whether they meant Papa Westry, which is the actual island that she ends up on. As you referred, there's this narration line where Saoirse says that the UK is an island off Europe, that the Orkneys

are islands off the UK, off Scotland, and then Papa Westry is an island off the Orkneys. Making that point, which you were making, is getting more and more remote. But yes, apparently they never show a movie there. We could be stand corrected. This isn't our fact. This is the fact from the makers of the Outrun. But I think if you can see it in the cinema then do because the shots that are in the Auckland Islands and particularly Pubba Westry are stunning. And it really is that, you know, the end of the world feeling,

not in a bad way. What's impressive is the end of the world feeling in a sort of sense of escape, but also reconnection. And I do, as somebody who believes that swimming in the end of the world feeling in a sense of escape, but also reconnection. And I do think as somebody who believes that swimming in the sea is the greatest thing that anyone can do ever for their mental health. I thought that scene was absolutely brilliant and she was in the sea for 15 minutes apparently. Yeah, it is a fantastic sequence. Take two, we've got a section about the best movies, about dealing with the

movies that have portrayed alcoholism in the way that has impressed the most amount of people, most of our listeners anyway. So that'll be in take two. But anyway, the Out Run is out starring, I mean, we spoke to Saoirse and Papa, it's Saoirse's film, she is very much the star of it. And more with Saoirse and more with Papa in take two. More in a moment. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day. You might know me as the creator and host of the How to Fail podcast, but I want to tell you about a new podcast I've made. How to Write a Book is for anyone who wants

to get their story out there. Fronted by a bestselling author, a super agent, and a powerhouse publisher, this 12-week masterclass will take you right through from developing an idea to nailing the plot. If you want to get all episodes at once and completely ad-free, subscribe now. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so make a lot of listen just a moment email from Phil Lang. I'll be brief. He says the recent lottery advert where someone finds out their life has changed by checking their phone at the cinema is a really, really bad idea. You should never be on your phone in the cinema and this kind of antisocial and selfish behavior should not be encouraged.

That's it. I just wanted to say it. I haven't seen that. What is that? Is that advert on phone in the cinema and this kind of antisocial and selfish behavior should not be encouraged. That's it. I just wanted to say it. I haven't seen that. What is that? Is that advert on the television? I don't know, but it's obviously an enraging advert. Please don't do that. If you've won the lottery, you can wait a couple of hours. The money will still be there. Exactly. Rob, this is on the subject of saddest deaths in movies. Rob says, saddest deaths in movies, love story, obviously, but for me, Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer, if I remember the whole Time to Die sequence, doubly poignant because he was a bad baddie that we all loved. This is the interesting bit, Mark.

We worked with him at the Lerpac voiceover many years later. He was a massive part of the success of Lerpac in the UK. Funny how this culture works together. So I looked up Rutger Hauer, Lerpac, and of course, all the ads are there. There are fantastic ads, but he ends up by saying, health lovers say hello to health lovers, say hello to hello to a low pack lightest, something like that. I tell you, I, I, when we made the Blade Runner documentary on the edge of Blade Runner and I interviewed, um, uh, Rutger Hauer in his, in his home country and he was, he was wonderful. You know, it was that thing when he, he was in all those adverts for Guinness in which

he would wear, you know, like a black jacket and he had, and he had white hair. So he looked like a pile of Guinness, which was great. But he was wonderful company, I mean, wonderful, wonderful company. And at that point, Harrison Ford wasn't talking about Blade Runner. And, you know, so Harrison Ford isn't in our documentary. And I said to Rutger Hauer, why do you think Harrison Ford doesn't like talking about Blade Runner? I know this has all changed since. And Rudgahau said, well, the thing is, my character was so shiny and so intriguing and so interesting. And Harrison Ford, he thought that he was playing the hero. Turned out he's just a guy who effed a washing machine.

Okay, well that's epiphany, something. Alex in Bristol, age 41, MChem FIA, long to medium term listener, brackets 13 years. I think that makes you a long term listener, actually first time emergency mailer. Generally not one to engage with audience participation due to general lethargy. But your discussion on this week's show about saddest deaths in film piqued my interest. I know I've had lots of moments where deaths in films have caused strong uncontrollable emotional responses, often intensified by Arles, but it took me a while to remember one that really hit hard and that is Pete in Lean on Pete.

Brutal. Says Alex. That's the Andrew Higgs film, which we talked about. Yeah, that's a lovely film. That's a brilliant film. Alex, thank you. Correspondence at Curb The Mail.com. You wanted a bit of time to discuss Megalopolis. Well, a bit of time because Megalopolis, this is a labor of love pet project for Francis Ford Coppola, most famous for Godfather, probably. He started working on this project at the end of Apocalypse Now, so that's many, many decades.

Wow. Coppola was a long-time fan of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, and he wanted to make a film that melded modern America and ancient Rome, specifically the Catalonarian conspiracy of 63 BC about which I knew nothing until I read about it in the notes and looked it up. He tried to get this made several times, couldn't get financing, couldn't work with studios, didn't want to be constrained by, you know, the fact is it's going to be an expensive film and therefore people will be telling him what to do. He ended up selling some of his wineries, I think one winery, and self-financing the film to the tune of $120 million. So that is his money and several decades of his life really invested in making

this. So this, the film plays out in the imagined world of New Rome, which is basically sort of New York, you know, cries the building. And it sort of draws comparisons between the fall of Rome and, in a more general sense, the fall of America. Coppola has likened the Rome, New York thing to Ulysses, the way it mixes ancient and modern. Adam Driver is Caesar Catalina, who is the chairman of the design authority of New Rome. He is clearing city blocks in order to build a new utopia, which gradually starts to resemble a Roger Dean album cover. He's using the miracle material of Megalon and somehow this has also given him the power to stop and control time. Lawrence Fishburne, meanwhile, is Caesar's driver and also the sort of, in a very post-Matrix mode,

the narrator of the drama. Here's a funny thing to understand. Passing the time, finding time, losing time, time that flies. So there's a lot of stuff about time. So Giancarlo Esposito, who's brilliant elsewhere, is Mayor Franklin Cicero who opposes Caesar's utopian plans. Natalie Emanuele's Julia, who is Cicero's daughter, who starts having a sort of, you know, a relationship with and a love affair with her father's nemesis. Shia LaBeouf is Clodio, who is Caesar's unbelievably annoying cousin, I think.

Aubrey Plaza, in her second role of the week, is Wow Platinum, a TV broadcaster with a name that could only have been dreamed up by an old man. John Voight is Hamilton Cressus III who is a doddery old fool who makes an idiot of himself in public, so not much of a stretch for John Voight. And the cast also includes Dustin Hoffman, Talia Shire, Catherine Hunter, James Reimard, Balthazar Getty, Uncle Tom, Cobblers and all. Coppola made the film his way on his terms.

Loads of improvisation, loads of free flowing ideas. He didn't have any nasty money men standing over him telling him what to do. And the result is, I think, not only his worst film, worse than Jack, but one of the worst films I have ever seen. Bloated, indulgent, pretentious, and unbelievably dull. I mean, it says at the beginning it's a fable. it's not, it's a folly, and not even a grand folly, just a folly. If it's a fantasy, only in that it's fantastically dull. It's the film that you would make as a first-year film student, but you happen to have made it at the other end of your career with big stars and a massive budget.

It begins like a NAF remake of Caligula with bright young things debauching themselves in kind of vaguely Roman attire. Although I have to say Caligula in any of its versions is sharper, funnier and more incisive than anything in Megalopolis. Then it turns into a kind of sub fountainhead Ayn Rand's light ramble about ethos and architecture. But again, without any of the controversy or bite of the source or the film adaptation, then it disappears completely up its own fundament amid a bunch of staggeringly boring set pieces in which people stand around and philosophize in theatrical tones against a bunch of incredibly naff blue or green screen superimposition. Early on, Adam Driver, in one of the vainest performances

I've ever seen, starts quoting Shakespeare. They start quoting Hamlet and quoting it badly. This is just simply designed to, oh yes, we're very heritite. Yes, we've read Shakespeare. Have you heard of Hamlet? Wonderful play. Let me read you some of it. The plot isn't just incoherent. It's stupid, it's facile, it's portentous, it lacks any wit, invention, or interest. The script, and I use the word advisedly, because Copeland was throwing things around and letting everybody have a go and taking all these different ideas, but if there is a script, it's a car crash. It is filled with unspeakable dialogue that should have remained unspoken and makes you want to take your ears off with a cheese grater.

As for the performances, I haven't seen so many people swallow so many acting pills in a really long time. Shia LaBeouf is the worst of all. He literally skips, jumps, and preens his way through it like an annoying brat in some theatrical workshop group in which he would be the least popular person in class. Aubrey Plaza, God bless her, as wow platinum, somehow manages to come out of it with a head held high. But I think the reason for that is, Aubrey Plaza was in, is it called Dirty Grandpa? And she came out of that somehow with her head held high because somehow she's like nothing sticks. She's just great. And like I said, there's two films out this week. She's brilliant in one of them. And in the other one, well,

she just gets away with it. Like I said, Cobb of works on this for 40 years, that's what it felt like watching it. It's two hours and 20 minutes long and it was so, so dull. I came out slack-jawed at just how bad it was and not in an entertaining way. I mean, I've seen really, really bad films that are funny and I've seen really, really bad films that just like you have to see this because you can't believe how bad it is. It's the cinematic equivalent of toothache. It just sits there gnawing away at the inside of your head. And it left me with two thoughts. The first one is people talk about, oh, well, you know, it's incredibly ambitious and it's incredibly bonkers and it's incredibly, no, no, no, no, no. Let's be absolutely clear.

The substance is ambitious and bonkers and it's brilliant, no, no, no, no, no. Let's be absolutely clear. The substance is ambitious and bonkers and it's brilliant and it's entertaining and it's like, wow, I can't believe they went there. This is just fantastically boring. And the second thing is having watched Megalopolis, I felt prouder than ever that I have spent my life flying the flag for disreputable filth like Caligula and Last House on the Left, because those films put pompous nonsense like this in the shade. It is stunningly dull and very, very full of itself in a way that just, yeah, I, I, well, you know, it's the old joke, isn't it? I suffered for my art. Now it's your turn. So it turns out then, because the money men, and it is always, you know, in the phrasing, it's always men, which I guess is entirely right. Sometimes they have,

sometimes they have a point because they're the people that go, nope, nope, a bit less doing that. Maybe not that bad. And you know that guy doing that thing. Maybe no. Nope. Honestly. And I'm just to be clear about this, I'm not saying it's so bad, you have to see it. I'm not saying I'm saying the opposite. You don't need to see there's no part of you. There's no part of anyone that needs to waste their time with this, with this nonsense, this just up itself nonsense. How long did you say it was? Two hours and 18 minutes. See, because it felt way longer. Because I watched a movie a couple of days ago that was two and a quarter hours. In fact, it was The Joker, The Joker 2.

Oh, Folly Adder. Right. So that's two and a quarter hours. And it felt like two and a quarter hours, you know. And that's fine. And we'll talk about that next week, I think. But the way you were talking about Megalopolis, I was sure you were going to say it was four and a half hours or five. I know, I know, I know.

Believe me, it feels like that. I did an introduction on Tuesday to 2001. You know, I've always used the Stanley Kubrick rule. If you can get from the beginning of, you know, the birth of mankind to the birth of a new, you know, of a new species in the length of time it takes Danny Kubrick to do 2001. If you can't tell a story in that time, you're not trying. Megalopolis, it's like the film is about stopping time and stretching time and really it felt

like Coppola had done that. It felt like he'd managed to actually slow time down. So the two hours, 18 minutes just went like that. And Adam Driver is awful, but Shia LaBeouf, the most slappable performance he has ever given. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. Join in if you've seen it. Correspondents at carolmaley.com. This week's team, Jen, Gully, Vicky, Zachy, Matty and Bethy. Producer was Jim. The reductor was Simon, Paul, Mark. Your film of the week, Megalopolis, I'm imagining.

Yeah. My film of the week is a double bill. Okay. Yes. A double bill of anything that isn't Megalopolis. So go see the out run. Go see my old ass and just let Megalopolis just sulk off into a corner and never be thought of ever again. And a final thought, imagine how your Christmas would be made by being close to the action, by seeing Mark perform stuff like that, and just to be a few feet away. Your Christmas, in fact, your entire year will be

made. And this is the offer that we're extending because you can get your tickets for our Christmas Speccy, the Spectacular. It's at the Prince Edward Theatre in London, December the 8th, matinee at 2.30, an evening of enjoyment. Put those together, it kind of works. You go to fane.co.uk slash curmode and mayo and there A N E dot code at UK slash Kermode and Mayo. And there's a hyphen between Kermode and, and, and, and, and Mayo. But I would, if the hyphens aren't there, they ain't going to work. Is it anyway, or you can do it via the socials X insta threads and Facebook. Thank you very much indeed for listening.

Take two has landed already. What a thrill.