Kermode & Mayo’s Take - The Substance: “Everything Cranked Up To Eleven-ty and Then Some”

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

This week’s guest is Kathryn Hahn, who talks to Simon about her starring role in ‘WandaVision’ spinoff ‘Agatha All Along’, a dark comedy superhero miniseries, which follows witch Agatha Harkness, as she recruits some unlikely allies on her quest to regain her former powers. Mark gives his thoughts on the show, as well as reviewing various new releases: ‘The Goldman Case’, a French-language courtroom drama based on the real-life trial of left-wing revolutionary Pierre Goldman, who was accused of several armed robberies and the death of two chemists; “Girls Will Be Girls’, an Indo-French coming-of-age drama and Sundance hit, which follows 16-year-old Mira as she discovers desire and romance, only to have her rebellious sexual awakening disrupted by her mother, who never got to come of age herself; and ‘The Substance’, the much-talked about Demi Moore-starring body horror, which sees an aging aerobics star, who, after being fired on her 50th birthday, takes an experimental substance that promises to transform her into a ‘better’ version of herself – with horrifying consequences. Mark’s gonna have a field day with this one, we’re sure! Enjoy! Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): The Goldman Case Review – 08:49 Kathryn Hahn Interview – 28:38 Agatha All Along Review– 43:51 Girls Will Be Girls Review – 51:23 The Substance Evil – 56:39 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 podcast episode description box. Here Mark, what's up? What is up with your bad self? I'm very glad you brought that back, you know, because I kind of, I had forgotten about it and then you did it last week for the first time in a very long time and I got a sort of nostalgic twinge.

Where did you get your nostalgic twinge? In my back. You need a special chair for that kind of thing. Of course. You've got a new t-shirt on. Where's a clean t-shirt? Can you see it? It says, it's a New Lynn.

New Lynn, what's it say at the bottom? Can't read that. New Lynn Film House, it's a cinema. It's a cinema show, I'm wearing a cinema t-shirt. That's it, I mean, it seems very logical. I haven't seen it before, but it's very nice to see you looking pristine for a change. The Newlyn Filmhouse used to be a fish processing factory. And I played a gig in it when it was a fish processing factory at the point that it was just about to become a cinema. And so it's a storied building. Simon Armitage

was there. You could put that anecdote in your next book, which I believe is about movie music. Just at the beginning, incidentally Neelan film house, which is a fabulous cinema used to be a fish processing factory. Yeah. And also for fans of film and music and fish and Mark Kermode, all these things are going to be together again in the near future. They're not. Well, they were together. I did that interview with Kate Winslet

about Lee on Saturday because she loves it as well. And then I'm back there quite soon because I'm introducing a documentary about the Cimarons who are a British reggae band. So yeah, but anyway, it's just a lovely cinema, but I'm wearing this because it's a film show. No, you're in a film. You're in a film. That's what I'm saying. You're in a film and your band is in a film and it's a big thing. It's a big deal and we need to make sure. Are we onto that? Well, no, let's keep our tinder dry on the subject of our two second blink and you'll miss it appearance in a forthcoming feature film. Yes. They needed a skiffle band and it was a very small pond, right? They needed a skiffle band. They thought

who's a functioning skiffle band and they Googled functioning skiffle bands and they found us and they said, would you mind playing Rock Island Line? We went, no, we'd love to. So that was it. It's another contribution to your IMDB page. but anyway, more on that when it comes out. If we're not talking about Mark in the movies, what are we talking about? What are the films you're going to be mentioning? We've got an absolutely packed show. We have reviews of The Substance, which is the astonishing new Demi Moore film, The Goldman Case, Girls Will Be Girls, and Agatha All Along with our special guest,

Catherine Hahn, who is going to be with us telling us about Agatha All Along, how it's been out from, now it's WandaVision. I was aware all the time that I was talking to Catherine Hahn and I'm saying WandaVision. It just sounds as I'm talking about WandaVision, like they're some kind of boy band. But it is of course, wonder and vision. Also, I'm hoping to bring you another episode of Exorcist, a feature which previewed exclusively on this podcast last week. And on take two, a premium bonus for all our subscribers. What do we get there?

You reviewing anything specially for them? Yeah, we have the animated feature 200% Wolf, which is the long-awaited sequel to 100% Wolf, which I know you were a big fan of. And also, as the ongoing Batman celebrations continue, we have reissues of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises and The Batman. So you're doing all the Batman? Well, I'm going to focus on my favorite. Also, the We Can Watch This Weekend, Not List TV Movie of the Week ad, free episodes of Ben and Nemo's Shrink the Box. Plus,

we answer your film and non-film related queries and quandaries in questions, shmestchens. You can get it all via Apple Podcasts or head to extra takes.com for non-fruit related devices. And if you're already a Vanguardista, as always, we salute you. We salute you. Are you on like minus 0.75 speed? I thought you were going to do it slowly. Last time you did it really, really slowly, so I was just trying to do that.

David sends us an email to correspondence at kodamaio.com. Colonial Commonwealth here from Banksyer Park, South Australia. I'd like to continue the film of interesting urinals from last week. It's interesting, why would it be urinal and not urinal? Maybe I've been saying that wrong because you don't say urine, do you? You say urine. I think people use both, but I think urinal sounds like the American version. And now David says, going back to the mid-90s, a beloved Adelaide pub, The Exeter, featured a caricature of French president Jacques Chirac painted across the urinals stainless steel. This was in protest at the resumption of French nuclear

testing in the Pacific and enabled pubgoers to express their opinion of this and Chirac multiple times a night over the course of a few ails I remember it lasted there for many months possibly years until finally disappearing from sight after what would have been probably Thousands of protests hello to Jason down with the orange buffoon. Yeah, it does turn it does seem to be that various Figures who you wish to denigrate do turn up painted into urinals around the world. Have you ever taken advantage of this form of protest? I haven't. I mean, somebody gave me a roll of Trump toilet paper, but that seemed a bit

childish. Although... Lars Andersen, who's also in Melbourne, thank you for continuing to produce a brilliant show that my wife introduced me to during COVID. It's one that I have continued listening to with so much pleasure since then. Recently, you've been discussing the great movie years 1984 and 1994. Can I make a case for 2023 being the best year of cinema for a very long time, perhaps ever? I know it's been less than a year and so we lack the critical distance from last year, but the following films made a profound impact on me last year and I went back and watched many of them more than once in

the cinema. I won't read out the entire list. Okay. But included are Tar, John Wick, Chapter 4, The Innocent, Infinity Pool, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Reality, Anatomy of a Fall, Last Summer, War Cup, Past Lives, Godzilla Minus One, Poor Things, All of Us Strangers, and maybe Throw in Oppenheimer there as well if we're feeling generous. Although I'm not sure it will age as well as the others. I think it probably will last. They were thoughtful, provocative, entertaining, and beautiful films that all screened in Melbourne in 2023. In more than four decades of cinema going, I don't think I've enjoyed this many films this much in one single year.

Brilliant to get that email. I would refer you once again to the comment that I always quote from the great Barry Norman, who said that in any given year, the percentage of good and bad movies is the same. It just depends which ones you see. But it's lovely to hear an email from someone who says that last year was arguably the best year for cinema, since we hear so much of people saying, well, it's not as good as it was. I mean, when I was seeing films in the 1970s, that was proper movies. It's just not true. Every year there are brilliant movies. It's just that sometimes you don't see them because the multiplexes are full of sort of multiplex fodder, superhero movies that you're not particularly interested in.

But yeah, there are brilliant movies coming out all the time and it's great to have that email. Thank you very, very much. I really appreciate that. When I was at Radio 1, I had a number of conversations in the back of cabs in the manner in which Private Eye has captured, which would normally go, you're that bloke on the right, you'd probably write modern music. I like the 60s. That was the best decade. The 60s were fantastic, which of course, greatest radio sixties has launched. And then I would say back, yeah, that's right. Like Esther and Abby O'Farreem, Cinderella Rockefeller, that was the cut.

And then they go, okay, my point being exactly the same as your point, which is, yeah, there was some absolutely fantastic music and some dross. Well, it's like the fact if you're ever watching a channel on a Friday night and an old Top of the Pops comes on from a year that you love and you go, I love this year. It's got everyone, it's got all the bands that I love and then there's like six things that are execrable and then the one thing you love and you remember, oh yeah, no, it was just that I happened to buy that record at the time, but there was a lot of dross around at the same time. Correspondence at KerbenOMeo.com, tell us a movie that's out and rocking.

Okay, so The Goldman Case, which is a French legal drama based on the real life appeal hearing of Pierre Goldman, who was a radical who was convicted of a robbery in which two pharmacists were killed. While he was in prison in the 70s, he wrote a book about his case called Obscure Memories of a Polish Jew Born in France, which I haven't read. I didn't know anything about this story. It's apparently read by very, very sort of high profile figures and the publicity around it led to an appeal, a second trial effectively in 1976, on which this film focuses. So the case was very famous in France, is apparently still very well known in France, less well elsewhere. I didn't know about it. Were you aware of the Pierre Goldman case at all?

No, I was not. Okay. And you're fairly sort of culturally knowledgeable. So this is co-written and directed by Cedric Kahn, whose credits include Lonnui from 98 Red Lights from 2004, Wildlife in 2014. Goldman is played by Arie Watt-Althair, who won the Best Actor award at the 49th Cesar Awards. I have to say, rightly so, at the beginning, we see him coming into the trial hearing, refusing to call any witnesses, insisting simply that I'm innocent because I'm innocent. Now, he admits to other robberies and other crimes, but fiercely denies the murders. There was a film that we reviewed a few, I think it must have been last year or so, Alice Diop's Saint-Omer, which was like watching a real legal case playing out in real time, very, very believable legal process, unencumbered by musical melodrama. This is tonally rather similar, although there

is melodrama in the central character of Goldman, who is this incredibly theatrical and sometimes insufferable character who rails against the authorities, refuses to allow anyone to offer character witness in his defense because he disagrees with the whole concept of character witness, accuses the police of being institutionally racist, claims that the entire justice system is a farce and a theatrical distraction whilst being part of that theatrical distraction. Meanwhile, his lawyers, who were doing their very best to work around him, methodically unpick the evidence against him and build this very factual case, which seems to point toward the fact that the eyewitnesses and the police testimony that had been used before are at very best less than credible. I think his performance

is terrific. I found myself completely gripped by the proceedings and it's particularly remarkable since I knew nothing about the case. I had no idea of its cultural significance at all. Watching the film, I didn't know anything at all except that a very good friend of mine, a colleague, Linda Marrick had said to me, I absolutely loved the film. And I thought it was gripping and intriguing and really like you were watching something playing out in real time with this central character

whose main defense is I am innocent because I am innocent and the way in which the legal system attempts to deal with this. Anyway, it's called the Goldman case and it is really, really quietly gripping. The Box Office top 10 and a chat with Catherine Hahn after this. Hi, this is Mark. Longtime listeners will remember that a few years ago, I reviewed French filmmaker Coralie Fagia's striking feature debut Revenge, a retina-scorching horror thriller with real feminist bite. Earlier this year, Fagia's long-awaited second feature,

The Substance, bowed at Cannes where it went down a storm with Fagia winning the Best Screenplay Award, a body horror thriller from a director who cites Cronenberg, Carpenter, Lynch and Hanneker 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 Isabella Gianni 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 cryptocurrency on Kraken? Well, let's say I'm at a food truck I've never tried before. Am I gonna 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 10 bucks in your pocket.

Easy. Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Non-investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. Okay, box service top 10 in just a moment. But first, another round of X or Cist.

This is our game like cheese or font, which we started last week where I, these are things genuinely taken from people and correspondence on social media. And we've replaced blank with an X referring to an ex-partner or a cyst that you have personal experience of. And Mark obviously is the best person to judge whether we're referring to someone's ex or someone's cyst. I don't know if I did this one last week, but I liked it anyway, so I'm going to try it again. Okay.

I realized my blank looks exactly like Joseph Stalin. Okay. You didn't do that last week. I'm going to say that that is a cyst. No, it's an ex. Okay, slightly easier. No, it's an X. Okay, slightly easier. I know it's hard seeing your blank every day, but it'll grow on you. Yeah, that you did do last week and that is a cyst. For me, the worst part of 1973 was my blank.

X? No cyst. And finally, gonna dress up as my blank for Halloween? Uh, X. Yes, is correct. Yes. Okay. If you have a statement that you wish to contribute to this X or Sys feature created by Child3, but then send it to correspondence at COVID.com. Surprisingly confusing.

But kind of genius. Kind of genius for a brief period of time. Here's the box office top 10 then at 14, Spider-Man Far From Home. Yeah, we were talking about this because they've been reissuing the Spider-Mans and there's also the Batman reissues, which will be coming to later on. So wow, it's like yesterday all over again. I know Spider-Man's is correct, but it's like Batman's still feels wrong somehow. It's not Batman though, is it? It's not the Batman movie, it's the Batman's and the Spider-Man's

and the Superman's. Number 10 is Inside Out 2, still in the 10, which is amazing. 14 weeks on. 14 weeks. I mean, absolutely astonishing. People completely love it. It has become an established classic and it's broken all records. Wow. Number nine, Agianti Random Moshena. Okay. This is an Indian Malayan language fantasy caper film, which wasn't press screen. So I haven't seen it. If you have, send us a review. At number eight is Alien Romulus.

Child two went to see this and said, and I was really pleased about it. He said, I went to see Alien Romulus. I said, who'd you go with? He said, I went on my own. I said, okay, what was it like? He said, it was great. He said it made absolutely no sense, but it was just great, great fun. And it was. I think that's right. I think it's monsters in space and that's what it is. And I liked it.

Number seven, it ends with us. Much better than I had expected. I know it's divided audiences somewhat, but I went in with fairly low expectations and I have to say I was more impressed than I expected. The critic is at number six. So Ian McKellen was on the show last week talking about this. And my main contention is I think his performance as this absolutely acerbic and curdled, I think was the word he used, curdled critic is the best thing about the film. I think the film itself is tonally all over the place. I read out something from Screen International about the fact that they'd done recuts and reshoots and that sort of made sense to me

as to why it doesn't quite tonally add up. So I think the film is rather flawed, but I think that Sir Ian McKellen's performance as a curdled film critic is very good. Via our YouTube channel, someone who would like to be called DigiBeatles09. Thanks Digi. Ian McKellen's character leaves a pretty bad taste in one's mouth by the end of the movie. Brilliantly acted, no doubt, but I feel the script could have included some more sympathetic aspects to McKellen's character. True, the climate in the 1930s was pretty horrible for gay people, but I never felt watching the movie that society was to blame for why he went to the lengths that he did. I don't think he was suggesting that, because I did kind of lead him on to that kind of territory in the interview. While

he was absolutely clear about the state of the country in the 1930s, I don't think they were trying to say that that was the entire explanation for the reason that he was as nasty as he was. In fact, I think as far as his reviews were concerned, Ian McKellen was saying, look, the critic is writing to be entertaining. He either praises or he withers, and in this particular case, he withers. I think that what then happens in terms of his curdled nastiness is melodrama. Again, Serene was saying it is basically a 30s melodrama, but it has its feet on the ground. My contention is it isn't. It's a 30s melodrama that doesn't have its

feet on the ground because what starts to happen when he's threatened with the sack is just the stuff of preposterous drama, but that doesn't mean it's not entertaining. But that, for me, sits uneasily alongside the more serious stuff, which I think that that email is referring to, about the fact that he's lived this life in which he could be arrested at any time, and there is a specter of Nazism on the streets. And if Mark Strong is listening, hello Mark, and that was a magnificent wig you were wearing. Very, very fine. That is a real and Mark Strong performance because although he's not in the film a huge

amount, he's absolutely, he steals every scene he's in. Number five in this country, number four in America, Deadpool and Wolverine. Well, you know, and this refers back to what we were saying when the previous emailer said was last year the best year of cinema. You know, maybe this year will turn out to be the best year of cinema despite the fact that one of the biggest selling movies of the year, Deadpool, Wolverine is completely artistically bankrupt. Doesn't matter. Doesn't mean that other great stuff isn't out. UK number four, number 11 in the States is Despicable Me 4.

That's all that needs to be said. Number three in the UK not charted in the States is Lee. I think it's because it's not open in the States. Now I was a big fan of this. This is Kate Winslet starring as the photographer Lee Miller. And it's a drama in which in towards the end of her life, she's interviewed about her life. And then in flashback, we see a very particular period of her life in which she goes to the front during World War II and takes photographs that offer eyewitness accounts of the horrors of the war. And she also addresses her own personal trauma. I saw the film twice. I really think it needs to be seen in the cinema. I would say if you're interested in Lee, go and see it in the cinema. Don't wait for it to come to streaming services

because it is very much a cinematic experience. Kristoff85 genuinely surprised to hear Mark talk so warmly of what I thought was best a mediocre film. One of the many complaints is how contrived and shallow the dialogue and editing make some really quite important events feel. While there needs to be some pre-war part to the film, the first half hour manages to be both too long and uninsightful. The rest of the film is a paint-by-numbers tick box exercise where events are shown and completely not engaged with. The cast is star

studded but I can't say any of them are at all well cast. I adore Andrea Reisbriar but in this it feels like she's making a caricature. My biggest gripe, however, puts me in mind of the Bradley Cooper train wreck which was Maestro. What exactly made Miller so important? Her pre-war life is largely assumed and photography is made to look like a doddle. She at no point spends time creating a composition or playing with angles. We're just meant to assume she's good because there's a film about her. Okay, well I'd say two things. The comparison with Maestro is interesting because I couldn't stand Maestro, but a lot of people really loved it. I think that what that demonstrates is that one's response to these things is very, very personal. There isn't a right or a wrong thing about Maestro. Some people love

it, some people hate it. As far as Lee's concerned, some people are engaged with it, some people aren't engaged with it. I did a Q&A at Newlin with Kate Winslet and with Antony Penrose, who obviously is very close to the subject and feels that it is a pretty much pitch perfect portrait of his mother with whom he had a very, very conflicted relationship. So, I mean, I'm sorry that that's how you felt about it and there isn't a right or a wrong to it. I know people who really love the film and I know people who are unmoved by it. I think it's just to do with the way it hits you. I was surprised, particularly the second time around, I was surprised by how powerful I found it.

And number two in the UK, number two in America also is Speak No Evil. Craig Carrington has this to contribute. Medium term listener, first time emergency mailer. I've just exited a showing of James Watkins' excellent English language remake of Danish psychological horror, Speak No Evil, at My Local World of Sydney. Feel compelled to write to you regarding the acting kudos being bestowed upon James McAvoy. McAvoy is an energetic, whirling maelstrom indeed of energy, one minute funny, the next furious, tearful or maligned. It's a big performance, in inverted commas, of a mysterious and maleficent character, but herein lies the reason for my mail. Whereas it can be seen as more straightforward to go large when the character

portrayed is such a mix of contradictions, that being OTT and having it up for fun is required, I was more impressed by the performance of Scott McNary, Scoot McNary as tied up too tight father of the guests, Ben. McNary is so subtle and unshowy that he leads this film in all but name, inhabiting almost every scene with unshowy gravity. Where McAvoy is loud and proud, the beauty of McNary's performance is in his reactions and slowly growing dread.

McNary is us and you cannot see the edges of his acting. Highly recommend fellow members of the congregation see this excellent drama horror and will have to seek out the original at the earliest opportunity. Okay, so that's very interesting. I interviewed James Watkins on stage earlier on this week. I think you're completely right about Scoop McNary. And I think that the reason the film was, although the attention is necessarily on James McAvoy, because it's his face on the poster and he does command the screen in the same way that,

for example, I'm not comparing the films, but in the same way that, for example, when you think about The Shining, you think about Jack Nicholson, but the genius in that film is Shelley Duvall, and arguably the kid, actually. I think that the stuff between the characters of the guests, because the original is originally entitled The Guests, the guests who come to stay with the hosts, the marriage of the guests and the anxiety between

them is the thing that makes the behavior of the hosts so terrifying. And Scoop McNary is a terrific actor and he does. I mean there is a scene when James McAvoy's character takes him up the behavior of the hosts so terrifying. And Scoot McHenry is a terrific actor and he does. I mean, there is a scene when James McAvoy's character takes him up the top of the hill to shout, to do a kind of iron john thing. And it's really well done. And I completely agree. I think that the James McAvoy performance is terrific, but I think everyone else in the cast is doing sterling work. and I think the film's just a roller coaster ride. If you see the original, it's very similar for a good part of its running time and then it's got an absolutely bitter and twisted ending. How very Danish. Craig Carrington signs his email, 800 meter backstroke distance badge,

because I couldn't really do front crawl. Number one here, number one in the States is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Sean Jones says, I'd lowered my expectations after some critics didn't like it, but I loved it. Nice to see Burton getting his mojo back. It was the most Burton-esque film he'd made in ages. I think he's realized that tastes have come around to meet him again after Wednesday and I'm here for it. Count Geekula says, I really enjoyed it. Creative, ghoulishly amusing and refreshing to see lack of obvious CGI with emphasis on great sets and practical effects. Plus, Goth Belucci made my year with the Mario Bava flashback, deliciously inspired. Best thing he's done in years. Can you just, before you tell us about Beetlejuice, just explain, so Mario Barber is the Italian director, but what did Count Giccola mean by that?

Okay. So basically there's a gag at one point in the film about her going to a Mario Barber all nighter. Tim Burton has always been a fan of Bava. Bava's work is, there's actually, there's a really brilliant documentary which is called something like Mario Bava Master of the Macabre, in which the good lady professor, her, indoors makes an appearance.

So if you're in any way interested in Jalo, and I mean, things like the evolution of modern horror basically goes back to Mario Barber. If you didn't have Mario Barber, you wouldn't have that great wave of American horror which kind of took off in the late 1970s which Burton was very influenced by. So he drops Mario Barber's name but he also makes kind of quite specific stylistic nods to Bava, because one of the things about Bava in the same way that Argento became known as the great visual stylist is Bava films look extraordinary. There's a book, if you're interested in Mario Bava, there is a book about Mario Bava by Tim Lucas, who was the editor of Video Watchdog

magazine and it's called Mario Bava, All the Colors of the Dark. And Tim Lucas dedicated a massive part of his life to making this book and it is absolutely definitive and then some. So Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, number one. So that's probably more information than you wanted, I'm sorry. Number one in the UK, number one in America. Anyway, we'll be moving on and it'll be guest time very shortly. But first it's time to step with Gay Abandon and Mark's favorite feature. It's the laughter lift. There'll be an element of COVID comedy about this because there's a

slight delay between me and Mark, which means that I will pause at the end of each gag and allow enough time to elapse so that Mark can find it riotously entertaining. Hey Mark, bit of a headache today. I um, I rather overdid it last night. I mixed alcohol made from the blue agave plant with 20th century American literature. I ended up with tequila mockingbird. Ayyyy! Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I was drinking really to drown my sorrows actually. Why? I hear you ask eventually. Why?

Thanks for asking. My pet mouse Elvis died yesterday. He was caught in a trap. Titter you not. That's right. That explains why before the show you said to Simon Paul, I think we need to flag up Elvis in this joke, otherwise it doesn't make any sense. When I was sent it, the line it didn't include was, caught in a trap. So it just went, thanks for asking,

my pet mouse Elvis died yesterday, that was it. I was thinking, I know I can be slow about these things, but I don't, there's nothing else there, drinking to drown my sorrows. Is that an Elvis reference? Anyway, no, it's because he was caught in it. Okay. Okay. Anyway, I'm in the bad books With you know who we went shopping for some new shoes at the weekend Yes, something I hate and I'm afraid to say I rather embarrassed her I put the the left one on and said to the assistant. It's too tight. Try it with a tongue out

She said it's still tight. Try it with the tongue out, she said. It's still no good. It's still too tight. I hate this. Not good. Caught in a trap. Caught in a trap. Anyway, what are we doing next? Oh, I know.

Catherine Hahn, special guest, next. I'm not going back to university to be your friend. I'm going so I can get Uber One for students. It saves you on Uber and Uber Eats. I'm there for zero dollar delivery fee on cheeseburgers, up to five percent off smoothies and five percent Uber cash back on rides. Just to be clear, I'm there for savings, not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students, a membership to save on Uber and Uber Eats.

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this clip from Agatha all along. here soon. Please come in, right Agatha? Can I interest you in a pre-road appetizer? They are old granola bars I didn't have much to work with. Hey before I came. Oh I don't mind a lapsed expiration date. Hi Priestess. Jennifer Kayle, potions. Lillia Calderoo, divination. You're bound. And you need a chemical peel. That's a clip from Agatha all along.

I'm delighted to say it's star Katherine Hahn is on the show. Hello Katherine, how are you? Hi, nice to meet you. Now we are sitting in, so this is a podcast, but obviously there are pictures that go with podcasts. Can you just describe, I feel as like I'm on your set Yeah, I feel as though I'm in your coven and you're about to take me somewhere scary. This is how I

Now just live. This is my hotel room It's a junket, but it's but it's very much. It's a very witchy It is I need to stay in character. Okay. And also just always have nice lights on me. Let's, can we, there are many, many people are looking forward to this series very much. Some people might be arriving at this completely new. So introduce us to Agatha Harkness and tell us where we are at the start of this show. Agatha Harkness is a very powerful centuries old witch who would define herself as a covenless witch.

She works alone and her drive is to get even more power. What she has is not enough. She wants more and more and more. That's her main drive in life, is to achieve as much power as she possibly can, to siphon it off anyone that has it. At the start of Agatha all along, you see her trapped in a spell, in what's called a distortion spell, in which her powers are taken from her and she doesn't have any idea who she is.

And it's been that way for about three years. She was put in the spell by the Scarlet Witch, who for all as we know is deceased. There has poked, because of that, some holes have been poked in this spell. So at the beginning of Agatha all along, she's sensing that something is breaking in the spell. So she knows light is coming through it. So she has a sense that something is amiss

and she's starting to get a sense of who she is. And when she does come to, she realizes that there is no power. So again, this is a, again, starts a hunt for her to get her power back, and also, because it's Agatha, more power than she even already had. That's like her worst nightmare.

Not that because you said she wants to accumulate power and she's got none. It's her worst nightmare. Even, I would say second to that is having to realize that she needs a coven to help her achieve that. She doesn't work well with other witches at all. And it's a very treacherous journey to get to a possibility of getting that power.

Is she a narcissist and megalomaniac? Yes. I mean, she wouldn't describe herself as that, but I can say from a distance, yeah. So WandaVision, of course, came first. Yes. And your character spun out as that. But I can say from a distance, yeah. So, WandaVision, of course, came first. Yes. And your character spun out from that. Now, as I understand this, correct me if it's wrong, because it just sounds so magical. You're filming Glass Onion.

And so you're on set, and then you get a phone call. Yes. Can you just explain about that phone call? We were all, I mean, that ensemble was so so tight and we would just stay in what we called the green room, like just all day we'd be playing music and chess and so we were on a break back there and I got a call from Luis Pizzito from Marvel and he said, how would you like your own Marvel show? And I was like, no thanks. I'm a little bit busy at the moment.

I was like, sorry. I'm a little bit busy at the moment. I was like hmm sorry that ship has sailed. No I flipped out I was very out of body I basically showed all my cards I said yes I hadn't read anything. No one gets a call like that. No no so that's why I thought it was not happening to me. Did he actually say do you want your own series? That's what he said How how would you like how would you like your own Marvel series? Yeah, and I I Really was out of body. I couldn't believe that it was happening to me so I had that feeling of like hung up with him and this very shaky feeling of like What I have to tell somebody I know I can't tell anybody because Marvel's so secretive but I had to tell somebody, I know I can't tell anybody, because Marvel's so secretive, but I had to tell somebody.

And I turned to Leslie, the amazing Leslie Odom Jr. And I was like, you cannot tell a soul, you can't tell anybody. And I told him what happened, and he was like, oh my god. So I was able to have some one-on-one freak out about it. And to his credit, he never told anybody. So I'm very grateful to Leslie for being there. You'd have been too scared that you'd have done something bad, I think.

Yeah, well, because I'm so dangerous and threatening as a person. Did you get any inclination through filming WandaVision that this was a possibility, that it was being considered, that your character was kind of rich enough to develop its own series? I mean, I had a feeling when it changed to the... Because I can't remember if I was supposed to die originally, but I definitely was... Which I mean, I guess in Marvel, what does that mean? But I definitely remember when I was put under this spell

and kind of trapped as the nosy neighbor, which is the character I kind of put myself in during WandaVision, that she was kind of put on ice in a way, and I figured that I would just, they were maybe giving themselves the option of putting her in different worlds as like a cameo. Like I thought, ah, that could happen. They're just giving themselves the option.

But having her own series was never crossed my mind, no. I'm not completely immersed in the Marvel Universe. Yes. Is witchcraft a new concept to Marvel? Yes, I mean, it's been in the comics, but this kind of old school witchcraft, the kinds that's like, I'd say, more analog, like more just like, you know, fingers in the earth kind of witchcraft is new.

The Scarlet Witch, she doesn't, that kind of, she was kind of born with this and she doesn't really, that's why it's called Chaos Magic. She just doesn't quite know how to use it. It's kind of She just is and these witches are all like most witches are it's learned And speaking of analog, is it right that it's kind of hardly any blue screen and that the yeah, you know That you've done as a part of it. There is there is a little bit like a sprinkling of it throughout that was just very, very necessary, but the majority of the show is all practical.

So there's like miniatures used and hand-cut leaves for the road as it like transforms. There's this, the most incredible set for the road with like hundreds of trees that were handmade with like roots going everywhere that could be moved to make it look like a different part of the road. Like it was this amazing backdrops. It was pretty, it was pretty extraordinary.

So when you get your facial swellings, if we can refer to them as such, is that... Oh, who knows about that. Oh, I see. Okay. Well, indeed. We can just talk about bloating as an actor. That little ice take care of that. Is it difficult to be scary and funny?

No. I think that's the best kind. Because- Doesn't the funny undercut the scary? Or the scary put a stopper on the funny? I think there is something, I think having a scary, well, I think that's what's so potent about a witch's cackle. Because it's something so menacing

that there is so little regard for this the sadistic quality of the person that's about to Really Screw you up. Yeah, so and I also think that my favorite villains are also very funny I don't know what we're allowed to say, what we're not, and I'm sure you'll tell me if we're not, but music is a big part here. Yes.

So singing is a big part, and there are some five-part harmonies which you're involved with. Yes. Can we talk about that? Yeah. Because it's a fantastic, I mean, basically, the vocal before is so impressive.

You sound like a folk ensemble. The blend of voices, and you've got Patti LuPone in there, is that something else? That was, it really took a lot of self, a lot of mind control to forget that she was standing there because she is such a goddess. and that voice is so powerful. But to hear her also surrender to other voices was so beautiful. Yeah, it's the same songwriters,

it's the same amazing humans from WandaVision. Same music coordinator, same all of it. So they work very well together and they know what is, what the assignment is. Like this is the music and this is used very differently than in WandaVision. It's kind of sprinkled, it kind of forms a little backbone throughout the series It kind of forms a little backbone throughout the series and transforms. But yeah, the five person harmony, which we got to perform at D23 together live, which was really crazy and so fun, was, you're right, it's one of those things.

You just never knew how it was going to sound. It sounded great. And it really, our voices really work well together. The references in WandaVision and in Angerthrule along are mostly, it seems, you know, American sitcoms of the 70s and 80s. But you were in the spin-off, the American spin-off of Absolutely Fabulous. Is there any, are there any British TV shows that are referenced? I don't think there are.

No. I mean, I would say Broadchurch is one of the influences for that first episode. That's dark. For sure. In the brew. Yeah, so I'd say that. And I would say also for Agatha all along, I would actually say that there aren't any sitcoms referenced in Agatha all along. It's more, as opposed to WandaVision, it's more genre based. So there's like horror genre and how that's transformed. There's kind of fantasy genre, then how that's transformed. Definitely like the prestige crime show. But that's like the kind of like most specific

and that's right at the top. And then it kind of becomes odes to different kinds of horror. One final question if I may, your Broadway debut, 2008, with Mark Rylance. Yes. Mark Rylance was in a film directed by Sean Penn called The Gunman. Oh yes, I had not seen it. Right, Sean came on the show and he said when you're dealing with theatre actors in a movie, you can always tell. And I've always thought about that.

And as someone who knows the theatre, is that true in your experience, that when you're working with actors who know the theatre, you can tell? Yes. Yes. A, they always hang up their costumes at the end of the day. B, they're very, they're responsible for their props.

They don't just leave it for somebody else. And C, they are off book for scenes way in advance. You know, it's memorized like a play. And not always, I'd say, but like, you know, the creatures of the theater, for sure. Catherine, we're out of time. Catherine Hahn, thank you very much. Thank you so much. A pleasure meeting you. Thanks for coming in. So I'm, so listening back to that interview, I did find that exchange at the end quite interesting where she was talking about how if you, if

you're based in the theater, if your roots are in the theatre, you're off book a long time before everybody else, you just know your lines before everyone else. But I felt on solid ground at the end there. I'd also thought, wow, doing your Broadway debut alongside Mark Rylance, that must have been a pretty astonishing feeling. Anyway, Catherine, but for the rest of the time, I should say also just for the geography of the interview, so we're sitting in what feels like a bit of the set of Agatha all along. If you've seen some of the pictures, then you know what I'm talking about. But when I ask her about facial swellings, because that's what happens in one of the episodes, she looks at someone who's over my right shoulder, and I've forgotten who that is, but obviously it's someone from Marvel, I would think, who clearly looks disproving. She says, oh, who knows about that?

I was like, well, that's not a huge giveaway, you know, because if you're talking about effects and the fact that they're real and it's not computer generated, then I thought that was quite interesting. So anyway, so it was a kind of a restricted and confined conversation and I was slightly baffled for some of it. Well, anyway, that's so that's the context of Katherine Hahn's Agatha Roll-A-Long. Yeah, I mean, I think you did a great job with the interview. The couple of things that jumped out at me, one of them was the one in which you said,

I'm not completely immersed in the Marvel universe. And I thought that was a beautifully polite way of saying, I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Now, obviously I've seen all the Marvel films because that's my job. And I've seen four episodes of WandaVision because Paul Bettany was in it and I was doing an interview with Paul Bettany a while ago and I wanted to watch some of that. But I feel very, and I've seen four episodes of Agatha after all, and I want to be very careful about- All along. What did I say? After all, yes, Agatha all along. And I want to be very careful. Thank you. I want to be very careful about plot spoilers, but don't worry.

I couldn't spoil the plot if I tried because I'm very much in the same position as you. So if you, if you start trying to explain the origin of Agatha all along, I mean, either we would be here all week or you just get, I mean, suffice to say it is a spinoff from one division. And if you know the character, you know where you are. here all week or you just get, I mean, suffice to say it is a spin-off from WandaVision and if you know the character, you know where you are. If you don't, you might want to go and look the character up because it's going to be too complicated to explain. Essentially from the complete outsider's point of view, and I call, I say outsider

from somebody who has seen all the movies, but has scant knowledge of the TV spin-offs, except for a few episodes of Wandavision. I mean, essentially it's a kind of goofy, you know, hocus-pocus, bad, bewitched, practical, magic vibe. I like the fact that the effects lean toward the physical. There's a kind of Wizard of Oz, yellow brick road thing in that in order to do the thing they're trying to do, they have to get to the Witches Road and then they get to the Witches Road. I don't think that's a plot spoiler. And then through the episodes that we've watched so far, they are faced with challenges which require them to do things,

one of which is musical, which they have quite a lot of fun with, other things are to do with trust and all the rest of it. Honestly, I am the last person in the world to be able to say, well, you should or shouldn't watch this. I've seen four episodes and I don't think I'll watch anymore. It's not because I think it's bad, I think it's perfectly fine. I'm just not invested in the characters. I thought it was fine and fun whilst I was watching it, but I have no investment, like zero investment in the characters. And that's not the fault of the thing. I haven't watched any of the new Doctor Who. The new Doctor Who, maybe absolutely brilliant. I'm just not in there. And I definitely got the feeling that this is two steps removed from the territory that I can pass any form of judgment on. So whilst I was watching those four episodes, they were kind of fun.

Performances were quite nice. It's a group of people who have turned out to be witchy powered, one of whom isn't, but it has to be brought on because they need the earthy, all that kind of stuff. It starts off, as they said, with a little bit of Mayor of East Towny vibe, although actually Mayor of East Towny is a bit of a sacred count for me. As is Broadchurch, incidentally, because I love Mayor of East Town and I love Broadchurch. I thought it was fine. There is no part of me that's wondering what happens in episode five.

How do you feel? I feel pretty similarly because, essentially what it boils down to is if you watched and loved WandaVision, this is for you. If you didn't see WandaVision, you won't have a clue what's going on and that's fine. That's it. So I won't be watching episode five, but I appreciate Catherine Hahn spending some time with us. Yeah, no, she's great.

And the fact that she has this, Franz, is brilliant. And it was lovely that the story about finding out on the set of Glass Onion. And if somebody is very invested in this, please write in and let us know. The thing I'm saying is quite genuinely, this would be like playing me an opera album and saying, what do you think? I don't know. Sounds like opera. Mason- The other interesting thing about Catherine, which we didn't have time to explain during the interview, is she is one of the few people, although actors a few, who has no social media

presence at all. No, nowhere. Yeah. Fantastic. Her life is probably the better for it. Catherine Hunt, Agatha all along. Thanks to her. Well, Agatha after all. Anyway, more Agatha. Yes. Eventually it was Agatha. There were, in fact, it turns out, because I did find this out, there were many, many working titles that they went through before arriving at Agatha all along because you know, that's what happens. What are you reviewing next? Up next reviews of Girls Will Be Girls, which is a coming of age film and The Substance. Batten down the hatches. It's quite the film.

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Don LaFontaine, yeah. The great kind of voiceover from the voiceover period. Anyway, Will Bennett says, I think the trailer for the Jerry Seinfeld film, Comedian, may have been the death knell for the in a world trailer. It's very funny if nothing else. Yours in all, Will Bennett. Right. You mean this, I think. Comedian movie trailer. Take one.

In a world where laughter was king. No in a world, Jack. What do you mean no in a world? It's not that kind of movie. Oh, okay. In a land that... No in a land either. In a time that... No, in a land either. In a time... Nah, I don't think so.

In a land before time... It's about a comedian, Jack. One man... No. When your life is no longer your own. What does that mean? When everything you know is wrong... That's wrong.

In an outpost... No. On the edge of space... No space. A girl... No. Two girls... No. Now more than ever... Stop it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I haven't heard that before. That's very, very good. The only thing that I remember that slightly precedes that was there was an advert for something like soup years and years and years ago, like way, way far back in which the guy kept trying to do the voice and they said, it's soup. It's tomato soup and he was saying that soup thing. And then it ends up with him going, tomato soup, it knows you're alone. And the voice goes, no, it doesn't. Well, maybe that is right. That soup ad

and the comedian trailer did for the end of the inner world. Will, thank you very much for referencing that. Okay, a couple of movies to mention. Looking forward to the substance, but Girls Will Be Girls, first of all. Yes, when you say a couple of films to mention, we're going to do more than mention. Anyway, okay, so Girls Will Be Girls, Indo-French coming of age drama from writer-director Shuchi Talati making a feature debut. Priti Panigrahi is Mira, who is a teenager who's doing very well at school. She's made head prefect, gets great grades, the teachers trust her. They also basically use her to enforce the rules of the school about boys and dress lengths for girls to other pupils. Her mother, Anila, is strict. Her father is too, although he's much more absent from the story. She's

been raised to concentrate on her studies, not to become distracted by boys. But then she meets Sri, who is more worldly. He's come from Hong Kong, where we know that in Hong Kong he had a girlfriend. And they start to study together and the beginnings of a relationship blossom, albeit a relationship conducted at a distance and outside the knowledge of her mother. Here's a very No one interested me ever. Well, Iceland is perfect. What about you? I had a girlfriend in Hong Kong. She was a senior. How long were you two together?

Eight months. Are you jealous? I don't care. Meera. Meera. Coming? Thank you. Mira. Mira. Coming? So essentially what happens is that her mum figures out that there's a boy and then Mira is asked to bring him

to the house and when he comes, he's charming and he's polite and he's well-spoken. And at Mira's suggestion, she says, look, if mum offers you food, eat lots of it, because she'll like that. And he does get off of food and he does eat a lot of it. And she does like that. And the mother seems to be sort of seduced by this young man. In fact, almost too much so, to the point that there's a couple of moments when the daughter is looking at the mum, getting on very well with her and thinking,

I'm not entirely sure what's happening here. But he says, look, what I'm doing is I'm getting us what we want. Now I'm coming over to your house to study and that's happening because your mum likes me. And he has this belief that everyone's kind of got a key and what you do is you figure out what people want. But does that mean that his niceness is an act? He claims to be falling in love for the first time, but he's clearly been here before. He knows what to do. The writer-director said that they took inspiration from their own experiences as a teenager, but also from the Enid Blight and Mallory Towers in Sinclair's book. There is a bit of girls' own adventure, stuff going on at school with intrigue and danger as well. But there's also the awkwardness,

the desire, the loathing, the anxiety that comes with puppy love. At one point, a young heroine says, well, they call it puppy love, but this is big dog love. And it's beautifully done. I mean, it is done with, it's done in a way that's completely convincing, completely, you absolutely buy into what's happening on screen. The other thing is, there's a few moments

in which dance is used. There's a moment when the mother and daughter briefly dance together, but then that stops happening, gets interrupted because their relationship is slightly fractured. There's a moment later on when the boy and the girl dance, and then when the boy and the girl and the mom does. What's beautiful about it is that the storytelling at that point is nothing to do with what's being said, it's all to do with what's being shown. I mean, I was completely enraptured by this. It's pitch perfect. It's a very, very authentic portrayal of somebody on the cusp of adulthood in all its anxiety and its hope and its disappointments.

Anyway, the film played at Sundance where it did very well, which is not surprising because it is really beautifully made, a really impressive coming of age drama. Girls Will Be Girls is the title and it's well worth seeing. Sounds as though Donny Osmond's puppy love should be on the soundtrack somewhere. Yeah. Really enough, I watched recently the episode of The Kumars in which Donny Osmond came on and Mirza is the grandmother who's completely in love with Donny Osmond. And so she says to Sanjeev, you don't even know all the Osmond brothers. And he says, yes, I do. He says there's Donny and Merrill and Scott and Virgil, and which one of them did Thunderbird 3? That was Alan in Thunderbird 3, obviously.

Yeah. Well done. So obviously, I don't know what's going to be movie of the week, but the movie that you seem to be most interested with, I think, is the substance. Because when it gets mentioned, we go, right, okay, this is... So tell us, I'm intrigued already. I've got an email here about it, but tell us about The Substance. Okay. So The Substance is a new film by French writer director, Carolee Fagia, who made her debut with Revenge in 2017. I think we reviewed it in 2018, which is this retina scorching revenge pic, sort of very stylistically bloody shocker, put kind of day glow feminist twist

on the old revenge genre. When I reviewed that with you, because I know you'll remember this, because I know you keep a note of all my reviews, I said there are bits of besmoir in there, switchblade romance, a little bit of Gaspar Noe, very, very over-cranked. I said at the time, look, I think this film has real promise. I don't think it's quite as brilliant as other people think. But I said, and I'm quoting myself, this filmmaker has a lot of talent and is going to go far. Well, she has now gone far and then some with the substance, which is this Cronenbergian body horror won best screenplay award at Cannes.

Demi Moore is TV fitness icon Elizabeth Sparkle. There is this brilliant opening when we see Elizabeth Sparkle's star on the Walk of Fame getting made. It's a single shot in which they come along and they put the thing and they put all the stuff around it and she gets this star. And then we see the passage of time, which is that the star gets old, people walk on it, people drop muck on it, it gets a little bit old and a little bit cracked. So now she's at the point in her life when she's having a birthday, there's a significant birthday, and she's basically told by Dennis Quaid, who is her slimy boss, it's all over, kid. I mean, there comes a point in a woman's life in which she's no longer the thing that we need for television, and she's doing this sort of Jane Fonda-like fitness

workout show, but she discovers that she's not going to be renewed. Driving home, she gets into a car crash, which she survives miraculously. And when she's in hospital, a medic slips her a note, which has a USB and a note wrapped around it, which says, it changed my life. And on the USB, it says the substance

and she puts the USB into the television and she gets this advert. Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger, more beautiful, more perfect. One single injection unlocks your DNA, starting a new cellular division that will release another version of yourself. This is...

the substance. So at first she's skeptical, but she's also desperate. So she signs up for this kind of cloak and dagger ritual, which involves going to this weird location, getting an anonymous package, which has got a syringe, some substance, some tubes and some basic instructions that tell her you are the matrix. You take this drug, it produces a new you, which is also you. The new you, which will be initially sort of this kind of young, fabulous version, then

has to feed the comatose old you for seven days. But after seven days, you have to switch back into the old you and you have to feed the now comatose new you. It says every seven days you have to switch. That's it. That's the deal. So effectively there are two yous.

There is the old you and the new you. Seven days of one, seven days of the other. That's the process of the substance. So it's a science fiction body horror fantasy. The transformation process is nicely scrunchy. The body of Demi Moore birthing the body of Margaret Qualley, who is the sort of younger new you version, who calls herself Sue, is really nice if you're a horror fan. Sue then applies for Elizabeth's old job and gets it on the provisor that she can only work

every other week because every other week she has to be old Elizabeth. This works for a while until Sue decides that she wants to spend more time awake and the new and the old version start to find themselves at war, even though as they keep being told, they are the same person. They are two sides of the same person. Now, as a piece of body horror cinema, this is really impressively audacious stuff. I mean, it's surreal in its substance. It's outrageous in its execution.

The effects are fabulously jaw-dropping. It's like the invention of Rob Boteen's work. There's some of the thing in there. You think of Dick Smith's bodysuits for altered states. All that emotional heft of Jeff Goldblum transforming in the fly. That stuff is really wonderfully out there. As with all the best body horror things, all the effects are metaphors made flesh. The central idea is a satirical deconstruction of ideas of youth and beauty and of a world in which, as Dennis Quaid says, pretty girls should always smile and young flesh is a saleable commodity. It's also a Jacqueline Hyde story because older and younger, newer and older, better,

worse versions of the same person are at war with each other. That sense of duality is heightened by at one point they use a very specific Bernard Herrmann music cue to alert us to the duality of the story. It's also a grand guignol pastiche, the cannibalism of a consumerist society in which desire feeds upon and eats itself. I thought Dmimo or Margaret Qualley were both... Sorry to interrupt. Can you just explain a bit more about what a grande guignol pastiche might be? So grande guignol, as we talked about before, is kind of like the theatre of extremity that

really kind of preceded what we now think of as modern splatter cinema. The way that came through cinema is, I suppose, Herschel Gordon-Lewis' Blood Feast films, which were just spectacular grossness, but the idea was that somehow the shock breaks through the fabric of society and tells you something different. The central story, as I said, it is a satirical story about the way in which society works, the way in which youth is fetishized, the way in which flesh is saleable. But it's done in a way which is absolutely full of moments of really full-on, and I mean really full-on theatrical, gasp gasp inducing horror that makes you go

but or in my case just just makes you smile I mean the sound design is fabulous there's one scene early on in which Dennis Quaid whose performance makes his performance as Jerry Lewis in Great Balls of Fire look positively understated is eating shrimps and the sound of him eating shrimps is like eating shrimps and the sound of him eating shrimps is like... And this all kind of precedes the squishiness that is to come, this kind of disgusting symphony of gluttony. And I mean, thematically there's riffs on Frankenstein, Todd Browning's Freaks, The Elephant Man, Hunchback of Notre Dame. You can feel the spirit of Julie DiCorno's Titane, which is a film I know you absolutely loved, Simon.

Does someone have sex with a car? No, but this could be on a double bill with Titane and I would come out of it feeling that my soul had been pacified and fully sated. It's in the third act. It's not for me, is it, this film? It's, I don't know, I'd love you to see it. The third act, if you remember what happens when you didn't see Love Lies Bleeding, Love Lies Bleeding has got a really kind of brilliant ending. But the third act of this goes absolutely bananas. It's like a kind of cross between the prom scene from Carrie and the lawnmower scene from Brain Dead. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

lawn mower scene from Brain Dead. I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was unbelievably squishy and disgusting in some ways in a way that made me smile and wince and laugh. Like I said, it was like a real sort of feast of body horror. But all the way through, it's got a point. It's got a really great down-to-earth, satirical, kind of cynical point about the way through. It's got a point. It's got a really great down to earth, satirical, cynical point about the way in which these things are commodified and the way in which somebody can be at war with themselves and with the world around them. The third act is one of the most deranged things I have seen in the cinema in a long time. The film is over two hours long, I think it's like two hours 15 or something like that, but the time just flew by. I thought it was fantastic. I just really, really, really enjoyed it. And believe me, you were going to come out

of it going, blimey Charlie, I didn't think I was going to get that. It's wow. The BBFC- I might come out of it after five minutes. The BBFC rating is 18 for brutal scenes of graphic violence and gore. And that woefully understates what's going on. An email from Rebecca. I got a chance to see an early showing of the substance at an Odeon Scream Unseen and it's like someone used the telepods from The Fly and mixed David Cronenberg's movies with Sunset Boulevard and John Carpenter's The Thing to create the resulting monster, the substance. It's a truly ghastly, gnarly

and grotesque horror movie that holds a mirror up against the extreme lengths people go to in order to stay looking young and perfect. A very appropriate film for today's climate of unrealistic beauty standards, dangerous surgeries and drugs to keep people trying to achieve unattainable perfection at whatever the cost. There were quite a few walkouts and I expect every screening of the substance will have at least one person leave. The body horror won't be for everyone. It'll have you squirming in your seat and the images will stay with you forever. It's revolting and outrageous, but I loved it. Thank you. That's Rebecca. That's fantastic. There are genuinely, I mean, you know, I'm a, you know, I'm a, I'm a real

horror fan and I, you know, I love my horror movies and I, you know, and I love my Cronenberg and you know, whether it's, I love all that stuff. There were things in this and I knew that it was, you know, that I knew it was a kind of fairly out there film. There were things in this and I knew that it was, you know, that I knew it was a kind of fairly out there film. There were things in this that I literally had my hand over my face going, wow, wow, they've gone there. I mean, it's everything cranked up to, you know, 11T stupid and then some and yet, and yet, and yet it manages to have real substance, which of course is particularly appropriate. That is the end of take one. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production this week. Team Jen, Gully, Vicky, Zachy, Matthias and Beth, producer was Jen, the redactor was Simon, Paul.

Mark, your film of the week. Obviously, Girls Will Be Girls. I loved Girls Will Be Girls and I loved the Goldman case. If I never see another thing of Agatha all the time, all at once anyway, it'll be fine. The substance is my film of the week. Wow. Will Barron Okay. I think we got that. Take two has landed adjacent to this pod and is a very, very good thing. Thank you very much, Adib, for listening. We'll see you soon.